increasing in 39 states. school districts in houston and san francisco announcing they will begin the new school year online. alabama will now enforce a mask arizona continue to resist any mask mandate. >> again it's really way beyond resist in georgia. the governor signed an order prevents cities from issuing mandatory mask orders and in some cases this reverses orders in place. why? georgia is seeing record hospitalizations. as for the nation, 137,000 deaths in america. and how does the president use his political capital to address this? here it is -- beans. beans and a smile with 137,000 americans dead. now, there are signs that that is not enough for america this morning. beans and a smile. new polls show the president's standing is plummeting. he did fire his campaign

manager, more on that coming up. this morning, we are seeing signs too that beans and a smile are not enough for mayors and governors around the country including republicans. listen to what maryland governor larry hogan, a republican, writes this morning. he says, i've watched as the president downplayed the outbreak severity and as the white house failed to issue public warnings, draw up a 50-state strategy or dispatch medical gear or life-saving ventilators from the national stockpile to american hospitals. eventually, it was clear that waiting around for the president to run the nation's response was hopeless. if we delayed any longer, we'd be condemning more of our citizens to suffering and death and this morning we have heard from federal experts on this show who say it's time to just move beyond the federal government. >> let's talk about that, john. joining us now is cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta. things are not getting better, but getting worse.

we talked to beth cameron and dr. reiner, both of whom had been involved in past white houses. beth was on the obama pandemic task force and what they both suggested was we're in a dire situation. it's time to stop waiting for any life line from president trump or the white house and it's time for governors like larry hogan who john just quoted there to band together, call their own conference and come up with some sort of unified plan. your thoughts? >> yeah, i mean, first of all, you can't believe we'd have to be in this position. i have covered over pandemics, h 1 n 1, covered zika, ebola, there was always a national plan. this did not have to be this way. i think that right now you're running into the situation where so many of these states are red lining. they're having to figure it out for themselves and you know you saw what happened in the northeast earlier on where you

had the banding together, at least regionally to try to address this, recognizing it's hard to keep the states in a particular bubble. as good of a job as you're doing there aren't many examples of that anymore, but as good of a job as you're doing, unless there's a regional -- hopefully a national plan, you're still vulnerable. what sort of strikes me -- i obviously live here in georgia, is that as you mentioned, you have these clashes between state and local leaderships. so we have seen the clashes between state and national. but also, you know the city of atlanta versus the state of georgia where the governor is saying now you can't even enforce this mask ordinance that mayor bottoms tried to do. saw the same thing in texas and in arizona and then they finally came around. the fact is that we know how this story ends. we know where this story goes. it's just a question of how long is it going to take to get there. and what is the price you're willing to pay to get there. and in georgia we are seeing the

numbers continue to go up. the school districts are saying the same thing here as in california, we won't go to in-person learning and what's it going to take? ultimately, this is almost a philosophical question, what is it going to take for people to actually act in these situations. clearly the governor here in georgia is just in some ways doing -- is carrying the water for the president. the president visited here yesterday. he wasn't wearing a mask. technically, according to the ordinance in atlanta, that was something that could have received a fine. instead, the georgia governor comes out and says the mask ordinances cannot be enforced. so that's the situation we're in here. >> it's time to do less is it odd policy when you have record hospitalizations in your state? it's an odd time to say we must do less here in georgia, which is effectively banning cities from instituting mandatory mask orders. if they want, it's effectively what the governor did there. on hospitalizations, sanjay,

this was the chart that struck me as the most ominous this morning. when you're talking about national hospitalizations from coronavirus, we're right back up where we were. nationally, at the worst of it. this isn't a test. this is people sick enough to be in the hospital around the country right now. you can see we're right back there. >> you know, the constant in all of this as we have said now for several months is the virus. we know exactly how the virus is going to behave. it's a contagious virus. as people become increasingly mobile, not wearing their masks, we know more and more people will become infected. we can predict as we have been, you know, that's going to lead to hospitalizations within two to three weeks and we can predict sadly that a few weeks after that it will lead to the increase in deaths. there's a couple things that are i think worth reminding people of. that the virus itself is deadly. we know that. we still don't have an exact fatality rate on this because what is influencing the death

