about this pandemic. they need to be able to trust that their government and the information they hear from politicians is based on scientific merit. the american people are strong and resilient. we can handle the truth. with accurate and consistent information, americans can be empowered to help find soluti solutions. we need to reestablish trust in our government and in each other, by working together, we can end this outbreak. we cannot afford to silence and dismiss scientists in our country and to strain or sever our ties from scientists around the world. there has never been a time in our life where their voice has been needed more. and our scientists need strong leadership, too. leaders that provide them with clear and consistent guidance and communication. leaders who trust their professional scientific judgment and leaders who refrain from

pressuring them to snoerg science, to bend the rules and to prioritize politics above all els else. it is inappropriate to place dedicated scientists in the crosshairs. today, i am asking for the special counsel to invest what happened to me and for this administration to reinstate me and my job as the director of barta. our government's focus right now should be on saving lives and ending this pandemic we are in a race against the virus, and every day counts. it is my sincere hope that my team at barta will be able to continue their race to develop safe and effective drugs, tests, and vaccines. and that's an endeavor that requires all hands on deck approach. thank you. >> an unbelievable statement there.

it was an unbelievable statement we were just listening to from dr. bright. he has filed a whistle-blower complaint saying he was removed from his position as the nation's top doctor, developing vaccines and protocols to protect us from the pandemic, in which we are in the throes. some of the more notable things that jumped out at me. he said he was fired because he followed the science, quote, instead of funding projects promoted by cronies. the word cronies leaping out, and making you feel ill if you're watching what's happening and wondering who's in charge. he talked about efforts to rush blindly into pushing hydroxychloroquine. he said it was alarming. he talked about a stockpile of the drug that wasn't safe, that wasn't approved by the fda, that might have been toxic in his view. he said he wouldn't allow ambition to come before science. and then he spoke to all americans, saying that americans need to be able to trust their government. never before has there been a time when the voices of our

scientists are needed more. for the end, pointing out that it's inappropriate to put politics ahead of science. director brennan, this is the nightmare scenario, that in the midst of a pandemic and within 24 hours of learning that the death toll in this country is going to double before june 1st, that the numbers of infections are going to quadruple by that same date, the top scientist in charge of developing a vaccine was ousted out of a move of retaliatio retaliation. >> well, that's a damning indictment that should make every america's blood boil. if business and political crony interests are literally trumping the advice of medical experts during a period of great crisis in this country, dealing with covid-19, that is absolutely appalling. and i applaud dr. bright for coming forward at great personal expense and risk. and i would encourage others to do the same thing.

because at this period of time, corruption, malfeasance and government is really a matter of life and death. and that's why i think what dr. bright is doing right now, demonstrating with his courage welcome going forward with this indictment, basically, of those who have been responsible for diverting and for focusing on the business and political interests of others at the expense of america's health, that is something that i think we all need to address and i just wish that congress in a bipartisan fashion and also the department of justice, which i am very concerned about in terms of the political cancer that is seeping in at the highest levels there, this need to be addressed in the most forthright, honest way possible. and unfortunately, i think we all have some questions about whether or not it's going to be addressed that way. >> i mean, it's an important point about the role that congress and the justice department play, because he is alleging some things that could

eke into criminal conduct. but in terms of corroboration, which is what we learned from the last whistle-blower complaint, i think we now know as a country, that's the process that should come next, no matter the whistle-blower, no matter the topic, so much of what's in his complaint has been corroborated by the president from the podium, pushing hydroxychloroquine. there was a report over the weekend in "the washington post" by josh dawsey and some of his colleagues that donald trump still pushing hydroxychloroquine on governors of large states, likegan n gavin newsom. what do you make of how much is in this complaint and what we just heard on this call, that we've already seen with our own eyes? >> i think we've been hearing about this. and i think what dr. bright is doing is to bring his experience personally to this matter. he is the one that had to deal with this. and i was struck by those saying that over the last few years, he has had to deal with the efforts

to advance political or crony interests. so i think dr. bright is a very widely respected individual within the medical community. and barta has tremendous, tremendous reputation, as being at the forefront of trying to keep this country safe and secure on the medical front. and for someone like dr. bright to come forward at this point in time and to be able to say this so strongly, i think it's incumbent on our legislators and on the department of justice, and i wish the attorney general would be able to look at this in an independent, objective, and bipartisan fashion, so that they can cut to the bottom of it. we cannot allow this just to continue to ferris out there. this is something, in the midst of a crisis, needs to be addressed as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible. >> director brennan, i'm looking at what steve schmidt has just said on twitter about donald trump. he was played by the chinese over covid-19.

