hello, everybody. i'm john king in washington. thank you so much for sharing this busy day with us, day two. first lady is a highlight of the republican convention program. day one offered constant assaults on both joe biden and the truth. and offered a clear look at the president's comeback strategy, fixing the struggling standing in the suburbs is one big convention hope. >> they want to abolish the suburbs altogether. >> it's a horror film, really. they'll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite ms-13 to live next door. >> they want to destroy this country and everything that we

have fought for and hold dear. >> it's almost like this election is shaping up to be church, work and school versus rioting, looting and vandalism. >> another goal to create an alternative coronavirus reality. president trump acted divisively and early on and all is under control early on. >> as a health care professional, i can tell you without hesitation donald trump's quick action and leadership saved thousands of lives during covid-19. >> we just have to make this china virus go away and it is happening. >> gave me medication, cough syrup. >> okay. i won't ask you about the hydroxychloroquine. because it's a shame what they have done to that one. >> the actual coronavirus reality is painful and more complicated. 5.7 million cases in the united states, nearly 178,000 americans

dead. america lagging, hardly america first. if you take a look at how other nations are fighting this pandemic. now there is some improvement ten weeks to election day. the daily average of new cases down to 40,000 per day. but 40,000 per day is still a too high baseline, way too high. who do you trust question isn't just a trump versus biden framing. the president says a vaccine is possible before the november election and our reporters now tell us white house debating using an emergency authorization to rush it to the public. but the nation's top expert dr. fauci says that is, quote, the one thing you would not want to see. the president also says the economy is on a super v-shaped bounce back. the reality and you know this because you live it, it depends on what you do and where you live. job losses remain very high and unemployment claims rose last week compared to the previous week but convention speakers say trump alone can fix it. >> trump brought our economy

back before and he will bring it back again. >> who better the lead us out of these times than the president who already built the stronger economy our country has ever seen? >> if you're looking for hope, he built the greatest economy our country has ever seen. and president trump will do it again. >> let's discuss. joining me now maggie haberman and francesca. one of the smart points you make consistently is that the president is driven by the 2016 map. he knows how he won last time and surprised everybody and focuses almost obsessively on that planning this campaign, including listen here to a bit, the trump campaign knows the president won't bin the african-american vote but getting more votes for him, drive joe biden's total down a

little bit in the right places it can help. >> i take it as a personal insult that people would think i have had a 37-year friendship with a racist. >> the democratic party doesn't want black people to leave their mental plantation. >> america is not a racist country. >> joe biden said black people are a monolithic community. >> pretty striking night, one response to the democratic convention, clearly. >> yes, john, but i think it is not just about trying to shave off some slim at the margins percentages of joe biden's totals among black voters but tell suburban white voters that the president they may feel unconfidentible that the statements the president made are widely seen as racist that there's -- he's not a racist, they should be okay voting for him and rationalize supporting him again after supporting him in 2016.

they will have to tell themselves they didn't see the last three and a half years. it's possible they will make the ration sa rationalizations and a third thing it was about is how much of this convention about making the president feel good? it is not just about, you know, erasing the coronavirus or telling a completely different picture than what people lived or experienced. it is telling the president he was great and so much of what his advisers do for him and around him is about bucking him up and boosting his mood and that was a big chunk of last night. >> they think if they can keep him in good spirits maybe he'll listen to the advice and not harm his standing. >> right. >> francesca, the tone. some of the speakers were quite dark, republicans in the preview said it would be an optimistic, uplifting convention. very tough attacks on the former vice president, very dystopian as the democrats say a look at

suburbs. you listen to nikki haley, donald trump jr. on the one hand, the tone, making the same case but differently. >> america is a story that's a work in progress. now is the time to build on that progress and make america even freer, fairer and better for everyone. >> in order to improve in the future, we must learn from our past. not erase it. so we're not going to tear down monuments and forget the people that built our great nation. instead we will learn from our past so we don't repeat any mistakes. >> so some people look at that and they think there's a 2024 preview. focus on 2020. the president has a choice to make in his big speech and a choice to make through the programs for those before him. will we get from the president a more upbeat nikki haley or a more dark don jr.? >> well, his campaign tells me that one thing to get is a second term agenda, something

