NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Mike DeWine and Gov. J.B. Pritzker
Interview
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CHUCK TODD:
In our new NBC News Wall Street Journal poll that is out this morning, we asked registered voters how much confidence they have in government leaders to handle the coronavirus outbreak. 75% say they have confidence in their state government. 72% said the same about their local government. 62% said the same about the federal government. And just 48% said they have that kind of confidence in President Trump individually. Governors, as the heads of state government, top that list. And we have two of them with us this morning, Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio and Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. Gentlemen, welcome to Meet the Press. As you both, I think heard, I referred to both of you during that interview with Dr. Fauci. Governor Pritzker, let me start with you with what happened overnight at O'Hare. And again, you weren't the only airport, but every major international airport seemed to have a similar situation. Dr. Fauci seemed to say, "Look, that is what's going to happen when you come back into this country." What do you believe should have been done that wasn't done?
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER:
Well, that's not right. I mean, I have enormous respect for Dr. Fauci, but that's just incorrect. We knew when the president gave the orders that European travel back to the United States was going to be cut off, that there would be an influx of people, Americans and others, that would come before the final cutoff. So what should've happened? They should've increased the Customs and Border Patrol numbers. And they should've increased the number of CDC personnel on the ground doing those checks. They did neither of those. So last night, as people were flooding into O'Hare Airport, they were stuck in a small area, hundreds and hundreds of people. And that's exactly what you don't want in this pandemic. So we had that problem. And then today, it's going to be even worse. There're a larger number of flights with more people coming and they seem completely unprepared.
CHUCK TODD:
So you have not gotten any reassurance from customs officials that they are going to have more folks on hand today?
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER:
Well, here's what I got. I got a call at about 11:00 last night after that tweet from a White House staffer who yelled at me about the tweet. That is what I got. Now, we've been talking to Customs and Border Patrol officials directly on the ground at O'Hare. I've been working with the mayor and our senators to make sure that we're getting the federal government to pay attention to this problem because we can't have it happen all day today.
CHUCK TODD:
Governor DeWine, you've been among the more -- governors that have -- I think, following Dr. Fauci's advice, and frankly, I think your own health official who said, "In pandemics, people think you're overreacting at the start. And then after it's over, they think you've underreacted." Based on what you heard from Dr. Fauci, are you going to close bars and restaurants in the state of Ohio?
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
We're certainly looking at that. You know, we started off last week closing the schools. We reduced the number of people gathered together to 100. You know, we've restricted access to our nursing homes, to our prisons. So we're taking tough steps. And Chuck, I think it's very instructive, I know people talked about this before, but I just looked at a chart. You look at the pandemic of 1918, you compare the two cities of St. Louis and Philadelphia, and you saw Philadelphia didn't get it. But the thing that I noticed in the chart is Philadelphia was only two weeks behind St. Louis. And so --
CHUCK TODD:
Wow.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
-- Philadelphia's went up straight like this. St. Louis is more like that. And so what it tells us is, you know, all the people I've been consulting, from Dr. Amy Acton, who's doing a great job as my health director, but to national experts, they say, "Look. Every day counts so much. And you cannot wait. You've got to move very, very quickly." And look, these are tough decisions. We're inconveniencing people. It's making people's lives change. But we've got to save lives. Everything we're doing is to save lives.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, it struck me, Governor, that on Wednesday I think you announced six cases, Thursday, 13, Friday, 26. We can do basic math here. Double, double, double. It's what Dr. Fauci said. I'm certain you're not excited about your 2:00 p.m. briefing today that you'll be doing. Do you have any indication that anything is bending this curve down to that mound yet?
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
Well, I don't think we can tell. But, you know, as the experts tell me, we're always way, way behind in what we know. Our testing is just now ramping up. For example, at Cleveland Clinic, University of Cincinnati, some other hospitals are just now basically coming online in their ability to test. So we're going to see the number of tests go up dramatically. But what I'm telling the people of Ohio, look, none of this should be a surprise. We know there's a bunch of people out there who are carrying this virus around. And that's part of the message, particularly to young people who maybe aren't so worried about it, the 20-somethings. Look, you may not get really, really sick. You may get lucky. But you may take that to your grandmother, who's 80. And we know people in their eighties, the mortality rates at least 15-20%.
CHUCK TODD:
Governor --
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
So everybody's got to take care of everybody else.
CHUCK TODD:
Governor Pritzker, and I'm sure other cities will be offended if I say this, Chicago does St. Patty's Day on a level that many other cities do not. I know you've been concerned about the crowds at bars and restaurants already over the weekend. Are you thinking about shutting down bars and restaurants, particularly after hearing what Dr. Fauci said?
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER:
Well, let me just compliment Governor DeWine and the other governors. We're the ones who've had to provide the leadership because the federal government just has fallen down on this. So they didn't advise us to shutdown major events, sporting events, parades. We made those decisions on our own. They are not the ones that advised us to close schools. We made those decisions on our own. So we're on our own out here. I wish we had leadership from Washington. We're not getting it. With regard to St. Patrick's Day, we shut down the parade. We didn't color the river green, as we usually do. And I have advised that we need to keep our crowds smaller. And yesterday we say that -- you know, we put a limit of 250 people in gatherings. We cancelled all the gatherings larger than that. And then yesterday what we saw was many young people who think they're impervious to this went out and celebrated. And I had my 2:30 briefing yesterday. Called out the problem of people on the street. And unfortunately, we haven't seen a lot of movement. People aren't understanding that, even if you're healthy, even if you're young, that you may be a carrier. And you're going to hand it over to somebody else. COVID-19 is spreading because even healthy people can be walking around, giving it to other people. So we need to go on lockdown.
CHUCK TODD:
I was just going to say, it sounds like then you -- so are you going to close bars and restaurants? That is your plan? You sort of contradicted yourself there, saying you were going to keep the size smaller, but then you're making the case to lockdown.
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER:
Well, what I'm telling you is that we've been on the trajectory now and planning for each of these steps because it's not easy. You can imagine each one of these decisions has consequences to them that are not just about the pandemic.
CHUCK TODD:
Of course.
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER:
They're also about people's livelihoods. So we're actually looking hard at that decision making today. We obviously saw what happened in Europe. Nowhere in the United States really has there been a lockdown on bars and restaurants, but it's something that we're seriously looking at.
CHUCK TODD:
Both of you have primaries on Tuesday. You have indicated, a couple of days ago, you guys will go forward. Any hesitance? Governor DeWine, you first.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
We're going to go ahead. But we're telling people, again, to be careful. The good thing in Ohio is we have basically four weeks of voting. People can vote today. We're urging them to go vote today.
CHUCK TODD:
Gotcha.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
They can vote Monday. They've got 13 hours on Tuesday. So that just naturally spreads it out. We're asking them to be very, very careful.
CHUCK TODD:
Governor Pritzker, any second thoughts about the primary on Tuesday?
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER:
We've done the same as Ohio. We have actually lengthened our hours of early voting. We have mail balloting. We've had record mail balloting this year. So we're going to go ahead with it. But we've been extra careful at all of our polling places. Everybody is practicing good hygiene. And we're making sure that it's safe for people to come and vote. The schools are closed, so many people will be voting in schools. And there won't be big crowds.
CHUCK TODD:
I have a feeling it may be the last primaries we have for a little while. Anyway, Governors DeWine and Pritzker, thank you both for joining us. I know these are long days and nights.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
Thank you, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Thank you both for your service.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
One of the great fears --
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER:
Thank you.
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