Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20200915

I have no doubt. When all in starts right now. Good evening from 30 rockefeller center. Im chris hayes. The topranking Communications Official at the department in charge of combating the pandemic, the department of health and Human Services, is a dangerous crank who is krund undermining science and raving about delusional conspiracy theories. His name is Michael Caputo. The Trump Administration installed him at hhs in april in the midst of this once in a century pandemic despite a history of sexism and racism and conspiracy mongering that would keep most people from getting hired just about anywhere, never mind the Trump Administration. The New York Times reported that caputo posted a video on facebook yesterday in which, get this, he accused career government scientists of sedition, claiming they do not want america to get well, not until after joe biden is president. Caputo also claimed that trumps opponents are now training for an armed ins rex after the election, telling his followers that hit squads are being trained all over this kournlcou quote, and when donald trump refuses to stand down at inauguration the shooting will begin. The drills youve seen are nothing. He added that if you carry guns buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because its going to be hard to get. Ka puto also said this is the guy currently the heaved coms at h 46789 s, right now, this is what he posted yesterday. He also said that he expected these imaginary leftwing hit squads would be coming to kill him personally. Now, these are the ravings of a man completely untethered from relate. But theyre not much of a surprise ive got to say coming from Michael Caputo. The month after he was appointed as the top spokesperson at hhs he was saying offensive things like this. Im so proud of the president standing up in front of the media accusing him of creating a stigma, creating a stigma. By calling it the chinese coronavirus. You know what created the stigma for china . You know what did . By maybe even manufacturing this in, you know, a bioweapons facility in wuhan or maybe its their eating habits where they suck the blood out of bats and eat the [ bleep ] out of anteaters. There is zero evidence it was manufactured in a bioweapons facility, just fyi. So that guy, that Michael Caputo, the guy who thinks a leftwing hit squad is going to kill him, the guy who says theres going to be shooting, stock up on ammunition, the guy talking about eating the ass out of anteaters, this is the man in charge of disseminating Public Information about the pandemic. Probably goes without saying caputo has no background in health care. Hes a longtime ally of yes, you guessed it, roger stone. In fact, he was mentored by him. And he has long worked to boost trump. Authored a book called the ukraine hoax. Hes praised White Supremacists and alt right figures, pushed antisemitic conspiracy theories. While he purged his entire twitter account. He posted and deleted racist and sexist tweets complete with crude references to oral sex and tweets like i would never sleep with you, dog face. Cool guy. This guy isnt just pushing this nonsense, this disgusting, paranoid, dangerous nonsense from his government perch. He is, in fact, actively working to manipulate what the cdc tells the public about the pandemic in what is arguably the single most important Public Health publication in the world. Its called the cdcs morbidity and mortality weekly reports and it had until donald trump been apolitical. Think of it like an epidemiological version of the newspapers stock charts or baseball box scores. Writeups of games. Its a publication that informs scientists and Public Health experts about the latest data and trends in Infectious Diseases. Everyone reads it in the world of Public Health, everyone. On friday politicos dan diamond first reported that Michael Caputo and his team have been working to change the reports to hue closer to the president s more optimistic message. Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the cdcs findings including an effort to retroactively change Agency Reports they said wrongly inflated the risks of covid19. Caputos team also has tried to halt the release of some cdc reports including delaying a report that addresses how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug favored by trump, as a coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence. Thats not all, though. This thing is kind of happening everywhere right now. A Trump Administration appointee, an adviser to caputo, is trying to prevent Anthony Fauci from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children. Meanwhile, top officials said to the cdc to soften its coronavirus testing guidelines. Right . I want to slow the testing down, the president said. In an apparent effort to get case numbers down. The fda says it is willing to fast track a vaccine before phase 3 trials end as trump pushes for one to be released before election day. The times is now reporting that officials are worried about the prospect of an unvetted vaccine and the pressure being brought to bear on the fda. This is what is happening in america in the midst of the pandemic under donald trump. Political hacks, cranks like Michael Caputo. Michael caputo. That guy. They are working in positions of authority to undermine the science we need to fight a once in a century pandemic in an attempt to cover up the illness and death the president is responsible for and to boost the president politically. The politics of denialism are running roughshod over scientists, and we saw it on absolute full display today. Couldnt come up with a better tableau than this. Trumps