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Don Lemon Tonight

President Trump Declares National Emergency To Combat Coronavirus; Feeding The Vulnerable; Economic Impact Of Coronavirus Pandemic; Don's Take; President Trump Misrepresents Obama's Actions On H1N1; Reaching Out To Hungry Americans; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Announces Deal On Coronavirus Relief; Two More Brazilian Delegation Were Tested Positive for Coronavirus, Including One Who Sat with Trump; The Coronavirus is Ravaging Italy But Italians are Fighting Back; The Outbreak is Having an Economic Impact on all Americans. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 13, 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. We've got a busy hour ahead coming up. Covering all the angles of the coronavirus pandemic. Today the president declaring a national emergency and freeing up billions of federal dollars to combat the outbreak. The pandemic disruption of the economy is leaving millions of Americans vulnerable to food insecurity. We are going to look at programs meant to make sure that Americans in need have access to food during the difficult days.

Coronavirus changing life as we know it by the hour. Many schools are closed, people jobs are impacted. Sports and entertainment shut down. We are going to see if Americans are prepared for what is still to come as the outbreak worsens.

And we'll take a look at how coronavirus is having a direct economic impact on household budgets and on American businesses of all sizes. But what have we all been told? Ever since we first heard the word coronavirus. Wash your hands, and don't shake hands. Wave, elbow bump. Just don't shake hands. What seems is the president didn't get the message. Shaking hands with one CEO after another at his press conference today.

But as CNN's Jim Acosta notes, one of those CEO's dodged the handshake and opted for an elbow bump instead. That as stocks rebounded today. It's probably no coincidence that it happen as the president paraded those CEOs before the nation. And said the Energy Department will purchase crude oil to help will prop up the industry.

Then sent an autograph print of the stocks surge to Fox Business host, Lou Dobbs. That was a top priority of the president to this afternoon. Unbelievable. Joining me now to discuss. Susan Glasser, staff writer for the New Yorker, Our resident fact checker Daniel Dale as well. Good evening to both of you. Susan you first, today President Trump put his support behind a House Coronavirus Bill, declared a national emergency. Is he coming around to how serious the situation is?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, it's been a breathtaking week of the president sort of changing tack again and again and again. I was looking at we started on Monday was the president of the United States tweeting that actually Democrats and the media were seeking to needlessly inflame the situation far beyond what it warranted. By the end of the week he is declaring a national emergency.

So, you know, it's hard for Americans, I think at this point to understand why is the president changing his message to the American people so rapidly? And even today, I thought it was like real hard to watch the press conference. That there was a lot of veering back and forth. You know, it was a little of everything is under control and then a little bit of this is big. This is very, very big.

LEMON: Yes. A little of this, a little that. Daniel the president said today that Google is building a site to help people with testing. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to thank Google. Google is helping to develop a web site. It's going to be very quickly done. Unlike web sites of the past. To determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location. Google has 107,000 engineers working on this right now. Tremendous progress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: What's the truth, Daniel?

DANIEL DALE, CNN FACT CHECKER: This is comprehensively inaccurate, Don. A sister company of Google, not Google itself -- sister company has been very is in the early stages. That's what Google says in an early stages of developing a site to help people in the bay area in the San Francisco area access testing for the coronavirus. They do not have a timetable. For rolling this out nationwide. And again, they say, during the early stages even at the development of the local site. And so the president was exaggerating timeline and getting the name of the company incorrect.

LEMON: You know, for Trump, everything comes back to the Obama administration, Daniel. Today, he compared the pace of testing to -- for H1n1 to coronavirus. Take a listen to this.

[23:35:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you go back to the swine flu. It was nothing like this. They didn't do testing like this. And actually they lost approximately 14,000 people and they didn't do the testing. They started thinking about testing when it was far too late. What we have done and one of the reasons I think people are respecting what we've have done. We've done it very early. We got it very early and we've also kept a lot of people out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Fact check this for us, Daniel.

DALE: As we have been covering extensively on CNN this week, the testing in this case for the coronavirus has been hugely plagued with problems and extremely slow roll out. But in regard to the h1n1 testing in particular the CDC started developing that test immediately upon a discovery of the first U.S. case in April 2009.

Within two weeks they had a test cleared and ready to go. They started sending it test out to officials not only in U.S. States but around the world a few days after they got that clearance in less than two weeks. So, they started thinking about it immediately. They got it out very fast. And again, Trump is trying to cast aspersions on Obama to deflect from the errors of his own administrations.

