hello, everybody. i'm john king in washington. thanks so much for sharing this day with us. it's a busy news day and in a few moments we'll hear live from admiral brett giroir, the point man for coronavirus testing. he's taking questions from cnn's medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta at the american research forum. one certain topic is the new bop woodward book and the recorded interviews in which the president makes clear he knew early on how dangerous the coronavirus was and that he deliberately and repeatedly played down the threat on purpose. today the president insisting there's nothing to see or nothing to read here tweeting that if his words were so bad or dangerous woodward who have shared them sooner and not wait for his book to be done. good and approximate you see it right there, good and proper is how the president frames his answers. well, there's an election just a few weeks ahead that allows you to settle this debate. is it good and proper, for

example, for the president to tell woodward in early february that covid-19 is far more deadly than even the worst flu but then tell you for weeks and weeks not to worry? it is just like the flu. is it good and proper for the president to make clear to woodward he knew about air borne spread early on but did nolg nothing alternate moment to ramp up testing or mask supplies and kept telling you china was on top of it and it would soon all go away? is it good and proper to hear your president to tell woodward, quote, i still like playing it down and look at the numbers right there on your screen and think maybe, just maybe, playing it straight might have changed the course of this disaster. the president even now doesn't seem to think we can handle the truth. >> i want to show a calm ney. i'm the leader of the country it. i can't be jumping up and down and scaring people i don't want to scare people. >> democratic nominee joe biden sees this differently. listen here. he tells cnn's jake tapper early action would have been a far better way to keep people calm.

>> let's assume that he didn't want to worry people why. in god's name didn't he move quicker on the defense production act to provide ppp, you know, the protective equipment for doctors and first responders ? why didn't he -- >> let's go live now to our conversation with sanjay gupta, dr. sanjay gupta and add miller brett giroir. >> let me just say that this is research america and the last couple of weeks they were gathering the research and evidence to help inform this interview and i would like to start with that hand something that's been in the news lately, just really about the importance of testing. as you probably know, the world health organization saying testing is the key to halting a pandemic, but we've also heard from the president recently in bob woodward's new book where he says he wants to downplay things. he talked about the fact that testing, doing more testing would make us look bad.

how has that translated to your role? >> so i thank you also for the opportunity to be here. research america is such an important organization and, of course, research is the foundation of everything that we do and all that we're really achieving. testing is a very important part of combating the virus, and we've said this all along. it's smart policies with smart testing that really go hand in hand. what we've tried to do is build a testing ecosystem that provides the right test to the right person at the right time. now when we started, i came here march 12th. i think it's very important for people, particularly in this audience, to understand that diagnostics were not emphasized at all, the national stockpile, not a trump administration, it's not an obama administration. it's been a long-standing practice that diagnostics were really not emphasized. i think we see the importance of them now. i have never been told to slow down testing or to reduce our

efforts. in fact, we built on testing every single month, and i think where we are right now is really an infliction point, and i know you'll get into that, is we're now at a point in time that all the investments in research that we've done over the past few months and indeed over the past few years, we're representing those benefits now with point of care testing. this month we should have the availability of over 100 million tests, and between 55% and 60% of those, 55 million to 60 million will be rapid point of care. this really puts us as an infliction point that we can protect the elderly and protect the vulnerable and we can do the screening testing for schools and work that we've opinion talking about for months. now we have the tools to do that. >> and add miller, you know, so march 12, you sort of came into it. we're in the middle of a pandemic at this point and you say diagnostic testing was really in the existent at that point. you know, why not? i realize, and i don't mean to

minimize the challenges in developing diagnostic testing. >> yeah. >> but this is, you know, a -- a month and a half and two months into things. if testing is the key, why were you walking into a job where testing had not been emphasized at that point? >> so, let me clarify that. i want to talk about in the stockpile. you know, before i came in on march 12th i think we know -- we know what was happening with the cdc and the cdc developed tests and working on. what i was really talking about is that, for example, on march 12th, how many swabs did we have in the stockpile? well, there were no swabs in the stockpile. how much ppe did we have to support testing? when we -- when we on march 13th developed the drive-through testing sites, the community-based testing sites that we had out in the field within a week, we looked and we saw that if -- without a technological breakthrough and that -- that being as simple doing an an interior nasal swab

instead of the interior swab we'd blow through the 80% of the national stockpile of ppe in the first month and we couldn't do that and we needed more technological output. what's really important for this audience is we need to invest in a being lo period over time of diagnostics, very, very important. i think we'll reap a lot of benefits, information systems. the in february and march and in april we found out how many ventilators were being used and what the need was in new york city because every night and every morning i called up the hospital systems in new york city along with a lot of the other clinicians and understood how many ventilators did you have available, how much and therebyia machines, how you did it the stockpile. so there's just a lot of things we're going to have to do over a period of years that no matter how hard you try in a matter of months you can't redo that and

that's what i want to emphasize. pandemic preparedness five years from now really begins today and we've got to make those investments, just like we have to have consistent investments in research if we want, you know, new cures for cancer in five years. we've got to lay that foundation today. same thing for pandemic response. >> and i want to -- to get to the specifics of who should be tested and when they should be tested and all of that. >> yes. >> but one more question about this. you know, there's an operation warp speed with a lot of focus on vaccines and therapeutics, as you know. a lot of people have said to me shouldn't there have been a similar warp speed event for testing, and if you look at 3-m, for example, $500,000 was invested in the company. was -- was that enough? it is should the defense production act have been enacted to make up for some of these shortfalls of nasal swab and even help now manufacture some of these tests and reagents at a faster rate? did we -- did we do enough? know we're not through this so

we're not doing the rhett spicketive on this yet, but did we do enough in the early days with regard to testing? >> so i'm glad you asked that as well. we've used the epa 34, 35 times just in terms of testing. in terms of swabs it seeks obscene. we put $170 million into swab production domestically to get swabs from literally a few million per month from upwards of 40 million to 50 million a month which we absolutely need and it will go higher than, that upwards of 100 million per month. we've invested $100 million in antigen point of care testing. across the board we really have made these investments, so i -- i think it's inaccurate if people say we haven't done it. we really v.now, there are some companies that literally did not need the money, that everything was being done that they could. they were capital rich and we had domestic production. we needed to deregulate the

field to make sure that they were available, but we real very done that, and with -- with the rad x program at nih and barta there's a tremendous amount of investment, like $2 billion of investment in new technologies for diagnostics, some of which we're going to reap, known generation sequencing which your audience may be familiar with. that's really just hitting the market this month, using next generation sequencing platforms for something they were never designed to do, diagnosis, but, yes, they can do that, so we've really leveraged a lot and i can tell you every day i look at the data, i call companies can, i know what every manufacturer is doing. i think we have great situational awareness, and when -- when there is an opportunity to invest we've done it. there's been no barrier to do that. some come from the dpa like we did with bd and quidell to get those purchases from nursing homes. some come from other investments like care sources, from the

cares act. some from the nih and some from barta. we sit around the table and if there is oninvestment opportunity we do it, and if there's an acquisition opportunity like buying 150 million of the buy next tests we did that. we announced a $760 million deal the day after the all theization. that didn't happen by random. this has been planned for over a month to -- to do that to buy it and to distribute did in a way that supports reopening. >> there's a lot of sort of stories of people wanting tests but not being able to get tested, and it does raise this question, which has come up as well, is who should get tested? when should they get tested? recently guideline changes were made at the cdc saying people without symptoms, asymptomatic people do not necessarily need to be tested? that should be left up to public health officials in that particular area, but that's confusing i think to me and to a lot of people because we know so much of the spread of this virus in this country comes from people who don't have symptoms

