this sunday, health and the economy. president trump pivots from fighting the virus -- >> this country can't stay closed and locked down for years. >> -- to promoting the economy. even trying to shut down the coronavirus task force before backing off. >> i had no idea how popular the task force is. until actually yesterday. >> mr. trump questioning science. >> i feel about vaccines like i feel about tests. this is going to go away without a vaccine. >> insisting it's time to get back to normal as the economy suffers. >> we can't stop working. we can't stop living. >> but at what cost? >> if it really picks up, it's very hard to stop again. >> while conquering the virus

versus getting people back to work is a false choice. plus three top officials now in some form of quarantine after possible exposure inside the white house. my guests this morning, infectious disease specialist michael osterholm and jeffrey shaman, and republican representative lamar alexander of tennessee. also -- >> historic unemployment disaster. >> unemployment numbers not seen since the great depression. >> i'm going to be homeless if i don't open my business back up. >> i'm not trying to be a scofflaw, i'm trying to make a living. >> my conversation with billionaire businessman and philanthropist robert f. smith on making sure no one is left out of recovery efforts. >> we have to reinvest so when we come back from the pandemic we're actually in a much better position. and the latest in the michael flynn and tara reade stories. joining me for insight are nbc white house correspondent kristen welker, richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations, and "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press" and our continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

>> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning, and a happy mother's day to all the moms out there. president trump is making it clear he's moving away from fighting the coronavirus to cheerleading an economic recovery. on tuesday, mr. trump announced he was winding down the white house task force. then a day later undid the undoing while continuing to urge the reopening of the country in defiance of even his own task force guidelines. he chose also not to wear a mask at a mask making factory because the a.p. reported he believes it would send the message he's more concerned with health than with the economy. meanwhile, three top health officials have begun a partial or full quarantine after two people working in the white house became infected, indicating just how hard it is to keep the virus out of even the most testing and secure workplaces in this country.

all this in a week where the confirmed cases in the united states passed 1.3 million and the death toll is approaching 80,000 now. it's not partisan to say the administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been both confused and confusing, and it raises troubling questions. what's the plan for testing and contact tracing? or does the federal government think that's just too hard to do without a breakthrough? what's the plan for maintaining social distancing as states reopen? what's the plan for making people feel confident about returning to work when even the white house can't keep the virus out? and what's the plan for treating this pandemic as our greatest national crisis since the second world war? in other words, what's the plan? >> people want to come back. i think everybody in this room realizes we have to come back. >> facing a pandemic that shows no signs of containment, the president is making it clear he is not willing to wait for a national decline in cases or deaths, instead pushing states to reopen now. >> there will be more death.

but the virus will pass. >> i used to say 65,000. and now i'm saying 80,000 or 90,000, and it goes up. >> we may be talking about 95,000 people ultimately. we may be talking about something more than that. >> the white house is sidelining scientists, delaying the cdc's attempts at issuing detailed guidelines, reportedly out of fear they were too stringent. >> i respect the governors and i have given them great discretion. >> i have given leeway to the governors. >> do you find the cdc protocols to be an impediment to opening up the country? >> which protocols? >> the recommended guidelines that have been -- >> no, because i'm relying on the governors. >> the administration distances frizz a draft federal government report predicting an uptick in new coronavirus cases and 3,000 deaths a day by june 1st. and the president announced the white house task force was off. >> we're now looking at a little bit of a different form. >> before declaring it on again after public pushback. >> we're keeping the task force

for a period of time. >> and dismissing the consensus of health experts that widespread testing is a necessary step to reopening businesses safely. >> in a way by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad. >> repeating his claim the virus will disappear on its own. >> i feel about vaccines like i feel about tests. this is going to go away without a vaccine. >> the president's skepticism of public health guidance is now being echoed by many governors who support him. >> these models have been so wrong since day one. >> the models keep changing so really they're not very good. >> because we did so much more testing, we have more cases. >> we were going to the hot spot and testing, so of course our positive cases are going to increase. >> you have to be warriors. we can't keep our country closed down for years. >> we can't keep our economy shut down forever. >> but 68% of americans continue to say they are more concerned that state governments will lift restrictions too quickly than that they may take too long.

still, with the unemployment rate now 14.7%, pressure is growing and the president is accusing democrats of slowing reopening to damage him politically. >> they think they're doing it because it will hurt me the longer it takes -- it will hurt me in the election the longer it takes to open up. >> and joining me now are two infectious disease experts. michael osterholm from the university of minnesota, and columbia university's jeffrey shaman. gentlemen, welcome to "meet the press." dr. osterholm, let me start with you. simple question, are we ready to reopen the economy? >> well, first of all, let me say that when we say what we mean by opening the economy, that's really unclear. we can't stay locked down for 18 months, but at the same time, when you have cases increasing, deaths increasing, health care workers without adequate protective equipment, and we're suddenly going back to what once was our normal lives, that's not a safe place to be. we can't do that and not expect to see a major increase in cases. >> jeffrey shaman, have we

squandered the eight weeks in lockdown in that are we either rushing the reopening in that we don't have the testing and tracing program in place yet, or have we just squandered the eight weeks? >> we have not used the eight weeks as well as we could have, unfortunately. it would have been benefitted enormously from consistent messaging and a concerted, consolidated plan of attack for actually aggressively and proactively dealing with this virus. at this point, however, we have to pick ourselves up where we are and we need to start taking those measures. we need to look at some of the countries that have been very successful in quashing the virus down. in particular i would point to korea, south korea, and germany, and maybe even new zealand and taiwan. these are cases, particularly in the case of germany and south korea, that had enormous outbreaks. they flattened them, crushed them down, and they did this because they tested so aggressively and used contact tracing and they were able to quarantine people who were becoming infectious before they

actually spread to other people. it's a very powerful measure. it requires real investment, but we already have models that show that it can work. and once you have done that, then you're in this position of strength where reopening the economy is not going to lead necessarily to the rebound in cases that i'm expecting giving this patchwork response we have right now and the reopenings taking place in some states. >> michael osterholm, is there -- it seems as if the federal government is sitting, waiting for a testing breakthrough before beginning. waiting to see if there could be a faster testing program before they commit to essentially a national testing program. you're going to hear a guest in a minute say that. we have heard dr. birx say this. i think we all want a tech breakthrough. what do you do before then? >> well, we have to understand that we're riding this tiger, not directing it. this virus is going do what it's going to do. what we can do is only nibble at the edges, and i think it's not a good message to send to the

public that we can control this virus in a meaningful way. what i mean by that, even though, as jeffrey just said, some countries have been able to suppress this somewhat, korea has now got a major outbreak problem occurring. germany has had an increase in cases. what we have to tell people honestly, what they want to hear, they don't want it sugar coated or coated in fear, but somewhere between now and tomorrow, next year, we're going to see 60% to 70% of americans ultimately infected with this virus. what we have to do is figure out not just how to die with the virus but also how to live with it. we're not having that discussion. as lewis carroll said, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. that's where we're at. we don't want a false sense of security, but we also have to figure out how to live with this virus, and that's what we're not doing. >> jeffrey shaman, one of the reasons why you heard -- you heard it in our popiopening pie there.

