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CNN Special Reports
The Pandemic and the President. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired July 18, 2020 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a difference between what is a forecast trend and actually happened. So we didn't change anything based on that.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We want to have our country open. We want to return to normal life. Our country is going to be open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: On April 3rd the CDC put out a recommendation urging the public to wear cloth face masks. President Trump, however, said he would rather not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't know. Somehow I don't see it for myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It was hardly the first time he ignored public health advice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: --shaking a lot of hands today. Are you protecting yourself at all?
TRUMP: Not at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: With no vaccine yet on the horizon the country had to increase testing and contact tracing capability, decreasing cases over 14 days.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Test and then isolate the person who is infected. Trace all the contacts. Quarantine them. But we didn't do the first part of this well enough and that's affected everything else downstream
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think one of the striking things is there doesn't seem to be kind of an effort to get in front of that. It's always like the U.S. has been a couple of steps behind. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The country had struggled with testing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Testing was initially limited to small groups, health care workers, people who had known contact with a sick patient, or this is crucial, people with symptoms.
But in order to reopen the country and prevent further outbreaks, the United States needed lots of tests because as scientists announced in mid April, people might be most contagious two to three days before they develop symptoms when they're asymptomatic.
DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRU RESPONSE COORDINATOR: What is really critical is this constant sentinel surveillance for asymptomatic individuals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Constant surveillance and widespread testing. So those with the virus could be quickly identified and immediately isolated from the rest of us to stop the spread.
DR. GUPTA: We probably in this country need to be testing 1 million to 2 million people a day ultimately.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think we're going to have to have 300 or 500 million tests before we get out of this, sufficient quantity of good tests with high quality easily available to anyone who wants one.
TAPPER: By April 10th there were more than half a million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and the death toll had catapulted to nearly 19,000.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're leading the world now in testing by far. We're going to keep it that way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The country had ramped up testing but according to health experts the U.S. was still testing far fewer people per capita than countries such as South Korea or Italy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're testing more than anybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Yet listening to the President speak about testing, it sounds as though the U.S. had both quantity and quality.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a great testing system. We have the best right now the best testing system in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: But that claim did not square with the facts and what the experts were saying.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dr. Anthony Fauci is raising questions about the nation's readiness, telling the associated press more Coronavirus testing is needed, saying, "We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on and we're not there yet".
TRUMP: Excuse me. Excuse me. I know your question. The Governors are supposed to do testing. Quiet. Quiet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The President also continued to clash with the Governors. Who the President felt should be in charge of testing. But the Governors argued as they did with ventilators and PPE that they don't have the power of the Defense Production Act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): We're going to need testing, more testing faster testing than we now have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Only the President has that power to force companies to get testing up to speed. Only he has the power to force companies to make tests, testing reagents, and swabs to hire lab workers, and to manufacture lab equipment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): More help is needed from the federal government on testing.
GOV. LARRY HOGAN (R-MD): This is probably the number one problem in America and has been from the beginning of this crisis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARK MAZZETTI, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: This tension between state government and federal government that has always existed since the founding of our country. This is now life and death. And this question of who should I rely on to keep me alive.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We actually spoke with several of the President's political advisers who say they believe the reason the President is pushing the responsibility for testing off on states is that then the President won't be the one to deal with the fallout if there is any.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: This was a back and forth between the President and the Governors that created gridlock and confusion.
MAZZETTI: It's hard to argue that there hasn't been lost time in this fight over who should be responsible and who is to blame.
DR. GUPTA: It's frustrating. In some ways it's disheartening, because we can do this.
[23:05:00]
TAPPER: Next, protests.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those protests encouraged by President himself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: And disinfectant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And there is a way we can do something that day by injection inside or almost a cleaning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: On April 11th "The New York Times" ran an extensive investigation detailing Trump's mistakes during the crisis. Two days later--
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The President of the United States calls the shots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: --Trump played a video during a press briefing that seemed to be blaming the press for downplaying the crisis.
(BEGIN VDIEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Coronavirus is not going to cause a major issue in the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The same press he had been attacking for over hyping the crisis in February. COLLINS: Something that was noticeably missing from that video that the White House put out was the President's own comments where he also downplayed and dismissed the outbreak in the month of February and in the beginning of March.
