this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. today, the coronavirus curve is going in the wrong direction again. it is rising as the number of new cases surges in the united states, with hundreds of people continuing to die across the nation every day from the virus. in total more than 120,000 people have died from the novel coronavirus, the united states, the u.s. has roughly 4% of the world's population. and according to official numbers, 25% of the world's coronavirus deaths. instead of doing what health officials say to do to stem the spread of the virus, the president is instead mocking those who wear masks making jokes about testing, and he even embraced the racist term ""kung

flu" to describe the virus. this afternoon kayleigh mcenany tried to defend the president's use of the term by first denying that he had used it. >> hello, everyone. >> why is he using racist phrases like kung flu? >> he points to the fact that the origin of the virus is china. it's a fair thing to point out as china tries to ridiculously rewrite history. it's not a discussion about asian-americans who the president values and prizes as citizens of this great country. it is an indictment of china for letting this virus get here. >> kayleigh mcenany's claim that the president doesn't use the term is of course a lie. we all heard it for ourselves. back in march, we should note, when a cbs they wills correspondent, pointed out, kayleigh mcenany was both skeptical and also furious. conway called the use of the term among. and she noted her family's

racial heritage because, of course, such a term could especially offend asian-americans. >> that's highly offensive to american-asian-americans. my kids are 25% filipino. >> finding the term "highly offensive" remains a reasonable position. the only difference is today with the whis defending it are, one, the president used the term to cheers in front of a crowd of supporters. and, two, we are also in the middle of a national conversation about race and racism in ways that minorities in the united states are dehumanized. as cnn's kaitlan collins reports, it's not the only comment on coronavirus that the white house is today trying to clean up. >> by the way, it's a disease, without question. has more names than any disease in history. >> reporter: after the president

used that term saturday night, the white house defended it today, despite citism that it's racist and anti-chinese. terms like that can inspire racism against asian-americans. instead, the press secretary claimed it's just like when the media referred to it as the chinese coronavirus, though no major outlet has referred to it as the kung flu. >> the media has never called it the kung flu. calling it a chinese coronavirus and kung flu are very different. >> the media and your network specifically have repeatedly used the term china virus and wuhan virus and then gone on to deride the president as somehow using a term that they themselves have never used. so we can go through cnn's history. >> reporter: it wasn't the president's only comment from saturday night's rally that has

drawn scrutiny. today the white house faced questions after trump said he instructed his staff to slow down coronavirus testing. >> testing is a double-edged sword. when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people. you're going to find more cases. so i said to my people, slow the testing down, please. >> reporter: at first, white house officials said trump was just kidding. >> come on now, jake. you know it was tongue and cheek. >> reporter: but when the president himself was asked monday whether he had directed officials to slow down testing, he paused. >> did you ask to slow it down? >> if it did slow down, frankly, i think we're way ahead of ourselves if you want to know the truth. we've done too good a job. >> reporter: the white house didn't explain why the president didn't say he was joking. >> the president said he used that opportunity to extol the fact that we have done more than 25 million tests, that we're finding more people because we're doing more testing. >> reporter: trump addressed a partially filled arena in tulsa

on saturday night. sources later said he was seething over the rows of empty seats. though his aides claimed he was in a great mood. >> media reports that he was somehow furious on the plane. there is no grounding and fact. i was with him on marine one on the way there and after. he was very pleased with how the rally went. >> reporter: video of trump returning to the white house saturday night showed a president who appeared deflated with a loosened tie around his neck after campaign aides had assured that nearly a million people had requested tickets. now, jake, on saturday, we told you that six campaign staffers on the president's re-election effort had tested positive for coronavirus ahead of his arrival in tulsa. later that night we learned that two secret service officers had also tested positive. and now the trump campaign has just told cnn that two more campaign staffers had tested positive for coronavirus. the campaign's communications director said in a statement that after another round of

testing of campaign staff that were in tulsa, two additional members had tested positive for the coronavirus. he says the staff members attended the rally but were wearing masks during the entire event. he says upon the positive tests, the campaign immediately activated established quarantine and contact tracing protocols. so these are two people, jake, who actually went to the rally. those six who had tested positive before of course did not go. these two staffers did. so now we have eight campaign staffers and two secret service agents who have all tested positive after being in tulsa on saturday. >> okay, kaitlan collins, thanks so much. i want to bring in cnn's medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta to talk about the virus and the continued threat it poses to the american people. so, the president used a racist slur to describe the virus. white house trade adviser peter navarro told me with no evidence that perhaps the chinese government had purposefully spawned the virus. and we also learned today that the white house is no longer