or don't yet have symptoms. why shouldn't asymptomatic people get tested? >> i'm real glad you asked that because i do want to clarify it and i'm sure you've heard dr. redfield clarify it as much. we do need to test asymptomatic people. there's no doubt about that full stop, and, in fact, so many of the actions i've been involved with is laying the field to test asymptomatic people. for example, getting the fda to clarify that even though a test may not be authorized for asymptomatic people it's perfectly appropriate to use it in congregate settings. cms clarified that they will use enforcement mechanisms under clea and even though it's not authorized they will not enforce and i used guidance under the prep act that provides liability protection and also supercedes all state regulations to al law asymptomatic testing. trust me, we want to test

amountik people because as you know and everyone knows you can have asymptomatic people who spread the virus and indeed that's been the biggest issue with this. it's not like ebola where you get sick and you know who has got it and you can contact trace. there are at least half the people who have the virus who are asymptomatic. back to the cdc guidelines. i want to be clear and we all need to read them and i appreciate dr. redfield restating them in certain ways. they didn't say that asymptomatic people who were exposed did not need to be tested. the intent was to get them tested within a number of some kind of medical supervicious and the reason why, if i'm exposed today, and i go get tested tomorrow and i'm negative, we don't want people to believe that, okay, i'm negative. therefore, i'm free to do whatever i want to do. a negative test in that context has -- has a lot of, you know, nuance to it. you can still become positive in

three days in, five days it. we now know that the median time is 7.7 days, and the intent, and i understand there's been a lot of misinterpretation or understandable misinterpretation. i'm not blaming anyone for it, but -- but the fact is this. asymptomatic people who are exposed probably should be tested within the context of supervision of some public health or medical and very importantly when there's outbreak areas we need to test a lot of asymptomatic people. we've just sent surge sites to over 17 cities. we've tested over 250,000 extra individuals above and beyond what the normal testing is. most under 35. most asymptomatic because we've got to detect that asymptomatic spread, so -- so i know i've nailed it about four different times, but i want it to be clear. we support asymptomatic testing. we've really done a lot of regulatory hurdles to make sure

that asymptomatic people can be tested so we want to support that. >> yeah, and, look, i don't think that anybody should take away that if you get a test that means you should -- you can -- you can abandon all the other public health practices that have been talked about, i think to your point, but you have said in the past, including to me, you know, it would be utopian to think that we could test everybody every day or with some degree of regularity at the same time we know that there are organizations, including professional sports, even at the white house, that is doing just that, so what -- what should the average citizen expect, both in terms of their ability to be tested regularly and also the cost? i mean, should this be a public good for people ultimately? >> yeah. so -- and i really appreciate you letting me clarify that. you know, i'm one of the most idealistic optimistic people, you know, on the planet, you know. i was the first person in my family to go to college, got to run the science office at darpa, i mean, we really create the

future, we create the future utopia and what i want to do is create as many tests as possible. there will be a day where there will be at-home tests that are widely available in the hundreds of millions that are cheap that we can test as frequently as we want. we're just not there right now, right, and so we have to use the tests that we have in a strategic manner, and that strategic manner really changed with the infliction point that we have that we've been driving to about point of care testing so clearly i think we all know that if you're sick and you're in the hospital you need to be test. if you're a contact and you are tracing, you need to be contacted and now there's surge areas. now because of the availabilitich point of care testing we can widen that circle, right, and we've widened it to nursing homes and now as of this week we'll have completed shipments of point of care tests and machines to every

single c le a eligible nursing home in the country, 13,500 of them. with the buy next test we'll move to home health care and protect the vulnerable. also, now that we have $5 easy tests to do, we're going to deliver millions every week to governors to support reopening of schools and critical infrastructure. we now have that available and we need to use it. the rockefeller has a report that they came out yesterday with duke. we've worked with them on it. you know, clearly there needs to be testing within all environments, and we've created the situation now that we can do that, with the point of care tests, and we're not stopping there. there are no home tests now available, but the technology -- they are not authorized yet. they are not sensitive enough. they are not reliable enough to be read, but we're almost there, and you'll be seeing a lot of actions over the next few weeks to spur that development even more so that we can get true at-home tests, not tests that

