Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Admits Reopening ‘Not as Bad as I Thought It Would Be’

Appearing Monday on MSNBC, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) conceded that the reopening of Georgia is “not as bad as I thought it would be” after harshly criticizing Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) decision to lift the state’s stay-at-home order.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Mayor, I believe I remember when we were talking to you prior to the quote-on-quote reopening of Georgia, which as we know, was very early, and let’s also remember there’s a robust conversation going on about the quality of the numbers we’re all getting out of the state of Georgia, but I think I remember you saying that you hoped to be wrong, that you hoped the situation would be better than you feared. You also said if you were, in fact, wrong, you would say to the governor, “I was wrong.” Is it a little muddier than being able to say, “I was right” or “I was wrong”? Are we as of the time of this conversation somewhere in the middle, do you think?

MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS: What I can say is it’s not as bad as I thought that it would be. I am pleased about that. But I still think it’s too soon to say. The reason being, whereas initially, we were seeing increases between deaths and people testing positive, rising anywhere from 25 to 30 percent over a seven-day period. Right now we’re somewhere between 12 and 15%. And it’s better than it was, but it’s still not great. We’ve still not seen that 14-day decline, as recommended by the CDC. We’re not quite there where I can say that we are out of the woods, because we are not. Because what we know, as we reopen this state, we’ll also see whether or not this impacts our number of people who are testing positive.