So omahas the big kahuna in nebraska in terms of population. Little dakota city, nebraska, is like 1 300 that size. Guess which one had more coronavirus cases. This is the headline for a few weeks ago in the sioux city journal. Dakota county has most covid19 cases in nebraska. Not most per capita but literally the most cases, the highest number of cases in a county with only 20,000 people in it. They had more cases than any other county in the state, including omaha, which has a half Million People in it, including lincoln, including anywhere else. This Little County where the county seat is 2,000 people, the whole county is only 20,000 people. It even made the news in the omaha big city paper. Little Dakota County now leads nebraska in coronavirus cases. Why is that . Why did we get those headlines a few weeks ago in nebraska . Well, im sure you see this coming. It turns out little Dakota County, nebraska, is home to a gigantic beef Processing Plant run by tyson foods, and that exact type of workplace has proven to be perhaps the most efficient Delivery System human beings have yet created for spreading coronavirus among ourselves. And so with that big tyson plant in Dakota County, nebraska, that county just got whacked. They got hit early. They got hit super hard, and there were headlines about it all over the place. Dakota county one of the nations Fastest Growing hot spots. Dakota county, nebraska, among highest rates of covid19 in the u. S. Look at this headline actually. 7 of the entire population of Dakota County confirmed to be infected with the virus as of the end of the first week in may. 7 of the whole county confirmed infection. Dakota county, nebraska, up in the Northeast Corner of that state. They just got battered by this thing. And of course this thing isnt over there or anywhere. And Dakota County has had to adapt. They have had to try to protect themselves to try to get this thing under control. They have made changes in the way they do things in Dakota County to try to deal with the fact that they have such a high prevalence of the virus in that little unpopulated place. And that includes the county making accommodations at the public buildings there. This is the Dakota County courthouse. I love buildings like this. This is like what you would make up if you were imagining a heartland american solid stock local courthouse. Look how gorgeous it is. With the incredibly high prevalence of covid19 that they have had in Dakota County, theyve taken steps to try to protect the people who work in that building and who have to visit that building on official business. So if you have wanted to come into the Dakota County courthouse, you have had to wear a mask. Theyve also been checking everybodys temperature to see if you had a fever before you could come in. If you wanted to come into the courthouse, youd be asked a series of questions about whether you knew if youd been exposed to the virus. It makes sense they would put those things in place there, right . Its kind of what you would expect in a place that has a higher prevalence of covid19 among its population than almost any other place on the planet. Well, republican Governor Pete Ricketts of nebraska is now forcing Dakota County to drop the mask requirement at their courthouse. Governor ricketts of nebraska has told every community in that state, even unbelievably hardhit Dakota County, that they are forbidden from having any mask requirements for places like courthouses and county offices. And he has backed it up with a threat. He says anybody who puts in place a mask requirement or holds on to their existing mask requirement, he will cut them off from covid relief money. And, you know, its not like the problem represented by this virus is over in Dakota County now. I mean still with only 20,000 people in the whole county, even with this bigger, more widely spread epidemic that weve got all over the country now, still little Dakota County is still the second highest case numbers in the whole state, the third highest death toll in the whole state. But now they have been forced to drop one of the things they were doing to try to protect themselves in public buildings. The county assessor for Dakota County told us today that he had implemented that mask order in the first place for obvious reasons, because of the still rising number of cases in that county, because of how hardhit theyve been. But they had the legs cut out of them by their governor threatening them over it. The county assessor told us today that the county absolutely would still have that mask order in effect in public buildings if the governor hadnt done this, hadnt forced them to drop it. But they dont know what to do. They cant really make it without any relief money for the virus, right . Federal money thats coming into nebraska, theyre supposed to get a significant share of it. Theyve had such a disproportionate number of cases and deaths. Theyll get none of it unless they drop their mask requirement at the county courthouse. Thats the priority. So Dakota County assessor today told us there are grave concerns for their employees who work in their public buildings. Without being able to require masks anymore, theyve resorted to other ideas. Theyve Holding People in long lines out in the sun in front of the courthouse, just letting in a small number of people at a time. They started putting out shade tents in front of the courthouse and handing out water when its really hot days and people are out there for a long time. But they cant require masks. They have been forbidden from doing so, forced to drop that. Why would anybody do that to them . Why would any governor force them to drop that . I mean especially now. Why would this be the thing that you would do to the citizens of your state now given whats going on right now with this crisis . I mean this is what it looks like when a country goes off the rails, right . All these nonsense decisions, turns out they add up. I mean this cumulatively is what the failed american response looks like right now, and its a million little decisions, and its the absence of federal leadership. But what it adds up to now is 40,000 americans getting newly infected every day now when the rift of our allies, the rest of the industrialized world has wrestled this thing to the ground. We are just making incredibly backward decisions every day that keep making it worse. Its not like we had some early problem and now were having a hard time getting over it. Our bad decisions are now. You look at us against france, italy, germany, yeah, its no surprise the eu announced formally its ready to open its travelers again, except not to americans. Are you kidding . America . Look at the u. S. Epidemic. No way. We are a threat. We are perceived as a threat and in some ways we are a threat to the whole rest of the world as much as we are all a threat to each other now because of how disastrously this thing has been mismanaged. And the mismanagement is, you know, chaos as much as anything. There isnt a federal response to speak of. As the epidemic has started taking back off like a rocket, the president doesnt even talk about coronavirus anymore. I mean he does occasionally criticize people for wearing masks. He says thats just people trying to make him look bad. Under his leadership of the republican party, Many Republican elected officials apparently dont know if their job now is just to try to make the president look good or if theyre supposed to govern, and so you get these crazy things in the local news like a republican governor of nebraska, Pete Ricketts, banning even the worst counties in his state from requiring masks, forcing them to drop an existing mask requirement. Why would you do that when weve got that happening while at the same time the increasingly definitive evidence about mask wearing actually working to slow the spread of this thing. Its led all of these places across the country newly to start requiring masks, to start requiring masks. In oregon, a new state wide mask requirement goes into effect as of tomorrow. The state of nevadas new statewide mask requirement went into effect on friday. Las vegas helpfully promoted that with pictures of can can dancers from caesars that were coordinated with their can can outfits. Thank you, las vegas. Another statewide mask requirement just went into effect friday in Washington State and another in North Carolina and another in kansas starts this friday. Even in states where there isnt a statewide requirement, individual cities and communities are now putting in mask rules all over the place. In philadelphia, pennsylvania, savannah, georgia, charleston, south carolina, jefferson parrish, louisiana, jacksonville, florida, where the president moved the Republican Convention later this summer because he was worried there would be too many protect yourself from coronavirus rules in North Carolina. He moved it to jacksonville. Jacksonville now has a mandatory mask requirement too. So eventually its going to be time to face the music here. We dont even know if the president is working on coronavirus stuff anymore at all again, while this is the kind of disaster in. The president doesnt talk about it anymore. He doesnt tweet about it. He doesnt seem to be paying attention to it anymore at all. But perhaps one positive consequence of that for us, as the rest of us try to figure out what we can do to try to save the country in this disaster that were in, perhaps one sort of Silver Lining to the president being totally checked out from this is that the president has perhaps forgotten as hes moved on to other things, he maybe has lost track of the fact that he was previously preventing the actual Public Health experts from speaking to the public about whats going on. And so with the president totally checked out from this crisis, now some of the highranking doctors in the u. S. Government who know what theyre talking about have been slipping through the cracks and been speaking publicly and bluntly. Im very concerned about whats going on right now particularly in the four states that are accounting for about 50 of the new infections, but the other vulnerable states. So id have to say the numbers speak for themselves. Im very concerned, and im not satisfied with whats going on because were going in the wrong direction if you look at the curves of the new cases. So weve really got to do something about that, and we need to do it quickly. Dr. Fauci, based on what youre seeing now, how many covid19 deaths and infections should america expect before this is all over . I cant make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing, i will guarantee you that, because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country even though in other parts of the country theyre doing well, they are vulnerable. I made that point very clearly last week at a press conference. We cant just focus on those areas that are having the surge. It puts the entire country at risk. We are now having 40plusthousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around, and so i am very concerned. I think its important to tell you and the American Public that im very concerned because it could get very bad. It could get very bad. Dr. Anthony fauci, the countrys