Prident trump downplays the pandemic using his fourth of july speeches to focus on the culture wars, saying the enemy is not the virus but americans protesting injustice, calling them part of a new far left fascism as kanye announces hes running for president. Whats behind this latest stunt. A massive outbreak of gun violence over the weekend, 75 people shot in chicago. More than a dozen killed. 55 shot in new york, and in atlanta, an 8yearold killed near the memorial for Rayshard Brooks. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. The call for answers this morning. Waking up behind bars. Ghislaine maxwell, the friend of Jeffrey Epstein, now facing charges, prepares to head back to court as we learn new details about her past and why one alleged victim says Prince Andrew should be panicking. Wild Weather Coast to coast. The fastmoving wildfire forcing evacuations in california and flash floods and high winds wreaking havoc in the east. And major league concerns. Dozens of baseball and basketball players testing positive for covid19. The outbreak shutting down nba facilities overnight just before teams report to the nba bubble in orlando. Now one of the nba stars, j. J. Redick, joins us live. And we certainly do say good morning, america. Hope everybody had a wonderful weekend. We appreciate you joining us this monday morning. So many questions. Whats going to happen with the nba . The pelicans j. J. Redick is going to join us live coming up in our next half hour, gentlemen. And robin, hope you had a good Holiday Weekend as well. Whats happening in the nba, one of many developments in the coronavirus crisis. We want you to take a look at these scenes from the Holiday Weekend. You see packed beaches and bars which are raising new concerns about the outbreak as the u. S. Continues to set records. The total caseload now approaching 3 million. Florida, one of the hardest hit states as you know, and there you see cars lining up early at covid testing sites in orlando this morning where cases are soaring. All across the country, 37 states now reporting an increase in new infections. There have been more than 48,000 reported cases in just the last 24 hours and now hundreds of scientists are sounding the alarm telling the world health organization, robin, they believe the virus is airborne. T. J. , as you can imagine thats raising a lot of questions about just how this virus spreads. Will reeve is in orlando starting us off with the latest. Good morning, will. Reporter good morning, robin. It was a record Holiday Weekend here in florida. Over 21,000 cases confirmed here and nationwide, images from the fourth of july causing alarm as the virus spreads. This fourth of july weekend americans gathering nationwide amid the pandemic. In diamond lake, michigan, hundreds of partiers jammed together, no masks in sight. Social distance protocols apparently ignored. Thousands lining the beaches of delaware and new jersey, Lake Minnetonka in minnesota and the lake of the ozarks in missouri packed with people but elsewhere over the Holiday Weekend, Safety Measures observed like this New Hampshire beach. Busy but spread out. This morning, the number of covid19 cases in the u. S. Continues to rise. 37 states reporting increases. On saturday, President Trump attributing the rising cases to increased testing, but saying that most cases are, quote, totally harmless. We have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing we show cases, 99 of which are totally harmless. Reporter that statement not backed by officials as hospitalization numbers grow. This weekend, florida setting another record with more than 21,000 new cases reported, those numbers similar to new york at its worst. People are dying. People are getting sick. A disease we right now are still trying to find out how to even find a cure for it. Reporter state representative chervin jones contracted covid19 and said florida leaders need to make a change before its too late. Others states reaching grim milestones. Texas hitting a Record Number of hospitalizations this past weekend. We dont have room to experiment, nor should we wait for all the hospital beds to fill and all these people to die before we take drastic action. Reporter in houston, Texas Medical Center reports icu capacity is at 98 . In california the l. A. County Health Director says there might not be enough beds for a covid surge requesting hospitals implement decompression plans to handle the stress on capacity. Hospitalizations in arizona have hit a record high. The mayor of phoenix lamenting the states reopening plan. We opened way too early in arizona. We were one of the last states to go to stayathome and one of the first to reemerge. Reporter and at the university of washington, which last tuesday reported 38 cases in several fraternity houses, seeing that number more than triple in less than a week. Students urged to take precautions. Were all getting tested this week. Reporter a penn state student dying of respiratory failure over the weekend. 