Us to balance the front end and the delivery end of the system and saves us all that money that you saw in the auto report, and its in billions, not in millions. So as a former manufacturer, i dont realize if you dont have a good process you dont have a good product. So you came in here and identified some real process breakdowns and in a very short period of time you made a pretty dramatic improve president in terms of ontime dispatch level in terms of transportation and you obviously have covid which is affecting our entire economy and it obviously affect the postal system as well so what im hearing out of your testimony is the delivery delays are primarily being caused by the issues related to covid, but the changes you made in terms of process certainly in theory, if it hadnt already improved already, its certainly going to set you up for improvement in cost reductions and cost savings in the future. So i substantial delays as it relates to code of. I wont go so far to say that we maybe had a 4 to 5 hit on our Service Level for all sorts of mail, marketing mail, everything, because it got stuck on the dock, and were drastically bringing that down, and and once that is aligned, we should have a smooth, you know, running system, you know, at a much more High Performance rate. Those changes are necessary cost savings and improve president in the future. This is very doable so fedex and ups do it. Okay. Great. Senator sinema. Thank you, chairman, for holding this important hearing and i want to thank postmaster dejoy for joining us today. The u. S. Postal service has always been a critical lifeline for communities across arizona and communities across the nation and during the pandemic its even more true. Over the past week my office has heard from over 18,000 arizonans about the importance of the Postal Service. Arizonans want to ensure that the Postal Service will continue to deliver prescription drugs, assist Small Businesses and support their right to vote. Arizona has logged the way for safe and secure mail voting for years and the Postal Service must secure this process for the upcoming election. The hearing today shouldnt be about election mail but my constituents have had concerns over the length of time it took their prescriptions to arrive and theres concerns that rent checks and other bills take a week or longer to reach their destination causing late fees. Its critical that you and your team demonstrate a commitment to protect the identity of customers for a service they rely on every day so for my first question in arizona we expect 15 to 90 of the electorate to vote by mail this general election. Thats approximately 2. 4 million ballots moving through the Postal Network in arizona in the weeks before the election. Given that significant volume, unexpected challenges will certainly arise and adjustments will need to be made. Ive been working closely with the arizona secretary of States Office to ensure that they and other local Election Officials get their questions answered regarding mail issues so that we can have Fair Elections and im going to continue with the questions that my Office Receives from you and your team. Will local postal managers be authorized to make decisions and have postal employees make extra trips, late trips or work overtime in order to deliver ballots to ensure that plants and post offices dont fall behind in processing election mail . Yes, maam. Effective october 1st well have redundant resources and liberalization and aggressive efforts to make sure that everything is moving and flowing timely. I appreciate that. Could you tell me what steps your office is taking to communicate this policy to postal managers, Election Officials, stakeholders and even to the public in arizona so everyone feels confident that citizens have their access to voting by mail. Yes, maam. In general i think we started back in february. Weve reached out and we had over 50,000 contacts with Election Officials around the country. As you know, weve sent a number of letters. We we are making videos that will go online with the Union Leadership and myself to to to communicate out our commit president , you know, and well continue to work with the state the state boards, and our board, we decided to put together a Bipartisan Committee on the board to to kind of oversee everything that were going to be doing. We are emphasizing and, in fact, i think in september were going to send a letter to every american with what our process is going out, to every american citizen, so i think we are i feel good and i appreciate the question and i feel good about what the whole organization from it the board of directors down to our letter carriers and plant personnel, feel very, very proud of what were doing, and were going to deliver for American People. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Postal Processing Plants are a critical piece to ensure that everyday mail arrives in a timely fashion and that all the votes are counted and so we want to make sure that those Processing Plant operations remain sufficient. Earlier in your week in this announcement you said you would not close any postal processing facilities before the election, but i dont think you specifically ruled out consolidations of Processing Plants so my question is the Postal Service planning to modify or reduce capacity at any postal processing facilities before the election, and if so, what specific steps are you taking to ensure that the Postal Service can continue to meet Service Standards for both election and regular mail in the communities served by those facilities . Senator, i promise you were not making any changes until after the election. The. I appreciate