from china. >> public health experts, they say he bought himself a little bit of time, and then he just squandered it. >> what did the president say? >> it's going to disappear. one day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear. >> and did it match reality? >> a cdc official said publicly that it was not a question of if this virus spreads, but when. >> how delayed actions and false statements from beijing to the white house contributed to missing supplies -- >> we're running out of medications, we're running out of equipment. >> -- slow testing and confusion about the best way forward. >> it's frustrating, it's disheartening. we can do this. we know how to do this. >> a cnn special report, "the pandemic and the president." . in april, a team of us at cnn decided to take a look at the covid-19 outbreak and how the united states was fighting

this deadly virus. incredibly, we're back here months later with a new investigation and sorry to say, in many ways, things are much worse for much of the country and all of us are at risk because of that. how did this possibly happen? well, one possible reason, white house lies and white house denials. as in june, when vice president mike pence declared, quote, we slowed the spread, we flattened the curve, we saved lives, unquote. and in april, when president trump's top adviser and son-in-law, jared kushner, said the trump administration had, quote, rose to the challenge and this is a great success story, unquote. well, the truth, according to official records, the united states has ended up with the biggest number of cases in the world. >> revelers, shoulder to

shoulder. celebrating a new year that would bring a new virus. a new normal. emptying these streets. >> in early january, this is when the trump administration really gets the first word out of china and it goes to the head of the cdc that there is this series of respiratory illnesses going around, they haven't identified it, and this is already a concern to the top health officials in the administration. >> the chinese government reported dozens of cases of pneumonia in the city of wuhan, closed down a market it suspected as the cause, and assured the world health organization, or w.h.o, that there was, quote, no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission. but as chinese president xi jinping's government was trying

to contain the spread of the virus, it also was trying to contain the spread of the truth. >> not a lot of folks out -- >> as cnn international correspondent, david culver, found out. >> it was back in late december when li sent a group messagesatimessage saying a test result showed a patient had a coronavirus. but hours after hitting send, wuhan city health officials tracked li down. >> days later, dr. li was summoned to a police station and reprimanded for circulating rumors. >> early in january, the deputy national security adviser, matthew pottinger has a call with a doctor in hong kong who really delivers for the u.s. government one of the earliest warnings about what is to come. pottinger, who had been a "wall street journal" reporter in china in the early part of the century, had known this doctor and become a friend. and what this doctor tells him was chilling.

he says that the chinese are not revealing the extent of the problem. they are really covering up what is happening inside the country. and perhaps most importantly for mr. pottinger, this problem is coming to you. >> on january 6th, robert redfield offers to send help, including cdc scientists to china, to look into the virus, to work with the world health organization. china does not want a cdc scientist to come in the country at that point. >> but the chinese government's great wall of deception could not stop the deadly virus from migrating beyond its borders. >> 21 people in hong kong returned from wuhan with fever or respiratory symptoms. >> still, the xi government insisted its investigations had, quote, found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. >> in the early days, i don't think anybody knew for sure what to believe. so the concern was, are we

getting the full story? how likely is this to be contagious? how likely is this to kill people? >> it all seemed to leave u.s. infectious disease experts somewhat in the dark. >> based on the information that cdc has today, we believe the current risk from this virus to the general public is low. for a family sitting around the dinner table tonight, this is not something that they generally need to worry about. >> but during that same teleconference, the cdc announced a handful of u.s. airports would start screening passengers arriving from wuhan. >> the new coronavirus is causing infections, fever, and pulmonary infections. >> u.s. intelligence agencies were warning the president about the novel coronavirus, according to the "washington post," in more than a dozen daily classified briefings. >> they were calling attention to the threat of the coronavirus in a way that amounts to a fairly steady drum beat throughout january and february.

>> so eventually, alex azar, secretary of health and human services, goes to the president to talk about this coronavirus issue that is emerging from china. the president is completely preoccupied with other issues. he wants to talk about vaping and the sale of flavored vaping products. and it just shows you kind of how the president's focus was not on this coronavirus issue. >> which is worse? the impeachment hoax or the witch hunts from russia? >> his focus, much of it, was on the u.s. senate. >> and ready to present the articles of impeachment against donald john trump. >> the president went into this year with this view that it was time to get payback for the people who brought on the impeachment crisis for him. and in his view, it was the so-called deep state. people in government who were

hell-bent to bring him down. so by the time the coronavirus pandemic really started to worsen in the united states and scientists and experts were telling him about the problem, he saw some of these people as just an extension of the deep state. so that led to, i think, some of the skepticism that he had towards the advice he was being given. >> and china's government, in late january, still downplaying. >> health officials in wuhan held a press conference yesterday. they say this is preventable. they say this is controllable. >> reporter: the next day, the u.s. had its first confirmed case of the coronavirus. the president's response was to claim it was under control. he said he trusted the chinese government. >> the words about a pandemic? >> no, we're not at all, and we're -- we have it totally under control. it's one person, coming in from china. and we have it under control. it's going to be just fine. >> okay, president xi, um --

there's just some talk in china that maybe the transparency isn't everything that it's going to be. do you trust that we're going to know everything that we need to know with china? >> i do, i do. i have a great relationship with president xi. we just signed probably the biggest deal ever made, in terms, it certainly has the potential to be the biggest deal ever made. and it was very interesting period of time. >> let's get ointo -- >> but we got it done and i do, i think the relationship is very good. >> this period of time was a period of real cross-currents in the trump administration's policy towards china. where different factions in the government had different interest s in addressing china' role in a growing pandemic. the president first and foremost wanted to solidify a trade agreement during this period of time, that he wanted to use as kind of a cornerstone of what he could run for re-election on in november. so, that was one reason why

president trump very much wanted to downplay any kind of hawkish rhetoric about china and china's role in the growing pandemic. >> we asked the white house to participate in this documentary, but they declined. on january 24th, chinese authorities initiated a lockdown of 30 million people in ten cities, including the presumed ground zero, wuhan. trump praised china, tweeting, "china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. the united states greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. it will all work out well." but behind the scenes -- >> health professionals across the government were tracking what was happening in china and getting alarmed. >> some were sharing their fears in an email chain dubbed red

dawn, originated by duane kaneva. an email change leaked to the "new york times". >> emailing to each other that this is going to be bad. and we, the scientific community, the medical community, have to develop some real advice to policy makers to try to mitigate the potential damage. >> the projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe, wrote a department of veterans affairs senior medical adviser. you guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools, now i'm screaming, close the colleges and universities. >> exactly what came to pass six weeks later. but at the time, many in the trump administration, including some of the medical community, including dr. fauci, were not ready yet to declare that those kinds of steps would be

required. >> an infectious disease doctor at the university of nebraska shared this bit of dark humor. "great understatements in history. napoleon's retreat from moscow, just a little stroll gone bad. pompeii, a bit of a dust storm. hiroshima, a bad summer heat wave. and wuhan, just a bad flu season." david, hundreds of americans were just evacuated today from wuhan by the state department. what precautions are being taken to make sure they are not carrying the virus back with them to the u.s.? >> they went through not one, but two health screenings here in china. one done by chinese officials, the other done by u.s. officials, and then they'll go through a third screening once they land in anchorage and be cleared to then go on to california. then, jake, they'll spend anywhere from 3 to 14 days in quarantine. >> the president did something that he would do over and over again throughout this crisis. offer a ray of hope, distant

