this is "nightline." tonight, breaking news. president trump and the first lady testing positive for covid-19, quarantining in the white house, coming after one of the white house's closest advisers tested positive this week. what we now know. >> "nightline" starts right now with byron poititts. >> we begin with breaking news. the president and first lady have tested positive for the coronavirus. this after one of the president's closest advisers testing positive for the coronavirus. this after hope hicks traveled with him on tuesday. we go to white house correspondent rachel scott. rachel, you've been right there, front and center, covering the

trump presidency. what's the talk tonight? >> there is a level of panic inside the white house, and frankly, right now across the country. the concern now is going to be tracking down who else has been in close contact with the president that will need to be quarantined. that could range from the white house press secretary to secret service detail to other senior advisers. remember he was just on the stage with joe biden at that debate. we know everyone who comes in close contact with the president is tested for covid-19. but the reality here is that has not stopped the virus from entering the white house complex which is one of the most secure buildings in the country. hope hicks is the latest in the president's inner circle to have tested positive. in may, his personal valet, and the vice president's press secretary tested positive. this virus has inched closer and closer, right to the president's

front steps for months, byron. >> rachel, thank you so much. the president downplaying the virus for months. to get a better understanding of covid-19 and what the president may face after his positive diagnosis, we're joined by abc news chief medical correspondent dr. jennifer ashton. he's in a high-risk category for complications from covid-19. how does that change the dynamic here and what will his medical team be looking for? >> first and foremost, the macro view is while he is the president and arguably the most powerful person in the world, to his medical team, he's a patient. so he'll be monitored for changes in his vital signs. as you mentioned, he has multiple factors that do place him at higher risk, his age, a bmi that places him in the obese range, and he's a man, which we know based on published data

face a two-time higher mortality risk or risk of death at every age group compared to women. now again these are just statistics. in medicine, it's really important not to speculate, just to work with the data that we have at the moment. and not to look back, but to stay in the present and follow the patient that way. >> dr. jen, thank you so much. we're joined by abc news chief business correspondent rebecca jarvis. overnight, stock market indicators plummeted after news of the president's positive test. what about theis is reverberatig on wall straight? >> we're in a peak and so much of the economy continues to hang in the balance as a result of the pandemic. and you see reflected in the unemployment rate, 8.4%, the highest since the great

recession, while a number of people are returning to work. there are still extremely elevated layoffs. just last week, 870,000 new unemployment benefits were filed. we have a long way to go with the future of stimulus plans unclear, a pandemic and now this. >> we'll have continuing coverage throughout the night and on "good morning, america." up next, our turning point series, progressive prosecutors trying to fix the justice system from within, someday with us. meday with us. eday with us. day . . . the race is never over. the journey has no port. the adventure never ends, because we are always on the way. ♪

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and now, to our "turning point" series. tonight, progressive prosecutors, seeking justice within the justice system. here's abc's dan harris and how they hope to create lasting change. >> thanks to everybody that came out. the whole concept of this is

because of the rash of and violent crimes throughout the city of st. louis. >> first of all, i just want to say, thank you guys for coming here. it's an honor to be amongst you. and i had the pleasure of working with mr. mohammad. >> i lived in the city all my life. we continue to have the same narrative for police, more incarceration makes our city safe. i've seen the deaf administration and destruction of what violent crime and disinvestment can do to our community. >> it's a war zone, somebody got to save them kids. >> a judge sentencing anyone, asking about these broken systems. then we never do anything about it. so that propelled me into public service. >> it needs to be reformed for real! >> i'm kim gardner, circuit

attorney for the city of st. louis. >> we begin at 4:00 with the stunning political upset. >> wesley bell's defeat. >> marilyn mosby was declared the winner. >> larry crassner obliterated the field. >> kim gardner is the winner. >> part of a new wave to pledge to make the justice system more fair to people of color. ♪ >> people who are closest to the problem are closest to the solution. >> all rise. >> how many years has he served? >> 20. >> it literally is flipping the role of the prosecutor on its head. >> got to take it block by block, street by street. >> what we have seen traditionally are prosecutors run on these very punitive platforms. increasingly as we are learning that the system is not working and we're seeing prosecutors run on ending mass incarceration, on

addressing racial disparities, on being more transparent and accountable. >> at what point did you decide to run for district attorney? >> i was really tired of turning the tv on and seeing an incident involving law enforcement, where overwhelmingly, black male comes in contact with overwhelmingly white male officer. and people were losing their lives. that does not necessarily mean one is right and one is wrong. but there was just too much of a pattern. i just, one day, said i'm going to stop yelling at my television, and i'm going to change the system from inside. this is kind of my premise about we're going to focus a little bit less of our resources on 15 categories of non-violent crimes that overwhelmingly the people that are involved in this have a substance use disorder, mental

health issue, food or housing insecurity or are homeless. what we found was ultimately, we were spending da's office, a lot of time on these societal problems and using jail as the remedy for every single problem, and i just said i didn't want to do that any longer. >> let's try to get everyone inside so we can get started right at 4:00. >> i want to acknowledge out loud that change is really hard. i am fully aware that i can be intense at times and demand excellence. i say this, because the people of suffolk county deserve it. >> would you say it is your job to remake a system that has been historically unjust?

