doctors would not argue, the two countries that politicized the pandemic more than any other, u.s. and brazil, number one and two in infections. >> thank you for being there. we will have much on bill's reporting throughout the day but thank you all so much for joining us today. our coverage continues right now with brianna keilar. hi there. i'm brianna keilar and welcome viewers here in the united states and around the world. 112 days since the white house issued guidance on social distancing. america is far from recovering from coronavirus. instead it is relapsing in many areas. cases skyrocket and in the three most populous, florida, texas and california. overall see all of that orange and red? 32 states with more cases in the last week than the week before.

nearly half the nation rolled back reopening plans going back ward. and now health officials in municipalities bracing for the numbers to rise after many people skipped the masks and social distancing to celebrate the fourth of july and the president is feeding their public defiance by lying over the weekend saying that 99% of cases are quote totally harmless. new york's governor said by denying the facts the president is enabling the virus. >> he won't wear a mask. because he doesn't want to admit that there is a covid virus. why? i have no idea. but his denial of the problem and his making statements like that, 99.9% don't have to worry about it, okay, then there's no issue. saying to the american people there's no problem and they

don't wear a mask or take any precautionary behavior and the virus goes like this. he is, he is facilitating the virus. >> cnn's tom foreman taking an in-depth look at where the states are surging with texas where the beaches on south padre island packed this weekend. let's start with the big picture nationally. >> reporter: the big picture nationally is terrible. the united states is falling behind virtually every other nation in the world handling this virus. the only states that are in green and not the dark green that means really moving ahead but a little bitter are kentucky and a cluster in new england. everything else is at best holding its own and by and large falling further down the hole indicating the problem is worse and not better.

texas hospitalizations in texas if you look at them is a ramp right up to the top of the roller coast i there and moving so faths that in places like san antonio and houston and in austin and other places texas officials are saying, look, we are somewhere between 10 and 14 days away from an absolute crisis in the hospitals where we won't have enough room. much like what you saw there in new york early on when this started and of course the big states leading it all, look at the trend line here. florida, texas, california. the most populous states in this country have the biggest number of cases, the biggest states. forget about the absolute number. look at the trend lines. going up, going up, going up. that is the problem. arizona with a smaller population going up, too. the numbers simply are terrible and here we are at the halfway point in the year when many people, absolutely, just think back a couple months ago and how

many people would have said by fourth of july certainly it will be under control. all of the graphics, all of these numbers tell us we're not everyone close to having this under control. brianna? >> it is very much out of control looking at the pitch on the graphs. thank you very much. breaking news out of florida with now more than 200,000 ennexts there. this is in line with california's total case count. go to cnn's rosa flores in miami. this explosion of cases forcing local officials to change strategy. tell us how they're doing that. >> reporter: miami-dade today announcing they're rolling back reopening plan. they will shut down restaurants for dine-in starting on wednesday and shut down fitness centers and also short term rentals. the problem is they were large parties, large gatherings at

these private homes and that is how this virus spread so it created a huge concern. governor ron desantis is hosting a press conference right now and given the fact that miami-dade county which is the epicenter of the crisis in the state of florida is rolling back the reopening plan because of the increase in cases now hear how he described what is going on in his state. take a listen. >> some of these things we have seen over the last eight days, the media say record case, basically been the same. when we do 85,000 tests we will have more. doing 40,000 tests, we will have less positives but the percentage is consistent. now this is -- we want to get back down in the 3%, 4% of may and early june. psalm time the 15%, that's a far cry from what you were seeing in places like the northeast where

they were 30%, 40%, 50%. >> reporter: governor desantis there said that basically it's the same. if you look at the numbers, just look at the positivity rate in the state of florida, a month ago that was under 5%. right now you look at those numbers of positivity rate of 15% and 20%. here in miami-dade county the epicenter of this crisis, yesterday the county released the positivity rate 26% for the day. for past 14 days, exceeded the 10% limit. to say that everything is basically the same here in the state of florida is just not true. >> no. it is the equivalent of nothing to see here. thank you so much for the report from miami. once the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, new york has managed to flatten the curve but pictures on social media of beach parties on fire island

have many worried that work may be for nothing. the crowds so social distancing. it even gained the attention of new york's governor. >> you look at the festivities over july fourth, you see gatherings that are not socially distanced, not wearing masks. you see it in manhattan. you see it on fire island. there are reports upstate of gatherings where people aren't socially distanced and not wears masks. i don't know how else to say it. actions have consequences. >> suffolk county executive is joining me now to talk about this. tell us your view of what we are seeing here and the kind of consequences that could come about because of these gatherings. >> the images that we saw this weekend over at fire island are disturbing and they're

unacceptable. we have come so far here on long island. we have lost thousands of people and that's the thing for us here. we have experienced this. we know what this is like and that's why what we saw on fire island this past weekend was so upsetting because of what has been sacrificed to flatten the curve here and get us into a position where we're reopening our economy and this past week haven't able to have more days for the first time in months where we have had no deaths from covid-19. that we have been able to report. so what happened there is unacceptable. we are enhancing patrols, stepping up enforcement. working with the local stakeholders in the community, particularly the homeowners association to prevent something like that from happening again. >> police were called here and no one received a citation. can you shed light on why that was the case? >> police were called.

the suffolk county police department, the marine bureau did come to the scene and there was compliance when they did arrive. crowds dispersed. it looked like honestly in some of those images that there were crowds that were intentionally going out of their way not to be in compliance with social distancing, gathered very tightly together but there was compliance. they did disperse. but there were later reports that when the patrols left they came back and again were flouting the orders. we are making this very clear. that that is unacceptable. and that we will make sure that the executive order here and the compliance with social distancing and wearing of face covering is -- that we do receive that because we cannot go back to where we were and backtrack because we literally have been through hell here on long island.

it's scenes like this where people are not using common sense to get us back to the very bad place. >> so i mean, looking at the pictures that we are seeing, right, someone in common that a lot of the folks, almost all of them if not all of them are young people. right? so these appear to be people who are in their maybe 20s. certainly no more than their 30s in the pictures we have seen. why do you think they are doing this? how does the change start? because obviously it's not just going to work with the marine unit pulling up and get six feet away, whatnot. why are they doing this and how can you combat that? >> to a large extent you really do need people to comply. you need the community to be involved. and that's why we are working with the homeowners association. most of the people on fire island who own homes want to be safe and be able to enjoy the

summer even in the midst of this global pandemic and there are certain bad apples who we are going to make clear that that kind of behavior is unacceptable and will be enforced, coordinating with local law enforcement as well and putting in place progressive enforcement. there will be summons and if there are continued violations we'll take it further than that. >> so what would it look like working with the homeowners' association and people out there on the beach? are there fines? how are people identified? what would that be? >> we are going to have enhanced patrols out on the beaches moving forward over at fire island now so that they're not responding to a call and then leaving again. we are going to have people who are there to make sure that there is compliance and working with the homeowners association where there are instances, where there are house parties not in compliance we will work to root

out those bad apples because we do not want to go back to -- >> do you need to shut the beach? >> we are not at that point that we would make that decision. i think that what we need is people to use common sense and that's what we are talking about here. keep a distance, wear a face covering if you can. that's how we'll stay in a good place which is where we are today. >> all right. steve, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. we have some new information on how the virus is transmitted. why many scientists are warning that this can float in air droplets further than maybe initially you thought. a treatment hits a critical stage in trial. the baseball player scolds americans for not following guidelines saying the country doesn't deserve that kind of a reward right now. this is cnn special live coverage. ♪

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it is not a secret among scientists and us regular folk, right, that coronavirus floats in air droplets and if you inhale it you can get sick. but one group of international scientists say it is message about airborne transmission is not delivered to the public and pushing the world health organization and other agencies to talk more about this. senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is here. tell us about this because, you know, i think people understand that this is airborne. right? this is why there's social distancing. perhaps it is a matter of how airborne it is and just getting the clear guidance on this. why is the w.h.o. reluctant to talk about this, elizabeth?

