good evening. chris cuomo is off tonight. we begin with breaking news. the president late tonight commuting the prison sentence of his some time friend and long time associate roger stone. roger cellphone the convicted felon convicted by a jury of lying to congress apparently on the president's behalf. cnn's sara murray has the details. president trump called roger stone earlier. what are you learning about the conversation? >> reporter: that's right. roger stone had been waiting for and hoping for this phone call. he said he'd been praying for it and essentially going to prison

would be a death sentence for him. and finally as the president was leaving tonight he finally called roger stone, here is how stone described that conversation. >> he said you understand i have the option, i have the authority to either grant a pardon or commute your sentence. he says you should understand that a pardon would be final, and that in accepting a pardon you are exceptionally accepting guilt, and i would rather see you fight this out which is why i'm commuting your sentence. >> reporter: now, both roger stone of course and donald trump believe this was politically motivated, that that's the only reason he faced charges, but even attorney general bill barr said this was a righteous prosecution. >> what is the white house saying about the comitation? >> reporter: the white house put out a lengthy statement. this is from the press secretary saying at this time in light of the egregious facts and circumstances surrounding his unfair prosecution, arrest and

trial the president has determined to commute his sentence. roger stone has already suffered greatly. he was treated very unfairly as were many others in this case. roger stone is now a free man. and anderson, i think what you're seeing here is what we've continued to see from this white house and this administration to sort of rewrite the narrative around the russia investigation and sort of make it seem like no one in the president's orbit actually did anything wrong and they were just target unfairly. >> and stone is still challenging his conviction in appeals court, right? >> reporter: he is. he's gone after the judge that was overseeing his case. he's gone after the jury saying they were not unbiased towards him. and he's trying to essentially get that conviction overturned. the important thing to remember about the comitation means he's not going to be going to prison right now but he's still a convicted felon. i think that's what played out in this call with him and the president that stone is going to continue to fight to clear his name. back to the pandemic racing across the country. during the president's visit to florida today he made mow

reference to it. cases topping 60,000 a day this week and hospitals in big states and small filling up. more now on all of it from cnn's erika hill joins us now. georgia was one of the first states to reopen but now there's some major changes happening there. >> reporter: the mayor keisha lance bottoms putting in a new order. she says her city is going back to phase one. she says no gathering of any size is allowed on atlanta property. she already mandated that but she's bringing the city back to phase one. they were in phase two because she says georgia reopened in a reckless manner and the city is now suffering consequences. the governor pushing this plan back calling it confusing. and this is one of the states posting a new record today. a daily high for new cases in georgia, nearly 4,500. and this is one of the states, again, that opened early back in

late april. long lines for testing in florida as the numbers there continue to move in the wrong direction. >> the situation is truly concerning here in south florida. >> reporter: florida is now averaging more than 9,000 new cases a day. a staggering jump of more than 1,200% since the state began reopening two months ago. the president in hard hit miami-dade county today though not because the positivity rate there is nearly 30%. >> there seems to be this lack of understanding or awareness that we are in one of the most extraordinary public health crises that our nation has ever faced. >> reporter: the u.s. is shattering new case records almost daily. west virginia now has the highest transmission rate in the country. >> the only bullet in the gun right now is this right here. this little mask. >> reporter: ten states seeing an increase in covid related deaths over the past week. half of those posting their highest average for new cases since the pandemic began.

