Welcome to Talking Feds, a round table that brings together prominent former federal officials

for a dynamic discussion of the most important legal topics of the day.

I'm Harry Littman.

This is the week in which it feels like the coronavirus went from a whisper to a scream.

Suddenly it hit home.

Trich got canceled.

People worked from home.

Communities declared states of emergency.

Drug stores ran out of masks and sanitizer.

Worldwide cases approached 100,000.

And of course, American people died.

14 and counting.

We began to grapple with the tangible details of prospects that seemed the stuff of science

fiction, like quarantine, which already affect thousands of New Yorkers and school closures,

which now affect all of Italy and Iran.

Uncertainty was in his rife, with no apparent way of quantifying the likely intensity and

duration of the virus, for which there will be no available vaccine for at least a year.

And the Trump administration's propensity to lie and spin, and the president's own ignorance

in his briefing of the American people, came to appear pernicious and dangerous.

The virus presents a series of vexing and life and death issues of national security and

health law.

And to explore several of the most pressing among them, I'm joined by a superb panel of

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