security, all from one provider. touchdown! comcast business goes beyond with the extraordinary speed, reliability and security your business needs. call today. comcast business. beyond fast. hey there, i'm joshua johnson. glad to be with you from msnbc headquarters in new york. the clock is ticking to tuesday. 48 hours to go until the next big democratic contest.

former vice president joe biden, senator bernie sanders, their supporters and their surrogates have spread out across the six states that could reshape the race. both candidates picked up big endorsements just in the last 24 hours. biden with support from his former rival, california senator kamala harris. sanders secured the backing of the reverend jesse jackson. both candidates received support from gun safety advocate groups. biden with the brady group. sanders with march for our lives advocates. how much will these big names impact the ground game, if at all? nbc road warrior mike memoli is in mississippi with the biden campaign and joins us live. mike, how big a deal is this endorsement, both of senator harris, from the brady campaign, in the skop of tcope of the bid campaign? >> reporter: well, let's start with the brady campaign because this really hits on one of the main policy issues that joe biden has used in the last couple of weeks in going after bernie sanders on a policy

basis. he has talked repeatedly about the fact that when he as the chairman of the judiciary committee was the authorize of the brady background checks bill, bernie sanders voted against it, and he called one of the most unforgiveable votes from senator sanders in his career was a vote in the 2000s to exempt gun manufacturers from liability, being held liable for the use of weapons in incidents of murder or other crimes. and so that is a helpful reinforcement to the biden campaign of a policy issue they've really tried to use against bernie sanders. now, senator harris, this is just the latest in a string of endorsements that we've seen across the board from former candidates in this race. we're going to see governor duvall patrick on stage with the former vice president behind me. amy klobuchar and pete buttigieg, those endorsements on the eve of super tuesday being seen as so critical for the next -- for biden's success on super tuesday. helping as he tries to get to the point in this race where he

sends the message that the democratic party is ready to end this primary. now, if you look at the strategy heading into tuesday's next round of primaries, where i am today and where biden is heading tomorrow is a good indication of that. mississippi, of course, today, another state where the african-american vote is going to be a significant part of that by running up the score here, poised for potentially one of his biggest wins overall. michigan, though, michigan was where bernie sanders extended the race in 2016 with the surprise win against hillary clinton. joe biden hopes a big win there could help wrap this a lot earlier. >> 71% of democrats in mississippi are african-americans. certainly a block that vice president biden needs to hang on to secure that nomination. nbc's mike memoli, thanks very much. as we mentioned, bernie sanders got a boost not only from march for our lives activists but from reverend jesse jackson. nbc road warrior garrett haake has more from grand rapids.

>> joel: he. >> reporter: hey, guys, bernie sanders has been all in. today it's all about michigan. he's got one of his biggest endorsers. tonight in ocasio-cortez rallying with him. that should be a huge endorsement. the endorsement they're talking about is reverend jess and jackson. bernie has been struggling with african-american voters in the early primary states and getting really the first african-american candidate to run a serious presidential campaign who, oh, by the way, won in michigan back in 1988 when the state was still a caucus state is something that the bernie sanders campaign is very proud of. sanders talked effusively about the reverend jackson today on stage. reverend jackson was here as well. one name we didn't hear from sanders today was joe biden's. it was such a departure from yesterday where at every stop sanders really went after biden on his record on things like the iraq war, on trade. today he was much more

circumspect about that, not going after biden, but more talking about those issues he shares in common with the reverend jackson. i'll be curious to see if this is a broader strategy shift or a topic rally where he was receiving one big endorsement. the story will be can sanders turn around his fortunes more broadly starting here in michigan? it's one of the states he needs the most and one of the few places he's really in the mix, i should say, to pick up a win on tuesday. he campaigned heavily in washington state earlier. that's a significant state with early and mail-in votes. he's all but pulled out of mississippi. joshua, we'll all be watching michigan pretty darn close come tuesday. >> that was nbc's garrett haake reporting from grand rapids. now on to the coronavirus outbreak and word from administration officials today that it's going to get worse. one of the government's top disease experts spoke today on "meet the press." >> we're seeing community spread, so it's our responsibility to protect the vulnerable. when i say protect, i mean right

