. welcome back to a special saturday night special coverage. i'm chris cuomo. you know me from cuomo prime time. i'm with you this saturday nate because we got big situations going on that demand our attention. we have more information open the president's health. it's trickling out. but there is a lot of inconsistent information and it is hard to know what to believe. as a result, i cannot with confident tell you we know for sure how president trump is doing with coronavirus. let's listen, he told us, himself, he'd tell us tonight this video was made. here it is. >> i just didn't want to stay in the white house. i was given that option. stay in the white house, lock yourself in. don't ever leave.

don't even go to the oval office just stay upstairs and enjoy it. don't see people. don't talk to people and just be done with it. and i can't do that. i had to be out front. >> now, that's a little confusing how we put it together for you. this is him explaining later in the video why he's been out on the hustling campaigning when he was told you should stay in the oval office, stay in the white house. he's making the case, no, i'm a leader. i have to make the situation now. he thinks the next few days, he is telling the story. but he is feeling good. good indicationles. but this part of the video arguably matters more. because at some point, it can't just be about him, what his situation manes to the rest of this country. and here's what's really clear and a very confusing situation. he should have stayed in the oval office. he should have stayed in the white house. that is what we were asking the rest of the country to do.

sure, he's an essential worker. but how you do the job matters also. instead, he went out and did exactly what we were asking everybody else not to do and he did that, because he said that the information was bogus, that the pandemic was a hoax, that masks were weakness and everything was going to be fine. he said, nothing ever comes from our events. nobody gets sick. in fact, we now know, it's not true, based on what we are dealing with right now. in all likelihood this president's flouth of the advice he just admitted he was given that made sense from every clinician, every expert under his control, now has him in the hospital. please take that message to heart. he's the best evidence what he was telling you about the pandemic was wrong. now, we've got to figure out what is right within it comes to what to understand about his own situation. let's begin with white house correspondent john hardwood outside walter reed medical

center. john, good to have you on with me. thank you for taking the opportunity to do so. is it true for you as well that this has been an unusual circumstance of conflicting information coming out from people who should be on the same page? >> reporter: absolutely. we are more than two days, chris, from when we learned that the president had coronavirus. we still do not have a clear time line of when he acquired it, when his diagnosis was confirmed. we don't have a clear explanation of his condition or his prognosis. we had this very confusing and comically evasive press conference by his doctor at walter reed today, where he attempted to paint a rosie view of the situation, but wouldn't provide any details. wouldn't say how high his fever has been, wouldn't say he was taking oxygen, although we confirmed he did. he wouldn't say whether he

sustained lung damage. after that, you had a white house official come out on background later identified by the ap and the "new york times" as mark meadow, the chief of staff saying, well, his vitals were of significant concern yesterday and the course of this disease will be determined in the next 48 hours. not out of the woods, that sort of thing. then finally, we got the videotape from the president, himself, tonight, four minute long and i thought and i'm interested in what you think, chris. because you have known donald trump longer than i have. but i thought we could see a real note of vulnerability in that tape, where he said, i'm starting to feel good, but you don't know. watch the next couple of days. i thought that was more revealing at that moment than anything the doctor told us at the press conference today. >> well, usually, he understands having very well about messaging, which is, show no uncertainty, say things are true, whether you are or not, if

you repeat it enough, people will believe you. to this point he is a testament to that he has been qualifying thing. i think i'm going to be good. they tell me this we'll see. that is an unusual level of qualifying for him. i tell you what, he is not denying he's sick. as somebody who has it. >> reporter: exactly. >> what i am hearing about him does not match up with mine. when you are sick, will you know it, john. this is a scary thing, nobody can give you answers, even as the president of the united states. i know who he is talking to. they don't know things about this. so you get spooked fast. that is going to show like anybody, she a human being like everybody else. my big concern is insisting on what he is saying. telling me, they told me i should stay in the white house, the oval office. no, a leader confronts the situation, that's why i went out and held rallies. it was probably the worst thing to do as a leader. >> reporter: right. and there was a ton of baloney

in that videotape as well. the whole idea about him being advised to stay in the white house and, but he clo easier to go to the hospital. we know he doesn't like hospitals. he was reluctant to go. his aides wants him to go. now it's the right decision. given the unpredictability of this illness as you know as almost anyone, you can take a turn very rapidly, if you are a 74-year-old man who is overweight, it's a dangerous situation and the right call was made. he was convinced to go. he was able to walk out under his own steam to marine one and head up here to bethesda. so the right thing happened in the end. his description of how it happened was not quite right. >> john harwood, thank you so much. it's good to be with you on this saturday night. we appreciate it. all right. let's bring in dr. william schaffner to understand this.

