timothy worked as a photographer and artist. may they rest in peace and may their memories be a blessing. ♪ as coronavirus cases surge the president claims he is fine with masks and said his administration has done everything right in the pandemic and the virus will just disappear. what world is he living in. and officials pleaing with young adults to avoid bars. i will speak to a 30-year-old that got the virus after going to a bar and was hospitalized for a week. and the president calls black lives matter a symbol of hate and tonight the white house defending the comments. good evening. out front tonight 127,970 americans are dead from coronavirus.

president trump today said the virus will just "disappear." 22 states have paused or rolled back plans to reopen because of a surge in spread. tonight the president is trying to save face. now insisting he is behind masks 100%. >> i am all for masks. i think masks are good. if i were in a group of people and i were close. >> you would wear one? >> i have. people have seen me wearing one. >> what people? certainly not the american people. he has gone out of his way to make sure the american people never see him in a mask. >> i don't see it for myself. >> i don't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it. >> now he says he is fine with masks. he said that and still didn't wear one. not leading on this.

why is he not changing his verbal tune. 2/3 of americans believe he should wear a mask. and then there is this, his closest allies have desserted him. >> i think this is the right thing to do. >> we must have no stigma. none about wearing masks. >> my home state, i do believe in wearing masks. >> i think if the president wore one it would set a good example and he would be a good role model. >> okay. stating the obvious. that is the reality. the president has been on the wrong side of this, and it is a fact. he is trying to get away saying he is fine with masks finally without wearing one. he is hoping that history would forget how he handled the issue and he is hoping people will also take this at face value. >> i think we did a great job. we are credited with doing a great job.

>> first of all, they did not do it all right. start with the fact that the tests did not work the the beginning. i will give you this. the united states has 4% of the world's population and 1/3 of the world's known coronavirus deaths. an average of 1,333 people in the country dying every day of the virus since the first of february. that is not saying it is a great job. trump is a great salesman. this story is not rooted in reality. >> i think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. i think some point that is going to just sort of disappear, i hope. >> okay. just disappear. he is still saying he just hopes it will disappear. we have heard that before from him. >> looks like by april in theory when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away.

>> this is going to go away. >> eventually it will be gone. >> it is going away. 15 to 0 cases. this is months ago. we know it is not going away. nor are the growing calls for the president to wear a mask. that is why the president is trying to save face. >> i had a mask on. i thought it was okay. it was a dark, black mask and it looked like the lone ranger. i have no problem with that. >> it is so bizarre to be talking like that. you have new reporting on the president's response here. what have you learned? >> we are picking up on the split in the white house over how to approach what is happening right now. it is july.

this is not what the white house expected with the record number of cases every day. so basically the divide looks like should they approach it like the last time where you saw all of this dramatic national emergency stuff and press conference approach or should they keep it as the president wanted to and some of his economic advisors wanted him to. reopening and how to best do that and move forward with that. something throwing a kink in the plans is that you are seeing several states halt reopenings or scale them back because you heard people like the texas governor today talking about making moves too quickly. that is something facing the white house now. now the big concern not only the white house approach and what it will be but the president himself. vice president mike pence goes to arizona and the places where the cases are surging. the president has remained disengaged on this. i think he had one tweet

yesterday. he hasn't been talking about it this morning. focusing on stoking the cultural battles. he was asked about it as he did the interviews and he is saying stuff like coronavirus will disappear. something he echoed at the end of february. that approach and wishful thinking hasn't worked like his health experts said that it would. does he get concerned enough about his re-election chances like his advisors are, then he starts to course correct. >> thank you. now i want to go to sanjay gu a gupta. sanjay, the president says today that i think we did it all right. we did a great job. i guess we can start with the very basic use of the past tense. something that is still raging. we now are having more cases than we ever had before. we had 4% of the world's cases.

1/3 of the world's death. today he said he hopes it will just disappear. in quotes. does that leave your jaw on the floor at this point? >> no doubt. you know, somebody asked me the other day what have we gotten right here. i had to scratch my head and figure it out. i think the unifying problem is that it is minimized. we didn't get testing right. we are not in a position to even trace right. the gating criteria by which states should open and was released by the white house task force were not followed in any state. there was no follow through on that and then obviously the issue of masks. the one bright spot is that there is a lot of progress with regard to a potential vaccine and therapeutics. we are still waiting on some of

that. it is hard. you can't just say we got it all right by no means. >> at this point that is blatantly clear. it is go to spread around the world. if you look at the other countries, all of the curves go up and down. our goes up and surges up again. his press secretary today described what we are seeing. >> 600 to 800 americans per day are dying because of the embers. let me ask you this. if 600 to 800 american soldiers were killed every day on the t

