Fed Cuts Interest Rates Amid Coronavirus Market Fears; Twenty-Two Dead, Dozens Hurt After Tornadoes Rip Through Tennessee.
KING: To the Coronavirus crisis now, 106 is the new number of infected Americans, according to the CDC. Six people, sadly, have died. Vice President Mike Pence is on Capitol Hill this hour with top health officials as lawmakers are nearing agreement on a $7 billion to $8 billion deal to fund the government response. That's a lot more money than the President initially wanted, but last hour he says he doesn't mind.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Six weeks ago, eight weeks ago, you never heard of this. All of a sudden it's got the world aflutter, but it will work out. I asked for 2.5, they asked me 8.5, I sad I'll take it.</s>KING: Also this morning the President getting a giant gift from his Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell a half point emergency interest rate cut the largest since the 2008 financial collapse. The President apparently though not satisfied. Also saying at that event last hour do it more. CNN's Alison Kosik is at the Stock Exchange. Alison the Fed Chair says the fundamentals of the economy are strong, so then why this rate cut?</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, we did see the Fed make its emergency rate cut just early this morning, and this is a way for the Fed to go ahead and try to make an impact to lower borrowing costs for businesses and consumers just in case the Coronavirus impacts the economy or causes the economy to deteriorate. J. Powell also said in a news conference about an hour ago that the Coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity and said that we're already seeing strains on industries like tourism, travel and supply chains. So he did acknowledge that. Having this rate cut of half a percent is also a signal to traders, to investors and to the markets, that the Fed has their backs.</s>KOSIK: And although the markets were hoping for this, were expecting it were really wanting it there is also a realization that it is going to have little immediate effect on the real economy because the reality is the Fed can't cure a health crisis. The Fed can't fix supply chain issues the companies are enduring as we speak and that's why we're seeing the market fluctuate widely going from positive to negative to deep losses in the span of a couple of minutes, John.</s>KING: Alison Kosik live on the floor for us. I appreciate it very much. You see the DOW down despite the rate cut because of that continued uncertainty. CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins our conversation. I want to start, and I'll come to Julie in a second. Mike Pence is up there. We've had a political debate about this, but it does seem that there is about to be a meeting of the minds, somewhere in the ball park of 7 to $8 billion, somewhere in there. What is the most pressing need right now that the Federal Government can help with?</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Preparation. I mean, you know the vaccine is getting all the attention. First of all as you know that's a year and a half away and it has a certain cost, probably about a billion to a billion and a half dollars. There is a larger need in terms to how to take care of these sick patients right now? And that is something that we've known about for some time. Let me show you some numbers real quick because we did some reporting on this. If you look at the federal government's own projections in terms of what a moderate pandemic might look like versus severe pandemic, you can look at how many hospitalizations are anticipated? How many people will need to be in the ICU? Take a look there, and so on the lower side, 200,000 people. We also know that about 64,000 people will need to be on breathing machines, and we have about 62,000 breathing machines in the country and another 10,000 in the stockpile. We're in flu season many of those are in use. So that's a pressing concern, it's an acute concern, sort of a triage concern. It's going to cost money not only for the machines but space, isolation, all the stuff to take care of these patients.</s>KING: I want to come back to that for a minute because I want to look at the very severe scenario, and let's all hope it does not turn out this way. But 38 million needing medical care, 9.6 million hospitalizations, 2.9 million needing Intensive Care. Washington State today just said it was buying a hotel or an old hotel because it doesn't have the beds. If we have the severe scenario what kind of stress and over load that we are talking about?</s>GUPTA: I mean, it's significant, and obviously that severe scenario is frightening in this regard and that's a worst case scenario. I think most of the experts are saying it's not likely to get to that point but I would add on top of that just more a functional stand point about three quarter of a million ventilators then are necessary. This is the real sort of brass tacks in terms of how to care for these patients? And again keep in mind, there are patients who are currently on ventilators. Doctors and nurses they're going to may have to make some tough decisions about how to care for these patients if they have limited resources? So when you're talking about billions of dollars like they're now talking about - by the way, on part with what the Ebola response was, what H1N1 response was, same sort of ballpark in terms of dollars. That's what a lot that money is probably going to be necessary for because that's how you know you take care of these patients in the immediate term. There is going to be longer term care as well, but right now we're talking about taking care of patients as they're getting sick.