>> i think the numbers are going to look worse as we go into next week. and we need to make sure that there's going to be plenty of hospital beds available in the houston area. >> reporter: it's not just hospital capacity and icu beds. personal protective equipment is once again in short supply in some areas. >> we've had plenty of time to plan and take action, and it has yet to happen. >> reporter: as some states pause or roll back their reopening plans many jobs are also on hold. the $600 weekly unemployment boost will run out at the end of july. but the needs of struggling families will not. back to school looming with some states just weeks away. >> i don't think there's anybody who can make an argument that this is especially risky for kids. we have to accept that and then figure out, you know, how you fashion policy around it. >> the viral loads in children are equivalent of that in adults. what does that mean?

that means they can transmit the virus equally well to other people whether or not they show symptoms. >> reporter: as districts work to find the right balance the one constant in every decision, a virus that is here to stay. >> in our current situation it is very unlikely that we can eradicate or eliminate this virus. >> you're also learning more about disparities in new york city. >> reporter: yes, that's right. so there's this fascinating information that came out of city md. these are some some of the urgent care offices people see around the city. so they looked at antibody testing at a couple of the different offices, specifically one in corona, queens, a hard hit area in new york city. 68% of people coming in tested positive for antibodies, and you look at number and this is mainly a working class neighborhood. a lot of people there had to continue working while people who could work from home kpid so. they put out other information from a city md office from a

wealthier white section of brooklyn, just 13% of those people had antibodies. so what does it tell us? they say, listen, we can't tell you exactly what it means. it doesn't mean everybody who came into that clinic lives in that neighborhood, but it does give some insight into perhaps how certain neighborhoods may be better able to deal with another surge of the virus as it comes along. >> fascinating. erica hill, thanks so mauch. just another milestone, 6,390 cases. joining us now is the miami of mayor francis suarez. the mayor of atlanta has just reinstated a stay at home order going back to phase one for her city. you haven't ruled out doing that in miami. given the fact miami-dade county which is obviously the county your city is located in is now seeing a positive test rate of more than 25% is it time to shutdown, or what's the calculus that will go into that decision?

>> we're definitely approaching that point. obviously our icu capacity is down to 11%. many of our hospitals don't have anymore icu capacity. our ventilators are at pretty much the all-time high close to 197 which is our all-time high. we are having a little bit of good news which is that it appears that the rate of growth has slowed a little bit. it was growing at a rate of 125 new cases per day. that number is down to about 60 new cases per day, which is about half the rate of growth which indicates some level of flattening. which could be we did order a mask in public rule about ten days ago, and that's when we started to see, you know, the slowing of the growth rate. like i said and like you said i will not rule out the possibility of a stay at home order. and that's something that we're looking at depending on the data as we see it over the next few days. >> and the virus' growth in

florida, the surge in florida it's sometimes topping more than 10,000 new cases in a single day. i mean, is there any other way to put it that this is out of control? i mean, is this something you think we have our hands around in florida? >> there's no doubt that the growth is exponential. when you look at back in, you know, early april, late march, when we implemented the stay at home order our high-water mark was 533 cases. for the state it was 1,300. when you're talking about almost a ten times multiplier. for miami-dade county it's like a six times multiplier. it's no doubt there's an exponential growth, which is why one of the things i urged is for us to have a statewide mask in public rule, and we should probably have a national mask in public rule as well. >> do you know what percentage of people in miami -- i don't know if you have these figures -- but actually do wear the mask? >> we don't have those figures.

what we do have is data that shows from the moment we implemented the mask in public rule to now. we have seen about a 50% reduction in the growth rate of the virus, which is good. and i think one of the things all the epidemiologists and all the experts from john hopkins also tells us is there needs to be a very clear communication strategy. you know, the clearer we are in terms of our communication the more in sync we are in terms of our communication that is the closest thing we have to vaccine right now which obviously we don't have a vaccine. so clearly communicating what the rules are, being on the same pang is the best we can do for our residents right now. >> the mayor of the county made it call to shutdown indoor dining and i think you said that decision was without justification. why isn't it appropriate to err on the side of being cautious? >> well, some of the restaurant owners felt the decision he made wasn't data driven.