batt battlefield say one day this will just end and go away by itself, i hope. no. we would put that down. we would go on the offensive. we have the ability to do that. now we need to get every american to wear a mask and to social distance and to cancel all outdoor mass gatherings and to ramp up the testing like crazy. in places where the embers are burning brightly we need to shut down. that is what we can do. let's go on the offense. 600 to 800 americans are dying every day because of this supine activity and leadership by the president of the united states. >> embers, it is an offensive word to use and not -- offensive and inaccurate. the president today, and i played part of it. he repeated his claim that the

virus is going to disappear and i want to play more of that. >> i think that at some point that is go to just sort of disappear, i hope. >> you still believe so? >> i do. i do. yeah. sure. >> sometimes it is a basic question. you still believe so. disappear. and just the i do. i do. yeah. sure. the blatant confidence. no hesitance. >> the reality is that i am doing an interview february 13th with the director of the cdc. he said it is not go to wither away. tell likely be here into the foreseeable future. this is the task force and the

people that are telling the president this. even if you say there is a lot we didn't know about this. he was being told by the coronavirus task force what the coronavirus is showing. >> the president wasn't honest about whether or not he wore a mask publicly. publicly he did not wear the mask. behind closed-doors he did briefly. so, now he is saying he is all for masks. like it does not matter he is not wearing one and repeatedly said that it is not for him. >> i think republican leadership around the country is getting into his ear. this is what the american public needs to hear from the president of the united states. he needs to come before the

public and say this. my fellow americans, everyone in the country above the age of 2 that goes out in public must wear a mask. the first lady and i will model that behavior. everyone will wear a mask. period. >> he needs to do it which is incredibly difficult for him. thank you both very much. next, california taking drastic measures as they are getting hit with a new wave of cases. new york city putting reopening plans on hold. the former cdc director is my guest. i will speak to a 30-year-old that got coronavirus in a crowded bar and then spent a week in the hospital and has a message to the millions of young adults that are going to bars now. he is getting death threats for mandating masks in his city.

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breaking tonight, record numbers of new coronavirus states reported in california, florida, arizona, texas.

>> reporter: bottom line is the spread of the virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning. >> california's governor, gavin newsom, announcing new restrictions this afternoon halting all indoor activities and businesses including restaurants, museums, zoos and movie theaters in 19 counties representing 72% of the state's population. >> we are now requiring that they close their indoor operations due to the spread of the virus. >> 37 states seeing a surge over the past week and now results of a new study say the actual u.s. death count could be higher than the officials numbers show. the number of excess u.s. deaths from march to may was 28% higher than what was attributed to covid-19. >> there were storm clouds on the horizon. >> the alarming rise in cases

nationwide prompting new york governor andrew cuomo to stop restaurants in new york city from opening indoor dining next week warning if the people do not comply the state which has seen the numbers moving in the right direction could end up back where they were two months ago. >> we are back to the mountain. >> troubling numbers from texas, arizona, florida where the state's department of health report reported more than 6,500 covid cases today. the governor pushes back on critics saying he reopened too soon and should have had a state mandate to wear a mask. in texas 8,076 new cases reported topping yesterday's total by more than 1,000 cases. the state's lieutenant governor said that he will stop listening to recommendations from the nation's top infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci who

cautioned states against skipping over cdc guidelines when reopening. >> he doesn't know what he is talking about. the only thing i am skipping over is listening to him. >> late today arizona's governor reached out saying he will need 500 additional medical personnel to deal with the spread there and hospital beds in the state of arizona at 85% capacity, icu beds 88% capacity. >> all right. thank you very much jason. i want to go now to the former cdc director. the cdc director under president obama. doctor, you heard the lieutenant governor of texas, a state where there is a major surge in cases, hospitals, you know, reaching capacity. he said he is not listen to dr. fauci anymore. what is your reaction to that? >> erin, we work in my organization with governments and communities around the world and around the u.s. what we

find is that places that are guided by public health and fully support public health do better. fewer cases, deaths and less economic devastation. we don't have an enemy among people. we have an enemy that is a virus. if we do things like opening up bars we are opening the door to the virus. if we work together we can control it. working together. having discipline. recognizing that we are all in it together if all of us wear masks we are all safer. >> how dangerous are comments like that from a public official? >> we have to look at what people do. the fact is that most americans understand that this is a serious pandemic and they want to protect themselves, loved ones and their communities and when you ask most people are wearing a mask but we need more

consistent messaging and need to ramp up the services that others do to quickly pinpoint when cases arise and stop them from exploding. large crowds indoors is something that is driving this in many places. >> in california and if it were a country it would be the fifth to seventh largest depending how you look at it announcing drastic measures. shutting down indoor businesses. will that do it and how long would they need to do it for to even know? >> unfortunately is a tough answer. if you look at new york city when it got out of hand it took a couple of months again to get to the level where we are now.

