in japan, that means turning to tradition and placing value on our relationships with friends and family. simple things that unplug and revitalize our minds and bodies and make sure our chi keeps flowing. >> kompai. >> kompai. hello. and welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. i'm michael holmes. by the end of the weekend, almost every u.s. state will have reopened to some degree as they dial back some of their coronavirus restrictions. while americans are warily watching the numbers of cases, there's a new focus on the u.s. leadership or lack thereof and new criticism by president donald trump's predecessor who

told new graduates on saturday that america's leaders, quote, aren't even pretending to be in charge. let's take a quick look at some of the numbers. johns hopkins university reporting more than 4.6 million cases, more than 300,000, deaths. about one-third of those deaths are in the united states. the trump administration firing back defending the president's handling of the virus saying that he kept those numbers from being higher. cnn's jeremy diamond with more on the war of words. >> reporter: for the second time in two weeks, former president barack obama is speaking out against the trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. this time speaking up publicly. >> more than anything, this pandemic has fully finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they're doing. a lot of them aren't even pretending to be in charge. >> reporter: that criticism came

a week after president obama criticized the trump administration's response calling it an absolute chaotic disaster and anemic and spotty. this time we are hearing from the white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany. she said this in response. president trump's unprecedented coronavirus response has saved lives. his early travel restrictions and quarantines protected the american public while his paycheck protection program and direct payments to americans got needed economic relief to our country. moreover, president trump directed the greatest mobilization of the private sector since world war ii to fill the stockpile left depleted by his predecessor. that last line of that statement about a depleted stockpile is something that president trump and his aides have been repeatedly bringing up as they've defended their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. but the truth of the matter is that while certain items in the national stockpile had not been restocked by the previous administration, it certainly was by no means completely depleted. of course, president trump had been in office for three years

before coronavirus arrived in the united states. but president trump while he is not directly responded to his predecessors' criticism of his response to this pandemic, he has been leveling other allegations. something he's been calling obamagate. essentially making evidence-free claims against his predecessor suggesting that he has been trying to undermine his presidency. over this weekend, president trump has been in camp david with some conservative fire brands on capitol hill, some of his loyal allies, trying to find a way to advance that latest conspiracy theory. jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. it has been three weeks since the state of georgia began allowing businesses to reopen. it was one of the first to take that leap -- that move by the governor controversial at the time. since the start of the pandemic, the number of confirmed cases in georgia has risen to more than 36,000. some critics warn the state might be opening too soon.

natasha chan reports from atlanta. >> reporter: here in atlanta, georgia, a lot of people are starting to come back out to businesses that had been reopening over the past three weeks. what we're seeing is the good news, there hasn't been a major spike in daily new cases but the bad news is there also hasn't been a major decrease in new daily cases either. what we're seeing is there are some places taking advantage of being allowed to reopen their dining rooms. the governor of georgia relaxed some of the rules for restaurants this past week. now ten people can gather at a table instead of just six. but not everyone is taking advantage of opening their dining rooms. for example, this restaurant is doing takeout only at the window with people being able to take their food to a table. so some restaurant owners are taking this very carefully and there are people who have been observing this over the past three weeks also being cautious with their families. we met one family who came out today for the first time in almost three weeks.

here's what they said. >> it's actually like really scary because it's not like coronavirus is over. and, like, everybody is saying like, i wash my hands. i have hand sanitizer, i'm going to be okay. but you're still going to be around people that cough and touch everything. and like you and you're actually very vulnerable. and it's actually very scary. but it's kind of exciting and happy that you get to go outside to some places that you enjoy again but you also have to be very careful. >> yeah, i agree with that. >> when is the last time you got ice cream? >> 2019. >> really? >> georgia governor brian kemp touted increased testing while some officials in the metro atlanta area still caution people to stay home if at all possible, despite the fact that many things are reopening. we're talking to the georgia chamber of commerce as well. their president says it's really a mixed bag who is opening and who isn't. this is a long-term change that a lot of businesses have to make. it's not just having the