doc, as always, thank you for always being ever present when i need you. first thing, that is interesting. if anything about him being in tough shape is true, how about him walking out to marine one? you know what i mean? if he had problems with his blood oxygen and all these other things. he walked out there under his own power, got on marine one, that has to mean something. right? >> it does mean something, but remember, chris, this is a sneaky infection. one of the clinical characteristics we learned about it, the patient can look much better than their blood oxygen concentration and their x-ray. so he was looking pretty good at the time. but we really don't know what his blood concentration was at that time. the patient, in effect, can fake you out. so you have to be very alert to follow blood oxygen concentrations and the xeft x-ray and other aspects of just

his well-being and organ function. so, just looking at the patient is not enough. >> a good point. i mean, anecdotally, i was doing my show every night. i would be a sweaty mess afterwards, you know, sitting in the shower, trying to kind of get my composure back. so people can fake you out, especially when they want to seem strong in a moment. the president certainly wants to do that. now, here's something i didn't deal with that would have made me go to the hospital. if my blood oxygen level had gone down to the point where someone like you was telling me, i needed supplemental oxygen. that was the line for me. that's why i was doing the breathing exercises like crazy and do everything i could to keep my lungs okay. i know that's the tipping point with this. so the idea that we believe he needed supplemental oxygen, what does that tell you at a minimum? >> well, if that is, indeed, true, and it sound as though it

was, then he was in a somewhat precarious position. because that can be an early sign of going sideways, going downhill. and you want the patient in the very best possible place. so everybody can respond to that appropriately. going to the hospital was an absolutely appropriate decision. he went during the day. it was not an emergent circumstance. he got settled in. he got hooked up to all the monitors, all the blood tests were being dodge. all the aides, the nurses, the docs got to know him, examine him. establish a good baseline and they're ready then to deal if something happens to him. >> everybody says the exact same thing you are saying now. every clinician i have spoken to says, i absolutely would have done this. we would do it with everybody if we had the opportunity. for somebody we are worried about, you know, obviously, we

only have one president, you will treat him special. but it would be great if i can get everybody in there in a clinical setting. so the white house put out pictures of the president. let's take a look. all right. here he is. now the timing on this. can you tell me in the control room. when were these, earlier today, i guess? so he's will working. interestingly, doctor, they don't have him or he seems to be in the same clothes that he arrived in, i don't mean that in any sooind kind of sar craftic way. i'm saying to be in the hospital but to be in a suit and jacket, is that just because this is the president or do you think that, is that unusual? >> oh, sure. it's completely unusual. so, you don't want to have to deal with a tie and buttons on your shirt if suddenly something happens. so, you know, you put on those horrible hospital gowns because

it's easy for people to get at you if they need to get at you very, very quickly. so, this is the president being the president. i hope he's not in those all the time, frankly. >> right. and this is from today, the white house says, so what is the contrasting point to this? well, it's a picture that we can draw with facts. the idea of where you come down on this question, doctor? i want to word it the right way, of throwing everything you can at a case versus do no harm/let's know this isn't necessary. regeneron's treatment, ramdesivir, which you are going to be in the hospital for. doing that with the president, where are you in terms of that would only be something i would do if i had to versus, sure, i got access to it, why not? can't hurt him? >> chris, i think i can parce

the two apart. the monoclomo ain't bodies the regeneron is a drug in trial at the present. nothing's been proven. the early data looked promising, used exactly at this time to try to prevent progression into that nasty second phase of this infection. that was something that occurred to many people, myself also. i think that was a reasonable thing to do. now, the ramdesivir, that came, i suspect, i don't know, because of a specific indication. if that blood oxygen did, indeed, go down or if there were abnormalities on chest x-ray, those would have been specific indications for the use of that drug. that wouldn't have been speculative. that would have been indicated at that time. >>. dr. william schaffner, thank you

