>> nick cordero was out lived by his 1-year-old who will grow up hearing stories of how much he was loved. >> oh, yeah. >> jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> thanks for joining us. anderson starts now. and good evening. thanks for being with us. if divisive inflamed torely racist words could kill the coronavirus and the president of the united states would be headed stockholm. instead, tonight he's safe inside his biological bunker surrounded by people wearing masks getting tested and encouraging the rest of us not to follow the best scientific advice. he's trying to persuade the country that the virus is simply vanishing or if that won't work he's trying to divert people's attention elsewhere to smearing a black nascar driver supporting the confederate flag and statutes of traitors.

so, knowing it's a diversion, we begin tonight where attention ought to be on the facts we have to face right now. white house task force member dr. anthony fauci said we're still knee-deep in the first wave of this. today, the country crossed another milestone 130,000 lives lost by tomorrow or wednesday, it will surpass another 3 million known covid cases. that milestone. those are facts. so is this. we now have more cases than any other country on earth and more fatalities. again, than any other country on earth. we're number one for cases and for deaths america is first. it is a fact that because of how much worse we are doing than any other country on earth, americans can't travel to other parts of the world, can't fly for example to europe where the virus is largely under control. the chart showing the u.s. and european union showing why this country is now two different paths that we have taken versus

europe. why it's now in the eyes of our friends and allies, why we're the object of puzzlement andlar country like florida are experiencing what new york did in the spring approaching 12,000 new cases a day. california nearing the 12,000 a day mark putting six more counties on the coronavirus danger list. in texas the hospitalization rate continues to sore and hospitals whether in houston, austin or west texas are at or near capacity. the state set a record for cases on saturday. it happening in small states, as well. kansas reporting the steepest spike since the pandemic began. cases are now climbing in 32 states, steady in 14 and falling in just four. that is a fact. a fact along with others the president beneatneither seems t comprehend or want you to see. here he is on saturday by the

gaslight's blue glare. >> we made a lot of progress. our strategy is working well. it goes out in one area and rears back its ugly face 2in another area but we've learned aid lot. we learned how to put out the flame. like wise, testing. there were no tests for a new virus but now we have tested almost 40 million people. by so doing, we show cases. 99% of which are totally harmless. >> that is not a fact. before going any further, we should acre knowledge the difficulty of nailing down precisely how deadly covid-19 is. according to johns hopkins, the fatality rate is 4.6%. again, that's the fatality rate. the percentage of people who actually die, not just people who get sick, have permanent damage to their bodies, have a very difficult time with covid.

that's just fatalities. doctors treating patients say survivors can have permanent life altering damage to their bodies, their lungs, brains, other parts and by simple arrhythm arrhythmia, something that's 6.4% fatal cannot be 99% harmless. that's how he says it. today mark meadows the president chief of staff was asked about the claim when he answered words did come out of the front of his face. whether they made sense, you can decide for yourself. >> the 99% of coronavirus cases are totally harmless, public health experts disagree. why does the president -- >> i'm not sure. yeah, i'm not sure which public health experts that you're talking about. i probably get to review more numbers, more numbers and when you look at the facts, when you look at really what we're

dealing with, a lot of these cases are asymptomatic. additionally, when we look at a population of 325 million people and what we're looking at, those statistics would indicate about 102%. when that 99% came from actual numbers and you can look at numbers a number of different ways. hold on, let me finish the -- you asked the questions, i'll try to answer them. all right? >> that was the best he could do. at least he did not try as kaley did. i'll refresh your memory. >> we have tested almost 40 million people. by so doing, we show cases. 99% of which are totally harmless. >> totally harmless. now here is how the woman who

promised on her very first day never to tell a lie answered the following questions. >> the president said that 99% of coronavirus cases are totally harmless. which members of the white house coronavirus task force agree with that statement? >> so what the president was pointing to and i'm glad you brought it up, was a factual statement, one that is rooted in science and one that was pointing out the fact that mortality in this country is very low. what the president is noting is that at the height of this pandemic, we were at 2,500 deaths per day. we are now at a place where on july 4th, there were 254. >> so actually, the president mentioned none of that. he said that 99% of covid infections are quote totally harmless. he talked about ventilators, protective gear, treatment and vaccines in china and mentioned china a lot but nowhere did he connect it to decreasing mortality. rather, his 99% remark seemed

more in line with others dismissing the need for so much testing. >> so we go out. we test 25 million people, which is a lot. you never thought that's even people. most people didn't. we could go up a lot higher than that and i guess we are. i tell my people it's a double edged sword. we do so much testing and we have kids with sniffles and all of a sudden we report a case and they are in no danger whatsoever. >> no danger whatsoever he says. 99% harmless. that's not him talking like kayleigh is talking. thank god that hospitals and doctors do know more about this virus now and are able to treat it better. it seems instead to be part of the same contempt he's had for testing period because it makes him look bad. that's what he felt from the beginning of this. just think about how much work that is and plays into the larger disregard.

