60,000, you can never be happy, but that's a lot fewer than we were originally told and thinking. so they said between 100,000 and 220,000 lives on the minimum side, and up to 2.2 million lives if we didn't do anything. minimum numbers of 100,000. i think we're going to beat that. 100,000 deaths, can you believe that? that was a minimum. if we didn't practice what we practiced, and if we did it a different way, because we had a maximum of 2.2 million people. who knows even if that's right. we would have had, i think, millions of people die, had we done a different way. i think numbers are just coming out where they're estimating 60,000 people will die. we would have had millions of deaths instead of, it looks like we'll be at about a 60,000 mark, which is 40,000 less than the lowest number thought of. one is too many, but we're going toward 50,000 or 60,000 people. that's at the lower, as you know, the low number was

supposed to be 100,000 people. we could end up at 50,000 to 60,000. i think we've done a great job. as you know, minimal numbers were -- minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people. minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people. we're going to be, hopefully, far below that. that's one of the -- if you call losing 80,000 or 90,000 people successful, but it is one of the reasons that we're not at that high end of the plane, opposed to the low end. >> that number has changed, mr. president. >> it's going up. >> you said 60,000, now 70,000. >> i am now saying 80,000 or 90,000. it goes up and rapidly. no matter how you look at it, it'll still be at the lower end of the plane, if we did the shutdown. it is thursday, may 28th. the united states has now surpassed 100,000 deaths from coronavirus. along with joe, willie, and me, we have nbc national affairs

analyst, co-host of showtime's "the circus" and editor in chief of "the recount," john heilemann. >> you know, willie, from the start, what we had suggested here was, not just this president, but every leader across the world, look at this medical crisis and do what winston churchill did in 1940. he prepared the british people for the worst. he wasn't talking about appeasement with germany. he wasn't talking about how it was going to be an easy ride. he even told members of parliament that they may be lying on the ground, choking in their own blood when the nazis came to britain, but they would fight. they would fight this enemy hard. laid it out for them, how bleak the future could be if they didn't do the right things. that's what leaders do. from the very start, this has been a president who has engaged in wishful thinking, in dangerous thinking, saying it's,

in january, just one person coming in from china. in late february, even a month after his trade rep, navarro, said 500,000 souls could die in america pause they weren't prepared. in late february, the president still saying it was 15 people, and it was soon going to be down to zero. in march, he said -- told reporters that he wasn't concerned about it at all. told african-american leaders it was going to magically go away in march. he continued this. and then, when, actually, the truth hit him in the face, he said, oh, it'll only be 50,000 or 60,000. we're lucky. well, here we are at 100,000. despite the fact the president is now saying that this will not come back in the fall, every

medical expert that has studied this says, yes, it is going to come back in the fall. "washington post" article this morning says it may be with us for years. we have to learn how to live with this. >> yeah. americans never got that speech from president trump, giving hard truths about what this is going to look like. as we think this morning about 100,000 deaths, think three months back in late february. we were all still in our offices. our kids were all still in school. bars and restaurants still were open. >> gosh. >> we had no sense, we americans, really, how bad this could get. but the president did. he was told, as you pointed out, by his intel agencies, he was warned by peter navarro in a memo, two memos, actually. he knew how bad this could be, and now he is shifting the goalpost. he said two days ago that deaths were projected to be 1.5 million or 2 million. that was in a worst-case scenario, if we did nothing. so he is moving the goalpost to

try to frame 100,000 americans dying over the course of just over three months as, somehow, a victory. as, somehow, a job well done. a great success story, as jared kushner put it a few weeks ago, by the federal government in its handling of this crisis. this is a morning to stop and think, that 100,000 americans, not through the fault of president trump, through the fault of a disease, are dead. but that number, most certainly, could have been lower. >> willie, as you pointed out, the united states went from one death to 100,000 in just a few months' time. with what "usa today" called the fastest killer in u.s. history. while the pace of deaths has slowed, the united states leads the world, by far. more than double the number of deaths in the uk, which is ranked number two. president trump did not take questions from reporters in the hours after the milestone. the white house did release a statement through a deputy press

secretary, saying the president's prayers are with those who are grieving. as the "washington post" notes, president trump has spent his life enthralled with numbers, his wealth, his ratings, his polls. even during the deadly coronavirus pandemic, he's re p remained fixated on certain metrics, peppering aides about statistics, favoring rosy projections and obsessing over the gyrating stock market. as the nation reached a bleak milestone this week, 100,000 americans dead from the novel coronavirus, trump has been uncharacteristically silent. the closest the president came to addressing the death toll was a tweet from tuesday. it reads, in part, for all of the political hacks out there, if i hadn't done my job well and early, we would have lost 1.5 to 2 million people, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like

will be the number. >> well, of course, john heilemann, he didn't do his job. >> no. >> he only talks about a toothless ptooth le toothless ban from china. 40,000 people got in from the -- to america from china, even after he put in place his tooth less ban. you want to look at the numbers, and closely at the number knos that the president doesn't want anybody to look at. 4.3% of the world's population, and we have close to 30% of the world's deaths. think about that. despite the fact that since 1950, the united states has won, its scientists have won half of the nobel prizes awarded for science since that time. we dominate in science and

technology and medical technology. yet, we were woefully ill-prepared for this. woefully ill-equipped. that, of course, started with donald trump. >> yeah. joe, i think s started, you kno, well before this year. well before the brutal period of january and february and into march, those first two and a half months where the president engaged in happy talk and ignored warnings. all those things. we've read in-depth reporting on that in real time by newspapers like the "new york times" and "washington post." we'll read books about it someday that will be more vivid. we've seen the email traffic. we know how much the president was asleep at the switch in that period. you can go back further than that. the period in the administration when the president eliminated the office for -- that was supposed to be focused on pandemic preparedness. just cut that right out of the

administration, so left our guard down long before this thing washorizon. all of that is powerful, and i think, you know, you think of the phases of this year that we discussed on this show so many times. we started with the period of downplaying. we went from downplaying to blame shifting. then we went to goalpost shifting, pushing the goalpost. now, we're just at subject changing. the president just doesn't want to talk about this anymore. on a day when we reach this grim milestone, where joe biden was out yesterday addressing the country as if he was president of the united states, kind of talking about what it means that we've lost 100,000 souls to this disease, and try to kind of be honest with the american people, kind of what a normal president would do, donald trump has a deputy press secretary put a statement out and pretends like we're not even here. this is, i think, the political cost for the president is going to be great, and the shame around this is even greater.

>> well, john, you bring up a very good point. he didn't talk about this. he was silent about this. but, of course, he's known, since this "new york times" article was coming, he's known that the 100,000 mark, death milestone, was coming. he has done whatever he could do. including something i know about very well, hurt a nfamily in florida, just because he wants to distract. he wants to have fights with cable news hosts hech hosts, fi twitter. he wants the public to follow that because he doesn't want us talking about the fact that, back on january 22nd, he told cnbc while he was in davos, that he wasn't worried at all. that this was just one person coming in from china. it would be fine. a month later, he said it was 15

people but it would soon be down to zero. john, after one warning after warning, from the state department, from the pentagon, from the intel community, he got all of these warnings, and he doesn't want people to talk about that. he wants them to talk about how vile his tweets are or how dangerous his fights with twitter is. he wants that to consume the top of every hour on cable news instead of this 100,000 person mark. 100,000 americans, john, dead. >> history, joe, history will record. the "new york times" ran that piece that said 100,000 was upon us over the weekend. as you point out, you know, this is not a partisan thing. there's no president in my lifetime, your lifetime, in the same situation as donald trump, who, seeing that 100,000

milestone coming, knowing it was going to come either last sunday, monday, tuesday, whenever it was going to come, and would not have sat with his speechwriters, or get a republican, democrat. obama, bush, clinton, take your pick. they would have been sitting with speechwriters for days, preparing a mournful, honest, grieve i grieving speech to the country, that they would have given. not necessarily an oval office address, but somewhere, they would have acknowledged this milestone had been hit. there are 100,000 families out there who have lost someone in the course of the past months. forget about who is to blame. forget about who has responsibility. just the country has gone through this awesome tragedy, this awesome trauma. every other president in our lifetime, republican or democrat, would have said, this is a moment that i have to meet. this is a moment i have to acknowled acknowledge. put aside my culpability. i have to speak to this as the national healer, the mourner in chief, and the role the

