astrazeneca may be able to help. my thanks to rick, eddie, elise, and everyone else. i'm john heilemann in for nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts right now. ♪ ♪ welcome to thursday. it's a time when the president seems especially erratic and the 2020 democrats are facing an urgent question. what is the best way to beat him? is. plus, more homeland security department drama. a top aid to the acting secretary suddenly quits over tensions with the white house. boy, that's a familiar story. and the crisis in the amazon. wildfires are raging in the jungle in south america. the latest dramatic consequence of climate change and the focus

of the country potentially behind it. welcome to thursday. it is "meet the press daily." democrats today are kicking off the party's three-day summer meeting and we begin tonight with a big question that's got to be on everyone's minds out there at the dnc. how do democrats win against president trump in 2020? some democrats look at what is happening in the white house, particularly this week. the president being unpredictable, unpresidental and arguably unamerican behavior. they think why are we talking about anything other than getting trump out of office? this campaign has to be about running against trump, these democrats argue. but other democrats look at what is happening in the white house. the president's economic policies, his health care policies, immigration policies, his environmental policies and things standing against something isn't enough, that they have to be for something in order to win. is part of why he's in office they would argue. didn't work for republicans in the 2016 primary. it didn't work for hillary clinton in the 2016 general. and it isn't why congressional democrats say they were successful in the 2018 midterms.

>> we won because from the beginning we focused on health care. >> our focus which we decided on early on, on health care proved very, very beneficial to us because that's the number one issue facing the american people. >> yeah, that was only nine months ago. i know it's hard to believe. anyway, all those reasons we just mentioned may seem weary about a campaign that is simply focused on getting rid of president trump. >> i think the biggest risk we could take is to try to play it safe. i think the current president in my view never should have gotten close. but keep the system, we were rejected including in the industrial midwest where i live. so i think this idea of electability is an illusion and a dangerous one. >> we need a candidate that is not the safe bet. we need a candidate that can speak not just to the head but to the heart and to the gut. this is a moral moment in

america, and we need a leader who can speak to our common virtues and common ideals. >> no one knows who is electable right now. it is very rare that in the summer before a presidential election year that the frontrunner is going to be the nominee or that anyone has a clear idea of what the turnout in the iowa caucus will be. >> but as we said here before, biden is going all in against president trump and for electability. here's what his wife had to say about that issue this week. >> so, yes, you know, your candidate might be better on, i don't know, health care than joe is. but you've got to look at who's going to win this election. and maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, okay, i personally like so and so better, but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat trump. you may like another candidate better, but you have to look at who is going to win, and if education is your main issue, joe is that person.

>> as of right now that argument is paying off in the polls for biden this week has been especially chaotic at the white house with the president delivering mixed messages and everything from guns to greenland, backtracking on tax cuts, suggesting he was divinely chosen to take on china and of course his incendiary comment about jewish people. it turns democrats' focus into the ultimate question of who can beat donald trump. joining me now from that said dnc summer meeting out in san francisco is my nbc news colleague alex, and with me on set betsy woodruff, jay johnson, and bill kristol and editor-at-large at the bulwark. alex, let me start with you. i know you've been dealing with this question. these are the activists, but they're party stalwarts. this is a meeting of the establishment some might say that's taking place at the

democratic party. talk to me about this debate, which is too much trump or not enough trump? >> right. i mean, i think if you ask, and i have asked democrats here their number one, two, and three top priorities are beating donald trump. that hasn't always been the case in primary elections and choosing a nominee that can win over choosing somebody that you like. but this year democrats are so rattled after '16 they just want somebody who can win. here though these more insider people, you do hear a lot of people saying that democrats still need to make a positive case. i talked to ben wickler who is the new chairman of the wisconsin party. he said, look, democrats are not going to be able to get away with ignoring trump, but what you have to do is respond to him, but then quickly pivot to what democrats are going to do in a positive direction. take a look at what he said. >> democrats have to show what they stand for. they have to do that by actually working to advance those things

of we've been fighting to expand medicaid in wisconsin. that has support from 70% of wisconsinites. they need to show how trump has betrayed the promises he made in 2016. we have to show what our values are and also how trump has betrayed the promises he made. without both sides of that coin, it's a lot more difficult to win. >> alex, that truck me as -- >> i think a lot of democrats look at this week, they look at -- >> no, those comments, i'm curious. go for it. >> a referendum on trump more than a choice. so that's the mentality they are having here. >> i was just going to say it also struck me as if he were critiquing the previous campaign, he would say you didn't make a policy case against trump. it sounds like that that is sort of the middle line he's tried to draw there. it's like, yes, contrast with trump, but don't just do it on character. >> right. that was the entirety essentially or the core of hillary clinton's post convention 2016 campaign.