TAPPER: White House reporters did not back down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You bought yourself some time. You didn't use it to prepare hospitals. You didn't use it to ramp up testing. Now 20 million people are--
TRUMP: You are so disgraceful. We have done a great job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MAZZETTI: What we have seen in these daily briefings that one in particular is a President trying to rewrite history, trying to say he was the one who was warning all along about the Coronavirus.
[23:10:00]
TAPPER: There was also this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When somebody's the President of the United States, the authority is total. And that's the way it's got to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authority is total.
TRUMP: It's total.
COLLINS: Has any Governor agreed you have the authority to decide when their state--
TRUMP: I haven't asked anybody. You know what because I don't have to.
COLLINS: Of course that is not the case. No one would agree with that including the President's conservative allies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The next day April 14th as Coronavirus cases in the U.S. climbed to nearly 600,000, President Trump made another controversial decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Today I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization. So much death has been caused by their mistakes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MAZZETTI: The fight with the W.H.O. is in part just another element of looking to blame someone besides himself.
TAPPER: There are some medical experts who believe the World Health Organization could have and should have acted sooner.
DR. BRILLIANT: I worked for W.H.O. for ten years. I think W.H.O. was late in calling this a pandemic. I think that W.H.O. having lost a lot of its general financial support over the years and got a lot of support financially from China, I do think W.H.O. was generous in its acceptance of the Chinese reports about when the epidemic began.
MURRAY: People do have very real concerns with the way W.H.O. was dealing with China early on in this outbreak but haven't talked to any public health expert who thinks the right way to remedy that is to try to strip W.H.O. of funding in the middle of a global pandemic.
TAPPER: On April 16th the administration announced a plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Our team of experts now agrees we can begin the next front in our war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tens of thousands of protesters promise to show up at the Capitol here to protest the stay-at-home orders. Those protests encouraged by the President himself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: When President Trump took to Twitter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tweeting all in caps liberate Minnesota, Liberate Michigan, liberate Virginia.
TRUMP: These are great people. They've got cabin fever. They want to get back. They want their life back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He sees some benefit in bolstering this antigovernment message. He is encouraging people to go against what their own Governors have said.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even encouraging protesters to go against the White House's own guidelines.
HOGAN: To encourage people to go protest the plan that you just made recommendations on just doesn't make any sense. We're sending completely conflicting messages out.
TRUMP: Working very hard with Governors now on testing going to help them out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The President and the Governors seemed to unite around testing a few days later. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Preparing to use the Defense Production Act to increase production.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The President planned to use the DPA to force production of desperately needed swabs for testing. Federal testing labs were offered for some states to use. And the latest economic relief bill allocated $25 billion for testing. So by the end of April, diagnostic testing was progressing. Though still nowhere near where it needed to be according to health experts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. STEPHEN HAHN, FDA COMMISSIONER: We are working with more than 400 test developers 220 labs around the country.
TRUMP: Ultimately we're doing more testing I think than probably any of the Governors even want.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Four days later the White House announced a blueprint for testing, putting the responsibility back in the hands of the states.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have enough testing to begin reopening and the reopening process. We want to get our country open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: A plan that had the administration taking a victory lap.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JARED KUSHNER, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think that we've achieved all the different milestones that are needed so the government, federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story.
TRUMP: The federal government has done a spectacular job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: But the plan had medical experts reacting quite differently.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. GUPTA: The White House plan calls for around 7 million a month. We're talking about a million a day. You can see the delta here, like four times off in terms of the amount of testing we need to be doing here. DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: It isn't perfect and we're not there yet and we're not but we're going to get there. We're going to get there soon I hope.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: And they needed to because the only true end to this pandemic, the Holy Grail, a vaccine, was still on the horizon
DR. GUPTA: I think there is no question that the speed at which these vaccine trials have been going is unprecedented. Vaccines can take decades to make. HIV/AIDS 40 years and we still don't have a vaccine. That gives you an idea how challenging this can be.
TAPPER: A race against time to get back to some semblance of normal. And, most importantly, to save lives.
[23:15:00]
TAPPER: And with every step, serious communication failures were taking the country off track such as the disinfectant situation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside or almost a cleaning--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: To think that bleach could cure someone of Coronavirus is ludicrous.