he failed to protect the country, and now 70,000 are dead and the american economy is shattered. final question, talk to the folks watching about how your occupation, your life's work, and dr. bright's life's work are, in fact, tied. talk to the folks watching about how pandemics are also a matter of national security. well, there are so many americans who are working throughout the government in different capacities, whether it be in diplomacy, intelligence, or the medical field that are trying to do their level best to try to keep their fellow suicides safe. and being in public service a calling. and what you try to do is do your best. now, nobody is perfect out there, but i'm sure the intelligence professionals feel just the way the folks at barta do right now. that they have a mission to accomplish. if politicians get in the way and pursue personal, partisan or

political interests at the expense and the safety of the american public, that is something that is just unacceptable. so i think we are right now at a real inflection point in this country's history. dealing with covid-19 that has had such impact on our economy, on our society. this is a time to make sure that those who we entrust with these authorities of government are going to carry out their duties responsibly and ably. and unfortunately w, i think we have seen too many examples where people have fallen short. so dr. bright, i think, has done us all a service and i sincerely hope that others in the government who have had similar experiences will come forward now and try to cleanse and purge the system of those who are trying to do us harm by pursuing their own interests. >> dr. brennan, what you're describing comes with a very, very hefty price tag. and you're someone who can talk with a lot of experience about what mr. bright may be about to go through, whether it's jim

mattis leaving this government and fthe president's employ, you've got other officials who have been demoted or pushed out and they get destroyed. not to say anything about how the last whistle-blower was treated. what do you -- what are your concerns around how dr. bright may be covered tonight in trumpland? >> uh i would say to dr. bright, stay strong. undoubtedly, you are going to be dragged through the mud. your reputation will be pilloried with a lot of misrepresentations and mischaracterizations of what you have done and what you have said. but, this is very important. you need to make sure that you maintain the focus on the truth and the integrity in government that we all want. and so, myself and other people who have, in fact, been in the crosshairs of those who continue to believe in what donald trump is saying and what he is doing, we have to be able to withstand

those headwinds, whether they be political headwinds, financial headwinds, whatever else. this country is too important. it's too important to me, to my children, my grandchildren, and to other americans. and so therefore, i would just encourage dr. bright to ignore all of the stuff that is going to be coming his way, stay focused on what it is that he has decided to do, because history will prove him right. and just maintain his course and i am giving him all of my best wishes to be able to withstand what is inevitably going to be coming his way. >> it's the sad, sort of dirty underbelly of this story, but i think it's important, it's likely the next step. dr. brennan, thank you for spending some time with us. we're always grateful to hear from you. and brian williams, your first of three shifts of the day is coming to an end. what a day it's been. what a day it is. >> you have more than enough news to take you the next hour and 20 minutes. the last thing you need is me

kicking around. thanks for having me. and this is a day already. >> we'll miss you. it is. we'll be be watching you later on today. much more on what we just heard from dr. rick bright and the political cronyism he says is hindering the government's fight against coronavirus. we'll be right back. i never kne. i'm a lawyer now, but i had no idea that my grandfather was a federal judge in guatemala. my grandfather used his legal degree and his knowledge to help people that were voiceless in his country. that put a fire in my heart. it made me realize where i got my passion for social justice. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com ...little things... ...can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla,

75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you.

just this past hour, nbc news obtained a copy of the new

whistle-blower complaint filed by the ousted vaccine expert at the department of health and human services, dr. rick bright. he says he was removed from his role after pushing back on president trump's assertion that coronavirus could and should be treated with hydroxychloroquine. joining us now is harry litman, a former u.s. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, now a "washington post" contributing columnist. harry, take me inside what happens next. this whistle-blower complaint touching every third rail of the president's vulnerabilities and it would appear alleging serious corruption deep inside the health agency in charge of protecting us. >> it's a really important question, nicole. because it's everything you say, it's completely appalling, it's an absolute replay of the atkinson complaint that led to the impeachment, but as the director says now, in a life-and-death setting. but as we learned then, trump was able to brazen it out and simply dismiss atkinson and

there are some remedies here. but they're relatively weak. all that bright is really asking for is to be reinstated. and the law doesn't provide much more for him. so this is -- the legal process here is going to be relatively modest. it's the political process. the possibility of airing this in congress, even the possibility of some kind of ultimate congressional remedy involving, say, funding and the power of the purse to actually respond to what is a classic instance of the corruption in trumpland. it's not simply that government is wasting its time trying to chase the trails that trump finds out by whatever method. it's that when actually push comes to shove, science is, as dr. bright says, shoved to the side in favor of cronyism in situations that really could lead to life-and-death outcomes. it's grotesque, legally

speaking, not so much to do, politically speaking, a lot to do. >> it's so interesting, though, as you point out, the remedy he's seeking is to go back into the government job that he was pushed out of. you look at the way rod rosenstein tried to function as the country's deputy attorney general or jim comey as the country's fbi director or andy mccabe as the deputy fbi director while under constant, unending efforts to corrupt all of their agencies, some successful, some not so much, and harassment from donald trump. the fact that he wants to go back in, does that strengthen his argument or hurt it? >> look, with i thii think it d. this is a guy who has spent his entire life for just this moment. the top government person to actually develop a vaccine, the thing that we need desperately in order to return to normal life. but you're totally right, and the attacks have already started. the hhs political forces, who squeezed him out, are already

