IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Warren exit TRANSCRIPT: 3/5/20, All In w/ Chris Hayes

Guests: Gretchen Whitmer, Nina Turner, Ron Klain, Jelani Cobb, Alicia Garza, Bonnie Castillo, Andrea Bernstein

STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Democratic leader said Bernie Sanders, if you nominate him could be a risk and they hit the brakes, Democratic voters hit the brakes. Whether they let up or press down harder, that`s what we`re going to find out. Thanks for being with us tonight. Don`t go anywhere. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes is up next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I will not be running for president in 2020.

HAYES: 2020 is now a two-man race.

SEN BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a shot to win the Democratic nomination and a shot to beat Donald Trump.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The President does not want me to be the nominee.

HAYES: Tonight, where Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders stand and the legacy of Elizabeth Warren`s candidacy.

SANDERS: All those little girls are going to have to wait four more years. That`s going to be hard.

HAYES: Then the failure of the Trump administration on coronavirus as the president It suggests it would be fine for people with the virus to go to work.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some of them go to work, but they get better.

HAYES: And new evidence that Jared Kushner made a tremendous amount of money thanks to a policy he pushed in the White House.

TRUMP: He works for nothing, just so -- you know, nobody ever reports that, but he gets zero.

HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. It is effectively a two-man race the Democratic nomination. Earlier today, Senator Elizabeth Warren announced she was suspending her campaign in an appearance outside her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She declined to make an endorsement the race but addressed why she thought she was not ultimately able to resonate more with voters across the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: You know, I was told at the beginning of this whole undertaking, that there are two lanes, a progressive lane, that Bernie Sanders is the incumbent for in a moderate lane that Joe Biden is the incumbent for, and there was no room for anyone else in this. I thought that wasn`t right but evidently, I was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: I should tell you; Elizabeth Warren will be speaking to Rachel Maddow in Boston just about an hour from now. You definitely want to catch that. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are now really the only two options left for Democrats. The Sanders campaign is trying to figure out how to reach out to Warren to win her endorsement.

Bernie Sanders himself has been very complimentary tweeting today. "Without her the progressive movement would not be nearly as strong as it is today. I know that she`ll stay in this fight and we are grateful that she will." So as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Sanders surrogate who wrote, "Elizabeth Warren is a progressive lion, a champion for working families, and her commitment to inclusivity is exemplary. Thank you for being a role model."

Obviously, the Sanders camp feels that a Warren endorsement would help them. They`re probably right. Joe Biden tweeted, "Elizabeth Warren is the fiercest of fighters for middle-class families. We needed her voice in this race and we need her continued work in the Senate." I should note that some people interpreted that bid about the Senate as a signal that she would not be on his V.P. list.

Biden and Sanders are preparing now for a bunch of important primaries in just five days. Sanders` campaign announcing today they`re canceling a speech in Mississippi which votes on Tuesday to focus on Michigan, a state where Sanders did quite well last time. Last night, Bernie Sanders spoke to Rachel Maddow about his campaign`s failure so far to turn out and mass the youth vote that is so crucial to his electoral performance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Why are fewer young people turning out in 2020 with you on the ballot?

SANDERS: I mean, what I will tell you is that in Iowa, we tripled -- we increase by 33 percent the number of young people who are participating. I`m not dealing with these statistics. I really haven`t seen them. But it is no -- look, this is the challenge that we have. We have the lowest voter turnout of almost any major country on Earth, less than 60 percent. Poor people in America by very big numbers do not vote.

How do we bring them into the political process? Why do they not vote? Why are young people not voting? This is tough stuff. And you`re right. We are trying to do that. I understand that it is easier to bring older people who`ve been voting for their whole lives, but we are working really hard to try to bring people out. I think in the general election, we will be successful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joe Biden, on the other hand, continues to rack up endorsements from the official Democratic Party consolidating behind him. The latest endorsement is a key one, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who in 2018 defeated a Sanders-backed candidate in that primary before winning the general election by almost 10 points, and she joins me now.

Governor, why did you choose now to endorse Joe Biden who`s been in the race for a year?

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): I`ve been watching the race like Americans all over the country. I`ve been watching to see how this race played out. There were some phenomenal, talented people on the stage at the beginning. They -- we`ve seen how this has changed.

And in this moment, people across my state are asking me what I`m going to do. They want to know. And as I`ve looked at the race, I know that when the chips were down, when Michigan needed a champion, it was Barack Obama and Joe Biden that had our backs during the auto rescue.

I know that healthcare is personal for me and for so many people in my state. We expanded Medicaid here to almost 700,000 people, and that was because of the work that Barack Obama and Joe Biden did on the Affordable Care Act. And so, this is personal. And I think that the hard work that Joe Biden has put in over the years, the dedication to causes that resonate and really impact and improve people`s lives in this state were reasons that I thought this is now the time to tell people that I am voting for and supporting Joe Biden.

