evening tonight. 100,000 people in this country have now died of coronavirus. mothers and fathers, grandparents and children, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. tonight, the president has yet to say a single word about this stunning milestone. about the 100,000 lives lost or about all those who might have been spared. he returned from his trip to florida, tonight, and kept silent today about the dead. as you know, he and others around him have suggested that covid hasn't really killed all those people. though, every public -- nearly every public health expert will -- will tell you that the actual numbers of victims is likely higher. the first death we now know of was on february 6th, less than four months ago. imagine that. the virus has moved that fast, and it continues to kill. we may have grown tired of it, but it has not grown tired of us. how to think about 100,000

deaths. it's more than have died in all our wars from vietnam till now. this virus, that has now become as deadly as 50 hurricane katrinas. but comparisons fail to tell you that the pain and the sadness and the grief that so many of us now feel. the president, who talked of america first has, when it comes to covid, reached that position. we are at number one out of all the other countries in fatalities. we're number one. the u.s. has about 5% of the world's population, but nearly 30% of the deaths. we are number one. we are world leader in medicine, medical research, and public health. we once created supply chains that helped win world wars. wherein now a world leader in lives lost. the bars on this chart represent death from all causes in this country. the red bars, on the right, so much taller than the rest, are since the outbreak began here. covid's number one in america. and it's not over, yet.

new cases are still rising in some states. falling, in others. and staeleady elsewhere. the president is pushing hard to reopen as much of the country as fast as possible and, at the same time, mocking those who wear masks and encouraging people to demonstrate against social distancing. now, he fights to weaken our defenses of spread. is anyone really surprised by the images we are now seeing? how many people behaved in their newly reopened states over the weekend. also, how the president is behaving. what he is saying. is anyone surprised? all the distractions that he's been indulging in, whether it's pushing a drug that can kill you or cyberbullying a dead woman and her family? yeah. the president of the united states cyberbullying a dead woman and her family. yes. of course, from the earliest days he either downplayed the seriousness of the threat or played games with the numbers. numbers, in this case, of human beings in this country who have died or will die on his watch.

>> it's one person coming in from china. and we have it under control. >> we have it, very much, under control in this country. very interestingly, we've had no deaths. >> you know, in april, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather and that's a beautiful date to look forward to. >> people are getting better. they're all getting better. there's a very good chance you're not going to die. >> this is a flu. this is like a flu. of the 15 people, the original 15, as i call them, eight of them have returned to their homes. we're going down, not up. we're going very substantially down, not up. and, again, 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. >> it's going to disappear one day. it's like a miracle. it will disappear. >> but we're going toward 50 or 60,000 people. >> 75, 80, to 100,000 people. that's a horrible thing. >> if we didn't do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe

2 million people dead. 2.2 million people if we did nothing. we would have lost probably higher than -- it's possible, higher than 2.2. that's one of the reasons we're successful. that's one of the -- if you call losing 80 or 90,000 people successful. >> if we could hold that down as we're saying 100,000. it's a horrible number. we have between 100,000 and 200,000 we altogether have done a very good job. >> good job. 100,000 dead and counting. millions of lives changed forever by the loss of those lives. millions of moments that will never unfold. he said nothing today about 100,000 dead. but he's proud of the job. proud of the job he's done on testing. something south korea, whose outbreak began almost seem simultaneously with ours, deployed to keep its death rate in the low hundreds. the president has consistently been proud of that. >> we're testing everybody that we need to test. >> anybody that wants a test can get a test. >> we took over an obsolete,

broken testing system. >> there's not a lot of issues with testing. >> the governors are supposed to do testing. >> we are lapping the world on testing. >> we have so much testing, i don't think you need that kind of testing or that much testing. >> we've done more testing than every other country, combined. so, in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad. >> i have always said testing is somewhat overrated. something can happen between a test, where it's good. and then, something happens and, all of a sudden -- this is why the whole concept of tests aren't, necessarily, great. but testing, certainly, is a very important function. and we have prevailed. >> remember when president bush got criticized for saying brownie, doing a heck of a job while people are waiting outside the convention center katrina. the president's essentially been saying he's been doing a heck of a job every single day. seems to actually believe it. we have prevailed, he said

