Restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on Civil Liberties in american history. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The most trusted person in america when it comes to cboe pandemic according to polling is dr. Anthony fauci. The director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases. And there is good reason for that, right . Hes a legend in the field of infectious diseases. He served six president s, democrats and republicans. He played a major crucial role in helping contain the hiv aids epidemic he was personally treating ebola patients as early as five years ago. His entire career has been building for the battle we are now in with a once in a century pandemic he has been a scientific voice of reason throughout there is no denying the u. S. Has had a disastrous response. The numbers dont lie. We are now in the cusp of hitting 200,000 deaths that horrific death toll represents a far higher mortality per capita rate than the rest of the world. While we have come down from our peak of cases in the summer, thank god, we look to be plateauing at nearly 40,000 cases a day, a huge number we are also losing almost 1,000 americans a day still. Today seven months after this began, we still have a ton of concern about Community Transmission along with whats happening right now at colleges, for instance while there has been good news out of a lot of places, new york, for instance, we are also now seeing spikes in the midwest and elsewhere. The weather is getting cooler in most of the country, so this is a Pivotal Moment we are heading into the fall and winter we are heading indoors where transmission is more likely. Add to that flu season and things have the potential to get very bad what the next new months will look like depends on whats happening now. With us is dr. Anthony fauci director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases, the director of health doctor, its fantastic to have you on the program thank you so much. Thank you for having me good to be with you. Lets start with where we are right now. When you sort of look at it in a broad view, it looks to me like were at a place not that dissimilar from where we were before midsummer when we had that big second spike through the sun belt, which is to say the spike has come down. We still have 800 deaths is that good enough . Is the status quo right now good enough its not. Weve got to do better as you mentioned correctly, you know, its a mixed bag in the country. There are a number of areas that are doing really well. Hospitalizations down, cases down, deaths down, but there are areas in which there is an increase in what we call the percent positive of the test, which is usually a predictor that there may be a surge. Although many areas are doing well, my concern is something that you pointed out just a moment ago the baseline of where we have settled to 30 to 40, to 45,000 cases a day is something where weve got to get that baseline down and i think we can do it its up to us, and we want to do it really right now as we enter into the fall and winter season when most of the activities will then come indoors. And its not something thats undoable we know from history, chris, that if you do things like universal wearing of masks, physical distancing, avoiding crowds, doing things outdoors more than indoors within the time frame that we have now before the weather gets cooler and cold and then washing hands, we know if we do that, we can bring those numbers down so what i would like to see is that baseline that you showed on the chart comes way down so that when we enter into the coolest season, were doing it from a much Better Vantage Point than having that up so were doing well in some cases. Lets get the entire country or the baseline down. I mean, whats the i want to follow up on that, but before i do, its sort of your job to worry. One of the things we have learned about this pandemic, right, is sunny optimism hasnt really been rewarded so much since things started in january. I mean, whats keeping you up at night . Whats the thing you are really worried about right now . Well, the thing that im worried about is if we dont do what i just mentioned a moment ago, chris, and we enter into a more challenging situation with the cooler weather, we could start having surges that will then go up we want to open the economy. We want to open the country as it were to get jobs back, to start approaching normal i think with a vaccine, which will be becoming and im sure we will be discussing in a moment, the fact is if we do both of those things together, we can get to the point where we will be approaching normally. But it is within our power to do it lets make the decision. Were going to do it were going to pull together as a country. And as we start to open gradually, well do it prudently and carefully and according to the guidelines it is not rocket science, chris. We can do it and we can put an end to this. So lets talk about the what adds up to us suppressing the virus . It seems to me the masks are one. Dr. Redfield saying, look, this is almost as important as a vaccine in terms of mitigation you agree with him on that, correct . I think there was misinterpretation on that. Until we have a vaccine, masking, physical distancing, avoiding crowds is the Public Health proven way to go. I wouldnt want to be comparing efficacy of a vaccine versus a mask there are two independent ways that we want to synergize with each other i almost want you to break the fourth wall and say there is a donald trump on your shoulder that you are running this through . No. De has said masks dont work and hes ridiculed people for Wearing Masks i guess my question to you is the science does say masks work, right . This is really important people wear masks and when we see big, crowded events of people not Wearing Masks, that is not good. Chris, i have been Crystal Clear for a long time in what i have