The NPR Politics Podcast - Here's How The U.S. Is Responding To Coronavirus

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

United States health officials delivered a clear message Tuesday: serious measures could be required to stem the new coronavirus. One top official described the spread of the disease in the U.S. as inevitable.That tone is in clear contrast to the messages coming from the White House. After a sharp dip in the stock market Monday, President Trump tweeted that the disease "is very much under control in the USA." He is scheduled to address the nation again tonight.This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Becky Hanson. And I'm Dan Hanson. And we're the coaches of the Fort Atkinson debate team and we are packing up the vans right now to head to the Wisconsin State Debate Tournament. This podcast was recorded on Wednesday, February 26th at 2.45pm. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Like, hopefully, we'll have won some hardware. Now, here's the show! Scott, a special guest in the booth today. I'm the economic correspondent, Scott Horsley. A friend of the podcast, longtime friend of the podcast, Scott Horsley. Scott, it's good to see you, but generally speaking these days when we've got you in the pod, it's not always the best of times. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Well, today we're talking about the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19,

which is the respiratory virus that originated in the Hubei province in China, which now has health officials signaling alarms all over the world. It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness. That was Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control. Franco, I just want to start with you because it's important to say that the White House is, you know, about to confront potentially a big crisis. And how are they approaching it?

Yeah, I mean, what they're trying to do is kind of control those fears that are really just growing and growing as these public officials basically say that this is going to be an inevitable spread across the United States and growing fears that this is going to be a pandemic. President Trump is going to host a press conference tonight where he's going to kind of bring out and say what they are going to do to help control this. And, you know, the White House is asking Congress for two and a half billion dollars to help with the response. Congress is asking for more, but the administration is really struggling to get kind of their arms around this as fears emerge. Just today, for example, the administration had to bat down reports that it was considering appointing a new coronavirus czar

to coordinate the response to the growing epidemic. What are they saying that they need the money for? The money they are saying needed would be to speed up the vaccines, to buy equipment, to buy more supplies, to do everything they need to get kind of their hands around this. So, Scott, the coronavirus presents potentially a health crisis in the country, but also an economic one. Yeah, we've been talking for weeks about the potential for economic ripple effects from this virus, which initially struck in an industrial part of China. And of course, China is very closely integrated with the world economy. So there has been spillover from that. But up until this week, the stock market had largely shrugged that off. We saw some down moves in the market early on when this first started

in Wuhan, China. But just last week, the S&P 500 index was hitting an all-time high. So investors were basically banking on the idea this was going to be a sort of a short-term crisis. It would mostly be felt in China, wouldn't spread much beyond that. And the market expectation really turned over the weekend. And we saw a steep drop in the Dow on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 1,000 points. It fell another nearly 900 points on Tuesday. Is that a lot? The S&P is off more than 7.5% since its peak last week. 10% is considered a correction. So that's a significant movement. And what the investors are spooked by is a growing number of cases outside China in places like South Korea and Italy.

And the fear with Europe's open borders that if it's in Italy, it's going to spread to the rest of Europe. And indeed, we found new cases in Germany now. The fear that this is not going to be a China or even an Asia-centric phenomenon, but this is really going to be broader. And the CDC really poured gas on that fiery fear yesterday when they said it's just a matter of time before it's likely to start spreading in the United States. What's the practical impact on the economy for everyday life? If there is a broad public health threat, how does it affect the economy? Well, there are a number of ways that this will ripple into the economy. One is that China and South Korea are big suppliers of components to U.S. factories, and they're

already seeing their supply lines disrupted. Because people aren't going to work there. People in China and South Korea are not able to work and they're not able to get the products onto the ships and send the ships across the ocean to the United States. And so a factory in the United States, in Ohio or Michigan, may not have a part it needs to assemble a finished product. That's one impact. There's a secondary impact if indeed there's spread here in the United States and we have people can't go to work or can't go to school or economic activity in this country slows to a halt if they can't shop the way they ordinarily would. And then there's a possible sort of vicious cycle when

the stock market has a big drop like that. That makes consumers a little nervous and we see spending go down. We saw that in December of 2018 when the trade war really heated up. The stock market did enter correction territory then, and we saw a real drop in holiday spending. A drop in holiday spending or any kind of consumer spending is bad for the economy because, remember, consumers account for more than two-thirds of all the economic activity in the U.S. So, Franco, it sounds like the White House specific is potentially facing two crises, a health care crisis and an economic one. Absolutely. I mean, this is something this is why this is such a big deal to President Trump. I mean, he staked pretty much his re-election