that the president's daughter-in-law laura trump said to me he had not cohesively put out before and a large acknowledgement from the trump campaign. that's basically the one thing that he could do differently than what we see from him on a daily basis attacking joe biden is put out detailed plans for what he would do in a second term. whether or not what we'll see on thursday night are details beyond what the trump campaign released this week we have to see on thursday evening but the cam pane said he will begin to get boo the things and that is exactly what republicans have been telling me for weeks to see this president do, they want to hear him talk about coronavirus, they also want to hear him talk about the second term agenda for the economy. the president in the plannings we have seen has mentioned coronavirus but that as you pointed out earlier is about how he plans to get a -- to have something for it by the end of

the year and about a year to normalcy in 2021 which are two things that are outside of his control in some ways. >> and, maggie, we have talked about this before. take us inside how they get to the coronavirus in this convention. the president can't tweet it, can't talk it away. everybody in america whether it's a personal health care situation, the economics disruption, parents debating whether to send their kids back to k-12 or college campuses, what is the mindset in the trump campaign universe of this convention to try to improve his coronavirus standing, his numbers which are horrific right now? >> not everyone is on the same page about how to go about that. some people think he has a story to tell around the relief efforts from the congressional bills that provided money and loans to businesses. they think that was some of the focus last night. most of what you heard is everything is fine, all going to be fine and that is not people's lived experiences to your point.

in terms of dealing with the virus itself and the response, the president continues to point to two actions that he took and one was a limited ban on travel from china and then limited ban on travel from europe in mid-march. those were two actions he treated the one from china as a mission accomplish moment and then down played the virus for february and criticize anyone that raised concerns of how he was reacting and hard to unsee that and advisers know that. they do not believe that if the coronavirus is number one issue people vote on that the president will do very well and what they do is try to turn it into a different story. >> we'll watch as it plays out. very much appreciate your reporting and insights. also it's a sad anniversary today, senator john mccain

passed away two years ago today after a long fight with brain cancer. in an odd twist in the campaign it was the democrats that played a video putting his friendship the republican with joe biden on display at their convention last week. up for us, coronavirus deaths down nationally and troubling signs in the heartland. sarah: for a while i've had like a, kind of

negative self image. there was like this contrast between like the way that i was thinking about my personality and the way that i was thinking about my body.

with noom, i was able to learn how to interrupt those habits and create new ones. so my goal was 35 pounds and i've lost about 30 pounds now. so.. i've never been this confident in my body. my name is sara and i changed my life with noom. visit noom.com and lose the weight for good. the numbers meaning the facts don't match up with a lot of what you heard about the coronavirus at the republican convention last night. yes, some numbers are coming down, finally trending in the right direction but a better and more consistent national plan could have kept them from surging this summer. if you look at the state trend map this is an improving map. orange and red means going up. higher than a week ago. ten states saying the case counts going up. 17, the beige, holding steady. 23 states in green importantly florida, texas, arizona and california all trending down. fewer cases now than a week ago.

the four states were the big drivers of the summer surge. here's another way to look at it. back a month, number one, see more red. 19 states heading up. and then only six down a month ago so looking then and now, we are without a doubt in a better place. that doesn't mean a good place. let's look at the case trend through this. you follow the seven-day average, the red loine. we are down. 34,000 cases on sunday. we get a dip over the weekend and comes up but let's hope not. right now at half of where we were in the summer surge, many public health experts and the politicians like joe biden will tell you didn't have to happen. this is the peak of the summer surge. another way to look at it is the lagging indicator, the death trend here and the seven-day moving average is trickling down a little bit, averaging 975

deaths on a daily average. we were well above 1,000 almost every day so you do see that starting to come down sunday and monday numbers down below 500. let's hope that trend continues, sometimes out of the weekend there are blips. hospitalizations also down. cases down. deaths down. hospital saig hospitalizations down and encouraging. but not necessarily fantastic or at least not out of the woods news. look at the positivity rate. 31 states, the red, 31 sattates saying the positivity rate is higher and could be more cases around the corner. 31 states reporting increased positivity, a warning sign but the other numbers are improving. the case count down in part because the states are down. florida above 10,000 at the peak of the summer surge down under