you need to do under a medical supervised situation. >> you bring up schools and colleges, and i've got to tell you i've been dealing with this myself. i have three kids in school that we've decided to -- to, you know, start virtual learning because it was very hard to -- to be sure about their status and whether or not people in the community were positive or negative. there just weren't enough tests out there. every state now has a college where you're having positive tests and some small, some very large outbreaks. we're in the middle of this now, admiral. does this surprise you that we still can't do what i guess is defined as more like assurance testing? it's not that they are symptomatic, not like they are in contact with somebody with symptoms, that they just want the assurance that they are not going to be in an environment with people who are carrying the virus. are we -- when is that going to happen? >> so, i think it's really happening now, and it's going to

happen more in the future. again, with the binext tests, we'll have 50 million of those per month and we hope to expand that even further and when hi talk about school-based testing or other critical infrastructure, i think most of that have can be under the assurance testing. it's really screening testing to make sure there isn't a wide pred outbreak we're not seeing because so many people are asymptomatic. i really think we're there right now. in terms of colleges, we've had four major calls. we've talked to literally thousands of individuals at colleges, and -- and colleges do need to step up. there are many colleges who do this very, very well, like the university of illinois that uses a saliva-based test. they do pooling. they are testing their students very frequently, and most colleges have that available to them and they could use it. the university -- colorado state university is really doing wastewater surveillance, and

we've been urging that and put a whole wastewater infrastructure in because it's possible to test a dorm all together by testing their wastewater at very early sensitivity, so, again, universities i think are in a different ballpark because they can turn on their research infrastructure. they have incredible capability there. they can pool and do wastewater surveillance. many universities are doing that well. k-12 not so much. you don't have pcr machines in a fifth grade laboratory, at least in most. that's why we want to put the rapid point of care testing there, and if you want to call it assurance testing or screening, it's really the same thing. it's testing it asymptomatic individuals to give an idea that we know that there isn't widespread circulation, that we need to up the game and really test everyone at that point. we're doing it for nursing homes and for assisted living and home health care. we're going to start doing it for k-12. we'll also deliver more to tribes and hcbus. hcbus, historically black colleges and universities, we

know that african-americans are at high risk of hospitalization and their faculty are african-americans in general. they tend to be older and in the high-risk group. you'll see this expanding more and more and more as the tests become available, and they don't become available by accident. it's because we invest in them. >> right. >> we have. in the research to make them happen. >> i know we're running out of time. >> so quick. >> yeah, quick. last point, the idea of having regular at-home testing, a test that is accurate that can give you actionable information on a regular basis, maybe even a daily basis? michael mina who i know you know would be like putting in your contact lenses, you can get a test and if you're negative fine but if you're not you can be isolated. this is a contentious discussion point, but is it -- is it feasible, i mean, can we get to

that point, and, you know, again, should we have been at that point? >> so, i think we can get to that point. we are not there now. we couldn't have been here now. i mean, there's been no limitations on money, research, motivation. >> you've had everything that you need. gotten all the resources that you need in order to do whatever you needed to do? >> right. there are very big expectations. don't get caught up on utopian views. why can't very cured all of cancer yet? well, it takes time. we've compressed the time as much as possible. we're not in a situation now where we have a highly accurate home test. we're getting close. we really are getting close. there are a number of innovators, some supported by the red "x" program and some by barta and some under private support that we're getting close to that. not to 100 million level a day,

but we're getting very close to having a home test or home tests that are very available. the binex is a test that we can work with. $5 a test. no one thought six months ago we'd have a $5 test that's 92% sensitive and 92% specific but we do, so we're getting close to that. don't expect it in the next month or two. yes, a miracle could happen. there could be an a-ha moment, but we're moving science forward. it's within the realm of possibilities that we have that. it's just that we don't have it today. there's no barriers, just the technology and the development. >> got it, and just to be clear, the binex test is currently authorized for symptomatic people within seven days of operation but they can potentially use that off label for asymptomatics. >> yeah.

