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Trump Signature Being Added To Stimulus Checks; Small Biz Emergency Loan Program Almost Out Of Money; NY Governor Gives Update On Coronavirus Response. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 15, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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


[12:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: -- refund checks. People are waiting to get their stimulus checks. Plus, tough economic news today, retail sales down 8.7 percent for March. That's the worst drop since the government started keeping track.

Greg Ip is the chief economist, commentator for the Wall Street Journal. Greg, the checks, it's been a big question. We had the direct deposit over the weekend. Now for people waiting for their checks, we learned overnight, those who are going to get it in the mail are going to get the President's signature on it. Let's leave the politics out of this for a minute. People can make that judgment at home as to whether that's appropriate or not.

But how important is this money when we see yet another sign? Last week, it was the unemployment claims, today its retail sales. The economy right now is floundering.

GREG IP, CHIEF ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yes. We are, I mean, this economy generally produces about $55 billion of GDP per day, John. You got to cut that number by a third right now. That's how bad it is. We saw a big drop in retail sales and an industrial production in March. And that's not the half of it, because the big shutdowns only began partway through March. We're going to see bigger drops in April.

I think the second quarter is virtually a write off for our economy. The question then becomes, well, what do you do about it? Now, you've raised the fact that people are going to start getting their stimulus checks this week. But right now, the issue is that they can't really go out and spend them because they're being told to stay home to socially distance to avoid nonessential travel.

So you essentially, you got all this money, you're not able to spend it. So I don't expect that that will have a near term impact on the economy. But as governors start to contemplate how they reopen the economy, hopefully in the next month or two, you're going to want people to be able to go out and spend and then that money will be really important, especially one of those many millions of people who got laid off. KING: Right. And to that point, I just want to put some stats here because, you know, we think of this in Washington sometimes we forget that the real America. People need this money and they're looking for it. Top state searching for stimulus, West Virginia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, these are Google trends, people going online and searching for information about the stimulus program.

The top questions they've asked, where's my deposit? When will the check arrive? How do you get a stimulus check? How do you track a stimulus check? Is the stimulus check a loan? On the last point, the answer is, no. But Greg, when you just see these trending questions and it just -- it's a snapshot into the idea that people are not only worried about a pandemic, they're worried about keeping their lives afloat.

IP: Well, absolutely. I mean, the hardship that this is causing on the economic front, nevermind, the health front is just unbelievable. I mean, we haven't seen numbers like this since the great depression. The International Monetary Fund is in fact, expecting the economy this year to contract by 6 percent, which is double the worst year of this so called Great Recession.

And that is why things like these stimulus measures are so important. I think the one thing we need to keep in mind is that there's a sequence of events that has to happen here. We need to get the epidemic under control. And there are, you know, signs that in fact is happening. And only then can we start to lift some of the lockdown measures that we have.

That's the point at which these stimulus measures need to really kick in. As I said, people will need to have the money on hand. Now in the meantime, they've got bills to pay. They got to keep their electricity on. They got to get their phone bill paid. So the stimulus money is very important for that.

The other thing we haven't talked about, John, is that a lot of the effort of the stimulus has been to keep businesses solvent and afloat, especially small businesses, strong incentives, not to lay people off. The key will be when those lockdowns start to get lifted. Will businesses be around and able to call back all those people they laid off?

KING: Now to that very point, that's what we're going to move on to. Greg Ip, really appreciate the insights. Thanks for coming with us today.

Congress being told, Greg just mentioned, that the emergency loan program for small businesses is about to run out of money. Congress had approved $349 billion for those loans, but it could all be gone. The administration says, by the end of today, millions of small business owners depend on that money and other loans like it just to stay afloat in these terrible uncertain times.

Let's bring in restaurant owners, Aki and Farrah Kalatzakis, they own and run Meraki Greek Street Food in downtown Boise, Idaho. Thank you both so much for being with us. I just want you to give us a snapshot for people watching your small family restaurant in Boise. Take us through the then and the now in terms of, I saw the notes about your restaurant. A community place, a large lobby so people can socialize. And now only take out, right?

