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Senator Ted Cruz to Self-Quarantine After CPAC Interaction with Infected Individual; 16 of 18 Deaths in Washington Associated with One Nursing Home; Bernie Sanders Looks to Michigan for Much Needed Momentum; Hospitals Taking Extra Precautions to Handle Virus Outbreak. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired March 08, 2020 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[20:00:47]

AMARA WALKER, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Amara Walker in Atlanta.

Tonight, Texas Senator Ted Cruz said he will self-quarantine after interacting with an individual at the Conservative Political Action Conference, who later tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Now Senator Cruz writes in a statement, quote, "I'm not experiencing any symptoms and I feel fine and healthy. Given that the interaction was 10 days ago and that the average incubation period is five to six days, that the interaction was for less than a minute, and that I have no current symptoms, the medical authorities have advised me that the odds of transmission from the other individual to me were extremely low."

Now this comes as the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. has now hit 550 and 21 people have died. And according to the surgeon general, the number of cases and deaths will continue to rise. Eight states have declared states of emergency and in some communities, schools are closed, events are cancelled and people are being told to work from home.

All of this causing chaos in the global economy. The Dow Futures is down 900 points after falling substantially over the past month. Oil prices suffered a historic collapse late tonight after Saudi Arabia shocked the market by launching a price war. Oil prices were already falling sharply because of the declining demand due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Let's bring in CNN's Kristen Holmes now on our big story about Senator Ted Cruz's self-quarantining.

What more can you tell us about this?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, remember, Amara, this is the same conference that both President Trump and Vice President Pence attended. We've already reached out to the White House to ask them once we learned that one of the attendees had tested positive for coronavirus. And the press secretary said that there was no interaction between Vice President Pence or President Trump and this attendee. But what we wanted to know was who this attendee actually did interact with.

And now of course we have at least one answer. We're talking about Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who, as you stated, he said that he's discussed this with health officials that because of the interaction that he doesn't -- they don't believe that this has a high risk of having the virus.

But I do want to read you one part of his statement here why exactly it is that he is self-quarantined. He says, "Out of an abundance of caution and because of how frequently I interact with my constituents as part of my job and to give everyone peace of mind, I have decided to remain at my home in Texas this week until a full 14 days have passed since the CPAC interaction."

This is incredibly important. This is the first lawmaker that we know of who has come into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus. And on top of that, we know that he was up in Washington this week. He was sitting in on luncheons with Vice President Pence. He was assumingly meeting with other lawmakers having interactions with his staffers. And one of the big questions that we have continued to ask is who from this conference was exposed to coronavirus who then could potentially be exposing the vice president or the president or White House staffers, who interact with the president and vice president every single day.

And so this is a big deal. We're still waiting to find out how many other people interacted with this attendee. Now the press secretary says that the Secret Service is working with the president's doctor as well as other government agencies trying to make sure that the president stays safe, but really to look at this from a larger perspective, staying safe. What does that mean exactly?

You're looking at a Republican lawmaker who we know has a relationship with Mitch McConnell, who has a relationship with Republican leadership. Republican leadership that interacts with President Trump on a regular basis. So how exactly are they planning to keep him safe as we continue to see this virus spreading and spreading so quickly?

WALKER: Kristen Holmes, you raise good points. Thank you very much for your reporting.

Now Washington state has become a hotbed of the virus with more than 135 cases confirmed there so far. In that state ground zero of the coronavirus is the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, outside of Seattle. Sixteen of the 18 deaths in that state have been associated with that facility.

[20:05:05]

An employee has now tested positive for the virus and two other employees have been hospitalized for symptoms.

CNN's Omar Jimenez is outside that facility in Washington, joining me now with more.

Omar, my first question to you is, are the officials in that facility getting the testing kits they need, especially for the frontline health care workers there, i.e., the nurses?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's what they have been trying to get a handle on at this point. They told us that they were getting or they have, I should say, the proper amount of testing kits for the residents that are here at this point. But that's partly because the residents have been so depleted in numbers in just the past month alone. It was less than a month ago there was 120 residents here in total, then -- due to hospitalizations and sadly deaths. We are now down to just 55 residents.

