Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20200715

National affairs analyst, cohost of showtimes the circus and executive editor of the recount, john heilemann, and nbc news and msnbc contributor shauna thomas. And willie, cant have a rally . Bring the rally to the rose garden with a captive audience. Yes, he did. For 63 minutes, only six of which were spent answering questions from reporters. It was hailed as a News Conference. It was not that. Chief correspondent for the New York Times, peter baker, describes the News Conference this way in his lead piece for the paper in theory, President Trump summoned Television Cameras to the heatbaked rose garden early tuesday evening to announce new measures against china to punish it for its oppression of hong kong, but that did not last long. Peter continues, what followed instead was an hour of president ial stream of consciousness as mr. Trump drifted seemingly at random from one topic to another, often in the same runon sentence. Even for a president who rarely sticks to the script and wanders from thought to thought, it was one of the most rambling performances of his presidency. Peter continues, he weighed in on china and the coronavirus and the paris Climate Change accord and crumbling highways, and then china again, at military spending, and then china again and then the coronavirus again, and the economy and energy, taxes and trade with europe, illegal immigration and his friendship with mexicos president and the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in chicago and the Death Penalty and back to Climate Change and education and historical statues and more. He could go on for days, the president said at one point, and it sounded plausible, writes peter baker. At times, it was hard to understand what he meant. He seemed to suggest that his Presumptive Democratic challenger, former Vice President joseph r. Biden jr. , would get rid of windows, if elected, and later said mr. Biden would, quote, abolish the suburbs. He claimed that mr. Biden had gone so far right he meant left. Even for those who follow President Trump and his shorthand, it became challenging to follow his train of thought to put it mildly. Heres what we heard yesterday from the president of the United States. Joe bidens entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist party. Joe biden supported chinas entry into the world trade organization, one of the greatest geopolitical and economic disasters in world history. As Vice President , biden was a leading advocate of the paris climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our country. America lost nearly 10,000 factories while joe biden was Vice President. This is what he wrote highspeed broadband. We want highspeed broadband. Well, why didnt he get it . Three years ago is not a long time. And he didnt do any of the things. But now he says hes going to be president. As president , hes going to do all of the things that he didnt do, never did. Never did anything, except make very bad decisions, especially on foreign policy. We saved tens of thousands of lives, but we actually saved millions of lives by closing. If we had listened to joe biden, hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost. He said that the idea that china is our competition is really bizarre. Hes really bizarre. But hunter, wheres hunter . Where is hunter, by the way . John heilemann, well give you the first crack at this, and good luck to you, sir. Let me say, first of all, this violates not law, but tradition of president s using the white house, particularly the rose garden, to give Campaign Speeches and to attack their political opponents during a president ial campaign or at any time. But also, there is a burning crisis going on in the country right now, and none of those 63 minutes got us any closer to solutions about coronavirus, about whats happening in Southern California, in houston and georgia and florida and arizona, across the country right now, or address concerns about whether or not kids will get back to school. Thats whats happening in the country right now. Instead, the president spent those 63 minutes attacking joe biden, often with lies. Right. So, good morning, willie. Good morning, mika. Good morning, john. To go back to the topic of your question to go back to the top of your question, you know, yes. So, the tradition is, you know, weve all heard of the notion of rose garden campaign, right . President s, incumbent president s who use the power of the office to advance both the countrys interests and their political interests. Thats one of the things, power of incumbency. Thats what you get when youre a sitting president. So, this notion that politics and government dont come together is, of course, false. But what the president s done here is, rather than doing what normal incumbent president s do, which is to use the power of the office in that way, by using their kind of policy power to enhance their standing with the American People as opposed to just using the rose garden to attack a rival, the president seems to be kind of doing exactly the opposite. Not only is he violating tradition by launching this kind of personal invective and negative campaigning against his rival, something that generally president s dont do from the white house grounds, let alone the rose garden, the east room, the press briefing room. President trumps used all of those staujs to attack joe biden, but this is the most glaring example. But hes also failing to do what normal incumbent president s would do, right . Which is, to your point, willie, which is to say, you know, theres a crisis in the cotr ina crisis is an opportunity to be seen as addressing it in a way that makes people feel more secure, that actually makes the problem reduces the problem that people are facing. Listening to what the voters are saying. We had polling yesterday that showed that 70 of American Parents are concerned about sending their kids back to school this fall. The president yesterday not only did not address that in a kind of way that would make them feel better or do anything about it in a way that would make them feel better, but sort of mocked the notion that parents did an interview on cbs where he mocked the notion that parents would have these concerns. He was asked about it and said Something Like, well, if youre a parent who thinks that, somebody else should be taking care of your kids. The president should not hes behaving in not just a way that violates tradition, but in a way that is politically suicidal on a kind of daily basis. And this was just one more example of that. And so, the political suicidal behavior, john heilemann, i would say, especially on the schools issue, is that people are desperately looking for leadership on this, so when they dont get it from President Trump, they will actually look elsewhere, because they need information, they need leadership. Of course. They need to know whether its safe enough to send their kids to school. And they have to make their own decisions. So, they will turn away from him, which again shows this rose garden debacle, this completely inappropriate act, you know, completely defying tradition on every level, total abuse of power, using the rose garden as a campaign event, because you cant have your pitiful little rallies, because people wont come. So, you have a captive audience of reporters and cameras, and you use it for politics. You use it to go after joe biden. Bret baier of fox, of trumpfriendly fox news, tweeted this, that you know, had president obama done this he actually talked about this he said, had president obama done this, people would have gone crazy. Take a listen. President s in the past, by tradition, have stayed away from overt Campaign Rhetoric from the rose garden or the white house, but it is the president s discretion. It is worth noting, however, to be fair, that had president obama made this kind of speech from the rose garden, republicans on capitol hill would likely have been up in arms. So, john heilemann, it seems to me that his desperation, and maybe, you know, doesnt it seem more and more obvious that hes desperate to grab the limelight wherever he can and with people looking for leadership in a crisis, it actually may turn them off . Sure, yeah, of course, mika. And you made the point about the fact the president is trying to do a rally in New Hampshire. They claimed that he couldnt do the rally because there were going to be thunderstorms. Those thunderstorms never really a Tropical Storm that never arrived in New Hampshire. I think they realized they were on their way towards another tulsa debacle. And you know, youre seeing it happen now in jacksonville, where im sure were going to talk about it more today, where the convention, the Republican Convention is now imperiled there. Theres discussion about scrapping the indoor element of it and pushing it, having it be outside, the possibility of people having to wear masks there, which, of course, would be a appropriate thing for Public Health but not what the president wants. So, the president s bestlaid plans, the things hes relied on as campaign tools, the things he loves to do the big rally, people Standing Shoulder to shoulder hes now for the sake of Public Health not really able to do that. So, of course, this is the perfect, from his point of view, the perfect captive audience, as you said. But id say one more thing, which is, just even if you forget about all of that, the grotesque abuse of public resources. Yes. The taxpayerfunded stage. Forget about all that. Just take it as pure politics. If you just evaluate what he did yesterday in terms of his attacks on joe biden, did anybody hear an effective attack on joe biden . Did anybody hear a frame on joe biden that might have a chance of, i mean, improving his political standing, of taking joe biden down a peg . If you listened to that yesterday, i defy you to tell me what the president s argument is against joe biden on the basis of what he said yesterday. It was just incoherent rambling, and i think thats one of the other elements of whats happening here is the president is incredibly frustrated with the fact that in joe biden, who is not, i will say over and over again, not a perfect candidate, has his flaws, has his weaknesses, as all of us do, but the president s incredibly frustrated in that he cannot find an effective frame for joe biden. This is like the nightmare candidate for him. Another septogenarian, white guy, and that is not the person the president wants to run against. We are in july and the president does not know how to make the case against joe biden and that was vividly on display yesterday in the rose garden. Yeah, its probably not a good sign for your campaign when in midjuly of your election year, your attack on joe biden is that he wants to, quote, abolish the suburbs and maybe even get rid of windows altogether, which was definitely begging for a couple followup questions about what he meant there in terms of Climate Change. But shauna, to johns point, this has been a frustration for this campaign. Theyre trying to put joe biden in the same category with members of congress who are progressive boogiemen and women that theyve been using now for a couple years. The label doesnt fit. Donald trump knows that, on joe biden that hes a wild leftist, that hes a tool of the radical left. So instead, you get what we saw yesterday, which is this kind of hodgepodge, this mashup of incoherent attacks on joe biden and not really a frame that he can use going into november. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, it was sort of as President Trump was playing his own version of 2020 bingo. He mentioned aoc. He mentioned bernie sanders. He mentioned green new deal. And it was a hodgepodge. But in some ways, i can imagine a world where, if he says all these sound bites and he says all these quotes, even if when you watch the whole thing together it doesnt make that much sense, then hes creating ads for his campaign. Hes creating sound bites for certain shows on fox news or oan, who he called on an oan reporter in that press conference yesterday. And he is looking in some ways for the best possible sound bite. And so, yes, if you listened to it from top to bottom, i didnt really understand it. I had to go back and listen last night before i went to bed because i was actually doing work at 5 00 in the afternoon. But there were certain key words, buzz words, that his base will like. They dont like the green new deal. They dont like alexandria ocasiocortez. They dont like bernie sanders. So, he is trying to figure out what sticks. But when you take those things independently, you may have the makings of a campaign ad for his actual campaign. Thats not what youre supposed to use the rose garden for, as mika already mentioned. This goes against protocol. This goes against tradition. But i think we always have to remember right now, we have to cite that it goes against tradition, but we also have to say, yes, president s do do this now, because he is president and he is doing this, and people have to ask themselves, is that a president that you want . Is that the presidency that you want . Because that is now the standard in some ways that he is setting. So, we all have to figure out when we are figuring out who to vote for in november, do you like this new tradition . Yeah. Its a really good question. Before his meandering rose garden appearance, President Trump spent time earlier in the day weighing in on matters of race in a series of interviews. Peter baker writes, the appearance came on a day when mr. Trump seemed eager to challenge convention and, at times, basic facts. During an earlier interview with cbs news, he denied that black americans suffered from Police Brutality more than white americans. Lets talk about george floyd. You said George Floyds death was a terrible thing. Terrible. Why are africanamericans still dying at the hands of Law Enforcement in this country . And so are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people. More white people, by the way, more white people. As the Washington Post notes, more white people are shot and killed by police when considering absolute numbers. However, blacks are fatally shot by police at a higher rate when accounting for population differences. Later on in that interview, the president dismissed concerns over the confederate battle flag as an issue of freedom of speech. Back in 2015, you said the confederate battle flag belongs in a museum. Do you still believe that . All i say is freedom of speech. Its very simple. My attitude is, freedom of speech. Very strong views on the Confederate Flag. With me, its freedom of speech, very simple. Like it, dont like it, its freedom of speech. Would you be comfortable with your supporters displaying the confederate battle flag at political events . Well, it depends on what your definition is. But i am comfortable with freedom of speech. Its very simple. But you understand why the flag is a painful symbol for many people because its a reminder of slavery . Well, people love it, and i know people that like the Confederate Flag and theyre not thinking about slavery. I look at nascar, you go to nascar, you had those flags all over the place. They stopped it. I just think its freedom of speech, whether its Confederate Flags or black lives matter or anything else you want to talk about. Its freedom of speech. And in yet another interview yesterday, trump also falsely claimed that a white couple in st. Louis who confronted peaceful marchers outside their home with guns were on the verge of being attacked. Trump told townhall. Com, they were going to be beat up badly, and the house was going to be totally ransacked and probably burned down. As the times baker notes, video of the episode, which became a flashpoint in the National Debate over racial inequality, showed that the protesters at no point physically threatened the couple. They were, in fact, peaceful. Shawna, what stands out to you . We just ran several sound bites. It seems to me that the president is choosing to say things that are roiling the race issue, especially when it comes to police shootings, white versus black. Why did he have to say that . Why would he choose to say that during that interview, politically . I mean, first, i give katherine harge some prompts for trying to have a somewhat nuanced discussion with the president about this. But as we know and as weve been saying for four years, five years, even, it really does come down to President Trumps base. And at some point, he has gotten the message that there is a part of his base that doesnt want to engage in this conversation about