>> have a great week. >> you can sign up for the newsletter -- you, too, my friend -- at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this monday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. i can tell you that i knew that he lied to me. and i know the president made the right decision with regard to him. >> the president has talked about bringing him back into the administration. is that fine with you? >> i think general michael flynn is an american patriot, and he served this country with great distinction in uniform and now, i believe, a decision by the justice department lays bare what was clearly prosecutorial abuse. for my part, i'd be happy to see michael flynn again. >> because you like working with people who lie to you all the

time, i guess. >> there is that. >> interesting, i would like somebody to ask the vice president of the united states sometime, because they're convincing themselves and all of trump's anti-trump supporters, who will desperately say anything to keep their subscription rates up, are all talking about how the fbi somehow did michael flynn wrong, who lied to the fbi about meeting a russian contact. i wonder, mika, what in the world is mike pence's excuse. why did flynn feel the need to lie to the vice president? was that the fbi's fault, too, when he didn't get enough cream and sugar in his coffee. was that the fbi's fault? i mean, seriously, this is laughable. do we have that clip? i want to see that mike pence clip again at some point. >> the one we just rolled? >> the one we rolled, yeah, the first part of it, where mike pence said he lied.

>> it's painful. >> he lied to me, and he lied to the president. he lied to the fbi. yes, yes, he should be gone. take a look. this is mike pence talking about a guy who he is now celebrating coming back to the white house. >> what i can tell you is i knew that he lied to me. and i know the president made the right decision with regard to him. >> what i can tell you is i know he lied to me about talking to russians. well, you know, again, mike pence had plenty of experience working with people who don't tell him the truth over the past three and a half years. what's another? but, mika, we have a lot more to be concerned about this morning than that. you have, inside the white house -- we'll be getting to this and have a great group of people here to talk about it -- but you have the head of the cdc self-quarantined now. the head of the fda self-quarantined.

dr. fauci in a moderate self-quaranti self-quarantine. you have the vice president, one of his top aides tested positive. you have steven miller going to be working at home for quite some time. you have a frightened white house. >> nobody was allowed to wear masks. nobody did social distancing. i mean, the actual, real crest of this was last week, when the president brought in nurses from around the country and had them in a circle in the oval office. not 6 feet apart, like 2 feet apart, no masks. how pathetic. >> and you -- >> he exposed them. >> there's a picture of the vice president's aide who was sitting -- or standing, talking to members of the press. everybody in the picture had a mask on except her. she, of course, is the one who tested positive. you have a white house who we

have members who went on yesterday and admitted they're scared. >> who wouldn't be. >> to be working in that environment. scared to be going to the white house and working in that environment. you have 80,000 americans dead now. we've crossed the 80,000 threshold. you have depression era unemployment. what did the president do again this weekend? >> rage tweeting. >> the president went rage tweeting, just like he did last weekend, spewing out conspiracy theories, spewing out attacks against members of the media, spewing out just they attacks at all comers. he looked, many people were commenting last night -- and i really don't know, mika, how republicans of the united states senate, republicans in the united states house, don't just admit the truth. this man is unmatched for this moment. that he is unmoored. all you have to do is look at his twitter feed. again, in the middle of the

worst crisis since world war 2, he is unfit to be president of the united states at this time. and how republicans could continue to sit back while the death count goes from 10,000 to 20,000 to 40,000 to 50,000 to 60,000 to 80,000 as quickly as it does. and continue to let this man -- >> allow people to lie. >> -- roll on un. they have to demand some level of confidence inside the white house. >> with us, we have white house reporter for the "associated press," jonathan lemire. washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay. host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the national action network, reverend al sharpton. and national security expert, columnist at "usa today," and author of the book, "the death of expertise," tom nichols. good to have you all on board this morning. as president trump tries to

convince americans that it is safe to return to work, one of his own top advisers says it is, quote, scary to go to work at the white house. this comes after two people with access to the west wing tested positive for coronavirus in recent days. one of the president's personal valets and vice president pence's press secretary, miller, the wife of top white house aid steven miller, tested positive. three top members of the white house coronavirus task force are in self-quarantine. dr. anthony fauci, cdc director robert redfield, and fda commissioner stephen hahn. a senior official said the vice president laid low over the weeknwee weekend, but his office says he won't self-quarantine and plans to be tat white houat the white.

all staff members received a memo on friday, encouraging employees to, quote, practice maximum telework, and to work remotely, if at all possible. the paper reports, quote, several administration officials said white house staffers were encouraged to come into the office by their supervisors. here's one of the president's senior economic advisers, kevin hassett, discussing miss h inins about working in the cramped west wing. >> it is scary to go to work. you know, i was not part of the white house in march. i think that i'd be a lot safer if i was sitting at home than i would be going to the west wing. i think everybody knows that going to work, you've been in the west wing, you know, it is a small, crowded place, it's a little risky. you have to do it because you have to serve your country. >> there's not a lot of room there. peter baker and michael crowley posed this question in their reporting for the "new york times." quote, if it is so hard to maintain a healthy environment

at 1600 pennsylvania avenue, the most famous office address in the world, where staff members are tested regularly, some as often as every day -- every day? that might be nice -- then how can businesses across the country, with nowhere near the access, have a safe place for their workers? >> so many staff members are being tested every day. >> wow, that's nice for them. >> they're taking temperatures from office to office before they go into certain meetings. everybody is having their temperature taken. in short, they have safeguards that no other business in america would have. yet, it's even a frightening experience, they say, to go to work at the white house. how does this complicate the president's efforts to try to reopen the government before so many of these states fail to even meet his own white house guidelines? >> that's exactly the right

framing here. first of all, this shows the incredible reach of this virus. it has penetrated the west wing, which has more robust, more active testing than any other place in the country. by a large margin. this is now -- we had the valet for the president last week, the first to get it. we know the vice president's press secretary now has tested positive. her husband, steven miller, isolating for that reason. we know, reportedly, she was coughing a little bit in meetings last week, drawing some looks from other advisers. we saw the photo there of her talking to the press reporters there without wearing a mask. it is a tone that's set from the top. we reported last week in the "associated press" about how president trump refuses to wear one in public. he's concerned it sends the wrong message. the idea that he is too focused on the public health crisis or

his own health rather than restarting the economy and reopening the nation, which is what his advisers believe he needs to do to try to win re-election. he also told people around him he doesn't like what he lookeds like in a mask and is afraid it'll end up in a negative campaign ad. when officials follow the model, staffers will feel pressure to keep coming to work. they'll feel pressure to not wear a mask when they're in there. now, we're seeing real concern among those working in the west wing about the virus. as you say, we all remember the tv show, "the west wing," with long talks down the hallway. it's not a big place. you can't have the necessary 6 feet. yes, there are temperature checks. yes, people are tested all the time. clearly, the virus is spread, and it complicates the president's mission, his tone, to say, "it is time to go back

to work." we're at 80,000 deaths. the infection rate is rising throughout the country. he's saying it is safe and to go back to work. in his own office, in his own home, we're seeing positive cases. >> this is absolutely nuts. there's now scrutiny surrounding what's being done to keep the virus away from the president. several security officials with executive branch experience said in interviews on friday that the white house has taken a lax and risky approach that, in their view, reflected trump's consistent efforts to minimize the threat from the virus. he and his top aides don't wear masks, and the president doesn't practice social distancing as he continues to huddle for photo ops. we saw that again with first responders that he brought into the white house and forced them into a position where they did not practice what they need to practice to stay alive. what everybody needs to practice, joe, to stay i live. >> well, again, the president is

worried about the optics. the pandemic doesn't care about the optics. tom nichols, the president also -- you talk about the death of expertise, this is just the sell pracelebration of stupidit the president of the united states talks about the vice president's press person getting covid-19, and then saying, "see, i told you tests don't matter." even with all these tests, she still got it. i mean, one of the stupidest things i've ever heard. if they weren't taking tests inside the white house, we'd probably find out next week that, well, you know, probably a huge number of people inside the white house got it. instead, there was testing. obviously, tracing, isolation, treatment. the sort of things that dr. fauci says we want to have nationwide, but we don't because of donald trump's failures. now, the president himself, somehow, talking about this

strict regimen inside the white house, that found somebody immediately and sent them home. the strick regimen inside the white house somehow being a failure, proving we don't need testing nationwide. explain that for me, if you will. >> i wish i could. this isn't the death of expertise. this is the lilike the murder o expertise every day, over and over. my favorite part of the president's comment on the new case in the white house, he said, "she tested negative. then for some reason, she tested positive," as though, you know, it is a mystery. gosh, she was negative, and then for some reason. well, of course for some reason. she contracted the virus. that's what happens when people are close together, when social distancing isn't observed, when masks aren't worn, when you don't wipe things down, you know. as jonathan lemire said, it is tight quarters. also, people are handing each other things all day, papers, working at workstations, sitting at tables.

it's a tough place, any workplace. that's why we've all been sent home. but it shows you, again, that not only -- you know, the problem with expertise is obvious. expertise always conflicts with what the president wants, and the president tries to make his own reality. in some sense, the president now is dealing with the pandemic the way little children deal with hide and seek. if they cover their eyes and they can't see you, they think you can't see them. that's what the president is doing. by just pretending it's not there, if i act like it's not an issue, then it goes away. if i don't wear a mask, then nobody has to wear a mask. then the virus doesn't exist. i mean, this is really childlike, magical thinking, while we're basically having the equivalent of a 9/11 every few days. >> exactly. >> it is wishful thinking. >> absolutely true. >> republicans in the senate, again, i wonder, republicans in

the senate and the house. >> where are you? >> yeah, where are you? why won't you talk to the president forcefully? >> save lives. >> this is a crisis. yeah, again, we're not talking about robert mueller. if you're fine with obstruction of justice from a president, good on ya. you'll pay for it at the polls. you already have in '18. you'll pay at the polls in '20, as well. that's fine. if you're fine with what the president did with the ukraine call, good on ya. you're the one that's going to pay at the polls in '20, just like so many republicans paid. but we're talking, in this case, this is a pandemic, the worst health care crisis in a century. this is the worst national crisis we've faced since world war ii. you're sitting on your hands while the president of the united states continues to act recklessly from the beginning. as you know, in january, he said it was just one person coming in from china. it was going to be fine. in february, into february, he said it was just 15 people. it was going to be down to zero.

they did a great job. remember, republican senators, he told you in march, there's nothing to worry about. just stay calm. it'll go away. remember the magical thinking, when he told you it'd magically go away in april? ended up, more people died of this virus that the president said was magically going to go away in april. more people died in april of the coronavirus than died during the entire vietnam war. his magical thinking continued with drugs that now we find out are unsafe. he was shoving those drugs on the american people. shoving those drugs on people in his administration. shoving those drugs on patients at v.a. system. the magical thinking continued with injecting disinfectants into bodies, trying to get his bo doctors to seriously look at that, as well as shoving lights into people. republicans, you know this is not right. you know he is not well. >> people are dying. >> you know that the death count

is now over 80,000. it is going to keep going higher. and i -- you know that both he and all of his supporters in those crowds, way back in february, and a lot of his supporters on tv in march, were still calling this the latest hoax. the press was making it up to bring down the president of the united states. that it wasn't really that bad, they were just drumming it up. rev, you have republican members of the senate who are responsible for the safety of people inside their state, along with the governors, along with the mayor. you have republican house members in the same position. yet, they're not speaking out. they're not even quietly going to the white house. telling the president, "enough is enough." don't tweet about brian stelter on a weekend. >> come on, man.

