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Inside Politics

Donald Trump Minimizes Threat Of Coronavirus, Blames Democrats For Market Panic; Markets Plunge On Coronavirus Fears, Crash Oil Prices; Ted Cruz, Gosar Self-Quarantined After Contact With Coronavirus Patient; Capitol Hill Debates Coronavirus Response; Surgeon General Dodges Questions About Coronavirus Testing. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired March 09, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is the epicenter of all of this. They're now seeing a decrease and that is to say, Kate, they don't have the patient load.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Fascinating, David, your reporting has been amazing throughout. It is going to be amazing to see what it looks like when people do start heading back head out. I appreciate it. Thank you all so much for joining me today. "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King starts now.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Thank you Kate. And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Coronavirus worries trigger a massive sell off on Wall Street. The DOW and S&P dropped precipitously as investors worry about the global economic impact and mixed signals from the Trump Administration.

Plus two dozen tweets and re-tweets from the President who woke up in Florida angry. Two Republican members of Congress self-quarantine because they spent time with a man who was tested positive for coronavirus.

This is lawmaker now debate their schedule and for an economic stimulus ides. Super Tuesday II is tomorrow. Six states have Democratic contest. Michigan is the biggest prize as Joe Biden hopes to open a big delegate lead and Bernie Sanders looks to regain his footing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELODIE ARMSTRONG, MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC VOTER: I am voting for Joe Biden because he wants to expand Obamacare. He does not want to scrap my private insurance.

JOHN HATLINE, MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC VOTER: I am staying with Bernie I think his message has been consistent throughout time. And his stand on healthcare, he may have to change that a little bit because I think that's turning a lot of people off.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Back to 2020 a bit later in the program but we begin the hour with a stunning coronavirus scare and sell-off in the financial market all three of the big indexes plunging deep into the red. The DOW is sinking 1800 points within 1 minute of the opening bell.

The S&P shedding 7 percent of its total value the tail has been set off the emergency circuit breaker freezing all trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor for 15 minutes. Part of what's fuelling this panic is a crash and oil prices.

But the big motivator a grim weekend projection that because of the coronavirus the U.S. economy will contract in the second quarter. CNN's Chief Business Correspondent, Christine Roman is live in New York. Christine, the numbers are a wow. Take us ideas the why.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: They are a really big wow. In fact you saw so quickly at 10 percent what we call the correction of the markets from records just a few weeks ago. Now you are looking at these levels that are close a bear market.

I mean imagine that this is the 11th birthday, the 11th anniversary rather of that bull market that began 11 years ago today. It faces the biggest test. The levels for the bear market in the DOW, 23,614 we have to see it close there for the S&P 500, 2708. We're not there yet but there is a pretty grim mood.

And you're right those circuit breaker were hit right away that's a 7 percent decline in the S&P 500 right at the opening bell and they stopped trading for 15 minutes. But things have stabilized here. You ask me what's wrong.

What's wrong is mixed messaging from the White House about a crisis that continues to spread. CNN is now calling this a pandemic. Over the weekend you had a top economists of Deutsche Bank say the second quarter in the U.S. you would actually see the economy shrink and there are a lot of economists who are wondering if this is just a one quarter issue or this is something that becomes a shallow recession before the economy bounces back later this year.

You know John a lot of companies that are facing this pay the bills movement, right? They've got supply chains around the world is broken. They can't pay the bills because they've been paid by their supplier. So they are toughening into their line of credit. That's causing some stress in the markets as well.

Along with the crash in the oil markets, there is a lot going on a perfect storm taking investors for the ride here.

KING: Perfect storm, it's odd when we are down 1400 and you're telling me things have stabilized.

ROMANS: Exactly that's where we are.

KING: That's the day we are living through Christine Romans I really appreciate. You're helping us understand that the market chaos reflects the public health reality. The virus is not yet contained. The numbers climbing within the last hour 601 cases now confirmed here in the United States.

