CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Michael Lewis, who`s book "The Fifth Risk" is out now. It`s a great book. I`d recommend it.
Thank you so much for making time tonight.
MICHAEL LEWIS, AUTHOR: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: That is "ALL IN" for this evening.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts starting right now.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thanks, my friend. Much appreciated.
Thanks to you at home for joining us at this hour. We`re really happy to have you with us.
In 1993, the terrorist attack on the world trade center in New York City was a bombing that injured over 1,000 people, killed six people. This is well before 9/11. This was the first attack on the World Trade Center.
That bombing in 1993 was masterminded by a terrorist named Ramzi Ahmed Yousef. And Yousef was arrest in the wake of that attack. He was reportedly arrested while he was literally right in the middle of making another bomb. He was extradited to this country. And he was put on trial in federal court.
And his trial would be held up for years in its wake as basically a paragon of what the federal courts can do, even in horrific terrorism cases, even in cases with more than 1,000 people hurt by the crime in question. Even in cases with huge national security and intelligence implications, even in cases where the defendant is an absolutely unrepentant international terrorist who wants every chance he can get in a U.S. court tomorrow denounce the United States and try to recruit other people to his cause.
The Ramzi Yousef case after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing is part of how we know as a country that terrorism cases can be handled and handled well by our normal courts. And you don`t need to invent some kangaroo court system somewhere else to handle serious cases like that. The Ramzi Yousef trial took about five months. It was a long trial. He was convicted. At the end, he was sentenced to life in prison plus 240 years.
When his conviction was appealed to a higher court, the appeals court looked at the conduct of that five-month trial and said there was nothing wrong with it, nothing wrong with how it was conducted. The appeals court said the fairness of the proceedings over which Judge Duffy presided is beyond doubt. Judge Duffy was Judge Kevin Duffy, who presided over the Ramzi Yousef trial and a number of other high-profile terrorism prosecutions in his federal courtroom in the southern district of New York. One of the things he`s remembered for over the course of his career is that when it came time in that high-profile case for him to sentence Ramzi Yousef for the World Trade Center bombing, and Ramzi Yousef got up and spoke on his own behalf and gave this rant about how proud he was to be a terrorist against the godless United States, one of the things judge Kevin Duffy is remembered for is that in that moment at that sentencing he responded to that defendant by citing to him multiple verses from the Koran, not only explaining to Ramzi Yousef why he was getting life plus 240 years but rebutting on Yousef`s own terms everything that Yousef said to try to cloak his attack in some kind of bogus religious dress.
Judge Duffy said from the bench that day, you Ramzi Yousef came to this country pretending ton an Islamic fundamentalist. But you cared little or nothing for Islam or the faith of the Muslims. Rather you adored not Allah but the evil that you yourself have become. You weren`t seeking conversions. The only thing you wanted to do was cause death.
Your god is not Allah. You worship death and destruction. What you do you do not for Allah. You do it only to satisfy your own twisted sense of ego.
Ramzi Yousef, he said, you are not fit to uphold Islam. Your god is death. He said that from the bench.
Judge Duffy presided over a number of other serious terrorism cases including another plot that Yousef was involved in to blow up a dozen airliners all at once over the Pacific Ocean.
Judge Duffy oversaw the trial of the head of the Gambino crime family until that guy was assassinated in the middle of the trial. Judge Duffy oversaw so many high-profile dangerous cases that for years he and his family had 24-hour round-the-clock protection from a team of U.S. Marshals. He had just a remarkable career as a judge.
Judge Kevin Duffy died today from coronavirus. He was in a short-term rehabilitation facility after having been ill recently. He was 87 years old. His family confirmed today that he tested positive and he did die today.
And it`s not that his death is more important than any other. He`s one of the more than 4,700 Americans who has already been killed by the coronavirus. He`s one of the estimated 910 Americans killed by this virus just today.
And there aren`t going to be obituaries on national television for 99.9 percent of the Americans who are killed by this virus. Not everybody is going to be an esteemed federal judge with an incredible career history like Kevin Duffy. But everybody`s going to be someone. And the White House says it is aiming at a range of 100,000 to 240,000 Americans who are going to die in the coming weeks. That is, if the country gets it together in coming weeks to try to keep the numbers that low.
