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The Situation Room

CDC Recommends Wearing "Cloth Face Coverings" in Public Settings; White House Holds Coronavirus Task Force Briefing. Aired 6- 7p ET

Aired April 03, 2020 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

DR. JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL: They're wearing it to protect their neighbors from getting the coronavirus, because, again, they could have asymptomatic spread.

So, Mr. President, thank you very much for that.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you. Thank you.

ADAMS: Appreciate the opportunity to update everyone.

TRUMP: Great job. Thank you.

OK. Jon?

QUESTION: Mr. President, Dr. Fauci last night recommended -- said that every state should have stay-at-home orders right now. Do you agree with that? Should every state in this country have the kind of stay- at-home orders that we now see in places like Washington and New York?

TRUMP: I leave it up to the governors. The governors know what they're doing. They've been doing a great job. I guess we're close to 90 percent anyway. And the states that we're talking about are not in jeopardy.

No, I would leave it to the governors. I like -- I like that from the standpoint of governing, and I like that from the standpoint of even our Constitution.

Please.

QUESTION: Mr. President, to address the shortage in the blood supply, the Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday...

TRUMP: Well, I pointed to him. Right?

QUESTION: Thanks, Mr. President.

TRUMP: I thought we had it. I heard a different voice. I heard a different voice.

Go ahead. We'll get you later.

QUESTION: Going to the oil meeting previously...

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: ... is the U.S. willing to cut domestic oil production? What came out of the meeting? What was the consensus?

TRUMP: Well, a lot of things came out. It's a great industry, it's an important industry, it's a tremendous job-producing industry. And it's just vital.

And it was also very interesting because they all were given the test before they came into the room. So you have the head of ExxonMobil, you have all these guys taking the test, and they all passed with flying colors. So that was good. They left happy, in that respect, at least.

There's just an overabundance of oil right now -- oil and gas. Tremendous overabundance. And it was caused -- they were doing a great job. They were producing a lot of energy. But then you have the virus come along and it knocked another 35 percent, maybe 40 percent, off of the market.

So there's too much oil. There's a glut. And these are great companies and they'll figure it out. It's free market. We'll figure it out.

QUESTION: You spoke to President Putin. I mean, what's on the table here with him...

TRUMP: And with the crown prince, both.

QUESTION: Yes.

TRUMP: They were having a competition. We'll see how it all works out. I think it's going to work out very well.

It's going to take a long time to get rid of that. There's massive excess amount of oil and gas. Massive. Like probably there's never been.

So where that does work out well, I guess you could say, is for drivers. I think, in certain locations, it's down to 90 and 95 cents a gallon, right now, on the road.

But we have a tremendous industry, a great industry. A tremendously important industry from the standpoint of jobs. And we're energy independent. We have to make sure we keep it that way.

All right, please. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Mr. President, as I was saying, the Food and Drug Administration, to address the shortage of blood supply, announced yesterday it would ease the restrictions on certain donors, including gay men, who are now required to be abstinent for 3 months, as opposed to 12 months, to donate.

Did you have a hand in that change? TRUMP: No, I didn't know anything about that. That was done by the FDA

-- very capable people at the FDA.

Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Yes, Mr. President. Both the government of Canada and 3M are pushing back on this DPA not to export N95 respirators.

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: 3M says...

TRUMP: I don't blame them. They can push back if they want.

QUESTION: Yes, but they're saying...

TRUMP: We're not happy with 3M. We're not happy. And the people that dealt with it directly are not at all happy with 3M.

So we'll see whether or not we do. I heard what he had to say today. I don't know the gentleman. But we're not happy with 3M. Go ahead.

QUESTION: And where is Dr. Fauci?

TRUMP: I don't know.

But every time you ask that question -- whenever he's not here, you look, you say, where is he? And you'll say, is there a problem? No problem whatsoever, every time he's not here.

Sometimes, I will ask him to come because that's the first question that you and a couple of others from the fake news establishment ask, is, where is Dr. Fauci? We're doing great together.

QUESTION: A different subject, if I may ask.

TRUMP: Except we're covering a different subject today.

Go ahead.

QUESTION: A different subject, if I may ask.

TRUMP: Go ahead, Jim. Try another one.

QUESTION: Mr. President, you have you have said nobody could have seen this pandemic coming, but, in fact, Secretary Azar, at a biodefense summit in April of 2019, said: "Of course, the people -- of course, the thing that people ask, what keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world? Pandemic flu. Of course. I think everyone in this room probably shares that concern."

Your own health and human services secretary was aware that this had the potential of being a very big problem around the world, a pandemic of this nature. Who dropped the ball?

TRUMP: Well, I always knew that pandemics are one of the worst things that could happen. There's been nothing like this since probably 1917. That was the big one in Europe. It started actually here and went to Europe. Probably.

I've heard about...

QUESTION: You've also said nobody could see this coming.

TRUMP: Excuse me. Wait a minute. Let me finish. I've heard about this for a long time -- pandemics.

You don't want pandemics. And I don't think he was talking about a specific pandemic. He was talking about the threat of a pandemic could happen. And it could happen. Most people thought it wouldn't and most people didn't understand the severity of it. This is a very severe. What's happened is very severe.

[18:05:01]

But I'd let you answer that. I assume that he was talking about the concept of a pandemic.

ALEX AZAR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Thank you, Mr. President.

Actually -- absolutely, for 15 years now, this country has had a massive effort at the federal, state, and local level of preparedness for a pandemic. Now, that largely has been, as I said in those remarks, about pandemic flu preparedness.

We knew about SARS, we knew about MERS, which were earlier modifications or variants of the coronavirus. None of those achieved anything like what we're seeing today.

But that's why, for successive presidencies, including the leadership of President Trump, there has been a great focus on pandemic preparedness. In fact, it was just in November, I believe, that the president signed the Pandemic Flu Preparedness executive order that we have -- and we have also updated the Pandemic Crisis Action Plan, which has been the playbook from which we've been working the Pandemic Flu Plan.

Again, the action plan from which we have been working that coordinates the whole-of-government, whole-of-economy approach here.

So we've all been very focused on pandemic preparedness. That's what we do.

But this particular strain of pandemic, who would -- who would have known this particular strain?

QUESTION: But, Secretary Azar, if you were preparing for a pandemic, if this government were preparing for a pandemic, why is it we don't have enough masks? Why is it we don't have enough medical equipment in this country?

TRUMP: Previous administrations gave us very little ammunition for the military and very little shelf space. Let me just tell you...

QUESTION: But you've been president...

TRUMP: You know it...

