thing with the president, he doesn't feel like christopher wray is his guy. the reason he is staying now, jonathan swan reports, two things, both practical. one, people around him say before an election, six months to the day yesterday until the election, do you really want to kick over the hornet's nest of firing another fbi director? and this is the ultimate practical point, there is not an obvious replacement. christopher brwray stays, but t president continues to complain about him inside. unheard of situation in any other administration. >> mike allen, thank you, as always, my friend. going to be reading axios a.m. in a little bit. >> have a great week. >> sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this monday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat. in the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants.

we are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally valuable in the sight of god. we fall together, and we are determined to rise. god bless you all. >> part of a moving video released over the weekend by president george w. bush. >> beautiful. >> calling for americans to put aside partisanship in the face of the coronavirus. the post seemed to royal president trump a bit. he responded on twitter, asking why president bush didn't support him during the impeachment trial. >> so -- >> yeah. >> -- a beautiful -- >> it is worth watching. >> republican or democrat alike should watch that. what a beautiful closing line, "we rise or fall together, and we choose to rise." just beautiful. >> good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, may 4th. >> a lot of people said they miss having a president like that, whether it's a democratic president or a republican president. >> just miss having someone with

competence. >> someone that works to unite americans. >> with us, we have white house reporter for the "associated press," jonathan lemire. msnbc national affairs analyst, co-host of showtime's "the circus" and "the resoucount," j heilemann. part of hillary clinton's 2016 campaign, adrienne elroy. and chief correspondent for the "new york times," peter baker. we have a lot of developments to report on where things stand on the sexual assault allegation against vice president joe biden. a number of develops since our interview. we're going to get to all of that in a moment. first, joe, the u.s. death toll is nearing 70,000, as the president is still pushing to reopen the country. >> well, it's really unbelievable. two weeks ago, it was two weeks ago today, on april the 20th,

that donald trump predicted, after getting things wrong from the beginning -- in february, he said it was one person from china. going to be down to zero. in february, he said it was 11 people, it'd be down to zero. late february, it was 15 people, going to be down to five, maybe five. all along, talking about what a great job he's done. it was going to be down to zero. well, two weeks ago, donald trump said, oh, it'll be 50,000 or 60,000, which shows what a great job we've done. so his standards constantly move. last night, bret baier asked in this bizarre town hall setup, where president trump, filled with self-pity, decided to tell americans that he's been treated worse as president than abraham linco lincoln. bret baier asked him about, once again, his moving death toll.

>> we're going to lose anywhere from 75,000, 80,000, to 100,000. that's a horrible thing. we shouldn't lose one person over this. >> that number changed. you said 60,000, 70,000. >> i said 65,000. now, 80,000 or 90,000. it goes up and rapidly. no matter how you look at it, it'll be at the lower end of the plane, if we did the shutdown. >> actually, he, again, said it was going to be zero. it was 11 to zero. 15 to five. then he said it was going to magically go away in april, when things warmed up. it'd be gone in april. then, of course, more americans died in april of this pandemic that the president said wasn't going to affect us. >> at one point he called it a hoax. >> said the media is, yeah, overhyping it. it's a hoax. i say all this for a reason. i say it mainly to senior

citizens who i have been talking to on this show from the beginning, about talking care of yourself. not listening to politicians. talking to doctors. it is very telling that the president of the united states, as he rushes headlong into reopening as much of the country as he can, going against his own white house guidelines. the guidelines he announced. it's worth noting, before you go head first into a situation that could cause you a lot of pain and misery, and possibly even death, just stop for a minute and think, wait a second. in the past two weeks since donald trump said this death toll was going to be 50,000 or 60,000, while he's been rushing to go past his own guidelines, to ignore his own doctors, that the death toll has spiralled so

badly, that now he's saying, instead of 50,000 or 60,000 dying just two weeks ago, we're up to possibly 100,000 dying in the united states of america. we'll be over 70,000 by tomorrow. chances are good we'll be up by 80,000 by the end of the week or the beginning of next week. it could go faster than that. while infections are slowing down in new york city, guess what? they're going up in other parts of the country. so this wishful thinking -- and i'm just shocked by the president's wishful thinking, and i'm very concerned for those people who are ignorant of science and medicine, who are listening to donald trump and actually believing him. people are dying. they're dying because, well, because of these rosy scenarios. >> lack of taking the warning seriously. let's say it. >> it's not just the president

doing it now. the president is actually lying to you about the fall. saying, "oh, it's never going to come back in the fall." his doctors have to keep correcting him. that's where we are as the week starts. the president continuing to get this wrong. that's why the polls that are coming out are all bad news for him. i know that drives him crazy, makes him do even crazier things. it makes him talk about disinfectants being injected. makes him talk about lights being disinfected. makes him say stupid things about abraham lincoln and insult george w. bush, when the president is trying to bring us together. donald trump is down 43% to 49% to joe biden. you look at a dallas morning news poll, unbelievable, in texas, the "dallas morning news" has donald trump and joe biden

tied. >> well -- >> john heilemann, we're going to get to the news. i think this texas poll especially, if you look at all the swing state polls, it requires a quick discussion here. what's happening in texas? what's happening across the rest of the country? >> you know, joe, i think i've been thinking a lot about president trump and how interesting it is he thinks he's been treated worse than lincoln, who, if my memory and history serves me right, was shot. >> that, sir, is correct. >> the president hasn't been treated worse than the president who was assassinated. what's happening, this texas poll is the latest in the series we've seen all over the place, right? which is, there's not a -- anything that qualifies as a straig straight-up, for sure battleground state, or a battleground state that one of

the parties wants to turn into a battleground state, where joe biden is neither ahead or making gains that would alarm somebody who is sitting in that oval office or on the president's re-election campaign. texas is a state that, you know, is not yet a battleground state. it is not the closest reach state for democrats. that'd be georgia. you look at the polls in texas and georgia. in both those places, the president has some problems. i don't think it's shocking that those states, along with florida, states where the governors have, in their effort to try to be as trumpy as possible, have said, governors, lieutenant governors, other elected republicans said things or tried to reopen quickly, seemed to put the rush to reopen ahead of concerns around social distancing and public health. that's something we've seen overall across the country. it's not what the country wants right now. they want a singular focus. everyone is hurting economically. people want the country to come

back economically. they're way more concerned about their health than the economy. texas is a place where that's been -- where there's been some disjuncture between what the people of the state want and what republican leadership talked about. >> peter baker, i've spoken to people in the white house over the past month who at least said to me that they understand that this is a health care crisis and economic crisis won't be solved until the health care crisis is solved. yet, the president keeps stumbling forward with grand pronouncements that end up being false. whether it is about bleach or whether it is about disinfectants, whether it's about hydroxychloroquine, which he brought up again last night. he just can't quit it. or whether he's talking about how it's going to be zero people dying, or whether it is going to be five people getting infected. i mean, he continues repeating the same mistake. i will say, even for donald trump, i find that to be

extraordinarily fascinating, especially when him repeating the same mistake over and over again is costing him dearly in the polls. can you get us -- can you tell us about your reporting, what the president is thinking, and what his aides are doing to try to curb this behavior? >> i think aides stopped a long time ago trying to effect or influence the president's by haif yo behavior. i think recognizing the folly in that, as multiple chiefs of staff have fallen by the wayside in that pursuit before. but you're right. i think he's shifted his story and shifted his expectations that he is giving to the country repeatedly. you know, at this point, the numbers are horrific. what's striking when he sits there and talks about, "well, it could be 85,000, could be

90,000, could be 100,000, he se he seems to be disconnected from those involved. each day, we're seeing 1,000, 2,000 people dying, as if we're having a new 9/11 every two days. that video from george w. bush reminds us how traumatized we were as a country after 9/11, and how that president, at least, not only tried to pull us together, but showed his own personal grief as he channelled ours. i think barack obama did the same after school shootings in newtown, connecticut, and charleston, south carolina, when the church-goers were killed by that white supremacist. that's something this president has a tough time doing. when president bush calls for national unity, president trump attacks him for it. i think it goes against the spirit of the man whose statue he sat at the foot of, who said, you know, "in this country, a house divided can't stand." >> well, mika, even after the

civil war, it was abraham lincoln who saw 700,000 americans die in a war that cost him so much personally, as well, who talked about, with moving forward after the war, with "malice toward none." the backdrop that the president chose last night, it was ill-fitting to him and only made him look small. >> i found it to be especially troubling to see him do something that he's done many times in his presidency. sometimes quite effectively. sitting there at the lincoln memorial, to have him trying to desensitize americans to the magnitude of this loss, to the magnitude of these numbers, to spin these numbers, like 35,000 deaths or 40,000 deaths wouldn't be a human catastrophe. we're at 60,000 plus, looking at 70,000 plus, and he is trying to minimize them, which is what he

did with other scandals in his presidency. this is a human catastrophe. >> i mean -- >> american citizens are being traumatized by the day by this. he wants to dumb us down, to numb us, to numb us into thinking he could have done better. >> but -- >> when there are people inside the departments that are hired to fight this, who know that we came up short. >> well, he's saying the same thing over and over again. he ends every, you know -- "it's going to be zero. it's showing we're doing a great job. it's 11, it'll be down to zero." >> branding. >> it's 15, going to be five. saying we're doing a great job. now, he's saying 100,000 people could die. >> we're going a great job. >> yes, we're doing a great job. mika, you brought up the number two certain at the centers for disease control, who actually did say -- >> just late last week.

>> late last week, actually said, "we clearly did not recognize the full implications of what was happening." jonathan lemire, that's just a white house official saying something. that's just an administration official saying something everybody knows, the seniors know. yet, the president still hasn't learned his lesson. the president is talking about what a great job he's done. even two weeks ago, said, "oh, the death toll will be 50,000 or 60,000." now, oh, he found out this is actually deadlier than he expected. well, he's been learning that every day for the last several months. how many times can this president learn the same lesson about more americans dying? >> the president will certainly never acknowledge that the united states was slow to respond to the pandemic, but there is a mountain of evidence, of course, that it was. this is just the latest white house official to acknowledge

that case. what you saw last night, again, the president trying to reframe the issue, trying to move the goalpost on deaths. just a week or so, moving from 65,000 now to 80,000, 90,000, even 100,000, but trying to frame it as a good news story, a success story. we heard jared kushner last week call it that in an interview on "fox and friends." the president last night pushed back on that a little bit, saying, "well, we need to see how it turns out." it was largely during this town hall from the steps of the lincoln memorial, again, a rosy outlook, trying to paint an optimistic picture. even showing some impatience with some of the states that have been slow to reopen. that's where we are now. that is now the debate in this nation, is the pace at which certain states are going to reopen. with much prodding from the white house to go as quickly as possible. not, perhaps, hot spots like new york or california, but many others. even as we see infections rise across the country in other

places. even as they're dropping in places like new york, we're seeing the same number of total infections stay largely the same because they've picked up in other spots. other more rural, less density populated states. that is the risk as the states begin to reopen. we're seeing in georgia, there has been a tick up there. we saw the president last night grow angry, singling out georgia in particular. the d.c. metro area is seeing an increase in cases. there hasn't been a slide there yet, but he is pushing for states to move forward. that's a lot of it, of course, is fueled by those polls you started talking about at the top of the show. the administration, the political team for this president worried about his slide in a lot of battleground states. they believe they need to reverse the economic story in order to change that. though, of course, that could lead to far more americans being affected and potentially even dying. >> the polls are showing that the president's support is sliding because of recklessness

on this pandemic. i mean, in georgia, the president's dead even because of his recklessness on this pandemic. in texas, the polls are dead even because of his recklessness on this pandemic. mika, by the way, the president's boxed in. i know he's trying to whip up a frenzy among the 10% right now. whether it is armed militias, other conspiracy theorists. it's the president who said, and keeps saying, 1 to 2 million americans would have died, but for these stay at home orders. it was also the president who put out a list of guidelines. the white house. he did it with great fanfare. the doctors and the political people, the economists all came together, and they put out a listguidelines. if the president tells states to follow those guidelines, we'll be fine. he can't do it. he can't even follow his own

instructions. >> he can't do that. in a minute's time, he'll change. the "washington post" is out with a sweeping look at president trump's months-long attempts to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. in interviews with 82 administration officials, the "post" outlines a story of des pra desperation and dysfunction, with a look at what took place between march 29th, when trump agreed to extend social distancing guidelines, to this past week. during that time, the "post" notes that trump was so determined to extinguish the deadly virus, that he repeatedly embraced fantasy cure-alls, and tuned out both the reality that the first wave has yet to significantly recede, and the possibility of a potentially worse second wave in the fall. according to the paper, in early april, tensions were growing between the doctors and scientists advising the response, and the president's economic and political aides.

