here are the facts as they know them at this hour. there were 72,000 new cases yesterday alone. for the first time in 15 weeks, the labor department lorded an increase today in initial jobless claims with 1.4 million americans filing for unemployment benefits. and republican lawmakers are taking the first steps toward an agreement with the white house on virus-related legislation but have yet to present a united front in talks with democrats. the unemployment benefit runs out this week. admiral brett giroir, assistant director of health at the department of health and human services and testing coordinator for the white house coronavirus task force. thanks for taking the time with us, admiral. talking about testing, it is our pleasure because you are the expert on testing, and that's what everyone wants to know. right here in the district they announced the lag is too great

and tests are not effective. this is of course being a problem throughout the country. you told my colleague savannah guthrie about ten days ago that the major problem was that commercial labs were behind on the processing, that you were going to be exerting a lot of effort to get those labs up to speed with people including our own willie geist actually saying he had to wait ten days, saying that today, to get his test results. how can you get this lag time down to the optimum of 24 to 48 hours? >> so, thank you, and it's really the perfect question to ask. and all of us are completely aligned on reducing that turnaround time. we're doing about 770,000 tests a day, pretty historic but we still have to work on the turnaround time. one effort is to improve point of care testing. a quarter of our tests right now are done as point of care. you'll see that going up pretty dramatically over the next month or so. indeed we announced this week we're sending point of care

tests to every single nursing home. that will reduce their turnaround time and takes a load off the big commercial labs. in terms of the big commercial labs, you'll see a lot of innovation. quest just received their authorization for pooling four to one samples. that's going to improve efficiency. we are greatly increasing the amount of point of care tests to take the load off of that. you've seen a surge test in all these hotspot areas. those hotspot areas get a surge team with an independent testing group to provide 60,000 or so tests a day. and those big commercial labs, the average turnaround time is 4.2 days. some states are more than that, some states are less. none of us are going to be happy unless that's under 48 hours. but we're making all our efforts to do that, and really making sure that the surge states where we're seeing so many cases and our nursing homes and our hospitalized patients get rapid turnaround of those tests.

>> the average may be as low as you say, obviously those are the numbers that you've got, but what we're hearing from people is, as long as, as i say, two weeks in some of these areas. is there any way to target those areas, those hotspots more efficiently? >> sure. so, you know, when i say an average, there's an average and a range around that. even in the big labs, there are outliers where we do see, for reasons we don't understand, a few people waiting that long. there could also be small labs in certain areas that are not on our radar screen but have those long turnarounds. but we work individually every single day, i look at every single state's data. we work community by community to try to decrease that. again, we've surged point of care testing to places to reduce that time. and our big surge testing, we're in jacksonville, we're in miami right now, phoenix, baton rouge.

we're looking at a couple of more sites now where we bring in surge capacity while the big commercial labs are ramping up their capability with pooling. it's a really complex ecosystem but we are making sure that our most vulnerable, like nursing homes, the people in the hospitals, and our hotspot areas, bring that time down to as much as possible, given the unprecedented demand. look, we're all going to be working hard on this. again, 770,000 tests a day. we will build that number and we will reduce our turnaround. but you are right, we are trying to reduce that as much as possible to improve our contact tracing and tracking. >> is the backlog on the supply lines for the supplies that you need actually to process the tests? >> so it's a good question. and i'll answer a couple of ways. our sort of things you heard about early in the outbreak like swabs and tubes of media, we've

got that pretty much under control. the states literally tell us what they want every month and we provide that every week to the states in the quantities that they need. so that was just an enormous issue until we got our supply chains, improved our distribution, did dpa act to get that. in terms of reagents which the laboratories actually use, we have the capability right now to do all the tests that are being ordered. but not every state or every lab can get the precise reagent they want. they're going to have to be flexible, because there's a whole ecosystem of reagents, and we help direct that. so it is going to be tight, it will continue to be tight as we open up the reagents, all that demand will be taken. but again, we do see by september, we will have the capability, even without pooling, of doing somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 million tests per month. and if we do do pooling, that number goes up quite a bit. again, i'm not painting a rosy