saying things about supposed, erratic behavior on his part. it's going to get worse before it gets better. and he's going to have to stand strong. he has very sophisticate ed counsel. same people, by the way, who represented the accuser in the brett kavanaugh case. they're ready to play the washington game, but that's the game he now has to be ready for and it is going to be bruising. he has, of course, truth on his side. usually, that prevails. in the age of trump, not always. >> let me read you a little bit more of what he's alleging and ask you if there's potential for crimes to be investigated. bright's attorneys write in the complaint that he repeatedly clashed with dr. cadlick and other hhs leaders about the outsized role played by john cleri clericy, an industry consultant to pharmaceutical companies with long-standing connections in the award of government contracts. . he seems to be alleging if not a

violation of lobbying laws, then certainly an outsized role of pharmaceutical lobbyists. who looks into that when the person pushing the drugs wast president of the united states? >> the department of justice does, in a perfect world. wow, are we not in a perfect world. but basically, the remedy is under the whole scheme that he has properly harnessed is for him to be reinstated and for science to prevail as it should. yes, there'll be talk of criminal possible -- you know, reprisals in the back and forth and sort of saber rattling. but really, again, that dog at the end of the day will not hunt. it will be about a political public airing of is he in the right or is he in the wrong? and really, when you're talking about actual viruses that everybody in science knows are worth pursuing versus hydroxychloroquine, it should be an easy case. hopefully, it will, at the end

of the day, but the track record here for trump's being able to have reprisals and have cronyism prevail are discouraging. the stakes, though, are so much higher that you have to think that congress is ready pounce on this and make this a continuing point of political pushback against trump and you have to think if the white house is playing it smart at some point they want to cut and run on this, not continue to push the line that you had to pursue these possible remedies that trump somehow or other learned about. >> i like your optimism. might be the first i heard all day. thank you for spending some time with us. when we come back -- donald trump does something we might not want to do -- he made his

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president trump is doing something today that most americans are either not yet willing or able to do, leave home, sans mask, travel to the other part of the country, touching a lot of stuff, including the handles there, to get out. white house has reported that he's antsy, it's the president's first cross-country trip since the pandemic started and his first visit to arizona since he held a big rally through mid-february. major operation for a president to travel anywhere, as a result, thousands of people could potentially be put in harm's way. we're covering trump's trip afrm phoenix. >> the president made his way down from air force one about 20 minutes ago. he came down the stairs without a mask. he was joined by republican

congresswoman deborah lesko, paul gosar and martha mcsally. all of them didn't have masks. you saw in that video there, the president of the united states extend his hand, what appeared to be look with a attempted hand shake with the governor here, it could turned more into a back slap if you could. these individuals are heading over to honeywell, a major aeronautic defense contractor, which is going to begin production on n95 masks. he's going to be touring facilitie facilities. and meeting native americans

tribes. the president is here on 103-degree day, nicolle, i should note the backdrop in which he is just this morning the state of arizona announced that yesterday, had the highest single-day death toll of the entire state up to this point. 33 arizonians passed away. just yesterday, doug ducey announced that retail stores would be opening again, next monday here in the valley, that dine-in services would become available again. you mentioned mid-february, nicole, when the president was last year before a pay jar rally. he was asked by a local reporter about the spread of covid-19 in china, he responsibilitied at that time, quote, i'm confident that they're -- they're working very hard, i know president xi, i get along with him very well. i think it's going work out and it's fine. three months later, things are far from fine here in arizona.

nicolle? >> you packed everything in there, there were so many threads there tying arizona to the larger covid story. i'm happy to see you in a mask. . you stay safe. thank you very much. coming up, donald trump's restless urge to get out of the white house as a whistle-blower complaint from an ousted vaccine doctor plans to blow up the president's narrative. "deadline: white house" is next. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or life-threatening allergic and skin reactions.

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it e's 4 dmrk the east. we're still digesting a lengthy brand-new whistle-blower complaint from the head key vaccine agency, dr. rick bright who said he was dismissed for retaliation for urging caution over hydroxychloroquine, unproven malaria drug that the president touted from the white house briefing room for weeks. the new complaint also details potentially explosive allegations that his repeated warnings on coronavirus back at the end of the january when the president was still publicly down playing the virus was ignored, his alarm over the threat posed by it was met with resistance from trump officials in the administration. given his decades of expert knowledge on pandemic influenza

and emerging infectious diseases, dr. bright immediately understood the global reach of this virus. and that there was no time to waste. he began to address the pandemic that encountered resistance from secretary azar who was intebt on down playing the threat. dr. bright acted wiinitially end indifferences which then developed. moments ago, dr. bright. let's listen to a little bit of that. >> the past few years however have been beyond challenging. time after time i was pressured to ignore or dismiss expert and