rate here in the united states as you do the math on the right i'd of the screen has more to do with totally preventable things. if you surge hospitals, hospitals are red lining they can't take care of all the patients that they would normally be able to take care of. that was the whole flatten the curve model. if you can't take care of the patients you'd take care of, you will start to have preventible deaths and that will drive up the fatality ratio. what's an exponentially larger problem to this is the inadequate response to this. that's driving the death rate 20, 30 times higher than it needs to be here in the united states which is, you know, which is catastrophic. so we can predict where this is going to go over time. i should point out, again, there's countries around the world that haven't had significant deaths. i want to put up a couple of examples, you know, i don't know if we have the graphic to show. countries around the world that

over a period of time take finland, greece, new zealand, thailand, taiwan, since early june, whenever it may be, they have had zero deaths in these places. what does that reflect? that reflects a trajectory where they were able to get case counts down. they were able to get hospitalizations down and now they will see the positive ramifications of that, no deaths. they don't have a magic vaccine or a magic therapeutic than we have, yes they're smaller countries but if you start to do the math, entire regions of the world have been able to do this and we're still very much headed in the wrong direction. >> sanjay, such an important point. i'm so glad you're emphasizing it and governor hogan who has this op-ed out this morning talked about that very same thing. i'll read you this quote. while other countries were racing ahead with well-coordinated testing regimes, the trump administration bungled the effort. meanwhile, instead of listening

to his own public health experts the president was talking and tweeting like a man more concerned about boosting the stock market or his re-election plans. you can hear how frustrated governor hogan of maryland is and i guess the point is, what you're saying is that there's so much that is mysterious about this virus, but how to keep it in check is not serious. we have other successful models that we could have used. >> i completely share his frustration here and you know that, you know, it's been frustrating. we have had these conversations for so many days on this program for so many months. i completely share his frustration. i was up late into the night last night talking to various institutions that are still trying to figure out testing. they call me because they see me on television and they say, hey, look, we are trying to get these people tested over here. we're hearing we can't get tests and if we do get tests, it could take up to a week to get the results back. that doesn't sound right, what gives? i'm like, i mean, that is the

situation right now still in the united states of america, that the vast majority of people in most places in this country can't get tested and if they do get a test it takes forever to get those test results back. 2 1/2 months ago, we talked about the fact that we needed significant breakthroughs in testing. there are the testing machines that are going out under the emergency use authorization and the health care providers are saying, do they work, how does this actually all come together? this was a simple problem to fix. you're right, alisyn, the novel virus, we're still learning about it. there are mysteries about it, but the basics of how to handle this were pretty clear and they were pretty clear from the start. the testing i said was the original sin, but if you go back even a step further we never took this seriously and now we're wasting time with this cannibalist problem of people

eating each other up in the white house and not talking about the masks and having a national strategy. the numbers are going to continue to get worst. 60,000 people may die by august 1st, we were shaking our heads, it's the middle of july we're more than double that and the numbers are -- the pace at which these numbers are increasing is very concerning. we've got to do something. i share the governor's frustration. i share frankly most of america's frustration at this point. >> it didn't have to be this way. it didn't have to be this way and it's not this way in other countries around the world. we have uniquely bungled this. dr. sanjay gupta, thank you for being with us this morning. and be sure to join sanjay and anderson cooper for a cnn town hall tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. so you can see the political impact of all of this on the president. you see republicans like larry hogan speaking out against the president.

you can see the results in the polls with the president trailing badly and now the president fired his campaign manager. i'm not sure the polls are reflecting failures on the campaign manager's part. that's next. but a resilient business can be ready for it. a digital foundation from vmware helps you redefine what's possible... now. from the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours... to the university moving hundreds of apps quickly to the cloud... or the city government going digital to keep critical services running. you are creating the future-- on the fly. and we are helping you do it. vmware. realize what's possible.