been saying i dont think there is any ambiguity of what i have been saying masks are important. Combine it with physical distancing, avoiding crowds and washing hands and it works end of story its true. No question about that. What about bars and restaurants, though . Youre talking about behavioral interventions. Behavioral interventions, washing hands, things like that. Those are things we can control and adapt. It seems to me the evidence from arizona and from texas and new york city and from dr. Birx is that that would help us a lot if we kept those closed do you agree with that i agree, chris. The cdc came out with a figure thats really telling. It shows the odds of risk of different types of situations that give you a higher risk of transmissibility and coming right at you from the big fur is restaurants, bars and gyms when you have restaurants indoors in a situation where you have a high degree of infection in the community, you are not Wearing Masks. Thats a problem and thats the reason why we are very, very clear when we make a recommendation, depending on the level of infection in the community weve got to look very carefully at things like bars are a really important place of spreading of infection there is no doubt about that and that becomes particularly important if you happen to be in an area with a high degree of Community Spread to those are things that are Crystal Clear, chris you mentioned the vaccine. We have a situation in which dr. Redfield testifies and says, in terms of logistics, phase three trials, approval of the fda and getting it into the population were looking at second or Third Quarter of next year mark meadows comes out and says were thinking a hundred million doses maybe by the election. What should we believe like that time line is not realistic. What do you think . Well, what i think is what the facts are, and ive gotten the facts about and i dont think there is that much if you make sure youre clear in how you explain it in the difference between what the president said and what he was trying to say. Right now regardless of when a vaccine gets approved initially, numbers of doses of vaccines from multiple companies are being produced and are available. And when you look at the availability of the doses, and i think here is where the misunderstanding is, chris what the president was saying is that, remember, first of all, we all have to realize that we dont know when and if there is going to be an approved vaccine. Im cautiously optimistic that there will be. The time frame of when you get enough data for the fda to with confidence say that its effective and safe projected would likely be more likely november, december it could possibly be october, absolutely a possibility of that lets say it is. There will be closes available in the end of november, the beginning of december into january and february where if, in fact, you want to vaccinate people, which we can and we will, you can start vaccinating people in december, in january and february with a considerable number of doses. You want to prioritize you want to get the people who would benefit most and who need it the most Like Health Care workers, like those with underlying conditions, like those with the elderly so technically speaking and theoretically, the president is correct. There will be enough doses in the First Quarter that if you vaccinated everybody, you would be able to do that what redfield was saying was not necessarily incompatible with that what he was saying was if we know what happens when you roll out vaccines that people often hesitate. Right. And even though the vaccines are there to be able to administer, people may say, you know, i want to wait until a number of millions of people get vaccinated before i decide i want to. What that means from a practical standpoint is that when we talk about when do we have enough of america vaccinated that we could start to feel were going to get back to some form of normality that very likely will be, as dr. Redfield said, somewhere in the third and early part of the Fourth Quarter of 2021 so they were really both correct, chris, in many respects there wasnt that much difference in what they were saying when you talk about the reticence, though, and meadows seems to think by november youre saying q1, which there is a little bit of difference there. But you are going to be by november i have the numbers here. By november there likely will be Something Like 50 million doses available in november. And then when you get december, it gets more and more and more and more. Heres the key question to me you and i both know there is already this ambient antivax sentiment thats around. Combine that with the fact polling indicates people dont have a lot of trust in the pronouncements of the president on the coronavirus, and we have seen the number of people saying that they are going to take the vaccine declining, you are going to play a crucial role i mean, people that are watching this program right now, people have said to me, like, ill take it if Anthony Fauci tells me its safe. Okay. Do you awe sure all of us that if the corners have been cut, if there is something sideways or wrong with the process, that you will tell us and take the heat for that yes the answer, chris, is yes. There are multiple fail safe measures that are going to be pretty transparent and let me just take a quick moment to explain that. Yeah. There is whats called a data and safety monitoring Board Associated with the vaccine trial. An independent group beholden to no one, not to the government, not to the fda, not to the drug company, not to me they will look at the data they will analyze it, and they will determine is there statistically enough information there to say that it is effective and then obviously the safety issues come up when you get an adverse event once that information becomes available, the company will go to the fda and say we would like to either