there. the administration had the exact same lead time as south korea to get a testing and contact tracing system up and running and they didn't. now, they have chosen to kick responsibility to the states while, at the same time, pushing those states to reopen and, at the same time, attacking masks and mocking leaders who wear them. though, insisting everyone around him wears masks to keep him safe. how hypocritical is that? he talks now of a transition to greatness. perhaps, he might try a transition, himself, to decency, empathy, and competence. that would be a great transition, indeed. want to get perspective now on many fronts. cnn chief white house correspondent jim acosta joins us. dana bash. cnn medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta. sanjay, you have been on with me virtually every night since this started. 100,000 americans more now have died because of this virus. this number -- i mean, this many people did not have to die.

we've seen other countries, south korea, more effective. we've crossed this threshold. what -- what are you thinking tonight? >> well, first of all, just -- it's a gut punch, anderson. i mean, just sort of took my breath away this afternoon when i first saw the -- the threshold. i mean, we've -- we've known this was -- this was coming. this -- this grim milestone. i think we've known for a few weeks or so that this would happen. but i guess it still makes it no less painful when it actually does happen. just like somebody that you know who is a patient or friend of yours who's sick. and you know they're sick. but then, they, you know, get really sick or die. and it still hurts. so this is -- i think a lot of people are just going to be grieving and they're going to remember this day for a long time. but all the context that you gave. you know, comparing this to wars or other things. as you said, one thing, one piece of context that should not be ascribed to this is that it was inevitable. this was not inevitable. i remember, anderson, you and i in haiti and we would interview the doctors without borders,

msf, and they would call preventable deaths stupid deaths. something didn't need to happen. knew what to do. and as you point out, there's countries around the world. it's easy, but i think fair, criticism to say right now how is a -- yes, south korea's one-seventh the size of the united states. they had the same information we did. they had the disease at the same time. they didn't have a magic therapeutic or vaccine. so it's tough to say on a day like today, anderson, because i think a lot of people are watching who -- who may be family members of those who have died. and it's tough. could my loved one's death have been prevented? you hate saying it out loud. but hopefully, there's been lessons learned to answer your question and lessons we may need to apply right away because, i mean, this is by no means over. we're still in the middle of this, anderson. >> jim, at the white house, is -- does the coronavirus task force -- i mean, are they still meeting every day? are they -- is this something the president's still involved in? i mean, obviously, the white house is trying to put as much

distance between the president and talk of this virus as possible. >> that's right. >> but what are they actually doing? are they -- or is it now just up to the states? >> anderson, i think the president is reaching for his distraction playbook more than he is reaching for his pandemic playbook. he has been launching a whole series of distractions over the last 24 hours. just this evening, he's been tweeting out praise from conservative commentator lou dobbs. he seems to be looking for a dear leader moment. he seems to be looking for praise from his apologists and from aides over here at the white house instead of mourning with americans that there are over 100,000 lives lost here in the united states. they are not having as many coronavirus task force meetings over here. people like dr. anthony fauci not making as many visits here to the white house. the president is not keeping tabs as often as he had been when we were racing up to this 100,000 mark over the last several weeks.

and so, what the president is left with is what he has always been left with, at times when his back has been up against the wall. he -- he reaches for distractions. tomorrow, we understand he is going to sign an executive order aimed at these social media companies as he's been having this fight with twitter. but what we're all wondering is whether or not the president is going to make mention of the fact that 100,000 americans have died from this virus, as you just set up in that series of clips just a few moments ago. he still has to answer for a whole litany of comments that he's made over the last three months that the virus would go away. that it would magically disappear. we didn't even play the clip, which i think may be the most damning clip from this entire crisis from the president when he suggested that americans inject themselves with disinfectant. so there's just been a whole slew of missteps with this president, every step of the way. talking with a trump advisor earlier this evening about all of this. they are firmly convinced that, when it comes down to election time in november, that the american people will blame china for all of this and not the

