thank you for being with us and goodnight from nbc headquarters in new york. om nbc headquarters in new york. rachel's off tonight. she will be back on monday. what a week it has been been. the this has been one of the wildest weeks in american politics in recent policy. the president announced via tweet he's ousting his chief of staff mick mulvaney and replacing him with the far right congressman mark meadows who's a staunch trump ally. we'll have more on that as well in a moment. let's start tonight with the latest on the coronavirus outbreak which continued to spread around the country and the world today. there have been 15 deaths in the united states from coronavirus.

14 in washington state, one in california. and there are 326 confirmed cases nationwide. the states of oklahoma, kentucky, minnesota, indiana, connecticut and nebraska reported their first cases of the virus today. which means that more than half the states in the country now have confirmed cases. new york's governor announced today his state now has 44 confirmed cases with five of them sick enough to be hospitalized. and about 4,000 people in quarantine and being monitored for symptoms. fallout from the epidemic continued around the country as well. in washington state where there are now 58 confirmed cases in the seattle area, that's the country's worst outbreak, the university of washington canceled in person classes today for its 50,000 students until at least the end of the month. john hopkins university announced the mens college basketball tournament there this weekend will be held without spectators.

so there will be some very quiet games this weekend. the city of austin, texas, canceled the giant south by southwest festival which was slated for next week. lufthansa a giant airline that employs more people than any other airline plans to cancel more than half of all its flights. apac, the pro israeli lobbying group announced this evening that two new yorkers who attend its conference this week have tested positive, which is especially concerning because the apac conference is a who's who of the establishment, particularly the republican establishment. for example, mike pence was one of the speakers there this week. and speak of the vice president he held a press conference with federal health officials this evening and offered an update. first on the matter of this cruise ship carrying thousands of passengers being held off the california coast, ever since a

passenger on the ship's previous journey tested positive for coronavirus and died this week in california, with 20 people onboard showing symptoms, coronavirus tests were -- we're watching it here. they were helicoptered to the ship and flown to a lab for testing. vice president pence announcing this evening 46 people on the ship were swabbed, 21 of them tested positive including 19 crew members. a fact the people on the ship reportedly learned about by watching mike pence on television. pence also said that the ship will come into port and that everyone onboard will be tested, but officials say they're still trying to figure out where that would happen. they're looking at several military installations in california as possible testing sites, but here's the thing. in order to test people, you need tests. in order to test thousands of people like the thousands on that cruise ship, you need thousands of tests. and there seems to be some confusion in the trump administration about how many

tests they have and how many tests will be available, when and who will be able to get one. in fact, earlier this week the white house said there would be a million tests available by the end of the week, as of today. then yesterday the administration said it was going to miss that goal by more than 900,000, having only 75,000 tests available by the end of the week. and then this evening the vice president announced the government would have shipped a million tests to various labs as of tomorrow, and then there will be more shipped out possibly early next week, but no one should worry because definitely tests will be broadly available to most americans in a matter of weeks. which seems kind of long at this point in time. the atlantic magazine today reported that, quote, through interviews with dozens of public health officials and a survey of local data from across the country, we can only verify that 1,895 people have been tested for coronavirus in the united states.

local officials can still test only several thousand people a day. not the tens or hundreds of thousands indicated by the white house's promises. and time magazine reports today the sluggish response spread in the united states might be the wishful thinking of the white house. experts have been warning that the administration's insistence that containment was and should remain the primary way to confront an emerging infectious disease was a grave mistake. they warned that the unique features of this flu-like virus made it impossible to control and that the administration must use any time that containment measures might buy to prepare the country for inevitable outbreak. the administration was using all its resources to blockade the doors, they warned, but the enemy was already likely in the house. i mean, today several public

health and disasters response experts from john hopkins university went to capitol hill to brief congressional staff on the epidemic. this is what they sounded like. >> dthink the testing capacities is adequate in the u.s., and do hospitals with labs have access to everything they need to package up and send or perform the tests? >> thank you for that question. i think the short answer is no. testing capacity is not currently adequate, and we need more. we need this as soon as we can have it. >> having more appropriate testing will ultimately lead to greater public calm. in a setting in which we know testing was rolled out quickly and adequately and to a large number of people we saw numbers of total cases that were having severe disease and/or subsequent death decline significantly. clear, consistent, trusted

