Transcripts For CNNW CNN Special Report 20200719

Administration declared a Public Health emergency. What did the president do about the coronavirus . I issued a travel restriction from china. Public Health Experts say they bought himself a little extra time and then jausquander it. What did the president say . Its like a miracle. One day it will disappear. Was it a reality . The cdc official said its not a question of if the virus spreads but when. Reporter how delayed reactions from beijing to the white house contributed to missing supplies. Were running out of medications, running out of equipment. Reporter slow testing and confusion about the best way forward. Its frustrating, it dishes disheartening. We can do this. We know how to do this. Reporter a cnn special repo report, the pandemic the president. We decided to take a look at how the United States was fighting this deadly virus. Incredibly were back here months later with a new investigation and sorry to say, in many ways things are much worse for muff ch of the countr and all of us are at risk because of that. How did this possibly happen . Well, one possible reason, white house lies and white house denials, as in june when Vice President mike pence declared, quote, we slowed the spread, we flattened the curve, we saved lives, unquote. In april when Jared Kushner said the Trump Administration had, quote, rose to the challenge and this is a Great Success story, unquote. Well, the truth according to official record, the United States has ended up with the biggest number of cases in the world, nearing 4 million. And the most death of any country on earth because of this virus with projections that tens of thousands more americans will die before the end of the year. Shoulder to shoulder. Celebrating a new year that would bring a new virus, a new normal, emptying these streets. In early january, this is when the Trump Administration really gets the first word out of china, and it goes to the head of the cdc that there is this series of respiratory illnesses going around, they havent identified it and this is already a concern to the Top Health Officials in the administration. Reporter the Chinese Government reported dozens of cases of pneumonia in the city of wuhan. It closed down a market it suspected as the cause and assured the World Health Organization or w. H. O. , that there was, quote, no evidence of significant humantohuman transmission. But as chinese president xi jinpings government was trying to contain the spread of the virus, it also was trying to contain the spread of the truth. Not a lot of folks out. Reporter as Cnn International correspondent david culver found out. Reporter it was late in december when there was a Group Message saying a test result of a partial quarantined showed a patient had a coronavirus. But hours after hitting send, wuhan city Health Officials tracked lee down. Reporter days later dr. Lee was summoned to a Police Station and reprimanded for circulating rumors. Early in january the Deputy National security adviser has a call with a doctor in hong kong who really delivers for the u. S. Government one of the earliest warnings of what was to come. Pottinger had known this doctor and become a friend and what this doctor tells him was chilling. He says that the chinese are not revealing the extent of the problem, they are really covering up what is happening inside the country and perhaps most importantly for mr mr. Pottinger, this problem is coming to you. On january 6th redfeld offers to send help to work with the World Health Organization china does not want cdc scientists to come in the country at that point. But the Chinese Governments great wall of deception could not stop the deadly virus from migrating beyond its borders. 21 people in hong kong return from wuhan with fever or respiratory symptoms. Still, the xi government insisted its investigations ha , found, quote, no clear evidence of humantohuman transmission. In the early days, i dont think anyone knew what to believe. The concern was are we getting the full story . House of correctio how likely is this to be contagious, how likely is this to kill people . Based on the information that the cdc has today, we believe the current risk of this virus to the general public is low. For a family sitting around the dipper table tonight, this is not something they generally need to worry about. But during the same teleconference, the cdc announced a handful of u. S. Airports would start screening passengers arriving from wuhan. The new coronavirus is causing infections, fever and pulmonary infections. U. S. Intelligence agencies were warning the president about the Novel Coronavirus, according to the Washington Post, in more than a dozen daily classified briefings. They were calling attention to the threat of the coronavirus in a way that amounts to a fairly steady drum beat throughout january and february. So eventually alex azhar, secretary of state of health and Human Services goes to the president to talk about this coronavirus issue that is emerging from china. The president is completely preoccupied with other issues. He wants to talk about vaping and the sale of flavored vaping products. And it just shows you kind of how the president s focus was not on this coronavirus issue. Which is worse, the impeachment hoax or the witch hunts from russia . His focus, much of it, was on the u. S. Senate. Im ready to present the articles of impeachment against donald john trump. The president went into this year with this view that it was time to get payback for the people who brought on the impeachment crisis for him. And in his view, it was the socalled deep state, people in government who were hell bent to bring him down. So by the time the coronavirus pandemic really started to come to the United States and scientists and experts were telling hi about the problem, he saw some of these people as just an extension of the deep state and that led to some of the skepticism that he had toward the advice he was being again. And chinas government in late january still downplaying. Health officials in wuhan held a press conference yesterday. They say this is preventable, they say this is controllable. The next day the u. S. Had its first confirmed case of the coronavirus. The president s response was to claim it was under control. He said he trusted the Chinese Government. Are there worries about a pandemic at this point . No, not at all. We have it totally under control. Its one person coming in from china and we have it under control. Its going to be just fine. President xi, theres just some talk in china that maybe the transparency isnt everything that its going to be. Do you trust were going to know everything we need to know from china m. I do, i do. I have a great relationship with president xi. We just signed the biggest deal ever made, certainly has the potential to be the biggest deal weve ever made. But we got it done and i think the relationship is very, very good. This period of time was a period of real cross currents in the Trump Administrations policy towards china, where different factions in the government had different interests in addressing chinas role in a growing pandemic. The president first and foremost wanted to solidify a trade agreement during this period of time that he wanted to use as kind of a cornerstone of what he could run for reelection on in november. So that was one reason why President Donald Trump very much wanted to downplay any kind of hawkish rhetoric about china and chinas role in the growing pandemic. We asked the white house to participate in this documentary, but they declined. On january 24th, chinese authorities initiated a lockdown of 30 Million People in ten cities, including the presumed ground zero, wuhan. Trump praised china tweeting, china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. But behind the scenes Health Professionals across the government were tracking what was happening in china and getting alarmed. Some were sharing their fears in an email chain dubbed red dawn originated by the chief medical officer at the department of homeland security, an email chain leaked to the New York Times. Emailing to each other that this is going to be bad, and we, the scientific community, the medical community, have to develop some real advice to policy makers to try to mitigate the potential damage. The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe, wrote a department of Veterans Affair senior medical adviser. You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools. Now im screaming close the colleges and universities. Exactly what came to pass