QUESTION: You've been president...

TRUMP: You know the answer.

QUESTION: ... three or four years now.

TRUMP: The previous administration, the shelves were empty. The shelves were empty.

QUESTION: You had time to stock the shelves.

TRUMP: So what you should do is speak to the people from the previous administration, Jim, and ask them that question, because...

QUESTION: Mr. President, you've been in office...

TRUMP: ... the shelves were empty.

QUESTION: ... for almost four years.

TRUMP: And you know what else? The military shelves were also empty. We had no ammunition, literally. And that was said by one of your favorite generals. We have -- sir, we have no ammunition. Guess what? We had very little medical supply also.

All right. Go ahead, please.

QUESTION: Isn't that a cop-out, though?

TRUMP: Go ahead.

QUESTION: Isn't that a cop-out?

TRUMP: We'll get it back. We'll get you back.

QUESTION: But, Mr. President...

TRUMP: We'll get you back, please.

QUESTION: But what about that question...

TRUMP: Jim, I said we'll get you back.

Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: So I want to ask about the DPA. So you said that there will be a ban on exporting of all -- what does it cover? So, masks, gloves? What else is included in that order?

TRUMP: It covers everything.

QUESTION: And are you concerned...

TRUMP: But if somebody ordered -- if Italy, if Spain, who has big problems -- these have -- these are countries with tremendous problems -- France.

If they ordered -- if they have long-term orders and they're in -- in there and they want to get certain things, I've let them go out, in certain instances, because I think it's only fair. They have problems that are proportionately or relatively bigger than our problems. So if they ordered something and they're waiting for, as an example, masks made here and going to Italy, I'm not going to be stopping that. I think it would be very unfair.

And, by the way, speaking about being fair and unfair, two very big cruise liners, as you know, I allowed them to dock today. We worked with the governor of Florida, as you know, Ron DeSantis, and we worked on it and we had tremendous security.

And we took the sick people and we're working with them. We have doctors. We have great doctors, military doctors. And from a humane standpoint, not that we're in love with this -- these are two massive ships -- but we have to take care of people. We have to take care.

We sent many back to Canada. The Canada -- the Canadians came and worked very closely with us, as did the U.K. We had a lot of people from the U.K. And we take -- we took care of the Americans. We took care of the sick. We had some people very sick. I think we have three to four, maybe five people that had died on the boat. One of the boats, actually. And we had to take care of these people.

So we couldn't let them float aimlessly into the ocean, looking for port, as they've been doing for a long time. And I made the decision: We had to take them in. And Homeland Security and a lot of other people did a great job.

But we had to help people. These are people that were very, very sick. Some were dying. Some died.

Please.

QUESTION: Mr. President, on DPA -- can I just finish, please?

TRUMP: Go ahead. Yes. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Mr. President, your staff, they said that people in close proximity to you and the Vice President will get a coronavirus test. I'm wondering, are you concerned that the people you've been hanging around with may have the virus?

TRUMP: No, I'm not concerned. No. I had a test yesterday.

QUESTION: But what's the reason for the order for people who meet with you or talk to you? Why should they require coronavirus testing?

TRUMP: I don't know. I mean, I just -- I heard from the oil executives. These are people -- most of them had not had the test. And, frankly, I think they left the room feeling good about a lot of things. But they felt good about the test.

This was a test that took, I guess, 13 minutes to have it finalized. They took the test. I don't know. I didn't know they were doing that. Maybe they did it just for them. I don't know. But...

QUESTION: But they're always going to have to have a test?

TRUMP: ... it seems that a lot of people -- because now we have tests that really work well. Abbott, in this case. Abbott. We have other tests being developed right now that are also fantastic.

The original test -- the ones we inherited, Jim, as an example, they were -- they were broken. They were obsolete. They were not good tests. And that's what we got stuck with. We've developed some incredible tests. But this took 13 to 15 minutes. And they were all fine.

[18:10:08]

QUESTION: On the DPA, sir...

TRUMP: Go ahead. Finish -- finish your question.

QUESTION: Thank you. Yes. So the problem some people have raised is that if the U.S. stopped exporting, what you could have is other countries then deciding reciprocally that they are going to stop exporting...

TRUMP: Sure.

QUESTION: ... and that the result of that then will be a net decrease in the amount of supplies that American doctors, American hospitals have. How do you address that?

TRUMP: Well, I address it in the following manner: We really are very well supplied. We are not the principal -- it's the hospitals, the states, the cities. They're supposed to get everything they can and stock up in case something like this happens. But nobody could ever have assumed that something like this happened, so we started supplying.

We brought tremendous amounts to New York today and over the last few days. We brought them to Louisiana. We brought them to Michigan. We brought them to Los Angeles. A lot of equipment. You've read the amount of masks that we had. I think I said over eight million masks. The N95 masks. The more expensive, more complicated, better, whatever masks -- the ones they want to use in the hospitals.

We have millions of them now, and we've given them to a lot. We sent to Bellevue, in New York today -- that was for Mayor de Blasio -- 200,000 of them.

But we have 8.1 million; we're going to have more than that. And we're getting them from various sources, including the military. We're rapidly then replacing them, because we have to replace them in case there's a -- another emergency. I would be -- gowns too. We have many gowns being delivered and have been delivered.

Our people have done an incredible job. Most people have said -- now, and I said this yesterday -- governors have said, Thank you very much. Great job. If they're a Democrat governor -- in some cases, not in all cases at all -- if I said, here's 1,000 ventilators. How many do you want? We want 1,000.

Here's 1,000. You got 'em. But you know what we're going to do? We're going to add another 5,000. Is that good? They said, Wow, that's great. And then, if Jim Acosta goes and says, are you happy with the president? No, he should have given us 10,000. That's what's happening. You know why? Because that's a standard political answer. And that's a shame because we have done a job like nobody has ever done a job.

But we've just delivered a lot of masks. We've just delivered a lot of gowns and protective gear. But you're talking about a massive -- you're talking about a massive number. But, as of this morning, people were very, very happy.

Steve?

QUESTION: Did oil executives ask you for a bailout of any sort?

TRUMP: No, they didn't ask for a bailout. No.

QUESTION: What did they ask for?

TRUMP: It was really more of a discussion than asking.

We -- you know, we did discuss the concept of tariffs because, as you know, this was a dispute among a couple of countries that I think they want to be able to get it solved. They had a dispute. They had a competition. But they want to get it resolved.

Russia...

QUESTION: You mean tariffs -- tariffs on...

TRUMP: ... and Saudi Arabia, I think want to get it...

