First a note about uncertainty. Hard times like this call for hard truths. The hard truth is that covid19 will be with us for a long time. Until theres a cure or vaccine it will pose a unique threat. Experts are talking in terms of years. No one likes this. But Everyone Needs to know the truth. The hard truth. The leads who are acting like this is almost over are not leading at all. Theyre failing to tell the hard truth. Thats irresponsible. Im looking at you jared kushner. He said the federal government rose to the challenge. He called it a success story. The hard truth is anyone who talks about this pandemic in the past tense is lying to you. This is present tense crisis. No amount of propaganda can change that but it can confuse people. It is confusing people and thats reckless. The hard truth is that shutdowns and social distancing measures have slowed the spread of the virus but the virus is still winning. Someone from america died every 44 seconds in april. The true toll is worse. Some people adied of covid19 a home without being tested or counted. As one physician told cnn, what were seeing is the tip of an iceberg. There are signs of progress, but look at what Scott Gottlieb said this week, he said even as more Economic Activity is restarted, covid is expanding in many states. We face 2,000 deaths a day. He pointed out a lot of the spread is clustered in disadvantaged communities and in atrisk environments. Its been 44 seconds. Another death. Another agonizing loss for another family. All loss of life is tragic. Causes of death like Car Accidents and cancer are not contagious. Viruses are. Thats what creates so much uncertainty. The challenge for the news media now is in communicating that uncertainty. Theres so many known unknowns. Like how many people are infected with kocovid19 right now . We dont know because we dont have the testing capacity. All of the counts are under counts. Another thing being undercounted is the economic damage. The american carnage. We dont have a full picture of the unemployment disaster because so many systems and states are swamped. So the News Coverage needs to reflect that. Its not 30 million unemployed, its at least 30 million unemployed. Its been another 44 seconds. So we need to keep noting what we dont know. We have to keep saying the true total is even larger than we know, but we dont know how much larger. The thing is people can handle uncertainty. People can handle hard truths. We have to hear them. Were all adapting right now. Were all adapting. Were all figuring out what level of risk is acceptable to each of us and to the people around us. This is all a risky calculation. As we do that, gradually open back up, we create more uncertainty. Leaders like Anthony Fauci and deborah birx know that. Leaders like bill gates, gavin n newsom and mike dewine understand it and theyre emphasizing the uncertainty. Theyre showing the people who pretend theyre certain are deluding themselves. They see the numbers, they see the uncertainty. What numbers did the president tweet about . His poll numbers. Hes exaggerating his approval. The hard truth is hes not preparing the public for the coming months of illness and waves of infection. Hes not. Theres some signs hes punishing Truth Tellers, like the health and Human Services watchdog who warned about supply shortages. The white house is trying to replace her. Where are the Truth Tellers in the administration . Fauci and birx are there taking caution and taking the long view. Todays Washington Post reports that the west wing wants its economic leaders front and center on tv. Meaning fewer appearances by the doctors, more spin about reopening the country. At time when we need hard truths, we are getting a war on truth instead. Joining me now to discuss that is carl bernstein. War on truth, pandemic episode, is that whats going on now . It is. You cant successfully wage a war against the coronavirus while simultaneously waging a war on the truth, which is what trump continues to do. The cost of it is really measurable in lives. Thats what were talking about. Thats why his scientific advisers are so xexasperated, theyll tell that you in private. The economic reopening is being done in such a way through the Trump White House and its plans as to ignore to a large measure what the scientists are recommending and putting us in a premature position in the way were opening and costing lives. Telling the truth. Lets look at germany. Lets see what merkel did. She told the truth to her people in england, in the United Kingdom. Boris johnson after his porib he brush with almost death is now telling the people of the United Kingdom the truth about this vishs a virus and why they have to stay locked down longer. We need the same here but its not happening because the president as the Washington Post reported today keeps as ive talked to numerous people in the white house about, hes front and center with his Reelection Campaign rather than front and center defeating or dealing with this horrible virus particularly through meaningful testing. Do you see it as something pathological meaning hes incapable of feeling empathy . Do you think its that severe of a problem . I do not. I think that trump i know this from people around him, trump is very effected by loss of life. The National Security people who have been his aides and left because of his recklessness say the one thing about him is that he does have a huge