there. >> absolutely right. >> one of those excellent reporters who asked a strong question and jeremy diamond is with us right now. reporter jeremy you did an excellent job and deferring to alcindor to let mer aher ask th question. the president did not let her ask the question. you allowed her to ask the question thact was generous. you ask aed a fair question and you were reading the president's own word and instead of re answering your question, he decided to attack you. >> i have been covering president trump for five years now and so often it is the president's own words when they are thrown back at him seems to get under his skin and it is similar bli because sometimes the president perhaps regrets what he says or things are being twisted or used geagainst him. those are his words. let me play you the words of what i asked the president about. hef he was talking about governors of states need to be more appreciate ti appreciative of him and his administration. >> these people are working 24 hours a day. >> mike pence, i don't think he sleeps anymore. >> these are people that should be a

. >>> start with cnn's jeremy diamond live for us at the white house. jeremy, what do you know about what the white house might be looking into? >> reporter: well, fredricka, those 15 days to slow the spread, those guidelines the white house put out, they are expiring in a matter of days. so we know that the president and his task force are reviewing options to look at whether or not they can relax 1of the guidelines at least in certain parts of country or will have to keeped guidelineses in effect a few more weeks. we know from a health expert, proposed the coronavirus task force, some recommendations that could see some schools and businesses reopen in parts of the country that have low infection rates, but, of course, one of the challenges is knowing whether those low infection rates truly are low or because of a lack of testing or because people are asymptomatic, right? and haven't presented with symptoms yet. one of the keconcerns dr. antho fauci, a leading expert on the pandemic, raised this morning with our colleague jake tapper. listen in. >> if

we start with cnn's jeremy diamond at the white house. jeremy what do we expect the task force will be talking about today? >> reporter: well, fredricka, those 15-day guidelines the white house issued nearly two weeks ago to slow the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in the united states, those are coming to an end's in a matter of days. we know the president and hid coronavirus task force have begun considering whether or not to begin to relax some of the guidelines, the social distancing guidelines for at least parts of country. cnn now learned according to a senior federal health official have federal health experts proposed recommendations that could allow some schools and some businesses in parts of the country that have lower infection rates to begin to reopen. but that is just something that the federal government is currently considering that the faske force is reviewing looking at the latest data and evidence. as that proposal works its way through the white house, we know dr. anthony fauci this morning said he's in favor of begi

. >> cnn's jeremy diamond is at the white house. jeremy, what more do we know about what the president is doing to handle this outbreak? >> reporter: well, fred, he took to twitter this morning to announce new screening procedures. you'll remember yesterday the president and the vice president announced that they were increasing the travel advisory for americans to certain parts of south korea and italy, where there have been serious outbreaks in certain regions of both of those countries. today the president announced that there will be additional screening now for travelers coming from those countries. a secondary screening at u.s. ports of entry when they arrive here in the u.s. i just spoke with katie miller, the vice president's press secretary, who explained that that secondary screening will typically involve health questions from dhs officials or contractors at u.s. airports, essentially asking people if they're feeling well, unwell, if they've been to those regions in that country, and if, indeed, they do feel unwell or look

now jeremy diamond reports from the white house. >> reporter: while president trump on saturday was toutinged production of those masks and respirators that he said we'll begin shipping out millions of those supplies over the coming weeks. but we are already seeing across the united states doctors, nurses, hospitals already beginning to face shortages of that personal protective equipment that is so crucial in this fight against coronavirus. that's why i asked the president today specifically about some of those concerns from doctors and perhaps what may have been done in the weeks prior. i know you're talking now about increasing production at so many of these facilities on how to get the masks out. but given that this is the powerful, wealthiest country in the world shouldn't this have been resolved weeks ago? >> many administrations preceded me. for the most part they did very little in terms of what you're talking about. this is inprecedented. you can speak to tony, you can speak to anybody. this is unprecedented. as time goes by it's at a level that nobody would've thought possible. th

