JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: COVID at a crossroads.

As states look to reopen, one new government model forecasts a dramatic increase in U.S. deaths by June 1.

Then: how contact tracing can mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and limit the pandemic.

Plus: The Supreme Court goes live for the first time, streaming oral arguments in real time, as the court meets via telephone to comply with the social distancing rules.

And the U.S. Senate returns to Washington, the House stays home, as protests around the country challenge governors on opening up.

Our Politics Monday team previews the week.

All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: The world begins a new week in the era of COVID-19, and the global death count has reached a quarter-million.

That includes 68,000 in the United States.

Meanwhile, state by state, the country is taking more steps toward reopening.

Stephanie Sy begins our coverage tonight.

STEPHANIE SY: Barbers in Omaha, Nebraska, were back at work today.

CEARCY SMITH, Barber: Financially, it's been real bad, but I think I have pretty much missed the atmosphere of being to cut hair and being around people.

STEPHANIE SY: The state is further easing restrictions on some of the businesses shuttered by the pandemic.

Owners say it's a positive step toward a new normal.

KYLE BLAND, Barber: We will be doing appointments, appointments only, because we can only have 10 people in the shop at once.

STEPHANIE SY: The new wave of reopenings has come amid a push and pull across the country on when and how to resume public life.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said some retailers in his state could resume doing business this week.

In South Dakota, a Smithfield pork processing plant formerly closed due to hundreds of COVID-19 infections began partially reopening today.

And Boston was the scene of the latest protest demanding that officials drop restrictions, as hundreds gathered outside the state capitol building.

In the nation's Capitol, the Senate gaveled in for the first time in more than five weeks.

That wasn't the case across the Capitol, where the House of Representatives opted to stay away, while Washington, D.C., remains a virus hot spot.

Over the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined the Trump administration's offer to provide the rapid testing being used to screen visitors at the White House.

In a rare joint statement, they said those resources should go to front-line workers, where they can do the most good the most quickly.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, in a FOX News town hall, President Trump urged a broader return to work, even as he upped his estimate on how many Americans could die.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We're going to lose anywhere from 75,000, 80,000 to 100,000 people.

That's a horrible thing.

We shouldn't lose one person over this.

STEPHANIE SY: And The New York Times reported today that internal administration documents now project the toll could nearly double by June, with about 3,000 deaths a day.

The White House downplayed the report, saying it had gone through interagency vetting.

But new modeling from the University of Washington showed similar results, a projected death toll of 135,000 due to relaxed social distancing.

At the town hall, Mr. Trump also claimed, early briefings from his own intelligence community failed to depict the severity of the virus.

DONALD TRUMP: On January 23, I was told that there could be a virus coming in, but it was of no real import.

STEPHANIE SY: Meanwhile, Europe's hardest-hit countries are moving to loosen restrictions.

Small businesses in Spain opened their doors to customers today, but owners like Susana Puebla at this nail salon in Madrid said it is far from business as usual.

SUSANA PUEBLA, Owner, Nail Salon (through translator): It is not the same.

It's not the way it was before.

It's complicated now, because we have to disinfect a lot more than before.

But we are happy to be back.

STEPHANIE SY: And, in Italy, nearly 4.5 million people returned to work in certain industries, as the country logged its lowest new death count since the lockdown began in March.

It's a different story in Russia, where infections spiked by more than 10,000 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total tally to double what it was last week.

The world remains on guard, and, amid a global hunt for a vaccine, leaders, from Saudi Arabia to the European Union, joined a virtual summit to pledge billions for research.

The Trump administration decided not to take part.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Let's talk about some of these new reports about the projected death tolls and how it may be worse than what the president and some others had said recently, and what can be done to slow the spread of COVID.

Laurie Garrett is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and writer whose career has been devoted to tracking and reporting on infectious diseases.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Laurie Garrett, thank you so much for joining us.

We do have these apparently two new grim forecasts today.

I want to ask about the CDC report yet.

We haven't seen all the numbers.

The White House is saying it's not their numbers, but they are talking about, by June 1, 3,000 deaths a day.

They're talking about up to 200,000 new cases a day.

This is -- this is the wrong direction.

LAURIE GARRETT, Science Journalist: Absolutely, Judy.

And it's a huge, explosive growth they're predicting.

And it's basically -- if you look at the distribution that they are imagining, it's really the Prairie states, the sort of Mississippi Valley, and the Deep South states.

And it seems, I think -- though we don't have access to the raw data that they are working with, but it does seem to coincide with these outbreaks that have been occurring inside of meatpacking plants, nursing homes, Veterans Administration hospitals, that have claimed large numbers of workers in those facilities, but haven't yet generalized into the larger community.

And I think they're projecting that there will be generalization, that a typical -- an infected meatpacker, for example, might then infect their family members, some of those family members may infect local storekeepers, and so on.

