i'm anderson cooper. welcome viewers here in the u.s. and around the world. 195,000, that is the staggering number of u.s. deaths from the coronavirus that the cdc is projecting by september 12th. the agency's also signaling those deaths to start to decline in 13 areas and the country and in a new interview dr. redfield said he expects the decline as early as next week thanks to more americans wearing masks and social distancing but he warns that everyone has to stay vigilant and some regions notely the midwest are not showing signs of improvement, the virus is a growing threat at us colleges and universities prompting proofficials to try to crack down on students' behavior. now 64 of the nation's largest school districts starting the year remotely after the dallas superintendent announced public schools in the city remote until at least october 6. >> not everybody's going to be

happy with that decision but it is what it is and it's the context that we are in. this issue is not going away. we are making an announcement today but in two weeks we will be revisiting it about where we go in the future. >> we will have more on the state of the nation's schools in a moment and johnson and johnson said it's posted to start a trial next month and vice president pence with an outlook on when to expect a vaccine this morning on cnn. >> we think there is a miracle around the corner. we believe it's very likely to have one or more vaccines for the coronavirus before the end of this year. >> we should point out the head of "operation warp speed" said he expects one to be widely available next spring or early summer. if something was available sooner it goes to front line workers and essential workers. more now on the interview with

the cdc director saying up to 20% of the population is infected with the coronavirus. what does dr. redfield base that estimate on? >> you know, it is a little bit unclear what he's basing that estimate on and also unclear what it moons but take a look at what dr. redfield, the director of the cdc, is saying. march to may we had 2 million officially diagnosed cases of coronavirus but he thinks there were more like 20 million. he then went on to say that he thinks between march and august, basically from the beginning until now that there were 5.6 million official cases and more like 30 million to 60 million. that's a much bigger number as you can say. not entirely clear how he's getting that number but it is not clear what that means and might look at the numbers saying this is great. if we have all this big chunk of americans who have been infected

mab maybe it means they're immune and not clear what it moons to have been infected with covid. we know that antibodies might fade and that could mean that you could get infected a second time so not really clear if this is reason to sort of be happy because it doesn't mean that we're building immunity. it's unclear what it means. >> right. it is a little confusing because i remember months ago in new york governor cuomo saying that they had tested, done sample testing for antibodies, i think on the street or various locations and i think in the 12% to 13% range of new yorkers i think at the time. again, off the top of my head and i seem to remember sweden did after, you know, the way they reacted to the virus they tested for antibodies and i think it was in the 7% range surprising people in sweden so i don't know how he's getting this

number. >> so the governor cuomo number that is you mention, i remember that, too. and you are getting it right. sort of we're in that ballpark and the thinking here is that that test looked for antibodies and so it might have missed some people. somebody might have been infected, they had one of these tests done in new york state and negative and said, oh no, you never had covid when the person did and just that the test they did didn't pick up on it so it is possible but that estimate in sweden, in new york state, that they were -- those were lowballing the number of people infected. that is possible. we just don't know but again it still brings us to do we care? does it matter? so what if a larger proportion of our population has been infected? it doesn't mean they're immune. the immunity wimight have waned since that time. we don't know. >> that's adding to the concern. elizabeth cohen, thank you very

much. many colleges and universities and students tried beginning the fall campus in person and on campus. it was short lived. we have more. evan, how many states are reporting problems? >> reporter: universities are opening across the country and they're finding that preventing coronavirus outbreaks is very, very hard. colleges in at least 19 states have reported outbreaks. that's led to some quarantines and in some cases the cancelations of in-person classes. students are chastised for behavior on and off campus. on thursday, after a video emerged of penn state students gathered in a group only a few wears masks the president of the school sent a stern message saying do you want to be the one responsible for sending everybody home? anderson? the infection rate on the campuses could be in part to super spreaders. only takes one person infected

with the virus to attend an event like a party and transmit to a group of people. we have a new study about super spreaders. tell us about the findings. >> reporter: anderson, a new study shows that super spreading plays a big role in this pandemic. especially in rural areas. the study looked at five counties across georgia, four metro counties and one was in rural georgia and the study found that the rural county had a disproportionately large outbreak compared to other more populous counties but overall, anderson, about 2% of covid-19 cases were directly responsible for 20% of all infections in that study and younger people under age 60 tended to be the main drivers of super spreading. the study also found that stay in place orders worked best to bring cases down.

