frames have been torn out. the floor is strewn with broken glass. all our equipment -- this microphone i'm using is the only microphone we have left functioning. and here -- you can bring the camera back to me. and this is our only camera. the others are all damaged, wolf. >> well, fortunately you're okay. our team is beirut is okay. we will stay in close touch with you. ben wedeman on the scene for us. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next, the breaking news, more than a thousand americans died of coronavirus today. the president down playing the numbers, saying, quote, it is what it is. except, it doesn't have to be this way. plus the obituary she wrote for her husband, blaming the president and the governor of texas for his death. why her words are gaining attention tonight. more breaking news, the

president just calling an explosion in beirut an attack. was it? we are live on the ground tonight. let's go "outfront." good evening i'm erin burnett. "outfront," tonight, it is what it is, the words of donald trump when asked about 1,000 americans dying from coronavirus each day. and just moments ago the president saying something false about the coronavirus situation. >> we proportionately are lower than almost all countries. we're at the bottom of the list. and relative to cases also, we're at the bottom of the list which is a good thing being at the bottom of the list. >> the u.s. is not at the bottom of the list when it comes to people dying. we have nearly 23% of the world's deaths. that's the 20 most affected countries when it comes to death per 100,000 people, the united states ranks fourth. as of tonight, u.s. death toll topping 156,000 people. in 11 of the past 15 days, more than 1,000 americans on every single one of those days have

died from coronavirus. but the message from the president when he's confronted with this 1,000-person-a-day toll, it is what it is. >> i think it's under control. i'll tell you what -- >> how? 1,000 americans are dying a day. >> they are dying. that's true. it is what it is. but that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. it's under control as much as you can control it. this is a horrible plague that beset us. >> do you really think this is as much as we can control, a thousand deaths a day sf. >> i'd like -- >> a thousand deaths a day, it is what it is. hearst the truth. it does not need to be what it is. look at countries in europe and asia. when you look at deaths per million residents, nowhere near the death rate of the united states. we're in green there on the end. you can see how it got corrected in italy. italy was way off than the united states back in april. they did things. they did lockdowns and masks and now way fewer deaths. it is what it is in large part because there's been no national

strategy to combat the virus. total failure in testing, no universal mask wearing plan. two things that president trump bears a big deal of responsibility for thanks to his constant moniker there is too much testing and his refusal to wear a mask and ridiculing others who do. listen to this exchange with axios. >> the figure i look at is death and death is going up now. >> okay. >> it's a thousand a day. >> if you look at death. >> yeah, it's going up again. daily death. >> take a look at some of these charts. >> i would love to. >> we're going to look. >> let's look. >> if you look at death -- >> yeah, start to go up again. >> here's one. well, right here, united states is lowest in numerous categories. we're lower than the world. >> lower than the world? what does that mean? >> lower than europe. >> in what? in what? >> take a look right here. here's case death. >> oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases ooichlt

talking about death as a proportion of population. that's where the is u.s. really bad, much worse than south korea or germany. >> you can't do that. >> why can't i? >> you have to go by where -- look, here is the united states. you have to go by the cases. >> why not as a proportion of population? >> we have somebody -- what it says when you have somebody that has -- when there's a case -- >> oh, okay. >> -- the people that live from those cases. >> it's surely if u.s. has x percentage of death -- >> you have to go by the cases. >> ts there's the irony now he's happy he has the cases he says he doesn't want to have because of testing. he walked into the interview -- those are his papers. those are his stats, charts, graphics. he was shuffling them around, obviously hadn't had time to go through them much before. it couldn't paint the rosie picture he wanted to paint. again and again during the interview when trump was

confronted with some of the reality on the ground, he returned to one of his favorite talking points. >> we have tested more people than any other country, than all of europe put together times two. we have tested more people than anybody ever thought of. india has 1.4 billion people. they've done 11 million tests. we've done 55 -- it'll be close to 60 million tests. and there are those that say you can test too much. you do know that. >> who says that? >> oh, just -- read the manuals. read the books. >> manuals? what manuals? >> read the books. >> what books? >> what testing does -- i'm sorry. let me explain. what testing does, it shows cases. it shows where there may be cases another. countries test -- do you know when they test? they test when somebody's sick. that's when they test. i'm not saying they're right or wrong. nobody's done it like we've done it. we've gotten absolutely no credit for it. >> let's just -- there's a in

