duty. so welcome to prime time. we're back, says the president. even without a vaccine. while, still touting the effort to get one, at warp speed. now, tonight, we're going to talk about what this is all about. this warp-speed vaccine pitch. and take us back to the reality of where we really are. it has never been about reopen or not reopen. that's a false choice. the only choice is reopen. it's how. can you do it smart, through science, testing? no? without tracing measures? without a real plan? is that reopening? or is that re-inviting disaster? we don't even know what's right, right now, except to wear masks and keep our distance. and, of course, how many of us are ignoring that? also, tonight, we've just acquired a load of new video in the arbery murder case. key context to advance our understanding of the mind frame

of the suspects. no, i don't care where arbery was. i don't care how many times he was there or whether it was someone else. it's irrelevant. this isn't about arbery. it's about understanding why these men felt they needed to do what they did. mothers -- the mother of ahmaud is here to share her thoughts. so what do you say? it's friday night. but let's get after it. so, did you hear what came from the cdc? ominous projection tonight. at least 100,000 deaths in america, by the end of this month. we're at more than 87,000 deaths, now. and the president is cheering this number, like, yeah, we're doing great. >> i just want to make something clear. it's very important. vaccine or no vaccine, we're back. other things have never had a vaccine, and they go away.

so i don't want people to think that this is all dependent on vaccine. >> those are like the horns of truth behind him. don't listen. he refuses to tell you the truth. this will not disappear. do we have to have a vaccine? i don't know. let's listen to the scientists about that. are we open, anyway, without one? yeah. is that something to brag about? no. we had to reopen without it. but it was never about a vaccine. look. this whole thing today was a play. bringing out the secretary of defense. we'll have one by january. great. it'd be great. what does the media do? january. january. can they do it? let's get experts lined up to say, no, no. you're getting played. you're all getting played. don't you see? i know you do at home. but, then, you start listening to the media because we won't shut up. who cares about a vaccine right now? we're reopening, right now, without a plan.

without the right testing and tracing. people not wanting to wear mask because you can't get clear guidance. we don't know where to go. we don't know how to do things. the federal government's quiet on too much. the states. the states. states need help. vaccine. end of the year. end of the year? we're talking about summer, right? that's the state of play. summertime. what are we going to do? how do we do this the right way? crickets. you haven't heard trump say anything about that. schools not open, we're not reopen. if we don't have a vaccine, we'll still reopen. great. we all want to do that. that that's the easiest decision to make. how about making some hard decisions? let's talk about reality with chief white house correspondent jim acosta. jim, i know you are aware where my head is on this. i think we were getting played today with this vaccine talk. it was such a beautiful distraction from the reality of all these states opening beaches, and people running like crazy, with no real direction. >> to some extent, chris, you're

right. absolutely, no question about it, the president wants people to see an optimistic view of all this. when we're heading toward 100,000 deaths by june 1st, according to the cdc. but let me fill you in on something i just heard from a senior administration official with experts in vaccine development. i think it's important we lay this out. this official said there is a way to get to hundreds of millions of doses by the end of the year. and it's by engaging, what they call, at-risk vaccine development. which means by late this summer, july or august, they are going to begin to churn out millions of doses, and eventually hundreds of millions of doses, of a vaccine that may not be completely proven to be effective against the coronavirus. it is a financial risk for the federal government, not a human risk. but they hope if by december or january, by the time that rolls around, that they already have a vaccine that works. that he have already ramped up that production to get to that hundreds of millions of doses level. the risk is for the federal government, chris, is if this

vaccine doesn't work. if the vaccine doesn't work, then they have to throw all of those doses away, to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. but that is the kind of at-risk production that is going to be engaged in, according to the senior administration official i just spoke with. setting all of that aside, chris, absolutely, the president was trying to have it both ways today. he was trying to tout this operation warp-speed project that has been launched by the federal government while, at the same time, saying he's reopening this country. he is pushing to reopen this country, whether there's a vaccine or not. >> first of all, your reporting is excellent. i've been hearing the same types of things for weeks, so to get it from a senior official is really gold in terms of the journalism of it, thank you for that. and yeah, it's a risk of money. they say they'll follow the testing phases so it's not about risking health. but if they're wrong about the vaccine, then we're out of pocket that much. but the risk/reward right now is looking good to the white house. but, to this other point, warp speed, as we both know, only exists, like, in "star trek." so it's not a real standard, to

