highest daily death toll since end of the month of may. florida accounted for 173 of those deaths. that's a new daily record for them. as president trump paints an upbeat picture of a pandemic getting under control, the center for public integrity has audio of white house response coordinator dr. debra birx warning state and local leaders that 11 major cities, including vegas, miami, nashville, new orleans need to take aggressive steps to contain their outbreaks. again, what she has to say here effects the public, but these remarks were delivered privately and not meant to be public. listen for your city or that of your loved ones on the list. >> we have new increases in miami, new orleans, vegas, st. louis, indianapolis, minneapolis, cleveland, nashville, pittsburgh, columbus and baltimore. we are tracking this very closely. we're working with state officials to make sure we are responding together, but when you first see that increase in positivity, that's when you have to do mitigation efforts. >> that's how that went. 1.4 million americans filed first time unemployment claims last week, first week to week increase since late march. it comes as expanded employment benefits that helped millions are set to expire. senate republicans propose to significantly reduce them. the president will likely face questions on this when he heads to the white house briefing room in a couple of hours for his third coronavirus task force briefing of the week. unclear if any other members of the task force will join him. as the trump administration faces intense criticism over its response to a real crisis, it is under fire for its handling of a crisis of its own creation. portland, oregon mayor ted wheeler was among those tear gassed after he joined a crowd of demonstrators outside the city's federal courthouse. the night before, they tear gassed a group of moms. violence came hours after president trump announced he is sending more federal agents to several more cities, including but not limited to chicago and albuquerque in what he called an effort to combat violent crime. they had this to say during deployment. >> we're not going to have federal agents patrolling the street, pretending to be police, sweeping people off, denying them other constitutional rights. that's not going to happen in chicago. >> a federal judge ordered president trump's former personal attorney, michael cohen, to be released back into home confinement, after he found that federal officials returned him to prison earlier this month in retaliation for cohen's plans to write a book about his work with donald trump. the judge ordered him freed by 2:00 p.m. eastern time tomorrow. at long last, joined by friend and colleague nicolle wallace, host of "deadline white house." nicolle, i note 14 minutes ago the president tweeted to suburban housewives of america, the tweet had to do with, quote, joe biden will destroy your neighborhood. maggie haberman who doesn't miss much tweeted back suburban women probably would have worked better. again, this is the law and order campaign of stoking fear. with most people scared enough of the pandemic, thank you very much. >> reporter: you know, just listening to the recitation of headlines, and those are likely to change by 11:00 when your show comes on the air, it strikes me how much donald trump has benefitted from the volume of disruption. and it always helps to have a couple things that increase talizes how bad they are. to me, how bad are they, they're so bad, a judge sided with a convicted felon in michael cohen over corrupt sitting attorney general. when you look at what unfolds on the streets of portland and on the streets of chicago, on the streets of albuquerque, remember the man making the laws bend around donald trump's desire to play president, to play dictator is so bad that a second judge, i mean, when he runs into the other branch of government, the judiciary, he does not prevail. i think there's this myth that in donald trump's world, he is the smartest mischief maker. i don't think that's true if you look at how often he loses when his actions end up in the court of law. the problem is the process takes awhile. hearing you say, remember last night, they gassed the moms, it has taken on this surreal sound and surreal feel, and freedman wrote a great piece about wagging the dog. i think we have to sort of orient ourselves in reality and view all of this as the stagecraft of a desperate man in donald trump and bill barr. >> to our viewers, don't forget that withering list of american cities you heard dr. birx's voice again, something about the public didn't deserve to hear that from her because it ma may offend or counter the plot line from her boss. we know the cities, all of us have loved ones in at least one of them, now we know the cities that are spiking, according to the inside in the west wing. among the spikes is nicolle wallace's home state of california which now has the highest number of coronavirus infections in our country as the number of cases continues to grow. california hospitals are facing a surge in patients, completely predictable, particularly in hard hit l.a. county. steve patterson is in north l.a. what's the situation there? >> reporter: the situation is new record breaking numbers overnight recorded in california. those went out in the last hour or so. first one is the single day death toll from overnight, 157 new deaths. that's the highest single day death toll california has seen so far. next highest was 148. that comes close to the record breaking day yesterday of cases. and the number that health officials are maybe most paying attention to is the seven day positivity rate. now shot up to 8%. far up from beginning of the week. that's the number when you hear things, like the governor has his finger on the dimmer switch, the l.a. city mayor has his finger on the dimmer switch and that's the number they're paying attention to. it tells you about community spread, tells you about availability of testing. we heard from both the mayor or governor in person or through their state or county health departments. neither of them is saying they're planning to do that. they want to look at the data, roll backs, and figure out what to do from here. they're stunning numbers from the state of california. brian? >> steve, thanks. >> steve patterson, thank you. joining the conversation, two of our good friends, axios reporter and dr. irwin redlener from colombia university. i want to start with california. they had a stay at home order in place for a long time. what is happening in california, can it all be attributed to human behavior, failing to wear masks and social distancing? >> hi, nicolle. there are a lot of factors, before i mention those, keep in mind, if there are 12,000 new cases, as the reporter steve was discussing, multiply