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Japan's Prime Minister Delays Olympic Games for One Year; White House, Senate Leaders Close to Deal on Stimulus Plan; Ford Working with 3M and GE to Make Respirators, Ventilators; 1 in 1,000 in New York Metro Area Infected with Coronavirus; White House: One in 1,000 in New York City Metro Area Infected with Virus; Hospitals Desperate for Supplies as Coronavirus Crisis Deepens; White House Looks for Ways to Open Economy Without Health Catastrophe. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 24, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And around the world. The breaking headlines this morning. The sports world rocked. The Summer Olympic Games are postponed. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says they will be held by the summer of 2021 at the latest.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are closing in on a deal on a massive stimulus bill to prop up the economy in this crisis. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin negotiating with Senate leaders today. Will we get a vote today?

Also today, the private sector stepping up as medical supplies are running out. Ford Motor Company is teaming up with 3M and GE to make respirators and ventilators. GM setting up a similar effort.

FEMA's administrator tells CNN that the Defense Production Act will be used today for the first time for 60,000 test kits. That news coming after the U.S. sees its deadliest day yet with 100 new coronavirus related deaths reported on Monday alone.

One in three Americans and at least 13 states are now ordered to stay at home. And we are learning that the White House is now looking for ways to open up the economy without creating a health catastrophe.

We are covering this story as we do every day, all over the world. Let's begin there with CNN correspondent Will Ripley in Tokyo and "USA Today" sports columnist Christine Brennan in Washington.

Will, let's begin with you. This was a day no one in Japan wanted, certainly the Japanese prime minister did not want. But this delay to the Olympics is coming.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He simply had no choice. The list of nations and athletes that were calling for the postponement of Tokyo 2020 has been growing every single day. Athletes saying they just don't have time to train, to prepare, not to mention the fact that there are still questions about whether it would even be safe to bring athletes from 200 plus countries here in Tokyo for, you know, a number of weeks, co-existing in very close quarters.

And so now we are living a historic unprecedented moment. The Olympics have never before been postponed. They have been canceled during World War I and twice during World War II, but the games have never been moved to a different date and this is a whole new world for the Japanese who certainly never would have expected this as recently as, you know, a month ago that they now will have to sort out really a nightmare of logistics in terms of rescheduling the, you know, more than three dozen or almost four dozen Olympic venues that have to be now rebooked.

The athletes village has been largely sold. People were supposed to move in by the summer of 2021. What's going to happen there? People paid sometimes a thousand or $2,000 for tickets. What is going to happen with their tickets? Do they get refunds? Do they move all of the millions of hotel nights that have been booked?

So these are all of the details with so many different stakeholders that now need to be worked out. There are cancellation fees that will need to be paid. We've been talking to economists saying that this could cost the Japanese an extra $5 billion on top of the $20 billion that they were already on track to spend going way over budget. But it is really a historic moment, defined, you know, once again, Tokyo 2020 now moving to '21, the summer of 2021, the latest casualty, Jim, of the coronavirus pandemic.

SCIUTTO: Will Ripley, thank you.

Christine Brennan, this is of course a financial issue with billions of dollars. It's a logistical issue, you got people that bought tickets, you have these Olympic Villages that people are going to move into as apartments, but it's also an athletic problem. I mean, people train for years to peak at this very moment. And for those athletes, for those teams, this is a real challenge to move this back.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: It is, Jim, but it's also the closure and the word and the answer they needed right now. Because what we had in the United States and around the world were athletes who were continuing to train in spite of some shelter-in-place or other rules in their particular localities, cities, counties, states, and they started to wonder if they were good citizens.

For example, Lilly King, two-time Olympic gold medalist. I did a column on her last week. And she told me that she had been swimming at the Indiana University pool, and of course that closed. Then she went to the YMCA gym, then that closed. You have a two-time Olympic gold medalist kicked out of the Y. I love the Y.

But this is piecemeal, haphazard and probably just so ridiculous and difficult for them in terms of not only their physical health, but their mental health, and now in this case, this athlete is trying to figure out where she's going to swim, which is four months to go to the Olympics.

So even though we were talking about an Olympics as Will mentioned that was going to be in July, July 24th to August 9th, those are those days, they were far enough away, you kind of thought maybe that could still stay on the sports landscape. The here and now, today, March, around the world, how are athletes in Italy training right now?

