you our viewers in the united states and around the world. we're dedicated to bringing you the news now and years to come. thanks for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the witch witch room. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com "outfront" next, the breaking news the president threatening executive action as the stimulus bills collapse. million of americans have been depending on that lifeline. the president is about to speak and we're going to bring that to you live. growing questions about the tests used to protect the president after the ohio governor tests positive then negative all around meeting trump. isn't this more reason for the president to wear a mask? and then a top intelligence official warning china wants trump to lose and russia is working to defeat biden. let's go "outfront." good evening i'm erin burnett. now have tonight the breaking

news the president of the united states threatening executive action this hour as negotiations have collapsed. the president is about to speak from his resort in new jersey. he has just stepped out and told people assembled there he's going to be speaking in a couple of moments. it comes as the house speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary steven mnuchin describe the talks as far apart or at one point today very far apart. and new jobs numbers show an incredible slowdown in hiring, the united states down 13 million jobs since the start of the pandemic. so, the issue here is the $600 weekly jobless benefit which expired at the end of the july so people didn't get that this weeb. currently more than 30 million americans are collecting those job let events. i want to go first to jeremy diamond at the white house. jer mist just to be clear here, the president had what he called a lid. he was done for the night. he was going to have his private time. that was lifted and he's going

to be coming out to speak late. this news just came. we're expecting him any moment here. what are you hearing that he's going to do. >> reporter: that's right erin, this news conference popped up as a surprise in just the last hour really. we found out initially that the lid was lifted,that the president was going to be making remarks and we're learning it's a news conference with the people traveling with the president at bed minister. the president is expected to address the stalled talks with democrats over this phase four coronavirus relief package. remember erin, just a few hours ago those talks between the white house chief of staff and the treasury secretary and the top democrats on capitol hill, they have stalled. they are at a complete log jam after two weeks of negotiations, more than 20 hours spent between those top leaders on capitol hill. those talks have gone nowhere fast. they are still -- even after today, even after democrats came

a little bit closer to the republican position, they are still more than a trillion dollars apart about what this package should actually have in it. a couple hours ago we saw the president take to twitter so say he is going to be going another way and that appears to be a reference to the fact that the president said he will sign executive orders to act on his own to extend unemployment benefits and as well waive the payroll tax for employers and employees. so, the president here seeming to take unilateral action is perhaps what we are going to hear from him during this news conference that we're expecting to hear in just a few moments. we should note, of course, that both sides, democrats and republicans, have made clear while there has been some progress at times, they are still very, very far apart. as of now, erin, there are no more meetings scheduled between the white house and those democrats on capitol hill. the question of course is what

happens next because democrats have made quite clear that they would likely challenge those executive actions in court. and even if they stand, there are still a whole other host of issues that will be unresolved, namely funding for testing, funding for schools. those issues cannot be addressed by executive action. so, the question is where do those k notion yaegotiations anl hill go from here. >> those are crucial questions, testing and schools, nothing more important. i want to go to kevin haas set. he's the former chair of the economic advisers under president trump. and austin gools by, informal adviser to the biden campaign. i want to get kevin's view on this. the president may come out and do an execive order. says he can't do it for testing. last minute announced press conference. saying he can't do executive order for testing money or

schools money but the president would be allowed to waive the payroll tax and extend unemployment insurance benefits even though the congress has the power of the purse. explain how he can do this. >> well, i'm not sure how it works. one other thing he's talking about or the white house folks are talking about is extending the federal moratorium on evictions, for example. the democrats are going to challenge all these executive orders in court because congress does control the money. as you know, on the payroll tax issue, erin, it's not only democrats who are opposed to it, but there isn't any support for that on capitol hill at all because that does nothing to help the unemployed in this country. and also down the road, it could certainly hurt the social security trust fund, the medicare trust fund. so, i think there are a lot of issues out here that are going to have to be addressed. having said that, i think both parties owe the american public

