captioning sponsored by cbs >> i'm john dickerson. this week on "face the nation," coronavirus deaths and infections continue to rise in the u.s. as july marks the worst month for new cases since the beginning of the pandemic. >> president trump: social distance, wear a mask when you cannot avoid the crowded places. >> president trump returned to form this week with a series of mixed messages, at times communicating the seriousness of the virus; at others, downplaying it. with a hurricane bearing down on florida, and a streak of rising covid-19 deaths in the state -- >> thank you very much, everybody. >> he held an event in tampa that didn't follow

his own guidelines. there was no sobr dance social distancing and few masks. he suggested that the election be delayed and attacked mail-in voting as numbers show him trailing joe biden. meanwhile, talks between the white house and congress on extending the aid broke down, while the economy posted its worst gross numbers ever reported. >> this is not a usual discussion because the urgency is so great. >> this morning, there is still no deal. we'll get the president's perspective from his chief-of-staff, mark meadows. also, house democratic whip james clyburn weighs in. we'll ask neil cashkari, can the economy recover while the pandemic rages. and we'll get the latest on the virus from former

f.d.a. commissioner scott gottlieb. plus, as the country says good-bye to john lewis, a renewed call to protect the right to vote. and our latest battleground tracker from two states that president trump won in 2016, where the covid crisis is impacting his election. it is all ahead on "face the nation." ♪ >> john: good morning, and welcome to "face the nation." margaret is off this week. six months into the pandemic, the coronavirus is only getting worse. in july alone, nearly two million cases were reported in the u.s., which is over a million more than the previous record set during the month of april. and as we head into august, deaths are increasing in 16 states. complicating the response is a tropical storm that is off the coast of florida this morning.

our coverage begins with cbs news national correspondent mark strassman in atlanta. >> reporter: the virus and the storm sounds like cheap fiction, but georgia, the carolinas, and up to the virginia, arriving storm. isaias forced many florida testing sites to close. north carolina evacuees were warned to avoid shelters, too risky. >> we can keep people safe from the storm while at the same time trying to avoid making the pandemic worse. >> reporter: covid keeps mocking its deniers and menacing america. brace yourself for another rough week. in cities like houston, covid is out of control. >> in the last three days, the last three days, more people have been reported testing positive than in the entire month of may

combined. >> reporter: cases are on the rise in 28 states and washington, d.c. california became the first state to top a half million cases. nationally, the virus has killed more than 1,000 people for six straight days. by august 22nd, the c.d.c. predicts the weekly death toll could reach 11,000. jefferson city, georgia, went back to school on friday. masks are recommended, not mandatory. >> you guys, remember what all of the rules are, right? and they said, wear a mask, wash our hands all of the time. >> reporter: school has already begun in five states, with mostly virtual classrooms. but many parents demand to have the choice, despite this virus still in search of a vaccine. >> there is no way under the sun i would allow even my child to go to a school if these numbers are the same or greater by the end of august. >> reporter: colleges

hemorrhaging money face the same dilemma. at u.s.c., fall semester doesn't start for three weeks, but at least 40 people have tested positive on fraternity row. >> it just took one person and the next thing you know, everyone had it. >> reporter: america is starving for distraction. baseball is back, but for how long? here in atlanta, the braves play the mets this afternoon, but covid outbreaks have postponed three other sunday games. so far more than 100 players have tested positive. barely a week after baseball's shrunken baseball began, the commissioner is already threatening to shut diet it dow. >> john: the highest case totals of covid outside the u.s. are in brazil, indicesiabrazil, india,.

elizabeth palmer reports from london. >> reporter: good morning. it is now six months since the world health organization declared coronavirus a global emergency. back then, very few people had any idea just how verilent i it was going to be. in southern australia, authorities declared a state of disaster a big spike in cases. for the people of melbourne, it is back to strict lockdown and an 8 8:00 p.m. curv curfew. >> we need to squeeze that brake pedal to keep the virus under control. >> reporter: so millions in northern europe are facing fresh restrictions. across europe with an uptake infections, mask-wearinging is strictly enforced, even at the beach. they are so worried they started free covid testing

at airports. while in berlin, a huge right-wing crowd, set up with all of the restrictions, marched in protest. but europe's infection rate, about 8,000 new cases a day, is dwarfed by the disaster unfolding in india. 50,000 new cases a day, especially in poor and overcrowded slums, which puts india on course to overtake the united states as having the worst outbreak on earth. south africa is facing a crisis, too, with three times as many covid deaths as it had a month ago. and in a radical concession to covid, saudi arabia has cut the number of pilgrims journeying to mecca in this year's hodge to a social distancing 10,000. it follows broad loosening of the restrictions, and public health officials think that people just