So I think they're imagining a pretty explosive set of growths, all in fairly small remote areas, and, in many cases, rural counties.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

And do you think it's the same explanation for this new model that we are told is coming today from the University of Washington, where they are projecting the total number of deaths in the U.S. at 135,000, way beyond what it was before?

Do you -- is your reading of it same factors at work here?

LAURIE GARRETT: Again, we haven't been given a lot of the details that are used for the analyses yet.

But, yes, I think they're also looking at higher-than-expected new infections and deaths in this swathe of states, that is, the Mississippi Valley region, all the way up to the Canadian border.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I want to ask you to listen to some things that we have heard from President Trump in recent weeks, and then -- and ask you a question coming out of that.

Let's listen.

DONALD TRUMP: The data suggests that, nationwide, we have passed the peak on new cases.

A minimum, if we did nothing, would have been 1.6.

If you cut that in half, you are talking about 800,000, 900,000, a million people dying.

But we did a lot of work.

And I think, right now, we're hitting at probably around 60,000, maybe 65,000.

I think we have done a great job.

As you know, minimal numbers were -- minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people.

Minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people.

And we're going to be hopefully far below that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Laurie, I think a lot of people want to know, how is it that these projections could have been so off, if it turns out to be these new numbers are right?

LAURIE GARRETT: Well, first of all, this is not a stagnant situation.

We have been trying to respond to the virus.

So, measures have been taken in various key states, New York, Washington state, California, Massachusetts, taking very strong steps to try and mitigate the spread by having people go into lockdown.

Conversely, we have a number of states that have decided to actually back off.

The state of Ohio today just said that the governor wants companies to be required to report the names of workers who don't go to the jobs as they open up.

So, that's, you know, the government is demanding that you must risk your life.

You must go into a meatpacking plant.

You must go on to a job site.

So, we have a lot of actions being taken that make the situation quite fluid.

And whatever the snapshot of a moment is that you make your projections off of is, by definition, going to be a different snapshot tomorrow, and a different one the next day.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They're working, and yet the picture is more complicated than that.

What is the message, then, Laurie Garrett, to the American people from all this?

That, clearly, that they need to continue to practice the social distancing, handwashing, just the basic element that we have been practicing, but what more can Americans be doing?

LAURIE GARRETT: Well, I think, at this point, if I were the governor of any of these states that is projected to see significant increases, I would be ordering a lot of testing that is targeted to give me some of policy guidance.

I would test in meatpacking plants.

I would test in school settings, if there are schools still open, every nursing home, every assisted living center, any place where I still have people co-housed, Veterans Administration centers.

And I would want to know, do I have a trend day by day that shows increased transmission?

And, if I do, then that is a targeted community.

That is where I direct my resources.

I have to solve this problem immediately.

If we don't take smart steps, guide our testing in wise ways, then we're just going to be flailing around, racing behind the virus, which will be consistently, Judy, way ahead of us.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And one other thing, Laurie Garrett.

You have said for a long time that Americans have never sufficiently invested in public health, and that that is what is underlying so much of this.

LAURIE GARRETT: Absolutely.

I mean, just look at -- one of the key markers that indicates whether or not you as an individual are likely to have a severe outcome if infected and potentially succumb to COVID disease is hypertension.

Well, hypertension is the cheapest, easiest intervention imaginable.

You know, just slap the cuff on, check your blood pressure.

And we have a raft of medications that will help you.

We know how to bring down high blood pressure.

That is a perfect marker for lack of access to consistent public health interventions and medical care.

And when you look at the racial distribution and the class distribution on who is dying right now across America of COVID, you can see it is exactly the same as who is not getting treated for their hypertension, who is not getting appropriate basic health interventions on an ongoing basis.

But a huge percentage of America has no consistent health care, doesn't have a doctor by name.

A situation, a crisis of this scale hits, they have nowhere to turn, that we have a patchwork mosaic of public health systems, a patchwork mosaic of guidances and government responses.

You cross a county line, and it is a whole different ball game.

This is not the way to stop a national epidemic.

This is chaos.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, no question a lot of us are so much more fortunate than many, many other Americans.

Laurie Garrett, thank you so much for putting it in perspective, science journalist and writer Laurie Garrett.

Thank you.

LAURIE GARRETT: Thank you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: The U.S. Treasury said that it will borrow a record amount of money in this quarter to cover pandemic relief, nearly $3 trillion.

That's well over twice the total for all of last year.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned that it's hard to tell if international travel can restart this year on anything more than a limited basis.

He said Americans should focus on resuming domestic travel.

For the first time ever, the U.S. Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments by phone today from their homes or offices due to the pandemic.

And in another first, the audio was heard live.

The case involved whether the travel Web site Booking.com has the legal right to trademark its name.

We will take a closer look later in the program.

The Supreme Court of Israel heard legal challenges today to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition.

He struck a deal last month with former rival Benny Gantz.

Among other -- and among things, it lets Netanyahu remain in office, despite facing trial on corruption charges.

