Chris Cuomo asks the tough questions to newsmakers in Washington and around the world. Chris Cuomo asks the tough questions to newsmakers in Washington and around the world. people? i m very concerned, chris. i worked hard in a bipartisan way to get $380 million in election grants out and distributed to states. that s something senator klobuchar, senator lankford and others really fought for. and i m trying this week in the election excuse me in the upcoming appropriations votes we re having in the senate to get another round of $250 million in grants to states so that they can strengthen their cybersecurity defenses so they can procure new voting systems and equipment. senator klobuchar was just on in the previous segment with anderson cooper. yep. she and senator lankford have a great bill, the secure elections act, that i think we should take up and pass that is a corollary or a complementary referring to, chris, who testified today, clearly a career professional, was someone who had given clear warnings to the trump administration that this zero-tolerance policy would have heartbreaking impacts on children and would not end well. and it is completely reflective of a definitional change in who america is supposed to be according to this administration. it s part of our closing argument, but i wanted to thicken it out with your understanding of what happened in this hearing. senator coons, thank you very much. thank you, chris. all right. so this idea of what rudy giuliani said, what the president tweeted, and what the law might reveal about any collusion those three things, one of them is not like the others. and i m going to point it out for you in a whiteboard to undo a whitewash, next. i m captain obvious and hotels.com rewards me basically everywhere. so why am i hosting a dental convention after party in my vegas suite? or wearing a full-body wetsuit at this spa retreat? or sliding into this ski lodge with my mini horse kevin? because hotels.com lets me do me, right? sorry, the cold makes him a little horse. hotels.com. you do you and get rewarded. you re wearing a hat. that s funny. before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flu-like symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. some serious allergic reactions can occur. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. man: are you fed up with crohn s symptoms following you? talk to your doctor today, and learn how janssen can help you explore cost support options. remission can start with stelara®. cost support options. i wok(harmonica interrupts)ld. .and told people about geico. (harmonica interrupts) how they could save 15% or more by. (harmonica interrupts) .by just calling or going online to geico.com. (harmonica interrupts) (sighs and chuckles) sorry, are you gonna. (harmonica interrupts) everytime. geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. tricky when something can be true and untrue at the same time, and yet both aspects of it matter, right? we re going to explain right now. here s your premise. collusion does not equal a crime. here s what rudy giuliani, lawyer to president trump, said to cnn. which i don t even know if that s a crime, colluding about russians. you start analyzing the crime. the hacking is the crime. the hacking is the crime. that certainly is the original crime. the president didn t hack. of course not. he didn t pay them for hacking. collusion is not a crime. rudy s right. collusion is not a statutory crime under the federal code in this context. there will likely be no charge of simply collusion. now, one fine point for you legal eagles out there. yes, collusion is a crime for the sec and the ftc, proscribing certain antitrust behavior. but like i said, that s out of context, okay? what we re dealing with here is a distinction, okay, without a difference, okay? what does that mean? it s a big deal. it s that he s saying they re different things but really they are the same. the media is stuck on this word game, a gotcha game. the key s being missed. it s a distinction without a difference. why? the key is the behavior, not the word. therefore, while rudy is right, this tweet by the president is wrong. collusion is not a crime, but that doesn t matter because there was no collusion except by crooked hillary and the democrats. how? how can rudy be right and trump be wrong? here s why. the behavior. the behavior is what matters to the legal analysis, not the word. why? because the term itself not being present as a statute is irrelevant. the side note to trump s tweet is does trump get that he just said in a tweet that what hillary did with the dossier is not a crime? to his mind, you think he believes that? nope. he won t tweet that again if he thinks about it. be clear. if it were to be proven that trump or any of his people were doing what amounts to collusion with any of those who were intent on interfering in our democracy, there s plenty of potential criminal exposure because the behavior would be criminal. like what? conspiracy, okay? i m going to truncate these things but i m going to put up the statutes on there for you. you ll see it at the same time. what kind of conspiracy? well, to defraud the united states government. you can do it on a tax level. look at manafort. 30-plus charges related thereto. how out of this one type of behavior? because that s what can happen when they think you re colluding with somebody. russia, what they were trying to do, was defraud the election. if you were in agreement with them or trying to help them, then you re going to get stuck for that collusion. an agreement to break any law, hacking, theft, distribution of stolen goods, information, would all be criminal and would be an extension of acts of collusion. aiding and abetting, okay? now, aiding and abetting has its own section under the criminal code, okay? why? because it goes to all types of being too helpful to the wrong people in the wrong types of situations. all of that is in the family of collusion. all right. now, what about money? money takes us into a whole other universe of when collusion becomes criminal. how was any money used in an exchange? how was it sent? how was it accounted for? bank fraud, wire fraud, laundering of money. many of mueller s team are experts in these areas. why did he pick them? so these laws, the statutes you saw, all stem from behavior that is collusion. so collusion is not a crime, sure, by name. but the behavior of collusion can get you in a lot of deep water. what s the conclusion? keep your eye on the ball. collusion isn t a specific crime, per se, but it s not okay, and it leads to all of this mess and more depending on the facts and the proof. and that s where we must always stay focused. that s why i was talking to coons about what the bar for the mueller probe is. what can they show that is the only thing that we will know? that s the bar. nothing else matters. so there you have it. so what rudy said, what the government admitted about tearing families apart today, controversies or non-troversies? it is a great debate, and it is upon us next. half off family lines to all military. it s so hard to believe but it s all coming back me. baby, baby, baby. all you can eat is back, baby. applebee s. i m a small business, but i have. big dreams. and big plans. so how do i make the efforts of 8 employees. feel like 50? how can i share new plans virtually? how can i download an e-file? virtual tours? zip-file? really big files? in seconds, not minutes. just like that. like everything. the answer is simple. i ll do what i ve always done. dream more, dream faster, and above all. now, i ll dream gig. now more businesses, in more places, can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america s largest gig-speed network. today was jam-packed with news, but what does any of it mean? the president tweeted that collusion is not a crime for the first time, and a health and human services official testified that he warned the trump administration that family separation at the border would happen and would be dangerous. let s get to the great debate. we ve got jennifer granholm and david urban here. dave, let s see if i can shortcut this. you saw the whiteboard. admit that i am right about all of it, that this is just wordplay, and that the behavior of collusion at the end of the day can get you in plenty of poo-poo. chris, you re right. the behavior of collusion and the right set of circumstances obviously can, right? but as you pointed out correctly, it s all about the facts. it s all about the facts, brother. brother cuomo, right? we could hypothesize about a lot of things but let s wait and see what director mueller uncovers. conspiracy is a pretty broad word, and as you point out correctly in this case that s being tried in alexandria against paul manafort and conspiracy there to defraud the government, there s an overt act. it s pretty easy to prove. it has nothing to do with the russians. so we ll wait and see. we ll just have to wait and see. it s all about the facts. well, we don t know that it has nothing to do with russians. it s just which group of russians and what they were doing and whether it really has anything to do with the probe is what we don t think we ll see. no. chris, in this case we do know because on july 10th, in response to a motion filed by paul manafort right. the government here, you know, director mueller s probe, they replied in a response in their brief saying this has nothing to do with russians or collusion or russian interference. right, in the election. right. but that doesn t mean that no russians were involved with what happened with him no, no. absolutely. that s the distinction i was drawing. all right. let me get you in here, jennifer granholm. the idea of what the president is tweeting about and whether or not it matters, matters to you why? well, because we have a president who is constantly gaslighting the american public. he says that something is when it is absolutely not. i just it s so it s beyond words how horrible this president has been to the truth. we all know that. so when he says, oh, there s no collusion, and he tries to get his followers to believe that the word collusion is not going to appear in an indictment when manafort issues one against somebody, well mueller. excuse me. when mueller. you re right. when mueller does. so maybe the word doesn t admit, but you had as professor cuomo up at the whiteboard a list of actual laws that could be broken if there s a conspiracy. right. this is just engaged in semantic play. and when the president tries to pull the wool over america s eyes in so many ways, it just proves again and again that honestly, i can hardly wait till november comes so that we can give him at least the first taste of the back of our hand. in 2020, the rest. dave urban, you see the back of the hand coming? listen, unfortunately i do in these midterms, right? midterms aren t necessarily these are a snapshot as the governor knows and you know, chris. look, congressional districts are very small, very insular little islands of the population. so, you know, the president s going to do poorly in places like new jersey, the new york suburbs, the philly suburbs. i don t think the president s going to do poorly in kind of the, you know, down in florida, in pennsylvania, in iowa, michigan. the president s not going to do poorly there. so the midterms are going to have an effect i don t know. well, that s your. we ll see. look, all of this is speculative. it s all about turnout. that s what s going to determine the midterms. it always does. well, but it s manifest intention of the reaction formation. i know those are all big words, but what we saw in 94 and 2010 is i know you re upset about what s in there right now. here s what i want to offer you that s better. now get out there and vote for me. that s the equation, and we won t know until the polls open and close wait, chris. it s very true. but let s be clear that when you see russian interference like we saw today through facebook, russian interference against claire mccaskill and russian interference writ large in 2016, getting out the vote is going to be super important, yes. but there was a poll out today that showed that there are some republicans who think that interference by the russians to help the republicans is not such a bad thing. oh, come on, governor. come on. come on, governor. if you re going to blame the democrats for poor performance. you can t blame you have to accept some responsibility for not having a coherent message across your party. there s a whole array of things. we don t have to relitigate this. you can t blame the russians for the democrats failing. yes, i can blame the russians for interfering in this election. you can blame them for trying to interfere. they did interfere, and they sent thousands and thousands of ads to social media in places like detroit, where they held up pictures of aziz ansari with a text saying, hey, avoid the lines. text your support here. if that s not a voter suppression ad, i don t know what is. oprah winfrey, photoshopped, holds up a sign let me just finish. when oprah winfrey holds up a sign that says, first-time voter, you vote on wednesday. those are voter suppression ads. those were issued hugely in 2016 in michigan. hillary clinton lost by 11,000 votes. the purpose of the russian intervention is to cause people to be not just divided but to cause them to stay home. right. and you know what? that s what happened. in the obama administration, the democratic barack obama administration should have shut those down. it would have been easier if mcconnell would have worked with them. so should the trump administration. [ overlapping voices ] obama should have done more, but mcconnell shouldn t have blocked his efforts. and now trump, it s on him now to see what he does. he s the president. you re right. and today secretary of dhs, kirstjen nielsen said we need to prepare for a category 5 event. what is he doing? so, governor he s been saying he doesn t believe there was a storm coming. he s been doing that for a long time, dave, and now they re starting to change their tune in the administration. we ll see what they do. can i just say i got to go. this is another case of classic incompetence. he had incompetence in puerto rico. he has incompetence incompetence in the obama administration and you re going to see another i hear you. dave has a point to. governor, incompetence of the obama administration? dave has a point. my head explodes when i see james clapper and all these former intelligence officials on this network complaining about russian interference when they were at the wheel when it all happened. we re talking about 2018, dave. you cannot continue to look in the rearview mirror. if you re talking about the past election here s the thing. we got to end it here. but, chris, you can say dave urban has a point. i just did. i said it two points. you don t hear me because you re yapping. what i m saying is this. it all is true. it started in 2016. the obama administration didn t do enough. why? they didn t know as much as they eventually would know. they were worried about outcomes, and mitch mcconnell was pushing back on them. they weren t going to get cooperation. it was going to be a partisan move. then the trump administration had this ball in their hands a long time. trump wanted to pretend it doesn t exist because he thinks it s bad for him. and now the election is upon us, and we ll see how safe they can make us. we need to protect americans democracy. we ll see. they got to do a lot more than they ve done. we can agree on that. let s end on that. thank you very much. thanks, chris. last minute, federal judge puts a block on printable blueprints to make untraceable 3d firearms. the founder of the group that wants you to be able to make your own weapons with a click of the mouse wants you to hear his case. case. is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate actually helps you drive safely. with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast. .and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can