stopped being careful enough. john? >> john: liz palmer in lon. we want to go now to mr. meadows, who is in washington. i want to start with the state of discussions on that aid package. yesterday senator schumer said it was the best discussions we've had so far. would you put it that way? >> i would characterize it that way, but we still have a long ways to go. i can tell you that we spent the last three days -- actually the last four days, trying to get to some kind of consensus, at least to start negotiating. yesterday was a step in the right direction. our staffs are actually working today and we'll be meeting again tomorrow. i'm not optimistic there will be a solution in the very near term, and that's why i think the effort that senator martha mcsally led on the senate floor to extend the

enhanced unemployment was the right move, and yet senator schumer and his democratic colleagues blocked that. >> john: well, there has always been some heartburn among republicans who see an extension of a larger number being a strain on the deficit. so my question to you is -- >> but, john, i would recommend when that came to the senate floor, there was not a single republican that voted against that. it was only the democrats that voted against that. i think it is important for your viewers to understand that if you have unemployed people that have lost their enhanced unemployment, they need to call their democrat senators and house members because they are the ones standing in the way of having those extended right now. >> john: but there was also considerable debate from republicans on the size of that benefit, which made some think that the republicans couldn't even get a majority of their own.

what is the sticking point? >> i think the republicans are ready and i know the president is ready to do exactly what you're talking about. if we want to extend some of the enhanced unemployment benefits while we negotiate a broader package, i know that secretary mnuchin and myself have communicated that to our democratic colleagues. i know the president has been very clear in making sure that not only we're willing to address that, but there is enough money t make sure that we address the needs that are out there, and yet we continue to see really a stonewalling of any peac piece-meal type of legislation that happens on capitol hill. hopefully that will change in the coming days. >> john: we have congress clyburn in the leadership of the democrats in the house on later in the show. what would you ask him if you were to ask him a question? >> i would ask him -- i think the proper question

is: are you willing to encourage speaker pelosi to look at doing a stand-alone bill for enhanced unemployment, and bringing that to the floor and encouraging her senate colleagues to do the same. i can tell you, it is the only thing that we've run out of money. we actually have $1.4 trillion, with a "t", of money left still to invest. we have over $100 billion left for state and local. we have over $100 billion for small businesses to tap into still today. and we have over $9 billion still available for testing. the one area where we don't have the money is for enhanced unemployment benefits. so i would ask him that question: will he encourage the speaker to address that? >> john: we're seven months into this pandemic, and the numbers reached 150,000 deaths. when we look at what the president says this week, he seems to be going in the opposite direction of his health experts. he is criticizing and

contradicting dr. fauci on twitter. he is talking about hydroxychloroquine, and none of his health officials are talking about that issue, and yet they're trying to get a message out into the country. who has a better mega phone than the president. why is his message so different than the public health officials? shouldn't they be in line? >> i don't think they're different from the public health officials. i'll address the thing with dr. fauci in a moment. the president has been very serious. he has gone back to daily briefings to try to keep the american people informed. in fact it was his words, not mine, that suggested there are some critical days ahead. some very concerning days ahead as we continue to test more and more. but when you mention dr. fauci, i think his pushback on that was where dr. fauci talked about 50% shutdown versus 95. there is no data that

would suggest that is correct. in fact, i would say there is data in just the opposite of that. when we shut down, we shut down more than 50% of the chment to trcountry to try to cn that. here is what we do know: we continue to test more than any country in the world,. >> john: but here is the point -- >> more than the eight countries below us in trying to do that. >> john: but, mr. meadows, here is the point: testing is important and has to take place. the president in debate with dr. fauci doesn't help whi wha with what the other experts are saying. on the other channels, you have health officials saying wear masks -- pike i'>> i'm here with you this morning to talk about the facts. and the facts are this: as we continue to test, we continue to look at areas we need to be concerned about: nursing homes, long-term care.

we need to make sure we focus there. we're finding more and more asymptomatic people, but the real result is we're not going to test our way out of this. we've got to get a therapeutic. we have to make sure we have a treatment and we're making great progress. >> john: but there is no better mega phone in the country than the president. but the things he seems to be kilometers pe concerned aboue health officials. to have the commander in chief on a different channel than his generals, if this is a war, seems to be a bad idea. >> john, i don't agree with your characterization there. i can tell you that daily, in fact, many times -- mutiple times a day he is checking in with not only the doctors but myself and others, what are we doing with therapeutics? we have to give hope to the american people. hopefully we will be able to not only have a vaccine but have therapeutics for those who get this, where it is not a death sentence. and we're making great progress. we have already seen that