picture, nobody's declaring victory. this is the fight of our generation. but, you know, we are doing these things to improve our testing capability while we enforce the most important things, this. we cannot test our way out of this. we're going to have to do those measures like wearing a mask, avoiding indoor crowding spaces, hand hygiene. that's the way to get this under control and we need everybody's cooperation to do that. >> why wouldn't it be helpful to have a mandate, a national mandate for tests? excuse me, a national mandate for masks. >> so i'm a public health person. i'm not the elected policy officials. but let me reinforce something. particularly if you're in a hot area, one of those hot states or increasing states, we really need 90 plus percent of people to be wearing masks when they're in public. we know that if you avoid bars, if you minimize to a lower degree the amount of capacity in

a restaurant, and 90 plus percent of people wear a mask and wash their hands, we could absolutely turn the curve. look at what happened in phoenix, dramatic change over a very short period of time. we're seeing mask wearing going up around the country. but, you know, however it's done by the local authorities, we support that, mandate encouragement. from a public health standpoint, myself, the surgeon general, all of us, dr. birx, dr. fauci, we implore everyone. the hairstylists that were reported, they took care of 139 clients, at least 15 minutes each. both of them were masked, both the client and the hairstylist. not a single case. if there isn't something more compelling that's a good example to the american people, i don't know what it is. the epidemiology tells us, the data tells us, wear a mask and

do the simple things and we can get ourselves out of this. >> i was talking to andrew cuomo, governor of new york, after he spoke with the president just yesterday, and he says that there does need to be a shutdown in certain states, where we continue to see the spike in cases and deaths. do you think there is now a need for a shutdown, there is a center for public integrity report that says that dr. birx has warned state and local leaders that 11 major cities including nashville, st. louis, pittsburgh, need to take aggressive action to mitigate outbreaks. >> our models, and it's not just models, we do have the evidence, and dr. birx and i, we're shoulder to shoulder, dr. birx, dr. fauci, dr. redfield, steve hahn, and myself, the data seem to indicate that if you close the bars, if you limit restaurant capacity to 25 or maybe even 50%, somewhere in that range, you get 90 plus percent mask wearing in public, and you have good hand washing,

it's essentially equivalent to shutting down the economy. now, if you don't do that, and people don't achieve those goals, particularly mask wearing, there may be no alternative. but what we're you do emphasize is places like phoenix that have done this so well, they had a really hot, terrible outbreak, and they're not over with this yet, but they turned that corner dramatically by having these steps. and we're starting to see this across the sun belt. so if you don't do that, there is no alternative. but i believe the american people would much rather do these simple measures and keep the economy going, avoid the emotional, social, mental consequences, the lack of cancer screening, the lack of vaccinations, all the things that go with a shutdown. >> in terms of reopening, nothing could be more important to parents, kids, and to the society, than schools. you've said, though, there is no such thing as no danger when it comes to skoochools, that the r

to children is small. yesterday the president was asked about children returning to school and potentially bringing home the virus and he said that they don't transmit very easily and a lot of people are saying they don't transmit, they're looking at it, studying it. what is the reality check for parents who worry that it cannot be done safely, to send them back? >> so the cdc and all of us have outlined some general guidances. you're going to see more of that very soon. of course the first thing, andrea, and you understand this, is we have to have control in the community. if a community is just burning up with virus, it's going to be just much harder to open schools or open schools in a traditional way. we're going to have to have those options that the locals talk about. i'm a pediatrician, a pediatric icu doctor, and wouldn't anyone to think there's no risk. the number of children who have died with this is very small, and every one is a tragedy, my god, i know that as a father, a grandfather, and a pediatrician.

