E3: Coronavirus US live: Trump says 'we have to get back to work' as number of US deaths rises

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, congressional negotiators say they’re close to a deal on a stimulus package. The bolded sentence is my doing. Here’s The Wall Street Journal’s report:

WASHINGTON—Top lawmakers and the Trump administration closed in on completing a colossal stimulus package, worth an estimated $2 trillion, designed to shield the U.S. economy from the most drastic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

Stocks rallied on the news that a deal was near, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 8% Tuesday afternoon.

A note on Trump’s comment earlier about how Joe Biden criticized him on his decision to “close off China.”

Trump, as a reminder from earlier in this virtual town hall, said “That was weeks early, and honestly I took a lot of heat. Sleepy Joe Biden said it’s xenophobic, I don’t know if he knows what that means but that’s OK. He said it’s racist what I did.”

Trump’s portrayal of his China order isn’t accurate, and there’s no record of Biden specifically criticizing the decision.

Trump’s Jan. 31 order restricted travel from China, routing planes to at first seven and then 11 U.S. airports where passengers underwent enhanced health screening. And Biden never specifically called the restrictions xenophobic or racist, though he has said it is racist for Trump to call the disease the “Chinese virus” and said Jan. 31 that Trump has a “record of hysteria and xenophobia -- hysterical xenophobia -- and fear-mongering.”

Trump was asked how he’s doing dealing with the country’s governors through this crisis, especially the Democratic governors.

All is well, Trump said, citing California governor Gavin Newsom.

Related: Cuomo warns coronavirus infection rates are rising faster than expected

Fox News’ Bill Hemmer pressed Trump on reopening the country by Easter, just 19 days away.

Trump doubled down.

Related: Trump vows to reopen US economy even as deaths from coronavirus rise

Harvard University president Larry Bacow has announced in a statement that he and his wife have tested positive for coronavirus. “We will be taking the time we need to rest and recuperate during a two-week isolation at home,” it reads. “This virus can lay anyone low. We all need to be vigilant and keep following guidelines to limit our contact with others.”

Harvard's president, Lawrence Bacow, just announced that he and his wife have coronavirus. He said they have been working from home and largely isolated since March 14. pic.twitter.com/xBioE3sJ7P

Because of the coronavirus epidemic Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has enjoyed an increased national presence. He has accompanied Trump and other top administration officials at coronavirus briefings.

There have been reports that Trump has started to get tired of Fauci’s elevated stature. At moments he has undercut the president’s statements. But asked about Fauci today Trump said their relationship is strong.

Related: 'Where's Fauci?' America panics as doctor absent again from White House briefing

Trump just now said he would like to have the country back to normal and “open” by Easter. That’s April 12, less than a month away.

Related: Trump's push to shorten coronavirus shutdown proves the captain is flying blind

It wasn’t quite a critique but Trump just shot back at Cuomo about ventilators.

Earlier today Cuomo said he was not getting enough ventilators to keep up with the pandemic curve. Trump and Cuomo have built a fairly cordial and friendly relationship as they’ve kept in touch though the pandemic crisis. But just now at this virtual town hall Trump said Cuomo “should’ve ordered the ventilators.”

The president is refraining on laying blame on himself or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in handling the coronoavirus epidemic. He said neither his administration or the CDC is to blame.

“We did not screw up. I don’t think CDC screwed up either,” Trump said. “I don’t think – in all fairness to CDC. Nobody ever expected a thing like this. Nobody expected that millions and millions of people would have to be tested.”

For days the sticking point for Democrats in the stimulus package negotiations was a $500bn fund for businesses. Democrats called it a “slush fund” because, they argued, it lacked sufficient oversight. In a press conference on Monday he said that he would provide the oversight.

During this virtual town hall Trump stressed that the economic stimulus package would focus on helping both large and small businesses through the coronavirus crisis.

Just now Trump signaled a new openness to signing off what seems like an imminent deal between lawmakers on a $1.6 trillion economic stimulus package.

“They had things that are in there that are terrible. A lot of problems and I said I’m not signing this bill. Now they’ve renegotiated,” Trump said.