But those numbers, I mean, it`s almost hard to imagine numbers that big all pertain to individual people. But every one of those 100,000 to 240,000 people, I mean, the old ones, the young ones, the ones with other health issues, the ones without them, the people in cities, the ones in rural areas, the ones in hospitals, the ones who inevitably die outside the hospital because there`s no room for them in the hospitals -- I mean, they`re all our responsibility. They`re all part of our conscience now, as Americans who are alive in this time, as we all take responsibility as citizens for trying to get our national response to this virus in some kind of freaking order, in order to minimize the number of deaths we are ultimately going to sustain.
Today is the first day of April. Here`s what the month of March was like in America. Now that March has come to a close, we can see how March went. March, we started March 1st at 89 cases known in the country.
Then the next day, it was 110 cases. Then 130. Then 160. Then 229, 333, 446. By the end of the first week in March, it was 545 cases.
Two days later, it had doubled to over 1,000 cases. By the end of the second week, it was over 3,000 cases, 4,000 the next day, 6,000 the day after, 8,000 the day after that. Then 13,000.
By the end of week three, we were over 34,000 cases. And then in one week, we went from those 34,000 cases to over 140,000. In the last two days of the month, we went from over 140,000 cases to over 185,000. And now, tonight, we are over 210,000 cases to start the month of April and there is no slowing down in sight.
The governor of Louisiana today held a press conference to highlight the fact that while New York City remains the epicenter of the nation`s pain and death at this point of the epidemic, right now, if you want to talk about it statistically the two counties with the highest case rates per capita in the whole country are both in Louisiana. Rural St. John the Baptist Parish is about 30 miles west of New Orleans, they have the worst per capita case rate in the country. Second per capita case rate in the country is Orleans Parish, which is the city of New Orleans.
After them, three and four, there`s two counties in rural Georgia, where the town of Albany, Georgia, is the center of an area in rural Georgia that is just being decimated, along with that region`s one under-resourced and beleaguered and now overrun hospital.
I mean, this is a crisis that is unfolding in specific places in specific ways involving specific people all over this country. Every American who`s died thus far has a life story, right? But this is a national crisis. This is a national disaster that needs resources and national leadership everywhere that applies to all of us, which is the thing we still don`t have.
And, you know, sometimes I think that`s easier to see not looking at the individual cases and the individual lives and the individual counties and parishes that are affected. I think sometimes that`s easier to see from afar. And so, look, globally, here`s us in context internationally as of tonight. This is the data that`s compiled daily by the data visualization wizards at "The Financial Times".
Look at the upper part of this graph, right? The good news here is that the other two worst outbreaks on earth besides us, Italy and Spain, they`re now seeing their daily death tolls plateauing. See how those lines are getting flat?
But we`re the worst outbreak on earth. We`ve got not only more cases than any other country on earth right now by far, but look at -- look at the trajectory of that curve. That`s our death rate right now. And it is still headed almost straight up, without any relief in sight.
We are not getting this thing under control. And still there are no national measures in place to try to slow the spread of it. I mean, in Italy, you can see what they`re doing as a country. In Spain, you can say what they`re doing as a country. In France, you can say what they`re doing as a country. We`re not doing anything as a country.
The president was asked tonight why he didn`t propose a national stay-at- home order, and he sort of riffed on the question and fiddled around with the question, ultimately landed on basically saying, well, in somewhere like Alaska, you wouldn`t need it. That was the president`s answer tonight for why there shouldn`t be a national stay-at-home order.
Take Alaska. You wouldn`t need one there. You know what? They`ve already got over 130 cases in Alaska and there is already a stay-at-home order in that state, although the president apparently has no idea about that.
As of yesterday, the governor of the third largest state in the country, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, was still saying publicly that he still wasn`t planning on putting in place a stay-at-home order for his state because the federal government, the White House hadn`t told him that he should. Never mind that Florida has 7,000-plus cases already. The governor said as far as he could tell, the White House didn`t want him to do it until they told him to do it he wouldn`t do it.
Asked about that yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence basically concurred and said, yes, we don`t actually have any advice to give the governor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The White House coronavirus task force will continue to take the posture that we will defer to state and local health authorities on any measures that they deem appropriate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: You do what you want. Look, we defer. We -- Florida isn`t doing a stay-at-home order because we haven`t told the governor to do one. Well, we`re not really in the business of that kind of thing so, you know, we defer. Whatever he`s deferring to us, we defer right back. So, whatever, 20 million residents of Florida.
