the president told woodward that the virus was deadlier than the flu and he was intentionally hiding the truth from you, the american public. here now is trump in his own words in a series of taped interviews by woodward with the president's own permission and for his new book on the trump administration. listen for yourself. >> and so what was president xi saying yesterday. >> we were talking mostly about the virus. and i think he's going to have it in good shape. but it is a very tricky situation. >> indeed it is. >> it goes through air, bob. that is tougher than the touch. the touch, you don't have to touch things but if you just breathe the air and that is how it is passed. so that is a very tricky one. that is a very delicate one. it is also more deadly than your, even your strenuous flus. people don't realize, we lose 25,000, or 30,000 people a year here, who would think that. >> i know. and what would that do for -- >> this is more deadly. this is 5% versus 1% and less than 1%. so this is deadly stuff. >> now it is not just old people, bob, today and yesterday some startling facts came out. it is not just older -- >> yeah, exactly. >> it is young people. >> so give me a moment of talking to somebody, going through this with fauci or somebody who kind of caused a pivot in your mind, because it is clear just from what is on the public record that you went through a pivot on this to oh, my god, the gravity is almost inexplicable and unexplainable. >> well, i think, bob, really to be honest with you. >> sure, i want you to. >> i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down. >> yes. >> because i don't want to create a panic. >> again, this is early february. this is when the president told woodward that covid-19 was, his words, deadly stuff. but that he wanted to play it down to avoid a panic. and just a reminder to all of us, what the president was saying publicly about coronavirus at that same time. >> you treat this like a flu. essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. you view this the same as a flu. this is like a flu. if you have the flu you recuperate and get better. >> on flu, on average we lose from 26,000 to 78,000 people a year and even more than that in some cases, some years. we haven't lost anybody yet. >> now we should also note that president trump is expected to announce his list of potential supreme court justices any moment now. we do not know if he will speak about the damning revelations from the bob woodward tapes but we're standing by for that. kaitlan collins is our white house correspondent, and kaitlan, everything coming from the tapes, hearing the president's own voice, how is the white house responding to this? >> reporter: it is a difficult thing to respond to, brooke. and we saw today there was supposed to be a briefing scheduled right when the excerpts came out. they delayed it by an hour and then you saw the press secretary come out and defend the president's response on coronavirus and say that he had not lied to the american public about the threat that was facing them when it came to coronavirus even though the president is on audio saying that he was intentionally misleading the public and playing it down because he said that he did not want to cause a panic. and of course it raises so many questions about if the president had been saying publicly what he was saying privately to bob woodward, how different would things be today and how different would people's attitude have been to coronavirus and to the pandemic and to shutdowns and wearing masks and things of that nature. so you saw the white house say the president say things as simple as the president never downplayed the virus and he's on tape saying i downplayed the virus and i still want to downplay the virus. so that really summed up what the white house response to this has been. >> the president never downplayed the virus. once again, the president expressed calm. the president was serious about this when democrats were pursuing they sham impeachment. he was expressing calm and taking early action. >> reporter: so she said the president was expressing calm. brooke, that is not what the president was expressing. he was saying we have a limited number of cases, soon they will go down to zero, things of that nature. also telling people this is just like the flu saying people should treat this like it was the flu. he's been saying things that he said last month, i believe it was, when the president last said it that children are almost immune from this. we know that on these tapes, these are all things president was compressing the opposite sentiment of it. he said it was deadlier than the flu and not just older people who get coronavirus. it is younger people, too. all of these things he was saying privately, things that were the opposite sentiment of what he had been saying publicly to the american people. >> and it is not just the back and forth bob woodward has with president trump, he talked to james mattis, former director of national intelligence dan coats and task force member dr. fauci. all of whom minced no words in their criticisms of this president. kaitlan, what did they say? >> reporter: fauci is the only one we've heard from so far. he did an interview on fox news earlier where he said he didn't recall saying that about