putin. not particularly comforting, it's out august 11th. it would be an honor if you'd have a look at it. news continues, i'm going to hand it over to chris cuomo for "cuomo prime time." >> we will do it on the radio show i have, we will do it on "prime time" because your reporting warrants it. and we do go back a long time, brother. great work, jim. >> thank you. >> have a great weekend, you and the family, god bless. everybody, i am chris cuomo welcome to "prime time ". for all of the unknowns of covid-19, we are now painfully aware of why we continue to struggle with cases. and here is the answer. >> all 50 states and territories across this country are opening up safely and responsibly we slowed the spread. we flattened the curve. the reality is we're in a much better place. >> the reality. wonder what color the sky is in pence's reality? cases are popping up in so many places and the twisted talk just

came out of his really straight face is a reason why. too many are doing what the vp and his boss suggest. open fast, ready or not. that man is the head of the white house coronavirus task force. no wonder why the response has been as weak as it has. every actual expert on the task force says if you socially distance, wear masks, wash your hands, get tested, communities will get back to normal sooner. you keep others and yourself safe. you actually reduce deaths by the thousands, according to the estimates the white house relies on. and yet trump resists it because it sends a bad message. think about that. that kind of crazy is incurable and it is literally making us sick.

>> can you tell me why you continue to do this, why the campaign continues to hold these rallies? >> well, the freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in the constitution of the united states. >> in arizona, one of the hardest-hit states, you packed a church with young people who weren't wearing masks. so how can you say that the campaign is not part of the problem that dr. fauci laid out? >> well, i want to remind you again that freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in the constitution of the united states. >> no freedom of speech? freedom of speech. no freedom of speech. come on! come on! this isn't about personal liberty, it's about cheap politics. and this toxic infection of ignorance and arrogance has us in the worst shape in the world relatively. if prevaricating pence is what

the renewed covid briefings are going to be about, we may have been better served with the past two months of silence. all states are opening up safely and responsibly? then why did america have its worst day of case spikes since this began? all 50 doing it right? yet some, the same that in almost every case took the trump way to reopening are shutting down again because this emergency has never been worse. team trump says the rate of new infections per test is going down. how can they say that with that straight face when it isn't true in at least 32 of our states? if we flattened the curve, why are daily new cases shooting up again? the reality is in the numbers. we are not in a much better place than we were two months ago.

and that's because pence and pals have a mask over their eyes instead of over their mouths. they refuse to see the obvious and they spew the odious misinformation that has so many of us getting sick. if they're being straight with you, why would trump say something as absurd as, you know, if you don't test, there would be no cases. no. if we don't test, there will in fact be more cases, because you don't know what you're dealing with, you can't allocate resources and you can't do the tracing that we're still not doing enough of. without testing, there's no containment. without testing, it spreads like wildfire. without testing and testing enough and testing the smartest way, you get exactly where we are. like we've been warned would happen. like we pleaded with the president to step up and avoid from happening.

now it is happening. let's take on the reality with someone who speaks truth and common sense. chief doctor sanjay gupta. an interesting point of context, doc. from two months ago when they stopped the briefings to now, we've had like a million and a half cases. what have we seen in that time? give us a little comparable. >> it's hard to believe, chris. it's just hard to believe. all the things that we learned, all the things that we were starting to sort of figure out, and we completely sort of abandoned those things. if you put up the chart, which i know you showed april 27th, i believe, almost exactly two months ago, you see what has happened here. the numbers are not only going up, they're at the highest levels they have been throughout this pandemic. it's as if, chris, you have a patient in front of you who's bleeding out and you put a

little bit of pressure on the wound and then you got bored and took the pressure off and kind of forgot about the patient and the patient is starting to bleed again. at no point did we actually start to take care of the underlying problem here. so there's all this talk about the numbers are going up here a little bit, they're not going up here so here's a bright spot. none of that matters at this point, chris. you know why? because we're not doing the things we need to do to address the fundamental problem. there is a virus, it is circulating, it is contagious, it is causing the problems that we see. people will say how come it's not causing as big a problem over here. i don't know. it doesn't matter. the virus hasn't changed. so if you're not doing something to solve the problem over here, eventually you're going to have a problem. you remember governor desantis went up to washington and spent time in the oval office talking about the fact that florida, they escaped it, they dodged the bullet. how long ago was that, a few weeks ago? >> yeah. >> i can't even -- six weeks, whatever it was. now we see what's happening in

