we have former obama care administrator, andy slavitt, back with us tonight. andy, i got to tell you. i don't often say i don't get it. usually, i get exactly why he is saying what he's saying. why he's doing what he's doing. not this. and somebody wrote that for him. somebody, like you. like, some policy person, atop a pyramid, said, here, say this. is there any truth to the idea that we need an executive order for pre-existing conditions to be protected? and that this has never been done before? other than never been done about somebody lying about something like this, that's in law. >> of course, not. if he was serious, he would drop the lawsuit that he's joined to get rid of pre-existing conditions, get rid of the aca, to get -- to have 23 million people lose healthcare. to, essentially, raise price of prescription drugs. he could say, let's drop this, this is not a good time to take health insurance coverage away from people. so this window-dressing stuff may play to his base but it's complete crap. >> but how is it even window dressing? it's just a lie.

andy slavitt, thank you so much. i appreciate you joining us. i want to bring in now, cnn's fareed zakaria, the host of fareed zakaria gps, right here, on cnn. of course, fareed, thank you so much. let's talk about your new op-ed in "the washington post" where you talk about president trump's botched pandemic response. you said he's turned the presidency into a reality tv show. and this -- this pandemic reveals the limits of that. >> yeah. you know, it's one thing that, don, we don't recognize. because we see the white house -- the white house has become a kind of symbol of power all over the world. you know, you have the west wing. you have movies made about it. constitutionally, the presidency is a weak position. it was designed that way. it is not the first branch of government. it's the second branch of government. and the founders always wanted there to be checks and balances on it. so, when you have a national emergency, when you need something that requires purposeful, national action. the president really has to work at it because you've

let's bring in andy slavitt. welcome back to prime time. obviously, you understand these kind of government protocols. people will hear this and say, rapid testing sucks. gave him a false positive. you need the real test. but it's a compromise, isn't it, andy? because you'll never get those results back as quickly. so what is the argument for the right way to do this? >> well, first of all, chris, happy birthday to you. big one. >> thank you you, brother. >> look. i think we have some, hopefully, good testing news around the corner. you know, it's easy to be impatient with where we are today, which is not in a good place. but i'd suspect, in a few months, this is going to turn out to be more and more like pregnancy tests. we'll be able to use saliva. we'll be able to use paper. i think the fda is about to approve a test that will use saliva. but most importantly, it will just be a few dollars a test. the problem now with these $100 pcr tests that take seven or eight days, we'll never get there. i don't know what the truth is about what gove

. >>> andy slavitt is joining us now. the host of the podcast "in the bubble."or joining me. i really appreciate it. i want to start off with something that you tweeted, that the u.s. should throw every resource for defeating the virus for four weeks, including shutting down again, in order to get back to normal. talk about this. how would it work? >> we ask ourselves why in different parts of the world, france, italy, spain, asia, australia, new zealand, are they returning to life, to school in a safer way, people able to travel. that's because they did something we didn't do here in the u.s., and i would argue we never really did a shutdown here in the u.s. we kind of did a shutdown where about half of the people stayed in and half the people were deemed essential workers, meaning they were driving truck s, giving us the services we all value, delivering food to our door, but that meant that the virus was circulating. if we really want to move beyond this sort of what i think of as 70% existence where we can't do so many things, it would just require us to do

so i think we should be very careful at this time. >> andy slavitt, terrific having you on this morning. thanks very much for being with us. >> thank you. >>> breaking overnight, tropical storm isaias expected to strengthen into a hurricane as it makes landfall near the carolinas. that could happen tonight. chad myers tracking the system for us. chad, what do you see? >> it better hurry up and strengthen if it's going to be a hurricane, because right now, i don't see it. hurricane hunter now in the storm. pressure didn't get any lower, the winds did not go up and the satellite presentation doesn't look as good as it did six hours ago. that's the good news. now, if you look at the jacksonville radar, the storm has tried to form an eye a couple of times overnight and it has been squashed by this wind that we talk about, by this wind from the southwest. we call it sheer, but it won't allow the circulation to be a circle. it wants to be a football and footballs don't get bigger. circles get bigger and deeper. still forecast to be a category 1, making landfall in about 14 hours. this thing w

andy slavitt, we appreciate the explanation.s so much for being with us. >> so the nba, back in action with players now fighting for much more than just playoff wins. we're going to speak to one player who's no stranger to standing up for justice. that's next. (announcer) carvana's had a lot of firsts. 100% online car buying. car vending machines. and now, putting you in control of your financing. at carvana, get personalized terms, browse for cars that fit your budget, then customize your down payment and monthly payment. and these aren't made-up numbers. it's what you'll really pay, right down to the penny. whether you're shopping or just looking. it only takes a few seconds, and it won't affect your credit score. finally! a totally different way to finance your ride. only from carvana. the new way to buy a car. we live with at&t and we are well past the honeocupado tom. at&t, what's this i hear about you advertising a 100% fiber network? only like a fraction of my customers can get that. that's it?!? you have such a glass hal

also with us andy slavitt, he is the former acting administrator for the centers for medicare and medicaid services. i am happy to have both of you on. gentlemen, good evening, and thanks so much. dr. reiner, biden and harris had a clear mes coronavirus ndic. listen, we can do this. we just need leadership basically is what they were saying. are they right? is that what this crisis comes down to, trump's failed leadership? >> that's right, and his failure to do a few very important things from the outset. his failure to set a national plan to test widely all throughout the united states. his failure to set a national universal mask policy, and his failure, really, to help the states understand when they can open, and also now this extends toward schools. so there's really been no coordinated plan to put the virus down. it's been outsourced to the states, and now mostly the administration puts their head in the sand, so, yeah, we're desperately in need of coordination on the national level. some of the governors have picked up the slack, which is great, but it's been very uneven around the

also, andy slavitt's here, former acting administrator at the centers for medicare and medicaid services. hello, to both. dr. reiner, let's start with you. washington university forecast says that the u.s. death toll could reach 310,000 by december 1st. that's about double the death toll, now. a staggering number. what accounts for that big jump? >> it's simple math. you know, we're averaging anywhere between 1,100 and 1,400 deaths a day. and you just do the math and that's where we'll be at -- at the turn of -- at the turn of the year. but what is maddening is that it did not have to be this way. we could've been more like germany. we could've been more like south -- south korea. you know, germany hasn't had an easy time. but they've had 10,000 deaths. right? so they're a country about a quarter of the population of the united states. but they've had, you know, 1/17th the number of deaths. we could have been like that. and what we needed, throughout the spring and the early summer, is we just needed simple competence. we needed to do the simple things, well. but we didn't get that. we g

joining us is andy slavitt, great to see you. i understand that there's not much, it makes you really enthusiastic, in the past few months but today you are, and that's because of the saliva test that is on the horizon, the fda just approved it. so tell us why this is a game changer. >> well, good morning. i think the good news is that what do we really need in this country to get back to what we want to be doing, to opening schools safely, to going into offices to traveling again, to be able to frequently test, and to be able to test ourselves at every point in time possible, go see your mother, your grandmother. all of these occasions where we want to know and the only way you can do that is if you have a low cost test. with great credit to i anumber a number of people but yale and the nba released an open source test and what that means is, they're not making any money on it, which i think is the right model in a pandemic. the ingredient costs are very few and they're interchangeable ingredients. if you need any type of ingred