mike allen, thank you. going to be reading axios am in a little bit. sign up for the newsletter at signup.axi signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this friday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. if you speak to the head of intelligence right now, you speak to the head, they did say that i was given a briefing when i said i was given it. not before. they also said that it wasn't specific, and it was not a panic briefing. it wasn't like, "oh, we're going to be invaded." it was in the january, later january. >> mr. president, so you're saying that you got a briefing in january about -- >> i'm not saying it, no, no. you didn't hear me. i said, intelligence is saying it. >> he just -- >> president trump -- >> -- said he got a briefing. >> i mean, even the director is laughing in my ear. >> willie, he just said he had a briefing. wait, but then, "i had a

briefing." "wait, no." >> he literally refuted himself in real time, less than a minute. >> willie, maybe i need to stop calling him a day trader. maybe -- >> moment trader. >> -- he is a second trader. >> well, he is definitely day-to-day. he changes his positions. but he changed his position in the course of one sentence right there. clearly, he is not quite clear on when he was told and what he was told. we are pretty clear, and we'll walk through it here. >> yeah. >> well, it was the president there confirming and denying within a minute's time the "washington post" reporting from this week, that he was repeatedly briefed on the coronavirus early this year. there's reporting to back that up, even when he says he wasn't, but he was. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, may 1st. among with joe, willie, and me, we have republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del persio. and host of "politics nation"

and president of the national action network, reverend al sharpton joining us on this friday. good to see you both. >> happy may. >> oh, my gosh, it's may. >> you've seen the t-shirts. this is a unique leap year, 29 days in february. >> yeah. >> two years in may. april was, like, ten years. >> longest month ever. >> we're going to see how long may is. >> may is going to drag out, too. >> yeah. >> the end of this weekend, stay at home orders and other restrictions will be eased or lifted in at least 21 states, affecting roughly 116 million americans. here are a few states we're keeping an eye on. today, georgia will lift a statewide shelter in place order for most of its 10.6 million residents. the order requires elderly and medical fragile residents to shelter in place until june 16th. connecticut is moving forward with its first step in a gradual, multi-stage process, of lifting restrictions on businesses and activities.

the rollback is expected to begin on may 20th, which would allow outdoor dining at restaurants. on monday, florida will ease restrictions statewide but will keep the three largest counties closed. and in california, state leaders are closing beaches after they were packed over the weekend despite social distancing ord s orders. dr. anthony fauci is warning to states that are beginning to reopen their economies but do not yet have the ability to do contract tracing. >> the only thing i can do is from 40,000 feet, just continue to urge the ones who don't have that capability to really go very slowly. and those that do, go by the guidelines. the guidelines are very, very explicit and very clear. there's a lot of leeway because we give the governors the opportunity to be very flexible. but you have to have the core principles of the guidelines. you can't just leap over things

and get into a situation where you're really tempting a rebound. that's the thing i get concerned about. i hope they don't do that. >> joe and willie, dr. fauci again stressed that states should follow federal guidelines and only reopen if they have a two-week decline in coronavirus cases, and the ability to identify, isolate, and contact trace people who test positive. that doesn't seem like we have that. >> no, we don't. willie, that's the madness of all these protests. we saw one in michigan yesterday where people were carrying around military style weapons, trying to intimidate legislators. it is pretty surprising that laws allow them to carry weapons around like that in the state legislature. that'll be another issue for another time. but what's so fascinating is that all these governors are doing, if you really look at it,

is they're following white house guidelines. it was donald trump who announced the guidelines from the white house last week. as dr. fauci has said, if they will follow the white house guidelines that donald trump put out there before he started darting around wildly, then states would have a much better chance of being able to be ensured that when they reopen business, those businesses could stay open, and their emergency rooms wouldn't be slammed. >> yeah. and the state of georgia has gotten a lot of attention for opening its up last week. that opens up even wider today. it's not just georgia. it's not just florida that's beginning to step in, as well. it's, as mika mentioned, places like connecticut and colorado, are looking at reopening. as you say, none of the states meet the full guidelines, the gating, as the white house put it, to take these next steps,

the next phase. there's no scale to keep tract of everyone with coronavirus and isolate all those people. but you're right, the governors have gotten mixed messages. he says, "liberate the state of michigan." on the other hand, he says he, quote, totally disagrees with governor kemp opening the state of georgia. speaking of michigan, yesterday, hundreds of people protested outside the state capitol building in lansing, calling for an end to the state's extended stay at home order. demonstrators chanting, "let us in," pushed inside the state capitol. several protesters tried to reach the house floor, where lawmakers were debating an extension of governor whitmer's state of emergency. many were armed. a state police spokesman told nbc news, it is legal in michigan to carry firearms, as long as it is done with lawsuit intent, and the weapon is visible. local senatw a local senator pr

officers-at-arms to prevent the demonstrators from getting in. thebated allowing the governor to use her extra powers during this time. reverend sharpton, most gun owners on social media said they'd never carry an ar-15 and try to break into the legislature in their state capitol. there you have it, those are the protesters who donald trump once said, "let's liberate the state." nor have we heard the president denounce these armed protesters. the real outrage, of people armed, going to the state capitol to confront legislators. first of all, we're talking about the preserving of life. these governors that have had a stay home order are doing it for

our health. we're not talking about them doing something punitive. they're doing something that would be preventive, of people getting very sick or, in fact, facing death. because we're still having thousands of people die. we're looking at 63,000 american deaths. but i can only imagine, joe, mika, and willie, imagine if that had been protesters on the left going to a state capitol armed, or black protesters. there would have been a much different reaction. where are those that would be calling for people that would have to denounce them as rioters and be mass arrests? so the tolerance of this kind of behavior in the face of what they're protesting is something amazing to me. >> i mean, carrying ar-15s into state capitols -- >> oh, my gosh. >> -- protesting provisions that the white house themselves,

white house medical professionals themselves said were necessary to save lives. this is a unique look from a president who claims to be in charge of the party of life, talking about, quote, liberating michigan. it's another bad mistake though. as we look at this small group, as we look at this extreme group of people, just to let you know how isolated they are -- i'm reading from david brooks' column today, "america is united right now. an abc news poll shows 98% of democrats and 82% of republicans support social distancing rules. that's about nine in ten. according to a yahoo! news yougov survey, americans think a second wave of the virus would somewhat be likely if the lockdowns were ended today. a pew survey found 89%, nine in ten, of republicans and

democrats support the bipartisan federal aid packages. according to a "usa today" poll, increased testing, supported by 90%. temporary halting of immigration supported by almost 80%. continuing to lockdown through the end of april, almost 70%. so, susan, you can go through all of these poll numbers. we've talked about it for some time, donald trump is trying to create a wedge issue out of a pandemic. some of donald trump's supporters online and in the media are trying to create a wedge issue out of this pandemic that has killed 63,000 people. you can't have a -- you can't declare a cultural war against a pandemic because, well, the pandemic always wins. here we have it again yesterday, in a way that's not going to help donald trump. >> no, it's not. and it reminds me of the scene

in "jaws," joe, when the mayor demands the beaches be open on the fourth of july. people are all out there. they're afraid to go in, but finally, this brave family goes in. nothing happens, so everyone else goes in. what happens? the shark is next door in the shallow cove. that's what i think we're going to see happen as these states open up. people are going to think it's okay to go out there, and they're going to go further than they should. we're going to see this virus come back with a vengeance. it's just set up for that. the president, if he wants to, quote, win this war, he should make sure people stay healthy. he should not be encouraging people to open up their states. he should encourage them to follow what dr. fauci and others are saying. z >> i want to remind everyone how quickly this moved. march 1st, this is nbc news tally, the u.s. cases, 89 on

march the 1st of coronavirus. april 1st, 218,000. may 1st, nearly 1.1 million cases of coronavirus. that's in two months, to go from 89 to 1.1 million. that's just how quickly this can take off. it is how quickly this can spread without social distancing. that's the point dr. fauci was trying to make. we've said it a thousand times on the show, we are sensitive to getting people back to work. we know everyone. we have family members, friends worried about their small businesses. everybody wants to be back at their job. you have to find that balance of going back safely. >> the thing is, let me repeat it again, all we're saying here is listen to dr. fauci. listen to dr. birx. listen to the guidelines put forward, not by nancy pelosi, not by chuck schumer, not by left-wingers, right, not by the

biden campaign, but by the trump white house. if they would just follow the guidelines that were put forward by the trump white house, you know, we would see, i think, america begin to safely go back to work, try to avoid that second big wave. again, donald trump puts down the guidelines, and then can't stay out of his own way. he starts talking about liberating michigan. at the same time, he is criticizing other states that are opening up. mika, there is no consistency. as always, donald trump always tries to make this pandemic about himself. alex, do we have the clip from yesterday? let's run this clip. >> are you thinking about leading the country though in a moment of mourning for all of the lives lost, the more than 60,000 people?

>> of course i am. i don't think anybody can feel any worse than i do about all of the death and destruction that's so needless. nobody. but i also have to make sure that we handle the situation well. nobody is thinking about it more. nobody -- nobody has spent more time late in the evening thinking about what's happened to this country in a short period of time. at the same time, we have to get our country open again. we're doing that, step by step. tennessee is an example. step by step, we're opening up our country. and i really believe that, next year, we can be, maybe even be -- we have a lot of stimulus. maybe even be on. we'll see about, by the way, package four, phase four. i really hope that we can be as good or better. i built it once, so we're going to build it again. >> again, rev, he's asked to

empathize with the families of the 63,000 dead americans, who died in a pandemic that he said would magically go away and was only one person. and the president makes it about himself. nobody has done more than this. nobody has done more than that. i built the economy. i'll build it again. he is just simply incapable of showing any empathy toward the americans. actually, millions of americans who are suffering through this, whether it's through medical challenges, through death, having loved ones who died, or the economic challenges that are mounting up by the day. >> the lack of his capacity to show empathy and to identify with the pain of those that have lost loved ones for no reason at all, other than a natural pandemic that he and others acted on too late, is mind

boggling. you should have, in somebody's heart, in somebody's mind, the capacity to say, "i feel and identify with the pain and let's pause," without rushing into a defense of your own actions and promoting your own so-called virtue, as you see them. it is mind-boggling we'd have such insensitivity sitting as the head of state. still ahead on "morning joe," new jersey reported its highest, one-day death toll. on the same day, governor phil murphy met with the president at the white house. up next, we'll talk to a member of the reopening commission. richard besser joins the discussion. plus, the former vice president of the united states, 2020 candidate joe biden, is our exclusive guest. up next, before that interview, we will address the allegations made by a former aide in his senate office, tara reid, who has said mr. biden

assaulted her in a senate building in 1993. it is a claim the former vice president denies. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. hey allergy muddlers... achoo! ...do your sneezes turn heads? try zyrtec... ...it starts working hard at hour one... and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. zyrtec muddle no more.