anderson? >> thanks. with close to 250,000 coronavirus cases and the number of deaths approaching 5,000, georgia is a hardest state in the u.s. and not a mandate, the white house mandated teachers as essential workers and could loosen rules to be in classrooms. greg harper is executive director of professional association of georgia educators. you are opposed to this measure. tell us why. >> anderson, i think all the information that you just highlighted with those reports is an indication of why we are concerned about that. we do believe educators and stur students do want to get back in the classroom but when it's as safe as possible and with asymptomatic spread, if essential worker status were enacted and educators are coming back into the classroom immediately after known exposure we're just afraid to continue georgia's trajectory with -- as

a hotspot and increased cases and i know that's something we would all like to see resolved so we think there are other ways to handle this where we can address the need to get back in the classroom as soon as possible but not through the essential worker designation and coming right back into the classroom. >> if the essential worker des inspector general nati designation went through, say a student is positive in a classroom, what would then happen? >> as i understand it, even close exposure would not necessitate quarantine, with that designation but the georgia department of public health has guidance right now that would require that person to be quarantined for a period of time, either ten or 14 days before they come back. the essential worker designation to allow them to come back quicker than that and continue to work. >> and the governor in georgia's

yet to make a decision about it. if he decides to enforce it, what can you do? >> well, we would continue to advocate for moderated measures and we're working with some of the other education associations in georgia which includes superintendents are the most concerned about this issue and their concerns of having to shut down schools on a rolling basis because of the number of staff who are exposed and are not able to come back to work under current department of public health rules and working with them and the governor's office very soon to try to come up with some other mod rate designation or enhancement of this designation that would ensure that anybody that's exposed is clear and able to come back and not spread covid-19 throughout a school or community. >> craig harper, thank you very much. >> thank you. the postmaster general

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the 2020 election. >> there will be no post office clou closures or suspensions? >> it was not a directive i gave. that was around. there's a process to that. when i found out about it and it had the reaction that we did i've suspended it until after the election. >> you do support voting by mail? >> i do. that's an interest -- i think the american public should be able to vote before mail and the postal service will support it so i guess that's yes. >> do you have a high degree of confidence that virtually all the ballots that will be mailed let's say seven days before an election would be able to be received and counted? >> extremely highly confident. we will scour every plant the day, you know, the each night leading up to election day.

very, very confident. >> marion bell is president of the charlotte area chapter of american postal workers. thank you for being with us. does what you heard from postmaster general square with what you have been seeing on the ground? >> absolutely not. absolutely not. >> explain that. >> here in charlotte alone we have had seven mail processing machines removed. these are typically called delivery bar code sorters and we have had one flat sorter machine. these removals began around july 1st and they have continued even up until day before yesterday. and the machines were on a scheduled timeline of just to continually remove them. we have had email provided to us that substantiate these issues. these machines, the flat sorter

machines process about 21,000 pieces of mail per hour. the delivery bar code sorter machines process up to 39,000 pieces of mail per hour. >> let me ask you here, because the postmaster general was asked about these machines and i just want to play what he said. >> you will be bringing back any mail sorting machines that have been removed since you have become postmaster general? any of those come back? >> no intention to do that. they're not needed, sir. >> you will not bring back any processors? >> they're not needed, sir. >> so are those needed? i mean -- >> yes. >> i assume removing them was the argument given is that it was obsolete, not necessary. >> oh no, absolutely not. these machines if you consider just one of these delivery bar code sorter machines, it processes up to 39,000 pieces of mail per hour.