messaging is extremely important. >> so we very much do not have enough at thes. and what we need more right now is more testing as well as clear, consistent, trusted messaging. well how's that going? >> anybody right now and yesterday -- anybody that needs a test gets a test. they're there. they have the tests and the tests are beautiful. anybody that needs a test gets a test. if there's a doctor that wants a test, if there's somebody coming off a ship like the big monster ship that's out there right now which, you know, again that's a big decision. they would like to have the people come off, i would rather have the people say. i told them to make the final decision. i would rather because i like the numbers being where they are, i don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship. that wasn't our fault. as of the time i left the plane with you we had 240 cases --

verifying network called fox news. i told mike not to complementary of the governor because he is a snake. inslee, and i said if you're nice to him he will take advantage and i would have said no. let me just tell you we have a lot of problems with the governor and the governor of washington, that's where you have many of your problems, okay? >> couple of things interesting there. i'd like to see the numbers where they are. i don't need them to double. i don't need the numbers to double because of a ship that's not our fault, and the governor of washington state is snake. but put that aside for a second. according to the president of the united states anyone in america who wants a test can get one yesterday. also he'd like to keep a few thousand people stranded on a cruise ship off the coast of california because he's worried them touching american soil would make our numbers look worse in terms of the number of cases, and as he said that's not our fault. by the way, the president gets

his numbers by watching fox news even though he's literally standing next to his two top health officials. he quoted fox news when stating the numbers even though the two people he counts on are next to him. the governor of washington dealing with 13 deaths and the worst coronavirus outbreak in the country, he's a bad guy, he's doing a terrible job, he's a snake. clear, consistent trusted messaging. joining us now the director of the global health program on the council of foreign relations. he's the author of "plagues and the paradox of progress why the world is getting healthier in worrisome ways." thank you for joining us. you and i spoke last week and you emphasized what i just emphasized that more testing is probably the most important thing right now. more accurate testing. we're not clear on where we stand with testing. according to the president everyone who wants a test can get a test. we seem to have information that suggests otherwise. >> that's right.

so what we have seen today from the u.s. government on testing is the exact opposite of what you want to see in an outbreak. we are overpromising and under-delivering. as you mentioned we had the promise coming from the federal government is that we would see a million tests this week. at best we have seen 75,000. and as you mentioned there's no indication and some media reports said it may be many, many fewer than that. we have absolutely no idea what the real number of infected people are and where they are, and this is a huge problem because, of course, the countries that have successfully dealt with this outbreak, forget china. think of singapore. singapore had community spread. they tested every severe case of pneumonia they had to try to identify people and they found some cases with that. they implemented social distancing policies to keep other people from getting sick and most importantly they did this with great speed and that is not how we've operated. >> we've discussed, the point in

determining the spread of an epidemic is not actually to test 100% of people. right, what does effective testing look like and what is this conversation we're having about containment? the president keeps talking about how great it was we stopped people coming in from china. but a lot of health experts say actually you have to think about this differently. >> that's right. so of course you can't test everyone you want to. test people that might have symptoms that might be indicative of somebody that has this disease. again, in the singapore case that meant testing patients with severe pneumonia. they tested them all and and that was something they'd done with great speed in that instance. in this case it may be we don't have tests so it may be starting to test people for flu, starting to test people so we can exclude the possibility they might have coronavirus. so that might be the way to go. for communities that could have

possibly containment, it is worth trying to contain to the extent possible. but it is clear, 25 states have cases. at least 91 countries have case withes. the idea that we would confine this to a small number of countries or a small number of cases in a small number of states is past us now. >> thomas, you study this a lot. you know a lot about it. what would you do if you got up in the morning and you felt like you had a cold or you started coughing? how would you think about this? >> on the individual level, it is everything i'm sure your audience has heard before which is of course if you feel sick, stay home. if you need to seek medical advice or you may think you have the condition, call. do not go in person to a health care facility. stay home, call into get that information and get advice. the cdc website has excellent information for people out

