transmitted very easily between passengers on airplanes, so it's definitely something that i think will get some attention. >> all right. thank you. good to see you this morning. i will be reading axios am in just a little bit. you too can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. mr. president, why haven't you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed americans back to work? you're overseeing historic economic despair. what's the delay zm what's the plan? >> i think we've announced a plan. we're opening up our country. just a rude person you. we're opening up our country. we're opening it up very fast. the plan is that each state is opening and it's opening up very effectively. and when you see the numbers, i think even you will be impressed, which is pretty hard tomorrow press you. yeah, go ahead, please. >> a lot of these jobs -- >> that's enough of you. >> that's interesting.

>> president trump's reaction yesterday. >> i don't understand the response. she just asked a question when the country was going to reopen and that's rude. it's like peter alexander, and we're seeing a lot -- you see this clip, it keeps coming back because he just looks so detached from reality and looks so -- it just seems so bizarre and it's sad. you feel sorry not only for the country he's running but for him when peter alexander a month ago or so -- >> what can you say to americans? >> -- what do you say to americans who are scared in and he blurts out -- it's like there's this disconnect between the question and the response. it's this -- i just don't understand. >> well, that question -- >> why would he do that and what's -- what's wrong with him? i mean, i worry he's -- he's not getting any better, that's for sure. >> yeah, it was from cbs reporter paula reid. and last month reid pressed the president on what his administration did in february

as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading. after trump showed -- remember that campaign tile vidstyle vid coronavirus briefing that seemed to leave out an entire month, that month? well that exchange prompted trump to tell the new york post, it wasn't donna reid, i can tell you that. >> of course donna reid in its a wonderful life with jimmy stewart, the greatest movie of all time, but also had the dna reid show in the 1950s, willie, somebody who did do her husband's dishes in the 1950s which dump thinks should still happen in 2020 with mike pompeo's wife, i guess. but there are these bizarre disconnects and they're showing up in campaign ads. there are these weird things he's saying off the cuff. again, it's so -- it is so ironic that trump's campaign team actually go after joe biden

for non sequiturs, for stumbling, for getting lost halfway through his sentence. >> or a decline. >> that's what donald trump has been doing now in a very public way for 3 1/2 years. >> he has. first of all, joe, you say it's a wonderful life, i say paul blart mall cop. but we can have that debate at another time. >> six of one, half a dozen of the other, yes, exactly. >> exactly. it's an age-old debate. but you know what the real answer to your question is, he doesn't have an answer to the question so he attacks the source. so if paula reid or peter alexander, whoever the reporter is, as a stumper for him like what's the national plan to get everyone back to work, he goes after the source. it shouldn't have been a stumper from peter alexander to address the nation what is a lay-up to any politician some i'm sure you would have loved to have gotten that question, joe, what can you say to ease the fears of this

country and then he attacks peter and calls him a terrible reporter. so he hears a question he doesn't like, he doesn't like the tone of the question, or he cannot answer the substance of the question and he goes off the source rather than providing an answer that might shed some light or give some information to the public that is certainly waiting for cues from him and for the government about when to step back out into society. >> well, and we see it time and time again, mika, a lot of it has to do with the gender of the person as well. women seem to be -- >> they impact him. >> yeah. he can't handle it when a woman asks him a tough question. it's just like governor whitmer in michigan who's enjoying extremely high approval ratings. >> she's doing great. >> yeah, she's doing much, much better than the president is. and, remember, he referred to her constantly as that woman, that woman. these attacks again, you know it's so interesting, it seems to me i hear every day somebody

else saying, oh, he's doing this and he's doing that and it's not going to impact him at all. who says? who says it's not going to impact a man who is losing wisconsin right now in the polls, who is losing pennsylvania in the polls. i mean, pennsylvania's close to being lost for good. market down. losing in michigan right now. people inside the white house very fearful that they're about to lose michigan. arizona going in a bad direction. deep concerns about arizona. florida going in the wrong direction, the latest poll has him down by six points and just getting crushed among senior citizens in the state of florida if you look back over the past month in polls there. expect the president to have to even go to georgia, to have to go to texas, because those races, well, they'll probably still go red, suddenly competitive. and where are they advertise something they're not

advertising in the phillie suburbs, they're advertising in grand rapids michigan right now. in the panhandle of florida. if you're a republican and you're having to dump money in northwest florida right now in a presidential race where you're looking bad in pennsylvania, you're looking bad in michigan, you're looking bad in wisconsin, you're looking bad in arizona, you're looking bad in nevada, you're lacki you're looking bad in colorado, you're really competitive in north carolina, you're spending money in northwest florida? you're spending money in grand rapids, whew. time to look at your operation and see how you got in such bad shape in may, or start looking at yourself and asking why you keep inflicting damage on your own campaign.

insul insulting women, insulteding doctor the medical community. donald, the conspiracy theories, they're not working. one other thing, donald, and i saw that susan rice's email was released. my god, it's like the most straightforward email ever. everybody said go bite boouy th book, go buy the book. i know that freaks you out, because you've never told anybody in your administration to go buy the book. you might as well be speaking french. it's a foreign language to you hearing susan rice, hearing barack obama, hearing people in the fbi saying go buy the book. let's do this right. do this straight. i know that freaks you out because you don't understand anything about going by the book. but you fire people who go by the book. you fire igs who go by the book. you fire fbi directors who go by

the book. you fire people who actually play by the rules and play fair. and now you attack scientists and medical researchers even in your own administration who tell you the truth when you don't like the truth. i know you don't like to hear any of this, but i just got to tell you one thing. your people have been telling me for three years, oh, wait and see how well donald does with black voters. wait and see how great things go in 2020. oh, he's going to get 15, he may even get 20% with black voters. i sit there, of course, and i think of every republican politician in my life that says, i'm the one white guy who knows how to win black voters. and they end up with 4%. now, you got a shot at 10%, 11%,

12%, that's pretty high for republicans. but you see, here's the problem, donald. you keep attacking barack obama. and let me tell you something. you think -- i guess when i was 5 years old i had ideas too. i was going to build a rocket ship and fly to the moon and beat neil armstrong there. but your age, what are you? 75? 76? you shouldn't still be having fantasies. you think that attacking barack obama is going to help you in 2020. all you're doing is generating the vote, the turnout vote, the black vote for joe biden, right? black voting was down at its lowest levels in 20 years four years ago. and so you're going to try to depress black voting and try to

stop black voters from going out and vote for joe biden, running mean ads about joe biden. guess what, donald? doesn't matter what you do toward black voters, as long as you're attacking barack obama you might want to check the approval ratings for barack obama not only among black voters, but among democrats. you are -- in fact, your entire campaign, i really -- i do think that a democratic operative, i really think a democratic operative has infiltrated your campaign. i think you need to check brad's library. he may have some bobby kennedy books in there. or maybe jared, who knows. maybe jared loved hubert humphrey, i don't know what's going on in your campaign. but you have a mole in there, a

democratic mole who's saying, hey, i've got a good idea. let's cut social security and medicare. hey, i've got a good idea, we want to depress the black vote. let's attack barack obama every day. seriously? whoever gave you that idea, they're working for the other team. >> it was him. i think it was him. he gets his ideas right here. >> really? >> that's what he says. >> john heilemann, i must say, as you know, and people say this about me all the time, joe -- >> good morning. >> -- he's just a simple country lawyer. he fell off the turnup truck a couple days ago. he still roots for the atlanta hawks. still thinks at the beginning of every season the atlanta mag

co falcons have a chance to win the super bowl. joe, he didn't know too much sometimes, so i don't understand this politics thing. but could you explain to me how donald trump attacking barack obama -- by the way, i could attack barack obama, i have and i will again. but i'm not running for president of the united states. but could you explain to me how a guy -- >> no, you're not. >> -- a guy who is running for president of the united states could attack barack obama every single day, make that the center not obviously his re-election campaign, but the center of his presidency and how that wouldn't tear any chances of him getting out of single digits among black voters, how that wouldn't tear that strategy to shreds? >> i don't think i can do that for you, joe. i don't think i could make that argument.

i think that there's -- there's -- at this moment in donald trump's political operation, there is so much panic over the erosion of the president's base. you know, i know as you pointed out you don't know much about politics and you're a simple country lawyer so i'm going to teach you one little thing. when you're president of the united states and you run for re-election, the year that you run, by the time you get to the spring, if you're in any position to win, you are already so confident of your base vote that you have got it locked down and locked away and you know that you have the win number that you need with the core of your electorate and with your -- and with the right percentage of republicans. for instance, donald trump needs to win 91%, 92% of republicans to get re-elected in any area. so you've got that locked in. republican party is with you. and your base is with you. and now by the spring you're thinking about how do you

destroy the other guy and build your own vote? and go to states that you didn't win last time and improve your margins with groups that you didn't coudo that well last tim that's not the campaign that they're running. their base is hemorrhaging. he's down with non college whites against joe biden versus 2016. he's down with men overall against joe biden versus 2016. he is down, or as you just pointed out, with seniors dramatically like fatally if the election were held today. he's down with senior citizens. so what's -- that is what the obama fixation is about, it's about trying to shore up his base. and the cost of it is everything you just said. the cost of it is the suburbs, the cost of it is educated voters across the board of all races and genders. and the cost of it is, of

course, any chance to even make small gains with african-american voters. but that's the position they're in right now. they're in the position where their base is not nailed down. so that is -- that's job one for donald trump right now. and for that to be job one for an incumbent president in the middle of may of a re-election year, you are in some deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep dive bad business. bad place to be. >> and re-election was on the president's mind yesterday when he held the nearly hour-long lunch with senate republicans focused not so much on coronavirus and the response, but on his poll numbers, on joe biden, and those upcoming senate races. president trump also telling senators they need to toughen up or they will flolose in novembe leaving the lunch with less than six months till the election, president trump's strategy involves pushing an investigation into the obama administration's treatment of michael flynn. the investigation is an attempt to undermine the findings of a

probe into russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with president trump's team. with the senate now in play in november, democrats for the first time since republicans won back the house in 2010 could win control of the house, the senate, and the white house. meanwhile, the hill reports republican senators who met with the president yesterday were not tested for coronavirus ahead of that lunch. we're joined now by kasie hunt. what more can you tell us about this meeting pretty hastily called? senators were told the president was coming up to the hill and they were going to get together for lunch. i suspect they thought they were going to talk about the next round of stimulus or what kind of bill they should put together for coronavirus, then the president began to read his polls. >> that's right, willie, this all game together last minute yesterday morning and senators were notified that the buffet at their lunch would be opening a little bit early because the president was arriving. we of course wondered why on

earth all of these people would eat from the buffet. turns out the sandwiches were, that fact, boxed lunches. but they are still meeting in person and those senators weren't tested before they met with the president. but i think what we heard from him yesterday and what he told senators underscores exactly what heilemann was just talking about. he is clearly worried about the state of his re-election campaign and he is focused on his base. i mean, why talk about, you know, barack obama is one of the most popular if not the most popular politician in the country. but donald trump's own political rise was defined by the kind of nasty campaigning against barack obama that started with, you know, him talking about his birth certificate. i mean, i'm old enough to remember that split screen when trump was considering running in 2012 and his helicopter was landing in new hampshire as obama was at the podium releasing his birth certificate

that everybody had werndondered about. that kind of campaigning, you saw it again in 2016 with hillary clinton. and this is the strategy he went into this meeting to say to republicans that they needed to get -- when he said to them that they needed to toughen uh, this what he was talking with. he feels they've been slow walking some of the investigations and things they're doing to try to craft this false narrative of obama gate that he has been talking about so much on twitter. he's said to them, you guys need to step up. you need to toughen up. you need to do this for me or we're all going to lose. and john kennedy talked to one of my colleagues on way out of lunch, the senator from louisiana, and he said the president thinks we're a bunch of wienies, was the word he used. and he was pressed, okay, on what issue? he said we will, you know what i'm talking about. it's about michael flynn and carter page and all those things. so that's where the president is right now in his re-election strategy and campaign. he's nervous about senate republicans getting on board and

being able to stomach that kind of a race. >> by the way, wienie say word that senator kennedy learned in all of his years at oxford. also used it a lot in 2004 helping john kerry in john kerry's attempts to get elected president of the united states. it's interesting that he still uses those oxford words and words he used when he was a liberal democrat still today. kasie, i'm curious. so what do the senators like cory gardner who's facing a loss because of donald trump, martha mcsally who's facing a loss because of donald trump, susan collins who's facing a loss because donald trump, you go to north carolina, thom tillis who may be facing a loss because of donald trump, i'm curious, what did those senators get out of the president of the united states attacking them saying that they're not tough enough?

