>> welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm emily chang in san francisco. tesla shares spiking after hours after the carmakers says it is on track to deliver 500,000 cars this year. microsoft shares declining after the bell. on the back of its earnings results, sales of its azure cloud prod debt -- product disappointing. overall, stocks closing slightly up.

investors seem to be more optimistic as congress continues to work on another federal relief bill. the president at the bottom of the hour scheduled to deliver another news briefing. this as tensions between the u.s. and china continue to escalate. the u.s. has ordered that the chinese consulate in houston, texas to close china -- to close. china is calling for the u.s. to revoke the decision and is warning that the u.s. has more diplomatic personnel in china than vice versa. joining us to break down the market avenue big -- the market action are abigail doolittle who has following -- who has been following the action. abigail: tesla delivered. considering you have the stock of more than 280% on the year going into that report. before we look at that stock specifically, it has been another interesting, slightly choppy day. more sleepy at the end of the day. we saw this late day surge

climbing. not huge gains. we had stocks of flat. nasdaq down at the end of the day. . this s&p 500 higher. this seems to do with the fact that we once again have the fed balance sheet expanding. that is driving the dollar lower, helping of these major averages. the new york faang index down ever so slightly, despite microsoft climbing into its report which we will talk about in a minute. there were renewed to between the u.s. and china with the u.s. closing down china's consulate in houston. stock see, a china's index in the u.s., down 1.8%. that is sort of a broader recap, a little bit of a risk appetite, but more neutral. as for tesla, risk on, risk on, and risk on. they basically delivered. the stock up huge on the year, now up to hundred 90%. -- up to hundred 90%. they are seeing they are on

target to deliver half a million vehicles. they put up a fourth consecutive gap profit in a row. that means they can be included in the s&p 500. all sort of indexes and managers have to buy, another positive for the stock. emily: meantime, microsoft shares still down after hours. the company beat on revenue in the quarter. but cloud sales disappointing. give us more of the details. abigail: this is a case of price to perfection. you've have this stock on fire and for good reason. march quarter they put up was very strong. really a beneficiary of the work from home trend. a piece of that is the cloud business. it just wasn't perfect. investors wanted that. quite frankly, you have traders and investors taking chips off the table, down 2.6% which is nothing relative to the huge gain on the year. it is going to be interesting whether or not this sets off jitters for the other big tech companies. if you recall, last week, netflix, not perfect.

the june quarter was ok. but the guide here, you have another stock in a similar situation. may be an influence on tomorrow's trading. emily: all right, thank you so much for breaking it down. abigail doolittle there for us. i want to get back to tesla. shares rising on the back of its result. tesla saying it is on target to deliver those 500,000 cars before the end of the year. a big potential milestone. tesla shares have been going up and up over the last few weeks. bringing us here to break it down, we have craig irwin of roth capital. report,ook at the minutes ago, what is standing out to you here? craig: your recap now was excellent. the key thing is $104 million gap profit, now they can go into the s&p. that was widely expected. the bears are going to pull us apart and say, how did they get there? regulatory credits, 428 million

is a new record versus 354 in the first quarter. o'er 111 a year ago. the quarter really came from regulatory credits. but, we have to give credit where it is due to 90,000 units and a covid quarter is a monster quarter. three plants under construction on three different continents. . i think he has room to surprise investors with new initiatives and new opportunities for growth over the next couple of years. all in, a good quarter. still some details we want to learn. that's what the calls are for. emily: that said, do you think tesla deserves this market cap that makes it more valuable than any other car company in the world? craig: my answer is simple. categorically no. i'm out of consensus. i believe tesla's battery costs numberser than what the are.

my position is based on primary channel checks with the largest battery suppliers in the world. if that is the case, tesla's prices is no different than bmw or mercedes. haveof my friends actually a supply contract to some of these other oem's. done ae competition has very mediocre job with their ev's that they have introduced to date. what investors are doing is treating tesla like it operates in a vacuum and there's no competition. that is not actually a reflection of reality. there is 180 ev's that are coming to market by 2025. and to bet that those are duds is a risky bet. absolutely not. i don't think it is worth the valuation it is sitting at right now. emily: i know that you are optimistic about tesla's smaller ev, like a mini-cooper, but with

