We are in a new phase. But i want to be clear. What were seeing today is different from march and april. This is extraordinary widespread, it is into the rural as equal urban areas and to everybody who lives in a rural area, you are not immune or protected from this virus. Dr. Deborah birx making kplen comments as the week hit the highest level since late may but the message to the nation may be too late for nancy pelosi who said over the weekend that she doesnt have confidence in birxs handling of the pandemic and doubled down on that claim this morning right here on cnn. I dont have any confidence in any who stands there and said swallow lie sol and it is going to cure your virus. I think she has enabled. Now birxs words are too late for Speaker Pelosi and too much truth for trump who jabbed at bench in the process, in order to counter nancy, deborah took the bait and hit us. It was just one in a series of tweet this is morning with the president pointing fingers at everyone else but his administration on the crisis while repeating the false claim the rates are ome up because of testing and saying schools should reopen this fall. So lets start with the white house. Lets go to kaitlan collins. And katlyn, we know that dr. Fauci has been the president s crosshairs for a while and is dr. Birx now joining him . What is going on. Reporter this is the first time, brooke, that weve seen the president publicly attack dr. Birx in this way. And it is a little bit different than his sustained attacks on dr. Fauci, because dr. Faucis office is not in the west wing. Hes over at nih and he has to drive to get over to the west wing and so there were reports of he and the president not running into each other. Dr. Birx briefs the res regularly on updates of what is going on with covid19. So it does put her in this awkward position that the president is saying the only reason she was offering blunt warnings about coronavirus is because of those criticisms from House Speaker nancy pelosi which we should note that dr. Birx pushed back on those criticisms. She said shes never been accused of being pollyanaish or data driven during her time in the field and pushing back while also offering the blunt warnings. So it is interesting to see where this goes from here. Earlier when the president was asked about the contradictions between he and so many of the Health Officials, he did not take that chance to say anything about dr. Birx in front of the cameras. And then, let me ask you about this, just a day after Admiral Brett Giroir said it is time to move on from hydroxychloroquine because there is no evidence it is any kind of effective treatment against covid, President Trump is once again hyping the drug. Roll it. Hydroxy has tremendous support, but politically it is toxic because i supported it. Interestingly, a great doctor, from what i understand, a great doctor from yale feels strongly about hydroxychloroquine. The ford clinic in michigan came out with a very, very powerful paper saying it is very good. Many other in france they came out with a very positive statement. Many individual doctors have come out with very positive statements. The reason i took it, we have some people that were relatively near me that tested positive. And i took it for that reason, just because ive heard good things. Kaitlan, why does the president continue to cling to this drug as some sort of solution to covid. Reporter he has for months and it doesnt have to be just dr. Fauci disagreeing with the president on it. It is the own Testing Coordinator at the white house that said yesterday that all of the studies that theyve seen and they take into account the ones they view as serious and most credible showing it is not effective in treating covid19 and the admiral said it is time to move on and stop talking about hydroxychloroquine and the president does not feel that way. He pushed back on that today and he believes the only reason people do try to discredit it because he endorsed it. He took it even though he did not have covid 19 he said. But it just flies in the face of all of the studied that other officials in the white house has pointed to when they talk about hydroxychloroquine and hes repeatedly pushed it and clearly he doesnt have any intention of not continuing to tout it. Thank you for that. And i come back to schools reopening. Were seeing it play out in realtime. For example in georgia, the Largest School district there, gwinnett county, hundreds have tested positive for coronavirus or have been in contact with someone who has been infected. And gwinnett has one of the highest rates in the entire state. So lets go to bianna golodryga. This is after the teachers returned to School Last Week to plan for the Upcoming School year so it is my understanding students were not yet in the building, correct. That is right. Students will return to school which is virtual next week but the teachers had to report last wednesday. And get this, brooke, by the next day, thursday, 260 employees had either tested positive or were in contact and exposed to somebody who had tested positive. So they are in quarantine. And our own natasha chen has spoken with teachers who resigning and petitioning to the school board because they dont have the opportunity to work from home which is what so many of them want to do. One teacher she spoke with said she quit. She was a 4yearold daughter at home and she wanted to stay with her daughter and feel safe. And