Degrees, in an aerosol environment it could live two hours, and that, i suppose on one level, is that something to feel good about, that that is less than in colder temperatures or is that something to be concerned about but still in any kind of crowded situation in the summer you could have pure aerosol with coronavirus for up to two hours . We know the virus is spread by both droplets and aerosol. What i would say is Everyone Needs a mask when they go out. Wherever you go into a public place, you need a mask to protect mostly your community but also to a certain degree yourself. Wear a mask. And doctor ray, let me give you a chance to respond to that. How much calm should we attack if all this bears out . This is what theyre putting forth. It would still live in summer temperatures, aerosol for two hours . I mean, two hours is a long time. Right . If youre going to the Grocery Store and someone coughs or sneezes directly on you, you dont have two hours to wait. If im working in my Emergency Department and im face to face with a patient, the fact that its warm outside is not going to protect me. So two hours is great, and it means it may live for less time on surfaces like playgrounds or Tennis Courts or other things outdoors, but inside in airconditioning or where theres not sunlight or if youre in the direct face to face situation, its not going to protect us. I think we can see there will likely be a decrease in the number of cases but not a disappearance, and again, sunlight is not a panacea. It is not going to be a cureall. It is not going to save us from the virus. And places like singapore where theyre seeing records is obviously tropical. Kaitlyn collins is with us. You were in the Briefing Room. Obviously the president extremely defensive when interacting with you and others. Reporter . He was. Its not clearly why. The question seemed to be obvious one about rick bright, the official leading the agency that was leading the charge on vaccine production that says he was removed from part of his job as retaliation because he wanted further scientific vetting on high driving while intoxicated cloor quinn. Hydroxychloroquine. The white house hasnt responded to the allegations by bright who says he plans to file a whistleblower complaint. Its unusual the president wouldnt want to respond where bright said he feels there was political pressure to Fund Certain Drugs and thats the power he has in charge of that agency. He picked which vaccines theyre going to purchase and fund to hopefully produce. Its unusual the president wouldnt answer questions about rick bright. Yesterday he denied knowing the official. People have filled the president in on it since then, certainly, because of the situation ongoing that hes going to file the complaint. You saw democrats telling our colleague they wanted to speak to dr. Rick bright as well about what his allegations are about what was happening over at the department of health and human services, but we did not get answers to those questions here tonight. John king . Its a fair question. There will be a paper trail about dr. Bright and his leaving. Hes made his statements. He has an attorney. Calling himself a whistleblower. This is going to play out through the process and the likes. Its another example of lets assume for the sake of argument that the president did not know and did not know that this had happened. It would not be the first time someone in the administration, someone more senior did something because they thought it was what the president wanted. Remember, mr. Muldy who just left, the commander of the uss theodore roosevelt. I think its over 700 sailors in that ship who tested positive for covid19. The acting secretary at the time fired him and it was clear he thought thats what the president would like because the captain had his letter leaked where he was begging for help with the outbreak on his ship. It was a chain of command issue, but it was not the first time someone in the administration thought this is how i cover favor with the president. This person disagrees with the president and wants to put science, caution, process, protocol over the president s zeal for hydroxychloroquine, hes gone. Well get more on this. Congress is going to get involved. There will be a paper trail. He has an attorney now. We will get more answers but if the president wants to have these briefings, stand there and walk into the room and again, its his house. But theres a tradition. I was there for almost a decade. Its not his room. I know its part of his house. Trump supporters will say of course its his room, the brady Briefing Room, thats viewed as a special temple for the first amendment. If he wants to come in there and have the show and tell, he should have to answer questions too. The fact he wont answer the questions tells you something. Thats exactly what that is and the relationship with the press is meant to be tough and adversarial. Thats the nature of it. Thats not bias. Thats what reporters do. Daniel, in watching that going through some of the fact checks what stands out to you as obviously our nightly fact checker . Erin, the president said were getting close to a vaccine and then he amended that to say were not close on testing because it takes a long time to test vaccines. Lets be clear what were talking about. Dr. Fauci said this is a minimum of a 12 to 18month process. Other experts think that is highly optimistic. When we talk about close, we talk about more than a year and possibly well over a year. The president said joe biden doesnt want to debate him because of the coronavirus. He said im ready to debate him on zoom or any time any place he wants. Thats unfounded. The president also claimed he has dmot stopped hyping up hydroxychloroquine. By the numbers we know thats unclear. Theres a chart showing between march 19th and march 25th, he mentioned it 15 times. Its fallen off. Over and over again the president is promoting or uttering information thats not true. And you mentioned hydroxychloroquine. Youve talked a lot about this and the