Return to Transcripts main page

Don Lemon Tonight

Senate Votes On $2 Trillion Stimulus Bill; No Contest In COVID- 19 Testing; Virus Targets More Vulnerable Population; Some Hospitals Are Barring Visitors To Help Contain Coronavirus; Senate Passes Coronavirus Relief Bill; Brooklyn Principal Dez-Ann Romain Dies From Virus. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 25, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

The Senate voting any minute now on the massive $2 trillion stimulus bill designed to keep the economy afloat while the nation battles the outbreak. President Trump saying tonight that he will sign the legislation if it passes.

The bill will provide billions of dollars to businesses large and small. Also, to state and local governments. And it will put cash directly into the hands of millions of Americans, that as there are more than 65,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States tonight.

And the pandemic is spreading, fast. More than 12,000 cases in the last 24 hours. Officials reporting at least 938 deaths. This is the deadliest day since the outbreak hit this country, more than 220 deaths recorded alone today.

Dr. Anthony Fauci telling CNN just a short time ago that the pandemic is accelerating in the United States.

Right to CNN Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Manu, a second hello to you this evening. Thanks for joining us. Give us an update. We've been waiting on the Senate vote on this $2 trillion stimulus package underway now.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Right now, they are actually voting on an amendment by Republican senators to overhaul the jobless benefits provisions that are in this proposal. This proposal is of course is all, is massive $2 trillion and it includes a very generous provision roughly worth $250 billion for people who are filing for unemployment benefits.

But the Republicans are concerned about some of the language they believe in some ways are too generous. They believe that it could encourage people not to go and seek work because they could get better jobless -- more ways -- better benefits than they would if they were earning their paycheck. That's the argument from these Republican senators trying to change this language.

It's going to fail. This amendment will go down. And then afterwards we'll move quickly to the final passage of the underlying bill, the $2 trillion bill, the most aggressive and expensive rescue effort by Washington ever put -- that has ever gone through Congress.

The Senate will approve that, then it will move to the House as early as tomorrow for its final approval. Now this vote could take a little bit longer because the senators are engaging in social distancing.

What they're doing is they're allowing the vote to take place for a longer period of time. They're encouraging members not to congregate in the well of the Senate. That's why you're seeing fewer senators in the chamber right now. They'll vote and they'll leave rather than mingle as they typically do. And then they have to come back and then vote on that second vote.

And then after that second vote they're going to be gone for some time. The senators are not expected to come back until April 20th and Mitch McConnell said they'll come back only if circumstances warranted as members are very eager to get out of town, concerned about the coronavirus hitting the United States Senate after Rand Paul tested positive earlier this week.

And also, the top -- one of the top Republicans, the Republican whip John Thune, his office just announced that he was feeling under the weather and had checked with his physician and decided out of an abundance of caution he would not attend today's vote.

So, you're feeling -- you're sensing this pandemic really hitting the Senate and the House, members getting concerned, members getting ready to get out of town after this historic vote tonight, Don.

LEMON: Wow. Interesting. All right. Manu, stand by. We'll check back with you again as the vote is underway, the amendment vote is underway. The real vote on the stimulus package happening in just moments.

Joining me now is White House Correspondent John Harwood -- excuse me -- and our resident fact checker Daniel Dale as well. Gentlemen, hello to you.

So, John, if this stimulus passes and it settles the markets and people know that relief is on the way, could that change the president's timeline that he is, you know, still talking about hopefully opening the country back up by Easter?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, everything seems to change his timeline. It moves from day to day. This is a president whose under a lot of pressure and he's not sure which way to go. He comes from the world of business. This shut down to stop the coronavirus is bad for business. It's especially bad for the travel and hospitality business which is the business that he's in.

He also, as an incumbent president seeking re-election knows that a bad economy is terrible for incumbent presidents. That was his biggest strength even before the coronavirus was underway.

[23:05:03]

The economy was strong and he was still trailing Joe Biden, the vice president. So, he's trying to mitigate economic effects if he can.

On the other hand, the biggest city in the country, his hometown, is in crisis facing the prospect of overflowing hospitals, lots of death, and grave illness. And so, he's got to figure out what to do about that.

Same time, many of the places in the country most favorably disposed to him politically have not been hit nearly as hard as places like Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York.