t do anything about that. now that you know the truth. are you in good hands? now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller i m gonna follow the sun now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller i m gonna follow the sun transitions™ light under control™ transitions™ all around louisiana. you re a nincompoop! (phone ping) gentlemen, i have just received word! the louisiana purchase, is complete! instant purchase notifications from capital one. so you won t miss a purchase large, small, or very large. technology this helpful.could make history. what s in your wallet? the 3d gun dispute. here s what happened today. a federal judge stepped in with a temporary injunction, okay? that s what it sounds like. this is not over. but for now, there will be no more blueprints to make 3-d printable weapons online but only for now. now, what s the white house position on this? they say the guns are already illegal, which is true. however, it is also true that the federal government settled a lawsuit that allowed these instructions to be posted online. alan gottlieb s second amendment foundation was part of that lawsuit. he joins us now. alan, welcome to prime time, and thank you. the government role in this is very confusing. i say we focus on what is more simple for people to absorb. you tell me why is it good for people to be able to download blueprints to make 3d printable weapons? why is this a good thing? well, first of all, chris, this is a first amendment issue that just happens to deal with firearms that are protected by the second amendment. putting computer code on the internet is a language. a language is speech, and speech is protected by the first amendment. you know, the reason why we re so concerned about being able to do it we ve got places like san francisco now where there are no gun stores now for people to be able to buy a gun or places like alameda county in california where zoning ordinances put gun stores out of the county, or places like seattle that put taxes on guns and ammunition. what this does for the future is allow people to ensure a way to be able to have a firearm. you know, if you re allowed to own a firearm in your own home, you should be able to make the firearm in your own home if you can t buy one locally because of crazy restrictions. okay. so two arguments. one is if anybody right now and they should not while we re speaking of course but in the commercial, google availability of firearms in california, they will find nothing that is speaking to a shortage of weapons in california, okay? plenty of guns. plenty of guns per capita. plenty of gun crime in that state as a result. and you re leaving something out in your first amendment analysis, which is the right to have what you re dismissing as speech. not everybody has a right to a gun, right? certain people fall into categories where they can t get them. certainly people fall into categories where they should not get them. and what you re trying to do apparently is give everybody a chance, even if they re in those categories. is that good? no, chris, that s not what we re trying to do. in fact, all the laws that prohibit that stay on the books. we re not removing any of those whatsoever. you re not removing the law hold on. you re removing the mechanism for enforcement because you re giving people an ability to cut out all the necessary middlemen so they can t be vetted. they just have to take the blueprints. they make their own weapon. that s the point. chris, a criminal who is going to break a law or commit mayhem is going to get a gun now anyway like they always do or there would be no gun crime right now. but they re probably not going to make a very expensive 3-d printable gun. they ll just get one off the street. a few years ago when cody wilson put these plans on the internet, there were 100,000 to 200,000 downloads of the plans to do it. lots of people have already made these guns. not one has been used in a crime. not one. so a lot of this is hysteria out there do we know that or we don t know that any have been caught committing a crime with a gun? well, we know it because they d have the gun and be able to show it, and here s a 3-d printed gun. that s if they were caught. there s no crime report anywhere in the united states where anybody has misused one of these guns to begin with. but how would you know unless somebody were apprehended and was proven to have used one of them, right? well, you would know it by the ballistics or the bullet and everything else. it tells if it s a ghost gun? you mentioned, chris, in california, there are guns all over right now and this gun crime. there s also a lot of self-defense with firearms in california as well, which you don t want to talk about. but the truth of the matter is we both know in california every year the restrictions get tighter and tighter and tighter. there s less places to buy guns and less guns for availability in california because gun we re looking to protect second amendment rights in the future by using first amendment rights to do so. it s a need that outweighs the national security interest, which is what we ve seen different courts say now. you have to balance it. how it will come out, we will see on the merits. i ll tell you what bothered me about this, and it wasn t you. but when one of the designers of the code, there was a restriction. why is it illegal? well, you ve got to be able to detect these weapons when they go through a metal detector, and these have no metal. so they made a part that was metal in the weapon so it could be detected. however, that part is removable, and the weapon sometimes still functions. what the hell is that about? why would anybody want to make it so that you can remove what makes it detected and the weapon still works? why would you do that? well, first of all, if the weapon had a bullet in it, it would still be detected because the bullet would be detected. so again this is a little bit of hysteria. it s not hysteria. it s a question. what if you transport it without the bullets and you get the bullets somewhere else? well, if you re in a secure area where you re not supposed to be with a gun but why would you do that, alan? why would you stand behind somebody doing something as pernicious as that. i don t. i hear you on the first amendment. i get that. but that just seems so afoul of what we want to protect against, which is a deceptive practice. why stand behind well, this is not a deceptive practice. if somebody breaks the law, they should be prosecuted for it. by the way you gave them the plans to do it is what i m saying. go ahead. what s your last point? the tro is not against defense distributed, cody wilson. it was against the federal government. right. actually these plans can still be put on the internet because there is no tro against us doing it. well, what the judge said was for now he wants this held in abeyance so it should stay according to the reckoning of the washington state attorney, where it was before all of this. that s what they re hoping for right now, but in any case, it s certainly temporary. the plans have already been up and downloaded several thousands of times. that is true. like 2,500 times they ve already been downloaded, and the question is how does this make us better and safer? we ll see how it plays out in the courts, and then you, sir, are welcome to come back and tell me why it s a good thing. thank you. be well. i ll do that. thank you, chris. appreciate it. all right. so what happens now to anyone who has already downloaded these plans for guns? you get the flaw in the argument. well, we haven t seen any used in crimes. that s assumed that they were caught and apprehended as such. what are the legalities? what are the ramifications? cuomo s court in session, next. man: are unpredictable crohn s symptoms following you everywhere? it s time to take back control with stelara®. for adults with moderately to severely active crohn s disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission with dosing every 8 weeks. woman: stelara® may lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flu-like symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. some serious allergic reactions can occur. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. man: are you fed up with crohn s symptoms following you? talk to your doctor today, and learn how janssen can help you explore cost support options. remission can start with stelara®. cost support options. whoooo. you rely on tripadvisor so you don t miss out on the perfect hotel. but did you know you can also use tripadvisor so you don t miss out on the best price? tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want for the lowest price. saving you up to 30%! so you can spend less time missing out. and more time paddling out! tripadvisor. visit tripadvisor.com or download the app! olly. all right. this 3d gun thing, the fundamental merits of the case were not argued in court. so let s hash it out in cuomo s court. we have the perfect counselors. cnn legal and national security analyst asha rangappa and harvard law school professor emeritus alan dershowitz, author of the case against impeaching trump. for the prosecution, rangappa, why is this wrong? well, this is wrong on so many levels. so first there is a law that prohibits the possession of undetectable firearms, so these plastic firearms. so as you noted, chris, in your earlier discussion, by definition, anyone who is downloading these instructions and actually makes these guns is going to be an illegal gun owner of said gun. the first amendment argument, i don t think really goes anywhere. there are public safety exceptions. in 1997 after the timothy mcveigh bombing, senator feinstein passed an amendment making it illegal to post bomb-making instructions. so there are public safety exceptions to this. but i think really the practical effect is every day when you get on an airplane, you now have to worry about someone who may be sneaking in a plastic gun, and this is really just asking for potentially another 9/11. and i think that should be concerning to all of us. alan, the man who was just on argues, no, it s about speech. you should have the right to these ideas. these words are speech. these prints are speech. these designs are speech, and they should be protected. well, this is a terrible form of speech. these blueprints are awful, and i want to totally dissociate myself from what your previous guest earlier said about this is good speech. it s terrible speech. but the question is, is it terrible speech that s protected by the first amendment? and the answer is clear. we don t know. we don t know. we ve never had a case like this go to the supreme court. the earlier case called the progressive case, where they wanted to print instructions for how to make a hydrogen bomb, ended up being moot, and being moot for the reason that will probably make this case moot. by the time the case came to the court, the instructions were all over the place. anybody could easily find how to make a hydrogen bomb. how about the argument that they haven t seen it used in a crime? well, you know, that s not a good enough argument. look, the answer is that the court may very well say the instructions, the blueprints, are protected by the first amendment. but you should disable any machine from making this kind of weapon, not only prohibit the weapon, which we ve already done, but also prohibit any 3-d machine from being capable of making the weapon. that would raise a second amendment question. yeah. but second amendment issues are easier than first amendment issues. so in the end, i think the blueprints will be allowed to be shown, and that s a moot issue because they ve already been shown. and anybody who wants to have access to this is going to be able to get it one way or another. and you have all the terrorist handbook stuff that s out there that falls into the same kind of categories. they re already out there. i don t want to compromise the first amendment. chris, can i add one thing here? yeah. you know, right now federal law protects gun manufacturers from tort liability, from being sued by people who get shot by the weapons they make. that s right. terrible law. these people are putting these instructions on, there are now reasonably foreseeable consequences to what they re doing. i think if any of these guns end up being used in a crime, they can expect to have their hands sued off of them and they should. that s an actually interesting point. we got to leave it there. i was doing some research on this, and there was some jurisprudence early on in discussion of the first amendment that the first amendment s purpose isn t just to justify the most ugly and vile things that can be said. that that s not the standard always for enforcing the first amendment. it will be interesting to see if a judge takes that on at all. i think it is. but we ll see. thank you very much. don lemon is standing by with a preview of cnn tonight just minutes away. you know, this case really does strike at what could be so frustrating about the first amendment. we often err on the side, at least legally, on allowing things into the public discourse. even if we hate them and what they re about. but this is an interesting twist, because this isn t about just what you re going to say to me. it s going to be about what you allow me to do. uh-huh, and we do that because honestly, it protects what you and i do. i m sure you ve been watching with jim acosta what he s dealing with and what we deal with all the time. this is quite different. i don t know how to categorize this one. i m just going to sit back and watch. it s frightening. it needs to be protected. to the original first amendment about what we say and what we to the original first amendment about what we say and what we do. can we talk about the president a little bit and lebron james. missed you yesterday, wanted to talk. yeah, i loved watching it. i loved what he is doing. i loved the interview. a great interview. and, you know, i expected a lot of people attacked him. but the question is why is the president attacking him? because that s part of the strategy we have been told by the folks at, trump administration. and sources that he is going to continue to use this athlete, kneeling as a wedge issue up until the midterms which is, we have been talking about this. the right to freedom of expression. does it go against these athletes. i don t know. but i think lebron james is doing a great thing. he speaks his mind. he knows what the first amendment is about. what it means to him. missed talking to him yesterday. what i loved. what a demonstration of putting your money where your mouth is. that is such a common criticism of athletes and entertainers. and boy, is he showing people that, i ll put my money there. great to see people follow suit. good job, don. nice addition to the real quick before i go. i like he is not concerned that he is going to tick some people off. he just, he feels that this is the right thing for him to say and do. see you in a little bit. all right, bud. immigration officials were grilled on the hill over family se separations. we learned something that i knew was going to come out. it s been denied. and now it s known as a fact. i m going to give it to you in the closing argument. raises such a fundamental question afwut wbout who we are. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. no matter where or when you served, t-mobile stands ready to serve you. that s why we re providing half off family lines to all military. now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller i m gonna follow the sun now i m gonna tell my momma that i m a traveller i m gonna follow the sun transitions™ light under control™ but it s tough to gete enough of their nutrients. transitions™ new one a day with nature s medley is the only complete multivitamin with antioxidants from one total serving of fruits and veggies try new one a day with nature s medley. keep it comin love. if you keep on eating, we ll keep it comin . all you can eat riblets and tenders at applebee s. now that s eatin good in the neighborhood. no, what?? 