QUESTION: ... Saudi and Russia?

TRUMP: Yes. I think they want to get it resolved. I think they're working very hard. I mean, they told me they want to get it resolved. They're working very hard.

Go ahead.

QUESTION: President Trump, thank you. Yesterday, Jared Kushner said the notion of the federal stockpile was, it's supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use. What did he mean by our? And...

TRUMP: Well, why don't you ask him?

QUESTION: And even the fact that taxpayers from every state pays for it...

TRUMP: What's that? A gotcha? I got you. You used the word our.

QUESTION: No, it's not a gotcha. What did he mean by it?

TRUMP: Our -- you know, what our means? United States of America. That's what it means. It means...

QUESTION: So it means the states?

TRUMP: Our. Our. It means the United States of America. And then we take that our and we distribute it to the states.

QUESTION: So why did he say it's not supposed...

TRUMP: Not that we have to...

QUESTION: ... to be state stockpiles that they then can use?

TRUMP: Because we need it for the government and we need it for the federal government.

QUESTION: To give to the states.

TRUMP: But when the states are in trouble -- no, to also keep...

QUESTION: Then who are you giving to if it's not to the states?

TRUMP: To keep -- to keep for our country, because the federal government needs it too, not just the states.

But out of that, we oftentimes choose -- as an example, we have almost 10,000 ventilators and we are ready to rock with those ventilators. We're going to bring them to various areas of the country that need them. But when he says our, he's talking about our country. He's talking...

QUESTION: But he makes the distinction.

TRUMP: Excuse me.

QUESTION: And, sir...

TRUMP: He's talking about the federal government. I mean, it's such a basic, simple question, and you try and make it sound so bad.

QUESTION: It's not bad. I'm just trying to...

TRUMP: You ought to be -- you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

QUESTION: ... understand. No -- by the way, Secretary Azar...

TRUMP: You know what? You ought to be ashamed. It's such a simple question. He said our. And our means for the country and our means for the states...

QUESTION: But then he said it's not supposed to be state stockpiles.

TRUMP: ... because the states are part of the country. Don't make it sound bad. Don't make it sound bad.

Go ahead, Steve. Go ahead, back here.

QUESTION: But, Mr. President, the HHS even changed the language on the Web site.

TRUMP: You just asked your question. You just asked your question in a very nasty tone.

QUESTION: I don't think it was nasty.

TRUMP: Let's go.

QUESTION: I think you didn't give me an answer.

TRUMP: Please.

QUESTION: Mr. President...

TRUMP: I gave you a perfect answer. You know it. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Well, just to follow up on that: When we have the federal stockpile -- I mean, isn't that designed to be able to distribute to the states who need it?

[18:15:07]

TRUMP: Sure. But it's also needed for the federal government. We have a federal stockpile and they have state stockpiles. And, frankly, they were -- many of the states were totally unprepared for this. So we had to go into the federal stockpile. But we're not an ordering clerk. They have to have for themselves.

Now, some of the states were in good shape. Some of the states were not in good shape. That's probably something you could expect. We have been helping states. We have been spending a tremendous amount of time, effort, and billions and billions of dollars on making sure that they have what they have.

I mean, take New York. We built them hospitals -- I built them four hospitals -- built them medical centers, sent a ship with 1,000 rooms and 12 operating rooms, and then on top of that, gave vast numbers of ventilators and vast numbers of surgical gowns, equipment, masks, everything else.

Now, they had a chance to order ventilators over the years. They had a chance to order a very big -- but they didn't choose to do it. We were there and we helped them. And I think the governor of New York is very thankful for the help that we gave.

But we have a stockpile. It's a federal stockpile. We can use that for states, or we can use it for ourselves. We do use it for the federal government. We have a very big federal government. Go ahead.

QUESTION: So have you decided not to use your powers to be essentially a traffic cop for all the essential medical supplies that are needed in this?

TRUMP: Well, we're not a traffic cop. We're a humanitarian cop. We help -- it's like the ships. Do you think we wanted to take two big ships into our country that have obvious problems? And you know the problems I'm talking about. So I have a decision to make: Do I take them in or do I save lives? OK? Do I take them in or do I save? I decided to take them in.

And we have tremendous protection. We have great doctors there to help the people. They had four or five people that died. That was as of last night. They died on the ships. We took care of it. And now the people are in the process of -- and many are already back in Canada, they're back in the U.K. -- United Kingdom.

And many of them were American citizens. Some were very sick. We're taking care of the sick people. We're testing all of the others very, very carefully -- very, very carefully. They are being tested like you wouldn't believe. And we solve a humanitarian catastrophe. You know why? Because nobody else would take the ships. Nobody else would take them. So we docked him in, I think, Fort Lauderdale.

QUESTION: I think some people are wondering why you don't say We're the federal government and there's a shortage of masks and other things and...

TRUMP: We do say that.

QUESTION: ... we're going to...

TRUMP: We do say that.

QUESTION: ... sign off on every single shipment...

TRUMP: We say we're -- we say and use the act.

QUESTION: ... that needs to go to places where it needs to go.

TRUMP: Excuse me, we do say that and we use the act. And we've used it a number of times very powerfully. And a lot of times, we don't have to use it, because we say, We're going to use it if you don't do this or that.

And then we also have companies that act incredibly well. We have plenty of them -- mostly them. But we've used the act very powerfully. And a lot of times, you don't have to exercise the act; all you have to do is tell them, Look, if you don't do this, we're going to use the act.

And we've done a good job with it -- maybe a great job.

Yes. QUESTION: Mr. President, there are news reports that you want to sign

the stimulus checks that are going out here in several months. Is that right? Do you want to sign those checks?

TRUMP: No. Me sign? No. There's millions of checks. I'm going to sign them? No. It's a Trump administration initiative. But do I want to sign them? No.

The people are getting -- the people are getting their money. There's a lot of stimulus going in a lot of different ways. There's also stimulus going for companies that would -- if it weren't our government, would not -- and some companies that were very strong a month ago.

Again, we had the strongest economy in the world. We had our best ever. We had probably the best economy in the history of the world, bigger than China, bigger than anybody. And one day, we have to say, Close it up. Stop. Everybody go home. And you know what? That's pretty tough to do that.

QUESTION: That's another thing -- that there are rumors that these checks may not go out for another four months, like if you don't have a direct deposit.

TRUMP: I don't know. All I can tell you is the small business today is -- we're way ahead of schedule. There is a problem where -- and -- which I pointed out; I said, You shouldn't do it this way -- with unemployment, where 40-year-old equipment by the states. We're sending the money to the states.