So, he is wavering between different options and one of them is to try to do some sort of a phased unfreezing of economic activity that would involve places less hard hit while governors in other states that are more hard hit keep restrictions in place. We're not sure which way to go, and he sends different messages on each different way.

LEMON: Yes, listen, we're going to have to get to that vote. But I want you to just weigh in on this, John, because I do want to bring Daniel in. When you say 'under tremendous pressure' it really stuck out to me how much pressure he's under because just from routine questions, not even got you questions, he is lashing out.

A reporter today said you want to -- you said you want to open up the country possibly on Easter. On what information are you basing that? And then he called her fake news and just really berated her and went -- a completely legitimate question. Like, what -- what the hell is going on?

HARWOOD: Listen, that's what happened with Peter Alexander when Peter asked him to express some empathy toward people who were afraid last week.

LEMON: Yes. He said what is your country to the people that are hurting and then he just went off on that reporter as well. But go on. Sorry.

HARWOOD: Well, this is a president who desperately needs approval, psychologically. He broadcasts that all the time, talks about who likes him, who doesn't like him. And when he gets put questions that are difficult about his performance, about what motivates him, he really struggles with those.

And in terms of conveying empathy, he does not do that very well. He's not a president who expresses empathy with those human beings.

So, when he was asked by Peter to do that, that made him angry. And that is a reflection of the pressure that he's feeling right now.

LEMON: Yes. It was just shocking to watch because he just attacked her for no good reason at all. The second time that he's done that just in a matter of days. Daniel, here's what he said about testing today, the president. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We have now tested with the best tests far more than anybody else. When I say anybody else, I'm talking about other countries. No country is even close.

South Korea has done a good job. But we did in eight days more than South Korea did in eight weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: What are the facts, Daniel?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Don, we don't have comprehensive global data, so I think we need to decline to render judgment on the first part. On the second part, it does seem that Trump is correct in absolute numbers.

The U.S. has accelerated testing, and according to U.S. estimates, it has passed the number of tests conducted by South Korea. But again, these are absolute numbers. The U.S. has six times -- more than six times the population of South Korea.

So, if you look at per capita data which epidemiologists tell us is more important here, South Korea is still by far ahead. South Korea has tested something like one in fewer than 200 South Koreans has been tested or it's one in more than 700 Americans.

In addition, South Korea didn't have the testing lag that the U.S. had. They got on this right away. And implemented measures to follow up on the testing that the U.S. did not implement. And so, yes, Trump is correct narrowly if you look at the absolute numbers. But if you look at this more broadly or you look at per capita data, he's not telling the full story.

LEMON: All right. Another moment, Daniel, from today's briefing. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You tweeted earlier linking the closing of the country to your election success in November. Is this Easter timeline based on your political interests? Because --

TRUMP: What do you mean by your election success?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You tweeted. You said the media wants the country to remain closed to --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: The media would like to see me do poorly in the election. I think there are certain people that would like it not to so open quickly. I think there are certain people that would like it to do financially poorly because I think that would be very good as far as defeating me at the polls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Contrary to what the president says, this is nothing to do with politics, Daniel.

DALE: It doesn't have anything to do with politics. I can't speak for each and every person who writes about Donald Trump. But on the whole, the media is reporting what public health experts are telling us. The media is reporting what leaders including conservative leaders around the world are doing which is imposing tight restrictions, keeping people away from each other because that is what the medical experts and scientists tell us should be done.

[23:10:03]

And so this is not a media conspiracy. This is basic journalism.

LEMON: Wow. Thank you both. I appreciate it. See you both soon. And be safe out there.

I want to bring in now Dr. Celine Gounder, she is a clinical assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at NYU and the host of the epidemic -- epidemic podcast. Thank you so much, Dr. Gounder. Good to see you again as well.

The president is claiming that large sections of the country don't have coronavirus and the problem is confined. How is there any way to know that since there still isn't enough testing, how is there any way to know that?

CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPECIALIST & EPIDEMIOLOGIST, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, it's absolutely impossible to know that. We know that this is a highly infectious virus that people in the U.S. travel to visit loved ones. They've travelled over the holidays.

Some of this transmission was probably starting in the U.S. over the winter holidays, probably late December, early January. And so, there's really no way without testing to know for sure, especially in the middle of a really bad influenza season, flu season, where those cases are going to get conflated, mixed up with the coronavirus cases. And it's really hard to distinguish the two.

