good evening. tonight, when asked about the fact more than 200,000 people in this country have died of covid on his watch, here's what the president said and did not say about that horrific milestone. >> well, i think it's a shame.

i think if we didn't do it properly and do it right, you'd have 2.5 million deaths. if you take a look at alternatives, you could have 2.5 million deaths or something there about. but it's a horrible thing. should have never, ever happened. china let this happen and just remember that. >> china let it happen. it's a shame, he said, but it's china's fault, but at least it's not 2.5 million dead. and that was it. it's hard to know where to begin with all that. his press secretary said this today. >> he has said before that it keeps him up at night thinking of even one life lost. this president has taken this incredibly seriously. >> she promised on camera on her first day on the job to never tell a lie. so, taking her at her word it must follow that the president was up all night before and after saying this yesterday. >> we didn't know it. now we know it.

it affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems if they have other problems, that's what it really affects. that's it. you know, in some states, thousands of people, nobody young, below the age of 18, like, nobody. they have a strong immune system. who knows. you look -- take your hat off to the young, because they have a hell of an immune system, but it affects virtually nobody. it's an amazing thing. by the way, open your schools. everybody open your schools. >> it affects elderly people. that's it, he says. among anyone else it affects virtually nobody, in his words. virtually nobody. actually, mr. president, it has affected and sickened and killed people in every age group from toddlers to the oldest americans. we've seen college football players develop heart issues and children get strokes and people of all ages get sick. it certainly is deadlier to

seniors, but anyone can get sick and anyone can pass it on to other people. but even if you believe that it only affects elderly people, as the president said, meaning it kills them, are elderly people now disposable in this society? is that the country we now want to live in? if so, the president might want to look in the mirror or get on a scale because he is elderly and obesity is an underlying condition. the president knows what he said isn't true. he's known it for months. keeping them honest, he himself said so to bob woodward in march. >> now it's turning out it's not just old people, bob, today and yesterday some startling facts came out. it's now to just older -- >> yeah, exactly. >> plenty of young people. >> it's plenty of young people, he said on march 19th, when just 265 people died. perhaps when the president said that he was maybe trying to impress bob woodward with his knowledge or make the accomplishment of tackling the

pandemic that much more impressive when it actually happened. except that victory has not come yet. he said, he never publicly said or acted on what he knew. and even as the outbreak grew, he kept right on sounding the alarm privately about the virus he said publicly would just magically disappear. >> this thing is a killer if it gets you. if you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance. >> yes, yes, exactly. >> a friend of mine died. very great real estate developer from manhattan died yesterday. >> yeah, i know. you know, listen, students of mine, i teach a journalism seminar, have written me, have had it and one of the women said she had it, they said she was cured and they kept coming back with new symptoms, strange things happened. she had intense headaches. she -- >> what happened? >> she's in agony and they are

telling her, oh, you're cured now. you're over it. so this -- i mean, you said it. this is a monster. >> it will rip you apart. >> this is a scourge. >> it's the plague. >> that was mid-april when about 30,000 americans had died and privately, at least, he sounded like he understood the threat for what it was. again, though, he said nothing at the time that might have honestly alerted the public or done anything to protect them. instead, he was tweeting in all caps on april 17th, liberate minnesota, liberate michigan and virginia. he was tweeting that with 30,000 of his fellow americans dead and many more dying. with another 170,000 dead since then, the president keeps holding rallies like this one tonight in pittsburgh, flouting social distancing guidelines, mocking people for wearing a mask. as he does, new cases in this country have started rising from a baseline that was already too high to begin with. more than 52,000 reported just

yet. look at the map. new cases up 10% to 50% in 16 states. up more than 50% in eight. the ones in deep red. they are steady in 20 states and dropping in only six. yet today, the day more than 200,000 people he took an oath to protect have died, the president again had nothing but praise for the job he's done. >> i think we've done an amazing job. they're having a spike in europe now, as you know, and we're always compared to europe and we've done very welcome paired to europe. in my opinion, we're rounding the turn. >> rounding the turn. he said that yet again. yesterday, he gave himself an a-plus on the job. talking today with cnn's sanjay gupta, dr. anthony fauci had this response how he would grade the president. >> take a look at the numbers and make up your own mind. i mean, you know, we don't need a sound bite from me. take a look at the numbers.