despite having no expertise in epidemiolo epidemiology, white house economic adviser kevin hassett built a model of operations, embraced inside the west wing by the president's son-in-law, jared kushner, and other powerful aides. for trump, the analysis provided justification to pivot, to where he preferred to be, cheering an economic revival rather than managing a catastrophic health crisis. three administration -- senior administration officials tell the "post" the task force members with medical degrees, including dr. deborah birx and dr. anthony fauci, splintered off in mid to late march, and began meeting almost daily. some of them were distressed by what one official dubbed the vudu discussed within the bro

broader task force. this is as sad as it gets, joe, in terms of having a president who wants to manage a crisis, versus appealing to his basic, deep-seeded, quite frankly, some might say, nasty instincts to try to win politically. >> well, forget about the politics of this. i mean -- >> he doesn't care about the science. >> again, what is so maddening is that -- i said repeatedly, mr. president, the best health care option is the best economic option. >> never gets that. >> it's the best political option. i've been telling you this. i know you watch. i've been telling you this, mr. president, now for, what, a month, two months? the best health care option, what's best for americans' health is best for the american economy. it allows small businesses to

get back to work. it is best for your political standing. you still don't get it. peter baker, this "washington post" report really does lay it out well. the "times" have done some great reports like this, as well. it talks about these fantasy cure-alls that the president has kept pushing. first, it was april. warm weather in april. then it was hydroxychloroquine. then it was bleach or disinfectants and lights. in those last two cases, the government, trump's administration, had to warn americans not to do that. i loved how they put it, and it is really -- if we can break it down to senior citizens who are being lied to by the administration, governors who are being pressured by this administration, this president is lying about the first wave. acting as if it is over. the first wave as we would say in florida, it's still breaking.

it's still cresting. people are still dying. the president is shocked. he's basically doubled in two weeks how many people he said could die from this, in two weeks. he is denying that a second wave is coming. it is remarkable that the president keeps making these mistakes. who is in charge? other than the president, is there anybody else? does jared kushner have the president's ear? does dr. fauci have the president's ear anymore? does dr. birx have the president's ear? who has the president's ear to say, "mr. president, the last two weeks since you've been pushing to open, your estimates have gone from 50,000 to 100,000 dead, in two weeks"? who is talking to him? >> i think everybody is talking to him, but it depends on how he takes the information. look, you're right about the fall. that's an important point here. where are we going to be at this point in september, which is important not just for his political career but, obviously, the country as a whole, for the

schools and campuses that want to reopen, for businesses that would like to bring people back. if there is a second wave that is anything like the first wave, which historically is what we've seen -- that's what we saw in the 1918 pandemic -- that not only will, as you point out, that be a health care crisis, it'll destroy confidence in the ability to come back to work, in the ability to go back out and shop and live life. as you pointed out, the health crisis is connected directly to the ek nom uk cconomic crisis. you can't fix the company without having the public confident the health part is fixed, as well. the president pivoted a little on that last night. fast few days, he was saying, maybe there will be or won't be another wave in the fall, but if there are embers, we'll put it out, as if it was a full threat. last night, he said, "maybe it'll be a fire. we'll have to put out a fire." dr. fauci has been quoted on

record saying that it could be, you know, a very serious threat in a second wave in the fall. that's what he worries about as we're eager to reopen our own life. >> adrienne, we're going to be talking about the joe biden story a little later on. there's a lot of developments there. in terms of president trump's attempts here to own the narrative, how is he lining up against joe biden in terms of approach to coronavirus? are americans responding to that? >> they're not, mika. this is one of the reasons why you're seeing independent voters swing toward joe biden. suburban swing voters swing toward joe biden. that is exactly, mika, why you're seeing texas tied right now. donald trump and joe biden tied in texas. that is monumental, especially six months out before the election. americans are losing trust and confidence that trump can handle this pandemic, and they're

worried about the economy. we're seeing millions and millions of americans file for unemployment every single week. unfortunately, i don't see this trajectory ending soon. i don't think any of us do. that is exactly why you're seeing voters in the dallas suburbs, the houston suburbs, san antonio suburbs. there's a lot of suburban voters in texas. that is why you're seeing this swing. of course, we're seeing a tide in north carolina. joe biden is leading in wisconsin and michigamichigan, states. florida, joe biden is a couple points up. a lot of that has to do with the fact that donald trump is losing support among older, white voters who helped propel him in 2016. >> john heilemann, few would have guessed this even a month ago. even with this pandemic raging. because i think few people expected the president to continue to mishandle this crisis as much as he did.

but you have joe biden and donald trump tied in georgia. joe biden and donald trump tied in texas. donald trump losing to biden in north carolina. losing to biden in florida. losing badly to biden in pennsylvania. losing to biden in michigan. losing to biden in just about every swing state. what does biden do moving forward? what does -- i would ask, what does donald trump do moving forward? again, he doesn't seem to be able to control himself at all. i'm just wondering, here we are in may, and a lot of people would say, "tit's way too early" i remember the 2012 story you wrote about how barack obama defined mitt romney in such a way in may, romney never recovered from it. >> right. you go back and talk, joe, to

smart people who have been at the core of incumbent re-election campaigns. white house political directors and campaign managers in re-elections. obama in '12. bush in '04. clinton in 1996. just the presidents in our lifetime, right? all will tell you that all three of those races in the re-elects had presidents who were struggling in various ways. they were a little below 50% or maybe a little more than below 50% in their approval ratings. all of them were deeply concerned about their boss' ability to win. all of them ended up winning and ended up winning close races. well, blowout in '96 with clinton. slow to blowout with bush in '04. close to a blowout in '12 with obama and romney. even people sophisticated with politics say we think the campaign is fought in the fall.

what they all say is, for their bosses, when they won re-election, they won re-election in the spring. bill clinton defining bob dole in the spring of 1996 is what won the race for bill clinton. that george w. bush defining john kerry in the spring of 2004 is what won the re-election for george w. bush. definitely what you mentioned, the job the obama people did defining mitt romney in the spring of 2012. the races in all of those incumbent re-elects were determined by what happened in the spring. the state of the country, the arguments made by incumbents who turned the race from a referendum on them to a choice between them and an opponent they rendered unacceptable in the public eye. now, we come forward to 2020. we are in that spring again. what you're seeing in the polls you cited across the board, on the fundamental issue that's going to face these two candidates in this fall, the question of the coronavirus and president trump's handling of

it, is the race is slipping away from donald trump. i'm not trying to say he can't win. i'm just trying to say that if history is a guide, this race is being determined right now. not after labor day. it is being determined now. if that's true, and that pattern holds, then the president's people should be deeply concerned about what's happening right now. views of him with respect to the central issue are hardening right now. the biden campaign isn't even having to do very much to make it happen. that's a worrying situation for president trump. >> we're going to have much more ahead on the sweeping "washington post" analysis. what exactly did those internal poll numbers show that had the president reportedly erupt in anger at his campaign manager? one of the reporters for the piece, bob costa, will be our test. >> is that where he threatened to sue brad? >> poor brad parscale. >> come on. to a 2-1 margin, americans give better marks to the way governors are handling the crisis versus the president. we'll talk to one of the state

leaders when republican mike dewine of ohio joins the conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ limu emu & doug [ siren ] give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance

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sensitivity as well as our gum issues. by brushing with sensodyne sensitivity & gum at home it's giving you the relief that you need and the control that you need to take care of your oral health. and it creates a healthier environment. there's no question it's something that i would recommend. exclusive interview with joe biden, where he responded for the first time on camera to the allegation by tara reade, who briefly worked as a staff assistant in biden's senate office, who claims biden sexually assaulted her back in 1993. reade says she cannot remember the exact time, date, or location of the assault, but that it occurred in an empty corridor somewhere in the capitol complex. i asked the former vice president tough questions because voters deserve to know the truth. perhaps know more than ever in

this me too era, facts matter. would you please go on the record with the american people, did you sexually assault tara reade? >> no, it is not true. i'm saying inequivocally, it never, never happened. it didn't. it never happened. >> do you remember her? do you remember any types of complaints that she might have made? >> i don't remember any type of complaint she may have made. tf it was 27 years ago. i don't remember, nor does anyone else that i'm aware of. the fact is, i don't remember. i don't remember any complaint ever having been made. >> have you or your campaign, have you reached out to her? >> no. i have not reached out to her. it was 27 years ago. this never happened. when she first made the claim, we made it clear that it never

happened. that's as simple as that. >> your senate documents at the university of delaware were supposed to go public. then they were resealed. the access was changed. i know that you are saying any hr complaints could be in the national archives. why not reveal your senate documents that are being held in delaware? i know there's 1,800 plus boxes. if she believes, and she alleges that the complaints may be hidden there, why not strive for complete transparency? why was the access to those documents sealed up when they were supposed to be revealed? >> well, they weren't supposed to be revealed. i gave them to the university. the university said it is going to take them time to go through the boxes. they said it wouldn't be before 2020 that that occurred, or 2021. i can't remember the year they said. look, a record like this can only be one place. it'd be -- it would not be at the university of delaware. my archives do not contain

personal files. my archives contained -- when i say personal, personnel files. they don't contain personnel files. they're public records, my speeches, pappapers, position papers. if that document existed, it'd be stored in the national archives, where documents from the office she claims to have filed a complaint with are stored. that's where they are stored. the senate controls those archives. i'm asking the secretary of the senate today to identify whether any such document exists. if it does, make it public. >> if you could speak directly to tara reade about her claims or anything, what would you say? >> i would -- this never, ever happened. i don't know what is motivating her. i don't know what is behind any of it. it is irrelevant. it never happened. it never happened. period.