That became the pressing issue and, Jim, we saw these athletes rise up, when the International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach did not lead and really failed them. The athletes rose up with the voice forcing their Olympic committees to say no, we do not want to go and that (INAUDIBLE) today.

[09:05:10]

SCIUTTO: Yes, and of course, listen, their health is going to be primary to them. No one more so perhaps than Olympic athletes trying to be at peak form here. I imagine, just before I let you go, Christine, next year -- so you move it to next year, that's the current plan. Can you move all these things? The athletes schedules, the -- you know, the Olympic Villages that were meant to be -- they were going to turn them into apartment buildings next year. How do you manage that?

BRENNAN: As Will said, as we've all said, we've never seen anything like this. Never happened before. They will certainly do their best. The Olympics is probably the one thing that could pull this off. Thar you look at citizens and you say for the good of our country and our city, we want you to do this. We don't move into these apartments for a year. And where do those people go? Maybe there is a staggering of the venues, maybe you have an Olympics spread out over a little more time if Tokyo can't handle everything.

Maybe you would do something where you would have events in another city. I'm not saying that's on the table at all. But I think anything right now is on the table. This is so unusual. But the good news is it is not a cancellation, it is not a boycott, it is a postponement. And many of the athletes who are training now will be able to still compete in 2021.

There'll be some, Jim, who say it's just too much, they were going to retire in 2020, might not try again. But there will be a lot that do have a chance to come back and imagine in the sadness we have now of our world, imagine the joy, when those Olympics open sometime next year. That will certainly be a signal to the world as the Olympics hope they are in a Pollyannaish way but hopefully in a real way that the world is back together, because right now of course the greatest gathering in the world cannot be held because we cannot be together.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It's a great way to think about it. I think even the World Cup after the tsunami, right, in Japan, how that can bring people together.

Well, we're all in this together. We've said that many times and this is one example of that.

Christine Brennan, thanks very much.

BRENNAN: Thank you, Jim. SCIUTTO: Back here in the U.S., pressure is intensifying on Capitol

Hill to pass a stimulus bill. Senators and the Trump administration back at the negotiating table for a fifth straight day, hoping to reach a deal on a $2 trillion bill. That's 2,000 billion bills. Those talks resume in just minutes.

CNN's Manu Raju, he's on Capitol Hill.

Manu, you know, the key issue here, right, has been where is this money focused? You know, corporations, individuals, unemployment insurance, paid sick leave, a whole host of other issues, but accusations flying in both directions. Where do the negotiations stand on those issues? And based on what you're hearing today, do you expect a deal today?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's been what the -- what the administration and the senators have been saying for days. They keep saying that they are close, they're getting closer. And last night, outside of Chuck Schumer's office, I talked to Steven Mnuchin and Eric Ueland, the two officials for the administration who are negotiating this deal with Chuck Schumer.

Both of them indicated that they believe a deal could be reached this morning. They said that a couple of issues still outstanding. They went through bill text. They were drafting through the course of the evening and they're hoping to push forward on a measure sometime later today.

Now, the question ultimately is once this deal is ultimately agreed to between the leadership, how can they sell it to their members? Will each of the members quickly agree to approve this bill, get it out of the Senate today, and get it approved by the House, which is the Democrats are moving their old plan? Will the Democrats be OK with it in the House? And will the Republicans be OK with it in the House?

And will they agree to approve that -- this bill if it is satisfactory to them by a voice vote and not require all the members of the House to come back? But pressure is building. These members are feeling the heat about the inaction of Congress so far. The pain that the economy is suffering and their workers are feeling throughout the country and waiting for relief from Congress.

These members and the administration recognize that. That's why they believe that today is the day that they have to ultimately get something done. But you mentioned it, this is a $2 trillion bill that affects industries across the country, industries that are cash strapped. They'll be able to apply for loans from the government. That's been a part of the negotiation so far. How do those loans be doled out? How are the oversight of those loans as well as direct assistance in the form of $1200 checks to certain Americans?