keeping them honest, this war-time president took himself out of the fight months ago and being more honest, he was never in the fight to begin with. he avoided wars and talks tough when this viral war began he was nowhere to be found. maybe those old bone spurs of his flaring up but he wasn't in the fight. he wants us to suck it up. i want to read you reporting in the washington post that goes to that point. josh shares the story. quoting now the goal is to convince americans they can live with the virus. white house officials hope americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day according to three people familiar with the white house's thinking who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. americans will live with the virus being a threat. the senior administration official. and that, that is precisely what the president's words and actions have been hinting at for weeks now. this president wants you to suck it up, not just the virus but his failure to take it

seriously. his inaction altering the month of february. he his lies and promises disappearing. he wants you to accept what people in no other country are being told to accept because this isn't just a virus killing us and making people sick, it's incompetence and a failure of leadership. instead of working around the clock on this visiting hospitals rallying the troops, rallying the public to wear masks, complacency, this president is declaring victory, declaring covid 99% harmless instead of talking about the virus and doing things about it, he's spending his time to district with racist talk. he's leaning full into the racist he's long been and letting us see it more clearly than ever before. >> our nation is witnessing a mergeless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctr a

indoctrinate or children. angry mobs are trying to tear down statute it is of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. >> with 130,000 once breathing president made it his priority to protect inadamant objects. the statutes were put up to lie about cause andconfederate. the lie we were being told. the history has told. the president is rallying around confederate flags that nascar banned after a noose was found in the garage of bubba wallace,

the sports only top african american driver and turned out the noose was there before anyone knew wallace would be using the garage but the incident sparked a reckoning and lead nascar to examine the racist symbols around it. has bubba wallace apologized to great nascar drivers and officials that came to his aid and stood by his side willing to sacrifice anything to find out it was a hoax and flag decision caused lowest ratings ever. comes back to ratings. that's all this president cares about. numbers. do you notice how quick he is to attack black sports figures by white supremacists marching, chanting, the president saw some very fine people there. gun toting weekend worries dressed up to look like special forces bursting into the michigan state house screaming at police and politicians outraged because they don't want to wear masks. those are good people according to the president. if they had been black, what do you think the president would have said? it's the confederate battle flag he's defending.

consider that. the president of the united states defending the flying of the confederate battle flag and his press secretary is trying to say that's not what he's really doing. >> what is the president's position? does he think nascar made a mistake by banning the confederate flag. >> i spoke to him this morning about this. he said he was not making a judgment one way or the other. the intent of the tweet was to stand up for the men and women of nascar and the fans and those who have gone and rushed to judgment of the media to call something a hate crime when in fact, the fbi report said this was not an intentional racist act and mirrors other times when there is a rush to judgment with the covington boys or jussie smollett. >> let's drill down on the confederate flag. does he think it was a mistake for nascar to ban it? >> the president said he wasn't making a judgment one way or the other. you're focussing on one word at the bottom of a tweet that's completely taken out of context and neglecting the complete rush to judgment.

>> ratings are down because they banned the flag? >> the president noted this notion nascar men and women who have gone and being demeaned and called racist and being accused and some venues of committing a hate crime against an individual, those allegations were dead wrong. >> she went on to say a lot more along those lines but as much as she tries to deny it, this is where the president's head is. he's tweeting video black on white violence threatening statute vandals and defending the name of the national redskins and indians. this is where he wants to be. this is what he wants us discussing and wants the count t country thinking and talking about. a few hundred statutes, a few people of color he doesn't like. anything but the disease he cannot cope with and the people whose lives he is failing to protect. perspective from two leading public health experts dr. peter hotez, houston's baylor college ov

of medicine and william, form early a researcher and "family guide to covid." dr. hotez, you're in an epicenter of the virus in houston. when you hear the president saying 99% of cases are harmless, i mean, as a scientist, what do you think? >> well, anderson, what i think about are the 2,000 covid-19 patients right now we have in our texas medical center in houston including 600 in the icu, almost 600 in the icu. you can't hide icu admissions. you can't hide hospital admissions and i think about a lot of my former students and residents, doctors, nurses who are taking care, technicians who are taking care of those patients tonight. so this is a catastrophe for our city and the state of texas, the numbers are accelerating. around 7, 8,000 cases a day.