>> dr. fauci also said this about covid and younger patients. >> it isn't just the elderly and those with underlying conditions. because it can be serious in young people. true, people with understolying conditions, but those are not just isolated to the elderly. there are plenty of younger people who have underlying conditions that put them at risk. >> again, the president knew this, said so to bob woodward in march, but kept the truth from the public. dr. fauci has not. he addressed the death toll today. >> the idea of 200,000 deaths is really very sobering and in some respects, stunning. >> if the president is in any way sobered by the same milestone that sobered and stunned the nation's most highly regarded expert in the field, he's showing few signs of it. truly feeling the impact, afterall, might mean acknowledging the terrible scale

of it and also the individuality and unique value of every life lost. everything in short that makes us all somebody. >> but it affects virtually nobody. it's an amazing thing. >> dr. adeline fagan was just 28 years old. she was in her second year of an ob/gyn residency at a hospital in houston, where she also worked the front lines caring for covid patients. in july, she tested positive for the virus. by august, she was on a ventilator. and last week, she seemed to be turning a corner, and then on friday night, she developed bleeding in her brain and died early saturday with her parents by her side. her parents brant and mary jane fagan joins now. thank you both for being with us. i am so sorry for your loss. it is beyond words and ink incalculable. mary jane, if you could, i'd love people to know more about adeline. what was she like? >> well, adeline is our second

oldest and she was very busy. she was very inquisitive. she was always from a very young age a people person. she loved to talk. she was an early talker. so she had quite a personality right from the time she was very young and it just developed into what she was, or is, today. and she was delightful. i mean, people loved her, and she loved to talk to people of all ages, particularly older people. just because they've had a lot of experience. they experienced, you know, hardship, joy, and she just was very pleased to be around people. >> brant, the picture of her holding a baby, is that the first baby she delivered? >> yes, that's the first baby she delivered as a resident. >> wow. that must -- did she always want to be a doctor?

>> since she was 5 she would runaround with a stethoscope around her neck. >> a real one? >> no, it was a toy, it was a toy. but then when she was 11, she had a terrible illness and ended up in a wheelchair and she went to a doctor who talked to her like a real human being, like an adult, practically, and from that day on, she said she wanted to be a doctor so she could help people like that doctor helped her. >> that changed the course of her life. >> yes. yes, it did. that one visit to that doctor changed her life. >> brant, you wrote something i just want to read to people. if you can do one thing, be an adeline in the world. help those less fortunate, have a smile on your face, a laugh in your heart and a disney tune on your lips.

i've been reading about her. she did so much in her time, you know, in her 28 years, it's extraordinary. she went to haiti multiple times and helped so many people. >> yes. and that's what she loved to do. she went to haiti four times on medical missions while she was in medical school to help bring medical care to the haitians that lived too far outside the city to get any. she worked as a cna before she went to medical school and, you know, we've heard from a doctor in florida whose mother adeline took care of and touched her. she just loved to help people. she really, really did and that's what she saw was her goal in life was to help women especially but help people, underprivileged people. >> mary jane, i know one of the things that i've talked to so many families who have experienced a loss is oftentimes

it seems like somebody is sort of makiing a turn for the bette and then they don't. and i know adeline was in the hospital for more than two months. she was on a ventilator since early august. you were able to be there at the end, which so many families aren't, that's got to be a blessing considering the alternatives. >> yes, yes, it was. but we were also very fortunate in the sense that before adeline had turned really ill, she had her cell phone. and we made sure that when she was at hca, the first hospital, we communicated nonstop with her, because she was so incredibly frightened. and just -- not even talking. we just kept the phone and we went around our business just so that she knew we were connected with her since we couldn't go in. then, when she was transported

to memorial herman, we had spoken to one of the nurses and said, could we, since we cannot come in, can we at least just talk to her? we couldn't see her, but we wanted to talk. so every night before we went to bed, we basically went over what our day was like and then we said we loved her. then as she progressed a little bit more, the doctors or the nurses were willing to turn on her face time and we were able to see her for a little bit. most loved ones can't do that. i mean -- just how it felt into place with her having her phone. but i have to say, it gave us great comfort. and on tuesday, the week that she had passed away, we were allowed to go in just for -- just for 15, 20 minutes and she was -- she was very -- she had a lot of problems with sedation and that day, she was very

