good evening. i'm joshua johnson at nbc news world headquarters in new york. we are continuing to follow a developing story out of atlanta. the georgia bureau of investigation is reviewing the killing of 27-year-old rayshard brooks. he died friday night after a scuffle with police officers, one of whom shot him as he ran away. tonight the medical examiner announced that rayshard brooks died by homicide from organ injuries and blood loss. he was shot twice in the back. according to atlanta pd brooks fell asleep in a wendy's

drive-thru line. officers apparently tried to arrest him for dui. the georgia bureau of investigation says that brooks took an officer's taser and fled. this surveillance video from the wendy's shows brooks firing the taser erratically at an officer chasing him, right there. then the officer fired those fatal shots. joining us now to discuss is reporter marlon walker of the "atlanta journal-constitution." marlon, good evening. >> good evening. how are you? >> i'm well. and the autopsy basically confirms i think what we see on that video. what does that mean for how this case moves forward and how the city deals with the case? >> everybody copes talking about the decisions the fulton county district attorney office has to make. right now it's a matter of hearing from them, what they've decided and how things move forward over the next few days. >> what about how the city as a city deals with the case, the residents of atlanta? what's your sense of how this

affects that? >> there's a lot of gathering right now. there are a lot of people still looking for answers. i think every time you have a situation where a black man is shot by a police officer, especially when it's done on video, there's an opportunity for more calls for reforms. that's happening here obviously. and the continued hunt for the answer of why video recording isn't enough and that seems to be the overwhelming discussion that's going on today. >> yeah, it's kind of amazing how much video there was of this. even if you look at that surveillance video from the wendy's at the moment when the shots are fired, a few seconds after that you can see people who are in line, those cars in the drive-thru, pull into parking spaces and then people get out of their cars and start shooting video with a tremendous amount of presence of mind i might say of the police officers kind of surrounding rayshard brooks's body and beginning to process that scene.

now, that location has, as we mentioned, become the site of a growing protest. what is your sense of what has been drawing people to this wendy's over the last few days? it feels like the emotions there and the rationale has kind of evolved in the last 48 hours. >> it's just become as they always, do oftentimes we see the stuffed animals and the flowers that mark scenes where terrible situations have taken place. this is just an opportunity for people to gather and mark the loss of life. and i think at this point because of the pandemic it's forced people to be a little bit more aware of what's going on and gathering has just become a great way of showing support and solidarity and seeking answers. >> marlon walker of the "atlanta journal-constitution." marlon, thanks for making time for us. >> thank you. >> let's continue now with andre

dickens. he's an atlanta city council member at large. councilman dickens, good evening. >> hey, good evening. how are you? >> i'm well. thank you. what was your first reaction when you learned that atlanta's police chief was resigning, that the officer involved in rayshard brooks's homicide had been fired, and all within the span of about 24 hours? >> well, first i was crushed at the loss of life. i'm a black man here in atlanta, my hometown. and to see someone lose their life, to be shot from behind, over a routine traffic stop, i thought this could have been deescalated. so i was hurt. and then i was also hurt not only for mr. brooks's family, to find out he has three kids, to find out blarnthds-day party. it reminded me of myself with a daughter that i plan events for. and i'm thinking about all the thoughts that went through his

mind and his family. now those have come to a halt and now they're planning a funeral and thinking about the over and over and over replaying of this incident in their lives. that hurt me right now as a city council person it makes me want to do more. but it hurts me as a human, as a father, and as someone who really rides for my city, just seeing people that are just trying to get a meal in the line to see this carried out this way. to see officers take this to that extent i was devastated. so yes, our police chief has resigned. she was a great woman, led our police department. led our police department, but i understand the rationale behind this decision. change must come. >> now, fulton county's d.a., paul howard, says he hopes to have a decision on charges against officer garrett rolfe soon. what is your stance on charges? >> yeah, i think the d.a. has a tough job in this case to be

able to determine what to charge him with. i do believe that we could have had a situation where an investigation into mr. books to find out, you know, what's going on, where he is, versus a shooting could have been the case. once you have an individual's car, once you've determined that he is indeed intoxicated, there's no reason to pull out a service weapon and to shoot at him. i know others will see it as he turned around with a taser. i think that that was not need for you to take his life or to fire a gun at him. so now what does the d.a. do? the mayor and the police chief have done the right thing by firing that officer, but now to serve charges, is it manslaughter, is it murder? those are the things that are in the days to come as the d.a.

decides what to do with this case. >> our nbc affiliate in atlanta, wxia, is reporting that this officer, former officer rolfe, had just completed a training course in de-escalation. he also took a course back in april in cultural awareness. in january he passed a course that is called "use of deadly force." so if he did all of this training, why is rayshard brooks dead? >> yeah, that's the question that i wrestle with. one thing about the atlanta police force, we have a police department that reflects the citizenship. atlanta has a large amount of african-american officers, women officers, lgbtq officers. officer training is, you know, beyond what any other department has. i think they get fantastic training and they get retraining. but you know what, we can't out-train some things that are biases, and i don't know what went through mr. rolfe's mind before he fired that weapon, but

i know what goes through the minds of people across america when they have implicit and unconscious bias that has led them to believe that the incident that they're dealing with is bigger than it is because it is an african-american, whether that's a job interview, whether that's a loan document, whether that's an altercation with officers. we've seen it time and time again. hopefully our training, hopefully the conversations -- we have the national center for civil human rights here in atlanta that every officer gets trained by and they do a fantastic job, but -- and i think it's worked out in a number of incidences with police officers. de-escalation has happened. right now, it did not happen in this case and justice must be served for this family, for this city to heal, and for this nation to heal. unfortunately, mr. brooks and his family are bearing the brunt of an unfortunate devastating

situation we wish on no one. so going forward, my council colleagues, a number of us were out there today at the protest. and a number of us have been talking to residents and community members over the last few weeks as we've been dealing with all of these things across the nation. and we have some policies coming out tomorrow at our council meeting. eight can't-wait policies and some things related to our citizens review board that will improve and enhance citizen input in officer-involved excessive use of force. >> eight can't wait is a national campaign that's been making headway in a number of cities in terms of eight measures that are kind of a starting place for improving as they see it the way that police departments use force, train officers, or work on forms of de-escalation. i know that some cities have also passed new laws on use of force. they've -- some of them have talked about pulling money from their police budgets, this call to defund the police may be shocking to some, but it may be shocking to others that it

hasn't happened already. what is your sense in terms of what atlanta city council should do, for example, on funding for atlanta p.d.? do you think that the funding should be reduced or removed? >> yes. so right now, we are right in the middle, like, the 11th hour of our annual budget setting process. by june 30th, by constitution, the city of atlanta has to come up with a budget for the next year. for everything. from parks to police. and this is happening in real time. and conversations are being had by the 15 council members and council president, along with the administration, about divesting from some police activities and moving those into community policings, into special service programs. things that bring about healing in the community and ways that we can provide opportunities for african-american low-income communities to thrive versus to be under law and order. and so those conversations are being held right now.