there. of course for the people that aren't feeling sick it's still washing your hands, coughing into your elbow, again keeping distance from people that are visibly ill. >> no, go ahead, thomas. >> no, for communities what we really need to see is we need to see them surge their capacity safer. so it's going to be really important that we protect health workers here. our response to this outbreak is going to depend on keeping doctors and nurses safe. that means not buying masks unless you're sick, but that also means for residential care facilities, because these affect the elderly disproportionately and for hospitals they need to start planning in advance. >> thomas, you set it up nicely because i'm going to be speaking momentarily to the associate director of nursing practice at national nurses united to discuss the health care side of things and the health care workers. thomas the director at the council on foreign relations and the author of plagues and

paradox of progress, why the world is getting healthier in worrisome ways. thanks for your help. as we said earlier the trump administration keeps promising more coronavirus tests are coming. trump himself says anyone who wants a test can get one right now. but if you want one stark example of how untrue that is and how behind the government appears to be on the testing front take the case of one nurse in northern california who is quarantined because she became sick after caring for a coronavirus patient. in a statement released by her union the nurse says, quote, i'm awaiting permission from the federal government to allow for my testing. even after my physician and county health professional ordered it. the national cdc would not initiate testing. they said they would not test me because if i were wearing the recommended protective equipment then i wouldn't have the coronavirus. what kind of science-based answer is that? what a ridiculous and uneducated response from a department that is in charge of our health in

this country, end quote. she says she is now essentially on a waiting list for a test. quote, delaying this test puts the whole community at risk. nurses aren't going to stand by and let this testing delay continue. we are going to stand together and make sure we can protect our patients by being protected ourselves, end quote. with me now is michelle mohan, the associate director at nursing practice at national nurses united. that is the country's largest nurses union which released that statement from the quarantined nurse. we appreciate your time tonight. >> hi. i'm glad to be here. >> talk to me about first of all the situation about this quarantined nurse. it sounds amazing. i read what we know, and to regular people who are not health professionals they'd say that's amazing, right? this nurse knows she was in touch with somebody with coronavirus and then started showing symptoms and can't get the test. if anybody should be getting a test, she should be getting a test.

>> that's right. as your previous guest said it's really important that we are taking care of health care workers right now. >> yeah, you are at the front -- you're the tip of the spear really for us, and there is a discussion about people who have been buying masks and things health care workers need and not having enough for health care workers. where are you on this? what is your sense of how well equipped nurses who are on the front line of all medical care in this country are? how well equipped are you to confront this? >> well, nurses don't have the things they need on the front lines. we conducted a survey of over 6,000 nurses in every state, 48 states across the country and only 30% of nurses say they have the supplies they need to safely care for their patients. it's just not happening. >> if i'm not mistaken somewhere around 44% of your respondents said they had some communication from their employers which might be a hospital or clinic about a plan to confront coronavirus. and more than 50% said they hadn't had the communication of

a plan let alone they have an idea what that plan is. >> that's right. and that's just alarming. they said the kinds of preparations that hospitals and health systems should be doing routinely. this shouldn't be a surprise. the whole key of everything in health care is about being prepared, about knowing what to do, about having plans in place, performing drills and being ready. and in this case in particular with this coronavirus, we've had weeks and weeks where we should have been preparing for the imminent arrival in the united states. >> i want to just read you another paragraph from the quarantined nurse's statement. i'm appalled by the bureaucracy preventing getting tested. delaying the test puts the whole community at risk. i think the point she's trying to make is if you take front line workers off at this moment,

you are risking the health of all americans. >> absolutely. the most important thing that can be done right now is to increase the standards of protection. and unfortunately what we're seeing is the cdc is putting out guidance that walks back the protection. the most important thing that we can do is control and keep our health care work force safe and in service. nurses want to take care of patients. in fact, the nurse we have in quarantine was a volunteer on a special team who made this arrangement just so that she could -- so that she could provide this care. nurses are ready to go, and unfortunately what we're seeing is even after the very first exposures at uc davis, which got a lot of press, we're still seeing that hospitals across the country aren't doing what they need. so it's really alarming, and it needs to change immediately. >> well, we're deeply indebted to you and your fellow member of your profession for wanting to be on the front lines. most people run in the other

direction, and you are looking to have your coworkers ready to help the rest of us in to hour we need. the associate director at national nurses united. much more to get to tonight. up next the president appoints a fourth chief of staff. and later the sense that something is amiss with many democrats after elizabeth warren drops out of the presidential race. we've got a lot to get to tonight. stay with us. thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts,