That's also part of it, and unemployment insurance benefits as well. So this sweeping bill ultimately will affect so many Americans, but the question is, can they get the formula right, can they get the members in line?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RAJU: And can they get the votes and today is the day for them to nail down those final issues here, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And can they vote? You have a number of senators who are self-quarantined now.

Just very quickly, the president injected himself in this in the last 24 hours via tweet, taking a shot at Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats.

[09:10:02]

Is that seen by Democrats and Republicans as helpful to this? Are they trying to keep the president at arm's length to some degree?

RAJU: Well, as last night when Mnuchin left the office, we asked him about that tweet that the president issued attacking Democrats. He contended it was simply with the House Democrats were pushing were extraneous issues. It would not upset the Senate talks. Mnuchin said he has spoken to the president 10 times through the course of yesterday and the president was encouraging in the direction that they were going.

Chuck Schumer, too, apparently overheard that call between Schumer and Mnuchin -- between Mnuchin and the president, that is, and Schumer believes that the president was happy with the direction that they were going, so we'll see ultimately if the president endorses the bill, whether the Republicans fall in line, and whether or not any of these last-minute issues that inevitably come up will derail the matter. The question will be ultimately, can they all get in line?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RAJU: But the president wants something done as do the leaders here on Capitol Hill -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, Many Raju, we'll stay in touch with you as you hear updates on the hill. Thanks very much.

Another story we're following this morning, this morning Ford announced that it's going to start making desperately needed medical supplies. In particular, respirators, those breathing masks but also ventilators. This is key, because for the most severely affected by this disease, they need those to recover. There's a potential shortage.

CNN Politics and Business reporter Cristina Alesci, she's been following this now.

Cristina, how long will it take for Ford to engineer this? Of course Ford makes cars, right? How are they going to refit factories and so on? And will it be quickly enough to meet the demand that we're expecting over the next couple of weeks?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: That is the critical question, Jim, and it is really unclear at this point exactly when and how these are going to be distributed. You know, the Ford CEO was on our air not too long ago, just talking about that herculean task of just the supply chain that they are dealing with around the world, the tests that need to be run in order to convert some of these auto manufacturing facilities into medical facilities.

As you know, medical facilities produce ventilators and respirators are highly regulated. They're really complex and they're very different than building a car. Now, in terms of a timeline, what the Ford CEO did tell us is that because of all of these private sector efforts, there could be hundreds of thousands of ventilators available by mid-May. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES HACKETT, PRESIDENT AND CEO, FORD MOTOR COMPANY: We have to scale this up because the factories as we know them weren't built to produce the volumes we need to make. It's like a puzzle. So there'll be parts made inside Ford. There'll be parts made at GE. There'll be parts made at outside suppliers. And the coordination and speed of that is what we know is like a conventional assembly line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALESCI: What's really important here is this comes after days of controversy as to whether or not the president would invoke an act that would essentially make it mandatory for private businesses to go ahead and produce this equipment that is vitally needed and that's what we've been hearing from governors around the country that they wanted the president to step in and make this mandatory.

That led, instead of doing that, the Trump administration basically relied on companies to do this voluntarily. And I've been reporting on this for days, calling companies, and they were just confused for a little while, like trying to figure out what the administration wanted, how many, how they would do this. It led to days of delays and the big question will be, will that delay actually impact people on the ground, like healthcare workers and patients -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Because, you know, they're going to have a big demand for this in the next couple of weeks, not the next couple of months. But certainly good news that they're working together on this.

Cristina Alesci, thanks very much.

Well, about half of the country's more than 43,000 cases are in New York where today the Department of Health has gotten federal approval to start an experimental treatment plan for the virus.

CNN national correspondent Brynn Gingras, she joins me now live from New York.

What drugs are we talking about here? And what kind of efficacy do we expect them to have?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, we're talking about that antiviral drug that treats malaria that was fast-tracked by the FDA. We know from the governor that those trials, that drug therapy, is going to start immediately in these hospitals along with others that could be coming in the following days.

But listen, we've heard this term attack rate for this area, New York City, and its surrounding suburbs. That's coming from Dr. Birx from the White House task force, who essentially says one in a thousand people in this area are infected with the coronavirus. That's five times more than the rest of the country. She specifically said that this area needs to be especially cautious about what is going on here.

