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30 million americans have filed for unemployment benefits since the outbreak. why are so many still waiting for their benefits? 600,000 u.s. postal employees could be unemployed by september, if the postal service doesn't receive financial aid. so why is trump standing in the way? and more than 50 million kids are out of school because of coronavirus. how to make sure they don't fall behind. "velshi" starts now. good morning! it is sunday, may 3rd. i'm ali velshi. here are the facts. more than 66,000 americans have now died from covid-19, but president trump's plan to have multiple rapid-result testing machines installed on capitol hill for lawmakers has been flatly rejected by both speaker of the house nancy pelosi and

senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. in a joint statement, they write in part, "our country's testing capacities are continuing to scale up nationwide, and congress wants to keep testing -- keep directing those resources to the frontline facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly." that rejection came after it was revealed that the trump administration is blocking dr. anthony fauci from testifying before the democratically controlled house appropriations committee this wednesday, calling it "counterproductive." trump wakes up today in camp david, where he has reportedly been meeting with top aides about the economy. joining me now from the white house, nbc news political reporter monica alba. monica, as the pandemic continues across the country, the trump administration is reportedly switching from just a districtly health message to an all-out economic message. >> reporter: exactly, ali, and it's really a pivot that was most notable this week as those

national social distancing guidelines expired and the white house said it was now up to the states to decide how they may reopen. and as we see, more than a dozen of those places attempt to rebuild and reopen sectors of the economy, the president is saying he wants to focus on the revitalization of america. remember, a couple of weeks back, he tried to bring together those industry groups. many of those executives even caught off guard that they were a part of it. we're told those groups haven't actually been reconvened. they've maybe talked on the sides, one to one, but the president continues to say that his economic message is the priority with just six months to go from today to the general election. that's a huge part of his campaign and his re-election pitch, and that's why he's going to try to get on the road this week. he's going to battleground arizona to tour honeywell, which made masks for the pandemic. and it's the first in a series, we're told here by aides, of the president trying to get out and do more of the forward-looking, instead of so many of the questions that were focused in

the last two months of what the administration did in the timeline leading up to the pandemic. they're trying to give more of that vision. and we're told he did meet with economic aides at camp david this weekend, including national economic director larry kudlow. and tonight in a fox news town hall that's going to be a couple of hours, we're told the president might tease some new economic proposals, potentially some tax policy that he's been discussing with those aides, but no firm details. he didn't have any events on his calendar yesterday. tonight is that main fox town hall that i just mentioned. but as the re-election campaign shows the president some internal polling, he is concerned and he is most worried in battleground states where he is slipping in his approval, and he hopes they want this economic message to be something that helps him make that pitch to voters. but of course, as you know, that jobs report that's expected to come on friday will make that, ali, a very, very difficult case to make with so many millions unemployed. >> monica, thank you. monica alba for us at the white

house this morning. new jersey is one of the several states that are taking some steps toward reopening. the state's governor, phil murphy, says parks and golf courses are now open. however, the stay-at-home order remains in effect. murphy met with president trump at the white house on thursday, saying the state could need between $20 billion to $30 billion in federal financial assistance. i spoke with trump's senior adviser, kevin hassett, last night about potential plans to help the states. >> well, i think that first what's going on is that some of the states are under the guidelines from doctors birx and fauci and the rest of the task force, opening up and doing so in a cautious, stepwise manner. if the virus were to go away at a relatively quick amount of time, then a lot of states could safely follow the guidelines and march through the phases, and then the economy would turn back on a lot earlier, in which case it could be that the amount of stimulus we've put in right now is enough. this is definitely taking longer