the president because if you read it in the book, in the excerpt that we have it said the president had an attention span that was minus zero and that he only was interested in getting re-elected. it said that fauci told that to an associate. that is how woodward reports it in his book and he said he doesn't recall. it we have not heart from mattis or dan coats. they held some of the most important jobs in the administration and the things are saying are a damning indictment from of the president. when mattis was saying when he was defense secretary he would go to the national cathedral and pray for the state of the nation under the command of donald trump. saying he was unfit and dangerous to be president and conversations with dan coats, the director of national intelligence about whether or not they should speak out in a collective fashion against the things that the president was saying. there are so many moments in the donald trump presidency, brooke, that are stunning and surprising and remarkable and unlike any other white house that we've covered. but to have the former defense secretary and the former director of national intelligence, two people the president picked to put in that job, saying something like that, asking if they should come out and tell the american public what they really think of the president is incredibly notable and, of course, the big thing is you have to remember the president spoke to woodward 18 times on his own, phone calls and in person for this book, and many, many current and former white house aides also spoke to woodward. >> that is right. this is not anonymous sources. this is bob woodward to the president and you hear his voice on tape. thank you so much for running through what is just the beginning of the fallout from some of the reporting out of this book. moments ago joe biden spoke out about all of this saying that president not ome cost thousands of american lives but millions of livelihoods. >> he had the information. he knew how dangerous it was. and while this deadly degrees ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose. it was a life and death betrayal of the american people. experts say that if he acted just one week sooner, 36,000 people would have been saved. if he acted two weeks sooner, back in march, 54,000 lives would have been spared in march and april alone. you know, his failure not only cost lives, it sent our economy in a tail spin. it cost million more in american livelihoods. >> let's talk about all of this with. with me now abby phillip and michael d'antonio and from the center for medicare and medicaid is andy slavic. and so welcome to all of you. andy, first to you, i just want to start if president trump had been truthful with the american public, the way he was with bob woodward, how many thousands of lives would have been saved? >> if the u.s. would have had even the approach of germany here, about three quarters of the lives that we lost would have been saved. and that just would have meant being forthright. this is a lie with consequences and it is a lie that matters and the reason is matters so much because when you have a novel virus, before there is a vaccine, public reaction is your only medicine. so not telling the public the truth, saying you don't want to panic the public, when you know something is contagious through the air as the president said, is basically equivalent to saying we're going to leave the public defenseless. the public would have behaved very differently if they knew there was a high death rate of something that spread through the air in february, the course of history would have been quite different. >> abby, yes, this is the president lying yet again. but it is on tape. it is not anonymous sources. and this is trump. and this isn't about kaukraine, but this is impact the all of us, millions of americans, do you think this is the thing that final sticks? >> well, i don't know. i don't know that any person really knows what will stick and what won't stick. but i think, brooke, your point is exactly right. this is the most important thing that is going on in the lives of most americans right now. 190,000 people in this country have died from this virus. there are millions of americans without jobs. and the reason that president trump right now is going into the last eight weeks of this campaign at a significant deficit in national polls against joe biden is because largely of his handling of this virus. and if there were americans coming into this, who had doubts about whether the president took this seriously as he should have, whether he acted as quickly as he should have, these tapes really provide evidence that in february he knew that this was more serious and more deadly than he told the public. that is pretty damning evidence. and i think that for the most important issue in the lives of americans, it is going to have an impact. because everything else stems from this. people want to go back to their normal lives and they're going to look to how president trump led in this moment. >> michael, you wrote the book on trump. you have talked a lot with me on tv just about how the size of his ego, he probably thought speaking to bob woodward was a feather in his cap because this guy broke watergate. anyone on his team who had any common sense, after