your wife's hair in her sleep. thanks for watching. good night. good evening, and welcome to this special edition of night line from phoenix, arizona. tonight, one on one with president trump, his first major trip out not country in nearly two months. the coronavirus death toll now topping 70,000 here in the u.s. the president trying to send a message that parts of this country are ready to reopen. but we asked the president, is there a risk? could lives be lost if we open the country too quickly? his very candid answer right here tonight. also, the president on testing. will a vaccine be ready by the end of the year? and right here on "nightline," we asked the president, is he comfortable if the election six months from this week becomes a referendum on his handling of

the pandemic. the night line interview begins right now. >> i know this is your first trip back out into the country in quite some time. and you've said that the decision to open the economy is the biggest decision i've ever had to make. how do you, and i suppose this is the central question. how do you save livelihoods without risking more lives? ? well, i think actually, the decision to close the country was the biggest decision i've ever had to make. and i said that very loud and clear. we had the greatest economy in history, in the history of the world. best employment numbers, best numbers in every single way. and they said, sir, we have to close the country. i said what are you talking about "close the country", because nobody's ever heard of such a thing. and we saved millions of lives by doing it and by putting the ban on china very early. it was a big thing. but the biggest decision i've ever had to make is closing the country, and certainly, this is also now a big decision, but the

people want to go back to work. >> i want to ask you about what dr. fauci said last night about the reopening of the country. he said's the balance of something that's a very difficult choice. how many deaths, and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back where you want to be. do you see it that way? do you believe that's the reality we're facing? that lives will be lost to reopen the cun >> i? it's possible there will be some, because you won't be locked into an apartment or house or whatever it is. but at the same time, we're going to practice social distancing. we're going to be washing hands. we're going to be doing a lot of other things we've learned to do over the last period of time. and we have to get our country back. you know, people are dying the other way, too. when you look at what's happened with drugs, it goes up. when you look at suicides, i mean, take a look at what's going on. people are losing their jobs. we have to bring it back, and that's what we're doing. >> let me ask you about testing. >> yeah. >> early on there were hurdles.

dr. fauci at the time acknowledged it was a failing. but for americans who do want to go back to work, should they have access to a test now? should they know if they've been exposed to the virus or somebody's asymptomatic and they don't know, or do they have to go back to work having faith in you, mr. president and the workplace that they'll be safe. >> some people are strong believers in testing. >> for any worker who's nervous about going back, if they want to get tested to see if they've been exposed to the virus -- >> they should have no problem. we are getting even better. don't forget, the cupboard was bare, the last administration left us nothing. we didn't have ventilators. we didn't have medical equipment. we didn't have testing. the tests were broken. you saw that. we had broken tests. they left us nothing. and we've taken it, and we have built an incredible stockpile. a stockpile like we've never had

before. >> many people have heard you say that along the way and have wondered, though, you're three years into your first term. you're now applying for the job again. what did you do when you became president to restock those cupboards that you said were bare. >> well, to be honest, i have a lot of things going on. we had a lot of people that refused to allow the cun country be successful. they wasted a lot of time on russia, russia, russia, and then ukraine, ukraine, that was a hoax. then they impeached the president of the united states over nothing. >> let me ask you something governor cuomo said today. this is really the debate for a lot of americans who want to go back to work and are afraid for their own health. the question comes down to how much a human life is worth, that you monitor the transition rate, the death rate. if it goes up, you stop, you

turn off the valve, you slow things down. do you agree with him that's the way a lot of these governors who are reopening should proceed? >> i don't know, i'd have to see his full statement. we've gotten along very well. last week governor cuomo said the president and the federal government have done a phenomenal job. he said that. >> he's saying now you have to be ready to turn the valve off for a time if you see a spike. >> david, i can only tell you what he said last week. our country has to go back to being our country again. you have people that are not going to stand for this. and i understand them very well. and we are going to put out little embers and little fires and maybe some big fires. but we still have to go back to work. >> you talk about the embers. and the possible big fires. there were two new studies out in the last 24 hours. i know that the white house has shot down a couple of them saying they weren't vetted through your task force. one was from johns hopkins that said the death rate could double if we're not careful with this