>> at mirg, go ahead. >> that's why we did it the prep declaration and the clea and the guidance. it's expedient to get the approval for the people because you get all the positives but the loads of virus from symptomatic and asymptomatic people overlap so there's no reason this shouldn't be used in asymptomatic and that's how we're promoting it. we're doing the studies to back that up right now but we feel very comfortable and good about the fact that a rapid test with a very high sensitivity really adds to our testing ecosystem and we're not going to delay. we want that out to the american people, you know, immediately, and that exactly what we're doing. >> admiral thank you. my humble sort of input us that we detake a test hike that and use the resources of this country to march as many of them as possible. thank you for your ker advice.

>> thank you, dr. gupta, and thank you, admiral giroir and dr. sanjay gupta for being with us. >> you've been listening to dr. sanjay gupta talking to admiral brett giroir, a member of the white house coronavirus task for. wanted to bring you that conversation in full as you heard dr. gupta test press him about testing. the let's talk about what we just heard and run it through a little bit of a fact check. the dean of the brown university school of public health joins us. doctor, grateful to have you at this moment. if you listen to admiral giroir and we've talked several times about this over the months, he tends to be optimistic. he tends to give a best case scenario. he also has inherited a difficult job, came in in the middle of march. as you were listening there, number one we's made the point we've tried to do everything we could. from the beginning, yes, nobody is perfect and we've tried and done everything that we could and we're about now, the country in a position, to finally reap the benefits of months and months of research in expanned

testing it. what jumped out at you most listening to that given ought time you've spent studying the testing issue? >> john, thanks for having me on. i thought that was a fabulous conversation between dr. gupta and dr. giroir. second big picture point. i aid with much of what admiral giroir had to say. it was terrific for him to talk about the value of asymptomatic test being, the value of surveillance testing. the problem is a couple of faults. one is it is in fact it contradicts the guidance out of the cd krvm the cdc still as of five minutes ago they do not recommend surveillance testing in schools, even though most public health officials think, especially in places with large outbreaks, that we need surveillance testing in schools so there's a bit of a confusion within the administration and a lack of clear guidance that persists. the second issue on this is no one believes that we have done everything we could. i think admiral giroir has a

very difficult job. he has been trying his best, but he's in an administration that has not wanted to put the full force and u.s. industry towards testing. the idea that this is the best america can do, i reject that. this owes a lot of things we could have done better. >> this is the united states of america and we're having a conversation 24 hours after the revelations in bob woodward book. you can hear the audios tapes and hear the president in his own words making clear that he knew in early february that this was air borne spread, that it was out of control in china, that it was way more deadly than any -- even the most strenuous flu. the united states told that to bob woodward and told the people of the united states something completely different. forgot what he said. what did he do? admiral giroir came in in the middle of march and he tried as quickly as he could to try to get the diagnostics testing up to speed. what did the united states do from february 7th say when the president had that conversation

with bob woodward through the middle of march when admiral giroir took that job, is there any evidence that there was an urgency in the united states government to say holy you know what, look what's happening in china, ramp up testing, ramp up ppe production this. wave is coming to us. >> no, and in fact february was the month that set us so far back that we have never caught up to this virus. we wasted the month of february. we did not build up anything remotely resembling a halfway decent testing infrastructure. we didn't ramp up ppes and sent our doctors and nurses into harm's way without the equipment that they needed, but the bottom line is even in march when admiral giroir came in, again, inheriting a very difficult job, the message out of the white house and the message that he has been delivering multiple times is we have enough testing. everybody who needs a test can get a test. he himself has put out estimates of testing of what the country

needs that always end up coinciding with what the country has, and a message that says we don't need to do much more, and that actually is detrimental because it sends a signal to the market that says, hey, don't bother investing in testing, expansion because we have all the tests that we need when all of us knew we didn't. a much better strategy would have been to come in, lay out what we need, then lay out a plan for how we're going to get there, acknowledge to american people what american people knew which is we didn't have enough testing and go about delivering that. that would have been that much better but the mixed messaging and confusion and bad signaling to the marketplace. none of that have has been helpful. i'm thrilled to hear admiral giroir and things he's said today. great to get him on board with the public health message. got to get the cdc on board and put the force of the u.s. government on delivering it. >> i think your point about the continued mixed messaging between cdc guidelines and how