a lot of people that don't -- a lot of these governors are feeling as if the models let them down for some reason. maybe they were reading them for a specific that a model wasn't intended to give them, but no matter what, there's been some skepticism about the various models out there. first of all, what do the models show is going to happen by the end of the month due to this reopening? and what are the -- how do you know if a model is reliable? >> those are really important questions. firstly, the models can't forecast things. they're not prognostic in that way. so what is the point of running them into the future then? we have to do that because we want to get a sense of what may happen in the future. and the projections that we make with these models have to have baked into them on top of a lot of other uncertainties scenarios as to what we're going to do. so if a number of states now in the 30s are going to reopen, we don't know what the impact of those loosening restrictions really is going to be. governors can open and say businesses are open, but it doesn't mean that all restaurants and businesses will open. and it also doesn't mean that the public will actually

frequent those businesses. as you quoted, 68% of the public is really concerned about the virus and considers that a greater priority than the economy. many people actually won't go out and use them to the degree they did pre-pandemic. as a result of all these uncertainties it's very difficult to know what's going to happen, how that's going to affect the transmission dynamics of the virus. whether it's going to accelerate and rebound and at what time scales. that said, in a lot of states in which they're loosening restrictions, they're barely hanging on. in some of them, they already have growth of the virus taking place. one would imagine that any loosening of restrictions there is only going to accelerate the growth of the virus. for the projections that we see, you're going to see a range of outcomes, and they have, as i said, all this uncertainty in them, and they're going to change as we come to realize, well, we actually did this and not this in terms of social distancing. and it has these consequences upon the infection. what i think we are probably going to see over the coming

weeks towards the end of the month is we're just going to start to see a growth in cases. it's not going to happen over the next week or two. it's going to come in with a lag because there are lags in the system. that is the people who get infected today, we don't see them as confirmed cases for another couple weeks. that built-in delay means any changes we do to social distancing because of reopening we're not going to realize for a couple weeks until we're already into some period of growth. >> michael osterholm, i want you to respond to something the president said about the whole concept of testing. let me play it again for the audience. get you to respond on the other side. here's what he said earlier this week. >> this is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great. the tests are perfect, but something could happen between the test where it's good and then something happens and all of a sudden she was tested very recently and tested negative. and then today, i guess, for some reason, she tested positive. >> now, michael osterholm, the president seemed to indicate that was somehow a failure, but

if you're doing a testing and contact tracing program, it sounds like what the white house is doing is a success story, no? >> well, it is to the extent that they're finding these cases. i think the point i want to come back to, though, chuck. this virus is going to keep transmitting whether or not, whatever we do. we can nibble it at the edges, in some cases like new york and other cities did. you can surely shave off the top of the peak, but let's remember, this virus is on its own. in 1918, when influenza virus occurred, we had big peaks in the spring in several selected cities in the country, and it went away for four months and came back with a vengeance. i worry right now more than anything if the virus suddenly starts to disappear, because in fact what that may tell us is we are going to act like an influenza pandemic and come late summer, early fall, we could have a peak that made everything else we have done so far look mild. contact tracing and testing are important, but they won't stop that. that's what we need to start planning for. what are the different scenarios that are going to get us from 5%

to 15% of the u.s. population as has currently been infected to what will be 60% or 70%. we don't have a plan for that. that's what we need a plan for. >> what is the likelihood, michael osterholm, that this testing situation can get ramped up without a tech breakthrough? is this something that if we just, you know, sort of trench warfare, is it something we can do as a country? >> you know, it's not. and it's one that, again, we're going to be putting a report out next week that will really go into detail. just look at one thing. we have all been talking about reagents. do you know we're running all the test equipment right now 24/7 in ways it was never meant to be run? imagine if you had a brand-new car that could go 100 mires and you ran it nonstop for six weeks, 24 hours a day. at the end of that time, it probably wouldn't work very well. we're seeing the testing equipment beginning to break down in ways we still can't do testing in the future.

so testing is an important issue, but the infrastructure is just not there. you know, we can't do it. so what we have to do, again, is have that plan. what are we going to do for testing, what are we going to do to bring the economy back, what are we going to do to deal with health care and their protections? what are we going to do with too many people in the hospital such that beds are no longer available? that's what we need a plan for, and we don't have it. i can't say that enough times. we keep nibbling at the edges about whether a few people in the white house are infected or not. we need a plan. >> how we ended our opening monologue. what's the plan? michael osterholm of the university of minnesota, jeffrey shaman of columbia university, thank you for getting us started with your expertise in this. much appreciated. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> and joining me now from maryville, tennessee, is senator lamar alexander, chair of the senate health and education committee, where dr. fauci will be testifying on tuesday. senator alexander, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> thank you, chuck. good morning. >> good morning. you have been a big proponent of this initiative at nih which you

compared to the show "shark tank." essentially to develop a rapid screening test that can be a game changer that will allow us to do rapid testing and quarantining of folks, be able to ramp up testing and contact tracing program. dr. birx on this program has said our solution to testing has to be a breakthrough. you are hoping for a technological breakthrough. dr. birx is hoping for a technological breakthrough. so are the rest of us. what do we do in between? what do we do right now? >> well, here's what tennessee is doing and the country is doing. you know, senator schumer was nice enough to quote half of what i said at our hearing last week on testing. i said what we're doing is impressive. he left that out. but not nearly enough. here's what the governor is doing today. he's testing prisoners in every prison, every nursing home. drive-through testing on the weekends. go to the local public health

department and get a free test. his motto is, if in doubt, get a test. so as a result, tennessee has tested more than most states. so at about 3.6% of the population. he hopes to be at 7% by the end of may. >> look, that is what every state needs. i guess the question i have is, are you concerned that we have not ramped up testing and contact tracing in this eight-week period as high as we needed to in order to reopen? >> well, what we have done is very impressive. i mean, according to johns hopkins, the united states has tested more than 8 million people. that's twice as many as any country, more per capita than almost all countries including south korea. enough to do what we need to do today to reopen but not enough, for example, when 35,000 kids and faculty show up on the university of tennessee campus in august. that's why we need what dr. birx called, what francis collins is working on, a breakthrough.

for example, you might be able to put a lollipop in your mouth with a swab, take a picture of it with your cell phone, if it lights up, you're positive. or you send the swab to a laboratory that's not too far away. and they use what they call gene sequencing machines which are already there, they can do tens of thousands of tests very quickly. >> what do you do -- let me ask you this philosophically about businesses. you can open an economy, but you can't force the return of demand. so whether you're an airline or you're a restaurant, we know demand is going to be down. at the same time, their demand is down through no fault of their own. how do you rescue those businesses, and how do you rescue those employees? >> number one, vaccine. and the administration has an amazingly ambitious goal of 100 million vaccines by september and 300 by december. i have no idea if we can reach

that. number two is treatments. but between now and then, testing. i mean, if you take a test and you know that you don't have covid-19, and you know that everybody around you took a test that same day, you're going to have enough confidence to go back to work and back to school. >> are you concerned that the white house doesn't see the testing issue as important as you and others do? >> i have talked to almost everybody on the task force. talked with the white house chief of staff, mark meadows, who helped negotiate what we call the "shark tank" where you throw all these early concept ideas in with francis collins who heads the national institutes of health. i think we're all pushing for as many tests as fast as we can get them. track one is to accelerate the technologies we already have. but if you want the lollipop that will give you an instant test, you need a new technology,

and that's what dr. collins' shark tank is all about. >> final question. are you disappointed that the president decided to go ahead with the obamacare lawsuit? there was a window where he could have pulled -- the justice department could have pulled out of it. they didn't. he wanted to continue forward. if you undo obamacare, what's the plan to replace it? >> well, the answer to your question is yes. i thought the justice department argument was really flimsy. what they're arguing is when we vote the to get rid of the individual mandate, we voted to get rid of obamacare. i don't know one single senator who thought that. >> all right. senator lamar alexander, i'm going to have to leave it there. thanks for -- actually, before i let you go, you do have a mask that will for longtime alexander watchers, will be kind of fitting. show it to us. >> there it is. and i wear it. >> i was just going to say, there should be no other mask any member of the alexander family should be wearing as well.