TAPPER: In early May we learned that not even the White House itself was immune from the virus. Three top health officials all members of the administration's Coronavirus Task Force entered either full or partial quarantine.
After one of Trump's valets and the Vice President's Press Secretary tested positive for COVID-19. The following week, on May 11th, the White House directed west wing staffers to begin wearing face masks at work. Which reminded everyone of the recent day when Vice President Mike Pence had been chastised for not following hospital policy at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
Pence who leads the White House Task Force on the virus, wore no mask during his tour even though all the officials around him did. The Vice President later said he regretted that and two days later had one on while visiting a ventilator factory in Indiana. But the President had no regrets in May when he was mask less, touring a plant in Arizona that manufactures medical masks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They said you didn't need it, so if I didn't need it - by the way if you noticed nobody else had it on that was in the group and they were the people - the workers had them on, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, this is where these guys--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: By the middle of May President Trump still did not have one on as he toured a PPE plant in Pennsylvania. Perhaps sending a message to the public that he did not think masks were necessary. But there was a different measure that he did tout.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: A lot of good things have come out about the Hydroxy. A lot of good things have come out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The President announced he was taking Hydroxychloroquine to ward off the virus despite mounting evidence that it does not work against COVID-19 and could even be harmful.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hydroxychloroquine?
TRUMP: I'm taking it Hydroxychloroquine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When?
TRUMP: Right now, yes. A couple weeks ago I started taking it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. GUPTA: It's terribly irresponsible. It sets a bad example and maybe even dangerous.
TAPPER: Dangerous and distracting. We wanted to interview someone from the White House for this program, but they declined to participate in this documentary. Getting answers from the Trump Administration was in many ways getting more difficult.
News continued to come out that the President had apparently been weeding out and replacing truth tellers and government watch dogs such as the woman who had been running the office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump's new pick to be the next Health and Human Services Inspector General. He is Jason Wyda.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If confirmed he'll replace Christi Graham who angered President Trump with report on hospitals lacking protective equipment.
(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: And then the re-assignment of a reported whistle-blower Former Vaccine Director Rick Brain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK BRIGHT, FORMER VACCINE DIRECTOR: Time is running out because the virus is still spreading everywhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Administration officials who claimed they were telling truths that apparently President Trump did not want told.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGHT: Congressman, I'll never forget the e-mails that I received from Mike Bowing indicating that our mask supply, N-95 Respirator supply was completely decimated and he said we're in deep - the world is and we need to act. And I pushed that forward to the highest levels I could in HHS and got no response.
TRUMP: I watched him and he looks like an angry, disgruntled employee who, frankly, according to some people didn't do a very good job, all right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The President could remove whistle-blowers and watch dogs but what he could not do was alter a sad reality. That his Coronavirus lies could lead to ever more dire consequences because even as states in the northeast were having some success battling early outbreaks, next a new explosion was about to go off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: We're very concerned that our public health message isn't resonating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:20:00]
TAPPER: By May the country was growing impatient. The Coronavirus had claimed 65,000 American lives and had devastated the U.S. economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 20.5 million jobs lost in the month of April. These are depression level numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: With cases plateauing in many areas more than half the states began undoing regulations that had been enacted to keep people from spreading the virus even though none of those states met the federal government's criteria to do so. The President had attacked Democratic Governors for adhering to guidelines and he pushed all states to reopen quickly, more quickly than his own task force recommended.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. Our country has to open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: But even he acknowledged this would come with a cost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes but we have to get our country open.
COLLINS: You're starting to see them shift talking about the economy much more but the question was is that in lock step with what the health experts were saying was going on?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: On May 12th Dr. Anthony Fauci testifying remotely warned that states and cities faced serious consequences if they opened up too quickly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. FAUCI: There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak you may not be able to control.
[23:25:00]
TRUMP: I was surprised by his answer actually.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The next day President Trump publicly criticized Dr. Fauci.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He wants to play all sides of the equation; I think we're going to have a tremendous fourth quarter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The President had also signaled a shift away from his public health advisers when he considered phasing out the White House Coronavirus Task Force earlier that month. Although after he was criticized for the idea he did not go through with it.