campaign in part on, you know, a booming economy. He loves to brag about a stock market gains and these kind of concerns about reduced purchasing, buying, that's a huge deal. And the Center for Disease Control is saying that schools and hospitals need to start preparing now. The president is blaming the U.S. media, saying they are trying to heighten the concerns. But these are public officials who are saying that this situation is inevitable, that it's going to start spreading across the United States. And that's why I think we're going to hear from the president on trying to get control of this and try to show that the United States is prepared to handle this, because there are a lot of questions whether the administration is prepared. And it's not only from Democrats, but it's also from Republicans who are pushing on the administration to explain how they're prepared. Okay, let's take a quick break. But when we come back, we'll talk more about

the politics of how the coronavirus could play out. message come from Google. From Connecticut to California, from Mississippi to Minnesota, millions of American businesses are using Google tools to grow online. The Grow with Google initiative supports small businesses by providing free digital skills workshops and one-on-one coaching in all 50 states, helping businesses get online, connect with new customers, and work more productively. Learn more at google.com slash grow. You might know Nick Kroll from his very raunchy animated show on Netflix, Big Mouth. Are you the puberty fairy? The puberty fairy? I'm the hormone monster. I'm not a fairy. Well, now he's starring as a romantic lead in a movie set at the Olympics. Actor and comedian Nick Kroll, next time on It's Been a Minute from NPR. And we're back. And Franco, one of the things that has been very striking to me

is tonally how different the White House is sounding in contrast to these public health officials we heard from yesterday saying it's real, it's coming and we need to get ready. And a White House essentially saying, calm down, we're good. Yeah, it's been kind of fascinating. I mean, the White House is really that we have this all under control. Larry Kudlow said before that this is pretty much wrapped up. The head of the World Health Organization today said, let us not overreact. I think that's an important point. I will make the same point on the economy.

That's all I'm capable of doing, Kelly, and I may not be right here. The economic side, there is no tragedy in the United States. I mean, he does have a point there, though, right? I mean, yes, there was a stock market downturn, but broadly speaking, the economy's OK and we don't need to be freaking out right now. The economy is OK, but we may see economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak in the weeks and months to come. This is not the first time the White House has used Larry Kudlow to be a sort of a cheerleader for the economy and for the stock market. That's kind of his role. Of course, he was a longtime TV business commentator. And so stock watchers are used to seeing Larry Kudlow act like a cheerleader, and that's what he's doing here. But we don't really know what the economic fallout is going to be. That's still a puzzle, and that's uncertainty, and investors don't like that kind of uncertainty. The White House needs to strike a very fine balance in how it communicates this, really. I mean, it wants to make sure that it doesn't add to the economic troubles, add to the fears.

But it also needs to be careful that it's not misdirecting information or telling, you know, these contradictions with public health officials could hurt the administration if there is a lack of trust. And public health officials have a kind of a fine line to walk as well. They want people to be prepared. They want people to take this threat seriously. But they don't want people to be irrationally fearful of the coronavirus. And I think they maybe didn't calibrate their tone quite right yesterday. That CDC news conference clearly rattled the stock market. You could definitely connect the dots between that announcement and the continued sell-off in the markets. And it was Kudlow really trying to sort of counteract that.

But if you have one voice that's maybe overly fearful and pessimistic and another that is perhaps overly optimistic and cheerful, I'm not sure that just averaging those out gives you the balance you want. It certainly rattled Congress, too. There was a briefing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday, and Democrats are more vocal about this, but even many top Republicans, including Richard Shelby, who's the top chairman on the Appropriations Committee, are saying they don't think what the White House is asking for is enough. The two and a half billion is not enough. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat today, said he thinks it needs to be three times that. It needs to be closer to nine billion. I think the upside is that the White House is going to get the resources it needs. If anything, Congress wants to give it more money than it's asking for. But this does seem like it could present a test of leadership for President Trump,

which all presidents face at some point in their presidency, which is the crisis they weren't planning for. And this is, of course, an administration that has called for cuts in spending on global health. But how you manage a crisis can really help a president or really hurt them, right? Like strong responses to natural disasters can make a president look competent. Weak responses can make him look like he's mismanaging the country. And again, this is a politics podcast. We are in the thick of he really has put so much of an emphasis on the U.S. economy. He repeats the meme over and over that it's all about the economy. If the economy were to go down, that would really undercut one of President Trump's biggest message. So this issue is getting political extremely fast. His opponents also, are starting to see a foothold here because I did note in my inbox right before I came in for this podcast that Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor running for see leaders of both parties rowing in the same direction, coming together, putting politics aside. But in 2020, that's not likely to happen. Well, hope springs eternal, right? All right. Well,

that's a wrap for today. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow. But if you want to learn more about the coronavirus and its impact, you can find more of our coverage on NPR.org and, of course, on your local radio station. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Horsley. I cover the economy. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Each of us is the star in the movie of our life.

But how much of a role do we play in other people's movies? It was a really sort of palpable fear that they were going to reject me or worse. The unseen pressures we place on other people. This week on Hidden Brain from NPR.