hope, retweeting, "johnson & johnson to create coronavirus vaccine." >> peter navarro, the president's trade adviser, circulated a memo through the national security council, but then it went out broadly to dozens of administration officials, in which he was very clear, he detailed the potential for millions of deaths, 1 to 2 million deaths, as many as 500,000. he went through the economic costs, which he predicted would be staggering, in the trillions of dollars for the country. the president was told about the existence of this memo, we've been told by sources, and he was irritated that these estimates had been put down on paper. >> that memo was dated january 29th. a day that also brought this. >> the white house announced the creation of a coronavirus task force to deal with the threat here in the united states. >> in the final days of january, a world health organization

emergency committee praised the chinese government's leadership, commitment to transparency and saw no need for any travel or trade restriction. secretary of commerce wilbur ross declared the coronavirus would be good for the u.s. >> so i think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to north america. >> and trump, again, told the country, everything was fine. >> we think we have it very well under control. we have very little problem in this country at this moment. five. and those people are all recuperating successfully. >> so the very next day after the president made those comments in michigan is when his administration declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency. >> in china, the doctor reprimanded for sounding the alarm was dying after being infected by a patient. >> struggling to communicate, li spoke with cnn briefly by phone.

you can hear the hospital machines pulsing in the backgroun background. >> china's supreme court commented that if li's warning a month earlier had been heeded and action taken, quote, it might have been a fortunate thing for containing the new coronavirus. next -- >> once we saw that this outbreak grew exponential rates, we knew this was going to be a rapidly disseminating virus. >> their hearts just sync when they're trying to use this test and it's malfunctioning. our 12 step process provides 100% pure quality water. ♪ earn box tops for your school with nestle pure life, available across these fun packs. available across that's your weathered deck, crying for help. while you do nothing, it's inviting those geese over for target practice.

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to make informed choices now and in the future. february began with a ban. >> not one person has died and i issued a travel restriction from china. >> the restriction stopped travel from the u.s. the restrictions also started a clock. >> when you talk to public health experts, they really look with despair at those couple of weeks, because they say, whatever your feelings were on the travel ban at the time, it was a perfectly fine and reasonable step to take. and he bought himself a little bit of time and he just squandered it. >> there were only nine known cases of the novel coronavirus inside the u.s.

the first step to keeping that number low, according to the experts, was a working test for the virus. >> testing was, is, and always will be the cornerstone of trying to stem a pandemic. you've got to identify the people who are infected, you've got to be able to isolate those folks and treat them. it all begins with testing. >> february 6th is when the cdc starts sending these test kits out to public health departments. and you talk to the people in these public health departments. they're thrilled to get the tests. they worked over the weekend trying to get the tests to work. they see this as an opportunity to get ahead of the viruses in their communities. they can figure out who's sick, they can trace the people they have been in contact with and can really get ahead of this. >> but the tests, the only tests approved for use in the united states were not working. >> their hearts just sink when they're trying to use this test over the weekend and it's malfunctioning. >> there was a test available from the world health

organization, but the cdc did not choose to get it. and nobody inside the government asked outside labs to help. >> officials were told not to do it. that they do not need to do it. it was too alarmist. >> the delay in testing concerned the experts who now saw the virus spreading from human to human. and quickly. >> i think it was pretty clear in early february that there was human-to-human contact. >> once we saw that this outbreak grew exponential rates, we knew this was going to be a rapidly disseminating virus. >> researcher eva lee was working to figure out how many americans might catch the virus. >> we viewed the models. >> those models projected that between 2 and 10 million people in the u.s. would become infected. on february 9th, she sent an email to that red dawn chain of public health experts, calling for social distancing. >> we need the citizens to know and practice social distancing

in a way that best protects them. every action counts. >> it was a full five weeks later before president trump would take that step. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> that same day, some of the nation's governors met with dr. anthony fauci and cdc director robert redfield. they got some disturbing news. >> they gave us a pretty detailed outline of what they felt was happening with this virus and what they thought was a good potential for what might happen in the country. when i left that briefing that the administration gave to the governors, we knew that this was going to be a serious crisis. >> it was exactly the opposite of what president trump was saying publicly. >> looks like by april, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. >> the president's cdc director contradicted him later that week in an interview with dr. sanjay gupta. >> i think this virus is probably with us beyond this season or beyond this year.

and i think eventually, the virus will find a foothold and you can start to think of it in the sense like seasonal flu. the only difference is, we don't understand this virus. >> very small number of people in the country right now with it. it's like around 12. many of them are getting better. some are fully recovered already. so we're in very good shape. >> he was still of the view that you could stop flights, build walls, and keep coronavirus from coming to the united states. >> the chances of that were near zero, partly because it was now more than two weeks since the cdc test had been approved and it still was not working properly. >> public health officials were telling me, especially on the west coast, in states like washington and california, they knew this virus was spreading in their communities and they knew they couldn't test for it. >> they were right. we would later learn that there were two coronavirus deaths in california by the middle of february and two more at the end

of month around seattle, washington. >> over at the white house, robert redfield, who's the director of the cdc and alex azar, secretary of health and human services are assuring other administration officials, we're going to get it fixed quickly. >> not quickly enough. february 22nd, the food and drug administration, or fda, sent an expert to the cdc headquarters to help figure out the problem. >> this expert realized that there was contamination in the manufacturing process and that the cdc had actually violated its own manufacturing protocols in trying to produce this test. and that that is why the tests were malfunctioning. >> you have to wonder if president trump had been directly involved or his staff had, and if they had understood that you only contain the virus if you understand its spread. they might have pressed for more widespread testing earlier. >> a little bit to their defense here, there were certainly indications that it was going to be bad, that it was going to spread, but there was no clear

data. even in mid-february, on exactly how it was spreading through the united states. >> but during the third week of february, public health officials were preparing for the worst, just in case. >> they gathered in the situation room to run a tabletop exercise of what it would look like if the pandemic fully hit the united states. and so while the president was talking about 15 cases going to zero, they were talking about 15 cases going to the thousands and then the tens of thousands and then the hundreds of thousands. >> two days later, dr. robert c cadlick, an assistant secretary for preparedness at the department of health and human services, spotted a red dawn email that set off warning bells in the administration. >> this is really a critical moment for this group that's studying the problem. they see an email about a patient in china who had shown no symptoms of coronavirus. and yet had spread the virus to

family and friends. >> that means people who did not know they were sick were unknowingly spreading the virus. eva, is this true, the doctor wrote. if so, we have a huge hole on our screening and quarantine effort. she responded with a link confirming the story and added. >> simply, people are carrying the virus everywhere. >> that then sets in a greater urgency from the group that they've got to get to the president a plan to mitigate the problem inside the united states before it spreads further. >> it was now february 24th and it was time, dr. cadlick, and his colleagues decided, to tell president trump that he needed to recommend social distancing measures, including shutting down big public events and schools. but president trump was in india. >> they planned basically the moment he got back to the united states, they were going to sit down with him, advocate for