Once the money is sent to the states, then the states, whether they're Republican or Democrat, have to get the money out to the people. Hopefully they'll be able to do it.

But many of those states have 40-year-old computers. I don't know that they're equipped. I wanted to give them money direct, if that's what you're talking about. I wanted to give the money out direct. It would have been much easier. But the Democrats and some people, said, no, let's do it the complicated way.

QUESTION: I'm talking more about the stimulus checks. The -- like...

TRUMP: All right, well, I was talking about...

QUESTION: ... when will people get their money?

TRUMP: Excuse me, I was talking about both.

QUESTION: Yes. When will people get that money?

TRUMP: Yes, they'll get it. They will.

[18:20:00]

Go ahead. Please. QUESTION: Thank you, sir. I'd like to ask questions, both for myself

and some of the other reporters who aren't in the room, social distancing.

TRUMP: Sure.

QUESTION: First of all -- and this is for yourself and Dr. Birx: What percentage of the population do we suspect to be asymptomatic at this point? Is there a way to figure that out? It seems like the antibody test might be able to assist in determining that number.

TRUMP: Go ahead, Deborah.

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Yes, thank you.

So, while we're working diligently in the midst of the crisis to make sure that the health care workers and everyone who is sick gets provided for, at the same time, we're working on tests and assays that will be critical for surveillance, and at the same time, working on plans for what we need to do as this moves through the population and we get on the downside, where we're sort of -- we're not there yet.

And, hopefully, most of the states will -- say, like California and Washington. And then what we need to do to be prepared for fall.

So all three of those things are happening simultaneously, and there's people working on each one of those work streams.

The antibody piece is critical, as you described, because at this time, we can't -- if we have -- let's say asymptomatic status is inversely -- symptomatic status is inversely related to age, and so the younger you are, the more likely you are to be asymptomatic: We have to know that because we have to know how many people have actually become infected.

So when we talked, about five days ago -- I think on Monday -- I called on universities to work on an ELISA-based test to test for their health workers and really get through that.

At the same time, the private sector is working on tests. And what do we want those tests to be? We want those tests to be like what we use for HIV and malaria -- finger prick onto a cassette. You get a line if you're positive and you get a control line.

Negative, the line isn't there and there's the control line. That's what -- that's our dream assay, because it's a finger prick.

In the meantime, we're not waiting. I mean, we're pushing for that. At the same time, we're asking to develop an assay -- the ELISA-based assay, which requires a tube of blood. And that's why we're also talking about could we use dried blood spots.

We also put out a call directly out to the military, because of the Roosevelt, to really test all of the sailors on the Roosevelt with an antibody test to get to this critical issue of asymptomatic and already preexisting antibody.

That would be -- if the first responders knew they already had had it, and they had protective antibody. If the nurses knew, the doctors knew, if your schoolteacher knew, then it's a very different dialogue. So we understand the importance of that and we understand how important it is in relationship to understanding this epidemic.

One other comment, because I know we're always saying, Who knew what, when? I just want to make clear. There's 150-plus countries working on this collectively together. It's devastating for every single country. When we get through this, we can go back and look at what happened, where, and what does this epidemic look like.

And when you get through it, then you can validate every model there is known to man. When you're in the middle of it, you have to concentrate on serving the needs of each American, and what that need looks like.

At the same time, you have these other work streams on surveillance, and how to be prepared, both scientifically and therapeutically and vaccine-wise, for the next fall, if it happens again.

So I think these things are happening together, but I just want us to really concentrate on the fact that, all around the globe, country after country is dealing with this. And we can talk about, Why didn't Italy do something, or Spain do something, or Germany do something? Or we can really say, right now, we all can we can do something. We can do the social distancing and all of the pieces that we know is starting to work around the globe in country after country.

And then, when we get through all of this, we can ask the questions about, Could we have done some piece of this better as a global community?

I will remind you that on February 3, the head of the WHO said there was no reason to ever do a travel ban. You know, it wasn't until January 14th that we knew that there was human-to-human transmission. Remember...

QUESTION: Dr. Birx, the president was saying this was going to go away. It's April.

TRUMP: It is going to go away. It is going away.

QUESTION: The President -- But, Mr. President, you said it was going to go away in April.

TRUMP: It's going -- I didn't say a date.

QUESTION: You said, When it warmed up in April...

TRUMP: I said it's going away and it is going away.

OK, are you...

QUESTION: Dr. Birx... BIRX: Yes. Thank you, sir.

QUESTION: But -- if I'm...

TRUMP: OK, that was a good answer to your question. No, no, no. No, no. No more. That was a long, but a very good answer. That was enough for you.

[18:25:02]

QUESTION: I have a question on the insurance coverage.

Mr. President, on the insurance coverage for treatment, the way your government is going is trying to make sure that people are covered on the treatment for COVID...

TRUMP: Yes, we're going to do that.

QUESTION: Does that include the 11 million people who are in this country illegally? Are they going to be covered as well?

TRUMP: We'll be talking about that at a different time.

Yes, please. Go head.

QUESTION: Yes, Mr. President, will you release -- authorize the release of the underlying data for the conclusion of the 100,000 to 240,000 people succumbing? Perhaps, Dr. Birx, can talk...

TRUMP: Well, that's up to Dr. Birx. You'll decide as to when...

BIRX: We can release all of the -- I...

QUESTION: Some disease experts have expressed concern that they haven't seen the underlying data. They're not questioning...

TRUMP: I'm sure they'll talk to you about that, and Dr. Fauci too.

Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. This is for you and Secretary Azar.

Ten million people say they've lost their jobs in the past two weeks. So how is this stimulus money for free treatment going to absorb the new numbers of uninsured and...

TRUMP: Go ahead, if you want -- go ahead.

QUESTION: ... would it not be easier to reopen the Obamacare markets or expand Medicaid?

AZAR: So for an individual who had employer insurance -- that's what I mentioned in my remarks -- if you were employed and had insurance through your employer, and you've now lost your job and lost that insurance, you now do have a special enrollment period where you may enroll in the individual exchanges of the Affordable Care Act.

So that's -- that's existing law.

Then, what we're doing is taking from that hundred billion dollars to providers, taking money and saying, if you're a provider and you care for anybody who is uninsured, we're going to compensate you for doing that, and we're going to compensate you at the Medicare reimbursement rates, and you are not allowed to bill that uninsured individual anything.

So, in many respects, it's better for those uninsured individuals. They're going to get first-dollar coverage, they're going to get care in the United States, and the provider is going to be made whole from this program.