we hear any blowback from the republican senators whose own -- i mean, heck, mitch mcconnell is going to be running a tougher race than expected. lindsey graham, why can't lindsey graham get out and say really stupid conspiracy theory-minded things? because lindsey graham's fighting a tougher race in south carolina. any republican pushback on this president who has pushed the republican party's majority to the brink actually having the audacity to go there and attack them when he's the one who's the author of all their miseries? >> joe, there have been many, many times in the last year where i have stuck a microphone in the general direction of a cory gardner or a susan collins or martha mcsally in particular and tried ask them about president trump. and they usually run as quickly

as possible the other direction. and i think yesterday was no exception. the rules of reporting have changed on capitol hill in a pandemic. but suffice to say they were not rushing to the cameras that we have up there now to offer their opinion about what was said in lunch. i mean, it is in many ways the worst case scenario for them. you know, they collectively made this decision that they couldn't go against the president because that would mean that, you know, republicans who had been steadfastly loyal to him this entire time through what seemed like absolutely every time of political, you know, mini scandal or crisis or simply embarrassing moment, they stuck with him through all of that. and so senate republicans said, okay, we're just going to embrace that and hope it's enough to get us across the finish line. and without a pandemic, you know, that strategy might have been the right one. because, you know, you got an incumbent republican at the top of the ticket, if you can get those folks out to the polls, that puts you as somebody down ballot in a stronger position. but now we have a pandemic.

and the president's ratings, approval ratings, people are watching what he's doing. seniors in florida are watching what he's doing. and they are changing their minds a lot of them. and that say huge existential crisis for these people running in these states. so they're stuck. they can't run toward him but they can't run from him eether. >> we are in the middle of a pandemic. but, mika, this pandemic that began with the president getting fwrarngs his own administrati warns from his own administration in early zbljanu. >> harsh warnings. >> by january 22nd, he said it was one person and it was going to be gone. a month later when his own people were panicking and the president were getting angry because they were concerned, a month later the president was

saying it was 11 people, it was 15 people, and soon it would be down zero. in march, he told republican senators, don't worry. don't worry about this. it's all going to go away. and he kept saying it was going to go away in april when the weather warmed up. we of course all know that in april more people died. in april of the coronavirus, which he said was magically going away, and he said in march he wasn't worried about it at all. in april more people died of this pandemic than died in 20 years in vietnam and the vietnam war. and then how did he spend april? he spent april talking about injecting disinfectants into the body, sticking lights in the body. dr. fauci warning because he's right, that the chances are very good this pandemic could come back even stronger in the fall during flu season. the president saying it's not coming back in the fall. and now in may he's saying he's

taking hydroxychloroquine. >> god. >> something that a guy who's old, in his mid-70s who's -- i don't know, what he is? 270, 275, 280. >> yeah. >> he's got a lot of comorbidities. and a guy like that, who eats badly, doesn't sleep, no doctor is going to let him take a drug that his own administration, the trump administration has said could cause heart problems in older patients with -- with comorbidities. and he's the definition of that. so every american needs to hope that the president of the united states is not taking that drug because of the warnings from the va, because of the warnings from his own fda, because of the warnings from dr. fauci, because of the warnings from the trump administration.

so let us hope he's not doing that for his own sake. >> you never know. he should wear a mask as well. still ahead on "morning joe," new reporting says mike pompeo is essentially using taxpayer dollars to cultivate a donor and supporter base for his own political ambitions. nbc's josh letterman helped break that story and he joins us next to explain it all. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. i just love hitting the open road and telling people

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look, he's a high-quality person, mike. he's a very high quality. he's a very brilliant guy. and now i have you telling me about dog walking, washing dishes. and you know what? i'd rather have him on the phnee with some world leader than washing dishes because his wife isn't there. what are you telling me? it's terrible. it's so stupid.

you know how stup made id that to the world? unbelievable. >> yep, i do. president trump on monday saying the claims that the secretary of state potentially misused government resources are overblown. but would be acceptable even if true. earlier this week, secretary of state mike pompeo said that his request for the removal of the department's inspector general couldn't be retaliatory because he was unaware that he was being investigated. today, that appears not to be true. "the new york times" reports pompeo declined an interview with inspector general steve linick over whether the administration acted illegally in selling arms to saudi arabia without congressional approval, according to three people with knowledge of pompeo's actions. pompeo answered written questions and instead indicating his awareness of linick's investigation into the matter and his role in the arms deal.

willie. >> meanwhile, an nbc news investigation raising new questions about a series of gatherings held by secretary of state pompeo for an elite group of billionaire ceos, supreme court justices, political heavyweights, and ambassadors since he took over on the job in 2018. let's bring in the lead reporter on that story, national political reporter for nbc news josh letterman. josh, good morning. good to see you. so these are called madison dinners. as i've said, ceos, celebrates, media figures, and even supreme court justices invited to have dinner with the secretary of state at the state department. how often are these? it's not the first time they've been held. and what is the problem that some people have with them? >> well, you might wonder, willie, what reba macintyre and

neil co gorsucha have in common. they've all been to these and they've had about two dozen of them, all on the taxpayer dime, none of them disclosed on his public schedule. secretaries have certainly held functions before where they've the pro together different types of people, but we know that state department officials have raised concerns internally that they were essentially being tasked with building secretary pompeo's future donor rolodex for a potential campaign. because all of the detail contact information and details about all of the people being invited were being sent back to his wife, mrs. pompeo's person gmail address. now we speak to the state department who says this madison dinners did serve a legitimate diplomatic purpose. but we actually crunched the numbers on a master file that nbc news obtained of all of the people that have been invited to these dinners over the last

couple years. we found out only 14% of the invitees were actually foreign officials or diplomats who you might expect. the majority of them were either business people, major republican donors, or government types like members of congress. all republican members of congress and the senate who were invited. and all of this coming amid this growing scrutiny of secretary pompeo, the way he's used government resources during his time in office, and what the inspector general was looking into at the time he was removed late last week. >> and these are called madison dinners because james madison when he was secretary of state would hold these salons for thinkers to talk about ideas and to talk about the world. it sounds like the complaint, though, josh, i'll let you explain it here, is not other taxpayer dollars being used, but they're being used, perhaps, so that mike pompeo can build a list of contacts and information for his own political interests. >> that's right. the question here is what

legitimate diplomatic purpose does this serve if most of the people that are there are not people who are even remotely involved in the world of diplomacy and is it proper to use -- these are what's called k fund resources. they're appropriate ratioions f state department that they have some discretion to use but not to be used for political purposes. and the questions here about whether there is some personal or political benefit that pompeo may have been receiving as a result of being able to convene these very lavish dinners with cocktail hours, tours of the diplomatic reception room. we saw a checklist that said that for every one of these dinners they're supposed to bring in a harpest, get a photographer do a photo around the fire. a lot of whining and dining and not a whole lot of sense as to where those taxpayer dollars are going as far as promoting u.s. national interests and foreign

policy. >> kasie hunt, back to the firing of the ig and whether or not it was retaliatory, what are you hearing from congress? >> well, mika, there is bipartisan interest in getting some answers on this starting with senator chuck grassley who has been focused on issues like this and has considered this kind of accountability that inspectors general represent to be an important project throughout his long career. but that said, you know, this is a pattern for the trump administration. this is not the first inspector general that they have sidelined and they have basically ignored what few requirements there are for the administration when they do something like this. they're supposed to explain themselves to congress. they didn't do that in the case of michael har ratkinson situat and there's questions of whether they're going to do it in this case. and congress doesn't have a lot of other teeth that they can apply. it's an election year and we've been talking about how

republicans are reluctant to go against trump. we'll see. i do have a question for josh, though, because, you know, one of the things that is going on here, josh, and i realize it's implicit in everything you've said, but let's make it explicit. mitch mcconnell's been trying to convince him to run for the senate in kansas because they're worried about holding on to that seat, remarkably, in this landscape. but frankly what you've outlined here reads to me like somebody who wants to turn around and run for president. he's already said i'm not running for senate, but that's what this feels like to me, no? >> absolutely. and it fits a broader pattern, as you point out, of what critics have said are attempts by pompeo to use the trappings of the office to help promote those future political ambitions. we know for example that senator menendez, the top democrat on the senate foreign relations panel had raised concerns about whether there were hatch act violations going on through the secretary's frequent travel on the government dime back to kansas where he would do a lot

of local radio and media interviews. not clear what a trip to kansas, a landlocked state, have to do with the act of diplomacy. and so there have been these questions about whether a lot of what pompeo has denver done in the name of the office of the secretary of state has been trying to build up his prospects for future office, iether theit senate seat or the president race in 2024. >> john heilemann, there's all this talk about draining the swamp. the question is, will this type of thing stick with voters? what does pompeo want to run for? or will it impact 2020? >> well, first of all, mika, when i heard josh talking about the fact that at all these parties or maybe willie was talking about all these parties there was always harpists

involves, i think i've seen harpists at some of willie's parties in the past. they're kind of par for the course, right? everybody always has a harpist every dime they have someotime over for dinner. i do not think for the voters that matter in this 2020 election in the middle of a pandemic and a depression, i think that the behavior of mike pompeo, what's going on there are all feels very distant to a lot of voters and it's not going to matter that much. a pattern of corruption on the part of donald trump, as you point out, mika, a guy who promised to drain the swamp, and that was a powerful part of why he was able to appeal to a lot of disenfranchised voters in 2016, that power of corruption in not draining the swamp, quite the opposite, a refilling up of the swamp so it's swampier than it's ever been before, that's going to be one of the central driving messages that joe biden's campaign will push in 2020. and in the key precincts where

he needs to win say message that cuts. i think that mike pompeo say little bit of a sideshow here in respect to the electoral calculus. i do think that kasie is speaking the truth. i think that there was this -- this discussion about pompeo and his future in kansas. and i think mike pompeo is a guy whose ambitions and self-regard are extraordinarily high. i think kansas, whether even a kansas senate seat seems a little too small for mike pompeo's point of view about himself and i think he's looking much more at 2024 or 2028 as a presidential candidate more than he is as a governor's race or senate race in the relatively small state of kansas. i do think we're going to be thinking about mike pompeo as he tries to elbow his way to the front of the back in the republican party for some years to come. >> not in kansas anymore. coming up, you wouldn't want a company to speed through testing on something like a seatbelt or a parachute. what about a vaccine? we've got two medical voices on that next on "morning joe." l v that next on "morning joe."