His defense team argued today to a panel of 11 judges, all in face masks, that the governing bloc is legitimate.

MICHAEL RABELLO, Attorney for Benjamin Netanyahu (through translator): We are in a situation where, in fact, inside this government are the two poles of the Israeli public.

It's not that the government is not formed.

The coalition and opposition were brought into the government and were given the possibility to serve together.

JUDY WOODRUFF: If the court rejects the coalition deal, it could trigger a forth election in a little more than a year.

Separately, the justices are considering whether Netanyahu can remain in office.

Back in this country, the secretary of the U.S. Senate declined Joe Biden's request to release any potential records on file involving a sexual assault allegation.

The secretary cited confidentiality rules.

Former staffer Tara Reade says that then Senator Biden assaulted her in 1993, and that she filed a report.

The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism are out.

ProPublica and The Anchorage Daily News were honored today for exposing a lack of policing in Alaskan villages.

The New York Times won for international reporting on the Russian government, plus two other prizes.

And The Washington Post won for its reporting on the environment.

In the arts, the musical "A strange Loop" by Michael R. Jackson took the drama prize.

And Colson Whitehead received his second fiction prize, this one for "The Nickel Boys" about a reform school in Florida.

On Wall Street today, managed modest gains today.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 26 points to close at 23749.

The Nasdaq rose 105 points to close at 8711.

And the S&P 500 was up 12.

And the winningest coach in pro football history, Don Shula, has died at his home in South Florida.

He had 347 victories with the Baltimore Colts and the Miami Dolphins.

In 1972, he led Miami to the NFL's only undefeated season, winning a Super Bowl that year and the next.

Don Shula was 90 years old.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": the Trump administration continues to criticize China over the spread of the coronavirus; and capturing images of the pandemic -- perspective from a photojournalist.

With, as we heard earlier, the number of cases expected to climb in coming weeks, many experts say the next phase in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic will require aggressive contact tracing.

Amna Nawaz reports on how tracing works, why it could help, and the concerns over privacy.

AMNA NAWAZ: Krysta Cass' path to medicine was not the norm.

A West Point grad, she served three tours of duty for the U.S. Army, then went on to become a physician's assistant in Boston.

In March, like many places during the pandemic, all elective surgeries here were paused.

KRYSTA CASS, Contact Tracer: We can't operate and replace hips and knees right now.

I just kept thinking, what can I do?

How can I help?

How can I be involved in this public health crisis?

AMNA NAWAZ: Massachusetts has nearly 70,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

And, last month, Governor Charlie Baker gave Krysta her answer, announcing a new phase in the state's fight against the virus: aggressive contact tracing.

KRYSTA CASS: I was one of the first applicants.

I could not wait to get my hands on this.

AMNA NAWAZ: Krysta was hired by Partners In Health, a Boston-based global health nonprofit working with the state to hire, train and deploy 1,000 new contact tracers, at a cost of $44 million.

The process is straightforward, but time-intensive.

First, contact all new confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Find out everyone they came into contact with while sick.

Then reach out to those people to tell them they may have been exposed, and will need to quarantine.

What are the first lines you deliver to people?

KRYSTA CASS: I would say, hi, I'm Krysta.

I'm calling from the community tracing collaborative for the Department of Health.

I'm calling to let you know that you have been exposed in the past week to someone who was diagnosed recently with COVID-19.

And then I take a break, because that's a -- that's a lot to handle and a lot to hear.

AMNA NAWAZ: The work, she says, is about more than just informing people they might have been exposed.

Contact tracers explain how to quarantine the right way, how people can protect their families, get groceries and medicine, pay their bills, even find help for domestic abuse.

KRYSTA CASS: We are not just collecting data.

We're doing more than that.

We are becoming extensions of our client, of our contact's social support system, and we're connecting them with the resources they need.

AMNA NAWAZ: Used around the globe in response to diseases like cholera, HIV and Ebola, contact tracing has long been a critical public health tool to map and control outbreaks.

JEREMY KONYNDYK, Former USAID Official: This is how you stop running away from the virus and start chasing it down.

AMNA NAWAZ: Now with the Center for Global Development, Jeremy Konyndyk helped manage the Obama administration's Ebola response in West Africa, relying heavily on contact tracing.

Ramping up a national program here, he says, could not only help stop the spread.

It could help avoid large-scale shutdowns.

JEREMY KONYNDYK: Because of inadequate testing and because we don't have a national contact tracing infrastructure in place in the United States, we, in effect, have to presumptively quarantine the whole population.

But with contact tracing at scale and testing at scale, then you have the ability to quarantine only those people who have actually been exposed to the virus.

AMNA NAWAZ: Digital tools to track people's movements, he says, like those used in Singapore, Israel, South Korea, and many other countries could also help.

But tackling the scale of infection here in the U.S., on top of years of slashing state health budgets, means more federal leadership is needed.

JEREMY KONYNDYK: The estimates now from Johns Hopkins are that we may need somewhere around 100,000 contact tracers across the United States.

