Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20200807

Field and avoid liability to shift production to thighland and vietnam. Thailand and vietnam. Oh, thighland. Thats homer simpson. The capital of course is wingler. Nothing but chicken wings and chicken thighs. Isnt that from tuscaloosa from your college days . It is. You have your dreamland and then your gillette and then your thighland. I got to tell you, by the time you its not a pub crawl, its a chicken crawl. Touch them all. By the time youre done through that, youre crawling to class. I told you, as you know, i went to the university of alabama and university of florida law school, proud to be an alum of both of them, Great Southern state schools. Theres actually a guy on twitter yesterday with a dartmouth degree that was trying to explain to everybody that elites did not understand that thailand was actually pronounced thighland. Its a moment, a cult, the cult of trump, its that reminds me alex we need this in the rotation. Where mike pence sees donald trump puts the water on the floor so mike pence puts the water on the floor. Thats all i have to say, willie. Yeah. I thought we were going to roll the clip. That was the dramatic pause for the clip. Well insert that in post production. If youre willing to go down and die on that hill, the mispronunciation of thailand, theres nothing you wont go down with trump on. Now you had the pinner pause. Now you have the corson pause. Well have the water soon. Pinter of course won a noble prize. Willie and i are working on our project in case youre wondering this early friday morning. Were trying to get our third noble prize for science you said too much already. Im going to put it next to my green jacket. What year did i win the masters. 87. Our apologies to larry. Good morning and welcome to morning joe its friday, august 7th. We have associate editor for the washington post, eugene robinson. Msnbc contributor, victoria defrancesco, ceo of axios, Associated Press reporter jonathan lemire. And historian john meacham. Willie, lets start with the news. Lets get into it. We begin with new coronavirus numbers. The United States now exceeding 160,000 deaths since the pandemic began. America has reported nearly 4. 9 million covid19 cases. Keeping a close eye on hot spots like florida where yesterday there were 8,000 new cases reported. And in texas, at least 300 new deaths for the third day. California continues to grapple with a Technical Glitch in the covid19 tracking system. Officials say its impacting response efforts statewide. A new prediction from the university of washington, the key covid19 model suggests the number of deaths in america is expected to climb to nearly 300,000 by december 1st. Good lord. The model the white house has used and a lot of people looked at. But researchers claim if 90 of americans wore masks when leaving their homes the number of deaths would drop by 66,000. The report also predicts states might reinstate lockdown measures once the death rate reaches 8 per million. Joe, when that number crossed yesterday, it was staggering. Talking about almost 300,000 deaths just over 160,000 right now. If that model plays out, lets hope to got it doesnt. Youre looking at half again what weve seen already. For people that havent been covering this closely, been covering this modeling very closely. Its bounced wildly back and forth but this university of Washington Institute has been one that the white house has used time and again. Its estimates have actually been conservative more often than not. I think the president quoted them saying it might be 60,000, 70,000, not so many months ago. This is the problem with a pandemic. Back when fools and political cranks and cult members were saying, its just like the flu, having the same number of people get this that had the flu, health experts, doctors, scientists, epidemiologists, they all talked about how quickly, how exponentially pandemics like this spread. So, of course, thats what happened. Ill be honest, i was hoping we would stay under 50,000 deaths in march. I didnt know that that could happen, but that certainly was a great hope. You notice, again, if you follow month by month by month, this spreads so quickly. And you notice, were not were not having the university of Washington Institute telling people, if you stay in your home for the next six months, if you shutdown your Small Business for the next six months, if you lock your children away and dont allow them to go to schools for the next smiixth months, no wha do they talk about . They talk about wearing a mask. Its simple. I dont remember in the founding documents or the federalist papers or in the staging of hamilton either on broadway or disney, now streaming at disney plus but man you should look at peacock, peacock is awesome. There it is. I had to say that. Peacock is amazing. I dont remember anybody talking about the right to kill yourself and others by not wearing a mask. This whole idea. I know it comes out of the trump cult thing for people who the extreme members of the trump cult about not Wearing Masks. But this study says if if we want to cut the deaths in america by how many . 50,000 or so, instead of 300,000 deaths by december we could have far less, just wear a mask. But the main thing to see with the numbers for those who still want to believe donald trump that this is going to magically go away. Its not. Look at the growth of the deaths month by month by month. What you see is a quickening pace. Instead of what donald trump is saying its slowing down, its not. Its getting worse. More people are suffering. More people are dying. Now is the time. Theres always the time to change your behavior for all of us to change your behavior and take those precautions that can save your life and the life of your loved ones. And even that huge number, the 200,000 lets hope its on the high end of things. And it assumes, that half of the countrys kids dont go back to school fulltime. The maddening part is it didnt have to be this way. That 50,000 number you predicted and thought about in march was a reasonable number. It was a terrible number but a reasonable number. Now were talking about 300,000 deaths potentially. Ohio Governor Mike Dewine tested negative for coronavirus hours after another test had a positive result. Governor dewine first tested positive yesterday morning using a rapid test which allows for results in minute but was less accurate. It was part of the protocol for those greeting President Trump on the tarmac. Governor dewine then used a more standard procedure known as pcr and the results came back negative in the evening. The second test that looks for the material for the virus is known to be more accurate but its time intensive. Dewines sample was run twice and came back negative both times. Jonathan lemire youre on the trip. This test was administered because governor dewine was going to meet President Trump on the tarmac in ohio. What was the ripple effects on the news on air force one. Im in new jersey today, dont be too jealous. Not far from the president s bed minister club where hes spending a three day weekend. But perhaps now in my first line of career obituary note i was in the room when the president said thighland. The president spent the day in ohio, which is noteworthy. He won it in 2016 and now po polling shows it even with joe biden. He has to spent time, Energy Resources in states like ohio yesterday, in texas last week, having to play defense. It was as we were about to take off from washington on air force one when we got news that the governor had tested positive and would not be able to be on the tarmac so he wasnt there when we landed. The president was greeted by other officials and representatives. He addressed it saying he hoped the governor would be okay. The entire day was centered around a speech. The president touted his economic policies, toured a whirlpool factory in ohio, to tout the manufacturing under his watch, which has stalled the last year or two. But he cant out run the virus, everything he tried to do was shadowed by this. And last night when we landed in new jersey we got word the second test was negative. In texas last week, the congressman was going to be on air force one, he wasnt because he tested positive, seems other tests kantd it as well. But everyone that comes in contact with the president , staff, officials on the road, reporters, i took that same test that governor dewine did in ohio. But theres been false negatives at first or a false positive. It calls into question how accurate and safe these are for anyone, including those traveling with the commander in chief. Theres been questions for some time about these rapid tests and how accurate they are. I do know, willie, that Mike Barnicle is thinking ahead, even after the pandemic is over, he may get a kit and any time hes invited to do something hell do a dewine. Its a good out. Take the test, positive. I cannot go to your bridge game. And then take the real test a little bit later on. So mike dewine got out of being with the president , not that he would want to do that. But those tests are especially since you have those tests that have proven to be unreliable around the president of the United States. You wonder if theres not a better way to do it. The fact that the testing, gene robinson, thats being used around the president of the United States is so inaccurate tells you first of all, how dangerous that is for the country that our leadership cant even be tested safely, but also how poorly our testing regiment is, even six months into this. Right. It definitely defeats the purpose of giving everybody a test whos going to see the president if you cant rely on the tests, right. So you have no idea if you know, hopefully you have some idea. Hopefully theyre not 50 inaccurate or whatever. But clearly, in this high profile case and as jonathan said in other cases, this rapid test has been wrong. And that certainly does call into question its worth. And also it does raise questions. Theres so much different kinds of tests, different manufacturers, different methods with different degrees of reliability. It is a patchwork that i guess you could better describe as a crazy quilt of testing. And again, that was one of the original sins in response to this pandemic was we never got the testing right. We never made it right. Widely available enough, reliable enough. So we still dont have as good a handle we ought to have on where the virus is and where its going next. You know, its a lack of planning and its a lack of planning thats haunted this administrations approach to the pandemic from the very beginning. Of course, it stops at the top where you had donald trump youre writing about going back to schools without a plan. You had donald trump, back in the spring, back in the spring when this pandemic was first erupting, saying people needed to go back to school. Go back to school. He wasnt talking about it in the fall. He said in the fall the pandemic was going to be gone. Believe me, trust me he said, it was like lets open businesses by easter. Every step of the way this president has been wrong, been overly optimistic, been polly annish. And the impact for that has been deadly for americans, the reason the numbers are increasing exponentially. We had no plan, whether it was reopening schools or a testing regiment. Gene, i saw a picture that a student took in a Georgia School about an hour outside of atlanta, those children were packed packed inside a classroom. I mean, inside a hallway. A hallway. Most of them not Wearing Masks and, of course, the answer, what was the answer . They suspended the student who took the picture which, of course, tells you all you really need to know about how that School District and how others around that state are handling this pandemic. Absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. Look, we all understand why it is imperative that as soon as we can safely do so we get the schools open. So if you decide to go ahead and open the schools, which i think most of the country is not ready for yet but if you decide to go ahead and do it, the very least you can do is require every student to wear a mask all the time. How do you do that . The same way you enforce the dress codes at every school in america already. Schools already dictate what students can and cant wear. You know, how you know, your skirt is too short or your pants are too baggy or you cant wear this or that, you have to be properly dressed to go to school. Every School District in the country can mandate, right now, today, that proper dress includes wearing a mask, period. And then you would have a lot less transmission of the virus, a lot fewer hot spots of ballooning, mushrooming inflation of spread the way that were likely to have in the absence of these kinds of mandamans mandat mandates. Its an easy thing that could be done but not being done. How reckless of a school to allow students to be crammed inside of a hallway without any masks. We have a lot more to talk about. When we come back well talk about joe bidens interesting take on hispanics, on blacks, and cocaine. Hows that for a tease . Morning joe will be right back. Will be right back find your keys. Find your getupandgo. Find pants that arent sweats. Find your friends. Find your sense of wander. Find the world is new, again. At chevy wed like to take you there. Now during the chevy open road sales event, get up to 15 of msrp cash back on select 2020 models. Thats over fiftyseven hundred dollars cash back on this equinox. Its time to find new roads, again. The open road is open again. And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. I appreciate what makes each person unique. At choicehotels. Com. Thats why i like liberty mutual. 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And medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. 