reopening of america by june. the daily death rate. the university of washington saying we could have 135,000 americans dead by august. what do you make of those numbers, mr. president? >> a couple of things. first of all, these models have been so wrong from day one. both on the low side and the upside. they've been so long, they've been so out of whack. and they keep making new models, new models, and they're wrong. those models you're talking about are without mitigation. we're mitigating and we've learned to mitigate. but we can work in place and also mitt gate. but now we have to get back to work. we have to do it. >> you've responded to those res forecasts, your own numbers have shifted. >> they have. >> you said 60,000 could die. 75, 80 to 100,000 people could die. which models are you looking at? and what should americans be prepared for as we reopen the

country and head into the fall where we would see a poten second wave. >> first number was 2.2 million and then charts higher than that. i always felt 60, 65, 70, as horrible as that is, you're talking about filling up yankee stadium with death, it's probably going to be somewhat higher than that. there'll be more death, but the virus will pass, with or without a vaccine, and i think we're doing very well with vaccines, but with or without a vaccine, it's going to pass, and we're going to be back to normal, but it's been a rough process, no question about it. >> are you still convinced we'll have a vaccine by year's end and 300 million doses? >> you can never be convinced, when you say am i convinced, i can say this, we're doing really great. oxford, johnson & johnson. they're doing really great.

am i convinced? i can't be convinced of anything. but i think we have a really good shot of having something very, very substantial. >> let me ask you about the tremendous hurt in this country. there are 30 million americans who are unemployed. you don't need me to tell you that. we're expecting the new unemployment rate this week. there have been forecasts, 15, 1, 17%. one of your advisers projected 19%. that's nearly one in five americans without a job. how bad is this going to get? >> well, that is what it is. and, you know, it's very interesting. even the democrats aren't blaming me for that. we had to close it up, and we saved millions of lives, and we did the right thing. now we're getting back to work. the third quarter, i think, is going to be -- i call it a transition quarter. you see it. i tell you what. i got on the plane today. there was such spirit. people are starting to feel, we land in arizona.

i leave from d.c. i get calls from everybody around the country. i gist spoke to the governor of florida. florida is really active. >> i think a lot of people share that hope, mr. president, but the reality for so many of the families we've reported on is they can't wait for the next quarter, they're just trying to get through next week or the next dinner they put on the table. >> we've done a lot for that. we've done our small business, ppp, paycheck if you want to call it that. small businesses are given billions of dollars so they can take care of their employees. we've done a lot of other, look, we've done $2 trillion. and it's actually close to three if you really add it up. but $2 trillion has been approved, and weel aprobably do more. it's a stimulus. it's to keep people employed, to keep small businesses open. >> let me ask you, because people will look back, and we have an election six months from now. they're going to look back to the beginning of this and wonder what you knew and when you knew it. and i have no interest in going

back over everything you said, but there was one thing you said that perhaps you could clarify. you said this, this was at the end of february. a full month had gone by. you'd stopped travel from china. and you said from the cases in the u.s., when you have 15, and when the 15 in a couple of days is going to go down to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done. help me understand that moment. did you really think we were going to have 15 cases in the u.s.? >> you would say worse than that. i said one person one time. and it's true. there was a time when we had one person in this country. we knew about it. we worked on it, but we had one person. it mushroomed to 15 people, mushroomed. other people were coming in also from europe. don't forget -- >> but we're at more than million cases now. >> in january. okay, let's talk about cases. you know why we're at a million cases? because we have more testing than anybody else. if we tested as much these countries down here who don't do

much testing at all. look at japan, very little testing. they are at the bottom of the rung. president of south korea is a friend of mine. president moon, he called up. he said what are you doing with testing is amazing. if i tested this number of people instead of this number of people i'd have far fewer. see this line? over 7 million tests. if i tested down here at 1 million tests, i would have a lot fewer cases, too. >> i understand the argument you're making. >> look at your question. >> you understand there's a huge disparity between 15 and more than million cases. was it an intelligence failure? where was the break down that we didn't know the scope of this? >> look, let me tell you this. i closed the border. if you want to use that term. i banned people from coming into china. there were approximately 40,000 americans. if you were in my position, would you let them come in. you could ask ron desantis,

great governor of florida. those people went through quarantine, they went through tests. they went through afreverything. they were american citizens, but they had to come back in. i let them back in and i said against many people, including anthony fauci, who i like very much, including debra, who i like very much, the doctors and many other people. it's going to blow over. and they said this at the end of february. now at the same time, i want to be optimistic. i don't want to be mr. gloom and doom. it's a very bad subject. i'm not looking to tell the american people when nobody really knows what's happening yet, oh, this is going to be so tragic. i want to be, aside from everything else, and i'm going to use a term, and some people love it, and some people hate it, but i love it. i want to be a cheerleader for our country. >> when we come back. is the president comfortable if the election six months from now becomes a referendum on his

handling of the pandemic. what he told me. and his message tonight when we asked what he would say to the families who've lost loved ones, now more than 70,000 lives lost in our country.