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welcome back to "morning joe." president trump appears to be getting ahead of his intelligence community when it comes to tracking the origin of the coronavirus. the president says he has seen evidence that shows it came from a lab in wuhan, china. just hours before that, the office of the director of national intelligence put out a statement that reads this way, "the intelligence community concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the covid-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified. the i.c. will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals, or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in wuhan."

while the statement says the investigation is still under way, the president made these remarks when he was asked about it by reporters yesterday. >> you said a moment ago you'll soon have information on where this virus originated. the director of national intelligence today put out a statement saying they believe it was naturally occurring, it was not manmade. >> who was that? >> officer of national intelligence. >> who was the man that made that statement? >> the od -- >> national intelligence. >> my question is, have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the wuhan institute was the origin of this virus? >> yes, i have. yes, i have. >> are you suggesting that maybe you have some evidence that this was not a naturally occurring virus? >> we're going to see -- you're talking about the virus and where it came from? >> yeah. >> we're going to see where it is. we're going to see where it comes from. >> what gives you a high degree of confidence that this originated from the wuhan institute of verology? >> i can't tell you that.

i'm not allowed to tell you that. >> are you insisting, or would you insist, on china allowing u.s. investigators -- >> yeah. >> -- into that lab? >> i don't want to go into that. we're going to see. so far, i think china has been trying to be, or at least they seem to be trying to be somewhat transparent with us. we're going to find out. you'll be learning in the not-too-distant future. it is a terrible thing that happened. whether they made a mistake or whether it started off as a mistake, and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose? >> just asking questions. meanwhile, senior officials tell the "washington post" that the administration is now exploring ways to punish china for its handling of the virus, possibly by demanding financial compensation. joe, it is not every day that the office of the director of national intelligence puts out an on the record statement about anything, but it did yesterday, saying they're exploring two possibilities, that it was either animal-to-human contact or a mistake in the wuhan

laboratory. shortly thereafter, a couple hours later, the president goes out and wants a name, first of all, from the reporter, "who put the statement out?" office of the director of national intelligence. "yeah, but who?" then he asks questions, musing about the public security and health. >> he's winging it. he is winging it on some of the most important questions that are arising right now. yeah, that was -- susan del del persio, what a moment, "yeah, i'm sure it came from a lab." he's told his own director of national intelligence, that that office said they weren't sure yet. they were still investigating it. the president is winging it, just like he wings it every day on china. he is back now. he is back now, just as he did on january the 24th, when he praised china and xi for the

transparency in handling this virus. at the same time, they were refusing to cooperate with our scientists and doctors. he is back to praising china for their transparency. it's remarkable. >> yet, not shocking at all. that's what the president does. he constantly wings it. what stood out there to me, joe, was how he said, "i'm not allowed to talk about that." when he he said i'm not allowed to do anything? i found it interesting. more importantly, i think he is concerned. when it comes to ppe, testing, reagents, and swabs, it mostly comes from china. there may be some behind-the-scenes back and forth that the president is concerned about in putting too much blame. they could hamper our recovery. >> yeah. you know, rev, from the president's statements, where he's just talking off the top of his head, comes conspiracy theories on the internet.

even yesterday, you saw some of his supporters, some people on the internet starting to suggest that it was like a bio weapon. nobody said that. the president never even said that. just said it may have come out of a lab by mistake. again, he can't just sit back and let the doctors and the scientists do their jobs. he's got to chime in on health cures that end up being bad for americans. he can't sit back and let his own intel community do their jobs. he's always got to go out and specula speculate. he's got to make things worse. >> it's called being president, to sit back and let those that are supposed to bring you and the american people the facts, do that. you preside and make the right decisions, have the right people with the right expertise, execute what is good for the

american people. he wants to be part of the commentary, part of tit. don't go to noon, joe, he may pick up the conspiracy theory that this was some kind of weapon. he plays on all sets, and it is amazing, when we're looking at 63,000 dead americans and the people that have been tested positive. they're almost collateral damage to a conversation of conspiracy theories and a president who entertains it all. our priorities are to be how we stop this, how we take care of those that are sick, and the potential danger ahead as we're opening these cities and stats,s i think too early. that ought to be our priority. not him playing games with who said something in intelligence, and what about this, what about that. the facts as we know them are so tire that they need our

attention, not speculation on some what ifs. >> so we have -- thank you so much, rev. this morning, we're going to be talking to joe biden. going to be asking him about sexual harassment allegations that have been made against him. we're going -- next block, we're going to be putting that in perspective with a man he's going to be running against. also, we're going to be looking at the media's double standard in covering joe biden and brett kavanaugh. that's when we return. this is an athlete, twenty reps deep, sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. get the perfectly grilled flavors of an outdoor grill indoors, and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do even more,

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we are, as you know, during this time, obviously, everybody is pressed. we have three people that are working in our studio right now, in our control room. a lot of hamster wheels lined up against the wall. they're running in circles. that's bringing power. of course, willie, that's how you and i have been running our house for years. now, 30 rock has learned from us. >> very efficient. >> we're working on a couple of things that we'll get to you next block. our three people inside the control room are feverishly working to put a couple packages up online, which they've been working on all night. willie, let's talk a little bit about this david brooks column.

i think this is the underlying political truth of our time, in this pandemic, that donald trump hasn't figured out yet. he's very good leading up to 2016, understanding about the 20 years, the 25 years of divisiveness, and how to exploit that. but as david brooks wrote today, as this nation is unifying, divisiveness is falling flat. you can see this in the numbers. 90% of americans still support the social distancing outlines. overwhelming majority don't want to go back too soon. i'm sure they want to follow dr. fauci's guidelines. dr. fauci, in a poll yesterday, along with chris cuomo, were seen as the most trusted people to hear. >> governor cuomo. >> did i say chris? >> mm-hmm. >> governor cuomo. >> wow. >> yeah, my bad.

governor cuomo, along with dr. fauci, were seen as the most trusted people. sorry, my bad. and, of course, donald trump is at the bottom. stop laughing, willie. you don't make it easier for me. come on. >> come on, man. i'm going to get back to my original point, after going down a wild rabbit trail right there. >> i'm still with ya. >> exactly. the bigger point, other than me confusing brothers, is that the country is unified. you can see it in one poll after another. donald trump, on the same day he is talking about getting america's children back to school, because he probably saw something on a news network about some parents were frustrated about having to work and teach their kids at the same time. that same day, you read a poll that showed 85% of americans are not ready to send their children

back to school and do not believe that would be good for this country. again, he's misreading all the signs. we are unified. >> he is misreading the signs, and he is misreading polls, which he has lived and died by since he launched his campaign. he'd go up to every rally and every podium and pull a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and just start reading off the polls that reflected well on him. the polling we see shows what we sort of sense in our lives, which is, of course, people want their kids back in school. of course people want their kids running around with their friends, playing little league and having their dance recitals. of course they want to be back at work, earning their paychecks. of course they're worried about their small businesses. but they understand, because of the public information made available by president trump's white house task force about coronavirus, how important it is to hold fast, until we can get through this and safely get everyone back to work. as you said, the numbers are 85% to 90%, not of democrats, but of

americans who believe that, without serious testing, we shouldn't go back to work or back to school. governor phil murphy met with president trump in the white house, praising him for his support of getting equipment to his state. the federal government is giving new jersey hundreds of thousands of pieces of ppe and coronavirus test kits. this comes just days after the state recorded its highest ever, one-day death toll. joining us now, president and ceo of the robert woods johnson foundation, dr. richard besser. he is a former acting director of the ccdc, and appointed by governor murphy to a board coordinating the state's reopening. great to see you this morning. we talked an awful lot the last couple weeks about striking this balance between public health and getting people back to work so they can earn their livelihoods and put food on the table. let's take new jersey, where you're on the board right now. how are you looking at the balance in obviously, new jersey has spiked against. it is behind new york in terms

of its cases and delawares, but rising. where do you see that balance from your seat? >> yeah, the internal new jersey board hasn't met. the seven-state coordinating council that i sit on, as well, has met a number of times. it is a balance. everyone wants to get people back to work. you have to do it slowly, carefully, and based on the best public health science. that science says it is not safe to do it until you're able to test in a very different way than we're doing now. you have to test anyone with even mild symptoms. those people, while they're do well with the infection, they can spread it to others. when you identify those people, you have to be able to provide them with a safe place to isolate. the people who i contacted with -- safe places to quarantine, so they don't take this infection back to their homes and infect their friends and their neighbors and their family. what we're seeing is black americans, latinos, are getting

hit really, really hard. part of that is due to exposure. as we open up the economy, essential workers, including more people in the work force, they are going to be exposed if you don't have standards and guidelines as to how workers should protect themselves. what to do, you have to have the on and quarantine. that's going to require dollars from the federal government. states don't have the resources to provide the social services that are necessary to make this really work. >> dr. besser, what is your view of some of these states that have started to go back, georgia, florida, we mentioned connecticut is looking at stepping back in now, colorado. it's not a red state thing. it's states across the country that are sort of in a piecemeal way, trying to go back. the state of florida, restaurants and retail will be open again on monday, but not in some of the most densely populated areas in south florida, around miami. what do you make of their approaches, where they say, "yeah, we get it, people could get sick, but we also know we

have millions of people who need to get back to work"? >> yeah. when i led cdc at the start of the swine flu pandemic, we saw different things taking place in different states. we made an intentional, deliberate effort to learn from those, to see what was working and what wasn't. it may be that some of the things being tried will work. i'm concerned that there's not sufficient testing capacity, and that our public health work force hasn't geared up for what's called contact tracing. identifying all the people who have been in contact with sick people. there are some states that are having very low rates of infection, so you would expect things to be different in a montana than you would in a new jersey. beyond that, beyond the states that are really not having much disease, states that have incredible amount of hospital capacity, it's very early to think about doing much in the way of opening up economies. >> dr. besser, do you share the view that dr. fauci has

expressed many times, that this will come back in the fall? because the president of the united states has sent the message that he thinks it is going to go away and disappear, disagreeing with the doctors who stand next to him. if that is true, what are the implications for school? i think a lot of parents are thinking, let's ride out the summer. september comes, we get back to the way we were a couple of months ago. how are you looking ahead to the fall right now? >> well, i think you have to plan for the likelihood that this virus will still be with us in the fall. as the fall continues, that influenza virus will join in. if, by some chance this virus is gone, which i don't think it will be, terrific. your planning won't need to be used. but whether you're lookingcente schools, higher education, there needs to be standards and recommendations from the cdc that states can apply. otherwise, you'll see a patchwork there. when you think about higher education, students coming from all over the world, all over the country, into different states,

you want everyone to be working out of the same playbook and understand what the risks are and what the values are of trying to get some kind of ba gathering together. it is too soon to know. if you had to make the call right now, whether you'd open schools labor day, i think the chances are that what school will look like after labor day is nothing like what it looked like three months ago. >> that's going to be tough for a lot of parents and kids to hear. it may be the truth. dr. richard besser, former acting director of the cdc, thanks so much, as always, for your time. we appreciate it. we are about one hour away from our exclusive interview with joe biden, during which he will address allegations of sexual assault against him. we'll be right back on "morning joe."

there's been a lot of discussion and debate recently about how news outlets handled and covered the recent allegation of joe biden by tara reade, a staff assistant in biden's office. we'll get to what she alleges he did to her in 1993 in a moment. first, let's talk about the criticism by some, particularly on the right, that the media has not applied the same standard to this allegation against biden as it did the allegations against judge brett kavanaugh, when he was undergoing his confirmation process. we think that's a good thing. the media should not apply what seemed to be a kavanaugh standard to joe biden. the media should not apply the same standard most applied to judge kavanaugh to donald trump. the media should not apply a

kavanaugh standard to any public figure. the blanket and absolute standard of simply believing all women is a notion we dismissed here on the show early on. the standard for the media in covering sexual assault allegations needs to be to report the facts. listen to the accuser. give the accused full due process, both men and women. we were very clear about that on the show during the kavanaugh story. >> on cable news shows, you heard yesterday experts opining, basically calling kavanaugh everything but an attempted rapist. we should all sit back. we should wait. many over the weekend on cable news convicted brett kavanaugh of attempted rape. even some calling him a serial sexual predator when, in fact,

none of us know what happened. >> it's not just twitter. it's the media that's in a very serious position right now. if you watch, you know, 24-hour coverage of this story, you may see four or five analysts in a row being brought on to convict judge kavanaugh. there's a need for balance here because the more that you put one side on, or if you have a focus group with republican operatives in it, you know, pushing the other side of the story. there are allegations here. they are not proven. there is the law. there is a push for an investigation. these are the parts that we need to report, but if we're not careful, if the media, as a whole, is not careful covering this story, we're feeding into that very negative narrative, that president trump himself really drums up in his base. that is fake news. this three-hour block of time -- >> oh, my god. >> -- is a smear-free zone.

