Transcripts For CNNW The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20200520

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looks for someone to blame for the devastating toll of this pandemic. let's go to the white house right now. our white house correspondent jeremy diamond is joining us. jeremy, there are serious questions tonight about the fate of the cdc director. what are you learning? >> reporter: there certainly are, wolf, questions about redfield's future as head of a critical agency in this fight against the coronavirus pandemic, a senior administration official telling our colleague kristen holmes that there have been conversations about the fate of the cdc director. last week we were told that the white house had confidence in the cdc's director. we know there have been tensions for week now between the cdc and the white house. amidst all of that we heard the preside president, we were told that behind closed doors, wolf, that he criticized the cdc in a lunch with republican senators. publicly, wolf, we're not seeing the president attack the cdc director, but we're seeing him attack many, many others. in fact, wolf, it seems like this is part of a pattern by the president to divert and distract from this pandemic. in particular, wolf, we're seeing the president level a series of conspiracy theories both against his predecessor remember former president obama, and today new accusations by the president, false accusations against the states of michigan and nevada, accusing them of illegally sending out mail-in ballots. here is a tweet from the president this morning, he said, michigan send absentee ballot applications to 7.7 million people ahead of primaries in the general election. this was done illegally, he says, and without authorization by a rogue secretary of state. i will ask to hold up funding to michigan if they want to go down this voter fraud path. we should note, initially the president falsely accused michigan of illegally sending the ballots themselves, not the ballot applications. but the president's claim of illegal activity appears to be false. the press secretary was pressed about what crime the president sees here and she did not have an answer, wolf. >> jeremy, vice president mike pence traveling today for the first time since his press secretary tested positive for coronavirus. tell us what he was doing in florida. >> reporter: that's right, the vice president, we saw him in florida meeting with governor ron desantis. they actually went to a restaurant together. and wolf, you can see on your screen now, neither of them wearing masks. nobody in the restaurant other than some of reporters who were traveling with the vice president appeared to be wearing masks. this of course goes against what the cdc is recommending. when you are not able to practice social distancing, you should wear masks, not to protect yourself but to protect others from yourself. and it's particularly notable because it's only been 12 days, wolf, since the vice president's press secretary tested positive for coronavirus. the cdc recommends self-isolating for 14 days if indeed you've been in close contact with someone who's tested positive. this is just raising more questions about what the president will do tomorrow, wolf. he is heading to michigan to visit a ford manufacturing plant. ford has already made clear their policy at that plant is that everyone who is there must wear a mask. but the president yesterday would not say whether or not he will indeed wear a mask, wolf. we will have to see if he follows ford's policies or not. >> we'll see what happens tomorrow. jeremy diamond, thank you so much. the latest now on the reopening of the country. our national correspondent erica hill is working the story for us. erica, back to business in many parts of the country. but hardly business as usual. >> reporter: that's for sure, wolf. and we're hearing more throughout the afternoon, california, more than half the counties in that state will be ready to move into the next phase. we just heard from the governor of indiana who says all but three counties in his state on friday will move into stage 3, which increases capacity for retail to 75%. it would also mean summer camps can begin opening state parks, and even some sports fields like baseball fields, although not everything, he says football and lacrosse still do not have the green light. as all of this is happening, you're right, it looks very different from what we remember just a couple of months ago. a 50-state experiment now in full swing. >> it's been a rough time. two months without normal operations is not easy in the restaurant business, when there are such thing margins. >> reporter: restaurants offering outdoor dining in connecticut. hair salons originally slated to reopen today, now on hold until june 1. >> a lot of us here today did what was necessary and what was called for us to do. and the rug got pulled out from underneath us. >> reporter: salons in miami beach can open today. but beaches there remain closed. >> we don't want to rush so fast that we create a spike in the virus. >> reporter: further north, the shops and restaurants at disney springs welcoming visitors. masks are mandatory for ages 3 and up. in-person car sales now allowed in new jersey. los angeles county setting a goal of reopening on july 4 as alaska declares everything will be open friday morning. >> we now have the knowledge of this virus. we all know how it operates. so it's going to be us as individuals to deal with it. >> reporter: alaska is one of 18 states seeing an uptick in new cases over the past week, along with kentucky. >> we're humble enough to know that it's very possible we make a decision that we've got to pull back. >> reporter: new cases in 17 states including georgia are trending down. though there are questions about that state's tracking data, after a misleading chart