HAYES: One of the arguments that was made in 2016 about that narrow loss by Hillary Clinton in the state of Michigan, which was about 10,000 votes and somewhat surprising, I think, was that a key issue in that race was trade. That Donald Trump had come out against the TVP and NAFTA and he was attacking Hillary Clinton on that. She, of course, had supported both those deals.

People say, you know, Joe Biden has been sort of consistently a kind of pro-trade deal legislator. Bernie Sanders has been opposed to them. Do you worry about that? Do you think that`s going to matter in a general Michigan?

WHITMER: Well, I do you think records matter. Of course. And everyone needs to defend the record. But the fact of the matter is, you know, when the chips were down, it was the Obama-Biden administration that came to the defense of the auto industry. It saved our national economy, and certainly was personal to so many Michiganders.

When we needed a champion who was going to turn their grief into a cause to expand health care to people, that`s what we got out of the Obama-Biden presidency and vice presidency. We know Joe and more importantly, Joe knows Michigan. He`s been there when we needed him. And that`s exactly what we`re looking for in leaders.

You know, the blueprint I use in 2018 was to show up. So state focused on the dinner table issues, to talk about building bridges not walls, and to ensure that we have a vision and we show up and get the work done. And that`s exactly what Joe Biden is doing. That`s what he`s all about. That`s why I think his record is going to resonate with Michiganders and across the country.

Final question to you. You were one of a crop of Democratic women elected in 2018 both across country and in your state of Michigan in several extremely talented women in congressional races that won very hard-fought a contest as long -- as well as your race which you won by 10 points, a fairly convincing victory.

What do you make of the fact that this race which started out with more women in it on the Democratic side than any race in history is now bereft of that, with the exception of Tulsi Gabbert who`s still running. Does it - - how do you feel looking at that reality today?

WHITMER: Well, obviously as Elizabeth Warren`s statement today. And it`s sad. You know, I really would love to see a woman president in my lifetime, soon in my lifetime. And I think that Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, you know, Cory Booker brought some important voices, and aspects, and perspective to the debate.

And that`s why I feel proud to be a part of you know, what the effort to help Joe because I know that he will set a table where everyone has a seat. He will build a coalition, and really, I think set an agenda that helps improve the lives of Americans everywhere. I do want to see a woman president in my lifetime, and I think the world of Elizabeth Warren. But at this point, our focus is on what is going to, you know, what would be the best interest for the people of our country and for the state of Michigan. And I believe that Joe Biden offers the vision that we need right now.

HAYES: All right, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, thank you so much for making time this evening. I really appreciate it.

WHITMER: Thank you.

HAYES: Joining me now for more on the state of the race, Nina Turner, co- chair of the 2020 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. Announcement today from the Sanders campaign about not doing a speech in Mississippi and said going to Michigan. Some people, I think, interpreting that as a kind of cut your losses in parts of the south where Senator Sanders has struggled a bit, particularly in Alabama and South Carolina. Is that a fair interpretation? What would you say to that?

NINA TURNER, CO-CHAIR, BERNIE SANDERS 2020 CAMPAIGN: No, they shouldn`t see it that way, Chris. I mean, we`re still going to have events there. We have some of our national surrogates that are going to be there. Mr. Danny Glover will be there. We have the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Lumumba as you know, who was endorsed the senator. So there will be activities going on this weekend in Mississippi, particularly in Jackson, Mississippi. So no, they should not interpret it that way.

HAYES: There`s been reporting about the ways in which the Sanders campaign is thinking about its message right now down the stretch. Now it is a two- man race and there was an ad just cut was showing Senator Sanders with President Obama, and Obama speaking very highly of him, and sense that some of the message has to be changed a bit to bring in some voters that aren`t yet in the Sanders coalition. You think that`s a fair assessment of where things stand?

TURNER: Our entire campaign has been about building coalitions and bringing new people in. As you play the clip of the Senator interviewing with Rachel, you know, he talks about that all the time ad nauseam in terms of bringing new people in. What would help the Democratic Party be a vibrant Democratic Party is really having a big 10 and bringing people in.

So you know, highlighting that even more and making it very clear, you know, as other folks that even President Obama talked or spoke very highly of Senator Bernie Sanders.

HAYES: There`s a lot of reporting today about Elizabeth Warren and the possibility of an endorsement. Would you welcome an endorsement from Senator Warren? Is that something that you`re actively seeking?

TURNER: Certainly, we welcome that. It is time for the progressives to coalesce. It is my hope and the hope of many in this movement. You know, even people who`ve supported Senator Warren, their hope too is that both senators will come together. The moderates have certainly come together in very strong fashion, and we do need the progressive wing of the party to unite as well.

