who aren't wearing masks are to blame. in a post she shared a photo of her sister's hospital room with the caption, this is her hospital room. one of you nonmask wearers did this. a post on her page she wrote she drove to montana thinking they would avoid the virus. now she said she is fighting for a breath. you don't want covid. anderson. >> thanks very much. it is the top of the hour. i'm anderson cooper. as cases spread across the united states the ability to find and isolate them is on the decline. that's according to data from the covid tracking project which found that 15 states have conducted fewer tests this past week compared to the previous one. at least one expert says the u.s. could be seriously undercounting the number of americans who are infected. >> the testing situation is not good in the united states. what we're not picking up are people who are contagious. that's the right word to use, contagious.

we're probably missing eight out of ten people who are contagious and any decrease in testing is worrisome because we're already not doing well. >> with the nation now home to about one-fourth of coronavirus cases worldside cnn learned president trump expressed enthusiasm about an unproven botanical extract touted as a therapeutic for covid. the extract getting trump's attention this time after his friend and founder of my pillow, michael lindell after he first raised it in the white house. >> i've heard of it, yes, go ahead. >> is it something you would support? >> is it something that people are talking about very strongly? we'll look at it. we're looking at a lot of different things. i will say the fda has been great. they are very close -- we're very close to a vaccine, very close to a therapeutic. i have heard that name mentioned. we'll find out. >> dr. peter hotez from baylor

college of medicine is a vaccine specialist. oleander plants are highly toxic. that's the raw plant. doctor, we saw him push hydroxychloroquine. he says he even took that drug. explain to us what oleanderan is and could it be considered as a possible treatment for coronavirus? is there any actual evidence? >> yeah, anderson, oleanderen -- you might have heard about digitalis from the digitalis plant, that's also a cardiac glycocide. at m.d. anderson -- some of my colleagues have been looking at that substance in the test tube looking at a cell showing

antiviral activity. so it should be added to the list, growing list of compounds that should be tested in laboratory animals. that's it. that's where we're at this point. the likelihood it would emerge as a proven therapy is remote because it has to go through animal testing and even after that it could fail in clinical trials so we're at least seven degrees of separation from taking this seriously as a potential antiviral agent for covid-19. >> something having a reaction in a test tube, that's still a far away step from something that actually works in human beings. >> that's right. there's so many compounds that in the testing show activity against covid-19. i mean even hydroxychloroquine showed activity in the test tube against the covid-19 virus as it did against the influenza virus and in both cases it turned out

to flop in terms of clinical testing and in the case of oleander it hasn't been tested in laboratory animals so add it to a pretty large laundry list of compounds that's worth testing in clinical animals. worth testing in laboratory anima animal. that's all we can say at this point. >> we should note that president trump has never mentioned oleand oleand oleanderan -- the fda does not approve dietary supplements and have gone after hundreds of them for falsely saying they treat covid-19. at this stages what would the fda have to do or what should they do? >> well, as far as i know, nobody has submitted a dossier to the fda. what i don't understand coming out of the white house is they have the access to the best scientists in the world

including across our research universities and institutes. we have a number of possible cures and treatments and vaccines in the pipeline. why pivot towards this. this -- it's somewhat odd or bizarre the way the president of the white house tends to go for these really strange type of miracle cures which, one, have minimal evidence that it works, in some cases they still keep pushing it even after there's massive evidence showing that it doesn't work. it's really odd. there are some really promising antibody treatments under evaluation including those from regeneron and from abcelera and the candidate vaccines. that's what they should be discussing moving through clinical trials under supervision of the fda. we have the finest regulatory agency in the world. why try to bypass that talking

about craziness. >> doctor, the president this morning weighed in on how the u.s., he believes how the u.s. handled the pandemic. let's listen. >> this happened to the world, not only us, you know, when they report, they don't report what's going on because they have new flare-ups in germany and new flare-ups in france and spain and italy. they have flare-ups all over the place. >> australia. >> we've done phenomenally on this thing and we're a very big country. look at what's happening in brazil, look at what's happening in sweden. they talk about do it the swedish way, sweden is having a very hard time. >> i mean a lot to unpack there. we certainly do report on what's happening in europe. there have been flare-ups as he says, but in this country 170,000 people dead. his task force warnings are getting more dire and his assessments are getting more and more glowing. >> not only that, i mean, he often talks about it as though it were in the past. referring to what happened in