we're not going to do away with police. i know the value of the atlanta police department to making sure that we have the protect and service nature of the police when there's incidents that so many times they come to great aid and great support. but at this time, if we're looking at this budget, i think there's some opportunities for us to see some ways that we can divert funds from one pot into another pot that can provide some help and some healing and so that's going to be an ongoing realtime very fast conversation between the administration, the police department, and the city council. again, we're not looking to defund the whole police department. but it's really to realign and to reassess everything about the way we do policing. i'm calling for a review of every training manual, every training procedure, and every current standard operating procedure that we have in the police department of atlanta and

what i think the methodology for doing that is that the police will have to -- whether it's through their law department, other things, will have to defend every line of code that is in the standard operating procedures to be able to say, this is justifiable. this is necessary. and we and citizens and other organizations like naacp, aclu, et cetera, say yes, indeed that does make sense and that's necessary. >> briefly, before i let you go, what do you want from atlanta's next police chief? is there one thing that is just drop dead nonnegotiable for you? in terms of who runs the atlanta p.d. next. >> i think that we need to have a police chief that serves the community as if it was their own family. to look at everyone as human. as fully human. to make sure that you protect everyone in each incident and serve everyone in every case throughout the day. to train officers. to raise these officers. and to provide opportunities for

officers to learn and have professional and personal development that they need. to push us and every entity in atlanta to see officers as human, to give them opportunities, to have mental health checks every six month because they're on the front line. >> yeah. >> to rotate officers in and out of particular posts. but to also communicate well with the citizens of atlanta. to communicate well with the business community. and to make sure that the first encounter that individuals have with police is not on the wrong side of a lethal weapon. that they have a lot of nurturing and responsible communications and community policing. that we do have a fair and honest conversation with citizens. each and every day. so that we learn each other and know each other well so that we can de-escalate situations like this before they occur. >> that's atlanta city council member andre dickens. council member dickens, thanks for talking to us. >> thank you.

thank you all. in atlanta and across america, we have seen nearly three weeks of protests after the death of george floyd. how much change will they bring? our panel is next. as our coverage continues live on msnbc. you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. and snoring? no problem. and done. so you can really promise better sleep? not promise. prove. it's the final days to save up to $600 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. plus 0% interest for 48 months & free premium delivery when you add a base. ends monday.

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[ scoffs ] are ythe weirdest. you make everyone around you crazy.

people are normal then they hang out with you and then they're jack nicholson in "the shining". i'm gonna tell my mom you tried to drown me. it's an above ground pool! you're like eight feet tall! breonna taylor, george floyd, rayshard brooks. just a few of the black men and women killed by police in recent months, at least ones whose names made the news. those names and many others are on signs that protesters have been carrying across the country for nearly three weeks. they're demanding an end to systemic racism and demanding changes in how police departments operate. elected officials on both sides of the aisle are also calling for change. here are republican senator tim scott of south carolina and democratic congresswoman karen bass of california. >> the question is, is there a path forward that we take a look

at the necessity of eliminating bad behavior within our law enforcement community? is there a path forward? i think we'll find that. >> you know, at the end of the day, you know, legislation is always about compromise, but i am extremely hopeful this time and the pressure is on us and i really feel we're going to act and the conversations with my republican colleagues even at our first hearing have been very positive. >> joining us to talk more about these potential changes are joe ested from police brutality matters and former nypd detective marq claxton who's the director of the black law enforcement alliance. good to you both with us. marq, let me start with you. where would sweeping changes in police departments across the country even start with the understanding that we're not just talking about changing laws and case law and customary procedures, we're also talking about departments that have thousands of closed contracts with cities and counties and

states that are in force right now that include disciplinary procedure. so where do you even start? >> well, i think you start by recognizing and acknowledging that there's a police culture that has in large part become toxic and become antithetical to justice equally applied, fairly applied justice. there's very problematic. you also have to avoid minimizing the situation as tim scott just attempted to do there where you talk about the misconduct of police or bad behavior by police as opposed to talking about criminal conduct. talk about civil and human rights violations conducted by law enforcement as a whole. so you have to know -- identify what the problem is, specifically, and i know earlier we spoke about the issues of training and tactics, but no, that's not the first place you have to go to is training and

tactics. you have to deal with the institutional systemic racism and bias and the toxic police culture that exists and work from there. >> joe, where do you think they should start on a local level in atlanta? what would be step one, in your mind? >> that one is a start on accountability. we for a long time in the low-income community, poor black community, have seen these incidents happen for a very long time. and it's not that they're not getting disciplined or the police is not aware of it, they're just not being held accountable. we can look at from eric garner, pantaleo, tamir rice, officer -- we can look at officers who have a history of bad policing. in some instance, taxpayers have already paid out on their bad policing. law enforcement just haven't figured out the way to actually address bad policing.

so when we -- we're good at identifying what the problem is. we see it. we can go all the way back to rodney king. like the detective said. there's no question asked that we have a problem, but we need to start figuring out how to fix the problem. so in my book, "police brutality matters," i've started giving recommendations on how to fix bad policing. we need legislation. the police department have not been able to police itself. that's been day one. we have not been able to police itself. here you have officers with histories of bad policing and they're still on the job. so, we need legislation, we need to take the discipline of police officers away from the police department and actually make it legislation. make it to where when officer commits a crime, he gets prosecuted. we don't -- we don't see that in policing. >> that's one of the things that a number of elected officials including new york's governor andrew cuomo has been talking about that d.a.s shouldn't be the ones who are investigating police because they usually work side by side, marq. now you have republicans and democrats acknowledging they

would like to see changes to police reform with different things that they focus on but generally they seem to be in the ballpark, but we heard the same thing when we saw tamir rice playing in a park and a police car pull up and shoot a little boy before the car had stopped moving. we heard that when trayvon martin was killed. we heard that when eric garner was choked out. we heard it when tamir rice was suddenly shot. we heard it when walter scott was shot in the back and the taser was planted near his body. we've heard it over and over. why should we believe that it will happen this time, marq, or should we? >> i tend not to be that much of a pessimist. i believe that -- now because of the emotional impact and what i think the nation sees as its personal investment in the sanctity of human life. and i think what happened to mr.

floyd in minneapolis really tricked the consciousness of a diverse and wide range of group of individuals. i think it's happening now because there's a playbook to go by. there are suggestions. recommended. that were made in the previous administration that are part of this 21st century policing model that are being re-introduced and modernized, if you will, with additional changes. i think it's happening now. possibility it will happen now because of the movement that occurred on the streets. the demonstration, the public demonstrations, the activism, that continues to this day. the response and the demand. and the fact that there are individuals willing to say disband the police because it's broken, it's a broken system. with individuals who say defund the police, perhaps. so there is -- it kind of forces the conversation. it forces governments,

individual institutions, to at least at the very least address these issues. i think that's what's different about this moment and there is a tremendous opportunity that i hope we don't squander by getting caught into tactical or training conversations. >> joe, to that point, regarding the opportunity, i think that the fact that some people are saying disband the police means that they're ready to say, you know, we've been asking nicely long enough and, to quote the president, you're fired. we're tired of asking you to do the right thing from now on. joe, if you were in charge of police reform on a national level, especially in communities where people are like, we're done waiting for you to do right, what would you advise them to do now to seize this moment with the understanding that they may not get another chance? >> right. i would definitely advise them -- see, we've been fighting this battle about how to correct policing for a long time. now we have an opportunity because of this incident, everybody's watching.