if you average only a 16-hour processing day, and mind you, these plants run 24/7/365, but if you take those 39 pieces of mail per hour is 624,000 pieces of mail per day per machine. if you multiply that times seven days that is almost 4.5 million pieces of mail per week that cannot be processed. per machine. >> so why -- i mean, what was the reason for removing them? >> we were not told. the union is supposed to be informed of things like removal of machines and jobs and et cetera. i have reached out to the local plant manager. i have received zero response. i have not gotten any type of no notifications. we are looking at close to 50

jobs here. >> we just lost your audio. i appreciate your time. and all you do. thank you very much. just in, new york lawmakers demanding answers on how many people died in nurses homes in the pandemic. see cnn's investigation. after a vaccine is found, how long will it take for life to return to normal? why a guest said the president is terrifying and which host was the defacto chief of staff. managing your diabetes can be hard.

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this week the president embraced the conspiracy theorist group qanon, a group the fbi labeled a potential domestic terrorist threat and the group the president appreciates and they believe among other thing that is a number of hollywood celebrities and politicians, democrats, are members of a satanic cult who drink the blood of children to live longer and are running a sex trafficking -- international sex trafficking ring. vice president pence was asked about qanon this morning on cnn. >> the president says they love america. so how do those beliefs embody a

love of america? >> well, you said the president seemed to embrace it. i didn't hear that. >> he said they love america, mr. vice president. they love america. >> i heard the president talk about he appreciates people who support him. >> do you believe they love america? >> i don't know anything about that conspiracy theory, john, or people involved in it. >> how can you not know about it at this point? >> i don't know anything about that. i have heard about it. we dismiss conspiracy theories out of here out of hand. >> will you dismiss it? >> i just did. >> no, you didn't. >> that is obviously not true. here's a list of some of the president's more high profile conspiracy theories. birtherism. president obama spying on him. uranium one. american muslims

celebrating 9/11 in new jersey. death tolls from distasters. wie spread voter fraud. suggesting a tv host murdered someone and social media companies plotting against him. i'm joined by miles taylor, a former senior deputy of department of homeland security. miles, did you ever hear vice president pence push back and raise concerns about the president in your time with him? obviously vice president pence is used to normalize things the president has said or kind of make it seem like it's really not something that's foremost in the president's mind when it clearly is. >> look, anderson. thanks for having me on. i feel bad for vice president pence. he is constantly put in this position, an impossible position, where his boss has said something completely contradictory to what vice president pence has to say.

i'm sure i have friends in the west wing of the white house watching you and your program today and know when i say this that this is a frequent and constant problem that they face. of course the president believes and embraces the conspiracy theories because we would have to deal with it every day, the cleanup work of a crazy tweet or him acknowledging any one of those conspiracy theories you went through. puerto rico's death toll, another example of something that we had to deal with. so yeah. pence is put in a very difficult position. i don't want to speak about the vice president's private engagements with the president. my focus on donald trump and said i'll try my best to focus on the president and his character and not so much the people around him but it won't surprise you when i say a lot of people in private are silent around the president. all right? when he makes an absurd claim whether in the oval office or an event that we would be at with him, far too often people would sit there with their mouths

closed and sort of just laugh or shift uncomfortably in the seats when they should have probably spoke up. >> we witnessed that firsthand when the president, you know, suggested at the podium that there should be experiments on our citizens with injecting bleach into them to possibly cure them of coronavirus or treat them of coronavirus and he actually, you know, turned to dr. birx who was there, another official i think from hhs was there, public health official and dr. birx clearly was just, you know, silent and looking down. the other official said, oh yeah, we'll essentially look into that. i was fascinated by the president when he was asked about qanon finally because it's obviously been perk latting for a long time. his first response was, they say very nice things about me. which i thought was so telling which is something he says a

lot. that seems to be the lens through which he views anybody, any group or any individual. they say nice things about me so therefore i'm not going to say terrible things about them as long as they say nice things about me. >> sure. anderson, look back at charlottesville. we just marked the third anniversary of charlottesville and at the time administration officials myself included astounded that the president embraced some of these radical right wing elements when he should have condemned them but we all know now why he embraced them, because these are people that expressed support for president trump and he's so drawn to that and doesn't care what they say. this is not a one-time thing. we are at the point now where this is very, very emblematic of donald trump's character and the qanon episode is one more episode in a long line of