event in california, which has been devastated by forest fires. We want to work with you to really recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests and actually Work Together with that science. That science is going to be key because if we if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think its all about vegetation management, were not going to succeed together in protecting californians. Okay. It will start getting cooler. You just watch. I wish science agreed with you. Well, i dont think science knows, actually. It will start getting cooler. Thats the guy that said cases would go down to zero, that guy. Before we had 6 million cases and almost 200,000 americans dead. That guy. So its hard to think of anything more dangerous at this moment then letting the Michael Caputos and Donald Trumps of the world tell us what the science knows actually. Joining me now the reporter who first broke the story of Michael Caputo and his team interfering with those cdc reports, dan diamond of politico, who investigates Health Policy and politics, probably the best reporter on that beat in the country. Dan, great reporting as always. Give us a little background on caputos entrance here. Ive got to imagine there were eyebrows raised at the time. And i think some of your reporting suggests the match between this guy in the midst of this moment when Public Information is so vital and important in this agency. He would not be the choice by Public Health experts to lead Public Health information during a pandemic, chris. The background is that there was a concerted effort back at the beginning of the year by President Trump to impose some order on what was seen as a very disordered health department. Two of the top officials were feuding at the end of 2020, or end of 2019 going into 2020. Secretary alex azar, administrator of cms. Seema verma. There was a theory in the white house that secretary azar was perhaps leaking unflattering information about President Trump during the early days of the pandemic, so the president turned to Michael Caputo, an ultimate loyalist, someone who has dated back with the president for decades, as you noted, with roger stone, a longtime ally. Caputo came in to hhs and very quickly started making a mark. He pushed Different Agency officials in the fda, cdc, nih to try and line up more with the president s message on the outbreak, which is very different than the message that scientists have come to. Yeah. I mean, the message has at every turn, right, been optimistic. Were turning the corner and cases are going down to zero. Young people are fine. I mean, Public Health people tend to be people that are worried about the worst risks and try to communicate those ably. I want to talk for a second just about the morbidity mortality weekly report. I remember my dad was in Public Health, i remember growing up we used to get it at the house. I thought it was such a hilariously titled publication. Ive had multiple Public Health people say this is the golden standard publication in Public Health in the world. For Michael Caputo to be editing it or massaging it is shocking and horrifying to them. Well, first the mmwr is a family subscription in the hayes household. It sounds about right to me. But the idea that this was a red line that could not be crossed in science in decades of oversight of the cdc, we have reported, chris, and there has been great reporting in other outlets too on the pressures on Public Health officials for months. This, when i heard about mmwrs being potentially edited or the entire series being halted, that was shocking to me. And we are months into an outbreak that at times has ceased to shock reporters who have been embedded in the trenches covering this story. So Michael Caputo and his aide Paul Alexander for about 3 1 2 months have been pushing very hard to try and change mmwrs that are not seen to line up with the president s thoughts on either children and their risk of coronavirus, hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug that the president has touted, and some other mmwrs that were seen to be too critical of the overall response. Yeah. This is a scandalous coverup is what you are describing. Those are my words, not yours. Perhaps most unnerving is that you report that theyre having success. Right . Around the margins. When you think about the trust necessary to deploy a vaccine in this country, this is really, really unnerving. You say cdc officials have follow the back against the most sweeping changes but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to revut reports. In a few cases compromise on the wording. Thats basically unprecedented as far as i know from the way this interaction usually works. That lines up with my reporting too, chris. I talked to officials in previous administrations, obama, george w. Bush, who said to a person that the cdc reports were sacrosanct. You could not as a political appointee get into the content of the report because once you start doing that, where do you stop . What is the red line other than we need to step back and let these reports breathe. So there is significant concern and i have seen emails of political appointees pushing very hard and at times getting concessions on some of these mmwrs. That is a roger stone acolyte hack overseeing the National Weather service and being like no, no, it wasnt a record temperature in death valley. No, knock it down seven degrees. You cant do that. The reality is what the reality is despite what people want to say about it. Dan diamond, like i said, has owned this beat for the duration of the Trump Administration. Thank you so much for being with me. Thanks for having me back, chris. The Trump Administrations