now not wait until things get worse. >> the number of cases in mt. u.s. is approaching 500 with infections in at least 33 states and the district of columbia. a new case was just reported in connecticut. meanwhile, italy has taken a drastic step to stop community spread by locking down the northern section of the country. as local officials here look to the federal government for help. nbc's hans nichols is in west palm beach, not far from the president's florida residence. hans, what's going on in terms of, if nothing else, just getting the administration on a more consistent message in terms of where things stand and what's being done? >> reporter: well, the white house appears to be broadcasting on different channels. you have the president on twitter basically saying everything is fine. they have this plan. it's being followed to combat the coronavirus. then you have mixed messages coming out of other officials. you have dr. fauci being very clear there that it's going to get worse. they are concerned about community spread. you also had dr. ben carson on

one of the shows this morning saying that, yes, they have this plan for the cruise ship industry. that's one plan to be formulated in the next 72 hours. he also indicated they would have a specific plan for the docking of the grande princip"g" he said he didn't actually know what that plan is in part because it hasn't been fully formulated. there is a question of the plans more cosmeticsicalically what t the cruise ship industry and more specifically about the "grand princess." the white house and the task force seem to be on different pages. the president for his purposes is attacking the media and saying that the fake news is the true enemy of the people. he seems to be quite upset about a "new york times" story that detailed some of the internal debates or discussions a couple of months ago leading into the administration's response to coronavirus. guys? >> in response to coronavirus, the surgeon general spoke this

morning. here's part of what the surgeon general had to say. >> here's what people should know about the testing. they should know that we have 75,000 tests available right now for folks. by early next week, tomorrow, we should have over 2 million tests available. by the end of the week through partnerships with private industry, over 4 million tests available, but the most important number to the american people is one. they want to know, if i go in, can i get a test? the one thing i've heard, i've been to florida, georgia, connecticut in the past week is that no public health doctor who is asked for a test has not been able to get a test. >> so, hans, what's the biggest obstacle standing in the way of making sure that public health officials like dr. adams are able to fulfill the promises that they've made? >> reporter: well, it's logistics in one part, right? you got a sense for the numbers and how quickly they're going to be scaling. at least from the administration's perspective, as of right now, they think they are in the right place in terms of the number of tests that are out there and that are being

shipped out. retrospectively, you heard from dr. fauci, he was concerned the initial response to the test and the quality and accuracy of the tests wasn't what they wanted them to be, but at least from the public health officials, the doctors, experts on that, we just heard from the surgeon general. they seem to be suggesting if you're going to your doctor, your doctor determines you need a test that there isn't a problem getting that test and having that lab work completed. what we've heard from the president is two different verbs. at one point at the cdc he said anyone who needs a test will get one. he said anyone who wants a test will get one. those are two different things. i think what the medical professionals want to do is stay on the need side. joshua? >> thank you, hans. nbc's hans nichols in west palm beach, florida. coronavirus is hitting hardest on the west coast. the cruise ship "grand princess" is being held off the california coast. it could dock tomorrow at the port of oakland. at least 21 people aboard tested

positive. scott cohen is in oakland with the latest. dr. ben carson spoke on "abc this morning." he seemed to not be entirely clear on what the plan is going forward. here's what of what he said. >> the ship's docking tomorrow. >> the plan will be in place by that time, but i don't -- i don't want to preview the plan right now. >> shouldn't you be able to do that? >> i think -- i think it needs to all come from a solitary source. we shouldn't have 16 people saying what the plan is. >> okay. >> particularly when it hasn't been fully formulated. >> so, he is not able to speak on the plan, which has not been fully formulated. when are we going to get a plan? >> reporter: well, we do seem to have at least the broad outlines and probably more so about what the plan is. so there are about 3,500 people

total aboard this ship. about 2,400 of them are passengers. about 1,100 are crew members. the plan, again, is to dock the ship here at the port of oakland. as opposed to the san francisco cruise ship terminal. they will be -- the passengers and crew will be brought out over a period of days with the priority going to those who have health issues or those 21 people who have already tested positive. but every one of them then will be -- need to get tested for covid-19. they will be quarantined for at least 18 days. the quarantine locations are clear, going to be held at military bases in california. for those california residents, either travis air force base or miramar in san diego. others will go to texas and georgia. the foreign nationals on board, the state department we are told is working with those countries to get them repatriated. there is a huge logistical

process that's going to unfold here over the next few days. >> that's nbc's scott cohn reporting from oakland. scott, thanks very much. now, coronavirus has hit an unsettling milestone. it's infected more than 100,000 people across the globe that we know of. nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel has been traveling the world following the pandemic. his special report "on assignment: outbreak" airs tonight on msnbc. >> reporter: this hospital, the doctors have been put on so-called dirty teams to deal with coronavirus patients. it's the front line in the fight against the disease. cardiologist alfred wong was one of the first to volunteer. >> so, the roots -- >> how are people in your hospital getting this? >> so the roots of transmission of these viruses or coronavirus, they tran mitt throusmit throug