than many people thought, and the phase four deal would, of course, have to address the problems with states, because since we've turned the economy off, we've turned a lot of incomes off. so that means that those folks aren't necessarily paying taxes. and so, there's a massive crater. >> well, hassett also told me he thinks that senate majority leader mitch mcconnell's recent idea to let states go bankrupt is unconstitutional and won't happen. joining me now is the mayor of teaneck, new jersey, mohammed hamidadine, and south of that is william rogers iii, professor of public policy and chief economist at the hedrick center for workforce development at rutgers university. bill served as chief economist at the u.s. labor department from 2000 to 2001 and later on as president obama's labor department transition team member. he's now part of governor murphy's commission to help get the state up and running. more than 123 new jersey

residents have been diagnosed with covid-19. more than 7,700 have died. mayor hamididine, let me start with you. what's the situation with you in teaneck? you certainly had a pretty scary experience with coronavirus. has that pulled back at all? >> yes. we've seen the rate of infections slowing down. we've seen the rate of hospitalizations slowing down. our hospitals have caught up with ppes. frontline workers have protective equipment now. so we are on a level where we feel confident that we can fight this disease and manage, but that's only because people are adhering to social distancing and sheltering in place. >> bill, let's talk about this pivot to the economic message. teaneck is going to be like every other place in new jersey. cities can't go into deficits. states can't go into deficits and they can't print their own

money. but states, because everybody's sitting at home, are also short of money. so there's a bit of a distinct. when the federal government doesn't get money, they have other options, if they don't get revenue from taxes. when states don't get money from taxes, they have far fewer options. >> you're correct. and the challenge with states like new jersey, where you know, we have been really at the epicenter of the virus, the outbreak, is that this is going to have -- it's creating a cascading effect that just as there are families that are having challenges now, they're going to have challenges into the next few months because, you know, they've gone without paychecks or, like you know. pew research published just the other day that only a third of people who were surveyed that applied for unemployment insurance have received it. and so, we're just pushing the hurt down the road to where in the summer and into the fall,

when we move into the next fiscal year, you're going to see some large cuts. i mean, at rutgers where i'm a professor, the current president barchi, who's leaving, he's talking about cuts of over 15%, 20%. and you know, those cuts are magnified when you go down to a locality or municipality like teaneck and others like the borough i live in we call hopewell. >> mayor hameedadine, tell me how this trickles down to you. first of all, how is teaneck's revenue affected? on one hand, you get property revenue and other forms of taxation, but you get a certain amount of funding from the state. so, what happens in teaneck if there's a $20 billion to $30 billion shortfall in new jersey? >> luckily, we've been very well managed over the last six years. we have a surplus, our biggest taxpayer paid on may 1st, so we're having a meeting next week

to extend our tax deadline, conforming with governor murphy's executive order that allows us to delay the collection of taxes. you know, i do depend on two of my hotels and their hotel taxes and commercial property taxes. and the revenue part of it is what we don't know what's going to happen in the third quarter. but you know, bigger towns in bergen county, like myself, ft. lee, we are financially prepared for an emergency like this. we have different mechanisms that we can use, tax anticipation notes, bond anticipation notes, different things we can use to get us through the rest of the year and reset. right now we're not looking at furloughs, we're not looking at layoffs. we are in a strong position. but that doesn't mean that our bigger cities are in that position. the same places like, you know, the larger cities like newark, jersey city, paterson, that depend on state aid to fill their budget gaps. so, i think that the federal

government really needs to -- i've been saying this for the last six weeks -- really needs to move a lot faster. they should have opened up the spigots a lot quicker. you know, on a local level, on a state level and on a county level, that's what we did, as much as possible, and we restored confidence. so this is why people were able to shelter in place and we were able to slow down the rate of infection and slow down the rate of hospitalization. so, i encourage, you know, washington to do what's right and make sure that they come together and pass these stimulus packages for the local municipalities that really need this money so that they can move on with essential services. >> yeah. ali -- >> bill, i talked to kevin -- go ahead, bill. >> if i could anticipate what you're talking about with my colleague, kevin hassett. you know, this coming friday, the jobs report is going to be coming out, and it's going to be a backward look, but still, it's going to be good information for us. and you know, he was talking in