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"nightline," president trump, the interview, continues. here again, david muir. >> i would be remiss if i didn't ask you one more question about the nearly 70,000 americans whose lives have been lost. grand parents, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. >> right. >> we've lost more people now than we lost in the vietnam war. what do you want to say to those families tonight? >> i want to say i love you. i want to say that we're doing everything we can. i also want to say that we're trying to protect people over 60 years old. we're trying so hard. and i want to say to the people who have lost family and the people who have just suffered so badly and just made it and just made it, that we love you. we're with you. we're working with you. we're supplying vast amounts of money like never before. we want that money to get to the people, and we want them to get better. and we want them, you can never really come close to replacing,

when you've lost, no matter how well we do next year, i think our economy's going to be raging it's going to be so good. no matter how well, those people can never, ever replace somebody they love, but we're going to have something they're going to be very proud of. and to the people who have lost someone, there is nobody -- i don't sleep at night thinking about it, there's nobody taking harder than me. but at the same time, i have to get this enemy defeated and that's what we're doing. >> and if november becomes a referendum on your handling of the pandemic, are you comfortable with that? >> i am and i'm not. it's a very interesting thought. i built the greatest economy, and then it was turned off for good reason. we saved millions of lives by doing it. i think people are going to remember that. i think they're going to remember that i rebuilt the military. i think they're going to remember that i gave them the biggest tax cuts in history, the greatest regulation cuts, the

greatest job numbers, i rebuilt the military to a level it's never been built. for the veterans, i got choice. they've been trying to get choice for 50 years, meaning a veteran is sick and can't get to a doctor, you go outside and we pay the bill. nobody's ever done these things, and i've saved their second amendment. you wouldn't have a second amendment if it wasn't for me. i've always heard judges are the most important thing a president can do. 252 judges. every judge is so important. 252 judges. two supreme court justices. nobody's ever done things like this. so i hope it's not solely on what i've done here, because this is a very, this is like rubber. it's very, very amorphous. but, you know what? i think in a certain way, and i hope i can say this to you in a couple of months, i think in a certain way, maybe our best work has been on what we've done with

covid-19. but, but we haven't gotten, we haven't been treated properly. not me. the army corps of engineers. fema, the medical people, the police, the nurses, everybody, even the doctors, they haven't been treated properly. the job they've done is a miracle. we're low in morbidity, number one on testing. number one again on ventilators and everything, not number one, we're number one, there's no number two through ten. we're way ahead of every other country in the world. and very important. so important. i think we're doing very well on vaccines, and we're doing very well therapeutically. i think we're going to have some great answers and hopefully by the next time we meet we'll have some of those answers. >> "nightline" will be right back. i came across sofi and it was the best decision of my life. i feel cared about as a member.

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and before we leave you tonight, a note about our interview with the president in this time. we traveled as a very small

groupwari group, wearing masks. and when we arrived they used those digital thermometers before we were able to sit down with the president. and you're likely to notice we sat at least 11 feet apart. there were no hand shakes with the president this time. from all of us at "nightline" and abc news, good night. ♪ ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, ba, jimmy kimmel live ♪ this is ridiculous. from his house! >> jimmy: hola, i'm jimmy kimmel. happy most boring cinco de mayo ever.

i don't know about you, but it don't feel like a cinco de mayo to me unless i'm in a tecate tank top getting thrown out of a senor frog's. happy cinco de mayo guillermo. >> guillermo: happy cinco de mayo to everybody! >> jimmy: what do you have planned today? >> guillermo: oh, i'm going to drink tequila and eat tacos, like almost every night. >> jimmy: it's cinco de mayo and taco tuesday. which is like a pinata inside another pinata. be careful, guillermo, we don't want to lose you. el presidente weighed in on cinco today. remember a few years ago, he posted this stupid picture with the message, "happy #cincodemayo! the best taco bowls are made in trump tower grill. i love hispanics!" well, i guess that wasn't embarrassing enough the first time, because today, he posted it again. "remember this? happy cinco de mayo." of course, we remember. how could we forget? that was just before our country started cinco-ing into the