we're seeing this in florida. we're seeing this in arizona. the cases are rising so rapidly that we cannot even do contact tracing anymore, i don't think. i don't see how it's possible to even do that. essentially, even our limited means of public health control are not possible. this dramatic acceleration, the epidemic is out of control in the southern part of the united states. now we're seeing the numbers rise in tennessee and the northern part of the midwest. you know, last week there were 40,000 in canew cases a day. earlier than later in the week there were 50,000. now it's 60,000. dr. fauci predicted 100,000 new cases a day and we're rapidly approaching that. this is a public health crisis for our nation. >> professor, when the white house says that the rest of the world looks to the u.s. regarding its coronavirus response, the place with the most cases and most deaths, as a leader on covid-19, how do you

wrap your head around that? needs to be done now? if dr. hotez is right in some of the states, there is no point in doing contact tracing because there are too many cases and it's not possible. >> well, first overall, this is i agree entirely, this is a terrible tragedy for our country. it is a preventable tragedy. at this point, what we have to do is people have to exert their own individual responsibility. it's clear we don't have national leadership to do that. the leadership in our governor's mansions is erratic, sometimes it's good. sometimes it not. then it changes. some of our mayors are great and some aren't. it's unfortunately up to each individual to be responsible for themselves, their family and all those around them. and it's a very difficult thing to ask people who really are getting mixed messages. but i'm afraid at this point we've past the point of no

return in many of our states. not all. in new york, new jersey, northern california, people are responsible but at this point, it up to us and that is a very sad thing to say about your country. >> dr. hotez, dr. fauci said something today i want to read to our viewers. he said rather than looking at the public health effort versus economic opening as if they were opposing forces, they are not. we should use the public health effort as a vehicle in the pathway to get to safe reopening. it's not an obstacle, it's a pathway to do that. that is just logical and makes sense and frankly, that's nothing new. that is the argument he and health professionals have been making all along but administration has created this either you're for opening or you're for everybody staying at home rather than it being a pathway one to the other.

>> anderson, what they can't figure out, the numbers approach a 100,000 mark per day we'll get to the point where everybody in the united states knows someone personally who is very sick with covid-19. that is going to have an incredibly destabilizingfect in empty country. that will come close to collapsing the economy. >> we got to take a quick break. there is more i want to talk about. we'll play the grim assessment where we are now and talk about ways forward, you know, through treatments, vaccines, changing the way we live and later, why the president is wrapping himself in the losing flag of a failed racist past. some companies still have hr stuck between employees and their data.

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>> we're talking about the reality everyone seems to be facing except the president and many people around him. you cannot say however he hasn't had some of the brightest minds at his disposal or been warned. dr. anthony fauci with francis collins pulled no punches. >> the current state is really not good in the sense that as you know, we had been in a situati situation we were averaging about 20,000 in case as day, two days ago it was 57,500. within a period of a week and a half, we almost doubled the number of cases. in answer to your first question, we are still knee-deep in the first wave of this. and i would say this would not be considered a wave it was a surge or a resurging of infections super imposed upon a baseline francis that really never got down to where we wanted to go.

>> back now with dr. peter hotez and professor william. is it in the united states the only way we'll go back to any semblance of precovid life is for a vaccine? is that the only hope. >> i hope it's not the only hope. i hope behavior change by most people will be the answer. there are two solutions, one is a vaccine everybody is talk about. in my opinion, it's going to come but it will be partially effective and we don't know for how long it will last. there is another solution which is coming very quickly. which is a bridge to an an effective vaccine and that's combination of anti viral drugs to suppress the virus and protect people from being infected in the first place. we know that works for something called respiratory virus, that affects in this case children. we know that it works for

malaria and so, we are very hopeful. we actually know and have the drugs and the model for this is hiv. we developed drugs and there is spectacular new drugs on the near horizon for controlling hiv. we can do this. that is a double strategy from the medical world providing drugs to prevent infection for those who are exposed, which would be a bridge to a safe and effective vaccine for which we will have time to test to make sure it's both safe and effective. >> but professor, if states now aren't able to do contact tracing because there are simply too many cases, that's, you know, in a war movie, this is where you call an air strike on your positions because the enemy is in the wire. it would seem to be a huge concern just from a social distancing standpoint. you would still argue that people as you said people need to take control of this