leading Infectious Disease doctor testifying in the senate today, saying were over 40,000 cases a day now. He sees us potentially more than doubling that to 100,000 cases a day. 100,000 newly infected americans a day, which would be like moving from this bad kitchen fire weve got right now to the whole block being on fire, right . Dr. Fauci today talking about 100,000 cases a day. I think that blew a lot of people away until you started looking at the curves of what were doing right now no terms of rising case numbers, realizing without any evidence anywhere of us doing anything dramatic to change this, why wouldnt we hit that number and in fact relatively soon . But i also want you to see this. This is the number two official at the cdc. The director of the cdc is i dont know him personally at all. I dont mean in in a mean way. But hes a uniquely ineffective public communicator. Theres a reason youve never heard dr. Redfield quoted from his public remarks. They are often inexplicable, dense, and theyre designed to never make news. Ann shookett almost never speaks publicly at all. Of course not. Not in this administration. Thats in part because i think shes an incredibly effective and clear communicator, not to mention an unbelievably authoritative presence who knows of what she speaks and is helming a lot of what the cdc is doing right. Here she is being interviewed by the journal of the american medical association. She makes a really, really important point here. Watch this. So 35,000, 40,000 cases, thats just under 1,000 for a few days. Whats your sense of what the last weeks been like, ann . You know, i think there was a lot of Wishful Thinking around the country that, hey, summer, everythings going to be fine. Were over this. And we are not even beginning to be over this. Theres a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so. You know, these increases are in many places. Its not just new york city, the geographic area. Its so many geographic areas. This is really that beginning, and what we hope is that we can take it seriously and slow the transmission in these places. But what i think is very discouraging is were clearly not at a point where theres so little virus being spread that its going to be easy to snuff out. Were not in the situation of new zealand or singapore or korea where they have, you know, a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced and people are isolated who are sick, and who are exposed are quarantined, and they can keep things under control. We have way too much virus across the country for that right now. So its very discouraging. We have way too much virus across the country for that right now. We have way too much virus to do the things that other countries have done to get things under control. Why do we close things down anyway . And how should you make a decision as to whether or not you should be opening things up . And why does having access to testing matter so much anyway . I feel this has all become sort of ambient noise. But this is a really specific idea. Its not a hoax. Its not a trap to make you give up your guns. Its a rational system that makes sense in light of a highly contagious epidemic that kills people. You need for people to not have so many contacts with other people so that when a person does test positive, theyve had, say, three contacts that need to be traced and then themselves need to be tested, and then they need to be isolated if theyre positive. And then their contacts can be traced as well. You need people to have three contacts or four or five or six. But if your community has not been closed down at all, if there are not mitigation efforts in place to keep people from having lots of contacts with other people, if youve got no controls in place in terms of limiting peoples contact with each other, then every infected person you identify turns out to have not three or four or six contacts you need to trace, but 30 or 75 or 150 or 300. How many people were at that party . How many people were in that bar . How many people were in my workplace with me, i mean lots of whom at that point they cant even identify. Thats then too many to trace, and that means theres too much virus in the community to meaningfully get an outbreak under control, to meaningfully work on it, to find any one outbreak, to track down where it has spread to, to stop it from just radically, exponentially, freely increasing its spread beyond anything Public Health efforts can do to trace it. Theres a reason we closed down. It was not because being home is a nice place to hide. It was because being home means that you dont contact that many other people, a, so that the virus spread slows but also, b, when it does slow, you can grab it. You can get your hands around it. You can intervene in a Public Health way to stop this thing from running off like a block of buildings on fire now threatening the whole city. I mean opening up for no reason or for reasons not based in science or for political reasons that had nothing to do with health when you didnt have the epidemic small enough to monitor and manage any new outbreaks, that was a recipe for disaster, and now were living through that disaster. And the bad decisions are still being made. The Vice President and president scheduling indoor rallies right now, right . Governors like Pete Ricketts in nebraska forcing the repeal of existing mask requirements. I mean stuff like this shows that its possible even now, even when were at over 40,000 cases a day, its possible that we are still making the most disastrously wrong decisions that we have made of this whole epidemic. Not we made