[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] They want $25 billion, billion, for the Post Office.
[Unidentified Female:] Now is not the time to be cutting back services.
[Trump:] But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting.
[Unidentified Female:] That's undemocratic, it's un-American and it's Donald Trump's fault. He's trying to do everything he can to tilt the election into his favor. New potentially promising developments in the search for a coronavirus vaccine. A challenge trial is where you intentionally put the virus literally up their noses and you see how well the vaccine works.
[William Haseltine, Fmr. Professor, Harvard Medical School And Harvard School Of Public Health:] I consider it to be unnecessary, uninformative and unethical. Basically it's treating people like laboratory animals.
[Unidentified Male:] This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.
[Victor Blackwell, Cnn Anchor:] Live look at the White House this morning. Good Saturday morning to you. Let's start this morning with the uncertainty as we head closer to the presidential election. The U.S. Postal Service says that in most states, nearly all states mail- in ballots may not make it in time to be counted, but as it faces the pressure over cutbacks, the Post Office has agreed to stop removing mailboxes in western states.
[Christi Paul, Cnn Anchor:] And this morning in the fight against the coronavirus, more than 1,300 Americans died yesterday and now the American Heart Association is saying COVID related heart damage is worse than they thought.
[Blackwell:] And there's this rebuke from a former Harvard Med School professor. He calls the vaccine challenge trial the government is considering you're going to hear more about that in just a moment unnecessary, uninformative and unethical.
[Paul:] We want to start with the threat to the U.S. Postal Service across the country this morning, though. Last night, the Post Office agreed that it would stop removing boxes in 16 western states and part of two others until after the election.
[Blackwell:] But boxes have already been removed in New York and Oregon and Montana and Indiana and the Post Service says that workers, or at least told workers, in four other states it will be cutting hours of retail operation. Here's CNN's Jessica Schneider.
[Jessica Schneider, Cnn Justice Correspondent:] When Florida holds its primary election on Tuesday, President Trump and the first lady will be voting by mail, The couple requesting ballots as President Trump has repeatedly claimed mail-in voting leads to widespread voter fraud.
[Trump:] I said it will end up being fraudulent because if you look at what's happened over the last few weeks, just look at the few instances where this has happened, it's turned out to be fraudulent.
[Schneider:] But CNN's fact-checking team has consistently debunked that claim. More states are adopting universal mail-in balloting where ballots are automatically mailed to every registered voter. New Jersey is just the latest state. That makes nine states plus Washington D.C. that will now give all voters the option to vote by mail and most also have in-person voting, known as a hybrid model.
[Gov. Phil Murphy:] Everybody gets a ballot. So we're going to have a hybrid model in November.
[Schneider:] Meanwhile, some voters in Virginia, New Hampshire and D.C. say they are increasingly confused by election information they're receiving in the mail. In D.C., there were erroneous instructions and in New Hampshire and Virginia, the mailers contained errors in the return address. In Pennsylvania, Republicans race to turn over evidence that proves their claims of mail-in voter fraud in the state's primaries. It will be a pivotal point in a critical battleground state. The Trump campaign has sued to demand changes to Pennsylvania's mail-in balloting process, but now a judge is making them prove there are problems, Democrats saying Republicans should not be permitted to raise such spectacular fraud related claims, particularly in this national climate. This as the fight over funding at the U.S. Postal Service continues with a new letter from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy obtained by CNN showing the Trump appointee and long-time Republican donor acknowledging some of the recent changes have had unintended consequences impacting the level of service, but DeJoy says the cuts are necessary since the UPSP's financial condition is dire.
[Trump:] People will have to go to the polls and vote like the old days.
[Schneider:] CNN has learned the president met with Postmaster DeJoy last week at the height of funding talks as he opposed widespread vote-by-mail.
[Jena Griswold, Colorado Secretary Of State:] President Trump is lying about vote-by-mail. he is lying about mail ballots. Colorado has a very clean history of running great elections with vote-by-mail.
[Schneider:] We've learned that the internal watchdog for the Postal Service will now review the recent changes made by the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. They include elimination of overtime as well as service slowdowns. The inspector general will also look into whether DeJoy has complied with the federal ethics rules. Now, this comes after lawmakers from both parties have sounded the alarms on these recent changes, calling them disruptive, but DeJoy has repeatedly denied that the changes are meant to disrupt service, instead saying that the cuts are necessary because of the financial situation the Postal Service is in. Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.
[Paul:] And Jessica, thank you to you. Want to go to White House correspondent Sarah Westwood right now because the president isn't president isn't just questioning the security of mail-in voting. So Sarah, we know he's also refused to distance himself from this candidate who's pushing conspiracy theories of her own. What are you hearing this morning? And good morning.
[Sarah Westwood, Cnn White House Reporter:] Good morning, Christi and Victor. And yes, yesterday the president praising Marjorie Taylor Greene, this candidate from Georgia, this Republican candidate who won her congressional primary in Georgia this week. She has openly embraced these QAnon conspiracy theories that have been percolating on the internet, but the president was really focused yesterday on her primary victory and on her popularity in Georgia and when he was pressed on whether he supports the same conspiracy theories that she does, he moved on to another reporter, declined to answer that question. I want you to take a listen to that exchange from yesterday.
[Trump:] Well, she did very well in the election. She won by a lot. She was very popular. She comes from a great state and she had a tremendous victory, so absolutely I did congratulate her. Please go ahead. Go ahead, please.
[Unidentified Female:] QAnon in person and to embrace that conspiracy theory. Do you agree with her on that? That was the question.
[Trump:] Go ahead, please.