So it's really an unprecedented -- what President Trump is doing here with this money is an unprecedented, disease-specific support of care for individuals to make sure that people get treatment.

QUESTION: Will someone still be billed if they test negative? Or what about non-COVID conditions?

QUESTION: So, I just have a couple of questions about supplies -- one specifically on New York and the question of ventilators. Governor Cuomo is saying that New York may be days away from running out of ventilators. Can you assure New York that, going into next week, that they're going to have the ventilators that they're going to need?

TRUMP: No, they should've had more ventilators at the time. They should have had more ventilators. They were totally under serviced. We are trying to do -- we're doing our best for New York. You know, we have -- we have states, we have a lot of states. We have territories too. But we have a lot of states that have to be taken care of, some much more so than others.

We've worked very well with the governor. We happen to think that he's well served with ventilators. We're going to find out, but we have other states to take care of.

We have a big problem in Louisiana, we have a big problem in Michigan, we have a big problem in seven other really strong hot spots, but we're doing the best we can. I wish they did the original orders three years ago. They would've had all the ventilators they needed.

Although even then they wouldn't because if you look at what the original request was from New York, it was far greater than anybody ever heard. And we've -- we've supplied a lot. I told you, we supplied some just today to New York, and we supplied some yesterday to New York City.

Did you have one in the back? Yes, please.

QUESTION: Mr. President, if I can say -- this is why the question about the stockpile that was asked earlier is so important.

TRUMP: I don't think that was the question (inaudible). QUESTION: No, it was a very important question because what Jared

Kushner said yesterday is that the federal stockpile is for use by the federal government, not for the states to have access to. So you seem to be saying different. So did Jared Kushner misspeak yesterday?

TRUMP: No, no, he didn't -- he didn't misspeak.

QUESTION: Is that federal stockpile available to the states?

TRUMP: He used the word our. OK? Our -- our is referring to our country.

QUESTION: Yes, but he said -- he said it's not for the states to use.

TRUMP: The states, to the best of my knowledge and to the best of your knowledge, are a part of our country. We are taking what is in the federal stockpile and we are helping states all over the country. But we also want to keep some because when that surge comes, when you hit those peaks, we're going to need it.

And we have to be able to have the flexibility to take those ventilators and bring them to Louisiana, New York, Detroit, different places. That's all.

QUESTION: But you will be using them for the states that need them?

TRUMP: Oh, of course. We're not using them anywhere else. We're not going to be using them, Jon, anywhere else. But we want the flexibility because we don't even know when the surge is coming, but it's coming soon and it's going to be big, and some areas won't have it.

Some areas will be pleasantly surprised, just like we've been. You look at the chart. States that I thought would have been maybe a disaster turned out to be -- really, they've done a great job. Some states are really troubled, but you don't know. You don't know. We have great flexibility.

I would have preferred giving them all out. We'd have nothing. And now when we have a surge, we can't get them back from where we gave them because it's very tough to take it back.

[18:30:02]

So we have tremendous flexibility. And it could be New York, it could be Louisiana. Those are two that are really rough. New Jersey is very rough. And they've done a very good job in New Jersey. But New Jersey is really rough.

Go ahead, please, at the back?

QUESTION: Yes. The question is about the CDC guidelines. I know that they changed the retirement from February --

TRUMP: The guidelines relative to which? The masks? QUESTION: Social distancing and the number of people in a group and so on. And now we have this measure about wearing masks. And I know you told Steve about why you don't want to wear a mask, but I am just wondering if you tell us more about why, because it --

TRUMP: I just don't choose to. They are not mandatory guidelines. They are guidelines. They suggest you could wear them. You don't have to wear them. In fact, the director is here. If you want to say a couple of words about it, you know, you can. If you don't' want, you don't have to. But basically it's a voluntary thing. Say it to that, you are doing a good job.

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: Thank you very much. I think I just want to reemphasize. I said this before that we are not defenseless against this virus. We have a powerful tool, a powerful weapon, that is is social distancing. And we've continued to embrace that with the president's initiative to slow the spread of coronavirus.

We're constantly looking at new data. And as the surgeon general said, one of the new information that became more clear to all of us is there's a greater number of people that are asymptomatically infected than we previously thought. And as Ambassador Birx said, that may be inversely related to age.

And so, really, the purpose here is, first and foremost, to embrace the social distancing. That's the number one thing, that's the powerful weapon. And, you know, this virus has a great weakness. It can't jump from one person to another if it's got to swim more than six feet. And this is why we really want that.

That said, we now know that there may be individuals in areas of significant community transmission that may be asymptomatically infected. We know that a face barrier can actually interrupt the number of virus particles that can go from one person to the other. So as we said by the vice president, this is -- and the president -- the purpose of this face covering is to be another adjunctive mitigation strategy to protect someone spreading the virus from them self to someone else.

TRUMP: And I was just tested also. So, I assume I don't have the virus. I don't have to worry about spreading it. Okay, please go ahead.

QUESTION: Mr. President, I want to make sure with clear, when you mentioned tariffs earlier, they came up in the meeting, are you considering tariffs on Saudi Arabia on oil and also --

TRUMP: I'm always concerned. Look, tariffs have made a tremendous amount of money for our country. I put them on China, I put them on other places and other countries tariff us. And they take advantage of us, and they have many years. Look, countries have taken advantage of the United States for years. They have ripped us off like nobody can believe, whether it be on manufacturing, whether it be on exporting, whether it be on almost anything, including military, where we provide virtually free military assistance to countries that frankly take advantage of us, don't even like us, okay? So this has been going on for years.

They tariff us, they create artificial, you could say, non-financial barriers, which are worse that financial barriers. You can't sell your product, you can't take care of our farmers, they won't take our -- and yet they will take us and sell into us and we won't charge them anything for doing it. Look, they have taken advantage of us for years.

Tariffs are a way of evening the score score. Tariffs are a way of just neutralizing. They have tariffs on us, and we now can put tariffs on them. Am I using it for oil? It's something we can. Am I doing it now? No. Am I thinking about imposing it as of this moment? No. But if we are not treated fairly, it's certainly a tool in the tool box.

QUESTION: And what about with Russia? Are you -- would you consider maybe lifting sanctions or giving some sanctions?

TRUMP: Well, it will be the same thing. No, it would be the same thing. They are having a dispute, the two countries. And It's hurting the rest of the world because it's really hurting the energy industry. Russia is being hurt unbelievably badly and Saudi Arabia is being hurt unbelievably badly. Because oil and gas is a primary -- that's where they get most of their income.