so what i would do is i would explain, have a rollout plan like i did in my book of state legislation because that legislation proposal that they have is a federal, that's not going to do anything for these local jurisdictions and state officers. and pretty much have a good so we would have to understand and pretty much have a good communication with the community, let them know, okay, we have a problem, this is how we're going to address the problem. i would definitely, definitely just go out and explain and push an agenda of accountability. here's my new legislation bill. state legislation bill. so when officers no longer can actually stand by and allow officers like you see with these incidents, they'll get criminally charged. there will be mandatory sentencing. i've heard time and time again working with officers, don't worry about it, the taxpayers, they'll pay the tab. the taxpayers shouldn't be paying the tab for bad policing. bad policing has cost the taxpayers over a billion dollars

in tax payout. our police, like a doctor, like an attorney, to go out and get insurance. that's a requirement of the law enforcement certificate. if you keep getting hits like any insurance, you can't afford your premium, you can't actually become a law enforcement officer no more. that takes you right out the game. we have to be real careful about what we ask for when we start talking about police reform. we can't get so emotional that we wipe out policing. we still have criminal elements we still have to address. with no police -- with no police, who's going to handle policing a community? still, we got to be smart about how we attack this problem. >> and marq, before we go, where would you start in communities where people have said, enough is enough, this is your last chance to do right? >> the structure and the complexion of those particular agencies, i think if we're going to start on the lower level and we avoid dealing with a national

response, if we're going to deal locally, then you want your department to be more reflective of the community in which it serves, you want your police officers to have some buy-in to the process. you want to change the dynamic and minimize the impact of tox ic police culture. you have to discourage the mentality and the mindset of us against them. you have to demilitarize your police agencies and you do have to redistribute or reallocate the funding away from the heavy-handed militarized enforcement and shifted to more community-related, community-based programming, conducted by professional police officers because i believe, quite frankly, that police -- you have part social worker, part psychologist, you got part, you know, interventionist, if you will. >> right, right. >> social worker. all these things.

so it's vitally important for us not to abdicate our responsibilities but to pick up and assume more responsibility but focus on the community-based problems. >> dallas's former police chief talks very eloquently about how police officers are asked to do everything from marriage counseling to dog catching so if that's going to be the scope of the responsibility, then some officers say they would like to be better equipped for that. joe ested from police brutality matters. marq claxton. director of the black law enforcement alliance. gentlemen, we appreciate your time. thanks very much. up next, we'll take you to atlanta where residents are making their voices heard. we're live in atlanta and across america here on msnbc. yes, you want to sell a security

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we're continuing our live coverage here on msnbc. let's get a report on the ground in atlanta. joining us now is reporter faith abubey from our nbc affiliate

wxia "11 alive" in atlanta. faith, what do you see? >> reporter: yeah, josh, we're on university avenue right across the street from the wendy's where the officer-involved shooting happened friday night. across the street as well we see police officers in formation getting ready to respond to any situation that might arise here at the scene. across the street here, specifically, we're at this business because this is one of the businesses that was damaged during the protests overnight here in the atlanta area. across the street, again, is the wendy's, but this business is a black-owned business. it's the package store, a liquor store here, in this community, and they've been here for about two years under this ownership. the indian and black ownership. and they told us when they got here this morning they saw damage to their windows. a lot of the windows were blown out. after eight hours of work here, the restoration team has been able to put up all these boards

you're seeing here on your screen. and the owner told me that he spent $10,000 just to board up the business so far. nothing was stolen inside. there was no looting but, again, the protesters were able to throw things at the windows and damage that overnight. so we spoke with one of the workers here as well and he was telling us he lives in this community. he's worked here for a couple of years now. he understands the frustration of these protesters. he was here just across the street when this shooting happened on friday night, so he gets it. however, it's also sad to see a business where he gets his money to pay his bills damaged the way it has been and they have been closed for the last two days. >> very quick, faith, before i have to let you go, the scene that we saw, the first night, the first 24 hours after the shooting death of rayshard brooks happened, was so intense. they set the wendy's on fire. they blocked i-75/85. the downtown connector.

14 lanes of the highway all blocked in both directions. we can see the scene from yesterday when they set the wendy's location on fire. they were throwing rocks, bricks, some kind of object at the police cars as they were kind of taking off. it took firefighters a while to be able to even get to the wendy's. it seems like things are much calmer now, at least in that sense, but certainly as fervent in terms of demanding reform, does the mood seem like it's kind of relaxed a bit or are people still on edge that there could be some more property damage? >> reporter: well, i can only specifically speak to this area where we are which is across the street from where the officer-involved shooting happened and this evening because of the rain, we had a heavy downpour this evening so it's sort of dampened some of the protests here. a lot of people had to take cover. as several businesses in the

area and then after the rain moved through, they were able to come back, gather in front of that wendy's and just basically milled about for a few hours and now they've moved out of the area. only a handful of protesters who are there across the street right now. so i would say compared to yesterday where we were on the air until about 2:30 this morning, things are much, much calmer and, of course, the frustration is still there. there's anger there. there's sadness there. >> yeah. >> reporter: but in terms of what we saw yesterday, protesters taking their anger out on businesses like this one, we haven't seen anything like that today, josh. >> that's reporter faith abubey from "11 alive" wxia in atlanta. faith, thanks very much. the shooting death of rayshard brooks has intensified the debate about police departments and their use of force. next, we'll ask the director of the aclu of georgia what she thinks should happen in brooks's case and what should be done with police reform. our live coverage continues ahead. sit tight.