bad decisions before, but were still making them right now. And you can see these disasters manifest all over. Texas is in a real pickle right now. Were going to take a close look at texas this hour. It is not good news. In houston, in dallas, in laredo, in waco, in corpus christi, in san antonio, it is bad news in texas right now and starting to look like urgently bad news that could become a nationallevel problem because texas is such a big state and their epidemic is so out of control and their hospital situation is so bad. California, the most populous state in the nation, just hit their biggest daily case number today by a mile. The l. A. Times headlining it as the state obliterating its previous record. In southern california, Riverside County icu capacity is now at 99 full. Arizona blew through its daily case number record today as well, just shattered it. Alaska, georgia, south carolina, oklahoma, california all hit record case numbers today. It was two weeks ago today that the Vice President , who is supposedly helming coronavirus efforts for this government, two weeks ago today Vice President pence wrote his oped calling our coronavirus experience a cause for celebration as a country and a Great Success story. Two weeks ago today he wrote that oped. Today we were at 40,000 cases plus a day and headed for 100,000 cases a day according to dr. Fauci. I mean if you have been waiting to break glass in case of emergency, we are there. For People Living with hiv, keep being you. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. Research shows people who take hiv treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. Serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. Rare, lifethreatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. Do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. Tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. If you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. Common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. If youre living with hiv, keep loving who you are. And ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. For spending a perfectly reasonable amount of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub . Grubhubs gonna reward you for that with a 5 off perk. doorbell rings [crowd] grubhub fireworks exploding bbut what if you couldg do better than that . Like adapt. Discover. Deliver, in new ways, to new customers. What if you could come back stronger . Faster. Better. At comcast business, we want to help you not just bounce back, but bounce forward. And now, with one of our best offers ever, were committed to helping you do just that. Get a powerful and reliable internet and voice solution for only 29. 95 a month for three months. Call or go online today. I was working a few days ago, and it was pretty obvious to me that there were no hospital beds for any patients that had covid throughout the entire houston area. And thats, you know, ranging as far south as galveston and upwards into the woodlands. Nobody had any capacity to take care of a patient with coronavirus, and its pretty a shame to say that thats the state of our city. That was dr. Cedric dark. Hes an e. R. Doctor in houston, texas, doing an interview with me this past friday. What he said about his revelation as an e. R. Doctor that there was no bed to put anybody in, no bed for a covid patient for the entire houston area, sort of shocking to hear. But its been backed up in the last few days in terms of news out of that part of texas. E. R. S in the houston area are reportedly so backed up that according to the local fire chief, its taking paramedics more than an hour to transfer patients out of ambulances, into the hospital. Thats more than double or triple the amount of time it normally takes and that of course means those same paramedics and their plaambulan are then tied up when it comes to responding to other emergency calls because there just isnt bed space to put new patients. And its not just houston with the largest medical system on earth that is treading water. Dallas, texas, today posted its worst day yet in terms of new coronavirus cases. Dallas county has now seen a recordbreaking number of cases for five straight days. In corpus christi, the Regional Health system reports they are down to nine available icu beds. Nine total in that county. In san antonio, more than 800 Critical Care nurses are on their way to augment that citys Hospital System to try to help with the onslaught of patients. Local officials have asked the state of texas to please staff a 250bed Field Hospital in addition to the hospital space that san antonio already has. The medical director for the san antonio region has, quote, warned that the community is on a worstcase scenario trajectory for covid hospitalizations, referencing one local model that forecast 1,900 patients in the san antonio region by midaugust. Thats a load that would exceed local hospital capacity. Quote, for the last few days, hospitalizations have been rising even faster than that models worst projections. Its against the backdrop of that worstcase scenario that the Top Health Official in san antonio abruptly resigned late last week. San antonios Health Director has only been on the job like five months, but she is quitting in the middle of all this. Her last day is this friday. Statewide, texas now has topped 150,000 cases, and they are not looking back. Theyre settling in. Over 5,000 cases a day now regularly. Once again today the state hit a record for total number of hospitalizations. Theyve broken hospitalization records 18 out of the last 19 days. Despite just this