‘Don’t know what world he’s living in’: CNN panelists alarmed that Trump is ready to give up fight against COVID-19

A CNN panel on Wednesday shredded President Donald Trump for essentially declaring the COVID-19 crisis over at a time when thousands of Americans are still dying every day.

Juliette Kayyem, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Intergovernmental Affairs for President Barack Obama, said that Trump's reported desire to dissolve his own administration's COVID-19 pandemic task force shows he is still in denial about the depth of the crisis.

"Trump has a theory that if there's no task force, then there's no pandemic," she said. "It's clear he wants this to end. I don't know what world he's living in. We're going to continue to have dead and sick, and have states grappling with outbreaks, not just in the next month or two, but continuing into the fall if there's a second wave."

Epidemiologist Dr. Abdul El-Sayed similarly said this is not the time to just pretend that the virus has been contained.

"We've got a really concerning situation," he said. "First, to Juliette's point, yes, the president has dealt with this crisis as if it was just a PR crisis this entire time. The task force is a PR exercise to address this crisis... we're seeing an increase in the rural areas opening up the fastest. This is a recipe for disaster."

Watch the video below.