95 of patients may pay as little as zero dollars for botox®. So, text to see how you can save. Botox® has been preventing headaches and migraines before they even start for 10 years. So, ask your doctor about botox® today. Please clarify, specifically, have you taken a cognitive test . No, i havent taken a test. Why the hell would i take a test . Come on, man, thats like saying before you got on this program you take a test whether youre taking cocaine or not . Are you a junkie . What do you say to President Trump who brags about his test and makes your mental state an issue for voters . If he cant figure out the difference between an elephant and a lion, i dont know what the hell hes talking about. Vice President Joe Biden trying to make some point asking Errol Barnett if he should have taken a cocaine test. What point is he trying to make . I wish i could help you. You could just say yes or no there. No, i dont need to take a test. So joe biden, that was a couple days ago. Now today clarifying remarks he made after suggesting the latino was more diverse than the black community. President trump wrote about it on twitter saying joe biden just lost the entire Africanamerican Community. What a dumb thing to say. Mr. Charlottesville said hes lost the entire did he really say that, willie . He wrote it down. I was working on our science project yesterday. Did he really say that the man who had david duke praising him for his moral equivalency with nazis and protesters did he really say he lost the Africanamerican Community. Yes, when you were putting the mentos in the coke bottle it blows up. I got video of it. This is a guy who said to Jonathan Swan of john lewis, he didnt come to my inauguration. The president only included part of the former Vice President s exchange he first made the comment in a conference of black and hispanic journalists. Are you going to reengage with cuba . Im specifically wondering yes. About the Florida Communities yes. That are incredibly interested in in the cuba issue yes. And see status given to venezuelans while cubans are being deported. Yes. Im going to engage. What you know, but most people dont know, unlike the Africanamerican Community with notable exceptions, the Latino Community is a Diverse Community with different attitudes about different things. You go to florida you find a different attitude about immigration than you do than when youre in arizona so its a Diverse Community. Then while addressing a group of latino elected and appointed officials yesterday the former Vice President continued to make that argument. We can build a new administration that reflects the full diversity of our nation and the full diversity of the latino communities. What i mean full diversity unlike africanamerican communities, other communities, from everywhere, from europe, the tip of south america, to the border in mexico and in the caribbean. And different backgrounds, different ethnicities, but all latinos. Were going to get a chance to do that if we win in november. So when the backlash hit last night. Vice President Biden sought to clarify his remarks. He tweeted in no way did i mean to suggest the Africanamerican Community is a monolith. Throughout my career ive witnessed the different of thought, sentiment within the Africanamerican Community its this diversity that makes our work places, communities and country a better place. I will always listen, i will never stop fighting for the Africanamerican Community and i will never stop fighting for a more equitable future. But his point is clear, the Latino Community has more diversity in it than the Latino Community. If youre looking politically, it does. Im more concerned by the cocaine comment than joe biden analyzing the political backgrounds of groups. Victoria, my complaint of democrats over the past decades has been, and weve said it on the show, they seem to think of the Latino Community as this monolith of voters. Yes, cuban voters in miami have a radically different political viewpoint on the whole as say puerto rico voters in Central Florida or mexican voters in parts of texas. It is the democrats in the past have looked at the Latino Community as a monolith. And i think thats been a great mistake. You look at the black community, like evangelicals, politically at least, usually every four years, 85, 86, 87 of black voters will vote for the democratic candidate. In the Hispanic Community i think george bush got 40 of the vote, donald trump got in the low 20s. I think perhaps joe biden made that argument inartfully, didnt need to include the Africanamerican Community in the discussion but he does seem to recognize the Latino Community is not one giant monolithic community. Its a Diverse Community politically. I completely once what vice President Joe Biden was trying to say but he said it incredibly inartfully, as you said, joe. Its about latinos having different dimensions of diversity than other groups in the United States and the two are country of origins and also in terms of generation. But i think when were talking about the electorate, the real line of division and the one that matters at the polls is the country of origin and the story that brought you here. Because what we see in florida is we saw a lot of folks who were fleeing the communist regime and when they get to the United States they have a strong sentiment against the castro regime and cuba and thats what has ultimately driven them to the Republican Party and what has formed that strong base that trump has and trump knows it. 20 of eligible voters in florida are latinos. Hes going after that vote extremely aggressively. On the flip side, joe, biden knows hes soft with some segments of the latino population. He knows that sanders beat him handily during the primary. He also knows the latinos have a segment of conservativism, of prolife separate from cuba. He knows latinos dont turn out as they should be. So there is a lot for joe biden to be worried about and these inartful comments are not helping in a time he needs everything he can to boost the latino turn out and get latinos to come to his side. Gene robinson im curious about your take on joe bidens comments. Yes, they may be inartful but its the first time i heard a National Democratic leader say what hes been saying, because again my criticism of the Democratic Party over the past decade or so they assume because theres a growing hispanic population, thats somehow going to lead to beneficial political outcomes. Its not that way. And let me say it, the Hispanic Community, the Latino Community is far more diverse than other demographic groups. Politically. Whether youre talking about black americans who vote for democrats or white evangelicals who vote overwhelmingly for republican candidates and conservative candidates, whether you talk about working class white men who have voted overwhelmingly for donald trump in the past. Or suburban College Educated white women who are going to be voting disproportionately for joe biden coming most likely coming up this fall. Whats your take on all of this, gene . I wrote a whole book about how incredibly diverse the Africanamerican Community is now. Socially, culturally, economically, much more diverse than it was 50 or 60 years ago during civil rights movement. However, theres one aspect in which the Africanamerican Community really isnt very diverse at all, and that is political behavior. That is voting behavior. And since 1964, when Barry Goldwater who opposed the Civil Rights Act was running for president on the republican ticket, since 1964, africanamerican have voted roughly between 85 and 95 for the democratic candidate. It just happens. Its a perfectly rational reason. Africanamericans perceive the Republican Party as hostile to africanamericans interests and aspirations and with good reason i would argue. Certainly in most of those elections. But thats just the way it is. So that point that biden was making was, as you said, thats a valid point. About the Latino Community. I think there may indeed be a tendency, among some democrats, to see latino as a political umbrella term in a way that it isnt and i would suggest that anyone with experience in florida elections would immediately disabuse people of that notion. Because, yes, absolutely. But, you know but democrats have an advantage in the trump era, because of how hostile trump has been on issues that are really important to many segments of that diverse Latino Community, immigration for example. And not all latinos see immigration the same way. But there are many latinos who are second generation, third generation, who do feel passionately about that issue. Who watched what happened on the border with the separation of families and the caging of children in a way that felt very personal and made them very angry. You talk about the diversity in florida among the Latino Community. I remember in 2016, when i started thinking that donald trump had a chance of winning florida, was when i talked to cubanamerican friends in miami, a lot of cubanamerican friends in Miamidade County who said, yeah, a lot of cubanamericans are going to be voting for donald trump in 16. And then, in 18, near the end of the election i made calls down to miamidade and heard that a lot of cubanamericans were going to be voting for ron desantis and rick scott for governor and senator respectively. Okay. And sure enough, you look at the results there, it had an impact. Its interesting, in 2020, im hearing regarding donald trump not so much. So at least at least from my friends in miamidade. So well see how that goes. Willie, we mentioned that Donald Trumps attempt to paint biden as a racist, he was doing that off the latest comments, but weve been talk about this for a while on this show that donald trump, unfortunately for his campaign, cant take biden on on so many issues because it always opens donald trump himself up lets just take the issue of racism. Hes a mexican. Were building a wall between here and mexico. The answer is, he is giving us very unfair rulings. Donald j. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the United States. But trump comes along and says, birth certificate. He gave a birth certificate. Whether or not that was a real certificate because a lot of people question it. I question it. Look at my africanamerican over here. Look at him. Are you the greatest. I dont know anything about david duke, okay. I dont know what youre even talking about with White Supremacy or white supremacists. You wouldnt want me to condemn a group i dont know anything about. You also had people that were very fine people on both sides. The president using an explus sieve to describe africa and haiti. The president reaching a new low telling a group of Progressive Democratic congresswoman to go back and fix the crime infested places from which they came. Well get to all of this. We also have Donald Trumps attempt to say joe biden doesnt have the mental abilities to be president. I say hes not competent to be president. To be president you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things. He doesnt even come out of his basement. Defeat the coronavirus. Surgical coups. We have no con tin contingency plans. And sefay thats one million, 870,000 million tests. Use the defense protection act. Defense production act. Hydroxychloroqui hydroxychloroquine. Remdes i thank them for their unwaving unwavering devotion. Pride and selflessness. Transfusing it into sick patients six patients. I am confident by count take an action to suspend. The inter internet made it so big. To the highest level of a actvision. Since 1917, which was the spanish flu. 1917 the pandemic. Like nobody has seen since 1917. Of course, donald trump saying joe biden was too close to china. Joe bidens policies put china first and america last. Joe bidens entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist party and to the calamity of errors that theyve made. They made so many errors. Do you trust were going to know everything we need to know from china . I do, i have a great relationship with president xi, just signed a deal last night. I spoke to president xi last night were working on the virus. Its a tough situation. But i think hes handling it really well. If you can count on the reports coming out of china, that spread has gone down quite a bit. The infection seems to have come down over the last two days, as opposed to getting larger its gotten smaller. China seems to be making tremendous progress. Their numbers are way down. And of course on january 24th he tweeted that the American People were grateful to president xi for being so transparent and doing such a good job on the coronavirus. Heres another one. On monday trumps new Campaign Manager urged voters to judge the president ial candidates by the company they keep. I think you need to judge joe biden by the peoples surrounding himself with. At every step of the compaampai he has kowtowed to the radical left of the party well see the same when he chooses his Vice President ial nominee. Hes an empty vessel of the radical left, how he won the nomination in the first place and its concerning that he is a pawn of the radical fringe of the aoc wing of the party. Someone who was a member of the Trump Administrations inner circle takes a stunning fall, pleading guilty in a washington courtroom, former National Security advisor Michael Flynn today admitting he lied to the fbi about his phone conversations with the russian ambassador. George papadopoulos admitted to lying to the fbi in its investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained another guilty plea this one from rick gates. What the conservative report described as trump hell hour. His 2016 campaign chief Paul Manafort convicted by a jury on eight counts at almost the exact same time that trumps former lawyer, michael cohen, entered a guilty plea to eight counts. What does it say about donald trump that we have to take a break from talking about his investigation and rudys criminal investigation out of sdny to tell you about another friend convicted in court. Donald trumps longest serving political counselor, roger stone found guilty today on all seven counts against him. Judge the people hes surrounding himself with, i agree, bill americans should. And this from yesterday, donald trump attacking joe bidens faith in god. Hes following the radical left agenda. Take away your guns, destroy your second amendment. No religion, no anything. Hurt the bible. Hurt god. Hes against god, hes against guns. Hes against energy. Our kind of energy. Hurt the bible, hurt god. As Stuart Stevens said his money is on god. Heres a reminder of Donald Trumps own musings on faith. Have you ever asked god for forgiveness . Im not sure i have. I just go and try to do a better job from there. I dont think so. I think if i do something wrong, i think i just try and make it right. I dont bring god into that picture. I dont. You know when i talk about the bible its personal. I dont want to get it means a lot to you the bible means a lot to me but i dont want to get into specifics. I heard this is a theme here, 2 corintians. When you hold up a bible and nobody loves the bible more than i do. When you hold up a bible, you dont put it down and go around lying and doing a lot of things that are wrong. Yeah, and, of course, the latest example, the president ordered the clearing of Peaceful Protesters from Lafayette Park on june 1st in order to take this photo op, holding a bible in front of st. Johns church upside down. And as senator langford said, ive grown up in the church and ive never seen anybody hold a bible that way. Theres so much to talk about here. John meacham, i guess well give with you on the faith aspect of it. Heres a man again, who by all outward appearances, im not judging his faith, im judging the outward appearances and the things that he says and things that he does, and, of course, his claim that hes never asked god for forgiveness, anybody whos been to sunday school for ten minutes knows the central tenant of the faith is you are a christian when you ask jesus for forgiveness. But you also go through all the things he said, including yesterday saying that he hated that joe biden hated the bible and hated religion. And as a catholic editor of american magazine said, that is very typical anticatholicism. This is what matt malone said. The charges that a catholic hates the bible or is ignorant of scripture is a classic form of anticatholic bigotry, which is still very much in vogue. And theres no doubt that donald trump exhibited anticatholic bigotry when he was attacking joe biden yesterday for, quote, hating the bible. The president the incumbent president of the United States has no idea what hes talking about. And not that thats a news flash, but look at the thoughts there. Joe biden is against god, against the bible four things really, against guns and