themselves and do social distancing, wearing masks. that's up to each of us now. >> that is unfortunately about where we are. what you'll see protection for those exposed, which there will be. people will flock to be tested if they've been exposed. once there is a way to prevent you from being infected, the complete mind changes. we seen that with a number of diseases, hiv for example. once we had drugs to treat people with hiv, people wanted to be tested. before, there was no incentive to be tested. now, if you're tested and expos exposed, you might have to be quarantined for two or three weeks. that instead of taking a couple pills every day is going to be your alternative and i think you're going to see a mind change. this isn't forever. it for awhile. >> dr. hotez, what do you -- in

terms of where you are in houston, what needs to happen? what are the steps 12? >> i absolutely agree. we will have partially protective vaccines and we will have various forms of antibodies but it's not going to happen for several months at the very earliest. maybe six months, maybe a year. and during that period a lot of damage will happen. the rate of acceleration we're seeing we will have catastrophic numbers of deaths. we still need that national road map and plan. we can do this. we can stop this virus if there is the political will and leadership and we can discuss how that can be done. >> dr. peter hotez and professor william, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> just ahead, a deeper dive into the question the white house press secretary had trouble answering why president trump attacked a black nascar driver and defended the confederate dplag. migraine medicine.

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want to talk more about something we mentioned at the top of the program. president trump's tweet about bubba wallace which wasn't just factless on nascar's only black driver in the top tier but racist plain and simple. when you combat a stew of negative stories to point at the only black person in a room full of white guys and say what about that guy there and make up things he didn't do to get out of a jude and bear hug the confederate flag just in case it wasn't clearer to your base whose side your on.

that is rate ecist. just for good measure we want to play her attempt to justify her bosse boss' words. >> what the is the president's position? did nascar make a mistake by banning the confederate flag? >> i spoke to him this morning about this. he said he wasn't making a judgment one way or the other. the intent of the tweet was to stand up for the men and women of nascar and the fans and those who have gone and this rush to judgement of the media to call something a hate crime when the fbi report concluded this was not an intentional racist act and very much mirrors other times when there have been a rush to judgment let's say with the covington boys or jussie smollett. >> let's drill down on the confederate flag. does he think it was a mistake for nascar to ban it? >> the president said he wasn't making a judgment one way or the other. you're focussing on one word at the very bottom of a tweet that's completely taken out of context and neglecting the complete rush to judgment. >> ratings are down because t y

banned the flag? >> the president was noting the fact this notion that nascar men and women who have gone and who are being demeaned and called racist and being accused and some venues of committing a hate crime against an individual, those allegations were just dead wrong. >> that's the press secretary for the president of the united states of america trying to justify the embrace for the confederate flag. joining us is bakari sellers, also author of the book "my vanishing country" and cnn chief political correspondent dana bash. bakari sellers, i don't even know what the question is here. to see kaly kayleigh contorting herself to claim the president isn't siding on the side of the confederate flag, it's just so play tabl blatant and obvious. >> it's difficult when your boss is racist. let's look at the entire context of the president today. not only did he ask for bubba

wallace the lone black driver to apologize and embrace the confederate flag but the fact the washington redskins and cleveland indians should not change their names. he talked about black on black crime and i'll use air quotes with that in cities like chicago and new york and went out today in tweet and said the china virus. so today he hit on every single racist note possible and i want people to understand that if someone tweets all of these things, let alone tweets all of these things in one day, the only thing you can dconclude is this individual is racist. the people around him, i come on tv and say a lot because it seems to fall on deaf ears. where are the good white folk on the republican party? you know, where are these individuals who claim to be able to say black lives matter but still yet, cannot condemn this behavior and say that it's out of line? people just get extremely quiet

and to trump voters, look, i'm someone who will articulate very clearly that everybody who votes for trump is not a racist. however, however, you have to be willing to set aside the bigotries and racism that comes out of his mouth and my question is how do you do that? we have a president who exhibited racist behavior and used racism as political currency and racist and nobody wants to stand up against that and so that's where we are as a country. it's not even democrat or republican right now. it's good versus bad. it's racist versus not racist. it's right versus wrong. that's where we are. >> yeah, bakarbakari, kayleigh ago said donald trump what he said about mexicans being sent here who are rapists, that was -- she said that was racist when she was on cnn and now she is here defending as i said going to contortions.

