Average daily death toll dipped under 1,000 after topping that number multiple times last week. But while deaths are down nationally, they are spiking in certain states. According to the washington post, the average death toll over the last week reached highs in nevada, texas, mississippi and north and south carolina. On sunday, dr. Deborah birx said shes worried the rising infection rates could overtake states further north as well. Governors in kentucky, tennessee, ohio, indiana and virginia should seriously consider closing bars and limiting crowds in order to stop this spread. And finally, this could be a very big week for vaccines. Thats positive news. Today, moderna is set to begin phase three trials expanding its vaccine testing to 30,000 people. Johnson johnson also set to begin Human Vaccine trials in the United States later this week. Weve got our reporters spread out across the country this morning. Lets take you there. I want to start with some possible good news out of arizona. My colleague Steve Patterson is there. After all these weeks of numbers going up and up, is arizona finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel . Stephanie, if the question truly is, is arizona seeing that light finally at the end of the tunnel . The answer is definitely no. The case count per capita is still far too high. Death count per capita far too high. The Positivity Rate is still very too high to make that determination. But if the question is, are there finally some encouraging signs, then, yeah, there are. Theres about a 15 difference in case count from the beginning of july to where we are towards the end of july. The daily average of new cases is somewhere now in the mid2000s where a month ago it was in the mid3000s. Hospitals are starting to report plateaus in the number of bed occupancy and icu occupancy. However, you know, if your foot is still on the pedal but you stabilize the car at over 100 miles an hour, thats still a scary car ride. The hospitals have stabilized but over 80 in both beds and icus. Again, that Positivity Rate still indicates a Wide Community spread. Testing has been a big lag in this state. Its still about 5 to 12 days before you get your results in some cases. And then there is worry that people will hear these new trends, let up on their own personal accountability and that will lead to the spike that were currently still in. So again, light at the end of the tunnel. Not quite. But there are some encouraging signs finally here in arizona. Stephanie . Thank you, steve. No way to contact trace. If it takes 12 days to get your results. I want to turn to sam brock in south florida, a state that just jumped past new york for the second most cases in the country. Sam, any encouraging signs out of florida . Steph, good morning. Building off of steves news there, yeah, well take some Small Victories at this point because positive signs have not been plntsyful in florida. Were seeing a bit of a dip in hospitalizations. The state had peaked at about 9400 a year ago. Thats down below 9,000. In miamidade where i am right now, they peaked at 2,300 Covid Patients three or four days ago and that figure right now has dropped to below 2,200. Over my shoulder you see some testing of going on. Theres lines of cars. Here at marlins park theyve been doing that for months now. The numbers have come down in terms of Positivity Rates. Theyve been testing over 100,000 people a day. The issue, one of them, Health Care Workers are getting sick on the front lines. Listen to what this mom had to say about her 22yearold son who is a nurse in the tampa area. He had covid19 in may. Recovered, he thought, and then this. Got a phone call last thursday night that my son was admitted into the emergency room. It was determined that he had to be intubated and sent to icu within about eight or nine minutes from entering the emergency room. Once he arrived over at icu, they realized that he was paralyzed from the neck down. Hes stabilized right now. He was transported from florida to massachusetts for medical care. This really just emphasizes a point weve already known. Theres so much we dont know about the virus. Yet another example of someone thinking they were okay, only to find the situation completely unravel months later. Stephanie . My goodness. Just think about that. A health care worker. Not somebody out there at bars. Not somebody partying. Somebody doing his job. I want to turn now to northeastern mississippi where kids there are headed back to school this morning in the city of corinth. Nbcs catie beck is there. Do they feel ready . Good morning, steph. It was certainly a joyful vibe here this morning. Kids were really excited to be back at School Wearing masks but seeing their friends and sort of embracing the normality that theyre about to reenter into. Keep in mind. This is a Smaller School district here in the county where we are. Theres about 36,000 people. Less than 300 covid19 cases and three fatalities. So the numbers here compared to other places are a bit smaller. But today is the first day of school. I want to bring in superintendent Lee Childress with me talking about the precautions you guys are taking. Tell me what things students are going to see today that they didnt see last year . Theyll see thermal scanners. Everyone will be scanned. Grab and go breakfast at the middle and high school. Breakfast in the classroom at the elementary. Well also be doing lunch in the classrooms at the elementary school. So in addition to that, weve got disinfectants. We are, you know, taking all precautions, keeping windows and doors open to help ventilation in the classrooms. Anything that we can do to provide a Safe Learning environment. Do you feel like its safe enough . Youve taken a lot of measures and separators on buses and kids Wearing Masks in fourth grade through 12th grade. Do you think its enough to keep kids safe . Weve taken the precautions that have been recommended. We have looked at everything that has been put out by the American Academy of pediatrics in addition to the cdc and our state department of health. Were following those guidelines along with other measures. To do what we can to create the safest learning environment we can and were hopeful that well be able to do that and return to a Normal School setting. Was there ever a consideration of not reopening . Why was it so important to get kids physically back in the building . We proposed three models. In proposing those models, we asked for community input. We did Facebook Live sessions for eight weeks to share with the community and our staff what we were looking at doing. Ultimately, we chose to go both with traditional and a virtual. Its something our community wanted. Its something we thought we could do. And weve got today under way. All right. Thank you, superintendent, for being with us. Again, stephanie, a lot of kids coming in this morning. Great big smiles on their faces. Excited to be here. Excited to see their friends and get back to some kind of routine. Steph . All right, catie, thank you. I want to talk about where we are as a country. Right now lets bring in dr. Ashish jha. So lets walk through state by state. Youve got places like arizona and texas where people feel like its a positive that maybe the numbers are going down but theyre not because theres simply not enough testing. Can we get a handle on this in states like arizona and texas when we dont even have enough tests . Sorry. One more time. So, good morning. I apologize for that. So theres no doubt about it that lack of testing certainly limits our ability to really say for sure whats happening. But i will say that the data from texas and arizona, to me, are a bit encouraging. Somebody used an analogy of the car. It kept accelerating and accelerating and now it seems to have plateaued and maybe even decreasing, but its still way too much infection. Lots of suffering happening in those states. So they continue to need to work on really bringing those infection rates down. Theyre still very, very high. What do you think when you look at the numbers out of california and florida . Were not necessarily spiking to new highs, but the numbers are huge. Yeah. So the analogy here really is that it is if arizona and texas were accelerating and then plateaued and have come down a little, florida and california and a bunch of other states thankfully are no longer accelerating. But theyre at a very high level. Theyre 10,000plus cases a day in both of those states. Thousands of people hospitalized. And so the good news is theyre not getting worse but theyre not Getting Better yet. What are the hot spot states headed in the wrong direction . Mississippi, where we just saw that conversation about schools is one of them. Missouri. There are others probably about a half a dozen states that meet the federal governments definition of a hot spot. And they are continuing to accelerate. And for those states, they really have to get aggressive because if you are already a hot spot and getting worse, whatever youre doing is not working and you have to turn it around. Are there some smaller states that were not paying attention to but we should because they, too, arent getting this right . You know, i feel like states first of all, idaho is a state where its a hot spot and heading in the wrong direction. Id idaho ive been very worried about. Every day continuing to tick up on cases, percent positive cases and the small states dont get the attention that texas and florida do. And that makes sense on some level. But i am worried about whats happening there as well. How about the reverse. States like new york, michigan, maine, that we hear good news out of. People say theyre doing it right. How so . Yeah, so you have probably about a half a dozen, maybe eight or ten states, that are reasonably low in their case numbers. Either Holding Steady or even continuing to come down. New york is one of them, new jersey, massachusetts, michigan. What i say to those governors is, this is not the time to let up. Weve got to continue monitoring. But if you want your kids back in school, you have to keep going in this direction. Its also a lesson for the whole country. At the end of the day, we know how to bring this virus under control and we dont have to look to italy for a model. We have to look to massachusetts and michigan and ohio which has also done a very good job. There are plenty of states within the United States that show us that we know how to get this virus under control. But isnt that the risk in some of the states, quote, doing it right. I live in one of those states, new jersey, and what happens exactly where i live is people are lefting their guard down. Theyre saying its the summer. This thing is behind us. While they see this thing is behind us, people are getting covid again. They are letting their guard down. So i want to be careful about not overstating how good a shape these states are in, and i do think that places like arizona and texas and florida should be a cautionary tale for people in new york and new jersey. The main problem is they let their guard down. They thought the pandemic was behind us. Weve seen whats happened. So its absolutely critical the states doing well dont follow that path and really continue to be vigilant. This is a virus that punishes you if you let your guard down. And start acting like things are back to normal. And nobody wants to be punished. Dr. Jha, thank you so much. Always good to have you here to keep us up on this devastating pandemic. I want to turn to breaking news overnight. The u. S. Consulate