senator alexander, thanks for coming on and sharing your views. we look forward to seeing your committee hearing with dr. fauci on tuesday. >> thank you, chuck. when we come back, that devastating jobs report and how one man is trying to make sure that help gets to people who need it the most. how 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. with hepatitis c... ...i ...best for my family.my... n-n-n-no-no in only 8 weeks with mavyret... ...i was cured. i faced reminders of my hep c every day. i worried about my hep c. but in only 8 weeks with mavyret... ...i was cured. mavyret is the only 8-week cure for all types of hep c. before starting mavyret your doctor will test... ...if you've had hepatitis b which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b, a liver or kidney transplant,... ...other liver problems, hiv-1,

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mr. smith, thank you for coming on. >> good morning, chuck. >> let me start with this observation and get your big-picture take. when you look at what this pandemic has done, in some ways it has been an mri on inequality, whether it's on health outcomes for communities of color and now we're seeing the economic impact. it's communities of color getting hit first. knowing that going forward, what does our rescue plan need to look like, as far as you're concerned? >> sure, and chuck, thank you for having me on the program this morning. you know, as a good friend of mine said, this is a pandemic on top of a series of epidemics. and i think the important thing that we have to do is continue to rally as americans to come with real, lasting, scalable solutions to able the communities getting hit first, hardest, and probably will take the longest to recover, with solutions that will enable their communities to thrive again.

we were coming into a period of time, quite frankly, in america where we were actually getting some economic activity back in these communities. so i'm thinking and working with a number of folks in washington, with community leaders, with fintech companies including one we own to enable these banks to really drive some economic opportunity back into these communities. >> what do you think frankly that washington failed to understand about how frankly how small businesses, particularly in communities of color, what did they fail to understand about their banking relationships where this money just didn't get to them? >> well, what's interesting, i wouldn't necessarily say it's a failure to understand. the fact is we had an erosion of the -- what i term as a capillary banking system in america. you know, many of these small communities, urban, rural, aren't being banked by the larger institutions. and what actually gets to these

small businesses are these community development, financial institutions, minority development institutions, depository institutions, these are the capillary banking systems that actually get to these customers, these small businesses, and they didn't have access going into this program, the ppp program, to the sba in many cases. but i will say that through frankly leadership in washington, you know, we had people like ivanka trump and senator mnuchin who have been very engaged in this process with me and a number of community leaders to build out and rebuild and fortify some of the infrastructure for these cdfis and ndis so they now in the second wave have had access to the ppp funding. and hopefully if we get this right, which we're all determined to, it will leave permanent infrastructure for these institutes to drive regenerative capital back into these communities. >> go even bigger picture for me. in the rescue plan that congress

put out the first time that essentially put $6 trillion in play, $4 trillion in the credit markets with the fed, $2 trillion in actual cash, and yet now it looks like they underestimated the total calamity here. do you see the next round of being more like the first or do you think it needs to be reimagined? >> i think it needs to be reimagined. we have to take this opportunity to reinvest in our business infrastructure in these small to medium businesses, in our banking infrastructure, in what i call these capillary banking systems, so we can actually emerge out of this even stronger. we have to invest -- i'm in the world of software, as you know. we have to invest in technology and software so the banking systems, the capillary banking systems are more efficient. they have more access to capital. they have more transparency. they actually then can engage

with these businesses that are in the communities that are frankly underbanked and in many cases not banked at all. 94% of african-american businesses, for instance, are sole proprietorships. 70% are underbanked or there are no banks. we have banking deserts in these communities. we would be remiss if we didn't take a significant portion of capital to reinvest in the infrastructure delivering capital back into those businesses and frankly reinvest in those businesses and give them technology and capabilities so there's more transparency, visibility, and giving their businesses an opportunity to grow, scale, and operate more efficiently. it's our opportunity even though we're in a challenging time, and my heart goes out to many families who have lost people and the fact of the matter is our first responders, a lot of them are coming from our communities. we have to reinvest so when we come out of the back end of this pandemic, we're in a much better position. i don't want to see us going back to the same position where we are where we have these underbanked and banking deserts in these communities.

>> we're at about the one-year anniversary where you were the commencement speaker at morehouse and you took care of the entire graduating class' student loans. took care of their debt. basically an attempt to try to deal with some of these generational inequalities. i can't help but in those same communities, what do you tell those young african-american men who see what happened to that young man who was killed just going out for a jog? it certainly shines an uncomfortable light on those inequalities again. >> in exactly the same stage, exactly. what i tell them is, look, we have been in this country as a community over 400-plus years. i had the great fortune through a lot of help and people in my life to be able to provide a liberation to another 400 families in that context. but i tell them, look, focus on building systems that are scalable, that bring your

capacity as a human spirit into our government, into our justice system, into our world of technology. frankly, into our economic fabric of america. we all, there are so many unfortunate events, we have to what i call beat down the hate, bringing, frankly, love and systems that actually help people understand that we're all humans, we're in this together. we have to actually fight to ensure that our country continues to strive and accelerate. so that's the message i tell them. i want them to focus on education, focus on s.t.e.m., doing things that are the right elements around human rights and justice in the country that we live in. and i hope that that message resonates with them, and i frankly hopefully have given them an opportunity to do it without the burden of debt that gives them a chance to now express their best selves in the work they do. >> robert smith, thanks for coming on "meet the press," sharing your views on how we can move forward after this pandemic is behind us. much appreciated. thank you, sir. >> thank you for inviting me.

when we come back -- >> it has been an absolute chaotic disaster, when that mind set of "what's in it for me," and "to heck with everything else," when that mindset is operationalized in our government. >> former president obama's harsh words for president trump's handling of the coronavirus. the panel is next. equal to the job done. it was just a token of our appreciation.

and because we know how tirelessly you work. it meant everything to have you stop by. for the past two weeks, our incredible crew proudly served more than 10 million thank you meals to first-responders and healthcare-workers. it was an honor to meet you. an honor to thank you. and it was our honor to serve you.

welcome back. the panel is with us from their remote locations. nbc white house correspondent

kristen welker. richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations and author of "the world, a brief introduction." just a quick pamphlet there. and "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. quite the ambition there, richard, the world. you know. a small -- a small focus for one book. but let me start, kristen welker, with you. there's a report this morning that staffers in the white house are a bit rattled. two positive tests in the last week. suddenly, a sobering reminder the virus is even still inside their house. >> that's right, chuck. this is the week that everything changed at the white house. this is the week that they went from fighting an invisible enemy, as the president has dubbed it, to an enemy that landed squarely on the steps of 1600 pennsylvania avenue. and so there's a lot of discussion about how many more officials may need to be in quarantine. of course, we saw that the head

of the fda, as well as the cdc, dr. anthony fauci, is going to be quarantining in a measured form. but really, it put on display the sharp disconnect, chuck, the fact that the white house is essentially urging the country to reopen cities and states, yet those same cities and states do not have the same level of testing that exists at the white house. we know the administration is ramping up testing, 8 million tests so far. they want to try to double that by the end of may, but not clear what the plan is moving forward, chuck. >> peggy noonan, that's -- it feels like that was what i took away from all of our interviews so far this morning, which is, you know, nobody is saying you can't reopen. you just have to have a plan to do it. and there's just a lot of frustration that there isn't one. >> yeah. i think there's a lot of frustration that there is not really a clear national plan.