president traditionally has. donald trump had a deputy press secretary put out a paper statement yesterday. that's what he did. there are a list of reasons he's unfit for office, but this may be the most sad, sitting here and he's pretending this didn't happen. >> i'm thinking back to the peter alexander moment in the briefing room, when peter asked the president of the united states, in this moment when everybody was at their most anxious about coronavirus, to ease this pain a little bit of the country, what would you say to people who are scared, and he attacked peter. to any other politician on the face of the earth, if i threw you the slow fastball over the middle of the plate, you would have crushed it, giving the speech to the american people who were worried. he couldn't do that much of it. the larger point, mika, is the country is taking this

incredibly seriously. you had mitch mcconnell giving a speech in kentucky yesterday about how important it is for people to wear their masks. people have an obligation to wear the masks. sean hannity saying to his audience, wear your masks. the surgeon general, wear your masks. the country is taking this seriously, yet president trump wants to turn the corner, move on, and pretend this isn't happening to him, as if this is about him. >> right. >> the country believes this is a serious problem because 100,000 people that they know, that may be in their family, may be someone they work with, has either died or been sick because of this coronavirus. >> so you want to see how it is done? here is joe biden. >> my fellow americans, there are moments in our history so grim, so heart rending, that there are forever fixed in each of our hearts, a shared grief. today is one of those moments.

100,000 lives have now been lost to this virus here in the united states alone. each one leaving behind a family that will never again be whole. i think i know what you're feeling. you feel like you're being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your chest. it's suffocating. your heart is broken. there's nothing but a feeling of emptiness right now. for most of you, you're unable to be there when you lost your beloved family member or best friend. for most of you, you weren't able to be there when they died, alone. the pain, the anger, and the frustration, you'll wonder whether or not you'll ever be able to get anywhere from here. this is made all the worse by knowing this is a fateful milestone we should have never reached. it could have been avoided. according to a study done by columbia university, if the

administration had acted just one week earlier to implement social distancing and do what it had to do, just one week sooner, as many as 36,000 of these deaths might have been averted. to all of you who are hurting so badly, i'm so sorry for your loss. i know there's nothing i or anyone else can say or do to dull the sharpness of the pain you feel right now. but i can promise you from experience, the day will come when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. my prayer for all of you is that day will come sooner rather than later. but i promise you, it will come. and when it does, you know you can make it. god bless each and every one of you. blessed memory of the one you lost. this nation grieves with you. take some solace from the fact

we all grieve with you. >> and that is what bobby kennedy, in quoting a greek poet, called the awful grace of god. that joe biden was given the awful grace of god, through the unthinkable loss of his wife and daughter and then, of course, his son. i think i know how you're feeling, joe biden said, and you weren't even able to be there when your loved ones died. i am so sorry for your loss. i can feel your pain. then he makes that promise, willie, that i've heard joe biden make to gold star families. >> yeah. >> that is, he said, i promise you that the day will come when

their memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. >> yeah. >> and i pray that that day will come sooner rather than later. listen, campaigns are about contrasts, as i say all the time. as people who taught me how to campaign back when i was in my 20s. constantly said it was about contrasts. this campaign is going to be a contrast between a man with empathy and a man with no empathy. americans can clearly see that. and there will be some americans who say, at this time, we don't need a leader who is a good person. we don't need a leader with empathy. we need somebody who is tough. in fact, that's what the trump campaign has been -- that's a message they've been sending out. now may not be the time to have a good person in the white house. now you may just need somebody

who is tough and cruel. but if you want a president who is empathetic, obviously, that's exhibit one, that joe biden fits that bill. >> yeah. boy, that's a different definition of tough than i was raised to believe, going after a widower, for example, who is begging for mercy, separating families at the border, not handling a pandemic. that's not the tough i was taught. >> nothing tough about it. >> no. we talked many times about how the president just doesn't have the empathy gene. that's not a political statement. that's just who he is. we've known him for a long time. he's not good at consoling people. he can't rise to these moments of comfort. john heilemann, through some of the struggles that joe biden has had, and that the trump campaign has tried to seize on, in terms of his performance, i think most political observers would agree, and have agreed for a long time, that he's never better than in these moments, where the country needs a hug, effectively, a

national hug. because he does know that pain all too well. >> right. i mean, look, i don't mean to be glib about it, but empathy is joe biden's superpower, right? it's the thing, i think, in this campaign, the best moments that joe biden had when he was running for the democratic nomination was a moment in south carolina. there were a couple earlier moments in town hall meetings, televised town hall meetings. he expressed that empathy that you just heard in that prepared remarks from yesterday, where he express thed and talked to some who lost a wife, emanuel ame in charleston, for instance. you know, connected with people on a human level and expressed that sense of sympathy and empathy both. that's biden's superpower. it is, to joe's point, it is the central contrast in this campaign. we're going to see it over and

over again. i remember back in the middle of march, right, when the pandemic was upon us but hadn't fully exploded yet, and donald trump did his oval office address the same night tom hanks addressed he had the coronavirus, the same night the nba shut down. it was a key moment in the evolution of this story. joe biden did an event in delaware the next day that i went to, where he stood up and said, "here's the contrast." there was donald trump behind the resolute desk in the oval office. here am i, showing you what it would be like if i was the president. he was a different picture in terms of how he talked about the virus. two and a half months later, 100,000 people are dead. we see the contrast between donald trump yesterday, attacking twitter, trying to distract, trying to do all the crazy stuff he's done for these -- and vile stuff he's done the past few days, rather than addressing this head on. then you see joe biden giving that speech. joe biden is not a perfect candidate. he is not. but this contrast is a contrast that works, i think, powerfully to his advantage in a time of economic hardship, in a time of

pandemic. i think -- my dpgut is, and the polling suggests right now, the american people are looking for a leader who has some empathy, who does feel their pain, and will try to rebuild the economy in a way that works for them. that is the seam that the biden campaign is going to drive into. joe is also right, the trump campaign has new advertising up this week, that basically says, we are not for empathy. we are not for humanity. donald trump is a jerk. we know he is a jerk. you know he is a jerk. but he is our jerk. his jerkiness, all his nasty qualities are what is needed to rebuild the economy. they're embracing it, too. they're not trying to soften it. it'll be on display the next six months, and we'll see what the american people think come november. >> willie, we think about past presidents, as john was eluding to. look ahtyba rat barack obama. there were times he was not good

at being empathetic. there were times he was more college professor than he was a consoler in chief. but you go to charleston, and you think about him consoling that church, singing "amazing dpr grace." it was extraordinary. think of george w. bush on top of that pile after 9/11. yeah, he was speaking to first responders, but, damnit, w. was speaking to the rest of the world, where he said, i can hear you, we can hear you, and the rest of the world will hear you soon. of course, a remarkable moment i always think of, every time i see the possibility of a launch from cape canaveral. when the "challenger" blew up. when peggy noonan wrote those extraordinary words for ronald

reagan, about touching the face of god. that's what americans need right now from whomever can give it to them. maybe, if this president can't don't, maybe they need it from their governors. maybe they need it from their may mayors. maybe they can't get it from political leaders, like we've gotten it from people like ronald reagan in the past. maybe they get it from their priests or their pastors. but, yeah, americans want that. they want a consoler in chief, someone who understands the pain that they are going through. >> yeah. they're not going to get it here. peggy noonan could write a beautiful speech in this moment and hand it across the desk to donald trump. if he delivered it, would it be convincing, given how he conducted himself up to this day? it wouldn't be, and that's a fact. that moment isn't going to come from the president. as we said several times on this show, governors are very popular right now.

