Except a front line doctor at over burden hospitals making agonizing decisions who gets treated except for parents worried and confused about sending their kids to school, except for millions of laid off workers and another 1. 4 million this week about to see their unemployment checks stink. To them, what youre about to hear sounds far different than spin but contempt for the reality were all now facing. There has been no change. He hasnt changed on speaking on covid generally. The way hes talking privately is the way hes talking out here. The only thing that changed is the president taking dozens and dozens of your questions each and every day because he felt the best way to get information to the American People was for him to be out here answering your questions and providing this directly. No change she says and in perhaps in fairness, maybe shes right. You can make a case the president has consistently failed to take the pandemic seriously and the only thing thats changed is hes now saying words out loud from a prepared script at the podium. These words now conveniently ignore Everything Else he said and done month after month and death after death. For example, here is the president last night talking about cancelling the Republican Convention in jacksonville. We have to be vigilant. We have to be care and feel we also have to set an example. I think setting the example is very important. Its hard for us to say were going to have a lot of people packed in a room and other people shouldnt do it. There is nothing more crowded than a convention. A convention, youve seen them. Even though you try and keep people away from each other, it not that kind of a thing. They probably cant do that. It just doesnt work for them. So its a very hard so i think were setting an example by doing it. Its very important. The president also said and im quoting, i have to protect the American People. That is what i have always done. That is what i will always do. That is what i am about. Mr. President , if thats in fact so, there is someone id like you to meet. Ive been watching. Ive been watching the fake news for weeks now and everything is negati negative. Dont go, dont come, dont do anything. Weve saved hundreds of thousands of lives and all we do is get hit on like were terrible they test and they test. We have tests of people that dont know what is going on. Its a disease without question. Has more names than any disease in history. I can name kung flu. We have this. We have another one over here. Many call it a virus, which it is. Many call it a flu. So i said to my people slow the testing down, please. The president indoors with thousands of people at a rally in tulsa, no social distancing. Only a few covered faces. That was about four weeks and nearly 2 million cases ago. Four weeks and 25,000 lost american lives ago. Now the president says that the very same type of event isnt safe and his press secretary suggests hes always thought that even though he moved the convention to jacksonville in the first place because officials in North Carolina would not permit the no mask, nonsocially distance event that he was demanding. Which he now says just isnt safe which raises the obvious question. Why is it not safe to hold the convention but it is safe to reopen schools . The schools are a different situation when you have children who as the cdc guidelines clearly note are not effected in the same way as adults. Those guidelines were loosened on orders of the president. Well talk more about them in a moment but in a nutshell, they learn toward returning kids to the classroom even though the science on the safety of it is unclear. Notably, the cdc makes no mention of a large study recently south of south core korea that found kids ages 10 and up spread the virus as easily as adults. On the today show dr. Debra birx eluded to it as she said evidence on Young Children is thin. What i cant tell you for sure, despite the south korea study, is whether children under 10 in the United States dont spread the virus the same as children over 10. I think that is still an open question that needs to be studied in the United States. We certainly know from other studies that children under 10 do get infected. Its just unclear how rapidly they spread the virus. Its unclear she says. The evidence is mixed say the new cdc guidelines. To sum it up in plain english, yikes since the loudest voice in the room with no scientific training keeps saying things like this. But when you look at the statistics i just read having to do with children and safety, theyre very impressive. They have very strong immune systems. You wouldnt understand the children who go to school then go back to home, some live with their grandparents, this is a real risk. They do say that they dont transmit very easily and a lot of people are saying they dont transmit and were looking at that. Were studying, john, very hard that particular subject. That they dont bring it home with them now. They dont catch it easily. They dont bring it home easily and if they do catch it, they get better fast. Were looking at that fact. That is a factor and looking at it strongly. Well report about that over the next week. The president also says administration is quote in the process of developing a strategy thats going to be very, very powerful unquote for addressing the pandemic. He said it by the way on tuesday. More than 3,000 lost american lives ago. We should also mention at no point this week did the president mention the 4 million case milestone or the number of americans that died. Perspective on the Public Health and political size of this joining us, Infectious Disease specialist, and epidemiologist and cnn political