requiring temperature checks for staffers as they enter the building. what's your take on the example that the president and his team are doing, and whether or not they're doing the right things to beat this? >> no. i mean, i think it's become clear to just about anybody that we're not doing the right things to beat this. he talked about some of the statistics at the top of the show. less than 5% of the world's population, this country. it's pretty clear, i think that not only -- i'm realizing now not only did we get a late start, which i think is also clear. but we now are running the risk of going backwards, of not even trying to catch up. and it's been tough to catch up even under normal circumstances because we went so long, several weeks, without really trying to get a grip on this thing. you look at countries like south korea. and i know people hate these comparisons. you realize, jake, south korea never actually went into shutdown mode. they didn't have to.

people complain about the shutdowns. we could have been in a position where either we didn't need one or a very short one if we had done what south korea did. it's a terrible example to set. it does raise the question about the best path forward. i talked to zeke emanuel who worked on a previous pandemic, asked him what he would have done. what would dr. emanuel have advised the president? >> i think the third week of february i did advise the president and i did say to the president that you've got to do what, say, lyndon johnson would've done or franklin roosevelt would've done which is you create a tornado of activity. so you've got a task force that deals with testing. you've got a task force that deals with ppe. you've got a task force that deals with ventilators and contact tracing. and that just was totally inadequate. and i think it would've made a huge difference. >> we look back on this, jake.

and it's pretty clear now every step of the way this has been a minimized problem. there was no tornado of activity for as significant of an issue as this was. and we're paying for it now, jake. >> yeah. they did succeed with some of those elements, ventilators comes to mind. but certainly the testing and the containing and the isolating. we're going in the wrong direction. i want to show everyone this map now. the states in red and orange are the 23 states that are seeing an increase in cases right now. there are five more states seeing an increase in cases today than there were at this time last week. we are months into this pandemic. and why are we seeing this happen now? >> well, i think that we closed too late. we opened too early. and you look at these states at the beginning of the week last week it was, as you mentioned, 18 states that were sort of headed in this direction. now it's 23. and unfortunately, jake, and i

hate to talk about this stuff this way. but the number of states that are going to be affected i think are going to continue to go up because this virus is spreading. we still don't have a good handle on it. i mean, it's sort of a house on fire sort of situation. i think people are trying to figure out the specifics, do we do x, y, or z in these minimal sort of incremental changes? we have a significant problem on our hands right now. it's a significant problem in the united states. and it's becoming increasingly unique to the united states in the sense that there are other places around the world where they are headed in the right direction. we should see much more states in green right now. that slope should be coming down. and i think instead we found the basement of 20,000 new people becoming infected every day. several hundred people dying every day. that's the best we can do? it's not the best we can do, but now it looks like these numbers are going to start to head up. >> florida passed a hundred thousand cases today.

the governor there says these cases are, quote, shifting in a radical direction toward people in their 20s and 30s. finally an admission from the governor there that this is not because of just an increase in testing. it's actually an increase in cases. >> that's right. and you measure the testing obviously. but you're also looking for the positivity rate. how many of the tests that you perform come back with a positive result? as that positivity rate goes up, that gives you a sense of just how widespread this virus is in the community and in the environment. so the positivity rate has been going up in florida as well. it is not just testing. if you were doing the right amount of testing, first of all, if you'd started doing testing at the beginning, we probably wouldn't be in the situation that we're in now. leave that aside because we clearly didn't start on time. but now if you're doing the right amount of testing, the case numbers should actually go down because you find people, you isolate them, you start to break the cycle of transmission. it's not perfect. people will violate isolation.

people will still go out and about. but it makes a significant impact. again, look at south korea, as one example. look at the e.u. as another example. those places have had significant decreases, not because they have anything that we don't have. >> dr. sanjay gupta, thank you so much. appreciate it. the white house this afternoon admitting that president trump was actually involved in firing the prosecutor who was in charge of multiple trump-related investigations. after the president initially denied it. plus, the fallout from john bolton's explosive claims about president trump. will democrats call bolton to testify before the house of representatives? congressman adam schiff will join me ahead. stay with us. ♪