but it's very small. in terms of transmission, the data that we have that shows the younger children, sort of the under-10-ish children, really don't transmit very efficiently, they're sort of much safer. as you get older, as an adolescent, you can transmit almost the equivalent of an adult or at least within the range of that. so there's sort of two groups. and no matter what we do, we're going to have to do those mitigation strategies. children are going to have to be physically distanced to the degree they can. those long lunch lines won't be around until we get a vaccine and this is over with. people will have to wear masks. we'll have to have special precaution particularly if you have multigeneration aal households, if your 75 or 80-year-old grandma or grandpa is living with you, if you have people in the household with comorbid conditions, you'll have to do it in the household. if you do it in the household,

it can be very effective as well. there's lots of shades of gray here. nothing is safe or unsafe. we want to decrease the risk. we do know children not in schools, and you've heard it, not only social, emotional, educational, ear screening, eye screening, lack of picking up child abuse, nutrition programs. there really are compelling public health interests to get our kids back in school, but as you say, we have to do it safely and protect grandma and grandpa at home as well. >> there's a growing concern about vaccine distribution once hopefully we do get a vaccine, when we get through the trials. what have you learned from the testing experience and the problems on distribution by trial and error that will help you solve these problems to distribute the vaccines? cue piggyback on what the federal government already does with the flu vaccine, for instance, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel to get this

to the american people? >> right, there's a whole group, including ethicists, the national academy, that are working on this question. we need a safe and effective vaccine or multiple safe and effective vaccines. we're cautiously optimistic because the data look really good. hhs, our secretary, and our preparedness and response secretary, really have the syringes, the vials, all the stuff we need, as opposed to testing where this came upon us. we have been preparing for mass vaccination campaigns for a long time. we all want this to be ethically done, we want to protect the most vulnerable, but we do have to follow the science. certain vaccines may be more effective in certain groups than others. it's possible vaccines may be less effective in the extreme

elderly and we may have to revaccinate them. we have to distribute it so we protect the most vulnerable in society to the degree we can, and we know that's the elderly. we also know that's indigenous americans, american indians, native alaskans, african-americans, their rate of hospitalization is five times that of whites, and hispanics four times that of whites. so we know who we need to protect. it's a matter of developing the best strategy in order to do that. >> well, we've just begun to scratch the surface. i hope you'll come back, and other members of your team. thank you very much for being with us, admiral giroir. >> i really appreciate the opportunity, thank you again. let's send this public health message of wearing a mask, doing those things to save your life and your communities. >> you bet. thank you. and joining me now, nbc's kelly o'donnell at the white house, "the new york times"

chief white house correspondent peter baker. kelly, the president will be appearing at 5:00 or in that range today, again, we assume, without his public health experts. is that what you're expecting when you see him later this afternoon? >> reporter: the guidance we have so far fits that plan where the president has said he is speaking with his medical advisers and he has described dr. deborah birx who is the coordinator of the response as being outside of the briefing room. but giving him the information, some of that put into an opening statement which is a script that he refers to, and then the president saying it is succinct for him to be the one giving the information. obviously when you speak to admiral giroir you get the depth of his medical knowledge and life of experience, when you asked about children, he's a pediatrician, so there's a depth to having those medical experts there able to answer specific questions and to amplify what the president says. having only the president there eliminates some of what we saw in the earlier months of these coronavirus task force briefings, when there was some

daylight between or real contradiction between the president and some of his top medical experts. so at this point, it's sort of a new iteration of these briefings. they aren't task force briefings in the sense that the president is not officially a member of the task force. that belongs to the vice president. but it's his chance to try to send a message on a topic of the day. we've seen him embrace masks, we've seen him talking about testing. we understand today education could be a bigger focus. >> and peter, i do want to bring up another story that emerged from the president yesterday. in that interview with fox news he went into even greater detail about that cognitive test he took. let me play part of that for you. >> like, you'll go, person, woman, man, camera, tv. so they'll say, can you repeat that. so i said, yeah, it's person, woman, man, camera, tv.

ten minutes, 15, 20 minutes later, do you remember the first question? not the first, but the tenth question. give us that again. can you do that again? and you go, person, woman, man, camera, tv. if you get it in order, you get extra points. they said, nobody gets it in order. about 20, 25 minutes later, and they said, go back to that question, they don't tell you this, go back to that question, and repeat them, can you do it? and you go, person, woman, man, camera, tv. they say, that's amazing. >> peter, they seem to be trying to set up one of their campaign issues, because the president has been going after joe biden, supposedly on his cognitive ability. it seems to have backfired. >> well, yeah, look, the president probably drew more