florida. my parents live in florida. 80% to 90% of the icu beds are full right now in some cases. see what these numbers are on monday three days from now. the numbers are going to be much higher. i guarantee. >> actually you won't know. you won't know, sanjay, you know why? because they're fighting in florida, the health department with the governor, because he doesn't want them to report how many beds are filled. he just wants to deal with patients. now help us understand something. why would he want to draw that distinction? how does that help him? >> i don't know anymore, chris. i've been trying to figure out and i find what i end up doing is trying to justify some of these things. there is no rational explanation for this. the fact of the matter is that the virus is causing significant amounts of illness. if it were just testing that were leading to an increased number of people being infected, you wouldn't have this significant surge in hospitalizations. i was talking to my 12-year-old about that and she got it right away, she fundamentally understood it. i think people get that, right? this isn't just about the

testing. we are going to run into a situation. i remember you and i talking when this was happening in northern italy. i have friends over there. they would call the hospital and say, hey, my husband, my wife is having difficulty breathing. they're developing shortness of breath, i'm worried, i need to get them to the hospital. the hospital would say we can't send an ambulance, we have no beds in the hospital right now. can you imagine that, chris? i don't know what gets through at this point. we've got to stop the bleeding here and then we've got to take care of the fundamental problem. it is still within our power. i think if it's not the policies in these places, it's got to be the people because this is the time to rise to the occasion and actually do some fundamental things that frankly aren't that hard. this virus isn't that hearty, it doesn't like to live outside and can't jump that far. if you wear a mask, you keep some distance, you can get start to get control of this thing. they have done it in countries around the world so we have realtime data and examples of success stories. we're not making this up.

it can be done. you know, i'm worried, chris. you haven't heard me talk like this but i'm concerned right now because it feels like we've given up at this point. >> well, people get fatigued, especially when the leaders at the top are telling them take it easy. look, that's what we saw in florida. we had those young women from jacksonville. governor saying don't worry about mask, go out. they go out to a bar, all 16 get sick and they feel terribly about it. we checked in with them, they're getting better now but they wanted to come on national television, it's embarrassing to come on about but they wanted to because they don't want people to be like them. the urgency of regular people is going to have to replace the urgency from the leadership because you're not seeing it in a lot of places. >> yeah, and i think that might be the bright spot here maybe. i do talk to a lot of people. i'm on the phone all the time with people all over the country and i think people do fundamentally understand this. i hope most people realize if they wear a mask we could save tens of thousands of lives. tens of thousands of lives could be saved by the simple act that

you did just putting on a mask like that. >> it's incredible that that detail 0 goes floating past, just unobserved by so many in politics. yeah, thousands could be saved, maybe, maybe not, it's just an estimate. let me ask you, what are you hearing from inside the task force? >> you know, there seems to be a little bit of concern and maybe even a little bit of friction within the task force. the testing has been an issue all along, right? we know in the beginning the cdc came up with this test, it wasn't a good test. the control part didn't work well so you couldn't get accurate results. that's been well documented. here we are end of june. why don't we have the more widespread available testing. i'm not talking about, hey, we're doing 500,000 tests. chris, you want to go do something with your family, could you get tested? could you get a reliable result and know you're negative? you're a different story because you've obviously had it but i'm talking for the average person. they still don't know how to

make decisions about their life. two months ago ambassador birx said we need a breakthrough in testing so people can return to normalcy, get back to work, take a road trip with their family. all these things they want to do in the summer. right now people are confused. can i? can't i? what's the risk? does that person have the virus? i don't know. do i have the virus? i don't know. how are we so many months into this with all the resources that should have been tossed at this problem, how do we still not figure out how to do testing in a way that is meaningful to people? >> there's still a freaky disconnect because i'm sure you're getting it all the time as well much more than i am. but i'm telling you, on an other -- not daily anymore, every other day basis, someone says to me, hey, you know, do you know where i can get tested? hey, do you know where i can get an antibody test? i really want to see if my kids had it. i had this really bad thing last year during the holidays and i wonder if i have the antibodies. they call their doctors and they have to wait, we don't have them. you can go to this drive-in