more and more electric vehicles coming to market, certainly tesla has first mover advantage. how do you expect this other electric cars to compete vis-a-vis tesla? craig: they have to get out there and do a good job with their brand, and offer consumers a compelling proposition. it has got to come into the market at the right price, and it has got to have the performance. you look at the take on, i was optimistic about the take on before we started to see it on the street. in the performance of the take on was not where i think porsche wanted it to be. it was not where a lot of the buyers of porsche typically want it to be. so the enthusiasm for the take on has really fizzled. back.e, i expect, to come they are not a company that quits easily. they have an opportunity to get it right over the next couple of years. emily: meantime, what is your outlook on how many people are

really going to be buying cars over the next six months? you have tens of millions of people laid off. you have far less commuting. yes, people want to commute and private cars versus on public transportation. how do you weigh those things out? can tesla really hit that five hundred thousand car market by the end of the year? craig: tesla is unusual. it has shown a thick layer of insulation between its own fundamental sales outlook and its execution, versus the rest of the auto market. the buyers tend to move very differently, in a country where there are 40 million people unemployed. you would think the sales outlook was pretty grim. tesla's customer base tends to be a lot more affluent. maybe younger. and i think that professionals that are buying these vehicles are may be less impacted by some of the economic issues that are hurting many of us across the world. world,talking about the what do you see in the global

picture? obviously there is the potential to enter india, and tesla saying they will start delivering cars from their shanghai factory next year. craig: yeah. so, the most interesting thing we've seen as far as local markets is a ratio of model three sales to model x and s sales. it is actually about 25% or higher than what we have seen in the u.s. and the overall global market in aggregate. the chinese market, the fact that you can sell a $50,000 car is great. but the fact that you have to have may be a larger market then many of us were originally thinking is better for tesla. the minicar might even have a

counter opportunity. emily: craig, you are breaking up a little bit toward the end. we're going to have to let you go. i do appreciate all of your insights. we got the most of what you had to say. craig irwin of roth on tesla. we will continue to follow. tesla has -- has a call at the beginning at the bottom of the hour. we will talk about microsoft beating on revenue, but not so great numbers in the cloud. we will break it all down next. this is bloomberg. ♪

microsoft revenue rose in 13%,atest quarter

signaling strong demand for its cloud computing software and services helping to keep workers connected around the world, as so many of us shelter-in-place on work from home. shares still down after hours. i want to bring in john freeman who covers the company. why do you think investors are not so excited about these numbers today? john: well, you know, i thought it was -- they beat consensus, but i think there was a lot of maybe hope for more significant upside. board,hink across the almost everything was definitely from significant sequential deceleration from the previous quarter. emily: what is your take on the cloud specifically? obviously you have investors with lofty expectations as so many foreign companies have been

critical in keeping the business world afloat. things are not going to change much it seems in the short term, unfortunately. we are not going to be coming into a new normal for quite some time. john: well, yeah. i think actually downturns, if you look at it historically, they tend to accelerate technology trends. and particularly software trends. because they tend to get out the old stuff and pressure companies to really use the latest technology. it ends up being a catalyst. certainly, microsoft's azure crowd -- cloud group grew 47%. that's tremendous and amazing. but it was 50 something percent the previous quarter. i think it is all relative. i don't think that the cloud conversion is going to magically somehow accelerate overall,

particularly for a company like the size of microsoft. it's a hard reality. a downturn will result in lower growth across the board. except for video games. content and services was up 65% year-over-year. which is in line with our video games season as well. quite clearly, videogames are doing quite well this year. emily: i can imagine a few people might have finally bit the bullet and bought the xbox as they shelter-in-place and their kids are out of school. curious of your thoughts on microsoft teams which of course competes with zoom and google meet, what is your outlook for that product? well, i look at all of those products as kind of edging another sort of collaborative area.

almost like monopolistic competition. a product which has real-time collaboration for software development. i think there is a bigger battle and i also look at the -- and that is why i think the regulatory pushes in these areas tend to be very ephemeral in terms of results. so yeah, that is kind of how i view that space. i think it is probably a lot more fragmented than if you look at how actually people collaborate real-time or whatever. if you take a bigger picture look at it, it is a much more fragmented and less monopolistic market than some regulators might say, for example. emily: all right. john freeman, always love your energy. john freeman of cfra who covers

microsoft. coming up, we will be talking eventbrite. every vote counts. eventbrite is committed to get out the vote this november with a new initiative. we will hear from the company's cofounder and ceo. we will take you to the white house. the news conference scheduled to start at the bottom of the hour wherein the president takes the podium. we will take you there live. this is bloomberg. ♪

wind -- with less than four months to go until the presidential election, eventbrite is launching a new campaign called ticket to vote, with the hopes of driving more voter registration and education on its platform. the company is partnering with headcount as part of its initiative. joining us in an exclusive interview, cofounder and ceo julia hartz. obviously, this is important. the mission is important.