it didn't work then, but, you know, i have talked to democrats this year who say this is different. we've had three years of trump in the white house. it's no longer a hypothetical issue. they've seen him on the job they want to get him out. so that biden ad is very reminiscent of hillary clinton's 2016 message. it's all about his erraticness, his bullying. she used those exact same words in 2016. maybe it works now, but in a way it didn't work then. >> bill kristol, you thought character was going to count in the republican primary in 2016. you thought character might count in the general election, and i think people had a problem with the character of both candidates and so everything was relative there. a character election or not? >> i think it's a trump election. i think democrats think, let's talk about trump for a minute, but then we're going to pivot to our wonderful new ideas about very complicated this much expansion of medicaid but not too much expansion. i mean, that's fine, but at the end of the day, all presidential incumbent re-elections are referenda on the incumbent.

with trump it's ten times more that way. so i think they have to be responsible. they have to show that they're in touch with new issues and that they're not simply creatures of the backward looking, and so forth. i think a younger candidate honestly would be a stronger candidate than biden. if you could have a 20 year younger biden who was also moderate. but it is going to be about trump. they need to make the fundamental criticism as an incumbent and not just character but the consequences of his character. having someone this impulsive, narcissistic, what is it doing to our standing in the world, what is it doing to our foreign policy, what has it done to our policy and what have the trade wars done. iowa farmers care about one thing, and suburban moms in, you know, michigan care about something else. >> jay, i am curious though what you think of this debate because i think people that have been in government a long time experience government are more frightened and concerned and

believe you need to keep your focus on one thing than those that are party activists that haven't spent their life in government. >> sure. >> and what do you make of that disconnect? because i think you're playing into it a little bit, i assume. >> well, i come at it from the perspective of who will most effectively lead to get stuff done here in washington? who has the ability to work with congress, work on a bipartisan basis with congress, to get the people's business done, which is why i've been fairly vocal about some of the positions taken by the democratic candidates in the debates. and so the way i assess a candidacy is who's got the experience who's got the level headedness but who knows how to make the machinery of government work versus a particular stance on a particular issue that might be most appealing to a segment of the party's base? absolutely. >> betsy.

i think i would push back a toony bit of what bill said earlier. part of the reason that democrats flipped the house in 2016 is because they were able to run up the numbers amongst suburban republican women who had never voted democratic before. if you talked to some of the democratic operatives who were involved in some of these key races historically red districts that flipped, it flipped. it wasn't so much a policy issue, it was because they can't watch the news with their kids. they are worried they have to change the channel when the president is talking. and to that extent, some of those suburban voters, pima county, suburbs of phoenix, suburbs of raleigh, those voters are going to be thinking not necessarily in terms of policy stuff, but they actually will be looking at character. >> alex, i am curious, we are watching and in a minute here i'm going to play an ad that the democratic is running in the north carolina 9 district, which as we noted in first read today is more in the last race of 2018 rather than the first race of

2020. what do the democrats at that dnc meeting think today, the message of 2018 was? right after the election democrats said, oh, it was health care. i do get the sense that as people have gotten farther away, they realize, oh, this may have been about trump. >> i think trump was the message, whether they said it out loud or not. the executive director of the told me that even if our candidates aren't talking about trump, it's present, it's like you use the analogy you walk into a restaurant and if you see a rat in the kitchen it doesn't matter how good the food, you are not going to eat at that restaurant, and that trump would be in that analogy. so i do think they think it was health care. we did for nbc news.com we scraped 134 candidates' websites to see what they were talking about, and trump was not there at all. it was like in two or three