>> you know, brianna, airborne is a very loaded word. public health people get very nervous about this word because it sounds -- they're afraid it sounds hysterical. if you look at the w.h.o. or the cdc website they really emphasize that droplets that you can see, if you sneeze or cough or sometimes when you talk you can see the droplets and they emphasize that so you need to be relatively near someone to get hit by a droplet and those droplets are heavy and fall and don't talk about little droplet that is float along in the air to get there just by breathing so not the big, wet droplet that is fall but little ones that stay in the air and someone can leave a space and then you can walk into it a while later and you can run into those little tiny pieces. so that is what the concern is about. it is not a secret that this virus can spread that way, the

national academy of sciences told the white house more than three months ago, they wrote the white house a letter saying this can happen and spread this disease just by breathing. you don't need the big heavy coughs or sneezes but that has not really been emphasized. this whole airborne thing is de-emphasized and the scientists say be honest about this. let's just call it what it is and be honest that this is a way it can spread. >> can we talk more about masks? i was off this past week and i wanted to pick up something at a food establishment and i also went to a state park and both the person who would have been serving at the counter at the food establishment and the person taking cash to give tickets to go into the park has the mask only over their mouth and not over their nose. >> ugh. that's ridiculous.

why would you do that? what is the point of doing that? you're breathing through both your mouth and your nose. it needs to cover both. this is super basic. i have seen this, as well and masks around your chin and looks like a mask beard. what is the point of that? a mask to be worn over the nose and over the mouth in order to work properly. over the mouth, what is the point? wear it over both. do the right thing. these people coming in contact with the public. they were serving them food, taking money from them. this is so important. if we want to get this outbreak under control we need to wear masks and wear them properly. >> thank you, elizabeth. really appreciate the explainer. weird that we need one still but it is certainly helpful. thank you. nick cordero losing his life to coronavirus after being in the hospital for months. what his wife says about his final moments. a 37-year-old battling

coronavirus symptoms for months. hear what she's been going through.

i know so many americans are suffering, suffering the loss of a loved one, suffering economic hardship. the country is crying out for leadership, leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together. that's what the presidency is - the duty to care, to care for all of us, not just those who vote for us, but all of us. i promise you this: i won't traffic in fear and division. i won't fan the flames of hate. i'll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain. i'll do my job and i will take responsibility, i won't blame others. you know, i've said from the outset of this election, that we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. what we believe and maybe most importantly, who we want to be, it's all at stake. when we stand together, finally as one america, we'll rise stronger than we were before.

i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

the washington nationals and the houston astros are canceling workouts today. both teams waiting for coronavirus testing results that they took on friday. nationals general manager rizzo says the lag could put players, coaches and staff in danger and urging major league baseball to fix the problem or risk losing the season and doolittle says he is planning on playing this season but his wife is high risk with a chronic lung condition and he says he may opt out if he doesn't feel comfortable. doolittle says the country has not done what it needed to do to stem this virus. >> we are trying to bring baseball back in a -- during a pandemic that's killed 130,000 people. we're way worse off as a country than where we were in march when we shut this thing down and like look at where other developed countries are in their response

to this. we vice president done the things that other countries have done to bring sports back. sports are like the reward of a functional society and we are just like trying to just bring it back even though we have taken none of the steps to have it -- to flatten the curve, whatever you want to say, to like, we did flatten the curve for a little bit and didn't take the time to do anything productive and opened up for memorial day. we have decided we are done with it. like if there aren't sports it's going to be because people are not wearing masks, because the response is so politicized. we need help from the general public. if they want to watch baseball, please wear a mask. social distance. keep washing your hands. like we can't just have fatigue and it's been four months and we

are over it. we have waited long enough. shouldn't sports come back now? no. there are things to do to bring the stuff back so like you want to bring fans back? i mean, i don't know. is that safe? i'm not a public health expert and should probably defer to them on these issues. i don't know if it's safe or not. i really don't know. >> and meantime people inside of the president's inner circle testing positive. why the president is playing with fire. plus president trump enflaming racial tensions again demanding a black nascar star apologize and the president appearing to support the confederate flag.

