nearly 100,000 american deaths due to coronavirus, but as every state partially reopened, researches warned of thousands more. a third major international agreement abandoned by the trump administration. why experts say pulling out is more than just a security risk. and the four-day workweek. just one way companies are rethinking the safest, most

efficient way of returning to work. "velshi" starts now. good morning. it is may 24th. memorial day sunday. i'm ali velshi. the "new york times" is honoring the nearly 100,000 americans who have died so far from covid-19 on its front page. a stark and dramatic visual when you recall that this time last year even six months ago most people had never heard of coronavirus. a sobering reminder even as we try to get to a new normal, many americans are still dealing with terrible loss and pain, and as americans prepare for the most unusual memorial day in decades, it's important to remember that a resurgence lurks around the corner. case in point. north carolina. which after ending its lockdown two weeks ago entered phase two of its reopening on friday. yesterday, north carolina's health department reported its largest one-day spike in new covid-19 cases.

nonetheless, americans are eager to get out this holiday weekend. >> today is just my husband and i. so it's a small group for just us, but, yeah. seems like everybody is thankful to finally be able to get out and do more stuff. >> like, hey, do you be afraid oh go on with daily life? hand sign tizer, keep clean, but can't keep living. >> that easy worried about it, i suggest they stay home. i like to get out. i'm not worried about it. those that are should stay home. >> i got a mask. out here hard to exerciseky it. you can probably see not a lot of people wearing masks out here. >> president trump plans on spending memorial day monday in baltimore despite intense local opposition and the city remained under a stay-at-home order. we have more in a couple of minutes. meanwhile, remember all the old

tweets criticizing president obama for golfing including during the ebola outbreak? guess who went golfing yesterday in the middle of a pardndemic wearing a white glove and white hat, donald trump took to the links at his golf course in virginia at roughly the same time the trump campaign flew aerial banners "keep america great" including at beaches in north carolina, south carolina and new jersey. replaced by a renewed focus on his own re-election and personal political battles including his ongoing feud with one of the former members of his administration jeff sessions. trump has been engaged in a bitter feud with one of his earliest sporters after tweeting about his rival in the upcoming senate primary.

americans, seems, are starting to see through the trump antics. a new fox news poll shows his approval dropping to 44%. disapproval rising to 55% keeping in trends wee seeing in other national polls. joining me now, from the "los angeles times," why despite the terrible human cost so far there isn't a greater sense of shared grief in america. also, eddie gloud junor also an msnbc contributor and good morning to you, gentlemen. it's a somber morning. we're not quite at that 100,000 number, but round numbers make us visit things. also it's memorial day where we're thinking about soldiers in loss time. eddie, what's the issue here? we're not -- we may be close to the peak, which means we are going to lose a lot more people

on the way down from this peak and the president does seem to have lost focus on this issue. >> well, you remember dr. fauci a few months ago telling us if we did everything right we could see between 100,000 and 240,000 dead. and here we are on the precipice of 100,000 souls gone, and we are opening up our economy. what we see, i think, ali, is that a kind of greed and selfishness is already determining how we move in this country, and we also see, i think, that for donald trump there are folks who are disposable. folks whose lives don't really come into view. he lacks a sense of sympathy and empathy for those who are not in his immediate per viurviepurvie. i think end of the day and i should say this with a little caution. it might signed a bit hyperbolic, i think we're witnessing the death rattle of a

particular version of america, and donald trump represents in a very stark way all that is wrong with us. and we need to understand that for what it is, ali. >> eli, let's talk about the people who have died. we talk about a new normal. we talk about getting to a new normal, talk about reopening, moving on, turning the corner, but, in fact, no matter what you use to describe 100,000 people, it's not the same at 100,000 people at a baseball stadium or in a sporting event. it's 100,000 lives lost, families who have been torn apart from loved ones, many not able to see their dieing relatives in hospital. many not able to grieve or hold a normal funeral. it's much bigger than 100,000 people. >> it is a staggering number, ali. it's really a hard thing for the country, it seems, especially an an mize e

anamized country as we are now to process and feel. you're not seeing the same collective expressions of grief. perhaps because people can't go outside. a lot of people of staying at home but also no television images. nothing to see. all of these deaths are somewhat invisible, and the national trauma is -- we don't know exactly how this will be felt and how this will manifest in the future, but what we can see with that "new york times" front page and what we tried to get at in our reporting this weekend is to examine why this has been such a fragmented polarized response. donald trump is not the reason why the country is divided, but he has exacerbated the division during his time in office. it's crucial to his politics, and he has politicized the question of whether or not the stay home or wear a mask, he has questioned his own government when it comes to say the fda study on hydroxychloroquine, watering down the cdc guidelines.