there will be no convicting of either person on either side on this show. honest will honestly, if there is smearing of dr. ford, ms. ramirez, or durrett k brett kavanaugh, you'll be kicked off the set. >> we want to call networks and put a "d." in front of the name of the so-called journalists that have already decided that brett kavanaugh is a rapist. what was the -- serial sexual abuser. really? you know that? do you really know that? >> i feel like a lot of people are kind of going out on a limb and convicting brett kavanaugh or smearing the accusers. it's happening in the media, and it's a struggle. i feel like in the media especially, we have two camps, some who say it has to be believed, and that's where you begin, and others who just want to report the story to see what's going to happen. i was extremely sad for politics

and for the media throughout the day yesterday. >> well, it was the bias, actually. if you could -- if you could not watch both of these human beings suffering, the way they were suffering, and not feel empathy for them, then you were so biased and you were so into your political side. so determined, what you were going to believe. >> but the reaction -- >> then you really shouldn't be reporting. >> i hear -- >> there are a lot of americans who are clearly concerned about what judge kavanaugh may have done to dr. ford. we're listening to dr. ford's testimony a week ago. in the interim, since then, what we've gotten is stories about judge kavanaugh maybe throwing ice cubes in 1985, and other stories like this, that took to a lot of americans, particularly republicans, maybe democrats, like piling on, trying to take the man down.

>> last week, the untold story was just how biased, top to bottom, the press was on reporting this story. mika also expressed real conc n concerneconcer concerns about political commentators going on networks and calling brett kavanaugh ia r a rapist. respected columnists calling him a serial sexual predator. there didn't seem to be the pushback that there should have been from network executives, from opinion page editors. during kavanaugh, and sometimes when you have scandal after scandal after scandal pile on top of each other, the journalistic standard is just brushed aside and ignored. it is run over. >> right. >> we can look back, and i hope somebody at a journalism school looks back at what happened during the kavanaugh hearings and the low standards that a lot of journalists held, themselves, too, and editors held themselves

to, and what was published in a rush while the hearings were going on. there's reason why the fbi needed more time to investigate. quite frankly, a lot of journalists put a lot of garbage out there. >> yeah. >> we were very strong about this, obviously. honestly, very few others were. as for the allegations by tara reade, who briefly worked add e staff assistant in biden's office, she told the "new york times" biden pinned her to a wall and sexually assaulted her in a senate building in 1993. reade also told the paper that she could not remember the exact time, date, or location of the assault, but that it occurred in a semiprivate corridor in the senate office complex. the paper also reports a friend said that ms. reade told her the details of the allegation at the time. another friend, and a brother of ms. reade, said she told them over the years about a traumatic

sexual incident involving mr. biden. a spokeswoman for biden said the allegation was false. the paper also reported in their exhaustive investigation, no other allegation about the sexual assault surfaced in the course of their reporting, nor did any former biden staff members corroborate any detail of reade's allegation. the "times" found no pattern of sexual misconduct by biden. the biden campaign denies the entire account. biden himself has not yet publicly addressed the allegation. he will do so for the first time when he joins us live at 8:00 eastern this morning. last week, video emerged of an unnamed woman that reade says is her mother, calling into a 1993 broadcast of cnn's "larry king live." devoted to examining the culture of washington, d.c. the woman claimed that her daughter had run into

unspecified problems with a u.s. senator. she did not give a name. earlier this week, one of reade's former neighbors went on the record, by name, vouching for reade, telling "business insider" that reade told her, her account of being assaulted roughly two to three years after the alleged account. "business insider" reports the person is a democrat who intends to vote for biden this year. nbc news contacted this same woman, and the details of what she told nbc news that reade told her do match reade's account. nbc news has also spoken with reade multiple times since she came forward with the assault allegation. also has spoken with five people with whom reade said she shared varying degrees of detail over time. three of those people said, on the record, that they do not recall any such conversation with reade. a fourth person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said

reade told her about the alleged assault at the time. a fifth person, who also spoke with nbc news anonymously, called that reade told her in the mid 2000s that biden had been inappropriate and touched her when she worked in his office, but that she didn't detail the alleged assault. reade said that she also told her mother, who has since died, and her brother, who has told the "intercept" that he remembers having been told about an incident at the time. it's worth noting that reade's brother first told some news organizations that at the time his sister said she'd been harassed by biden, but then went back to at least the "washington post" and abc news to clarify that she told him it was an assault. biden's campaign has repeatedly said the alleged assault absolutely did not happen. again, he will be our guest in about one hour from now. critics of reade pointed out she

waited 27 years to publicly report her allegation, that biden sexually assaulted her. they also note that after her nearly three decade wait, reade first told the "times" last year that mr. biden stroked her neck, wrapped fingers in her hair, and touched her in ways that made her uncomfortable. waited until this past march to add significant details to her allegation. president trump yesterday was asked about the accusation against his expected general election opponent. here is part of his response. >> i think he should respond, you know. it could be false accusations. i know all about false accusations. i've been falsely charged numerous times. >> still, several allies of president trump have taken to highlighting this recent allegation against biden, including his son, donald trump jr., who has repeatedly tweeted about it. but there is obvious political

peril to that strategy, as it invites the revisiting of all of the allegations against president trump. who has been accused of sexual misconduct and assault by more than a dozen women. by multiple reports, that number is 25 women. trump has denied each of the allegations. those women are jessica leeds, who alleges trump reached his hand up her skirt and groped her while seated next to her on a flight in the late 1970s. ivana trump accused her then-husband of raping her in a fit of rage in 1989. she's retracted that allegation. kristin anderson claims trump reached under her skirt and touched her vagina through her underwear at a new york city nightclub in the early 1990s. jill heararth alleges trump pus her against a wall, put his hand up her skirt, and tried to kiss

her during a dinner at his mar-a-lago resort in the 1990s. lisa boyne said trump looked up women's skirts and commented on their genitals during a 1996 party. he never made a move on her, but she said he was interested in who she thought they should sleep with. two miss usa contestants said trump walked in on them changing in their dressing rooms. trump as much as admitted into engaging in this conduct in an appearance on howard stern's laid owe show. temple taggart mcdowell alleges trump, quote, kissed me directly on the lips when she met him at the miss usa pageant in 1997. cathy heller claims trump approached her table at m mar-a-la mar-a-lago, introduced himself, and forcibly kissed her at a mother's day brunch with her family in the 1990s.

karena virginia alleges trump groped her as she waited for her car at the u.s. open in 1998. tasha dixon and bridget sullivan, the two miss usa contestants claim trump walked into their dressing rooms where female participants were changing and achange i ing. melinda mcgillavay said he touched her buttock. natasha stoynoff said he kissed her at mar-a-lago. jennifer and guliet said he kissed them without consent. samantha holvey, miss usa con see contestant who said trump inspected the pageant contestants individually. ninni laaksonen said trump

groped her backstage at david letterman in 2006. jessica drake accused trump of grabbing and kissing her without her permission. summer zervos claims trump assaulted her during a 2007 meeting. cassandra searles said trump treated herself and other female miss usa contestants like cattle. had them lined up so he could get a closer look at his property. alva johnson said trump kissed her without content at a rally in 2016. e. jean carroll accused trump of assaulting her in a dressing room in the mid 1990s. karen johnson alleges trump kissed her and groped her without consent at a new year's eve party at mar-a-lago. again, trump has denied each and every one of these allegations. joe biden denies reade's allegation, that biden reached

under her clothing and penetrated her with his fingers. trump bragged about groping women's genitals without their consent on that 2005 "access hollywood" tape, which surfaced right before the 2016 election. >> i moved on her, actually. she was down in palm peach. i moved on her, and i failed. i'll admit it. >> whoa. >> i did try to [ bleep ]. she was married. >> huge news there. >> no, this was -- i moved on her very heavily. in fact, i took her out furniture shopping. she wanted furniture. i'll show you where they have nice furniture. i moved on her like a bitch. i couldn't get there. she was married. all of a sudden, i see her. she has the phony [ bleep ] and everything. she's totally changed her look. >> she's your girl, hot as [ bleep ], in the purple. >> whoa. >> yes. >> whoa. >> yes. oh, my man. wait, wait, you have to look. >> set this up. >> give me the thumbs up.

>> you are a [ bleep ]. >> thumbs up. you have to get the thumbs up. >> you and i will walk there. >> oh, my god. >> maybe it's a different one. >> better not be the publicist. no, it's her. >> that's her, with the gold. tic-tac, in case i start kissing her. i'm automatically attracted to beautiful women, start kissing them. when you're a star, they let you do it. you can do anything. >> whatever you want. >> grab them by the [ bleep ]. >> the pattern and the admission. i will be asking joe biden about the allegation against him when he joins us for an exclusive interview this morning at the top of the 8:00 a.m. hour. we're back in 30 seconds.

we solved every problem and solved it quickly. to think we're giving thousands of ventilators to allies, and not allies, to be honest, but helping other countries where people are dying because we have ventilators and nobody else does, to this extent. it is a great tribute. deborah, we were talking about that before. deborah birx, dr. birx, has been fantast fantastic. she's a fantastic person, a fantastic woman. we talk about the things that we've done in a short period of time. i mean, all you heard about was

ventilators. that's a hard thing. we energized factories that didn't build ventilators. they were building cars and other things. now, we're building thousands a week. it's been very spectacular. >> president trump said yesterday that he, quote, solved every problem that emerged during the crisis. on wednesday, jared kushner called the administration's response a great success story. >> good lord. >> also yesterday, the tally rose to 63,000 in a crisis that donald trump said would magically go away in april. welcome back to "morning joe." friday may the 1st. along with mika and willie and me, we have msnbc national affairs analyst and co-host of showtime's "the circus," and editor in chief of the "recount," john heilemann. correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche alcindor. and from the department of defense, nbc national security

analyst, jeremy bash. yeah, so john heilemann, i want to bring you in for a second. something crossed on the twitter machine. i've been talking this morning about polls that david brooks has in his "new york times" column, talking about how, for the most part, we're a unified country. this pandemic has brought us together in ways that we haven't been united since after 9/11. and you see scenes of just utter insanity, with people carrying around ar-15s in the michigan capit capitol. of course, cable news jumps on that. you start to think that that signifies a large percentage of the population. then you read these numbers, abc, 90% support social distancing rules. yougov poll, 90% think a second wave is going to come if we reopen too early. pew poll, 89% support bipartisan

federal aid packages. 77% think more aid is going to be necessary. "usa today," 90% support increased testing. 79% support a temporary halt in immigration. you go on and on and on. 85% of americans disagree with donald trump. they don't think we should go back to school. that's the general. that's the general view of a united states of america on this pandemic. you start looking at individuals who are not listening to the 90% but, instead, listening to the 10%. this is what you get. georgia polling commissioned for the georgia gop, just out. donald trump, in georgia, 49% favorable. 49% unfavorable, in georgia. kemp, 43% approval. 52% disapproval.