race that were having in this country, that theres part of his base that wants to be able to fly Confederate Flags not all of his base. And we also know he doesnt really have a grasp of history of this country. So, im not giving him a pass for not really being able to grapple with the issue of the Confederate Flag and what that stands for, but i dont think anyone is surprised by his answers at this point. You know, i also think the followup question for the president , if he is going to keep repeating the phrase freedom of speech over and over again, is do you believe in the freedom of speech and the protesters who have been in the streets talking about black lives matter, talking about our need to reform the Police Systems in various cities and localities . Does freedom of speech extend to people who may not be your supporters . Because that is also what the presidency stands for. And im not sure weve ever gotten a clear answer about that. But this comes back to what i said about sort of trump 2020 bingo. You want to avoid making anyone mad over the Confederate Flag who might want to turn out and vote for you, but also freedom of speech, and you know, your ability to not have to wear a mask and all of these other things, that checks some boxes. And so, i think he feels that the safest answer and the answer that will please people is just keep repeating freedom of speech. And if he can avoid that larger conversation about race, i think hes going to try to do that from now on. John heilemann, the thing about the 2020 bingo, though, is hes got all his chips on the base, and he needs a couple more letters if hes going to be reelected. When he says it was very telling, i thought, when his answer to the correspondents question about africanamericans and their relationship with police, he immediately leapt not to address that question but immediately leapt to the defense of white victims of Police Violence in this country, of which there are many as well, just more africanamericans are more likely to be shot and killed by police on a percapita basis. Thats just a fact. So, john, hes got the base, the base that likes the Confederate Flag, the base that wants him to defend white people generally. What is he doing to expand the base . Its a question weve been asking now for mons he plows doo the people who already are going to vote for him. What about the rest of the votes he needs . Right. Thats the question, willie. And you know, what a large part of the trump reelection strategy before the pandemic hit was premised on the notion that, number one, the president would lose the popular vote against any democrat, and certainly against joe biden, and that number two, he could try to run basically the same play that he ran in 2016 that worked for him, which was to, you know, as weve said many times, pull that inside straight by pulling up a narrow Electoral College victory, focus on those upper midwest battleground states in michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania. And because they had a huge financial advantage over the democrats and had been raising money for so long, do a lot of advanced targeting i those states of trying to find more of the kinds of voters who made up the trump base before, so find white, noncollege voters who didnt vote in 2016 and turn those people out in large enough numbers in places like michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, maybe minnesota, that the president could win in the Electoral College again in 2020 the way he did in 2016. The problem is that thats still the strategy, and thats what theyre doing. Its an allbase campaign, and now, of course, theyre fighting this battle on not just those three states, theyre now trying to fight that same battle in states that should have been comfortably, or they thought should have been comfortably in their column, so in north carolina, in arizona, in florida. Those are the ones we always mention. Those are the core six battleground states. Then you expand to other places where trump is fighting, in georgia, where he is struggling in texas, where hes struggling. Weve seen polling in places like kansas. We saw a poll from alaska where the president s up by three points in alaska, which is within the margin of error. Thats a statistical tie in one of the most conservative states in the country. So, what the problem for the president is, the strategy is still the same, but the problem is that every other avenue for adding the votes that he needs has been cut off. And in places that are purple states, and increasingly, even late red states, the president , by just trying to turn out more of those white noncollege voters, the rest of the country has gravitated towards not trump, and in this case, not trump is joe biden. And you know, you can run this racial playbook that shawnas talking about, and that is obviously very comfortable for the votes he already has and might scare up a few votes that he doesnt have, people who like him but didnt vote for him in 2016. The problem is that every time he does one of these things, he just makes it he makes biden stronger with disaffected republicans, makes biden stronger in the suburbs, and makes the electoral math harder for him. Thats why i keep going back to the question of political suicide. Its a comfortable place he is. That play in that bingo match is comfortable for donald trump, but right now the math is really, really not on his side and hes doing nothing to change the equation. Yeah. As you were talking, john, we put up a poll that showed the president down ten points, at least in that one poll, in the state of florida as well. Lets bring in nbc news correspondent kara lee from the white house. She has new reporting that goes inside the trump camp punch on biden. Good morning, good to see you. This is what weve been talking about for the last few minutes. This was supposed to be in some ways a campaign turn yesterday for President Trump in the rose garden as he literally read from a list of attacks on joe biden. There was no coherent thread behind them or through them, but the president going after joe biden with this itemized list. What is the strategy exactly . What is that label . What is that brand that theyre trying to put on joe biden as we turn toward election day . Reporter well, its a great question, willie, and the president s advisers, according to sources that weve spoken with, have been trying for weeks to get him to, as they said, not make the election about him, that if the election is about him, he will lose. And so, theyve tried to shift him to pivot to a strategy of focusing on biden, looking at his record. And their argument is he has a very long record. Theres a number of policies that the president could be attacking. He has a number of statements in his background that they could be reviving. And so, theyve tried to push him into focusing on his opponent and attempt to deflect, frankly, from his 3 1 2 years in office. But weve seen the president instead nursing grievances publicly. Hes embracing old tricks that he feels worked for him well, such as applying nicknames to joe biden, like sleepy joe. But as one official told us, sleepy sounds pretty good after four years of exhaustion. So they want him to move away from this. And yesterday he tried to do that, but he did it in a way that was not at all, i think, what his advisers had in mind. The setting, the rose garden. You dont see president s stand in the rose garden and deliver the kind of speech that he did. Then if you look at the speech itself, it was mono toned. His heart didnt seem in it, as one advisers told us. And he really just, you know, had this muddled delivery where he went off on various tangents. And so, to the frustration of his advisers, who say that the president is acutely aware that he could win, he cant get engaged on a strategy that they feel is effective, where he had a clear attack on his opponent and the election is not about him. And its not clear that hes going to be able to make that pivot, particularly when he doesnt have any other venue than the complex here at the white house and what we saw yesterday, where he pretty much delivered a speech that he probably would have given on saturday night if he had that New Hampshire rally. I am not sure anyone has the guts to tell him that it looks desperate. Nbcs carol lee, thank you very much. To the coronavirus now. Florida confirmed 132 new deaths from covid19 yesterday. That is the biggest singleday spike the state has seen since the beginning of the pandemic. This does not necessarily mean all 132 people died in the past 24 hours, as the figure likely includes deaths that happened over the weekend but were not reported until monday. Previously, the highest singleday record was set last thursday with 122 deaths. So far, florida has reported nearly 292,000 cases and over 4,500 deaths. Lets bring in the mayor of miami gardens, Oliver Gilbert iii. He was part of a roundtable Florida Governor desantis held with florida mayors yesterday afternoon. Thank you very much, mr. Mayor, for coming on the show this morning. I guess, first of all, tell us, what is going on in the miamidade area . What is happening with this rise in case and apparent rise in deaths . Well, first of all, let me say thank you for having me, mika. I have a new appreciation for you all getting up this early in the morning because i watch you all the time, but i never understand what it is to actually be fully dressed and talking to someone this early. You know, its interesting thank you. In south florida, i really do think we opened up too quickly, and i think that thats actually borne out in the results that were seeing. I dont think that we actually stayed closed long enough to develop the type of habits that actually allowed for us to beat the coronavirus. And so, you see these huge jumps in cases. And what weve been saying all along is, when you see these huge jump in cases, eventually those cases will translate into hospitalizations, and eventually, those hospitalizations will translate, unfortunately, into death for a lot of our fellow americans. And so, its problematic from that perspective. Also we know now that we have to either we cant maintain this rate. So if we dont do something, dont slow down, we will have to look at rolling back some of our openings, because we cant have thousands and thousands of people testing positive for coronavirus every day. No. And i mean, just to go through some basic science and i think whats very frustrating about this, mr. Mayor, is that everybody knew from the beginning, if they listened to the cdc, if they listened to dr. Fauci, if they listened to their own doctors, if they listened to the doctors who came on this show, is that if you mitigate and if you wear masks and if you socially distance, and yes, if you lock down and you do it for a significant amount of time, like other countries, you can ward this off, you can bring those numbers down. And the leadership was so, quite frankly, skitchizophrenic on th that people were not given the guidance they needed, so here we are. So, my next question to you, sir, is where are we with testing . Because i know some people in florida who got tests ten days ago and do not have results. Yeah. In miami gardens, we have the largest testing site at hard rock stadium. I think we tested more people than any single site in the state of florida. The problem is, is that when you have this explosion nationally, i guess the retesting agent is in short supply. So people are actually getting tested, going through almost the entire life cycle of the virus, and not actually getting their results back until the end. And thats problematic from a couple perspectives. It doesnt allow us to actually contact trace. So, if you are infected by someone and you wont know it and we wont know to try to call you until that person tests positive. And if you look at the gating criteria from the cdc, one of the things they said for reopening was that you had to have a robust Contact Tracing program. If its taking this long to get your results back, its virtually impossible to successfully contact trace, and thats also allowing the virus to accelerate. People arent being told that they had been exposed to someone who tested positive until well after theyre into the virus, because the tests arent coming back sooner. And thats going to be not just a florida problem or not just a miamidade problem. Its a national problem. Evidence is that we werent actually prepared to actually open up at this level. So, if you cant have significant Contact Tracing, you need to have fewer people exposed so that you have more time, but we cant have the virus spread at this rate in miamidade county, in florida, in the country. Mr. Mayor, its willie geist. Great to have you on this morning, even at this early hour. We appreciate you being with us. Let me ask you about schools. Superintendents down there have started to say they believe the recommendation is that they should be 100 online when you all go back in about five weeks, but that it will be up to each individual School District. How are you and people on your school board thinking about that question right now as parents really want to know, really need to know, because of the implications it has, not just for their kids but for their own lives, in child care and their own jobs . How are schools looking in your city . Well, its not in our schools are governed by miamidade county. We have a Wonderful School superintendent, roberto calf va, and i have a good school board member, but from a parents perspective and overseeing the policy for the city perspective, its very difficult for me to say that you should go ahead and say that youre going to open up schools now when you have this record type of increase. And i hear people saying, well, the risk to kids are minimal. What does that mean . Because these are our children. So when we send them back and the risk is minimal, what would be an Acceptable Loss if you send your kid to school and it was your kid who got sick, and unfortunately, it was your kid that might pass away . There are a lot of kids with preexisting conditions like respiratory illnesses and asthma. What do we do for those . So, i understand the argument that parents want their kids in school. Everybody is tied up in their house with their kids. I understand that. But we dont want them to send them to school into what could actually lead to their death. I think that when people say, lets go ahead and do it, theyre ignoring some very basic fundamentals about what schools are, about how kids interact, about how theyre in the cafeteria together and how theyre on buses together and theyre on playgrounds together and how the general interaction of adolescents, its in and of itself not conducive with social distancing. My 13yearold, hell wear his mask and hang out when were together, but the minute hes not around me, hes like, take this mask off, im out of here. So, i dont know theyre actually thinking about how this is actually going to work and what the actual reallife results are. Because the minimalize risk that youre talking about means that somebodys kid might get sick and somebodys kid might die, and i dont know that thats an acceptable risk from us. But we have a very capable superintendent and school board. Theyre on that. Mr. Mayor, also, obviously, as we close here, if things had been done right from the getgo, kids might be going back to school. So were learning that the science works, if you apply it. Mayor Oliver Gilbert iii, thank you very much for your plain talk this morning. You can go back to bed. I get it. Thank you. Thank you. Still ahead on morning joe, the white house ramps up its attacks on dr. Anthony fauci, even after President Trump insisted this week that he and dr. Fauci had a very good working relationship. That is the northern version of bless your heart. Mm. Plus, the politics of a Coronavirus Vaccine. Richard haass joins us. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. What do you tell parents and teachers who feel that its unsafe to go back. I would tell parents and teachers that you should find yourself a new person, whoevers in charge of that decision, because its a terrible decision, because children and parents are dying from that trauma, too. Theyre dying because they cant do what theyre doing. Mothers cant go to work because all of a sudden they have to stay home and watch their child, and fathers. Whats happening you know, theres a tremendous strain on that whole side of the equation. 