very much. i'm really trying to balance. i believe there is absolutely no percentage of being alarmist about this just from context in my own case, everybody's case is different. i had infiltrate, which is like shadow, some kind of fluid in my lung when they took the x-ray. most scary here, a part of the virus so even if that was there, and it became as the doctor is saying indicative of a need to deal with the lungs and they had the access to ramdesivir doesn't mean that he's in horrible shape. okay so pay context within the information content. now, not out of the wood. it's a headline from the president's doctor on his condition, spooked people. listen, of course, he's not out of the woods yet. this is the real deal this virus. this is why we don't want anybody to get it. because you don't know how it will progress. we do know, the white house hasn't been straight with us. it matters so much in times like now. the time line doesn't make sense

and it has to for us. we have one president, we are going to lay off the facts as we know them so we can start to put the information in our head, piece it together. will you see what we need to know. next. she wanted a roommate to help with the cooking. but she wanted someone who loves cats. so, we got griswalda. dinner's almost ready. but one thing we could both agree on was getting geico to help with our renters insurance. yeah, switching and saving was really easy! drink it all up. good!

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one president in the hospital. we have to know how he's doing. period. it's the end of the analysis. instead of obvious and

transparnths transparent, we got this. >> well, i don't want to put a hard date on that. i don't want to put a percentage on that. i am not going to give you specific numbers. i'm not going to go into testing. i'm not going to go into specifics. i'm not going to go into that. >> look. there are privacy rights for patients, this is the president. there are balancing things. but there are things we need to have because he is not a normal private sid. he is one of one. so, you got a white house source reportedly the chief of staff saying the president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning. and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. we're still not on a clear path to a full recovery. that was right after the president's doctor was saying this. >> the president is doing very well, but we remain cautiously optimistic, but he's doing

great. >> now, what should we know? if he has a fever, they should be giving us some ballpark on it so we can kind of understand the level of battle here. because when you hear the president's kind of, you know, reckoning, i have been fev fever-free for 24 hours. he has been under medication. even the cdc guideline for returning to work is having a fever quote without fever reducing medications. i lived that. i wasn't off the tylenol. then you have to try to get under it. that's a very good game. they also say symptoms need to have improved, be gone. that's totally subjective. if you get long hall, then a lot of this stuff never goes away. which is a part of the confusion here. which is why you need as much information you can get. his doctor told you his symptoms

are resolving and improving. why was he on oxygen? why did he get the ramdesivir? this is in conflict. why is he in the hospital? out of an abundance of precaution. ramdesivir, oxygen, that's not an abundance of caution. that's a treatment protocol that has to have indications, feed back. you don't give anybody medication for no reason. the doctor had to clean up the situation of when the president was diagnosed and this stuff about the oxygen. what are we to make of this? let's bring in philip. i hope you and your family are well. >> thank you. >> the straight line argument is this, oh, you in the media, cuomo, just what i need. you guys, it's never enough for you. meadows says he's okay. the doctor says he's okay. everything else is just unnecessary parvin ceingparcein?

what do you say to that? >> we have meadows contradicting himself every 24 hours. yesterday he says the president has minor symptoms. today on an interview on fox news, it was a scary situation, his blood oxygen dropped precipitous, that's the word he was describing. because we got fairly inconsistent messaging from the white house that it was not that big of a deem. now we are learning, we are learning that things were more significant than they actually were. that discrepancy means we need a lot of detail here, or else we are absolutely certain, because we are not confident with the picture we have been given. >> to be fair, the skepticism is a function of the past. they deep tell the truth. so you get pictures today of the president in a shirt and jacket working at walter reed in the presidential suite. that looks pretty good. somebody who had the virus, he