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with the denial of the promise of this nation, made to so many. ♪ because if it weren't clear before, it's clear now. this country wasn't built by wall street bankers and ceos, it was built by the great american middle class, health care workers, docs, nurses, delivery truck drivers, grocery store workers. you know we've come up with a new phrase for them: essential workers. we need to do more than praise them, we need to pay them. as president, it's my commitment to all of you, to lead on these issues and to listen. for that's what the presidency is - the duty to care, to care for all of us, not just those who vote for us, but all of us. this job is not about me. it's about you. it's about us. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

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at bayer, everything we do, from advances in health to innovations in agriculture, is to help every life we touch. at bayer, this is why we science. sad news on another life lost to the coronavirus. tony nominated broadway star nick cordero died after battling the virus for three very difficult months. his wife chronicled the experience on social media. amanda says her husband battled for 95 days facing a series of complications including a leg

amputation. chloe described him as a bright light and everyone's friend. he was 41 years old. i'll be speaking with a 37-year-old who's been battling coronavirus symptoms for months. hear what she is going through. d place that you laughed about well the names have all changed since you hung around but those dreams have remained and they've turned around who'd have thought they'd lead ya back here where we need ya welcome back, america. it sure is good to see you.

the resurgence of coronavirus cases is pausing reopening plans for many states delaying an already shaky economic recovery for the country. now banking giant goldman sachs is slashing its third quarter forecast and warning consumer spending will likely stall in july and august. john last is president of the

sports and leisure research group joining me now and, john, you are doing a really interesting study as you kind of trying to gauge where americans are as they're looking at reopening and trying to get back to normal. we have seen this bubble of optimism appearing to have burst coming to a quick rebound in the u.s. economy. tell us about what you've found. >> yeah. exactly. we begun tracking this in partnership with rock solutions back in march and we saw a very steady increase in people ready to reengage in leisure activities and that has really eroded over the last two waves. we do this every other week and seen people's overall consumer confidence dip back to where we were at the end of march. >> what type of lee chsure activities are we talking about? restaurants, gyms, movies? >> we really cover a very wide array. we do everything from travel sectors, air, hotels, casinos,

we have looked at live sporting events with regularity, restaurants and even looking so far as people's willingness to go back to the dentist or doctors' offices and captured a lot of activities and tracked that on an ongoing basis since initiating the study. >> what are people telling you about the concerns coming to reengaging in the activities? >> it is interesting. we have really found a kind of die cot mist response. there's people just ready to go without any further assurances and almost equal to that the percentage of folks a third who will not get back to these normal activities absent a vaccine or proven medical protocol and then a smaller group looking for perhaps more localized assurances and interesting and consistent throughout the consumer pulsing of the three very consistent sentiments and the composition of those has seen shifting.

>> of course, you are doing this, you have i know a lot of sort of trade organizations who are subscribing to this. they, of course, want the know where peoples' heads are as you do this every two weeks. right now i think there are a lot of companys that are thinking, okay, if we bring people back, certainly they want to bring people back to work and get things reopened, they need the money to survive and some people who of course want to get back to work but as you mentioned not all of them but as you have companies worried about what does it mean to tell the employees to come back to work, what are you finding among workers? >> it is an interesting set of responses from workers. there's a real division in people's perspectives and driven a lot by age and as one might surmise the older workers are more hesitant and finding that workers stay, for example, if we go back to the office and still have meetings on zoom or skype why go back to the office in the

first place? amongst those gung ho and ready to go back to the office they're recognizing that there is a very reasonable and large group of people not comfortable and we have seen throughout this study that there is a real strong support for continued work from home where that can be possible. it is going to be very interesting to see how companies ultimately deal with that and then the liability issues that have also kind of reared their heads within this. >> the liability issue. what your numbers seem to be showing is reason for companies to be concerned about this. >> absolutely. obviously the possibility of pursuing legal action is a lot easier said than done and tracking sentiment to actually pursue legal action, whether it's against employers or other businesses and we're hearing a real concern. about a third of folks to consider it going back and then somebody else diagnosed with covid-19 and they caught it. we find that in those circumstances where people say

