captioning sponsored by cbs >> brennan: i'm margaret brennan in washington. this week on "face the nation." , yet another bombshell for america to deal with as the government and campaign 2020 are thrown into turmoil, after the president contracts covid-19. for a president who thrives on creating chaos, his diagnosis has inadvertently shifted the course of the last month of campaign 2020 and created a crisis in government. what's making matters worse? the administration's dramatically conflicting reports on the president's condition. 24 hours after being admitto d hospital, mr. trump took to social media to contradict his own chief-of-staff. >> president trump: i came here, wasn't feeling so well. i feel much better now. >> brennan: but the

mystery of where, when, and from whom he contracted the virus is growing, as is a number of those in mr. trump's inner circle who have tested positive. the race to contact trace is now potentially a matter of life or death as attendees attended this rose garden public event. it's a sobering development for a white house that has downplayed the severity of the virus. >> this is not a matter of politics. it is a brazen replientd to alreminder toall of us we hae this virus seriously. >> brennan: we'll talk with robert o'brien and nancy pelosi. and scott gottlieb will be with us, as well as adam schechter of labcorp. plus a "face the nation"

focus group 2020-style. can i see a show of hands from those of you who believe that the news of the president's illness will affect the presidential campaign? >> so when i heard that he had coronavirus, i guess i wasn't surprised. >> i'm a firm believer in karma. the president has never taken this seriously. >> brennan: it is all just ahead on "face the nation." ♪ >> brennan: good morning. and welcome to "face the nation." as we come on the air, the as pdent tmpemwalterteds edical cener. and there are new questions this morning about how the administration is handling his case. we begin today with white house correspondent weijia jiang. >> reporter: from his suite at walter reed

medical center, president trump took to twitter last night to say he's feeling better, but acknowledged his condition could take a turn. >> president trump: you don't know over the next period of a few days -- i guess that's the real test. >> reporter: the president's address capped off a day of mixed messaging from the white house. president trump's doctors painted an optimistic picture of his health. >> this morning the president is doing very well. >> reporter: cbs news has learned that the president did receive oxygen at the white house friday before leaving for walter reed. and just 10 minutes after the medical briefing wrapped up on saturday, a person familiar with the president's health, identified by "the associated press" as chief-of-staff mark meadows, told reporters his vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning. we're still not on a clear path to conavirus in an early-morning tweet on friday. they are at the top of a growing list of people who

have tested positive after attending last saturday's rose garden event where president trump nominated his new supreme court justice, judge amy coney barrett. president trump's former advisor, kellyanne conway and chris christy said they have the virus. yesterday the former new new jersey governor tweeted he checked himself into the hospital due to his history of asthma. utah senator mike lee and north carolina senator tom tillis also tested positive after attending the event. and now ron johnson has contracted the virus. g.o.p. senate leaders are moving forward with barrett's nomination as scheduled. they hold a slim three-seat majority, and a final vote only counts if it is cast in person. so if the virus continues to spread, it could cripple barrett's chances. >> president trump's doctors say he is doing

better, but he is not out of the woods yet. he spent his second night at walter reed last night, and we are awaiting an update from his medical team his morning. marrying? >> brennan: weijia jiang, thank you. we go to the white house and national security advisor robert o'brien. good morning to you. >> good morning to you, margaret. a beautiful day in washington. >> brennan: an eventful day. this is the most serious health crisis that a president has faced since roronald reagan was shot back in 1981. we're 30 days out from an election. every intelligence servi the world wants to know how the commander in chief is doing. what is hit his status, and when did you last speak with him? >> the good news is the president feels very well. he actually wants to get back home to the white house and get back to work. but i think he is going to stay at walter reed for at look, i went through this virus myself, as you know, margaret, over the summer.

even if you have no symptoms, and i had very, very minor symptoms, day seven and eight are the critical days. so i think the doctors want to make sure that they are there for the president and he is getting the best treatment. but he is doing well. i spoke with him, to answer your question, on friday, i was in geneva, holding some talks with the russian team, and i was able to call the president after he was tested positive to get his feedback for the afternoon season, and he was in good spirits and firmly in control. >> brennan: to thatpo you jsaid the woy be aheouofus. have you and the team discussed a scenario in which at some poihe president might have to transfer power if he can no longer discharge the powers and duties of his office? >> no, that's not something on the table at this point. the president -- >> brennan: but it may be, as you just said. >> he is doing very well,

just like it could happen to anybody. we're prepared. we have a great vice president. we have a government that is steady, and steady as a pillar, and we'll be briefing the president this afternoon, secretary pompeo and myself will be briefing him. we'll do it by secure video conference or secure phone. the government is doing well. the president is doing well. and i'm not going to address hypotheticals. but we do have plans for everything. >> brennan: you do know that presidents reagan and bush at one point temporarily signed over power while undergoing medical treatment -- >> yes. i think those were -- i know they were colonoscopies so they were under an thei an their anesthes. >> brennan: do you know how the president became