feeling about loss of life. But when confronted, as in this horrible episode with huge loss of life, he retreats to recklessness, dereliction of duty, putting front and center questions about his reelection that should not be primary instead of responding in such a way as those who give him the science tell him he needs to respond. Right. A couple of political stories have broken through this week amid this pandemic. Seems like newsrooms are having to juggle the Health Crisis with a couple of interesting and important investigative stories. The first involves Michael Flynn and these newly released fbi notes and memos. Tell me what the significance is of the flynn memos. The significance is that trump and those around him have seized on these handwritten notes from a high level fbi official as showing supposedly that flynn was entrapped by the fbi into lying. I talked to top officials in the fbi and they say, no. Whats clear from the notes as well as what happened is flynn lied to the white house chief of staff, to the Vice President of the United States, he still worked for a foreign power, turkey, going up to the point when he was the National Security adviser. He lied and lied and lied and what the notes show is Standard Operating Procedure of a discussion about how to interview a witness. What is important, though, is because the Trump White House and others around him are saying this is more evidence of the deep state we need to cover this story. We need to put people like preet perera on the air. But so far the evidence is this is yet another red herring by the president of the United States and his supporters who keep saying this was all about the deep state with the russian investigation. It is certainly a popular narrative in pro trump media. Were also seeing a lot of energy attacking what i would describe the rest of the media. Its coverage of joe biden. Theres this assault allegation from tara reade which she says occurred in 1993. She used to say harassment, now she says an assault in 1993. Joe biden went on msnbc this week for the first time and denied this allegation. Were seeing these two separate news worlds. On the right, headline after headline saying the press is burying this, its media bias, its democratic double standard and every day were seeing more and more coverage of this from the rest of the media. Whats your impression of whats going on here, carl . My impression is bidens story and the allegations that we need to put our reporters on the story and see if we can find out something that theres some paper trail perhaps, if she really filed a complaint. I think we need to put her on the air. To air her allegations. And we need to approach this and cover it as a political story in which the white house is trying to make hay out of it. Its a serious story that needs covering. I want to come back for one second to this whole question of a war on truth. Especially about questions of our readiness to deal with this pandemic and what we failed to do and particularly what we continue to fail to do in terms of testing and the president s lying about testing. Because hes lying about testing and what our capacity is. According to the scientists, it has cost us lives and continues to if we act precipitously about the way we reopen. Look, we have the army. We have the national guard. It is said we need 300,000 people to do the correct contact tracing. Call up the national guard, mr. President. Use the facilities of the United States army. Do what Franklin Roosevelt did in world war ii. Mobilize this country, unite this country rather than feed the fuels of the cold civil war by continually being dishonest about what is really going on, what the statistics are, and focus not only your reelection but focus instead on helping americans unite instead of more divisiveness though its an impossibility as weve seen through the trump presidency. Unfortunately to think seriously that he would overwhelm his instincts and that he would be able to try to unite the country rather than purposely divide it at this terrible moment. Cold civil war indeed. I think the biden story matters. Tara reade is being heard, biden is being heard, but what matters most is this 50state disaster. Thats ultimately why its the top story every hour. Carl, thank you very much for starting us off. Good to be with us. Coming up, olivia luzzi will join us to talk about the rampant misinformation at the white house and what it was like to be at this press conference with the president. vo at sprint, we understand saving money for your family is now more important than ever. Thats why were offering our best unlimited deal. Switch and get four lines of unlimited for just 100 a month. Thats right four lines, for 100 bucks if thats not enough, were throwing in four Samsung Galaxy phones. On us. And now, sprint customers enjoy expanded roaming access on the tmobile network. Shop from the comfort of your home at sprint. Com or come see us in our stores. For people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay. Com. If you have a garden you know, weeds are low down little scoundrels. With roundup sure shot wand you dont need to stoop to their level. Draw the line. The sure shot wand extends with a protective shield to pinpoint those pesky bedfellows. 