as in george w. bush's $80000000000.00 package to combat aids in africa and he's now one of 16 leaning out the experts calling on congress to fund billions of dollars in copenhagen testing before it can safely reopen the country for vicious stormy and i say senate majority leader a republican from tennessee and a host of the proud pass a 2nd opinion rethinking american health is bill frist he joins us from his art farm in virginia gardens good to see you again. good larry great to be with you appreciate the chance to have this conversation my pleasure tell me about this letter you and 16 other help they actually want the government to do a letter the letter went out last monday and went to the president of the united states and to the united states congress and it basically has 3 parts all of which center on the really critical failure that this country has had in the last month

but also the opportunity that it's all built around testing we have this enemy the us but right now a lot less you have an s.t.d. you have don't who has it it doesn't but it does infect people even if they sometimes there's a what this letter does it basically says testing testing testing at the federal government through our misspent president should step or i get the number one priority and it puts or takes a contact trace things if you test positive if you get in touch with 8 or 9 or 10 other people somebody needs to pick up the phone or identify them through technology to keep them isolated just stop the spread that this. isn't too soon to reopen the economy now. i don't think so and i spend a lot of time i'm with our mayor in nashville but our governor in tennessee states

it is on track to open in fact next week and i think there's a balance we're moving today from this global mitigation where you shut everything down and we're making that transition to that individual containment that local containment and it's not a matter of looking at public health in lives saved versus opening the economy that's the false choice the real choice is how do we open this account of me with what we call affordable containment and that is to like in a court begin to go out open it up if the bars is unleashed at all to close it back then and the time is right to do it now because people now are about 6 weeks into hunkering down without jobs people pressed into poverty people losing their mortgages and there's a very real cost in terms of death in terms of quality of life in terms of morbidity of having people without jobs with unemployment going to at highs 30

percent higher than in any time since the great depression so now is the time to begin based on science careful attention to analytics and data because of the virus raises its head we are like a settlement according to slow things back now but now is the time to begin now not for everywhere so in some places the virus is still increasing needs to be measured in the virus is increasing they should not open issues a shelter now. that you see this coming. yes sadly you and i have talks really for 30 years and before coming to the senate i was in medicine and did heart transplants every week and the enemy there was the virus the virus is smarter than us it moves faster than a us and the enemy there because i do a transplant i would give my patients medicines to push your mutant system down and the barrister's would attack so for the last really 35 years i've been biting

viruses i went to the senate and we took on the hiv aids virus in a bipartisan way with 3000000 people dying every year we went after it aggressively again bipartisan addressed it and now 20000000 people are alive so we can beat these viruses after we did that in 2003 and i worked with at that time with president bush i worked with the leadership on the other side of the aisle to work with tony felt like we are today we started looking at pandemics and in 2005 when in your opening you mentioned it i gave about 30 speeches around the country predicting a pandemic coming out of asia some time in 10 to 15 years and i did that and put a plan on the table at that point in time because it's inevitable in even today 15 years from now we're going to have another pandemic equal to the size of this one a less we act and there are things that we can do so i'm very hopeful we didn't act

last time the last 15 years now is the time to act and have our federal government come together with the very best science so we can preempt these pandemics of the future and frankly bill how how are we doing how's the federal government doing. well it. really encouraged in certain ways in the discouraged we were late at the starting block and we could have if we'd had our global surveillance intact if we had listened 15 years ago to the proposals that i and others put on the table we would have been able to identify this virus earlier the doubling time of this virus is just 3 days and so if you have $100.00 cases out there today in 3 days it'll be 200 and it just grows exponentially over time so number one i think the president has done very well the 1st point i always mention in my original plan from the from 2005 was communication and the president every day has been out there

talking air and now we're come to the negatives but i think that's very positive number 2 i think having the experts up there people like tony who has been adequate 30 years he's been head of the allergy is to to the national institute of allergy since 1904 and he's done a great job dr burk's so i applaud the president having them up on the stage that the negative side of it i think is we've seen it recently with these hypotheticals are put out the other conference has gone way to our people people are suffering and they are there and they are anxious and their lives are at stake and they don't need anybody on that stage putting hypothetical things out there that have not been proven and sometimes dangerous things and also the communications is minimal to a lot of our biggest failure that's the president our biggest failure has been this