the first book a couple of years ago, would have said avoid bob woodward. why would anyone let him sit down with bob woodward, let alone 18 times. >> quite of the few of the calls happened after hours when nobody was minding the president. so there were no adults in the room. there was only donald trump. and you've got to remember that i think his reality was formed back in the '70s when richard nixon was president and bob woodward was the most famous reporter in the world. so he thinks this is as wonderful thing that bob woodward wants to speak to him and he's also a con man. he believe that's he could con almost anyone. he believed he could con woodward. but the strange, bizarre element in all of this is that as he's speaking to woodward, he's revealing he doesn't believe his own con. so he knew he was lying. he knew these were lethal lies that were tantamount to homicide for tens of thousands of americans and he told woodward the whole story. this is so self destructive, so bizarre, to depraved that you really have to wonder how many screws loose this man has. >> he also, in the conversations with bob woodward, this is for you, andy, on march 19th, trump said it is not just old people, bob. just today and yesterday some startling facts came out, young people too, plenty of young people. this is a president insisting that schools should open and that college football should be played. he said that children are quote/unquote virtually immune. how do you square that with what the president said to bob woodward? >> it is really hard to explain. and i think you've got other people who are on this panel who studied how the president thinks and why he says what he says. but the thing that should be really striking to the american public is he not only told us a lie, he did spend a long time covering it up by effectively shutting down his agencies from reacting. criticizing the cdc when they said publicly this was serious. criticizing anthony fauci and the people in the government who said this is more serious. so he continues on this path to keep his own truth the truth that is out there. because he believes he has success in marketing that to certain part of the population. i don't think he feels like he needs to convince anybody other than his base. and that he keeps creating that reality for himself but it is making people feel less and less secure about his leadership in this very trying time. >> i hear you on the lie and the cover-up. and it is lives, it is livelihoods. abby, let me close with you because you've heard several high level officials on record including dr. fauci saying that trump's attention span is like a minus number and his sole purpose is to get re-elected. wee trying to survive through the pandemic and the president is the president. we need a vaccine. but given this bombshell, how is anyone going to trust anything that the president says to the american public between now and november 3rd? >> well, we already know, brooke, that most plern americans don't trust what the president said. the polls show that two-thirds of americans distrust anything that he has to say, particularly about this virus. and many don't trust anything that he has to say in general. including some of his own supporters. people who are planning to vote for him. so this is a problem that has already been deep-seeded for this president. it is going to get worse. and this book is one of several books just in the last couple of weeks coming out, painting the same picture, this idea that the president wants to be re-elected more than anything else is something that many people around him have said on the record. and i think we could also probably expect to hear more. there are going to be more and more accounts coming out from people who used to work in the administration from whistle-blowers, we have just one just today talking about the president's character behind the scenes. it will, i think, have some kind of impact. the question is always how much. his die hard supporters are probably not going anywhere. but he doesn't -- it is not enough. he's got to get those folks in the middle and i think many of those people are getting a lot of evidence right now of who exactly the president is and that is a really tough picture for him, brooke. >> right, the moderates and the independents, will they be swayed because of that. bob woodward reporting. and there is so much more coming out of the tapes interviews. thank you all for that. a new hurdle in the race for a coronavirus vaccine. why a major trial was just put on hold. and the mayor of tuscaloosa, alabama, the home of the university of alabama, is reopening bars in town, despite hundreds of cases of covid on campus. we'll talk to the mayor live and ask him why he's doing that. and no tricks or treats for los angeles county after it bans the door-to-door halloween tradition. you're watching cnn, i'm brooke baldwin. keep moving. and at fidelity, you'll get planning and advice to help you prepare for the future, without sacrificing what's most important to you today. because with fidelity, you can feel confident that the only direction you're moving is forward. because with fidelity, you can feel confident that gives me cash back onesome new aeverything.akuten that's ebates. i get cash back on electronics, travel, clothes. you're