we have contact tracers right now that are in the process of getting us what we hope to be the information that we need to make very surgical decisions to decide whether to close certain segments of our economy or not. and understanding all these decisions that we make have a dramatic impact on thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in our community. so, you know, when we make a decision we have to be able to justify it. we have to be able to explain it so that people will follow it. >> how many contact tracers do you have, are you able to utilize? >> we don't have anywhere near enough. i asked the governor this week for 500 more. we have about 300 that are working right now. and just to give you a sense on a given day we have 2,000 new cases, we're getting about 70 survey response out of 2,000. about 450 that are being contacted. so that's a contact rate about 17%. and it's a survey answer rate of about 3.5% which is nowhere near adequate to have an adequate

contact tracing program. >> i know cnn did an investigation into contact tracing in florida. they found health authorities really just often fail to do it. >> yeah, it's not being done at the percentage that it should be done. in mid-june they were telling us it was being done in the 90% and now we're being told it's being done in sort of 17%. the second part is it's not just about contact tracing and making sure people isolate. that's 50% of the other 50% is getting us that actionable data so when we do make a decision like shutting down an industry or implementing a stay at home order we can clearly justify it to our residents so they comply. we don't want mass noncompliance from our residents because we haven't articulated clearly why we're doing things. >> want to get perspective now from an expert in the field that happens to be right in the thick of it. an epidemiologist and associate professor at the university of florida.

thanks for being with us. what do you make about what is going on in miami about the re-openings? >> yeah, well i think that mayor suarez is spot on as far as miami needed to take a step back in where they were. you know, they paused in their reopening, and they really have been strong in saying we need masks and we need to think about what people are doing. we need data on risks so that we know going forward, you know, if we need fooshto shut things dow have a reason for doing it, we can justify it. and also can we identify places that are causing risks and making these cases circulate more. >> i don't understand governor desantis had said there wasn't justification to not move forward in may and early june when restrictions in florida were lifted. it seemed to me i mean if you look at the white house coronavirus task force guidelines many states -- i don't think hardly any states

had met those guidelines before moving forward into the next stages. >> yeah, that's true. i mean, we moved quickly. i think there could have still been a possibility of opening up. but the thing was that had to be very minor, very slow. and that's not what we did. i mean, open up one thing at a time and then give it the time to find out whether or not your cases are going to increase. you're not going to see that in a week or two weeks. it can take probably a month or even month and a half to see the effect of what you're doing in each stage. this should have been a months long or maybe even six months of opening up rather than what we did which was really rapid. >> what i don't understand from a public health standpoint, and i guess this really comes from the white house down, but, you know, it seems like we were given a false choice. which is everything either reopens or it's stay at home in complete lockdown as opposed to as you said gradual reopening

with real emphasis on social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing, all the things that science tells us actually works in slowing this virus. and because it was either either/or we didn't take the middle road which seemed to be the one that would allow us to open yes more slowly but also keep social distancing. >> yeah, i agree with that. i think one problem i'm seeing is i feel like we have science, we have data, we have things that we know, and that's what should be driving the policy as you indicate. but i think what we're seeing is the reverse. we've got people who just want to put policy in place and think you can mold science and data to do what you want, and that's just not the case. and we really have to think about where are we right now, how do we get ahead of this virus, because right now we're well pbehibehind it.

we've got to really think of the measures we need to do and do them early. we can't delay like we have been. we can't react. >> the idea the mayor is saying contact tracing 17% of people are being contact -- i mean that's ridiculous. >> it's really low. i think the problem is if you think about the level of cases in florida right now and then think about the fact these people may have, you know, on average three or so contacts and all of those have to be contacted as well plus the time it takes, and unfortunately what we're also seeing in some cases is just refusals to give information, to talk to department of health. and, you know, this is such a critical sfep critical step in controlling this outbreak and for people to refuse it really is discouraging nee they would do that. >> i mean, they can just refuse and nothing happens? >> well, at this point, you know, we're -- we have not enough contact tracing. we don't have enough people to be able to do it so, you know,

when they're calling if they're not getting a response or if they are, you know, meeting someone who is being resistant at this point you move onto the next person, right? you've got to go talk to someone who's going to give you the information you need. >> i appreciate your expertise. thanks for being with us. ahead the first major american hot spot for coronavirus is still desperate for help from the trump administration as cases climb. with the nation just reaching a new single day record for cases. and later president trump calls himself a very stable genius. now he says he aced a test of his mental acuity, but you may just have to take his word for it.