these measures, and hopefully try to convince the president to move forward with it. but one thing happened. a doctor from the cdc, dr. messiner got ahead of the messaging that they had been working on internally and warned publicly that there was going to be a severe disruption to american life. >> we are asking the american public to work with us to prepare in the expectation that this could be bad. >> the president was angry about that and said, why are they overplaying the problem? it's leading to the stock market crashing. >> breaking news. >> the dow is taking a dramatic hit, down almost 900 points. >> president trump actually considered firing dr. mess onnier, according to the "wall street journal," though he ultimately did not. >> had the president been less concerned with what the warning sounded like and more concerned with the content of the warning, he might have concluded that the cdc was right and moved much

more quickly to trying to mitigate the effects, trying to prepare to american people. >> instead, the day the president returned from india, he blamed the media, tweeting that msnbc and cnn are, quote, doing everything possible to make the coronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets if possible, unquote. >> before railing at the media, the president was angry with dr. me me messonnier. the president viewed anyone delivering ugly facts about the virus as an enemy. that evening he held a presser and said something completely opposite from what his experts were saying. >> when you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done. >> the president also announced a new leader of the coronavirus task force. >> i'm going to be putting our vice president, mike pence, in charge. >> on that cday the president

returned from india, dr. cadlick and his colleagues did not tell the president it was time to start social distancing. it would be nearly three more weeks before the president took any of the steps they had planned to recommend. >> i think one of the big questions we're always going to have is, what would have happened if we had acted sooner? if we had started these physical distancing measures a week earlier, the question will be asked, how many lives would have been saved. according to some models, they say, you know, 50, "3660% of pee within that first wave may not have become infected. >> do you think lives could have been saved if social distancing, physical distancing, stay-at-home measures had started third weeblg of february instead of mid-march. >> it's very hard to say that. you can say, if you had a process that was noiongoing and started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. no one is going to deny that, but what goes into those kind of decisions is complicated.

>> so in late february, the president was still holding crowded rallies. his administration had not yet recommended social distancing, and they had not solved the problem with the testing kits. then on february 27th, a breakthrough in the form of a phone call arranged by dr. anthony fauci. >> he wants the other health experts on the line. and the message when they all get on the line is, we are not getting off this phone call until we figure out how to fix the testing issue. you have the head of the fda on this call, and redfield on this call. and it's striking that this isn't happening until the end of february. one of the solutions that comes out of it is the fda need to loosen its regulations. >> that was a big deal. >> those regulations made it difficult for commercial labs to come into the process and scale up testing. the regulations were officially lifted on the last day of february. >> mr. secretary? >> the same day america reached a grim milestone. >> let me begin expressing our sadness for the loss of this patient in the state of washington.

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two months after the trump administration first learned of the contagion taking over the globe, there were 72 known cases in the u.s. and one known death. but that was about to change. >> march was an explosive month for this virus in the united states. >> new evidence confirmed that the virus, after entering washington state and california, was now spreading on the east coast, with the first reported infection in new york. and two days later, a second. >> we're seeing what we

expected, what we anticipated, which was a continuing spread. >> in a few short weeks, new york state's second case of covid multiplied into hundreds, forming the nation's newest cluster. >> we will continue to do exactly what we're doing. >> but back in washington, d.c., the president had yet to publicly admit the enormity of the unfolding crisis. >> a lot of very exciting things are happening and they're happening very rapidly. >> the month before in february, a team inside trump's own administration had developed an aggressive plan to try to slow the spread of the virus through social distancing, a plan that would effectively shut down a big chunk of the nation's economy. but president trump was still resisting. >> so this is a critical period of time, where the coronavirus continues to spread and no real federal action is taken. >> states begin competing for critical medical supplies and equipment. come mid-march, supplies would

become so scarce, the cdc would issue guidelines to health care workers to re-use masks or even use bandannas, if necessary. >> that was unthinkable before that point. no one in a million years would ever have thought that in the united states of america, that we would tell doctors and nurses, reuse your mask. >> part of the problem in terms of the ppe is that there has been a total lack of clarity about process here. mike pence took over the task force, jared kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, has been run what some have described as a shadow task force. that has left a lot of confusion as to who exactly is responsible for helping to procure ppe. >> confusion that would continue to plague the administration behind closed doors. and in front of the cameras. >> we're also considering the fact that you've got approximately 36,000 deaths due to what's called the flu. >> so the president visits the

cdc and famously says, anybody who wants a test -- >> can get a test. >> and that was a surprise to people at the cdc who were working on this issue. they didn't know the president was going to say that. testing was certainly not at a point where anybody who wants a test can get a test. >> and the tests are all perfect. like the letter is perfect. the transcription was perfect, right? >> tests the were flawed. the tests didn't work. and as a result, we lost valuable time. more people became infected. there were people walking around without any symptoms, no test, and they were continuing to spread the virus. >> it will go away, just stay calm. >> but the day after president trump said the virus would, quote, go away, the country was wrestling with a new reality. hollywood legend tom hanks and his wife tested positive for covid. the nba announced it was suspending its season. >> and all of a sudden, everybody was saying, what's going on here? what's the deal with this virus. >> and the world health organization officially named covid-19 a pandemic.

>> the president was still contradicting what was actually happening. >> and some of the experts i talked to said, that was because the stock market was really driving the president's decision making and he didn't want to do the kinds of things that you needed to do to mitigate the spread of this virus, because it would further hurt the economy. >> pushed by democrats to more than triple his original request for funding -- >> i asked for 2.5 and i got 8.3. and i'll take it. >> trump signed $8.3 billion many emergency spending for the virus, yet even then he continued to insist, falsely, no one saw this virus coming. >> very well. but it's an unforeseen problem. what a problem. it came out of nowhere. >> every epidemiologist has been predicting, cajoling, warning government officials for the last 20 years that a pandemic of this size and magnitude was

inevitable. but when our leader denies or refuses to admit the problem, it's confusing, at best. and it is disastrous, at worst. >> chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine. >> but perhaps the most confounding comments by the president in march surrounded his touting of an untested treatment for the virus. >> chloroquine. a lot of good things are happening with it. >> which the fda would later warn could cause serious heart issues. >> we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. that would be a big game changer. >> "the washington post" reported that president trump was so enamored with the drug, he asked an acquaintance from mar-a-lago to call the california governor, gavin newsom, on his cell phone to try to broker a deal for the state to buy millions of tablets of hydroxychloroquine from india. a source tells cnn that after

