Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins Myles Udland to discuss why reopening the economy by Easter could backfire for The President.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: All right, welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. Myles Udland here in New York. If you just listened to our last segment, we were talking to Michael O'Keeffe of [INAUDIBLE] about this idea of when the economy could reopen. And of course, folks following the news will know what the president said a few days ago. He's looking at Easter as a potential reopening of the US economy.

Rick Newman joins us now for, Rick, I think a conversation that goes beyond just the obvious health risks of saying pack the churches in two weeks time when we have really no idea who is sick and who is not at this point. But there's some big economic risks here if we kind of bungle the reopening process, as it were, that will inevitably come on the other side of this.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, I think, as I'm talking to economists and reading tons of notes from economists, it's becoming clear that a crucial thing to coming out as whole as we can on the other side is getting it right the first time. I mean, we've got one shot to contain this virus. It has already progressed way beyond the sort of simple ability to contain it at the state and city level, as we're seeing in New York and New Orleans, parts of California and so forth.

So we really need to do everything it takes right now, even if it is even more of a shutdown, an economic shutdown than we already have, and contain it now, because if you don't, then you risk that we could have these waves of contagions where you have to-- you shut the economy down for a little while, and then you come back. But if you come back too soon, then you have to shut it down again, and then you get into a possible double-dip recession scenario. We have had double-dip recessions before. We had back-to-back recessions in 1981 and '82. Not for a virus, for other reasons, but that tells us it can happen.

So President Trump talking about getting the economy back to business by Easter, which is April 12, I think that is a nonstarter. I think he's bluffing. I think that's basically a talking point. I think Trump is talking about that so that he can set himself up as, well, I'm the guy who wants to get back to business, but these public health experts are telling me I can't. So it allows him to scapegoat somebody else. If we really do try to get back to business, if he does try to reopen things on April 12, I think he's just setting himself up for a recession or a double-dip recession that will be with us on election day in November.

- Hey, Rick, do you have any sort of consensus in your mind that makes sense in terms of how long-- what we should do, I guess, and how long it should last.

RICK NEWMAN: I think this goes back to what is not an economic or financial matter. It's the testing. We have to have widespread testing as soon as we possibly can. We know we're not going to have a vaccine for the virus for a year or longer. And until we have testing, I mean, what the authorities are doing in New York, and now New Orleans and other places, they basically have to assume that everybody has the virus. You have to assume that everybody is a spreader because you can't easily determine who has it and who doesn't have it because we don't have widespread testing.

So it's possible to imagine a time in the future where we do have these-- you know, these drive-through testing capabilities, a more mass market testing capability, if you will. And I've heard some public health experts say we need to be able to test everybody once a week. So if you could get tested once a week, then you would feel comfortable going to work, and you would also know that everybody else in your workspace has been tested, and they basically have a clean bill of health. Then you do it again the following week, and stuff like that.

Until we get to that point, or, you know, we get to Trump's miracle cure, which is that the virus dies out in warmer weather, we're just stuck with it. I mean, what state or city is going to say, well, we haven't eradicated the virus, so go ahead-- but go ahead and reopen the businesses, we're fine if it just starts spreading all over again. None. I don't think it's a blue or red thing. I think no governor or mayor is going to be willing to do that.

MYLES UDLAND: Yeah, you're not getting any bonus points for being first on the other side of this. All right, Rick Newman with the latest on that. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

RICK NEWMAN: Thanks, Myles.