New York's Governor announcing minutes ago the New Jersey and New York port authority is infected with the virus. But, look at the President's twitter feed and he's still trying to downplay the impact.

Life and economy go on the President has insists in a tweet minimizing the seriousness of the coronavirus. But the President also blames today's market sell off on oil dispute but disconnects from the coronavirus pandemic. Also now a familiar refrain Democrats the President tweets are looking "In flame the coronavirus situation far beyond or what the facts would wore it". That's all from the President this morning.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins live for us at the White House. Kaitlan, the President woke up angry in Florida he is on his way back to D.C. now. His own aides quietly would tell you his own mixed messaging is part of the problem but he does not seem to agree.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, he does not. And even while publicly he has changed his tone on this. He's not down playing it as much as we initially saw. John, we were being told that privately people still don't think the President is taking this outbreak seriously enough.

He did go visit the CDC in Atlanta on Friday but in this weekend it was really business as usual where he hosted a fundraiser of 400 people in the audience on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. He was playing golf with MOB players. Then he had dinner with the Brazilian President and a ton of his friends at his club in Mar-a- Lago.

[12:05:00]

COLLINS: And he has got one more fundraiser that he's out right now where he's expected to raise about $4 million before coming back to the White House to deal with the fallout from all of this and part of that is of course exactly what Christine just laid out there.

And that's why the President is going to huddling with aides to talk about potential economic stimulus they can do to try to blunt the fall out that you're seeing happening right now because of the fear about the coronavirus and the spread and really just the unknown of it.

But John, it's also notable that this all comes as really the state of the employees in the White House between the White House and these national health agencies is not good. There are a lot of distrusts on both sides where the White House thinks that they're causing too much alarm.

They think the White House is down playing it too much. That's really where we have come as they are trying to put their best foot forward here and say that they are ready to deal with this. While critics say just don't think that's the case here.

KING: Kaitlan Collins live at the White House. I appreciate that reporting and we'll see if we can get more the President as the day goes on. Joining me now in the studio is Greg Ip he is the Chief Economic Commentator with "The Wall Street Journal".

To the degree we can Greg and I appreciate you being here on such a volatile day. Let's try to slice up the pie a little bit. How much of what we saw today was dramatic and what we're still seeing Christine Romans says it's stabilizing but sill rough day.

How much of it is because of the weekend's oil shock? How much of it is because of the global economic worries? And how can you put a factor on the mixed messaging that the President says one thing and the experts say another?

GREG IP, CHIEF ECONOMIC COMMENTATOR, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: All the things were certainly playing a part. We already knew before this weekend that the global economy and the U.S. economy were at significant risk from the virus both from things like supply chain disruptions and people taking it normal precautionary attitudes not flying, not going to conferences.

On the weekend we now had this significant addition to the bucket of risks. Russia and Saudi Arabia is driving down the price of oil. Now in the old days we used to think it was good because American could pay less for gasoline but now the United States is a world's largest crude oil producer so that directly impacts a lot of jobs, lot of protection a lot of manufacturing mostly in the oil pact.

That sort of thing could significantly raise the risk for recession. Finally we are seeing some increased signs of concern the financial market boring rates raising banks apparently being a little more reluctant to lend to each other. All those things have raised a degree of anxiety and the possibility that what started out as somewhat isolated virus related things is morphing into something larger.

KING: Morphing into something larger. And so you have competing ideas. You heard Kaitlan say when the President comes back his team has some stimulus ideas for him. One thing the President has repeatedly said even though he did get an emergency Fed rate cut last week. He keeps saying the Fed should do more.

Listen here; this is Gary Cohn who used to be the President's top economic adviser in the White House saying early today he thinks the airline industry is going to bail out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY COHN, FORMER TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER: We're at a point now where we're going to have to talk about how do we sustain an airline industry here in the United States? We are going to need to make sure that we protect our airline industry ultimately we are going to come out of this.