>> reporter: it's this level of infectiousness that dr. wong has to take extreme measures to make sure he doesn't become infected and spread the disease. >> when we are working, we are separated from the rest of the department. we have our own office. we don't eat inside can teens. we do take a break and hide somewhere to eat. and after work, we don't go home. >> so where are you staying? >> i'm staying in a hotel near the hospital. >> reporter: joshua, if you want to get a sense of where this could be going, just look at italy. italy overnight imposed very strict quarantine measures, 16 million people now living under some sort of closure, mostly in central and northern italian provinces with cities including venice and milan impacted. no one in or out of those areas without special permission, but not just travel restrictions, restaurants, operating limited hours, bars, discos, closed. mass and funeral also -- funerals also suspended.

and it's simply a factor of testing. italy knew that it had an outbreak. but italy didn't realize how big the problem was. over the weekend they started testing more people and the number of known cases went from around 1,000 to 5,000. and a virologist i spoke to thinks we could see similar problems around the globe as people do more tests and have more cases they knew about. they have to decide are they going to take these drastic societally impacting measures to -- to quarantine the population or not? >> that's nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel. do set your dvr for richard's special report tonight. he'll take us inside the fight to contain coronavirus from hong kong to washington. join us for "on assignment: outbreak." tonight at 10:00 eastern, 7:00 pacific on msnbc. still to come this hour, we'll look ahead to the next round of primaries. hundreds of delegates are up for

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this tuesday, democrats in six states will cast their votes. the sanders and biden campaigns have been fine-tuning their strategies since super tuesday. this week we'll see how well that retooling has worked. senator sanders chose to forego his rally in mississippi. instead, he's campaigning alongside the reverend jesse jackson in grand rapids, michigan. jackson endorsed sanders this just morning. meanwhile, former vice president joe biden is focus on the southeast. he kicks off a rally next hour in mississippi. we're expecting his wife, dr. jill biden, to attend another event in tampa, florida, shortly. joining us now is basil smikle, lecturer at columbia university, democratic strategist and former executive director of the new york state democratic party. and desiree barnes, former obama

press white house assistant. welcome to the program. let's do something about that tie. no ties on sunday now. >> i'll take it off. >> no, it's all right. i will forgive you if you give me a good answer to this question. do these endorsements matter. jim clyburn's endorsement came in south carolina. biden rocked it in south carolina. we kind of knew he would. that wasn't a shock. what about these two endorsements? >> neither of them are shocks and will have the same i impact that jim clyburn's endorsement had. for the sanders endorsement, that's a 30-plus year relationship that sanders had going back to jesse jackson running for president. if you look back to the reforms that jesse pushed through including proportional delegate allocation, that is something that sanders supported and trying to push the dnc for similar reforms. the kamala harris endorsement, you know, it was expected. but if i'm -- if i'm bernie sanders, i'm going to be hitting joe biden on the hypocrisy. because if you think about

harris' initial comments at that first debate -- >> mm-hmm. >> pushed him on bussing and talked about his relationship with segregationists. the sanders campaign is going to look at that and say, well, see how these establishment folks work? >> she got a bump from that. >> she got a bump from that and now going to endorse him. a few voters will come out because of it, but not the same endorsement that clyburn gave. >> desiree, i'm reminded of that expression that nothing succeeds like success. >> yes. >> joe biden riding the wave from super tuesday to the coming tuesday, where does bernie sanders project success? particularly with this endorsement. he seems to be doing better with younger black voters than older black voters, not awesome, but better. i don't know if reverend jackson speaks to young black voters the way he speaks to their parents. >> it reminds me of the jay-z song, reverend al sharpton, how is he supposed to help him? it's an issue that younger

