Hello again, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Im fredricka whitfield. Top of the hour now, were seeing an outpouring of reaction to the losses of two civil rights icons, gone within just 24 hours. Congressman john lewis died overnight at the age of 80 and his battle with stage four pancreatic cancer ended. Just hours after the passing of reverend ct vivian, a long time friend and confidante of dr. Martin luther king jr. President trump has ordered the white house and other federal buildings to fly their flack flags at halfstaff for the remainder of the day, however we have yet to hear from the president directly. Instead were told he was out golfing this morning, and he has not released an official statement or tweet, even though other white house officials have. Our correspondents are standing by with reaction to lewis death. Lets begin our coverage of the passing of john lewis with jeremy dimon at the white house. Is the white house saying anything about a possible upcoming statement
Look, weve got to come together. I was reminded of that earlier this month when i went to the sacred ground of gettysburg. Abraham lincoln told us, a house divided cannot stand. Remember what donald trump said . When covid19 deaths reached 200,000 in america, he said, if you look at the blue states, the democratic governors and just look at the red states of the republican governors, were doing well. Well, first of all, its not true. The great rise has happened in most of the red states. But thats not the point. Think of what hes saying about whats going on in america. Hes saying if you live in pennsylvania, youre not his problem. If you live in a red state, alabama, he may think about you. Hes not responsible for your familys wellbeing if you are in a blue state. Folks, i dont see the president that way. I dont see it that way. I dont see america that way. I am running as a proud democrat, but i will govern as an american president for everybody. Ill work as hard for those ill work as
Tone coming from the white house. Vice president mike pence saying at the first Coronavirus Task force briefing in two months that the u. S. Is opening safely and responsibly. Weve all seen the encouraging news as we open up america again. More than 3 million jobs created in the last jobs report, retail sales are rolling. Of course, the extraordinary progress in new york, new jersey, connecticut and new orleans, areas that just a matter of a month ago were struggling under the weight of this pandemic. We have a team of reporters covering the cases in hot spots emerging now around the country. Lets begin in florida with those staggering new case numbers. Cnns randi kaye is in riviera beach. Randi, how is the governoring explaining this almost daily recordbreaking spike of new cases . Reporter yeah, fred, we are now seeing 643 more cases today than we saw yesterday, more than 9,500 cases in all today as you said. The governor is explaining it away as basically calling it a test dump. He
Hes also a contributor. Tim obrien, to you first, whats a matter with donald trump . The same thing with donald trump, hes profoundly narcissistic, he doesnt hesitate to slander other people for their physical inadequacies or looks. And he cant even bear hearing it about himself for just a moment. Whats interesting is all of the attention on that speech and his inability to walk quickly down the ramp, i think overwhelm the fact that the speech he gave got a very tepid response for are the cadets from west point. This is sort of parse and parcel that we deal with in the trump era, his vanity and his ined a question cansies overwhelm other important discussions and obviously whats being raised in this focus on his health and whether hes impaired is that we never really had a lot of transparency around President Trump release his medical records or his doctors speaking in a meaningful way about his health. And tim miller there was that unexplained emergency drive to walter reed, i worked