newsom got the call, he told staffers that he thought he might have been punked by a shock jock. such a deal never happened. >> is there any evidence to suggest that as with malaria, it might be used as a prophylactic against covid-19? >> no. the answer is no. >> but the president was not the only one that month contradicting the experts. some of his political allies joined in, too, such as congressman matt gates from florida, who seemed to mock those taking the virus seriously when he wore a gas mask before a vote on the house floor. >> it's a great time to go out, go to a local restaurant. >> it was also devin nunes, one of his closest allies who was going on fox news and telling people they should still feel comfortable going out to eat at restaurants when health advisers were saying the exact opposite. >> on the other side of the political i'd, democratic governor andrew cuomo and new york city mayor bill de blasio did not initially grasp the full gravity of the crisis, either. >> excuse our arrogance as new

yorkers. we don't even think it's going to be as bad as it was in other countries. >> why is everyone panicking? >> and then there was the pro-trump media, which turned the pandemic into a conspiracy. >> i'm not afraid of the coronavirus! >> they're just looking for every and any way possible to bash president trump. >> they're basically accusing the rest of the mainstream media of fearmongering. they're saying that, you know, democrats in the media are just blowing this up, because they want to create more chaos for the president. >> i am far more concerned with stepping on a used heroin needle than i am getting the coronavirus. >> this disinformation took such a hold on a segment of the public, new polling data began to worry leaders in the president's party. >> what the polling showed is that republicans were taking this virus far less seriously than democrats were. and what it circulated that their tone had to change on

coronavirus, because denial was not going to be a tool for survival. >> but strict social distancing measures were. and as infections spread, some state leaders would begin to enforce them, without the help of the federal government. >> to use the social interactions that are not necessary in our lives. >> in a moment, dr. acton will be signing an order, banning the gathering together of people over 100 people. >> on march 13th, president trump made his strongest stance against the virus yet. >> today, i am officially declaring a national emergency. two very big words. >> that same day, the european travel ban he had announced two days earlier went into effect. >> we will be suspending all travel from europe to the united states for the next 30 days. >> in only the second oval office address of his administration, the president had misstated his own plan to

the nation, leaving out the key fact that the restrictions did not apply to cargo or to u.s. citizens traveling home. >> when you compare what we've done to other areas of the world, it's pretty incredible. >> still, some called the ban draconian. but what the administration had failed to realize or simply ignored according to an investigation by "the washington post," was that it was already too late. the virus had been spreading wildly throughout europe for months and the travel ban immediately triggered an uptick of travel into the united states. >> yeah, it's very crowded, which is not ideal, considering what this contagion is. >> chaos erupted at overcrowded and unprepared airports, filled with american passengers desperately fleeing for home. many of them bringing the virus with them. this critical misstep, among

others, might have been avoided had the trump administration kept the white house pandemic office, which it reorganized in 2018, fully in tact. those seasoned pandemic experts, according to its former senior director, could have made a difference. >> when you say "me," i didn't do it. >> i think that a practiced senior level white house pandemics office would have been able to understand exactly what needed to happen more quickly. >> we would much rather be ahead of the curve than behind it. >> march 16th. more than 70 days after the trump administration first learned of the virus, the president implemented what had become the nation's best tool to slow its spread. >> my administration is recommending that all americans, including the young and healthy, work to engage in schooling from home when possible, avoid gathering in groups of more than ten people. >> what is still so stunning is to realize that this was on march 16th.

recall, it was the end of february that his health advisers had started talking about putting these measures in place in the first place. >> this is a war zone. it's a medical war zone. >> there's patients building up in all the corridors on oxygen. >> we're running out of medication, we're running out of equipment. >> i started receiving texts from doctors and nurses who i have known for decades, brave, brave people saying, i'm scared. one of them said, what i'm seeing is armageddon. >> on march 26th, the u.s. reached a somber milestone, becoming the new global leader in confirmed infections. the following day, president trump approved an historic $2 trillion stimulus bill and he finally pledged to authorize the defense production act, which would allow him to force this manufacturing of ventilators. >> for weeks, we've already had nurses, we've already had nurses publicly and on television

pleading, saying, we don't -- we don't have what we need to protect ourselves from the virus. >> i've been asked by the tennessee department of health to velcro a diaper around my face because i don't have an n95 mask to be able to wear to see patients. >> it's really perplexing and it still is perplexing why the administration took until march 27th to invoke the defense production act. >> it is a failure of the trump administration and is one of the most colossal mistakes i have ever witnessed. and unfortunately, it will cause thousands and thousands of lives to be lost. next -- >> so what happened? >> we're not an ordering clerk. we're a backup. >> what became an unholy mess. tt scuffed up wall. embarrassing you. that wall is your everest. but not any more. today let's paint. and right now, get incredible savings on behr premium paints and stains. exclusively at the home depot.

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last week. >> the u.s.n.s. comfort hundreds of hospital beds on that ship are going to provide relief to new york hospitals overwhelmed with coronavirus. >> the burials were remained into trailers and brought to hart island for a temporary burial. >> it's like we're going into a war with no protection. >> where is our ppe now? we need it. >> i got the doctor on the phone, but he said, i'm sorry, but there is no more pulse. >> reporter: on the last day of march, president trump was more serious than he had ever seemed to be to discuss the pandemic as he addressed the nation. >> i want every american to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. we're going to go through a very tough two weeks. >> i think of all the briefings he has done, it was the best one. it's that he was doing what elected officials are supposed to do which is prepare their citizens and the general public

for what's to come. >> our country is in the midst of a great national trial unlike any we have seen before. they're shocking numbers when you see 100,000, 200,000 people over potentially a very short period of time. >> one of the ways in which he realized it was the end of march, watching elm hurst hospital people dying from covid-19, i think brought home the reality for him in a way that few other things did. >> on a ventilator. >> i grew up next to it. to see the scenes of trailers out there, freezers, nobody could even believe it. >> reporter: along with the images of devastation, the president heard cries for help. >> it really feels like it's too little too late. like we knew, we knew it was coming. >> reporter: it's like military people going into battle. i would say you people are just

incredible. >> yet, just two days before, the president was hurling insults at the care-givers. >> where are the masks going? are they going out the back door? how do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? >> it comes in this period of time when the president seems to want to lash out to a new enemy every day. one day he's blaming the quote invisible enemy. the coronavirus. another day he's blaming the chinese. >> and then he find this bizarre line of attack against healthcare workers, then becomes this attack on individual governors. >> it was the governors who president trump had been attacking with a vengeance. the president initially pushed back against their requests for more medical gear, saying they were asking for too much and dismissed democratic governors, in particular, such as new york governor andrew cuomo, who had been steadfast in his appeals to the federal government to provide more ventilators and

supplies to the hardest-hit state. on april 2nd, the situation grew urgent as new york surged to 84,000 cases of the then 216,000 cases nationwide. >> at the current burn rate, we have about six days of ventilators in our stockpile. >> the president lashed out at governors on twitter calling them, quote, the complainers. >> the states should have been building their stockpile. we have almost 10,000 in our stockpile. we have been building it, supplying it. but the states should be building. we're a back-up, we're not a ordering clerk. we're a back-up. >> the president had a phone call with governors and said it was up to them to go look for their own supplies. so what happened? one state began bidding against another and in some cases there were reports of states bringing in supplies, arranging to buy them. only to have the federal government seize them for their