there. no doctor has said you can test too much. the ideal thing would be to test every day. as a matter of fact, the doctors on trump's coronavirus task force say there's not enough testing in this country and the turn around time is not fast enough. they're right. i was in urgent care today for unrelated matter and there was a sign saying it could take ten days to get a coronavirus test result. you're either incredibly sick or you're better and nobody can contact trace n. that regard, trump is right. we are like no other country. germany gets test results back within 24 to 48 hours. japan gets them back in three days. it is what it is in this country because trump keeps pushing things about testing and masks and social distancing that are false and modeling bad behavior on that front. just the other day, no masks, no social distancing at his fund-raiser. kaitlan collins is live "outfront" near the white house today. the president coming to podium insisting the u.s. has a lower death rate than other countries.

it's simply not true when you look at the facts here of how many people have died in the country relative to population. >> and it's not clear if his team is presenting him with the same numbers we're looking at or if he's looking at other kinds of charts. you saw the axios interview how they were recording it differently, not by population but cases of deaths overall. we know the fox news interview with chris wallace, they left russia off the list. so, it's not clear how he's looking at these rankings when he's making these arguments. today in the briefing room, you saw him trying to argue if you look new york and new jersey off the list, that would change how you look at the u.s. of course. those are big areas and we know they were the first ones hit so hard by the coronavirus. you can't just remove them from the count because they do have high numbers. that's like if japan wanted to remove tokyo from its list. you can't not count one of the biggest areas in your country just because they had a high outbreak. as the president was looking at what he's been -- something he's

leaned on multiple times to indicate how the u.s. has done and in his mind done well with this is the ranking of mortality rates with countries. it even is a stretch to do it as it stands now because according to the johns hopkins numbers, we're fourth on that list. if you look at the countries ahead of the u.s., they still don't have as many deaths as the u.s. does because it's counting it per population, per 100,000 people. that's not even a really good comparison. but it's the president trying to find the positive in these numbers to use those. and i just want to point out something before i let you go. the president just tweeted these photos of him attending a task force meeting. this time it was in the oval office. typically they are held in the situation room. and it was supposed to be held in the situation room at the white house today. this is the first time the president has attended a task force meeting since the month of april. based on the last time i checked with other members of the task force he had not been in there since april. now it's august and it looks like he's finally meeting with

the entire team in person. >> thank you very much. the first time since april. certainly that means there are people close to him who know the gravity of this who are making sure he's there. i want to go to dr. sanjay gupta now and dr. jonathan reiner, director of the g.w. cardiac cath lab and who advised the white house medical team under george w. bush. first time kaitlan reporting that the president has been in a coronavirus task force meeting since april. by the way back in april is when we had 1,000 deaths a day, went down a bit, plateaued, and been back there almost 11 of the past 15 days. of that number, 1,000 a day, his comment day, it is what it is. it doesn't need, though, to be this way, does it? >> no. you know, look, that's an extraordinary lack of empathy. i've known people who have died of this disease and you can imagine people's families hear the president say that. this was not inevitable. it is a bad virus. it's lethal.

it's contagious. that's true. and it's affecting all of us humans on the planet in some way or another. we've all been affected by this. what has happened in the united states, how this has unfolded in the united states, the minimization of this why the united states back in february and even today is part of the reason we have so many people who die in this country. this did not have to happen. this did not have to be as bad as it is in terms of infections or as bad as it is. hopefully -- i like to look forward. hopefully we can bring the trajectories of the numbers come down, but i don't think we're doing anything to make that happen in a concrete way. >> when the president says, i think it's under control, it is what it is. we just laid out the numbers on deaths and how many people are dying as percentage of total population, which frankly is the only way to look at this. here's a point on cases, which no one knows how many there are so looking at anything as percentage of cases is

meaningless because you're testing a lot or little or 40 times as many people have it or you don't know. but you have a high number dying relative to population. the united states is doing terribly. does the president really not realize this? >> i think he has the numbers all jumbled up in his head. i don't think he really can figure this out anymore. so, let me deconstruct this. we've had about 155,000 people die of this virus. that equates to about 481 per 1 million population. the president says we're doing great on -- we're doing better than anyone in the world. so, for example, germany's mortality rate equates to 110 deaths per 1 million population. israel, 60. japan, 8. so, we're not doing so great. but the president was talking about the case fatality rate, which as you said, no one really knows what the true numbers is because we don't know the denominator. >> right. >> we don't know how many cases are out there. all right.