minority voters don't necessarily look to old guards of civil rights leaders for answers, but i think it's a larg larger conversation about voting and endorsement. how much weight does an endorsement hold? in 2016, you had president obama come out and endorse, you know, senator clinton and secretary clinton. and, you know, again, that wasn't enough to necessarily push everyone over the line. i think people need to be more outbound focused on voter turnout in this election. so i do think endorsements hold some weight, but it is not enough. because what we're seeing is that folks under 30 aren't turning out. at least they didn't turn out on super tuesday in the same way. >> i'm glad you mentioned turnout, desiree. moderates, conservatives in the democratic party. if you look at the demographics for missouri, mississippi, michigan, there is a decent number of voters that describe themselves as moderate or even conservative within those democratic electorates. do we expect either campaign to

actively reach out or hope those voters show up? >> no, i think this favors joe biden, particularly a state like mississippi. look at what happened last super tuesday. he was doing well in a lot of the states that will probably be red in the general election, but, you know, obviously have voters that match his sort of personality and voting history throughout his career. so i think they actually hold weight and could carry joe biden over the top, especially if sanders does well in michigan. going back to proportional delegate allegation. if sanders does well in michigan sort of right there with joe biden, and joe biden actually picks up substantial wins in a place like mississippi and some of the other states, it actually is -- can mitigate what happens in michigan. >> desiree, we know that bernie sanders has not been doing gangbusters with black voters. he's still in the race. clearly he has a strategy to win. >> yeah. >> even if he doesn't scoop up black voters. >> right. >> i mean, i kind of wonder how critical we actually are to the outcome of this nomination, especially because the last

election proved that you can become president by kind of carving off corners of just the right districts in just the right places. >> right. well, you know, i hate to say that i am biased, but i think we always need to be part of the conversation and at the table. we need to be seen in leadership positions as well within these campaigns and structures, but i do believe that, you know, although it may not put someone over the top, i do think it would be a -- of gross negligence to, you know, sleep on the african-american vote. but also i want people to start thinking about people of color in a larger audience, right? southeast asian, aapi. >> yep. >> these are folks who need to be engaged at the same levels that, you know, perhaps a white voter in iowa needs to be engaged with. >> if i can just add very quickly. >> quickly. >> those black voters' endorsements that these candidates are getting, if the winning candidate doesn't turn around and create policy -- >> absolutely. >> -- that engages these voters, my concern is that you're going

to see a lot of black folks leave the democratic party in droves. it's a bigger problem for sort of how the party moves forward and who is engages, especially if you have donald trump trying to chip away. i don't know how successful it will be. >> right. >> but he is trying to chip away at some of the support that african-americans give the democrats. >> and i think michigan is crucial to senator sanders. >> that was one of the comments that came up in jesse jackson's statement about the black firewall that joe biden has kind of positing that voters should rethink what that black firewall has done for voters. basil smikle, desiree barnes, i'm cool with the tie. >> next time. >> i'll wear my cornell hoodie. >> there you go. i'll forgive you this time. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having us. just ahead, seattle is at the center of america's coronavirus outbreak. we'll take a deeper look at life in western western michigan as that booming region recalibrates for life under an outbreak. don't go away. it eliminates odors with no heavy perfumes, so you can feel good about using it in your home.

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as the government races to contain coronavirus, one u.s. city is seeing skyrocketing

numbers. washington state has had more than 100 cases, 16 people have died, nearly all in king county, and seattle is in king county. five more counties are reporting at least one positive case. now, telecommunicatiting is not new for amazon or microsoft. both companies urging employees to work from home. a number of schools are also closed. let's bring in margaret o'mara. welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> what's the biggest change in life in and around seattle that you've noticed as a result of coronavirus? >> well, it's been a really weird and kind of a scary week. a lot has happened really fast and there's been a lot of uncertainty. the traffic that has been escalating over the last few years has pretty much died down. people are retrenching at home, working from home, studying from

home. the university of washington where i teach on friday announced that it was going -- switching to online classes for the remainder of march, remainder of our winter term, starting tomorrow. >> how's that been going with the students? >> well, i think they've, you know, even last week was -- when we were still teaching in-person, it was an odd week, i'll be honest. people, you know, at the -- at the -- on the one hand, young, healthy college students are not at risk for -- maybe at risk for contracting the virus, but not at risk unless they have underlying health conditions. so -- but they -- you know, it's -- so much is unclear. it's unclear about how extensions the cases are in this community are, quite frankly, across the country. it's unclear what, you know, what the next few weeks or few months are going to look like, and it's really forced us to not only re-evaluate what we're doing, but appreciate kind of the way normal life works. >> what about government