And we're seeing that at hospitals. Keep in mind, the governor and the mayor both says, yes, we're seeing a lot of people in hospitals right at this point, but we may not even see that surge really until a week, a week and a half from now.

[09:15:00]

Let me get out of the way, so you can quickly see behind me, that line up, Jim, that we saw starting at 6 O'clock this morning, even before that, people lining up, just trying to get urgent care or possibly even tested for the coronavirus. Now, you know, officials are ready for this. They essentially have started opening up capacity in hospitals -- remember the governor asking hospitals to increase their capacity by 50 percent.

They've also opened those temporary federal hospitals, at the Javits Center, other areas around the city, trying to prepare for all of these numbers that are going to start going to hospitals. But, again, that glimmer of hope, Jim, that you alluded to, that's going to begin today, that drug therapy.

SCIUTTO: We'll see how it does. Brynn Gingras in New York, thanks very much. We are getting new details about what's going on behind the scenes at the White House. This after President Trump made it clear that he wants to reopen the economy in just a matter of weeks, perhaps as soon as next week. 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's happening now and where does he stand now?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: 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's 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's 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, from day-to-day by poll numbers, by what happens with the Dow, by people he gets on the phone at night. We saw initially, the president didn't take it terribly seriously, then he adjusted, and he came out in the briefing room and said, hey, people seem to like it, his poll numbers were going up.

Now, he's hearing from people about skyrocketing unemployment, which is likely to happen, the huge loss of GDP, and he's reacting to that as well. The challenge, of course, is that the president is only in partial control of the situation. Larry Hogan; the governor of Maryland was on our air in the last hour with John Berman and said the messages from the White House are confusing, and we're going to do what we think is -- needs to be done to protect the people of Maryland.

So the president's words may have less impact than he thinks when he talks about reopening the economy, Jim.

SCIUTTO: John Harwood at the White House, thanks very much. Still to come at this hour, New York will begin testing drugs intended to fight the coronavirus today. The big question, will they work? These are tests. We're going to ask the experts next what it all means. Plus, we're minutes away from the opening bell on Wall Street, where all eyes on a potential stimulus deal on Capitol Hill. Will they make a deal?

And the State Department arranging flights for thousands of Americans still stranded in other countries, trying to get them home to safety. Stay with us, we'll have the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:00]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. Let's get right to the news today. New York will begin using trial drugs to treat coronavirus patients. Governor Cuomo, they're confirming the state right now has hundreds of thousands of doses of chloroquine, the drug President Trump has expressed optimism about. The science, though, support that optimism?

With me now, Dr. Kathryn Edwards; she's professor of Pediatrics in the Infectious Diseases Division at Vanderbilt University, and Dr. Yaneer Bar-Yam; physicist and pandemic expert. Thanks to both of you, doctors, I know our viewers are most interested in hearing what doctors have to say about this. First, I want to talk about timing here, because the president, he initially, last week after dismissing the threats said, well, could be July, August, before things dissipate.

But now yesterday, he says America could be open for business as soon as next week. You, Dr. Bar-Yam, say that you need five weeks really for a lockdown to be effective. Explain to us why that is.

YANEER BAR-YAM, PHYSICIST & PANDEMIC EXPERT: So, first of all, we really are talking about a lockdown. It has to be very strong action. But if we do that, then contagion becomes very limited. People are just staying at home, only going out for necessities, and the only contagion that can happen is within cohabiting, people who live together, families or roommates.

And then over two weeks, the people that are infected at the beginning of the period, they will show symptoms. So we know who they are and we can isolate them. But some people will still be infected because of the contagion within families in a few other random cases. So, it takes another two weeks to -- but the outbreak will dramatically decrease during that time.

SCIUTTO: OK --

BAR-YAM: And so by five weeks, we really will have almost nothing. And in China, this is what happened and in Korea. So with five weeks, we can be very confident that it will really be gone. There is another question that people --

SCIUTTO: OK --

BAR-YAM: Are asking is what happens afterwards, and I'll be happy to explain that --

SCIUTTO: Fair enough. But before we get there, before we get to what happens after five weeks, Dr. Edwards, what are the risks if you come back earlier than five weeks? If you relax these social distancing restrictions as the president is suggesting as soon as next week or soon after that. What are the risks?