testing center if you want. you have to wait five, six days, maybe they forget about you and you don't get results. people wonder why america is getting so beat up by something that's been moving from country to country everywhere else in the world and we're still stuck in the suck. >> that's the friction right there. people are still even on the task force looking at the cdc and saying, hey, what gives here? why don't we have better testing? why haven't we really addressed this in a way that's meaningful to people? chris, you went through this. you had to get tested -- by the way, how are you -- >> i'm still going through it. >> how are you feeling now? >> i can't wait for your documentary a year and a half from now. lord willing i'm alive. where you say and it turns out that there are all these residual problems with this in the lungs and people had this kind of olfactory issue and people had brain fog for many months and we had to do peptide treatment. because i'm telling you, i'm hearing from people all over the country, what a blessing the virus has been on that level. the kinds of connections i have

with people. nothing bonds you like illness and pain. they're still feeling things. guys are like oh, or women, i'm a marathon runner and still can't get my mileage up. three months later. cases like mine, not the worst, not ventilators and stuff like that, but there's so much to learn and we're ignoring what we already know, doc. >> i don't think we have the luxury of even thinking about that right now. i feel for you, chris. we measure things right now in people who have lived and people who have died. we haven't even had the luxury to even look at recovery and trying to improve the lives of people after this disease because we're just still trying to catch up. we're behind the curve here. i hope we catch up. but i'm worried. i hope you continue to improve, chris, but i'm worried about the country overall in terms of not taking this seriously enough. if we get too far behind the curve, this goes from something that's an unmitigated disaster to something that becomes an uncontrollable disaster. i don't want that. nobody wants that. >> the terrible news is that

it's shaping up right now and there won't be a second wave because we won't be done with the first one. sanjay gupta, you are a light in the darkness, brother. keep doing what you do. have a great weekend. i love you. >> you too. i love you too. let's talk politics. the politicians are in control. you've got to do what's right for you. you've got to do what's right for your family and your community. we're not getting the help that we needed. but there are voices of accountability. a republican member of congress in one of the states that's falling backwards, a doctor, what does he think about what's coming out of the white house right now? more importantly, what does he think about what's happening in his home state of texas? better than we were two months ago? couldn't be farther from reality, next. hey! lily from at&t here. i'm back and while most stores are open,

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switch to progressive and you can save hundreds. you know, like the sign says. texas is now hitting the brakes on reopening. yet folks like texas congressman louie gohmert told cnn if he gets coronavirus, then he'll start wearing a mask. god forbid he gets coronavirus. and it's good that if he gets it, that he wears a mask, but he's going to have to quarantine if he gets it. remember, this is where the lieutenant governor said there are more important things than living. that's this state. the challenge is how you get past nonsense that becomes this just virus of its own, ugly politics. cases are almost double in texas, okay?

hospital beds are filling fast. this is not good. congressman michael burgess is a republican from the state, also a doctor, always welcome on "prime time." first things first, congressman, doctor, always good to see you. i hope you and your family are healthy. >> well, i'm back in texas now. it was a long day. i'm glad to be home. it's always great to get back. >> and everybody is okay in the family? >> yeah, probably all better than we deserve. >> you know, you and i, we'll test different ideas and i don't like the politics of this, you tell me i'm getting it wrong, we go back and forth. it's not the case here. i am just worried. there but for the grace right now should not be our standard in terms of avoiding this virus. by all accounts, abbott went out early and still doesn't want people to have to wear masks.

he won't even let municipalities recommend that people or require that they wear masks except in commercial settings. why not mandate it everywhere, doc? >> i don't know if that's entirely accurate. i saw on the news coming home today that tarrant county, which is one of the two counties that i represent, has in fact instituted a mask order. >> only for commercial settings. >> there's a lot of local -- look, there's a lot of local variations. texas is a big state. >> they don't have the power. they don't have the power, congressman. just so we're clear on the facts and then i want your take. they weren't allowed to do anything and now the governor allows them county by county to do commercial restriction on people in commercial settings but not everywhere. that's the fact. >> look, as far as i'm concerned, the most important thing we can do to protect ourselves from this virus is social distancing, and i do that. if i cannot social distance, i wear a mask because it makes

sense. and whatever the politics are, the politics are, but that is how i have chosen to live my life. i said early on in this, people are going to figure a lot of this out for themselves. when we were in an absolute lockdown, shutdown, nobody go anywhere, everyone stay at home, yes, you'd have to make trips to the local walmart, it was packed. of course nobody was wearing a mask back then because we were told that masking was not a good idea. but i think people got the notion that, look, i can get out and be in this situation and nothing bad happens to me. so that's where you start to build the body of knowledge. but back to governor abbott and to texas, look, when he announced that we were going to begin a phased reopening in the state, he also said that he was going to be closely monitoring things like the percent positive, the number of beds that were in use, the number of icu beds that were available.