responses from the city of seattle, king county, from the state government in olympia, how do people feel about the way that their more local governments are dealing with all of this? >> well, i think they've been a real, you know, local governments are the resource now, not only in seattle, but elsewhere, and i think that seattleites, people in the greater seattle area have been paying even closer attention to the news, listening to the news conferences from local leaders. there has been a real consistency of messaging. a lot of messaging. i think we're really lucky in that we have some really preeminent research -- health research centers here, including at the university of washington, that have been an the forefront of investigating the origins and the spread of the coronavirus as well as working on a vaccine. and so that has been really useful. and, look, with all that consistency and that messaging, the uncertainty and the -- is palpable. you know, the situation, as our

leaders tell us, is evolving by the day. >> margaret o'mara is a contributing opinion writer at "the new york times." margaret, thanks for talking to us. >> it's great to be here. thank you. >> a federal judge is criticizing attorney general william barr's credibility for his handling of the mueller report. a scathing review from d.c. judge reggie walton called out barr's lack of candor for inconsistencies that walton says barr's statements about the mueller report come -- regarding barr's statements about the mueller report when it was a secret. the judge said those statements do not match the contents that turned out to be more damaging to president trump. now, because of those perceived discrepancies, walton concluded he will conduct an independent review of mueller's full report to see what the justice department left out. he's ordered justice to privately show him the censored portions. worth noting, judge walton is an appointee of president george w. bush. paul butler is here to talk more about this unusual ruling.

he's an msnbc legal analyst and a former federal prosecutor. paul, thanks for being with us. welcome. >> great to be here. i took off my tie. now we're twins. you're the better looking guy but we're twins. >> yes, indeed. you flatter me. thank you so much. this statement from judge walton, as i understand it, you know judge walton. >> i do. >> i'm guessing this is not out of character for him. >> this is an extraordinary statement about an attorney general. what the judge said is that the attorney general of the united states cannot be trusted. anything he says has to be independently verified. judge walton used words like "distorted" and "misleading" and "calculated" to describe barr's actions with regards to the mueller report. if nice kinds of allegations had been made about an ordinary federal law enforcement officer like i was, i'd be subject to an ethics investigation and possible removal from office. >> now, this case has to do with requests for the unredacted mueller report from the electronic privacy center, epic,

buzzfeed and others. this isn't a matter of attorney general barr breaking the law, per se. how do you see this in terms of larger fallout and what this means for the justice department's relationship with the judiciary? >> that's a great question, joshua. so i think there are three issues. one is the unredacted mueller report. we still haven't seen it and what judge walton has made clear is we cannot trust what bill barr and the justice department says about it. the american people should see it with our own eyes. >> but we still might not see it. >> we very well might not. again, what the judge is doing, though, is independently looking at it. so he will get to see it and let the american people know whether there's important information that has been withheld from us. but the other important concerns here is it's more evidence that bill barr has turned the justice department. into president trump's own law firm. and finally, what barr is

accused of distorting is evidence that the russians were meddling in the 2016 election. well, guess what? there's a 2020 election. there's evidence that the russians are continuing to meddle and interfere. you'd hope that the attorney general would be on their case. rather, he seems to be trying to protect the president. >> before we move on, does the attorney general have a leg to stand on here? i mean, the justice department made the decision of what pieces to redact and what pieces to release? i think if i was a doj official, i could make the argument back to the judiciary and say, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, separation of powers. this is in our purview as the justice department. you may not like it. we'll show you the whole report, but don't tell us how to do our job. >> so one of the concerns that the judge has is about, frankly, bill barr's ethics, whether he can be trusted by the american people. it's not just the redactions. judge walton also mentioned that two days after he got the mueller report, bill barr took it upon himself to release this summary that was distorted, that

didn't accurately play -- and it's not only the judge who is complaining, robert mueller complained on three separate occasions about bill barr and how he was mischaracterizing the work that the mueller team had done. >> legal analyst paul butler. paul, thanks very much. >> great to be here. coming up next, doctors say they are in short supply of coronavirus testing kits despite what president trump has said. an infectious disease expert will help us separate fact from fiction about coronavirus. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job

