[John Vause, Cnn Anchor:] Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause. Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, meet Czar Pence, the man who will save America from the coronavirus even though the U.S. president continues to downplay the threat, contradicting his most senior health officials. Military stand-down as South Korea declares the coronavirus threat severe; joint exercises with the U.S. put on hold. The worst religious violence in decades between Hindus and Muslims leaves dozens dead and hurt in the Indian capital. Mosques set on fire while a Hindu nationalist flag flies from another, sending an ominous warning to Muslims.
[Vause:] In Czar Mike Pence a nation trusts. Donald Trump has appointed his president to oversee the government's response to the outbreak of the coronavirus. On the daze of mixed messages with the administration playing down the threat, senior government health experts have publicly warned the country to prepare for an eventual outbreak on U.S. soil, the president made very appearance in the White House press room to try to correct the record. But he continued to undercut the warning from his own experts.
[Trump:] We are ready for it. It is what it is. We are ready for it. We are prepared. We have, as I said, the greatest people in the world. We are ready for it. We hope it doesn't spread. There's a chance it won't spread and there is a chance it will. That is the question about what level. So far we've done a great job.
[Vause:] Vice president Pence could be facing some difficult days ahead. Sources have told CNN the president is mostly concerned about the reaction on Wall Street, which has seen stocks down for three days in a row and the impact that could have on his chances for reelection. There are indications the outbreak may soon get a whole lot worse. The Centers for Disease Control says a patient in Sacramento, California, could be the first U.S. case of community spread; in other words no link to China. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains.
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Chief Medical Correspondent:] It's unclear how this person got coronavirus. Maybe they did get exposed to someone who was infected. We're not sure how this happened. But it could represent the first example of community transmission and that is something we've been talking about for some time. This idea you haven't traveled there, haven't come in contact with a known infected person yet you still have the coronavirus. That is an indication the virus is now here and starting to spread within communities. Again, the CDC is still going to chase this down. It's unclear if that patient represents this first evidence of community spread. But the president has been saying for some time it's not inevitable that this will happen. Maybe we don't have any community spread at all, which has been at odds with what we're hearing from the CDC, who has been saying is not a question of if community spread will happen, it's a question of when it will happen. That is why so much tension is going to be paid to that one patient and will give you details as we get them.
[Vause:] Joining us now from New York, Rana Foroohar is CNN's global economic analyst as well as a columnist and associate editor for the "Financial Times." Rana, good to have you with us.
[Rana Foroohar, Cnn Correspondent:] Thank you.
[Vause:] The reality is the number of cases in the U.S. is low. One of the reasons for that is because China acted quickly and decisively and slowed the spread of the outbreak, which is something the president seems to be taking credit for. Here he is.
[Trump:] Because of all we've done the risk to the American people remains very low. We have the greatest experts in the world right the people that are called upon by other countries when things like this happen. We are ready to adapt and we're ready to do whatever we have to as the disease it spreads if it spreads.
[Vause:] "If it spreads." What the Trump administration has done is cut the budgets, which we know will be on the front of the crisis like this. This has been in the past two years. His administration has eliminated funding and shut the entire global health security unit, which is part of the National Security Council and eliminated what was a complex crisis fund, $30 million. Which was money that could be spent by the secretary of state. In the past two years, cut the health budgets by a total of $15 billion. What is notable is that, yes, there is a plan in place for this crisis. But what about the next one and the one after that and after that?
[Foroohar:] Absolutely. They are coming. There's no question about. I find it so incredibly ironic that the president is taking credit for what China has done. Look, there has been criticisms and compliments about how China has handled the crisis. There was a lack of transparency in the beginning about the number of cases. But one of the ironic upsides about autocracy is you can order people to stay in their homes and apartments. We will not be able to do that here in the U.S. Meanwhile all the health experts are saying we are not ready. There are not the resources in place that there should be under this type of crisis. And you've got the president really underplaying that health officials are saying, get ready. This is going to be a big deal. It's so worrisome on so many levels.
[Vause:] This administration has been lying since day one about crowd sizes, about using a Sharpie to change the track of a hurricane; Mexico would pay for the wall, the White House has a total lack of credibility. Could this when all the lies come home to roost?