an interview a couple weeks ago that he was thinking it's going to be, nationally, it's going to be north of 16%, 17%. my estimates are around 17% for new jersey. i think our unemployment rate today is over 20%. so as the mayor said, we really need congress and the administration to be much more aggressive with getting aid down to the local level. as tip o'neill used to say, all politics is local. well, all economics is local. >> right. what happens, mayor -- do you have contingency plans in place for what happens if that shortfall comes in? i mean, do you know from the governor how a $30 billion shortfall affects teaneck and whether there are specific services? because i imagine residents of teaneck, like residents anywhere else in any state, many states across america that are going to have massive short falls, are expecting to hear that things are going to change, whether

that's garbage collection or policing or emergency services. >> we never -- i mean, we lived through this over the last -- we've -- i've been in office for a decade. and after the last financial collapse and after the last administration that was in new jersey, we really learned not to depend on state aid for our municipal budgets. the school board is a different story because they get a lot more state aid than the municipality does. our contingency plans, again, are in place. we don't expect to do layoffs. we don't expect to do furloughs. again, i'm a bigger municipality, second largest municipality in bergen county, where i have a lot of levers to play with. but the smaller municipalities that are dependent on state aids, like my budget is a $77 million budget, but a lot of towns in bergen county are $15 million to $20 million. and when you take a $500,000 hit, it's very hard to make that money up for them, other than raising property taxes.

now, how do you raise property taxes with an unemployment rate upwards of northern of 20%? so, this is where, again, if my message is clear, it's open up the spigot, right? and we can fix this. this is whe-- we're the reserve currency of the world. i don't know why they keep making these things up. whenever we need to find money, we find money. we find money for wars and defense spending. we can't find money for the american people. and this is what really ticks me off, is that when you see in this country, you see all these people who are protesting and you see trumper and the maga movement or the bernie movement -- it's the same thing. people don't trust washington anymore. people don't think that they care about us. and time and time again, this is the third trauma that this country has suffered in the last two decades, right? and each time, you think that the institutions would learn how to move quicker and how to take care of the american people. and we just saw two weeks ago

that the federal reserve again gave a $500 million loan guarantees to the fortune 1,000 companies again without putting any restrictions on layoffs and no restrictions on executive bonuses, right? they did the work-around, right? they couldn't get it through congress. they knew they couldn't get it through the senate, so they did the work-around -- >> yep, so they did it through the fed. >> yeah, through the fed. so, at what point, with no oversight, right? so at what point do the american people really look at this and say, you know, washington really doesn't care about us? and that's why, you know, you see people like bernie sanders, who are very popular and you see people like trump who are very popular. >> yep. >> and it's that kind of -- you know, the statement that -- i mean, statement that they're making is that we want an alternative because the usual suspects don't care about us. and that's why i implore both the senate and the congress to get together and take care of the american people. >> bill, the mayor makes a

remarkable point. joe stiglets makes this point all the time, that the people who were supporting bernie sanders and the people who support donald trump share a view that others get what they don't get, even though they follow the rules, they work, they go to school, they try and get what they need done. this federal reserve money that is going to the largest of american companies, without restrictions on laying people off, without restrictions on executive compensation, without restrictions on stock buybacks, which by the way we saw a lot of last week -- a lot of companies buying their stock back -- it does do what the mayor says. it does piss people off. it is remarkable that, somehow, they can figure out how to get the financial services going. the stock market had the best month it has had in 33 years. and i would imagine most americans have had the worst month that they have had in 33 years in april. >> yeah. sure.