the governors, in their own way, are delivering that message to their people. tough love but hope at the same time. so those speeches and that message is getting out there, it's just not coming from the white house right now. he's not setting that example. i listed some of the people who are imploring the country to wear masks yesterday. at that launch you talked about, ivanka trump, jared kushner, and her children all were wearing masks. the president of the united states really is out on an island with this idea that you don't have to wear a mask, that you can turn the corner, and the country is ready to move on. the country is just not there yet. well, we have much more ahead. as we go to break, joe wrote on twitter that 100,000 americans have died from a disease that cruelly separates the sick and dying from those they love the most. nurses, doctors, and first responders have stayed by their side, providing loving care and compassion throughout their darkest hour. joe wanted to do a quick music

tribute to those front line heros and picked a song written by the great paul mccartney, whose mother, mary, was a nurse. ♪ i just seen the face i can't forget the time ♪ ♪ a place we first met just a girl for me ♪ ♪ i want the world to see we've met ♪ ♪ had it been another day i might have looked another way ♪ ♪ i would have never opinibeen as it is, i'll dream tonight ♪ ♪ lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie ♪ fallen, yes, i am fallen she keeps calling me back again ♪ ♪ fallen, yes, i am fallen and she keeps calling me back again ♪ ♪ let's go

♪ fallen, yes, i am fallen and she keeps calling me back again ♪ ♪ fallen, yes, i am fallen and she keeps calling me back again ♪ ♪ i have never known the likes of this, i've been alone ♪ ♪ things kept out of sight but other girls were never like this ♪ ♪ ly, ly, ly, ly ♪ fallen, yes, i am fallen and she keeps calling me back again ♪ ♪ fallen, yes, i am fallen and she keeps calling me back again ♪

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i've wrestled with more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question. why is the man who killed george floyd not in jail? if you had done it, i had done it, we'd be behind bars right now. i can't come up with a good answer to the question. i'm calling on attorney mike freeman to act on the evidence before him. i'm calling on him to charge the

arresting officer in this case. >> that's the mayor of minneapolis calling for charges against the arresting officer involved in the death of george floyd, an unarmed black man, who died in the custody of police, as captured on terrible video. four officers involved in floyd's detainment now have been fired. on monday, video showed george floyd pleading with police officers, while one officer pressed his knee into floyd's neck for about eight minutes. he later was pronounced dead at a local hospital. initially, police said floyd had, quote, physically resisted officers after they responded to a reported forgery in progress. but new video appears to show the moments before floyd's death. officers removed him from a parked car and handcuffed him before leading him across the street. joining us now from minneapolis, nbc news correspondent gabe gutierrez, where protests overnight have turned violent.

gabe, what more can you tell us about what's happening on the ground there behind you? extraordinary pictures. and whether there will be charges brought at least against the one officer. >> reporter: hi, willie. good morning. it is an extremely chaotic scene. we're seeing dawn now, and parts of minneapolis are still on fire. behind me, you can see billowing smoke. this is a construction site on fire right now. several buildings in this area have been burning for several hours. if we walk over here, we can see, looking in that direction, there's a cub foods store. part of that also burned down. if my cameraman, bill, can pan over here, these are officers in riot gear that have been trying to keep the peace all evening. short time ago, minneapolis police said that what started as a peaceful protest late yesterday afternoon turned violent. the previous night, there were about 8,000 protesters here in minneapolis, furious over the

death of 46-year-old george floyd. last night, no word on exactly how many people showed up. at one point throughout the night, they started tossing projectiles at officers. officers moved out to try and clear the crowd. as you can see behind me, it definitely got violent. there's a burnt car over there. several buildings are still burning even after this hour. the question right now that many of the protesters are asking is when or if charges will be brought against the officers involved in this case. the mayor yesterday came out and took the rare step of calling for the arresting officer to be charged. right now, there is certainly a lot of anger here. again, police trying to keep the peace and urging protesters to stay calm. willie? >> gabe, obviously, it is early morning there now. a lot of the violence we saw took place overnight. those confrontation with the police. do they expect another day of

confrontation with protesters do, or do they feel things have calmed a bit? >> reporter: that is certainly the question. we should point out, willie, many of the protesters that are angry over this death did remain peaceful. they will tell you that some of the demonstrators decided to turn violent. for the most part, the vast majority were peaceful protesters. as you can see, in the the result. we do expect more protests today. the question of whether any more of them will turn violent. there are still so many questions about what happened here and what -- as you can see here, there are certain people still here, even at this early hour. it is central time, just after 6:00. it is dawn, and there are people here that have been here all night. the question remains, willie, will the county attorney bring any charges? the investigation is still ongoing. many people are asking for the body camera video in this incident to be released. you mentioned at the start of the segment that the initial

viral video, that's what got everyone's attention. we've seen now surveillance video as well as bystander video from other angles. we have yet to see the body camera video from the four officers. many of these protesters are asking for it to be released so we can see in more detail what led up to this confrontation, willie. >> george floyd lost his life over an alleged forgery, and now this. gabe gutierrez in minneapolis for us this morning. thanks so much. we'll be right back on "morning joe." uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. to serve on the front lines... to fight an invisible enemy with courage and compassion... to comfort and to care, to hope, to press on, to do whatever it takes

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house reporter for nbc news digital, shannon pettypiece, with her latest reporting, finding trump playing campaign defense with core elements of his base. shannon, obviously, we've been reporting on trump losing among senior. are there other groups that are losing confidence? >> reporter: yeah, absolutely are, mika. there are some of these groups that republican strategists really thought the president would have in the bag at this point going into this key, crucial summertime period. for example, take college educated -- sorry, non-college educated white males. it was a group key to the president's victory. he got 71% of their vote in 2016, a record margin for any republican running for president. well, the latest poll numbers that we're looking at now show

him around 64% in the group. he is not losing them, but he has certainly lost ground there. similar thing among evangelical voters. it was a group he won by 80% or so in 2016. he still has a commanding lead there, but it's narrowed. it is around 70%, according to a fox poll that came out just last week. and, of course, you mentioned the similar thing for seniors. so it's not just him being down in these groups where he's always been weak, like suburban women or college-educated voters. it is also these groups that make up his base, which is really putting pressure on his campaign going into the summer, when a lot of people traditionally make up their mind of how they'll vote for in november. >> john heilemann, you look at the numbers shannon talked about. he is down in -- ten points or so for non-college educated white males. last year, he was losing support for non-college educated white

females. of course, though, you look at -- i mean, let's get really specific. the philly suburbs. the president can expect to be trounced there if the last three years of elections are any indication. you look at the i-4 corridor in florida. you go up to areas like mccomb county in michigan. michigan is falling further and further out of their grasp. the question is, if you're in the trump -- if you're on the trump campaign team, you know, what do you do right now? do you sit and ride this out? because the attacks against joe biden aren't working, do you just wait and hope that the economy turns around? >> yeah. well, so a couple things here, joe. first, you and i have been talking the last week or two about where the trump campaign is advertising, right? my view about covering

campaigns, don't pay attention to what the campaign is saying but what they're doing. where are they sending the candidate, and where are they spending money? we know trump has been to arizona. he's been to michigan, to pennsylvania. even in the middle of the pandemic, he's ventured into those states. he's not doing a full-scale travel schedule. he went down to florida yesterday, obviously, another battleground state. that's important. where are they on the air? we talked previously about the fact they're on the air in all six of the core battleground states. michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, north carolina, florida, and arizona. those are the six states that donald trump won by the narrowest margin in 2016. all those states he's advertising in. none of those states -- those are all states he won last time, right? previously, he also was on the air in iowa, which is a state he won by nine points in 2016. he feels like he needs to defend himself in iowa. so the new trump ad is going up next week. you know what state they add to the list? they add ohio, another state

trump won by seven or eight points in 2016. every state they're advertising in is a defense state. they're not on the air in minnesota, new hampshire, nevada, new mexico. none of those states that he lost narrowly in 2016, that they said they were foing going to t compete in and take away from democrats. he is on the air in eight states that he won in 2016, including ohio and iowa, that he won and weren't even close states, right? seven, eight, nine points in the two states. that tells you a lot about how far defense he is. one other demographic. shann shannon's reporting is correct. i'll point to another one, a key voting block in 2016. voters who did not like either candidate. last time around, as you'll remember, hillary clinton and donald trump, the two most unpopular, disliked general election candidates in the history of politics, competing in the same year. donald trump won overwhelmingly voters who didn't like both of