loeffler, the senator, 20% approval. 47% disapproval. of course, she's the senator who has been accused of profiteering off of this pandemic. >> yes. >> again, you could -- my frustration, i don't understand these republicans. they are going to get slaughtered this fall and continue listening to donald trump, who is listening to the 10%. this story of georgia is going to be the story of republicans across the country, john. i mean, it is. if you look at arizona, if you look at maine, if you look at michigan. this keeps happening over and over again. i don't really get it. >> muscle memory, bro. it's like, you know, you have a republican party that is

reflexively caught itself, i think in many cases against its better interest -- you and i talked about this for three and a half years. people say, "donald trump gets away with everything. there are no consequences." the reality is, there have been consequences for the reason party. because they've been for three and a half years afraid of what donald trump can do to them in a primary, by motivating a chunk of the very energized base, they have all decided that they will go along and do what donald trump does. what does donald trump do? what we -- you know, when all is said and done about the history of this presidency, the main way that donald trump is different from every other president of his lifetime, joe, is that he sees political profit in division, not in unity. not in trying to increase his numbers. not in trying to grow his base and coalition. but by focusing on that red-hot core and just stoking it constantly. that's his math. that's his calculus. i can win by dividing america.

at least in 2016, in one election, it worked, in the sense that he was able to string together an inside string and win by a narrow margin. he lost in the popular vote by a lot. won by a narrow margin in the electoral college. that's his playbook. doesn't call a lot of audibles in the huddle. he does the same thing over and over again. one time he was on the ballot, it worked. he doesn't know how to do anything else. because republicans made this deal that they think is in their self-interest, they have this muscle memory, where they go along with trump. in a circumstance like this, like a circumstance like the circumstance around 9/11, when americans are afraid for their lives, it is a very unifying thing. it puts everyone in the same boat. rch is mostly focused on the well-being, the health of themselves, their family, their children, their friends. in those circumstances, where the country is unified by if nature of the threat, unity is going to kick division's ass

every time. that's why the republican party and donald trump are in trouble headed toward november. >> yamiche, in your reporting on that building behind you, do you get the sense that anyone there understands how badly the president has misread the country on this issue of the pandemic, on the idea of how concerned americans are? again, not democrats, not progressives, not msnbc viewers, americans are. and how weary they are of going back to work, of going back to school until they think it is safe? of course they want to go back. they want to be safe, as well. when the president tweets, "liberate," because he sees very small protests in one state of michigan, then condemns the governor of georgia for liberating and sending people back to stores and back to their lives. do they understand when they see this polling that 90% of americans know it's not safe to go back, that he may have misread this situation badly? and when they see the poll numbers that say only 34% of americans find him trustworthy, that the words that come out of his mouth during the pandemic

are words they should listen to? >> when i think about your question, the thing that comes back to me is a conversation i had with a source that said, the way to survive and thrive in the trump white house is to ride the waves that president trump gives you and to really adjust to the strategy he decides to embrace at the time. this is a white house where the president, yes, is listening to his health officials and listening to the facts, but he is also listening to people who understand that he is going to do what he wants to do. i talked to a senior white house official who has been in the task force meetings. that person told me he was shocked to see president trump come out and push back against the governor of georgia, saying openly he did not agree with opening some of the parlors and hair salons. that person said a couple days before, president trump was saying, yes, he wants to see the country reopened. he was talking about the governor of georgia as being someone on the front line of looking at the strategy he wants, that he wanted. what we have is a president, really, who is looking at this and saying, moment by moment, what's the political strategy

that works for me? of course, he says he is interested in the fact that there's safety issues at hand here. the president is still looking at this as a political prism, and looking at it through his re-election campaign. what we know, according to multiple reports, is that he blew up on his campaign manager, brad parscale, when he saw the poll numbers. he sees that he has a real foe in joe biden. it is part of the reason democrats say he got himself impeached, by trying to find dirt on joe biden. that's the democrats' point of view. the president understands, i think, especially coming more and more into the understanding that this is going to be a dog fight come november. >> jeremy bash, doesn't help when the president goes to a podium or availability and just begins musing about treatments for coronavirus, or the origins of coronavirus. the president yesterday said he has seen evidence that shows the coronavirus originated in a lab in wuhan, china. just hours before that, the office of the director of national intelligence put out a

rare statement that reads, in part, the intelligence community concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the covid-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified. the i.c. will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals, or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in wuhan. while the statement reports that the investigation is still under way, the president made these remarks when pressed about it by reporters yesterday. >> you've said a moment ago you will soon have information on where this virus originated. the director of national intelligence today put out a statement saying that they believe it was naturally occurring. it was not manmade. >> who was that? who was that that said that? >> office of the director of national intelligence. >> who, in particular? >> it was the statement the -- >> national intelligence, okay. >> my question is, have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the wuhan

institute of verology was the origin of this virus? >> yes, i have. yes, i have. >> are you suggesting that maybe you have some evidence that this was not a naturally occurring virus? >> we're going to see. you're talking about the virus and where it came from in. >> yeah. >> we're going to see where it is. we're going to see where it comes from. >> what gives you a high degree of confidence that this originated from the wuhan institute of verology? >> i can't tell you that. i'm not allowed to tell you that. >> are you insisting, or would you insist, or china allowing u.s. investigators into that lab to make -- >> i don't want to go into that. we're going to see. so far, i think china has been trying to be, at least they seem to be trying to be somewhat transparent with us. we're going to find out. you'll be learning in the not too distant future. it is a terrible thing that happened. whether they made a mistake or whether it started as a mistake, then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose? >> jeremy, two-parter for you. first, the president's musing

there, your take on that. also, the fact that the intelligence community, as someone who served in the intelligence community yourself, put out a public statement to explain what they believe right now, that there are two options on the origins of coronavirus. why were they compelled to do that? why do you think the president spoke the way he did yesterday? >> yeah, willie, i think it is important to note, it is exceedingly rare for the office of the director of national intelligence to put out a public statement. i can remember a couple times they've done that. one important example was october of 2016, when they put out a statement saying russia was trying to interfere in the 2016 election. almost never happens, willie. it happens only after they provide that information to the president in his daily brief, in his secret and sensitive analytic products, that he is supposed to read and look at every day. i think it is clear that the president has not been looking at those reports. he goes out there and wings it and says, "it might be manmade.

we're going to try to find out." the od and i puts out a statement, saying the science shows it is not manmade. the president, again, undercuts his intelligence community. i have to say, willie, on this day, of all days, because today is may 1st, the nine-year anniversary of the bin laden operation, the day when a president had to work for weeks and months, together with his intelligence community, to achieve a very important national security objective, the contrast couldn't be more clear. president trump has disdained intelligence, called them scum and nazis. he's undermined them. he criticizes them. he only -- and he tries to out whistleblowers. he only will go to the podium to undercut them because he has not been reviewing the intelligence reports that he's been receiving. >> well, john heilemann, there's such a long history of this. again, the most famous example of this, i guess i should say,

infamous example, is when the secretary of defense at the time, joon mattmattis, gave don a review of history. history since 1945. u.s. policies since 1945. donald trump started berating him and other people in the room, said he disagreed with it. mattis politely was trying to say, "well, this is history. i don't know if it is something you can disagree with." then he started attacking generals and stormed out of the room. that's, of course, when then secretary of state rex tillerson called him a certain kind of moron. we've seen it time and time again, every day in these medical briefings. dr. fauci will say, "don't push this drug." the president pushes it anyway. he says, "i'm not a doctor, but i think this is going to be one of the great medical breakthroughs in history." same thing, of course, with bleach. same thing with the disinfectants.

you can go on and on. in the intel world, he's done it, saying he believes vladimir putin instead of his own intelligence chiefs. here, we have it once again, where the president is confronted yesterday with a wuhan theory, that he now claims to be fact, when the dni, one of his closest allies, is saying, "we just don't know yet." >> yeah, i'd say, joe, this is, i think, even more sinister than some of the examples, in the sense that the reporting on this in the "washington post," i believe, suggests that there is kind of a systematic effort to try to kind of push the intelligence community to find evidence to support this theory, this conspiracy theory. we've seen that not just in the trump administration but the bush administration, other administrations, where a politically, pre-determined outcome ends up putting

pressure -- it is applied to the intelligence community, and pressure is put on them. remember the stories around 9/11 and the iraq war? i think that it's clearly the case that trump is divorced from it facts. it is clearly the case, as jeremy said, that you can't help but think that the public rebuke from the intelligence community of this conspiracy theory is a sign of the ic pushing back on trump and pompeo, and others who seem to be kind of trying to compel them to go out and find evidence to support this theory. i think that's where, you know, donald trump has been super disdainful of the intelligence community. i'll tell you when his disdain will stop, it'll stop if he can get it to start doing things for him that he finds politically helpful. certainly, pinning something on china that would be made up but politically opportune

development, it's something he would love to see heading to re-election, having some supposedly fact-based evidence that he could say, "hey, china actually did this. it was more nefarious than we previously thought." >> there's a lot going on at the white house, as usual, yesterday. president trump also said he'd consider bringing back his fired former national security adviser, michael flynn, and putting him back into his administration. >> you said that michael flynn would come back even bigger and better. are you going to pardon him? if so, are you considering to bring him back into your administration? >> looks to me like michael flynn would be exonerated based on everything i see. not to judge, but i have a different type of power. i don't know that anybody would have to use that power. i think he's exonerated everything. i've never seen anything like it. what they did, what they wrote. you see this, gener general.

you wouldn't want it happening to you, what they did to general flynn. it is disgraceful. i guess we'll get to that maybe someday, maybe not. hopefully we won't have to get there. >> would you consider bringing him back into your administration? >> well, i think he is a fine man. i think it is terrible, what they did to him. it is something nobody asked me, but you're asking me for the first time. i would consider it. yeah, i would. i think he is a fine man. i think he's got a great family. he loves his son. i will tell you, his son was around a lot. he loves his son. as people generally do. they did everything possible to destroy him. he's still breathing very strongly. they hurt him very badly. very unfair. kristin? >> quick follow. i do have a coronavirus-related question. but in what capacity would you bring him back? >> look, this is really the first time i've been asked the question. i think he'll be fully exonerated, one way or another.

certainly, he'd be capable of coming back. >> a man with a common touch, willie. he loves his son, as people generally do. >> generally do, yeah. >> interesting. >> as people generally do. so there is, of course, file this under there is a tweet for everything. 6:14 p.m. december 2nd, 2017. from the twitter account of donald j. trump. "i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and he lied to the i fbi." >> oh. >> "he has pled guilty to those lies. it is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. there was nothing to hide." but he said, "i had to fire general flynn," donald trump, "because he lied to the vice president." which he did. "and he lied to the fbi." there you have it.

