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let's go to john harwood, cnn business anchor susan chatt chatterley. these were statements from steve mnuchin just a moment ago that might surprise people listening. >> i am curious what your thoughts were when you saw that 3.3 million number this morning. >> to be honest with you, i think these numbers are not relevant. >> these numbers are not relevant? john harwood, that's 3.3 million americans who don't have jobs anymore. >> there's no question about that, and in fairness to steve mnuchin, i think, jim, what he was saying was it's not relevant to the underlying condition of the economy. it is a crisis right now, and that's why congress last night, or the senate last night unanimously passed a $2 trillion fiscal relief bill to try to get us to the other side, get workers and businesses to the other side of the health crisis. i think mnuchin's belief, and i think the belief of jay powell, the chairman of the federal reserve, is that if we can get to the other side on the basis of public health and the threat of the virus, then the economy can functio

cnn's john harwood is there. john, this speech created a lot of confusion. what is the white house saying about it now this morning? >> reporter: well, they've been trying -- since the president finished talking last night, kate, to clean up the confusion surrounding that speech. the president right now is in the oval office with the prime minister of ireland talking about coronavirus. we'll get that tape in a little while. on the way in, he was asked about the stock market drop, which of course as you noted in the trading hall this morning, he said the market is going to be just fine. we expect this afternoon that the president may sign some sort of emergency declaration. the white house counsel is going through possibilities. i don't know exactly what federal resources that would unlock, but the administration seems to be keenly aware that they are not over this with that speech last night. certainly the market reaction showed that. the president initially said banning all travel to and from europe. well, in reality, u.s. citizens, legal permanent resident

although, john harwood, it is safe to say, the last few days, different analysts were looking at thishe higher range of the most dire forecasts. and it is also the specter that was hanging over politicians in washington over the last few days. in the senate, unanimously passed this rescue bill overnight, the house will address it tomorrow. the president will sign it. how much does this massive rescue plan even address the scope of the problem? >> well, it is a very large step toward doing that. you've gotten it exactly right as my colleagues have as well. this is a number shocking, but not really surprising. when you turn off economic activity on the scale that the united states has done, you're going to get numbers like this. this is why you have wall street analysts predicting drops of 10, 20% in gdp in the second quarter of this year. that's why also why as you indicated, john, you got 96 senators and zero dissenters voting for that rescue package. the question, again, is going to be how quickly do we get on top of the health crisis to -- that this rescue package, the relief packag

so john harwood, is the president movable on this goal of relaxing things in the next couple weeks? >> yes, he is. the president of the united states, this president, is always movable. there's always a push and pull between various influences, forces on him, whether it's poll numbers, stock market values, the last person that he talked to. i do think, jim, as we talked about in the last hour, that if you listen closely to that briefing yesterday, there were signs that over the previous 24 hours, he had heard from a lot of people, including tony fauci, including deborah birx, saying no. an easter reopen, whatever that means, for the country, for the economy, is not likely to be born out. he continues to embrace the idea of it, sounded nice. easter is a wonderful holiday. people value that. so he was speaking to that yearning of people for greater normalcy. but i think he was also acknowledging that, a, we need to get more data, as tony fauci indicated at that same briefing. and also that, to the extent he would explore something in that kind of timeframe, it would be in some sort of

we're watching this, john harwood, very closely.his is an impressive group of experts right there who don't always necessarily follow what the president wants to hear. >> that's right. it was have interesting. gloria was citing poll numbers saying the president was at a net disapproval of how americans viewed his handling. slight positive assessment of the government overall handling so there is confidence in institutions like the cdc, like nih, tony fauci has been an esteemed expert for a very long time. the question is, is the president in concert with them fully and sending messages that permeate down through his administration and the white house and this all the agencies. >> it is an impressive group right there. we see the surgeon general of the united states, dr. jerome adams standing there in the uniform. sanjay, as we look at these experts, you know many of them. do you have confidence in these people. >> yeah, i think so. i mean, you know, dr. fauci is obviously very front and center and more recently -- >> here comes -- h