and the challenge that americans have been facing -- this is not something that's just recent -- is the mayor just did, he connected the dots. people feel bullied by globalization. people feel bullied by technology. and we've seen an erosion in our social safety nets and we've seen erosions in the ability of unions to protect and help create safe and fair workplaces. and so, and then we've also been pulling back in terms of the funding of the federal government or the funding of government, to be able to respond and provide unemployment insurance in a timely manner. there's the three ts when we look at what's going on -- timely, is it temporary, and is it targeted. and the congress and the administration, especially the leadership in the white house, has really been failing in that manner. so, you know, again, i'm hopeful. i'm honored to serve on this commission with these other members, you know, that have national stature, not only here

in new jersey. and one of the main points that i'm hoping to bring to that conversation is one about alis, we saw that population rise from 33% of households to about 40% of households during this expansion. so, what i take away from that is is that, you know, yes, you can grow the economy, but if you don't have those institutions that help to create wealth in the middle parts of the economy and the lower parts of the economy, you have a major problem, and roosters are coming home to -- excuse me -- bad metaphor. but bottom line is we're seeing major, major upheaval because we haven't made those investments in the past in our communities. >> guys, thanks for joining me this morning. mayor of teaneck, new jersey, mohammed hameeduddin, and william rogers. thanks, guys. president trump and his

campaign do not pull any punches when it come comes to political rivals, but they are divided about how to take on joe biden in the general election. we'll have more on that when "velshi" continues. ction. we'll have more on that when "velshi" continues differently. the gillette skinguard it has a guard between the blades that helps protect skin. the gillette skinguard. tell me, what did verizon build their network for? people. and when people's every day is being challenged... that's when a network shows what it's made of. verizon customers are making an average of over 600 million calls and sending nearly 8 billion texts a day, every day. businesses are using verizon's added capacity to keep them connected with customers. and when people are depending on you for those connections... what do you do? whatever it takes.

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president trump's re-election campaign is reportedly facing a new dilemma this morning. the "washington post" reports new rnc internal polling found vice president joe biden's approval ratings in swing states

stronger than those of hillary clinton in 2016. according to those polls, voters by a double-digit margin say biden, quote, better understands average people, and quote, is seen as more intelligent and competent. one of those swing states is texas. a new poll from the "dallas morning news" university of texas at tyler, showed biden and trump tied in the state with 43% of the vote. that's a state trump won by nine points in 2016. and just this morning, in a new tweet, the president claims the media isn't showing real polls. so, while internal republican polling shows the dangers for trump in what they are saying are 17 swing states, the question is, how does his campaign move forward against biden when the stakes are this high? joining me now is the chairman of the center for african-american studies at princeton university and author of "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own," eddie gloud, and

editor for the "washington post," ruth marcus. both are msnbc contributors. good to see you both this morning. ruth, let me start with you. ruth, there have been reports that the president was made clear of this polling, and in fact, he has sort of a good set of polls and a bad set of polls, and his people told him about the bad set of polls and he lost it on his own people, who are now apparently just showing him the good sets of polls. >> well, the only right polls, according to president trump, are the ones that show him winning. and we know this and we've seen it before. but the degree of his reported explosion with his campaign manager, brad pasquale -- i love the reports in my own newspaper talk about him having threatened to sue his campaign manager. you know, candidates in trouble change their staffs, but the candidate, and this one in particular, needs to change his own behavior.

>> eddie, what do you make of this? joe biden has been largely in sight. he's not doing a ton of interviews, but more than he's done before. he is in his home. he has faced these renewed allegations that we're trying to make our way through from tara reade, but his ratings continue to go up. is this joe biden or is this donald trump's remarkable -- that's the word i'm using to describe it -- remarkable handling of coronavirus? >> i think it's the latter more than the former. we know that during the primary there was always a question about the enthusiasm around the biden campaign, that what was really driving much of the support for joe biden was this desire to get trump out of office, that he was, perhaps, the best candidate among the democratic field, according to certain pundits and the like who could beat donald trump. and i think that's carried over. and i think donald trump's

performance during this pandemic, those press conferences, injection of lysol and bleach and the like, disinfectants, has impacted his standing. joe, in the last -- i think biden offers in some ways a desire to return to normalcy. ali, i want to say three quick things. one, in the last segment, rogers talked about the three ts. i think we're going to see the three cs here. one, the trump campaign will comfort biden. two, there will be an appeal to the culture war. and three, we need to understand that cheating will happen. he will try to delegitimize this process. he's going it call for voter suppression. he's going to talk about voter fraud. so we need to be prepared for a really, really ugly campaign moving forward. >> ruth, what should joe biden and democrats be doing at this moment? if eddie's analysis is correct -- and mathematically, it looks like it's correct, because it's not that joe biden's doing a lot.

