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Trump Extends Federal Social Distancing Guidelines Through April 30th. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired March 29, 2020 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:28]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thank you for being here. We begin with breaking news tonight.

President Trump just announcing he is extending social distancing guidelines for another month to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The better you do, the faster this whole nightmare will end. Therefore, we will be extending our guidelines to April 30th to slow the spread. On Tuesday we will be finalizing these plans and providing a summary of our findings supporting data and strategy to the American people. We can expect that by June 1st we will be well on our way to recovery. We think by June 1st a lot of great things will be happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: A reminder, just days ago, the president said he wanted the nation open and raring to go by Easter. When asked about that today, the president said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was floating Easter a mistake do you think? And --

TRUMP: No.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Does this -- can you tell us why then --

TRUMP: It was just an aspiration. We actually will be hitting, potentially, this was our meeting before, on Easter we'll probably -- that could be a peak. That could be a peak period. That could be the peak. Sadly to say that could be the peak number of deaths before it starts coming down.

No, that was aspirational. We had an aspiration of Easter. But when you hear these kinds of numbers and you hear the potential travesty, we don't want to do anything where -- you know, we don't want to have a spike up. We don't want to do it soon and then all of a sudden you go down, you're coming down, and then you start going up again because we discussed that could happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Also today unsettling words from the nation's top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci when it comes to models of how many Americans could get sick or die.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Looking at what we're seeing now, you know, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases. But I don't want to be held to that because it's -- excuse me, deaths. I mean, we're going to have millions of cases. But I just don't think that we really need to make a projection when it's such a moving target that you could so easily be wrong. Let's just look at the data of what we have and not worry about these worst case and best case scenarios.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Models or not, those are mindboggling numbers. Still, Dr. Fauci is standing by his comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: The number I gave out is, you know, based on modelling. And I think it's entirely conceivable that if we do not mitigate to the extent that we're trying to do, that you could reach that number. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's possible. I mean, you could make a big soundbite about it but the fact is it's possible. What we're trying to do is not let that happen. So instead of concentrating on the upper and the lower, we're saying that we're trying to push it all the way down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: For his part, President Trump says the peak death rate is likely two weeks away. Now the U.S. death toll has already doubled in just over two days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Starting this week and as you know even before this development, and we've been doing more tests than any other country anywhere in the world. It's one of the reasons that we have more cases than other countries because we've been testing. It's also one of the reasons that we're just about the lowest in terms of mortality rate because we have been doing more testing. So we have bigger numbers to look at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Facts first, per capita, South Korea and Italy have tested three times as much as the U.S. Let's get right to CNN's Jeremy Diamond at the White House. Jeremy, give us the other big headlines from that briefing today.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Ana, the president of course just days ago was suggesting that he might start reopening parts of the country by Easter, but today the president singing a very different tune talking about extending these guidelines, announcing that he will be extending these guidelines for an additional 30 days, saying that these guidelines will be extended until the end of April. That as we have seen the death toll skyrocket over the last couple of days. Doubling to more than 2,000 over the last two days.

Now the president also was talking about supplies. Of course that has been one of the big stories is the supply shortages that some of these hospitals are facing.

[20:05:02]

The president suggested without any evidence that hospitals were hoarding ventilators and that is something of course that the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has pushed back on, saying that some of these ventilators are of course remaining in storage because they are anticipating this kind of exponential growth in cases over the coming weeks. The president also suggested at one point that perhaps hospitals were losing masks or that somebody was stealing masks from hospitals, talking about a particular hospital that typically orders 10,000 to 20,000 masks and is now asking for 300,000.

The president suggesting that something nefarious was a at play. Of course, again, no evidence to back that up at all. Instead it appears that what's going on is because these hospitals are dealing with a surge in cases and of course they are anticipating the coming surge as well. So again, the president not offering any evidence to back up those claims. But once again, what he was talking about with the 30- day guidelines, the president repeatedly stressing that ultimately it was the public health experts who had his ear and who were able to convince him of this.

And the president kept pointing back to one model in particular which showed that without any action, there could be 2.2 million deaths in the United States. That seemed to have struck a chord with the president and that's why we saw today's announcement -- Ana.