he was monitoring. the situation changed and he dialed back the phased reopening. he did exactly what he said he was going to do. i don't know what else you would ask of him. >> i would have asked him to have gone slower and waited longer and mandated the distancing and mandated masks and he wouldn't be looking the way his state is right now, he'd be looking more like a new jersey, a connecticut or a new york. >> i don't know how you mandate distancing. that's something each of us has to kind of govern for ourselves. >> just because you can't enforce it, congressman, doesn't mean you don't do it. we make people wear helmets on motorcycles and make them wear seat belts in cars and that's where you only hurt yourself. here with the mask and the distancing, you hurt others. come on. >> motorcycle helmets are optional. look, the state of texas also recognized that there were some serious problems that we were encountering during the shutdown phase. i don't think texas is any different from any other part of the country, serious economic

repercussions. >> but it's different now because it's got cases popping and it's going to slow down the reopening and hurt the economy too. >> we damaged our hospitals by preventing elective procedures. we killed medical practices. we have got medical personnel who have been laid off because hospitals and medical practices can't -- >> and that is terrible. congressman, it's terrible. nobody should say anything but that. the idea of reopen or not was always a false choice. we must reopen. the question was always how. one of the things that helps us do it more intelligently would be more and proper testing. you fought for that in congress. you've got a president in your party who's against testing but you did get a bill through to get more funding. only two weeks, but that's something. >> he signed the bills to increase the amount of testing. >> for two weeks. >> we finally had a hearing in energy and commerce this week where we had the principals in public health up and down the line, dr. fauci, dr. redfield, dr. hahn from the cdc, hhs, has

the white house told you to reduce testing. no, no, no, no, no, down the line. >> yeah. congressman, i'm not saying we're not going to have a debate about whether or not the president was lying. i'll take you at your word, he was lying when he said he told them to back off on the testing. the mere idea that he pushes that as a message. >> it was hyperbole. >> hyperbole during a pandemic? would you say it? >> look, i said early on take this darn thing seriously. >> that's what i'm saying. that's leadership. >> shut down a major city in their country, a city of 10 million people that i had never heard of before, i told everyone around who would listen you better take this seriously. >> and the president said it was a hoax and the president said it would disappear. >> no, he did not. >> what? >> the president -- look, the previous administration when i was worried about ebola and it showed up in my backyard when i was worried about zika and it showed up in my state, i never could get a travel restriction out of the white house, the

state department or cdc. this president did. >> he says the only reason we have cases is because we're testing. if you don't test, you won't have cases. he won't wear a mask. he keeps reinforcing the message that people don't need to wear masks. come on, doc. as a physician you cannot -- you wouldn't say any of the things he's saying. you wouldn't say any of them. >> he is not prohibiting anyone from wearing a mask and it is a good idea if you're not able to socially distance put on a mask. look, i want the economy of this country back. i want it back so badly because i see how badly people have been hurt. >> but you extend the pain by extending the pandemic, congressman. the reason you fought for more money -- congressman, the reason you fought for more money for more testing and rightly so and soldiered through a toxic political environment to get it done because the more testing that you get that's targeted to the areas you need it, the faster you'll get through this and that's how you get back to

opening places up in an economy. you fight the pandemic, you don't ignore it. >> no one is ignoring it. for crying out loud, we're doing more tests today in this country. i don't know that i've ever seen the level of testing. >> we've never needed a level of testing like this. >> yes, we did, when we had ebola we did. when we had zika we did. >> not like this. we didn't have anywhere near the caseload or the deaths. come on, doc. >> look, when ebola -- when that lady got on the plane, that nurse got on the plane and was told by the cdc she could, i fielded phone calls about ebola tests for next weeks. >> i know but you didn't have the death or the cases that you did. i'm glad. >> we didn't know at the time what the future held. regardless, chris, we want the country to get back. we want the economy to get back. we want people to get back to work. we want people to get their lives back. if wearing a mask is one of the things that's going to hasten that day, look, i'm all for it.