And I think that that's the sort of order of magnitude we need to be thinking on here.

That's a lot of people, but, also, that's an achievable thing.

AMNA NAWAZ: Some estimate the U.S. will need nearly double that number of contact tracers, but, so far, states are largely rolling out their own individual plans.

North and South Dakota are two of a handful of states which have not issued stay-at-home orders during COVID-19.

Together, they have so far seen around 3,500 confirmed cases, with fewer than 50 deaths.

Officials now hope a new location-based app can aid their efforts to keep the virus at bay.

TIM BROOKINS, App Developer: It turns out that most people, including myself, can't remember on a good day where I was five days ago, let alone if you're sick.

AMNA NAWAZ: Tim Brookins is an app developer in Fargo, North Dakota.

In 2014, he developed Bison Tracker, an app that let North Dakota state football fans track each other as they traveled together to away games.

In April, he repurposed that app into this one, the Care19 app, which tracks and compiles users' locations, so, if they do test positive, they can easily share that data with a contact tracer.

Brookins says it will protect users' identities, while making the process more efficient and accurate.

But he acknowledges these efforts require buy in.

TIM BROOKINS: It's hard.

People need to really take time to digest, you know, what is the new normal after this, and, you know, come to terms with the idea of location tracking.

AMNA NAWAZ: Google and Apple recently announced they're working on contact tracing technology, too, to roll out in mid-may.

But the rushed tech response has some privacy experts worried.

JON CALLAS, American Civil Liberties Union: We're essentially building the airplane while it's flying.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jon Callas is a former security expert at Apple, now with the American Civil Liberties Union.

They recently published a report outlining principles to protect privacy and civil rights in contact tracing technologies.

Among those principles, that the technology used should be voluntary, tracking information should be stored on a user's phone, rather than a government or company server, the data should be routinely cleared out, and these programs should end when the pandemic does.

Callas says these are necessary steps, not only to protect the public from increased surveillance, as seen in China, but for public health efforts to fight the pandemic to be effective.

JON CALLAS: We have to get the trust of the people who are using this.

If people don't trust that this is a system that will benefit them and their community, they won't use it.

They will balk.

They will push back.

I mean, we already see people in the United States who are pushing back on things.

AMNA NAWAZ: Ultimately, though, experts agree the digital tools should complement human contact tracers, not replace them.

KRYSTA CASS: While the app may be efficient, it's not familiar, nor does it have a human voice on the other end of it saying, by the way, I know I'm telling you that you have been exposed, and the second thing I want you to know is, I'm here for you through this process.

AMNA NAWAZ: A process to slow the spread, save lives, and maybe even prevent future waves of the virus.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Amna Nawaz in Washington.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It was a Supreme Court argument unlike any other it had held before, not for the legal issues at stake, but for the logistics of holding proceedings during a pandemic over the telephone and broadcasting live as it happened.

Yamiche Alcindor begins there.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Today, the Supreme Court was in session, but you could hardly tell by the relative quiet outside the courthouse.

JOHN ROBERTS, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: We'll hear argument this morning.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Instead, it was the voice of Chief Justice John Roberts that kicked off today's oral arguments over the phone.

JOHN ROBERTS: Case 19-46, United States Patent and Trademark Office versus Booking.com.

Ms. Ross?

WOMAN: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court:.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: It's a first for the Supreme Court.

Justices normally hear arguments and in person.

The socially distanced justices, four of them in their 70s and 80s, took turns questioning attorneys over the phone.

The arguments they heard today had been rescheduled because of the pandemic.

And there were the occasional glitches.

For a few seconds, bad audio rendered Justice Stephen Breyer hard to hear: JOHN ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

Justice Breyer?

STEPHEN BREYER, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court: Thank you.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But any issues were minor in an argument that also included questions from Justice Clarence Thomas.

JOHN ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

Justice Thomas?

CLARENCE THOMAS, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court: Yes, Ms. Ross, a couple of questions.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: It was just his third time posing questions at argument over at least a decade.

Today's arguments were in a trademark case involving the travel Web site Booking.com.

Also this month, cases about religious exemptions to the Affordable Care Act's birth control coverage mandate, disputes over subpoenas for President Trump's financial records, and the issue of faithless electors in presidential elections.

Until now, for the public, following an argument live has meant having to get a seat inside the courtroom, where electronics are banned.

For closely watched cases, long lines for seats are the norm.

But in another first, the broader public could listen to today's arguments live.

Marcia Coyle of "The National Law Journal": MARCIA COYLE, "The National Law Journal": The normal window into the operation of the court, especially during oral arguments, is really through the reporters who cover the court, the stories they write.

There are several courtroom artists who draw pictures of the action.

The audio of the argument is posted on the court's Web site, but not until the Friday of the week in which a particular case was argued.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In the few times the court has done same-day audio releases, they were for arguments in the most extraordinary of cases.