president. of course, we have video of the president praising president xi and praising china for their handling of the virus at the beginning of this pandemic. >> yeah. i mean, even on that injecting disinfectant, jim. you know, the idea that he was talking to his -- you know, a government scientist and suggesting that government scientist, you know, actually put time and effort and experiment with this, on human beings, injecting -- i mean, it still boggles my mind. and boggles my mind that that's what led to the stopping of the briefings of the coronavirus task force. i mean, it's incredible to think that a -- just a gap, which the president then later lied about, would actually have a real-world consequence of stopping briefings by scientists, on a daily basis, for the american people. is -- i mean, it's negligent. >> yeah. and that task force and those briefings have never been the same, since that moment. that was sort of his george bush

heck of a job brownie moment in my view. when the president goes on the south lawn or whatever venue he is on, fox news, he suggests joe biden's lost a step or he's sleepy joe. joe biden's never suggested to the americans, you know, inject themselves with disinfectants. and so he has just a whole library of comments that he's going to have to answer for, over the next several weeks. the question is whether or not he can mark this moment, and it is a moment in american history, with -- with any kind of weight. with any kind of compassion for people who are suffering out there. >> douglas, you wrote an extraordinary book about hurricane katrina. about the flood. when you -- and you and i spoke a lot during those times. the brownie heck of a job thing. i mean, the president's been saying he's been doing a heck of a job from the beginning on this. >> yes. history is just going to mark the monumental failed leadership of donald trump, through this covid crisis. i mean, we did lose two months.

and, you know, during katrina, we used to call that we'd lose lives in the 48-hour window of you have to get to people quickly. you've got to respond quickly. and there were lives lost because the bush administration didn't move quickly enough. and, in the case of president trump, we're dealing with probably 50,000 american lives that could've been saved because of his failed leadership. but -- what makes it even worse is we've had failed leaders in the world before. i mean, chamberlain didn't recognize the demon of adolf hitler. or herbert hoover didn't recognize the stock market crash and the desperate depressio and the great depression. this is a president with a deficit disorder. he seems not to cory. in my mind, he acts like they are inconvenient statistics that are hurting his chances of re-election. so he wants to push them aside

and say it's not really real. and this makes trump a very bizarre figure, and it's -- no matter what happens in this election, history will not shine a bright light on the way that he's navigated these last four months. >> dana, it's also remarkable just the strategy he's now putting forward, of undercutting the message from his own coronavirus task force, which has now basically been silenced. and you know, he once talked about himself as a wartime president. this is a war against a silent enemy. you know, if the president of the united states, during world war ii was, on the one hand, you know, drafting people and sending them to fight. and, at the same time, suggesting maybe they not follow the orders of their commanders. or, you know, not really give it their all in the war effort back at home and show up at the factories if they don't really want to. i mean, it's stunning to me that he's playing politics with a pandemic response. >> very much so.

i mean, that's a really important analogy. and the president did, at the beginning, i mean, you showed kind of the arc of what happened with the president over the past two months. at the beginning, he downplayed it. made it sound like it was nothing. that they had it under control. and then, suddenly, when he realized it was very much not under control, but that he could play president on tv and play wartime president, he went in and took over the press conferences that the scientists, the vice president was having the press conferences. but he did defer to the scientists so that americans could get the information that they needed. once he saw that that was a show with great ratings, he wanted to be the star until that moment that it all fell apart because of his ridiculous comment. and you're right. it was the poll numbers, internally, that say saw plummeting because of that. that made him change course in a big way, and try to stay as far

away from this pandemic as he could. as he gets closer to re-election. never mind the fact that america needs leadership right now, in a very big way. and he's not interested. he's more interested in focusing on re-election, and that is clear with his comments on masks. that is clear with everything that he is saying right now because the wartime president playbook didn't work for him. he couldn't do it. >> yeah. i mean, doug, i mean, the president declared himself a wartime president. if you declare that, and then you don't follow through on it and you have a huge death toll, do you think his legacy will be defined by his response to covid? >> i think it really will be. i mean, the big bell rang. we had the big crisis. one of the worst ever. and he basically went awol. he got in a denial mode, and then he worried about himself