And this is a price like from the 1950s, right? It's a price from the 1950s. They are being hurt very badly. I think they're going to settle their dispute pretty quickly.

QUESTION: Mr. President, why do you think you haven't been more successful in getting them to increase production in Russia and Saudi Arabia?

TRUMP: Well, they have increased production. That's what they've done. They've increase it so much that this -- so you meant the opposite.

QUESTION: Why you haven't --

TRUMP: Look, just -- well, they are going to stop because the market -- ultimately, the market is going to get them to stop, but they both did the opposite.

[18:35:07]

They increased production to a level that water is right now more valuable than oil. Who would have ever thought, right? You go to some of these kingdoms, water is far more valuable than oil. There so much oil. It's attributed away. But what happened is there was a lot to start off with, and then you had the virus and it knocked the hell out of the market in terms of demand. So there is no demand and there's tremendous supply.

So, I mean, you saw numbers where it was down to 20 and down, frankly, below 20. It was even below 20, it's an incredible thing in the market. But, ultimately, the marketplace will take care of it. But I think they're going to work out their problems fairly quickly. Okay, go ahead. QUESTION: Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President. We are already talking about phase four of the stimulus, right? But you and Pelosi and McConnell are already talking about different things that should be in it. Now, last time, people were telling me that the fact that you wouldn't talk to Pelosi was an impediment, and it really slowed things down. Are you --

TRUMP: If it were important to talk, I'd talk to her. If it were important for the American people, I'd talk to her. But other than that, I can have other people talking to her.

Look, are you ready? Infrastructure is a great thing for me. I think infrastructure for this country -- we have an old, broken infrastructure. 50 years ago, we were the envy of the world. And then we spent all of this money so stupidly in the Middle East. We spent -- it's going to be close to 8 trillion dollars in the Middle East. How stupid was that decision? But they spent it on that and other things. We've got to fix our infrastructure, that means roads, highways, tunnels, airports, everything. We're going to fix our infrastructure.

And the beauty is because of the fact that we are so strong as a country, we are borrowing at zero. We never had a chance to borrow at zero, even this a country. We never had a chance to borrow at zero. This is a great time. So we can fix our infrastructure and we'll have almost no interest costs. This is the time to do it.

Steve, one more question.

QUESTION: The death toll projections that you share with us earlier this week, are we still on the current trajectory for that or have --

TRUMP: So which one? I have many trajectories for many things.

QUESTION: 100,000 to 240,000. Are we still on that trajectory or have we made any improvements or maybe not enough --

TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE) what?

QUESTION: Have we made enough improvements --

TRUMP: On what?

QUESTION: On the models.

TRUMP: I have to ask Dr. Fauci and I have to ask Deborah. Have the models changed?

BIRX: So a lot of the projections, you can see, are based on -- there is many different ways to look at this. And as we discussed on Sunday, some of it is based on the current global experience.

We are about, I think 6.5 or 5.5 times of size of Italy, a different factor in Spain, and we look at all of those, what their projections are, where they are currently and where that is going. And so a lot of the work is based on how this virus has moved through other populations. That's a very direct way to see how the virus is impacting a population, it is also terrific model.

And so every day and every night, one of the models that actually looks at the model related to mortality is the Healthdata.org data. And they update it every night. And you can see where we are in that projection. I think in the last run of that model, they were at 93,000 or something in the model.

Now all of that can be changed by our behaviors. And so -- and all of it can be changed in a different way if we don't follow those behaviors. If another major metropolitan area ends up having an epidemic like the New York metro area, that could dramatically change not the model but the reality of the impact of this virus on Americans.

TRUMP: I think what the models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die. You know I want do? I want to come way under the models. The professionals did the models. I was never involved in the model, but at least this kind of a model. But you know what, hundreds of thousands of people (INAUDIBLE), I want much less than that. I want none. But it's too late for that. But I want very few people relevant to what the models are saying. Those are projections. I hope they are wrong. I hope they're going to be under those projections.

QUESTION: Two questions, on the content (ph) of your government.

TRUMP: How could you always have two? Why can't you have one every time? I have three question, I have two question. Can you give me one instead? Because we have couple of other people. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Okay, I will go with my second.

[18:40]

The governor of Wisconsin is now talking about delaying the primary, at least not having a person voting. So my question is, and I asked this a couple of weeks ago, I want to see if you've made any progress on this, looking ahead to the fall, are you taking steps to ensure that the general election will happened even if this pandemic has reemerged or hasn't gone away?

TRUMP: General election happened on November 3rd. In Wisconsin, what happened is I, through social media, put out a very strong endorsement of the Republican conservative judge who is an excellent, brilliant judge. He's a justice. And I hear what happened, is his poll numbers went through the roof. And because of that I think they delayed the election.

QUESTION: Are you concerned about people going to in-person voting?

TRUMP: I don't know. Why didn't you do it before? He's doing right before the election. Excuse me, why did he do this two weeks ago? All of a sudden -- excuse me, all of a sudden an election which is taking place very soon gets delayed. Now, I just endorsed him today and it was a very strong endorsement. He's poll, he's gone very high up. And all of a sudden the governor comes out, the Democrat governor, by the way, comes out and says, oh, we're going to move this election. So I don't know. I hope you are right.

QUESTION: But do you think every state in this country should be prepared for mail-in voting in case we're in a situation --

TRUMP: No, because I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting. I think people should vote with I.D., voter I.D. I think voter I.D. is very important. And the reason they don't want voter I.D. is because they intend to cheat. When you get something, when you buy something, you look at your cards and credit cards and different cards, you have your picture on many of them, not all of them, but on many of them. You should have a picture on your -- for voting. It should be called voter I.D. They should have that.

And it shouldn't be mail-in -- excuse me, it shouldn't be mail in voting. It should be that you go to a booth and you proudly display yourself. You don't send it in the mail where people pick up, all sorts of bad things can happen by the time they sign that, if they sign that, if they sign that, by the time it gets and it's tabulated. No, it shouldn't be mailed in. You should vote at the booth and you should have voter I.D. Because when you have voter I.D., that's the real deal. Thank you very much. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, so there you have it, more than an hour or maybe an hour and 20 minutes or so, the president and other members of the coronavirus task force answering questions, making statements. The big news is that the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, has now issued -- and the president made this announcement -- a new recommendation regarding what's called face coverings.

In light of new evidence, the CDC now says, they've release an official statement, the CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain. They say grocery stores, pharmacies, especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

The president says he won't wear any masks or face coverings but its voluntary. If people want to do it, he says they can do it.