scientific recommendations. and instead to award lucrative contracts based on politics. >> shocking allegations. we're still reading through the lengthy complaint. line by line. we're also waiting for a response from the white house and the dent of health and human services. it's worth noting that dr. bright said hardly the first account of coronavirus warnings being ignored by trump and the administration. throughout the month of january, when cases were already spreading in this country. that even now, with the virus holding steady at its peak, more than 1,000 americans dying every day and multiple models endorsed by trump's own administration predicting it's about to get much, much worse. the white house is considering winding down the coronavirus task force in the coming weeks,

according to brand-new reporting out in "the new york times." the group of scientists still urging caution to ease social distancing. compared to the president who's mused injecting disinfectants that might clean your lungs. president trump encounsels states to ease their social distancing restrictions. insisting in a new interview with the in new york post, people are starting to feel good and are ready to go back to work. despite a new polling showing the opposite is true of the american state of mind. this breaking news comes at a time when the quarantine-fatigue president pays a visit to

arizona. pilots to fly the plane. police escorts for the motorcade. national and local reporters. in donald trump's telling, people are starting to feel really, really. we have leana wen, associate pressed white house reporter jonathan lemier and claire mccaskill and former chief of staff for the cia and department of defense jeremy bash. claire, let me start with you and a whopper of a whistle-blower complaint. he seems to pull every thread, we talked about, worried about, covered for the entirety of the trump presidency, ties to lobbyists, scientists being bullied and pushed away from scientific theories by political

ambitions and retribution. he was ultimately removed from his job. your thoughts about dr. bright? >> what dr. bright is describing is the swampiest of swamp behavior. he's talking about cronism and he's talked being pushed into decisions based on who people knew and making money, as opposed to science. lot of documents here and i'm willing to bet that this doctor kept good notes. you'll be able to track contract that didn't have bids, you'll be able to track the amount of money that was paid for example for dosages of various drugs in the stockpile and compare that with previous prices paid. you'll see a lot of no-bid contract and that when you wrap that up with a bow is going to tell a story. they'll try to say he's deep

state. he's a scientist. he's a doctor and i guarantee you, there's going to be a voluminous evidence to support what he's saying. if we can get america to pay attention long enough. we all know, i'm lucky enough to talk about this on tv. this is scandal a minute and everybody has scandal fatigue. >> you know, jeremy bash, i think claire is absolutely right about what's coming dr. bright's way. it's tragedy, but it's one that's happening and fore shadowed on the air waves of fox news, they were pushing hydroxychloroquine alongside donald trump. it's hard to diagnose state-run media or media-run state. here's what the doctor said in his phone call last hour, he said he was fired because he refused to subvert science and the funding of products of

akronnys of donald trump. he was worried as claire said about the actual quality of the supplies. that it wasn't approved by the fda and he said he was retaliated because, quote, i wouldn't allow ambition come before science. what does it say including director brennan thinks he's in for a pretty rough patch of more public abuse from this white house in the days to come? >> well, nicolle, who was dr. bright? he was director of a key office at the department of health and human services called barta and that was the office responsible for developing the scientific responses to a potential bio-event, a biohazard, vaccines in combatting pandemics such as influenza and now of course coronavirus. this is an individual who has

served his country. he's served in government and public service and now the president is going to be truly making him public enemy number one. we know because it's deja vu all over again. when a whistle-blower stepped forward last fall that the president was misusing his office for personal gain that ultimately got the president impeached, the president's allies lined up directly behind him we have to out that whistle-blower, also a career national security professional. i think dr. bright is for some bumpy times. the righteous of his call, other cooperating witnesses, other documents, i think will lead to a massive investigation in the way this administration handled or mishandled this crisis. nicolle, we're much closer to the beginning of this crisis than we are to the end.

we have a long way to go. we better get this right. >> you know, jonathan, what's new is that 70,000 americans have lost their lives to coronavirus. and unlike other scandals that donald trump could tweet away or chalk up to a deep state conspiracy, we can roll the tape, we can see what donald trump was saying about china, we can see he was saying the cases will miraculously will go from 15 to 0. his new press secretary is on fox news business, trish regan, saying it won't come here. it came here. the cases expected to dowel. do you think this doctor is really going to be the cause, the new target for the trump white house and his allies?