LEMON: Susan, I want to bring you back. Let's talk about the president bragging about his administration response to this pandemic, but says that he takes no responsibility for the shortage of testing. How do you square that circle?

GLASSER: Look. It's utterly consistent with Donald Trump. And you know, that's the thing about a crisis, right. It reveals sort of the man in full. And you know, is there anyone after three years of paying attention to his presidency who surprised on some level that he would be focus on, you know, his own image and his own aggrandizing his own role and minimizing any failures or casting blame elsewhere.

You know, I went back and looked, Don, in the five weeks from his impeachment trial ending to the declaration on Wednesday of coronavirus being a global pandemic. He mentioned coronavirus 48 times in his Twitter feed. Guess what by far the largest number were half of them essentially were touting his own great success and controlling and containing the coronavirus. It's all about Donald Trump. Even in a global health crisis.

And I have to say that this week has just been a breathtaking week for anyone who is ever observed the American presidency. You really have a situation here that, you know, it's inconceivable that any president Democrat or Republican would have acted the way that Donald Trump acted this week.

You know, and so clearly showing a concern for himself. His own political fortune and the stock market at the expense of even a shred of empathy for Americans. Today, you know, he tried to change tack in that press conference. I don't think that it really was a different Donald Trump that we saw today. It's a pretty amazing week.

LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it. Thank you, Susan. Thank you, Daniel.

I want to bring in now, Dr. Peter Daszak, the president of the Eco- Health Alliance and also Dr. Esther Choo, associate professor at Oregon Health and Science University. Thank you so much, I appreciate both of you being on. Good to see you. Again, Dr. Daszak, Dr. Choo, thank you, you'd been on before have you?

I have not. It's my first time to be here.

LEMON: OK. So welcome to the program. We are glad to have you. OK. Dr. Daszak, I'm going to start with you. The president said today that five million coronavirus tests will be available within a month. Is that soon enough do you think?

PETER DASZAK PHD, DISEASE ECOLOGIST, PRESIDENT, ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE: No, it's woefully inadequate. I mean, to really understand the level of infection in the community right now, we need to get out there and test. We need to know who is infected, who is really where the virus is doing really badly right now. And we don't know that because we don't have the tests going on. And we were told two weeks ago we would have a two million test kits by now. They're not there. And this is not a good response.

LEMON: Six to 12 weeks. I mean, that is -- they say the test to get to the market is six to 12 weeks, I mean that is kind of crazy.

DASZAK: Really, it's embarrassing actually to the U.S. because we have other countries that have done a lot better. And I think we missed an opportunity when during the first week of this outbreak we could have gone ready and we didn't. We squandered that opportunity. As the virus was raging in China. We squander the chance to get ready, get prepare and deal with the problem.

LEMON: I wonder if the president had done earlier what he did on Wednesday.

DASZAK: Exactly.

LEMON: If we had been more prepared and people would have taken it more seriously.

DASZAK: Look, Don, there's three ways to look at this. One is the public health risk. Getting the public health message. We need scientists and medics, CDC, NIH, WHO to tell us what the issues are. Then the other is the politics. Clearly there are politics involved in getting a state of emergency declared, leveraging the funds. And that's really an important step the president to taken. But it's too late.

[23:10:03]

And the other issue is communication. The communication has been lousy. We have had mixed messages and from the administration from Congress from different members of Congress. We've had misinformation on the internet. It's fairly a disaster. If you are worried and you have fear right now and you can feel it on the street. Where do you go for the honest truth?

LEMON: Yes. I asked in a form of a question but I believe, I should have said if the president had taken it seriously instead of saying that it was a hoax. The Democrats and the media hoax and all of that and had sat down and addressed the American people and said, this is what's happening in these other countries. People are getting sick by the thousands. People are dying. We need to do take this seriously in our country. Americans. This is what we need to do. I think people would have taken it seriously and we would have been in a better place now. The stock market would had been in a better place and so on and so forth. Dr. Choo, I want to bring you in. I want you to take a listen to what else the president said about testing today. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We don't want everybody taking this test. It's totally unnecessary. And this will pass. This will pass through. And we are going to be -- even stronger for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, it's interesting Dr. Choo, he doesn't want everybody taking this test, it's not necessary. But that's the only way we know who is affected and who is spreading the virus. Why doesn't he want it? Because does he not want the numbers to be high? Like, what is going on here?