that. That was very concise and direct answer, i love it. As you know, i recently wrote to you regarding the cherry bell Processing Plant in tucson. Its very important to mail service in that community and throughout arizona. If Postal Service considers consolidations or closures of processing facilities in the future, would you require new area Mail Processing studies for any impacted facility or other similar analysis before moving forward with a consolidation or a closure . Thank you, senator. There is, and im not totally familiar with it, but there is a whole process, a pretty detailed process that we need to go through before we close a facility, and if that will take that down, if that facility ever gets on, ill make sure that we reach out to you in advance and let you know, but there is a whole Public Awareness process, a Detailed Analysis as to how the mail is going to be processed. Its not an easy thing to do so but we have it marked down and well keep you posted just if it ever gets on our list at interested locations. I appreciate that. Just for your awareness the original measures were down in 2011 and weve had various significant population growth in arizona since then so we want to make sure that decisions are made with uptodate data. Ill follow up with you soon because its very important for arizona and very important for Southern Arizona in particular. Go ahead, mr. Dejoy. I just was going to say i look forward to speaking to you about it. Thank you. I know my time is almost done. The last thick ill say is when you next consider operational changes i would ask you to take into account the negative Customer Experiences that folks have shared with us like spoiled medicine or missing rent checks. Weve been getting more complaints about service feting worse since some of the most recent changes. We asked that you would take into remarks the negative experiences and my team is happy to share some of those direct experiences with you. Thank you for your guidance, maam. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for being with us today. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity and i yield back. Thank you, for sinema. Well, let me just again thank you, mr. Postmaster general for appearing here, is and subjecting yourself to this hearing process. Just to quick summarize a few things we heard today. Obviously the postal system is every bit as affected by covid as the rest of this nation has been economically devastating, so i think for anybody to assume that, you know, service would maintain as high level of standards when were in the midst of a pandemic i think is quite unrealistic. As you stated, i think the operational changes that you implemented are necessary for longterm inprove president and they created disruption as well. Coming from a manufacturing background i realize you have to have a good process and things need to run on time and you recognize that as well. Im highly supportive of those efforts and i think they should be xwhended and not condemned. As i stated, theres been unusual delays, covid and i thekd with our between folks and what they are fiending is high school of calls, the vast majority seemed very highly scripted, like this could be a very well organized effort wye doesnt surprise me in the slightest. There are fundraising emails from Senate Candidates and the Democratic Senatorial Committee dating as far back as april complaining about this postal issue, so i have no doubt that the democrats are ginning these issues and these problems up into something that its not. Its a very false narrative as i said designed to extract a political advantage, and, you know, is mr. Postmaster general, im very sorry that youre on the targeting end of this political hit piece. I think its very unfortunate. Its very tragic. This is as somebody else pointed out this is part of the problem why weve not had postal reform is how people take advantage of it and the expectation, i appreciated senator enzis very common sense statement of a number of different facts. Youve only been on the job 60 days. Youve got a great background. I truly appreciate your willingness to serve of this role. As you heard from the committee. We truly appreciate the hard work of the men and women that the u. S. Postal service doing a good job delivering our mail, but we need reforms moving forward so we might have an opportunity here. The there may be another covid relief package. It probably will include something for postal, so if theres going to be dollars allocate asked,ing what im certainly asking you for is the information, the data and the suggestions for true reforms. I think thats what has always been lacking since ive been in this. Absent these type of reforms, we also need to make some legislatively. I look forward to your data. Another shortcoming with my doling with the u. S. Postal service here. We just dont get the data that i think we really need to enact effective legislation. I would like to actually enact effective legislation and thats going to require cooperation with you and the postal workers. Again, you know, thank you for your service and thank you for stepping into this role. I apologize for the fact that youve become a target in a political hit job. Its very unfortunate, but with that mr. Chairman. Yeah. Would you yield to me for a minute or two, please. Absolutely. Thanks so much. As you may recall, mr. Chairman, one of our colleagues, the late tom coburn i worked with on major changes in the Postal Service, real reforms, and weve done that. Weve developed bipartisan consensus around, that and we can do that again. Among things that we heard here today, theres an interest in medicare integration