resources and masks and gloves for the next two to three weeks. this is really for the long term. he said no matter what industry they're in, they're now in the business of health and wellness. natasha chen, cnn, atlanta. dr. anish jha is with the harvard medical school. he joins me from los angeles to talk about this. it's a good sign infection rates seem to be falling in many states but the death toll is still high, over 1500 a day. i'm curious if you feel comfortable with the reopening that's going on at the moment. we can't all be locked down forever, but it's a delicate balance. >> yes, it is. as was said in the segment earlier, this is -- we have to be very careful. the reason that we have seen the case rates and number of deaths coming down over time is because

people have socially isalated. but you know that we have continued to see clusters of cases in places where people are unable to socially isolate such as nursing homes, jails and correctional facilities and food processing plants. and those places people are unable to isolate so we saw infection. so now as we begin to reopen, the social distancing will be less and what we have to watch very carefully is how much transmission are we actually seeing in the community? in some communities we may see a lot of transmission in which case we'll see a lot more disease. >> yeah, exactly. we'll just have to wait and see. cnn has been reporting on tensions between the white house and the cdc. we've seen the president openly disagreeing with the nation's top infectious disease expert dr. fauci. from a medical perspective, how does that dysfunction impact strategy and messaging for the public which is so important?

at times it's felt like politics over science. >> well, ideally, we would have a highly coordinated, you know, federal or national effort around the key things we have to do such as improving the availability of testing, such as financing and organizing contract tracing and perhaps most importantly, coordinating between all of the jurisdictions and states how they should safely reopen. what we saw was the cdc's initial reports and guidelines were much more detailed and much more prescriptive in a good way to local jurisdictions to help them make the right decisions. but it looks like what happened with the white house is that those guidelines were then sort of watered down and changed and made much more, i would say, loose. and so now we've had some states who have actually opened up, even as their case rates haven't been coming down and that's very worrying. >> yeah, yeah, we heard at the

white house friday that early data suggests vaccine doses by the end of the year fully approved. and plenty of experts saying that timeline is optimistic to put it kindly. and sort of worried about the right precautions not being taken in the fullness of testing. is that a worry for you and do you think year's end is realistic? >> i think it's very ambitious but there are reasons to hope. let me first say finding a vaccine is hard. you have to discover the science to find something that's going to work. then you have to make sure it's safe in human populations and then you have to decide, find out if it actually works to prevent transmission of the infection, and finally mass produce it. the president's initiative appears to try and place bets on candidate vaccines by financing their mass production even before we know whether they work. i understand why that initiative. it's an attempt to get vaccine out to people. but as we heard dr. fauci say, 12 to 18 months is highly

optimistic timeline. that's certainly not by the end of the year. the reasons we have for hope, though, there are multiple vaccine candidates in trial already. we're seeing some interesting animal studies showing some effects so perhaps more than one of those vaccine trials may be effective but it will take time to determine if they can really work to prevent transmission. >> yeah, yeah, you know, we are seeing doctors, and this is something concerning a lot of people, seeing doctors treating coronavirus patients with a range of other issues. blood clots throughout the body. kidney failure. heart inflammation, immune complications. what are your concerns about that and also indications of perhaps ongoing chronic issues even after someone recovers from the virus. >> well, the virus, as you know, for most people, 80% of people who get the virus, they'll have a mild or flu-like illness that

they'll be okay at home. some 20% of patients will end up in the hospital, and 5% with very severe critical illness. those parents with severe critical illness who have other co-morbidities like diabetes and obesity and older age have a high likelihood of passing away. but if you survive that after being in an icu for 12 to 14 days, you're subject to the same kinds of complications and long-term effects that people who have long-term chronic illness on a ventilator experience. those include things like depression and anxiety, cognitive impairments and physical impairments as well. so those are all very concerning. >> and just finally, i mean, the other i think that's sort of -- this is a debate around the world on whether the death toll from coronavirus is higher or lower than the official toll. some in the trump administration suggest it's an overcount but a lot of countries and experts also here in the u.s. suggest an undercount, increase d numbers,

death numbers, compared to last year's would suggest that's the case. do you feel that there's an undercount, that the toll is actually high er? >> in my opinion, i believe it is an undercount. and i think that because there's not enough testing as we know, but the way in which the disease works is, as you said earlier, it can cause clots. and clots can cause stroke and heart attack and i'm afraid that some patients may have passed away at home before coming to the hospital of a stroke or of a heart attack that might have been coronavirus related but we may never know because we didn't have that patient tested. >> dr. mahajan, thank you so much. appreciate you taking the time. >> my pleasure. turning our attention to new jersey, where many people spent what was a beautiful saturday on the beach. ocean city considered this a dry run of sorts ahead of memorial day weekend, the unofficial start of summer. a loud speaker on the boardwalk

