you see the legs of someone reflecting? >> yes. >> and so, you would agree that this appears to be a short clip from one of the officer's body worn cameras on may 25th of 2020? >> yes. >> you have seen these before? you see what appears to be mr. floyd's arm there by the back of the squad car. right? >> yes. >> so i would offer exhibit 1008. >> any objection? >> no objection. >> 1008 is received. >> if i may publish. >> come over here. >> we need you. >> we need you -- yeah. keep some distance. >> sorry. didn't mean to replay. do you hear a voice say we've got an ambulance coming? >> yes. >> oops. sorry. if we can take that down. now, policy 5-311. let's talk a little bit about 5-3 11 which is the neck restraint policy. >> counselor -- for a second? >> sure. >> good time to break for the 20-minute mid afternoon break and will reconvene around 3:20. thank you. >> hi there, everybody. a few minutes after 4:00 here in the east. it is an extraordinary day of developments in the murder trial of former police officer derek chauvin. they're taking a short break but when they come back we'll hear from minneapolis police chief. while it is incredibly rare for a police officer to stand trial for a shooting or a killing that happens while he is on duty, even more rare for the police chief to testify against within of his former officers. he fired all four officers who were involved a day after george floyd's death and last summer told nbc news he refuses to be in the same room as derek chauvin. here's some of what he said. watch. >> that action is not de-escalation. and when we talk about the framework of our sanctity of lifer and when we talk about the presence pls and values that we have, that action goes contrary to what we're taught. when i look at exhibit 17, and when i look at the facial expression of mr. floyd, that does not appear in any way, shape or form that is light to moderate pressure. to continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back, that -- that in no way, shape or form is anything that by policy. it is not part of our training and certainly not part of our ethics or values. >> prosecutors also went into detail about police department policies on use of force, using him to slowly brick by brick build the case that chauvin broke the rules of what he was trying to do. >> we have to make each engagement with our community count. and so, the training is very important. because for many in our communities, the first time that they encounter a minneapolis police officer may be the only time in their life they do so that singular incident matters. >> more important testimony today earlier we also heard from the doctor who was the doctor who pronounced george floyd dead at the hospital. dr. bradford langen feld saying he tried to resuscitate floyd but he was in cardiac arrest arriving at the hospital and testified that he believed the likeliest cause of death is not from drug use or heart disease as the defense has at times argued. >> was your leading theory then for the cause of mr. floyd's cardiac arrest oxygen deficiency? >> that was one of the more likely possibilities. i felt that at the time based on the information i had it was more likely than the other possibilities. >> and, doctor, is there another name for death by oxygen deficiency? >> asphyxia. >> let's bring in the conversation as we do every day shaquelle brewster live for us in minneapolis and joining joyce vance and carmen best is here. shaq, i have to start with you. we have been talking every day, this is the first day of the second week of testimony and it is clear what the prosecution's strategy is, is to build a more and more irrefutable body of sort of diverse viewpoints testifying to the same thing. talk about the impact today from the police chief and the medical examiner. >> reporter: the focus is on use of force on may 25, 2020. some of the arguments we heard before court even started this morning or before testimony even started this morning, we got a hint that the prosecution is planning to call several of theis officers, trainers to talk about the use of force. the police chief made very clear that he believes that chauvin's use of force was exessive and i think worth repeating that when mr. floyd is motionless and someone in that prone and handcuffed position is not part of policy and that's not part of theette eks or values. this is the police chief within hours of seeing that video fired derek chauvin and the three other officers on the scene. important point about that, that is a point that the jury is not allowed to be aware of or to know about the employment status. just that it ended the day after that video. but this is a police chief that's spoke against chauvin and the actions before, very publicly and it's one who has made part of his philosophy and got that in the testimony, the policing philosophy moving from one of the warrior mentality to that of a guardian mentality and seeing that in his testimony today. he is not happy and made clear he is not happy about what happened to george floyd and testifying specifically why that is and why he believes chauvin's actions on the 25th captured on video broke with the department policy. >> shaq, i misspoke when i said this is the medical examiner. this was the doctor who when george floyd's body arrived at the hospital pronounced him dead. this testimony also seems linked to a case that the prosecution sought to make last week with evidence that -- by bringing out his former -- his girlfriend who testified to the struggles with addiction and saying, yes, there was drug use and not why he died. he died of asphyxiation because of chauvin's knee on his neck. talk about the importance of that testimony earlier today. >> reporter: because this is a physician that worked on george floyd essentially for about 30 minutes after he was rolled on to the ambulance and taken to the hospital. it was the first person to see him there at the hospital and they tried to resuscitate george floyd and he was the physician who eventually called -- pronounced officially george floyd dead. the key part of the testimony is he suspected based on the information provided and work with george floyd it was asphyxiation. that is not in the medical examiner's report and what we are going to hear later this week we assume hearing from mr. baker and his report. that did not mention asphyxiation and did mention drug you and that so this piece of testimony from the physician was important because it set very clearly based on the work and expertise, someone that saw george floyd while officially still alive, though still pulseless and without a heart beat, based on the expertise of asphyxiation that was the primary cause of death. >> joyce vance, i'm reminded of something that you and chuck rosenberg reminded us in many contexts but especially watching a jury trial that some point jurors will be asked not to abandon common sense and if you build on the testimony of the law enforcement official who was chauvin's supervision, you have the chief, there's no testimony that comes close to suggesting that anything chauvin did was within department policy. is that still what you think the defense will argue? >> we're still in the prosecution's case so it's important to remember that we haven't heard the defense really try to make headway yet. we heard a little bit in opening statements but not much. the argument that's going on here is a question about whether or not the homicide was justified under police policy and it also feeds into the prosecution's proof that at some point this officer went beyond doing his job and was reckless about the life of george floyd and ended up taking his life. one of the things the prosecution will have to prove to sustain some of the charges, what the defense really is going to do, and we can all see it coming, they argue about cause of death saying it was drugs, something other than the very obvious knee on the neck as you correctly point out when the judge tells the jurors to use the common sense it is difficult to ignore that knee when they deliberate. >> carmen, just the broader picture here. seeing all of these law enforcement -- this is the second sort of officer who had responsibility for derek chauvin testifying against him. that on its face is pretty staggering and seems like a devastating blow for chauvin's case. >> it has to be. not one, not two but three people including the highest official in the organization have come forward to talk about how his actions went well beyond policy and the use of force policy and in fact, their belief with many other people is that he, in fact, was responsible for the death of george floyd. obviously the details will come out but the officers came forward, letters were written. the chief is -- very rare, unusual to have a police of chief testify in this manner but clearly he is convinced that the actions of former officer chauvin were excessive and contributed to the death of george floyd and in fact violated policy so all the distractions about de-escalation and all these other things, the fact of the matter is level of force applied has to be commiserate with the level of resistance. clearly mr. floyd was not resistant at the time as the chief described proned out and handcuffed on the ground. >> as you said, this is the third acting law enforcement official or one was retired but we have heard from several law enforcement officials and falls into the common sense test that jurors will be asked to rely on but i want to press you on de-escalation. let's play you some of the sort of back and forth with this witness about de-escalation. we'll watch and talk about it on the other side. >> sometimes de-escalation, again, includes the use of force. right? the use of force can be a de-escalation tactic. >> i was thinking of your example of displaying your weapon. and so, i don't have a lot of knowledge in terms of physical force being used to de-escalate a situation but the threatening use of force or threatening verbally i'm more familiar with that. >> that was just staggering because common sense again would argue that violence and force don't de-escalate anything. the world over. seemed like an important fact for the prosecution to get on the record even if it came