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health officials in hotspots like california and washington state are saying that sick people are going untested due to intense shortages of test kits. now, last week the trump administration promised that at least 1 million kits would be sent out to labs nationwide. on thursday, vice president mike pence acknowledged that the government had failed to meet that goal. joining us to break it all down is an infectious disease epidemiologyist. welcome. >> how big is the gap between what you would suspect of what we know of in terms of infected people in the u.s. and what we're not currently detecting? >> well, here's the situation. we don't know how many people are infected currently because the testing is woefully inadequate. with covid-19, we need to follow the data, and right now we don't have data here in the united states. we're at least two weeks behind because we have not gotten our testing up and running. so we have to look at the global data. and what the global data is

showing us is that there are a lot of people that are infected out there. the people that are infected are very likely those who have severe disease are very possibly going to end up in icus. and our hospitals are not ready to be able to handle the number of patients that we're going to be having here in the united states with covid-19. >> okay. i'm putting you in charge of the testing regime. you can write the whole thing top to bottom. you have been hired today. what's the first thing you do tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m.? >> the first thing you do tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. is you make testing available everywhere. by contracting with labs that are able to do it and do it quickly. university of washington is already up and running and ready to go. they just sent a message out the other night saying they're willing to help. there are many other laboratories that are ready to go. we need testing up and ready. but the next thing we have to do is we have to make sure that the population really understands what needs to happen next. what needs to happen is that we

-- that we all need to take the right measures to be able to slow the spread of the virus. the virus needs to slow down. why? because our hospitals are not ready to accept the number of patients that could be coming in in the near future. what we know about covid-19 from the global data is that approximately 20% of the people who come in with disease have severe disease. and of those, 5% can be critical. and those people are going to need hospital beds. they're going to need icus. they're going to need ventilators and we just don't have enough. >> right. >> so the things that we can do is slow down the virus spread so that our hospitals are not overwhelmed. >> should we be traveling right now? >> this is critical. >> i've heard about a number of people on cruise ships who got infected, travellers got infected. should we be cancelling our vacations, spring break trips and so forth? >> i think everyone needs to do what they can to slow the spread

of the virus. this is something that everybody can participate in. >> doctor, i'm sorry to interrupt you. i didn't ask that question properly. let me ask it a different way. if i am thinking through whether to cancel a trip, what are, like, the top one or two questions i should be asking myself? >> well, i think everybody should be reconsidering travel right now. you need to think to yourself, first of all, am i at risk? not only am i at risk because do i have an underlying condition, am i elderly, do i fall into one of the high-risk groups do i know anybody in my community i could potentially spread this to that may be having an underlying condition or is elderly? i think the vast majority of the population does know somebody that they would like not to get this virus and not to be going into a hospital where there -- that may be overwhelmed. so i think that the answer to those questions are, yes. i think it's time to reconsider travel if it's not necessary. i'm not saying for people who have urgent business that they cannot stop --

>> right. >> -- to not -- to not go on a trip, but i do think people who have voluntary travel should start to think about it. >> doctor, we appreciate the advice. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> now, if coronavirus has done us any good, it has reminded us to wash our hands regularly. the cdc says we should scrub our hands for 20 seconds, roughly as long as it takes to sing happy birthday twice. wet got better hand washing hits. how about beyonce's chorus of "love on top?" that's about 20 seconds long. ♪ finally you put my love on top ♪ ♪ baby, because you're the one that i love ♪ ♪ baby, you're the one that i need ♪ ♪ you're the only one that i see ♪ ♪ baby, babe, it's you >> it's never a bad time to play beyonce. if you're a child of the '80s, you might play the chorus to

heaven is a place on earth. dolly parton can help us keep our hands so clean with her classic "jolene." ♪ jolene, i'm begging of you, please don't take my man ♪ >> and if coronavirus has your palms sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, you can clean up your hands to stay calm and ready with eminem's hit, lose yourself." in all seriousness,r precaution, please remember that the 20-second rule also applies to hand sanitizers. the cdc recommends using one with at least 60% alcohol, that's 6-0 percent and rubbing your hands until they are dry. we're back in a minute. stay close. sed, while an optimal melatonin level means no next-day grogginess. zzzquil pure zzzs. naturally superior sleep.