>> and he pleaded guilty twice to lying to the fbi, did general flynn. the president fired him for lying to vice president trump. those are, of course, regarding the contacts that general flynn had during the 2016 transition, talking to the russiangey kisly united states. jeremy bash, the idea of general flynn coming back to the administration, who knows if president trump means it. he was asked about it. there were new documents unsealed yesterday that prompted these questions. what more can you tell us about those documents that the president and others believe they somehow exonerate? republican lawmakers last night said exonerated their view of what happened to general flynn. >> well, those documents, which came from the fbi and were provided to flynn's defense counsel show the fbi was weighing carefully exactly how to approach him when they went to interview him in the white house in january of 2017. it shows there was some brainstorming by fbi officials about whether to confront him

with the transcripts of his calls with the russian amg ba ambassador or whether to hold them back. what the press reports show of the documents, they don't seem exculpatory. the conviction of mike flynn, which already occurred, it isn't saying it should be thrown out. it provides color about how the fbi went about their investigation. i predict his conviction will stand and the president will pardon him, i should say, and the president will try to show him as an american hero and bring him back into the administration. i think that's clear from everything the president is telegraphing. >> jeremy, speaking of telegraphing, what investigator would go to somebody who has engaged in what they believe to be criminal conduct, and would have the fbi go, "we have you saying this. what do you think of that?"

i just don't hear of investigators doing that. if they want to check his intent, if they want to check his criminal intent, if they want to see if there is something more nefarious about it, ask him the questions. you see if he lies about it. investigators, whether they're in the fbi or whether they're in police departments across america, have done that forever. you want to see who you're dealing with. if somebody is lying about inpermissible activity, or activity being investigated, that certainly is a window into their thinking. is it not? >> yeah, it would have been a way to confront him with the evidence, the try to get him to admit his wrongdoing. they chose a different investigative path. they asked him the questions straight up, as you said. he lied. they knew they had him. they began the investigation and the prosecution. he pled guilty. he has been convicted. so the facts really aren't in doubt at all. i think the only thing that is in doubt is whether or not trump

will pardon him before or after his sentencing. >> yamiche, that's the question. is donald trump going to pardon all of these people who committed crimes, who admitted they committed crimes, or who were charged and convicted of committing crimes? can we expect pardons for roger stone, pardons for general flynn and others, for paul manafort? it seems to me, obviously, the president would love to get back at those he considers to be his enemies. at the same time, it's not going to help him in his re-election run, is it? >> well, the president has been talking about roger stone and michael flynn and paul manafort as if they are somehow martyrs of a deep state or martyrs of some sort of system that treated them unfairly. when, in fact, of course, they were convicted in the normal way that our legal system works. in that regard, you have the

president aligning himself with these men, really playing into the idea that they're all victims. which is, of course, something that especially democrats have criticized the president for doing. they say he often plays the victim, often presents himself as a sort of martyr. so for the people that are part of his base and who are strong supporters of president trump and will follow him and follow his thoughts, then, yes, pardoning them might actually add to the roster of people he can say, look, i had to help these people out because the system treated them unfairly. that said, i think it doesn't really help the president politically trying to win over suburban women or independents, to reach back to the people who, as we noted on the show, pleaded guilty to lying. you think about the tweets about michael flynn. any one can be pulled up and put into some sort of commercial and used by joe biden. i think it is a tough position if the president is thinking about independence -- independents and women and widening his base, as he has to do as you look at the polls that

are coming out in swing states. it looks like it'll be a tight race between him and joe biden. if he wants to win in a certain way, he might think twice about pardoning these men. he's been talking about them nonstop. we'll see. >> yamiche alcindor performing well with the company of the white house ground's crew. jeremy bash, thank you, as always. coming up on "morning joe," congresswoman mikie sherrill on coronavirus, including the experience in her own family. we're coming right back. we live in uncertain times. however, there is one thing you can be certain of. the men and women of the united states postal service.

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and... l(music fades in). hey! -hi! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ interested in borrowing money from future generations to send down to states to help them with bad decisions they've made in the past, unrelated to the coronavirus epidemic. we're more than happy, and already have, sent $150 billion

down to states and localities to deal with the pandemic. i think any additional assistance that we provide for state and local government also needs to include some things that are important for everybody else. >> that's senate majority leader mitch mcconnell yesterday on whether state and local governments should receive funding in the next coronavirus relief package. joining us now, united states navy veteran and member of the house armed services committee, democratic congresswoman mikie sherri sherrill. good to see you. i'll let you react to mcconnell's statement about local and state governments, how much money they should and shouldn't get. what do you make of his view? >> i couldn't disagree with his view more, willie. to give your viewers a sense of what it's like on the front lines here in new jersey, new york and new jersey account for about 45% of the cases nationwide.

we're one of the hottest hot spots globally. here in new jersey, we've had over 7,000 people pass away from this disease. we've had to expand our mortuary capabilities. we had a fight to get ventilators here. we were con surgeoned cerned we have enough here. we had fema set up pop-up sites. testing sites. 911 system has been at capacity. we've had first responders on the scene. we've had firefighters on the scene. this is all a huge cost to our state government. not because of past decisions we've made, but because of the present desire to handle the coronavirus as best as possible, to take care of people and get them back to work as soon as possible. >> congresswoman, that's the medical side. the state of affairs in new jersey. how about the economic side? obviously, new jersey, like every state, has been devastated by the stay at home orders.

as governor murphy has said, you have to wait to break the back of the disease before you can start getting people back to work and into schools. when you talk to small business owners around your district who are desperate to get back to work, to reopen, worried they're going to lose their business, what are they telling you? what do you tell them back when they say, "i'd like to open my business"? >> so i think because we've been so hard hit, willie, people in many of our small business community understand the need for the social distancing, for shutting down to get our arms around this disease. it's so widespread here that there are very few people that have not been touched by this horrible pandemic in some way or the other. however, what i'm hearing from my small businesses is that it's day to day. they don't know how much longer they're going to be able to stay open. many have had to shutter already. we've put money into the sba. because of some of the regulations, not everyone has

had access to that. as we're looking at this, as you know, willie, the best thing we could do is get, you know, all the cases down as far as possible, then get people back to work, which is why i set up a bipartisan regional recovery task force, with representative king from long island. >> congresswoman, are those small businesses getting the ppp money? we now have the second wave of it. a lot of small businesses were left out of the first wave. is that money coming in, to at least get through them another month or so? >> not sure everybody. willie, some people have access to it. trying to get more people access to it. we sequestered $60 billion for our smaller banks, community banks, so they can hopefully get money out to people who need it so badly. it is still having real problems. the system is still crashing. businesses here are still having problems, even getting lenders to agree to lend to them. the cue nor leforlepd lending i

up. we need to fix some regulations in the program. it's helping some people, but there's more to do there, as well. >> congresswoman susan del percio is here and has a question for you. >> good morning, congresswoman. i hear what you're saying. i'm based in new york. i'm hearing from small business owners. they're having a hard time. most need maybe $10,000, $20,000 to help get them through this. they're not getting the money or they have employees that are based on tips, like restaurant workers. what they also are saying is that when we do reopen, we're going to make sure that we need safe streets. sanitation. other things that the state and city provide. with donald trump saying that, if we're going to give money to blue states, we'll have to get something in return, how do you even comprehend that? what do you think he means by that? >> i just think it's a real lack of understanding, what these

states, my state is going through right now. we have mayors that are arranging how elderly people in our towns can get groceries. we have, you know, sheriffs out at the testing sites, arranging for people to get safely tested and health care workers to stay safe. it is a constant drive here in all of our towns for everyone to come together and work so hard. this is not something that -- these were towns that spent their money unwisely, or somehow arrived to this crisis because of something they did. we'vecrisis, and now we're handling it, i think, in new jersey, we are coming together, working hard together, reaching across the aisle, working with every single person, just to take care of our citizens. to somehow think that we're, you know -- there has to be strings attached, this money is to take care of people. this money is to help a community fight through the coronavirus pandemic.

>> congresswoman mikie sherrill, u.s. navy veteran, thank you for your time this morning. give our best to new jersey. we'll keep an eye on you. thanks so much. >> thanks so much. thanks for having me. >> thanks for being on. joe biden has just released a statement. it was released on medium. he talks about some other things before he gets to the heart of the allegations against him. he says this, "i want to address allegations by a former staffer that i engaged in misconduct 27 years ago. they aren't true. this never happened. while the details of the allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not comp complicated. one is women deserve to be treated with dignity and republican. wh -- respect. another is they should be heard, not silenced. another is their story should be subject to appropriate scrutiny. responsible news organizations

should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which changed repeatedly in both small and big ways. this much bears emphasizing, she has said she raised issues with her supervisors and senior staffers from my office at the time. they, both men and women, have said unequivocally that she never came to them and complained or raised issues. news organizations that talked with literally dozens of my former staffers have not found one, not one, who crorroborated her allegations in any way. indeed, many of them spoke to the culture of an office that would not have tolerated harassment in any way. as, indeed, i would not have. there is a clear critical part of this story that can be verified. the former staffer said she filed a complaint in 1993. she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. the papers from my senate years that i donated to the university of delaware do not contain personnel files.

it is the practice of senators to establish a library of personal papers that document their poublic record. speeches, policy proposals, positions taken, and the writing of bills. there's only one place a complaint of this kind could be, the national archives. the national archives is where the records are kept at what is called the office of fair employment practicings. i am requesting the secretary of the senate asks the archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleges as filed, and make it available to the press, any such document. >> wow. >> if there was ever any such complaint, the record will be there. as a presidential candidate, i'm accountable to the american people. we have lived long enough with the president who doesn't -- and then he talks about donald trump. then he talks about his own career. willie, you look at joe biden's statement. you also look at what he

suggests news organizations should do. obviously, though, there are quotes that joe biden made himself in the summer of 2018 that are going to come under scrutiny. regarding brett kavanaugh, he said, quote, for a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus nationally, you've got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real. whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it has been made worse or better over time. this parallels what many democrats, many people who are now supporting joe biden, have said, which is, "believe all women." which, of course, led to the brett kavanaugh situation. clearly, the tape shows that we

thought that, actually, due process should be a part of that. joe biden is going to have to square up what he said during the kavanaugh hearings with what he is saying now. >> yeah. he said to the "today" show in the fall of 2018, vice president biden was asked how he'd instruct members of the senate judiciary committee to question christine blasey ford. dr. ford should be treated with respect, he said, and should be given the benefit of the doubt. one of the questions that will be interesting to hear the vice president address with us in a few minutes is, why shouldn't tara reade also be given the benefit of the doubt? he was very clear there in his deni denial. another question he addressed in the statement was, why can't we have access to his files at the university of delaware? he is now instructing the senate to go in and look through. if there is any record of mrs. reade's complaint against joe biden in 1993, that it should be made public. she says she does not have a copy of that complaint.

his senate office says it does not have a record of that complaint. lots of questions still there. he began to give us some answers here in this statement. >> yeah. john heilemann, first of all, what's your initial reaction to the statement? also, how does joe biden square up what he is saying now with what he was saying during the kavanaugh hearings? in, effect, all women should be believed. >> i have no idea how he is going to square that up. it is one of the things i'm most interested to see, among many things in the interview you guys are going to be doing shortly. i think it's going to be a challenge, given the kind of blanket nature of the comments that he made then and the allegations he's facing now. in general, i think, you know, it is a strong statement. i don't think it is going to -- i think that, so far, the news media has been pretty good on this, which is to say, the "new york times" took its time and did a lengthy and rigorous

examination of this. it is the case that, earlier this week, there was reporting that the biden campaign had circulated talking points, which were -- which then it retracted. it circulated talking points among surrogates, which contained a blatant misstatement about the "new york times" report. the talking points said that surrogates should say the "new york times" had concluded there was nothing to these allegations, when, in fact, the "new york times" recording didn't conclude it. it didn't conclude the opposite either. it had evidence that supported her claims and some evidence that didn't support her claims. i think that, so far, the press has not rushed in on this. so far, responsible news organizations seem to have been doing pretty rigorous reporting on this. you know, there are -- there have been a couple new corroborating -- not witnesses, but people whom tara reade talked to about this, who have come on the record this week and

said they have recollections of her talking about this incident roughly and contemporaneouconte. that's something i think news organizations will dig deeper into. i appreciate, and i think it is wise of him to call on the national archive to bring forward employment-related files they have, if there's a record of a sexual harassment claim, if the national archives has that. for him to call on the archives to put that forward. i don't think it answers the question, however, about his personal papers, the record at the university of delaware. you know, the university of delaware originally said they were going to put the documents out two years after he left the vice presidency. they then changed their policy in the spring of 2019 to say they would wait until two years after he left public life. i don't think it'd be unreasonable for people to suggest that biden should have the university of delaware do a search within those papers for anything related to tara reade.