AKI KALATZAKIS, CO-OWNER, MERAKI GREEK STREET FOOD RESTAURANT: That's right, yes, either takeout or delivery services through all the programs like Uber Eats, DoorDash and things like that.

FARRAH KALATZAKIS, CO-OWNER, MERAKI GREEK STREET FOOD RESTAURANT: Yes, we had to evolve very quickly. And like he said, we went from that dining, you know, people coming in and eating with their family to really anything digital, mobile, pickup, delivery, looking at doing family meals that they can cook at home, so we just had to adapt with those very quickly.

KING: And so the reason I'm so grateful you're here is to get the real American spirits because we can put numbers on the screen and we will now of the impact on business, lost output by company side. This is what Wall Street looks at, this is what economies look at, this is what the Treasury Department looks at, you know, if you have zero to 19 employees, you're losing $59 billion, 20 to 50 employees, $35 billion, you see 1,000 plus employees in those.

[12:35:11]

These are the big economic numbers that, you know, the economists and the policymakers need to go through. You are there on the ground. What has this done in terms of income for you and how many of your employees have you had to say, you need to go until we can figure this out?

A. KALATZAKIS: Yes, I mean, the impact was immediately devastating for us. The first two weeks, it was an immediate 60, 70 percent loss in sales. So I mean, that right there, we just barely had enough revenue coming in for the small staff that we actually got to reduce down to. And then we went from about 17 employees now down to, you know, eight employees.

So it was a big decrease in our staff immediately -- pretty much 50 percent and then all the money that we're getting in for the little business that we're now getting is just covering the payroll expenses.

KING: Just covering the payroll. And we're showing some video that you sent in to us, and we're grateful for it. Your staff, I assume, in, you know, all the notes that you are having a pretty good time, now your staff part time working, I'm assuming that they are A, desperate for the work, for the money, but also just to see their friends and colleagues.

F. KALATZAKIS: Yes, definitely. Like Aki said, you know, we had to significantly reduce, you know, hours of full timers became part timers. But yes, they are grateful and very happy to still be working. You know, so that is a positive that we do still have a staff in the outworking. It's just less hours.

KING: And in terms of government assistance view coming through. A. KALATZAKIS: Yes, yes. We were fortunate enough to work with our local community bank out of a Trust Bank on the day that they were starting to accept applications. But the previous Friday and we received funds two days ago on Monday. So at least it was a quick turnaround for us for 10 days as far as getting the application in and then getting funds in.

So we were fortunate on that front. So now we can get those funds and use most of it for payroll, bring some more of our staff back and find some projects for them to do. We really need to start thinking outside the box and so we can use those hours more wisely. But then now we've got other revenue coming in that can pay the bills that we've fallen behind on for sure.

KING: Great. It's great to hear from both of you and we wish you the best of luck and we're glad to hear the government money is getting to you.

I'm going to take you now live to Albany, New York, the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo and his daily briefing.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): -- personal bias to the way we do this, people who haven't noticed I have an annoying personal habit that my children remind me of often, my staff to reminded me this morning.

People love to give me their opinion on what they think I think this, I think this and I often will stop them and say, OK, before you tell me what you think just tell me the facts. Just give me the facts first before your interpretation of the facts. So I like to start with just the facts. Just give me the facts. And that's what we do in this presentation.

Hear the facts, no opinion, no filter, and then I'll give you an opinion but I'll tell you what my opinion versus the facts, so just the facts. It is an annoying personal habit because people want to tell you their opinion. I think this. I know, but tell me the facts first, and we'll do your opinion.

Total hospitalizations clicked down, still in the 18,000 but a click down, good news. That's a fact. It is a fact that is good news, not my opinion. You see flattening of the curve, all these new expressions that we never used before, plateau, flattening, rounding, net change, and hospitalizations down. That's good news.

Three day rolling average, because remember any one of these days of reporting, this is a new reporting system. It's imprecise. I wouldn't bet the farm on any one day's numbers, but a three day average starts to be a little more accurate. ICU admissions is down. That's good news. Intubations are down. That's very good news. Just on a real life level.

