[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] We are now the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters.
[Natalie Allen, Cnn Anchor:] The Independence Day message from President Donald Trump who compared the fight against Nazis and terrorists to his efforts to defeat what he calls the radical left. We'll talk more about the president's message this hour. Also, the heat is on in Florida. Whatever effort is being made to cool down COVID-19 summer spread there does not seem to be working as the state hits another new record high in cases. And pumping the brakes on reopening in Australia. Thousands living in public housing suddenly put on strict lockdown. A live report about that one. We're live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. I'm Natalie Allen. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
[Allen:] Thank you for joining us this hour. Celebrating the 4th of July during a pandemic was challenging enough but, for many Americans, two straight days of divisive rhetoric from the U.S. president set an ugly tone for this holiday. There was a traditional Independence Day celebration in Washington, complete with beautiful fireworks. Mr. Trump has scarcely acknowledged the raging pandemic beyond the White House. Instead, his ire has been laser focused on scenes like this, people cheering at the statue of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore was pulled down and tossed in the harbor. Here's how Mr. Trump describes the situation.
[Trump:] American heroes defeated the Nazis, dethroned the fascists, toppled the communists, saved American values, upheld American principles and chased down the terrorists to the very ends of the Earth. We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what they are doing.
[Allen:] While the president stokes a culture war over America's past, the here and now shows COVID-19 is steamrolling the United States into deeper shades of red. Many hospitals are already feeling the crunch. Pandemic or no, the 4th of July is a beloved holiday and Americans were determined to enjoy it any way they could. While some popular beaches around the country were closed, the ones that were open had plenty of visitors. The 4th is a time to celebrate how Americans came together to gain independence. But that is not the tone that the president used to mark this holiday. For more about it here is CNN's Jeremy Diamond at the White House.
[Jeremy Diamond, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Well, on 4th of July, most American presidents typically aim for unifying remarks. But President Trump this evening, for the second night in a row, focusing his Independence Day remarks on exploiting cultural divisions among Americans, particularly at this time of deep division in America, with two crises, both the coronavirus pandemic and these protests over a national reckoning on racism in America. President Trump delivering these divisive remarks, in which he even compared his current political fight against leftists in America, radical leftists, as he called them, to the fight against Nazis in World War II.
[Trump:] American heroes defeated the Nazis, dethroned the fascists, toppled the communists, saved American values, upheld American principles and chased down the terrorists to the very ends of the Earth. We are now in the process of defeating the radical left. The Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters and people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing.
[Diamond:] Now President Trump on Saturday also said we will not allow anyone to divide our citizens by race or background. Those remarks, fairly remarkable, coming from this president, one that started his campaign by decrying Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists. A president who called for a total ban on Muslims entering the United States. A president who said that a judge who was of Hispanic origin could not be impartial in a case involving him. This president claiming on Saturday that he will not allow others to exploit people by racial divisions. Now President Trump sought to recast himself as a protector of American history and heritage. That was a theme of his remarks on Friday at Mt. Rushmore and on Saturday at the White House. But the president, for the last week, hasn't focused on protecting statues of founding fathers, as he has claimed in this speech. Instead, he's focused on protecting Confederate namesakes and monuments. That's been the heart of the president's focus over the last week. Yet now, he is trying to recast that battle. But certainly, these remarks from the president, on a 4th of July where America is facing these crises, divisive and certainly not unifying for this country Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.
[Allen:] The coronavirus has scarcely been mentioned in President Trump's recent speeches, although he did falsely claim that 99 percent of all cases are, quote, "totally harmless." There is no medical evidence to support that. But as far as Mr. Trump is concerned, the pandemic is under control.
[Trump:] We have made a lot of progress. Our strategy is moving along well. It goes out in one area and rears back its ugly face in another area. But we have learned a lot. We've learned how to put out the flame.
[Allen:] You can see Florida is not just a flame. It is an inferno. The state reported more than 11,000 new cases on Saturday and surpassed the worst day for new cases in New York from back in April. But that is not stopping people from celebrating the 4th of July holiday the way they always do, heading to the beach. Boris Sanchez has more about it from Clearwater.
[Boris Sanchez, Cnn Correspondent:] Yet another record-setting day for the state of Florida. More than 11,000 new coronavirus cases reported here in the last 24 hours. That means that, in the first three days of July, the state has seen over 30,000 new COVID cases. To give you some perspective, the state of Florida saw about 100,000 new cases in the month of June alone. Local leaders, the state's governor, Ron DeSantis, leaving it up to local officials to determine what restrictions they wanted to put in place. But here on the western part of the state, just outside of Tampa at Clearwater Beach, folks were coming all day to enjoy the waves, to play sports, to enjoy the sand and surf as well. There are signs out that are warning people to try to stay socially distant, six feet apart from people who do not share the same household. They are also asking groups to not congregate. Groups of 10 or more are not allowed here. Though, throughout the day, we did see groups of much larger than 10 people enjoying the beach. Actually spoke to one woman named Kathy, who told me that she moved from Alabama to Florida in the middle of the pandemic. She says that she's concerned about the risk of coronavirus but that she wanted to enjoy the holiday weekend on the beach. Here's more of what she shared with us.