>> we cross the 80,000 threshold. that's like fdr in world war ii or pearl harbor, is he going to tweet about a media critic at the "cleveland plain dealer"? last week, he attacked me. i mean, my god, you've got to be in sad shape if you're focused on me in the middle of a pandemic. >> over 100 tweets. >> look at this. here, he's attacking sleepy-eyes chuck todd. it's like conspiracy theories. he just blurts out obama day. >> what's that? >> the biggest political crime in -- >> freaking nut. >> how many did he tweet out yesterday? some insane number. reverend al, we are literally in the worst crisis since world war ii. again, i don't look at donald

trump and say, "why can't he help himself? why can't he fix himself? why can't he be at least competent?" he has proven, time and time again, he just can't do it. even though, at the beginning, we were begging him and pleading with him to do that. you've got to look at his enablers in the united states senate. 80,000 people dead. they're doing nothing. if they don't give a damn about americans' lives, look at the polls. donald trump is destroying their careers, destroying the republican senate majority, and i say, destroying the republicans' chances to win elections for a generation to come. >> and they should lose the elections for generations to come if they do not have the moral backbone to stand up to this president, who is clearly not well. to spend this weekend, to spend the last few days with 80,000

americans dead -- i mean, stop and think about that a minute, 80,000. we are depression numbers in terms of the economy. to spend it getting his obsession with you and others that would dare to critique him in the media, which happens to be your job, to critique any president. but his obsession with this, he puts his political health above the physical health of american people, and it is co si-signed the republicans in the senate and in the house. it is unbelievable, where someone's career is over the very lives of the people that they've been sworn to protect and enhance. i think that we're at a real point in this country where we're going to have to decide, why do we elect people? do we elect them to preserve the life and the preservation of life of the american people, or do we elect them for their own career development and enhancement?

>> so, joe, let's take this as seriously as we all are at this point. i ask you, what could the republicans do at this point? who are the republicans who could make a difference? what is it that they could do? why are they so afraid? of course, the backdrop of this is, if we all agree, that if something was said to this president, if they were able to close in on him, perhaps more lives could be saved. >> you know, people always talk about when arizona conservative icon barry goldwater went to the white house and actually told richard nixon that it was time to leave. that's not what we're even asking here, though i believe america would be far better off. >> absolutely. >> senior citizens would be far safer. we could face this crisis far better if donald trump did leave office. that's not going to happen.

but, you know, we're not talking about 50 republicans here. we're not talking about 30 republicans. five republicans going over the there, saying, "mr. president, we're not asking you to leave. we're just asking you to do your job. we have people suffering in our districts. we have people suffering in our states. we have to get people back to work, but your own doctors having telling you for months now, that can't happen without a robust testing regimen, where we can test and trace, mr. president. you keep refusing to do that. you're the only person in this government that can have a national approach to testing, to tracing, to treating, to doing the sort of things that we need to do to reopen our economies, to save our businesses in our states." >> what's stopping them? >> their fear. their cowardice.

>> we've been talking about this all weekend. >> katty, the remarkable thing is, by doing nothing, by letting the president be reckless, by tweeting like some, just, deeply disturbed senior citizen, i mean, they're just hurting themselves even more. there's no surviving this for so many of these republican senators. there were articles all weekend, where republican senators and republican consultants were saying they're going to get washed away in a landslide, swept away in a tidal wave this fall in the elections. yet, they're doing nothing. it seems to me, at least take a chance. tell the president, five republicans, we have a working majority here. we'd love to work with you, but if you're going to keep tweeting and wasting your time all weekend, we're going to get to work with democrats and try to save lives.

>> yeah. i mean, you'd think there was an opportunity here for a group of republicans from the states that are vulnerable, from arizona, to go to president trump and say, "this is what it will mean for you if we lose in our states. if we lose the senate majority, this is what it means in terms of your agenda going into a second term." we know they're worried, and we know they are expressing this to each other, but they've got to get that message to the president if they want to hang on to the senate. i've spoken to people who used to work in the trump administration, who say, "look, you target your message to trump around the key objectives that he has." his key objective is making sure he wins michigan, making sure he wins wisconsin, pennsylvania, hanging on to florida, keeping arizona. that's the way you talk to trump. you put it in very transactional terms. he is a transactional president,

and he works that way. there's a transaction to be done here. we need to keep these senate seats. you need to do this, or not do this, not send out so many tweets, in order we do that. start with less ambivalence on testing there. >> by the way, not just screwing up testing, mika, but one thing after another. setting up white house guidelines, working with his doctors and settingguidelines, day, going against the guidelines. firing, for political reasons, a guy that's been with the government for years, getting the vaccine ready, firing him because he didn't like the fact that the guy didn't kowtow to him. again, just one thing after another. every day, it's the president acting more and more reckless. every day, it's the republicans

going deeper under the ground. >> what is their -- >> and every day, it is more and more americans dying. again, we're over 80,000. over 80,000 dead, and it's not slowing down. still ahead on "morning joe," the republican governor of ohio, mike dewine, is our guest. plus, richard haass' brief introduction to the world. his new book is finally here, and talk about timing. we'll take a deep live on the global challenges increasingly playing out here at home. also, as a top strategist to mayor pete, liz smith spent months trying to beat joe biden. now that biden is the apparent nominee, she's got a plan to help him win. she'll explain that just ahead. we'll be right back. this is my body of proof. proof i can fight moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira.

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welcome back. joining us, the president on the counsel of foreign relationings, richard haass, the author of the

new book out this week, entitled "the world, a brief introduction," and what timing for this book, richard. >> thank you so much. i remember being taken aback slightly by the title of this. >> yeah. >> when it first came out. usually, you're far more specific. why did you step back and write sort of a 30,000-foot overview of the topic that you've been studying your entire life? >> well, joe, the world matters. we needed a painful, costly demonstration of it. we're living through it, or some cases living through it. nothing stays local for long. what began in wuhan didn't stay there. it seemed to me that too many americans, in particular, were unprepared for this world. it turns out, you can graduate from the best universities in this country without having taken a course on what goes on in the world and why it matters. the same is obviously true of most high schools. most americans are obviously too

busy simply making end's meet to spend a lot of time thinking about it. my message is, you've got to get more prepared. we've got to get up to speed to navigate the world. you're obviously talking a lot about the election. how do people know who to vote for? how do they know if a candidate or elected person says, "tariffs are good" or "we should get out of afghanistan," how should they make an informed choice? i tried to help fill this gap, to give people in one, simple, short volume, the foundation they need to navigate all that's coming at them. >> so there's obviously -- you talk about globalization here. it is something this country has been coming to grips with now for decades. many could say a new world began, actually, in mika's home in 1979, when there was an opening to china with the united states, and the age of

globalization began. while we look at the positives of globalization, you are right, this pandemic that has just shattered the world, economi economically and also health wise, it's come from a town in china that very few people know about. it's the old expression, if america sneezes, the world catches a cold. in this case, it was wuhan that sneezed, and now the rest of the world has caught a pandemic. there obviously are great challenges with globalization that we have yet to even contemplate. >> you're exactly right. think about it, it was a bunch of people who got trained in afghanistan that caused 9/11 and 3,000 innocent men, women, and children died that day. climate change is a slow-motion crisis. it's the cumulative effect of what happens everywhere.

we saw the terrible fires and storms. all these things, what's interesting about them, is they are predictable in general. they're not one-off events. right now, we're hoping with -- coping with covid-19. couple years, maybe it'll be covid-23 or anti-resistant bacteria. this is part and parcel of life. globalization is a reality. we can't deny it. if we deny it, we become the proverbial ostrich. we stick our head in the sand, but the tide will come and wash us away. we can prepare for it, protect ourselves, and build resilience. that's where policy comes in. >> bbc's katty kay is with us and has a question. >> richard, congratulations and thank you. i received my copy. can't wait to read it. there seemed to be two theories of the case coming out of the pandemic. either the world has a moment that it can seize to cooperate an act together, not just on this, but then, subsequently, on other things like climate

change, for example, or we see a rise in what was happening already, which is an increase of nationalism, people being more polarized. we see a bipolar world. how do you see the covid virus changing the world in ways perhaps that were unexpected, that we had not seen as we went into this pandemic? >> you're exactly right in your framing. the world has an opportunity to come together, but i'm afraid, so far at least, we're not seeing it. what's happened, every country fells so overwhelmed, they're printing money, they're focusing on do memestic needs and, if anything, they'll turn their back on the world just at a time that global challenges are getting worse. that's the great irony. this is the quintessential global challenge, yet we're seeing exactly the sort of looking inwards, national, we're going to husband all our protective equipment. we're going to focus on a vaccine. the fact that the united states did not join the european-led effort to try to produce a vaccine tells you all you need

to know. >> tom nichols has a question. tom? >> richard, it seems to me that at the beginning of this crisis, there were people arguing that this is the beginning of the end of globalization, which struck me always as kind of strange. in fact, the world, as you've pointed out, is reacting to this as a global crisis. do you think this actually strengthens or weakens the processes of globalization? even just in the near future or further out. >> i think it may strengthen the process of what people like me and others are calling deglobalization. we've seen that for some time. we've seen it in the pushback against free trade. this is going to strengthen the hand of those who say we can't be dependent on foreign suppliers. we have to be more self-reliant. you see people even more building barriers against immigration. i think, you know, this is going

to strengthen globalization. the problem is we do it in some ways at our peril. immigrants are a real source of national talent and economic strength. we can't close our borders to climate change. we can't close our borders to disease. the real driver of this disease now is social contagion. it is not immigration. trade can also bring all sorts of advantages, export related jobs. my concern is we're going to throw the baby out with the bath water. yes, there are parts of globalization we need to be weary about, but the real thing, again, is how do we make ourselves more resilient? we can blame this disease on china, tom, but the answer is, there's things we should have done, and still should do, from testing to equipment. we can blame everything on imports, but what we need to do is train our workers, so they are ready for the new jobs that technology will bring. the answer to globalization is not deglobalization. it's resilience. >> richard haass, thank you so

much. we'll see you all week as we dig into the important themes of your new book, "the world, a brief introduction." thank you very much. coming up, is florida undercounting its covid cases? we're going to talk about the spread of coronavirus across that state and how the governor is dealing with it. that is straight ahead on "morning joe." we live in uncertain times. however, there is one thing you can be certain of. the men and women of the united states postal service. we're here to deliver cards and packages from loved ones and also deliver the peace of mind of knowing that essentials like prescriptions are on their way. every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will. here's the thing about managing for your business.s when you've got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds-

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hey, welcome back to "morning joe." obviously, we're looking at little richard, who passed away this weekend. extraordinary remembrances by paul mccartney, who said he learned so much from little richard. of course, little richard spent his life telling the world that paul mccartney learned a lot from him. the rolling stones, of course, mick jagger, a long statement. he helped, actually, get one of their 62 tours that were struggling, they added him, he helped move them along. bob dylan, who said that his inspiration to do music came all from little richard. richard died at 87. you know, i've heard this story

from john heilemann, reverend al, about how the great rock promoter, bill graham, into deuced prince to an l.a. stadium in the early 1980s. he was a warmup act for prince. prince was booed off the stage because people weren't ready for him. the stories are ironic because little richard was basically doing what prince was doing back in the 1950s, back at a time when, to do what he did, it was absolutely fearless. the man, more than anybody else, really created rock and roll. >> no doubt about it. little richard was the first superstar of rock and roll. he brought it really to where it was a crossover, accepted, really reaching the music of the time. he was as boisterous and bold

and flamboyant in private as he was in public. i got to know little richard because of my being a surrogate son of james brown. in fact, little richard introduced james brown as a kid to his first manager. he helped start james. so they had their ups and downs in the relationship, but i got to know him. he was just as authentic on stage as he was in private. that's who he was. he didn't care whether people felt he was too forward. he didn't care if he was considered too loud and above what was appropriate. he redefined everything by not caring because he did what he felt. people felt it. he developed a whole new level of not only music, but stage craft and how one dealt even in the business of music. so the world of music and the world in general owes a lot to little richard. he also, by the way, joe, you

could understand this, had this ongoing conflict between his being a devout pentecostal minister, because he left show business a couple of times and went back into the ministry. he started as a pentecostal gospel singer. with his sekicular performing, was a battle he had. it was this duality he dealt with, that i think some of his magic was trying to balance that out. >> so many rock n roll artists, so many jazz artists, soul artists, r&b artists from the deep soul were on a familiar journey. i've long thought that it was that push and pull that made so many of them great. mika, we also lost -- got the news before we came on of another passing overnight.