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wrong. today we learned the government apparently knew it was coming. knew full well it was heading down a reckless path of inhumanity. how do we know? a top hhs official. he has served three presidents. he told the senate judiciary committee about red flags raised. during the deliberative process over the previous year we raised a number of concerns in your program about any policy which would result in family separation due to concerns we had about the best interest of the child. there was plenty more he said that made it clear that they knew what would happen. he was told simply family separation wasn t an official policy. nope? true. the official policy was to deter. that s what ag sessions said as much on tv. and deter how? fear, trauma, taking kids from parents. the message in never come back and let others know they will get the same. think about it. deported and your kids kept by the usa. we don t care if you are desperate for a better life or desperately fleeing a dangerous home or fleeing a community or government. you came illegally. that s all you are to us. that s the response from the administration. deny the act, deny the severity. the intention and the outcome. we just saw it today. from the head of enforcement and removal operations for i.c.e. listen to what they told the committee. the best way to describe them is to be more like a summer camp. these individuals have access to 24 /7 food and water. they have educational opportunities. they have recreational opportunities both structured as well as unstructured. there s basketball courts and exercise classes and soccer fields we put in there. they got all those things in prison too, like a summer camp. giant windowless former big box store in texas. doesn t look like a summer camp i d send my kid to, and i get these are different situations. think about it, diminishing those conditions, how do you justify it? easily if you don t care about the people who are in there. the u.s. attorneys are told to use the back handed legalese slur of alien as in illegal alien. i know it s in the law but it speaks to something else. why don t they want to say undocumented? not harsh enough. that wording was important enough for the justice department to send out an agency wide e-mail. so here s our argument. if the trump administration wants to make america the home of the highly educated and the land of the economic engines, is that the only people you re going to welcome? then just say it. now, mr. president, don t try to sell that where we both come from in queens, new york, because it s filled with the people that you don t seem to want anymore. so take down the words on lady liberty. your adviser steven miller said the poem was added on later, that it isn t a statement of policy, and you know what? miller is right. those words are more than policy. they are the core of who we are, our essence. we are the unclean, the
Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with in-depth reporting and investigations. courthouse in alexandrialexandr virginia, cnn s jessica schneider. so what did we learn today at the trial? anderson, we learned a lot. it was only the first day here, but this courtroom is definitely living up to its rocket docket reputation. they managed to whittle down this jury pool of 65 people down to 12 jurors plus four alternates, and then, of course, we heard the fiery opening statements here. in this, prosecutors shed some light on paul manafort s lavish lifestyle, and they did it by talking about his 30 hidden foreign bank accounts they say existed in three different countries. and they say that funded that lavish lifestyle that included seven different homes, ranging from virginia to manhattan, all the way to the hamptons on long island. they also talked about his $500,000 luxury clothing. they mentioned a $21,000 watch, and they even, yes, mentioned a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich. the prosecution here says that they have a witness list of 35 people that they plan to call, but this trial is really only expected to go three weeks. we saw just how fast this trial moved just in the first day here. so who knows. it could wrap up even sooner. but yes, 35 witnesses of the prosecution is expecting to call. anderson? i m amazed how fast it moved today. jessica schneider, thank you so much. we have new reporting now from cnn s jeff zeleny, more on the white house strategy for dealing with the trial. as you might have guessed from the top of the program, item one, distancing the president from paul manafort. we re also learning the president watched trial coverage on his way down to florida today. that s according to officials who spoke to jeff. and the president has asked staffers for regular updates as the prtrial proceeds. joining us is jeffrey toobin, a former federal prosecutor. so is jennifer rodgers. and jason miller is a former trump campaign senior adviser. so, jeff, the fact that it s day one and there s already been jury selection, opening statements and the first witness called, what does it tell you about how this trial is going to proceed? it s going to be two weeks rather than three weeks. i just have no doubt this trial will go faster than expected. that s how it always works in the eastern district of virginia. and it s a place where prosecutors win almost all the time. it is known as a very pro-prosecution jurisdiction, and given the facts of this case, i think manafort is just in a world of trouble. but jeff, the judges want prosecutors the steer clear of anything russia-related. is that i mean, is it the elephant in the room there for the jurors or, i mean, can they do that? you know, i have a lot of confidence in jurors in matters like this. i mean, the real problem for paul manafort here is there doesn t appear to be any evidence that he paid his taxes. i mean, he got all this money. it was stashed in these foreign bank accounts, and the taxes weren t paid. now, like most people who are accused of a crime with a cooperating witness, he s going try to put all the blame on the cooperating wutness. that is a standard strategy. it rarely works, but it sometimes does. and you know, but it s just going to be difficult to persuade the jury that somehow rick gates is responsible for the fact that paul manafort made millions upon millions of dollars and didn t pay his taxes. jennifer, do you agree that that defense strategy, trying to pin it all on rick gates, who is a cooperating witness, that s basically the kind of defense 101? it is. it is exactly. the problem here is that rick gates, of course, was not cooperating until after the charges were filed. so, they were prepared to proceed with this case without rick gates onboard. they have all the documentary evidence. like jeff just said, these are individual income taxes that paul manafort lied about, not to mention some properties on which there was mortgage fraud, had nothing to do with rick gates in the hamptons and in brooklyn. so, he s going to have a really hard time pinning all of this on rick gates, for sure. jason, the push from the president s allies arguing that paul manafort was basically nobody on the campaign, only worked there for four months, through the republican convention if it wasn t paul manafort. did paul manafort help prevent some of the brain damage if it had gone forward and there had been a floor fight and such things like that? of course. but was there any chance that president trump was going to get caught up at convention or he wasn t going to get through or anything like that? of course not. let s not go and blow it out of proportion. so, the role that he played was a relatively shorter amount of time, and i don t think we need to go and blow that out of proportion. but again, everything that s happening to paul manafort, those are paul manafort problems, those are not donald trump problems. it s harder to blow it out of proportion, jeff, if your title is chairman of the campaign. it seems like a pretty big time. absolutely. and remember what he s charged with. he is charged with taking millions upon millions of dollars from viktor yanukovych, who was the pro-putin politician in ukraine. so, it s not that this is completely unrelated to the whole russia situation. remember, too, that during the convention, they changed the platform toe make the ukrainian section more pro-putin. so, the entire thrust of the trump campaign, which the issue of a conspiracy with the russian interests, you know, remains the heart of the investigation. manafort s presence in the campaign is evidence of sympathy to putin in and of itself. so in that respect, it s not the criminal charges, but who paul manafort is, is highly relevant to this investigation. but jeffrey, if i could just jump in real quick, is there some sort of crime that you re accusing the president of? no. i m not, but you know, when you are asking why the president has this fixation with vladimir putin, which apparently continues to this day, and why vladimir putin was so desperate to see donald trump win and hillary clinton lose and why donald trump was asking russians to hack e-mails, which they did the same day, all of it is relevant evidence to what happened in this campaign. jennifer, i mean, at some point, rick gates himself will have to testify. do you think he ll find anything out about will we find anything out about the larger mueller investigation from that? you know, the one way that we could is that when a cooperator testifies, the defense is entitled to cross-examine him or her about all impeachment material. so, if rick gates did things during the campaign that were illegal or go to his credibility, then prosecutors could raise that and the defense could cross-examine on it. you know, it seems from some of the pretrial motions and litigation that the word russia, i guess one of the prosecutors said, probably won t even be uttered. so, it sounds like they don t have that kind of impeachment material they need to front and that manafort lawyers will cross on, so i m suspecting not, but if there is anything like that, that could be the context in which it would be raised. jason, president trump has said on more than one occasion about only hiring the best. if that s true, shouldn t the campaign have done its due diligence when it came the paul manafort and figured out if manafort had been operating above board or not? this is a pretty, you know, sleazy track record that the prosecutors certainly have laid out. well, absolutely. but there is no such thing as a time machine. and so, the fact of the matter is is that paul manafort was onboard for, as i said before, a relatively shorter amount of time, and he was not the person who ultimately was the campaign manager that took us across the finish line. that was kelly anne, as you know, along with steve bannon and a whole host of other folks who were onboard. but look, paul manafort, we primarily focused on the convention phase of this, did have a long track record of working with conventions and things like that. but i think one of the other things that i think kind of a little jumbled up in the media is that president trump and manafort weren t particularly close. i don t think that president trump really knew much all about paul manafort s background. these were not two men who would hang out, grab dinner or lunch or chat. but to the point the president constantly saying he hires the best, that seems to imply he knows who he s hiring. your argument seems to be, well, he didn t really know this guy even though he went on tv multiple times and talked about what a great guy he was. well, he got a mulligan in this one. but what s the one thing donald trump knew about paul manafort, which was that he worked for viktor yanukovych. that was basically his only client for years. and the fact that he worked for yanukovych, the pro-putin politician in ukraine, was good enough for donald trump. that tells you something in and of itself, no? but i think the one thing that president trump knew is that paul manafort had convention experience. in the 80s. in the 80s. 30 years ago. but it s been a long time since there was a real convention fight. keep in mind it had been literally decades since there was a real convention battle within republican party politics. that was something paul was able to speak to. he wasn t being brought on for any policy matters or any grand strategic vision. he is someone who was going to manage the convention. that was the value he was demonstrating at that particular time. all right, jason miller, jeff toobin, jennifer rodgers, thanks very much. up next, the president s trip to florida and his flight from any tough questions or any place he might encounter any tough questions. we re keeping him honest on that. as, breaking news in the fight over firearms that you can make at home with a special pri printer and the plans a court tonight just blocked from getting out. the legal battle and the role the white house played in this with 3-d printing guns ahead on ac 360. nourished hair. better color. keep it comin love. if you keep on eating, we ll keep it comin . all you can eat riblets and tenders at applebee s. now that s eatin good in the neighborhood. you shouldn t be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia s add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. add-on advantage. sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. stadium pa : all military members stand and be recognized. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. no matter where or when you served, t-mobile stands ready to serve you. that s why we re providing half off family lines to all military. to help prevent another stroke. so, i m doing all i can to stay in his life. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. chicken! that s right, chicken?! candace new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! well, it is july 31st and that gives us an opportunity to point something out. the white house has only held three press briefings all month. now, these things used to be common enough that they were actually called the daily white house press briefing, which meant daily. now you can call them nearly extinct, which makes what you re about to hear kind of odd. give a listen and ask yourself, does this sound like a promise? we re here. we re taking questions. we re doing everything we can to provide regular and constant information to the american people, and there is a responsibility by you guys to provide accurate information, and we re going to continue to try to work with you. well, she said that may 9th. that entire month, there were nine white house press briefings. in june, just five. this month, only three. so tell us what was that again? we re here. we re taking questions. we re doing everything we can to provide regular and constant information to the american people. everything they can do to provide regular and constant information. everything they can do. see, for a minute there, it sounded like sarah sanders was actually promising to provide regular and constant information to the american people. keeping them honest, we asked her why she promised the people one thing and is doing the polar opposite, but we simply haven t had the chance, because there have only been three briefings this month. if you d like to ask sarah sanders about her promise, take a number. if you d like to know what president trump thinks about michael cohen s allegations about the trump tower meeting, get in line. if you want to see the president challenged about why the white house lied about the president not being involved with wanting to buy karen mcdougal s silence after audiotape shows he actually was, sorry, you are out of luck. and the same goes for false and misleading statements like this one just yesterday. the president tweeting a highly respected federal judge today stated that the trump administration gets great credit for reuniting legal families. thank you, and please look at the previous administration s record. not good. the president neglected to point out that the judge admonished the administration for essentially making orphans out of kids. that s the beauty of the twitter machine. you can omit, you can rephrase, you can make stuff up. whatever you want, and no one can challenge you. last year anthony scaramucci, the new white house communications director for those ten glorious days, refused to commit to regular white house briefings. he s gone, but it sure looks like his idea is gaining traction at the white house today. president trump left for his trip to florida this afternoon without saying a word to reporters and in case you re wondering, that is par for the course. with the exception of his jount appearance alongside italy s prime minister yesterday, the president has refused to answer reporters questions 16 times in just the last six days. thank you, everybody, thank you. thanks, guys. thank you. mr. president, sir, is michael cohen lying? did michael cohen betray you? mr. president, did michael cohen betray you, sir? mr. president, why did you cancel the meeting with vladimir putin, sir? well, that s what we re seeing more and more of, unanswered questions and fewer chances to ask them. and in the meantime, the president reportedly is itching for more occasions like he just finished up at tonight, rallies where he can say whatever he wants and hear nothing in return but applause. our jim acosta is in tampa for us tonight, joining us now. so, this lack of transparency, is there any other reason they re doing this other than the fact they don t want to answer questions about, for instance, why the president lied and why the white house, why the campaign, i should say, lied, not knowing about karen mcdougal and ami and the deal? anderson, i think the only thing you can conclude, and you re going to hear some folks here, i think, letting their feelings be known at this rally here in tampa, about how they feel about cnn. but anderson, i think the honest answer to your question is that this white house is obviously hiding from the press. they re hiding the president from the press. they are hiding the press secretary from the press. that s the only conclusion you can come to when they ve only had five press briefings in the last month of june, and only three press briefings this month. i mean, that is historically at a very low level. now, one thing we should point out, anderson, at this rally tonight, the president went after what he calls fake news. he even talked about fake polls, even though he touted a poll that he said that he had seen saying he was the most popular republican president ever. it s hard to understand how you can have fake polls but also tout polls showing you being popular. but anderson, despite the president going after the press, he just hadn t given us opportunities to ask him very many questions. and i think there really is no other reasonable conclusion other than they just don t like the questions that are going to be asked right now. you know, i ve been trying to talk to white house aides about this, and one of the things you hear, and they ve said this before in the past is that, well, when the president has a speech or when he has an event, they tonight want to step on the message of the day. well, the president had a speech tonight, and so there was no press briefing today. it is possible they could have one tomorrow, anderson, but we just don t know at this point. yeah, i mean, so, there s no idea when the next one might be held? say that again? there is no idea, it s not a schedule when the next one might be held? you know, i think it is possible. i m pushing these earpieces in my ear just to hear you, anderson. i think it s possible they could hold one tomorrow, but aides are being very cagey about it. one thing they ll talk about as they have these off camera gaggles when the president is traveling down on air force one, and that sort of thing to various events. but as you and i both know, anderson, that s not the same as having an on-camera briefing with the press secretary coming into the briefing room. you know, we used to call them daily press briefings. they re barely weekly press briefings anymore. and i think, anderson, the only conclusion you can draw at this point is they just don t like the questions right now. and it s amazing, anderson. you re hearing some of the insults being hurled at us right now. i ve been talking to some of these folks this evening, even though they re being pretty negative towards us right now. i answered a bunch of questions from some of these trump supporters here about all sorts of things, a lot more questions than the president has taken from us in recent days, anderson. jim acosta, appreciate you being there. thanks, jim. i want to bring in two new voices. one from david axelrod with long white house experience managing the message. and carl bernstein, who has even longer experience holding presidents accountable, including this one, shares a byline on the michael cohen scoop. david, every white house certainly, look, has had their issues with the press. have you ever seen a white house that has had this many issues with the press? well, i ve never seen a white house who has had many, many issues, not just issues with the press, but every this is a precedent-shattering white house. and particularly when it comes to issues of transparency and disclosure, starting with the president s refusal to release his tax returns and running through a whole series of things. i think the important thing, though, here is beyond not answering questions about michael cohen and the probe which are uncomfortable, we ve also seen the practice suspended of briefing people, briefing the press when the president speaks to foreign leaders. we are only americans are only finding out what the president has said in their name from reports from foreign governments. it s two weeks later. we still don t know what was said between him and vladimir putin. i mean, there are fundamental things, bits of information that the american people deserve, and, you know, the bottom line is this president doesn t believe that he has any obligation to share that information with people. he calls the press the enemy of the people. he conflates his political interest with the public interest. and he thinks that reporting is a hostile act. yeah, the fact is, we re not even sure he has told his secretary of state or the secretary of defense exactly what was discussed with vladimir putin in that meeting. it s not clear from their own from, you know, pompeo s testimony, that he really has a fell readout from the president. carl, do you you fought with many white houses over the years trying to get your questions answered. nixon s press secretary had a famous adversarial relationship with the press. how would you compare then to now? i think it s far worse. the really great thing that s happening is is that news organizations from the washington post to the new york times to cnn to the ap to reuters are doing some of the greatest reporting that we have ever seen on a presidency. and the result is that the american people understand what the facts are. they can make up their own minds about it because of our reporting. the idea that somehow we would expect this president, this presidency, this administration to be anything like open or transparent or honest or truthful at this stage of the game is absurd on our part. and we re doing the right thing by doing our reporting. donald trump is the president of his base. he makes no attempt to be the president of all the people of this country. and part of appealing to his base is to make the conduct of the press the issue rather than the conduct of donald trump and his presidency. so that s where we are, and the great part of this, as opposed to the part that we ought to be terrified about, is that we re doing the reporting. and that s really why he is so upset, why he is so furious, why he is going to ground the way he is, because we have raised the questions about what is truthful, particularly about his relationship with putin, particularly about his relationship with michael cohen. we ve raised the questions. they re out there, and the people of this country know that they re out there. david, to carl s point, it s not just about making the press the enemy, it s making nfl players the enemy at times when it suits the president, or making, you know, undocumented immigrants the enemy, or whomever it may be to suit the president s needs at any given time. i want to ask you, though, about comparing to the obama administration. because kaitlan collins was barred last week from attending an event in the rose garden at the white house, didn t like questions she asked. obviously the white house has issues with cnn and their coverage. there are those who say, look at the obama administration. they didn t always give the same access to fox news as everyone else or the same number of interviews. to that, you say what? is that a fair comparison? i don t well, no, i don t think it s a fair comparison, because they never barred fox reporters from doing their jobs. i talked to fox news reporters all the time when i was in the white house. they asked questions at presidential press conferences and so on. i don t think it s look, as you pointed out at the beginning, every president is irritated at times by their coverage, but most presidents understand that that is part of the obligation of the job. that a free press is enshrined in the first amendment for a reason. but i just want to react to one thing that carl said. it s not just that he s using the press as a foil with his base. he is trying to impeach the media, so that when facts are reported that are inconvenient to him, he can dismiss them as political in nature. and that, to me, is a very insidious thing. that s really, you know, that is the stuff of autocratic states. and so, while i agree with carl that the reporting has been aggressive, it s been thorough, it s been critical, there still is concern about a president who doesn t really believe in a free press. and carl, it is not just the lack of press briefings. you know, the president himself still hasn t directly answered questions about why his campaign lied about their involvement in trying to buy karen mcdougal s rights the rights to her story from a.m.i., which the campaign claim they had no knowledge of, they knew nothing about the deal, nor has he answered any questions about your reporting that he allegedly knew about the trump tower meeting in advance. this president and this presidency and this white house has no interest in the truth, as we have known it in every other presidency. this president and this presidency has an interest only in its own propaganda, its own lies, its own version of events that have nothing to do with real existing information. you know, i went to jack kennedy s press conferences, starting with his third one. i was copy boy at the time. and if you were to go back and watch him and every successive president of the united states, including richard nixon, you would not see anything comparable to the lying, to the unavailability to being open and transparent, such as we have seen in this presidency. this presidency and this president is unique. we have never had anything like this in our history in terms of disinformation. yeah. misinformation, and an attempt to undermine the truth at every turn. not just in a criminal conspiracy like watergate, but about everything. carl bernstein. david axelrod, thank you so much. coming up, a federal judge makes a decision on the 3d printed guns that have been causing so much controversy. and after the president tweets, the white house and the nra have very similar statements about the undetectable and untraceable guns. the latest next. on the shelf. or even. out in the field. your mom knew she could always count on us. and your grandma did too. because for over 150 years, we ve been right by your side. advancing the health of the people, plants and pets you love. so, from all of us at bayer. thank you for trusting in us. then. and now. does your business internet provider promise a lot? let s see who delivers more. comcast business gives you gig-speed in more places. the others don t. we offer up to 6 hours of 4g wireless network backup. everyone else, no way. we let calls from any of your devices come from your business number. them, not so much. we let you keep an eye on your business from anywhere. the others? nope! get internet on our gig-speed network and add voice and tv for $34.90 more per month. call or go online today. olly. a federal judge in washington state has issued a temporary restraining order stopping the release of bueprints how to make a plastic gun with a 3-d printer. it s the latest development in a controversy that s gone on for years after a company in texas developed instructions on how to make a plastic gun with a 3d printer. court battle ensued when the company made the instructions available to be downloaded. multiple states attorneys general have moved to stop it. ours later, the white house deputy press secretary said this on air force one. in the united states, it s currently illegal to own or make a wholly plastic gun of any kind, including those made on a 3d printer. the administration supports the nearly two decade-old law and will continue to look at all options available to us to do what is necessary to protect americans while also supporting the first and second amend pts. so it strikes a lot of the same chords as the nra statement, which reads in part, quote, regardless of what a person may be able to publish on the internet, undetectable plastic guns have been illegal for 30 years. a federal law passed in 1988 crafted with the nra support makes it unlawful to manufacture, import, sell, shift, deliver, possess, transfer or receive are an undetectable firearm. joining me now is washington state attorney general bob ferguson, who just scored that court victory stopping release of the blueprints, at least temporarily. thanks for being with us. attorney general, the temporary restraining order that you ve been granted, what does it mean going forward in terms of the law here? yeah, in terms of the law thanks for having me on again, anderson. appreciate it. this is a nationwide ban. so, what it does, it takes us back to a period of time before the federal government flipped on their policy regarding these 3d ghost guns. what it means is, if anyone posts this information online, they re in violation of federal law and can suffer very serious consequences. so it makes it unlawful to post that information and make it available to the public. why did the government offer a settlement to allow these blueprints on the internet in the first place? do we know? wasn t it the state department that stepped in to prevent them from being posted online? that is a very good question, anderson. and truly, it s baffling to me and many others why the federal government made this decision. and just to be clear, to your point, there has been a court case going on texas in which the obama administration and the trump administration opposed this entity down in texas from making this information public. the state department filed declarations, talking about the national security risk and public safety risk of any process, no procedure, no nothing. they caved on a case they were winning and allowed this entity to go forward. it s truthfully breathtaking, and the risk to public safety is hard to overstate. yeah, cody wilson, the man who invented the first 3d printed gun, told cnn today that despite your suit, he has already uploaded plans for the ar-15 semiautomatic rifles have been downloaded more than 2,500 times. how concern ready you? and is there anything you can do than? once it s out there, it s out there, isn t it? so, i am very concerned about that. and every american who is be should be very concerned about that and the president of the united states should be very concerned about that. and he can put a stop to this right now. he should tell his attorneys to stand down in this litigation and allow us to declare victory in this case and move forward. so, yes, some folks have been able to access information, but obviously, anderson, if it s allowed to go forward for days, weeks, months, many more thousands of people would have access to it. we want to limit that damage and we re very thankful our judge here in seattle granted our request for a restraining order to shut this down nationwide. this notion from the white house and the nra that, quote, regardless of what a person may be able to publish on the internet, undetectable plastic guns have been illegal for 30 years. so that you say what? well, i d say, why are you fighting me in court then? we re going to court to go back to a time in which it was illegal to do this. the u.s. government was in court today saying no, the entity should be allowed to post this information. so once again, we have an administration, we have a white house where the left hand doesn t know what the right hand s doing. they re not communicating in concert with one another. there is nothing new about that, anderson. i ve been on your show many times and i ve now filed 32 lawsuits against this administration. in ten cases, we have decisions. i won all ten of them. one of the reasons i ve won all ten is because this administration can t keep their story straight. they re sloppy. and frankly, they re dangerous when it comes to public safety. and that s why i m so relieved judge lasnik took the action he did today. attorney general bob ferguson, good to have you on. thank you. president trump took to twitter, telling his followers there was no collusion with russia. this is, of course, a day after his private tv attorney, rudy giuliani, said the same thing. we re going toe have an examination of that just ahead. only imagine. d a peaceful night sleep without frequent heartburn waking him up. now that dream is a reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? 