ridicule than he answered questions, by explaining that in the way he did on that fox interview. it's been a meme all day, of course, online and if it hasn't already been picked up by the late night comics, i assume it will be soon. it's not just that he took a cognitive proud, it's that he's in oordinately proud that he di and he says the doctors said he did amazingly well. about 10% of the people who take this test, we understand, do get everything correct. the reason why it's not higher is because the people who tend to take it are those who are worried that they are beginning to slip, who see some signs they are losing a step, are forgetting things, and want to get help from a doctor. so it's not meant for people who don't have reasons to be concerned. but yeah, we're now in a

position where our argument for president is who is mentally cognitive or not. biden has said he is, and this is where we're at. >> it was quite a performance. peter baker, kelly o'donnell, thank you both very much. and more on those new unemployment numbers and the discouraging trend as senate republicans are still trying to come together around another aid package so they can sit down and negotiate with the democrats. vermont senator and former presidential candidate bernie sanders joins me next to talk about jobless claims and a lot more. plus later, house intelligence committee chair adam schiff. chiff. shark vacmop combines powerful suction with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad.

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a higher than expected spike in unemployment claims today. for the first time since early in the pandemic, 1.4 million americans filing for jobless benefits last week, according to the labor department, as the $600 a week extra covid benefit is about to run out next week. joining me now is vermont senator and former presidential candidate bernie sanders. senator, it's good to see you again, thanks for being with us. >> nice to see you. >> let's talk about the negotiations, although there really will not any negotiations except republicans and republicans. where do we stand on doing something on this relief bill before the end of next week? i know you tried to get some money out of defense spending to put it into help for those who

need it most, and that failed. where do you go next? >> andrea, it's not a question of doing something. it's a question of doing a whole lot. >> right. >> we are in the worst economic condition since the great depression. i mean, we are talking about, as you've just indicated, tens of millions of people have lost their jobsmonths. we're talking about people in my state of vermont and all over this country who are struggling to put food on the table. people are worried about getting evicted from their homes. people who can't go to the doctor because they lost their jobs and no longer have any health care. if there has ever been a time in american history where the congress has got to stand with working families, lower income people, now is that time. and we have got to be aggressive. and it is outrageous, to my mind, that we have republicans who are saying, well, we don't want to do anything, we're too busy worrying about tax breaks for the rich or spending $740

billion on the military and we're not going to worry about what's going on in the lives of ordinary americans. so i would hope that the democrats remain strong and that we say, you know what, we are going to extend unemployment benefits including that $600 supplement that's life and death for millions of men, women, and children in this country, that we are going to make sure that every adult gets an additional monthly check, i would think, of $2,000 a year, that health care during this crisis is a human right, not a privilege, anybody should be able to go to the doctor when they need to. so now is the time, in this unprecedented moment in american history already for congress to act in a very strong and aggressive way. >> and meanwhile, the president has been sending federal agents into portland now, and threatening to do it in chicago

as well, now threatening other democratic cities, using tear gas against the mayor of portland, when he went out to talk to the protesters last night. what is your response to the attorney general and the president saying that it's the democratic cities that have this crime problem and they need to have federal agents from homeland security? >> andrea, i don't want to get people too nervous here. but we have a president who really does not believe in democracy. this is a president who is trying to suppress the vote. this is a president who has contempt for congress, ignores what congress does. this is a president who does not respect a free press in america, the first amendment. he thinks the media is an enemy of the people. and now what this president is saying is, i don't care what mayors say, i don't care what governors say, i am the president, i will send federal troops or federal agents any

place in this country. that is, andrea, what a police state is about. that is what a movement toward authoritarianism is about. and the american people have got to stand up and say, you know what, we may have disagreements, but we are a democracy, we respect local control, we respect the role of governors. a president cannot send troops wherever he wants to quash dissent. people have a first amendment right to protest. now, obviously all of us hope that those protests are not violent, i think that's counterproductive. but you cannot as a president send troops willy-nilly. that is what a police state is about. and the american people, regardless of political views, have got to oppose that. >> a republican, former homeland security secretary, tom ridge, says the president is acting as though this is the president's