an explanation about how they could not come to any kind of an agreement on some of these basic issues. and i know what the arguments are on both sides. the democrats want a larger package. and there are lots of republicans who won't vote for a larger package, don't want to vote for one at all. so, you understand the impasse. but in the end these are people's lives you're talking about and the president can sign an order. it can go to court, but how does it solve the problem? >> kevin, you've looked into this. explain does the president have the authority given that congress controls money to waive the payroll tax and extend unemployment benefit insurance? >> sure, just like the backdrop first of all is i don't know what the president has decided to do. but he is a very careful planner, believe it or not. and he had lots of people working when i was still at the white house -- i left about a month ago -- on sort of the back up plan if it turns out that the house doesn't want to move off of its bill. i can remember back then at the white house there were a lot of things that were view td as

poison pills like state and local aid that amounted to state and local spending for theest are of the year. the back up plan is something that there's a lot of legal support for because in an emergency the federal government is allowed to lend money to states. so t president issued the executive order to say you know what, states, if you need to spend more money on unemployment insurance because you think your current replacement rate isn't high enough then we'll lend you money to do that because it's an emergency. you mentioned waiving evictions. i think that's something that certainly for a federally guaranteed or funded housing i think he's on strong legal stance there. the payroll tax goes back to -- do you remember when they deferred paying taxes. they said april 15th isn't going to be the due date for taxes. for the payroll tax, the treasury secretary clearly has the authority to delay the

collection of payroll tax. so, that's the kind of stuff that people talked about back when i was at the white house. i'm not sure what the president is going to announce today but that's -- >> the legal justification. sen. austin from a political perspective and economic perspective, do you celebrate if the president does come out and extend the president benefit insurance and waiving e vekss? is that something you would celebrate tonight? >> yeah. look, if he did that, i would be for that. that's a good idea. we've got -- we lost 22 million jobs in a single month. we've got ten of millions of people out of work. we've got hundred of thousands of people that will be threatened with eviction. so, that part of it i would be happy with. now, i'm not a lawyer. kevin is not a lawyer either. how you got to a constitutional place that the president can cut taxes when congress did not

approve it i don't fully get. and to do an idea the payroll tax cut, that's not even supported by republicans, i just don't see how the president is wrapping his head around this being a good idea. i think if you look at the planning that they have done -- and i say that in quotes -- the planning on how to slow and stop the virus, you see that it's again and again oriented to the short term and not thinking about what comes next. so, let's say they find the legal justification to put off or cancel the payroll tax. that undermines the financing of social security. is that really right to way to do this? let's make the focus getting money to the individuals that have been hurt rather than $5 trillion lending to big corporations. >> i hear your point on payroll tax. as you point out there's many republicans who don't want it either. gloria, what about the political

point -- kevin is making the point that the president believe it or not does planning. if he did planning he might have looked at this as a smart thing to do because he's been the one helping people in giving out extension to unemployment insurance, not nancy pelosi who said that she's for it. could it be a politically smart move if indeed that's what we're about to hear? >> here's the big issue sort of behind all of this, at least a trillion dollars worth of it is this aid to state and local governments. and what you hear donald trump saying is i'm not going to do that, i'm not going to bail out democratic states who have mismanaged their handling of covid-19, and i'm not going that. and the democrats are saying you're not bailing out states that mismanage anything. what you are doing is paying the salaries of first responders who are otherwise going to have to be fired if the state and local governments cannot pay them. and that, i think, is where the impasse is right now. >> so, kevin, let me ask you,erny who worked for

president obama, he did a study and it showed that people who went back to work in june, 70% of them were making more on that unemployment $600 a week that many republicans said, oh, you're paying them not to work. why are they going to get jobs? 70% of people who got jobs gave up that check because they wanted the job. doesn't that show that this is the kind of simple assumption that if i'm going to pay you more from the government more to stay home you're not going to go to work is false? >> first of all you have to understand that there's a lot of uncertainty in june looking forward that the $600 is going to be extended. so, you know, once the $600 isn't extended, then of course people would be really sorry if they didn't is are a job. as austin said, the economy is extremely weak right now and it's a pretty risky strategy to take the extra 600 bucks to not go to work if you have the chance to go to work. there are a lot of reasons not go to work right now. for some people their workplace

isn't safe. they shouldn't go to work. the idea of plussing up unemployment insurance benefits is 100% supported by the white house. i was in the senate finance room to negotiate the deals. the reason they ended up doing the 600 bucks is the democratic people in that room stated this, is that the computer systems in a lot of states, both blue and red, are so outvoted they can't make it a higher fraction of income. they have to make it a lump sum. since $400 is about the average benefit and $1,000 is about the average wage, then the 600 bucks came from that. it came from the fact that there are 50-year-old computer systems out there. the president has the authority to lend money to states under fema, emergency powers. so, as gloria mentioned, if they're worried they don't have the money for first responders which i'm not sure if ths that's going to be true then they could ask the federal government for a