explosion that we are seeing in texas, theyre struggling to handle even the bas basics, the basic first step you need to be able to tackle this problem, which is testing. Vice president pence was in texas this weekend praising the scale of texas testing, proclaiming anybody who wants a test can get one. He actually said that in texas. While he was doing that, this was the front cover of the Austin American statesman. Unleashed. Virus spikes in urban and rural texas. And whats that underneath that all caps headline . That is a picture of cars snaking around in a parking lot, waiting in an hourslong line in austin to get seen at a coronavirus testing site. Hourslong lines for testing. As the Texas Tribune reports, quote, problems beset almost every stage of the Testing Process in texas starting with the glitch in websites and unanswered phone lines used to schedule appointments and extending to long lags before test results come back. In texas city after texas city, the state of texas is failing when it comes to testing. In remote parts of west texas, people are waiting in line four hours for testing in the heat. In lubbock, a testing site was shut down because the lab it works with is, quote, critically low on supplies. Again, in san antonio, one man told the local paper, he called the Public Health hotline more than 50 times to try to get an appointment because the line kept dropping. So, no, mr. Vice president , not everybody who wants a test can get one. Maybe you should have checked on that before you publicly praised texas specifically for its testing. They are not doing a good job when it comes to testing in texas. And unfortunately for the residents of that state, it looks like texas is going to need help or at least radically upscale what theyre doing to respond to this, not just in one part of the state thats being hardhit, but all over that great state. Joining us now is dr. Peter hotez from Baylor College of medicine. Dr. Hotez, thank you so much for your time this evening. I know your time is really precious right now. Its a really crazy busy time. Were also developing a vaccine for covid19, trying to get that into clinical trials, so life is very full. But thank you for having me. Im worried about texas because texas is big, and anything thats happening on a large scale and going wrong in texas is almost, by definition, a national problem. Im worried about it because of the way that dr. Fauci today talked about places that were seeing in the south and in the west having problems being big enough problems that they are going to become national problems. Im also just worried about texans and all of these different people in all of these different cities having so much trouble. Can you put it in perspective in terms of where texas has been and how bad things are now . Yeah, absolutely, rachel. We hit 7,000 cases today, which is our alltime high. To give you a sense of what that number means, today dr. Fauci predicted this apocalyptic number of 100,000 cases a day in the united states. If you were to extrapolate that for the population of texas of 30 million, that would be 10,000 cases per day. Were at 7,000. So we are already here in texas reaching that level equivalent to the worstcase scenario for dr. Fauci. Its not just in texas. Its happening in arizona. Its happening in the metropolitan areas all across the southwestern part of the united states. The other really important piece to talk about that really not many people are mentioning is i think its the low income neighborhoods that are being hit very hard where its harder to do social distancing, where theres higher rates of underlying comorbidities. This accounts for a lot of the people filing into the hospital. In that sense were failing to protect our most Vulnerable People across the major metro areas in the american southwest, l. A. , phoenix, houston, austin, dallas, san antonio. And on that basis, im calling this a humanitarian catastrophe unless we intervene very soon because the numbers continue to rise very aggressively. These are vertical curves at this point. What kind of intervention do you think would be most important and most effective . We have seen texas start to reimpose some restrictions within the state, rolling back reopenings, putting in place some mask ordinances, finally once again encouraging people to stay at home. Are those the right interventions . Are there things just speaking from a Public Health perspective that you think would be more effective to do urgently . Well, these are all important developments, and were in a much better position now this week than we were last week. I still dont know if those are going to be enough. One of the things we havent gotten help from the federal government is any type of epidemiologic modeling exercise to actually look at what these interventions will do. What will the impact of those specific interventions be short of a total lockdown . Will that level the curve . Will that bring in down . We have access to that information. The cdc can help design a strategy for us, and this is the other very odd piece to this. There is no National Strategy or national roadmap. What youve got are the individual states trying to figure this out as best they can. Theyre certainly getting some fema help and ppe help, but no overarching strategy, no roadmap, no overview in terms of how they should proceed. And this is the other place where the federal government has let us down quite a bit. We dont have that good roadmap to follow unfortunately. Dr. Peter hotez, dean of the National School of tropical medicine and Baylor College of medicine. Codirector of