in questioning from the defense. >> yeah. typically de-escalation is part of a use of force policy and i believe the policy of this morning why when it's reasonable to do so officers should de-escalate any situation. bringing in more weaponry and more force typically does not de-escalate a situation. it may terminate a situation and may stop whatever is happening at that moment but that's not typically part of the de-escalation definition. >> i want to show you, joyce, some more of this testimony from the doctor who was the first medical expert to treat him at the hospital. and this is specifically about whether or not he received cpr. let's watch. >> i did not receive a report that mr. floyd had received bystander cpr, no. >> did you receive a report that he had received cpr from any of the officers who may have been on the scene may 25th, 2020? >> no. >> the administration of cpr right away important for you to know when you're dealing with a patient who's suffered cardiac arrest? is it important for you to know about that? >> it is in the sense that it informs the likelihood of survival. >> what do you mean by that, doctor? >> it's well-known that any amount of time that a patient spends in cardiac arrest without immediate cpr markedly decreases the chance of a good outcome. approximately 10 to 15% decrease in survival for every minute that cpr is not administered. >> so, joyce, i know cause of death will be central but a question that jurors will be asked to contemplate is negligence and the medical examiner is saying no one tried to give him cpr. anyone who's been a lifeguard to earn money in the summer knows that cpr is pretty basic. surely every police officer knows how to do it and no one sought to or thought to. >> there was, in fact, testimony earlier in the trial that all of the officers are trained in cpr. so what we're learning about here, remember, the lawyers don't get to ark the evidence at this point. they're taking testimony. i think of it as collecting jewels that they'll use in the end in closing argument to make their case. we don't really hear from them what they think the significance is. but here we have evidence from witness after witness of what didn't happen at the scene. was there cpr? no. did anyone think about narcan to bring people back from an overdose? we hear now that the defense might be overdose. we hear from this doctor that he didn't use narcan because cardiac arrest was going on for too long and seeing the failures of care that violate the police standards according to the chief but also feed into what's being set up in the charges the prosecution has brought, whether or not chauvin created a dangerous situation and ignored the risk of death. whether he had a depraved mind. whether he was callous and reckless with regard to the risk of death. and so, these sorts of pieces of evidence will come into play in closing and powerful and there's a battle ahead because the medical examiners do not agree on the cause of death here. >> joyce, just in terms of understanding the strategy from the prosecution, this doctor who testified today was the first doctor in the hospital to treat george floyd. is the testimony to be viewed like a prebuttal? is it going to be presented to the jury as something that they're going to have to make assessments of credibility? do juries look at the first person who by happenstance happened to be the person who's in the o.r. wheeling george floyd in? how much credibility do they give? >> you know, the rule is different. he is the doctor that called time of death and establishes that there's a descendant. the last witness will be a spark of life saying that george floyd was alive but we hear those lines in the trial, it is necessary and the prosecution will establish that normally so i think that he may come from a side angle in terms of playing a role in this dispute between the medical examiners but his testimony really talks about what did and didn't happen in the scene and what patient condition he inherited when george floyd showed up at the hospital. >> you know, shaq, i want to get back to the use of force questioning because that's when where the attention and care is but i don't want to abandon this point of the police officers did and didn't do for george floyd as he so clearly suffered and struggled under the knee of decorrect chauvin. this is from "the new york times" who's live blogging the trial and points this out about the impact of the chief's testimony. quote, we have a duty of care so when someone is in our custody regardless of a suspect, we have an obligation to make sure that we provide for their care. the chief said. he makes the declarative statements that putt chauvin clearly on the other side of policy and ethics of being a law enforcement official. >> reporter: that's right. it seems like it's connecting with the jury. that's something we have been seeing in the pool reports that especially the most recent that just came through. over the course of the day there seems to be three moments that got all jurors to pay attention. one was when we heard from the doctor earlier today say that none of the paramedics told the physician that there was concern about a drug overdose. that's something that -- or george floyd had a heart attack. with the two terms used that was a term or a moment where you saw the jurors pick up the pen. another was at the end of the doctor's testimony where he says his suspected cause of death was oxygen deficiency or asphyxia. that's another moment of jurors paying attention. the third is most recently with the police chief saying that the use of force policies did not comply with ethics, with the department standards. the pool reporter says that they were all paying attention and they say every single one had the eyes on the chief as he was explaining that and explaining the hobble technique and the different techniques that the training allows for but that he's testifying that derek chauvin did not follow so that's a key thing here. we heard that from the bystanders and now you hear from police leadership themselves. >> and the off duty emt. it is a consistent story that the prosecution is putting forward to the jury so far. let's go back in. >> minneapolis police policy 5-311. correct? >> yes. >> exhibit 224. do you have that in front of you there? >> yes. >> so there are as a difference, the policy draws a difference between a chokehold and a neck restraint. >> yes. >> a chokehold is from the back obstructing the trachea of the suspect. correct? >> yes. >> and per minneapolis policy that's considered a lethal use of force or a deadly use of force. right? >> yes. >> that's because it has a high rate of death associated with it? >> correct. >> more dangerous from the front? >> yes. >> and also, different yatds a choke told and neck restraint? >> yes. >> neck restraint is defined as compressing one or both sides of a person's neck with an arm or a leg without applying direct pressure to the trachea or airway. agreed? >> based upon the policy, i think it's important to note, counselor, the light to moderate pressure. >> correct. understood. light to moderate pressure. >> yes. >> i'm assuming you don't have a degree in physics. >> i do not. >> okay. and in terms of the amount of pressure or force that was actually applied to mr. floyd, you would not be qualified to speak to that. agreed? >> agreed. >> but then it also differentiates of a conscious and an unconscious neck restraint. right? >> yes. >> and a conscious neck restraint is where you have someone who is resisting you and you apply that neck restraint in an effort to simply gain control of that person but they stay conscious. correct? >> yes. >> and an unconscious neck restraint is where you actually render the subject uncountry shouse. right? >> yes. >> both were permitted under minneapolis police policy on may 25th of 2020. agreed? >> yes. >> and ultimately, you have -- if i understand the opinion you have formed, you have formed the opinion that this was a neck restraint that was being employed. >> yes. >> and you have also formed the opinion that this was an unconscious neck restraint. is that correct? excuse me. a conscious neck restraint. >> yes. >> okay. you're -- you testified on direct examination that it is contrary to the training that you have received to place your neck or your knee on a subject's neck. >> counselor, if i can clarify. it is contrary to our training to indefinitely place your knee on a proned handcuffed individual for an indefinite period of time. >> so the issue that you take with it is the length of time? >> counselor, a couple of issues and one of those again is as you noted, receiving the information. is the person a threat? to the officers or others. what is the severity of the crime? are you reevaluating and assessing the person's medical condition? so all of that critical thinking, that's -- so that's really key for me in terms of why i vehemently disagree that was the incorrect use of force for that situation on may 25. >> when we talk about that critical decision making model that doesn't only apply to the specific subject that you have under your control. correct? >> counselor, just -- so we are talking about the bystanders? >> would you mind moving the microphone back a bit? >> i think we just got a loud voice. >> sorry about that. >> i'm talking about by standers. other officers. i'm talking about other things that come into play with the officer's critical decision making. >> if you could just rephrase that question again. >> sure. when an officer is engaged in the use of force and i'll just phrase it as a yes or no, their attention is not exclusively necessarily focused on the subject of whom they have in custody. agree or disagree? >> the officer -- the counselor, the officer engaging in the use of force may be viewing other matters? >> correct. >> that would be yes. >> right. in fact, that's what the de-escalation model talks about is looking at things from a tactical advantage. or disadvantage. agreed? >> one of the portions. >> right. specifically in the policy de-escalation has to be applied assuming that it's safe to do so. right? >> yes. >> all other tactical considerations. agreed? that's what the policy says? >> yes. >> in terms of