[09:25:00]

KATHRYN EDWARDS, PEDIATRICS PROFESSOR, INFECTIOUS DISEASES DIVISION AT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: I think we need to look at the countries that have had some success in controlling the outbreak in China and Hong Kong and Shanghai and Singapore, and I think that what we see there is that if the restrictions are released, then in particular, people coming in from the outside, that these cases can increase as time goes on.

So I think we have to look to information that we have also from other countries to try and help in this regard. And obviously, no one has a crystal ball, we've not really seen this virus before here. But I think that the incubation period, the symptomatic period and the contagion were now getting much better handle on as was just clearly summarized.

SCIUTTO: All right, so time matters. We'll see where that decision goes in the coming weeks. I want to get to some of these treatments now, Dr. Bar-Yam, if I could begin with you. You got Governor Cuomo, he says today in New York has 70,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine, this is an experimental treatment typically used for malaria, 10,000 doses of Zithromax, 750,000 doses of chloroquine, also malaria treatment.

Are these experimental treatments, just doing the best we can with what we have or are they ones that we have reasonable amount of hope will make a difference here?

BAR-YAM: So, this is actually a question that maybe my colleague would like to answer. But the point is --

SCIUTTO: Well, let's start with you, Dr. Edwards then --

BAR-YAM: That, we have a way -- let me finish for a moment --

SCIUTTO: Sure --

BAR-YAM: Excuse me. The question is, it may work, it may not work. But we have very limited time that we can act in a way that will be effective at stopping the outbreak. And the time to test things that are not known is unknown. We don't know how well that will work. So the point is the following -- if we do the thing that we know works and we're very -- we know for sure and really we do, that in five weeks, we'll be able to get -- start getting back to normal.

It seems prudent just to focus on the thing that we have to do because the point is that we can't do it part way. You have -- we really have to do it all the way in order to be successful. This is a terrible disease. And it is not forgiving. If you hold back a little bit on your effort, it won't be successful. And this is very --

SCIUTTO: I see --

BAR-YAM: Clear. So, we can try all other things --

(CROSSTALK)

It's OK --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

BAR-YAM: I don't mind. We can make all kinds of trials, and if we learn from them that some are successful, we should use them. But that's not the point. The point is that we actually have to go all out in order to stop the disease. So creating ideas about what may work or what might work or what might happen in the future is not what we want right now. What we want --

SCIUTTO: I get it, so focus --

BAR-YAM: Right now is a certain action to make things go away in five weeks.

SCIUTTO: Right, focus on what works --

EDWARDS: I think, well, actually --

SCIUTTO: And we know social distancing works. So, Dr. Edwards, help us with these treatments here, are they useful at this time or just experimental?

EDWARDS: I think that -- I think that we need several things. I think we need -- we need social distancing, but we also need to know which drugs work, which drugs don't work? And so in order to do that, one has to very carefully randomize people to look exactly what is improved, whether their oxygen's improved, whether their chest X-rays -- we have to have rigid criteria to look at these drugs and to study them in a careful way.

There are some drugs in the past that have looked great in the test tube, or have looked great in mice. But people are not mice. And so we have to figure out and test these and make sure if they work, great! If they don't work, then there is no reason that we need to do them. And sometimes medications that we give can have adverse effects. So, we don't want that to happen.

The other thing that I'd like to mention briefly is that last week we began a vaccine study in this country, with a vaccine that was directed to that little red spike that we all see in the coronavirus. And we're certainly -- that study is going on and will be completed in about six weeks to eight weeks, and we'll see whether the vaccine is safe, whether it makes antibody.

And if that's the case, then we'll use it --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

EDWARDS: In more people. So that's very exciting too, to be able to prevent disease rather than to have to treat it, I think is also a very important and exciting alternative.

SCIUTTO: As that comes, and of course, it takes time. Dr. Edwards, Dr. Bar-Yam, thanks to both of you.

EDWARDS: Thank you --

BAR-YAM: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: We're just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. The Dow set to soar at the opening there. You look nearly a 1,000 points, 5 percent. This because of $2 trillion stimulus deal in the works on Capitol Hill. Investors are optimistic as Democratic senators and the Trump administration meet for the fifth day in a row. Both sides say they are close. We're going to be watching, we're going to bring you the latest.