commentator to president Obama David Axelrod and cnn chief political analyst gloria borger. David, the bottom line, this key question, why does the white house not think its safe to hold the Republican National convention in florida yet it is safe to reopen schools . Yeah, im not sure i mean, there is some logic to it in the sense that there is a desperation on the part of parents to get their kids back in school. Kids are suffering. There is a really strong wanting to get them back but you want to do it safely and Public Health experts say in the hot spot areas its hard to gaurn teuara that and guarantee they wont spread the virus. Im also i cant help but remember just sunday the president was literally wining in his interview with Chris Wallace how the mean democratic governors couldnt hold rallies. Hes had a rapid epiphany of what is safe and not. Look, its a confused message at best when you say both things at once, both sides. Gloria im one that happens to thing this idea that is a change tune is hooey but the white house is trying to present a different image of the president i think. They are trying to. The question on that is why . What do they want to get and why . They want to stop the bleeding of the poll numbers. They have an election they want to win in november. They want to show that donald trump is the leader and what they are also trying to show is he hasnt become completely irrelevant which i believe he almost has in the managing of the pandemic if you take a step back, this is a president late to the game cancelling the jacksonville convention, has been saying we dont need new tests, we need fewer tests and changed his mind and went back and forth after demanding that all schools open, say wait a minute, maybe there are some School Districts and some of those hot spots that shouldnt open that quickly, so and on the mask of course. Suddenly we see him dawning a mask. So hes trying to appear as if he knows what hes doing. Hes out front. Hes leading. And hes not irrelevant and the american public, 60 of whom said he did a lousy job managing the pandemic are scratching their head saying where were you four months ago . Doctor, debra birx and dr. Fauci have not been allowed to speak at the briefings and i think we know why. The most surprising thing said out lout today was from dr. Birx in the today show interview where she made clear the science on opening schools is unclear. The science on children transmitting the disease is unclear. How much do we really know at this point about how rapidly children under 10 can spread coronavirus . Look, john, i think the number one message here is reopening schools in the middle of wide spread Community Transmission is dangerous. That should be a nonstarter. Now is it possible based on some of the science we have laboratory with patients and what weve seen in other countries like dern mark and norway that have reopened schools just for the youngest kids based on those experiences, if you have suppressed Community Transmission in a place like new york city you could look at a phased in approach to reopening schools starting with the youngest kids under 10 see how that goes, assess as you go and maybe see if you want to open more widely but its how that information should be used, not as a justification for throwing school doors wide open when you have wide spread Community Transmission. There is a osouth korea stud. Dr. Fauci talked about a study being done here in the u. S. By the National Institutes of health but the results arent expected to be available until december and thats half way through the school year. So in the absence of that information right now, how should parents navigate sending their children back to school . I think you really need to what makes sense for you and your family. I think for a lot of families, this are parents and extended family who do have underlying risk factors that would put them at increased risk for severe covid disease that does need to factor into the Decision Making here. I think another important point here, though, is that this is why Contact Tracing is so important because it helps to inform decisions while were waiting for the big nih study to come through and new york city for example, Contact Tracing data would indicate children are more likely to be infected by adults rather than adults infecting children. Excuse me, children are more likely being infected by adults than children infecting adults. Its less likely the children would be responsible for bringing disease home but again, this is still preliminary data and really should not be turned into policy except for where you have suppressed Community Transmission. David, one of the things the president has not done in recent days clearly doesnt like to talk about is the 145,000 lives lost in the country to coronavirus. You would think those would be on top of mind of any president of the United States who calls himself a wartime president. Whats the calculations there, you think . Look, from the beginning there is an attitude of denial you can spin a pandemic and you just can. Even at the press briefing yesterday, he made the case were doing fine. Were doing well and he said but even one death is too much. One death . How about 145,000 deaths to glorias point about being irrelevant, he chose that role because he punted all the hard decisions to the governors instead of leading the country as one and weve had a paradox where the president is leading a government that is trying to fight the pandemic and also leading the resistance to the guidance his government is offering and thats a reason why were in such worse shape than other countries around the world. So gloria, today dr. Fauci praised the president for his quote short and crisp coronavirus briefings, which is a backhanded compliment if you can ever hear one. What is great, they are short, dr. Fauci says. Do you think the president will be able to continue down this path . 