sleepy, but if i kept saying to her, adeline, open your eyes, adeline, open your eyes, she would do it. and i am so incredibly thankful that we had the opportunity, because she -- before i left so my husband could come in and see her, i said, adeline, can you give me a kiss? and she puckered her lips and she met my lips and i will forever remember that. that was probably the biggest gift i've ever had and that was the last time i -- other than the night that we got the call that she had a brain bleed, my husband and i chose not to pursue any further surgery because she was so far gone. there was just so much blood that no amount of skilled physician or technology was ever going to make her better and so

i basically held her until the very end and that was pretty much it, you know. so we are very thankful that we had that opportunity. so many parents have not been able to and it breaks my heart. >> yeah. my mom died a little more than a year ago and i was able to be there at the end and it's -- i'm very grateful for that chance. >> yeah. this disease has robbed us in so many ways, not only because of adeline's life, but the fact that we couldn't go in there and be with her. and she was so incredibly frightened. she was kind of, you know, being in the medical field, she knew what was ahead of her and that just made matters worse for her. and now we're getting ready to arrange her funeral arrangements

and then again, we are having difficulty because of covid, things that you can do and things that you can't do. so, covid continues to wreck our lives and everyone else's lives. >> brent, is there anything else you want people out there to know about adeline or anything she would want people to think about covid? >> well, i know she would want everybody to think of the other person. you know, wear your mask. social distance. do these things that are recommended to keep people safe. you don't have to want to protect yourself. but at least want to protect somebody else. it may be your mailman. it may be your doctor or your nurse or your neighbor. you're doing it for other people, not necessarily yourself. that's what everyone should be doing. >> well, she sounds like an

amazing person, and just talking to you both, i can tell where she got an awful lot of that from you and your strength is extraordinary and in your grief, i appreciate you taking the time to talk with us and let us know about adeline and what a loss for all of us. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> we wish you peace in the days ahead. brant and mary jane fagan. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. still to come tonight, we have breaking news on president trump's supreme court svacancy. we'll have more on the pandemic and all the latest news. after the break, a profile discussion of who sources say is the front-runner, judge amy coney barrett. also, later, a top cia assessment on russia's attempts to disrupt the 2020 election. i'll spoke to the reporter who broke the story tonight. by the struts hey mercedes?

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strong relief look limu! someone out there needs help customizing their car insurance with liberty mutual, so they only pay for what they need. false alarm. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ breaking news to report on the president's supreme court nominee. the president says he will announce his nominee this saturday at 5:00 p.m. the overwhelming favor was back at the white house for a second time today. judge amy coney barrett is one of five female candidates and her prospects became even stronger today after senator mitt romney said he'll join fellow republicans to proceed with a vote almost ensuring confirmation barring any misstep by the nominee. more now on judge barrett from cnn's pamela brown. >> reporter: officials tell cnn trump seemed very enthusiastic about amy coney barrett after a meeting yesterday at the white

house that lasted several hours. is after the meeting, the president telling people he believes she will be very well received by, quote, his people. barrett began her career as a law clerk for late justice antonin scalia. >> it was intimidating working for him. you know, when he called you in his office, you had to be prepared to just go to the mat and talk about whatever it was and he was always five steps ahead of you. >> reporter: she went on to become a law professor at notre dame, her alma mater. >> before i was a judge, i was a law professor. >> reporter: where in 2012 she signed on to a public letter protesting that abortion and contraception coverage of the affordable care act were, quote, an assault on religious liberty. >> you are controversial, let's start with that. >> reporter: barrett's devout catholic faith was a point of contention during her 2017 confirmation hearing for the seventh circuit appeals court. >> when we read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that

the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern. >> reporter: barrett pushed back, insisting no judge's religious bleaches should have any bearing on their interpretation of the law. >> if you're asking if i take my faith seriously and i'm a faithful catholic, i am, but i would stress that my church affiliation or religious belief would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge. it's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else on the law. >> reporter: barrett talked about being a mother of seven during the hearing, including two adopted children from haiti and a son who she learned had down syndrome when she was pregnant with him. >> benjamin has special needs and presents unique challenges for all of us. >> reporter: barrett's personal story and conservative credentials endeared her to grass roots pro life conservatives. >> someone like amy coney

