-Our next guest is the White House correspondent
for "PBS News Hour."
Please welcome to the show Yamiche Alcindor.
How are you, Yamiche?
-I'm doing well in this new life that we're living.
-We are actually used to --
I should say I'm used to seeing you out.
I'm used to seeing you at White House press conferences.
It is nice to also see you inside.
How has this been, going to White House press conferences
during this situation?
-It's been incredibly, incredibly sobering.
This is, of course, a scary and wild time.
So every day as I leave my house, I'm putting on a mask.
I'm wiping my hands.
And I'm also, of course, balancing the normal things I do
every day, which is making sure I know what questions
I want to ask and what sources I want to check in with.
So it just seems like there's this added level of seriousness
and craziness to what was already a sort of crazy
political time I would say in the last three years.
-Now, of course, one thing a journalist doesn't want to do
is become part of the story.
You've been put in a awkward situation whereas you've asked
very fair questions that the President has framed as nasty.
He's told you to be nice and to not be threatening.
What is going through your mind in those moments
where you realize you are a part of this story
as opposed to just getting the story?
-What's going through my mind is that I became a reporter
because I think everyday people, vulnerable populations,
deserve a voice, especially at the White House.
So as the President may be lashing out at me
and other reporters, the thing I keep thinking is,
"Okay, but people need answers.
We're in this time where people want to know, 'Can I get a test?
Am I going to be able to survive?
How's my family going to do when we're losing our jobs?'"
I think all of those things come to my mind.
And in my own mind think of myself
as a civil rights reporter, so a lot of times
I'm thinking about all the different people
I've met over my career on the streets
and on different stories and thinking they need answers.
They want me to remain professional and focus on
why I came to the White House today.
-I want to compliment you for the fact
that you keep your poise in those moments.
I don't believe I would be able to do so.
When you get home, do you vent?
Is there a time that you get out those moments?
-Well, I'm lucky because I got married about two years ago
and I run home to this cute boy that lives with me
and I decompress with my husband.
I talk about my day.
But I also do things like listen to Bill Withers on repeat
and remember that there are so many better days ahead of us,
and that everyone should kind of decompress and calm down.
So I personally really take the time to dance around
my apartment and to just talk to my husband.
And that's the way that I've had to --
that's the way I've been able to weather all of this.
-I think a lot of us have found that we're lucky
to have families in times like this to create a cushion
for the moment we are going through.
Can you just speak -- you know, because obviously,
you've been covering this story
like your colleagues from the beginning.
Can you speak to what you believe the root causes are
for not just how this started --
and no one thinks it's the current administration's fault
that, you know, this virus exists --
but their failures to sort of deal with it.
What the root causes of that were?
-I think there were two really big things going on.
The first is that the President,
before this coronavirus outbreak,
he was making government smaller in his mind.
And in that regard he disbanded the National Security Council's
office that deals with pandemics.
He also really pared down the CDC's staff.
So there was one moment where -- or one thought
that the President was really making sure the government
was smaller in his mind.
The other thing that was going on, though,
that was President Trump was downplaying the virus.
He was telling reporters like me and signaling to Americans
all over the country that this was something
that wasn't that serious,
that it was going to be gone by April,
that this was going to be some sort of miracle
that was gonna just be washed away.
And because of that, you had those two things come together.
And now that's why you have a lot of people
criticizing the President's response,
because, one, they didn't seem to be ready for a pandemic,
and, two, the President, once a pandemic was on his doorstep,
was downplaying it,
thinking really about his political future
in a lot of regards,
and thinking about being re-elected as President.
-One of the strange things that we've seen
as these press conferences get longer
is you have a situation not just that the President
will contradict himself day to day,
he sometimes will contradict himself
within the body of an hour-long press conference.
Is it refreshing, then, to have someone like Dr. Anthony Fauci
on the dais who's a bit more consistent?
And is it true that you have spoken to him
directly through this?
-I have spoken to Anthony Fauci directly.
There was a day where there was some stories about him
being excluded from the White House briefings,
so I contacted his office,
and he actually called me back, which was pretty surprising.
And the first time he called me back I didn't pick up the phone
because I thought he was literally a prankster.
And then I eventually called him back.
And of course his voice is very, very distinct,
so I knew it was him.
But he was stressing to me that his relationship
with the President is really good
and that he's focused on doing the work of the people.
I think it's refreshing in some people's minds to, of course,
have scientists who are experts to talk about this.
There is, of course, the fact that the President
constantly contradicts himself.
And that's why as a reporter I often ask the President,
"Look, you said this but you are now saying this.
How do you square that?"
The President sometimes gets mad at that.
But I think it's doing a service to people to be able
to point out every single day, as much as you possibly can,
that the President often not only shares
misleading information but contradicts himself,
sometimes within minutes.
-You mentioned you're a civil rights reporter.
That's where you began.
These are the sort of stories you cover.
We've been seeing more and more in recent weeks
that this is disproportionally affecting minority communities.
Is there -- Do you have any optimism or any sense
that there's a plan within the White House to address that?
-As of now they're signaling that they don't have a plan.
But it's also because they don't actually have the data
to even create a plan.
Lawmakers have been pushing for federal data to be collected
and then shared when it comes to
looking at the racial disparities.
We know that black people in most cities and states
around the country are dying
because they have more underlying conditions
like asthma and diabetes.
And part of that is systemic racism and the conditions
that African-Americans often live in this country.
But I think that there isn't at this point a particular plan.
And Dr. Anthony Fauci talked about this.
And he said they're collecting the data
and once they have information to share,
they'll be able to share more about that.