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we're continuing to follow the news out of the atlanta area surrounding the death of 27-year-old rayshard brooks. protesters gathered for a second night, peacefully. brooks's death is adding new fuel to the already fiery debate over police brutality. joining us now is andrea young, executive director of the aclu of georgia. andrea, good evening. >> good evening. >> what was your initial

reaction to rayshard brooks's death? >> i was stunned, you know. i said not in atlanta, this can't be happening in atlanta. in a city already grieving from the deaths of ahmaud arbery, of breonna taylor, of george floyd and, of course, the covid-19 pandemic which has hit the african-american community here very hard. and we grieve with the community and with the family of rayshard brooks. a father and someone who will be missed by so many and it's -- you know, it was just with really disbelief that i heard this had happened. >> what role do you see the georgia aclu playing in trying to bring justice for rayshard brooks and trying to make policing in atlanta more just in

general? >> yes. well, you know, when the -- we've been -- we were involved with the ahmaud arbery situation before it became a national story. when the protests started after george floyd's killing, after a few days we saw the protests were going to continue, we put out a call for legal observers. we've had over a thousand aclu members and supporters to be trained as legal observers and they're out daily with the protesters. and we -- this is a very fast-moving situation and we've got to act. our political leadership has got to make decisions that go beyond reform, that result in the structural change of divesting from putting so many resources into an armed response to problems and invest more in

community solutions for things like homelessness, things like mental health crises, things like substance abuse. this was not a situation that even warranted an armed response in the first place, and we've got to have alternatives to that in our communities so that every single person in our community can be -- can feel safe. we've got to re-imagine that public safety is more than the police. >> yeah. >> public safety is a community response. >> briefly, before i have to let you go, how does georgia begin to heal from all of this? what's step one, before i got to let you go? >> well, we've got to come together as a community. people from all walks of life. i was on a call today with young activists, people in their 80s from the civil rights era. so we've got to come together across our community and agree that we can work together. we are atlanta. we can set the pace and show what a revisioning of public

safety looks like. so that this kind of thing is inconceivable. >> yeah. >> in the future. this affects all of us. >> andrea young, the executive director of the aclu of georgia. andrea, thanks for talking to us. >> thank you so much. when we return, we will hear from fulton county district attorney paul howard, now that the rayshard brooks autopsy results are in. we'll find out more about pressing charges and where the investigation goes from here. that's ahead.

the investigation is under way after the police shooting of rayshard brooks. tonight the medical examiner's office ruled the 27-year-old's death a homicide from two gunshot wounds to the back. officers could face charges as soon as this week. according to fulton county's district attorney paul howard. here is his conversation with msnbc's kasie hunt. >> mr. howard, thanks very much for coming on the program tonight. i'd like to start with the

police department. at this point, do you have everything you need, are you getting full cooperation, from the atlanta p.d.? >> yes. we have everything that we need to make a decision. with the medical examiner's report today, there is one other technical formality that we ought to cross, and that is information on the ballistics in this case. we've got to make sure since there are two officers, there are two guns involved, we have to make sure that the projectiles found in the body of mr. brooks actually came from one weapon or two weapons. we need to get that finalized. once they're done -- once that is done that will complete all the things that we need to make a decision in this matter. >> what -- can you just remind our viewers? in this case there was a taser

involv involved. mr. brooks apparently seized the taser from the officers and that ultimately led to this shooting death. is there any legal justification for the use of force in such a situation? >> there might be a circumstance that might allow one to be justified. but the question that we have to answer is at the time that the fatal shot or shots were fired, whether that officer that fired those shots to save his life, that officer based upon a reasonable officer would feel that his life was about to be taken or that someone else would be seriously harmed or killed. but if the shot was fired for some other reason, then it is

not justified. >> so if your assessment is he fired these shots without such reasonable fear, what would he potentially face in terms of charges? >> the three potential charges, charges that we're looking at now, one would be the charge of murder, which in georgia involves intent to kill. the second charge is the charge of felony murder, which involves a death that occurs as a result of an underlying felony. in this case the underlying felony would be an aggravated assault. the other charge that we're considering is a voluntary manslaughter. those are the three charges that we're currently considering. >> does it matter in your kind of deliberations, do we know if

mr. brooks fired the taser? is that relevant to how you think about this? >> i think if you are looking at the vid crowes and we've looked at several videos from several angles, and if you look at the distance from mr. brooks back to the officers, we look at what the officers knew about that taser, then i don't believe that the taser plays the prominent part that many people have talked about. what you have to figure out is whether or not a reasonable officer would feel that his life was actually in danger or about to be harmed at that time, and that's what our analysis will be based upon. >> i'm sure for many reasonable

people the concept of someone running away from you obviously raises questions about that. can you talk a little bit more broadly about cases like this in atlanta throughout your career? is this the kind of case that you have prosecuted frequently? do you find that you've had more support from the community recently to prosecute these? what kind of pressure do you feel around these kinds of investigations? obviously, this is an incredibly high pressure and high-profile moment for you and the work that you're doing right now. >> well, since the time that i've been district attorney, and i've been district attorney here since 1997, i believe this would be the 39th case that we prosecuted involving police misconduct. i think it would become either the eighth or the ninth case involved in actual homicide. we've never had any real

problems with the community because before we started prosecuting these cases what the community said is they wanted police officers prosecuted when they perform some act of misconduct and before my administration that has simply not been done. the pressure that we've received has been the pressure from the police union. the police union has criticized my office at every turn for prosecuting these cases. they call every prosecution a political prosecution. but what we have continued to say is that we will examine the cases. if the officer performed an act that would be considered not justified, we'd move forward. but if the officer did nothing wrong, then we would also explain to the community that this officer should not be

prosecuted. >> all right. paul howard, fulton county d.a. thank you very much for your time tonight, sir. i know you have a very busy week ahead of you. >> a busy week indeed in which we expect to be hearing from the family of rayshard brooks sometime tomorrow morning. you might also be interested to know that just before we went on the air president trump tweeted about the conversation over police departments. he wrote, "many democrats want to defund and abolish police departments. how crazy." all caps. thank you for making time for us on msnbc. i'm joshua johnson. do follow me on twitter and facebook. i'm @nbcjoshua. until we meet again, stay safe, stay sharp, and yes, we will get through this. good night.

we're in a country with vast resources, vast expertise, yet we're looking at 100,000 dead. sir, how on earth did we get here? >> every death that we've experienced is a tragedy. >> tonight, a "dateline" investigation. inside america's covid-19 response. >> at what point did you realize that there was a freight train coming down the rail at us? >> very early on. >> we weren't prepared. we weren't even getting prepared. >> it was like a ticking time bock. catastrophic failure. >> we uncover insider e-mails, white house documents, and for the first time in detail lay out the pandemic playbook that might

have changed everything. could lives have been saved if we had acted more quickly? for sure lost time is equivalent to lost lives. >> do you not ask what mistakes were made, what things should have been done? why was there not more urgency? >> you can't imagine a greater sense of urgency. >> the playbook. >> good evening. i'm lester holt. with the nation's attention turned to george floyd's death and demonstrations across the country calling for equal justice, you might not have noticed, the covid-19 pandemic remains rampant and deadly. in fact, as the country opens up, some states are seeing an alarming surge in cases. tonight, we look back on how it all began and ask the white house, did it really have to get this bad? >> it's getting really bad here.