and unfortunately for joe biden, wherever you stand on the tara reade stuff, it's not been a great week for him. and yet, these polls continue to do what they're doing. so, what does that say for the democratic strategy? what should they do moving forward? >> well, obviously, the biden campaign did what it needed -- did what it felt like it could do this week to deal with the tara reade allegations. leaving those aside, it's a really big challenge for any candidate in this situation to break through and grab the bully pulpit from the president of the united states in the midst of a pandemic. so, when your opponent, the president, is doing enough things to damage himself, with telling people to drink bleach and with lashing out at people, there's not -- i think you might as well at this point, when people aren't really focused on the presidential race, mostly sit back and let that happen. i do think that the biden campaign has to prepare itself

for and take some action against the repeat hillary clinton playbook that the trump campaign seems to be planning to run against him. they're going to do what they did with senator and secretary of state clinton, try to make him look feeble, try to make him look weak, try to make people -- there was a campaign person quoted in the "post" story this morning. we have to make people dislike him. hillary clinton, for better or worse, came into the campaign with very high unfavorables. that is not the biden state of affairs with voters. and they just needs to let president trump basically undermine president trump and then find his moment later this year to show people who he is and that the country would be better off in his hands. >> eddie, when you look at the polling that's come out about president trump, most of the

weakness is directly related to his handling of coronavirus. now, on one hand, it's surprising, because the base -- donald trump's base remains remarkably strong. he never in any polling drops below certain numbers of people who just think he's right and they consume their news, i'm sure, in certain places and never hear any criticism of it. but it does seem that if president trump did some of the right things, he could get some of that back. i mean, there were moments in the last few months where his approval rating was at 47% and 49%, the highest in his presidency. so, it's possible that the trump campaign could learn some lessons from this and say, if you stopped being so destructive, if you stop with the daily presidential briefings, which really work for his base but don't really work for the rest of the country, is there a lesson in this for the trump administration that could actually give them an advantage over the next few months? because we are still some months away from an election. >> perhaps. you know, i'm not convinced that

donald trump himself will take heed. i think he did, in fact, realize that those briefings were hurting him. but i think at the end of the day, ali, he's going to play his trump card -- no pun intended. he's going to appeal to the culture wars. he is even going to use covid as part of his trump card as he talks about immigration and china. so, we just need to prepare ourselves for a very ugly, ugly campaign. >> eddie, thanks for joining me. eddie glaude, chairman of the center for african-american studies at princeton university. he's author of "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own." and ruth marcus is the deputy editorial page editor for the "washington post." thanks to both of you. still ahead, this week many parents and educators found there's no end in sight to remote learning, at least to the rest of the school year. and researchers say education through a computer screen could have a lasting impact on children.

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our projections show that this could have a really large impact on children, and many children could fall behind during this period and have trouble catching up with their learning once school reopens. i do think that in terms of the learning rates, the more we can get kids and teachers communicating and back in school early, it will help mitigate some of these losses. >> students, parents, and teachers across the country dealing with the challenges of forced remote learning brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. on friday, new york governor andrew cuomo announced that he's shutting down schools in this state for the remainder of the school year. >> how do you operate a school that's socially distanced, with masks, without gatherings, with

the public transportation system that has a lower number of students on it? how would you get that plan up and running? we don't think it's possible to do that in a way that would keep our children and students and educators safe, so we're going to have the schools remain closed for the rest of the year. we're going to continue the distance learning programs. >> out west to california, gavin newsom says his plan is to have schools reopen as early as late july or early august, as long as there's no resurgence of covid-19. but establishing a new normal for grades k-12 presents its own set of unique challenges for administrators. joining me to steer us through the challenges is salman khan. you know him as founder and ceo of the khan academy. khan academy took learning online but did it in a way that was difference. and i have to think that you looked at this when it happened,