offering optimism contradicting the sort of, you know, more dire warnings from his public health experts like dr. fauci, and in terms of the death count and looking at it. yes, this president has ordered flags at half-staff this weekend. yes, he has read recitations of empathy over the victims and said continually that one life lost is too many, but this is a person who his entire life and political career has always been obsessed with numbers, with polls, with ratings, and this 100,000 deaths is one number that he is very loathe to talk about. we're seeing him, you know, his twitter feed is a pretty good distillation of what's going through his mind and what we've seen over the last 24, 48 hours, a lot of focus on grievance, on enemies, on other issues. voting by mail. he is not paying attention -- a lot of people took that "new york times" front page last night and were tweeting out the

names of some of these victims. donald trump, meanwhile, is tweeting attacks, old attacks, on hillary clinton, on joe scarborough, or jeff sessions. it gives you a pretty clear contrast where his head is at compared to a lot of other people in this country this morning. >> eddie gloud, it is interesting that donald trump i don't know whether it's a switch to grievance, as eli says, or a switch to something else that works for him. fights tend to work for him better. he's thinking about the election. he's got banners flying on beaches saying, you know, "make america great." he's thinking about a campaign, and it would be better for him if coronavirus is behind us, or at least that's how he needs to see it, but we're not close to done with this. a lot of the emergency economic programs are coming to an end. there are businesses that continue to fail, and there are people who will continue to get this infection and die. what's the right thing to do right now as opposed to what president trump is doing?

>> we have to address what covid-19 is doing. at the end of the day, ali, there are 100,000, close to 100,000 people dead, and these are family members. these are people we love. and folk are grieving and mourning, and a sense of regret i've written about that attends it, because folk weren't able to say good-bye. weren't able to hold hands. folk had to die alone. a good friend of mine, his mother-in-law, mary ali june mist died and her daughter had to say good-by-a facetime while her mother was covered with a plastic mask. there's grief in the land, and donald trump is moving to political calculus, because at the end of the day, ali, i think, at heart of our country is this grammar of selfishness. a grammar of selfishness that drives how some folk are moving

about. what do i mean? i say this really quickly. there's an idea of freedom, a caricature of a libertarian kind of view that is i want to dot what i want to do. so they want to wear their masks. they want to go to the bars. they want to in some ways turn their backs on a notion of the public good, and so donald trump is just simply an avatar for that kind of selfishness and in some ways will lead this country down this dark path. it has and will continue to lead us down this dark path >> gentlemen it is a sad day and let's cheap with us. the fact that this is a day to remember a lot of people. it's memorial day tomorrow, and this is a day in which we are marking close to 100,000 deaths in america. white house reporter for the "los angeles times" eli stokealls and eddie gloud jr., professor at princeton university and chair of the department of african-american studies. tomorrow for memorial day president trump is heading to baltimore a city that remains under a stay-at-home order and

continues to ban gathering of ten or more. baltimore readers repeatedly urged donald trump to the reconsider with the mayor saying in a statement, non-oh essential trips sends the wrong message to residents quoting i wish the leader of our country would set a positive example and not travel this holiday weekend. the white house says the plan remained as planned and mayor young joins me now. thank you for joining us. you don't think we're around the corner on this and why there continues to be a stay-at-home order in baltimore. what you do you understand the president is planning to do in baltimore tomorrow? >> i have no idea what he's planning to do here in baltimore but i do know that since friday we had over 4,400 confirmed cases. that's 8% increase in baltimore, and over 400 hospitalized and over 210 deaths in baltimore city. i've been urging and asking our

residents to honor the stay-at-home order and only to go out for essential job functions or to get your medicine or go get food, and those kind of things. i've been making psas and all kinds of public comments to get our readiness, to actually know that this pandemic is real. it's here in baltimore, and it's claiming lives. and for the president, who berated baltimore just over a year ago, to want to come here to fort mchenry on non-essential travel business sends a bad message to not only the residents of baltimore city but to the country, and what he can do better is to honor those who have fought for the freedom we all enjoy today. he could -- >> i think we're having a bit of a problem with the bandwidth with mayor young and we'll work on getting him back. meanwhile, no entry without