only. and we look at presidents that we want to feel the empathy of an fdr telling depression people we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and pulling the country together. or ronald reagan, after the challenger disaster in 1986 or bill clinton in oklahoma city. on and on. there are all these great moments. today should be a day of national mourning that we hit the 100,000 mark. and he should be leading that. that -- showing the open heartedness of america. that there were mistakes, there were blunders. but instead, he refuses to have a heart. and that's the part that makes me most sad about what is a happening here. it's not just a bungled bad policies decision-making but it's a president who doesn't be able to express love to people unless they aren't trump supporters and makes him sort of a pathetic figure. >> and, sanjay, i mean, almost every single epidemiologist, expert agrees, one of the first steps that needed to be taken was a testing system. a robust, national testing

system. and here we are, still, one doesn't really exist. the trump administration just points a finger. says it's the state's responsibility for contact tracing, as well. it just -- the -- i don't know of any other country that has had such a lack of -- of centralized federal response. >> no, i mean, it's -- it's quite striking. i mean, a country that typically is a leader in these areas. i mean, there has been some legitimate criticism about the cdc's initial test, that was flawed. but the cdc is typically the organization that many other countries look to. our cdc is. for guidance on these types of things. and, you know, they're some of the best public-health doctors and officials in the world here, in this country. many of whom were telling the president and telling others that this was going to be a problem. i mean, you had the cdc, head of respiratory diseases, saying at the end of february, it's no longer a question of if, it's a question of when this will be a

pandemic in the united states and sweep throughout the world. and it didn't seem like anybody wanted to hear it. so, you know, as far as legacies go, this testing thing, i think, is going to be really something -- again, hopefully we can learn the lesson quickly because this is not over. we're still, very much, in this. but the idea that we got stymied by nasal swabs, the greatest country on earth. that ended up leading to so many preventable deaths, i think is -- that's a real tragedy. >> yeah. sanjay, thank you. jim, dana bash, doug brinkley, thank you so much. appreciate it. coming up next, a leading public health expert's take on what happens next. new optimism today from dr. anthony fauci about a vaccine. also, milestone, why it didn't have to come to this and how to keep the virus in check, with or without a vaccine. later, minneapolis, the death of an african-american man at the happeneds of police. they are calling for charges against the officers. that and more as 360 continues.

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it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. in this country. people choosing not to cover their faces in public and the president all but cheering them on. in all this, the traditional voice of caution and reason has been dr. anthony fauci, who said today he was concerned about reopening too suddenly in places. speaking with cnn's jim sciutto, he also sounded optimistic on a vaccine. >> you know, jim, it is

possible. i still think that we have a good chance, if all the things fall in the right place, that we might have a vaccine that would be deployable. by -- by the end of the year. by december -- november/december. i believe -- yeah. >> that wasn't the only headline. jim sciutto also asked dr. fauci about the french government's decision to ban the drug hydroxychloroquine for use against coronavirus. i d he did point out the scientific data is quite evident, those are his words, quite evident. joining us is -- harvard university medical school. a piloting researcher, as was dr. faufci in the fight against hiv-aids. thank you so much for being back with us. when we spoke monday, you said we didn't need a vaccine to stop the virus. we needed behavior to stop the virus. and i think people really need to hear that. when dr. fauci says, you know, if everything goes in the right place, we could have a vaccine

by the end of this year. a, what do you think of that? and how often, in creating vaccines, does everything go, fall into the right place? >> well, those are two questions that i'll address both of them. but, first, let me say, looking at the toll today, it's extremely sad. it's something that didn't have to happen, for two reasons. we could have prevented it, by behavior. and, had we been prepared, only a handful of people in the whole world need to have died. and, from my point of view, of seeing what's happened to my friends. i have friends who have died. i know other people have had many friends who have died. and looking at it, where we stand today, it could be 200,000 people or more in the foreseeable future. and that's a tragedy. now, why do i say -- >> when you say it didn't have to happen -- when you say it didn't have to happen, didn't -- it could have only been a few people. how -- how can you say that? why? >> well, let me tell -- it