use of the government as a tool of disinformation propaganda is not just on the science, around the most pressing matter we face, the once in a century pandemic thats killing hundreds of thousands of americans. Its a whole bunch of other things too. Today Washington Posts greg sargent had a really good piece about seven ways that trump and his cabal are using government to corrupt the election, which includes officials pressing for findings about civil unrest to be revised, to downplay white supremacist violence, pump up the illusion of an organized leftist domestic terror threat. Sargent also points to attorney general William Barrs push to release a report on the origins of the russia investigation before the election. And amid this pressure from the attorney general, remember, a top aide to the federal prosecutor whos overseeing that report has now resigned. Right . Because she felt it was too much pressure. Then theres the decision by the director of National Intelligence to cancel inperson briefings on foreign efforts to interfere in the november election. As russia once again works on trumps behalf. For more on the ways in which trump is using the pourds of the state for his own benefit 50 days before the election im joined by Christina Greer associate professor of Political Science at fordham university. Christina, i wanted to talk to you because you are a political scientist and in the Political Science literature theres obviously this very wellestablished incumbency figure, its easier to run for reelection than the first time. Name recognition. Theres benefits. If youre a member of congress, you can deliver . Funding for a program. Like how do we distinguish between the normal benefits of incumbency and then sort of the corrupt manipulation of the state to essentially produce an unfair Playing Field . Right. I mean, these are this is the moment were in where were looking at a president who projects all of the things that hes doing, he projects them on his opponent and former opponents, right, on barack obama and Hillary Clinton. When he says theyre going to cheat or theyre going to rig the election or theyre going to encourage people to vote twice, these are all the things that the president is doing. We know that a sitting incumbent always has an advantage largely as you mentioned because of name recognition and because of the ability to oftentimes raise money because people in the past, the records show that incumbency advantage has been real. This president had an opportunity to handle the Coronavirus Crisis much better than he has several different ways. And each time he has failed. So now he really does find himself in a fight for himself to keep this seat. But there is a certain level of comfort that he has because hes already said that hes going to allow russia to intervene. Hes already told the people of North Carolina that they should vote twice and hes already set the stage for the media to say, well, if im not the winner on november 3rd then everything has obviously been rigged. The Election Results are false. And so this means that i have won but you all just dont want me to win. And so hes been sowing these seeds of dissent within the mead media since the very first day. Now were seeing chickens come home to roost when we have a media that still has both sidesism and not taking the real threat of the president very seriously when he says i dont want to leave and if i dont get the results that i want then its clearly a rigged election and why should i why should i listen and why should my supporters not take arms to protect me . In the case of caputo and hhs they put out this contract for a 250 million Advertising Campaign down the stretch of the election about like turning the corner on covid, right . Thats public money. Clearly, clearly being used essentially as a, you know, Campaign Propaganda down the stretch. And, like, all of these sort of questions of what is or isnt appropriate, one of the things were learning here is there is not a ton of rules. Can you do the convention in the white house . You kind of can. Its against the hatch act, but like whos going to enforce . Well, weve seen the president flout rules before. In the past if a candidate or an elected official uses the music of, say, a superstar and the superstar says cease and desist, then that candidate will oftentimes stop using the music. The president is like too bad. Sue me, right . Anyone who lives in new york knows that this is what the president has always done. He says, take me to court. Well get tied up in litigation. Until then ill just keep doing what i want to do. Weve seen the president is using attorney general bill barr as his personal attorney. We are now going to finance the lawsuit of just one woman who has accused the president of Sexual Assault and sexual misconduct. But thats taxpayer money were doing to protect the president. Which is barely a story because theres so much other stuff. This has been like a spaghettithrowing election season but its also been an administration ruled by chaos. So again, each day we have about five different ways that our democracy has been threatened because this president refuses to follow any norms, let alone laws. And the democracy people talk about lots of indications of what the analog here is in authoritarian governments whether its putin or erdogan or fascism of the past. The thing i keep thinking about are just machine politics when theyre at their most sort of vicious, right . Successful machines just produce a situation in which there is no actual democratic competition because the party that runs the machine and the government are the same thing. So if you want something for government thats the only way to get