begin with. but, what is the real standard is the speed of deception. so if we say they can't really get this vaccine. the science is questionable. now, we're negative nancies. look at those democrats. always trying to find a reason for people to stay home, jim, when we're all so desperate to reopen. see. the president has beautifully defined a false choice. reopen or not, jim. that's where my head is. that's never the question. it's always been how? and how little have you heard from this white house about their plan to motivate how to reopen safely for states? >> i think we've got no plan. we have no details on that and you're absolutely right. people want to go to the beach. they want to enjoy memorial day weekend. we just don't live in that world anymore. and so one thing we should point out what the president's been saying over the last couple of days is he is hellbent on reopening, no matter what. yesterday, he was saying that testing may be overrated. today, he was saying, well, a

vaccine is not necessary in terms of reopening the country. he is laying out these benchmarks that, essentially, whatever the hell happens, he wants to reopen this country. he was talking about reopening schools in the fall, and keeping teachers who are above the age of 60 or 70 from going back to schools and universities. well, how -- how does that work? how do you reopen schools, without teachers of that age? i remember lots of teachers, chris, back in my day, who were of that age. or at least they seemed that way at the time. you know, the president is not dealing with the reality of the situation. we've seen that from the beginning of all of this. but, apart from the president, away from the president, there are scientists on the case. and, if this operation warp speed can get us to a vaccine by the end of the year, it doesn't matter what the president says, at that point. this society, this country, the rest of the world's going to be in a much better place. >> and, look, everybody wants to reopen. so why wouldn't you play the politics that way, if you can? now, again, credit to the president. democrats have dummied up on

this. they've allowed themselves to punitively be the party of no. and they are not framing questions the right way and may pay a political price for it. but you're right about teachers. we had the catholic school experience. 65-year-old nun. still, had hands faster than bruce lee. jim acosta, have a great weekend. and believe me, i knew all too well. have a great weekend, my brother. all right. so where does the country stand on reopening? well, come on, man. how many people do you know who don't want to reopen? right? it's about, well, can i do it safely, right? i don't want this to be worse. i don't want weird rebound effect. but who doesn't want to reopen? it's a false choice. so let's take a look at what reopening is taking shape as, around this country. our thanks to nick watt for this nationwide snapshot. >> across louisiana, dinner and a movie is, now, an option once more but your server might be masked. >> we really have, you know, kind of crushed the curve. and because -- it's due to our

residents, really. they stayed at home. >> 48 states now have an opening plan underway today. half of new york state begins its long road back. >> all i can do is get back to work, and hope that they'll come. >> beaches in new york, new jersey, and connecticut, will, we're told, be open in time for memorial day. but new york's pause order extended another two weeks for millions in the state, including everyone in new york city, unless numbers improve. >> we need a massive citywide apparatus. testing. tracing. >> meanwhile, in michigan, resistance to regulations goes on. the blue governor says they're red protestors. >> these are not just citizens who are unhappy about having to stay home. this is a political rally, essentially. >> that might, actually, delay reopening. >> it's the congregating of big groups of people, who aren't wearing masks, who aren't staying six feet apart, that will perpetuate the community

spread. >> and april's retail numbers are out. another historic low. retail sales down 16.4%. clothing sales, down nearly 90%. >> most of the 50 states are going back to work, in some form. so i like to look forward. >> ford will start making cars again monday. and restaurants will reopen in hard-hit miami, as the county looks to hire up to 1,000 contact tracers. texas just set a record. most recorded covid deaths in 24 hours. office still scheduled to open monday. in north carolina, big-box stores can reopen but church gatherings still limited to just ten people. >> i'm not enforced and i don't intend enforcing it. >> other sheriffs say the same. >> meanwhile, in sin city, now, you can buy a mask from a vending machine at the airport. as caesars gets ready to reopen. >> in the new world, there will only be three chairs, and nobody