LEMON: The World Health Organization warning tonight that relaxing restrictions too soon could cause a resurgence. How big of a threat is that?

GOUNDER: Well, it's a really tremendous threat. I am very curious to see frankly what happens in Wuhan and the rest of China as they start to loosen their restrictions. I think that's going to be very telling for the rest of us as to how quickly and to what degree we can lose restrictions.

But in the absence of a vaccine as long as you have people who thus far have not been infected there's a very high risk that you could set up new transmission chains and a lot of people could still be infected and still die.

LEMON: Doctor, you work at NYU where at least 69 medical students will be allowed to graduate early to help in the fight against coronavirus. Should this be happening in other medical schools as well?

GOUNDER: Well, I can't really speak to that because I'm not involved in that decision-making. You know, I think that it is very important that medical students do receive their full education.

I think one of the challenges at the moment is that many of them are not participating in what we're doing on the wards because it's really for their own safety. And so, in a sense, their educational, their school year has been terminated early. Beyond that, I'm not quite sure as to what all the thinking has been on that point.

LEMON: I want to ask you about some of the reports at hospitals, some of them setting up makeshift -- makeshift morgues outside of hospitals, others putting do not resuscitate orders in line or at least planning to.

Doctor, I mean, where -- and then you have the president at least giving an initial date to try to open the government back up. How do you square that?

GOUNDER: I think, you know, as Tony Fauci said this is about the virus. This is not about Donald Trump. This is not about me frankly. This is not about you. This is about the virus. And this is about what it's going to take to control the virus.

And frankly, because this is a new infection, we still don't know for sure. We're learning from other countries. We're learning from our mistakes as we go, you know. But I think some of the key indicators that we need to be tracking are when do we see cases peak? When do we see deaths peak? When do we see the rate in growth shrinking as opposed to growing?

And ideally, we'd like to get to the point where you don't have community transmission anymore which means that you actually can say OK this person transmitted to this person transmitted to this person. You can actually follow the chains of transmission. And as long as we can't do that, it's going to be very challenging to be lifting these kinds of restrictions.

LEMON: Yes. And then some hospitals are startled when they start to get their tests, finally do get their tests back. They can't believe the number of people who are coming, the number of tests that are coming back positive. It's unbelievable. Doctor, thank you. I appreciate your time.

GOUNDER: My pleasure.

LEMON: Next -- next, the truth about testing and why there could be hotspots popping up that nobody expects.

[23:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, the nation's top infectious disease experts saying testing needs to increase in the country to get a better understanding of the spread of the coronavirus. That's after President Trump claimed the U.S. is doing more testing than anybody else.

Joining me now Drew Griffin and Dr. Esther Choo. Good to see both of you. Thank you so much. Drew, let's start with you. We heard from Daniel Dale that the president's claim that we're testing more than anyone else is misleading. So, what is the truth about testing?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The truth is that there is a lack of testing all across the country in big cities, in small cities, in rural America, in the coastal America. There's not enough testing capacity for the labs to process all these. There are serious backlogs in our testing labs, the clinical labs. And there's also still a lack of equipment to actually conduct these tests. The swabs that we hear about.

So, whether or not the president can say there's more or less testing being done in South Korea is somewhat irrelevant. There is not enough testing being done in the United States. That is why, Don, EMs workers in New York are being sent home sick, told to just stay there, they're not going to get a test because we have to prioritize the testing. Why? Because there's just not enough capacity to do this test. That's just the truth.

LEMON: OK. Dr. Choo, I want you to listen. This is what Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University said tonight about testing. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[23:20:03]

WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: We have some hotspots. We have some warm spots. And we have some other spots such as Nashville that's warming up. I'm sure that this virus is just about everywhere, but how dense it is, how widespread it is. We don't know yet. We haven't tested sufficiently. If we could test a lot more, we would have a much better idea of how distributed this virus is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Dr. Choo, is that right? Are there hotspots that could be popping up that we don't know about?

ESTHER CHOO, FOUNDER, EQUITY QUOTIENT: Yes, that sounds spot on to me. I mean, the truth is if we were on top of testing and we've been on top of testing from the very beginning we would be able to figure out where the virus is traveling.

I mean, best practice means, would mean that we are even testing people who are asymptomatic who have a high chance of transmitting it to other people particularly people like healthcare workers or people who are working in places like nursing homes where it can be transmitted very quickly to other people, places like, you know, correctional facilities and group homes and homeless shelters.