talking about ebates. i can't stop talking about rakuten. pretty good deal - peter sfx [blender] ebates is now rakuten, sign up today. we have different needs.y. but one thing we share is wanting to make our lives the best they can be. if you have medicare and medicaid, a dual complete plan from unitedhealthcare can help. giving you more benefits. at no extra cost. and a promise to be there for you. whatever your story may be. to learn more, call or go online. dual complete from unitedhealthcare. for the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. visit petmeds.com today. we're back. you're watching cnn, i'm brooke baldwin. we're learning more this afternoon about what led a major drug make tore halt global trials. astra zeneca paused his trial after a volunteer became ill. this morning the head of the national institute of health described the illness as a quote, spinal cord problem and said the pause shouldn't be alarming. >> and within abundance of caution at a time like this, you put a clinical hold and you investigate carefully to see if anybody else who received that vaccine might have had a similar finding of a spinal cord problem. to -- so this ought to be securing, here is exhibit a. >> the setback comes less than a day after astra zeneca sign the the ledge that that would not seek any approval until it is safe and effective. but meantime, remdesivir, is being rationed in the u.s. while it is plentiful in developing countries. this, despite the fact that the drug is made by an american pharmaceutical company and developed with the help of u.s. taxpayer money. with me now, cnn medical analyst dr. lena nguyen, also the former baltimore health commissioner. thank you for coming on with me. and let's start with the pause in the astra zeneca trial. does this happen in large scale trials and do during the pause will they determine whether this spinal cord problem was a direct result of the vaccine or potentially something else? >> that is exactly right, brooke. so this type of pause is not unusual. it is actually part of due diligence that has to occur. this is a reason why we do phase three trials to understand if there is rare but serious side effects that occur. it is much better that we find out during the trials than after the vaccine is released and powerbally it potentially it is not just one person, but we could look at hundreds of thousands of people who could have it so its the scientific process that a pause is being put on but this is a cautionary tale for anyone trying to predict when a vaccine is going to be approved. it should be humbling. because developing a vaccine is time intensive and it is difficult. having everything match-up so that we could launch this in record speed is extremely challenging. and we should be placing safety and of course efficacy as our top priorities. >> but, you could imagine, people listening, people who are like, yeah, i don't really want to be the guinea pig to the first round of the vaccine or hearing about the trial and somebody having an issue with their spinal cord and people are thinking, no thank you. >> that is right. and this is why it is so important for us to follow the scientific process and also to reassure the american people. look, i want to be able to tell my patients when this vaccine comes out that everything was done to ensure safety. i want to tell them that safety was the top concern because we are giving this vaccine to otherwise previously healthy people. and so having one adverse reaction in otherwise healthy people is really serious and needs to be understood and investigated. and i want to reassure my patients this is something that is actually effective. because otherwise you're giving false hope. >> yes. yes, we want the truth on all of this. i want to ask you about the shortages recording remdesivir, the covid treatment. multiple doctors told cnn they don't have a sufficient supply for patients and after a survey of a hundred hospitals one-third have not received enough remdesivir to meet the guidelines of people to take the drug. why is this such a problem. folks are calling for trump to let generic drug makers make the drug. shouldn't that be a simple fix? >> right now, in this country, there is only one manufacturer, gilead, that is allowed to make remdesivir. in other countries there are other pharmaceutical companies that are able to make generic versions of this. so other countries are not facing the shortage in remdesivir that the way that we do here. so it is a major problem that we're rationing this medication because as you know there are only two medications proven so far in the treatment of the covid for patients that are severely ill. >> why can't we make the generic drug too. >> we can. that is exactly right. we absolutely can. it just takes the trump administration to allow other companies to do so. and in this case, gilead is still able to claim -- to make a profit from this medication, too. but at the same time, if we allow other manufacturers to make generic versions, we can have enough and that is what people are saying. we should not be rationing this medication that should be standard of care. >> so that green light should happen from the administration to make sure that people who are sick can get better. doctor lena nguyen, thank you. coming up, the mayor of tuscaloosa, alabama, will join me live. despite the cases of covid at the university of alabama. that is next. i'm leah and that's me long before i had moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis. i've always been the ringleader had a zest for life. flash forward, then ra kept me from the important things. and what my doctor said surprised me. she said my joint pain could mean permanent joint damage. and enbrel helps relieve joint pain, and helps stop that joint damage. ask about enbrel so you can get back to being your true self. enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been someplace where fungal infections are common. or if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding or paleness. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. visit enbrel.com to see how your joint damage could progress. enbrel fda approved for over 20 years. it only takes a second for an everyday item to become dangerous. tide pods child-guard pack helps keep your laundry pacs in a safe place and your child safer. to close, twist until it clicks. tide pods child-guard packaging. and when you save up to 60%, let's play! you're always a winner. you got... up to 60% off your hotel! >>but isn't that the only one? you're a winner! priceline. every trip is a big deal. all right, just a reminder. we're expected to hear from president trump after hearing from veteran journalist bob woodward who recorded the president on tape acknowledging the dangers of the coronavirus as early as february despite the president downplaying the virus to the american people. the white house said the president will be speaking about judiciary appointments so we'll see if he addresses this woodward news. meantime college campuses with the front line of the pandemic leaving college towns scrambling to contain outbreaks. there are more than 37,000 reported cases on college campuses in all 50 states and the mayor of tuscaloosa, alabama, home of the university of alabama, closed bars two weeks ago after more than 500 students tested positive in less than a week. the university said that daily new cases are declining but still last week 846 students tested positive. and last night bars in tuscaloosa reopened under a new order from the mayor, bars could open at 50% occupancy and not exceed 100 people. so with me now the mayor of tuscaloosa. mayor maddox, thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> so 846 covid cases, so why is it time to open bars? >> well when you look at the executive order, it is a measured reopen. 23 of the 29 bars within the city of tuscaloosa have an occupancy of less than 23 people. they are not student oriented bars. we looked at contact tracing seeing the number of cases early on in this process and closed down the bars for two weeks and the large mega bars that have 500, 600, 700 people into the space and they could only have 100, no more. and they deal with restaurants morphing into bars which got lost in the executive order itself. many restaurants around the area were becoming bars so that ends that practice. so it is more restrictive than what we had in place two weeks ago. >> you know it just takes one or two, though, students, nonstudents to be in there, to not be well. one of the university top health officials richard friend closing bars was key to slowing the outbreak. we expected higher testing numbers until the impact of bar closures could make a difference. we're starting to see the results of those decisions. so just starting. and not to mention mayor maddox, there is a freshman student who said you are making a huge mistake, that by reopening these bars, restaurants, makes them feel less safe. what would you say to that student? >> well, i certainly wouldn't want anyone to feel that way. my daughter is a freshman at the university of alabama and lives on campus. so i have a very vested interest in ensuring the safety and welfare, but we worked closely with dr. friend and staff to craft the executive order. it makes it much tougher on restaurants and very much limits what bars could do in opening spaces. another key component that has gotten lost in this as well is that the university over the summer prepared a large amounts of quarentine and isolation space. as of last friday, less than 40% of that quarantine and isolation space was being used. as long as we have the ability to quarentine and isolate students with coronavirus, we prevent community spillover. during the same time period we've seen our hospitalizations decrease by 20%. and the at end of the day, our public purpose in this is ensuring that our health care system can with stand the amount of people being treated while dealing with the daily needs of the tuscaloosa metro area. >> and i appreciate having the isolation areas and there is a need for that and making sure folks are on the ready in those hospitals. but i guess i want to get down to the specifics. how will the restaurants and bars pull this off? i here you at 50% capacity and less than 100 people, but will they take the temperature of everyone or taking the names and addresses of potential contact tracing and people are drinking, guards go down, maybe if somebody is not wearing a mask, what are you having bar and restaurant owners do, things like that? >> well, the university