those decision making, an officer, it's not a singular decision making process that's happening in the course of an arrest. agreed? >> yes. >> so an officer has to be concerned about other things that are known to him at that time. agreed? >> yes. >> so some of those things would be what just happened between me and this subject a few minutes ago. right? >> yes. >> i just fought with this subject a few minutes -- talking generally here. i just fought with this person generally a few minutes ago. he now seems to be not resisting. but that doesn't mean he can't resist again. right? >> yes. >> even if he is handcuffed. right? >> yes. >> so even if he is handcuffed someone can still -- they're not threatless if they're handcuffed. agreed? >> this is just general. >> general. >> yes. >> right. someone who is handcuffed can be equally as a threat to an officer as someone who's not handcuffed? >> yes. >> they can kick. they could bite. they can spit. they can do all sorts of things. >> yes. >> now, in terms of the use -- so i just want to make sure. you formed the opinion that this was a conscious -- excuse me an unconscious neck restraint. right? >> counselor -- >> on may 25th of 2020. >> conscious neck restraint? >> conscious neck restraint. >> yes. >> okay. now, again in this whole de-escalation officers have to take into consideration the safety of the crowd. right? >> yes. >> they have to take into account the reactions of the crowd. whether they're angry or hostile or just simply watching. right? >> yes. >> that's all a part of this critical decision making model. >> yes. >> they have to be aware of the surroundings generally speaking. >> yes. >> being at a busy street versus a park. >> yes. >> different decisions go into that. right? >> yes. >> knowing that i have other officers that are in place and may be at risk, as well. right? >> yes. >> so there's lots of -- the critical decision making model is not singular in its application. >> that's correct. >> lots of information coming in very rapidly. right? >> yes. >> so i'm going to show you first -- and i believe by stipulation or at least without objection, i'm going to play a few minutes or excuse me a few seconds of ms. frazier's facebook video. so at this time i would offer objection 1010. >> 1019 is received. you may publish. >> i'm going to pause it here. sorry. this appears to be sort of that time that picture that was shown to you earlier, exhibit 19, this time frame that picture appears to be taken from? >> counselor, yes. i'm sorry. is that the end of the question? >> this appears to be that image you were shown on direct examination, that static exhibit 19? >> yes. >> shows officer shaw vin. shows mr. floyd. it shows officer tao? >> yes. >> it shows the perspective of the -- ms. frazier's phone. chief, are you familiar with the concept of camera perspective bias? >> i am not. >> okay. now, again, if i may take that down. by stipulation i'll show that same timeframe. exhibit 1009. that same perspective from mr. king's body camera. and i would offer 1019. >> 1019? >> 1019. >> any objection? >> no objection. >> 2019 is received. publish, your honor? you agree it appears to be the same timeframe? >> yes. >> all right. now, lastly, chief, i'm going to show you one last video. if we could take this down, your honor. exhibit -- i would offer exhibit 1020 which is a side by side of the two. >> any objection? >> no objection, your honor. >> 1020 is received. >> and permission to publish? >> pardon? oh. just started it over. that's okay. you would agree, chief, that from the perspective of ms. frazier's camera it appears that officer chauvin's knee is on the neck of mr. floyd? >> yes. >> sorry. i didn't mean to do that. would you agree that from the perspective of officer keung's body camera it looks like the knee was on the shoulder blade? >> yes. >> i have no further questions. >>. >> thank you, your honor. chief, let's start with what you just saw and you testified that the particular moment in time that you were viewing officer keung's body worn camera it appeared at that moment in time that the knee of the defendant was more towards the shoulder blade. is that right? >> that is correct. >> that is at a time where the ambulance had already arrived? >> yes. >> very shortly before they loaded mr. floyd on to the gurney? >> yes. that is correct. >> and in your view of the body worn camera footage, everything you reviewed prior to testifying today, did you see the defendant's knee anywhere but the neck of mr. floyd up until that time? >> that is correct. >> and so, the knee of the defendant was on mr. floyd's neck up until the time you just pointed out? >> yes. when i viewed that video portion that is the first time that i had seen the knee of the defendant on the shoulder blade area. >> and that was right before the paramedic came? >> that's correct. >> now looking at -- talking about the neck restraint policy, if you would show exhibit 17 please. oh. thank you. looking at exhibit 17, was it your testimony that exhibit 17 is not a trained mpd neck restraint? >> correct. that is my testimony. >> i would like you to reflect on the exhibits that you were shown by defense counsel, exhibits 1008, 1019 and 1020. the 10-second clip. okay? during that period of time, which is much later than the point in time we see here, did you see any indication that mr. floyd was actively resisting as that term is defined in minneapolis police department policy? >> i did not observe mr. floyd to be actively resisting during that time. >> did you see -- same question, same time period. any indication that mr. floyd was being actively aggressive in that 10-second clip that you were shown? >> no, i did not obvious him to be aggressive. >> was he passively resisting? >> no. as a matter of fact as i saw that video, i didn't even know if mr. floyd was alive at that time. >> i want to revisit a little bit of the testimony on cross-examination about the use of the mrt or the hobble. right? and if i'm to understand your testimony you indicated that a hobble is a strap that's used to connect the person -- a handcuffed person, their waist, the arms and the legs to restraint them. is that right? >> yes, that is correct. >> what i thought i heard you saying in response to questioning by counsel was that you can use -- you can do an mrt effectively without using a hobble when you do the same thing but with your hands? >> yes. that is correct. >> did i understand your testimony to essentially be that that's what these officers were doing was essentially using a maximal restraint technique but not using the hobble? >> that is correct. >> pursuant to departmental policy, the hobble is the only authorized use -- the only authorized way to employ the maximum restraint technique. >> that is correct. >> are you aware that the use of the hobble requires a supervisor to report to the scene and do a force report? >> yes. a supervisor must arrive at the scene and do a report. >> but that would be avoided if the hobble itself wasn't used or -- >> no. if you're employing that sort of technique with that prone individual handcuffed and basically doing that maneuver and because of the severity of risk to -- been to mr. floyd you would have contacted a supervisor. >> and aside from that, if you're using an mrt, you supposed to adhere to departmental policy. >> that is correct. >> the minneapolis department policy for the mrt requires an officer to do what as soon as the mrt is applied? >> again, because of the severe nature of making sure that that individual can breathe we have to get the individual into a side recovery position to make sure that the airway is not instructed so that's paramount. >> so that's required by policy and the side recovery position is supposed to been instant. is that right? >> immediate. >> and you indicated it has to do with breathing. you are familiar with the term positional asphyxia? >> am. >> is that danger of leaving someone that position too long? >> yes. we cannot transport people in that position. prone handcuffed and pressure around the airways or the back the risk and potential for them in us killing them goes up sub instant shlly so that side recovery position is critically important. >> i want to follow up on some of the questions about your own personal training and that of different officers in different roles within the minneapolis police department. different officers can attend other types of training. is that right? >> yes. >> but everybody is required to do in-service training? >> that is correct. >> the rules are the rules, right? >> yes. >> and the policy applies to all mpd officers. >> yes. >> the question was posed regarding the critical decision making model and the need to take in information. and that's true. correct? >> yes. >> but when we're looking at the proper and authorized use of force under departmental policy is it fair to say that the amount of force an officer can use depends upon the conduct of the person upon whom the force is being used? >> yes. fair to say that. >> so for example if you had me in let's say a dangerous hold, right, would you be able to continue to keep me in a dangerous hold based on something somebody else is doing? >> i'm sorry. if you could explain that. i'm sorry. >> so, for example, if you found the need to place me in some sort of a hold, that's dangerous. >> yes. >> but something that you see, say the judge is starting to pick something up to throw at me, would that justify you using more force on me? >> no. >> and in terms of de-escalating the crowd, you indicated that there is some potential need to de-escalate a crowd, a group of people. is that right? >> yes. >> because a group of people can experience something that they find shocking or upsetting and that can place them in some kind of an emotional state. is that right? >> that is correct. >> and you may need to turn attention to and de-escalate the crowd? >> yes. >> would one way if we could show exhibit 17. would one way to de-escalate the crowd who's experiencing something shocking to stop doing the thing that's shocking them? >> absolutely. >> i have nothing further. >> any recross? >> thank you. very briefly, just one question. there are certain circumstances where an officer has to kind of freeze