loan and i'm sure the president would give it to them. >> i want to give you a chance to respond to something kevin said. he said that part of the reason the implication was they were worried that the money may go away, t may not be renewed but if it's renewed you may see less of that. i don't want to take kevin's point too far but that's part of what he was saying. what do you say to that? >> i would say in a normal time, even in hay normal recession, we should think about the issues of what's the replacement rate and it's reasonable to have that discussion. this is totally not a normal time. if you look at the data, there are currently five out of work seekers for every job opening, the highest ratio in the history of the data. it is not the case and it's really offensive for the white house to be saying people are choosing to remain unemployed. there are millions of people who are desperate to get a job if only because more than 5 million

people lost their health insurance when they lost their job in the middle of a pandemic. if you take a step back, my objection is that the white house doesn't want to put the money into the people who have been hardest hit. it wants to do this through the corporate side. it wants to extend $5 trillion of lending facile toy the big companies. we had a $2 trillion tax cut for corporations. and their main focus is not about those people and when it comes to the people, they want to tighten and say oh, we don't want anybody to get it who's not deserving. >> quick rebuttal, kevin. >> look, the president's very unlikely to issue an executive order today. the white house says it should be higher because it knows that there are people that are hurting because they can't go to work because of this terrible virus. the question is what's the smartest way to increase the

unemployment insurance benefit. it's something the president i'm sure would have preferred to have a deal with the house and the senate so they did it through normal legislation. he's not going to let those people not get the money. it's a complete misdirection to start talking about the corporate tax and what the president is about to do is use his authority to get 'm money to people hurting. >> we're going to take a break here as we're waiting for the president. what kevin is saying is i am the one who is helping people who failed you. nancy pelosi failed you. >> right. and don't forget this is a president who as we know has not been completely engaged in these negotiations. he's had his treasury secretary up there, his chief of staff has been up there. and everybody knows what the sticking points are, and they keep going round and round and round. and i think if it were just about the level of unemployment insurance, you know, i think they could work that out, perhaps, extending moratoriums for people who might otherwise

be evicted from their homes. i think they could work that out. payroll tax, they could not work it out. republicans would be just as happy to get rid of suspending the payroll tax because nobody wants it other than donald trump. the big issue here is the state and local governments. and what is the federal government going to do to help the states? we've heard the president talk abit with andrew cuomo, for example, in new york. >> right. >> so, i think you might hear the president talk about it tonight. >> yeah. i'm sure you will. the great irony is never mind who has failed on this and not failed in terms of handling but there's plenty of red states and blue states that have had terrible outcomes here. thank you all. please stay with me because you'ring go to be with me. the president is about to speak. we don't know what he's going to say. he did say he's going to be going to the podium in new jersey at his golf club in just a few moments. plus a quarter million people are dezend og an i small town at

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let's try again. everybody back to one. accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. breaking news, we are waiting on president trump to speak from bedminister, new jersey. it comes as the number of americans who have die frd coronavirus is expected to top 161,000 people tonight. the number of cases in the united states will hit 5 million this weekend. this as foreign policy assessed how countries are doing, put the u.s. at the bottom of the list, 31 out of 36 countries. the list based on public health and financial response as well as the government's use of science. "outfront" tonight dr. sanjay gupta and dr. jonathan reiner, advised the white house medical team under president george w. bush. first this ranking, 31 out of