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Where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. This is my sons favorite color, you should try it. [mayhem] you always drive like an old lady . [tina] youre an old lady. Now to briefings, blusers and bogus claims from the house. We saw for the first time in a year a press briefing by the press secretary. Thats because theres a new press secretary, Kayleigh Mcenany, former fox producer, turned trump supporter and now behind the podium. On friday she made this promise to journalists. You pledge never to lie to us from that podium. I will never lie to you. You have my word on that. But then she proceeded to deceive, misquoting fbi notes regarding Michael Flynn. She also downplayed comparisons between President Trump and joe biden when it comes to issues involving Sexual Harassment and assault. She implied trump mahad not bee accused of Sexual Misconduct in years. Maybe the New York Times put it best on saturday, new press aide vowed never to lie, that was the first lie. With me now are two washington correspondents who are working at home, living at home together, olivia nuzzi and ryan li lizza. Youre joining me on the video together. Thank you very much. Lets look at this if america lose s more lives in six weeks than the entire vietnam war, do you think that president deserves to be reelected . Why was that question important to ask. Its important to put the question to trump and see how he sees these things. To his credit, he will often attack the person asking the question, he did not do that in this case. It was the last question of the briefing, maybe he wanted to get it over with he did seem to take it seriously. He did not answer it directly and he did not appear to be offended at all. Ias surprised when many of his allies in the rightwing media came after me. A little bit of shakiness on the shot. Well see if we get it back. For the past six weeks, most of us have been trying to use web camming to ke ins to keep in to people. Can you guys hear me now . Not sure if we have it or not. Ryan, can you hear me . Yeah, brian, you can hear me okay . Yeah. Sounds great. I love that you have a fire going behind you. This work from home life, for those of us lucky enough to have work right now is quite interesting. Ryan, i wonder if you think it matters that Kayleigh Mcenany held a press briefing. Theres all this attention about the briefings, whether theyre happening. Did it matter she was up there for the first time in over a year . I think i think its always better to hear from white house officials than not. The debate over whether you should broadcast them live is a separate issue. Its always better for us to have the opportunity to go in the white house and put questions to the people in power and the people who represent the president. We whether you get the answers you want is a separate question, but its better to have access, responses and have the ability to ask anything you want. Olivia one thing these should be broadcast wall to wall because if we only show sound bites from the president we make him sound more coherent than he actually is. I hate to say that, but i think youre right, olivia. You and i were talking about this on the show in november of 2019, when this guardian editor wrote a column i referenced in my so stunned when she saw donald trump in full for the first time at press conference because he sounds so less coherent than when filtered through news print and News Coverage. The way we report the news, we have to make him sound more coherent than he is sometimes. We were forced to sit through a 2hour, 2 1 2hour briefing, so its difficult to discern his words. So the argument that airing the briefings live is somehow helping his campaign, its free media, i dont buy it. I think if it worked for another candidate, you could make that argument. For donald trump, i think sunlight is the best disinfectant, and i heard from donald trump that both of those have cured diseases. Can i add one point on the blow back that olivia got and the questions that others ask at these briefings. Ive been to three of them recently. Im always surprised by the social media reaction, especially on the right. Right now theres this view that we as reporters who go to the white house and go to the trump briefings, the only thing reporters are supposed to be doing there is getting more information, right, about the coronavirus response. And it leaves out this whole set of categories of questions about accountability and some of the one of the issues that olivia raised. And theres sort of policing right now on the right that an argument that reporters only youre only there to, you know, find out a little bit more about what state is opening, some very technical specific informational question, and the broader more, hey, you said this, now youre saying this why did you change your mind or questions of accountability, thats also now showboating or not real journalism. Thats wrong. That has never been the case since ive been covering the white house. Great point. Olivia and ryan, thank you both for joining me. Olivia and ryan are both subscribers for our nightly reliable sources news letter. Sign up for free right now at cnn. It reliable. Quick break on reliable sources. Up next, one of the best weapons in the fight against this covid19 infection is data. We need more of it. So meet two of the people running this indispensable tracking map right after this. But when you have the chase mobile app, your bank can be virtually any place. 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