Showing several officers on the ground as floyd is being held down. No charges have been filed in this case, and that, to many people, is the problem. A News Conference today was frustratingly newsfree. Well have much more on all of it just ahead. For the very latest from minneapolis, we want to go back now to correspondent ali velshi, who is on the ground in the middle of tonights protest. Ali, having watched your live coverage, you were at the scene of that huge fire earlier. Weve watched fires start back up, and obviously youre in the thick of it again now. Reporter let me tell you whats happened. We are now right in front of the third precinct. This is the third precinct. We saw early protesters had gotten in. Now they made their way through on that side. The fire was about a block and a half over there. The protesters are continuing to try and get into the Police Station. Now, this is where the tension has arisen between the police and the protesters because as the protesters have made their way to the Police Station, they have the police have responded with flash bangs and with tear gas. This is now what youre seeing. Theyre right up against the Police Station. Theyve actually made their way in there, brian. Thats what youre seeing right now. What we didnt know earlier today was who was in the Police Station. Then we saw several police, first on the roof, then on the corner shooting back. What we know is there are police in there, and theyre on the roof. At this moment, were waiting cautiously to see whats going on. Now, context, brian, for most of the day this has been remarkably peaceful. It got very aggressive about two hours ago, and it has continued, and thats what were looking at right now. So what youve got is protesters still surrounding the Police Station. Tear gas is being thrown out every now and then. The protesters push back. They then come back, and now were back in that cycle. But you can now see theyre breaking all the glass windows to the Police Station. Most of them have been boarded up. On the second levels, they havent been, and you can see that theyre trying to get into the Police Station. That seems to be the objective tonight, to preach tbreach the station and gain some control over it. Thats what youre looking at now. Well continue to follow this closely as it develops, brian. You and your crew please be safe out there. Well be back with you. This is all happening, of course, as were in the midst of a pandemic that has brought about a staggering death toll in our country and crushed the economy in our country. 101,961 americans have died from coronavirus. This morning the president did finally acknowledge the toll with a post that read in part, quote, we have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000. To all of the families and friends of those who have pas d passed, i want to extend my heartfelt sympathy and love for everything that these great people stood for. God be with you. That was posted 9 37 eastern time this morning. We were already well past the 100,000 death toll. Tonight the centers for Disease Control estimating that, quote, total covid19 deaths are likely to exceed 115,000 by june the 20th. Amid all this, the president is beginning to turn his focus to issues that have resonated with his base before as he turns his attention to reelection. Today at a briefing on the coming hurricane season, he appeared to cast the pandemic in terms of immigration policy. Were setting records on the border in terms of low numbers. Very few people are getting in, and when they are in, we take them immediately out. Were up to almost 200 miles of wall. Well have, by the end of the year, close to 400. By early next year, well be close to 500 miles. Mexico does have some great, great, big problems with covid. Their Record Number and a very high number even if you look worldwide, its a very high number. And we are not letting people into our country. Trump has also promised this would, quote, be a big day for social media and fairness. The president eager to gin up distraction has now escalated his fight with twitter, which has started adding fact checks to his and other postings. Trump has accused social Media Companies of being biased against conservatives. Today trump signed an executive order with vastly unclear enforcement power that could lead to penalties for social Media Companies that fail to police content. Theyve had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences. One egregious example is when they try to silence views that they disagree with by selectively applying a factcheck. My executive order calls for new regulations under section 230 of the Communications Decency act to make it that social Media Companies that engage in censoring or any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield. Trump apparently signed the order while out of sight of the media. The statute he referred to, section 230, generally spared Tech Companies from being sued or held liable for most posts, photos, videos shared by users. Well have more on all of that ahead. As we mentioned, the economic crisis triggered by this virus shows no signs of easing across our country. Over 2 Million People filed for unemployment claims just last week, and over 40 million have lost their jobs that we know of over the past ten weeks. Thats about the population of california where, by the way, an estimated one in four are out of work. Cnbc reporting that some americans have returned to work. The Unemployment Rate for may, though, still expected at 20 . Meanwhile, the Washington Post reporting the white house has decided it will not release updated Economic Projections for this summer. And while you can guess why, today trumps