they would be signing a liability release wavers they might pursue legal action and caused a lot of reasonable concern in the business community and even for people like myself in running a small business. >> jon, thank you so much for walking us through this. it is just so important to see where everyone's heads are on this and we thank you for sharing it with us. >> thank you. just in, the publishing date for mary trump's date moved earlier due to extremely high demand. president trump's niece has written a tell-all book about the family. we have cnn chief media correspondent brian stelter with me to discuss this. >> it was coming out at the end of the month and now next tuesday, july 14th. of all trump tell-alls, you can see the subtitle about the world's most dangerous man saying the family created the

world's most dangerous man and describes the president as a damaged man with lethal flaws and says it goes back to the childhood and the relationship with his father fred and now this book will be available for sale in about a week. >> robert trump who's the president's brother led a legal effort to block the book and you spoke to mary trump's attorney on the show. >> that's really the backdrop of why it's rushed to bookstores because there has been a legal battle with the president's brother robert trying to stop it from being published. robert trump say that is mary is violating a confidentiality settlement that they reached about 20 years ago. mary disagrees and her attorney is challenging that in court but for the time being mary trump is subject to a temporary restraining order and cannot speak publicly for now. in the meantime though here's what her spokesman is saying, a brand new statement coming out from her spokesman saying this act by a sitting president to muzzle a private citizen is just

a latest in a series of disturbing behaviors that destabilize the fractured nation in the face of a global pandemic. one can only help but wonder what is donald trump so afraid of. that's a statement from the spokesman for the president's niece, a n extraordinary thing o say challenging the president very publicly and i think the preview of the book tour but like i said it is the president's brother robert who is officially challenging mary, it is not technically the president but both brothers do share the same attorney. >> interesting. all right. thank you from new york for us. a revolt at one university that is not requiring masks. i'm going to speak with a professor livid about this. plus, he is known as the grim reaper. a florida lawyer who walks people. well, not everyone appreciated the lecture this weekend.

president trump enflaming racial tensions this time demanding a black nascar star apologize as the president supports the confederate flag.

president trump is rebranding the republican party. the party of compassionate conservatives, and family values is really no more.

instead the president is blatantly selling racial divisions as a campaign strategy and embracing the confederate flag. this is what he said. has bubba wallace apologized to all those great nascar drivers and officials who came to his aid, stood by his side and were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out the whole thing was just another hoax? that and flag decision -- that means nascar's decision to pull down confederate flag imagery -- has caused lowest ratings ever. he is going after the only black driver in nascar. he didn't see the noose. but it was hanging in his garage stall in talladega. so, when something like that happens in the only stall for the black nascar driver, it's news. turns out it had been there for years. that's not an apology.

that a garage pull hanging in talladega, one of the premier events, hanging during a previous naasz car race earlier, and no one thought to say anything until a black driver was assigned to the stall. and reminder there was no other garage pull that looked like this one, not just talladega, all of nascar. so, this was purposely a noose. and folks saying bubba wallace wasn't the target, so there's no problem, are missing the point. they're arguing if the noose hangs in the garage, as long as black driver isn't around to be offended by it, it's okay. by that logic, someone could tell a racist joke, use the "n" word as long as there's not a black person around to offend. taltsz what they're arguing and share the wrong. and he's calling for bubba walles to apologize.

for what? he has nothing to apologize for. nascar, which traces its origins back to boot legers strapping up their cars to deliver moonshine, has banned the confederate flag. it's a moral decision and it makes business sense. they're following american's lead. this is what polls show americans want. and nascar, who's been declining for decades, have seen them spike incredibly since banning the flag. the president cannot say the same thing. senator lindsey graham pushed back against the president's inflammatory tweet. >> nascar made decision to ban the confederate flag inside the infield and at gnanascar arenas. they're trying to grow the sport. and i've lived in south carolina all my life, and if you're in business, the confederate flag