but when you look at death, that -- the case fatality rate is a reflection on how the nurses and the doctors in the hospitals are doing. when you look at the mortality rate for the country as a whole, the number of deaths in this country, that's the reflection of what our government has done. and we've failed on that. all the successes in terms of lowering the case fatality rate, that belongs to the frontline heroes who every day try and put this fire out. >> so, sanjay, i want to play, again, part of the exchange between president trump and the interviewer, jonathan swan, on the death toll numbers. here it is. >> we're lower than the world. >> lower than the world sf. >> we're lower than europe. >> in what? in what? >> take a look. right here. here's case death. >> oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases. i'm talking about death as a proportion of population. that's where the u.s. is really bad. much worse than south korea or germany, et cetera.

>> you can't do that. >> why can't i do that? >> you have to go by -- you have to go by where -- look. here is the united states. you have to go by the cases. the cases are there. >> why not -- >> so, sanjay epidemiologically, mathematically explain this, why it is so important, why this case method is not the way to look at it. >> i mean, people can put out these relative rates, right, comparison to 100,000 people or a million people or the population of the country, you know, and if you look at this, you're going to have different rankings in terms of whether or not united states -- united states is never going to look particularly good but it's going to have different rankings. the thing about this is this is a pandemic. jonathan was talking about the denominator. this affects all humans on the planet. this idea that ultimately if you look at the number of infections, the percentage of

infections in this country, 20 to 25% of the deaths in the world have occurred here in this country. so, there's all sorts of different ways to look at it. but given that we're all in this together, that may be the simplest way to sort of analyze this. how do we do compared to the rest of the world, or what percentage of the world's infections to do we have? what percentage of the world's deaths do we have? absolute numbers versus these relative numbers make it simpler. >> dr. reiner, what about what the president suggested tonight, take out new york and new jersey -- we were at a thousand deaths a day when those were at their peak. he says take them out and the u.s. numbers would look totally different. is that legitimate? >> no, actually if you take out how new york is doing now, the country would look much worse. >> yeah. >> why would you exclude new york state from this? the last i checked, we are the united states of america.

but, you know, if you were to take out the 33,000 americans who lived in new york who died of this virus, you would still be left with 125,000 deaths which still is about twice the number of any other country on the planet. but one more thing about this, it is what it is, i've had to tell people that someone that they loved has died, and i'm sure sanjay has had to do the same thing. i've never in my life said, look, it is what it is. the reason for that is i'm a human. we really deserve better than that. >> thank you both very much. next a republican governor just announcing a mask mandate. now it is a mandate as cases are soaring there. plus our own drew griffin investigating the coronavirus testing failure in this country. why some are able to get results right away while other essential workers like teachers aren't. and breaking news the death toll climbing tonight after the

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go to prudential.com or talk to an advisor. breaking news, a potential coronavirus vaccine showing promising results. novavax announcing tonight this vaccine is safe, eliciting immune response in early tests. it comes as masks are now mandatory in mississippi as cases soar there.

sara sidner is "outfront." >> reporter: the coronavirus is spreading out of control in the united states. >> i cat jorically reject we can't do something about it. >> reporter: with more than 4.7 million diagnosed cases in more than 156,000 deaths. >> the u.s. is the fourth worse performing country in the world. we have 4% of the world's population, yet we account for 25% of the world's deaths. that is unacceptable. >> reporter: new case rates are steady or down in 42 states, but often the numbers are a very high level, with florida about to become the second state to total a half million cases during the pandemic. >> i think by the time we get a couple weeks into the future, i think we're going to continue to see the pref decline. and that will be a very, very good thing. >> reporter: in mississippi, the positivity rate is now higher than any other state, prompting the governor announce a state mandate in public spaces and for

teachers and students in schools located in hotspots. >> we must pump the brakes in hardest hit areas. >> reporter: in neighboring louisiana, the governor just restricted seven restrictions there including a mask mandate for another three weeks. while cases are declining in many places, death tolls continue to climb. >> this is a serious situation our country is facing. you don't need anybody to tell you that. you just need to look at the numbers. >> despite the worrying data for the u.s. as a whole, some citizens are throwing caution to the wind. another massive house party, a potential coronavirus petri dish that ended in gunfire, one person killed, three shot. >> we as a public have to be conscious of everybody else. >> reporter: schools continue to be the great unknown. some communities eager to start up. others concerned with the risks