36. other countries down there with us, iran, mexico and china which obviously for different reasons, however they fudged their facts, they've done a hell of a lot better when it comes toal kroing it. but being honest about it. >> it's pretty clear just how bad off things are here because there's real data around something like this. this isn't nebulous or vague in terms of telling the story and see what's going on. we said it so many times. we're not 5% even of the world's population. with e have 20% to 25% of the world's infections. many countries that were sort of developing their first confirmed infections around the same time as us are doing a lot better than we are. we all had the same resources, tools, knowledges strategies available to us. some implemented it, some did not. you can guess where we were. >> dr. reiner, the u.s. government that the study describes as relatively weak. it's engaged in misinformation

as any country in the index. that's an incredible thing to say, the u.s. government is engaged as much as any country in the index. your response? >> it's destructive because misinformation about the virus leads to behaviors among the people. when you look at parts of this country, it's hard to find people wearing masks. and that comes from misinformation. the scope of the virus needs to be understood by the population for the population to act. so, here in the united states is the center of misinformation is shocking. but it explains a lot of what's happening in the last five months. >> sanjay, i also want to talk about the governor of o-ohio, mike e did wine. he tested positive for coronavirus yesterday before he was supposed to meet with the president. nine hours later he tested negative. we know the first antigen he took, the type of test, could produce a false negative 20% of

the time. but yet this is the test that the, arenc had him take before going around the president of the united states. it's the president of the united states. should this be a test with a 20% fail rate that the white house is relying on? >> well, there's two points here, i think. first of all, with these types of tests, if the test comes back positive, you can -- it's usually -- that usually means it's positive because it finds the virus or some evidence of the virus, depending on the type of test. if it comes back negative, you're absolutely right, 20% of the time with the particular test, the antigen test that governor took, you get a false negative. so, that's what it is. that's what the test is approved to do. you trade off a little bit of accuracy for speed with these tests. so, you want to get a quick result, the technology that we have now gives you a higher false negative rate. it makes the case that you can't count on it. it does a reasonable job, but you've got to do everything

else, wear masks, keep your distance. >> it could make a hugely transformational difference. for the president there's no mask wearing and no social distancing so he's relying 100% on a test, 20% false rate. it seems short of shocking. >> right. and if i had been advising this president on the coronavirus protection from the beginning, i would have limited number of people that he encountered on a dahly basis. the only people that needed to see him would have seen him. everyone would have wore a mask including the president of the united states. he and the vice president would never be together. and that's how you keep the president safe. but what we saw early on were these mass gatherings at every coronavirus task force, no one wearing masks, the president avoiding himself wearing a mask, sitting around tables crowded

with people. instead relying on testing to try to create a sterile cocoon around him and we've seen how porous that can be. >> i understand from a broad population perspective, the antigen test can be important. we're talking about the president of the united states and the broad population. it is true that there are places in the world where you can have both rapid and accurate tests, correct? >> like germany. germany ramped up testing very rapidly unlike in the united states where it took literally months to test 100,000 people. germany developed a test very quickly. they then sent the blueprint out to hundred of labs to enable them to make kits. so, germany developed a very robust testing capacity very early. so, now you can go almost anywhere in germany, get a sophisticated molecular test and

have the results tomorrow. and they have bandwidth. they have the ability to ramp up. as the virus is increasing in germany, they have the ability to test more people. in june, the state with 13 million people announced they were going to test nerch that state. so, they have both a national strategy and the ability to test widely. and that's why germany has had a total of about 10,000 degts in the country. >> it's pretty amazing when you think about it. they have something widespread. we not only do not have it as widespread as the united states but the president of the united states could get it from somebody. this comes as talk about vaccine a fever pitch, the president raising prospect of it happening by election day which is wildly optimistic. dr. fauci spoke about the effectiveness of a possible vaccine. here he is. >> i believe we'll get an effective vaccine, but we don't know if it's going to be 50% or 60%. hopefully -- i'd like to see 75% or more.

but the chances of it being 98% effective is not great, which means you must never abandon the public health approach. >> 50% to 60% effective. i find that troubling. is that something to be looking at that differently? >> i think the fda has set a lobar for emergency use authorization. the idea is that if everyone took it you would have 50% of the country protected if this thing was 50% efficacious. 50% of the country is not meringue on taking it. you only get to 25% herd immunity. it's not exact math like that. you need to have a more effective vaccine especially if people are not taking it or not enough people are taking it.