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Dr. Anthony fauci called the results good news and went on to say in an interview yesterday the Gold Standard of protection against a viral infection is neutralizing antibodies, and the data from the study, small numbers as it may be, are pretty clear that this vaccine is capable of inducing quite good levels of neutralizing antibodies. The next stage of modernas study is scheduled to begin on july 27th and will test 30,000 adults with half receiving the vaccine, half receiving placebos. 90 different u. S. Locations will be chosen for this study, and many will be in hotspots, such as texas, florida, california, and arizona, willie. All right, well take some good news on coronavirus. Yeah. Joining us now, president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, whos writing about the politics of a covid19 vaccine. Good morning, richard. Good to see you. This has been held up as the holy grail, because it is. If we can find a vaccine, we can begin to get coronavirus under control. Its been an unprecedented race for the vaccine, as doctors have told us over the last few months. No one has seen a vaccine on this scale so quickly. So, if it does come, lets say by the beginning of next year, that doesnt mean this is over, obviously. And thats what youre writing about. There will be a fight over who gets it first, who makes it, how its distributed, how you get so many doses out around the world so quickly. So, what is the first problem you see, potentially, when this vaccine is established . Okay, weve got it. What comes next . I think theres two big questions, willie. Just say modernas vaccine works and we dont know, but we obviously hope it does at most, theyre talking about being able to produce 500 million to a billion doses a year. That sounds like a lot, but every person would probably need two doses. Well, theres 8 billion people on the planet. Do the math. Thats 16 billion with a b doses you would need. Theyre able to produce possibly 500,000 to a billion. So the question is who gets it, in what order, who pays for it, what do we do in this country as opposed to the rest of the world . So, and again, it would take over a year. So, its possible as vaccines come on stream, were talking about them being produced and distributed over the course of years. So, people in their minds think about a vaccine and they think, ah, it comes, it happens, weve got the solution. Its actually much more of process. Not everyone will get it. Not everyone will react the same way. We dont know what kind of duration or degree of immunity first. All of this brings us back to your other conversation. Even with vaccines, were still going to need good testing. Were still going to need all of the other things we do for mitigation. The vaccine is a tool. Its a powerful tool, but its not a panacea. So, richard, you also in your piece anticipate vaccine nationalism, to borrow your term, meaning if there is a vaccine found lets hope its in the United States that the countries that have the vaccine will keep the vaccine because they obviously want to take care of their own people first. What could that mean for relationships around the world . Well, obviously, if we do have a vaccine in this country, we have to have our own national conversation, willie. Who gets it first in this country . Is it first responders, hospital workers, the military, teachers and others . I think we need to be prepared for it. Were not having that conversation. Who makes the decision . Should it be up to moderna, if its their vaccine . Should it be the government . And then just, should we only use it in the United States or should we also make a percentage of it available . Should our allies get them . Should we license its production . If you do license production, what kind of a profit would flow to moderna . Should we give some of it away to poor people around the world . Because at the end of the day, we need these other countries to get back on their feet or the disease will never go away. And what worries me, and the phrase i use in the piece is catastrophic success. In the iraq war, things went so well militarily early on, the planning never caught up and we werent ready for it. And my concern now is if things in the laboratory go well and we obviously pray they do, willie i want to make sure that the planning is in place nationally and internationally so were ready to distribute the vaccine on terms that dont cause greater friction in the world. So, richard, we want to ask you about the rose garden situation yesterday. Were going to take a quick break and on the other side well talk about that. A quick break and on the other side well talk about that. Now is the time to support the places you love. 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Spray on hard surfaces to kill 99. 9 of viruses and bacteria initially. Once dry, it forms a bacteria shield that keeps killing bacteria for 24 hours, even after multiple touches. Try new microban 24. Available in multipurpose, sanitizing, and bathroom sprays. This has been medifacts for microban 24. Live shot of the white house, as the sun comes up over washington, d. C. At 47 past the hour. Richard haass is still with us. And richard, the event yesterday in the rose garden, it was supposed to be about china, the relationship with china. What impact did it have, since it was a rambling, i believe 63minute diatribe that went in many Different Directions . Almost hard to know where to start, mika. In terms of china, the president announced new sanctions because of hong kong, essentially going after individuals associated with the decision and the banks they work with. And it really is part of this larger narrative of a serious deterioration in relations between the two most powerful countries of this era of history. So i know theres lots else going on, but just the u. S. chinese relationship is in free fall, and the potential risk here for an incident i think is growing dramatically, so i just put that aside. More broadly, this raises all sorts of questions about norms, about the use of the rose garden for something that is so nakedly political. And you know, you all were talking about it for the lack of a clear message. I think what Vice President biden has done is articulated a message of economic nationalism, that in some ways steals the president s thunder, and this administrations thunder. So, politically, theyre on the defensive because of the economy and their inept handling of covid19. And now the challenger is in some ways taken a march on what would have been their core substantive economic issue. John heilemann. Hey, richard. I want to stick with china and ask you this. You know, one of the things that weve heard from the president s allies on capitol hill and from people inside the white house is that their fervent wish for the last few months has been, please stop talking about race, please stop talking about culture war stuff, please, focus on something that we could actually make up some ground on politically. And they always point to china. They say, chinas really what you should be doing, mr. President. Talk about china. Attack joe biden on china. So, i want to ask you, you know, as you lay it out, you think about where President Trump has been on the question of china, you think about where joe biden is on the question of china, and you kind of alluded to this in your previous answer, but i want to be very clear about it. On policy and politics, talk to us about what the if we get a chinafocused argument in this election, whats that going to look like . First of all, i dont think too many people at the end of the day, john, are going to push the lever or whatever you push now based upon china, with issues like race, tens of millions unemployed, over 135,000 people dead from covid19. I just dont think anyone is going to succeed at putting china at the center of the election. The president s problem is that his policy has been inconsistent and incoherent. Its been fawning towards xi jinping, obsession with this narrowed trade deal. The United States did not join the transpacific partnership, which would have given us tremendous leverage against china. We hammer our allies in the region regularly, so youve got that softness. On the other hand, youve finally, belatedly, have criticism on hong kong, on chinese treatment of the uighurs, a much tougher stance on the south china sea. So, the administration has been all over the place on china. Vice President Biden represents what has been the traditional view for decades lets bring china into the world. It didnt bring about the mellowing of chinese behavior at home or abroad that many people wanted, so a lot of the people around Vice President biden and he, himself, are taking a tougher line on human rights and on, say, what chinas strategic activity is in the south china sea. So, right now, theres actually not that much of a difference on where the two sides are. I think theyre basically selectively cherry picking certainly the president was yesterday those aspects of past statements and votes that look, quote unquote, soft on china. Shawna thomas is with us, and she has the next question. Shawna . Hey, richard. Shawna. Thinking about the white houses or the administrations pullback on the student visa rule that they were trying to promulgate do you think, other than the fact that it looked like that was probably illegal what they were trying to do, do you think that the president agreed to pull back because of business considerations . I mean, you why they decided to just kind of back off of that . It was interesting. It was an uncharacteristic policy reversal. It turns out, the Business Model of many of our colleges and universities is overwhelmingly dependent on overseas students. And this would have created a crisis around the country in a lot of places, colleges and universities. If they have tremendous problems, then the towns and communities around them also do. So, i think the Immediate Impact would have been hundreds of thousands, if not more, students would have been affected. This would have had tremendous economic implications for all sorts of institutions, and again, the larger communities, not to mention the longerterm issues for american competitiveness. And i think there was no one supporting this decision and lots of people pushing back against it. All right, richard haass. Thanks so much for coming on the show this morning. His latest book is the world a brief introduction. And still ahead, the aps Jonathan Lamire joins us with his latest reporting. Plus, the Trump Administration sidelines the cdc, ordering hospitals to bypass the agency when sending covid patient information to washington. Well talk to a leading doctor from Johns Hopkins about the transparency issues here. Morning joe is coming right back. Ency issues here morning joe cisoming right back my name is janelle hendrickson, and im an area manager here at amazon. When you walk into an amazon fulfillment center, its like walking into the Chocolate Factory and you won a golden ticket. Its an amazing feeling. My threeyearold, when we get a box delivered, he gets excited. He screams, mommys work when the pandemic started, we started shipping out all the safety stuff that would keep the associates safe to all the other amazons. All of these are face masks, weve sent well over 10 million gloves. And this may look like a bottle of vodka. When we first got these, we were like whoa [laughing] with this pandemic, safety is even more important because theyre going home to babies, theyre going home to grandparents. So, our responsibility is to make sure that they go home safe every single day. They get that no two people are alike and customize your car so, our responsibility is to make insurance so you only pay for what you need. What do you think . I dont see it. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. Shes confident, protected, her strength respected. Depend. The only thing stronger than us, is you. You can trust respected medical authorities. You know, i believe im one of them, so i think you can trust me. But i would stick with respected medical authorities who have a track record of telling the truth, who have a track record of giving information and policy and recommendations based on Scientific Evidence and good data. So, if i were to give advice to you and your family and your friends of your family, i would say thats the safest bet to do, to listen to the recommendations from that category of people. But its entirely understandable how the public can get mixed messages and then get a bit confused about what they should do. Dr. Anthony fauci says the public can trust his guidance on the coronavirus. White house trade adviser Peter Navarro begs to differ. Well have more on that in just a moment. Welcome back to morning joe. It is wednesday, july 15th. And joe has the morning off. But along with willie and me, we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press jonathan lami lamire, professor of history at tulane university, Walter Isaacson is with us this morning former u. S. Senator, now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst, Claire Mccaskill joins us, and Senior Writer at politico and coauthor of the playbook, jake sherman. Hes an msnbc political contributor. Great to have you all this hour. So, what was supposed to be an official white house event announcing measures against china over its actions in hong kong turned into a pseudo campaign event. Peter baker writes in the New York Times that it became the Campaign Speech that trump canceled in New Hampshire last weekend, amid those socalled concerns about the weather, there were concerns really of attendance, while citing that storm that never happened at all. Peter called the event one of the most rambling performances of trumps presidency, writing this he weighed in on china and the coronavirus and the paris Climate Change accord, crumbling highways, and then china again and military spending and then china again and the coronavirus again and the economy and energy, taxes, and trade with europe and illegal immigration and his friendship with mexicos president and the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in chicago and the Death Penalty and back to Climate Change and education and historical statues and more. The president attacked his democratic opponents and their policies throughout his speech. He mentioned the name biden more than 30 times. Joe bidens entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist party. Joe biden supported chinas entry into the world trade organization, one of the greatest geopolitical and economic disasters in world history. As Vice President , biden was a leading advocate of the paris climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our country. America lost nearly 10,000 factories while joe biden was Vice President. Is this what he wrote highspeed broadband, we want highspeed broadband. Well, why didnt he get it . Three years ago is not a long time. And he didnt do any of the things, but now he says hes going to be president. As president , hes going to do all of the things that he didnt do. He never did anything, except make very bad decisions, especially on foreign policy. We saved tens of thousands of lives, but we actually saved millions of lives by closing. If we had listened to joe biden, hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost. He said that the idea that china is our competition is really bizarre. Hes really bizarre. But hunter wheres hunter . Where is hunter, by the way . Wow. Hes really going to go after the kids . That didnt work last time, Jonathan Lamire, that whole ukraine thing didnt work out for him when he was revealed for trying to peddle a foreign leader for dirt on a political rival. What do you make of what happened here . What traditions, what norms were broken along the way here . Well, president s, mika, have always tried to use official settings to sort of subtly score political points. There is nothing subtle about what we saw yesterday. This is yet another convention that this president has cast aside. This was direct political campaigning from the rose garden of the white house. As peter wrote in what was a terrific piece, this did feel like the speech he wanted to give in New Hampshire a few nights before, before that rally was canceled on account of rain, though it never rained. It was really canceled because very few people were going to show up in the time of a pandemic. Now, the backstory here is, for weeks now, advisers have really pushed the president to go more negative on joe biden. They have actually felt like hes been surprisingly hesitant to do so, outside of casting out the sleepy joe nickname, which no one thinks is a good one inside trumps inner circle, by the way, that he had not directly challenged biden, delivering broad side after broad side, like he did on a daily basis in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and thats whats spurred some of this talk in washington about how much does the president really want this fight . How much is he battling for reelection . Spurred some chatter about whether or not he would even drop out. Of course, the white house says thats not going to happen. But there seemed to be a lack of fire in the president in recent weeks. We saw yesterday he finally delivered some of those blows. And as discussed in the previous hour, there were snippets in there that could be effective going forward. You could certainly see them going into campaign ads. You could certainly see them expanded upon and becoming direct attack lines. But they were lost in the noise yesterday for the most part. This was a scattershot, haphazard, rambling performance. Yes, indeed, it focused on china. That is where they feel like they can score some points against joe biden. Of course, though, it raises questions about the president s own relationship with china and all of the kind words he had for xi jinping in the early months of this pandemic, but thats where you saw him tryi ining to deliver these attacks, but it was such a mess. It remains to be seen. Its hard to imagine whether there are too many voters out there who are waffling between these two candidates or maybe have been a trump supporter before and now leaning biden, who would have looked at yesterday and said, okay, im with the president. Claire, as you watched that speech yesterday from the president of the United States i guess we call it a speech he was reading a list of grievances and attacks on joe biden, incoherent though they were, you wouldnt have known that the United States, specifically certain areas of the United States, are on fire with a virus right now, that 135,000 people are dead, that there are 3. 