CABRERA: Incredible, though, the doctors still saying, you know, millions of cases and perhaps 100,000 deaths or more.

Jeremy Diamond, thank you.

Joining us now is CNN senior political analyst and former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, David Gergen, and clinical assistant professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at New York University, Dr. Celine Gounder.

Dr. Gounder, the president is now extending the social distancing guidelines until April 30th. So explain what that means. The difference that can make for health care workers on the front lines. DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND

INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Well, what we're dealing with in New York right now is the result of not having done social distancing and this is something that you have to go back basically two weeks to see what New Yorkers were doing about two weeks ago to understand what we're seeing here today. Hospitals are overrun. We're seeing sky high rates of deaths from this.

Ambulance calls all day long. You know, it's really quite shocking to be here working as a health care provider in New York right now, and if we do not implement social distancing measures across the rest of the country as soon as possible, they're going to be following exactly that same pattern following in our footsteps.

CABRERA: David, just days ago the president said he wanted to ease these guidelines in time for Easter. What changed?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think, Ana, it's been remarkable. Over the last 48 hours, the scientists, the researchers in health have won three straight victories over the president's objections. They've persuaded him on three big things. The biggest is to extend the lockdown until essentially the end of April. So that, you know, moving -- the scientists, you know, said to him, Mr. President, if you don't do this, we're going to have a lot more deaths. And they started showing him hard numbers of how just the deaths could be.

So he won that on the question of extending the deadline. They also won the president over that when these restrictions are lifted, they will not be lifted in one county or another county alone. They will be lifted nationwide. That's also something the scientists have very, very much hoped to achieve. And thirdly, he backed off his suggestion yesterday that he wanted to put a federal quarantine on the states of New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. He's now said he's not doing that. It's just an advisory.

So I think those are three major victories for the scientific community. People who work in climate change would only hope for as many victories with the president on that issue, but I do think that these are going to save some lives.

Ana, one more thing. You've just, you know, expressed horror at the notion of 100,000. You're absolutely right. 100,000 deaths would be just unbelievable. And just think about it this way. There are about 2400 deaths in the U.S. so far from coronavirus.

CABRERA: Right.

GERGEN: If we have 100,000 people die, that's more than 40 times as much as what we have today. Can you imagine a growth 40 times as big as what we're already experiencing?

CABRERA: Right.

GERGEN: And the hardships and the heartbreak that could go on? That's no victory. Let's just hope we can at least hold it to that. CABRERA: It is shocking, but we do know that, you know, we went are

from 1,000 deaths on Thursday to more than 2,000 by Saturday night.

GERGEN: Yes. Yes.

CABRERA: Dr. Gounder, are you surprised to hear Dr. Fauci say we could be looking at 100,000 deaths or more?

GOUNDER: So I've looked at a number of the different modelings to this and I think that's quite in line with what we anticipate. Now to put that in context, though, China has a population of more than four times that of the U.S. and their deaths from coronavirus to date are just over 3,000. We're almost at that number. So we're looking at many even with only 100,000 deaths from coronavirus, we're looking at many fold more than what the Chinese have been able to achieve so I don't see that as some great victory frankly.

[20:10:09]

CABRERA: We know ventilators are crucial.

GERGEN: I agree.

CABRERA: And those ventilators are still in short supply. I want you to listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: We have enough supplies to get to a week from today with the exception of ventilators. We're going to need at least several hundred more ventilators.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D), NEW JERSEY: The big headline for us right now are ventilators. We had a very specific conversation with the White House last night about ventilators.

GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D), LOUISIANA: We think the first real issue is going to be ventilators and we think it's about the 4th or 5th of April before down in the New Orleans area we're unable to put people on ventilators who need them.

We've had orders in for more than 12,000 ventilators. Some through the national stockpile and others through private vendors. Thus far over the last several weeks, we've been able to get only 192.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Dr. Gounder, last week President Trump promised 100,000 ventilators in 100 days, but now he's projecting a peak is just two weeks away. Are there going to be enough ventilators?