dana, to bar ckari's point, the are getting nervous about the president's extreme rhetoric and behavior. i mean, i don't know how many times we've heard that like the republicans are nervous, like they are, you know, lindsey graham is sitting on a porch fanning himself and, you know, concerned. i mean, that's just -- at what point does somebody actually speak up? are they all just worried about reelection and control of the senate? >> well, let's just talk about politics. the answer is yes. of course. they are very worried about their own reelection. they are very worried about control of the senate because it's teetering in a big way and they're worried about losing even more seats in the house if this continues. lindsey graham actually is one of the people who did speak out. he was in south carolina saying what the president said was wrong today and i was actually kind of struck by that because

he has been low to say anything negative recently about the president at all. look, what bar ckari said is he explained the mortality of this that is play tablblatant to any a small child and understands right and wrong. this is based on republican sources i've been talking to including just tonight which is that the president first of all it's his gut, it's his go-to when he feels backed in a corner, he goes to where his political comfort zone is and that is what got him where he is from 2016. which is play to the base, us versus them, you know, rile up people to say -- to feel that their way of life is coming to an end. but there is something else and that is that he is being told that there are so-called low propensity voters out there potential trump voters out there who didn't come out in 2016 who

might perk up who will perk up to the kinds of arguments that the president is making. is it right? no. is it strategic? possibly. but it's mostly he's going with his gut like he always does. >> yeah. bakari, the "wall street journal" editorial board defended the mount rush more speech and said liberal elites created this opening for him by failing to stand up against radicals using justified anger to high jojack america's libera institutions and put views on everybody else. how do you respond? >> i want to be extremely clear. this moment has never been just about george floyd. this moment is not just about breonna taylor, ahmaud arbery, rayshard brooks. the list goes on and on and on. it's not just about those names. in fact, this moment is about institutionalized racism and systemic injustice and for those individuals to lack diversity on

the editorial board, i would say that one of the things that's most important is to actually bring black folk and brown folk into your editorial rooms and your institutions so you won't write misguided op eds like that. that's first and foremost. the second thing and probably the larger thing and more important thing is this is a reckoning with america's history and you may be right these are traditional american values. it reeks of hypocrisy, though and irony that when i say black lives matter, when i say that we should not have a statute of ben tillman or john calhoun or we should not have a statute of a confederate general, you say that the anti american or call me as being anything less than patriot patriotic. what that shows, though, is that the under belly of this country and let me be clear, this country was built on the back of black folks, we built this

country for free. while you want to criticize us and confuse your prejudice with patriotism, you need to simply understand that we are still here and our blood runs through the soil of this great country and my father and jimmy lee jackson, emmet teal and all those black folk who died in wars who fought for our freedoms are just as american as those individuals writing those b.s. op eds at the "wall street journal" and that's what we have to realize. >> bar cara sekar to realize. >> bar cara sekai sellers, dana thank you. president trump doesn't think this hot spot exists, miami-dade shutting down restaurants and gyms again. what this could signal for the region at large next.

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breaking news to report, president trump admits his response to the virus is doing so well for the country unquote. two major hot spots are preparing for a bad situation to get worse. in texas 50 medical and support staff would head to an san antonio owe as worries medical personnel could be overwhelmed. in florida its shutting down restaurants and gyms again. health officials in miami-dade county where a curfew are you ma remains, hospitalizations are up

and ventilators up 113%. the problem is florida as a whole reported more than 34,000 new cases since friday. i want to talk about the rising infection rates with former health and human services secretary under president obama kathleen sibilis. when you hear the same is now happening in texas, how do you see the situation there and what is happening across the country right now? >> well, anderson, i think we're in a very dangerous spot. i remember scott the former fda commissioner talked about a slow simmering summer. i wish that's where we were in the six weeks between memorial day and fourth of july, we have seen this virus reexplode across the country and texas and florida never had a big outbreak to begin with. this is really their first wave. we're seeing it in places where people haven't seen the virus and it is totally out of

control. i'm really worried about what is going to happen in the nine weeks that lie between the fourth of july and labor day when we had hoped that children would be able to go back to school. >> you know, "the washington post" has josh among others is reporting that the white house plan now is to essentially, you know, declaring victory, don't talk about the virus and that based on the idea americans will just grow numb to the escalating death toll and that they will just kind of accept just like we accept that kids get, you know, shot to death in schools from time to time as just one of those things that, you know, gosh, you can't really do anything about that americans will just accept that, you know, this is just the way life is. we got this virus and it kills a lot of our old people and ruins a lot of lives. it seems like a very scenical and frankly outrageous strategy.