personal militia. >> well, that's what it sounds like. you'll see, what conservative republicans are supposed to be about is, hey, you leave me alone, i leave you alone, we hate big government. well, if you hate big government, you surely hate federal agents arresting people, grabbing people, putting them in unmarked cars without any identification. if you don't like big government, my god, you have to speak up against that type of outrageous behavior. >> there was an extraordinary moment on the house floor today. one of your colleagues, alexandria ocasio-cortez, giving a speech about what happened when ted yoho, a republican from florida, cursed her out the other day, more than once, leaving the floor, on the house steps, in front of other witnesses as well. let me play part of what she said. we've bleeped out her quoting him. >> representative yoho put his finger in my face, he called me

disgusting. he called me crazy. in front of reporters, representative yoho called me, and i quote, a [ bleep ]. i will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women and using abusive language towards women. >> is there anything that the ethics committee or house leaders can do about the behavior of congressman yoho? >> well, i'm not a member of the house but i hope so, and i certainly think that would be appropriate. alexandria made this point, people can disagree. she has strong views. i happen to agree with most of her views. but she gets along well with members of the house, and to have somebody attack her verbally in that way is absolutely outrageous. i read his so-called apology which really wasn't an apology at all. and i would hope that the house

leadership demands a real apology from him at the very least. >> i want to also ask you about what you talked to delegates the other night, democratic delegates, the convention, in a call with your delegates you acknowledged that you have differences with joe biden, you ran against joe biden, but you have come together with biden in an extraordinary fashion. do you think that is communicated to your delegates or are some of them not enthusiastic? >> well, i can't speak for all of -- i think we have 1,100, 1,200 delegates, i can't speak for all of them. the vast majority of our delegates, in fact the vast majority of democrats and republicans understand that trump is the most dangerous president if not in the american history of this country, maybe in american history, and that he must be defeated. and the fact that we have disagreements is fine. we're going to work those disagreements out, and we'll, you know, move forward. but we have got to come together to defeat a president who is a

pathological liar, whose rejection of science has led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands and thousands of people during this terrible pandemic, who is in fact a racist and a sexist and a homophone and a zxenophobe. our major priority is to defeat donald trump, working together. second of all, we're working hard to elect progressives, strong progressives to the congress, to state and local positions all over this country. and thirdly, our movement is going to continue keeping its eye on the prize and fighting for the transformation of american politics and economics so that we end up with a government that represents all of us and not just wealthy campaign contributors. and one of my highest priorities is to continue the fight for a medicare for all single payer

system which finally does what every other country on earth does which is to guarantee health care to everyone as a human right and not simply a job benefit. >> how important do you think it is for joe biden to choose a black woman for his running mate, after the death of george floyd? >> joe is a very good politician, his people are good, i think they are looking at a number of african-american women who might be good vice presidential candidates. >> are you going to play a role in the convention? >> well, i'm going to play a very -- as strong a role as i can given the covid epidemic in campaigning for biden and playing a role in the convention. i happen to believe, andrea, that in this unusual moment in american history, that the american people are learning some very profound lessons, and the lessons that we're learning is that when millions of people

lose their jobs, they should not be losing their health care as well. and the other lesson is that despite the fact that before the pandemic, we had a relatively low unemployment rate. that doesn't mean we had a good economy, when half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. and that is why we have got to raise that minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, maybe higher than that. we cannot continue to have an economy where three people have more wealth than the bottom half of american people. during this pandemic, by the way, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, people like jeff bezos, have been making tens of billions of dollars while ordinary people are seeing a decline in their income. i think that given all the suffering that is out there right now, a whole lot of people are rethinking this economy and they're figuring out, how do we have an economy that works for all of us? if you go to work and earn a decent wage, how do we rebuild