the situation, evaluate, hold the person until he or she can decide what's the safest way to move forward. agreed? >> agreed. >> sometimes you have to hold the person. correct? >> yes. >> and that's something that happens fairly frequently. agreed? >> yes. >> and so, one other question. with respect to the policy regarding the maximal restraint technique and putting a person in the recovery position or the side recovery position, you said of the immediate. agreed? >> as soon as you're able to do so, yes. >> that's what the policy says is as soon as you are able to do so. rite? >> yes. >> there are certain circumstances under which you are using force where the force has to be dealt with before you can turn your attention to rendering medical aid? >> counselor are we talking about someone in the -- >> just generally. >> can you repeat that? >> sure. there are certain circumstances where a use of force needs to be continued for some reason to deal with something else before you can deal or render medical aid? let me use -- give you an example. >> yeah. >> we are in a gun battle. i'm the cop. you're the bad guy and hit my partner. i will continue to used my force against you before i can go render medical aid. >> in that hypothetical, yes. >> thank you. >> briefly. sometimes it is necessary to freeze a scene and to hold an individual. correct? >> yes. >> but you have to do so safely. you have to hold the person safely. isn't that correct? >> that is correct. >> nothing further. >> thank you, chief. >> your honor, thank you so much. >> next witness. all right. >> we have been watching the murder trial of derek chauvin. along with some of our friends and reporters. regular and known to all of you. joyce vance, carmen best and adding to the conversation msnbc political analyst and former senator claire mccaskill. a former prosecutor texted me to this. the jury understands that he was proned, cuffed and lost conscious and understand thanks to the chief he vie latted mpd policy. seems like a good day for the prosecution. >> yeah. and the defense attorney does what defense attorneys do which is trying to make something out nothing. you know, the bottom line is this man was handcuffed and had three police officers on top of him. handcuffed with three police officers on top of him. plus another officer standing by monitoring the crowd. there is nothing in that situation that presented a threat, and nine minutes is an eternity. as i said the other day, all the defense -- honestly, all i think the prosecutor needs to do is stand up in front of the jury and stand there quietly for nine minutes, because that's an eternity. and that's the problem these defense lawyers have, and frankly, i don't think that defense lawyer -- i mean, joyce, i think, will agree with me, having been in a courtroom like that, having been in cross-examinations like that, you know, the prosecutor, the entire time the defense lawyer was crossing the chief of police, the prosecutor was probably saying, keep going. because you're not making any progress. all you're doing is the jury is thinking to themselves, well, wait a minute, what you're saying isn't true. there was no danger from the crowd. there was no danger from this man. so, sometimes, in an effort to make a point, you make the opposite point. >> yep. >> well, and i -- i don't know, joyce, if this applies in courtrooms, but certainly in politics, when you're in a hole, stop digging, and it seemed like every time the defense attorney stood up to try to -- it seems that their strategy is to try to create, in a juror's mind, a belief system that suggests that, in the heat of the moment, you can do anything. but this was almost a quarter of an hour. there was no heat of the moment anything. if it were heat of the moment, maybe you're back in the car, but what is so clear from all of this eye-witness footage and from all of the testimony and people that had nothing else in common, other than they happened on this spot and watched derek chauvin take the life out of george floyd, was that they all came to the same assessment about what happened that day. what is sort of the history of defense attorneys like this one having success with a strategy like what he's trying to deploy? >> one measure of how effective a cross-examination is, is how much work the prosecutors have to do with the witness on redirect, and so you'll notice, confirming claire's assessment of the situation, prosecutors had very little redirect to do, because most of what mr. nelson spent his time doing was asking hypothetical questions about situations that was not the situation that was presented with george floyd. you know, isn't it technically possible that x could happen? well, sure, but that's not what happened on the day that we're looking at, so it was a very ineffective cross-examination. >> right. >> and carmen, i keep thinking of this extraordinary position the chief is in, and for the defense attorney to say, hypothetically, if it were a shootout -- i mean, the point is, it wasn't. and there were four guns drawn on george floyd as he was unarmed in a car. i mean, even his hypotheticals didn't seem to advance whatever his strategy is. >> exactly. and i'm sure the chief, in the back of his mind, was thinking what everyone here is saying. what does that have to do with anything? you know, why am i even being asked these questions? so, kudos to him for remaining calm and composed and just answering the questions, as ridiculous as some of them did seem at the time. you know, a shootout and freezing a scene, what does that have to do with derek chauvin placing his knee on george floyd's neck for nine minutes and looking out -- he mentioned looking out at the crowd and the danger of the crowd. there were four cops there, and the crowd was merely trying to get them to help mr. floyd, so it seemed rather ridiculous. i'm sure the chief was thinking the same thing, although he remained professional as he would and answered the questions accordingly. >> and claire, the crowd, we now know, because of the first week of the case, the prosecution has put on included a 9-year-old and other minors, a former emt, not people who police officers who run the streets and know their beats would naturally be fearful of. and they were all wielding cell phones. i want to read you some of "the new york times" live blog from what we've been talking about. this is from the "times" reporter, john, in minneapolis. case in point, nelson asked the chief if his problem with derek chauvin's knee on george floyd's neck was the amount of time he held it there and the chief said that it was a whole host of factors, quote, is a person a threat to the officer and others? what is the severity of the crime? are you reevaluating and assessing the individual's medical condition? probably not what the defense lawyer wanted to hear. so, just to this point that the defense attorney, by taking so much time cross-examining this very credible witness may have hurt his case. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> i think that's right. i think it does hurt his case. i think that when you are in a situation, when you are defending a case like this, sometimes less is more. you know, he only, i think, has a shot at somehow getting the jury to not find the most serious crime, or maybe he's just trying to find one juror that's going to be irrational. but the bottom line is, i think this police chief, once you took your measure of this witness, how composed, how informed, how articulate he was, once you took the measure of that witness, then a smart defense attorney does less and not more. and this police chief was a formidable witness to this officer who put his knee on the neck and took the life out of george floyd that day. and it is one the jury won't forget. and frankly, the more time this witness spent on the stand, the more unforgettable he became. >> i think that's right. we'll be talking about him a lot in the days and weeks to come. i'm grateful to all of you. our thanks to joyce vance, carmen best, and claire mccaskill. everyone will continue to listen to the trial. we're going to continue to monitor it for other developments, but in the meantime, we're going to get to other headlines when the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. tsfter a quick don't go anywhere. and in an emergency, they need a network that puts them first. that connects them to technology, to each other, and to other agencies. that's why at&t built firstnet with and for first responders the emergency response network authorized by congress. firstnet. because putting them first is our job. how great is it that we get to tell everybody how liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? 