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this afternoon the white house admitted that president trump was, in fact, involved in the controversial decision to fire geoffrey berman, the former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york's office is

prosecuted and is investigating several trump associates, ranging from michael cohen to rudy giuliani. president trump had previously said he had nothing to do with the decision, that it was all attorney general bill barr's doing. >> we have a very capable attorney general. so that's really up to him. i'm not involved. >> i'm not involved, he said. but today white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany said the president was involved that berman was ousted. so the outgoing chair of the securities and exchange commission who has no prosecutorial experience could take the job. joining us is former federal prosecutor laura coates. let's just start with the obvious. first the president said he wasn't involved. and now the white house said the president was involved. i don't know which one of those claims is a lie. but one of them is. >> and neither of them is very good. the right hand must tell the left hand what it's doing in order for people to have trust and faith that they're saying things that are truthful. and either, here the president

of the united states is completely ignorant of the fact that the attorney general is going to oust somebody that he himself sat down personally with to have an interview, unlike any of the other u.s. attorneys that he replaced at that point in time who said i'm going to do it autonomously. or the president of the united states had his thumb on a scale involving a prosecutor who oversaw cases with people who were within his orbit. so, either way, the president is kind of between a rock and the hard place. the american people are at a disadvantage because they cannot trust the words coming out of either attorney general barr or president trump. it doesn't bode well. >> so berman's office was involved in a number of high-profile cases or investigations with individuals with close ties to president trump, including michael cohen, trump's current attorney rudy giuliani, giuliani's ukrainian associates lev parnas and igor fruman as well as the trump inaugural committee.

in john bolton's book, he promises erdogan that he will stop berman's investigation of the turkish state-owned hulk bank. what happens to any pending investigations now that berman's gone? >> well, perhaps the biggest criteria for him deciding to step down is to say at this point yesterday morning was who would actually succeed him? would it be somebody who would simply be a political pawn? somebody who would just do the president's bidding? this is called the sovereign district of new york, not to denigrate them or have some sort of hub risk. this is supposed to be autonomous. so perhaps his first action was to say on that very notion, jake, who will replace me? now it'll be his deputy i'm assuming. that is going to make a huge difference on whether these cases can continue to go forward

or whether they need to step back. all are around kind of campaign finance related issues from cohen to lev parnas to the trump campaign. so here we are a few month as way from an election. for some reason it has not been articulated yet, clearly. suddenly this person who oversees campaign-related matters and finance-related matters has been ousted. what is this saying to the american people? what message and signal are you trying to send? is it a matter of saying we don't want oversight in this capacity? we already know that the fec has not had the strength it one had. this is very concerning. >> all right, laura coates, thank you so much. we always appreciate your expertise. coming up, a show of support after a noose is found in the garage stall of nascar star bubba wallace. we're going to take you to the talladega speedway next. stay with us. prices of the season on

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at this hour, a major show of solidarity for bubba wallace,

nascar's only black driver in its top circuit. one day after some awful person left a noose in his garage stall. before today's race, his fellow drivers pushed wallace's victory junction chevrolet down pit row as others followed in procession. this comes as the department of justice announced it is investigating this case. cnn's diane gallagher is at talladega super speedway in alabama where today's race is happening. that noose was found in a restricted space. shouldn't that help narrow down who might've been able to put it there? >> reporter: yeah, jake. and in theory it should. in fact, i mean, look, it's quite possible that the person who placed that noose in that garage stall was watching that emotional procession from right here at the track today. because it was limited to essential personnel. so we're talking about nascar teams, officials, medical and security personnel, people who have credentials. the time line that the fbi, the department of justice are looking into right now is as

follows. apparently, a team member of the number 43 car found that noose in that garage stall. they alerted nascar. bubba wallace never actually saw the noose himself. it was the president of nascar who informed him about it. the fbi is here on site in talladega right now going through evidence. we know there are cameras. but nascar would not say if anything or what was caught on camera that might help lead them to it. they said they are talking to people who may be in the area. now, bubba wallace has focused on trying to lead nascar into becoming a more civically minded sport. he tweeted this selfie of him with all of those other drivers standing in solidarity, hashtag, i stand with bubba was actually painted on the infield to show that the sport is behind him in this. >> and we should note that bubba wallace, he led the call on nascar to ban the confederate