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as we mentioned tonight the president has canned his third white house chief of staff. the president announced in a set of tweets that he is going to replace outgoing chief of staff mick mulvaney who has served in that role for just over a year with mark meadows, a north carolina congressman and staunch ally of the president during his recent impeachment trial. why the president chose to dump mulvaney now as the administration battles a spiraling coronavirus outbreak that has now claimed 15 lives in the united states remains unclear. also unclear at this hour is who will take over as the head of the office of management and budget where mulvaney had continued as the director. but his exit was not unexpected.

as chief of staff mulvaney never managed to shed his acting title and he was largely side lined after falling out of favor with the president last year. in december a republican close to the white house described his role this way. quote, he is there, i'll leave it at that. he's like a kid. his role at the dinner table is to be seen and not heard. well, one of the few times mulvaney was heard was when he admitted in front of a worldwide television audience that, yes, the white house had conditioned a meeting for the president of ukraine on an announcement of investigations that were politically advantageous to trump. that shock admission was followed by mulvaney telling the american public, to quote, get over it. while he'll assume the plumb title as special envoy to ireland his position will be filled by mark meadows. the four term north carolina lawmaker who's cast himself as one of the president's most aggressive defenders in congress

announced he would not run for re-election this november while hinting he might serve in some future role in the administration or the president's re-election campaign. the future apparently begins now. joining us now phil rucker, white house bureau chief for "the washington post." he's also the coauthor with carol leonnig of "a very stable genius, donald trump's testing of america." good to be with you, sir. >> thank you, ali. good to be with you. >> what do you make of this? mark meadows -- the president has treated the chief of staff differently than his predecessors. the chief of staff was at one point the most powerful position in america. that has not been the case for at least two of the last three of the president's chief of staff and arguably john kelly wasn't all that powerful either. but the problem is the president has diminished the role. what do you make of this decision? >> it's been a long time coming and rumored for many months, the president has tired of mick mulvaney. he wanted mulvaney to stay in

this job throughout the impeachment proceedings and impeachment trial where remember mulvaney was a key figure in all of that in terms of his role with helping with hold that aid from ukraine. that said once the impeachment trial was over and the president was acquitted he felt he had a green light to go ahead and make some of the staffing changes he wanted. and he wanted mulvaney out. mark meadows has long had the president's ear and arguably has been more influential in guiding the president the last several months than mulvaney from the outside. meadows is more a political animal and seen as somebody who's going to really have an eye towards the re-election campaign as he leads the government over the next 8 months. >> he's an affable fellow and friendly. but their backgrounds are very similar. they're southern congress men, tea party, fiscal hawks,

constitutionalists. >> that's right. and you don't have to go back that far, frankly, to the obama years when meadows was a real fringe figure in the congress among the house republicans. he was a rabble-rouser, the head of the house freedom caucus. he was that thorn in the side of speaker john boehner, but with the trump presidency and trump ascendancy in washington meadows got onboard that train pretty quickly, became the president's top defender or one of the top defenders on capitol hill, a major presence on fox news and conservative media and has really carved out an enormous amount of influence with the president. >> do you make anything of the timing? there are some, if you don't follow this too closely, that will say, look, this is the coronavirus thing and the white house is not handling it particularly well. are they bringing him in to distract or something else? a /* >> this was reported on "the new york times" this evening and did not announce it tonight. after the markets closed on friday for the weekend. so clearly trump was trying to

not have a story of turmoil and shakeup in his west wing while the markets were still open. so that's notable. you know, it could be some sort of effort to distract from the coronavirus problem. i don't know. it's not clear that mark meadows is going to be able to do anything to resolve this crisis that mick mulvaney couldn't do it. meadows is not an expert in infectious diseases or public health crises. that's something that, you know, they have mark pence in charge of, the vice president and of course all the experts in the various scientific and health departments. >> most people who have studied white house chiefs of staff have sort of marked the erosion since the beginning of the trump administration in the power of that role. do you think that changes under meadows? do you think he'll sort of resurrect the role a little bit, or is that job what it is? >> i think the trajectory continues. you had in reince priebus and john kelly, the first two chiefs of staff, figures who tried in some degree to be guardrails