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i agree with my friend and colleague, tom, that we should not be playing with fire. i've been in the intelligence business. i know the power of information operations and false information. >> and speaking of playing with fire, gop disinformation either augmented by or inspired by russian disinformation on covid and covid vaccines is also exacting a toll on this country at a crucial juncture. here's just one example of fox news's primetime anchors. >> trump gave him and dr. scarf an outsize public platform, helped burnish their reputations and now, well, they're just kind of stabbing him in the back by blaming former president trump for their own failures, and the experts' disinformation campaign is ongoing about covid, even after vaccines. the variants, the variants are coming, the mutations. gloom and doom. >> where to begin? of course, none of that is true. virus mutations, tragically, are real. they're a common phenomenon, and experts have warned about the covid-19 variants because they've been found all over the world. they've been found to have higher transmissible rates and some are more likely to lead to severe illness or death. the gop addiction to lies, lies, lies and the tolls they take on this country is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. tim miller is here, writer at large for the bulwark and former rnc spokesman. jake sherman, founder of punch bowel news and carol leonnig is here, "washington post" national reporter and msnbc contributor. you know, carol, we're juggling live coverage of the trial and there was so much great reporting from the weekend and what it all has in common is the republican party as a either hostage of or hostage taker of lies. i mean, all of these threats to the country, whether it's domestic violent extremism, whether it's this scam, this fund-raising scam that if you were a company, i'm sure you'd be under criminal investigation on behalf of his campaign, and then the ongoing lies about covid, they all have, as their central disseminator, republicans. >> you know, i'm really glad you focused on some of this great work by our "new york times" competitors and colleagues, and i think shane's piece in particular is so striking, because it goes to the heart of, are you defrauding your own people? are you tricking them -- are you tricking them into giving you money based on some fine print they can't see? it does remind me, nicole, just a tiny bit of something steve bannon was criminally charged with as part of a conspiracy group to try to get trump donors and supporters to give him and his friends money for a nonprofit that wasn't a nonprofit, that was supposed to rebuild a portion of the wall. you know, everything sounds good, and it's a great rallying cry for those folks who are really concerned about immigrants storming the border and mexican rapists coming into your towns, but bottom line, it was just a way to skeeve off some money and it's fascinating what's happening with this particular fund-raising scheme. on the issue of disinformation, i'll just say really quickly that it's striking to me that republicans are both tethered to the president's popularity and also adding gas to it by continuing to support qanon theories. you know? it's just a -- it's a sort of a vicious circle. >> it's a vicious circle. it's a deadly circle, and tim, you know, you can't put half the country on the couch, but it's self-destructive, and i want to focus in where carol started. i mean, this reporting about what trump did to his own supporters adds motive to the lie that led to the deadly insurrection, and if anyone's looking at all that conduct, it certainly feels like another layer to scrutinize, that he was screwing his own most loyal supporters. once you're a donor, you're hooked, right? there's the level of people that will watch fox news because they are in your camp and then there's the level of people who will vote for you every four years but then it's next level. it's like the winner's club, the people who come to your events and give to your campaign. those are sort of the most important political supporters that you have, and to his most valuable supporters, he screwed them. he screwed them with a hidden recurring payment, which, again, if you buy anything else, and that's hidden, there are severe fines and punishments for that. >> yeah, nicole, look, i think there are two things at play here. you know, one, we don't need to spend much time on donald trump is a scam artist. he's been a scam artist going back to trump university and all the other scams that he scammed people over when he was in the private sector, all the way to the apprentice tv show was a scam and frankly, if he's been successful at anything, he's the most successful scam artist in history. but i think the relevant thing here to add to this picture, which you mentioned with regards to january 6th, is these emails and the messages that he has been sending out, you know, i think over time, we just get used to this sort of thing, and people start -- you stop writing news stories about it. and carol can't write a news story every day that donald trump's campaign sends out an email saying that, you know, the election has been stolen. but i went back and reviewed some of the texts and emails that i was getting from them between november and january 6th, and they are not only lies, but they are insane, and they are part of what got people so riled up to the point where they were willing to storm the capitol carrying a trump flag and spear a police officer with it. i mean, the acu, run by matt, the nrsc, the rnc, donald trump's campaign were all sending out emails about how the election was being stolen from them, about how it was a fraud, and that's how you get people hooked on these return emails. so, these things do all tie very much together, and it should not be seen just through the lens of, oh, this was a financial scam, which it was, but it's also part of the broader scam that the whole trump apparatus and the party's apparatus was perpetrating on his own supporters but on all of us from november all the way through the insurrection and frankly still to today. >> and you know, hell hath no fury, jake sherman, like a republican on republican sort of family feud. tim and i can attest to that. but the other piece of reporting we talked about was about one republican's lonely fight against the flood of disinformation. let me read you some of jeremy peters' great reporting on mr. riggleman. the undoing of mr. riggleman and now his unlikely crusade is revealing about a dimension of conservative politics today. the fight against radicalism within the gop is a deeply lonely one, waged mostly by republicans like him who are no longer in office and by the small handful of elected officials who have decided that they are willing to speak up, even if it means that they too could be headed for an early retirement. quote, i've been telling people, you don't understand. this is getting worse, not better, mr. riggleman said. sitting on a stool at his family bar one recent afternoon. people are angry, and they're angry at the truth tellers. this feels like something that you have been trying to, i think, bring to us and report to us in your coverage of how 12 republicans could vote against giving medals for the capitol police officers, some of them paid with their lives, and again on friday, this is reporting that you have tried to articulate, and i thought of you when i read this, you know, just how tense it is, how impossible it is for the two parties, especially the near 150 republicans who voted against certifying the election results after the insurrection. this reporting helps people understand how viciously the republicans are fighting for the right to lie. >> well, you could count on one hand at this point, nicole, republicans who are not in donald trump's corner or better yet are not of his cloth, right? i mean, there's literally just liz cheney and adam kinzinger. that's all that's really left of the republican party that people like you and tim used to -- that's the party you used to be a part of, right? i mean, there's nobody else left, and i got the -- i get this question all the time. i mean, people say, when are they going to give up on donald trump? when are they going to cut ties? when are they going to throw him under the bus? and the unfortunate for a lot of republicans who want to get back to that party, the unfortunate reality is that donald trump still has 70%, 80% approval ratings in republican districts across the country. riggleman's loss was a little bit more complicated than that. he was in a convoluted primary system. i think it was a convention, which made it even more bizarre and i think he made the argument at the time that if it was a different format, he would have possibly been able to keep his seat in congress. but you know, yeah, it's extraordinarily lonely, and you know, people make the argument that they follow in's donald trump's footsteps because they need to, it's where their voters are, and my argument to a lot of republicans has traditionally been, you don't know where your voters would be if you took another course of action. i mean, i've said that to people in the leadership before. they say, well, we have to vote to invalidate the election because that's where donald trump is and our voters are with donald trump and my argument is, well, you don't know where your voters would be. it's a false construct because you're not taking -- and i'm not suggesting they should take this position, i'm just presenting another kind of another construct here, which is if you took the position that you say you believe is right, then maybe your voters would be, like, oh, maybe we shouldn't vote to invalidate an election and cause a massive war at the capitol. so, you know, that's the vibe up here as it is every day, and you know what the interesting thing is, nicole, and you got me thinking about this, so i'll just add one more point. history tells us and i know i get a lot of tweets whenever i say this, so save your tweets and save your emails because this is true. history tells us republicans are probably going to take back the house of representatives. that's just because the president's part of the -- the party out of power typically wins 26 seats on average in the first midterm of an incumbent president's term. so, what is that republican party look like? i mean, if kevin mccarthy is the speaker of the house of representatives, i mean, what does that look like for the republican party and for governing because then, it's not just a video game, so to speak, right? it's governing. it's reality. it's keeping the country on track. and kevin mccarthy's very close to donald trump and remains very close to donald trump, so i just -- those are some of the things that are running through my mind in the strain of, what is the future of this party that both of you guys worked for so many years in and i've been covering for the last decade or more. >> carol, i'll raise jake sherman with some midterm history of my own. one time the history was defied was in 2002, two years after the attacks of 9/11 when the question was security and i think the republicans are aligning themselves with an ideology that is a domestic terror threat, the ideology that they're aligning themselves with is, in the words of an alert, a bulletin that came out at the beginning of this year, grounds for keeping our eyes out, and if you see something, say something for domestic violent extremism rooting in discontent over covid restrictions and discontent over the big lie about the election. that's where they're associating themselves. if voters think that the republican ideology is a domestic terror threat, history