infected and how widely the virus has spread? >> there is contact tracing going on. >> brennan: who is doing it? >> well, the white house medical unit and others in the white house are working very hard on contact tracing and doing all of the things you do in these circumstances. and just like -- this has been going on for some time with this virus. it is a very nasty, resilient virus. i want to take a moment because i know the president watches your show, and others do, and to extend best wishes to him and the first lady and to the senators and high colleagues who have this. having went through this ve got millionsgoing to of people around thehtis covid infection, in the nfl, in the most controlled environments. my message out to the president and the first lady and all those who are infected, (a) speedy recovery and (b) you'll get through it.

fight it and hang in there. >> brennan: i think the entire country joins you in that sentiment in hoping that the president does well and our whole government does. are you saying at this point that contact tracing is still under way and you don't yet know how much it has spread among the top ranks? >> i think what is happening people are getting tested on a regular basis. i've seen a number of my colleagues here this morning who tested negative for three or four straight days in a row. if people test positive, they'll be quarantined and we'll follow the procedures that the c.d.c. has. but i can tell you there are many men and women on the watch tower at the pentagon, at the state department, here at the white house, making sure that the country is safe and we're in very good shape. we've got a great team in place, and the president is firmly in control. >> brennan: given continuity of government concerns, should the vice president return to the campaign trail and to the debate stage, as he is scheduled to this week? >> well, listen, one of the things i also want to

mention, issued the fact that vice president came out and said he and his wife, jill biden, are praying for the president. this is the time to come together. we're thrilled. and we're all happy that the vice president and his family and senator harris and her family tested negative. vice-president pence has tested negative, along with this family. i think there will be strict the protocols in place to protect all of the candidates. i think it will be a very safe environment for them to have a conversation that the american people want to hear. it is an important conversation. we've got to deal with this virus. it is here. it came from china. but we've got to continue to have the conversations so the american people can make a big decision at the end of this month. >> brennan: i want to ask you, though, how the

>> o'donnell: this is a cbs news special report. i'm major garrett in washington, good morning. we are awaiting the suggested briefing on president trump's help. last night the president released a video seeking t >> since we spoke last, the president has continued to improve. as with any illness, there are frequent ups and downs over the course, particularly when a patient is being so closely watched 24 hours a day. we review and debate every finding, weighing the risks and benefites of any intervention. it's timing, as well as any potential impactaise delay may have. over the course of his illness, the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in its oxygen saturation. timeli of the initials for this. diagnosis, that we initiate

dexamethasone. i'd like to take this opportunity now, given some speculation over the course of the illness the last couple of days, to update you on the course of his own illness. thursday night into friday morning, when i left the bedside, the president was doing well with only mild symptoms, and his oxygen was in the high 90s. late friday morning when i returned to the bedside, the president had a high fever, and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94%. given these two developments, i was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness. i recommended the to the president we try me woulond.heas faimt he didn't need t he breath. he was tired, had the fever, and that was about it. after about a minute, on only two liters, his saturation levels were back over 95%. he stayed on that for about an hour, maybe, and it was off and

gone. later that day, by the time the team here was at the bedside, the president had been up, out of bed, moving about the residence, with only mild symptoms. despite this, everyone agreed the best course of action was to move to walter reed for a more thorough evaluation monitoring. i would like to invite dr. dooley to discuss the plan. >> thank you, dr. conley. before i begin, a brief clinical update on the president's condition. i do want to reiterate my comments from yesterday, regarding the-- how proud i am to be a part of this multidisciplinary, multiinstitutional team of clinical professionals behind me, and what an honor it is to care for the president here at walter reed national military medical center. regarding his clinical status, the patient continues to improve. he has remained without fever since friday morning. his vital signs are stable. from a pulmonary standpoint, he

remains to rumair, this morning and not complaining of shortness of breath or other significant respiratory symptoms. he is ambelating himself, walking around the white house medical unit without limitation or disability. our continued monitoring of his cardiac, liver, and kidney function demstraights continued normal findings, or improving findings. i'll now turn it over to dr. garibaldi, from johns hopkins touc taabout ourthap anr thankou, dr. dooley. i want to again reiterate what an honor and privilege it is to take care of the president and be part of such a talented and multidisciplinary team here at walter reed. the president, completed his second dose of remdesivir. he tolerated that transfusion

