Trump Pushes Schools To Reopen; Interview With Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D); U.S. Tops Three Million Cases, More Than 132,000 Deaths
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. We're following breaking news this hour. The United States has now passed three million confirmed coronavirus cases. More than 132,000 Americans have lost their lives since the pandemic began. And more than 1,100 Americans died just yesterday from the coronavirus. The rising death toll is especially concerning in hot spots like Florida, Arizona, and Texas, as at least seven states are now reporting record hospitalizations. Amid the surging crisis, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, refused to directly answer whether or not the president has confidence in the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. The White House is also pushing ahead with a pressure campaign to reopen schools all across the country. Vice President Pence announced that the CDC will be revising its guidelines for schools after President Trump complained on Twitter that those guidelines were very tough and expensive. Let's begin our coverage this hour with CNN's Erica Hill. She's got more on today's coronavirus developments. Erica, Los Angeles County, for example, is now warning residents the coronavirus is surging to levels not seen there since the initial peak of the pandemic back in April. Update our viewers.</s>ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, that's right. Hospitalizations, as you just said, are at levels not seen since April. The public health director said that is because of community spread. Cases, infections, and hospitalization rates all on the rise. She says there has been a slight uptick in deaths as well and she fears that there could be more death to come, because, as we know, those numbers lag behind.</s>HILL (voice-over): These classrooms need students, according to the administration.</s>BETSY DEVOS, U.S. EDUCATION SECRETARY: They must fully open, and they must be fully operational.</s>HILL: The American Academy of Pediatrics says in-person learning is best, if it can be done safely.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We really believe that every state has the ability to do that. But for those individual communities that may be seeing outbreaks, we will work with them.</s>HILL: Despite a statewide mandate to open schools in Florida, Miami- Dade and Broward counties won't send kids back if they're still in phase one.</s>CARLOS GIMENEZ (R), MAYOR OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA: We will see what happens in August.</s>HILL: In Georgia, which just topped 100,000 confirmed cases, the state's largest school district pushed its start date back by a week. Texas will let parents choose where their kids learn. The nation's largest school district, New York City, will use split schedules for its more than one million students.</s>RICHARD CARRANZA, CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: We know that we cannot maintain proper physical distancing and have 100 percent of our students in school buildings five days a week.</s>HILL: Mask requirements, new cleaning protocols, and flexibility all part of the new curriculum. As cases surge across the Sunbelt, the White House Task Force is advising hot spots to buckle down.</s>DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: It's really asking the American people in those counties and in those states to not only use the face coverings, not going to bars, not going to indoor dining, but really not gathering in homes either, and decreasing those gatherings back down to our phase one recommendation, which was 10 or less.</s>HILL: In less than a month, the United States has added a million new cases. There are now more than three million nationwide, the country averaging an additional 51,000 a day. In the past week, 14 states posted their highest seven-day averages.</s>DR. PETER HOTEZ, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: The cases don't really tell the true tragedy of this, that the patients are piling now into hospitals, into ICUs.</s>HILL: Forty-two hospital ICUs in Florida are now full. More than 50 have just 10 percent of their beds available. In Miami-Dade County, where the positivity rate just hit 28 percent, the number of patients on ventilators is up more than 100 percent. Arizona has just 145 ICU beds remaining. Hospitalizations in California are up more than 40 percent.</s>DR. LEANA WEN, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: The best that we could hope for now is to put out these multiple fires around the country and get to a point of a slow burn, where there is a steady rate of infections and, unfortunately, deaths.</s>DR. ANDREW PASTEWSKI, JACKSON SOUTH MEDICAL CENTER: These aren't 80- year-olds that should die. These aren't 80-year-olds that were going to die next week. These are 80-year-olds that contracted a virus because a group of people just didn't want to wear a mask and they had to go out and have fun. I had a mom and grandmother drive themselves into my hospital, and only one drove home.</s>HILL: We have heard from officials in multiple states about their concern when it comes to young people, especially asymptomatic young people, spreading the virus. And that has played into decisions made by colleges. We just learned the Ivy League, those eight schools that make up the Ivy League, the Ivy League is going to pause its sports this fall, noting in a statement that they have a responsibility to make decisions in the best interest of the students, as well as the faculty and staff, calling them extremely difficult. They will be looking at further protocols and guidelines, perhaps even for practices, moving forward, but, as of now, that fall sports season on hold -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Yes, that's an important development, indeed. All right, Erica, thank you very much. Let's get some more from our White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, he was nowhere to be seen at today's Coronavirus Task Force briefing. Tell us about that.