A gracious call from the president of the united states. Im very happy with what i did. Trump saves roger stone from prison, rewarding a longtime friend convicted of lying to protect the president. Defying the attorney general. The fallout this morning with the chair of the house intelligence committee, chairman adam schiff, and our powerhouse roundtable. Announcer from abc news, its this week. Here now, chief anchor george stephanopoulos. Good morning, and welcome to this week. It was not supposed to be this way. Early in the pandemic, President Trump predicted the coronavirus would disappear in days. Back in april, his soninlaw and Senior AdviserJared Kushner said a lot of the country should be back to normal by june. The hope is that by july, the countrys really rocking again. 12 days into july, its the virus thats rocking. The u. S. Leads the world in cases, with more than 60,000 new cases yesterday alone, more than 30 states saw their caseloads increase this week. Hospitalizations topped 50,000 this week, the highest number since may. And the death toll, which had been falling for months, now rising again. Seven states reported record highs. This week. Saturdays National Toll more than doubled last saturdays. In central california, you see those refrigerated containers that have become makeshift morgues. On saturday, 99 days after the cdc first called on americans to wear masks, another striking image, President Trump on his visit to walter reed wearing a mask in public for the first time. I think its a great thing to wear mask. Ive never been against masks, i do believe they have a time and a place. Were joined by admiral brett giroir. From the White House Coronavirus task force. Thank you for joining us again this morning. You know, the president also said this week were in a good place with the virus. The u. S. Set a singleday record for new cases, 7 out of the last 12 days, and the death toll is rising, can you say were in a good place . So, thank you for having me on, george. Were all very concerned about what the virus is doing right now. Were in a much better place than we were in april because of a lot of things the testing can allow us to identify a hot spot. We have Response Teams all going to places. Were in a much better place for ppe across the board. We have new treatments. Were all very concerned about the rise in cases, no doubt about that, and thats why were meeting regularly, but were in a much better place. This is not out of control, but it requires a lot of effort and everybodys going to have to do their part. And you know what youre going to ask me and that is, you got to stop the bars, decrease restaurant campaignsty, youve got to physically distance. We have to have people Wearing Masks in public. Its absolutely essential. Youve got to use good hand hygiene. Lets talk about that mask mandate. We saw the president wear the mask in public for the first time. More governors are coming out saying, you must wear a mask in our state. The governor of louisiana did that yesterday. Is it time for a National Mandate . So, you know, im not the person who can say who can nationally mandate things, let me tell you, its very important that unless youre in a state thats really percent positives are really low and cases are decreasing, its really essential to wear a mask in public. We know that this will decrease your spread of particles to other people. It protects everyone around you and the more data we get about potentially some aerosol spread, particularly in very close spaces with poor ventilation, its really essential to wear masks. For this to work, we have to have like 90 of people wearing a mask in public in the hot spot areas. If we dont have that we wont get control of the virus. The president said wearing a mask is a doubleedged sword, some harm from Wearing Masks as well, is there any downside to wearing mask . To the data we have right now, theres no downside to wearing a mask. Im a pediatric icu physician. I wore a mask ten hours a day for many, many years. We dont believe theres a downside to it. Very select people feel uncomfortable with it. Again, you dont have to wear it 24 7, its really when youre not within your home and youre out in a public space and you cant physically distance. Theres no medical reason except for maybe one in a million that people cant wear a mask according to the guidelines we have. Youre in charge of testing for the task force. Testing is far below 1. 7 million it would take to mitigate this virus. Weve seen those long lines in the hardesthit states, 13 hours in phoenix, why are we still seeing bottlenecks like this so deep into the crisis . Well, there are about five questions in there. Were now we have days that we test over 8,000 people and id predict in the next couple of weeks well hit over a million people, particularly with pooling, were having many, many point of care. And just because says we need 1. 