will be able to be within six feet. >> good news from l.a. the usns mercy hospital ship just left, after seven weeks supporting the covid-19 fight. the curve here has flattened. n nick watt, cnn, los angeles. >> our thanks to nick watt for that. now, where is that ship go? where does the mercy go? where does the other one go? that's part of how. the casino thinks about how. why? because they're intelligent. and they're very savvy. then, what do you hear from the sheriff? i don't know if i'm going to enforce it. we're hearing that from lawmakers all over the country. why? because they don't want to do the job? no, they're our heroes. it's because there is no real plan. you can't enforce these things. so you have to figure out how to do the most important thing and we know what that is. what will give you the most confidence to go back to work? to let your kids go to school? to figure out if you want to go somewhere, as a family? what's the situation where we're going? how sick are people there? how has it gone there? that's testing.

that's tracing. you don't hear a peep about it, except very general platitudes. why? because they don't want to take it on because it gets in the way of the easy sell of we're pro-reopen. but the question is how? and, on that point, we had a very telling moment from the trump administration today. you had the secretary of defense, clear, okay. this was a design ted statement. he wasn't caught off guard. he wasn't ad libbing. the primary object is about what they want to sell to you, as a win. listen. >> winning matters and we will deliver, by the end of this year, a vaccine, at scale, to treat the american people and our partners abroad. we will deliver. we will win this fight. and, mr. president, thank you, again, for all that you've done. we will get the job done. >> but, again, that undertone. no. that's not what it was. i don't know what it was. doesn't matter. what i am saying is, of course, we want a vaccine by january. and it was perfect bait because

it has nothing to do with now. it's not going to change your confidence level now. but it does make my brothers and sisters in the media talk about it right now. instead of the fact that people are reopening, and there's no real plan. and the federal government doesn't want to be seeming to show leadership. i don't blame the secretary of defense for what he said. and you know what happens when you question it? you seem like you're anti-optimism. where'd he get january from? a lot of people tell us you can't do it. hater. what? do you want people to just stay home? that's the alternative, right? that's the way the democrats have been framed on this. they want you to stay home. and, then, you have people painting it darkly. why do they want you to stay home? because they're about control and taking your freedom. this is crazy talk. but, in a vacuum of a better message, you'll get painted this way. trump knows it. that's why he doesn't have the mask on. let's bring in dr. ashish jha, the director of the harvard global health institute and the kind of brilliant mind you need on this. you're not a politician but i'm

telling you, ashish, give me a better explanation than the one i'm about to give you. trump doesn't have the mask on, when everybody else does, because he's all about reopen. without rules. mask, bad. mask, control. mask, people like ashish jha, trying to take your freedom and suffocate you, literally, with a mask. not me. why else would he not do it? his explanation made no sense. isn't it a play? >> yeah. so, chris, thanks for having me on. look. masks are freedom. wear the mask. you get to go back to work. have testing. you get to go back to work. wait until the caseloads are declining enough, which a lot of states are heading that way. just wait a little longer until you're there and you can go back to work. now, it won't be going back to the way life was six months ago. but we can get a lot of it back. so i am puzzled by why masks and testing are seen as anti-freedom. i see them as pro-freedom.

i see them as getting our lives back safely. >> you know why? too smart. that's your problem. you have to think politics, not science or even prudent policy. it's summertime, brother. i want to call you up. i want to have an adult beverage with you and you're telling me wait a little longer. i want to go fish. i want to get my family out of the house. my kids hate me. i hate them almost as much. i want to get them out of the house. you are saying wait a little bit longer. trump's saying now. forget the vaccine. forget about the mask. forget about testing. i don't even think we need it. reopen, baby. that's strength. now, i -- you would fail me if i gave you that answer on a test. but, in politics, who do you think wins? my answer to you is this, doc, look around the country. who is winning? >> yeah. so i -- look. i actually am going to gently disagree with you, chris. >> don't be gentle. don't be gentle, ashish. go ahead. >> respectfully. look. 80% of americans, in all the pollings, basically say, yeah,