>> ben stiller's dad, jerry stiller, died at the age of 92. he was an incredible stage actor, perhaps pebest known for his role of frank costanza on "seinfe "seinfe "seinfe "seinfeld." ben saying his dad passed from natural causes. he was a great dad and grandmother, dedicated husband for 6 t2 years. he will be greatly missed. love you, dad. >> for those of us that are a little bit longer, we, long before anybody who knew ben stiller's name, long before "seinfeld," he and his wife, ann, were cracking us up for decades. an extraordinary comedy team. >> yeah. >> he will be missed. when you take align,

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tom nichols, you said in

2018, you said, my fare ear is brings people back to their senses and shakes them from their narcissism. well, a pandemic will shake them out of that. you said that september 5th, 2018. here we are, two years later. we're seeing images of people going into restaurants in colorado wearing american flags on their back, jammed into a room, claiming it is their constitutional right to do that. somebody wisely commented, "please save these pictures. they will help us for tracing the cases three, four weeks from now." it seems that you were even too optimistic in 2018 that, somehow -- i just can't even tell you the nonsense that comes my way every day. people asking if this false story is right or that false story is right.

things that are made up and circulated on facebook. apparently, even a pandemic hasn't shaken a lot of people out of their tribalism, to allow us to work together as a country. certainly not the president of the united states. >> well, certainly, certainly not the president. the president's checked out. you know, he is off doing his own thing and wrapped up in his own worries. we really can't count on him for very much. i was too optimistic. i was very worried about a pandemic, as the way that, you know, might shake us out of some of our sillier beliefs. when you live in a society that's at peace, is prosperous and healthy, you can have the luxury of thinking that, you know, things like a pandemic wouldn't be so difficult. well, now we're faced with one. i think there's good news though. most people in this country are actually quite sensible.

you can even see it when we're talking about things like reopening. if everything reopened tomorrow, most people would still be pretty sensible. they wouldn't be crowding into restaurants and bars. they wouldn't be, you know, jumping on airliners. but, unfortunately, with a pandemic, a dedicated minority of people who are, not just uncivic in their approach to the health of their fellow citizens, but who are, you know, paranoid, i think determined to make their point at any cost in an almost, again, childlike, narcissistic way, that small minority of people can endanger the rest of us and keep reigniting this pandemic. that's the thing i keep worrying about. it's not that there's this group of people that i think refuse to be shaken out of their narcissism. it's that they do that, then they'll keep making the rest of us sick. hast t

that's the big problem. >> yeah. katty kay, what is so disturbing to me is the fact that we have one person in this country that is controlling what the government does or, more importantly, does not do when it comes to our response. that one person is the guy who, in january, said that this pandemic was just one person coming in from china. it'd be fine. in february, saying it's 15 people. it's going to be down to zero. in march, he was the one that said, "i'm not worried at all." told republican senators just to relax, don't worry about it. it is just going to go away. kept saying it was going to go away magically in april. we found out that that was certainly a lie. in april, he's pushing dangerous usages of drugs. he's pushing disinfectants being injected. now, in may, he's just, instead of working on weekends and during the week, he goes on these long twitter rants. bizarre conspiracy theories. trying to settle old scores.

how would this be handled in britain? how would this be handled in other countries you've reported on? what are we missing here in the united states? why does one man literally have the ability to completely undermine america's response to this pandemic? >> i think, you know, you're right to point out a series of institutional failures, joe, from the white house right from the beginning. i think what's been different about the u.s. compared to other countries is that on top of those institutional failures, you've also had a real ambivalence from the man himself, from the very top of government, about the whole process of needing to shut down. that's opinion, frbeen, frankly to people. you have the president effectively encouraging protesters.

then we get the news just this weekend that one of the protests in michigan, dozens of people caught the coronavirus because they were all crammed in together. that's after the president is, you know, tweeting about liberating michigan. so i think that's the president's personal responsibility in this. the sis mystemic and institutio failures, we've seen that in other countries, too, certainly in the uk, but it is the ambivalence of messaging that is harmful to people. >> it's the ambivalence, mika, "it'll go away. it'll magically go away. it is going to get warmer in april, and it will go away. i'm n i'm not worried about it at all." he said that in march. told republican senators, "don't worry about it. it'll go away." >> it is a disconnect. >> now, "it's not going to come back in the fall." he's been wrong every time. people keep dying. this president, he didn't prepare for the first wave. he's not preparing for the next wave. he's not even following his own

white house guidelines. not even following his own white house guidelines. people will die because of it if he doesn't follow his own white house guidelines. coming up, a day before testing positive for coronavirus, the press secretary to vice president mike pence was seen talking to reporters without a mask. she's one of two white house staffers to test positive in recent days. we will discuss efforts to protect the president when he doesn't seem to want to protect himself. plus, republicans grow nervous about losing the senate. the down paballot impact of president trump's problems. robert costa joins the conversation. straight ahead, "morning joe" is back in a moment. - [announcer] we've all seen it.

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confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. they're all possible with a cfp® professional. find yours at letsmakeaplan.org. she's a wonderful young woman. katie, she tested very good for a long period of time. then all of a sudden, today, she tested positive. she hasn't come into contact with me. spent some time with the vice president. it's, i believe, the press person, right? it's a press person. so she tested positive out of the blue. this is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great. the tests are perfect, but something could happen between a test where it's good, and then something happens and all of a sudden, she was tested very

recently and tested negative. today, i guess, for some reason, she tested positive. >> you know, that could be the dumbest thing. >> it's appalling. >> that he said during the pandemic. i think the disinfectants probably squeaks that one out. but, i mean, to say this is why testing doesn't work, mika, when, actually, if they hadn't had the testing -- >> it would be spreading ram bant rampantly. >> could still be. >> if they weren't testing everybody inside that white house -- >> isolating people. >> -- in a way that no other business is going to be able to do it, things would be -- the crisis at the head of government would be far greater than it is right now. that is saying a lot. >> by the way, according to the "new york times," white house officials initially asked reporters not to identify katie miller as the aide who had tested positive.

>> that makes sense. >> then president trump just blurting it out when he publicly identified her during a meeting with congressional republicans on friday. this morning, the death toll from the coronavirus in the u.s. has now surpassed 80,000 people dead. as we've passed that 80,000 mark from a virus the president said a little over three months ago was just one case and was going to be just fine, as we now cross that grim 80,000 death number, in the middle of what is the worst public health crisis and economic catastrophe in a century, the president of the united states spent the weekend obsessively tweeting on personal grievances, attacking the media, and amplifying conspiracy theories. over 100 tweets and re-tweets just yesterday. jonathan lemire is still with us. he's white house reporter for

the "associated press." host of "politicians nation" on msnbc, president of national action network, reverend al sharpton. we have professor at princeton university, eddie glaude jr. elise jordon. and political reporter for the "washington post," robert costa. he is the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. >> jonathan lemire, tell us what's going on inside of the white house. this is a president who used to look forward to the afternoon meetings, afternoon press conferences. after he started talking about injecting disinfectants and inserting lights into human beings to beat this virus, his staff members finally were able to get him to understand that these afternoon meetings were actually destroying his credibility and hurting his poll numbers. of course, we've been saying it on "morning joe" for quite some time.

obviously got angry. as we start this week, jonathan, 80,000 deaths. you've got the head of the cdc self-quarantined, the head of the fda self-quarantined. you have dr. fauci, the best medical mind in this area, self-quarantined. you've got the president's -- one of the president's closest aides, steven miller, self-quarantined. you have the vice president's press secretary quarantined with the coronavirus. as i said, the death toll, over 80,000. a white house in disarray. republican senators now understanding that their fate is tied to donald trump, and that is scaring the hell out of them as they move toward the fall, expecting to absorb huge losses. what is planned this week for the white house? what is the president planning to do after wasting a weekend

just mindlessly tweeting and re-tweeting throughout most of mother's day yesterday? >> joe, he's going to start with a news conference. it's back. he's got one today at 4:00 in the rose garden. he is going to give an update on the nation's testing program which, of course, has been the single matter where this administration has faced the most criticism. for the lack of widespread, effective testing, which is seen, of course, as the biggest obstacle to having a reopening of this nation. to have state economies start to spring back to life. how hard it'd be to do that without the testing. the president is going to address that this afternoon in that news conference. there is a lot going on. of course, the news conference is going to be held without a number of his top advisers and medical experts, who you just listed. they are all self-isolating, self-quarantining, after having been exposed to a staffer testing positive to the virus. we have had a few staffers who

came back with positive results, showing the reach of the virus into the west wing. you played the clip about kevin hassett, economic adviser, saying he is fearful to go to work, fearful of the exposure there. we started to see over the weekend secret service agents wearing masks in the west wing. that is still the exception. most senior staff is not wearing them. the president has said he doesn't want to do that. the white house is going to try to keep pushing the idea of a return to normalcy. according to faa notices, the president will be traveling to pennsylvania this week for another event, like he was in arizona last week. there is deep worry about where this is going. there's deep worry among his inner circle. >> how can he make the case to americans if members of his staff, people in his home, came down with the virus, despite the testing. how can he balance that with what we saw on friday, with a historic unemployment number,

the historic loss of jobs, which is terrifying his team, believing that there's no way he's going to be able to seek a second, win a second term, defeat joe biden without the economy restarting. those numbers just show the grim reality that this nation faced from coast to coast, the economic pain people are suffering, beyond, of course, the 80,000 deaths and historic headwinds the president faces if he were to win four more years in office. >> the "washington post" reports that amid the coronavirus crisis, president trump is growing concerned about its growing impact on his re-election campaign. the paper reports that some of trump's advisers have described him as glum and shell shocked by recent polls, which have shown him trailing to joe biden. quote, in private conversations, trump has struggled to process how his fortunes suddenly changed from believing he was on a glide path to re-election to

realizing that he is losing to the likely democratic nominee, in virtually every poll, including his own campaign's internal surveys, advisers post the "post." trump is also concerned of the possibility of a second wave of the coronavirus this fall could further hurt his chances in november. according to advisers, aides, and other allies. he's not doing very well in these polls, joe. >> the "washington post" is also reporting, bob costa, that a lot of republican senators are frightened by their prospects, and for good reason. >> this would be a good time to speak out then. >> yeah. i mean, thanks to a combination of the shrinking economy, the president's botching of this outbreak every day, and also rising enthusiasm among democratic voters, the "post" notes in recent weeks, republican senators have been forced into the difficult position of touting their own response to the pandemic without overtly distancing themselves

from the president, who is under scrutiny but still also has pretty big sway with republican voters. one strategist closely involved in the senate races told the "post," quote, it is a bleak picture right now all across the map to be honest with you. >> wow. >> you look at these races, bob. republicans, i mean, if the election were held today, i find it hard to believe that republicans don't lose arizona, don't lose colorado, don't lose montana, don't lose maine, don't lose north carolina. you have to look at at least one of those georgia seats that they're in danger of losing. kansas is a real possibility, if the past is prologued. this is a republican party in deep trouble. >> they know they're in trouble because they looked at the white house for guidance. all they've seen this weekend and since the pandemic began, chaos and mixed signals.