When a person is intubated, they're on a ventilator, 80 percent of the people will never come off the ventilator or thereabouts. So that's good news. Little reality check, you still have on a day to day basis about 2,000 people who are being diagnosed with COVID. So we're out of the woods. [12:40:00]

No, we're still in the woods. The good news is, we show that we can change the curve. Good news is, great news in my opinion, we can control the spread. That is great news. Because can you imagine if we couldn't control the spread, if we did all this and the spread kept going up. So we can control the spread.

But you still have about 2,000 people a day, who are new diagnosis coming into the hospital system. So it's still a serious public health issue. Lives lost yesterday, 752 which is the painful news of our reality, day after day. And they are in our thoughts and prayers. You see 707 in hospitals, 45 in nursing homes, people are interested in about in that -- in those numbers and how those numbers are changing.

But you see the terrible news is basically been flat over the past several days. Again, the number of death is a quote unquote, lagging indicator. It's almost disrespectful to put it in scientific terms. But these are people who were probably intubated, they were on a ventilator. And then again, period of time on a ventilator normally has a bad outcome.

The total losses, total number of deaths number, the CDC change guidelines on how they want information reported, they want death, so and then another category of probable deaths, which is a new category that's done by the local Department of Health or the Coroner. So, where going to rationalize those new reporting requirements with local governments and get that information out as soon as we can.

We're also, since we have a little bit of a period to take a breath, we're going to contact the nursing homes and facilities to find out if there were other people who passed from COVID who were not necessarily in a hospital or in a nursing home because there is a sense that there may be additional people who have passed away. And they weren't included in the count because they weren't in a hospital. They weren't in a nursing home. So we'll be going through that.

But basically, the healthcare situation has stabilized the fears of overwhelming the healthcare system has not happened. Thanks to the phenomenal work of our frontline workers. Thanks to all the additional capacity that the hospital system created, over 50 percent additional capacity in one month. Just think of that. Thanks to the work that our Federal Government did, Army Corps of Engineers providing the beds at Javits and Comfort.

By the way, Javits, which is 2,500 bed capacity is the overflow valve about 800 people have gone through Javits. So thank you very much. And that was a great service that was done by the Federal Government in a very short period of time. So we have that stabilized.

People are still getting infected, but we have the infection spread down to a manageable number. We've accomplished that. People are restless. We have to get talked about the reopening of the economy. How do we do this? We have to build a bridge from where we are to the reopening of the economy. Well, what does that look like? Let's say that the where we're going, it's not a reopening, in that we're going to open what was, we're going to a different place. And we should go to a different place and we should go to a better place. If we don't learn the lessons from this situation, then all of this will have been in vain. We learned a lot if we're willing to open our eyes and open our ears.

So we're going to a different place which is a new normal. And we talked about the new normal. We've been talking about the new normal for years. We're going to have a new normal in public health. By the way, the way we have a new normal in environment, that new normal in economics, a new normal in civil rights, and new normal in social justice, right? This is the way of the world now.

We're moving to a new place, more challenging place but also potentially a better place. Well, when is this over? I say, personal opinion, it's over when we have a vaccine. It's over when people know I'm 100 percent safe and I don't have to worry about this. When does that happen? When we have a vaccine. When do we have a vaccine? Twelve to 18 months. Who determines that? The Federal Government has to test the vaccine, FDA.

[12:45:22]

It's a big gap, 12 to 18 months. Yes. I say, the sooner the better. Anything we can do to work with the Federal Government to get the vaccine done faster, we are all in. You want to use New York State as a laboratory? We are ready, willing, and able.

Anyway, the New York State Department of Health can work with the FDA to reduce that testing period. We are all in and energized and creative and ambitious about it. And so anything we can do to accelerate that vaccine, we will do. You need a place to test it in large numbers. Think of New York. But that's the ultimate end, right? We have a vaccine. Now, we don't have to worry about this.

By the way, we'll probably have to worry about the next public health risk at that time. So don't forget everything we learned. Besides the vaccine, there's a possibility that they develop a medical treatment. So we can't prevent you from getting the virus but we have a new medical treatment. And if you get the virus, don't worry, it's no big deal, you go and you get this medical treatment. That's another way of having a natural end, right?

