that we used to do irl, in real life. it's businesses and people that, in tough times, are trying to jump on those opportunities. >> mike allen, thank you. i will be reading axios am in a little while. >> have a great week. >> sign up -- you, too -- at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this monday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. vaccine or no vaccine, we're back. we're starting the process. in many cases, they don't have vaccines, and a virus or a flu comes, and you fight through it. and people sometimes, i guess, we don't know exactly yet, but it looks like they become immune, at least for a short while, and maybe for life. but you fight through it. what we'd like to do, if we can, is a vaccine, and i think we're going to be successful in doing it, and hopefully by the end of the year. >> you said no vaccine -- vaccine or no vaccine, we're back. what did you mean by that? >> we think we're going to have

a vaccine in the pretty near future, and if we do, we're going to really be a big step ahead. if we don't, we're going to be like so many other cases, where you had a problem come in, it'll go away at some point. it'll go away. it may flare up and may not flare up. we'll have to see what happens. if it does plaflare up, we'll p out the fire quickly and efficie efficiently. >> if public confidence is the main thing of getting people back to work and back to schools and so on, is this even possible without a vaccine? how would it be possible without a vaccine, public confidence? >> i think a very big factor, frankly, is very few people are -- you know, we read about all of the very sad, very tragic -- i've lost friends. many of us have lost friends. we read about that, and we see that, and that's what the news covers, but a very, very -- it's a very small percentage. it is a very, very small percentage. i say it all the time, it is a tiny percentage.

>> hard to hear him with the truckers protesting him, but that tiny percentage is a major percentage of the world deaths due to the coronavirus. the united states has roughly 4.3% of the world's population. it has roughly 29% of the wor worlds' coronavirus deaths. the u.s. added 2,000 deaths this weekend, bringing the total to almost 91,000 people lost. on the record, at least, 91,000 people lost to coronavirus. nbc news puts the number of cases at more than 1.5 million. the director of the cdc says the u.s. is now on track to pass 100,000 covid-19 deaths on june 1st. that's exactly two weeks from now. the director says the estimate is based on 12 different models from top institutions, including columbia university and mit.

>> it is remarkable that this same president, who actually said in january, when his staff was warning him that 500,000 americans could die, and weeks after he started to get warnings from the state department, from the pentagon, from his intel briefings every day, he said -- this was on january 22nd -- going to be one person coming in from china, and it was all day careen taken care of. even when the warnings became more public, the president said it was 11 people and it'd be down to zero. 15 people was going to be down to zero. it was going to go away magically. jonathan lemire, who is with us, ap white house reporter, the

president is saying that it is just a few people. it is just a small percentage, a very, very small percentage, which is remarkable. nobody said that after 9/11. nobody said the 57,000 deaths in vietnam was a small percentage. nobody said deaths in korea were just -- of young americans was just a small percentage. here we are, 90,000 dead. mika brings up a good point. if the president really wants to get into the percentage game, united states has about 4.25% of the world's population. very soon, more than one in three deaths from covid-19 will come from the united states. the united states has 4.25% of the world's population. very soon, even as we move towards opening up, very soon, one in three infections in the world will come from the united states of america. not third-world countries. not from countries that we

usually look down upon, as far as we can -- inferior medically, inferior when it comes to technology and science. no, the united states of america, little over 4% of the population, very soon, will be responsible for one out of three deaths in the world for the coronavirus. numbers are absolutely staggering, jonathan. they just beg, every day, the question, how did this white house -- and, yes, i will say it -- how did some governors get this so wrong? >> well, i think there are two things at play here, joe, in terms of the president's response. first, as we know, he's never been comfortable or effective in that role as sort of consoler in chief, one to show empathy for the lost of americans, those who are sick, have died, or lost

their jobs. he struggled with that in previous crises or tragedies in his administration, hurricanes, wildfires. we're certainly seeing it very acutely here with the pandemic. he's never been able to sound the notes that i think a lot of americans hope to hear from the oval office. in fact, many americans tuned in to hear his predecessor, barack obama, address graduates online and on tv over the weekend. second, there is the president's instinct to downplay, push the blame at others and suggest this crisis is not as bad as the numbers would bare out. that's largely informed by, of course, his eye toward november, his eye toward re-election. he's very dismissive of the idea put forth of the signs that were misse missed. the timeline that you lay out on this show, the fact that this nation could have moved sooner. there's a lot of finger pointing. yesterday, peter navarro, one of

his top advisers, went on a sunday morning talk show and really put a knife into the cdc and blamed them for the ineffective first tests done earlier this year. >> can i ask you a question? i'm confused. >> of course. >> uh-oh. >> you know, i'm a simple country lawyer. >> heard that. >> sometimes it takes me a while to figure things out. who runs the cdc? who -- is that under the obama administration, the cdc, or is this nancy pelosi's cdc? who appoints the head of the cdc? who is in charge of the cdc? what washington official is in charge of appointing the cdc director and running the cdc? >> joe, i don't have the order chart in front of me, but we can safely say it is not president obama or nancy pelosi, but

rather, president trump. >> it is donald trump's cdc. donald trump's dcdc, where donad trump went down on march the 6th and said, "every american who wants a test can have a test," and talked about how great a doctor he was. >> they were all standing there. >> "i'm good at this. i have a relative who once went to mit. i'm good at this." that's when he was saying this would go away magically in april. so that's what i don't get. peter navarro, who i wish he listened to back in january, when navarro said 500,000 souls could die from this in america. when peter navarro is attacking the cdc, peter navarro is attacking, wait for it, wait for it, donald trump. that'd be like me saying, man, did you see the segment on "morning joe" last week? that sucked. it was a failure. what a horrible segment on "morning joe" that was. i would be attacking myself. peter thnavarro said the cdc.

it's all up to donald trump. he appointed redfield, did he not? i think he a i poinappointed re? >> dr. redfield. >> yes. >> thank you very much. >> i believe he did. >> thank you. you may sit down now. thank you, witness. go ahead. tell us, jonathan. give us the background on this strange and mystical organizational chart that is convoluted and circuitous from donald trump to the cdc. wait a second, it is a straight line from donald trump to the cdc. it is donald trump's cdc that failed. >> well, joe, first of all, the terrible segment on "morning joe" was more barni cle's fault. but you've sign this president never be able to accept blame

here, and fingers are pointed elsewhere in the administration. what we're also seeing here is another step to try to blame -- to shift the focus on the governors. as the nation does begin to reopen, more and more, these decisions, of course, are being made on the state level, despite the president's rhetoric that he is the wartime, sort of the commander in chief, if you will, of a pandemic arresponse. the work is being largely done elsewhere. it is an attempt to sort of shift the blame and change the conversation. we saw, again, last -- the clip that was played there from the rose garden event on friday, the president trying to spin forward here, trying to suggest the nation is -- this is largely behind us, which is a tough case to make, of course, when outside of the new york city area, we're still seeing cases largely on the rise, at least plateauing the rest of the country. we're not through this yet. but he is trying to suggest that we are. as a final point, he's really latching on to the idea of the vaccine, which most medical doctors, including -- most

doctors and health experts suggest vaccines take years to develop. dr. fauci said, in recent testimony, that even a year to 18 months was possible, but even that felt very aggressive. this president is saying that it is going to be out by the end of the year. two quick things on that. one is you mention the cdc event. a former campaign adviser, senior adviser to the president, told me that was the low water mark of this response. his campaign hat was on. he was making claims that everyone could have a test if they wanted one. he was certain that this would be behind us soon, even talking about leaving a cruise ship offshore so the stats wouldn't count against us. the same person told me he worries the vaccine claim, promise, could fall into that category, too. even if everything breaks right for a vaccine, even if one is developed by the end of the year, there is no way it can be manufactured and distributed to all americans. best-case scenario, first responders, perhaps, are able to get their hands on it within that year time.

not every american, not everyone who needs one. >> yeah. let us hope. i mean, i'm praying for all of americans, that we get a vaccine as soon as humanly possible. also, obviously, for our family, with the people that have pre-existing -- underlying conditions, for your mom, all of our friends, all my mom's friends in pensacola, man, i want that vaccine as soon as possible. saying we could have it in six months is, you know, overly optimistic. good things could happen. who knows? let's keep our fingers crossed and pray. >> well, if you saw his presentation, i think it was friday afternoon, you would have thought a vaccine was going to be absolutely ready in six months. >> yeah. >> then the same week, saying, "everyone who wants a test can get a test, but you shouldn't want a test." the president has been equivocating on the truth and aspiring to things, opposed to

giving people the bottom line. >> can i say one thing about the tests? the president said you shouldn't get a test. >> you shouldn't want a test. >> but there are, in some states now, they have enough tests in some states. people need to get those tests. maybe they're asynmptomatic airiair i and what a difference it'd make, if they found out they had it and can get back to work. >> they don't have tests. >> a lot of states are encouraging people to come in and get the tests, especially if you're high risk. listen, we're going to open this economy. this economy is going to get open. i mean, it's happening right now. in california, 75% of their economy is reopened. you've seen it in georgia. they had a reopening this past weekend. in new york city, people are starting to get out more.

you've got to be careful. you've got to socially distance. that's going to happen. the way you can make sure that we stay open is if your state has a test. do not listen to the president who is telling you not to get the tests, that you don't need the tests. >> well -- >> if your state has the test, and they will provide the test -- and there are some asking people to come in, especially high riskers -- go in and get the test. that way, we're actually able to trace it. the scientists are able to model it. we're able to keep states open a lot more. there are a lot of states that should be open. some that shouldn't. some, though, a lot, should. the way we keep them open is by a lot of people going in and testing. not right before you're about to go to the hospital with covid-19. just throughout the process. if you think you may have it and may be asiymptomatic. >> needs to be uniform and

across the board. we have the bbc's katty kay with us and "financial times" ed luce. we'll talk about the death toll from coronavirus, which may be 60% higher than reported in official could wantnts. according to an analysis of overall deaths in 14 countries by the "financial times," statistics show 122,000 deaths, in excess of normal levels across the locations, considerably higher than the 77,000 official covid deaths reported for the same locations and time periods. the report continues, if the same level of underreporting observed in these countries was happening worldwide, the global covid-19 death roll would rise from the current official total of 201,000 to as high as 318,000. the "financial times" found that in all the countries that analyzed, except denmark, excess deaths far outnumbered the

official coronavirus death tolls. >> so, ed luce, your paper did a great analysis of this, and it came at a perfect time. you know, the same conspiracy theorists who thought neil armstrong walked on a burbank parking lot instead of walking on the moon back in 1969, the same conspiracy theorists who, at the beginning of this crisis, said that the coronavirus was a hoax, a hoax that's going to kill 100,000 people now, that the media coverage was a hoax, are now trump and the conspiracy theorists around him that he feeds every day. he has nothing else to do, because the truth is really just so unimaginably bad for him and the rest of the country. his leadership is so unimaginably bad that they're now moving to conspiracy theories. unspeakable conspiracy theories. i'm not even talking about the ones they're making up about me. the "financial times" does this deep dive and talks about the mortality rates spiking across

the world and spiking in a way that suggests the covid-19 death count is far higher. which, by the way, every doctor and nurse i've ever talked to has said that. a lot of people, especially new york city, just stayed in their apartments, didn't want to come into the hospital, and died there. that happened down in florida, with a nurse from wellington, florida. died on her couch. it just happened overnight. her family found her dead on the couch because she didn't want to go to the hospital. talk about this "financial times" reporting, then i want to get to donald trump's response. >> we've been doing pretty extensive comparative reports with infection and death rates since day one. really great colleague of mine, murdoch. the way the cdc normally estimates influenza deaths, in a normal winter in the united