former house gop investigative counsel during the clinton impeachment, jeremy diamond. tell me what you found out. >> it asks a series of trump-focused litmus tests. for example, what part of trump's message mostly appeal to you and why? also asking prospective candidates to describe their political evolution, their interest in serving in the trump administration. the previous questionnaire that was used to ascertain a candidate's qualifications didn't mention trump once. now it's at least five times in this document that we have obtained where it says trump and asks people for their views of the president. so this goes beyond the kind of idealogical test that other administrations have also used to make sure everyone is in line with the president's objectives. now it's very much focused on the president himself. this is coming at a unique moment of trump's presidency after the impeachment trial. the president is looking to purge disloyal aides and look to people who are loyal to him and his campaign for a long time. we do have stephanie grisham, the press secretary, wh

jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. >>> also in washington, vice president mike pence and his wife were tested for the virus after one of his aides became infected. the tests on the pences both came back negative. >>> the death toll in iran has topped 1500 people. a mall in tehran is now being turned into a makeshift hospital. supreme leader ayatollah khamenei addressed the nation last hour urging followers to follow health officials' recommendations and have patience. sam kiley is following this story for us live in abu dhabi. sam, what more did khamenei have to say? >> well, somewhat disappointingly, i think, for many people around the world, the supreme leader in iran began his speech with a long description on islam but then descended into conspiracy theories but adding a degree of doubt adding if it is true that it is the case the american military created this virus, then it would be dangerous if american medics were to come to iran and study the effects on iranians suggesting even that there have been studies made by the united states on the iranian genome and then perhaps t

. >> cnn jeremy diamond is live at the white house now. jeremy, who is the president listening to right now? >> reporter: look, that's the question, ana. listen to what the president said yesterday, the president was asked, for example, about apple closing its stores. the president's response, fine, if other businesses want to do it, that's fine. we haven't necessarily heard the president with the same emphasis as dr. anthony fauci one of the government's pop public health officials and other health officials in the government with the same emphasis the extent meshes need to make changes to daily lives, involving this social distancing, not attending certain events, for example, staying at home more. that is something, though, that in conversations with administration officials today they are indicating that an increase focus and messaging on americans needing to really make serious changes to their lives that is something we could be seeing from this administration. we know, of course, there is a briefing at 5:00 p.m. today. perhaps where

jeremy diamond, thank you. joining us is former adviser to presidents nixon, ford, reagan and clinton david gergen. and dr. gounder. the president is, tending the social distancing guidelines until april 30th. so explain what that means. the difference that can make for health care workers on the front lines. >> what we're dealing with in new york is the result of not having done social distancing and this is something you have to go back basically two weeks to see what new yorkers were doing two weeks ago to understand what we're seeing here today. hospitals are overrun. we're seeing sky high rates of deaths from this. ambulance calls all day long. it's really shocking to be here working as a health care vuder in new york right now if we doe not implement social distancing across the rest of the country as soon as possible, they are going to be following that same pattern in our footsteps. >> david, just saydays ago the president said he wanted to ease guidelines in time for easter. what changed? >> well, i th

let's go to jeremy diamond to find out more at the white house. any more information that you can share about what's going into this decision? >> reporter: well, the incoming white house chief of staff mark meadows accompanied the president on the way back to the white house. said the white house is looking at how exactly it would enforce such a quarantine, what options are for this. but it seems what's driving the president's concerns appears to be what the florida governor, ron desantis, has been complaining about, which is that there are people from new york coming into florida, coming from a high risk area in new york, going to florida, potentially spreading the virus further. the president has repeatedly mentioned, in fact, complaints out of florida. that seems to be the impetus for what the president is looking at. i don't know that quarantine is the right word for the president to be using here. instead, seems what he is talking about is travel restrictions, restricting people that are currently in new york or also in parts of new jersey an

jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. >> and the coronavirus is still spreading rapidly worldwide. the number of infections stands at more than 88,000. and indonesia is reporting its first infections. globally, more than 3,000 people have died. south korea reports nearly 500 new cases, bringing their total to more than 4,200. that comes after italy reported more than 500 new cases over the weekend. the vast majority of cases are still in mainland china. >>> and cnn senior international correspondent sam kiley standing by in abu dhabi with the latest developments from the middle east. bla blake essig in ontario. and john defterios in london. sam, let's start with you. i want to talk about the latest numbers that you are getting there. and containment efforts across the middle east. >> well, rosemary, just in the last few minutes, we understand from medical authorities in kuwait, that the number of confirmed cases there has leapt by 9 to 56. there have been a similar number, 47, in nearby bahrain. there are 21 confirmed cases here in the united arab emirates. but there were two hotel