It took an appearance on the "Today" show this morning for the surgeon general of the United States to I think perhaps inadvertently meander himself around to the idea that yes, maybe there should be some federal direction on this key issue. Maybe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL: There are guidelines that say that, look, the more we social distance, the more we stay at home, the less spread of disease there will be. My advice to America would be that these guidelines are a national stay-at-home order.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: My advice to America would be that these guidelines are a national stay-at-home order? Wait, freeze frame there for a second.
There`s a national stay-at-home order now? Or it`s just your advice or you`re hoping that there would be one? You`re calling for it? Or did you just issue one?
We`re the citizens of the nation with the worst coronavirus outbreak on earth, where our death toll and our case numbers are skyrocketing out of control. As far as we know, there`s no national policy in this country to try to slow that down. But this morning if you happened to be watching the "Today" show you would have heard from one official who was speaking apparently off the cuff that his advice is that the guidelines that exist are a national stay-at-home order. Apparently that`s what counts as the American federal government developing and announcing for the first time a national policy to try to slow this epidemic that has already killed more than 4,700 Americans, with tens if not hundreds of thousands more of us in its sights.
After that apparently unplanned blurt by the surgeon general on morning network TV about what he now maybe says might be a national stay-at-home order, after that Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis did decide today that OK, now finally today in April he will at long last put a stay-at-home order in effect in his state, because now maybe he believes he`s had the instruction from the White House or at least he heard a slip of the tongue by a single official on TV that suggested that maybe that was his permission slip, maybe it might be a good idea? Governor DeSantis has now issued his stay-at-home order.
Soon thereafter, we got the same word at long last from the governor of Georgia, who finally issued his own stay at home order at long last today after saying, I kid you not, that he only just learned today, he only just heard that people who are asymptomatic can still spread the virus, and so maybe that`s why everybody should stay at home. Governor of Georgia today said he had never heard that before today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R), GEORGIA: The CDC has announced that individuals can be infected and begin to spread coronavirus earlier than previously thought, even if they have no symptoms. From a public health standpoint, this is a revelation and a game changer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: A revelation. To everybody who`s been on planet Governor Brian Kemp for the past couple of months, that must indeed be a revelation. No stay- at-home order until today, because he had no idea until today`s revelation that asymptomatic people can spread it.
It must be an absolute revelation to everybody who`s been living inside his head for the past couple of months. Also the fact that Tom Brady left the Patriots. Also daffodils come up this time of year.
There`s some other stuff I could tell you about for the last -- I mean, Governor Kemp`s stay-at-home order again, which just occurred to him today because of his revelation, is not something he`s even going to sign until tomorrow and he`s not going to put it into effect until Friday, because he`s only had this revelation today and, you know, why rush. Two of his counties are the top counties in the country in terms of their per capita infection rates.
The governor`s going to put this into effect on Friday sometime. He just learned today about asymptomatic people spreading it. It`s crazy, right? Game changer.
The governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, also today relented after his earlier order that not only didn`t institute statewide stay-at-home but actually overrode efforts by Mississippi counties and towns to try to keep themselves safe after that remarkable display within the last few days from the Mississippi governor today he too relented and announced a stay-at-home order as well.
He too is waiting until Friday night to put it into effect. Why? I don`t know. But Mississippi has another day and a half before it kicks in because who knows?
Pennsylvania finally put in a statewide order today too. They had one that affected most counties in the state, but now they finally got their statewide one. Governor Tom Wolf.
Also, Nevada finally got their stay at home order today.
That still leaves a bunch of American states with no stay-at-home orders even though all of these states have rising numbers of coronavirus cases. That leaves these states as place that`s have some stay-at-home orders or no stay-at-home orders here or there but not for the whole state.
And again, every single one of those states without a stay-at-home order has coronavirus case numbers that are rising because every state in the country has coronavirus case numbers that are rising. Nobody is exempt. Nobody is geographically on the sidelines of this. It`s everywhere. Case numbers going up everywhere.
And case numbers rise exponentially because every infected person, whether or not they`ve got symptoms, is infecting on average more than one additional person. And so, if you`ve got any, you`re about to have a lot.