we want to get back going again. but not without more testing. not without more security and safety. so i -- i don't know how the politics of this cuts. i know how the science of this cuts. and the science of this is pretty clear. more testing, mask wearing, social distance, open up safely, and we can have a pretty good summer. won't be the same as every other summer, but we can get back. and we can even get through the fall if we keep ramping up testing and keep all these things in place. so i -- i'm all in on that. but i want to let the data and science drive my decision-making. >> that's the exactly to put way to put it. i know it goes against the fact of you having all this high character and base everything you say on facts but i'll beat that out of you, over time, because if that's the message from the community that is protective here. we all want to get back. let's get back now. but we have to do it in stages and steps. it'll be a better messaging situation than the one right now, because right now, it's reopen or not.

and that's not only a false choice. it's not even where the science is telling us to go. but it is the state of play in politics. so thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone. it's always a pleasure to have you, doctor. the best for you and the family for the weekend. >> thanks, chris. you, too. >> all right. now, we're going to take a break. okay? when we come back, economics. that's what's driving this. oh, yeah, a little -- a lot of it is wants. a lot of it is needs. real pain. real fear. what people see as a form of dying. okay? we have to talk about it. next. adversity came to town and said, "show me what you're made of." so we showed it our people, sourcing and distributing more fresh food than anyone... we showed it our drivers helping grocers restock their shelves. we showed it how we're donating millions of meals to those in need.

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breaking news. i don't like it. after 118 years, the department store icon jc penney has announced it's filing for bankruptcy. sign of the times. they are not the only ones suffering. early numbers from the census bureau show retail sales dropped more than 16% from last month. that's the largest job ever recorded since the government started tracking these numbers. we know why. the question is what to do about it. katherine rampell, perfect guest for this. haven't seen you in a minute. hope your head and heart are well. thank you for joining me. >> of course. yeah. no complaints, so far. all things considered. >> i'm not going to let you slap me around with the false choice of reopen or not. you know it's about how. on the economic side, how real is the pain when people are talking about their own personal economy at home? and what it means to business in general? >> look. the numbers are just mind

boggling at this point. if -- whether you're looking at the tens of millions of people who are officially out of work. the additional people who are not officially out of work but have had their hours cut, or they've given up looking for work so they're not even counted in those official tallies. whether we are talking about -- excuse me -- the retail numbers. the pain is just incredibly fast. and -- and that's part of the reason why i would argue that nobody -- nobody wants this indefinite shutdown, obviously. we want to get the economy humming again so that people can get back to work, and continue putting food on their families' tables. >> now, you may be one of the only people who agrees with me about this. i know 60, 70, 80% of people polled said let's not reopen if it's not safe but i see that as a false answer. people say i want hard news and then they watch anything that's tantalizing. i think the reality out there is the reason the idea of open no matter what is so resonant is

because, despite what those polls say, katherine, people are so worried about their economic future. and they think we'll get over this pandemic, one way or another. but i may never get bamy livelihood back. what do you think of that? >> i think that's a very real concern. we don't know how many of these firms are going out of business permanently, as opposed to temporarily. most workers right now, who are laid off, say that they're on temporary layoff. but we just don't know that that's the case. of course, just because the government might reopen, officially, the economy for business as usual does not mean we will actually have business as usual. if you look at the data leading up to those government-enforced, mandatory shutdowns, in fact, economic activity was, already, dropping. whether you are looking at consumer spending, you are a he looking at work hours. people didn't wait to be told by politicians, stay home, don't shop. don't go to work. they were doing it, anyway. so if people still don't feel safe, even though the governor is saying, hey, go out and shop

again, they're not going to shop again. and that's why you really need to get the pandemic, obviously, under control and to reassure people that they can have some sense of normalcy, even if it's not going to be a snapback to what it was before. >> even if it's the love gov from new york. i don't know. i think it gets complicated the analysis. but here's the other thing that you have talked a lot about before the pandemic with me. what reopening will look like, in terms of the tools the government has. big tax cut. made it hard to use tax cuts that way. having the fed keep the rates so low. now, you know, almost paying people to borrow money. we don't have the tools to spur the economy. what does reopening look like in terms of the ability to recentivize and regrow the economy, absent just consumer demand? >> look. at its heart, this economic crisis is really a public-health crisis. so, until you -- you assure people that it will be safe to go out, that there are some sort