5 million cases of coronavirus, that states are shutting down again, that the mayors of places like houston and miami are crying out for help from the federal government. You wouldnt know that we are in the middle of a crisis, that parents are wondering right now whether or not their kids are going to go back to school in five, six, seven weeks, whether or not theyre going to have to figure out child care, perhaps take a leave of absence from their jobs to be homeschool teachers. The president stood there, attacked joe biden. Weve talked about why that doesnt have a precedent in the way he did it. But what about coronavirus . What about the crisis in front of us . Well, he doesnt want to talk about that. He thinks if he ignores it, it will disappear. You know, what yesterday really said to me was that his advisers may be telling him, you need to focus more on joe biden or you need to be more effective in showing empathy about the crisis of corona that is facing our country right now. But either the president cant do it or wont do it. Its one of the two. And im believing right now that maybe he cant, that he just doesnt know how to relate to the moment and to understand where the American People are right now. I mean, one thing thats been consistent in the polls is whether or not the candidates relate to somebody like me. And biden is off the charts on that number, and trump, you know, really has struggled with that number in this particular cycle. I think he would and you know, the other thing that i think, willie, is that there is something going on in his head right now about the crowds. His lifeblood has been his rally crowds. I dont think we should underestimate what that sparse crowd in tulsa did to his head. I think hes really worried now. He thought that he was stronger than the coronavirus. As it turns out, the coronav his rallies, they are disagreeing with him on a number of things that hes speaking about the coronavirus. And they canceled that thing in New Hampshire because his staff knows that if he has another rally thats not full, hes in trouble, mentally. Well, hes already in trouble mentally. Claire, great point. You know, the rally in tulsa was sparse. They couldnt even fill the second section of the arena. They squished people together, endangering their lives. Who knows if herman cain got the coronavirus there. He was sitting there without a mask, taking a picture of himself there, you know, bragging about not wearing a mask, and then he got very sick. And many others probably did as well. The science shows that these events are superspreaders. They are dangerous. The president endangered the lives of his followers, of his supporters, to get a photo op to get that sort of feedback he needed, realtime feedback of people chanting and clapping for him and supporting him visually. And the attempt to make that happen, Walter Isaacson, in New Hampshire failed, fizzled. They couldnt get the people. Thats what the reporting bears out, that it wasnt the weather. There wasnt a cloud in the sky on saturday. It was drizzling on friday. It was not the weather. Four years ago in New Hampshire, people lined the streets for donald trump. They showed up for the primary, and they stayed there into the night. But this was a very different scene in New Hampshire. They couldnt get the people and they had to use the pathetic excuse of the weather to cancel it. That will get into Donald Trumps head. I will just say, speaking from someone who used to know him very well, that stuff bothers him. But the rose garden event takes it to a whole new level. And looking at history, walter, what did it tell you, that the president used this event and this captive audience to really kind of say what he wanted to say at a rally . Well, i think the main thing about that rose garden event was how incoherent and how scatter shot and how driven by demons he now seems to be. And this is reflected not just in the weirdness of him rambling incoherently through a rose garden appearance and him violating, as everybody said, the norms of what you do at the white house. Its also reflected, unfortunately, in this Coronavirus Crisis. We have no way of having a coherent response to this crisis. We arent gathering the right information. Were not doing testing right. So, were the only country that seems to be totally losing to the virus. So, if he were just a guy driven by demons and weird insecurities doing this in the rose garden, thats be one thing, but it connects to the incoherent and scattershot nature of the policy, especially when it comes to coronavirus, but even on showing some empathy, some care when it comes to the feelings of africanamericans after the murder of george floyd. So, jake sherman, i want to get you in on this. The white house also has this effort, ongoing effort, to discredit dr. Anthony fauci, and it reached a new level yesterday. Nbc news first reported on the effort a few days ago that a white house official gave an oppositionstyle Research Memo to nbc and other outlets, listing nearly a dozen past comments by him, some taken out of context, that the officials said had ultimately proven erroneous. We showed you this attempt by the press secretary on monday to dismiss the reports. Take a look. There is no Opposition Research being dumped to reporters. We were asked a very specific question by the Washington Post, and that question was, President Trump noted that dr. Fauci had made some mistakes, and we provided a direct answer to what was a direct question. Dr. Fauci and the president have always had a very good working relationship. All right. Now theres a direct attack. President trumps top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, is criticizing fauci in a new op ed for usa today, claiming that fauci has been consistently wrong, while advising on the coronavirus. Navarro writes in part, dr. Anthony fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything i have interacted with him on. Now fauci says a falling mortality rate doesnt matter when its the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open. So when you ask me whether i listen to dr. Faucis advice, my answer is only with skepticism and caution. Um, jake sherman, with a president who lies by the minute, i find this to be repugnant on so many levels. And also, having watched dr. Fauci at the briefings, when they used to actually have them, to try to inform the American People as to where they truly stand with the pandemic, he seemed to be completely on point with the science and what needed to be done to mitigate. It seems to me the president is lashing out at him. What are you hearing . Well, first of all, who cares what Peter Navarro is listening to him . Peter navarros a trade adviser. Im not even sure why its operative that Peter Navarro is taking his advice or not taking his advice. Thats the number one point. And the second point is, i think jonathan would back me up on this the white house is peddling Opposition Research on Anthony Fauci. Responding to a question with a prepared Opposition Research document is, in fact, peddling Opposition Research. The white house responds to plenty of questions otherwise without offering a trail of quotes that may or may not have come true. Thats number two. Number three, the white house clears op eds. Peter navarro wouldnt just go out and write an op ed without either direct or implicit approval from the administration. I mean, this is just i think were all losing sight, we, meaning the general public, about just how bizarre this is. This is an adviser to the president saying hes not listening to another adviser of the president. Its truly bizarre. And as we said in playbook this morning, this white house seems like its in the middle of a fever dream and just confused, listless, restless, unaware of its surroundings, cant find a message, trying to throw things at the wall. I mean, a Senior Adviser to the campaign this morning tweeted, my one question for joe biden is wheres hunter biden . If thats what they think in the middle of unemployment and a toe day, im just, im befuddled. Im completely befuddled if thats what they think the strategy is going forward. Jonathan lamire, as mika pointed out, Kayleigh Mcenany was offended that the press would insinuate that there was Opposition Research being dropped on dr. Fauci, despite the fact that we all got it, for one thing. But then yesterday, Peter Navarro i guess were still calling it an op ed in usa today, but it had the look of an email that was hammered out quickly with a quick list of complaints about dr. Fauci, some not reflective of what dr. Fauci had actually said. But there has been weve been talking about the last couple weeks, jonathan this parallel relationship, where the white house is saying one thing, trying to deemphasize the Coronavirus Crisis, and dr. Fauci literally every day goes on a podcast or does a conversation over zoom with somebody where he actually points out whats happening and tries to keep those alarm bells ringing about coronavirus and the impacts on the country. And he said yesterday, i think we can be trusted, said i think people should listen not to politicians, but they should listen to medical experts who actually have experience and expertise in these areas. Dr. Fauci will be back today doing an interview. It appears hes going to keep marching on doing his job until hes told to stop. I mean thats exactly right. Walter willie. Sorry. Go ahead. Ill go. Go ahead, john. Thats okay. Basically, first, let me echo what jake sherman said is precisely right, how crazy unusual this is. This is extraordinary to see the white house, indeed yes, were they responding to a reporters query . Yes, they were, but they had that material ready to go, a list of bullet points, a list of things where they were trying to call out and discredit their own medical staff, the nations leading Infectious Disease expert. The op ed, whether hurriedly typed out or not, tries to discredit him, a person the nation trusts, according to the polling weve seen. And youre right, this is sort of a long and coordinated and not very effective attempt by the white house to try to change the conversation, to try to downplay the crisis, to try to suggest that the pandemic is something we just need to live with, we need to go back to work, we need to open the schools, we need to just move forward, and that is ignoring the reality on the ground, and were seeing in most states in the country right including some that literally seem to be on fire from this pandemic. So, theres been some chatter about dr. Fauci, who, of course, has received all this criticism from the white house. Why is he still doing this . Why is he putting up with it . Echoing some of the chatter we knew, we had talked about previous trump cabinet officials, particularly in the National Security sector. Like, they know better is the argument. Why are they still serving this president . And it seems that dr. Fauci has made this calculation, that he can still do more good from his post, even if he is being somewhat sidelined. We know he hasnt spoken to the president in more than a month, he hasnt appeared at one of these briefings in quite some time, as infrequently as they now do occur. We know that the west wing controls a lot of his media appearances now. They have blocked him from appearance on Cable Television where he would have certainly bigger audiences. But right now, hes finding alternate means podcasts, zooms, whatever it takes and he seems to have made the decision that it is more vital for him to be out there in any form, to get the message out and deliver this information and warnings to americans. All right. Sorry for jumping on you there, Jonathan Lamire. My bad. Walter isaacson, though, i was just listening to all of this, and its a war on science, is it not . And how is that going to end . I mean, even the criticism of fauci talking about death rate was taken out of context and it was incorrect. It wasnt quoting him correctly. They seem to want to defy actual data. Well, you ny respect for gathering the data. Theyre working around their own centers for Disease Control now. Theyre working around the department of health and Human Services. They havent been able to get a coherent plan even for testing, treatments, and viruses. Its been done in such a scattershot way. There was a wonderful ap story by marilyn marcioni about how none of this has been coordinated. And let me say about dr. Anthony fauci. I go way back in understanding his history. I remember him in the 1990s, when he was fighting the aids epidemic. This man is a deeply committed Public Servant who has throughout been driven by science and also by empathy. He cared very much when he was dealing with the aids crisis. Hes not just some political appointee. Hes a career Public Servant at the National Institutes of health. And i think something that will come out of this epidemic, i hope, as a backlash against the Trump Administration, is an appreciation for science, its for looking at the data. Its saying lets look at remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, whatever it may be, and figure out what the numbers are. Lets gather the data of people who have gotten covid and figure out, where did they get it . How many people were in bars right before then . How many people were at family events . Were not being data driven and were not being science driven, and that goes back to the incoherent way the mind of the president of the United States works. Jake sherman, jump in. Yeah, i just got a text message from a senior white house aide who notes that Peter Navarro went rogue and he bypassed the op ed approval process in writing in the nations largest paper, usa today, that he doesnt trust Anthony Fauci. So, again, im not actually sure if thats better or worse, frankly, and it kind of leaves me speechless that a senior aide to the president would publish an op ed on his own, but thats what their line is, is that they didnt approve this op ed, and they did it without permission. Okay. Terrific. Senior adviser to the president , ivanka trump, is facing backlash and is potentially in violation of the ethics law after she shared a photo endorsing goya black beans on her social media accounts. Yesterday the president s daughter posted goya food slogan, if its goya, it has to be good in both english and spanish alongside a smiling photo of herself holding the can of beans. The endorsement follows the ceo of the company declaring last week, were all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump during a white house event. However, the president s daughter may have violated the department of justices misuse of position rules that state that the executive branch titles, quote, should not be used to endorse any