against the president. to try to steer his course of action to prevent the president on following through on his more reckless and dangerous impulses. and then you had in mick mulvaney an enabler, a chief of staff who saw his job much more as to answer the president with a yes, follow the president's orders, do what the president wanted done, not get in the way, not so no as often as kelly and priebus did. and i suspect meadows is going to be more in the mulvaney mold than the priebus mold. >> meadows made a comment about sending obama back to kenya. but he got associated with the birther movement. i'd like to point out from time to time i'm actually from kenya, so that's a topic close to my heart. phil rucker is the white house bureau chief for "the washington post." much more to come tonight including that the highest hardest glass ceiling still

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before hillary clinton, before shirley chisholm, there was margaret chase smith. she was a republican senator from maine. and she was the first woman in history to serve in both the u.s. house and the senate. margaret chase smith was elected to congress in 1940, first to fill the seat left vacant by her husband's death.

in january 1964 margaret chase smith announced she'd run for president. she became the first woman in this country to run in a major party primary for president. take a look at this. this is universal newsreel from 1964 when she announced her campaign. look at how they titled the segment. because margaret chase smith was a woman, they called it bonnet in the ring, not hat in the ring. bonnet. okay, roll the tape. >> senator margaret chase smith of maine makes the announcement she will seek the republican presidential nomination. >> because of these reasons against my running i have decided that i shall. >> her announcement was greeted with laughter and that was just the beginning.

>> where will your washington headquarters be or where shall you begin to receive campaign contributions? >> the chairman of the republican national committee says your office will be head office for the campaign contributions. >> will you be able to debate in new hampshire? who will be your running mate? what would you do with a candidate to break down discrimination against women? >> well, if the people of this country don't know what i would do from what i have done, i don't think i could add information to that. >> senator, if you can't make it yourself which candidate would

you support for president? or who else? >> again, i must answer i'm a candidate first and i'm not supporting anybody else. >> margaret chase smith never got past the first ballot at the republican convention. more than 50 years later we saw the exit yesterday of the last competitive woman left in the democratic field. senator elizabeth warren suspending her campaign following the departures of kyrsten gillibrand, kamala harris and amy klobuchar. tulsi gabbard is still running, but for all intents, the race for the white house is down to two white men in their 70s vying to challenge another white man in his 70s. we're past the point where people laugh when a woman says she wants to be president, but if we're not there anymore, where are we now? joining us now president and ceo of voter latino. thank you for joining us tonight. what are your thoughts on this?

we have had a woman win the nomination of the democratic party, run for president, get more votes than the current president, and then we've had several women vie for nomination this time around. what's your sense of where we are? >> let's remind the american people the last time a woman headed a democratic nomination of a major party she won. hillary clinton won 3 million more votes than trump. and now that we're seeing a lot of this other evidence of whether or not he won fair and square that leaves it for us to remind ourselves that anything is possible in america. the fact that four women came up right after her and said they were going to run and they were prosecutors, they were senators, they demonstrate our possibility. and i think sometimes what happens with the american people is that we get a little bit shy of actually breaking the glass ceiling. but let's not forget, ali, the reason that the democrats won the house last mid-term was

because women decided not only are we going to run for office -- in 2016 600 women decided they were going to run for office. after the president's inauguration 43,000 women decided they were going to run for some sort of office, whether it was today, tomorrow or last year. and that tells us we're creating a pipeline of diversity of thought. when you look at go toe to toe on the policies, it was women who had the most exceptional policies when it came onto that debate stage. and so what we have to remember is, yes, the saying one step forward and two steps back, that's exactly what we saw. but the women leading the charge and holding strong to our constitution and making sure we are following the rules have been led by women. i'm speaking of speaker pelosi, the young women now on the progressive side of the democratic party encouraging people to think broader and bigger. this is not a we cannot do it. it's what are the trusts the american people can remember in themselves?