the Texas Childrens Hospital Center for vaccine development, sounding the alarm for quite some time about things getting bad in houston and bad in texas and keeping the focus on those lowincome neighborhoods that have been the worst hit. Dr. Hotez, thank you for being here. Come back anytime. We want to do as much as we can to shine as bright a light as we can on texas. Please help us. Thank you. This is not going away. This will be with us for a while. Yeah, i know thats true. Thank you, sir. Weve got much more to get to tonight, including the other huge story about this presidency right now, a story that keeps getting worse the more reporting that we get. Families of american soldiers who have been killed in afghanistan within the past year are now demanding answers about what the president knew about bounties allegedly being paid by the russian government to the taliban to kill american troops. The family members of american troops who have been killed since the russians have been doing that now want to know what the president did with that information after he was briefed on it. That story and more next. Frustrated that clean clothes you want to wear always seem to need an iron . Next time try bounce wrinkle guard dryer sheets. Just toss it in the dryer to bounce out wrinkles. We dried these shorts with bounce wrinkle guard, and a pair without. The bounce wrinkle guard shorts have fewer wrinkles and static, and more softness. Its the worlds first mega sheet that does the job of three dryer sheets. It also comes in unscented. If you dont love bounce wrinkle guard, well give you your money back. Considering that my son, isaiah, was killed during an insider attack and that, you know, its almost been a year later and i dont have any reports on the final findings, you know, i cant help but wonder if his death was caused by this. I would like to know if the white house was informed, if they are did know about this, it seems as though they did, and why wasnt anything done or precautions taken . And why werent we notified . There definitely needs to be some action taken for this. I mean to put bounties on u. S. Soldiers, i mean this is this is serious. So something should be done. That is shawn gregoire. Her son isaiah was 24 years old when he was killed in afghanistan last summer, fatally shot along with another u. S. Service member by an afghan soldier who was being trained by u. S. Forces, what they call a green on blue attack as. Intelligence officials tell the a. P. They are looking closely at just that kind of insider attack in afghanistan last year to determine if those attacks could be linked to bounties put on american soldiers, reportedly offered to the taliban by russia. To be clear, ms. Gregoire has no idea if her sons death in afghanistan was in any way connected to these reported bounties, but thats just it. She has no idea and neither do the other families of other americans killed in afghanistan over the past year. The a. P. Was first to report that among the deadly events american intelligence officials are specifically investigating as possibly related to these russian bounties for american bodies, is a car bomb attack on an american convoy that killed three u. S. Marines in april 2019 near bagram air base. The mother of one of the marines who died in that attack, 25yearold Corporal Robert hendricks told cnbc today that she, quote, just happened to randomly see the news about the apparent russian payments. She said, quote, i was pretty upset. Corporal hendricks father tells nbc news tonight, quote, it would break my heart if this was known and one ounce of blood was spilled and the government did not let these soldiers know there was an extra threat in an already horrific arena. It would be horrible. Quote, why hasnt anybody called me or my exwife to settle us . Isnt it enough the hell were going through that no one has to come forward with anything at all . Its really horrible. 20 American Service members were killed in combatrelated operations last year in afghanistan. Four more were killed earlier this year. And you can hear what their families are going through right now with this news, right . It makes it frankly unlikely that the president s response thus far, these flailing, scattershot denials and deflections, it seems unlikely that that is going to cut it here at least for much longer. Just in the last 24 hours as the administration has ushered various members of congress, republicans first up to the white house to tell them everythings fine with this, just in the last 24 hours, theres been so much new damning reporting on this stuff. The New York Times reporting that intelligence on the russian bounties was included in the president s daily brief all the way back in february. You want to be specific in february 27th. The a. P. Reporting that Top White House officials were aware of the intel a full year before then and that the president may have been briefed on it in february or march of last year. The times blowing a big hole in the white houses argument that the intelligence was unclear or unsupported with the times reporting today that american officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russian Military intelligence to a talibanlinked account. Quote, investigators also identified by name numerous afghans in a network linked to the suspected russian operation, including a man believed to have served as an intermediary for distributing some of the funds, a man who is now thought to be in russia. All this idea that it was fake or nonspecific or there wasnt much to back it up, yeah. And maybe the president wasnt told about it or maybe