didn't have to happen if we had been prepared. for example, i worked, very hard, with the u.s. department of defense and homeland security to help save us and protect us. from bioterrorism. the mechanism exists to stockpile the drugs that we think are going to come, infectious disease. we don't know they're coming but we think they might. there was a hole in our safety net because that legislation, also, allowed us to look at nature as a terrorist. nature is sending viruses our way, which we knew are coming. and it was totally predictable that another coronavirus was on its way. all we had to do was stockpile those drugs, whether it's united states or china or south korea, and we could have treated people and stopped the infection lickety-split. we know the virus working for sars and mers, work against this virus, too. so we could have been prepared and we could have stopped it. once it got started, we have a

good recipe for how to stop it. we look at new zealand, we look at australia, we look at thailand, we look at vietnam. we look at -- not vietnam. but we look at south korea. we look at china. we see serious epidemics, they've gone to zero, for days. it's in the single digits. it can be stopped, without a vaccine. and without a drug. if we change our behavior. that was true in hiv-aids, too. and over time, people learned to change their behavior. it was pretty simple. use condoms for casual sex. and it worked. big behavior change. people can change their behavior. not overnight but they can. >> so, getting back to -- to my first question, which i interrupted you on, the -- the -- the vaccine. the idea of it being by november/december and things falling into place. >> well, it rarely falls into place. i listen to ken frasier of

merck, the company that's brought more wonderful vaccines to the world than any other. and he was cautiously optimistic with an emphasis on both words. caution. and optimism. he said it was not possible for him, at merck, the biggest vaccine company in the world, to bring a vaccine to the market this year. that's his words. however, he's optimistic that they can solve the problem. they can solve it on a massive scale. there's a problem that you and i haven't discussed, which just came up in a "associated press" poll. if there were a vaccine, how many people would take it? the answer? 51%. say yes. that isn't enough to protect the population. so there are a lot of issues with vaccines. will people accept them? will they be ready? when we already know how to control the virus, in a big population, it can be done through human behavior.

>> professor, i appreciate your time, again. and -- and that -- you're right. that -- that poll of 50% of people saying they wouldn't take the vaccine is just, you know, stunning, stunning idea. >> it's stunning, shocking, and it's sad. but thank you very much. >> yeah. thank you. up next, senator kamala harris joins us to continue this discussion. we'll talk about the president's lack of response today. also, the speed at which her state is reopening, which some have suggested may be happening too quickly. we'll get her thoughts. i use rakuten to get cash back in-store and online. or anything i want to buy is going to be on rakuten. rakuten is easy to use, free to sign up and it's in over 3,000 stores. i buy a lot of makeup. shampoo, conditioner. books, food. travel. shoes. stuff for my backyard. anything from clothes to electronics. workout gear. i even recently got cash back on domain hosting. you can buy tires. to me, rakuten is a great way to get cash back on anything you buy. rack it up with rakuten, sign up today to get cash back on everything you buy.

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the newest streaming app has landed on xfinity x1. now that's... simple. easy. awesome. xfinity x1 just got even better with peacock premium included at no additional cost. no strings attached. just say "peacock" into your voice remote to start watching today. we mentioned earlier, the president has yet to acknowledge today the fact that 100,000

americans have died due to the coronavirus. he stayed silent today but his opponent, former vice president joe biden, issued this statement to commemorate the lives lost. >> this is a fateful milestone we should have never reached. it could have been avoided, according to a study done by columbia university. if the administration had acted just one week earlier to implement social distancing, and do what it had to do. just one week sooner, as many as 36,000 of these deaths might have been averted. >> that same report said if the country had been locked down two weeks earlier, 84% of the deaths could have been prevented. joining me now, senator kamala harris. senator harris, thanks for being with us. obviously, very sad, sobering day for this country with more than 100,000 american lives lost because of this virus. i am wondering what your thoughts are on this -- on this difficult day. >> it is tragic, anderson.