21yearold juan garcia tested positive just ten days ago. Now the school trying to trace his contacts. While the school plans to open this fall in a limited fashion, others like the university of arizona are rethinking their return. If i had to say today would we open, no. Reporter and on sunday, broadway actor nick cordero, who has been fighting against coronavirus since march, passing away at 41. His wife Amanda Kloots saying on instagram, quote, i am in disbelief and hurting everywhere. My heart is broken as i cannot imagine our lives without him. People began lining up at this site here in orlando at around 4 30 in the morning. Its scheduled to open at 8 00 a. M. But cars have been streaming in. Hopefully there is capacity for everyone. This site runs 200 tests per hour for a total of 1,400 tests per day. George. Thank you, will. We want to welcome back now dr. Ashish jha. Hes director of the Harvard Global health institute. Thanks for joining us again this morning. There was so much concern as we head into the Holiday Weekend given what we saw after memorial day. Whats your take on how the country did . I thought the country did reasonably well. A lot of places, people were out and i did see a good amount of people Wearing Masks. Of course, it wasnt as universal, george, as i had hoped and wished it was, but, you know, i think july 4th weekend people need to wanted to get out and enjoy themselves a little bit and i thought overall the nation did pretty well but, of course, the number of cases continue to rise in many, many parts of the country so thats an ongoing concern. The president keeps repeating that claim, the false claim that the rise in cases is due to testing. But hes now adding that 99 of cases are totally harmless. What are the facts there . Yeah, so the facts on this are really quite clear that the reason were seeing an increase is because were seeing an increase in infections, not because were doing more testing. 99 of cases are not harmless. 10 of people end up getting hospitalized. If you are hospitalized its certainly not harmless. A chunk of those people end up spending quite a bit of time in the icu and some proportion of people end up dying so its not harmless for any of those folks. I dont know why the president says that but its clearly not true. Even with the spread of cases so far, though, the death rates are flat or even declining in some places. Is that largely because were seeing younger cases . There are a couple of explanations. The biggest one, of course, is that death lags, that people get infected. Then they get sick enough to be hospitalized and then doctors and nurses do an extremely good job keeping people alive and most people when they go to the hospital do survive but it takes a while before people end up dying. So i do expect the number of deaths to unfortunately start ticking back up in many states. The fact that its a younger population also does help lower the mortality and then last but not least we are Getting Better at treating the disease and so people may spend weeks in the icu but come out of it alive and theyre still quite sick but at least the death statistics suggest that theyre Getting Better. Hoping you can break down this warning were seeing now from more than 200 scientists around the world to the w. H. O. Saying basically they want the w. H. O. To take this idea that airborne transmission is more serious than the w. H. O. Has said. They say its more possible that these smaller droplets of air can linger in the air and pass on the infection. Yeah, so i think the evidence on this is pretty good and the scientists are right and w. H. O. I think is being way too slow on this. The issue, george, is this, there are two ways we think about transmission from people. One is through droplets when you sneeze or cough. The second is through aerosols, when we speak or when we sing. First of all, that distinction is a little bit of an academic one. It isnt always so clear whether it is aerosolized or through droplets but the implications are important and one of them is that were seeing so much transmission indoors where people are close to each other that i think theres pretty clear evidence now that there is aerosolized transmission and the implication is people should be Wearing Masks when indoors even if theyre socially distanced from each other. It takes us back to the same place. Masks are just mandatory now. Look, we have a long way to go in this pandemic and if we want our economy open, if we want our lives back, a fundamental part of that is going to be Wearing Masks. I feel its a cheap and easy thing to do. I dont know why we as a country havent really made this a national goal. We really should. Dr. Jha, thanks for your time this morning. Thank you, george. And as the cases of coronavirus soar, the president downplaying the pandemic during the fourth of july celebrations, instead, spending time focusing on culture wars. Our terry moran has more from washington for us. Good morning to you, terry. Reporter good morning, t. J. It was a very different fourth of july, not just because of the pandemic canceled parades but also because the president on a day when other president s have chosen to try to unite the country around shared values, as you say decided to make a couple of backtoback dark, blistering speeches, divisive, in which he identified the real threat to the country, his political opponents. At the white house on the fourth of july, the president vowing to protect the country from what he claims is the real threat, americans protesting injustice and bringing down controversial monuments. We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children or trample on our freedoms. Reporter statues did fall. In baltimore, where a statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled from its pedestal and thrown into the harbor. Back in the capital, an Independence Day standoff played out at the foot of the washington monument. Trump supporters clashing with protesters. [ crowd chanting ] the president took aim at protesters in backtoback speeches over the Holiday Weekend. The first at mt. Rushmore. Their goal is not a better america, their goal is to end america. Reporter there the president addressed thousands of supporters amid the ongoing pandemic. Few Wearing Masks. At the white house, trump who often talks about the virus going away or disappearing, downplaying the threat again based on increased testing. But the coronavirus is still hitting close to home