new york during march and april ignoring the inconvenient truth that the u.s. still neleads the world in number of new cases per day over the last seven days and over the last seven days before that and over the last seven days before that. also the u.s. leads the world in number of new tests per day. still at a thousand deaths per day accelerating towards 300,000 by the end of the year and there's never been that ownership, that leadership to say we've got a terrible tragedy on our hands. we've got to now take measures to implement a national program. it's as simple as that. they have refused -- this has always been about obfuscation. trying to minimize the clinical impact of covid-19 or trying to say we're not as bad as other countries when all of the evidence points to one clear fact, this has been one of the greatest or maybe the greatest public health failure of the united states in the last 100 years since the 1918 pandemic.

>> thank you. the government's operation warp speed program is moving to come up with 300 million doses of a vaccine by january. it may run into a snag. the scientists haven't managed to recruit enough black or latino subjects -- study subjects for the trials which could cause a delay in the vaccine. elizabeth cohen joins us, has exclusive data on how it's going but first a new study did it by race. what did it find? >> new study out and you would think that coronavirus cases would be equivalent when you look at different group, different ethnic groups, you would see it proportional to the population in yen. that's not the case. let's look at the state of ohio. in ohio blacks represent about 13% of the population, but nearly 32% of those who have been hospitalized with covid-19. that speaks volumes right there about the disproportionate about

this. how minority groups are being affected so much more than white people. >> and why have -- in terms of getting participations for clinical trials why have they had such a hard time recruiting black an latino people? >> let's look at the numbers. they're disproportional. so there is a website where you can register to be in a clinical trial. 350,000 americans have already done that. only 10% of them are black or latino, but more than half the cases in the country have been black or latino so you can see that those two numbers are not in line and, anderson, it is so crucial there be minorities in the trial. if there aren't the board of experts that oversees it could say, whoa, guy, hold on, we need to take more time to recruit more minorities which would slow down the effort but you have to do that so that it will be scientifically valid. you ask why there's trouble?

i spoke with african-american leaders about this. they said, look, there is a legacy in the united states of white doctors abusing black patients. you just have to look to tuskegee, an experiment that happened up until the 1970s, quite recently where black men were not even told they were being experimented on and there was penicillin to treat their syphilis which is what they were studying but it wasn't offered to them and many more examples of this kind of thing that has led to this legacy of black people understandably not trusting medical experimentation when there's this legacy they won't be so willing to roll up their sleeve and say, sure, give me an experimental vaccine. >> so are the people running the studies trying to reach out to communities? >> you know, they are and so they've put in calls to black church groups and other kind of black community organizations but, anderson, my team edward and i looked long and hard for any kind of material directed at black americans or hispanic-americans specifically

to them to talk about their particular concerns and it doesn't exist and that's because even months into this, the u.s. government has not come up with those kinds of materials. it's very basic. you need to write materials directed to the population you're talking to. they're working on it but they haven't done it yet. >> elizabeth cohen, thank you very much. i appreciate it. the super rich still having private parties in places like the hamptons and they're getting access to rapid tests. we'll speak live to a vendor providing them. plus, as democrats launch an efforts against the president's postal move, they're getting absentee ballots with trump's face on them. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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this just in, postmaster general louis dejoy has agreed to testify, a week from today. lawmakers want to ask him about the removal of post office boxes and mail sorting machines and elimination of overtime for workers. all this has slowed mail in many areas, sparked fears of potential election interference. congressman ted lieu and hakeem jeffries are urging them to open a criminal investigation and speaker pelosi is calling back the house early to deal with the crisis. want to quickly go to phil mattingly on the hill. what democrats will vote on this weekend is what -- >> reporter: speaker pelosi earlier in a private conference call with her caucus making clear that they will vote on a bill that actually serves two purposes. the first to block any operational changes to the u.s. postal service, the types of changes you were describing that louis dejoy, the u.s. postmaster general has helped implement

over the course of the last several weeks to the lens of cost-cutting measures and would block those starting from the beginning of the year through the end of the or the end of the pandemic and include $25 billion to help prop up the u.s. postal service which has been having very significant financial difficulties. now, this $25 billion number was something that the democrats had proposed earlier on in negotiations in a broader coronavirus relief package and negotiated with the trump administration on this negotiating and got down to $10 billion during the talks that have since stalled about the package but what you're seeing is a dual-pronged approach. the legislative calling members back from recess to a very rare saturday session to vote on legislation and then you also have the investigative, we noted louis dejoy voluntarily agreeing to come up and testify, also robert duncan, another member of the board of the u.s. postal service will testify as well on monday, they are expected to turn over documents as well and i think what you're see something not just a