when everybody had to start learning from home, and going through your mind was the idea that this is harder than it looks. just having kids at home working off their computers, supervised by their parents, is not really what you think is the equivalent of robust online education. >> yeah, to be clear, this is very suboptimal for families. and i have three young kids at home, and especially for our 5 1/2-year-old, it's not been easy. so, i have a lot of empathy for what's going on with parents. a homeschooling parent emailed me saying this is not just homeschooling, this is quarantine-schooling. there's not a lot of external supports, learning from home. so what we're telling parents and students and teachers is first and foremost, take a breather. don't beat up on yourself. and even if you're able to do 20, 30 minutes a day of the core -- math, reading, and writing -- that's a start. and then if you get your legs under you there, then you can start layering on other things.

>> what happens if we come to the conclusion that we can't get schools up and running by the fall? do we have to change the fundamental way we have to do things? is there a way we can implement robust, at-home, online, remote learning for k through 12 on a mass basis in america? >> there are for sure ways to keep students learning. i think the unfortunate thing is it's very unequal right now. we know that large chunks of the country don't even have access to internet and broadband at home. and even when they do, the level of supports they're getting online, distance learning, is very different. but what we're seeing is that we're seeing our traffic about 3x. we're seeing about 100 million learning minutes per day on our site, three times what it typically is. and so, there are already a lot of families who are continuing to learn, and we're putting out lesson plans and schedules for parents and teachers and students so that they keep learning not just through the next two months but through the entire summer. that researcher that you just showed right before i came on,

she's pointing out that not only are we going to have the summer slide where kids don't learn, but also forget, you're going to have essentially double that this year. and if we don't keep learning on tools like khan academy when you get to back to school next year, which has always been an issue -- kids start with very big differences in preparedness -- those differences are going to be that much larger. so even if we do get back to school this fall, which hopefully we will, districts and parents and teachers are going to need tools to get all of their kids ready to remediate those gaps. >> sal, one of the things we're kind of amazed at with everybody working from home is the degree to which the internet has been robust enough for us to be able to work at home on an ongoing basis. however, there remains a digital divide in this country where there are children without laptops at home, whose school systems have not been able to provide them, and even if they are at home, do not have broadband internet. >> yeah, this is a huge issue, and i think, unfortunately, it's

going to be a source of inequity, at least in the near term. if there's a silver lining, i think it's that government and districts and philanthropists, corporations are starting to realize that at-home access isn't a nice to have, it's really a must-have, a human right, frankly not just for accessing khan academy, but also for being in touch with friends and family right now. so we've been working with school districts like clark county, the fifth largees in the country -- that's las vegas -- they've been able to distribute a lot of laptops. ray and robert dalio, philanthropists in connecticut, have been able to get 60,000 laptops to kids in high school. so we're trying to work with philanthropists, cable companies, whoever we can to get as much device access and broadband as possible. >> sal, thanks very much for everything you've done and the way you've taught us to think about learning online. salman khan is the founder and ceo of the khan academy. turning now to our frontline workers in their efforts in the battle against covid-19, steve kelly is a janitor in downtown pittsburgh. until recently, he says his job

cleaning commercial buildings was sometimes overlooked and underappreciated, but now, as we know, his work is deemed essential. it's a point he drove home earlier this week during a virtual town hall on protecting the rights of essential workers. participants included massachusetts senator elizabeth warren and california congressman ro khanna. let's listen. >> now, all of a sudden, we're essential workers. when we've been doing this all along. all along we've been cleaning your bathrooms, stripping and waxing your floors, standing guard at your doors, and you never noticed us. >> steve kelly joins me now. steve, i'm going to tell people things that they may not know, because you look fantastic. you're 54 years old. you have been cleaning buildings since you were 16 years old. and i would say for the majority of those years, you were invisible. you were there. you did it.