them, right? this time around, that voting cohort, joe biden is crushing donald trump with voters who don't like either one of them. that turned out to be a decisive margin. explained the voted for obama twice and trump in 2016. if trump didn't win the disenfranchised voters who don't like either party, he's in trouble. i'm out of time here, but i'm not sure what i'd counsel them to do. what they're doing right now, i want to double down on what shannon is saying, they are playing defense. there's not a single bright spot right now on the horizon for donald trump. not one in the data. >> trying too ho ining to hold . willie, you look at them going up in ohio, of all states, which donald trump won easily. the contrast in ohio, actually, for ohio voters isn't really necessarily between a republican and a democrat. it's between a republican

president and a republican governor. a republican president who so many people feel has been reckless from the start, and a republican governor, in governor dewine, who has done just about everything right. he's listened to his doctors. he's listened to nurses. he's listened to first responders. he's listened to the smartest people in ohio to try to protect the people of ohio. he's done a hell of a job. approval ratings up in the 80s. much, much higher than donald trump. that contrast is really glaring, especially in the buckeye state. >> yeah. as you said, the president won that state easily in 2016. probably one they thought they had in their back pocket for 2020. that's not the case. governor dewine, as you point out, is a republican. he hasn't taken gratuitous shots at donald trump. he's gone about his business and ignored donald trump to protect his state. talking about the trump campaign

playing defense, as the president talked about pulling the convention out of north carolina, the states he has floated as possibilities, florida, of course, but also georgia and texas. saying, we might have our convention in either georgia or texas shows you their minds are in those states, too. places they assume they had in their back pocket. another interesting demographic, shannon, you're wrighti iwritins college educated white men and white women. the president down below 50% in both of those categories. he had a majority of the college educated men in 2016. dropping in those groups. many living in suburban areas, as well. >> reporter: well, right. the college educated women has really fallien off a cliff. there was an aspiration in the campaign that they could pick up college educated women in a little to give cushion in

michigan and pennsylvania, which we talk about a lot. it is down to 29%, i think, in the latest quinnipiac poll of support among college educated women and white college educated men, also down. it is really across the board. that's why they're seeing so much pressure in places like arizona. arizona is a state the campaign considers a must-win. but in mthe suburbs of phoenix, you have college educated, growing hispanic voters. you also talked about them being down with seniors. that's where the pressure points come into play and drag down this campaign, not just nationally -- because, of course, we know the national polls aren't representative -- but in the state by state polls. ohio, you mentioned. pennsylvania with suburban voters. it means this talk that the campaign had early on in the year, about expanding the map, i'm in the hearing much of that anymore. we're not seeing trips to colorado and nevada. >> you know, it is interesting,

what remarkable news that they're thinking about going to georgia and going to texas. you may say, mika, that that opportunity ma doesn't make sense, that those states are firmly locked up for donald trump. there was a recent poll that showed donald trump and joe biden tied in georgia. >> wow. >> of course, the "dallas morning news" poll also earlier this month showed them tied in texas, as well. listen, this is probably the last year that those two states are going to be considered lean red. you look at the demographic changes, especially in texas. but those states, you look at what's happened to virginia. we republicans used to consider georgia a red state. republicans won the state of georgia, just like they always won state of florida.

florida went purple. it's come back a little more red. virginia, though, has done purple, and really is turning into a blue state. georgia and texas, if you talk to people who really have studied this for a long time, they've been saying this quite some time, as demographic changes continue, georgia and texas are moving in that direction, too. they're becoming more purple by the year. certainly, by 2014, i don't think anybody, regardless who the candidates are for the republicans or for the democrats in 2024, or independents, nobody is going to say at the beginning of those cycles, because of demographics and changes that have been coming for decades, oh, reliably red texas. oh, reliably red georgia. not anymore. those two states, just because of history and demographic trends, they're going to be going the way of virginia. >> shannon pettypiece, thank you for your new reporting.

back now to the latest with the coronavirus. joining us now, clinical assistant professor at the nyu grossman school of medicine's department of population health, dr. roy. she is an nbc news medical contributor. dr. roy, i want to start with a point joe was talking about at the start of the show. that is, the concept of coronavirus never going away. actually having it with us for years to come. in some ways, it is hard to think beyond next week, but what does that look like? >> good morning, mika. on this solemn morning, when we realize just how many men, women, and some children have passed away from this novel coronavirus. you know, we really are learning something every day about this virus. this is not just your run of the mill, respiratory virus that we initially thought it was going to be. doctors and researchers all over the world are learning something

new. look, i try to be very, very optimistic, but i always try to also be rooted in data and in science. what we're seeing right now is that while numbers, in terms of cases and deaths and hospitalizations are decreasing in certain areas, like new york state where i am, it's not the case throughout the country. as we all can see, the number of cases and deaths nationally just continue to rise, which tells us that there's still community spread of this virus. we have not contained it. officials, public health and pandemic officials are saying, experts are saying that, you know, we're not only going to get a second wave in the summer, but come fall, when we're going to get influenza in addition to covid-19, it's not looking that good right now, mika. >> willie? >> dr. roy, it is willie geist. good to see you.

dr. fauci gave an interview to cnn yesterday where he said a bunch of things. number one, hydroxychloroquine is dangerous and shouldn't be used to treat covid-19. that was noteworthy, given what the president has said the last couple months. also, he showed enthusiasm and optimism that there may be a vaccine by the end of this year. he said by november, perhaps by december, that we could have a vaccine in this country that is deployable in some numbers across the country. do you share his enthusiasm? obviously, that would perhaps be record time to reach a vaccine in the history of the world. do you believe we'll see a vaccine that quickly? >> good morning, willie. i never try to go against dr. fauci. this is a man who has been doing -- he has been in this line of work for four decades. if you remember in the early on, willie, he was always very cautious. he was saying, "look, we're not going to get a vaccine for at least a year, year and a half." for him to feel this optimistic, enough to say publicly that we

may actually have a vaccine by the end of this year, i mean, it's possible. again, the reason why most public health and medical experts and researchers are cautiously optimistic is because, again, if you look at history, of vaccine development, the quickest we've ever been able to deliver a vaccine safely into human beings was four to five years. for us to develop a vaccine, for the first time ever, against a coronavirus, and especially a really tricky one like this one, within the end of this year, again, i try not to go against dr. fauci, but it's possible. again, it's really this third phase of trials, phase three of clinical trials, that is the rate-limiting step. you really have to test a large number of human beings, for both safety and efficacy. possible, but i'm still not banking until maybe 2021. >> well, it would be an

extraordina extraordinary, extraordinary achievement. and it is possible, with so many of the best and brightest medical and scientistic minds in the world, all focusing on one thing. let us hope. let us pray. as i said a couple days ago, as mother teresa said, let us work as if there is no such thing as prayer, and let us pray as if there is no such thing as work when it comes to this vaccine. i want to go to the "washington post" article that certainly seems to -- if people just read it, it'll seem grim, obviously. talking about the coronavirus being with us for quite some time. that's something that dr. ost osterholm has told us for months on this sure. we have to stop looking for the miracle cure, the miracle treatments, that this is going to be with us. because it is going to be with us, we've got to figure out how to live with it over the next few years.

with that in mind, doctor, obviously, we also have to reopen our economy. people are hurting. small businesses are getting crushed. americans are getting impatient, despite the fact they've shown extraordinary discipline over the past several months. so how do we reopen, knowing this is inevitable and we have to do it? what is on your mind this morning about reopening safe ll so that 100,000 number, 100,000 deaths, so we don't wake up in the fall and see that number doubled? >> yeah. joe, i'm really glad you asked about that. look, the public health community, i think we're often seen as enemy number one. we're the ones telling people to close down the economy. the truth is, we actually want the economy to open up, but for it to do so safely. these are not diametrically

opposed concepts, the economy opening up and public safety. the cdc has come out with local guidelines. every state has public health departments. this is what we are designed to do. we are trained to do widespread testing, contact tracing. you know, if we do those things and keep both employees and customers safe, we can actually move forward. to michael ole ststerholm's poi the virus may be around the next couple years. we don't know. you all talked about this, quote, new normal. this is going to affect all of us. we can do it, but we have to act together. our actions need to be rooted in data, joe. >> it does. you're so right, we have to do it together. just like we sheltered in place together. you know, you saw, actually, mitch mcconnell yesterday wearing a mask, telling people to wear a mask. you saw the president's family members in public wearing masks.