continuously reminding beachgoers to practice social distancing. evan mcmorris-santoro is in ocean city with more. >> reporter: several beach communities in new jersey opened saturday as part of a dry run for the larger jersey shore economic engine. the rest are expected to open on memorial day weekend. authorities wanted to see what would happen if they reopened boardwalks and parks and asked people to be responsible for social distancing. on saturday, state police reported the experiment appeared to be working saying there was a relatively low volume of people. here in ocean city, many attractions remain closed. on the beach, cnn drone footage captured groups of people sitting apart from one another. the boardwalk was packed. and most people didn't wear masks. though they were not required to. there's a concern if people don't remain socially distants, the summer season could be shut down, creating another blow to the economy. evan mcmorris-santoro, cnn, ocean city, new jersey.

on capitol hill, outrage growing over the firing of a fourth federal watchdog in less than two months by the trump administration. two committees are now investigating the firing late friday of steve linick as inspector germ of tneral of the department. senator bob menendez and eliot engel called the dismissals politically motivated. senator mitt romney, a republican, also condemning the move. he calls the string of firings a threat to accountable democracy. democrats say linick was retaliated against for opening an investigation into the secretary of state mike pompeo. an aide says the probe centers on whether pompeo and his wife used a political appointee for personal business. linick had also played a minor role in the impeachment inquiry. some called him china's dr. fauci. the doctor who raised the alarm

about coronavirus in china even as some local officials were downplaying it. cnn's exclusive interview with him coming up. . and relief from symptoms caused by over two hundred outdoor and indoor allergens. because to a kid, a grassy hill is irresistabale. children's claritin. feel the clarity and live claritin clear. let's watch a cooking show. cookie show? cooking shows. cookie shows? play the great british baking show. [cookie monster] cookie shows! introducing at&t tv. watch with easy self-setup. shipped directly to you. we hope you find our digital solutions helpful to bank safely from home. deposit a check with your phone or tablet. check balances, pay bills, transfer money and more. send money to people you know and trust with zelle.

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the expert who saw china through the sars epidemic has criticized his own country's early response to the coronavirus and sounding yet another alarm. he says china could get a second wave of infections, especially if there's no vaccine. cnn's david culver sat down with him for an exclusive interview. >> reporter: this is an interview that we have been working to get for months. a conversation with the doctor fauci of china. his name is dr. zhong nanshan. in our exclusive interview, he spoke about what he believes are the concerns still on the horizon for china, even though things are starting to open up and may feel safer. he says they are not in the clear and warns of a second wave. he's also highly critical of how things were handled early on, particularly within wuhan. >> the answer is no. >> reporter: in the u.s., many have turned to dr. anthony fauci, the top infectious disease expert as the medical

voice of reason. in china, it's dr. zhong nanshan. the well-known respiratory expert speaking exclusively with cnn. >> i cannot compare with fauci who is the adviser of the president. always standing beside the president. >> reporter: perhaps he does not physically stand next to president xi jinping but zhong has the trust of china's central government. his advice sparks near immediate action. take, for example, wuhan's unprecedented lockdown. on january 18th, five days before the city was shut down, zhong traveled to the original epicenter of the outbreak and questioned the local health officials. >> in the very beginning, they kept silent. >> reporter: zhong, who gained international praise for his work on sars 17 years ago, believed this rapid spreading novel coronavirus was far more devastating than being portrayed by wuhan health officials. >> i suppose they are very

reluctant to answer my questions. the local authorities didn't like to tell the truth at that time. >> reporter: publicly, wuhan health officials, as late as january 19th, labeled the virus as preventable and controllable. and later the city's mayor even acknowledged not releasing information in a timely fashion. zhong pressed harder for the actual numbers, and when he got them, he headed to beijing on january 20th. he briefed the central government and, within hours, he was addressing the nation in this live interview on state-run cctv. zhong revealed that human to human transmission was likely and as proof of that, he said the virus had already infected multiple medical personnel. >> that's a very dangerous signal showing this kind of disease very contagious. so i suppose at that time, the central government listened to our comment and objection and advice. >> reporter: within three days, wuhan went into a harsh lockdown that lasted 76 days.