MAGGIE HABERMAN, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: People who know Fauci say he has been marginalized and sidelined. He has been at times public about infrequent discussions with the President. MURRAY: The President is constantly at war within his administration about whether to listen to the scientists or whether to listen to trade advisers and economists and ultimately in President Trump's head and heart is the economic argument is really the winner.
TAPPER: Some saw evidence of this the next day May 14th when the CDC released guidelines to help businesses and schools reopen. At just six pages long, it was much shorter than what the CDC had originally proposed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: CNN has confirmed that Trump Administration has rejected 17 pages of draft CDC recommendations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HABERMAN: The CDC wanted more rigorous guidelines or at least many officials there had. The White House did not deeply rigorous guidelines.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD'S GLOBAL INSTITUTE: What was finally officially released was both wholly inadequate and completely out of character for the CDC. It was six pages. It was very bare bones. It did not give much guidance at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. NED LAMONT (D-CT): Let us hear from the experts. I think we'll be able to make much better decisions accordingly. Don't politicize this.
(END VIDOE CLIP)
TAPPER: Several days later the CDC posted 60 additional pages of guidance on the website as a supplement to the earlier information. Then on May 15th the President took a giant, necessary step in the right direction announcing a massive effort to develop a Coronavirus vaccine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's called operation warp speed. That means big and it means fast.
MURRAY: Essentially this meant a blank check to be able to get a Coronavirus vaccine up and running as quickly as possible. This is essentially the Manhattan project for a vaccine.
TAPPER: Everyone had high hopes but Dr. Fauci and others warned that developing a vaccine could at best take a year and potentially much longer. Many viruses including HIV still do not have a vaccine, decades after first appearing. Trump as usual projected optimism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We'd love to see if we could do it prior to the end of the year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. GUPTA: We typically talk about vaccine development in terms of years if not decades so it is very audacious but there is a lot of hope around this.
TAPPER: Yet even while announcing this scientific initiative President Trump continued to wish the virus away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We think we're going to have a vaccine in the pretty near future and if we don't it'll go away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JHA: There is no chance the virus will magically go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Thank you all very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JHA: This has been a recurring theme of the President.
DR. GUPTA: And it's unfortunate A, because obviously it contradicts everything that science knows about this virus but, B, it sets unrealistic expectations.
TAPPER: And the President's own behavior was not in sync with what his public health officials recommended.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Here is my mask right here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: On May 21st the President visited a food plant in Michigan but refused to set a public example.
(BEGIN VIDEEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I wore one in this back area but I didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JHA: The fact that the President continues to refuse to wear a mask on an ongoing basis is baffling because it is one of the easiest things he can do to bring the level of virus down in this country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about the example it would set for other Americans?
TRUMP: I think it sets an example both ways.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: He is sending the signal you don't actually need to wear a mask. This sort of approach he has taken is a big part of the reason that masks have become so politicized when the science is clear that they help.
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think it served the country's interest at all. We had a President who refused to lead, refused to tell people to put on the darned mask.
TAPPER: That night Dr. Fauci went on CNN to encourage the public to take precautions during the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. FAUCI: We'll have people who want to get out and get fresh air. Go out. Wear a mask. Stay 6 feet from anyone so you have the physical distancing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: As the nation enjoyed the unofficial start of summer all 50 states had begun to reopen but in some places crowded beaches and busy boardwalks seemingly little sign of social distancing and even fewer face masks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean if he's not wearing a mask I'm not going to wear it. If he's not worried I'm not worried.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The President?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. GUPTA: From a public health standpoint you couldn't help but think the virus was now spreading because people were clustered together just a few cases could spiral into something much greater.
TAPPER: The Republican Governor of North Dakota pleaded for people to stop politicizing mask wearing.
[23:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): If someone is wearing a mask they might be doing it because they've got a 5-year-old child who's been going through cancer treatments. They might have vulnerable adults in their life. (END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: But President Trump, who had spent the weekend on the golf course, grasped for distractions such as the deranged motion that one of his critics might have committed murder.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The President spent his holiday weekend pushing a decades old false conspiracy theory about MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and a dead young woman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: But on the 28th the CDC reported that the country had reached a sad milestone. 100,000 Americans had died from the virus. President Trump tweeted that he extended heartfelt sympathy and love to the families and friends of those who had passed.