websites in 2018. so i do think they think it was about health care. but they acknowledged that trump was there whether they talked about it or not. he is the water that we are all swimming in. >> the democrat, this is that area isthat basically that actually voter fraud on the right ended up forcing a re-do of this election. but look at his current message that he's got on the air. >> too many north carolina families like brian's struggle to afford health care. that's why i work with democrats and republicans to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs. i will take on the big insurance and drug companies. i will put families like brian's first. >> i'll admit, and i just was asking it. this is an ad that can feel both in touch and out of touch at the same time meaning that it didn't capture at all the current state af fairs that's happening, but this is an issue that congress should be dealing with. >> there's only so much you can

do from sort of elaborate from congressional elections to presidential elections. they are different things. than an incumbent election is about the incumbent and it's about his character. but since he's the incumbent, the reason hillary couldn't quite square hillary enough is, oh, he just says these things, he's not going to govern this way. they need some disruption. you got to be a little overly loud to disrupt it. >> but of course it's not going to be that crazy. now it has been that crazy. and i think there is a chunk of those trump voter who's say this isn't really what i bargained for. >> so, jeh, what should democrats spend the next six months doing? how many plans do you need going after trump? >> you know, i have to say it's got to be the case every time a politician or candidate spouse does an interview you kind of sit at the edge of the seat.

but in this case i think joe biden spelled it out. >> jill biden you mean. >> spelled it out better than anybody. >> my husband is running not with some great agenda for the future. he's running to beat donald trump. that is clearly what is energizing and animating the base most. and i suspect it'll be the thing that animates and drives voter turnout in the 2020 election. i think in one short interview, spelled out the rationale. >> spouses always give you the more honest assessment of things, don't they? she did. >> and this question of energizing a base like some of the more progressive candidates like sanders and warren say we have to really get these activists on the left excited. but the counterpoint to that is folks like joe biden would make is why do democrats need to worry about energizing the base when donald trump is the president? the single most effective tool for getting those base voters to turn out is just the fact that he's in the white house. that's the argument that they will make. when it comes to a strategy question, it's totally present. part of the reason some of these

house candidates don't talk about trump on their web pages is they don't need to. people remember. >> alex, how does the -- i'm pivoting a little bit. any blowback at the dnc of sort of how this large field has been managed, if you will, by the committee? >> a lot of that. i mean, being dnc chair is a thankless job. being any party chair because you're going to get it from all sides. but there are two words that are very scary for democrats that i keep hearing here today not from the stage and not from anybody with a microphone. but when you talk to them in private and that's contested convention. there are a lot of people here, senior people in the party who are afraid that because of the way this primary process has been managed because of the size of the field that we're going to get to next year without a nominee heading into the convention and they are very, very nervous about that proce prospect. >> it's a huge field, but

actually if you look at the card it's a small field. biden and warren and sanders. >> jeh, you know this pretty well. the rules change, they made it impossible to actually -- there is no way anybody can sit on the first ballot unless anybody decides to hand it to somebody. >> can we ever have a presidential cycle where we don't talk about a contested election that gets everyone all excited? >> every time you hear the phrase, just drink because you're going to hear it a lot. let me close this debate this way. the last three months, has joe biden had a run? forget the coverage. has joe biden run a good campaign in the last three months or a good one? give me a letter grade. >> he had challenges. he has sort of lurched from problem to problem. kamala harris walloped him in the first debate. he had trouble identifying the states where those two mass

shootings happened. i mean, you are trying to differentiate yourself from trump, and you are getting states wrong? this wasn't great. >> if you had asked joe biden and jill biden on march 1st on august 20 whatever it is, 5th or something like that, you can be at 30% and the closest person behind you is 15%. >> you're both making my point here, which is this. i don't think biden's run a very good campaign and his numbers haven't budged. jeh? >> well, i have two things to add. one, people who win debates don't tend to win the elections. that's one. number two, i was involved in obama's campaign 12 years ago, and i remember at this point in the cycle, he was, what, 30 point hillary clinton? >> and everybody was like what's all that good fundraising? it doesn't seem to be translating in the polls. we didn't even get too your apples to apples. tell me what kind of apple picking you were able to do here. it was our favorite phrase of the day yesterday. thank you, buddy.