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a strategy of desperation, if a strategy at all. collusion outright may not be a crime in and of itself, but anderson, treason is a crime. collaborating and conspireing with a hostile foreign power against the united states is a crime. receiving material support, clandestine material support from a hostile foreign power is a crime. and we get to the people around trump. moneylaundering is a crime. tax fraud is a crime. lying under oath is a crime. so, there s plenty of crime to go around. but what trump and giuliani and all their paladins have been doing is doing their best to blind the american people, to overwhelm us with various forms of diversion and obscure data, to cloud the issue, to muddy the waters. pick your cliche. but for me, as someone who genuinely cares about this country and who doesn t give a damn about either political party, for me, there is one core question facing our country today. one paramount question, and that is, has the president of the united states committed treason against the united states, specifically, in service in t thrall of some sort to vladimir putin? i hope i m wrong. i hope it didn t happen. we ll see what robert mueller brings to the fore. but we must focus on that question and not be diverted by clownish antics, because trump is a brilliant entertainer. in a peculiar way, he may be history s greatest entertainer. he commands global headlines every single day, and we make a mistake of thinking about him as a politician or a leader when he is an entertainer. and by allowing ourselves to be constantly entertained, we lose sight of fundamental ethics, values and security of this nation. you talk about him as a propagandist and a very effective propagandist. yes. not only the simple catchphrases, but repeated time and time and time again so that they just become normalized. it s also part of it s not just about repeating phrases, it s also used as a diversion. yes. to take you off focusing, take the american people, the media, whomever, their eye off what s really happening, what really matters. yes. and anderson, consider what a brilliant move it is to attack the press as the enemy of the people. instead of having the spotlight on trump and his alleged misdeeds, on his daily misdeeds against this country, it turns against the press, the press as the enemy of the people. enemy of the people is a loaded term. it does go back to roman times. but in the modern era, the first person i can find who really used it is robespierre in the french revolution. as a student of russian affairs, it s the enemy of the people in russia. under stalin during the purges, if you were called an enemy of the people, it was a death sentence. and given all of trump s other ties, to russia and things russian and people associated with russia, it hardly seemed a coincidence that he calls our press the enemy of the people. and anderson, our press is not above criticism. sure. it s made of human beings. human beings are flawed. i have when i thought the press deserved it, i have criticized the press fiercely, but i hope constructively, because without a free press as our founding fathers recognized, democracy cannot function. lieutenant colonel ralph peters, always good to have you on. thank you. thank you. i want to check in with chris and see what he s working on for the top of the hour. chris? peters makes you gulp. talking about, you know, stalin. it s pretty yeah, and it s just weird that they re using the same phrase. so, tonight, we re going to take a little bit of a different tact on this issue about collusion not equaling a crime. i actually think that the media got out over its skis on this, and i think we re missing the forest for one tree, and i m going make the legal case today. and i think it s mostly common sense where you can start with where we re hearing from the trump legal team right now, but still wind up looking at a whole garden basket of potential criminal activity that stems from this. so we ll lay out the case. we re also going to take on the man who wants people to be able to make their own 3d guns at home. he is going to make the case to the audience as to why. and we are going to test it, my friend. chris, your screen getting bigger and bigger, your white board there? ah, yeah, it is, actually. i have two white boards. sometimes either that or you re shrinking. yes. i am i am slimming. i covet the board. kind of look alike. from here-down. from here up, much better. an capitol hill, the top officials were peppered with questions about the trump administration s separation of families at the border. one official said family separation was not part of the policy. coming up, i ll talk to a senator that was there. chicken?! chicken. chicken! that s right, candace new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat. mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. stadium pa : all military members stand and be recognized. sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. no matter where or when you served, t-mobile stands ready to serve you. that s why we re providing half off family lines to all military. you shouldn t be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia s add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. add-on advantage. ordinary stains say they 2 can do the job, s. but behr premium stain can weather any weather. behr premium semi-transparent stain and sealer, overall #1 rated, weathers it all. find our most advanced formula exclusively at the home depot. where we re changing withs? contemporary make-overs. then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. who has the upper hand now? start winning today. book now at lq.com. back pain can t win. now introducing aleve back and muscle pain. only aleve targets tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve back & muscle. all day strong. all day long. questions as a senate hearing today and those questions elicited some pretty remarkable answers. at one point, the head of enforcement or removal for immigration customs enforcement said the facilities where kids and parents were being kept were, quote, more like a summer camp. that s what he said. take a look at this exchange between senator richard blumenthal and an official at the department of health and human services, who acknowledged separating children from their parents was a bad thing. would i be correct in assuming that the answer to you was, in effect, that s the whole purpose of the policy, to inflict pain so as to deter asylum seekers from coming here, correct? no, sir. we were advised that family separation was not the policy. he had raised concerns about the policy there. well, that s interesting he was told that because here s attorney general jeff sessions on fox news talking about the policy. are you considering this a deterrent? i see the fact that no one was being prosecuted for this as a factor in a fivefold increase in four years in this count of illegal immigration. so, yes, hopefully people will get the message. it was intended there as a deterrent. jeff sessions said it. so did john kelly on camera. at the hearing was minnesota senator amy klobuchar. when he tried to get some clarification about the family separation policy, even he was told it was not the policy. i mean the standard answer from the government, how do you square that with the world actually seeing the separations as well as multiple members of the administration describing what they say as not a policy, as a deterrent. well, it s very clear when you listen to the leadership, the words you hear from the attorney general, from the chief of staff of the white house, that they did view this as a deterrent. but the problem is then they re using kids as a weapon. and i was at the border, and the families i met, some of whom had been reunited, all they wanted to do was to get back to their mom. a little 10-year-old boy and his mom, she had fled honduras as a victim of domestic violence. and then to have her child yanked away from her at the border, didn t know if she would ever see him again. and he said, well, i knew i d always see my mom again because she d find me. those are heartbreaking stories, and that s what we heard today at the hearing. and it s very clear to me that there were some people of good will at those front lines whether they were people that worked at the agencies, whether they were the like sister norma from catholic charities who runs the operations down there in mcallen, or the volunteers that came from all over america with good hearts to try to fix this. but it should never have happened in the first place. there s certainly been a lot of reports, stories about what the detention centers holding the kids were like. today we heard this other description from an i.c.e. official who said this. i want to play it for our viewers. i think the best way to describe them is to be more like a summer camp. these individuals have access to 24/7 food and water. they have educational opportunities. they have recreational opportunities, both structured as well as unstructured. i mean you ve talked about having been to the border. i m wondering what you make of that summer camp description. this is not what i heard from these families. one pair of siblings who were separated from each other, one went to florida. one went to texas. they described themselves as being cold. they described themselves as wanting to go and see their parents again. and you still, anderson, have 711 kids that have been separated from their parents. over 400 of them, they can t find their parents. you know what the difference is between summer camp and this? you go home to your parents after summer camp. there s also been reports of kidding being given psych oh tropeic drugs without a parent s permission. i don t think that happens at summer camp. no, it does not. did anyone ask that official if he would send his children to summer camp to that kind of a summer camp? those kinds of things were asked and we got some vague answers. there was one official from hhs, commander white, who clearly said that he told his superiors he was concerned about the psychological effect on these kids. and he also said, you know, this was a policy that we applied to unaccompanied minors. but these kids were accompanied. they weren t accompanied by their parents. this announcement from facebook today that they shut down a disinformation campaign that was targeting the midterm elections. you introduced legislation aimed at trying to prevent election interference this past fall. are you happy with how facebook handled this? i m glad they came forward and said what we believed is true and that is the russians are still trying to do this, or it looks like russian accounts because they re similar to what they had before the election. one of them had nearly 300,000 followers. these same kinds of ads that are trying to turn americans on each other from controversial issues, from immigration issues, and they re doing it again. that s why we have to pass this
what they re saying is they were fine, they were fine, and now they re not. as we begin our hour with just a glimpse of what their lives are like right now, we want to send our heartfelt thanks to all of the medical staff on the front lines of this fight all around the country. welcome to tuesday. it is meet the press daily. i m chuck todd continuing msnbc s breaking news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. we are standing by for today s coronavirus task force briefing from the white house. it could be a busy one that delves into multiple topics. president trump has removed the inspector general overseeing the $2 trillion stim rescue package. he s also so the to cast blame on the world health organization after reports emerged that one of his top economic advisers warned the white house about the dire threat of the virus. president trump was simultaneously downplaying it. the acting navy secretary has resigned after calling the captain of an aircraft carrier stricken with coronavirus stupid. there s also been a shake-up in the white house communications team. again, all today. the trump campaign spokesperson will now be the white house press secretary. all would be big headlines in their own right on any given day, but perhaps the most important question at this briefing, could revolve around what the experts like doctors fauci and birx have to say about the graphic that s on your screen right now. because for the first time in quite some time there is evidence that the curve, at least in this country, of new cases could, and we caution could, be starting to bend in the right direction. and as you can see on this graphic, that tiny but notable dip in american cases is happening as a number of european countries continue to show signs of bending their curves as well. this draconian social distancing may be working. so amid this national nightmare there is a potential ray of light. what it means we don t know for sure. the growth rate of new cases has slowed to roughly 8%, but it s still growing, folks. but at least cases are doubling at a rate of every eight days instead of more than that. it s still alarming. but it was doubling at a rate of every four to five days last week. so let s be clear. even if the rate of infection is slowing, we still have a long road ahead of us to get through this. right now we are on pace to hit roughly half a million confirmed cases this weekend. 