we have to wait and see what the efficacy is. older people may be more benefitted or less benefitted. one thing i want to say is the testing. i think you were living at this point. could we have safe rapid accurate testing that might be point of location like pregnancy test, that sort of testing. i think the answer to that question is yes. this is still deif yfudalling t that we still haven't had the rapid response testing. i think we could have had it by now. 80% is not acceptable. there are some technologies getting much better results. but why don't we have these sort of tests available yet. >> as we are speaking, the president is about to speak in new jersey, a state you are

required to weir masks inside and outside, we have a chance to look at who's in the room of where the president is about to go. while we understand some masks were handed out, we have obviously video of opeople not social distancing and i guess we're look at live video. my understanding is there is maybe -- did these people just receive masks? there were many people not wearing them although what i see in this shot, i see most people wearing them. what's your -- what's your reaction to this? it is, by the way -- it is new jersey state law to wear them and that may be why they just put them on. i was told a moment ago they did not have them on. no social distancing. is it fine to have the masks without the social distancing? >> actually i saw the images from when they formed the crowd in the ballroom and about 2/3 of the folks there were not wearing masks. >> i'm glad you saw that. that's what i'm referring to. obviously that's changed. >> that's how you spread the virus, a closed indoor space with a lot of people standing close together, most of whom are

not wearing masks. i don't understand why this time and time again happens at presidential events. you see people without masks standing close together. this is why we are where we are now. and this is abhorrent behavior. this is not the behavior with our european cousins, everyone wears a masks, everyone social distances. that's why their schools are opening this fall. >> sanjay, let me make a point hear and i do want to make the point, we did see all these people earlier and at least 2/3 of them were not wearing masks. i don't know why they put them oen. i presume it was the law in new jersey. they wouldn't want a bunch of people violated the law at a presidential event. they're still not social distancing. i mean, how is it possible, sanjay, that i don't know who it is that's allowing this stuff but that this stuff is still allowed to happen at the very least because it could but the president of the united states'

life at risk. he is 74 years old, he is overweight, he has heart issues, he is a very high risk person to get very vick from coronavirus. >> i think the fundamental problem is a lot of people still think this isn't real. i think they feel like they're placating the camera guys filming them now. there's still this belief that i'll do this because i have to but i don't think this is a real thing and i don't think the guy i'm about to listen to thinks it's a real thing either and maybe i'll even be ridiculed a little bit for wearing a mask. this is the covering we're covering. it's not a medical story anymore. this is a psychology story in some ways. you know, i think i said on your program a couple of weeks ago if you could see the virus, if you could see this virus that is coming out of people's noses and mouths tethered by about 6-foot long things, all of a sudden people would spread out in that room, right? if you see the virus emanating, you would spread out but they

don't believe it's real. that's why it's still happening. >> that's amagz. we've looked at those pictures. recently a university in new south wales, australia, they've put it out with various types of masks. it's spewing out there. masks make a huge difference. once you see that image, you never forget it. even without coronavirus, it perceives how you perceive standing near people. >> just like in a hospital. everyone wears a mask. no one stands within molecular distance of each other. we give each other space. we've cancelled all counsel frenss. every conference we do in the hospital now is via zoom. so, we don't sit in a conference room even masked together anymore. and because of that, the covid-19 rate in health care workers is low. it's shockingly low for people who work in a covid-rich environment because of something very simple which is wearing

masks. and if you look at the university of washington latest projections, we could cut the mortality rate by 70,000 people over the next several months if we simply adopt a mask -- universal mask wearing policy. it's really low-tech but so important. >> yet san yea, in sturgis, sk south dakota, you have a quarter million people gathering with no social distancing requirement and no masks. it's the biggest gathering on the planet since this all began. the mecca gets brought down to a few thousand people and we have a motorcycle rally in this country going on in sturgis, south dakota. what -- i mean -- does anyone -- when you talk to doctors around the world, how do they even get their arms around that -- here he is. he just come out. let's listen to him in bedminister, new jersey. ♪ >> thank you very much and it's a great honor to have everybody

here. i know the press was not quite expecting this, so i appreciate you're being able to attend. we have a terrific number of things and very positive things to tell you tonight. i want to begin by giving you an update on the economy. economic health is vital to public health. that's why our strategy to kill the china virus is focused on protecting those at greatest risk while allowing younger and healthy americans to safely return to work and safely return to school, very important. we added 1.8 million new jobs in july, exceeding predictions for the third month in a row, and adding a total of over 9.3 million jobs since may. and i will say that the job growth that we've seen over the last three months, 9.3 million is the single greatest three-month period of job