john harwood at the white house, thank you very much. right now senators and the trump administration, they are in their fifth straight day of negotiations as they work to reach a deal on a 2 trillion -- you heard that right -- $2 trillion stimulus bill. manu raju is on kacht tocapitol. nancy pelosi expressed some optimism. is that warranted? >> this is optimism not just by nancy pelosi but also steve mnuchin. they entered the white house, and mnuchin said they briefed the president this morning, they talked to him twice, and they expect in the next few hours a deal to be reached. that is a similar line of optimism that came out of nancy pelosi's mouth just moments ago when she expressed she thought a deal could be done and done quickly today in the house. >> i think there is real optimism that we could get something done in the next few hours. >> reporter: so this is a shift from the last 48 hours or so when there had been a number of outstanding issues while both sides have been indicating things have been moving closer. things got ext

joining me now is cnn's white house correspondent john harwood and our resident fact checker daniel dale. gentlemen, good evening to you. john, you first. president trump said everyone who needs a ventilator will get one. the governors say there's nowhere near enough. he also said a lot of areas aren't affect bid the virus, but his medical advisers disagree. yesterday he seemed to embrace the science, so john, what happened today? >> well, don, let me step back and do big picture here. we talked about it a little bit last night. credit where due. on the big one, on whether or not you're going to relax those guidelines or extend them he listened to the science and went forward, and had his people like debra birx and tony fauci make the case that you needed to, even in the less populated areas with fewer cases you need to watch it because their conservatives were similar. however, having done that, having signed the big fiscal relief bill that congress passed last week, what does trump actually have to do in this crisis? there's a big and terrible thing happening in this country from a pub

john harwood for us on the white house lawn. president trump claims the coronavirus outbreak is contained, even though the death toll continues to rise. >> i admit that the 14 deaths that have occurred are completely tragic in this country, shows that they have been contained because the president took action. a lot of people criticized him for that. he was called a xenophobe for saying no more travel to china, and that worked. >> gloria borger is with me now. gloria, when asked how the virus could be contained if it's still spreading, conaway ignored that question saying she's not a doctor, even though you don't have to be a doctor to talk about containment. >> i think what members of our public are doing is listening to the doctors and listening to the public health professionals, and what they are saying with a great deal of unanimity this th we don't know how many cases there are in this country right now or how many cases there could be, because there's not enough tests. so everybody assumes that when people are tested, the

cnn's john harwood is at the white house. john, the president's language on this messaging on this has taken some turns, some 180 degree turns in the last several weeks what is happening now and where does he stand now? >> reporter: well, what we're hearing is that the president, jim, is considering a range of options for adjusting the set of restrictions that are now in place. whether it is protecting only vulnerable populations, that is older people and people with pre-existing conditions, trying to give states more flexibility to follow guidelines or not, or adjust the guidelines, whether it is to let younger people go back to work because they're at less risk. the issue, of course, is what kind of economy you can reopen if you have an uncontrolled pandemic and hospitals that are overwhelmed by the demand. what we're seeing is a president being blown from side to side day to day by poll numbers, by what happens with the dow, by people he gets on the phone at night. we saw the president didn't take it terribly seriously, the

cnn's john harwood sat the white house. let's start right there. >> reporter: yesterday, vice president pence said the president was going to be signing the $8 billion emergency supplemental spending bill for coronavirus that was passed by congress yesterday at the cdc in atlanta t was on the president's schedule. then this morning we learned it was off the schedule, the white house put out a statement saying the president did not want to interfere with the work of the cdc, that they have been proactive, that they were on top of it, he was going to stay away, and then we had a photo opportunity with the president when he signed that legislation that in the white house that he was supposed to sign in atlanta and i asked him why he wasn't going to the cdc, here's what he had to say. >> there was -- they thought there was a problem at cdc, somebody that had the virus, it turned out negative, so we're seeing if we can do it, but yesterday afternoon we were informed that there may have been a person with the virus and they now f

from washington with more on the president's thinking on this is cnn white house correspondent john harwood. let's be fair here, john, everyone can understand the point that the economic pain from this is very real. people are out of work, they're concerned they don't have savings, et cetera. that's part of the decision-making here is the effect on the economy. question, of course, is when you relax those restrictions, what does that mean for the health effects of this, the health effects have their own effect on the economy. where is the president's thinking here and is that easter date something that he really wants to hold himself and the country to? >> reporter: i actually don't think so, jim. i think he's preserving some maneuvering room there. a lot going on in president trump's head as you can see from his twitter feed this morning, all sorts of childish statements about mitt romney and others. but the president's worried about the economy, he's worried about his re-election, obviously those two things are related, but if you listen carefully to that briefing last night, i think you