>> it's certainly possible, nicolle. we have seen this playbook before, when someone has stepped forward to criticize this president to allege wrongdoing, the smear campaign usually begins online, on twitter, certain parts of the conservative media often from the oval office itself, there hasn't been much of a reaction yet, this reporting has only been out in the last hour or two. it shouldn't surprise anyone that we don't hear from the president today. another signal to try to suggest that the country's ready to go back to normal, begin reopening, even though that flies in the face of a lot of public health professionals. my colleagues at the associated press released a study, while cases in the new york metro area have dropped, they're rising everywhere else. if you remove the new york metro

area, you'll see a steady rise of cases across the nation. hotspots popping up all over the place, including in areas that have no near the public health capacity of a new york city to handle the onslaught of cases that are coming. and this is -- remains such a remarkably risky bet by this white house to try and, to send this signal that things are getting back to normal while the testing still remains so thin across this nation and we're seeing cases rise from coast to coast. >> dr. wen, i traveled with the president -- it's a massive package, a massive number of people that are involved in moving a president, there's the plane he flies on, usually a backup plane, a limo he drives in, a second one and a motorcade, there's an escort,

local press, national press, there are so many people coming into contact, at least the first four that we have seen on tape were not wearing masks, they were touching. what are your concerns as a public health official just about all of that motion and all of that coming together around a presidential trip? >> well, i see the images, nicolle, and i really worried. i'm concerned for the individuals who are involved, because unlike the president, they may not have had the choice, social distancing a privilege and when we expand the number of people who are considered to be essential employees, when they have to work they are by definition exposed to the virus. and i just -- you know, i'm very concerned about what's happening all across the country with all of the reopenings. we know that we don't have anywhere near the capabilities to safely reopen and we know what the consequence is going to

be. it means when we ignore science, we'll have more suffering and more deaths and i worry about the messages that the trump administration and many state leaders are sending in saying that we're ready to reopen when all the numbers, all the data, all the public health experts are saying we're not. >> can i ask you about that, i think there there's genuine confusion, people genuinely want to do the right thing. dr. fauci and dr. birx weeks ago said, you shouldn't contemplate reopen until you had a 14-day decline in cases. i don't think anybody has had 14 consecutive days of decline. yet 30 states are reopening. how did he get here? >> i understand why people want to reopen. we all want the same thing. i think that we have to consider what happened back in march, we decided at that time, as a country, that we were going to

lock down society, shelter in place, to try to contain the virus and get the other capabilities in place. we haven't been successful in doing that. we don't have the testing, we don't have the tracing, and we don't have the number of cases as a result contained. instead of saying let's figure out how to get this under control, become new zealand, reduce the number of cases to a controllable level, we're taking a totally different approach -- we're saying, we understand that we'll have more suffering and more deaths we're going to open the country up anyway knowing that. i just worry all the sacrifices that people made will be in vain. >> claire mccaskill, that's where we are, not only are we at a place where the things we've done may not have had the effect that health officials wanted them to have, we're still on the rise, we're expected new infections to go up, we expect

the death rate to double, we may get a second peak right here. the words of dr. fauci and dr. birx's voices are drowned out so quickly? what do you think, you led an important state representing the views all across the political spectrum, what does it say about either a lack of leadership or where we are as a country? >> i think there's a panic about the economy. i think there's a panic especially those people who running for office in november, mostly the president of the united states, about whether or not he could ever survive an election with this kind of economic chaos and frankly serious unemployment and serious business loss. so i think that's pushing.

but really what's amazing about this is the american people are really saying in a very clear voice, we're not ready to do this. we are paying close enough attention, even though we can't figure out what he says day-to-day, we know that cases are going up in a majority of the states. we have 40 states, nicolle, as of today, either cases are going up or remaining the same. there's only about ten or 12 states are seeing a decline in cases and we have no testing plan. do you know who can get tested right now? i don't. can you get tested if you don't have symptoms? i don't know. is there any tracing capability that's even in operation now? i don't think so. so that's why we have 25% of the cases and only 4% of the population. it's a lack of leadership, it's incompetence. >> you know, jeremy bash, is

this intuitive understanding of the danger, i know you lost someone close to you, we don't need to be told, 85% of the public isn't comfortable going to a restaurant, large majorities, plus-80% not wanting to be doing the old normal and so even if people want to stick their toe in new moral conduct it seems to be internalized that shopping, going to movies, eating in restaurants, these are not things that people want to do. they don't want to sick. >> since we talked on friday, we mentioned we lost a family friend to covid-19. over the weekend, we lost another membfamily friend.

>> we're just talking past each other. the whole effect of flattening the curve or bending the curve was to ensure that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. not a signal that the disease was going away or that it was evaporating from the community. if we reopen quickly, the curve is going to go right back up again and then the economic devastation will be worst and i really take to heart what some folks here are saying is that when there's economic dislocation, layoffs, unemployment, it really becomes a two-class system, those of us who have the privilege of working from home, we'll be okay. but people who can't, people who have to engage in landscaping and unloading docks and surveying -- serving in restaurants and loading packages they're not going to be okay. there are 58% of the people at the tyson food plant in iowa tested positive for covid.

we're testing toward 58% of the population if we don't continue social distancing. >> thank you for starting us off. more on the breaking news. putting politics over science. this new complaint could be heading next? and we'll talk with senator agnus king. and trump's in arizona, the latest death toll standing at 70,000 americans, the president was in the air still tweeting about his political enemy and the little ad he didn't like. we might just show it to you. all that coming up. not just any retinol. accelerated retinol sa. for not only smoother skin in one day, but younger-looking skin in just one week.

