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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The Coronavirus is beginning to shut down parts of the United States, leading to mass cancelations major events and states of emergency in several cities. And Trump isn’t helping!

Meanwhile, Joe Biden gets a new major endorsement, as former presidential candidate Kamala Harris raced to bury the hatchet she lobbed at Biden in the June debate last year. Bernie Sanders countered with an endorsement of his own as a slate of new primary contests looms tomorrow.

And lastly, Congress has its own Coronavirus scare. While this is but a blip in the disease’s larger impact on the world, it’s sure keeping Ted Cruz busy!

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The U.S. is starting to feel the effect of the coronavirus, and it’s unclear how much our system of healthcare, education, and just life overall can bear.

The issue with the disease isn’t so much the death rate -- though there is that -- but the strain it puts on already-fragile economic and social systems around the country. For example: Austin, Texas’s government canceled the city’s South By Southwest festival this weekend, one of the biggest events to get the axe yet.

While it may seem silly to mourn yuppie tech conferences, cities like Austin and their working class residents often rely heavily on the tourism revenue of big events like this, striking a blow to people’s livelihoods that has nothing to do with the Wall Street guys’ plummeting stock prices.

Elsewhere around the country, public schools and some universities are starting to close or begin video-conferencing for classes to attempt to limit the spread of the virus.

Government officials in hard-hit Washington state are now just trying to mitigate the disease, rather than contain it -- slow it down enough that the hospital system can keep up.

And all the while, the U.S.’s testing infrastructure continues to be miserable: we have 500 confirmed cases and 22 deaths, which is likely just the beginning.

So where’s the president on all this? Certainly not helping!

Trump has done everything from suggest that the virus will magically disappear in the summer to vastly overstate the CDC’s testing capabilities.

On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that Trump overruled public health officials who wanted to directly tell elderly or physically infirm Americans not to fly on commercial airlines, instead opting for softer language.

The White House denied fiddling with the language, but it’s pretty clear that the confusing responses coming out of the Executive Branch are quite literally going to get people killed.

But as the world gets sicker and sicker, we’ve still got a primary going on. Joe Biden had a good weekend, picking up an endorsement from Kamala Harris.

Harris, of course, earned her most memorable moment in the campaign cycle when she absolutely destroyed Biden over his record of opposing busing. How nice: two former enemies, who are now friends, because they really don’t want a socialist to win. And who knows -- there might even be a cabinet position in it for Harris.

Sanders also scored a prominent endorsement over the weekend: Reverend Jesse Jackson, the long-time civil rights activist and former presidential candidate.

Both the Biden and Sanders campaigns are actively courting black leaders like Jackson and Harris before the slew of primaries on Tuesday.

Polling in those states does not look good for Sanders. A Data for Progress poll on Sunday night showed Biden up by 30 percent in Missouri and over 50 percent in Mississippi.

But the Sanders campaign will have plenty of chances to get back into the game regardless of what happens on Tuesday, starting on March 15 in the next debate. The two camps are already butting heads: team Sanders accused the Biden team of pushing host CNN and the DNC to agree to a seated debate, instead of a standing one.

The two leading candidates are 77 and 78, so this is what it’s come to: who can score points by being the most willing to stand up for several hours.

Coronavirus has reached, well, not quite Capitol Hill. But two members of Congress are worried they may have been exposed. Sorry, we’re underselling this a bit: Ted Cruz is in quarantine. There.

Both Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar have placed themselves and some of their staff under self-quarantine after they both came into contact with a person who later tested positive for coronavirus at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Gosar wasted no time in making the whole thing racist, of course, repeatedly referring to coronavirus as quote “The Wuhan Virus” in his public statement instead of using its widely accepted, non-stigmatized names.

The person who tested positive for COVID-19 has not been named, but allegedly shook hands with both Cruz and Gosar. Gosar, for his part, said that he shook hands with and hung out with the individual for an extended period of time. Neither report any symptoms.

Cruz says he plans to stay in Texas for 14 days before returning to Washington. We’re sure everyone on the hill is just crushed.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The details of the U.S. peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan are still, for some reason, being kept a secret. The Taliban have read the deal, but many U.S. lawmakers have not -- raising huge questions as to what the timeline for actually ending that war is.

Andrew Romanoff, an outspoken progressive endorsed by several major climate organizations, claimed victory in the Democratic caucuses for one of Colorado’s Senate seats, beating former Governor and presidential candidate John Hickenlooper. If the results stand, he’ll challenge incumbent Republican Cory Gardner in November.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Erik Prince, the mercenary brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, hired former American and British spies to train right-wing dingbats from Project Veritas to infiltrate Democratic congressional campaigns and organizations that were quote “hostile” to president Trump.

The ACLU is asking the Supreme Court to take up a case involving Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson. The case, involving an object thrown at an unnamed police officer by someone who was not McKesson, may set a dangerous precedent for people being sued by the police simply for being at a protest where the laws were broken.

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Make sure to tune in to the full show this afternoon.

#AMQuickie March 9, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn