tonight we look to the time line for the truth. we think we have it very a public health emergency. >> what did the president do about the coronavirus? >> i issued a travel restriction from china. >> public health experts say he bought himself time and squandered it. >> what did the president say? >> it's going to disappear. it's hilike a miracle. >> did it match reality? >> an official said publicly it

was not a question of if this virus spreads. but when. slow testing. and confusion about the best way forward. >> it's frustrating and disheartening. we can do this. we know how to do it. >> a cnn special report. >> a cnn special report, "the pandemic and the president." >> the human toll so far more than one million u.s. citizens infected. and we just passed another grim milestone. more american lives lost in three months than during the entire vietnam war in more than ten years. the economic toll is also staggering, with tens of millions unemployed, and the federal government handing out billions of dollars in stimulus checks and business loans. the president's top adviser and son-in-law jared kushner

recently said that the trump administration, quote, rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story, unquote. did it? is it? as president trump tries to steer the u.s. back to some semblance of normal, it's worth taking a look at how we got here, what the president did, what he did not do, and how the united states ended up with at least, according to official records, the most cases and the most death of any country. >> revellers shoulder to shoulder, celebrating a new year that would bring a new virus, a new normal emptying these streets.

>> in early january, this is when the trump administration really gets the first word out of china, and it goes to the head of the cdc that there is this series of respiratory illnesses going around. they haven't identified it. and this is already a concern to the top health officials in the administration. >> the chinese government reported dozens of cases of pneumonia in the city of wuhan. closed down a market it suspected as the cause, and assured the world health organization, or w.h.o., that there was, quote, no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission. but as chinese president xi jinping's government was trying to contain the spread of the virus, it also was trying to contain the spread of the truth. >> not a lot of folks out. >> reporter: as cnn international correspondent david culver found out. >> it was back in late december lee sent a message quarantined at the hospital where he worked showed a patient had the

coronavirus. >> days later dr. lee was summoned to a police station and reprimanded for circulating rumors. >> on january 6, including cdc scientists to china to look into the virus to work with the world health organization. china does not want cdc scientist to come in the country at that point. >> but the chinese government's great wall of deception could not stop the deadly virus from migrating beyond its borders. >> 21 people in hong kong return from wuhan with fever or respiratory symptoms. >> still, the xi government insisted its investigations had, quote, found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. >> in the early day, i don't think anybody knew for sure what to believe. so the concern was are we getting the full story, how likely is this to be contagious,

how likely is this to kill people. >> it all seemed to leave u.s. infectious disease experts somewhat in the dark. >> based on the information that cdc has today, we believe the current risk from this virus to the general public is low. for a family sitting around the dinner table tonight, this is not something that they generally need to worry about. >> but during that same teleconference, the cdc announced a handful of u.s. airports would start screening passengers arriving from wuhan. >> the new coronavirus is causing infections, fever, and pulmonary infections. >> u.s. intelligence agencies were warning the president about the novel coronavirus, according to "the washington post" in more than a dozen daily classified briefings. >> they were calling attention to the threat of the coronavirus in a way that amounts to a fairly steady drumbeat throughout january and february.

>> so eventually, alex azar, secretary of health and human services goes to the president to talk about this coronavirus issue that is emerging from china. the president is completely preoccupied with other issues. he wants to talk about vaping and the sale of flavored vaping products. and it just shows you kind of how the president's focus was not on this coronavirus issue. >> which is worse, the impeachment hoax or the witch hunts from russia? >> his focus, much of it, was on the u.s. senate. >> and ready to present the articles of impeachment against donald john trump. >> in his view, it was the so-called deep state, people in government who were hell-bent to bring him down. so by the time the coronavirus pandemic really started to worsen in the united states and scientists and experts were telling him of the problem, he saw some of these people as just an extension of the deep state,

and so that led to i think some of the skepticism that he had towards the advice he was being given. >> and china's government in late january still downplaying. >> health officials in wuhan held a press conference yesterday. they say this is preventible. they say this is controllable. >> the next day, the u.s. had its first confirmed case of the coronavirus. the president's response was to claim it was under control. he said he trusted the chinese government. >> are you worried about a pandemic at all? >> no, we're not at all and we have it totally under control. it's one person coming in from china, and we have it under control. it's going to be just fine. >> okay. president xi, there is just some talk in china that maybe the transparency isn't everything that it's going to be. do you trust that we're going to know everything we need to know from china? >> i do, i do. i have a great relationship with president xi.

we just signed probably the biggest deal ever made or has the potential to be the biggest deal ever made. it was very interesting period of time. >> let's get into that. >> we got it done, and no, i do. i think the relationship is very, very good. >> we asked the white house to participate in this documentary, but they declined. on january 24th, chinese authorities initiated a lockdown of 30 million people in ten cities, including the presumed ground zero, wuhan. trump praised china, tweeting, "china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. the united states greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. it will all work out well." but behind the scenes -- >> health professionals across the government were tracking what was happening in china and getting alarmed.

>> some were sharing their fears in an email chain dubbed "red dawn," originated by duane caneva, the chief medical officer at the department of homeland security, an email chain leaked to "the new york times." >> emailing to each other that this is going to be bad, and we, the scientific community, the medical community have to develop some real advice to policymakers to try to mitigate the potential damage. >> "you guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools," wrote a department of veteran affairs senior medical adviser. "now i'm screaming close the colleges and universities." >> exactly what came to pass six weeks later. but at the time, many in the trump administration, including some of the medical community, including dr. fauci were not ready yet to declare that those kinds of steps would be

required. >> an infectious disease doctor at the university of nebraska shared this bit of dark humor. "great understatements in history. pompeii - a bit of a dust storm. hiroshima - a bad summer heatwave. and wuhan - just a bad flu season." david, hundreds of americans were just evacuated from wuhan by the state department. what precautions are being taken to make sure they are not carrying the virus back with them to the u.s.? >> they went through not one, but two health screenings here in china. one done by chinese officials, the other done by u.s. officials. and then they'll go through a third screening once they land in anchorage and be cleared to then go on to california. then, jake, they're going spend anywhere from 3 to 14 days in quarantine. >> peter navarro, the president's trade adviser circulated a memo through the national security council, but then it went out broadly to dozens of administration officials in which he was very

clear. he detailed the potential for millions of deaths, one to two million deaths, as many as 500,000. he went through the economic costs which he predicted would be staggering, in the trillions of dollars for the country. the president was told about the existence of this memo we have been told by sources, and he was irritated that these estimates had been put down on paper. >> that memo was dated january 29th, a day that also brought this. >> the white house announced the creation of a coronavirus task force to deal with the threat here in the united states. >> in the final days of january, a world health organization emergency committee praised the chinese government's leadership, commitment to transparency, and saw no need for any travel or trade restriction. and trump again told the country everything was fine. >> we think we have it very well

under control. >> so the very next day after the president made those comments in michigan was when his administration declared the coronavirus a public health emergency. >> in china, the doctor reprimanded for sounding the alarm was dying after being infected by a patient. >> struggling to communicate, lee spoke with cnn briefly by phone. you can hear the hospital machines pulsing in the background. china's supreme court commented that if lee's warning a month earlier had been heeded and action taken, quote, it might have been a fortunate thing for containing the new coronavirus. next -- >> once we saw that this outbreak grew at exponential rates, we knew this was going to be a rapidly disseminating virus. >> their hearts just sink when

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- [announcer] check out our huge selection of custom apparel for every occasion. you'll even get free shipping. get started today at customink.com. and i like to question your youi'm yoevery move.n law.ing. like this left turn. it's the next one. you always drive this slow? how did you make someone i love? that must be why you're always so late. i do not speed. and that's saving me cash with drivewise. my son, he did say that you were the safe option. and that's the nicest thing you ever said to me. so get allstate. stop bossing. where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. this is my son's favorite color, you should try it. [mayhem] you always drive like an old lady? [tina] you're an old lady. february began with a ban. >> not one person has died, and i issue a travel restriction from china. >> the restriction stopped most chinese residents and foreign nationals who had recently been in china from traveling to the u.s.

the restrictions also started a clock. >> when you talk to public health experts, they really look with despair at those couple of weeks because they say whatever your feelings were on the travel ban at the time, it was a perfectly fine and reasonable step to take, and he bought himself a little bit of time, and then he just squandered it. >> there were only nine known cases of the novel coronavirus inside the u.s. the first step to keeping that number low, according to the experts, was a working test for the virus. >> testing was, is, and always will be the cornerstone of trying to stem a pandemic. you've got to identify the people who are infected. you've got to be able to isolate those folks, and you've got to be able to treat them. it all begins with testing. >> february 6 is when the cdc starts sending these test kits out to public health departments. >> but the tests, the only tests

approved for use in the united states were not working. >> their hearts just sink when they're trying to use this test and it's malfunctioning. >> there was a test available from the world health organization, but the cdc did not choose to get it. and nobody inside the government asked outside labs to help. >> officials were told not to do it, that they didn't need to do it, it was too alarmist. >> the delay in testing concerned the expert, who now saw the virus spreading from human to human, and quickly. >> i think it was pretty clear in early february that there was human-to-human contact. >> once we saw that this outbreak grew exponential rates, we knew this was going to be a rapidly disseminating virus. >> researcher eva lee was working to see how much would reach the human virus. >> those models projected between 2 and 10 million people in the u.s. would become infected.

on february 9th, she sent an email to that red dawn chain of public health experts calling for social distancing. >> we need the citizens to know and practice social distancing in the way that best protects them. every action counts. >> it was a full five weeks later before president trump would take that step. >> thank you very much. >> that same day, some of the nation's governors met with dr. anthony fauci and cdc director robert redfield. they got some disturbing news. >> they gave us a pretty detailed outline of what they felt was happening with this virus. we knew this was going to be a serious crisis. >> it was exactly the opposite of what president trump was saying publicly. >> looks like by april, you know, in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. >> the president's cdc director contradicted him later that week in an interview with dr. sanjay gupta. >> i think this virus is

probably with us beyond this season, or beyond this year, and i think eventually the virus will find a foothold. >> a very small number of people in the country right now with it. it's like around 12. many of them are getting better. some are fully recovered already. so we're in very good shape. >> he was still of the view that you could stop flights, build walls, and keep coronavirus from coming to the united states. >> the chances of that were near zero, partly because it was now more than two weeks since the cdc test had been approved and it still was not working properly. >> over at the white house, robert redfield, who is the director of the cdc and alex azar, secretary of health and human services are assuring other administration officials we're going to get it fixed quickly. >> not quickly enough. february 22nd, the food and drug administration, or fda, sent an expert to the cdc headquarters to help figure out the problem. >> this expert realized that there was contamination in the

manufacturing process, and that the cdc had actually violated its own manufacturing protocols in trying to produce this test, and that is why the tests were malfunctioning. >> you have to wonder if president trump had been directly involved or his staff had, and if they had understood that you only contain the virus if you understand its spread, they might have pressed for more widespread testing earlier. >> a little to defense here, there were certainly indications that it was going to be bad, that it was going to spread, but there was no clear data, even in mid-february on exactly how it was spreading through the united states. >> but during the third week of february, public health officials were preparing for the worst, just in case. >> they gathered in "the situation room" to run a tabletop exercise of what it would look what like if the pandemic fully hit the united states. and so while the president was

talking about 15 cases going to zero, they were talking about 15 cases going to the thousands and then the tens of thousands and then the hundreds of thousands. >> two days later, dr. robert kadlec, an assistant secretary for preparedness at the department of health and human services spotted a red dawn email that set off warning bells in the administration. >> this is really a critical moment for this group that is studying the problem. they see an email about a patient in china who had shown no symptoms of coronavirus and yet had spread the virus to family and friends. >> that means people who did not know they were sick were unknowingly spreading the virus. eva, is this true, dr. kadlec wrote to dr. eva lee? if so, we have a huge hole on our screening and quarantine effort. she responded with a link confirming the story and added -- >> simply people are carrying the virus everywhere.

>> that then sets in motion a greater urgency from the group that they've got to get to the president a plan to mitigate the problem inside the united states before it spreads further. >> it was now february 24th, and it was time dr. kadlec and his colleagues decided to tell president trump he needed to recommend social distancing measures, including shutting down big public events and schools. but president trump was in india. >> they planned basically the moment he got back to the united states, they were going to sit down with him, advocate for these measures, and hopefully try to convince the president to move forward with it. but one thing happened. a doctor from the cdc, dr. messionnier got ahead of the messaging they were working on and warned publicly there is going to be severe disruption to america life. >> we are asking the american public to work with us and prepare in the expectation that this could be bad.

>> the president was angry than and said why are they overplaying the problem? it's leading to the stock market crash. >> breaking news. >> the dow is taking a dramatic hit down, almost 900 points. >> president trump actually considered firing dr. messionnier but ultimately did not. >> if the president was less concerned with what the warning sounded like and more concerned with the content of the warning, he might have concluded the cdc was right and moved much more quickly to try to mitigate the effects, trying to prepare the american people. >> instead, the day the president returned from india, he blamed the media, tweeting that msnbc and cnn are, quote, doing everything possible to make the coronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible, unquote. before railing at the media, the

president was angry with dr. messonnier. the president, it seemed, viewed anyone delivering ugly facts about the virus as the enemy. that evening, he held a presser and said something completely opposite from what his experts were saying. >> when you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done. >> the president also announced a new leader of the coronavirus task force. >> i'm going to be putting our vice president, mike pence, in charge. >> on that day the president returned from india, dr. kadlec and his colleagues did not tell the president it was time to start social distancing. it would be nearly three more weeks before the president took any of the steps they had planned to recommend. >> i think one of the big questions we're always going to have is what would have happened if we had acted sooner. if we had started these physical distancing measures a week earlier, the question will be asked how many lives would have been saved?

according to some models, they say, you know, 50, 60% of people within that first wave may not have become infected. >> if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. obviously no one is going to deny that. but what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. >> so in late february, the president was still holding crowded rallies. his administration had not yet recommended social distancing, and they had not solved the problem with the testing kits. then on february 27th, a breakthrough in the form of a phone call arranged by dr. anthony fauci. >> he wants the other health experts on the line. and the message when they get on the line is we're not getting off this phone call until we know how to fix the testing issue. you have the head of fda on this call and we have redfield on this call. it's really striking that this isn't happening until the end of february. one of the solutions that coming out of it is the fda needs to loosen its regulations. >> that was a big deal.

those regulations made it difficult for commercial labs to come into the process and scale up testing. the regulations were officially lifted on the last day of february. coming up -- >> anybody that wants a test can get a test. >> and that was a surprise to people at the cdc. at t-mobile, taxes and fees are included. and right now, when you switch your family, get four lines of unlimited for just $35 dollars a line and taxes and fees included. so what you see is what you pay every month. check it out at out t-mobile.com/4for35 balanced nutrition for strength and energy. whoo-hoo! great tasting ensure with 9 grams of protein,

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two months after the trump administration first learned of the contagion taking over the globe, there were 72 known cases in the u.s. and one known death. but that was about to change. >> march was an explosive month for this virus in the united states. >> new evidence confirmed that the virus after entering washington state and california, was now spreading on the east coast with the first reported infection in new york. and two days later, a second. >> we're seeing what we expected, what we anticipated, which is a continuing spread. >> in a few short weeks, new york state's second case of

covid multiplied into hundreds, forming the nation's newest cluster. >> we will continue to do exactly what we're doing. >> but back in washington, d.c., the president had yet to publicly admit the enormity of the unfolding crisis. >> a lot of very exciting things are happening. they're happening very rapidly. >> the month before in february, a team inside trump's own administration had developed an aggressive plan to try to slow the spread of the virus through social distancing, a plan that would effectively shut down a big chunk of the nation's economy. but president trump was still resisting. >> so this is a critical period of time where the coronavirus continues to spread and no real federal action is taken. >> states begin competing for critical medical supplies and equipment. come mid-march, supplies would become so scarce, the cdc would issue guidelines to health care

workers to reuse masks, or even use bandannas if necessary. >> that was unthinkable before that point. no one in a million years would ever have thought that in the united states of america that we would tell doctors and nurses reuse your mask. >> part of the problem in terms of the ppe is there has been a total lack of clarity about process here. mike pence took over the task force. jared kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser have been been running what some have described a shadow task force. that has left a lot of confusion as to who exactly is responsible to help procure ppe. >> confusion that would continue to plague the administration behind closed doors and in front of the cameras. >> we're also considering the fact that got approximately 36,000 deaths due to what's called the flu. >> the president visits the cdc and famously says -- >> anybody who wants a test can get a test. >> and that was a surprise to

people at the cdc who were working on this issue. they didn't know the president was going to say that testing was certainly not at a point where anybody who wants a test can get a test. >> and the tests are perfect like the letter is perfect. the transcription is perfect. >> the tests were flawed. the tests didn't work. and as a result, we lost valuable time. more people became infected. there were people walking around without any symptoms, no test, and they were continuing to spread the virus. >> it will go away. just stay calm. >> but the day after president trump said the virus would, quote, go away, the country was wrestling with a new reality. hollywood legend tom hanks and his wife tested positive for covid. the nba announced it was suspending its season. >> and all of the sudden everybody was saying what's going on here? what's the deal with this virus? >> and the world health organization officially named covid-19 a pandemic. >> the president was still contradicting what was actually happening.

>> some of the experts i talked to said that was because the stock market was really driving the president's decision making, and he didn't want to do the kinds of things that you needed to do to mitigate the spread of this virus because it would further hurt the economy. >> pushed by democrats to more than triple his original request for funding -- >> i asked for 2.5, and i got 8.3, and i'll take it. >> trump signed $8.3 billion in emergency spending for virus, yet even then he continued to insist falsely no one saw this virus coming. >> very well. but it's an unforeseen problem, what a problem. it came out of nowhere. >> every epidemiologist has been predicting, cajoling, warning government officials for the last 20 years that a pandemic of this size and magnitude was inevitable.

but when our leader denies or refuses to admit the problem, it's confusing at best, and it is disastrous at worst. >> chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine. >> but perhaps the most confounding comments by the president in march surrounded his touting of an untested treatment for the virus. >> chloroquine. a lot of good things are happening with it. >> which the fda would later warn could cause serious heart issues. >> we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. that would be a big game changer. >> "the washington post" reported that president trump was so enamored with the drug, he asked an acquaintance from mar-a-lago to call the california governor gavin newsom on his cell phone to try to broker a deal for the state to buy millions of tablets of hydroxychloroquine from india. a source tells cnn that after newsom got the call, he told staffers that he thought he might have been punked by a

shock jock. such a deal never happened. >> hydroxychloroquine is a drug that has been used with great success for decades against malaria, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis. it's basically an anti-inflammatory. >> is there any evidence to suggest that as with malaria, it might be used as a prophylaxis against covid-19? >> no, the answer is no. >> but the president was not the only one that month contradicting the experts. some of his political allies joined in too, such as congressman matt gaetz from florida who seemed to mock those taking the virus seriously when he wore a gas mask before a vote on the house floor. >> it's a great time to go out, go to a local restaurant. >> it was also devin nunes, one of his closest allies who was going on fox news and telling people they should still feel comfortable going out to eat at restaurants when health advisers were saying the exact opposite. >> on the other side of the political aisle, democratic governor andrew cuomo and new york city mayor bill de blasio

did not fully grasp the gravity of the crisis either. >> excuse our arrogance as new yorkers. we don't even think it's going to be as bad as it was in other countries. >> why is everyone panicking? >> and then there was the pro-trump media, which turned the pandemic into a conspiracy. >> i'm not afraid of the coronavirus. >> they just look for any and every way possible to bash president trump. >> they're basically accusing the rest of the mainstream media of fearmongering. they're saying that democrats and the media are just blowing this up because they want to create more chaos for the president. >> i am far more concerned with stepping on a used heroin needle than i am with getting the coronavirus. >> this disinformation took such a hold on a segment of the public, new polling data began to worry leaders in the president's party. >> what the polling showed is republicans were taking this virus far less seriously than

democrats were. and what circulated to republicans is their tone and their message had to change on coronavirus because denial was not going to be for survival. but strict social distancing measures were. and some state leaders would begin to enforce them, without the help of the federal government. >> to reduce the social interactions that are not necessary in our lives. >> in a moment, dr. acton will be signing an order banning the gathering together of people of over 100 people. >> on march 13th, two days after the president announced travel restrictions on europe, the president made his strongest stance against the virus yet. >> for today, i am officially declaring a national emergency. two very big words. >> the president, however, stopped short of the social distancing plan public health officials had been hoping for. >> when you compare what we've

done to other areas of the world, it's pretty incredible. >> but back in 2018, the trump administration had folded its pandemic office into a different office of the national security council. those had been a group of public health experts who, according to their former senior director, could have made a difference. >> and when you say me, i didn't do it. >> they think a practice senior level white house pandemics office would have been able to understand exactly what needed to happen more quickly. >> we much rather be ahead of the curve than behind it. >> march 16th. more than 70 days after the trump administration first learned of the virus, the president implemented what had become the nation's best tool to slow its spread. >> my administration is recommending that all americans, including the young and healthy, work to engage in schooling from home when possible, avoid gathering in groups of more than

ten people. >> what is still so stunning is to realize that this was on march 16th. it was the end of february that his health advisers had started talking of putting these measures in place. >> it's a war zone. a medical war zone. >> there is patients building up in all the corridors on oxygen. >> we're running out of medication. we're running out of equipment. >> i started receiving texts from doctors and nurses who i have known for decades, brave, brave people saying i'm scared. one of them said "what i'm seeing is armageddon." >> on march 26th, the u.s. reached a somber milestone, becoming the new global leader in confirmed infections. the following day, president trump approved a historic $2 trillion stimulus bill, and he finally pledged to authorize the defense production act, which would allow him to force the manufacturing of ventilators.

>> for week, we've already had doctors. we've already had nurses publicly and on television pleading, saying we don't -- we don't have what we need to protect ourselves from the virus. >> i've been asked by the tennessee department of health to velcro a diaper around my face because i don't have an n95 mask to be able to wear to see patients. >> it was really perplexing, and it still is perplexing why the administration took until march 27th to invoke the defense production act. >> the defense production act invoked at a very early stage could have been very helpful in making sure that people did not run out of supplies. it is a failure of the trump administration and is one of the most colossal mistakes i have ever witnessed. and unfortunately, it will cause thousands and thousands of lives to be lost. >> next --

>> so what happened? >> we're not an ordering clerk. we're a bank. >> it became an unholy mess. us lives here. where we can find common ground... big enough to dance on.

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america now the deadliest nation in confirmed coronavirus cases. >> a record-shattering 6.6 million americans filed for unemployment last week. >> the "usns comfort," hundreds of hospital beds on that ship. they're going to provide relief to new york hospitals overwhelmed with coronavirus. >> the city system for burials can completely overwhelmed. the remains were loaded into trailers and brought to hart island for a temporary burial. >> it's like we're going into a war with no protection. >> bring us our ppe now. we need it. >> and then the doctor took the phone and he said "i'm sorry but there is no more pulse." >> on the last day of march, president trump was more serious than he had ever seemed to be discussing the pandemic as he addressed the nation.

>> i want every american to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. we're going to go through a very tough two weeks. >> i think of all of the briefings he had done. that was probably the best one. it was that he was telling the truth to the public. he was doing what elected officials are supposed to do which is prepare their citizens and the general public for what's to come. >> our country is in the midst of a great national trial unlike any we have ever faced before. they're shocking numbers when you see 100 and 120,000 and 200,000 people over a potentially very short period of time. >> one of the ways he realized it was towards the end of march watching elmhurst hospital where 24 people died in a 24-hour period of covid-19, i think this brought home a reality for him that few other things did. >> five. five ventilators. oh my god. >> i grew up right next to it. to see the scenes of trailers out there, they're freezers. nobody could even believe it.

>> along with the images of devastation, the president heard cries for help. >> it really feels like it's too little too late. like we knew, we knew it was coming. >> it's like military people going into battle. i would say you people are just incredible. >> yet just two days before, the president was hurling insults at the caregivers. >> where are the masks going? are they going out the back door? how do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? >> it comes to this period of time when the president seems to want to lash out to a new enemy every day. one day he is blaming the, quote, invisible enemy, the coronavirus. another day he is blaming the chinese. and then he finds this bizarre line of attack against health care workers, then becomes this attack on individual governors. >> it was the governors who president trump had been attacking with a vengeance.

>> we need that ventilator. >> the president initially pushed back against their requests for more medical gear, saying they were asking for too much and dismissed democratic governors in particular such as new york governor andrew cuomo, such as new york governor andrew cuomo who had been steadfast in the government to provide ventilators. new york surged to 84,000 cases of the then 216,000 cases nationwide. >> at the current burn rate, we have about six days of ventilators in our stock pile. >> startling sign of the economic pain. >> this was also the day we learned 6.6 million workers filed for unemployment in the u.s. for the first time, a historic high and a 3,000% increase since early march. the president lashed out as

governors on twitter, calling them, quote, the complainers. >> the states should have been building their stock pile. we're a back up. >> the president had a phone call with governors, and he said it was up to them to go look for their own supplies. so, what happened? one state began bidding against another, and in some cases there were reports of states bringing in supplies, arranging to buy them, only to have the federal government seize them for their own stock pile. so, it became an unholy mess. >> that's what happened to massachusetts republican governor charlie baker. his state's shipment of respiratory masks never made it. >> we had our 3 million masks that we had ordered confiscated in the port of new york. >> look at the bizarre situation we're in. it's like being on ebay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator. >> a bizarre situation

complicated by the president's son-in-law, also an adviser to the president. >> the federal stock pile is supposed to be our stock pile. it's not supposed to be state spok tiles they use. >> when jared kushner made his first appearance in the briefing room did his father-in-law damage when he described it as our stock pile, not to be in a fight with states. >> on april 2nd after week of fighting with governors, the president expanded the defense production act to force six medical device companies to produce protective masks and ventilators. the administration was finally taking steps to help states, yet it continued to be criticized for not fully unleashing the might of the act. >> the president has continued to see criticism for the fact he has not used the dpa more aggressively while constantly using it as a bat in his tool box to hit people with. the latest issue is swabs and the fact he's not forcing

companies to ramp up production. >> there were unquestionably examples of the federal government stepping up. the u.s. army corp. of engineers built field hospitals including this one at the javits center. the u.s. navy deployed ships to new york and california. on april 3rd, the cdc put out a recommendation urging the the president to wear cloth face masks. president trump said he would rather not. >> i don't know. somehow i don't see it for myself. >> it was hardly the first time he ignored public health advice. >> you're taking a lot of pictures. are you protecting yourself at all? >> not at all, no, not at all. >> by april 10th, there were now more than half a million confirmed covid-19 cases in the u.s. and the death toll had catapulted to nearly 19,000, yet widespread testing remaimed illusive. >> we're leading the world now in testing by far and we're going to keep it that way. >> the country had ramped up

testing. but according to health experts, the u.s. was still testing far fewer people per capita than countries such as south korea or italy. but by this time, governors with the help of the trump administration and sometimes on their own had received the much-needed ventilators. and many had received enough medical supplies. >> compared to how we have been operating on this new dire circumstances, we are relatively comfortable with ventilators and ppe if the hospitalization rate stays down. >> on april 11th, "the new york times" ran an extensive investigation detailing trump's mistakes during the crisis. two days later -- >> the president of the united states calls the shots. >> -- trump played a video during a press briefing that seemed to be blaming the press for down playing the virus. >> coronavirus is not going to

cause a major issue in the united states. >> the same press he had been attacking for overhyping the crisis in february. >> for something that was noticeably missing was the president's own comments where he also down played and dismissed the outbreak in the month of february in the beginning of march. >> white house reporters did not back down. >> you bought yourself some time. you didn't use it to prepare hospitals. you didn't use it to ramp up testing. >> you're so disgraceful. we have done a great job. >> what we've seen in these daily briefings, that one in particular, is a president trying to rewrite history, trying to say he was the one who was warning all along about the coronavirus. >> there was also this. >> when somebody's the president of the united states, the authority is total. and that's the way it's got to be. >> total? your authority's total? >> has any governor agreed you

have the authority to decide -- >> i haven't asked anybody. do you know why? do you know why? because i don't have to. >> of course that's not the case. no one would agree with that, including the president's conservative allies. >> as coronavirus cases in the u.s. climbed to nearly 600,000, president trump made another controversial decision. >> today i'm instructing my administration to halt funding of world health organization. so much death has been caused by their mistakes. >> the fight with the w.h.o. is in part just another element of looking to blame someone besides himself. >> there are some medical experts who believe the world health organization could have and should have acted sooner. >> i work for w.h.o. for ten years. i think w.h.o. was late in calling this a pandemic. i think that w.h.o. had lost a lot of its general financial support over the years and got a

lot of support financial from china. i do think that w.h.o. was generous in its acceptance of the chinese reports about when the epidemic began. >> people do have very real concerns with the way the w.h.o. is dealing with china early on in this outbreak but i haven't talked to any public health expert who thinks that the right way to remedy that is to try to strip w.h.o. of funding. >> there was plenty of finger pointing. in late april, governor andrew cuomo admitted he wished he had raised flags earlier. >> i would feel better sitting here today saying i blew the bugle about wuhan province in january. i can't say that. >> mistakes and missed under thes. coming up, where do we go now? >> our country has to get open. (vo) at sprint, we understand saving money for your family

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