own stockpile. so it became an unholy mess. >> that's what happened to massachusetts republican governor charlie baker. his state's shipment of respiratory masks never made it. >> look at the bizarre situation we wound up in. it's like being on ebay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator. >> a bizarre situation complicated by the president's son-in-law, alzheimer's an ad advisor to the president. >> the federal stockpile is supposed to be our spockpile, not what they use. >> when jared kushner did his first and only briefing, he did his father-in-law damage, the federal government is supposed to be there to help the rest of the country, not to be in a fight with states. >> on april 2nd after weeks of fighting with governors, the president expanded the defense production act to force six

medical device companies to produce masks and ventilators. the administration was finally taking help to help states. it criticized for not fully unleashing the might of the act. >> he is criticized constantly pointing to it as a bag in his toolbox to try to hit people with. the latest issue with that is swabs, and the fact that he's not trying to force companies to ramp up production. >> there were unquestionable examples of the u.s. government stepping up. the u.s. army core of engineers built field hospitals, including this one at the javits center in new york city. the u.s. navy deployed ships to new york and california. but the white house also had to contend with another crisis. >> a startling sign of the economic pain. >> 6.6 million workers filed for unemployment in the u.s. for the first time. a historic high and a 3,000

percent increase since early march. the looming deaths. an economic recession. >> the current reality is beyond painful. >> reporter: not a good equation for a president running for re-election. >> he's frustrated by what we've seen in the stockmarket. the numbers he knows of job losses and people who have filed for unemployment are through the roof and they are going to be incredibly damaging to him inf no and that's his fear. >> so the president wanted to push governors to restart the economy at least in part to resuscitate his election campaign. and the only way to do both, reopen the country as soon as possible. but that seemed unrainfallistic when models were predicting 100,000 or 200,000 deaths. according to washington post, an impatient president trump sought different data, which some white house economic advisers

delivered. the washington post is reporting kevin has et built a different coronavirus model which aides interpreted to show the deaths would have already peaked and that there would be far fewer fatalities than initially foreseeing "the washington post" is reporting this presentation affirmed skepticism within the west wing about what people like dr. fauci and redfield and birx were saying, health experts were saying about the severity of the crisis. is that true? >> as kevin has et, himself, said in that story, that is not true, jake, absolutely not true. what he was doing is taking the gaetz model from the university of washington and basically smoothing it out to show what is actually happening. there is a difference between a forecast trend and what is actually hang so we didn't change anything based on that. >> we want to have our country open. we want to return to normal life. our country will be opened.

>> reporter: on principal 3rd they urged the public to wear cloth face masks. president trump, however, said, he would rather not. >> i don't know, somehow i don't see it for myself. >> reporter: it was hardly the first time he ignored public health advice. >> are you protecting yourself as all? >> no, not at all. >> reporter: with no vaccine yet on the horizon, the country had to increase testing and contact tracing capability, decreasing case over 14 days. >> test and then isolate the person who is infected. trace all the context, quarantine them. we didn't do the first part of this strong enough. that's affected everything downstream. >>. >> there doesn't seem to be an effort to be in front of that. it's always been like the u.s. is a couple steps behind. >> the country struggled since the beginning of the pandemic, the testing was initially

limited to small groups, healthcare workers, people who had known contact with a sick patient or this is crucial, people with symptoms. but in order to reopen the country and prevent further outbreaks, the united states needed lots of tests. because as scientists announced in mid-april, people might be most contagious two-to-three days before they develop symptoms, when they're asymptomatic. >> whalts ret's really critical this surveillance for asymptomatic individual. >> constant surveillance and widespread testing so those with the virus will be quickly identified and immediately isolateed from the rest of us to stop the spread. >> we probably in this country need to be testing 1 to 2 million people a day ultimately. >> i think we will have to have 300 or 500 million tests before we get out of this sufficient

quantity, good tests, high quality, easily available to anyone who wants one. >> by april 10th, there were more than half a million covid cases in the u.s. and the death toll catapulted to nearly 19,000. >> we're leading the world now in testing by far and we're going to keep it that way. >> according to health experts, the u.s. was testing far fewer per capita than countries such as south korea or italy. >> we're testing more than anybody. >> yet listening to the president speak about testing, it sound as though the u.s. has quantity and quality. >> we have the best right now testing system in the world. >> but that claim did not square with the facts and the experts were saying. dr. anthony fauci is raising questions about the readiness,

telling the associated press where coronavirus test secretary needed saying, quote, we have to have something in place that is efficient and we are rely on and we're not there yet. >> so, excuse me, i know your question, the governors are supposed to do testing. quiet. >> the president also continued to clash with the governors. the president felt they should be in charge of testing. but the governors argued as they did with ventilators and ppe, that they don't have the power of a defense production act. >> we are going to need testing. more testing, faster testing than we now have. >> only the president has that power. to force xaempcompanies to get speed. only he has the power to make them test reagents and swabs to hire lab workers and to manufacture lab equipment. >> more help is needed from the federal government on testing. >> this is probably the number

one problem in america and has been from the beginning of this crisis. >> this tension between state government and federal government, that has always existed since the founding of our country. this is now a question of life or death. the question of who should i rely on to keep me alive? >> we spoke with several of the political advisers they believe the wherein he the president won't deal with the fallout if there is any. >> this was a back of and move forth between the president and gofrs the created gridlock and confusion. >> it's hard to argue that there hasn't been lost time in this fight over who should be responsible and who so to blame. >> it's frustrating. in some ways it's disheartening because we can do this.

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on april 11th, the new york sometimes ran an extensive investigation detailing the president's mistakes during the crisis. >> the president of the united states called the shots. >> trump played a video during a press briefing that seemed to be playing the press for downplaying the crisis. >> coronavirus is not going to cause a major issue in the united states. >> the same press he had been attacking for over hyping the crisis in february. >> something noticeably missing from that video is the president's own comments where he also down played and dismissed the outbreak in the month of february and the beginning of march. >> white house reporters did not back down. >> you bought yourself some

time. you didn't use it to prepare hospitals. you didn't use it to ramp up testing. >> you are so disgraceful. we have done a great job. >> what we have seen in these daily briefings, that one, in particular, is a president trying to rewrite history. trying to say he was the one who was warning all along about the coronavirus. >> there was also this. >> when somebody's the president of the united states, the authority is total. and that's the way it's gentleman to be. total. >> has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when -- >> i haven't asked anybody. you know why? because i don't have to. >> of course, that is not the case. no one would agree with that, including the president concerned with allies. >> the next day coronavirus cases in the u.s. climbed to nearly 600,000. president trump made another controversial decision. >> today i'm obstructing my administration to halt funding

of the world health organization. so much death has been caused by their mistakes. >> the fight with the w.h.o. is, in part, another element of looking to blame someone besides himself. >> there are some medical experts who believe the world health organization could have and should have acted sooner. >> i worked for w.h.o. for ten years. i think w.h.o. was late in calling this a pandemic. the w.h.o. having lost a lot of its general financial support over the years and got a lot of support financially from china, i do think that w.h.o. was generous in its acceptance of the chinese reports about when the epidemic began. >> people do have very real concerns the way the w.h.o. was dealing on early on in an outbreak. but i haven't talked to any public health expert who thinks the right way to remedy that is