in chengdu has officially been closed days after china ordered it shut down in retaliation for the United States closing the chinese consulate in houston. Nbcs Janis Mackey Frayer is outside the consulate. What are they saying about all of this . Well, we saw the American Flag being lowered here just after dawn this morning, ending 35 years of u. S. Diplomacy here in southwestern china. The diplomats were given 72 hours to clear out the consulate. Over the course of the weekend, there was a lot of activity. Documents being carried out, plaques and insignia being removed from the walls. At 10 00 this morning, chinese officials and police and security walked through the front door and took the building back. This was retaliation, and these are chinas words, for the u. S. Closing down the chinese consulate in houston last week. This is the latest escalation in a relationship that has been combative on nearly every front from huawei to hong kong to human rights. And the closure of these consulates seems to be pushing relations to a new low. Closing a consulate is a big diplomatic move. Its not something that can be easily walked back. The state Department Said that its disappointed with chinas decision. Chinese Officials Say the u. S. Started this, but china has given diplomats here 30 days to leave the country. Steph . 30 days. Janis, thank you for keeping us up on this Important International story. Coming up republicans are set to release their Coronavirus Relief package today, but what needs to be done to help the millions of americans that could be facing eviction . The folks whose extended employment benits run out this friday. First, today washington will remember civil rights icon and congressman john lewis. What you can expect today as his body arrives to lie in state in our nations capitol. Bloomberg reporting National Security adviser Robert Obrien has tested positive for coronavirus. It is unclear how obrien may have been exposed or what contacts he has recently had with President Trump. For people with certain inflammatory conditions. Because there are options. Like an unjection™. Xeljanz. The first and only pill of its kind that treats moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis when other medicines have not helped enough. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. 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And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. Today, congressman john lewis will be commemorated on capitol hill where he served for more than 30 years. Hell be the second black lawmaker to lie in state in the u. S. Capitol. His body crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge in selma one last time yesterday. It was a moving tribute for lewis who nearly died there fighting for equality back in 1965. His body also lied in state inside the Alabama State capitol building. To put that in context, black people werent even allowed to step foot in there 55 years ago. Nbcs Garrett Haake is on capitol hill. Garrett, set the scene for us and how members of congress are going to try and honor john lewis. Stephanie, so many contrasts from over the weekend. When john lewis body came over the Edmund Pettus bridge, it was met by Alabama State troopers. This time, saluting him. The body is on the way to washington, d. C. , where the congressman will lie in state in the capitol rotunda. When they arrive, there will be a commemoration of the congressmans life in the rotunda behind me. This will be like those weve seen with a bit of a covid twist to it. More social distancing enforced inside and simply be fewer members of really of the Capitol Community invited to attend. Then the congressman will lie in state on the steps of the capitol behind me. This will be an outdoor opportunity for people to come and pay their respects. Family and leadership have encouraged people to do so remotely, digitally wherever possible to help reduce the spread of covid19. If people are coming out, be advised. Its going to be blisteringly hot here. Folks are reminding folks to bring water, bring your umbrella and patience as they expect to see a number of people lining up to pay their respects. Not least of which, former Vice President joe biden expected to appear here later today. Steph . Gairrrett, thank you. Next 28 million. 28 million americans could lose their homes now that the Eviction Moratorium has ended. So why has the economic white house adviser saying were in a housing boom. Heres why. Its a boom for the wealthy and a disaster for those who arent. Book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night. The open road is open again. And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. Im szasz. And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. [norm] and we live in columbia, missouri. We do consulting, but we also write. [szasz] we take care of ourselves constantly; its important. We walk three to five times a week, a couple miles at a time. Weve both been taking prevagen for a little more than 11 years now. After about 30 days of taking it, we noticed clarity that we didnt notice before. Its still helping me. I still notice a difference. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night. The open road is open again. And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. This is about the next 10 years. Pero hoy, tu puedes hacer algo. You can make a difference today by completing the census. The census impacts everything from hospitals, schools and public transportation. It is more important than ever before that everyones voice is heard. The census builds america, so the census count should look like america. Shape the future of brooklyn. Kansas city. Tucson. Atlanta. Oregon. Los angeles. D. C. Start here at 2020census. Gov. Today republican lawmakers are set to release their 1 trillion Coronavirus Relief bill, but the clock is already ticking as millions of americans stand to lose benefits that are keeping them afloat amid this pandemic. White house officials have said their plan will replace the extra 600 bucks in weekly Unemployment Benefits set to expire friday with a 70 wage replacement. The plan is also said to include another round of stimulus checks, more than 100 billion to reopen schools and money for testing. Over the weekend, the president s chief economic adviser larry kudlow signaled that republicans would extend the federal Eviction Moratorium that has expired but it is unclear if that will happen before millions could lose their homes. Even as the situation is dire for so many americans, larry kudlow painted a very different picture over the weekend. Youre in a housing boom right now. Youre in a retail sales room right now. Youre in an auto, car, boom. Look at the manufacturing, ism indexes. All are booming. Yes, mr. Kudlow, it may be a housing boom for those who can work from home and for those who are cashing out of their bountiful stock portfolios to buy beach houses. But its a terrifying time for those who are out of work and for the 20 millionplus americans who could lose their homes in the coming weeks and for the tens of thousands of Small Businesses that are shutting. 25,000 more expected by year end. Joining me to discuss, Austan Goolsbee and professor at the university of Chicago Booth School of business and arthur laffer, former economic adviser to president reagan and President Trump during his 2016 campaign. When you think about the u. S. Economy right now, do you see it the way larry kudlow does . A retail boom . It is only in comparison to what was. What was, was really, really terrible and we are coming back from that very low base, but, no, this is economy is not performing up to standards. Weve got a long way to go before we get anywhere near normal. Austan, what do you see . Look, i think the white house is dangerously out of touch with the experience of most americans. Weve got more people out of work now than at any time in the history of the United States. Youve got hundreds of thousands of people dead from this virus and millions more infected, and it is resurgent. That threatens our entire recovery. And for them to be saying lets do a dance because the stock market went up yesterday, i just think thats going to go away quickly because thats going to be so unbelievably unpopular with the American People that theyre going to back away from it. Art, does it concern you that when you look at the stock market, people continue this confusion that the stock market and the economy are the same thing . Even when you look at the stock market, its really the largest publicly traded companies when we look at the indices. And a year from now, we could be in a situation where all weve got are Big Box Stores and chain restaurants. Were watching main street usa shut down every single day. Yeah, let me just say what austan said is completely correct on the coronavirus and whats happening. Until that virus really exits stage left, i dont see us coming back to normal. As you might imagine, and as you said, the stock market reflects this type of economy and not the basic economy youre seeing, little restaurants, people going out of business all over the place, and they are not reflected in the stock market. What is in the stock market are those companies doing well. Thank goodness at least something is doing well. Im very pleased the stock market is doing well, and i just wish a lot of the rest of the economy were doing as well as the stock market. And we have the power to do it, stephanie. We have the power to set in place policies that really can encourage us returning back once the pandemic is exited. But we need to do the testing, take care of the disease first and foremost and then prepare for reentry into prosperity. Then, art, what do you make of many members of the Republican Party who are saying the jobs are there. People can go back to work. They are choosing not to because theyre making so much money on unemployment. Do you really think thats the case for the majority of people who are out of work . I dont think for the majority of people it is, but it is clearly true for some of them who are paid more when not working than if they were working. That is true. But what id like to see it not be the 600 unemployment benefit increase per week. Wed rather see us spend money on people who desperately need help. You talk about the eviction cessation on homes. Why cant we then put money into people who have homes who cant pay their mortgages and have the money go there as opposed to all these other places. You want to really spend the money where people really, really, really need it. And i dont think the unemployed, given that they are getting their Unemployment Benefits, is necessarily the exact group that really needs all the help thats being put out there. Austan, what do you think is needed most in this next relief package . Well, look, money to the people who are threatened to be evicted or have their gas shut off or have lost their jobs and are on this temporary unemployment. I think thats really important. I think this mentality, which was the same mentality at the outset of this crisis said lets not have paid sick leave because thats encouraging people not to go to work. If we had the paid sick leave because one of the major sources of infection was people who had symptoms who went to work and got their coworkers sick. If we had paid sick leave we could have prevented this. The states are in the terrible straights. Youre seeing the revenues dry up and theyre being forced to cut workers. Millions of workers from the state payrolls in the face of the downturn because