of sending students and teachers back into classrooms. >> we can make great academic decisions, but i don't think talking about somebody's health, not knowing all their underlying conditions are the types of things we should be deciding. >> and of course superintendents, teachers, staff members, parents and children all concerned about spreading the virus, going through schools. in georgia's largest school system, they are reporting some 260 school employees have either tested positive for the virus or have been around someone who tested positive. it is the kind of thing that schools do not want to become a place where community spread >> thank you. i want to go to jonathan horton. he's a professor at southern connecticut state university. he is planning on holding in-person classes outside this fall and he's encouraging others to do the same. i want to circle to this idea that seems very basic and yet

frankly in a lot of places is -- seems to be hard to pull off or they're not really going for it, i don't know, but the idea of outdoor classes. how is it going to work for you? and how is it being received? >> well, i suggested last week in an article, and i've done it in the past before with some of my classes. the difficulty with a campus like mine is there's not enough furniture out there. this administration is trying to coordinate the efforts. i'm sure you've heard a number of universities are doing outside tents, putting chairs together, asking students to bring chairs. >> can you do it in the winter? where you are, it gets exceedingly cold. you dress warm, you could have space heaters. this is possible in that setting? >> we're planning to go online before thanksgiving. that's why i'm advocating for this pretty much from the end of august. >> you don't even think you would need it through that time? i was just making the point i

think you could if you wanted to, but i understand your point. you know, in the early 1900s during the tuberculosis outbreak, we had people outside, right? i guess it's just interesting to me that we're back to that, right? we have all this technology, and yet, you know, we're going back to a teaching method that dates back to the ancient greeks that many of us associate with beautiful spring days when finally the teacher would let us go outside for class. you write in your op-ed about how this is going back in history. >> i've been teaching for 20 years and i taught at the technology where they had the space in the room. i think you would be surprised a lot of students prefer it. the feedback they've got from us is we respect that. >> i think a lot of people would prefer it to online. i know people want to be safe, but i know and you know so many student who devastated by this online only situation that many of them are doing this. you have been teaching online since march. in doing what you're suggesting,

there are some risks you could be taking on to your own health but you want to do it. you believe in teaching in person. why do you think it's so person? >> a lot of students miss the contact. i certainly miss the discussion. and a lot of students don't have the camera unfortunately. even if you do try to have the happen, they get distracted at home. in a class of 50 students it's very difficult. in a seminar that's 10 to 15 students, i find it more doable. i don't mind doing both, quite frankly. >> i hope people hear the optimism and the effort here. it would seem there's a hybrid that could work for a lot of people than just throwing in the towel. thanks so much. >> thank you. next, states banding together on a testing deal because the federal government failed them. they are now backing a test that can detect the virus in 30 minutes reliably. will this work? talk about transformational. plus republicans say they may

not allow some of the parts of the convention covered. they're blaming governor roy cooper, "outfront" next.

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new tonight, states banding together to do what the federal government has failed to do. six governors announcing bipartisan deal to announce rapid antigen spread to detect and slow the spread of coronavirus. this comes as their remains no national plan to deal with the testing fiasco, weeks long waits in many places. drew griffin is "outfront." >> why is coronavirus testing in the u.s. still a debacle? cnn spoke to state health officials, testing labs, testing suppliers, hospitals and industry insiders, more than 20 testing experts. the overwhelming consensus, no federal plan. >> we need to have a better national strategy to deal with testing. >> reporter: but wait a minute, wasn't there supposed to be a plan, a white house coronavirus task force, and wasn't this man tasked with fixing testing? the answer to all three is yes, and according to admiral brett,

the federal government is doing all it can. >> it's not enough? >> of course it's enough. tell me one thing we should be doing with any of these private labs they're not doing on their own, and i'm happy to do it. >>. >> reporter: well, here is what the federal government should be doing according to those experts. first, national coordination of supplies. >> you have whether intentionally or not competition across states, across labs. >> reporter: there is not enough of anything. the swabs, pipettes, chemicals needed to perform a test, reagents, which is leading to huge competition between states and labs. >> if we had all the supplies we could use, we could perform around 10,000 tests per day. but we just don't have all of the supplies or all of the people. >> reporter: case and point, try core, new mexico's largest medical lab is running just 3,700 tests a day instead of the 10,000 it could handle, nowhere

near i.c.e. its capacity. >> we need goals and support at the federal level to get to testing. >> reporter: that sounds like a polite way of saying if there is a national strategy, nobody in new mexico knows about it. >> probably, yes. >> reporter: one way of getting the supplies is increased use of the defense production act. cnn previously reported how the administration not using the dpa as much as it should, said the government should immediately invoke the act specifically to increase supplies for reagents and machinery to process testing. >> what we have seen is that industry left to its own devices is not going to produce the types of tests and the scale of tests necessary. >> reporter: and several of the experts say the trump administration needs to abandon its idea that the competitive marketplace will solve supply issues. it simply won't.