Some lower federal courts allow news cameras in for some proceedings or provide audio or video streams themselves.

But the Supreme Court's operations have a history of being slow to keep up with technology.

For example, its opinions were printed using hot metal typesetting, until the 1980s, when it moved to electronic printing.

Over the years, some justices have let it be known they have doubts about broader media access to arguments.

Almost a quarter-century ago, a House panel questioned now retired Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter about letting news cameras in.

DAVID SOUTER, Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice: I can tell you that the day you see a camera coming to our courtroom, it's going to roll over my dead body.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: As recently as last year, Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan expressed their own concerns, also before a House panel.

SAMUEL ALITO, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court: Allowing the arguments to be televised would undermine their value to us as a step in decision-making process.

I think lawyers would find it irresistible to try to put in a little sound bite, in the hope of being that evening on CNN or FOX or MSNBC or one of the broadcast networks.

ELENA KAGAN, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court: I think we would filter ourselves in ways that would be unfortunate, in other words, the first time you see something on the evening news, which, taken out of context, suggest something that you never meant to suggest, suggests that you have an opinion on some issue that you, if fact, don't have.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But now that the court has adjusted to the times, at least for these first two weeks in May, will audio livestreaming stick around, even after the pandemic has passed?

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Yamiche Alcindor.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can listen to the Supreme Court oral arguments yourself on our Web site at PBS.org/NewsHour.

The war of words between Beijing and Washington is getting more aggressive by the day.

Now the Trump White House is boosting a theory that says the coronavirus was accidentally released from a research lab in Wuhan, where the outbreak began.

Here's Nick Schifrin on the tense international politics of the pandemic.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Judy, that war of words accelerated yesterday, with both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laying the blame on China, and specifically on that lab in Wuhan.

Let's take a listen to President Trump last night on a FOX News town hall, suggesting that coronavirus was accidentally released from that lab.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: And my opinion is, they made a mistake, they tried to cover it, they tried to put it out.

It's like a fire.

It's really like trying to put out a fire.

They couldn't put out the fire.

What they really treated the world badly on, they stopped people going into China, but they didn't stop people going into the USA And all over the world.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So, is President Trump and the Trump administration right to point the finger at China for the coronavirus and the spread to the United States and the rest of the world?

For that, we get two views.

Tony Blinken is senior foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Joe Biden.

He served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration.

And Rebeccah Heinrichs is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. She's worked as a foreign policy adviser to Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Thank you very much.

Welcome, both, back to the "NewsHour."

Tony Blinken, let me start with you.

So, has President Trump been correct in pointing out that China, at least locally, covered up the virus in the early days and that led to the spread of COVID-19?

TONY BLINKEN, Former U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser: So, that's only half the story.

Clearly, China, the government of China, has to be held accountable for failing to provide information in a timely fashion, failing to give access to international inspectors to get to the bottom of what happened.

But the other half of the story is this.

Unfortunately, tragically, the Trump administration took down or undermined a lot of defenses that previous administrations had put in place to be able to warn of a pandemic, including a pandemic emerging from China.

And then, when the pandemic emerged in China, and the system was flashing red, the president did virtually nothing about it and, unfortunately, misled the American people for the better part of two months about this danger that was heading our way.

NICK SCHIFRIN: OK, Rebeccah Heinrichs, you just heard a blaming of China, but.

Do you believe there's a but there?

Has President Trump failed in his response over the last few months?

REBECCAH HEINRICHS, The Hudson Institute: No, I think it is much too early to give such a harsh grade to the Trump administration, when we are just adapting to the data that comes in.

The critical piece of why the Trump administration is so right to make sure that they counter the narrative that the Chinese government maybe made a mistake, but isn't ultimately to blame, to counter that argument, you have to go out there and say what is true.

And the truth of the matter is, it's not just that the Chinese government covered up, they obfuscated, they lied, they didn't give the information they needed, but they continue to this day to silence doctors, to censor academic research within China related to the origins of the virus.

The onus is on the Chinese government, because it originated in their country, to show the world where this thing comes from, provide all of the data that individuals need.

And even to this day, they're still imprisoning people, disappearing people and censoring them, which that is what -- that is why there is such suspicion surrounding all of this.

If China wants to be a world player, they are going to have to act like a responsible actor and demonstrate that, they can be trusted on something so serious as this.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Tony Blinken, in late December, there were doctors in Wuhan who were trying to sound the alarm.

Those people were silenced.

And it took China weeks, at least publicly, to admit that there was human-to-human transmission.

Is the Trump administration right to point all those things out?

TONY BLINKEN: You know, I agree with Rebeccah that, as a great nation, China has great responsibilities.

And in this case, the responsibilities are even more acute because the virus originated in China.

But we have great responsibilities too.

And our administration in particular does.

And so, when you take down virtually all of the programs and personnel that were put in place by previous administrations to predict, prevent and mitigate a pandemic, including one originating in China, that is a problem.