strip w.h.o. funding in the middle of a pandemic. >> on april 16th, the administration announced a plan. >> our team of experts agrees we can begin the next front in our war. >> tens of thousands of protesters all promising to show up at the capitol here. those encouraged by the president, himself. >> when president trump took to twitter tweeting all in caps, liberate minnesota, liberate michigan, liberate virginia. >> these are great people. they want to get back they want their life back. >> he's bolstering this message. he is encouraging people to go against what their own governors have said. >> even encouraging protesters to go against the white house' only guidelines. >> to encourage people to go protest the plan you just made recommendations on, it doesn't make sense. we are sending conflicting

messages out. >> we are working hard with governors on testing, we want to help them out. >> the president and governors seemed to unite a few days later. >> apparently the defense production act. >> the president planned to force production of desperately needed swabs for testing. federal testing labs were offered for some states to use. and the latest economic relief bill allocated $25 billion for testing. so, by the end of april, diagnostic testing was progressing. though, still, nowhere near where it needed to be according to health experts. >> we are working with more than 400 test developers, 220 labs around the country. >> ultimately, we are doing more testing i think than any of the governors even want. >> four days later, the white house announced a blueprint for testing, putting the responsibility back in the hand of t hands of the states. >> we have enough for the

opening and reopening process. we want to get our country opened. >> a plan that had the administration taking a victory lap. >> i think we have achieved the milestones, so the federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story. >> the federal government has done a spectacular job. >> but the plan had medical experts reacting quit differently. >> the white house plan calls for around 7 million a month. we're talking a million a day. so you can see the delta here. it's like four times off in terms of the amount of testing we need to be doing here. >> we're not here yet. we're going to get there soon, i hope. >> and they needed to, because the only true end to this pandemic, the holy grail, a vaccine was still on the horizon. >> i think there is no question that the speed at which these vaccine trials have been going is unprecedented. vaccines can take decades to make. hiv/aids 40 years and we still don't have a vaccine. that gives you an idea how

challenging this can be. >> a race against time to get back so some semblance of normal. and most importantly to save lives. and with every step, serious communication failures were taking the country off track, such as, the disinfectant situation. >> did i see the disinfectant? it knocks it out in a minute. one minute and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or -- >> to think that bleach could cure someone of coronavirus is ludicrous. >> in early may, we learned not even the white house, itself, was immune from the virus. three top health officials, all members of the coronavirus task force entered either full or

partial quarantine after one of trump's valets and the vice president's press secretary tested positive for covid-19. the following week on may 11th, the white house directed west wing staffers to begin wearing face masks at work, which reminded everyone of that recent day mike pence had been chastised for not following hospital policy at the mayo clinic in minnesota, pence wore no mask during his tour even though all the officials around him did. the vice president later said he regretted that and two days later, he had one on while visiting a ventilator factory in indiana. but the president had no regrets in may when he was maskless touring a plant in arizona that manufactures medical masks. >> they said you didn't need it. so, i didn't need it. and by the way, if you noticed, nobody else had it open that was

in the group and they were the workers. the workers had them on, yeah. >> by the middle of may, president trump still did not have one on as he toured a ppe plant in pennsylvania, perhaps sending a message to the public that he did not think max were necessary. but there was a different measure that he did tout. >> a lot of good things have come out about the hydroxy. in there the president announced he was taking hydroxychloroquine to ward off the violence, despite mounting evidence it does not work against covid-19 and could be harmful. >> i'm taking hydroxychloroquine right now. yeah. a couple weeks ago, i started taking it. >> it's terribly irresponsible. it sets a bad example and maybe even dangerous. >> dangerous and distracting. we wanted to interview someone

from the white house for this program, but they declined to participate in this documentary. getting answers from the trump administration was in many ways getting more difficult. news continued to come out that the president had apparently been weeding out and replacing truth-tellers and government watchdogs such as the woman who had been running the office of the inspector general of the department of health and human services. >> president trump's new pick to be the next health and human services inspector general. he is jason weider. >> if confirmed, he angered president trump on lack of protective equipment. >> and then the reassignment of a former whistleblower, former vaccine direct ore rick bright. >> time is running out because the virus is still spreading everywhere. >> administration officials who claimed they were telling truths that apparently president trump did not want told. >> congressman, i will never forget the e-mails i received

from mike bowen indicating that our mask supplies or n-95 respirator supply was completely decimated. he said, we're in deep shit, the world is, and we need to act. and i pushed that forward to the highest levels i could in hhs and got no response. >> i watched him. he looked like an angry, disgruntled employee, who frankly according to some people didn't do a very good job. >> the president could remove whistle blowers and watchdogs but he could not alter a sad reality his coronavirus lies could lead to ever more dire consequences. because even as states in the northeast were having some questions battling early outbreaks. next a new explosion was about to go off. >> we are very concerned that our public health message isn't resonating. ♪ i do what i want when i want it ♪

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devastated the u.s. economy. >> 20.5 million jobs lost in the month of april. these are depression-level numbers. >> with cases plateauing in many areas, more than half of states began undoing regulations that had been enacted to keep people from spreading the virus, even though none of those states met the federal government's criteria to do so. the president had attacked democratic governors for adhering to guidelines and he pushed all states to reopen quickly, more quickly than his own task force recommend. >> the people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. our country has to open. >> but even he acknowledged this would come with a cause. >> will some people be affected, yes, will some be affected badly, yes? but we have to keep the economy opened. >> he started to shift talking more about the economy than they had been. but the question was that in

lock-step with what the health experts was saying was going on. >> on may 12th, dr. fauci, testified warned states faced serious consequences if they opened up too quickly. >> there is a real risk it may trigger a real outbreak you might not be able to control. >> i was surprised by his answer. he wants to play all sides of the equation. i think we're going to have a tremendous fourth quarter. >> the president shifted away from public health advisers when he talked about phasing out the health guidelines. >> he has been talking sidelines about frequent discussions with the president. >> the president is constantly at war within his administration to listen to scientists and

trade advisers and in president trump's head and heart the economic argument is really the winner there some saw evidence of this the next day may 14th when the cdc released guidelines to help businesses and schools reopen. at just six pages long, it was much shorter than the cdc had originally confirmed. >> cnn confirmed the trump administration rejected 17 pages of draft recommendations. >> the cdc had wanted more rigorous guidelines, the white house did to the want deeply rigorous guidelines. >> what was finally officially released was wholly inadequate and completely out of character for the cdc. it was six pages. it was very bare bones and it did not different much guidance at all. >> let us hear from the experts. i think we will be able to make much better decisions accordingly. don't politicize this. >> several days later, they