And so they have enough testing kits but again partly because of those depleted numbers. But again, as you touched on, it's not just residents here. They are employees, they're showing up day in and day out to take care of these residents. And that's part of what officials touched on a little bit earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM KILLIAN, LIFE CARE OF KIRKLAND: Once again, can't stress enough that everyone who's working inside that facility is a hero for the work they're doing, to take care of these patients. Of the tests that we're doing we still are not testing our employees inside. We don't have test kits to do that. That's an ongoing discussion that we are continuing to have with the various agencies that we would like to be able to test our employees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: That ongoing discussion of course including trying to get enough testing kits for those employees. At least 70 of them showing symptoms, three of them hospitalized, and at least one of them testing positive for the noel coronavirus.

Another thing that they are trying and they told us they were asking for came from a request that we heard from one of the families in that there are people that died here, but were not tested for the coronavirus prior to their death. And at this point, they haven't done any postmortem tests. And that is something they say they are asking both state and federal officials help with as this moves forward. -- Amara

WALKER: Omar Jimenez, on the story for us there in Kirkland, Washington. Thank you, Omar.

Well, just two days are left before six more primary states vote, but one of those states is becoming increasingly important to both the Sanders and Biden campaigns. We're going to tell you why Michigan is so critical and how winning it could be pivotal to both Biden and Sanders.

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WALKER: Six more states are ready to hand over their delegates on Tuesday. The big prize is Michigan, though, and Senator Sanders knows it. He spent most of his weekend there, even cancelling a rally in Mississippi on Friday just to get there faster.

One more reason why Michigan is so important aside from its large number of delegates, Sanders won it in 2016 but not by much. So whether or not he can hold on to it this time around will say a lot about his viability.

With me now two people who know Michigan voters very well and what it takes to win their support, but have very different ideas as to who should be president. Jennifer Granholm is the former governor of Michigan and she supports Joe Biden, and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who ran for governor of Michigan in 2018, he supports Bernie Sanders.

Welcome to you both. Thanks so much for joining me.

Doctor, let's start with you. Sanders calls Michigan very important to win. We know, though, just looking at what happened on Super Tuesday he's been struggling to grow his support. The young voters didn't turn out the way that he had hoped. We know that he's struggling with black voters. What is he doing differently now when it comes to Michigan, Super Tuesday II in general, so that he expands his base of support?

DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, SUPPORTS SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT: Well, let me just tell you. I just left a rally in Ann Arbor that had about 10,000 people there with AOC and those folks are rearing and ready to go. On top of that, he's got a message that really resonates with young folks here in Michigan in particular because a lot of these folks they watched their parents lose their jobs. And with their jobs, they lost their health care.

And that was because of trade deals like NAFTA and because we don't have a program in place like Medicare for All. And on top of that, they are now stuck taking huge levels of debt. The level of debt in America for student loans alone is $1.5 trillion. And so he's speaking directly to those issues. He's got a message that resonates. And let's not forget that he won Michigan the last time around.

WALKER: You're confident that new voters are going to turn out, these young voters are going to turn out as well?

EL-SAYED: I'm confident. Look, you know, they turned out now and I feel like they are going to turn out. They know how important this is if you want to see Senator Sanders on the ballot in the fall.

WALKER: Governor, let's talk about Michigan. What do we need to know about the constituents there? What's important to them? And how important is the white non-college educated vote going to be?

JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D), FORMER MICHIGAN GOVERNOR: Well, every vote is important, obviously. And in Michigan you can put together a coalition, which includes those white non-college educated voters. You can also put together a coalition that includes African-Americans, there is Latino voters. There is -- we have a very large urban American community and there is a coalition to be had.