if you're an alabama fan, you see nick saban telling everybody, "hey, i want to play fastba football this fall. wear a mask." >> right. >> republicans on the house floor wearing a house floor, mika. we all need to be responsible. we need to get this economy not only opened up, but we need to work together to keep it open. >> absolutely. dr. lipi roy, thank you so much for coming on. we really appreciate it. up next, yamiche alcindor joins us live from the white house with her latest reporting. you're watching "morning joe."

again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 people in a couple days will be down close to zero. close to zero. close to zero. close to zero. close to zero. >> announcer: paid for by the lincoln project, responsible for the content of this advertising. >> new ad from the lincoln project. welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, may 28th. along with joe, willie, and me, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. white house correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche alcindor. and political reporter for the "washington post," robert costa. he is the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. the united states went from one death to 100,000 in just a few months' time. with what "usa today" called the

fastest killer in u.s. history. while the pace of death has slowed, the united states leads the world by far. more than double the number of deaths in the united kingdom, which is ranked number two. president trump did not take questions from reporters in the hours after the milestone was hit, but the white house did release a statement through a deputy press secretary, saying the president's prayers are with those who are grieving. as the "washington post" notes, president trump has spent his life enthralled with numbers. his wealth, his ratings, his polls, even during the deadly coronavirus pandemic, he's remained fixated on metrics, peppering aides about infection statistics, favoring rosy projections, and obsessing over the gyrating stock market. as the nation reached a bleak milestone this week, 100,000 americans dead from the novel coronavirus, trump has been

uncharacteristically silent. the closest the president came to addressing the death toll was a tweet from tuesday. it was about him. it reads, in part, for all the political hacks out there, if i hadn't done my job well and early, we would have lost 1.5 to 2 million people, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number. joe biden did address the 100,000 death toll mark yesterday with this new digital video post. >> my fellow americans, there are moments in our history so grim, so heart rending, that there are forever fixed in each of our hearts. a shared grief. today is one of those moments. 100,000 lives have now been lost to this virus here in the united states alone. each one leaving behind a family that will never again be whole.

i think i know what you're feeling. you feel like you're being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your chest. it's suffocating. your heart is broken. there's nothing but a feeling of emptiness right now. for most of you, you're unable to be there when you lost your beloved family member or best friend. for most of you, you were unable to be there when they died, alone. the pain, the anger, and the frustration, you will wonder whether or not you'll ever be able to get anywhere from here. it's made all the worse by knowing that this is a fateful milestone we should have never reached, which could have been avoided. according to a study done by columbia university, if the administration had acted just one week earlier to implement social distancing and do what it had to do, just one week sooner, as many as 36,000 of these

deaths might have been averted. to all of you who are hurting so badly, i'm so sorry for your loss. i know there is nothing i or anyone else can say or do to dull the sharp ness of the pain you feel right now. i can promise you from experience, the day will come when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. my prayer for all of you is that they will come, sooner rather than later. but i promise you it will come. when it does, you know you can make it. god bless each and every one of you. and the blessed memory of the one you lost. this nation grieves with you. take some solace from the fact we all grieve with you. >> willie, a moment of uns understatement, joe biden said,

i think i know how you're feeling. he does, of course, because of the excruciating pain that he felt recently with the passing of his son, beau, and that he felt as a newly elected member of the united states senate with the passing of his wife and daughter. there is a question that pollsters have asked for years now, and it is about which candidate understands people like me, right? that's where the empathy question comes in. in that moment, in that video, joe biden, it's hard to see how joe biden doesn't win that, certainly for those going through the coronavirus, when that part of the polling on the issue of empathy.

>> yeah. we've talked so much about the failures of the federal government and the politics around the last three months and what the president has and hasn't done. at the core of it, which is what vice president biden just got to, is loss. loss of jobs. loss of life. that's what he was talking about right there. there are 100,000 people not with us today who were here three and a half months ago. that extends out to their families who are feeling that. many had to say good-bye over facebook or through a plate of glass in a hospital room. there is real loss in this country right now that has nothing to do with politics or who you voted for. joe biden can speak to that in a way, as we said, that president trump is just incapable of doing. that's the truth about who he is. yamiche alcindor, i think this is a contrast that the biden campaign would love to have, to talk about the character of the men, talk about the fundamental

goodness of the men, and put those two split screens up. you had a paper statement yesterday from the president of the united states, expressing his sympathies to the families pause he didn't want to be physically attached to that, but delivering a speech that way. and joe biden from his home, yes, but touching the grief that so many americans feel. >> that was quite a split screen yesterday between president trump and vice president joe biden. it is a split screen that the biden campaign hopes is working in their favor. it is also a split screen the president is hoping works in his favor. the coronavirus -- i've said it before and i think i have to say it again. the coronavirus begs for a leader that is going to be compassionate, empathetic, and who is going to be credible. you want a nation to be able to look at the president and say, this is someone i not only trust to lead us through this, but also someone who will feel my pain. 100,000 people dying yesterday was historic. dr. anthony fauci said it is in the category of wars and 9/11

and depressions. of course, he is right in that regard. you have a split screen where the president of the united states spent part of yesterday lashing out at democrats. spent part of yesterday talking about and thinking about reopening. his style is one that he thinks is going to appeal to people who want a leader that is going to be pushing through this. that is going to say, forget all the other stuff. let's just continue to go forward. let us remember the people we loss but also push forward with the public -- with a political convention. let's push forward with opening businesses. let's push forward with listening partly to the scientists but also partly to my political instincts. then you have someone like joe biden saying, "i understand you. i, myself, have felt the loss. i, myself, understand what it is like to lose somebody, have to think about them, and come to the moment where i can smile about them. by the way, i'm also someone who believes in science and data." i think november will turn in who americans think they can trust, and also who americans think feels their pain. we were talking about shannon

pettypiece's piece. it gets into that. you have states where president trump thought he had a stronghold looking at the coronavirus and saying, "the leader i want the joe biden." it doesn't mean trump can't win, but he has to convince people he can be the calmer in chief, the compassionate person in chief, as well as the commander in chief. >> bob costa, how are republicans on the hill handling this as we speak, moving into june? you have -- a new poll came out in colorado showing cory gardner, the republican incumbent, way behind. arizona looking bad for the republican senator incumbent. maine looking bad for susan collins. montana could break the democrats' way. mitch mcconnell now seen wearing masks, talking about how other

people should wear masks. there does seem to be, slowly but surely, an effort by republicans to breakaway from this president as it pertains to the basics of handling this coronavirus crisis. what are you hearing on the hill? what does your reporting tell you? >> my reporting doesn't reveal that, necessarily. it shows a muted republican party. republican party that refuses to speak publicly about its private concerns, about president trump. a republican party that is in lock step with president trump as they near te electihe electi. they still feel his base is necessary if they have any chance of winning in arizona, colorado, or making sure they save their senate seats in a ruby red state like georgia. they're anxious but they don't have a plan to move away from him at this point. they've been now for three and a half years in this whole mode of

gro talking about it but not publicly. the president's behavior, perspective, he can't change at this point. >> bob, they've seen what's happened. i guess this is what confounds me. is there no member of the united states senate, other than mitt romney, that is smart enough to split the difference? they can look back to 2017, see what happened in virginia. they can look at 2018, see that republicans suffered a historic loss in 2018 when it came to voting numbers. they can look at 2019. see republicans even losing in the deep south. do no republicans, especially in these states -- you know, cory gardner, if he doesn't figure out a way to split the

difference, he's going to lose. same with mcsally. martha mcsally is going to lose in arizona if she doesn't figure out how to split the difference. it is probably too late for susan collins in maine. same issue in north carolina. this is not split-balling, hey, things may be bad for these people. no, the republican party is moving toward a possible wipeout if you look at the numbers, if they don't split the difference. are they real rly just going to stay hunkered down. >> they know that. >> do they know that? >> there is real fear, joe, to your point, that they could see a sweep. they see the senate majority in peril. many top republican strategists and lawmakers see a house majority out of reach. they see a white house that could fall out of republican hands. to your point about senator romney, based on my conversations with some of the top republicans in the country, he is not someone who is a

foreshadower of what's to come. he is isolated. in fact, many of his colleagues in the senate don't like senator romney, even if they respect him. they don't like him politically. they think he is getting out on a limb. they feel, at this point, they all must stick together with president trump and hope the economy, at some level, recovers. that is the plan. there is no other plan. >> mike barnicle, as we're looking ahead to a jobs report and an economy that is sure to struggle for quite some time, in passing the 100,000 death toll mark, it seems president trump might be missing the moment on a number of levels. in terms of communicating effectively to the american people. can you speak to the contrast between donald trump and joe biden during this time, and why that might actually translate into votes being cast?