maybe some people knew your name. i don't know if you have a shirt that has your name on it. that's how many of us interact with the people who maintain our facilities. and now people realize that if you do your job right, they live, and if you don't do your job right, they could die. >> you know, that is something that covid-19 has brought to the forefront, is just how important we are. not only us as cleaners, but security officers as well. we are the backbone of any business, any hospital system, any school system. nobody wants to go into a place that is unclean, unsanitary, and unsafe. so, yeah, you know, i've been in this fight for a very long time, and it's come to the forefront

ever since i've become a member of 32bj. >> talk to me about what changes. i mean, one of the things we do -- a lot of cities do this -- we go out and clap every day for frontline workers, and that's police and ambulance workers and sanitation workers and nurses and hospitals, you know, hospital workers, but we're also clapping for people like you. we're clapping for the delivery people who are also nameless people. they go out there and work in the toughest of conditions, and they're nameless. do you feel, a, that there is public appreciation now for what you do? can you go outside and wear your janitor's uniform and realize that you're a frontline worker? but more importantly, do you realize or do you feel like there's institutional support for what you do, that people will recognize that you need to be paid better and you need to receive better benefits for what you do? >> i think that that is a future

thing. right now we're in the midst of this pandemic, and everybody is doing what they're supposed to do -- doctors, nurses, everyb y everybody, we're really. so, i think once this thing settles, that you know, we can circle back and take a look at this. but right now, it is important for three things to happen. one, we need ppe. we need to protect ourselves. two, we need essential pay. and three, we need layoff protection. these things need to happen now. the little bit that they're doing as far as recognition for us, okay. but again, we can circle back to that. when this thing calms down.

>> i hope we can circle back to it when it calms down, because sometimes the urgency is the moment in which we get to think about fixing the things that are broken in our society and not respecting people like you and the job that you do is one of those things that is broken in our society. so steve, on behalf of all of my co-workers and the people who will now know your names and those of your colleagues, thank you for everything you've done since you were 16 years old. and thanks to all of you who clean our facilities and deliver our things and are nameless in our society. you will be nameless no more. steve kelley is a commercial office building cleaner in pittsburgh. all right, for years, experts have been telling us that our capital system has some major issues, sort of like what steve just mentioned. it often puts the bottom line before social responsibility, exacerbating inequality, often at the expense of people like steve but also at the expense of

the earth, the environment. but with the pandemic, these issues have come into sharper focus. small business owners and low wage-earners have carried the brunt of this economic downturn, and it is clear that things need to change. my next guest has been talking about the best ways to change our capitalist system in order to remedy these situations long before this pandemic. she's worked with businesses to make changes that can serve society, and she said in a recent interview, "it doesn't have to be quite so red in tooth and claw. it doesn't have to be quite so destructive." with me now is the author of the new book "reimagining capitalism in a world on fire," economist and professor at harvard business school, rebecca henderson. rebecca, thank you for being with us. the house is burning down. at least a third of the house has burned down. we are going to have to rebuild this. and if you like capitalism, this is the chance to rebuild it right, to deal with some of

those inequalities that have seemingly been built into the system. >> i couldn't agree more, ali. this is our moment to begin to build a system that's truly just and truly sustainable. and we can do that without harming long-term economic growth. i think we can keep all the best aspects of capitalism and round out, let's call it the side effects, so that we have a system that truly works for all of us. >> to what degree is the best aspect of capitalism not the fact that it figures out the way to get the most output for the least amount of money? because that fundamental -- and i'm a capitalist and i'm with you, i want to fix this, and i think we can fix it, but there are people who push back on me and say, ali, capitalism is about getting the most for the least. and if we keep on doing that we hurt people and we hurt the environment. >> here's the issue, ali.