But without a national policy for what we`re supposed to do to head off those rising numbers, that kind of patchwork is what you get. You know, maybe the governors that still don`t have stay-at-home orders, maybe they weren`t watching the "Today" show today when the surgeon general accidentally said there was a national stay-at-home order. Maybe someday that will become official somewhere other than in a single interview on a single TV show by a single official apparently speaking on his own behalf, which some states nevertheless decided to interpret as our federal government`s new policy.
I mean, it`s just insane at this point. It`s insane at this point. You look at the other countries in the world that have outbreaks as bad as us -- well, actually, we stand alone. You look at other countries in the world who have had terrible outbreaks, at least they`ve got a national policy.
It`s insane. It`s fatal. It`s insane in terms of policy and leadership and ethics. It`s also insane in terms of how grossly mismanaged the federal government`s piece of this already is.
There`s no national policy, but at least there is some stuff they`re supposed to be running. But look how they`re handling that. CNN first to report last night that the Pentagon`s offer of 2,000 ventilators they were going to make available for civilian use and more than a dozen certified labs they were going to make available for civilian use for processing coronavirus test results.
Those offers made more than a couple of weeks ago by the Pentagon have not been taken up, have not been taken up by the Trump administration because FEMA and the Health and Human Services Administration and the Trump administration, they just elected not to tap those resources from the Pentagon, even while states and mayors and individual hospitals are all scrambling for themselves to try to find those things anywhere they can.
Well, one place they could find them is our own Pentagon, who is volunteering them. But the Trump administration has left that stuff just sitting.
Then there`s the national stockpile of emergency medical supplies that`s been sending things out hither and yon sort of inexplicably for weeks now, states like Oklahoma and Kentucky receiving things from the stockpile that they never asked for, while other states like Illinois and Massachusetts aren`t getting what they asked for at all.
Now, "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" both have reports citing anonymous federal officials saying tonight that the federal stockpile is basically gone, although the White House appears to have no idea of that. If they do understand it, they haven`t been honest about it.
Here`s "The Washington Post" tonight. Quote: The government`s emergency stockpile of respirator masks, gloves, and other medical supplies is nearly exhausted, leaving the Trump administration and the states to compete for personal protective equipment in a free-wheeling global marketplace rife with profiteering and price gouging. Two Department of Homeland Security officials said the stores kept in the Department of Health and Human Services` strategic national stockpile are nearly gone -- despite assurances from the White House that there is availability.
Why is the White House giving states and mayors assurances there`s availability if there isn`t? Do they know that there isn`t? Do they know that that stuff is gone?
Which is worse? If they don`t know and they`re saying out of ignorance oh, sure, we`ve got plenty? Or they do know that stuff is gone and they`re telling people, it`s fine, there`s plenty, even though they know it`s not? Which is worse? I mean, practically it has the same effect, right?
Because the White House has not tried to nationalize the supply chain for personal protective equipment even today, PPE and other critical medical supplies, U.S. companies that manufacture that kind of stuff even this week have been selling personal protective equipment that is desperately needed in American hospitals, U.S. companies that make this stuff even this week have been selling it overseas, sending it to other countries instead of making it available here.
U.S. manufacturers of this stuff, people who got it in warehouses in this country are exporting it because the federal government hasn`t told them that`s a bad idea or they shouldn`t be doing it. "Forbes" reporting that on Monday alone this week, two days ago, roughly 280 million masks in warehouses around the United States were purchased by foreign buyers to be sent out of this country because the federal government has not made arrangements to keep that material here for U.S. use.
A FEMA spokesperson telling Politico.com that FEMA, quote, has not actively encouraged or discouraged U.S. companies from exporting such materials overseas. "The Washington Post" reporting that there are no signs that the Trump administration has made any effort to stop U.S. companies from exporting medical masks and other supplies so they could be used in U.S. hospitals instead, because of course not.
"The New York Times" now reporting this evening that thousands of the ventilators, the federal government does have in its stockpile, ventilators that it keeps promising it`s going to send out to where they`re needed, thousands of those machines do not work because the Trump administration allowed the contracts to maintain these machines to lapse last summer, because of course they did.
Please, could we have a new federal government? At least just for this, 4,700 American lives and counting.