concerns you see as a heart surgeon in terms of the damage that this can do to people with cardiac issues as well as others. There have been studies indicating its not effective and perhaps dangerous. There was another drug that people were looking at as possibly helpful, remdesivir. The results of the trial seemed to be accidentally posted online. This is an existing drug. If it worked, it would have been quick to get in the pipeline and again, the posting said the drug was not effective. The drug maker says not so fast. Dont read much into this. We have more to say. Well see. But the question i want to ask is if you start taking out the existing drugs that we already knew many of the risks and some of the possible benefits, right . And then all of a sudden youre going to look at unproven drugs, how long, how much damage does that do to the possibility of a quick and very effective treatment if the existing drugs do not work . Well, first of all, there are over 20 drugs being evaluated for a treatment of the coronavirus. So there are a lot of drugs in the pipeline. Its really not just hydroxy chloroquine or remdesivir. There are different avenues. The report about remdesivir was a small 300 or so patient report which was published in a website for the world health organization. Apparently erroneously. I read the piece, and it looks like at least from that initial report there wasnt really much of a benefit to rem disveer. We should have better data within the next several weeks. Well have to say. There are a lot of irons in the fire here. If one of these initial drugs dont work, we have many other potential therapeutics in the pipeline being evaluated. So doctor, let me ask you. This also comes as we find out on the day the president is talking about the sunlight getting rid of this this summer is his implication. A new model suggests there were tens of thousands of early cases of coronavirus in the United States that went undetected. Now, this is as weve heard from the cdc and dr. Birx, they say we have a flu Monitoring System when cases start to come back up as the economy reopens, we are going to see them. We have an existing system. What this shows is that back on march 1st there were 23 confirmed cases. There would have been as many as 28,000 infections in fa. Either the flu modelling didnt work or is there the possibility that the symptoms here have become much more severe over that time . Do we know which it could be . Of us in the intensive care units across the country have been talking about how this is a particularly bad flu season. The cdc flu monitoring measured were respiratory symptoms and presumably now if they see a bump the in the number of respiratory symptoms theyll say this is probably covid19 coming back. Back in february, we werent testing for it. No one had reported Community Transmission in the United States. So those pieces were thought to be just flu. Right . I dont think we can dismiss the cdc system altogether, but this does confirm the suspicions of many of us on the front lines wondering if this was in the country earlier than reported. It doesnt make you fear a much more serious virus. Thats the question i guess is that makes sense what youre saying. So the question of did the symptoms somehow become more severe over that time or some sort of change here, youre not as concerned about that . I think covid19 is a much more serious day than the flu. Case fatality rate is high nemplt the way it presents in the emergency room is worse. We have no immunity to the virus. Right now in this country it was more dangerous than the flu and it was before we detected it. I hope the cdc will track the illnesses and know it includes covid. I dont think its become more serious in the last couple months . Jim acosta, again, the backdrop to this conversation is the president tonight talking about whatever infections or something that a person could do to protect themselves. To disinfect themselves. But his overall point being that if it comes back in the fall or you know, its going to be gone by then which has been directly refuted by dr. Anthony fauci on the very same podium the president stood on tonight 24 hours ago saying there is one thing i am certain of and that is coronavirus will be here in the fall. Thats right, erin, and it seems theres a pattern. Every step along the way the president wants to inject if i may use the word optimism into the debate over the coronavirus. And treatments and how long its going to last and where we are as a country and so on. And that i suppose is all well and good, but it has to be backed up by science, and one of the things weve noticed and daniel was talking about to some extent, what weve also noticed in recent weeks is youre seeing less of the scientists and experts at the briefings and more of trump. It really is backwards, because what the public needs at these coronavirus briefings is tested scientific information and one of the things that weve heard from dr. Fauci over and over again when it comes to treatments for the coronavirus, that is going to be done in Clinical Trials, and these Clinical Trials are vigorous and it takes time for the top scientists in the country to agree upon a treatment for something as serious as the coronavirus. That same process is going to take place right now. I was talking to a source close to the task force earlier today about hydroxychloroquine, and it is frustrating, yes. Obviously its frustrating to the scientists when they dont have the answers when they cant come out and say one way or the other, but this source was basically urging me to be patient. These trials are going to end. The studies are going to end. Were going to have a better sense sooner rather than later, hopefully as to what is going to be an effective treatment for the coronavirus, but to come out to the Briefing Room as the president did weeks ago and was pumping up hydroxychloroquine, like his allies on fox news were, and now because that appears to be not the best treatment for coronavirus based on some initial studies, hes moved onto