states, is after the fact they give ranges. the previous, it was 24,000 to 63,000 deaths from influenza. that includes looking at the mortality rates, how many more people are lying than would normally die. it includes estimates of people who died at home, people who didn't go in to hospital, not people who were tested. with covid-19, in most states and in most countries, the system has been just to define those who have been tested and confined as having covid-19, who died in hospital or in clinics, in the mortality rate. now, if we applied the influenza level to the mortality rate, opposed to the on-site hospital measure, then you'd get deaths 50% to 75% higher, a mortality rate in the united states. under the influenza way of doing

it. that's one of the great arguments here, "look, it's not so many dead. you have a lot dead from influenza. it is called something different. so what?" very, very different situation. there is no social distancing or lockdown with influenza. it's usually the worst it can do. in this case, we've had unprecedented lockdown, and we would probably have multiply higher death rates if there hadn't have been a lockdown. >> you did a deep dive last week into what went wrong with trump's response. coming up on 100,000 deaths. the fact the united states only has 4.25%, 4.3% of the world's population, but will soon have one out of three deaths across the world, here in the united states. one out of three deaths. one out of three infections in the world, despite only 4.3% of the world's population. it is a dismal, dismal, sorry, pathetic track record that the

united states has had in handling this crisis. you looked into it, did a deep dive. what went wrong? >> so i focus on one day you mentioned earlier in the program, march 6th, the day trump went to the cdc, flanked by brian kemp, the georgia governor, and by robert redfield, the head of the cdc. he basically announced there will be 4 million tests available within a week. in fact, there were only 75,000 tests then. previous week, there were 15 infections. he said they'll go to zero. the next week, he said -- he switched and said, "there's a pandemic. i've always known it was a pandemic, before anyone else knew. it was a pandemic." he could have made the decision to really blow the bull horn and alert america to what was going

on. that same morning, there had been a very good jobs report. the stock market was happy, and he clearly made the decision not to do anything to jeopardize this bullish sentiment on wall street. and i think that, really, since then, a few days later, he had to accept that this was a serious threat. within the few days of having accepted that, he was already into the hydroxychloroquine, sort of magic bullet phase, then went on to disinfectant. he's always been looking for something that's going to cut simply through this, some magic solution, some miracle cure. when this kind of leadership -- i think obama reminded us over the weekend -- wise, patient, long-time thinking, listening to experts, being consistent, and

reassuring people, empathizing with them. so this is really, ultimately, you can pick on any number of things, but ultimately, this is about the president's psychology. this is about his state of mind. he's been getting good advice. he was warned. the presidential daily briefings in early january. people around him, alex azar, peter navarro even, people in the national security council, the intelligence agencies, dr. fauci, of course, were warning him from very, very early on. the system didn't necessarily -- >> so, can i ask you, ed luce, really quickly, because i had brought up earlier, just in a passing question with zeke emanuel, that everybody knew in early january. yeah, inside the white house. is that not the case? did everybody not know? the cdc knew in -- on december 31st. in early january, the president was starting to get warnings

that first week. the cdc, the fda, the state department, the pentagon, they were clued in very early in january, were they not? >> they were. so it wasn't a question of not knowing. it was a question of what to do with the knowledge. there was a debate within the white house. between those who saw it for what it was, an alarming onslaught, and those who thought it would spook the market, which was trump's re-election ticket. led by people like jared kushner, who were music to trump's ears. that was his instinct. occasionally, the science and the china hawks, like peter navarro, won the argument, but for the most part, it was the kushner line that prevailed. >> i'll tell you what, even that ban was so toothless. i don't know if you knew this or not, but 430,000 people came in from china from the beginning of this pandemic to the united states.

40,000 people came in from china after that toothless ban was put in place. >> that was his big accompli accomplishme accomplishment. >> it wasn't. it was a toothless ban that allowed the spread of the coronavirus to race across the united states. the same thing with europe. you know, azar and other health officials had begged him to ban flights from europe at that same time. instead, he listened to steve mnuchin. i didn't know mnuchin was a doctor. i guess he was. mnuchin said, "don't do it." he didn't do it. you watch, history will show, science will show, it was all of these people coming from italy, all those people coming from europe, between the time that azar and other health officials. >> reporter: they were begging for a ban from europe. he did it in early march. all the damage was then done. it was very, very unfortunate. katty kay, i just -- i look at

these numbers, and it is actually stunning. i am a person, and i do it without apologies, that i believe in american exceptionalism. i believe we have the greatest universities in the world. we have the greatest scientists in the world. you can certainly take umbrage at any of these suggestions. we have the greatest technology in the world, the most nobel winners in the world. we've led the way in a lot of areas with help from our friends. yet, here we find ourselves in 2020, a country with extraordinary talent, extraordinary money, extraordinary might, and here we are with 4.3% of the world's population, and about to be responsible for one in three deaths in the world from the coronavirus. responsible for one of three

dea deaths -- or infections in the world at the same time. those numbers are staggering. i mean, what does -- what do our allies that fought with us in world war ii, what do our allies that look to us for global leadership, like, what do they think? what are they thinking right now? >> well, the truth is, right now, they're not really lookling looking to america for global leadership because they're not getting leadership. the global conference last week to discuss a vaccine, america wasn't there. they didn't send a representative to the virtual conference, one of the very few countries to do so. so american leadership isn't there. i think you're right, joe, everybody recognizes america has the talent, has the scientists, has the universities, has the brainpower, if you'd like. i think what this virus has also revealed is that there are sis systemic problems in the health care system that leave it v

vulnerab vulnerable, and potentially, an ability to learn from other countries and accept that other countries may have useful information that america can learn from. in this particular moment, that's so clearly the message from the white house. it is missing out on opportunities. let's take the testing, for example. talking about the testing at the beginning of the program, which is clearly key to reopening the country. you look at somewhere like germany. every four days a german school child is self-administering a test. they say to the children, "it's great. it makes me feel safe that everybody around me is covid negative, and it makes me realize i'm not taking coronavirus back from school to my home and potentially infect my parents or grandparents. that is the level of testing that america will have to have." when the president says, "oh, not everybody should have a test or needs a test," actually, i'm not sure that is true. if we're going back to offices and schools, yeah, pretty much everybody is going to need a test. not just a test once.

they're going to need multiple tests, which is why we're getting into the number of tests has to be millions. >> katty, to your point, some say there are sis mystemic prob with trump's response. it is leadership. in terms of leadership, the "atlantic" magazine put together this short film. take a look. >> now, the democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. this is their new hoax. i really think, doctor, you want to treat this like you treat the flu, right? it is going to be -- >> basing our decisions on evidence, on facts, on the best science available. it is going to be extremely important for keeping canadians safe. >> the vast majority of americans, the risk is very, very low.

>>. [ speaking foreign language ] >> why do you keep saying this, some say it is racist. >> it comes from china. >> i want to ask everyone not to see others as potential enemies and point the finger of blame. >> what do you say to americans watching you right now who are scared? >> i say that you're a terrible reporter. [ speaking foreign language ] >> the cdc is advising the use of non-medical cloth face covering as an additional, voluntary public health measure. it is voluntary. you don't have to do it. i don't think i'm going to be doing it. >> i need every new zealander to help me. we won't achieve looking after everyone unless everyone follows the rules. >> antibiotics used to solve every problem. now, one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant, the

antibiotic can't keep up with it. >> as long as there is no vaccine, we have to live with the virus. >> today, i'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the world health organization while a review the conducted. >> there is a need for international coordination, and the w.h.o. is an important part of that collaboration and coordination. >> we have to get our country open, jeff. >> say, sir, what metrics you will use to make that decision? >> the metrics right here. >>. [ speaking foreign language ] >> supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it is ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and i think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it. then i said, "supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do, either through the skin or in some other way. >> we're investing $115 million

into research of vaccines and treatments being developed in hospitals and universities across the country. >> then i see the disinfdisinfe where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? maybe you can. maybe you can't. i'm not a doctor. i'm like a person that has a good you know what. >> translator: we will reinforce our economic prevention and quarantine systems to become the undisputed, number one economic response country, leading the world. >> mr. president, you were with seven american heros earlier today, the world war ii vets. >> i was. >> did you consider wearing a mask when you were with them? >> no. i was very far away. plus, the wind was blowing so hard and in such a direction, that if the plague ever reached them, it might be very surprised. >> it's unbelievable. >> so scary. >> it's what we have. >> what we have is really bad. >> ed luce --

>> dangerous. >> -- the vifirst really dangers challenge of the trump administration. he talks about injecting disinfectants. he talks about somehow getting lights inside people's bodies. he says the buck doesn't stop with me. it stops with 50 governors. that'd be like fdr fighting world war ii by calling out state militias. of course, we have the litany of denials. it is one person coming in from china in january. in february, it's going to go away. in april, it's 15 people and will be down to zero. it is magical thinking. it is failures. it is also getting rid of people that actually spoke truth to the president. >> so the presence ident of sou korea was quoted there. south korea is next door to china. 15 times higher population density than the united states.

it has lost 259 people. now, there have been days when america has lost more than that every three or four hours. australia, run by scott morrison, prime minister, probably as close as you can get, idealogically, to donald trump, of leaders around the world, has lost 100 people. we've lost that every hour on some days, on the worst days of april. what morrison did is the opposite of what trump has been doing. he's created a national unity cabinet with state premiers, the equivalent of governors, from every party, to collectively sit around the table every week and project one message. one national, bipartisan consensus about how to deal with this crisis. trump has been playing governors off against each other, continues to play governors off against each other.

he's giving himself enough wiggle room to blame governors if there is, as widely predicted, new outbreaks of infections because of premature relaxation or because of relaxati relaxation in the absence of universal testing and contract tracing. you can look around the world. any kind of political system, whether they're aligned with trump, whether they're democracies or not democracies. he is being pursuing worst practice, not best practice. america isn't the worst performer. my country of birth, britain, has double the death rate. let's not purely single out america here. there are other bad performers, but the risk is that the united states is going to overtake the worst performers. >> yeah. mika, it's, again, the first crisis that he's faced, real

crisis that wasn't self-inflicted. again, you look at the death rate. you look at the rest of the world. you see how they responded. you see how the president has e denied this from the very start. you're left with -- again, you're left looking back, wondering, what if we had approached this the way churchill approached world war ii? what if we approached this the way fdr approached world war ii? what if we approached this the way other leaders -- >> today. >> -- came together in a time of unity? americans, by the way, have done a hell of a job. they've done a great job. you know, you look at florida. i posted a story last week that florida actually began social distancing, began self-isolating, even before ron desantis came around to doing it. that's why florida has avoided becoming the hot spot that

people taughought. they did it on their own. you also have millions and millions of americans who have acted responsibly. i think that's one of my pbig takeaways. look at the poll numbers, most americans do agree on this. but you look at donald trump, playing governors off of each other. sometimes playing the same governor off of himself. brian kemp, he calls him up the night before with mike pence, reportedly, and says, "open up. we want you to open up." kemp announces he is opening up. the next day, donald trump attacks him. >> terribly. >> the next day. >> listen, the answer to what if, the what if, is not smock i shocking. if we had a president who acted like world leaders of the past or even today, we'd have less deaths. bottom line. americans are doing a great job but don't have the power of the president.

we're where we are. it is fact, not shocking, blaring headlines. it is fact, there would be less deaths if the leadership was stronger and the warnings were taken. >> everybody knows that. >> everybody knows that. ed luce, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," we know coronavirus causes some serious symptoms right away. what are some of the longer-term impacts of having covid-19? our next guest is looking into that. also, is family separation back for migrants at the southern border? nbc news obtained some revealing, new documents. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. usaa was made for right now. and right now, is a time for action. so, for a second time we're giving members a credit on their auto insurance. because it's the right thing to do. we're also giving payment relief options to eligible members