Trump is cautioning against a prolonged shut down and stay at home orders. He and others who have argued against that have pointed to other sources of death in the country like the flu or automobile accidents.

“Well you have to make the decision. I brought some numbers here. We lose thousands and thousands of people per year to the flu. We don’t turn the country off,” Trump said. “We lose thousands of people a year to the flu. We never turn the country off. We lose thousands of people per year to automobile accidents.

As the debate over restarting the economy wages amid the coronavirus pandemic, there’s some reassuring news on the soaring numbers out of New York, which can be attributed to the governor’s emphasis on large-scale testing. It’s an approach that could see those who have developed immunity to the virus return to work sooner than the general population.

A bit of reassurance from the FT -- NY levels have spiked because NY is now testing at a rate higher than S. Korea, whose containment effort has been a success story. The spike is, ironically, reassuring of a competent authority managing the crisis pic.twitter.com/x5Inz6QAS3

Donald Trump is here for this town hall. He is accompanied by Pence, Dr. Deborah Birx, and surgeon general Jerome Adams.

Trump was asked when he first decided to take coronavirus seriously. In response the president said when he first saw it moving across China.

During New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s press conference earlier today he repeatedly argued that the amount of ventilators his state needs numbers in the tens of thousands. Seemingly in response to that, Mike Pence just now said some 2,000 ventilators were shipped from the national stockpile today and the same amount will be shipped tomorrow.

“I was so pleased to confirm that earlier today FEMA from the national stockpile shipped 2,000 ventilators from the state of New York,” Pence said. “New York is truly the epicenter of the coronavirus around the country. Two thousand more will be shipped tomorrow.”

While we wait for this Trump virtual town hall to begin vice president Mike Pence was just asked how long before the entire has access to coronavirus tests.

Pence did not offer a specific timeline. Instead he said that testing has expanded in the last few weeks.

Donald Trump is set to headline a two hour virtual town hall on the coronavirus pandemic. Just ahead of that, vice-president Mike Pence sat down with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer. In that interview Pence was asked to respond to New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s pleas for the federal government to more actively use the Federal Defense Production Act.

Pence pointed to the new production efforts by Ford, 3M and GE to provide ventilators and masks. He also said “we’ll continue to meet this moment with creativity” and the support of the American people.

Essentially daily governors across the country have been working to at least show how active they’re being in combatting the Coroavirus. In Wisconsin, Governor Tony Evers directed the state’s Department of Health Services to issue a stay at home order prohibiting non-essential travel. Read the order here.

In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp did an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution where he defended himself to criticism that he hasn’t done enough on the pandemic.

The governor told the AJC his order to ban many public gatherings, close bars and nightclubs, and authorize officials to shut down any business that doesn’t comply with social distancing requirements will help curb the disease without yet having to resort to drastic measures such as shelter-in-place rules.

“You have to have the citizens go with you when you make those moves. I certainly don’t feel like we’re there. I think that would have devastated a lot of people, literally decades of what they have built up. A lot of people are acting responsibly,” he said.

Again and again throughout this press conference, New York governor Andrew Cuomo hammered one point: the increasing rate of coronavirus cases and the lack of sufficient resources across the state is a preview of what other states will experience without a serious response.

“As the number of cases go up, the number of people in hospital beds goes up, the number of people in an ICU beds who need a ventilator goes up, and we cannot address that curve,” Cuomo said.

There has been an ongoing debate among Republican and Democratic lawmakers across the country over whether the Trump administration needed aggressively use the Defense Production Act to activate private industry to help provide medical resources to fight the Coronavirus pandemic.

Generally Democrats have been urging more aggressive leveraging through the law while Republicans have argued that private industry is a better vehicle.

Essentially, Cuomo in this press conference is warning that there need to be more hospital beds as previous estimates about the pandemic are projected to be off.

“It is clear that we must increase the hospital capacity to reach the highest apex,” Cuomo said.

More Cuomo: “We haven’t flattened the curve and the curve is actually increasing.”