this is something we've never seen before. >> it was like a tsunami. the human toll of it. >> please do whatever you need to do. but please do not let me die. >> reporter: the cost of covid-19 has been staggering. more than 100,000 people in the u.s. have died. 2 million have gotten sick. and tens of millions of people have lost their jobs. the devastation has been unimaginable. >> i would view it as something that just surprised the whole world. >> but back in 2016 a team of white house insiders did imagine the devastation. that's why they wrote this, a 69-page government document stamped with a seal of the president's office. it is a step-by-step guide for white house officials, a playbook to stop a pandemic in its tracks. >> so the intent with the playbook was here are the things

you need to focus on at first, here are the important questions to ask when you begin fighting. >> with no disrespect for anyone, would it be fair to call the playbook pandemic for dummies? >> i think that it could be called pandemics for dummies. >> tonight we are going to crack open the playbook and investigate what could have been done to fight the virus. then we'll show you what actually happened. it can be hard to remember what life was like back in january. but for many of us did was a time of new beginnings. a high school student had just celebrated her sweet 16 in queens, new york. >> she had the time of her life. she danced throughout the whole night. >> a young mother from south georgia was training for a new job. and a singer from new jersey who'd gotten her big break on "the voice" was planning a

european tour. >> i was just excited to be living my dream. >> it's lives like these the playbook was written to protect. lives that would be knocked off course by a virus out of control. covid-19 first reared its head in wuhan, china. but as january got under way in washington, d.c., most talk of china involved trade deals and congress was gearing up for president trump's impeachment trial. >> i think it's fair to say that in the first few days in january there were questions about how bad this was going to be. >> reporter: dr. beth cameron, who talked to me from home, was the playbook's chief author. she is a highly regarded health security expert who has worked for both republican and democratic presidents. >> when you guys wrote the playbook, was it your intention it was going to be the in case of fire break glass, this is what you want to use? >> the purpose of this document was to be used on a regular basis. >> for the past 20 years with

varying degrees of urgency presidents have prepared this country for a pandemic. >> they can kill those who are young and healthy as well as those who are frail and sick. >> the trump administration has produced a number of detailed pandemic plans too. and just last year ran a multistate pandemic exercise. but the authors of the playbook say their guide was different. it was meant to be a simplified road map for white house officials to help them efficiently coordinate government plans, a tool to save time because in a pandemic time equals lives. >> these are very unusual events. >> jeremy konundyke, an examine in international disasters, helped coordinate the government's response to ebola. he watched what was going on in china with increasing alarm. you were part of this team that had written this playbook. at this point is it now becoming less abstract and back becoming very real in your mind? >> what was clear was we needed to move to a no regrets posture

in the united states. >> in other words, prepare for the worst. in early january the centers for disease control set up a team to monitor the outbreak. on january 9th they got word from china. covid-19 was a disease we hadn't seen in humans before. what's known as a novel pathogen. that's the type of pathogen the color-coded playbook says should trigger an elevated threat level and prompt questions like do we have access to biological samples of the disease? critical to making tests and vaccines. but there were concerns the cdc wasn't acting fast enough. three weeks went by, and according to this e-mail written by a top government scientist the cdc hadn't officially asked china for samples yet. "that's a problem," he wrote. the department of health and human services told us efforts were made but china was

uncooperative. at what point did you realize there was a freight train coming down the rail at us? >> so very early on this virus had very serious features that raised concerns to me. >> dr. luciana borio has spent her career studying infectious diseases. up until last year when she left for the private sector she monitored global diseases for the national security council inside the trump white house. >> i couldn't imagine a situation where we would not have already had cases circulating in the u.s. given the amount of travel that takes place between our two countries. >> were our policy makers slow in recognizing the reality of the situation? >> you know, lester, it's very difficult to know. i had left the white house in 2019. my sense is that it's important to catch the attention of our policy makers who may not be necessarily trained in public health and infectious diseases.

>> nbc news has learned a number of people were trying to catch the attention of policy makers early on. ken dilanian, who covers national security for nbc news, says the intelligence community started flagging the virus in december. in january the virus was included in the president's daily brief. >> we know from our reporting that it was included in the president's daily brief, which is some of the highest-level intelligence gathered in one place in the government. it was included in that brief more than a dozen times. >> the white house has said there were no explicit warnings in those briefings, and it's unclear if the president ever read them. we do know that on january 21st the cdc announced the first known case of coronavirus in the united states. the next day president trump gave some of his first comments about the disease during an interview with cnbc. >> are the words about a pandemic at this point? >> no, we're not at all. and we're -- we have it totally under control.

>> the playbook authors weren't so sure. they wanted to know what the government was doing about testing and getting hospitals and health care workers ready for what would be the fight of their lives. >> i realize we're speaking in hindsight, but what do you think was the first major mistake by the administration in tackling this? >> i think the overriding mistake is the magical thinking that we saw in january and february that somehow a virus that could ravage china to the degree that we saw playing out in front of our eyes was somehow unlikely to pose the same risks here. >> coming up -- another mistake was just around the corner. >> we found out that the u.s. did not have a working test. >> i was really surprised. >> where were the tests? >> we weren't prepared. you know, we weren't even getting prepared. time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to

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>> reporter: by the end of january, the playbook's color-coded charts would have been flashing red. china had put the entire city of wuhan, a city the size of london, in lockdown. on january 31st president trump banned entry to this country for foreign nationals who'd recently traveled to china. >> the president says by restricting travel from china he saved a lot of lives. does the evidence support that? >> it's definitely possible that the travel ban did save a number of cases from coming into this country. but lester, there were already cases here. >> reporter: we know america's first official covid-19 patient returned home to the u.s. from wuhan in mid-january. nbc news has analyzed flight data collected by flightaware, an aviation intelligence company, and determined that as many as 8,000 people flew here directly from wuhan in january.

how many of them brought the virus? we don't know. where did those people go? who did they infect? we don't know that either, because there was no widespread testing being done. playbook author dr. beth cameron. >> this is epidemiology 101. this is how you stop an outbreak from becoming an epidemic or a pandemic. >> reporter: dr. luciana borio, the infectious disease expert and former white house insider, agrees. she wrote about the need for widespread testing in a "wall street journal" op-ed in late january. >> you were beating the drum for testing very early on. >> that's right. without testing we don't know who's sick. we don't know how many are sick. we can't act, we can't isolate. >> reporter: on page 32 of the playbook the authors address testing, asking if the states "have diagnostic capability and capacity sufficient to trace and monitor for an outbreak."

the answer, in january and early february, would have been no. the only lab in the us that could run a covid-19 test was initially inside the cdc. it wasn't until february 6th, 17 days after the discovery of the first case here, that the cdc shared testing kits with selected labs. two days later they got bad news. many of those tests kits didn't work. >> we found out that the u.s. did not have a working test, which -- which cost some valuable time. does that surprise you that could happen, and was there a remedy for that? >> i was really surprised that the united states had so much trouble with testing capability across the country. i think the real problem in this case was the failure to understand that it was happening, and the failure to come up with a backup plan. >> reporter: labs like this one might have been a big part of

any backup plan. >> unfortunately, the cdc test, you had a perfect storm. and so we got late for testing. >> reporter: dr. alex greninger is the assistant director of the university of washington medicine virology lab in seattle. even before that first cdc test failed, greninger's lab had already started developing its own test for covid-19. but it needed permission from the fda to use it. >> there was a frustration that there were going to be a lot of requirements. we just knew that it was going to cost time. >> reporter: when weeks passed with no test from the cdc, grenninger and concerned colleagues from other labs lobbied congress for help in cutting through the red tape. in late february greninger's lab got the green light they'd been looking for. >> and so within about 72 hours we were live for testing. >> reporter: that was progress. but cdc guidance limited testing