well. we are monitoring for potential side effects and he has none as we can tell. his liver and kidney function remain normal, and we continue to plan to use a five-day course of remdesivir. in response to transient low oxygen levels, as dr. conley has discussed, we did initiate dexamethasone therapy, and he received his first dose of that yesterday. and our plan is to continue that for the time being. today he feels well. he's been up and around. our plan for today is have him eat and drink, be up out of bed as much as possible to be mobile. and if he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is that we have plan for a discharge as early as tomorrow to the white house where he can continue his treatment course. thank you very much. and i'll durn iver tcoey for an. >> the president wanted me to share how proud he is of the group, what an honor it is for him to be receiving his care here at walter reed, surrounded by such incredible talent--

academic leaders, department chairs, internationally renowned researchers and clinicians. i'd like to reiterate how pleased we all all are with the president's recovery, and with that i'll take your questions. >> reporter: you said there were two instances he had drops in oxygen? can you talk about the second one and i have a question for the lung specialists. >> yesterday, there was another episode where he dropped down to about 93%. he did not feel short of breath. we watched it, and it returned back up. as i said, we evaluate all of these, and given the timeline, where he is in the course of illness, we were trying to maximize everything that we could do for him, and we debated whether we'd even start it, the dexamethasone, and we decided that in this case, the potential benefits early on in the course probably outweighed any risks at this time. >> reporter: did you give him

a second round of supplemental oxygen yesterday? >> i'd have to-- i'd have to check with the nursing staff. i don't think-- if he did, it was very-- very limited. but he's not on oxygen, and the only oxygen that i ordered, that we provided was that friday morning initially. >> reporter: about what time was that yesterday? >> you know, yesterday-- what was yesterday? >> reporter: you said the second incident. >> over it was over the course of the day, yesterday morning. >> reporter: ...the president's current blood oxygen level, that's my first question to you, dr. conley. >> 98%. >> reporter: what did the x-rays and c.t. scans show? are there signs of pneumonia? are there signs of lung involvement? any damage to the lungs? >> you know, so we're track all of that. there are some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern. >> reporter: i wanted to ask if his oxygen level ever dipped below 90.

>> we don't have any recordings here of that. that's right. >> reporter: what about at the white house? >> reporter: anything below 90 just to follow up on her question? >> no, it was below 94%. it wasn't down into the low 80s. >> >> reporter: yesterday you told us the president was in great shape, and had been in great shape and fever-free for the previous 24 hours. minutes after your press conference, mark meadows told reporters that the president's vitals were very concerning over the past 24 hours. simple question for the american people: whose statements about the president's health should we believe? >> the chief and i work side by side, and i think hiswas miwhat, when he and i were checking on the president, that there was that momentary episode of the high fever, and that temporary drop in the saturation, which prompted us to act expediently, to move him up here.

fortunately, that was really a very transient, limited episode. a couple of hours later, he was back up, mild again. i'm not going to speculate what that limited episode was about so early in the course. he's doing well. >> reporter: why is the president not wearing a mask in the videos and photos that have been released? >> you know, the president wares a mask any time he's around us, and we're all wearing our n95s, full p.p.e.s. he's the patient, and when he moves out into package, about and around other people not in full p.p.e., as long as he's still under my care, we'll talk about him wearing a mask. >> reporter: is the room negative pressure? >> i'm not going to get into the specific of his care. >> reporter: the lung function question. you can talk about that? >> i would just share, like every patient, we perform lung

spirometry on him. he maxed it out. we told him see what you can do. it's over 2,500 milliliters each time. he's doing great, yeah. >> reporter: ...a scan showing any irregularities in his lungs? >> reporter: ...to disclose the president had been administered oxygen? >> you know, that's a good question. >> reporter: thank you. >> i was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team-- the president, the course of illness has had. i didn't want to give any-- any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction. and in doing so, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true. so here i have it. he is-- the fact of the matter is that he's doing really well. he is-- he is responding. and as the team said, if everything continues to go well, we're going to start discharge

planning back to the white house. that's it, thank you, folks. >> reporter: when on thursday did the president receive his first coronavirus rapid test. >> garrett: that was the voice of dr. sean conley, the president's personal physician at the white house, a briefing that wrapped up add walter reed medical center. the headlines are as follows: if all goes well, the do,s for the president of the united states said he might be discharged from that facility and sent back to the white house as early as tomorrow. but that is by no means clear. the other bit of information that was expressed for the very first time, is the from had two transient drops in oxygen saturation. most concerning we have now learned the very first time was friday morning at the white house. it was also accompanied by what was described as a high fever. that prompted the doctors and those within the president's inner circle within the white house to suggest and order him to go to walter reed national military medical center for more advnced treatment. and we also learned that the