how is this partnership going to work? julia: thank you, emily. this year is an extraordinary time for the voting population. while covid has virtually made impossible,thering online gathering is growing tremendously. we have seen online events. millions of people are coming to the platform to connect with one another. our goal is to really lean into specific engagement and create a positive change by helping to make it so easy to register to vote. we have partnered with heth -- with headcount, an organization that has helped over 600,000 young people registered to vote at leave events. and we have taken their method online. effectively, our creators can set an option in their event to allow people to just easily hit add to cart and be able to go through a registration, and that is going to make it much easier

for people to get educated and make sure that their voice gets heard this election season. are in theously, we middle of a social, economic and health crisis as we move toward this election. i'm curious how that has translated into activity on your platform? are you seeing a rise in more activism related events? julia: we have seen a rise of activity -- a fact is it is him -- of activism this a year. the goal is to help voices that have been unheard, be heard. eventbrite is that platform. toare enabling our creators use the platform for things that they would be doing otherwise. being able to elevate voices, being able to educate people, being able to activate the action that needs to happen in our country. i think as we see communities come together online, there has been a tremendous rise in terms of using your voice to create positive change. if you go to the eventbrite

homepage, you will see thousands of social justice and racial equity education events. and that is not by accident. our community has come together to really give this moment in time the significance that it deserves. and we are seeing the activity on eventbrite just continue to grow and swell. to that is really something be optimistic about and be hopeful about. talkedobviously, we have about how the in person event has been, at least it is certainly on pause, and it may be forever different. are you seeing coming back at all, even as we come out of this? or will a vastly larger percentage of events be virtual over the longer-term? have: the live events never been more directly in vat -- impacted in our generation.

you have to go way, way back to find a time where there has been such great disruption of something that is an innate human need. gathering together in real life. what we are seeing is with the advent of technology and the benefit of us being in this age of innovation, people are finding each other online. 85% of consumers who are attending online events new the creator prior to covid. so they are just finding them online. and creators are seeing that consumer behavior shift and the adoption of these online formats. and they are hosting more frequently of events. i can't predict the future perfectly, but i can tell you what we are seeing now. instead of large format in person gatherings, we are seeing people pivot two more niche focused events online. instead of a big music festival, we are seeing fan fueled listening jams online. or living room concerts. instead of a big business conference, we are seeing more

hyper-local meet ups happening. as it becomes more safer for us together in person, we believe we will see more small format hyper local gatherings. people will not be crossing borders or traveling a far distance on airplanes, for instance. but they will be driving to see and connect with their communities. i think a fundamental question for the live event economy is really when are we going to get back to those big events? that's not the problem that we are trying to solve. our core market is about the small to medium-sized events. and we can scale up to hundreds of thousands of people in online gatherings. emily: now, i know gender equity is something you are really passionate about. and we have sympathized as moms, as parents who work with schools not reopening in the fall. i wonder how you are thinking about this? the case has been made that this is much harder on parents, certainly, and working parents. how are you thinking about that and how are you helping your

employees navigate that with no end in sight to this status quo? julia: certainly, in the u.s., we are faced with one disappointment after another in terms of the outlook on reopening schools. i think as we look forward, we have to prepare for the worst. as an employer of over 600 people around the world where we largely have gender equity, it is really imperative for us to think about this as a family problem. and even more so as a dependent care problem. so we are looking way -- looking for ways to partner with organizations to come up with creative solutions. we are starting to see communities come together to form pods for their kids to be educated together in a smaller environment online, if they are doing distance learning. i think especially for those children who are under school age, this is a real issue for everybody. and we are unified in the impact.

my focus has really been on solutions that can help to drive us through this era in time without particularly women taking decades off the advancement that we have made in gender equity. which i know is something you care deeply about. emily: is the school in distance learning -- actually, we will have to leave it there. we are running into this press conference at the white house. julia hartz, always appreciate you joining us and for your insights there. coming up, we are going to be talking about a firm and shop a fight teaming up to offer more selectable payment plans via shop a fight's one million plus merchants. we will have a wide-ranging conversation with mack's left chin. we are standing by for a news conference at the white house. we will take you there live when president trump takes the stage. this is bloomberg. ♪ businesses are starting to bounce back.

but what if you could do better than that? like adapt. discover. deliver. in new ways. to new customers. what if you could come back stronger? faster. better. at comcast business, we want to help you not just bounce back. but bounce forward. that's why we're helping you stay ahead and adapt with a network you can count on, 24/7 support and flexible solutions that work wherever you are. call or go online today.

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. canadian e-commerce giant shopify is teaming up with a firm to offer flexible payment plans to consumers. this is stepping up shopify's to build a more customer friendly shopping platform amidst a surge in online shopping. i spoke to firm ceo and founder max levchin, who also cofounded paypal, about everything from what the partnership means for his company, to his thoughts on antitrust scrutiny of companies like apple and facebook in washington. max: it's massive.

it's a giant leap for us toward total liquidity. over oneas served million merchants and millions of consumers. this is obviously giant. no better way to put it. we deliver on the promise. emily: so who is in that race? talk about the competition and what it will take to really win. max: fundamentally we are competing with credit cards. the company was not founded to be the best of a nichey interesting payment idea. the fundamental notion here is to provide a better, more honest, more transparent alternative to credit cards. we compete with evolving

credits. to provide a lower cost -- lower cost, fundamentally more trustworthy service. that is really what the race is. emily: when i interviewed the ceo of shopify, he said, if amazon is building an empire, then shopify is arming the rebels. the small and medium businesses on the platform. do you think this gives shopify an edge in its battle with amazon? max: my honest opinion is that every single platform from amazon on down will eventually offer a service like a firm in it -- an alternative payment because it is taking off like wildfire. we have seen extraordinary growth over the last decade of doing this. but also even during the pandemic as the off-line sales shifted online. we have seen unbelievable growth. it is something that consumers have come to expect. my guess is it will become table stakes for everyone and not a

unique advantage for anyone platform. emily: i know you can use a firm's virtual card, as i understand it, to buy things on amazon. but you don't have a formal partnership with amazon. amazon is developing its own payment technology. is this something that you would like to do with amazon as well? this precluding you striking up a partnership like that? max: i think fundamentally, the mission for process is clear. we wanted to bring this better way to pay to everyone. every consumer, every merchant. we are excited to partner with anyone who shares that mission. is truethe real goal liquidity. we are excited to work with any firm that will have us. partner.re to emily: i want to talk about the transfer you are seeing in the pandemic. obviously, we know there have

been tens of millions of lost jobs, and that has impacted discretionary spending, but also a large chunk of what happened to physical stores has moved online. what are the trends that you are seeing in terms of how much people are spending, where they are spending it, and just how american consumers are hurting right now? max: it's really all over the place in many ways. it is stratified even more in terms of people's various situations personally. those of us who move from white-collar jobs to their home offices, i think went into a sort of spending blitz in the early part of the pandemic. when we saw demand for everything from home office, home kitchen, anything that turns your house into a better place to work, and not have to leave the house was on fire. and still is. it's growing. meanwhile, travel is obviously decimated.

all of that speaks to the people who work in those industries. if you are a travel industry employee, your stability and your ability to predict your future financial state has just gone down. we saw growth on two specters. one is now, i buy more things online, because we are primarily an -- we are primarily online. we have plenty of off-line locations as well. . the other one was even if people who normally think of themselves as, i don't pay for things over time, i plunk down my plastic and pay it off at the end of the month, but we say, i don't know what my level of uncertainty is about my financial future. i like the adia of stretching my dollars over months because that gives me sense up -- a's ability -- gives me a sense of stability. the unfortunate return of the virus in summer has brought more uncertainty to folks.

-- and you think about the government, the fed deserves kudos for supporting the economy, making sure people are generally not falling off a financial cliff. certainly looking forward to the next congressional decision on more stimulus, which i think the country frankly needs as we try to cope with this virus. emily: speaking of congress, you are no stranger to big tech companies. you cofounded paypal. next week, the ceos of apple, alphabet, facebook, and amazon, are going to be appearing before congress on antitrust issues. do you think there is a case for any of these big tech companies to be broken up? max:max: i think there are two things conflated in this one. i'm of the polar opposite opinion on the two topics. thatrust behavior, i think

is bad. i think congress is doing its job, and i'm sure it is no fun to be called in front of congress and don't wish that upon myself or her friends or enemies. i do think it is the job of our legislators and other branches of government to make sure large companies don't abuse their power. however, i think breaking them up is a terrible idea. i think we complete -- compete in a global stage. they compete with companies that have similar resources because of their scale. enforcing antitrust law, making sure people don't overstep what fair competition means, i think is a really, really important powerful idea of our flavor of capitalism. i think stripping our economy of its most powerful defenders on the world stage is a bad idea. emily: so you think breaking up these companies would be a bad idea? max: i do. emily: why? as they face their

chinese counterparts, maybe their european counterparts, there is power in bundling, there is power in having vertical integration, there is power in being able to operate at significant scales. imagine apple being forced to break everything into software and hardware and maybe even hardware by line. companies like huawei have everything under one roof. they will be able to out price them. for newhat if that is upstarts, like a firm once was? max: the firm is still very much an upstart. i'm not sure we are out of the little legs just yet. but we are growing very quickly. i don't think one precludes the other. i think it is the role of the regulators and legislators to level the playing field and make sure that competition is fair. i think the role of an upstart is to challenge the status quo

and go up against the goliaths and the striver and the smarter and execute faster, and all the things that make startups great. i think breaking large corporations down into tiny pieces to make it easier for me to complete -- compete with them is misguided because their job is not to compete with me, it is to compete with the bigger guys overseas. emily: i want to ask you a separate question about facebook. because i know a firm hold its advertising from facebook and facebook is in the middle of this controversy over how it handled it. and specifically the president's posts. why did you pull your advertising from facebook and do you think mark zuckerberg is making the right call about political speech? max: first of all, i think it is super comical waited -- super complicated. i do not envy being mark zuckerberg. he is facing some weighty decisions. i believe them when they say that they are striving to do better. thing, the very specific

and as someone who came to the u.s. as a refugee from a very anti-semitic state, i have a very strong view that enforcing free-speech is very important. and eliminating hate speech or controlling hate speech and beating it back because it fundamentally is one step away from violence and that is what it incites is very important. the reason we spoke up and will continue to speak up is because it is the job of large, visible, important companies that are also public forums to help fight hate speech. again, as a am, refugee from the former soviet union, a big believer in free speech. i think it's essential that opposing opinions, even if they are anti-semitic, so long as they don't call for violence, our state and. people can make their moan --

make their own judgment of what is repulsive and what is an interesting debate. emily: max levchin, co-founder and ceo of a firm. apple released a study today, noting the fees that it charges developers are on par with the rest of the industry. the iphone maker laying out part of its potential defense as tim cook prepares to testify before congress on monday amidst antitrust scrutiny. for more, i want to bring in mark grimm and consumer technology. mark, apple said not to think about this as the defense that tim cook will be making on monday, but it is certainly part of the argument. tell us about what apple had to say. mark: hi, emily. you're right. this is definitely part of the argument. there have been developers and different government organizations scrutinizing apple for the commission or fee, whatever you want to call it, on the app store which is 30% for paid downloads, both in app

purchases and subscription -- and subscriptions for the first year. 15% after the first year per consumer. this apple pay and apple commission study is saying that the google play store has the exact same terms as the app store. the amazon app store, 30%. samsung app store, 30%. microsoft is 30% in most cases. some of the gaming stores like steam, nintendo, playstation or xbox are also 30%. what apple does not say is that a lot of these app stores are 30% because they are following apple's footsteps. still, nonetheless, they are showing that everyone is basically doing the same thing. so why aren't we going after apple? emily: what does apple have to say about the fact that it is not only the gatekeeper, but it is also a competitor in the app store? they also have got their own apps in the app store, like apple music, which as we know,

the folks at spotify have made quite clear. mark: i mean, apple's argument is that the app store has not held back spotify, but has instead let them basically become a giant public company. far morethe way, sells subscriptions than apple music. so there argument is that the app store has done pretty well for spotify. so it is not really a great argument to say that apple is hurting by operating the store while also being on their. -- there. tole doesn't have a 30% tax pay anyone because they operate the store. that is what some developers and competitors like microsoft and spotify has indicated to be unfair. emily: obviously, monday, we have got a big day. you have tim cook, mark zuckerberg, all preparing to testify. what do we know about how the hearing is going to proceed and

how it might look different than others? as we understand it, right now, they will be appearing virtually and not in person. max: that's right. it is going to be a virtual hearing. the latest news today that jack dorsey, the ceo of twitter, was invited to attend as well. the difference being that twitter is just a very small, minuscule company compared to the other companies. and twitter really has not had any antitrust issues they have had tons of issues with the government and president trump. and all sorts of things there. as the issue with amazon, google, apple, is much broader in terms of antitrust specifically. google with search algorithm, apple with the app store, amazon with its own sellers on the store alongside their own devices and products. it is a little odd that twitter would appear there as well. emily: that is certainly an interesting development.

meantime, we have got headlines crossing the terminal that apple cannot pursue a deal to buy arm, which is the chipmaker. many of their chips are in apple devices. it is a company that was more recently purchased by softbank. what can you tell us about this? mark: arm, owned by softbank, creates what is known as an instruction set which allows the processors that apple designs in its devices to communicate with its software. basically, arms technology is at the heart of most of apple's products, as well as products from amazon and other device makers. microsoft as well. samsung. so whoever ends up with this will have a huge competitive advantage. however, the price tag is superhigh. it was a $32 billion price tag in 2016 which is 10x what amazon has paid. it seems very unlikely that apple would make that deal.

also regulatory concerns as well. emily: all right, bloomberg's mark gurman, you will be covering that along with us as that comes up on monday. thank you so much. coming up, some call it the robinhood effect. retail of nasdaq says investing has been a trend for decades. we will talk to adina freeman of nasdaq. this is bloomberg.

environments for retail investing has been strong for years. this is -- this according to adena friedman who spoke earlier about the democratization of markets and how china public

listings in the united states may change as the relationship between the u.s. and china evolves. take a listen. i definitely think the environment for investing has been pretty great over the last 10 years. i think the fees that retail has had to pay to be able to enter the markets, the democratization of the markets to allow them to have access to the markets has really been a key trend that has driven the u.s. markets. i do think that is a longer term trend. the fact that commissions have gone to for he has driven more demand within the retail environment, and retail investors coming into the markets this year. >> is it a free lunch? i go back to our relationship with arbor levitt and his respect for the individual investor 30 years ago. is it a free lunch? schwab says it is free. td ameritrade says it is free.

you can trade nasdaq shares and it is free. is it a free lunch? adena: first of all, it really is free for retail. i was at nasdaq with arthur levitz during his tenure. i do think he really was on a mission to make it so we democratize access at the capital markets. i think he went a long way in that regard. the online brokers have done an amount to create services that benefit retail. i do think that at the end of the day, they are getting a good experience. the spreads in our markets are extremely narrow which means they are getting good executions. and they are now not having to pay commissions against -- to the retail brokers to gain access to the markets. for them, it is free access. pres. trump: to produce and deliver 100 million doses of their vaccine immediately following its approval. hopefully the approval process will go very quickly. and we think we have a winner there. we also think we have other companies right behind that are doing very well on the vaccines.

long ahead of schedule. speed, of operation warp this agreement will also ensure we receive an additional 500 million doses shortly thereafter. this is another crucial step in our effort to develop manufacture and escape -- distribute a vaccine in record-breaking time. really a very small fraction of the time, based on previous schedules. i want to thank the fda, i want to thank everybody involved. it has been an incredible process. as discussed yesterday, the china virus poses the greatest threat to our senior citizens as we all know. the median age for those who die from the virus is 78 years old. and nearly half of the deaths have occurred among those living in nursing homes or long-term care facilities. that is really something. in other words, approximately half of the fatalities have occurred among less than 1% of the u.s. population.

so think of that. less than 1%, half of the fatalities. so we know what to look for. from the beginning, we have made it our top priority to shelter our seniors. in early march, we announced guidelines to spending all medically unnecessary visits to nursing homes and prioritized resources for those facilities and we gave it a very strong priority. to many sent shipments different locations of protective equipment and it is going directly to 15,400 medicaid and medicare certified nursing homes throughout the country. today, i would like to provide an update on the actions that we have been able to take. and they have been very constructive. first, we are requiring increased testing of the nursing home personnel in states where you had the worst outbreak. all personnel will be tested at level.hest

we are distributing 15,000 rapid point-of-care diagnostic devices to support this effort. these are the tests where it takes five minutes to 15 minutes. they are very accurate, they are very good. we are sending them all over the country. and over 600 devices will be shipped this week to additional facilities. second, hhs will be distributing an additional $5 million from the provider really fund to all nursing homes. nursing homes and higher areas will be receiving or funding. this money can be used to address critical needs including the hiring of additional staff, increasing testing, and providing technology support that our residents can connect their families. they can connect to their families. they are having a tremendous time. they want to be with their loved ones. they can't do it. what they are doing is we are working it so that we can connect, have them connect with