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hydroxychloroquine is used by thousands and thousands of frontline workers so that hopefully they don't catch this horrible disease or whatever you want to call it. it is a terrible virus. it's a terrible thing. and a lot of people are taking it. a lot of doctors are taking it. a lot people swear by it. the one thing that is true one way or the other, whether you

like it or not, it's been around for 70 years. unbelievably effective for malaria and for lupus. and probably effective for arthritis. and what has been determined is it doesn't harm you. it's very powerful drug, i guess, but it doesn't harm you. i have a doctor in the white house, i said, what do you think? and it's just a line of defense. i'm just talking about as a line of defense. i'm dealing with a lot of people. look at all the people in the room. i'm the president and i'm dealing with a lot of people. i think it's worth it as a line of defense and i'll stay on it for a little while longer. i'm just very curious myself. >> the fbi said hydroxychloroquine should not be used outside of hospital set organize -- >> that's not what i was told. >> or research setting. >> that was a false study done where they gave it to very sick people, extremely sick people, people that were ready to die. it was given by ab vusobviously friends of not the administration. the study came out.

the people were ready to die. everybody was old, had bad problems with hearts, diabetes, and everything else you can imagine. so they gave it. so immediately when it came out they gave a lot of false information. >> wow. where to begin. so many false claims and concerning claims. president trump defending his claim that he is taking a daily dose of the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against coronavirus. don't do that, don't do what the president says he's doing, obviously, but we must say it. according to the american medical association, there is no knowledge of frontline workers taking it preventatively. that was also a very misleading claim, it appears, willie. wow! this is a whole new level and i think the president might be putting american lives in danger. >> well, unfortunately, it's the same level. it's the same thing he's been

saying and it's still wrong every time he says it. >> yeah. >> when he denies that the fda came out and says is that you should not take it. when he talks about this study where they went into va hospitals, veterans hospitals, and he says it was an enemy statement, a trump enemy statement. he's talking about a study. he so cannot see the world not through himself. in other words, everything he views, he views through the prism of his own fortunes. he believes that a study conducted in a va hospital was somehow a conspiracy, an enemy statement go out and get him because he had been speaking and touting hydroxychloroquine. he's wrong on the facts, we know that. and now he's seeing some conspiracy in medical studies that they are out to get him. >> well, joining us now, "morning joe" chief medical correspondent dr. dave campbell and clinical assistant professor at the nyu grossman school of medicine's department of

population health, dr. roy. she's an nbc news medical contributor. dr. dave, we're going to talk to you about vaccine potential in a moment. dr. ray, the president taking hydroxychloroquine, is there any scenario in which you think that would be a good idea? you have would have a patient do that or you would have doctors administer it preventatively or frontline workers to frontline workers? >> good morning, mika. and there's a key point that i want to make sure your viewers understand. to address a point that the president made, which was it doesn't harm you. so that's -- that's actually a false statement. there's nothing that we do in the field of medicine that's completely benign. even a see tmedicine that you tr the counter for headaches and fevers is the cause of acute liver failure. hydroxychloroquine is known to have potentially harmful side effects, including cardiac arrhythmias. so to answer your question, no,

there's no evidence to suggest that hydroxychloroquine is effective prophylactically, to prevent covid-19, or as a treatment to treat or cure covid-19. so my clear statement to the public, including my own patients, is there is no evidence to take hydroxychloroquine to treat this covid-19 infection. >> how would you characterize the statements that we just heard from the president as a medical professional who's especially interested in overall population's health? >> yeah, thanks for asking that, mika. so the statement that i always make is just in generally speaking, try to get your medical information from medical professionals. i know that sounds like common sense, but, you know, when you're somebody who's a political figure and a very powerful one, people will listen to you. and, frankly, when you make statements that are not based in science or evidence, it's

harmful to the public. and that's what i'm really concerned about. >> let's talk about vaccines, dr. dave, the drug maker maderna reported a small number of people who were tested with the vaccine that they have showing an immune response against the virus in phase one of the clinical trial. what does phase one mean? what's next? >> this means that we are moving along quite nicely, mika. this company moderna is linked officially in the phase one trial to the division of tgovert that dr. fauci runs. so the phase one trial is following up on some work dup through the nih. what they saw very recently is that the first group of people who had received the vaccine mounted an immune response similar to what you would get if you had natural infection from covid-19.

that's very good news. it's not the end of the story, it's the beginning of the story. they've now been granted phase two trial approval. that will be june, that's a much larger group of people. that will be actually 600 volunteers will get the injection. then in july, phase three, which is the gigantic trial where they bring in all types of volunteers to look at the further safety and effectiveness. they mostly proven that this is a safe vaccine now, it had some very minor reactions with redness on injection and on higher doses they found that the systemic reaction was bothersome for a few people. so they're -- they're narrowing down the dosing that they're going to use when they finally get to phase three trials this summer. it's the big thing we don't know and they don't know is when will they get to the point where they can generally release the virus -- i mean the vaccine

against the virus? and aspirationally, it's the end of the year. realistically, it's going to be in 2021 if you just listen to most of the experts, including dr. fauci. mika. >> got it. >> dr. roy, we obviously all want that vaccine as quickly as we possibly can get it. i think you would agree as a public health expert do it in under a year would be unprecedented. do you have any concerns about rushing this quickly to a vaccine despite the fact we all want it tomorrow, do you worry at all about what kind of vaccine we will end up with? we know that some of the testing that was rushed out now we know is sort of not always reliable, gives false negatives and other problems. any concerns from you on the pace of this vaccine they're pursuing? >> that's a really great question. you're absolutely right, i also want a vaccine. i want to be able to protect myself, my family, my loved ones. but we know if you look at history the fastest we've ever been able to successfully

deliver a vaccine into patients, directly into patients, as been four to five years. now, that said, that doesn't mean that we can't get something sooner. and what's reapplly promising a exciting is we have so many universities and academic centers working globally together on this vaccine development. but to think that we're going to have one at the end of the 2020, frankly, i think just really unrealistic. to dr. campbell's point, the rate limiting tstep is the clinical trials. it's the part when you're actually looking at human beings, looking at all of the clinical manifestations and side effects on a large scale. that's what takes a long time. and there's just certain things in vaccine and medication development you just can't rush. so 2021 is more realistic. and even then that's really pushing it when you look at history. >> and dr. dave, the issue there

is you really want to get a vaccine straight to the elderly population. but, of course, it's weaker physically in terms of vulnerabilities and other preexisting conditions. and so those side effects could be even worse. i mean, you'd think you'd want to get vaccine right to them. might take longer, though? >> yeah, that's in part the case. older people have less robust immune systems. we all know that. bones aren't as strong, muscles aren't as strong and your immune response isn't as strong. that will be addressed in the phase three trials, is how old is it that you become with difficulty in make these antibodies when you're given the vaccine? and it's really the older people with underlying health conditions that need it the most. we want it, the older people, they really need it because if they get sick, the potential to die is much, much higher than those that are younger.

mika. >> dr. dave campbell, thank you very much. and dr. roy, thank you very much for being on this morning. really appreciate it. still ahead, not that long ago, kids were clam torg gberint out of school. now they want to go back. how college campuses are planning to try to reopen. keep it right here on "morning joe." reopen. keep it right here on "morning joe." every financial plan needs a cfp® professional --

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when we have a lot of cases, i don't look at that as a bad thing. i look at that, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better. so if we were testing a million people instead of 14 million people, we would have far few cases, right? so i view it as a badge of honor. really it's a badge of honor. it's a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done. >> president trump with that new

spin on the dubious distinction of the u.s. leading the world in coronavirus by a lot. we're number one. the u.s. is just over 4% of the world's population, yet represents 31% of total cases. john heilemann, is understanding of science and statistics and success it seems so counter sometime to reality that the lack of testing in this country and the number of cases actually could be quite alarming to health professionals looking at the overall response that this country has seen to the pandemic. >> right. i mean, quite alarming to all of us, mika, i think. but to anyone who's tethered to reality. but i do think that it's one of the things you think about trump in is the way he talks about hydroxychloroquine, the way he talks about this whole pandemic,

his attitude now towards reopening the country, right? which is essentially the war's over, we won, let's get back to business. there's not much lip service paid anymore by trump to the notion of trying to reopen the economy safely, right? all of it's kind of reflective of an attitude that i think is going to have some pretty significant political implications as we get back to a campaign. which we still are going to have. we still have a presidential election in november. and when you see donald trump with this full speed ahead attitude, he's going to be in michigan on thursday. he's been in arizona. he's been in pennsylvania. he's already campaigning, right? he's out there. charlotte, the convention, republicans are still planning to have that convention. we learned yesterday on the other side that the governor of wisconsin is sort of saying the democratic governor of wisconsin is saying he thinks it's very unlikely there's going to be a democratic convention. you also see a lot more caution on the democratic side with respect to joe biden because they're worried about this virus. and i just -- i'm interested -- i find it -- i think we're going to see the field of play in

terms of how the campaign proceeds defined to some extent by trump's lack of caution and lack of concern for science and for public health and for his own health on some level. on other side, the bind campaign and democrats, who are much more concerned, rightly so, by the nature of this virus. do they want to show up in an arena in milwaukee, there was some reporting on that, most democratic convention delegates were like i don't want to go to that place antsds the republica attitude towards science and this virus is going to play out on the political field of play over the next few months in significant ways. >> all right. by the way, the president says that when he goes to michigan, when he goes to the ford plant, he will not commit to wearing a mask. once again, as all health professionals will tell you, wearing a mask protects other people from your droplets and

it's the polite thing to do. so wearing eyeglasses is not actually what you want to do in the middle of a pandemic. you want to wear a mask. and i keep seeing him surrounded by people, he's exposed to more people than most people. and once again, i just worry about the people around him because he could, himself, be spreading it. you just never know with this virus. it's so frustrating. >> well, when you're told to wear a mask -- >> it's very polite. >> not just for yourself, but for other people. >> it's protecting other people. >> and donald trump showed even with world war ii veterans he didn't care whether they lived or died that were around him. he didn't take basic precautions to wear that mask with people that were even more -- at more of a risk from getting the coronavirus than the president himself. so i don't know what else you call that. i've got to say also as far as the president being proud that

we have more cases. >> yeah, we're not winning. >> than anybody else. >> yeah. >> if we were just getting the infections and not all the deaths, well, that might be something that the president would say, well, the testing shows. we have more testing. but there are a couple problems with that. first of all, we don't have more testing per person than several countries. we've been behind the eight ball on that for quite some time. and, you know, the testing doesn't cause people to die. and if you look at the numbers of infections versus the number of deaths as far as percentages go, the united states, i mean, the percentages are about the same. we are a country way little over 4% of the world's population. think about this. little bit over 4% of the

world's population. and yet we have 30% of the infections from this pandemic in the world. a population with only 4% of the world's population has 30% of the infections. now, the president could put that down to a very robust testing scheme, if we had a very robust testing scheme. problem is, we also have about 30% of the world's deaths. and just like taking a pregnancy test, if you don't take a pregnancy test, you can't say i'm not going to get pregnant, right? if you don't take a coronavirus test, if you have the pandemic or not, you can still die from it. so we have 4.3% of the world's population and we're inching up and we'll soon be past 30% of the world's coronavirus deaths. and. it president's proud of those numbers, he's got some serious problems.

you know, it's been said that no country was better equipped coming in to this pandemic, was better positioned to handle this pandemic better than the united states of america. and yet we fell meailed miserab when you think about it, i believe in american exceptionalism. i think we are exceptional. you can talk about military might. you it talk about our economic prowess. you can talk about the fact that we've fed and freed more people on the face of the earth than any other country in the history of this world. you can talk about all those things. but when you talk about american exceptionalism, you also need to talk about science, math, education. i mean, from -- from ben franklin and his experiments with electricity at the beginning of this -- this

nation's birth to silicon valley, the immigrants that have come in to silicon valley and revolutionized the world, revolutionized the way we think, revolutionized the way we live, revolutionize dollars the w revolutionized the way we work, it's been united states time and again. i mean, since 1950 in the post world war, about half of the nobel prizes awarded for science have gone to americans. you talk about medical breakthroughs, my lord, it's been unbelievable. from the first organ transplant in 1954 to just a series of vaccines through the years. the eradication of small pox and polio. you can talk about heart transplants. you can talk about time and time

again, you know, blood transfusions. again, it started with -- you know, you go back bagain to benjamin franklin. his invention of bifocals allowed doctors to work just wearing one pair of glasses, it was seen as a break-through at the time. we are a country that was born in the age of the enlightenment. and we, over the past 240 years, for all of our failings, for all of our sins, for the original sin of slavery, for all of those failings, we have been on the forefront over the past 60, 70 years especially, of science and technology. by the way, speaking of immigrants, kind of interesting past couple years, you wouldn't know this. there's an immigrant named alexander graham bell, he gave us the telephone. there's an immigrant from russia gave us a television set.