. >> with us now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood. the president says, quote, progress is being made, top health officials say like anthony fauci, we're a year away from an effective drug hitting the market. what do americans need to know? >> reporter: as you said, it is going to be a while until a vaccine is available on a broad scale. the president is looking for various buttons he can push to try to calm people about the response. last week he was saying it wasn't inevitable we would get a big spread in the united states. events raced we beyond those assurances. you look for another way to demonstrate you're on top of the problem, or trying to cope with the problem, meeting with pharma executives. and, of course, former pharma executive alex azar is leading the administration coronavirus task force, one way you can try to make that point. the challenge is if you raise expectations that a vaccine is going to take care of the problem, when people realize that even though they're promising results, deployment will take quite a long ti

to the white house, john harwood joins us there. the president is expected to speak later today. do we know what he'll say and where things stand on both of these funding fronts? >> reporter: he said in a tweet this morning he was going to be having a news conference and address some news about the fda. mark short who is the vice president's chief of staff was just talking to some reporters a short while ago, said he doesn't know what the president was going to announce. the president has continued to talk publicly about prospects for a vaccine. anthony fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the u.s. government said that's a 12 to 18 months away. don't know if the president is going to repeat the similar things that he said before or not. in terms of the stimulus, the notable thing here, poppy, is that, you know, there has been a long-standing debate over whether or not deficits matter in the united states. in this moment, that debate is over. you've got the president of the united states, the leadership in both chambers of congress saying we are going to a very large st

let's go live to the white house, cnn white house correspondent john harwood. first of all, it is interesting, because it shows, does it not, the extent of the spread or concern about the spread of coronavirus and if the president was going to go to the cdc, it might have spread into the building, but the test came back negative so will the president be going to atlanta today. >> reporter: as you know, vice president pence indicated the president would be signing the emergency congressional supplemental spending bill with $8 billion to respond to coronavirus at the cdc. and instead they put out a statement saying no, he doesn't want to interfere with their work and when he -- they summoned us into the diplomatic room for him to sign the legislation, the first thing i asked him was, why aren't you going to atlanta? and that's when he came out and said, well, it is because this one high level person was thought to possibly have coronavirus, they found out that was negative, and now he's going. obviously they're scrambling on the messaging. vice president pence al

let's go to john harwood at the white house. what did the president say, and what's true, john? >> what the president is trying to do is tamp down the idea that this is a tremendous problem for the united states. he's running for re-election. he doesn't like to acknowledge bad news on his watch. he's trying to downplay the situation as he has throughout. and this played out dramatically last night on hannity when the president was confronting -- confronted with assessments by the world health organization of the lethality of this virus. let's take a listen and sequence to some of the statements that came out yesterday, including the president's. >> globally, about 3.4% of reported covid-19 cases have died. >> if you look at the cases that have come to the attention of the medical authorities in china, and you just do the math, the math is about 2%. >> i think 3.4% is really a false number. now this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it's very mild. personally, i would say the number

john harwood, appreciate the latest reporting. joining me, dr. jeremy foust, an emergency room physician and instructor at harvard medical school, and dr. she shaw. dr. foust, let me start with you first. when you say it, the number of cases in new york city are doubling every three days. what does that tell you about the arc of this, and put that into the context of the president saying, well, maybe in a couple weeks we might be ready to dial it back? >> yeah, this is an important moment, and let me just say this about the president of the united states. today is a new day. and tomorrow is another day. and if he sees fit to make policy that saves the most lives, then he can be a great president. and we see leadership, and we see lack of leadership in some places. so that's the diagnosis. but what's the prescription? the prescription is two things. right now, in places like new york, where there's a lot of disease, you have to have shelter in place. you cannot ignore the fact on the ground that doubling time we're hearing does not comport, does n

i want to bring in cnn white house correspondent john harwood. john, good evening, thank you so much for joining us. appreciate it. so the president came out and spoke. i'm wondering, you know, he -- the president has not been tested for coronavirus. came out tonight. what is the white house saying about that now? >> well, that statement you just referred to a few minutes ago from stephanie grisham says the president has not received covid-19 testing because he's had neither prolonged close contact with any known confirmed covid-19 patient, nor does he have any symptoms. so after initial hesitation, they were not prepared for that question at the briefing tonight. they have confirmed the president has not been tested. and, of course, everyone hopes that the president has not been -- contracted the virus. and happy to hear that he doesn't have any symptoms. >> so they have no concern. you have all these people who are self-quarantining and who had direct contact. and he was in close confines with them. but there doesn't appear to be any concern at

let's begin at the white house with john harwood. john, it is notable and this is not criticism, or a partisan statement that the white house, the president had to correct multiple things that he said in his address to the nation last night, leaving many people very confused this morning. >> very confused. and what happened last night was the white house aides persuaded the president he needed to do something dramatic to signal to the american people who see all these events cascading around them that he was taking it seriously. he went on national television from the oval office. he tried to underscore the gravity of the situation with a dramatic move on banning travel to europe. then dhs, the department of homeland security issued guidance after the speech indicating that it wasn't such a complete ban, just like the earlier restrictions on travel to china, exempts u.s. citizens and immediate family members, legal permanent residents that sort of thing, he also bungled the discussion of what it meant for trade. he said the prohibitio

joining me now is white house correspondent john harwood and resident fact checker daniel dale as well. gentlemen, hello to you. so john, if this stimulus pass, and it settles the markets and people know that relief is on the way, could that change the president's timeline that he is still talking about, hopefully opening the country back up by easter? >> well, everything seems to change his timeline. it moves from day to day. this is a president who is under a lot of pressure. and he is not sure which way to go. he comes from the world of business. this shutdown to stop the coronavirus is bad for business. it's especially bad for the travel and hospitality business, which is the business that he's in. he also as an incumbent president seeking reelection knows that a bad economy is terrible for incumbent presidents. that was his biggest strength even before the coronavirus was under way. the economy was strong and he was still trailing joe biden, the vice president. so he is trying to mitigate economic effects if he can. on the other hand, the biggest city in the country, his hometown

. >> cnn's john harwood is at the white house with more on this tension. re you hearing about this, john? >> kate, there is a divide, as you alluded to, on the assessment of the crisis. there is also a divide on what to do about it. this is a president who does not want to acknowledge that things on his watch are going badly, and therefore, he has to continue to downplay, to praise as he did in tweets this morning, his own early decision to restrict some entry into the country of people from china, saying that was responsible. to compare it to the ordinary flu and note how many fewer deaths have occurred on this. the same thing comes up on the economic response. there is a lot of pressure, both from the hill and even from within the white house, for some action in terms of helping people adversely affected, and that list of people is growing as markets crash and the economic impact becomes more severe. the president, when i asked him about this on friday, said, no, we're in great shape, just look at those job numbers. he doesn't want to admit that things ar

our john harwood was there. disagree if you think i am wrong here. but that was the president seemed much more up on the brief today than he has been in the past. the president takes a lot of the questions himself and the president too in the end there were some questions about p politics, the president went out of his way to be more gracious and magmamous. >> he preserved the tone of urgency when he announced those social distancing guidelines much more aggressively. this is the president saying never mind the cost or whether we are going into recession, never mind the stock market, we got to go all out to combat this virus and to mitigate the suffering of the american people and on the economic dimension of that, he embraced this idea of cutting checks directly to americans. mnuchin going up on the hill. this is a major component of their proposal. this is something that democrats and president obama's adviser put on the table a week ago and republicans tom cotton and president bush's top economic adviser also embracing. steve mnuchin were both say

