It. Well have later in this hour. In any normal year, wed be covering the president ial campaign in full swing heading into memorial day. This year is different. As donald trump is struggling on his Coronavirus Response and overall standing, some arguing democrats must learn from Donald Trumps scorched earth playbook for biden to win this time. We have that story with a special veteran politico later this hour. But we begin with the state of america during this pandemic. You know, many nights he come out to you, whichever anchor you watch, whichever different hour, and we all do something similar. We report the grim picture, the case, the death toll, and those challenges, of course, grind on. Tonight is something a little different. Tonight is a marker in how far weve gotten and where the policy response to coronavirus is. Because i can tell you tonight, all 50 states are operating partially reopened 6789. Now if this works over time, this week, this moment will be the time that marked this slow turn towards rebounding, with every state trying to do this. And that means no matter the party thats in charge, no matter the region, we have all the different ways we live, different states do Different Things with different densities. We all have something in common right now. But if this does not work out well, if some places are opening too early, or if people are not following enough of the precautions in places where they are together and exposed, or if Something Else goes wrong for reasons that may be very hard to see right now, and if these same states that are open end up having to close back down to combat a second wave, then this moment may look like a very different milestone. To paraphrase the great artist de la soul, the stakes is high. And experts agree the u. S. Needs reliable data and science in realtime to measurable the results to deal with these stakes. But that itself is now under attack by the Trump Administration, according to some of the most renowned disease experts in the nation. An official from the centers for Disease Control is blowing the whistle at this very time, as we were just discussing, where people need to know whats working or failing in their state, in their counties, in their communities. This official alleging medical censorship on those very results by donald trump and his allies, saying, quote, weve been muzzled. If we would have acted earlier on what we knew and recommended, we would have saved lives and money. Also adding that trump became hyper political when the cdc correctly warned of severe discorruptions to life. Those were public warnings before these government lockdowns. They profd pressuved prescient, is basically documenting how donald trump didnt like the bad news even when it was accurate and has retaliated in ways that these experts are saying will make it harder to track the reopenings to know whats working. Now look, this is obviously a serious set of allegations from credible sources about lives lost. The ongoing risk if the government, federal or state, distorts the results of this reopening is a major issue. You could say its the issue right now. Testing is also critical to reopening. But most places right now, they dont have it. 54 of counties in the u. S. Have no covid testing sites. And as if you needed any further signs the coronavirus is not only a health and economic crisis, but it is becoming clearly the defining issue in the president s reelection, the ap is reporting on a leaked call involving Trump Campaign staff recruiting doctors to sell trumps case on reopening the economy, no matter what. Now, to be as accurate as possible, we can note that any doctor, like any person, can speak out on their views. Thats their right. But the ap article is making waves tonight because it reports that the goal in this campaign orchestrated call was not for doctors to share medical analysis or share their support for a given candidate, which they can do, but rather to promote reopening, quote, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks. You dont need to be an expert on medicine to know that doctors take an oath to abstain from doing harm, and that tees up two big questions, as we turn to our guests tonight. First, if reopening plans are working, why this government pressure to sensor the data about how theyre working . And second, to avoid harm, shouldnt these safety benchmarks be met . Simple questions. Maybe they require complex answer. We have experts to help dig through it. E. J. Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post, Christina Greer and associate professor at fordham. And dr. Esther cho, an emergency physician and professor at the Oregon Health and science university. Doctor, your thoughts on those questions. Yeah, way to start. We certainly are marching ahead with reopening, even as the best Public Health recommendations have been consistently that we see a decrease in cases for 14 days before we proceed with reopening. Nevertheless, here we go, so were going to have to do the best that we can with the measures that states and local municipalities are taking. I think the key thing will be pushing for testing, not just testing of patients in hospitals who are very sick, but hopefully well be ramping up surveillance testing of asymptomatic folks in the community so that we have a much earlier signal of the results of our reopening measures. And i will point out too well, let me focus you a little bit, though, because i want to get really boo the question. Is it medically valid for doctors to say yeah, reopen without meeting the safety benchmarks . Well, doctors should never be called in specifically to back up a specific message. Thats kind of not the way an invitation for medical advice should go. It should be here is the available Data Collected in the best means possible, objective data. Can you respond to that with your expertise . That is the invitation that im looking for when i decided to come on your show tonight. Nobody asked me if i could back up a specific point of view, and thats why i accepted the invitation is that i am free to speak objectively from a sciencebased and Public Health perspective. Christina . Well, i mean, this reminds me of something my grandfather used to say. You have to do what you have to do in order to do what you want to do. I think unfortunately far too Many Americans want to be outside. They want to go and sit in restaurants and sporting events. However, we just dont have enough information, and we definitely dont have vaccines. Were a country of 330 Million People. Roughly 1 or maybe more have been tested. But clearly, not even a significant number of americans have been tested. And we dont have a vaccine. So just because americans want to be out and about, just because donald trump is concerned that the economics of the nation are threatening his reelection chances doesnt mean that we should put the health and safety of americans before facts and reality. And so my concern is someone who is in new york city and in many ways the epicenter of whats going on, especially in brooklyn, there is a desire to get back to whatever normal was, but as dr. Choo mentioned, there are far too many people who have no symptoms who are still spreading the virus. Were seeing in new york especially younger people are now getting the virus. These are conversations were having at a university level. What is safe and prudent to welcome people back to a campus where youll have thousands of people in one building at a time. And so i think the frustration is americans, Many Americans, particularly demographics arent used to be told no and listening to rules and reason. And were seeing things like people storming the Michigan State house, people protesting so they can get haircuts. Cut your hair at home. Go on youtube. Figure it out. Your desire to have ice cream and hang out with friends is not does not supersede the Public Safety of your neighbors. And doctor, youre nodding your head. The efforts here sometimes clumsy, which were about to show, to distort the data, to get to a policy place are dangerous. This is a Georgia Health department. So this is a government. And they put out this chart which on a first glance if you were just online or on facebook, you say oh, well, it looks like its going down. In fact, that is not true because theyve rearranged the county bar charts youre looking at to be out of order. This is a columnsier example. We didnt even need to phone a doctor, as ive been fond of saying lately, to disprove it. But it is an example of how careful i think we all need to be as viewers and citizens. So doctor, im curious what you think about that messing with science, and i would stipulate that there is a legitimate debate in any safety policy about tradeoffs. If somebody wants a higher speed limit versus a lower one, you can talk about different death rates. And it doesnt mean that the country lands on only 20 miles per hour. But that has to be factbased of what are the health death rates, and then what do we do about it. People make those policy choices all the time. What does it say to you . What do you think citizens should all understand where instead of acknowledging there is this high of death rate author is the second wave, do you want the deal with it or not . But that seems so unpalatable, that there is an effort already to cook the books while were living through this march of death. Yeah. And its really tough to see data manipulated like that, because i will tell you, even in the best possible circumstances where we have data accurately laid out, psychologically as a nation, we are looking for slivers of hope. Sure. That is what the excitement phase 1 Clinical Trial of a vaccine is. Its just give me some good news, and people will cling to it. So i actually think we could put out exactly the data thats there. People are very willing to celebrate plateau, not even decrease in cases, but plateau were willing to celebrate. Its almost like there is no need to manipulate this data if on top of that youre giving people false hope. I just worry the pendulum will swing if we overreact to manipulated data, then there will be the fallout for the very natural fallout of increased illness and death. And i think that, coming down from that, from falsely good information to reality will actually be more devastating than just simply facing the accurate tough reality we have right now. Understood. E. J. , youve been patiently with us as weve been getting educated. Take a