[Kathy , New Florida Resident:] I just think that we all should wear masks and protect ourselves as best as we can, you know and keep, you know, keep the social distancing going on and, you know, that's it. If we're going to get it, we're going to get it. I'm happy to be here. I really am. I know that the numbers are going up and I hope it drops but it doesn't seem like it is, so why stop enjoying life?
[Sanchez:] Of course, the big question is, what these numbers will do two weeks from now. Remember, that, after the Memorial Day weekend, when we saw so many large crowds ignoring social distancing guidelines, soon after that, we saw a surge in coronavirus cases nationwide. Two weeks is that incubation period for the coronavirus, so all eyes will be on the numbers, about 14 days from now Boris Sanchez, CNN, Clearwater Beach, Florida.
[Allen:] Now we go across the pond. Pubs and other businesses in England are open once again. And for all those who waited in line to get those first pints, Super Saturday, as it was called, could not come soon enough. Those reopenings would not have been possible without health care workers on the front lines. For the 72nd anniversary of the British National Health Service, NHS for short, the U.K. Is pulling out all the stops. London landmarks have lit up in blue, including 10 Downing Street. Also a nationwide clap is scheduled for Sunday. CNN's Anna Stewart and Salma Abdelaziz both join me from London. Let's start with you, Anna, talking about the country reopening.
[Anna Stewart, Cnn Correspondent:] Yes, England finally emerged from a hibernation yesterday. Lockdown being lifted for many different businesses, pubs, restaurants, cinemas, bars all were allowed to reopen if they had COVID-19 safety measures in place. Good news for many in England, who wanted to get a haircut and go out for a pint. A lot of businesses didn't open. They were concerned, A, those safety measures might, of course, make them financially unviable. Other people are concerned about the anxiety still in the U.K. Lots of people aren't ready to go back out as normal. Take a listen.
[Unidentified Male:] I am not risking going into a pub immediately. I think having a beer outside, which we've been doing for weeks anyhow, is fine. And it's actually quieter here today than it has been, because pubs are open. Not in a rush to go to cinema. A restaurant would be nice. I wouldn't go into a pub or a restaurant myself. But takeaway, I'd do because I don't want to be around lots of drunk people, probably batting into you.
[Unidentified Female:] Excited for a bit of brunch, a few restaurants and things, it would be really nice to get back to a little bit of normality. But obviously, we still do need to be safe and trying to keep that distance from everyone as best we can.
[Stewart:] There have been fears that there would be overcrowding and possibly overindulging in alcohol in England yesterday. I would like to show you some video of central London last night, where we saw crowds. It didn't look like there was a lot of social distancing going on. We're looking at a younger demographic there. It will be concerning, particularly as London has a high rate in terms of the virus transmission.
[Allen:] Yes, absolutely. And when bars opened in many parts of the United States, Anna, young people did flock there. And that is considered a big reason why we are seeing these spikes. So fingers crossed for those pub goers there in London. Now let's go to Salma. She is on another story for us, an important one, celebrating the front line health care workers that have done an unbelievable job during these very difficult days.
[Salma Abdelaziz, Cnn Producer:] That's right, Natalie. It's hard to overemphasize how beloved the National Health Service, the NHS, is in this country. The declarations of love are everywhere. You see a mural to them here. It's not just graffiti, as it is in this East London neighborhood. It's posters, billboards, little crayon drawings in the windows of homes that say, "We love the NHS." It's the least political thing in this country, the most beloved organization. If you are hearing a politician talking about the NHS, he is usually talking about funding it more, not less. Even prime minister Boris Johnson, when he became ill with coronavirus he was hospitalized at St. Thomas' Hospital. That is an NHS hospital, cared for by NHS workers. When he was released he said, "They saved my life, no question." So there is a great deal of gratitude in this country because, of course, the NHS, the doctors, its nursing and medical staff have been on the front line for months. Dozens losing their lives to the virus. There has been some controversy over the government not providing adequate PPE to the NHS, not protecting particularly minority members of the health care community because they are disproportionately impacted by coronavirus. Today it's about honoring the sacrifice and tireless efforts that they have made and perhaps, in its seven decades of history, this is the most difficult and most poignant chapter in the NHS'history and everyone will be applauding the NHS and its work at 5:00 pm local time today.