a lot of immigrants from europe who were escaping the horrors of nazi germany, well, they helped us win world war ii. it was one of those immigrants, albert einstein, that went to fdr, said mr. president, we need to start something called the manhattan project. we won the war. and then, a lot of those immigrants, as well as a lot of american-born scientists, allot of american-born doctors, a lot of medical-born -- brilliant medical minds helped create the american century. so we were positioned extraordinarily well. forget about all the hate you hear about america. forget about people constantly running us down. when it comes to science, when it comes to technology, we are

exceptional! and when it comes to the best universities in the world, when it comes to the best research universities in the world, please. please! if you're going to bring up any country other than the united states of america, seriously, go to the back of the class! because you're ideology is getting in the way of reality. that is fake news. the united states has the best research universities by far top to bottom on the planet. so as we came into this pandemic, the united states of america, willie, was uniquely positioned whether you look at medicine and medical break-throughs, whether you look at research universities and what they could do, whether you look at technology and the miracle of silicon valley and how it's just completely transformed our lives over the past 20, 25 years, who better

but the united states was positioned to make sure that we have 4% of the population we have 4% of the infections and deaths tops. but that hasn't happened. we have failed miserably by all metrics. it's only the american people who sheltered in place. a lot of times like in florida, ahead of what their governor, ahead of what the president was saying, that stopped this disaster from being even worse. but you look at those stark numbers and you would think that donald trump was a president of a third world country. 4% of the population, 30% of the deaths. there is just no explaining that away with the unbelievable advantages that we have as an exceptional, great country. >> and we're still watching those exceptional americans work as scientists race toward a vaccine at an unprecedented

pace. as we watch these doctors and nurses performing for the last three months in icus and ers across the country. that exceptionalism is there as we watch companies step up and shift from making whiskey and bourbon to making hand sanitizer for switching from whatever their business was to make ventilators and masks. we still have that spirit and we still have these exceptional people, we still have all that technology. what needs to be paired with say plan. it has to be paired way plan. a national plan for testing. a national plan to get all these resources into the hospitals. a national plan to take care of the people who are sick. so you can have all that exceptionalism, which is still there and will always be there, but it's got to be paired with a plan. but the president now wants to turn a corner. he calls it a badge of honor. jared kushner says the response has been a great success story. the president says we have prevailed on testing. they believe, in their mind, in their alternate universe, that they can put this behind them

and move on to a re-election that they hope will be about pa rack oba barack obama and joe biden and not big elephant that's sitting in the room right now, that a lot of people are sick, we will soon be at 100,000 people dead and that a lot of people have lost their livelihoods and are out of work. there is something terrible at the center of this country right now that the president wants to do pretend is not there. >> we are an exceptional country, we still -- we have exceptional scientists. we have exceptional brilliant minds. we have exceptional tech leaders. we have exceptional hospitals. we have exceptional doctors. we have the best doctors in the world. we have the best research universities in the world, mika. but what would have happened in world war ii if albert einstein had gone to franklin roosevelt and said, we need to start a manhattan project? and franklin roosevelt said, you know what?

not my job. why don't you go to the governor of new jersey where you teach school and see what the governor of new jersey can do? doesn't work that way. >> no, it doesn't. >> we need a president that can marshal the exceptionalism of this country, bring people together in a crisis like fdr did in world war ii and beat this pandemic. and here's the thing. i know a lot of people are saying, oh, that's in the past. you know what? i pray to god that we have a respite this summer. and i think we will. but we have to prepare for the fall. we need a national plan for the fall. we need a national strategy for the fall. we need to go to the greatest minds, the most brilliant minds, those scientific minds, those researchers at the best universities on the planet in our country and need to work together with them and start a game plan for the fall. the president has blown january,

february, march, april, and may. guess what? we're at halftime. we now have to prepare for the second half which most scientists tell us, most medical doctors tell us will be the most difficult half this coming fall. i pray they're wrong, but you know what? wishful thinking has gotten us nowhere. actually, wishful thinking has gotten us to 90,000 deaths. we have to do better. the president has to do better. >> at least -- >> -- in the second half. >> at least not work against progress, we could only hope for that. it definitely is halftime. actually most doctors would say we're still in the second or third inning, honestly, of this. and without a vaccine and without the testing, that is the case. now, this is what the president appears to be focused on, a trump campaign official confirms

to nbc news that republican operatives are recruiting pro trump doctors to publicly back the president's push to reopen the -- >> are those the quacks that did the hydroxychloroquine thing? >> probable zblip when they hy. >> when any had no evidence and dr. fauci was saying they're wrong? are those the quacks they're going to get? >> it's doctors who want to work on reopening the country, reviving the economy. and the communications direct for for the trump campaign told nbc news, quote, anybody who joins one of our coalitions is vetted so the quite obviously all of our coalitions espouse policies and say things that are, of course, exactly simpatico with what the president believes. oh, great. the president has been outspoken about the fact that he wants to get the country back open as soon as possible. he declined to say when the initiative would start. the story was first -- >> wait. don't we all want the country --

>> yes. >> -- to get open as quickly as possible? >> i think most people who are on lockdown -- >> it's tastarting to happen. >> they want it open by the white house standards. dr. fauci wants it open by the white house standards. a lot of americans want it open by the white house standards that donald trump himself pushed. not nancy pelosi, not the young markus league of the greater manhattan area, but donald trump himself. he had standards. >> yeah. >> he put them out there. they were good standards. and then he went to sleep and forgot all about them the next day. >> well, the story was first reported by associated press, which said that the plan to recruit doctors favorable to the president's message to go on television to prescribe reviving the u.s. economy as quickly as possible without waiting to meet the benchmarks set by the cdc was discussed during a may 11th conference call organized by affiliate of the gop aligned

council for national policy. a recording of the hour-long call was leaked to the ap and reportedly featured an activist who said that she had given the trump campaign a list of 27 doctors prepared to defend the president's push to reopen. nbc news has not obtained nor verified the audio recording. and i think you make a good point, joe, that there's an attempt here to pit the president against democrats. the president wanting to reopen claiming that others don't, everybody wants to reopen, people just don't want to get the coronavirus. they want testing and they want a vaccine and they want to feel like that's happening quickly. and they feel very let down by their government. but trust me, they do not want a deep, long depression that has food lines for months and years to come. >> yeah. >> they do not want to be in debt. they do not want to foreclose on their homes. they do not want to lose their

businesses. they want to be safe in america and they want to live out the american dream. >> right. and a lot of americans are going back to work right now, california is 75% of that economy is up and going again. you know, california wasn't hit as hard as other states. there are outbreaks across the country right now so there's some reasons to be concerned about what's going on. but clair mccaskill, a lot of americans are starting to go out, trying to do it as safely as possible, aren't -- of course the white house, unfortunately, can't send a consistent message to them. wish they could because if they would have just fold the white house guidelines that they put out two, three weeks ago, i think everybody would be much safer than then are now. but as it is, i'm sure it's happening in missouri, it's happening in florida, it's happening in california, people are starting to begin to go back out and starting their lives up bit by bit. but there's still -- there's

still no consistent message coming from washington, d.c. dr. fauci saying one thing, dr. birx is saying one thing. the fda is saying one thing. the trump white house is saying one thing. and then there's donald trump who's just bouncing around like a ping pong ball, you don't really know where he's going to be from day to day. and that's awfully confusing to millions of americans. >> yeah, i think honestly, joe, i think what would be the tale of this election will be what is going on in september and october? and i think there are going to be three metrics that this president is definitely afraid of to use unfortunate phrase. he's going to be afraid of the unemployment numbers in september and october. and so far, the complicated and byzantine stimulus that's been put forward has not eased unemployment. and that's the measure here. not the stock market.

home people are in bread lines and how many people don't have jobs and how many people have lost health care? that's the measure. and then how many -- what is the daily body count in september and october? how many people are dying every day from this virus in september and october? and how many new cases are showing up every day? there's no way there will be a vaccine before september or october. so what is the president's playbook? looking down that tunnel, his playbook is to go to what worked for him in 2016 and is to lie about his opponent. and what that thing was with the senators, i've got to get this in. what that thing was with the senators yesterday, he went to thatlunn lunch to lie for them. you've got lie about barack obama and joe biden. you've got to make them criminals. he wants to get to the point where they're chanting lock them up at his rallies about obama

and biden who have done nothing illegal, nothing. nothing. not even close. not a hint of corruption during eight years of barack obama. no wholesale firing of inspector generals. i think it's startling that he's so panicked that he felt the need to go down there to shore up the republicans, you guys got to get tougher and lie better, because that's essentially what his message was yesterday. >> you know, willie, president's obviously not doing well. he's spouting out conspiracy theories, his son spouting out conspiracy theories. they're really nervous. it's looking ugly. they're looking nervous about arizona. they know they've lost colorado. they're nervous about michigan. a lot of people panicking about michigan. they're nervous about pennsylvania. nervous about florida. and so now donald trump is going and asking these poor senate

republicans who are at risk of losing their own seats to do something that the attorney general, donald trump's own roy cohn refuses to do, and that is to pretend that they committed any crime. barr himself said i'm going to be looking at the fbi. i'm going to see if -- if people did not follow the rules, if they took short cuts inside the fbi. but no, barr said, i'm not going to be investigating obama or biden. and why did he say that? because there's nothing there. and susan rice's email that -- that -- who's the guy, the dni guy? what's his namen. >> grenell. >> grenell. >> yeah. >> he's acting. >> yeah, he releases in rice's

email seriously, it's like joe friday. just like just the facts. by the book. it's like -- >> oh, my goodness. >> there is straight lace and straightforward as you can possibly be. they got nothing. and so he's going and he's trying to beat up republican senators on the hill and asking them to do something that his own roy cohn refuses to do. >> yeah, that was an extraordinary moment when even attorney general barr who's been there for donald trump when he's needed him said i don't expect to prosecute joe biden or barack obama a obama. and you're right that email that was leaked from susan rice yesterday that was put out, actually, they says three times let's go by the book in that memo. she memorialized an oval office meeting where director comey expressed concerns about michael flynn talking to ambassador kislyak during the transition.

president obama says do it by the book, do it by the book. it's not clear exactly what they think they have there. clair were clair, i want to follow-up. donald trump has over the last 3 1/2 years been able to rely on those republicans, even ones you know and like and respect and have worked with over the years to do what he says, to be in lockstep with him. so do you expect some of those people, many of them of good character, to go along with his request to smear barack obama, to smear joe biden as we march toward election day? >> well, if you notice, they may have gone along with him in terms of voting the way he wants them to vote. but there hasn't -- there's some exceptions, obviously there's a dozen or so of them that are full throated that this is the second coming. donald trump is great. many other republican senators, they just try to hide from having to comment about him one

way or the 0 other. and all of those senators are up in tough states, whether it's susan in maine or tom in north carolina or mcsally in arizona, or cory in -- they do not want to go near this. they know that for them to try to convince the american people that the most scandal-free administration in our adult lifetimes was somehow corrupt is just a bridge too far. they're not going to do it. i just don't believe those candidates are going it and i don't think the majority of the republican senators are going to do it. lindsey graham, we lost him along the way, i don't know what happened to him. he's gone somewhere. he can't decide who he is or what he's doing. but i don't believe that the majority of the senators are going to be cheerleaders to lie about barack obama and joe biden. they know these guys. they worked with them. they respect them. they may not always agree with

them, but i guarantee the majority of those senators respect joe biden and respect barack obama. i'm not sure that they can say that about donald trump. i don't think there's a lot of respect for donald trump. there's fear. there's fear. >> yeah. >> but there's really not much respect. >> i mean, come on. listen, that's putting it nicely that there's not a lot of respect. this -- this, mika, remains one of the great ironies of this political age that there are people who have sold their political soul to president trump over the past 3 1/2 years. and yet, of all the people i've spoken to personally, of all the people clair's spoken to personally, of all the people in the republican party that have talked behind the scenes about donald trump, i've yet to have

one with a positive assessment of him. i've never -- seriously, i've never seen anything like it. nobody says anything positive about -- nobody. and, by the way, i've got to say all those hucksters on the radio and all those hucksters selling books and all those hucksters on podcasts and all of those hucksters that -- that have gotten rich off of anti-trumpism, they all, they all attack him viciously behind his back. just like they did before he got the nomination. and you wait. the second he loses, the second -- did you see lion king? willie did you take your kids to go see lion king? have they seen lion king yet? >> yes. sure. >> all right. so i've seen lion king like a thousand times. my kids just -- i don't know why, but my kids just -- time