six weeks later. But at the time many in the Trump Administration, including some of the medical community, including dr. Fauci, were not ready yet to declare that those kinds of steps would be required. An Infectious Disease doctor at the university of nebraska shared this bit of dark humor, great understatements in history, napoleons retreat from moscow, just a little stroll gone bad, pom pay, a bit of a dust storm, high pressure, a bad summer heat wave and wuhan, just a bad flu season. Hundreds of americans were evacuated today by the state department. What precautions were taken to make sure they are not carrying the virus back with them to the u. S. . They went through not one screening but one by chinese and u. S. Officials and theyll go through a third screening and then theyll spend from three to 14 days in quarantine. The president did something he would do over and over again throughout this crisis, offer a ray of hope, distant hope, retweeting Johnson Johnson to create Coronavirus Vaccine. Peter navarro circulated a memo through the National Security council and it went out broadly to dozens of Administration Officials in which it was very clear he detailed the potential for millions of deaths, 1 million to 2 million deaths, as many as 500,000s. He went through the economic cost, which he predicted would be staggering, trillions of millions in the country. The president was told by this memo and he was irritated that these estimates had been put down on paper. That memo was dated january 29th, a day that also brought this the white house announced the creation of a Coronavirus Task force to deal with the threat here in the United States. In the final days of january, a World Health Organization Emergency Committee praised the Chinese Governments leadership, commitment to transparency and saw no need for any travel or trade restriction. Secretary of commerce wilbur ross declared the coronavirus would be good for the u. S. So i think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to north america. Reporter and trump again told the country everything was fine. We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment, five, and those people are all recuperating successfully. Reporter the very next day after the president made those comments was when his administration declared the coronavirus a Public Health emergency. In china the doctor reprimanded for sounding the alarm was dying after being infected by a patient. Reporter struggling to communicate, lee spoke with cnn briefly by phone. You can hear the hospital machines pulsing in the background. Chinas Supreme Court commented if lees warning a month earlier had been heeded and action taken, quote, it might have been a fortunate thing for containing the new coronavirus. Next once we saw that this outbreak grew exponential rates, we knew this was going to be a rapidly disseminating virus. Their hearts just sink when theyre trying to use this test and its malfunctioning. 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Youve been avoiding. Like people. And pants. Ings but dont avoid taking care of your eyes, because were here to safely serve you with new procedures that exceed cdc guidelines and value your time. Visionworks. See the difference. Its called ubrelvy. The migraine medicine for anytime, anywhere migraine strikes without worrying if its too late or where you happen to be. One dose of ubrelvy can quickly stop a migraine in its tracks within two hours. Many had pain relief in one hour. Do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. Few people had side effects, most common were nausea and tiredness. Ask about ubrelvy. The anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. February began with a ban. Not one person has died and i issued a travel restriction from china. The restriction stopped most china residents and four nationals who had recently been in china from traveling to the u. S. The restrictions also started a clock. When you talk to public he h Health Experts, they really look with despair with those couple of weeks. They say whatever your feelings were on the travel ban at the time, it was a perfectly fine and reasonable step to take and he bought himself a little bit of time and then he just squandered it. There were only nine known cases of the Novel Coronavirus inside u. S. The first step to keeping that number low, according to the experts, was a working test for the virus. Testing was, is and always will be the cornerstone of trying to stem a pandemic. Youve got to identify the people who are infected, youve got to be able to isolate those folks and youve got to be able to treat them. It all begins with testing. February 6th is when the cdc starts sending these test kits out to Public Health departments. You talk to people in these Public Health departments, theyre thrilled to get the test. They work over the weekend trying to get the test to work. They see this as an opportunity to get ahead of the virus in their communities, they can figure out whos sick, they can trace those people theyve been in contact with, they can really get ahead of this. But the tests, the only tests approved for use in the United States were not working. Their hearts just sink when theyre trying to use this test over the weekend and its malfunctioning. There was a test available from the World Health Organization, but the cdc did not choose to get it and nobody inside the government asked outside labs to help. Officials were told not to do it, that they do not need to do it, it was too alarmist. The delay in testing concerned the experts, who now saw the virus spreading from human to human and quickly. I think it was pretty clear in early february that there was humantohuman contact. Once we saw that this outbreak grew exponential rates, we knew this was going to be a rapidly disseminating virus. Researcher eva lee was working to figure out how Many Americans might catch the virus. We viewed models. Those models projected between 2 and 10 Million People in the u. S. Would become infected. On february 9th she sent an email calling for social distancing. We know the citizens to know social distancing in a way that best protects them. Every action counts. It was a full five weeks later before President Donald Trump would take that step. Thank you. Thank you very much. That same day some of the nations governors met with dr. Anthony fauci and cdc director robert redfield. They got some disturbing news. They gave as you pretty detailed outline of what they felt was happening with this virus and what they thought was a good potential for what might happen in the country. When i left that briefing that the administration gave to the governors, we knew that this was going to be a serious crisis. It was exactly the opposite of what President Donald Trump was saying publicly. Looks like by april, in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. The president s cdc director cont contradicted him later that week in an interview with sanjay gupta. I think this virus is with us beyond the season and you can start to think it have as a seasonal flu. The only difference is we dont understand the virus. A very small number of people in the country right now with it, like around 12. Some have recovered already. So were in very good shape. He was still of the view that you could stop flights, build walls and keep coronavirus from coming to the United States. The chances of that were near zero, partly because it was now more than two weeks since the cdc test had been approved and it still was not working properly. Public Health Officials were telling me, especially on the west coast in states Like Washington and california, they knew this virus was spreading in their communities and they knew they couldnt test for it. They were right. We would later learn that there were two coronavirus deaths in california by the middle of february. And two more at the end of the month around seattle washington. Over at the white house robert redfield, the director of the cdc and alex azhar, secretary of health and Human Services, are assuring other Administration Officials were going to get it fixed quickly. Not quickly enough. February 22nd, the food and Drug Administration or fda, sent an expert to the cdc headquarters to help figure out the problem. This expert realized there was contamination in the manufacturing process and that the cdc had actually violated its own manufacturing protocols in trying to produce this test and that that is why the tests were malfunctioning. You have to wonder if President Donald Trump had been directly involved or his staff had and if they had