what do you see for the fall, will it be possibly no return of the virus at all? >> as i said before here, when you look at an outbreak, it's two dynamic forces opposing each other. if you least virus to its own devices, it will take off if you do nothing to stop it. if you put into place the kind of things that we talk about, first containment, then hopefully you never get to mitigation, but containment is important, those two forces are going to determine whether you're going to have a big outbreak. so what dr. redfield was saying, first of all, is that we will have coronavirus in the fall. i am convinced of that, because of the degree of transmissibility that it has, the global nature. what happens with that will depend on how we're able to contain it when it occurs. and what we're saying is that in the fall, we will be much, much

better prepared to do the kind of containment compared to what happened to us this winter. now, the complicating issue is that unlike the syndromic and influenza-like observances that we have, it's going to be complicated by the influenza season, and i believe that's what dr. redfield was saying, it's going to be complicated. whether or not it's going to be big or small is going to depend on our response. and that's what i think people sometimes have misunderstanding. nobody can predict what is going to happen with an outbreak. but you can predict how you're going to respond to it, and that's really very important. >> reporter: you would caution against people thinking that in the fall there's not going to be coronavirus anymore and we won't have to worry about it? >> no. >> reporter: or if it is, it will be spotty and won't be a

big problem that we'll worry about. >> there will be coronavirus in the fall. if we do -- which we won't, but let's take an imaginary reaction, we say, we'll do nothing, we won't worry about it. it would take off. but we'll respond to it to not allow it to do that. >> reporter: dr. fauci, what happens when -- >> human nature, desire. but going ahead and leapfrogging into phases where you should not be, i would advise him as a

health official and as a physician not to do that. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. can you please give some details about the executive order? i know the white house has just released a document -- >> we can talk about that later. it's an executive order on immigration. we want americans to have the jobs. we want americans to have the health care. we want to take care of our citizens first, we have to. and it's a very powerful order. it's for 60 days. at the end of 60 days or maybe even during 60 days i'll extend it or not. and i'll maybe change it. i might modify it. yes. >> reporter: does that apply to immigrants who are already here, mr. president, immigrants already here in the country, or immigrants overseas who are trying to get in? >> immigrants that are trying to get in. we're talking about people and also, by the way, people that

are coming in illegally. now, as you know, because you've seen the numbers, our border, our southern border, is very, very tight. it hasn't been this tight in years. it's being helped by 160, more than that, miles of wall that are going up. i'm trying to get to 450 by the end of the year, 450 miles. and we'll have 530 miles early next year. and that's really great. it's fully funded. we have all the funds. and the army corps of engineers is doing a fantastic job. same people that did javits center, as you know, they're doing a fantastic job. so our southern border's very, very tight, for good reason, for very good reason. we're also being helped by 27,000 very good soldiers from mexico and i want to thank the president of mexico, he's been terrific in many ways, including on what we're doing with covid. and as you know, we have a very good trade arrangement with mexico now which we didn't have before. i want to thank the president of mexico in particular for the

27,000 soldiers. they're doing a fantastic job. >> reporter: for health care workers, sir, do you want to talk about -- >> we want to protect our health care workers. that's one of the reasons we're doing this. >> reporter: i want to ask you about rick bright, the head of the federal agency in charge of getting a vaccine out to americans once it's ready. he says he has been pushed out of his job because he raised questions about hydroxychloroquine and some of your directives on that. >> you just mentioned a name. i never heard of him. when did this happen? >> reporter: this happened today. >> i never heard of him. if the guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. >> reporter: you said by fourth of july you suspect people will be on the national mall having a celebration. >> i hope so. >> reporter: given that the doctors say coronavirus will still be out there, it may not be as bad as it is now but will

still be circulating, would that be safe, to have people on the mall? >> last year it was maxed out. a magnificent picture of dr. martin luther king. and i saw a magnificent picture of our event last year. and both of them were maxed out. it was beautiful to see. beautiful. very similar. this year, most likely we'll be standing six feet apart, we'll have to do that in a very, very interesting way, and maybe we'll even do it greater. so we'll leave a little extra distance. if we do that, we would certainly do that. i don't see maybe the purpose, if we can't do that, we have to have people, thousands. we had tens of thousands, most of you where there, tens of thousands of people, it was incredible. and it was to an extent an air show of all the different aircraft flying over, we even had air force one flying over. ideally, it would be wonderful if we could have it as it was

last year. it's important to know, eventually we're going to have that. stadiums will be the way they've been for the last hundred years. sports will be the way they ufbufbsed to be. i told one of the owners, he said, should we take out seats? i said, no, don't take out seats, this virus will eventually be gone. if it should show up in the fall, we'll put it out very fast, we have great people, we'll put it out very fast because we've learned a lot, we've learned a lot about how to deal with it and we'll put it out very fast. >> reporter: you talk a lot about testing capacity, and governors agree that that exists. but it's very different from testing implementation. and they are still begging for you to use your full authority to help them get reagents and other things. as you say, what do you have to lose by helping them do that and becoming the king of testing? >> we are the king of testing