dual-pronged approach but understanding on the democratic side that this is an issue that resonates with the voters and an issue they've heard a ton about from their kong stitt wents over the course of the last few weeks and an issue they want to make front and center and do something to try to stop what has been put into place and slow the delivery over the course of the last several weeks and months especially want to get out in front of anything that may harm or do damage to the expectations of tens of millions of mail-in votes. i would note as well republicans have said this is a manufactured crisis, but the issue is not just these have been cost-cutting measures put in place over the course of the last several postmaster generals but the president's own words. that's what democrats have seized on and concerns them the most and why you're seeing not just an investigative push and hearings but legislation as well. >> phil, thanks very much. well, all of this did happening and some voters in north carolina received a surprise in the mail. they received absentee ballots with president trump's face on

it. president trump has been railing against mail-in voting insisting without any proof it's fraudulent. my next guest lives in north carolina, got one of those ballot request and tweeted the picture adding got my mail from at real donald trump but i can't remember if this is a good or bad thing. mail-in is good but ab ten tee is good? thanks for being with us. how do you get this absentee ballot request form? >> it was obviously a mass mailing that came from the north carolina dop. i don't know if it's because i'm a registered republicans or went out to democrats as well. you'd have to ask them those questions. i just had to laugh to be honest because i think it's just lost on a lot of people how the process is done and was tweeting to show here's a rekwaes form. this isn't a ballot but at the

same time we have to mail in our absentee ballot here in north carolina and just the irony just seemed very -- >> did you request the absentee ballot form? >> no, i did not. but i can say that it might be a godsend only because in 2016, i was called out for work and wasn't able to vote because i missed deadlines for the absentee ballot process in pennsylvania, so i'm actually now just moved into north carolina about a year and a half ago and now know exactly how it goes about. it seems this mail-in request form is exactly the same as the one available online. it just -- and the address to send it back to is correct so everything seems okay with it. but, you know, seeing the tweet has made me see a lot of people just aren't educated on what the process is or even what this mailer truly does say. >> well, it's interesting because the president has been complaining about the idea of

states sending unrequested, you know, ballots to voters, universal vote by mail but it's interesting that i guess the republican party where you're at is actually doing that. they are sending out request forms to encourage people to request absentee ballots. >> yeah, so it appears to just be from the north carolina republican party, not from the state itself. >> right. >> so that is a very fine point made on it. i'm not a legal scholar, i'm not a lawyer. i don't even try to be, so, you know, some people have brought up on my feed whether this is legal or not legal. i will let them determine that, but, you know, again, be educated. go out, make sure you figure out what's right and if anything comes from this mailer regardless of how you vote, hopefully just the american public gets to know a little bit more about what's going on and make sure their voice is heard. >> chandler carranza, appreciate talking to you.

>> thank you, anderson. have a good day. ahead, the wealthy can get access to rapid tests for party guests while others are waiting in long lines to be swabbed. plus, what michelle obama is expected to say tonight in a different atmosphere thanner in last convention speech four years ago. can it help with snoring? i've never heard snoring. exactly. no problem... and done save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 36 months. ends monday.

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maybe the latest sign of the bizarre times we're living in, forget the bouncer, now you

might need a doctor to enter some of the posh parties in the hamptons. hosts are apparently paying bick bucks to hire medical personnel to administer rapid tests on their guests. instead of wait two weeks guests can get them on the spot. we have a doctor joining us now. thanks for joining me. how does this work? >> well, had they're deciding to have an event, they reach out to us, they let us know how many guests will be arriving and if the guests have already flown in from different places and they are residing here and based off the type of test that they have chosen for their event, we will either meet the guests a couple of days prior to the test or at the event and then we'll proceed and the guests sign to release the results and the host will determine if they're allowed in the party or not. >> and rapid tests aren't always reliable. >> correct.