5,000, yesterday 2,600. texas above 10,000, part of the summer surge, now down right around 5,000. now pushing the case count down after the summer surges. dr. richard besser says that's very good news he attributes it to the states finally doing things like enforcing mask man dates, requiring more distancing. >> when you look at texas, florida it makes sense that cases went down because they took this more seriously and they started applying the same tools that have worked in other states that have seen numbers go down and stay down and in other countries that controlled this. >> continue the conversation with an infectious disease ep de epidemiologist. when you do see cases down, deaths finally down some and

let's hope it stays that way, hospitalizations down but the positivity rate up in so many states. score this moment, better, good, not sure? >> we're headed in the right direction which i think is important. we are currently clocking about 45,000 new cases a day and down from the peak. but i think it's important to remember that we are still seeing more cases every day now than we were early in the spring and the first peak at 30,000 to 35,000 cases a day so we have a long way to go until we are in a good spot but we are now in a better spot than we were in the worst of it in july. >> so one of the places to watch now, the positivity rate and then look at individual states and it is encouraging to see the big drivers of the summer surge, california, texas, florida coming down some. people uncolluding the white house task force say watch the midwest. the pink line is the south and then the green line is midwest.

the south you see big driver starting to come down. what does that tell you about the midwest line trickling up? >> we are seeing the hotspots shift around. in the spring it was new england that was hard hit and then summer the south and the southwest but it's now the midwest that we have our eye on, the dakotas, iowa, illinois are all places that seem to be headed in the wrong direction. the good news is that we know more now about how to control the virus than in the past. every day we are learning so we know mask mandates and keeping high risk settings and activities closed like bars can be helpful so i'm hopeful with the tools to be able to prevent the bad surges and then that midwest like we saw in the south. >> at this somewhat improved moment it collides with the political season and you have some people now questioning whether there's pressure inside the trump administration for the scientists to push things to the front of the line before they're ready and heard about that with

the convalescent plasma authorization. the one thing you would not want to see with a vaccine is getting an emergency use authorization before you have a signal of efficacy. one of the potential dangers is that it would make it difficult if not impossible to enroll people in the trial. that's the president's top expert. now listen to another expert saying that he's worried that the administration will push this too fast. >> there's only two ways out of this pandemic. one is the hygienic measures. you know? masks, social distancing, contact tracing, testing. the second is the vaccine. we can't mess this up. we can't scare people putting a vaccine which is not adequately tested out there because this is the most porpimportant way out this pandemic and i worry about

this administration not attentive to good science. >> is it a legitimate worry? do you see evidence from a science perspective that short cuts are being taken or nudged too quickly? >> i agree with the doctor that it's critical to trust in the process. i don't think that any vaccine that we get or the first vaccines at least will be so effective that anyone is protected by receiving it but will reduce risk for individuals and maybe reduce disease severity and as many people as possible need to get it to stop the virus from circulating and so we don't want any old vaccine. we want one that's safe, effective and trusted and that trusted part i think we need to be extra vigilant about, we need confidence in any product that comes on the market. >> katelyn rivers, grateful for your insights. thank you so much. >> thank you. up next, protesters clashing with police in wisconsin again because of the police shooting of a black man.

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raw emotions spiraling into confrontation and violence in wisconsin overnight. protesters squaring off with police in kenosha because an unarmed black man was shot, jacob blake in intensive care after being shot seven times in the back. police used tear gas last night responding to plastic water

bottles thrown by protesters and second night of fire and destruction in kenosha. race and policing again front and center in america. today is three months since george floyd was killed by a white police officer in minneapolis. cnn sara sidner is there for us. >> reporter: what is happening today is very quiet and the family is hoping that one of the reasons for that is that they have come out strongly and said we are all here for protest but we do not want to see destruction because that hurts the community even further and they have been very vocal about that. we were able to sit down and speak with jacob blake's uncle, justin blake. he actually came out to the crowd last night and told them about his nephew and how important it was to try and keep this nonviolent but he also