yet even with china's central government now taking the lead, there is still skepticism over the official numbers. zhong believes it's partly political and says the chinese government would not benefit from underreporting. >> the government have got a lesson from the outbreak of sars 17 years ago. they have announced one other step that all the cities, all the government departments should report the true number of diseases. so if you do not do that, you will be punished. >> what do you believe to be the origin of this virus in particular? >> i think the origin is a very difficult to come to any conclusion at the moment, but i believe this kind of disease is originated from animals. >> reporter: u.s. president donald trump and secretary of state mike pompeo have said they have evidence that it leaked from a lab. namely the wuhan institute of

virology, an origin theory many international medical experts and even u.s. intelligence experts say is highly unlikely. now it seems more and more medical experts do not believe that it originated there. do you feel that with certainty? >> took two weeks to make it very -- proved nothing about it. no, i don't think so. >> reporter: zhong's focus now is on preparing china for a second wave of the outbreak. over the past few weeks, new clusters of cases have surfaced in several cities, including wuhan. >> we are facing a big challenge. it's not better than the foreign countries, i think, at the moment. >> reporter: zhong, like dr. fauci, has achieved a celebrity status here in china. his scientific expertise aside, many are impressed with zhong's physical drive. >> what is it that you have been doing during this period to stay mentally sane, physically fit?

how does dr. zhong conduct his days? >> i still keep exercising and sport and all the things. i keep an open mind and eat not too much every time. so that's why it seems to be still can do something in my age of 84. >> dr. zhong also spoke about the collaboration that he says is ongoing with his medical counterparts in the united states. particularly with harvard university. he suggests that despite things getting highly politicized and tensions between the u.s. and china heightened, the conversations and the collaboration is still under way. at least amongst certain medical professionals. david culver, cnn, hainan island, china. tensions between china and australia are about to take an expensive turn. australia has been criticizing beijing for how it handled the coronavirus pandemic and china's new ban on the country's beef exports is about to make things

trickier. simon cullan with more. >> reporter: australia's cattle farmers have suffered through prolonged drought and devastating bushfires. now they are caught in the middle of a diplomatic row with china. >> what i'm really concerned about is this potential for a trade war to erupt. >> reporter: beijing has suspended imports from four large australian -- because of what it claims are inspection and quarantine violations. the trade minister is seeking urgent talks with his chinese counter part. >> the ball is very much in the court of the chinese government. we have made very clear that i am available and keen to have a discussion. >> reporter: diplomatic relations between the two countries have soured in the past month. following australia's push for an international investigation into the coronavirus pandemic. china, though, insists the beef ban has nothing to do with that. >> translator: these two things are completely different things.

please do not put these two things together and make a wrong political interpretation. >> reporter: but the chinese state-run global times paper tells a different story. it warns unfriendly moves have thrown bilateral ties into a deep freeze and if tensions continue on their current trajectory, it would be delusional to expect trade relations to remain on track. it's a warning that has australian farmers worried. beef import bans like the one announced this week have the potential to impact many thousands of jobs. and given that china is australia's largest trading partner, local lawmakers are keen to ensure the diplomatic fallout doesn't drrts. but it's not stopping the australian government from continuing to lobby for a coronavirus inquiry. >> we're very encouraged by the positive feedback that we've had from many international counterparts. >> reporter: with one notable exception. simon cullen, cnn, australia. now, a mysterious

covid-related syndrome is affecting some children and doctors have more questions than answers. one family nearly lost their daughter to the illness. we'll hear their story. we'll also talk to the doctor who treated her when we come back. this is what it's all about. why the heart beats the pulse races why the weight of the world is carried with a smile. and where the comfort that's so desperately sought, is found. this is what's worth protecting embracing. and ensuring for others, especially now.