And that's what convalescent plasma is all about and the antibody testing to find people who had the antibody and then injecting the antibody into a person as a treatment method. Maybe the hydroxychloroquine works. Now this has been a very politicized topic. I've done my best to stay 100 miles away from politics in all of this.

If I -- everybody wants to see hydroxychloroquine work, everybody. Well, the President says he believes it works. But he's not a doctor. You're right. He believes says, he believes it works, but he's not a doctor. Find out, find out. And everyone hopes that it works. And anything New York can do to test it. We will. We are now testing hydroxychloroquine. There are a number of hospitals that are doing it. It's not a government decision. It's not a political decision. The medical doctor decides. And if a medical doctor decides it works, fine. We have an executive order that limits the prescription of hydroxychloroquine only because we don't have enough. And there was such a demand on it, that people who needed it, were using, it can't get it.

So if the Federal Government sends us more, we will dispense more. It's a pure supply side issue. Or maybe they develop another drug that they figure out has an effect. That could happen between now and the vaccine. And we all pray that it does.

But until you have the vaccine, until you have the medical treatment, what do you do? How are you building the bridge? Well, it's going to be a phased reopening, right? And during the phase reopening the priorities, make sure you do no harm and keep your eye on the public health issue. That is what is key in all of this. So it's going to be a calibration of reopening based on public health safety and that infection rate, because what we have done and the reducing of the infection rate is a pure function of what New Yorkers have done and what people across the country have done.

When you relax that social distancing, you could very well see an increase in the infection rate. So it's all a calibration to the public health. But it's going to be a gradual increasing of economic activity in calibration with public health standards. The single best tool to doing this gauging, right, is large scale testing, test, trace, and isolate is what everybody's talking about. What does this mean?

It means you test. You find the positive. You trace back who they were with, where they were, test those people, and you isolate the people who are positive. It's in arguable. It's just very, very hard to do. And it opens this new world of testing. And this new world of testing is a new world to all of us.

By the way, this diagnostic testing, are you positive or negative, there's then testing for antibodies were you exposed, if I find out that you were already exposed and you had the virus now you can go back to work because you had the virus, you have antibodies. Antibody testing which you have the antibodies, let's -- you can help develop convalescent plasma where they can take your blood, take those antibodies, use it as treatment.

[12:50:16]

There's saliva testing, which is faster and easier. It's not blood testing. It's not a swab. It's just saliva. But that's a new form of testing that's just been developed. This finger prick testing, which is less invasive, but also being developed, this full blood sampling testing which is obviously more intrusive. But to do the testing, you need testing equipment. You need swabs, you need vials, and you need all of these things at a capacity that does not now exist.

Where do you do the testing? We've been doing testing in hospital. Frankly, that's not a great place to do testing. You don't want people walking into a hospital emergency room who may be positive for COVID. Our drive thru locations are better. But how do you bring that to scale, all right? And then, even if you have the equipment and the testing site and the personnel to do the testing, where do you get the labs to test all of these tests?

This is a whole world of questions that nobody has ever seen before. The bottom line is, well, you need large scale testing. Let's do it. We can't do it yet. That is the unvarnished truth. I know because New York has been doing this since they started exploring this new world. We are -- have done more tests than any other state. We've done over 500,000 tests, which is more than the other states that are near us combined. OK?

So we have been very aggressive here. But in all this time, we've only done 500,000 tests. Now, that's a large number of tests. Yes, but this is over a one month period. And even 500,000 tests, you're talking about a state with 19 million people, right? So you get a sense of the scale of what we have to do here. We cannot do it without federal support. And I've been saying this for days.

If you have a state that has a lower need, yes, they may be able to do it. But when you have a state that has to do a large number of these tests, I'm telling you, we can't do it without federal support. And I've said that from day one. We will coordinate. And we have been coordinating all the tests in our state. That's how we got to that 500,000 number, more aggressive than I think anyone else.