can't be doing that badly. but we have to be suspicious of whether or not he was but into that situation to project an image that doesn't accurately reflect his condition. i don't want to speculate that way. i wish i could take this at face value. but is that a prudent thing to do given what we know? >> yeah, i mean, you know, you go back to you never see pictures of fdr in a wheelchair. you never saw pictures of john f kennedy. there is a long history of presidents hiding moments in which they were physically weak and on top of that a white house which has been consistently deceptive about president trump's personal health, that weird trip to walter reed hospital, remember, for example, his weird updates he's had over the quote campaign and presidency and then just generally a white house which is more than willing to offer misinformation about what's going on. all of those things combined mean that for this president in this moment, there is a much, much higher bar than there would

have been for a say john f kennedy, simply by virtue of who they are coming in this scenario. >> right. look, i'm not going to report it. because i don't have it confirmed. but i'm telling you, i've never had anything like this happen before. during the course of the special coverage tonight, i've gotten at least five versions from people who know the president well or know people who were around him well, who have been good conduits of information. the stories are all over the place. so, for you, what are the most important unanswered questions right now? >> well, i think the fundamental unanswered question is what has been the progression for president trump? right. the moment when the white house first said, okay, he may be positive here. what were his symptoms from that point forward? how bad was his blood oxygen yesterday that necessitated this apparent supplemental use of

oxygen? but you more than anyone can attest, the fact that he is doing better in the moment doesn't do any more the day after, i appreciate dr. meadows said we need to be careful over the next 24 hours, that is a bit of honesty that is appreciated. it is necessary to know what has happened. that doesn't tell us what is going to. but because we have not gotten consistently good information about what has already happened, it means what we hear over the next 48 hours should be taken with more grains of salt than there are in the tri-state area. >> thank you very much, philip. i know you hat home i want to believe the pictures, personally, that he is basically wearing whatever he wants. he is up and they are monitoring him. he will make it through with some bumps. that will be great. let's all get after the things that matter to all of us in this country. positive tests.

another aspect of this. positive tests leading to postponed games, postponed life. in the nfl, cam newton reportedly has covid. first of all, what does this mean about testing? does it matter what kind of testing they're giving him? what do the outbreaks mean for the season? we have a star sports analyst next. covid, it's hitting everything. next. so, magnificent mile for me! i thought i was managing... ...my moderate to severe crohn's disease. until i realized... ...something was missing...me. you okay, sis? my symptoms were keeping me... ...from really being there for my sisters. so i talked to my doctor and learned... that's us. ...humira is for people who still have... ...symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief in as little as 4 weeks. and many achieved remission that can last. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma,...

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. >> was it too good to be true, having the nfl back? that's the question. now patriot's quarterback cam newton has tested positive supposedly for coronavirus. the aftermath has resulted in the nfl postponing the patriots game against the chiefs, huge game, and led to bigger questions about a full season. let's get the latest from cnn sports analyst christine brennan. i hope you are doing well, i hope your head and heart are in a good place. >> good to see you, chris, it has been a while. everything is great here. i hope with you as well. >> so, what itself the scoop? >> well, the nfl had a nice little run and this is, by far, the worst week that they are having new in the midst of covid. i don't think it's a surprise, chris, that this is happening. it is week four and it's no less

than tougher than dr. anthony fauci said on june 18th. he said i think the nfl might have to play in a bubble, football, in general, to be able to have it happen. obviously, there is no bubble. there is no bubble in nfl or in college football. now we are seeing the results. two games now have been postponed, the first of the nfl games to be postponed. there were 22 college games, chris, that have been postponed so far. when you are trying to play football. the sport that is the antithesis of social distancing in the middle of a global poirks you will have postponementles. i think the nfl will have more of these. this is a big one, cam newton, 31 years old, former mvp on a comeback with the star-studded patriots. it's a big disappointment for the nfl. i also think it's a big reality check for the national football league. >> let's talk about the reality. because so much of this is

perception of how people view the positive test. cam newton was a beast last weekend. they lost, but it wasn't because of him. he was extraordinary. now they hear he tested positive for covid. people will say, the guy was on top of his game. how sick could he be? this test bogus. what are we hearing how he is? >> right now, we're not hearing anything. the presumption is right now, chris that he's okay and he'll be back, bounce back like so many athletes and so many young people do. buff you know well that there are other sides to this story and eduardo rodriguez, a pitcher for the boston red sox. he's 27-years-old, he's younger than cam newton. he was going to be, you know, with the red sox this year and he tested positive for covid-19 and they also were able to dike knows him with myocarditis.

he has been out all the way since july or august. last week word came, chris, that the 37-year-old star future for the boston red sox was finally able to start walking. yes. start walking. and i think that's reality check and a concern. but as far as cam newton, we hope he will be fine. he will be back in a couple of weeks the fame will be rescheduled, but the question long-term is, what could be the damage? and that's the roll of the dice for colleges, for pros and all these sports. we just don't know what it will look like five or ten years down the road. obviously, we are willing as a society to go ahead and roll that dice. >> increasingly so. and the learning curve for us has to be rationalizing the percentages, you know, as far as the percentages are so small with the randomness of you don't know who gets hit. we can kind of be predictive.

there are a lot of anomalies. christine brennan, are you the right one all the time. thank you for all the insight as always. >> thank you, chris. take care. >> all right. so we're a month out from the election. october surprise, what else can we take? right, like what else do you need? and what we are dealing with right now. the president is in the hospital. we are in the middle of a global pandemic. cases are still popping in places. not enough of us are doing the right thing. will this change that perspective? will people be on the same page, not be left right about the pandemic, reasonable? let's bring in two great political minds next. think we will make it in time? ♪ ♪ you may not expect the unexpected, but you can certainly take it on. the lexus es wow, this rain is bananas.

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well, here's some new reporting for you on a saturday night. president trump is reportedly furious with his chief of staff, mark meadows, for countering the messaging that he wanted out there, that everything is fine. that's according to new reporting from the "new york times". meadows told reporters that the president's vitals were quote very concerning. within hours, the president intervened, a cheering tweet about feeling well. a four-minute video meant to reassure us. let's bring in jennifer granholm and scott jennings. good to have you both even on a saturday night.

i hope your families are well. >> great, chris. >> thanks. >> let's go inside/outside, how are people feeling about the situation around the white house? >> well, i mean, i along with many people were stunned today at the contradictory statements, frankly that came out. i couldn't believe it, honestly. having the president's physicians go out, make a statement. good idea. they were dodgy, wifrls not a good idea. but at least they were out there talking about the president's physical condition from a medical perspective. then to have an anonymous soon to be out white house official to deliver a contradictory statement, i mean, look, all politics and campaign stuff aside, this is the leader of the free world. the world needs to know how he is. americans need to know how their president s. this is no time for equivocation about the president's health. our enemies are watching. the world is watching. i was stunned.

i see chief of staff meadows has made like three statements today. it's not a good look. >> look. as we all know, very often a message put out by an official does not line up with what you later learn. or at least not precisely. but, jennifer, you know, this doesn't make sense. why would you have meadows put out bad information if it weren't true? you know what i mean? what is the upside to meadows coming out and saying things that are contrary to the perceived reality that things are good? >> i mane, perhaps to meadows' credit, he was trying to clean up a bit what he perceived as happy talk on the part of the doctors who, obviously, had been given some instructions by donald trump not to indicate that he had been on oxygen, not to talk about his temperature, et cetera. so i think, i mean, if you can

read between the lines, it looks humanly like meadows was a little worried what that looked like, especially if the president deteriorated. now the president comes out with a statement. he looks okay. and so, perhaps he is getting better and perhaps it's going to be all right. but i think meadows was trying to tell the truth to his credit. >> right. let's hope that that's the thing that the president will come out. >> go ahead. >> let's just pretend what the governor said is true and that's what was happening, how are you going to do that via anonymous statement. the health of the president, the continuity of government, the leader of the free world. you can not make anonymous statements about this person's health and that's why i thought it was good to have the doctors on the record. so, i'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the motives here. you can't do that off the record. you can't go put your name on that, don't you? >> totally agree.