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welcome back to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm michael holmes. you're watching "cnn newsroom." with just a small percentage of the world's population, the united states continues to account for about one-third of all coronavirus cases. more than 4.6 million cases reported worldwide.

more than 300,000 lives lost. 1.4 million of those cases are here in the u.s. where about 88,000 people have died. the world health organization says it is essential for doctors to watch out for a serious illness that strikes some children after they've been infected with the virus. it's called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, and doctors are scrambling to learn more about it. cnn's dr. sanjay gupta reports. >> my stomach started to hurt pretty bad and it felt like my legs were weak. and i was pretty tired. >> she started to have blue lips and her extremities were cold. that's when it was like, this is not a normal flu. >> reporter: shawn daly is juliet's dad. >> did you think this might be covid or coronavirus? >> my wife thought it was a possibility. she called to see if she could get tested.

she didn't meet the criteria. she was more or less a healthy 12-year-old. >> reporter: by that evening, juliet was nearly dead. >> they had me leave the room to intubate her so they put her under anesthesia and she went into cardiac arrest for a little less than two minutes. they had to perform cpr. >> what was her condition when you first saw juliet? >> she was about as close to death as you can get. >> reporter: dr. jake kleinmahon is a pediatric cardiologist. >> she was going into kidney failure, liver failure. intubated emergently and put on a ventilator. >> reporter: it's hard to believe we're talking about this same beautiful little girl. but it's also hard to believe that all of this was possibly related to covid-19. a disease that wasn't really supposed to severely affect kids. now it even has a name. it's called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.

>> there's a lot of cells and cell signaling in the body that is just going crazy. and what that's doing is creating a lot of inflammation that's affecting the heart, the liver, the kidney and really all the cells of the body. >> it's been described as a kawasaki-like disease. that's another inflammatory disease most commonly diagnosed in children. awful rashes, a strawberry appearing tongue and destructive inflammation. but this is also different. there are so many questions, like why now? why months into this pandemic are we first seeing this? and why is it so devastating to children in the united states and europe but not so much in asia where some of the first children were infected? >> we have interesting information coming in from japan as well as korea and taiwan that no one there that we have been in contact with has seen this

severe form of cardiovascular collapse in children. >> dr. jane burns is director of the kawasaki disease clinic. >> no one can tell you the sars covid-2 virus is a trigger for kawasaki disease, but there is certainly circumstantial evidence. >> we're seeing this in kids who don't have an active covid infection. some of them, do but a lot of them are testing positive for antibodies. >> reporter: a study published on wednesday found that the number of children diagnosed with a kawasaki-like disease in bergamo, italy, jumped 30-fold after the pandemic undertook the region. still, in the united states, as frightening as it is, for now, it still appears rare. juliet was discharged after ten days in the hospital. >> how are you feeling now? you look great.

>> well, i am feeling good, and there doesn't seem to be any long-term effects. >> are you back 100% would you say? back to normal? >> i still feel a bit out of place. i feel kind of like 99%. >> we'll take 99%. >> dr. sanjay gupta, cnn, reporting. joining me is dr. jake kleinmahon, pediatric cardiologist for children in new orleans. first of all, i think a lot of parents are worried hearing this sort of news. give us a sense of what this is. what are the first signs, the symptoms? what does it do to the body? >> so this is a multisystem syndrome that the majority of patients are coming in with abdominal complaints, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever,

rash. and what basically this is is the immune system is going into overdrive. so what's happening is the cell signals in the body are telling the body to really ramp up the response in result to either direct injury from the coronavirus or after effects of the coronavirus. and that's leading to patients with heart problems, dilation of the coronary arteries. those feed oxygen to the heart as well as problems with their liver and kidneys. >> that just sounds dreadful. and you, glad to have you on because you actually treated a patient with the condition. as a cardiologist, what went through your mind when this presented? what were the challenges to you as a physician? >> when our first patient presented, there was really no information about this. at oxner hospital for children

we may have been the first case in the entire united states. so it was quite scary because we didn't really have anything to guide us. and my first thought when i heard her story was, this patient is extremely sick. has a good chance of dying or, if not dying, going on to need a heart transplant. >> terrifying. how worrying overall is the development? they really are so many questions. why now? why is this a -- why has this emerged this far into the pandemic? and in some cases so long after the patient has been apparently exposed to covid. why is it hitting kids in the u.s. and europe but not so much in asia. what have you been able to discern out of all of that? >> i think that's the questions that all of us experts in this field really have is, why didn't we see it earlier? why does it seem like that's some geographic regions? some of us think there's probably certain strains of the