could defy that normal pattern that jake is talking about. >> well, you know, nicole, i think it's really smart for you and jake to bring this up, in part because the real truth about voters is their memory is incredibly short, and 9/11 almost faded from people's memories, not the actual event, of course, but in terms of their commitment to national security and to safety after about four years, and i think in reverse logic, if i may, if there is an event, god forbid, if there is another event akin to the capitol siege, which sickened so many republicans and democrats, and frightened so many americans, if there is another event like that, i do think that it will change the calculus for the country about where we land in the midterms. i'm not a political scientist. but i am a follower of how voters react, and they do react to two things, their pocketbook and their sense of, is my house safe? and we saw on january 6th, the country's house was not safe. let's see what happens between now and then. >> well, and you know, tim miller, i think this comes back to where this is heading, and i accept as fact the reporting on where the republicans stand and their being tethered to donald trump, but i just -- i don't think that's where the heat is. the attention is. i think the heat is around the current qanon member that none of them had the -- what body part can i use -- stomach to hold accountable to a bat bleep crazy ideology and i think the heat will be around republicans that are standing by matt gaetz, who may or may not have sex trafficked with a minor. i mean, i think that when you rip trump off the front page, what's underneath on the right is dirtier, grosser, more corrupt, and less aligned with any recognizable policies that are in the national interest. >> oh, boy, nicole, we usually agree, i don't know if you can get dirtier or grosser than donald trump, but i take your point. >> well, matt gaetz and marjorie taylor greene? >> well, that's all in the same boat for me, but yeah, i hear what you're saying. look at the virginia -- i wrote about the virginia governor's race and i'm sure jake is covering this as well. you've got these -- this republican primary going on where there is this woman, amanda chase, who's running as trump in heels and then you have these supposedly kind of mainstream business guys who are running against her and the mainstream business guys are in on the big lie and they're both running, you know, they both leaked to fox news their election integrity plan about how we got to fix the election integrity in virginia, where joe biden won by ten points. i mean, there's no -- there's no even reasonable, plausible way to state that you have to be concerned about the fraudulent in the election in virginia. so, i do think that the big lie continues to be where the heat is. will that be true next year? i don't know. but i also think that as jake said, these guys see this as a game. and kevin mccarthy saw it as a game when he voted to overturn the election. these virginia guys running, pete snider and glen young, all them, they see this as a game, this is what they need to do to get the support of the voters, and i think that is where they're wrong, and i think what we saw on 1/6 is this is not a game, this is all deadly serious, and the fact that kevin mccarthy thinks that he can just continue to play around with this b.s. until he actually wins next fall, as jake points out, i mean, i just think that they're in for a rude awakening, and if they didn't have it already, on january 6th, like they should have. >> carol, let me just come back to you really quickly. are there any republicans that i'm missing who put homeland security and national security ahead of party loyalty, other than the ones that have been named here and i'll throw mitt romney into the mix too. >> you know, i have to say, i can't count them in terms of who's speaking publicly. i can tell you there are many more that are speaking privately, of grave concern about the qanoners. there have been members who have said to me that they're afraid of being in their own districts and saying out loud what they think. not because of being re-elected, mind you, which i thought was the primary concern. but about their own safety. and you know, if you're not tethered to anything more dangerous, i don't know what it is, but it is fascinating. i have to give donald trump credit for this. you know, he tapped into a division in our country, he widened it, he milked it, he rode to success in many ways, and he is able to get six or seven out of ten republicans believing something that's false, demonstrably false. so, at the same time, he's gotten a group of republicans who feel strongly that russia is a danger, who feel that domestic extremism is a danger, to be silent about it. and it's quite something. that's quite a lot of power. >> i mean, to me, that is one of the most stunning, stunning -- it's not evolution of the republican party, but its destruction is, in part, due to what you just articulated. carol, thanksing for joining us. when we come back, the decision to move the mlb all-star game out of atlanta continues to reverberate across sports and politics today. the finger pointing is just beginning of who's responsible for any harm it could do to georgia's economy, but democrats say the issue is even bigger than that. plus, with the pandemic striking country on an ice edge with the threat of a potential fourth wave, republicans seem once again intent ongoing after anthony fauci. yep, all that when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. nues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer. ♪ ♪ i feel free to bare my skin yeah, that's all me. ♪ ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand nothing on my skin, ♪ ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ achieve clearer skin with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year. and skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. ♪ i see nothing in a different way it's my moment ♪ ♪ so i just gotta say... ♪ ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or coughs or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ now is the time to ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. i'll be observing your safe-driving abilities. play your cards right, and you could be in for a tasty discount. [ clicks pen] let's roll. hey, check it out. one time i tripped on the sidewalk over here. [ heavy-metal music playing ] -[ snoring ] -and a high of 89 degrees. [ electronic music playing ] ooh! ooh! who just gives away wood? the snapshot app from progressive rewards you for driving safe and driving less. there's an app? -[ chuckles ] beth. -save money with progressive. [ tires screech ] well, that came out of nowhere. as we continue to return to classrooms... parents like me want to make sure we're doing it safely. especially in the underserved communities hardest hit by covid. trust me, no one wants to get back to classroom learning more than teachers like me. using common sense safety measures like masks, physical distancing, and proper ventilation. safety is why we're prioritizing vaccinations for educators. because working with our local communities... we will all get through this together, safely. in the middle of a pandemic, major league baseball put the wishes of stacey abrams and joe biden ahead of the economic wellbeing of hard-working georgians who were counting on the all-star game for a paycheck. georgians and all americans should know what this decision means. it means cancel culture and partisan activists are coming for your business. >> georgia governor brian kemp there slamming major league baseball over the weekend after its decision to pull the 2021 all-star game from atlanta due to the state's new restrektive voting law. raphael warnock also voiced his disappointment with the move, believing it could hurt georgia businesses but maintaining that the fault lies with right-wing politicians, writing, quote, it wasn't the people or workers of georgia who crafted sb202. it was politicians seeking to retain power at the expenses of georgians' voices and today's decision by the mlb is the unfortunate consequence of these politics' actions. let's bring into our conversation, michael steele, tim and jake are still here. michael steele, boycotts are painful. boycotts are unpopular. boycotts are polarizing. boycotts are where this was. they had passed a law that might have altered the outcome of the last presidential election. and this is where mlb found themselves, not at perfect. perfect was no longer on the table, but it was not baseball's fault that people will go without paychecks because the game was moved. it's kemp's fault. >> yeah. you know, it's where the politics and the business, you know, kind of merge at this point where you say, what do we do? so, what would corporations in georgia otherwise do? here's the rub. if those corporations had decided on their own to act as corporate citizens ahead of or while this debate was ongoing, they'd be in a very different position at this point because they could have made it known very quietly to the warnocks and the kemps and the stacey abrams and everyone else involved in this narrative what their stated position would be, publicly. so, if you pursue this effort, understand that we will be against it, and that we think that this is nothing more than a reaction to an election that you lost as opposed to actually finding, because no one has stated with any clarity and facts that there were these violations. so, what is the reasoning and the rationale for this legislative action after getting your political clocks cleaned? but they didn't do that. so, they were forced into this position by activists who then said to them, well, you have no other choice but to boycott because you forfeited the leadership role on the front end, which should be an ongoing lesson for businesses in the future that, yeah, you pay to play. you write those checks during campaign seasons to these candidates who then on the back end think that that's as far as it will go and they commit themselves to these actions as we all know very well, tim and nicole, having been in this political space for a long time, that this plays out this