barrett would be a very powerful choice to fire up the base. she's an extremely brilliant jurist and her personal story, i think, speaks to her pro-life beliefs. >> reporter: pamela brown, cnn, washington. >> pam brown, thank you. perspective now from gloria borger and former federal prosecutor and cn this chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. gloria, you heard pamela's piece. do you think nominating judge barrett is the right move for the president ahead of the election? >> well, i think if you're talking in the short-term political view, sure. she appeals to evangelicals, conservative republicans. she -- a former law clerk of antonin scalia, whom donald trump loved. so, i think she checks all those boxes. i think, though, in the longer term, there are republicans now who are asking the question, do we want to spend a good part of this election talking about how

roe v. wade would be dismantled? talking about how obamacare and pre-existing conditions would likely be dismantled before the supreme court? after all, there's a hearing on that on november 10th before the supreme court. so, the president could get his win, but in the long-term, will it help him in the general election? the jury, as we say, is still out on that, i think, anderson. >> jeff, frankly, the more people are talking about those things, they're not talking about the pandemic and the president's handling of it, so maybe it does help him? >> well, perhaps. although, you know, one of the things that the biden campaign is clearly doing is making the supreme court about health care and they're not making it up because the supreme court is going to hear yet another challenge to the affordable care act exactly one week after the election, which the new justice would have a voice in. so, you know, it is, you know,

to the extent health care is the coronavirus and, you know, if every single person who has had a positive coronavirus test, even if they've recovered, are now -- have a pre-existing condition, which could deny them health care. so, i mean, the stories are not exactly separate and, you know, i think i have enough confidence in the american people they can remember the 200,000 people have died of this disease at the same time they're thinking about the supreme court. >> gloria, i want to play something the president said on the south lawn earlier tonight. let's watch. >> we need nine justices. you need that. with the unsolicited millions of ballots that they're sending, it's a scam, it's a hoax. everybody knows that. and the democrats know it better than anybody else. so you're going to need nine justices up there. i think it's going to be very important. doing it before the election

would be a very good thing, because you're going to probably see it, because what they're doing is trying to sow confusion. >> i mean, he's intimating he wants the supreme court involved in the election and obviously -- >> sure. >> the whole voter fraud thing is, you know, he's never won in court on that. it doesn't exist in any measurable way. >> well, it's only if he loses. but it's only if he loses, anderson. what he's effectively saying and it's stunning if you try to dissect it is, look, if i lose, we're going to take this to the courts and i have to rig the courts and make sure that i have conservative justices on my side, as if they would automatically rule in his favor because they're conservative. and, you know, what he's saying to the american people is, okay, if i lose at the polls, i don't want to lose in the court.

and that's astonishing. >> it -- >> maybe not. it's donald trump, but -- >> jeff, does it astonish you? >> it's -- well, i mean, like everything else in the trump administration, it is shocking but not surprising. >> right. >> i mean, the idea that the president is saying, we're about to have a fraudulent election, which i will challenge in court, is something that no president in american history has come close to saying, especially when, as benjamin ginsburg, the dean of republican election lawyers said just the other day, there is no evidence of fraud, that the whole idea that there is a fraudulent process under way is simply a figment of donald trump's imagination. and he's counting on the courts to bail him out if the vote count turns out to be not to his liking. that's something that we're not used to seeing in a democracy but it is something we're used to seeing from donald trump.

>> right. i mean, gloria, every time his voter fraud stuff is actually put to a factual test, you know, a voter fraud commission is formed with much, you know, headlines, it disbands, because there's not the evidence that the president wants there to be. >> right. there isn't any evidence. as jeffrey was just saying, ben ginsburg, a republican, who has studied this from the days of bush v gore 20 years ago, says there is no evidence. what the president is trying to do is delegitimize an election he could lose. i guarantee you that if he were to win this overwhelmingly, he's not going to say the election was rigged. and so we are treading into very dangerous territory here, very dangerous. he's setting the stage for something that we have not seen before.

>> jeff, you wrote recently about this in "the new yorker." you wrote about how much is the possibility of the president contesting the election results all the way to the supreme court complicate not just election integrity at large but also just the process of filling the vacant seat? >> well, it's enormously important, because, you know, if you go back to bush v gore, you know, ruth bader ginsburg was in the minority there, she was one of the four dissenters and, of course, that vote split along party lines and now we are very likely to see a 6-3 court as opposed to a 5-4 court, which it was before ginsburg's departure. and, you know, look. yesterday -- last week, the pennsylvania supreme court ruled that the absentee ballots only have to be postmarked before election day and they don't have to be received on election day to count. very important issue. that now is on appeal at the united states supreme court.

this is part of what the republicans want to do, which is limit absentee voting, mail-in voting as much as possible, so, this is a case that is already on its way to the supreme court, but there are -- you know, there are -- it's hard to believe, but it's true, there are 200 cases in the united states working their way through the courts to -- about the rules of the election. at least some of them are going to be -- they're going to be appealed to the supreme court. whether they agree to hear any of them. but this is a crucial part of this election and, you know, gloria was saying, the president, in a very explicit way, is saying, i need to stack the supreme court so i will win one way or another. >> appreciate it. thank you. next, josh roe began on his new reporting on a top secret intelligence community assessment of rux yan interference in the election that's happening as we speak.