and we ought to look into that and theres acknowledgement that there needs to be Major Investments in the fleet, the postal fleet. The average age of the postal vehicles is 27 years old. There are investments that need to be made for additional modern processing equipment in our Distribution Centers across the country, and there is i think theres the ability to come up with a bipartisan consensus on how to help the Postal Service not just get through a pandemic but be relevant and efficient and vibrant in the years to come. The we need to communicate and compromise and with all two respect to our postmaster general, i reached out to you when you were just initially selected by the postal board of governors and then later on i tried to reach you again and again for weeks and couldnt even get a call back and i wasnt the only one. Youve got to be willing to communicate. Youve got to be willing to communicate and theres people in the administration who do a great job at that. Mnuchin, treasury of secretary is one, and i would urge you to shared responsibility. Its not all on the post office and not all on the men and women who work in the post office, its not on the board of governors, its an us as well. Its a shared responsibility. The were counting on a democracy. The last thing i mention, ben franklin, first postmaster general. Remember what he said at the end of the Constitutional Convention when he said what have you done and what have you created and he said a republic and we need to keep it. Up. Keys to keeping it is frankly a vibrant Postal Service and the ability for people to vote, democrat, republican, whatever, people who cast their votes hand know they are going to be counted, thats critical. Weve got a president sadly who wants to undermine the Postal Service and undermine the peoples ability to vote by mail. Thats not acceptable. Hope flip we can do better than that, and for myself, some of my colleagues, we ill try to do just that. In order to form a more perfect union, we can do better. Mr. Chairman, if i could say a few comments too. Senator peters. Thank you, postmaster dejoy, i want to take an opportunity for thanking you for appearing before us so willingly and certainly on very short notice but i also want to be very clear about what ive been hearing and what youve heard from my members and just to counter a little bit of what the chairman said. These are real concerns that i am hearing. These are not manufactured. These are people who are coming forward talking about delays, talking about medicine thats not available for them, talking about how i have this i shared a story with an individual who who because of the lack of medicine kind doses and was actually hospitalized. Those are very real, and when i hear those kinds of stories we stand up. Thats my job. Thats the snob of every senator here to stand up for our comments, for the people back home, who are being hurt and make shower their voices are heard. Thats what their voices are about. Its about making sure peoples voices are heard and this is why were standing up and making sure that the Postal Service has done what they have done with incredible integrity and professionalism for 245 years. We want to make sure that that standard continues Going Forward. I fully appreciate that the covid has yeasted significant problems for the Postal Service, but i wont show my chart again but if you look at the chart the service was there through a lot of the pandemic. Its just been in the middle of july where you see it dropping off dramatically. The covid has been with us since march, but weve seen a dramatic drop since midjuly which is the time when i got all of those communications and my colleagues have been getting those communications. They are not manufactured. These are real people. I just want to be clear about that. Mr. Postmaster dejoy, you answered some of our questions today and i thank you for that, but theres still many, many left that run answer, and i think we all look forward to seeing the documents that we have asked so we can do our oversight function delivered to us in a timely fashion. I appreciate your willingness to do that. Im going to continue my investigation of the recent delays and Postal Service practices that have been put in place and i urge you and your staff to be fully forthcoming with any additional requests. That kind of transparency is critical in this job. I know you have a very hard job and frankly i think youve made it harder on yourself because of the lack of transparentsy that weve seen here the last few weeks so in the coming Weeks Congress certainly must provide Postal Service with the resources ant the oversight that you need to reliably deliver mail for American People, but not just through this election. We have to make sure we get through the election, get through the pandemic, and we want to make sure that we put the Postal Service on a sound financial footing that will last for another 245 years and beyond. Thanks, senator peters. The again, im in no way, shape or form denying that many of these complaints are absolutely genuine and we take these seriously and help our constituents but theres also no doubt that a lot of this is being joinginned up and many ar highly scripted and its being done for political purse, no doubt about that, but we have a new postmaster general who has been in office less than 80 days from. My standpoint the first thing he needs to do is, you know, start the job, roll up his Shirt Sleeves and get to work and try and figure out what he needs to do to reform the process, so i im looking forward to a totally transparent process here. Im looking to separate the fact from the fiction, and my problem is theres