>> well, it's a totally outrageous strategy and also very interesting that it all has to do with the president. it all has to do with his timetable. it has nothing to do with the country. we cannot get the economy back up and running in states across this country unless we get a handle on the virus. this president has been lying about the virus from the very beginning. has been slow walking testing has refused to use the muscle that is unique to the united states government to mobilize the supplies, the equipment, the personnel that we need and now he's saying very dangerous and deceptive things. he talked in the first of july about the virus just going away. that's been a theme of his. it's just going to disappear. he now says 99% of the cases are harmless. tell that to the front line health care workers who are seeing icu beds fill up all over this country.

tell that to loving members and family members who are watching their loved ones die needlessly in hospitals where they can't even go and grieve them and tell that to parents and grandma parent pars terrified to interact with one another. this is a dangerous message for the president of the quitunited states. it's all about his reelection and i can't imagine a worse message for the public. the president refuses to wear masks. he refuses to ban gathering where people don't wear masks. he flies in a private airplane. everyone who comes with him inches of him gets tested on a regular basis. but the virus has gotten into the white house, has gotten into his family units. this is a dangerous disease and most people don't have the luxury that he does to protect themselves in a little bubble that gets cleaned every day and tested every day. we have to go about our we havo

about our lives. >> i would say he is in a biological bunker, yet he is in this bunker protected and he is yelling out of the bunker don't take the same precautions that i'm taking, that i'm making everyone else around me take, it's not real. but he's not coming out of the bunker. secretary sebelius, i appreciate your time, and i wish the news was better, that we could talk about something else. thank you for being with us. >> i do too. always good to be with you. still ahead, broadway actor nick cordero has died after a long battle against the coronavirus. 41 years old. (gong rings) - this is joe.

(combative yelling) he used to have bad breath. now, he uses a capful of therabreath fresh breath oral rinse to keep his breath smelling great, all day long. (combative yelling) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores.

let's check in with chris, see what he's working on for "cuomo prime time." chris? >> coop, as you well know, there are many in this country who believe that the president is intentionally ignoring a pandemic and that he is intentionally stoking bigotry and they no longer have to wonder, because he opened his mouth and removed all doubt. tonight we have the mayor of atlanta, keisha lance bottoms, who is dealing with both of these problems in society, what's going on with race, what's going on with covid now in an ever more personal way, she was just diagnosed positive. what does this mean for her and her life? we'll take that on tonight. >> all right, chris, thanks. we'll see you in just about five minutes from now. up next, we remember broadway star nick cordero, who has died of coronavirus. ry best start in.

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. we remember more of the victims. nick cordero was a broadway actor with roles in hit musicals like "bullets over broadway" and "waitress." he came down with the coronavirus in march. his wife, amanda kloots chronicled his complications on her social media account. she says he was placed into a medically induced coma and had his right leg amputated after developing blood clots. he battled for 95 days. he passed away yesterday. "god has another angel in

heaven." he in addition to his wife, he is survived by his son elvis. he flew missions during the vietnam war. after he retired from the military, he went on to get a ph.d in city administration. he was married to his wife virginia for 47 years, and together they adopted three daughters. he was also the proud grandfather of two granddaughters who he adored. fred and judy whitesol were married in 1959 in nebraska. they would spend the next 60 years together side by side. when it was time for them to go into a nursing home, they went together. there they both came down with coronavirus. their son says judy was rushed to the hospital first after she developed symptoms. fred remained at the nursing home. she died after a few days. that same day, fred was rushed to the emergency room. he was placed on a ventilator. they died just 12 hours apart. their son steven said his parents were so connected, his father just didn't want to be

left behind. fred whitesel was 83 years old and judy was 81. what a life. 60 years together. the news continues. i want to hand it over to chris for "cuomo prime time." >> thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo, and welcome to "prime time." 90% of covid cases are harmless, says trump. remember, the white house numbers puts our death rate at around 4, 4 plus per secent. is that harmless? to the 130,000 plus dead, to their families, to the tens of thousands who suffered terribly, to all those suffering now, harmless? maybe if he gave a damn. maybe the president of the united states were not ignoring and coming up with new ways to reportedly get you to live with a pandemic, maybe then he wo