[Allen:] All right. So well-deserved. Thank you, ladies, for bringing us the latest. See you soon. In October 2019, an international panel created a scorecard of sorts ranking countries by their ability to handle a major health crisis. It was called the Global Health Security Index and it concluded that the United States was best prepared in all the world to handle a major disease outbreak. The U.K. was number two. But months into an actual pandemic, both of those countries have had the highest number of excess deaths, over and above what would be seen without a crisis. As of June 2020, the U.S. has had more than 122,000 excess deaths. The U.K. nearly 66,000. I want to talk about this now with Clare Wenham, she is in assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She joins me now live from London. Good morning to you, thank you for coming out.
[Dr. Clare Wenham, Assistant Professor Of Global Health Policy, London School Of Economics And Political Science:] Good morning.
[Allen:] First up, regarding that scorecard. The U.S. was ranked first out of 115 I'm sorry 195 nations. The U.K. was ranked second. And by June, they are two of the world's biggest failures in tackling this pandemic. How did that scorecard get it so wrong?
[Wenham:] The scorecard, what it did was it looked at policies that were written to implement in the case of an epidemic or health emergency. It looked at all sorts of capacities that governments had to detect an outbreak. So what surveillance systems they had in place, what surge capacity they had in their health systems and how they would be able to respond. However, what the scorecard did not account for was political decision-making and how governments were going to react. Thus, what we are looking at here is this difference between policy and actual implementation. What is going to happen when it hits and And Gavin Union and I, who wrote this piece decided that we need to figure out how to engage this political decision-making in how we measure how prepared countries are for an outbreak.
[Allen:] Right. We know that the U.K. has just come out of a three-month lockdown; in the United States there's really no federal program. It has been left up to states and many of the governors have left it up to cities. As far as Boris Johnson goes and his leadership there and Donald Trump here in the United States, are there commonalities in how they approach the pandemic and the government's response?
[Wenham:] Absolutely. The governments around the world are all faced with the same decision. It fundamentally came down to if they were going to prioritize population health or their economy. What we see in the U.S. is a prioritization of the economy. What we see in the U.K. is somewhere mixed between the two. But this led to certain policy pathways that made governments somehow, particularly the U.S. and the U.K., feel they were exceptional, that this was not going to be an issue for them. We see these distinct tensions between not setting up track and trace systems, not using the time advantage they had when this outbreak was mainly in East Asia, to prepare. We see a questionable relationship between policymakers and political decision-makers and science and the role of what they consider to be legitimate science. And then, you know, we see these distinct tensions in both countries between who is being affected. In the U.S. it is high infection rates among black and Latinx communities. Here in the U.K., it's amongst black and Asian and minority and ethnic communities. So we see this distinct tension that needs to be taken into account. These are political decisions and political prioritizations.
[Allen:] Even in the United States we hear our president saying the U.S. has made a lot of progress in controlling the pandemic. Yet cases continue to rise in 36 states. Hospitalizations are hitting record numbers in Texas and Arizona. Houston, Texas, had two counties even send out an emergency alert because the hospitals were full. Can the United States get this under control if the president continues to characterize the situation as like, well, it's going well? In fact, he even falsely claimed that 99 percent of all cases are totally harmless.
[Wenham:] You can't make progress, you just need decisive action. What this virus needs is for people to be separated. If people aren't separated, it cannot spread between the 2. So perhaps different states or different counties need to re-integrate and really put these lockdown policies back into place. Or at the federal level. But the problem that is political suicide to implement a lockdown having come out the other side of it. But I think we really need to ask the administration, what is more important to them? Because actually the short term lockdown is going to be better in the long term for the economy. Population health, it is fundamental to a functioning economy. You need people going out and buying. If people are not well enough to go out and do that, it is a false dichotomy. So I think they just need to get a grip on it now before it gets even more out of hand.
[Allen:] Right. And we know that there are people that are wearing masks and social distancing and there are people who do not heed health experts advice to distance and quarantine when necessary. Where could we be if and when a second wave comes in the fall?
[Wenham:] I think it's far too premature to talk about a second wave. We are still very much in the first wave, particularly in the U.S. and most of the Americas. So I think it's a bit premature. I think what it has shown us is a difference between how populations engage with government. In East Asia, where people, when governments suggest people wear face masks. Everyone did it because everyone recognized the risk to their health and their communities. That showed a much better outcome than in the U.S. with the same advice being issued or mixed advice being issued. But actually, you know, there is this tension between how people trust in government. We really need to have trust in government at a time a crisis, particularly when it requires individual behavior change.
[Allen:] Clare Wenham, professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, we appreciate your expertise. Thank you.
[Wenham:] 'Bye.
[Allen:] Next here, thousands of people are on lockdown in several Melbourne, Australia, public housing blocks. The latest on what's happening there in a live report.