a face mask. that is a rule meant to keep people safe, workers safe, but it's become a flashpoint for conflict. >> -- work for costco and asking this member to put our our mask that is our company policy. either wear the mask. >> i'm not doing it because i woke up in a free country. >> live in a free country. we need to think about that for a minute, enforcing mask requirements is falling on retail workers, people who deal with the public. workers who did not sign up to handle confrontations like this and some of them ended up very badly. we're going to find a solution to that, next. that, next. ♪all strength,

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all right. we've got the mayor of baltimore bernard young back. sorry about that, mr. mayor. these days with the new norming, all doing things on the internet sometimes things go down. were you given an official heads up that the president was coming to baltimore, because the white house has issued a statement in which it says, i think in opposition to what you said about the president coming there, that the brave men and women who preserved our freedoms for generation did not stay home and the president will not either as he honors their sacrifice visiting such a historic landmark in our nation's history. they tell you he was coming and what have you done to plan for? >> they didn't tell me he was coming.

they notified the police department they were coming, but the president knows we're in a pandem pandemic. i have a stay-at-hom order right here in baltimore. as i said, friday we is 4,400 confirmed cases, an 8% increase since wednesday, and we have over 400 hospitalized with covid-19 right here in the city of baltimore and over 210 deaths so far. i've been asking our residents and pleading with them to stay home and only come out for essential job functions or to go to the hospital or to go to the store to get food. those kind of things, and they're looking at the president who's coming to baltimore and that's non-essential. if president wants to set examples for the country and for the city of baltimore he can do this and honor's m the men and n right in the white house. my father and grandfather, relatives and friends of mine served in the military. some of them have passed on, and he can honor them right there in

the white house. we're in the midst of a pandemic. there is a stay-at-home order here in baltimore and his travel is non-essential. >> interesting that the white house uses that language, right around memorial day. the brave men and women who preserved our freedoms for generationses did not stay home. the implication, mayor young is that staying home is not brave. staying home is not heroic. staying home is not part of our american tradition? >> what the president in the white house has to understand, staying home means saving lives. it's means not spreading the covid-19 to your relatives and friends, because you're out there social gathering with no mask. you saw on the news you just have shown people at the beach. no mask. i mean, this sends the wrong message, and our brave men and women would understand -- i'm talking about the ones that are living -- would understand that

we're in the middle of a pandemic and we're going to save lives. the president can do that. we asked our high schools they're not having proms. people cannot attend funerals and so families have no way of grieving and the president has to understand, this is a pandemic, and just like he's trying to tell people that, take untested medicine. that's just not smort aart and knows better. he's sending the wrong message and he knows he's dividing the nation telling people to come out during this pandemic. until we are able to test and get the curve going down, i think the president should stay home and honor our brave men and women in the white house. >> mayor, good to see you. glad we got you back. thank you for joining us. mayor bernard young of baltimore. this morning all 50 states are in some sort of phased

reopening, but this means a new standard tore safety permeates the economy. one that includes new rules. among the new rules, a mandatory requirement for face masks in many stores. many institutions across america. it's leaving some shoppers to become unruly like this cost core customer. >> i work for costco and asking this customer to put on the mask because that's our policy. >> and i'm not doing it because i woke up in a free country. >> watch this video from the lapd earlier this month showing a straight-up brawl in a target that ended up in an employee breaking his arm after escorting two men out of the store for not wearing face masks. employees. wage earners. hourly wage earners, now left with a difficult responsibility. getting customers to wear a face mask before enters a store. keeping one on while in a store. with me now, organizational psychologist at wharton school

author of "give and take: a revolutionary approach to give and take." you are definitely one of the smartest minds of how work happens, how it looks like and how it successfully happens. i don't think you've ever been able to think that this would happen? that frontline workers who earn a wage would be forced to enforce rules that keep people safe, and be up against customers who won't listen to them. how are we supposed to confront this in america? >> yeah, ali, i definitely did not see this coming. i think the place i would start is to say, look, the moment that you give people orders about what to do, you activate a response called psychological reactants. which is, look, you can't tell me what to do. i'll get sick if i want, spread germs if i want to. the first step, give people a sense of freedom and control while still clearly explaining the policy to them. one of the first things i would do if running a retail establishment, post a sign