product, service, or enterprise. I mean, Claire Mccaskill, just take it away. Well, this is a white house yeah, this is a white house thats ignoring a lot of law. I mean, Kellyanne Conway violates the hatch act almost every day. I mean, there used to be a time where law was respected, of all places, in the white house. But the trump family is so used to promoting their own brand illegally that they dont see the line there about promoting a different brand. The other thing that ivanka did yesterday that is just so foreheadslapping is this new slogan theyre putting out, that she announced yesterday that trysomethingnew. This white house is so out of touch, they didnt even realize that on its surface, this is a really dumb slogan, because people who are out there desperate for work, this isnt like, oh, go shopping, try something new. This is not the way it feels. And then secondly, its an incumbent white house saying, try something new. Okay, we get it, lets do try something new, on november 3rd. Lets try something new. So, she is really i think theyre flailing. I think everybodys said this this morning. I think the white house is flaig f flailing for a message, theyre flailing in the polls, and they clearly have no respect for the rule of law. All right. And before we go to break, jake sherman, you bring us every day the Politico Morning Consult poll. What are you looking at today . Very interesting. A lot of very interesting dynamics. Number one is that not only is trump unpopular his Approval Rating is sinking, people think the countrys on the wrong track, but 65 of respondents believe that his policies are wrong when it comes to cutting funding for schools that dont open. So again, not only is the rhetoric somewhat bizarre and off kilter, but then his policies that hes pushing in the middle of this pandemic are becoming less and less popular as time goes on. So i mean, as you see on the screen right there, those are stunning numbers for a proposal that the president keeps on repeating and is making a centerpiece of his proposals at the moment. All right, jake sherman. Thank you very much. Walter isaacson, thank you as well. Great to see you. And still ahead on morning joe, Coronavirus Infections are surging across the country, but hospitals are being asked to stop sending their data to the cdc . Starting today, it will go to washington instead. Were digging into that new reporting. Plus, one of our next guests spoke with dr. Anthony fauci yesterday. The top takeaways from that conversation. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Ching morn well be right back. Dont just think about where youre headed this summer. Think about how youll get there. And now that you can lease or buy a new lincoln remotely or in person. Discovering that feeling has never been more effortless. Accept our summer invitation to get 0 apr on all 2020 lincoln vehicles. Only at your lincoln dealer. No uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Always have been. And always will be. Never letting anything get in my way. Not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. And certainly not arthritis. New voltaren provides powerful arthritis pain relief to help me keep moving. And it can help you too. Feel the joy of movement with voltaren. To have constipation with belly pain, straining, and bloating, again and again. No way. More exercise. 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Obviously, the more you test, the more youre going to pick up, so increase in testing is going to give you increases, but there is no doubt that there are more infections, and we know that because the percentage of cases, of the cases that are tested that are positive, is increasing. Therefore, inequivocally, youre seeing truly more new cases. In addition, were seeing now more hospitalizations, which lag behind infections, and were starting and will see, though not as much as weve seen, very likely more deaths. So, clearly, there are more infections. That was dr. Anthony faucis warning about the increase of coronavirus cases in the u. S. During a discussion with Georgetown University yesterday, which was cohosted by our next guest, mo alathi, the founding executive director of Georgetown Universitys institute of politics and public service. Also with us, columnist for the Washington Post, karen timulty, and Infectious Disease doctor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins center for health security, dr. Amish adalja. Great to have you all aboard this morning. So, mo, ill start with you. What did you learn from dr. Fauci yesterday about where we stand . And did he have any response to what appears to be an effort to discredit him by the white house . No, it was great to have him, and me seemed eager to talk with the students at georgetown, and they were incredibly eager to hear from him. I think there was a real hunger to hear more from dr. Fauci. I think there were a couple of key takeaways. One, there were maybe at least three places where he broke a little bit from the administration line. One, the clip you just played on sort of how bad the pandemic is right now and the fact ha its not all attributed just to testing. Two, there was a real disagreement, i think, on school reopeni reopening. He didnt seem anxious to call on every School District to open immediately, that it should be left up to each locality based on the situation there. And three, there was a disagreement on the world health organization, where he said, there may be problems there, but its better to fix from within. But i think one of my biggest takeaways was that question on trust. You know, theres a lot of Bad Information out there. Theres a lot of politicized information out there. Theres a lot of arguing. And so, i asked him, you know, with all of that, people are confused. Who should they trust . And he kind of chuckled, and he said, i get why people are confused, but trust the science, trust the medical doctors, and i think im one of them. And i thought that was a really powerful moment. Karen, your latest piece for the Washington Post entitled trump and his minions are trying to destroy fauci, no wonder the u. S. Is doing so poorly. You write in part this fauci, unlike trump, is willing to recognize and admit his missteps. Trump, who is allergic to admitting error, has apparently decided that he doesnt want to listen to faucis expert advice anymore, if, in fact, he ever really did. But as for the rest of us, we should be learning and adjusting as fauci does. It could mean the difference between life and death. And kareow, i just remember that Coronavirus Briefing where the president was talking about injecting bleach into the body. It was one of the low points of whats been, what many believe, a very botched and dangerous response to the pandemic. And yet, dr. Fauci now is the focus of this campaign to undermine him. Is your belief that this is just to assuage the president s ego . Well, certainly, when you have Something Like fewer than one in three americans saying they can trust the president on this and 70 of americans saying they feel they can trust fauci, yeah, theres probably some poll number envy in here, as there always is. But i do think that dr. Faucis experience and ive talked with him about this in the past his experience with the aids epidemic was, it took a while to figure out what this was and who was vulnerable and what behaviors could stop it. And in many cases, as dr. Fauci was leading the fight to figure out aids and to find treatments for it, government would interfere. There would be big debates over whether this was a moral question or a health question. And should we test everybody . But that might drive people under ground. So, dr. Fauci knows that you dont know everything at the beginning of a situation such as this. You learn and you adjust. And you know, its ironic that what the white house is criticizing him for is underplaying the threat early on, which is something that the president of the United States still does practically on the hour. So, dr. Adalja, i want to ask you about this new story about the cdc being bypassed now with information sent directly to this new clearance house from hospitals and cutting out the cdc in some ways. But lets pause quickly and take a snapshot from your medical perspective about where we are. Weve see tse hospitalizations in texas, in arizona, Southern California now having to close the state of california, having to roll back on its reopening. South florida is a cause of great concern, georgia, south carolina. Where are we now in this Coronavirus Crisis . In many parts of the country, were not in a good place. None of us expected in july we would still be facing some of the same problems we faced in march testing delays, bed capacities, worrying about personal protective equipment. And it didnt have to be this way. But its clear that people continue to want to make the same mistake over and over again and not put in place the infrastructure of testing, tracing, isolated and maintaining hospital capacity. Thats been the whole story of this pandemic and its something that most of us back in january thought the United States would get right because we were supposed to be the most prepared country for a pandemic, but clearly, theres not political will to actually be able to do the simple core function of Public Health in government when it comes to an Infectious Disease emergency. So, as i mentioned, doctor, beginning today, the Trump Administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the cdc and send all coronavirus patient information to a central database in washington. The instructions recently were outlined in a littlenoticed post on the department of health and Human Services website. From now on, hhs, not the cdc, will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, how many beds and ventilators are available, among other vital information. In a statement to nbc news, hhs spokesman Michael Caputo called the cdcs system inadequate and said the change would result in a faster system. Officials also claim the change should ease data gathering and assist the White House Coronavirus task force in gathering scarce supplies like personal protective equipment. Some Public Health experts worry the data could be distorted for political gain in the administrations latest move to stifle the cdc. So, dr. Adalja, what do you read into this, basically, creation, as dr. Scott gottlieb, the former fda commissioner said this morning, reinventing the wheel . The cdc already does this, but now the Trump Administration is creating a new database and hospitals are expected to use it and not the cdcs. Its completely understandable that everybodys going to view this with suspicion, including me, because what weve seen from the beginning of this pandemic is the cdc being marginalized, politicized, being unable to speak directly to the american public, and weve all suffered from it. We havent heard from Nancy Messonnier since early february when she warned of a pandemic. We know that the cdc has been basically demoralized and has to second guess yrnsion aeverythin their allegiance is not to reality but what the president s narrative may be. And thats bad for science. Thats bad for everybody. This is really going to be secondguessed, even if there might be legitimate reasons to improve the cdcs program. I dont think you should do it in the middle of a pandemic in a littlenoticed posting, because it automatically is going to be suspect because weve seen this pattern over and over again. We saw rick bright basically removed from his role because he disagreed with the narrative from the white house. So, anything that happens now is always going to be viewed with suspicion because they cast a cloud over this by being basically at war with reality when it comes to this pandemic. So any action is going to be thought of as furthering some political aim, rather than actually dealing with the problem at hand. Claire mccaskill has the next question. Claire . Dr. Adalja, i am curious. It is still, frankly, astounding to me that the president of the United States does not understand the value of masks. Every Public Health expert, i dont care if theyre republican or democrat or somewhere in between, has underscored the importance of masks. Hes worn one one time for a photo op at a hospital. But you know, the Vice President and the president and the governor of my state, all of them basically sending the signal to america that if youre on their side, you dont wear a mask. Can you talk about how that is, in fact, driving deaths in this country right now . What we know is there are people out there that are infeblgted that dont know they have it or they have mild symptoms, they think its something else, and theyre going out and spreading this infection. And a simple face covering, and it doesnt have to be a mask, maybe its a face shield. We have more data on face shields and being an acceptable alternative. That can decrease transmission in crowded situations indoors. And its really one way that we can move forward, where people will be confident that when they step out the door, they will be exposed or exposing someone to the virus. And i dont think its something that need to be politicized. This could be adjudicated by looking at the science and the epidemiology and making a decision, but now its become sort of either a badge of honor or dishonor, whether or not you wear it. And the whole conversation about how to control transmission in public settings has been sidetracked by whether or not somebodys whether or not somebody wears a mask or doesnt wear a mask and if they get into a fight over it or what that says about their politics. And again, this is just another example of how not to handle an Infectious Disease emergency. This shouldnt be a political issue. This should all be driven by science and Public Health and making decisions based on that type of data, looking at reality, not looking at politicians. Jonathan lamire. Thanks, mika. Mo, we know right now that this pandemic is shaping this election. And election day is now four months away, under four months away. Talk to us a little bit about how you see the mechanics of voting at the time of this coronavirus, where we are seeing some states with these offthecharts surges, and weve seen a campaign being waged by the president on mailin voting. What are your concerns . How do you see this playing out . How are states going to safeguard the vote and try to assure their citizens that they wont get sick when they go cast their ballot . Yeah, its interesting. Earlier this summer, we hosted at the institute both National Party chairs, Ronna Mcdaniel and tom perez, separately, for conversations on how covid was impacting the election. And they both really zeroed in on the same phrase but came at it very, very differently, and thats Election Integrity. And this battle over mailin voting, i think its starting to get a little bit more play, but its really one of the sleeper battles of this election. One of the big problems we have is that our decentralized election system allows for challenges in two main ways. One is there are going to be some communities that do allow mailin voting. There are going to be others that dont. So theres going to be huge voting disparity there. What we saw in georgia with their primary recently was ridiculous lines that disproportionately impacted communities of color. The second area where this is going to be a problem is with Election Security. We saw in 2016 the lengths to which foreign actors were willing to try to interfere in our elections. All they have to do is get into one county, and they can muck the whole thing up, and there hasnt been a lot of impact by the federal government or, attempts by the federal government to address that. So, that sort of dual whammy of Election Security and Election Integrity is going to really, i think, could have a huge impact on the election. Mo elleithee, thank you very much. Karen tumulty, well be reading your latest piece in the Washington Post. And dr. Amesh adalja, thank you as well. Morning joe is back in a moment. Back in a moment tada did you know Liberty Mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need . I should get a quote. Do it. 