to people exhibiting symptoms or travelers from infected areas. on the other hand, south korea identified their first case on the same day the u.s. did and started widespread testing in early february. by the end of that month, south korea had tested nearly 100,000 people. the u.s., 472. >> we weren't prepared, you know? we weren't -- we weren't even getting prepared. >> reporter: though covid-19 had been here since at least january, konyndyk says that in mid-february he learned first-hand that some members of the administration still felt the disease was a foreign threat. >> you attended an informal meeting, there were science experts, there were some folks from the white house. what can you tell us about that conversation? >> they were not talking about measures that they were taking to prepare the homeland. they were not talking about hospital preparedness. they were not talking about planning for social distancing measures or anything like that. virtually everything that they were talking about was the travel ban, the quarantines of

returning travelers, traveler screening. you know, that was -- it was clear where their head was. >> reporter: we now know that the virus was killing americans long before any widespread testing began. autopsy results have revealed that a san jose woman had died of covid-19 on february 6th, the same day the cdc's faulty tests went out. as the calendar flipped from the lost month of february to march, most americans, assured that everything was under control, carried on with their lives as if nothing had changed. that was certainly true of the people we've met. that teenager from queens, remember, was counting the days to spring break. in europe that singer from new jersey was living her dream on tour. and in albany, georgia, that young mom was feeling on top of the world. >> february, i would say that i

was living my best life, not really afraid of what was going on because i don't think it was that big at that particular time. >> reporter: none of them suspecting that an invisible killer was stalking them. coming up -- >> i understand that disruption to everyday life may be severe. >> a warning from a cdc official and a white house backlash. >> trump reportedly, according to our sources, was angry at her candor. >> reporter: when "dateline" continues. ine" continues. finding dental insurance plans can be confusing,

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we have it totally under control. >> the immediate risk to the general american public remains low. >> it's going to disappear. one day, it's like a miracle. it will disappear. >> reporter: the job of tracking pandemics was once handled by a single office inside the white house, part of the national security council. but trump officials disbanded that office in 2018 and reassigned the staff. they say the reorganization didn't result in a loss of expertise. but nbc news's ken dilanian says it came at a cost. >> there were biodefense experts who remained at the nsc in other offices. but there was nobody at a senior level who could have the president's ear who was an

expert in public health and global pandemics. >> reporter: trump officials say they were following their own highly detailed pandemic response plans, and insist those plans were more useful than the playbook. but jeremy konyndyk says we still weren't moving fast enough. >> i think if we'd been following the playbook there would have been planning under way from late january for the kind of physical distancing measures that might need to be applied depending on what we saw the virus do. >> reporter: we do know that alarm bells were going off. since january, officials from the cdc, homeland security and other federal agencies had been talking to outside experts who warned we were falling behind. in an e-mail chain with the subject line red dawn, they discussed what we should be doing. a senior medical adviser with veterans affairs wrote, "i would drop almost everything we are

now doing and prepare for implementing tlc/npi's." that medical jargon covers social distancing. a researcher noted, "we need the citizens to know and practice social distancing." and then on february 25th someone said it out loud. a cdc official made a pretty notable and alarming statement to reporters. >> yes. dr. nancy messonnier, who at the time was the head of the cdc's task force on this, said that americans should expect disruption to their own lives. >> i understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe. but these are things that people need to start thinking about now. >> reporter: dr. messonnier's phone call with reporters came as china and italy were already facing lockdowns and severe disruptions. businesses closed. economies tanking. within hours of her comments, the stock market took a dive.

>> and there was a backlash. trump reportedly, according to our sources, was angry at her candor and wanted her muzzled. we don't think that she was muzzled, but she never again put things in such stark terms. >> and the next day, the president, the secretary of health and human services and a different senior cdc official dedicated an entire press conference to walking back that comment from dr. messonnier. >> thank you, mr. president, for -- >> reporter: alex azar, secretary of health and human services, tried to refocus on the travel ban. >> the president's early and decisive actions, including travel restrictions, have succeeded in buying us incredibly valuable time. >> reporter: at that same news conference the president announced a change. >> that i'm going to be putting our vice president, mike pence, in charge. >> reporter: but the person who took charge at that briefing was president trump. >> so far, your administration is only testing less than 500 people. are you planning to test more people? >> well, we're testing everybody that we need to test.

and we're finding very little problem. >> reporter: this was the first of many news conferences where the president would take center stage. >> some of the doctors say it will wash through, it will flow through. >> reporter: what does the playbook tell us about messaging, about communicating to the american people? >> the playbook addresses communication by saying there should be single, clear, designated, science-based communicators. >> reporter: in the absence of a clear, consistent message, americans continued to pack into restaurants, movies, offices, airplanes, and churches. >> never in a million years did i think that a disease that started in china would not only reach albany, georgia but spread as quickly as it did. >> reporter: terrica parks lives in albany, georgia about three hours south of atlanta. in early march she was asked to perform for a youth program at a

local church. ♪ four days later, terrica was sick with covid-19. >> i was in so much pain that it caused me to get in the middle of my bed in a fetal position just praying, "please, please let the pain go away." >> reporter: terrica had fallen victim to an outbreak that hit little albany, georgia like a tsunami. health officials believe someone sick from out of town had brought it to a funeral in late february. some of those mourners also attended terrica's church performance. now, in the hospital and deep in misery, she started a video diary. >> i just want to be able to hold my kids, kiss my kids, be able to hold and kiss my husband. lord please, please, just give me my life back. please god. >> reporter: the outbreak killed

more than 140 people in and around albany. >> reporter: we saw how fast this could move. south georgia, a bunch of people attend a funeral. hundreds get sick. some die. how could that have been avoided? >> well, that could have been avoided if we had had better testing and better surveillance. >> reporter: there were a number of super-spreading events that caused the virus to run wild beginning in february. services at a synagogue in new rochelle, new york. a corporate conference in boston. a series of family gatherings in chicago. a choir practice near seattle. and two massive gatherings, mardi gras and spring break in florida. >> reporter: could lives have been saved if we had acted more quickly? >> for sure, lost time during any pandemic is equivalent to lost lives. >> reporter: by mid march, events would start moving at warp speed. the virus had taken aim at new york city.

and everything the playbook was designed to prevent was coming to pass. coming up -- >> we will be suspending all travel from europe. >> reporter: was that a moment when you felt a little better about messaging? >> no. i was actually very, very concerned about the oval office address.