it. And that to me feels like what the stakes are here. Right . I mean, that is what he is attempting to construct. Right. Its a little more complicated, though, because he keeps changing what the machine should look like. So the people within his party on a daily basis have to fit themselves into the machine. We see, you know, in the morning he says one thing and they are sworn to allegiance saying yes, yes, mr. President. We worship the claw, right . And then by the evening he switches his mind and they have to backtrack. All the things republicans said against barack obama are now just fine with President Trump. So the difference with this is that machine politics in the past when you think of places like chicago or new york, there was a method. There was a theory. There was essentially, even if i disagreed with the compass, they had an idea of what the vision of the city should look like. This is a president where its erratic. And as you said, chris, he doesnt read. Right . Hes proud he doesnt read. So he just goes on his gut. He shoots from the hip. And the people of his party have to just run around and try to follow him. We have seen career politicians who were once very respected, even if we disagreed with them we respected them, just completely throw away their legacy. And its mindboggling to see these grown men just turn themselves into pretzels for someone who clearly does not respect them or their party. Christina greer, as always, thanks for your time tonight. I appreciate it. Next up, the president put thousands of people at risk this weekend when he decided to hold a massive indoor rally in nevada, a move the governor calls selfish and reckless. That governor joins me next. S m. So youre a small business, or a big one. You were thriving, but then. Oh. Ah. Okay. Plan, pivot. How do you bounce back . You dont, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. Powered by the largest gig Speed Network in america. But is it secure . Sure its secure. And even if the power goes down, your connection doesnt. So how do i do this . You dont do this. We do this, together. Bounce forward, with comcast business. Last night in the middle of a pandemic which you may know about, its an Infectious Disease that spreads through breathing and air droplets, the president held a massive indoor rally in henderson, nevada near las vegas. Thousands of people packed into a warehouse. Most not Wearing Masks in violation of the states ban on gatherings of more than 50 people. Las vegas review journal spoke to the president and asked him if he felt safe there. Arent you concerned about getting covid, though . In an enclosed room. No, im not concerned. Im more concerned about how close you are, to be honest. Sorry about that. Because you know why . Im on a stage thats very far away. And so im not at all concerned. Dont worry about me. Im far away from the masses of my fans breathing on each other. Im fine. The governor of nevada, democrat Steve Sisolak, blasted the president for taking reckless and selfish actions adding as usual he doesnt believe the rules apply to him. Joining me now is the nevada governor, Steve Sisolak. Its good to have you, governor. Governor, let me start on the legality of the gathering. I mean, was it a violation of state law to have that gathering . Absolutely. It was a violation of our directives on numerous counts. But he doesnt think the laws apply to him either. They only apply to everyone else. He thinks there is a footnote that says does not apply to donald j. Trump. Its absolutely ridiculous. His ego and arrogance get ahead of him. Hes not worried about anybody else. Hes not in jeopardy but however many, three or four thousand people are there and theyre going to take it home to their grandparents and kids and Nursing Homes and veterans homes. Hes not concerned about any of those people. Hes just concerned that, you know, hes going to have his little party. Are you concerned . What is your sense, informed by Public Health officials in your state, of the risk of a gathering like that . Its a certainty. Its not a risk. There is a certainty. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, in our professionals mind, that there are a number of folks that were there at the gathering last night and the one that he had in minden the night before, a number of asymptomatic people. Whether it is 1, 10, 100, 1,000, i dont know how many people were there that were asymptomatic and were cheering and chanting and particulates are going out and theyre spreading the virus. Theyre going to end up in the Emergency Rooms and in the hospitals and on ventilators and the intensive care units. The president just doesnt care. Its just a total reckless, selfish, irresponsible, arrogant thing to do. Just absolutely disgusting. You know, he was criticizing you for saying that everything is locked down. Your governor, he wants to lock everything down. But the things i have read are criticisms in the other direction. The casinos are open. The strip is open. Ive seen pictures showing like theres a fair amount of crowds there. And i understand how important that is to you as an economic engine in your state. How are you thinking about this risk . What is your reaction when the president says falsely that everythings shut down in your state . Well, its just thats just the way he is. George washington said never tell a lie, and donald trump just says never tell the truth. Thats what it comes down to. Hes just that way. You know, we have been very measured in our response in terms of opening things back up. I consult regularly. We have our own task force put together that helps us in terms of defining what we can do and cant do next. Youve got to understand that a lot of what hes complaining about were regulations that came forth from the cdc. Im on weekly phone calls. I probably wont be on anymore because i probably wont be invited after this one. But im on weekly phone calls with the Vice President s task force. And they had us at were in a red zone. That meant no gatherings larger than 10. 