We have 228 private laboratories in this state. We will coordinate with them. We'll make sure that we're not competing with ourselves because there are a lot of groups that are now testing. New York State Department of Health developed their own antibody test. And that test is going to be very important and it's in our control because we'll actually do those tests. We don't need a private lab. We don't need anyone else.

With those tests, it will go to about 2,000 per day capacity. And that is a finger prick test. So it's not terribly invasive. Even I can endure the pain of that one. We've asked the FDA to approve a state test that could get us to 100,000 people per day. To give you an idea, that's then 500,000 a week if you don't work the weekends, and I don't know if you do. And I don't want to raise something I don't know about.

But 500,000 a week, we've only done 500,000 to date, right? So you get a sense of how powerful that would be if the FDA approves that. We're going to prioritize the antibody testing for first responders and essential workers. And this is important. We've all been saying thank you to the healthcare workers. And that's nice.

But I've been talking to George Gresham through this. He's the head of 1199, which represents many healthcare workers. His point has always been the gratitude is appreciated. But we need support, the healthcare workers need support. They need the PPE equipment and they need the tests to make sure they're not getting infected or if they are infected, what is this status. And he's been exactly right.

[12:55:09]

More than thank you actions more than words, right? Nurses the same thing, NYSNA, they've been doing phenomenal work. They need support. They need the equipment. They need time off. They need to recuperate. And the first responders, the NYPD, Pat Lynch, who represents the NYPD has said to me from day one, my guys need support, guys been gender neutral.

They're out there every day. They live in the downstate area. And they work in the downstate area. Many work -- live in Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, and they're working in New York City. They need not only PPE equipment et cetera, they need testing. They need to know if they've been infected for themselves. And also, they could wind up being spreaders if we don't know.

And Pat Lynch and the NYPD have been extraordinary here. OK. Make them a priority for the testing that we can do and we can control and that's the antibody testing, and we will. So the more testing, the more open the economy. But there's not enough national capacity to do this. I've been speaking to governors across the country. Every governor is now in the same situation.

I was speaking with Governor Pritzker of Illinois. He has some companies that do this testing in his state. But everyone is in the same position. And we have to be clear on this, who does what between the Federal Government and the State Government. The states cannot develop national testing. There's no simple answer to it.

It's basically controlled by private sector companies who have been doing it at a reduced volume because that was the world. You didn't need such a high level of tests. So the private sector companies only developed to the capacity that the market demanded. This is an entirely new market.

And then when you talk to the private sector companies, which I have, they'll say, I can't increase my volume. I can't get enough swabs. I can't get enough vials. I don't have enough machinery to manufacture it or test it. They need chemical agents that do, that are part of the test. Many of these chemical agents aren't even manufactured in the United States. So there's an international supply chain.

All this to say, it is very hard to bring this to scale quickly and we need the Federal Government to be part of this. Testing capacity to me is like what ventilators were over the past month. All of a sudden, because of this virus and the respiratory attack, we need massive numbers of ventilators. I never heard about ventilators before this. I now know more than I ever wanted to know about ventilators.

But it came out of the blue. They're very hard to manufacture. There's a whole supply chain. There's sophisticated piece of equipment. And you just -- it's very hard to get them manufactured quickly. No one is to blame on ventilators. No one is to blame on testing. I know we're in a political world. Well, who is to blame, who is to blame? Sometimes there's nobody to blame, you know.

On this testing situation, there's nobody to blame. Just how do we now do it? How do you now scale this up and scale it up quickly because we want to phase the reopening as fast as we can between now and a medical treatment and a vaccine, right? That's what we're doing.

I do know this, as long as the lesson ventilators, the answer on testing is not what happened on ventilators, which is 50 states competing against each other to buy testing capacity from these private sector companies. And the Federal Government which is also buying testing capacity, competing against the 50 states, that is not learning the lesson of what we did before.

So partnership with the Federal Government, 100 percent, but we need that partnership to do this. Once you test, then you have to trace the contacts. So we test Bernadette, Bernadette turns up positive. OK. Who were you with over the past week? What family members were you with? Who do you sit next to in the office?

[13:00:09]

You now --