During the first White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing in nearly two months, Vice President Michael Pence claims Americans are seeing “encouraging news” despite 32 states across the country seeing an increase over the past week. Pence also defended the President’s recent rallies in Oklahoma and Arizona, two states seeing a spike in cases, saying Americans have freedoms of speech and assembly. Marc Lotter is the Director of Strategic Communications for Trump 2020. He joins AC360 and says even in the states with a jump in cases, masks shouldn’t be mandatory statewide and it should be up to the governors, mayor and local executives to put those rules in place. Plus, Texas was one of the first states to reopen but because of the volume of new cases, the Governor has “paused” the state’s phased economic reopening. Dr. Peter Hotez, Dean of the School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University, tells AC360 Texas is in a better position with more people wearing masks and bars closed but he isn’t sure that will be enough to stop the virus.   

 Airdate: June 26, 2020

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