The other big headline is that the president is not endorsing a national stay-at-home order, in contrast to what we heard Dr. Anthony Fauci on CNN last night. Fauci is saying, if you look at what's going on in this country, I just don't understand why we're not doing that. We really should be. The president says it's up to the states.

Now, most of the states have ordered stay-at-home recommendations orders. The president says, it's up to the state, he's not going to do a national order. By the way, Dr. Fauci was not present today's briefing. Perhaps, maybe because he and the president clearly disagree on a stay-at-home national order.

Finally, the president said and we heard from the Secretarial of Health Human Services, Alex Azar, that if you have to get a test and then you need treatment for the coronavirus, you won't have to spend a penny. All of that will be taken care of by the federal government. They will pay for treatment, for testing and treatment of the coronavirus. When the president was asked, what about the 11 million undocumented people, who are here in the United States, including maybe 700,000 DREAMERs. The president said, we will talk about that at another time.

Let's bring in Kaitlan Collins, our White House Correspondent. Kaitlan, I'm anxious to get your thoughts on what we heard.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the president didn't offer any clarity on that very confusing remark we heard yesterday from his son-in-law and Senior Adviser, Jared Kushner, where he was talking about these stockpiles, pushing back on those complaints that you've heard from several governors across the political spectrum about how they are not getting the supplies that they need.

And just to catch up to speed, the quote yesterday from Kushner was, the notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile, it's not supposed to be states' stockpile.

[18:45:00]

The president was clearly agitated when a reporter from CBS News asked the question. He said he believe it was a nasty question. But, Wolf, he did not offer any clarity on it. He did not also make the same distinction that Jared Kushner made yesterday saying there was a difference in the federal stockpile and state stockpiles.

That is something that even Republican senators have been saying is confusing to them. And they didn't know what it was Kushner was referencing because they are saying the federal stockpile is obviously there to serve states when they need that federal assistance in times like the one we're living during a pandemic.

I do want to note that what the president was also nothing about the CDC guidance coming out about these masks, he says he's not going to follow those. He said he thought it would be odd if he was greeting other world leaders while wearing a mask, though, of course, right now, we don't have any planned meetings between the president and other world leaders and he repeatedly -- repeated -- insisted that this was just guidance from the CDC, voluntary.

The president said multiple times, though, of course, Wolf, we should note, even the guidelines the president put out about social distancing are just voluntary, not something he believes should be enforced but the president himself said other people should do that if they want, but he himself is not going to be following those guidelines about covering your face when you are in public.

Of course, the context of that was we did find out today that people who are around the president are now going to be getting those quick rapid fire test for coronavirus, the one we find out within 15 minutes whether or not you have it. The president will be wearing that layer protection of bases and not covering his face like the CDC recommending the nation should.

BLITZER: Yes, they're recommending the rest of the nation does, but the president of the United States says he is not going to do it. Not necessarily said -- setting an example for the rest of the nation.

Kaitlan, stand by. I want to bring in Gloria Borger who is listening very carefully to all of this.

What jumped out of you, Gloria?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I want to agree with Kaitlan that there was a stunning lack of clarity on a lot of fronts coming from the president of the United States here.

If you talk about the face coverings, it was sort of maybe do as I say but not as I do because while he sort of suggested people ought to do it, indicating that we recently discovered that you can spread the virus, even if you are asymptomatic, and we know, Wolf, you have been talking about it for almost a month now, that you can spread it if you are asymptomatic. People have known that and suddenly he is saying, we just learned this. This is what we are recommending. By the way, I am not going to do it.

And, clearly, his reason was, because I don't want to look silly. I just don't -- I'm just not liking the way it looks at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. I think he was also unclear about why he just hasn't issued, as Tony Fauci has suggested, universal stay at home order. It's true they are only five states left who don't have any kind of stay-at-home orders. Some others have partial ones, but why wouldn't the president of the United States say, look I think it's time for you to stay at home.

What he said instead was, we are talking about states, and let me get this right, that are not in jeopardy. Well, how do we know those states aren't going to be in jeopardy somewhere down the line? So, I think the president today was generally confusing and also, you got to see the personal side of him lashing out at this reporter from CBS News when she asked a very legitimate question about Jared Kushner.

His answer yesterday was clearly confusing to a lot of people, not just this journalist, asking a legitimate question and somehow he just -- it's very clear when he gets a question he doesn't like, somehow it seems to be from women an awful lot, when he gets a question he doesn't like, he gets nasty in return and I don't think that is the kind of thing Americans want when they are looking for answers. Should they wear a mask? Should they not wear masks? Is their governor doing a right thing?

What is -- you know, what about the stockpile? What are we doing with the stockpile? If you are living in a state outside of New York, these are questions you really want answers to and I'm not sure you got any of the answers tonight.

BLITZER: That's an important point. Daniel Dale is with us as well. He's done a lot of fact checking.

What did you hear, Daniel, that requires some significant fact checking?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Wolf, I think there were two significant false claims, I should say at least two, one was another attempt by Trump to rewrite his own history on this virus. Our Jim Acosta reminded him that he had repeatedly said this virus will go away in April and that it is April now and, of course, has not gone away. Trump responded, I did not say a date.

I just did a quick surge back in the archives for Trump quotes. He said it over, and over. He said, you know, in April, supposedly, it dies with a hotter weather, that's a beautiful day to look forward to. He said when we get into April and warm weather that has a negative effect on that. It looks like by April, in theory when it gets a little warmer, a miraculously goes away.

[18:50:01]

So, yes, Trump did say this and he was wrong again.

The other claim was something Gloria alluded to. He was asked about the governor's not issuing stay-at-home orders. He said, well, the states where timeout are not in jeopardy. Wolf, every state is in jeopardy. Dr. Anthony Fauci said that again.

And all of these states have at least 150 known cases. Fauci said today, there is no region that will escape an outbreak. So, this is Trump again downplaying it for only part of the country, this time, but I think it's still a dangerous message to people in those countries who are not immune from danger here.

BLITZER: Yes, that's an important point as well. Just a month ago, just checking here March 5th, there was only 161 cases of coronavirus in the United States. Eleven deaths and you can see the numbers exploding in the less than a month right now.

Jim Acosta, you're our chief White House correspondent. You were there in the briefing room.

Tell us what you heard and I understand you are getting some new information?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. Getting back to this last-minute decision to bump Dr. Anthony Fauci from this coronavirus task force briefing. Dr. Fauci has reached out to CNN to say that he was not excluded. He is saying, quote, there are 15 members of the task force and we can't be all up there every day.