understood that you only contain the virus if you understand its spread, they might have pressed for more widespread testing earlier. A little bit to their defense here, there were certainly indications that it was going to be bad, it was going to spread but there was no clear data, even in mid february on exactly how it was spreading through the United States. But during the third week of february, Public Health officials were preparing for the worst, just in case. They gathered in the situation room to run a tabletop exercise of what it would look like if the pandemic fully hit the United States. And so while the president was talking about 15 cases going to zero, this were talking about 15 cases going to the thousands and then the tens of thousands and then the hundreds of thousands. Two days later dr. Robert kadlic at the department of health and Human Services spotted a red dawn email that set off warning bells in the administration. This is really a critical moment for this group thats siding the problem. They see an email about a pags in china who had shown no symptoms of coronavirus and yet had spread the virus to family and friends. That means people who did not know they were sick were unknowingly spreading the virus. Eva, is this true, the doctor wrote to eva lee. If so, we have a huge hole in our screening and quarantine effort. She responded confirming the story and added simply, people are carrying the virus everywhere. That set in motion a greater urgency that they got to get to the president a plan to mitigate the problem inside the United States before it spreads further. It was now february 24th and it was time dr. Kadlec and his colleagues decided to tell President Donald Trump he needed to recommend social distancing measures, cl including shuttingn big Public Events and schools. But President Donald Trump was in india. The moment he got back to the United States they were going to sit down with him, advocate for these measures and hopefully try to convince the president to move forward with it. But a doctor from the cdc warned publicly that there was going to be a severe disruption to american life. We are asking the American Public to work with us to previous in the expectation that this could be bad. The president was angry about that and said why are they overplaying the problem . Its leading to the stock market crashing. Breaking news the dow was taking a dramatic his down almost 900 points. President donald trump actually considered firing dr. Messonier, according to the wall street jou journal, though he ultimately did not. Had the president been less concerned about what the message sounded like and been more concerned with the warning, he might have conceded the cdc was right and moved much more quickly trying to mitigate the effects and trying to prepare the american people. Instead the day the president returned from india, he blamed the media, tweeting that msnbc and cnn are doing, quote, Everything Possible to make the coronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets if possible, unquote. Before railing at the media, the president was apg. With dr. Messonnier. The president , it seemed, viewed anybody delivering ugly facts about the virus as an enemy. He held a presser saying something completely opposite of what experts were saying. When you have 15 people and the 15 in a couple of days is going to be close to zero, thats a pretty good job weve done. The president also announced a new leader of the Coronavirus Task force. Im going to put our Vice President , mike pence, in charge. On that day the president returned from india, dr. Kadlec did not tell the president it was time to start social distancing. It would be nearly three more weeks before the president took any of the steps they had planned to recommend. I think one of the Big Questions were always going to have is what would have happened if we had acted sooner, if we had started these physical distancing measures a week earlier, the question would be asked how many lives would have been saved . According to some models, they say 50 , 60 of people if the first way may not have been affected. Do you think lives would have been safd ved if social distanc measures started the first week in march . Its difficult to say. If you had a process ongoing and started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives, obviously no one is going to deny that but what goes into those decisions is complicated. So late february his administration was Still Holding crowded rallies, his administration not recommended social distancing and they had not solved the problem with the testing kits. Then on february 27th, a breakthrough in the form of a phone call arranged by dr. Anthony fauci. The message when they all get on the line is were not getting off this phone call until we figure out how to fix the testing issue. You have the head of the fda on this call, you have redfield on this call and it really striking this isnt happening until thend of february. But one of the solutions that comes out of it is the fda needs to loosen its regulations. That was a big deal. Those regulations made it difficult for commercial labs to come into the process and scale up testing. The regulations were officially lifted on the last day of february, the same day america reached a grim milestone. Let me begin expressing our sadness for the loss of this patient in the state of washington. At the time that was the first known covid19 death in the United States. Coming up anybody that wants a test can get a test. And that was a surprise to people at the cdc. Get all your pet essentials right when you need them, with Curbside Pickup at petsmart. 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Lower a1c and lower risk of a fatal heart attack . On it with jardiance. We are committed to making jardiance available and affordable. With our savings card, eligible patients pay as little as 0. Two months after the Trump Administration first learned of the contagion taking over the globe, there were 72 known cases in the u. S. And one known death, but that was about to change. March was an explosive month for this virus in the United States. New evidence confirmed that the virus, after entering Washington State and california, was now spreading on the east coast with the first reported infection in new york. And two days later, a second. Were seeing what we expec d expected, what we anticipated, which was a continuing spread. In a few short weeks, new yorks second case of covid multiplied into hundreds, forming the nations newest clust cluster. We will continue to do exactly what were doing. But back in washington, d. C. , the president had yet to publicly admit the enormity of the unfolding crisis. A lot of very exciting things are happening, and theyre happening very rapidly. The month before in february, a team inside trumps own administration had developed an aggressive plan to try to slow the spread of the virus through social distancing, a plan that would effectively shut down a big chunk of the nations economy, but President Donald Trump was still resisting. So this was a critical period of time where the coronavirus continues to spread and no real federal action is taken. States began competing for critical medical supplies and equipment. Come mid march supplies would become so scarce, the cdc would issues guidelines to Health Care Workers to reuse masks or even use bandannas, if necessary. That was unthinkable before that point. No one in a million years would ever have thought that in the United States of america that we would tell doctors and nurses reuse your mask. Part of the problem in terms of the pe is there has been a total lack of clarity about process here. Mike pence took over the task force, Jared Kushner has been running what someone described as a shadow task force. That has left a lot of confusion as to who exactly is responsible for helping procure ppe. Confusion that would continue to plague the administration behind closed doors and in front of the cameras. Were considering different things, but were also considering the fact that last year we had approximately 36,000 deaths due to whats called the flu. The president visits the cdc and famously says anyone who wants wants a test can get a test. And that was a surprise to people at the cdc working on this issue. They didnt know the president was going to say that. Testing was certainly not at a point where anybody who wants a test can get a test. And the tests are all perfect, like the letter is perfect. The transcription was perfect. The tests were flawed. The tests didnt work. As a result we lost valuable time, more people became infected. There were people Walking Around without any symptoms, no test and they were continuing to spread the virus. It will go away. Just stay calm. But the day after President Donald Trump said, quote, the virus will go away, the country was wrestling with a new reality. Hollywood legend tom hanks and his wife tested positive for cov covid. The nba announced it was suspending its season. All of a sudden everyone said whats going on with this virus . And the World Health Association officially named it a panpandemic. He didnt want to do the kinds of things that you needed to do to mitigate the spread of this virus because it would further hurt the economy. Pushed by democrats to more than triple his original request for funding they asked me two and a half and i got 8. 