posted 60 additional guidelines as a supplement to this earlier information. then on may 15th, the president took a giant necessary step in the right direction announcing a massive effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine. >> it means operation warp speed. >> essentially this meant a blank check to be able to get a chief vaccine up and running as quickly as possible. this is essentially a manhattan project for a vaccine. >> everyone had high hopes. but dr. fauci and others warned develop ac vaccine could, at best, take a year and potentially much longer. many viruses including hiv still do not have a vaccine, decades after first appearing. trump, as usual, projected optimism. >> we'd love to see if we can do it prior to the end of the year. >> we typically talk about vaccine development in terms of years, if not decades, so it's

very you audacious that there the a lot of hope around this. >> president trump continued to wish the virus away. >> we think we're going to have a vaccine in the pretty near future and if we don't, it will go away. >> there is no chance that the virus will magically go away. >> thank you all very much. >> this has been a recurring theme of the president. >> and it's unfortunate, a, because, obviously, it contradicts everything that science knows about this virus but, b, it sets unrealistic expectations. >> and the president's own behavior was not in sync with what his public health officials recommended. >> here is my mask right here. >> on may 25th, he visited a ford plant in michigan, but he refused to set a public example. >> i wore won in the back area, but i didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it. >> the fact that he continues to not wear a mask is baffling. it's one of the easiest things he can do to bring the level of

the virus down in this country. >> what about the example that it was set. >> i think it sets an example both ways. >> he is sending a signal that you don't have to wear a mask. this sort of approach he has taken is a big part of the reason the masks have become so politicized when the science is clear that they help. >> i don't think the country is interested at all and we have a president who he fused to lead, to tell people to put on the darn mask. >> that night he went on cnn, dr. fauci to tell them about the upcoming memorial day weekend. >> go out, wear a mask, stay six-feet away from anyone, so you have the physical distancing. >> as the nation enjoyed the unofficial start of the summer, all 50 states have begun to reopen. but in some places. >> crowded businesses and boardwalks, seeming little sign of social distancing and fewer face masks. >> if he's not wearing a mask,

if he's not worried, i'm not worried. >> reporter: the president? >> from a public health standpoint, you could not think but the virus was spreading because people were clustered together. a few cases could spiral into something much greater. >> the republican governor of north dakota pleaded people to stop politicizing a mask. >> they might be doing it because that i have a 5-year-old child who has been going through cancer treatments. they might have vulnerable adults in their life. >> but president trump who had spent the weekend on the golf course grasped for distractions, such as the deranged notion that one of his critics might have committed murder. the president spent his holiday weekend pushing a decades-old false conspiracy theory about nbc's joe car borough and a 28-year-old woman. the country reached a sad milestone, 100,000 americans had

died from the virus. president trump tweeted that he extended heart felt sympathy and love to the families and friend of those who had passed. yet on june 2nd, just days after recognizing the human cost of the viris trump seemed to put his own supporters at risk. he decided to not hold key nights of the republican convention in charlotte, north carolina, because social distancing restrictions might be required. >> he didn't want to have social distancing. he didn't want 50% of people there either with their faces covered or half the seats empty. >> what president trump wants is a huge amount of energy, lots and lots of people. donald trump is a man who lives by symbols far more than by thought. >> two days later on june 4th, cdc director redfield testified on capitol hill. when confronted of pictures of memorial day crowd, redfield could only shake his head. >> we are very concerned our

public health message isn't resonating. >> it did not seem to be resonating at the white house either. the next day at a press conference, the president today good jobs numbers as validation of his push to reopen. >> i hope the lock down governors, i don't know why they continue to lock down. >> the white house tried to illustrate trump's return to no normalcy. >> when report, went out first, they had the chairs socially is distant. later on, the chairs were incredibly close together. the white house said it was because it looked better. >> reporter: it was another example of the trump administration signaling that everything was back to normal even though it clearly was not. >> donald trump has always been someone who feels he can market his way out of a problem, but a problem with a pandemic is you can't market your way out of it. >> but in late may, another tragedy captured the public's

attention. the killing of george floyd by police in minneapolis sparked widespread protests around the country about racial injustice. the crowds did not concern some health experts. causing some to question their credibility. but others. >> as i watched those crowds i worried. i worried that they would set off new cases. what we need to do better is that they were outside. a lot of marches have people wearing masks, which helps a lot. >> reporter: but it's amid this backdrop of racial tension. >> did we have a great time at a trump rally? >> that trump's campaign announced plans for a rally on june 19ing, his first rally since the shutdown. >> the president had picked tulsa, oak on the ground on juneteenth. the holiday celebrating the end of slavery. >> they pressed ahead with it in tulsa, which was the site of a brutal race massacre in 1921,

which caused an enormous uproar. >> eventually the president pushed it back by one day. the virus surpassed more than 2 million total cases on june 11th and the president's indoor rally carried risks. >> we know that indoor gatherings are more dangerous. we know people weren't going to be wearing masks. so while we can never point to one event as being a super-spreading event, it had all the makings of it. >> trump supporters are told they can attend the rally open their own risk. >> it promised attendees not to sue if they got the virus. with infections rising in actual sarks on june 13th, the city's health director urged the rally to be postponed. >> when you heard from the health commissioner, look, we have a problem here in tulsa. we should not be doing an event like this. that meant something. >> but trump doubled down. >> we've never had an empty seat and we certainly won't in

oklahoma. >> in fact, by mid-june, more than 18 states were seeing increased cases, including some with record highs, on june 16th in the wall street journal, the president claimed the country was quote winning the fight. four days later on the day of the rally. >> we have learned this afternoon, six trump campaign staffers doing advance work have tested positive for the coronavirus. >> still, rally attendees were not required to maintain social distance or to wear masks. in fact, "the washington post" would later report, the trump staffers removed thousands of stickers at the venue had put on seats to promote social distancing him all more values to value optics over health. >> he is pursuing policies that are absolutely against the best advice in the country and he has been doing it to serve his own needs. >> in the end, the fire department estimated that the arena was only about one-third full, a point that the trump

campaign disputed. when the president finally took the stage, one comment he made, in particular, sparked outrage. >> when you do testing to that extent, you will find more people. will you find more cases. so i said to my people, slow the testing down, please. >> this has been a constant drum beat of the president for weeks is we look bad because we do a lot of testing. telling is a double-edged sword. it's obviously not true. >> that is a public health travesty. that is the one tool we potentially had to try and curb this pandemic. >> there is no logic, no rational, no public health defense to say we should slow down testing. >> when it reflects on his awareness these numbers are bad. he's a numbers guy. he knows the fact that there is such a high case count in this country in comparison with other countries reflects poorly on him at the end of the da i. >> coming up. >> i think you can make the argument we were more soft than