1,300 people died in the 24 hours that was counted as yesterday, the second highest daily number so far. hospitals, particularly in the northeast, are overwhelmed. but this morning on nbc s today show the u.s. surgeon general sounded a note of cautious optimism just 48 hours after he was saying this is going to be a week that felt like pearl harbor to us. he said the social distancing measures are starting to show signs of working. and at the epicenter of the country s outbreak in the new york area elected officials sounded similar notes of cautious optimism today. new york governor andrew cuomo said that while the state had its single deadliest day their rate of new hospitalizations, that s the big one, is showing signs of slowing. remember, if we can just have enough hospital beds get through this we can survive this, it doesn t mean a lot of people aren t going to die. new jersey governor phil murphy said they also are seeing signs of being at or near a peak in cases as well. to be sure, far too early to know if these curves will continue to bend, if other emerging hot spots around the country i may have been slower to accuracy will see alarming spikes in the days or weeks ahead, or if the u.s. health care system will hold up. and remember, as i reminded you earlier, it was just 48 hours ago that some of these same public health officials were basically begging the country to take this more seriously, warning that we were at a pearl harbor or 9/11 moment in this country. so we might have our first indication that more people might be heeding those warnings and this collective action is starting to have an impact. joining me now from the white house as we await the coronavirus task force briefing is my nbc news colleague peter alexander. and also with us from long island a coronavirus hot spot just outside new york city is ron allen. ron, let me start with you. i know you re at stonybrook. i know we spoke earlier today. there s as many cases on long island today as there were more than there were in the country just a week or so ago. so to say that we are feeling good is a little too much to say, but what are you seeing on the ground there that at all gives some hope to the new york city area and long islanders in particular? well, hope, yes, chuck, but reality as well. the thing i ve heard today from so many officials is please don t take your foot off the gas. we have to keep at the social distancing. and there are still trying to get ready for what they see as a surge coming to this part of new york. the numbers have been going up every day. the number of deaths have been going up. and they ve only been going up during a spike of the past week or so. so they still anticipate a surge because they ve been about a week or so behind what s happened in new york city. so at this facility, for example, we ve seen a line of cars all day coming in, people coming in for testing at these testing centers behind us. they say that there s a rate of about 40% testing positive, which is not to be unexpected because these are people who are feeling sick and make an appointment to come out here. they re also all over long island. hospitals are trying to build up their capacity. they re still trying to increase it by 50% to 100%. here at stonybrook they ve essentially closed moved their emergency room out here to the parking lot on the campus and they have converted the 600-bed hospital into a 1,000-bed hospital by expanding the emergency room and by using other space that was available. and they re still working on a 1,000-bed field hospital the u.s. army corps of engineers is building on the campus as well. this is one of the major sites in the state. like the javits center there in manhattan that the governor first tasked with trying to become a center for dealing with this virus. so we also keep hearing more equipment, more ppe, and the other thing we re hearing now is more staff because the staff at hospitals are working overtime it s now getting week after week of this relentless surge of patients. and so the bottom line, though, again is yes, there are these glimmers, there is this plateauing perhaps, but the last thing that they want to see out here is complacency. they don t want to see people coming out. they want to see us keep our foot on the gas. chuck? ron allen in on the campus there of stonybrook where they are setting up a field hospital. ron, thanks very much. peter, the president was awfully busy today on twitter, let alone having some meetings at the white house. but it looks like there s? some deflection going on here. i want to highlight tweet number one about the w.h.o. here s what he writes. the w.h.o. really blew it. for some reason funded largely by the united states yet re china centric. we ll be giving that i good look. fortunately i rejected our advice on keeping our borders open to china early on. why did they give us such a faulty recommendation? it s not lost on me that this tweet happens on the day news is out that his own chief trade adviser peter navarro wrote a memo in late january saying this pandemic is coming. yeah, you re right, chuck. the president is one to always deflect and place blame elsewhere. and certainly on this day that s what he s trying to do with that tweet there attacking the world health organization. first a fact check, that it was on january 30th that the world health organization declared a global health emergency. it was not until the next day following that that the president restricted travel from china. but let s get to that memo you were talking about that was sent by one of the president s sort of most ideological partners as it were inside the west wing. were it to come from the intelligence community or from public health experts, people that the president routinely dismisses, you might somehow understand why it was being ignored. but this came from the president s trade adviser, the guy who has been his right-hand man who views the world very similarly, certainly as it relates to china. it was written and shared on the 29th of january. just the next day the president would say that things were totally under control. his exact language was we will have it under control, he said. so the bottom line is this was the first and the highest level alert where the alarms were sounded inside the west wing about the potential of a pandemic and the potential for a half million lives to be lost. there was even a second memo that followed to talked about the potential the risk if there wasn t an effort to create enough supplies, personal protective equipment and other things that were necessary, and funding as well. how much is it possible that peter navarro s memos were ignored by some in the west wing because there are some people who think oh, peter navarro s always looking to trash china and it didn t get taken with the same seriousness that had somebody else written it? i notice that some people are sort of trying to dismiss the memo that way. others are saying it didn t get to the president. what s the truth on sort of how his memo was received internally? well, i think there are certainly people, and i m hearing from some of these individuals as well, in and around the president who say that you know, that peter navarro can be a little bit of a flame thrower and certainly as it relates to china he can be heated on this. the timing of this memo leaking out without it getting into the details about how it was provided to members of the media was also striking because you remember peter navarro was facing fire in recent days, chuck, because of that fiery back and forth that took place between him and the leading the people most people view as america s doctor as it relates to this issue, dr. anthony fauci a couple of days ago. navarro was looking like he was on the wrong side of that argument as it were and all of a sudden there was this which would seem to put peter navarro on the right side in terms of the warnings. it was a convenient leak if you re looking for resume brandishment. very quickly, the president and this is going to get confusing. the acting secretary of navy, who was in an acting position because the last one was fired, did he resign or get fired today over the handling of the roosevelt ? do we have clarity? and i know now there s an undersecretary of the army that is now the new acting acting secretary of the navy. do we have any clarity on this? well, i ll tell you what is being said publicly at least. within the last few minutes we re hearing from the defense secretary, esper, saying that he accepted the resignation of the acting navy secretary, modly, here. but the way this came to be is really i think what most americans are marinating in, trying to get a better understanding of how this commander of the uss theodore roosevelt who was at sea with 150-plus sailors on his own ship testing positive for coronavirus, we ve now learned that he reportedly has tested positive as well, he s in quarantine in guam right now, that he raised the red flags. he sent a letter back to washington. it was leaked out to the san francisco chronicle. as a result you saw that he was fired. it was the washington post from david ignatius that reported that modly told a colleague, breaking news. trump wants him fired. the next day he was fired. it was after that that modly would go down to guam. he was overheard on the loudspeaker on the ship telling folks that it was a betrayal of trust, that he was either too naive or too stupid to be their commanding officer. he said he stood by those words the next day. then the president, chuck, as you saw, spoke out about it. next thing you knew he was out. you can say he s resigned or whether he was fired, it s clear the president wasn t satisfied with it. but to give the president credit for saying he wants into the veen here i think is premature given the fact that at least according to the washington post it was the president himself who wanted captain crozier fired in the first place. i think it was a bit naive if the now former acting secretary of the navy thought his remarks to the crew wouldn t leak out and become fodder in the public arena. anyway, i know irony hasn t died completely. peter alexander, ron allen, thank you both. i want to turn now to a couple of experts on the scientific side of things. drew harris is a population health expert, assistant professor at thomas jefferson university. and dr. vin gupta has become a familiar face to many of you. he s a critical care physician, pandemics consultant and msnbc contributor. dr. gupta, let me simply start with you. we can t figure out on my staff today if whether we should be embracing what appears to be some green shoots of good news on flattening the curve or if we re just so battered with bad news that it just looks good in comparison. where are we, dr. gupta? thanks, chuck. you know, you nailed it. we are looking for tea leaves that are positive. and this is positive. this is great news that we are making some inroads that social distancing, the psychological trauma of social distancing, it s hard on all of us, is working. that s great news. because at least we know we re going through this for a reason. but the models out of the university of washington at the institute for health metrics, other models say if we don t and this is what ron was saying earlier. if we don t keep our foot on the pedal we re going to lose the gains we ve already achieved. it s important to think past april 30th. these gains are contingent on social distancing continuing for the month ahead. after that. into may. end of may. who knows what looks we just don t know. we haven t seen the forecast yet of what happens if we let off the pedal may 1st, june 1st, july 1st. we just don t know that. there s a lot of uncertainty. we have to take this good news with caution and we can t let our guard down. drew harris, help us understand when we should start to look at a model and say, yeah, that s right. it s all working. well, i think it s working according to plan. we re responding, flattening the curve. but you ve got to remember the more pressure you put on a curve to flatten it the curve is going to be pushing back at the same time. so i m concerned there are pockets of outbreaks throughout this country that we re not exactly measuring, that the testing is still not robust enough to know if it s spreading in communities we haven t even heard of, communities you may not be covering in the weeks to come. you have to remember these are community-level curves that we sum and that s the entire country but this is a very diverse place. so there are going to be parts of the country where their peaks are going to come many weeks later. so we have to be really aware of that and track it. also, the complacency that comes with saying oh, great, we ve hit past our peak and now we can let is the wrong idea. because there are many people who have not been exposed to this virus. and the minute we start backing down on social distancing and reexposure, exposing people for the first time to the virus, we re going to see it roaring back. and the question is are we prepared to do what s necessary to put out those outbreaks when they begin again? didn t we get a false positive, dr. gupta-w italy a week or so ago where it looked like italy was flattening and then it ended up looking like statistical noise then? now it does look like it s flattening. i mean, is there any way to read into that, in that way looking at what happened in italy? chuck, i think to your point there is uncertainty. and just looking at one point in time and saying hey, we beat this, is dangerous. we need to look at trends. this is great. i m glad it seems like we are making progress here. but to your point, one point in time tells minimal information. we have to have a broader scope here. we need to recognize we re definitely not out of the woods yet. and i m concerned because i m concerned there s a lot of leak. there s a lot of leak in the president s will to stay the course. he s getting a lot of pressure to open up the economy. we get that. but what misguided mixed messages on masks, for example, are causing people i ve seen all types of things happen. going out to the grocery store here in seattle, a lot of ppe use, for example. because we don t know what to trust. we re getting mixed messages from the top. so this is going to tear at the fabric of let s stick together, let s stay socially distant for the time being. let s minimize medical use of or non-medical use of ppe. there s a lot of things pulling at us, sticking towards a common goal here, which is social distancing for the time being. drew harris, is there a point on the curve that we can sort of use as a goal to see i mean as it goes down, you know, there s flattening the curve and then there s actually bending it downward. at what point on the downward bend do you feel comfortable opening the economy up again? well, i think what we start to see, there s not community spread of the disease. right now we are looking in the rearview mirror. that s really how we ve been driving this car. looking backwards. because every case that we see as tested, many of them are actually people who are showing symptoms. so they ve already had the virus for a week or two at that point. so it s reflecting things that have happened in the past. so we really won t know that social distancing is making a difference until a few weeks into the future, and even then as a drop-off it s still going to be spread in people s homes as they ve hunkered down the way we ve been telling them but they can still spread it to those who are close to them. so we re going to need a few of these cycles to go through to make sure that we are not going to see a recurrence of that. it s going to be up to the modelers and for other experts to really figure out whether we hit that number. but what we need to do is prepare to begin testing as we begin to let up on this. this is a wildfire that maybe we re doing a good job of suppressing but until we know that those hot spots are also put out as they occur we re ready to put water on them when they do occur. we re not going to be able to lippett don t tire suppression throughout the country. dr. gupta, are we i don t think anybody wanted to see a real-time experiment on lifting things too early, but do we have an experiment running right now in wisconsin with election with this primary day, with this decision to let people vote? will we be able to learn a really harsh lesson one way or the other i guess if it s not a harsh lesson then that would be the good news. but in three weeks we re going to learn how to open up or not via what happens in wisconsin? chuck, maybe. i would say let s look to missouri. not to call out missouri. but a governor that has still chosen to go their own route and go rogue to what 40 other states are doing. so wisconsin yes, there will be one point in time. but i don t know what missouri s doing. why are they choosing to not invoke shelter in place laws? it doesn t make any sense. it s irresponsible. and to the point that was just made, if you have one focus, one area where there s an outbreak where there s community transmission that s sustained, that can cause a wildfire that can go countrywide. so it s irresponsible. we need a national approach. we ve been saying the same thing all the last several weeks. so what they re doing in missouri is irresponsible. and that s where you re going to be watching to see whether that tells a catastrophic story around the country. anyway, dr. vin gupta, drew harris. i know dr. gupta you re going to stick around for a little while. we ll see the white house briefing, how long that happens. that s been a marathon. drew harris, thank you for sharing your expertise as well. we are about to start the white house coronavirus task force briefing. you saw there s a ton to get to in the briefing itself. this one could be a doozy. but once it begins we will bring the important parts to you live. also pushed to the brink. new york city s first responders are overloaded. trying to keep up with the onslaught of coronavirus emergencies. i m going to talk to a paramedic on the front lines. that s next. that s next. proof i can fight moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis. .with humira. proof of less joint pain. .and clearer skin in psa. humira targets and blocks 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coverage. get more flexible data, the most reliable network, and more savings. plus, get $200 off when you buy an eligible phone. that s simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinitymobile.com today. welcome back. with more than 75,000 new york city residents testing positive for covid-19, we have some staggering and difficult new numbers that illustrate the battle first responders in the city are facing. last week the fdny received an average of 284 so-called cardiac arrest calls a day. that is up from 69 calls a day during the same period last year. that s a big jump. 72% of those calls ended in a death. 