</s>KING: And in the midst of this there have been questions about who can we trust? You saw the President there saying "aflutter" again he minimizes it frequently the severity of this. He had a disagreement, you mentioned a vaccine, well, again we talked to Dr. Fauci yesterday about what he met with pharmaceutical executives about how quickly you could this done? I want to read you this quote in "POLITICO" from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been at this since the late Regan Administration if my facts are straight on that one. "You should never destroy your own credibility and you don't want to go to war with a President. But you've got to walk the fine balance of making sure you continue to tell the truth". He's been around a long time, so I guess he understands politics. But essentially saying, I'm going to tell the truth about this, and sometimes I might be rubbing with the President a little bit.</s>DAVIS: Right and we've seen this unfold in real time. I think you were at that briefing the other day when Dr. Fauci and other public health officials were saying that, you know it's almost inevitable, it is inevitable that this is going to spread, and then you know the President got up and said, well I don't think it's inevitable, I think the cases are going down. And we've just seen this back and forth time and again. And I think people like Dr. Fauci are now resigned to the fact that they're going to continue to give the facts and in some cases be at odds with what the President is saying. We've heard these reports and my colleague at the times confirmed that people like Dr. Fauci are being asked to clear their statements with Vice President Pence's office before speaking out. We don't have any evidence that anyone is being muzzled or told not to say what they want to say, but they do have to put out these statements. And I think it really does lead a crisis of confidence what people who are rightly afraid of what this might mean for the general population? Don't know whether they can trust the information they're getting out of the White House and out of the administration? That's also the case in Congress. I think a lot of lawmakers are confused about that as well.</s>KING: Hopefully that situation improves itself as they get their footing then we'll see. Dr. Gupta I appreciate you coming in. Julie is going to stay with us to a very deadly disaster in Tennessee now. At least 22 people are dead after a severe storm and tornados tore through the state overnight and into this morning. The path of destruction, you see those horrific pictures there it goes through national and beyond. Dozens of homes and buildings flattened, cars and trucks overturned, trees and power lines down. President Trump just announced he will visit Tennessee on Friday. CNN's Amara Walker is in Nashville now. Amara, I've been watching you throughout the day. The pictures are just devastatingly sad. What can you tell us?</s>AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I can tell you we've seen extensive damage here in East Nashville, John. The people I've been speaking with throughout the day, they've been coming here to just survey all the damage and they're in complete shock. Right now we're in Five Points District. This is a business area where there are lots of restaurants and bars and coffee shops, and people say this is a social hub of East Nashville, and they're coming to see that some of their favorite spots are gone. There is an Ice Cream Shop in here, there is a Juicery, there was apparently an Architectural Firm on the second floor. If you look inside these broken windows, the businesses are completely hollowed out, the ceilings have caved in. Also if you look across the street, you can see the power lines entangled with mangled metal there. That used to be a building, that used to be an in-skate shop obviously that is no more. And then to the left of that building, this was some kind of disability office, but you can see the shingles on the roof have flown off because of this tornado. The numbers are going up in terms of the death toll. The confirmed number of deaths so far from this deadly tornado is now at 22. Multiple injuries we're hearing about. We know that at least 156 people in the greater Nashville area were transported to local hospitals with extensive injuries. Right now the focus is on finding the survivors because this tornado hit in the middle of the night, around 12:30 in the morning, and as you know, a lot of people are sleeping at that time. There are firefighters, there are search and rescue team members on the ground here now in East Nashville, and other neighborhoods going door to door with what's left of these buildings, hoping to find some survivors John back to you.</s>KING: Amara Walker, I greatly appreciate the live reporting on the ground to understand the depths of this devastation. Certainly our thoughts and prayers to the families affected. Amara thank you very much. After the break, we turn back to Super Tuesday and the stakes of Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg.