Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

202 for Monday, March 30th. In today's news, a choir practice in Washington State turns fatal.

The FBI investigates congressional stock trades before the markets tanked,

and the virus collides with made culture in Latin America with deadly results.

But first, the big idea.

For six days straight, President Trump talked about reopening the country as quickly as possible.

He picked April 12th because he thought it would be beautiful to see church pews packed with parishioners on Easter.

Then he dug in, tuning out the unanimous assessment of public health experts and governors

and mayors, which was that Easter would be far too soon because the worst still is yet to come.

As the self-described wartime president kept putting it, the coronavirus was a silent enemy

and America was winning.

Last night, Trump beat a hasty retreat, announcing from the Rose Garden just before dusk

that the federal government's stringent social distancing guidelines, which

were set to expire today, will be extended through at least April 30th.

As the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed 2,400.

The President acknowledged that the silent enemy is gaining ground.

Trump said his decision was driven by the science, but he may have been moved just as much or more so by the personal, seeing

body bags carried out of the hospital near his boyhood home in Queens, and learning that

a close friend was now in a coma.

At least you could reach that determination based on the emotion he showed when he spoke about both.

Trump said he was convinced by data models presented to him by two physicians, Tony

Fauchy and Debbie Burke, that the death rate in this country probably will not

...