So what role should the federal government play in all of this?

For more?

Let's bring in Ron Claim, former Ebola czar for the Obama administration and former chief of staff for Joe Biden.

Thanks so much for joining us tonight.

So let's start big picture from your experience responding to the Ebola crisis.

What does the federal government need to do to have one unified response to both the outbreak itself and also to the economy?

Well, look, I mean, I think the president needs to take leadership in a way that he's been unwilling to do.

So he stood up last week and said the testing was a state problem state needed to solve it for itself.

That's not gonna get it done.

We need a national approach.

We need to be able to use the president's authorities on the Defense Production Act to accelerate the production of testing kits to make sure they're distributed around the country.

So we not only can do what you talked about a minute ago, test anyone who wants it but actually go out and served you conduct surveillance, go into nursing homes, see where the diseases go into seeing your centers see where the disease is, find the disease before it kills people.

That's the kind of testing we need to make America safe.

We are nowhere near that.

A month after we basically hit the 100,000 test mark, we're still learning about 100 and 50,000 tests today that that is way, way, way too few and in the midst of trying to battle Corona virus.

We're also seeing this battle emerge of this power grab, if you will, between you know who has the power to reopen the country in the States.

Is it the president, or is it the governor's?

As Joe Biden would say, Is this just a bunch of malarkey?

I mean, what's the bottom line here?

The virus has the power to decide what's open and what's closed.

I think the sensible governors, both Democrats and Republicans on a bipartisan basis are listening to their health care experts.

It's also not good for the economy.

You heard Governor Carney say this earlier in your show.

If you open up stores and people get sick going to stores they're not gonna go to stores any more.

People get sick going to restaurants.

That's gonna kill the restaurant industry.

So this really is a false choice.

We have to get this disease under control before we reopen things.

We have to reopen things the right way carefully.

As you've been talking about tonight and most of all, we have to have testing in place so we can separate this sick from the well so we can track.

Where is where the disease is going, how fast it's getting there and then the treatment available for those who turned out to be sick.

There's a lot of work to be done.

The health side.

President Trump is not leaving the country and doing that.

It's been left to the governors to doing that.

They're doing their best booth out, the kind of authority that the president has were hopelessly behind On addressing this, you've also said that we're behind other countries in testing.

Now.

Some states are moving toward loosening social distancing guidelines to reopen their economies.

How important is our virus and antibody testing to that process?

Well, I think Lindsay, we just don't know yet about antibody testing we don't really know.

You had a story a minute ago about a person possibly got sick a second time.

We don't know what this virus if you get the virus, how much immune you are going forward and how long you're going to be immune.

Going forward now with things like colds.

There are permanent lifetime immunity like you have with measles or chickenpox.

So this question of what the anybody tests tell us is an important thing that we need clinical trials to sort out for the time being.

We really need our spot diagnostic tests or the kind of tests that we are just getting the technology to do an expansion of the swab tests that your viewers are seeing on their screens.

Right now, we need to be testing about 500 to 750,000 people a day to test about 1% of the country every week.

We're really operating at just 1/3 of that amount right now.

We really need to step that up.

How much of a risk is there for a possibility of a second deadly or wave in the coming weeks?

If we reopen up things too quickly.

Well, I think whether not the second wave is deadly or not, or just a cz horrible is this one.

A second wave of any sort is going to be devastating, and I think they're Unfortunately, there is a risk that we're seeing that in Singapore, where they reopened and we're starting to see a surge of cases there again there, pa.

Perhaps even Maur cases the second time than the first time, as you mentioned a minute ago.

That was true for Spanish flu back in 1919 on the second go round.

So maintaining these restrictions as long as they're needed until we get the disease under control until it contest people carefully until we can shriek, those were sick.

That's the way, both to keep us healthier and in the long run to create a more sustainable economic growth without these fits and starts, starts and stops on and off to the kind of thing.

That's the only that's what's gonna happen if we don't take all the right steps.

There appears to have been some tension between Dr Anthony Fauci and President Trump in recent days.

You've worked with Dr Fauci before.

Do you think it's important that Trump follows his lead at this point.

Well, Tony Fauci is the gold standard, not just for the United States and for around the world.

President Ronald Reagan relied on him and the beginning of the fight against HIV AIDS.

Number of lives Dr.

Fauci saved in that fight is too high to possibly imagine.

President Obama relied on him in the fight against Ebola.

Every other president Democrat Republican has treated Tony found his advice as the most important medical advice they can get.

There's no reason why President Trump should be any different than them doctor found.

She's provided impartial medical advice to six U.

S presidents toe leaders around the world.

He's the best advice we have on a hope President Trump will do what his predecessors did and take.

Dr Fauci is advice.

Very, very seriously.

You ever course advising Joe Biden's presidential campaign?

He became the presumptive Democratic nominee last week when Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race.

What combined and do about this pandemic as a candidate, not an elected official?

And how would his administration respond if he goes on to be President Trump in November?

Well, first was a candidate.

What he can do is you can tell people what he would do differently, and he's been doing that all along.

He's offered up his advice directly to President Trump.

Over the phone is offered on the stump.

People want to see what he would do.

You go to joe biden dot com.

You can see the plan he laid out in the middle of March.

If he's president.

What I can tell you about Joe Biden is what he did.

What is in the White House before, which is he'll listen to science first.

So listen to people like Dr Fauci.

That's what he did.

We were fighting h one n one, and Predictable were fighting.

Ebola in 2014 will take the advice from the medical experts.

First and foremost, he'll also use his full authorities again.

President Trump talks a good game about his absolute power, but the power he really has the power to take control of the supply chain to demand that more tests be made.

Demand that more gear be made to get that gear out.

That's the power President Trump's refused to use.

That's a power Joe Biden would use is president.

If this is still going on when he becomes president to make sure that we're testing.

The American people were making our health care workers safe when they treat us.

Ron claim We so appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

A sincere thanks for having me.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos Here.

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