CDC Says COVID-19 will Rank Up a Top 10 Leading Cause of Death; President Trump Cancels Jacksonville Republican National Convention; President Trump to Throw First Pitch at the Yankees Game. Debunking Face Mask and Misconceptions
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: -- CNN Tonight, I'm Don Lemon, 11:00 p.m. here on the East Coast. Today marks a grim milestone in the worst in coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The nation passing 4 million officially confirmed cases. More than 144,000 Americans have now died from the disease today alone. Over 1,000 Americans died from COVID-19. And because of death toll is rising so fast, experts at the CDC telling CNN they now expect COVID-19 will end up among the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2020, the severity of the crisis forcing President Trump to do an about face. Tonight announcing he is canceling the parts of the Republican National Convention that were to be held in Jacksonville, Florida. As we know Florida is one of the hardest hit states. Today it's reporting more than 10,000 new COVID-19 cases and a record number of deaths from the disease. Joining me now is CNN's White House correspondent John Harwood and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, he is the director of the Cardiac Catheterization Program at George Washington University Hospital. Gentlemen, good evening to you. John, a big convention is everything Trump loves but today finally forced to really face reality. The virus is winning. He's retreating.</s>JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No question about it. And I think this announcement today spoke louder than anything the president has said all week as he's resumed these briefings, you know, telling people to wear masks after not doing so, telling people it's going to get worse before it's get better. Then he had a different tone yesterday and said a bunch of things that were not true at the briefing. But this was the big event of these briefings this week. The president wanted that event. He was angry when the state of North Carolina under Democratic governor told him he couldn't have it in the way he wanted to have it. So, he said I'm going to go to a place that will let me have the kind of event I want. He found Florida, where he got a sympathetic Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican run city in Jacksonville. But, in the last few days, the sheriff has said that it was too difficult to do security given the resurgence of the pandemic. And so the president's position became increasingly untenable. Many Republican politicians said, they were not going to go to the conventions. So, he was faced with trying to put on this big event and it have -- it being potentially a disappointment in addition to a potential public health problem. And so he was forced to retreat today. I think that was a signal of the gravity of the situation that was stronger than we have gotten from anything else at the White House this week.</s>LEMON: This is how the president explained his decision Dr. Reiner.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I looked at my team and I said, the timing for this event is not right. It's just not right with what has happened recently. The flare up in Florida. To have a big convention, it's not the right time. It's really something that, for me, I have to protect the American people.</s>LEMON: OK, but Doctor, he still pushing to reopen schools. How do you square that?</s>DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: You can't. This is the same president who, at the end of June, despite record daily cases in places like Tulsa and Phoenix, thought that having rallies with thousands of people was a good idea. But look, Don, there was no way this convention was going to happen. Florida has become the epicenter for the pandemic on the planet. And even under the best possible circumstances, where finally the virus starts to add in Florida and things get better over the next few weeks, there would be no way to bring 10s of thousands of people to Florida and then risk reigniting the virus back in Florida. So, it was destined to be canceled. I think people finally just got to the president and convinced him of that.</s>LEMON: It's interesting how he and the Governor, Ron DeSantis, or bragging about how reopening early did not hurt. And you know, everything was fine and then now, look at what happened. John, listen, President Trump is going to throw out the first pitch at the Yankees game on August 15th. That is what he said. This is what he said at Sean Hannity about that.</s>TRUMP: I hope everyone is standing. I hope they are not going to be kneeling when the flag is raised. I don't like to see that. That would hurt a lot of people in our country. They don't want to see that. With the NFL or baseball or basketball or anything else. We want to -- there are plenty of places you can protest, you don't have to protest on the raising of our flag.</s>LEMON: So, I said this in the last hour that all the nationals and Yankees players kneeled during the anthem. They kneeled during a pregame moment of unity, not during the anthem. So, however, in the Giants Dodgers game tonight, a manager and three players were seen kneeling during the national anthem. So, John, it is going to be interesting to see how this plays out when President Trump is around.</s>HARWOOD: Well, I think it's going to be difficult given the momentum for permitting this kind of a protest and accepting this kind of a protest. Which is much different from when Colin Kaepernick did it a few years ago. It's going to be very difficult I think for -- to get both teams to agree not to kneel when the president throws out that first pitch. When he says a lot of people in the country would be hurt by it, he's the one I think who is at risk of being hurt, being embarrassed. Being felt that he is being shown up if athletes do kneel during the anthem in the game where he's throwing up the first pitch.</s>LEMON: Just for him, kneeling at all. Even if it is not during the anthem. The fact that those players are all kneeling is, you know, to him, an insult. It's insult to injury.