The New York governor is not sugarcoating the latest figures on the spread of the pandemic.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has just started his presser for updating the public on New York’s efforts to fight the Coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo opened up the conference saying “the rate of anticipated increase” of the virus “has gone up.”

Over in Virginia, Liberty University, the private evangelical Christian university run by Jerry Falwell Jr., is reopening its doors. Via the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

LYNCHBURG — As the coronavirus threatens to spread across the Lynchburg region, Liberty University officials are preparing to welcome back up to 5,000 students from spring break this week.

Defying a national trend of campus closures, President Jerry Falwell Jr. has invited students to return to residence halls and has directed faculty members to continue to report to campus even as most classes move online.

Donald Trump is signaling a sense of urgency that Congress make a deal on a stimulus package. That’s been the topic of Trump’s twitter over the past few hours.

This is not about the ridiculous Green New Deal. It is about putting our great workers and companies BACK TO WORK!

Congress must approve the deal, without all of the nonsense, today. The longer it takes, the harder it will be to start up our economy. Our workers will be hurt!

Our people want to return to work. They will practice Social Distancing and all else, and Seniors will be watched over protectively & lovingly. We can do two things together. THE CURE CANNOT BE WORSE (by far) THAN THE PROBLEM! Congress MUST ACT NOW. We will come back strong!

On Monday, US deaths surpassed 100 in a single day for the first time. Fatalities passed the grim threshold as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 46,000 and a World Health Organization official told The Washington Post that “we are now seeing a very large acceleration” in US coronavirus infections.

Across the country lawmakers have been grappling with how to effectively contain and fight the Coronavirus pandemic. Much of that has fallen on governors, many of whom have issued stay at home orders.

But some lawmakers have argued for caution in doing that. Here’s Oklahoma senator James Lankford when asked if Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt, another Republican, should issue a “stay at home order.”

Talked with Senator James Lankford this morning and asked him if he thinks Oklahoma should be under a stay-at-home order.

(@koconews) pic.twitter.com/D7HIxuO6BZ

The big news out of the business world this morning is that the Ford Motor Company, GE Healthcare and the 3M company are teaming up to make medical equipment in response to the Coronavirus epidemic.

CNN Business reports: “Healthcare workers around the country have expressed concern about difficulties in attaining enough critical supplies, such as masks, gloves and ventilators, to deal with the influx of patients suffering from the highly contagious virus.”

DEARBORN, Mich., March 24, 2020 – Ford Motor Company, joining forces with firms including 3M and GE Healthcare, is lending its manufacturing and engineering expertise to quickly expand production of urgently needed medical equipment and supplies for healthcare workers, first responders and patients fighting coronavirus.

In addition, Ford plans to assemble more than 100,000 face shields per week and leverage its in-house 3D printing capability to produce components for use in personal protective equipment.

Outside of Washington, the ripple effects of the Coronavirus pandemic are still being felt. Japan agreed with the president of the International Olympic Committee to delay the summer Olympics.

Here’s The Wall Street Journal:

TOKYO—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he agreed with the International Olympic Committee’s president that the Summer Olympics previously scheduled to start in Tokyo on July 24, 2020, would be delayed by around one year.

Mr. Abe spoke by phone Tuesday with IOC President Thomas Bach.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat on Capitol Hill, just finished an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer and her tone was overall optimistic.

When Cramer asked “can we get something done today?” Pelosi responded “I think there is real optimism that we could get something done in the next few hours.”

Late Monday night top Republican and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill appeared to be close to a deal on an almost $2tn economic stimulus package meant to mitigate some of the economic fallout of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The holdup thus far had been over a $500 billion fund meant to help struggling industries. Democrats argued that the fund lacked sufficient oversight and nicknamed it a “slush fund.”

Republicans had a deal until Nancy Pelosi rode into town from her extended vacation. The Democrats want the Virus to win? They are asking for things that have nothing to do with our great workers or companies. They want Open Borders & Green New Deal. Republicans shouldn’t agree!

Congress must approve the deal, without all of the nonsense, today. The longer it takes, the harder it will be to start up our economy. Our workers will be hurt!

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