was posted on the health department's website. florida's numbers also called into question. the official responsible for this dashboard of covid-19 information said she was removed from her job and cautioned future data would not offer the same level of accessibility and transparency. the state's health department said the official exhibited a, quote, repeated course of insubordination. >> you have to know what's going on locally. you have to know that the data are good. i think one way you do that is that you hear from the public health scientists who are doing that data rather than politicians who are interpreting that data. >> reporter: long-awaited cdc guidelines for reopening quietly released online overnight. information for businesses and schools, though not for religious institutions. despite a separate cdc report just hours earlier detailing the spread of the virus at an arkansas church. >> i've heard stuff like, jesus will protect me, or god wouldn't let that happen. guess what? other congregants have been infected with the virus. so i think we really have to be smart about this. and i think it should have included the guidelines for all groups that gather and including religious ones. >> reporter: in new york city, still weeks away from reopening, new uv lights will help disinfect its subway cars. the nation's capital also remains on pause. washington, d.c.'s stay-at-home order was recently extended through at least june 8. in chicago, ford was able to resume production at a plant that had been temporarily closed after two employees tested positive. but then we also found out that at a truck plant in dearborn, michigan, an employee tested positive, so that facility is now temporarily closed, the company saying they don't believe that the employee contracted the virus while at work, but anybody who has come in contact with that person, they've been asked to quarantine for 14 days, wolf. >> an important decision, erica hill, thank you very much for that. governor carney, governors in all 50 states have decided to reopen at least partially. what does this mean from your perspective for the nation and what does it mean for delaware? >> for us here in delaware, it means that our message has to be strong. but as we've moved to reopen sectors of our economy, really to phase i there on june 1 this weekend, in a limited way, lifting restriction on our beaches, allowing retailers today to sell at curbside delivery. and so it's a gradual rolling reopening. we've been following the science and the guidelines from the cdc. we do have declining percent positive cases on a day-to-day basis, over a 14-day period of time. most importantly, as we've discussed before, our hospitalization rate is down by 25%, it's consistently moved down even as we fought an outbreak of covid-19 among poultry workers in the lower part of our state. so my message to delawarians is, social distancing is working, but now is not the time to let up. as we gradually focus on reopening our economy, let's stay safe, wear masks, keep distant from one another, no large gatherings. if we work together, if we think about our neighbor and how our actions affect our neighbor, we'll get through this together. we'll be able to open safely. >> those precautionary steps are so, so critical. governor, cnn is also learning that the cdc director's job is apparently now on the line. at the same time, the president is once again defending his decision to take hydroxychloroquine despite the fda saying it's not necessarily been shown to be effective against coronavirus. what message do you believe this sends to your residents about how much faith they should have right now in the health policy coming from the trump administration? >> yeah, it's exactly the wrong message. we need reliable, consistent leadership at the federal, state, and local level. we need to have consistent messaging. we need leaders who lead by example, who wear masks in public. i had an early report on that. who keep social distance in public, who encourage people to think about others, to wear masks not so much to protect yourself but to protect folks who are around you. it's just kind of bizarre, some things that we're seeing there with respect to taking that drug there. >> in your state of delaware, you extended your stay-at-home order until may 31. but starting today, as you know, retail establishments can open by appointment. friday restrictions will be lifted on the state's popular beaches. what led you to feel comfortable to take these initial steps to reopen delaware before you lift the actual stay-at-home order? >> so it was really that gating criteria that we got recommended from the cdc and our local public health officials. the idea that we could achieve these modest interim steps, allowing businesses to get some revenue as long as we kept them safe with various precautionary measures, curbside delivery, sales by appointment only, those kind of things. and that way, rolled into the opening there on june 1. my biggest concern, obviously, is lifting some of the restrictions on the beaches. the people in the region love delaware beaches, delawarians love delaware beaches. now is not the time to storm the beaches. you can walk on the beach, put your feet in the sand or the water but do it separate from folks around you. and we're going to limit access and we've got a lot of messaging out there. that's really what we need to lean into as leaders and as government officials, is getting that information out to folks about how to be safe and keep your neighbors safe as well. >> how will you enforce what you want everyone to do, the social distancing, the wearing of masks, the capacity limits on the beaches, especially coming up on this popular memorial day weekend? >> yes, so first, it's education. it's the signage. we're going to have what we're calling beach ambassadors. we borrowed that from another place around the country, folks that go up to individuals and tell them what the appropriate behavior is. hopefully folks will follow that guidance. ultimately, you know, we'll have enforcement mostly driven by complaints. we will have delaware state police on the roadways. so with respect to the 14-day out of state quarantine, reminding folks of their obligation there. we'll roll into next weekend, learn from our experience this week. last weekend we saw people were following the rules, there weren't big crowds on the beach. of course it was under a different set of restrictions. but people were following the rules. we'll see what happens over memorial day weekend. it's a big weekend, as you know. we'll make decisions for the weekends after that. >> good luck, governor carney. i know it's going to be a busy weekend for you, a lot at stake right now as all of us know. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. coming up, more on what we're learning about tension right now between the white house and the cdc director dr. robert redfield and what it means for the fate of his job. plus a potentially critical new development in the race for finding a coronavirus vaccine. . and right now, is a time for action. 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and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. the president has been meeting with the governors of kansas and arkansas. he answered reporters' questions. kaitlan collins, our white house correspondent, was inside the room for that event. what did we learn? >> reporter: a big topic today has been the president's tweets on michigan, alleging something is illegal is happening there after the secretary of state sent mail-in voting applications, ballot applications, to the state's registered voters. and you saw at the press briefing the white house press secretary repeatedly deferred to the campaign when asked what exactly was the president alleging was illegal here. we had a chance to ask the president ourselves. and this is what he said about mail-in voting. >> i think if we're talking about the mail-in ballots, if people mail in ballots, there's a lot of illegality. they send in ballots, they harvest ballots, you know about harvesting. ideally people go out and vote. if you need a mail-in ballot, for a specific -- for example, i'm in the white house, i need to send a ballot to florida, that makes sense. if you need it for some reason or somebody is not well, that's one thing. when you send out 7.7 million mail-in ballots, there's forgeries, there's frankly duplication where they print ballots on the same kind of paper with the same kind of machinery and you can't tell the difference. and they sent in thousands and thousands of fake ballots. and i'll tell what you, this nation can't be going down that path, because it's a very dangerous path to go down. >> reporter: so you see there, wolf, the president making a lot of allegations. he did not cite any evidence to back up his claims about widespread fraud when it comes to mail-in voting. it's not just michigan making moves like this. you're seeing other republican secretaries of state trying to move to this option, to send people applications to request mail-in ballots, of course because people are concerned about going to vote and given the pandemic going on. you even heard the president there say he has voted by mail-in ballot, both he and the first lady did. ful that was in florida's presidential primary. he also talked about the cdc, he denied cnn reporting that he was complaining at the cdc at a lunch with republican senators yesterday, saying that they had botched testing early on. as we know now, multiple health experts say the late testing from the cdc led to a delay in testing in the united states. he said he had confidence in cdc director robert redfield and said he has two days left of taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug that even the fda has cautioned against coronavirus patients using. >> we'll follow up on all of his statements fairly soon. thanks so much, kaitlan. kaitlan was in the cabinet room when the president answered a few reports' questions. more breaking news we're following, the u.s. coronavirus death toll now is well above 92,000 as all 50 states are moving ahead with plans to reopen businesses, schools, and public places, at least in some form. let's talk about all that's going on with our chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta. and the director of the harvard global health institute, dr. ashish jha. sanjay, the president is denying he said anything negative about the cdc at the luncheon with republican senators yesterday. sources at the cdc say the white house is prioritizing politics over science. >> they've been at the forefront of all previous outbreaks, epidemics, pandemics. you remember tom frieden, he's the guy we heard from during ebola. they're really critical. we know there were problems with the testing that they first released earlier on, and that seems to have really been stuck to them as we move forward. we're not hearing from the cdc as much. they are some of the best especially depidemiologists in o now give us a sense of how we navigate forward, how we start to think about life in the midst of a pandemic. schools, summer camps, getting on flights, all those things. i think they're critically important. i think it's too bad, given their worldwide reputation, that we haven't heard more of them. >> dr. jha, the cdc has released detailed guidance on reopening the country, guidance that was previously shelved by the house. how important is it that health officials have access to the cdc's recommendations as they make these critical life and death type decisions about reopening? >> so wolf, thanks for having me on. as dr. gupta said, the cdc has really been the premier public health agency of the world. in this outbreak they have been inexplicably side