they then tried to explain them or explain them away in the public conversations is a critical point. one last point fours as we listen to this point seven months in. you heard the admiral talking about where are we now. where are we both in terms of capabilities and in how we use those capabilities compared, you and i have talked about this in the past, if you look at taiwan and south korea and look at germany, for example, where are we in the united states of america in terms of our capabilities to test and how we use those capabilities compared to others in the world? >> yeah, so i agree with admiral giroir that we are getting better. i would say we've been limping along getting a little bit better every month. one part of the problem is the credibility gap, not on his part alone but the administration has been saying we're sending out millions of tests and those tests don't arrive. i do think we'll have a lot more testing this fall, but i say it with some trepidation because we've had actually seen the tests arrive but there are so many missed opportunities.

the first antigen was approved and got an eua back in march. they should have gone into full rump-up testing so it could have gone into the schools tapped would have been much easier to get back to school this fall. i'm timely hopeful we've gotten our action as a nation together. the scientific community is very long and we can deliver the testing that the american people need but it's hard to do it without clear strong government support. >> hard tore do it if you have a president of the united states who says part of his strategy is deliberately to play it down to the american people. you need to create the urgency to act. dr. shaw, as always, thanks for your insights. i'm sure we'll continue this conversation. up next, more on the conversations with bob woodward and as we go to break. her father supported the president and later died from the coronavirus. one daughter's emotional reaction to listening to the president in those conversations with woodward. >> it is a punch in the stomach

for me and every single person who has either contracted the virus or has died from the virus. the president said that so that people wouldn't panic, and my father didn't panic. instead he died. everyday item it only takes n to become dangerous. tide pods child-guard pack helps keep your laundry pacs in a safe place and your child safer. to close, twist until it clicks. tide pods child-guard packaging. ♪water? why?! ahhhh! incoming! ahhhahh! i'm saved! water tastes like, water. so we fixed it. mio

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more now on the president's stunning admissions in his conversations with bob wouldward for woodward's new book "rage." joining me now is jamie gangel, our cnn special correspondent. were you here 24 hours ago break the news about the revelations in this book, and you played several of those conversations recorded by bob wierd waad. what is fascinating as you get a better understanding, bob is doing his reporting, has several

conversations with the president stretching out over months and he gets into may of this year and it starts to click for him because in addition to talking to the president he's doing all of this reporting, and we played yesterday and a lot of people have talked about the last 24 hours, this february 7th conversation where the president says, bob, it's devastating, it's worse than the flu. you know, and that's not what he was telling the american people but you get the sense that the president knew so early on but he knew earlier. his national security adviser gave him a warning that the president then, my words, not his, but they are borrowed from him, tried to play down. >> correct. just to put this in some context and one of the issues here is that the book is not out yet, but bob woodward is actually very transparent in the book and lays out the timeline. on january 28th there was a top secret national security briefing in which national security adviser robert o'brien and his deputy matt pottinger rang the alarm bet.

o'brien said it was going -- the coronavirus was going to be the greatest threat to trump's presidency and pottinger, who is a former "wall street journal" reporter and speaks fluent mandarin and was in chinese during sars recrites chapter and verse he's been talking to sources in china so that's where trump gets a lot of this information, but on february 7th when bob woodward has the phone call with trump, he didn't know any of that, and he lays this out in the book. he's calling trump because he's just been acquitted in the impeachment hearings, and he think that's what they are going to talk bork and he's actually surprised and a little confused about why trump is talking about the virus. at that point, remember, this is very early in february. we're all thinking that's a problem in china.

>> right. >> none of this really came together as woodward lays out timeline until the beginning of may. that's when he finds out about the january 28th briefing and then all of a sudden he goes back, he listens to the tapes from february 7th and realizes it's the light bulb moment, oh, my gosh, trump knew everything then that we've all learned in the months -- in the months in between february and may. by may we all know about these symptoms, that it's air borne, et cetera, but he didn't realize what he had until may. >> let's listen to that piece of sound where bob woodward is talking to the president. this is may now and the light went off for bob. now he's connecting the dots and doing what he does, getting documents and getting other interviews. connecting some. dots to the point you raised yesterday, what did the president know and when did he know it and they talk like this.