3 and ill take it. Trump signed 8. 3 billion in emergency spending for the virus, yet even then he continued to insist falsely no one saw this virus coming. Very well but its an unforeseen problem. What a problem. Came out of nowhere. Every epidemiologist has been predicting, cajoling, warning government officials for the last 20 years that a pandemic of this size and magnitude was inevitable, but when our leader denies or refuses to admit the problem is confusing at best and it is disastrous at worse. But perhaps the most confounding comments by the president in march surrounded his taughting outing of an unte treatment. Chloroquine, were going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. That would be a big game chang changer. The Washington Post reported President Donald Trump was so enormorred with the drug, he asked an acquaintance from maralago to call the california governor, gavin newsom to broker a deal for the state to buy millions of tablets of hydroxychloroquine from india. Is there any reason to suggest it might be use as a profession prophylactic against covid . No. And matt gates seemed to mock those taking the virus seriously when he wore a gas mask on the house floor. It was also devin nunez going on fox news and telling people they should still feel comfortable going out to eat at restaurants when Health Advisers were saying the exact opposite. On the other side of the political aisle, Governor Cuomo and bill de blasio did not initially grasp the full gravity either. We dont think its going to be as bad as other countries. And then there was the pro trump media. Were not afraid of the coronavirus. Theyre just looking for any way possible to bash President Donald Trump. Theyre basically accusing the rest of the Mainstream Media of fear mongering, saying democrats in the media are just blowing this up because they want to create more chaos for the president. I am far more concerned with stepping on a used hair needle than i am getting the coronavirus. This disinformation took such a hold on a segment of the public, new polling data began to worry people in the president s party. The polling showed that the republicans were taking this virus far less serious than what democrats were and what circulated was their tone and message had to change on coronavirus because denial was not going to be a tool for survival. But strict social distancing measures were. As infection spread, some state leaders would begin to enforce them, without the help of the federal government. To reduce the social interactions that are not necessary in our lives. In a moment dr. Acton will be signing an order banning the gathering together of people over a hundred people. On march 13th, President Donald Trump made his strongest stance against the virus yet. Today i am officially declaring a national emergency, two very big words. That same day the european travel ban he had announced two days earlier went into effect. We will be suspending all travel from europe to the United States for the next 30 days. In only the second Oval Office Address of his administration, the president had misstated his own plan to the nation, leaving out the key fact that the restrictions did not apply to cargo or to u. S. Citizens traveling home. When you compare what weve done to other areas of the world, its pretty incredible. Still, some called the bandera coniae i band dracon. But what the administration failed to understand that was it was already too late. The virus had been spreading wildly throughout europe for months and the travel ban immediately triggered an uptick of travel into the United States. Its very crowded, which is not ideal considering what this contagion is. Chaos erupted at crowded and unprepared airports filled with american passengers desperately fleeing for home, many of them bringing the virus with them. This critical misstep among others might have been avoided had the Trump Administration kept the white house Pandemic Office, which it reorganized in 2018, fully in tact. Those seasoned pandemic experts according to its former senior director, could have made a difference. When you say me, i didnt do it. I think a practiced White House Level Pandemic Office would have been able to understand exactly what needed to happen more quickly. Wed much rather be ahead of the curve than behind it. March 16th, more than 70 days after the president first learned about the virus, the administration implemented the best tool to slow its spread. My administration is recommending that all americans engage in schooling at home if possible. This is on march 16th. It was the end of february that his Health Advisers started talking about putting these measures in place in the first place. In is a war zone, a medical war zone. Theres patients building up in all the corridors, on exjoxy. Were returning out of medication, out of quilt. Equipment. I started getting texts from brave, brave people, one saying scared, one of them saying what im seeing is armageddon. The following day President Donald Trump approved an historic 2 trillion stimulus bill and finally authorized the defense production act, which would allow him to force the manufacturing of ventilators. For weeks weve already had doctors, weve already had nurses publicly and on television pleading, saying we dont have what we need to protect ourselves from the virus. Ive been asked by the Tennessee Department of health to velcro a diaper around my face because i dont have an n59 mask to wear and see patients. It was really perplexing and still is perplexing why the administration took until march 27th to invoke the defense production act. It is a failure of the Trump Administration and is one of the most colossal mistakes i have ever witnessed and unfortunately it will cause thousands and thousands of lives to be lost. Next so what happened . Were not an ordering clerk. It became an unholy mess. To return to the workplace, safely, companies will need the right tools. Thats why salesforce created work. Com its an allnew suite of apps, expertise, and services. To manage this crisis today, and thrive tomorrow. Everything Companies Need to return to the workplace. Lets reopen. Safely. Whether its bribes. Or an overdue makeover. Get all your pet essentials right when you need them, with Curbside Pickup at petsmart. Just order online, drive up, checkin, and pick up. Cmon pizzas here. Whoa is that shaq . This is my new pizza the shaqaroni and its bigger than pizza because for every shaqaroni sold, 1 is donated to the Papa Johns Foundation for building community. Hold on one second. Sure. Okay. 