creation in american history. that's big stuff. that's big news and great news. overthe past three months, the united states has surpassed market expectations by a total of 12 million new jobs. over the last few months, the united states has added 623,000 manufacturing jobs. remember you need a magic wand to get manufacturing jobs. and we're getting them even in a pandemic, which is disappearing. it's going to disappear. over half of the new jobs are full-time jobs and wages are up by 4.8% which is terrific. unemployment has fallen by nearly 30% since april. think of that. 30% since april. hispanic-american unemployment is decreased by nearly 32%. jobs held by african-americans, which were hit especially hard by the shutdowns, incredibly

hard, increased by nearly 1 million over the past three months, and that's also a record, a job record, african-american, 1 million -- it's a job record. we must ensure that the progress continues. my administration has enacted over 3 trillion in historic relief since china allowed the vurs to infect the world. so, we've contributed $3 trillion. my administration continues to work in good faith to reach an agreement with democrats in congress that will extend unemployment benefits, provide protections against evictions. a terrible thing happens with eviction, not fair. it wasn't their fault that we were infected with this disease from china. and get relief to american families. yet tragedingly nancy pelosi and

chuck schumer consist to rely on policies that have nothing to do with the china virus, nothing to do with it at all. you have a virus that comes in and you have people in congress that don't want to help our people. if democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage, i will act under my authority as president to get americans the relief they need. and what we're talking about is deferring the payroll tax for a period of months until the end of the year. and i can extend it at a certain period. hopefully i will be here to do the job. we're going to do the job. we've been doing the job like nobody could. nobody would, actually. so, we're going to have the payroll tax go until the end of the year, and it'll be retroactive to july 1st. so, we're going to go back to july 1st, and it'll go to end of

year, payroll tax. at the end of the year, it may be extended. we're going to enhance unemployment benefits through the end of the year. so, unemployment benefits will be -- that's a big one -- will be brought out to the end of the year. and deferred student loan payments and interest until further notice. extend the eviction moratorium. we will be extending that so people aren't evicted, not their fault. we had a lengthy discussion this morning with president macron of france concerning numerous subjects, but in particular the catastrophic event which took place in beirut, lebanon. horrible, horrible event. at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon, i

spoke with president aoun of lebanon to inform him that three large aircraft on the -- are on the way and they're fully loaded, fully loaded, with medical supplies, food, water and many other things, lots of emergency equipment. also first responders, technicians, doctors and nurses are on their way. this was an event like the world has not seen for a long time. horrible event. we'll be having a conference call on sunday with president macron, leaders with lebanon and leaders with various parts of the world. everyone wants to help. we spoke to a lot of people. they all want to help. the united states is with authorities on the ground right now in lebanon to identify further health and humanitarian needs, and we will provide further assistance in the period to come.

we're working very closely with their government, with their leaders. and on behalf of the united states, i want to extend our condolences to all of the families, much larger number of families than anybody would have thought and anybody at first thought. but all of those families who lost loved ones, relatives, friends in this horrible tragedy. we stand with the people of lebanon and will offer our full support through this difficult tomb. we have not seen anything like this in a long time. as you know, earlier this week i met with american workers at the tennessee valley authority who have been laid off by the leadership at the tennessee valley authority. as you know, this is a form of utility. it's been around for a long time, since fdr.

and the head person not controlled by government but sort of semipublic in a sense. gets paid the highest salary in the world of government. gets $8 million a year. that's not a bad amount of money. gets $8 million a year. and we are not accepting that. even though we're not the ones that appoint him or her, but in this case him, we're not accepting somebody getting paid $8 million a year. this has been going on for many years. and we will do something about that and we're already in negotiations right now, including possible termination. they, and hundreds of their fellow american tech workers, the workers at the tva, were being terminated from their positions on top of all of this

and on top of the $8 million salary and the chief of staff who makes much more than a million dollars a year. but on top of that all that, they were being terminated from their positions, these incredible people, in order to train the lower cost foreign workers imported to replace them. how's that for a law? this was set up originally to create jobs in economic development. and now they're getting fired and they're supposed to train people for a much lower -- who get a much lower salary. it's crazy. this was a grave injustice. i fired the chairman of the board in response. on friday i fired the chairman of the board along with one other board member. that's the one thing we have. we have the ruight the to fire boarders. i made it clear if they did not swuftly reverse course, i would continue with these firings of the board members. and we just were informed that they have agreed to change