and time again. and there's that scene in lion king when they turn on scar. when had the high eyen as turn scar. that's what all ease sicka fantasy are going to look like when they look like how i won the war and saved the republic. no, it's all going to happen. and that's his problem going into this election. there were actually some people who believed in him four years ago. no more. all right. let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. >> you just stepped on willie. >> i did. >> i had this incredible -- >> no, mika's turn. >> because i need to get to cara lee. cara lee five for us at the white hou white house. the president is headed to the michigan. what are you looking at, carol? >> this is his third week of

travel since he began venturing outside of washington after several weeks of being cooped up here in the white house. and he's going to a ford plant where he's going to -- that's making ventilators. and the big question think hanging over that is this mask issue. we've seen the president not abide by his own cdc guidelines. yesterday he was saying that the ford policy is that everyone wears a mask. the president saying, you know, he doesn't know necessarily if he's going to do that. and the reason why that's significant is just because the way the president is presenting himself public and the message that he's sending publicly. the reason why he doesn't want to wear a mask is his aides have said is that he thinks that it sends the wrong message. so it's symbolic of this broader effort by him to really try to turn the page and move forward. we saw that yesterday with what you guys were talking about on capitol hill where he went there and the white house officials were telling us in advance of that that the intent was to talk about the economy, to talk about the pandemic, and the crisis

that's happening here in the country. and he did what he wanted to do, which is lean into his re-election campaign and the message that he feels comfortable with. and that is this investigations that he's -- and charges that he's making against joe biden and barack obama and trying to get republicans on board there. where there's a little disconnect is his staff would like him to focus on the economy and the pandemic. they're going to try to get him to do that when he goes to the ford plant tomorrow, mika. >> yeah, carol lee, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> and jonathan lemire, i just -- what -- what is the deal with not wearing a mask? i mean, it is so basic and, i mean, is it an issue with makeup or his appearance? i'm -- i'm just confused because it is such a clear guideline to protect others. and also for the president it would be a chance to really be

an example of safe practices. >> mika, my colleagues and i reported a couple weeks ago we were first on this, that the president was telling people that he didn't want to wear a mask in public because he was afraid he would send the wrong message. he right now, as carol said, his focus is the remembering are it's not the health crisis here. he is trying to desperately turn the page on the 90,000 plus death total. the questions about testing, the questions about a vaccine. he's trying to urge states to move forward, to push governors to fully reopen. it's happening slowly, but he believes the economy has to turn around for him to have any chance this november. he thinks wearing a mask who perhaps disfra perha perhaps distract from that. he thinks it shows a sign of weakness. he doesn't like how he would look in a mask. he's afraid of a negative campaign ad. he doesn't want to be there. he doesn't want the image of him in a mask appearing on

television or in a biden advertisement. he's never, to be clear, really embraced the idea of a presidency as a role model. he's never in terms of trying to set an example for the nation's children, let's say, some of his predecessors have really taken that as part of the job responsibility. this president is far more consumed about the day-to-day media battles than trying to set an example for the country. even on something that his own health experts recommend doing wearing a mask. >> well, you know, jonathan lemire, the president's not setting an example. but i can just say that every day that you come on our show. >> yeah. >> you set an example because you show -- can we have a solo of jonathan lemire? he shows how even back -- my god, 16 years ago -- >> is that a lava lamp? >> jason was trying to show a-rod how to wear a mask, a leather mask and how to stop

from spreading disease, jonathan lemire. the picture you have behind you, describe that to us and describe how varitek was explained to a-rod, this is how you protect others from the yankee germs that you spread every day that you breathe on a baseball diamond. >> what happened? >> joe, i'm glad we finally reached the most important topic we could discuss this morning. that's right in the is jason varitek perhaps demonstrating good mask hygiene for alex rodriguez. it's a picture from 2004, late july, regular season game where there was a brawl between the red sox and the yankees is and mr. varitek shoved his glove in a-rod a-rod's face. i just think a good of triumphing over evil, the comeback story of the 2004 red sox is one we can all rally behind. >> preach. preach. now listen, one other thing when willie's here, willie may have the answer to this. but, again, i'm just a poor country lawyer. i was out on the back 40 doing

some work in the fall of 2004 and i kwcan't rightly remember w that world series ended up or how the american league championship ended up. after that picture was taken, did the yankees and the red sox get a chance to meet again in the post season? >> they did. they did. we felt sympathy after all the titles we'd amassed over the years and the none that you had. we thought, you know what? let's finally hand them one. let's give them a world series had the let's let these little guys up north get one. we've got 27 were we had some to spare. and i think it's very fortunate for you guys that this season has been pushed off because of what was going to lap this year, as you completely voluntarily hollowed out your roster, gave away one of boston's favorite sons, let him move to hollywood. and we picked up the best pitcher in baseball. it was going to be very ugly for you in 2020. >> well, you know, willie, let me just say the graciousness of

the yankees after winning 27 world series to back up and say, you know what? let's share, i want to say that generosity has extended throughout the entire 21st century. in 2009 you forgot, you said we're going to win one. then oh, no, no, wait a second, we're letting everybody else win one. so let me just say, very kind of the new york yankees. would you not agree, jonathan lemire, to only win one world series in the 21st century? you don't really count 2000 because it starts in 2001. >> we just want to help. >> you just want to help. >> that's right, joe. i mean -- >> go -- go ahead, jonathan, because they helped us in 2004, in 2007, in 2013, in 2018. >> exactly. >> that is what my grandmother would call gracious plenty. thank you so much, yankees.

>> well, first i want to just willie left out a few key details of 2004. it wasn't just that the red sox finally beat the yankees in the playoffs, it was they became the first team ever to come back from a 3-0 deficit. >> really? >> that's the comeback story -- >> i heard that. >> yeah, that's the comeback story we need right now. this nation needs. and, yes, since that moment where varitek introduced alex rodriguez to his glove, the yankees have one world series, the red sox have four. so perhaps things were -- >> it took -- >> we'll see what happens. >> you're like jon meacham, we go all 27, we don't live just the last decade. yeah. >> and clair mccaskill, you know who knew how to win world series in the 20th century as well as the 21st century. your st. louis cardinals. that's our baseball for a second, actually because we've already been talking it ten

minutes, i just saw that varitek picture, that a-rod picture and i couldn't stop myself. but what's the latest that you've heard about major league baseball? does it look like we're going to get some games in maybe in july, starting in july? >> i don't know. i don't know if they're going to play without fans. i just know this has been one of the most pafl momeninful moment life sitting here listening to you guys wax on without being able to break in. this is where i miss the table. >> this is one of your worst moments. go ahead. >> i would talk about 1964, 1967, 2008, 2011, we can talk about how many world series championships teams have won in this -- without a huge payroll, by the way, in this -- in this century. so, hey, you know, this all began with the president refusing to wear a mask. and refusing to role model for the people of this country. you know, the other thing that happened over the last 24 hours based on nbc's reporting that i want to mention before i sign

off today is the fact that there's been uncovered that susan pompeo was using personal email to gather information at the state department. now, let's think about that for a moment. let that sink in. susan pompeo was using personal email for information that was supposed to be government related. now, clearly it wasn't, it was political, that's why she was getting all this intel on all the people that were coming to these taxpayer paid dinners. but, you know, we had somebody who used personal email who was found to have done nothing criminal and it resulted in her being trashed month after month after month. and this little sideline that the secretary of state, and what did he do when these investigations began? he made sure he got rid of the ig. that's the scandal. the scandal is none of those republican senators stood up to

the president yesterday and said what about the igs? where was chuck grassley? where was cory guard center? why weren't they saying the igs have to be independent? you can't fire them because they were in place when you took office. you just can't do that. pompeo had the guy fired because he was looking into what he was up to. and it had to do with personal emails that his wife was getting from the state department. >> well, and more republicans and i say this to my republican friends in the united states senate, and i'm deadly serious here, you really need to speak out against the president firing all of these inspector generals. because i think chances are pretty good there's going to be a democratic president next year and probably going to be democratic presidents for a long time to come. so you really, you have to start worrying about the precedent that you are allowing to be set.

>> right. >> because what donald trump is doing now, you know, that emergency order thing which i'd like -- moving money from the defense department military construction to building a wall, an emergency order which totally stepped on the legislative branch's ability to appropriate funds and now you're looking at the firing of these igs. again, republicans, we're going to play this tape a year from now, right, when there's a democrat. you need to speak out not for the benefit of the igs, not for the benefit of the democratic party, but for the benefit of yourselves, for the benefit of future republican congresss, even if you're in the minorities, and the benefit of this constitutional republican. in closing, claire, i want to say thank you for getting us back to the important news of

the day, but more importantly jonathan lemire and i would like to thank you and your st. louis cardinals for giving us championships not only in 2004, no, you were also very generous in 2013. we appreciate those rings as well. >> oh, good lord. you're the worst. >> wow. >> okay. moving on. >> that's a compliment. thank you. >> claire, thank you. six democrats on the senate homeland security committee are pushing back against an expected vote to subpoena a democratic consulting firm in the committee's investigation into hunter biden. [ laughter ] >> it's so tiring. the move came the day before -- >> i can just say -- >> yeah. >> i can just say, willie, because when we're in the middle of a pandemic. >> this is important. >> the worst pandemic -- >> it's a human catastrophe. >> that has shredded america's homeland.

>> triggering a depression. >> what you want from the senate head of the homeland security committee, more investigations on hunter biden. that's what america's calling for right now. boy, this is a real winner for the republican party, isn't it? >> we just come back to the conversation with clair mccaskill who we just asked are these republicans going to go along with what president trump wants pushed during this election? in this case were the answer , yes. in the letter that chairman johnson the six democrats point out the committee is not holding hearings on the trump administration's covid-19 response, instead focusing on election-year politics and participating in the president's campaign to go after joe biden. for the record, the full committee has held at least two hearings on the federal interagency response and preparing for future global pandemics. top democrat on the committee,

gary peters, released a statement to nbc news that reads in part the vote appears to be focussed on generating headlines. chairman johnson also released a statement saying in part, the public deserves to know what really happened. donny deutsch joins our conversation along with usa today opinion columnist and former senior adviser for the house oversight and government reform committee kurt bardella. his latest piece for nbc news -- >> willie, willie -- >> senate republicans -- yes. >> yeah, no, just hold on a second. let's do a split screen of kurt and donny deutsch. now, kurt has really upped his game. >> he's thought about stuff here. >> it's like he's a really good background. >> and donny's at the dentist. >> but donny deutsch back in the dentist chair. oh -- >> with bananas. >> what's the banana thing? >> that's not hygienic. no dentist is going to --