10 people. And then we went to red. Its 25 weeks. Expanded that to 50. But its for everybody except donald j. Trump. Thats how that works. You obviously your state is a crucial battleground state. Its been very close in successive elections. You are also taking proactive efforts in your state to make sure people can vote using absentee ballots. There has been lawsuits trying to stop you. The Trump Campaign asking a u. S. Judge to kill essentially the vote by mail undertaking. Walk us through what you are doing to make voting accessible to people and the people that are trying to stop you from doing it. Well, what we did is in the middle of a pandemic, we feel very, very strongly that you should not have to make the choice between exercising your right to vote and avoiding contracting the virus. Thats extremely important. So we had a primary that was mailin. And it went extremely well. I mean, people were able to mail in their votes. Now, in the general election weve expanded it. Everybody will have an opportunity to mail in their ballot. You will have an opportunity for about two weeks to early vote at numerous locations. And on election day there will be voting centers. You can go and vote in person. So there is three different ways that you can vote. What were trying to do is make it possible for every single one of our registered voters to cast their ballot. This is an extremely important election. It is an important election. We encourage people to get out and vote. And thats why we put these situations in place, so you have these different options as you move forward. What is your sense of youre biased, obviously. You are a democrat in that state. But again, its a close state. It always is. Those are hard fought battles. Any statewide election whether in the senate or for governor or president. Your sense of that state visavis trump and joe biden. Well, i think its going to come down to turnout right now. I think Vice President biden has a lot of support here. I can tell you that clearly donald trump has a lot of support here. You showed that, for people that were willing to risk their health and go to a rally. Hes got a very strong base. How large that base is, it remains to be seen. But i think theyre both going to fight about that part in the middle and its down to turnout. Who can turn out their voters theyve identified and its going be to be interesting. I encourage all our registered voters to get out there and take advantage of it. A lot of people are still undecided and were hoping for the best. Governor Steve Sisolak in nevada. Got his hands full on a lot of different ways. Thank you, governor. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Piche the opportunity. Ahead, first donald trump gifted his political adviser roger stone a get out of jail free card and now stone is advising the president to declare martial law if he loses. Why its important to Pay Attention to whats happening in the fever swamps, next. In the fever swamps, next here . Nah. Here . Nope. Here. When the middle of nowhere. Is somewhere. The allnew chevy trailblazer. I got it all from you im always pushing through i know well make it to the finish line i know youre waiting on the other side im like you ondemand glucose monitoring. Because theyre always on. Another lifechanging technology from abbott. So you dont wait for life. You live it. Roger stone is not just any old associate of the president. He is his longestserving political adviser. He played a key role in the 2016 election both publicly and behind the scenes. Publicly roger stone led the Conspiracy Theory campaign about Hillary Clintons health. Remember that . He also amplified russian disinformation and even foretold in public on rightwing conspiracist theorist alex jones radio show that big secret documents were going to leak. The Clinton Campaign narrative that the russians favor donald trump and the russians are leaking this information, this is inoculation because as you said earlier they know what is coming and it is devastating. Lets remember that their defense to all of the Clinton Foundation scandals has been not we didnt do it, has been you have no proof. Yes, but you have no proof. Well, i think Julian Assange has that proof, and i think hes going to furnish it to the American People. Oh, wow. Look at that. Roger stone previewed that to the American People and then it happened. And last year he was convicted of lying to congress precisely about his role as a gobetween with Julian Assange and wikileaks. Two months ago the president took a serious Political Risk in an Election Year to commute his associates own prison sentence. Right . The guy that lied to cover up what he was doing on the president s behalf then got commuted by the president. And that was after attorney general william barr interfered to reduce stones sentence. Okay. So today were learning the justice departments internal watchdog is investigating the circumstances surrounding roger stones sentencing and the attorney general stepping in to interfere. But in the interim, roger stone remains a free man. Hes still speaking out in public. Hes out and its worth paying attention to what hes saying now, just about exactly four years after he was, you know, saying what he was saying last time. Most recently he told alex jones again that the president should seize power by force and basically end the American Democratic