lined in a way that's been harmful for the american people. i love the fact that those guidelines are finally out. they are incredibly important for states and municipalities that are trying to open up safely. i think we need to be hearing more from the cdc and their expertise. >> i think everybody agrees, we want to be hearing more. normally, sanjay, they would be having almost daily briefings to inform the news media and as a result, the american public about recommendations, what everyone needs to know. we've heard a thunderous silence, basically, over the past several weeks from the cdc. on another sensitive issue, sanjay, we're learning of new findings in various studies on coronavirus vaccines, when it comes to animals. of course animal studies are just one step in vaccine development. but how encouraging is this late development? >> you know, it's encouraging, wolf. this is another -- we've been reporting on moderna, this is another vaccine trial. there's a lot of vaccine trials out there. maybe this is your point, wolf, that probably under any other circumstance we wouldn't be reporting on this on your program this early on, because, you know, with this newest news, it does come out of animal trials, and specifically mice and guinea pigs. so we know that those are important, those are important data points, usually they're a bridge to start human trials and that's when we start to see more meaningful data. so i think what i've been earn kurg encouraged by is when you look at moderna, this vaccine we've been reporting over the last few days that showed antibody production in eight patients and now another vaccine that shows antibody production in animals, there's evidence that it will work. if it will be enough, if it will provide protection, we don't know yet. so far it's not been bad news, it's been good news, wolf. >> dr. jha, are you encouraged? >> i am encouraged. echoing dr. gupta's points, we don't know which vaccine is going to work out. is it moderna, maybe. inovio, or one of the others. more and more, i am getting confident that one of these vaccines will end up being effective and being safe. and so we have to keep going on all of them. even if many of them don't work, as long as one or two do, we'll be in much better shape. >> i'm hearing from my sources that they're encouraged as well. let's hope at least one of them really does work. sanjay, thank you very much. dr. ashish jha, thank you very much as well. president trump is picking a fight over michigan's plan for mail-in voting. plus is the president planning to make the head of the centers for disease control a scapegoat? iver your mail and packages and the peace of mind of knowing that essentials like prescriptions are on their way. every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will. confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. they're all possible with a cfp® professional. find yours at letsmakeaplan.org. it means being there for each other. that's why state farm is announcing the good neighbor relief program we know our customers are driving less, which means fewer accidents. so state farm is returning $2 billion dollars to auto policyholders for the period ending may 31st. and we'll continue making real time decisions to best serve you - our customers. because 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correspondent abby phillip, and cnn's chief national security correspondent jim sciutto, who is the author of the upcoming book "the madman theory: trump takes on the world." congratulations, jim, we look forward to the new book. dana, what so many people see as the president's erratic behavior over the past 24 hours, what are you seeing and how do you understand it? >> you know, the thing is, we've become used to and unfortunately somewhat numb to the erratic behavior, u.s. rigas you rightl it. the difference today is a lot of it happened in the span of a couple of hours. it was going in many different directions, from the things you've been reporting on so far, what he said about threatening to withhold aid to michigan because of the fact that they want to do mail-in ballots, to talking about a journalist in a way that i won't even repeat, to other wild allegations that he has made. probably the most potentially dangerous and the one with the most potential consequences that he has done that he denies, that kaitlan reported that he denied just in the last hour or two, was going to capitol hill, telling senate republicans in their weekly lunch, which he visited yesterday, how much he is -- how upset he is with the cdc. he did not, according to a source i spoke to, he did not single out cdc director robert redfield's name but he was very clear how upset he is with the cdc. that backs up cnn's reporting about the tensions that we have heard about in private. they're bubbling out in public. and the question is how is it going to impact us beyond what we already know, which is that the cdc has not been able to put out their fulsome guidelines for the states, all 50 states now, that are reopening. >> they put out a 60-page statement but there are some sensitive elements still missing from there, what houses of worship, synagogues, churches, mosques, should be doing as well. abby, you've been reporting on the president's threat to withhold funds from states like michigan, nevada, other states, simply by suggesting there should be more mail-in voting during this time of a pandemic where people are nervous about actually going to voting booths. tell us what you've learned about all of this. >> yeah, wolf, this is something that the president has become increasingly focused on as we get closer and closer to the november general election. a lot of states are looking at their voting procedures and trying to determine what changes need to be made. and many of them are moving to make it easier for people to cast absentee ballots. but the