the white house didnt really hear about it or maybe it slipped my mind . What are we supposed to do with this almost literally unimaginable situation . A member of congress who has an extensive intelligence background and military background, who has just been briefed on this herself is going to join us to talk about it next. Stay with us. [narrator] did you just reward yourself for spending a perfectly reasonable amount of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub . Grubhubs gonna reward you for that with a 5 off perk. doorbell rings [crowd] grubhub fireworks exploding she started as an analyst at the Central Intelligence agency. She moved on to the National Security council, then the state department, then the pentagon. In 2019, Elissa Slotkin then moved on to a new job when she became a member of congress. She is not your typical member of congress. She has unique qualifications for this job, unique experience that she brings to it. Not many members of congress have spent their careers before capitol hill, you know, writing president ial daily briefings or briefing american president s in the oval office. But congresswoman slotkin has, and when she said today that she would be at the white house to get this briefing on the allegations of russia offering bounties for the lives of American Service members, well that at least makes sense. Yes, you would want Something Like that in the room. Whether she said she wanted to hear directly from the intelligence agencies and the Defense Department so they could, quote, characterize their intelligence and their confidence in it themselves and explain whats now happening to protect our troops, well, shes a person who is worth paying attention to when she gives you that sort of assessment. Joining us now is congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. Serves on the House Homeland Security committee. Shes a former cia analyst, former acting assistant secretary of defense. She worked in both the bush and obama white houses. Congresswoman slotkin, i really appreciate you being here tonight. I know its a busy time. Thanks for having me. So you are, as i mentioned there, an unusually sophisticated consumer of intelligence because of your own background before becoming a member of congress. At this point do you feel confident that you know what the story is here, that you know what happened both in terms of the intelligence and how it was handled . Well, i wouldnt say that i feel confident we have the full story. I mean i think the biggest thing that i came away from the briefing scratching my head about was, you know, we can have a discussion about the veracity of some reporting. There can be debate in the intelligence community. Ive seen that before. And you have to run that down. You want to know that youre talking about accurate information. But i think the bigger and more strategic issue is that the senior staff at the white house did not feel the need to at least let the president know and say, you know what, sir, we just want to flag this for you because between march 30th and june 3rd, the president had at least four phone calls with president putin. So just staffing those phone calls, helping him prep, thinking about potentially inviting them back into the g7, its just i had to ask repeatedly just why was it that you never thought it made sense to just flag this for him . Were talking about the protection of u. S. Forces. Were talking about your most Important Role for you as a commander in chief. That is the biggest question i left with. We need to know more about the intelligence, thats for sure. We need to understand the debate and whether any agency has evolved on that debate. But that fundamental question, i think, fits into a bigger narrative of the president really leaning into his relationship with putin over and over and over again. And thats why it prompts so many questions when we see a story like this come up. Given your background working on russia issues, including at the highest levels of the pentagon, does this seem like something that putin would do . Well, listen, i mean, you know, i used to get an intelligence book every single morning, and before that when i was a cia officer, i wrote articles for the president s daily brief. So ive seen a lot of classified intelligence pretty much my entire adult life. I think its clear. We have a very complicated relationship with the russians, and once you come into government and get access to those materials, you know that starting long before during the cold war, we have a relationship thats diplomatic, but we also have a competitive relationship, sometimes an adversarial relationship. Thats the nature of strategic competitors. And i do think weve seen the president of russia do things like invade ukraine and illegally annex parts of countries. Weve seen him try to influence, you know, political processes in Eastern Europe and in the united states. So i do think that theres sort of like a game of chess that goes on with the russians, and youve got to make sure youre playing chess and youre not playing checkers. The mother of one young u. S. Marine who was killed last year in afghanistan, he was killed in a green on blue attack, shes now calling for an investigation into whether her sons death was the result of this russian bounty scheme, and we have started to hear similar concerns from other family members of americans who have been lost over the past year, year and a half in afghanistan. I wonder what you would say tonight to active duty Service Members and their families who have been hearing about this over the last few days and who arent just