Welcome to friday, this is meet the press daily. Im chuck today u todd, 18 days until election day and looks like increasingly a third surge is here right now. We are climbing towards a late peak. The white house is warning that 26 states right now are currently in the red zone. You read that right. 26 states. We have now surpassed 8 million cases, 219,000 deaths. The number of cases is going up in nearly 40 states right now according to abc da that as weve seen with this outbreak. Unless officials take actions, the number of cases will rise, if are you the governor of florida encouraging the spread by reopening everything, then are you going to see cases rise. Will the number of people requiring hospitalization go up . The Public Health impolitics are enormous, by themselves. This is all happening as tense of millions of people are gathering to vote w. 18 days until the election, President Trump continues to sew doubts of the most basic of safety precautions. Namely, wear ac mask. But
Days until joe biden takes over the west wing and inheriting the pandemic reaching another milestone. Amid the chaos, you have the opportunity to witness history. Americans set to rocket the final frontier in a matter of moment. Their mission, their International Space station, what makes tonights lift office monumental. This is american voices. We begin with the president s dangerous denial. It has been eight days since joe biden secured the electoral votes needed to become president. While donald trump said joe biden won, he said in quote i concede nothing. Here is bidens staff on meet the press. Not through any of the rest of that tweet, not through fraud or anything else the president is baselessly alleging. He won because he got more votes. The popular votes by a lot and he won the same number of electoral votes that President Trump called landslide four years ago. If the president prepares to recognize that reality is positive. Donald trumps twitter feed does not make joe biden p
I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by easter. Easter is a very special day for me and i see it sort of in that timeline that im thinking about and i say wouldnt it be great to have all of the churches full . I think Easter Sunday and youll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time and its just about the timeline that i think is right. Today images poured in from across the country of what easter looked like in the age of social distancing. And clearly, they are nothing like President Trump hoped they would be. And now as the president eyes another benchmark, 19 days away, the Washington Post reports one of the biggest obstacles to the virus response is trump himself. Advisors spent significant time to manage the president and his whims from successfully dissuading him from seeking to reopen the country at easter to tempering his impulse to push unproven drugs as miracle elixirs and we have a window how we arrived at th
Warn that this is all quite risky. The cdc director, dr. Robert redfield says his agency is tracking 12 different forecast models, for coronavirus deaths. As of last monday, all the models predict a rising death toll, topping 100,000, by june. Meanwhile, President Trump faces more criticism for his handling of the pandemic. This time, from his predecessor. Former president obama slid a not at all thinly veiled critique in a Virtual High School commencement speech that aired here last night. More than anything, this pandemic is fully finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what theyre doing. A lot of them arent even pretending to be in charge. All those adults who we used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing, turns out they dont have all the answers. A lot of them arent even asking the right questions. President trumps response today was succinct. He was an incompetent president. Thats all i can say. Grossly incompetent. Later,
Behind closed doors but with the sound of cheering crowds providing the atmosphere. Hello. We start in the United States, where americas top military officer general mark milley says he made a mistake by accompanying President Trump to a staged event outside a church near the white house during recent anti racism protests. General milley said being photographed in combat uniform as part of mr trumps entourage raised perceptions of military involvement in domestic politics. Aleem maqbool has more. Gunfire. It was arguably the most controversial moment of the demonstrations. The white house told Security Forces to clear Peaceful Protesters from an area which they did, violently so the president could walk out with an entourage that included americas top military official general mark milley, seen here on the right in uniform, to go and pose briefly outside a church, to show he was in control something general milley now says he regrets. I should not have been there. My presence in that m