apply for an application license or do an emergency use authorization. The fda will make the judgment as to whether or not according to your criteria that its worth doing that and there will be advisory bodies, and there will be people like me, like the director of the nih who will be looking at that and i can tell you that there will be a degree of transparency now obviously there is a lot of talk about political pressure. But the one thing we need to rely on, the fda has made it very clear that they will not be influenced by Political Considerations we at the nih and the Scientific Community are very adamant about that so if, in fact, it looks like that vaccine is safe and effective, i can tell the American Public that i will take the vaccine when its available to me, and i will recommend to that is genuinely reassuring. I actually feel conflicted here because i want to take a responsible role in covering this story, right . I have learned not to take things at face value at the same time, i dont want to stoke irrational fears about a vaccine. We have a story today that the cdcs scientific vetting process was bypassed when there was a testing recommendation that was put up on the website bypassing it we have multiple examples of politicals bypassing scientific processes. So you can understand peoples fear and skepticism given that this is an established pattern thats happened. I can understand what you are saying a lot of that is just a bit of confusion. I think the testing issue was just not rolled out correctly. I can tell you right now that we should be testing more, and we should be testing asymptomatic people chris, take that to the bank trust me on that. Im going to let you go in a second two more questions for you if you will stay with us. One is about olivia troy theres pictures of her with you in the west wing, in the oval office you know, basically saying, look, i was so despondent i left and im cutting an ad saying, you know, that the president basically didnt listen to us. He didnt care about the coronavirus. He only cared about his reelection. I know you cant get into politics so my question to you is this. It is dispiriting to hear this womans testimony. There are people with a lot of anxiety right now, trying to home school their kids, worried about elderly and Immunocompromised People around them what do you think about the president of the United States doesnt care you know, chris, youre right. I really cant comment on that i liked olivia she was a good person. He was important to the team as a staff person to the Coronavirus Task force, but i dont know what to make about what just has come out recently. It would be very difficult for me to comment on that. The only thing i can say is there are a lot of people who are looking carefully and are driven by the truth. And i think the American People should feel confidence in that, that a lot of people are looking at this very, very carefully to make sure that there is not political things that drive what should be scientific considerations im one of them, and i have a number of colleagues that are with me. Final question for you. You were a basketball player at Regis High School here in new york city. Great place. We used to play them back in the day, actually, and they can shoot. You were captain of the team there you are right there. When you talked about gyms as places that are not particularly safe, my frame work for back to normal is playing pickup basketball, which i have not done through the pandemic for obvious reasons. So the big question for you is when will i be able to play pickup basketball . That to me is the marker that we are really back to normal. When can i expect that when can i be planning for my first pickup game . Well, i will challenge you to one, chris but i can tell you when we can do that. Absolutely. Well get both vaccinated and play. Exactly you know, it gets back to the question that you mentioned thats important, so im glad you brought it up. It gets back to the point when when can we as a country feel that we really have achieved a degree of normality with a combination of widespread acceptance of the vaccine getting the country formally and predominantly almost completely vaccinated together with Public Health measures. I think by the third or Fourth Quarter of this year, we can be up against each other oneonone going for the boards. That is more optimistic if we do get there, then im taking you up on it. Maybe we can find out if the Regis High School gym is open for us thank you for being with me tonight. Thank you, chris. I appreciate you having me. All right dont go anywhere. Were going to talk about what we just learned from dr. Fauci plus more on that former aide denouncing the president s handling of the pandemic what she witnesses next. We miss you. Its totally not the same without you. We miss your lets do this look, the sound of your laugh cry screams, and how you make every day here the best day ever. We cant wait to get you back so weve added temp checks, face coverings, social distancing and extra sanitizing to get the good times going again. Were finally back. And cant wait until you are too. Buy now and get two days free at the parks. Restrictions apply. There appears to be an open revolt in the government who have had enough of the president s insane mendacity today a former aide to Vice President mike pence who worked on the Coronavirus Task force denouned the president s handling of the pandemic and endorsed joe biden in a new ad i have been on the Covid Task Force from day one the virus is very unpredictable at the beginning there are a lot of unknowns, but towards the middle of february, we knew it wasnt a matter of if covid would become a pandemic here in the United States. It was a matter of when. But the president didnt want to hear that because his biggest concern was we were in an election year. When we were in a task force meeting, the president said mayb