The president told woodward that the virus was deadlier than the flu and he was intentionally hiding the truth from you, the American Public. Here now is trump in his own words in a series of taped interviews by woodward with the president s own permission and for his new book on the Trump Administration. Listen for yourself. And so what was president xi saying yesterday. We were talking mostly about the virus. And i think hes going to have it in good shape. But it is a very tricky situation. Indeed it is. It goes through air, bob. That is tougher than the touch. The touch, you dont have to touch things but if you just breathe the air and that is how it is passed. So that is a very tricky one. That is a very delicate one. It is also more deadly than your, even your strenuous flus. People dont realize, we lose 25,000, or 30,000 people a year here, who would think that. I know. And what would that do for this is more deadly. This is 5 versus 1 and less than 1 . So this is deadly stuff. Now it is not just old people, bob, today and yesterday some startling facts came out. It is not just older yeah, exactly. It is young people. So give me a moment of talking to somebody, going through this with fauci or somebody who kind of caused a pivot in your mind, because it is clear just from what is on the Public Record that you went through a pivot on this to oh, my god, the gravity is almost inexplicable and unexplainable. Well, i think, bob, really to be honest with you. Sure, i want you to. I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down. Yes. Because i dont want to create a panic. Again, this is early february. This is when the president told woodward that covid19 was, his words, deadly stuff. But that he wanted to play it down to avoid a panic. And just a reminder to all of us, what the president was saying publicly about coronavirus at that same time. You treat this like a flu. Essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. You view this the same as a flu. This is like a flu. If you have the flu you recuperate and get better. On flu, on average we lose from 26,000 to 78,000 people a year and even more than that in some cases, some years. We havent lost anybody yet. Now we should also note that President Trump is expected to announce his list of potential Supreme Court justices any moment now. We do not know if he will speak about the damning revelations from the bob woodward tapes but were standing by for that. Kaitlan collins is our white house correspondent, and kaitlan, everything coming from the tapes, hearing the president s own voice, how is the white house responding to this . Reporter it is a difficult thing to respond to, brooke. And we saw today there was supposed to be a briefing scheduled right when the excerpts came out. They delayed it by an hour and then you saw the press secretary come out and defend the president s response on coronavirus and say that he had not lied to the American Public about the threat that was facing them when it came to coronavirus even though the president is on audio saying that he was intentionally misleading the public and playing it down because he said that he did not want to cause a panic. And of course it raises so many questions about if the president had been saying publicly what he was saying privately to bob woodward, how different would things be today and how different would peoples attitude have been to coronavirus and to the pandemic and to shutdowns and Wearing Masks and things of that nature. So you saw the white house say the president say things as simple as the president never downplayed the virus and hes on tape saying i downplayed the virus and i still want to downplay the virus. So that really summed up what the white house response to this has been. The president never downplayed the virus. Once again, the president expressed calm. The president was serious about this when democrats were pursuing they sham impeachment. He was expressing calm and taking early action. Reporter so she said the president was expressing calm. Brooke, that is not what the president was expressing. He was saying we have a limited number of cases, soon they will go down to zero, things of that nature. Also telling people this is just like the flu saying people should treat this like it was the flu. Hes been saying things that he said last month, i believe it was, when the president last said it that children are almost immune from this. We know that on these tapes, these are all things president was compressing the opposite sentiment of it. He said it was deadlier than the flu and not just older people who get coronavirus. It is younger people, too. All of these things he was saying privately, things that were the opposite sentiment of what he had been saying publicly to the American People. And it is not just the back and forth bob woodward has with President Trump, he talked to james mattis, former director of National Intelligence dan coats and Task Force Member dr. Fauci. All of whom minced no words in their criticisms of this president. Kaitlan, what did they say . Reporter fauci is the only one weve heard from so far. He did an interview on fox news earlier where he said he didnt recall saying that about the president because if you read it in the book, in the excerpt that we have it said the president had an Attention Span that was minus zero and that he only was interested in getting reelected. It said that fauci told that to an associate. That is how woodward reports it in his book and he said he doesnt recall. It we have not heart from mattis or dan coats. They held some of the most important jobs in the administration and the things are saying are a damning indictment from of the president. When mattis was saying when he was defense secretary he would go to the National Cathedral and pray for the state of the nation under the command of donald trump. Saying he was unfit and dangerous