. >> cnn's john harwood is at the white house, looking at this. hn, it is true that the true death rate if you will is not yet known and could be less than 3.4%. because not enough people have been tested. but this is another instance of the president really freelancing on important facts. >> reporter: the president has consistently tried to play down this severity of this situation. part of the way he's done it has been suggesting that the lethality has been exaggerated. remember, long before that hannity interview, he did the same in an exchange with our colleague sanjay gupta, he was suggesting that the 2% estimates that had been initially offered, based on known cases, was too high and that it wasn't -- might not be all that different from the lethality rate from the common flu, which the data we have shows is much lower. his acting dhs secretary said the same thing on capitol hill, about the same. last night in response to the higher w.h.o. estimate, he said his hunch was that it was much lower. again, as you pointed out, kate, it is likely th

cnn white house correspondent john harwood. our resident fact checker, daniel dale and dr. celine, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at nyu and host of the epidemic podcast. good evening, one and all. john, we're going to start with you. we now have over 101,000 coronavirus cases in this country. more than any other country in the world. and we still haven't reached the peak. over 1,500 people have died. so why is the president talking about lifting restrictions in certain areas? >> don, let me start with the good news. it appears that the president is not going to do that. he's been trying to back away from that prospect, which he held out a few days ago. in his comments today that we want to reopen safe. expressing uncertainty about the easter timeline suggests that. but as for why he felt the need to hold out that prospect, i think he's afraid. this is a president whose self-image is caught up in the idea that he's produced economic success. when he launched his re-election campaign, the strong economy was his principal asset. now, the response to coronavirus

cnn's kristin holmes is with us and john harwood, i want to start with you. the governor tries to balance his criticism with some praise to the government. i would call it 90% criticism. new yorkers are going to die if the federal government does not stop being flat footed in his positive. 20,000 ventilators, he says send it to new york now so he can save lives and move it some where else later, scathing under the president. >> we just seen what today's pressure point is. yesterday we saw the president giving encouragement for business leaders saying it is not going to go on too long, we are going to restart the economy. that's a powerful push back. without saying the president's name trying to indicate he has worked cooperatively with the president on this potential trial, therapeutic treatment that he talked about at the end of the news conference. a powerful statement that we are not going to leave behind 1% or 2% of the people who are vulnerable. it is not a partisan message, john. we have seen it in a different way for liz cheney. there is no normal func

sanjay gupta, as well as our white house correspondent john harwood. ntlemen, thank you very much. i appreciate you joining us. it looks like the president has struck a deal with the d democrats. john. >> that's right. that's one of the positive things that happened today. there were a couple of them, despite the errors in the press conference that you alluded to. we'll discuss that some more later. he did convey a seriousness by declaring a national emergency. he did marshal resources of the private sector. and he made this deal with nancy pelosi. and i think it was a significant point the speaker mentioned. she could've passed the bill in the house without the agreement of the administration. but i think in a moment of crisis like this, when it's important to rally the nation, the fact that a democratic speaker of the house and a republican president, and then presumably a republican-controlled senate will pass it next week, that is a signal to americans that all hands are on deck at this moment. >> uh-huh. let's talk about what you just mentioned mom

let's get over to the white house, john harwood is standing by with much more on what this meeting is going to be about. what are you hearing about what more could come from this meeting, as the president says, he really wants to talk about a vaccine. >> not much. we already know that they're hard at work on a vaccine through nih and other countries for that matter. the work is going pretty well as anthony fauci said the other day, but it is still going to be a while until it is tested, verified to be effective and safe on a broad scale. and so i think the most significant thing that will come out of the meeting is the president trying to communicate that the administration is on top of it and doing what it can. and the question is, is that going to be enough to calm some fears that have been flaring for the last couple of weeks, we saw what happened in the markets last week. they're a little recovered today. they bounced up. that's a positive thing from the standpoint of investors, but we're all watching this play out in real time. the president said last week it wasn't inevitable we

john harwood. business anchor richard quest. and dr. richard besser, who is in studio with me, former acting director of the cdc. john, how you doing? >> good. >> so reality appears, correct me if i am wrong, to be setting in with the president of the united states that this crisis is getting worse. that this crisis is real. do we know what happened to change his tone today? >> i think a couple things, don. first of all, the society, as a whole, bottom up, was racing past where the administration was. and so the nba, march madness, disney land, broadway, school superintendents around the country, governors, democratic and republican, were acting to shut down much of daily life. no president can ignore that for long. that's a reality check. second of all, you had people like anthony fauci increasingly in his presence say -- talk about the need for tougher action and anthony fauci's got a very strong reputation around the country. and, third, i think the president was very struck by what's happened in the markets in the last couple days. r

cnn white house correspondent john harwood. our resident fact checker, daniel dale and dr. e, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at nyu and host of the epidemic podcast. good evening, one and all. john, we're going to start with you. we now have over 101,000 coronavirus cases in this country. more than any other country in the world. and we still haven't reached the peak. over