72%. last year 38% of those same calls ended in death. keep in mind not all of these calls are related to the coronavirus. but it boils down to this. first responders are facing more than four times as many cardiac calls. nearly ten times as many of those patients are dying. and possibly people are waiting till the very last minute before they call right now, which may be a reason for that increase in the death rate on this. still, as paramedics struggle to handle this virus they re also struggling to protect themselves. right now nearly a quarter of all emts in new york city are out because of the coronavirus or a flu-like symptom. anthony amager, vice president of the local 36 fdny officers union and also a working paramedic. mr. almagera, thank you for joining me. paint a picture for us. paint a picture for the viewers of what an average 24 hours is like right now in new york city for an emt. yesterday we got 6,900 calls. today we re already up to 4,500. it s about 300 calls an hour give or take. it s unprecedented. we deal with normally 4,000 calls. it spikes a little in a heat wave or a hurricane or something like that. the amount of cardiac arrests like you alluded to earlier, it s really something. i worked sunday. i did 12 cardiac arrests in 16 hours. a lot of the crews are doing the same out here. this virus has really taken its toll on people. we re trying to save as many lives as we can. but what s your biggest challenge? physical personnel right now or the equipment or both? both. as you mentioned about 25% of our workforce is in quarantine or have tested positive. the biggest challenge is to know our own status. we don t have dedicated testing for 911 providers in this city which is something the mayor has dropped the ball on. the equipment, the n95 masks, we re running low on. the men and women of ems are doing the best they can. they ve really been commendable. they re going out, answering the call. yesterday not yesterday. i m sorry. a couple days ago i got a phone call from one of the emts at my station. she called me and stated that she wanted to she was still feeling sick and she felt bad, and i said of course she felt bad, you have the virus. she goes no, i feel bad because i m not there helping you guys help everyone else. so just to show you the level of dedication that the men and women of the ems are doing day in and day out. but it is take its toll on us. it s really something. i want to tell me about this testing situation. you just alluded to it very quickly. i d like you to go back to it. let s belabor this point. this is the original sin in this entire pandemic, has been our inability to test in a quick, in a reliable way, and we re still trying to play catch-up. i thought at least if you were on the front lines you would get access to testing. how hard is it for an emt to get a test? it doesn t exist for us in a dedicated way. we have to go to try and find a clinic, try and find some type of hospital or some setting that will provide it for us. the real issue with that is we have asked this mayor from day one to provide this for us so we don t bring it home to our families. the men and women of the ems signed up for a job. we get sick, we signed up for a job that we get sick on, that we can die from. we have died on this job through illness and injury. and but our families don t need to die with us. 700 people are currently being monitored on ems, quarantined or tested positive and they had to go get a test on their own through the luck of the draw trying to find it. we don t want to bring it home to our families, which is the major issue, the major concern my members call day in and day out for. right. anthony, i ve got to wrap this up right now. but there s a lot of people watching that want to show an opportunity to give thanks to the emt workers. is there a support network that people can contribute to that are helping out if there are folks that don t have the resources that perhaps your union s been able to give them in the past? yeah, so if it s possible we have a health fund website set up here to help fdny ems members and i m sure other agencies around the country do. but the one for our site is www.emsfdnyhelpfund.com. if the public wants to help us in our time of need, because i m sure members are going to start to need things as their families are out of work and as they re sick, we do have some members at the moment who are in icu. a couple of them are intubated due to this disease. so if the public would like to help us, that s the best way to do it, is through the health fund website. emsfdnyhelpfund.com. anthony almojera, a union leader, on the front lines. i any the public needs to understand how you guys are putting your lives on the line for all of us. thank you for that. much appreciated. i want to turn now. i want to go overseas here where in the uk where prime minister boris johnson is still in intensive care right now due to the coronavirus complications. after first being hospitalized on sunday. he was moved into icu yesterday as his condition worsened. according to 10 downing street he s on oxygen but not a ventilator, which of course as we know is an important distinction. this is all happening as the number of cases and deaths in the uk are rising. they hit a grim record of over 780 deaths there in the past 24 hours. france also hit a record number in the same time span. 833 deaths were recorded there overnight. but in other parts of europe there are signs of hope. countries like austria, denmark, norway and even italy are starting to talk about reopening. a lot of flaltenning of curves in different european countries. joining me now, my colleague, nbc news chief foern correspondent richard engel. richard, i feel like there s two ways to look at the boris johnson situation, right? number one, you would assume they would not be admitting him to the hospital unless they absolutely had to. they won be giving him an icu bed unless they absolutely had to. do you think they are underplaying the seriousness of this or are we being given the full story? so i spoke to one of boris johnson s associates, his former spokesman, and i asked him that very question. i said do you think that the government here would be more likely to move the prime minister because they re worried about his health and they would react quickly if he was showing any symptoms, any labored breathing, send him quickly to an icu, or would they slow it down, would they be reluctant to do it because of the seriousness of the matter, because of the messaging that it would send, that it might make the public nervous. and he said it would probably be the latter, that boris johnson himself would be reluctant to o go, that he is a strong personality, he doesn t want to not be holding the reins of authority in his hands, that he made a rugby analogy. he said he takes it like a rugby player, if you knock him down he wants to get back in, wants to get back into the fight, and recognizing the seriousness of the messaging of this. so he thought it would have to be quite severe indeed for them to move him to the hospital. but going back to what he was talking about earlier, i am still shocked that i ve been talking to virologists all around the world, with your interview just a short while ago with the front line medical worker. the testing is essential to this. you can t bluff your wei through it. no virologist i ve talked to says you can just sort of hope for the best. i was talking today to a doctor in hong kong. he said they never had a testing issue, if you wanted a test you could get one. yet they re seeing a second wave in hong kong right now that is actually bigger than the first wave and it s making people very nervous. they thought they had beaten it. they ve never had any problems with testing. and they re seeing this giant spike. they think because they have such good testing they re going to be able to get this wave down quite quickly because people are disciplined, they know what to do. the health care system has handled this recently and handled it quite well. but unless you get that testing, unless you get it out quickly, you don t know what you re dealing with. you don t know who s got it. and you end up having to quarantine your entire society. and we know about the economic costs of all of that. richard, before i let you go, i d like a little european politics here and just simply can the eu survive this pandemic? well, borders are getting a lot tighter than they used to. the whole idea of the eu is we d have a single open space. you d have different political systems. but people would be able to move from country to country and it would be a giant exchange program for education and labor. and now as every country is getting nervous, it is each country s systems and national characteristics are coming out more and more. so the eu may survive because it is providing a lot of services, in particular to poorer countries, and is serving as a redistribution mechanism, but it is also we re also seeing a tremendous moment of nationalism. and going back to what you were saying at the top of your conversation, when do you know it s the right time to come out of hiding? you remember the game of hide and seek. at the end of the game the one person would call olly olly oxen free and everyone gets to come out of hiding. it doesn t really work that way. i don t think we re going to get an olly oxen free, an all clear. instead people start to peek out of the shadows. they start to take one foot out of hiding, see how much they can get away with it. and then if they get away with it a little bit they put another foot out. there have already been countries, austria, denmark, several countries, the czech republic that have put out schedules saying what they re going to open over the next couple of weeks. they re going to open some small shops. then they re going to open some hairdressers. if that works they re going to open some larger retail stores. so they re taking this gradual approach but there is a plan. so i have a sense of what they re doing when i talk about the czech republic or even italy but it is much harder to say what the plan is when looking from the outside in at the united states right now. well, it is. and it s clearly in europe it can be a country by country. in this country it might be state by state. if or even region by region within a specific state. richard engel, boy, i m really i mean, watching this issue with boris johnson, boy, i just i just hope things are good overnight. i know that entire country i think is hanging on. officials here are saying he s in good spirits and is conscious and he s doing well. but still in icu. it s been quite the political upheaval for the uk as it is the last few years. this would just be another thing there that would be tough to take. richard engel, thank you. wrer awaiting the white house coronavirus briefing. we re going to bring you that live when it happens. up next, wisconsin is going to the polls despite the pandemic. i want to go there live. that s next. t. ok everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. whoo-hoo! great tasting ensure with 9 grams of protein, 27 vitamins and minerals, and nutrients to support immune health. and this is their land. 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get. at liberty butchumal- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we ll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. welcome back. we are usually thrilled to get to say that if it s tuesday someone is voting somewhere. but this isn t a usual tuesday and this probably shouldn t be a tuesday where somebody is voting somewhere. but it is. and it isn t thrilling to see that a political showdown in wisconsin has come to this. long lines of people wearing masks and large crowds at polling stations across the state despite the pandemic gripping the country. president trump is among the republicans encouraging people to, quote, get out and vote. wisconsin s democratic governor issued a last-minute executive order moving the election to june. the republican-controlled state legislature pushed back and the wisconsin state supreme court sided with the gop. then the u.s. supreme court ruled as well, refusing to extend a deadline for absentee ballots. and though it was the republicans pushing yesterday to make today s election, for weeks governor tony avers has been resisting changing today s elections until late in the process even as other governors and other states were moving their election ppz now voters in wisconsin are forced to choose between their civic responsibilities and their health. it s also got a lot of people wondering what it all means for november. and we may be having a real-time experiment in what letting loose the social distancing guidelines could do if you don t do it. shaquille brewster is in milwaukee for us, one of our political reporters. i m also joined by national political correspondent steve kornacki. shaq, tell me what you ve been seeing all day. i notice that people are trying to at least create space in line. that s good news to see. reporter: that s right, chuck. you mentioned outside when you look at these lines, which are long, especially here in milwaukee, where there are only five of the normally 180 polling locations, you see people trying to keep a little bit more space. you you see them all wearing masks. on the inside you definitely see social distancing being enforced. each time a voter goes and votes there s a health official that comes down and wipes down that voting machine. when i m talking to people, in the conversations i m having with people it s clear they do want to come out and vote and exercise that constitutional duty. but there is genuine frustration with the fact that they have to come out and vote. we