course totally. and today i'm proud to announce that a major victory for the workers of tennessee and kentucky and other areas that are covered, great states, great states, that the leadership of the tva has cancelled all of the layoffs and given hundreds of american workers their jobs back. they're being rehired as we speak. in this administration, we live by two rules, buy american and hire american. you can't do that. you can't fire all our workers and hire people back from other far-away parts of the world at lower prices, especially when they have to train the people. and they can never train them as good as what you have because they've been there for many jobs, they've done a fantastic job, and they love the tva. we have a lot of people in the office the other day. they love the tennessee valley

authority. and they're so proud to work for it. this happened. it was a terrible thing. now they're going to get their jobs back. >> the president of the united states as he's speaking talk about this executive order that he's signing, i want to go through what he said it's going to do. he led with the payroll tax. it will defer it to the end of the year. he's going to continue with the enhanced unemployment benefits. he didn't say $600 a week. i'm presuming when he says continuing with the enhanced benefits, that's the number we'll find out. in continuing pause on student loans and eviction moratorium as congress has failed to come to any of the above. aust aust aust austin guls by is back with me.

the president went to the enhabsed benefits until the end of the year. am i right in just shorthanding that to at the current rate of 600 per week? >> well, it wasn't clear to me and it's also not clear to me and it may be clear to you, maybe i missed something, but he said if the democrats continue, i will act. in other words, if the democrats continue to obstruct in one way or another. so, i'm not exactly sure whether he's going to sign it or whether this was a shot across the bow and it's sort of enumerating exactly what he's going to do. i guess we have to stay tuned to see what he does later. but the thing that really struck me, of course, erin, was six months into this pandemic the president was still saying it's disappearing. and it's still hard to wrap your arms around that, that he is saying that now. >> so, let me bring in kevin haas set, former chief of the council of economic add vie

ventilators under president trump. i'm glad you're back. do you think -- two points i just made. one is when he says extend unemployment benefits he means $600 a week. the point gloria says, is this awe shot across the bow to democrats? i'll give you $600 a week but you're going to give me awe payroll tax and everything i want? >> i think that it's possible that -- the fact is he can do a heck of a lot as we discussed in the early part of the hour. and i think we sketched pretty accurately about what he said that he can defer the payroll tax, he can defer student loans, he can stop evictions, and he can do all that without congress. so, if nancy and chuck continue to insist on a trillion dollars in state and local support, given probably the state and local governments would spend just a little bit more than that over the rest of the year, then you're asking the federal

government to take almost the whole tab, it's an extreme position. if they want to stick on that position, he's going to do this other thing. if they're willing to bend, i'm sure he would rather do it legislatively. >> what do you make of it from a political perspective here. if this is an if you don't do this, i'm going to sign this. he's put democrats in a corner. he's giving them the big thing they said they wanted, but what about the republicans? he led with the payroll tax. that's the most important thing. republicans don't want i. but he's put that in there. >> look, he's pushing the payroll tax. i think the fact that the payroll tax will fund social security is going to make this thing a little bit nuclear or toxic as we come to the election, but i think if the president is actually saying that he's going to extend the $600 unemployment insurance, all of his allies in the senate and

even kevin himself who have been saying it's a bad idea to do a $600 unemployment insurance, what are they going to say? it seems like he's kind of sawing the limb out from under them. and then the second, we didn't say anything about the bizarro moment where the president seemed to be taking the last three months of jobs numbers and saying this is the greatest job creation in the history of the country, failing to mention that it followed the most catastrophic decline of employment that we have ever seen in any country and that the unemployment rate is over 10%. if he's actually bragging that the economy's good, i think he's going to look extremely out of touch. >> i appreciate all of you very much. thank you. i will keep monitoring if the president takes questions. next the massive bike rally i mentioned, the biggest gather erg on the planet since all this