DR. ESTHER CHOO, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY: That was a very frustrating and confusing sentence to hear. I mean, I think there might be two issues here. And the truth of the matter is we do not have tests available. So what we're doing right now is testing very sick people who have come in sick enough to need to be hospitalized. I mean in the state of Oregon, we can test about 40 people a day, across the entire state.

You know, so I, as a doctor in my shift to order a single test is an agonizing decision. Because it's an extremely limited resource. And I have to make sure that we are deploying it to the right patients. So, the practical consideration right now is that people who are well, who can be discharged are not getting that test. But it doesn't mean that they shouldn't get it. I mean, how do we know where the disease is? How do we know who is spreading it? How do we start to contain it effectively?

We can't those answer questions unless we have widespread testing. How do we know that all these massive containment measures that we are doing, that we need to do are even working without testing?

LEMON: Exactly.

CHOO: And documenting where the disease is and where it isn't and we have succeeded. So, it is just fundamentally untrue that we do not need testing and that this will simply pass. It will pass if we have effective measures including scaling up testing so that we can figure out what's going on.

LEMON: How many people who are asymptomatic and maybe carriers. Right, how many people have had it and may have gotten over it. Listen. I just want to say that Daily Beast interviewed a doctor who had symptoms consistent with this virus. She says, she couldn't get tested. Not even doctors treating patients can get tested Dr. Choo? I mean, if this is what you're seeing in Oregon?

CHOO: Yes, again with 40 tests per state. I mean, I have 100 doctors in my own department. In just the emergency department at a single hospital. This is allergy season, it is flu season, so it seems like every other person has some sort of symptom that could be early coronavirus. We simply do not have capacity to test healthcare workers nor can we yank all healthcare workers from their duties the minute they have an itchy nose.

And so we need to make smart decisions about who should be out on the frontline and coming into contact with patients. Including you know, elderly and immune compromised patients who are susceptible to the disease and who are likely to get very ill. So, it is a problem simply with our healthcare work force as well.

LEMON: Wow. I want to get to some of the viewer questions. So far New York City schools are staying open. Is that counterproductive when you are social distancing to have kids to go to school and then come home to their parents who are staying home, Dr. Daszak?

DASZAK: Well, there's tradeoff between what we're trying to do with social distancing. Which is to reduce, either flatten the curve. As we heard from Chris Cuomo, reduce the spike in cases early on. So the hospitals don't get overwhelmed.

LEMON: You mean the governor? Andrew Cuomo.

DASZAK: I heard it on the Chris Cuomo show. But I heard it from the Governor Andrew Cuomo, correct.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I'm sure the governor doesn't want to be compared to Chris Cuomo.

DASZAK: The tradeoff is between dampening down the transmission early on. So the hospitals don't get overwhelmed. And then the negative impact of closing schools which are, you know, some healthcare workers have kids they have to go home and look after. And they can't be in the hospital looking after patients. So there is a certain point in which it becomes counterproductive.

[23:45:03]

And there's a debate on right now about what that point is. And we need to know -- we need to know more about the outbreak to really get to knowing exactly when to close schools and what size of crowds to contain. And we hear we shouldn't go to mass gathering. What is a mass gathering? Is it a bar? Is it a wedding reception? Is it you know, going around to be with family? Or is it a crowd of 1,000 people.

LEMON: Well, what is it?

DASZAK: We don't know yet. Because we don't know enough about the disease. Because we don't have testing data.

LEMON: OK. Facebook question. I think it's a really good one. Because you, people are concerned about kids being out of school and about child care and so on. Dr. Choo, from Facebook, should grandparent's baby sit their grandchildren during school closure?

CHOO: I mean, I think, this is where we need to be very vigilant about symptoms. If grandparents who are more susceptible to the disease may practically speaking need to separate themselves. But there's also a massive issue with childcare. We have a ton of school closures and how are people to get to work if they're back up child care system is not available. And there are social and economic consequences for this.

So, I think, communities need to be creative in finding childcare options that are affordable for people. So that they have -- don't have to lean on grandparents putting themselves at risk and I think if there's situations where grandparents -- where there's no other option and the only way for children to be safe is to be with elderly family members, then I think you try to do reasonable social distancing in your home.