already. there's no country in the world that's done more. not even -- >> reporter: .2% of the population has been tested. is that good enough? >> i just said there's no country in the world that's done more. and we have tests that have already come out that are going to be introduced. our expertise and tremendous talent at manufacturing. what we did with the ventilators, that was a trap, because we got them done, shockingly to everybody, because of the incredible talent like mike pence saw yesterday in wisconsin. but we have numerous of those sites all over the country doing the same thing. so when the governors were complaining, some of the governors, it was along party

lines for the most part except for one, when the governors were complaining, we said, no, no, how many do you need? we need 50, we need 100. one governor asked for many, many thousands, and it turned out twhihey didn't need that, a that's good. we got them. nobody who needed a ventilator didn't get a ventilator. that was an incredible achievement. the testing, it's a little different. it's much easier than ventilators. it's like 2%. but, for instance, the swabs are coming in by the millions. they're coming in, literally coming in by the millions, totally ordered. we wanted the highest quality. we could have gotten a much lesser quality, we didn't want to do that, we got the highest quality. but testing, it's like no matter how well you do, you can always say more. with the ventilators, they either have them or they don't. we went to one meeting, who wants a ventilator. one governor said we would like 25. 25, you got them. who else?

nobody spoke up. that was four weeks ago. so that was great. the problem with the testing is, and i said, if we test -- if we test 350 million people, you'll say, we want them to have a second test or a third test or a fourth test. not everybody believes as strongly as some people on testing. some people want to do testing because they think it's impossible for us to fulfill that goal. that's easy compared to ventilators, as i've said. but we have a tremendous testing capability, better than anybody in the world right now. and every day it's growing. and it's growing very substantially. these doctors are very talented people, they've seen testing all their lives. they've never seen anything like we've been able to do. so we're going to give everybody what they want with the testing but again, testing, and i've said it from the beginning, the actual test has to be administered locally. you can't do federal testing

nearly the as well as you can, we know the back of the walmart, put it in the parking lot of the back of a walmart or a certain location in different states. they're doing it beautifully. it's working beautifully. so we're doing tremendous testing. ultimately we're doing more testing than probably any of the governors even want. okay, please. >> reporter: is it just for green cards, for green card holders? >> subject to change. we want to have the farmers take care, they've been coming for years and years helping our farmers, they've been coming in for years. you know, the border's been turned off a number of times over the years. and you know what happened? our farmers all went out of

business. they were out of business. they couldn't farm. we're taking care of our farmers. nobody ever took care of farmers like i take care of farmers. including the $19 billion that we're disbursing to farmers because of some very good things that happened. >> reporter: subject to change because your advisers are saying there could be a problem with it or subject to change because -- >> it might be modified. it could be modified in two weeks, two months. we may modify it as we go along. but right now we have a very powerful immigration ban. but it could be modified, meaning made tougher or made less tough. twlo we don't want to hurt our businesses and we don't want to hurt our farmers, very important. >> reporter: you had a conversation with governor kemp, what did he say to you? for gym owners and tattoo parlor artists, in georgia, would you advise them to listen to you and not their governor? >> look, i would like them to listen to their governors, all

of their governors. i have the right if i wanted to clamp it down, but i have respect for our governors, they know what they're doing. as you know, brian kemp, governor of georgia, i worked very hard for his election. he beat their superstar, he beat the superstar of their party, i think you could say i helped a lot. michelle obama, barack obama, oprah winfrey, they all went in, they campaigned for him very, very hard, and he lost. he also was way down in the primary and end up winning a primary after i came out and endorsed him. so a lot of good things and there's a lot of good feeling between myself and brian kemp. i happen to disagree with him, only in time, in timing. i disagree. when you have spas, beauty parlors, and i love these people, i know the people from spas and beauty parlors, tattoo parlors, bikers for trump, a lot of tattoos, i love them, i love these people. and barbershops.

these are great people. but you know what? maybe you wait a little bit longer until you get into a phase ii. so do i agree with him? no. but i respect him, and i will let him make his decision. would i do that? no. i would keep them a little longer. i want to protect people's lives. but i'm going to let him make his decision. but i told him i totally disagree. >> reporter: mr. president, the vice president in his remarks was talking about the federal efforts that have been undertaken as it relates to nursing facilities. as you bottom know, they've been so incredibly hard-hit, just tragic, over 10,000 covid-19 deaths so far. the industry says that they're struggling as it relates to testing. can you commit to increasing testing at the nursing facilities -- >> automatically, that's almost common sense. we're doing that automatically. i mean, you look at the state of washington, that was our first glimpse of it, they got hit so horribly in that nursing home. everybody was from a particular nursing home. so we knew immediately there was