>> apples with the stickers on them. >> no dentist is going to have bananas right next to where you spit in that little thing that goes around. okay, so donny's not upping his game. kurt, man, whew. >> good stuff. >> that's good stuff there, kurt. i'm sorry, willie, i didn't mean to interrupt. go ahead. >> the fire's outstanding, he's got his own "morning joe" monitor. we should point out donny's dentist, it's a cosmetic dentist, unlicensed, just a friend that will whiten your teeth for you. we should be very clear about that. they put a produce out for their patients. donny, you look great, buddy. kurt, i was mentioning his latest piece for nbc news entitled senate republicans aimed to turn biden burisma conspiracy theories into 2020's benghazi. kurt, you have worked in the united states congress on oversight. what's your view of ron johnson now looking into hunter biden and burisma at this moment? obviously at the either explicit or implicit direction of

president trump? >> well, let's be clear here. at a time where we have inspectors general being fired, president taking a wrecking ball to checks and balances, people getting money from the covid fund that are donors of the national committee that are supporters of donald trump's campaign, at a time when all of that waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement is going on, ron johnson is using his power, his oversight authority to effectively be the political hatchet man for the donald trump re-election campaign. this ignoring the bank heist in broad daylight that donald trump is perpetrating, johnson's conducting a taxpayer funded opposition research campaign against vice president biden. the vote that they're going to have today is meant to revive headlines of hunter biden and burisma and try to make american people believe that something nefarious happened, when let's be clear here, there is zero evidence at all that anything corruptive happened. this is nothing but conspiracy driven russia propaganda. and senate republicans, it's not

just ron johnson, it will be rand paul, it will be james langford, it will be mitt romney voting for this subpoena today, the first subpoena that this committee issue issing committee issuing in 2020. it's a repeat of 2016. it's exactly what house republicans did to hillary clinton with the benghazi select committee. they believe as they do now, if they say enough times hunter biden, burisma, that it will be enough to taint the campaign. >> but donny deutsch, even with dirty politics, isn't that time, place, man center what ner? what do the democrats do with this? is there an opportunity here? >> i don't think they have to do anything. let the republicans go down this strategic rabbit hole. you know, by june there will be 113,000 people die from the virus. we know it's probably coming back in the fall. 30 million people out of jobs. do they think the american voter is that stupid, is that out of

touch with their own needs and their own survival that they think something about the other candidate's son in a business dealing has anything to do with what matters to them in life? that is -- that is so off base. you know, you can think bay vote about a voter, it's your best friend, husband, daughter, school teachers, they're not idiots. we're in a primal state right now where it's about people's survivals and about people keeping their jobs. the very basic things that we get up in the morning and worry about. and to be going down this path to be going back to the whole obama gate thing is stunningly moronic. donald trump is 75 years old. he doesn't have a new bag of tricks. what got him elected the first time was the other. was the build a wall. was the muslim ban. was the birth of the president, the black, the yellow, the mexican. ain't going to work this time. too much other stuff on people's minds. >> yeah. jonathan la mere, the president

just tweeted breaking michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of primaries in the general election. this was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue secretary of state. i will ask to hold up funding to michigan if they want to go down this voter fraud path. what do you think? >> well, i think we're seeing here a real concern about the mail-in vote. the president touts the effort in florida, which is where of course he votes now absentee. but in other states he's very skeptical. this going to be a major storyline between now and november about the ability for americans to vote in a time of pandemic, particularly if the virus comes back with a vengeance this fall. how can americans safely vote in it seems like republicans are making an effort to make it harder in terms of mail-in votes. kurt, my question is for you, although i will note briefly that if donny's fruit basket is

a way of shading john's kitchen set i'm all for it. kurt, it does seem like that the -- the trump campaign is trying to recycle the playbook they used in 2016 against hillary clinton, the clinton foundation, the emails, this time with joe biden. >> yeah. >> with hunter biden being a big part of that. but isn't, kurt, isn't part of the problem is that hillary clinton came into that campaign with much higher negatives than hillary clinton had? and that right now among voters who have a negative opinion of both candidates, most of them favor joe biden. unlike in 2016, voters who didn't like both candidates mostly broke for donald trump. so isn't this sort of a real uphill battle for the president to try to revive this particular strategy? >> i think you're correct. joe biden comes into this campaign with not nearly the amount of bag and residue that hillary clinton did. the reality is no matter what you think about joe biden,

the -- and i can say this as a former republican who heard this for years, the level of venom and angst that was come close f what joe biden will have to experience and overcome. so republicans are overplaying their hand, but it is a symptom of how desperate things are for him. as covid-19 continues to just annihilate this country and the president's incompetency is on display every day, that they have to reeither treat to this tired old playbook and try to run the hillary campaign against joe biden. and joe biden has a much larger reservoir of trust with the american people. he is someone that no matter what you feel on a political spectrum, you believe joe biden are is an honorable man, that he is credible and believable and trustworthy. donald trump doesn't have any of that. >> and it is context. i mean, at the death rate that you pointed out, the context

everybody is living this is that they are either afraid that someone they live or they themselves could get this virus, or they know someone who has passed from it. i mean, we are in the middle of a massive humantastrophe and the president and his so-called stooges just dean goikeep going all the crazy ideas. i think they stand out to people worse than perhaps the ukraine scandal or the mueller probe which seemed to feel like a lot of americans white noise because they were busy worried about their day to day lives. this pandemic impacts their day to day lives. >> yeah, i mentioned this before, you can lie to people about the ukraine, you can lie to people about a meeting. you can't lie to people about their health, about their survival. people will reach act in a visceral way and you are seeing that across the board in the polls. what i find interesting also as

we reopen up, in texas, in north carolina, arizona, it is spiking. last week was the most dramatic week for deaths and cases of corona, yet we're opening -- i'm still a little confused i still haven't heard from any of the experts how this jives. and i'm just curious how the next few weeks play out because in areas of the country that are opening, we're getting our biggest spikes. i don't understand that. >> donny deutsch, kurt bardella and jonathan lemire, thank you very much. >> let's turn now to the question of how to get schools reopened. yesterday cambridge university said it would become the first university in britain to move all student lectures online for the entire upcoming academic year. the university adds, it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person if they meet social distancing requirements. that news on the heels of what we reported yesterday, that the

university of notre dame plans to resume in-person classes on august 10th, starting two weeks earlier than use, and foregoing a fall break so students can complete the semester by thanksgiving in hopes of reducing the likelihood students would bring back the virus to campus. students will then not return to campus after thanksgiving again until january. the university of south carolina plans to bring students back to cam clifornmpus on august 20, h leave before thanksgiving and take final exams online. and yesterday new york university announced it will resume in-person classes this fall. joining us now, form her nato commander, chief international security and diplomacy analyst for nbc news and msnbc, and the admiral also spent five years as dean of fletcher school at tufts university and has been involved in advising several universities on how you to open this fall.

admiral, great to have you with us. so how are you approaching this? obviously every state is different, every school is different in terms of how many cases that that state might have. notre dame in indiana is different from south carolina in columbia. and certainly nyu in manhattan where of course new york state and new york city have had the most cases. what is the thread between those, why do they all feel like they are open in august? >> i think three things are driving the train toward more in-person classes. first of all, it is the demand signal from the students. when i was dean for five years at tufts university, i used to say to the faculty there is another name for students, customers. and you've got to respond to that demand. if you are oxford or cambridge, i guess you can sort of say, yeah, we'll do it online for a year. if you are a small to mid-sized school in the united states, you are very tuition dependent, your students want to come.

that is what they are paying for, so deef hamand is driving . and the population is relatively young. we're seeing that this is probably the strongest health-wise cohort in the population. kind of between young children who may get this secondary disease and the covid risk portion which is obviously in my age group. so i think number two is that you've got a pretty healthy population. and number three, and this is crucial, the universities want to teach. their faculties want to teach. they want to keep them safe, but they are exploring hybrid models that i think include some online component, some speed up the timing of the class so that the students do get home by the thanksgiving break and you don't bring them all back. and some level of online classes.

so it will be a mix. kind of a bicycle with several gears i would say. but the advice i'm giving presidents of universities, deans of schools, is communicate to the students, get close to the fact ulty to get buy-in fro them and don't respond to peer pressure, come up with a model that fits for your institution. >> so admiral, what does it looks like? let's take the university of south carolina. big public university, s.e.c. school, about 35,000 in its enrollment. what does that look like when they go back in august in terms of how many kids are in a class, how are they living in dorms, all the things that are such a part of college life. how do you mitigate with all these kids being on top of each other and living together? >> i've seen a variety of different ideas about doing this. one is kind of a throwback if you will to the ancient greeks. but it is hold some classes

outside. another is bring in smaller classrooms and create that 6 foot separation, smaller numbers of students in the classroom obviously. that means doing some teaching at night, doing some teaching on the weekends. it means getting cooperation from the faculty to kind of stretch it out. a number of small schools are looking at bringing in the freshmen for whom this experience as we all know is so seminal, when you come in, that first year away from home is crucial. and bring managemeing in the sed taking some portion of the sore are more and juniors online, that creates space in the college setting that you can us, that creates space in the college setting that you can use to create that social distancing. and social events will have to adapt to this. it will be an extreme challenge and i hear it in the voices of these university and college presidents, community college,

i'm talk across this higher ed spectrum. it is a time of real challenge in this sector. >> admiral, thank you so much. and now to how all the students are feeling about this, let's bring into the conversation the editor and chief of cosmopolitan magazine. jess, you have a really robust interaction with a large amount of young people. how are they feeling about going back to school or going to college, returning to college and are they taking steps to sort of take control of the situation in any way? >> we're seeing that college students are disappointed but not discouraged. which is great. the vast majority of them do not plan to drop out of school and most of them feel that their schools handled the initial closures really well. the real concern that we're seeing is a monetary one. students want to make sure that they are really gets their money's worth. and when the fall semester kicks

off, all online classes and no campus life do not a college experience make. so i think, you know, for schools that make those decisions, that is where we'll see trends of students taking gap years or even transferring to less expensive institutions. >> yeah, and i mean, the idea of going into a dorm, are they nervous about it, are they thinking about it? i'm worried they may not be mindful enough about it because this is such a fine balance for universities. it will be very hard to strike it right. but in some cases, they will be returning. >> yes, there is certainly an eagerness to have this experience. but young people are very conscientious about the safety and timing. what is interesting to me, we polled our audience about the notre dame news and most of our readers feel that august 10 is too early to resume in-person classes to be in a dorm setting. so they want to be safe, but they want the experience and

juggling those two things is where they are right now. >> jess pells, thank you so much. still ahead, president trump visited capitol hill yesterday. but had more to say about his own re-election than helping americans during this pandemic. plus, mike pompeo has been facing new scrutiny since the firing of the state department watchdog. first there were he questiquestt mr. a political appointee had to carry out personal errands and then saudi arm sales. and now a leak about dinners. mr. president, why haven't you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed americans back to work? you're overseeing historic economic despair. what is the plan? >> i think we've announced a plan. we're opening up our country. just a rude person you are. we're opening up our country and

we're opening it up very fast. the plan is that each state is opening and it is opening up very effectively. and when you see the numbers, i think even you will be impressed, which is pretty hard to impress you. go ahead, please. that's enough for you. >> that is really -- >> that is interesting. >> president trump's reaction yesterday. >> i don't understand the response. she just asked a question when the question was going to reopen. and that is rude? like peter alexander, and we're seeing a lot of -- you see this clip, it keeps coming back because he just looks so detached from reality, just seems so bizarre. and it is sad. you feel sorry not only for the country he is running but for him when peter alexander a month ago or so -- what can you say to americans who are scared. and he blurts out. it is like there is this disconnect between the question

and the response. i just don't understand. >> well, that question was -- >> and what is wrong with him. i worry that he is not getting any better. that is for sure. >> yeah, it was from cbs reporter paula reed. and last month reed pressed the president on what his administration did in february as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading. after trump showed remember that campaign style video at a coronavirus briefing that seemed to leave out an entire month, that month, and that exchange prompted trump to tell the new york "post" it wasn't donna reed, i can tell you that. >> yeah, of course donna reed in "it's a wonderful life," greatest movie of all-time. but also had the done 2345 renaw in the 1950s. somebody who did do her husband's additions in tdishes

which donald trump thinks that should still happen with mike pompeo's wife i guess. but there are these bizarre disconnects and they where showing up in campaign adds and weird things that he is saying off the cuff.where showing up in campaign adds and weird things that he is saying off the cuff. it is so iconic that trump's campaign team actually go after joe biden for nonsequiturs, for tumbling, for getting lost halfway through a sentence. >> or a decline. >> that is what donald trump has been doing now in a very public way for 3 1/2 years. >> he has. first of all, joe, you say it is a wonderful life, i say paul blurt mall cop, but we can have is that debate about the greate greatest movie of all-time. it is an age old debate. but the real answer to your question is, he doesn't somewhere an answer to the question. so he attacks the source.