>> since our exclusive interview on friday, there have been a number of developments. first, reade reportedly had a planned interview with chris wallace on fox news sunday but canceled it because of what she described to nbc news as security concerns. fox news spokesperson said the network had never confirmed the interview. reade also told the "associated press" in an sbriinterview afte questioning of joe biden about what might and might not have been in the limited report she said she filed in 1993 with the senate personnel office. on friday, in a medium post, just before our sinterview, and again during his exclusive appearance on "morn jing joe," biden called for the senate to identify and release any record of the complaint she alleges to have filed. after the interview, reade told the "ap" that what she had filed was a limited report that did not explicitly accuse him of

sexual assault or harassment. the "ap" report said reade described her issues with biden but, quote, the main word i use, and i know i didn't use sexual harassment, i used "uncomfortable." i remember retaliation. nbc news reported on april 12st that reade said she had complained of harassment but didn't allege an assault. in a text message to nbc's aly vitali on saturday, after the interview, reade wrote, quote, i filed a complaint re regarding sexual harassment and retaliation, but i'm not sure what explicit words on that intake form, until we all see it again. the "ap" had interviewed reade last year when reade was one of eight women who came forward then with allegations that biden had made them feel uncomfortable with what they felt was unwanted and inappropriate touching. biden has acknowledged those

complaints, and he has promised to be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. during one of the april 2019 interviews with the "ap," reade said biden rubbed her shoulders and neck and played with her hair. she said she was asked by an aide in biden's senate office to dress more conservatively and told, "don't be so sexy." she said then of biden, "i wasn't scared of him. that he was going to take me in a room or anything. it wasn't that kind of vibe." reade told the "ap" that she was reluctant to share details of the assault during her initial conversations with reporters over a year ago because she was scared of backlash and was still coming to terms with what happened to her. she made the specific public allegation of sexual assault against biden for the first time this year, around the time he became the presumptive democratic nominee. the "ap" discovered additional

transcripts and notes from its 2019 interviews with reade that contain the senate report she claims she filed. according to a transcript of her 2019 interview, reade said, quote, they have this counseling office or something. i think i walked in there once, but then i chickened out. on friday, the "ap" asked her about that comment and reade said she was referring to having chickened out by not filing full harassment or assault allegations against biden. in multiple interviews with the "ap" on friday, reade insisted she filed an intake form at the senate personnel office, which included her contact information, the office that she worked for, and some broad details of her issues with biden. on saturday, reade told the "ap" there may have been a box to check on the form noting a sexual harassment complaint. but she couldn't remember, and

wouldn't know for sure until she saw the form. reade says she doesn't have a copy of the report. the "ap" notes that, essentially, reade is suggesting that even if the report surfa surfaces, it would not corroborate her assault allegations because she chose not to detail them at the time. one other note on the formal complaint she says she filed, this from nbc news' reporting back in april 12th, federal law at the time set forth procedures for allegations of harassment or discrimination in employment on the basis of gender, which would have included a hearing by a board of independent officers. no such process was initiated by reade's complaint. so more now on reade changing her story from a year ago. in 2019, she accused biden of inappropriate touching but not of assault. the "new york times" reports that reade first told the paper last year that mr. biden had publicly stroked her neck,

wrapped his fingers in her hair, and touched her in ways that made her feel uncomfortable. then waited until this past march to add significant details to the allegation. >> that matched up, by the way, with what another bernie sanders supporter had said last year, the allegations against joe biden. go ahead. >> in 2019, she also spoke with the "kwun uni"union," a local n in california, which reported, quote, al saexandra tara reade, said that in 1993 she was in her mid 20s when biden, then a senator from delaware touched her and made her feel uncomfortable. her position was reduced after refusing to serve drinks at an event. reade said she didn't discuss the assault allegation because she was scared and not quite ready. i wanted to share the whole thing, but at the same time, i was too scared, reade told vox. i wasn't quite ready.

one other note on the timing of this allegation. before she made her assault allegation, reade was a bernie sanders supporter and opponent of joe biden. nbc news reports that after previously supporting maryanne williamson and elizabeth warren in the 2020 race, reade was a constant presence on twitter after biden's huge super tuesday showing, tweeting and re-tweeting pro-bernie sanders and anti-biden messages. it wasn't until after sanders lost in michigan on march 15th that she tweeted about biden's harassment and touching. but not the alleged sexual assault. two days later, she tweeted about harassment and, quote, more. then on march 25th, she tweeted her interview with a progressive podcast host, her first reference on twitter to the assault allegation. multiple media outlets, including nbc news, the "new york times," and "business insider," have reported that

five people have said that reade told them about her concerns regarding senator biden in the 1990s. we told you on friday that on april 24th, 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. last week, one of the five, a former neighbor of reade's, went on the record, by name, vouching for her. 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, and has also spoken with five people 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 recalled 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 mention anything about an 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 had 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. nbc news has now also spoken to 14 people who worked in biden's various offices at the time of reade's alleged assault. four of them declined to comment. most said they did not remember much about reade specifically. none of the former staffers said they had heard any complaints about biden's behavior during their time in his office. the "new york times" reports that in the course of its investigation, no other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of their reporting, nor did any former biden staff members corroborate any details of reade's allegation. the "times" found no pattern of sexual misconduct by biden.

the "new york times" editorial board wrote on friday evening that the democratic national committee should move to investigate the matter swiftly and thoroughly, with the full cooperation of the biden campaign. also on friday, after my questioning of joe biden, a number of women's groups came out with statements about the allegation. naral and emily's list put out a joint statement, in part, it is critical that women be heard and they be allowed to tell their stories about personal attacks or a system that shuts them down. today, joe biden addressed tara reade's claims. voters deserve the chance to hear from biden, especially given how much is at stake in this election. and today, they did. this debate is about the next election. the most critical time -- the most critical in our lifetime. they go on to point out that voters have a choice between joe biden and donald trump. and that trump has never

addressed the multiple, credible allegations of sexual assault against him. planned parenthood's statement reads, in part, quote, we are glad to see vice president biden take a needed first step in addressing this issue head on. we now look to biden to continue to push this conversation and our country forward. time's up said, in part, we have reached a pivotal moment in our nation, when candidates for president are accused of sexual assault. today, vice president joe biden sat down and directly addressed the allegation against him, with the seriousness it deserves. something that the current president has never done. no longer can claims like this go ignored. vice president joe biden needed to address tara reade's allegation today. we call for complete transparency into this claim and the multiple claims against president donald trump. it should be noted that trump has denied each of the allegations against him.

as for whether an allegation like this would have come up while biden was being vetted to be president obama's vice president, andrea mitchell spoke with william jeffries, the lawyer who led the team investigating biden for the obama campaign. according to jeffress, it included any misconduct, including sexual misconduct, and found no complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination, or any missiconduct. there are curious aspects regarding this matter. in 2017, reade praised joe biden several times for his actions in helping stop sexual assault. reade liked and re-tweeted several posts praising biden's pork work in this area. the same year, she tweeted other compliments of biden, including, my old boss speaks truth.

listen. she liked tweets of biden praising obama, and a tweet that congratulated biden for receiving the presidential medal of freedom. and one last item as it pertains to this story, the medium posts that reade wrote in 2018, where she heaped praise on vladimir putin. in one, she wrote, quote, president putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. his sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. reade later said the comments were taken out of context as part of a novel she was writing. reade also wrote an article in 2018 stating that she left washington because she was sick of american imperialism, and because she loved russia with all her heart. the posts are now deleted. >> adrienne elrod, a lot to digest here.

what's your takeaway? >> well, first of all, i think what is important here to keep in mind is that joe biden hit this head on. he took -- he sat for a tough interview with you, mika brzezinski, and took every question directly. didn't deny. didn't try to not answer questions. hit every question head on. he also was very, very respectful of ms. reade. he didn't question her motivations. he didn't question why she was coming forward. he unequivocally, and i think credibly, denied that he ever did this. you know, then he also took a tran transparent step of going to the senate and saying, "please look through the records and see if you can find anything, you know, that would be a claim she filed." this is 27 years ago. certainly not common that a united states senator, after leaving office, would keep personnel records. he went to the senate and asked them to look through the records. i don't know what more vice president biden could do right

now. i think also, it is very important, and i applaud you guys for laying out the facts the way you did, taking the time to do that. context here matters. if we don't look at both sides of this argument, and lay out the facts -- oftentimes, that allows stories to take on a life of their own. we're six months away from the election. stories have the ability to take on a life of their own, especially on social media. it is very important that we lay out the facts. again, i think joe biden handled this very effectively. something else to keep in mind about joe biden, american vote ervoters trust him. trust numbers are out the roof for a candidate running for presidency. much higher than donald trump. that means when he makes a statement, when he says something, voters believe him. that is a very important element to keep in mind as this story goes on. >> probably why joe biden is crushing donald trump in so many states, and why joe biden is

even pulling even in texas, in georgia, and across the country. this weekend, yesterday, dowd wrote in her column about this and the me too movement. she referenced brett kavanaugh and al franken, suggesting there had been oversteps. she wrote this, as in any revolution, there was some overreaction, when liberals heralded the idea all women must be believed, it made me wince. it suggested every woman who alleges a sexual assault is as credible ads the next is absurd. the idea that no woman can ever be wrong just hurts women. who has ever been lied to by people of both genders? half the human race is female. peter baker, it seems that as we move through this joe biden story, we're going to see the democratic party having a debate

within itself, and a lot of media outlets having a debate, about these standards. what should be applied to joe biden. what should newspapers do. what should media outlets do differently than they did during the brett kavanaugh hearings or al franken. >> yeah, i think that's right. very uncomfortable position for a lot of democrats to be put in. democrats who were very strong on opposing brett kavanaugh a couple years ago, and made the case on other instances of sexual misconduct. certainly taking on president trump on that. it is uncomfortable for the trump campaign in some ways. you have the republicans going after not only joe biden but every democrat who supports joe biden, saying, you know, who do you believe? do you believe tara and take her seriously, the way you say women should be taken seriousness when they make allegations of this sort? you have the president himself say, well, i am siding, in some level, with joe biden, saying i've been accused falsely and,

therefore, joe, go out and fight it. it is a conflicting message there from the trump campaign. they want it both ways. the president himself, who has been accused by so many women, you know, talking about the likelihood of false allegations, certainly in his case. you have republicans on the other hand trying to press their advantage on this. it take mamakes for an ugly sit one that is polarized and partisan. people are seeing these things through the partisan lens. people who believe in biden don't want to believe this of him, who look at his record on support for women's rights and essential assault ledgislatiole. republicans are pressing it for their own political advantage. it's hard to know where to fall down on this if you're someone who takes these allegations seriously.

>> it is difficult for donald trump. donald trump supporters pushing this. of course, the 21 women, i believe, 21 that we recounted on friday have accused donald trump of either sexual harassment or sexual assault. of course, you have donald trump on tape bragging on the "access hollywood" tape of sexually assaulting women. because he's famous, so he can get away with it. john heilemann, mika's interview, obviously, on friday, drew a lot of attention. i'm curious, three days later, with everything that has happened between then and now, where do you put this story? what's your takeaway right now on the impact on the campaign? >> i think that adrienne made the point that joe biden had done an effective job in his interview with mika.

i think that is the consensus view of a lot of democrats. i think it is important to remember that that is kind of one of the most important dynamics here. before biden's interview on friday, as much of the incoming criticism he was facing about people who wanted the hear from him, who said he needed to address this, the noise level was as much coming from the left, or more potentially coming from the left, as it was from the right. the right tried to stoke this, as peter said, for the political advantage. also, sanders supporters, people on the left. that is a difficult positive sfir -- position to be in, when you have your own party as well as the republicans on the other side. joe biden gave a lot of democrats reasons to feel reassured. he addressed it head on in all the ways adrienne says. a couple things are outstanding. one of them is, given all the voluminous complexities and contradictions mika laid out at

the top of the block, it makes it all the more essential for, at some point, tara reade to go on camera. i think in the same way as i said on friday, that hearing from joe biden was essential. i think now, in order to resolve a lot of these matters, the not just hear what her story is, a clear, straightforward way, and also for her to address some of the contradictions and nuances of this story. it is all the more essential if she wants to be taken seriousness, for her to come out and address this on camera. the last thing i'll say is this, joe, you mentioned this, and mika did, too. i think it is important, of all the contextual things that i think about here, i really think that you go back to 2008. i know a wrote a book about this, the 2008 campaign. i know what the vetting of the vice presidential nominees was like in the obama campaign. i know that it is hard to imagine that the obama vetters would have missed this, if there was a complaint filed in the kwhie united states senate.

it is almost inconceivable they would have missed that complaint. if the complaint had been there, it would not have been a central question and probably disqualifying for biden. everyone who attested to the vetting process, and everything my reporting suggested at the time, was there was never a problem at this time coming up against biden. it is an important piece of historical cob tentext, i think >> everything we've read over the past three days, that is, as -- it puts things into context, as well as anything else. we've all heard, and certainly 2008, 2012, and throughout time, we've all heard of potential vice presidential candidates who were disqualified because of the excruciating investigations that usually take place during the time when someone is considered to be vice president and the time that somebody is selected as vice president.