because we have already elected a woman president. let's do that again. >> let me ask you about the criticisms about why elizabeth warren didn't win. some people maybe just didn't like her policies. others said there was some degree of sexism or different treatment because she was a woman and the way she put out her policies. some people have called it misogynistic. what do you think is true? >> we had a national poll where she actually was number four and she didn't appear on that national poll until the end. she never got the gravitas she came out number three in the iowa caucuses but it was because of that iowa caucus debacle. it was almost as if it was a perfect storm. there's also a big body of the democratic party that funds a lot of electoral campaigns that were quite afraid of her. they didn't want to fund her for what she represented and that

was making sure everyone paid their fair share in society so we have a functioning government. there were a lot of factors but she was brave. and she showed us how swroe we o think big once again. i have to tell you that when i would listen to elizabeth warren she was reminding people we had already done and made these hard choices and making sure we would close the gap an income inequity and she was reminding us we need to do that refresh. >> the whole issue of the pipeline and the idea there will be more women hopefully running each time, but at some point when you compare apples to apples, elizabeth warren did have a plan for everything, she outlined the policy for everything. she put it out there like a scientist would put it out in a journal to be evaluated by their peers. she got criticism for her plans and price tags on things. at what point do we as voters do more from a woman candidate? >> i would say it wasn't that we needed more from a woman candidate. i think it was more what the times were calling for.

just as she had a plan for everything, so did al gore, and we had trouble with that. and i think our challenge is really saying who right now -- when people were casting a ballot it's who could actually beat donald trump? i would argue this actually little to do with policy and making sure we change the white house. and maybe she was ahead of her times but it's a very different election. had elizabeth warren perhaps run in 2012 or any other time when people were looking for real solutions because it was the economy stupid, she may have had an easier path. right now the majority of people casting a ballot it was like how do we make sure we replace donald trump? people are not actually looking for big ideas but to maintain the course of some sort of normalcy when it comes to our democracy. >> always a pleasure to talk with you. thank you for joining us. coming up the after shocks from super tuesday are still reverberating. what warren's supporters and

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♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ it is, of course, friday everywhere, but out on the west coast it's also still super tuesday. results continue to trickle in from california's democratic primary election. right now bernie sanders leads joe biden by about 273,000 votes statewide. now, in the national delegate count joe biden continue tuesday lead bernie sanders by 68 delegates making him the national front-runner. that's before we've got all the numbers in from california. but all eyes are on focused on another candidate no longer in the race. senator warren who left the campaign yesterday and has not yet indicated who she plans to endorse. last night, she sat town with rachel on this show. she talked about her presidential campaign, the

narrowing field and the election for which she takes credit. >> senator, you outlasted bloomberg in the campaign. >> oh, yeah, was he still in that race? >> he was still in that race but nobody could tell after you destroyed him on the debate stage that way. a lot of postmortems credit you with tanking him in that debate. is that what you were trying to do? >> yes. >> do you take credit? >> sure. >> elizabeth warren made short work of that question. yes, she was trying to end mike bloomberg's candidacy when she went after him in the las vegas debate and it worked. he tanked on super tuesday. now another six states will vote in sort of a mini super tuesday. i wonder what will happen then? former campaign manager and senior aide to president barack obama and the author of a new book "a citizens guide to beating donald trump." mr. pluf, thank you for join

being us tonight. elizabeth warren is out of the race. short of her endorsing someone morning consult suggests her supporters would be split almost evenly between joe biden and bernie sanders. does that make sense to you? is that about right? >> it does. i think there was a conventional wisdom they would skew heavily sanders but if you look joe biden did well on super tuesday in areas where elizabeth warren also had strength. biden has the momentum now. he looks like he could win and still has a lot of work to do. bloomberg didn't do well on super tuesday as you pointed out, but he still got a lot of votes. so if you split the warren vote roughly 50-50 let's say and give biden 75% of bloomberg, you know, that is going to give him i think a pretty advantageous position heading into march 10th. we have massive states on march 17th like illinois, florida, arizona. >> she seemed to pick a lane and a lane occupied mostly by bernie

sanders, but in fact you know elizabeth warren and her history. she could actually fit comfortably in either lane. she could have competed with joe biden. she could have competed with bernie sanders. if you were advising her on whether she should endorse someone, what would you suggest she should do? >> it's such a personal decision, ali. we see her supporters are probably relatively balanced. you know, she probably wants to see how the next couple of weeks go. so, you know, other candidates made a decision to endorse. this is the right decision for her. like picking a vice president, you know, whoever the nominee is, that's the most personal decision you make. but looking at those numbers, you know, maybe if 90% of her supporters are going one way or the other that might tip the scales but her people are relatively divided, and listen, there's a chance this race may not be formally over but if joe biden does as well as he did on super tuesday his delegate lead is really going to grow.