outside that said, anybody who's interested in protecting the well-being of their colleagues, of their customers, we would really love it if you could wear a mask and the hope is people are opting into that as opposed to being forced to comply right away. >> you know, look. we've seen this with guns. after shootings with companies imposing restrictions on guns in their stores, and there's something about, if it's authentically coming from your brand, your customer gets to deal with that. right? they decide, i'm not supporting dick's sporting goods or not doing this. but this is different. because people are going through those doors, understanding from the news media, from the companies, from the staff, that this is the rule, but for some reason people are invoking their rights, their constitutional rights. this concept of a free country. there are all sorts of rules we follow in this country that if you took that attitude you'd think someone was infringing on them all the time. seat belts. head lights at night.

stopping at a red light. why is this so visceral? >> i'm not sure i know the answer to that, ali, but the plate i would start say, look, stop framing this as a threat to freedom and start framing it as a source of freedom. right? your responsible to top protect the freedom of other people. that's a way to get people to comply to basic security. trying to get doctors and nurses to wash hands. existing signs you've got to wash so you don't get sick. people didn't believe they were going to get sick. right? think, i'm a doctor. so i'm protected. they carried around this illusion of invulnerability but knew patients were vulnerable. vee design theed sign that simply said, washing your hands will keep patients from getting sick we saw a significant spike in hand washing, both before and after contact. there's something about protecting the well-being of

others that makes us a little bit more thoughtful about exactly where our freedom begins and where someone else's freedom ends. >> all right. that's a good lesson. one question, bigger picture. in new zealand, prime minister, forward thinking, sort of ahead of the curve on toustuff talkin about a four-day week. extra day off might travel around the country, but as we're thinking about the new way we're going to work, anything that stands out to you as new ideas about what it looks like when we do finally reopen and some of us go back to our offices or our stores or our places of work? >> yeah. ali, i'm a big fan of starting the experiment with remote thursdays or remote fridays. even rotating that a little bit. an experiment in microsoft japan a couple months ago testing out a four-day workweek. on average 40% productivity

increase. bake costs around electricity, some was, but also able to remove unnecessary meetings. given a lot of people haven't been going into the office right now i can't think of a better time to try out what happens if able to be more focused in fewer hours, can we actually get more done. >> thank for joining us. you've got a new book out. original? or another one since then? >> oh, not that i know of. just wrapped up the "work life" podcast. that's the latest. >> got it. okay. "work life" podcast. hard to keep up whip you. professor at the wharton school university of pennsylvania and he runs the work life podcast a great listen. thanks, adam. some senior administration jobs matter more than others. the one created in the wake of 9/11 to make sure america's intelligence agencies coordinated with one another may be one of "the" most important jobs in the american government. well, that office is now

occupied by someone with scant experience, padded his resume and couldn't eve an muster support of his own party last year. how did he get the job? ingratiated himself to trump, of course. coming up, how john ratcliffe made it through the senate and. >> now your director of national intelligence. onal intelligence. we're here to deliver cards and packages from loved ones and also deliver the peace of mind of knowing that essentials like prescriptions are on their way. every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will.

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in any other presidency a governmental system wouldn't work with blind loyalty but in president trump's world it does. and the reason why is simple. because president trump's loyalists are always rewarded. like congressman john ratcliffe who was confirmed as the new director of national intelligence with a vote along party lines first time in history this week 49-44. there's a reason. in 2019 trump's first attempt at nominating the same guy, ratcliffe, failed after five

days when concerns emerged about his lack of qualifications and his padded resume. among other things ratcliffe lied about arresting over 300 illegal immigrants in one day but the lack of republican enthusiasm is really what forced his withdrawal. >> do you have any comment on ratcliffe nominated at dni? >> i really don't. i don't know him at all. >> i haven't met the congressman. generally speaking -- i would -- you know, lean towards the president's nominees, and i'd rather not address that until i've actually had a chance to meet him and discuss his background and qualifications. >> i haven't met him. i look forward to meeting him. i'm totally open on this. >> i don't know the congressman. looking forward to getting to know him more. i just don't know anything about him. >> i don't know him. that was on july 30th, 2019. no one knew the guy who is now