listen to the president here trying to take the u. S. s problems and claim somehow theyre a badge of honor. When we have a lot of cases, i dont look at that as a bad thing. I look at that in a certain respect as being a good thing, because it means our testing is much better. So if we were testing a Million People instead of 14 Million People, we would have far fewer cases, right . So i view it as badge of honor, really its a badge of honor. Its a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done. E. J. . Well, its rather astounding that because we are counting the problem we should praise ourselves because the problem is so big because we counted it. Its a very weird logic that the president was using. Now i got to ask. As a whole e. J. , i know were on a slight delay. I just have to ask you, because i know what a nice person you are. Describing the president s comments is weird your diplomatic word for stupid . Faulty, mistaken, sure. I think its pretty stupid if you want to insist. Up to you. But i think the country is quite shrewd about all this. Everybody wants the economy to open, and everybody wants to avoid the spread of the virus, and they know there is a tradeoff. And whats striking is even though weve talked a lot about a partisan division on this, most republicans are reluctant to open the economy too quickly. Quinnipiac today had a poll giving people the straightup choice, would you rather open quickly even at the risk of spreading the virus or slow down the opening, even if that risks the economy . 75 of the country said go slowly rather even if there is a risk to the economy. The go quickly side was only 21 , and only 44 of republicans. And i also think there is a kind of false promise of reopening here. Ive talked to a bunch of economists and read a bunch of economists over the last few weeks, and if you talk to them, what they say is it doesnt matter that the government says reopen. What matters is do people feel safe . Do people feel they can go somewhere and not get the virus . I dont think youre going to see people rushing out to restaurants or rushing out to theaters or concerts in this period so that we shouldnt pretend that just formally saying lets reopen the economy means everybodys going to flood out there. The economist magazine had a very thoughtful idea, which is even when we get back to something much better than where we are, we are still for a long time going to have what they called a 90 economy. And so lets not pretend that this milestone, which youre right, is a milestone of sorts, is actually the grand opening of the economy because it isnt. Yeah. I think thats very good context and again goes to the theme here throughout the conversation which is what is the facts provide for where were going. Ive got to fit in a break. I want to thank e. J. Dionne, dr. Choo, Christina Greer. Thanks to both of you. Senator jeff merkley is here. Later, Michael Flynns lawyers trying to get around that setback of a new judge involved in his case, a bid to get his charges dropped. We have that story and a special guest. And new evidence tonight of how donald trump might use Senate Republicans as part of an Election Strategy against joe biden. Im ari melber. Youre watching the beat on msnbc. Whose tech makes life easier by automatically adding technical patterns on charts and helping you understand what they mean. Dont get mad, get e trade. Stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. 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Ooh look over here something much better. There it is. Peacock, included with xfinity x1. Remarkable. Fascinating. Very. It streams tons of your favorite shows and movies, plus the latest in sports news and. Huh run the newest streaming app has landed on xfinity x1. Now thats. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity x1 just got even better with peacock premium included at no additional cost. No strings attached. Just say peacock into your voice remote to start watching today. Things are looking swampier and swampier in Donald Trumps washington. We are seeing reports that add intrigue to the friday night firing of the watchdog at the state department, the fourth in just the last two months. Secretary of state mike pompeo under fire for vip gatherings dubbed Madison Dinners hosted for insiders, ceos, a fox news host showed up and other big names. Those heavyweights got invitations like this, and these dinners were interestingly kept off pompeos public schedule. Now the ethics question here is whether these were for state Department Business or pompeos personal political interests. The white house and many different agencies obviously host gatherings, sometimes fancy ones to talk shop, develop working relationships, and in the case of diplomacy, to casually break bread and speak with business and Civic Leaders from around the world. Thats standard, and lets be very clear. Thats happened in past administrations of both parties. But whats different here potentially is that pompeos own state Department Staff grew concerned when some events looked more like political operations than doing work, doing government business, doing diplomacy. It is illegal to use Government Property or taxpayer money to help your own