flag. nascar complied. they went along with it. some fans of course say that decision does not sit well with them. what are they telling you as to why not? >> that's right, jake. there are signs actually up here near the track that say no confederate flags letting people know why nascar made that choice. i've been to a lot of nascar races across the country. i've never seen so many confederate flags that there were right across the street from here in talladega yesterday on sunday. 5,000 fans were let in but a lot of people showed up to protest. this is why one woman says that the ban doesn't sit well with her. >> when i think of the confederate flag, i just think of good old red neck boys. i really didn't have a problem with the flag. it's just i feel like they're taking people's rights away. >> reporter: i will tell you that nascar executives have been extremely vocal on the fact they feel they made the right decision. bubba wallace, as well as many other nascar fans, people of

color, jake, have thanked them for that saying it's now a more inclusive place, they believe. >> the confederate flag, a symbol of treasonist army that took up arms for the right to rape and kill and own black americans. also this hour in the same church where dr. martin luther king jr. once preached, the public is getting a chance to pay respects to rayshard brooks, the father who was killed by a since-fired atlanta police officer on june 12th in a wendy's parking lot in atlanta. that former officer garrett rolfe faces 11 charges including felony murder. doug collins is calling for an independent prosecutor. he said that the district attorney rushed to charge the officers involved to score political points for his upcoming election. we should note that collins also has an upcoming election. he's running for senate. cnn's natasha chen is in atlanta as people are beginning to line

up to offer condolences. they are also watching closely how this case is being handled, natasha. >> reporter: right, jake. the people who lined up here this afternoon told us that they really are here to support the family and obviously pay their respects to rayshard brooks. but they are also highly concerned about police reform. they lined up outside just a couple hours after the hearse came through here and arrived at the church. we have video of that to show you, closely followed by rayshard brooks' family. there was a sign with rayshard brooks' photo. and the words "killed in atlanta 2020." this part may be hard to see. but in the background of that sign was a faint image of a police badge. you mentioned representative doug collins calling for a special prosecutor because he said the georgia bureau of investigation has not even completed its report. and the d.a. has already filed

its charges. paul howard has responded saying his office is independent and can make independent decisions from whatever the gbi produces, jake. >> all right, natasha chen, thank you so much. it's a crisis situation for one major city. the staggering hospitalization numbers as coronavirus surges in multiple states across the country. stay with us. how about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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staggering new numbers in our health lead. look at this graph of hospitalizations in arizona. that number looked as if it had stabilized in late may, but it has doubled in just this week.

texas has once again broken a record for new hospitalizations. both governors have been criticized for not doing enough to contain the spread of the virus and perhaps being too quick to reopen businesses. as cnn's athena jones reports. >> people are not practicing physical distancing. >> reporter: with coronavirus cases on the rise in 23 states compared to a week ago and more states moving to the next phase of re-opening, experts are sounding the alarm. >> they are not wearing their masks. they're not paying attention. and they're not believing that there is a problem. >> reporter: new confirmed cases nationwide topped 30,000 for two consecutive days, friday and saturday, with ten states reporting their highest seven-day average of new infections including florida, texas, and california where hospitalizations recently reached their highest level since the pandemic began. hospitals also under pressure in states like washington, florida, and arizona. >> our hospital beds have about 17% left in capacity.

we are in a crisis situation. >> reporter: florida today passing 100,000 cases, joining six other states to reach that grim milestone, leaving some localities to pump the breaks. >> we are not having any large venues, whether it's a sporting event, whether it's a rally. >> reporter: many of those testing positive are in their 20s and 30s. and while the white house suggests the jump in cases is due to more testing, experts say the high percentage of positive tests in florida where the rate is past 10% and in arizona where it is around 20%, show the increase is real. florida governor ron desantis, a trump ally, agrees. >> even with testing increasing or being flat, the number of people testing positive is accelerating faster than that. and so that's evidence that there is transmission within those communities. >> reporter: nfl players are now being advised to stop training together. and major league baseball is

shutting down some training facilities in florida and arizona. >> in the face of rising cases, the cdc is expected to issue updated recommendations on masks. moving ahead with re-openings today, new jersey, washington, d.c., and georgia where the six flags amusement park opens to all guests. while new york, once the epicenter of the crisis in america, is taking the next step in what has been a slow, cautious approach. >> we had less than 1% transmission rate yesterday. we went from the highest transmission rate in the united states to the lowest transmission rate. if we see any tick in those numbers, we will respond. >> reporter: now, phase two here in new york city means that offices can operate at 50% capacity. and you can get a haircut or visit a playground. outdoor dining is allowed at bars and restaurants which risk losing their license if they don't enforce proper distancing protocols. here, masks are mandatory in public when social distancing isn't possible. jake? >> all right, athena jones in

new york, thank you so much. coming up, will he testify? a renewed effort by some democrats to get former national security adviser john bolton under oath after he blasted president trump in his new book. i'm going to talk to democratic congressman adam schiff next.