way, and that these politicians are going to get you on the back end because they figure, well, what else you going to do? well, now, there is something else they can do, and that's what's being played out in georgia. >> you're being elegant about it. i'm going to be a little more blunt. i mean, jake sherman, every company knew exactly what was in the laws, and it's a crock of you know what to say that they suddenly learned that the laws would have the effect of suppressing the vote of black and brown people, and frankly, young people are largely impacted by anything that makes it harder. young people, who almost never vote for republicans, much to tim and my's frustration when we worked on campaigns. they knew exactly what was in the bill, because companies hire people that were going to be behind you, aggressively, they recruit them and they tell them what's in laws working their way through state legislatures and through the capital. what happened was that people started talking about voter suppression laws, and to me, when the reporting shifted to really focus and it was in friday's "new york times" fact check about the law, to a law that would take power away from the very people that we all had white knuckles covering in the days after the november election and the inauguration, the state sort of election officials who could not be corrupted by donald trump, that's the reason we ultimately had a transfer of power. we can't call it peaceful, but it's the reason we ultimately transferred from donald trump, who lost, to joe biden who won. the georgia law seeks to disempower them and give power to the republican, trumpy state legislature, so the notion that people didn't know what was in it is also one of the sort of misnomers out there for anyone covering these laws, making their way through, i think, 47 states, 108 of them. >> nicole, you hit on the point really early here, which is these companies have armies of lobbyists and i'm just speaking of companies generally, and not only here in the capital but in every state house across the country. corporations are, unless it's going to impact their immediate bottom line, taxes, tariffs, things of that nature, they are risk averse, and they don't want to get involved in anything that doesn't impact them immediately or foreseeably impact them immediately, and i found it really interesting today, mitch mcconnell was in lexington at the university of kentucky, and he said that ceos should not be involved in politics and should stay out of politics. i don't remember him saying that when he was trying to pass his tax bill in 2017/2018. i think at the end of 2017. and there's nothing -- by the way, there's nothing inherently wrong with ceos being involved in politics. there's actually organizations of ceos that are involved in politics for the express purpose of being involved in politics. many of those ceos are big donors to mitch mcconnell, and to republicans, frankly, so the idea that corporations should not have a voice in the political system is not -- doesn't line up with mcconnell's history, of course, and doesn't line up with where republicans have been for decades, if not centuries, and the three of you have been in republican politics for a long time, and i think you'd all agree with that, that mitch mcconnell had never -- or no republican leader and michael steele, when you were the chairman of the rnc, i can't imagine if you said ceos should stay out of politics, you'd be a poor man at the rnc, right? >> republicans think corporations are people, remember? i mean, that's where we are. tim, i want to pull you into this, and i want to come back to baseball. i spoke to an owner today who said, one, this had to go this way. another person very familiar with baseball said that they're sort of stuck in the middle. not in a good way, not the nfl, who still hasn't found a team for colin kaepernick, but they're not the nba, which is very comfortable with activism and player-driven activism, but baseball had to do what they did by moving the game but an owner said to me, it's a slippery slope. do you think they'll get wobbly when you see the reaction coming from republicans and all the taunting tweets about cancel culture and whatnot? >> so, i don't know if they'll get wobbly about the all-star game. at this point, they're pretty much on that decision. i think they're going to be nervous about how to appeal to run consumers, though, and baseball has a republican audience, not overwhelmingly, but more than, say, the nba does. you look at how the nfl got wobbly after the colin kaepernick stuff when trump started attacking them. i went to an nfl game here in oakland and we had, like, nine salutes to the military over the course of four quarters, which wasn't exactly very subtle. trying to reappeal to the republican base. here's the thing, by the way. that's what companies do. companies have to look out for their own employees and for their customers. they've got to respect the rights of everyone that's an american, respect the rights of every consumer, but besides that, they want to do what's right that will make people find their brand appealing, and this is what republicans have been for my whole life. i was just cracking up listening to jake hearing mitch mcconnell talk like bernie sanders, that, you know, we're going to have to target and go after these woke corporations if they don't do what they want? these corporations have been doing what mitch mcconnell wants the whole time i was in washington. you know? they're for tax cuts, cutting regulations, pro-military, they maybe disagreed with the republicans on gay rights, that was the right decision, but overall, these corporations have been largely aligned with republicans and now on one thing, protecting people's right to vote, they side against them and now the republicans are like, we got to take away your tax cuts and target you? i mean, like, what? what is happening? >> but that's -- nicole, can i just add -- yeah. sorry. >> please, go ahead, jake. go ahead. >> go ahead, jake. >> i was going to say, isn't this the free market that we've been hearing about for a long time? a company believes that this policy is not in line with its beliefs, and believes that at the end of the day, as tim said, they could lose consumers of their product so they've suggested that this is not the place to -- and by the way, what does it even -- let's take the most -- the most, like, lowest common denominator. let's just assume that the bill, it doesn't say what everyone says it does, but the perception of it is so bad at this point, regardless of the facts, i'm not even suggesting the fact is wrong, but the perception, the reporting, how it's being portrayed is so bad that these companies are now saying, we could have nothing to do with this, it's not right. so this is like the free market that we've heard about for a long time in the republican party. >> yeah, coups are good for business. >> the law -- it took people a long time to get through them and i actually think the coverage of these laws got better over time, and what you're seeing now is the most in-depth reporting on what's in the laws and undeniably, the georgia law makes it a whole lot more difficult for young people, for transient people, and for people in more populated places, typically in this country that means african-american and minority communities to vote. >> yeah, that -- i think that's very true. and i think a lot of it also, as further analysis is done on these laws, you're seeing compared -- and this comparison now that's being done to other states like new york and elsewhere where this law is not as strong or as draconian as you may think in some of these other regards. you know, like the length of time for early voting is longer under current -- the new georgia law than it is in new york. so, you have this -- but i think jake makes the fundamental point, which is the important one, and as you -- as the three of us know, not excluding jake from this, because he covers it, so he gets to tell people that perception is reality in politics. and the perception, to jake's point, is that the law came out of the gate on the wrong foot. and the impact they would have on black communities is a thing that's driving this, but keep in mind, to the point made earlier by tim, that the reality still exists for these companies that while, yes, initially, everyone was against black lives matter, eventually, the culture, the companies, and the country moved to the right spot on this. and so, this is that moment where you're talking about a social engagement on one front. you're now talking about voting on the other, that while the corporations may think, this is a slippery slope, and what does it mean? the country's eventually going to move to the right spot where opening up voter rolls and voting opportunity is going to be greater than shutting it down so you want to be on the right side of that history. >> i totally agree. i'm just really quick, last point, i also think that we're talking about a pie that's this big because we're talking about voter restriction laws and whether companies stay quiet, oppose them or, i guess, i haven't seen an instant yet of supporting them. the pie should be this big, and it should be voter suppression laws by republicans peddling the lie and voter access laws on the other side, backed by everybody else, democrats, republicans who can see the truth, and refute the lie, and any corporation that wants to serve the interest of their communities. we have to have this conversation again with all of you. please come back. michael steele, jake sherman, thank you. tim miller is sticking around. up next for us, in this make or break moment in our country's fight against coronavirus, why dr. anthony fauci has been forced to take on the develop. gop. we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing. i've become sort of, for some reason or other, a symbol to them of what they don't like about anything that has to do with things that are contrary to them, anything outside of their own realm. i'm not trying to scare anybody. what we're saying is that we make recommendations based on scientific evidence and data. i don't think anyone would consider me a scare monger. i've never been