campaign or future campaign. Nbc reporting that the officials inside pompeos state department saw this as an effort to, quote, create a donor base for pompeos political ambitions. Hes talked about running for senate. And the article notes that there was, quote, extensive Contact Information that was sent back, where . Not to the diplomacy register, not to the white house planning board, no, to his wifes, quote, personal email address. So there is that. Then today you have new reporting showing pompeo was also aware that this new fired watchdog had some open probes. Pompeo even submitting written questions to the watchdog while declining to do an interview in person, just like his boss declined for mueller. Now today pompeo says he didnt realize he was personally under investigation. I recommended to the president that steve linick be terminated. Frankly, should have done it some time ago. There were claims this is for retaliation. I have no sense of what investigations were taking place. I couldnt possibly have retaliated for all the things ive seen in the various stories. Someone was walking my dogs to sell arms to my drycleaner. Its all just crazy. Its all crazy stuff. Joining now is democratic senator jeff merkley from oregon. He sits on the very relevant Foreign Relations committee which oversees this. Thanks for joining us. You bet. History is a guide here, and i just want to be clear and get your view of the distinction, because past administration, whether its an obama state dinner or a bush state dinner, there are plenty of fancy dinners in washington that are lawful, ethical. What do you see in this reporting that concerns you . Is it different . And what about the other investigations this watchdog was reportedly doing . Well, you would expect a secretary of state to be holding networking meetings, networking dinners, cultivating lots of connections with ambassadors from around the world, with influential individuals in america who have connections related to foreign policy, members of congress, members of the senate. All that would be normal. The initial report on this sounds like very highend fancy dinners that seem to have little connection to the conduct of Foreign Affairs at a time that the secretary was considering running for political office. Thats what makes it highly questionable. It goes with other issues that have been raised, for example, the secretary using public funds to fly back and forth to his home state, and, of course, this bigger issue in which he fired the inspector general. Mitch mcconnell, who does lead the senate youre in, completely defending this. Take a listen. Yeah, look, he is certainly within his authority. He gets to hire and fire under the constitution all the people in the executive branch. He has the full authority to higher and fire under the constitution. As we do around here, senator, i will say fact check, true. There are things here that dont make sense to a lot of people like you have a watchdog, they start investigating the head of the agency. If they do their job well and they find bad things or they kick up dust, they become very unpopular in the agency and that Agency Working with the president then ousts them. I could see a lot wrong with that. Whether that looks wrong and is illegal or unconstitutional, two Different Things. Im curious about what Mitch Mcconnell says here, your reaction and whether it is a problem with the law that it is easy enough to remove these individuals. I will add a as a footnote we had a defend other telephone president on, and i pressed him about this, was this should it be a firing for cause . Because technically, they could just get him out. He said yeah, that would be a better system, more independent. So how much of this in your view is a problem with the law versus a problem with trump . Well, what we have here is a wholesale attack on the structure of the constitution, which involves a balance between the branches, checks and balances, and the president is systematically dismantling that. First of all, not letting people testify on capitol hill. Second, blocking documents. Third, attacking whistleblowers, and now in five weeks sacking four inspector generals, the folks who are inside who produce reports to make sure the executive branch is abiding by the constitutional framework following the law, implementing the law as passed. And then we have the personal ethical side of this as well in which the secretary of state under investigation for personal acts under investigation for potential misuse of American Power to sell 8 billion to saudi arabia which congress was very concerned about because of the war in yemen and because of the assassination Jamal Khashoggi working for the Washington Post. Those are all concerns of the moment. Let me press you on that, though. I think anyone listening to you would go wow, that sounds bad. But you dont maintain that the president doesnt have the authority under federal law to remove these watchdogs, do you . No, i do not. So having the authority to do it, but we have a responsibility to sustain the balance between the mutual accountability, if you will, between judiciary, xi, legislative. The founders of our constitution designed that because they were concerned about