i always have a disclaimer no one test is 100%. the pandemic precaution should still be exercised but i do agree that as a society and as citizens, if we have taken part in testing our guests, it's still a good thing versus a taboo. >> and how much does this cost? >> it can vary based on the amount of guests but anywhere from 200 to $500 for each guest. >> how quickly do you get the results? >> based on the method it can take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes and some are 30-minute tests. >> just because a test is negative doesn't mean the risk has disappeared. there's false positive and false negatives? >> right, correct, anderson. i think it's more so of an instead of having hors d'oeuvres now the theme is let's do rapid testing really. >> wow. have you had many positive results? >> luckily in the hamptons we are not seeing a lot of positive

results. there are not many cases that are known currently but any time you have an event not an events that a private 10, 15 people but a concert, let's say or a protest or a gathering for something big, then we do see a little spike in our cases being positive but currently we've been doing very good and there has been no local hospitalization of positive cases for a few weeks. >> i'm sure you've had people express anger or kind of disgust at this. i mean, are there ethical concerns? most americans are waiting days to weeks for a test or for results. >> yes, i think that's definitely a question at a government level as to why it is not mass produced but even for myself and we have a concierge in palm beach but if the manufacturer says we do not have the test for another week or two

we can't do anything about it. >> and how worried are you that these parties, the parties themselves may bring up the case count in new york? >> correct. but the parties are not necessarily large from 20 to 30, i mean, the numbers are quite small but it's more so families getting together and just having this test as a means to -- a conversation piece, let's say, because they realize these are not 100% but do we have any current test that's in the market that's 100% reassurance to our people here in the states. >> what do you make -- i mean of where this country is five months or six months into this pandemic with testing, i mean, from a medical -- you're a doctor. does it surprise you that, you know, that we're still waiting for tests? >> right, i think globally not just with the united states our medical team has learned so much

so fast regarding this virus and yet there's so much still for us to learn. we were first chasing three months ago iggs which is the antibody to see if you have exposure to coronavirus and we were hoping we all have the antibodies and now when we recheck the patients and they don't have that antibody then we realize that these antibodies may not even last. so i think as we develop more knowledge regarding the virus, we learn as a community and as a society of what else to do next, so this is going to be a long haul to really learning more about this virus and how we can move on as an economy. >> these rapid tests, are they something that if, you know, if they were more available that people could do at home on themselves? >> i think that should be the aim. at some point i think manufacturers should be leading to that way where all of us should have access to it and be able to utilize it and have the results. >> so is it a nasal swab? >> correct.

there's a nasal swab. there is a finger prick, there is a sputum. there is a saliva check and from -- these are just the rapids but in terms of medicine in the hospital, there's now testing for stool, there's -- there's so many variety of methods. i can't keep up. it is changing rapidly. >> dr. asma, rashid, thank you very much. president trump appears to be gaining ground an former president joe biden in the latest cnn mols that comes just as the democrats are set to rally behind the biden/harris ticket on the opening night of the dnc starting at 8:00 p.m. tonight. new zealand extending its lockdown after a cluster of cases threatened the once coronavirus-free country. - [narrator] did you just reward yourself

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the democratic convention kicks off tonight. a new cnn poll shows the race is tightening. joe biden's lead over trump is narrowed according to the poll since june with 50% of voters backing the biden/harris ticket

while 46% say they support trump and pence. in june biden had a 14-point lead over president trump. overall though the cnn poll of polls finds a bigger national lead for biden. 51% are backing him while 42% support trump. the president will hold events in several states during the democratic convention and kicked off the week by continuing his attacks on mail-in voting referencing a very familiar time line. >> we have many court cases on this so you're -- a lot of things are going to happen over the next two weeks. we have a case in pennsylvania. we have a lot of cases. we have a case in nevada. so, you know, a lot of things will happen with respect to the universal voting which is going to be the greatest scam of all time if it's allowed to go. >> another promise of something happening in two weeks. you may not have noticed this but he's done it for years. most recently he made this promise about a health care plan. >> we're signing a health care plan within two weeks. a full and complete health care

plan. >> yeah, that was july 19th. nearly a month ago. he said he would sign an executive order on pre-existing conditions which is covered already by obamacare which he's trying to destroy. when he was asked about why he would need that since it's already law, the president said it was like, quote, double the protection, end quote. also worth noting hours before dr. anthony fauci threw out the first pitch and the president said this about an upcoming yankee game. >> a great friend of mine from the yankees asked me to throw out the first pitch and i think i'm doing that on august 15th at yankee stadium. >> of course, we later learned the yankees actually had not invited the president and caught both the team and white house off guard. he then abruptly canceled his imagine nary pitch citing meetings on the coronavirus and vaccines. this is what the president was doing this saturday, august 15th, date of that yankee -- oops, game. he was golfing. former nfl kicker jay -- alexi