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with over 90 years' of investment experience, our thousands of financial professionals can help. go to prudential.com or talk to an advisor. our breaking news in coronavirus. moments ago we learned the u.s. today set a new single day record for cases at more than 63,000. the state that saw america's first coronavirus cluster is tonight dealing with cases that isn't slowing down. washington state is nearing 40,000 cases. and the governor overseeing the emergency is asking for federal help. he too is demanding to know when a national response plan is coming. i spoke earlier with governor jay inslee. governor, cases in washington state are up. you said you don't want to shut things down again. do your weevery state's response from for federal government puts people at risk, additional people at additional risk?

>> well, listen, we're doing some vigorous things here on testing and contact tracing. our new mask requirements one of the most aggressive in the country. we actually require businesses to deny service to people unless they do wear a mask. i think that's unique in the country. it would be very helpful if we had a national policy all the way up from ppe to testing kits to contact tracing to masking requirements. if we had national policies it would help all of the states for many, many reasons, perhaps foremost of which it would give us a national mission statement that would unite us. and being unified in a time of great peril and a bit of a warfare situation i do think that would be helpful to the nation. and we just have never had that kind of leadership from the white house, unfortunately. >> are you able to enforce a policy of everyone has to wear a mask? how do you enforce that? >> well, first off we have had great voluntary compliance all

the way through. it's one of the reasons we've been relatively successful. washingtonians get science, so huge majorities have adhered to our orders, and they're continuing to increase the mask usage as well. one of the ways we've enforced it is basically businesses are required to serve only those who do mask up now to protect their employees and their customers, and that's a legal requirement. they could lose their licenses or be fined if they do not. but we don't want to have to use those enforcement measures have so far have not. we've had huge adherence, and i'm pleased to say there's some evidence, early evidence this is working. we have one hot spot in central washington where we're seeing a decline in cases following our very vigorous masking requirements. so there's some early signs this can work. >> do you think there should be some sort of federal mandatory mask policy, whether it's

through businesses or some other way? >> i think that would be helpful for a variety of reasons. one, we know it works. the science is now quite compelling that it works. two, these are universally accessible. three, they're very inexpensive. four, there's no physical downside. and we know that when the nation has a national mission, when kennedy said we're going to the moon it resonated with people. and if we had a leadership that asked americans to unite behind the national mission i do think that would help in peoples recognition that we are all in this together in the united states. that's a national mission i think it would be helpful. >> that's one of the things about this virus is science tells us they know what actually works to reduce the chances of it spreading. as you said it's mask wearing, social distancing, all the things we're all now familiar with. and that is the good news. the bad news is, you know, the cdc has put out guidelines of

recommendations for how schools can reopen as safely as possible. the president, you know, yesterday said they're too tough, they're too expensive and impractical solutions, wants them to rewrite it. and the cdc seems to have caved and is coming up with something else coming out next week because the vice president said, you know, these other ones also were too tough. >> well, look, this is a familiar and very infuriating pattern of the president. he started this situation by denying the problem, and then he disengaged from it, and how he's using t using deceit about the current level of science. and it's not a strategy for health and victory here, and this has been consistent in both republican and democratic governors that have repeatedly asked the president to step up

and show leadership, and he simply has refused to face the difficult decisions. but we are soldiering on in the states. and i'm glad we have some leadership at the state level to try to make up for this. but this refusal to follow science in america, the country that did go to the moon and now can't go to the mask or at least the president might be the last person in america that gets this, that masks really work is not the american way. but we're going to keep fighting on in our state and other governors as well. >> thank you for your time. >> you bet. thank you. mask up. wash your hands. >> mask up, wash your hands. good advice. the president says he is taken a cognitive test and aced it. he said that doctors who gave it to him were surprised. more on that ahead. we have more towers, more engineers, and more coverage than ever before.