a lot of fiction, a lot of false narratives being ginned up by democrats and the left right now. I want the data as well. Mr. Postmaster general, you will work in the future and thats what im giving you the opportunity to do and the opportunity for a postal reform bill even in the next covid relief package if there is one, so lets work in good faith. I thank you again for your service and thank men and women of the u. S. Postal service for their hearing as well. The hearing record will remain open for is a did is. This hearing is adjourned. Thank you. Hello, everything. Im john king in washington. Youve been watching almost two and a half hours now of a hearing featuring the postmaster general louis dejoy. He has a House Committee schedule next week. A tale of two countries. Democrats making the case that they see changes at the post office, sorting machines taken out and overtime rules restrained and other changes that had the democrats say is proof to them given what had the president has said repeatedly about mailin voting, the democrats see a plot to use the Postal Service to tilt the elections. Republicans and the postmaster general say there is no such thing happening. Mr. Dejoy is saying hes been on the job for a couple of months and hes actually trying to make sure that the election runs more smoothly assuring both democrats and republicans now changes that were planned will not take place until after the election promising that every day he will make sure the election is run cleanly, so a tale of two countries here as the democrats say they they sense something running afoul and the republicans, you heard the chairman ron johnson saying democrats are beginning thginni. Cnns Kaitlan Collins is at the white house and abby philip is helpings us understand the controversy about mailin voting and Phil Mattingly joins us as well. The tele, i want to start with you on the hill. There are often big divides on big issues on capitol hill but this was quite striking. The democrats, because of what the president has said and because mr. Dejoy was a trump donor highly suspicious and skeptical about everything. Republicans saying, yes, there are some delays. Yes, the pandemic is havingin aim pact on service now but essentially saying the democrats are making this up. Yeah, nobody more clear about that than senator ron johns orange the chairman. Committee who said that this is largely a Conspiracy Theory that a lot of complaints that the lawmakers have been getting and hearing from their constituents have also been ginned up by democrats is what he was implying. Heres the reality of this hearing today and what you occurred. Democrats made clear that the concerns, yes, they are concerned about electionrelated issues primarily because of what President Trump has said about mailin ballots and about electionrelated issues, but theres agreement, including from the postmaster general, that there have been delays in service. The there have been delays in delivery and even republicans agreed that was a problem. They have constituents, too, veterans that need medication and people expecting benefit checks. The interesting thing that you heard from the postmaster general dejoy today was a couple of things. One, he made clear that election mail will still be considered first class or above over the course of the next several months. Thats something the u. S. Postal service has not committed, to at least according to lawmakers that ive been talking to, is that have been asking them about over the last several week, a major concern of democrats, that that would maintain the same and also reiterated that things have been suspended in terms of operational changes. One thing that i think democrats did not appreciate was he did not hesitate at all when asked about the removal of processing machines over the course of the last several weeks and while hes suspend the the operational changes he wont put those machines back into place or online. He said simply he didnt believe that was necessary given the restraints that they have at this point in time. Thats something youll hear democrats key on because thats been one of the primary issues they are concerned about as these delays are taking place over the last several with ex. Lets listen to that sound and discuss it and, again, the democrats see a conspiracy, that this man is a trump donor and complaints have increased since he took over in july. Complaints are spiking, big mail sorting machines have been taken out of service or the plans are to take them out of service and as phil noted and was asked about them and was asked if hell plug them back in at least through the election and heres what you said. Will you be bringing back any mailsorting machines that have been removed since youve become postmaster general . Theres no intention to do that. They are not needed, sir. You wont bring back any processors . They are not needed, sir. Quite emphatic saying that essentially, look, we live in a new world with fedex and ups and amazon and everything that the post office is dealing with more packages, and fewer letters and dont need the machines, the postmaster general and a big point of contention. Yeah. I think that jives with our reporting which is that a lot of these changes, the machines being taken offline. 