But we're not doing any of that. We're waiting until people come to us very sick and we're not even able to test some of those people. We're just deciding if they are sick enough to need to come to the hospital or if they can go home.

And oftentimes we're just sending people home and asking them to stay as isolated as possible and we don't know whether they even have the disease but we're sending them back out. So, absolutely true. We're are just living in a void of information and trying to handle the disease in that setting.

LEMON: All right. Let's talk some more truth and facts here, Drew. Let's talk about supplies. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio telling this to CNN just a short time ago. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY): We have gotten, especially those ventilators that we need the most, and a lot of other supplies in but only to get us through this week into next week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, Drew, the governor has said, Governor Cuomo, has said that the peak may not come for another two or three weeks. So, why are these supplies been so slow to get out?

GRIFFIN: Don, we don't have them. I mean, that's just the truth. There's a global pandemic. Every country in the world has been trying to get these supplies. There's just not enough supplies to go around.

I'm not seeing the supplies coming out of a stock pile anywhere that is relieving this. This is why you have nurses reusing their masks, why you have some operations going out without masks, without PPE. Everybody is scrambling to get this and I know that factories are trying to churn it out.

But, you know, just like in testing, in testing kits, the demand is far outpacing the capacity to fill these orders and it's just not there.

LEMON: Doctor, why do you say that you believe that you're on the verge of getting an influx of PPE but that you're also worried about what comes next? What are you most worried about in terms of shortages?

CHOO: Was that a question for me?

LEMON: Yes, Dr. Choo.

CHOO: I'm sorry. Yes, I mean, I do feel hopeful because there's been such an amazing grassroots movement to try to get PPE to hospitals. I mean, people even figuring out how to sew masks from their homes. Industries that don't normally make PPE are jumping in and using their manufacturing facilities to make it. I mean, Nike here in Portland has offered to make face shields for

health care workers. People are being so creative and innovative. And I do want to put that nod out and thank everybody for really just rolling up their sleeves and getting to this effort.

And so, in that sense I want to say I think we're on the verge of seeing some supply come in. However, as we've discussed, we are at the beginning of this uptick in cases. I mean, the curve is going up and we haven't seen supply yet.

So, I see it coming. I would hope in the next week or two I'm able to give you a lot more good news. But I think the other thing is it's not just PPE. I mean, we are looking -- we've just talked about how we utterly lack testing ability and testing equipment. We are lacking in this personal protective equipment that health care workers need to stay safe and not transmit it.

We're going to move on shortly to having a huge insufficiency of things like ventilators, ventilators that will keep people alive once they go into respiratory failure from this disease, and ventilators of course live in intensive care units.

We're also lacking those kinds of beds. We're lacking actually shelter for patients who are COVID positive but cannot go back to homes --

LEMON: Boy.

CHOO: -- because they're in group living facilities. Health care workers are not going to be able to go home because they don't want to infect their families. So, I am -- I'm worried about -- I'm worried about all these things.

[23:25:01]

LEMON: And you have every right to. Those are serious things to be worried about, serious concerns. Drew, Dr. Choo, thank you both. I appreciate your time.

We're going to put this up on the screen because we're going to go there live in a moment. There you go, the Senate floor. They're voting now on Capitol Hill on that massive stimulus plan, the biggest one in history -- the largest one, I should say, in history to keep the economy afloat during this pandemic. Let's see what happens. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:29:59]

LEMON: So, the Senate voting on coronavirus relief bill. There are live pictures now of the Senate floor. That as the virus is surging across the United States, now more than 65,000 confirmed cases, thousands of patients hospitalized, being cared for by heroic medical professionals. But the pandemic is spreading so fast that many of the doctors and nurses on the frontlines, well, they feel overwhelmed and fearful. I want to bring in now Dr. Daniela J. Lamas, a critical care doctor at Brigham Young -- Brigham and Women's -- excuse me, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Pardon me for that, doctor. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Again, I don't think that they will have reached a vote before we're done with the interview, but if they have, we will have to get to it, so, apologies in advance. Thank you so much for joining us. Are you doing OK?

DANIELA J. LAMAS, CRITICAL CARE DOCTOR, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL: I'm doing well. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

LEMON: Absolutely. So, this is your piece. It is in The New York Times. It says, "I'm on the frontlines. I have no plan for this." You're used to tough moments in your job. But you have ever experienced anything like this in your life? Have you?