the department -- the director of national intelligence. lack of qualifications should have disqualified him. because according to 50 u.s. code 3023, "any individual nominated for appointment as director of national intelligence shall have extensive national security experience -- expertise." shall have. not might have, could have, should have, "shall have." be clear. the only thing qualifying him is his loyalty to trump. office of the director of national intelligence was created after 9/11 ensuring somebody parses information and deals with heads of all 17 intel agencies to get the best intelligence to the president. the best. not the intelligence the president wants. as a wired article from 2019 explains, ratcliffe's experience "pales in comparison to any of his would-be predecessors while his resume on national security

matters is practically non-existent." he's also been called a highly partisan conspiracy monger by several former counterintelligence officials, but can the united states survive another trump loyalist in that key position? joining me now is a former u.s. navy senior chief petty officer and msnbc terrorism analyst, malcolm nance. author of "the plat to betray america c how team trump compromised our security and how we can fix it." also, democratic congressman from illinois who sitsits on th and oversight committees. malcolm, start with you. put there because of patronage or say things the president likes. the dni was created after a disaster that killed thousands of americans because our intelligence agencies didn't

coordinate with one another. it may be one of "the" top five most important jobs in america for american security. how did this happen? >> it happened, as you said no your introduction. pure loyalty to donald trump. i'm more qualified than this guy to run national intelligence because of i actually worked in intelligence a couple of decades. he is not qualified. simple qualification is this -- he will politicize the intelligence process in order to protect donald trump and to delegitimize all of the intelligence analysis over the last four years that have shown that the russians assisted donald trump in becoming president, and this man is going to flip that on its head, put the premature stamp of authenticity on future reports saying that donald trump did not wrong and it will kill people. or it's already killing people that our intelligence was ignored.

>> so representative mortie, i ask you, what malcolm says, the politicalization of intelligence. the thing that got ratcliffe virtually nobody knew him, you may have from your work in congress but a lot of people didn't know. this thing he said during the interrogation of robert mueller on capitol hill. >> can you give me an example other than donald trump will the justice department determined an investigative person was not exonerated because they're innocence was not conclusively determined? >> i cannot, because this is a unique situation. >> okay. you can't. time is hoshort. leave it at you can't find it. tell you why. it doesn't exist. >> congressman, what's the danger of the politicization of intelligence like that? because it's one thing to do it in congress, to rack up points with your constituents, if that's how you do things. it's a ditch thing to be the person who has to give the

president intelligence of the sort he may not find favorable? >> i think the danger, a potential calamity like 9/11 again in the future. one of the biggest reasons why we need somebody who just, who's going to call balls and strikes in the dni's office is because, you know, you do have partisan policymakers all over capitol hill, and the president, and you need somebody who can focus us on the truth, because there are adversaries to our country, such as russia, such as china and others, who will basically try to engage and counter intelligence operations with us, who will try to undermine our interests who will try to harm americans. so we need somebody focused on them and not on pleasing, you know, various partisan officials here. if they do that correctly and coordinate intelligence among

the 17 intelligence agencies of the intelligence community, then we can, as a, in a non-partisan way, or a bipartisan way, focus on our adversaries and protect the american people. >> hmm. malcolm, the director of national intelligence, the dni, is not a, a particularly front-facing job. they testify from time to time to congress but it's not somebody who is typically on tv a lot, on cable news. why does it matter to donald trump that this person, who you almost need to see more as a, a bureaucrat, more as a non-partisan government official. why does it matter so much to donald trump that this person is a sycophant? >> because for donald trump it's not about the intelligence process or the 17 agencies and the 200 or 300,000 people who input intelligence and distill that down to a useful product the president can use to make decisions that will protect american citizens. not about that at all.