>> right. so if you played the -- yeah, appreciate it. >> betsy, jeh, and bill, you are sticking around. it's a pretty good day to have a former homeland security, one that's been confirmed here to talk about it. but first the white house wants to detain migrant children indefinitely. so what are democrats going to do heading into 2020? senator jeff merkley will join me live. me live. so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. the united states postal service makes more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. e-commerce deliveries to homes spending time together, sometimes means doing nothing at all. holiday inn. we're there. so you can be too. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, hmm. exactly. so you only pay for what you need. nice. but, uh...

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welcome back. as 2020 democrats try to convince primary voters to support some sweeping ideas, they will ultimately have to do the same thing for congress if they are elected president. joining me now is oregon democratic senator jeff merkley. he is the author of ♪ america is better than this." i feel like there's two big issues that you've been at the center of since your time in the senate. one obviously is what you wrote about. the other is your friend mitch

mcconnell wrote about the filibuster today. and i would love to one day watch the two of you debate the filibuster, whether or not we'll allow the filibuster to be used during your debate is a whole other story. but let me talk to you first about your book and what the administration is trying to do with this new law that would essentially get rid of the flores settlement and allow children to be detained with their parents for -- without a time limit. what do you do -- they're going to try to make, and i know there is sort of a legal path. is there a legislative path that you'll attempt to stop him with this? >> well, yes. i already have the bill that stops cruel treatment of migrant children act. unfortunately no republicans have stepped up to defend the maltreatment, the ill treatment of migrant children. and this proposal by the administration, this regulation, this child imprisonment act would result in both individual

children and children and their parents being locked up for long periods of time, which has a traumatic impact on their lives and is not the right way to go. >> do you believe there is any realistic way this gets through the senate at all? how many republicans at all do you have open to your legislation on this? >> so we're very divided. the president has really made the treatment of immigrants a key piece of his vision for the last election and the next election to understand this divide you have 40 senators who have signed on to legislation, 40 republican senators signed into legislation that would do the same thing as this rule. that is, allow the forever imprisonment of migrant children. and you have 40 democrats who have signed on to treat immigrants with respect and decency as they await an asylum hearing. that should be the way we approach folks who are fleeing

terrific circumstances around the world, circumstances that many of our ancestors experienced. how would we want our own family to be treated if they came here requesting asylum? >> well, it's interesting that you just outlined the divide in the senate that way because it actually gets it to a point that i'm curious where you stand on this with the presidential race. just as a consumer of presidential ideas and plans from all the various candidates, there is always one plan that's missing from every one of these proposals. that is the plan to implement this idea if my party is not in charge of congress with 70 senators and a 300-house members, meaning in a perfect world this is what your plan would look like. how are you going to govern in this divided world that is the reality? does bernie sanders and elizabeth warren in particular but joe biden too owe voters that explanation too? i mean, you and i both know medicare for all isn't getting through the senate in 2021. it might get there by 2025,

2026. do you have to be more honest with voters on that? >> well, i think you do have to lay out a vision of what you think can get done in the legislative process. of course, that depends a lot on who controls the senate and it depends a lot on whether the super majority reigns. you mentioned the filibuster before. i thought that mitch mcconnell's presentation today was disingenuous at best because there were two top priorities for the republicans. one was the supreme court. one was the tax cuts for the wealthy. they changed it to a simple majority in both cases. so their top priority is for the powerful are in place by simple majority. are democrats going to have the same guts to do an agenda by the people? or are we going to allow the senate to now be a chamber that is completely an unlevel playing field where the powerful are on top? >> let me ask you this, though. what would you do to sort of

keep the mr. smith myth alive? that was what the filibuster gave, which was this belief of mr. smith can go to washington and one senator can do something, can either get something done or stop something in its tracks. what does that look like in a no-filibuster world? >> i'll tell you what we have right now. it's not mr. smith goes to washington. under the current rules it is only the majority leader deciding what comes to the floor. only the majority leader deciding what amendments are there. i'm talking to my republican colleagues about a right to amend bipartisan movement because the senate is being destroyed by mitch mcconnell's imperial rulership over it. and so anyone who wants to make a difference, if you have a simple majority process, you have a chance of being able to go forward on a given issue even in the minority, get republican support, be able to move forward, but you aren't going to be able to do that on every issue you need 60 votes or the