against energy. So just lets parse that sentence for a second. God, the bible, guns and energy. Whats a place in the country where those four factors, religion, scripture, guns and energy might be important . Might it be red states that are being ravaged by the coronavirus that the president of the United States has singularly failed to address with a comprehensive National Plan . Which is one of the few reasons we have a federal government. Which is to coordinate responses in the face of emergency. So i dont even take it seriously, as a critique of Vice President biden. I hesitate even to for us to spend much time talking about the substance of that charge, because its not a charge. His mouth is moving. Thats the only thing i dont know that its connected to his brain. Hes just trying to hold on to power. And thats the fundamental thing. He has amassed power through, you showed it a second ago, racist appeals, hes held onto it by awe peeling to the worst impulsives in the character, all the things that have held us back in the past. Not the things that have pushed us forward. And thats the fundamental question of the election. And we can talk about what joe biden says on zoom and whatever passing attack comes to the president s mind. But president ial elections dont always give us as stark a choice as this one does. And i dont think thats a partisan point. I think that any rational person, looking at this this race clinically sees that you have a pretty we have a pretty clear decision here. Do we want to restore a conversation that defined the country for 70, 80 years, which was an argumentative one, often a corrosive one, always a ferocious one between the world view represented in many ways by Franklin Roosevelt and the other 35 yard line you have the world view represented by Ronald Reagan and every president from the new deal through president obama governed on this field. And sometimes theyd be over here, sometimes over there. Sometimes they get it wrong, sometimes they get it right. But that was a coherent field, that was the american consensus. The american consensus is what were going to argue about. Whats so disruptive and fundamentally corrosive about President Trump is he invents things for us to argue about. He goes out and finds them. On the religious question, look, america as weve been talking about for several months has gotten a whole lot wrong about our sense of identity and incliei inclusion and who has equal access to justice and fairness and equality. One thing we have gotten right largely is religious equality. George washington said every man should be able to sit under his vine and fig tree and none should make us afraid. You start saying people are against god and you are once again careening off a basic path we should stay on, get back on, which is to try to be not only a great country but a good one. And he youre right. Its not between those 35 yard lines represented by fdr on the left and Ronald Reagan on the right. Hes doing ill bring up ann applebalms book again, if people want to understand whats going on in america, read her book. She discusses hungary, who has gain gained almost absolute power, taken over the press, driven any voices of dissent out of the country for the most part. He does so by creating conspiracy theories about george soros and invading muslim hordes. Of course, there are no invading muslim hordes in hungary. Its a complete fabrication, a set of alternative facts and that is the choice that we have this fall. Donald trump, day in, day out, creates alternative facts. And those alternative facts are meant to divide us. And jim, we talked about race, we showed race. Joe biden said some things that he had to apologize for on the issue of race. Unfortunately for the Trump Campaign, they cant really use race as an attack if joe biden fumbles and then apologizes, there doesnt seem to be any opening. We showed the clips. Heres a man who attacked an indiana judge called him a mexico, said he couldnt trust him because he was from mexico when he was from indiana, his parents immigrated from mexico. The clip he claimed to not know anything about david duke, a lie. Didnt want to attack the white supremacist, wouldnt say anything negative about the klan. We can continue, we can talk about john lewis. Again, doesnt this seem to be the biggest problem for the Trump Campaign that whatever direction he goes in on an attack, joe biden has material thats going to, you know, outgun politically outgun their efforts 10 to 1, 20 to 1. Is there a single africanamerican voter whos going to change their mind because of what bachelors degree of what biden said today, i doubt it. If you look at where theyre spending money, visits, hes all in on cranking up the white vote. Hes hoping wide america is big enough you can eke out a victory like he was able to do in 2016. They spend a lot of money in Rural Communities hoping there were people that didnt vote for him last time that will vote for him this time. He does little to reach out to the Africanamerican Community, Hispanic Community. It worked in 2016. The truth is for republicans watching the show, this was always going to happen, the country has been changing if you look at demographic, birth patterns its becoming a diverse nation. At some point youre going to have happen what happened in virginia, whats happening in georgia now, texas, what youve seen happen in florida, its just a different nation. And there are some republicans that want to grapple with that, want us to think differently about immigration and other topics but then in came donald trump and to meachams point he did take politics out of the 30 to 40 yard lines and move the Republican Party to a different place. I think its a place the Republican Party stays in after donald trump. Theres not a massive market inside the republican to go back to the ways of paul ryan or mitt romney or more conservative politics. Im as surprised by it as you are, but thats the reality. So you are going to have more and more of this. Like this nonsensical arguments whether someone is antigod, wants to defeat god, which is weird and not productive. But its your life until november. It is weird. You look at the clips, its just bizarre and strange that hes going to fight god and fight the bible, all those bizarre things. Jim let me ask you quickly about wisconsin. Youre from there. Whats your latest take on how the president ial race is going . Its not looking good for donald trump. Again, unless theres a massive hidden vote that were missing, if you look at the polling in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, and even in georgia and florida and texas, these polls are terrible. Theres no other way to spin it. Even the people around trump when youre talking to them, theyre not arguing that they dont suck. Theyre terrible for him. So something would have to happen. There would have to be a change of trajectory, wed have to find a vaccine, the economy would have to start to boom. Joe biden would have to do something that became offensive to voters. Thats what donald trump is trying to do. He wants it to be a contrast, like he should, between him and biden and wants biden beholden to the left and be more liberal. And biden is more liberal than when he was Vice President but he wants him to be as offensive to voters as Hillary Clinton was, including some voters that sat out the election in wisconsin. So wisconsin is not looking good for him. Theres very few states i look at right now and say if im donald trump i feel good. Id be more worried that places like south carolina, georgia, texas, places we shouldnt be talking about were talking about. Jonathan lemire you were on that trip with the president yesterday to ohio. A trip about economic recovery, something he was supposed to lean into a little bit to say the economy was going to come back but that may be disputed by the july jobs number well get in 90 minutes but on the tarmac where he said joe biden wants to hurt god, against energy he went on to say our kind of energy. Is there a feeling inside the white house that the president s efforts to attach joe biden to the radical left is working somehow . Are they looking at the same polls that we are . Do they believe that this idea that joe biden is a radical leftist who wants to get rid of your guns and your god is an effective strategy . Willie, i talked to some of the people in trumps orbit last night. The president was at a fundraiser outside cleveland and there was frustration about how the day went because they felt like amid all this he delivered an economic speech they thought had good points, defended his record, made his case, this is the one argument he is making for a second term. He did say, this is how i built up the economy the first time, prepandemic, this is how i can do it again. They felt that was sort of effective to your question about tying joe biden to the radical left, i think thats a mixed bag so far but they had such little success with the china argument, the hunter biden argument, they feel theres something promising here. They say in their numbers they have seen some movement on this, so its something theyre going to try to stick to but its for perhaps lack of a better option because the other arguments havent worked. But yesterday the president s comments about joe biden wanting to hurt god sort of overshadowed a lot of this. Joe biden is someone who has credited his faith for helping him overcome immense personal tragedy. Joe biden as we often say is perhaps the most eloquent speaker in american politics on grief and he says his faith is a big part of that. He delivered a robust defense last night about his faith and how personal and important it is to him. Instead, we have the president making these somewhat nonsen nonsensical attacks to drown out what could be some effective maelking a making this, and all of this is in the shadow of the pandemic. Really what this election has been so far seems to be a referendum on how the president has handled the pandemic and the polling suggests the American People do not think hes done a good job. He would like to talk about anything else. Jonathan lemire well let you go and enjoy the vast bounty that new jersey offers. Its raining. Lets turn to the lawsuit for the attorney general of the state of new york, Letitia James that seeks to dissolve the National Rifle association. James said they chartered in new york as a nonprofit almost 150 years ago has engaged in fraud and misspending for decades. According to the suit, the alleged use of nras funds is he took camping trips on a yacht owned by an nra contractor. The nra struck back claiming Letitia James action was politically motivated and violated their First Amendment rights. Theyre also facing a suit against the Charitable Foundation filed by the attorney general of the washington d. C. Joining us is john winter and dave aaronberg. Youve been working on this closely, walk us through the details. Well have Letitia James on the show later by the way. Walk us through the details of the lawsuit and what it accuses the nra of doing. It accuses not so much what the nra did but what wayne and three current and top officials of the nra did was use it for their own personal piggy bank. They did a tremendous amount according to the complaint, a tremendous amount of selfdealing. Youre talking about Christmas Gifts over a period of years, 65,000 that wayne had the nra pay and reimburse him for. Approximately . 5 million in black car travel. 17 million nonboard approved post Employment Contract for Wayne Lapierre. You mentioned it before in the times article, the private jet travel he used as well as the private jet travel that was accommodated for his family members. You have an organization where the people at the top were able to give themselves some pretty nice gifts, nice perks. And the question Going Forward is, are we going to see a split within the nra, within its membership that gives money to the nonprofit where you have a situation they say you know what, we solve our legal headaches and keep the mission of the nra going if we clean house at the top. On the other hand wayne lapie e lapierre. Has been enormously effective as a lobbyist for the nras causes for gun rights and gun manufacturers who the nra speaks for. So itll be interesting to see where we go from here. The nras pushback says the lawsuit is politically motiva motivated. The attorney general of new york doesnt like guns so theyre going after the nra. Whats the legal standing they have at the on this . The nra was founded in new york state in the 1870s so new york state and the new York State Attorney general has the absolute authority to look at the nonprofit actions of the nra and to look at whether or not theyre violating any sort of a new york state law or regulation as it relates to nonprofit so they have jurisdiction to look at this, so itll be interesting to see and should be noted that attorney general james did not rule out the possibility of criminal referrals. That would probably have to go to a local District Attorney, but thats something thats definitely on the table. I think its a smart strategy for the nra to attack election statements of james who came out harsh against the nra. It makes it seem like this is a political prosecution while at the same time glossing over the fact this isnt about the nras statements or the way they operated as a nonprofit, this is more about the way that Wayne Lapierre and three officials have been running things as the allegations are for personal enrichment. Dave, so if im a judge looking at this, im thinking quite a few things. Based on whats out in the public domain, i think we have not only liberal publications but also more moderate publications and even conservative publications agreeing these three men running the nra are corrupt and acted in a corrupt manner. But if im a judge, im going to ask the attorney general attorneys, if they come before me, why dont you go against the three Board Members and if you have criminal referrals, great. Send out the criminal referrals. Looks like theyve done a lot of bad things and the real victims here are the dues paying members of the nra. Ive been saying that for a year now. The people who are screwed by this are nra members who have been paying dues to the organization so Wayne Lapierre and a couple other guys can get rich. Wont a judge be skeptical, saying this is overly broad. You cant destroy an entire organization because the board has three members that have been acting in a horrific manner, thats number one. The second thing is, come on, what judge isnt going to raise their eyebrows at this because of the timing. Were coming up on one of the most important elections of our lifetime, why does this drop in august rather than december . Dont you think most judges are going to look at this complaint and start with those two questions . Joe, this will last long after the 2020 elections. Remember, the attorney generals 166 page complaint says the organization has been so corrupted its unsalvageable which is why they name the organization itself and thats how they can get to dissolving the organization, just like the attorney general did to the Trump Foundation two years ago. This is a civil complaint, not a criminal one so no one is going to be put in handcuffs any time soon but theres a lower burden of proof here. So youre right about the judges but the attorney general doesnt need to prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, thats a criminal standard. She only needs to prove it with a preponderance of the evidence, which means is it more likely than not that the defendants did it. This has been referred to the irs for potential criminal prosecution, but thats not going to happen in any Trump Administration, especially this close to the election so you may have to have a Biden Administration to do it, but the Civil Penalties here can be severe, sch include the disallusion of the organization. Ask the Trump Foundation about that, they dont exist anymore but the National Rifle association is a far Different Organization than the trump organization. Isnt a judge going to be far more reluctant to dissolve the nra because of three corrupt Board Members than they were willing to dissolve the trump organization. Youre right. There are 5 million members of the nra so thats true. But this is not just three rogue members. This is Wain Lapierre and three others who used the organization as a slush fund, wining and dining, limousine riding, all over the world. Paying huge salaries and bonu s bonuses. They even allegedly paid employees with no show contracts to buy their silence. Now Wayne Lapierre has pushed back saying this is all political. This is political persecution close to the election. But it seems the evidence comes from within the nra, a lot of whistle blowers have spoken out. The calls are coming from inside your house. Including the longstanding Advertising Firm that the nra used which knows where all the bodies are buried. There was a nasty break up between that group and the nra and they turned states evidence. I think this is going to go badly to the nra. If youre a contributor to the group, you may want to think twice about writing that next check any time soon. I think a lot of contributors to the nra have been deeply concerned about the corruption exposed as you said from people inside the organization over the past six months or so. Dave, thank you so much. Tom winter let me ask you the same question quickly. Is there a chance a judge may look at this had and say its overly broad . Hey, you want to go after Wayne Lapierre and the people who were corrupt you can do that, you can send out your criminal referrals. You cant shutdown a 150year organization with millions of members who had nothing to do with this conspiracy if, in fact, it is a conspiracy. This is going to take a long time, first off. Were not done with this case in five or six months its litigated for a long period of time. Were talking about a new york city state judge here, chances are from a political standpoint there might be a little bit more on the side of the attorney general here in this case. The third thing this depogoes b to the point you were making joe, what do people who donate to the nra, what do they want to have happen. If youre a member of the nra, the way to resolve this is clean out at the top and at that point the nra may make an argument weve done the things that were a problem from a legal perspective, weve gotten rid of those issues now we can continue on. To your point, joe, judge, why should we dissolve the entire organization . So itll be interesting to see if theres a split between the current membership and leadership. And for those reasons alone its not something thats decided any time soon. Nbcs tom winter, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. Willie, i guess my question is, since its not going to be resolved for a long time, why bring it up right before an election . It doesnt seem to be anything but a plus for the president and it does look political . Well talk to state attorney general Letitia James in our next hour so well be able to put that question directly to her. We are at the top of the hour, close to it, anyway, lets bring in msnbc political analyst, susan dell pers owe, Mike Barnicle, Donny Deutsch is with us and he looks dark in that backdrop. And david wassermann. Gene robinson and victoria are still with us. Donny, im going to give you time to get a flashlight from your kitchen and put it on your face, that would be awesome. Dave wassermann, love having you on. Lets talk about the state of play right now. And well start with what you specialize in, congressional races. How is it looking, the race to for republicans to take nancy pelosi out of the speakers chair . Joe, they could take a few steps backwards in the house. When i talk to strategists on both sides theyre having trouble finding swing districts where President Trump has any kind of lead let alone outside the margin of error. The problems for republicans are particularly acute in suburbs of traditionally conservative metro areas. So republican incumbents are in places in places like cincinnati, st. Louis suburbs, omaha, nebraska these are the suburbs that democrats didnt break through in 2018 but could pick up seats in 2020. In the past month alone weve moved over 30 races in democrats directions in our ratings. Wow. Lets talk about nebraska. Omaha first. I think a lot of people know theres that district that sometimes goes for democrats, rarely goes for democrats. Is that omaha district, does joe biden have a chance of picking up an electoral vote there . On average in the private polls im seeing of that congressional race, joe biden is up seven points. Wow. That may be the likelyiest trump territory from 2016 to flip to biden. A lot of those polls arent made public. But its an extremely metropolitan piece of real estate. We talk about maines Second District which gives its electoral vote by district in maine. And joe biden is tied there. Thats a district that voted for trump by ten points in 2016. So biden is recovering ground across the board. Lets talk about, i think, one of the most important developments. The weve seen it have a huge impact since 2017, thats the abandonment of the Republican Party by suburban voters. I think about Pete Sessions district, a guy i came into congress with, i think he may have come in 96. I would never thought in all the years i was serving with Pete Sessions, representing the suburbs of dallas, that he would ever be defeated because of demographic changes. Pete and i were both from two of the safest republican districts in america, and yet Pete Sessions lost in 2018. Youre talking about suburbs in cincinnati and across the board. How does that play into a state like pennsylvania where the philly suburbs are always in play in the president ial races or the i4 corridor in florida, counties in if florida like hillsboro. Y do you suspect thats going to make Donald Trumps efforts to win states like pennsylvania and florida that much more difficult. The irony, joe, is that democrats are doing better in the sun belt these days because states like texas are more metropolitan than a lot of the northern great lake states of pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. And dallas has gone from being competitive in 2018 to off the table its so safe for democrat. Now were talking about plano, the district to the north being competitive. Which is mind blowing to people who followed texas politics for years. But pennsylvania, florida, and North Carolina if you talk to the trump data people theyll hang their hat on the gap getting narrower in those states. Whats happening is that a lot of the older voters who, for lack of a better term, are exiting the electorate, they are disproportionally registered democrats who are conservative and voted for trump in 2016. Yes, the registration gap is narrowing, fewer voters are registering to vote this year than did in 2016 because were in a pandemic. That doesnt mean the states are getting more favorable to trump. Nbc came out with its first battleground map yesterday and it was jarring to see georgia and texas as toss up states. Unbelievable. Do you believe those two states are up for grabs in the president ial election . Yes. And the fact that President Trump is advertising in them is a sign that he doesnt understand the electoral map. Hes got to recover nationally, close this gap by 4 points to get the president ial margin nationally within, you know, three to four to five points to have a shot. Right now hes down about eight. And the fact that hes up in ohio and iowa, states that he carried by eight and nine points in 2016 says that, you know, h he hes trying to play whack a mole here. He needs to get those states in better shape before he competes in the Tipping Point states, the six states he won by less than five thats where the president ial race will be decided. And today, joe biden is ahead by between four and seven points in if florida, south carolina, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, those states are the ball game. Were talking about your back yard, victor, the president won texas in 2016 by eight or nine points. What has happened in the last three and a half, four years to tighten this race so much and give joe biden a fighting chance there . There is the opportunity of texas going blue. But this has been a long time in the making. Remember it wasnt too long ago that republicans were winning this state by 20, 30 points. Hillary clinton losing it in if single digits, its a big deal because the democrats had been starting to lay the ground game, battleground texas. Were talking about Pete Sessions just previously. We saw in 2018 i think the real call of democrats stepping youp. We saw delawares in previously safe districts go and the latino demographic grow. Were seeing the younger latinos frustrated because of the economy, frustrated at President Trumps rhetoric starting to mobilize and turnout. The question mark is what is the effect of the pandemic going to have here . In texas theres a movement. On top of that, i think theres an overreach by republicans in the state. With Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor dan patrick so against the mask measures and the precautions we need for a pandemic the more moderate conservatives are saying weve had enough. We need to keep our state safe and maybe ill consider voting for joe biden or stay home. And that could provide the bump or the loss of less than 5 Percentage Points for a democratic candidate. President trump knows something has to change for him between now and election day. Yesterday he forecast a Coronavirus Vaccine before the election. Heres what he said, followed by dr. Anthony faucis medical prediction. We have a lot of vaccines under study, by the way. We look like were going to be really good on vaccines and with their pew eccs also. Whats the earliest we could see it . Sooner than the end of the year. Sooner than november 3rd . I think in some cases, yes, possible before. But right around that time. I dont think were putting any emphasis on a vaccine. We dont have it yet. Let me make it clear about emphasis. What were saying, were trying very hard to ultimately get a vaccine that might be available by the end of the year or the beginning of 2021. But thats many months away. So Donny Deutsch, americans can take their pick as they watch those side by side. Donald trump who needs to turn around his election chances or the medical expertise of dr. Anthony fauci. Who said early next year and every doctor said this, would be ambitious it usually takes years to develop a vaccine. If were lucky we may get one by next year. Donald trump saying maybe well have one by election day. Its astounding. Its just you know, i was thinking the other day, earlier in the show, as you mentioned that by the end of the year theres probably going to be 300,000 cases. And that if trump just came out aggressively and said to people, wear masks, social distance and we could save 60,000 lives. Thats 20, 9 11s. What if george bush was told ahead of time that it was going to happen and didnt happen of course he didnt know. But right now hes being told there are 60,000 lives in play if you do the right thing. Yet he still refuses to take the proper steps to make the proper moves, to put the proper policies in place. Once again, there are 60,000 souls whose lives hang in his hands right now. Yet this insane lunatic still refuses to do the right thing and just wish away and say its going to go away or a vaccine is coming from a political point of view or humane point of view, it is baffling, it is stew fupifyi. We have parents sending their children back to schools in some areas where children are crowding into the hallway. We have no clear message from the president , no clear message from the cdc. The cdc put out guidelines earlier and then were pressured reportedly to change them and so we see these horrifying images at least horrifying to those of us who have our own children and loved ones who have underlying conditions jammed into tight hallways without any masks. That photo reminds me of when people were coming into jfk and other american airports right after we said that the virus was coming in and we have to do mandating and distancing and everything, so we saw that happen. And we know what the result was. Look what happened in new york. I think that the problem that donald trump has right now is that he cant get past the fact that he has to deal with this virus. People are feeling it. It doesnt matter what network you watch. You dont know if you can safely send your kid to school. You dont know if your parents or grandparents are going to be healthy. You dont know if you have a job. These are things that are facts at your Kitchen Table that it doesnt matter what network you see and what someone tells you, you know this is real and that this is dangerous. And donny makes a very good point about saying we know we can save lives. Right now, donald trump, you could save 60,000 lives. If you dont do anything theyre on you. And thats basically the fact of the matter. It is crazy, though, that even though and youre right, susan, people do know that this is real. Its crazy what is still being written on social media. The arguments that people are still making on social media. Arguments that put americans at risk. And yet they continue to do it. Lets bring in right now morning joes chief medical correspondent dr. Dave campbell. Dr. Dave, willie and i were talking about this new projection up to 300,000 americans possibly dying by december 1st. And sadly, this group out of the university of washington, and let me i keep identifying it as university of washington. Ihme, theyve been actually conservative from the start. And so, now were talking about a death toll of 300,000 americans by december 1st. Whats your take . They are conservative and theyve been spot on throughout this pandemic in forward thinking in their numbers. So what we now hear and see is if we dont change our behaviors in any way as it relates to face mask wearing, social distancing, all the behaviors that go into preventing the spread of the virus that by december 1st, let alone the end of the year, well double the deaths we have. Well hit 5 million new cases before you know it. And many of the states across the country are still seeing surges popping up here and there. So were not in any way out of the woods. Woef fall coming, winter coming, flu season coming and we have schools opening. So the modeling out of ihme made some assumptions, that was about 50 of schools would be more or less reopened in some form or fashion. And that is a district by district phenomenon. So we dont really know whats going to happen when schools reopen and a month from now we may be having a different conversation. But the bottom line from that forecast, joe, is if americans will change their behaviors just slightly and if 95 of americans will wear a face mask when they leave their home, let alone recognize that social media, physical distancing, and face mask wearing inside the home inside multigenerational homes is going to be very important and can drive the curve down, can drive the new cases down, and can make that model wrong. We want the model to be wrong. We want to find that americans have changed their behaviors, especially young kids, teenagers, young adults. If they could somehow be compelled or interested or willing to participate in these prevention measures, we could see a different scenario come the end of the year than what ihme is predicting, joe. Ill tell you what, when you talk about wearing the mask and the number of lives that could be saved if 95 of americans started Wearing Masks responsibly when they were out in crowds with groups of people. You sort of do a turn on a famous Winston Churchill phrase and in this case we can look back and say never have so many been saved by so many doing so little. Its not really asking to do that much. But unfortunately, these numbers which are terrifying, could actually be exponentially worse if the combination of flu season and the spread of covid continues running across the country unabated. At that point, dave, this has been the worse Case Scenario that doctors and epidemiologists and scientists have been warning about since march. Theyve been warning us. If you go back and look at the spanish influenza, 1918, 1919, what happened, it was actually the fall and the winter where things got worse. Right. It is that. And again, School Children are going to be exposed to crowds of other children that they have been protected from since schools shutdown in the spring. And in the summer, there was mostly no school. We now know that children are not immune to becoming inif he can infected with the disease. They are less likely to be very sick and even Young Children have a lot of virus in their nasal passages and the virus is what transmits person to person. So when School Starts back up and you see the picture of a crowded hallway in a high school, imagine that across the country in some form or fashion. We have to be exceedingly fearful of the whole process of increasing Multigenerational Families as people as the econo people out of the rental homes and makes it tight when it comes time to pay the mortgage and schools are restarting and heres the flu season. If many, many more people wore a face mask as often as possible and got a flu shot when its time. We could change the future in a way well never know how bad it could have been joe. Dr. Dave campbell, thank you so much. Mike barnicle let me bring you in here. It seems our challenge since march is weve actually, since february we have had a president that has constantly spewed misinformation about this. Thinking he could lie about this the same way he lied about robert mueller, russia, ukraine, his relationship with Vladimir Putin, everything hes talked about the past several years. In this case his lies have had terrible a terrible impact and here we are again half a year later with over 155,000 americans dead. And hes still spreading misinformation. Telling americans that Young Children dont get infected badly. Hes been talking about, once again, hydroxychloroquine. Hes been saying this is going to go away just like all things go away. He continues to turn a blind eye to the harsh reality that this pandemic is killing hundreds of thousands of americans. Were up to 155,000 and now this university of washington study is saying likely going to see 300,000 americans dead by december. Joe, listening to the program this morning and listening to Dave Wasserman a few minutes ago, you wonder whether donald trump and the people around him understand truly understand that this is a far different country than it was five and a half months ago. Forget demographic. Five and a half months ago, this is a different country today. Ill tell you where it begin, i think. It begins with the phrase, how you doing today . Its a general phrase. We used it all of our lives greeting people early if the morning or whenever we saw them each and every day. But how are you doing today has a whole new meaning for americans, a country filled with anxiety and fear of the future. And the future is today. Its not next year or two years from now, its today. And we live now in a country where people walk around with just a few thoughts on their minds, school, jobs, work, pay. And they wonder why, in this situation with evictions already beginning. With mortgages right on the edge of teetering, with incomes having disappeared with furlough being a word not restricted to a military but your company, your office in a building you might never go back to. Theyre wondering why is the United States senate and the United States house of representatives home . Why are they not working . Theyre still getting paid. They have a job. Their job is us, and theyre not doing it. Theyre not doing it. And theyre not coming together and providing relief to working class americans and middle class americans who desperately need the help who unfortunately are finding in some states, like for instance, florida, that its really difficult to get Unemployment Benefits and theyre looking to the federal government, theyre looking to donald trump, to Mitch Mcconnell and theyre being let down every day. Because donald trump and Mitch Mcconnell and the treasury secretary think that theyre getting a free ride. That somehow if they extend Unemployment Benefits and extend relief to americans who have been kicked out of work, pushed off the job through no fault of their own, that somehow theyre getting a free ride. Steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary said what so many republicans are saying right now, i dont want to spend taxpayer money to pay people to stay home. Its not like those people decided to stay home. A pandemic that could kill up to 300,000 americans by december is why americans are out of work and they need help. And congress, Mitch Mcconnell, donald trump are doing nothing about it right now. Still ahead on morning joe well be speaking to the Senior National guard officer on the scene in Lafayette Square on june1st when Peaceful Protesters were forcibly removed prior to President Trumps photo op on june 1st. Certainly one of many low points for this presidency but also a moment if donald trump loses the presidency will be remembered as one of the defining moments in this volatile year. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Joe. Well be right back. A lot of Healthy Foods are very acidic and arent necessarily great for your teeth. The acid can actually wear away at the enamel which over time can cause sensitivity and a lot of people start to see their teeth turn yellow. 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In terms of what happened june 1st im not at liberty to discuss that given there are current investigations ongoing, however my testimony is under oath on the congressional record, and i stand behind it. We can talk about the things youve grown up seeing and you observed in your adult life about the importance between separation and politics and the military. I remember looking at that scene and being horrified, not only that the chairman of the joint chiefs was walking over there but the sec def was there as well. Can you talk about how those activities of course, the chairman of the joint chiefs has apologized and was forthright about it. But can you talk about how that mixing of politics and the United States military undermines the our men and women in uniform . Certainly. Obviously if if you are a federal employee or an active duty military, you abide by the hatch act. And that is something thats extremely important both for our Civil Servants and our men and women in uniform. The reason being every four years we have a peaceful transition of power or a continuity of government. When we start mixing those two we get into what George Washington feared in his farewell address and thats the partisan politics and the vit yol we see in todays climate. In your congressional testimony you said it was deeply disturbing there was a use of Excessive Force you saw. What can you share with us about the way your colleagues were doing their jobs out there, when you talk among them, what was the general feeling that day . That day i talked about it during the testimony or during the hearing, excuse me. A lot of our soldiers were d disturbed by the department of defense and the d. C. National guard has been incredible in terms of providing support and talking about it at large. As im here today, im here to talk about the council on American Security and the way forward. What were seeing in the Current Administration is going to have generational effects going into the future. What do you mean by that specifically, major demarco . The recent decision to pull people out of germany is very troubling in that we are seeing the continuous undermining, degre designation, vilifying of our International Alliances and partnerships. Specifically in germany. Without going into the dispositions of forces across europe if we are starting to move people around in europe, not only is that a signal to our european allies but also a signal to our adversaries that america is abdicating the mantle of leadership that we have been holding up since the end of world war ii. You know, we talked yesterday about harry truman with richard haass, we were talking about the 75th anniversary of trumans decision to drop the atomic bomb but also richard said that harry truman was the most successful Foreign Policy president in post the post world war world in part because he built alliances with a broken germany. Because from harry truman to george h. W. Bush they fought a cold war against the soviet union that stopped soviet expansionism and unified germany. You talked about adversaries im wondering if what youre seeing now undermined everything that the president s from harry truman to george h. W. Bush did and does it in away thats to the benefit of Vladimir Putin in russia. Absolutely. Youre 100 spot on with that statement. Our greatest threat as a country, it doesnt come from Violent Networks or lone wolf actors. Its from the degradation and undermining of our shared democratic values. The values that started with the Marshall Plan and the Truman Administration and continue through the president s as you said. Vladimir putin is looking at this as an opportunity to enhance and increase his presence across western europe. Mike barnicle has a question for you. Mike . Major, on that day, june 1st when did you become aware that the order was given to move against the protest eaers or th crowd, and were you aware of who it was given to . Appreciate the question but due to the pending investigation and litigation im not at liberty to discuss. But my testimony hits on that. Adam demarco, who was in the square that day. Thank you for your time that day appreciate it. Thank you. Joining us cnns chief National Security correspondent, jim sciutto. Its great to have you on our air, good morning, congratulations on the book. The madman theory implies some sort of strategy theres a me method to the madness there. Is that what you find when you dig through President Trumps policy . And when you talk to many people with and around President Trump . The short answer to your question is no. It goes back to richard nixon, who famously had his National Security advisor communicate in no Uncertain Terms to North Vietnam during negotiations over the war that he was just crazy enough, mad enough to order a nuclear attack. He didnt plan to. He did that to get leverage and negotiations. It didnt work, we know how that war ended up. But nixon and his team went on to own that as a strategy. The thing is, President Trumps madman theory is one that he unleashes, one often without a plan or strategy and two not just on adversaries but allies keeping them on edge and his own adviser. His decisions on syria, north korea, across the board often surprise his senior most advisers no policy process leading up to it. And thats the problem with this, right, many of his own advisers did not trust his own decision making. Jim, its great to have you on, thank you for coming on. The madman theory reminds me of what was said, it helps if the batter thinks youre crazy. I remember there were a lot of Foreign Policy people who were uncomfortable about donald trump and said, who knows. Maybe well get more concessions out of china than weve been able to get in the past. But time and again explain how its turned into chaos and talk about north korea specifically. I get the quote the other day when frank tweeted theyre still at it in north korea working on miniatureized nuclear devices. I found a quote from donald trump june 13, 2018 theres no longer a Nuclear Threat from north korea, sleep well tonight. Explain how that chaos put us in a worse situation than we were when donald trump became president. Remember in bull durham, hit the bull, meat. The trouble is, i do this in the final chapter before and after on all the places iran, north korea, syria, et cetera. North korea is an easy one, north korea has more Nuclear Weapons today than it had four years ago. North korea has a more advanced Ballistic Missile program than four years ago. They appeared to have played trump on this. Thats the thing. Coming in, this was portrayed as part of the art of the deal, right. Keep your adversaries on edge and therefore you gain advantage. When you look at the record, particularly on north korea we have not gained advantage. You can make an argument in other areas you have fallen behind. Look at iran, yes, the president came in, blew up the iran nuclear deal. Fine, if you dont think thats a sufficient deal, what did you end up with . Frankly iran closer to a Nuclear Weapon than it was four years ago. The pentagon ran its own study of the president s iran strategy an iran Strategy Group and that concluded that the president s strategy didnt work. It didnt get the u. S. Closer to what it wanted not just on the Nuclear Program but irans military aggression in the region. Hit the bull meat works if you get the batter to strike out. But if the batter hits a home run off you, the strategy has failed and you see that in a number of of americas most important National Security challenges under this president. You have foreign leaders that openly talk about how easy it is to play donald trump. Just play to his vanity and get what you want. Donny deutsch is with us and has a question for you. Jim, under the guise of madman, its been reported that his aides would kind of edit possible solutions into National Problem and not bring him military options because they were so afraid of his recklessness. Can you talk about the that . I will. Some of the most intense moments with north korea, particularly the end of 2017, the pentagon hesitated to deliver the president military options because they were concerned he might use them and take the countries to war. You remember this discussion of a socalled bloody nose strike, a limited military strike