HAYES: What does morale like in your campaign? Obviously, it was a whirlwind 72 hours. There was a week between Nevada and South Carolina where Sanders was quite clearly the front runner. There was a question about the viability of Joe Biden heading in South Carolina. Obviously, that big win in -- on Saturday in South Carolina turned things around. Super Tuesday went fairly well, quite well for Joe Biden`s expectations. How do you feel about where things stand right now?

TURNER: We feeling fine, you know, no matter what they throw at us. I mean, Chris, they -- all of the moderates, all of the establishment Dems had to come together to make this happen. Senator Sanders has always been very clear, our movement has been clear, that when you are trying very hard to bend the body politic towards the will of the everyday people of this nation, the status quo gets nervous. And that`s what we`re seeing.

So we are ever more determined. You know, we`re still continuing to persists. We are excited about going into the next phase of this campaign. As you know, Senator Bernie Sanders did win Michigan last time. You know, you have the new governor on, Governor Whitmer. Senator Sanders endorsed her.

She asked him to come out and help her in the general knowing his position on issues like Medicare for all even though he had backed Dr. Sayed -- Abdul Sayed, as you know, who is for single-payer, he still came out because he knew it was important to defeat the Republican in that race, and you know, trying to proceed or follow I should say, the governor who is -- who was responsible Governor Snyder, for the Flint water crisis.

Senator Sanders, Chris has been to Michigan many times. Not only did he come into that state to talk to the people who are most impacted by the Flint water crisis, he even came back after that. He stood up against trade deals that hurt states like Michigan and also my home state of Ohio where people lost countless jobs and are still reeling from that even to this day. So Michiganders voted for Senator Sanders last time and we`re working very hard to win that state again.

HAYES: All right, Nina Turner, thank you for making time tonight.

TURNER: Thanks, Chris.

HAYES: Joining me now for more on where we stand now and what Elizabeth Warren`s exit means, Michelle Goldberg op-ed columnist for New York Times and MSNBC Political Analyst and her husband, disclosure, works as an advisor for the Warren campaign, although we don`t have that disclosed.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I guess that`s the last time we`re going to make that disclosure.

HAYES: Yes. It`s the last time we`re going to do that. What do you think? I mean, I think it`s a gut punch. You know, it`s really heartbreaking. It`s heartbreaking that this campaign started out with so much promise. There was that picture going around today of you know, that early photograph of all of those women who might become president to have it end up.

You know, I`ve had to over the course of this campaign explain to my kindergarten daughter why there has never been a woman president and kind of, you know -- and she`s been incredulous, you know, because Elizabeth Warren is who our family supports, has, you know, thought that Elizabeth Warren was going to be the first one.

I think it is -- it`s so -- it`s extremely painful in part because of why she lost. I mean, I think there`s people who oppose Elizabeth Warren on the merits, for sure. You hear all over this country, you talk to people who say, well, I would love to vote for her. I would love to support her. But I don`t think the country is ready, right?

And so we`ve been so traumatized by Donald Trump`s election that you have to deal with both sexism and the perception of other people`s sexism, and I don`t see how you get beyond that. I feel like we were in some ways we`ve been set back even further than we were in 2015 when the possibility of a female president still seemed exciting and fresh.

HAYES: One thing that has been striking to me is that for all of the -- if you go back to when Joe Biden announced he was entering the race, and it was unclear whether he would, basically this -- it was Joe Biden, the favorite with a strong number two from Bernie Sanders. And a lot of things happened over the course of the last year.

GOLDBERG: Right.

HAYES: But yet, here we are. And in some ways, it`s like -- it`s what Warren said I thought quite astutely. She said, look, this is what people told me. There`s -- basically there`s a Biden lane, and there`s a Sanders lane, and there`s no room between. And it`s remarkable the way that that has ended up shaking out.

GOLDBERG: I think, you know, in Sanders -- both Sanders and Biden supporters have this -- it`s not just that they support the candidate, they also support the candidate`s theory of the electorate, right? Sanders` supporters believe that there are all these people out there waiting to go to the polls, if only they hear a progressive enough message. Joe Biden supporters believe that he`s electable and then kind of ping pong around the middle.

You have all these people who just want to defeat Trump, right? You know, the house is on fire and putting out the fire is so much more important than what you`re going to build afterwards. So in a lot of ways, we`ve had these debates that have been sort of recursive because we debate the kind of finer points of these various health care problems. But what people are evaluating is not so much how is this healthcare going to affect me, it`s how are other people going to evaluate this health care plan, and will they be electable afterwards.

