Trump retreats and acknowledges governors will have the authority to open their states when they're ready
Anderson Cooper 360
CNN
3.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2020
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And good evening. Thanks for joining us today after saying that his authority to tell |
| 0:04.5 | states when to live coronavirus restrictions is, quote, total President Trump tonight |
| 0:09.1 | reversed himself without acknowledging that he was reversing himself completely. At a |
| 0:13.9 | briefing that was preceded by Dave Joustin with Democratic governors over this very issue, |
| 0:18.1 | as more Americans died or fell ill, the President's night said that governors, not him, will |
| 0:22.6 | decide when to reopen their states. |
| 0:27.0 | I will be speaking to all 50 governors very shortly, and I will then be authorizing each |
| 0:36.3 | individual governor of each individual state to implement a reopening and a very powerful |
| 0:46.4 | reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as most appropriate. The day |
| 0:56.1 | will be very close because certain states, as you know, are in much different condition |
| 1:03.7 | and in a much different place than other states. It's going to be very, very close, maybe |
| 1:10.4 | even before the date of May 1st. |
| 1:16.6 | So keeping them honest, as constitutional scholars and other experts on the subject have pointed |
| 1:20.9 | out and as we pointed out last night, the governors do not need the President's authorization. |
| 1:26.5 | They are not sitting by the phone waiting for an official authorization to reopen their |
| 1:30.7 | states. In addition, saying before the date of May 1st, as the President puts it, that |
| 1:36.2 | is before the expiration of the Centers for Disease Control's social distancing guidelines, |
| 1:40.5 | as they now stand. |
| 1:42.0 | And just today, Dr. Anthony Fauci called even a May 1st reopening in part to the country |
| 1:46.3 | quote, a bit overly optimistic and said of the widespread testing that would be needed |
| 1:50.9 | to safely left restrictions, quote, were not there yet. That said, it was as close to |
| 1:55.8 | a total about face as one could imagine, though unacknowledged. And though it certainly |
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