and if you want proof, dr. rajib shah says turn on your tv and watch sports. >> if you're a multimillion dollar baseball or basketball player, you're getting tested quite often so you can go to work. but if you're a teacher or a health care worker, you're out there doing your job and asked to do your job without the benefit or support of testing. that's not fair and that's not right. >> reporter: heather pierce says it's time to let science lead this u.s. response. >> that is not a market-driven response. that is something that requires the engagement of the public health community, the academic community, and the government public health forces. >> reporter: in other words, a federal plan. erin, the surprising response from the department of health and human services is there is a

national plan, and that is to work with the states but that a single national plan isn't appropriate because those states have different needs. as for those supplies, the department of health and human services told us that is unrealistic that the federal government could manage distribution of supplies to labs across the country. erin, they think it's working. >> all right. drew, thank you. i want to go now to dr. ashish jha, director of the global health institute, top expert in the country on testing. drew points out no national plan on testing. now you've got governors of now seven states working on having tests to defect the virus in 30 minute. it's awful we're at this point right now. you've got the states trying to ban together to do this at this point. this is where we are with no national plan. could this be successful, governors at this point getting together to try for something like these 30-minute tests? >> thank you for having me on.

i think it can be successful. first of all, it is not a preferred plan. a preferred plan would be a national plan. a true federal effort. you would have to work with states because the states are different and have a lot of different needs. that's really not what is happening. that's not what we're getting from the federal government. i think this is plan b and i think it's a pretty good one. personally i am thrilled that the states have come together. many of us have been working behind the scenes to try to enable something like this, and it's great to see it's really bipartisan. >> is the technology there. you and i were talking, you said you could spit on a special strip of paper and you know you've got the virus or not. if that kind of thing happened, we could open schools. we could open the economy. talk about transformational and the best thing to happen to an economy in a depression. does that technology exist? >> it dust exist. it does exist. it's amazing, right. that does exist. these antigen tests that give you results in 15 minutes exist. and the bottom line is that if

you just leave it to the market, they will ramp up and produce millions of tests in the next year or two. we don't have a year or two. we've got to get it now. and that's why we need the hand of the government really creating a market, helping with supplies, making it happen. if the federal government isn't going to do it, and it's very clear they're not going to do it, these states are coming together saying they're going to work the companies, they're going to create the marketplace. i think it's the job of congress to help states out with the resources and other things so that the states can take the lead. >> dr. jha, president trump tonight suggested that the united states carrying out more random testing for the virus compared to other countries. here he is. >> we are testing at a level that no country in the world -- and i've spoke ton the leaders of the world, and they'll ask me about it. no country in the world thought it would -- it's even believable that we're able to test so much, 61 million versus, you know, most countries don't even test.

do you know when they test? when somebody's feeling badly. if somebody is feeling badly, they're symptomatic, that's when they test. that's a big difference. with us, we go around and looking because if we find, we find spots, we find hotspots. >> is that -- is that right? i mean, that we are doing this amazing randomizing testing? >> so, it's not quite right. first of all, on a per capita basis, we're not number one at all. and that's what matters. second is our outbreak is much, much bigger. so, we need to be doing more testing. third, there are all sorts of surveillance testing programs that other countries have that they're doing. but because they've managed to bring their outbreaks under much better control, they don't have to do quite as much of it. but the idea we're the only ones do surveillance is not true. there are lots of countries that are doing it. we are not winning this game. we have more cases. but more importantly, we have more hospitalizations and more deaths than any other country in the world. so, no matter how you slice it, we're doing pretty poorly.

>> doctor gentlemar. jha, thank. i was at an urgent care today and they said 7 to 10 days. that's in a place where you don't even have it widely prevalent. they don't want you if you don't have symptoms. breaking news, president trump telling an explosion that tore through beirut an attack. dozens are dead. was it an attack or not? plus she wrote a powerful obituary of her husband blaming the president and other politicians about his death. i'm going to ask her why. .do yo? try zyrtec... ...it starts working hard at hour one... and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. zyrtec muddle no more.