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Theyll provide relief to new York Hospitals overwhelmed with coronavirus. The city system for burials is completely overwhelmed. The remains were loaded into trailers and brought to heart island for a temporary burial. Its like were going into a war with no protection. Bring us our ppe now. We need it. And then the doctor took the phone and he said, im sorry. But there are no more coats. Reporter on the last day of march President Trump was more serious than he had ever seemed to be discussing the pandemic as he addressed the nation. I want every american to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. Were going to go through a very tough two weeks i think of all of the briefings he has done that was probably the best one. He was telling the truth to the public. He was doing what elected officials are supposed to do, which is prepare their citizens and the general public for whats to come. Our country is in the midst of a Great National trial, unlike any we have ever faced before. Theyre shocking numbers when you see a hundred and 120,000 and 200,000 people. Over potentially a very short period of time. One of the ways in which he real ooilzd it was toward the end of march watching elmhurst hospital where 13 people died in a 24hour period from covid19 i think brought home the reality of this for him in a way that few other things did. Five ventilators. Oh, my god. I grew up right next to it. To see the scenes of trailers out there, freezers. Nobody could even believe it. Roupt along with the images of devastation the president heard cries for help. It really just feels like its too little too late. Like we knew. We knew it was coming. Its like military people going into battle. I would say you people are just incredible. Reporter yet just two days before the president was hurling insults at the care givers. Where are the masks going . Are they going out the back door . How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000 . It comes in this period of time when the president seems to want to lash out to a nguyen ew every day. One day he is blaming the quote invisible enemy the coronavirus. Another day he is blaming the chinese. And then he finds this bizarre line of attack against Health Care Workers. Then becomes this attack on individual governors. It was the governors who President Trump had been attacking with a vengeance. You need that ventilator. The president initially pushed back against their requests for more medical gear saying they were asking for too much. And dismissed democratic governors in particular. Such as new York Governor Andrew Cuomo who had been steadfast in his appeals to the federal government to provide more ventilators and supplies to the hardest hit state. On april 2nd the situation grew urgent as new york surged to 84,000 cases. Of the then 216,000 cases nationwide. At the current burn rate, we have about six days of ventilators in our stockpile. The president lashed out at governors on twitter calling them, quote, the complainers. The states should have been building their stockpiles. We have almost 10,000 in our stockpile and weve been building it and supplying it but the states should be building. Were a backup. We are not an ordering clerk. Were a backup. The president had a phone call with governors and he said it was up to them to go look for their own supplies. Are so what happened . One state began bidding against another and in some cases there were reports of states bringing in supplies, arranging to buy them, only to have the federal government seize them for their own stockpile. So it became an unholy mess. Reporter thats what happened to massachusetts republican governor charlie baker. His states shipment of respiratory masks never made it. We had our 3 Million Masks we had ordered confiscated in the port of new york. Look at the bizarre situation we wind up in. Its like being on ebay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator. Reporter a bizarre situation complicated by the president s soninlaw also an adviser to the president. The federal stockpile was supposed to be our stockpile not state stockpiles they then use. When Jared Kushner made his only appearance in the Briefing Room he did his fatherinlaw some damage when he described the stockpile as our stockpile because the federal government is supposed to be there to help the rest of the country not to be in a fight with states. On april 2nd after weeks of fighting with governors the president expanded the defense production act for six medical Device Companies to produce protective masks and ventilators. The administration was finally it continued to be criticized t for not fully unleeashing the might of the act. The president has continued to see criticism for the fact he has not used the dpa more constantly while constantly pointing it as a bat to try to hit people with. The latest issue is swabs and the fact he is not trying to force companies to ramp up production. There were unquestionably examples of the u. S. Government stepping up. The u. S. Army corps of engineers built field hospitals including this one at the Javits Center in new york city. The u. S. Navy deployed ships to new york and california. But the white house also had to contend with another crisis. Startling sign of the economic pain. Reporter 6. 6 million workers filed for unemployment in the u. S. For the first time. An historic high. And a 3,000 increase since early march. Ballooning debt. An economic recession. The current reality is beyond painful. Reporter not a good equation for a president running for reelection. Hes frustrated by what weve seen happen in the stock market. The numbers he knows of job losses and people who have filed for unemployment are through the roof and they are going to potentially be incredibly damaging to him in november. That is his fear. Reporter so the president wanted to push governors to restart the economy at least in part to resuscitate his reelection campaign. And the only way to do both . Reopen the country as soon as possible. But that seemed unrealistic when models were predicting 100,000 or 200,000 deaths. According to the Washington Post, an impatient President Trump sought different data, which some white house economic advisers delivered. The Washington Post is reporting that the white house led by economic adviser Kevin Hassett built a different coronavirus model which aides interpreted to show that deaths would have already peaked and that there would be far fewer fatalities than initially foreseen. The Washington Post is reporting this presentation affirmed skepticism within the west wing about what people like dr. Fauci and dr. Redfield and dr. Birx were saying, Health Experts were saying about the severity of the crisis. Is that true . You know, as kevin himself said in that story, that is not true, absolutely not true. What he was doing was taking the model from the university of washington and basically smoothing it out to show what is actually happening. There is a difference between a forecast trend and what is actually happening. So we didnt change anything based on that. We want to have our country open. We want to return to normal life. Our country is going to be open. Reporter 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. I dont know. Somehow i dont see it for myself. Reporter it was hardly the first time he ignored Public Health advice. Shaking a lot of hands today. Are you protecting yourself at all . Not at all. Reporter with no vaccine yet on the horizon the country had to increase testing and Contact Tracing capability, decreasing cases over 14 days. Test and then isolate the person who is infected. Trace all the contacts. Quarantine them. But we didnt do the first part of this well enough and thats affected Everything Else downstream i think one of the striking things is there doesnt seem to be kind of an effort to get in front of that. Its always like the u. S. Has been a couple of steps behind. Reporter the country had struggled with testing since the beginning of the covid19 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 theyre asymptomatic. What is really critical is this constant sentinel surveillance for asymptomatic individuals. Reporter 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. We probably in this country need to be testing 1 million to 2 Million People a day ultimately. Reporter i think were going to have to have i think well 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. Reporter by april 10th there were more than half a million confirmed covid19 cases in the u. S. And the death toll had catapulted to nearly 19,000. Were leading the world now in testing by far. Were going to keep it that way. Reporter 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. Were testing more than anybody. Reporter yet listening to the president speak about testing, it sounds as though the u. S. Had both quantity and quality. We have a great testing system. We have the best right now the best testing system in the world. Reporter but that claim did not square with the facts and what the experts were saying. Dr. Anthony fauci is raising questions about the nations readiness, telling the Associated Press more coronavirus testing is needed, saying, quote, we have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on and were not there yet. Excuse me. Excuse me. I know your question. The governors are supposed to do testing. Quiet. Quiet. Reporter 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 dont have the power of the defense production act. Were going to need testing. More testing. Faster testing. Than we now have. Reporter 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. More help is needed from the federal government on testing. This is probably the number one problem in america and has been from the beginning of this crisis. 