he should see the doctor. >> you guys aren't reporters. right. but i'm saying. you will not see the documents. but that's thematically obvious here in this white house. i'm telling you as a journalist that works on a regular basis, they put out stuff anonymously all the time that i've never seen anybody handle before. this is a one on one administration. scott, here's the part i don't like. let's assume they get the can to shoot right and the president is riding the course. he may get faster because of the treatment and the care. good. we only have one president. he said in the video today, you know, they told me, stay in the white house. stay in the oval office. no, the leader has to confront it. that's why i got out. i believe that is complete to the right message for this country. the experts were saying, stay in the white house, stay in the oval office. that's an echo to what they were saying to the country. the president is holding rallies

and the vice president thinking of continuing that right now seems to be taking an opportunity to get everybody on the right page and blowing it up and i don't know in some misguided sense of vanity. why would you tell people right now as you sit in a hospital, it was the right thing to go out and be in crowded spaces? >> yeah. i saw that video. i was a little unclear of what he was talking about. it was a little confusing. ultimately this diagnosis of the president gives him an amazing chance to reset himself on coronavirus. he now can cast himself with his people. he's now got a shared experience. he now fully understands and while you know there will be a segment -- >> so you send pence out to do rallies? >> no, no, of course not. by the way, right now, mike pence needs to be somewhere, where he cannot catch coronavirus or any other thing that would be bad to happen. we have to have the vice president healthy. my view is reset on this.

do the right thing. protect the vice president. that really all that matters. and then if you get that part right, the messaging will take care of itself. the president can now. he has kinship with the american people now. he has a shared experience so this is an amazing reset moment if they want to take it, i think. >> scott. >> jennifer, what's your take? >> here you've got, really, chris, this is your point about the president in this video justifying why he was out there, that a leader has to get out there. no, a leader has to make sure people are safe. it shows that he is incapable of resetting. scott, you'd be right if he were capable of being humble and honest. but how many times have we seen this? people begging him not to tweet. people begging him not to be so divisive. he is incapable of learning and, therefore, of benefiting politically from this if that's what you are getting at. he is not, it's not possible. and this is going to hurt him in

the election even further. i am the first person to say i want him to get well, because i'd like to see joe biden beat him like a drum, but on his feet and not sick. but this is not going to help him. >> all right. so let's make the reciprocal point. what is the right play for the democratic nominee right now for you, jennifer? how do you balance playing this, i told you so, versus people believing that you are being petty and spiteful and, god forbid, the president doesn't blow through this like, you know, just a case of the flu that you look insensitive? >> right. i mean, this is why joe biden is so much more magnanimous than many of the rest of us. he goes to grand rapids. he wishes him well. he is pulled down his negative ads. he is really a steady, compassionate leader. at some point, i hope that he goes back up with his ads and

goes on the attack. it's not right, right now, while the president is sick. but once he gets better in a couple of days, if it looks like he is continuing to progress, i hope he continues to fight but the bottom line is, joe biden has been showing us how to lead with compassion even though he's been taking a huge amount of incoming from donald trump's team for exactly that. >> you know, i'm a huge fan of the reset. i on a lot of different levels. i hope the president takes the opportunity, it didn't sound in that message. it certainly isn't true if pence goes out and makes the same mistakes. it's a good reset for all of us. i loved having you on. i loved the level of the debate that's going on here. it's the right way to talk about these things. you can disagree about anything with decency. jennifer gran interest holm, thank you. scott jennings, as always, i appreciate you being on the

show. >> ilens is accepted. all right. more to come on the mixed messaging from the trump white house. why? matters. this is not business as usual. okay. this is a key time in the middle of a pandemic. what is the right thing for this president to be doing to calm fears that he's okay? but also to tell us what he knead to know about this pandemic. we'll be right back. i wanted more from my copd medicine that's why i've got the power of 1, 2, 3 medicines with trelegy.