episodes that extend before charlottesville and since then. >> just one more thing on qanon. they believe that president trump is behind the scenes working to stop, you think, this cabal of global sex traffickers, democratic officials and that he is secretly working with the mueller team for subpoenas against democrats and this widespread purge. you worked at the department of homeland security. is president trump involved in -- obviously the u.s. works on sex trafficking issues around the globe, thankfully, because it is an actual problem but is he actually running, you know, to fight against this cabal, this alleged cabal of satan worshipping people that drink the blood of children? >> this is what's so surreal. we are talking about this and real americans out there believe it because the president says

it. that's why words matter and that's why his use of words is extremely irresponsible and then the answer is no. okay? i helped run a department of 250,000 hard working men and women that protect this country every day. dhs is largest law enforcement organization in america. i saw no indication whatsoever, not only of a qanon cabal of sex traffickers but i didn't see a deep state working against the president or any of these things that he regularly reverts to as conspiracy theories. it is not real and we should recognize when the president of the united states, the leader of the free world is overtaken by these carnival barkers that it will be deleterious consequences for the nation's security and it had a huge impact on morale in the department and throughout the federal government. >> there's a new report that suggests officials held a vote in a white house meeting whether to separate migrant families. can you expand on that?

do you know about that? >> yeah. i could expand on it far beyond our program but the shorter version, at the very againing of the administration the white house pushes dhs when john kelly was secretary to rip kids apart from the families at the border, whether they showed up at port of entry but rip them apart to scare migrants so they don't show up at the border. kelly rejected that out of hand and what the attorney general said, look, we'll just prosecute everyone that crosses illegally and that had the affect because there weren't enough resources to process people quickly of leaving them apart from the children for an unacceptably long period of time. secretary nielsen at the time was very, very concerned about that potential backlog after the attorney general announced the policy and pushed back against the white house again and again and the white house finally at that date in the spring they sat down with a number of members of

the cabinet and senior staff and held a vote saying, look, secretary nielsen said we're not ready but do you think we're aware and i heard readouts from the conversations, she was the one individual who said, no, i'm not raising my hand and not ready to do this and outvoted and the department of homeland security was putt in the impossible position of implementing this policy and trying to do it quickly enough so that children wouldn't be apart from their parents for an unacceptably long period of time in the justice system. this is a textbook example of how policy making went wrong in the trump administration and it m nated from the top. the president is responsible for this. a lot of us, some of this is on us. right? we could have done more to pump the brakes. the secretary certainly tried to behind the scenes and then convinced the president to sign an executive order that summer ending the policy but almost every single month in the

administration after that the president said he wanted to reinstitute the policy and revert back do that version of year one, that sickening version of just rip them apart to scare migrants from coming to the border and why i left this administration. >> you also have a -- talked about what happened behind the scenes when the president threatened to quote bus and dump immigrants in sanctuary cities which was -- he talked about -- that was highly reported. what was going on behind the scenes with that? >> so, in roughly february of 2019, the president called us and he said exactly those words you just used. he said he wanted us to bus and dump all the illegal immigrants we picked an up the the border and drop them in democratic sanctuary cities, a way to punish the cities because they would refuse to turn over illegal immigrants to immigration and customs enforcement. we had our lawyers look at this. anderson, we didn't need to. this was patently illegal on its

face. not a legitimate law enforcement operation. so i was the one that personally went back to the white house to the chief of staff's office to several other senior advisers' offices and said this is illegal. you need to let the president know this is illegal. the president said you need to do this. the secretary said, no, we can't do this. as is the case in the trump administration within days as i remember the president went out and tweeted that this policy idea was actively under consideration even though we had told him it was illegal. anderson, this won't be on page 14 of any newspaper today but again we have another example of the president of the united states being told something is unlawful to do yet he'll still try to go forward and implement the policies. there's a litany of examples of him embracing and trying to pursue illegal behavior. >> the president watches a lot of television.