majority leader controls everything that comes to the floor including what amendments can be offered. senate's profoundly broken. we should remember the continental congress -- >> senator, i promise you the house is broken, too. the entire process is broken. i completely -- the leadership, you guys in committees get no power anymore. that is to me the greatest shame of it all. >> but the house is passing legislation. >> true. >> there is a whole rath of legislation. >> very quickly, the gun issue. what's real here, is a background check bill going to get a vote, do you think? do we actually get a vote on one? whether it goes up or down, i don't know. but do you think something actually comes to the floor? >> i don't think so because i don't think mitch mcconnell who will control that wants to have his members take a position on it. is absolutely the way the senate should be. and just a few years ago you could force a vote on something like that. but now it's all in his hands.

he doesn't want his folks to be in the situation of, well, having to defend either side. so avoid it. and it's really regretful because last year 1.2 million guns were offered for sale without a background check. i think it's about 20% of the guns sold were without a background check or again a very strong second amendment state has a strong background check system for online sales, personal sales, gun show sales. and i do a townhall on every one of my 36 counties. no one comes and says let's get rid of the background check system. it's a very reasonable thing to do. >> if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't be afraid of a background check. democratic senator jeff merkley with your new book congrats on the new book. be safe on your book tour. >> thank you so much. up ahead, the democratic governors are striking out in the presidential race. how much longer before there are fewer than 20, 2020 candidates? redefining value for investors

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a campaign email. regardless, inslee says he still plans to push his signature issue. >> i've been fighting climate change for 25 years and i've never been so confident of the ability of america now to reach critical mass to move the ball. >> and another former presidential candidate says he's ready to get on a ballot for another campaign, too. john hickenlooper announced he is joining a crowded primary to take on republican senator cory gardner in his home state of colorado. >> look, i'm a straight shooter. this is no time to walk away from the table. i know change in washington is hard, but i want to give it a shot. ♪ >> how many takes? just kidding. that leaves us with only one governor left in the race, by the way. montana's steve bullock who doesn't seem likely to make the next debate stage, by the way. it's amazing that governors, not

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welcome back. we learned today of another shakeup at the already can aot oik department of homeland security. axios was the first to report that kevin mcaleenan's aid has turned in his resignation. it comes amid reportedly heightened tensions in the white house over most recently media coverage of the mississippi i.c.e. raids earlier this month and reported tensions over the dhs' involvement of the policy rollouts including yesterday's rollout of the trump administration wanting to lift the limits on how long it can detain migrant families. betsy, bill, and just by coincidence jeh johnson happens to be here today, the former dhs

secretary. i don't know if i have my weird montage available, guys. here is the current state of leadership at dhs, jeh. and explain to me why this is such a problem, all the actings. acting secretary, acting deputy secretary. we have an acting i.c.e. director. an acting cbp commissioner, uscis director, fema administrator and an acting deputy administrator. we haven't had our big calendar, which we know the calendar will come, and we're going to be doing it with -- i am sure these are career professionals who have probably been there longer than any of us at this table, but we don't know. >> yes. so, i look at my old agency with despair and i get depressed. cannot -- we cannot have -- if kevin leaves, we'll be on our fifth secretary in less than three years. technically, sixth.

i was the first for seven hours, 32 minutes. but -- but this kind of management leadership volatility has enormous ripple effects throughout. it says to the workforce leadership doesn't matter or you should not take the leaders seriously. and the leaders don't have the job security to embark upon the longer term agendas that perhaps bear some political risk. and i look at dhs and i look at how it's become so overly politicized, emotional such that candidates are calling for its elimination. and this is the department of government that is there to protect the american people, land, sea, air, and in cyber space. that was the reason it was formed. and there are so many aspects of dhs' mission that don't get enough attention because it's overwhelmed by the immigration