imperial presidency, the tenancy of someone in this new republic to want to become a king. Sure. Outside the reach of law. This is my final question to you on solutions, on solution, senator. If your side took over and you were running the Foreign Relations committee, if you had a democratic president , thats what joe biden wants to be, would you support changing these laws to give the independent watchdogs the independence that other officials have . There are people in the lower levels of the fbi that just cant be personally fired by the president. Would you support that change or would now youve not go that far . I think that probably yes. And i say that in the context of not being sure if that would pass constitutional muster. Its why so much of what we do depends on principles and integrity, not just the letter of the law. We need every president , including this president to respect why we have inspector generals. They are supposed to do investigations and look at things that look questionable, to inform the american people, to inform congress. So changing the law is one approach. And perhaps we can do that and do it constitutionally. But the other is to create enough Public Awareness and backlash to say this conduct is unacceptable. Understood. And its really interesting. You guys in the senate, what do you call this, a colloquy . I appreciate the back and forth, sir. Yes. Yes, we do call it a colloquy, and we need a lot more colloquy on the floor of the senate about these types of issues and how to save the framework of our republic. Well, i appreciate you going big picture with it. I wish you luck on that. It was former president obama who famously said people tell him to have a beer with Mitch Mcconnell, and he would joke you have a beer with Mitch Mcconnell. But i urge you to have a colloquy and a socially distant beer at your next opportunity. Appreciate it. We have a 30second break. When we come back, Michael Flynns new push to get his case dismissed. John flannery when were back in 30. Back in 30 welcome back. Donald trumps former National Security adviser Michael Flynn who plead guilty for lying to the fbi continuing to push to try to get those charges dropped, even though he already plead to them initially. The judge in the case appointed to a special attorney here to weigh in on whether bill Barrs Justice Department is wrong to reverse itself in this prosecution from the Mueller Probe. Now as flynn fights to avoid sentencing, another convicted felon and former trump adviser roger stone apparently sees some benefit in now publicly arguing that he thinks he is like Michael Flynn. I would say both general flynn, who i consider a Great American patriot and i are the subjects of a political vendetta. This president needs to be reelected. He is the greatest president in my lifetime. I would never give false testimony against him. We are joined by john flannery, a former federal prosecutor who is one of the more than one thousand doj veterans who signed on to that brief. We discussed 80 it on air. Good to see you. Starting with roger stone, look, he says this is the greatest president in his view in his life, and thats saying something because he was a big nixon fan with a literal tattoo of nixon on his back. By his book, trump is even better. John, i let you sink into that before we get into the law. Well, you know, we have two scoundrels here. We have stone and we have flynn. There isnt anybody with a reasonable mind who would think otherwise. You know, stone having been convicted, you have to give him the award for chutzpah. He comes on saying, oh, im as innocent as flynn is. And flynn twice said he was guilty, which i would think would be Even Stronger than what stone did. He had to be convicted by 12 persons and a jury. These guys make a prediction and they you make a distinction that is important here, which is stone, whatever everyone thinks of him, he is consistent. He maintained his innocence. He maintained that he viewed the entire effort as an attempt to squeeze him to say negative things about the president that he said were not true. And he was consistent. He was convicted. But he is different than flynn in that way. As you point out, he is now trying to consort with flynn because flynn appears to be getting special treatment. Maybe flynn is hoping for the same from this administration. Flynn came out and said oh my god, youre accusing me of multiple felonies potentially, including alleged Financial Crime involving turkey. So ill plead to one thing. And he did plead guilty. Thats the difference between them. Let me read from this brief to explain where this story is headed. Weve been taking it in pieces on different nights. In challenging the barr Justice Department, you write its a brazen attempt to protect an ally of trump. The dismissal appears to serve trumps personal political interest rather than the interests of the public. How does that argument work in court to reverse or stop as you hope to do the Justice Department saying we changed our mind. We withdraw the prosecutions . Well, ill try not to be too much of a policy wonk. But the rule that is at issue here is rule 48 a and b. And its a rule that says the prosecution can move to dismiss a case with the leave