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hey, so jonathan lemire, mika and i were just watching on the ipad machine, as the kids call it, ben sasse' commencement address. did you see that yesterday? >> i did. the clips are making the rounds. they're going viral, and in perhaps not the best way, joe. >> so i just -- this is my question. >> okay. >> ben sasse is a really smart guy, but it had, like, an andy kaufman quality to it. i'm serious. like, you know, when andy kaufman got on "snl" and would do 99 bottles of beer on the wall, and he'd count down, you're like, "wait, what's happening here?" i'm just wondering, is this ben sasse channelling andy kaufman? i've seen it a few times, and i can't quite figure out what he was doing. you know, his wife went to the university of alabama. he's got that going for him.

i still can't figure it out. i feel like bill murray in "tootsie" when he walks out and says, "when i write a play, i want people to walk out at the end of it and ask, what just happened?" that's how i felt, watching this ben sasse commencement address. imagine if you were watching the ben sasse commencement address, and you were 18 years old in nebraska. what was it? >> it seemed to be a bit of performance art. the senator there with his tie -- no jacket, and his tie was loose. he, himself, seemed rather loose, making a number of jokes, extended one about urging graduates if they see a rope, they'll be made to climb it. you think that's a metaphor, but really it is just a rope. he mixed in scathing comments about china along the way. it was a speech that, his spokesman once said it was meant

as a joke, but it didn't seem to land well. in fact, a lot of the students who graduated that day were very upset, and their parents, as well. i think senator sass ended up covered in flop sweat by the time it was all done. >> i mean, listen -- >> all right. >> -- if in the middle of a pandemic, that's the worst thing that happens to him, very lucky nebraska students. >> watch online. >> not now. we're doing important things here, as we always do. mika, now to the important things. >> joining us now, infectious diseases of medicine from the boston university school of medici medicine, nbc news and msnbc medical contributor. a lot of people, doctor, are getting mixed messages from the government about when a vaccine will be ready, if and when testing is ready, but the truth is, in some ways, in terms of

reopening, are americans on their own, and is the best way to protect themselves to follow guidelines about physical distancing? >> mika, it is critical, as you mentioned in the last segment. what countries have done that did this successfully is provide a unified message of what the best public health practices are. as we're opening, reopening, a lot of the responsibility now sort of shifts on public health bodies and all governments to provide what the best practices are. for example, there's stories this weekend about people gathering on beaches. one may assume gathering in groups of people and keeping social distancing in the outdoor setting might be safer than an indoor setting. are we providing people with the guidance, for example, of how did you get to the beach? are you spending close contact with people not in your household? are you sharing food with them,l the guidance, reminders, and

ability to do the actions necessary for people to be able to adhere to the guidance. >> yeah. i have a couple more questions about that, but we also have been talking about people who have suffered from covid, who have been through the process of getting through it. maybe they suffered greatly, even went to the hospital. what about in the weeks and months after, what are we learning about ongoing symptoms, ongoing impact, or maybe a whole entire weakening in some ways of the body? what are we learning about the permanent impact of covid? >> mika, we're discovering that covid-19 is a multi-system disease. it is affecting your immune system. it is creating this inflammation that can have potentially longer-lasting damage than just the acute damage that the virus does. so the "guardian" story released on friday quoted professor tim sector from king college in

london, saying they're tracking symptoms in patients, some six weeks out. they're still reporting symptoms that are vague. they're not back to their baseline. this is what we sometimes discover in emerging infectious diseases. we find symptoms, like with covid, loss of smell, loss of taste, that are new, that we didn't expect. one of the things we, ourselves, are doing at boston university school of medicine, is setting up cohorts to examine people who survived and ensure there aren't longer-lasting symptoms after they recover from acute disease. >> katty kay has a question. jump in. >> doctor, i want to follow up on what mika was asking, about best practices. as the country is reopening up, i'm in washington, d.c., which is not yet released its lockdown order, but i'm in a household with teenagers and young adults. they know what is happening around the country. they're seeing other states open opening up, and they're desperate to see their friends. odd oddly, they think two months of

living with their parents is quite enough. i don't know what to tell them in terms of, you can see friends, but is it limiting the social bubble? what kinds of things could we be saying to our kids who are desperate to get out that would allow them some access to social life but keep it safe and limited? >> katty, the biggest thing is maintaining the 6 foot distance and reducing the number of people you hang out with at any one time. by doing that, what we know for sure, in closed spaces where a lot of people are in any one place at the same time, that what increases the risk of transmission. there was a case report from washington of a choir, where 56 out of 60 people became sick spending time with one person who was sick. that's a super spreader event, where one person could spread to a lot of people. within households, we know the risk of secondary attack rates are 10% to 20%.

your sa selikelihood of pickingp increases. outdoors is probably safer than indoors, but continue to keep the 6 foot distance andhygiene, food, and be aware of sharing public spaces. make sure you wash your hands right after. >> i'm going to ask practical questions, just to sort of get on basic knowledge on here. it may seem ridiculous, but the beaches are opening at some point in florida across the board. if i spribring my mom, 87, to t beach, and she is at least 10 feet away from anybody else, and i bring wipes and i wipe off any handles she might be touching walking down the stairs to the beach, is she safe? >> mika, how are you bringing your mom to the beach? big part of the transportation, the pinch-points are where are

we crowded and up against each other? she's within your household already, and that's different. you know, you've already been exposed to each other. big part of this is actually all the things you mention, but if she's not part of your household, use a face covering, just in case, you know, one of you might actually have the disease and not realize it because you don't have the symptoms. as you mentioned, it is the distance. it is being aware that there are people among us who are at higher risk. it is decontaminating the surfaces around us. >> what about if you are -- if people are out exercising, and they're running past each other, and they're 6 feet apart from each other, but you can, like, smell their perfume. are you too close? >> it actually does take more prolonged exposure to be in the same space. when i go running here at the charles river, i'll see people much closer than 6 feet, which is why i think that there need to be more timing and more public guidance on how spaces,

open spaces are used. people are sitting on the river, in the picnic, with other people, very close together, without any of the protections. in that case, the use of face coverings become even more important. there's been simulations done that basically show that as people speak, even when they're not coughing, they're je rageneg and creating droplets. the face covering really protects you with space. >> associate professor from boston medical school, doctor, thank you very much. see you soon. new reporting says migrants are being given a choice at the border. separate from your child or stay together in detention indefinitely. nbc's julia ainsley has the details and joins us now. julia, thank you so much for looking into this. what is happening? >> reporter: thank you, mika. thank you for having me because while we're so focused on coronavirus, there's still a lot happening at our southern

border. for 366 families who are in detention, they all received this document that we obtained late last week. they were given a choice to release their children. this came out of nowhere. their lawyers were not notified. they were all brought into rooms and given this form. now, i talked to an i.c.e. official last night who told me none of the 366 families signed that form to release their child. they would be released to a sponsor, perhaps a relative, or perhaps into the custody of health and human services. but the parent would not be allowed to go with that child. in some cases, we're talking about infants here, mika. the reason the government says they gave this document is in response to a lawsuit where the lawyer said, these families should not be held any longer. a, children shouldn't be held over 20 days anyway, according to previous court settlements, and, b, the coronavirus. keeping people in close proximity is not in the best interest of the children or

families. instead of releasing the families together, the government gave these parents these forms so they could show the judge that the parents were choosing to keep their children in detention. >> jonathan lemire? >> julia, let's link this a little more, the idea of immigration and the trump administration's response to the pandemic. it certainly would seem that, under the pretense of dealing with a pandemic, the administration should be able to push forward and successfully get -- accomplish some of its immigration goals. walk us through some of the restrictive measures they've put in place, and also how long they'll be there. under how long will the administration be able to keep that going? >> reporter: that's a great question, jonathan. last week, we just started talking about how there will soon be more limits on legal immigration. then for immigrants who are coming into the country without prior visas or documentation, they're claiming asylum, the options have really run out for them. that's what's happening with

these families who are stuck in migrant detention. again, they're not supposed to be holding them over 20 days. for these families with no asylum hearings on the other end, the average for these families is six months in detention because of the slow roll back of asylum that started before coronavirus. they've been put in place even more strictly during this crisis. one of the ways is they are not doing any asylum hearings for immigrants not in detention. any immigrant who crosses the border now, who does not have a documentation, even if they claim credible fear and have a very serious case that their lives would be in danger of going home, they are not allowed into this country for an asylum hearing. they're being postponed. those asylum hearings are being pushed back months and months at a time, even as they keep coming back, thinking this is their day in court, they're being sent back home again. >> julia, thank you so much for shining a light on this. nbc's julia ainsley. thank you so much. still to come, former

president obama takes a thinly veiled swipe at president trump and his administration's coronavirus response. and the state department's inspector general becomes the latest watchdog to be fired by president trump. you won't believe why. was we go to break, we wantd to pay our respects to a dedicator viewer to our show. jonas chaves was a creature of habit in his 34 years working for the faa. chaves would wake up at 3:30 in the morning to get an early start to his workday. even in the 25 years after his retirement, he was still an early riser. his nephew tells us "morning joe" was an appointment viewing for him. never missing a show, ever. chaves took his civic responsibility very seriously. so seriously that he briefly left his long-term care facility in march to vote at his local

town hall in massachusetts. one month ago, april 18th, chaves died from complications of covid-19 at 86 years old. we'll be right back. needs a cfp- confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. they're all possible with a cfp® professional. find yours at letsmakeaplan.org.

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it's also pulled the curtain back on another hard truth, something that we all have to eventually accept once our childhood comes to an end.

you know, all those adults that used to think they were in charge and knew what they were doing, turns out, they don't have all the answers. a lot of them aren't asking the right questions. doing what feels good, what's convenient, what's easy, that's how little kids think. unfortunately, a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way. which is why things are so screwed up. >> what about obama's comment at the graduation ceremony? >> i didn't hear it. he was an incompetent president. all i can say, grossly incompetent. >> okay. these words are trademarked by john heilemann, anything that donald trump says is either confession or projection. >> president trump's response, when asked about former president barack obama's thinly veiled swipe at the trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic during two

virtual commencement speeches. trump later tweeted, quote, the obama administration is turning out to be one of the most corrupt and incompetent -- >> projection, confession. >> -- in u.s. history. remember, he and sleepily joe are the reasons i'm here in the white house. okay. >> okay. well, projection and confession. >> welcome back to "morning joe." >> you have a president tweeting that as the same time that he has actually fired yet another inspector general. fired because -- >> 90,000 deaths on his watch. >> according to reporting so far but still needs to be confirmed that mike pompeo, according to reports, had the inspector general fired, because the inspector general was looking into mike pompeo using state department officials as weight staff. so, again, according to reports in multiple publications.