going to be a problem. and we're doing that, 100%. we're taking very special care of our nursing homes and our seniors other than me. other than me. nobody wants to take care of me. but other than me, we're taking care of our seniors. >> reporter: another area -- thank you, mr. vice president. >> no, it's just an enormously important question. and we want to thank the american people who have been putting off visits to their grandmothers and grandfathers and moms and dads. it's tough. i'm going to be in indiana next week and i'm not going to go see my mom, she lives in her own home, but people get it, that the risk of serious illness for healthy americans of the coronavirus is fairly low. you'll either have flu-like symptoms or no symptoms at all. but as we've said so many times from this podium and the american people get it, a healthy american could

inadvertently convey the coronavirus to a senior with an underlying health condition and have the kind of heartbreaking results that we've seen in nursing homes around the country. it's the reason why, from early on, the president took decisive action to raise the infectious disease standards at every nursing home in america. he deployed all 8,000 of our inspectors, the center for medicare and medicaid services, to dedicate all of their time to ensuring compliance with their new higher standards. we've spoken about nursing home issues with governors around the country. and frankly there are governors around the country that have done remarkable work with nursing homes. you mentioned governor brian kemp, he actually used the national guard in georgia, he deployed them to nursing homes to do cleaning and to disinfect areas of those nursing homes, and it's a tremendous service. but to your point about testing,

if you look carefully at the guidelines, open up america again, you will see that in phase i, the level of testing that we contemplate is first that we want to be able to test anyone who has the symptoms that may be coronavirus and be able to test them quickly. secondly, we want to do the kind of contact tracing, and dr. redfield and his team are deploying cdc teams in every state in america to be able to find out everyone that that person has been in contact with and test them. but if you look right underneath that, what we're directing states to do is be prepared to deploy testing resources first and foremost to nursing homes and long term care facilities so that we can monitor any potential outbreak of the coronavirus among the most vulnerable population. thanks to the leadership of our surgeon general, as the president announced today, we're

also going to be deploying testing resources to vulnerable communities, to underserved communities. the cdc released new preliminary data on the impact particularly on african-american communities in this country and it's the reason why part of our phase i recommendation is that we deploy testing resources into those communities that are described by the doctors as socially vulnerable. and even as we speak, we'll announce next week that we're already in the process of deploying testing. and so it's a good opportunity to remind every american to be especially careful around our seniors, to heed the guidance about avoiding visitations, to protect the health of those who are most vulnerable. but the american people can be assured that from phase i forward, all the way through phase iii and reopening, we're

going to be helping to guide the states to focus on the most vulnerable, beginning with our seniors with serious underlying health conditions. >> reporter: mr. vice president? >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. commercial labs say that they need to buy new diagnostic machines to be able to double their testing capacity. your administration has said that there is enough testing capacity to double overnight. how do you square that difference? >> easy. they can get new machines if they want. even if they didn't, we have tremendous testing capability. you take a look at what's happening in california and new york. governor cuomo told us very strongly, he said, wow, we have a lot of labs, it's the research center of the world, we're going to have tremendous -- and california too, long conversations. they have tremendous testing capability there too. now, if they want to increase it, they can increase it. but they have plenty right now. you saw the maps the other day where we put up the different sites in various states and

virtually all states like that. how about you with the mask, nice of you to wear a mask. >> reporter: to follow up on those maps from the other day, on monday, a reporter for a local television station in miami sent me a question asking if it was possible to get the information on those maps distributed to the media so that local tv stations and newspapers can check on that information. >> do you want to do that? do you want to say something? >> thank you for talking about testing and testing capacity, because we have been talking about that for several weeks, because we could see and we did a full inventory of every single state and every single laboratory, and i also appreciate you talking about the implementation piece of the testing capacity. and it's complicated. so we have been -- we have a team calling every lab and working through the american society of microbiology, as i

mentioned before, to really work with every lab director to see what the issues are in each laboratory. and i just want to thank administrator verma who really worked on increasing the funding for this test. and uniquely doubling the funding for the coronavirus nucleic acid test from $50 to $100 to really address some of the issues about laboratory technicians, because sometimes we think these tests run themselves. they don't. they actually need people to help with the machines. so we were talking about purchasing more machines. we actually need to have additional laboratory technicians to be able to work all those machines. so it's lab by lab, state by state. and that's the dialogue that's going on now, to unlock the full potential of the united states. maybe the testing would not be needed at this moment and maybe it is. but we want it also totally available in the fall if it

comes to an issue where we have to distinguish between flu and covid-19. so we're building infrastructure and capacity not only for today but for tomorrow, and really showing a new way to really deal with pandemics and bring testing to scale, because the country has never had to do this before. i mean, if you look at some of the other countries, they're struggling with some of the issues from ppe to testing. and so this is a universal issue, but we're working on it as a collective to really have a very innovative and integrated way to approach testing. >> but they have tremendous capability. >> and the maps, li will ask th companies, because obviously it's proprietary where every single machine is. if you have that machine and five others, maybe you don't want to let that person know you have five others, it's kind of like coke and pepsi. so i think we're working very deliberately to be able to share