economic adviser said this shouldnt be viewed as an effort to hide something. Were extremely transparent. Were every day talking about what we think the economy is going to be doing. With all of this, the president will also now have to grapple with the reverberations from the death of george floyd. Federal and local authorities are investigating his killing. Earlier today, trump was asked for his thoughts on the matter. Have you spoken to the family of george floyd yet . No, i havent, but i feel very, very badly. Thats a very shocking sight. That was a very, very bad thing that i saw. I saw it last night, and i didnt like it. Do you think those Police Officers should be prosecuted . Im not going to make any comment right now. I can tell you i think what i saw was not good, was not good. Very bad. Here for our leadoff discussion on a busy thursday night, kimberly atkins, senior washington correspondent for wbur, bostons npr news station. John heilemann, National Affairs analyst for us, cohost of the circus on showtime, editor in chief at the recount. And sam stein, politics editor at the daily beast. Good evening and welcome to you all. So, kim, we have flames visible in not one, but two u. S. Cities. We have a pandemic and the resulting death toll. How is the president handling these dual story lines, or is he not, and does that explain twitter today . I think itthe latter is cleay the case. He is not focusing on the thing that is touching americans most directly either in the trauma of yet another death at the hands of a Police Officer of an unarmed black person nor the burgeoning economic crisis that is gripping the country just as the Health Crisis continues to do so. Theres very little attention on that. Theres much more focus on the things that the president likes to focus on, particularly in an election year. And the twitter fight represents the fact that he tends to gravitate politically toward grievance fights. He sees this as a grievance fight with twitter, who he repeatedly says has silenced him or silenced conservatives. In his case, his tweet wasnt taken down. He wasnt silenced. And also cracking down the head of state cracking down on a platform like twitter reminds me of, even long before i went to law school, learning that in the United States we dont have the sedition acts. It is not a crime to speak out or criticize government or push back with facts. Its precisely what the First Amendment is supposed to protect. So there are 100 legal problems with this executive order, including its unclear whether he can force the federal Communications Commission to do anything because it is an independent agency. But thats not what this is about. This isnt about actually enforcing the law. Its about having something to express a grievance toward the media, anticonservative bias claims, and hes gravitating toward that even as, again, were seeing a nation being torn apart not just by a pandemic, not just by the economic impact, but now for its 400year struggle with race and inequality that were seeing playing out on our tv tonight. Hey, john heilemann, when do the subjects get so large and dire and urgentseeming that it alters his ability to change the subject . I dont know if it ever does, brian. I mean the president seems to have an infinite capacity to try to change the subject. I think the question is not whether he will continue to try but whether hell be successful. And i do think that, you know, we are in this moment where for a lot of americans who have theres obviously a bunch of people on the right and a bunch of people on the left. A bunch of people on the right who love donald trump, a bunch of people on the left who hate him. Theres a lot of people in the middle who are just tired. Theyre tired of the chaos, and theyre tired of the division. Going around and spending a lot of time during the midterms and during the early part of the president ial campaign, you hear it all the time from people who are not particularly ideological and not particularly on either side of this great cultural and political divide that we have, who just sort of want things to come down and get back to what they think of as normal. And i think, you know, if you pile on, you think about the economic casualties here, you think about the obviously the Public Health casualties, 100,000 dead, the number still rising, and then you start to throw on these additional kind of uprisings around america, the social division and the fact that the president seems to a lot of people in the middle to be fomenting that division rather than trying to quell it, to kind of feast off of division rather than unity, hes going to try to keep changing the subject. But im not sure. I think you may be on to something, i think the instinct of your question, which is the sense that these things are now so large that no matter how much trump tries to make people look the other direction, that he will not be successful even though he will continue to try. Indeed, sam stein, Susan Glasser over at the new yorker writes the following. In recent months, his tweeting appears to have taken an even darker, more manic, more mendacious turn as trump struggles to manage the convergence of a Massive PublicHealth Crisis and a simultaneous economic collapse while running for reelection. Sam, is this some version, his version, of a slowrolling, never to be admitted to panic . Let me just add to what john said. Im tired. Im exhausted. I think everyone else is tired too. Its a nonstop roller coaster of a presidency. Its almost impossible to wrap your head around the fact that he was impeached not too long ago. We went through an impeachment process. That seems like it was a different lifetime, but