of metrics in place to test people, to track people, to make sure that, you know, there's mask wearing or social distancing if they go to the restaurant or they go to their local target or what have you. they're not going to be willing to go out. again, nobody is suggesting that -- that everybody should stay home or that we should return to business as usual, it was before. it's more a matter of finding that middle ground so that people feel safe so you do have, again, the health problems under control. because you're not going to fix the economy until you fix the pandemic. or, at least, bring it down from -- from the heights of what we saw before. >> last, quick thing. let's say you reopen, with no rules. okay. and looking at how consumer demand was before all this, let's say you get a 20% bump. of people with pentup demand and they come out and hit it. how long do you think it takes to get an economy back, that is showing strong growth again? >> well, if you look at the

forecasts from wall street economists, for example, most of them are predicting that, later this year, we will see some recovery. but it will still be years before we get back to the level of economic growth -- rather, the size of the economy of economic activity that we had before. until we get back to the number of jobs that we had before. remember, after the great recession, it took something like seven years until we returned to the level of employment that we had before that crisis. so it could be a very, very long haul until we get to full recovery this time around, even if things start to show some gradual improvement later this year. >> i heard you draw that analogy very early on here. that the great recession, totally different situation, it was forced on us. we didn't force it on the economy, like here. but it took almost a decade to get about 20-something million jobs put back in. here, we have almost getting close to 35 million jobs out already. how long can we get back? how much faster can we do it?

katherine, great to see you. best to the family. thank you for making us a little bit smarter tonight. >> thank you. >> all right. every night, we're learning, not just about covid but, this other focus. at least, on this show. the georgia killing. look. i think it's a metaphor for so much going on in our criminal justice system and our larger culture. so we've been trying to build the case here of understanding. not about a prosecution. about the facts. why did this happen? what did they think? from the beginning, our suspicion has been these guys thought they knew ahmaud arbery. they thought he was someone that they were looking for, and more and more evidence. now, we have new information that makes this point. video to show you, from inside that same home. why? why be fixated on this? doesn't matter who was in there based on what -- yes. but it does matter who was spotted there, the day he was killed. ahmaud. but there is a lot of context about how many times people have been looking at video of that place and getting worried about

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family. february 23rd. three of these videos are from two months before the shooting. all, from the same night, december 17th. the cameras appear to capture a black man, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. in the last segment, you can see the individual take several steps in the direction of the road. and, then, set off on a run. in a statement released friday, the attorney for the property owner says the individual depicted appears to be the same young man captured on video inside the house on february 11th. this is the february 11th video, from the same place and cameras, showing an unidentified person walking in and out of view inside the construction site. that night, the visitor, who the property owner says he cannot identify, didn't just trigger cameras. but, also, a 911 call from none other than travis mcmichael, who reported seeing a young, black male by the home site. >> 911. what's the address of your emergency? >> we've had a string of burglaries. i was leaving the neighborhood

and i just caught a guy running into a house being built. >> police arrive on scene, and joined by neighbors, search for the person travis said he saw. but find no one. attorney elizabeth gratty says the property owner and legal team have spent considerably more time viewing the clips that say they have discovered what was attracting the visitor. it now appears this young man may have been coming onto the property for water. there is a water source at the dock behind the house as well as a source near the front of the structure. the attorney says though you can't see the water source on camera, in security video from december 17th that they have studied, the young man appears to wipe his mouth or neck and at one point what sounds like water is heard before the person heads off at a jog. and additional videos obtained by cnn from the construction site show that the home was visited by a number of different unidentified individuals and people on a number of different days. the property owner says there was never any damage or theft. ahmaud arbery was seen inside

the same house under construction the day he died. his presence that day triggers a chase captured on video and the confrontation that would lead to his death. as he lay dying on the ground, killed by three gunshots. he tells authorities he thought arbery was the person seen on video in the house under construction describing arbery as a suspect in a series of break-ins. the property owner never used the word break-in or suspect and now says the only thing taken was a drink of water. the legal team now for gregory mcmichael held a press conference today. among other things, they said that the truth of what happened will come out, implying what has been heard so far may not be the whole truth and they say if it gets to trial, they will have a very different narrative to tell the court.