100,000 lives. 100,000 souls. just within the last -- less than 100 days. and these are the parents, the grandparents, the brothers, sisters, relatives, of -- of people who are mourning their loss. and -- and, in many ways, the number, it's senseless and it's tragic. and to the point that joe biden made, also, to some extent, it was avoidable. and i do -- i do fear that we have not really had, in our commander in chief, any -- any -- any display of understanding about the devastation and any moment of real public mourning. you know, normally, sadly, normally in these types of tragedies, we witness or attend funerals. we see the caskets. but we've not really seen that. and i think that -- that it is the sad part, in addition to the numbers, is that families are, in many ways, isolated in their suffering. and this should be a moment that

we, as a nation, understand and mourn the loss. >> i'd never seen just a leadership of -- of anybody, in this country, running this country, on the -- i mean, people make mistakes. people, you know, don't do things fast enough. that, of course, happens. people are human. but to, on the one hand, you know, at one time of the day, push a message of, yes, you should wear a mask. here are stages that states can use to reopen. it should be a certain amount of weeks of declining numbers of new cases and deaths. and social distancing is important. and, yes, listen to the scientists. and then, that same day, maybe later that day, on twitter or late at night or whatever it may be, to undercut that message. and mock those who wear masks, and say, look, we got to liberate these states. and -- and -- and take things over. i -- i've never seen a leadership like that. and it just -- i mean, for a wartime president, it's

essentially having troops fight each other. >> anderson, donald trump is not a leader. he's not a leader, and he has proven that over and over and over again. real leadership, at this moment of crisis, would be to have genuine sympathy and empathy and -- and -- and compassion for the loss. it would be to act. doing things like let's just start from today. putting in place a national testing strategy. today, saying that the almost 40 million people who lost their jobs within the last hundred days should have recurrent monthly payments until we get through the pandemic. leadership would be about saying that over half of america's workforce works for small businesses, which are closed, many of which may not be able to open. and we must save them by doing things like what i and iayana presley are proposing. save those small businesses with loans and grants so they can

keep their doors open because they, the bodegas, the b barbershops are part of those communities. that's what real leadership would be about. we never had it so we really don't have much to mourn because we've never had it. so we've not lost much. there's just been a vacancy there, in terms of leadership, frankly. >> your home state of california became the fourth state with more than 100,000 coronavirus cases. do -- has the state -- i mean, are things moving too quickly to reopen in california? what's your take? >> my -- you know, i'm very proud of california's leadership. from the beginning, it was the california mayor in london breed, it was a california governor in gavin newsom. it was a california leader in eric garcetti. and i could go down the line of the folks who took on the political courage, even when it was unpopular, to say things should shut down. let's take this seriously.

let's listen to the public health professionals, the scientists, the physicians. and that's how california has actually, i think, been a model. and, similarly, in the decisions that are being made about reopening, it is the public health professionals that are helping to lead the -- the -- the ideas and the plans about what reopening should look like. and i think california, in that way, has been a leader because it is about public health, not about politics. but understanding that we need to have leadership that understands that when we pay attention to the public health issue, consumers will also have the confidence to go back to those businesses. and, in that way, support those businesses that we obviously want to keep open and allow them to -- to -- to get through the pandemic and not -- and not perish. >> senator harris, i appreciate your time today on this difficult day. thank you. >> of course. thank you. >> coming up next. a second day of protests in minneapolis happening as we speak over the death of an unarmed african-american man with the police officer's knee on his neck. the man was saying he couldn't

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more breaking news now. a second day of clashes between protestors and police in minneapolis as residents demand justice after the death of george floyd. the fbi is already investigating. today, the city's mayor said the police officer who was caught on tape with his knee on floyd's neck should be charged in the death of the 46-year-old african-american male. he and three other officers present were already fired. randy kay has the story and we want to warn you some of the video you are about to see is unsettling, it's disturbing. it's necessary to understand why the death of george floyd has provoked such a national outrage. >> please! please, i can't breathe. please, man. please. >> this was the scene in minneapolis monday evening. that police officer has his knee buried in the neck of a man named george floyd. >> need some water or something. please. please. i can't breathe.