you said a host was the defacto chief of staff. >> yeah. this is really disheartening but there was a period of time where at first jokingly we would say that fox late night host lou dobbs was the sort of shadow chief of staff of the trump administration. why did we say that? because the president would call us and he would say and pardon my language, why the hell didn't you watch lou dobb last night? you need to listen to lou. what lou says is what i want to do. so if lou dobbs peddled a conspiracy theory on late night television or a claim about what should be done at the border or with some law enforcement operation the president wanted us to be tuning in every night. my response to that was i don't have any time to watch lou dobbs in the evening. you have us running a 250,000-person department and trying do guard against some of the most severe threats to the country and can't watch lou dobbs but this happened on a

regular basis. >> you talk about a meeting of school violence that didn't go well. >> well, this is an example, anderson, of the president being unable to focus on things that are very important. i think this was around the end of 2018 we went to meet with the president to talk about a very important issue. school safety. okay? our mission was to tell him what the recommendations we had developed were around keeping kids from being shot in classrooms around our country. all right? a sobering meeting, an important subject. we went in to discuss it. within minutes of bringing up the subject the president was instantly distracted, wanted to talk about the wall and in fact the words he used that day were he said, i want my wall to be a beautiful work of art, a beautiful work of art. here's how to design it. i'm sitting there in my hands with recommendations how to keep the nation's children safe in their classrooms, the president doesn't want to talk about that. h he wants to talk about his

border wall and talks about his priorities and indiscipline. >> he says this publicly obviously and you think, oh well, he is justdy ver diverted speech and talking about poll numbers or what counties, you know, what states he won and looking back at the election. to know it's actually happening in real meetings where real things should be being discussed is incredibly disheartening. >> yeah. that's the truth. i think people felt that way. anderson, i don't want to mischaracterize things. i wasn't the president's best friend. i would be with the president in professional settings when he should have been focused on the job and i was there with my boss, as well, as senior advisers in the national security cabinet of his administration. but the president wouldn't be focused in those settings. i understand if off orders to talk about conspiracy theories

and focus on tweets but this is when he's supposed to be on the job and on the job his mind isn't. >> miles, stick around. i want to talk more about what you saw of this president and concerns you say the cabinet had had with the president's mental acuity. we'll be back in a moment. we've got the retinol that gives you results in one week. not just any retinol. accelerated retinol sa. for not only smoother skin in one day, but younger-looking skin in just one week. and that's clinically proven. results that fast or your money back. unless you're attached to your wrinkles. one week is all it takes. neutrogena®.

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back with me miles taylor, former senior department of homeland security official in the trump administration. miles, you mentioned the president's mental acuity was discussed daily by senior members in the administration including those in the cabinet. there was that story early on about the 25th amendment having been discussed. was that ever something that you became aware of? >> yeah. anderson, i'll be frank with you. that's not really something that i can comment on, at least at the moment, but what i will say is this. on a very regular basis, you would have these last-minute fire drills where the president would make spontaneous unplanned, ill considered decisions from the white house and his cabinet would have to drop everything to try to go address those challenges. that may not seem like a big deal if it happens every once in a while, look, every president

deserves to, you know, think up new ideas and have his cabinet respond but talking about weekly unplanned emergencies it has a waterfall effect on the operations of the entirety of the federal government. the taxpayers watching this expect their government to hum along, get the job done, protect the american people, get social security checks out but when these fire alarms happen at the white house it would have a waterfall effect on everything and make it really difficult for people to get the jobs done and i want to give you a specific example. we do a lot more at the department of homeland security in this country than just protect the nation's borders. it is a very important mission but only part of the mission of department of homeland security. dhs is responsible for stopping cyber attacks, terrorist attacks, nation state threats from foreign foes. but the president wanted to spend about 95% of his time focused on border so we went to the white house at one point and this is probably in 2008 and we said, look, there's something we