And this is still how bad they are this far into it. I mean, this far into it not just -- it`s not just the case that this virus is a crisis and that this infectious disease is spreading in the United States and we have to cope with it and it`s got exponential growth. It`s not just the natural attack of the virus. This far into it, without this much exposed to it already, so much exposed that we`re closing in on 5,000 Americans dead by tomorrow, right, with the White House expecting, hoping that they`ll keep the death range for Americans between 100,000 and a quarter million people, right, this far into it the federal government, the stuff they are actively in control of and nobody else is, that stuff doesn`t get better ever.
They`re not nationalizing the federal supply chain, the national supply chain for protective equipment and for other medical supplies. Even when the military is volunteering things for civilian use, they`re not even able to get it together to do that. They`re not able to get it together to communicate truthful information as to what the federal government`s supplies are and how many they have. And the stuff they`ve got, they have not been keeping in running order because they let the maintenance supplies -- the maintenance supply contracts lapse.
And they`re not getting any better, you guys. I mean, maybe today, the surgeon general just declared a national stay-at-home order. Maybe. But maybe that was kind of a mistake. Still, it sort of went into effect in a few states.
The states basically continue to muddle on alone. In New York, the recently retired New York City police commissioner was brought back on board today to try to coordinate the supply and distribution of PPE, protective equipment, among the hard-hit hospitals in New York City.
As facilities are being built in places like Detroit at their giant convention center, facilities that will take coronavirus patients as a relief valve for Detroit`s hospitals, questions are being raised as to why the surge facilities the federal government helped with in New York were designated by the federal government for non-coronavirus patients only.
And this actually appears to be a developing story tonight. I`ll tell you, a source familiar with this matter tells us tonight that the U.S. naval ship Comfort which pulled into New York harbor to great fanfare this week, a source familiar with the matter tells us that the Comfort has fewer than five patients as of this evening. A thousand beds, fewer than five people on board. The Javits Center, where they have set up four field hospitals with 250 beds each, they`re going from 1,000 beds to 2,000 beds soon, right now the Javits center with its 1,000 beds already set up, up and running, they`ve got fewer than ten patients.
Why is that? Well, tell me why the federal government has decided that neither of those facilities can have coronavirus patients, and then look at the number of coronavirus patients in New York City hospitals right now. And you start to get toward that math.
This is a developing story. We`re going to have more on that coming up over the hour.
But we`re also going to talk tonight with the governor of Washington state. Washington state had to confront the nation`s first case, the nation`s first death, the nation`s first large cluster of cases. There have recently been positive noises about the caseload in Washington state, particularly in the Seattle area, potentially slowing down, potentially flattening out in terms of how quickly it is spreading and how many people are newly getting infected.
If those positive noises are accurate, if that does reflect a positive change in the situation in Washington state, you should know it is still a painfully mixed picture there and still a scary picture in Washington state. Washington state`s rising number of cases is still a steeply rising number of cases, as you can see here.
And the governor of that state, Jay Inslee, just over the past couple of days has been expressing concern about unexpectedly high positive test rates in tests that are now being done in Washington state`s rural counties.
Tonight, Governor Inslee called on businesses in the state of Washington to please stop making whatever they make now and start instead making protective equipment for health care providers, because you have to do it at the state level. The federal government, they can`t be a lost cause in the long run.
We`re too big a country and there are too many thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of potentially millions of lives on the line for the federal government to continue to fail as badly as they have been thus far. They can`t be a lost cause in the long run. They must get it fixed.
But it`s here now. And it`s already killing thousands of Americans. And so, we also have to be honest about the fact that now, the federal government is a complete failure. And so, what we`re doing to try to cope with this as a country is what we`re doing at the state level. And some states are doing better than others. But all states have no choice. They`ve all got to do it on their own.
Governor Jay Inslee of Washington state joins us live, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JAY INSLEE (D), WASHINGTON: We need to seize your own destiny and we need to -- we need to now do what we did in World War II. In World War II, the people of Washington state built B-29s in Seattle. They built mine sweepers on Bainbridge Island and Kitsap County.
And now, it is time for all of us to turn to manufacturing the equipment we need in this fight, in this war, in this century, we need the items that you see on your screen. We need businessmen and women to turn to making surgical masks and swab test kits so we can increase the testing so we can test people who really need the test. We need vials that are an important part of this test. We need N95 masks that are the top-of-the-line masks and face shields and gloves and surgical gowns. We need all of this precious equipment.
And we believe that there is -- the best talent in the world in making things, of manufactured products here in the state of Washington.