those maps. the governors, i can tell you all the state governors and mayors have those maps and the addresses and the type of machine for every single laboratory in their jurisdiction so that -- >> the governors, many of them were not aware that those laboratories were available. >> reporter: on the state of california, it's now partially broken with cdc restrictions on who will get -- guidance on who should get testing because they want to test people with no symptoms taat all in high risk environments like nursing homes. do you agree with that? >> not only do we agree, it was in our guidelines. we've always said we think testing asymptomatics would be key. and we went to the places where we thought it was most critical to find cases the earliest. so that is where we have asked

states in the guidelines to start with nursing homes, indigenous peoples and peoples in underserved areas and cities to really ensure that we're monitoring for any -- because we know the asymptomatic piece may be the tip of the iceberg, in fact be the iceberg underneath the surface. so if you're only seeing cases -- but in parallel, we're working with states and local governments to really define what that population is, by doing, in collaboration with states, working with them together to really reinforce this antibody testing but in a careful way where you do two antibody tests to increase the specificity into the 90% plus rag range. it's important to have a high quality test so you can really tell someone if they've had this before. we're waiting to be able to do tests in two series to assure people.

that was in the guidelines from the beginning. we think it's fundamental both for right now and going through the fall because that will be our early alert if any of the covid virus reappears. >> reporter: how much more testing are we -- the cdc guidelines, you're saying -- >> right in the guidelines. >> reporter: dr. birx, can i -- >> jerome, would you like to say something? >> thank you, mr. president. i just want to reiterate to everyone that the task force and the administration have a commitment to protecting vulnerable people and that includes in the area of testing. we've had the opportunity to talk to many different groups and we hear that testing is absolutely a concern. and we'll be giving you more details in the coming days but i just want you to know we're building on the public/private partnership that the president rolled out with pharmacy and retail companies like cvs, walgreens, rite aid, walmart, kroger, to accelerate testing for more americans in more

communities across the nation. we're going to be increasing access to testing for undertested, underserved, and minority communities and we're working closely with partners in states to establish sites and areas most in need of increased access to testing. we're using data, cdc-provided data to locate sites and counties that are undertested and socially vulnerable, especially with high populations of black, hispanic, rural, and native americans. we're using the cdc index to select sites, communities who when confronted by external stressors along socioeconomic status, household composition, disability, minority status, and housing type. our goal, our goal is to have about two-thirds of these initial sites located in counties with moderate to high social vulnerability and a quarter of these sites and counties with high social

vulnerability. so again, i want communities that are vulnerable to understand that we are strategically and intentionally making sure we're deploying testing in those areas so that people can get identified if they have symptoms, can get identified if they are asymptomic and that we will be able to deploy resources appropriately. >> i have to say, our surgeon general is doing a great job. thank you. great job. really good. >> reporter: mr. president, thank you. can we talk about iran? you put out a message this morning making a rather big announcement for our military when it comes to iranians -- iranian aggression. are you going to change formally rules of engagement for our u.s. military so that -- >> covered 100%. we don't want their gun boats surrounding our boats and traveling around our boats and having a good time. so you know the order i gave, i don't think i have to say it again, but i've given that

order. under the obama administration, it was taking place all the time. under my administration, i gave this order early on, and nothing happened, they were very nice, there were no problems. but then i noticed yesterday they did that in a much lighter form but they did that again. i said, we're not going to stand for it. so if they do that, that's putting our ships in danger and our great crews and sailors in danger. i'm not going to let that happen. and we will, they'll shoot them out of the water. >> reporter: the u.s. military doesn't have to change its rules of engagement in order to follow your -- >> that's not rules of engagement, that's a threat if they get that close to our boats. they have guns, they have very substantial weapons on those boats, but we'll shoot them out of the water. >> reporter: thank you, president trump. to dr. fauci, today we learned

the first pets have tested positive for the coronavirus. >> pets? >> reporter: pets, two pets. >> that question was asked before, but i'll be happy to answer it again. certainly animals, pets, can get infected. big cats in zoos have been reported to be infected with coronavirus. there's no evidence that the virus is transmitted from a pet to a human. now, obviously, is that impossible? i mean, biologically, you know, anything is possible, but there's no evidence whatsoever that we've seen from an epidemiological standpoint that pets can be transmitters within the household. so it's not surprising, i mean, when you have viruses that can infect multiple species, isolating it from an animal doesn't necessarily mean the animal is transmitting it. >> what about the lion in the new york zoo? how did that happen? >> you know what probably happened, i don't know, mr. president, but i would imagine that one of the zoo keepers

probably had an asymptomatic infection, took care of the animal, gave him some food, touched him, whatever, that's how he got it. >> reporter: president trump, my question for you is, earlier in these briefings you talked a lot about giving americans hope and you wanted to focus on that. but now that the crisis seems to perhaps be lessening, i wanted to ask you about accountability. of course millions of americans became familiar with you as the tough boss who fired people for doing a poor job. i wanted to ask you about two specific things. there's a report from reuters today that the hhs secretary put a former dog breeder in charge of day to day coronavirus efforts to begin with. >> a what? >> reporter: reuters reported today that alex azar, secretary of hhs, put a former dog breeder, that was his most recently former job in charge of day to day operations of the coronavirus. >> that i don't know about. you just told me something.