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breaking news, tropical storm isaias wreaking havoc across new york, new jersey, pennsylvania. right now 3 million customers without power and deaths blamed on the hurricane. buildings, towns, cars, utter destruction. roy cooper joins me now.

governor, i'm sorry for this amidst this virus battle to have this happen. two deaths in your state. a tragedy. you've got nearly 100,000 people without power the last time we checked with major damage which we just showed. this is happening while you're dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. how hard has it been to have this at the same time? >> well, it's been difficult. this storm slammed into our state as a category one hurricane. we do mourn the loss of two lives, over a dozen people injured, a lot of damage. but north carolina knows how to prepare for storms and hurricanes. this time, we had to do it with a mask on. when you have a pandemic and a hurricane, it's double trouble. and we have spent the last few months preparing for a hurricane, hoping it would never come, but knowing in north carolina we are susceptible to having them. i'm proud of the way our emergency management approached

this, making sure that our shelters did screening for covid,that we had personal protective equipment there, that they were social distancing. and we were ready and we're glad that the storm is gone, and we're ready to begin the recovery process. >> so, you know, you talk about covid and the testing you were doing in shelters. i mentioned a bipartisan group of governors getting together for these rapid antigen tests where you do a lot of them. you might get some false positives or negatives but you find out a lot of people that have them because it's quick. we have six states -- moments ago we learned you're the 7th joining this. i guess i'm asking you, governor, is obviously you wouldn't have needed to do this if there were a national testing plan, if people in your state had access to fast, frequent testing even for asymptomatic people. how much is the federal government's failure on this issue, testing, hurt your state? >> it's hurt a lot.

we wish there had been a better federal testing strategy. in north carolina we worked very hard to get testing out. we find problems with supply chain. we find problems with personal protective equipment. so, as governors, we've had to step up and do the job. we've done that in north carolina, and now we're bonding with other states here to try to use our collective power to do this. it would be better if we had a strong national strategy that would get ahold of the supply chain. and, you know, it's hard to trace when there is so much time, turn around time, in the testing. we've got to do better here for sure. >> so, the rnc was criticized over the weekend. they were saying the events in north carolina could be closed to the press. obviously there was the whole thing the president called you backward and tried to move as much as he could to florida. there are still some parts

happening in north carolina. the chairwoman of the rnc said said the whole issue of the press is not on them, it is on you, governor cooper. here's how she put it. >> we want the press there, but this is an rnc decision, this is a governor cooper of north carolina decision that's limiting how many people we can have in a room. >> i guess they're saying because you're currently in a phase where you can't have more than ten people in an indoor space. is she right on this being your call then? >> absolutely not. the rnc has changed their mind so much on this. first in charlotte, then in k gentleman sonville, then back in charlotte. how are they going to have it? one thing that hasn't changed is north carolina's commitment to public health and safety. we're willing to work with them on a safe convention, and look forward to doing that. but in north carolina, we've been able to keep our numbers down. we have not seen the spikes that other states have because we've

taken pro-active action. i put in a mandatory mask mandate back in june. that has shown positive effects. we've taken the dimmer switch approach where we've stayed in our phase two. these are the things that are positive and the way you keep your numbers low. and we're not going to have a whole lot of people gathering together and spreading virus in a way that the rnc had talked about doing it, with the president telling me he wanted a full arena. we were not going to have that here. >> governor cooper, i appreciate your time, and i thank you, sir. >> sure. thank you. i want to go to breaking news now, a massive explosion in beirut. 78 people at least killed, thousands have been injured, thousands. huge blasts rocking the city. conflicting reports about what caused it. president trump coming out, calling it a terrible attack. >> are you confident that this was an attack and not an accident? >> it would seem like it based on the explosion. i met with some of our great

generals, and they just seem to feel that it was. this was not a -- some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event. they seem to think it was a attack, it was a bomb of some kind. >> ben wedeman is "outfront" is beirut. president trump came out and said he thinks this was an attack, which is a huge thing to say. thousands injured, death toll likely to climb. what are you hearing about what caused the blast? >> reporter: what we understand is that there was a warehouse in beirut port that contained more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been confiscated by the authorities back in 2014 and was being kept in that warehouse. where exactly it was confiscated from, we don't know. but what is blaringly obvious is that it has caused a massive