the free market is amazing! i love competition! i love driving to get the most for the least. but it has to be balanced. a really effective market system has to be balanced by a strong, transparent, responsible government and by strong civil society. so, what do i mean by that? i mean, at the moment, you can burn fossil fuels and dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, creating untold damage for our children and for ourselves right now. look at the fires in california and australia. you can push wages to the bottom. you can tell people, health care? what's health care? what's happened in our society is government has become a dirty word. but government is vital if capitalism is to do its job. it's like any game. if you tell a group of people playing, hey, i'm british, i'm female, so sports metaphors are

not my forte -- but if you tell people during a game, anything goes, they'll kick, they'll fight, they'll scrimmage! you've got to have rules. so that's the issue. we've got to rebalance the system. >> are you hopeful that you can convince people that we can rebalance a system and get greater outcomes? in other words, it does not have to be a zero-sum game, that if the earth benefits and people at the lower end of the wage cycle benefit, that it doesn't actually have to cost us more, it can actually be better for everybody? >> that's exactly right. if we do this in the way we need to, we can build a system that will be better for everyone. apart from anything else, the costs we're imposing on society by not having decent access to health care, by allowing people to pollute almost at will, those are enormous costs. so let's get rid of them. let's clean up the air. let's make sure that we don't have droughts and floods destroying our cities going

forward. and let's take care of people at the bottom. years of academic research -- >> rebecca -- >> yep. >> we have much most talk about, and i invite you now to return, because i like you this problem. it's plumbing that is broken. when your plumbing is broken, you don't have to hate plumbing, you have to actually fix the plumbing. come back and talk to me. an economist and professor at harvard business school and author of great new book "re-imagining capitalism in a world on fire." thank you for being with me. before there was facebook and twitter and text messaging, america relied solely on the u.s. postal service. now one of the oldest institutions in the united states is at risk of collapsing. i'll tell you why the federal government needs to step up next. ep up next

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♪ neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. that is the motto of our postal service. now we see it in action as millions of people stay home, postal workers continue delivering our mail, despite threat of illness, to make sure we get what we need. the postal service is not only one of the largest civilian employers in the country, but it employees critical groups of people in our population. 18% of the people who work for the postal service are veterans.

39% are minorities. u.s. p.s. is not only woven into the fabric of this country, it is actually older than the nation itself. now, despite that, the president recently took aim at the united states postal service. >> if they don't raise the price, i'm not signing anything. so they'll raise the price so they become maybe even profitable but so they lose much less money. okay? and if they don't do it, i'm not signing anything and i'm not authorizing you to do anything. >> not the first time the president has voiced concerns with the usps. it's a target. it's clashes with amazon's jeff bezos who also happens to own "the washington post" which trump hates. and while many of trump's criticisms are unfounded, as with much criticism, there is also room for improvement. the postal service follows a mandate to provide the same affordable mail service all over the country while remaining self funded. but it has struggled to keep up

with ups fedex and of course amazon which uses both of those private competitors to the postal service. and u.s.p.s. has at times lacked innovation to keep up with changing times. the current pandemic only exacerbated these problems and without financial assistance, this 250--year-old institution that was once run by benjamin franklin may not make it through the summer. and yet, trump refuses to help. u.s.p.s. employees are the people we see everyday. they bring us our birthday cards, college acceptance letters, packages, absentee ballots and most recently our relief checks. every small town has a post office, but not every small town has a fedex or up-s. it's important for us to support the u.s. postal service, to tell our leaders that it's critical for this institution to keep going as it has through wartimes, previous pandemics and natural disasters. the u.s. postal service is not

just mail and packages, it's a group of civil servants, people dedicated their lives to their work, they are essential to keep us going, essential in moments like this pandemic when we long to be connected with those far away from us. we can work to fix its problems. but first, we need to help it survive. we've seen you go through tough times and every time, you've shown us, you're much tougher your heart, courage and commitment has always inspired us and now it's no different so, we're here with financial strength, stability and experience you can depend on and the online tools you need because you have always set the highest standard and reaching that standard is what we're made for ♪ and reaching that standard is what we're made for when youyou spend lessfair, and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one.

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