LAMAS: No, I never have. And what I was referring to specifically in that piece was this issue of the fact that given the sort of contagious and clearly very dangerous nature of coronavirus, this has changed the fabric of our hospital. We no longer have visitors. We no longer have family members at the bedsides. And I am not prepared for what it means to care for patients without those people there.

LEMON: Mm-hmm. You write about -- you're very candid. You write about the difficulty of no longer being able to spend a few extra minutes with a patient.

Here's what you say. You said, "I don't want to spend a moment longer in a COVID-19 patient's room than I have to. Even with a mask firmly in place, even with a gown and eye protection, I do not want to share the same air. So, I do what I need to do and then I leave. I don't take the time to reassure, to explain, surely not to hold a hand. Truth is, I am scared."

So, this is the opposite of, you know, how you would normally want to take care of someone. Tell us more about how scary this is because usually medical professionals/doctors, they want to spend time, they want to get to know the patient. It's all about bedside manner. This is the opposite of that, right?

LAMAS: Entirely. And it's always been important to me to even when patients are intubated to recognize personhood, to figure out who this person was as they wake up, to spend time with them. And this feeling of fear, this knowledge and anxiety that comes from that, that what this person has could hurt me, could kill me even, that is something that I have never experienced.

And it is something that I don't know if it will ever dull throughout this pandemic and throughout our care for these patients. I hope it will calm somewhat. But it is something that is there and it makes it harder to be the kind of doctor that you want to be. And I think increasingly it wouldn't be reasonable to spend a lot of extra time in a COVID-19 patient's room. That would be foolish.

And so we do need to find other ways using technology just as we are in our daily lives to try to maintain some connection though acknowledging that it won't be the same, that this is another tragedy of this crisis.

LEMON: Well, especially if you don't have the equipment you need to keep you safe.

LAMAS: That's right.

LEMON: Just sort of confirm some of the fears that you have, this is what the Times is reporting, that in Spain, nearly 14 percent of their confirmed cases is medical professionals. I mean, listen, that's a small number, but still that is a number and that can be a real issue in fighting this pandemic.

LAMAS: Yes, entirely.

LEMON: Yeah. Do you want to respond to that or just yes, entirely?

LAMAS: No, I mean, I think it is scary. You see those numbers and you are aware that there is a possibility that it can be you. At the same time, you also have to enter the room. You want to -- you want to enter the room really because you want to care for the person.

And I think that that sort of reflects what the family members feel as well, which is that they wish that they could be there. It is painful for them not to be there and yet they also know that they're a part of the system where they have to keep themselves safe, they have to keep others safe, and they have to be separate.

So, I think we're all operating under these very uncomfortable constraints and we know that we're doing the best that we can but we also know that it's not enough.

LEMON: I mentioned equipment. I said, especially if you don't have the equipment, you need to keep yourself safe. Do you and your colleagues have the personal protective equipment you need?

LAMAS: We currently in Boston are fortunate to have the personal protective equipment that we need though we like the rest of the country are worried that there will come a day where that's not the case.

[23:35:00]

LEMON: As a way to help contain the pandemic, your hospital, like many others, isn't allowing visitors, right? You said that is part of the pain that some families feel. And you wrote about how hard that is for the patients who might rely on a family member to help them to communicate. So, tell us about that. How do the patients feel? We talked about the family members but tell us how the patients feel about that.

LAMAS: Yeah. So, interestingly but intuitively, I suppose, the visitor policy is not just for coronavirus patients, it's for all patients. So, we have patients who have been in the hospital for days to weeks, even months, patients who are undergoing long rounds of chemotherapy.

These people were told on one Thursday, I believe, or perhaps it was a Wednesday that the family members who were there with them that day would not be able to come back the next day and likely not the day after that and perhaps not for weeks to come.

And that was devastating, both for the COVID patients who have the added sort of isolation and trauma of their doctors entering masked and gowned with eye protection on that is devastating, but also for the patients who had become used to the rhythm of hospital life with the loved one by their side and were now being told this was no longer. And I think that was really, really hard to deal with. It remains hard to deal with. They are lonely. They are scared. Now, they're really alone.

LEMON: Doctor, thank you so much. We appreciate your time. Please stay safe.

LAMAS: Thank you.