for the president. His son don juniors girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle has tested positive. We should add that donald trump jr. Has tested negative. Kimberly guilfoyle will isolate for a couple of weeks. She tweeted that she looks forward to a speedy recovery so she can resume working to elect President Trump. T. J. . And terry, before we let you go, another name getting into the race for president and this is a big name but a surprising name possibly. Reporter kanye west has thrown his hat in the ring, t. J. Hes been talking about running for president for awhile. He is a little late to the game. Hes got to get some kind of program together but i think really these are very serious times, serious issues the country is facing, some very significant problems. Its unlikely hes going to find much traction but you never know. T. J. Weve learned that. You never know. Terry, good to see you. Thanks so much. Robin . Okay, t. J. Now we have the latest on those fires that are sparking evacuations out west. The dry wind fueling nearly 50 wildfires. Ginger has the latest for us. Good morning, ginger. Good morning, robin. Those were large wildfires. There were hundreds of fires sparked by fireworks over the weekend. As you can imagine, very dry and gusting wins then you get this, the soledad fire rapidly growing east of santa clarita, north of los angeles. Zero percent contained. Temporarily shut down the Antelope Valley freeway. Evacuations in the 200 to 300people mark. Now we have the gilroy fire in Northern California. Thats 1,000 acres. 15 contained and two structures burned. So you know there is a problem and i heard them last night, people still set off fireworks post. I would not do that if youre in nevada, southern california, colorado, arizona and into utah, because there are red flag warnings. Youre going to have gusty winds. Speaking of, 60mileperhour winds with rain in pasadena, maryland. 19 people injured in a garage there. Today the storms from harrisburg, pennsylvania, to the jersey shore. George . Thanks very much. Were going to get the latest now on that eruption of gun violence across the country. Dozens shot in new york, chicago and atlanta over the weekend, some of the victims 7 and 8 years old. Steve osunsami is in atlanta where a young girl was killed near a memorial for Rayshard Brooks. Good morning, steve. Reporter good morning to you, george. This is one of several American Cities where an Alarming Number of people were shot up in the streets over the weekend. Authorities are pointing out that many of these communities that are struggling with the stresses of covid19 are also struggling with an alarming increase in homicides. Enough is enough. Reporter atlantas mayor says she is fed up with the violence on her city streets in the wake of the protests over the policing of black americans and says her heart is broken over the shooting death of an 8yearold girl saturday night. Were fighting the enemy within when we are shooting each other up on our streets. In this city, you shot and killed a baby. Reporter Secoriea Turner was shot near here, outside the wendys parking lot where 27yearold Rayshard Brooks was killed at the hands of a white Police Officer last month. People with long gun have taken over the restaurant and the street in front of it and police let it happen. The girl was shot by someone there while riding in a car with her mother and another adult. This random wild, wild west, shoot em up because you can, its got to stop. It has to stop. Reporter the people in charge of the area are blocking roads with barricades and their guns. The restaurant has become a memorial to Rayshard Brooks and people trying to peacefully demonstrate still visit it. If you want people to take us seriously and you want you dont want us to lose this movement, then we cant lose each other. Reporter across the country this july 4th weekend, a large amount of violence in American Cities and many victims are young children. A 7yearold girl was killed while playing outside with other children in chicago where 75 people were shot this weekend. 15 of them died. An 11yearold boy was shot and killed in washington, d. C. , and in new york over the Holiday Weekend, 51 people were the victims of gun violence including two new york city Police Officers. There are many here in the city who feel that theres a sense of lawlessness happening and they blame the mayor and the District Attorney who they feel have prosecuted cops, gone after Police Officers and attempted to defund parts of the Atlanta Police department budget. At the same time, this same mayor is being accused by the other side of not doing enough to push in police reforms. An 8yearold girl was caught in the middle of all of this. T. J. All right, steve, thank you so much. We want to turn now to what was pretty much a scary scene in indianapolis at a nascar race. We do need to let you know first everybody was okay but this started out as a wreck, a pileup during a caution, but what youll see is one of the pit crew members there gets d. You see him scoot off. He was okay ultimately but a scary scene at nascar over the weekend. Boy, that sure was scary. We are following a lot of other headlines this morning, including some Major Concerns for the nba. A dozen players have tested positive days before they were supposed to head to orlando. J. J. Redick will join us live. First lets go back to ginger. You know what, flash flooding in minneapolis over the weekend and severe storms with damaging wind possible in that swath. Your local weather in 30 seconds. First, the select cities sponsored by amazon. We can do this, guys. But what does it take to strengthen our Service Members . What does it take to let them know that we stand behind t