what's the second? >> reporter: on face masks, taiwan has a bigger population than new york state. early on they had universal wearing of face masks. >> the governors, if they want to do that. we ordered, i don't know if you know, 500 million face masks. we have hundreds of millions right now. and if people want to wear them, it's up to the governors. if the governors want that. it's more appropriate in some states, obviously, than others. you have the big planes and you have certain states where it's much less necessary. it's up to the governors. we have that very well covered, face masks. we have hundreds of millions of face masks. and we have at least 500 million, that's a lot, we'll have them very shortly. >> reporter: lots of people are wearing face masks now that the federal government advised, it was almost overnight. but less than a month ago, our surgeon general said that, i'm quoting, quote, they're not effective in preventing the general public from catching coronavirus. i mean, should there be

accountability there, and also for the hhs secretary? >> i don't know. would anybody like to speak about it? just so you understand, if somebody wants to wear them, i'm all for it. would somebody like to discuss that? >> go for it, boss. >> i think the comments that we made when we came into face masks, i think it's important, when we came out with the cdc guidance about face masks or what we called face coverings, was in recognition of the growing understanding of asymptomatic infection or presymptomatic infection, was the recognition that we could use a barrier, and the reason -- and i have mine when i'm in public right here that i use, you know, that this barrier, in case i was in fact infected if i didn't know, is a barrier to prevent me, to protect you, in case i happen to be asymptomatically infected, there's very good data to show

that the ability of viral particles to go through a viral barrier is diminished. that's why we recommended these face coverings. if you go back to when cdc came out with that recommendation, some people may think intuitively it's to protect them from getting infected. no. it was to protect you from potentially getting infected by me when i go out in public. >> i actually appreciate you asking that question, because it's one that we've had to clarify several times. and i understand why the american public has been confused over time. as dr. redfield mentioned, initially we said based on cdc, world health organization, and most other major public health organizations, that the public needed to know that these masks were not effective or shown to be effective in preventing you, if you wear a mask, from catching coronavirus.

another important thing to remember is the context of those statements was a run on medical masks, on n95 masks, and our health care workers were at risk. what's changed? what's changed is we found out that unlike past viruses that are spread through the respiratory route, a significant proportion of coronavirus cases can be traced back to asymptomatic spread. so the task force deliberated this, we've always told you that we will look at the facts and we will give people recommendations based on the best available evidence at the time. and once we saw that asymptomatic spread, we said, well, masks still aren't effective, from our point of view, from preventing you from catching coronavirus in a significant way. but we've always told people they should wear masks if they know they have symptoms to prevent them from spreading to other people. well, now that we know that 25 to 50% of people are spreading asymptomatically, we suggest that people wear cloth facial coverings to prevent asymptomatic spread. you wear your mask to protect me.

i wear my mask, and dr. redfield mentioned it, i've got my mask, i believe i have mine on me, bob. i carry mine around with me too. i wear my mask to protect you. we're six feet away, which is why i'm not wearing my mask to protect you now, and we also all have been tested, that's why i'm not wearing mine now. >> but i'm standing right next to you. >> i'll put mine on if you want me to, mr. president. social distancing is the number one thing you can do. number two, it's important to know that you should practice good hand hygiene and not touch your face, because you still could touch a surface and bring disease to your face. and number three, this is the most important -- well, it's just as important. please save the medical mask, the n95s, for the health care workers because the cloth facial coverings are effective as far as we know right now, based on the best available evidence, at preventing you from spreading disease to other people. so no inconsistency there.

it's just the recommendation change, because the information changed. that's what you want from your public health leaders. >> reporter: the argument that you knew about asymptomatic transmission at the time you sent that and you were essentially misleading the public? >> let me answer that. >> the honest answer to you is, no, we did not, that was the recommendation of the world health organization and the cdc and we gave you the best information at the time. i actually a little bit resent that implication because i work hard to try to protect the american people and we are always going to give the american people the best information we have at the time. and we're humble enough to say, look, if we don't know, we're going to change our recommendation. >> a wiseguy question, that's all. please. >> reporter: mr. president, i wanted to ask you about the launch of the military satellite by iran. i wanted to get your response, do you see this as an advancement of the missile program? >> you mean the shot they took?

