Trump says he’s confident U.S. is past the peak of COVID-19

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• Judy Woodruff:

  We check in again on the latest from the White House on the government's response to this pandemic.

  Our Yamiche Alcindor is with me now.

  Yamiche, you have been at the briefing. Tell us what you have been hearing.

• Yamiche Alcindor:

  Well, the big thing President Trump said today is that he is planning on announcing new guidelines for how to reopen some parts of the country tomorrow.

  So, the big news is coming tomorrow. He said that what the White House has been looking at, that they think they have passed the peak of this, and there are — there's been a lot of progresses in cities like Houston, New York, New Orleans.

  And he said that those numbers and that evidence is allowing him to say that some states might even be able to open before May 1. But the president is basically saying that he is ready to reopen parts of this government by May 1, and that, tomorrow, we're really just going to hear about the procedures to do that.

  Now, there's a lot of back and forth about whether or not that's going to be a good idea. Critics of the president say he might be jumping the gun. But the president seems very confident and that he wants to make that decision.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And just to clarify, Yamiche, the president is saying that the country has reached the peak and is now on the downslope?

• Yamiche Alcindor:

  That's right.

  He's saying that the country as a whole has reached the peak. Even though there are, of course, some parts of the country that are still struggling, he says that, overall, the country is doing much better and that we have passed the apex of this coronavirus crisis.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And we know also, Yamiche, the president has announced a big — essentially a pretty large council, a group of people who are working with him to reopen the country, get businesses going again.

  What were they saying about that today?

• Yamiche Alcindor:

  Well, the president announced a very long list of people that are going to be part of this White House task force to looking at reopening the government.

  And he said that those leaders are going to be helping him think about which parts of the economy can be reopened and how to do that.

  Now, today, we heard that, on a call with business leaders, those business leaders were telling the president that much more testing needs to be done in order to open large parts of the government.

  We're also hearing that there are executives who didn't know that their names would be on the list of people to be part of this task force until after the White House announced their names. So there are some people that are saying this is a chaotic task force and that this is being rolled out too swiftly.

  But the president is still adamant that he understands the way that this should work and the way it's going to work. So tomorrow is going to be a big day.

  Another thing that I want to say — it's a bit of a hard turn here, Judy, but the president was also railing against the idea that he's trying to push for some confirmations through the Senate, and that they're not being confirmed because Congress and the Senate in particular are out on recess.

  So, the president is also saying that he might push to adjourn Congress in order to get those nominations done.

  From what we can tell here at the "NewsHour," he can't actually do that. There was a Supreme Court ruling during the Obama administration that said that that wasn't possible.

  The other thing is that he said that he had confirmed some 448 judicial nominees. That's not accurate. The president has confirmed about 193 judges. So, that's about 200 less than what he was talking about today.

  So, apart from the fact that we're talking about this council, there was that — also that other piece of news.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And very quickly, finally, Yamiche, reporting that the president wanted his name on the checks that are going to people as part of the relief from this pandemic, what was said about that?

• Yamiche Alcindor:

  Well, there were reports that the president pushed to get his name added to these stimulus checks that Americans are going to get, about $1,200. We have been reporting about it.

  And his signature is going to end in — end up in the memo section, because he's not legally authorized to sign the checks. But this is a big break in protocol. The president was just asked about that on the White House lawn. He's still speaking as we speak. He's in the Rose Garden.

  And he said that he had no parts in that and that he didn't ask for his signature to be done or to be put on to those checks. But there are people, especially critics of the president, who say he's doing this to try to brand himself and to try to make it so that Americans think that he's the one who's giving them the checks personally.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Yamiche Alcindor, reporting on today's White House briefing.

  Yamiche, thank you.

• Yamiche Alcindor:

  Thanks.