</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Wolf. That briefing was held at the Department of Education about a mile- and-a-half down the road from the White House, which is where Dr. Fauci was attending that meeting via tele -- excuse me -- videoconference. That is what he was asked to do this morning, instead of coming to the Department of Education for that meeting, which means, of course, he could not attend the briefing that happened shortly thereafter. And when the White House was asked today, they said it is up to the task force to decide who attends the meetings and those briefings in person, of course, meaning the vice president's office. But when Kayleigh McEnany was asked if the president still has confidence in Dr. Fauci, Wolf, this is how she answered:</s>QUESTION: Does the president still have confidence in Dr. Fauci?</s>KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has confidence in the conclusions of our medical experts, but it's up to him to determine what to do with that information and to take what we hear from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, and others, and take what he values in their opinion and come to the ultimate consensus that's best for this country.</s>COLLINS: So, that is not a, yes, he does still have confidence in Dr. Fauci, obviously, Wolf. And it comes as just today the president was feuding with another one of his top health officials, the CDC director, over that guidance on reopening schools.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): The CDC director on defense, after President Trump publicly attacked his agency's guidance on reopening schools.</s>DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: I want to make it very clear that what is not the intent of CDC's guidelines is to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed.</s>COLLINS: Dr. Robert Redfield sought to defend the guidance, but hours after President Trump publicly complained that it was too tough, Vice President Mike Pence said that's why the CDC will issue new guidance next week.</s>PENCE: The president said today we just don't want the guidance to be too tough. And that is the reason why next week CDC is going to be issuing a new set of tools, five different documents that will be giving even more clarity on the guidance going forward.</s>COLLINS: The original guidelines include refitting classrooms so students can social distance, closing shared spaces, and updating ventilation systems, though it is not clear what Trump disagreed with. Asked if he was changing the guidance to appease the president, the CDC director said this:</s>QUESTION: So are you going to change that guidance because the president said he does not like it?</s>REDFIELD: We will continue to develop and evolve our guidance to meet the needs of the schools and the states that we continue to provide that assistance to.</s>COLLINS: The president has said publicly that he will pressure governors to put kids back in classrooms this fall. And, today, he threatened to cut funding if they don't. The vice president described that as a sign of leadership. (on camera): Can you explain why the president is threatening to cut funding from schools, at a time when educators are saying they need more so they can safely reopen?</s>PENCE: Kaitlan, first and foremost, it's -- what you heard from the president was just a determination to provide the kind of leadership from the federal level that says we are going to get our kids back to school, because that is where they belong.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): While Trump has little control over the majority of school budgets, the federal government could withhold emergency relief funding that educators have said they desperately need to safely reopen. The education secretary said she agrees with the president.</s>DEVOS: They must fully open, and they must be fully operational.</s>COLLINS: The administration has said it is up to schools and local governments to decide how they reopen. But they struggled to explain why that doesn't also include when.</s>PENCE: It's just as the president said earlier in this pandemic, that he wanted to get our places of worship back open again.</s>COLLINS: New York City's mayor appeared to ignore Trump's threat today and announced that the nation's largest school district won't fully reopen this fall. New York's governor said Trump's threats have no legal basis.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): And you are not going to bully New Yorkers. That is not going to happen. Right? Threaten me, threaten me, threaten me. How many times have we been through this? I'm still here, right?</s>COLLINS: At the second task force briefing in months, Dr. Fauci was noticeably absent. Yesterday, Trump openly criticized Fauci during an interview.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Dr. Fauci said, don't wear masks, and now he says, wear them. And he said numerous things. Don't close off China. Don't ban China. And I did it anyway. I sort of didn't listen to my experts, and I banned China. We would have been in much worse shape.</s>COLLINS: Now, Wolf, I also asked the press secretary, what exactly was it in the CDC guidance the president didn't like so much that he publicly attacked it? They only listed one thing, and that was this guidance that all students should bring their lunch to school, noting that they didn't think that was feasible, given that so many kids rely on schools to get their lunches. But they did not list anything else that it was the president didn't like, as they insisted he is on the same page as the same CDC whose guidance he was criticizing this morning.</s>BLITZER: Kaitlan Collins reporting from the White House -- Kaitlan, thank you very much. Let's discuss all the late-breaking developments with the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms. Mayor, thank you so much for joining us. Before we get to some of the substance, tell us how you are feeling. I know just the other day you told all of us that you have tested positive for the coronavirus.</s>MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Well, thank you for having me, Wolf. I have a runny nose. I had a scratchy throat and headache yesterday, everything that I would consider to be symptoms of my seasonal allergies. And so I have been asymptomatic, by and large. My husband is the one who is catching it, or -- he has -- his symptoms are a whole lot worse than mine.</s>BLITZER: Well, what kind of symptoms does he have?</s>BOTTOMS: He's been sleeping nonstop. I have never seen a person sleep this much. He literally has been asleep since Thursday. He wakes up for very small periods of time. I just went to check on him just before joining you. He has a low-grade fever today, just very fatigued.