experiment. We can prove voter fraud in the absentees right now. Send federal marshals to the clark county board of elections, mr. President. Its all there. I dont want to overplay the facts here, but if someone will study the president s authority in the insurrection act, his ability to impose the martial law, if there is widespread cheating he will have the authority to arrest zuckerberg, to arrest tim cook, to arrest the clintons, to arrest anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity. Force will be met with force. Thats the way this is going to have to work. Its really unfortunate. Okay. So roger stone, again, not just some random crank, not someone in the comments section. Right . The president s closest political adviser saying the president should impose martial law and arrest his political enemies and essentially start an armed coup to take over the country. Thats happening as his longtime ally and a trump protege at the department of health and Human Services as we told you at the beginning of the show is telling people to buy ammunition. Roger stone is notoriously and proudly a cheater. He has a tattoo of dick nixon on his back. And the president is a cheater. Cheating is the way they ran in 2016. Cheating is what they are up to now. And someone who witnessed that cheating firsthand, who sacrificed his career to tell the truth about it, is now breaking his silence. Thats next. The president s impeachment came about because some of the people in the government saw something was wrong and then they came forward even knowing that it would probably hurt their careers. Perhaps one of the most famous of those people, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. You remember him. A decorated veteran of the iraq war. He worked in the president S National Security council. He spoke out about Donald Trumps call with the ukrainian president. You heard the president s voice on the call. I did. And you heard him raise that subject again that ambassador sondland had raised before, about investigating the bidens, right . I did. And you went immediately and reported it, didnt you . I did. Why . Because that was my duty. After that he was basically dragged through the mud. He lost his job at the National Security council. Today he broke his silence and told Nbcs Lester Holt about his experience. You have no doubt that it was the president that ordered your dismissal from the white house. I have no doubt. Were you forced out of the army . Nobody told me that i had to leave. As a matter of fact, if the president were not to be reelected, for instance, i probably could have continued on. But thats a huge if. If he were to be elected the joke was id end up in a radar station in alaska. Lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, who served as an army officer and earned the purple heart, finally speaking out. Remember, it was just last week we learned donald trump attacked his generals for being weak. It was only a week and a half ago reporting came out that the president called americans dying in war losers and suckers. Here to talk about the growing rift between the president and the military and the pentagon is Eileen Cooper who covers the pentagon for the New York Times. Its great to have you on. I feel like vindmans reemergence sort of puts a spotlight on a whole series of stories that show there is it seems to me as an observer tremendous amount of tension right now between the sort of institutional pentagon and this white house and this president with 50 days to go before the election. There is, chris. Its been building for four years now. The interesting thing about Alexander Vindman is we all know what happened because we saw him testify before the house on donald trump and the phone call with ukrainian president zelensky. What we didnt see on video, though, was what happened after President Trump fired him from the nsc and he went back to the pentagon. He was then put on a list to be promoted from Lieutenant Colonel to colonel. And the white house called the pentagon to ask to find ways to not promote him. So his whole career in the military could have continued after he left the white house but because of the pressure that the white house put on the pentagon they kept sending this list forward with Alexander Vindmans name on it to go from, you know to the next grade. And the white house kept calling the pentagon back and saying youve got to find some dirt on this guy because trump doesnt want to have him promoted to colonel. Which is why he ended up resigning. We should note that theres a through line here between what dan diamond was saying about hhs. Thats not normally how this goes, right . Its not normally the case that promotions of this sort have calls over from the white house saying no, no, no, not that person. No. President s do not get involved in that level of Personnel Management at the pentagon. We were starting to talk about not even at the four star, the generals, Lieutenant General to general level, let alone from Lieutenant Colonel to colonel. So thats just an extraordinary breach. But thats just one of many, many times that President Trump in the past four years has really gotten in the face ever this military. I mean, the atlantic story by Jeff Goldberg was just one of so many other instances where trump, it seems as if he the president does not really understand just what it means to be commander in chief. And he looks at the military as somebody as an institution that he would like to see doing what he wants, have a nice parade for him, do this and do that. Take the pentagon money to build a wall, all of that. And when they balk he doesnt like it and he lashes out. Yeah. There has been two other stories