You know, it's not a good time for a snuggle and open mouth kisses. I think you try to keep people at arm's length and use as much hand hygiene and avoid, you know, direct and close contact for sustained periods of time as much as possible.

LEMON: Just real quick. I have to run, but people keep asking me this, how soon before you can test positive. Is it 24 hours, is it a week, is it two weeks? Is it three weeks? Who can better answer that?

DASZAK: You need to ask a medical doctor.

LEMON: You guys don't know. Do you know Dr. Choo?

CHOO: Yes, right now, out public health -- yes, right now our public health lab is taking between one and three days to run the test. There's a lot of talk about rapid testing kits that actually give you an answer on the spot, at point of testing. I do not believe we have wide availability of those test yet.

LEMON: Dr. Choo, Dr. Daszak, thank you so much, I appreciate your time. And for answering the questions as well.

For millions of Americans, a coronavirus means a struggle to feed themselves and their families. We are going to talk about what we can all do to help. That's next.

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[23:20:00]

LEMON: The spread of the coronavirus sparking new concerns for America's most vulnerable including millions of people whose struggle to get a healthy meal. One organization launching a response fund to help food banks secure resources to they need to -- to help those in need. Joining me now, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America. I love that name, Claire. Reminds me of home.

CLAIRE BABINEAUX-FONTENOT, CEO OF FEEDING AMERICA: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you for joining us, I appreciate it.

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: I think it should.

LEMON: And by home, I mean Louisiana.

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: Thank you so much.

LEMON: I didn't need a pronouncer for that one. Thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. And you guys are doing great work. So, let me thank you in advance for doing that. The USDA says that more than 35 million Americans have to deal with public hunger in their daily lives and that's without this crisis. Now with the pandemic, what do you worry most about when it comes to feeding those vulnerable people?

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: Well, I think there are two areas that I'm particularly concerned about. And one would be kids. And the other is the fact that the people that we serve those over 37 million people who suffer with food insecurity every year in this country, they tend to over index with the areas -- in the areas that actually are more impacted by the virus. So, those two groups in particular I'm deeply concerned for.

LEMON: How does your network of food banks plan to get these meals to people, is it a mobile operation? Will it be a mobile operations?

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: Well, it might be helpful for me to just give you a little context about what our network in encompasses. So, we have -- I'm part of the network of over 200 food banks around the United States. 60,000 food pantries and meal programs. And in a normal scenario, around two million volunteers.

So what I often tell people is that our network serves every community that faces food insecurity and because every county and perish in the United States suffers has people within it that suffer with food insecurity. That means we cover every county in every perish in the whole United States of America.

So, it's a vast network of remarkable people who work together to help serve 4.2 billion meals a year to people in need. Yes. So, you asked what it is that we're planning to do. Well, the good news about the -- our network is that we have the agility to be flexible and to do multiple things at one time. Depending upon what it is that the particular community might need.

So, in this environment one of the things we're doing for instance to address challenges around children is we are finding ways to go and we have mobile pantries that we engage with. We're even looking at the fact that sometimes it's really challenging for people to come into larger groups. I think in your earlier segment, you were talking about what constitutes a large group. We don't want people who already vulnerable to face additional challenges because they come together in groups. [23:25:03]

So, we're coming up with some creative ways to address that as well. We have some drive-thru options. We have deliveries that we are experimenting with, where we bring the food directly to the people in need.

LEMON: You're answering all me questions. I have it all here. Ask her about safety. A top priority for everyone, especially service workers who come in contact with so many people. What do they do to keep the workers safe? I want to talk to you about the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, announcing this new legislation that includes $400 million to help local food banks, 500 million in food assistance. How big of an impact will that make you think?

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: That's a really good start. It's really difficult as I know all of your guests say and you already know, it's really difficult to quantify what the ultimate impact of this is going to be. We know that it's going to be significant. And we're already starting to feel some of that difficulty for people that we serve.

So, this is a really good start. And one of the refreshing things about it is we have reason to believe that there's bipartisan support for what they're doing there. So not only are they unlocking funds, they're unlocking food, they're making it more flexible. Easier for us to serve those children that I was talking about. And they are also extending benefits for people who are being advised not to go to work in the environments where they might be putting a lot of people at risk. So, it's a really, really welcome first start.

LEMON: Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, thank you so much. We really appreciate you joining us and again, what you are doing is so important. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

BABINEAUX-FONTENOT: Thank you so much, Don, for having me. I really appreciate it.