chris? >> martin, as we both know having covered so many trials, they're going to pick their strategy. it is unusual to hear defense teams talking about the anticipation of putting on evidence. obviously the defense has no burden at a trial. the burden is on the prosecution to tell a story that makes sense to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. meaning no other story makes better sense. it's interesting to hear the defense suggest they may take on that burden. just to be clear, martin, we're not showing these videotapes to explain that there was a crime or wasn't a crime. what do you believe to be the relevance of examining these in terms of the larger story? >> reporter: well, for one thing, the homeowner has constantly maintained that he was not in communication with the mcmichaels, and that he was not upset or even worried about whoever was coming on his property. he knew it happening because the

he saw the video cameras but there was never theft. nobody was doing any harm that he could tell. and he knew that there were others that were coming on the property as well. what is interesting is that it's the mcmichaels who depict the videos, and whatever that they see is crime. and that home is the center of what they called the series of break-ins. there's only one other crime reported, and was the theft of a handgun taken out of travis mcmichael's vehicle on new year's day. everything is under construction and it appears the mcmichaels and just the mcmichaels look at what's happening there as criminal. the owner himself did not. >> here at cnn, from very early on, the reports that were going around that there had been robberies in the area, you know how we knew that wasn't true,

that the only one we could verify was by the mcmichaels about this gun? martin savidge and his team. thank you for the reporting and thank you for help us continued proper context here. have a great weekend, martin. appreciate it. we're going to speak to ahmaud arbery's mother and her attorney in our next hour. why? what do they make of what is being vilified and who is being vilified here? we'll hear their perspective. first to wisconsin and the front lines of what not to be doing during a pandemic. look, we all want to reopen, but pub crawling in the middle of a pandemic? really? next.

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you ever wish you weren't a motaur? sure. sometimes i wish i had legs like you. yeah, like a regular person. no. still half bike/half man, just the opposite. oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top? yeah. yeah, i could see that. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

you know, whenever people don't want to deal with the substance of criticism, they always try to make it cheap, especially in politics. i say, look at wisconsin, man, you got to be careful about that. oh, you hate wisconsin. who hates any state? shut up. let's just deal with what's in front of us, okay? why are we looking at wisconsin as a laboratory? because the idea of people coming out to fill up bars and restaurants when the numbers are going like this in the state worries me. i want the people there to be okay. i want to leadership to be savvy.

they're all confused about the policy. so now after this court ruling throughout the state's stay-at-home order this week, that's exactly what you have. cases are still going up. the state doesn't meet the white house's own guidance on seeing the 14-day downward trend. they're not even close. look at it. so if we're only as safe as the precautions we take, which is true not just because it rhymes but because it is empirically, how is this going to play out? omar jimenez joins us from main street in waukesha county. thank you for being there. this place is the laboratory for our nation right now. >> reporter: it really is. it is right around dinnertime here on main street in waukesha. one thing you'll notice is that people are enjoying dinner and drinks inside. this is new. as a result of that state supreme court order that came down striking down the statewide stay-at-home order, leaving the responsibility, the health responsibilities in the

hands of business owners and the individuals in this particular county. now, i spoke to the owner of this particular bar, and he says he actually didn't necessarily want to open. he felt that given the opportunity and with this time and economic struggles they've had, he felt like he had to. >> omar, first thing, in terms of the appetite for reopening, what are you seeing and what are you hearing about in terms of how quickly people are responding to the opportunity? >> reporter: people are responding quickly, it's just a matter of if they're able to sort of meet that moment. so this bar in particular was able to open yesterday. again, just less than 24 hours after that order came down. we went to another restaurant that had waiters and waitresses in masks waiting on people that were outside. they only felt comfortable serving people outside and weren't quite ready to welcome people inside. there are other places that aren't quite ready yet at all because they are trying to reconfigure their places to try to make this as safe as possible.