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But a resilient business you cacan be ready for it. Re. A Digital Foundation from vmware helps you redefine whats possible. Now. From the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours. To the university moving hundreds of apps quickly to the cloud. Or the City Government Going Digital to keep Critical Services running. You are creating the future on the fly. And we are helping you do it. Vmware. Realize whats possible. Im very worried about mailin voting because i think its subject to tremendous fraud and being rigged. Now, absentee ballots are okay, because absentee ballots, you have to get applications, you have to go through a process. If im here and i vote in florida, you get an absentee ballot, but you have to go through a process. Absentee ballots are great. But mailin voting, where a governor mails millions of ballots to people all over the state california, millions and millions of ballots, as an example then they come back, they dont come back, who got them . President trump continued to wage a war against mailin ballots yesterday while praising the same act of absentee voting. Amy walter of the Cook Political Report tweeted a very animated factcheck that there is no difference between mailin voting and absentee voting. Claire, is that true . Yeah, basically, thats true. Some states, you have to have an excuse to not vote in person. And so, you have to tell the state, i cant come to the polling place and therefore i want to vote absentee. Other states, you dont need an excuse. You can just get a mailin ballot. And in some states, like four or five, six states, ballots, in fact, are mailed out. But heres the thing, the process is the same for all of it. Theyre not willynilly mailing out ballots. Every ballot is registered. Every ballot is numbered. Every ballot must be signed. Every ballot is scanned and checked. So, there are safeguards in place for both absentee ballots and mailin ballots. And the president is creating an excuse for his loss, in my opinion. I think hes going to lose and then hes going to say the election was fraudulent. But they are essentially the same process. And theres all kinds of safeguards in place. Theres no fraud going on in oregon in connection with their mailin ballots. People of oregon love their mailin ballots, and theres no fraud. Okay. And early voting is weeks away. This is going to be very interesting. Joe bidens campaign is trying to reach voters, not just in this country, but also those who live overseas. In 2016, more than 622,000 u. S. Citizens living in canada were eligible to vote in the president ial election, but only 5. 3 of them did so. Joining us now, former u. S. Ambassador to canada, bruce h m hayman, who is working with the Biden Campaign to increase turnout amongst overseas voters. Great to have you on the show, mr. Ambassador. I would think correct me if im wrong the opportunity here is that President Trump has really made himself quite notable worldwide and not in the most positive way. And might that boost turnout overseas . Is there a real opportunity here to get voter turnout for joe biden overseas . I think you nailed it right on the head, mika. I think that there is an Incredible Opportunity here to engage americans overseas. In fact, many of us know americans who live outside the United States. But numbers run as high as 9 million. And if that is true, thats the equivalent of the 11th largest state in the United States, which would mean there would be about 6. 5 Million Worldwide eligible voters. And in 2016, you used the number for canada, but it looks like around 7 voted. And so, thats the opportunity. And so, the Biden Campaign has looked at this and understands and appreciates all americans have the right to vote, regardless of where you live. And americans overseas are going to be approached in the most comprehensive way any president ial campaign has ever approached them, and have a multifactored approach i think is incredibly unique and glad im here to share it with you. Mr. Ambassador, willie geist. Good to have you on the show this morning. Most would be surprised by the figures, particularly the 7 turnout rate among those 6. 5 million eligible vetters living overseas. Why is that number so low . Why dont mow americans overseas vote . Is it practically difficult to do, or whats the reason about that . A good question to my commodore there. Ah, anchor down yeah. I think you graduated a little after me, but most americans dont vote because they didnt know that they could vote. In surveys that we took. Second, they thought they needed to have a residence in the United States. They dont need a residence currently in the United States to vote. Theyre protected by law. If theyd never voted, they still have the right to vote. Were taking this approach, and were going to do a multifactor approach. One of the most important aspects of this is, that we have now asked ambassadors who served the United States, like i have, to join in with their partners, like i am, to come together and go back to their countries virtually and engage americans in those countries. We have had over 200 ambassadors and partners on a zoom call last week, and if youre an ambassador, served the United States and you want to participate in this, raise your hand. Wed like to have you as an ambassador for biden. Help supporting getting americans out to vote. The second thing were doing is were engaging a group called democrats abroad. Many in the United States dont know them, because theyre abroad, but theyre in six continents. Ill let you guess which theyre not in, but 170 countries, 45 countries they have substantive organizations and we have 12,000 volunteers that are going to engage directly on the ground in getting out the vote effort, and were going to engage influencers, youth, this is a really big effort for the Biden Campaign. Historian and professor at tulane, Walter Isaacson is still with us and has the next question. Thank you, mr. Ambassador. Good to see you again. Tell me good to see you, walter. Thank you. On that particular issue right now, particular things happening, particular things this administration is doing, or the whole situation right now, that will stimulate americans overseas to vote in greater number, following up on willies question why they havent voted in the past. Are there reasons now theyre going to start voting . I think theyre watching whats happening with the relationships with the country theyre living in. The countries with the largest number, canada, mexico and the uk, but also a lot of countries throughout western europe, japan. Strong ally. Australia, and theyre watching the relationship that donald trump has now created with each of those country, and i think theyre going to be incred befory motivated. Theyre not just american citizens. They are citizens of the world, and if you need to vote and youre going to vote you need to go, votefromabroad. Org. Every american in the United States, get your phone, computer out go to votefromabroad. Org. Its important you do it now. Everything is fastforward from the international side. Ballots center out 45 days internationally ahead of the election. September 17th youll get the ballots. Request them by email so they come to your email box, not via mail. 100 countriess dont even have an effective Postal Service right now. So we need to get those ballots back and we need to turn them back to the United States right away. And to do that, you need to retgister right now from votefromabroad. Org. Former ambassador to canada. Bruce heymann, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. Author of memoir strengthening the canadau. S. Relationship in type times of uncertainty and thank you very much. A new york federal judge yesterday denies bail to Ghislaine Max wahmaxwell, accus trafficking one women nor jeffrey epstein. The request rejected for 5 million bail and house arrest in a Manhattan Hotel saying it was practically impossible to set conditions to guarantee her appearance at trial. The risks are too great to release her from jail adding that maxwells ability to stay out of the spotlight in such a sensational highprofile case shows she has an extraordinary opportunity to evade. And from a Brooklyn Detention Center and several of Jeffrey Epsteins accusers were on the line to ask she be held in jail until trial. T t the New York Post reportedly cried when the judge announced her decision, and this revelation. Maxwell for years perhaps decades was thought to have been single, according to federal prosecutors. Her marriage was disclosed in a glancing comment from assistant u. S. Attorney alison mo on tuesdays detention hearing. She spoke early minutes about the lack of transparencies as to who would cosign her bond if given bail jl she told the court in addition to failing to describe in any way the absence of proposed cosigners of a bond, the defendant also makes no mention of whats so ever about the financial circumstances or assets of her spouse whose identity se declined to provide to pretrial services. She did not who say she believed maxwells spouse was or give any indication how long they had been marry me iedmarried. Trial is set for next year and expected to last three weeks. Still ahead, former attorney general Jeff Sessions lost his bid to reclaim his old senate seat. The New York Times jerear jer peters joins. And the president turns the rose garden conference into a pseudo campaign event. A lot to cover this morning. Were back in a moment. Morning joe will return. I had shingles. Horrible. A young thing like me . [camera man] actually anyone 50 or over is at increased risk for shingles. The pain, the burning my husband had to do everything for weeks. And the thing is, theres nothing you can do about it [camera man] well, shingles can be prevented. Shingles can be whaaat . [camera man] prevented. You can get vaccinated. Frank they have shingles vaccines whaaat . Thats what i said. Were taking you to the doctor. Not going through that again. [camera man] you can also get it from your pharmacist talk to your doctor or pharmacist about getting vaccinated. Stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. And take. It. On. With rinvoq. Rinvoq a oncedaily pill. Can dramatically improve symptoms. Rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. And for some. Rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. Thats rinvoq relief. With ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. Rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. Rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred. As have certain cancers, including lymphoma, and tears in the stomach or intestines, and changes in lab results. Your doctor should monitor your bloodwork. Tell your doctor about any infections. And if you are or may become pregnant while taking rinvoq. Take on ra talk to your rheumatologist about rinvoq relief. Rinvoq. Make it your mission. If you cant afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. If you cant afford your medicine, now is the time to support the places you love. Spend 10 dollars or more at a participating Small Business and get 5 dollars back, up to 10 times with american express. Enroll now at shopsmall. Com. Welcome to camp tonsafun on xfinity its summer camp, but in your living room. Learn how to draw with a minions expert. How to build an indoor Obstacle Course plus. Whatever shes doing. And me, jade cattapreta. The host of es the soup camp tonsafun. Its like summer camp, but minus the poison ivy. Unless you own poison ivy. In which case, why . Just say summer camp into your xfinity voice remote to join. Where when biden and obama used to bring killers out, they would say, dont bring them back to our country. We dont want them, but we have to, we dont want them. Now they take them. Some day ill tell you why. Some day ill tell you why. They take them and take them very gladly. Used to bring them out and wouldnt let the airplanes land in they came. We dont want them. No, but they entered our country illegally and are murderers, killers in some cases. If you had trobl following the president s line of thought there youre not alone. Supposed to be a News Conference about china, but President Trump turned a rose garden event into an impromptu Campaign Rally to attack joe biden. The New York Times call it a meandering monologue, plus, White House Press secretary insisted there is nothing to the reports the white house is pushing out to discredit dr. An thoech fauci. It will be interesting to hear her explanation today to a new oped from white house trade advisers Peter Navarro entitled Anthony Fauci has been wrong after everything ive interacted with him on. Okay. As for the virus itself, with infections surging, florida has broken its record for most coronavirus deaths in a day. At the same time in texas, counties are requesting refrigerated trucks as morgues fill up, and were also following Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg who is again hospitalized. This time for a possible infection. Well update you on her condition this morning. A lot going on. Ghislaine maxwell, by the way, denied bail and shes married. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday july 15th. Joe saw of this morning taking a break along with willie and me, we have msnbc National Affairs analyst, cohost of showtimes the circus and executiver of the recount and cant have a rally, bring the rally to the rose garden with a captive audience. Yes, he did, for 63 minutes. 6 of which answering questions from reporters. It was hailed as a News Conference. Can was not that. From the New York Times in theory President Trump summoned Television Cameras to the heatbaked rose garden early tuesday evening to announce new measures again china to punish it for its oppression of hong kong nap did not last long. Peter continues mr. Trump drifted seemingly add random from one topic to the other often in the same runon sentence. Even for a president who rarely sticks to the scripts and wanders from thought to thought one of the most of ahis presidency and military spending and china again then the coronavirus again, and the economy and energy, taxes and trade with europe. Illegal immigration and friendship with mexicos president and the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in chicago and the Death Penalty and back to Climate Change and education, and historics statues and more. He could go on for days. It sounded plausible. At time, hard to understand what he meant. He seemed to suggest that his Presumptive Democratic challenger former Vice President joseph r. Biden jr. Would get rid of windows if elected, and later said mr. Biden would abolish the suburbs. He complained mr. Biden had gone so far right, he meant left. Even for those who follow mr. Trump regularly and understand his shorthand, it became challenging to follow his train of thought, to put it mildly. Here is some of what we heard yesterday from the president of the United States. Joe bidens entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist party. Joe biden supported chinas entry into the world trade organization, one. Greatest geopolitical and economic disasters in world history. As Vice President , biden was a leading advocate of the paris climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our country. America lost nearly 10,000 factories while joe biden was Vice President. This is wa he wrote. Highspeed broadband. We want highspeed well, why didnt he get . Three years ago is not a long time, and he didnt do any of the things, but now says hes going to be president , as president hes going to do all the things that he didnt do. Never did. Never did anything. Except make very bad decisions especially on foreign policy. We saved tens of thousands of lives but we actually saved millions of lives lie closing. If wed listened to joe biden hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost. He said the idea china is our competition is really bizarre. Hes really bizarre. Where is hunter, by the way . John heilemann, first crack at this and good luck. First of all violates not law but tradition president s using the white house to attack opponents during a president ial campaign or at any time and a burning crisis going on in the country right now and none of those 63 minutes got us any closer to solutions about coronavirus. About whats happening in Southern California and houston and georgia and florida and arizona. Across the country right now. Or addressed concerns about whether or not kids will get back to school. Thats whats happening in the country right now. Instead the president spent those 63 minutes attacking joe biden, often with lies. Right. So good morning, willie. Good morning, mika. I think good morning. Top of your question to get back to the top of your question, you know, yes. So the tradition is, you know, weve heard of the rose garden. President s, incumbent president s, who use the power of the office to advance both the countrys interest and their political interest. One of those things power of incumbency. You get that as a sitting president. This notion