>> officers had responded to an alleged forgery call. and found floyd sitting in his car. this surveillance video, from a nearby restaurant, shows officers making contact with floyd. then, handcuffing him. police would later say he physically resisted. though, that is not apparent from this portion of the video. nor does the video capture the accident leading up to the arrest. after police escort floyd away, bystanders capture this video of floyd, face down on the ground, still handcuffed. the officer's knee forcing his face into the pavement. listen closely as the officer simply tells him to relax. >> you got him down, man. let him breathe at least, man. >> relax. >> man, i can't breathe. >> what do you want? >> i can't breathe. please. i can't breathe.

>> get up and get in the car. >> i will. >> get up and get in the car. just get up and get in the car. >> mama. mama. >> they could've tased him. they could have maced him. >> floyd struggles on the ground for five minutes. >> my stomach hurts. my neck hurts. everything hurts. >> witnesses on the street plead with the officers to back off. >> how long y'all got to hold him down? >> you're stopping his breathing right there, bro. >> the officer does not remove his knee from floyd's neck, nor do the other officers do anything to help him. soon, george floyd lay motionless on the ground. his eyes closed. police say floyd appeared to be suffering from medical distress and that he died at the hospital. the four officers involved have been fired. their chief pointing out the knee in the neck technique is not approved. >> what we saw was horrible.

completely and utterly messed up. we watched, as a white officer pressed his knee into the neck of a black man. >> in response, protestors took to the streets of minneapolis. clashing with police, who resorted to teargas and nonlethal projectiles. in the pouring rain, protestors echoed some of george floyd's final words. the fbi in minneapolis has launched a full investigation. though george floyd's family is calling for the officers to be charged with murder. and they want justice. >> please, i can't breathe. please, man. please! >> randy kay, cnn, west palm beach, florida. >> the union representing the four officers, the police officers federation minneapolis has issued a statement. they say the officers are cooperating in the

investigation. they also say this, quote, now is not the time to -- time rush to judgment and immediately condemn our officers, officers' actions and training protocol will be carefully examined after the offices have provided their statements. joining us with more on the protests are sarah sidner in minneapolis. sarah, what's the latest? >> you can hear the alarm going off in the wine and spirits store just behind me. that's because people have broken into that store. there are a bunch of people that have gone into that store, and are throwing things out. they're taking things out. it's mostly beer. but you're also seeing people with signs. black lives matter signs. you ever seei you are seeing a lot of folks standing across from the police department. the police department, the precinct, is here. it's precinct three. and what we saw earlier, anderson, was that all the police officers had pushed out of this. we were flanked by officers. there was teargas being spewed everywhere. there was lots of flash bangs. water bottles and rocks being

throwed. at the same time, they are pushing people down the street and all of a sudden, the officers began retreating back to precinct three. so when they started retreating back to precinct three, the crowd, as it gathered and gathered and gathered. and what you are really seeing here in some parts of these streets is you are seeing absolute anger, but it began with sorrow. it began with a great deal of pain after people saw that video. saw the video of an officer sticking his knee in the neck of a black man, 46-year-old father. saw that knee sitting there for minutes upon minutes upon minutes. more than ten minutes. and then, saw his body go limp. people were so outraged by that, their initial reaction was pain. their second reaction was anger. and that is being exploded out into the streets at this point in time. anderson. >> sarah, what's the latest from the county -- county attorneys office? >> yeah. so we heard from the mayor. the mayor has said he believes that the county attorney needs to charge at least the officer

who put his knee on the back of the neck of george floyd. now, the george floyd. now, the county attorney has responded and said they're going to do the best job they can, that they were horrified by the video themselves and that they're going to do the best that they can in this case, but they stopped short of saying whether or not charges were coming. and, as you know, that usually takes a bit of time. there have to be legal documents drawn up if they are going to charge any of these four officers. this is probably the fastest that you and i have seen officers fired. it happened within 48 hours of the incident. >> sara sidner, thank you for being there. appreciate it up. up next, we remember an icon. we'll be right back. chances are you know us. yoo-hoo, progressive shoppers. we laughed with you. sprinkles are for winners. we surprised you. on occasion, we've probably even annoyed you. we've done this all with one thing in mind. to help protect the things you love. and if we can't offer you the best price