i don't think he's a conservative republican. i'm not going to vote for him in november. i hope it will remember him as a one-term president who didn't plunge the country irretrievably into a downward spiral we can't recall from. >> president trump's former national security adviser john bolton unleashing a torrent of criticism against his former boss making clear he believes that the current commander in chief is unfit for office. in his new book, bolton paints a dramatic picture of a chaotic president entirely driven by what benefitted him personally.

bolton also defends his refusal to testify in the house impeachment inquiry. >> i didn't think the democrats had the wit or the political understanding or the reach to change what for them was an exercise in arousing their own base so that they could say we impeached donald trump. >> joining me now is congressman adam schiff, the democratic chairman of the house intelligence committee who led the impeachment inquiry. mr. chairman, i want to give you an opportunity to respond. bolton said the president puts his self-interest above all else. he even tried to get china's president xi to help him get re-elected. the democratic chair jerry nadler told me he's not interested in hearing from po t bolton. are you planning to call him in front of your committee? >> i think there is actually a lot of interest in congress in hearing what mr. bolton has to say as incredibly belated as it is. and i hope when we come back

into session later this week, we'll have an opportunity to make a decision on that. but, look, he's made some very serious allegations against the president. some of which were known. indeed, the president was impeached over conduct that bolton now fully corroborates in the house's case. but we proved that during the trial. and yet there are other parts of this pattern of putting the president's personal interest above the country that are exposed for the first time that he was reaching out to china in addition to the very public invitation that trump made china to investigate biden. we now know privately he was urging president xi to help him with the purchase of agriculture from key swing states. so, look, these issues, the issue involving the turkish bank. the president undermining his own sanctions on iran to placate autocrats. the american people ought to know the full story about this president's misconduct.

>> well, and that's the point that bolton makes is that if the democrats in the house had taken more time, gone through the legal processes, et cetera, to compel testimony from people such as him, that you could have built a bigger case, not just about the president allegedly leaning on ukraine for election help, but also doing so with china and all the other allegations. he says that you committed political malpractice. >> jake, this is his very weak effort to rationalize why he put his own profit and greed ahead of the interests of the country. and he's having a very difficult time, i think, making that rationalization. because what he's effectively saying is the house should've investigated things i was unwilling to tell them about. now, i don't know what that means other than the house should rely on people that have

more courage than john bolton. and we did. fiona hill and tim morrison and colonel vindman. but he's saying the house should've done more to find out what was being concealed. indeed, in every way that john bolton condemns and indicts the president of the united states, he condemns and indicts himself from concealing this from the american people when they really had a need to know. the fact that john bolton says the president put his personal interests above the countries. indeed, that's exactly what john bolton did when he decided that he wouldn't testify during the investigation, that he would save it instead for this profit-making book. >> so let's talk about some of the substance in this book. according to the original preredacted version of the book obtained by "vanity fair," president trump allegedly told president xi last summer, quote, make sure i win. i will probably win anyway so don't hurt my farms, buy a lot of soybeans and wheat, and make

sure we win, unquote. now, one could argue that the president is saying, hey, a good trade deal would be good for me and good for the united states and it would help my re-election. and there isn't necessarily something nefarious about that. but i'm sure that's not how you see it. >> no. and i don't think that's how john bolton sees it. and that's certainly not the pattern that we have seen with this president. what he was doing at the same time vis-a-vis ukraine in withholding military aid from ukraine, there was no way, shape, or form you could argue that was in the united states' natural security interest. of course it wasn't. but it was in donald trump's personal, political interests. and i think this is what was driving him to urge president xi to help his re-election. and i think you have to look at the president's conduct now through that lens. this is a president who was willing to give away important security concerns vis-a-vis chinese companies like zte and

huawei. he was willing to give more favorable trade treatment to china. and you also have to wonder whether the president's compliments of xi, even during a pandemic in which at the time he was making his compliments, the president knew that xi was concealing information about the spread of the pandemic, you have to wonder whether that too was motivated by the president's desire not to alienate president xi because he needed xi's help in his re-election. >> according to the original pre-redaction book, and this is also in the book but the language is a little different about the concentration camps that the chinese have built to imprison the uighurs, largely muslim ethnic group in china. and trump says go ahead to president xi, you're doing exactly the right thing about concentration camps. >> well, and that's the thing, jake. with that, it's a perfect