president is really vehemently against that. he believes that it is rife with voter fraud and also that it actually disadvantages republicans. now, there is no evidence of either of those things being true. and i've spoken to a lot of republicans, whether they're political operatives or secretaries of state, who say there is no political advantage to either party of mail-in voting and in many of these states including in michigan, they already have widespread absentee voting. michigan is a state where you can vote absentee for any reason. and so the president is sort of isolated in his very extreme view of mail-in voting even while many republicans want to combat fraud. but his claims this morning are just misleading, in many cases false. michigan was not trying to expand or send absentee ballots to every voter. they were sending simply applications that are available online to anyone as we speak now. and beyond that, the white house has not been willing to say if the president can even withhold federal funding for any of these states for how they administer their elections. i spoke to some legal experts who made it very clear that the way that this works is that states are allowed to administer their elections how they want to. and frankly, that is a position that many republicans have been trying to defend. they do not want the federal government intervening in how states run their elections. >> and you can't blame people, especially elderly people, for being nervous about waiting in long lines at polling stations to go ahead and vote during this time of a pandemic. jim, the president is also pinning the blame on china for the pandemic. but we found at least 37 times over the last couple of months where he actually praised china, specifically president xi, for the way they handled all this. >> we have never had a better relationship with china than we do right now. it's a beautiful story. i have great respect for president xi, i consider him to be a friend of mine. the relationship i have with president xi is i think extraordinary. and now we're friends, in fact maybe we've never had a better relationship. and we're working with them very closely on the coronavirus. he is working very hard. he is very capable. the country is very capable. and as far as president xi, likewise, he's a friend of mine. i believe that, uh, we are dealing in good faith. >> is he trying to rewrite history, is that what he's doing, jim? >> it's another case where the president's own words belie his most recent claims. you saw him there, not only saying he has a good relationship with xi, but complimenting xi and china on its coronavirus response. the fact is, early on china did hide the extent of this outbreak. cnn reported on it. they imprisoned and silenced local officials and doctors, then turned around to quite an aggressive response domestically to lock this down. what has changed during that time frame of course is that the u.s. has had its own significant outbreak and after initially praising china's response, the president now trying to turn attention, it seems, to china, away from his own delay in responding to this. that's another case, of course, where the president's own words prove the point, because the president was very publicly and repeatedly downplaying the threat from this virus until he changed tack around mid-march or so. so again, for folks at home who are watching, just look at the record and the record will speak the truth. >> jim sciutto, thank you. abby phillip, dana bash, we'll continue this conversation down the road, thanks to all of you. still ahead, how workers say the lack of personal protective equipment in nursing homes right now is still having very tragic results. technologies advisor. me too. me too. and if you're a small business, we're with you. standing by you every step of the way. bye bye. hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. birthdays aren't cancelled. hope isn't quarantined. first words aren't delayed. caring isn't 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texas national guard soldiers to disinfect west oaks and other facilities. an attorney is representing dodson's family in a lawsuit which says the nursing home failed to properly prepare, respond, and provide its employees with personal protection equipment as required. >> he gave his life to care for the residents of west oaks. they were his second family. he could have called in sick. he could have quit. but it just wasn't in his dna. he protected them. but he wasn't protected. >> reporter: west oaks will not comment on the lawsuit. but in statement the company said, our operations and protocols changed profoundly with the release of the cdc guidelines. nursing homes and long term care facilities from the start of this pandemic had been hot beds of illness and death. one study shows 41% of coronavirus deaths in 36 states are connected to nursing homes. the virus spreads quickly to patients and staff who then leave work and spread it to others. >> in this pandemic, if a worker is infected with covid-19, then they can not only spread it to their co-workers but they spread it out into the community. >> reporter: a cnn review of hundreds of complaints to federal and state governments show that workers at long term facilities feel their own lives are at risk, writing complaints like, "employees are not provided personal protective equipment such as masks, using coffee filters as masks, and garbage bags as gowns." "health care workers have died from covid-19 and the employer is unwilling to report it." >> we have been begging for additional equipment in nursing homes for the last two months and unfortunately no one has listened. in some cases we've had to go without it. and the results have been tragic. >> reporter: the president of the american health care association says in the rush to find protective gear for unprepared hospitals, nursing