to gain leverage in negotiations. I didnt speak to anybody in the pentagon who thought that that was a reality because north korea would interpret it as a beginning of a decapitation strike and even perhaps more remarkable they communicated to their north Korean Counterparts warnings they didnt know what the president was going to do because they were concerned that they might end up on that path a and that pattern did not end with north korea. Iran, as well. Tension moments in 2019 in the standoff. Similar hesitation and also similar communication to iranian counterparts, right . Representatives of one of americas biggest adversaries that they did not know what the president would do next and concerned about that escalating. Jim, susan here. Question about the foundation of the mad man strategy is that you have an understanding of the history of where we are, what the effects will be of such an action. And how much does Donald Trumps ignorance, frankly, on especially global issues play into that . Because people dont trust what comes out of his mouth because they know he doesnt know what hes talking about. You see his advisers struggling with that. Again, i spoke purely for this book with current and former Trump Administration by design, speak to people who work for him to get their impression. I tell a story about how under h. R. Mcmaster that he and his team came to know that the president was not reading the briefing materials. They would go into the briefings and they could tell it was the first time he was hearing about whatever threat they brought up that day and had a plan to boil down the briefings to three bullet points on note cards to try to get it across. They came to see soon after that that the president was only reading the first two of three bullet points, not getting to the third so they started to concentrate the information in the first two and made the third kind of a throwaway and then they came to see that even he in general was not getting through those briefings. You want a president who is informed making decisions. The thing with trump and consistent with other accounts from bolton and others is not only does he not read the briefing notes but told information, intelligence he doesnt like, he dismisses it, says he doesnt believe it if he doesnt want to. Thats a remarkable situation for the commander in chief. Too much information. Jim, you write a lot about russia and say agencies actually effectively stopped briefing or did less and less to the president about russia because he would blow up every time the subject came up. You have another Senior Adviser in the book saying putin is trumps honey trap. From your investigations, what is going on with donald trump and russia . Just a couple of days ago he was confronted with the story of rsds, the gru with bounties on soldiers in afghanistan saying i did not ask Vladimir Putin about that on the several phone calls in the last couple of months. What did you find about trumps relationship with putin . I asked everyone i interviewed, please explain. Because the most consistent feature of trumps Foreign Policy is deference frankly to russia. We see it across the board in so many cases. The best explanation i got from folks who briefed him, folks in intelligence, folks in National Security was that trump has an admiration for Vladimir Putin. He admires his power. He shares his frankly nigh listic view of the world that no one is better than anyone. Its all a zero sum game and you see that in President Trumps comments back to the bill oreilly interview early in the term saying putin is a killer and trump said are any of us any better . More recently with the taliban, russia arming taliban and said the president said we armed the taliban in the 80s. Theres an equivalency and doesnt see america as exception and putin as having power that hed like to have and that putins a tough guy. He tells it like it is and thats the way id like to be, too. Thats the best explanation i heard and thats a pretty remarkable one for a sitting u. S. President. It certainly is. Back in december of 2015, we kept pushing him to criticize Vladimir Putin and donald trump kept saying that, well, americas bad, too. America kills people, too. The more relative moral relativism was shocking then and now. Yeah. Hey, jim, thank you so much for being with us. The book is the madman theory. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great to have you with us. Still ahead, the latest read on the economy when the july jobs report crosses in half an hour. Plus talking to new yorks attorney general seeking to shut down the nra with a lawsuit that accuses the organizations top executives of widespread corruption. Some of the president s recent talking points reminded our producers of another republican politician. Morning joe coming right back. There are those that say you can test too much. You do know that. Who say that is . Just read the manuals. Read the books. Manuals . What manuals . Read the books. What books . Read the newspapers or read the medical reports. Like specifically . Im curious. All of them. Any of them that have been in front of me over all these years. The open road is open again. And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. Is a friendly neighbor. Theyll be coming by to ask simple questions that inform how billions in federal funds are spent on local Services Every year for the next decade. Time is running out. Shape your future. Start here at 2020census. Gov. 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Pronamel will help push the minerals back into the enamel, to keep the enamel strong. I know it works. And i hear nothing but great things from my patients that have switched to it. When they gaze upon yosemites towering sequoias your foreign competitors move the factory to prevent a level Playing Field shifting production to thailand and to vietnam, thailand and vietnam. Hmm. Thigh land. Thats homer simpson. Wants to go to thigh land. And the capital, of course, is wi wingler there. Nothing but chicken wings and chicken thighs. Isnt that from your college days . Good name. It is. You got your dream land. Thats right. An enthen you got your jill lets and then the thailand. By the time its not a pub crawl. Its a chicken crawl. By the time youre done by the time youre done through that, man, youre crawling to class. I told you, you know, as you know, i went to the university of alabama and university of florida law school. Proud to be an alum of both of them. Great Southern States schools. Theres actually a guy on twitter yesterday with a dartmouth degree trying to explain to everybody that elites did not understand that thailand was actually pronounced thigh land and a moment, this cult, this cult of Trump Reminds me of that moment where alex, we always need this in the rotation, where mike pence sees donald trump put the water on the floor and mike pence puts the water on the floor. If youre willing to go down and die on that hill, that mispronunciation of thailand, theres nothing you wont go down on trump with. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. Along with willie and me, we have msnbc political analyst, also a wilible don winner in 82. Wow eugene robinson. Yes. And msnbc contributor victoria defrancesco. And Jim Vande Hyde and jonathan la mere and jon meacham the author of his truth is marching on which publishes later this month. Willie, lets start with the news. We begin with new coronavirus numbers. The United States now exceeding 160,000 deaths. Since the pandemic began, america has reported nearly 4. 9 million covid19 cases. Were keeping a close eye again on hotspots like florida. And texas reporting at least 300 new deaths for the third consecutive day. California grappling with a glitch in the covid19 tracking system. Officials say the disruption is impacting the response efforts statewide. Meanwhile, a new prediction from the university of Washington Institute for health met russe metrics and Health Models and the number of deaths in america expected to climb to nearly 300,000 by december 1st. Good lord good lord. This is the model the white house used and researchers claim if 95 of americans wore masks leaving the home the number of projected deaths to drop by more than 66,000 and states might reimpose lockdown measures if the death rate is 8. 7 and then theres online instruction only for this Upcoming School year. Joe, when that number crossed yesterday, it was staggering. Almost 300,000 deaths, just over 160,000 right now. So if that model plays out and lets hope to god it doesnt, you are looking at half again what we have seen already. Again, you know, for people that havent been covering this closely, covering the modeling very closely, it bounced wildly back and forth but this Washington University institute is the one that the white house used time and again and the estimates have been conservative more often than not. I think the president quoted them saying that it might be 60,000, 70,000, not so many months ago. But, willie, again, this is the problem with the pandemic. Back when fools and political cranks and cult members were saying, oh, it is just look the flu, we will have the same number of people get this that had the flu, health experts, doctors, scientists, ep deem epidemiologists all talked about how quickly pandemics like this spread and so of course thats exactly what happened. Ill be honest with you. I was hoping that we would stay under 50,000 deaths in march. I didnt know that that could happen but that was a great hope but you notice, again, if you follow it month by month by month this spread so quickly and you notice were not having the university of Washington Institute telling people, hey listen, if you stay in your home for six months, if you shutdown your Small Business for six months, if you lock your children away and dont allow them to go to schools for six months no. Wearing a mask. Again, it is fairly simple. I dont remember either in the founding documents or in the federalist papers or in the staging of hamilton either on broadway or on disney now streaming on disney plus, you should really look at peacock. Peacock is awesome i had to say that. Peacocks amazing. But i dont remember anybody talking about the right to kill to kill yourself and others by not wearing a mask and this whole idea i know it comes out of the trump cult thing for people who the extreme members of the trump cult about not Wearing Masks, but this study says if we want to cut the number of deaths in america by how many . 50,000 or so . Instead of 300 thousand dolla,0 december we can have far less. Wear a mask. The man thing to see with these numbers for those that want to believe donald trump that it will magically go away, what you see is a quickening pace. Instead of what Donald Trumps saying, slowing down, it is not. It is getting worse. More people are suffering. More people are dying. Now is the time. Theres always the time. To change your behavior. For all of us to change our behavior and take those precautions that can save your life and the life of your loved ones. Even that number, 295,000 in this estimate, again, lets hope thats on the high end of things, assumes that drastic change in our lives which is to say half of the countrys kids dont go back into school fulltime. This the maddens part about this, it didnt have to be this way and that 50,000 number that you predicted and thought about way back when in march was a reasonable number, a terrible number but reasonable and now talking about 300,000 deaths potentially. Ohio governor dewine tested negative for coronavirus after a positive result and raising concerns over the accuracy. The governor first tested positive yesterday morning using a rapid antigen test allowing for results in minutes and shown to be less accurate and part of protocol for those greeting President Trump at a tarmac. He returned to columbus and took a second test from Ohio State University medical with pcr and the results came back negative in the evening. That second test which looks at the specific genetic material for the virus is known to be more sensitive and accurate but is more time intensive and it requires samples processed in a lab. Dewines sample was run twice and came back negative both times. Jonathan, you were on that trip. Y youre with the president right now traveling. This test was administered because governor dewine would greet President Trump on the tarmac there in ohio. What were the ripple effects of that news through air force one . Good morning, willie. Im today in new jersey, dont be too jealous. Easy. Not far from the president s Bedminster Golf Club spending a threeday week. We landed here late last night from ohio and perhaps now in the first line of my career obituary to note i was in the room when the president said thigh land and its the governor and that initial test that shadowed the entire trip. The president sportsnet the day in ohio and of itself noteworthy, won handily in 2016 and the polling shows even with joe biden, shows you President Trumps diminished standing in the race to spnd time and resources, energy in states like ohio. Yesterday he was in texas last week. Having to play defense. And it was add we were about to take off from washington on air force one when we got news that the govern for a tested positive, no longer would be able to be there on the tarmac so when we landed he wasnt there. The president was greeted in cleveland by other officials and said that he hoped the governor would be okay and the day centered around a speech with the economic policies, he toured a whirlpool factory in ohio to tout American Manufacturing and its rebirth under his watch although, of course, the Manufacturing Sector stalled in the last year or two and can never outrun the virus. That included a fundraiser was shadowed by this and then of course last night after he landed here in new jersey we got word that the second test proved negative and raises questions about the accuracy of the tests and includes those at the white house. In texas last week congressman gohmert was going to be on air force one and wasnt because he tested positive. It seems like subsequent tests indicated that. Everyone that comes in contact with the president , includes his staff, officials on the road, reporters at the white house before they Board Air Force one, i took that same test yesterday that dewine did in ohio and all skroon screening and theres a false negative at first or a false positive and it calls into question just how accurate and safe all these tests are for anyone including those traveling with the commander in chief. You know, there have been questions for sometime about these rapid tests and how accurate they are. I do know that, willie, that Mike Barnacle is already thinking ahead after the pandemic is over and may get one of the kits and any time invited to do something may do a dewine. Good out. Take the test. Say hey, positive, hey, i cannot go to your bridge game and then take the real test a little bit later on. Mike dewine out of being the president , not that he wants to do that. Since you have the tests unreliable under the president of the United States, you wonder if theres not a better way to do it and the fact that the testing, gene robinson, used around the president of the United States is so inaccurate tells you how long first of all, how dangerous that