>> bernie sanders was supposed to have rally in mississippi, instead went to michigan. he won michigan very narrowly last time around. joe biden is polling very strongly in a lot of states. this tuesday it looks like it's joe biden's to lose more than bernie sanders to win. >> well, you mentioned on mississippi so i'm going to nerd out on delegates. so if joe biden is going to win mississippi probably by a large margin bernie sanders skipping his event -- you know, mississippi if i recall has 36 delegates. i mean biden could have 25 or 30 out of that state alone. so that's important. let's say michigan is close, bernie wins a few, biden wins by a few. i think sanders might do well in north dakota and win some delegates but it's a, you know, really small state. then you've got to look at the 17th. there was a poll yesterday showing bernie sanders not viable in florida. now i actually believe by the

time the vote happens, i think he's going to get above 15%, but if he's losing florida by 50 or 60 points, joe biden will net out of that alone. >> let's talk about the states voting on tuesday, mississippi, north dakota, michigan, idaho, washington state. how do you, what are you looking for on tuesday night? >> well, first of all, does biden maximize his delegate count out of mississippi. in michigan, even though i think the delegate situation will be relatively balanced, given that bernie won it last time, if biden wins that, i think his momentum continues. and then, can bernie, the last time washington state, sanders just clobbered chilinton there, but it was a caucus. in a primary, what kind of margin can he build there? he's now behind in the

delegates. >> it's a mail-in and hand in your ballot type of thing. washington is really suffering from coronavirus. there was concern about how that was going to work. it's the one state that can continue with its primary regardless. thank you for joining us, david plouffe. up next, a federal judge calls foul over attorney general bill barr's handling of the mueller report. up next. of the mueller report up next. i'm your 70lb st. bernard puppy, and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier.

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a federal judge excoriated attorney general bill barr over his handling of the mueller report. yesterday the judge who was handling a foia request called the attorney general's handling of it, quote, distorted and misleading. in a scorching, 23-page opinion, reggie walton wrote, the inconsistencies between attorney general barr's statements and portions of the mueller report that conflict with those statements cause the court to seriously question whether attorney general barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the mueller report in favor of president trump. these circumstances generally, an attorney general barr's lack of candor specifically call into question attorney general barr's credibility. the judge now wants a copy of

the full, unredacted mueller report so he can decide whether barr's justice department was justified in blackout certain sections and keeping them from public view. and the justice department has responded saying the court made a series of assertions about public statements the attorney general made nearly a year ago. the court's assertions were common there contrary to the facts. the original redactions were made by department attorneys. there's no basis to question the work or good faith of any of these career department lawyers. the department stands by their work as well as the attorney general's statements and efforts to provide as much transparency as possible. of all the open tabs in politics in the moment, and there are the los of them, you might want to bookmark this one. m, you might o bookmark this one. ys of them, y bookmark this one. ys of them, y bookmas of them, you might want bookmark this one. ts of them, y bookmark this one. mark this one

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unlike ordinary memory wsupplements-neuriva? has clinically proven ingredients that fuel 5 indicators of brain performance. memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. try neuriva for 30 days and see the difference. as wrrachel likes to say, programming note, she will be back in this chair on monday and with her the governor of washington state. governor innslee has incurred the wrath of president trump. he took the time to insult the

governor, calling him a, quote, snake. don't miss it. that does it for mow tonighe to. you can find me from 8:00 to 10:00 eastern. >> this is "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." this is weird hand thing over to you. >>ly see you tomorrow morning at 8:00. i'll be watching. the coronavirus is now spreading throughout the world and the united states. america is now shutting down. businesses are eliminating nonessential travel and cancelling conferences all over the country. the annual south by southwest conference in austin, texas was cancelled today. unicef cancelled its annual fundraising dinner in los angeles today. cancelations like that are happening all over the country. airlines are cutting flight schedules, and some tourist attractions around the country are now empty. and the response to the coronavirus in the united states is being led by the most incompetent and ignorant presiden