we need to check it out and confirm it. want to hear from the ig to see what the ig says. all the early reporting is that mike pompeo asked the president to fire the inspector general for the state department because the inspector general was looking into pompeo. >> doing his job. >> yeah, doing his job. looking into pompeo as improperly using state department officials for wait staff for his family and himself. >> jonathan lemire is with us. also, bbc world news america's katty kay. joining the conversation is former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steel. political reporter for the "washington post," robert costa. and professor for international politics at tafts university, daniel drezner, the author of "the toddler in chief: what

donald trump teaches us about the modern presidency." >> we're going to keep talking about the coronavirus, where we are. 90,000 deaths. united states having 4.3% of the world's population but almost one-third of the deaths and one-third of the infections. >> the number could be lower if we listened to the warnings. we being the president. >> all of you that want to put this entire thing on cuomo, governor cuomo, i'm not here to defend governor accord mcuomo. he made mistakes throughout the process, but i don't think the state department was telling cuomo in early january about the deaths that were coming. >> he didn't go to the briefings. >> the pentagon did, and i don't think the president was sharing intel daily briefings with cuomo. a lot of america was left in the dark. this president knew in january. he was warned in january. navarro warned that 500,000

americans could die if the president didn't do anything. later, the president said it'd magically go away. first, let's talk about another inspector general being fired. mika, it really does, as mitt romney says, this causes a real threat to representative democracy. >> president trump accelerated his purge of public officials by firing the state department's inspector general. it happened late on friday. steve linick played a minor role in the president's impeachment proceedings and was investigating alleged misconduct by secretary of state mike pompeo at the time of his removal. >> trump informed congress of the move in a letter, writing in part, quote, it is vital that i have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general. that is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general. according to two congressional

officials, linick was looking into whether pompeo made a staffer walk his dog, pick up his dry cleaning, and make dinner reservations for the secretary of state and his wife, among other personal errands that are not this person's job. the house first learned the details about the investigation around the same time late last week that they learned that linick was being removed. congressionaligating the matter believe it was direct retaliation for pursuing the investigation, asking questions. a white house official tells nbc news that pompeo, quote, recommended the inspector general's ouster, and trump agreed with the move. the state department did not respond to requests for comment. >> jonathan lemire, we have a couple of sources. i want to hear from the inspector general himself about this, but what can you tell us about, fir -- first of all, tal

about this, the firing of somebody who was actually investigating a sitting secretary of state for misuse of personnel, but also, there's been an inspector general purge of sorts over the past several weeks. get us up to date on that, as well. >> first of all, joe, i could use a staffer like that. there's plenty of errands i need to have run. no, on a more serious note, this is something that is being looked at. senate democrats have already called for anreporting that thi inspector general and state department was looking into misconduct by the secretary of state, using staffers to run personal errands that are not part of that person's job description. secretary of state pompeo went to the white house. in fact, white house officials confirmed that over the weekend, and asked president trump to

dismiss the inspector general conducting this investigation. which, of course, triggered a real outcry, an outrage from a number of democrats on capitol hill. senator romney, the one republican so far that's really spoken up about that. that seems to be -- he's often the lone voice in terms of the gop members, criticizing the president. taking a step pacback, it's mor than one isolated incident. this is the fourth inspector general in the last six weeks to two months that have been dismissed. many of whom have played a role in the impeachment inquiry, whose jobs led to the ukraine investigation. they played some big, some small, but played a part in that. it speaks to a larger degree of oversight and accountability, and how this president, in an unprecedented way, certainly in recent history, is dismissing and really rebuking any attempts at oversight. whether it was the congress or the institutional controls in

the agencies. it is a power that goes unchecked right now, as he continues to sort of reshape the federal government in an unprecedented way. proceeding forward on his political gains even while battling the pandemic. >> yeah. what can you tell us, bob costa, about the pompeo story? >> well, it's gotten republicans on capitol hill alaralarmed. while senator romney is out there with his tweet, believe me, over the weekend, i heard from republican senators that they're alarmed, not wanting to battle the president on the ig issue, which is an idea of independence. roger marshall, republican, locked in a tight race with the democrat hard liner and official. this clouds up the calculation,

with pompeo maybe looking into the race. the idea of making sure kansas stays red, that it doesn't become a problem in the fall, a lot of that relies, at this point, on getting pompeo to jump in. who knows at this point, they say, if that'll still happen. >> bob costa, i know you were a little younger, but you'll remember this. in the big races, where you have these big tidal waves, a lot of times, there is something major that's pushing the tidal wave. just the whiff of corruption really has a big impact in wave elections, in sort of pushing it over sort of the finish line, pushing whatever party is out of power over the finish line in a huge way. i think back to 1994. yes, there were a lot of issues with bill clinton. we can talk about the tax increase and a lot of other issues. there's also the banking scandal.

there were a lot of -- >> 2006 with the democrat. >> exactly. >> the house and -- >> yeah, '94 and then in 2006. i remember one final scandal broke, and republicans were like, oh, but that's it. talk about this, when you say republicans are scared. they're thinking back to 2006 and 1994. they understand a secretary of state coming to the white house saying, "hey, i'm being investigated by the inspector general. you have to fire him fast." that doesn't just hurt pompeo and trump. that really hurts the republican party. >> joe, hearing you say that, once a congressman, always a congressman in a sense. that's how they talk about it behind the scenes. they feel like they have this burden on their shoulders of the economy. president trump is helpful to them to a point, in rallying their own core voters in the gop across the country. but this economy, as jobless numbers increase, they feel like could be something that weighs the entire party down. if you add on top of that bolder

another hugish somehe issue of accountability, alleged corruption, igs being fired, all these different agencies, people being misused, money being misused, they feel like the economy, on top of the lingering issues president trump administration, going back to people like scott pruitt at the epa, that could be too much for them to carry, even if they have those trump, hard-core voters showing up for them in the fall. >> dan drezner, in terms of what this ig was investigating, what do we know about that? how connected pompeo's recommendation is to that investigation? and was that investigating of pompeo's staff member that ig's job? >> so let's answer the last question first. yes, of course it was his job. the inspector general is supposed to investigate any kind of abuse of power or flouting of the rules in the state

department. it's worth noting that this would not have been the first inspector general report to have i implicated pompeo and his senior leadership with mismanagement at the state department. one, an assistant secretary abused civil service. a second one pointed out that brian hook, who is now the state department's iran envoy, has essentially punished civil service workers because they were suspected of being obama holdovers or loyal to obama. in this case, yes, obviously, the reports out there, if they're correct, say mike pompeo used official state department resources to essentially enable his wife to travel with him and to use official resources on their trips. not to mention, the fact that, apparently, pompeo ordered official state department personnel to, you know, conduct

minor errands for him, like fetch his laundry or walk his dog. these are things that, presumably, a man who is paid as well as pompeo is as secretary of state, could have done on his own dime. he didn't need to have the state department do these things. it is an abuse of resources, especially in a world which, up until recently, pompeo had to defend cuts at the state department budget that were proposed by his own administration. >> katty kay? >> yeah. it is interesting that this all plays in, as well, to the election season we're in, particularly with older voters. who, as you know, joe, have a spectacle view of the president. we've seen it decline amongst older voters. specifically, one of the things that older voters are growing weary of with president trump is his personal demeanor. the issue of corruption, of firing the igs, of there being something potentially nefarious going on, i wonder how it is

playing out with all the voters who might have more of a sense of propriety or want more propriety from their president and government. this character issue, is the president trying to hide anything, like you say from 2006, the corruption was a real problem for the republican party. i wonder if it is a personality problem for this president, as he watches what happens with senior voters. >> let's take it to michael still. when the economy is going really well, we heard it, again, going back to the '90s, we heard it with bill clinton in '99 and 2000. saying, listen, i don't approve with what the guy did, committed perjury, but my 401(k) is doing really well, retirement is doing well. then the republicans were pulling their hair out saying, "what's wrong with americans?" that's what people were saying before this pandemic hit. the president was so ill-prepared for it. i wonder, again, you ran the

republican party. i wonder, again, what is the impact on voters when you see one inspector general after another fired because donald trump doesn't like that they're doing their job? here, you have an inspector general reportedly fired because he is investigating the secretary of state for misuse of state department resources at the time the state department is slashing resources. he goes to the white house, it wills tells the president of the united states to fire the inspector general. according to reports, officials talking to jonathan lemire, and the president fires that inspector general. man, you and i have been through enough elections to know, you start stacking all of this stuff up, with all the other corruption that's happened during this administration, that is a hell of a bad 30-second ad. yeah, seniors will be turned off.

independents will run from a candidate from a candidate that has that strap to him. >> they will. but this -- i don't think we're there yet, joe. i think that voters are processing what's happening to their pocketbooks, businesses, and families, relative to a scandal that may or may not be a scandal -- we don't know what we don't know. it's still a little murky. the ig stuff, that's not their pay grade. they trust the president to do that. that's an executive branch decision. if he doesn't think the guy is doing a good job, that's fine. in any other environment, that may get the kind of attention and focus that it would deserve, and then push and move voters to look at corruption and other issues inside the administration. but you've got a vast majority of voters, especially independent voters, center-right or center-left voters who will

be in play in november, that are looking at 401(k)s who lost 40%, 50%, looking at businesses that are shut down. that's what's scaring donald trump. that's why donald trump is manic about opening the economy. he's not manic about opening the economy because some ig report, using that as a distraction. he's manic about opening the economy and pushing because that narrative is gone. it's toast. it is going to be hard to get back. >> so, jonathan lemire, button things up for us in terms of the united states and the push and pull to reopen the economy. it seems the american people, for the most part, understand what's at stake and the balance here. >> and on pompeo. >> sure. the american public does seem even a little more cautious, perhaps, than the president. we will see what happens with pompeo in the coming days. i also want to underscore the point you were making about seniors. we have new reporting, my colleagues and i at the

"associated press" this weekend, about the trump campaign advisers being very worried about their standing with seniors. in particular, in the battleground states that will determine this election. noting the aging populations in places like wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania, as well as the states that have become hot beds for older americans and retirees, arizona and, namely, joe, a state i know you're concerned about, is florida. according to our reporting, the trump campaign knows they've lost a lot of support among seniors in florida since the pandemic started because of the president's behavior. sometimes erratic in the press briefings, to underscore katty's point. also, because of, indeed, economic reasons, as michael was saying. these are americans living on their retirement accounts, and 401(k)s have been devastated by the market crash, the economy slowing down. they've started to wonder if this president is the person who can revive that. donald trump and his team know this, they lost the popular vote last time around but carried seniors by about nine points nationally.

right now, he's about even or even down to joe biden among seniors. if that's the case, there's no chance he can win the battleground states in order to win again, namely florida. his team believes he has no path to victory without it. >> this is the bizarre thing, mika. people having telling donald trump, and certainly we've been telling him on this show, for quite some time, you can't lie to senior citizens. you know, you could lie to them about robert mueller. you could lie to them about ukraine. they were busy. they were busy with their own lives. they were busy with their retirement. they were busy, you know, with their grandchildren. they were busy with their own lives. >> making end's meet. >> they were busy making end's meet. that's washington stuff. let those politicians in washington figure that out. when he started lying about a pandemic that has just ravaged senior population across the country -- >> massive human catastrophe.