>> joe, i picked up new reporting over the weekend, talking to republican campaign strategists. there is a growing, private debate about who should be made the political foil for republicans. if you're in a tough senate race, do you run against china in a hard line way? but there is a lot of grumbling among some of these republicans, that the white house is not doing enough to make the case against china. they look at the president's tweets over the weekend, and they see the president railing against the media, railing against some democrats, but they don't see a forceful case day in, day out, against china. there is worry in republican ranks, that because of this pandemic and the economic recession and the possible economic depression on the horizon, they need to find some kind of political target they all can hit in unison. there's disagreement among some close to the president. the president still wants to keep this china trade deal afloat. he has had a relationship, as we

know, with president xi jinping of china. that's something to watch. how much does the republican party turn against china here? how much does the president? is there a discrepancy in how they go about it? >> reverend al, how in the world can you attack china if you're donald trump or an ally of donald trump, when donald trump, from the beginning, has been praising president xi? in his january 24th tweet, he praised president xi for his transparency. said, "on the behalf of the united states people, i want to thank president xi for his transparency and how well china is handling this. everything will work out just fine." any attack on china is going to be followed by one tweet after another, with donald trump saying exactly what he said h e here, "china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus," says donald trump. "the united states greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency," said donald

trump. "it will work out well," said donald trump in january. 80,000 deaths ago. in particular, "on behalf of the american people, i want to thank president xi," said donald trump, reverend al, at a time when the chinese were not providing white house scientists, people that are working inside the white house and in the administration, to samples they needed to work on a vaccine, and were not providing the white house the data that they were asking. they have not been transparent from the beginning, yet donald trump has continued to play nice with china. how do the republicans attack china in the fall? >> donald trump wrote that tweet on january 24th after he was being told that they were being misled about where this pandemic could go. dr. fauci said on my show, "i

became very suspect and felt that this was going wrong mid-january. "i ask i asked, did you inform the white house? yes, late january or mid january. while he was tweeting this, they were getting contrary information from their own health advisers. when we look at the fact, joe, that this president is now in serious political trouble about his reof-election, he's not in trouble because of the pandemic. he's in trouble because of how he has mishandled the pandemic. governor cuomo in new york, governor newsom in california has advanced politically. many ways, have helped their political careers because of how they've handled it. it is the mishandling, it is the inconsistencies, it's the blatant lies that they have told around this pandemic that has put them in trouble, not the pandemic. >> yeah. you know, the rev was talking about how anthony fauci was

warning the white house in the middle of january. you can go back to early january. the cdc knew about it in early january and were starting to write memos, warning hhs. the fda knew about it. the state department knew about it and were writing memos, warning the president, warning the white house about it. the pentagon was worried about it, writing memos, warning the white house about it. the intel agencies were warning the president about this in his presidential daily briefings. the department of hhs finally got to talk to the president in the middle of january. all he wanted to do was yell at them because flavored vaping had been taken off the market. he thought it was hurting him with some of his people. i mean, even navarro, his trade guy, by the end of january, was writing memos to warn the

president that up to half a million souls, as he said, could perish. i spribring this up pausbecause president didn't do anything in january. he didn't do anything in february. yes, he had that toothless china ban, but 430,000 people have come in since the beginning of this pandemic from china. 40,000 came in after the toothless ban was put into place. so the president, one month moves into another month, moves into another month, and the president is doing nothing but spreading misinformation, telling everybody that everything is going to be okay, as the death toll rises. i mean, this story of va clinics, 72 people, vets, dead in a va clinic in new jersey. the news keeps getting worse. the president now has resorted to hate tweeting. >> joe, i don't think a

victimhood complex on the president's part is going to work quite the same way as it did in 2016. when you have the equivalent of 9/11s happening every day or so, americans perishing on his watch. also, you make a good point about just how many warnings donald trump had. he also was warned by his own nsc, who battled with treasury and lost over stopping flights even earlier from china. an eventual ban was toothless. i just don't -- as long as this experiment goes on, where donald trump is opening up earlier than the american public feels comfortable, you look at a new monmouth poll, 2 to 1 americans think things are opening up too early. now, i hope that this experiment goes better than planned. i hope that the rate of the death declines. science tells us otherwise.

while i'm rooting for this to be succe successful, i have a really bad feeling about it. i don't see how more death and a premature easing, and not doing it in a responsible way. because i personally -- plenty of things can open up right now, but do it in a responsible way with some federal leadership. just to have some guidelines that make the public, help reassure the public. it's jus not happening right now. >> to have a white house that's actually sticking to the guidelines. former president barack obama criticized the administration's response to the pandemic, calling it, quote, absolute chaotic disaster. oklaho obama shared his concerns with 3,000 staffers on friday. he said trump's handling of the deadly outbreak is, quote, part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty. obama also addressed the justice

department's decision to drop its case against ex-national security adviser michael flynn. telling former aides that, quote, our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. eddie glaude, obviously, for former president obama to step out and make comments like that, he must think things are pretty bad. >> agreed. it's a preview, i think, of the upcoming election. i think president obama will be a powerful voice in articulating the argument against the trump administration. i think we need to be prepared for something, as we've been talking about for most of this hour. that is, in light of trump's political situation, we need to expect him to go all out. i've been thinking about this in terms of the three cs, as i call them. one, he is going to carpet bomb biden in regards to china, hunter biden, a range of things. then we'll stoke the culture wars, divide us even more.

last, he's going to cheat. when i say he is going to cheat, he'll double down on voter suppression, trying to keep people from getting to the polls. we have to be prepared for an all-out assault. i think president obama's comments recently should be a preview of what we need to do in response to what is coming down the pike. >> absolutely. he will go all out. every time things get worse, he does other things to distract. this could be even more of a nightmare than it already is. >> well, for the president, politically, there is no distracting. >> yeah. >> the death toll continues to rise. every statement that he makes is disproven a week or two later. it's really sometimes minutes later. it is really something though, mika, that he's decided, again, to just not follow medical advice. if he'd followed medical guidelines his own white house put out several weeks ago, the he followed the advice of dr.

fauci and dr. birx, and moved forward in a responsible way, starting in february, things would be radically different. forget about january. yes, he was being warned. he knew things and his administration knew things the rest of us did not know. but they knew it starting in early january, throughout february, throughout march. the president just, again, keeps going from one conspiracy theory to another. one line of magical thinking to another, saying it is going to be okay. it is just one person. don't worry about it. here we are in may, and the president still doesn't have a game plan. >> he seems to be driving right into it. i mean, as things get worse. people in his own white house, because they're not following gui guidelines, simple social distancing guidelines, they are now impacted. you have the coronavirus in the white house. florida health officials released stark, new data,

showing a spike in nursing home deaths due to covid-19. according to the "miami herald," nursing homes and other long-term care facilities appear to have accounted for 60% of coronavirus deaths in florida last week. on friday, the florida department of health reported 665 total deaths at such facilities, marking a striking increase of 242 deaths from the prior week's report. in the same time period, the state's overall death toll increased by 401. florida currently has nearly 41,000 covid-19 cases confirmed and has reported over 1,700 deaths. as more of florida reopens this week, it's the number of cases and deaths being undercounted. joining us now for that is state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. where, dave, could they be being undercounted? >> hi, mika.

governor desantis had been taking a victory lap in all of this, blaming the press for overinflating the pandemic. but the state has been concealing information from nursing homes and prisons. when it comes to nursing homes, even to this day, the number of deaths that the state reports from nursing homes does not jive with the facilities' reports. we are concerned there is undercounting going on. then there is the issue of the backlog in test results. the state only reports the number of people awaiting their test results from state labs. 90% of people getting tested in florida are tested in private labs. then there is the curious case of the medical examiners. in florida, our medical examiners have been reporting deaths from coronavirus at a higher rate than the state was reporting. i think it is because the medical examiners report everyone's death in florida from coronavirus, whereas, the state only reports the number of

residents of florida who die from coronavirus. to deal with this discrepancy, the state of florida told the medical examiners to stop reporting its data. unbelievable. after an outcry, the state started reporting the data again, but redacted so much information that the head of the medical examiner commission called it a sham. last week, florida had its worst week when it comes to coronavirus deaths so far. governor desantis shouldn't be posting the mission accomplished banner any time soon. >> so, dave, we've heard this concern across the country, that the deaths are being underreported. that if you look at medical experts and people that follow the data, if you look at the number of deaths that have spiked not even related to coronavirus, that they believe there's vast undercounting, especially in nursing homes, in

va facilities where this is happening the most. are there any plans to make sure that florida's seniors and florida's citizens get the right facts, get the right numbers, hold the governor accountable, to make sure he doesn't gloss over the deaths of countless floridians? >> looks like florida is moving the opposite direction. the lack of transparency as we start reopening our state. we are moving ahead, despite the fact that people are worried about their loved ones in nursing homes and throughout the state. there has been only 540,000 tests so far in our state for a population of 21.5 million. joe, i am concerned. plus, there was a new report that was just issued, that says the peak number of coronavirus cases in florida has now opinion moved to the second week of june, and it will continue until august. so florida is not really flattening the curve as it reopens. plus, we haven't met the white

house's guide lines of a continued decrease over 14 days of coronavirus cases. i just hope that the state treads carefully as we reopen this week. >> from a state with so many senior citizens, who right now, if you look at the polls, are very concerned with how donald trump is handling this crisis, obviously, there are concerns about how the governor is handling it, as well. they need to be careful. again, we're not asking they follow nancy pelosi's guidelines. we're not asking they follow chuck schumer's guidelines. we're asking they follow donald trump's white house guidelines. donald trump can't even do that. hey, dave aronberg, thank you so much for being with us. we'll have you back. bob costa, where are we here? 80,000 deaths. a white house in disarray right now. obviously, the markets crashing. what's the response going to be from capitol hill, where we're reading that republicans and

democrats aren't even talking? >> this is an important week on capitol hill. we've been talking for weeks, joe, about the so-called phase four legislation. they're at a log jam right now. no kind of agreement at the moment about direct payments. the trump white house is hesitant to make any kind of commitment about further spending because they want to see liability protection. democrats want to see a lot more infusion of cash into the economy. now, the issue is accountability. this is the week for the congress to show and answer the question, will it hold the trump white house accountable? dr. bright, the whistleblower, coming before the house energy and commerce committee, dr. fauci testifying before the senate, that's an opportunity for democrats and republicans who have sharp questions to try to figure out, where is this response going, and what has happened? >> eddie glaude, let's talk about the tragedy in georgia.