GOUNDER: I really don't think we're going to have enough ventilators here in New York at the rate at which they're being delivered. I'm highly concerned. And you have to remember, you know, it depends on how many patients you have all at once. We also, in addition to that, anticipate that, yes, cases may peak in a couple of weeks, but then you're still going to have many cases following after that. These patients are needing three weeks of being on a ventilators which means that your demands for that resource are also quite high. It's not like they're using it one day and they're off the next. So I remain very, very concerned about access to ventilators.

CABRERA: And David, in terms of getting states what they need, has the president done everything in his control? Has he used the Defense Production Act in its full capacity?

GERGEN: Well, I'm pleased that the president has changed his mind on some of these big issues, but the truth also is that had we acted a lot earlier, had he changed his mind a lot earlier, we would not be looking at anywhere near the mountain of deaths that we're going to have. And I agree with you. It's just doesn't feel like a victory when some of the numbers that are coming, some of the deaths that are coming might have been averted had we had the ventilators and other things in place.

As we face it right now, in city after city, there are doctors who are having to put two people on a ventilator, which just doesn't work. There are people -- there are doctors who are having to make a decision about who lives and who dies. And those are really, really tough calls. Not what doctors are trained to do. And they don't -- you know, it presents all sorts of ethical difficulties for doctors. So we're coming into a -- as John King just said, (INAUDIBLE) here on CNN, we're coming to a rough couple of weeks. Maybe a rough, rough month.

CABRERA: What is that like for a doctor, Dr. Gounder, to have to be faced with a situation like that?

GOUNDER: Well, I think it's very difficult as David Gergen said. You know, in terms of having to make these very difficult decisions about who gets what precious resources, we're having to make that on so many levels. You know, which of our colleagues gets access to one of the few masks or gowns. Which patient gets access to the ventilator. And, you know, a lot of that also is upfront decision-making.

Do we even try a ventilator because once we put you on that then that might not be there for somebody else who may have a better chance of survival? We don't know normally think in those terms. And so that's really, really demoralizing, really hard on top of everything else, you know, doctors are facing in this moment of crisis.

CABRERA: And Dr. Gounder, the president suggested hospitals are hoarding equipment. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We do have a problem of hoarding. We have some health care workers, some hospitals, frankly, individual hospitals and hospital chains. We have them hoarding equipment including ventilators. We have to release those ventilators especially hospitals that are never going to use them. They have to release them.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: Doctor, does that sound like possible hoarding to you?

GOUNDER: Honestly, if you do some very quick back-of-the-envelope math, Ana, so let's say the average medical team is 20 patients, zero to one of those patients really has the kind of condition that would require us to wear an N95 masks. Zero to one out of 20. Now in the coronavirus days, it's basically 19 or 20 out of 20 require us to use that kind of mask. So you're going from one out of 20 to 20 out of 20. Now you -- so that's a 20-fold increase. You take 10 to 20,000 and you multiply that by 20, you're looking at 200,000 to 400,000. So that actually fits completely with the demands that are being made in terms of we need these supplies.

CABRERA: Dr. Gergen -- Dr. Gounder and David Gergen, I should say, please stand by. We're going to continue on with this breaking news on the coronavirus crisis.

President Trump now extending federal social distancing guidelines, again, until the end of April, April 30th.

[20:15:03]

And the nation's top infections expert saying based on the models, the death toll in the U.S. could exceed 100,000. Much more with our experts and reporters, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: A good job. That's President Trump's assessment if the U.S. can keep its death toll from the coronavirus to less than 100,000.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So you're talking about 2.2 million deaths. 2.2 million people from this. And so if we can hold that down as we're saying to 100,000, it's a horrible number. Maybe even less, but to 100,000 so we have between 100,000 and 200,000, we altogether have done a very good job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: That was President Trump today. A very good job? He said a similar phrase about a month ago also about the coronavirus. The difference? Well, I'll let the president's own words speak for themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[20:20:08]

TRUMP: When you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: David Gergen and Dr. Celine Gounder are back with us now. David, better late than never, I guess. I mean, at least the overly

optimistic predictions are replaced by a bit of a reality check. But what does this mean for the president's credibility?