what is so puzzling about this, brooke, is that we are still debating whether children are vectors here. It is looking more and more likely they could be. But we know that adults are. So the fact that the teachers have to Work Together is what theyre arguing and the School District is saying theyre following all of the protocol and doing Contact Tracing and wiping down yet still so much of the teachers do not feel safe. And indiana, another case, parents send their student, their kid to school before ultimately getting the results back of the covid test, which, by the way, turned out the kid tested positive. What is the School Superintendent saying about this and how do other schools prevent this from happening . Look, the School Superintendent was shocked. This is the first day of school and this goes back to the argument of getting quick test results. Some people are waiting seven to ten days. There is a middle school in indianapolis where a student returned to school and the parents had known that their child had been tested but the results were still pending. Well, guess what, they got a call from Health Officials in the city, the middle school did that one student had tested positive so they had to do Contact Tracing and find any students or faculty they associated with. They are in quarantine. And students are back in campus on school right now but the superintendent said some this is just ununacceptable and no one could come back to school unless they have test results in hand but if this happened on the first day of school in indiana, one of the first schools to reopen facetoface instruction, what is going to happen across the country. There are different protocols and each district has their own protocol as to how many students have to by infected for the class to be shut down as opposed to the whole school but this is a huge problem for the country ahead. I have a teacher waiting in the wings to get his perspective. Thank you, bianna. And just to reiterate, dr. Birx said Remote Learning is necessary in parts of the country where the virus is out of control. This is what she told my colleague dana bash about whether schools in states with a 5 Positivity Rate should they remain closed or have Distance Learning only. Here she was. We need to stop the cases. So schools should stay closed and talk about safely reopening. So schools there should stay closed. Im going to do what the cdc guidelines have recommended and certainly the director. If you have high case load and active community spread, just like were asking people not to go to bars, not to have household parties, not to create large spreading events, were asking people to distance learn at this moment so we could get this epidemic under control. But, the president , this morning, tweeted, you see there, open the schools, exclamation mark. Larry ferlazo has been teaching for 15 years at Luther Burbank high school in southern california. So thank you for your years of educating young people and thank you so much for coming on. Great. It is a pleasure. We already know your school year will start out in a virtual classroom because you are in one of the hot spots that dr. Birx is warning about. Do you agree or do you think schools should be open . Well i dont think there is any question that in areas of high infection that schools need to be taught virtually. Its not a great option. But it is the least bad option. Because if we end up having to if were in a situation where were teaching facetoface in the classroom, clearly, as you showed earlier, the results is going to be teachers, students, and their families are going to get sick and some are going to die. I want to come back to your last bad option in a second. But play it forward. If and when it gets better for you in california and schools can reopen, have you sat and thought about what you would want, what measures could be taken to ensure effective and Safe Learning just in terms of, i dont know, fewer kids in a classroom, not going to lunch in the cafeteria, what kind of things would you want to see . Well, those and more. Right. I mean, social distancing in the classroom. Students wearing masks. Teachers wearing masks. We need to have good ventilation. Certainly, many teachers are very concerned and anxious. Were told, yes, well get personal protective equipment provided, and we also read that hospitals have shortages of ppe and weve all spent many years having to buy our own facial tissue, Hand Sanitizer and band aids for our students. So there are certain weariness of guarantees that are given to schools. And schools need to get more money to be able to provide that kind of healthy environment. And right now schools are not getting it. Right. I hear you. And i mean, god bless how above and beyond teachers have been for years going into their own pockets to provide things, materials for kids and youre thinking, if the hospital down the road doesnt have the necessary ppe, how will i. Totally valid. I know youve also been if the classroom long enough to know that inperson gift you give the students wouldnt be there in the same way through screen. How do you plan to start the Online School year to try to compensate for that . Yeah, it isnt the same. And there are a number of things that we can do. One fof the challenges that we face is in the spring, when we had an emergency closure, we already had relationships with our students. Now, for many of us, were sort of starting from