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if you've ever worried we're stuck in some horrible campaign groundhog day 2016, the latest column in "the washington post" will wake you up for yet another day. here's his lede -- russian president vladimir putin and his top aides are probably directing a russian foreign influence operation to interfere in the 2020 presidential election against former vice president joe biden which involves a prominent ukrainian lawmaker connected to president trump's personal lawyer rudolph w. giuliani.

according to rogin, who joins us shortly, the cia, nsa and fbi declined to comment, but they did not dispute details. the white house had no comment and if there is no comment there a context to this. snakily, the president's repeated refusal to confront vladimir putin. here he is yesterday when asked about the poisoning of a russian dissident. >> who do you think poisoned alexei navalny in russia? >> ah, we'll talk about that at another time. >> just moments later, wolf blitzer had bob woodward on "the situation room." woodward's new book contains some accounts about dan coats, the fired director and reported belief putin had something on the president. >> it's an extraordinary exchange and extraordinary bit of reporting you in the book. how do you see it? do you see any other explanation other than what dan coates suggested? >> well, dan coates is the number one intelligence officer, somebody who had been a republican senator from indiana for 16 years, one of mike

pence's closest friends, evangelical christian. coates went through all the intelligence, the deep cover sources, the intercepts, everything. he had his people to see if they could find something they found no evidence and no proof. at the same time, coates could not shake the conclusion, because of trump's repeated behavior and deference to putin that went beyond rational presidential decision-making. >> the president fired dan coates, fired fbi director james comey and he's now at odds with the man he chose to replace comey, christopher wray, who said this last week to the house intelligence committee. >> we certainly have seen very active efforts by the russians to influence our election in

2020 and i think the intelligence community assessed this publicly to primarily to denigrate vice president biden. >> just to remind you, this echoes the intelligence community's public assessment. josh rogin joins us now. what else did this top secret assessment conclude? >> right, well, the assessment does not name rudy giuliani, but refers to a prominent person employed by this russian influence operation scheme, which involves ukrainian pro russian law maker and andri derka derkach, who is a buddy of giuliani's. they are doing youtube videos all the time and the assessment highly classified on the cia worldwide site dated august 31st said that he is also spreading disinformation through u.s. lawmakers, u.s. lobbyists, u.s. media organizations, and again,

while it doesn't name those, it's pretty obvious and clear who they were referring to, because rudy and derkach have been doing a lot of this stuff in public, not all of it, but some of it, and basically what we see in this assessment is just a lot of concern and reporting and investigation into this derkach/giuliani scheme and the assessment, the conclusion that vladimir putin and his top officials are definitely aware and probably directing it. and that's the key bit here. it ties the top level of the kremlin, not definitively, but probably, to the president's lawyer and a pro-russian ukrainian lawmaker who is attacking our democracy. >> i mean, it's incredible. >> it's shocking, it's not surprising, because of the setup that you just went through so expertly, which is, we've seen this movie before. and the russians have been doing this the whole time, and of course, it's predictable and sort of, you know, believable that putin would be in charge of it, knowing the way they their system operates.

at the same time, it's so disturbing in a way, especially to the people who are working on this inside the intelligence community, because the president won't acknowledge it and stop it or do anything to sort of distance himself from it. and, you know, you can go through all of the speculation about whether or not the russians have something on trump. i think it's just as likely that he just enjoys the support and he doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him. they don't have to have something on him, they don't have to be colluding. they can just be sharing interests and sort of what we call aiding and abetting the russian interference operation, and that includes the u.s. media organizations that are laundering this information and the lawmakering who are doing investigations into the things that rudy and derkach were peddling, namely the allegations that hunter biden and joe biden was involved in some corrupt scheme with the ukrainian government at the time and that ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, not russia, on behalf of hillary clinton. and this is the whole scheme that got trump impeached in the