>> my god, mika. you know i watched joe biden, as we just showed. i listened to bob costa just explaining that the senators, republican senators, many of them, don't like mitt romney, know they're headed for disaster but joined with the president of the united states, donald trump. all i can think of are two questions that pop into my mind. what has happened to us, and what have we normalized in this country? there are, as everyone knows today, more than 100,000 people dead, who were alive just a few months ago. there are nearly 40 million people unemployed. we operate under a slogan, we're all in this together. that is patently not true. it is not true because we have a president of the united states who is divisive, destructive, damaging, and has an ultimate message to the country nearly every day. i would just say this, that if

you think of every president in our lifetimes, and i'll even include richard nixon in this, there has never been a president of the united states, when confronted with a moment like this, a national medical emergency, a moment that this country has never really faced before, but there has never been a president, a leader, who has failed his people, his country, so badly, so miserably, as donald j. trump has. all we hear from him is division, divisiveness, damage, and cruelty. cruelty from the oval office. that's where we are. >> well, yamiche alcindor, let's look ahead to today. i know the president is working on some sort of executive order pertaining to social media. again, more distractions? what are you watching? >> reporter: that's what i'm watching. as we have this conversation,

historic conversation about that death toll of 100,000 americans or more, actually, dying from this virus, the president is focused on pushing back on the social media companies. this comes, of course, after twitter changed its policies, to start trying to explain to people that are on the site that some of the president's tweets are not -- are misleading, including, of course, labeling some of the tweets as misleading, and trying to provide information, including on mail-in voting. the site saying president trump is spreading misinformation on that. the president is expected to sign an executive order that would push back on them. it seems to be a regulation, possibly stripping them of some sort of protections they have as social media companies. it is not clear exactly. the white house hasn't said exactly what the president is going to be signing. what we do know, this will be in retaliation to what he sees as twitter targeting him and treating him unfairly. it is, in some ways, another split screen. you have the nation thinking about the 100,000 and more

americans that we've lost, and the president focused on opponents that he sees, focused on his perceived enemies, and focused on what he sees as liberal people trying to get at him. of course, this is a social media company trying to respond to the overwhelming criticism of the president, who has, at times, spread misinformation on his website. of course, this comes as the widower of -- of the woman who the president said over and over again was murdered which, of course, was a baseless claim. it is incredible tharks the preside president is going to be spending time trying to hit back at twitter while spreading pa i baseless murder conspiracy theories. >> it is baseless. >> it is unbelievable. >> you have to look. you have to step back, and you have to look at when this began. the really outrageous stuff

began as we were moving towards that sunday front page "new york times" article that showed that 100,000 americans were going to be dead from the coronavirus. now, it's morphed into fights with cable news hosts -- how sad is that -- and twitter. so long as he can get people talking about that, being shocked, stunned, deeply saddened about that, they're not going to be focusing on the fact that 100,000 people died of a pandemic that he said was one person coming in from chi asthma. >> -- china. >> i'm seeing a lot of even trump supporters seeing this president endangering their lives with the coronavirus, not leading by example, pushing quack drugs that actually are dangerous, that help other people in other ways but are dangerous in terms of treating

coronavirus. they see that. it is basic. it impacts their basic safety. >> well -- >> when they watch him talking about this conspiracy theory, in the light of the husband asking him to stop, in the light of a grieving family, begging for mercy and begging for him to stop, they see him running over that request, that's as basic to them as it pertains to decency. i think there are a lot of trump supporters i've been seeing and reading that are just like, nope, this is the bottom of the barrel, of the core of who you are. we can't support this. >> that is a grieving family, obviously. willie, a grieving family that just does not deserve this. there are 100,000 grieving families today. >> right. >> he also should talk about the president ridiculing people for wearing masks. ridiculing joe biden, a public

figure, for wearing a mask. for following, actually, the guidelines of the white house, for following the guidelines of dr. fauci, for following the guidelines of the cdc, for following the guide lines of just about every doctor in america, and mocking members of the press who are obviously -- cannot stay six feet away from people when they're lined up behind a microphone for questions. mocking members of the press for asking questions with masks on, and then calling them -- accusing them of being politically correct. no, it is not being politically correct. it is being safe and respectful of other people and making sure you don't spread a virus that's killed 100,000 people. again, it's that reporter, it is joe biden following the advice of the president's own doctors and the president's own surgeon

general. >> and that's exactly the speech that mitch mcconnell, yes, i'll say his name again, mitch mcconnell gave to a group in kentucky yesterday, particularly young people. it is your obligation to wear a mask. i think the president should pick up the phone and call ivanka and jared and ask why did they wear masks yesterday down at cape canaveral, along with their children. pick up the phone and call sean hannity and ask why he gave a speech who night acs ago, abouty people need to wear their masks. ea he's on an island with this. it goes against his political instincts. to put his own political interest aside. if people wear masks to go out, businesses can recover. people can go into a restaurant, into a bar. people can spend money, and the economy can begin to recover, no matter how slowly that can begin to take place. you wonder about a guy who, in 2016, had a good gut about politics, about how to win that

race, as critical as we were about the way he went about doing that. he did understand how to win. reading this so poorly and casting his lot with the 8% of people who told fox news in a poll that they will not wear a mask in public. >> so there are studies, and scott gottlieb retweeted it yesterday, that if 60% of americans wear masks when they are out, and if this cuts down the passing of the disease by at least 60%, there are studies that show it is up to 80% when it comes to the flu. but if it cuts it down that much, it will cause the infection level to plummet and will help americans not only restart their businesses, restart their lives, send their kids back to school, and as nick saban said, get us playing football in the fall. >> yeah. >> if they do that, that's the best pathway forward, to keep

this economy open, to keep this country open, to get our schools open, and keep them open, to make this country vibrant again. this is very simple. >> yeah. yamiche alcindor, robert costa, thank you both for your reporting. still ahead on "morning joe," one of our next guests says we can't keep ignoring the possibility of airborne transmission of the coronavirus. that conversation is ahead. that's why you need to wear a mask. plus, is president trump courting a landslide defeat? ed luce at the "financial times" argues most polling shows him heading for a loss in november. common sense points same way. he joins us next on "morning joe." it's best we stay apart for a bit, but you're not alone. we're automatically refunding our customers a portion of their personal auto premiums. learn more at libertymutual.com/covid-19.

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while president trump continues to rail against

mail-in voting his campaign is trying to make it easier for supporters in pennsylvania to request mail-in ballots. trump's campaign on its website is providing pennsylvania supporters with an eeasy access link to help them request ballots for next week's primary. >> that's a good thing. more people vote, the better. >> that's helpful. voters have to enter personal information, which the website uses to create a form that voters can send to their local election officials. trump has repeatedly -- >> wait a second. >> uh-huh. >> that's good. >> right. >> i thought that's what other people were doing, and he was freaking out in democratic states. >> trump has repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of mail-in voting. >> why? >> states encourage voters to vote by mail to prevent large crowds at the polls during the coronavirus pandemic. to keep people safe. >> yeah, but we were already headed in this direction. more and more people -- >> right. the military does it. >> -- vote early. military does it all the time. >> trump does it.