sort of angry and bewildered like the rest of us but really concerned about this additional threat and the prospect that our government, that the president in particular didnt do anything in response to it and didnt apparently do anything to protect troops in light of these expressed concerns . Well, this one hits really close to home for me. I mean my husband is a 30year army colonel. My stepdaughter is a brandnew army officer. My soninlaw is a brandnew army officer, and both of them could be sent to afghanistan in the next year. So its personal. Its not just strategic and sort of National Security for us. And i think every family wants to know that their commander in chief is going to bend over backwards and is going to do everything that he can to protect them. And while i have faith that our military, you know, in afghanistan is doing right by force protection and making sure that folks are they have the security that they need on their bases, i just want the president to articulate like clearly, himself, that if these allegations are true, he is not going to accept it, and hes going to take action. And thats what we still havent heard directly from him, and its painful as a stepmom, you know, with an activeduty kid. Like just say that. Say that if we find out that there were bounties on the heads of our soldiers and god forbid that any of them were killed because of this bounty, that you will not let that stand because both personally but also strategically, the message it sends to russia and every other country in the world, if we allow that to happen and we dont push back, and instead we just continue to bring that relationship with russia closer, it is just an absolute like forgoing of his primary duty as commander in chief. I want to hear him say it and hear him mean it, that if this is real, hes going to do something about it. I cannot imagine those words coming out of his mouth. I mean i could write them. I know exactly what you are saying in terms of what you would expect to hear from any normal american president in this circumstance. I cannot imagine him speaking those words. But your lips to gods ears. Congresswoman elisa slsa slotki really appreciate you being here tonight. Thanks for making time. Thanks for having me. All right. Weve got a little bit more to get to tonight. Stay with us. In our softest, smoothest fabric. Shes confident, protected, her strength respected. Depend. The only thing stronger than us, is you. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. Research shows people who take hiv treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. Serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. Rare, lifethreatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. Do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. Tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. If you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. Common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. If youre living with hiv, keep loving who you are. And ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. This crisis is going to be over keepknow exactly whenre. And we dont know exactly when the stock market will reach its bottom, weve got to be prepared for this to last a long time. If you assume that youre out of work for nine months but you end up only being out of work for three, well thats great. But if you think youre going to be furloughed for three months and it lasts for nine, well thatll be emotionally devastating. So, weve got to prepare ourselves. Tangibly and practically, as well as psychologically and emotionally. Bbut what if you couldg do better than that . Like adapt. Discover. Deliver, in new ways, to new customers. What if you could come back stronger . Faster. Better. At comcast business, we want to help you not just bounce back, but bounce forward. And now, with one of our best offers ever, were committed to helping you do just that. Get a powerful and reliable internet and voice solution for only 29. 95 a month for three months. Call or go online today. Before we go tonight, i want to tell you were watching some really interesting late breaking news out of the state of oklahoma. Oklahoma had primary elections today, statewide elections. Record numbers of people apparently voted by mail and absentee. The most interesting thing on the ballot was not any particular candidate, no offense, but instead a statewide referendum about whether or not to expand medicaid in the state of oklahoma under the Affordable Care act, under obamacare. This would be really consequential particularly in a pandemic. It would mean Health Insurance for hundreds of thousands of oklahoma residents who dont currently have it. It would also mean that deep red oklahoma just voted statewide to have that at the same time President Trump and republicanled states are all telling the Supreme Court they obamacare altogether. We are watching returns come in from oklahoma. Lets put it up on the screen. Right now this is what we have in terms of oklahomas Medicaid Expansion referendum. We dont have a call, but at this point, with more than threequarters of precincts reporting, the move to expand medicaid in oklahoma is leading a little bit. Thats going to be very interesting to watch over the course of this night and watch this space. That does it for us tonight. Well see you again tomorrow. Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening, lawrence. Good evening, rachel. As we said last night, this story about the russian bounty on american troops in afghanistan was obviously only going to grow from where we were last night, and it seems like