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. 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 wont be the one to deal with the fallout if there is any. Thank you. Reporter this was a back and forth between the president and the governors that created gridlock and confusion. Its hard to argue that there hasnt been lost time in this fight over who should be responsible and who is to blame. Its frustrating. In some ways its disheartening, because we can do this. Reporter next, protests. Those protests encouraged by the president himself. Reporter and disinfectant. Is there a way we can do Something Like that . By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning r has the car. At subaru, were taking on distracted driving. With sensors that alert you when your eyes are off the road. The subaru forester. The safest forester ever. Whether its bribes. Or an overdue makeover. Get all your pet essentials right when you need them, with Curbside Pickup at petsmart. Just order online, drive up, checkin, and pick up. Youve been avoiding. Like people. And pants. Ings but dont avoid taking care of your eyes, because were here to safely serve you with new procedures that exceed cdc guidelines and value your time. Visionworks. See the difference. If enjoyment isnt part of the process. Dont trust the process. For the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. Visit petmeds. Com today. On april 11th the New York Times ran an extensive investigation detailing trumps mistakes during the crisis. Two days later the president of the United States calls the shots. Reporter trump played a video during a press briefing that seemed to be blaming the press for downplaying the crisis. The coronavirus is not going to cause a major issue in the United States. Reporter the same press he had been attacking for over hyping the crisis in february. 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. Reporter white house reporters did not back down. You bought yourself some time. You didnt use it to prepare hospitals. You didnt use it to ramp up testing. Now 20 Million People are you are so disgraceful. We have done a great job. 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. Reporter there was also this. When somebodys the president of the United States, the authority is total. And thats the way its got to be. Authority is total. Its total. Has any governor agreed you have the authority to decide when their state i havent asked anybody. You know why . Because i dont have to. Of course that is not the case. No one would agree with that including the president s conservative allies. Reporter the next day april 14th as coronavirus cases in the u. S. Climbed to nearly 600,000, President Trump made another controversial decision. Today i am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization. So much death has been caused by their mistakes. The fight with the w. H. O. Is in part just another element of looking to blame someone besides himself. Reporter there are some medical experts who believe the World Health Organization could have and should have acted sooner. 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 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. People have very real concerns with the way w. H. O. Was dealing with china early on in this outbreak but havent 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. Reporter on april 16th the administration announced a plan. Our team of experts now agrees we can begin the next front in our war. Tens of thousands of protesters promise to show up at the capitol to protest the stayathome orders. Those protests encouraged by the president himself. Reporter when President Trump took to twitter. Tweeting all in caps liberate minnesota, liberate michigan, liberate virginia. These are great people. Theyve got cabin fever. They want to get back. They want their life back. He sees some benefit in bolstering this antigovernment message. He is encouraging people to go against what their own governors have said. Even encouraging protesters to go against the white houses own guidelines. To encourage people to go protest the plan that you just made recommendations on just doesnt make any sense. Were sending completely conflicting messages out. Working very hard with governors now on testing. Going to help them out. Reporter the president then the governors seemed to unite around testing a few days later. Preparing to use the defense production act to increase production. Reporter the president planned to use the d. P. A. 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. We are working with more than 400 test developers. 220 labs around the country. Reporter ultimately were doing more testing i think than probably any of the governors even want. Reporter four days later the white house announced a blueprint for testing, putting the responsibility back in the hands of the states. We have enough testing to begin reopening and the reopening process. We want to get our country open. Reporter a plan that had the administration taking a victory lap i think that weve achieved all the different milestones that are needed so the government, federal government rose to the challenge and this is a Great Success story. The federal government has done a spectacular job. Reporter but the plan had medical experts reacting quite differently. The white house plan calls for around 7 million a month. Were 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. It isnt perfect and were not there yet and were not but were going to get there. Were going to get there soon i hope. Reporter and they needed to because the only true end to this pandemic, the holy grail, a vaccine, was still on the horizon 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. We still dont have a vaccine. That gives you an idea how challenging this can be. Reporter a race against time. To get back to some semblance of normal. And, most importantly, to save lives. And with every step, serious communication failures were taking the country off track. Such as the disinfectant situation. 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 to think that bleach could cure someone of coronavirus is ludicrous. Reporter 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 administrations Coronavirus Task force entered either full or partial quarantine. After one of trumps valets and the Vice President s press secretary tested positive for covid19. 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 chas ticed 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 maskless, touring a plant in arizona that manufactures medical masks. They said you didnt need it, so if i didnt 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, yeah. Mr. President , this is where these guys reporter 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. A lot of good things have come out about the hydroxy. A lot of good things have come out. Reporter the president announced he was taking hydroxychloroquine to ward off the virus despite mounting evidence that it does not work against covid19. And could even be harmful. Hydroxychloroquine . Im taking it. Hydroxychloroquine. When . Right now, yeah. A couple weeks ago i started taking it. Its terribly irresponsible. It sets a bad example and maybe even dangerous. Reporter 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. President trumps new pick to be the next health and Human Services Inspector General. He is jason wyda. If confirmed hell replace Christi Graham who angered President Trump on hospitals needing protective equipment. Then the assignment of a former whistleblower. Time is running out because the virus is still spreading everywhere. Administration officials who claimed they were telling truths that apparently President Trump did not want told. Congressman, ill never forget the emails i received indicating that our mask supply, n95 respirator sly was completely decimated and he said were 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. I watched him and he looks like an angry, disgruntled employee who, frankly, according to some people didnt do a very good job. All right. Reporter the president could remove whistleblowers 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. Were very concerned that our Public Health message isnt resonating. And we always will. For people. For the future. And there has never been a summer when its mattered more. Wherever you go, summer safely. Get zero percent apr financing for up to five years on select models and exclusive lease offers. Its called ubrelvy. The migraine medicine for anytime, anywhere migraine strikes without worrying if its too late or where you happen to be. One dose of ubrelvy can quickly stop a migraine in its tracks within two hours. 