And then, when the pandemic starts to emerge in China, and you ignore your own intelligence community, not once, not twice, but a dozen times -- remember, before 9/11, there was a famous item in the president's daily brief saying, bin Laden determined to attack United States.

That is based on post-reporting, the equivalent of what President Trump received, not once, not twice, but a dozen times, in January and February.

And not only did he not insist that China live up to its responsibilities by giving access to our inspectors, by making sure that information was forthcoming.

Instead, at that very moment, when China was not being forthcoming, what did he do?

He praised the government in Beijing for being transparent.

He praised it for its cooperation.

And I might point out, at the very -- that very moment, Joe Biden was calling on the president not to take the government's word for it in China, to hold them to account, to insist on the information, to get our inspectors into labs in Wuhan.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Rebeccah Heinrichs, I have talked to intelligence community officials who confirm that, yes, they were trying to sound the alarm in January.

I have talked to National Security Council officials who also were trying to sound the alarm within the administration.

And they do fear that their response wasn't quick enough.

What about that?

Was the administration's response quick enough?

Should the president have been more critical of China in January than he really was?

REBECCAH HEINRICHS: But I think if you look at -- there was a -- there is a disconnect between the president's rhetoric through the early part of March and his policies that he implemented, including the travel restrictions from China into the United States.

And I think part of that was because he was trying to calibrate a response, to instill some trust in the market, not knowing exactly the effect that this virus is going to have in the United States.

I do think that that was a mistake.

That paled in comparison to, I think, a lot of the good the administration is doing with the information they have.

And, again, it is not a side issue to keep going back to China.

It is the central issue, because the -- some of the -- when President Trump sent out that tweet in mid-January, my understanding is, the administration was desperately trying to get Americans in country to get ahold of the sequence for COVID-19 in order to get information.

And so the president believe that he could flatter Xi Jinping, at least enough to smooth out that relationship to get Americans in country, and that was his primary concern.

We can argue over whether or not that was wise, but we can understand the motivation for him doing that.

He's not confused about the nature of the CCP.

To this day, there was a doctor in Shanghai that was trying to sound the alarm and give the genome sequence to other individuals outside the country.

And then that lab was promptly shut down by the CCP.

The wet market was sanitized.

The animals were destroyed, rather than having lab work from the -- from the animals, when the WHO went in country.

All of these things are -- lead many people to be suspicious about why the Chinese government isn't being open and honest.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And I want to quickly turn to world leadership in the time have that I have left.

Tony Blinken, the World Health Organization repeated Chinese claims, which we now know to be incorrect, that the virus had no human-to-human transmission through January.

And the Trump administration, of course, has been very critical of the WHO, and has frozen funds to the WHO because of some of those mistakes early on.

Do you believe that that freezing could help create the reforms in the WHO that many believe are necessary?

TONY BLINKEN: As to the WHO, it clearly fell short of the mark.

But it's ironic, because the president says the WHO was not quick enough in pointing the finger at what was going on in China and then wasn't critical enough of the Chinese government, which, of course, are accusations much more accurately directed at President Trump himself.

Going forward, we need to make sure that the WHO can act effectively.

My concern is this.

As we pull out, who goes in?

China.

They will expand their influence in the WHO.

They will expand their influence in all the places that we're retreating from as a consistent matter in this administration.

That's not a way to exhibit American strength, to show American influence.

It is a way, actually, to help the government in Beijing expand its own influence.

REBECCAH HEINRICHS: Well, first of all, the United States government money, combined with non-government money, has given more than $6.5 billion to our allies and partners abroad to fight coronavirus.

That's 12 times the amount that the Chinese government has provided.

And then, of course, the United States continues to be -- I think, give 40 percent to the world food organization, the World Food Bank to make sure that the secondary effects that coronavirus is causing, the economic devastation to other vulnerable countries, to continue -- that there is still food there.

So the United States is still the world leader in generosity and benevolence.

And you can see that in the midst of this global pandemic.

As for the WHO, the United States has still contributed far more to the WHO, even though the WHO was essentially acting like a mouthpiece propaganda outlet for the Chinese government.

And so it's not all about money.

Sometimes, money isn't the thing that's going to influence organizations like the WHO.

So I don't understand why people continue to say that we should be giving more money.

And so I think that the Trump administration is absolutely right on to withhold funding until we see reforms in the WHO.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Rebeccah Heinrichs, Tony Blinken, thank you very much to you both.

TONY BLINKEN: Thanks.

REBECCAH HEINRICHS: Thanks.

JUDY WOODRUFF: As the Senate returned to Washington and House members stayed home, last night, on FOX News, President Trump declared the economy is on its way to a speedy recovery.

Here to analyze the politics of his response and more, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and the host of public radio's "Politics With Amy Walter," and Tamara Keith of NPR.

She also co-hosts the "NPR Politics Podcast."

Hello to both of you.