well, they say no. okay? they say also it is for television. does anybody really believe that? they have better television in iran. we're watching iran very closely, very closely. we know more about iran than they do right now. we know more than they do. so we know all about it. we watched it, we knew it was going up. we followed it very closely. they say it was for television. yes, please. finish up, please. >> reporter: very quickly, are you concerned that they see this as a potential vulnerability on the part of the united states? >> what is a vulnerability? >> reporter: military readiness, the outbreak on the "roosevelt," the fact that you're consumed with dealing with coronavirus in the united states. >> various navys have had outbreaks of covid. we're in 184 different nations right now, the covid. no, we have a problem -- that just shows you how rapidly it spreads. it started off with two sailors,

ten sailors, 20, now i hear it's 540 of which one has died and a few are very sick but most of them are back in great shape. we did lose one, and it attacked the lungs of that young person, and then we also had a number of that were quite sick but they're all either better or getting better. most of them are better for a long time already. >> reporter: mr. president, as you know, over the course of the past few weeks, there have been the closures of several meat processing companies across the country, in several states. >> convyeah. >> reporter: is this a concern to you, are you going to increase testing in these facilities? >> look at south dakota, how well the governor has done there and all of a sudden you have a big spike in one location and she's got that very much under control, as you know, but nevertheless it was surprising, and they had a big one right near where you were yesterday, as i understand it. and so yeah, we're concerned about that. they're closing one or two of

the plants, actually. >> reporter: is the food supply secure? >> totally secure. it's in great shape. in the back. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. the attorney general in the state of missouri filed a law case -- >> against china. >> reporter: against china, accusing it of lying and covering up about the original advice. do you support that? >> having seen the case, i know about the case, he filed a case against china. i love missouri, as you know. it's great. but i'm going to take a look at it. i actually know about it very much. i have to take a look at it, i have not seen the case in terms of reading it but i will be doing that. >> reporter: international investigations -- >> we're doing investigations, we're doing our own. but i want to see and review that lawsuit. i'm sure that won't be the last one. >> reporter: a followup question for dr. fauci if you don't mind. so john had asked the president about rick bright and he said he

wasn't sure who that was but i'm sure you're familiar with who he is since he was the head of barda. there's a concern or an accusation he's raised that he was removed from his job because he protested widespread use of hydroxychloroquine. are you familiar with this situation and do you feel like public health experts feel they are able to speak publicly or to speak out in opposition to -- >> here i am. >> reporter: so you don't feel like there's any concern among people at the nih right now or the public health -- >> absolutely not. >> reporter: dr. fauci, knowing dr. bright and knowing what his gifts are as one of the country's leading experts on vaccines, are those gifts best suited at nih rather than barda? what's he going to be doing with you? >> what is he going to be doing at the nih? >> reporter: first of all, are his gifts best suited to working with you rather than at barrda? >> i can't comment on somebody's

relative gifts. he's going to be at the nih and will be responsible, from what i hear, again, this is what i've heard, he's going to responsible for the development of diagnostic which is very, very important. the nih is going to be involved in trying to develop new generation diagnostic which we feel is going to be very important for the future of being able to facilitate the kind of things that now are sometimes problematic. >> why would you say he has great gifts? do you know him? i know, but have you reviewed him, have you studied him, have you reported on him? you said his gifts, his gifts. >> reporter: he worked his entire career -- >> you talked about his great gifts. go ahead, please. >> reporter: mr. president -- >> please. >> reporter: thank you, sir. i have one question, one for myself and one for a colleague of ours who could not be here

today. >> from where? >> reporter: i'm with "usa today." the executive director of the national association of counties said today that the white house did not want to see money for state and local governments in the latest covid assistance package. >> what does that mean? >> reporter: i'm sorry? >> what does that mean? repeat it. say it a little differently. >> reporter: the executive director of the national association of counties said today that the white house objected to putting funding for state and local governments into the latest covid assistance -- >> is he a democrat? >> reporter: i do not know, sir. >> well, check it. >> reporter: i'll check it out. he says it's questionable -- >> you know the money we put into states, local governments, everything else, and they have to be responsible for their own finances. but you check it out. go ahead. what's the next -- >> reporter: he said you felt like this would be a d disincentive for states to reopen their economies. >> how would he know how i felt?

i never spoke to him. >> reporter: his name is michael chain, sir. >> that doesn't help me, it doesn't help you. do you want me to keep coming? i don't want you to say, oh, he took questions all night long. how many questions can you ask? go ahead. we all have fun, because we're talking about something very important. the main thing is, i think we're getting to a lot of solutions. we never want this to happen again. we never want this to happen again, what happened. if it should come back in some form we want to snuff it out very quickly before anything can happen. and i personally hope it doesn't come back in the fall as a combination of the flu or not as a combination of the flu. but i think we learn a lot. and, you know, some of these questions are good, some of them are ridiculous, frankly.