Yet on June 2nd just days after recognizing the human cost of the virus, Trump seemed to put his own supporters at risk. He decided to not hold key nights of the Republican Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, because social distancing restrictions might be required.
HABERMAN: He didn't want to have social distancing. He didn't want 50 percent of people there either with their faces covered or half the seats empty.
GERGEN: What President Trump wants is a huge amount of energy, lots and lots of people. Donald Trump is a man who lives by symbols far more than he does by thought.
TAPPER: Two days later on June 4th the CDC Director Redfield testified on Capitol Hill. When confronted with pictures of Memorial Day crowds Redfield could only shake his head.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. REDFIELD: We are very concerned that our public health message isn't resonating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It did not seem to be resonating at the White House either. The next day at a press conference the President touted good jobs numbers as validation of his push to reopen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And I hope that the lockdown Governors, I don't know why they continue to lock down?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: And the White House strove to illustrate Trump's message of a return to normalcy by abandoning social distancing measures. COLLINS: When reporters had gone out first to set up cameras they have had the chairs in the Rose Garden socially distanced. Later on the chairs were incredibly close together. The White House said it was because it looked better.
TAPPER: It was another example of the Trump Administration signaling that everything was back to normal even though it clearly was not.
MURRAY: Donald Trump has always been someone who feels like he can market his way out of a problem but a problem with a pandemic is you can't market your way out of it.
TAPPER: But in late May another tragedy captured the public's attention. The killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis sparked widespread protests around the country about racial injustice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No justice no peace!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The crowds did not concern some health experts causing some to question their credibility but others?
DR. JHA: As I watched those crowds I worried. I worried they would set off new cases. What made me feel a bit better is they were outside. A lot of marches had people wearing masks which help a lot.
TAPPER: But it is amid this back drop of racial tension--
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Do we have a great time at a Trump rally?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: --that Trump's campaigns announced plans for a rally on June 19th his first rally since the shutdown.
COLLINS: The President has picked Tulsa, Oklahoma on Juneteenth the holiday celebrating the end of slavery.
HABERMAN: They still pressed ahead with it once they learned of it and they still pressed ahead with it in Tulsa which was the site of the brutal race massacre in 1921. This caused an enormous uproar.
TAPPER: Eventually the President agreed to push the rally back one day but the virus was spreading in many areas of the country surpassing more than 2 million total cases on June 11th. And the President's indoor rally carried risks.
DR. JHA: We know that indoor gatherings are more dangerous. We know that people weren't going to be wearing masks. And so while we can never point to one event as being a super spreading event it had all of the makings of it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump supporters are being told they can attend the rally at their own risk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The campaign even required attendees to promise not to sue if they got the virus. With infections raising in Tulsa on June 13th the city's Health Director urged the rally to be postponed.
DR. GUPTA: When you heard from the Health Commissioner, look. We have a problem in Tulsa. We should not be doing an event like this. It meant something.
TAPPER: But Trump doubled down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Yes, we've never had an empty seat and we certainly won't in Oklahoma.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: In fact, by mid June more than 18 states were seeing increased cases including some with record highs yet even on June 16th in "The Wall Street Journal" the Vice President claimed the country was, "Winning the fight". Four days later on the day of the rally--
[23:35:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: We've learned this afternoon six campaign staffers doing advanced work on this Tulsa rally have tested positive for the Coronavirus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Still, rally attendees were not required to maintain social distance or to wear masks. In fact, "The Washington Post" would later report that Trump staffers removed thousands of stickers of the venue that the venue had put on seats to promote social distancing all more examples of Trump's tendency to value optics over health.
GERGEN: He has been pursuing policies that are absolutely against the best advice in the country. He's been doing it to serve his own needs. That is wooden headedness.
TAPPER: In the end the Fire Department estimated the arena was only about one-third full's a point that the Trump campaign disputed. When the President finally took the stage one comment he made in tuck particular sparked outrage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: When you do testing to that extent you're going to find more people. You're going to find more cases. So I said to my people slow the testing down please.
HABERMAN: This has been a constant drum beat of the President's for weeks. We look bad because we do a lot of testing. Testing is a double edged sword, we'd have no cases if we didn't test that's obviously not true.
DR. GUPTA: That is a public health travesty. That is a public health travesty that is the one tool we potentially had to try and curb this pandemic. There is absolutely no logic, no rationale, no public health defense to say we should slow down testing.