so if paula reed or peter alexander,an answer to the question. so he attacks the source. so if paula reed or peter alexander, whoever the reporter is, has a stumper for him like what is the national plan, he goes after the source. it shouldn't have been a stumper from peter at lex lexander. i'm sure you would have loved to have gotten that question, what can you say to ease the fears of this country and he attacks peter and calls him a terrible reporter. he doesn't like the tone of the question or he condition answers substance of the question and he goes after the source rather than providing an answer that might shed some light or give some information to the public that is certainly waiting for c cues from him and the government about when to step back out into society. >> and we see time and time again, mika, a lot of it has to do with the gender of the woman, of the person as well. women seem to be in -- >> they impact him. >> he can't handle it when a

woman asks him a tough question. it is like governor whitmer in michigan who is enjoying extremely high approval rightings. >> she is doing great. >> she is doing much, much better than the president is. and remember he referred to her as that woman. it is so interesting, i hear every day somebody else saying that he is doing this and he is doing that and that won't impact him at all. who says? who says it won't impact a man who is losing wisconsin right now in the polls, who is losing pennsylvania in the polls? pennsylvania is close to being lost for good. mark it down. losing in michigan right now, people inside the white house fearful that they are about to lose michigan. arz arz going arizona going in a bad direction. florida going in the wrong direction. the latest poll has him down by six points and just getting

crushed among senior citizens in the state of florida if you look back over the past month in polls there. expect the president to have to even go to georgia, to have to go to texas because those races, they will probably still go red, but suddenly competitive. and are they advertising? not in the philly suburbs. they are advertising in gland r grand rapids michigan right now, in the panhandle of florida, northwest florida.gland grand rapids michigan right now, in the panhandle of florida, northwest florida. if you are a republican and having to dump money in northwest florida right now in a presidential race where you are looking bad in pennsylvania, you are looking bad in michigan, you are looking bad in wisconsin, you are looking bad in arizona, you are looking bad in nevada, you are looking bad in colorado, you are really competitive in north carolina, iyou're spendin

money in northwest florida and grand rapids? time to look at your operation and see how you got in such bad shape in may or start looking at yourself. and asking why you keep inflating damage on your own campaign. insulting women, insulting doctors, insulting the medical community. donald, the conspiracy theories? they are not working. one other thing, donald, one other thing. and i saw that susan rice's email was released. by god, it was like the most straightforward email ever. everybody was like go by the book, go by the book. i know that freaks you out because that is something you've never told anybody in your 1r5ik administration, to go by the book be. you might as well be speaking french. it is a foreign language to you hearing susan rice, hearing

barack obama, hearing people in the fbi say go by the book. let's do this right, do it straight. i know that freaks you out because you don't understand anything about going by the book, you fire people who go by the book, you fire igs who go by about the book, you fire fbi directors who go by the book. you fire people who actually play by the rules and play fair. and now you attack scientists and medical researchers even in your own administration who tell you the truth when will you don't like the truth. i know you don't like hearing this, but i can just tell you one thing. your people have been telling me for three years, oh, wait and see how well donald does with black voters. wait and see how great things go

in 2020. he'll get 15%, may even get 20% with black voters. ice it there, of course. and i think of every republican politician in my life who says i'm the one white guy who knows how to win black voters and they end up with 4%. you got a shot at 10%, 11%, 12%, that is pretty high for republicans. but here is the problem, donald. you keep attacking barack obama. and let me tell you something, you think -- i guess when i was five years old, i had ideas too. i was going to build a rocket ship and fly to the moon and beat neil armstrong there. but what are you, 75, 76? you shouldn't still be having fantasies. you think that attacking barack obama is going to help you in

2020. all you are doing is generating the vote, the turnout kroevote, black vote for joe biden. right? black voting was down at its lowest levels in 20 years four years a as ago. you're going to try to suppress black voters for joe biden, meaning mean ads for joe biden. guess what, donald, doesn't matter what you do toward black voters as long as you are attacking barack obama, you might want to check the approval ratings for barack obama. not only among black voter, but among democrats. in fact your entire campaign, i really -- i do think that democratic operative, i really

think a democratic operative has infiltrated your campaign. i think that you need to check blad's l brad's lay braer. library. he may have bobby kennedy books in there. maybe jerry loved hubert humphrey. i don't know what is going on in your campaign, but you have a democratic mole who is saying hey, i got a good idea, let's cut social security and medicare, hey, i got a good idea, we want to impress the black vote, let's attack barack obama every day. seriously? whoever gave you that idea, they are working for the other team. >> i think it was him. he gets his ideas right here. >> really? >> that's what he says. >> john heilemann, i must say, as you know, and people say this about me all the time --

>> good morning. >> -- joe is just a simple country lawyer. he fell off the turnip truck a couple days ago. he still roots for the atlanta hawks. still thinks every season the falcons have a chance to win the super bowl. joe, he doesn't know too much sometimes. so i don't understand this politics thing. but could you explain to me how donald trump attacking barack obama -- by the way, i could attack barack obama. i have. and i will again. but i'm not running for president of the united states. but could you explain to me how a guy who is running for the president of the united states could attack barack obama every single day, make that the center not only of his re-election campaign, but the center of his

presidency and how that wouldn't tear any chances of him getting out of single digits among black voters, how it wouldn't tear that strategy to shreds. >> i don't think i can do that for you, joe. i don't think that i could make that argument. i think that there is -- at this moment in donald trump's political operation, there is so much panic over the erosion of the president's base, you know. i know as you pointed out you don't know much about politics and you are a simple country lawyer, so i will teach you one little thing. when you are president for of the united states and you run for re-election, the year that you run, by the time you get to the spring, if you are in any position to win, you are already so confident of your base vote that you have got it locked down and locked away, you know that

you have the win number that you need with the core of your electorate and with the right percentage of republicans. for instance, donald trump needs to win 91%, 92% of republicans to get reelected in any area. so you've got that locked in, the republican party is with you and your base is with you. and now by the spring you are thinking about how do you destroy the other guy and build your own vote and go to state thaws didn't win last time. andism pro is and improve your margins. that is not the campaign that they are in position to run right now. the campaign they are running right now is a campaign focused on the fact that their base is hemorrhaging. he is do you thiwn with noncoll whites versus bill belichicjoe . he is down with men overall, and the with seniors dramatically like fatally if the election were held today. he is down with senior citizens.

so that is what the obama fixation is about, it is about trying to shore up his base and the cost of it is everybody you just said. the cost of it is the suburbs, the cost of it is educated voters across the board of all races and genders. and the cost of it is of course any chance to even make small gains with african-american voters. but that is the position they are in right now. they are in the position where their base is not nailed down. and so that is job one for donald trump right now. and for that to be job one for an in-dumb bent president in the middle of may of a re-election year, you are in some deep, deep, deep, deep bad business. bad place to be. >> still ahead on "morning joe," if the world got sick together, can it get well together too. we'll talk about the international effort to find a vaccine. you're watching "morning joe."

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re-election was on the president's mind yesterday when he held a nearly hour long lunch with senate republicans focused not so much on coronavirus and the response, but on his poll numbers, on joe biden and those upcoming senate races. president trump telling senators they need to toughen up or they will lose in november. that is according to multiple senators leaving the lunch. with less than since months until the election, president trump's strategy involves pushing an investigation into the obama administration's treatment of michael flynn. the investigation is an attempt to undermine the findings of a probe into russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with

president trump's team. with the senate now in play in november, democrats for the first time since republicans won back the house in 2010 could win control of the house, the senate and the white house. meanwhile the hill reports that republican senators who met with the president yesterday were are not tested for coronavirus ahead of that lunch. we're joined now by kasie hunt. what more can you tell us about this meeting pretty hastily called? senators were told the president was coming up to the hill and they were going to get together for lunch. i suspect they thought they would talk about the next round of stimulus or what bill they should put together for coronavirus and then the president began to read his polls. >> that's right, this all came together last minute yesterday morning. and senators were notified that the buffet at their lunch would be opening a little bit early because the president was arriving. we of course wondered why on earth all of these people would eat from the buffet, turns out that the sandwiches were boxed lunches, but they were all meeting in person and the

senators weren't test before they met with the president. but what he told senators underscores exactly what john heilemann was just talking about. he was clearly worried about the state of his re-election campaign and he is focused on his base. i mean why talk about -- barack obama is one of the most popular if not the most popular politician in the country and this is isn't unusual for an ex-president, but donald trump's own political rise was defined by the kind of nasty campaigning against barack obama that started with him talking about his birth certificate. i mean, i'm old enough to remember that split screen when trump was considering running in 2012 and his helicopter was landing in new hampshire as obama was at the podium releasing his birth certificate that everybody had wondered about. that kind of campaigning, you are seeing that strategy, you saw it again in 2016 with hillary clinton. and this was the strategy that he went into this meeting to say

to republicans that they needed to get -- when he said to them that they needed to toughen up, this is what he was talking about, he feels like they have been slow walking some of the investigations, some of the things that they are incamable of doing to try to craft this false narrative of obamagate, he essentially said you need to step up, you need to toughen up, you need to do this for me or we're all going to lose. and john kennedy talked to one of my colleagues after the lunch and end the president thinks we're a bunch of weenies was the word he used and he was pressed on what issue and he said, well, you know what i'm talking about, it is about michael flynn and carter page and all those things. so that is where the president is in his re-election strategy and campaign. and he doesn't think -- he is nervous about senate republicans getting on board and being able to stomach that kind of a race. coming up, fast places like new jersey didn't have enough to deal with, the state is now

waging a full-on fight against misinformation surrounding the pandemic. we'll talk to a leadi.e.e.deadi physician working in that state straight ahead. ing in that stat straight ahead

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. look, he's a high quality person, mike is a very high quality, very brilliant guy. and now i have you telling me about dog walking, washing dishes, and you know what, being i'd rather have him on the phone

with some world leader than have him wash dishes because maybe his wife isn't there or kids. what are you telling me? that is so stupid. do you know how stupid that sounds to the world? unbelievable. >> an nbc investigation raising new questions about a series of gatherings held by secretary of state mike pompeo for an elite group of billionaire ceos, supreme court justices, political heavy weights and ambassadors since he took over on the job in 2018. let's bring in the lead reporter on that story, national political reporter for nbc news, josh letterman. josh, good to see you. so these are called madison dinners. ceos, celebrities, media figures and even supreme court justices invited to have dinner with the secretary of state at the state department. number one, how unusual are these? it is not the first time they have been held. and number two, what is the problem that some people have with them? >> yeah, you might wonder what

reba mcentire, neal gore suil g the head of chick-fil-a have in common, they have all been invited to these dinners, some two dozen of them all on the taxpayer dime, none of them disclosdi disclosed on his public schedule. yes, secretaries of state have held functions before, beut we know state department officials have raised concerns that they were essentially being tasked with building secretary pompeo's future donor rolodex. because all of the details about all of the people being invited were being sent back to his wife mrs. pompeo's personal g-mail address. now, we speak to the state department who says that the madison dinners did serve a

legitimate diplomatic purpose, but we crunched the numbers on a master file that nbc news obtained of all of the people that have been invited to these dinners eefr tover the last cou years and only 14% were actually foreign officials or diplomats who you might expect. the majority of them were either businesspeople, major republican donors, or government tips like members of congress. all republican members of congress and the senate who were invited. and this is all amid the growing scrutiny of secretary pompeo, the way he has used government resources during his time in office and what the inspector general was looking into at the time that he was removed late last week. >> and these are called madison dinners because james madison when he was secretary of state would hold these salons for thinker hes to ta hes to talk b. and the complaint is not only

taxpayer dollars are being used, but perhaps so that mike pompeo can build a list of contacts and information for his own political interests. >> 245erthat's right. the question is what legitimate diplomatic purpose does this serve if most of the people are not people who are even remotely involved in the world of diplomacy and is it proper to use -- these are what is called k-fund resources, appropriations for the state department that they have some discretion to use, but certainly are not supposed to use for political purposes. and the questions here about whether there is some personal or political benefit that pompeo may have been receiving as a result of being able to convene these very lavish dinners with cocktail hours, tours of the diplomatic reception room. we saw a checklist that said that for every one of these dinners, they are supposed to bring in a harpist, get a photographer to do a photo around the fire. so a lot of wining and dining

and not a whole lot of sense of where the taxpayer dollars are going as far as promoting u.s. national interests and foreign policy. >> josh, thank you so much. and coming up, according to our next guest, u.s./china relations were already on the precipice and now they are in a free-fall. anja manuel joins us next.