(END VIDOE CLIP)
MADDOW: Governor Jay Inslee today asking the people and businesses of the state of Washington to please adapt in any way they can to help with the fight against the coronavirus, now to please start making the equipment that the state needs to fight the virus and to keep health care workers alive in the fight.
Joining us now for the interview is Governor Jay Inslee of Washington.
Sir, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I know it`s an incredibly busy time.
INSLEE: Uh-huh, indeed.
MADDOW: So, you`ve been dealing with the coronavirus since the very, very beginning. We had an incorrect chyron up in the previous segment about the death toll in Washington state. As far as I -- as far as I know, it`s about 247 deaths right now in the state.
INSLEE: That`s right.
MADDOW: How do you -- how do you assess where the state is at in terms of your position on the curve and what your lessons learned have been so far about what you`ve done right and wrong?
INSLEE: Well, we have had some modest bending of the curve. Last week, we saw some very slight reductions of that curve. We think that our progress has been good relative to other states that are in such difficulty. Our hearts bleed for New York and New Jersey tonight.
But the last few days, we`ve had a little bit of slippage. And what we have found is we`ve done well in the Seattle region of bending the curve but we`ve had some increases in our more rural areas. And I think this is a lesson for the nation that even if we get a little progress in one area, we have got to have a consistent national response. This has to be a national response to a national threat. Otherwise, even if we do have progress in one city or one state, if other areas blow up, it`s just going to come right back to haunt us across the nation.
So I think one of the lessons are yes, you can make progress if you do early and aggressive social distancing. And we`ve been very early and very aggressive in our state. And even Dr. Birx at the White House the other day showed that we`ve done relatively well.
But we are not out of the woods. The rural areas need to get on board and other states need to get on board. And this is where presidential leadership as well.
Now, the other lesson we have -- we have to realize is we are so desperate for PPEs. We are desperate for test kits. We are sending nurses in who don`t have what they need for PPEs, and we need to have a national mobilization of the manufacturing base of the United States as we had in World War II so we can get these nurses what they deserve and we can get people tested as they need to be. And that can only happen by presidential leadership.
MADDOW: You made a plea today to Washington state businesses to, if not literally retool, then at least to assess right now and to start making changes right now that if they are capable of making anything that could be appropriate for personal protective equipment that you want Washington state manufacturers to start doing that.
If you had any immediate response to that, is that -- is that a shot in the dark? Do you expect that Washington manufacturers are going to be able to transition quickly into making the kind -- the kind of stuff that you asked for today?
INSLEE: Yes, I think we will have considerable success. Just as an example, a company called Outdoor Research, Dan Nordstrom, got into this battle himself, sort of self-motivated. I called him up and we talked about what he can do. He`s going to be turning out maybe 1,500 masks a day in a few weeks.
We`re making surgical gowns in our prison industries. We -- I talked to a company today called S2. They make the medium where you put the test kits in in Spokane, Washington. I spoke to a young woman who is looking for a way to build up her capacity.
So I think we will have success. But listen, we didn`t win World War II just on volunteer efforts. And if we`re going to have these large companies really bring their assets to bear, they ought to be required to do so.
Now, we had a small baby step in that direction. I urged the president to invoke the Defense Production Act. He said he would not do that.
The next day, he did do that on ventilators. I think that`s a good step. But he needs to do it for the manufacture of masks and gloves and visors and test kits.
And the capability of our businesspeople is so creative. I`ll give you an example. The other day, a fellow had the idea of making visors using 3D printers. He went down the road to an outfit that has those 3D printers. They`re now turning out 100 or more visors I think a day just in a matter of like 24 hours.
So, we are capable of doing that. But this needs to be a national effort.
MADDOW: Let me ask you, Governor, today`s the first of the month, which is rent day for many people. You issued an order to prevent people who can`t pay their rent from being evicted.
Do you expect you`re going to be extending that kind of order through the duration of this crisis? The economy is shut down through no fault of any industry or any American. It`s shut down because we`re telling people not to work. Do you expect that those measures can be extended indefinitely if that needs to happen?
INSLEE: I believe so. It`s the fair thing. We just can`t have more homeless people in the streets as we`re fighting this virus.
We`re also making some progress with the mortgage holders and the banks to prevent foreclosures while we`re going through this. We don`t know how long this is going to last. We are highly likely to extend our stay home and stay healthy initiative. We`ll make that decision in the next few days. But yes, it is the right thing to do.