>> so i understand -- >> it was too early. >> your new national security adviser o'brien. >> right. >> said to you on january 28th, mr. president, this is going -- this virus is going to be the biggest national security threat to your presidency. do you remember that? >> no, no. >> you don't? >> no, i don't. no, i'm don't. i'm sure he said it. i'm sure he said it. nice guy. >> classic -- classic trump. no, no, no, i'm sure he said it. >> but -- so somebody -- you're the president of the united states. you're not a guy on a subway train somewhere and your national security adviser and the top deputy for china, as you mentioned, accomplished reporter before that who has deep sources in china, came to the president and said this will be the biggest national security challengech your presidency. it's four days, five days before the president delivers his state of the union address, and the

president says he doesn't remember it? >> well, this is why when we go back to the february 7th call and the president says i'm sorry -- the march 19th call where he says he's playing it down. he wants to play it down. he continues to play it down, and then the president has grabbed on to the last few words. he said because he didn't want to create a panic. let's just put that in perspective with what we know now. a panic is getting a call that a family member is in the icu. panic is 190,000 people who have died. donald trump's political playbook is fear which was in fact the -- the name of bob woodward's last book but think about 2016, the wall, about fear. 2020 about the protests. in fact, it -- i just happen to look at -- at twitter a few

minutes ago and trump has actually tweeted if i don't win, america's suburbs will be overone with low-income projects, anarchists, agitators, looters and, of course, friendly protesters. i would argue, john, that the panic that donald trump was talking about was one thing and that's about what he was thinking which is am i going to get re-elected on november 3rd. >> his definition of panic. well, his definition of the suburbs actually doesn't match up with what the suburbs in america look like today. >> certainly doesn't. >> may match up what he thought they looked like 40 years ago. jamie gangel, grateful for the very important reporting on this story. >> my pleasure. still ahead, a new whistle-blower report lays out how trump appointees may have watered down intelligence, you guessed it, from russia. let's play! you're always a winner.

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russian interference in u.s. elections. the whistle-blower former marone and fbi director bryan murphy also says he was told to play down the threat of white supremacists and instead to focus on left wing groups so that government intelligence reports would more closely track the president's campaign rhetoric. cnn's justice correspondent jessica schneider joins us now with more on this controversy. whistle-blower said he was told scrub the books because the president might get annoyed. >> yeah. that's exactly right, john. drawing a lot of questions today, especially from capitol hill, but this whistle-blower, bryan murphy, he was in charge of intelligence and analysis at dhs before he was reassigned this summer, but he puts forward in this complaint his claims that the top two trump appointees at dhs, the acting secretary chad wolf as well as ken cuccinelli, he says they repeatedly pressed dhs officials to modify these intelligence assessments to do two things, to

downplay the russian interference in this country, including in the upcoming election, and then also to downplay the threat from white supremacists, specifically murphy says that the acting secretary chad wolf told officials to, quote, cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of russian interference and instead focus on gathering information on iran and china. now, those two countries as set forth by the intelligence community say that they actually favor joe biden over president trump in the upcoming november election. now murphy also said that these instructions were put forth at the direction of the national security adviser robert o'brien, and then secondly, murphy also says that both chad wolf and ken cuccinelli actually made moves to alter the intelligence assessments when it came to the white supremacist threat, instead kind of modifying that language and emphasizing instead the threat from lefties groups like antifa.