illustration you cannot plausibly in any way make the argument that he's advancing u.s. interests or u.s. values by saying such things to president xi. indeed, he would go and sign a bill to criticize china over imprisoning the uighurs. so why is he saying something completely different and contrary to u.s. policy in private? and the answer is to curry favor with this man who he believes is going to help his re-election. you know, we said during the trial, and john bolton just underscored this in his book. you can't count on donald trump to do what's right for the country, only what's right for donald trump. that's exactly the premise of this book, which is that not a single decision he made of any substance departed from what he thought was in his personal interest, even when that was deeply at odds with our national interests. >> all right, democratic congressman adam schiff of california, chair of the house intelligence committee. i'm told it's your 60th birthday today. happy birthday. >> it's a big one. don't know how that happened.

>> all right. thank you, sir. appreciate it. coming up, another day of elections tomorrow. and one fight is exposing a rift in the democratic party with big name endorsements split between two candidates. stay with us. ta-da!

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for small prices, you can build big dreams. spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair today. in our 2020 lead today, it could be a sign of things to come. and it's a huge test of progressive energy when new york holds its primary nor. not only is freshman congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez getting primaried.

so is long-time democratic representative elliot engel. he's being challenged by someone backed by ocasio-cortes on his left. polls show that that could be positioned for an upset. whxings >> when i go back to washington, i'm going to fight for justice. >> reporter: engel could lose his seat. the new york primary race exposing a larger rift dividing the democratic party with hillary clinton, jim clyburn, and nancy pelosi publicly taking sides. against big-name progressives like bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. the matchup reminding some new yorkers of a 2018 primary race next door, when alexandria ocasio-cortez delivered a stunning defeat to longtime

congressman joe crowley. bowman, a first-time political candidate trying to sway voters in new york's 16th congressional district, which spans parts of the bronx and westchester county. >> thank you so much. i got your vote? >> definitely. time for a change. >> absolutely. >> 31 years. >> reporter: the middle school principal accusing congressman engel of being out of touch with his home district. >> congressman engel has been absent, i've been here fighting for our communities for the last 20 years. >> reporter: engel first elected to the house in 1988 and currently the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee, seeing his decades' long record speaks for itself. >> the voters aren't stupid. they vote for me every two years because i know i care about them, i work hard for them, i produce for them. and they vote the way they would like me to vote. bjt r but the congressman facing

questions about why he was hunkered down. engel saying he was simply following doctor's orders. >> they are trying to make a phony issue out of nothing. i was quarantining myself because the place near washington is bigger. and my wife and i in our apartment could not both quarantine at the same time. >> reporter: the congressman also under fire for this hot mic moment at a press conference addressing protests following the death of george floyd. >> when the people see you and they feel your presence and they know you've been here for decades doing the work, you don't have to scramble for the microphone. >> reporter: now we asked congressman engel about that hot mic moment. and he says he feels very, very strongly that black lives matter. bowman said that this issue, as a black man, is personally very important to him. he has been dealing with police brutality his whole life. and his first encounter with the police he said happened when he was just 11 years old. jake?

>> thank you so much for that. president trump's next campaign stop is in phoenix tomorrow. he will be meeting with young trump supporters. cnn's ryan nobles is in arizona in preparation for that trip. this is a state that sees a big spike in coronavirus cases right now. how is the campaign handling that, particularly now that eight staffers of the trump campaign have tested positive after his tulsa rally? >> reporter: yeah, that's right, jake. and even though this isn't an even that's run by the campaign. the fact that the president will be here tomorrow night means that both the campaign and the white house have a bit of responsibility in keeping the president and those that attend this event safely. and there aren't any additional precautions that are expected to take place at this event tomorrow night than there were in tulsa. now, the city of phoenix has instructed that anyone that goes inside of a building or within less than six feet of someone must wear a mask. the event organizers are discussing plans to hand out masks. it's not clear yet where they

are going to enforce those. the other question of course is social distancing. it's a big venue where organizers say social distancing right now is not something they're planning for. jake? >> ryan nobles, thanks so much. our coverage on cnn continues right now. thanks for watching. ♪ this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." we're following an alarming surge of new coronavirus cases across the united states. some of the largest states including texas, california, arizona, and florida are all seeing very dramatic rises with florida passing the grim milestone of more than 100,000 confirmed cases. meanwhile, president trump is refusing to directly answer questions about whether he asked for coronavirus testing to be