>> he does, actually. >> however, trump's campaign says there is no contradiction between their efforts in pennsylvania and the president's comments. >> huh. >> campaign communication direct er told nbc news, quote, there is a vast difference between people voting absentee by mail because they can't be at the polls on election day, versus mailing everyone a ballot. sending everyone a ballot, even those who didn't request one, is wide open opportunity for fraud. >> hold on a second. >> what? >> hold on. hold on, hold on, hold on. we have to stop again. because this at is a lie. we can fact-check, that is a lie. that is a lie that donald trump put on twitter. one of the many lies he put on twitter. after he put that lie on twitter, he actually took it down. they weren't sending absentee ballots to people in michigan. they were sending applications. they were doing the same thing that republican states were doing. so what they just said -- see,

this is the thing i don't understand, okay? >> yeah. >> donald trump is going to be gone from the white house, i sus pek suspect, by january. the people that are soiling their reputations for life, not for 15 minutes but 5 minutes, don't they understand the stain follows them? it follows them forever. don't they understand that? >> i don't think so. >> okay. >> echoing -- >> it does. >> -- the president's onslaught against mail-in voting, white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany has stood firm in her position against the process. as it turns out, mcenany herself has voted by mail 11 times in the past ten years. >> wow. >> it's worked for her. according to -- >> so trump does it. >> right. >> white house people do it. >> yeah. >> ordinary americans aren't supposed to do it? >> nope. >> again, people inside the white house get tested every day, but ordinary people aren't supposed to get tested every day? donald trump's richest

billionaires, they get, like, the biggest tax cuts in history, and trump says, "i made you all rich today" when he goes to mar-a-lago after the tax cut, but ordinary americans don't get that? people inside the white house get the best health care plans anywhere, but donald trump is promising to take health care away from ordinary, working class americans in michigan, pennsylvania, ohio, florida, north carolina? i don't get it. >> i don't get it. >> i don't get it. >> according to the "tampa bay times," the white house press secretary and tampa native mailed in her ballot in every florida election she has participated in. >> there's a reason why. >> since 2010. >> i'll tell you why in a minute. go ahead. >> most recently in the primary in march, which president trump did, as well. they love the mail-in ballot. when asked why it was okay for the president to vote by mail, mcenany responded that he is, after all, the president.

mcenany responded to the "tampa bay times" story, writing in a statement to the paper, quote, absentee voting as the word "absent" in it for a reason. >> wow. >> it means you're absent from the jurisdiction or unable to vote in person. president trump is against the democrat plan to politicize the coronavirus. >> seriously, so -- >> it is just staggering. there's one key graph though from the "tampa bay times," if i may. >> do we have to? >> however, florida doesn't have absentee voting. anyone can vote by mail here without a reason. the "times" asked mcenany if florida should change the law, to restrict voting by mail to those unable to vote in person. the story will be updated if she responds. let's bring in dave aronberg.

>> we are going to bring you in for legal questions. >> yeah. >> you're a guy from florida who has been on the ballot several times. i'm a guy from florida who has been on the ballot four times. now, i don't know what people say inside campaign headquarters on election night in democratic headquarters, but i can tell you, every republican war room i've ever been in, especially in the state of florida, all ask the same questions. whether you're up, whether you're down, you go, "have the absentee ballots come in yet? have they mountcounted the mail votes yet?" you know why? because we republicans, at least, i mean, when i was running, would always wipe out the democrats on mail-in ballots, absentee ballots. like, this is what we were

actually best at. we would get people to mail in their votes, and we would count them. the republican party has worked really, really hard over the past decade to turn this into an art form. so, imagine what they're thinking right now, when they have a guy that's trying to undercut absentee ballot voting and mail-in voting for older floridians that they want to attract. once again, it's day trading. he's undercutting his own political position. >> yeah. joe, you and i have been on the ballot several times. we know that republicans have dominated mail-in voting for years in florida and other states. the democrats are starting to catch up, and this is a bit of a rope-a-dope. the president is trying to convince democrats that this is fraudulent, not the way to go, and we're going to do something about it. while the republicans are full speed ahead on absentee, or i

should say, mail-in voting. this is not about voter trade. it is voter suppression. it is a tactic at the national level, in addition to spreading misinformation. remember, the president, after 2016, alleged millions of illegal immigrants voted. he said there was widespread voter fraud. he started a commission on voter fraud. the commission had to be disbanded because it couldn't find any voter fraud. ironically, the real case of voter fraud that's occurred in recent years occurred in a congressional election in north carolina by the republicans. so we shouldn't take the bait. the republicans are doing this around the country. remember, all of the images of people in wisconsin, standing out at the polls during a pandemic pause their ability to vote by mail was limited. be careful what you ask for though. it fired up the democrats in wisconsin, and they elected a liberal supreme court justice. this is the tactic that, i think, will backfire in november. >> willie, it will. again, it's political day

trading. he is railing against the very thing that certainly in the state of florida, back when i was a republican, we republicans, i mean, we mastered. the republican party of florida has continued to fight hard because they know how important seniors voting for the republican party are. they've just absolutely obsessed on mail-in voting and building that out. again, it's such a weird thing, to hear the president striking out against absentee voting and mail-in voting, when, again, you know, i guess if i had to do a baseball analogy, it would be like the general manager of the boston red sox in 2004, the american championship league series, going, why is big papi coming to the plate? just a random example for you, willie. red sox/yankee series, the red sox won. >> why? >> this is what republicans do best.

>> yeah. i have a radical theory for you, joe. the president doesn't understand the issue and isn't sincere in his outrage. can you believe that? >> i can't believe that. >> it seems like he is preparing for november 4th, in the event he loses the election. he will be able to point back. he's already said this this week, we don't have to guess, explicitly, he called it already a rigged election, if there is mail-in voting. a rigged election with mail-in voting. there is mail-in voting, by the way, across the country, including in red states, and there has been for a long time. he's floating this out to distract from what is happening with the 100,000 deaths on his watch in this country, and also to soften the ground, to offer an explanation and some theory of the case and a protest already of why he may lose the election on november the 3rd. let's bring in u.s. national editor for more on this at the "financial times," ed luce. he is out with a new piece this morning titled "trump is

courting a landslide defeat." ed, good morning. obviously, we're a long way from election day. a lot could change. we'll get to the specifics of your piece in a moment. but what do you read into his now vocal daily protests about mail-in voting? >> i can't think of an elected leader anywhere in the world, including in the united states, that has alleged the system that they're the head of is rigged against them. so i think that's a pretty good tell as to trump's pessimism about his prospects in november. the mail-in ballot stuff is an attempt to suppress the vote. again, it is very, very hard to think of leaders around the world in democracies, including united states, where they have attempted to shrink the vote opposed to trying to raise the turnout. it is another tell that trump is

pessimistic about his prospects for november, and there is good reason looking at current polls for him to be pessimistic. particularly, if you look at the preferences of older americans, who have switched extraordinary scale and speed, from being double digit in favor of trump, as recently as february, to now being double digit in favor of biden. they tend to turn out, and they tend to get most at-risk, most vulnerable in crowded places, such as polling stations. so i think for them, the mail-in, the absentee ballot thing is very important. >> so, dave aronberg, i want to ask you about a fear some democrats have, in terms of the election, sort of a doomsday scenario, looking at how he rolls. perhaps him not leaving if he loses. there's one possibility that

trump might even not actually carry through -- maybe he'll quit. maybe he'll see he is going to lose so badly, he'll give up on it and not -- and cancel his campaign. >> nope. >> that might be a long shot. >> long shot. >> having said that -- >> won't happen. >> -- if the president loses, or sows chaos in the election, and doubt, what do you make of the fears, that he could dig his heels in and wherein skand wren in a difficult direction? >> mika, let me also first dispel the notion that he will change the election date or cancel the election. he can't do that. there's some talk about that. that's set by statute in the 1800s. we will have an election, at least the election on election day, and we ballots and absentee voting. there will be an attempt to suppress that in advance.