john heilemann, thank you so much. appreciate it. peter baker, we thank you, as well. thanks a lot for being with us. adrienne elrod, thank you so much, as well. just past the top of the hour now. joining the conversation, we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "kasie d.c." on msnbc sunday nights, kasie hunt. political reporter for the "washington post" and msnbc analyst, robert costa. the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. jonathan lemire is still with us, as well. white house reporter for the "associated press." >> let's begin, robert costa, with you. "washington post" put out a story talking about the failures of donald trump, to get his arms around this crisis. we saw it last night. you have donald trump in february saying it's one person coming in from china. soon it'll be zero. in february, we heard that it was 11 people. soon it'd be down to zero. 15 people, soon down to zero.

every time, you can talk about what a great job he was doing. of course, two weeks ago today, the president said, "oh, we'll have 50,000, 60,000 people die." last night, in the fox news town hall meeting, bret baier asked him about that. he said, "well, no, it's terrible, now it may be up to 100,000 people who have died." the president, time and time again, always promising a rosy scenario. always talking about what a great job he's done. that has always been followed by a lot more americans dying of a pandemic that he said would magically go away in april. take a look at the president last night. >> we're going to lose anywhere from 75,000, 80,000, 100,000 people. that's a horrible thing. we shouldn't lose one person. >> that number changed. you said 60,000. >> i used to say 65,000.

now, i'm saying 80,000 or 90,000. it goes up and rapidly. it's still going to be, no matter how you look at it, at the lower end of the plane, if we did the shutdown. >> so, bob costa, the president still, it seems, again, still doesn't seem to be facing this down as seriously as he should. continues to talk about rosy scenarios. >> joe, what we decided to do at the "washington post" is step back and try to better understand this rosy scenario. we keep hearing it from president trump in the white house. over the course of three to four weeks, we found an administration that was searching for ways to reopen the economy just months before his re-election was up. he wanted to make sure that it was not only states driving the conversation, but he wanted to drive the conversation inside of the white house. so many aides around him, from jared kushner to economic

adviser kevin hassett, were part of this growing chorus inside of the white house, that the economy needed to be reopened. they weren't just looking at the university of washington model. they were looking at economic analysis to help guide their own decision making. you see the pressure in our story that they all felt as the re-election campaign hovered. how to get this presidency back on track, even as many health experts warn that states weren't taking the right steps as they began to reopen. >> all right. more now from the reporting from bob and his colleagues. a sweeping look at president trump's month-long attempts to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. as it progressed, trump was more preoccupied with his daily briefings and press appearances. mid-april, his attention turned to declining political fortunes,

after his political team, including son-in-law jared kushner, campaign manager brad p pascale, and the committee chair said the briefings may be hurting him politically. in an rnc poll of voters in battleground states, where biden led trump, voters ranked the coronavirus as the most important issue, with 54% saying trump was too slow to respond. 52% said they believed the government should be doing more. only 36% said they consider trump more honest and trustworthy. 35% said he was more compassionate and empathetic. 43% believed he fights more for people like them. 36% said trump was more calm, steady, and relatable.

trump did outperform biden in some areas, including who is better at getting things done and handling a crisis. only 37% said they believe the country was headed in the right direction. a question which has historically determined whether an incumbent will win re-election. after sharing the polling with trump, the paper reports he flew into a rage, saying he did not belief the numbers. arguing that people love his performances at the daily briefings and think he is fighting for them. according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. nbc news and the ap also had similar reporting last week regarding his reaction to seeing the poll numbers. that intervention, joe, that interventi intervention, i guess, got him so angry. this has been something you've been saying every morning directly to him. >> right. >> that his performance in the briefings is hurting him, not helping him. >> every day. >> it is making people like him less, trust him less, and feel

fear about their own future. >> well, because what he says quickly turns out to be a lie. whether he's talking about hydroxychloroquine or whether he's talking about, you know, pushing bleach. >> good lord. >> disinfectants, lights. his own administration -- >> the death toll. >> -- has to come out and warn americans to ignore the president. of course, again, the lies from january where he said it was one person, going to be down to zero. two days later, he thanked china for their transparency. said the people of the united states were dprgrateful to president xi for their transparency and how well they handled the crisis. february, it was 11 people, down to zero. only 15 people. kept saying what a great job he was doing. then he's still saying, "oh, maybe 100,000 people will die, but we're doing a great job still." that's 100,000 more than the

president said would die a couple months ago. in april, he said it'd magically go away. yeah, in april, more people died of this pandemic that he said would magically go away in april than died fighting the vietnam war. the death toll just keeps skyrocketing. the president continues to be reckless. jonathan lemire, the president, obviously, very angry still. enraged. he's tied in texas according to the "dallas morning news." tied in georgia with joe biden. he's losing north carolina. he's losing florida. he's losing pennsylvania. he's losing michigan. he's losing one state after another. it seems, sadly, for citizens of this country, that the president is also losing any pretense of control. >> joe, as the series of the

worrisome battleground state polls that finally convinced the president to give up, the coronavirus daily task briefings, which advisers have been telling him for weeks were hurting him, not helping. then we saw, of course, in one of his final appearances in those, the suggestion that americans should be injecting themselves with disinfectant. of course, a potentially lethal remedy to the coronavirus. we're seeing last night the president is trying to pivot away from his health briefings. the focus has been on the economy. but we're seeing sort of the urgency of this. we saw it last night in his town hall. he was angry at some states for some reopening. also, again, pushing pi ining w thinking. he said last night he believed a vaccine would be developed by the end of this year. most public health experts said that's a 12 to 18-month procedure. dr. fauci a few days ago said that perhaps early 2021, that could be possible. that's still the president accelerating the timetable by at

least several months. there's no sense there that that will be doable. it is a desperation, it seems, coming from this white house, to try to stem the momentum here. they know this is slipping away from them. we saw the president, of course, last night have to acknowledge the death toll will likely be much higher than he originally positive jekt projected. few other notes that are important from last hour, the president seemed to draw a red line about the next wave of economic stimulus, the next economic rescue from the senate, from congress. saying a payroll tax cut would need to be included. that's faced opposition from both parties to this point. he said last night the government wouldn't do anything else unless that was done. it will shape negotiations potentially going forward. we know the senate is back today. the house still not because of health concerns, because of the spread of the virus. we also had the vice president last night, mike pence, a rare apology. a rare mea culpa from trump world, acknowledging he should

have worn a mask during his visit to the mayo clinic last week when he didn't, tcontrary o the clinic's guidelines. last night, he said it was essential. the trump campaign this morning released their first big ad of the general election campaign. mid seven-figure buy in the battle l grou battleground states, pitching the america comeback story. it is amid the frustration of how they lost the last few months to the pandemic. economic and public health tolls. also, the inability to do what incumbents like to do in the springtime of the election years, defining opponents. it's been the reverse. this election is a referendum on the president. this incumbent and his failure to manage this crisis to this point. >> showing he can answer questions about leading the country through a virus or any accusations against him, joe

biden. the president has been void of any responsibility of anything negative, even if he may or may not have done it. there are 25 women who say some sort of sexual misconduct or sexual assault pertaining to donald trump on them. donald trump just skates. never gets the questions. loves to sow doubt in people. if you see when he is angry at someone, he starts to sow doubt. if someone is in his way politically, he likes to sow doubt in terms of what people believe of them. it is a strategy he's used every step of the way. we'll see what happens. what do you have to lose? sowing doubt, getting people to believe maybe a lie could be true. trump has got to step up at some point and understand this pandemic is happening on his watch. some republicans seem to be practicing a bit of social distancing from the president. multiple reports detail how some

vulnerable republicans up for re-election are choosing to distance themselves from president trump's response to the pandemic. it doesn't work for them with their voters. their voters don't feel safe. "new york times" reports that to ensure the contests become referendums on their own actions to combat the virus, house republicans are playing up their work with democrats, doubling down on constituent service, and hosting town hall style events, avoiding mention of trump whenever possible. trying to stay away from him because trump will hurt their ability to be re-elected. the pandemic has sharply raised the stakes for those centrist dprks gop candidates who constituents bear the brunt of the circumstances. a piece in the "national journal" points out that while trump's skeptical independence

will be key to winning battleground states, some strategists are encouraging candidates to talk about keeping the senate as a check against democratic power, even if it means acknowledging the presidency is likely lost. kasie hunt, as we see this distancing beginning to happen, are there any republicans that are where he hready to go on th and speak clearly about this problem as it pertains to the president? >> reporter: so far, mika, you've seen that bubbling up around the edges. the reality of this pandemic is something that i don't think any of us can ignore. even mitch mcconnell last week said in an interview, "we're not where we need to be on testing, as we start to talk about reopening." the broad reality for republicans, first of all, centrist republicans in the house are relatively endangered species after the 2018 election. many of them were wiped out in swing districts.

the ones who had hung on, and this especially applies on the senate side, to people in those swing states, trying to hold on to their seats. the strategy they had essenti essentially settled on for how to keep the senate was to embrace this president at every turn. to make sure they left no daylight between themselves and president trump. that the base of the republican party would seize on, to potentially turn on them. their belief, and rightly so at the time this strategy was outlined and beginning to be implemented, was that it was president trump's republican party. breaking from him was going to potentially cause their voters to reject them. however, the pandemic has completely changed that calculus and has them all scrambling for their political lives. the reality is they are essentially being told to, at every turn, not necessarily criticize the president, but to

essentially ignore him, to pretend, in effect, what is going on in washington at the white house is not what is happening on the ground in their district. not affecting them. instead, it is whatever the republican member of congress is working on or doing, in terms of constituent service. that is an unbelievably difficult pivot to make, as we've pointed out, in the spring of a campaign when, you know, the spring really is a pivotal time, even in these congressional races, as well. and when being -- their fates are going to be tied to this president. we've all been talking about exactly how he's been doing in fighting this. >> yeah. i mean, the bottom line here is that this virus is really different than other presidential scandals in terms of people criticizing the way the president has handled it, or citing his incompetence. total and complete incompetence. that, many see, is a scandal.

it's led to the deaths of tens of thousands of americans. unlike the mueller report or the ukraine scandal, many americans, maybe trump supporters across america, hard-working people who are going to work the next day and are worried about the next paycheck, they were willing to let him deal with it, to trust him on it, to go with it. but this virus has something different happening to every single american. including trump's base. this virus has american citizens fact-checking the president themselves. they are scared. something seems wrong with everything that he is saying as it pertains to this vie virus. when someone tells you to put disinfectant under your skin, you want to double check that. when someone is touting a drug that the chief doctor for the united states, representing the fight against this virus, is saying, "no, it's dangerous,"

you want to fact-check that. if your child is a nurse or a doctor on the front lines, going to work every day, 12-hour, 14-hour, 16-hour shifts, and you're worried they will be exposed to the coronavirus and they, too, may be one of the many deaths, that your son or daug daughter is dealing with every day, you want to fact-check the president. if you, yourself, have the coronavirus or you know someone who has suffered deeply, or perhaps you know someone who has died a terrible death, you want to fact-check this president yourself. you're not listening to joe and mika. you're not listening to cnn. you're not watching fox. you're calling your doctor. you're not listening to the president and just whole hog taking it all as perfect truth. when it doesn't seem right. when this virus is killing potentially up to 100,000 people in this country. you're not going to leave it to him anymore. you're going to fact-check him yourself. people are feeling this.

people can see that something is wrong. p bob costa, your reporting on these internal polls and the president's rage. when people read this, it'll fit into the narrative that something is terribly wrong. >> well, people can read the reporting and make their own conclusions. we're trying to figure out with president trump is, what is going to be next? he has scrambled throughout march and april to try to get the economy restarted, to encourage governors to take steps. even many governors tell us in the story they do not feel they have the testing capacity or the federal support. one issue that coursed through the entire story is just because you have tests sitting there doesn't mean you have the swabs, reagents, contract tracing you need to have successful tests. that's something that president trump will be challenged on in the coming weeks. this story doesn't end with a sunday "washington post" story. it is now about the reopening of

the country. will president trump try pull back at all if there are issues in states like mississippi or florida or texas, that have moved ford wamove ed forward in their own different ways? or will he continue to charge forward as november lies ahead, along with his campaign? >> bob costa, thank you very much for your reporting. still ahead on "morning joe," ohio has seen more than 19,000 coronavirus cases. it is one of several states beg gibing to ease restrictions this week. governor mike dewine is our d s guest, next on "morning joe." cancer won't wait. it won't wait for a convenient time or for hospitals to get back to normal again. that's why, at cancer treatment centers of america, we aren't waiting. we're right here, still focused on the only thing we do, providing world-class cancer care, all under one roof. because cancer isn't just what we do, it's all we do.