HABERMAN: What it reflects is his awareness that these numbers are bad. He is a numbers guy. He knows that the fact there is such a high case count in this country as opposed to other countries reflects poorly on him at the end of the day.
TAPPER: Coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. GUPTA: I think you can make the argument we are worse off than we were even going back to April.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[23:40:00]
TAPPER: Disappointed over the low turnout at his Tulsa rally, President Trump tried again in Arizona where Coronavirus cases had doubled in two weeks. This time the President spoke to thousands of young supporters packed tightly into a church with few taking precautions. As if there were not a pandemic at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Some people caught the Chinese flu.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The President used a racist slur for the virus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Wuhan - Wuhan was catching on Coronavirus, right? Kung flu? Kung flu.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Just like Arizona states across the country reported incredible surges in confirmed cases after relaxing their social restrictions. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: The U.S. saw the largest total of new cases to date on Friday with over 45,000 reported in a single day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It raised the obvious questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We want to get our country open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Did the President's push for states to ignore the White House's own guidelines for reopening, did his and others ignoring of pleas to wear masks and practice social distancing, did all of that undo all of the hard work are of the first lockdown?
DR. GUPTA: I think you could make the argument that we are now worse off than before even going back to April. The more viruses there is overall the more likely any given individual is going to come in contact with someone who has Coronavirus.
TAPPER: From Florida to California, stir crazy Americans hit beaches and bars with new infection milestones being reached every day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The State of Florida shattering its record, reporting 8,942 cases in just one day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The day Texas let their stay-at-home order expire the end of April they added 900 cases. On July 1st the state added 8,000 cases.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yesterday I got ten calls all of whom, young people; they're so sick that if they don't get support they'll probably die. I had three beds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I could go back and redo anything it would have been probably to slow down the opening of bars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: In the midst of this raging pandemic, what did the Trump Administration do? It asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act that provides health insurance for millions of Americans.
DR. JHA: If you put up cost barriers to people getting care it means people won't get care and that means they'll spread the disease for longer to more people. It'll make controlling the pandemic much, much harder. It is an incredibly short-sighted and really cruel policy.
TAPPER: Barriers instead of guidance from the person most responsible for America's well being.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't take responsibility at all.
COLLINS: I think what has surprised even the President's own advisers the most is how he has rejected opportunities to be a leader during the pandemic?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: At the end of June the Coronavirus Task Force held its first public meeting in nearly two months.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: All 50 states and territories across this country are opening up safely and responsibly. We slowed the spread. We flattened the curve. We saved lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Pence's claim that, "We flattened the curve", was a downright lie. Here's the curve on the day Pence said that.
[23:45:00]
DR. GUPTA: The biggest confusion that came out of that task force briefing was this alternate reality that somehow every state was opening safely and responsibly. That simply wasn't true.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. FAUCI: The numbers speak for themselves. I am very concerned and I'm not satisfied with what's going on because we're going in the wrong direction and there's going to be a lot of hurt if that does not stop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: As Governors began imploring their citizens to stay home and be safe the European Union and other U.S. allies shut Americans out of their countries.
YLVA JOHANSSON, EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR HOME AFFAIRS: We would like to open as soon as possible to Americans and all other countries but that depends on how the situation develops?
MURRAY: I think what we've seen from countries that have been able to get the virus under control is that they have treated it like a serious public health crisis and not a chance to make a political statement. DR. GUPTA: We should look at a place like Italy and I think be inspired. By going into a very strict lockdown mode for a period of time they showed it would work and they could slowly emerge back into some sense of normalcy.
TAPPER: On July 1st China, the initial epicenter of the virus, reported only three new cases two from international travelers. Back on U.S. Soil, a grim new record.
GERGEN: We have about 4 to 5 percent of the world's population. We currently have about 25 percent, one-quarter of all the deaths in the world from this virus. We cannot call ourselves the great nation in the world when that is the case.