The Biden campaign is not taking this for granted. I will tell you, though, that the kids who Abdul -- Dr. El-Sayed is talking about is -- are kids whose parents' jobs were saved because Joe Biden, as the vice president, really advocated for Michigan to be for the auto industry to be bailed out during the Great Recession. We all know that in 2009 the big auto companies went bankrupt, although Ford did not. But prior to that, the suppliers had all gone bankrupt. These were the largest bankruptcies in the history of America. And Joe Biden was the one who was inside the Obama administration advocating for us to be saved.

[20:15:03]

People in Michigan will remember that. They will also remember that Joe Biden headed the Recovery Act to make sure that when we were going through the Great Recession we got $2.5 billion so that teachers' jobs would not be lost. We got $1 billion to make sure we could diversify into the electric vehicle. We had money sent to us so that people were not taken off of Medicaid. Joe Biden was our advocate when we were on our knees. Joe Biden lifted us up, put us on his shoulders and carried us through that recovery.

And then when Detroit, the city of Detroit went bankrupt, that was the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the nation. And Joe Biden again rallied the federal government to come in and save Detroit. Saving the bus system. Adding new buses. Lighting. Tearing down blighted homes. I'm just saying that he has been an enormous advocate for us and I think citizens in Michigan will remember that.

WALKER: Yes, I mean, trade is a big issue in Michigan.

Doctor, I'll let you respond to what the governor just said but, you know, we did see on the campaign trail Bernie Sanders attacking Joe Biden pretty hard over trade.

EL-SAYED: Yes. I do appreciate the governor's leadership and President Obama's leadership, but Joe Biden was not President Obama. Let's be clear. And then number two, let's not forget that in the last 10 years alone, that same Michigan economy that you talked about being saved lost 250,000 jobs that are not going to come back. And those were off- shored and automated because of those trade deals. And so we've got to be serious about the facts on the ground in Michigan right now. Not what happened 10 years ago. This election has to be about the future, not the past.

WALKER: You know, there are some Democrats --

GRANHOLM: Can I just --

WALKER: Yes, go ahead.

GRANHOLM: Can I just quickly respond to that?

WALKER: Yes.

GRANHOLM: Because of course -- listen, believe me, I campaigned on the notion that NAFTA and CAFTA have given us the shafta (PH). And no doubt, the industrial Midwest we saw it and were hit hard. But those trade agreements that happened in the '90s, when you -- we learned from those. Joe Biden learned from those. When it got to the 2000s, you saw he voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. He voted against the Chile free trade agreement. He voted against the trade agreement in Oman.

He voted to make sure that jobs were saved and that is what he's going to do as president. He says he will not sign a trade agreement that does not protect our workers, where labor and environment is not at the table. He insists on making sure that the industrial Midwest will be protected.

WALKER: Let's go big picture and talk about electability. And Doctor, to you, I mean, do you think America is ready for a revolution and that's what it wants? You know, some Democrats and some journalists have said, look, you know, let's hold off on the revolution and let's try to get someone who is electable and restore normalcy to the White House. Your thoughts?

EL-SAYED: Well, I'll tell you this. For a lot of people, they felt locked out of, quote-unquote, "normalcy." That's why Bernie Sanders won the primary in 2016. That's unfortunately also why Donald Trump won the general in 2016. In our state, 10,700 votes. And so when you talk about electability, there's no doubt that Bernie Sanders is electable. In fact, he wins poll after poll by greater margins than does Joe Biden.

But the big question right now is, what is the argument that's going to get people out to vote? And that argument is that, I'm going to make sure that you're not going to have your job offshored and automated by somebody who voted to do that. I'm going to make sure that if you lose your job, you're going to have health care. You're not going to lose your healthcare simply because that happened, we're going to guarantee you that healthcare.

That your kid doesn't have to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to do a basic thing of getting an education. That argument resonates in the industrial Midwest because people are raw of the experience. It happened just 10 years ago. It's about moving forward, not moving past. Bernie Sanders is articulating that message.

WALKER: Clearly both of you are interested in getting a Democrat into the White House.

EL-SAYED: That's right.