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i want to take a moment to remember the life of larry kramer, a writer and play wright who became a hero in the fight against hiv/aids. he died today at the age of 84. when gay men started dying from what was described a strange cancers, he was the founder of gay men's health crisis, took notice and took action. he was a founder, who took care of gay men who were mistreated, kicked out of their homes and hospitals. they were hiv positive and had aids and were treated terribly

for it, and gmch worked to try to help them. larry went on to help act up, which demanded changes and funding in drug trials to speed up treatments. larry kramer dedicated his life to the fight against hiv/aids and the bigotry and murderous silence that surrounded it. at times he was a voice screaming seemingly alone in the wilderness but he was right more than he was wrong and forced others to take notice. other gay people, other straight people, politicians and scientists and doctors. he wasn't easy. he alienated people who didn't want to hear what he had to say or how he said it. but he was relentless and righteous. in 1983 larry wrote an essay in the advocate calling for gay men to wake up and work together to help find a cure. if this article doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage, gay men may have no future on this earth, he wrote. our continued existence depends on just how angry you can get, how many of us must die, he asked, before all of us living fight back?

year later he was in a meeting at act up, trying to get other activists to stop fighting each other and fight the ignorance and bias that was killing so many gay people. take a look, this is classic larry kramer. >> plague! we are in the middle of a plague, and you behave like this. plague! 40 million infected people is a plague! we are in the worst shape we have ever, ever been in. all those pills we're shoveling down our throats, forget it! act up has been taken over by a lunatic fringe that can't get together, nobody agrees with anything. all we could do is field a couple of hundred people at a demonstration. that's not going to make anybody pay attention.

not until we get millions out there. we can't do that. all we do is pick at each other and yell at each other. and i say to you in year ten the same thing i said to you in 1981 when there were 41 cases. until we get our acts together, all of us, we are as good as dead. >> those words ring true today in this moment we're now facing. that, by the way, that video is from "how to survive a plague," an extraordinary documentary of urge you to watch. what larry kramer and other hiv activists did saved countless lives, and it's helped every human being on earth, because they actually managed to change the approval process for new treatments and got the medical establishment to allow patients more of a voice in clinical

trials. activists did that. not just for hiv, but for other drugs being worked on today. dr. anthony fauci who faced the wrath and respect said there are two errors in american medicine, one before larry and one after larry kramer. larry kramer once called me a useless homosexual. i never met him, but it really hurt because i admired him so much. a short time after he said it, i went to see a play he had written. and he waited after the performance to see me. he came up to me. he took mimi hand. i expected him to yell at me but he shook my hand and smiled shyly and said "i've said some terrible things about you, anderson." and i say, "i know larry, and that's okay, i want to thank you." 32 million people have died of aids. there is no vaccine yet, but there is effective treatment for those who can get it. larry kramer played a part in it. you may not have heard of him or liked him but to me he's a hero and now he's gone. the news continues. i'm going to hand it over to chris for "cuomo primetime."

chris? >> so beautiful. so poignant, so important. a lot of people are unfamiliar with kramer's work, but you can't be if you grew up around here. that's for sure. and i'll tell you i know what he wanted from the media as part of the responsibility and the legacy of responsibility and as an observer of your work for many years, you are part of that living legacy, anderson. and it's one of the reasons that we're all so proud of the journalism you do now. >> i don't know about that, but thank you. >> thank you for reminding us of the loss. i am chris cuomo. welcome prime time. it's a sad night. it's just three months. we've lost a hundred thousand lives. do you need band music to tell you it's something urgent? we were told this pandemic would magically disappear without any real trouble. a couple dozen cases. today did you hear what our president, donald john trump,