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you might recall the president has called himself a very stable genius. last night he elaborated a bit. the question is what he said true. cnn's tom foreman tonight puts it to the test. >> i actually took one when i -- very recently when i was -- the radical left was saying is he all there, is he all there, and i proved i was all there because i aced it. >> reporter: the president's boast of acing a cognitive test is laced with questions. does he mean the one he took in 2018 at walter reed medical center or something more recent? perhaps during his surprise trip there last november? critics remain skeptical of claims he was getting a physical and the white house is offering no proof for his latest assertion. >> i took it at walter reed medical center in front of doctors and they were very surprised. they said that's an unbelievable thing. they said rarely does anybody do what you just did. >> reporter: really? not likely according to medical

experts who say such tests have just not that hard. >> i wasn't there but i doubt very much aastonishment was the reaction of the doctors. >> reporter: the montreal cognitive sesment which we know trump took at least once lasts only ten minutes. >> you may be asked to name animals such as a rhino, a camel, draw lines between letters and numbers in an ascending order and maybe even doing things like subtracting 7 sequentially, so 100, 93, 86, 79, you get the idea. >> i go i have an iq better than all of them. i know that. i guarantee you my iq is much higher than theirs. some of the pundits, believe me we're much smarter than them. iq-wise it's not even a contest. >> reporter: why brag about it? perhaps because his campaign is

attacking 77-year-old joe biden on that front. >> biden is clearly diminished. >> reporter: and trump just three years younger has had some awkward moments lately spurring questions about his mental and physical competence no matter what he says. >> been very consistent. i'm an extremely stable genius. >> reporter: whatever the reason for the boast there is also this to consider. if the doctors were as the president says surprised he did so well, why? and what was he being tested for in the first place? anderson? >> tom foreman, thanks very much. want to go to white house correspondent jeremy diamond. does the white house plan to ree release the results of this test? i'm not sure why the president even brought this up. >> reporter: yeah, anderson, right now we don't even know which test the president is actually referring to. we know he took this montreal cognitive assessment back in 2018, and one official suggested to us that was the test the

president was referring to. but we also know he went to walter reed for the surprise visit just last fall. so the question is did the president take another test here? ultimately, though, anderson, this is pretty simple short 10 minute test that tests memory and some simple mental faculty skills. and thnl thing that it says is that the president likely doesn't have any mild cognitive dysfunction. it doesn't really show anything else about the president's cognitive capabilities and yet we see the president here touting it. >> do we know why he's bringing it up, his cognitive capabilities unprompted? >> reporter: look, this is something that goes back a long time with the president. we know he's repeatedly referred to himself as a very stable genius and the president has focused on trying to portray himself as someone of above average intelligence. that has only heightened questions he's faced about his own cognitive function when we've seen him slurring words in public or having trouble walking as he recently did at that west point graduation.

it also comes in the context of the president trying to swing this attack around on the former vice president joe biden. and that is something we've seen from this president time and again going back to the 2016 campaign. i'd like to call it the bo boomarang insult. he throws it against his opponent. it did it against hillary clinton in 2016, and now we're seeing him use this very same tactic against joe biden. it seems the president here raising this unprompted in part again to deflect from the questions he is facing and also to raise questions about his opponents who's a few years older than him. >> appreciate it. the president says he wants schools to reopen but says the cdc recommendations for doing that safely are too tough and expense. a leading medical warns of possible nightmare scenarios. we'll talk to him next.