of the balanced budget requirements. So weve got to find some way to stop this thing from snowballing. And the most frustrating part about it is that all the other rich countries of the world already figured it out. They dont have vaccines. They dont have treatments but they pursued a policy which gave relief to people and allowed the virus to get under control and their economies are now coming back in a way that ours is going the wrong way. Art, would you agree that other countries have pursued better policies than we have in terms of both the economic and Health Crisis . Well, some have. Some have, but some havent. If you look at what has happened in the u. S. In the last four months youve seen huge improvements, stephanie. Mortality rates dropping fantastically down. Youve seen the bed shortages not existing. Youve seen the treatment of people with covid19 im sorry. Im sorry. Lets i was chairman of the board of centennial. Lets take a pause on that. That is not the case weve improved these phenomenal numbers dropping that you just laid out is that the case in arizona, texas, florida and the largest state in the union, california. So what are you talking about . Well, what you are seeing is the total picture here is were treating people with covid19 better. The survival rates of those people are better. What you are finding happen is the mortality rates are dropping relative to the population that have incurred the disease and all of that is happening. There are countries that have done a better job than we have. There are countries that have done a worse job. States that have done better jobs than other states but we are making progress. The vaccines are coming along. The remedial treatment in hospitals is improving. Its not all negative. Obviously, this coronavirus has done a huge amount of damage to the u. S. Economy, but we are starting to get the upper hand, and im quite optimistic in a year and aye ha half, a year, w have this under control. We have to get it under control before we can expect this economy to come back to where it should be. Last point to you, austan all ill say to that is well, i do share it on some parts of optimism. I think hes right that on a medical basis, we are Getting Better and learning more about this disease, but the problem is, its spreading like a fire. So even as we learn to treat the disease better, 5x, 10x, 20x number of people are getting the disease. Theres a tremendous danger of this thing just spiralling into a nuclear explosion. Not unlike what happened when it first came out. And in an environment where were shoveling 5 trillion of subsidized loans to big businesses, the thought that we would turn to the people who have lost their jobs, not because they wanted a vacation, but because this virus shut down their companies and they have to work at a specific location. They cant work from home. That we would cut off the relief money to them that was only temporary to begin with. That doesnt make sense to me. I think its it illustrates really mistaken priorities. Art, austan, thank you so much. We should remind our audience. Over the weekend, secretary mnuchin who said the american taxpayer just cant keep paying people to not go to work. Lets remind everyone, the people who are on unemployment are the american taxpayers. And even those Unemployment Benefits, guess what, theyre taxed. Were going to leave it there. After the break, balancing social justice with keeping people safe. What is next after another weekend of violent protests ending in arrests. Who trust in our performance and comfortable, longlasting protection. Because your strength is supported by ours. Depend. The only thing stronger than us, is you. Book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night. The open road is open again. And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. Not letting the pandemic kill your vibe. I wanted to be able to provide a space for people, to spread the love and to support our community. At this point, peoples livelihoods are at risk. What can we do to support each other . Theres no room for competition. Were so much stronger than if we were to stand on our own. Suffering the loss of a loved one, suffering economic hardship. The country is crying out for leadership, leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together. Thats what the presidency is the duty to care, to care for all of us, not just those who vote for us, but all of us. I promise you this i wont traffic in fear and division. I wont fan the flames of hate. Ill seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain. Ill do my job and i will take responsibility, i wont blame others. You know, ive said from the outset of this election, that were in the battle for the soul of this nation. What we believe and maybe most importantly, who we want to be, its all at stake. When we stand together, finally as one america, well rise stronger than we were before. Im joe biden and i approve this message. [ vo stinct radio chatter] audi etron. The next frontier of electric. Im joe biden get an exceptional offer at your local audi dealer. She always wanted her smile to shine. Now, she uses a capful of therabreath healthy smile oral rinse to give her the healthy, sparkly smile she always wanted. crowd cheering therabreath, its a better mouthwash. At walmart, target and other fine stores. This morning, federal agents are on standby after chaos erupted in seattle over the weekend. 