i have found it interesting that -- i remember when trayvon, after trayvon, there were many people that considered themselves to be conservative that continued to support george zimmerman throughout that entire process, shooting trayvon martin because he had skittles in his pocket. he basically gunned him down for being black in a mainly white neighborhood. i've seen a lot of conservatives attack others who are suggesting, somehow, this young man deserved to be shot because he was walking through a construction project. i'm wondering what your thought is to the reaction of what you've seen not only on social media but also what you've seen out of washington on this. >> well, there's always this tendency, joe, among some

fellows to account, to justify this sort of action, right, by appealing to the character of the victim, right? to say there was something wrong in his or her behavior, to suggest or warrant the outcome. in this instance, that he stopped by a construction site. it came out later that many white people stopped by the construction site. when it comes to decency, joe, i don't think it is tethered to conservatism or progressivism. it is who you are as a human being. there are decent people with conservative views who hold that notion obnoxious. what i've been grappling with is my own emotional reaction to this. what does it mean in a time when black people are dying disproportionately because of covid-19, when we can't bauerbu loved ones in the traditional ways, and now we have to worry about going jogging. our children, sons, daughters

going jogging outside, right? it took the video, it took the video to get this moving. if the video hadn't been leaked, what would have happened, joe? so i think part of what we have to grapple with in this moment is that we're still -- how can i put this, joe? it seems to me race still has the country by the neck. it still has the country by the throat. it seems to me that decent people, decent folk, whether you're conservative or you're progressive, we finally have to decide that we're going to put this thing behind us. i just hope this is a moment that could galvanize us in the midst of the pandemic. we see this horror, and we can actually think about being otherwise, joe. >> rev, can you give us an update on ahmaud arbery? tell us where things are right now, where they stand right now. >> well, we saw yesterday that the state attorney general in georgia has called on the federal government to get involved. something that we've been asking for the last couple of weeks.

as you know, national action network and i have been involved in this before the tape came out. i had the mother of ahmaud on my radio show yesterday. we raised the issue, joe, that i think people are missing. the tape came out last wednesday, but the authorities in the local area, the local law prosecutors had the tape all along. why did it take it going public for them to move on the tape, which always had laid a basis of probable cause for an arrest? so the question is not america dealing with race. finally, ivanka trump came out with a strong statement. president trump has still said, "we don't know if we saw everything." he is still equivocating. the head of state will not deal with race in this country in a fair way, even when most conservatives, as you rightly say, joe, are saying there's no justification here. the one that has not joined them is donald trump. >> well, mika, what a surprise.

you know, i get so tired of hearing people inside the white house talking about how great donald trump is going to do with black voters in 2020. what great things he's done for black voters over the past four years. you go back to charlottesville, the moral equivocation there. you see, in this case, of course, joe biden came out immediately, condemned the shooting. talked about how justice needed to be done. donald trump, you knew he wasn't going to say anything about this. once again, he is equivocating, the same way he equivocated in charlottesville, when david duke came out and thanked the president. david duke thanked the president for his reaction to charlottesville, said it basically. here, we have the president, once again, equivocating. he's not going to come out and do the right thing. when it comes to race, he can't do the right thing. you can go back to the muslim ban. you can go back to the muslim registry.

december of 2015 and 2016. you can go back to donald trump emoral not wanting to condemn david duke and the klan. i said it was disqualifying then, and i still think it is disqualifying. he keeps morally equivocating, like he did from charlottesville to south georgia. >> reverend al, eddie glaude jr., and robert costa, thank you all for being on this morning. coming up, our next guest says the united states is exiting the lockdown more unequal than when it became. ed luce joins us with his new column straight ahead. plus, british prime minister boris johnson unveils a new plan to ease lockdown measures in the uk. nbc's keir simmons joins us live from london. and republican mike dewine was among the first governors to take decisive action in locking down during the pandemic. what is his plan for opening up?

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let's bring in republican governor from ohio, mike dewine. governor dewine, it is always great to have you here with us. maybe you can give me a reason to hope. i'm an optimist, like i know you're an optimist. this weekend, i've been really concerned by a lot that i've read. south korea's experiment to reopen up, not going really well, after telling everybody to get out. they had to close up a lot of places four days later in seoul. you look at what's happening in the white house, where they're having testing every day. they're afraid of possible outbreak there. that wisconsin rally in late april, protesters saying, "hey, let's reopen the government," 67 people infected there. of course, we hear horrible stories out of va hospitals all the time. latest, 72 dead. those numbers probably going to rise in new jersey.

so tell me, as you try to move to reopen your state -- because so many people are in so much pain -- how are you going to do it as safely as you can? we know there's no foolproof way to do it. how do you do it as safely as you can, learning from these experiences? >> well, you know, that's the question we ask ourselves every morning, every night, and all day, is how can you do it as safe as we can? there is a risk if we do nothing. if we don't open up. there is a risk if we open up. we know that. one of the things we've done in ohio with our different professions and our businesses as we start to open them up -- and tomorrow, for example, retail is open. in a few days, we get to hair. we've tried to kind of layer that. what we did is we put groups together of businesspeople and

health people. businesspeople being people who know that profession. that's what they do. or they know that particular business. we've come up with what we think are the best practices that we can come up with. then, you know, we put those guidelines out. if a company or a person who, let's say, they have a barbershop, whatever they have, if they can meet those requiremen requirements, then we start back. but the other thing that is so very, very important as we do this is, and i've said this to my fellow ohioan sohioans, evers we have to keep the distance. we have to wear the mask. we've got to do all the things that we know do, in fact, make a difference, as we move forward. so it's trying to minimize the risk. we know not to open up carries huge risks, as well. we know what happens when the economy stays down for some period of time.

you see all kinds of bad things happen, not just economically, but from a medical point of view or health point of view, as well. >> governor, so what -- how are you going to manage things? what plans have your team put together to manage the outbreaks that will surely happen? obviously, the goal is to keep those outbreaks in as small of clusters as possible. i know testing isn't as robust. tracing ability is not as robust as you would like, or anybody would like, that's trying to figure out how to reopen this thing. what's ohio's plans to trace where, let's say, dayton, for example, opens up, and there is a cluster of cases in one part of dayton. how quickly are you confident you can test and trace and then isolate those from the general population who get covid-19? >> well, we've worked very hard

to significantly increase our capacity. we've had ohio manufacturers who have stepped up, for example, to make swabs. you wouldn't think you'd have a hard time getting swabs, but we've run into that, as many, many states have. you know, the other thing, you know, we put together a working group to work on that. former governor bob taft and governor celeste, i asked them to head this up. they've rolled up their sleeves, and it's been helpful. we have more capacity in regards to the testing. it is a work in progress. we're also standing up about what we hope will be about 1,800 health workers around the state who do the tracing. we've got to be focused on that tracing as we open up. so we feel good about where we are. it still remains certainly a very much work-in-progress. a lot of it does come back to

individual decisions. i mean, i've talked to ohioans and said, "look, this is in longer about what i order or what the health director orders. it's about what you do each and every day. it is going to depend on, you know, how well we do everything." >> from health safety to economic survival, governor, as you work to solve this issue of reopening, are you prepared for the next challenge that will certainly happen? that is, that these companies and businesses are going to have less than half the customers that they used to have walking into their stores, sitting at their restaurants, going into their businesses. how can their economic survival be ensured? they're going to need money. >> well, i think what's tied together is public confidence. so the health issues, public health issues, and the economic

recovery are so tied together. so that's why we've got to get the health side right. you know, i can issue -- we can open the whole state, and 90%, by the way, of our economy is going to be open by tomorrow. but if people don't have confidence, if they don't think they're safe at a restaurant, if they don't think they're safe in going to a jewelry store, then they're not going to go out, as you say. they're not going to do that. so this is not going to come overnight. but that's why these two things, getting the economy moving and staying healthy, are so tied together. we've got to get both of them right. one depends on the other one. >> right. governor, so many people have talked about how americans are divided. i see one poll after another showing that a good majority of americans want the same thing. actually, we're more -- i think we're more united on a major issue in this pandemic than we have any time since 9/11.

i'm curious what you've seen in ohio. from republicans, from democrats, from independents alike, are you finding the same thing in ohio, that most of your constituents, for the most part, yes, they want the economy open, but they want it open safely? >> i don't think there's any doubt about that. now, i'll be honest, i've been criticized for moving too fast. i've been criticized for not moving fast enough. there's clearly -- we have a divide. overall, you're absolutely right. you know, i think a great, great majority of people want to get this right. we may differ about how we get it right, but everybody gets it. this is a pandemic that is still very much out there. the virus is still very much out there. they also understand that you just can't -- we can't close this state and keep it closed, or this country, for a long, long period of time. trying to get that sweet spot,

figure out how we can do both, is what, you know, we tarted th started this interview with. it's what we start with every day, and that's what people want us to focus on. >> governor mike deswiewine, th you for being on this morning. joe mentioned this moments ago. a bump in the road to south korea's opening after an easing of restrictions led to an infection spike. keir simmons reports next for us on "morning joe."

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join s us live from london, international correspondent keir simmons. keir, how are countries around the world handling the lifting of restrictions as the number of global infections reaches 4 million? >> reporter: yeah, you know, mika, i think you can sum it up in three words. this is tough. in germany, where the infection rate is increasing after they just unlocked a little bit. in south korea, where they're supposed to have crushed the curve, and now you're seeing a panic about reinfections. in china, where they've had to close down a city again because of a fear of a second wave. i think it's illustrated by here in the uk, by the announcement by the prime minister, boris johnson, where he announced an alert system, a traffic light system, that would warn people here if the virus was resurging. just underscoring how nervous

people are. this morning, as most of europe relaxes the rules, britain reopening more slowly. ready to reimpose restrictions if necessary. the queen may not return to public duties, reports say, until a queen may not return to public duty until a vaccine is found. buckingham palace saying she's taking appropriate advice. boris johnson himself hospitalized by coronavirus trying to give his country a measure of hope. >> we will come back from this devilish illness. we will come back to health and robust health. but for now, we must stay alert. control the virus and save lives. >> reporter: russia's president putin rocked by the rise of coronavirus now more than 10,000 infections there aday. a small event with flowers and a fly-over replacing a much more elaborate celebration to mark 75 years since the end of world war ii.