that by ten. it has been repeatedly stated by experts that confirmed number, test confirmed number of 12,000 is no more than 10% of the actual total number. we're talking 120,000 cases, new cases in california. why is that happening? i think we had a rush to reopen, had too many people not following the rules, we have people instead of following health rules are following the horrendous example of the president of the united states. all of these things come together. people on the beaches without masks and distancing, people at bars. maybe changes in the virus, we don't know. we do know we're tracking a significant increase not only in california. it is worrisome for the near and long term future, nicolle. >> and alexi, the president remains in committed denial when he is absent the teleprompter, saying there are no failures, again, second guessing the value of testing, saying it is overrated, and again, urging all schools to open regardless of the trajectory of infections in their states or districts. do they really think putting him in front of all that is the way to repair his political standing? >> we have seen howe t the president has -- older voters, 65 votes are effected by coronavirus, women, suburban voters, these voters that see the president in a different way than previously seen before the virus. we know that wasn't good for numbers. we know at the same time, president trump loves being the messenger. he loves being a person standing at the podium, being in control of that narrative. even if it is going against his own internal polls for the campaign, he wants to be out there giving this message. you know, to your point, what's amazing is that voters are hearing different ways they feel he is lying to them. they're realizing different ways in which they don't know what's going on with the coronavirus as is, and then they look to someone like president trump to get that information and openly admit they don't feel like they're getting that information from him. that's the swing voters, obama trump voters in focus groups, they say those things. the big question, nicolle, is whether or not voters care more about the economy at the end of the day than they will about the coronavirus. >> alexi, i am admittedly fixated on the recording of dr. birx that often audio recordings sound surreptitious. it happens to be the president two days when asked why are there no experts on stage has referenced dr. birx being right around the corner, presumably in the white house press office, but also unable to speak. so we get to hear what she says behind closed doors on a telephone conversation, and since you cover politics, here's the list again. we have increases in miami, new orleans, las vegas, san jose, st. louis, minneapolis, cleveland, nashville, pittsburgh, columbus, baltimore. those are real people. those are big cities. they're all constituents of someone. they all are 100 days out from casting a vote. and there's real fear in all of those places. something about those citizens, however, didn't qualify to have the information broadcast publicly as a matter of public health. so this is going to be and remains, this fear remains a political issue. >> brian, as you're ticking through the states and areas that are happening, spikes, i'm thinking what we have seen as a consistent pattern of behavior from president trump throughout the coronavirus pandemic. think back to march when he was insisting that the economy would reopen by april, by easter. everyone then was sort of saying wait a second, we can't push through the pandemic just for the sake of the economy. but throughout that we have heard a consistent refrain from president trump that almost entirely ignores a global public health crisis that we're going through, and focuses on the economic impact that this is having. it's almost as if he is more concerned with the sort of virus through the markets and economy than he is the virus traveling person to person throughout the country. and that's again something that i think a lot of that is polls. we know president trump cares about polls, but poll after poll shows that while joe biden beats president trump in a head to head matchup on important factors like handling of the coronavirus, his ability to unite the country, his ability to handle race relations in this country, not just now but beyond. the one metric that president trump continues to beat biden on is the economy. i will say it is within the margin of error. it is not like it is a blowout defeat with trump and biden on the economy, but that's something that drew a lot of voters to trump in 2016. they have this idea that he is a businessman that can take care of the economy then. that's one of the lasting impressions i hear from voters that took a chance on him in 2016 that they're hanging onto, hope he will get us through this in the end. >> doctor, we head hundreds of stories about they don't want to offend him, tweeted at by him, don't want to counter the narrative while doing their jobs. you have never tried to make it personal. i tried to keep personalities out of it. what about dr. birx? when will she feel the urge to speak up and share some of this information as is her responsibility on the coronavirus task force? >> that's an interesting question. it transportationed from a pandemic to political narrative. trying to figure out how a desperate, dishonest president is going to pivot to some story that will -- he is hoping will convince the public he handled this with competency. the very fact that he is not afraid to admit he is keeping one of the top health experts in the hallway while he is blaberribla blaberring on is a preposterous idea. i think we're looking at something that will end up badly for the president, even among voters, so we have a crisis that's a political and obviously pandemic emergency that he is not handling well. his focus on how to get reelected, he has a heck of a pass in front of him. >> speaking of hallways, the door opened behind you. i did not see dr. birx, may have had a cameo from someone, guessing perhaps a grandchild, someone related to you. >> yes. >> we live for that during covid since you're all nice enough to have us in to our homes. we love the cameo appearances. give him our best. our thanks to you both. and his four-year-old grandson for starting off the live conversation this thursday afternoon. we turn to breaking news from capitol hill. congress appears to be defying the president's threat to veto a major defense policy bill. short time ago the senate overwhelmingly approved its version of the bill. this is important because it contains a provision to change the names of long-standing military bases named after confederate generals. the vote was 86-14. the house passed its version earlier this week. a break for us. when we come back, the surging