first place and rudy is still doing it, so the intelligence commune city is still investigating it. >> i want to play something attorney general barr said a few weeks ago here on cnn. just want to play this. >> of those three countries that the intelligence community has pointed to, russia, china and iran, which is the most assertive, the most aggressive in this area. >> i believe it's china. >> which one? >> china. >> china more than russia right now. >> yes. >> why? >> because i've seen the intelligence. >> to your knowledge, does anything the assessment support what the attorney general has said? >> to be clear, this assessment is only regarding the russian influence operation. there's probably another assessment, one that i haven't seen, about the chinese efforts. now, the fact that the attorney general is making that assertion without providing any evidence begs the question of what the heck is he talking about? but from the intelligence officials i talked to, they seem

unanimous and clear this russian operation is extensive, much more organized and much more effective than any chinese influence operation, because they are working with the president's lawyer and major gop senators are conducting investigations to unearth the same disinformation that rudy and the russians are peddling coincidentally apparently. so, we can see it everywhere, so, to assert that the chinese operation is greater, i think would be much more credible if there was any evidence that the administration is willing to come forward. >> the assessment also had details of misinformation about biden being funneled through congress. are there members of congress wittingly or unwittingly helping russia's interference campaign? >> yes. exactly, they are either doing it wittingly or unwittingly. what we know from the public record is that derkach and rudy have been sending all this information, whatever it is they came up with, to chuck grassley, ron johnson, lindsey graham,

devin nunes. all these gop lawmakers say that they didn't get information from derkach. yet somehow, ron johnson investigation, the report of which could be released as early as this week, is all about the same exact disinformation that rudy and derkach have been peddling. so, whether or not they got it from derkach, somehow they got it. so, if they are wittingly doing it, then they're in a conspiracy. if they are unwittingly doing it, they are unusualful idiots. either way, it's pretty bad. >> general h.r. mcmaster, the former national security adviser told cnn today that the president is making it easy for vladimir putin. do you think that assessment fits with what intelligence agencies are seeing? >> yeah, i think it fits perfectly, basically. what he's saying is that, you know, the russians' goal is to get americans to do putin's bidding for him, that's how influence operations work.

they plant russian ideas in american mouths and american voices and on american outlets. and because we see them coming out of gop mouths and the president's mouth and rudy's mouth and the president retweeted some of this disinformation august 18th directly, yeah, it seems like it's working. and i think there are a lot of people inside the government, including h.r. mcmaster, but also a lot of people in these agencies, who are really concerned about that. but they are afraid if they speak up, they'll get the comey treatment. they'll become, you know, the target of the president's ire and get fired or worse. and that's the climate that's going on inside our government right now. it's a government at war with itself, okay? you've got people trying to fight russian interference and at the same time looking over their shoulder to make sure that they don't have the president of the united states fighting them. it's bizarre. >> yeah. it's -- that's stunning. stunning reporting. josh, thank you so much. >> thank you. up next, more on the climbing u.s. coronavirus death toll topping 200,000.

i'll talk to the governor of washington. his thoughts on the grim milestone and what's still needed in the fight against covid when we continue. you know when your dog is itching for an outing... or itching for some cuddle time. but you may not know when he's itching for help... licking for help... or rubbing for help. if your dog does these frequently. they may be signs of an allergic skin condition

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is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a build-up of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding . . . . . . or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv . . . . . . keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. back to our breaking news on coronavirus. as we've reported, a grim milestone in the united states, the death toll has dropped 200,000. back in late february in the early days of the pandemic washington state was hit hard

and early and had what was then the first confirmed u.s. death, a male patient in his 50s. for months, washington governor jay instantlee has been on the t lines. >> washington state one of the first to report a death from this pandemic. how is the state doing at this point and where do you see this going? >> well, i think, what i'd say is we're turning the tide. this has been a long struggle, obviously. we started as the first hit, as you know, and the hardest hit and we have been making progress. our numbers are coming down significantly. today there are 45 other states, i believe, that have infection rates higher than ours. sometimes five or six times higher than ours. the reason i point that out is the good news is we've shown when you make decisions based on science and common sense and a reasonable degree of compassion, you can knock down this virus, as we have done. but we still have a considerable distance to go to be in a place