>> whether va clinics, retirement homes, retirement villages, like the southern part of palm beach county, the president's home county. >> oh, my gosh. >> if you lie to them as much as the president has lied about this pandemic, they just go to their doctor that they've known for 20, 25, 35 years. the doctor said, "no, no, that's all wrong. listen, you need to take care of yourself. you need to be careful." that's something the president hasn't done. so i must say, even now, with the president pushing for states to reopen without following white house guidelines, seniors are smart. they know it. it is just like i said in florida, you know, seniors and others started to stay at home and self-isolate their families and themselves long before desantis woke up and decided to do it anything. so you lie to seniors, they're going to understand.

i'll tell you one thing, nobody around the president is going to listen to thrks bis, but i'm goo say it anyway. we have the reporting from the "financial times." we have the reporting from others that the death toll is actually higher than what we have seen. the numbers being reported right now. there is a conspiracy theory, another conspiracy theory growing, that, somehow, these numbers have been inflated. here's the deal, i shouldn't be telling you this. just make you angry. but when you lie and try to undersell the pain that this pandemic has caused americans, specifically senior citizens, they know you're lying and you make them angry. because their friends, loved ones, neighbors may have died in this pandemic, across florida, across arizona, across a lot of

states that you're -- wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. it's not smart, to start a conspiracy theory about deaths. you know, you'd be better off going to the neil armstrong didn't walk on the moon, he was on a movie set in burbank, california. that would hurt you less in florida and arizona and michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania than lying to seniors and trying to undersell this death count. they have felt it. they know it's true. they have seen the carnage in nursing homes. they have seen the carnage in va clinics. they'ved ha frien ehad friends, members, and loved ones dying. you can't lie that away. i know you can't do it, but if you could, you might want to just tell the truth. i know you don't have it in you, but if you did, that would help you with seniors. you could tell the truth while

the country was reopening. you can't even wear a mask, so what's it -- what am i doing? >> a mask protects other people from you. president trump, joe -- >> he's around world war ii vets. >> noi know. >> he wouldn't wear a mask. whatever. >> president trump talked about carnage in his inaugural address. i guess, now, we see what he's talking about. the coronavirus appears to be spreading from cities to rural communities with a higher share of older and at-risk residents. a "wall street journal" analysis of data compiled by johns hopkins university shows that in the two weeks between april 20th and may 4th, newly confirmed cases and non-metropolitan areas outpaced those in metro areas by 30%. many parts of the country begin to reopen, and with that comes a concentrated effort to strike a delicate balance between curbing

the virus' spread and trying to minimize the economic harm. the "new york times" reports that as of friday, daily counts of new cases were decreasing in 19 states and increasing in three, while staying mostly the same in the rest. yet, saturday saw texas report its largest, single-day spike during the pandemic. however, the "times" also points out in new orleans, where hundreds of new cases were being identified each day in early april, fewer than 50 have been announced daily in the last three weeks. in the detroit area, which saw exponential case growth beginning in late march, numbers have fallen sharply. in cass county, indiana, where a meat packing outbreak sickened at least 900 people, only a handful of cases have been reported most days this past week. yet, the paper also cautioned, epidemiologists pointed to one

overarching reason for the decline in new cases. the success of widespread social distancing. people can protect themselves. >> dan drezner, so we find ourselves at an interesting point in this crisis. it's -- we're at a place now where the infection rates are going down. the death rates are slowing down. it's getting warmer outside. americans, a lot more americans are wanting to go outside. it has, in fact, been an extraordinary degree of social distancing by hundreds of millions of americans that's actually bent this curve. at the same time, america has to get back to work. california, 75% of california pa back to work. azar yesterday said on tv that 50% of the counties in america

haven't reported a death from coronavirus. so i know we've been through a horrific couple of months. but this is where it is critical that we thread the needle, reopen the economy, but do it safely. how does that get managed? we know the president's not going to do it. he's a day trader. but how do governors, how do local officials do that, reopen the economies but do it in a way that's safe? >> very, very carefully. as you say, there is no national plan here, so there's no federal guidelines. we do know the trump white house suppressed the cdc plan for how this should go forward. my real concern is that as the weather warms up, one of the advantages of that, obviously, is people can be outside more. it is much tougher to get -- or catch the coronavirus outdoors,

presuming you're engaging in social distancing and so forth. you might very well see, hopefully, a decline in the number of new infections, as well as the number of new deaths. the really key question is what starts happening in the fall, when it starts to get colder and people have to go and stay indoors, and whether or not you can have people in offices, in university lecture halls, in shopping malls. while you would assume that people -- americans are going to practice social distancing, wear masks, so on and so forth, the fact is, it is tough to maintain those things over an extended period of time. so i think it is almost inevitable that you're going to see some sort of resurgence in the number of infections come september and october, short of the development of new therapeutics or some miracle breakthrough in terms of the vaccine. so, yeah, we're in a situation

where the tricky part is -- and, as you know, donald trump loves symbolism. he wants big symbols to demonstrate, going forward, that america is back, we've recovered from the coronavirus. but the problem is that those kind of symbolic actions, things like holding large rallies, or having sports restart again, things we can visually pick up, are also, as it turns out, super spreader events. those are our nightmare scenarios in terms of potentially spreading the coronavirus. unless it is snuffed out completely, and there is no evidence that's going to happen, pause that's n because that's not the way it's happened so far, you'll continue too see more cases and ramping up of testing. without the testing of everyone and ability to trace when clusters emerge, it'll come back with a vengeance in the fall. >> there are going to be new clusters that will be emerging. i think anybody that looks at

the possibility of reopening the economy, which we have to do, have said, there are going to be clusters. we have to be able to trace those clusters. hopefully the testing continues to ramp up. the critical thing is, i'm starting to see a lot of stories, like, oh, georgia is past the worst. florida is past the worst. the testing is fine. the ventilators. we have to use this time now to prepare for the fall, okay? we need to use this time. i'm going to say it again. we've been saying it. prepare for the fall. dr. fauci says it, as well as every other scientist and doctor, this is going to come back in the fall. if history is a guide, it is going to come back with a vengeance. we really need to build our capacity, whether it's the masks, whether it's ventilators, whether it's testing, instead of -- you know, it's crazy. people are actually taking victory laps right now.

we're in the second inning of -- we've had guests say we're in the second inning of a nine-inning game. i hope not. i hope we're in the eight inning, but if history is a guide, we're not. we're still in a fairly early stage. if it takes six months, a year, 18 months for the vaccine. so no victory laps. just like the iraq war made fools out of all of us, fools out of me, fools out of people that were predicting the surge was going to fail, people who said peace could never come to iraq. made fools out of people who said, we have to get out of iraq immediately. right? let's not repeat that mistake. let's understand, the pandemic is going to be with it for quite a while, until we get that vaccine. that's for republicans. that's for democrats. that's for independents. that's especially for seniors. take care of yourself. this isn't magically going away. >> bob costa, is the white house

remembering and taking into context the potential for a resurgence in the fall, which has been mentioned multiple times by fauci and other experts? >> you remember a few weeks ago, mika, the big push by president trump and some of his allies on the right for hydroxychloroqu e hydroxychloroquine. they believe that could be a miracle cure for treatment. >> right. >> now, you see inside of the white house, the dance point. this idea of a miracle vaccine. they could have this program that they're calling, their words, operation warp speed. that in the next few months, they can somehow develop a vaccine. the entire nation, the entire world would love to see a vaccine. believe me, based on my reporting, there are concerns inside of the white house about overpromising the time line for a vaccine and about how this will all play out, whether it will happen, how it can be available. will clinical trials be done by the end of the year on a human

level, let alone an animal level? all the issues hover over the white house, yet they plow forward with the optimism. it is optimism versus caution from the expert. >> that's the thing, michael, still that i don't understand. the president has engaged in, written "washington post," a year of magical thinking, to borrow from joan didion. it started by him saying it was just going to miraculously go away. telling african-american leaders back in february, it was magically going to go away. in january, saying it was one person and it'd go away. everything is fine. telling republicans in march, don't worry about it. everything is going to be fine. saying in march, i'm not worried about this at all. said all of it. then he moved on to, you know, high drox cl

hydroxychloroquine. saying this could be one of the greatest miracle break squn throu throughs in the history of medicine. the government has to issue a warning against the use of it. then he talked about injecting disinfecta disinfectants, sticking lights inside of bodies. the government, trump's own government, had to issue a warning about it. now, he's talking about a miracle vaccine. nobody wants a miracle vaccine more than me, more than seniors, more than -- we all want a miracle vaccine. he seems to be repeating the same mistake over and over again. engaging in magical thinking and ending up looking foolish. i don't get it. i don't understand, michael, help me out here, why can't republican senators and house members go to him and say, mr. president, please, stop with your bizarre rantings about magical cures and it magically going away in april. let's start following the doctors. why can't they do that?

>> you know, i think there's a confluence of realities around the president, that a lot of the elected leadership on the hill have just tried to avoid in circumstances like this. there is no cutting through. the president has his own, you know, section wherever he goes to get this information, whether it's from conspiracy theories on twitter. remember, all of this began, in his mind, as a hoax. this was not something that was necessarily real. it was cocked up by the democrats and sort of put out on the street. those narratives kind of stuck with him. i think, at the end of the day, they still resonate a lot more with him than we realize, which is why you have him lashing out at reporters and others who sort of, like robert costa, says, "mr. president, this is the deal. what are you doing here?" is, like, "no, that's not my

reality. it's something else." how do you go in as a senator and say to him, "this is what's really going on. you need to engage with the cdc. you need to take what dr. fauci is saying to you. you need to pay attention to the science because there is vast amount of evidence that shows that social distancing, wearing a mask, all the things that you tell people to do but you, yourself, won't do, is helpful. it is slowing and allowing us to turn the corner." that doesn't happen because he's just not listening to that. i still don't believe he is listening to that. i still believe that, just as he's come out, as you've noted, talking about, you know, we're going to have a vaccine in less than six months, there's not a scientist who is working on this who will tell you they'll have this in six months. you can't rush the science. no matter how much your political situation may want you to do that, the skecientific

reality is it takes research, tests, going through a number or series of tests before you actually put something like that on the street for the public. it has to work. you don't want to put a vaccine out there that is shown not to work. so that driua uatcreates anothef problems. if you're a senator, where do you have the conversation inside the administration, when, as you've reported this hour and the last hour, that you have voices inside the administration that are sort of reinforcing some of this in terms of how they're looking at going about solving this problem? so they sit down and don't say much, joe. they just haven't. the reality of it is, they put their mask on and go about their business, but the rest of us see this show unfold with the white house in a way that does not instill the kind of trust the american people need, which goes the why seniors and others are beginning to walk away, thinking

he can't handle this. >> michael steele, robert costa, daniel drezner, thank you all very much for being on the show this morning. marks joked he didn't want to be part of any club that would have himself as a member. up next, a look at the so-called president's club in the age of trump. why trump purposely keeps his predecessors at arm's length. plus -- >> obviously, i would be honored if i were being considered. >> my mission is to say out loud, if i'm asked the question, yes. i would be willing to serve. >> if asked, i would be honored to serve alongside joe biden and do everything within my power to get this country back on track. >> so you're saying there's a chance. we'll talk about the 2020 veep stakes, next on "morning joe."

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you'd expect a president to be laser focused on this pandemic and nothing else. he unveiled the new space force flag and did a little bragging. >> the president was touting a high-speed missile for mr. trump's pet project, the space force. >> i call it the super duper missile. space is going to be the future. we're now the leader in space. >> yeah, that happened. donald trump, posed with a gigantic space force flag, standing too close to someone, referring to a super duper missile, and called the u.s. the leader in space. he truly has the spirit, brain, appetite, temper, patience, and whit of a child you hate. >> joining us now -- >> i mean, who doesn't want a super duper missile? >> i just want super duper testing. >> yeah. >> chief national correspondent for the "new york times" magazine, mark leiebovic.

also, the author of "the team of five," the president's club in the age of trump. >> kate, tell us about your book. you've spoken with former presidents, as well as trump staffers themselves. talk about the biggest differences between past administrations and this one. >> well, i interviewed president trump for the book. i sat across from him at the resolute desk in the oval office, and i said, "has this -- sitting here at the storied desk given you a sense of empathy for the men who came before you," and he looked at me and said, "no, look at this mess they have handed me." it is shocking, the difference between president trump's relationship with the men who came before him and what we've seen from obama, who as you know, dispatched bush and clinton after the earthquake in haiti. we saw the same with, famously, bill clinton and george h.w.

bush, becoming so close. they were known as the odd couple. they went to asia after the tsunami there. after hurricane katrina, teamed up. i think this pandemic really brings to light the simmering tension between president trump and his predecessors. it's reached eed the boiling p with what obama said. >> mark, also in this book, he told kate that he doesn't have trouble sleeping at night, unlike bill clinton, who only slept five hours a night. you wouldn't know that by looking at the timestamps on his tweets. >> yeah. it's true. i mean, he does obviously spend a lot of time paying atoententi to what people say about him. what is interesting, this sort of group of -- or this exclusive club is part of the presidential homecourt advantage that he

could avail himself of to great benefit, but he chooses not to. i think if, at the beginning of this pandemic, he had convened, say, president bush, president obama, maybe president clinton, and did some sort of either fundraising thing or some kind of unity, you know, even photo-op, that would be, i think, quite reassuring. traditionally, in the course of history, even recent history, i think voters find it reassuring. it is a reminder that this is an extremely, you know, exclusive club, that this person who is now sitting in the white house is part of, and there is good will between the two parties and between people within that club. for whatever reason, donald trump likes the idea that he is going it alone, that he is an outsider, that he is inherited this terrible mess, that he has put here to clean up. so what is -- it is, i think, striking that, again, this is another part of the presidency that he has chosen to, for whatever reason, not avail himself of.

>> of course, he inherited one of the best economic recoveries in history. i think five, six-year economic recovery. stock market did much better under barack obama. kate, jonathan lemire, ap reporter, white house ap reporter is with us and has a question for you. jonathan? >> got a little audio issue with jonathan lemire. >> so, kate, jonathan lemire was, i'm sure, going to ask you about what w. said about donald trump. why don't you tell us? >> so bush, george w. bush, is following in his father's footsteps. george h.w. bush said he was looking forward to staying the heck out of dodge. did not want to weigh in on any

sitting president policies. bush 43 is really keeping, you know, his father's promise on that. but it is interesting, because he told a former cabinet official who worked for trump, he said, listen, he's not being loyal to you. if you want to criticize him now, after you've been fired, go ahead and do it. i think the sense that bush doesn't want to talk about trump even privately. i interviewed a white house florist who worked in the residence for the bushes and had lunch with them shortly after trump won the election. he brought up trump's election win. push said, let bush said, let's enjoy ourbushe. 2015, trump ran against jeb and attacked him in the process. ran against clhillary clinton a attacked bill clinton.

it is interesting because i interviewed resident staffers, the maids and butlers at the white house. they said he is very different behind closed doors. it's not as chaotic as you might think, which i was surprised by. which is almost more infuriating maybe. if you look at his tweeting and public persona, it seems as though it is this wwe match on a world stage. >> yeah. the new book is "team of five: the president's club in the age of trump." kate anderson brouwer, thank you so much for being on. mark liebovich, bring us up to date on the so-called veep stakes, on all the potential female leaders that are in the running to be former vice president joe biden's vice president if he is elected president. >> well, i was a story coming up in the "new york times" about how there seems to be a new ethic this time around. whereas, people who are

auditioning for being joe biden's running mate. traditionally, it is not a job you campaign for. that seems to be shifting. stacey abrams, who was nearly the governor of georgia, who has been mentioned quite a bit as his potential running mate, for joe biden, has leaned into the idea of saying, yes, i want the job. she has said it over and over again. as have, you know, elizabeth warren answered quite affirm lively, y l affirmatively yes, when asked about it. susan rice said so. traditionally, it was, i'm honored to be considered, but i'm focused on my day job. gretchen whitmer from michigan, kamala harris from california, seems to have taken that tact. but there is an evolution of saying whatever you want. not openly campaigning for it in most cases, but adopting the social distancing era ethic of sort of being out there. frankly, there is a president right now who did not get elected on being bashful, right?

self-promotion is not having that donald trump has been averse to either. it's been to his benefit, certainly with supporters. i an evolution in sort of how this non-campaign campaign has been undertaken. >> katty kay. >> there's been a lot of quite powerful writing recently, an op-ed piece in the "washington post" saying that biden has to choose an african-american woman because african-american women have been the stalwarts for the democratic party for so long and have gotten very little in return, and the coronavirus has kind of elevated the need to have a comprehensive policy on race, because african-americans have suffered so much. is that argument resonating within the biden campaign? is that the direction that they're moving in? >> my sense of the biden

campaign is they don't want to be boxed in by subtle or non-subtle lobbying with people who might be aligned with some of the potential candidates. in a case like this, biden basically boxed himself in. he has said that he will pick a woman to be his running mate, and so that obviously narrows the population greatly to who he will choose. i mean, i think that the words you use over and over again, or you hear over and over again from the biden camp is "unhelpful" when so-and-so's recommendation is that they need to choose this kind of person or this kind of person. obviously it's a big choice. in most cases they're just sort of hoping to keep their head down and make it. >> mark leibovich, thank you very much for coming on this morning. now to new developments surrounding how the u.s. government will hand election security. here's president trump last week

talking about his concerns about election security as support grows for mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. >> voting by mail is very dangerous because people can grab them, people can take that proxy and sign a name, they can do all sorts of things, especially harvesting. they go out and say let's put them all together. and that's happened. now they want to send out vote by mail. who knows who is signing this stuff? not only should they come and vote -- now, if you're a senior citizen, like in florida, there is a great system of voting, but it's a fair system and it's a very closely watched system. so in some cases, age, you're not feeling well, you should be able to do it. but you have to go out and vote. >> joining us now, staff writer at "the atlantic magazine" and author of the new book entitled "dark mirror." barton geldman, thank you so

much for joining us this morning. first of all, just responding to the president's repeated use of the phrase mail-in voting is dangerous. it may be one of the key ways that this presidential election can happen this november if the virus has an upswing in the fall. is mail-in voting dangerous, and is the postal service ready? >> mail-in voting has been demonstrated by repeated studies to be completely safe. the incidence of voter fraud you could actually point a finger to is vanishingly rare. it happens that the only significant example of that in recent years has been a republican. but the main point is we know how to secure it. and it is a broader sense of

security, which is keeping people secure from getting sick while voting. keeping people from being deterred against voting because of the close crowding that's required to stand in line. that's an example in which voting security is enhanced by vote by mail. >> some may be concerned that president trump would want to undermine the election in some way and impact mail-in voting by impacting the postal service. is that possible? >> well, it's alarming that the president has put a political crony in charge of the postal service, which is unprecedented. the postal service has all kinds of levers for deciding what counts as a ballot, deciding whether an envelope has been properly stamped. if you wanted to put your mind

to thinking up what the postal service could do to interfere with an election, it's a little bit alarming. >> katty kay, jump in. >> bart, do we have any sense yet of what the percentage of postal votes is going to be come november given the coronavirus compared to other years? is that a calculation that the post office is already making? are they trying to get a sense of the scale of this right now and do they know it? >> well, i think they can't know it. it depends entirely on who is allowed to vote by mail. the president and his people are trying to reduce that number by rules. it depends on whether you are sent a ballot automatically or only upon request. >> okay, we got a frozen screen

there. but the new book is "dark mirror: edward snowden and the american surveillance state." staff writer at "the atlantic magazine," bart gellman. we'll try to have you back so the screen doesn't freeze. the world health organization gets underway today. we'll get a live report from keir simmons straight ahead on "morning joe."

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call today. comcast business. vaccine or no vaccine, we're back, and we're starting the process. in many cases they don't have a vaccine. a virus or flu comes, you fight through it and people sometimes, i guess, we don't know exactly yet, but it looks like they become immune at least for a short while and maybe for life, but you fight through it. what we'd like to do if we can is do a vaccine. we should be successful in that hopefully by the end of the year. >> mr. president, you said vaccine or no vaccine we're back. what did you mean by that? >> we hope we'll have a vaccine in the near future, and if we do, we'll take a big step ahead, and if we don't, it will be the

same as other viruses where it goes away. it could flare up, but if it does flare up, we'll put out the fire. >> if public confidence is what it takes to get people back to work and back to school, how would it be possible without a vaccine, public confidence? >> i think a big factor, frankly, very few people are -- we read about all the very sad, very tragic, i've lost friends, many of us have lost friends. we brady thread about that and that and that's what the news covers, but it's a very, very small percentage. i say it all the time. it's a tiny percentage. >> hard to hear him with the truckers protesting him, but that tiny percentage is a major percentage of the world deaths due to the coronavirus. the united states has roughly

4.3% of the world's population. it has roughly 29% of the world's coronavirus deaths. the u.s. added more than 2,000 deaths this past weekend, bringing the total to nearly 91,000 people lost, on the record, at least, 91,000 people lost to coronavirus. nbc news now reports the number at 1.5 million. the total deaths are projected to be 90,500 by may 18th. >> it's remarkable that this president actually said in january when his staff was warning him that 75,000

americans could die. and weeks after he started to get warnings from the state department, from the pentagon, from his intel briefings every day who said -- this was on january 22nd -- there's going to be one person coming in from china, and it was all taken care of. even a month later, after all of those warnings started to become more public, that's when the president said it was 11 people and it was going to be down to zero. 15 people, it was going to be down to zero. it's going to go away magically. now jonathan lemire, who is with us, a.p. reporter. the president says it's just a few people, a very, very small percentage, which is remarkable. nobody said that after 9/11. nobody said that 50,000 deaths in vietnam were a small

percentage, nobody said deaths in korea of young americans was just a small percentage. but here we are, 90,000 dead, and mika brings up a good point. if the president really wants to get into the percentage game, the united states has about 4.25% of the world's population. very soon more than one in three deaths from covid-19 will come from the united states. the united states has 4.25% of the world's population. very soon, even as we move towards opening up, very soon one in three infections in the world will come from the united states of america. not third world countries, not from countries that we usually look down upon as far as being inferior medically, inferior when it comes to technology, inferior when it comes to science. no, the united states of

america, a little over 4% of the population very soon will be responsible for one out of three deaths in the world for the coronavirus. the numbers are absolutely staggering, jonathan, and they just beg every day the question how did this white house -- and yes, i will say it -- how did some governors get this so wrong? >> well, i think there are two things at play here, joe, in terms of the president's response. first, as we know, he's never been comfortable or effective in that role of sort of consoler in chief, wanting to show empathy for the loss of americans, those who are sick or have died or have lost their jobs. he struggled with that in previous crises or tragedies in his administration, hurricanes, wildfires. and we're certainly seeing it very acutely here with the pandemic. he's never been able to sound the notes that i think a lot of

americans hope to hear from the oval office. in fact, so many americans turn to hear his predecessor, barack obama, speak over the weekend in an address to graduates that was carried online and on tv. secondly, of course, beyond that, there is this president's instinct to downplay, to push the blame at others and to suggest this crisis is not as bad as the numbers would bear out, and that's largely informed, of course, by his eye towards november, his eye towards reelection. he's very dismissive of the idea put forth of the signs that were missed, the timeline that you lay out on this show, the fact this nation could have moved sooner and there's a lot of the finger pointing. just yesterday, peter navarro, one of his top advisers, went on to one of the talk shows and really put the knife to the cdc and blamed them for the ineffective first tests done earlier this year.

>> can i ask you a question, because i'm confused. >> uh-oh. >> i'm a simple country lawyer. sometimes it takes me a while to figure things out. who runs the cdc? is that under the obama administration, the cdc, or is this nancy pelosi's cdc? who appoints the head of the cdc? who is in charge of the cdc? what washington official is in charge of appointing the cdc director and running the cdc? >> joe, i don't have the org chart in front of me, but i think we can safely say it's not president obama or house speaker pelosi but rather president trump. >> so this is donald trump's cdc, donald trump's cdc where donald trump actually went down and talked to the cdc on march 6th and said every american that wants a test can have a test and

talked about what a great doctor he was, and i'm kind of good at this. i had a relative that once went to m.i.t., i'm kind of good at this. this is when he was saying this would go away magically in april. that's what i don't get. peter navarro, man, i wish he would have listened to peter navarro back in january when he said half a million souls could die from this in america. but when peter navarro was attacking the cdc, peter navarro is attacking -- wait for it, wait for it -- donald trump! that's like me saying, man, did you see that segment on "morning joe" last week, that really sucked. that was a failure. what a terrible failure on "morning joe" that was. i would be attacking myself. the cdc, that's all up to donald trump. he appointed redfield. give us the background on this strange and mystical organizational chart that is

convoluted and circuitous from donald trump to the cdc. wait secoa second, it is a stra line from donald trump to the cdc. it is donald trump who failed. >> joe, first of all, that terrible fail on morning barnacle was cdc's fault. you never see president trump taking blame here. the fingers are always pointed at the administration. and what we're seeing is a shift to put the blame on the governors. as the united states starts to reopen, more and more responsibility is placed on the governors, the work is largely being done elsewhere. it's an attempt to sort of shift the blame and change the conversation. we saw again -- the clip that

was played there from the rose garden event on friday the president trying to spin forward here, that this is largely behind us, which is a tough case to make, of course, when outside the new york city area we're still seeing cases largely on the rise or at least plateauing the rest of the country. we're not through this yet. but he is trying to suggest we are. as a final point, he's really latching onto the idea of the vaccine, which most medical doctors suggest, and health directors, suggest that vaccines take years to develop. dr. fauci said in testimony that even a year to 18 months was possible but even that felt very aggressive. this president is saying it is going to be out by the end of the year. and two quick things on that. one is you mentioned that cdc event. a former senior adviser to the president told me that was the low water mark of this response. he had his campaign hat on, he was making claims that everyone

could have a test if they wanted one, and he was certain this would be behind us soon. even talking about leaving a cruise shop offshore so those stats wouldn't count against us. that same person told us the vaccine claim promise could fall in that category, too. even if everything breaks right, joe, for a vaccine, even if one is developed by the end of the year, it cannot be manufactured to all americans. best scenario, first responders are able to get their hands on it but not everyone. >> let us hope. i'm praying for all of americans that we get a vaccine as soon as humanly possible. also, obviously, for our family, with the people that have underlying conditions and for your mom and for all of our friends and all of my mom's friends in pensacola, man, i want that vaccine as soon as possible. saying we could have it in six

months -- you know, it's overly optimistic, but good things can happen. who knows. let's keep our fingers crossed and pray. >> well, if you saw his presentation, i think it was friday afternoon, you would have thought a vaccine was going to be absolutely ready in six months, and then the same week saying everyone who wants a test should get a test, but you shouldn't want a test. the president has been equivocating on the truth instead of focusing on the bottom line. >> the president says you shouldn't want a test, but there are some states now, they have enough tests in some states, and people need to get those tests. maybe they're asymptomatic carriers. what a huge difference that would make if they find out they have it, they're asymptomatic and have the antibodies and then can get back to work. >> but they're not allowed to get the test.

>> if your states have the test, you should get the test, and a lot of states are encouraging people to come in and get the test, especially if you're high risk. listen, we're going to open this economy. this economy is going to get open. it's happening right now. in california, 75% of their economy is reopened. you've seen it in georgia. they had a reopening this past weekend. in new york city, people are starting to get out more. you have to be careful, you have to socially distance. that's going to happen. but the way you can make sure that we stay open is if your state has a test. do not listen to the president who is telling you not to get the tests, that you don't need the tests. if your state has the test and they will provide the test, and there are some that are asking people to come in, especially high riskers. go in and get the test. that way we're actually able to trace it, the scientists are able to model it, and we're able

to keep states open a lot more. because there are a lot of states that should be open. some that shouldn't, some that should. the way we keep them open is by a lot of people going in and testing. not right before you're about to go to the hospital with covid-19 but just throughout the process if you think you may have it and are asymptomatic. still ahead on "morning joe," some writers could obscure the government aid. >> i think when the economy gets better, it means the economy gets better. >> we'll be right back. can my side be firm?

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. we'll talk now about the global death toll from coronavirus which may be almost 60% higher than reported in official counts. according to an analysis of overall deaths in 14 countries by the "financial times," mortality statistics show 122,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across these locations, considerably higher than the 77,000 official covid deaths reported for the same places and time periods. the report continues, if the same level of underreporting observed in these countries was happening worldwide, the global covid-19 death toll would rise from the current official total of 201,000 to as high as 318,000. the "financial times" found that in all the countries that

analyzed except denmark, excess deaths far outnumbered the official coronavirus death tolls. >> so ed loose, your paper did a great analysis of this, and it came at a perfect time, because the conspiracy theory said neil armstrong walked on a parking lot instead of the moon years ago, and this conspiracy theory said the coronavirus was going to kill a million people, that it was a hoax. the president feeds on this every day because he's got nothing else to do, because the truth is so unimaginably bad for him and the rest of the country, his leadership is so unimaginably bad that they're now moving to conspiracy theories, unspeakable conspiracy theories, and i'm not even talking about the ones they're making up about me. so the "financial times" does

this deep dive and talks about the mortality rates spiking across the world and spiking in a way that suggests the covid-19 death count is far higher. which, by the way, every doctor or nurse i've ever talked to has said that. they said a lot of people, especially in new york city, just stayed in their apartments, didn't want to come into the hospital and died there. that happened in florida. a nurse in wellington, florida died on her couch. her family found her dead on her couch because she didn't want to go into the hospital. so talk about this "financial times" reporting, then i want to get into your reporting last week on donald trump's response. >> so we've been doing pretty extensive comparative reports of infection and death rates since day one. a really great colleague of mine, james maddock. the way the cdc normally

estimates influenza deaths in a normal winter in the united states is after the fact to give ranges. so the previous year it was 24,000 to 63,000 deaths from influenza. and that includes looking at the mortality rates. how many more people are dying than normally die? it includes estimates of people who died at home, people who didn't go into the hospital, not people who were tested. with covid-19, in most states and in most countries, the system has been just to define those who have been tested and confirmed as having covid-19 who died in hospital or in clinics in the mortality rate. now, if we applied the influenza level to the mortality rate as opposed to the on-site hospital measure, then you would get deaths 50 to 75% higher, a mortality rate in the united

states under the influenza way of doing it. so that's one of the great arguments here, is, look, it's not so many dead. you get a lot dead from influenza. it's called something different, so what? very, very different situation. there is no social distancing or lockdown with influenza. it's usually the worst it can do. in this case we've had unprecedented lockdown and we would probably have multiply higher death rates. member of the "new york times" editorial mara gay joins us. >> the evidence shows young people do not normally get this disease, but they're out there.

be very careful. >> she has an incredible story. be right back. the united states postal service is here to deliver your mail and packages

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to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. welcome back. we've been talking about government leadership during the pandemic overseas and here at home. take a look at this piece produced by "the atlantic magazine." >> now the democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. and this is their new hoax. i really think, doctor, you want to treat this like you treat the

flu, right? >> basing our decisions on evidence, on facts, on the best science available is going to be extremely important for keeping canadians safe. >> for the vast majority of americans, the risk is very, very low. [ speaking foreign language ] >> why do you use this? that's racist. >> it's not racist at all. it comes from china. >> i want people to not see potential enemies and point the finger of blame. >> what do you say to americans right now that are scared? >> i say you're a terrible reporter. >> the cdc is advising the use of non-medical face covering as an additional voluntary health measure, so it's voluntary, you don't have to do it. i don't think i'm going to be

doing it. >> i need you to help me. we want to look after everyone and please, people, follow the rules. >> now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can't keep up with it. >> we have to understand that as long as there's novak se vaccin have to live with the virus. >> today i'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the world health organization while a review is conducted. >> there is a need for international coordination, and the w.h.o. is an important part of that collaboration and coordination. >> we have to get our country open, jeff. >> can you say, sir, what metrics you will use to make that decision? >> the metrics right here. [ speaking foreign language ] >> supposing we hit the body with a tremendous -- whether

it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and i think you said you're going to test it. then i said suppose you brought the light inside the body, which you can do, either through the skin or some other way. >> we're investing close to $115 million for research into vaccines and treatments being developed in hospitals and universities across the country. >> and then i see the disinfectant cannot sit out in one minute, and is there something we could do like that, like injecting inside or almost a cleaning. >> maybe you could, maybe you couldn't. >> translator: you will reinforce our quarantine systems to become the number one undisputed response country leading the world. >> mr. president, you were talking about the american heroes in world war ii.

did you consider wearing a mask? >> no, because i was far away. the wind was blowing in such a direction that if the plague ever reached them, i would be very surprised. >> speaking of the global response, it's being called the most important meeting ever of the world health organization. we'll go live where today's summit could descend into a free-for-all. "morning joe" is back in a moment. when you take align,

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we really want to see you get back to normal, so when you have all those thousands, tens of thousands of people going to the majors and going to golf tournaments, we want them to have that same experience. we don't want them having to wear masks and be doing what we've been doing for the last number of months, because that's not getting back to normal. we want to be back to normal where you have the big crowds and they're practically standing on top of each other and they're enjoying themselves. >> president trump in a call-in to nbc sports' broadcast of a pga charity tournament in florida. players carried their own bags

in golf's return to live tv. nascar also returned to the track in darlington, south carolina yesterday, adhering to health protocols, including temperature checks and screenings. the 40 drivers raced in front of empty grandstands. the associated press report's nfl teams can begin opening their facilities tomorrow if the governmental lo allows it and iy follow guidelines by the medical adviser. the "ap" lists a protocol for the nfl, and also the "washington post" article that proposes a safety plan that covers everything from sun flower seeds to lineup card

exchanges. bundesliga was the first to pitch when soccer came back on saturday. they tell the "times," we can be the first to start again because of our health care system. staying overseas for the moment, the world health organization convened its national world assembly. the world needs unity to fight the coronavirus, but it could turn into finger pointing of nations. keir simmons joins us now. keir, a surprise appearance by china's leader? >> reporter: that's right, mika, and this is going to infuriate you guys, honestly, although it doesn't really matter whether you agree with america's criticism of the world health organization or whether you agree that china should be subject to an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus as many countries are saying.

what we witnessed this morning, really, what many people believed was china running diplomatic rings around the united states. we didn't know president xi, the leader of china, was going to appear. we found out in the early hours of this morning that he would make an address. america is having hhs secretary alex azar front its group, its presentation to the world health organization, which meant that president xi this morning was able to just set out his position, claim that china is open and transparent. take a listen. >> translator: we have turned the tide on the virus and are protecting the life and health of our people. all along we have acted with openness, transparency and a responsibility. we have provided information to

the government and the relevant countries in a most timely fashion. we have released the genome sequence at the earliest possible time. we have shared control and treatment experience with the world without reservation. >> reporter: of course, many countries dispute that view, and in fact there is a legislation in front of this assembly, but 116 countries saying there should be an international investigation. it's australia, though, that is leading the cause for that investigation to really look at china. meanwhile, president xi announcing $2 billion, he says, towards the fight against coronavirus over two years, while president trump is threatening to withdraw funding from the world health organization, and that is causing real consternation. take a look at what one senior official from the world health organization had to say to me about that. >> i just wish the political leaders could understand now is not the time to do this.