lack of testing the lack of impulses on testing the enemy is out there we know it grows exponentially if we we don't slow it down we know what slows it down we know we can't tolerate a total shutdown of this country for a year until we have a back same. and so what we need to do is test test test on it who has it who does not the people who have it do this contact tracing quine team them and then we will beat this basques mitch mcconnell who now holds the posts you once held some majority of you here publicly stated his reluctance for economically packages going directly to the states you agree with that. well i've heard him say and i heard the press present it but i haven't talked to him about it i didn't think the states are going to need direct shell unlike the federal government then we've spent 2 trillion dollars in the initial bill 3 weeks ago another half

a trillion dollars last week and will probably have things been another trillion dollars i think as we do this is not stimulus money because the experiment can't be stimulated god is not open today why the why did you leave the same but larry if you recall when i came into the senate i spent 20 years in medicine and health and healing and doing the heart transplants and i came to serve 12 years as an legislate or so coming in i basically said i'm going to take for 12 years i'm going to do my best to represent the people of tennessee i didn't know and end up at majority leader at the time but represent the people of this country and then after that 12 years go back home and live under the laws that that i passed or helped to past and then work as a private citizen and do the sort of things we're doing now in trying to help policymakers of the future i love love the opportunity to serve and appreciate that and it's such a great noble profession but i didn't want to do it forever do you miss it.

you know i miss it but i've been able to do some extraordinary things because of that when i was there as majority leader it was a lot of the politics it was a lot of taking care of and working with 99 other united states senators and since i left i've been able to help start companies that address things like hospice and end of life and palliative health care companies built around telemedicine and tele health and some of that still stayed in the united states senate would have loved it i'm sure but it would have been the opportunity to contribute in ways that regular citizens and business people and philanthropist. as an aside and you share with joe biden did you not. i did happen to have your on the part relations committee house majority leader during the time that he chaired that committee. what do you think of him and what do you think of his chance. joe had given

an a plus to. do you know him very well i know his wife very well for. travels with his wife to africa and she wanted to learn more about africa when when he was vice president. respects for his intellect i owned a great respect from the opposite party as you well know but joe would do well as a president it will be interesting to see the election and as we all know elections in large part are determined by the economy and if you look over the last 110 years of 10 times that we have not had a recession the president who is up for reelection would be reelected and of the times in the last 110 years if there's been a recession 4 of those 5 times that president has lost reelection so it looks like

we're going to be in a recession we are going to be in a recession during this period of time and unemployment is going to higher than it's been since the great depression because of this and demi so i think it will be tough at least based on history or for president to be reelected and there's a good candidate across the aisle so you know i would say 5050 at this point but give me shit if you look back in history you would say the president has an uphill battle. we'll take a break and come right back with former senator bill frist we'll talk about his fight guess right after this.

better if long russian and why it's. i'm a journalist it's all i know being a truth teller people say i make among come from good uses like a jackhammer good drill down to find the true news with rick sanchez because it's time to do news again and question more. aeroflot russian and lights.

we go to work so you can stay home for. us to do mr pierce we're going to push those new personal supreme being mean we're google who he was buried. she said that's. going to get it. clear definitely walking into words all in all we no longer know what we're walking into i don't see march. which is what she needs to break she thought it would. not. let. this change possible. so.

much as a financial survival does stacey let's learn a salad fill out let's say i'm not so i guess. i'm greece banks have to fight 9 street spot thank you for taking. on the story that's right well actually if you looked at slavery. well go right to the problem we're talking with bill 1st former u.s. senate majority leader host of the park as a 2nd opinion rethinking american health tell me about your podcast started where you are and i was at work. the pod cast is really interesting it larry and it's really in the feel that you're in but it was clear to me after i left the united states senate people are getting their information in different ways i've been on

