eugene robinson, carollpe1 lee, hugh hewitt.welcome to sunday and a special edition of "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, thew3 longest runni show in telephone history, this is a special edition of "meet the press" with chuck z]todd. >> good sunday morning. as you can see, once again, wee look a little different this week. this morning, and for thexd foreseeable future, i'll be anchorbi] mp from my home offic as we here at nbc news practice social distancing. two images illustrate the week we have just been fáthrough. these all nurses in hard-hit new york city wearing, yes, garbage bags, because personalÑi protective gear is unavailable. and this graph illustrates the almost incomprehensible rise in first time unemployment claims to a record 3.3 million. on a week when the united states passed 120,000 cases of covid-19 and q2,000 deaths, when we apper to pass china and then italy for thesufáu cases in the world, president trump offered americans mixed messages. early in the week, the president said he w

hugh hewitt. welcome to sunday and a special edition of "meet the press." >> we look a little different. we'll i'll be anchoring "meet the press" from my home office as we at msnbc news practice social distancing. these are nurses in new york city wearing garbage bags because personal protective gear is unavailable. this graph illustrates the almost incomprehensible rise in first-time unemployment claims to a record 3.3 million. on a week when the united states passed 120,000 cases of covid-19 and 2,000 deaths, when we appeared to pass china and then italy for the most cases in the world, president trump offered americans mixed messages. early in the week the president said he'd like america to be open again for business by easter. that the cure, he said, shutting down the economy, could be worse than the disease. mr. trump seemed eager to play the role of optimist in chief, leaving it to scientists, governors, and local officials to own the hard news about disease spread, shutdowns, and forced li

mitch mcconnell said to hugh hewitt that the reason everybody -- the eye wasn't on the ball on this is because it was during the impeachment trial and that it -- it diverted the attention of government. i just want to bring up some dates here. on february 6th, the senate acquitted donald trump. on february the 26th, 20 days later, almost three weeks, the president said the 15 people within a couple of days is going to go down close to zero. on february 28th, a month after that, almost, he said, one day like a miracle, it's going to disappear. on the 28th, he also called this the democrats' new hoax. and on march the 12th, the president said, it's going to go away. i think it's dangerous for mitch mcconnell to suggest that impeachment was impeding the government response to coronaviru coronavirus. >> it's totally reckless and irresponsible in addition to being totally untrue. it wasn't impeachment that caused the pyatt to disband the office at the white house that was supposed to be the early warning system and top-level response to this kind of pandemic. and it certainly wasn't impeach