where we can reopen all of our typical activities. so we remain extremely diligent and extremely concerned about the fall. we know what that means when people come inside. so we are both successful, confident that we're doing the right thing. very pleased that people are masking up. i was the first governor to impose a requirement that business insists that their patrons wear masks, and that has shown to be very effective. >> you know, as a governor you have access to your own state's health officials but, you know, traditionally, the cdc is the -- one of the -- the gold standard for scientific advice in fighting a pandemic. obviously we've seen the politicization of science now. do you trust inherently the cdc or the leadership of the cdc, the fda these days? >> well, i trust science. i trust the laws of thermal dynamics. i trust chemistry and physics. i trust good vaccine trials that

are run for legitimate purposes in a legitimate way. and that's the good news because we ought to be able two actually tease out that real science from the bluster and the deception that is imposed by the president of the united states. and i think we can do that. i think the most important thing in regard to the kind of questions you're asking right now is our ability to have confidence in a forthcoming vaccine. there's some good news on that score that the vaccine manufacturers have for the first time shown us their protocols and how they're running these tests. in order to try to increase people's confidence in them. i think that's a really good sign. but we know we still will have this dead weight of trump trying to politicize this. have happy talk to try to happy talk people into believing this is solved by election day. that is a problem, but i think the scientific community is doing a good job trying to give transparency so that we can make

our own decisions. we had a discussion about this today in the vaccine program with my health team. we will have access, i believe, we will need to have access to the vaccine results so we can make our independent assessment to make sure that donald trump's fingerprints are not on it. those are the fingerprints we have to keep off of this process. it's extremely important. now, it's important -- and we wish the president would not virtually every day try to reduce the credibility of this system by his, again, deplorable deception and talking about this and his insistence on violating the law. what kind of american president in the middle of a pandemic goes to a state consciously, willfully violates the law, as he did in nevada, that is intended to save americans' lives. and now we've passed over the 200,000 loss threshold. what kind of person does that? that person should not be allowed to be in the white house any further.

>> and that milestone, i mean, it -- it didn't have to happen. i mean, obviously this is a deadly pandemic and people are gonna die, but just the numbers that we have seen thus far and are going to see moving forward, it didn't have to happen. >> well, that is a very difficult truism to accept, but it is true. the pain and suffering on this -- and the president's continuing, trying to downplay this -- i heard him say that virtually no youth get this. try telling that to the mother i saw interviewed right after that statement by the president who lost her son, who was a football playing young man. no underlying conditions and had a physical ten days before he started to get in big trouble because of covid. try telling her that virtually no one gets this. and as a result of that, less people have accepted our suggestions and requirements for social distancing and masking.

and, unfortunately, those numbers are unnecessarily high. and i can't think of a worst tragedy. >> governor inslee, i appreciate your time. >> thank you. be healthy. just ahead, cindy mccain, the wife of the late senator john mccain, has just announced her endorsement for president. who it is and what she said next. it's open! hey. think you're managing your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis... ...or crohn's disease? - are you ok? - i did. i was there. but i never knew when my symptoms... ...would keep us apart. so, i talked to my doctor and learned... ...humira is for people who still have... ...uc or crohn's symptoms... ...after trying other medications. and humira helps... ...people achieve remission that can last. so you can experience few... ...or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability... ...to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections,...

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. . . to put on me about having hiv isn't gonna fit. that's for sure. my name is zach and i'm on biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment . . . . . . used for hiv in certain adults. it's not a cure but with one small . . . . . . pill, biktarvy fights hiv . . . . . . to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects

include a build-up of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding . . . . . . or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv . . . . . . keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. more breaking news tonight. cindy mccain, the widow of former senator john mccain, has

officially endorsed joe biden for the presidency in a series of tweets. quote, my husband john lived by a code, country first. we are republicans, yes, but americans foremost. there is only one candidate in this race that stands up for our values as a nation, and that is joe biden, she wrote. she also wrote although she and biden don't agree on the issues, much like her husband did not, he is a good and honest man and will lead us in dignity. after her appearance in a video at the democratic national convention about the relationship between biden and john mccain. also, after numerous insults lobbed by president trump at her husband, including calling the late senator a loser, something the president has denied doing, but for which there is taped evidence to the contrary. the endorsement also comes as polls give biden a slight edge in the battleground state of arizona, which john mccain represented for more than 30 years. it's been a very busy night. so chris is going to pick things up right now with "cuomo prime time." chris? >> thank you, anderson.