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more from that alarming new report in "the new york times" that the white house is considering disbanding the coronavirus task force. "the new york times" writing just this afternoon, quote, it's not clear whether any other group might replace the task force but it's gradual demise which officials said might never be formally announced will only intensify the questions about whether the administration is adequately organized to address the complex life and death decisions and giving adequate voice to scientists in making policy. joining us now is national affairs analyst john heilemann and david jolly. david jolly, making the task force in charge of informing the public going away is not the right answer, slim it down to just scientists, right? >> well, i think the politicians

are trying to make the issue go away and that's been the behavior of this white house from the very beginning, they view it through a political lens or not through a healthcare or a public health lens. donald trump knows that there's no political win in this environment. the only win he could extract by this by sowing division and inflaming the passions of his base and supports. this white house believes if they disban the task force, people will think we're past the issue. but from your discussion in the last segment, this isn't going away. escalation amongst states whether or not the white house has a task force or not. they're rolling the dice here, nicolle, they'll try to walk a fine line on this politically and if the public health statistics get out of hand, there's no way they can get away from what they're about to do. >> you know, john, there are no

accidents or coincidences in politics. where he's always trying to respond to the headline the day before. this announcement leaked out today 24 hours after "the new york times" reported on a new model that shows the number of infections are about to quadruple heading into june 1st. the death rate in this country is about to double, the kind of information they want to keep away from the white house or disassociate from trump? what do you think is behind this? >> you know, nicolle, i got to say, there's no question that there are no coincidences, there's no question that the two things are connected. if that forecast and those projections did not emanate from from within the administration, that could make sense. but given those projections are tabulated within the administration itself it seems

to me, you know, trump has left so many, i don't want to use the phrase hostages for fortune, what is he contending with? the video we have shown now of the various places where he was caught on camera in january, february, march, down playing the virus. i just don't understand -- i can come up with theories about almost everything. i just don't understand how he and they think that in light of those headlines yesterday that disbanding the coronavirus task force is not one of those things that doesn't come back to haunt them politically especially in places where this virus could and where it might explode over the next six weeks or two months, how those side by side, did bay day, followed by this

news, doesn't end up politically damaging for them, i just don't see how this is setting them up for the same kind of failure, political damage that they incurred earlier in this process. >> it's a great point, john, they're under fire for the lost month, it's actually about a lost six weeks it's been reported by the "the new york times" and washington post. if may is our walk-up to a quadruple of cases, the model shows june 1st when that could be happening. one of the theories is they don't want to be associated with truth tellers like tony fauci. here's tony fauci telling the truth about that model last night on cnn. >> when you have a lot of virus activity and you know that you're able to contain it to a certain degree by the mitigation, physical

separations, gateway, phase one, phase two, phase three and you start to leapfrog over some of these you're inviting rebound. and rebound is going to give you spikes and spikes are going to give you the kind of numbers -- i don't know those numbers -- because i have skepticism about models -- but they're not completely misleading, they're telling you something that's a reality, that when you have mitigation that's containing something and unless it's down in the right direction and you pull back prematurely, you're going to get a rebound of cases. >> it seems, john, that beer doing exactly what tony fauci described, i mean, governors are opening up states where people will be in closer proximity than we are at home. he almost through his answer corroborated that model. >> right, you think about,

again, we talked about this before. if you're governor cuomo or you're governor newsom or governor dewine trying to deal with what happened, you want to hope for the best prepare for the worst. if these are the kind of projections, even if these projections turn out to be alarmist, isn't it what americans want? forget what we think. they want their government to say, models are dependent on what you put in. do we not want our government preparing for the worst case scenario? we don't want them closing their eyes to worst case scenarios. we don't want them pushing off worst case scenarios. we want to say, this worst case scenario won't be right.

but we're aware that there's a worst case scenario and we're trying to keep that worst case scenario from playing out. what you're seeing here is worst case scenario, today headline, white house moves to close down the coronavirus task force. again i come back to the previous point, i don't understand, given what they should have learned over the past five months how that's not the precise ly wrong thing to d. to help yourself politically. the democrats will be able to make if things go badly wrong in may and june. >> david jolly, one of the theories that the president wants to reopen the country and moving away from talking about

the draj did of the public health crisis. he doesn't see them as totally connected. we can't get the economy rocking again, i think that was jared again, unless they have confidence. where do you see this entire kind of moving around of deck chairs on the titanic if you will, shutting down the task force, disputing models, president trump has revised upwardly the death toll half a dozen times. >> the shutting down the task force is an indicator of strategy, to john's point, counterintuitive politically but very much trump, he's going to ban responsibility for this. donald trump is going to go into november he did all the things that the federal government should have done, make the case fewer people died because he acted so quickly.

at the end of the day, this is guy who deflects blame both personally and politically. he'll deflect the entire responsibility over to the governors and that will become the conservative republican position, this is now an issue for the governors the federal government did step in but now it's time for the governors to lead. we know it's a failure of leadership on the part of donald trump and moral leadership on the part of donald trump. a man to yet actually speak with any conviction for any loss to covid-19. >> all right, david and john are sticking with us. after the break, independent senator angus king on all the breaking news and what happens next.