to be president and conversations with dan coats, the director of National Intelligence about whether or not they should speak out in a collective fashion against the things that the president was saying. There are so many moments in the donald trump presidency, brooke, that are stunning and surprising and remarkable and unlike any other white house that weve covered. But to have the former defense secretary and the former director of National Intelligence, two people the president picked to put in that job, saying Something Like that, asking if they should come out and tell the American Public what they really think of the president is incredibly notable and, of course, the big thing is you have to remember the president spoke to woodward 18 times on his own, phone calls and in person for this book, and many, many current and former white house aides also spoke to woodward. That is right. This is not anonymous sources. This is bob woodward to the president and you hear his voice on tape. Thank you so much for running through what is just the beginning of the fallout from some of the reporting out of this book. Moments ago joe biden spoke out about all of this saying that president not ome cost thousands of american lives but millions of livelihoods. He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. And while this deadly degrees ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose. It was a life and death betrayal of the American People. Experts say that if he acted just one week sooner, 36,000 people would have been saved. If he acted two weeks sooner, back in march, 54,000 lives would have been spared in march and april alone. You know, his failure not only cost lives, it sent our economy in a tail spin. It cost million more in american livelihoods. Lets talk about all of this with. With me now abby phillip and Michael Dantonio and from the center for medicare and medicaid is andy slavic. And so welcome to all of you. Andy, first to you, i just want to start if President Trump had been truthful with the American Public, the way he was with bob woodward, how many thousands of lives would have been saved . If the u. S. Would have had even the approach of germany here, about three quarters of the lives that we lost would have been saved. And that just would have meant being forthright. This is a lie with consequences and it is a lie that matters and the reason is matters so much because when you have a novel virus, before there is a vaccine, public reaction is your only medicine. So not telling the public the truth, saying you dont want to panic the public, when you know something is contagious through the air as the president said, is basically equivalent to saying were going to leave the public defenseless. The public would have behaved very differently if they knew there was a high death rate of something that spread through the air in february, the course of history would have been quite different. Abby, yes, this is the president lying yet again. But it is on tape. It is not anonymous sources. And this is trump. And this isnt about kaukraine, but this is impact the all of us, millions of americans, do you think this is the thing that final sticks . Well, i dont know. I dont know that any person really knows what will stick and what wont stick. But i think, brooke, your point is exactly right. This is the most important thing that is going on in the lives of most americans right now. 190,000 people in this country have died from this virus. There are millions of americans without jobs. And the reason that President Trump right now is going into the last eight weeks of this campaign at a significant deficit in National Polls against joe biden is because largely of his handling of this virus. And if there were americans coming into this, who had doubts about whether the president took this seriously as he should have, whether he acted as quickly as he should have, these tapes really provide evidence that in february he knew that this was more serious and more deadly than he told the public. That is pretty damning evidence. And i think that for the most important issue in the lives of americans, it is going to have an impact. Because Everything Else stems from this. People want to go back to their normal lives and theyre going to look to how President Trump led in this moment. Michael, you wrote the book on trump. You have talked a lot with me on tv just about how the size of his ego, he probably thought speaking to bob woodward was a feather in his cap because this guy broke watergate. Anyone on his team who had any common sense, after the first book a couple of years ago, would have said avoid bob woodward. Why would anyone let him sit down with bob woodward, let alone 18 times. Quite of the few of the calls happened after hours when nobody was minding the president. So there were no adults in the room. There was only donald trump. And youve got to remember that i think his reality was formed back in the 70s when Richard Nixon was president and bob woodward was the most famous reporter in the world. So he thinks this is as wonderful thing that bob woodward wants to speak to him and hes also a con man. He believe thats he could con almost anyone. He believed he could con woodward. But the strange, bizarre element in all of this is that as hes speaking to woodward, hes revealing he doesnt believe his own con. So he knew he was lying. He knew these were lethal lies that were tantamount to homicide for tens of thousands of americans and he told woodward the whole story. This is so self destructive, so bizarre, to depraved that you really have to wonder how many screws loose this man has. He also, in the conversations with bob woodward, this is for you, andy, on march 19th, trump said it is not just old people, bob. Just today and yesterday some startling facts came out, young people too, plenty of young people. This is a president