it was just merely another chapter in his first term in office. I think the manicness of his twitter feed sort of reflects one singular thing, though, which is that he looks at his possibility of being reelected, and is he nervous. His standing has not improved. If anything, its gotten worse. And at this juncture, he does like to change the subject because these are two main topics, the pandemic and these riots that are erupting, that are deeply uncomfortable for him. Both require a bit of empathy, which he clearly lacks, but the other one requires the sort of president ial healing that is difficult for any president to pursue, but especially this one around issues of race. And so i think he doesnt wa wa change the subject, and his insecurity about his political prospects in november. To our guests and to our audience, i have to go back to minneapolis, where ali velshi is Still Standing by live. Ali, it would appear there is a fire now behind the Third Precinct Police headquarters. Reporter well, brian, i need a helicopter to tell me for sure whats going on because i see a fire on the other side of it too. So it appears there are fires on both sides of the third precinct. This ones a parking lot. These are police vehicles. The crowd managed to get past the fence, and has set fire to some vehicles in the parking lot. There are no Police Cruisers here. Theyre ancillary vehicles. But im looking over there. Maybe you all can get a shot of this. The other side of the building, theres a fire there as well. Then theres a fire at the liquor store down there. And theres another fire behind us over there. So we have several fires going on. We still have no meaningful Police Presence here. There are we do know that there are five or six Police Officers in there. Theyve been the ones with the flash bangs. You can still hear them from time to time. Ive not seen tear gas in the last little while, but there are real efforts to get into that Police Station over there, and we now do appear to have fires on both sides of it right now. Were also hearing some reports about other fires going on in the city. So this is and i see helicopters above us, so there might be a better shot of this than ive got. But right now the protesters are very, very focused on this Police Station. Were hearing a lot of noises. Its obviously gone dark, so other than the flames, we cant see as much. But there are efforts to get into that building. We do not know what the status is of the Police Officers who are in there. The relevance of this building is that this is where the four Police Officers who were fired in connection with the death of george floyd were based. So this a few years ago there were protests at the fourth precinct. There were encampments outside of there. Now its the third precinct. This is now where all of the attention is tonight. Brian. Ali, we are indeed, while youve been talking, looking at a Helicopter Shot of one of the fires near you. Just a quick question about crowd size, and we should state for the record any attempt to say this is a crowd of black protesters is both unfair and inaccurate. Minneapolis is a very diverse city. Minnesota, as a state, is 7 black. I have seen all kinds of folks in that crowd around you. Has the crowd increased or decreased since we lost daylight . Reporter yeah, so its harder to tell. There were always there was always a crowd at the intersection in front of the precinct. Thats sort of been the center of speeches and protests and things like that. Then there was a larger crowd in the parking lot across the street where you may have seen earlier theres a target and a number of stores. Thats a very large parking lot and right on the corner. So the crowd was in the thousands at various times. Very hard to tell at this point, but you do make a very important point. The crowds diverse, and ive had a lot of people come up to me, and theyve got real complaints about systemic prejudice. Some of it is about specifically whats happened. Some of it is protesting the police. But a lot of it is systemic stuff that theyre saying, look, minnesota has experienced a lot of it. America is experiencing a lot of it. We now have videos from three angles. Whats the Hennepin County attorney worrying about . What are they doing . Theres a lot of anger out there tonight. Obviously this will be the center of it because this was something that was geared around four Police Officers and george floyd, so this is the center of it. But the conversation here is diverse, and it is about social justice issues broadly and remembering george floyd. Every few minutes, youll hear black lives matter. Youll hear them say his name, and youll hear protests. But this is a protest. Its not something else. Theres a protest because people are very angry about what theyve seen this week, not just here but across america, brian. One more issue that you raise, ali. A lot of tonight was frustration that the News Conference today was so short on news. Im the first one to try to give Public Officials the benefit of the doubt, but nothing came out of that that was going to change the equation tonight. The u. S. Attorney speaking with such pride that she had spoken personally with attorney general bill barr as if the protesters were going to say, oh, okay. Well lay down our arms tonight and call the whole thing off. It gave no satisfaction to that community. Reporter and the saddest theyve been getting it from a lot of quarters by the way. There are a lot of people across mfrn, a lot of police chiefs, official whos are saying, i saw the same video you saw. It seems obvious to me there was wrongdoing. So theyre taking some solace in that. But the other problem thats right below the sur