WALKER: And Governor, this question is to you. You know, are you concerned that we're going to see a repeat of 2016, which would be a long, drawn-out pretty nasty battle between an establishment candidate versus a non-establishment candidate that could further weaken the Democratic Party? I mean, Joe Biden was just talking the other day about, you know, his concerns about a negative blood bath and a negative campaign being run by the Bernie brothers.

GRANHOLM: Yes. I -- I do worry about that, obviously, and I think both sides should worry about that. And I think we have got to not play into the Donald Trump and Russian lines about -- you know, about this campaign. We don't want to play into that. What we need to do is to make sure we have -- yes, there are differences of opinion about how to achieve affordable health care for everybody, there are difference of opinion about how to reduce student debt, but we all want to resolve those problems on both sides.

So it is incumbent upon these candidates and their supporters particularly online to be respectful. Because we have to remember that ultimately the big prize is making sure a Democrat wins in November.

WALKER: Doctor, your concerns about Bernie Sanders not being able to perhaps rein in some of his supporters and the nasty attacks that we've been seeing online and in social media?

[20:20:12]

EL-SAYED: I think I will always say that it is not OK to go after anybody. At the same time, you've got to point to somebody like Hillary Clinton who just pot-shotting at Bernie Sanders. That election is over. So we've got a responsibility I think to focus on the conversation we want to have now as Democrats, about what will get a Democrat elected in office. And I know that the governor and I will be joining hands in the fall to make sure that a Democrat is the president of the United States in 2020.

GRANHOLM: Hopefully in July.

EL-SAYED: But right now -- yes, as early as July, absolutely.

GRANHOLM: Hopefully in July.

EL-SAYED: And through the fall. That's right. That's right. But we've got to make sure that right now we are focused on having the conversation about what is in the soul of the Democratic Party, who believes in a tomorrow that all of us want to live and that dignifies all of us. And I believe that means running forward, not running backwards.

WALKER: What about the possibility of a brokered convention? This question to you, Governor. I mean, are you concerned about what will happen, if it happens that neither Bernie Sanders nor Joe Biden get the majority of the delegates? Instead they would just get -- one of them would just get the plurality, the most votes?

GRANHOLM: I mean, it's certainly a possibility, although it's becoming less and less likely. Obviously Tuesday is going to be so critical in making this more clear going forward. I do think, though, that in the end, despite the rabid passion on both sides in the Democratic Party, people are much more passionate about winning the White House. So in the end, even if we go into the convention without somebody who has a majority of delegates, which according to, you know, all of the prognosticators looks less and less likely.

But if we did, then we have to come out unified. And people who are saying, you know, Bernie or bust or Biden or bust, you got to realize that in the end there are children in cages at the border. There is a Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court. Can she last another four years? Are we going to lose the court for a lifetime? There are -- there's so many issues that are important. You cannot be

so privileged to be able to say, what's important to me, I don't care about these other issues. And that would be wrong.

WALKER: We're going to leave it on that note.

EL-SAYED: Yes.

WALKER: Jennifer Granholm and Dr, Abdul El-Sayed, appreciate you joining the conversation. Thank you so much.

EL-SAYED: Thank you so much.

GRANHOLM: You bet.

WALKER: All right. Well, more on our breaking news this hour. Dow Futures down over a thousand points this evening as fears of the coronavirus move to Wall Street. We're going to be live with more details, when we come back.

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WALKER: Hospitals aren't taking any chances when it comes to the coronavirus. Some facilities already set up to handle diseases as serious as Ebola are now adapting.

So what happens when a patient arrives with coronavirus symptoms?

CNN's Ryan Young explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This week Chicago's Rush University Medical Center treated a 21-year-old after he tested positive for the coronavirus. The Vanderbilt University student was studying in Florence, Italy, before showing symptoms.

The hospital designed a room in response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Today it has dozens of rooms designed to treat infectious disease patients. Once a patient arrives with certain symptoms, special protocols kick in.