coronavirus case load in los angeles county. nation's largest county by population, where another shutdown is not off the table. we ask the l.a. director of public health what steps they're prepared to make. later, former secretary of education arnie duncan returns to our broadcast to talk about how to get our children back into school safely. et our childk into school safely out to the west. health officials in l.a. warn there could be a second shutdown in the state that weeks ago was considered a national model, the place that had coronavirus almost under control. now as we record yesterday, california has officially surpassed new york as the state with the most coronavirus infections. florida is pushing new york to take over second place. the state shattered yet another record yesterday, over 7,000 hospitalizations across california with more than 2,000 cases in intensive care. today there are over 422,000 confirmed cases in california. more than 10% of the nation's total. more than 8,000 residents have thus far lost their lives to the virus. l.a. county health director warns it killed twice as many in the county as the flu in the first half of 2020. that's on track to be a record. second leading cause of death behind coronary heart disease. >> welcome to the broadcast, director of the los angeles county department of public health. we ask people with ultra expertise all the time to speculate on what's happening in california. it is a privilege to ask someone who actually knows what is happening in california. is it defiance of mask wearing and social distancing? is it test delays? is it inadequate contact tracing? help us understand. >> thank you so much, nicole. again, we are an example of a state and county that was aggressive early on. we have been contact tracing from day one in l.a. county. we have over 2,000 contact tracers. we also have aggressive health officer orders that actually insist that businesses that are open are adhering to all of the directives that include making sure that workers and customers and or visitors are going to have as much safety as possible. yet with our reopening, we did, in fact, see almost an explosion of new cases. we went in weeks from having about 1200 cases on average, new cases on average every day, to having over 3,000 new cases on average every day, and hospitalizations are up from 1200 hospitalized daily to over 2200 people hospitalized daily. i think it is a good question to ask what did happen. i wish it was just one thing that happened that sort of led to this, because then it would be easier to fix. i think it is a confluence of coming into summer, not recognizing that when we start reopening many people really saw that as a sign, like we were getting back to normal, when what we need to do is create a new normal. the new normal involves a lot of wearing of face coverings all the time. that's been mandatory in l.a. county since april and we need to continue making sure people understand why, why it is so important. and also the physical distancing and hand washing and all our businesses need to take seriously the obligation to enforce and implement all of the protocols in the health officer orders. that's the only way we create safe environments for people that have to be at work. >> doctor, in plain english, how much of your job is fighting human nature in a state where the weather more often than not is beautiful, but also sadly in a state and county with more multi generational households than i think a lot of people across the country understand. >> no. we're also a state and county that had very high compliance with the original safer at home orders. 85% of people here actually adhere to all of the directives that we originally put out to really again at the very beginning start slowing the spread. i actually have a lot of confidence we'll get back to slowing the spread. we're seeing early indicators this week, the positivity rate is no longer creeping up, it is stabilizing, and a couple days dropped below 8.5%. we're holding steady on new cases, not seeing the continued increase in new cases and at some point that should have reflected and less people needing to be hospitalized. i think you're right. we are a large county, over 10 million people, double the population of new york state in our entire state, but l.a. county itself is larger than about 40 other states in the country. and just as diverse. rural areas, suburban areas, urban areas. we have high rates of poverty. the most unfortunate fact playing out in our county and across the country is disproportionality amongst who is infected, and unfortunately and tragically who is dying. our communities, latinos, african-american, black communities, pacific islander communities seeing much higher rates in terms of cases and also unfortunately rates in terms of deaths. that actually requires different strategies for us to actually immediately get into reducing that disproportionality. >> 28 minutes past noon. we figured you were spending so much time at your office, you wouldn't mind spending a few minutes of it with us. we thank you for appearing live with us this afternoon. when we return, the president says schools need to open, 100% is his quote. the american public has a different opinion about the subject as does our next guest, former secretary of education arnie duncan that told us last time he was on with us, there's no body count high enough for the president to pay attention to science. we're back with him after this. e we're back with him after this how about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. i but what i do count on...ts anis boost high protein...rs, and now, there's boost mobility... ...with key nutrients to help support... joints, muscles, and bones. try boost mobility, with added collagen. among my patisensitivity as well tas gum issues. does it worry me? absolutely. new sensodyne sensitivity & gum gives us the dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity as well as our gum issues. there's no question it's something that i would recommend. my father my grandmother my brothers and sisters my friends for going back to school the bbq the lake the beach my place for my neighbors my community my people my country my home for him for her for them for you. ♪ with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad. (vo) verizon knows how to build unlimited right. you start with the network j.d. power has named the most awarded for network quality 25 times in a row. this network is one less thing i have to worry about. (vo) then give people more plans to mix and match, so you only pay for what you need. that is so cool! (vo) include the best in entertainment and offer it all starting at $35. with the most advanced iphone yet-- iphone 11 pro on us when you buy one. because everyone deserves the best.