59 officers injured and 47 people arrested as peaceful protests turned into very tense standoffs. And it wasnt just in seattle. Protesters took to the streets in cities across the country with multiple demonstrations that did in fact, turn violent. Erin mclaughlin is on the ground in seattle with the latest. What is going on there . Well, here in downtown seattle, very clear that they are bracing for the possibility of more violence. Let me just show you the situation outside of the police precinct. They just established these cement barriers. Each one of these blocks weighs around 4,000 pounds. Beyond that, if the camera pans up and you can see all of the windows boarded up. Theyre clearly bracing for the possibility of more violence here at the precinct in downtown seattle after an escalation at this weekend. Thousands of protesters standing off with police. What began as a peaceful protest. A show of solidarity with protesters there in portland quickly escalated into what Police Called a riot. Some 47 people were arrested. 59 Police Officers injured. The police releasing body cam footage of some of the violence. Protesters hurling objects at them. No body cam footage was released of the arrests that were made here in seattle and we saw more violence over the weekend in portland as well. The question is what is being done to deescalate the situation. Stephanie . Well, lets find out. Joining me now, erica ford, the founder and ceo of a frontline gun violence prevention and Intervention Team working to deescalate violent situations in locations across the country. When you look at these violent clashes from over the weekend, a person shot and killed during a protest in austin. Three wounded in louisville, what do you think needs to be done to deescalate this . I think first and foremost is the removal of trumps personal s. W. A. T. Team out of these cities. I think the resources into these communities so that the people like our organizations can go out and work with the people around reducing violence and reducing the things that folks need so that they cannot engage in acts of violence. I think when we look around, everything that you said was peaceful protest turned into. And so if they just leave the folks alone and allow them to protest, there will be no violence, right . Theres no reason for the police to engage with the individuals doing the protests. Just leave them alone. And allow them to let their voices be raised. And arrest the officers of breonna taylor. Convict the officers of george floyd. You are allowing the whole city to erupt by not arresting individuals . It doesnt make sense. It doesnt balance out. But the gun violence we are seeing in cities goes beyond the protesters. What is your answer for people who say, i dont feel safe in my city right now. Extra Police Presence sounds somewhat reassuring. What do you say to those folks . So i want to go back to right after the killing of george floyd, we started to see the influx of fireworks throughout the nation in communities where people were in their house from the pandemic, losing their jobs, their families. They didnt have money to buy these fireworks. So where did they come from . That was number one. After that, we see the influx of guns in communities across the nation. Once again, people were in their house for three months. They lost their jobs. Lost their family members. They were grieving. They dont have money to buy these guns. Where are they coming from . So just like in the 70s and 80s when we saw the Counterintelligence Program put guns and drugs into certain communities to create certain behaviors to stop the rise of protests and movements, we see it again. And so lets what we do in our community is we go out and meet and work with those who have the highest potential to be shot or shoot someone. And we work with them and we give them the resources and we put more people on the street. We go and we meet with the police and tell them what we dont want to happen in the community. What we need to see happen together. And we, to the point where we have disband not disband but there was a situation where the young people were shooting fireworks at the police. And the Police Called my chief of streets and was like, what should we do . He was like move the police out of here. Once you get the police out of there, who are they going to shoot the fireworks at . Well take care of the young people. Remove your police from our community. And they did. And there was no incidents of shootings or Police Incidents in our community that night. And there was in different parts of the city. And so if you believe our stuff works. Weve made new york the safest big city in america. Weve reduced violence over 63 and it is something that works when you put those who are closest to the problem, resources into them, resources into the community because as maya wiley said earlier, its pofr poverty that were talking about. Its poverty. You cant address poverty with violence. Your work has made tremendous impact in new york city. To your point, the Crisis Management system you helped build saw a 15 decline in shootings in new york city over the last few years. But help us understand the last month, shootings are up nearly 200 compared to the same time last year. For people in living in new york right now, they are saying, how do we stop this today . Whats going on . You put more resources into our movement. We were also in the house. Everybody was in quarantine. So people werent out doing work. And with the influx of these guns that have been coming into our community, and i truly believe there are people in our community that are not of our community enticing and spiking and working with informants and operatives to make some of these shootings happen. So i think that if we just continue to put resources in what works, you cannot address violence with violence. Putting more police has never resolved the situation. Police come after someone is shot and sometimes sometimes arrest an individual. What we do is we work with the individuals way before the incidents happen and mediate and intervene conflicts that can lead to incidents that will cause shootings. And were doing it and being successful. New york is a big city. We only recently, the mayor said hes increasing our budget. The budget hasnt hit us yet but we are in the streets. We dont have overtime shifts. Nypd budget is 6 billion. Ours is 36 million. So if you put a billion into us, we will definitely stop the crime from happening before it happens and transform new york city in a way that has never been transformed before. I guarantee you those things. Erica ford, thank you for your work and for joining me this morning. Were going to leave it there. Coming up next, have you looked at the calendar . 