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side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. go on with your bad self. you may pay as little as zero dollars for botox®. ask your doctor about botox® for chronic migraine. you got this. breaking news. a major shakeup in the trump campaign overnight. brad parscale is out as the president's campaign manager. demoted as the president's poll numbers plummet and the president's rating as to his

handling of the pandemic simply overwhelming disapproval. joining us now is the political strategist and john harwood. that's a symptom of a larger political illness, shall we say, that is illustrated in two national polls which say very much the same thing that came out in the last 24 hours. >> yeah. you can't demote the candidate and that's where the problem is right now. look at these double digit leads for joe biden. in the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, john, 51% to 40%. again among registered voters and at quinnipiac university, an even bigger biden lead. 52% to 37%. this is a low point for donald trump. these double digit leads are bigger than what these polls have shown just a month or so ago. it's not heading in the right direction for the president right now. >> and there's often some mystery about what is driving

poll numbers to go a certain direction here. there's no mystery this morning. it is the handling of the pandemic. his ratings, very poor here. >> yeah. it's everything. i mean, look at this, 37% approval in the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. 59% disapprove. i think the approval numbers even are a bit lower in the quinnipiac poll and what you're seeing also especially in the quinnipiac poll you're seeing the approval of the coronavirus and the overall job approval is sort of -- you see that 35% there. it's very close to his overall job approval. to your point, john, it is his handling or mishandling as what the american people are saying in the polls of the coronavirus pandemic that is driving down his numbers and we're seeing it, not just with swing voters, not just democrats. we're seeing it with some core groups of his base as well. >> all right. john harwood at the white house is going to join this discussion

now. brad parscale, he's not handling the coronavirus pandemic for the president. it's not parscale's fault that the president has handled the pandemic as he is. nevertheless, give us the headlines on the palace intrigue there. parscale out, bill stepien in. >> well, throughout the spring, as the president has trailed joe biden and now that deficit has been getting worse, there have been rum blings that the president is unhappy with brad parscale. he thinks he makes too much money. that he's calling into campaign meetings from his pool in florida. he drives a ferrari, that sort of thing. you know, the president when things go bad typically looks for somebody else to blame. i think if we step back and i think david would agree with me on this, in any circumstance, a presidential campaign staff has limited effect on the course a campaign. it's too high profile. with the incumbent president, it has particularly minimal impact because the

president has been in everyone's living rooms for four years and this president has singularly been in the faces of americans. his problem and this was true even before the coronavirus is that people have gotten tired of what he's -- his behavior and how he has handled the office of the presidency. now they see significant real-world consequences from the handling of this coronavirus and take the issue that is right on the table at this moment. what do we do about schools in the fall, all parents are worried about it, the businesses are worried about it. the president said just open up the schools. right now in the quinnipiac poll, 61% of the american people don't approve of the way he's handling it and by 2-1, americans say they think it's unsafe to send children back to school. the president's on the wrong side of that issue. bill stepien can't do all that much about that unless you get the president to change his approach. if you're a republican looking for good news here, it is that

brad parscale was not an experienced campaign manager. he came of it the 2016 campaign which was unique and idiosyncratic and stepien is coming out of the more conventional politics like chris christie. maybe that can persuade the president to act differently but nobody is holding their breath on that. >> the poll shows some slippage for the president. you talked about approval on his handling of coronavirus among his core supports, rural voters and white voters without a college degree, but just his approval rating among republicans in general he's suffering a little bit. >> yeah. so in the approval i think we see that down to 84% among republicans. obviously still most republicans are with the president, john. but it's this little slippage that is actually significant. in the horse race, in the biden versus trump match-up he gets 84% of republican support.

joe biden is in the 90s. so there's a little bit of erosion from key constituencies here, his fellow republicans, and just a little bit of an erosion in your base when your entire strategy for 3 1/2 years has been all about jazzing up that base, not about trying to win the middle, the middle is gone for donald trump right now. but now we're seeing because of his handling of the virus this chipping away at the core supporters as well. that's a problem given the way he's built his entire approach for the last 3 1/2 years. >> it's interesting, larry hogan, not a donald trump fan. the republican governor of maryland has been on his own path as a republican governor. nevertheless, i haven't heard him quite as unrestrained as he is this morning as he's releasing parts of his new book. and let me read one more part of this that we haven't read yet in terms of how hogan thinks he has