insisting that schools should open and that College Football should be played. He said that children are quote unquote virtually immune. How do you square that with what the president said to bob woodward . It is really hard to explain. And i think youve got other people who are on this panel who studied how the president thinks and why he says what he says. But the thing that should be really striking to the American Public is he not only told us a lie, he did spend a long time covering it up by effectively shutting down his agencies from reacting. Criticizing the cdc when they said publicly this was serious. Criticizing Anthony Fauci and the people in the government who said this is more serious. So he continues on this path to keep his own truth the truth that is out there. Because he believes he has success in marketing that to certain part of the population. I dont think he feels like he needs to convince anybody other than his base. And that he keeps creating that reality for himself but it is making people feel less and less secure about his leadership in this very trying time. I hear you on the lie and the coverup. And it is lives, it is livelihoods. Abby, let me close with you because youve heard several high level officials on record including dr. Fauci saying that trumps Attention Span is like a minus number and his sole purpose is to get reelected. Wee trying to survive through the pandemic and the president is the president. We need a vaccine. But given this bombshell, how is anyone going to trust anything that the president says to the American Public between now and november 3rd . Well, we already know, brooke, that most plern americans dont trust what the president said. The polls show that twothirds of americans distrust anything that he has to say, particularly about this virus. And many dont trust anything that he has to say in general. Including some of his own supporters. People who are planning to vote for him. So this is a problem that has already been deepseeded for this president. It is going to get worse. And this book is one of several books just in the last couple of weeks coming out, painting the same picture, this idea that the president wants to be reelected more than anything else is something that many people around him have said on the record. And i think we could also probably expect to hear more. There are going to be more and more accounts coming out from people who used to work in the administration from whistleblowers, we have just one just today talking about the president s character behind the scenes. It will, i think, have some kind of impact. The question is always how much. His die hard supporters are probably not going anywhere. But he doesnt it is not enough. Hes got to get those folks in the middle and i think many of those people are getting a lot of evidence right now of who exactly the president is and that is a really tough picture for him, brooke. Right, the moderates and the independents, will they be swayed because of that. Bob woodward reporting. And there is so much more coming out of the tapes interviews. Thank you all for that. A new hurdle in the race for a coronavirus vaccine. Why a major trial was just put on hold. And the mayor of tuscaloosa, alabama, the home of the university of alabama, is reopening bars in town, despite hundreds of cases of covid on campus. Well talk to the mayor live and ask him why hes doing that. And no tricks or treats for Los Angeles County after it bans the doortodoor halloween tradition. Youre watching cnn, im brooke baldwin. Keep moving. And at fidelity, youll get planning and advice to help you prepare for the future, without sacrificing whats most important to you today. Because with fidelity, you can feel confident that the only direction youre moving is forward. Because with fidelity, you can feel confident that gives me cash back onesome new aeverything. Akuten thats ebates. I get cash back on electronics, travel, clothes. Youre talking about ebates. I cant stop talking about rakuten. Pretty good deal peter sfx [blender] ebates is now rakuten, sign up today. We have different needs. Y. But one thing we share is wanting to make our lives the best they can be. If you have medicare and medicaid, a dual complete plan from unitedhealthcare can help. Giving you more benefits. At no extra cost. And a promise to be there for you. Whatever your story may be. To learn more, call or go online. Dual complete from unitedhealthcare. For the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. Visit petmeds. Com today. Were back. Youre watching cnn, im brooke baldwin. Were learning more this afternoon about what led a major drug make tore halt global trials. Astra zeneca paused his trial after a volunteer became ill. This morning the head of the National Institute of health described the illness as a quote, spinal cord problem and said the pause shouldnt be alarming. And within abundance of caution at a time like this, you put a clinical hold and you investigate carefully to see if anybody else who received that vaccine might have had a similar finding of a spinal cord problem. To so this ought to be securing, here is exhibit a. The setback comes less than a day after astra zeneca sign the the ledge that that would not seek any approval until it is safe and effective. But meantime, remdesivir, is being rationed in the u. S. While it is plentiful in developing countries. This, despite the fact that the drug is made by an American Pharmaceutical Company and developed with the help of u. S. Taxpayer money. With me now, cnn medical analyst dr. Lena nguyen, also the former Baltimore Health commissioner. Thank you for coming on with me. And lets start with the pause in the astra zeneca trial. Does this happen in large scale trials and do during the pause will they determine whether this spinal cord problem was a direct result of the vaccine or potentially Something Else . T