i keep coming to. One is the pardons that he offered for several Service Members who were either convicted or accused of war crimes, which ultimately led to the resignation to the secretary of the navy. I mean, you can barely remember that story. But again, this is one of those situations where you know, all this stuff is taken seriously and the clash with even the highest levels of brass over there is remarkable when you line it all up. Its extraordinary. I mean, remember when general mark milley and defense secretary esper walked across Lafayette Square with President Trump right after they tear gassed the protesters . They got a lot of grief for it. They had been clashing with President Trump anyway because they didnt want President Trump to invoke the insurrection act. They didnt want to put active duty troops on the streets of america to quell protest thats were largely peaceful. They didnt think it warranted it. And general milley pushed back afterwards. He came out afterward and angered trump by apologizing. He said i should not have been there, this was not a place for a military somebody in uniform to be. So youve got some theres quite a bit of bad blood at this point between the president and the pentagon. But, you know, you can say that for very you know, any number of institutions now. Right. I want to ask a final question here about something you just wrote about. You have had a remarkable career at the New York Times and youve covered many different things. Ive been reading you why byline for a long time in all sorts of domains. One of the things you covered was ebola. You have this firstperson piece about volunteering to be part of a covid19 vaccine trial. Tell us about your involvement in that. I was watching fauci, dr. Fauci testifying before congress back in july, and he said they needed more volunteers, that he rattled off the name of the website. So i went and filled it out. I dont think i was even really thinking about what i was doing at the time. And then they called me three weeks ago, g. W. , a Clinical Research associate there and said that i had been picked because im a type one diabetic, i have asthma and also because im a black woman so it was like triple risk factors. So i went. I was a little nervous at first, but i went through with it. I went in. Its a doubleblinded trial. This is the moderna trial. Theyre trying to the goal is to get 30,000 people. I was patient number 130 at g. W. And i have had my first shot now. Its a twoshot program. So the shots are one month apart. I had my first vaccination i think it was like early like the 1st or 2nd of september. And my second one is due on september 28th. Now, ive been convinced, which is crazy because i dont know, but ive been convinced that i got the placebo because i didnt feel anything afterward except some muscle aches when i went to the beach. I love the piece and i also thought just it made me think a lot about how much volunteer civicminded sort of, you know, raising your hand is necessary for us to get through these trials at the scale and scope we need to. Particularly people like yourself who have several risk factors. I really like the piece and lets hope we get a vaccine sooner rather than later. Helene cooper of the New York Times. Great to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thank you, chris. Coming up, a close look at one of the voting blocs republicans cannot afford to lose this november. Audible is my roadtrip companion. Its kind of my quiet, alone time. Audible is a routine for me. Its like a fun night school for adults. I could easily be seduced into locking myself into a place where i do nothing but listen to books. I never was interested in historical fiction before, but im obsessed with it now. There are a lot of like, classic and big titles that i feel like i missed out since i dont have time to read, mean i might as well listen. If i want to catch up on the news or history or learn whats going on in the world, i can download a book and listen to it. Because i listened to her story over and over again, i made the decision to go ahead and follow my own dream, which was to help other veterans. I think theres like 180 books in my, in my library now. It changes your perspective; it makes you a different person. Its true, its so true. To start your free 30day trial, just text listen17 to 500500. To start your free 30day trial, another day, another chance tlets do this. Rd. By making internet speeds fast and reliable. So you can keep up with your customers. By ensuring those speeds have wireless internet backup. So if the power goes down, your connection doesnt. And by covering all your connected devices with serious security. So we can handle this. And this. While you get on with this. And this. Be fast, be secure. Bounce forward. With comcast business. Get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just 64. 