our infrastructure, how do we deal with climate change and create millions of jobs in the process? this is a time to immediately, and i hope congress does it in the next week, address the immediate crises we face. we have to think long term as well, how we create a government and economy that is not dominated by big money interests. >> senator bernie sanders, thank you very much, thanks for being with us. and coming up next, one of the nation's leading public health experts is here to talk about testing, about keeping schools safe, and mask mandates. stay with us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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as the u.s. surpasses 4 million coronavirus cases, experts say testing is still not where it needs to be. plus massive delays in reporting results are compounding the problem, making contract tracing difficult if not impossible. earlier this hour i spoke with admiral brett giroir, the united states testing czar. he told me he expects 65 million monthly tests by september. >> in those big commercial labs, the average turnaround time is 4.27 days. some states are more than that, some states are less. none of us are going to be happy until that's under 48 hours. we do see by september, we will have the capability even without pooling of doing somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 million tests per month and if we do do pooling, that number goes up quite a bit. again, i'm not painting a rosy

picture, nobody is declaring victory. this is the fight of our generation. >> joining me now is dr. ashish jha, the director of the harvard global health institute. thank you very much, dr. jha, good to see you. talk to to me about testing and whether you think the white house now has a realistic plan for shortening that lag time. >> andrea, thank you for having me on. look, we now have the level of testing in our country that would have been helpful to have back on may 1. unfortunately we didn't have it then, and the level of testing we need now is much, much greater. i like admiral giroir of 65 million tests a month, 2 million a day. that would be really helpful now, or ideally a few weeks ago. it just feels like we keep achieving what we needed to have achieved three months prior. and we're constantly behind. and what seems to me that when you're constantly behind in a baseball game and falling further behind every inning, you need a new strategy. and we need a new strategy that

brings in new types of testing and gets aggressive. i think the current approach will not get us where we need to be. >> now, he said that they were moving forward rapidly with antigen tests, with, he said, point of care tests. do you see that as something that is actually being ramped up? >> i think that would be helpful. we kind of need an "all of the above" approach. we've been so far behind on this. antigen tests are great. they have some problems with quality. but i still think widespread availability of antigen testing would be really helpful. fundamentally what we need from the federal government is much deeper engagement. just letting companies figure this all out on their own isn't going to be enough. we need to put a lot more resources into it. we need to help companies with supply chain problems. i believe we can do this. lots of other countries have. we just need this to be a number one priority. it would make an enormous

difference in bringing the levels of virus down in our communities. >> there's also warning from dr. birx about new hotspots. she was talking about apparently, to governors of 11 major cities, admiral giroir said this about the need for aggressive measures now. >> if you close the bars, if you limit restaurant capacity to 25 or maybe even 50%, somewhere in that range, you get 90 plus percent mask wearing in public, and you have good hand washing, it's essentially equivalent to shutting down the economy. if you don't do that, there is no alternative. but i believe the american people would much rather do these simple measures and keep the economy going. >> of course he's in a bind, he can't talk about what politicians are going to do. the republican governor in georgia is suing the mayor of atlanta for ordering masks. >> yeah, so, yeah, that's not helpful, what's happening in

georgia. that's not good for the people of georgia. look, i think what admiral giroir said is largely right. i would expand that list. it's not just restaurants and bars, although i do think in hotspots we can't afford to have any restaurants, indoor dining, and bars open. we also can't have gyms. we can't have any indoor gatherings in sizable numbers, no rallies, no large groups, and absolutely, mask wearing. he didn't put on his list but i would, that we've got to have a surge of testing in those places. all of that gives us a shot at avoiding a complete shutdown. but there are a lot of places in america right now that are right on that edge where nothing but a shutdown will help. we have to be as aggressive as possible to try to avoid that. >> dr. ashish jha, thank you, again, very much for being with us today. and up next, what did nancy pelosi have to say about representative ted yoho's verbal attack against congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez? we'll find out, next, with kasie

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♪ they've called me names for at least -- at least 20 years of leadership, 18 years of leadership. i don't know, you know, what's so funny is, you say to them, do you not have a mother, do you not have a daughter, do you not have a sister, do you not have a wife? what makes you think you can be so -- and this is the word i use for them, condescending. >> nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "kasie d.c.," kasie hunt. the speaker was answering your question. what was congressman yoho thinking and how are people reacting to it? what about people in his own party? >> reporter: well, andrea, i can't answer your first question, i'm not inside the congressman's head, but ocasio-cortez relayed yesterday that he actually confronted her