handled the coronavirus pandemic. an undertaking as large as a national testing program required washington help we expected something thor than constant heckling. trump disabused us of that expectation. that's not subtle at all. this is a republican and i wonder if that gets to the issue again of larger republican support for the president. >> absolutely it does. and remember, larry hogan was considering the idea, flirting publicly with the idea of a primary challenge to president trump long before anyone ever heard of the coronavirus. he ultimately backed away, decided it would be a kamikaze mission not worth doing. now his state and other states are struggling with the pandemic for some time. he's frustrated with the federal response and the president's standing in the country and even within certain segments of the republican party has declined. larry hogan has been trying to get the president and

republicans in congress to agree to provide billions and billions of dollars in state and local aid to states like maryland that have seen the bottom fall out on their revenues in coronavirus. so this is that frustration talking as well as the political opening that is presented by the fact that the president has been moving backwards. >> john harwood, thank you. david chal yen, thank you. appreciate both of your time. in just minutes we'll see if the unemployment crisis is getting worse. we have new numbers coming out in minutes. that's ahead. no matter where you live, where you live has never mattered more. for over 100 years, realtors® have been providing expert guidance, helping people find new places to dream and thrive. when you're ready... look for the r.

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more countries are rolling back their reopenings and reinstating restrictions amid a surge in new cases. cnn's reporters are covering the developments around the globe for you. >> according to the ministry of health and family welfare in india is just over 30,000 cases short of reaching a million confirmed cases of covid-19. over 400 million people across three states in india are re-entering lockdown conditions after witnessing a spike in the

covid-19 numbers. on wednesday, more than 32,000 new infections have been reported. this is the highest jump in daily numbers that india has seen. i'm bill weir in brazil where the most famous covid-19 patient in all of the land, president jair bolsonaro, confirmed that he tested positive for covid-19 for the second time in as many weeks. he remains in semi isolation at the presidential palace. but he is itching to get back to work. there are 51 separate requests for the lower house for impeachment of this president. more in the recent days since the mismanagement of this pandemic. but the politicians say the last thing they need in this crisis is more politics. i'm angus watson, in sydney,

australia. victoria has suffered the worst day of the coronavirus as they try to stamp out the largest wave in melbourne. the curve is shooting upwards despite residents being on lockdown for over two weeks now. the state has been completely cut off from the rest of the country in an effort to try to stop the spread. the australian economy is shrinking because of the pandemic. over 900,000 people here without jobs now. the worst figures in over two decades. >> our thanks to or reporters all around the world. millions of americans remain out of work as the pandemic worsens. now they face losing a key life line, the enhanced unemployment benefits they have been receiving are set to expire. vanessa yurkevich with much more on this. this was so crucial to a lot of people. really kept them afloat for months and months, but folks are about to lose it now. >> that's right, john. it's really happening at the worst time. in just two weeks americans who

are unemployed are going to be losing the extra $600 a week as part of the stimulus package and this is happening that covid cases are surging around the country. states are rolling back the reopenings and people are seeing themselves filing for unemployment for a second time. delie that sanders picked up her life and moved to atlanta in january. she wanted to make a difference. >> the reason i became a doula is because i wanted to make a difference and i figured this is a good area to do that. it's a celebration of pregnancy. >> reporter: her hopes of getting the business off the ground, gone. she's one of millions of americans now without a job on unemployment. >> covid seems to be getting worse and not better so at least here in the city of atlanta, we're in the process of going back to phase one. so i may not be able to go into

the delivery rooms any time soon. >> reporter: it is about to get worse. in two weeks the extra $600 a week in unemployment that's helped americans like sanders to pay their bills will expire. >> it's going to be a total economic devastation. the unemployment insurance program is the life line for workers in this public health crisis. >> reporter: this life line is disappearing. just as some states roll back their reopenings. forcing many workers back on unemployment. up to 23 million americans could be evicted from their homes by the end of september. >> when i take the $600 away that would reduce me down to $300 a week which is for me not really feasible as far as covering my bills. >> reporter: cara steele has been waiting 17 weeks for unemployment. she's making some drastic decisions. >> what is most important that day? you know? am i going to go out and buy