is for the country that the leadership cant even be tested safely, but also, how poorly our testing regimen is even six months into this. Right. Definitely defeats the purpose of giving everybody a test whos going to see the president if you cant rely on the test. Right . So you have no idea if you know . Hopefully you have some idea. Hopefully its not 50 inaccurate or whatever. But clearly in this case and as jonathan said in other cases the test, the rapid test has been wrong and certainly does call into question its worth and also it just it does raise questions. Theres so many different tests, different kintds of tests, different manufacturers, different methods with different degree of reliability. It is a patchwork that i guess you could better describe as a crazy quilt of testing. Again, that was one of the original sins in the response to this pandemic was we never got the testing right. We never made it widely available enough, reliable enough and so we still dont have as good of a handle as we ought to have on where the virus is and where it is going next. Yeah. You know, it is just a lack of planning. It is a lack of planning thats haunted this administrations approach to the pandemic from the very beginning. Of course, it stops at the very top with donald trump youre writing about going back to School Without a plan. Donald trump back in the spring, back in the spring when this pandemic was first erupting saying people needed to go back to school. Go back to school. He said in the fall the pandemic was going to be gone. Its believe me, trust me he said. You know . It is just like he was saying open businesses by easter. Every step of the way this president has been wrong. Hes been overly optimistic. He is pollies a pollyannaish. Weve had no plan, reopening schools or whether it was testing regimen. Gene, i saw a picture that a student took in a Georgia School about an hour outside of atlanta. Those children were packed, packed inside a classroom. Yeah. I mean, inside of a hallway. Most of them not Wearing Masks and of course the big answer what was the big answer . They suspended the student who took the picture which, of course, tells you all you really need to know about that School District and how others around that state are handling this pandemic. Thats absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. Look. If we all understand why it is imperative that as soon as we can safely do so we get the schools open so if you decide to go ahead and open the schools which i think most of the countrys not ready for yet but if you decide to go ahead and do it, the very least to do is require every student to wear a mask all the time. How do you do that . Same way you enforce the dress codes at every school in america already. Right . Schools already dictate what students can and cant wear. You know . Your skirt is too short or the pants are too baggy or cant wear this or that. Properly dressed to go to school. Every School District in the country can mandate today that proper dress includes wearing a mask, period. And then you would have a lot less transmission of the virus, fewer hotspots of ballooning, mushrooming inflation of spread of the wave that we are likely to have in the absence of these kinds of mandates. Thats a very simple thing to be done but it is not being done. Still ahead, one day after filing a lawsuit seeking to december solve the National Rifle association, new York Attorney general Letitia James will be our guest. Morning joe is coming right back. The open road is open again. And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. Where you live has never no mattermattered more. E, for over 100 years, realtors® have been providing expert guidance, helping people find new places to dream and thrive. When youre ready. Look for the r. Five dollar. Five dollar footlong. Piled high with veggies. The new barbecue rib, or any footlong, is just 5 dollars when you buy 2. Only in the subway® app. No uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Heres your iced coffee america runs on dunkin Simon Pagenaud takes the lead at the indy 500 coming to the green flag, racing at daytona. Theyre off. In the kentucky derby. Rory mcllroy is a two time champion at east lake. He scores stanley cup champions touchdown only mahomes. The big events are back and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. Thats a very terrible thing that just happened. I think the nra should move to texas. And lead a very good and beautiful life. And ive told them that for a long time. I think they should move to texas. Donald trump obsessed with texas. By the way, going through that l litany of things that joe biden hated, he said guns, god, the bible and then energy. Certain source of energy. Why didnt he add in the like the Dallas Cowboys . Its so blatant to get really nervous about texas and saying, hey, sued by new york, move to texas. That was President Trump after new york states attorney general james announced a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the organization accusing it of engaging in fraud and misrepresentation for decades. With us the u. S. Im sorry. Im not giving the promotion yet. The attorney general for new york state, Letitia James. We are having some problems with video but the audio is just fine. Thank you so much for being with us. And so, lets start. Why the lawsuit . Why now . So, first, thank you for having me on your show this morning and good morning. The nra good morning. Diverted millions and millions of dollars away from its Charitable Mission for personal use by senior leadership, awarded contracts to get the financial gain of Close Associates and family, doll out noshow, nobid contracts to employees. Bought the silence of those that dissented and used the contracts to basically get the loyalty of Board Members. It was all led by the face of the nra, the executive Vice President Wayne Lapierre and three other individuals who are part of leadership. His former treasurer wilson phillips, his chief of staff Joshua Powell and the secretary john frazier. They basically pilfered and looted the nra to the point where the nra today is operating at a deficit. So, madame attorney general, you know, there are as you know, there are even conservative writers, conservative commentators and former supporters of the National Rifle association who agree with you, everything that you say. It looks like they have acted in the most corrupt ways for a very long time. Why did you move to try to go after the entire organization instead of just these four National Figures who have done so much to, again, according to your claims and the claims of a lot of reporters to loot the nra and actually steal funds from members . Because the rot runs deep. Its pervasive. Its all throughout the corporation. Throughout the 76member committee. It is also in the audit committee, the compensation committee. They basically, the committee failed to assure fiscal, standard fiscal controls were in place. They failed to respond to whistleblowers and there were a number of whistleblowers who complained about the misappropriation. They took steps to conceal the nature and the scope of whistleblower concerns from external auditors. They failed to review potential conflicts. Theres a concept known in the law as related Party Transactions that were a significant number of related Party Transactions and they just ignored the law to the point where they may even be in violation of the Internal Revenue code. So thats why were seeking to dissolve the nra in it entirety, require these individuals to make full restitution. To ensure that none of these individuals can ever serve on the board of a charity in new york state. Yeah. The scope of corruption, alleged corruption by your office and also by reporters again, on both sides, ideologically of the political aisle is absolutely stunning. One other criticism that donald trump, the wall street journal opinion page and others have had over the past day is the timing of this lawsuit. The question of whether youre putting this out there to influence the election, to stop them from being able to support donald trump and republican candidates. Can you talk about the timing . Why august instead of, say, december . So its interesting that they would tie this to politics and this lawsuit has nothing to do with politics. This lawsuit has to do with the violation of the law. This investigation began in 2019 and it recently concluded. And based upon the facts and based upon the analysis and the conclusion of law, it is clear that they used the nra as a personal piggy bank and it is my obligation and my responsibility to enforce the law in new york state and that is exactly what we are doing without fear and or without favor. No one is above the law. Including this most powerful organization the nra. Attorney general james, it is willie geist. Im sorry, willie. Forgive me. We have a little delay. So was there something that required you to file in august instead of waiting until after the election . Is there some reason why it needed to be filed now . No. There was no time period by which we had to file this lawsuit. We File Lawsuits when we conclude our investigations and we analyze and apply the law. Thats when we file our lawsuits. We dont look at the political calendar to determine when we should or not file a lawsuit. Willie geist, good morning. I suspect theres members of the nra that say, members disgusted by the grotesque spending and the lavish trips and the 13. 5 million you uncovered paid to a personal travel consultant to Wayne Lapierre over 6 1 2 months. They may say lets get rid of the leadership blowing the money on the yachts in bahamas but we have an organization here to prote protect our constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms . What do you say to that when you try to get rid of it altogether . The mission was violated. The reality is that it goes beyond just Wayne Lapierre. You talked about some of the instances that are outlined in the complaint. But again, the corruption runs very deep. It extends to the 76member board. It extends to the audit committee. It extends to the compensation committee. It extends, again, to individuals who served, again, not behalf of the donors but on behalf of Wayne Lapierre who traveled extensively to safaris in africa, millions of dollars on unwanted travel consultants, who did a post Employment Contract for 17 million. Who allotted several Million Dollars for private security cost. For trips to the bahamas. For reimbursement in a fouryear period for gifts to friends and vendors. And the lucrative consulting contracts and that are then passed through a vendor used for side deals. Again, the corruption is pervasive, its persistent. It is not limited to one person. It is throughout the entire corporation and thats why we seek to dissolve the corporation in its entirety. Attorney general james, it is susan here. Hi. How are you . Its great that youre pursuing these types of katss and where theres corruption found it should be pursued. You had a case against the Trump Foundation where basically they had to give back almost 2 million. But there is a political sense in all of this and i wonder if maybe perhaps its because youre looking towards 2022 for governor. By no means am i looking at 2022. I am of the belief that elected officials dont have to look at the next reelection cycle as long as they continue to do their work. And each and every day i wake up to do my work and enforce the law. And so its really critically important that individuals understand that no one is above the law including the nra. And that they gross ri misused these funds for personal use over a period of time. And its important that individuals understand that they concealed the very nature of these illegal expenditures. It is also important to understand they may have violated the Internal Revenue code and may rise to another level and so our investigation is ongoing but our investigation had nothing to do with politics and but all to do with the fact that they violated, they flauted the law and they thought they could get away with it. They were an unchecked organization and after the intensive investigation we decided to file this litigation because it was persistent and pervasive. Want to give you a chance to respond to the nra this morning. They said of your suit that it is a transparent attempt to score political points. They say basically you have had it out for the nra for a long time. In 2018 calling it a terrorist organization. How do you respond to nra . One has nothing to do with the other. My political beliefs have nothing to do with the fact that litigation and lawsuits that we filed are based on the facts. We follow the evidence. And we make conclusions of law. And the facts are beared out in this over 150page complaint and i urge everyone to read it for themselves. It is clear that the leaders of the nra under the leadership of Wayne Lapierre, the face of the nra for several decades violated the law, put themselves above the law and did it for his own personal gain and that of his family and his Close Associates. Mike barnacle has a question for you. Mike . So, general james, based upon this conversation and your 150page complaint, is the intent of your lawsuit, is it to eliminate Wayne Lapierre and his executive board from their jobs or is it to eliminate the nra . There are 18 causes of action and for the years of fraud and misconduct, we are seeking an order to dissolve the nra in its entirety. To require mr. Lapierre, mr. Phillips, mr. Powell and mr. Frazier to make full restitution for funds they unlawfully profited from and the excessive salaries they concerned while employees and to pay penalties. In addition to remove them from the leadership immediately and to ensure that none of the four individuals can ever serve on the board of a charity in new york state again. That is what we are seeking and it will be up to a judge to decide whether or not we are successful in getting that relief. Attorney general james, do you expect any criminal referrals out of this . Our investigation is still ongoing. At this point, this investigation, this complaint primarily is focused, is civil in nature. If we uncover any criminal activity well make a referral to the District Attorney of manhattan. All right. New York Attorney general Letitia James, thank you so much. We appreciate you being so generous with your time. 1. 8 million jobs were added last month, the Unemployment Rate dropped to 10. 2 , down from 11. 1 in june. And with us now, former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst steve ratner. The numbers you cant ever say double digit unemployment is good but certainly it seemed to be going in the right direction this past month. What can you tell us . Yeah, joe. Thats right. We are certainly things are improving although dramatically more slowly than they were improving in the prior month we added i think 4. 8 million jobs and now 1. 