talked about how hard this has been when he had to pick up the phone and talk to his brother, jacob blake's father, about what had just transpired that everyone across the world has now seen where an officer shot jacob blake so many times in the back. >> that it was going to be all right. and it is. but what's all right? when someone's life was just totally changed. thank god he's alive. so we're just praying for a great recovery. that he may have a great quality of life. and that his father, my brother, can enjoy him. >> reporter: and they say they are so thankful that mr. blake is alive but we have learned from his father that indeed at this moment he is paralyzed from the waist down. what we do not yet know and what

doctors have not been able to ascertain is whether or not this is going to be something that is permanent or whether or not it is swelling and perhaps he may be able to have movement in the future but there is a lot of concern from the family now about how his life will proceed once he is able to come out of the hospital, though he is expected to survive. there are other obviously things going on. you have a couple of officers who are on administrative leave and that is a typical thing that police do when there is a shooting involving a police officer. we also know that the department of justice from the state of wisconsin is the investigating agency. we have not heard anything further on the investigation just yet and expect to hear from the family again today in the a afternoon. >> grateful you there. come back to us when we know more. up next, coronavirus on campus. officials blaming parties, some

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iowa state announcing today it has 130 cases of coronavirus on campus after just the first week of classes. college in the and of coronavirus is proving to be a giant challenge. let's take a look. first the national state trends. ten states trending up right now. 23 states reporting the cases lower this week than a week ago so this is the national perspective. now let's overlay what we are learning as college campuses reopen. 23 states have colleges open with covid cases already and you

notice what's significant here. a lot of these states where this is happening is states trending down like arizona, ohio, pennsylvania or holding steady. so you get the new cases in places improving things but can they continue it now? take a closer look and now bring in dr. david reuben at children's hospital of philadelphia. thank you for being with us. this is tuscaloosa county, alabama. indiana, notre dame. both have had cases as they open campuses. if you look through the summer, were these communities already in a bit of trouble and getting worse or did the students bring this in? >> i think it's a combination of both. if you look across many college towns in the country you find that the case incidents was rising. there's a trickle in of students and graduate students throughout

the summer and these areas even within their state some of which had high resurgence looked more concerning than other counties in the state. >> we have a mix of schools here. urban, rural, some mix of that. if you look at the rural counties with penn state and west virginia university, again you see a big spike in the summer and then comes down a little bit and then trickling out. this one here in west virginia is more of a bounce. is there a difference in the rural communities? >> center county which is happy valley in pennsylvania and morgantown did a terrific job to manage this through the summer but there's a difference, for example, in pennsylvania, if you're the university of pittsburgh with cases you have health care resources. happy valley doesn't have the resources and about to land thousands of students back into happy valley as they arrive with transmission and i know there are state foxes around the country who are worried about these rural college towns

because they don't have the capacity if there's a huge outbreak that occurs there. >> so you have all these colleges and universities and the officials having to decide what to do. some said we'll go back online and others, this is franklin county, ohio, the ohio state university is there and see the jump in cases. this is the estimate. this is one of the places where you have seen talk of tougher enforcement to get students to behave. >> ohio state did something really important yesterday. if we reopen the colleges, what are the ways to college transmission? one of the ways to do that is send a very clear message to the students that reckless behavior to endanger the communities is not tolerated and those students who would choose to do that will be sent home and asked to participate virtually for the semester. >> help me understand what you

look at closely. we have gone through the case count, the lagging indicator of deaths, hospitalizations and then the positivity rate. in the context of college campuses, the university of north carolina in orange county, south carolina, unc at chapel hill, a doubles in the positivity rate since students came back. what does that tell you? >> the proportion of people testing positive has gone up, fairly significant outbreak as the students arrived at unc. the rates were already elevated and now it's been exacerbated by the outbreaks that are occurring and in this ways it reminds us the colleges not dissimilar to where we were with long-term care facilities in the spring. outbreaks will originate from colleges and if we understand that many colleges will choose to test more frequently with access to testing and thinking about that, testing more frequently they might be able to break transmission cycles and