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disappointed over the low turnout at this tulsa rally, president trump tried again in arizona. where coronavirus cases had doubled in two weeks. this time the president spoke to thousands of young supporters packed tightly into a church with few taking precautions, as if there were not a pandemic at all. >> some people call it the

chinese flu. >> the president used the racist slur for the virus. >> wuhan, wuhan is catching on. coronavirus. rig right? kung flu? >> just like arizona, states across the country reported incredible surges in confirmed cases after relaxing their social restrictions. >> the u.s. saw the largest total of new cases to date on friday with over 45,000 reported in a single day. >> it raised the obviously questions. >> we want to get our country opened. >> did the president's push for states to ignore the white house's own guidelines for reopening. did his and others ignoring of pleas to wear a mask and practice social distancing, did all of that undo all of the hard work of the first lockdown? >> i think you can make the

target that we are now more soft than we were before even going back to april. the more virus there is overall, the more likely any given individual is going to come into contact with someone who has coronavirus. >> from florida to california, stir crazy americans hit beaches and bars with new infection milestones being reached every day. >> the state of florida shattering its record, reporting 8,942 cases in just one day. >> the day texas let their stay-at-home order expire they added 900 cases. july 1st the state added 8,000 cases. >> yesterday i got ten calls all of whom, young people, they're so sick if they don't get support, they're probably going to die. i have three beds. >> if i can go back and redo anything, it would have been to slow down the opening of bars. >> in the midst of this raging

pandemic, what did the trump administration do? it asked the supreme court to overturn the affordable care act that provides health insurance for millions of americans. >> if you put up cost barriers to people getting care. that means people won't get care, that means they'll spread the disease for longer to more people and it will make controlling the pandemic much, much harder. it's incredibly short sided and a cruel policy. >> barriers, instead of guidance from the person most responsible for america's well being. >> i don't take responsibility at all. >> i think what would have surprised even the president's own advisers the most is how he is rejected opportunities to be a leader during the pandemic. >> at the end of june, the coronavirus task force held its first public meeting in nearly two months. >> all 50 states and territories across this country are opening up safely and responsibly. we slowed the spread.

we flattened the curve. we saved lives. >> pence's claim that quote we flattened the curve was a downright lie. here's the curve on the day pence said that. >> the biggest confusion that came out of that task force briefing was this alternate reality that somehow every state in the country was opening safely and responsibly. it simply wasn't true. >> the numbers speak for themselves. i am very concerned. i am not satisfied with what's going on, because we're going in the wrong direction and there is going to be a lot of hurt if that does not stop. >> as governors began imploring their citizens to stay home and be safe, the european union and another u.s. allies shut americans out of their countries. >> we would like to open as soon's possible to americans and all other countries, but that depends on how the epidemiological situation

develops. >> i think the way we stand from other countries that get the virus under control is they have treated it like a serious public health crisis and not a chance to make a political statement. >> we should look at a place like italy and i think be inspired by going into a very strict lockdown mode for a period of time, they show that it would work and they could slowly emerge back into some sense of normalcy. >> on july 1st, china, the initial epicenter of the virus reported only three new cases. two of them from international travelers. back on u.s. soil, a grim new record. >> we have about 45% of the world's population. we currently have about 25%, one-quarter of all the deaths in the world from this virus. we cannot call ourselves the greatest nation in the world when that is the case. >> trump administration officials told the washington post that the white house would like to talk about the virus less and that the new strategy

was to hope americans grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day. >> health experts call it the perfect storm of disease transmission and absolutely horrible idea. >> it is impossible to escape the fact that the general in the u.s. war against the pandemic hurt even his own troops and bystanders. in the weeks following the rally in tulsa, for example, coronavirus cases spiked in that city. >> the fast two days we've had almost 500 cases. we few we had several events two weeks ago, which is about right. so i guess we can connect the dots. >> despite the cases associated with trump administration travel, the president continued ignoring the advice of the medical and scientific community. >> we will be today terminating our relationship with the world health organization. >> he formally withdrew from the

world health organization. >> we have to open our schools. >> and he repeatedly demanded that children return to school in august. >> schools should be opened. kids want to go to school. >> the cdc created a plan for safe schools in the fall. >> the cdc has gleason about the opening of schools at various stages of those checkpoints. >> but the trump white house scrapped it without providing an allen thetive plan or additional funding. >> to be very clear, we don't want cdc guidance to be a reason why people don't reopen the schools. >> after months of downplaying the virus, often at odds with public health officials, the trump administration then started taking aim at dr. fauci. >> i respect dr. fauci a lot. but dr. fauci is not 100% right. >> in an aggressive campaign to marginalize and discredit him. why is the white house trashing dr. fauci and sending out opposition research like memos

to reporters? >> there is no opposition research being dumped to reporters. >> yes, there was. and it got worse, with white house officials attacking fauci with a nasty cartoon and a falsehood filled op-ed in usa today, smear, experts, attempting to shift blame will not stop this pandemic. >> there is nothing magical about the things we need to do. there is testing, tracing, wear ac mask, social distancing d. problem is this has not been an interest on the part of our if egg to lead the country through this crisis. >> testing has increased. but at nowhere near the levels health experts say are needed. even the president's former acting chief of staff mick mulvaney called the testing backlog inexcusable, quote, i know it isn't popular to talk about in some republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country. >> the american clinical

laboratory association says just expect more of these kind of delays as this surge and demand exceeds the capacity for the labs to turn around these tests. >> while healthcare professionals continue to beck for additional protective yimt equipment, the trump administration has not put into action the full force of the defense protection act to deal with the shortage of critical medical supplies. >> it's a shame we ran out of masks and ppe to protect our healthcare workers. there was no excuse in march and less of an excuse now. >> over 59,000 new cases on sunday. >> more than 60,600 americans were diagnosed. >> six months into the coronavirus crisis, the u.s. does not have it anywhere near under control and we've seen other countries at least be able to make strides in the right direction in a way we have really failed to do. and that the a failure that lies squarely with the president of the united states. >> at some point it's going to become almost an existential

question, how many people are we willing to let get infected every day? how many people are we willing to let die every day before we take aggressive action towards this? >> dozens of countries have turned the corner on this pandemic. >> it's backed up all the way to the other side of the purpose take. >> the question remains, why won't president trump take decisive action to try to end this tragedy? >> there is a line of cars going to the east and more and more and more it's about the humans. these humans, those humans. groovin, and golden. it's about getting more than health insurance and a partner who listens and acts. humana calls it human care.

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during business hours. startling numbers to remind us every day how many lives are literally at stake. are all those infections, all those deaths inevitable. must it get much worse? no, not at all. if president trump would listen to health officials instead of attempting to undermine them, if he would push safe habits such as wearing masks in public, social and physical distancing.

avoiding unnecessary indoor activities. if he were to launch an aggressive national campaign to test for the virus and contact trace, to invoke the defense production act if needed and increase equipment so as to identify and isolate the virus. if he would do all of that, health officials say, most certainly lives would be saved and the united states could go back to some semblance of normal with jobs and schools as other countries have been able to do so many months into this pandemic, it's hard to imagine president trump having any change of heart for any change of message. that is why we will continue to get the facts on the record, doing so when things are fresh and what was done and could have been done forecast faster or better or at all.

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hello, welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world, i'm michael holmes. you are watching cnn "newsroom" just ahead on the program. more backlash from president trump's comments about fallen soldiers. now we are hearing he made controversial remarks about americans who served in vietnam. as if one typhoon isn't bad enough, this hour japan facing its second storm in less than a week. the kentucky derby like no other,