that politics and government dont come together is, of course, false, but what the president s done here is rather than doing what normal incumbent president s do, use power of the office in that way by using their their policy power to enhance their standing with the American People as opposed to just using the rose guard ton attack a rival, the president seems to be doing exactly the opposite. Not only violating tradition by launching this kind of personal invective and negative campaigning against his rival, something that generally president s dont do from the white house grounds let alone the rose garden, the east room, the press briefing room. President trump has used all of those stages to attack joe biden but this is the most glares example, but hes also failing to do what normal incumbent president s would do. Right . To your point, willie, to say theres a crisis in the country. For most incoumbent president s this is an opportunity to address it in way that makes people feel more secure. That actually makes the problem, reduces the problem that people are facing. Here, listening to what the voters are saying. We had polling yesterday that showed 70 70 of American Parents are concerned about sending their kids back to school this fall. The president yesterday not only did not address that in a kind of, in a way that would make them feel better or do anything about it to make them feel better, sort of mocked the notion that parents did an interview on cbs did a notion mocked parents would have these concerned. When asked, if youre a parent who thinks that, somebody else should be taking care of your kids. The president is not behaving, not just a way that violates tradition but in a way that is politically suicidal on a daily basis. This was one more example of that. And so the political suicidal behavior, john heilemann, i would say especially on the schools issue, is that people are desperately looking for leadership on this. So when they dont get it from President Trump, they will actually look elsewhere, because they need information. They need leadership. They need to know whether its safe enough to send their kids to school when they have to make their own decisions. They will turn away from him. Again shows this rose garden debacle. This completely inappropriate act, you know in a completely denying tradition on every level, total abuse of power. Using the rose garden as a campaign event, because you cant have your pitiful little rails because people wont come, so you have a captive audience of reporters and cameras and you use it for politics. You use it to go after joe biden. Bret baier, trump friendly fox news tweeted this, you know, had president obama done this, he actually talked about this. Had president obama done this people would have gone crazy. Take lachb. Listen. President s in the past by tradition stayed away from overt Campaign Rhetoric from the white house but it is the president s discretion and worth noting, however, to be fair, had president obama made this kind of speech from the rose garden republicans on capitol hill would likely have been up in arms. So, john heilemann, seems to me that his desperation and maybe, you know doesnt it seem more and more obvious that hes desperate to grab the limelight wherever he can . And with people looking for leadership in a crisis, it actually may turn them off . Sure. Yeah, of course, mika. You know, you made point about the fact the president , you know is trying to do a rally in New Hampshire. They claimed he couldnt do the rally because there were going to be thunderstorms. Those thunderstorms never really, Tropical Storm that never arrived in New Hampshire. I think they realized they were on their way towards another tulsa debacle. Youre seeing it happen now in jacksonville where im sure well talk about it more today for the convention. The Republican Convention is now in peril there. Theres discussion about, you know, scrapping the indoor element of it and pushing it to be outside. The possibility of people having to wearing a masks. Appropriate thing poor Public Health but not what the president s wants. The president s plans, things hesee lied on for campaign tools, the things he love to do, the big rally. People Standing Shoulder to shoulder. Now for the sake of Public Health not able do this and of course, from his point of view this is the perfect captive audience as you said. I say one more thing. Right . Even if you forget about all the grotesque abuse of public resources, taxpayerfunded stage, you forget about all that. Just take it as pure politics. If you just evaluate what he did yesterday in terms of his attacks on joe biden, did anybody hear and effective attack on joe biden . Did anybody hear a frame on joe biden that might have a chance of proving his political standing of taking joe biden down a peg . Quite the contrary. I defy you to tell me what the president s argument is against joe biden on the basis of what he said yesterday. Incoherent rambling and one of the other elements thats happening. The president is incredibly frustrated with the fact in joe biden who is not, say it over and over again, not a perfect candidate, has his flaws and weaknesses as all of us do, but the president is incredibly frustrated in that he cannot find an effective frame for joe biden. This is like the nightmare candidate for him. Another septuagenerian relative moderate conservative even white guy. Not what donald trump wanted to run against and yet to, now in july, the president does not know how to make the case against joe biden. That was vividly on display yesterday in the rose guards. Garden. Still ahead on morning joe, Police Violence, the Confederate Flag and armed intimidation. President trump tossed red meat to his base while turning off just about everybody else. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Ight back. Y come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. [ ] when you have diabetes, managing your blood sugar is crucial. Nnnnono try boost glucose control. The patented blend is clinically shown to help manage blood sugar levels. It provides 60 more protein than the leading diabetes nutrition shake. Try boost glucose control. We know youre always at univethere for them. X, thats why our advisors are always here for you. Learn more at phoenix. Edu. Before his meandering rose garden appearance, President Trump spent time earlier in the day weighing in on matters of race in a series of interviews. Peter baker writes, the appearance came on day when mr. Trump seemed eager to challenge convention and at times basic facts. During an earlier interview with cbs news, he denied that black americans suffered from Police Brutality more than white americans. Lets talk about george floyd. You said George Floyds death was a terrible thing. Terrible. Why are africanamericans still dieing at the hands of law enfor enforcement in this country, and so are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people. More white people, by the way. More white people. As the Washington Post notes, more white people are shot and killed by police when considering absolute number, however, blacks are fatally shot by police at a higher rate when accounting for population differences. Later on in that interview the president dismissed concerns over the confederate battle flag as an issue of freedom of speech. Back in 2015 you said the confederate battle flag belongs in a museum. Do you still believe that . Freedom of speech. Simple. My attitude is freedom of speech. Very strong views on the Confederate Flag. With me its freedom of speech. Very simple. Like it, dont like it. Its freedom of speech. Would you be comfortable with your supporters displaying the confederate battle flag depends on what your definition is but i am comfortable with freedom of speech. Simple. You understand why the flag is a painful symbol for many people, because its a reminder of slavery . People love it and i know people that like the Confederate Flag and theyre not thinking about slavery. Look at nascar. Nascar, those flags were all over the place. They stopped it. I just think its freedom of speech. Whether its Confederate Flags or black lives matter or anything else you want to talk about, its freedom of speech. And in yet another interview yesterday, trump also falsely claimed that a white couple in st. Louis who confronted peaceful marchers outside their home with guns were on the verge of being attacked. Trump told townhall. Com they were going to be beat up badly and the house totally ransacked and probably burned down. As the times video notes, became a flashpoint in the National Debate over racial inequality showed the protesters at no point physically threatened the couple. They were, in fact, peaceful. Up next, we get reaction to those comments and what it means for the president s diminished standing among the American People. Morning joe is coming right back. Ing right back. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance, so you only pay for what you need. I wish i could shake your hand. Granted. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Sixtytwo thousand seven hundred and ten dollars and thirtyone cents. Sofi allowed me to refinance all of my loans to one low Interest Rate and an affordable monthly payment. And i just feel like theres an end in sight now and that my debt doesnt define me anymore. Sofi is helping me get my money right. Sofi is helping me no matter where you live, where you live has never mattered more. For over 100 years, realtors® have brought local knowledge and deep expertise to helping people find new places to dream and thrive. The next great place youll call home. So, whether youre upsizing downsizing or just ready to make a change. Look for the r. Now is the time to support the places you love. Spend 10 dollars or more at a participating Small Business and get 5 dollars back, up to 10 times with american express. Enroll now at shopsmall. Com. Shawna, what stands out to you . We just ran several sound bites. Seems to me that the president is choosing to say things that are roiling the race issue. Especially when it comes to police shootings, white versus black. Why did he have to say that . Why would he choose to say that during that interview . Politically. I mean, first, i give the reporter props for trying to have a somewhat nuanced discussion with the president about this. But as we know and as weve been saying for four, five years even, it really comes down President Trumps base. At some point he has gotten the message there is a part of his base that doesnt want tone gauge in this conversation about race were having in this country, that theres part of his base that wants to be able to fly Confederate Flags. Not all of this base, and we also know he doesnt really have a grasp of history of this country. So i am not giving him a pass for not really being able to grapple with the issue of the Confederate Flag and what that stands for, but i dont think anyone is surprised by his answers at this point. You know, i also think the followup question for the president , if hes going to keep repeating the phrase freedom of speech over and over again is, do you believe in the freedom of speech and the protesters in the streets talking about black lives matter . Talking about our need to reform the Police Systems in various cities and localities . Those freedom of speech extend to people who may not be your supporters, because that is also what the presidency stands for. And im not sure weve ever gotten a clear answer about that. But this comes back to what i said about sort of trump 2020 bingo. You want to avoid making anyone mad over the Confederate Flag who might want to turn out and vote for you. But also freedom of speech, you know, your ability to not have to wear a mask and all of these other things, that checks some boxes. So i think he feels that the safest answer and the answer that will please people is just keep repeating freedom of speech. And if he can avoid that larger conversation about race, i think hes going to try to do that from now on. Coming up, what Jeff Sessions defeat means for the future of trumpism. Morning joe is back in a moment. Managing type 2 diabetes . Youre on it. Exercising often and eating healthy . Yup, on it there too. 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I think lgts time for this Republican Party to listen to the donald trump agenda because hes talk and those things frankly and openly and i think they were huge factors in his ability to win that past election, fanned he gets on message and stays on it, stays on those principle positions i think hell be in a position to come back and win this election. Former attorney general Jeff Sessions with that message to the Republican Party and donald trump in his concession speech yesterday after losing his bid to reclaim his old u. S. Senate seat in alabama. Sessions conceded yesterdays republican primary runoff to trumpbacked former College Football coach Tommy Tuberville. Tuberville will now take on democratic senator doug jones in novembers general election. Joining us now, New York Times reporter jeremy peters. Professor at linden b. Johnson school of Public Affairs at university of texas, msnbc contributor victoria and host of politics nation anreverend al sharpton. Good to have you all for this segment. Jeremy, start with you and your analysis of the Jeff Sessions Tommy Tuberville race. Jeff sessions was sort of a trump person, until he wasnt, but sort of embodied the trump message, and yet trump backed tuberville. Whats your analysis of the outcome of this race . Well, i think you know, whatever trumpism is, mika, after last nights loss for Jeff Sessions, you can honestly say that it is more about the man than it was ever about the ideas. Jeff sessions was not only faithful to the trump agenda, Jeff Sessions was onboard with the trump agenda before trump was ever a political figure. Jeff sessions was fighting Immigration Reform and helped defeat it in the senate in the 2007. When donald trump was still hos sessions brought those and when campaigning for president Jeff Sessions was the first republican senator to endorse him. The ideas that lit this populous, nationalist brushfire that helped donald trump get elected were Jeff Sessions ideas before donald trump ever embraced them. Now after a threedecade political career Jeff Sessions is kicked to the curb because donald trump decided he is disloyal and unworthy of service, and alabama voters seemed just fine with that. Jeremy, throw in giving um his job to become attorney general where he was one of the architects of the family separation policy and talk and leavings with dignity intact. Up for debate now. His political kpreer career is. How are the people inside the state handicapping this race in the fall . Doug jones has a tough fight to keep his seat against Tommy Tuberville last night called President Trump the greatest president of my lifetime, which for a republican to say that, he was alive obviously when Ronald Reagan was president , thats a big statement, but the goal here, to hug donald trump closely. What does it look like in the fall . Well, thats just the kind 6 statement that these republican politicians feel like they have to say. Whether they believe it or not. And, willie, you and i both know from our conversations with these republicans, for the most part they dont believe that. Its something, compulsory for a republican running for office today to say. Now the doug jones race is interesting, because nobody has been, you know a more loyal soldier, having such a precarious political position being kind of caught between the right and the left. He voted for impeachment, has always been pretty good with most democratic issues, but i dont yet see evidence the Democratic Party will put much money or resources into his race, because frankly, talking about a state donald trump won in 2017 by almost 30 points. Eve an really politically vulnerable donald trump like the one we see today, even with that, its going to be hard for doug jones, or any democrat, to win in alabama. Yeah. No question. Jeremy, move one state east. Youre covering the state of georgia as well right now. The president of the United States will be there today. Georgia is now a battleground state. He won by about five points last time around n. That state has not gone for a very long time to a democrat, but theyre hopeful joe biden may snatch that one away. What is are grounds as this may become a battleground . The republican larger strugglesed upper this increasingly unpopular president. I mean, you have a really Winnable Senate race. Two of them, actually. And there is real question right now on a lot of republicans minds, real heartburn, that this is going to be really, really close. David perdue is about even in a lot of polls with hess dimmick challenger john ossah. Thats alarming. Donald trump losing in a fox news poll that came out last month. Trump is headed to georgia today to talk about the need to rebuild the nations infrastructure. If you were going to georgia in july as a republican president ial nominee, that should tell the country how big a red flag there is hanging over your reelection prospects. Well, joe biden is launch ag s launching a new set of ads in texas, arizona as well as florida and north carolina. Heres a look at the one thats going to run in texas. Im thinking about all 6 you acrosstexas and know the rising case numbers is causing fear and apprehension. People are frightened. Theyre especiallyorried about their parents, their grandparents, loved ones who are most at risk. This virus is tough, but texas is tougher. We can stop the spread, and its up to all of us to do it. We have to step up and do both the simple things and the hard things to keep our families and neighbors safe. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay home if you can and socially distance when you go out. I want every single american to know. If youre sick, if youre struggling, if youre worried about how youre going to get through the day, i will not abandon you. Were all in this together. Well fight this together. And together well emerge from this stronger than we were before we began. Im joe biden and i approve this message. Victoria defrancesco soto. Talk to me about texas. Is it possible joe biden could take texas . Mika, ive always been very cautious when i say, oh, texas is going to flip. Its going to go blue. Every election we get that talk. I do think we are extremely close, and im going to go with the ocean metaphor, right . The blue wave. Waves swell. You know . It doesnt happen in one fail swoop, and weve been seeing that. We saw Hillary Clinton lose in single digits. We saw 2018 a lot of pickup across the state and even though i remember bizezo, he host but came within two psercentage points of ted cruz. I think if the coronavirus storm is anything it can be a precipitating factor. So im still not going to put all of my money on texans turning blue, but i think whats really important is what i will put my money on, is that ins 2020 we are going see the ball moved down the field. I think that, you know, joe biden can come within two to three Percentage Points of trump in texas, and we might see, again, mj hager won the democratic runoff going up against cornyn also come within two to three Percentage Points. While those arent wins outright, in the larger picture put texas on track to a very blue path in 2024. Jonathan lemire. Reverend al, i want to circle back a little to the Jeff Sessions point, portion of this discussion. He said last night, this would be the last race of his political career. This effectively ends it. He, of course, was thought by notice have actually done the right thing in recusing himself from the russia probe while attorney general. Of course, he incurred the wrath of the president who never, ever, ever forgive him for that. But let me give awe shot here. Speak to what his legacy is going to be like at attorney general . Because so much of what he did, people around the president will try to cool trumps anger, because they said Jeff Sessions was arguably his most effective cabinet member delivering the trump agenda. What do you think . How is history going to remember Jeff Sessions time as both senator but particularly as attorney general . Jeff sessions was opposed by most of us in the Civil Rights Community when he was nominated. Had a terrible record in Voting Rights. A terrible record in terms of dealing with policing and other issues, and once he was confirmed, he met with us and he told us in the first meeting two or three weeks after he took the position he was ending the consent decrees with policing whered there been a pattern in certain cities of police abuse. He was not going to aggressively fight for Voting Rights. So his legacy would be that he really turned back the clock on the Justice Department that had began to pursue fighting for better policing, dealing with Voting Rights and all, and that he lost his position with all that he did that was in lockstep with the president , donald trump, wanted to reverse the era of obama. He was rewarded with being kicked out the door, because he did what was right on russia. Unfortunately, that will be a footnote that he did the right thing and will be the major part, in my opinion, that he was the one that turned the clock back on the Justice Department from where we had advanced from Robert Kennedy to eric holder and loretta lynch. Rev, stand by. Jeremy peters and victoria defrancesco soto, thank you both for being on the show this morning. It is time now for business before the bell with cnbcs brian sullivan. Brian, look at the stock market, how its reacting to promising results from the Coronavirus Vaccine trial. Two trials out there. Hi, everybody. Good to see you again. M moderna. Not a lot of serious adverse reaction. All 45 did react. Stock way up. The stock futures way up. Markets going to soar today unless something changes because we all want this vaccine to occur one day after we have 67,400 new cases. A new record in the United States. Also theres very favorable trial mika out of oxford, england, and the Major Pharmaceutical Company astrazeneca. Not just one positive potential vaccine. There are two. Got to temper this. Obviously you know, youve talked about it. A vaccine, gets done. Gets approved. Gets manufactured. Gets distributed. It could be a ways off. We understand that, but i think the hope, the optimism that we might be able to come out of this absent just herd immunity and 70 of america getting it is a very optimistic thing and the market reflects that today. All right. Quick on mcmahonices banks defaulting. A possibly were going to see this . Not yet, but watch this space closely, mika. The 28 billion was set aside by the banks that reported in the quarter for bad loans. Ive said on my show on cnbc, the job market. Worry about the job market june of 2021, less june of 2020. This recession could be longer and deeper than you think. Watch the banks. Not in trouble yet but got about 90 billion of clos, collateral loan obligations. Go back and watch the big short. Instruments not as bad but still out there. Different forms, mika, but they exist. Wells fargo has more thanes 20 billion and why that stocks been suffering. Our company has big news today. Peacock making announcements. What are they . Yeah peacock. Okay. We all pay for streaming services. Peacock, the new launch from our Parent Company and comcast. Going to be free. There is a paid tier, and on that premium tier, i dont know if you know anybody that likes liverpool soccer team, mika, but you can watch premiere league games, yeah, on sit and watch all day premiere league game, morning joe in the morning, a little cnbc and then premiere league. Congratulations to our Parent Company as well. Launches today. Exclusive content, new shows, shows we love like the office, parks and rec, a little mika, joe, willie. Premiere league. Whats not to love . Exactly. Yeah. What i was going to say. Cnbcs brian sullivan. Thank you very much. And still ahead, if the george floyd case goes to trial prosecutors will try to argue that officer Derek Chauvins intent was to cause harm. Up next, we take a look at a new film that imagines the outcome of another similar case, had it gone to court. Morning joe is back in a moment. Nt. Tell me about it. You know, its made me think, im closer to my retirement days than i am my college days. Hm. Im thinking. Will i have enough . Should i change something . Well, youre asking the right questions. I just want to know, am i gonna be okay . I know people who specialize in am i going to be okay. I like that. You may need glasses though. Yeah. Guidance to help you stay on track, no matter what comes next. Were helping members catch up by spreading any missed usaa insurance payments over the next twelve months so they can keep more cash in your pockets for when it matters most find out more at usaa. Com. To soccer practices. And new adventures. You hope the more you give the less theyll miss. But even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past. They may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. Lets help protect them together. Because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. Ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. Ask your doctor if your teen weve always put safety first. And we always will. For people. For the future. And there has never been a summer when its mattered more. Wherever you go, summer safely. Get zero percent apr financing for up to five years on select models and exclusive lease offers. How could we put our trust in the Justice System when they fall us like this . In a statement, the officer accused of applying the choke hold writes, i feel very bad about the death of mr. Garner. The time for remorse would have been when my husband was yelling to breathe. He was murdered. Grand jury has found the evidence is just not there. Not to indict. Refuse to indict. No indictment. No indictment. Thank you, miss garner, for coming in. I appreciate it. Want to have the opportunity to go over some of the charges that were prepared to go forward on. And what was he doing . Objection. You need some time . This is a little much for me. This is a lot. Mr. Panteleo, will you please stand . Has the jury reach aid verdict . Yes, we have, your honor. What is your verdict . A look at the new film american trial the eric gar nechlt r story, part documentary, part unscripted history that imagines what could have happened if the nypd officer who killed garner had been put on trial. Joining us now is the films director, along with esop snipes garner, eric garners widow. Ill start with you. What inspired it and what questions does it answer . I was living in harlem as a film student when eric garner was killed back in 2014, and, you know, it was everywhere. You couldnt get away from it. The rallies, people in the grocery store, on the street when i was walking my dog, and everybody seems to think that there should have been a trial. And i think it was very difficult for everyone to understand how is it possible that a trial didnt follow such a brutal incident. And it occurred to me that i was living in new york that all the witnesses that would have participated in the trial are probably just live within a 15, 20mile radius to me and it wouldnt be difficult to track them down and see if they would be willing to participate in this kind of project and, yeah, thats how the idea came about, to basically tell the story of the trial that should have happened using the real witnesses that would have testified, giving people a chance to testify in that trial, and using real attorneys so that its not about what i think should have happened, right . Its not about me writing a script, showing what a trial should have looked like in my opinion but rather how a trial could have really looked like if the people involved were to be given a chance to do it. We appreciate you being on with us this morning. I dont have to tell you that two days from now will be the sixth anniversary of erics death. I wonder what it was like for you as a witness who participated in this film to sit and answer those questions, to relive that day, to relive the aftermath of it. Was it frustrating for you . Was it cathartic for you . How did it feel to sit and listen to the evidence in this case . Who are you asking, me or roee . I think hes asking you, esop. Well, it was hard for me, of course, because, you know, this is a film to everyone else but its my life. Its what happened to me, you know. My husband wasnt the greatest, but he was mine, you know, and he was be here to enjoy the life of raising our grandchildren and everything, and that was taken away from him. I just felt like maybe if people saw what this film bring about that it would, you know, unfortunately the trial came and went before the film came out but i was hoping in some small way that it would get into peoples minds and change their minds about the verdict but, unfortunately, that didnt happen. But it was just wishful thinking, i guess, on my part. It was hard for me to sit there and listen to it, even though i knew it was fake, it was real to me. And its still real to me. And being two days away, i still cant believe that its been six years that my husband has been gone. And i miss him every day. You know, people say when it comes around to july 17th. But, no, i miss him every day, every holiday, every birthday. My grandchildrens milestones, when he should be here, you know. It was really hard and it still is. Talking about it, its a little easier now to talk about it without breaking down, but i still break down sometimes because it was just horrible, you know. And to see it over and over and over again in video made it even hard harder and even now, you know, they dont have any compassion for how the family feels. And every time something happens with Police Brutality, you know, his video is like a point of reference. In many ways, esaw, the whole movement that you and the family were thrust into, and i was there from day one. I can witness it. You and i became family. In many ways, eric garners movement is really what started this whole wave, this new wave of Police Questioning and now george floyd and others have represented because black lives matter as a hash tag started with trayvon mattrtin, that was not a policeman. The police case was eric garner. The significance of this film that you worked on and allowed yourself to go through the pain of the acting is so significant as we look at george floyd, because i cant breathe and questioning policing started with eric garner, but you and the family have had to live that for six years now every day. Uhhuh. To us, its history and its a social issue. To you, its your husband and its their father and grandfather. And you lost a daughter in this. So, the personal pain of this, i was able to witness. No one could ever explain what they went through as we all try to fight to change the social climate, they still have to live with this. Yes. And, you know, rev, youre my big brother, and youve been there for me since day one. And you continue to be there for me. I can call you at any time for anything, for any reason, even if its just prayer, you know. Anything. I miss you so much, rev. Let me just say that. You know, roee, he has become part of the family through this process, you know, of making the film, you know. Roee has been there since, i would say, a year after eric died, you know, i met roee. I dont know what it is about him, but his ingenuity, his sincerity just shined through from day one and i just knew we were a match made in heaven. The film streaming now is american trial the eric garner story. We really appreciate this film, roee messinger, esaw snipesgarner, thank you both. Roee, thank you for putting on this project and esaw, thank you for putting yourself through it so we could learn so much. Thank you both. Time now for final thoughts. Jonathan lemier, you go first. Ill just echo what a powerful moment this is. I covered eric garners death on the streets of new york city and in the aftermath, i remember seeing reverend sharpton in a number of those events, certainly. It is remarkable. Certainly, im sure every time this comes around, the wounds are reopened. And as much as what he said has become a rallying cry, helped form the reverend al . I think knowing how far we come, as we do have some cases where police are not at least arrested and charged so there wont be imaginary trials. There will be a real george floyd trial. But the day after we saw the president say more whites are killed than blacks by police. We still have a long way to go in this country. Willee . Speaking as the president , the white house is is saying Peter Navarro, the trade adviser, went rogue, attacking dr. Anthony fauci, which raises the question, will he be fired, as would happen in any other white house . Here we go. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Oh, here we go is right. Thank you, mika. Hi, there. Im stephanie ruhle. Its wednesday, july 15th. Here are the facts of this hour. We begin with a very big number, roughly 68,000 new cases of coronavirus reported in the last 24 hours. That is among the highest daily counts we have seen thus far. We are now closing in on 3. 5 million cases acros