then may be able to keep it under check. >> dr. david rubin at children's hospital of philadelphia, appreciate it so much. unc chapel hill, the university stopped the in-person instruction after nearly 130 students tested positive in the first week of school. another 465 cases reported in the week since. here with us now is tamia troy, senior class vice president and the president of the university's black student movement. thank you so much for your time today. fascinating for your perspective in the sense that you think the school let you down here. why? >> yeah. so i'm very frustrated that students are in this position after one week of classes where we are now faced with so much uncertainty. students are wondering how to get home, where to move off campus and how to pay for it. the fact that the mrks allowed us to be put in an uncertain

position is very frustrating to see the experience in this and led to the black student movement creating a mutual aid fund raising money to help students with those needs and so far we have received thousands of dollars in requests from students trying to cover moving costs, transportation or struggling to pay for an off campus apartment. we are excited that we are able to help students throughout this time but again we shouldn't be in this position and i wish it went a different way because this is preventable. >> a friend wrote a piece for "the washington post" on monday and the headline is my university botched the pandemic. what does that say about how it sees its students and community? what are the levels of communication? the positivity rate doubled. are you getting active, constant information from the university about testingi options for you? whether certain areases are worse than other?

>> we weren't receiving reports of daily cases, only word cluster and even that's just filled with so much uncertainty unsure of how many cases exactly that means. since that point we have received a dashboard update just stating how many cases there are and what areas on campus and so on but students are unsure of where to get tested, if there's testing availability and things like that so the communication is definitely not as clear and concise in a time when students are frantic to figure out what to do next. >> you're an activist involved in the black student movement, campus politics as well in the elected office by classmates. what is your sense from talking to your friends, colleagues, class mates? you are staying near campus. are some people going back home? everyone staying tight waiting it out? >> people are starting to transition back home. students are feeling as if they

should have just stayed home in the first place or moved off campus. so it's a lot going on right now. students are extremely overwhelmed. we were expected to continue on with classes and turn in assignments and even that was very frustrating so student leaders request that the university give a pause and give us time to figure out where we go next and received a pause and start back on tomorrow so some students are in limbo not knowing where to live and how to afford the things and access to internet. i hope that the unit sees the effect that it has on students and intends to listen to students. a lot of students were asking for the university to really listen to us and pry tioritize voices so we're hoping that the university will take this into consideration as it moves forward and really prioritize the student voices because ultimately we are the primary

stakeholders and should be listened to throughout everything. >> grateful for your insights today. keep in touch. best of luck and i hope you and your classmates stay safe throughout this. thank you. >> thank you! >> thank you so much jurks coming up, how republicans try to fix the president's dwindling support among women. so you only pay for what you need? i should get a quote. do it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ it was 1961 when nellie young lost her devoted husband. without him, things were tough. her last option was to sell her home, but... her home meant everything to her. her husband had been a high school football coach and it turned out, one of his former players came up with an answer. a loan, created just for older homeowners. and pretty soon,

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the trump campaign is well aware of the math and using the convention stage to ask women voters to give the president another look. >> biden, harris and the rest of the socialists will fundamentally change this nation. >> he's a god send to everyone who wants america to apologize, abstain and abandon our views. >> the biden policies would stop the economic recovery cold. >> in 1994, biden led the charge on a crime bill that put millions of black americans behind bars. >> four years ago the president won 41% of votes cast by women and look now. the standing is worst. at the moment, the biden/harris ticket with a lead with women. in battleground states, 24 points. joining me now, alex stewart and

amanda carpenter. this is a historical problem for the republican party that's worse under president trump. nancy pelosi is speaker because suburban voters revolted against this president k. the president in this convention make it better? we don't expect him to carry the vote but can he improve the standing enough? >> they can't do what they have been doing so far. the democrats are making huge gains with women because they actually speak to them about issues they care about. what we saw last night was a lot of yelling about the democrats but i am waiting for some republicans to speak to suburban women about where they are. i am waiting for some republican to say, thank you for keeping your kids home since march. that was a great sacrifice. we know it's hard to keep an income going and try to go to the store like normal. there is no recognition of that.