HAYES: Or how will this person making the case for their health care plan play in a debate against Donald Trump making the case for their health care plan, as opposed to the health care plan?

GOLDBERG: Right. And so, you know -- I mean, then you have -- you have, you know, a lot of black voters in South Carolina who want to vote for a candidate who white voters will find acceptable. You have a lot of white voters who are excited because all of a sudden Joe Biden has all of this black support, right? Everybody just wants to find the person who can end this you know, really hellish nightmare that we`re living through.

And what scares me, what scares me to death is that this process is not the right way to find the person who is actually going to do that. I mean, there`s almost a kind of Greek tragedy in it.

HAYES: Yes, there`s a fear deep in people that that is the case. Michelle Goldberg, thank you very much.

GOLDBERG: Thank you.

HAYES: Up next, just how much is the Trump administration bungling the coronavirus response. The man who spearheaded the response to the latest Ebola outbreak joins me right here at this table next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: The biggest failure of the Trump administration response to coronavirus has been the lack of testing on the scale needed. They announced this week with great fanfare, they`re going to have over a million coronavirus tests available at the end of the week. And at that time they announced that, it was obviously false.

Anyone who knows anything new that logistical obstacles were too big to get there by the end of the week. And then today, guess what, senators confirmed we aren`t going to be testing it anywhere near that scale. Republican Rick Scott admitting there won`t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week. It`s way smaller than that.

Now it`s defensible to not be scaling up to a million this week, but what is not defensible is that the lack of testing we have means we do not know how many cases there really are in the United States. Again, Centers for Disease Control says that there are just 99 total cases in the country with 13 states reporting cases. NBC News has found the numbers are higher, at least 226 cases at last count in 21 states.

And what has been clear from the beginning is the President of the United States isn`t really primarily interested in dealing with the virus itself as a first order problem. No, he is interested in spinning it to preserve his political standing and the standing of the economy. And last night, he was doing a doozy of it on Trump T.V.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have for today the global death rate at 3.4 percent, and a report that the Olympics could be delayed. Your reaction to that?

TRUMP: Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number now, and this is just my hunch. And -- but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this -- because a lot of people will have this and it`s very mild.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now, there is a responsible way to communicate what the president said, which is that the 3.4 percent mortality rate is not consistent across all countries, which probably has to do with a lack of testing. In South Korea where they`re doing a ton of testing more than anywhere else in the world, the fatality rate there reportedly appears to be hovering around 0.65 percent, much better. That is hopefully what we will end up having here. But you can`t just dismiss the World Health Organization figure based on a hunch.

And then the president says something unbelievably revealing about people who have the virus and don`t need intensive medical care.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That`s the president blindly suggesting going to work with the coronavirus which, listen to me, do not go to work with the coronavirus, OK. Joining me now Ron Klain who served as the U.S. Ebola response coordinator under President Obama. Testing continues to be a real problem even after the announcement they were sending out these kits. How do you assess overall, the responses administration so far?

RON KLAIN, EBOLA RESPONSE COORDINATOR UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: I mean, I think you have to give you the response a pretty low grade. I think C-minus or D-plus, whatever you want to put on it, for a couple of reasons, Chris. They focused on travel restrictions to delay the arrival of the virus. And we could talk about would that work or not, but what it bought was time. That`s only a valid strategy if you use that time to ramp up.

So yeah, it was reasonable that on Monday when they said there`d be a million tests by Friday, no one should believe that. But there should have been a million tests way before Friday because we knew in December and early January this was coming, and why did we start really just working on this problem this week.

The same thing with hospital capacity, and all the other aspects of this, the response is moving slowly, it`s starting late, and that`s inexcusable.

HAYES: The President had this -- he talked about his sort of bragging about the numbers today. There are two tweets. So in one tweet, he called you a lightweight Washington failure and was mad about the swine flu and a lot of people dying that. And then another, he said, look, we`ve only got 129 cases and 11 deaths, we are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible.

And it struck me that that was a very revealing sentence, we are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible. It`s the numbers. But if you`re not testing, that`s one way of keeping the numbers low.

KLAIN: Yes, I mean, it`s like a double entendre tweet, which is what they`re doing to keep the numbers low is being slow about testing. And in the end, you can`t hide sick people under the sofa, OK. We are going to have to find these people, treat them, get them into the healthcare system, get them well, isolate those cases the extent possible. And if you don`t test you don`t know.

He is focused on numbers. He`s focused on the stock market being up and the case count being down. Those are the two wrong things to focus on. You should be focusing on getting people tested, surveillance, finding out where this is, and getting hospitals ready to deal with the inflow of patients.