99 days until the election. Brandnew polling shows some bad news for President Trump in some very important states. But its the senate that could bring the Biggest Surprise on election day. Espn reporting the Miami Marlins home opener tonight has been canceled. Eight more players and two coaches have now tested positive for coronavirus. In all, 14 people in the clubhouse have tested positive. Espn reports the team is still in philly after the weekend series and will undergo testing. Nfl, you listening . Book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night. The open road is open again. 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And wherever youre headed, Choice Hotels is there. Book direct at choicehotels. Com. President trump getting no love from north carolina, even as he heads there today for a visit to a Coronavirus Vaccine facility. Thats according to a brandnew nbc news marist poll that shows former Vice President joe biden with a 5144 lead. That left businesses in charlotte with millions of dollars in canceled contracts and a cascade of negative economic fallout. Biden also has a slight edge in the swing state of arizona, and a new poll over the weekend shows the president with a deficit in michigan, a state he won back in 2016, plus a fivepoint deficit in florida according to a cnn poll. This makes it even worse. The report favors democrats to win back the senate. Jessica taylor is the editor for the cook report. What is going on, arizona, iowa, georgia, minnesota, new mexico, you say theyre all now in play for democrats . Well, we moved minnesota and new mexico to the safe category, but iowa and georgia are states that at the beginning of the cycle we really didnt expect to be competitive. So what happened over the past year and increasingly over the past four months since this pandemic began is that democrats have expanded the map by putting states like that in play along with montana, and we now have six seats that are in our tossup category, colorado, north carolina, maine, iowa, georgia and montana, and then we also see Martha Mcsally there in iowa excuse me, in arizona who she was appointed to the seat, she lost on election, just two years ago, for the seat, and her numbers have not improved there. She is losing consistently to mark kelly, a former astronaut, husband of Gabrielle Giffords and thats a seat in play at the president ial level. These states are just wracking up for possibilities for democrats. And at this point, there are multiple paths to the three seats that they need and thati k of it as four seats probably that theyre going to need, because the most vulnerable incumbent is doug jones in alabama, and we project that one as a probable loss for democrats, but everywhere else they are playing offense where republicans are very much on defense. Were now inside 100 days to the election. What is the momentum driving these races . Is it the individual candidates and platforms or is it the coronavirus . I think it is just a combination of things. Four months ago one republican strategist said to me this was sort of the perfect storm against them. Now it is becoming a perfect tsunami that could really wipe out the senate and republicans increasingly see this as their last firewall. If the polls stand and joe biden defeats President Trump, we at the cook political report, my colleague Dave Wasserman believes that democrats could possibly grow the House Majority they won back last cycle, then this senate would be the last the last sort of remaining piece that would stop democrats from having unified control and i think thats a message we will increasingly hear them say. But you have democratic challengers that are consistently out raising republicans incumbents you have the coronavirus and you have the Racial Injustice protests too that really President Trump has not handled any of these well and his sagging poll numbers are really dragging down republican incumbents in a lot of these states. We see that these states tend to break the same way. We see a decrease in ticket splitting. I went back to the 1980 election, it is now almost one or two points you can outperform your president ial candidate. Democrats have a better chance of doing that, thats good news for Steve Bullock in montana, for example. In 2016, every single senate race went the same way that the president ial election did. All right, well, youre going to have a lot of work to do in the next 99 days. It is going to be pretty hectic. Thank you for joining me this morning. Thank you for watching at home. This wraps up a very busy hour. Im stephanie ruhle. Thanks for watching. My friend Ayman Mohyeldin picks up breaking News Coverage on the other side of the break. Up breaking News Coverage on the other side of the break. And new adventures. You hope the more you give the less theyll miss. But even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past. They may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. Lets help protect them together. Because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. Ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. 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