the speaking circuit talking health care and hope in the healing and transplants and washington and then a year ago started about a cast which is on every week it's called a 2nd opinion with bill frist you can get away every people get their pod cast and we spend 30 to 45 minutes once a week for the last year and we will over the next year talking to people with a very specific interest in the interest is at the intersection of health and healing and medicine all the things that we talked about today in terms of health and that intersection with policy issues and how policy can address them and the 3rd big component is innovation so we look at innovative thought creative thought entrepreneurs people starting businesses and so something like the pandemic which we're talking a lot of bell will bring policymakers and like lamar alexander will bring in tom friedman former head of the c.d.c. or jeff copeland former head of state he said he and it will be talking to health

specialists in the scientists like marty barry from johns hopkins who you see a lot on the code virus or because were oh who ran the cleveland clinic and then we bring an end to sort of people who are like making back scenes and look looking to make those any population so it's on every week the 2nd opinion podcast dot com you can go there and look at it as well what do you think few more questions what do you think of obama's affordable care act. well i thought it was really interesting because when he was campaigning he was campaigning on the cost of health care because that's what really people care about and cared about time and then once he got into office he switched to the access if you will get you a huge issue in this country that 25 percent of people don't have care or maybe 30000000 people 1215 percent only care today they don't get the care but they don't have the insurance but people care about cost the horrible care act is an access

bill cover more people did not address cost some people say it a little bit it really didn't so it did a pretty good job out there and the uninsured went from 30000000 down to about 15000000 people but it cost as you know a lot of money and everybody's prices that they had a prick health care went up to get the 1st 1000000 people a horrible access to insurance it's good in that part the fact it did not direct did not address cost at all couple but the fact that it was passed in a partisan way and there was no piece of legislation social legislation during my time as majority leader or when i was in the united states senate was passed in a participant way without any democrat but you put those 2 things together is why it is in the big picture his bail but there are some really good things and there are vulnerable populations who have access to day that they did not have before. do you miss doing medicine. now you're getting close to my heart.

the 1st time he. approached him it was in 1087 and at that time never thought about going into politics and the show that you did was on the heart transplant patient and the the shortage of organ donors and that little 2 year old boy we talked about is now 32 years old and doing well through this miracle of transplantation so yes i miss the opportunity to be able to be a vehicle to bring in life very directly to the individuals. i can't go back to and i continue doing medical mission work for now 20 years after that and i'm not operating now but at huge respect to those people on the frontline today who are doing lifesaving work so that you and i can sit here and have this conversation you're such a great guest and you come back soon i mean you are about to look at it the way you can as a guy but. now your great quote of my all time favorites one thing i want to ask

there are people who are sinking that a lot of people may have heart problems and other things are afraid of or a hospital course in a pandemic what do you say that the. 1st of all there you're right remember for the last 5 weeks the hospitals of essentially been closed down except for emergencies no elective procedures doctors' appointments not not cancel or canceled not people not even seeing their doctors except to tell a medicine which has been very you know what that means is that people because they don't want to get sick and part are staying home with chest pain and they're having little short a call not being treated and having heart disease maybe even heart attacks at home so what i do want to say is that hospitals are back on line in tennessee elective surgery yan's this week and people can come to hospitals they are safe places to come to now and like 2 or 3 weeks ago there's enough of that protective equipment

you'll go to isolated wards you go to isolated doors so you'll be very safe in going back to these hospitals today and i encourage you to do so because the doctors are there to get the preventive care and the nurses and the ancillary personnel and just because we have this virus it doesn't mean people stop having a heart attacks and asthma and respiratory disease and so they do need to get treated very important thank you bill a see again real soon. thank you larry president trunk continues to say that he inherited a broken response system to pandemics from the obama administration dr bob kojo who served in that administration as special assistant to the president for health care and economic policy on the national economic council joins me for reaction oh what do you make of trump's taken on. the world health organization. i think there are various nation is doing its best to help the world endemic and every

country america is trying to figure out how to respond to temper 19 out of 5 nerves and how we can work together to make a vaccine. does the w.h.o. have a bias toward china. i don't think they have mastered country. what do you make of the president's claim those previous administrations live up to this i think he's out to lunch on that idea. our administration. respond to the h one n one outbreak skillfully and created a vaccine that protected millions of people around the world we set up our parents council in the white house that was working on pandemic preparation which they shut down. and so i'm not sure what he's referring to what what have we done right. i think we've done a good job in america at having to lead and aggressively move