border security mission, the coast guard, the secret service, and so i look at all of this, and i just become very depressed. >> let's unpack this though, betsy. so basically andrew is getting incoming. this is what it sounds like and i have my own idea based on our own reporting of this. so he and mcaleenan are getting incoming because essentially they have not figured out how to sell unpopular policy ideas that the president and stephen miller are making them implement. >> andrew hasn't been in that post for a particularly long time. and on top of that if you talk to officials in dhs who work with mcaleenan, what they will tell you is he doesn't need the president, he don't really give a hoot about what the white house is doing. he sees himself as a cop. he's a career dhs official. he is doing the job that he has right now. he doesn't have aspirations of getting nominated and going through the senate confirmation process. >> he wants to go back to cbb. is that immigration hardliners

in the administration will tell you they are really frustrated it too because they don't have their ideological fellow travellers installed in confirmed posts and able to advance the even more hard line immigration agenda that trump promised on the campaign trail. they will complain about it. >> can i make a point? >> please. >> when i was secretary, my two go-to people on immigration at fort smith were kevin mcaleenan and tom who was number two at i.c.e. the word seems to be that kevin mcaleenan is an obama guy. he's not an obama guy. he was a career civil servant who on the merits rose to the top of the federal bureaucracy. he understands the dhs mission's not just immigration enforcement. >> did you just get him fired by trump just now? >> well, i have to be careful i know. >> i'm only being facetious here. >> on the merits is an outstanding public servant. >> he seems to be an impossible situation, though.

>> you mentioned trump. he's the reason for the problem. it's not like gds is a very complicated agency and a lot of people -- >> by the way, it is a complicated agency. it does have a lot going on. >> it's a difficult agency. >> i think it still hasn't been fully put together. >> unlike doj. >> it's not dod. >> having said that, the president pursuing totally irresponsible policies veering and being at the beck of stephen miller and other hardliners and backing off on the public relations but then wanting to scream and yell about something else. he is the cause of the problem and we are paying a real price in the real world. look at what's happening on the southern border both from a humanitarian point of view from the number of people getting arrested. it's really a terrible situation. >> and there are so many untold stories about the problems within dhs. we forget that dhs is part of the intelligence community. they have a major natural security role. and the office of intelligence and analysis, whistle the hub for that within dhs has horrible

morale. people there are just absolutely miserable. you talk to anybody with an ear. >> this was a challenge for you because it's been so unruly. but it has always been because it's argue blaefl one of the more stressful agencies to work at on good days. >> and it's viewed as sort of the ugly step sister by the other agencies. people in the fbi look down on dhs. a number of fbi alums have been placed in top positions of dhs. they say why do we have all these fbi guys here? they are trying to undermine us. there's all this internal fighting. it's this messy family. >> i spent an enormous amount of my time just on basic management reform, improving morale. >> i remember that you would tell me you would do these very sort of mike mckenzie like sessions. >> just to remind the workers you are here for an important job.

inevitably dhs is on defense and one failure equals a thousand successes. and that's one of the reasons the morale is what it is. the. >> let me get to a substantive issue, the issue of domestic terrorism, white supremacy and this idea of trying to -- and i'm very curious of your legal view of this. we have two members of congress, one on each side of the aisle, martha mcsally, adam schiff who want to create a domestic terrorism law i guess, essentially. do you think that's going to be able to -- do you think a law can be written that is somehow different from the hate crime law that will somewhere be inconstitutional? >> that's a very good question, and i will issue a word of caution. you can not criminalize thought. cannot criminalize ideology. they tried that in other nations. you can criminalize being part of a very defined group that commits certain acts as part of a criminal conspiracy. >> this is what somebody said. you have to be able to identify a group in order to come up

with -- >> you have to be able to identify a group and a certain type of behavior in which an individual joins. that's true in the law of armed conflict. but you have to be very careful if you want to go down that road in the domestic contest. and i say that not as a political matter but just as a matter of law enforcement. i used to be a prosecutor long before i was secretary. >> what you're saying is very tough to prosecute. >> membership in a group of a certain thought, you have to be careful. >> betsy, jeh, and bill, thank you very much. up ahead, some new images of the devastation in the amazon. wildfires are engulfing the south american jungle. how much of this is intentional? ? (excited squeal, giggling/panting) gotcha! (man) ah! (girl) nooooooooooooo! (man) nooooo! (girl) nooooo...