>> i would say the system is working exactly the way it was set up to work. wealth is the biggest thing that benefits you in the system. irrespective of race, gender, national origin, anything. if you can pay, you get a better outcome. let's let everyone have the same experience in the criminal justice system. >> what makes them powerful, what makes what they do so critically important is that they are disrupters. they're coming in, making changes and trying to make it be something different than what it is today and to have a different impact on their communities than it has traditionally had. >> there's another development that is demoralizing to us in law enforcement and dangerous to the public safety. that is the emergence in some of our large cities of district attorneys that style themselves social justice reformers.

these cities are headed back to the days of the revolving door justice. and the results are going to be predictable. more crime and more victims. >> if there's going to be change in the way we do policing, the way we do prosecution, what's legal and what's not, then there is a body that does that. it is state legislatures. it is congress. it is city councils and maybe that's the office they should have run for, but when they ran for that office, what they agreed to do was to enforce the laws of the united states of america, the state they live in and the city in which they live. what seems to be lost in this whole thing is, in each of these instances, who's taking care of the victims? who's speaking up for the victims? >> this is not uncontroversial in the national police association filed a grievance against you, calling you soft on crime. how do you respond to people who

don't agree with what you're doing? >> change is never easy. but for the people that are not happy with what we're doing, they are deeply invested in the system working exactly the way that it does. >> we are tough on crime, but we're smart on crime. when you have the ability to take someone's life and liberty, you know, you have to be credible and trustworthy. we make sure that individuals that are under any type of investigation will not bring any type of charges to our office for review. we have to look at how we as law enforcement, i'm including in that, can build trust, heal the divide with the community. i believe it's my duty to

protect the people, to make sure reform is implemented in the city of st. louis fairly and justly for everyone. >> make no mistake. this is the last act of a desperate woman. who is simply trying to silence her critics. [cheers and applause] >> embrace the discomfort. after all, change never happens when we're comfortable. and we should never accept a system that prefers finality over justice. every prosecutor here has had similar experiences to kim. >> we stand with kim! >> we stand with kim! >> i call them sisters in this period of progressive reform, african-american female prosecutors. we have unprecedented attacks that we all face.

people will go out their way to demonize us. people will go out their way to actually want to cause us physical harm. >> prosecutors, particularly the elected prosecutors seen as the lead law enforcement officer. so, for that power to not be in the hands of white men, where it has traditionally been, a lot of this has to do with the fact that this power has now shifted to someone who does not look like, you know, the traditional power holders, who bring a different viewpoint and a different understanding and then aren't just bringing that but are willing to act on it. >> what is the case? >> so you know this is about the 1999 shooting of charles taylor. two people have been convicted. keyon sprinkle and clarence williams. the allegation was that williams was having an affair with the victim's wife and hooked in

sprinkle to participant in the murder. one of the witnesses who saw, who testified that he saw sprinkle with a gun said, ultimately, that he was coerced into testifying. >> how many years has he served? >>20. >> there's no profession where you get it right every single time. it just doesn't happen. that's why pilots have checklists. prosecutors absolutely must be willing to look back at cases and say, did we actually get this right? >> all rise. >> there was a motion for new trial. i allowed that motion.

i set today's date so the commonwealth would have a chance to review it. >> thank you, your honor. the commonwealth has reviewed that, and the commonwealth does not intend to appeal. >> it has been a long time coming, because this conviction occurred almost 20 years ago, but i will say, it wasn't because of a lack of effort. nobody can give you back those lost years. but i do hope you'll make the most of the years before you. [cheers and applause] >> if we're going to call it a movement, what would you say the movement is about? >> the movement is about giving a voice. it's not that our communities are uninterested. they've been yelling, and nobody's listening. >> when you invest in people, that's how you heal communities.

when you invest in more programs to address the helplessness that we see, that's the long-term violent crime solution. that's doing the hard work. >> our thanks to dan. we'll be right back with an update on the late-breaking news involving our president. works on that too, and lasts 12 hours. 12 hours?! who studies that long? mucinex dm relieves wet and dry coughs. joe biden will not raise taxes on anyone making under 400 thousand dollars. biden will close tax loopholes for big corporations. trump's tax cut giveaway exploded our debt, so he's threatening social security and medicare. biden will make the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share. so we can protect social security and medicare and invest in schools

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and finally tonight, if you're just joining us, breaking news. president trump and first lady melania trump have tested positive for covid-19. the president's doctors say they are doing well and will isolate in the white house as they battle the virus. stay with abc news for live, continuing coverage. that's "nightline" for this evening, thanks for the company, america. goodnight.