GERGEN: Well, I don't know. He struck me. I think a lot of people who him to succeed will stand by him, but I think a lot of his critics are going to say he's just -- you know, he's setting up a false standard, he's setting up a real low bar saying we could have lost two million people. From my perspective, the better way to judge this as this rolls out, I mean, for now the most important thing is not to count numbers, but to save lives.

But over time, when we look and judge this how well he did, I think the better way to do it is to compare us to other countries. What countries do the best in minimizing the number of deaths per thousand, what countries do the worst. Let's see how the United States stacks up on that before we make judgments about how successful or unsuccessful the administration has been.

CABRERA: Dr. Gounder, as we mentioned the president has said the peak of this pandemic in the U.S. maybe about two weeks away. What does a peak look like?

GOUNDER: So a peak is when you start to see a slowing in the transmission, you see a peak in the number of cases. You start to see the cases -- number of cases per week dropping. Number of deaths per week dropping. But what we really want to get to is where in order to move out of this social distancing phase and to less restrictive measures is you want to get to the point where you don't have generalized community transmission.

So that means you get to the point where you can actually trace this person infected these people and these people infected these people. We -- it's impossible for us to do right now because there's just so much spread. Once you get to that point where you can do that kind of contact tracing, then you can do that. You can do the testing and so on. But we're really far from being able to do that. Especially when much of the country has yet to really impose social distancing the way we're trying to in New York City right now.

CABRERA: I mean, it just seems like there's not even a sense of how broad this issue and this crisis is in the U.S. right now.

GOUNDER: No, I think that's right. Because we're not testing. So in the absence of testing, we really have no idea and as we have seen in other parts of the country now, you know, whether it's Louisiana, Los Angeles, you know, this can really take off very quickly. You know, it's only a matter of time before we start to see these kinds of outbreaks, for example, in rural parts of the country. That means they may happen later, but I'm profoundly concerned about some of those regions as well.

CABRERA: David, hours, just hours before he, you know, came out before the national audience to give this dire news of a projected 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus here in the U.S., the president was comparing his ratings that he gets during these daily briefings to what the show "The Bachelor" and "Monday Night Football" get.

GERGEN: And CNN.

CABRERA: I mean, this as more than 2400 Americans have died. Thousands are hospitalized.

GERGEN: Well, it's -- you know, our values in Washington are so upside down sometimes. It's hard to -- it's really hard to understand, you know, a thousand miles away. But I must say I -- you have to keep thinking we have been talking about testing and getting more testing done now for weeks. It's been two or three weeks we've been talking about the need. And the fact it's still not adequate, the fact we don't have the ventilators.

The fact that so many of our health care professionals are doing heroic -- living heroic lives just going in for work every day because they don't have the kind of protection they deserve. This is -- that's not -- we don't get an A for that. You know, this is not something we ought to be bragging about. It's something we ought to be deeply concerned about. Why didn't we do a better job, why didn't we move earlier, why didn't we take that more seriously than we did.

You know, I think one contribution President Trump could make right now that would make a major difference, he'd go -- if he were to go on a crusade on FOX News, go on there and convince his base this is serious, convince his base they ought to hunker down, that would help a lot. If you can change those numbers, you can flatten out this curve much more rapidly than otherwise.

CABRERA: But, David, it wasn't just one tweet. It was multiple tweets about ratings.

GERGEN: No. I agree.

CABRERA: I mean, could anyone in the White House intervene at this point?

GERGEN: Well, you know, he came up with it back at the press conference and took shots at CNN, as he, you know, took shots at individual reporters which are uncalled for. And it is distressing. It reveals to a degree that I find very uncomfortable.

[20:25:03]

Just how he thinks and what he places the value on. And this is not a reality show. It is altogether too real. And it's -- Americans are going to be -- go through so much stress in this next month as we try to come together and get this done. He's got to be the leader, not in patting himself on the back, but being the leader and having people change their minds about how serious this is. And let's hope we can all work together at the same time.

CABRERA: You know, this is life or death.