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that family doesn't have to take out of their house. it relieves stress off of me to let me know i'm doing something good for the community, not just papa john's.

as several states across the nation begin to restart their economies, ohio will continue to cautiously reopen more businesses today, including construction, manufacturing, distribution, and general offices. joining us now, republican

governor mike dewine of ohio. >> governor, thank you so much for being with us again. >> morning. >> we greatly appreciate it. we thank you for, as somebody who has relatives in ohio, i thank you so much for your leadership in that state. can you talk about where we are today as we are in early may, the balancing act that you're having to do between getting ohio back to work, but also keeping ohioans, ohio citizens safe, even as the death toll continues to rise? >> there is a balancing act. there is no doubt about it. i told ohioans on friday, look, we can do two things at once. we can continue to do the social distancing. we can be safe. we can slowly move back in. what we did is we put working groups together of businessmen and women who are in those different professionals or businesses. for example, we had this week a -- weekend, excuse me, a working group on restaurants

that we're talking about how the best practices would be. today, we do start back with manufacturing. of course, a lot of manufacturing was already deemed essential. what we have now is a lot more testing than we had before. we spent some time this weekend working on the testing and the tracing. that's going to be such a big part as we move back. >> talk about some of the balancing acts, how do you get parts of the ohio economy going again while making sure that residents of your state remain safe and you deon't see a huge spike? what are specifics your business council came up with? >> well, they had some good business practices. for example, they said that every employee in the companies they're opening today and, frankly, the ones already open, every employee should wear a

mask. every employee, of course, should have the distancing. barriers should be built when the distancing could not actually occur. these are basic things that wouldn't shock anybody, i don't think. you know, all employees wearing masks. taking -- checking with each employee every single day to see how their health is. these are blocking and tackling basic things, but they're all laid out very, very carefully. we're doing the same thing with restaurants. we're going to do the same thing with hair. we have a working group working on it this weekend. we're trying to do it in a way that is not only as safe as we can make it, but in a way that engenders some confidence in the people of the state of ohio. if people aren't feeling safe, if they don't feel safe, they're not going to go to a restaurant. they're not going to go out. they're not going to go to retail. so it's a process for a lot of people. it's not fast.

some people think it is too fast. there are real medical consequences that you've all talked about in the past for an economy that is as down as this one is. you see depression going up. you see domestic violence, historically -- we don't have new figures for this -- but those things happen. we have to balance these two things. it is a delicate balance. a i'm going to start my press conference today with the people of ohio and talking about we've had real success in the last couple weeks in regard to our hospitalizations. they're not going down dramatically, but they're going down a little bit. i'm going to show them that and say, "look, we have to keep going. as we open up, we have to keep focusing on the basics of social distancing." it's the ohioans who got us here. it's not been me. it's ohioans who said, "yeah, we're going to stay home, and we're not going to be mixing

with a big group of people." we just have to continue to do that distancing, to be careful. we're not requiring it, but we're urging everyone who goes out into retail, you know, wear a mask. that is not for you. that's for someone else. if you can do it -- some people physically can't for some republican do reason do it. if you can do it, you're showing concern for someone else. it's those things that ohioans have been doing. we have to keep doing. at the same time, we work to get the economy back. >> governor dewine, you talked about the importance of testing. the importance of making sure that people are confident to go back out there. talk about how those two things go together. having a robust testing ability for testing and tracing and treating, isolating those who need to be isolated. how important -- how linked is testing with confidence to go back to work, to go back to

restaurants, to get businesses going again? >> i think the ability to trace, find out from someone who has it -- we'll have a lot more testing so we'll find out more people who have this. all of this is voluntary. no one is required to go this, but reaching out to that individual, finding out who they've been in contact with, then reaching out to those people that that person has been in contact with. i don't think any ohioan or any american, you know, wants to infect people if they're carrying the virus. of course, as you know, joe, what's the biggest challenge? we have so many people who do not know any indication that they have the virus and they're carrying the virus. that's one thing that makes it so difficult as we do all of these things. we had a real break ten days ago in regard to being able to have a lot more testing. we got the reagents coming in.

we're going to be, in a week, at about 20,000 capacity a day in testing, which is a marked change for us and a great improvement. we're standing up a very robust tracing group. we think about 1,800 people around the state. it's a work-in-progress, but it is very, very important. it enables us to slow that growth down in a way that we have not been able to do that. we've relied pretty much, so far, on the social distancing and people using their good, common, ohio sense. >> our only defense against it at this point. ohio governor mike dewine, thank you so much. we'll be right back. wayfair has way more ways to renovate your home,

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without a vaccine, sir, why do you think the virus will be gone? >> it is going to go. it'll be gone. it'll be eradicated. it's going to go. it's going to leave. it's going to be gone. it's going to be eradicated.

>> well, again, as we've been saying this morning, and it's caused the president to swiepir into a rage again, donald trump said in january, on january the 22nd, that he wasn't worried about this virus. everything was going to be fine. it was one person coming in from china. soon, it would be gone. >> while joe biden was writing in a piece for "usa today" that it was coming and it was going to be bad. >> right. at the end of january, joe biden wrote that. around the same time, days later, donald trump said that president xi was doing a great job. he applauded his transparency. the end of february, the president was saying it is just 11 people. it'll be down to zero. 15 people, going to be down to five, maybe down to zero. talked about how it would magically go away in april. of course, in april, more people died in the pandemic that donald

trump said would magically go away because of the weather than died in a war in vietnam. and it continues. the first wave hasn't crested, and donald trump will not even follow the white house guidelines that he put out a few weeks ago. he's denying that a second wave is going to come in the fall, despite the fact that every doctor, every medical professional, every scientist says he could face dire consequences in the fall, as well. this morning, i told the president again that good science ends up being good economics, ends up being good politics. obviously, donald, you didn't want to hear that again. i know i've been saying it a lot. you actually tweeted something extraordinarily cruel.

i know you meant to be extraordinarily cruel to me by attacking me, by bringing up a conspiracy theory that has lived in the gutters of the internet for some time now. but just like the seth rich conspiracy murder that was pushed by your allies, you don't understand the pain you cause, you cause to families who have already lost a loved one. not me. not my children. not anybody that knows me or -- they know the truth. you, once again, drag a family through this and make them relive it again, just like seth rich's parents. as if losing a loved one the first time isn't enough.

but this weekend, my god, you were supposed to have a working weekend. you got it wrong again. you said 50,000, 60,000. now you said 100,000 deaths. what did you do during your working weekend? you tweeted more hateful things about colleagues of ours. you tweeted conspiracy theories about jeffrey epstein. really, you have time for this? you tweeted conspiracy theories about barack obama. really, you have time for this? you attacked george w. bush for simply sending out a unifying message, to give americans hope. he said positive things about americans. he said positive things about health care workers. he said positive things about this country.

he said, "we choose to rise." even that offended you. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that a man who was offended by a former president, calling all americans of all parties together in this time of crisis, would be offended by that. after all, you're the same president, of the united states, who celebrated the return of a murderous dictator. kim jong-un. mr. president, i ask that you get checked out. i ask that you take a rest. i ask that you take care of yourself. maybe let mike pence run things for the next week. you're not well. let mike pence work with dr. fauci, work with dr. birx. it'd be best for you

politically. it would be best for the country medically. it would be best for the republican party politically. talk about social distancing. we're reading stories now of republicans who are politically distancing from you. you were right when you said we are a country at war. but we're losing that war. you assured us in january, it was nothing to worry about. you assured us in february, there was nothing to worry about. you assured republican senators in march when they were panicked, you said, "just stay calm. it'll go away." you assured african-american leaders that it would go away, just like magic. yao awe su you assured americans time and again in april, when things warmed up, it would just go away. you assured us in april it would just go away and not come back

in the fall. even when medical professionals, doctors, and historians, actually, reminded us that the 1918 pandemic did come back. it was even worse in the fall. mr. president, you're getting worse every day. you need to take a rest. you need to let mike pence actually run things for the next couple of weeks. come back when you're feeling a little better and when you can really actually focus on your job. you just can't do that right now. americans are dying every day because of it. jonathan lemire, this was an active weekend on twitter for the president. even this president, talking conspiracy theories about jeffrey epstein, barack obama attacking george w. bush for calling for americans to unite

together, praising kim jong-un. i could go on and on, attacking colleagues. i could go on and on, but i don't need to. this is, again, in a time of crisis, this is why independents are running away from donald trump as quickly as they can. >> aides had stressed this was going to be a working weekend. the president was at the camp david the majority of the weekend, the first time he left the white house for a month. he went to the lincoln memorial last night for the town hall. of course, what we saw from the president were these re-tweets, dozens over the last few days. you hit upon a number of the conspiracy theories, suggesting jeffrey epstein didn't kill himself. suggesting president barack obama was behind the, quote, russian hoax. and saluting that kim jong-un appeared to have returned to health. let's remember, of course, the north korean dictator had been sort of missing from the public

view for weeks. there was a lot of speculation that he was perhaps recovering from surgery or maybe even dead. then, of course, north korean state media reported that he was at a fertilizer plant over the weekend, and images went along with it. the president was glad, who has really touted his cozy relationship with kim jong-un, suggesting that he was very happy to see that he was okay. to your larger point, joe, this is not going to -- acts like this, the tweets from the weekend, the one this morning about you and this terrible conspiracy theory is not going to do anything to quell the uneasiness from the president's advisers, that this election and this moment is slipping away from him. they can read the polls. it was the polls presented to him a week or so back that led to the eruption and the president threatening to sue his campaign manager, brad parscale, for bringing them to him. this is not the race he thought he was going to run just a few months ago. he thought he was going to be running for re-election on the backs of a robust economy. he thought that joe biden was a weak opponent.