[Foroohar:] If you start to see schools being shuttered, we're hearing talk about large auditoriums, public gathering centers, getting ready for being intake centers, if the outbreak should get out of control. These are the things that the president is going to have to deal with. He's also going to have to deal with the market fallout. And I think that frankly that may be one of the reasons that he's underplaying this. As you well know, the markets are reacting very strongly and they are very worried that this could be not only a dip in stocks but it could be a synchronized global recession.
[Vause:] With that in mind, at a news conference on Wednesday night, the U.S. president continued to undercut the message, from his own senior health officials.
[Question:] Just in the course of the last couple of minutes, you have disputed some of what the officials that are working in your administration, behind you, have said about the risk of the coronavirus, that it will spread. Do you trust your health officials to give you the information?
[Trump:] They said it could be worse and I said could be better I don't think it's inevitable, I just don't think it's inevitable. I think you are doing a really good job in terms of letting people know and checking people and also that is one of the reasons that I'm here today, getting the word out, so people can know, they're going to know and I don't think it's inevitable. I think there's a chance it could get worse, their chance it could get fairly substantially worse but nothing is inevitable.
[Vause:] Let's be clear, they made the point, it's not if but when, this virus spreads across the United States. It's almost unbelievable, even for this president, that he would undercut the message coming from his own officials in the midst of a public health crisis because he wants to minimize the impact on the stock market. And that is where he sees the key to his reelection. But here we are.
[Foroohar:] You know I would like to say it surprises me. But it doesn't, the facts are known. The virus has spread to 10 times as many people as the SARS virus, which is the closest comparison at this time. It's killed three times as many. Public health official at the WHO say it's going to affect millions and millions more people before we are done with it. Those are the facts. This president however, is looking forward to a November election and a lot about the election and a lot of his case, for his handling of the economy, is basically his selling point, hinges on where the stock markets are. And you are seeing what I think is going to be a sustained dip. Because we are just at the beginning of seeing the effects on U.S. multinationals, on supply chains. And the longer term story, here may be that we see this moment as a line in the sand, with U.S. and China decoupling. A lot of big multinationals are going to look and say, this is one risk too many and they are really going to continue and prolong that process in the decoupling that we've already seen.
[Vause:] I want to finish up with a piece of information, a real gem that comes by "The Washington Post," which says part of the funding for the coronavirus emergency response, the money that they've asked for Congress to revive, part of the money that the White House has proposed, comes from a program which provides subsidies to low income families to heat their homes. According to "The Post," reporters said, "A document that the Trump administration sent to Congress, which we have seen, indicates that they are transferring $37 million to emergency funding for the coronavirus response from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which funds heating for poor families." The $37 million is not a lot but "The Post" reports up to three- quarters of a million families could be impacted. And someone actually thinks that's a good idea.
[Foroohar:] You know I see a talking point here for Bernie Sanders in the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries. I think we are just at the beginning of a lot of fallout and it's going to have a big impact on November and many things going forward.
[Vause:] Yes, it's been an incredible response leading up to this, because those budgets were cut, just as the coronavirus was emerging and now we're hearing of budget cuts in other areas, it's been incredible to say the least and it's just getting started. OK, Rona, good to see you, thank you so much.
[Foroohar:] Thank you.
[Vause:] The outbreak continues to rattle Wall Street, the Dow and the S&P ended Wednesday down less than 1 percent. It was 3 percent the day before. The Nasdaq posted small gains, in a four-day losing streak, Thursday could see big losses again with the futures down significantly for all three indexes. After several days of losses and all Asia markets, except Shanghai, are down, so Kaori Enjoji is live in Tokyo. What are we looking at here?