LEMON: I got to get to this breaking news now. We are going to get to the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Let us take you there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Small businesses, large businesses, and to provide considerable funding for the health care workers and the scientists and the doctors and others who are trying to solve this pandemic.

So, I think if I were writing your headline, I would say the Senate has pivoted from one of the most contentious partisan periods in the nation's history to passing this rescue package a 100-nothing all in one quarter of this year, from arguably the most partisan divisive thing you could possibly do to coming together entirely, 100 of us, to meet this challenge, I think says a lot about the United States Senate as an institution, our willingness to put aside our differences, and to do something really significant for the country.

I think one of the reasons that happened is we're inspired by what's going on around the country. People are helping each other, reaching out, looking for ways to make a difference, following the directions of the health care professionals. This is a proud moment at the United States Senate and for the country. And we're going to win this battle in the very near future. With that, I'll take a couple of questions if there are any.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Senator McConnell, understanding that of course this is a crisis and time is of the essence, this vote began and the public had not yet seen the bill. Lobbyists had seen the bill. And none of the debate had been held in public. There is virtually no public debate on what looks to be the largest bill in American history. Can you explain why that was and should the public have more time to understand what this bill is that is meant to help them?

MCCONNELL: Do you work here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Yes, sir.

MCCONNELL: We're the elected representatives of the American people. Walk you through it again. We laid down a bill as a result of consultation with republican members on key committees. We invited our Democratic friends to join us. By Sunday of this week, we had a bipartisan bill as a starting place. Then the speaker and the Democratic leader came into my office on Sunday and that slowed down the process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. That's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell taking questions there in the Senate gallery. I said it was on the floor. I thought we were going to the floor, but he's in the gallery saying that they had passed this bill 100-0 unanimously, taking a question from a reporter about why didn't the public have some say in it.

Surprising answer to the question, not sure why he was so snarky about it. But again, answering that question now. But again, they have passed this. Congress has really pushed this, $500 billion in loans to businesses and extra $600 billion a week in unemployment benefits for four months, sending checks directly to Americans, $1,200 for individual adults and $500 for child.

[23:40:05]

LEMON: That's phased out for individuals with adjusted gross incomes of more than $75. It could take until May for some of this money to get out but if you have direct deposit through the IRS, you may get your money sooner. But, again, this was bipartisan, 100-0 unanimously.

Manu Raju is our senior congressional correspondent. He joins us now from Capitol Hill with more details on this. They passed it, Manu. There you have it.

RAJU: Yeah, they did. The vote is not final yet. It's still open. Once they call the vote, we will know the official total. At the moment, Don, it is actually 95-0. There are members who are missing, some who are in quarantine like Mitt Romney of Utah, some who are -- like Rand Paul of Kentucky who tested positive for the coronavirus. Also, John Thune, the number two Republican announced tonight he would miss the vote --

LEMON: Why would he say 100-0 then, just because?

RAJU: I think he just said that because he's trying to convey that essentially this is unanimous at the moment. There are no "no" votes but there are some absentees. So, when the gavel comes down, the official total, as I said, right now is 95-0, which is still remarkable given how polarized this chamber is, how polarized Washington is and the country, and particularly in the aftermath of this debate.

Just a couple of days ago on the Senate floor, some of the most tensed moments occurred with Republicans accusing Democrats of acting recklessly. Democrats accusing Republicans of pushing forward a proposal tilted toward corporations. It got very intense, very personal. Then negotiations went on behind closed doors for days, marathon negotiations to cut a deal between Chuck Schumer, the democratic leader, officials from the Trump administration, and then also Mitch McConnell.

Ultimately at 1:00 a.m. this morning, they cut that deal and agreed to what this proposal is the biggest rescue package in American history. And then, Don, all day long, they've been still haggling over the legislative language. No one saw the final bill text until about an hour before this vote. So, this is more than 800 pages of bill text.

So, the reporter asked Mitch McConnell, how come we didn't see the bill text earlier? It's because this is not the regular way of business, regular legislative order. They laid this bill text down and they immediately passed it. So, virtually nobody in the Senate has fully reviewed all of the details in the Senate plan.

Now, they have seen earlier drafts that are similar to this final version. They've gotten briefed on exactly what likely was to be in there but we will have to continue to study to understand the implications of this. And we'll also see the impact this will actually have to the economy once this becomes law.