LEMON: For more information on how you can feed the hungry, protect health professionals and support service workers during the pandemic. Go to CNN.com/impact. And again, she's the CEO of Feeding America, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot. Go to CNN.com/impact and you can help out there. Everyday life changing drastically in this country as communities try to combat coronavirus. We are going to talk about what you should be expecting, next.

[23:30:00]

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LEMON: We have some breaking news for you, OK? Two more people in the Brazilian delegation that met with the president are testing positive for the coronavirus, OK?

One of them is a Brazilian diplomat who was seated at the same table. Look at this picture. We have him circled there for you. That's the president at the bottom sitting, obviously. He's at the top there, the person who tested positive, sitting at the same table with President Trump during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

Here to discuss now is former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem and New York Times Nicholas Kristof, the co-author of "Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope." OK, so I'm just getting this new information in.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes.

LEMON: So thank you both. Nestor Forster is the gentleman's name.

KAYYEM: Right.

LEMON: Here's the information. Nestor Forster shook hands with the Miami mayor, Francis Suarez, who tested positive today with Forster.

KAYYEM: Right.

LEMON: OK. So, he is seated at the table.

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: The president has exposure. The president was there, obviously close to him. He hasn't been tested so far. I don't know. That's what he said earlier. Who knows what happened in the hours since.

KAYYEM: So this is what you call containment, right? So from the -- what you want to do is isolate the person who has it, we already know who has it, and then all the people that they would have been around.

LEMON: He should be tested.

KAYYEM: Oh, yes. I mean, that was please. I mean, that is so obvious to me. My question is now about Mar-a-Lago. I mean, if you have -- how many people do we have from Mar-a-Lago now, three?

LEMON: We have three.

KAYYEM: Three. So, you know, you have some sort of cluster there.

LEMON: Yes. The press secretary, right?

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: You have Nestor Forster.

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: And then you have the mayor.

KAYYEM: That's right. So, OK, and the mayor has now gone off into -- back to Miami.

LEMON: That we know about.

KAYYEM: Right. That we know about. So people will get tested. Likely more people will get it. So you're not just talking about people. You're also talking about facilities, when they clean places and things like that. Why Mar-a-Lago is still open, from a public safety side, is sort of questionable.

I mean, I think if you were looking at any other hotel, if I told you there's a hotel down the street, by the way people were there four days ago and now three of them have coronavirus, do you want to have dinner there? You would be no way, right? So, I mean, if we were thinking rationally, this would be a place that we would look at right now.

LEMON: OK. The Brazilian senator was there, the press secretary, this guy named Nestor Forster, and then -- I'm not sure if the mayor was there but the mayor shook hands with Nestor Forster.

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: I'm not exactly sure where. What do you think?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: Look, at the end of the day, the average person who has a coronavirus is going to spread it to two or 2.5 people. So the odds are that President Trump is not one of those 2.5 people. He's having a lot of contacts. But still as a precaution, clearly he should be tested.

The whole point of public health is you look who has been exposed and you test, and that's one of things we should have learned from South Korea that we have not.

KAYYEM: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Listen --

KAYYEM: And it's just modelling, too. I mean, part of this is, you know, you're either a carrier or a barrier. You're one or the other, right? And so if he is not sick, it's good modelling for the public that you need to take care of yourself. If he is sick, he's around a lot of people that he could get sick. But this is -- now it becomes about Trump, which is so frustrating because we have a pandemic.

LEMON: Listen, I hope --

KAYYEM: It's the way he is and he makes it about him.

LEMON: I hope that he's not. Everyone hopes that he's not because he has been in contact and he's the president.

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: As a president, Americans deserve to know what --

[23:35:00]

KAYYEM: Right.

LEMON: And then today, he is shaking hands and he shouldn't be shaking hands.

KRISTOF: Right.

LEMON: He's telling people not to shake hands. That's it. That's it.

KRISTOF: The evidence is that what works is --

KAYYEM: You should get tested.

KRISTOF: -- testing people and then removing them from contact.

LEMON: Let us talk about flattening the curve --

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: -- to slow down the coronavirus. So let us take a look at this. The red here is indicating how bad things can get if nothing is done, OK? While blue shows an outcome if protective measures are taken.

Nick, you column today says that that's how it plays out. How this plays out depends on both the actions we take when we take them, right?