other junk science, and i think at some point the scientists have to reign him in and say you have to stop doing this because lives are at risk. People could follow the advice and get hurt. And Kaitlyn Collins were finding out when it comes to even the state of georgia opening up well before any of the guidelines from the white house says that any state should do so, the president seemed to indicate he was supportive of Governor Kemp in every way, and i know youve been reporting well, it turned out that dr. Anthony fauci was in those meetings saying you cannot say that. You cannot say that. You must change. Indeed, the president did, but this seems to be really a coming to head between the president and some of these scientists particularly to be frank, dr. Fauci. Thats whats interesting to see how the week progressed. Dr. Birx was asked about that multiple times and we asked about South Carolina and their opening measures, not following the guidelines the white house put out. Initially dr. Birx was saying she hoped people could follow the guidelines but if they could be creative by opening salons and tattoo parlors, she wasnt going to judge them. Dr. Fauci came out yesterday and said he did not believe that was right step for the georgia governor to be taking and the president seconded it tonight saying he did not agree with what Governor Kemp is doing. And Governor Kemp is an ally to the president. Hes met with the president in the oval office, and the president does not agree with the measures. But i want to point out one interesting thing the president said where after earlier today in an interview dr. Fauci said he didnt think the nation was where they needed to be on testing and was talking about ramping it up. The president said he had not seen the comments but he disagreed with what dr. Anthony fauci was saying about the level of testing not being where it needs to be in the country. As the president insisted, it is and governors have said it simply is not . All right. Thank you, kaitlyn, and thank you to all of you. I want to talk now more about president trumps collision course. You know, with the scientists on his Coronavirus Task force, as we must mentioned contradicting dr. Anthony fauci tonight on Testing Capacity in the United States. We absolutely need to significantly ramp up not only the number of tests but the capacity to actually perform them. I am not overly confident right now at all were doing very well on testing. I dont agree. That comes as one of president trumps top doctors said he was pulled from working on a Coronavirus Vaccine because he wanted more vetting for that antimalaria drug, hydroxychloroquine that the president touted as a possible game changer was his favorite description for that. Up front you joel clemen. He spent seven years under president obama and president trump. Said he was reassigned as a top Climate Change official as retaliation for his views on Climate Change. Joel, thank you for being with me. Let me ask you, how much pressure, people are trying to understand when the president comes out and says one thing and some of the members of the task force are more polite than others in terms of how they push back. How much pressure comes from the president to push his desired narratives despite what the science may say. Well, that political pressure is not just from the president but from his cabinet members on scientists and professionals and experts partly because now we know they have this antiscience agenda which is to suppress the science, promote theories, marginize and sideline scientists and experts and promote people willing to toe the party line. That means theyre going to punish those who dont toe the party line. Its a constant tension between the Civil Servants there to protect us and the political appointees . Dr. Fauci, obviously theres the difference on testing and dr. Fauci is in line with the science. You know . The global Harvard Health director said i havent met a single professional who didnt think we need a lot more testing moments after the president said theres a lot of professionals out there who arent that big on testing. Well, there arent. Dr. Fauci has been pushing testing. Hes been saying coronavirus is not going away. Moments after the president said that it might go away. Tonight dr. Fauci was not at the white house briefing. Do you think in any way that his job, his position may be in danger because he continually is going against the president on some of these crucial issues whether its hydroxychloroquine not being ready or testing or the virus itself . Well, certainly his job is in danger. I think were all holding our breath hoping he keeps it. Were seeing evidence from within the agencies that jobs like that are in danger and weve recently heard about dr. Bright and his reassignment which was similar to what i went through as a whistleblower at interior. That constant concern about our professionals in there looking to protect us is warranted, and i sure hope as does most of america, that dr. Fauci keeps that job because we need experts there. We cannot take our advice from the president certainly on this issue. And you talk about the dr. Fauci issue. You mention rick bright. Yesterday the president claimed that his cdc director was going to make a correction. The Washington Post reported and put in quotes that redfield said a second wave of coronavirus in the fall could be worse. And redfield then when read the quote directly admitted it was accurate. Heres that example and another. He was misquoted. Totally misquoted. Im accurately quoted in the Washington Post. That might not come back at all. We will have coronavirus in the fall. What goes on behind the scenes when we hear that in front of the camera . Honestly, erin, i havent the faintist idea how theyre handling that. That is unprecedented. This level of political interveerns in the scientific work thats taking place to protect us is unprecedented and weve certainly seen this. There was a survey two years ago by colleagues at the union of concerned scientists. They surv