95 of them were scheduled to have been removed by now so any future changes would only affect a small portion of these machines being taken offline and i dont know if we know the impact that this will be but we know there are delays and dejoy hassage knowledge the delay. They have had issues with krifd and with staffing and in irareas where its more prevalent, all of those factors taken no account, Postal Service could use more help, not less, in delivering the mail. I think you saw today a real change of policy as phil noted. We have documents showing that usps did plan to treat some election mail differently putting, you know, a two to tenday delivery timeline on some election mail. Dejoy reversed that effectively today and made a lot of commitments to lawmakers that election mail would be delivered quickly. Thats the most significant thing to me thats coming out of the hearings and its a result of all the pressure. The president says so often that mailin voting is full of fraud but its not. The i want to bring you in, kim, urging americans to day apension in their home states, when to get their ballots and what to do if you want to vote from home. Lets listen to mr. Dejoy here. He was incredulous, the idea that hes a fundraiser that hes a president that he would put his thumb on the scale of the election. Said thats outrageous and said since day one on the job hes been worried about the election. Listen. The Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on time. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day. There has been no changes in any policies regard to election for the 2020 election. As you stated, this letter was sent out before my arrival simply to help education state election boards. Kate, hes either a fantastic liar or the democrats are greatly exaggerating what happened here. Yeah. I think hes speaking out of both sides of his mouth. I think the good news is that he says he votes by mail, that voting by mail is legitimate, that hes going to prioritize election mail, that Congress Needs to step in and help the Postal Service. I wrote a piece back in april anticipating that this is going to be a problem for the election, but donald trump has called the u. S. Postal service a joke. Hes promised to veto any legislation that would actually bail out Postal Service and today we heard on the one hand that republicans saying, listen, the Postal Service needs major reform, it doesnt have the money that it needs. Its hamstrung by legislation. Were in the midst of a pandemic, how can can you blame mr. Dejoy, and then you hear they are not going to give any money if they slow delivery in certain areas. The Postal Service needs a huge amount of funding. Its been sitting in the heroes act, on the Senate Majority leaders desk to actually fund the fallow lex, not just for the Postal Service but to give muchneeded aid to the states and knew concern is it threads through the trump station. The issues arent so many what the law said but when we see the delays, people not getting their medicine. The facts are the fact. And the and barack obama himself said that consequences are democracy itself, failing, and the u. S. Postal service is at a Pivotal Point and i didnt hear mr. Dejoy say, listen, give me the resources i need to make the election work in the pandemic. He admitted there was a problem and then pretended there wasnt a problem and im not satisfied that we can have confidence in this rolling out in the way it needs to be in the fall. In fact, he said he doesnt think he needs more money. The republicans at the end suggested there would be for covid relief likely to include a little bit money. Democrats are demanding a dozen of documents. Well see if we got those documents and well continue to stay on top of that. Up next, the coronavirus in the health. We see a decline now in several states, but the cdc director says in Middle America he seize warning signs. To support us no matter what. Whether we see them or not, we need to know that theyre always there. For the past 25 years, masimo has been monitoring patients in hospitals around the world so that doctors and nurses can make sure you feel safe. As new challenges have arisen, weve grown to bring that same safety and support to the place that you want to be most. If weve learned nothing else, its that when challenges arise, theres only one way to rise above. Together. Masimo. Together in hospital, together at home. Young woman yeah, thanks mom mother of course and thank you guys for these gorgeous flowers, so thoughtful. Young woman whispering hey, did you bring the. The condoms . Young man whispering whats up . 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Lets take a look at the numbers and what dr. Redfield is talking about. First, lets look at the statebystate trends. Ten states trending up meaning reporting more cases today than a week ago. Ten states heading in the wrong direction as we speak. Thats the orange and the red. 19 states, thats the base Holding Steady including texas and california. Those were two big, big drivers of the summer surge. They are going down, 2 is states, you see them in green including arizona and florida along with texas and california are big drivers of the summer surge so a big improvement in the states that caused the summer surge and the southeast, also a big part of the summer surge. This week looks better than two or three weeks ago. Dr. Redfield says he hopes this changes soon when you look at this map when its death. Its a lagging indicator. It takes a couple of weeks for the death toll to drop down. 23 states heading in the wrong direction meaning more deaths reported now than they did a week ago. 23 you see them in orange and red and 11 states Holding Steady in terms of tabulating the death toll on americans. 