their families, if they are not able to visit. third, we have been identifying especially high risk nursing homes and sharing that information with the governors so that the governors and their staffs can take appropriate action. we are able to find, because of the testing programs and other means, we are able to find certain areas that are at high risk. the governors can then take action. cms, cdc and u.s. public health service or providing enhanced technical assistance and support, including visits to the highest risk nursing homes, and that is their priority right now. nursing homes, with the highest homes.rsing cms and cdc are implementing a national training program focused on infection control for those nursing homes that need it most. and we have them surveyed and we pinpointed.stly over the past few months, we have created a surveillance

system to detect outbreaks and currently, 99% of all nursing homes are reporting directly to it. so we have great data. when a nursing home has three or cases, we alert the state and make sure that it responds very quickly. we check on it and make sure that they respond very quickly. i want to send a message of support to every senior citizen who has been dealing with the struggle of isolation, and what should be the goat -- in what should be the golden years of your life. we will get to the other end of that tunnel very quickly, we hope. the light is starting to shine. we will get there very quickly. but we send our love, send a message of love, very important. we are with you all the way. as far as the outbreak in the yesterday, wed continue to vigorously combat the rise of cases in the south and southwest in the west. we are closely monitoring and aggressively trying to capture the testing in florida, arizona and it is starting to come down.

they are all doing a good job. they are very talented people. there are likely a number of spikes in infections. cases started to rise among young americans shortly after demonstrations, which you know very well about, which presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide and have had a substantial increase in travel. increased gathering on holidays such as memorial day, as well as young people closely congregating at bars and probably other places, maybe beaches, four or five different listed places, we have 12 listed on the guide, likely also contributed. we are also sharing a 2000 mile mexico, as we know very well, and cases are surging in mexico, unfortunately. it is a big problem for mexico.

cases are surging very sharply. and all across the rest of the western hemisphere. constructed newly wall along the southern border has had a great positive impact on people coming in. and we have a record low numbers of people coming in illegally. that has helped greatly. it was really meant for a different purpose, but it worked out very well for what we're doing now and for the pandemic. nationwide, beyond the outbreak in several states, cases remain low. and very stable. 19 states have positive test rates of less than 5%. eight states have positive test rates of less than 2%. our nationwide positive test rate is beginning to decline and is currently at 8.8% compared to over 16% at its peak in april. it's coming down. it's coming down fairly rapidly. today, we surpassed, for the

first time, 15 million tests. that is far more than any country in the world. india is second, we believe. we think it is 1.4 million people. that is about 12 million tests. we have 50 million tests. we are working with every state to ensure the supply of remdesivir for early case intervention and steroid treatment at various other treatments for those that are seriously a. we are working very closely with hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, everybody. the remdesivir has proven to be terrific. our case fatality rate continues to decline. we want to push this rate even lower. the therapeutic research continues daily on new and very promising treatments, including antibody treatments and the use of blood thinners and steroids. a lot of different things are happening. and a lot of things are coming out that we would not have a

known a number of months ago. we are doing tremendously well on therapeutic research and tremendously well on the vaccines. and frankly, therapeutically, or may be a word even beyond that word is cure, would be the best of all. we will see what happens. that would be great if we could go into the hospital and just cure people. where at a position actually we are able to, a certain extent, with what we have right now, and we think in a short time, we will be able to that. our strategy is to shelter the highest risk americans while allowing younger and healthier citizens to return to work or school while being careful and vigilant. distance,k, socially and repeatedly wash your hands. practice very, very good sanitary means. you have to do this. you have to look at it differently. wash your hands often. i'm finding more and more people

are saying, wash your hands. so wash your hands. we want young americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings. we are all in this together. going toans, we are get this complete, we are going to do it properly, we have been doing it properly. sections of the country come up that we did not anticipate. for instance, florida, texas, etc.. but we are working with very talented people, very brilliant people. and it is all going to work out. and it is working out. if of that, i will take a few questions. aporter: i want to ask you a question about the surge in various cities. the mayor of chicago said moments ago that they are doing this for your failures on coronavirus. you are -- pres. trump: we have not had it that bad. reporter: is this a political stunt? pres. trump: the city's unfortunately that are in trouble are run by democrat