if you go too quickly you will have to go backwards. it is important that we follow the science and protect each other and move forward carefully. >> i want to play something. >> testing is critical but we can't test our way out of the outbreak. especially around the july fourth holiday and especially among the young adults. >> what more does this administration need to do right now? what needs to be done specifically? >> all of us need to be able to see what is going on with covid and covid control measures in

the community and we can be on the same page trying to make progress against the virus. one thing that was correct in what the doctor said is that it is not just about testing. it is important to test strategically and do the right things with the results. look at the increase in the united states. it is going to continue to get worse. we need to test strategically. people with symptoms contacts of patients. if we test, follow up, we can control the virus instead of the virus forcing us indoors. >> the president said that he hopes the virus will just disappear. when you hear that, what do you think? >> hope is not a plan. we need a plan to move forward

together as a country and that means looking at the most important thing about where the virus is spreading and learning how to keep it at bay where we recover our economy. and maybe above everything, doing a much better job protecting our health care workers. the fact that more than 400 doctors and nurses were killed by covid-19 is an outrage. nursing homes and people with underlying health conditions. >> thank you very much doctor, i appreciate your time. next i will speak to a young man that didn't think he could get coronavirus and all of that changed last month as he was hospitalized for a week. many in the country want to hear what he has to say and the mayor of kansas city the target of death threats and racist messages because he mandated masks. wayfair has way more ways to renovate your home, from inspiration to installation.

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for kids at home- all on xfinity x1. we're committed to helping all families stay connected. learn more at xfinity.com/education. >> tonight, please, please, please. those are the words from a top federal official to young

americans that have not been taking the virus seriously. >> we must discipline about our own personal behavior, especially around the july fourth holiday and especially among the young adults. i mean those 35 and under that are driving the current outbreaks in many states. please, please, please. avoid mass gatherings. wear face coverings. use hygiene. >> states around the country make up at least half of the cases and the fear that once it starts to spread like wildfire there it will spread to older people and the vulnerable. jimmy flores contracted coronavirus after going to a bar last month. i want to give you credit to coming on. you have important things to tell people. i wanted to start out when you went to the bar. did it occur to you that it shouldn't go when there was a

risk of going to the bar with your friends? >> i did not concern myself with my own health. covid was foreign. our mistake was a lack of knowledge. we were on the verge of reopening. we didn't really care about covid to be honest with you. explain what it was like. two days later you got sick. tell me about the night. >> the night was pretty busy. we were drinking. we went out to the north scottsdale bar and went ahead and we had a good time. 300 to 500 people. we had a table. you know we were enjoying our life during that time.

one of the things that was an issue with the first place was the lack of cups. we were impatient. we wanted to drink. we shared drinks there because we wanted to drink and to have a good time. two days later you get sick. what happened? when did you realize that something was wrong? >> i woke up that monday morning at 2:00 a.m. with 103 fever, body chills and sores. it was pretty bad. i knew that something was wrong. i went to schedule a test for covid on that tuesday and got my results thursday with a positive result. >> i know the big picture here is exactly what you said, the last thing on your list. you didn't think it was a problem for you. that is a belief, jimmy, a lot

of young people in the country share. they think if they get coronavirus it will be a mild case. you are 30 and young. you ended up in the hospital for a week. tell me about that. that is scary and serious. you are 30 years old. >> i am an active person. i go to the jim. i am not a big smoker really at all. i drink but i drink socially and i don't have preexisting conditions. i am like i am not around my family and around older people that can get this thing. everyone around me is enjoying their lives. i never would have imagined that i would have gotten the virus the way that i did. on the sixth or the seventh day i started to get a cough issue that was very light where if i took a deep breath i would have a cough. within 24 hours it turned into a cough attack where i couldn't

take a small breath without fearing for my life. on that monday i decided to go to the hospital i was literally laying on my bed in a position to just breathe like a person that smoked for years. i decided to make the message public because i knew i made a mistake and i wanted other people to experience my experience. >> there are a lot more people saying wait a minute. that was me. that is me. what do you say to the younger people saying i am going to just go to a bar. who cares. what do you say to them?