And I think that's one of the things I am trying to say is we don't know how long this is going to last. The only thing I know for sure is we'll look back at this someday in the future and say what we could have and should have done.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: As the President debates his options and what to suggest. Congress debates as well. We are in an election year. What are the one or two or three smartest things that could be done right now that would help?

IP: Well, first of all we know the Federal Reserve has done all it can do, doing this just not much more it can do. Interest rates are so low. Cutting them further is just not going to help a lot and certainly not going to cure the disease we get people out of quarantine.

So that means Gary Cohn is right. The answer is this fiscal policy what can Congress and President do? There is a few things, the first thing they can do is start putting or making money available to individual states and local government who are looking at significant loss of revenue or pay because of the virus.

So sick benefits to people who don't get sick benefits, that's an obvious thing. For states and local governments contemplating should they be shutting down activities and worrying about the budgetary consequences. They shouldn't worry about those consequences.

A very easy thing for the federal government to do would be the sort of increase its share Medicaid that will bring immediate relief to the funding. And as Gary Cohn said there are some industries we know that are going to be severely impacted, airlines, the tourism industry and hotels now possibly the oil and gas industry because what we saw with the oil price.

There is a lot of room there for Congress to think about you know loan guarantees another tax credits or tax deferrals, all sorts of things that can provide very targeted relief to these sectors.

KING: Right. I heard some public health experts say the other day saying that the sick pay especially because not only do give economic relief but some people who don't get those benefits comes to work because they can't afford it. So they come to work when they're sick.

IP: Yes, fiscal policy should be working to enable workers, local government employers to do the right thing for safety while protecting the economy as much as possible.

KING: And you mentioned sort of the old politics of oil prices that when OPEC had an issue and prices fell down, that was normally a political celebration here at home. The President tweeted this morning, good for the consumer, gasoline prices are coming down. Not necessarily the right tone at this moment.

IP: Well, it certainly kind of like missing that very important fact which is that the immediate fact because it is going to like cause a lot of oil and gas company to stop drilling, cut back capital expenditure, cut back their hiring.

[12:10:00]

IP: And they'll have ripple effects on all the industries that supply them whether you make pumps, whether you make steel for pipelines or whether you drive trucks to supply that industry. That's where we'll see the first impact.

KING: That's an interesting economic challenge to begin with seems more complicated today. Greg I really appreciate you're coming to help us stir up. Next for us here coronavirus now a big complication on Capitol Hill and for the President's campaign schedule.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: coronavirus fears are creating a Capitol Hill gridlock of a different kind. Lawmakers return today for a four day work week but there is a debate about whether having Congress in session is a good idea.

That debate made more urgent after two members of Congress Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Republican Congressman Paul Gosar announced they will quarantine themselves both met at a conservative political conference with a man later diagnosed to have coronavirus.

Both certainly have no symptoms and say health officials doubt they're infected but they believe they should do this as a safety precaution.

[12:15:00]

KING: With me here in studio to share their reporting and their insights CNN's Dana Bash, Olivier Knox with "SiriusXM," CNN's Manu Raju and Margaret Talev with 'AXIOS'. Welcome to the coronavirus old members of Congress here. Both members, the Senator and the Congressman we assume doing the right thing.

They were in the room with this gentleman, who has been infected therefore just step back and be careful. The question is will the Speaker and Majority Leader in the Senate Pelosi and McConnell sit down and say you know what, maybe we should have a large group meeting, a lot of our population happens to be over 60 and in all in at risk group.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I don't the moment that's not where they are going, they're discussing those one week in session right now, then they are on recess is next week and we'll see what happens afterwards. There is a lot of planning that's happened behind the scenes for weeks that these lawmaker's offers have developed contingency plans in case it sort of happens.

There has been an expectation that eventually member of Congress or an aid will get exposed they would have quarantines at each of these officers have developed ways for it to tell commute and continuing operations.

So Nancy Pelosi is not playing that. What she is planning she is having a meeting tonight with her Committee Chairman and Chairwoman to discuss who to move forward on the legislative response to the economic concerns raised by the coronavirus epidemics. So that's the focus right now. The legislative response rather than getting out of town perhaps will be pressure to stay in town to try to figure out a solution here.