of alabama is doing the contact tracing. so they're going to be responsible for that. bar owners will have a very limited capacity within their establishments. they've already been shut down for two weeks. they're still under very restrictive orders and we all understand that we have to get this right because it is very important that we have fall in tuscaloosa. it was in serious jeopardy -- >> that is why i'm asking will they take numbers or mandating mask wearing inside of those bars? >> well the mask wearing is already mandated under city ordinance. they're not required to take temperatures. so that will not be asked of them. but if you think about what we've done over the last two weeks between what the university's efforts in terms of quarantine and isolation and the city shutting down bars for would weeks and putting more restrictive regulations on restaurants, i believe those are going to be ingredients to success. we can't completely shut down our life. we're trying to find the balance. and that is working. look at our hospitalizations. they're lower than any point in recent months. in fact, yesterday we have zero admission of new covid patients in tuscaloosa. other had one 18 to 24-year-old admitted in the hospital in the last six weeks. what we're doing is working. i think we cannot go to extremes in dealing with coronavirus. we have to approach this in a balanced reasonable way that has worked for us this far. but i promise you think, i live here, my children live here, and if i thought there was not anything to protect my wife and my children and my parents, i could assure you i would do and i'll do everything i can protect it. >> i appreciate you saying you have a freshman daughter at alabama. of course you want to protect her the most of with all of this. it is just tough questions are necessary because you have other folks and some students saying if they don't feel safe, i just needed to ask you about the safeguards and hearing someone like dr. fauci saying if you want to open schools, closed bars. i wish you the best. i hope everyone is well and can enjoy themselves safely. mayor walt maddox over in tuscaloosa, alabama, thank you very much for coming on. i appreciate it. good luck. >> thank you. coming up here on cnn, the president is set to speak for the first time since we learned of the damming revelations from pulitzer prize winning journalist bob woodward. so stay here. at visionworks we're going aboe and beyond to keep you safe. that includes temperature scan, sanitizing everything and all of our staff wearing gloves and masks. not that mask. this mask. that's the visionworks difference. visionworks. see the difference. ♪ but come ye back when su-- mom, dad. why's jamie here? 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claim arose. adding that the westfall act accordingly requires the substitution of the united states as defendant in this action. let me translate that for you. even though this alleged assault happened two decades before donald trump became president, his comments and the response to the lawsuit were made while he was in the white house and that said, attorney bill barr, is reason enough for the doj to take over the case. >> this was a normal application of the law. the law is clear. it is done frequently. and the little tempest that is going on is largely because of the bizarre political environment. >> we'll pull away from that. here is the president. >> -- is the most important decision an american president can make. for this reason, candidates for president owe the american people a specific list of individuals they consider for the united states supreme court. four years ago i announced my first list of highly qualified candidates. and promised to fill justice scalia's vacant seat from among those names. and just days after my inauguration i kept that promise when i nominated judge neil gorsuch and as you know he has been very spectacular. a year later i nominated and the senate confirmed another outstanding justice, brett kavanaugh. but the end of my first term we'll have confirmed a record number of foeederal judges, ove 300, all of whom will uphold our constitution as written. what has made america exceptional is our reverence for the impartial rule of law. people have come from all over the world to pursue the american dream based on this sacred principle, equality under the law is the bedrock of our society and the principle that inspired the abolishment of segregation and surk ear civil rights and build the most free and just nation in history. unfortunately there is a growing radical left movement that rejects the principle of equal treatment under the law. if this extreme movement is granted a majority on the supreme court, it will fundamentally transform america without a single vote of congress. radical justices will erase the second amendment, silence political speech and require taxpayers to fund extreme late-term abortion and give bureaucrats the power to destroy millions of jobs and remove the words "under god" from the ledge of allegiance and and declare the death penalty unconstitutional even for the most depraved mass murderers, they will erase national borders, cripple police departments and grant new protections to anarchists, rioters, violent criminals and terrorists. in the recent