[Westwood:] Now, Greene has said that QAnon conspiracy theories are worth paying attention to, that they're worth listening to and I just want to walk you through some of the things that the QAnon conspiracy theory has embraced. it includes allegations, baseless ones, that high profile people have participated in child sex rings, that the deep state has been trying to sabotage Trump's presidency, there's been conspiracies about mass shootings, about elections and also that 5G is somehow spreading coronavirus. Again, there's no basis to any of those conspiracy theories, but that's the kind of thing that Marjorie Taylor Greene says is worth paying attention to and that the president had declined to disavow. Of course it's not the first time that the president has openly embraced baseless conspiracy theories. He's done so with birtherism, with a number of other ones. And also, Greene has become a polarizing figure on capitol hill. Back in the summer when some of her racist comments had resurfaced in media reports, Republican leadership had condemned that kind of rhetoric, but they went ahead and congratulated her on her primary victory. That's a deep red district, so she's very likely to end up representing it on Capitol Hill in November, but some Republicans have been tweeting, disavowing themselves the QAnon conspiracy theory. So she is sure to be a polarizing figure if she does end up in Washington after this election, Victor and Christi.
[Paul:] All right. Sarah Westwood, thank you for breaking it down for us this morning.
[Blackwell:] Thank you, Sarah. The CDC says that people who have recovered from coronavirus do not need to quarantine or get tested again for up to three months.
[Paul:] Now, more than 1,300 Americans, as we said, died from the virus just yesterday. CNN's Brynn Gingras is following the very latest. So Brynn, I know the death toll here, the people that have died in the U.S., they topped more than 1,000. I have to use the word "again" behind that as well.
[Brynn Gingras, Cnn National Correspondent:] Yes. It's a disheartening number, Christi and Victor. Good morning. As you can imagine, the number of deaths that the CDC, other agencies are projecting for the near future, well, those numbers are only going up. The CDC also releasing information about hot spot areas, saying Latino and black communities are being hit the hardest by this virus. This as the White House Task Force's testing expert says the country is doing all it can when it comes to testing.
[Gingras:] The U.S. averaging more than 1,000 deaths a day not for one week or two, but for almost three weeks and now the CDC forecasting by September 5th the country may reach a death toll of nearly 189,000.
[Brett Giroir, Trump Administration Testing Czar:] If there is a good idea, I want to hear it.
[Gingras:] The administration's testing czar Brett Giroir appearing on CNN Friday after health experts challenged his earlier statements...
[Unidentified Male:] Say "ah."
[Gingras:] ... that the country is doing an appropriate amount of testing.
[Ashish Jha, Director, Harvard Global Health Institute:] Right now, we're testing 700,000, 800,000 people, a fraction of the number we need.
[Unidentified Female:] Would you say enough has been done, enough has been done to make sure that everyone who needs a test gets a test in this in this country?
[Giroir:] Everything that can possibly be done has been done. I spend every day trying to increase testing. What I want people to understand, though, is that testing is not the panacea, it is not the answer.
[Gingras:] In Georgia where the state reached its highest death toll this week, the governor is praising his state's testing efforts despite "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" reporting that recommendations from the White House Task Force urged the governor to boost mitigation measures since the state's infection rate is nearly double the national average.
[William Boddie , Georgia State House:] You're going to tell me that the data that the governor is looking at and examining is the right data? Because if it is, we wouldn't be in the top five with other states that are twice, three times and four times the size of the state of Georgia.
[Gingras:] California now at a disheartening milestone after taking a one-two punch from the virus, the state recording more cases than any other state in the country, more than 600,000.
[Unidentified Male:] We're not out of the woods.
[Gingras:] For 53 straight days, Florida counting more than 4,000 new cases daily. There are growing concerns in Illinois which is reporting its highest number of cases since May. One potentially promising note, hospitalizations across the country are declining.
[Dr. Tom Ingelsby, Dir., Center For Health Sec., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Of Public Health:] This virus hasn't changed. It's the same as it was before and it's doing very substantial damage to the country. I think we really have to be very focused on mask use, avoiding large gatherings, social distancing, hand hygiene. This plateau we're in now, it's fragile. It could go back in the other direction if people begin to relax.
[Gingras:] This week, the CDC's director told Americans to expect the worst fall we've ever had. It's why many parents and teachers are still grappling with tough decisions when it comes to schools.
[Matt Chicci, Arizona Teacher Who Resigned Over Covid-19 Concerns:] So I've got a member of my family that, you know, is at high risk and so if I'm put into a classroom of 30 or more kids, it's a small room, there's one exit, the ventilation isn't all that great for schools.
[Gingras:] In Georgia, one district saw 80 cases of COVID-19 just this week, resulting in the quarantine of more than 1,100 teachers and students, parents there calling on the governor to reevaluate the reopening of schools. And new CDC guidance to pediatricians shows that the rate of cases among children, well, it's steadily increasing across this country, which of course possibly tied to, likely tied to more schools reopening. That same guidance shows that kids can get very sick from this virus. In fact, it says if you look at the population of kids, of those hospitalized, one in three are likely to end up in the intensive care unit which, guys, is the same as adults, Christi and Victor.
[Blackwell:] Brynn Gingras for us there in New York. Thank you so much, Brynn. Coming up, the testing of the potential coronavirus, a former Harvard Medical School professor says that these human challenge trials, as they're called, they're known as the controlled infection trials, are unethical and they treat people like laboratory animals. You'll hear more and we'll discuss.
[Paul:] Also, Kamala Harris' former classmate at Howard says she saw something in Senator Harris back then that we're going to see as the election plays out now. That classmate's with us next to tell us more about the VP candidate and what to expect from her.