And before I turn to you, I want to let you listen to some of what President Trump had to say at this FOX town hall last night, and also some of what Joe Biden had to say today at a different town hall that had to do with helping essential workers, particularly in the Latino community.

Let's listen to both of those, and I will come back.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: You get a job where you make more money, frankly.

And I think that's going to happen.

I think we're going to have an incredible following year.

We're going to go into a transition in the third quarter, and we're going to see things happening that look good.

I really believe that.

I have a good feel for this stuff.

I have done it for a long time.

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), Presidential Candidate: You know, I have put out a detailed plan about what I think we should be doing right now to support our front-line workers and address the disparities we're seeing with COVID-19 impacts all across the country.

And I truly think that, if we do this right, we have an incredible opportunity to not just dig out of this crisis, but to fundamentally transform the country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Amy, I'm going to come to you first.

You have the president pivoting to talk about the economy at a time when, frankly, the numbers of cases and deaths on COVID are not looking very good.

The president acknowledged that in part last night.

But he's talking about the economy, saying it's going to get better.

Joe Biden, on the other hand, talking about how we need to protect these front-line workers.

What do you make of these two approaches?

Here we are in May of this election year.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: That's right.

You can hear it with President Trump last night in that town hall.

He was so nostalgic for that time before COVID, when the economy was strong, his numbers on handling the economy so strong, and his focus was winning the election on the strength of a good economy.

And now here we are with this pandemic that is not just devastating our health, but obviously devastating the economy.

And he wants to, and he said over and over again, bring America back, we need to get Americans working, we need to get this economy back.

With Joe Biden, what I find really interesting, Judy, is that -- especially that clip that put in there, was Joe Biden was attacked by many in the progressive community for not wanting to be progressive -- for not being progressive enough, for being really a status-quo stand-in.

And what he's doing is not just talking about bringing the economy back, but putting a focus on the people who are looking to make more structural -- what he is looking to do is make more structural change by focusing on the people who right now are not just on the front lines -- he talked a lot about meatpacking workers -- but who also are -- were doing poorly in the economy before the COVID-19 outbreak and continue to struggle even now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Tam, as you listen to this and you look at what these two candidates are saying, what does it tell you about where they see themselves in this contest?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: President Trump wanted his campaign slogan, had been sort of rolling out to be, keep America great.

And now it's more like, make America great again, again.

But, you know, you have a situation where you have the president of the United States with all the advantages of incumbency that a president of the United States has.

And you have Joe Biden sort of stuck in his basement doing these Webcasts, trying his best to campaign.

But it's very different.

Now, obviously, President Trump can't go to rallies.

He is yearning for a day when he can get back out in an arena with 25,000 people.

Unclear when or if that will happen.

But, certainly, he still has the ability to, you know, get on Air Force One, like he's going to do tomorrow, and sort of flaunt the power of the presidency.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That's right, Amy.

The president tomorrow is going to fly from Washington to Arizona to visit a company where they manufacture protective gear, masks that people are wearing right now.

How much of an advantage does the president have at a time like this?

Joe Biden is at home.

AMY WALTER: Right.

And you could hear if that audio, he wasn't just in the basement.

He was sitting, I think, on some sort of porch or something.

You could hear crickets or frogs or something in the background, while the president gets to not only fly in Air Force One, but sits at the Lincoln Memorial.

The contrast couldn't be stronger.

At the same time even with those advantages, Judy, the president is still looking at approval ratings that are in some cases 20 to 30 points lower than governors in many of these states, red states, blue states.

All these governors have used this opportunity in the spotlight, under this crisis moment, to meet that moment.

This president has met it in the same way he meets every moment, which is in this very polarizing, sort of predictable way.

And so what should be a big advantage of a bully pulpit has not worked out that way.

(CROSSTALK) JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Tam -- go ahead, Tam.

TAMARA KEITH: This trip to Arizona is an official event.

It is not a campaign event.

But it is not a coincidence that the president is going to Arizona.

It's a state that he won in 2016.

But the reality is that it's fully in play in 2020.

His campaign has talked to -- I talked to someone from his campaign today.

They have had people on the ground there since 2015.

But there's a real sense that this is a state that they're going to have to fight for, that Arizona used to be red Arizona, isn't a guarantee.

And, certainly, under the current circumstances, it's not a guarantee.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Amy, you brought up the governors.

We are seeing right now a number of states, I guess, what is it, they're saying 29, 30 states, go ahead and planning to open up again, even with these forecasts of rising cases and deaths.

And the states that seem to be moving ahead, more of them have Republican governors.

The states that are saying, no, let's wait, more of them have Democratic governors.

How partisan is this right now?

AMY WALTER: Yes, it's really interesting, Judy.

The Kaiser Foundation had an interesting pullout this morning that looked at -- or some data out this morning that looked at the rate of growth, especially over the last two weeks, in states that had Democratic governors and states that had Republican governors.

Now, while it is true that states that have Democratic governors overall have more deaths, even per capita, than those who have red governors, when you look over the last two weeks at the rate of growth in both cases and deaths, it is the red states that are seeing an incredible uptick.