in germany, days after relaxing the rules, the infection rate rising again and anger building. protesters including far right groups led to clashing with police. scenes repeated in australia where ten people were arrested and police injured. while in brazil president bolsonaro brushing off the risks again. taking to a jet ski and joining a floating barbecue. rio chrysler edema highlighting hunger in brazil caused by the coronavirus crisis. while latin america's second largest airline filing for bankruptcy. these are anxious days in asia, too. while disney park reopening at 30% capacity to allow for social distancing, this morning another chinese city is in lockdown. china's infections increasing for a second day fuelling fears

of a second wave. and what is happening in south korea, guys, i think is just stunning and underscores just how difficult it is all going to be because they opened up bars and rauestaurants there and hado close over 2,000 bars and restaurants. and get this, what they are worried about, for example, is that one person, a young man, might have infected potentially or come into contact with thousands of people over a period of days in seoul. so in south korea where you really thought they were getting it right, now they're worried that maybe they got it wrong and it tells us about the new normal. just another example here in the u.k. where they hope they are controlling it they are interesting a two week quarantine for anyone flying in to try to control it and then again that will do damage

economically to the airline. so it is such a complex picture, such a jigsaw and i think it will be like this in the months and maybe years to come. >> keir simmons, thank you very much. and let's bring in editor at the financial times ed loose. his title premature u.s. reopening playing russian roulette with workers. and that is the bottom line as we look at what is happening around the world. the virus is in siddy us and spreads and impossible to contain if you don't have masks and rapid testing and all of the testing in place to keep it under control which the u.s. does not have. >> no, it doesn't. and the administration is not ramping up the testing and contact tracing apparatus that you need to be able to reopen. but i think it is very telling

that as you look around america and around the world, even in places where reopening is happening, states here and countries in europe and even asia, if people don't trust the authorities, they don't just come out, they stay at home. they don't fill the restaurants, they don't fill the bars. that example in south korea is of a guy in a nightclub. quite surprising that south korea reopened its nightclubs. but the super spreader who now triggered another mini outbreak there and therefore triggered more lockdowns was in a nightclub. south korea has had 256 deaths. now there are days when the u.s. has that number every three or four hours. that is the grand total of deaths south korea has had. they are being very, very cautious in general. they are being very, very

vigilant because they've got all of the contact tracing. and they've got an ability to monitor very closely, very forensically, where the virus is and where the contagion spots are, we just don't have that in the united states yet. less than 3% of the population has been tested and until we do have that we're not going to be able to respond quickly and intelligently as mike dewine was setting out to many outbreaks. >> jonathan lemire. >> ed, good to see you. one of the great questions for states as they try to reopen and try to encourage people to go back to work, is that there are so many working parents in the united states who can't do that if don't have a place to take their child. speak to us a little bit about the challenges that lie ahead for summer camps, but also

schools reopening in the fall. we've heard the president talk a lot about how he thinks schools should reopen in the fall. he feels like the virus will be on the retreat by then despite the fact that public experts suggest this is when a second wave could come back but how will you cram children and teachers, some of them vulnerable, into classrooms without potentially spreading the virus like wildfire. >> i think it is difficult but not as difficult as getting colleges back. the advantages with schools is kids are within walking distance of schools and it could adjust from day-to-day. so you could have days on and days off. or you could have third grade coming in one day or fourth the next or half of third grade, there are ways to experiment with having much thinner distancing within schools that simply don't apply to colleges. so i think what we're going to have is a long, hot summer where most camps are either closed or

open or only online. america already has, i think, far too long summer vacations. there is a lot of unlearning that goes on in periods of that long. now that is without summer camps in many parts of america. i should just mention it was very kind of you to cite any column. the people who are being asked to go back to work are those who are going to be at greatest risk, they take public transportation, they tend to work in more intense environments whether it is in factories or in serving customers. and it is by no means clear that they're going to have a choice but to take those risks because unemployment insurance is going to run out, the $1,200 check were one-offs and congress will not have a release of the stimulus when you look at the temper in this town. the reason i say russian roulette with america's work

force is because some people will be forced to take risks to go back to work because their money is going to work out and i think that is potentially very, very bad public health policy, too. >> ed luce, thank you very much. and coming up, more on the coronavirus arriving in the west wing as at least two administration aids have tested positive for the virus. plus joe biden says president trump is ref erting to a familiar strategy. dividing americans rather than unifying them. he has a new piece out this morning arguing that the white house core owno virus and we talk about the state of biden's bid for the white house. that is ahead on "morning joe." we're back in 90 seconds. these days staying connected is more important than ever.

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but i coo tell you that i knew that he lied to me. and i know the president made the right decision with regard to him. >> the president that's talked about bringing him back in the administration, is that fine with you. >> i think general michael flynn is an american patriot and he served this country with great distinction in uniform and now i believe the decision by the justice department lays bear what was -- what was clearly

prosecutorial abuse and for my part i'd be happy to see michael flynn again. >> because you like working with people who lie to you all of time, i guess. >> there is that. >> i would like somebody to ask the vice president of the united states sometimes, because they're convincing themselves and all of trump's anti-trump supporters who will desperately say anything to keep their subscription rates up, are all talking about how the fbi somehow did michael flynn wrong, who lied to the fbi about meeting a russian contact. i wonder, mika, what in the world, what is mike pence's excuse, why did flynn feel the need to lie to the vice president? was that the fbi's fault too, when he didn't get enough cream in and sugar in his coffee, is that the fbi's fault.

seriously, this is laughable. do we have that clip. i want to see that mike pence clip again. >> the one that we just rolled. >> the first part of it where mike pence said he lied. he lied to me and he lied to the president and he lied to the fbi and, yes, yes he should be gone. take a look. this is mike pence talking about a guy who he's now celebrating coming back to the white house. >> what i could tell you is that i knew that he lied to me. and i knew the president made the right decision with regard to him. >> but i could tell you i know he lied to me about talking to russians. well, you know, again, mike pence has had plenty of experience working with people who don't tell him the truth over the past three and a half years so what is another. but mika, we have a lot more to be concerned about this morning. you have inside of the white

house and we have a great group of people here to talk about it, but you have the head of the cdc self-quarantined now, the head of the fda self-quarantined and dr. fauci in a moderate self-quarantine and the vice president's top aide tests positive, you have steen miller now going to be working at home for quite sometime. you have a frightened white house. >> nobody was allowed to wear masks. nobody did social distancing. i mean, the actual real crust of this was last week when the president brought in nurses from around the country and had them in a circle in the oval office, not six feet apart, like two feet apart, no masks. how pathetic. >> so you have -- >> he exposed them. >> there is a picture of the vice president's aide who was sitting or standing talking to

members of the press. everybody in the had a mask on except her. she, of course, is the one who tested positive. but you have a white house who have members that went on yesterday who admitted they were scared. >> who wouldn't be. >> working in that environment, scared to be going to the white house and working in that environment. if 80,000 americans dead now, across 80,000 threshold, you have depression era unemployment and what did the president do again this weekend? the president went on rage -- rage tweeting just like he did last weekend. spewing out conspiracy theories, spewing out attacks against members of the media, spewing out attacks gets against all comers and he looked and many people commented last night and i don't know how republicans in the united states senate, republicans in the united states house don't just admit the

truth, that this man is unmatched for this moment, that he's unmoored. all you have to do is look at his twitter feed. again in the middle of the worst crisis since world war ii and he's unfit to be president of the united states at this time. and how republicans could continue to sit back while the death count goes from 10 to 20 to 40 to 60 to 80,000 as quickly as it does. and continue to let this man -- >> allow people to die. >> -- they have got to demand at least some level of competence inside of the white house. >> with us we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay, most of politics nation, reverend al

sharpton and security expert and columnist and author of the book "the death of expertise", tom nichols. good to have you all on board this morning. and as president trump tries to convince americans that it is safe to return to work, one of his own top advisers said it is, quote, scary to go to work at the white house. this comes after two people with access to the west wing tested positive for coronavirus in recent days. one of the president's personal valets and vice president mike pence's press secretary katie miller, the wife of top trump aide stephen miller tested positive. the positive results now have three top members of the white house coronavirus task force in self-quarantine. dr. anthony fauci, cdc director robert redfield and fda commissioner steven hahn. a senior administration official told nbc news that vice president laid low over the weekend but his office now says

he will not self-quarantine and does plan to be at the white house today. "the washington post" reports that all white house staffers received a memo from the white house management office on friday encouraging employees to, quote, practice maximum telework and to work remotely if at all possible. but the paper reports quote several administration official said white house staffers were encouraging to come into the office by supervisors. now here is one of the president's senior economic advisers kevin hassett discussing his concerns about working in the cramped west wing. >> it is scary to go to work. i was not part of the white house in march. i think that i would be a lot safer if i was sitting at home than going to the west wing but i think everybody knows if they go to work, you've been in the west wing, it is a small, crowded place. it is a little bit risky but you have to do it because you have to serve your country.

>> there is not a lot of room there. peter baker and michael crowelly posted this question in their reporting for "the new york times," if it is so hard to maintain a healthy environment at 1600 pennsylvania avenue, the most famous office address in the world where staff members are tested regularly, some as often as every day, every day, that must be nice, then how could businesses across the country without anywhere near as much access to the same resources establish a safe space for their workers. >> it is a good question. jonathan, lemire, some are being tested every day -- >> that is nice for them. >> taking temperatures from office to office before they go into certain meetings and everybody is having their temperature taken an in short they have safeguards that no other business in america would have and yet it is even a frightening experience, they say, to go to work at the white house. how does this complicate the

president's efforts to try to reopen the government before so many of the states fail to even meet his own white house guide lines. >> that is exactly the right framing here. first of all, this shows the incredible reach of this virus. that it has penetrated the west wing. which has more robust, more active testing than any other place in the country. by a large margin. we have the president's valet, last week was the first to get it. we know that the vice president's press secretary now has tested positive. her husband stephen miller is isolating for that reason. we know that reportedly she was coughing in meetings last week, drawing some looks from other advisers. we saw that photo there of her talking to the press, reporters there without wearing a mask and it is a tone set from the top. we reported last week in the associated press about how

president trump refused to wear one in public. that he's concerned it sends the wrong message, that the idea he's too focused on the public health crisis or his own health rather than restarting the economy which is what his advisers believer advisers believe he needs to do to try to win the re-election and he's concerned about how he looks in the mask and others follow that model then staffers, yes, they are going to feel pressure to keep coming into work, they're going to feel pressure to not wear a mask when they're there and now seeing concern among those working in the west wing about the virus. as you say, we all remember the tv show the west wing with long walking talks down the hallway, the west wing is a small place. there rbt many spots to go to have that necessary six feet. yes, there are temperature

checks and people are being tested all of the time, but clearly the viruss that spread and it complicates president's time to go back to worth and downplaying the health risk even though we have 80,000 deaths and the infection rate is rising. he's saying it is safe and we should go back to work, be it in his own office, in his own home we're seeing positive cases. >> still ahead on "morning joe." >> i can't tell you what is going to happen. we have a sleepy guy in a basement of a house. >> the president thinks it is a good line of attack but our next guest said joe biden can beat trump from his basement. democratic strategist liz smith explains how just ahead on "morning joe." apart for a bit, but you're not alone. we're automatically refunding our customers a portion of their personal auto premiums. learn more at libertymutual.com/covid-19. [ piano playing ]

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executive branch experience said in interviews on friday that the white house has taken a lax and risky approach that reflects trump's consistent efforts to minimize the threat of the virus. he and his top aides don't wear masks an the president doesn't practice social distancing as he continues to huddle with photo ops with first responders that he brought into the white house and forced them into a position where they did not practice what they need to practice to stay alive. what everybody needs to practice, joe, to stay alive. >> again, the president is worried about the optics. tom nicoles, you talk about the death of expertise. that is just the celebration of stupidity when the president of the united states talks about the vice president's press person getting covid-19 and then saying, see, i told you tests don't matter. even with all of the tests, she

still got it. one of the stupidest things i've ever heard because if they weren't taking tests inside of the white house, we would probably find out next week that, well, probably a huge number of people inside of the white house got it. and instead there was testing, obviously tracing, isolation, treatment. the sort of things that dr. fauci we ought to have nationwide but we don't because of donald trump's failures but now the president himself somehow talking about this strict regimen inside of the white house that found somebody immediately and sent them home, this strict regiment in the white house proving that we don't need testing nationwide. explain that for me, if you will. >> i wish i could. this is the death of expertise. this is the murder of expertise every day over and over.

my favorite part of the president's comment on the new case in the white house, he said she tested negative and for some reason she tested positive, as though it is a mystery. gosh, she was negative and then for some reason. well of course for some reason. she contracted the virus. that is what happens when people are close together, when social distancing isn't observed, when masks aren't warned and you don't wipe things down as jonathan lemire said it is also people handing each other things, papers and working oat wo -- at work stations and sitting at tables. it is tough and that is why we've been all sent home. but it shows again not only the problem with expertise is obvious because expertise always conflicts with what the president wants an the president tries to make his own reality in some sense the president is now dealing with the pandemic, the way little children deal with

hide and seek, where if they cover their eyes and they can't see you, they think you can't see them. and that is what the president is doing. if i just pretend it's not there and i just act like it's not an issue, then it goes away. because if i don't wear a mask and then nobody has to wear a mask. because then the virus doesn't exist. this is really child-like magical thinking while we're basically having the equivalent of a 9/11 every few days. >> exactly. >> and again to the republicans in the senate, again, i wonder, republicans in the senate and the house. >> where are you. >> where are you? why won't you talk to the president forcefully. >> save lives. >> yeah, again we're not talking about robert mueller. if you're fine with obstruction of justice from a president, good on you and you'll pay for it on the polls and you have in '18 and you will in '20 as

well and if you are fine with the president's handling of the ukraine call and just like some republicans paid the price -- but we're talking in this case, that is the pandemic, the worst health care crisis in a century, the worst national crisis since world war ii and you're sitting on your hands while the president of the united states continues to act recklessly, from the beginning, as you know, as you know in january he said it was one person coming from in china and it was going to be fine, and into february he said it was just 15 people and going to be down to zero. they did a great job. remember republican senators he told you in march, there is nothing to worry about, just stay calm, it is going to go away and remember when he told you it would magically go away in april and ended up more people died of this virus that the president said was magically going to go away in april and more people died in april of the coronavirus than during the

entire vietnam war. his magical thinking continuing with drugs that now we find out are unsafe. he was shoving those drugs on the american people, on people on his own administration and shoving drugs on patients at v.a. system. the magical thinking continued with injecting disinfect ant into bodies and trying to get his doctors looking at that as well as shoving lights inside of people. republicans, you know this is not right. you know he's not well. >> people are dying. >> you know that the death count is now over 80,000. it is going to keep going higher. and you know that both he and all of his supporters in those crowds, way back in february, and a lot of his supporters on tv in march were still calling this the latest hoax, the press was making up to bring down the

president of the united states. >> coming up, will it all come down to pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin? what joe biden can do to flip those battlegrounds in november. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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so, joe, let's take this as seriously as we all are at this point, i ask you, what could the republicans do at this point?

who are the republicans that would make a difference and what is it they could do. why are they so afraid? and the back drop of this is if we all agree if something was said to this president, if they were able to close in on him, perhaps more lives could be saved. >> well, you know, people always talk about when arizona conservative icon barry goldwater went to the white house and told richard nixon, it is time to leave. that is not what we're asking here. but i believe america would be far better off and senior citizens would be far safer and we could face this crisis far better if donald trump did leave office. that is not going to happen. but we're not talking about 50 republicans here. we're not talking about 30 republicans. five republicans going over there saying, mr. president,

we're not asking you to leave, we're just asking you to do your job. we have people suffering in our districts, we have people suffering in our states, we have to get people back to work, but your own doctors have been telling you for months now that can't happen without a robust testing regimen where we could test and trace, mr. president trump, and you refuse to do that. and you're the only person in that government that could have a national approach to testing, to tracing, to treating, to doing the sort of things that we need to do to reopen our economies, to save our businesses. >> what is stopping them. >> they're fear. >> we're talking about this all weekend. >> but katty, the remarkable thing is that by doing nothing, by letting the president be reckless, by tweeting like some

just deeply disturbed senior citizen, i mean, they're just hurting themselves even more. there is no surviving this for so many of these republican senators. there were articles all weekend where republican senators and republican -- republican consultants were saying that they're going to get washed away in a landslide, swept away in a tidal wave this fall in the elections. and yet they're doing nothing. it seems to me at least take a chance, tell the president, five republicans, we have a working majority here, we'd love to work with you but if you're going to keep tweeting and wasting your time all weekend we're going to get to work with democrats and try to save lives. >> yeah, i mean you would think there was an opportunity here for a group of republicans from the states that are vulnerable,

from arizona, to go to president trump and say this is what it will mean for you if we lose in our states, if we lose the senate majority, this is what it means in terms of your agenda going into a second term. and we know that they're worried and we know that they're expressing this to each other, but they've got to get that message to the president if they want to hang on to the senate. and i've spoken to people who used to work in the trump administration who say, look, you target your message to trump around the key objectives that he has. his key objective is making sure that he wins michigan, making sure that he wins wisconsin, pennsylvania, harng -- hanging on to florida, keeping arizona, that is the way you talk to trump. you put it in transactional terms. he is a transactional president and he works that way. so there is a transaction to be done here, we need to keep the senate seats and you need to do this or not do this, not send out so much tweets in order that we do that and start with less

ambivalence on testing and the window there, i don't know why they're not doing it because otherwise like you said, the senate looks like it is going to go. coming up, how donald trump is consolidating power more aggressively than any president since nixon. "morning joe" is back in a moment. so here's the thing. i'm actually closer

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i don't know about you, pete, but i thought i would be on the trail campaigning for joe right now in michigan or wisconsin or pennsylvania. so to the extent that you and i appeal to folks who need to get one over to joe, then we need to work on it. >> because people need to see the world is on the same team. it is not that we abandoned the different ideas that make us different from each other, but it is like this compared to this gulf between us and what is going on right now. >> former 2020 democratic presidential candidates andrew yang and pete buttigieg are garnering support for former vice president joe biden during this especially difficult campaign season. joining us now, former chief of

staff to the d triple c and from hillary clinton's 2016 presidential came, adrian elrod and from campaigns by pete buttigieg, andrew cuomo and barack obama, liz smith joins us. and liz, the latest opinion piece in "the new york times" is entitled it how joe biden can defe defeat trump from his basement and in it you write, ultimately for biden to be victorious, he's going to have to be the heavy weight champion of generating media attention, mr. trump. he should be willing to go everywhere as trump was in 2016. trump's-free wheeling moments and appearances that reach the broader audience have exposed him as unfit like his recent suggestion to treat covid-19 with disinfectant.

if the public continues to lose confidence in his management of the pandemic, it is likely that he'll revert even more to predictable and small partisan corners. by going everywhere, biden will meet voters where they are, on their terms, being able to do so without leaving his makeshift home studio which gives him a tremendous advantage. it is only fitting that a return to normalcy would be achieved through the most abnormal circumstances in recent campaign history. liz, the basement bunker may be the best thing for joe biden in the age of coronavirus. >> yeah, so i know that that is sort of goes against what the conventional wisdom is, that somehow he's at a disadvantage, but think about it. the way that we run modern presidential campaigns is really inefficient. it is really inexpensive. it is time intensive. and it is really exhausting.

so it is not great if you are a 77-year-old candidate. and this is an opportunity for the biden campaign to really innovate and change the way that we campaign. you know, he does not need to be spending hours and hours a day hopping on a plane, flying around to madison, milwaukee, wisconsin, he could be beaming into the big tv shows, calling into the big radio shows there, and achieving the same results. and i think that this is just a good opportunity for the democratic party to rethink and also the republican party to rethink the way we do modern campaigns and saying maybe a lot of the ways we have been doing this have been fairly inefficient and there is a way for joe biden even though he does not have the bully pulpit of the presidency, to compete with donald trump and be omni present if he maximizes his

basement studio and his surrogates like pete buttigieg and andrew yang. >> adrienne elrod, i couldn't agree with liz more. seeing biden on the campaign trail, knowing him, the one thing that i think that is possibly frustrating for campaign aides is that he loves connecting with people. and in fact that has gotten him into trouble, innocently connecting with people wanting to talk to them, wanting to hear what they have to say, taking the moment to be fully empathetic to someone maybe who has lost someone but these were moments on the campaign trail that were beautiful in many ways. but they sucked his time and his energy. and i think it concerned people who cared about the campaign that they wanted him to stay focused and what this basement situation has done has allowed joe biden to show a steady voice without any distractions or any

ways that he could exhaust himself or be seen as less serious. >> yeah. yeah, that is exactly right, mika. when you going out on the campaign trail as a candidate, pressing the flashes as we call it, having conversations face-to-face with voters, to the one hand that you just mentioned, you get to really show your strength in terms of your ability to connect, your ability to be empathetic, things that joe biden is known for and things that joe biden has attracted a lot of voters and support because of but there is always risk. you have a press pool that travels everywhere with you. we call it the press scrum. every time you go to an event oftentimes they'll swarm around you and start asking all kinds of questions and maybe you're prepared for them, maybe you're not. so by being at home you are mitigating the risk right now. i think liz's piece is so smart. because she really talks a lot about how the biden campaign can continue for example to use surrogates to their advantage. and you're also saving a lot of money right now.

not having to travel, not having to fly a huge group of staffers on either a private or commercial plane. it takes a lot of money and energy to do those events every single day on the campaign trail. so what joe biden is doing effectively is, number one, is he using surrogates, doing at least 20, 25 surrogate events every week, beaming super-surrogates is what we called them on the campaign, like andrew yang and pete buttigieg into the homes of millions of people across the country and using this time to connect with local media. that is something that doesn't always drive headlines nationally but he's doing interviews with local press in the key battleground states. so using the time effectively. but like any candidate he i'm sure wants to get under the

campaign. >> and another way to show a steady hand is putting himself on the report with op-ed pieces. there was the one for usa today in january which correctly predicted and warned about this pandemic coming. and joe biden is out with a new op-ed this morning in "the washington post" entitled "how the white house coronavirus response presents us with a false choice", in which he writes in part, the coronavirus today has taken the lives of more than 79,000 americans. one of every five u.s. workers has filed for unemployment with the unemployment rate now the highest since the great depression. it is an extraordinary moment, the kind that begs for urgent, steady, and empathetic and unifying leadership but instead of unifying the country to accelerate our public health response and get economic relief to those who need it, president trump is reverting to a familiar strategy of deflecting blame and dividing americans.