KING: And the numbers tell you why Congress should revisit this, a big emergency package passed last week that's to help get testing kids in the pipeline. That's to get some aids of states and government. It's just a ramp up essentially if you were the Federal Reserve in a vaccine development in the like.

Just look at the last two weeks, February 24th 53 cases in the United States confirmed. Today that number is 601. As we're on this hour it is likely to go up more. So Congress will come back. They want to talk about what we need from a public health standpoint? Now you look at the markets today, what do we need from the economic standpoint?

The White House is having similar meetings. Let's see Speaker Pelosi earlier today, she was up in Boston for an event. One of her questions here is can they trust each other and get something done.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We would help it but rather than name calling of some of what he's doing that he would be again joining with his healthcare professionals who are advising him and the rest of us in a well coordinated government agenda, there is a concern that we have and he may try to do something to delay corporate America's concerns but we are saying all America benefits if you relay the concerns of America's working families because consumer confidence is the life blood of our company.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Do you have some traditional Republican Democratic differences here. Where you hear from the Republicans largely let's see and let's help the airline industry, let's help the other broader travel industry. Let's use some economic things that help the business sector.

You have Democrats saying what about the paid sick leave or what about making sure that when the vaccine is available, it is free and everybody can have quick access to it. In this environment of election year politics and deep distrust to begin with, they got to figure this out?

MARGARET TALEV, POLITICS AND WHITE HOUSE EDITOR, AXIOS: Absolutely. And that there is an imperative on all of them including the President because of course the economy and not just the performances of the stock market but consumer confidence GDP unemployment and all of these things have void him in a year when there are so many political aspects or foreign policy or whatever all these other factor that could have dragged him down.

Voters have been willing to overlook those because the economy has been so strong. Ultimately whether it is fair or not, it is always the President who gets blamed when the economy is suffered, who gets praised when the economy is on the rise.

And so but it is true that there are all kinds of other sectors. If you are in the service economy if you're working in the food service business or if you're just an hourly wage workers affected by this, it is absolutely going to matter whether or not you are going to get paid whether or not you just have to eat the cost of this public health crisis.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Even though the President is going to be presented with some ideas from his economic team today, this question still remains whether or not the President gets it?

I talked to a source this morning that was in contact with him who said it is all about me, why this is happening to me and why the economy which was good is and not going to be so good to me in this election season so on and so forth.

And so it starts with the top. It always starts with the top in any organization and in any situation and so that's a big concern number one and then number two is operationally even though Mike Pence is out there and people around him are out there, there are really big questions about how or why they gotten the administration, everything from we know from that the FDA was not part of the task force.

What about the Department of Education? Couples of schools in D.C. said today that they are closing. That's probably going to happen all over the country. It is on a broad level that sector of the population even remotely prepared or getting any guidance at the Federal level.

[12:20:00]

KING: And as they ramp up on such things which cause concern. They shouldn't cause panic if handled right but they do cause concerns. Will the President be on board or will he be contradicting officials as he has repeatedly about steps, whether it is the pace of the vaccine development or whether its tests are available the President saying the other day go get a test, if you want to test, they're beautiful and they're not available.

One of the interesting things here is he called the President said the Governor of Washington State, which is the state hit hardest so far a snake. He called Jay Inslee a snake. Jay Inslee had an opportunity to fire back on Sunday.

And listen closely because this is important. A lot of Democrats a lot of Republicans too would say the first couple of weeks the administration response was very shaky. Jay Inslee going out of his way here to say the Vice President is in charge now, I don't think it is perfect but it is better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JAY INSLEE, (D) WASHINGTON: Certainly there were troubles at the beginning of this with the testing protocols. But right now I believe the agencies of the federal government are being very diligent and helping our state. I think that the Vice President has been helpful in this regard. So we are focusing on people's health and not on political games and shit right now. That's what we need to do. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is interesting that he went out of his way to sort of I am going to deal with the President later when he could easily returned fire. And try I think in an odd way offering support to Pence at this difficult time.