of the court, meaning the court has to exercise its discretion. Its not enough so say we the Almighty Department of justice want to have this case dismissed. It has to be with the leave of the court. And whats the standard . Is it in the interest of the public to grant that dismissal . Well, this is a judge whose heard flynn twice say he committed this, heard the first im going pause you. You move so fast, i would be nervous to be in your law school course. Youre jumping ahead to part two. But on part one, lets just be clear. Youre underscoring that at the beginning of the road, its all the prosecutors call. It is a fact that every potential crime in america is charged. Prosecutors make decisions. They involve judgment. And sometimes you say were going to go after this person and not that. And the ball is in their court. And what youre saying is once they go forward, the fbi found this information, mueller prosecuted, flynn plead guilty, now the ball is in the judges court. So what everyone thinks about this case, youre saying its a matter of law that the judge decides this, not necessarily bill barr saying oh, i disagree with everyone underneath me at the doj. I disagree with sessions who recused. I disagree with rosenstein who moved forward on. This i want to take it back. Youre saying there is no backsies without judicial approval . Right. Think about it. Its a motion. Theyre asking permission to do something. Otherwise they would give notice to the court and say we decided to dismiss this case and the judge would have no role. So that makes no sense. And in many case, the judge agrees with it. There is no dispute. But here we have a special case. We have a transparent Political Syndicate that pushes false propositions, scares off career officers who are prosecuting the case, and then contradicts whats been said for years. And those contradictions are rightly the subject of an inquiry by the court saying did he commit perjury . Is this contemptible . What should i do about it . And what should i be doing about the Justice Department that they could do this and come in and make some argument that is it material or not when it plainly is, that the National Security adviser is having secret meetings with the Russian Ambassador undermining our sanctions about their interference in our last election four years ago. So thats the picture i think of the case. And theyve gone to the court of appeals because they cant wait. You know, its interesting. Sydney powell praised this judge for how he routed out corruption in the stevens case, and now maybe because she knows how strong he is, shes afraid that he is just going to do the right thing here and to borrow that line from the movies, you cant stand the truth. Well, he flannery . If its you cant handle the truth. You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. What did i say . I think you said stand. You cant stand the truth. However you want to get to the formulation. The truth is alien to this group of criminals that are in the Justice Department and with desperation try to rectify. Its my job as a journalist to say the courts will decide who the criminals are. But youre a stronglyworded litigant and you can say what you want. Freedom of speech on the beat and around the nation. But youre getting two quick things. Im running out of time. But youre citing the judges history which is important. You mentioned judge stevens who is a very powerful republican senator, and there was findings that prosecutors withheld material against him. That was unfair. It doesnt matter whether he was a democrat or republican. Youre mentioning that the judge took that all, which can be hard for judges because generally at a distance, the public says well, if a politician looked dirty, thats enough. And many politicians do seem dirty. But the law requires more. And you say there was that fairness and it was obviously nonpartisan. Before i let you go here, real quick on a scale of 1 to 1100 , the odds you think you will win in the case now that youre a part of the group litigating it . 110. Well, john, that over. The is going to undermine your credibility. Well play this back to you no matter what happen. Ill take the chance, because this is the most outages misconduct of the Justice Department in my lifetime. And weve had some pretty outrageous things happen. Well, john flannery, a pugnacious lawyer that i look up to. They call for zealous advocacy. Maybe thats where you found the extra 10 , a mathematical impossibility. Well see you again, john. Thank you. Thank you. Always a pleasure. We have a lot more on tonights show. Following the money for the wall. Remember that story . And meanwhile, 2020, joe biden, the Conspiracy Theory playbook. Is it turning into abuse of power, something the president was already impeached for . We have a very interesting strategic insider on all of this 2020 later in the show. [woman] isnt that the dogs towel . Hey, me towel su towel. More gain scent plus oxi boost and febreze in every gain fling. Tums ver bell rings la stick when heartburn hits fight back fast. With tums chewy bites. Beat heartburn fast tums chewy bites dont bring that mess around here, evan whoo dont do it. Dont you dare. I dont think so [ sighs ] its okay, big fella. Were gonna get through this together. [ baseball bat cracks ] nice rip, robbie. Raaah when you bundle home and Auto Insurance through progressive, you get more than just a big discount. Im gonna need you to leave. You get relentless protection. [ baseball bat cracks ] and people you can rely on. Im a Dell Technologies advisor. Me too. Me too. Me too. And if youre a small business, were with you. We are with you. Were with you. We want to help. So well be right here. At home. Answering your calls. Providing support. And standing by you every step of the way. Bye bye. We are heading towards a monumental election, and donald trump is facing all kinds of obstacles that no one would want. Majority disapproval of how he is handling this pandemic. 