KRISTOF: That's right. So we worked with two epidemiologists in constructing a model of the coronavirus. And it shows a response to how much action you take against the coronavirus --

LEMON: And when we take it.

KRISTOF: -- and when you take it. It's crucial.

LEMON: How bad could this get?

KRISTOF: So our model showed approximately a third of Americans getting the virus and if there aren't aggressive actions, about one million people dying from it. What is -- look, every model spits out conclusions based on what's programmed into it.

But what was particularly striking about in terms of flattening the curve is that it showed a peak of 366,000 people needing ICUs in a country where we only have 95,000 ICUs, many of them for infants and more than half used at any one time. And so the real crush is going to be in hospitals and ventilators. We only have 72,000 ventilators in this country. They are going to be gold.

LEMON: So, does flattening this curve help avoid what you are saying right now?

KRISTOF: Yes, exactly. So what happens is it spreads it out over a larger period of time. We are so much better having 100 million infections over 18 months rather than over 18 weeks.

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: Do you think we are doing enough now to get there? New York City in the past 24, 48 hours -- KAYYEM: Right.

LEMON: I mean, it's clearly --

KAYYEM: You know, I had --

LEMON: Happening in cities across the country.

KAYYEM: Yes. I had a pretty good America is good moment in the last 24 hours in the sense that the things that needed to get done were done. These mass -- these places where people meet, schools, whatever in terms of flattening the curve, so you're going to extend -- you're going to delay the time that capacity hits need, right? So you don't want too many people wanting something at the same time if you don't have the capacity.

The thing I think about now as a planner is, now, how am I going to pace those 18 months? Do I have enough stuff out there? The answer is no. We have never had -- we have never had a 50-state disaster response apparatus. In other words, we have -- one state gets a hurricane, Louisiana.

LEMON: Right.

KAYYEM: And he says, oh, I need lots of stuff, I'll call Mississippi, I'll call Florida or California has fires and Massachusetts -- no state -- every state is on their own now. And so we are going to have to think of both private assets and military assets, probably not likely international assets.

LEMON: With that said, so let me ask you, the testing. Everyone says testing. It is important. Is that ship sailed?

KAYYEM: No. Let me tell you. The reason why one is --

LEMON: I'm just wondering if we should be focusing on what you're saying.

KAYYEM: As a person who talks to people who are doing -- you know, governors and mayors, they don't know what their numbers are. So one of the reasons why this week was so jarring was because they just simply don't know the numbers that they're reacting to. They just had to move quickly.

The second thing is how is this going end? That is the next question. You are always going to think about when we are going to get to the other side.

LEMON: Yes.

KAYYEM: We can't do it until we know that the pool of people who have it is contained. We are not going to know that until --

LEMON: And if it works right, if you flatten the curve, that doesn't mean that -- my, gosh, you know, what the news people did or whatever, what the government did, was an overreaction. It means that the flattening of the curve actually worked.

KAYYEM: Just be ready.

KRISTOF: Larger period of time. I sort of disagree --

LEMON: I got to go.

KRISTOF: OK. I don't think we're doing nearly enough. I don't think we're doing enough on testing, on preparing hospitals, on closing events.

LEMON: Yes.

KRISTOF: You know, two weeks from now, Juliette and I will be six feet apart.

LEMON: Oh, boy. Thank you both. We will be right back.

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[23:40:00]

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LEMON: The coronavirus is ravaging Italy. It is the hardest hit country in Europe. Italy's civil protection agency says that in the past 24 hours, at least 250 more people died and more than 2,500 new cases were recorded. The pandemic has killed more than 1,200 people there. More than 17,000 have tested positive since the outbreak started.

But Italians are fighting back. Today across the country, people sang and danced as a national show of defiance against the coronavirus. Residents in one apartment complex in Naples took to their balconies to sing out. Take a look.

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LEMON: On the streets of Siena tonight, residents sang out "viva la nostra Siena." Long live our Siena. Listen.

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LEMON: Residents gathered at their apartment windows to hear a version of alleluia.

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LEMON: Wall Street bounced back today after President Trump declared a national emergency to combat coronavirus. But the outbreak is having a direct economic impact on Americans and there is no end in sight.

There is a lot to discuss. Alexis Glick is here, former Wall Street executive, who is CEO of GENYOUth. Thank you so much. It's so good to have you on.