president trump once again today threaten today cut off federal funding to america's public schools. it's his way of forcing kids and teachers back to classrooms despite the fact the u.s. continues to shatter numbers for coronavirus cases. for some schools it could be just a month or so away. one of the president's closest advisers apparently doesn't worry too much about any of the risk. >> just go back to school. we can do that. and, you know, you can social distance, you can get your temperature taken, you can be tested, you can have distancing. come on, it's not that hard. >> he leads the division of medical ethics here in new york. this sort of pressure from the federal government about reopening schools for in-person instruction is an unregulated experiment. what do you mean by that? >> well, anderson, sending our children back in the middle of a plague that's out of control not

knowing whether they will get sick or how infectious they're going to be is really indefensible. it's a gigantic, if you will, experiment. we don't know. i have to add when someone says it's just easy, let's go back to school, i find that outrageous. you mean the child who has juvenile diabetes, the child who has asthma just goes back, where kids are 36, 37 to a classroom and no social distancing? i mean, are we really going to sacrifice our kids blindly with no control and no safety just saying go back? >> it is remarkable to me how the cdc which, you know, puts out these guidelines and the guidelines they released, by the way, were debated, delayed, finally kind of put online in the dead of night, ignored by virtually all the states and to reorder opening businesses. and the guidelines for the

school the president says they're too tough and they're going to rewrite them. does it worry you science seems to be supitcapitulating at time political precsnr. >> it does worry me a great deal. i'm tempted to say cdc has got to hold the line here. it can't sacrifice kids in the name of political pressure to make things appear normal. look, not only, anderson, are we in a plague out of control with covid. you send those kids back to school remember we were just finishing the flu season when covid came last march, it'll just be starting let's say in october, november. most kids if you look at the numbers have not had their shots for measles and mumps. they're going to be able to spread those if they go back into school. are we asking they all get vaccinated for sure before we send them back? it's a toxic stew that faces our children, and they can be bringing the plague or the epidemic, if you will, to their

teachers, back into their homes, back to their grandparents. to say that it's time to, you know, ignore the science, it's just not fair to kids who can't themselves give consent to what's being done with them. >> it's interesting because i mean that is one of the arguments that, you know, a lot of people make. look, you know, this isn't so bad for kids and the number obviously of kids who died -- it just doesn't seem to harm kids that much. but what you're saying essentially is this is also an experiment on the adults working in the school as well as, as well as the adults back home that the kids return to. >> exactly. we know younger people at least don't get hospitalized and die at the same rate that elderly people do, but we also know they can spread infection. we're not sure about the rate, but you get older teachers, older bus drivers, older janitors. if you're going back to home where there are older grandparents that are helping out what we're seeing is going

back to school is partly a slogan to go back to normal. there are plenty of people home schooling. some people can distance learn, you know, remotely. why do they have to go back to school? and if you're not going to make the schools at least minimally safe in terms of ventilation and heat and making sure there aren't too many kids per classroom, then what you're doing is basically treating kids as a tool in a political war. kids don't deserve that. >> it's odd to me, you know, larry kudlow saying it's hard to reopen schools. it is hard. even in normal times it's hard to reopen schools. i'm not sure the last time he was in a public school, but i mean the challenges they're facing. and just even making changes to infrastructure, you know, to the facilities cost money, money that a lot of schools don't have even if they're getting structural pandemic funds. >> and flint schools, philly

schools, baltimore schools, some don't even have running water. you can't get a drink, wash your hands. they had these problems before covid broke out. i don't think they've been exactly fixed. there is this notion i think out there we just fling the doors open, school is a happy place, everyone will be back at recess. schools are a tough environment. without fixing that it's really dangerous to just send everybody back. >> i appreciate it as always. thanks very much, art. >> thank you. roger stone's get out of free card before he went out courtesy of the man he help put in office, donald trump. our michael smerconish whether oil make any difference to voters next. i love rakuten,