[Kaori Enjoji, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, John continued sell-off in the markets with the exception of Shanghai, ironically, here and we're looking at Tokyo down 1,500 points over the last four trading sessions. These are fresh 4.5-month lows, we are looking at trillions of dollars being wiped out of the markets globally. And investors are trying to insulate themselves from the business fallout, that is expected to come when businesses start to tally up the numbers for the end of February. Productivity must be down, lots of companies are announcing every day, telling their people to stay at home, to commute and not commute, consumption must be down when big events where people congregate, like concerts, working events, those are being canceled every day as well. And you are having schools, in areas where you see clusters of outbreak of coronavirus, saying that they are going to be closed, which fans anxiety and fear throughout the communities. You have to remember that this is the world's second largest economy in China, being paralyzed for a month now. And governments are starting to respond. Take for example New Zealand today, that said they might have to take some emergency measures, given the fact that 25 percent of their exports are headed to China. You have Korea, the central bank there, saying that lowered their growth forecast for the country slightly and other governments are saying that they are thinking about taking fresh emergency measures as well. So as the equity markets continue to fall, oil is continuing to fall, as demand is expected to remain fairly bleak over the coming months. Investors seem to be taking a little bit of safety into the U.S. bond market, so yields there on the Treasuries, continue to push to record low. We are seeing the markets not as jumping as we saw earlier in the week but still, with the exception of Shanghai, red across the board here in Asia.
[Vause:] Kaori, we appreciate the update from Tokyo for us, thank you. The virus has now spread to every continent except Antarctica. For the first time, we are seeing more new cases being reported outside of Mainland China. On Wednesday, China tallied 433 new infections, while the World Health Organization said there were 460 everywhere else. There's also a jump in South Korea to almost 1,600 cases, including South Korean service members and one American soldier stationed in South Korea. Now the U.S. and South Korea are postponing joint exercises until further notice. Live right now with Paula Hancocks in Seoul. What does this decision to postpone these exercises say about the significance of the threat from the coronavirus?
[Paula Hancocks, Cnn Correspondent:] John, it shows that both the U.S. and the South Korean militaries are taking it extremely seriously, this is really one of the last resorts, that they would consider the fact that they want to postpone the drills. We have been hearing from U.S. officials, that they were trying to figure out how to scale down the drills but still hold them. They did a similar thing in 2019, because of the diplomacy going on with North Korea. In 2018 they didn't hold the drills themselves; they tried to give diplomacy a chance. So this is the third year we are seeing these significant drills between the U.S. and South Korea in the springtime, being disrupted.
[Hancocks:] But it does show how what the officials are saying and the military experts are saying, you can't possibly have that many personnel together for such a large-scale drill, especially when you consider there's already one case confirmed within U.S. forces, a 23 year old male, who was on base near Daegu, southeastern city in South Korea, which is really ground zero for the fight against coronavirus in this country. Also when you consider the South Korean military, they have issues of their own. They have 20 personnel who are confirmed with the virus. Across the board in the navy, the army, the air force and also in the marine corps. This is something that the militaries are extremely concerned about, illness, disease, sweeping through. Because many of them will be living in close quarters; if you live on base, you're living in barracks as well and it's something they're going to make sure they can contain as soon as possible. So what we are hearing from the officials also from the South Korean defense ministry is that this decision was taken to try and prevent any further spreading within the military.
[Vause:] Paula, South Korea is being seen as taking extreme measures, being the best prepared out of many countries, trying to deal with this outbreak or prevent it from spreading extensively. There are 1,600 cases, which is a huge number and raises the question, what more can be done if it's like this in South Korea, what about other countries that don't have the same resources?
[Hancocks:] Good question, John. This was a massive spike in South Korea. Just last Tuesday, we had 31 cases here. It appeared to have stabilized. And right now we're almost at 1,600. South Korea has a good health system. They're able to cope with the number of people that have been confirmed with the virus at this point. And you're right, when it comes to less developed countries or less well-off countries without the medical infrastructure South Korea has, there is going to be a concern. With South Korea has, which is different to other countries, is there was one particular religious group that accounts for well over half of these cases. So this is something health officials are looking at, trying to contain any further potential spreads within that religious group, Shincheonji. So that is something at this point appears to be particular and unique to South Korea.
[Vause:] Paula, thank you, Paula Hancocks live for, us very appreciate it.. Well, as the coronavirus hits the Middle East, it's holding some religious festivals in Iran and concerns are growing that Tehran is not doing enough to try and stop the spread of the virus. Also parts of Delhi turn to rubble, the biggest explosion of sectarian violence in decades.