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1.8 gigs here in frigid omaha. almost 2 gigs here in los angeles. that's outrageous. it's like an eight-lane highway compared to a two-land dirt road. long voting lines caused major issues for a number of voters during super tuesday. some said they gave up and went home after waiting as long as six hours to cast their vote in the primaries.

texas and california were two states facing the most severe issues. both had changed from a precinct-based system to a vote-center model which lets voters vote anywhere. poll watchers watched a huge turnout this week. six states are voting on tuesday. award-winning chef andrew simmer has a five-part special series here on msnbc. each sunday, what happens' eating america has tackled topics like immigration, climate change and drug and alcohol addiction. it shares meals with voting rights activists and legislators. >> the voter i.d. law that you sponsored -- >> yes, sir. >> -- how many people have been convicted of voter impersonation in alabama? >> since i've been the secretary of state, zero. >> so why a voter i.d. law? >> well, there's a reason we don't have in-person voter fraud

because we have the i.d. law that would prevent that from occurring. >> you've got a law on the books that's intended to solve a problem that, you know, we've got a better chance of being struck by lightning than it actually happening, and it has a negative consequence of disenfranchising a whole group of people. >> i don't see where that is because since we're breaking every record in the history of the state for participation -- >> andrew zimmern joins us in the studio. andrew, welcome. >> thank you very much. >> i'm struggling to see how food and voting connect. how did that surprise you? >> it was the genesis for this episode. many years ago i started traveling state by state, city by city and country by country all around the world, but certainly got a chance to go all across america, making a couple of series for another network for about 15 years. and one of the things that i learned, especially going through the black belt in the south, is how many places

refused to allow the civil rights leaders of the '50s and '60s a place to congregate, to meet, to plan, and they were hidden away in straungrestauran. they found sanctuary in restaurants. there were eateries that provided them with food and coffee, armies march on their stomachs. if we had food we might have had a different outcome. protest songs and food fueled that movement. in talking to some of the people who were around back then, i is started to get a little more woke to the idea the mississippi model from the 1870s, the voting laws put onto state books that were struck down by the voter rights act that johnson, president johnson enacted in '64, in fact, the preclearance clause had been rolled back i think 12 years ago -- >> preclearance, you're talking about it requires states with a

history of voter suppression to get permission -- >> the minute that rolled back, a whole bunch of states jumped in there, one of them being alabama and enacting a voter i.d. law that it was unnecessary. >> so optimistic are you now having traveled the country and broken bread with people across the spectrum? >> less optimistic than i was before i made the show. the simple fact of the matter is you go state by state, county by county. you talk to people from both sides of this. there is a sort of like -- the cards read mentality. secretary of state miller will tell you, yes, we require voter i.d. and he does not care that voter -- that i.d., whether especially the types of i.d.s that are required at the polling place, are nearly impossible for impoverished people in the black belt, for example, in that state to go get. you have tens of thousands of potential voters in states, by the way, where our elections are

decided by such a small amount. the population of returning voters, people coming out of jails who are u.s. citizens -- >> right. >> -- and above the age of 18 in florida, some people estimate as much as 1.3 million people. if they come online and vote, it changes one of the biggest swing states in the american political history. >> very briefly before i let you go, any blowback, any upepilogu from the episodes? one claimed he was a kitchen worker in one of donald trump's restaurants. >> well, he was. we got no blow back at all from the trump administration on that or any spokespeople. tonight i think is going to be a controversial episode. it touches a third rail for a lot of people and we get into the endemic history of racism here in america in a very deep way. it exists and it's taking place, it's preventing people from getting to the ballot box. >> it's a terrific series.

congratulations on putting together a wonderful piece and for talking to us. >> thank you. >> set your dvr, what's eating america airs at 9:00 p.m. eastern 6:00 pacific. we'll give you a second to set your dvr and we'll be right back. try wayfair. you got this! woah. yeah! let me try! all alright, get it! blow it up! that's what i'm talking about. except that's my seat, so. all right, so maybe after the movie let's talk about that bedroom of yours! when was she in our bedroom? wean air force veteran made of doing what's right,. not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it -

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10 eastern. it's 4 eastern. it continues with alyssa menendez. >> hello, everyone. i'm alicia menendez. it is 4:00 at headquarters in new york. today there are new concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. the number of cases here in the u.s. and around the world continue to rise, including the first confirmed case in washington, d.c. there are also new questions about the government's response to the outbreak. political reporting, current and former officials blame president trump for stifling the effort to combat the virus. meantime, the two-man race to run against the president got another set of big-name endorsements this morning. senator kamala harris backing joe biden, and jesse jackson supporting bernie sanders. >> there is so much at stake in this election, guys. so join me in supporting joe and let's get this done. >> i stand with him because he stands with you. >> julian castro has not endorsed biden or sanders. i will ask him about that later this hour. we are looking ahead to another

round of primaries on tuesday,