Dr. Celine Gounder, David Gergen, thank you both so much. Be well.

GOUNDER: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Still to come, just yesterday President Trump said he was considering a possible quarantine of New York while Rhode Island's governor planned to target New York drivers in her state. Both have since backed off. But what powers do leaders have and how far can they go for public safety? [20:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANA CABRERA, CNN NEWS HOST: President Trump has backed off an idea he threw out just yesterday of a potential quarantine of parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Here's a reminder of what he wanted to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am now considering and we'll make a decision very quickly, very shortly, a quarantine because it's such a hot area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. We'll be announcing that one way or the other fairly soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now, shortly after that, I interviewed New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and here was his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): This is would be a declaration of war on states, a federal declaration of war. And it wouldn't just be New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. Next week, it would be Louisiana with New Orleans, and the week after that, it would be Detroit, Michigan, and it would run all across the nation. And I don't think the President is looking to start a lot of wars with a lot of states just about now for a lot of reasons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Hours after our interview, the President changed his mind, tweeting that upon further consultation, he would issue a travel advisory instead, and that a quarantine was not necessary. Now, when I spoke with Governor Cuomo, I also asked him about Rhode Island's plan to stop cars with New York plates and go door-to-door to make sure travelers from New York were self-quarantining. Here's what Governor Cuomo said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: We're talking to Rhode Island now. If they don't roll back that policy, I'm going to sue Rhode Island because that clearly is unconstitutional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Today, the governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, signed an order demanding all travelers into that state self-quarantine for 14 days, not just those from New York. Time now for cross exam with CNN legal analyst Elie Honig. Elie is a former federal and state prosecutor.

And Elie, you know, we're going to get to those viewer questions in just a moment. But I want to ask you about this idea, the President had to quarantine parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. When we spoke, you call this legally dubious.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST (via Cisco Webex): I did, Ana. That was right before the President walked it back. I won't take credit. But yes, look, the quarantine power by and large, sits with the governors. And it would have been a pretty strong overextension of federal power, I think, for the President to try to come in and lock down certain regions.

CABRERA: Now, to some of our viewer questions, a lot of things are in the balance, of course right now, including what will happen with the 2020 election, and one viewer wants to know, does the President or anyone in government, have the legal authority to postpone the general election, given an emergency situation like the coronavirus?

HONIG: So, Ana, the President absolutely cannot unilaterally, on his own, postpone the general election or extend his own term in office. Now, Article Two of the Constitution gives the power to Congress, Congress, to set the date for the general election. And to set that date uniform nationwide, same day, we've seen primary dates move, but that's up to the States.

But talking about the general election, that's up to Congress. And over 150 years ago, Congress passed the law, telling us that the general election will be on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November this year, that's November 3rd. Now, could Congress change that law, theoretically, but they need a majority of the Democratic- controlled House, the Republican-controlled Senate, it's very unlikely.

And even if they did, they could only move the election date by a couple weeks because the Constitution, the 20th amendment, tells us that the presidential term ends on January 20th, no matter what. You can amend the Constitution but that takes two-thirds of both Houses, three quarters of the state. That's simply not going to happen.

So, Ana, even in a major crisis, the Constitution hold the government continues come the stroke of noon on January 20th. This presidential term ends.

CABRERA: You've received a lot of questions I know about the Defense Production Act. Another viewer asks, how much power does the President have under the DPA? And to what extent has he actually used those powers?

HONIG: So, the President has an extraordinary amount of power under the Defense Production Act, but he's really hardly used that power at all, so far. So, the Act says that the President can order private companies to produce or expedite, hurry up or allocate certain essential items. Here, we're talking about ventilators and mask. Essentially, a president can tell the private company make those and put them at the front of the line.

Now, Trump's sent some mixed signals last week. He said he invoked the Act. He said the Act was in full force, but he didn't actually give an order to any private company until Friday when he ordered GM, General Motors, to produce ventilators. But even that was not specific as to amount, timetable and costs. Now, governors around the country have said the President should use this power more aggressively. It's a state of emergency. Lives are at stake, literally.

And so, the criticism from governors is the President holds this enormous power, he should not hesitate to use it.