because as wild as this may seem to people looking from the outside in, a lot of these business owners are trying to care as much about their customers as they can because they feel if their customers get sick and their business places are compromised, then they can't move forward at all. so there's interest on both sides to try to watch out for themselves. but the worrying aspect for a lot of people is that there's a dynamic in this state where if you go a county over, the restrictions are different. so if you feel like the restrictions in your particular spot are too strict, you just drive a county over, enjoy what's over there, and then you bring home with you the risks of exposure that you, again, got from that county. >> in the law they have the concept of an attractive nuisance, that when somebody has something that's unsafe but it draws attention, it creates risk even beyond their own backyard. but it will be interesting to see which method draws the most mouths and appetites. is it the full open with no restrictions, doing it outside, a bit of a mix? very interesting.

when you talk to people, are you seeing this reflection of, i'm a little worried, i don't know what i'm going to do, maybe i'll try it, obviously not the people in the restaurants, they've already decided. but what do you get from other people? >> reporter: from other people walking through, i was just talking to a guy who lives on this block who was out. he says he's immunosuppressed. he said he needs to run back out and grab his mask. they are allowed to do enjoying their food and drinks inside some of these places, but he's basically limited to just going and grabbing food and then bringing it home. and that's not just him. there are plenty of other people who are, for example, this restaurant even, they are still doing their takeout orders where people are pulling up, running in really quickly, grabbing their food, and going back inside. and that's something that these business owners have actually encouraged, saying if you don't feel comfortable coming to these places, you don't have to. we spoke to the owner of this particular business and he told us that he did not necessarily

feel like he needed to be open, but felt like the opportunity was too good to pass it up to at least try it. >> there's a lot of other businesses around that were opened up. if i would have been, say, the lone wolf in this, i wouldn't have done it. but i think we're all trying to exercise as much caution and basically keep our livelihood. >> it's a tough balance. >> reporter: there's a major question when we talk about -- it is a tough balance, that's right. i mean, people are balancing their health responsibilities and their economic and fighting for their families' economic survival. as far as moving forward where we could potentially see any sort of statewide order again, that could only come from the democratic governor, tony evers, working with the republican-led legislature to put something into place. but given their working history, it's not likely we'll see anything anytime soon. >> especially when this has been politically weaponized now. that state, wisconsin, is different than a lot of other

states. they have written into their law that the governor can't just do this on this issue. it had to be from the state agency, which is their health and human services agency, and then the court rejected that. so they're caught in a tight little loop right now. we'll see what happens. doesn't look like the legislature is going to act anytime soon. omar jimenez, thank you. >> of course. >> all right. 87,000 people-plus dead from the virus as of this hour. the death toll is climbing. the president, again, pointed east. >> this came from china. it should have been stopped in china. it should have been stopped right at the source. but it wasn't. >> look, everybody says don't look backwards. everybody says it's not worth blaming. this is politics, okay? he wants to blame china because it gives him an excuse when people say, well, why did this happen to us? there's a lot of blame to go around.

let's be honest. nobody knows exactly what happened here. was it china? was it escaping from a lab? did it move from china to europe and then come here? so when we were blocking china, we should have blocked europe in a different way? we don't really know. let's get some insight on what the right questions are. alex marquardt follows the facts. >> reporter: the pandemic that has now blanketed the globe is universally accepted to have exploded out of the china city of wuhan. what is not agreed on is the exact origin, now a less scientific question than a political one. >> i think they made a horrible mistake and they don't want to admit it. >> reporter: the trump administration has been stepping up the blame on the chinese regime, saying the sars-cov-2 was not leaked from a wet market but from a governmental lab. >> i've said before, i've seen evidence that this likely came

from the wuhan institute of virology. i'd like to see something else that points to that. >> reporter: according to cables by the "washington post," the state department warned in 2018 about safety and management issues. the body of evidence is circumstantial. u.s. intelligence agencies say there is no smoking gun, but what they do believe is that the virus was not manmade and was not released purposefully. the trump administration isn't ruling out that the virus came from elsewhere, but it has been much more aggressive than other countries in pushing the lab theory, which foreign intelligence partners dispute. >> there's nothing that we have that would indicate that was the likely source. you can't rule anything out in these environments. >> reporter: that lack of certainty has allowed the trump administration to use the lab theory to be more critical of the chinese government. >> it makes a more compelling case for chinese communist party malfeasance and cover-ups and foisting this on the globe.