mccammond is from axios. i'm sorry i mispronounced your last name. >> you're not the first to do it. >> on the polls worth noting two months ago his campaign sent a cease and desist order over polls he didn't like. now this poll clearly he's going to be touting it because it shows a tightening of the race. what do you make of polls at this point? >> well, thank you for having me on the show, anderson. i mean, there's the usual caveat everyone is saying, there are so many days left until the election and any number of things could happen between now and then. but that matters less when you see that the pattern and the trend in these polls over the last four or five months is really showing that voters are not just -- the way he's injecting partisan politics into

things when people are dying at an alarming rate but moving toward joe biden and that goes for 2016 republican voters who supported president trump, that goes for folks who sat out in 2016, that goes for 65 and older voters who made up a quarter of the electorate in 2016. it goes with suburban voters who, of course, president trump is now tweeting at these so-called suburban housewives to try to get their vote so while the president might not be sending y'all a cease and desist letter for this poll he certainly sees the trend in these polls showing folks are not just leaving him but moving toward biden. >> the president is holding a series of events this week as obviously as the democrats hold their convention obviously trying to at least get some, you know, coverage, some attention on this week that the democrats will be getting a lot of attention. >> and we know that to be true from president trump in the past as well. he likes to do his own counterpresuming. the republican national convention is happening next week and he's planning his own

speech but a number around that. when the spotlight is on the democrats he has to have his counterprogramming out there. that's interesting because the convention folks that we've talked to from axios say they're investing heavily in the program to make it as engaging as possible, even though it's virtual and could have a more vast audience than ever in history people have to opt in to this convention for the democrats and president trump knows he almost has a built-in audience with the daily coronavirus briefings he gives, on the weekend and twitter feed he uses to talk to voters through that so, of course, trying to get attention because he warrants to change the narrative and also be able to brand democrats as these radical leftists and more ads from the trump campaign in the week to come trying to brand the 2020 ticket now that we have that down, but imagine what they'll say about democrats and the messages they're pushing through the convention and whether they'll try to paint biden as this far left socialist given what dems say at the convention.

>> fascinating tonight, you know, i've seen sort of the plans, you know, some of the plans for obviously we know who is going to be speaking tonight, things like that. i still have no sense of what the convention is actually going to look like when it actually begins, you know, what's the first thing we'll see? is there somebody emceeing throughout the whole thing? is it just a bunch of speakers popping up? i mean i kind of from a purely television production standpoint, i'm interested to see how they pull it off. >> well, you work as a tv network so imagine how they're supposed to feel. that's the thing that everyone -- kerry washington, julia louis-dreyfus, the official, unofficial emcees and they're all notably women. a clear signal that the convention is sending in 2020, obviously senator kamala harris, a woman now named as the vp for biden and now having all the

emcees as women is setting a tone to contrast with republicans but, you know, they're going to try to keep it ingaging. one thing we heard is that they're asking everyday people like you and me to send in self-ny videos to play them during crime time of the convention of voters, everyday people talking about why they like biden, why they're voting for him and what they like about the democratic party. i think it'll be a hodge pojs of things tonight. >> yeah, it's -- we've never seen anything like it so certainly interesting to tune in for. alexi, thanks for all you do. it wasn't just the russians, cnn is learning about intelligence showing vaughn paid bounties to the taliban for targeting troops. former senator bob baer will join me.

the virus is still spreading. california's economic challenges are deepening. frontline workers stretched too thin. our nurses and medical professionals in a battle to save lives. our schools, in a struggle to safely reopen, needing money for masks and ppe, and to ensure social distancing. and the costs to our economy, to our state budget?