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the facts. they need to know the truth about this pandemic. they need to be able to trust that their government and the information they hear from politicians is based on scientific merit. the american people are strong and resilient. we can handle the truth. >> that's dr. richard bright, he filed a whistle-blower complaint in the last hour. the complaint was filed against the trump administration, alleging that he was let go after raising the alarm about the response for the white house on the rapidly spreading pandemic and we just learned from his lawyers that he'll be testifying in front of the house next thursday. joining us now independent senator from maine, our friend angus king. would you like to hear from dr. bright as well? >> absolutely, nicolle, he has an important story to tell. there's larger picture here, where this president, anybody that crosses him, i think the

motto should be in this administration, don't cross the boss. whether you're in the intelligence community, in the medical community, working on coronavirus, if you disagree and try to do your job, which you swore to uphold you can get in trouble and in fact get fired. >> you know, i wrote down some of what he said as he was talking and as you're suggesting it had haunting echoes of the 17 witnesses who testified in the impeachment hearing against donald trump. there were some echoes to secretary mattis' resignation letter after decisions on syria and troops in syria, it's a repeat story. dr. bright saying that he stood by science, quote, instead of funding projects promoted by trump. we're still pushing out the best and the brightest, people like dr. bright in favor of cronies.

>> the real tragedy here is that this is a mistake and a tragedy for the president himself. by cutting himself off from people who a, smart, b know their subject matter and c, will tell him the truth, he's ultimately cutting himself off from good information. when you don't have good information you make bad decisions. . irony of this is, he's hurting himself and he's always seems to view this through an economic lens and not a healthcare crisis. i believe politically, the best thing he could have done grab on to this a bold way, led the country, and done the things that are necessary to do, but they just haven't done that and winding down the task force, is one more step in avoidance of the responsibility. nicolle, there shouldn't be ideology or politics in this. this is science. this is a disease.

it doesn't take sides in politics. and, you know, it just doesn't -- it defies the sense of both the politics and just of the facts. and for example, testing. . the only way to avoid the spread of this disease until we have a vaccine or a cure is to know who has it. and our testing response has been totally inadequate and that's a straight-up management challenge. that's not ideological. we need about 2 million tests a day in order to know who has the disease and how to trace him and track them and then you can safely reopen. to put the responsibility of reopening on the governors is unconscionabl zbleshgs the political opportunity for donald trump was to do everything you just said, to take this and there will be a time for

politics in the fall, right now, i'm going to get this right, that was a -- as much it's a human tragedy the loss of life is staggering, i can't read the projections of the daily death tolls without feeling just gutted, the other piece for this donald trump is what you said, what's the way forward without testing? if you're donald trump and you want that and you think you'd want that, you'd get them yourself. the fastest way to get any company back open. the. >> well, i sent the president a letter. i'm on the supposed task force to reopen. i was appointed. it was a conference call. not much has happened since that. i wrote him a couple weeks ago and said, look, testing is the

big problem, why don't you appoint somebody as stature, someone with nonpartisan stature, expertise, put them in charge and say, we want a million tests a day by may 15th and 2 million by june 30th. make it happen. that could happen but for some reason, and i just -- i really honestly don't get it, because a crisis like this is actually an opportunity to demonstrate leadership. margaret thatcher the day before the falkner invasion, two days before she had 70% approval rating. in this case, the opposite is happened to the president and there's still time, he can still reach out and seize this but he's rolling the dice right now

that if we -- if we -- it could blow up. >> let me ask you two questions with your intel committee had. first, tony fauci in an interview slamming the door shut on the idea that coronavirus was fabricated in a lab as some sort of nefarious marvel comiclike plot, do you think that will stop the president or mike pompeo of conflating the role of wuhan as the origin and this idea of a man-made virus? >> i don't think so. the short answer to your question is probably no. what concerns me about this, the apparent effort by the administration to do conclusion shopping, go to the intelligence agencies and they don't say, where did the virus came from? don't you think it came from a lab? you know, the word sort of gets

back. this is what the boss wants to hear. i'm on the intelligence committee. i haven't had a briefing on this in about a month since congress was away. i haven't seen any intelligence that verifies this was done in a lab and even then, if it was, does it imply that it was done purposely in order to weaponize against the united states. it infected china first, killed a lot of people there. i don't know where that goes. but, again, going back to my basic point, the president would want to have the best information but it looks like part of the political strategy here is to blame china. this isn't my fault. it's not our fault that we weren't prepared that we didn't test. it's china's fault and that doesn't get us anywhere and it certainly doesn't help the people who are dying and suffering from this doisease.