not just a former harassment complaint, but any notes anybody took, anything that exists in those files about her time she worked for him. make those public. they would cast some light on the circumstances of her employment. i think that that would be -- it's a thing people are going to ask for and that, i think, would be helpful to resolving this, if there is nothing to it. it'd be good to know what's in the papers, anything related to her time there. it is a good start on biden's part, but the real test will be how he answers the questions on camera with you guys when you get to the interview. >> susan del percio, does joe biden look like a hypocrite because of his standard during kavanaugh? we certainly know a lot of democrats took one position against judge kavanaugh and now are taking another position on joe biden. we certainly know the media looks extraordinarily hypocritical for chasing every story, including michael

avenatti's rape room suggestion, that there were rape rooms in the high school parties in the suburbs of washington, d.c. a lot of media outlets just digested those outrageous suggestions. of course, we did not. we played clips that we've got a lot more clips showing how shocked we were at how much they just went along with that story. the question is, how is all of that looking now? how is joe biden, most importantly, looking now? let me read again what joe biden said in the summer of 2018. for a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus nationally, you've got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real. whether or not it's been made worse or better over time. >> that is something to come back off of.

i think he tried to dance around that a little bit in his statement, joe. i don't know. maybe it's my crisis communication. i heard something else that made the hairs on my neck go up. he limited the personnel record from claims against tara reade specifically. he was open it up and say, if there has been any harassment claims, it should -- even if they're unfounded, they should make it public. if there are harassment claims made to the senate ethics committee, they should be made public. if he has any ndas, they should be made public. he really needs to -- i think he walked into something he shouldn't have on his response. when it comes to explaining judge kavanaugh, it'll be interesting to see how he responds. >> we're a few minutes away from our interview with joe biden. we'll be right back.

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i think he should respond, you know. it could be false accusations. i know all about false accusations. i've been falsely charged numerous times. >> so john against donald trump yesterday talking about the allegations against joe biden saying he should talk about them but they might not even be true and donald trump can talk even as his son and others and he's

been accused at least 21 times of sexual harassment or assault. he even admitted on tape of sexually assaulting women, going up and grabbing them. joe biden is denying that. we'll see how the biden story plays out. this is almost a replay of 2016 where hillary clinton found herself in a position where her attacks against donald trump never seemed to gain much ground politically because of the charges thrown against bill clinton. we find ourselves in a similar soundoff in 2020 but this time, it is donald trump that will have a hard time going after joe biden. how do you see this playing out? >> i think you just kind of put the finger on it, joe. i imagine what will happen is

we'll look at the facts and how joe biden will handle this and how the reporting will go in the coming days and weeks. i doubt there will be a two-part strategy. donald trump is not the right miseninger to make this argument against joe biden if there is anything against these or not. you can clearly see here in his relatively restrained response yesterday that he understands he's not in the position to be the carrier of his message but his sons and others in the campaign, whether in the form of surrogates or advertising on facebook, you have no doubt if there is even the faintest hint of anything, there are people in the trump campaign that will try to drive this story starting now and into the future. this election will be won or

lost in the suburbs and primarily with women in the suburbs. the reason trump is losing now against biden is because many are turning away from the republican party. i can imagine seeing this as one potential thing they want to throw against joe biden whether the president can do it directly or not. >> the allegation is just the kind of story the president would have seized on and fox news would have been blaring in every headline. we haven we haven't heard that. we heard kind of a tempered response. he just said he thought joe biden should answer this. president trump when he was a candidate didn't fight into it. remember when hillary clinton

was running against him, he brought out bill clinton's accusers. why do you think he's so timid on this? >> trump is not the best mess aenger. his campaign may be doing it because he rather us have a conversation about this than the 2,000 people than have died in the last 24 hours from the coronavirus. one thing, trump has been consistent. i'm not saying it was right. he did say, it didn't happen, move on. joe biden doing this interview is critical. he addresses it. he can't keep commenting on it. he can't just say, it never happened. i'm happy to have the conversation. president trump is using it as a distraction. >> just to make it said about

the clinton campaign in 2016, again, we'll see where it goes but if it remains in the current state it is right now and we'll see if it does, it puts donald trump and his entire campaign in a difficult position because it brings up the topic that hillary clinton didn't want brought up and donald trump doesn't want brought up in 2020. donald trump doesn't want to see 21 women sitting in their debate that have a koozed him of sexual harassment or sexual assault. it will be very tricky politically. now that we've talked about the politics of it, the human side of it and tara reade's el indication. we'll be back and talk to vice president joe biden when we

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. you are thinking about leading the country in a moment of mourning for all of the lives lost? >> of course i am. i don't think anybody can feel any worse than i do about all of the death and destruction that is so needless. nobody. but i also have to make sure we handle the situation well. nobody is thinking about it more

and nobody -- nobody has spent more time late in the evening thinking about what's happened to this country in a short period of time. but at the same time, we have to get our country open again and we are doing that step by step. tennessee is an example. step by step, we are opening up our country. i really believe that next year, we can be -- maybe even beyond. we have a lot of stimulus. maybe even beyond. we have package 4. i hope we can be as good as or better. i built it once, we'll build it again. >> warp speed, who is in charge of that and are you overpromising when you say you will have 300 million doses of vaccine? >> i'm not overpromising. whatever you can humanly do, we will have. we hope to come up with a good

vaccine. >> who is in charge of that warp speed? >> who is in charge of it? i am. i am in charge of it. we are delling can the general and the admiral. they are very much in charge. i think probably more than anything, i'm in charge. i'm the with unthat gets blamed. i get blamed anyway. >> i tell you what, willie geist, as your jv football coach said, there is no i in the word president. oh, wait. there is. i hurt more than anybody else. i am creating the vaccines. i thought barack obama and warren got absolutely punished for years for referring to themself. this is a president who has

claimed supreme power and authority and takes no responsibility some days and other days says it is all about him. >> first of all, joe, i know you jumped right from the freshman to the varsity. but nice reference anyway. this is a man who is senior advisor and his son in-law kushner said this is a great success story. he's trying to paint a picture of what happened and what is. it doesn't line up with the reality of what happened and what is. >> let's bring in the apparent democratic nominee for president, former vice president joe biden. mr. vice president thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> we'll ask you questions about how you would handle this pandemic, the campaign and other news of the day. for the start, it is just he and

me. i want to get right to the allegation made against you by tara reade. the former senate aid accuses you of sexual assault. to our viewers, please excuse the graphic nature of this. i want to make sure there is no question what we are talking about. she says in 1993, mr. vice president, you pinned her against a wall and reached under her clothing and penetrated her with your fingers. would you go on the record with the american people. did you sexually assault tara reade? >> no. it is not true. i'm saying unequivocally it never happened and it didn't. >> do you remember her? do you remember any types of complaints she might have made? >> i don't remember any type of complaint she may have made. it was 27 years ago. i don't remember, nor does

anyone else that i'm aware of. the fact that that i don't remember any complaint ever been made. >> have you or your campaign have you reached out to her? >> no. i have not reached out to her. this is 27 years old. it never happened. when she first made the claim, we made it clear it never happened. that's as simple as that. >> in the past 30 minutes or so, you released a statement on medium and morning other things you write this, there is only one place a complaint of this kind could be, the national archives. i am requesting that the secretary of the senate ask the archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleges she filed. if there was any such complaint, the record will be there. are you preparing us for a

complaint that might be revealed in some way? are you confident there is nothing? >> i'm confident there is nothing. no one ever brought it to the attention of me 27 years ago. no one i'm aware of in my campaign -- excuse me, in my senate office at the time is aware of any complaint. if there is a complaint, that's where it would be and that's where it would be filed. i have never seen it. no one has that i'm aware of. >> the new york times invested this exhaustively, they were unable to find that any of your staff were able to corroborate this. she did file a police report a few weeks ago with the police.

why not limit this to tara reade. why not release any complaints made against you during your senate career? >> i'm prepared to do that. to my understanding there has been no complaints made against me in any senate career. this is an open book. there is nothing to hide. >> you were unequivocal in 2018 during the kavanaugh hearings that women should be believed. you said this, for a woman to come forward in the glaring lights nationally, you've got to start off with the resumption that at least the essence of what she is talking about is real. whether or not she forgets the facts, if it has been made worse or better over time. she's going to go on television on national television.

to use your words, should we not start off with the assumption that the essence of what she says is real. she says you sexually assaulted her? >> i said from the beginning, taking women's claims seriously. vet it. look into it. that's true in this case as well. women have a right to be heard. the press should investigate claims they make. i uphold that principal. in the end, the truth is what matters. in this case, the truth is that these class is false. >> do you have any ndas signed by women employed by you? >> there is no nda signed. i've never asked anyone to sign an nda, period, in my case. none. >> your senate documents at the

university of delaware were supposed to go public and then resealed. i know you are saying any hr complaints would be in the national archives. why not reveal your senate documents held in delaware. i know there are 1,800 plus boxes. if she believes and alleges the complaints may be in there, why not strive for complete transparency? why was the access to those documents sealed up when they were supposed to be revealed? >> they weren't supposed to be revealed. i gave them to the university. they said it would take time to go through the boxes. it wouldn't be before 2020 or 2021 before that occurred. a report like this would be at one place. it would not be at the university of delaware.

my archives do not contain personal files, personnel files. they are public records. my speeches, my papers, my position papers. if that document existed, it would be stored at the national archives where the office she claimed to have filed a complaint with is stored. the senate controls those. i'm asking the secretary of the senate today to identify if any such document exists. if it does, make it public. >> there are claims and concerns and report insider and she claims a complaint or some sort of record might be at the universe a university of delaware. so for complete transparency, why not push for the release of anything with tara reade's name

on it? >> let's get this straight, there are no personnel documents. you can't do that. if you worked for me or i worked with you and you had my income tax returns or whatever, they are private documents. they don't get put out in the public. they are not part of the public record that in fact, that any senator, vice president or president has in their documents. look, there is one place she could file the complaint. that office at the time, all those records from that office are in the archives and controlled by the senate. that's where personnel records would be if they exist. that's where complaints would be if they exist. >> you have said in the past if a woman could goes under the lights and talks about something like this, we have to consider that the essence of this is

real. is the essence of this real? why do you think she's doing this? >> i'm not going to question her motive or get into that at all. i don't know why these she's saying this. i don't know why after 27 years this gets raised. i don't understand that. i'm not going to go in and question her or attack her. she has a right to say whatever she says. i have a right to say, look at the facts, check it out. based on the investigations that have taken place so far by the best of my knowledge by two major papers that interviewed dozens of my staff members, senior staff, that's what they said. nobody, this was not the atmosphere in my office at all. no one has said anything like this. >> mr. vice president, as it pertained to dr. ford. high level democrats said she

should be believed. you said if someone like dr. ford would come out, the essence of what she said has to be believed and be real. why? why is it real for dr. ford but not for tara reade? >> look -- i'm not suggesting she had no right to come foert. any woman should come forward and be heard and then it should be invest gated. if there is anything that is consistent with what is being said and she makes the case or the case is made, then it should be believed. ultimately, the truth matters. period. i fought my entire life to change the whole notion to change the law and notion around sexual assault. i fought the protective process for survivors. we have come a long way and have

a long way to go until we are in the position of a fair and unbiased view. at the end of the day, it has to be looked at. these claims are not true. they are not true. >> mr. vice president -- >> i don't know what else i can say to you. >> i'm going to try to ask many different ways. stacey abrams said during the kavanaugh women, i believe women, i believe assault voices should be heard. another said, do we believe women? we must be a country that says yes every time. they now support you. nancy pelosi falls into this category too and other leaders. are women to be believed unless it pertains to you? >> look, women are to be