DR. OMAR LATEEF, CEO, RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: We have an entire hospital where it's built uniquely and engineered where we could flip switches and make entire corners of a hospital areas where we can triage and take care of patients with infectious diseases.

YOUNG (on camera): And this entire process has been thought out. In fact, this ambulance bay is here to make sure all patients are isolated. Once the ambulance is here, they get the patient inside, make sure they're away from all the other patients. Also above, they have a decontamination system. They can hit one switch and make sure they can decontaminate this entire bay. DR. PAUL CASEY, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER:

We get the patient safely into this room without mixing with other staff. It's set up much like in other -- indistinguishable really from another hospital room. The big difference here is that air is not filtering in with other patients within the emergency department. So we're able to exhaust this directly outside of the hospitalized own exhaust from this room.

YOUNG (voice-over): The hospital has 40 negative pressure rooms designed to deal with patients suffering from infectious diseases.

CASEY: What we're focused on is making sure our staff is safe and rooms like this really give us the best safety for both the patient, as well as staff and other patients within the department.

YOUNG: And the care extends outside the hospital. Doctors recently started using on-demand video visits for people showing virus symptoms. These digital house calls allow patients to log in, fill out a few questions and speak with a doctor if they appear symptomatic.

DR. MEETA SHAH, RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: We get a notification that there's a patient waiting for us to talk to them. And then one of us in our group of individuals who have been trained in this go ahead and connect with the patient and talk them through their symptoms, what's been going on and really kind of decide whether or not they're at risk.

YOUNG: More than 20 patients have been seen through the online system. And as the number of Americans with the virus continues to rise, the infectious disease specialist at this hospital know they'll be counted on to deal with any potential spike in cases.

Ryan Young, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: Our breaking news this hour, fears over the coronavirus are hitting Wall Street and your wallet. Dow Futures this hour down over 1,000 points.

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WALKER: Breaking news, a stunning freefall tonight, as the shock of the coronavirus outbreak continues to crush the global economy. The Dow Futures are down more than 1,000 points. Additionally, late tonight, a historic drop in oil prices of more than 20 percent. Let's go right now to Diane Swonk. She's on the phone. She is the chief economist at Grant Thornton. She is the person who knows what this means for your money. Diane, thanks for joining me. First off, please put this into perspective for us and explain what is going on right now. How concerned should we be?

DIANE SWONK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, GRANT THORNTON (via telephone): Well, it is concerning. What's going on is that both Saudi and Arabia could not agree upon a price -- a price limit or cuts in production, and they're now having a price war. And the hope is that they'll still come to some kind of agreement.

[20:35:11]

Falling oil prices don't mean the same thing they once did, particularly to the U.S. economy, if not, this doesn't just go into the pockets of consumers, which is always great, lower prices at the pump, but we now have a lot of business investment and credit tied to oil prices in the U.S. economy. In fact, business investment tends to contract when oil prices fall, it contracted quite sharply back when we had the big drop in oil prices in 2014 and 2015. That was a dramatic drop in business investment.

And it's really important because at one point in time, it was the only thing that was giving us business investment out there. And what we worry about is that this could mutate into a larger credit market problem which we want to contain.

WALKER: So, that brings me to my next question, because if we look at the market over the last month, we're talking about an enormous drop, more than $9 trillion lost. And people may see that and wonder, OK, well, what does it have to do with me? If I'm not a CEO or a big investor? Could you please give people an idea of what this means potentially for their job their savings, their 401(k)?

SWONK: Well, this is a big issue, is that there's a couple of things going on. One is, any kind of work stoppages, cancellations, we've already seen related to the coronavirus of conferences here in Chicago have already resulted in immediate layoffs in the last week alone. So, it's happening very rapidly. These disruptions, what we want to do is bridge the disruption so it doesn't mutate into this larger financial crisis.

What's really important is we learned in December of 2018, when we first had the financial market collapse, in anticipation of a full- blown trade war, is that baby boomers in particular, they have a very asymmetric relationship with financial markets. When they market rallies, they don't go out and spend all that money. They're closer in their retirement. Even if they see a small drop in their 401(k)s, they tend to pull back during the height of the Christmas season.