instead, what he's seeing here is that biden, though off stage in many ways because of the pandemic, and obviously now himself answering questions about this sexual assault allegation, although he certainly was forthright in his interview with you, mika, on friday, and to some democrats, feel reassured by that. the president here is sort of flailing a little bit, is how people described him to me over the weekend. >> ail wi little bit? >> suggesting this is not the race he wanted to run. this is not the race he thought he was going to be, the position he thought he was going to be in. certainly, he sees the economy, most after all, barrelling towards a recession. he's trying desperately to try to move it back the other way, to try to reopen things, even flying in the face of the advice of his public health experts, and touting, perhaps, a vaccine being available by the end of the year, which seems sort of an irresponsible promise, considering it's very different from what his health team is saying. >> of course, we don't know exactly why the president was

thrown into a rage this morning with his regular morning viewing of "morning joe." maybe it was because we brought up on february 22nd, he said that this pandemic was just one person coming in from china, and it would magically disappear. or in february he said the same thing. in january, he was praising president xi for being so transparent. or in march he said this would go away magically in april which, of course, more americans died. >> also could be that his staff, i mean, just at this point, everybody knows that he's having these meltdowns. he knowings he's having them. he's reading about them, and it is freaking him out, that people are actually not just completely under his command and keeping everything tight as it pertains to what happens inside the oval office. >> well, i think also, we showed some polls early this morning that he's always driven crazy by polls. again, don't really line up with

the fantasy world he's created. this is a cbs news/general election matchup. donald trump losing by six points to joe biden. far more troubling, i'm sure, for the trump campaign, this from the "dahl willlas morning showing joe biden tied with donald trump in texas. following a poll of joe biden tied with donald trump in georgia. routed in swing states and among senior. we also saw, kasie hunt, a series of articles this weekend talking about republicans, finally after three and a half years, not socially distancing from donald trump but politically distancing from donald trump. look at martha mcsally in arizona. most consider her race lost. susan collins in maine. most consider her race lost. you look at the colorado race. that looks like that one is lost. mitch mcconnell is actually going to be fighting for his political life. he knows it, even if people

around him suggest he is going to be just fine. north carolina, the same thing with tom tillis. he's in the race for his life. these republicans who have embraced donald trump for so long, now find themselves in a position where they're having to politically distance. talk about that, if you will, and how difficult is that going to be for a lot of these senators who embraced him for three and a half years? >> reporter: joe, it's hard to imagine a worse-case scenario, obviously for the country and the tens of thousands of people who have died. but if you're a republican trying to defend this president's handling of this, considering the facts at hand and what we know about how his administration handled or how he handled this pandemic in its early stagings, and you played all of the things this morning that he has said about this, about how it was going to go away, it was only a handle of

cases. this was not something people needed to worry about. all of a sudden, if you're trying to run for re-election in one of the worst environments, if not the worst environment in modern political history, depending where we are in november, if the economy is stig and, you know, millions of people, hundreds of thousands of people, are unmyoed. unemployed. this is a situation that is almost impossible to navigate because there are still people and we've seen some of them in these pictures in these protests, who are going to be with the president, no matter what. but the broad swath of america, that was disengaged before, or turned off by the nastiness of politics is suddenly -- they're at home on their couches. they were turning on those briefings. they are watching the news. they are looking at what the president is saying and thinking, really? so, suddenly, those people are in play as voters. and if you're a republican who, you know, risks getting attacked

and losing your base if you say something against this president but you have to go home and face all of these newly engaged, really swing voters who are thinking, you know, my grandfather or my great aunt, my, you know, daughter was affected by this. this is touching people's lives in a way that nothing else can. and, you know, i think from a big-picture standpoint, as well, you know, those of us in this -- in this business who, you know, watch these things unfold and learn lessons from things that have happen bfrd aed before and them to the future. that's all well and good for the most part. but this is a kind of cataclysmic event that stands to reshape our politics completely. and i think it's important that we all remember that as we move forward into this election because this really is going to be an enormous pivot point in history and it's going to dramatically affect the political fortunes and futures,

especially those tied to the party that's in power right now. >> and, again, as we've been saying for weeks, maybe even months, i don't remember exactly how long it's been. but senior citizens are breaking away from donald trump in florida. breaking away from donald trump in pennsylvania. and they're breaking away from donald trump in florida and pennsylvania, a ten-point lead for joe biden in -- in florida. and a seven-point lead in pennsylvania. seniors are breaking away from donald trump because he lies to them on television, and then they go to their doctor. and their doctor, who they've known for 25 years, warns them not to follow that advice. you can lie about robert mueller. you can lie about ukraine and americans. that doesn't affect americans. they'll be like i'm gonna stick with him. i'm busy. i got to work. i got to worry about my kids. i got to worry about being able to pay my kids' way through school.

but this hits far closer to home and that, you know, that is problem. and that is why republicans feel the need to politically distance. some republicans. certainly, in the swing states, that are breaking badly against donald trump right now. >> as we've said, last week, the u.s. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic eclipsed the 58,000 who died in the vietnam war. bringing an unwelcome reminder of that great tragedy in our history. the country was bitterly divided in those days, too, and there was no greater example of that division than the shootings at kent state university in ohio. nbc news senior correspondent tom brokaw takes a look back at when national guard troops opened fire on protesting students, 50 years ago, today.

>> kent state university. may 4th, 1970. the tragedy that day, like so much back then, was rooted in the war in vietnam. the trouble started four days earlier, with president nixon's announcement that he was widening the war into cambodia. >> american units searching for north vietnamese troops and installations. but what they will find or how long they will be here, no one can say for sure. >> nixon had been elected on a promise to end the war. the invasion of cambodia triggered a firestorm of protests on campuses across the country. the administration expressed open contempt for the protestors. vi vi vi vice president. >> irresponsible children of the well-to-do blasé permissivists. >> and a president himself, in

an off-camera remark, picked up by an nbc news microphone. >> you know, you see these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses. listen. the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world. >> at kent state, the campus was in turmoil after days of protest. the national guard was sent in. the students, ordered to disperse. they refuse. some threw rocks. the guards use teargas. then, without warning, using live ammunition, they open fire. at least a dozen students were hit. four were killed. sandra shoyer, william shrader, jeffrey miller, lying dead in this photograph that made front pages across the country.

>> she resented being called a bum. she felt war in cambodia was wrong. is this dissent a crime? is this a reason for killing her? >> a white house statement seemed to blame the students. this should remind us, all, once again, that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy. across the country, protests grew. so did an angry backlash. in lower manhattan, anti-war demonstrators, who had lowered a flag to honor the dead at kent state were attacked by pro-nixon hard hats. protestors converged on washington, by the thousands, for a massive anti-war rally. buses the white house to keep them out. at a nationally televised conference that night, almost every question was about vietnam, kent state, and the deep division in the country. the president was asked if he would be willing to reach out to

student protestors. >> i would like to try, as best i can, to do that. it is not easy. sometimes, they, as you know, talk to loudly that it is difficult to be heard. >> just hours later, unable to sleep, nixon did try. making a surprise pre-dawn visit to lincoln memorial to talk to demonstrators who were camped there. the brief, awkward conversation changed no minds, on either side. kent state was memorialized in song by crosby stills nash and young. the tragedy was a shock to the nation, for richard nixon, it was a turning point. his own chief of staff, later, called it the beginning of his downhill slide toward watergate. but the same week, those four students were cut down, 168

americans were killed in action in vietnam and cambodia. and the war dragged on for another five years. >> 50 years later, mika, still, just shocking unbelievable. the college students protesting on cam pause were gunnpus per w >> that was tom brokaw reporting. and thanks for putting together that really incredible report. riveting. >> thank you for that, tom. >> still ahead, president trump admits social distancing has been effective at stemming deaths from the coronavirus. yet, as more people die, the president says states aren't reopening fast enough. is he putting his re-election strategy over people's lives? we're back in one minute.

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let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat. in the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. we are human beings, equally vulnerable, and equally wonderful in the sight of god. we rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise. god bless you all. >> part of a really moving video released observe t released over the weekend by president george w. bush calling for americans to put aside

partisanship in the face of the coronavirus. the post seemed to royal president trump a bit. he responded on twitter asking why president bush didn't support him during the impeachment trial. >> so a beautiful, beautiful -- >> it's really worth watching. >> republican or democrat alike should watch that. and what a beautiful closing line, we rise or fall together and we choose to rise. just beautiful. >> good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, may 4th. with us -- >> a lot of people said they miss having a president like that. whether it's a democratic president or a republican. >> just miss having someone with competence. >> someone that actually works to unite americans. >> with us, we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire, msnbc national affairs analyst, co-host of show time the circus, john heilemann is with us. former chief of staff the d triple c and former director of strategic communications for hillary clinton's presidential

campaign, adrienne elrod is with us and chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," peter baker. the u.s. death toll is nearing 70,000, as the president is still pushing to reopen the country. >> it's really unbelievable. you know, two weeks ago. it was two weeks ago, today, on april the 20th, that donald trump predicted, after getting things wrong, from the beginning. in february, he said it was one person from china. going to be down to zero. in february, he said it was 11 people, going to be down to zero. also, in late february, said it was 15 people, going to be down to five, maybe five. and, all along, talking about what great job he's done because it was going to be down to zero, it was going to be down to five. well, two weeks ago, donald trump said, oh,it it's going toe 50 or 60,000, which shows what a great job we've done. so his standards constantly

move. last night, brett bear asked, in this bizarre town hall setup where donald trump, filled with self-pity, decided to tell americans that he's been treated worse, as president, than abraham lincoln. brett bear asked him about, once again, his moving death toll. >> we're going to lose anywhere from 75, 80, to 100,000 people. that's a horrible thing. we shouldn't lose one person over this. >> that number has changed, mr. president. >> it's going up. i used to say 65,000. and, now, i'm saying 80 or 90. and it goes up and it goes up rapidly. but it's still going to be, no matter how you look at it, at the very lower end of the plane if we did the shutdown. >> actually, he, again, said it was going to be zero. then it was 11 to zero. 15 to five. then, he said it was going to magically go away in april. when things warmed up, would be

gone in april. then, of course, more americans died, in april, of this pandemic, that the president said wasn't going to affect us. >> at one point, he called it a hoax. >> said the media -- yeah -- overhyping it. it's a hoax. i say this all for a reason. and i say it, mainly, to senior citizens who i have been talking to on this show from the beginning about taking care of yourself. not listening to politicians. talking to doctors. it is very telling that the president of the united states, as he rushes headlong into reopening as much of the country as he can, going against his own white house guidelines. the guidelines he announced. it's worth noting, before you go head first into a situation that could cause you a lot of pain and misery and, possibly even death.

just stop for a minute and think, wait a second, in the past two weeks since donald trump said this death toll was going to be 50 or 60,000. while he's been rushing to go past his own guidelines. to go -- to ignore his own doctors. that the death toll has spiralled. so badly that, now, he's saying instead of 50 or 60,000 people dying being just two weeks ago, now, we're up to possibly 100,000 people dying in the united states of america. we're going to be over 75,000 by tomorrow. chances we're going to be up by 80,000 at the end of the week or maybe even the beginning of next week. it could go even faster than that because, while infections are slowing down in new york city, guess what? they're going up in other parts of the country. so this wishful thinking -- and i'm just shocked by the president's wishful thinking, and i am very concerned for those people who are ignorant of science and medicine, who are

listening to donald trump and actually believing him. people are dying. they're dying because, well, because of -- of these rosy scenarios. >> a lack of preparation. a lack of taking warnings seriously. let's just say it. >> it's not just the president doing it now. the president's actually lying to you about the fall. saying, oh, it's never -- it's never going to come back in the fall. and his doctors have to keep correcting him. so in a way, mika, that's where we are as the week starts. the president, continuing to get this wrong. that's why the polls that are coming out are all bad news for him. i know that drives him crazy, makes him do even crazy tier things. makes him talk about disinfectants being injected. makes him say stupid things about abraham lincoln. makes him insult george w. bush when the 43rd president aesz tryiis trying to bring us together.

general election poll has joe biden up 49% to 43%. but then you look at a dallas morning news poll, unbelievable. in texas, the dallas morning news has donald trump and joe biden tied. john heilemann, we're going to get to the news. but i -- i think this texas poll, especially, if you look at all the swing state polls, it requires a quick discussion here. what's happening in texas, what's happening across the rest of the country? >> well, you know, joe, happy monday. i've been thinking a lot about president trump and how interesting it is that he thinks he was -- he's been treated worse than lincoln who, if my memory and history serves right, was shot. >> that, sir, is correct.