he doesn't care about that. what he cares about is having a guy from central casting who is a political loyalist stand up and use the title of director of national intelligence to sconerate sconer a -- exonerate trump official, donald trump himself or russians. appears getting the russians completely off the hook is their number one priority in terms of use of government and intelligence at this point, and that right there is a suspicious. right? the rest of the community would be intensely suspicious about anyone that worked to get our enemies off the hook. trump doesn't care thabout that. this man's jo be is to be a hammer and foil to show this process supports donald trump but not the truth. and we have already seen the very fact that the national medical intelligence service, which is a defense intelligence agency warned of this pandemic,

said it would kill the numbers of people we had and they threw it out the window and did not care. >> and that, congressman, is exactly the problem. right? the president doesn't want to hear what he doesn't want to hear and frankly no president wants to hear what they don't want to hear but that's this job. the fact is it's a presidential appointee. he passed muster, narrowly, got appointed by the senate. is there anything to be done about this? >> well, as you know, we have oversight responsibilities and duties in congress. we do approve the intelligence community's budgets. we have to approve their programmatic changes, that is changes to programs that already exist, and so i know that chairman schiff and others view that as an opportunity to make sure that while we protect our security as a country, that we also get unbiased information from the dni, and that we can ask, demand of them to behave a little better than they have sometimes in the past. just one quick comment, which

is, we have an election coming up. the russians are currently trying to interfere in that election. and the fact that mr. ratcliffe was unwilling to brief the gang of eight when chuck schumer asked him, would you commit to doing so on a regular basis, and would you commit to notifying us of potential russian interference, he said, he would not commit. that's an indication why it matters that we have someone who would potentially place political loyalty above protecting the american security. donald trump does not want the gang of eight or congress to regularly be briefed about the russians interfering in our elections. the other issue he's concerned about other truth-teller within the intelligence committee who might couple forward, such as the one who did with regard to the ukrainian situation, and so we need the dni to make sure

that truth-tellers, whistle-blowers and others are protected. that's an issue that we're concerned about. >> congressman, thanks for joining me and malcolm, thanks to you as well. msnbc terrorist analyst. look outside. people are going back outside. most states are opening back up. you'd be forgiven for thinking we've turned the corner on coronavirus. flattened the curve. you may be settling into this new life of masks, gloves, constant sanitation. so as life reopens around us it may be tougher to stay home. let me remind you of a somber milestone we're about to hit. 100,000 deaths in the united states from covid-19. millions more were or still are sick. numbers that are difficult to kpr comprehend. in fact, 100,000 is about the capacity of some of the world's

biggest sports stadiums, except these 100,000 people weren't out enjoying a game or concert's they were living their lives, inial they died. another way of looking at it. front page of the "new york times" names 1,000 of the nearly 100,000 lost. all of these names represent's only 1% of those who died. think about that. tragedies that involved big numbers are lard to wrap your head around. it's a coping mechanism to help insulate ourselves from the depths of pain that come with loss in that magnitude. for 134 trasome tragedies we fi solace only by personalizing them. like the body of a syrian refugee child washed ashore. a baby girl who perished trying to cross the rio grande into america or images of those lost in 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, or mem morals of soldiers killed in combat. seeing those faces, hearing those names allows us to connect with the loss. but in this pandemic we often

didn't see the faces of those we lost or the families suffering whose loved ones lives were cut short. didn't see those in the icu on weeks on end. a resovereign poll taken in april found one in eight americans said they knew someone who died from the virus. a number that is only likely to increase. here in new york city where i am nearly 46% of residents know someone who has died from coronavirus. which bricks bringing me back t number. 100,000 dead in america and why it is just so hard to understand. what we can do, continue to be cautious, mindful of our actions and our space. we can continue to put science and compassion above our own interests to present the vulnerable. remember, the 100,000 souls lost. even if we didn't know them. d.

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unemployment benefits. a quick reminder. nearly 39 million americans filed for jobless claims since march, and april's unemployment rate highest since the great depression and may's unemployment rate we get in a couple of weeks will probably be higher yet. enhanced benefits from the c.a.r.e.s. act will begin to lapse in july. a new report from the university of wisconsin found over 40% of americans earn more money mon their expanded unemployment benefits from the c.a.r.e.s. act than their salaries at work. now, this varies by region. according to the department of labor, states like maine and new mexico show the average worker now earns more than before benefits were expanded. while new york, washington, d.c. workers, the average worker earns less. some leaders are pushing for a wage increase across the board, but in this tough economic time, the question is, can small businesses afford it? joining me now, kimberly weisel