that way at all. >> that was dr. anthony fauci on neil cavuto's program last friday on fox, and good for him for hosting him. fauci there defending himself after several attacks from prominent republicans who have been working to undercut the country's top infectious disease expert during one of the most precarious stretches in the country's fight against covid. fauci coming under particular fire from one senator lindsey graham, who in a series of weird tweets, claimed that the coronavirus was spreading rampantly at detention centers on the southern border and pleaded with fauci to address what he called the country's, quote, biggest super spreader event and while fauci acknowledged that the border situation was indeed very dire, he made clear he had nothing to do with the border and called the whole interaction, quote, bizarre. with cases rising around the country, this latest attempt by the right to politicize science and our covid response puts our recovery in jeopardy at the very moment experts are warning that the country could be on the brink of a fourth surge if we don't do all of the right things. joining our conversation, laurie garrett, health policy analyst, pulitzer prize winning journalist, foreign policy magazine columnist. first on this moment, it's almost as confusing as it's ever been. if you pull down all the vaccine stories, the news is better than we were prepared to see it in countries that are farther along, i'm thinking israel, there's news that the vaccine doesn't just protect against disease, it largely shuts down transmission. on the other hand, the variants that you and dr. osterholm have warned about, are perhaps more lethal. talk about balancing those two buckets of information. >> thank you, nicole, because boy, that's exactly the issue we need to be talking about right now. we're in a time of real confusion, and it's justifiable that the average american is feeling like they're getting mixed messages, things are kind of goofy, they can't figure out, should they be very scared or not scared at all or somewhere in between? you know, just three weeks ago, when we were sort of demarcating this arbitrary alleged one-year anniversary of the epidemic, the news was full of past-tense stories. it was as if the whole pandemic was suddenly in our rear view mirror and we could all lollygag off into the sunset with smiles on our faces and then of course we've had spectacular success rolling out the vaccines, you know, on saturday, four million americans got vaccinated in one day. that's amazing, and that was on a holiday weekend. so, there's lots to be excited about, but there is also a great deal that is nervewracking, fingernail biting, the reason that cdc director rochelle walensky said she saw gloom and doom on the horizon. and that is because first of all, we have surging variants strains, not one, not two, not three, not six, a whole array of different variants from all over the world and some home grown ones such as we have here in new york city. the india variant that seems to be behind this huge surge of covid in both india and bangladesh, is a double mutation, and it has shown up now in san francisco. the terrible variant that is sweeping across brazil and is at least partially why brazil now has the number one horrible status of the biggest death tolls in the world right now, brazil's variant has shown up in boston and in the massachusetts area. and boy, michigan is fighting out of control spread, and this is really being driven by the uk variant, the so-called b.1.1.7, which is a rapid transmitter, where we have this mixed picture where people are confused. is this a time of danger or a time of joy? illustrating that, nicole, this weekend, the holiday weekend saw two big changes. one, we went back to 2019 levels of airplane traffic across the nation. and this movie, "godzilla versus kong" was people in the seats in movie theaters. >> that is a remarkable way to look at human behavior, which i want to ask you another question, because at the beginning of the pandemic, i asked you about what we had missed and you talked about how scientists missed the variable of a president's speech on behavior. i want to pick up that thread on the other side of a break. don't go anywhere. much more with laurie garrett on the other side. nywhere. much more with laurie garrett on the other side this is how you become the best! 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110... seriously? but zerowater- let me guess. zero? yup, that's how i know it is the purest-tasting water. i need to find the receipt for that. oh yeah, you do. we're back with laurie garrett. something i've wanted to ask you about for weeks, i remember, and it was so marked in my brain the conversation that we had about the variables that scientists and folks like yourself couldn't predict forward. that was basically an american president who denied the severity and lethality of the pandemic, except, of course, in private with bob woodward. if you look at the number and the make-up of the most vaccine hesitant group, they're white republican men who self-identify as trump supporters. does science again have to make up for the flaws and what is broken in our politics there? >> well, the other group that just new data shows is very resistant to getting vaccinated is white evangelicals, running about 40% saying, under no circumstances will they get the vaccine. is white evangelicals running about 40% saying under no circumstances will they get the vaccine. we can see that there's a confluence of issues playing out. if you're a follower of qanon, if you're a september cal, very conservative white male and if you are a christian evangelical, all of those are risk factors for refusing vaccination. it's an ideological morass that has nothing to do with the vaccine itself and what's it relative efficacy and safety. we have so many vaccines in the pipeline. more than a dozen in use somewhere in the world right now, and they show a range of efficacy, but they're amazing, especially our two big ones, the moderna and the pfizer mrna vaccines are showing spectacular proof, efficacy, not only in preventing people from getting sick and dying, but also in slowing the spread of disease from one person to another, even to the point where it now looks like one of the reasons we're seeing a downturn in children is because they're around fully vaccinated adults. it's really tragic we see this messaging problem holding over and continuing well after the trump administration is out of office. just last week peter navarro, who was trump's trade key policy adviser said he's calling it the fauci virus and blaming fauci for the virus itself, for the very existence of the epidemic. this is a man who six months ago called it the wuhan virus and blamed china for the existence of the epidemic. this is all really troubling. it has no place in science. it makes for a very big struggle for folks at cdc and state health departments. how do they fight the disinformation? how do they get people to feel safe and confident, and not only protecting themselves but others. today, nicole, the cdc released a remarkable study based on a small town in illinois that had a big opening of a bar, and from that bar opening 46 people got infected. it spread so widely in the small town that they had to shut down the school and all those kids had to go back to at-home education, all because of one bar. that shows how fragile this moment is. we've achieved so much with vaccination, with education, we can't squander it now. we don't know how many people put themselves in harm's way over the pastover and easter holidays. we won't really know those numbers for another couple weeks because that's how long the incubation time and so on is. but then we'll be right up to memorial day weekend, another big time when we know last year we had a huge spread of virus following memorial day weekend. i fear that we're going in this tenuous moment. people are dying for good news, they're dying to get out of old lockdown habits. any false messaging, whether it comes from the old trump administration click, any false messaging is dangerous right now. >> laurie garrett, thank you for spending time with us. we'll continue to call on you. when we return, as we do every day, we will remember every day, we will remember lives well lived.ute because platforms this innovative, aren't just made for traders—they're made by them. thinkorswim trading. from td ameritrade. it doesn't happen often. everyday people taking on the corporate special interests. and winning. but now, the for the people act stands on the brink of becoming law. ensuring accurate elections. iron-clad ethics rules to crack down on political self-dealing. a ban on dark money. and finally reducing corporate money in our politics. to restore our faith in government. because it's time. for the people to win. it's a two-word phrase that carries extraordinary weight and tremendous meaning for the people who know it. shays way. the 41-year-old had already built up a remarkable career at home depot, rising to the level of district manager for all of northwest connecticut, a position he earned through hard work and natural talent. shay was a born leader, able to captivate, to listen. he believed in the foundational nature of family. he and the love of his wife, alicia, raised three beautiful children in a house full of faith and devotion. even as he spent much of february fighting covid-19 in isolation, quarantined in his own home, alicia told us shay made sure she got flowers delivered to their house on valentine's day. it was one of a thousand daily acts of love. but tragically that one would prove to be among shay's last, because the next day, he was gone. that brings us back to those key words, the key to a happy and triumphant existence, live live shay's way, with endless and boundless love and a dedication to family. we'll be right back. be right ba. we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing. see every delivery... so when it comes t every yikes..., and even every awwwwwwww... wait, where was i? 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"the beat with ari melber" starts right now. we're tracking several stories including republican gaetz denial of