100 days to go until the election. Its hard for me to predict anything with donald trump but if i had to guess, id say the odds are he cant because he loves the stage too much, and he changes his mind all the time and we just saw it this week. He came out and said, you know, maybe we do need more testing and changed his mind in another interview with a journalist saying well, you know, im not for a lot of testing. Some people are. Some people arent. So i think the president is of course likely to say what comes to mind and i dont think hes changed his mind and i do think he pays no attention to this and move beyond it, but he cant. And this is what is so frustrating for him. So its hard to answer your question, but i talked to somebody who is in touch with some high up people in the white house, and theyre nervous about it because they dont know whats going to come out of his mouth the next time he speaks. You have a lot of republicans patting him on the head intentionally to give him positive reinforcement to keep on doing it. Very quickly, dr. Fauci says a vaccine wont be likely widely available until mid 2021, is that realistic . If thats realistic, will people accept the vaccine . Polls of americans now indicate a third of americans would refuse to get vaccinated. So that has me and many other Public Health officials really concerned. Have a terrific weekend. Thanks so much. Next, the secretary of education goes even further than the president on the power she claims that kids have against the virus. Her predecessor in the Obama Administration joins us with a doctor who once over saw Student Health in Baltimore City schools and later, how baseball and other sports are adapting to a new world of social activism. Our health comes first. Which is why we keep taking care of ourselves, like screening for colon cancer. Because when caught in early stages, its more treatable. Cologuard is noninvasive and detects altered dna in your stool. To find 92 of colon cancers. Even in early stages. Its for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. False positive and negative results may occur. So, dont wait to screen. 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At the top of the program you heard the president with a deep seeded belief about children and the coronavirus and said he would be quote comfortable with sending his son baron back to the classroom but according to the New York Times the school baron attends is Still Deciding whether to open at all. Its far less gung ho than the president or bet si devoss that said this about the role Children Play in the pandemic. More and more studies show that kids are actually stoppers of the disease and they dont get it and transmit it themselves. So we should be in a posture of the default should be getting back to school, kids in person, in the cloassroom. Stoppers of the disease. Thats from the secretary of education and no, there is no evidence, zero to support what you just heard her say. Joining us now is arnie duncan who had secretary devoss job in the Obama Administration and balloter more health commissioner. Secretary duncan, first to you, when you hear secretary devoss with the authority of your former office say things like that, who goes through your mind . Well, its unbelievably disturbing and infuriating. Shes lying. Obviously, there is no science there. Not only is she fund mentally dishonest but dangerous and fortunately, you know, parents, teachers, superintendents, children arent paying attention to what shes saying. Shes made herself irrelevant. The president made himself irrelevant. Well be led out of this by leadership that will make the right decisions for children. Educationally, yes but for their health and safety. That the going to happen at the local level and gross roots level. They dont seem to be living in the same universe as dr. Birx who we heard earlier and dr. Fauci about how little we actually know about how this virus affects children. So how much does this add to the confusion for parents not to mention administrators over schools . I think everyone is struggling with these questions and at the end of the day, we need to be humble and i would have loved for President Trump and secretary devoss to be honest about here are the things we know and here is what we dont know. We know children tend to get much less severely ill than adults do, although remembering that children dont live in a bubble, were talking about their parents and grandparents and teachers and staff, too. We also do have unclear research about the information about the transmission of virus by children and there was a south korea study done that found that children under the age of 10 are maybe about half as likely to transmit the virus as adults but half of a lot is a lot. And the single most important thing we need to focus on is reducing the level of the virus in the community, which is something dr. Fauci and birx focus on but we havent heard as much from the president. Secretary duncan, the cdc guidelines came out last night and a shell of the previous guidelines, the ones the president said were too tough. So these guidelines, are they more political or medical at this point . Well, they are trying to have it both ways. They are bending to the pressure they are feeling from him but if you read into it, they say in the fine print well be having an increase in cases, those decisions will be made at the local level. Let look at the local numbers. If you