90 a month. Call or go online today. Dobld trump famously won white women voters in the 2016 president ial election, striking because that happened even with a white woman on the ballot as i amajor Party Nominee for president for the first time in history. An nbc news exit poll in 2016 found 53 of white women voted for trump over 43 for Hillary Clinton. Now, exit polls have their flaws. Theres a lot of debate about how much that number necessarily reflects exactly what happens. But whats really clear is that two years later the Republican Party lost a lot of ground with the same group. White women. In those midterm elections in 2018. The nbc exit polls show white women split evenly. Between democrats and republicans. Thats a tenpoint swing. Dp f. That 10point swing from 2016 to 2018, if that stays with white women voters, holds true in november, thats basically probably game over for republicans or close to it. The question is how much of that swing, how much of that alienation among white women voters, especially those with college degreess structural, is permanent, is driven by a whole bunch of factors, trump and other things, and how much of it is ground republicans can recover this fall . Thats precisely what Washington Post reporter Jenna Johnsons grappling with in her new piece, they voted for him and regret, it why white women are turning away from trump. National Political Correspondent for the Washington Post joins me now. Before we get into some of the sort of qualitative stuff in your reporting, what is your picture of the data . Its a little conflicted. Its a little muddy. Its a little hard to know. Exit polls, theres different sort of methodologies of like what we can say about the trends among this specific demographic. Yeah. You know, this is tricky. And so im going to try to speak pretty broadly about this. But in general theres a general sense that in 2016 donald trump won with white women. It might have been a very narrow win. It could have been a large win. But it seems like he had the upper hand there. Like in 2018 we saw that that was changing. And in polls now were seeing that joe biden seems to be doing better with white women than Hillary Clinton did. And one specific group that i really was paying attention to is white women who dont have bachelors degrees. This is a group that trump clearly won in 2016 and now in polls were seeing biden doing much better than Hillary Clinton did. Trump is still winning with this group. But it seems to be a narrower margin. So basically, this comes down to there seems to be a real opportunity here for joe biden and a major challenge here for donald trump. What do you hear in talking to the kinds of voters who might have voted for trump and have now turned away from him among this sort of demographic subset . What do you hear . What were the explanations they gave . I talked with a bunch of women in pennsylvania who either voted for trump or wrote someone in or didnt vote. And a lot of them said pretty early on in trumps presidency they knew that they didnt like him. And those feelings have only been cemented by his handling the covid19 crisis and his response to police brutality. And i mean basically its a very simple explanation that i hear from a lot of them. They just dont think hes a good leader. Theyre frustrated with how reckless he seems. They think hes selfcentered. They dont think that hes putting the country first. Theyre just tired of him being in the office. Theyre tired of him dividing the country. And especially amid this health crisis, lets remember a lot of white women are, you know, working as essential workers, raising their kids while trying to work. Trying to educate their kids while schools are not in session. Theres a lot of stress on the shoulders of a lot of these women, and you have to think that thats going to have some sort of impact on some of their votes this fall. It was interesting to me the role race played in some of your discussions. Obviously, latino women and black women are overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton. Women of color vote democratic. Black women are probably the strongest democratic demographic and also the most liberal in Public Opinion polling. Right . But race you know, race came up time and time again in your interviews in a really fascinating way. It was really interesting. A lot of times when i do these interviews i just listen and i let the women kind of take the conversation where they think is most important in what they want to say. And in every single conversation race came up. Police brutality came up. The black lives Matter Movement came up. Theres one woman who i spoke with whos a republican and thinks that in the future she might be able to once again vote for republicans but cannot vote for donald trump again this year. And she has two grandchildren who are biracial. And she became very, very upset when she talked about how worried she is about police brutality. But shes much more worried about that than some of the violence thats happening across the country. A lot of these women, they just they call it racism. They do not like the president s racism. They do not like that the president is racially dividing this country. And they feel like things would be better if joe biden was in office. Its also interesting too because the thing you said before about the sort of make realizing very quickly, right . About a sort of buyers remorse setting in fairly quickly, particularly people that actually voted for trump. It tracks with the approval rating, right . Its been real steady. People sort of figured out pretty early on how they feel about this president. Hes been at 42, 43, you know, bumping around for almost the entire duration of his presidency. Yeah. Exactly. Almost all of the women that i spoke with were embarrassed that they voted for donald trump. And they admitted that they really hadnt put that much thought into their votes. They really thought Hillary Clinton was going to win no matter who they voted for. They hadnt really done Much Research into things that trump said or did. They said that at that point in their life they were really busy, they werent monitoring the news. Their facebook feeds were telling them a different story about trump. And theyre kind of embarrassed about what happened. They said that kristi noem good evening, chris. Thanks my friend. Much appreciated and thanks to you at home. Happy to have you at home on this monday night. Theres a lot going on. Were going to continue with the fires. The worst fires in living memory