</s>BLITZER: We have spoken in the past. I know you and your husband, you have four children. And you have told us here in THE SITUATION ROOM that they have some underlying health issues as well. How are the kids doing?</s>BOTTOMS: Well, one has tested positive, which is very concerning. But, thankfully, that child is asymptomatic. But what is most troubling, we have had a series of COVID tests, just getting tested regularly, and I had one after I had recently attended a funeral and decided to test the whole family. It took eight days for those results to come back. And had we gotten those results back, we would have known we had an asymptomatic child in the house. At that point, my husband and I were negative. We were tested again on Monday of this week, and all three of us were positive. And I think that really speaks to the problem that we're having across America. People are asymptomatic. They don't know that they are infecting others. It is taking so long for us to get test results back. And had we known, perhaps my husband and I could have avoided contracting COVID-19 and putting the rest of our children at risk.</s>BLITZER: Not just your kids and your husband, but you have also said that you spent time with your mom just on Sunday, before you knew for sure you had coronavirus. Is that right?</s>BOTTOMS: Spent time with my mom. Spent time at our police headquarters. I went inside City Hall and had a meeting with my senior staff. So I have been around a number of people. Probably, this is -- has been a more active week for me, because I'm not usually out and about that much. But, thankfully, I was able to go back and contact everyone that I have been -- that I knew of that I have been in contact with. But this is why we can't get to the other side of COVID-19. Other countries have gotten to the other side of it because there has been decisive leadership from the top, and they have been very intentional about testing and making sure that people were wearing masks, all of the things we are not doing. So, when I hear this president say he wants to get the economy going again and he wants kids back in school, then maybe we should look to other countries and look at the things that they have done to get to the other side of COVID-19. We're going to keep going around this -- in this circle, and we're still going to be here next year at this rate.</s>BLITZER: It's hard to believe it took the mayor of Atlanta, what, eight days to get the results of that coronavirus test. How is your mother doing?</s>BOTTOMS: Thankfully, my mother was negative, and my two -- my other two children -- three children have tested negative as well. So I am very grateful for that. She pulled up last night. They didn't even say goodbye. They literally ran out the house with their iPads, toothbrushes, and favorite blankets. No clothes. They just left when they got their results without saying goodbye. So they are all happy.</s>BLITZER: Well, let's hope everybody is going to be fine. We wish, of course, all of you only, only the best. I know, Mayor, that you're taking some specific steps to mandate masks in Atlanta. Tell us what exactly you want to do. What led you to make this decision?</s>BOTTOMS: Well, we have looked at other cities across our state. And, Wolf, you have heard me say before, sometimes, leading is as much about leading as it is following. So, we saw what Mayor Van Johnson did in Savannah. We have seen other cities in Georgia mandate masks. And we decided to give it a moment just to see what the governor and the state's response would be to these other cities mandating masks. And I am signing an order today to do the same in Atlanta. When I look at our COVID numbers, they are going through the roof. Our hospitals are filling up very, very quickly. All of the experts that I'm hearing from are saying that to help slow the spread, we need to mandate masks. And that is what we're going to do in Atlanta, and hopefully it will help some.</s>BLITZER: Before I let you go, Mayor -- and we are grateful for the time you're spending with us -- let me turn to the really important issue of violence in Atlanta that we have seen over these past few days. What do you think is leading to this uptick in violence, in not just the past few days, but recent weeks? And do you fear police may be less active because of the rather tense climate that has developed right now, specifically calls to defund police?</s>BOTTOMS: I think that it is a really bad combination of things, Wolf. And I was giving this some thought today, and I thought about when I was a magistrate judge. And when people would come into court, primarily African-American men, I would say roughly 99 percent of them didn't have high school diplomas, which meant quite often they didn't quite often have jobs. And when people don't have jobs, and they don't have hope, they often don't care about themselves. When they don't care about themselves, they don't care about others. I think there are systemic causes to what we are seeing, but I think in this moment in time we're seeing this combination of COVID and anxiety and angst related to that. We are seeing unemployment rates. We are seeing the challenges we're having with injustices that we have seen as it relates to George Floyd and so many others. And I think it is boiling over in our streets. So, we had a really bad weekend in Atlanta. We have not had a weekend like that in recent memory. And it is happening across the country. And so our police force is responding. We didn't have sick-outs this weekend. We had the officers on the street. But there were so many factors at play and so many incidents that it was a very challenging weekend for us. And it is quite disturbing that this is happening across our country. We have got to deal with the systemic issues, but immediately respond to the needs of our communities, and that's to provide protection for our citizens.</s>BLITZER: Well said. The mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, good luck to you. Good luck to your whole family. We hope all of you have a very, very speedy recovery. Thanks so much for joining us.</s>BOTTOMS: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: Just ahead: Dr. Deborah Birx is urging states with surging cases to roll back their reopening plans. Will new stay-at-home orders follow? Much more coming up right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.