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after more than two months of lockdown, all 50 states have thousand beg now begun to open in some way. but this morning there remain vast discrepancies in how states are deciding to open up with some forging far ahead of others as governors grapple with how to handle a pandemic that comes with no political playbook. the centers for disease control has released its detailed roadmap for reopening american institutions. after initially being shelved by the white house when xh said that tthe guidelines were overly specific. it is now posted to the cdc

website. correspond to the "washington post," the cdc cautioned that some institutions should stay closed for now and said reopening should be guided by coronavirus transmission rates. for schools, the cdc recommended a raft of social distancing policies as well as cloth masks for staff and daily temperature screenings for everyone. it is also advised that buses leave every other row empty, bars add sneeze guards and child care centers limit sharings of art supplies. joining us now, public health professor at dr. washington university, dr. lena wynn. and also president and ceo of the robert wood johnson foundation, dr. richard besser, former acting director of the cdc and was appointed by new jersey governor phil murphy to a board that is coordinating the state's reopening. and mike barnicle is joining us as well. dr. besser, what businesses should not reopen at this time?

are there any businesses that really just it is not possible? >> well, when you look at the cdc guidance, what it lays out, and it is terrific that this document is finally out there, it lays out that reopening needs to be guided by those gating criteria that the white house put out before. so before you even talk about, well, should restaurants open, should bars open, you need to be seeing the decline in cases, you need to be seeing the hospital capacity, you need to be seeing testing and contact tracing and isolating systems in place to be able to respond. and what really worries me is that i see a lot of places moving towards opening and just skipping over all of the metrics that should be in place to say can you open and if so what should be open first. >> mike barnicle has the next question. mike. >> dr. besser, i'd like to follow up with part of what you

just said. is it not the toughest component of opening up the ability to get people back to work in some function? i mean, the dignity of work, the value of work, what it means to a family. obviously the income. but how hard is to differentiate between opening up school systems, athletic facilities or just getting people back to work? >> yeah, you know, i think it is so critically important to get people back to work. and what really concerns me is where i see public health guidance being put forward as the enemy of getting people back to work. when in fact good public health science is the roadmap to getting people back to work and to doing it safely. and you want to do it slowly, carefully, opening up those things that are lower risk. so you are seeing a lot of states moving as some of the first steps to curbside pickup

at retail establishments, and seeing how that goes. that is something that is low he risk than getting people into malls. opening up restaurants with outdoor seating. that may be lower risk than restaurants where tables are closer. and in order to know whether these things are working, you have to have really good data systems. and what worries me in a big way across the country is that we're not seeing data broken down to a level that you need. we know that black americans, latino americans, native americans, people in group settings are getting hit really, really hard. and if you are not breaking your data down to that level, you could look really good at a city level or state level, but be having neighborhoods, areas, groups of people who are continuing to be infected at very high rates. and if you don't have the information, you won't see it and you won't be able to respond. but you public health and getting back to work are part of

the same plan and the way forward and both are absolutely essential. >> dr. wynn, it is good to see you. obviously the states of florida and georgia were more aggressive in their moves to reopen. governors desantis and kemp came under criticism for moving too quickly, even president trump said that he disagreed with governor kemp in georgia moving as fast as he did. but the numbers in the month -- just under a month since they have kind of reopened slowly but not fully, but to some extent, have not shown a huge spike in cases. so what do those tell you as possible bellwethers for the rest of the country about the pace with which states should reopen their economies and their businesses? >> i'm glad you asked about this because i think that it is important for us to not draw the wrong conclusions. i was afraid of this actually and i think a lot of public health experts were warning about this, that for these states that are reopening, it is important to look past the first

couple of weeks. because you won't see the spike of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. these are actually all lagging indicators. because from the time of exposure to the time that an infection could be registered or even when symptoms begin, it could be a couple weeks, that incubation period is up to two weeks. and there is another lag between when symptoms appear to when somebody is diagnosed to when somebody is hospitalized and if unfortunately they succumb, you end undying of covid-19, there is another lag of time. so i don't want for other governors, other policymakers to be looking at these initial states and thinking, well, nothing bad happened there, they reopened, why shouldn't i too. i agree too with dr. besser that we also have to look at the county by county data and specific demographics as well because there could well be an outbreak that is happening without us realizing. and by then, it could be too late for us to rein in that

infection. >> and leana wen, i'm curious just in terms of practical measures that could be taken and what we know about this virus from dentists to hair salons, if guards are put up, masks are worn, there are panels in between the client and the business owner, can you a void getting the coronavirus? are there safe ways to conduct business in the types of industries that involve contact? >> at this point, we have reopened. look, i agree with what dr. besser said too that we don't yet have -- we haven't met the criteria in nearly all of our states when it comes to the contact tracing, isolation, testing, et cetera. but we have reopened anyway. so if that is the case, we should be trying to reduce the risk as much as possible. nothing that we do has no risk

if it involves contact between different people. but we can try to make it as safe as possible. and that is why those cdc guidelines are so important because they layout these specifics of if you are going to reopen, here are the practical steps that you can take to try to mitigate that risk. i think there are steps that businesses can be taking, but individuals should be doing their part as well. and that includes trying to reduce your risk, a high risk of going into the high risk settings. if you need to go to work, go to work, but don't also plan big events and gatherings because it also is up to us to reduce our individual risks at this time. >> dr. besser, there has been a lot of hope in the last couple days for a vaccine which you and other public health experts have said is the key to getting through all this. by the time we have a vaccine is when we can really start to getting back to our way of life. what do you make of moderna's vaccine? obviously early in the process, but there is talk that it could be ready by early 2021.

some doctors, some scientists have poured a little cold water on this saying that is a little early and that would be awfully fast to arrive at a vaccine. how optimistic are you? >> i'm hopeful that we will one day have a vaccine. there is no guarantee of that. i'm one of those who says let's be careful about these results from moderna. it was really results on eight people out of a trial that had 45 people in it. i haven't seen a good explanation as to why they selected these eight people to report on and now the other 37 who were in this trial. the results are better than them coming out and saying it didn't work, but this is a baby step in the path to making a vaccine and ensuring that it provides protection and that it is safe. and you definitely don't want to go too fast. you don't want to cut steps in terms of either of those pieces. this was in healthy adults.

it is so important to remember here that most people who get this infection will do well. we're doing all of these steps to protect those at high risk, the elderly and those with medical conditions. and oftentimes those are groups for whom vaccines may be a little less effective. so it is positive news. i'd be very cautious in it. i worry that releases like there are more about stock price than they are truly about scientific advance. >> there you go. doctors, thank you both for being on this morning. mike barnicle, stay with us. coming up, our next guest is among the biggest names in foreign policy and says in order to address china, the u.s. must first get its own house in order. he will explain. keep it right here on "morning joe." 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

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emerge there their lockdown. italy's prime minister announced new measures over the weekend and stress avoiding further damage to the economy saying, quote, we could wait for a vaccine but we can't afford it. vaccine but we can't afford it vaccine, but we can't afford it. as the company reopens italy reported a ic, with deaths increasing to 162, and new cases rising sharply to 813 from 451 on monday, mika. >> so coronavirus pandemic has amplified the tensions between the united states and china. a new politico poll shows since january the percentage has risen 11 points to 31%. china released an ma ed an matd.

and china seems to be jockeying to gain world influence where the world backtracks. president trump threatened to halt funding for the world health organization if it didn't respond. joining us is anja manuel. thank you so much for being on this morning. on the china/u.s. relationship, you're describing it as a free fall. how so and what's to come? >> happy to be with you. china/u.s. relations really are

the worst that we have seen in any time in recent history. they are in free fall. i just hope we have a not too hard landing. you just showed a poll -- china as the enemy -- are worried about china and have a negative view of it. that's up 20% from just a few years ago, and of course the trump administration is being tougher and tougher. i worry what we are doing here is entirely defensive when we should be doing offensive things to lift ourselves up than pushing down. on cue, the president tweeted a few moments ago talking about the incompetent of china that did this mass worldwide killing, as he called it. what are the implications of what you say a the fallout from the bottom of this relationship between china and the united states over coronavirus.

obviously china deserving a lot of the blame for what's happening now, but what does it mean for our country? for people watching this show? for people going to work every day, when we do go back to work? what does a frayed relationship with china mean? >> it means a more difficult economic situation for us. in a very worst-case scenario, i would say skirmishing, having a frayed relationship with the united states doesn't help anyone. china shares a the lo of the blame, just as you said, but my focus would be on doing positive things for us, particularly on the technology side where the race will be joined so we are ahead in quantum, in ai, in semiconductors, all of the

technologies of the future and continue to compete. >> mike barnicle? >> china is ruled by a handful of people at the top, a ruler for life. it has the built and road policy, it's enormously expensive. they have contributed enormous funds of money. is it possible that they are perhaps sitting on their own dangerous economic bubble? >> you're right. that's such a good question. you know, there was a "new york times" piece yesterday saying that pakistan has asked for a restructuring of the many loans that china has given it. i think it's been over $30 billion of loans. in all, the belt and road initiative is supposed to be up to $1 trillion of chinese

lending for infrastructure around the world. a lot of those cunning are terrible credit risks, and with the pandemic, many are asking for the loans to be restructured, so this is a very difficult situation for china. >> anja manuel, thank you very much for being on this morning. now, the u.s. leads the world in coronavirus cases, by a lot. the u.s. is just over 4% of the world's population, yet represents 31% total cases. the president somehow thinking that is a good thing. >> when we have a lot of cases i don't look at that as a bad thing. i look in a certain respect as being a good thing, because it means our testing is much better. if we were testing a million people instead of 14 million people, we would have far fewer cases, right? so i view it as a badge of honor, really it's a badge of

honor. it's a great attributribute to testing and all the work that the professionals have done. >> i mean, aside from the fact that most believe this president has botched this crisis from the get-go, and this will be known in history worldwide as a human catastrophe he could have prevented, he's trying to deflect at all times. w willie and mike, he's tweeting again conspiracy theories about joe, falsely accusing him of murder talking about a death of a young staffer in his office years ago, and calling him dangerous to walk the streets. i'll take a point of personal privilege. that's sick, donald, you are a sick person. to put this family through this, to put her husband through this,

to do this just because you're mad at joe, because joe got you again today because he speaks the truth and speaks plainly about your lack of interest and empathy in others and your lack of ability to handle this massive human catastrophe, the fact that you have made it worse and you make it worse every day. you won't even wear a mask to protect people from your germs. the germs you're spreading on twitter -- first of all, twitter, you should be tea these tweets down. you should be ashamed of yourself. you'll be hear from me on this, because this is b.s., but donald, you are a sick person. you're really a cruel, sick, disgusting person. you can keep tweeting about joe, but you're just hurting other people, and of course you're hurting yourself. willie, why don't you take final thoughts. i'm done. >> it's also sick in the context of what the country is going

through, as we push toward 100,000 deaths and a million and a half cases which he calls the badge of honor. there are the numbers. the numbers do not lie. we wish it weren't that way, but it is, and many americans wish they had a president who wasn't tweeting conspiracy theories about our co-host, but it was focused on getting people well, getting people tested and actually moving the country through this, not imagining or hoping, as he does, that the country has put it behind it. >> yeah, willie, one of the bunchmarks of american politics for over 50 years used to be "the making of a president" which is the chronicles of the campaign from 1960 on. a famous book. now you could write a book and

the title would be "the unraveling of a presidency." it would be gin on january 20th, 2017, when he took office. americans used to look to the white house for leadership, for direction, for morality, for support, for emotional support. we no longer can do that, because we have a president who feels cornered. he went to the senate yesterday to have lunch, because he feels cornered about his reelection prospects. he's attacking barack obama. he's making things up about joe biden. that's what we're left with on a day, another day where more americans will die from the virus, where more americans will lack testing despite what the president says, and that's where we are in the united states of america this morning. the. the country needs the president's focus. it obviously does not have it right now. mike, thank you very much. that does it this morning.

we'll see you right back here tomorrow morning. stephanie ruhle for now picks up the coverage. hey, steph. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is wednesday, may 20th, here are the facts this hour. we begin with a number of u.s. deaths from coronavirus pushing closer to six figures. as of this morning more than 92,000 people have died. the number of cases is well over 1.5 million. despite that, as of this morning, all 50 states have now taken steps towards getting back to business. connecticut contract is the last state to do so, but it won't open all at once. gyms, hair salons and movie theaters will be staying closed. it comes as the cdc finally releases its guidelines for reopening. it offers recommendations for schools and businesses, but no clear