>> he hasn't been treated worse than a president who was assassinated. but i think what's happening is this texas poll is the latest in the series that we've now seen all over the place, right? which is that, you know, there's not anything that qualifies as a straight-up, for sure battleground state or a battleground state that one of the parties wants to turn to a battleground state. where joe biden is neither ahead or making gains that would alarm anybody who is sitting in that oval office or on the president's re-election campaign. texas is a state that, you know, is not yet a battleground state. it's not even the closest-reach state for democrats. you know, that would be georgia. but you look at the polls in georgia, you look at the polls in texas. in both those places, the president has some problems. and i don't think -- don't think it's -- it's shocking that those states, along with florida, states where the governors have, in their effort to try to be as trumpy as possible, have said

approximat governors, lieutenant governors have tried to push the radush t reopen ahead of social distancing or public health. and that's something we have seen all across the country. what the country wants right now is a singular focus. everyone's hurting economically. people do want the country to come back to life economically. but right now, they are still way more concerned about their health than they are about the economy. texas is a place where there's been some disjuncture between what the stapeople of the state want and its leadership have talked about. >> peter, i have spoken to people in the white house over the last month that at least said to me they understand this is a healthcare crisis and an economic crisis won't be solved until the healthcare crisis and solved. and, yet, the president keeps stumbling forward with grand pronouncements that end up being false. whether it's about bleach or

whether it's about disinfectants, whether it's about hydroxychloroquine, which he brought up again last night. he just can't quit it. or whether he is talking act how it's goi it's going to be zero people dying or whether it's going to be five people getting infected. i mean, he continues repeating the same mistake. and i will say, even for donald trump, i find that to be extraordinarily fascinating. especially, when him repeating the same mistake, over and over again, is costing him dearly in the polls. can you -- can you get us -- can you tell us about your reporting? and what the president's thinking? and what his aides are doing to try to curve this behavior? >> well, i think aides stopped, a long time ago, to affect or influence the president's behavior in any meaningful way. recognized the folly in that. multiple chiefs of staff have fallen by the wayside in that pursuit before. but you're right. i mean, i think that he, you know, he has shifted his story

and shifted his expectations that he's giving to the country repeatedly. you know, at this point, the numbers are horrific. and what's striking when he sits there and talks about them, well, it could be 85, it could be 90, could be 100,000. it seems so disconnected from the amount of misery and grief and tragedy that that involves. not only has that numbered continued to go up, it is going up by exponential numbers of people. each day, we are seeing a thousand to 2,000 people dying, as if we're having a new 9/11, every two days. that video from george w. bush reminds us how traumatized we were, as a country, after 9/11. and that president at least not only tried to pull us together but showed his own personal grief as he channeled ours. i think barack obama did the same thing after school shootings in newtown, connecticut, and charleston, south carolina, when the churchgoers were killed by that white supremacist.

and that's something i think this president has a tough time doing. you know, when president bush calls for national unity, president trump attacks him for it. you know, i think it goes against the spirit of the man whose statue he sat at the foot of who called -- who said, in this country, a house divided cannot stand. >> still ahead on "morning joe," 82 administration officials, 34 days, one president. "the washington post" has a deeply-sourced piece on how donald trump so thoroughly dropped the ball on this pandemic. but first, let's go to bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> good morning to you, mika. this is going to be wild week. going to see severe weather today and then i have a snow forecast for the upcoming weekend. let everyone know who is at risk. possible tornados later on today. maybe even large hail and damaging wind. we are watching areas from oklahoma especially. joplin, missouri, down to mcallister. so now let's talk about what

could be just a highly unusual event towards the end of this week. we have an arctic outbreak. yes, an arctic outbreak, in the middle of spring, coming down from the north. a piece of this really cold polar air is going to come down over the hudson bay, all the way through the great lakes. and into areas of the great lakes, ohio valley, possibly the northeast. we could see record cold temperatures for this time of year. and the issue is that so many people took advantage of all the warm weather, have done a lot of planting outside, we could have a lot of people's new tomato plants and things like that end up dying. not to mention the chance of some snow. let me take you through the week ahead forecast. there is the severe weather riskt risk as we go throughout the day today. nice day today nfin the northea. then, by the time we get to tuesday and wednesday, little rain storm heads into the midatlantic. but the real cold shot of air begins to come down on friday, through the great lakes. and, at the same time, we have a cold rain in areas of tennessee and kentucky. these two are going to combine,

friday night and saturday, and give us snow. this is our european computer model and this is the snowfall forecast. notice upper portions of the great lakes. western new york, right along the pennsylvania border. all of central new york. northern portion new england. it's rare to get accumulating snow in may. it has to be exceptionally cold and it looks like northern new england could be that cold as we go throughout the end of this week, into the beginning of mother's day weekend. if there is any little silver lining of good news, mother's day the storm should be gone and things will actually look a little bit better. what a crazy week. it was 80 degrees in central park this weekend. and looks like we could be down in the 30s by the time we get to the upcoming weekend. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. [♪]

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"the washington post" is out with a sweeping look at president trump's months-long attempts to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. in interviews with 82 administration officials, "the post" outlines a story of desperation and dysfunction with a detailed look at what took place in the 34 days between march 29th, when trump agreed to extend social distancing guidelines, to this past week. during that time, "the post" notes that trump was so determined to extinguish the deadly virus that he repeatedly embraced fantasy cure alls and tuned out, both, the reality that the first wave has yet to significantly recede and the pobltd of possibility of a potential worst second wave in the fall. and the president's economic and political aides.

despite having no expertise in epidemiology, white house economic advisor, kevin hassett, build on economic model that was embraced inside the west wing, by the president's son-in-law, jared kushner, and other powerful aides. for trump, the analysis provided justification to pivot to where he preferred to be. cheering an economic revival, rather than managing a catastrophic health crisis. three administration -- senior administration officials tell "the post" that the task force members with medical degrees, including dr. deborah birx and dr. anthony fauci, splintered off in mid to late march, and began meeting almost daily. some of them were distressed by what one official dubbed the voodoo discussed within the broader task force. this is, like, as sad as it

gets, joe, in terms of having a president who actually wants to manage a crisis, versus really appealing to his basic, deep-seated, quite frankly, some might say, nasty instincts to try and win politically. >> well, forget about the politics of this. i mean, the president himself is now admitting -- >> he doesn't care about the science. >> yeah. but -- but -- but, again, what is so maddening is that -- i've said repeatedly, mr. president. the best healthcare option is the best economic option is the best political option. you see, he have' bei've been t this. and i know you watch. i've been telling you this, mr. president, for now, what, a month? two months? what's best for american's health, is best for the american economy, because it allows small businesses to get back to work. is best for your political

standing. but you, still, don't get it. and, peter baker, this "washington post" report really does lay it out well. "the times" have done some great reports like this, as well. but it talks about these fantasy cure alls that the president has kept pushing. first, it was april. warm weather in april. then, it was hydroxychloroquine. and -- and, then, it was bleach or disinfectants and lights. and -- and -- and, in those last two cases, the government, trump's own administration had to come out and warn americans not to do that. but i loved how they put it. and if we can break it down to senior citizens who are being lied to by this administration and governors being pressured by this administration, this president is lying about the first wave. acting as if it's over. the first wave, as we would say in florida, it's still breaking. it's still cresting.

people are still dying. the president's shocked. he's basically doubled, in two weeks, how many people he said could die from this. in two weeks. and he is denying that a second wave is coming. it is -- it is remarkable that the president keeps making these mistakes. who is in charge other than the president? is th is there anybody else? does jared kushner have the president's ear? does dr. fauci have the president's ear anymore? does dr. birx have the president's ear? who has the president's ear to say, you know, mr. president, in the last two weeks since you have been pushing to reopen, your estimates have gone from 50,000 to 100,000 dead, in two weeks. who is talking to him? >> i think everybody's talking to him but it depends on how he takes the information. look. you're right about the fall. that's an important point here. where are we going to be at this point in september? which is important, not just for his political career but, for, obviously, the country as a whole. for these schools and campuses that want to reopen.

for businesses that would like to bring people back. and if there is a second wave that is anything like the first wave which, historically, is what we've seen. that's what we saw in the 1918 pandemic. that not only will, as you point out, be a healthcare crisis, it will also destroy confidence in the ability to come back to work. ability to go out and shop and live life. as you pointed out, the health crisis is connected directly to the economic crisis. you can't fix the economy without having the public, at least, confident that the health part of it is fixed as well. you do hear the president pivot a little bit about that last night. in the past few days, he was saying probably, there could be, maybe there will be. maybe there won't be another wave in the fall. but if there are embers, we'll put them out. as if it was simply a small threat. last night, he did say, well, it could be a fire. we'll have to put out a fire. and i think that's what health experts have been telling.

it could be a fire. dr. fauci on record saying it could be, you know, a very serious threat in a second wave and this fall. and that's what he is worried about as we're eager to reopen our own life. >> coming up on "morning joe." john heilemann looks back at the last three incumbent presidents to win a second term. how the dynamics that colored those elections are playing out today. morni "morning joe" is back in a moment. my patients

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few would have guessed this, even a month ago. even with this pandemic raging. because i think few people expected the president to continue to mishandle this crisis as much as he did. but you have joe biden and donald trump tied in georgia. joe biden and donald trump tied in texas. donald trump losing to biden in new york. losing to biden in florida. losing, badly, to biden in pennsylvania. losing to biden in michigan. losing to biden in just about every swing state. what does biden do, moving forward? what does -- what -- what does -- i would ask what does donald trump do moving forward? but, again, he doesn't seem to

be able to control himself at all. and -- and i'm just wondering, here we are, in may, and a lot of people would say, well, it's way too early. but i still remember the 2012 story you wrote about how barack obama defined mitt romney in such a way in may, that romney never recovered from it. >> right. go back and talk, joe, to smart -- to -- to people who have been at the core of incumbent re-election campaigns. white house political directors and campaign managers, in re-elections, right? so obama in '12. bush in '04. clinton in 1996. just the three presidents in our lifetime. right? all of them will tell you all three of those races in those re-elects had presidents who were struggling, in various ways. they were a little bit below 50% or maybe a little bit more below than 50% in their approval ratings.

all of them were deeply concerned about their boss's ability to win. all of them ended up winning and ended up winning close races. well, blowout in 1996 with clinton. a close race with bush in 2004. what all of them say is that the biggest misunderstanding that we all have, even people who are sophisticated about politics, is that we think that the campaign is fought in the fall. and what they all say is that, for their bosses, when they won re-election, they won re-election in the spring. that bill clinton defining bob dole in the spring of 1996 is what won the race for bill clinton. george w. bush defining john kerry in the spring of 2004 is what won the election for george w. bush. and you just mentioned the job the obama people did defining mitt romney in 2012. the races in all of those incumbent re-elects were determined by what happened in the spring. the state of the country.

the arguments that were made by incoup incumbents, who turned the race from a referendum on them to an opponent they rendered unacceptable in the public eye. so, now, we come forward to 2020. we are in that spring again and what you are seeing in the polls that you just cited, across the board, on the fundamental issue that's going to face these two candidates in this fall. the question of the coronavirus and president trump's handling of it. is the races slipping away from donald trump. i'm not trying to say he can't win. i'm just trying to say that, if history is a guide, this race is being determined right now. not after labor day. it's being determined now. and if that's true and that pattern holds, the president's people should be deeply concerned about what's happening right now because views of him with respect to this central issue are hardening right now. and the biden campaign isn't even having to do very much to make it happen. that's a really worrying situation for president trump. >> coming up. was the rise of donald trump more of a joint venture than a

hostile takeover? the new yorker is exploring how members of america's elite accepted the terms of trumpism as the price of power. the conversation is next on "morning joe."