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Serious side effects may include pancreatitis. Taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, belly pain, and decreased appetite, which lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. Were committed to helping ensure trulicity is available and affordable. Learn more at trulicity. Com. By may the country was growing impatient. The coronavirus had claimed 65,000 american lives and had devastated the u. S. Economy. 20. 5 million jobs lost in the month of april. These are depression level numbers. Reporter 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 governments 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. The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. Our country has to open. Reporter even he acknowledged this would come with a cost. Will some people be affected . Yes. Will some people be affected badly . Yes but we have to get our country open. You start seeing the 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 . Reporter on may 12th dr. Anthony fauci testifying remotely warned that states and cities faced serious consequences if they opened up too quickly. There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak you may not be able to control. I was surprised by his answer actually. Reporter the next day President Trump publicly criticized dr. Fauci. He wants to play all sides of the equation, i think were going to have a tremendous fourth quarter. Reporter 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. People who know fauci say he has been marginalized and sidelined. He has been at times public about infrequent discussions with the president. 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 Trumps head and heart is the economic argument is really the winner. Reporter is next day may 14th 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. Cnn has confirmed the Trump Administration has rejected 17 pages of draft cdc recommendations. The cdc wanted more rigorous guidelines or at least many officials there had. The white house did not. 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. Let us hear from the experts. I think well be able to make much better decisions accordingly. Dont politicize this. 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. Its called operation warp speed. That means big and it means fast. 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. Reporter 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. Wed love to see if we could do it prior to the end of the year. 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. Reporter yet even while announcing this Scientific Initiative President Trump continued to wish the virus away. We think well have a vaccine in the pretty near future and if we dont itll go away. There is no chance the virus will magically go away. Thank you all very much. This has been a recurring theme of the president. And its unfortunate a, because obviously it contradicts everything that science knows about this virus but, b, it sets unrealistic expectations. Reporter and the president s own behavior was not in sync with what his Public Health officials recommended. Here is my mask right here. Reporter on may 21st the president visited a ford plant in michigan but refused to set a public example. I wore one in this back area but i didnt want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it. The fact 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. What about the example it would send for other americans . I think it sets an example both ways. He is sending the signal you dont actually need to wear a mask. This sort of approach he has taken is a big part of the reason masks have become so politicized when the science is clear that they help. I dont think it served the countrys interest at all. We had a president who refused to lead, refused to tell people to put on the darned mask. Reporter that night dr. Fauci went on cnn to encourage the public to take precautions during the upcoming memorial day weekend. Well 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. Reporter 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. I mean if hes not wearing a mask im not going to wear it. If hes not worried im not worried. Reporter the president. Yes, sir. From a Public Health standpoint you couldnt help but think the virus was now spreading because people were clustered together just a few cases could spiral into something much greater. Reporter the republican governor of north dakota pleaded for people to stop politicizing mask wearing. If someone is wearing a mask they might be doing it because theyve got a 5yearold child whos been going through cancer treatments. They might have vulnerable adults in their life. Reporter 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. The president spent his Holiday Weekend pushing a decades old false Conspiracy Theory about Msnbcs Joe Scarborough and a dead young woman. The cdc reported the country had reached a sad milestone. 100,000 americans had died from the virus. President trump tweeted that he extended heart felt 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. He didnt want to have social distancing. He didnt want 50 of people there either with their faces covered or half the seats empty. 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. Reporter 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. We are very concerned that our Public Health message isnt resonating. Reporter 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. I hope the lockdown governors i dont know why they continue to lock down. Reporter and the white house stroev to illustrate trumps message of a return to normalcy by abandoning social distancing measures. When reporters had gone out first to set up cameras the chairs were socially distanced. Later on the chairs were incredibly close together. The white house said it was because it looked better. Reporter it was another example of the Trump Administration signaling that everything was back to normal even though it clearly was not. 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 cant market your way out of it. Reporter in late may another tragedy captured the publics attention. The killing of george floyd by police in minneapolis sparked widespread protests around the country about racial injustice. No justice no peace reporter the crowds did not concern some Health Experts causing some to question their credibility. But others . 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 helps a lot. Reporter it is amid this back drop of racial tension do we have a great time at a trump rally . Reporter that trumps campaigns announced plans for a rally on june 19th his first rally since the shutdown. The president picked tulsa, oklahoma on juneteenth the holiday celebrating the end of slavery. They still pressed ahead once they learned of it and still pressed ahead in tulsa the site of the brutal race massacre in 1921. This caused an enormous uproar rou. Reporter eventually the president agreed to push the rally back one day. The president s indoor rally carried risks. We know that indoor gatherings are more dangerous. We know that people werent going to be Wearing Masks. While we can never point to one event as being a super spreading event it had all of the makings of it. Trump supporters are being told they can attend the rally at their own risk. Reporter the Campaign Even required attendees to promise no the to sue if they got the virus. With infections rising in tulsa on june 13th the citys Health Director urged the rally to be postponed. 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. Reporter but trump doubled down. Weve never had an empty seat and we certainly wont in oklahoma. Reporter 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, quote, winning the fight. Four days later on the day of the rally weve learned this afternoon six Campaign Staffers doing advanced work on this tulsa rally have tested positive for the coronavirus. Reporter 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. He has been pursuing policies that are absolutely against the best advice in the country. Hes been doing it to serve his own needs. That is wooden headedness. Reporter in the end the Fire Department estimated the arena was only about onethird full a point that the Trump Campaign disputed. When the president finally took the stage one comment he made in tu particular sparked outrage. When you do testing to that extent youre going to find more people. Youre going to find more cases. So i said to my people slow the testing down please. This has been a constant drum beat for weeks. We look bad because we do a lot of testing. Wed have no cases if we didnt test. That is a Public Health travesty. That is the one tool we 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. 