explosion in this city. it was seven hours ago that that blast took place, and i'm still hearing ambulances whaling in the background. at least 4,000 people wounded. more than 70 killed. now, no lebanese politician -- and this is a country where speculation is a national sport and conspiracy theories are a hobby. no one, at this point, has actually pointed the finger in any particular direction. obviously, often times the fingers are pointed at israel. so, when president trump seems to confidently state that it was an attack, he has given a lot of ammunition to people here who will obviously point their fingers in many directions. and one of them is israel, erin. >> look, it's incredible he would be the first to come out and say that. obviously the information doesn't appear to be there yet. the reason ben is standing where

he is -- that's our bureau is beirut. that's what happened where ben is standing and how severe the damage is across all the city of beirut. ben, thank you very much. up next a woman blaming the president and other politicians for her

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and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. tonight, shame on you. that is the message, the quote from the family of texas resident david nagy: he died from coronavirus. in his obituary that garnered thousands of likes and shares on social media. nagy's family blames president trump and the texas governor for his death and they write in part. family members believe david's death was needless, they blame his death and other innocent deaths on trump and abbot and all the other politicians there a did not take the coronavirus seriously and were more concerned about votes than lives. we have the widow who wrote t

obituary, i'm sorry for your loss and a loss that you never thought would have touched you. and i'm truly, truly sorry for that. tell me about this, why you felt the need to write this? >> well, i was very -- i was very distraught and very angry. seeing how people are reacting to this pandemic, or not reacting to the pandemic. listening to things that trump and the other politicians were saying. not setting examples by wearing masks and so forth. and i felt that had things been handled properly from the very beginning, we would not be where we are now. and had the public been listening to the medical professionals and done what they should have done, we would not

be where we are now. consequently thousands of people have died. now, i am heart broken over this, of course. his family, his kids are heart broken over it. but in addition to us, i think about all the other families, all the other people that lost husbands and wives and mothers and fathers, children. you know, they are going through the same thing. and it's frustrating when you know that somebody's died that didn't need to die or at least they didn't need to die in the way they did and the time that they did. >> yeah. >> so, i was -- after this whole thing happened, i was -- i was so angry and i just had this need to express myself and to put blame where blame belongs. so i wrote my little obituary and i posted it in my little town's little newspaper.

and hoped that a few of the residents would read it and start wearing masks. and i had no idea that it would have, you know, turned out the way it did. i had no idea that it was passed around and people were passing it around. >> you have a message about masks specifically. i know you just mentioned. you wrote that those that refuse to follow the advice of the medical professionals, believing their right to not wear a mask was more important than killing important people. do you believe from the responses you have gotten, has this changed how some people are behaving? >> yesterday, yesterday evening, i went on to facebook and started reading live messages

and the majority of comments were in my favor. the majority of comments that people believed the same way i believe and they gave me an atta-girl for doing it. good for you coming out and saying it, you know. but there were some people that gave negative comments. they said such things like oh, her husband didn't really die, this is all just made up. and this is just made up to make trump look bad because we are getting close to an election, and stuff like that, which is not the case. >> so, you know, we just showed some pictures of your husband, you know, with the grandchild and of course, with you. >> yeah, that is his grandchild. >> yeah, a couple of weeks ago he was alive and a couple of months ago, you would have thought you had a lot of time left. many years. tell me about him.

>> oh, dave, was a character. he was really, really a character. he was a fun-loving person and he loved his family dearly, he loved all of his children, his grandchildren, his great grandchildren. he loved me, he loved his dog dearly. he loved to tease people when we would go places, he would like to kid around with the waitresses or the store clerks and things like that. he was, he was a wonderful person, you know, i could be in the kitchen washing dishes at the sink and he would come up and start kissing the back of my neck. giving me, you know, chills in the back of my neck. you know, and he just, he was the love of my life. and i love him. he was a part of me. and i just, i -- i feel lost

without him. >> well, i am really sorry. i am so sorry for your loss. and i thank you for sharing a little bit of him, his life with all of us. thank you, stacy. >> thank you. >> and thanks to you for watching, anderson starts now. good evening, for days we have been pointing out thatpresident trump, the self proclaimed war-time president has not mentioned the fact that more than 150,000 people have died on his watch. so far, he rarely in any detail mentions the dead. in a article today he was asked about the daily death toll, more than a thousand now americans dying a day. his words, "it is what it is" he said." it is what it is. that is our consoler in chief, that is the message to mothers and brothers and