scratch. So we have to focus on developing those relationships. I just sent out a video to my students inviting them to connect with me via my cell phone number. And our school is going to be happening in a month. We need to really focus on that and we also need to have a realistic expectation of what we can cover. Really, the question is what arent we going to teach this year . Virtual teaching is not good. All of the Research Shows it will not be as effective. So, by focusing on developing relationships, by encouraging student collaborate projects so they could Work Together, by supporting our families and being realistic in their expectations we could hopefully get through this and then once we do get back to facetoface, hopefully with additional federal support, we can do extra support like in Great Britain theyre funding a National Tutoring program to try to get students caught up. The real challenge is as we approach our students we have to look through the lens of equity and not equality. Some of our students, for example my classroom of english language learners need Additional Support and they should get it. Some of the more advanced classes might not need the Additional Support. There are so many elements to keep in mind. No, i appreciate your honesty. You are the First Teacher to come on and say this isnt a great option and we have to foc focus on the things that we cant teach the kids but when you finally can in person you have to make up for that time and maybe some funded tutoring is a pretty smart idea. Larry, my best to you. Thank you. Good luck. Good luck. Thank you. Right now lawmakers and white house officials are behind closed doors trying to hammer out this deal on a new stimulus plan to help so Many Americans hurting right now. But both sides are still pretty far apart. We have a little report from capitol hill. And california just became the first state to hit 500,000 covid cases. So why are First Responders partying in a bar without masks or any social distancing. Just wait for this. And Major League Baseball have more positive cases hitting the league. Well discuss. Youre watching cnn, im brooke baldwin. Well be right back. At aetna, were always here to help you focus on your health. Because its always time for care. 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Text fund to 237263 to Tell Congress to fund our essential Public Services. Afscme is responsible for the content of this ad. Were back. Youre watching cnn, im brooke baldwin. California now has become the first state to surpass a troubling milestone in this whole outbreak. State now has recorded more than 500,000 cases of the virus and more than 9300 deaths. Stephanie elum is live in los angeles. And stephanie, at one point early on california was considered an early Success Story in fighting the virus and now its leading. All of the states and the number of cases, how did california become the epicenter . Reporter right. Well what we have to keep in mind are a couple of things. This is the most populous state in the nation. So we have 40 Million People that live here so compared to other states it may not be exactly the same. That is one thing. We knew there would be an increase in cases when we started to open things back up in the state. But i think the rise was more than anticipated. So theyve been working to bring numbers down by putting counties on monitoring list. California announcing 5,700 cases and 32 deaths and some of the labs dont report over the weekend so we should see an increase into the week. The positivity is at about 7 . It was about 7. 5 . So moving in the right direction. Los angeles county saying the same thing, theyre seeing the number of cases and people hospitalized is less than the week before. So theyre saying that some of the mitigation efforts that theyve started have really been making a difference and theyre asking people to continue that. Which is the exact opposite of what we saw happening on friday evening when there was a party held in hollywood for First Responders. There were dozens of people in attendance. All inside. Right now youre not supposed to do anything inside. Nail salon, barbershops, everyone is working outside, so this party is getting scrutiny from the Los Angeles Department of Public Health to see what was behind the story. But obviously this is exactly what theyre asking people not to do. So stay with your family and away from large crowds and even if you know someone really well, you dont know if they have the coronavirus, brooke. Thank you so much. I want to pick up on the final point and again california grappling with more than half a million cases of covid and people are partying. Dr. Jorge is back with us. Doctor, i just want to get your reaction to this First Responders party in a bar in hollywood where no one should be gathering indoors. I know, its disappointing. Its also dangerous. Listen, im not sure whether these were sheriffs, policemen, emtor physicians, but the point is were all under stress and we need to if nothing else set an example. Let me give you a story close to home. My cause in almost who is like a brother to me, both of his sons are firemen and one became positive and unfortunately spread that to my cousin who just got out of the hospital. So the point is just because were First Responders, were not supermen or superwomen and just because somebody is in your family does not mean they could not get the coronavirus. So this needs