past many of our most treasured freedoms including religious liberty, free speech and right to keep and bear arms have been saved by a single vote on the the united states supreme court. our cherished rights are at risk including the right to life and our great second amendment. over the next four years the president will choose hundreds of federal judges and in all likelihood one, two, three and even four supreme court justices. the outcome of these decisions will determine whether we hold fast to our nation's founding principlesar whether they are lost forever. that is why today i'm announcing 20 additions to my original list of candidates for the united states supreme court. should there be another vacancy on the supreme court during my presidency, my nominee will come from the names i have shared with the american public including the original list and these 20 additions. joe biden is refused to release his list, perhaps because he knows the names are so extremely far left that they could never with stand public scrutiny or receive acceptance. he must release a list of justices for people to properly make a decision as to how they will vote. it is very important that he do so. my original list of potential justices include many of our nation's brightest legal minds such as bill pryor, amy coney barrett, and thomas like those distinguished individuals, the 20 additions i am announcing today would be justices antonin scalia, clarence thomas and samuel alito. their names are as follows. bridget bade of arizona, judge on the 9th circuit court of appeals, daniel cameron of kentucky, attorney general of the commonwealth of kentucky. paul clemente of virginia, former solicitor general of the united states, senator tom cotton of arkansas, senator ted cruz of texas, stewart kyle duncan of louisiana, judge on the 5th circuit court of appeals, steven engel of the district of columbia, assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel at the department of justice, noel francisco, former solicitor general of the united states, senator josh hawley of missouri, james ho of texas, judge on the 5th circuit court of appeals, gregory ca tses, a virginia judge on the district of columbia circuit court of appeals, bob rugoa of florida, judge on the 11th circuit court of appeals, christopher landau of maryland, united states ambassador to mexico, carlos muniz of florida justice of the supreme court of florida, martdure pacald of illinois, judge on the district court for the northern district of illinois, peter phipps of pennsylvania. sarah picklic of missouri. judge of the district court fort eastern district of missouri, alison jones rushing of north carolina, judge on the 4th circuit court of appeals, kate todd of virginia, deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president, lawrence van dyke of nevada, judge on the 9th circuit court of appeals. every one of these individuals will ensure equal justice, equal treatment, and equal rights for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed. together we will defend our righteous heritage and preserve our magnificent american way of life. thank you, god bless america. thank you very much. >> mr. president -- >> does anybody have any questions on the judges? please. excuse me, any questions? they are outstanding people, very important decision, very important that joe biden put up potential nominees. i think it's a very important thing for our country that he do that. okay, please, go ahead. do you have a question? >> can you address the concerns from the bluebird book in regards to did you mislead the public by saying that you downplayed the coronavirus and that you repeatedly did that in order to reduce pain? >> well, i think if you said in order to reduce panic, as a cheer leader for this country i love our country and i don't want people to be frightened. i don't want to create panic, as you say. and certainly i'm not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. we want to show confidence. we can to show strength. we want to show strength as a nation. and that's what i've done. and we've done very well. we've done well from any standard. you look at our numbers compared to other countries, other parts of the world. it's been an amazing job that we've done. i think it's very sad in many respects because the incredible individuals working so hard on it including our vice president, they've done this great job. they haven't been acknowledged by the news media and they should for the job we've done, whether it's ventilators. and now you'll see very soon with vaccines and with therapeutics. the job we've done has been incredible. but we don't want to instill panic. we don't want to jump up and down and start shouting that we have a problem that is a tremendous problem, scare everybody. and i'll tell you the other thing. we immediately started buying, all over the world we started buying masks and gowns and everything else. and we don't want to cause pricing to go up to a level that becomes almost unaffordable. so in that sense i agree with it. yeah, please. >> how do you reassure the american public going forward that they can trust what you're saying? >> well, i think that's really a big part of trust. we have to have leadership. we have to show leadership. and the last thing you want