HAYES: So, one thing I want to be clear on in our coverage of this is that the idea that the individual risks when American is low is correct. There`s 330 million people in this country. Even if we were facing an equally sized outbreak, which is large, you know, that would be, you know, 25,000 cases, right there? They`ve got about 5,000 cases on 60 million people. So, again, in the relative scheme of things, the risks though is to the healthcare system. Explain why that is.

KLAIN: Well, first of all, I do think the risk of number of cases could be a lot higher than that. They`re testing in Italy, but not testing in nearly as much as they should be also. And so I don`t think we -- I think the fairest thing to say about the number of cases is we don`t know.

HAYES: We don`t know.

KLAIN: I mean, that`s -- I think we should begin and end with that, OK. Now, it`s going to be a number, a pretty big number in the end -- and our healthcare system is fragile, right? It runs at capacity. We don`t have hospitals just sitting empty waiting for coronavirus patients to show up. So if you put stress on that system by disorganized response by people in particular city, whatever city it is, flooding into hospitals, flooding into emergency rooms, that will one, really collapse the capacity of those hospitals and emergency rooms.

It may infect doctors, nurses, and frontline healthcare workers. And those things will take down part or a lot of a healthcare system in a particular area. So even if you don`t get coronavirus, if you need to go to that hospital to get treatment for a heart attack --

HAYES: Right. And there are no beds or no respirators.

KLAIN: -- and there are no beds, or the nursing populations down a lot because they`re sick or the doctors are out because they`re sick, that`s going to have effect on all of us even if you never ever get coronavirus.

HAYES: How much was communication straightforward, honest, clear, fact- based communication important to you when you were coordinating the Ebola response.

KLAIN: Look, it was very important. And ironically, that`s one reason why I didn`t go on T.V. at all the first month of the Ebola response. We put Tony Fauci on television, but Tom Friedman on television. The American people should hear from experts, from the people who know the medicine, who have been career officials who could -- Tony Fauci served six U.S. presidents back to Ronald Reagan. He fought AIDS, he fought malaria, followed by kinds of diseases.

People should hear from him directly about the facts and the truth. He now has to go in events with the president and correct the president when he misleads people in real-time. He`s like a real-time fact-checking. That`s not the way this should work.

HAYES: What is your hope that you see happen in this response you haven`t seen?

KLAIN: So I think two things really have to be fixed. We have a problem with competence, we have a problem of confidence and we need to fix both. On competence, we need to ramp up the testing. There`s just no way around that. And secondly, we need to get the touchpoints of our healthcare system, the intake points ready for these cases so that we don`t collapse healthcare system in particular areas, particular systems. That`s the competence part.

The confidence side, the president needs to put down the iPhone, needs to stop saying ridiculous things on camera, and let public health authorities brief people and tell us the truth.

HAYES: Final question. Has the White House or anyone in the White House reached out to you for your expertise?

KLAIN: I haven`t talked to any senior people at the White House. I continue to talk to career people throughout the government who worked with me on Ebola response. You know, those career people, what Donald Trump disparages as the deep state, are what`s going to protect us and save us in a situation like this.

HAYES: All right, Ron Klain, thank you so much.

KLAIN: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: Coming up, the plea from a nurse who`s now quarantined after treating a patient with coronavirus in California and isn`t getting tested. That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES:  As Coronavirus spreads in the United States, the nation`s testing capabilities are not keeping pace. Tonight, the largest union of registered nurses, National Nurses United, is raising alarms that members of their union are being denied testing after potentially contracting Coronavirus from infected patients. Joining me now is Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse, and executive director of National Nurses United.

And Ms. Castillo, you have a member who wrote a letter today, and I wondered if you could give the context for that letter?

BONNIE CASTILLO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL NURSES UNITED:  Yes, we do. We have over 80 registered nurses under quarantine, and that list is growing daily. And we had a nurse who wanted to express her experience and convey her concern with regards to the bureaucracy of the testing and the fact that she has not been able to get testing, despite having cared for a positive patient.

HAYES:  I`m wondering if you could actually just read that letter, because I found it really powerful. Would that be all right?

HAYES:  Yes. Yes.

So this is the statement from the quarantined nurse from a northern California facility. "As a nurse, I`m very concerned that not enough is being done to stop the spread of Coronavirus. I know because I am currently sick and under quarantine after caring for a patient who tested positive. I am waiting permission from the federal government to allow for my testing, even after my physician and county health professional ordered it. I volunteered to be on the care team for this patient, who we knew was positive, I did this because I had all the recommended protective gear and training from my employer. I did this assuming that if something happened to me, of course I, too, would be cared for. Then what was a small concern after a few days of caring for this patient became my reality, I became sick.

"When employee health told me that my fever and other symptoms fit the criteria for potential Coronavirus, I was put on a 14-day quarantine. Since that criteria was met, the testing would be done.

