It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, April 16th.

There seems to be a growing political divide, at least in words, we'll see how much in deeds, over how much longer

state and federal government should order businesses to stay closed or individuals to stay at home.

New Jersey's Governor Murphy got grilled on this on Fox News last night. In Michigan,

thousands of protesters showed up outside the state capital yesterday,

some on foot and some in cars to rally against Governor Gretchen Whitmer, stay at home orders

in that state. There was another rally like that in Ohio. The Pennsylvania State Senate yesterday

sent a bill to Governor Tom Wolfe that would partially lift the lockdown on most of

that state's businesses and require the governor to follow any new guidelines that come from

the president. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has hired the consulting firm McKinsey to develop

a science-based plan for the Northeast, what Cuomo calls a Trump-proof plan

for safe economic reopening.

Today, the president says he plans to announce, excuse me, today, President Trump says he plans to announce

some relaxed social distancing policies

in some states in conjunction with their governors. He says suffering and even death from economic

pain could become worse than that from the virus. He is also accusing New York of crying wolf

by exaggerating the need for ventilators and extra hospital

beds because Governor Cuomo asked for 30,000 ventilators has about 10,000 and is already

sharing ventilators with other states in shorter supply. And the hospital beds at the Javitt

Center and the U.S. Navy Ship the Comfort are being underutilized.

In Congress, Republicans want to pass more money just for the small businesses to expand the

Paycheck Protection Program that allows them not to lay off as many people.

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