The tent. We forgot. The tent. Except about that. Xfinity home. Simple, easy, awesome. Hey look, i found the tent and, see, its safe. Call, click, or visit a store today. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. Its 11 00 on the east coast. 49 days until election day. Were following these breaking news stories for you. Stories that could impact how americans cast their votes in the 2020 election. President trump completely contradicting himself tonight on his handling of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Now claiming that he, quote, upplayed the virus in terms of his actions. Despite telling Journalist Bob Woodward that he downplayed covid19 so as not to create a panic in the country. And claiming, again tonight, that the virus is going to disappear. It will go away without the vaccine, george, but its going to go away a lot faster will go away without the vaccine . Sure, over a period of time. With many deaths. And youll develop, like, a herd mentality. Its going to be its going it be herd developed and thats going to happen. That will all happen. Herd mentality and Herd Development. Okay. Whatever that means. Also listen to his exchange with bob woodward about how the president views his role during the pandemic. Was there a moment in all of this last two months where you said to yourself, you know, youre waking up or youre, you know, whatever youre doing and you say, ah, this is the leadership test of a lifetime. No. No . I think it might be, but i dont think that. All i want to do is get it solved. There are many people that said that to me. They said, youre now a wartime president. Who said that first to you . Many people have said that. Well, help me. Make it id like to make it concrete. I dont like to sit back and think about that kind of thing. Why . I dont have that much time to think about it, bob. Im busy as hell. Well, heres what the president said back in march about being a wartime leader. Im really happy with the job were doing, and im glad that this team and me are here for this horrible thing. I mean, its a number of people have said it, but, and i feel it, actually, im a wartime president. This is a war. At a town hall tonight the president was challenged about what the phrase, make America Great means to black americans and whether he feels theres a race problem in this country. Under your administration, under the obama administration, under the bush, under the clinton, the very same things happened and very same systems and cycles continue to ensue and we need to see because you say again. We need to see when that was great because that pushes us to a time when we cannot identify with such greatness. You said Everything Else about choking but have yet to address and acknowledge theres been a race problem in america. So if you go i hope theres not a race problem. I can tell you, theres none with me because i have Great Respect for all races, everyone. This country is great because of it. When you go back six months and take a look at what was happening, you cant even compare that with past administrations. Never answered the question. We are Fact Checking what he said at the town hall. That happened just over an hour ago. Were going to continue to do that for you, fact check what he said at that town hall over an hour ago. While President Trump shrugs off the impacts of the Climate Crisis on americas environment, Hurricane Sally battering the gulf coast, especially alabama and florida with heavy winds and drenching rains. Sally moving very slowly, only 2 miles per hour. That could cause historic lifethreatening flooding. Were going to go live to both alabama and florida in the hour ahead so make sure you stay tuned. We have a big show for you this hour. Join me now, cnn White House Correspondent john harwood and our resident fact checker daniel dale who no doubt has been very busy this evening, so just to give him a moment to even just do some lastminute checking, im going to start with john. So, john, tonights abc town hall, the president , he had to face serious questions from voters. Take a listen. Im conservative, prolife and diabetic. I have had to dodge people who dont care about social distancing and wearing face masks. I thought you were doing a good job with the Pandemic Response until about may 1st then you took your gas off the gas pedal. Why did you throw Vulnerable People like me under the bus . Well, we really didnt, paul. Weve worked very hard on the pandemic. Why dont you support a mandate for National Mask wearing and why dont you wear a mask more often . Well, i do wear them when i have to and when im in hospitals and other locations. I mean, you said Everything Else about choking and Everything Else but have yet to address and acknowledge theres been a race problem in america. So if you go i hope theres not a race problem. I can tell you, theres me because i have Great Respect for all races, for everybody. Should preexisting conditions which obamacare brought into brought to fruition, be removed . No. Without please stop and let me finish my question, sir. Should that be removed. Within a 36 to 72hour period without my medication, i will be dead and i want to know what it is that youre going to do to assure that people like me who work hard, we do everything were supposed to do, can stay insured. Its not my fault that i was born with this disease. Its not my fault that im a black woman and in the medical community im minimized and not taken seriously. I want to know what you are going to do about that. So, first of all, i hope you are taken seriously. I hope you are. We arent going to hurt anything having to do with preexisting conditions. Okay. Theres a lot there, so, listen, john, the president has been limited to his cheering supporters at rallies and then, you know, sometimes a press corps who he can mostly bully around or walk away when he doesnt want to answer a question but tonight he had to face reality. He did, and hes not very good at coping with it. What we see is hes