mounting every day. we need to provide revenues now, to solve the problems we know are coming. new zealand mas been one of the success stories in the fight against the pandemic but after a mall outbreak the prime minister decided to delay national elections. will ripley begins our look around the globe. >> i'm will ripley in hong kong. new zealand has fewer than 100 active cases of covid in the country but a small cluster in the largest city of auckland on monday is enough for the government to postpone national elections by about a month. they're doing that out of concern for public safety, they

say. because the prime minister's own party was expected to do very well but she said with active cases in the community, even a small number, it is just not safe for people to vote. i'm matt rivers in mexico. in the border city of tijuana, prostitution is legal but the government has banned all sex work due to the virus in march. but we spent time in tijuana and we spoke to one and one person is there to do that and it is safe enough to do so even though it isn't. and we spend time with state police that said brothels and sex holts are closed but admitted many are still operating just doing so behind closed doors. >> reporter: i'm in paris. here in france, sharp rises in the number of new coronavirus cases. not so much in those other crucial numbers, the number of

people in icu have been low, as the number of cases continue to rise how they could adapt society to cut the figures off. the announcement here in france of fresh measures, other parts of paris, macs will be mandatory and similar in spain and italy with announcements that nightclubs are to be closed, a reminder of the demographic hit by this latest rise in the number of new cases. interesting to see french police asking people to put on masks. cnn has just learned u.s. intelligence has assessed that iran paid boubnties to the taliban. after a suicide bombing in december. that attack killed two civilians and injured 70 others including four u.s. personnel. a few weeks ago we heard that russia paid to attack u.s. troops. today when trump was asked about

the iran bounties, he said it was news to him. >> did you hear about that? >> no, i haven't heard about that. >> bob baer is cnn intelligence and security analyst. let me start by this assessment that iran was paying bounties? >> anderson, it doesn't surprise me at all. the iranians look at us as a threat in the region since we pulled out of the nuclear agreement and the connections with the haqqani network go way back and i could see the revolutionary guard corp paying bounties, financing the haqqani network and the taliban. i take this seriously. it sounds like credible intelligence. >> if it is, in fact, true, would it surprise you that the president hadn't heard about it? >> the problem is this administration, i really mistrust their relations and how

they're going about the iranian problem. i doubt that the president doesn't know about this. he certainly does by now. but if they're looking for a justification for a war, this would be it. >> the president has yet to condemn russia for its reported bounties, though we're told members of the administration they claim that they have talked to the russians about it. i guess the question is how is he going to address this or if he's going to? >> well, anderson, that is the problem. the president gets to interpret intelligence the way he wants. i could see him ignoring the russian bounties and making a big deal of this. we'll have to wait and see. you know, it is all -- so many things happening with iran explosions and in syria and inside iran, it looks like the israelis are pushing for a war at this point and certainly with the distraction for the president who is otherwise going to lose the election and that is

very con spearatorial but let's not rule that out. >> what options would the administration have regarding iran? >> well, they already ceased in venezuela. they could attack guard bases or attack inside of afghanistan. there are all sorts of things they could do. this could be a graduated or a bigger attack. if they've been killed indirectly american soldiers, i don't see how he's not going to react to this. >> how capable, i mean iran intelligence service, how wide spread are they, how capable are they? >> very good in afghanistan. they've been there since the beginning. they've got assets all over the country. they even had good connections with the sunni groups and not just the shia groups and it is easy to get ahold of the networks and say go after these

targets and we'll pay you, if not supply technology. >> as u.s. troops pull out of afghanistan, how much of a u.s. presence will remain just on the diplomatic intelligence front? >> we'll never be safe in that country until we pull out completely. and i could see the iranians going after us, especially as we're retreating in a sense to continue these attacks, just to cause chaos and retaliate for what they consider american aggression. >> bob baer, thank you very much. appreciate it. programming note, hear from michelle obama, bernie sanders, and governor andrew cuomo and many more. the democratic national convention coverage begins at 8:00 eastern time. just in, dr. fauci said the long-term effects of the coronavirus are trouble some in young people, his words. we'll have more on that ahead. ♪

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welcome to "the lead," i'm jake tapper. today the coronavirus death toll in the u.s. has surpassed 170,000 people. though there is some encouraging news in the fight against the virus. health officials are now hopeful that a new saliva test could speed up results and contain the spread by more rapidly identifying the virus. the news comes as 17 states are

performing fewer tests this week than they did the week before according to the covid tracking project. short of a vaccine, experts say that we know how to contain the virus from spiring out of control, this is widespread testing and wearing masks and distancing measures yet for 21 state days an average of 1,000 americans have died from the virus every day and president trump has still not announced or implemented any new national strategy to combat the virus, instead we're learning that he's exploring a new unproven treatment. alleged treatment. a plant extract pushed by a prom innocent supporter of his, the creator of my pillow. jeremy diamond joins us now. president trump could be so dismissive of infectious disease experts such as dr. fauci or dr. birx and yet so keen on listening to people who have no expertise on this. what do we know abo