"My doctor ordered the test through the county. The public county officer called me and verified my symptoms and agreed with testing, but the national CDC would not initiate testing. They said that they would not test me because if I were wearing the recommended protective equipment, then I wouldn`t have the Coronavirus. What kind of science-based answer is that? What a ridiculous and uneducated response from the department that is in charge of our country`s health."

HAYES:  So obviously there are huge concerns that are outlined here. I wonder if this is concern that you`re hearing from other members as well about front-line health care workers like your members whether they have the right protective equipment, the right training and access to testing?

CASTILLO:  Correct.

So, first off I would say that, you know, we have the education, the training, the expertise to treat COVID-19 patients. And we know that we could actually even -- we could stop the spread of the disease, but only if we have the protection that we need, and that includes appropriate testing when appropriate.

So for us, it`s very concerning that there isn`t a coordinated systemic approach to this. And it takes leadership. It takes leadership at all levels, at the federal, state and local levels.

HAYES:  Do you think that leadership is absent right now?

CASTILLO:  We see that the leadership is discordant, is shifting, and in fact as today -- yesterday and today they are actually moving to weaken the protections and allow for potentially infected nurses to work and just monitor themselves at work. This is a very dangerous situation and will only result in the spread of the virus.

HAYES:  The "they" there, that federal officials, local officials.

CASTILLO:  CDC. The CDC.

HAYES:  You`re saying the CDC is contemplating loosens the restrictions on front-line health care workers being able to report to work.

CASTILLO:  Yes.

HAYES:  Really?

CASTILLO:  And instead of ramping up. This is the time that we can actually contain, but we need the appropriate protective measures, which includes testing, up front and early.

We know -- as I said before, I mean, this nurse volunteered to be part of the care team. Now we have to ensure that if we are -- if we do suffer exposure that all of those appropriate measures, including quarantine, but also including testing is done, and is done early.

HAYES:  All right, Bonnie Castillo, executive director of National Nurses United. Thank you very much.

CASTILLO:  Thank you.

HAYES:  Guess who just made millions of dollars, thanks to the policies he personally pushed in the White House? Jared Kushner`s latest windfall ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES:  It`s clear that if Joe Biden is the nominee, Donald Trump and his allies will resuscitate the central part of the president`s own scheme that got him impeached, the plot to smear Biden and his son as corrupt. In fact, the jurors in that impeachment trial, the Republican senators, are now happily taking up the task to further the plot and really not even pretending it has anything to do with anything other than politics.

Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter about subpoenaing a witness in a probe on the issue, get this, the day after the South Carolina primary when Joe Biden`s chances were suddenly revived.

Now Johnson has told reporters he`s likely to issue an internal report on the investigation in one or two months, you know, just around when Biden might be getting the nomination.

And Donald Trump himself just admitted last night he will bring up Biden and his son on the trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  That will be a major issue in the campaign. I will bring that up all the time, because I don`t see any way out. I don`t see any way out. For them, I don`t see how they can answer those questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP0

HAYES:  Meanwhile, in the astoundingly corrupt nepotism news, the top story by a mile is this dispatch that Jared Kushner is selling his stake in a company that benefited from the tax breaks that he personally pushed for.

As the AP reports, quote, "the $25 million minimum value of Kushner`s stake at the end of last year is up sharply from three years ago when it was valued at at least $5 million."

Here to talk about that, Andrea Bernstein, the co-host of the Trump Inc. podcast, author of "American Oligarchs:  he Kushners, the Trumps and the Marriage of Money and Power."

This headline caught my eye, and I still can`t quite believe it. So Kushner was invested in a company called Cadre. What is that?

ANDREA BERNSTEIN, AUTHOR:  So, cadre is a company that was up by Jared Kushner and Josh Kushner, his brother. It`s a sort of real estate tech platform so you can invest virtually in real estate essentially.

HAYES:  And one of the things that you could do is make use through that platform of these opportunity zones, right, which are tax credits for certain areas.

BERNSTEIN:  Right. So the opportunity zones came about as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which is something that Jared Kushner, and especially Ivanka Trump, pushed in the Senate and it just squeaked past. And what it enables companies to do, it enables people with capital to get tax breaks for investing in poor areas of the country, but they`re so broadly defined and what you can invest in is so broadly defined that virtually anybody with capital can take advantage of this tax break.

HAYES:  And the tax break doesn`t seem to be particularly well targeted. Like, I`ve seen lots of articles about essentially gaming these opportunity zones, parking your money in places that don`t really need investment and getting the benefits.

BERNSTEIN:  Right. I mean, we know in opportunity zones broadly that there have been many cases where government officials have been pushed to include wealthy people`s investments in them. We don`t know that with the Kushner family, but we do know that there was this inherent conflict from the beginning because Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were pushing a tax break that the Kushner family company, Kushner Real Estate, and also Cadre, this tech company, could benefit from.