don't threaten the organization, don't take away its money, don't demonize it. instead give us the space to do the work that has to be done, because it's for your people, it's for the people of the world. >> whatever you think of america's position, guys, in relation to china, in relation to the world health organization, what you have seen so far is really no view from america and china able to set out its position. >> katty kay, jump in? follow up? >> yeah. keir, china got a kind of coup there with president xi appearing, but there is quite a lot of criticism, clearly, from the world community about china's handling of this, and also the fact that china is blocking taiwan from attending this meeting, and taiwan, of course, is being one of the exemplary models. china is not going to get an

easy ride, i would imagine, from the world commission on all of this. >> reporter: that's right, it won't, and it looks like europe and australia in particular are determined to push home those points. in fact, dr. tedros, who leads the world health organization, is saying today he will agree to an investigation of the origins and what happened in the beginning of the coronavirus at the earliest appropriate moment. so you're right, there is going to be a real diplomatic battle here, and, you know, many people will say just when the world needs unity, what you're going to see is, in fact, deep divisions. but, again, we are waiting still to hear the u.s. delegations perspecti perspective. we're not going to hear that for some hours yet. we're told that leaders around the world were given the opportuni opportunity, were asked whether they would want to take part, and of course it's clear president trump not scheduled to make his points, to make his

perspective clear at this crucial, crucial event. >> nbc's keir simmons, thank you very much. we'll be watching your coverage. >> you bet. >> thanks again. joining us now, member of the "new york times" editorial board mara gay. she is one of the millions of people who was diagnosed with covid-19 and is still recovering. the title of her latest op-ed for the paper quotes what her doctor said to her. i wish i could do something for you. in it she describes her battle with the coronavirus, how lonely it was, and how primary care is considered an afterthought in the united states. mara, great to have you back on the show. i first just want to ask how you're feeling, because i know this has had lingering effects. your piece was incredible. how are you doing today? >> thanks, mika. i'm doing much better than i was. i'm over a month in, though, and

just for viewers, i'm 33 years old, healthy, i'm a runner, never had asthma, never smoked a cigarette, and i still at this point am not fully recovered. i have lingering pneumonia. i use two inhalers twice a day. i can barely walk more than a few blocks without stopping. i continue to have to check my oxygen all the time. i am getting better every day, but it's been really a process. and with moderate covid, which is what i had, apparently, it's about a six to eight-week recovery for younger healthy adults. >> so that's the thing. you just mentioned it, you're 33, you're a runner, you were so healthy. there is no reason why you shouldn't have had a more mild experience with this, and yet it was completely debilitating and still is. and what was so searing about your piece was describing lying

in the hospital. you had one person next to you struggling, another person who was struggling, but yet you felt so lonely. you only saw people's eyes over their masks and through whatever was on you. describe that experience if you can, because it's frightening. >> yeah, it was one of the most terrifying and, thankfully, brief -- it was brief -- but moments of my life. it's a very lonely disease whether you're trying to manage it at home or, god forbid, in the hospital. i was ultimately able to leave. i didn't need a ventilator, thank goodness, but i was able to manage it at home. i live alone, and that was difficult. my family and friends were extremely supportive and there was not a day that went by that someone didn't stop and bring me food or groceries. i was able to manage my care at

home, but the thing i learned was how little information and care is available to people at home experiencing these symptoms. my experience is not uncommon. there are lots of folks who have a more serious covid infection, and i think we're going to be finding that out more and more. it's not enough to tell people just stay home. it's really important that people know if they do have breathing problems they need to go to the emergency room right away. if their oxygen dips below 95, if they are fortunate enough to have an oximeter, it's a little device that measures the pulse on your finger tip. if it dips below 95 and you're sick and having trouble breathing, you need to go to the e.r. the government is running a psa with dr. fauci telling americans to stay home if you have covid. i think it's very important that we take care in helping people get through this virus at home.

germany is a country where there's at-home care. there are mobile units of medical teams that go to people's homes, and that would have been ideal, certainly, in my case, and that just isn't available for people, and it's pretty heartbreaking. >> jonathan lemire has a question. jonathan? >> mika, first i should say mara has been a dear friend for years, and mara, we're so glad you're doing better. my question for you is what's next? have you been able to have an antibody test, and if so, if you're comfortable saying, what did it tell you? and more than that, though there is a belief that people who have had covid-19 develop an immunity at least for a time to not be able to get it again, the science can't say that definitively yet. are you at all nervous about getting back out there, even in a limited way, back out and re-engaging in society? >> so i have signed up for the antibody test at mt. sinai,

which is where my doctors are, so i'm still waiting to hear about that. i'm hopeful to donate plasma. i'd really like to pay it forward. i'm not super worried about immunity at the moment. of course, i understand you can't make public policy responsibly with the assumption of immunitimmunity, but it does promising. what i'm mainly concerned about at the moment is seeing what i can do as a writer on the editorial board to help new york get through this time, and i'm very worried about my neighbors who don't have the kind of support that i did. and i'm also just really looking forward to helping others as they've helped me. >> we're going to close by reading from your piece, mara, which is so powerful. why are more people dying of this disease in the united states than anywhere else in the world? because we live in a broken country with a broken health care system. because even though people of all races and backgrounds are suffering, the disease in the

united states has hit black and brown and indigenous people the hardest. and we are seeing as expendable. i wonder how many people have died not necessarily because of the virus but because this country failed them and left them to fend for themselves. that is the grief for me now. that is the guilt and the rage. member of the "new york times" editorial board, mara gay, thank you, and we hope you continue feel better. please come back soon. >> thanks, mika. coming up, our next guest says good economic news is coming and that's actually bad. he'll explain that, and as we go to break, we want to congratulate our booking producer, mike del morrow who tied the knot with his partner over the weekend. we were supposed to be there. like many who planned weddings the last couple of months, they had to postpone their

celebration until next year, but they were still able to have the official ceremony before their immediate families, all six feet apart, of course. congratulations, guys. we'll be right back. so you only pay for what you need! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ did you know prilosec otc can stobefore it begins?urn heartburn happens when stomach acid

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80s-style training montage? yeah. happens all the time. ♪ it's going to take awhile for us to get back, but i would just say this in the long run and in the medium run, you wouldn't want to bet against the american economy. this economy will recover. it may take awhile. it may take a period of time. it could stretch through the end of next year. we really don't know. >> if the economy reopens and the infection rate surges, what then? >> the government would have to reintroduce the social distancing measures and then you'd have another downturn and that would be bad for confidence. so that's a risk we really want to avoid. >> federal reserve chairman jerome powell in an interview with "60 minutes."

director of economic policy studies at the american enterprise institute and author of "the american dream is not dead." michael strain. he's also a bloomberg opinion columnist. and his latest piece is entitled "good economic news is coming, and that's bad." michael, why don't we start there. what's coming, and why is it bad? >> well, i think there are two risks from some of the good economic news that i would expect to start coming over the course of the summer. one risk is that that news will mislead people. and a lot of this has to do with how economic statistics are put together, but most of it has to do with just how bad things are. so it's quite reasonable to expect and the congressional budget office is forecasting quarterly economic growth of 25% at an annualized rate. the unemployment rate to come

down by 20% by the end of the year. these numbers sound really spectacular. even if they happen, and i think there's a very good chance that they will, at the end of the calendar year, the u.s. economy will still be in terrible shape. so part of the challenge is that a lot of this good news is going to be confusing. another part of the challenge is that the republican party and president trump are going to seize on that challenge, reacting to political and to paint the economy is in great shape, that's going to add to confusion. all of this could create a situation where congress doesn't have the appetite to enact the kinds of economic recovery programs that really will be needed to help american households and workers to get back on their feet and to get the economy back to where it was before the coronavirus pandemic hit. so we could be in a situation where we're doing really, really well over the summer.

we're going into the fall with eye-popping gdp growth numbers, plummeting unemployment, but we're still going to be in really, really bad shape because the second quarter, the spring of this year, was just so bad that you can climb out of that hole quickly, or you can make rapid progress climbing out of that hole but at the end of the year still be in terrible shape and we need policy to help workers and businesses and i'm concerned it will serve as an obstacle. >> jonathan lemire? >> michael, you certainly hit on something. if the economy starts to show signs of growth, signs of progress, certainly the administration is going to sell it as a victory and frame that as the president's re-election pitch, that he built the economy once, quote, and now he's rebuilding it again. what do you think is needed now, particularly when it comes to, what sort of federal assistance should be provided to state and local governments who are really struggling right now, who may be facing -- have now choice but to

lay off potentially thousands and thousands of workers? >> yeah, so this is a political hot button, obviously, and i think both sides here have a good point. republicans on capitol hill are reluctant to basically bail out state pension funds. the pension system in illinois is in particularly bad shape and essentially what that system wrote a letter requesting federal money to shore up that system. and i understand why republicans don't want to do that, and i think that shouldn't be done. at the same time, states, most of which can't run budget deficits, are in a position where they're going to have to lay off a bunch of workers or cut essential services or more likely do both because their tax revenue is going to go down so dramatically as a consequence of the recession. and so i think it's pretty clear that what congress needs to do is provide several hundred billion dollars to the states to avert those layoffs that will only make the recession worse

while also putting in place some protections to make sure that that money isn't used to bail out pension funds that have been badly mismanaged for decades. >> katty? >> michael, does your rosier scenario for the second half of this year depend on medical therapies or getting close to a vaccine? because if it depends on consumers going back to start consuming again so that businesses can start hiring, consumers don't seem to have that confidence yet. we're not seeing them going back to restaurants or movie theaters or shopping even. >> no, it doesn't assume that. and a medical therapy, not even a vaccine, but a drug or ideally two or three drugs that you can take that would reduce the severity of the infection could be a game changer and could pull us out of this hole much faster than conventional forecasts or what i discussed earlier would

do. i think you kind of hit on it, katty, actually. so the states are reopening. as of this morning it's 48 states or in some state stage o reopening. that's going to show up as positive economic growth over the summer. that's going to pull the unemployment rate down only because we are in such a deep, deep hole in the spring. and so you can climb up a little bit from where we are in the spring and have positive signs of economic life, put economic indicators on an upward trajectory, but it's important to not forget we'll still be in a terrible place economically in terms of how businesses and households are doing. so, you know, all you need is improvement for the economic statistics to show upward movement. but i think you're right that we're not going to be back to where we were on february 1st, certainly not this summer, certainly not this fall because

people are still going to be reluctant to do a lot of the things that they otherwise would do. >> bloomberg opinion columnist michael strain, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. we have a few moments left. time now for final thoughts. katty kay, what are you looking at today? >> you know, just the combination of what we've heard during the course of this program. whether it's on the medical side or as michael was talking about there on the economic side. we really need clarity. and we really need honest leadership because as we start to come out of this, we don't know. we were talking, you and i, mika, in the program with the doctor. you don't know whether you can take your mother to the beach. i don't know whether my kids can go and see their friends yet. and it would be really helpful to have clear leadership on that. >> and jonathan lemire, the president's up and tweeting. i think his all caps is stuck again but he's all into opening up the economy. what will you be watching today?

>> the coualendar says it's 202. the president trying to make it 2016. he's trying to revive the hillary clinton playbook against joe biden making allegations of personal corruption, the clinton foundation, hunter biden this time around, and inappropriate government conduct. seizing upon the michael flynn unmasking even though that's a routine matter. they're trying to -- his team trying to stir up the fog machine again and distort the narrative and attack joe biden with it. >> all right. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's monday, may 18th. here are the facts this hour. this morning, the number of americans who have caught coronavirus has passed 1.5 million. that is more than the population of san diego. more than 90,000 americans have lost their lives. but even as those