something to eat or am i going to purchase some medication or am i going to you know save my funds to go to the doctor or put gas in my car. >> reporter: she's a bartender in new jersey where indoor bars and dining remain closed. the back pay she's owed from unemployment will go straight to her bills, piling up for months. >> when is everything going to reopen? because if i'm getting the $120 a week without this extra $600 what happens if i'm not going back until october, november, december? or until there's a vaccine? >> reporter: the unknown is leaving many americans paralyzed and with congress unlikely to pass an extension of the extra unemployment benefits by july 31st, sanders faces a stark reality. giving up. >> i would feel very set back. i mean, it took a lot of self-encouragement for me to even decide to leave my job and move to another city to kind of chase after a dream.

so if it gets shut down, i kind of feel like i did all of this for nothing. >> and like almost everything with this pandemic, women and people of color are being affected the most. one advocacy group says that of the people losing the $600 a week, about half will be women and of that total about half will be people of color and alisyn, i have spoken to so many people unemployed over the last four months and they do not want to be on unemployment but there's no other option for them. even though we're seeing some jobs coming back, alisyn, there's not enough to be able to re-employ so many millions of people who are just looking for a job and really just looking for financial help at this point. >> vanessa, those personal stories really just drive it home. thank you very much for sharing that reporting with us. all right. we have some breaking news right now. the labor department has just released the new jobless numbers.

christine romans is here with the breaking details. what do they say? >> they're stubbornly high, 1.3 million filings for unemployment benefits again last week. this is now 17 weeks in a row where we have seen a million plus. it's not the 6 million at the very beginning of the pandemic which was simply catastrophic. but it tells you this pace of week after week of layoffs continues here. 51 million claims since mid march. that's more than 30% of the pre-pandemic jobs market. here's the wrinkle now. a concern going forward as you have the resurgent virus in places like texas and arizona and florida where you have closures again, you see more jobless claims going forward. there's another indicator in here that we talk about every week, continuing claims. that would show there's been a little bit of hiring and we are seeing that number come down a little bit. so watching that one very, very closely again to see if we can get a trend -- a better trend overall, just to say 51 million

people either furloughed or laid off over the course of 17 weeks is something that is just unheard of in this economy. but it is happening. this is the coronavirus recession. this is a pandemic that is still under way and it's simply devastating for the labor market. >> it was unimaginable, those numbers months ago. thank you very much. nascar just hosted the biggest crowd at a sports event since the shutdown four months ago. we have it for you in the bleacher report, next. with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad.

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this morning the biggest u.s. sports crowd since the pandemic began, andy scholes has more in the bleacher report. andy, nascar did it. >> yeah. good morning, john. so up to 30,000 fans were allowed at nascar's all-star race last night in bristol, tennessee. this was the biggest u.s. sporting event since mid march. now they did not release official attendance numbers but it appeared that at least 20,000 fans were socially distanced throughout the stands. the track can hold 160,000. masks were only required for

entry so fans could take them off once they got to their seat. according to the speedway by buying a ticket, fans assume all risk of exposure to covid-19. and agree to release the track from claims that might result. chase elliott ended up winning the race and a million dollar prize. >> what a better night to have fans back than tonight. i mean, you're all awesome. all those number 9 hats and t-shirts up in the stands. love to see it. there's no feeling like it. and -- >> now before the race, a plane was flying over the track pulling a confederate flag banner. nascar of course banned that flag at the races last month. similar flag was flying over the raceway at talladega superspeedway last month. because of government regulations, 50% capacity is allowed at the track which is up to 60,000 people. they're selling tickets not only for the grand stand and for the

infield. it will be the biggest sporting event in texas since the pandemic started. >> texas, by the way, which is seeing record deaths and near record hospitalizations. nevertheless, it was a very interesting picture to see with the stands, people spaced out in those stands. it will be interesting to see the impact of all of this to say the least. thank you, andy. so older teachers and those with underlying health conditions face a tough choice if their schools reopen. do they risk their lives or quit? we'll speak to a florida teacher about this next. helps you redefine what's possible... now. from the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours... to the university moving hundreds of apps quickly to the cloud... or the city government going digital to keep critical services running. you are creating the future-- on the fly. and we are helping you do it.

vmware. realize what's possible.