as for state plans, their criteria for opening in some cases seem a little complex, a little provisional and dependent on testing and tracing and such turning out very well. it seemed to me, chuck, your whole theme on this show has been what is the plan? i think we're realizing we don't have one, and it's going to bubble up from regionally, probably not nationally, but i thought the most interesting thing said this morning that sums up the moment we're in was from one of your doctors at the beginning who said, where are we? we must learn how to live with this virus. there was a sense of, from him, as he spoke i kind of thought, yeah, he's saying we're going to have to muddle through. i think maybe one of the ways that would be most helpful to muddle through at this point, as citizens and states take on a lot of responsibility, is just

to understand this is a dual crisis. it's not only an illness, it's an economic crisis that's going to demand creativity and ingenuity from all of us. >> richard haass, given your expertise, i want to ask -- i want to look at this from a global perspective here. because the other part of this is, this is odd. the united states is the infected country. it's the country that others around the world don't want to emulate right now. we're not the country that's leading the response to the pandemic or doesn't feel this way. what does that mean to you going forward, and how concerning is that to you? >> well, you're right, chuck. we're not leading by example. and we're not leading full stop. this comes against the backdrop where this administration has largely abdicated the role of u.s. leadership in the world. pulling out of all sorts of agreements. we didn't even participate in the europe-led effort to come up with a vaccine.

and people ought to be worried. think about the situation right now. you've got all the traditional problems. a rising china, an angry russia, north korea, iran, with their nuclear ambitions. then you have all the global issues including the pandemic but also climate change, terrorism, problems in cyberspace, all this at a time the united states is diminished and we're distracted. that's a really toxic brew for the future of the world. and what we learned from the crisis, if things go badly in the world, we are not immune. they go badly for us as well. >> kristen welker. >> well, chuck, we know against that backdrop, the president's key focus right now is not just on the medical crisis but on trying to restart the economy. and it's not clear what the plan is there. we know his administration officials have shown him numbers that really rattled him. an unemployment rate even greater than what we see right now. we're told the worst case

scenario was topping 30%. so there's a lot of discussion right now within the white house about what to do, how to move forward. we know that some of the things under consideration, delaying tax day, for example, a moratorium on new regulations, but no decisions yet, chuck. and a sharp divide in congress between democrats and republicans about what if any next steps need to be taken. republicans say, look, we already passed $30 trillion in stimulus, but democrats say state and local governments need even more. >> peggy noonan, this feels like this is really going to divide the republican party on the issue of spending. because you do have some sort of the more populist members, people like josh hawley, marco rubio, who do think you need more federal spending, and then you have the more traditionalists who believe, no, no, let's focus on the debt, let's focus on the debt. that could hinder the recovery. >> i think what we're seeing now, if we see this in the

republican party, as i suspect we will, between say josh hawley and marco, who say look, this is a crisis. we must spend as wisely as we can but as much as we need to, versus others who will say, look, almost ancient conservative principles involve controlling the power of government. its intrusion, its expense, its cost. sure, that will be fought out somewhat, but i have to tell you, that argument has been fought out since it's almost part of what produced donald trump, who really said to his audiences in 2016, hey, i'm not going to touch government spending. i'm not going to bother these entitlements. i think the base of the party would support an attitude of throw whatever against the wall

you have to. see what sticks. we are in a historic crisis. if going against our traditional views will help dig us out, go against them. dig us out. >> richard haass, i want to get your reaction, the secretary of state walked back one of the most roughest charges that the u.s. government has been making about the virus against the chinese. let me play for you first the accusation and then the secretary's walkback. >> the chinese government hasn't permitted american scientists to go into china. and the wuhan lab, but whatever it needs to go to learn about the virus and its origins. >> we don't have certainty and there's significant evidence this came from the laboratory. the statements can both be true. >> i'm of two minds on this, richard haass. if this is true, should we be shouting it from the rooftops, go to the u.n., present the evidence, and go from there? or is this something we're going to regret because it creates basically a cold war over this

virus for the globe to deal with? >> chuck, chinese performance has been bad, whether this came out of a lab or not. they have covered up, they allowed people to leave wuhan, and we're all paying a price for it. what started in wuhan didn't stay there. so that's a fact, again, whether they're covering up the fact it came out of a lab. we don't have information supporting that. the secretary of state got forward on his skis, and that's always a mistake. people say in war, truth is the first casualty. we ought to husband the truth carefully. the larger issue, though, the united states and china are the two most powerful countries of this era, the two most influential, our relationship will go a long way in defining the character of this era in history. the challenge is to push back against china where we can, criticize them on their pandemic, criticize them on human rights, push back at what they're do in the south china sea. but we still need to protect and preserve areas of potential

cooperation on climate change or say on dealing with the north korean nuclear challenge. that's going to be a hard piece of foreign policy to get right, but that's the challenge. >> all right, i'm going to pause the conversation there. just an excellent group dynamic. much appreciated. when we come back, how president trump's slipping poll numbers may be hurting the republicans' chances of holding the senate. that's next. my time is thin, but so is my lawn. now there's scotts thick'r lawn 3-in-1 solution. with a soil improver! seed! and fertilizer to feed! now yard time is our time. this is a scotts yard.

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months away, it is a good time to remember that control of the united states senate is also in play, along with the white house. and the last eight weeks have shown promising signs for democrats who hope to flip control of the chamber. in early february, the cook political report listed three republican-held seats as toss-ups. seen here in gold. arizona's martha mcsally, cory gardner of colorado, and maine's susan collins. three more as leaning republican, those in pink. the open seat in kansas left by pat roberts and north carolina's thom tillis and georgia's kelly loughlin. by the end of april, there were four in each category with steve daines of montana and iowa's joni ernst in the leaning column and north carolina shifting to the toss-up column. let's look at a few of them for which we do have polling data. in arizona, mcsally has faced a touch race from the beginning against democrat mark kelly, a former astronaut and husband of gabby giffords. it's still a toss-up, but the real clear politics polling average shows mcsally down eight points.

been a while since we have seen any poll showing mcsally ahead. then thom tillis in north carolina who was in the lean gop category. by the end of april, it became a toss-up race and polling shows why, because tillis essentially tied -- is tied with the democratic nominee, cal cunningham. and then there's montana, where steve daines was in the solid gop category, that is, until steve bullock, the current governor, decided to run. and now cook has placed the race to lean gop. in fact, bullock was up seven points in a recent poll, indicating the race is likely a toss-up already as well. remember, if joe biden wins in november, democrats will need to flip four republican-held seats, assuming democrat doug jones loses in alabama and three if he somehow holds on. right now, polls show most americans disapprove of president trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis, and these trends suggest that downballot republicans are being pulled down by the president's performance as well. when we come back, tara reade, michael flynn, and what

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xfinity mobile. i learned a lot by watching richard nixon. of course, there was one difference, one big difference. number one, he may have been guilty. number two, he had tapes all over the place. i wasn't guilty. i did nothing wrong. and there are no tapes. >> welcome back. that was president trump on friday, on fox and friends, embracing the comparison with richard nixon, as he gloated about the michael flynn news and denied involvement with russia

to tip the 2016 election. the panel is back. kristen welker, the president is obsessed with undoing the mueller report. and he was -- he tweeted some 40-plus times this morning, it seems like, mostly about michael flynn. >> 40-plus times about michael flynn just this morning, chuck. it underscores the fact that this is an issue that looms large for president trump. it does come after he was gloating, after the attorney general recommended that a judge drop the charges against michael flynn. it is worth noting that ultimately, it's going to be up to that judge whether he actually decides to move forward with that, but it's opened the justice department up to all sorts of criticism yet again that the attorney general may be working hand in hand with president trump, something that bill barr has denied. but chuck, here's what i think the critical issue is. the president is still very focused on this. and yet his aides and allies say ultimately, on election day, he's going to be judged on one

issue and one issue alone, his response to the coronavirus crisis, chuck. >> you brought up bill barr. peggy noonan, i want you to listen to this bill barr answer to a question about what will history say about this? wait until you hear this answer. take a listen. >> when history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written? >> well, history is written by the winners, so it largely depends on who's writing the history. >> i was struck, peggy, by the cynicism of the answer. it's a correct answer, but he's the attorney general. he didn't make the case that he was upholding the rule of law. he was almost admitting that, yeah, this is a political job. >> well, my read on it was it was a more resigned and world weary sort of look. we all know the facts on this. i kind of -- i assume that barr thinks he did the right thing.