homes have been ignored. >> unfortunately the resources that were denied to nursing homes and instead were sent to hospitals, have had really tragic results because it's impossible to stop this virus if you don't have the face masks to keep it from spreading. >> it's like government malfeasance, how little they have done. >> reporter: deborah berkowitz is former chief of staff at osha, the government agency charged with protecting workers. she says the government has failed by silently allowing nursing home deaths to multiply without acting. >> osha put out no special guidance and has no mandates. and, you know, guidance is voluntary. employers can follow it or they can ignore it. >> reporter: osha's guidelines on protecting nursing home workers during the covid-19 pandemic were published only this past week. three months after the first deaths were recorded at a nursing facility in washington. far too late to help workers like maurice dodson. >> he was 51 years old. he didn't need to die. >> reporter: osha, the occupational safety and health administration, wolf, tells us it investigates all complaints and has been paying particular attention for protections for those workers with high exposure to coronavirus. but that is of little comfort to the family of maurice dodson, wolf. >> so sad. drew griffin reporting, thank you. we have much more coverage of the coronavirus pandemic coming up. but also we're following another story, the secretary of state mike pompeo defending his push to fire the department's inspector general even though pompeo himself was under investigation. ♪ your graduation may look different... but it does not change how far you've come... or how far you'll go. congratulations, class of 2020! we'll have more coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in just a few moments but we're also getting new information right now about president trump's firing of the state department inspector general which came at the request of the secretary of state mike pompeo. let's go to our national security reporter kylie atwood. did the secretary explain today why he asked him to fire pompeo? >> he didn't provide any details when he was pressed by reporters today about his recommendation why president trump fired the inspector general of the state department. earlier this week secretary pompeo did tell "the washington post" that the reason for that suggestion is because linick had been undermining the mission of the state department and he hadn't been performing in the way pompeo wanted him to. but, again, wolf really no meat on the bones of those allegations that secretary pompeo made when he spoke with reporters today. he did lean into the fact, however, he was the one who made this suggestion to fire steve linick to president trump. let's listen to what he said to reporters. >> so there's been lots of discussion and i've read a number of reports. let me say three things. first the president has the unilateral right to choose who he wants to be, his inspector general and every agency in the federal government, there are presidentially confirmed positions and those persons just like all of us serve at the pleasure of the president of the united states. in this case i recommend it to the president that steve linick be terminated. frankly, should have done it some time ago. >> now pompeo indicating tensions between him and linick had been mounting for some time, and he also said he would provide the details to the appropriate people over the specifics over why he suggested this firing. but, again, no more details today and one of the issues at play here is did pompeo know about the investigations that inspector general linick was carrying out that focused on himself? pompeo says he has no general idea about those investigations but he did point to an instance earlier this year that he provided answers that the ig asked him to with regard to one of the investigations they were looking into. >> very interesting. thank you. coming up, sources say the white house is seeking a scapegoat for the coronavirus pandemic. will it be the director of the centers for disease control and prevention. hey allergy muddlers. achoo! ...do your sneezes turn heads? try zyrtec... ...it starts working hard at hour one... and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. zyrtec muddle no more. and right now, is a time for action. so, for a second time we're giving members a credit on their auto insurance. because it's the right thing to do. we're also giving payment relief options to eligible members so they can take care of things like groceries before they worry about their insurance or credit card bills. right now is the time to take care of what matters most. like we've done together, so many times before. discover all the ways we're helping members at usaa.com/coronavirus discover all the ways we're helping members staying connected your way you're just a tap away from personalized support on xfinity.com. get faster internet speeds with a click. order xfi pods to your home in a snap. or change your xfinity services with just a touch. all in one place. you're only seconds away from all of that on xfinity.com. faster than a call. easy as a tap. now that's simple, easy, awesome. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. tonight americans are weighing the risk of venturing out of their homes now that all 50 states are at least partially reopened even if the coronavirus is continuing to take a staggering toll. more than 93,000 americans have now died. more than 1.5 million have been infected. with this crisis still far from over president trump has been lashing out and trying to deflect blame. tonight he's continuing to threaten to with hold emergency funding from michigan and nevada, falsely accusing those states of encouraging voter fraud as they lawfully offer citizens an oppor

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