>> what do you mean if? what do you mean if, doctor? who's told you that masks aren't a part of it? >> well, look, if you can socially distance, then a mask becomes superfluous. >> right, but in a lot of places you can't do that, which is why your cases are jumping. >> if i can't socially distance, i wear a mask. look, chris, every one of us has been humbled trying to predict the biologic behavior from the beginning of this virus. dr. fauci on the panel yesterday was early on challenges. early on he said we didn't need to wear a mask. he said i was worried about them not being available for front-line personnel. very reasonable position for him to have taken. now the feeling is you should wear a mask if you can't socially distance. good advice. everyone should take that. >> the president doesn't think it's good advice. >> it shouldn't require me telling someone that you're mandated to do that. it is a good idea. >> but if it's a good idea, then

why is it a good idea for the president to say wearing a mask is an insult to him. >> i don't know that -- i never heard him say that. i don't know where you got that. look, this -- the biologic behavior of this virus was unknown as we got into this. i'm a medical doctor. i will tell you there's several times i've been humbled by what i thought would happen. i knew a travel restriction would be a good idea. i didn't realize that europe was also one of those areas where a travel restriction was necessary, when the president announced that the middle of march, he was criticized for treating our allies that way. but it turns out he actually was probably a little late in that declaration. i was the first one to raise the alarm about ventilators the middle of march. one of our rules committee hearings. >> congressman, i am not blaming you for being slow on this or recognizing the virus. i'm just saying leadership comes from the top. if we don't start getting better, consistent messaging, we're going to see more texases in this country.

we don't need that. >> wait, look, let's put things in perspective. texas has our problems, the cases have been going up. community spread in the lower rio grande valley is a real concern of mine. that's different. it used to be the congregate living facilities. like new york. it's not like that in the rio grande valley, it's evenly distributed amongst families and that's a real worry in the summer. if it then goes into the nursing homes, that's an even bigger problem. >> you've got a second week of record hospitalizations, just to take testing out of the equation. hospitalizations also are up. >> texas has had 2,200 deaths from this illness. new york had 24,000. it is a different order of magnitude. >> it's a different order of magnitude because you had a different set of challenges than the states had up in the northeast. >> the governor of texas i think has approached this -- i couldn't have asked him to do much differently. he began to open at a time when

i don't think there was any question we had to open. and here's the other thing, chris. you can only keep people bottled up for so long. we're going to lose the consent of the governed if we're not careful here. >> you're going to lose them a lot faster if they keep getting sick. but i hear you, and i know it's a balance and i appreciate you coming on to discuss it as always. i really do hope you and the family stay healthy and i hope things turn around in texas and soon. i really do. >> okay. thanks for having me on, we'll do it again sometime. i enjoy sparring. >> god bless. you're always welcome on this show. take care, congressman michael burgess. >> thanks. the president said he asked to slow down testing. he did, okay? i know he didn't do it. but the fact that he's lying doesn't make the suggestion okay, okay? now he is trying to reduce access to health care for americans during the pandemic. his administration is going even further in court on the health care front.

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so you have to hear this. late last night the justice department asked the supreme court to invalidate the affordable care act. it's a nonsensical appeal for this administration, considering nearly half a million people turned to the obamacare exchanges after they lost coverage through their employers this year. they're doing this during the pandemic? 23 million people could lose their care. at least. overall enrollment jumped 46% in the first five months of 2020 year over year. four months out from the election, it is obvious. for this administration it is about politics over people. but here we do the opposite.

elijah mcclain. his family is getting the investigation they have been seeking for nearly a year, after the 23-year-old died after being restrained by police in colorado in 2019. we have the mcclain family attorney, and new developments regarding three of the officers involved in that arrest, next.

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here's the latest information on the elijah mcclain case. the three officers in colorado involved in his death were moved to nonenforcement duties earlier this month. yes, when this originally happened, they were put on administrative duty, but after there were no charges, they were all reactivated. this was done now amid growing calls for another investigation into mcclain's death, which the governor reopened just yesterday. the 23-year-old died last august after he was stopped by three white officers, responding to a 911 call about a suspicious person in a ski mask. his family says he routinely wore the mask because of a blood condition.