16 states in the green trending down. This is interesting to watch from this perspective, so if you look down here this is nebraska and oklahoma. They do not look like they are part of the problem especially when you compare them to california in yellow and florida in blue and georgia in red. These states have been driving the summer surge in cases and if you look at it from this perspective these two dont look like a problem but lets look at some of the states in the heartland from this perspective. The issue is youre at 42,000 per cases per day and green is nebraska, yellow is iowa. This is oklahoma in pink up here. Uge number of cases, but trending in the wrong direction. Thats what dr. Redfield is worried about. Lets just look overall here. This is the saddest statement of all, the peak back in april and may and we come back down, 1,000, 1,000 americans a day diving from the coronavirus, and this is where we are in terms of the case count, ill pull this out and stretch it a little bit. Can you see right here the peak of the summer surge starting to come down. 45,000, 44,000 cases reported yesterday. The question is does that continue to come down or because of what dr. Redfield was talking about, the midwestern state, does it get stuck . Is it a 40,000 plateau or is this finally beginning to drop down . Many Public Health experts will tell you look where we are in the middle of june. They will tell you all of this is unnecessary, thats part of the big debate. Vice president mike pence says this happened and he says things are going well and then memorial day came. We were seeing cases declining from the dramatic rise in cases and the loss of nearly 2,500 americans a day at the height of this pandemic, and most of our scientists believed that we were we were well on our way toward towards lowering cases and that perhaps the coronavirus, like the flu, would be seasonal and that we would have a summer respite, but sometime around memorial day things changed. Our chief medical correspondent dr. Sanjay gupta joins us now. Sometime around memorial day things did change. Part of that was americans getting out to start celebrating the traditional summer holidays, if you will, but part of it also was thats when the reopening accelerated and even though the white house put out very clear reopening guidelines, a tiered process, you must pass this test before you move to this phase, the president essentially said never mind. Green light. Blow through them. The Vice President left that part out. Well go back through our reporting over the past couple of months and look at every state. Monof them sort of followed these guidelines. Where i live in georgia they started opening up even before memorial day as can remember. Put this together. A contagious virus, people became increasingly mobile and you saw what happened. What were seeing now john as you pointed out is the numbers are coming down though they are still higher now in terms of new people becoming infected versus what the what the peak was back in april. The demographics have changed, people who are getting infected now are likely to be between the ages of 18 and 29 and were also, you know, we have seen some improvements in terms of how we take care of patients and hospitals. We know, for example, ventilators arent as useful as we thought they were. Medications like dexame,asone and remdesivir and when dr. Redfield says the death rates should continue to come down, one is if the case counts come down death rates will come down a few weeks after that and weve gotten better treating patients. The big question youre alluding to is this a roller coaster, or is this going to be a continued downward slope . We dont know the answer to that right now. We dont know the answer to that, but the Vice President , look, hes speaking this morning. Were having a Public Health conversation but also having it a morning after the Democratic National convention close and knows the case that joe biden made that the president has failed them when it comes to controlling this man democratic and doing everything necessary to try to control this pandemic. Listen here, the Vice President disagrees. I truly believe that when President Trump suspended all travel from china before the end of january and stood up the White House Coronavirus task force that bought us an invaluable amount of time to begin work on a vaccine. Were already in phase three clinical trials, to stand up our National Response for doing 800,000 tests a day, to develop hundreds of millions of medical supplies. The. I get it. Hes the politician and were in an election here but they leave out a lot there, sanjay, they leave out february and march and leaves out the fact that it wasnt until the middle of july that the president said masks were a good idea. He leaves out quite a bit. He does, john. Look, on the right side of the screen people can look at what the outcome of that is. We are not even 5 of the worlds population and there are 25 of the worlds infections in this country. You can look at the death toll there as compared to the rest of the world, significant obvious and much out of proportion here in the united states. You know, ive met with the Vice President in the white house and talked to him about this a few months ago and even back then he says, look, it was all about the travel ban. The travel ban was key and, you know, the reality is that we now know that when the travel ban was actually implemented there was already a fair amount of virus in this country. We also know that travel ban, if you can even call it will that, was pretty porous because a lot of people were still coming back into the country. They were doing Temperature Checks at airports and things like that, but nobody was actually at that point from Temperature Check prevented from coming into the country and then what happened, as you mentioned, february and at least the first couple weeks of march, largely you be checked, a very contagious virus was allowed to continue to spread. Thats