i was struck by the numbers. almost exactly the population of the state of maine, when you put it that way, it really, it really grabs you, 70,000 fatalities, that's -- we've lost in the last two months more people that were killed in vietnam and so, that's where the i believe the president's total focus ought to be, how do we solve this healthcare problem? because if they encourage the states to open up and by the way, the governors are in a terrible position where they know -- everybody can see the economic devastation, but if a governor puts in tough rules as our governor has, you can't see lives saved. you know that your businesses has been hurt, you don't know if the tough rule may have saved your brother's life, you can't measure that and that's the position they're being put in and i come back to the testing.

it's inexcusable that we don't have a massive national testing program. it's like we're all playing tag and there's no way to know who's it. testing would tell us that. >> we're playing tag blindfolded. you're absolutely right. senator angus king, thank you so much for spending time with us. >> thank you, nicolle. after the break -- the ad that got way, way under donald trump's skin. that's next. saturdays happen.

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grubhub. together, we can help save the restaurants we love. i guess they don't like me. letme. let me tell you, these are losers from day one. guys like bill crystal. he's 0-32. george conway, you take a look at him. just take a look at that guy. be man is a stone cold loser. >> he's calling them losers but he can't quit talking about them. they're the guys behind the lincoln project. it's an aents anti-trump super pac co-founded by former republicans. late last night they sent the president into a hissy fit during this ad played during one of his favorite fox shows. >> there's mourning in america and under the leadership of donald trump, our country is weaker and sicker and poorer.

now, americans are asking, if we have another four years like this, will there even be an america. >> shortly after that ad aired around 1:00 in the morning, donald trump, the president of our country for now logged into twitter to settle some scores firing off rage filled tweets. i can just picture, he's still up watching his tv and charging his phone somewhere and starts hats twe hate tweeting. the ad. talk about what it evoked. >> i got -- i know you wanted to see fife the other day. come here. >> yeah. >> hi puppy dog. what did you think of the ad?

>> that's a horse. that's not a dog. >> i know. i know. he likes anything that unnerves donald trump. i think the reality is that that's what you saw there. you want a president who is stoic, unflappable, who is skin you can't get under. who you can assume will have him composure. this shows that donald trump is none of those things. a bunch of people he knows who despise him can make one ad and have him up in the middle of the night, going off on one of -- not on them but nasty personal ways about husband of one of his closest advisers. it tells you how -- he's the definition of lack of composure and of easily provoked. it's not quality that anybody wants in a leader, let alone in the a political candidate. >> david, i'm coming to you.

you better have a baby there. we'll give you next time to find one. the president's rage has been particularly directed at former republicans who are able to point to the ad by george w. bush, the video message that seemed to enrage donald trump and to the complete bankruptcy of the republican party standing by his cincompetence and early failures around this pandemic. >> every conman gets found out as a con. what the lincoln project is doing very well on behalf of republicans with conviction is it's calling out donald trump's con job.

most of those disaffected have already left. you see trump's numbers in the high 90s among sitting republicans. it's vicious in two ways. it's just a good ad. this is a group of very talented ad makers and message setters the mourn in america. the bloody morning on ronald reagan's true mourning is quite an effective message. the people who are wensing when they see it. the people whencing are your down ballot senators like susan collin, martha mcsally, tom tillis because they have hooked their wagon to donald trump and this is a vicious ad that makes each of them talk about the reality of today's economy and the threats we face. our friend rick wilson when the lincoln project was getting off the ground, we would talk about how they would deploy messages.

he said what we'll say to naurm of these republican senators in tough spot s if you have to hook your sail to donald trump, you can do that but we're going to make it very painful for you. this ad makes it painful for down ballot republican senators. >> the reason this is political is because donald trump insisted that it be. donald trump demanded that the pandemic response become political by saying that the governors aren't appreciative enough. by putting himself in the lead male role of the coronavirus task force daily performances and holding court for two, sometimes two and a half hours. what do you make of what he bit off when he decided to make this a political undertaking for himself? >> well, i think there was going to be -- this was going to be a political undertaking to some extent no matter what. we understand that presidents

take credit for a positive economy. they take credit for anything that's positive whether they had anything to do with it or not. they try to not take credit for things that are bad that happen to them during their watch. they get blames no matter what. trump had to deal with the politics of this. there's no question that he -- when he decided to declare this as a war without paying a price. they are trying to make sure they pay a price and an ad is one of many that will come out of groups. it will make a lot of republicans pay a lot of prices

this fall. >> we'll be watching. thank you. all of you for spending some time with us. most of all, thanks to all you have for watching, for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. our coverage continues with chuck todd right after the quick break. u spend less and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair.com no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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welcome to a very busy tuesday afternoon. it's meet the press daily. the president is traveling in the second time since all of this. i'm chuck todd. as the death toll now surpasses 70,000 people in this country. new york times reported and two people familiar with the matter is that the white house is beginning the process of winding