when you asked dr. fauci about the right to speak, i let anybody speak, and we love him. let's go. >> reporter: mr. president, senator mcconnell said today that he would prefer to see states that have high public pensions declare bankruptcy rather than taking on more -- >> i heard he said that. i don't know what he said. i'll have to call him and ask him. >> reporter: that's what he said. >> well, okay. i'll have to look at it directly. >> reporter: do you agree with him on that? >> i can't tell you that. i want to base it on fact and reason. i want to see what he said, how he said it and why he said it. i would have to watch him say it. some of the states are not doing well, let's face it. and some are doing phenomenally well. a state where mike was governor, indiana, i looked at their numbers, they have -- it's incredible what they're doing. some states are doing fantastically well. iowa is doing great. you have states doing well and you have some states that aren't doing well. we know the ones, i don't have to mention the ones that aren't

doing well but you do have states that are in trouble. and certainly they're coming back to talk to us. we'll see what happens. >> reporter: are you concerned, are you concerned, sir, about the growing u.s. national debt as a result of these stimulus packages? >> do we have a choice? yeah, i'm always concerned about everything. we had to fix this problem. we were attacked. this was an attack. this wasn't just, oh, gee, and this wasn't the flu, by the way, they like to say the flu. nobody's ever seen anything like this. 1917 was the last time. we were attacked. we had the greatest economy in the history of the world, we had the greatest economy, better than china, better than nany place. we have built it in the last three years, three and a half years, we built it, then they said you have to close it, these people right here, they came into my office, into the oval office, and they said we have to close the economy.

i said, let's explain this. explain this to me. the greatest ever in history. and we had to close it. now we're going to open it again. and we're going to be just as strong or stronger. but you have to spend some money to get it back open. we saved our airlines. we just, as you know, finished up with the airlines. we saved numerous companies that are great companies that two months ago were having the best year they've ever had, now all of a sudden they're totally shut out of markets. there was a great spirit today, you know, the fact is some of the governors are opening up their states. and i feel it, i don't know if you folks -- i feel it. there was a great spirit today. i don't know, the stock market was up today, i guess, it was up quite a bit, when i just walked out here. and i will say, i feel much different today than i did two or three days ago. and i think the world does. we spoke to a lot of leaders, the world feels that we're

really leading a path of optimism. european union is having a lot of difficulty, you take a look at what's going on with the european union, it's having a tremendous difficulty. but we're going to be back. and we're going to be back stronger than ever. we're going to be at a level i think that everybody's going to be -- and they do, they look up to us, they want to know what are we doing, what are we doing with therapeutics, what are we doing with vaccines. we're going to have those answers too, we're going to have them, just like we're taking care of ventilators, and as we said a hundred times, we had more testing than any other nation in the world, all of them put together, and we're going to be within two weeks at a level that nobody's ever even seen before. they've never seen where we are right now. you don't have to build new machines. you don't have to build new labs. we already have 'em. some of the labs are upgrading to be able to double and triple their capacity in one case. we're at a level that nobody's ever been. we're going to be bigger,

better, and stronger than ever before. so i'm not concerned about that. thank you very much. >> okay. wrapping up another long marathon on-camera briefing that featured several speakers in addition to the president. president trump there, the last thought, expressing how his mood has shifted, his optimism has peaked over just the last few days. he pointed out something mirrored by his talks with, quote, world leaders today. because so much was just said, let's take just a moment, as we look at scenes from what we just saw unfold and go through some quotes and some moments. the president opened with the fact that in his words, we have a lot of tremendous news about reopening the country. he said, people are getting ready, they're all excited. dr. redfield, the cdc, was to

some extent made to sing for his supper, to in effect describe how it was "the washington post" took his quote out of context about this coming fall and winter. the president started trotting out new terms that i suspect we'll hear a lot of. embers of corona and pockets of corona. he said some embers of corona, which we may have, we'll have to put out. the fear, obviously, is two viruses circulating at the same time, corona and flu. the president interjected at one point, you may not even have corona coming back. he asked dr. birx, could we say there's a good chance the covid will not come back? she said, we can't say that, in fact. we will not go through what we've just gone through. the president said

declaratively, it's not going to come back, it's not going to be like it was. the president repeated, it's possible, it's not going to come back at all, repeated his theory of embers and pockets. he all the world leaders he talked to today said it was incredible that you solved the ventilator problem. he again called our country the king of ventilators. he said to the media you should really begin your questions with what a great job you've done with ventilators. he said if we didn't close our country to china, which did not happen by the way, we would have been so infected nobody would have believed it. in many cases, he said governors don't know the testing capacity they've had. he made news on the topic of state of georgia and governor kemp's lifting of some social distancing restrictions. he said spas, beauty parlor,

barbershops, tattoo parlors, it's just too soon to go back to work. he promised air shows all across our country this summer. he put the blame for coronavirus squarely on china today. he said it should have been stopped where it started. on testing, quote, i'm big on testing. some people are much less big than i am. he went through how great things were economically before the pandemic again. mike pence said we can see the data. we can reopen and get americans safely back to work. fauci came to the microphone, dr. anthony fauci and said declaratively, we will have coronavirus in the fall. i am convinced of that. there will be coronavirus in the fall. he pointed out the difference will be we'll be better prepared for it. trump followed up quickly, we'll put it out very fast. fauci said he would advice the

governor of georgia be careful. advised the governor of georgia not to do what he's trying to do. president made news on another front when he compared the crowd size for his event on july 4th to dr. king's i have a dream speech venue at the reflecting pool. he called them very similar based on photos he's seen. he said testing is very much of a media trap. it will never be enough. quote we're going to give everybody what they want with the testing. he said we're doing more testing than probably any of the governors say they want. he said i think you can say i helped a lot to get brian kemp elected. he mentioned the obamas and oprah winfrey complained for his opponent. he talked about the people impacted in georgia if they just wait a little while. beauticians, the folks who work at spas. he said i love these people.