which helps, i think, the administration shift blame, to some degree. >> reporter: the world health organization, which has been blasted by the trump administration, says the lab theory is speculative. >> the markets must have played a role somehow, either as the source of the outbreak or a setting where the virus was introduced. >> reporter: the virus could have been introduced from the lab or the market, which are eight miles apart. at some point last year the virus moved in nature from an animal to humans. dr. anthony fauci told "national geographic" everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that this virus evolved in nature and then jumped species. that does not discount the lab theory. the trump administration and republican allies in congress argue that the delay of china's warnings and its alleged stockpiling of protective equipment bolster the

possibility that the virus escaped the government lab since they likely would have known sooner. still, if it leaked from the lab and the government knew, former cia china analyst chris johnson says u.s. intelligence likely would have picked up on it. >> the administration is trying to make this case very hard. they would leak it if they had it. it hasn't been leaked, so they probably don't. >> reporter: so one big thing that the trump administration can point to in arguing that this virus escaped from a lab through workers is, in fact, chris, that it has happened before. not in wuhan specifically, but in china. in beijing in 2004, two lab workers were infected with sars, and a year prior in singapore, which of course is not in china, a student was also infected with sars through accidental contamination. for now, outside of the u.s., most everyone agrees, it is highly unlikely that the virus came from a lab.

for its part, china has called the notion absurd and says that secretary of state mike pompeo is insane for pushing it. chris? >> insane. that's a whole new category of illness. alex, thank you very much. eventually the facts will come out. appreciate the reporting. thank you for following the thread along with where we are at this moment in time. here's the reality. no matter where it came from, what we know for sure is it makes us sick. it makes us sick everywhere. it makes us sick psychologically, emotionally, physically. why did i say physically last? what were those other two? that takes us to tonight's american. he's no other than kenneth cole. you know him, the fashion mogul. not to me. he is my brother-in-law. he has been for many, many years and he's also an advocate for social justice, including mental health. today he launched a mental health coalition. he believes that the only way we can get out of this stigma is to collect a big group of advocacy

people, organizations, and business leaders working together, that we blow through the stigma because there are too many people you want to listen to saying stop being silent. as part of this, they've also launched a social media challenge to encourage people to talk about how you feel. really? you know, oh, i got a fever. oh, it's my stomach. oh, it's my heart, it's my anxiety, it's my emotion. it's depression. kendall jenner helped kick it off. here's a little bit of her video. >> for me, i have good days and some really anxious days. i'm kind of off and on, but i want you to join me in this challenge. let me know how you feel and know that you're not alone. >> she's right. the idea is to tell you how you really feel and invite others to join in. kenneth cole invited me. i posted a piece. you can see the rest on my instagram.

>> i'm worried and trying to be my best, trying to be my best at home, trying to be my best for you, trying to be the best for myself. it's all real. it's just as real as that fever i had. so how do you really feel? think about it, because it matters. and even though this shouldn't be a challenge, i'll make it one because they're such great minds and people out there who i hope will spread the same message. so i'm going to call out my two betters, rachel maddow on msnbc, the professor, and sean hannity on fox news. >> calling them out is the wrong phrase. i'm hoping they'll join in. they're good people. i hope they add to the cause. they certainly mean a lot to me in my life. and you can go to the mentalhealthcoalition.org to learn more. we'll be right back. now, simparica trio simplifies protection.

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hey, everybody, i'm chris cuomo. this is actually the second hour for us tonight because we're subbing in for coop, but welcome to "prime time." within 48 hours, 48 states will reopen in some way. we're back, says the president. are we? even if we do it unintelligently, even if we do