I will tell you, Wolf, that this was a source close to the coronavirus task force who said that he was bumped at the last-minute. He was not given a reason why. One thing that we cannot obviously is that the president and Dr. Fauci have been on opposite ends of a couple of critical questions. One being this recommendation that there be national stay at home order or recommendation to all Americans.

Dr. Fauci told our Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta last night that all Americans should be staying home and that the country should all together be told, stay home, stay safe. The president has said repeatedly and he said it here today that he wants to leave it up to the governors. Now, when the president, I asked the president about this, why Dr.

Fauci is not there, the president said that there is no problem with Dr. Fauci, no problem whatsoever and that he continues to serve the coronavirus task force. But, Wolf, after a week with just so many significant headlines, for example, that there might be 240 Americans killed by this virus to not have the doctor here in this briefing I think is notable.

The only thing we should point out, I press the president one point on the report from our Andrew Kaczynski, that HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in April of last year, that one thing that keeps him up at night is the prospect of a flu pandemic. The president got testy when I press both he and Secretary Azar on that. At one point, the president blamed the Obama administration said he was left with an empty shelf.

I repeated back to the president, some of that has been said, by many critics and that he has had three or four years to stock the shelves, to prepare this country, to get the federal government ready for a threat just like this. He has said in the past, you couldn't have seen this coming, this was an unforeseen problem, this coronavirus but obviously they were top officials like his own HHS secretary who were warning about the potential of a very dangerous pandemic like what we're dealing with right now.

BLITZER: Yes, he's been in office for more than 3 years and if there was a problem when he took office, he had three-plus years to deal with that problem based on the recommendations of a lot of experts who were deeply concerned about a potential pandemic coming here to the United States.

ACOSTA: Not supposed to stop here, Wolf, as you know.

Let me go back to Gloria. Gloria, he also once again seem to suggest, you know what, the states, not the federal government, but the states, messed up. They should have known was coming, they should have had all sorts of ventilators and masks and other critical equipment stockpiles.

They didn't do it. He said at one point, it's the states responsibility. They could've known better. As if the federal government has no responsibility in this particular case.

BORGER: Well, then you can ask the question, Wolf, why is there a stockpile to begin with. It's called a stockpile because you have it in case of an emergency. One line of the president that really struck me, this afternoon, when he was complaining that the states were totally unprepared after being asked about whether the federal government was unprepared. He said, and this is a quote, we're not an ordering clerk, meaning you can't just call up a federal government and order exactly what you want.

The federal government is there to help the governors and need and to help people in need all over the country. So, while the president may not be an ordering clerk, he clearly has to understand, one would think, that the governors need to come to the federal government when they are -- when they are in need. Another thing that struck me, Wolf, was I think there is a question

about just what model the federal government is using right now for all of his estimates of death and how this will spread, et cetera.

[18:55:06]

There are a couple of moments were, I think some journalists were trying to get to Dr. Birx about that and there was no clear answer and I'm not quite sure why that happened. But I think that the models change and she said, yesterday I believe, that we have our own model now. We have looked at all the models and now we are operating from our own model.

And we haven't seen that anywhere yet and I sure would like to see exactly what they are using as their model going forward.

BLITZER: You know, Daniel Dale, our fact checker. I just want to point out to our viewers and you have done a lot of work in this area that this new CDC recommendation for people to wear face coverings, voluntary, but where face coverings, they point out that there is new information now and they say that even those who eventually develop symptoms or have no symptoms at all, could be transmitting this virus.

I was surprised to hear that we now know from recent studies that the significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms and that even those who eventually develop symptoms can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms. They say we've known this, we've known this for a long time and top officials, including Dr. Fauci and others, have been making the point that even if you have no symptoms at all, you can still transmit the virus.

Why are they saying now this is new information?

DALE: Wolf, that's a good question. I think the most generous interpretation is that the evidence is stronger now. We do have additional studies, we do have additional confirmation but you are entirely correct, this is not actually news. We've been getting reports and studies to this effect since January and more in February. We're now in April.

And so, I think it is at least hospital that they are portraying it as if it's entirely new in order to defend the decision not to issue such a recommendation before today, but yes, we did have a lot of information one or two months ago.

BLITZER: Yes, and, Jim Acosta, the CDC recommendation on the face coverings, the masks and everything, they also say and is the information we all reported yesterday based on new information that was coming out, that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity, for example, speaking, coughing or sneezing. Then it says this, even if these people are not exempting symptoms at all.

So, if you are talking to someone who may have coronavirus but absolutely has no symptoms, that can be spread. We learned that this weekend is very disturbing. One of the reasons why they are not recommending masks. ACOSTA: That's right, Wolf, and I talked to a source close to the

coronavirus task force who said it's certainly possible that the virus can be spread in that fashion.

But I do think it's worth noting that official after official at this task force briefing caution that they don't want people to go out and try to grab the surgical masks, those highly specialized masks that are sought after in hospitals across this country right now. That is why you are seeing the CDC recommends face coverings. Something less specific and less technical than those highly specialized masks. I do think that's important.

One other thing we should know is that the surgeon general, I think, also gave some very important guidance and that's when people put these face coverings on or homemade masks, or whatever they are going to use over the next coming days, that they be careful not to touch the face with dirty hands. To wash your hands before putting these face coverings and masks on.

Just some good common sense, I think, from the surgeon general there to make sure that as people are adhering to these new guidelines, or at least trying to follow these new glides lines, that they don't infect themselves in the process. I think that bears repeating as well, Wolf.

BLITZER: When the president said, if you want to go have some face coverings, if you want to have a mass, go ahead and where it, I'm not going to wear because I don't think the president very states, for example, sitting in the Oval Office, meeting with world leaders, should be wearing the mask.

ACOSTA: He did say that as well. I think that is going to be one of those areas where he is going to come under some criticism. Why should the CDC, why should these officials come out and start recommending to Americans that they have faced coverings and so on? The president sort of undercut that and said, well I'm not going to wear a mask as if to say to people out there, perhaps you don't need to take this as seriously.

One of the problems that we have seen along throughout all of this, Wolf, as you know, we have had a light this time and again, is that the officials, the experts say one thing and sometimes the president says something else. It was almost -- it was almost in the same breath where he is recommending that people have faced coverings and at the same time he is saying he is not going to do it himself. It's one of those conflicting messages that we have been cataloguing throughout this entire crisis -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And it was interesting, he specifically disagreed with Dr. Fauci on a national stay at home order. I thought that was significant as well.

Our Jim Acosta, thanks as usual for joining us.

To our viewers, thanks very much for watching.

Our coverage right now continues with "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT".