x STEPHANOPOULOS: The Grand Princess is docking tomorrow. What's the plan for the 3,500 people on board?



BEN CARSON: They're coming up with one



S: It docks tomorrow



C: The plan will be in place



S: Shouldn't you be able to say what it is?



C: It hasn't been fully formulated pic.twitter.com/J717Q7q0DG — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 8, 2020

“The plan will be in place by that time, but I don’t want to preview the plan right now,” Carson responded. Stephanopoulos hit him with another perfectly logical follow-up question: “Shouldn’t you be able to do that?”

He’s the Housing and Urban Development secretary so technically, no, but considering he’s the one doing the interview, you would hope he is somewhat knowledgable about the topic at hand. Apparently not. “I think it all needs to come from a solitary source,” Carson said. “We shouldn’t have 16 people saying what the plan is particularly when it hasn’t been fully formulated.” Translation: There is no plan.

Margaret Brennan, moderator of CBS News' “Face the Nation” asked U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams a similar question, to clarify what's happening to the thousands of people onboard the Grand Princess when it docks, and he tried to change the subject as if she had asked him about the weather. “Well, we'll quickly get into the cruise ships,” Dr. Adams said. “But what I want the American people to know is that the novel coronavirus is a family- comes from a family of viruses, including the cold, including SARS and MERS, which we've successfully navigated in the past, and that most people who get the coronavirus are going to have a mild disease. Very few will actually need to be hospitalized.”

Brennan again pressed: “So- so for those people who are actually infected in this hot spot on this cruise ship, are they be- being released into the public?” Adams again fumbled. “Well, what we're- what we're prioritizing when we look at the cruise ship situation is number one, making sure people who are sick on the cruise ship get the medical care that they need, that they're appropriately evacuated,” he said. “And we've sent CDC teams on to the ship. We've sent personal protective equipment on to the ship. We're making sure number two, that we can get people off the ship as quickly and as safely as possible.”

So basically, officials are consulting the experts but those consultations haven’t netted an actual plan for the thousands of people onboard the Grand Princess. The American people are supposed to, however, take comfort in Adams’ words that officials are “working with Department of Defense, Coast Guard and the local authorities to make sure we have a safe place to take these people.” Well, I’m not comforted, to say the least.