i mean, my read on this whole thing is that a fellow, general flynn, who was early on, new at a job, rather hapless, perhaps out of his depth, made a terrible mistake. he told a lie. an overexcited government agency or parts of a government agency essentially pushed him around after that. it became a mess. my feeling is, you know, this absorbed a lot of people, was very interesting for a long time. but we are in another point in history, baby. we've got a pandemic and an economic collapse. so whatever on that. can i say something about trump? he compared himself this week to nixon. last week, it was lincoln. i just sense there, 40 tweets today, he kind of, i think, knows the fact that the original sin of his handling of the pandemic was the failure of testing, the laxness, the lack

of focus, the lack of being able to make this work. i think he knows it will haunt him politically. and i think it will haunt the national experience for some time as we try to deal with this thing. so i think he's deflecting a bit. >> hey, richard haass, how does this look to the rest of the world? >> some of the most important things in diplomacy are not what people who work for the state department do, it's the example we set. whether it's the vibrance and creativity of our economy, the functioning of our political system, our ability to correct mistakes. so the rest of the world looks at this and they shake their head and go, this is not the united states we thought we knew. and this has real implications. not only does this weaken would-be democrats in the world, again, we're hurting the cause of democracy, but increasingly,

other countries are saying, we're not going to put our eggs in america's basket. we have done that now for three quarters of a century. we have been well served by our closeness to the united states, but increasingly, countries are going to go their own way. that to me makes for a more dangerous world, because we need collective answers to some of these challenges like disease or climate. if people start taking matters into their own hands, this will be a world of much more proliferation, much more violence. a lot of what we have taken for granted over the last decades i'm afraid now that's been put at risk. >> well, unfortunately, we ran out of time to talk about the world of biden. that's part of joe biden's problem these days, when he does get talked about, it's only about one story, the tara reade thing, that hasn't gone well for him. but he's still leading in the polls. we'll get to that topic hopefully again. thank you for watching. thank you for trusting us. happy mother's day to all the moms out there. remember to call or zoom your mother. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." sunday, it's "meet the

press." welcome back to "kasie d.c. "we're going to begin with breaking news. a senior administration official first told nbc news that vice president mike pence would take the advice of the white house medical unit and, quote, give a little distance for a day or two, after an aide tested positive for coronavirus. but now, a spokesperson for the vice president tells us he will be at the white house tomorrow. pence's press secretary was among two white house aides to test positive for coronavirus this week and three top members of the white house coronavirus task force are all self-quarantining after their possible exposure. and just in the last hour, nbc news learned that is the u.s. navy's chief of operations, ewil

quarantine for a week after coming in contact with a family member who tested positive, even though he has tested negative himself. let geese back to the white house and nbc news white house correspondent kelly o'donnell for the latest there. kelly, thank you for sticking around for us. this, of course, now touching the highest levels of our government. we have been reporting out this story all week about the aides and, of course, the concerns about the top health officials, now this top navy official also self-quarantining. this adds up to a lot of nervousness, obviously americans have been feeling this, but now it's inside the west wing itself. >> absolutely, and officials here who are working at a high level and staffers who are at a more junior level have expressed that it is risky to be in a workplace where there is known coronavirus. we now have two cases inside the white house and the nature of a lot of the offices in the west wing are cramped and close

quarters and a lot of the work we'res people to be close together, making social distancing difficult. in the case of the vice president's press secretary, the nature of her job is to be at the vice president's side, to whisper in his ear, to travel with him. lots of ongoing contact. and even after that, with a test that turned out positive for katie miller, the vp's press secretary, the vice president traveled to iowa on friday and then over the weekend, he's laying low. not at the white house yesterday or today and typically, we afternoon see the vice president here at the white house on saturdays and sundays. so, while that might not sound like taking a break, given his recent experience, he has done that. i'm told no restrictions on his schedule. he will be here this week, but he did not attend a saturday night national security meeting that he was cleared to attend, but opted not to do that. so, laying low, but not the kind of quarantine or self-isolation that's prescribed in some of the public health guidelines.

>> kelly o'donnell at the white house. thank you very much for that update. it is always great to have you. joining me now, washington bureau chief for "usa today," susan page. political reporter nicholas. editor at large for the 19th, erin haynes and nbc news national political reporter josh letterman. thank you all for being here. it's great to have you, albeit remotely. i want to start with something that really struck me this morning on the sunday shows, from kevin hassett, an economic adviser on "face the nation." here's him talking about showing up at the white house every day, consider what's been unfolding there, as regards to coronavirus. watch. >> it is scary to go to work, you know, i was not part of the white house in march, i think that i'd be a lot safer if i was sitting at home than i would be going to the west wing. >> susan page, that a pretty stark acknowledgement. i mean, it's the reality that so

many americans are facing, that essential workers are still confronting every day when they show up and obviously that's the view of many white house staffers, that, you know, it is essential, obviously that the work of our government continue to go on, but it's hit remarkably close to home at the white house in a way, in the last few days, that it hadn't before. >> you know, if it's scary for kevin hassett to go to the white house, one of the most secure facilities on the globe, think of what it's going to be like to encourage people to go back to the manufacturing floor, to their hair salon or to their office building. you know, this message from the white house, this concern from the white house in the fact we now see multiple cases of the coronavirus in the white house, people that work at the white house, is at olds with the message that the white house is very much trying to send now that it's time to open things up, it's time for people to resume more of their normal lives, to get the economy going again. this is a mixed message saj we see coming from the white house

theegs days. >> it's a really, really great point. and nick, the idea that, you know, the white house has been out there pushing that, you know, they want to reopen, they're focusing on jobs over, you know, health policy, or that's the posture that the president wants to put forward, but you know, "the post" talked about the anxiety there, they wrote, quote, the nervousness became more palpable on saturday, according to people familiar with the matter, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity. now with redfield and hawn staying ahead, some officials say they don't know if they should keep going into work at the white house. i mean, this, you know, puts things in a phase that is still very much, you know, stay home, social distance, don't go out, it's so far from, as susan points out, the idea that people are kind of ready to get back throughout and participate fully in the economy. >> well, kacie, the pandemic is

now coming from inside the white house. the white house itself is providing an abject lesson in the difficulty of stopping the spread of this virus and the dangers it poses to everyone. a virus can waltz right into one of the -- a place that is hard to get into, in any other circumstance. and i think, you know, i have a lot of sympathy for people working in the white house staff right now. the president has made clear that he thinks that wearing a mask is a sign of weakness. so, would you feel comfortable, as a white house staffer, to walk into a meeting in the white house with a mask on? >> it's really a very, very good point. and this week, dr. anthony fauci will be among those testifying before congress on the trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. all four witnesses are going to be testifying remotely, with three of them in self-quarantine. josh, let me go to you, just to help us kind of walk through what we're going to expect from

the hearing this week, i mean, life on capitol hill is completely different than what it used to be. >> it sure is, kacie. and if concerned senators were looking for evidence that things might not be quite as under control as president trump makes it seem, they need look no further than the fact that his own top coronavirus officials can't even go to the senate to testify in person, because they, themselves, may potentially have been exposed to coronavirus inside the white house. but that's not the only reason that this hearing this week could get dicey. darned if you defend him -- >> he's been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data. >> i kind of feel sorry for the woman. >> and darned if you don't. >> if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. >> not everybody's happy with anthony. i retreated somebody, i don't know, they said fire. >> reporter: now dr. fauci and top coronavirus officials face a

political minefield as they testify this week about the trump administration's coronavirus response. >> i feel sad for him and anybody who has to stand in that -- that task force and practically validate what's coming out of the president's mouth. >> reporter: the white house task force briefings have been awkward enough. fauci and others put on the spot over trump's actions and comments and moments that go viral. >> i'd like to have him go back and do his job. does anybody have any questions? >> reporter: but now they're under oath, facing questions from republican and democratic senators six months before the election. >> frankly, the democrats should be ashamed. because they don't want us to succeed. they want us to fail so they can win an election. >> reporter: testifying during an ongoing crisis is never easy. former homeland security secretary jeh johnson had to do it in the middle of ebola. >> the senators come out and they proceed with their political agendas to grill you, to be angry at you when five minutes before, they were very

cordial, asking about your family. i think if you're fauci, in particular, who has got a tremendous amount of good will and political capital built up, his default should be, just tell the truth. >> reporter: the last time dr. fauci testified, he sounded an alarm about the lack of widespread testing, calling it a failing. >> we're not set up for that. do i think we should be -- yes. but we're not. >> reporter: this time, the white house stepped in, allowing fauci to testify before the republican-controlled senate, but not the democratic-controlled house. >> we don't have time in the middle of a pandemic for publicity stunts. it's not the time for that. >> reporter: fauci and the other witnesses won't be the only ones participating remotely. a number of the senators are also expected to tune in via video. and unlike most hearings, no visitors allowed to watch the hearings in person. >> yeah, it's been a pretty extraordinary scene, day in and day out on the hill. but susan page, you have covered so many of those in your long

career. i've attended so many historic hearings over time. i mean, this one is one for the ages, but it's going to be so bizarre. i mean, i don't recall ever -- there being any circumstance remotely like this ever. i mean, just the technology and all of it, but as josh also points out, the stakes couldn't be higher for these medical professionals in this hearing this week. >> you know, the format is going to be odd, not something we're accustomed to, though we're getting more used to using zoom. but the other thing that's going to be remarkable is, it's been awhile since we've had a health-based briefing from the white house, a briefing by dr. fauci, for instance, who had been out there almost every day for weeks and weeks. and people have a lot of questions, he has a lot of credibility as jeh johnson was saying, credibility with republicans and democrats. credibility with americans, who are concerned about what's going on. are we ready, not just to deal

with this first wave, as terrible as it's been, but all this talk about a second wave in the fall. so, i think there's going to be huge curiosity into what he says and how candid he will be in that forum. >> yeah. and erin haynes, to that very point, the audience for these medical officials is likely to be bigger than, you know, many audiences that normally tune in for something like this. people looking, as susan suggests, for some sort of reassurance, for some sort of guidance in terms of what to do in their own lives. we know that this has affected communities of color much more intensively than many other communities. what do you think americans out there are hoping to hear from these officials on tuesday? >> well, you know, i think you're exactly right. you've got americmillions of ams who are making that choice between putting food on the

table and putting themselves at risk, by going back into a workplace. and others have said here, you know, the white house, some in the white house are now sharing the same concerns of millions of americans who are wondering if it is safe to go back to work in an office where we still know that, you know, in the country -- the country is not testing neary enough people for us to understand kind of what exactly this situation is in terms of this pandemic from a public health crisis. but you know, the economic questions for folks is also something that comes back into focus as we shift back to the congress, you know, issues of child care and education, especially for working moms, you have to mention that on mother's day. these are things that we have to -- we have to be thinking about and grappling with, as folks try to figure out if it's safe to go back to work, but the logistics of how that happens. >> right. and are they able to, if they don't have child care. nick, as we button this up, if

you're anthony fauci, how do you walk that line? i mean, how do you tell the truth, talk about, you know, answer questions from democrats as well as republicans without saying something that gets you cross wise with the boss and lands you, you know, out of a job? >> well, fauci has shown technique or a willingness or an ability to kind of straddle that line in some of these press briefings. he's homey, he takes responsibility himself, he acknowledges problems but kind of waves it away as something from the past, he wants to look towards the future. but the question is, there are now some real live questions about the preparedness plan for this country, it's obvious that inside cdc and hhs and fema there are people who are working on plans, clear metrics for how many masks and hospital beds and gloves and gowns you need to open in certain stages for the country and he is going to be

asked about those and why we haven't seen them and why the white house has pushed them back. >> all right, susan, nick, errin, josh, thank you all for kicking off this hour with us. it's great to see you. when we continue, bankruptcies are already on the rise across america, as we con template what the economy is going to look like for the remainder of the year. just ahead, from mail will jay what pal on how to keep nerns today. and jason crow on how to create a force to get millions of americans back to work and treating the sick. we're back after this. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test.

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the unemployment rate is on the precipice of 15%, but some believe that the real number is likely already up in the 20s. the lee sure and hospitality industries have been hardest hit. only case, health services, retail, business services and

manufacturing has also felt severe impacts. unemployment rates rose sharply among all democrats, but the hispanic and black communities were impacted the most. and now members of congress are trying to find more solutions to help those who are struggling to make ends meet. joining me now, two of those lawmakers, pramila jayapal of washington and jason crow of colorado. thank you both for being here and i know you both have ideas that you're putting forward for whatever the next piece of major coronavirus legislation is going to be, so, congresswoman, let me start with you. you've proposed an alternative to the ppp loan program. what should we be doing differently and i'm interested in your assessment whether something big can move quickly or whether we're going to take a longer pause, like some republicans are advocating? >> yeah, thanks so much, kasie, great to be with you and also

with my colleague jason crow. i'm proposing a paycheck guarantee act or a paycheck recovery act, whatever you want to call it, and the basic premise of this is to stop mass unemployment. when we look at these mass unemployment numbers that you just put up there and recognize that we're probably closer to 22% to 25%, mass unemployment already, you recognize that this is a stunning situation. and whatever we propose has to meet the scale of the crisis. what better way to make sure that we actually put paychecks in people's pockets and to make sure that businesses have what they need to weather the crisis than to have the federal government, through the irs, direct money in the form of grants, not loans, not forgivable loans or loans that might be forgiven, but grants that provide certainty to people to cover paycheck and benefits, which means that people can keep their health care, because

otherwise, we know already 13 million people have lost their health care and we're projecting that 35 million people will lose their health care when they lose their job. so, my paycheck guarantee act would put a grant amount that would go directly to the business to keep workers on payroll, continue their benefits and provide an operating maintenance cost to businesses so they can weather the crisis and get through this. >> and congressman crow, your efforts have focused more on contact tracing and the public health workforce. walk us through some of the things that you think the government needs to be doing on this front to ensure that we have the people in place that we need to actually trace the contacts and deal with this crisis on the front lines. >> good to be with you, kasie, and good to see my friend

pramila jayapal. we have to look at the long-term component of the health crisis that we're facing. you know, scientists, researchers are telling us they don't know how long it's going to take to make a vaccine. it would be one year, it would be three years. but we could get back to 70% to 80% if we build out the ppe, the testing and a massive surge of health care workers to actually conduct that testing, conduct that contact tracing, it's a very laborious process. we're going to need hundreds of thousands of new young men and women to enter our health care work force in the next couple of months to actually do that work. and if we don't, it's going to be very hard to do the testing and the vaccination when a vaccine eventually becomes available. so, what we're doing is a couple of things. you have a proposal to empower the cdc to provide grants and enter into contracts to onboard these young men and women. we know we've had over a million people within the health care system actually lose their jobs

as a result of this crisis, so, we have a health care work force that's out there. we've had thousands of people from the peace corps that have been returned home. and we have millions of people that are actually looking for jobs that have been laid off and furloughed. we have four that's available. we have to have leadership at the federal level that will empower the cdc to onboard these people, train them, connect them with our local health care agencies and start doing this work. >> congressman, have you gotten any understood case from speaker pelosi as to whether this is something that she'd be willing or interested in putting in an upcoming package? and can you update us on what you know about whether the speaker is going to move forward with her own package, where the negotiations stand with the white house and whether you think that there is going to be another major bill that can move quickly through congress? >> well, i've been advocating very hard for all elements of this, for the ppp expansion, for very bold and innovative

proposals like ms. jayapals, what's the long term way of handling this. extension to unemployment insurance, but also proposals like mine, the health force and the defense production act. so, we've been fighting hard and advocating for it. i can't speak for the speaker and leadership and what the ultimate proposal is going to be, but i do think now is the time for bold action, i think it's time for the american people to see what our caucus and what the democrats are willing to do to lead. you know, either we think small and we think reactive and we deal with this a week at a time, in which case we could find ourselves in a ten-year recovery, or we are bold and we push hard and we deal with this in the aggressive way that it deserves. you talk to people that dealt with the great recession in 2008 and 2009 and across the board, they said they wished they had acted faster and bigger.