know that absentee ballots have increased. there was a surge in ballots, over 800,000 ballots have been returned as of this morning. but the fact that people do have to come out, those who didn t get their ballots, and who had glitches in the system, there s a frustration that they have. listen to what one voter told me. this is so wrong. this is just so wrong. this election should have been called off. you know, they re telling us to stay in the house and, you know, staying six feet from each other. but then one of the most important times they re forcing us to come out here in a group. stop playing politics with our lives. you know, that s what i m feeling. reporter: you re feeling like this is a game yeah. reporter: you get a sense that poll workers are really doing all they can to make this process as safe as possible for people. national guard members have been called. there are several dozen national guard members at this polling location. something a milwaukee election official actually said is they had more national guard members assist in this election than they expected. they believe they actually had they known these numbers they would have been able to increase the amount of voting locations here in milwaukee but it s too late at this point now. there s lines that are going for about three hours. chuck? and we may not get results for a week i think officially anyway. shaquille brewster, i ve got to leave it there. the president has just walked out. the briefing has begun. i do think in three weeks we re going to know what has happened in wisconsin. three weeks and see what happens if we have a mini hot spot or outbreak there that could have a huge impact. look, there s a lot that happened today, as we told you at the top, at this press briefing we re very curious to hear what doctors fauci and birx have to say about today s modeling news. obviously there s news about these inspector generals, the firing of the active secretary of the navy. so it s going to be quite the briefing. with that we will go in and out. if it at all veers off and gets way too political, we ll bring our medical experts back in. but for the most part let s listen in. the american people for continuing to follow our guidelines on slowing the spread. an expression that more and more people are thinking about. nobody ever heard of it two months ago and now everybody s talking about slowing the spread, stopping the spread. even during this painful week we see glimmers of very, very strong hope. and this will be a very painful week. and next week at least part of next week but probably all of it. look, if one person dies it s a painful week. and we know that s going to unfortunately happen. this is a monster we re fighting. but signs are that our strategy is totally working. every american has a role to play in winning this war. and we re going to be winning it. we re going to be winning it powerfully. and we ll be prepared for the next one should it happen. but hopefully it won t. our massive airlift operation for critical supplies, it s called project air bridge, continued today as five massive planes, flights, landed in the united states packed with personal protective equipment and our nation s heroic healthcare workers will be the ben fir beneficiaries of that. 27 more flights are scheduled over the next couple of weeks. the army corps of engineers is constructing facilities that will support more than 15,000 hospital beds to treat patients in need. so they re building now approximately 15,000. they just completed the big one in new york. they just completed and are in the process of continuing in chicago and many other places. they re incredible. the army corps of engineers, we owe them a lot. what they re able to do in such a short period of time. they ll build these massive facilities, 2,000 beds in four days. so it s really something very special. i know, i was in the construction industry and you don t see that happen very often. i want to remind governors and emergency managers that sharing real-time data with us about equipment and their needs is very important. all of their supplies, hospital occupancies, critical. a lot of the occupancy is really getting a little bit lower than anticipated and that s good. we sort of thought that was going to happen. we re getting along very well with the governors. this whole situation with respect to talking to us about equipment and equipment needs, giving us a little bit of lead time, so important. all the supplies. we re getting it to everybody like they never thought possible. but we ll ensure that we can rapidly deploy federal assets where and when they re needed, especially on ventilators. we re actually getting some ventilators back. as you know, the state of california was back. they sent some back which they won t need. and washington state likewise. and we have some others coming back. so we re using them in areas we need them. we are pressing forward aggressively on the scientific fronteer of the medical war. the companies i spoke to, the four leading i call them the genius companies. they re doing incredibly well with respect to cures and also with respect to a vaccine that s going to protect us, totally protect us, and they have some great potential. it s going to take a little while yet but they have some great potential, some great early results. and the governor s been working hard and we are working hard with the governors. there s been great coordination, especially over the last little while. we ve given them a lot of equipment, a lot of ventilators, but a lot of equipment of all types. and i will protect you if your governor fails, if you have a governor that s failing we re going to protect you. but the governors are working well with us over the last period of time. today in our stockpile of ventilators and again, we need the stockpile so we can immediately move them from place to place wherever the monster hits. it s a monster. we have 8,675 ventilators right now in stock ready to move. and we have all sorts of incredible soldiers, our military is going to move them should they be needed in, as an example, if we need additional in new york or the new york city area. you have state, you have city, and spoke to mayor de blasio and we really have a great well-coordinated campaign with mayor de blasio. it s been really good. spoke to governor cuomo. it s been great coordination. so if they need something, we have it. if louisiana needs something, we have it. same thing with michigan. same thing with illinois. there are certain spots that are very hot. and we ll see what happens. but we ll know pretty much we have time and we ll be able to move it. in addition to the 8,675 ventilators we have 2,200 arriving on april 13th. we have 5,500 arriving on may 4. these are ones that we re building for the most part. and we have asknow, great companies building them. ford, general motors, g.e. we have really some great companies that are doing it. on may 18th we have 12,000. on june 1, we have 20,000. on june 29th, we have 60,000 ventilators coming. 60. 6-0. so we have a total of 110 ventilators coming over a short period of time. i don t think we ll need them. hopefully we won t need them. i don t think we ll need anywhere near them. but we ll have them pour the future, and we ll also be able to help other countries who are desperate for ventilators. the uk called today and wanted to know would it be possible to get 200, and we re going work it out. we ve got to work it out. they ve been great partners, united kingdom. and we re going to work it out for them. so they wanted 200. they needed them desperately. we now have ten drugs in active trials. we have 15 more soon to follow, as well as two vaccine candidates in active clinical trials. we ll do whatever it takes to secure needed medical supplies and bring more production of essential medicines back to our shores. we re doing that. we re bringing them back to our shores. a lot of these companies, they went a little bit haywire. they went away from this great country, and they had them produced elsewhere. so we re going the start bringing them back. i ve been talking about that for a long time. not only with medical, but lots of other things. america continues to perform more testing than any other nation in the world, and i think that s probably why we have more cases, because when you look at some of these very large companies, i know for a fact that they have far more cases than we do, but they don t report them. we ve performed 1.8 million tests today. so that s 1,870,000 tests. think of that, 1,870,000 tests today. now we re performing them at a level that nobody has ever seen before. as we announced yesterday, cvs testing sites in rhode island and georgia will be using abbott labs five-minute test. we re down to five minutes. it s a five-minute test so that people can get their results back very quickly. and we re actively engaging on the problem of increased impacts. this is a real problem. and it s showing up very strongly in our data on the african american community, and we re doing everything in our power to address this challenge. it s a tremendous challenge. it s terrible. and provide support to african american citizens of this country who are going through a lot, but it s been disproportional. they re getting hit very, very hard. in fact, while we have tony here, i d like to maybe have you come up and address that one, and then i ll continue. but if you could address that, that would be great. thank you, mr. president. we have a particularly difficult problem of exacerbation of a health disparity. we ve known literally forever that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma are disproportionately afflicting the minority populations, particularly the african americans. unfortunately, when you look at the predisposing conditions that lead to a bad outcome with coronavirus, the things that get people into icus, that require intubation and often lead to death, they are just those very como comorbidi comorbidities. we re very concerned about that. it s very sad. there is nothing we can do about it right now except give them the best possible care to avoid those complications. thank you very much. and tony, i think you re going to have some pretty accurate numbers over the next few days, right? but they are very they re very nasty numbers. terrible numbers. in total, 1,200 abbott machines, abbott laboratories, they ve been fantastic, have been shipped now nationwide. up to 500 more are being produced every week. and 50,000 testing cartridges are being manufactured per day. that means a lot of very fast tests. no nation in the world has developed a more diverse and robust testing capacity than the united states. we re dealing with other nations, helping them out, because the testing is very tough for them. and our tests are very accurate. a lot of tests are out there and they re not accurate at all. in fact, some of the tests you don t have a clue what s going on. so we re working with other nation, trying to get them help also. at a time when many americans are experiencing increased stress, anxiety and personal loss, we must also ensure that our country can meet the mental health needs of those struggling in this crisis. there are people struggling. they re struggling. and some people are getting to know each other. some families are getting to know each other in a positive note. but there are a lot of people struggling. on thursday, i ll be speaking to leaders and advocates from the mental health organizations all across our country. and we are going to be talking about resources and tools that will make available to them. they need help, and it s a big problem. when you take something where it was the most successful country in the world, still is, the whole world is shut down. think of it. we re down to numbers that are incredible. as i said yesterday, i think it s 182 countries right now. 182 countries are under attack by the by the scourge, by this virus. but as we wage medical war on the virus, we re also speeding economic relief to our people. it s incredible. we just had a meeting that was absolutely incredible with the banks. i spoke with leaders in the banking and finance industry about our efforts to help american workers and employers. as of today, small business has processed more than $70 billion in guaranteed loans and will provide much needed relief for nearly a quarter million businesses already. so we are going to be providing tremendous amounts of money to the small businesses of our country. we ve been absolutely clobbered. and they ll be keeping open, and they ll be paying their employees. and they ll will all set to go. we ll have a rocket upward. i want to thank david solomon, ceo of goldman sachs. brian moynihan, ceo of bank of america; gordon smith, coimpeachment, coo of jp morgan chase; charles scharf, ceo of wells fargo; michael corbett, ceo of citi group; al kelly, ceo of visa; michael vribok ceo of mastercard, michael wilcox, ceo and chairman of grand rapids state bank. and we had numerous others also on the call. i just appreciate them. they are we re way ahead of schedule, by the way. we re way ahead of schedule. the paycheck protection program has been incredible. so based on the incredible success of the program, i m announcing that i ll be asking congress to provide an additional $250 billion for the paycheck protection, which will help keep americans employed to facilitate a quick and full recovery. we re doing very well. we re looking very bipartisan. a lot of people want to do it. and the plan is amazing. they re processing hundreds of thousands of loans. and this is the big banks that are doing it, the community banks. but the biggest banks right now in our country are doing it. and they re doing it for a lot of reasons. one of them is they want to help people. the w.h.o., that s the world health organization, receives vast amounts of money from the united states. and we pay for a majority, the biggest portion of their money. and they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time i did it. and they were wrong. they ve been wrong about a lot of things. and they had a lot of information early and they didn t want to they seemed very china-centric. and we have to look into that. so we re going to look into it. we pay for we give them the majority of the money that they get. and it s much more than the 58. the $58 million is a small portion of what they ve gotten over the years. sometimes they get much more than that. sometimes it s for programs that they re doing. and it s much bigger numbers. and if the programs are good, that s great as far as we re concerned. but we want the look into it. world health organization. because they really are they called it wrong. they called it wrong. they really they missed the call. they could have called it months earlier. they would have known, and they should have known, and they probably did know. so we ll be looking into that railroad carefully. and we re going to put a hold on money spent to the w.h.o. we re going to put a very powerful hold on it. and we re going to see. it s a great thing if it works, but when they call every shot wrong, that s no good. we re this the midst of a great national struggle, one that requires the shared sacrifice of all americans. in recent week, it s been remarkable to see so many companies and organizations and individuals like the banks that i just told you about, the biggest banks in the world, they stepped up to help small business. they have big business, small business. big business will some day be the small business. but the small business is 50% of our economic strength. they just rose to the occasion. everybody is rising to the occasion. it s been incredible to watch. to honor and celebrate the extraordinary examples of patriotism and citizenship, we re seeing i m asking americans to use t the
Can you believe it? What is an adorable 7-month-old mixed-breed, male puppy like me doing in a shelter? Can t people see how cute I am? I guess you have to
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