ALEXIS GLICK, CEO OF GENYOUTH, FORMER EXECUTIVE OF WALL STREET: It's wonderful to be with you.

LEMON: This pandemic has really been impacting the economy. I have been talking to my friends who have businesses here in the city, especially restaurants. They are way down. Businesses of all sizes are being hurt. Do we know what kind of toll it's going to take?

GLICK: Well, I mean, as we sit here today, when you look at the economy last year, we grew just north of two percent. And unilaterally, at this stage, I mean, Don, what most folks are saying is we are going to have two quarters of negative growth.

LEMON: Wow.

GLICK: And when you see two consecutive quarters of declines, that signals -- it is actually a definition of a recession.

LEMON: I have a friend who owns one of the bigger restaurants in town. Usually, on a good night, it is about $60,000, down to $10,000, closing at 10:00 p.m. instead of midnight. So that affects, you know, the hostesses, the host, the waiters, the waitresses. That's people -- you know, they need their paycheck, right? It is financially devastating not only for the people who own the restaurants, the big guys, but for the little guys who work there.

GLICK: It's supercritical. I mean, Don, let me throw some statistics at you. Number one, 60 million of the jobs in the United States are small business-related jobs. It accounts for almost 50 percent of the private workforce.

Number two, 24 percent of Americans, as many as 34 million Americans, do not have paid leave. So when you look at the consequences, let's add to it that the average American family in the United States at max has $400 in the bank.

LEMON: What about childcare? Kids are out of school. Your kids are out of school I'm sure, right?

GLICK: This is -- my kids, I think, are on the cusp of going out of school. Let me talk to you about --

LEMON: People can't afford to miss work in order to watch their kids.

GLICK: This is a massive issue. As we sit here today, 25 percent of all school-aged children are no longer in the school building. Schools are shutting down. Why does this matter? It is because, if you look at it, almost 15 million kids are now, effectively, out of school. By the end of the weekend, my guess is that could double.

There are 55 million kids in the school system in America. Thirty million of them rely on the school meal. In many cases, it is their lifeline or their only meal. So for parents who have kids right now, this is a really precarious time.

What we need to ensure, in our local communities, is that we are stepping up because right now it is going to be school buses delivering meals. It is going to be mobile trucks delivering meals. It's going to be the local churches stepping up. The issue, though, is we have to be careful we're not congregating kids into one location to get those meals.

So one of the most critical things about the kind of relief we can get from the government is support for things like snap programs. Low- income Americans, as many as 40 million, rely on that food stamp program. It's about $125 a month for a family. We need to get more dollars to that snap program and programs like it.

LEMON: Can we talk also about the frontline workers and recognize the workers out there who -- like the janitors --

GLICK: Yes.

LEMON: -- the cashier, grocery store workers, other service workers who -- they're earning minimum wage, right? And they may be putting their own health at risk so that they can provide services for the country and keep the country moving.

GLICK: Yes.

LEMON: And they are putting their own health at risk. I mean, we need to recognize them. They need help, don't they?

GLICK: They need help. Let me tell you something that I think is one of the most remarkable parts of this story. We tend to look to government for answers, whether it is the Federal Reserve Bank to cut interest rates, whether it is the fiscal policy that we see through Congress passing a bill to give us paid -- you know, home paid leave or relief for the uninsured.

But one of the things that we're witnessing is corporate America stepping up in a super profound way. When a company like Target comes out and says we're expanding our paid leave, when they say that we are going to ensure that any of our workers who are sick or have to take care of their family are going to be given forbearance and absenteeism is going to be allowed, those are big moves.

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GLICK: We are seeing that from companies all over the country. The only other thing I would add is the nurses, the staff members at hospitals.

LEMON: Yes.

GLICK: We're going to need volunteers. Think about the educators in the school building who -- those janitors who are working with school nutrition directors. All of those folks are really sacrificing for us right now and there is no one who needs a bigger thank you, a bigger pat on the back -- I have been saying to folks that kindness goes a long way and we need to be in the business of kindness right now.

LEMON: Thank you. And you are so kind to do this.

GLICK: Thank you.

LEMON: Can we show people how we greeted each other?

GLICK: Yes, we can.

LEMON: It is good to see you. Thank you for doing this.

GLICK: Tap.

LEMON: Tap.

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LEMON: Alexis Glick, everyone.

GLICK: Thank you.

LEMON: And thank you for watching. Our coverage continues.

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