TAPPER: Trump Administration officials told "The Washington Post" that the White House would like to talk about the virus less and that the new strategy was to hope Americans grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Health experts call it the perfect storm of disease transmission and absolutely horrible idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It is impossible to escape the fact that the general in the U.S. war against the pandemic hurt even his own troops and bystanders. In the weeks following the rally in Tulsa for example coronavirus cases spiked in that city.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The past few days we've had almost 500 cases and we know we had several large events a little over two weeks ago which is about right. So I just think we could just connect the dots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Despite the signs of COVID-19 cases associated with Trump Administration travel, the President continued ignoring the advice of the medical and scientific community.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: He formally withdrew from the World Health Organization.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have to open our schools.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: And he repeatedly demanded that children return to school in August.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Schools should be opened. Kids want to go to school.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The CDC created a plan for safe schools in the fall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. FAUCI: The CDC has guidelines about the opening of schools at various stages of those check points.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: But the Trump White House scrapped it without providing an alternative plan or additional funding.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PENCE: To be very clear, we don't want CDC guidance to be a reason why people don't reopen their schools.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: After months of downplaying the virus, often at odds with public health officials, the Trump Administration then started taking aim at Dr. Fauci.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE MEMBER: I respect Dr. Fauci a lot but Dr. Fauci is not 100 percent right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: In an aggressive campaign to marginalize and discredit him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is the White House trashing Dr. Fauci and sending out opposition research like memos to reporters?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no opposition research being dumped to reporters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Yes there was and it got worse. With White House officials attacking Fauci with a nasty cartoon and a falsehood filled op-ed in "USA Today." But smearing experts and attempting to shift blame will not stop this pandemic. DR. JHA: There is nothing magical about the things we need to do to bring this virus under control. There is testing and tracing, wearing a mask, social distancing. The problem is that this has not been an interest on the part of our federal government to lead the country through this crisis.
TAPPER: Testing has increased but at nowhere near the levels health experts say are needed. Even the President's Former Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney called the testing backlog inexcusable. "I know it isn't popular to talk about in some Republican circles but we still have a testing problem in this country".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICK MULVANEY, FORMER ACTING CHIEF OF STAFF: The American Clinical Laboratory Association says just expect more of these delays as this surge in demand exceeds the capacity for the labs to turn around these tests.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[23:50:00]
TAPPER: While health care professionals continued to beg for additional protective equipment the Trump Administration has not put into action the full force of the Defense Protection Act to deal with the shortage of critical medical supplies.
DR. LEENA WEN, FORMER BALTIMORE HEALTH COMMISSIONER: It's a national shame that we ran out of masks and other PPE to protect our health care workers. There was no excuse in March and even less of an excuse now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Over 59,000 new cases on Sunday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More than 60,600 Americans were diagnosed with the virus on Sunday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Six months into the Coronavirus crisis the U.S. does not have this anywhere near under control, and we've seen other countries at least be able to make strides in the right direction in a way we have really failed to do, and that is a failure that lies squarely with the President of United States.
DR. GUPTA: At some point it's going to become almost an existential question how many people are we willing to let get infected every day? How many people are we willing to let die every day before we actually take aggressive action towards this?
TAPPER: Dozens of countries have turned the corner on this pandemic while the U.S. is spiraling out of control.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Backed up all the way to the other side of the turnpike.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The question remains why won't President Trump take decisive action to try to end this tragedy?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's the line of cars going to the east and more and more and more and more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:55:00]
TAPPER: Why in the middle of this pandemic, why are we investigating the record now? Well, the United States is approaching a grim and tragic milestone. 4 million Americans diagnosed with COVID-19, and there is sadly much more suffering and grieving on the way.
With one projection that more than 200,000 Americans will have died by November because of the virus. Startling numbers that remind us every day how many lives are literally at stake? Are all those infections, all those deaths inevitable? Much it gets that much worse, no, not at all.
If President Trump would listen to health officials instead of attempting to undermine them, if he would push safe habits such as wearing masks in public, social and physical distancing, avoiding any unnecessary indoor activities.
If he were to launch an aggressive national campaign to test for the virus and contact trace, to invoke the Defense Production Act if needed, to increase lab capacity and more equipment so as to identify and isolate the virus.
If he would do all of that health official say most certainly lives would be saved and the United States could go back to some semblance of normal with jobs and schools as other countries have been able to do.
So many months into this pandemic it's hard to imagine President Trump having any change of heart or any change of message. And that is why we will continue to get the facts on the record. Doing so when memories are fresh and when people can recall what was done and what could have been done faster or better or at all.
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