[20:35:09]

CABRERA: There were several senators who sold their stock shortly before the market started to plunge due to these coronavirus concerns. As members of Congress, they were obviously privy to information that regular Americans perhaps weren't. One viewer wants to know, could any of them be prosecuted for insider trading?

HONIG: So, incredibly, up to 2012, the answer would have been no. But in 2012, Congress passed this STOCK Act, which said that members of Congress like any normal person can be prosecuted for insider trading. Now, insider trading cases are tricky. The key question is whether the trades were based on material nonpublic information.

Material means is it important enough that a normal investor would consider it a factor. And nonpublic, of course, means was it available to the public. If the information was available to the public, there's no crime, but if not, if it was available only to the senators, then we could have a crime beyond any potential criminal implications, Ana. There could be civil implications. The Securities and Exchange Commission can bring a lawsuit and seek monetary fines or Congress itself can investigate.

They can censure their members or in extreme cases, they even can expel their members that takes a two-thirds vote. It's only happened 15 times in the history of the Senate. So, that's an extreme remedy, but we'll see what Congress and the Justice Department do as next steps.

CABRERA: Elie Honig, as always, good to see you. And thank you very much for the great information.

HONIG: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: At the White House now, cautions there could be as many as 100,000 deaths from coronavirus in this country, a dire warning from doctors and the epicenter New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every day we're having people, younger adults come in who have very little comorbidities or other illnesses going on, who are being seriously affected by this illness, affected to the point to where they have to be put on a ventilator just to breathe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like the one that's beeping in the background.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly. The one that's beeping in the background is a young patient who was presumably healthy before they came in. This is not something that's isolated to the old. Please hear this warning and do whatever necessary to prevent this from spreading.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, we love you. We want you to stay healthy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Well, most of us are staying home, sometimes the easiest way to buy something is online, and that could become harder tomorrow. Amazon workers are planning a walkout, demanding closure of the company's Staten Island New York facility. Employees are protesting the decision to keep the warehouse open, despite news of a confirmed case of coronavirus there, last week.

I want to bring in CNN Business Editor at Large and host of "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS," Richard Quest. Richard, how big of a deal would this be for Amazon right now?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: I think you need to understand exactly why and what they're protesting about. They're not just because that there has been somebody who's got COVID-19 or one or two people. What they want is that the plant or the warehouse to be shut down. JFK as it's known to be shut down, and then deep cleansed, and to be made safe and sanitized. Some cases, they also want to receive hazard pay for continuing to work there.

One of the remarkable things about this crisis is the way in which companies like Amazon, have continued to deliver, and in many ways, have become the backbone for people who are stuck at home, who are social distancing. So, Amazon workers are basically saying, firstly, we need to be safe. And secondly, if we are going to continue, and by the way, there are other companies, employees who are saying the same thing. We should receive some form of extra payments for running the risk.

CABRERA: Meantime, Richard, it is looking like it could be a great morning on Wall Street based on the Dow futures. What are you seeing?

QUEST: Yes, the Dow futures are down and that's because the news over the weekend has become depressingly worse. Let's just take what -- first of all, you've got the President tonight, some, you know, following his advisors and saying that the guidelines will last until April the 30th. Well, that's a good indication that that really strict lockdowns which are being done by individual governors, will also last much further than we previously thought.

So, the U.S. economy will be in a sort of deep freeze for longer than perhaps some had hoped or expected. Secondly, there is -- there is a certain level of uncertainty about exactly where the stimulus money is going to go, how much more there will be, how it's going to be directed, and indeed, what ordinary Americans are going to do with that money once they've got it, who will put it into savings who will go out and spend.

The level, Ana, of uncertainty is so great at the moment. It's not a surprise that after several rocket-roaring gains on the Dow last week, absolutely record breaking, best week since 1930s that the market takes a breather.

CABRERA: I want to follow up on the stimulus package that was passed by Congress, because in addition to the stimulus checks that we've talked a lot about, small businesses are going to be getting loans to help cover payroll. Now, whether you own a small business or you work for one, Richard, what fail safes are in place to make sure the money from the stimulus trickles down to those employees?