>> reporter: as the coronavirus rampaged through the country in early march, few americans seemed to be paying close attention. then came march 11th. >> you see the teams heading back to the locker room. >> reporter: when a player tested positive for the virus, the nba suspended its season. tom hanks posted that he and his wife were positive too. and president trump went on primetime tv. >> to keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from

europe to the united states for the next 30 days. >> reporter: americans abroad began the scramble home, crushing together in airports. felicia temple, in europe on a singing tour, got an urgent call from her husband. >> he's freaking out, and he's like, "you have to get home. i will fly you home." >> reporter: we now know the virus had been flowing into new york from europe unchecked for weeks, and the president's second travel ban did nothing to satisfy the playbook's authors. was that a moment in which you felt a little better about messaging? >> no. i was actually very, very concerned about the oval office address. what we really needed to be focusing on was building up our public health capability in the states, and building up our -- our capacity to test. >> reporter: but the president offered no specific policy to curtail the spread of the virus inside the u.s., as cities and

states began closing down. >> there was a lot of inconsistency in when different cities and different states began to employ stay at home orders. one of the things i think is really revealing is the difference between seattle and san francisco, on the one hand, and new york city on the other hand. >> reporter: the playbook was written, its authors say, because days matter when fighting a pandemic. the federal government began recommending social distancing on march 16th. modelling from columbia university suggests if the government had acted even a week earlier, 36,000 lives might have been saved. the cost of waiting in new york city, the epicenter of the virus, was enormous. >> sources that i talked to in public safety and city government say that the real issue here was a failure of imagination. >> reporter: tom winter, an nbc news correspondent for investigations, has been covering new york's response to the pandemic since early january. >> it wasn't thinking about the

tourists that were coming in from europe that might have had the virus. it's not thinking about those subways that are going be packed with riders, one person on top of the other person, sneezing, coughing. how's that going to go? >> reporter: new york governor andrew cuomo and the city's mayor, bill de blasio, hesitated to close down the nation's largest school system. and there were more than 16,000 confirmed cases in new york before a stay at home order took effect. since then, the mayor and governor have defended their actions, saying they moved as fast as possible during an unprecedented crisis and were hampered by a lack of support and reliable information from the federal government. >> there's no question that the actions taken by the governor and the mayor in shutting down new york city when they did helped save lives, but there's also the possibility that some of their early inaction cost lives as well. >> reporter: karla duarte was one of those new york city students who'd been attending school up to the middle of march. a few months back she'd celebrated her sweet 16 with a

huge party, wearing a dress she adored, dancing up a storm. but in mid-march karla began to feel tired. a cough, chills and fever followed. karla's mom ana became seriously concerned. >> and i told my husband, i said, "let's get ready. let's get ready and take her to the emergency room." >> reporter: karla was diagnosed with the virus. things went downhill quickly. within days she was moved to the intensive care unit. she was struggling to breathe. >> and she even said on that day, she said, "you know, mommy, when this is going to be over?" you know, and i saw that she was really suffocating. >> reporter: when a ventilator didn't help karla, the head nurse told ana her daughter could go on an ecmo, a breathing machine of last resort. >> and she said, "but this is like 50/50, you know? 50/50."

>> reporter: how could it have come to this? a healthy teenager now fighting for her life in a new york city hospital that was itself on the front lines of a worsening war. coming up -- the mad scramble for masks. where was the safety equipment? who or what is to blame for the shortage during this crisis? >> all i can say is we are not prepared, even now it's a catastrophic failure. >> reporter: when "dateline" continues. $9.95 at my age?

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we are reusing n95 masks and our shields. >> and honestly it's pretty terrifying. we're all getting exposed. >> we have to risk possibly our own lives and the lives of our families to be able to take care of our patients. and it's not a position any of us should be put in. >> reporter: of all the delays and missteps in the crisis response, failing to supply enough personal protective equipment, ppe, to frontline workers may be the most egregious. could it have been anticipated that all 50 states would suddenly have this urgent demand for ppe at the very same time? >> i think we absolutely could have anticipated that all 50 states would have needs at some point during this outbreak,

which ultimately became a pandemic, even going back into january. >> reporter: dr. cameron says if the administration had been following the playbook, it would have determined there wasn't enough ppe in january. but in january and february, the u.s. sent ppe overseas, like this 18-ton shipment to china in february on the day the world health organization warned of a global ppe shortage. and while the federal government started the procurement process for ppe in late february, purchase records show the first order of new n95 masks wasn't placed until march 12th. we are continuing to see a debate playing out right now about who's in charge, who orders equipment, the feds or the states. what did you conclude in your preparation of the playbook? what we said in the playbook is, yes, there is a lot of authority that exists at the state and local level, but there will also

be an expectation that the federal government will provide leadership. >> reporter: inside the white house the president's son-in-law jared kushner was running his own task force, taking on the ppe problem by recruiting private sector leaders like eric ries, a quick-start-up guru. march 21st, you get a call from a silicon valley friend. what were you asked to do? >> the initial request was to build a website that could match the supply and demand of ppe. >> reporter: but ries realized the growing ppe crisis needed more than just a website. he saw a need to coordinate all the public and private efforts, the manufacturers, health insurers, financiers and grassroots organizations already plugging the gaps. so he launched the ppe coalition, connecting makers of ppe with those who needed it most. >> ries, the son of two doctors, felt he was on a life or death

mission to stop the ppe supply from drying up. >> reporter: i don't know how to explain how it felt. it was like a ticking time bomb. >> reporter: ries thought his work would be a stopgap measure until the government took over coordinating ppe on a national scale. >> we always thought the cavalry was coming. >> reporter: but that didn't happen. he says he reached out to the government and kushner's task force, but didn't get a response. he is surprised so much life-saving work remains in the hands of volunteers. you've cautioned against judging right now, but i do have to ask you, from your perspective, who or what is to blame for the shortage of ppe during this crisis? >> it's a question above my pay grade and over my head. all i can say is we are not prepared, even now, as a society for this problem. and it's not even close. it's not like we got a b-minus and we almost did it. it's a catastrophic failure. >> reporter: we have spoken to experts who put together what

was called the playbook. and one of the things they stressed in their planning was that ppe should have been part of the planning even in january. does it disappoint you that that didn't happen? >> the first time i heard that, i was outraged and shocked. >> reporter: the white house has said their own plans were more robust than the playbook and recently pointed to a pandemic exercise they ran last year. >> we did a whole exercise on pandemic preparedness in august of last year and had an entire after-action report put together. >> reporter: the exercise she's talking about was a pandemic war game called "crimson contagion," that tested government response in a flu pandemic scenario. we spoke to people who participated and obtained a draft after-action report. we learned that the exercise exposed vulnerabilities in the system with leadership, states getting federal help, and problems with testing and ppe supply, failings that didn't get fixed before the real pandemic

hit and that might have been averted using the playbook written years earlier. and to critics who say it is outdated, that other policies have superseded it, you say what? >> i would say the playbook is not outdated. look at the questions that it asks. i think they're completely relevant today. >> reporter: at this snapshot in time, what grade would you give the trump administration in terms of its response to this virus? >> honestly, lester, i would have to give them a failing grade at this point. >> reporter: coming up -- we're looking at 100,000 dead in this country. sir, how on earth did we get here? >> every death that we've experienced is a tragedy. >> reporter: the white house responds. businesses are starting to bounce back.