virus that may be causing this that where other strains are not. that's why we're seeing a slightly different presentation depending on geographic region. >> correct me if i'm wrong, there's no firm evidence covid-19 is responsible, is that rirkts but a lot of these kids do test positive for the antibodies. is the feeling that it is linked? >> i don't think anyone is ready to say it's 100% linked, but the patients we treated have either tested positive for being positive for covid or the antibodies. and the vast majority of patients out there are testing positive for either an active infection or evidence that they had a prior infection with covid. so i think there's certainly a lot of us who would be surprised if this ended up not being linked to covid. >> and it's a syndrome, too, which means it's a combination of things, right? we've been hearing about kawasaki, but it's not quite

that, right? >> yeah, so it can present similar to kawasaki. that's another inflammatory syndrome that affects the heart. mainly affects the coronary arteries of the heart and it can affect heart function but not usually as significantly as we've been seeing it in these patients. and we also don't see it except in severe cases with the other end, dysfunctional liver and kidneys we're seeing with this. >> yeah, it -- i mean, it is still rare and it's important to acknowledge that, but you've got a situation here in the u.s. and elsewhere around the world, but here the president pushing for schools to reopen. i mean, is there concern in the profession that that could help this illness spread further? >> there's certainly a concern. but, you know, as pediatricians, we also realize that school is important for kids' learning and development, and a lot of these

kids are going through important developmental stages. so at oxner hospital for children we've put together a task force to work directly with schools and develop reopening plans, as well as continued guidance when schools reopen so we can make sure that our kids are as safe as they possibly can be. >> dr. jake kleinmahon, really appreciate your time. >> thank you. my pleasure. we'll take a quick break here. when we come back, many countries in europe seem to have flattened their curve of infections, but the uk doesn't seem to have hit the peak just yet. it's easing restrictions anyway. we'll see if it's proving to be a safe bet.

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welcome back. italy reporting its lowest daily death toll from the coronavirus in more than two months. the civil protection agency confirming 153 deaths on saturday. now that is the lowest increase

since march the 9th when the government first imposed a nationwide lockdown. italy has been one of the hardest hit countries in all of europe with a total death toll above 31,000. let's talk more about all of this with cnn contributor barbie nadeau in rome. great to see you. let's talk about, you know, i imagine that there's going to be a sense of relief to be able to get back out and going, but also a sense of forbearance that it could all back slide. >> that's right. tomorrow is a really important day. this is when restaurants open. hairdressers open. museums open. all these sorts of things that have been shuttered for so long. and people are excited to get back out there but very nervous. you've seen over the weekend or last couple of days, people inside those establishments measuring to make sure they've got tape on the floor to give people social distance. and people are out going for walks or taking their kids out and things like that but there's

so much fear it's just going to go back and we'll be back to where we started. people are excite bud they're taking it very, very seriously here, michael. >> and, of course, italy is such a big tourism country. how hard hit has the industry been? are they concerned people will even come back? when do things open up for them? >> well, that is the big question. museums open as of tomorrow. it's really sort of a trial run. on june 3rd we're going to see the borders, italian borders open to what will be foreign tourists but not from the united states. not from asia. these are only going to be people from within the schengen zone. we haven't heard if there will be any quarantine if someone is coming from out of schengen, if they're allowed to come and tourism is so important here. the summer is not going to be like it was last summer, and everybody knows that. and these industries that rely on tourism have to cater to the

italian tourist. that's something a lot of these people are not used to doing. we've seen that in venice especially and in florence and some of these big, big, big draw cities. and they're just going to have to do it differently. people are kind of not going to write off the season yet but tourism will be back. but probably not in full force until 2021, michael. >> yeah, yeah, sad reality, but it will be back. such a beautiful place. barbie nadeau, thank you. appreciate it. london police tell cnn that about a dozen protesters have been arrested after an anti-lockdown demonstration there. people had gathered in hyde park to protest the british government's coronavirus restrictions. some of them chanting things like "shame on you" as police officers notably police officers without masks, asked everyone to move along. and they didn't. meanwhile, more than 241,000 people in the country have tested positive so far. that's according to johns hopkins university. there is a deadline, though,