In 2018, they pulled back on mass, we actually had a collapse in retail sales in December, during the height of the Christmas season, despite the fact everyone still had jobs. And so, this means something different than it once did because of our demographics. So, we have to be a little careful out there. And we can make it through this.

But we're going to need not only support from the Federal Reserve, we certainly hope that Saudi Arabia and Russia pull back on this game of chicken that they're playing, because this is not the time to have this kind of a price war because of the consequences.

But also there will be a role for the Federal Reserve, but we desperately need fiscal policy to bridge what will be big disruptions for people, some people not able to earn money, some people without sick leave, as we deal with the crisis here in U.S., as the virus spreads, so that it doesn't erupt into something much larger. We really want to contain it.

WALKER: Yeah. So, though -- I mean, should there be other actions taken to stave off the threat of another financial crisis? Just a few days ago, the Fed had cut interest rates, it was an emergency rate cut. But what else should and could be done?

SWONK: Well, certainly, the Fed right now is opening all their swap lines, and they're looking at every possibility. And we see the bond market at a half percent right now. But what really is important here is what can the government do? What can our elected officials do to help bridge a situation?

We're seeing other countries already well ahead of this -- on this, looking to give zero interest free loans, brought in to make the situation much easier for consumers, small businesses, middle market companies, and companies that are facing enormous duress due to this very strange external shock, to be able to stay solvent so that we don't see a vicious cycle of profit loss, layoffs, and then a worse recession down the road.

What we want to do is get through this really bad situation and be able to come out of it from a firmer foundation. And that's going to require both fiscal and monetary policy. We will be at zero interest rates. We're already almost there very soon, again.

WALKER: All right, Diane Swonk, we appreciate you explaining this for us. Thank you very much. Well, as fears over the coronavirus continue, we are learning tonight that a U.S. senator is self-quarantining after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for the virus. We'll have the details ahead.

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[20:40:00]

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WALKER: Just in to CNN, a United States Marine has tested positive for the contagious coronavirus. And now, that person's base, the Marine Corps Base Quantico, will operate under code yellow. That's the status they will operate under beginning tomorrow. Now, code yellow refers to an elevated alert level and may involve how and when people are allowed to move on base. Marine Corps officials do report that the infected marine is being treated and is improving. Quantico is in Virginia, about an hour south of Washington D.C.

Also, Texas Senator Ted Cruz now saying he will self-quarantine after interacting with an individual at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, and that individual later tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is back with me. Elizabeth, I mean, Ted Cruz is saying look, I feel fine. I'm not exhibiting symptoms, but he has taken upon himself to self- quarantine. So, voluntary. That's a good thing. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. I think it's actually very smart. I mean, the chances of him giving this to someone else are very low. He said he had a very brief interaction with this person.

[20:45:10]

This was 10 days ago. He is not sick. Apparently, from what he said when he had the interaction, that person wasn't sick, and people are most infectious when they're actually having symptoms, as far as we know, with this virus, so he's going to stay at home for four days, which would complete the 14 days. After 14 days, if he doesn't become ill, that's where doctors feel confident that someone won't have gotten the infection if you wait those 14 days.

So, he's saying out of an abundance of caution, I'm going to do this. You know, it's interesting, Amara, we saw with the Ebola, that people really freak out when these kinds of things happen. And so, I think it's smart for him to be doing this, even if it's not necessary.

WALKER: Right.

COHEN: It sounds like it was a brief interaction. The other person didn't have any symptoms, but still it puts people's minds at ease.

WALKER: Absolutely. I do want to read a statement from some Senator Cruz, and it reads, I'm not experiencing any symptoms, and I feel fine and healthy. Given that the interaction was 10 days ago, that the average incubation period is five to six days that the interaction was for less than a minute, and that I have no current symptoms. The medical authorities have advised me that the odds of transmission, as Elizabeth was saying, from the other individual to me, were extremely low.