believed given the benefit of the doubt. if they come forward and say something that they said happened to them, they should start off with the presumption that they are telling the truth, then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts. the facts in this case never happened. there are so many inconsistencies in this case. look at the fact. i can assure you it did not happen, period, period. >> why is it different now? do you regret what you said during the kavanaugh hearings? >> what i said then was that she had a right to be heard. the fact that she came foerksd the presumption would be that she was telling the truth. unless it is clear from the facts around it, it is not the

truth. i'm sorry. >> go ahead. as we await the records from the national archives, are you absolutely certain, are you absolutely positive there is no record of any complaint by tara reade against you? >> i am absolutely positive that no one i am aware of was ever made aware of a complaint, formal complaint made of or by tara reade against me at the time this happened 27 years ago or until i announced -- i guess it was in april or may this year. i know of no one who is aware of any complaint that was made. >> the first about the university of delaware records, do you agree that those records

were supposed to be opened to the public and then resealed for a long time until, quote, after you leave public life. why did that happen? >> the fact is, there are a lot of speeches i've made, positions i've taken, interviews overseas, all of those things related to my job. the idea that they would be made public while i was running for public office, they could be taken out of context. the papers are position papers. documents for example when i met with putin or whomever. all of that to be foder in a campaign at this time. the national archives would have anything to do with personnel records. there are no personnel records in the biden papers at the

university. >> are you certain there was nothing about tara reade in those records -- >> i am absolutely certain. >> if so, why not approve a search of her name in those records? >> a search of her name? >> right. approve a search of her name in the university of delaware records. >> there is nothing. they are not there. i don't understand the point you are trying to make. there are no personnel records by definition. >> the point i'm trying to make is, you are approving and calling for a search for the national archive records. >> yes. >> of anything pertaining to tara reade. i'm asking why not do the same in the university of delaware records which have raised questions because they were supposed to be revealed to the public and then sealed for a longer period of time.

why not do it for both sets of records? >> because the material in the university of delaware has no personnel files but it does have personal conversations i had with the president about a particular issue, heads of states of other places. that would be something that would not be revealed while i was speaking public office. to the best of my knowledge, no one else has done that either. >> i'm just talking her name, not anybody else in those records a search for that. nothing classified about the president or anybody else. i'm asking why not do a search for tara reade's name in the university of delaware records? >> look, who does that search?

>> the university of delaware? perhaps you set up a commission that can do it? i don't know. whatever is the fairest way to create the most transparency. >> look, mika, she said she filed a report. she has her employment records still. she said she filed a report with the only office that would have a report in the united states senate at the time. if a report was ever filed, it was filed there, period. >> if you could speak directly to tara reade about her claims or anything, what would you say? >> this never ever happened. i don't know what is motivating her. i don't know what is behind any of it but it is irrelevant. it never happened. it never happened, period.

i'm not going to start questioning her motive. i'm not going to get into that. i'm not going to go after tara reade for saying these things. it is the facts? do any of the things she said, do they add up? it never happened. >> mr. vice president, stay with us. we're going to take a one-minute break and then joe and willie will join with questions on other news of the day. we're back with the former vice president joe biden in one minute.

we're back with vice president joe biden. mr. vice president, thank you for being with us. now let's move on to what a crisis that many call the greatest crisis since world war ii for the united states. 63,000 americans have died in this pandemic, and i could ask you what you are going to do in the abstract. but the fact is if you were

elected president in november, then chances are very good, if dr. fauci and other doctors are right, you are going to be sitting in the oval office when this pandemic comes back again in the middle of flu season. how should america prepare for the second wave that dr. fauci says could be even worse than the first? >> should be preparing now. look, joe, one of the things i've said from the beginning, the president should empower a supply officer, someone who is in charge of making sure that all the material needed, all the ppp, all the -- all the testing, all the things we know we have to get done are getting done. and use the -- create the defense production act to make sure that we also deal with the banking side of this to make sure all the things that, in fact, the congress, the several trillion dollars they put out

there to help small businesses stay alive actually get to small business. i'd also establish a pandemic testing board to finally solve the testing problem. i would open up a new enrollment period for health care. i'd also -- some early data shows african-americans, communities of color have contracted this disease and died at alarming rates. and i get economic relief quickly as we can to the most -- those most in need to diminish the impact of this. but we have to have that material, joe. we have to have everything from enough swabs to the reagents to the testing capacity, to masks to gloves to -- he's going so slowly on this. >> how do you speed up testing? the president says it's impossible. the hhs official in charge of testing says it's impossible to get 5 million tests per day. what could the president have

done from the very beginning? more importantly, what advice do you give president trump this morning on what he should do from this point forward to make the united states stronger in the area of testing? not only from the virus but for antibodies. >> well, first of all, he should take responsibility. he's in charge. he talks about being the commander in chief. the defense production act, as i said way back several months ooh gives him the authority to surge to any private entity that they should be making like ventilators like he went to general motors finally. they should be doing the same thing from swabs to the reagents. he talks ball these machines being available. the machines are available to test, but the reagents and the swabs and the material that get the answer are not available. he should be moving very quickly to have done that. he should be working to make sure we have a stockpile of all

the protective gear that is needed in order to make sure that, god forbid, this does come back, which it probably will, that the hospitals are not left flat-footed like they were before. that the first responders are covered. some of those over 60,000 people who died were first responders, doctors, nurses, medics, police officers, firefighters, et cetera. they didn't have the equipment. so we have to get the number of new cases down from what it is now in order to be able to take control. we cannot let up on what needs to be done. one of the things every morning, this morning i did, i get a brief from medical docs on the status of where things are. the former head of -- anyway, one of the things stated, the

analogy made, he said there's all these machines. it's like having a washing machine where there's no water and you don't have any detergent. there are machines but you need the material. why aren't -- why isn't he insisting that? that being moved quickly and insist that this begin to happen? there's so much not being done, joe, to not only deal with what we have on our hands now but to prepare for when this is going to come back. >> yeah. mr. vice president, it's willie geist. good to have you on this morning. >> hi, willie. >> we got word that 3.85 million americans have filed for unemployment just in the last week. that brought the total to more than 30 million of our fellow americans over the last six weeks out of work. so there is a balance governors are trying to strike from florida and georgia, connecticut and colorado, when to get people back in. so what do you say to people you're talking to in wilmington

or on the telephone these days who say, i get that this disease is bad. i get that it's highly contaje yur uo contagious, but the alternative is sitting here watching my business that i built evaporate. what's your message to those people out of work who own a small business and are really hurting right now? >> first of all, it's a false choice to choose between getting the disease under control and getting back to work. if you don't get the disease under control, not much is going to happen. we need to get the number of new cases down significantly. there needs to be widespread and easily available prompt testing. the federal government should be doing more to make this happen. we have to make sure that our hospitals and health care systems are ready for flair ups in the disease, when it's going to occur, as economic activity increases and expands. in the meantime, all the money that's been passed out by the congress, very little is getting

to that person, that fictitious person you described. one of the things i described when they passed the legislation, there's an oversight that it was supposed to take place. an inspector general. the president got rid of the inspector general. i was put in charge of getting in the middle of the recession, the last recession, the major recession, 800-plus billion, $800 billion out to help people get back to work and to help things get set up. there was an entire team i put together. i was on the phone every day about three to four hours a day talking to mayors and governors and people, legislate them know what's available. it requires immediate and consistent and overarching focus on what has to get going. right now we're in a situation where we have an awful lot of small businesses being told by the big banks, you know, you're

not lying. you don't get it. and we should be moving in a direction to keep people on the payroll. that's what the money was going to go to. the condition was keep people on your payroll. we should be allowing people to work as they say basically halftime. if you have ten workers doing a job and you only need five, keep all ten. make the difference up, they split the jobs and make up the difference in their salaries by the federal government in terms of the stimulus. there's a lot ever thiof things do that can change the trajectory so when this finally does get under control you still have those -- everything from those barber shops to hardware stores or small drug stores. they're able to be open. when they're gone, they're going to be gone. >> mr. vice president, you made a comment in your interview with

bob costa of "the washington post" where you said, i view myself as a transition candidate making way for the mayor petes of the world. some thought you were a place holder and don't worry, i'm going to open the door to this more progressive movement perhaps led by bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. ocasio-cortez and others. >> it has to do with, we have not given a bench to younger people in the party, the opportunity to have the focus and be in focus for the rest of the country. that's an incredible group of talented, newer, younger people. i ran this time because i think the issues that are before us happen to be my wheelhouse. i said from the beginning we're going to inherit a divided country as well as a world in disarray. they are the two things i've worked on my whole life. i've been able to get things done in the united states senate and as vice president with the other party without making them

the enemy and get things done. unless we can reach consensus, this democracy is in trouble. and i have a significant responsibility and significant experience deal with the vast majority of the world leaders to put back in play our role in the world. we are -- america first has made america alone under the trump administration. our alliances are in jeopardy. our ability to lead -- willie, we have led not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example and we've walked away. look at this happened with regard to this pandemic. the pandemic is that the president has no course with the rest of the world on dealing with these things. we led -- barack obama led in the pandemic that occurred when we were in office. it was kept in africa. we organized the world. we put things together.

that's our job because we -- if we don't do it, no one is going to do it as you're now seeing. >> mr. vice president, as we close this interview, we'd love for you to say a word or two about public health care -- about health care workers, about nurses, about doctors. we heard the tragic story of a woman who was in charge of the e.r. at a new york hospital taking her life because she was so despondent. what are you going to do? what will your administration do to support health care workers, not just on the job but also off the job? perhaps with many of the mental health care challenges they're going to be facing for years to come because what they have seen already this year. >> they are going to face it. a lot of people are going to face it. look, joe, over 600,000 dead. many of them are those workers,

those nurses, doctors some of them because they put themselves in a position to save other people's lives, protect the rest of society. and we talk about that number like 600,000-plus people. >> 60,000. >> 60. >> i mis -- over 60,000 this. and we talk about them like they are a number. every one of them left behind a family. every one of them left behind friends. this is one at a time. they have to be recognized for what they have done. i hope it opens up the eyes to the american people which i think it has to realize there's so many people every day out there breaking their necks from people who are making 7 bucks an hour to significant medical professionals. and they're all risking their lives for us. i think we have a chance to fundamentally change the societal structure and how the

inequities that exist in our system once we get through this because people now realize these are the people making a difference. first and foremost, recognize their sacrifice. they're not asking for that, but they have to know, and it's part of what i've learned. you have to know that what is needed is you have to be recognized for people knowing that you are doing something good and decent and honorable and you are doing it for other people. it's about some empathy. it's about letting them know. but beyond that, that's why i propose in the health care proposal i put forward that we increase funding for mental health. we make sure it's the same level as physical health. there's no difference whether you have something wrong in terms of your emotional state and your brain, and any more than it is if you broke your arm. and we have to lift that whole notion that somehow there's something that's oop that makes you less of a person if you

acknowledge you have serious mental problems. this is going to happen. we have to be there to catch them. we have to be there to help them. we have to be there to reinforce them. and that's part of our societal responsibility. and as president, it will be a major part of what i do on the health side of this. >> all right, mr. vice president, thank you so much for being with us this morning. good luck. >> thank you. >> stay safe. this programming note. he will also -- there will be reverend al sharpton's show "politics nation" and vice president biden will also be his guest tomorrow at 5:00. we have a lot more to come. nobel prize-winner paul krugman is going to be our guest when "morning joe" comes right back. in fact, tremfya® was proven superior to humira® in providing significantly clearer skin. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to.