8 million jobs, we have lost 22 million jobs and so we still have Something Like 15 million jobs left that we need to add to get back to where we were. Little bit less than that and a long way back and so what the picture to get to the bottom line, the picture we are seeing today is of an economy thats recovering as you say, adding jobs, the Unemployment Rate is edging down but not a vshaped recovery, not the quick bounce back that thought people early in the pandemic thought might happen but it is a slow and slowing recovery back and much of the other Economic Data to see points to the same situation, an economy that is not growing as fast as it was and not as fast as we hoped it would because we have to shut things down again because we are not controlling this virus properly. So steve, we throughout the month it seems we get economic signals contradictory economic signals. We get concerns, legitimate concerns obviously from the fed chairman. And we hear that the economy is slowing down, that the panics reemerging and then goet a mont like this to seem to undermine a lot of those previous reports. Two things can be true at the same time. There can be segments of the economy that are struggling along still even while people are getting back to work but why is it that it seems that we are getting contradictory signals on the state of the u. S. Economy every day . Were in a time that is utterly unprecedented in terms of asking economists and data collectors and the people involved in giving you a picture and a timely one. Things are moving fast, happening differently in different parts of the country and in unchartered waters. For example, the Unemployment Rate, even the bureau of labor statistics has misclassifications because people in different categories at the moment but the bottom line is i dont think i think the picture is fairly consistent. Its of an economy recovering but much more slowly with the number of jobs regained in june to the number of jobs we regained in july and how dramatically thats come down and consistent with what people are saying which is that the recovery is losing steam, ebbing and remember also this report of today taken in midjuly, the Data Collected in midjuly. We saw the new claims for Unemployment Insurance number earlier this week and it also shows a picture of an economy very slowly recovering but where were than a Million People laid off or claimingen omit insurance every week so i think the picture is roughly consistently as i said. One other thing about the jobs picture thats concerning is that when you look inside the number of people who are unemployed it is shifting from people who tell the data collectors im unemployed because i was temporarily laid off or furloughed to people saying i was basically permanently dismissed or laid off or fired or whatever so the structure and situation in the labor force is somewhat worrisome but its a slow recovery and also one that sits on the edge of tipping one way or the other depending on how good of a job we do controlling the virus and the last point id make is that if you needed any evidence that we are desperately in need of this new stimulus package, i think these kinds of reports are it because even though were recovering it is way too slow and doesnt catch ch capture of the 600 a week that people dont get anymore and so on and so forth. Steve, you led me into the next question, we are a week away from the last 600 a week check going out to people who need it so badly and we know that this morning that congress is nowhere in the negotiations with the white house saying as much out loud so what is the impact if this goes on and on and another week, another two weeks, deep into august . What do you see happening to next months numbers, for example . I think, willie, can only get worse from here. I think that the failure of congress and the white house to agree on something is going to have profound economic could have profound economic consequences. The fact we had a substantial and quick rebound after we hit bottom in the spring was considerably due to the quick and Effective Response by congress as well as by the Federal Reserve and if they at this point take the marbles and go home sort to speak because they cant Reach Agreement its a negative consequences for the economy. Itss a very odd situation where Mitch Mcconnell cannot deliver his caucus for a package thats meaningful ian essentially he has to negotiate with the democrats and then you have the white house which changes its mind seems like every day on what they want and so its a pretty ugly picture from congress and very disappointing that they cant respond the way they did earlier in the spring. Steve ratner, 1. 8 million jobs added in july, the Unemployment Rate down to 10. 2 , thank you so much. Next on morning joe, joe biden has accused President Trump of pursuing an allout assault on the Latino Community in his time in office. How the move to cut short operations for the u. S. Census count may play into that. Well be right back. And cant wait until you are too. Universal orlando resort. Buy now and get two days free at the parks. Restrictions apply. They get that no two people are alike and customize your Car 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. The coronavirus is wrecking stif the senate doesnt act, it will mean painful cuts to essential Public Services across america. Fewer teachers and nurses, longer response times, dirtier streets. But some say our states should just go bankrupt. Text fund to 237263 to Tell Congress to fund our essential Public Services. Afscme is responsible for the content of this ad. Whatintroducing the new sleepld . Number 360 smart bed. Now temperature balancing, so you can sleep better together. Can it help keep me asleep . Absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. Can it help with snoring . Ive never heard snoring. Exactly. No problem. And done. Will it help me keep up with mom . You got this. So you can really promise better sleep . Not promise. Prove. Its our weekend special with 0 interest for 48 months on all smart beds. Ends monday. And theyre actually pulling out the minerals from the enamel. I like to recommend pronamel to my patients. Pronamel will help push the minerals back into the enamel, to keep the enamel strong. I know it works. And i hear nothing but great things from my patients that have switched to it. Welcome back to morning joe. Joining us now politics writer for the toledo blade, liz sculca. Liz, great to have you with us. You cover politics on the ground very closely in the state of ohio, one that the president won relatively comfortably in 2016 and now fighting for in 2020. What did you see on the visit yesterday . What is the state of play in ohio heading in less than three months from the vote . So we saw a huge response yesterday ahead of this visit and i think its important to remember just how small the town is that the president visited. Clyde, ohio. Not a major city. First time a sitting president visited there since 1912 so this was a really big deal for the people that live there regardless of political affiliation. Driving there from toledo, you see a lot of trump signs. There was a huge motorcade yesterday, many, many kids. People urging him to finish the wall. So it was a very a crowd very amped for the president yesterday and so the state of play in ohio, we have a lot of polls telling us this is an extraordinarily close race in ohio. The race is definitely shaping up to be competitive for 2012 but you wouldnt necessarily believe that after seeing this scene yesterday. Are voters in ohio voting the way so many people will, the way you talk to them about not just the Health Effects of the coronavirus but of the economic effects . Is that the sort of one and center issue top of mind for everybody there . It is. You know, this is a just such a tough year for ohioans between the pandemic, we lost 3,500 ohioans. In april we lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs, we gained a lot of that back but this is an extro extraordinarily tough time and so many people report having an absolutely tortured decision in 2016 of Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Im not sure that those people feel any differently about joe biden. A lot of people are still undecided. They want to see who his running mate is going to be. They want to see more civility in politics. So its really tough to say. Liz, Mike Barnacle has a question for you. Mike . Sure. So, liz, on the ground and your reporting, three issues, virus, schools and jobs. Are they all equal or how would you rank them from talking to people . Oh gosh. So the virus is tough because if you are in a major city in ohio, the virus is huge. But once you leave those major cities and go into a place like we saw yesterday, sandusky county, it is a much different vibe. The virus has not been as significant there. It was one of these Rural Counties where there was a backlash against the statewide mask mandate that we now have. So it really depends in the state where you are. Depends in state where you are. And in terms of the economy, it also depends what part of the state youre in. We were in whirlpool, one of ohios success stories. If you go some place else like the lordstown plant in northeastern ohio, where General Motors closed down that factory, its a much different story. So it really depends on where you go in the state. So interesting. I suspect well be talking to you a bunch more over the next weeks and months. Liz, thank you so much. In a move thats almost certain to affect latinos nationwide, the Trump Administration earlier this week announced it will conclude operations for the u. S. Census one month earlier than previously scheduled. With about 40 of households nationwide yet to be counted, many feel the move will lead to an undercount among historically difficult to count populations, including people of color, immigrants and residents of rural areas. Here is democratic presumptive nominee joe biden yesterday during the Virtual Conference for the National Association of latino democratic officials. Weve seen a lot of ups and downs in the Latino Community. But none more stark than the last 3 1 2 years. Donald trump and his administration have pursued an allout assault. Thats how i phrase it. An assault on latino communities. From the moment he came down that golden escalator saying he was going to go after the mexican rapists. Remember . Thats how he started his campaign. It started the moment he announced his presidency. Fanning the flames of fear and racism against latinos. Its baked into every aspect of how hes governed. Joining us now, host of yesterdays annual conference that featured the former Vice President , arturo vargas. Great to see you this morning. Lets talk first about the census. What are the implications of cutting short that count . Who doesnt get counted . Who doesnt get represented for the next decade . Thank you. First, just to correct the record. Were the National Association of latino elected and appointed officials. We are membership and board is made up of republicans, democrats and independents. Now with regard to the census, you know, the census is the foundation of our democracy. These are numbers were going to live with for the next ten years. It determines the apportionment of the house of representatives, the distribution of 1. 5 trillion every year, and then policymakers use these data to make key decisions which they are using right now with regard to covid19. So if your numbers are wrong, the distribution of political power, of money and your decisions are wrong. The census is very important for representation and it does affect everything that happens Going Forward as far as money into districts. But something a little more immediate is this election coming up in november. And since we havent seen such a positive or big response because of covid19 to the census, are you worried that were not going to see the same kind of response for the general election in november . Well, we have seen polls where there is a diminishing enthusiasm among latino voters to participate in the november election because theyre undergoing so many stresses because of covid19. Latinos are experiencing record and disproportionate rates of infection, of death and the economic consequences have been devastating. So we need a Real Campaign thats going to focus on getting folks to fill out their census forms. We need to get rid of political interference in the census, and we need to make sure that everybody is able to vote either by mail or safely in person and feel that they can actually do that without getting infected. You say you need a Real Campaign. What does that Real Campaign look like . Well, i think the Census Bureau needs to redo its paid Advertising Campaign to meet the American Public where it is. You know, not enough theres too much of this feelgood civic duty type of messaging. When people are experiencing real crisis, and i think the they speak to people about where they are and how important filling out that form right now, even though you may be sheltering in place or youre an essential worker, trying to feed your family and youre risking your life to do so. How important filling out that form is. We dont get that kind of messaging from the Census Bureau. Do you fear that the president ial candidates, donald trump, for his own obvious reasons, and joe biden for less obvious reasons, are not inspiring enough to latino voters that thats driving down the vote . Or does joe biden have a chance to inspire hispanic voters in a way that some past Democratic Candidates have . You know, this isnt the first time weve had two elderly white men running for president of the United States. Thats not new. What is new is the circumstances to which we find ourselves right now. We need both candidates, both political parties, both campaigns to campaign for the latino vote in all 50 states. We have too often have seen the latino vote taken for granted by both political parties. We estimate that there are at least 14. 6 million latino voters that will turn out for the polls in november. An historic number. And they can make a decisive difference in key states across the country, but we have to engage on the campaigns have to engage them so that they turn out in november. All right. Ceo of the National Association of latino elected and appointed officials, arturo varg athank you so much for being with us. And willie and i want to thank all of you for watching the show. And willie, i guarantee you this weekend, i will continue, even though we have im going to be going to azerbaijan and im going to be getting the right type of mentos and other Rare Minerals for our science experiment. This is the year. This is the year we win the nobel prize unanimously, right . I think is that not how we end this show . Come on. Weve had it snatched away for too long. I dont know why you have to go to azerbaijan for the mentos, but i dont question the methods of a scientific genius. Ill see you on monday. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right after a break. 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Or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. I feel free to bare my skin. Visit skyrizi. Com. Hi there. Im Stephanie Ruhle here in new york city. It is friday, august 7th. We begin with breaking news. The numbers are out for july. 1. 8 million jobs were added. Thats slightly better than estimates expected. It shows that the economy is still growing, but much more slowly than it has in recent months. The Unemployment Rate fell to 10. 2 . That is down from nearly 15 back in april. And the very same time, the number of covid cases in the United States is now roughly 4. 9 million, and will almost surpass 5 million