. >>> former baltimore city health commissioner john harwood is with us from the house. sanjay, let me begin with you. the president said something last night, contradicting what the world health organization has said about how fatal coronavirus is, and what dr. anthony fauci said, head of nih. here is what the president said last night. let's listen. >> i think 3.4% is a false number. this is just my hunch. but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and it is very mild. personally i would say the number is way under 1%. >> what are americans supposed to believe this morning? >> well, i mean, there is data. and the world health organization is releasing this data, the cdc is releasing this data. i think what the president is referring to is the possibility that there are people out there who have, you know, not because they don't have much in the way of symptoms, don't know they have the coronavirus. they haven't been able to get tested because the testing hasn't been out there, and therefore when you hav

. >> john harwood, you're at the white house. you've been covering this from the beginning.radictory messages, right? even for instance as -- on testing. do we have sufficient tests? vice president pence yesterday being very straightforward saying, actually, we're not going to have tests as quickly as possible. do you see the white house bringing that message more -- to a more consistent tone going forward? >> well, what we saw from the president in that exchange a few moments ago in the diplomatic room of the white house was he continues to want to paint a sunny side up picture of this situation. as you were discussing with sanjay, he said, well, we stopped it. we talked about the economic fallout, and he said the country is in great shape. did you see those job numbers. i asked him, do we need fiscal systtimulus to avert a recessio. he said that's the fed issue. they need to stimulate. didn't feel any need to do that. the president wants to paint a picture of, we're on top of this. it's not going to be so bad. and we're going to come out the other end in great shape. and t

cnn's john harwood is standing by. what are you hearing about all this this morning? >> well, what we know is that the president has consistently tried to suggest that a vaccine will come faster than it actually will. anthony fauci, leading infectious disease expert in the united states, says it will be 12 to 18 months, so don't know what the president was alluding to on the fda. we know that some trials have begun to be under way, but it's a long way from a trial to vaccine that is available to people. so not sure what that news is going to be about. but when the president says he's going to have a news conference, if recent history or form holds for recent history, he'll walk out in the news conference which is scheduled for 11:30, and talk off the top, maybe take some questions, talk about the closure of the canadian border, and also those efforts to try to get the stimulus legislation, kate, passed through the congress. we have got the senate on track to pass the house bill today. white house with a new request for $45 billion to respond to coronavirus. and then y

john harwood of cnn saying, turns out the biggest challenge to the democratic party from 2016 to 2020 is that donald trump has been president for four years. from virginia. good evening. caller: yes. i am a bernie supporter and i am a retiree and i have to agree with your earlier caller that biden is probably the worst candidate that could possibly go up against donald trump. in all the polls, bernie sanders beats trump. biden loses. biden is the wall street, corporate democrat, and the corporate democrats are all consolidating behind him. he has been behind cuts to medicare and social security. he is friendless for. -- for endless war. he is for all the things people should be voting against and instead, somehow, the corporate democrats have controlled the media and put everybody towards him, and bernie is the only one standing up for the working people, so it breaks my heart because they are handing the election to donald trump again and four more years of donald trump is going to destroy this country. they are handing it to him because biden is the worst candidate they could have p

joining me now is cnn's white house correspondent john harwood and daniel dale. to both of you. john, you first. the president is extending social distancing until at least the end of april acknowledging 100,000 people or more could die in this coronavirus. what is behind this change? >> what's behind the change, don, is the overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that was presented to the president by debra burkes, by anthony fauci that says the absolute worst thing you can do is declare victory at easter time, pull back, see the virus mushroom after that, inflect even worse damage from a second shutdown of the economy than you do from the one that we're soldiering through right now. so credit where due. the president made the correct decision from all the medical and scientific evidence, his behavior at the press conference was very bad and talked about it since then but if you have to choose between good behavior and good decision or bad behavior and good decision, i think any american could take the good decision. >> yeah, john, you know, just days ago th