QUEST: Well, there are several, really, key safeguards exactly on that point, because everybody remembers the last bailout, and they want to prevent the repetition of the -- of the awful behavior of bosses getting money and workers getting nothing. So, I was reading the Act recently. So, what it requires is that bailout money can only be used for paying workers.

In addition, there can be no furloughs or under certain circumstances (INAUDIBLE) take the money, and then lay workers off. So, numerous provisions have been put in place, Ana, to try and prevent the errors of the past. Will they work, we'll only have wait to see.

[20:45:11]

One provision the president alluded to and suggested tonight, Ana, he says that thinking of lifting the (INAUDIBLE) or allowing companies, once again, to take a tax deduction for entertainment. That was removed in the President's massive tax reform bill and act.

The reason, once the economy's over again, he says, companies, businesses should be allowed to entertain, at restaurants, get the restaurant business moving again, get companies spending on entertainment again, and that will help restaurants that have been closed.

CABRERA: Meantime, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is saying today the $2 trillion stimulus isn't going to be enough. Listen.

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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We have to do more. I think this bill was just a down payment. We have to pass another bill that goes to meeting the need more substantially than we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: So, what does that look like, Richard? What should be the focus of a future stimulus? What else could help?

QUEST: More of the same and similar, basically, Ana. So, you're going to be looking at maybe extending the unemployment from over 40 weeks over, maybe to six months or to a year. You're going to be potentially increasing the amount of money that's available for small businesses, not as loans, but as grants or interest-free loans.

There is absolutely no point weighing down businesses that are getting further into debt with more debt. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul in the eyes of the -- of the -- of the small business. No, there's going to be more. So far, roughly 10 percent of GDP, 10 to 11 percent of U.S. GDP has been put forward by stimulus.

I'm guessing and it is a back of an envelope guess, looking at what other countries like Germany have done, what the U.K. have done. You're looking at maybe 15, 18 percent of GDP. So, you're looking as half as much again, possibly as much again,

CABRERA: Well, it's hard to really wrap your mind around those kinds of numbers. Richard Quest, good to have you here. Thank you so much.

QUEST: Thank you.

CABRERA: Ahead, what could be the next hotspot for the coronavirus pandemic and what officials there are doing to get ready. We have the details when we continue in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[20:50:00]

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CABRERA: As New York grapples with this coronavirus crisis, concerns are deepening over whether Los Angeles could emerge as the next hotspot for the pandemic. Now, the state has closed vehicle access to all 280 of its state parks. That decision came after a surge in visitors, making it impossible to maintain the proper social distancing. Restrictions on beach access have already been in place.

And CNN's Paul Vercammen is in Los Angeles and joins us now. Paul, what else is the city doing to prepare, to take on this potential surge in cases?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, the story is told behind me, you can see the hospital ship, Mercy. And you can see that there's nobody on this boardwalk. Ordinarily, on a breezy spring sunny day, you would see people all over this area. And as you pointed out, beaches shut down, public hiking trails shut down. Now, as for the Mercy, it has begun to take on its very first patients, three of them at 1,000 beds. It is the largest hospital now in L.A. County and on shore.

L.A. City firefighters are now conducting COVID-19 tests in a variety of areas, and they are being the first to be tested, firefighters, police officers, Public Works workers, also those who are at higher risk, 65 years or older. But the first thing a firefighter does now, before they even begin their shift, they have their temperature taken. The City Fire Department is taking a lot of precautions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC ECKSTEIN, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, LAFD: Now, we only have one of our responders get within six feet of the patient, unless the patient is clearly unstable. The patient is handed a surgical mask to don as soon as possible, and we keep -- try to keep the other responders out of harm's way. We also modified our dispatch questions to try to identify high-risk patients.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And the -- on another front, they are actively trying to get the homeless people off the streets into various shelters around the county. Back to you now, Ana.

CABRERA: Paul Vercammen, thank you for that report from L.A. Our coverage continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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[20:55:00]

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CABRERA: I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York and this is CNN Special live coverage. And we begin with breaking news tonight.