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tonight the biggest public galt gathering since the coronavirus outbreak kicking off now. a quarter million people, 250,000 expected at the 80th annual sturgis motorcycle rally begins today, ends sunday. ryan young is out front in sturgit tonight. >> reporter: any other year it's a novelty. >> everything is cool. come out. >> reporter: a pilgrimage. >> we came 2,000 miles to work. >> reporter: a celebration. >> the happiest people in the world. >> reporter: this year some fear it could be deadly. 250,000 people expected to crowd a town of 7,000 making it the largest public gathering since the start of the pandemic. >> they're not going to be able to handle any kind of social distancing. there is a significant amount of alcohol involved. it's a huge party. >> reporter: total coronavirus cases are low but rising in

south dakota. the state's push testing positivity rate is between 8 and 9%. the w.h.o. recommends locations at 5% or lower for at least 14 days before opening but south dakota never closed so the rally isn't breaking any laws. >> i always look up here as being false evidence appearing real, and i think that's what has happened. >> reporter: rod woodriff own as buffalo camp ground with 600 acres, there is plenty of room for social distancing and common sense. >> ride free and take risks. that's our motto. that doesn't mean you don't calculate them. these people calculate their risk every time they get on a motorcycle. >> reporter: 60% wanted the rally cancelled at this time but city leaders say bikers were coming anyway. >> i don't care if it's closed down. i'm going. they can all kiss my [ bleep ] i'm going. >> reporter: the city counsel allowed it with fewer events but

no mask requirement. for those afraid to leave home, the city will deliver suppliesu >> we've been doing it the entire time. we will include anything that can be bought in sturgis. >> reporter: south dakota's republican governor welcomes the crowd and says events like the independence day celebration out in mount rush more says the state isn't affected by large gatherings. >> we can have events and let them protect their health but still enjoy their way of life. >> reporter: that's what venn to -- vendors like ted smith want to hear. >> we can't do work in florida. >> reporter: others worry 250,000 people crowding bars and restaurants could spread the virus and sent it home to others. >> they can infect our native american populations, our law enforcement and potentially our bar staff. >> reporter: and erin, proving

how you can never be ready for live television. there is downpour of rain and wind that's sending a lot of people scrambling for bikes and for cover. i can tell you the weather here has been great so far, not a lot of social distancing, not a lot of people wearing masks, not upset at people that do decide to wear a mask but you can see people made a conscious decision not to wear it in many other places. so far i've been told this is their right about riding the bike and being free and that's what they plan to do over the next coming days. >> thank you very much. one of the center pieces of this rally is the sturgis buffalo chip, massive camp ground of 600 acres. many attendees will stay there for the ten-day outdoor rally. the owner of the sturgis buffalo chip. appreciate your time, rod. let me ask you, you're holding concerts nearly every night of the rally, tattoo cafe, bike races, stunt schedules. what preparations are you taking? you're going to have so many

people on your site. >> well, we're not going to have nearly as many people as you guys are talking about. that 250,000 people is a fiction number. you have a town of 7,000 people. main street is only like six blocks long. you don't put 250,000 people in there. they wouldn't fit. and there is not 250,000 people going to come to this rally, and the rally actually spreads out over 7,000 square miles. so it's a black hills rally. it's not the town of sturgis. >> so when we say there is usually half a million that come to the state for this and it will be 250,000 this year, you're saying you don't think it will be anywhere close to 250,000 even? >> correct. and there was never 500,000 people here, either. those are government numbers, and there is no basis for them. >> so do you have any concern at all, you know, when you think

about your own property and the risk you're taking on of -- >> you know -- >> everything being optional, i'm talking about masks and social distancing? >> it's just like you said before, you know, these people are adults. they have lived their lives freely for decades. they have made their own choices about what risks to take in their life and they have decided that they come here. we're out in the middle of the country. you can look for miles and not see a single house. there is not any of the contained rooms there with the contaminated air that congest you have from indoors. these people are outside. they are camping. they are more than six feet apart. the camp grounds are more than six feet apart. they get on the motorcycles more than six feet apart and the air is fresh and so, you know, they

don't have the same level of risk that somebody in a ballroom in new york city would have. you don't have the congestion. >> appreciation your time and i hope that you're right. thank you very much. appreciate it. thanks so much to all of you. anderson starts now. good evening. we start tonight with breaking news. president trump right now speaking from his golf club in bedminster new jersey, talks that appear to have collapsed in washington. if he takes questions, we'll bring it to you live. on a day the government reported the economy gained 1.8 million jobs in july but with unemployment rates above 10%, the president's moments ago lashed out at democratic leaders nancy pelosi and chuck schumer for pushing for budget items he says have nothing to do with the virus but suggested he's still open to a deal. >> my administration continues to work in good faith to reach an