that is fast approaching regardless of pandemic. the one for the uk to reach a trade deal with brussels. the eu and uk are negotiating their future relationship once the brexit transition period expires at the end of the year. yes, remember brexit? the eu's chief brexit negotiator is bracing for the worst. nina dos santos joins me now from london to talk about this. yes, remember brexit, as if it wasn't complicated enough. this. >> yeah, another one of those painful sagas that's reared its ugly head. one made more difficult because the negotiators, you know, they have entrenched positions but those entrenched positions are being communicated virtually now, not over cups of coffee. you could see that in the latest statement from both sides after this latest round of negotiations that wasn't completely an abject failure,

but even the uk side acknowledged it was bitterly divided. so essentially what the uk is claiming that it wants is not to extend the transition period beyond the end of this year. what it wants to do is negotiate some kind of canada-style free trade deal, but from the eu's perspective, they say you're asking for an awful lot more exceptions than we gave canada. the eu says that it wants to make sure that it doesn't sacrifice things that it holds dear like a level playing field on environmental labor protections, also social protections and, of course, there's that -- which i'll come to in a second, michael. they say they'll not compromise on these values just to help the uk out economically and politically towards the end of this year. from the uk's perspective, it says there's no point in being outside of the eu if they still have to stick to the same rules. it prevents the uk from setting

out on its own course and striking its own trade deals with other countries. that's where we stand at the moment. one slight glimmer of hope in michel barnier's statement. the eu acknowledged perhaps it had taken a maximalist as they put it approach to the subject of fisheries. maybe there may be some bwiggle room for them to move back on the insistence of adhering to certain types of quotas. the uk feels if it doesn't get enough fish from its own territorial waters then fishing completes from countries like spain get too much of the fish in these seas. now i should also point out there's a couple of deadlines looming, as ever, with the subject of brexit. the next set of negotiations is set to kick off on june the 1st. but then they've got another hard deadline coming up in the month of july. and about six weeks from now what we'll see is an official timetable deadline by which the uk and the eu will have had to have agreed whether or not they decide to extend that transition

period beyond the end of this year. the british government getting more and more aggressive and more assertive here to say they don't want to extend brexit's transition any longer than necessary by the end of thisobva spur into the negotiation. hence perhaps some of the animosity and intransigence. >> thank you. we're going to take a short break. when we come back, even a pandemic can't stop the hurricane season, and the eu's first tropical storm is ready to prove it. we'll check in with eric van dam for the latest after the break. to bank safely from home. deposit a check with your phone or tablet. check balances, pay bills,

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and before stopping any asthma medicines, including oral steroids. du more with less asthma. talk to your doctor about dupixent. well, we now have the first tropical storm of the atlantic hurricane season, tropical storm arthur has formed off florida's east coast, and the hurricane seen hasn't even officially started yet. meteorologist eric van dam watching all of this for us. hurricane season hasn't started but this is sort of becoming the norm, an early one, isn't it? >> here we go again.

this is the sixth consecutive season when we've had a named tropical storm before june 1st, the official start of hurricane season. arthur, 35-mile-per-hour winds. this is the satellite imagery. that band of thunderstorms is really all that we have right now. but it is starting to get more organized. you can see the les of alist of consecutive storms that have started. where will it go? it has the potential to impact the north carolina coast by monday. it will bypass georgia and south carolina but into cape hatteras where we have tropical storm watches from kill devil hills. and you can see as it scrapes along the coastal regions of north carolina sunday into monday. another monster of a storm that

quee we're monitoring on the other side of the world, bay of bengal, 110 kilometer per hour sustain sustained winds. it has the potential to bring real destruction to parts of bangladesh and northeast india. this would be from the tuesday into wednesday teime frame. we're going to monitor this very closely. the potential for winds in excess of 150 kilometers per hour and rainfall over 150 millimeters. that's all we have, back to you. >> good to see you, my friend, thanks for that. and thanks for your company this hour, spending part of your day with us. i'm michael holmes, the much-more preferable natalie allen will have more after the break. looks like they picked the wrong getaway driver. they're going to be paying for this for a long time.

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without even saying his name, former u.s. president barack obama teed off on donald trump's coronavirus response. the white house now hitting back. social distancing while catching a suntan. how 48 of america's 50 states are planning to at least partially reopen by memorial day. plus, he is china's version of anthony fauci. the nation's top medical adviser sits down with cnn for an exclusive interview. hear why he says china is still vulnerable to another deadly wave