is not a good way to grow your business. the idea that bubba wallace, who is the only, i think, african-american driver, was upset by somebody finding a noose in the garage made perfect sense to me. so, what i would tell people from outside of south carolina that nascar is trying to grow the sport and one way you grow the sport is you take images that divide us aand ask that they not be brought into the venue. that makes sense to me. i don't think bubba wallace has anything to apologize for. i do say this about the drivers. even though it was a noose created to hold the door open, in the times in which we live, there's a lot of anxiety. so, what did you see? you saw the best in nascar. when there was a chance that it was a threat against bubba

wallace, they all rallied to bubba's side. so, i would be looking to celebrate that kind of attitude more than being worried about it being a hoax. >> so, as the president calls for an apology from wallace, let's talk to someone well overdue for an apology from president trump. he's a member of the exonerated five, once referred to as the central park five. he and four others were falsely accused of attacking a woman in central park. he spent nearly seven years in prison before the convictions were overturned and then, citizen, donald trump at the time, called for the death penalty in this case. that read, quote, bring back the death penalty, bring back the police. thank you so much for joining us. and as you see the president calling for an apology from

bubba wallace, i wonder what your reaction is? >> thank you for having me. you know, i am looking at this rhetoric and realizing that what we're seeing is someone saying the victim is to be blamed. and that's the worse thing in the world. you come in a sport, you're trying to do your begs. and you find this thing that ties everything back to a really, really dark place in society. and yet the people in that sport, the teammates, people around you rally in support of you saying this is wrong and i think that's the most important thing. for people stand up and use their privilege. someone used their privilege to help me in the past. and now we're seeing people use their positions to push privilege in the face of justice. and that's the part that's important. >> you heard senator lindsey graham making a rare, and it sounded pretty heartfelt,

certainly a long pushback against the president's racially-tinged tweet. and he was talking as a southerner about this, someone from south carolina. if other people in the republican party don't call the president out for this kind of statement, how do you think he'll be held accountable? >> you know, the part that's really troubling is who that statement is really speaking to. it's speaking to the people in the most sinister, darkest places of society, asking them to come out and cause mayhem on people trying to be together. trying to be a part of the kaleidoscope of the human family that we're seeing. we're seeing people stand up in support of us all. i know far too well because donald trump took out the full-page ad 31 years ago calling for the death of not only myself, but my brothers as well. we look at that and the fact that he did this terrible thing in the past, that he could have apologized for in the present, but still continues to stand on

the bricks that he is placing to rise up this ladder. it's a really, really sad thing. and i think more people should come out in support, regardless what party you're on of what's right, what's morally correct. saying this is wrong. we, the people, need better in america and we, the people, need change. >> can you speak a little bit to the -- you know, it seemed like the president and supporters of the president, when they found out that garage pull that was a noose had been in the garage stall for months, that somehow it wasn't targeted specifically for bubba wallace and so it seems like they're arguing but then it's okay. i mean, they're missing the point. if you can kind of speak to that idea they're creating that the noose is fine as long as it's

not purposely put in the garage stall of a black man? >> you know, the problem with the symbols being used is what they represent. and i think that's the part that's important that we all are seeing and understand. but they're trying to tell us no, it's not that. this is just how we pull the garages down. even if it was on all the nascar driver's doors, that would have been wrong. but the fact it was on bubba wallace's garage door, in particular, added more fuel to the fire, insult to injury, especially in the place we find ourselves in america. a place where people are talking about all these confederate monuments, states rights but failing to connect state's rights to what? to own slaves. and as we see all these policies come down, wanting to have more private prisons, we know prisons is slavery by another name. i was there. we look at the 13th amendment.

it is clear as to what's going on in america. we need change. and right now we're on the brink of that. and everybody is collectively pushing their shoulders down to push forward, not for one thing to change, but for the whole system to be changed. >> thank you so much. i always appreciate the discussion when you come on. thank you. >> my pleasure and thank you for having me. it's the top of the hour now, i'm brianna keilar. a nation in freefall. how one expert is describing the nature of the pandemic in the united states. specifically the three most populous, florida, texas, california, and overall, the orange and red, more than half the states are