the real problem, and the numbers on the right side of the screen tell the story. Look, i hate to i get no joy in saying this but there are so many examples of the countries with the exact same head us up and resources, the travel ban, thats what they keep pointing to, it didnt really make a difference. May have helped some. Once the pandemic was here may have prevented more case but once it was here, inside the borders of the united states, thats february, march and april, a i can leave that to history books. Another interesting thing this morning, the president signed an order designating teachers as essential workers and john berman asked the Vice President about that this morning. Lets listen. Does that mean that they will be forced to work if they come into contact with someone with the coronavirus . No, action luchtly not, john. To keep our economy rolling and to keep our Health Care Economy rolling and to keep food on the table we recognize that there are essential workers in america. Mr. Vice president what it does, john, it prioritizes supplies and ppe and testing so we want our teachers to know were going to continue to prioritize their health, their safety, the safety of our schools, but were going to work every day. Okay. States around the country are safely reopening as we speak. Teachers largely local, its a city decision, local School District decision for the most part and what is the significance of this . Yeah. Weve been following it very closely in our community. I think a lot of people follow it in their respective communities. The gist of this, john, is that people, in this case teachers, Critical Infrastructure workers, essential workers, thats a definition would be allowed to continue to work even if they have come in contact with someone with covid19. As you know, you know, early on, we didnt have as much knowledge about the idea that people could be spreading this asymptomatically. It will allow a situation in which someone has come in contact with covid19, in those situations that person would be quarantined and monitored and they are saying for teachers that doesnt have to be the case. They can continue to teach your kids in person even if they have come in contact with covid19. A lot of Public Health officials are concerned about that. They may not know they have covid19. They could continue to spread it. Could they potentially spread it to people within the school, even kids . Is it thats the big concern . I mean, if there was adequate testing and add cut assurance testing, maybe that would obviate some of that concern, not entirely but at least somewhat. We still dont have that in most places around the country. So ive got to tell you. Having followed the story for some time this idea of classifying teachers as essential workers, of course, they are essential. I mean, they are essential to teach our kids but the idea that they could become potential vectors of disease and spread thats what people are trying to avoid. Yet another complication to the backtoschool dilemma thats going on across the country in just about every household. Dr. Gupta, appreciate your insights as well. The Democratic Convention is over. Now comes the campaigning. How joe biden plans to make his case, virtually. We are national university. In honor of our 50th anniversary, were committing over 30 Million Dollars to new student scholarships. Because we believe in the pursuit of purpose and in the difference you make in the world. Apply for your scholarship today at nu. Edu im a talking dog. The other issue. Oh. Im scratching like crazy. Youve got some allergic itch with skin inflammation. 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Simon pagenaud takes the lead at the indy 500 coming to the green flag, racing at daytona. Theyre off. In the kentucky derby. Rory mcllroy is a two time champion at east lake. He scores stanley cup champions touchdown only mahomes. The big events are back and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. The very unconventional Democratic Congress vengs is now in the history books. Joe biden accepting the president ial nomination last night, 33 years after he launched his first president ial bid. Speaking in delaware, the Vice President said look at the facts making the case donald trump does not deserve four more years. If you entrust me with the presidency i will draw on the best of us, not the worst. Ill be an ally of the light, not the darkness. Our current president s failed. In his most basic duty to the nation. Hes failed the protect us, hes failed the protect america and, my fellow americans, that is unforgivable. Joining me now senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny n. A normal world the Vice President , a, waking up in wisconsin. He is in delaware. Number two, getting on an airplane after a morning event and going tomy m or to ohio or to pennsylvania or a battleground state but he is still in the home state of delaware. What do they do now . Reporter john, he would probably going to all of those states. I was looking at the post Convention States and they hit the states by bus or train or by boat even. Remember that Mississippi River tour back in 2000 but also democrats in that mix lost doing the post convention tours and this is a new type of campaign and the Biden Campaign this morning talking to officials believes that the skoesz of the Virtual Convention gives them confidence to Campaign Going forward. It is not about winning the convention but the election but when you look at what the Biden Campaign and the former Vice President himself accomplished this week it is several things. One, party unity. The fact that there was a Virtual Convention is