OLIVIER KNOX, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SIRIUSXM: Yes, but also his constituents want him to answer on - in the health registered not in the politics register here. I think the package, the aid package a couple of thoughts one is the emergency package suggest that actually they'll get it done but they'll come together that they're going to set aside some of their concerns and they will get it done.

After all the Democrats drove a much, much larger package through the President's ask. He had no problem with it. My gut says that this ending will happen on the economic stuff. Really important to think about this though is the health response because that low wage worker who says might be making you a sandwich faces really big cost associated with testing, right?

Not the test itself but going to the hospital or ER or going to the doctor or whatever. And probably does not have paid sick leave. So does that person go get tested when they get a low fever? Probably not a lot of heavy decent centers there and so it is not just the economic aid pack it is also - there is also a very important public health component there.

RAJU: And that's actually pone of that components that Pelosi and Schumer have been pushing to provide free testing and paid sick leave. So that would put a lot of pressure on the administration to agree it.

KNOX: But the free testing - the part of the free testing that is important, it is not the test itself, it is the cost that associated with it.

KING: Right and communications about that to that very point that if you have a little fever, go get it test. You're going to get paid sick leave, do not come to work. We're going to help you consistent communication about that if that help is coming would be helpful.

But as I said the President said the other day, testing is perfect. Go get one if you want one. The Vice President not long after said well it is going to be a couple of weeks before the tests are widely available. The issue of the administration is, are there people willing to tell the truth when they know the boss is watching. Jake Tapper tried yesterday with the Surgeon General.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Can you tell us how many people have been testing in the United States?

VICE ADMIRAL JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURDEON GENERAL: The numbers are tough because they changing minute by minute.

TAPPER: You can't give me just a yes or no or you can't give me even a rough number of how many Americans have been tested? You don't know?

ADAMS: I would refer you to the CDC for that because again the numbers changed so rapidly and I don't want to give you a number.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: If the administration going to put very senior officials out on television, shouldn't they have some information?

KNOX: Well, except that this is now heavily state and local control, right? It's state and local health authorities are carrying out the tests and so you can - when it was just the CDC authorizing testing and conducting testing and rest of it, it was an easy figure to keep a hands-on.

But now that, it is going to Universities, and it is going to other hospitals and it is going to state local authorities it's a little bit harder. You would think that there would - after a week or something like that of testing, they would think they can come back with numbers but I understand why they might not get them right now.

RAJU: And even said that the contained in some parts of the country the coronavirus, that's similar to the line of the Political Adviser last week Kellyanne Conway and the like were saying last week, in that of course, became heavily contradicted by some of the experts.

KING: One thing they are doing to their credit is they're having another briefing this evening. The Vice President and his task force will have a briefing this evening. Hopefully we start to get more consistent public message. They deserve credit for now it is coming out more regularly and talking at least. We'll see if we get answers to the key questions.

Up next, Democratic Primaries voters in six states head to the polls tomorrow in a narrow Democratic Race. Speaker Pelosi asked today about why is it essentially down to two men?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: So I think that women came to close many of the women voters from what I have been hearing to a place where they were, this is all interesting. But we have to win this election, what is the most in their view of our strongest way to do that and it has come down to two of these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: Tomorrow is a defining day in Democratic Nomination battle. Six states are holding contest, Joe Biden has a chance to pad his lead in the delegate chase. Michigan is the biggest prize on Super Tuesday II.

The Former Vice President is closing with a muscle flexes sorts. Former rivals Kamala Harris and Cory Booker joining Biden tonight for a rally in Detroit. And he campaigned just a bit earlier today in Grand Rapids with the help of the states popular Democratic Governor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Sanders is a good man. His Medicare for all push would be a long and expensive slog if he can get it done at all. And the patients at Cherry Hill they can't afford to wait for a revolution. They're looking for results.

(END VIDEO CLIP)