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york times," paul krugman. he, of course is the recipient of the 2008 nobel prize in economics. >> wow. >> something that willie and i never have gotten. >> you don't have that. >> no, we can tell you about dog track racing, though. also author of "arguing with zombies: economics, politics and the fight for a better future." professor, thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. i'm really excited to have you input on how you think we get through this. we've had some of the best medical thinkers in the world talking about how we thread the needle healthwise. how do we do that when it comes to an economy where so many americans are hurting and so many more are going to be facing tough times in the years and months ahead? >> well, at this point, it does not look -- as best i can make out from the epidemiology, it does not look as if we are in a

position to really fully reopen, anywhere close to fully reopening. we really have to maintain -- i've been saying the economy is in kind of a medically induced coma where you have to shut down a bunch of functions to give the patient a chance to recover. that's going to go on for some time. that does not have to be associated with extreme hardship. a lot of people have lost their incomes but we can make up a lot of that. in fact, some of the legislation that congress has already passed does that when we -- on paper we have greatly enhanced employment benefits enough to make sure that workers who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus are not in extreme financial hardship. we have small business lending program that's supposed to be helping businesses survive. what we have now is really -- there are two things. we have huge problems of implementation. we have this relief program, which is the right thing to do, but a lot of the money is just

not making its way through. it's being run through state unemployment offices that are completely overwhelmed. they just are not able to handle the load and in many cases they were designed to deny unemployment benefits and so they're not able to deal with the situation where that's not what you want to be doing. and the small business program has been kind of a disaster. it's been allocated in such a way that lots of companies that should be getting relief aren't getting it and many who should aren't getting it. and then we -- state and local governments are facing a huge fiscal crisis. so we know what to do. we can live with an economy that's partially shut down for an extended period of time but only if we make life tolerable for those who basically workers who can't work for the time being. >> we had a discussion a few days ago on the phone for a few minutes. you brought up a fascinating point, and it happened that we were talking about this at the

same time that mitch mcconnell and governor cuomo were having this back and forth about what states get more, what states take more. but you actually say that we look at the state and local government suffering. you fear it's not going to be the states like new york and connecticut and new jersey and california who get a lot of their money from income tax, but you actually fear that red states, states like florida, that don't have the state income tax are going to be the ones who suffer the most. can you explain why? >> yeah, so let's think about who is -- we're still trying to make estimates and there's a lot of detail. too much detail in all of this. but if you ask, who is still whole? who is not actually suffering financially from this? it tends to be well-paid white collar workers who can work from home. it tends to be people who pay a

lot of the income tax in this country. so if you look at the four biggest states in america, two are blue states, two are red states. california and new york are both heavily dependent upon income tax revenue. and a lot of that money is going to keep coming in because people, like me, can work from home, are still drawing a salary, are doing fine. the florida and texas rely almost entirely on sales taxes. and, as we know, we just got the report yesterday, consumer spending has fallen off a cliff. and that means drastic reduction in sales tax revenue. so it's quite possible, anyone who thinks that the fiscal crises are because states were irresponsible, that's -- we can argue back and forth about all of that. but any rainy day fund that anybody established is trivial. rounding error compared with the scale of this crisis. nobody could have been prepared for it.

and if you ask, who is going to suffer the biggest declines in revenue it will certainly include a number of states that are red states, or republican, and they will be worse than some of the red states than it is in some of the high, you know, high white collar employment blue states. >> professor krugman, it's willie geist. good to have you on. the economy contracted almost 5%. that will be much bigger in the second quarter. we saw new jobless claims yesterday at 3.85 million. 30 million jobless claims over the last six weeks. as you look out over the horizon, what begins to sort of thwart this momentum, if you want to call it that, toward massive unemployment and massive contraction in the economy? where are the hopeful signs over the horizon? >> well, first of all, the good news is that the -- so far, we think most of the jobs are

really not conventional. it's social distancing, this induced coma. and we are seeing only a few signs of it spilling over to the broader economy. we came very close in march to a financial crisis which would have been absolute disaster. that would have been great depression. but the federal reserve threw a lot of money at the markets and stabilized that. so that's kind of okay on that front. and we are doing a lot of relief. it's not remotely enough, but all of this unemployment benefits, small business lending, it's not going to bring back jobs in lockdown sectors of the economy but it is going to limit the job losses more broadly. i think we're almost surely headed for an unemployment rate close to 20%. maybe above. and that's -- that is great depression level unemployment. that's comparable to the worst

years of the great depression. but it does not look at the moment like it's going to spiral into a complete collapse. the problem is, at the moment, it's extremely, extremely painful for people who have lost their incomes. >> professor, let's talk about your book "arguing with zombies." and talk about what the purpose of this book is and what you hope people will get out of it. >> the book is some new material. a lot of things i've written over the years but it's all telling a story. if you look at american politics, mostly about economic policy but some other issues i deal with, you know, we'd like to imagine we have serious discussion of ideas. people have different views, different values but we have

good faith discussion and, we make a decision based upon what we think how the world works. unfortunately, that's not what happens. in america in 2020, most of our debate is between defensible ideas and things we know are false. ideas that should have been killed by evidence but still keep on shambling along, eating our brains which is why i called them zombies. the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves. that's been tested to destruction many, many times. it never works. and yet it remained -- it's the reigning orthodoxy in the republican party. the idea that running budget deficits in a depressed economy is going to lead to disaster and hyperinflation, we saw, you know, that was -- there were a lot of people predicting that ten years ago. it didn't happen. they seemed to have learned nothing, and you have an amazing amount of mail i get is people saying, aren't we about to have

a hyperinflation? and the answer is, no. that's a zombie idea. that's something that is not true. so -- and i think it's important to have a book that says, look, to be honest with our readers, with the public, it's not just enough to say here's what works, here's what's right but to honor the reality of our political discourse which is not healthy. where in many cases the main debates are not with good faith, people who are arguing based on the evidence but people who are just clinging to these ideas that, for whatever reason, financial gain, ideology, they insist on repeating, even though we know they're not true. >> so i've been one of those zombies on the deficit and the debt. i've been very concerned about it for 25 years. and been concerned and been repeating that the united states is going to have a hard time

absorbing $10 trillion national debt. we're at $23 trillion. no telling how high we're going to go up. i'm still concerned about that. if you could explain one, why i should not be concerned about that, but also i want to push you a little bit like you probably push students in your class and ask, is there a number? is there a percentage of our gdp that we could approach that would be a problem? and let's go ahead and assume, as you talked about in recent column that we're running basically at zero percent interest so that gives us far more latitude than if interest rates were 10% or 12%. is there an upper ceiling that you'd warn policymakers against going into in terms of a percentage of america's gdp? >> okay. so the first point is, as you

just said, we're able to borrow money at extremely low interest rates. if you ask, what is the future burden on the budget that will be created by the borrowing we're doing now, the answer is it will be negligible. a rounding number in the budget. it's not going to matter. so the headline debt numbergiga. as a percentage of gdp, we'll end up with debt that's higher as a ratio of gdp than at the end of world war ii. but everything we've seen says that advanced countries that borrow in their own currency, like the united states or japan or britain, are able to carry, really, very high debt loads without crisis. and a lot of that is because interest rates, even when interest rates aren't as low as they are now, interest rates are consistently below the growth rate of the economy which means debt tends to melt away over

time relative to gdp as long as you aren't massively irresponsible year after year. and probably. there must in principle be some limit, but if you look at the historical record, it's very hard to find it. in japan, it has debt 200% of gdp. no problems. they're able to borrow very cheaply. negative interest rates in japan at the moment. we came out of world war ii with debt 100% of gdp which at the time people thought was terrible and it sort of melted away. we just grew out of it. britain came out of world war ii with debt 270% to gdp and they had no problem. they grew out of their debt, too. 30 years later it was down to just 50% of gdp. so the -- if there is an upper limit, almost a philosophical question because if there is an upper limit, it's so far away from where we are that it should

not be on our policy decisions at all right now. >> as you've also said, the fact the united states can borrow against its own currency also helpful. the new book is "arguing with zombies: economics, politics and the fight for a better future." professor krugman, thanks for being with us. hope you'll come back. be safe. >> thanks. i will do my best. >> still ahead -- it's the start of a new month and several states across the country are you nou ea now easing up on coronavirus restrictions. dr. fauci has a warning saying you cannot just leap over things.

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by the end of this weekend, stay-at-home orders and other restrictions will be eased or lifted in at least 21 states. affecting roughly 116 million americans. let's bring in "morning joe" chief medical correspondent dr. dave campbell. when you hear dr. fauci talk, it seems like these -- the lifting of restrictions is a little too early. what do you think? >> well, we're going to learn from the states that are lifting some of the restrictions what the other states will know or do. that's going to be in a couple of weeks we'll get that information. we can learn right now from europe. we've seen germany open up their economy in little dribs and drabs and have small spikes and

have to close it back down. we've seen that in spain. it happened in china. so we can prepare for the possibility that we're going to have these little spikes happening in states that reopen, even in florida. the entire state is not opening back up. i'm in south florida. we're staying closed down for a little while longer. the governor will be watching other parts of florida to see how south florida will move forward as time goes on, mika. >> is president trump correct when he talks about how the next spike that we have, the next -- he called them ember fires, that we'll be able to respond to those better because of what we've learned over the last three or four months? >> that's reasonably certain to happen. we've seen the spikes in europe be smaller than the original ones and now all of us across the country have learned how to socially distance. how to manage our own self-protection from becoming infected and how not to transmit other to people.

so this is a resilient country. i believe we've learned a lot and the health care systems have definitely improved and our testing capacity has improved, most importantly, joe. >> all right. thank you so much, dr. dave. thanks for sticking around. we have had a busier morning than usual. we appreciate it. stay safe. have a great weekend. willie, final thoughts on the morning, on paul krugman actually talking to me, and joe biden -- >> it was great. >> loved having paul krugman here. that was exciting. and joe biden. what's your take on the biden interview? what did you learn from it? >> well, vice president biden left no room for the possibility that the allegation is true. he said to mika, quote, no it is not true. i'm saying unequivocally, it never, never happened. that was his quote. another thing to note as mika rightly drilled down on the university of delaware papers and a complaint, the complaint that tara reade says she filed

was for the sexual harassment that she described in her first version of the story and not the sexual assault that she now alleges. so even if that turns up, i think it's important to note that will not pertain to the sexual assault that she's now alleging. it will be a sexual harassment complaint. and the last thing i thought, there's just not a good answer from the vice president and many of his supporters and defenders about the double standard that mika raised. about the way they talked about judge kavanaugh and dr. ford and the way they're talking now about tara reade and vice president biden. >> you know, we showed the team and said it at the time. the way the media, most of the media completely digested a lot of nonsensical stories about justice kavanaugh during the hearings, there's no justification then. there's no justification now. and suddenly, democrats seem to understand that now that it's being applied. people are saying they should apply the same standard to democrats. but i've got to say, mika, the

vice president was very strong in his denials. but -- >> very. >> but the university of delaware question remains. i think they're going to have to open up those files, like you said, for any -- just do a word search of tara reade's name and any documents that may have those. if they don't have that name in those files, then there's nothing to be concerned about. >> there's no complaint anywhere, and i think what might have tripped him up was those are policy papers and speeches. so what he seemed to be saying is, why would you look there? it's not there, but at this point, it's been asked why they were resealed when they were supposed to be reopened. it's an area where people have had questions. >> and questions will remain. there could be notes from staff members regarding this incident that have her name there. they need to do the search