As the number of COVID-19 cases around the nation continues to climb, Americans are racing to respond. Entire cities have ground to a halt. Doctors have appealed for more masks, gowns, and eye gear. And many states have closed nonessential businesses and issued shelter-in-place orders. The pandemic is undoubtedly one of the biggest crises the nation has faced in recent decades. What will the next few months look like? And are our state and national governments doing enough?

Juliette Kayyem joins Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang in this week’s episode to discuss these questions, drawing on her experience as the assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Homeland Security under the Obama administration. Kayyem explains how past governments have responded to crises and proposes two critical elements of good leadership: numbers and hope.

Kayyem has spent more than 15 years managing complex policy initiatives and organizing government responses to major crises in both state and federal government. She is the Senior Belfer Lecturer in International Security at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she is faculty chair of the Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects.

Kayyem is the author of “Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home,” in which she weaves her memoirs of living through these moments with the kind of work she has done. She is also the founder of Kayyem Solutions, LLC, a group that provides strategic advice in resiliency planning, risk management, event security, and more. She appears frequently on CNN as their on-air national security analyst.

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