HAYES:  So there`s two conflicts, right. There`s the whole Kushner empire is built on real estate.

BERNSTEIN:  Correct.

HAYES:  They`re pushing for a real estate tax break.

BERNSTEIN:  Correct.

HAYES:  That the Kushner family could benefit from.

BERNSTEIN:  Correct.

HAYES:  And then there`s a software platform that can also serve as a platform for investors investing in using these tax breaks.

BERNSTEIN:  Correct. So cadre has all of the sort of Trump family conflicts built into one. You might remember that Jared Kushner didn`t initially disclose it. He didn`t initially...

HAYES:  He didn`t?

BERNSTEIN:  He did not. He didn`t initially divest from it. He and his wife pushed a tax break that could benefit this company.

Now, we have no evidence that the company did specifically benefit from their specific actions, but it shows the whole structural problem of the senior advisor in the White House, an incredibly powerful person, profiting from his family businesses and his business with his brother while also serving in the White House.

HAYES:  Right. So he`s got this investment. He doesn`t disclose it. Later he discloses it. The company he`s invested could theoretically benefit from a policy he pushed, and now he`s divesting and banking it appears a 500 percent profit at the minimum?

BERNSTEIN:  We don`t -- and we don`t know because of the lack of disclosure to what extent this law helped this family because one of the things that`s built in is that you get the benefit on your tax return, which as we know is not public, so we don`t know how much of a benefit it`s going to individual companies and taxpayers. And that`s one of the problems of the whole opportunity zone is that there`s no transparency.

HAYES:  Wait, but, no, we know Jared Kushner sold his stake in cadre.

BERNSTEIN:  We do know he sold his stake.

HAYES:  And the value went up enormously in the last three years.

BERNSTEIN:  Right. We don`t know why. We don`t know whether if it was because of this or because of something else.

HAYES:  It`s good timing. It`s good to be the king.

BERNSTEIN:  I mean, I want to be clear...

HAYES:  Yes, of course, no. I`m just saying we know that he had it, we know he sold it. We know it went up in between and we know he was working at the White House.

BERNSTEIN:  It`s the fundamental instability in Jared Kushner`s relationship with his family business. There were people who have told me that they were very clear with Jared Kushner and his father, Charlie Kushner, that he needed to make a choice, White House or family business, and that the family business was going to be put in this position of everything was always going to be a question about whether it`s a conflict, as it should be.

HAYES:  And here we are.

Andrea Bernstein, thank you so much for being here.

HAYES:  Coming up, as the last woman with a path to the presidency in 2020 drops out, we will assess the legacy of Elizabeth Warren`s candidacy, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES:  Elizabeth Warren ran an incredible campaign in many ways. Her plans and policies were just about the most developed of any candidate in recent memory. And for a short while, that seemed to be working for her.

At the beginning of last October, Warren had ascended to being the front- runner, topping national polls.

But what followed was a steep decline, ending with the senator not even winning her home state of Massachusetts on Super Tuesday.

Today, following Warren`s announcement that she`s ending her campaign, there is a palpable sense of grief among many of her supporters, and frankly among a lot of American women, who just watched the last viable female candidate in the race drop out, a race that started with a record- setting six women running for president.

Earlier today outside her home in Cambridge, Mass, Elizabeth Warren talked about her own feelings about the end of the road.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  I wonder what your message would be to the women and girls who feel like we`re left with two white men to decide between.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA):  I know. One of the hardest parts of this is all those pinkie promises and all those little girls who are going to have to wait four more years. That`s going to be hard.

Gender in this race, you know that is the trap question for every woman. If you say, yeah, there was sexism in this race, everyone says whiner. And if you say, no, no, there was no sexism, about a bazillion women think, what planet do you live on?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  All right. We`re going to talk about the legacy of Warren`s campaign and why it ended the way it did when we come back. Don`t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN:  Corruption has put our planet at risk. Corruption has broken our economy, and corruption is breaking our democracy. I know what`s broken. I`ve got a plan to fix it. And that`s why I`m running for president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  20,000 people showed up in New York last September to hear Elizabeth Warren make her case for the presidency. She was drawing enormous crowds back then. And last fall was kind of the peak of her campaign in the polling.

So what happened? To talk about why the Warren campaign ended the way it did today, I`m joined by Alicia Garza, co-creator of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Jelani Cobb, staff writer for The New Yorker.

Alicia, let me start with you as someone who was a supporter and surrogate of the Warren campaign. I know today is a very difficult day. How do you understand what happened in this campaign?

ALICIA GARZA, CO-FOUNDER BLACK LIVES MATTER:  To be honest, I think what happened in this campaign is that a very talented, capable, intelligent, woman was denied her shot at being the nominee of the Democratic Party.

HAYES:  Denied by what?

GARZA:  Well, I think a number of different things. One, obviously, we`ve been talking about misogyny and patriarchy all day and we can`t deny the role that gender played in this campaign. But I also think something that`s really important is that there was really a sense that there were risks to take that people weren`t willing to do.

And even though a lot of people thought she was the better candidate, they weren`t willing to take a risk in relationship to what it might mean to defeat Donald Trump in 2020, and that`s really fundamentally a shame.

HAYES:  Yeah, if you ask me, as someone sort of observed this and reported on it, to identify the one thing, particularly that inflection point, it was these fears about her electability.

And particularly this, and I want to give due credit to people that had these fears, they basically thought this exceedingly smart -- I mean, undeniably brilliant, like, Howitzer of a mind woman, right, extremely educated and a live wire, right, that this woman, this professional, brilliant woman, is going to intimidate a certain slice of male voters who will not vote for her because of essentially sexist inclinations and then because those people exist then we shouldn`t nominate her. That was basically the argument, right?

JELANI COBB, THE NEW YORKER:  Sure.

I mean, so, I mean, what we`ve had is this kind of dueling cynicisms.

HAYES:  Yes.

COBB:  You know, where people are saying, especially even with the kind of -- one of the obstacles that Bernie Sanders ran into, particularly in the south among African-American voters, was a very cynical expectation of what white people were willing to do.

It was like I think white people may be willing to vote for Joe Biden, I don`t think they`d be willing to vote for Bernie Sanders.

People were making a similar kind of calculation around gender with Elizabeth Warren. Back in 2008, people made the same kind of calculation around Barack Obama. And he was able to kind of dodge the raindrops to prove himself in ways that people were going, oh, well maybe, perhaps, I`ll give this a shot.

But it creates a burden, like, people say that kind of nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure, either. And so the ideas that you only get one shot for any group, any person, that`s from a group that hasn`t historically been represented in this way, and it compounded in a way for Elizabeth Warren that is really somewhere between heartbreaking and outrageous to see.

GARZA:  Can I just say, too, though, that I think progressives missed a really big shot this time around, and in that what I mean is there`s an opportunity to have a progressive candidate as the nominee, and one of the things that we did here was we actually started to split hairs in a way that I think kind of pushed her out of consideration.

If we had gone into this moment saying the ultimate goal here is to get somebody who is going to move forward an agenda that makes sense for our families and for us, and we`re going to back whoever it is that shares that vision, I think we would have seen a very different outcome tonight.

HAYES:  But to offer a criticism of the campaign, itself, or at least the message, it struck me sometimes that the message was extremely well honed for professional liberals, educated folks, across all sort of different groups, right? So, like, cis/trans, gay/straight, black, white, Latino, disability community, but it was a very heady, wonky, kind of literate message, if I can say so. And was there sort of a failure to broaden out that message?

GARZA:  Well, I think that there was a failure in terms of connecting her message and the message that Sanders was putting forward.

HAYES:  Yeah.

GARZA:  Because, again, splitting hairs wasn`t the move.

And when we look at it, the real conversation should have been both/and so we can get to this rather than either/or. And I think a lot of people just got spun around in that, frankly.

I`m not sure that I buy that she only appealed to professionals or intellectuals. I think that a capable woman who has plans for every issue that you could possibly imagine, how to solve those problems, is also seen as threatening, but I also feel like the way voters engage with elections in this country, quite frankly, most voters, is we`ve been taught to engage around personality and not policy or plan.

COBB:  Which is another interesting point here, because when you`re talking about the kind of wonkiness and cerebral approach she has and you know you understand it has a particular appeal, the other part of it is that she is exceedingly plain spoken.

HAYES:  Yes. Extremely good communicator.

COBB:  Extremely good communicator and she is -- she has a kind of almost stereotypical Midwestern charm.

HAYES:  Yes, I agree.

COBB:  If she were a man, we`d say it was like Jimmy Stewart.

HAYES:  Folksy.

COBB:  Folksy, right. And one of the things I noticed on a personal interaction with her is I was an Amtrak, this was about two years ago, and I found myself seated in front of her. We got into a long conversation. And she`s a professor. And she did this thing of again and again and again at points where we disagreed, she would point out -- she would point out what she appreciated in my point before moving on to her critique. And I thought that that was such a valuable way to communicate.

HAYES:  Alicia Garza and Jelani Cobb, thank you for joining us tonight.

That is All In for this evening. It turns The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now with a big interview, Elizabeth Warren, who will be joining Rachel momentarily. Good evening, Rachel.

END

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