regardless, he was unarmed, he was walking home. he wasn't running, he wasn't involved in any criminality. just bought an iced tea from convenience store. the district attorney told me last night why he didn't pursue charges. >> in the criminal charges i'm looking at are homicide. we've got several different theories of homicide here in colorado. but in each and every one of those theories of homicide, i must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that those officers caused the death of elijah mcclain. and you should know if you don't know already that the forensic autopsy report cannot determine the cause of death of mr. mcclain. so how in the world can i file homicide charges when i can't prove that critical element beyond a reasonable doubt the cause of death. >> so you're saying if a pathologist doesn't give you a home run, you never go forward with a case? >> and by the way, there was no injuries to him whatsoever. >> he's dead. he's dead. >> mari newman is the mcclain

family attorney. counselor, thank you for joining us tonight. what is your reaction to the district attorney's analysis of the case? >> chris, thanks for having me. it's absolutely preposterous. as you heard him say, there were no injuries. well, of course there were injuries. a perfectly healthy 23-year-old young man is dead, so claiming that there's no injuries is ridiculous. and the autopsy report is very strange. i mean it ignores the most obvious factor, which is a perfectly healthy young man is walking home from the drugstore with a bottle of iced tea in a little bag and he ends up dead. now, that is because those officers stopped him, tackled him, applied two carotid chokeholds, multiple types of force over the course of 15 minutes, during which he's begging, he's pleading, he's saying i'm a peaceful person, i'm a vegetarian, i don't eat meat, i don't even kill flies, i don't have a gun, i don't fight.

my name is elijah mcclain. and of course the one we've heard so often, i can't breathe. what we see is officers standing over him, one, as he's vomiting saying don't get that on me. and another one who apparently doesn't believe elijah is laying there still enough and threatens to sic a dog on him. for the district attorney to determine that everything that happened was totally appropriate and he can't determine the cause of death when this young man winds up dead is ridiculous. >> well, the district attorney says i don't like the way they did their job, i think it was wrong, but that doesn't make it criminal. but let's take two steps back. they get a 911 call of someone suspicious with a mask. they come, they investigate, they see someone with a ski mask. weird thing to see at that time of year. but i was going back and forth with the d.a. was it reasonable, were they justified by reasonably contacting elijah mcclain the way they did in your opinion? >> your question is exactly

right. they did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that he committed a crime. why didn't they? because the 911 caller said he's acting strange wearing a ski mask and waving his arms. he was listening to music in his earbuds, but he wasn't involved in any crime. in fact the 911 caller said i don't believe he's committed any crime. i don't think he's got a weapon. no, i'm not in danger and nobody else is in danger. and so based on all of the information that those officers had, they didn't have reasonable suspicion to believe he committed a crime and, therefore, they didn't have a justification to even stop him. >> mari, something else that i think is very important here. i made an alternative argument to the district attorney that couldn't they have just as reasonably believed upon contacting, meaning observing elijah, that maybe there is something going on with him but it's not criminality. when you listen to what he said, i'm being censored, i'm being censored and how he thrust his hands across his body and kind of froze up that even the

officers had to say, come on, man, calm down, release yourself, release yourself. what do we need to know about elijah mcclain that would have made it just as reasonable to say, you know what, let's watch him. this guy is a little strange. maybe he's not well or maybe he's just eccentric, but let's just watch him for a while because he doesn't look criminal, he just maybe seems a little off. what do we need to understand about elijah mcclain? >> well, i think the very first thing we need to understand is that when police encounter somebody who's just acting a little bit strange, there's no justification to stop them and certainly not to lay hands on them and grab them. so when elijah mcclain immediately reacts to the officers by saying i'm an introvert, please respect my boundaries, the officers are obliged to do that. they had no legal justification to grab him. when he then says a variety of other things that do show that he's a little bit different, he

dances to the beat of his own drum, that's not criminal. walking home from the corner store with some iced tea that he just bought, that's not criminal. wearing his black skin, that's not criminal either. wearing a mask, we all do that these days. it's no surprise a lot of black men were frightened when they were told in these covid days they were supposed to wear masks. that seems to be a death sentence in this country. >> no diagnosis of any type of disorder or illness? >> that's correct. and in fact he was a perfectly healthy young man. he used to go running. the autopsy report, though, goes out of its way to come up with all kinds of creative scenarios. maybe he had an undiagnosed mental health issue. maybe it was this, maybe it was that. but the actual truth is so clear. if he had just been allowed to walk home, he would have been fine. >> understood. mari newman, let's continue the conversation. let's see what the investigation yields. it would have been good if the family at that time had had an alternative pathologist look at it. that didn't happen, we've got to move forward from now. counselor, thank you very much. you're always welcome back on the show. >> thank you for having me.