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them. but apparently the ohio school that already has the biggest endowment, the highest enrollment, the best football team in the state, maybe, watch out for those bearcats, the, they want one more thing, the. what does that mean for everybody else? will we all lose the right to one of the most used words in the english language? imagine a world without the use of the word the for all-americans? do you want to read hemingway's old man and sea, or watch the film gone with wind. let us not forget us. if it's sunday, it's meet press. it sounds funny but it's a bit un-american. but we have already already reserved meet press just in case those buckeyes find an official to throw a phantom flag and give them the use of the word the. if ohio state wants to trademark

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welcome back. as the conversation about climate change gets louder in this country, we're seeing devastating images of the amazon rain forest, often called the lungs of the planet. it has experienced more than 74,000 fires since january of this year, an increase of 84% from the same time last year. fires burning across several states are large enough that they could be seen from space. like in this new image that was released by nasa. and this crisis is also a startling reminder of the often fraught relationship between politics and science across the world. while researchers link the surge in wildfires to an increases in deforestation, brazil's president, a known climate change skeptic who ran on a campaign calling for developing more of the rain forest attempted to turn the blame on environmental groups without offering evidence. he says the nongovernmental organizations could be setting the fires in an attempt to turn people against him and the

government of brazil. reuters is now reporting that the brazilian president says brazil lacks resources now to fight these amazon fires. joining me from sao paulo, brazil a correspondence from "the washington post," marina lopez, covering the environment and brazil for years and she joins by skib. i appreciate this. explain the situation for folks in this country who don't follow fire season in brazil in general how common and uncommon is it, and why is it so alarming this year? >> we have seen a record number of fires this year, and it is dry season here. that could be partially to blame. researchers say a lot of fires were started by cattle ranchers using them to clear pasture. it is important because we've seen a spike in deforestation since the election earlier this year and he ran on this platform of opening up the amazon for

development and cutting haven'tal red tape so loggers and ranchers took that as a green light to start cutting down trees. it's a critical time for the rain forest right now. >> the can you make a cogent economic argument that deforestation is the economic plan bra industrial needs? it seems like an odd -- weren't there six or seven other agenda items first as potential ways to help the brazilian economy? >> we're talking about a country entering its fourth year of an economic slump. while a lot of bra skillians agree that the government needs to do more to clamp down on deforestation, they see hope in this agenda that the amazon is for brazilians. he's tried to push that. the united states and china vin used their natural resources for economic gain and it's time brazil does the same. that idea is appealing for

people struggling for years and don't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. >> is there a -- how would you characterize the opposing viewpoint on this plan in brazil? is there opposition growing to this, or does he basically have a green light? >> no, there's definitely opposition. ngos are outraged by his statements they were to blame for the fires. they're fighting back. a lot of the international community has also been steadily increasing economic pressure and so some farmers in brazil with are worried this could mean boy cost their goods and trying to work with the government to see if they can start taking this problem more seriously. >> brazil is now saying they can't handle the fires themselves. what evidence do you see of other countries chipping in? is it the united states coming? are other countries coming? what kind of help is brazil

truly asking for? >> the french president called for an emergency meeting of the g-7 at the summit this week. germany mentioned the possibility of imposing sanctions on brazil, norway and germany have cut millions of dollars in aid to brazil this week because they don't believe he's committed to ending deforestation. there could be an impact on a free trade agreement. >> all right. marina, we almost made it the entire interview. we only had about another 20 seconds. i do want to reiterate something that i hope viewers caught. you saying that an emergency meeting at the g-. this will be on the agenda of the g-7. it will be interesting to see will president trump be alone in defending brazil at the g-7 when

this issue comes up. anyway, my thanks to marina hopes. a skype connection always tricky at the end. we'll be back tomorrow. "the beat with ari melber"" starts right now. >> thank you very much. we have a lot in tonight's show. donald trump's erratic behavior raising the prospect of a tea party primary against trump. rudy giuliani admitting the state department is helping his push for a foreign government to the investigate trump's opponents, aka attempted collusion. a liberal economist shaping racial justice policy for 2020 demes is right on "the beat." we begin with the alarm bells ringing all over washington, signs that donald trump is rattled and some republicans on edge. "new york times" reporting former trump officials worried about his behavior, rising pressure on trump clearly with the economy and his jitters over re-election. >> any jewish people that