with plasma, and hopefully some good announcement in the coming days there. >> john: we'll move on to the next question. did the president e ask you or anybody in the administration to look into the delaying of the election day? >> all of this comes down to one thing: universal mail-in ballots. that is not a good idea for the country. we don't have to look any further than new york to see what a debacle what mail-in ballots would be. when we have weeks and weeks delay of who the winner is. can you imagine if that is with the president of the united states. he has not looked at delaying any election. what we will do is if we try to transform this and start mailing in ballots all across the country, what we will see is a delay because they're not equipped to handle it. >> john: is it responsible for the president to wing out an idea about delaying the election without looking into it? >> well, it was a question

mark. and if we look at that, it is responsible for him to say that if we try to go to 100% universal mail-in ballots, will we have an election result on november 3rd? no. i would suggest we wouldn't even have eight on january 3rd. so we've got to make sure we do this in a proper way where we promote absentee ballots, we make sure that a ballot goes from an individual to the ballot box without someone else have the ability to conduct a fraudulent effort. >> john: we're out of time, but this is no small thing. steve cal cali brisi said this is grounds for impeachment. that is no small thing for the president to suggest that. unfortunately, we're out of time. >> we're going to hold an election on november 3rd, and the president is going to win. >> john: thanks so much for being with us,

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>> john: we turn now to house majority whip james clyburn, who joins us from soutsouth carolina. good morning, congressman. >> good morning, how are you? >> john: i'll bring up i discussed with mr. meadows this morning, i asked him what question he would ask you about getting this aid package put forward. he said, why won't the democrats in congress agree to a short-term mesure that brings back this unemployment issue and deals with those other issues later. what's your answer? >> ask him, is short-term one week or is it six months or even 90 days. [inaudible] >> let's lay out some security in their lives, some stability in their lives, and if we were to talk about extending the u.i., or the $600 supplement to u.i.for the

next six months while we negotiate all these other issues, then that would be one thing. this one week, two weeks that that is jerking people around and is not the way we ought to be conducting ourselves as custodians of this great democracy of ours. >> john: wouldn't it be good to get those people getting gut punch after gut punch, and who now don't have the health care they expect, while it may not be perfect, give them a little something now while congress works out the rest? >> well, i sense they're not doing any earnest negotiations yet. [inaudible] >> did they take the business lunches off the table? i don't know if they've done that. have they put state and local support on the table? i don't know. so it is a little bit difficult tor m for me to say

what is or is not what i would call earnest discussions because i don't know where those things are. >> john: the allegation is that the democrats see themselves, they have the high hand here, the president's numbers are bad, and they're using the pain that people are feeling as leverage in the negotiations with the republicans. >> no. i think what democrats are doing is trying to keep ordinary people in focus, people who we depended upon as so far essential workers. why would you put them in this plan? that tells you a little bit what they're thinking about, and not doing anything to try to protect state and local governments. i'm here in sout south carolina, and this mayor and this council cannot exist if it is depending on just support from the

federal government. what would that do to the local banks around here? those banks are not going to have deposits if the city or the town essentially does not a facility in its government. [inaudible] >> john: let me ask you: it was your hearing where the president contradicted dr. fauci on the question of tests. and the president made you the subject of one of his tweets in which he said that some figures that you put forward about the number of testing in america did not take into account the fact that america has more cases because it does more testing. what's your response to the president? >> well, i'll take the lid off the factsch the facts. the president has his opinions, and he is entitled to his opinions. but i put the facts out to show what happened between the european countries and

what happened here. and i believe very strongly that we do not have the kind of national leadership that we need tr this whitfrom this white house. there needs to be one coordinated, concerted effort to bring our attention to this problem nationally. this piece-meal approach that we have, dr. birx saying one thing, dr. fauci, who i believe in very much, dr. redfield -- iy believe he is an earnest guy. they were all very good. i don't find myself in disagreement with any one of them. but they are talking about facts, and this president has put forth his political agenda and will not have the information that they've got. they refused to come forward with it because they were told by

(indescernable). where it now? georgia, mississippi, alabama, all red states. >> john: the white house strongly denies that allegation about allowing it only to happen in blue states. let me ask you a question about your district. you used to teach public schools. if you were still a school teacher, would you go back into the classroom to teach students? >> absolutely not. not until we have a national plan that every school district here in south carolina is coordinated. we can't have children going to school when we have not laid out a plan for there to be social distancing, for everybody to be required to wear a mask. and you have to have a mask on the bus, but in the classroom it is

optional. c'mon, that is not the way to run this stuff. you need the superintendents informing those in washington. >> john: in the last 30 seconds we have, i know in charleston, the school district, they found that kids are hard to track when they're not going to school. they're not getting the services they need when they're not going to school. so that's very important, too, right? >> that's why i want a universal access to broadband. everything that is good about this country -- and the internet is one of those great things, it ought to be serviced by everybody. that's why rural communities -- that's not good. >> john: all right. okay. >> you need 100% of broadband. >> john: congressman clyburn, we're out of time. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> john: and we'll be right back with a lot more

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