essentially exteinguished disset of the progressives in the group. How many republicans did we see . That was by design to push back against the idea that the ticket is the radical left here. So i think, a, joe biden reintroduced himself and introduced himself to the country. And showed that he is a man of this moment. But now the hard work begins. Winning a convention doesnt do much if you dont win the election, john. A pollster in a memo said joe biden is wellknown but not known well. I thought that was a interesting way to put it. They tried to introduce more of him. My dad lost his job. I understand the pain of the economic recession right now. I will act on science coming the coronavirus. I have lost a wife and children. I understand the pain of you who lost people to the virus. And the story of a young man who like joe biden has a stutdter. He said we were members of the same club. We stutter. Im just a regular kid. And in a short amount of time joe biden made me more confident about something thats bothered me my whole life. Joe biden cared. Joe biden cared. I think they think that thats a Bumper Sticker to take now to november. Reporter braiden is not a regular kid but a courageous kid who did well last night and all of us watching that, i think america would agree with that. Look. That was the case that joe biden was trying to make and there are a million stories like this after a long life in politics so for the last year or so some in the campaign trying to present him in a different way, trying to not suggest he is indeed going to be the oldest person ever to be elected president should he be elected but the reality is we saw that joe biden all week in full. The full measure of him, who comes to this with empathy, with a lifetime of wisdom and a lifetime of mistakes. That is what he presented there and Going Forward we are going to see this empathy message because thats what they believe draws the sharpest contrast with President Trump. One convention over. One next week. Jeff zeleny, appreciate the live reporting. No packed arena for the big speech of joe biden and no balloon drop or confetti but an outdoors fireworks display in wilmington, delaware. Not milwaukee, wisconsin. The party was supposed to be in milwaukee. The wisconsin Lieutenant Governor is joining me. When we can travel i will come, first beers on me. We are in a fascinating place. Joe biden solid or leaning 268 electoral states. Wisconsin is a tossup state. If he won wisconsin and the ten joe biden would be the next president of the united states. Theres a marquette poll showing a dead heat. You know your state well. What is the state of play right now . What does joe biden have to do to make it blue again . As weve seen in 2016, wisconsin is always in play. Wisconsin is always important. Even if they have us ahead we have to play like we are behind because 2016 also showed us we cant rely on the polling data and donald trump is making the desperate trips to wisconsin putting himself and staff and so many other people at risk, the lives at risk, people potentially contract coronavirus and we are doing the responsible thing and the studies show, the polling data shows that most people take the pandemic seriously and donald trump does not. People have experienced the Health Impact and Economic Impacts of coronavirus and joe biden has laid out a plan to address both of them and i think thats what voters in wisconsin respond to. Listen to a bit last night. You lived 2016. People think if theres higher turnout among africanamericans in milwaukee things might have been different and joe biden trying to appeal to people saying elect me, please. This can be different listen. Maybe the George Floyd Murder was a breaking point. Maybe john lewiss passing the inspiration. But however its come to be, however its happened americas ready in johns words to lay down quote the heavy burden of hate at last. In this dark moment, i believe were poised to make great progress again. That we can find the light once more. What did you think of that . We have talked through this largely of covid and the impact on state and politics. Where are we . What did you think of that speech . That was an emotional, passionate plea. As barack obama said to save the democracy and important that joe biden highlight those really low moments right now that we have been dealing with. While i would have been excited to have a convention, if you think about where we are in america right now, it is not really a happy time. It is a very serious time and it is a very urgent time talking about the pandemic and also talk about the frustration thats finally reaching that boiling point with racial injustice, people are standing up and theyre demanding, asking questions and demanding answers and joe biden is delivering answers and at least a response to what people have been calling for all across the country. The things that donald trump continues to ignore so that passionate plea was right for the moment, perfect for the moment and struck a tone with the American People and i think that people will respond in november. But it wont be easy. We have to continue to organize. Well continue to stay in touch going through the final weeks of the campaign. Lieutenant governor of wisconsin, thank you so much for your time. Coronavirus numbers tick down. The cdc director said the real number of infected could be as high as 60 million americans. Hello, everybody. Im john king in washington. Your mail is breaking news today. The postmaster general facing tough questions from senators, especially democrats who hear the president attacking vote by mail and worry a spike in delays and policy changes are part of the effort to tilt