36 Million People now without jobs. And tonight there is new polling that actually suggests biden leading trump in three battleground states florida, virginia and arizona. These are clues that matter, not the national polls, and no democrat has won some of these since bill clinton. Donald trump has all the advantages that an incumbent president enjoy, of course. It includes in this case something more than just being in charge of the white house. He has a fellow majority of the gop in the senate, and they can do their jobs and do government work, or they can try to put a thumb on the scale, launching investigations to damage the opponent. Thats something that really hasnt been done in the mainstream since the mccarthy era for good reason. But nbc news reporting trump is at least pushing for those kind of requests. This is in secret meetings on capitol hill. Senator john kennedy, the republican saying it boiled down to getting serious about finding out what happened with flynn and carter page. But as part of that push, senator lindsey graham, looking for broad powers to also go after former obama officials, and today republicans in a Different Senate committee reigniting the probe the congressman calling on into the bidens, issuing a subpoena related to something you may remember. When we talk about biden, we also used to talk about burisma. Thats the b for both. Democrats denouncing all of this as rank partisan abuse of power. This committee is doing the president s personal bidding. Members of this committee, i urge you to vote against this political sideshow so that we can focus our attention on the pandemic. This committee is spending its time on partisan nonsense and conspiracy theories, a shah raid that would be silly if it were not so insidious. Were joined by msnbc political analyst and a longtime republican strategist mike murphy. Good evening to you, sir. Hey, hello. Hello. Were actually just doing a politics segment. Not an endless depression segment and weve done that tonight. This is politics. The negative on this is its not normal. Its worse than usual. Its even after we were impeached going after the bide dense, and it looks like something that really undermines rule of law and democracy in america. The defense of it is congress has been an avenue and a venue for politics, especially Election Year politics for a long time. As someone with the credibility of republican experience, i know you care about the country. Where do you come down on understanding what were seeing here . Well, first of all, whenever i hear anybody in a congressional hearing on either side start dropping the word charade, i generally change the channel and try to find a good old movie. Its an Election Year, and congress has every right to investigate and make noise, but people need to have a big filter on because theyre making noise. The republican strategy, theyre all kind of in the lifeboat right now because trumps numbers have been so bad and have gotten worse during this pandemic emergency. So theyve got the world simplest strategy. Others have used it before in the past, which is change the subject of the election. Get it off fire donald trump, which is where the polling today into heres whats wrong with joe biden. So the congressional windmill will churn on the republican side trying to serve that strategy. But people have a big filter about it. Its the same reason a lot of the democratic investigations of trump didnt really move the numbers on trump. His people are conduct in. The democrats who dont like trump and the independents are dug in. I doubt this will be despite the herculean noise making, move the numbers the election. Thats interesting. Its a separate calculus whether it becomes something constitutional and how our system deals with that. We were covering that earlier in the hour with the related issues in the Mueller Probe and if someone goes so far over the line that a judge says no, youre over the line. Hopefully we have a system thats supposed to deal with that. On the politics, youre saying this may not work that well, which is interesting coming from you. Im also curious where the incumbency fits in your view. Because disqualifying your opponent when youre both running from zero seems to be a different strategy than being the incumbent president and trying to get everyone to Pay Attention to the other guy, biden, and sort of disqualify him. How do you see that as a contrast to what trump was doing in constantly invoking what turned out