and if they had, they don't think it would have taken ten years to fully recover from that. so, i think that's what we need to do. >> interesting point. congresswoman jayapal, how concerned are you about the house being able to operate in a remote way? i mean, do you think it's safe for members of congress to come back to washington at this stage? or do you think that continuing to work from your districts and only returning as congressman crow said, to vote, is the better way to go? where do those efforts stand and what's your view? >> well, i think we have to, absolutely have to put in place a way to do our work remotely. i mean, we are seeing the consequences of this health crisis in the white house, with the possibility quarantine, you know, with the quarantining and possible infection of a number of people there. but this is what i'm hearing from my constituents, kasie, every single day. and i think that job number one has to be to beat the virus.

but if we are going to beat the virus, then we need to figure out not only ways for us in congress to work remotely, but ways for the american people to be able to stay home. and in order to do that, we actually have to address the economic issues and the economic pressures that people are feeling, you know, in my district, we've gone three months now without a paycheck. many people have still not received a stimulus check. many people have still not received a ppp lope. and so, that is why i am saying, and my colleague jason crow said it perfectly, we have to go, you know, we have to go big, but we also have to be strategic. what are the ways in which we can take this situation that we're in and recognize that coming out of the get depression, there were -- it was an enormous amount of money that was spent because this was unprecedented. we have not seen unemployment levels like this since the great depression. the majority of the burden is falling on low income folks who

either on the front lines because they don't have exactly the program that my colleague is talking about, safety, ppe, contract tracing, all of that in place, or they are sitting at home and feeling forced to go back to work because they don't have a paycheck. and so, that's why i think it's very, very important for us to pass, you know, things, frankly, that many other countries have already done. they have the equivalent of defense production acts where they are manufacturing in their home countries so they're not competing on a global stage. they have in place paycheck guarantee programs, not just in europe, but actually singapore, malaysia, south korea, they have all taken up this idea, because it is much better for us to keep people tied to their jobs than to send them into unemployment insurance, i'm very proud of what we did to expand that insurance, but we need to give workers a certainty, not only that they'll have money in their

pockets to pay their rent, their mortgage, stimulate consumer demand, but also that they're going to have a job. and you put up statistics around, you know, latinos and blacks and black americans and others who are disproportionately burdened, here's the thing. once we send people into the unemployment system, we know that those workers often face a lot of discrimination coming back. so, let's keep them in their jobs, let's do the things that my colleague and i are talking about and let's really take this crisis seriously. >> all right, congresswoman pramila jayapal, happy mother's day and congressman jason crow, to your family, as well. coming up, president obama sounds all of the trump administrati administration's handling of the pandemic. that's coming up next on "kasie d.c. "

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because they never quit. since endorsing joe biden back in april, we haven't heard too much from former president obama, but in a conference call with former members of his administration yesterday, obama unloaded on the trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. >> it would have been bad even

with the best of governments. it has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mind set of, what's in it for me and, to heck with everybody else, when that mind-set is operationalized in our government. so that's why i, by the way, am going to be spending as much time as necessary and campaigning as hard as i can for joe biden. >> joining me now, former white house press secretary during the obama administration, robert gibbs, and former obama campaign manager, david plouffe. they are both msnbc political analysts. gentlemen, it is always great to have you on the show. robert, let me start with you. were you surprised that president obama weighed in this way? i mean, he's been pretty careful in how he has made decisions to

wade into politipolitics, obvio during the primary, that had a particularly thorny set of dynamics, but even when it comes to president trump, he's been pretty careful. this was a pretty sharp and direct statement that he made about how the trump administration's handling this. >> well, it's not been something that he's done a lot of, but i think it shows you a couple things. one, this is a serious issue. it's the most serious issue we've faced as a country maybe since world war ii, and i think the president is as disgusted as upwards of 70% of the american people are in believing that the trump administration and president trump didn't do enough, didn't do enough quickly enough to get us ready, haven't made the right decisions now that we're in the midst of this pandemic, and quite frankly, continue to make bad decisions. and so, i think the -- what you saw from president obama was a manifestation of the frustration that i think, quite frankly, tens of millions of people throughout this country are feeling each and every day,

watching what is happening and understanding it just didn't have to be this way. it didn't have to be this way, but because this administration has made so many terrible decisions, we have where we are. >> and robert, let me stick with you for a second. i mean, the president has, obviously, been comparing the way he has handled this with the way the obama administration handled, in particular, recently, the h 1 n 1 swine flu, among other things. can you take us behind the scenes of the way you all dealt with the challenges and there were several, of a public health nature, ebola among them, that's different than what we're seeing from this administration? >> well, i think the chief difference, particularly around h 1 n 1 and i went back the other day and watched the old briefing on youtube, where we declared a national emergency. we did it in the briefing room on a sunday, which was a little bit of a surprise, but if you saw that that was a press conference that was led not by the president or the vice president, but by scientists and

scientific professionals, right? the head of the cdc, the briefings were done at the cdc. the decision-making was led by people that knew what they were doing in a pandemic response. not by political operatives sitting inside of a white house. and that, i think, is key. i think that is the -- one of the biggest differences. the president certainly reacted. i was asked questions at the podium around h 1 n 1 and answered them but the bulk of the information and the decision-making rested in the centers for disease control where, frankly, it all should rest. and if you look at what's happening now, we had the preeminent public health facility, the preeminent public health group in the world in the centers for disease control and they can't even get out basic guidance to help people open up businesses, to open up day care centers, to open up restaurants, and it's just amazing to have

such a crown jewel of public health and not even use it in the midst of a global pandemic. >> david plouffe, let me turn to you, as we look ahead to the election here and, you know, the point that robert is making, about the cdc and the way that, you know, potentially public health official could take the lead. this president has clearly viewed every decision that he's made through the lens of his own re-election chances. our colleagues and friends at "the washington post" and "the new york times" have walked through instances where it was very clear that that was the case. what is your take on where that stands today? if you are the president and you are running against joe biden at this stage, i mean, we're -- axios is reporting they're about to start launching tv ads in key swing states on other topics, what is the current state of the race and, you know, if you were

advising joe biden on how to navigate what we are seeing from the president in this crisis what would you tell him to do? >> well, kasie, first of all, you know, chaotic disaster was a charitable interpretation of what's happened, so, i think that it all starts there. i mean, listen, the white house itself is now a super spreader site, potentially. so, the discordance between the way the president views this crisis, what's even happening in his own building, and listen, the white house, robert and i worked there, it's like working in a submarine. you can't -- the halls are their owe, you're going to run into people. so, and they're telling the rest of the country, don't worry about this, open up, it's going to be fine. and that's -- the most important question in the campaign today, in september, on election day, will be, who do we trust to dig us out of this crisis? maybe we're still in a health crisis. we're certainly going to be in an economic crisis. the joe biden camp needs to be focused on that. and he led the execution of the recovery act.