his goal is as obvious as it is craven. he hopes to split the country into duelling camps, casting democrats as doom sayers hoping to keep america grounds and republicans as freedom fighters trying to liberate the economy. it is a childish tactic and a false choice that none of us should fall for. jonathan lemire. >> there is no question the former vice president is trying to stress the need to balance the testing required to restart the economy while the white house at this moment seems far more focused on just the economic aspect of this. liz, good to see you. question for you, so joe and i have been joking that biden's basement is akin to william mckinley's front porch campaign, where he did not potentially go out and seek glad handing with voters and it wasn't because of a pandemic but there are major political events on the calendar that are going to need to be addressed, i'm talking about the

convention. democrats have moved from july to august. what would you recommend democrats do for those four days which are, of course, broadcast in prime time, a huge opportunity to connect with voters because president trump and the republicans are, at least for now, planning to still have in-person events in charlotte, maybe scaled down but we want to have some sort of convention. what would you say democrats should do? >> well, first of all, i would say the republicans are saying that they will have it but public health guidelines will ultimately dictate what the parties do. and even though the democratic leadership hasn't said we're going to go to a virtual convention, leapt's be real, that is the direction in which we are headed. if you look across different fields, we see corporate conventions into 2021 being canceled. so the idea that we're going to be holding an in-person convention with thousands of

people and in august of 2020 is simply delusional. however, i do think that democrats, again, can use this as an opportunity to innovate. the other day i heard nancy pelosi talking about how we needed to have an in-person convention because it reminded her of how excited she was in 1960 seeing john f. kennedy at the democratic convention. well, guess what? it's 2020. it is not 1960. we need to be doing things differently. and to me as someone who has been to many of the conventions, i feel like party conventions are the tv equivalent of ambien, they put people to sleep. and we do not need hours and hours of talking points driven prime time speeching any more. so this is an opportunity i think for democrats to call on the creative elements of our party, call on our hollywood supporters, call on our creative

grass root supporters to create dynamic content. we don't need to see speech after speech. we could see musical performances, we could see entertainment skits, we could see discussions and interviews, in addition to just speech after speech behind a podium. and i think that this is a moment where we should me calling the best and the brightest, the most creative minds in our party together to help us fast forward to 2020 and sort of get out of the old way of doing things. >> let's bring into this conversation long time media executive and cnbc founder and contributor tom rogers from news week, and tom's latest column for news week argues that words matter and joe biden needs to use his better. so, tom, explain the challenge you see joe biden could be facing by not doing a lot of

off-the-cuff work as much. >> well, trump has been dominating the media as we know and biden has not been in the spotlight. but that is going to shift. and when it shifts, biden needs to perform. and with all of the talk about how a virtual campaign could be run, versus a traditional campaign and some of the suggestions that adrienne and liz have made, the bottom line is the candidate needs to articulate a clear and convincing message and particularly whether it comes to the pandemic, what my piece is it that is not there yet. and it pains me to say this, but his performance in coming one a compelling narrative and a passionate storyline that really is ready for prime time election season when it comes to talking about the legacy of donald trump, of mass economic collapse, he's just not there

yet. his performances have been very unsatisfying and basically he's been getting soft call interviews with the exception of yours, mika, on the sexual harassment issues. he's had plenty of opportunities to articulate that message and i the campaign needs to figure out how to make sure that he is really in a position to discuss the -- what will be the defining issue of this election in a much more compelling way than he's been able to do it to date. >> adrienne, your thoughts, i guess tom is talking about having a commanding authority over the situation. is he able to do that? >> yeah, i actually am going to slightly disagree with tom here. i think joe biden has done a great job so far really drawing a contrast with donald trump in the way he, joe biden, would govern if he was president. the tactic his campaign took last week which i think they will continue to capitalize on

is cronyism. and in part how donald trump's administration has chosen to give some of the best friends in corporate america big paychecks in light of the coronavirus pandemic as opposed to smaller businesses and people who truly need that money in order to stay in business. every single day we look at the headlines and we know that donald trump is mismanaging this crisis. but there are some things that aren't always driving the headlines when he is is favoring his friends and corporate america and it is important that the biden campaign is drawing that contrast and you will get to see more of that because those are the things that drive the decisions from the independent and swing voters, is this president on my side or on the side of the corporate america. those are the finer points that will help decide this election. and they're driving a message that is ka-- catering exactly t those voters. those 2% or 3% they have to siphon off from 2016 and put

back in their corner and use to win in 2020. >> so tom, what is your biggest concern, is it like a debate situation? >> debate situations are tough but measuring him in what has been one-on-one interviews and i said for the most part very friendly and softball-type interviews, joe biden is never going to be obama or clinton when it comes to be an order. but when you listen to him on the pandemic, a lot of disconnected phrases, it doesn't really come together in a very convincing message. every morning you guys put together and crystallize what that critique of trump is. it is not hard. and he can do it in an op-ed. but when it comes to social distancing and television and prime time in the spotlight in the campaign, that articulation is going to have to be much clearer than it has been and i fear a crisis for the candidate if he cannot come up with a more convincing way and a more eloquent way to put out there

exactly what the critique of trump is during this crisis. it is a problem. the campaign should take the next three weeks of coaching and mock interviews and simulations, whatever they need to do to get together, i think in the way he's going to need to be primetime. and it plays into the trump critique that he's been around too long, he's confused. it's very easy to defeat that coming out strong with the kind of articulation i think he's capable of. >> liz smith, do you think the allegations by tara reade and how they've played out have impacted the campaign greatly? >> no, i think what we've seen actually is that while they've garnered a lot of media coverage and we've seen biden's opponents on the republican side and on the bernie left seize on them that he's handled them pretty well. he got out ahead of this story and people know joe biden.

and the mainstream media, national media has looked into these allegations. found, you know, has been unable to corroborate them. so i'm confident that joe biden will be able to navigate this moment and i'm happy with the way he's handled it thus far. but aushlgs let's keep in mind, mika, he went on your show and you threw him a lot of tough questions. we have not seen that willingness to be grilled about the scores and scores of allegations of sexual harassment and sexual abuse against donald trump. and it's going to be a very, very difficult case for donald trump to prosecute with that sort of record. and so this has been a bump but it's been an important test for joe biden. and i think it shows that he will be able to handle the things that the right wing noise machine throws his way throughout this election.

>> liz smith, adraian elrod, to rogers, thanks for being on. there's new reporting the attorney general withdrew the charges against michael flynn so the president wouldn't need to pardon his former national security adviser in an election year. and before we go to break today, right after the show, cosmopolitan's editor in chief jessica pelz joins me on know your values instagram page to discuss career growth in the age of coronavirus. head to underscore know your value at about 9:10, right after the show. we're back in one minute. give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need!

only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ here's the thing about managing for your business.s when you've got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds- things can get a bit cloudy for you. but now, there's the dell technologies cloud, powered by vmware. a single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. that should clear things up. welcome back to "morning joe." jonathan lemire jumping off the conversation we just had, the allegations by tara reade, it doesn't seem to have impacted the campaign, the polling. am i missing anything? >> it hasn't yet. mika, you've been rightly

praised for that interview and it gave the former vice president a chance to address some of these questions. some of this is still going on. there's still a debate of some senate records and whether they can be released. a call for the university of delaware to look at its archives. there's a movement among some on the right, some in the conservative media to drive this. a lot of the president's surrogates and supporters are still asking for this, drawing comparisons to the justice kavanaugh hearings. they clearly want to make this an issue. but one thing that's missing, at least so far, is the president himself. he hasn't really added any fuel to the fire on this one. he's been deferential to the vice president and said he should be taken at his word. and that's because he, himself, has been accused of so many sexual allegations of sexual assault and so on that it seems to be a topic for now with which he's uncomfortable, mika. >> joining us now, two-time pulitzer prize-winning journalist and the news executive editor for the "new yorker" website, david rhode.

an nbc news and msnbc contributor. and author of the new book entitled "in deep: the fbi, the cia and the truth about america's deep state." and, david, if you could talk a little about this whole situation with michael flynn where even the vice president is completely backtracking on his words against the former national security adviser, now saying he's a patriot and he welcomes him back into the white house. do you believe there was an ulterior motive here perhaps not to have trump pardon him during the election season? >> i do think that's what happened. i think bill barr is doing the president's political bidding and this is part of a broader narrative of a corrupt obama administration. i think there's less transparency in the trump administration and president trump is claiming he's a victim of the deep state. my book investigates this. i did not find any evidence of a deep state. so i think in the guise of stopping a coup that does not

exist, president trump is creating his own deep state. we don't know why bill barr is making these decisions. bill barr is blocking access to the president's tax returns. rudy giuliani is carrying out a private foreign policy for the president. so it's a strange time. but this is all highly unusual and no attorney general has acted this way since watergate. >> jonathan lemire, one of the problems with this white house is no one could have imagined a lot of what has taken place would take place. what's the oversight arm for a situation like this? >> no, we are in a new world right now, mika and certainly in terms of michael flynn, there's been speculation about him rejoining the administration perhaps and certainly that he could become a campaign star, whether virtual or otherwise that he's a real cause celeb on the right. i wanted to ask you, david, this is reflective, it seems, of more

changes perhaps among the nation's top law enforcement, federal law enforcement and intelligence. we have the new dni ratcliffe now in the game and we heard the president on friday in his fox and friends nearly hour-long interview ruminating about christopher wray and intimated he was unhappy with wray. we've reported there have been flashes in the past where the president has been unhappy with wray, holding him responsible for some of the so-called deep state actions against him. what are you hearing? how secure is chris wray in that post right now? >> i spoke to an official close to wray and they're hoping he would not be removed until after the election in november but he's clearly in trouble. and the bottom line here is that this campaign of taking political control of the justice department is working. taking control of the intelligence community and using it for political purposes is working.

john ratcliffe will likely be confirmed by republicans on the senate intelligence committee and remove wray from the fbi. this is extraordinary. you'll have the intelligence community saying the virus did come from a lab in wuhan, china. so we have never seen this before. they're not perfect. but the justice department and the fbi and cia have tried to be largely apolitical since the '70s and since nixon's abuses. president trump is succeeding in changing that. >> yeah, he really is. for this situation, david, former president obama spoke out, which, you know, it's unusual. let's just say that. but people seem to be so disturbed about what has happened, and i guess i'll ask the same question to you. where is the ability to carry out oversight over a situation like this? >> theoretically it lies in congress. you've seen that from the house. but the president -- trump followed -- look, he knows he has a long playbook here that

works where he discredits rivals by accusing them of conspiracies. that would be the fbi or the press, witch hunts, fake news or a deep state. i found a deep state is political rhetoric. fbi officials i talked to stand by their investigation of michael flynn. he attended a dinner with vladimir putin. he'd been paid for that dinner. the president had publicly called for russia to find hillary clinton's emails. so it was a legitimate investigation, and then, of course, you know, flynn as national security adviser lied to the president. this is all very troubling but it's all for november. it's about voters, the corruption, the deep state is obama. the secrecy is obama. it's not me and i find the opposite. less and less transparency from this administration and more and more evidence that intelligence officials some day may be the fbi and right now the justice department are protecting the president's friends. >> david rohde, thank you very

much for joining us this morning. and jonathan lemire, thank you as well. and that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's monday, may 11th. and here are the facts this hour. this morning, the number of cases of coronavirus in america has risen above 1.3 million. nearly 81,000 people have laughed their lives. that's the equivalent of filling every single seat in green bay's lambeau field. treasury secretary steven mnuchin said the unemployment rate could go as high as 25%. close to the record high from the great depression. however, he also predicted that we will see an economic bounceback in the second half of the year. meanwhile, two of the people closest to the president and vice president have tested positive for coronavirus. one is a personal valet for president trump. the oth