Let's talk about now, the cases that are popping up when it comes to our servicemembers overseas and in the United States. I mean, this is a difficult situation, because I mean, our troops, they live in close quarters and when it comes to social distancing, it sounds great in theory, but in reality, I mean, how do you --

COHEN: How to do that in the military.

WALKER: Right. Exactly.

COHEN: It's hard to do it. It is hard to telework. If you're in the military, you know, just go home. It will be an interesting and difficult challenge for them to think through. How do we try to do social distancing in the military, if at all, how do we keep people apart? Are we even going to try to do that because things do spread easily when people are living and working within close quarters? But you know, I think, you know, unfortunately, this kind of spread was inevitable.

You're stationed overseas, the virus is overseas, we see overseas, we see it spreading so quickly. For example, in Italy, people, members of the military are constantly going back and forth between the U.S. and other countries. So, you know, he's in Virginia, it sounds like, but I'm sure he was probably working at some point with people who were traveling.

WALKER: Right. Exactly.

COHEN: I mean, it's just kind of, you know, it seems like that would be a pretty high-risk kind of thing to have happen.

WALKER: Just a basic question to you, because I feel like, you know, you and I've been talking about this, you know, we know people who aren't feeling so well, they may want to call their primary physician. Will they get tested? That's the question, you know, will they actually, if they do call the doctor, will they get that, will they actually get that order to go to a testing place to find out if they have the coronavirus or not.

COHEN: Right. So, I've -- it's going to be different depending upon where you live. But let's make one thing clear, when you go to the doctor, because let's say you've got a sore throat, you want to see if you have strep, you can be pretty much guaranteed that that doctor can whip out that long Q-Tip and give you a strep test. If you're not going to have to have a whole discussion about dealing with the state health labs and all of that. For this, they will.

Your doctor will have to deal with the state health laboratory or there's a pretty good chance your doctor will send you to a hospital and the hospital will have to deal with the state health lab. And it may be that your doctor or the hospital tells you, you know what? I know you don't feel great, but you haven't been exposed to anyone that you know of who has coronavirus. You haven't traveled to Italy or to China, you don't know anyone who's done that travel. We don't want to test you. That is possible.

Because one, we don't have enough tests. And number two, this is not an easy thing to do. Doctors and nurses really put themselves at risk when they give this test and that's because it's not a -- it's not a blood test, which is sort of easier to contain. They are -- they're giving you a throat swab and there's a good chance you're going to cough and you're going to possibly spew, you know, the virus, if you have it, on to them. So, they're wearing personal protective equipment, but it's not foolproof.

So, you have to consider you've got to get this person into a facility and even if you isolate them in an isolation room, you still -- there's a risk of you exposing other patients. There's a risk of you exposing doctors and nurses.

WALKER: Exactly. Yeah.

COHEN: They're not necessarily going to test people who are just feeling a little bit down. They might -- one doctor said to me today, we're telling some people stay home. Sure, it's possible you have coronavirus, but you're young, you have a little fever, you have a little cough, stay home. And you know, certainly don't go visit grandma. WALKER: Yes, exactly. For anyone who might be feeling ill, right? All right. Elizabeth Cohen, appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much for that. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:50:00]

WALKER: In the aftermath of Super Tuesday and gearing up for round two, this Tuesday, CNN is taking you behind the scenes of presidential elections of years past. The all-new season of "RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE" explores iconic presidential campaigns to reveal plenty of high stakes drama. This week's episode takes a deeper look at the 1912 battle that pitted progressives against conservatives. Their four-way race between incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft, Progressive Party nominee Theodore Roosevelt, Democrat Woodrow Wilson and socialist Eugene Debs. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[20:55:04]

MAHERSHALA ALI, NARRATOR: By 1910, America is a nation divided between progressives and conservatives, a split reflected across both political parties.

MICHAEL KAZIN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: In the Republican Party, Taft's progressive in some ways, and his instincts are really quite conservative, I think.