to be obviously complete false criminal allegations against clinton all the way up and through election day . Well, trump is a grove vangr politician, so he always has to have something to be against. The big dilemma he has, its hard to run as an incumbent when the whole nature is to tilt against the system that you now control. Trump is much better as an insurgent challenger. So he is always going invent something to be against. Now on the merits of rule of law, im a conservative republican, but i deeply oppose donald trump. I think he has violated a lot of things. But the rule of gravity in our system is the president has a long leash. In the old days, they were expected to behave in a certain responsible manner, and had shame which would police their behavior. Well, trump has no shame. So in our system, the best way to fix whatever legal stuff is to throw him out of office at the ballot box. Otherwise you get kind of this squabbling, which is good fodder for us junkies on each side to watch endlessly, but the bottom line is the election. And its very much a widespread from what trump tweets to what he says, whether its a created thing like obamagate or whatever, to move the focus of the election on to joe biden. Thats what this is all about. And briefly, with the pandemic, how does a Virtual Campaign shape this . Do you see an obvious beneficiary to that . Well, yeah. Thats a great question. And its really hard. Weve never been here before. Its been very hard for joe biden to find a platform. You know, donald trump being president has a platform. Governor cuomo in new york with appropriate reasons seized a platform. And biden is kind of being crowded out. The incumbent thing on his campaign is to find ways to get biden into the fight here and keep the heat on trump. The big question will be the conventions. Donald trump needs a room full of adoring supporters. Thats going to be tough in the pandemic era, even as we slowly start to open up as the numbers get better. So my guess is that will be the next big campaign fight over the democrats saying were being savvy about Public Safety while youre putting cops and First Responders at risk by trying to put 10,000 people in an arena in charlotte. That will be the next fight. Right. That will shape up to be a politicalcultural debate of symbolic proportion. Good to see you, sir. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Up ahead, how a trump ally ended up with a billion dollar contract and why its raising such major questions, when we come right back. Social distancing protects against the spread of coronavirus. It means avoiding groups. And staying at least six feet apart from oirks even if you dont feel sick, you can help those around you by keeping your distance. But just because were at arms length, doesnt mean were alone. Were in this together. Lets help keep everyone safe. Stay healthy, stay safe, stay home. The more you know. U know i switched to miralax for my constipation. 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Huh run the newest streaming app has landed on xfinity x1. Now thats. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity x1 just got even better with peacock premium included at no additional cost. No strings attached. Just say peacock into your voice remote to start watching today. News to tell you about the Trump Administration giving a major border wall contract, the largest so far, not just to any random person who asked for it, but to a fox friendly trump ally who happens to be under investigation. The contract, worth 1. 3 billion. Thats a lot of commas, to build basically 42 miles of fencing. The Washington Post reporting after its initial bids for border contracts were passed over, the company ceo cut a direct path to the presidency by, yes, praising him on fox, aka, cable news. And we really believe with our Patent Pending system, question bring sexy back to construction. The president , if he allows to us play in and our team of Fisher Industries to play, no different than tom brady. Once we get in we never come out. Hopefully the president will see this as well. I dont know if you heard about this contractor who said can he build the whole wall for a lot cheaper than anybody else and get it done by 2020. Are you aware of that . Yes, i am. Were dealing with him actually. Fisher. Comes from north dakota. Now, full credit for the Justin Timberlake bringing sexy back reference. But that may not be enough to clear out the big questions. The ceo discovering what others have found here, that there can be scrutiny when you get rewards. The company under investigation already by the pentagons inspector general, thats for an earlier government contract. The probe still ongoing. You should be mad they gave this guy a promotion. You should be mad at forced camaraderie. And you should be mad at tech that makes things worse. 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But first a new poll minds to 83 of americans are at least somewhat concerned about lifting restrictions in their area. That may explain why Donald Trumps allies are now plotting a pr campaign to rebut the advice of Public Health experts. Nbc has confirmed an Associated Press report that republican political operatives are recruiting