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big crowds of protestors that went into the michigan state capitol, without masks, massing together, in close quarters. from a public health standpoint, is that safe? >> it's devastatingly worrisome to me, personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather, who has a co-morbid condition and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives. so we need to protect each other, at the same time we're voicing our discontent. >> white house coronavirus response coordinator, dr. deborah birx, yesterday, about those anti-lockdown protests. joining us now, director of the johns hopkins center for health security, dr. tom inglesby. johns hopkins has been home to

essential covid-19 tracking and basic information resources throughout this global pandemic. doctor, welcome. >> yeah, doctor, thank you so much for being with us. and, more importantly, thank you for all the great work you and johns hopkins has done from the start. i -- i -- i see, in a tweet, that you mentioned, on march 1st, the united states had 100 recognized cases. two months later, we have 1.1 million recognized cases. we need to respect the high capacity of this virus to do harm in the u.s. until we have a vaccine. and you, also, said that we still need to remember that we are just in the beginning of this pandemic. explain, if you will. >> yes. the point i was trying to make there was -- was just to say that the virus that we're dealing with hasn't really changed since the beginning. in fact, if you look back over the last month, most of the illness and death that's occurred from pandemic -- from covid, in this country, has been over the last month.

we really haven't turned the corner. we ev we're not driving cases down over the average of the country's numbers. you have to get into state numbers to really -- to understand the details of the story. many states are doing better. but -- but at least half the states in the country, still, have case numbers going up on a daily basis. so just -- i wrote that just to kind of bring the point forward that -- >> struggling a little bit with the doctor's volume and his microphone there. let's go to jonathan lemire. i'm hoping they can work out those glitches there. and, jonathan, i mean, the white house, at this point, donald trump just tweeting moments ago that everything is going great. and that the response to this pandemic has been great. and everyone is working well together. and, then, i'm looking at the

death toll blaring across our screen. and it does not seem like a great situation at all. the president seems to be trying to push back against negative messaging. but the problem is that the more he does this, the less time he is actually focused on getting the pandemic under control. >> the doctor says we are in the beginning stages of this pandemic. we are not at the end. and every doctor, every expert that we've spoken with says the same thing. we are at the beginning, not the end. >> no question. president trump has, throughout his political career, sort of tried to -- has done a good job of like controlling the narrative. that's one of his strengths, as a politician. often, that means dealing in mistruths and outright lies. but he could sort of assert his own reality. and that's what we are seeing here. we heard a little bit last night

at this lincoln memorial virtual town hall, as well. where he said that like -- he acknowledged that the death toll was rising. his projection -- the projections now are much higher than he said even just a few weeks ago. but added it will all work out. and we are seeing that sort of rosy, glass half full tone from him every day as he is trying to get ahead of or reshape the bad headlines and the narrative. he is deeply frustrated, as we have been talking about all day, joe, about the bad polls. he's been frustrated by the number of stories written in "the washington post" and "new york times," "the associated press," other places, about the warning signs that were missed by this administration. that, even now, the lack of wide-scale, widespread testing needed to reopen the country. so he is trying to forge forward to talk to his supporters and sort of create his own truth which, in the past, has worked for him politically. but is much harder now when

efr every day, every network is running the death totals on the side of the screen. you can't argue with statistics and there is certainly the chance, joe, things could get worse. we are seeing these gatherings in michigan state capitol, other places. also, with the nice weather returning to the united states, we are seeing some of the social distancing guidelines break down. even in places like new york and washington. so i think the nation needs to brace itself for uptick in cases and the president needs to manage that as well. >> so, doctor, what do we do, as americans? what -- what -- how do americans, how do governors, how does this white house, how do we all thread the needle to reopen parts of our economy, without causing a deadly second wave even this summer? >> so i think the first things that we should be doing is remember that, as individuals, we have important roles to play. we need to continue to have our

own space. physical distance for people that are outside your family. we should be wearing cloth masks in public. we shouldn't be going to large gatherings at this point. we should be telecommuting. independent of reopening, those things should continue as the baseline. unfortunately, that's what we need to do. and i am worried about some leaders' communication about that hasn't been completely clear. so we should be very clear about that. those kinds of things need to keep going, even as we reopen, begin to reopen, in various places around the country. and, in the reopening process, i think -- >> doctor -- >> yep. >> i'm sorry, i was just going to -- i was just going toy say, you have correctly pointed out that some of the large outbreaks have been in larger institutions, whether you're talking about nursing homes or prisons or factories. how do we manage those areas? and the larger institutions that have caused such a high degree

of outbreak and death in this country? >> in particular, we need to do a number of things. we need to make sure those -- the people working there or in the case of prisoners or nursing home patients, that they're very well protected with personal protective equipment and masks. we need to make sure that the operations with operations, within those institutions, are trying to keep space between people. and less direct touching between people. that's how the virus moves. between close interaction so wearing masks, decreasing touch between people in those institutions will help. early testing to get really early signs of any outbreak and be able to step in and isolate people and quarantine their contacts. that's going to be really porcht until we ha important until we have a vaccine. >> so, doctor, i'm going to hope that your skype holds out for one more answer because i -- i've read -- i want to get your reaction to this -- i -- i've --

i've read that this pandemic spreads in huge clusters. and others have suggested that simply going to the store, getting groceries, coming home, getting takeout, those sort of activities have not, yet, proven to be deadly. have not proven to be accelerators of this pandemic. do you have any scientific evidence that that is the case? >> there have been -- there have been some studies, which have really tried to understand, with a lot of precision, where people were most likely to be infected. and we do see that the evidence is highest for infection within one's home, when someone gets infected, other people are at high risk. within close, indoor spaces, so workspaces or other gatherings. we have seen clear evidence of people getting infected at dinner parties, birthday parties, funerals.

there's less evidence for people getting infected with just glancing interactions that they might have walking down the aisle of a store or something -- some other place. but to diminish that risk even further, people should be wearing masks, cloth masks so that they don't infect others. that's -- that's the key with masks. >> director of the johns hopkins center for health security, dr. tom inglesyby, thank you very much. we hope to have you back on the show. coming up, our next guest says donald trump's rise is often told as a hostile takeover. but, in truth, it's something closer to a joint venture with america's most prosperous citizens. we'll talk about how so-called greenwich republicans learned to love trump and what it could mean for the next election. that's next on "morning joe." se. sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%!

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but i know -- i know we have problems. we lost general electric. how do you lose general electric? all right. joining us now staff writer for the new yorker. he has out entitled "the greenwich rebellion." how country club republicans learned to ignore their neighbors and love trump. >> so evan, it's -- your article is fascinating. you grew up in greenwich and talk about these greenwich republicans. i lived in new canaan, connecticut, for seven, eight years, and i would go down to country clubs in greenwich and often give speeches that asked me to come down and give speeches. and they were country club republicans. they were the type of republicans who loved george h.w. bush. who voted for george h.w. bush. who looked back up on prescott

bush as this towering legendary figure. my god, the changes since i made those speeches. they were jeb people at the beginning of 2016. so what's happened? >> well, you make a great point, joe. for people who don't remember who prescott bush was, he was the father and grandfather of future presidents george h.w. bush and george w. bush, and he was left of his party on things like civil rights, on things like welfare, birth control which was a big issue of the day. and greenwich was also home to lowell weiker. he was a republican who was a u.s. senator from connecticut who broke with his party to come out against nixon over watergate. also stuck up to science in education that they didn't believe were a good idea. there's this moderate strain of fiscally responsible, fiscal conservatism but not absolutist

anti-government, anti-tax philosophy. what you've seen is there was a kind of drip towards where the party has gone nationally which means that, for lack of a better term, the old rockefeller republicans, the old rockefeller republicans no longer had a home in the party. the country club republicans you describe, some of them became democrats. some of them became independences and the ones who remained in the party found themselves becoming donald trump republican. >> even george w. bush was attacked by donald trump in south carolina and other states in 2016. so this even moved beyond attacking prescott bush or rockefeller or lowell weiker. this moved to attacking conservative republicans. i'm curious, in talking to these republicans, how do they justify what they're going to be doing

this fall? before it was always -- i always heard from this group, i can't vote for bernie sanders, he's a socialist. i can't vote for elizabeth warren, she's a socialist. now they're forced to make the more difficult justification of donald trump over joe biden. how do they do it? >> exactly. it was easy for them to justify it in 2016 if they weren't going to be hillary clinton voters. twhen was bernie sanders or elizabeth warren, they said those are not candidates for us. what you see now is they are being clearer about the fact that at the heart of the matter, they believe this election, or frankly, most elections, are about taxes and regulation. i heard it over and over again. if they don't support donald trump, that they'll be, as they put it, a return to the instinct toward greater regulation in america, and that leads

ultimately to socialism. it's the kind of language that i think i didn't used to hear frankly very much from folks in my hometown. it was a dramatic way of describing american politics. that's just become so much braided into the daily commerce of political conversation. that's how people talk about it. so they find themselves -- i heard over and over from people who would say, i voted for donald trump in 2016. i don't know anybody among my friends who voted for him then that won't vote for him now and think they'll pick up a few votes. if, out of the summer, if he's able to do something to the economy that that will -- that that will fortify his bid. but the truth is there has been a profound cultural change in what it means to be a republican in the moderate stronghold like greenwich, connecticut. and i think that's -- in some ways, it's the silent text of what happens in our politics because we usually talk about people at the bottom end of the income ladder. and there's been something profound that's changed at the top, too, and it's worth talking

about it more explicitly. >> jonathan lemire, when i was asking, how could these people justify voting for donald trump instead of joe biden, part of that was what i saw firsthand in connecticut across connecticut, whether it was giving speeches to republicans in new canaan or greenwich or in other places across the area. in 2015, they had contempt for donald trump. contempt. they supported jeb bush or john kasich. it just shows how tribal our politics have become. it's more instead of talking about the future of this country, it's more like being a red sox fan or being a yankees fan. if a-rod goes to the red sox, you love him. if a-rod goes to the yankees, you hate him. it's that simple. it's us against them. and now that donald trump is on their side, a lot of people are forgetting everything they've ever said about him or american

politics. >> joe, i might have had a problem with a-rod, even as a member of the red sox, but your point is valid. we've become that much more of a partisan nation. it is us versus them. people are willing to hold their nose to vote for their team colors. red or blue. and the people that you spoke to, as yourself being a towering figure in those connecticut country clubs and restaurants, you know, we're willing to make this sacrifice, this compromise to vote for donald trump. evan, my question for you is, do they feel like they have gotten enough? we know about the tax cut. we know about the deregulation. is that going forward, still going to be enough for these voters that you've talked to, to do that again? especially with such economic woes right now, the country seemingly heading toward a recession, do they have the trust for this president to bring the nation out of that slump? that's what his advisers are banking on and trying to pivot

to even this week. >> what's interesting -- you raise the key point. is it enough? are they willing to break with donald trump now? and in some ways, by this point, so much of that support is baked in. it's very hard for people to shift. they lot of their identity at the dinner table. their identity with friends. they've been a stalwart trump reporter throughout. i heard from michael mason who told me, i hear donald trump saying today that he's going to do everything he can. everything he possibly can to try to put the economy on a better footing by the fall, and i don't hear joe biden saying that. that's his words. that kind of economy overall rationale has ellipsed other parts of what the party represented before. it was a big part of what the party represented for much of the 20th century. and -- which was, you know, a serious investment in things like science. things like research. and the truth is that now there is this sense, and i heard it over and over, that if the

economy is not put front and center above all other considerations, then that would be a failure. and for the moment, they are believing that donald trump can do that and will do that. now whether they'll do that when it comes to november is another question. but it is striking that even today, after all the president's been through impeachment, after all the questions about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, that they are still doubling down on donald trump. >> we'll be reading the latest issue of "the new yorker." evan osnos, thank you very much. we leave you now with this incredible image. sitting afoot the iconic 19-foot tall statue of abraham lincoln in washington, president trump claimed he has been treated worse by the press than any other president, including lincoln himself. >> i am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen.

the closest would be that gentleman right up there. they always said lincoln, nobody got treated worse than lincoln. i believe i am treated worse. you're there. you see those press conferences. they come at me with questions that are disgraceful, to be honest. disgraceful. their manner of presentation and their words. and i feel that if i was kind to them, i would be walked off the stage. >> look at those press conferences. the questions that he calls disgraceful are questions that are simply asking him basic things like, well, i know -- one time the president just exploded was when a reporter asked, hey, how -- peter alexander asked, hey, what do you say to americans who are frightened right now. >> he said, i'd say you're a terrible reporter. >> and he exploded. that answer last night came from a question from a viewer who

said y do you have to be so negative. why do you have to attack people so much? and that was his response. and he continues it today. >> many in the science and medical fields really claim that he has been incompetent in responding to this crisis. you have to wonder if it's negligence when you see statements like that that defy truth, defy logic and see a crave and need for attention. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is monday, may 4th. and here are the facts at this hour. even as dozens of states start to reopen, the number of coronavirus deaths keeps rising. and the rate hasn't changed. as of this morning, more than 68,000 americans have lost their lives. on sunday, the president talked about the