</s>HARWOOD: That's right. I think he would take that as a humiliation and I think the players are likely to feel it as a challenge. Like, are you going to back down from your commitment to protests? And obviously, every player is different. But surely among those two teams, there are going to be people who are supportive of protests. It is going to be very hard for them to resist expressing themselves in that way when this very unpopular president goes to throw out the first pitch.</s>LEMON: Yes. And the players now in all the major leagues are feeling powerful and they are standing up in the way that they didn't before this, before the death of George Floyd. Thank you both, I appreciate it. I want to get to the Trump fact checker and that is Daniel Dale. Daniel, good evening to you. You know, we reached a grim milestone that I mentioned, 4 million cases in the U.S. today. But here's what President Trump said about the pandemic earlier.</s>TRUMP: You also see a lot of the countries has no problem whatsoever. Most of the country actually. The country is in very good shape, other than if you look south or west. Some problems that will work out. It goes away and it goes away quickly.</s>LEMON: What's the truth?</s>DANIEL DALE, CNN FACT CHECKER: The country is in good shape, other than if you look south and west. That's like a self-fact checking statement. I don't need to say anything there. Beyond that though, Don. It is of course obviously untrue that most of the country has no problem whatsoever. This virus is everywhere. We have 23 states with rising cases. Week over week. And it's not just states on the West Coast and in the south. It includes states like North Dakota, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana. Dr. Deborah Birx listed a list of cities yesterday that she was concerned about. It included places like Baltimore, like Columbus, like Pittsburgh. So, the idea the president was propagating today, that this is confined to, you know, certain coast, certain spots, it's just not true.</s>LEMON: And even if it's in the south and the west, I mean, there are a lot of Americans who live in the south and the west.</s>DALE: Those are major population's centers. You can't say a lot of those major population centers are doing great. It doesn't make sense.</s>LEMON: Let's take a listen to what the president said about his decision to cancel the Jacksonville part of the convention.</s>TRUMP: They said sir we can make this work very easily. We have great enthusiasm, incredible enthusiasm. Even the polls say about the most enthusiasm they've seen. We can do it safely and we can do it responsibly. I said there's nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe.</s>LEMON: You've noticed a pattern with the president's sir stories</s>DALE: Right. Yes, Don. Basically any time the president tells a story in which he hasn't unnamed person calling him sir. Something about that story is inaccurate. I don't have any proof that this particular story in inaccurate, but in my years of fact checking this man, almost every sir story is wrong in some important way.</s>LEMON: All right. Daniel Dale, our fact checker. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. The U.S. now officially recording more than 4 million cases of coronavirus since the pandemic took hold. More tonight from CNN's Nick Watt.</s>NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: 173 people reported dead today in Florida. An all-time high for that state.</s>MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R-MIA): One person is getting exposed or sick and they are infecting every single member of their household.</s>WATT: Today, we passed 4 million confirmed COVID 19 cases across this country. Now getting to the first million cases took 99 days. The next million, it took 43 days. The next, 28. And getting from 3 million to 4 million, just 15 days.</s>DR. PETER HOTEZ, VACCINE RESEARCHER, DEAN OF THE NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: There's no end in sight in the sense that, if there's no plan to control the virus at a national level, it is not going to go away by itself.</s>WATT: We are now six months in and the president still thinks testing is overrated.</s>TRUMP: Instead of 50, we did 25. We would have half the number of cases. So, I personally think it's overrated, but I am totally willing to keep doing it.</s>WATT: Doesn't he realized that a case is a case whether it is found by a test or not? And unknown case can be contained. That is largely why we test.</s>DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Finding and tracing those very early individuals is really critical.</s>WATT: So says Dr. Deborah Birx, who right now is privately worried by recent upticks and test positivity rates in these 12 cities. Among them, Las Vegas, St. Lois, Baltimore.</s>BIRX: I know it may look small and you may say well that only went from five to five and a half. And we're going to wait and see what happens. If you wait another three or four, even five days, you'll start to see a dramatic increase in cases.</s>WATT: So in all of Oregon bars and restaurants must now close at 10:00 p.m. Anchorage Alaska now reintroducing restrictions on the size of gatherings. Listen to this from a just published study. If the United States had collectively waited longer, opened more slowly and then kept our gathering sizes small. We might have reduced case counts like Europe or Canada and experienced a relatively normal summer. Instead, baseballs opening day is today. Late July, with no fans and no spitting. Last year, opening day was late March. Dr. Anthony Fauci threw out the first pitch at the Nationals. We have ever thought? A mild mannered 79-year-old immunologist would be on that mound? A sign of our times. Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>LEMON: Nick, thank you very much. We all know by now that wearing a mask is one of the best weapons we have against the virus. But there are a lot of myths and misconceptions about masks. We will debunk them with an expert. Next.