>> i can't say much because i was that person. why rush yourself into a hospital or why rush yourself to get sick. i would have gotten sick two and a half weeks prior to this time i would not have gotten the treatment that i got. if we wear a mask and the mask is just to protect your own health. if you can wear a mask you can delay the sickness. i think you are going to get it. you won't say if it is in a hospital or go to a hospital. you are go to get way better treatment and you will be in a better position to handle the terrible virus. i went to the hospital. i did my thing over there. i was on a breathing tube. it is probably not going to be

you. however, why take your chances. >> breathing tube. in the hospital. you were there for a week. look. i hope that people heed what you have to say jimmy. we are glad you are better. i hope people are going to listen to you. >> thanks for the opportunity. >> all right. next the mayor of kansas city received death threats after mandating masks. president trump calling black lives matter a symbol of hate and the white house tonight defending the comments. 1 in 2 kids is underhydrated. wabba wabba!

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>> mayor of kansas city, mayor lucas, i appreciate your time. you announced your order mandating masks on friday and received texts from a person calling you the n-word saying you should "swing from a tree." and you are choose to share them. what was your reaction when you saw the messages? >> you know, as a mayor i get a

lot of negative messages. that is part of the job, particularly during the covid era. i have to admit i was taken aback. you don't see racial slurs all the time. but the swing from a tree line was something that really just shocked me. it was a local member, not just a troll or a bot from russia. it was somebody that lives in the area that felt the need i think to escalate it in the craziest way possible. and on something like a mask requirement it seemed absolutely ridiculous. >> i mean, yes. unfortunately masks have become political which is just a tragedy. how many -- how often are you getting negative comments like this about your mask order and how much comes from this false concept that masks are linked to liberty? >> you know, i think that it has unfortunately a negative message

that increased pretty tremendously as we have gone through the covid crisis. stay at home orders are one thing. i think probably because the president initially supported them to some extent we didn't hear that much. as the months have gone on now each month that we do relates to a violation of the people's liberties. with the latest mask order i had a decent number of people that have sent me messages about how flawed our medical advice is and how we are basically disstatort the truth and killing the economy. a lot of people tried to turn this into a true culture war. there is vitriol from washington that is really unnecessary. >> what do you say to the people that have an emotional reaction

about this is ai this? with others that are angry and you are trying to reason with them and get them to do the right thing to save lives. >> you know, i think it is the same thing we try to say on seatbelts, motorcycle helmets. this is really just a thing meant to make you healthy. i have no interest in restricting anyone's freedom or telling them what they can and cannot do. we do have an interest in saving lives. the important thing this is not just a choice about you as an individual. that is the tough part. it is about everybody around you, friends, family, anyone that you bump into and keeping all of them safe and that is the area where i have the greatest concern because, you know, as we all know wearing a mask is not about you staying healthy but it is about everyone else. i think that is being missed right now in the discussion of all of these deeper political issues that don't have to be the

case. one thing i try to tell people is that i don't like wearing masks but i can do it to make others healthier. none of us are used to wearing masks every day. >> right. right. it is not comfortable. we all get it. you do it because it is the right thing. mayor lucas, i appreciate your time. i thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. next the white house tries to explain why the president hasn't denounced a video he retweeted showing a supporter chanting white power. >> down that video? . >> trump calls reports of russia offering bounties to kill u.s. troops a hoax despite the national security council getting briefed. d usaa insurance payments over the next twelve months so they can keep more cash in your pockets for when it matters most find out more at usaa.com

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breaking news, the white house defending president trump calling black lives matter a symbol of hate. >> all black lives do matter.

he agrees with that sentiment but he doesn't agree with an organization chanting pigs in a blanket frying like bacon talking about our police officers. he is talking about the organization. >> that is not what the president said in his tweet. he said nyc is cutting police dollars by $1 billion but the new york mayor will paint a big expensive black lives matter denigrating the avenue. won't let this symbol of hate be affixed to new york's greatest street. ben, what is your reaction? the president calls black lives matter the organization a symbol of hate and says it would denigrate the luxury avenue on new york's greatest street. the white house defended it.

>> this president is increasingly desperate and is doubling down on his base. you would expect a president to unite the country together and heal old wounds but this country is doing the opposite. it seems to make him think it might make him win and it seems to make people that voted for him four years ago think about voting for somebody else this time. >> why has the president failed to specifically denounce the video. he retweeted and it stayed up for hours and he finally deleted it. he said he watched the video but didn't hear it. here is part of the exchange. >> the president took down the video. the deletion speaks strongly. the president has repeatedly condemned hate.