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. I think you can make the argument we are worse off than we were even going back to april. Lashes go soft, supple and fully fanned. Exclusive fanning brush. Every lash sensational. Now in Midnight Black with rose hip oil. Lash sensational mascara. Only from maybelline new york. So when it comes to screening for colon cancer, dont wait. Because when caught early, its more treatable. Im cologuard. Im noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92 of colon cancers even in early stages. Tell me more. Its for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. False positive and negative results may occur. 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The president used a racist slur for the virus. Wuhan wuhan was catching on. Coronavirus. Right . Kung flu . Kung flu. Reporter just like arizona states across the country reported incredible surges in confirmed cases after relaxing their social restrictions. The u. S. Saw the largest total of new cases to date on friday with over 45,000 reported in a single day. Reporter it raised the obvious questions. We want to get our country open. Reporter did the president s push for states to ignore the white houses 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 . I think you could make the argument we are now worse off than before even going back to april. The more virus there is overall the more likely any given individual is going to come in contact with someone who has coronavirus. Reporter from florida to california, stir crazy americans hit beaches and bars with new infection milestones being reached every day. The state of florida shattering its record, reporting 8,942 cases in just one day. Reporter the day texas let their stayathome order expire the end of april they added 900 cases. On july 1st the state added 8,000 cases. Yesterday i got ten calls all of whom, young people, theyre so sick that if they dont get support theyll probably die. I had three beds. If i could go back and redo anything it would have been probably to slow down the opening of bars. Reporter 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. If you put up cost barriers to people getting care it means people wont get care and that means theyll spread the disease for longer to more people. Itll make controlling the pandemic much, much harder. It is an incredibly shortsighted and really cruel policy. Reporter barriers instead of guidance from the person most responsible for americas well being i dont take responsibility at all. 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. Reporter at the end of june the Coronavirus Task force held its first Public Meeting in nearly two months. 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. Reporter pences claim that, quote, we flattened the curve, was a downright lie. Heres the curve on the day pence said that. 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 wasnt true. The numbers speak for themselves. I am very concerned and im not satisfied with whats going on because were going in the wrong direction and theres going to be a lot of hurt if that does not stop. As governors began imploring citizens to stay home and be safe the European Union and other u. S. Allies shut americans out of their countries. We would like to open as soon as possible to americans and all other countries but that depends on how the situation develops. I think what weve seen from countries that have been able to get the virus under control is they have treated it like a serious Public Health crisis and not a chance to make a political statement. 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. Reporter 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. We have about 4 to 5 of the worlds population. We currently have 25 , onequarter of all the deaths in the world from this virus. We cannot call ourselves the great etna igs in t greatest nation in the world when that is the case. Reporter the white house wanted to talk about the virus less and the hope was americans would grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day. Health experts call it the perfect storm of disease transmission and absolutely horrible idea. Reporter 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. The past two days weve had almost 500 cases and we know we had several large events a little over two weeks ago which is about right. Connect the dots. Reporter despite the signs of covid19 cases associated with Trump Administration travel, the president continued ignoring the advice of the medical and scientific community. We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization. Reporter he formally withdrew from the World Health Organization. We have to open our schools. Reporter and he repeatedly demanded that children return to school in august. Schools should be opened. Kids want to go to school. Reporter the cdc created a plan for safe schools in the fall. The cdc has guidelines about the opening of schools at various stages of those check points. Reporter but the Trump White House scrapped it without providing an alternative plan. Or additional funding. To be very clear, we dont want cdc guidance to be a reason why people dont reopen their schools. Reporter after months of downplaying the virus, often at odds with Public Health officials, the Trump Administration then started taking aim at dr. Fauci. I respect dr. Fauci a lot but dr. Fauci is not 100 right. Reporter in an Aggressive Campaign to marginalize and discredit him. Why is the white house trashing dr. Fauci and sending out Opposition Research like memos to reporters . There is no Opposition Research being dumped to reporters. Reporter yes there was and it got worse. With white house officials attacking fauci with a nasty cartoon and a falsehood filled oped in usa today. But smearing experts and attempting to shift blame will not stop this pandemic. 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. Reporter 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. Quote, i know it isnt popular to talk about in some republican circles but we still have a testing problem in this country. The American Clinical Laboratory Association Says expect more of these delays as this surge in demand exceeds the capacity for the labs to turn around these tests. Reporter while Health Care Professionals continued to beg for additional protective equipment the Trump Administration has not put into action the full to deal with the shortage of critical medical supplies. Its a National Shame 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. Over 59,000 new cases on sunday. Six months into the Coronavirus Crisis the u. S. Does not have this anywhere near under control, and weve 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. At some point its going to become almost a 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 . Dozens of countries have turned the corner on this pandemic. While the u. S. Is spiraling out of control. Backed up all the way to the other side of the turnpike. The question remains why wont President Trump take Decisive Action to try to end this tragedy . Theres the line of cars going to the east and more and more and more and more. No no uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Will be about keeping a routine. And the best routines in life did, do and always will make time. For enjoying yourself. Do and always will make time. What if you can have direct access to certified personal what doesecurity agentsel safe . 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Few people had side effects, most common were nausea and tiredness. Ask about ubrelvy. The anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. 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 covid19, 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 get 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 Officials 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 its 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. I wanted my hepatitis c gone. I put off treating mine. Epclusa treats all main types of chronic hep c. Whatever your type, epclusa could be your kind of cure. I just found out about mine. I knew for years. Epclusa has a 98 overall cure rate. 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