MARGARET O'MARA, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: Taft was closely allied with the more conservative factions in the Republican Party, who were not at all interested in changing the way things were done.

ALI: But Taft's old friend and mentor, Teddy Roosevelt, is an enthusiastic progressive in the Republican Party.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Roosevelt really felt that the Republican Party under cap was starting to be lackeys to big business, that they were becoming poodles for the Wall Street entrepreneurs.

BARBARA A. PERRY, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES DIRECTOR, MILLER CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Theodore Roosevelt is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the Taft administration and believes he's made a grave mistake.

SALADIN AMBAR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: The truth of the matter is that he thought that the only successor to Roosevelt could be Roosevelt.

MARK UPDEGROVE, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I'm starting to think maybe I could do this again.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WALKER: Tim Naftali is a CNN presidential historian and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library. Tim appears in this CNN series, and he is joining me now. Tim, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining us. So --

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN (via Skype): My pleasure.

WALKER: How did President Taft react when he found out that his beloved mentor Roosevelt was now his political rival in the presidential race?

NAFTALI: Well, he, as he would later describe it, I mean, he felt he lost a friend, he was brokenhearted. He felt betrayed. And the way it happened was that Roosevelt disagreed with what his successor was doing, and decided to take advantage of the fact that for the first time in history, there were going to be direct primary, and he ran in those direct primaries against an incumbent president. And he won. He won 75 percent of the delegates that were chosen by these primary.

So, when he got to the convention, he wanted and expected to be the nominee. But in that era, the -- what we today call, super delegates, or we used to call super delegates, they really decided who the nominee would be. And they were all for tat. So, it gets to the convention, and Taft becomes the nominee. And he's so angry. He says to heck with it, and he takes his entire group and they leave, and they form a new party, the Progressive Party. Taft never forgave him for that.

WALKER: Wow.

NAFTALI: Because what would happen was it split the vote, it split the Republican vote and made the Democrat Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States.

WALKER: There's always drama in politics, right, Tim? So, the 2020 Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders is a self-described progressive democratic socialist, and I'm just wondering, I mean, just -- even just seeing the short clip, are there any parallels between Sanders' rise this year and those progressive and socialist movements back in 1912?

NAFTALI: Well, there was a socialist candidate who was Eugene V. Debs. And he believed in nationalizing a lot of the economy. His platform was much more radical than a Bernie Sanders platform seems to be. So, Bernie Sanders is somewhere in between the progressivism of Theodore Roosevelt and the socialism of Eugene V. Debs. I mean, Debs wanted to nationalize the banks, and he got about six percent of the vote.

Theodore Roosevelt was not interested in nationalizing the banks, but both the progressives and the socialists believed in women's suffrage, the democrats and the republicans were not pushing for women's suffrage. So, that was one area where the progressives and the socialists shared the same platform.

WALKER: So, the campaign trail also turned violent, right, when Roosevelt was shot on route to a campaign rally in Wisconsin. So, what impact did the Roosevelt shooting have on the race?

NAFTALI: Well, Roosevelt was very lucky. He was shot in the chest and he was saved by some papers that he had in his breast pocket.

WALKER: Wow.

NAFTALI: In fact, the papers were bloody. But the -- but the -- he didn't cough blood and he was a tough guy and he finished his speech. He gave a speech and then went to the hospital. But his wife and his doctor said no more campaigning. And out of respect for him, none of the other candidates campaigned. This happened in October.

So, for a few weeks, there was no campaigning. He ultimately got more votes as a percentage of those who voted 27 percent than any third- party candidate in history, and he got more electoral votes. He got over 80 electoral votes.

WALKER: Wow.

NAFTALI: But he didn't win.

WALKER: Incredible stuff. Yeah. Tim Naftali --

NAFTALI: Sorry.

WALKER: We're going to have to leave it there, Tim Naftali. We're out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. That does it for me. A brand-new episode of "RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE," starts right now.