editor of a company and a representative from the "washington post." heather, start with you. long voiced support for increase in minimum wage. it's $7.25 an hour. many states and jurisdictions have higher minimum wages. political candidates support a move to $15 an hour. but the reality is lots of people don't earn that. if you don't earn a higher wage, then this expanded unemployment benefit does pay you more to stay at home. is that a bad thing? >> you're right. so right now the expanded unemployment pays $9.50 a week. working out to about $23 an hour. $950 a week. definitely, more people are earning a better pay now on unemployment than if they were working. that's not the real question here. there are a lot of republicans that keep making it sound like

these workers are being lazy and want to stay on unemployment because it's so generous. the reality is, we have nearly 39 million unemploymented because of the pandemic, because their business has shut down. on august 1st when the generous benefits go away, suddenly the weekly pay would fall to $350 a week. is it fair to go from $950 to $350 when we know there's still going to be millions of people who simply can't find a job, because businesses are still closed? or some that have reopened are only half open and they don't need all of those workers? so that's the real question for republicans. is it fair to do that morally to people in august to really cut them off unemployment and put them back at minimum wage because they can't find a job right now? >> kim, i want to put up on the screen how these wages translate. start with federal minimum wage,

$7.25. unemployment on average pays $9.48 an hour pap broad range. a lot of people's goal, $15 an hour. enhanced unemployment averages, $23, $24, average wage is $27 an hour. on the right side of the column it adds up to annually starting at $15,000 going up to $56,000. a lot of lower-wage earners are employed by small business america. a lot of these companies will make decisions whether they can stay open and keep most staff on hand. there are a bunch of small business owners in america who can't even digest the conversation right now of higher wages. >> yeah. this is very much true, and for business owners, one thing they should realize and their employees should realize, if you have an offer of full-time work

to stay on unemployment is technically fraud. like, this is illegal. right now the mechanism to fix this is broken. and so that we do have concerns that people perhaps had an offer of work and they are not taking it. there are also a lot of other reasons people are reluctant to go back to work. they may have their own health issues, they may be caring for someone with a health issue and don't want to make that clear to their employer. if you are a small business with basically a bad company culture this is going to come back to bite you now. so business owners have had some help as we talked about before in the paycheck protection program to hire people, hire them back, but for them, right now raising wages is going to be even more difficult than it would have been in the past. i think most of them are looking at, if they are even able to keep the wages the same, frankly, how few people can they bring back? because most of them do not have reserves to get through even a couple more months of this.

it's been extremely difficult on them. >> when do those benefits end? the paycheck protection program is offering companies loans that become grants if they keep people on payroll. how long does that have to go on for? >> well, you get eight weeks to use that money as it is set up now. there are proposals in congress both in the heroes act and a more narrow bill to the paycheck protection program that extends that maybe 16 weeks, but in terms of how long it goes on for, your start date is when you get the money. if you got the money today, would you have eight weeks worth of pay for your employees. get it in a month, if there's still money left, strangely, actually there could be, eight weeks from that date. at the beginning when this program first rolled out, eight weeks seemed like a good amount of time, and that we would be back up and running by then. now eight weeks instead of looking like a bridge looks like a bridge to a cliff, which is why they're looking at expanding the amount of time over which you could use it. >> this is a tough one, because

we want america's small businesses to survive and thrive and to continue on, and they are frontline workers. e were want their workers to be able to earn a living wage. this is definitely one of the challenges of our time. thank you for joining me for this, kimberly wiesel editor @large of "inc." and heather long of the "washington post." we'll continue to have this discussion. still ahead, president trump's senior adviser joins me as the economic pain of this pandemic continues to crush americans. continues to crush americans. the way it works best for you. even the big stuff. you get a delivery experience you can always count on. you get your perfect find at a price to match on your schedule. you get free two day shipping on things that make your home feel like you! wayfair. way more than furniture. no uh uh, no way

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good morning. today is sunday may 24th. i'm ali velshi. we begin with what many americans waking up to cursety of the "new york times." names representing 100,000 americans dead from the coronavirus. let that sink in. 100,000 deaths. the number the president back in march said would show that his administration did a very good job at handling the virus, and while trump may think losing the lives of 100,000 people is a victory, they say a picture is worth 1,000 words and since this represents 100,000 americans dead from coronavirus, president trump, i hope you're listening. that's something even republican governor from north dakota doug burgham was hoping to get across. >> if someone is wear ag mask they're not doing it to represent what political party they're in or what candidates they support. might be doing it because they have