not really capable of intellectually addressing serious questions. And so the value of exchanges like that is to have people put the questions directly to him and then see the president not really be able to engage with them. Whats the consistent message weve gotten from former top aides, from family members, from bob woodward in the conclusion of his book, donald trump is not up to the job and he keeps showing that. On preexisting conditions, for example, pure nonsense that he offered on health care. He kept talking about how we have a plan. Hes been talking about having a plan for a very long time. Two weeks, three weeks from now, never comes. Talks about, well, i essentially ended obamacare. No, he didnt. But he is trying to end it through the court system. And then he says, well, were going to protect preexisting conditions. No, hes not going to protect preexisting conditions because to protect preexisting conditions, you need a mandate to get everybody into the Health Care System to share the risk. Thats how you make it inexpensive enough for people with preexisting conditions to be able to buy on even terms. He he cannot accept, confront, engage, with those ideas and so he just kind of babbles. Daniel, let me bring you in because youve been busy Fact Checking this town hall. What stood out to you . There was just so much lying, don. Im going to go quickly. He said, again, democrats wont protect people with preexisting conditions. Thats nonsense, as a voter told him, democrats created those protections. He insisted he didnt praise china on the virus. He did so repeatedly. We know that. He claimed nobody knew at the time he was praising china that seniors were especially susceptible to the virus. Thats one of the first things we learned out of china, italy, and the u. S. He claimed biden said in march the pandemic was, quotes, totally overexaggerated. I can find no evidence biden ever said that. He said Winston Churchill was kind of like him playing down stuff because he went on rooftops in the bombing and said everything is going to be good. Churchill did not stand on the rooftops and warned everything was going to be good. He said protesters took over 20 of seattle. He took credit for sending in the National Guard in minneapolis saying this happened after a week and a half of violence there. It was not even close to a week and a half. It was days and the democratic governor is the one who activated the guard. He said he essentially repealed obamacare by getting rid of individual mandate, not even close to true with the medicaid expansion, preexisting conditions expansion, other stuff remains. His Administration Admits he inherited about 16,000 from obama. He did his usual false boast about socalled bans on travel from china and europe. They were not complete bans. He said stocks are owned by, quote, everybody. Just about half of americans own stocks. He repeated his nonsense about testing causing cases, testing merely reveals and helps fight cases. He said that biden has agreed to a Bernie Sanders style of socialized health care. He fought sanders on that issue. He has very much not agreed to a sandersstyle plan. And, don, this is a preliminary list. I have hours of Fact Checking tonight to do because theres even more than this so this was just a firehose of lying, again, from the president. Do you need a drink of water . Yeah. I think im my camera here, i apologize to the viewers. It was just, what, an hour, hour and a half town hall and yes, like, every like every oh, my gosh. Every other line was false or misleading. It was crazy. Lets listen to what he said about crime. Listen to what the president said about crime tonight. Here it is. If youre going to stop crime, we have to give the the respect back to the police that they deserve. Theyve done a fantastic job in so many locations but then bad things happen. Look at new york. New york was a very safe city. Rudy giuliani did a fantastic job. The city was safe and then all of a sudden we have a mayor, he starts cutting the police force and crime is up 100 , 150 . I saw one form of crime up 300 . What are the facts, daniel . So, there have been spikes in certain kinds of crime in new york city this year, particularly shootings where theres been a more than 100 increase. Not a 300 increase, but substantial. The thing to remember, though, is that crime has fallen hugely since even giulianis final year. Theres been a subsequent big decrease. Last year in 2019 there were fewer than half the murders under bill de blasio than in the last year of giuliani, so, yes, this year has been an increase. The city is still way safer than it was in giulianis last year in 2001. Well, there you go, dont let facts get in the way of a good story. So, john, lets i want to play another moment from the town hall where the president addressed a potential stimulus package. Here it is. What they want is a bailout of democratrun states that are doing poorly and, you know, i dont think this is the right why do you keep talking about democrat states . They are. Theyre american states and american democratrun states are the ones that are doing badly, george. If you look at new york, if you look at illinois, if you look at a lot of different places, theyre doing poorly. And cities, in particular, cities, i mean, these cities are being run so poorly. Dont you have a responsibility for those states and cities as well . Largely because of the crime. They dont want to do anything about crime. Sanctuary cities, they have sanctuary cities where theyre protecting criminals. They have things that the republicans dont have. So they are, i mean, i dont want to say look, im the president of everybody, but i dont want to say it, but theyre democratrun cities. So, is he the president or is he not . Does he represent the people in all of america . I mean, does he not get what it means to be president . Donald trump represents himself. Weve seen and we talked about this last night, a consistent pattern with the president is he is focused