jeremy diamond, thank you for your reporting. i want to bring in the former ed a vierz daifds gergen, julia cayenne and dr. ann. to you first, doctor. what's your reaction when you hear the white house believes 100,000 americans could die from the coronavirus? >> i think this is based on assumptions put into a model and we don't know at this point. so much of it is predicated on exactly how we manage the response. what else we can do to be able to keep the cases down. there have been a number of people coming in and talking about how everybody might need to start wearing a mask. there are many things we can be doing to flatten the curve. we think about the models and the protections and that's what dr. fauci said. there are model that estimate what's going to happen. but they will change based on how well people self-quarantine and self-isolate. i would like people to start talking about what they can do. for example, everybody wearing a face mask of some sort when they go outside. we know this is aerosol. when people speak, they

let's go to the white house and jeremy diamond. what are you learning about what's going into the possible quarantine decision? >> reporter: well, there's still a lot of questions and most of the questions have so far been unanswered by the white house as to exactly what the president is considering. we know that the white house's incoming chief of staff, mark meadows, told reporters as he arrived with the president back at the white house, we are evaluating all the options now as far as what kind of legal authority the president would have to quarantine a specific number of states or regions in the country. what the president appears to be referring to though is more of a travel restriction, restricting travel for individuals that are living currently in new york, parts of new jersey, parts of connecticut, the epicenter of the tri-state area where the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in the united states has been so far. but where this is coming from, it appears pretty clear. the president had some conversations with the flor

let's go to our white house correspondent jeremy diamond.ning new details what's going on behind the scenes, the president's deliberations with his senior aides. what are you hearing from your sources? >> the president for weeks now has been publicly and privately minimizing the seriousness of this epidemic now a pandemic. even though he's been continuing to do so publicly some white house aides and people close to the president have told me and my colleagues the president behind the scenes, they've noticed a shift in him. specifically on monday when the stock was in free fall some of the president's congressional allies were self-quarantining and the president had just returned from florida where he was getting an earful from friends and allies there who were suggesting he wasn't taking this seriously enough. so when the president returned to the white house i'm told he said, i want to do something big. this was in a meeting some of his top advisers, especially his economic advisers and the president was referring to this idea of a payroll

cnn's jeremy diamond is live at the white house for us. what are you learning? >> reporter: well, ana, we've seen so far that most of the trump administration's office focused on two things. travel restrictions and registering lack of testing. bick questions raised about the impact on americans daily lives as we've seen this epidemic grow into a pandemic and seen impacts on american's daily lives here in the united states and seeing dr. anthony fauci to brace for much more and really making the case himself for americans to make more changes to their daily lives to avoid the worst case scenarios of hundreds of thousands of people dieing from this. listen to dr. fauci just this morning. >> are you thinking that hundreds of thousands of americans could die from this? >> you know, i say that and it sometimes gets taken out of context. we have to be realistic and honest. yes, it is possible. our job, our challenge to try to make that not happen. but to think if we go about our daily lives and not worry about everything that it's not going to happen, it could happen,

jeremy diamond, cnn, washington. >>> well, the state of louisiana saw a spike in coronavirus cases and now is reporting over 3,000 confirmed cases. more than 130 deaths. the city of new orleans especially hit hard. and the national guard has been called in there. a local nurse at a new orleans hospital telling cnn that her hospital is averaging three to four deaths per day. she tells us this. "we have had to set up a temporary morgue, white box, outside the ed next to the ambulance ramp for those who expire from covid-19. this temporary morgue is full." with more on the situation in new orleans, cnn's ed lavandera. >> reporter: the latest numbers here in louisiana suggest that this state and the city in particular of new orleans remains a hot spot in the coronavirus outbreak across the country. the department of health here in louisiana says there are now more than 3,300 cases of coronavirus in the state and that there have been 137 deaths. this is a significant jump from the day before. and here in the next few hours the latest numbers will be released ubs once again. that is the cont

. >> cnn's jeremy diamond is over at the white house for us right now. jeremy, we're standing by for a coronavirus briefing from the trump administration, right at the top of the next hour, a lot of new developments unfolding right now. big questions facing the administration, as it tries to figure out the next steps in this fight against the outbreak, what's the latest? what are you hearing over there now? >> that's exactly right, wolf. and so far what we've seen from this administration is a big focus on these travel restrictions. first, those with regards to china and then those with regards to europe, as well as the united kingdom and ireland, which were added over the weekend to that list of countries. and then we also saw focus on rectifying the lack of testing around the country. that is still definitely something that this administration is focusing on. playing catch-up here to try to get more testing available across the country. and also to set up some of those mass testing centers that the president referenced on friday. but there is also an in

cnn's jeremy diamond was there and he pressed the president about the lack of equipment. my, how did the president respond to your question? >> reporter: well, ana, listen, the president and his administration today were touting the fact that they are increasing production of these critical n-95 masks and other masks that healthcare providers across the country need. now, the critical question, though, is whether this is perhaps too little too late in some regards, at least in the short-term. that is because we are seeing from doctors, e.r. physicians across the country that they are already experiencing shortages of some of those critical medical supplies, and so that's what i asked the president about. listen in. i know you're talking now about increasing production at so many of these facilities to get the masks out, but given that this is one of the wealthiest, most powerful countries in the world, should this even be happening? shouldn't have have been resolved weeks ago? >> i'll tell you the way i look at it. so, many administrations preceded me. for the most part, t

jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. >> one u.s. doctor's straight talking about the coronavirus has really struck a cord with a lot of people. during a briefing this week dr. emily landen, the chief epidemiologist at the university of chicago medicine explained why the governor of illinois' order for people to stay home is so crucial to protecting everyone. have a listen. >> we have to fight this fire before it grows too high. these extreme restrictions may seem in the end a little anti-climactic because it's really hard to feel like you're saving the world when you're watching netflix from your couch, but if we do this right nothing happens. yeah, a successful shelter in place means that you're going to feel like it was all for nothing. and you'd be right. because nothing means that nothing happened to your family. and that's what we're going for here. >> and i'm delighted that joining me from chicago is dr. emily landon. thanks so much for being with us. your appearance at the governor's news conference, what you said, how you sa

jeremy diamond. >> president trump, on saturday, backing down in the face of criticism. the president earlier on saturday proposing a quarantine. essentially, restricting travel for any residents of new york and people in parts of new jersey and connecticut. restricting them from traveling to other parts of the country. the president, late saturday night, instead, backing down and proposing this instead. quote, on the recommendation of the white house coronavirus task force and upon consultation with the governors of new york, new jersey, and connecticut, i have asked the cdc to issue a strong travel advisory to be administered by the governors, in consultation with the federal governments. a quarantine will not be necessary. full details will be released by the cdc tonight. that was the president tweeting on saturday night. so what the president is proposing here, it's not clear exactly what the details are. of course, there are already pretty strict restrictions by each of those three states, alrea

jeremy diamond is at the white house for a possible reason for the pred's new tone today. what do you account for the tone? it's certainly different than what we heard from president trump in the last many weeks. >> it certainly is, anderson wrarb look, we have seen this president repeatedly downplay this pandemic during the course of this outbreak, including yesterday when you saw where he was saying this was totally under control. and we saw that dramatic shift in tone today, where the president really seemed to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, acknowledging how bad this virus is and the impact it will have on americans' daily lives. that's whey we saw him issue that guidance to americans on what they can do to mitigate the spread. what i'm told is the president's shift in tone really underscored a shift among top officials inside the white house over the last couple of days. as officials saw those number of cases surging over the weekend, after the number of tests that were being issued and carried out were also rising, the administration really began to unders

jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. >>> mr.mp also announced new travel restrictions to combat the spread of the virus. the u.s. issued do not travel warnings for italy and south korea. and the president expanded the existing travel ban on iran. >> in addition to the existing ban on travel by most iranian nations, we're banning the travel of anyone who has been to iran in the last 14 days. they're having a very big outbreak. and they say here and now if we can help the iranians, we're doing certain things for them now. if we can help the iranians and we have the greatest health care professionals in the world and if we can help the iranians with this problem, we are certainly willing to do so. we would love to be able to help them and all they have to do is ask. >> a british iranian woman jailed in iran says she believes she has been infected with the coronavirus. in a statement released by her family, she has not pin tebeen but felt sick all week. she is serving a five-year sentence on espionage charges. her husband wants her

jeremy diamond questioned the u.s. president about the federal response to the crisis and his shifting narrative. >> reporter: president trump announced he is extending the social distancing guidelines, announcing he can keep the guidelines in place for all americans until the end of april. this just days after the president was suggesting he might want to begin reopening the country's economy by easter sunday. and the president suggesting that just a few days ago. but clearly the president was convinced by his public hilt ea experts he needed to keep it in place to avert the concerns. the president acknowledges that 100,000 americans could die from the coronavirus. that was an estimate put out sunday from dr. anthony fauci, one of the leading health experts. the president saying he feels it will be a good job. >> if we can hold it town as we are saying to 100,000, it's a horrible number, maybe even less. maybe less. so we have between 100,000 and 200,000, we have done a good job. >> reporter: the president refused to

let's go to jeremy diamond. he's joining us right now from washington. nds like the president blinked in the face of those very strong warnings from the governor of new york. frrms a simply saying there's going to be a travel advisory sounds like something in place? >> it does. the timeline of how thepri president considered this and the fact he's backing down from the proposal this morning. he was talking about something federally enforced. preventing people in new york, new jersey, connecticut being able to travel elsewhere in the country. what he's calling is a travel advisory done in coordination with the governors of the three states. so, you have to look at what changed between-the president proposed this and when the president is backing down. all that changed is the new york governor, andrew cuomo, went on cnn a few hours ago and essentially lambasted this proposal, talking about this would be akin the federal government declaring war on the states, saying he believed it would be illegal. so, very harsh criticism the president faced in the hour bu

jeremy diamond takes out behind the scenes. >> president trump on saturday backing down in the face of criticism. the president proposing a quarantine, restricting travel for any residence of new york and people in parts of new jersey and connecticut, restricting them from traveling to other parts of the country. the president late saturday night instead backing down and proposing this instead, quote, on the recommendation of the white house coronavirus task force and upon consultation with the governors of new york, new jersey and connecticut, i have asked the cdc to issue a strong travel advisory to be administered by the governors in consultation with the federal governments. a quarantine will not be necessary. full details will be released by the cdc today. that was the president tweeting on saturday night. of course there are already pretty strict restrictions by each of those three states already in place. take new york, for example, there's a stay-at-home order encouraging new yorkers not to leave their homes other than for necessities like getting groceries or getting medicine.

j jeremy diamond questioned him about the federal response and his shifting narrative. >> president trumpn sunday announcing that he is extending those social distancing guidelines to slow the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in the united states, announcing that he will keep those guidelines in place for all americans across the country until the end of april. this just days after the president was suggesting that he might want to begin reopening the country's economy by easter sunday. and the president suggesting that just a few days ago. but clearly the president was convinced by his public health experts that he needed to keep these restrictions in place in order to avert worse case scenarios as far as the death toll is concerned. nonetheless, the president acknowledging that 100,000 americans could die from the coronavirus. that was an estimate put out earlier on sunday by dr. anthony fauci, one of the leading public health experts. and the president saying if he can keep it under that number, he feels like it will be a good job. >> if we can hold that down as we're saying to 100,0

jeremy diamond. live now to evan in new york city. how are new yorkers reacting to this news of a possible quarantine? >> well look, as jeremy outlined, if you are here in new york where i am standing in manhattan, it is a confusing situation. on the one hand you have the president saying i'm considering what the governor kboem is now considering a lockdown and on the other the governor saying it can't happen, it is not legal and probably won't happen. so if you are here in the city of new york or tri-state area it's been a confusing day on this front. the hourly employees don't live necessarily where they work. they travel from far away. from other parts of the city or other states. most interesting part is governors of all three states have said they have not heard from the president about this idea. if you are a new yorker watching this or from connecticut or new jersey you are left kind of in a confusing position to wonder exactly what's going to happen and who you are supposed to listen to. ana. >> all right thank you. how would t

and president jordan smith, extended $26 billion last days in loans to small businesses and ceo jeremy diamond is recovering from heart surgery, expected to be out of hospital soon and appreciates all the warm wishes. back to the meeting, tone from the bank ceos was encouraging, but that's what we would have expected coming into the meeting. no specific policy announcement to stem the slide in markets or bank stocks specifically perhaps that comes tonight from the oval office at 9:00 p.m. wasn't enough to stop the banks closing down 5% or 6%. index down some 38% from the january high >> wilfred, thank you very much. >> i think you can be cynical and look at meeting, say what the heck is going on or say to yourself, yes, banks in much better place than 12 years ago in throes of the financial crisis and whatever mnuchin or the treasury puts in place to help businesses right now, it's going to be a private/public partnership that gets it done. i think will instill confidence in investors once we get plans on that, maybe stop seeing extreme volatility in stock market. and it's encouraging it found

jeremy diamond, cnn, washington. >>> in the los angeles port of san pedro, it is all hands on deck to fight against coronavirus. our cnn correspondent is with the u.s. hospital ship "mercy", where they are trying to lighten the load battling the pandemic. >> reporter: the u.s. navy hospital ship "mercy" is up and running here in the port of san pedro. 1,000 beds. 800 personnel, 12 operating rooms and arrives here just in time. southern california starting to see that jump toward what they call the apex of coronavirus cases. big jumps in the number of cases in orange, san diego, los angeles and other surrounding counties. now what can "mercy" do. the idea is for it to take on any emergencies, broken bones, appendectomies, anything that is not a covid-19 patient. if you look behind me, you can see there are crew members who are aboard the "mercy." they now have a "do not disembark" order. they are trying hard to isolate this ship and make it exist in its own coronavirus-free, self-containment bubble. now this ship does have a lot of experience with humanitarian missions. one at the top

bring in now cnn's chief political correspondent dana bash and our white house correspondent jeremy diamond. before i get to any of this, jeremy, you're a gentleman and a scholar today for what you did for yamiche. thanks very much for standing up for the code of journalism and ethics in this country. thank you. dana, i'm going to start with you. the president is extending the social distancing guidelines through the end of april. you have new reporting on how he came to that decision. what do you know? >> well, i'm told tonight that the president was given a very strong presentation today by doctors fauci and birx that very specifically in a very cogent way talked about dr. fauci said publicly on with jake tapper this morning, which is that 100,000 to 200,000 people could die if they don't continue to push the guidelines that are in existence right now and keep everybody locked down as much as possible. and that the president really didn't have much of a choice given how strong the presentation was. you know, i am told that there are some skeptics about the modeling that leads to the 100,0

. >> cnn's jeremy diamond asking the coronavirus task force about the real needs of doctors, nurses,> there from dr. fauci. this is a real issue, let's discuss. you're a professor who worked as the medicaid director of virginia and at the department of veterans affairs. tell us what's happening on the ground and what front line health care professionals need. >> sure, jake. so what's happening on the ground is very different depending on where you are in the country right now. but for myself and where i work as well as many of my colleagues, there's actually this odd and eerie quietness in the emergency department, sort of a calm before the storm, if you will. a lot of the elective surgeries have been canceled at many hospitals across the country which is a good thing. a lot of patients are staying home and trying to avoid going in unless they absolutely need to. and so volumes are actually down in many places. now, not in new york, where we heard earlier there is a surge of sick patients coming in. but where i work and in many places, it's actually been a little bit quiet. >> dr. mu

cnn's jeremy diamond is on the scene for us. jeremy, so what kind of guideline proposals is the white house looking at? >> well, wolf, we are just days away from the end of those 15-day guidelines, those social distancing guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in the united states. and we know that the president has been eager to look for ways to start reopening the economy in the united states. we're now told, wolf, that the president and his task force are beginning to review some proposals from federal health experts that could allow certain parts of the countries with lower infection rates to begin reopening some schools, some businesses. if, indeed, those rates are low and if certain parts of the country hit certain indicators, for example, two weeks without a rise, an increase in the number of cases and deaths. but these are proposals that are still being worked on by the white house's coronavirus task force, something that they are still reviewing. earlier this morning, wolf, we did hear from th

. >> during an update by the coronavirus task force just last hour my colleague jeremy diamond asked president trump about why doctors and nurses don't have the kind of medical equipment you need and here is the president's response. >> many administrations preceded me. for the most part they did very little. in terms of what you're talking about. this is unprecedented or just about unprecedented as time goes by we're seeing it is really at a level that nobody would have believed or thought possible. that this could happen. and we are making much of this stuff now and much of it is being delivered now. we've also gotten tremendous reviews from a lot of people. they can't believe how fast it's coming. the fact is that we are doing a tremendous amount. we started with very few masks. we had some but nothing for an event like this. and now we're making tens of millions of masks and other things. i think it's unprecedented what we've done and what we're doing and many doctors and i've read many, many doctors, they can't believe the great job we've done. >> doctor, what is your reaction?

cnn's jeremy diamond was at that briefing. you had a chance to press the president on this issue. tell us what he said. >> that's right, wolf. the president today along with his top administration officials was here touting the fact that the production of masks, respirators, all of these medical supplies that we are hearing about shortages across the country, that the production capacity is being ramped up but the question is how long will that take. and that's why i asked the president about the remarks we heard from doctor according the company. listen to how the president answered some of those concerns. >> i know you're talking now about increasing production at so many of these facilities to get the masks out. but given that this is one of the wealthiest most powerful countries in world, should this be happening? shouldn't this have been resolved weeks ago? >> i tell you the way i look at it, many administrations proceeded me. for the most part they did very little in terms of what you're talking about. this is unprecedented. you could speak to tony, anybody. this is unpreced

i have a host of people with us right now, white house reporter jeremy diamond who you heard there in the press conference pressing on the timeline for the availability of n 95 masks. elizabeth cohen is with us as well. let's begin with you jeremy. again, a rather contentious briefing. the president and the vice president and task force trying to take a very optimistic approach but seemingly a little irritated about some of the questions about specificity. >> right. this is certainly a moment where we see the president wanting to tout all that his administration is doing right now. they are doing a significant amount at the moment trying to ramp up the capacity of n 95 masks and get out more ventilators to health care providers but at the same time and this is the question i was really pressing on is the matter of why this wasn't done sooner. and that is because we are already seeing from doctors across the country who are fighting this pandemic, we are already seeing in hospitals across the country that there are already shortages of medical supplies, of protective equipment, and eve

. >> jeremy diamond, thanks very much. want to bring in two veterans of the obama white house.avid axelrod served as senior advisor to the president. and jen, former white house communications director. what do you make of the president's -- i mean, the president that you saw today versus what we have seen over the last couple weeks? >> well, he certainly changed his tone. he seemed to be a little bit more serious today. however, having worked in the white house for eight years, the public reaction and public panic shouldn't be the trigger for you taking a serious tone for the first time. and, you know, as i've watched this over the past few weeks, i have been struck by the fact that the white house appears, and the president appears, to be weeks behind what public messaging needs to be. because the american people are looking to the white house. democrats. republicans. independents. for accurate information and consistent information and we are just seeing a lot of inconsistency. and having spent the last couple days at home talking with my neighbors across the street, people

so then jeremy diamond got a question. he's a cnn white house reporter. he took the mic and he gave it to you. let me just -- let me show -- i think we have that. we can show our viewers. >> new york is a bigger deal, but it's going to go also, but i have a feeling that a lot of the -- >> all right. i don't have that particular one, but that's what happened. jeremy gave you the mic so you could ask your second question. did that go better than the first round? >> it went a bit better than the first round which was the first time the president lashed out at me and said i was trying to hold him accountable by quoting his words back to him. i had to say thank you to jeremy of cnn for giving me the opportunity to ask my second question. we know now that covering president trump sometimes is like a team sport. we have to have each other's back in the press corps and jeremy had my back. i appreciate that. my second question, what do you make of the idea the president has been saying over and over again that the economic impact of this, more people might die bec

cnn's jeremy diamond is over at the white house for us, awaiting the start of the coronavirus briefing. so jeremy, what are we expecting to hear? >> well, wolf, we are already seeing over the weekend the impacts on american's daily lives really rippling across the country and really being exacerbated. and that is why there are more and more questions at the white house about what exactly this administration is going to do to encourage or more explicitly require americans to practice that social distancing that we have been hearing so much about for the last several days. there are active discussions at the white house, i'm told, about ways in which the administration could do that, but there is not serious consideration at this point, yet, about effectively mandating some kind of a national lockdown. questions about that arose this morning after dr. anthony fauci, one of the top public health officials in this government suggested that he would like to see more active, more serious efforts from this administration to encourage that social distancing. and he did not rule out the possibi

cnn's jeremy diamond is standing by. he's in the white house rose garden right now, waiting for the briefing to begin. jeremy, what are you learning about these new recommendations? >> well, wolf, we are just days away from the end of those 15 days to slow the spread. those were the social distancing guidelines that the president put in place. and now within a matter of days, we're reaching the end of that. so the president and white house officials are currently reviewing recommendations to potentially begin opening up parts of the country that have the lowest risk. but in order to do that, a senior federal health official tells cnn that those regions of the country would have to hit certain benchmarks, but then could start seeing some schools and businesses begin to open up. that as this morning, we heard dr. anthony fauci, the leading public health expert, working on the coronavirus task force, he was talking about the fact that, look, he is in favor of beginning to open up parts of the country, but in order to do that

we're told sources telling dana bash and jeremy diamond that tonight. >> and much to the criticism oferity of the virus. take a look. >> by april, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. >> the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. we have very few people with it. the people are getting better. they're all getting better. >> we're close to a vaccine. >> we're going down not up. substantially down not up. of the 15 people, the original 15 as i call them, eight of them have returned to their homes to stay in their homes until fully recovered. and again when you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done. >> it is going to disappear. one day it is like a miracle, it will disappear. and from our shores, it could get worse before it gets better. it could maybe go away. we'll see what happens. nobody really knows. >> anybody that needs a test gets a test. they're there. they have the test. and the tests are beautiful. anybody that needs a test gets a

. >> jeremy diamond was there at the news conference. a pretty stark contrast between what the president said and some of the others said, jeremy. >> reporter: it certainly was, wolf. and i think what we saw born out here was what we've been reporting throughout this coronavirus epidemic, now a pandemic, which is that the president's primary concern really is with the economy, and that is what we saw the president focusing on today in the wake of that announcement from the fed. and the president here also trying to calm americans so that the economy doesn't suffer such dire consequences, rather than really focus on the public health impact of all this. hearing the president repeatedly say, relax, that everything's going to be great, that everything's under control. clearly, those remarks were aimed at keeping americans spending, frankly, to ensure that they are still boosting the economy. i asked the vice president about those comments and why the president's message is so different. he dodged that one and said that everything that the ad

jeremy foust, my guest. a few weekends that the "diamond princess" cruise ship suggests a fatality of closer that 5.85%. >> yeahproblem is, all of these numbers are based on tests, if you will, there's a n num erator and the denominator. what we really need to do is the number of people who have recovered. in order do that, you need to do antibody tests. actually, this is something that i'm actively working on, develop a population survey using antibody tests that have just recently come out in the last week. first approved for u.s. use by the fda. i think we will know the answer soon enough, but until we know that answer, i feel uncomfortable telling people there's a 3% mortality rate when it could be much, much lower than that. it panics people in a way that is likely not appropriate. >> dr. bhattacharya, i want to put up on the screen one op-ed you co-authored in "the wall street journal." it says this, a universal quarantine may not be worth the cost it poses on the economy, community and individual mental and physical health. we should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the lockdo