president had a second transient drop in oxygen saturation, that on saturday, which prompted the prescription of dexamethasone. chip reid, one of my colleagues here at cbs, is outside walter reed. chip,, your observations. >> reporter: well, it's hard to see from here. i can't see the press there's a group of very enthusiastic trump supporter overs here, about two dozen of them, who also can't see the press conference. but i thought certainly the most interesting of all of this, a lot of it was medical talk that they're trying to put the best spin they can possibly put on it. but certainly, the most interesting thing of all was the prediction that if things go well, if he's mobile today and he continues to improve, they may well send him back to the white house tomorrow. remember, it wasn't long ago when marine one lanlanded here. could be taking off again tomorrow. one danger in that, of course, is if he does not go home tomorrow, people will start to

and dr. conley, at the very end, said that he was not trying to be evasive with the american public because he was yesterday. he did not take on fully, as he clearly could have, with the information he possessed yesterday, whether or not the president was or had received supplemental oxygen. he said today that there were two instance where's that happened, and one on friday was, obviously, concerning because it was accompanied by what the doctors said is a high fever-- no number attached to that. but a high fever is not something you want to see with the president of the united states and the necessity to bring on supplemental oxygen. he said he wanted to be upbeat. well, ung the american public would prefer clarity and transparency so it can know exactly what condition the president of the united states is in. your thoughts. >> reporter: absolutely. we've seen that her and i had tougof different things. he was very confusing on the timing of when the president was

diagnosed, and he was clearly evasive on whether the president had had supplemental oxygen. he's not a professional press briefer, obviously. he's a doctor, an o.d., by the way, osteopathic doctor, as i understand it, not an m.d.-- correct me if i'm wrong, but that's what i have been reading this morning. but he clearly has not spent a lot of time in front of the cameras with an aggressive press corps trying to get the details, accurate details of what's going on. but i think he learned from that yesterday. and today, i think he did not create the same kind of confusion. >> garrett: chip, with your permission, i'm going to bring in weijia jiang, one of our white house correspondents. weijia, the doctor also addressed something that was quite spectacular yesterday, in the terms of a contrast in things said publicly and then things said somewhat anonymously. it was made clear to the doctor, he said the president was doing well yesterday. then the white house chief of staff, mark meadows, at least attributed by the associated press, said the president's vital signs were concerning.

the next 48 hours would be critical, and there was no clear path to a full recovery. that sounded completely different. dr. conley tried to address that. >> reporter: major, what was so stunning about those events that unfolded yesterday was the timing, the fact that a source familiar with the president's health, who the a.p., as you mentioned, has identified as mark meadows, 10 minutes after we heard from the physician said, not so fast. we are not, you know, in-- we do not have a clear way out of this yet. and we are actually very concerned about the president's vitals and his path goid, jus ms the doctor's credibility into question. and so today, that's why dr. conley had to waste time in this briefing to try to build his trustworthiness again. and he said it's because that

meadows misconstrud information, and that, in fact, he was talking about the president's condition on friday, which he did say, again, was worrisome because of the drop in oxygen. but it's important to note that, you're right, conley came out this morning and talked right away about oxygen saturation levels oned from, but that's something he should have done yesterday, and perhaps only brought up because multiple news outlets, including cbs news, r-7d that the president did in fact receive oxygen on friday. so there's still a credibility movfoward what kind ofll have to tone dr. conley chooses to use, whether it's upbeat or whether he sticks to the science. major. >> garrett: weijia, thank you very much. i want to bring in our cbs news medical contributor, dr. david agus. dexamethasone prescribed for the president, also two incidents in a drop in transient oxygen saturation but never below 90%.

what do you make of those two facts? >> reporter: they started him on immodiune, a drug that protects the stomach in case he used dexamethasone. dexamethasone say potent steroid that can have brain effects. there can be manic behavior associated with dexamethasone. so important that we understand that. dexamethasone is a very strong medicine. when used early in this infection, it can actually make it worse by blocking immune function. when used late, it can treat significant pulmonary inflammation, which i assume he has. they had mentioned, or the doctor mentioned he had imagings of the chest, and that showed inflammation. i assume. he said it was the usual expectin't give us any qawnt riification. is it 10%, 20%, 50% of the lungs involved? we don't know. certainly he is on the strongest medicines that have been shown to have benefit when are

monocolonnal antibodies and dexamethasone. >> garrett: and they said no major clinical concern. is that a phrase that makes sense to you and meaningful? >> these are adjectives that depends on who the person is, right? to me-- to him concern may be very different. i don't know what that... >> o'donnell: very good. dr. daviding aus, thank you for tim. i want to thank our cbs colleagues. our coverage will continue on our 24-hour streaming n.c.a.a., cbsn. there will be more on your local news. this has been a special report, i'm major garrett, cbs news, washington.

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