to do is create a panic in the country. it was a horrible thing. it was sent to us by china. should never have happened. this is a disgusting terrible situation that was foisted upon us. and we have to show we just don't want to use, the best word is panic. we don't want to have to show panic. that's exactly what i did. i was very open whether it's to woodward or anybody else. it's just another political hit job. but whether it was woodward or anybody else, you cannot show a sense of panic. or you're going to have bigger problems than you ever had before. >> trying to reduce panic. so in february -- told woodward. >> excuse me. go ahead, please. >> mr. president, don't you think if you were more forthright with the american people, more lives could've been saved? do you take responsibility at all for some of the 200,000 deaths that we've had? >> so i think if we didn't do what we did, we would have had millions of people die. we closed up our country. we closed it up very, very quickly, very effectively. we did a job we learned about this horrible disease along with the rest of the world which had to learn about it. and then we opened it up. and now we know the vulnerable. we know who it attacks, who it's so vicious against. and i think we've done from every standpoint an incredible job. we shouldn't have lost anybody. nobody should've lost. china released something that they should not have released. it came out of china. it went to europe. it went all over the world. should've never happened. they could have stopped it. they stopped it from going into the remainder of china. it started in wuhan and they stopped it. >> but they didn't stop it from coming to our country. now, we had to show calm. we had to show -- you know, if it was up to you or whatever, i have no idea what he said in the book. and, again, it's a book that i gave him some quotes, and, frankly, we'll see how the book turned out. i have no idea. you're asking me questions for the first time. but, again, the last thing we can show is panic or excitement or fear or anything else. we had to take care of the situation we were given. now, long before anybody else wanted to do it, i closed our borders to a very heavily infected china. if i didn't do that, we would have had hundreds more thousands people die. dr. fauci said it. many people said it. it was a great decision. it was a decision i made, and i had to make. it was a decision that a lot of people thought i was wrong. nancy pelosi said i was wrong. joe biden said i was wrong. they all came back and they said it was the right decision. and i was way early. that was in january, at the end of january i did that. so that was a very good thing we did. otherwise we would have had hundreds of thousands more. but, if we didn't close the country, we would have been talking about millions of people instead of the numbers that we have right now. >> is there anything -- >> you mentioned that you were trying to avoid price gouging. but you mentioned to bob woodward that you recognized this virus spread through the air on february 7th. you didn't use the -- act until march. >> you didn't really think it was going to be to the point where it was. all of a sudden the world was infected. the entire world was infected. everyone was scrambling around looking where to buy face masks and all of the other things. we've opened up factories. we've had tremendous success with face masks and with shields and with the ventilators. we are now supplying the rest of the world. we have all the ventilators we can use. and remember this. the ventilators were very important. not one person that needed a ventilator didn't get it. and these are very complex expensive machines to make. we opened up something like hadn't been done since the second world war. honestly, we've done an incredible job. but we don't want to run around screaming shouting, oh, look at this. we have to show leadership. and leadership is all about confidence. and confidence is confidence in our country. and our people have been great. we've been put through a lot by china. they could have done something about it and they chose not to. i am very honored to have presented to you today a list of 20 incredible people. and we will talk later. i'm sure we'll be meeting later in the day. thank you very much. >> all right. so, i know pam brown is going to be all over this in just a second. but as we listened to the president there, let me just say he is doubling down on a lie. he was not truthful to the american public. dr. anthony fauci who he mentioned is quoted in all this woodward reporting. i'm telling everyone that trump's leadership was rutterless and that his sole purpose is to get re-elected. i'm brooke baldwin. "the lead" starts now. this is cnn breaking news. and welcome to "the lead." i am pamela brown in for jake tapper. and we begin this hour with breaking news. president trump responding for the first time to the recordings, these revelations made by journalist bob woodward for his new book "rage." president trump in his own words privately described how dangerous the virus was. but he was telling the american people the virus is just going to disappear one day. >> it goes through air, bob. that's always tougher than the touch. the touch you

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