>> he deleted it. his repeated condemnations of hate speak for itself. >> deleting the video speaks for itself >> so does tweeting, you know, this president has been coy with white supremacist again and again. he did it around the ku klux klan early on. he did it with charlottesville. there is good people on both sides and now you see him do it here. again, it's part of his attempt to dog whistle, to play to his base. he's running like george wallace. he's running like lester maddox. you know, he has the rnc scheduled to speak on ax handle saturday. it's a mess. and that just -- these are his instincts. this is a guy. the central park five the world has known they are innocent. he insists they are guilty. when it comes to race, he has a

real problem. >> yeah. i mean, as i said, they said he watched that video. if you which what the video, you heard white power. you heard it repeatedly. >> yeah. >> i don't know, you know, for me somehow that was an incredibly shocking moment. you have an op ed out today urging cities with the largest african american cities to go with police reform. the president a tweet referenced the nypd budget being cut by a billion dollars. a lot of that was slight of hand. they took money and put it on the department of education budget and said they will cut some training classes, some new hires. when you look at that, is that reform? >> you know, five years ago in new york, no, excuse me, seven years ago in new york we passed something called the community safety act. part of what it did is it shifted money from nypd to fund violence.

violence it interrupt tors, sorry i'm stuttering a bit tonight. these are guys who are formally gang affiliated who have proven themselves to be superfecti tefe stopping homicides. and his bashing and the reality is seven years later shifting resources from the cops frankly in this case to former gang members actually has worked better to drive down homicides in the city and so yes, this is a time to think deeply, to acre with courage but here is the main point. we can't wait on the federal government to do it. we got to start at the city level. we have to start at the county level. if we're smart, we can cover half the black folks in the country just with passing laws in 20 metro areas. if we get to 100 metro areas, that's 75% of the black folks in the country and helps millions and millions and millions of folks of all kcolors who are

concerned about what is happening in their community can the need to transform public safety now. >> that's interesting. gives people the fact this can be done without the federal government. thank you so much, ben. good to see you. >> thank you. good to see you. next, the potential russian plot to pay taliban militants to kill u.s. troops. the trump explain nation not adding up. (record scratching) ( ♪ )

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new tonight president trump calling reports on intelligence russia was offering bounty payments to kill u.s. troops quote a hoax while his hand picked national security advisor admits response plans were being prepared. >> i think it's a hoax. i think it's a hoax but the newspapers and the democrats. >> if it turned out to be true, we had options ready to go and the president was ready to take strong action. >> alex marquardt is "outfront". >> reporter: the trump administration today scrambling to answer why the white house had the intelligence as far back as early last year that russia was offering bounties to the taliban to kill american forces

but the president they claim wasn't told about it. that decision was made by the president's intelligence briefer according to the official in charge of making sure that the president hears what he needs to. the national security advisor robert o'bryan. >> she made that decision because she didn't have confidence in the intelligence that came up knowing the facts i know knonow, i stand behind the call. >> reporter: the intelligence was serious enough it was briefed to top officials including former national security advisor john bolton and early this year, according to a u.s. official, as new intelligence surfaced, it was in the written version of the presidents' daily brief. which officials have told cnn the president is not known to fully or regularly read. the white house insisting, though, that the president does read his intelligence reports. >> the president does read and he also consumes intelligence verbal verbally. this president is the most

informed person on planet earth with the threats reface. >> reporter: it goes to top cabinet officials like robert o'bryan and others meaning they didn't bring up the russian plot with the president, either. something that president barack obama's former intelligence briefer robert called i incomprehensible. >> it was too important to not give the president a heads up. >> reporter: mike pompeo. >> when the threat is sufficiently serious, the scale of the threat is of such importance there is an action that i think the president needs to be aware of and the information that i seen is sufficiently credible then we make sure that the president is aware of that. >> reporter: the president himself dismissed the stunning revelations on twitter as just another hoax. a u.s. official however told cnn that the intelligence assessment was based on several pieces of information, that information

from eves drase dropping and fil from russia to the taliban pointed to russian intelligence, wanting to see americans killed by the taliban. >> just the substance of it exceeds the threshold of what we call duty to warn meaning lives are at risk. >> reporter: alex marquardtmarq cnn. >> anderson starts now. a very good evening to you. four months into a pandemic that is now taken nearly 128,000 american lives and no small part because the president of the united states decided to occupy a persistent state of denial. that same president today remarkably declared victory and said once again, the virus will simply go away. >> i think we did it all right. we did a