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not getting a straight answer is nothing new with this white house. but in the midst of a pandemic when the president has been struck with it. the whole dialogue is why won't the president be obvious and what we all know here. the suspicion is he was playing to his personal advantage. why can't we get the deal now? let's put it into greater context with the professor, ron bro brownstein, gentleman, good to see you both. >> good to see you. >> what do we know from -- thank you very much. usually i wear the uniform, it's saturday night. it's not a normal show.

i don't have the normal uniform on. these are anchors on this tie. it was a father's day gift. say nothing. what do we know about history hough it usually plays well for a president and extremists? what are the glieps that usually lead to a successful coping with a bad situation, wilson, jfk, reagan, et cetera? >> well, i would really take a look at what happened to dwight eisenhower. it was september of 1955. he was in colorado and had a massive, i mean, a massive heart attack and, instead, his personal doctor, howard snyder, told the press it was indigestion and they kept that kind of myth going on for a long time. eisenhower was known as i like ike. eisenhower was the first president to open up medical record. but when a bad event happened, they went into a cover-up mode, sherman adams and upon the foster dulles and the rest.

i think it's an instinct, when the president is sick, the team want to minimize it. in eisenhower's case in '55, he had to run for re-election in 1956. so the team wanted to make sure people don't think he's weak. donald trump with the election days away, i think you can get doctors, but if you are press to say anything, if they're your personal doctor or working in your sphere. so i think mark meadows was the one trying to shed some truth that the president is having a very, very hard time. this is all politics mixed with this and the debate october 15 secretary that day that donald trump has to be looking to emerge as the comeback kid, like a bill clinton type of comeback, kind of show up there and shock people that he's back in the act. >> all right. well, let's chew on this for a second, ron. we know with eisenhower, what was the legacy of that short term worked out? long-term, he wound up getting

the 25th amendment in 1967. many said it was based on wanting better reckonings of a capacity coming out of eisenhower. so what is the plus/minus for trump? for all the skepticism that he doesn't have it? this is terrible for trump to get sick with a virus that he told everybody not to worry about. so how do you see the plus/minus in the election for him? >> that's the point. one line in history as dug in better than i, presidents are often misleading when they face serious health challenges. but there is a more immediate line to this day, which is the president from day one misleading the american public about the severity, saying something very different in private to bob woodward than to the public, from the beginning, accepting one overriding message is his priority was getting the economy back to normal as fast as possible, whatever the implications for public health.

he believed injecting noalc nor is his best chance for re-election. for governors to close down later than they shoushlgsd open earlier and mass requirements in states like texas and far precious on schools, universities, pressure on college sports. and, of course, holding his giant rallies often in defiance, explicit defiance of local public health officials down to the family refusing in the cleveland clinic to wear masks at the debate in every possible way, he sent the american public, every signal, that his priority is keeping things going, whatever public health consequences. and that is not going to change, i think, because he is personally facing the enormity of what this is. >> well, look, the president often watches. right? and he stays up late. so if the president is watching right now, whatever beefs there

have been, i wish you well and i hope you listen to your doctors and i hope you get better. and listening to them will be the best way to do it. doculambs, if he is watching, what would be a way that we've seen in history for him to use the moment where he's been wrong on something. now he's been hoisted on his own guitar, blown up by his own bomb of deception about covid not being a big deal. what could it mean to his legacy, if he were to own it, stop the videos from today, rationalizing bad decision and same, put the mask on. you learned the lesson. that's how we move forward. i'm a leader. what would that mean? >> it would be everything if he can show empathy. if you are struck like fdr was with polio in 1921, he became a very different person after the polio, had a much more human heart. really did feel people's pain, became somebody who emma thiedz

with the down trodden. this is a common occurrence of people that get a particular illness than they try to, you know, heal people and talk about it. but this president is in a cover-up mode right now. i'm afraid that's the worst thing he has been dock. transparency and tell people the truth. >> as you learn with a diagnosis, life has changed. you make the most of where you are in the moment. thank you both, stay healthy. head and hearts in the right place. appreciate it. especially all of you. i appreciate you watching. the news will continue right here on cnn.

to the place that you want to be most. if we've learned nothing else, it's that when challenges arise, there's only one way to rise above. together. masimo. together in hospital, together at home.

. a credibility crisis at the white house as president trump battles covid-19. he says he feels better, while his doctors and advisers can't seem to keep their stories straight. many more in washington now sick as well. we'll walk you through what happened in the rose garden last weekend. was this the super spreader event that started it all? plus, we are less than a month from election day now. you can believe it? inside the changes the campaigns are making in light of the president's positive coronavirus diagnosis. and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the united states and, indeed, all around the world, you are watching cnn