used to do in the bush administration of terror tuesday and they would sit down with george w. bush and talk about the terror threats to the country and said why don't we do threat thursdays? come in with the president and talk to them about the other threats he is not spending time on because he's too focused on the border. we got blown off and made the proposal and again to the white house chief of staff and blown off. that never ended up happening so the president ended up very ill informed about the most serious threats to the country because he didn't spend the time to focus on those issues or to learn about them. >> certainly alarming. there was an op-ed, book by someone calls himself anonymous. are you aware of who that is? >> i'm not. look. that was a parlor game that happened in washington d.c. trying to think who that might be and i have my own thoughts

who that might be -- >> you are not anonymous? >> i wear a mask for two things, anderson. halloween and pandemics. so no. >> you said that more former administration officials would be joining -- coming out and talking about what they have witnessed firsthand. what sort of level of -- are you talking about cabinet members? are you talking about people that worked in the white house? >> well, we will see. my direct messages are open on twitter and i'm in contact with a lot of folks but excited to report to you today that we have a full page ad running in "wall street journal," former republican national security officials supporting joe biden and we have managed to pull on two more senior ex-trump administration officials on to that list. one, an incredible man of john mitnik, a top lawyer in the trump administration and elizabeth newman, a main counter

terrorism leader in the trump administration, both were appointees of donald trump and both decided he is unfit to be president and dangerous to the national security. i hope you hear from both john and elizabeth soon and i think some orthers in addition to the. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you, anderson. cnn investigation reveal it is number of people dying in nursing homes from the coronavirus severely underestimated. take a look at why the numbers are so off. plus, actress lori laughlin the face of the college admissions scandal and soon we'll learn how long she will spend in prison. ♪ come on in, we're open. ♪ all we do is hand you the bag. simple. done. we adapt and we change. you know, you just figure it out. we've just been finding a way to keep on pushing. ♪

law makers are demanding the state give a clear picture on how it's handling the pandemic's efel effect on nursing home president. they asked for a more accurate count. they have three weeks to respond. here on why there's cause for concern. >> reporter: jerry mald noddo remembers the exact moment he knew his 81-year-old mother, maria, contrakted covid-19. >> april 19, when i heard her first cough and my heart sank. >> reporter: by then the virus was rampant in new york. his mother died eight days later at a nursing home an hour outside manhattan. he was by her side. >> i remember in my panic saying what do i bring my mother? what do i bring the person who made me everything i am and i could think of flowers. >> reporter: it's for families like his, that they've been

hounding the department of health for a clearer picture on how many nursing home residents died from covid-19. currently they estimate it at more than 6600 people. >> my gut senses at a minimum we're talking a couple of thousand additional deaths. >> reporter: the data base show as total that excludes nourishing home residents who died a at a hospital after being transferred from a facility. law makers are demanding a more accurate count. the mood calms after howard zuker couldn't provide answers in recent legislative hearings. >> i wish i could give you the number today but i need to be sure it's absolutely accurate. >> we need best prepare for next time and the only way to do that to prepare for full information. >> reporter: they believe the current death toll is even more underestimated because her death certificate says she died of

cardiac arrest, even though she was being medically treated for the virus. >> and the reason is because they told us that she could not be tested for covid. because the nursing facility didn't have the testing capacity. >> reporter: discrepancy in numbers is another flash point in the handling. governor cuomo took heat for the order demanding nursing emhos to a -- and that order was amended more than a month later. when pressed on his administration's handling of the nursing home issue, cuomo has defended criticism saying. >> i think it is all politically motivated. >> it's offenseival to argue the quest for accountability is that.

>> reporter: and each state follows the directive differently. on a national level, the aarp has been lobbying to get each state to post nursing home death numbers and cases daily. >> we want to know where to take action immediate. and what's the information, families deserve the input. this as a recent report shows they decreased steeply in july. particularly in an area with high community spread. for maldanado. >> my mom was one enouof the nus who had a history in the story. and for me it's really important that she be remembered. >> vice president mike pence claim s a miracle is around the corner. ♪ ♪

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