kimberly guilfoyle got mockery but she is part of the coalition of women for trump. she is supposed to be articulating a message to women and she looks like the woman ripping down masks at target. i don't think they understand what women are going through through this pandemic because they're just out of touch with it. every time i look at her at the news she is doing fund raising and at a boat party. they need to talk to women where they are instead of trying to scare them about the democrats. >> you mentioned the word scared. alice, i want the show the historical trend. back to 1994, democrats getting the support of women voters who either identified or said they leaned, independents that leaned democratic in elections. 48% in 1994. it is 56% now. and women are majority of the electorate and getting 56% of the votes and it's a simple

math. amanda mentioned scared. one of the things i used to do in the '90s is constantly go back to the st. louis suburbans. the mccloskey came out of the their homes with guns. they had a big piece last night of what the convention hopes is an appeal to suburbanites. >> you may have seen us defending our home as a mob of protesters decembscended on our neighborhood. >> it could just as easily happen to any of you. >> is that a way to get the suburbs back, particularly women back? >> john, you look at that and you see fear. i look at that and i see safety and a president and policies that will ensure the safety and security of american families and important to note in that pew poll that the gender gap started to trend women to democrats in 2014 so this is not

new to this administration. but it is something that we need to keep an eye on. i have talked to women in this country. i was involved with some of the women that traveled across the country with the women for trump and what they heard from women across this country is that women, moms, single moms, they want safety and security and they want schools for their children and that is a key issue. and this is not as much about the style and the personality of the president but about the substance and women who support trump and across the country the growing number are supporting this president because they know he'll keep them safe, secure and he will fight for them. we saw in the democratic convention joe biden no doubt a man of compassion and empathy but not about voters and specifically women wanting someone to make them feel good. they want someone that makes them feel safe and why we see more women looking to this president as he focuses on law

and order in this campaign. >> i think that's a key, a very important point. the republicans understand they have the same focus group of the democrats have and a lot of what happened in 2018 was people don't like the tweets, the coarseness of his language saying women are nasty, for example, but they believe they can get some back focusing on policy. but the president does have a very important character witness tonight, speaking to the american people. my question to the two of you is how effective is she? this is melania with a preview at the white house. >> we as women must continue using our great tool of empowerment, our voices. now in 2020, the american women's voice is more important than ever. vote so that we may continue to build the brightest future for all of our children. >> she is not an always active campaigner. she's kept a relatively low profile for a first lady. amanda, can she when ep the

president? >> no way that a 20-minute speech is going to make forget about the dystopian reality and can't leave the house without a mask, can't send the kids to school and can't go about life as normal. that's just the reality of it. i've just got to say this whole great scare of the suburbs 2020 campaign that they're waging, it really makes me sad. it breaks my heart to think that the president of the united states thinks that women like me that live in the suburbs will be scared of black neighbors. i send my kids to school, i want them to have friends and never experience that hate and that's the strategy. i don't know how we can sit there and say like, oh, will this work? it is heart breaking, offensive and it really just makes me sick to my stomach. >> we'll continue the conversation i promise ten weeks to election day from today. thank you. tonight's live coverage of the republican national convention starts at 7:00 p.m.

senator rand paul speaks tonight and mike pompeo set to appear. when we come back, hurricane laura gaining strength as it heads toward the gulf coast. no sweat! try it and love it or get your money back.

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category 3 storm or stronger by the time it makes landfall later in the week. mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders also in place in parts of texas. stay with us for continuing coverage on that. see you back here this time tomorrow. anderson cooper picks up our coverage right now. have a good day. i'm anderson cooper. want to welcome viewers here in the u.s. ian around the world. more encouraging signs in the fight of the coronavirus. the average number of daily new cases tumbled and deaths fallen 8%. three times as many states are holding steady or decreasing the case counts and as much of the nation experiencing a decline signs that the uneven response by states to the pandemic is leading to new hotspots. the midwest seeing a 5% jump, one expert telling cnn that people forgot this was a pandemic because the region wasn't hit as hard