As the administration tries to implement and tries to spend this staggering amount of money to help small businesses and big businesses provide money for workers, provide money for the jobless. That is going to take some time to play out. So, the next step here, Don, is approval in the House, House where Democratic leaders have just announced that they will approve this not tomorrow but Friday morning.

They plan to spend the day tomorrow reviewing this text, having their own meetings and conference calls internally, and try to approve it by a voice vote on Friday. All the House members are not in session amid fears of the coronavirus. But if any one member tries to request an in-person roll call vote, they could do just that and force all the House members to come back to town to cast that in-person vote.

That is not the route the Democratic leaders want to go. They want to quickly have a voice vote approved on Friday, get it to the president's desk, and get into law. They will have to assess the impact and see whether or not it does stem concerns about this country falling into an economic --

LEMON: So, they will go through an approval process on Friday but not necessarily approve it. We don't know --

RAJU: No. They're expected to --

LEMON: They're expected to --

RAJU: They're going to try to approve it by a voice vote.

LEMON: Yeah.

RAJU: That means all the members don't need to be there, Don. The House members could -- essentially a couple of them could be there voting an approval and by voice, and then the presiding officer could say, OK, it's approved. But if one member says, I want a recorded vote, it means all the members have to come back to Washington.

LEMON: Yeah.

RAJU: That could delay things for some --

LEMON: OK. Listen, I have to get to the break. Mitch McConnell got a little bit ahead of himself. He said it is not yet official. He said 100-0, but you said 95-0 at this point.

RAJU: Yeah. We'll see if the numbers have changed --

LEMON: Yeah.

RAJU: -- in the last minute or so, but 95-0 was as we were talking here, Don.

LEMON: Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Manu, thank you very much. What's in the stimulus plan? We'll talk about that right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So here is breaking news tonight. The Senate voting tonight to pass a $2 trillion stimulus deal meant to keep the economy afloat during the coronavirus pandemic. CNN Business and Politics Correspondent, Cristina Alesci joins me now. Good evening, Cristina, to you. Long-debated economic stimulus plan passed just now in the Senate. What's in it? Who is it going to help?

[23:50:00]

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN POLITICS AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Those are great questions, Don. Bottom line, what this is is essentially a bridge loan to get the economy back on its feet and really sustain us through the period of time that it's going to take to contain this virus.

And to your point, what's in it? Now, for the average American, direct payment, $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for a couple. On top of that, we've heard Senator Schumer say this time and time again, supersized unemployment, $600 more in unemployment benefits for a period of four months.

And more -- most importantly, in this package, which we've never seen before, is a provision for what we would call gig economy workers, which is really important for those who are self-employed. So that's for the average American.

Now, we have heard, you know, White House economic advisers say this is the biggest bailout or rescue package rather, we don't want to call it a bailout, rescue package for main street America. It's also a big rescue package for corporate America. In fact, this package total is more than double than what we saw post-financial crisis, Don.

LEMON: Mm-hmm. Listen. You know this. Americans are desperate for some financial relief. People are in dire straits right now. Once this passes the House and they're expected to do it on Friday, how soon until they can expect to see it, Cristina?

ALESCI: Well, the good news for the American people, the administration is very motivated to get money in the hands of Americans. I said this early on in the crisis. They want the stimulus to be there and they want Americans to feel reassured.

So we have heard the treasury secretary of state that he would like to get this money released by April 6th. In reality, we have been talking to outside experts. They say, look, it's going to take three, four weeks. People probably won't see this money until May, the direct deposit. It depends on how you are getting it. But, you know, it could be two, three, or four weeks if you look at it. It's going to be -- it's going to be tough to get out but there's incentivized to get it out.

LEMON: Let's hope folks can hold on till then. Thank you, Cristina. I appreciate it. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The pandemic now is accounting for at least 938 deaths across the United States. The virus is taking many elderly people but also taking young Americans. Here in New York City, an accomplished young woman has died of the coronavirus. Thirty-six-year-old Dez-Ann Romain was principal of the Brooklyn Democracy Academy, a school designed to help students who had difficulties learning at other schools. She's been called an inspiration to students, faculty, and the whole school community.

For information on how you can help people impacted by the coronavirus crisis, go to CNN.com/impact. And make sure you tune in when Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta hold a live CNN global town hall about the coronavirus crisis pandemic, Coronavirus Facts and Fears, live tomorrow night at 8:00. Thank you for watching, everyone. Our live coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)