Now, this isn`t easy for the folks, you know, a retired couple who might rent a house out too. It`s not easy for them. So, everyone is going to feel some economic pain but we want to reduce it as far as possible.
I appreciate Congress in a bipartisan way by increasing the unemployment compensation. We`re doing the same thing in the state of Washington. We`ve got to all pull together on this. I think we are doing that in my state.
I`ve been encouraged by the compliance with our order. I`ve been encouraged by people pulling together and helping each other. But we have a long ways to go yet.
MADDOW: Governor Jay Inslee of the great state of Washington -- sir, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us.
INSLEE: Thank you.
MADDOW: Good luck to you. Stay in touch.
INSLEE: Yes, be healthy.
MADDOW: All right. Much more to come tonight -- you too -- including the latest reporting on the race to build hospital capacity in another American state.
And as I mentioned, a developing story in New York in terms of whether or not coronavirus patients will be allowed into these facilities that the federal government has helped set up in the New York City area.
Stay with us.
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MADDOW: In California, the Los Angeles Convention Center has been converted into a medical facility, much like the one that opened this week in New York City at the Javits Convention Center there.
But here`s one important difference between the facility in L.A. and the one in New York. The New York one, according to the federal government, will only be used for housing non-coronavirus patients. The governor of New York said he had asked for the Javits Center to be set up in a way that it could house coronavirus patients. The federal government said no.
That said, the L.A. Convention Center`s a different story. L.A.`s mayor, Eric Garcetti, said this week that their convention center medical build out will be done in such a way that it may end up housing coronavirus patients, people who have symptoms that are not severe enough to require full hospitalization.
We`re seeing the same kind of planning in Detroit, Michigan. The convention center there being converted into a facility to care for up to 1,000 coronavirus patients.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers doing a lot of this work. They say that plans have already been drafted for a 3,000-bed coronavirus hospital in Chicago. The Chicago Convention Center would again house patients in varying degrees of illness.
And yet, in New York City, the epicenter of the American outbreak, in New York City dealing with thousands of patients, already overwhelming many New York hospitals, the Javits Center, set up with federal help, isn`t taking coronavirus patients, explicitly.
Now, tonight a source familiar with the matter tells us that the Javits Center in total has ten beds, ten patients, none of whom are coronavirus patients. We`re also told that the USNS Comfort, the Navy hospital ship parked in New York harbor, we`re told the Comfort tonight has fewer than five patients, again, none of whom are coronavirus patients.
The defense secretary said today in Washington that that could change, that if called upon, that hospital ship would be willing and able to take people with coronavirus. But so far, it`s not. A source familiar with the situation tells us, quote, the reason for that is because the federal government is not allowing coronavirus patients to be admitted to Javits or the Comfort. The hospitals and state and local governments are ready to go, but it is the federal government that thus far has been saying no.
All is this makes you wonder, is New York City getting the help it needs? New York City is obviously getting a bunch of help, but is it getting the right kind of help? And if they`re asking for these federally built facilities and federally floated facilities to be coronavirus facilities, why has the federal government thus far said no to them when they have said yes to other cities who have asked for the same thing?
Let`s ask somebody on the front lines. That`s next. Stay with us.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: A doctor has been hospitalized here in New York tonight. He is sick and he is just back from treating Ebola patients in West Africa.
REPORTER: Sources tell NBC news Dr. Craig Spencer called the Department of Health at 11:52 this morning, complaining of fever, nausea, and fatigue. The DOH then called 911 and emergency workers determined his symptoms were consistent with Ebola.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Three weeks after that Dr. Craig Spencer did recover from that harrowing experience. A few months later he wrote about being on the front lines of that viral outbreak.
He said, quote: As a clinician and epidemiologist I`ve worked in place just miles from active conflict and managed to grow used to the sight of soldiers and active began-fire but this microscopic virus and invisible enemy made me uneasy. That was Ebola, which he survived.
Now that same doctor, Dr. Craig Spencer, is on the front lines again, this time in New York, fighting coronavirus. Here`s how he describes his days now. Quote: Walk in for your 8:00 a.m. shift, there`s a cacophony of coughing, you stop, mask up, walk in.