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after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. go on with your bad self. you may pay as little as zero dollars for botox®. ask your doctor about botox® for chronic migraine. you got this.

schools in houston and san francisco are the latest to announce they will have only online classes starting in the fall. teachers and parents across the country trying to figure out how to get children back into the classrooms safely. cnn's martin savage is live in jacksonville, florida, with more. what are you learning, martin? >> good morning, alisyn.

you know, this is really a strange time for back to school. many school districts in florida are struggling to come up with the plans. many parents are still trying to decide whether to send their children and there are teachers who are actually not only working on lesson plans, but their wills as well. angry parents and anxious teachers protest outside of duval county's headquarters. driving home the message with coronavirus cases sky rocketing it's no time to put kids back in the classroom. >> i'm a teacher, i have been with duval county for 23 years. i have a mother at home that is sick and if i'm to get the coronavirus, i don't want to bring it back to her. >> reporter: duval county teachers are supposed to report to work august 3rd. students due back a week later. >> my daughter doesn't want to go back to school. she wants to keep the family safe. >> reporter: when duval county shut down classroom learning last march for the 129,000

students, the county had just five cases of coronavirus. now as schools prepare to reopen, the county has nearly 14,000 and climbing. do you think it's a safe time to return? >> no. >> reporter: the only way marla bryan's 15-year-old daughter is going back to school is online. so you think it's politics? >> i 100,000 think it's politics. >> reporter: last week, there was an executive order that required the districts to reopen brick and mortar schools five days a week starting in august. on the same day president trump tweeted schools must open in the fall. jacksonville and duval county is also hosting the republican national convention and the state's republican governor has echoed trump's message, likening going back to school to reopening a store. >> if you can do home depot, if you can do walmart, if you can do these things, we absolutely can do the schools. >> reporter: critics contend shopping is optional, education

isn't. especially for teachers. something made painfully clear by this teacher speaking to a virtual st. john's county school board meeting. >> we know if we go back in at full-time and at full or mostly full capacity, some of us will die. >> do you believe that teachers will die? >> do i believe that teachers will die? i don't -- my goodness, i hope not. i certainly would never take an action that would cause teachers to die. >> reporter: the district is spending $1.6 million on personal protection equipment for the staff and 44,000 students including everything from plexiglass dividers to hand sanitizer, to face shields for pre-k students. >> sometimes i will get that from the parent. i want it to be 100% -- i want you to guarantee me there's not risk. i can't guarantee there's not risk. >> reporter: but he'll do

everything possible he'll do everything to keep everyone as safe as possible including his own 5-year-old daughter who will be walking into the classroom. >> i have confidence for the decisions i have made for it to be the right place for her to be and that that it's a safe environment and the learning that's going to happen is going to enrich her a great deal. >> a little bit of trepidation? >> oh, absolutely. yeah. i would be foolish not to say that there's not -- there's not a little bit of concern. >> already as you point out st. john's is saying they're going to delay reopening, pushing it to perhaps the very last day of august. hoping by then the coronavirus numbers get better. but that only begs the question of what if they don't? what happens then? alisyn? >> martin, thank you very money for all of that reporting. meanwhile as school districts consider reopening, older teachers or

immunocompromised teachers are wrestling whether to go back into the classroom in the fall or quitting their jobs. joining us is a sixth grade science teacher in jackson county, florida. good morning, dave. >> good morning. >> so you have been a teacher as i understand it -- a science teacher for 14 years. do you enjoy it? >> oh, my only regret about teaching is not starting teaching sooner in my life. >> i know you would like to continue -- >> it's what i do, yes. >> yeah. you consider it your calling and you would like to continue doing it, but now you have other concerns. you're 64 years old. both you and your wife as i understand it have some significant health concerns. so just tell me about the kinds of conversations you two are having at home. >> well, i was planning on retiring at the end of this