>> absolutely. please send our condolences to the family. just for the rest of you, suggesting that maybe it was mental illness is not a way of disparaging elijah mcclain. you can be nice, want to go home and have a mental illness. it's not an insult. i was offering an alternative theory of what officers could have reasonably perceived and not treated him as a criminal and not be physical. we've got to go away from this stigma that if there's something that is mental illness that there's something wrong with somebody, they're bad, let's get away from that. look what it resulted in this situation. they could have handled it differently, period. now, since the wave of protests swept the nation, we now have our clearest look at where voters in swing states are in this presidential race. the wiz, the wizard of odds, next. yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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we all know they're just a suggestion of where you are, in a moment in time. anything can change. especially, in four months. right now, president is trailing joe biden, bigly, in some of the

states that matter most. that's why the president's been eager to hit the campaign trail, in the height of a pandemic. and have rallies, when you're exactly not supposed to do that. in texas, oklahoma, and arizona. everywhere that you see cases popping. wisconsin. maine, also. he only has a comfortable lead in one of those states. but how much stock should we put in these numbers? wiz of odds, harry enten, thank god you have been well. what do you see? >> look, the fact is, he's going to texas. he's going to texas. this is a state -- since 1976. look at the polling in texas right now. what you see is that joe biden, in a recent fox news poll, up by a point there. take a look at georgia. a state that hasn't gone democratic since 1992. biden up by two. ohio. a state that the president won easily last time. biden up by two. and then, take a look at these. the six closest swing states in 2016 conducted polls, "new york

times," what do we see? we see that joe biden leads in every single one of them by six points or more. and in the case of battleground states, we see joe biden leading by double digits in all those battleground states. >> counterpoint. the president has botched two of the worst situations that we have seen in a generation. the pandemic. and that he's been silent on the calls for equality in this society. and he's still close. >> still close? what are you talking about, my dear friend? take a look at the electoral map. okay. if all of the states went the way the polling averages are right now, joe biden would win 368 electoral votes. that's more than barack obama won in 2008, when he blew out john mccain. it would be the largest win in the electoral college dating back to when i think bill clinton got 379. but of course, it's not being held today. >> right. hillary clinton. i remember you talking a lot of

the same yap. i remember that "new york times" having a 99% chance she wins. and then, as dave gregory and i watched, going through mounds of chinese food, the needle started to go the other way. why will this time be any different? >> well, first, i'll say it wasn't "the new york times." i believe they were 85. or i was working at t"the times" -- >> 99% chance it was, at one point, that she would win. >> but here's, i think, the key thing. take a look where incumbents were polling at this point dating back since 1972. right now, donald trump, in the national average of polls is at 41%. every single incumbent since '72 who was at 42% or lower lost. you have to be upper 40s or lower 50s in order to win. but the fact that trump is only in the low 40s, at this point, to me, is a very dangerous sign for him, even this early on. >> the key is always turnout, and for the left. the democrats. but now, really, the left,

idealogically, will they all go to vote on the binary choice of trump up or down? we'll have to see. wiz, great to see you. i love you. i miss you. be well. >> so long, my dear friend. >> thank you. he makes me happy. all right. let's take a quick break.

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some pint-sized americans are doing giant things. boy, oh boy, is this a great story. i want you to hear about this. kids near minneapolis decided to sell friendship bracelets, to support local, black-owned businesses and food banks in the city where obviously there had been so much heartache. guess how much they raised so far? $90,000 online and selling the bracelets for fundraising. beautiful. beautiful. god bless them. and then, 7-year-old brian rumfeld loves story time and he says other kids should be able to enjoy story time and they can't right now. so his grandma created what you see here. brian's book corner.

online videos, so other kids can see brian reading to them. you see? don't forget. we can be this, too. ameri-can is in all of us. thank you for watching tonight. i hope you have a beautiful weekend. you make good memories with one another. and you'll remember, if you believe in one another and if you do the right thing for yourself and your community, things will get better in this country. you don't need help from above. it's within us. "cnn tonight" begins right now with the upgrade, laura coates, in for d lemon. >> man, i had a lemonade stand. i wasn't raising all that, thousands of dollars. but these kids today are really important, really impactful. i am proud of all of them. and, you know, it is my home state. so just going to say, something's in the water. >> listen. we got people like you, who speak truth to justice. we got kids. they are learning it somewhere, right? we're still putting good things into the next generation. there are good things in ourselves, as well. we just get so toxified by a