of course, the president as well as the attorney general have consistently hammered in on antifa and leftists groups as really the main culprits of all of this unrest that has unsettled the country. so, of course, all of this, these complaints coming out in the whistle-blower complaint, sort of rattling capitol hill. the house intelligence chairman adam schiff saying this puts our nation at grave risk. he's calling on murphy to testify. dhs though, john, is pushing back on this saying that all of these allegations are patently untrue. but, john, really once again it raises this question are trump administration officials that have been put there by the president, are they really trying to appease the president rather than following this intelligence and all of these facts? john. >> >> well, that's a good opportunity for a public hearing where everybody gets to present their view and people get to decide what's true and what's not. jessica schneider, appreciate the important reporting. up next, the postmaster general has a message for you about

mail-in voting in the fall. before we go to break, millions of wild animals are injured or killed every year in the united states from human courses. the aware here's "impact your world." >> aware is a nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation center like a hospital for injured and orphaned native wildlife. we are responsible for feeding them, medicating them. they might need swim time or other physical therapy to get their strength back. we just try to get them ready for release back into the wild. we had 1,300 patients in the last year. the most patients in care coming in from human impact and number one reason is being hit by a car. people throw waste out the within doe and brings animals that come. >> cats as much as we love them they are hurting the wildlife. they're responsible for 5 billion deaths a year.

>> we put out rat poison to deal with rats and mice that hurt fox and owls and we do rescue ourselves and usually give the public instructions on how to safely bring animals in to us. >> the goose showed up in the backyard and the foot ensnarled in fishing line. they oerped perated it and then released it back. we can't save them all but i think it's important that we help those that we can. >> for more information on how you can help go to cnn.com/impact.

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♪ i'm like you on-demand glucose monitoring. because they're always on. another life-changing technology from abbott. so you don't wait for life. you live it. the president tells us just about every day the explosion in mail-in voting will be a mess, a mess he insists without facts to support anden vit fraud. not to worry is the message today from the postmaster general. >> throughout this pandemic, even with all the uncertainties, the men and women of the united states postal service have delivered for the american public. our entire organization is working toward the same objective, to ensure that we fulfill our role in the electoral process and maintain

the trust of the american public. >> the postmaster general dejoy, likely recall, challenged last month by lawmakers encolluding the removal of mail sorting equipment. he said he will not put them back in service and the court documents show they have removed 711 machines this year, double the amount typically removed. here with me, director of the united states election process. good to see you, sir. let's start with the machines. 711 removed. based on your research, are they needed to count, sort and deliver ballots this year or is the postmaster general right we got this? >> i don't know but we're going to know soon enough whether or not this is going to be a problem. north carolina started sending out its ballots on friday of last week to all of its domestic

voters, over 700,000 ballots sent out, a big dump of mail boo the system and the good news is we are already seeing ballots returned by voters in north carolina. these are just the first ballots and will be monitoring closely to see if there's troubles but we have seen over 4,000 people return ballots to north carolina election officials through the mail and so the mail is working. it is not an apocalypse and will see if there's slowing and particular places that are problematic. >> it is critical for people, a reason to have these conversations, have a plan. professor, i was struck by something you said yesterday on cincinnati public radio. in a rural area when you put your mail ballot in the mailbox it doesn't go to the local post office and sent back out. your mail goes to a central mail facilities facility in a large

city and then it gets routed back down to your local post office and these are largely coming from rural areas but where you find trump voters and the president attacks the system as corrupt. is it possible, ballots showing up late, can't get counted, more of them are likely to come from rural than urban areas? >> there's anecdotal evidence where indeed it looks like rural counties are the counties that we are seeing a larger share of late returned ballots. it is possible there's democratic votes in the mix but still it is possible that there are more voters having ballots affected by being late and slowed postal service delivery and election offices running slower, too.

it's a backlog of different things happening all at once. you are right. have a plan. if you request your ballot now it will be there in plenty of time to return it by mail or in person if you need and the voters voting right at the very end where you need to think hard about if -- how you vote if you want to participate in the election. >> michael mcdonald, we'll continue the conversation over the next eight weeks. thank you. hello, everybody. top of the hour. i'm john king in washington. today fallout from the devastating add mugss in the president's own voice first heard 24 hours ago. the president misleading you in the response to the coronavirus. acknowledging to the journalist bob woodward he understood the devastating nature of the threat yet playing it down deliberately. his words. telling you it was no big deal. public health expe