faster better government to bow shot down high risk activity used at all the last repair and also to develop testing capacity sorrow in california where i'm sitting some of our hospitals actually have created really effective tests for current 1000 manufacturing testing supply ranges the sample collection kits we have built our own distribution systems to to ramp up these efforts and many states are now in much better positions. what we think that. think testing re should have been doing really aggressive testing earlier and the c.d.c. should have used the past were already about it from around the world to make sure to bring this test to america and get going if we contained the impact and more skillfully we wouldn't have as much of the country that's shut down as much as it

is we know that there was really. over there could this year in america well before the national reports and that we now know that after the act because people are well enough. can't you test negative one day and then positive the next like anything in life the way you catch it is the can they be able to affect it. what's great about coming n.t.'s think is that p.c.r. test that we use actually term positive really quickly and so they're quite good and sensitive it figuring out who's in fact it and give us good information about we wish that people say oh. how can the united states open safely sometime soon i think so i think we have all learned a lot about how we can take precautions to be safer in a world with this virus that's. the way i think about it is your risk of in fact it is proportional to the number of people pretty that you come into contact with so

workers who have more contacts we have think about how to protect them and how we should test them to make sure that they're also not spreading the disease but i think we've learned a lot now about how we can more safely reopen the economy based on the history of viruses shit summer help. we don't really know or viruses are different and some are worse as are seasonal we don't know yet and this virus will behave differently in the summer we can say in a lot of hot humid as there's lots of outbreaks of. but i'm not very confident that summer is going to make it better. not to fall gee for dick's a return in the fall do you. i think it's unlikely that they'll be more infection in the fall permanently because the main thing we know is that this virus is a very in action and if you're around people with it you'll probably catch it and the more we make the economy more like it was before with more people interacting

with more other people the odds are of that it will begin to salary and when he can do things to continue to suppress it was a worse case scenario for the summer. that states more 0 x. their guidelines too soon and not have great testing in place and. in a bunch of places where we haven't seen before as people travel more widely if they're infected they can bring that problem to wherever they're growing and in the summer we travel a lot in america and so i'm worried that will spread this disease and it will have you know place to really take hold in a bunch of communities that best far haven't been as active so are you going to say we should keep state and home in the summer i think we should give advice to people about how far to travel. it would be better for people to be closer to their homes and in the regions and they would have from a containment of the virus perspective i think it's not possible to stay home

through the group we are today and so we should make some accommodations so people can enjoy more freedom and have the economy be. going again will we attend sporting events this summer i don't think i can be very hard to create a conditions of grass and spaces so you break my heart here no baseball. they might play based on it if they're doing that in taiwan and so i hope that there is baseball and there's other activities entertain ourselves but if we watching them remotely. that said bob thanks so much great to have you with us. thank you for having me and wish you good health. you do and thank you audience for joining me on this edition of politicking member you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politicking hashtag and that's all for this edition of politicking.

heteros long russian and like us. i'm a journalist it's all i know being a truth teller people say i make among come from good uses like a jackhammer good drill down to find the true news with rick sanchez because it's time to do news again and question more.

tariff long russian airlines. as the u.s. economy was booming growing numbers of people when they need us. you can work 40 hours in a week and still not have enough to get housing everybody believes america still is the land of opportunity the reality of it is that we're not. financial ecology and the lack of affordable housing for a living minimum wage gave many people new choice. there's been a problem with the city knows turn limits and told me stay away almost. 2 sins of the food that there is no answer because yes that requires resources the most

vulnerable are abandoned on the streets to become invisible clucks. small seemed wrong but all just all. the world is yet to shape out these days become educated and engaged because the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

law and from the world headquarters of the r t america in our nation's capital this is the news with rick sanchez. and everybody i'm rick sanchez to all of you who are watching us from all over the world rather you're watching on regular t.v. or on on the app that's becoming so popular portable t.v. we are so glad you are there the friction between the united states and china has just reached another milestone in this one is much more tangible than the accusations that have been going back and forth about who's to blame for the coronavirus let me tell you what's going on for the 1st time china has expelled and

actively denounced the.