7 million tests per day, doesnt mean thats true. We think we have enough test today to identify where the hot spots are, when the percent positive goes up we know thats a hot spot. Right, but in those hot spots were seeing those long lines. Well, yes and no. In some places we are. In some places we arent. In phoenix, for example, where everyone talks about it, we have 44 federal sites that are there that can be used in addition to those long lines. Were surging testing there at the request of the governor and we really have to work with some of the local partners. If you say that anybody who wants a test who wakes up and has it, dont have any appointments scheduled theyre going to be lines. We want to support them with logistics. We have cdc personnel in every town. Im talking to people on a regular basis, multiple times a day, our testing is up. Youll see a lot more improvements in testing with point of care and pooling over the next week or so. We expect turnaround times to go down as we lessen the burden of Nursing Homes because we have alternate strategies for them to get tested. So, again, we need to have as many tests as possible to identify where the hot spots are. Once you identify them you got to do something. The measures we just talked about wear a face mask, wash your hands, et cetera. In those hot spots are places that reopened early. I want to show a graph from the New York Times showing the astronomical increase in cases in places like florida, south carolina, texas, and georgia since they reopened. You mentioned masks and social distancing, but is it time to consider more stringent lockdowns in those states . You know, everything should be on the table, what we model are the most important interactions, closing bars, if youre in a red state, i mean like a red state red meaning you have a lot of transmission closing bars is an important thing. Limiting the capacity of restaurants is an important thing. Two measures that need to be done. They really do need to be done. Mask wearing in public. In order for us to reverse this problem, we need about 90 of people in those really hot areas to wear masks when theyre in public. Let me just say, were not out of this at all. Were all very concerned. But we have seen this week a leveling of the percent positive, thats our first indicator, if that levels well start seeing Emergency Rooms drop, hospitalizations drop. Im saying the measures that we have right now indicate that were in we have a lot of cases right now, but the measures were doing may be putting a lid on that. Hospitalizations, very concerning. I was going to say, those positivity levels in the hot states are leveling off at a very high level, significantly high level, that means were likely to see the death rate increase even more over the next few weeks, doesnt it . So, look, thats a leading indicator, we expect hospitalizations to continue to go up, the leading indicator is the first thing you see and when it levels off. We do expect and are planning for and surging people and everything else, but we expect hospitalizations to go up, at the peak in april, about 85,000. Right now were at 63,000. We do expect those to go up and unfortunately, even though the mortality rate, your chances of dying if you get covid are way reduced, we know how to care for you better, we have remdesivir and steroids. The chance of surviving is much better. But we expect deaths to go up. More cases, more hospitalizations, we do expect to see that over the next two, three weeks. Before this turns around. Its starting to turn now. But we wont reap the benefits for that a few weeks. Everyone wants to see kids back in school in the fall, but the big question is, how to do it safely. The president said he thinks the cdc guidelines are too tough and too expensive. Do you share that concern . I think the cdc guidelines are really right on target. And we all, you know, the cdc guidelines, we all work on it together. All the docs on the agency. We feel theyre pretty strong. I want to emphasize, im a pediatrician, we have to do this safely but kids not being in school risk their social and emotional health, risk many people with nutrition, the recognition of child abuse, child sexual abuse. Its really important to get kids physically back in school but we do have to do that safely. And the first thing we need to do is, we need to get the virus under control. When we get the virus more under control, then we can think about how we put children back in the classroom. We know from other countries particularly Young Children dont seem to spread the virus. We know they dont get sick. Were learning a lot from looking at sweden, finland and japan, about how to do this safely. Its a Health Reason to get them back in school, but its got to be done carefully. The cdc guidelines are good. The guidelines are arent changing this week. These are guidelines that are amenable to School Districts actually implementing them. These guidelines will be concise. So people can really follow them and understand them. Finally, sir, i was struck that a biomedical executive, former professor at harvard medical school. All people who study these viruses think that the summer is the quiet time, think about that, if this is the quiet time, i hate to think what winter is going to be like this year, should we be braced for a stronger second wave, and what can we do now to soften the blow . So, we had no data to suggest that this would go away. We know 90 of our population is still at risk for the coronavirus. So we were hopeful that it would diminish in the summer, but we didnt count on it. And yes, theres a possibility it could be worse in the fall and were all continuing to increase everything we do. I do think in the fall were going to need tens of millions of more tests per month and were planning for that. Because well have a lot of respiratory viruses like flu circulating. Critical to get the flu vaccine. We dont flu circulating with covid. There are some data that you can get both at the same time, thats not really good. Were continuing to work with our commercial partners. Theyre working on strategies with us on pooling. Finally were doubling down on protecting the Nursing Homes. Lot of actions in the next couple of weeks of getting point of care testing into the Nursing Homes at risk that will decrease the burden on the commercial labs, but also give people turnaround times of 15 minutes. So we can control that. Its all hands on deck. Its been all hands on deck since the middle of march. Unfortunately its still all hands on deck during the summer. But we are preparing for the fall. Admiral, thanks very much for your time and thank you for being so straight with us this morning. Up next the fallout from President Trumps friday night reprieve for roger stone. Adam schiff joins us live. How long will this last . Am i prepared for this . Are we prepared for this . With fidelity wealth management, your dedicated adviser can give you straightforward advice and tailored recommendations, with access to taxsmart Investment Strategies designed to help you keep more of what youve earned so youll know youre doing what you can for your family and your future. Thats the clarity you get with fidelity wealth management. For your family and your future. Unlike ordinary memory want supplementster . Neuriva has clinically proven ingredients that fuel 5 indicators of brain performance. 