the last time the country had to dig out of the economic hole. so, the trump capabmpaign is go to be helped by fox and breitbart and the russians, i think the biden campaign has to be focused on economic recovery, health care is a big part of that and making sure you're both making clear what you're going to do and all the failures of the trump administration. where the biden campaign has to really up their game, because they had to fight through a primary, the trump campaign is ready for this race. they have all the money they need, the data they need. they released a pretty good app, which has to be the central organizing function these days. so, the tactics of the campaign is where the big challenge is. the atmosphere of this campaign, the reality of the campaign is definitely in biden's favor right now. he has to maximize that with running a great campaign. >> yeah, i mean, let's talk about the tactics for a second, because, i mean, we all know, having -- if you've covered joe biden or spent any time with him

at all, i mean, he is somebody who really shines when he is in a room full of people that he has been working with his whole life, whether it's a black church in south carolina, you know, or a small room where, you know, he's talking to people that he's known and worked for for a long time. that sort of avenue is basically gone, you know, i mean, he's been criticized for how he's often tactile in talking with people, hugging supporters, et cetera. he's not going to be able to do any of that throughout the fall and, you know, i think a lot of people would argue that that was a real -- or is a real strength of his, as a politician. how do you compensate for that in an era of social distancing and not being able to be six feet from anybody? >> right, well, i still think empathy is come through. and he is going to be able to get out of his house and out of delaware and spend time with people with the appropriate

health guidelines. advertising is a big piece of that. they released a good ad over the weekend that said character is revealed in crisis, i thought did a very good job of contrasting his empathy with donald trump's lack of it. social media, asking mothers to make the case. so, you've got to adapt. you know, you can only control what you can control in a campaign. you can't complain about it. and so, i think there's other ways to get that empathy through. donald trump every day shows his lack of empathy. at the end of the day, i think that's going to drive vote in this election. people are like, we're going to have more crisis. the one thing, though matter what you think of trump's policy response, which has been disastrous, and his lack of preparation, which created the problem in the first place, is there's been no 'em fa think. and i think people are hungry for that. whatever you said about joe biden, robert and i have seen it up close. this is one of the empathetic people i've met in my life and i think people in this country are hungry for that. >> all right, david plouffe, robert gibbs, thank you both very much. really appreciate the insight on

all of this. so, come back any time. and happy mother's day to those in your family who are celebrating. >> thank you, to you, as well. the fate of the u.s. postal service, which reports that it lost $4.5 billion in the quarter ending in march. how 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. hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today.

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billion in the quarter ending in march. with businesses closed, mail volume is down, more than 30%. and there are fears that they could be forced to close by christmas. one person who knows the service better than most is "new yorker" staff writer casey cep. her mother's worked for 38 years as a rural letter carrier. and she writes, quote, her mother spend her career delivering love letters, college acceptances, medications, mortgage papers, gold bars, headstones, ashes and care packages. all of that now in serious danger. and casey joins me now. thank you so much for being on the show tonight, casey. always great to host another person who shares a great name and this is a really unique story, something that you have written about from a policy perspective, but also in such a very personal way. what has the postal service -- excuse me -- meant to your family and how does its current

state potentially -- should it concern the country? >> sure, thank you so much for having me and happy mother's day. and the personal reference you're making is my mother's career and it's certainly true that my life, my family's livelihood, is owed entirely to a job like a mail carrier. and these are good union jobs that allowed families like mine to put their kids through colleges, to buy a house, to buy a car, you know, it means you get a raise every year, it means that you're really provided for with benefits and truly the american dream, you know, you work hard at a job like this and your life gets better and you're able to provide a better life for your children. and that's one of the many things that's imperilled by the changes that are being proposed for the postal service. and that will certainly be felt on the employee side. but i think you and i can talk about what every american will feel if the postal service shuttered. >> let's talk about the politics of this for a second, because part of why this has become such

a problem, you know, typically the postal service gets a lot of support from across the board in congress because so many rural states rely on the postal service, so, there are typically a lot of defenders of the service in both parties, but president trump has gotten involved, we tweeted about it, he's talk -- there are reports with his relationship with jeff bezos, who owns "the washington post" and amazon, how that plays into all of this. how are the politics that are driving the political risks beyond just these economic effects? >> sure. it's certainly true that president trump has personalized this federal agency, but there are long-standing political animosities with the postal service. it goes back to a law that was passed in 2006 that required the postal service to prefund its retirement commitments, you know, pensions and health care, for 75 years. so, for a long time, the postal

service had been running a tremendous profit and in that year, it made $900 million, but by changing the way those retirement funds are funded, it actually started to immediately run a deficit, and $5 billion a year added up in debt and debt and debt so when you reached a crisis point like coronavirus, the agency didn't have the reserves that it needed. and president trump has made it into a personal vendetta against jeff bezos and the amount of package volume that the usps handles for amazon, but you're right to lift up the state of small businesses in all 50 states and in rural communities, and it's no surprise that 91% of americans love the united states postal service and they trust it. and that number is steady across both parties, so it's odd -- the only animosity to the postal service is on capitol hill. 91% of americans love the agency. they believe in the services it provides. they rely on it for groceries, prescriptions, everything. it's really just politicians that need to approach united states how vital is service is

to every community in this country. >> certainly our postman has been somebody we've seen a lot in this crisis and for whom we are very, very grateful, i don't know what we would have done without the mail as we've been trying to 1/2 fwat thnavigate t. casey cep, thank you. when we come back, we have a mother's day surprise. after serving on the front lines of the health care crisis. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems.

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in the way i have been talking about it, as a layman, am i saying anything that strikes you as wrong or feels like the wrong approach? i was told anywhere from four days to seven day, 12-hour shifts, not sure where i'm going to be working exactly, maybe in brookline is what i think is what i've heard but that is what everyone expects working in the emergency department for 17 years, you have to be okay with the fact that you may or may not know what your day is going to look like, or your night, because it could be nights, holidays, weekends, whatever it is, we are going to be there to

help you. >> that was emergency medicine physician dr. camila sassen on msnbc one month ago back when she was anticipating what was to come on a month-long stint volunteering at a field hospital on the front lines of new york city, she video logged her experience along the way. >> really interesting to be in a field hospital because it is essentially building a hospital from scratch. literally, everything has to come in. suction, tubing, anything that needs to get created, beds, you don't realize how different it is until you're here. so the patients are super thankful. i was super thankful. because i've been able to take care of people. >> i am leaving new york city feeling very hopeful that if we all come together, we can actually fight.

>> make new york city better. i feel very fortunate to be here. >> dr. sass en is also a mother. she left her husband and her two young children, ages three and five, home in colorado, to go volunteer in queens. and she got to reunite with them on friday, just in time for mother's day. >> what is that? >> i don't know. who's at the door? do you want to go look? >> hi. >> mom. >> hi, guys. >> hi. >> oh, my goodness. >> were you guys surprised?

>> yes. >> come here. >> she is just one of many mothers risking her health and sacrificing time away from her family during this pandemic to help others, and so on a day when we celebrate all mothers, let's also say an extra thank you to those who are selflessly working to save lives or helping the world go on, in other ways, during this incredibly difficult time. thank you. and happy mother's day. that's going to do it for us tonight here. joshua johnson is up next with a look at the latest from across america. for now, good night from washington. so, if your network's down, you're down. verizon knows your customers need to reach you seamlessly. your team needs to work from different places across many devices. plus, you want the security

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hey there, i'm joshua johnson at nbc world headquarters in new york. good to be with you tonight at the end of this mother's day. lots to talk about including the growing toll of coronavirus, including the toll on the economy and on our nation's efforts to bounce back. we will get to that in just a minute. but we begin in washington. where a number of elected officials have come in close contact with coronavirus. less than an hour ago, senator lamar alexander revealed in a statement that one of his staff members tested positive for covid-19 today. the senator's office says he has had no symptoms and tested