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and talk to your eczema specialist about dupixent. if your financial situation has changed, we may be able to help. (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. breaking news friday night convicted felon roger stone will not be setting foot in president. he was granted clemency. the new cnn special things i wish i knew before i started

talking. i was talking to jeff toobin. what is your reaction? >> my reaction is that it probably won't move the needle. supporters of the president will read that white house statement that was released tonight under the stationary of the press secretary which says this was all part of the maligned mueller investigation had there not been an investigation then stone wouldn't have been facing charges. nowhere in the statement that was put out by the white house is there claim of innocence. critics of the president will say a corrupt president just provided some safeguard for a corrupt friend. >> roger stone just today said to a reporter speaking to the president he said quote he knows i was under pressure to turn on him. it would have eased my situation considerably. but i didn't. he didn't flip on the president. but it does sort of raise questions of the president is

getting him out of the prison time. is this a reward for not flipping? >> if there was nothing about which to flip he wouldn't be in the predictment. i'm not surprised by this. as you point out it was roger stone who really got the 2016 campaign off the grounds. and then was either fired or quit. i never bought into that. i thought the two of them recognized they needed to be at arms length and came up with a convenient relationship. roger has been in the become ground during the campaign and the administration. >> it was interesting. i remember when he was fired and stone said he quit. even then you had the sense that in talking to him he was still in touch with the president and still kind of working informally. >> no doubt. i interviewed him. i have known roj r a long time.

i remember interviewing him during the firing period. the cooling off. and he always seemed to have insight that could have only come from the president's ear. >> you have a special airing tomorrow night. at 10:00. chronicling your career in broadcasting and politics. >> i met ronald reagan as an 18 year-old. i worked in the george walker bush administration at 29. i had a seven hour dinner with castro. at his house. i got to take former pakistan president to vote with me at my philadelphia polling place. you can watch it on you tube. it didn't go so well. >> the variety of stuff is amazing. i'm shocked led zeppelin doesn't take orders from you. seven hour dinner from castro. i have heard about those.

who is left on your list? >> i have had fun along the way. i'm privileged to have the forum for an hour. there is a serious message that i want to deliver tomorrow night. about the partisan gridlock how it came to be. what created this polarization. hopefully it's entertaining and learn things as well. >> i really look forward to it. always fascinating. thank you so much. tomorrow night join a fascinating look at his one of a kind career. things i wish i knew before i started talking. tomorrow night 10:00 p.m. eastern. we remember the victims of the pandemic including an emt and restaurant owner. (vo) the time is coming for us to get out and go again.

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i want to take time to remember some of the lives lost

during the pandemic. the assistant police chief in alabama. she worked for the department for 30 years. the police chief in phoenix city said she was his partner and friend and praised her sense of duty and loyalty. both as a police officer and a person. gail was a foster parent for special needs children and a long time member of her church. she touched the lives of of many and demonstrated love in the purist form. she was 56. scott was an emt in new jersey. he was just 17 when he received his certification. he dedicated husbais life to heg others. one of the longest standing team members. and his colleagues say he tended to thousands in his career. calling him hero and sore will missed. he was 47. she was considered the unofficial mayor for 37 years. he fed everyone from struggling

students so chicago bulls to president obama. he was known not just for his food but generosity and commitment to the community. he mentored disadvantaged kids in the area and local politicians including the governor of illinois. it stayed open during the pandemic. he took part in the mass campaign. you can see him here with the logo no mask no sauce. he was 71. we think of them all and wish the families the best in this difficult time. news continues i want to turn it over to "cnn tonight." >> i second that. thank you very much. a busy night. this is "cnn tonight." it is friday night america is in the grip of a pandemic. that is killed more than 134,000 of our citizens. and that is rightly where the focus will stay. tonight. on those people who have died. and the crisis that is facing our country. we have breaking news.

president trump commuting the prison sentence of roger stone. the police cal dirty trickster and trump crony days away from reporting to federal prison in georgia. convicted of perjury, witness tampering, obstruction. steen crimes were all in the service of this president. during the course of the russia investigation. so tonight the president's friend a felon seven times over gets his pay back. he just had to wait it out. roger stone like this mt. is no victim. they like to play one on tv. birds of a feather flock together. part of the pattern of the kind of friday night news dump that we have seen from the administration over and over and over again. designed to the rule of law. we could see this coming a mile away. white house continues to use power and the might of the justice department to protect the president and his