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Memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. Try our new gummies for 30 days and see the difference. So we collaborate ocean spray works with nature every day to farm in a Sustainable Way gee was broughinwas treated very is witch hunt, td e mueller scam its a scam because its been proven false and he was treated very unfairly, just like general flynn is treated unfairly, just they were all treated unfairly, what i did, ill tell you this, people are extremely happy because in this country they want justice. And roger stone was not treated properly, so im very happy with what i did. President trump on commuting roger stones sentence, the president s late friday move to reward his longtime friend is drawing fire including the first Public Statement from Robert Mueller in more than a year. He said, quote, when a subject lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the governments efforts to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable, because his sentence has been commuted he will not go to prison but his conviction stands. Were joined by the chairman of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff, thank you for joining us this morning. Stone was convicted in part for false statements he made to your committee, whats your response to the president . I think anyone who cares about the rule of law in this country is nauseated by the fact that the president has commuted the sentence of someone who willfully lied to congress, covered up for the president , intimidated witnesses, obstructed the investigation. It shouldnt matter whether youre a democrat or republican. This should be offensive to you if you care about the rule of law and care about justice. Lets remember, george, roger stone was the intermediary, he was the link between donald trump and Trump Campaign and russian intelligence, the same russian Intelligence Unit that hacked Donald Trumps opponents. Donald trump was desperate to get his hands on these emails, he urged the russians to hack hillarys emails. He touted them when they did. Over a hundred times on the campaign trail. They thought they were central to his victory, his effort to get and use foreign assistance is what roger stone had information on and he lied to cover up and protect the president , and the president through this commutation is basically saying, if you lie for me, if you cover up for me, if you have my back, then ill make sure that you get a get out of jail free card. Other americans, different standard. Friends of the president , they get off scotfree. What, if anything, though can you do about it, i know Speaker Pelosi said that the house will move legislation that the person cant shield the president. Wouldnt it likely be found unconstitutional if it became law . Well, there are things that we can do to discourage the abuse of the pardon power, the commutation power, i introduced a bill months ago that says, if the president pardons someone in which theyre a witness, subject, target, the files on that case will be provided to congress, so congress can evaluate whether this is another act of obstruction of justice that we can do. You point out a very important problem which is responsible for the commutation of this sentence and is that republicans wont stand up for the rule of law, wont stand up for the independence of the Justice Department. It shouldnt matter that this was a republicanled investigation that roger stone lied to, the committee was then chaired by a republican and here you have no more than a couple of republicans willing to say a single word of someone who came before congress and lied to them. Obstructed them. And why . Because he did it to cover for a president of their party. This is the distinction between now and watergate. The republicans at that time would not have stood for this. Nixon understood that. Donald trump understands that he has these republicans cowed, they wont stand up to him, they wont defend the rule of law and that means that well have to wait until next year to pass this legislation to discourage further abuses of the commutation power. Of course the other possible remedy is impeachment. A quote from james madison, talking about the president s pardon power. He said that, if the president can be connected in any suspicious manner with any person there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him the house of representatives can impeach him. They can remove him if found guilty. Is this an Impeachable Offense . Its an Impeachable Offense if you abuse the pardon power to protect yourself from criminal liability. But again, george, if the republicans wont even say a word of course theyre not going to vote to impeach and convict. We already presented a case with overwhelming evidence and they refused to convict then, and during that impeachment we warned that if they left him in office that the damag