on himself, his own wellbeing, politically, financially, his ego, otherwise. So, he is trying to slough off the responsibility for dealing with those cities by ascribing their problems to democrats. The cities and states that democrats are trying to help in the stimulus relief legislation is to make up the collapse in revenues they suffered when the economy shut down. The federal government suffered similar revenues, but the federal government can run huge deficits and we are running huge deficits right now. States cannot do that. They need money to provide services and so he is not willing to confront republicans in congress, push them to make a compromise with democrats and so he is hes basically saying, well, this is all the fault of democrats. Thats not really the case that most big cities are run by democrats, but the problem that the congress is trying to address right now is the collapse in revenue generated by the covid shutdowns and that the covid shutdowns are something that he has failed to control when bring into line. Of course, its going to affect more people and because there are more people in urban areas, which tend to be democratic. Right . So, listen, john, i want to get this in, if you can move quickly on it, i would really appreciate it because got a lot of show to get to. Daniel had a lot of Fact Checking here. Were going to get i want to play were getting some more new recordings from the president s interview with bob woodward. This is from july 21st. Listen. Oh, people dont want me to no, no, but if you succeed, they succeed. Even the rinos dont want me to succeed. Theyll end up with a Supreme Court and lots of things theyre not going to be too happy with. Yeah, you know i have opposition like nobody has. Thats okay. Ive had that all my life. My whole life has been like this. In the meantime right now, im looking at the white house, okay . Im staring right at the walls of the white house. I was unlucky with the virus because it came in and sure. Anybody else but you got it, you got it. The countrys got it. The worlds got it. Youre in charge of this country. You know weve done better than any other country, just about done better than any other country in handling it and its a bigger, more diverse, more difficult country and weve done better other than with the press, other than with the press, ive done a great job. With the press, i cant do a good job because its fake. Its fake news. But its a fake group of people and you know it and you wont write it. Okay, are you bob are you going to acknowledge that in the last six, seven, months you made some mistakes in judgment on the virus . Ill see how it all turns out. Lets see how it all turns out. I took a big chance on vaccines. I upped the program. You wouldnt be looking at vaccines for three years. Were looking at them next week. I mean, it sounds like paranoia just, i mean, look, woodward is trying to engage him on coronavirus and leadership, but the president is consumed with his grievances that everyone is out to get him. He cant cope with his own failures, don. What were seeing is that the president sees himself as the victim of coronavirus. Himself as the victim of coverage of the problems with the coronavirus. Rather than thinking of himself as the person in charge of the country, person responsible for dealing with the country. He calls the news fake. Of course, the news is not fake. He doesnt like the news because the news is exposing problems with his administration. And that sense of grievance propels him and drives him and its constantly in his mind but it doesnt do the American People much good. Thank you, both. I appreciate it. Daniel, get some rest. Well see you both soon. Ill try, thanks, don. So lets talk about this a bit more. Dr. Jonathan reiner is here, director of cardiac Catheterization Program at George Washington university. Thanks for joining us again. I want you to take a listen to what the president said about the coronavirus. Here it is. It is going away, its probably going to go away a lot faster because of the vaccine. It will go away without a vaccine . Sure, over a period of time. Many death. Youll develop a herd mentality. Its going to be herd developed. Thats going to happen. That will all happen. With a vaccine, i think it will go away very quickly. Listen, im assuming this was a misstatement and hes always highlighting, you know, if joe biden misspeaks. Okay. What is herd mentality and Herd Development . Yeah, so i think he was what he was trying to get to is the concept of herd immunity. Okay. And whats disturbing about that, besides the fact that to get to herd immunity, we would need 60 to 70 of the population to actually acquire the virus which would mean at bestcase scenario 1 million to 2 Million People dead. Whats really disturbing beyond the horrible death count is that hes parroting scott atlas. Thats scott atlas tune. Herd immunity. He doesnt get that from tony fauci or deborah birx. Scott atlas. With who went with him to california . Scott atlas. Thats who has his ear now, guy who advocates for opening schools, let kids get sick, let them spread the virus around. He testified to this before a Senate Committee hearing in may. And thats what the president parrots now. Thats actually really creepy to me. Yeah, but that is a thing among trump supporters. They that whole yeah. They dont know the facts when it comes to herd immunity. They just dont really get it and understand it. They think its Something Different than what it is. The president also addressed they have a herd mentality. So maybe its a thing with them. They do have a herd mentality. Right. Thank you for that. Thanks for explaining it. Masks. Here it is. Yeah. Now, there is, by the way, a lot of people dont want to wear masks. There are a lot of people think that masks are not good. And there are a lot of people that as an example who are those people . Ill tell you who those people are. Waiters. They come over and serve you and have a mask. I saw it the other day wher