twice. the first one happened that was witnessed by a reporter on the steps of the capitol. later in the day she crossed paths with him again and the confrontation was similar. so this was clearly something that was thought about. yoho went to the floor yesterday and he said that he apologized if he offended anyone but said he would not apologize for his passion. and that's what prompted alexandria ocasio-cortez to go to the floor today and repeat something that i can't say on the air that he said to her, she said it twice on the house floor, it's now in the congressional record. she was backed up by her women colleagues and pelosi said there that she had essentially authorized this and she said it should be really telling that the women's caucus spent an hour of precious floor time today focusing on this, that that's really how important this was. and pelosi went on in those comments to talk about her own experience, and you heard her say a little bit of it there, but she says when she was first in congress, she had had five babies in six years and when they were having a debate about

reproductive health care, she said somebody got on the floor and said, the pope knows more about having babies than nancy pelosi, which obviously we've never had a female pope, so pelosi clearly feels strongly about this particular issue. and republicans on the other hand are saying they're basically satisfied with yoho's apology. i pushed the minority leader, kevin mccarthy on this today as well, and he said that it should be taken at face value and that yoho did apologize and that it was accepted by the democratic majority leader steny hoyer. so we'll see what else comes of this as the day goes on, andrea. >> kasie hunt. it's the old "if i offended anyone, i apologize." thanks very much, kasie, thanks for rushing over. and baseball is back. it's opening day, finally. the world champion washington nationals are facing off against the new york yankees. all eyes are on the honorary first pitch, you know who it is

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with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad. okay. well, don't worry about it. if you bounce it, there's nobody there to boo you. you're good to go. you're fine. this is the perfect first pitch. you're good. >> washington nationals star infielder ryan zimmerman giving his pro tips to dr. anthony fauci who is throwing out the first pitch of the world series champion washington nationals home opener today. it will be an opening day unlike any other as the nats host the

new york yankees this evening with no fans in the stadium. some players, like zimmerman, taking themselves out of the season due to the coronavirus and their family fears. nbc's mike memoli spoke with starting pitcher max scherzer about what it means to have dr. fauci on the mound. >> i think he believes in it. if we follow the protocols we can make this season work and we believe in following the experts on this. i think it's a good representation of what should -- what the country should be focusing on. >> mike memoli now has the best assignment of the day. nats park. mike? dr. fauci, has he been doing practices from the mound? what is he doing to prepare for all of this? >> well, andrea, you can't see it, but i am smiling ear to ear right now. the last time i was inside this ballpark, i was 1 of 45,000 nats fans rooting for them in the

world series in game five here at home. tonight, obviously, that big marquee matchup between the defending champions and one of the favorites for the world series championship this year, the new york yankees, very different circumstances. no fans in attendance. socially distanced where possible. no presidents race. a big tradition here in washington. and also no president. since 1910, william howard taft was the first president to throw out the ceremonial opening pitch on first day. every president except jimmy carter has held that tradition. donald trump has not thrown out an opening pitch. those honors going to dr. anthony fauci. he did tell ryan zimmerman he's been warming up at one of the local ball fields in d.c. the biggest moment in fauci's sporting career since playing shortstop and the captain of the regis high school basketball team, andrea. >> in fact, that was a championship team. 5'7", he was the star, the captain, and they beat fordham

prep so he's a great athlete. we've got to go. let's go, nats. thanks, mike. that does it for "andrea mitchell reports." we were going to have congressman adam schiff. he got called to an intel briefing. he's coming tomorrow, the chair of the house intelligence committee. something to look forward to. and remember, follow us online on facebook, on twitter and ayman mohyeldin picks up our coverage after a break.

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in a little more than two hours ago, the united states reached 4 million confirmed coronavirus cases. it took 99 days to go from one case to the first million. then another 43 days to reach 2 million. 27 days after that, the number hit 3 million, and within just the last 16 days, we have arrived at 4 million cases. reacting on capitol hill, house speaker nancy pelosi said this. >> that acceleration is an assault on the lives and the livelihood of the american people. the delay, the denial have caused deaths. >> and the president has scheduled a 5:00 p.m. coronavirus briefing, his third in a row as the u.s. labor department reveals worse than expected claims in the weekly unemployment numbers. plus, a judge has just ordered