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well except now, you're binge learning. for a limited time, get up to $800 when you open and fund an account. call 866-300-9417 or visit tdameritrade.com/learn. ♪ >> reporter: the steps in the playbook for handling a viral outbreak here had been largely ignored. so in that vacuum the virus was able to write a playbook of its own, random and cruel. ♪ felicia temple, whose talents got noticed after appearing on "the voice," has witnessed that firsthand. we told you she was a singer. what we didn't tell you is that she is also a nurse, who raced back in march to help colleagues and patients at her old hospital, holy name medical center in teaneck, new jersey.

she's seen this highly infectious disease keep families from the bedsides of loved ones. you have to essentially stand in as a surrogate for family. >> yes, absolutely. i had a young woman and she had a do not resuscitate order, and the other nurse said, "i'm sure that there's something that we can do to save her." and i said, "unfortunately, there isn't." so i said, "let's just hold her hand, and let's just pray over her." and she did go. and it was terrible. >> reporter: sometimes the patients have been people she's known for years and loved. >> my heart just dropped. because he's a hospital treasure. >> reporter: 75-year-old jesus villaluz was a patient transporter, ferrying the sick from room to room until he became a covid patient himself, and died at the very hospital he'd dedicated himself to. >> as they wheeled him out of the unit, all of the staff lined

the walls while his body went past, just to pay tribute to him. >> reporter: this moment, of jesus's body being carried through the hospital, has become an iconic image of the sacrifices made by healthcare workers during this pandemic. [ applause ] despite the lives lost, the president has consistently said the government's response has been a success. secretary of health and human services alex azar echoed that when he sat down with me for an interview two weeks ago. >> we're in a country with vast resources, vast expertise, yet we're looking at 100,000 dead in this country, the most infections of any country. sir, how on earth did we get here? >> so first, we're a very large country. so it's important to remember that while our numbers are large, our country is large also. and every death that we've experienced is a tragedy. but we're testing now in historic numbers.

the more you test, of course, the more you're going to identify in terms of cases. >> reporter: but back to my question of how we got here, do you not ask what mistakes were made, what things should have been done, the timing? do those things keep you up at night? >> china should have been more transparent, open and cooperative, i'll tell you that much. china knew that they had human-to-human transmission and yet they were concealing that they knew they had asymptomatic transmission, yet they concealed that. >> reporter: but by early january they had acknowledged a novel coronavirus was out there. should the u.s. have been taking steps right from the get-go to work on things like personal protection equipment, set up testing procedures to identify where it is? >> we in fact did every one of those things. we scaled up the national security council at the white house, we put in place an emergency operations team at the cdc. we scaled up a government-wide countermeasures group that was working on vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. we reached out to personal protective equipment manufacturers and began the process to scale up domestic manufacturing. >> but the first purchase orders

for ppe weren't issued by the government until march. why did that not occur earlier? >> well, that's not actually true. we were procuring n95 respirators earlier in late january and early february with the money that we had. >> reporter: we asked secretary azar's office for documentation of those early purchases, but it did not provide any. our own search of government databases found no federal orders for n95 masks before march. were you aware of the 2016 pandemic playbook? >> oh, of course. of course. we were presented with the obama administration's rather thin pandemic playbook. and we found that inadequate. and we in the trump administration actually revised and fleshed out the pandemic plan, to be much more robust. >> reporter: then again, the playbook's authors say it was meant to be a concise guide, so leaders could act quickly during a crisis. and there is overlap between the playbook and the administration's plans.

>> but some of the things in that playbook were mirrored in your own work, this administration's work, and yet they weren't done. did the administration ignore some of its own work, its own findings on dealing with the pandemic? >> lester, we did exactly what the pandemic playbook says to do. >> reporter: in our interview, secretary azar pointed again to the china travel ban. but the secretary does concede one delay. he says time was lost when the cdc, which reports to him, failed to get working test kits out quickly to public health labs. >> south korea had its first coronavirus confirmed case the same day the united states did. but by the time we distributed a working test, they had already run 100,000 tests, the u.s. only 472. how did that happen? >> so south korea had an admirable response. and we should give them credit for it. they're a much smaller country. they also had a very localized outbreak. and because of different -- different approaches to public health, they were able to isolate all of those individuals.

>> reporter: you're saying that the south korea model is not reflective of the u.s. experience and -- and that there's nothing there to be replicated? >> oh, i think -- i think that as we move forward we've learned important lessons about just how -- with a novel coronavirus something, a pandemic like, this our testing system in the united states was not built for that. >> reporter: but the need to test was laid out, in your own exercises, this administration's exercise as well as that 2016 playbook, wasn't it? >> well, most of the pandemic planning had been around pandemic flu. remember, you have a novel pathogen coronavirus here, a totally novel one. you've got to get the private sector to develop those tests and to manufacture and replicate those across the country. >> reporter: the secretary says the federal government's overall efforts saved lives, including its recommendations on social distancing issued in march. but could we have acted faster? >> as you know, recently there was some modeling that suggested that had there been an earlier

response, even a week earlier, it might have saved tens of thousands of lives. do you -- do you accept those conclusions, that modeling? >> i think it's important to recognize that the genomic data is indicating that new york was seeded by cases coming over from italy and from europe. and had new york city, new york state taken action sooner to engage in community mitigation efforts, that certainly could've slowed the spread of disease. >> reporter: new york officials have said they lacked federal direction early on. azar points out that the administration had to weigh closures against the impact to the economy and to americans who needed regular health care, even during a pandemic. he says this president has risen to all those challenges. >> reporter: the president has often been at odds with his own scientists. there have been, let's face it, some conflicting signals coming from government. do you regret any of that? do you wish that he had not done some of the things that he has done? >> the president hasn't been at odds with his public health advisers. he works closely with them.

he takes their advice. >> reporter: but he's been rooting on states, calling on states to open up even as they essentially violate the white house guidelines on how to safely open up. that's not -- that's not being at odds with your scientists? >> well, the guidelines are guidelines. they're -- they're simply potential markers for how one would progress to reopening. but each governor knows the lay of the land in their -- in their state better. >> reporter: as states adjust to a new normal, the people most impacted by this virus like ana duarte can't help but look back and think about the what-ifs. she wonders, would faster action by leaders have prevented her daughter, karla, from becoming infected? and speaking of karla -- >> i heard the nurse talking to my mom. and then i eventually, you know, i started like opening my eyes. >> reporter: despite being so sick and on a ventilator, karla eventually rallied. and on april 19th got the all-clear to go home.

>> karla! karla! >> reporter: with her mom's help she's slowly regaining her strength.

♪ this sunday, another police shooting. the fatal shooting of an african-american man after a struggle with atlanta police leads to angry protests and the immediate resignation of the city's police chief. >> i do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force. >> we'll have the latest from atlanta. >> this as coast to coast marches -- >> i just want justice and we just want it now. >> -- have prompted a national debate on reforming police. >> we're talking about engaging a plan to create a public safety system that works for everyone. >> we won't be defunding our police. we won't be dismantling our police. we won't be disbanding our police. >> this morning i'll talk to

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