school year. and all our -- you know, our financial calculations were based on that date. now i'm looking at pushing my retirement maybe to this year, to avoid contact with this virus. and so it's having an impact financially on my family and just the whole cloud of corona. i mean, what do we do? you work towards retirement. you have a certain plan now. i might have to modify that plan. >> you have as i understand it type ii diabetes. your wife is a breast cancer survivor. so i understand why you would consider pushing up your retirement, but, you know, the commissioner of education in florida says that, you know, it's safe for kids to go back to -- into the classroom or that it's safer i suppose than them being at home and so what's your response to that? >> my response to that is when

the governor's office is open for visitors, when commissioner cochran will take visitors in his tallahassee office. when school boards decide not to meet virtually because of safety issues, then i would consider our schools to be safer. when we received proper funding to ensure the safest classrooms possible, then i would consider it to be safer. right now, we have been given yet another mandate, a demand to perform, if you will, with zero leadership what i consider zero leadership from tallahassee. and the -- zero funding to accomplish what it is they want us to do. >> you point out that you are a veteran. you do not scare easily. >> yeah. >> but, you know, you say that you feel like they're forcing you to go back into the

trenches. >> well, literally and figuratively. i spent 12 years in the infa infantry. i'm not hard wired for stress. i'm able to absorb what's going on, make a good plan of action, if you will. and they are putting an assumed level of risk on teachers and students and our most vulnerable students that quite frankly i find untenable. no school year -- i'm sorry, no those that passed from covid this year. and that's what we're looking at. martin mentioned earlier part of my prep this year is i'm looking at setting up a will. it's just -- it's mind boggling. >> that is mind boggling. your prep as you prepare for this school year is not just your syllabus. it's setting up a will.

>> this is the most exciting time of the year for teachers, quite frankly. i mean, you're getting your class list. getting ready to practice your craft, to work with kids, really to do something. and now it's -- knowing the class list, get the will ready. get your affairs in order. i mean, that's just -- that's just teaching today in florida. >> so what are you going to do? i mean, if this -- if your school is open for, you know, in classroom learning and kids are coming back, what's your plan? >> you know, and again, like a lot of things, it -- we're -- it's a great unknown. i mean, i have health considerations. my wife has health considerations. but i want to be able to enjoy

the retirement that i have been working towards. and in order to do that, i have to crunch the numbers. you know, make decisions and right now, i just have not made that final decision. >> well, dave galloway -- >> i'm not the only one thinking about it. >> no, i hear you. i understand that you're not. and it's really interesting to talk to you and hear about the type of calculation you're forced to make this month. please let us know what you decide. we really appreciate you sharing your personal concerns with us. >> and i appreciate the opportunity. thank you. >> thank you for the work he's done for the kids. he should be working on lesson plan, not a will. all right, time now for the good stuff. a very courageous 6-year-old boy being hailed as a hero after saving his sister from a charging dog. he was brutally attacked by a german shepherd to save his

sister. when his aunt shared the story on instagram, captain america himself, chris evans, took notice. promising a special reward. >> well, you're a hero. what you did was so brave, so selfless. your sister is so lucky to have you as a big brother. your parents must be so proud of you. i'm going to track down your address and i'm going to send you an authentic captain america shield because, pal, you deserve it. we need people like you. hang in there. i know the recovery might be tough, but based on what i have seen, i don't think there's much that can slow you down. >> oh. what a nice guy. anne hathaway also shared the story. she said i know a superhero when i see one. great on chris evans. that is awesome. >> bridger really took that

exciting announcement of getting a shield stoically. i think he was stunned that chris evans was talking to him through the ipad there. >> well, he's a superhero. he knows how to play it cool. >> you're right. a lot of breaking news this morning. our coverage continues after this. m out no matter how far away. anything to report? (kevin) nothing. (brad) exactly like the last nine hundred eighty-three days. apartments-dot-com. the most popular place to find a place.

good morning, everyone. i'm poppy harlow. >> i'm jim sciutto. this morning, the rush in this country for new restrictions as the virus rages across the u.s. local leaders, major retailers they're doing something that the president and many state governors do not. that's mandating masks to try and stop the spread and clearly, taking the lead. they have little choice as the nation is closing in on 3 1/2 million coronavirus cases. 39 states are now battling an increase in cases. just look at that m