tattoo parlors, bikers for trump. a lot of them have tattoos. there was some sadness he said we got to be taking care of our seniors, other than me, nobody wants to take care of me. on another topic, he said we know more about iran than they do. on back to the illness topic he said this wasn't the flu, by the way, you know they like to say the flu. actually, he was fond of comparing it before its outbreak here to the flu. he talked about the 1917 flu, which is how he refers to the flu pandemic of 1918. so it was a lot and with us to talk about some of the major points we just over heard, dr. ann ramon, professor of epidemiology. infectious disease division and also happens to run the ucla center for global and immigrant

health where she specializes in emerging infectious diseases. it was dr. birx who could have reached out and grabbed a profile in during when asked about massage therapists, tattoo parlors, hair stylists, how they could possibly do their jobs with proper social distancing guidelines. the answer is they can't. she took a pass yesterday and said she didn't want to prejudge and candidly she must have been a little bit bummed to hear the president come out today and said even he agreed that was too soon. >> well, i think it is too soon. we all know that social distancing is going to be key. we do not have, as i have said, pretty much every single time i've been on the show, we do not have a national testing strategy. we do not have tests available

for everybody. we do not have ppe available for everybody. we do not have any idea where we are on the curve. our hospitals are still not prepared to be able to manage. so we really are still right where we were previously, which is we do not know where we stand in this epidemic. and it would be really great if we could really start talking about what -- how we're going to attack this nationally, and in a coordinated fashion and to be able to ensure we're able to move forward and know what we need to do. testing is, of course, key to tha that. >> ann, because the president searches for a superlative, he can't finish a sentence without injecting a superlative at the

end true or not. today he wouldn't get tied down as a percentage of our population, we don't lead the world in testing, instead, he wants to make the point that we lead the world in testing in terms of raw numbers, of course, we're a nation of give or take 327 million people. >> well, i think the key we try to use in epidemiology is denominators. the raw numbers don't help us figure out where we are in comparison to other places and per capita, we're not in a place comparable to other countries. other countries tested a larger part of the population. we have more than 330 million people. we have 330 million people in this country and we are not -- we've tested a small, small percentage relative to any of these other countries out there. i think it's very important to remember denominators matter.

>> i'm reading a tweet. i discussed georgia's plan to reopen shuttered businesses for limited operations with the president. i appreciate his bold leadership and insight during these difficult times and frame work provided by the white house to safely move states forward. the next measured step to driven by data and state public health officials will continue with this approach to protect the lives and livelihoods of all georgia georgians, one more panel like the thousands of businesses currently operating throughout georgia i'm confident that business owners who decide to reopen will adhere to minimum basic operations which prioritize the health and well being of employees and customers. so it appears that a governor having watched his near term fate questioned on live

television is trying to find a way to back into this as he must do with their state and businesses. >> listen, we know that it's difficult for everybody here. everybody has sacrificed so much and i think that it's really important to acknowledge how much everybody sacrificed, but as dr. fauci has said, as so many other people have said to us, have said before me, you know, we are not there yet. and it's like it's exactly the opposite of what we want to do. we want to raep teap the benefi the sacrifices and if we lift restrictions too soon, we're going to see more deaths and illness and we've heard this from many people, from many sectors and i think it very important to take notice and that we do not want to undo all the good hard work everybody has done.

>> simple question to close, if california testing 50,000 individuals in the home of 30 million people, what would that tell you other than the health of those 50,000 on this wednesday? >> well, it's very important when we think about testing when we think about testing 50,000 people that those people are randomly selected and that those people will be representative of the population. i think that that's been a big issue with the testing and studies they have not been done on representative populations and therefore we can't extrapolate the data to anything meaningful and this is really, really important to remember. we need to have representative testing that is wide spread and takes into account all populations, not just self-selecting populations or populations that may be more

likely to be wanting to get teste tested. >> thank you, as always. it will do nothing to stomp the criticism of these briefings as being a critique of the media coverage when the president's quote testing is very much of a immediamedia trap getting into circulation tonight. "all in" with chris hayes starts next. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. president donald trump is so concerned primarily overwhelmingly with how the coronavirus pan dedemic affectss day to day political fortunes with hundreds of thousands of cases and tens of thousands of deaths in this country, he is still to this date over riding scientific experts to try to make it through each