Nearly every patient is the same, young and old, cough, shortness of breath, fever. You`re notified of another really sick patient. They need to be put on life support.
Two patients in rooms right next to each other both getting breathing tubes. It`s not even 10:00 a.m. yet.
Quote: You`re afraid to take off the mask. It`s the only thing that protects you. Surely, you can last a little longer. In West Africa during Ebola, you spent hours in a hot suit without water. One more patient. One more patient.
Joining us now is Dr. Craig Spencer. He`s a New York City emergency room doctor. He`s also the director of global health and emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.
Dr. Spencer, thank you so much for making time to be with us.
DR. CRAIG SPENCER, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you.
MADDOW: You`ve been through your share of things in your not particularly long life. I want to ask if what you`ve seen in New York since the influx of patients really started, if it seems to you that New York is adapting, if clinicians are learning more about what to do if hospitals are, you know, more than just falling apart and being inundated, if they are getting better at how to threat these patients that are in such distress.
SPENCER: It`s such an important question. I`ve been saying that I survived Ebola but I fear COVID-19. The reason is because I know the physical exhaustion and the mental anguish that comes with it. You mentioned a bit of it from that piece I wrote five years ago. Right now, what we`re seeing is new protocols every day. Teams are adapting. I`ve never seen so much solidarity in the E.R. with people I`m working with on a daily basis.
We have attendings from the urology services coming down and helping us out. It`s all hands on deck and everyone is getting prepared. The question is, is it enough in New York City? Were we too late? And can we adapt quick enough to be able to provide the best quality of care for all the patients that are increasingly coming into our E.R.s, that are increasingly being intubated and put on mechanical ventilation?
We know that beds are starting to fill up. We know the rate may be decreasing a bit, but what we know is there`s also a big lag between when people get infected and when they show up and see me and we determine whether or not they need a breathing tube. And that`s still many weeks off.
So, all of us on the front line are concerned. All of us are ready. The question is, do we have the supplies, do we have the beds, and really do we have the medications and other things we need to be able to do this the best?
MADDOW: We`re a couple of weeks into very widespread national concern about New York City hospitals and clinicians and health care workers being well- resourced enough not only to treat patients but also to take care of themselves.
Has that concern and all of this discussion translated at all in a way that you`ve been able to see in terms of more resources getting to you, more equipment getting to you, more -- even more people being brought on board to share the load?
SPENCER: Yes. Look, it`s day by day and we`re trying to get a few days in front of this. We know the needs are going to be huge in the next couple weeks. We need people here now. We need help.
Just today, my hospital put out a call for medical volunteers. Not only will that help us on the front line here but people will get the skills that they need, we`ll be able to take care of coronavirus patients, and we`ll all go to wherever you are and wherever your family is and your community is impacted as this virus rolls across the country.
One of the biggest laments I have from our response in 2014 in West Africa to Ebola is in the U.S., we didn`t really have one. We prepared domestically but we didn`t send any providers to West Africa. Relatively few compared to nearly every other developed nation in the world.
We`re dealing with the consequences now. We have so few people who are used to spending days in personal protective equipment, seeing people die in front of them that were normal just a few hours earlier, working with more resources. We all learned really valuable skills that I think are super essential right now and, unfortunately, we didn`t show up five years ago and we`re paying the price for it right now.
MADDOW: Dr. Craig Spencer, New York City emergency room doctor, director of global health and emergency room medicine at Columbia University Medical Center -- appreciate you being here tonight. You and your colleagues have our thanks and appreciation. Thanks, Doctor. Stay in touch with us.
SPENCER: Thank you. We go to work every day for you.
MADDOW: All right. Thanks.
We`ll be right back.
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MADDOW: Last week, because of the coronavirus crisis, there were a record 3.3 million new claims for unemployment benefits, the largest number of unemployment claims in one week ever. The situation was so dire as to be almost impossible to graph.
"The New York Times" broke the laws of newspaper physics trying to print the chart and that crazy spike on page one. Tomorrow, we`re going to get next report on new claims for unemployment insurance. The subsequent week, with so many people out of work, the estimates for what we`re going to see tomorrow range from, in the order of 3 million, like what we had last week, to potentially 5.5 million new claims. The update to this chart of weekly numbers again will come out tomorrow morning, get ready.
That`s going to do it for us tonight. We`ll see you again tomorrow night.
Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL".
Good evening, Lawrence.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END