So, the question -- and you are right to ask this, Judy -- is, what if this is true that we're not only going to see more cases, but more deaths in red states?

Is that going to change the perception by people who live in those states and governors on this issue?

And what I found really interesting, I was digging through some polls taken in Michigan and in Florida.

These are two battleground states.

One has a Democratic governor.

One has a Republican governor.

When you asked voters in those states, how worried are you about actually contracting coronavirus, and then asked specifically, very worried or somewhat worried, the people who said they were very worried also happened to line up pretty closely with whether you were a Clinton voter or not.

So, in Michigan, it was something like 52 percent of Clinton voters said they were very worried about that, of getting coronavirus, 57 percent in Florida.

But among voters who voted for Trump in 2016, a quarter or a third said they were very worried about this issue.

So, you can see at that moment, whether you have a red governor -- you're in a red state or a blue state, governor who is Democrat, governor who's Republican, the voter themselves and the ideological lens through which they're looking also is impacting how serious they believe the threat of COVID infection is.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Tam, you have got 30 seconds.

TAMARA KEITH: Yes.

So, I was talking to a researcher at Hamilton College about this.

And he was pointing out that, up until this point, there's been sort of a disproportionate weight of the coronavirus being borne by counties that were Clinton counties, that went for Hillary Clinton.

And there are also a lot of racial disparities that are underlying that and might explain why the politics are the way they are.

But that could certainly change as the virus changes the way it affects the country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So interesting, these numbers state by state.

We're seeing things we didn't see just a month or so ago.

Tamara Keith, Amy Walter, we thank you both.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For weeks, photographer John Moore has been bringing his camera to the front lines of the pandemic to document the new realities of life in America.

He has accompanied emergency medical workers, and he's gone inside intensive care units.

Here's a look at some of what he has seen.

It's part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.

JOHN MOORE, Getty Images: I'm John Moore, and I'm a staff photographer and special correspondent for Getty Images.

Getty images sent me to Seattle.

It was early March.

The disease had already spread to a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, which is just outside of Seattle.

And so I was photographing the empty city of Seattle and what was happening outside of nursing homes.

And I was in Seattle for about a week.

And then I flew back once the crisis really began to be obvious here on the East Coast of the U.S. And my flight back from Seattle to New York City was virtually empty.

And so I photographed really the emptiness, which would become our society in general in public places.

And I began covering the epidemic really from the outskirts of the epicenter.

But what affects New York City affects the areas all around it.

So, whether it's New Jersey, whether it's Long Island in New York, Westchester County or Southern/Southwestern Connecticut, everyone is affected in some way or another.

I have photographed testing sites.

I photographed schools that are empty.

I have photographed families at home to show what that looks like, also for immigrant families, because I think the immigrant community, especially the undocumented community, is -- is really highly affected.

They don't have -- many of them don't have health insurance, and very few of them have any protections when they're unemployed.

Of course, when I'm photographing in intimate environments, it's important for me to maintain my own health, so I can keep covering the story in a way that's meaningful to our viewers.

On the other hand, it's so important for me to protect the people I'm photographing.

For instance, I will give you an example.

There was one case where EMS workers in Yonkers went to a house and had to intubate a man who was barely breathing when they arrived.

And that situation was just incredible to see.

You hear about intubations, but you almost never see it.

And so I tried to photograph it in a way that gave respect to the gentleman that they were trying to save -- and they did -- and still show the drama of the moment.

And those are very, very delicate moment, very sensitive moments.

When you talk to first responders, to paramedics, it's interesting.

Yes, people are seeing them as heroes.

They're doing heroic work.

And it's amazing.

But, at the same time, it's incredible.

People are just being heroes doing the jobs they normally do.

But that's what we have here.

And I think we're all very thankful for them.

For me, it's important that this story be told, not only in terms of statistics.

We hear about this all the time, thousands of people infected, thousands of people died.

But it's about human beings.

And I want to show what that looks like, where people can really see what's happening to other human beings that shows the heroism of the EMS workers who are doing this important work, and the hospital workers who are taking care of people on the other side.

And if I can show that and bring it to a human level, then I have done my job.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And they truly are heroes.

And we thank you, John Moore.

And on the "NewsHour" online right now: Libraries across the country have closed their doors during the pandemic, but it doesn't mean their work stops.

As summer reading season approaches, librarians share their book recommendations for kids of all ages.

You can find that list on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And before we go, May the 4th -- did I say that right?

-- has become an unofficial holiday for Star Wars fans.

So, we leave you tonight with an excerpt from composer and conductor John Williams and the Vienna Philharmonic playing "The Imperial March," as we all look forward to the day when we go to concerts and movies again.

(MUSIC) JUDY WOODRUFF: On this May the 4th, John Williams and the Vienna Philharmonic.

And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.

For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," stay safe, thank you, and we'll see you soon.