a great professional law professor said on twitter that a new president takes office on january 20th. president trump may say, i'm the new president and try to stay. i think if you play this out, if he loses, he will have members of his own party who are only there to support him as long as he is in power, who are now looking at the next guy, the next person who can run for president. they'll go to him, like howard baker did during watergate, and tell the president, it is time to go. first, he'll complain. he will accuse the community of ballot fraud. he will say this this is a fixed election, a rigged election. he will blame foreign inter feerns, interference, ironically. if democrats harp on the subject, i worry it'll have voter suppression on our end. we'll convince ourselves there is nothing we can do to vote him out, so we're going to sit home at the polls. we also need to be careful what

we're saying because they're trying voter suppression. we may assist their effort if we convince ourselves that the election doesn't matter. >> state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg, thank you. >> thank you so much, dave. let me just play my regular role here and say, the institutions will hold up. relax. hold the election. >> okay. >> let's see who wins the election. get out and vote. ed luce, we could talk an awful lot about the president, but i must say, i'm fascinated by what's happening to boris johnson in great britain. this continued embrace of an adviser, dominic cummings, when it is causing his first major crisis since his landslide victory, getting in the way of him trying to level a playing field between the southern part of great britain and northern

great britain. so why? explain the our viewers, briefly, what's going on here, and then explain to me, why the hell is he willing to risk his premier sh premiership for this man? >> context is two things. one, britain's death rate, we think we have it bad here in the united states, but the death rate in britain is more than double what it is in the united states. it is actually per capita the worst in the world. part of the reason for that, perhaps the main reason for that, is that boris johnson, advised by dominic cummings, his steve bannon, believed in the herd immunity theory. social distancing was put in very late on. britain is a more densely populated nation than the united states and, therefore, the consequences in an equivalent delay have been considerably

worse. eventually, social distancing measures were put in place. dominic cummings, as i say, is the grand strategist of the johnson administration. it turns out he broke those social distancing measures. his wife got coronavirus. he decided to drive 260 miles up north to a town where his parents live with his wife and his 4-year-old child so he could find separate care for his child. that was the story he gave. turns out, actually, he was driving around, probably staying with his parents. he was breaking all the conventions. there's been a clamor for johnson to sack him. johnson is refusing to sack him. the more he refuses to sack him, the more angry the british electorate get about double standards. one rule for the rest of them, who are not being allowed to see their dying parents. they're not being allowing to visit people in hospital.

they're not being allowed to work or draw their salaries. and another rule for those around downing street, who can flout these conventions with impunity. dominic cummings was put up against the media in downing street to try and give an apology. he didn't apologize. he was really very stubbornly self-defensive. johnson's poll ratings are dropping like a lead balloon. >> it is important to note, also, that, of course, the opposition comes not just from labor but also from a heck of a lot of torris. thank you for being here. as always, we greatly appreciate it. >> we'll be reading your new piece in the "financial times." coming up, responding, are eopening, and recovering. a new report lays out the principles for getting the nation back online. that's ahead on "morning joe."

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now, i wear it for the reason that i believe it is effective. it is not 100% effective. i mean it is sort of respect for another person and have that other person respect you. you wear a mask, they wear a mask, you protect each other. i mean i do it when i'm in the public for the reasons that, a, i want to protect myself and protect others, and also because i want to make it be simple for

people to see that that's the kind of thing you should be doing. >> dr. fauci saying wear your mask outside. joining us now president and ceo of the robert wood johnson foundation, dr. richard boeser, former director of cdc and appointed by governor phil murphy to a board coordinating the reopening. also with us, assistant professor at harvard school of public health, joseph allen, who is looking at airborne transmission of the virus. gentlemen, good morning to you both. professor, i will start with you. your piece about airborne transmission, we know about the droplets. it is why we wear the mask, it is why we maintain that six feet of social distancing. what do you mean by airborne transmission because this has new implications for how it could be spread and perhaps how far we actually need to be away from each other.

>> yes. i'll lay it out like this, cdc and w.h.o. have been reluctant to acknowledge airborne transmission is happening despite evidence going to february this is the case. we know a large droplet is important and that's why we have physical distance. this is why you clean and disinfect surface but they've ignored airborne transmission. let me give you an example to highlight how it is happening. i have done forensic investigations of sick buildings for ten years. choir practice, 60 people, they got sick and two died. it becomes airborne happened there. was it contaminated surfaces? unlikely. was it large droplet? maybe it contributed but if i was a singer i would infect the people around me. you can't get people 50 people infected unless airborne is playing a role there. here is what tipped me off and caught my eye from doing for ensecond investigations.

the choir practice happened at 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. at night. you know what happens in buildings at that hour? they turn off the ventilation system. there's clear telltale signs there that airborne is happening. i don't understand the reluctant to acknowledge it. we need to acknowledge it if we are going to put in the appropriate controls get the pandemic under control before a vaccine. >> professor, on behalf of all of my viewers i will ask you the question. what do i do with that information? i thought i had to stay six feet apart, i thought i had to wear the mask and it was safer to go outside and have a bit of a summer. what do i do with this information that it could be lingering in the air around us? >> yes, so i totally understand that. this is not rocket science, how to put in these controls. first step is to recognize it is happening, then what we have to do is stay smart. here is an acronym for you, smart. stay home if you can, especially if sick. "m", mask when out. "a", avoid large groups and gatherings. "r", refresh the indoor air.

"t", ten feet is better than six. for droplets it is six feet, but the further you are away better. it is simple. stay smart. we can put in these controls. first step is to recognize this, and then i think we know what we can do and put it on ourselves and building owners and schools and everyone else to put in the appropriate controls. >> dr. boeser, mike barnacle is here. he has a question for you. mike. >> yes. doctor, willie just raised a question many people ask and one of many questions that seemingly are unanswerable about the virus. my question to you is we are on the verge of a political, cultural and economic question that has to be answered soon. it is about sending our children back to school, especially younger children, k-6 or whatever. how do we do this? how do we sit here knowing that our children are going off to school in late august or september and that there will be -- they will be safe?

how do we do this? >> you know, mike, this is a really challenging issue. we need to recognize that children do need to get back to school, that there are major costs in terms of their development, their education in not being in school for many children. there's nutrition, just not getting enough to eat by not being in school. it has to be based on the best public health science. there is information from other countries as children have been going back to school to understand what can be done, but it takes a national commitment. now with 100,000 people who have died, such a striking, overwhelming number, we have to recommit to doing the public health work, the steps of wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands, keeping people home when they're sick. you can imagine with schools, just like with businesses, doing some kind of screening. so a health questionnaire and a

temperature check when kids come to school. the biggest risk for school isn't to the kids because, thankfully, most children who get this will do well. i am a pediatrician and it helps me sleep at night knowing that. but teachers, staff, all of the people who work at schools, many lower income workers who are at schools, we need to make sure that they're protected, that they have the right protective equipment. that if they're not able to work at school they are still getting paid. so many people in america right now are having to make the choice between going to work in order to earn income to put food on the table or staying home and doing things to protect themselves and their community. as the economy revs up we have to make sure that isn't a bind so many people are put in. >> dr. boeser, we heard a bit of the interview with dr. fauci yesterday. also in that interview he began to say he's cautiously optimistic perhaps that the fall

may not be as bad as some had predicted. i guess what he said actually was that if we continue to behave responsibly it is not inevitable we have a bad fall as so many people have predicted. what can we do as a country as people begin to step back out of their homes after two months effectively in lockdown and start to enjoy the summer and go to beaches and step out and go to restaurants, how should people be thinking about their over behavior this summer to perhaps stem what many have predicted could be a bad fall again? >> yes, one of the reasons, willie, it is hard to predict what the fall is going to look like is so much is dependent on what we decide to do. we can't control whether the virus decides it is coming back strong as weather gets cold, but we can decide are we going to do those things for ourselves to ensure we are reducing our risk and our risk to others?

with rewearing maswe wearing mat those around us? are we going to take the steps to make sure everyone in america has that protection. we talked about it before, black americans, latino americans, native americans, dying at very high rates. why do we take that as acceptable? why aren't we ensuring that everyone has access to protective equipment, that people have money to stay home if they're sick and to take care of their family so they're not being forced into these situations? it is a decision we have to make. we put out these health equity principles to provide some guidance to states so they're working with the most affected communities, they're addressing these needs and barriers. we talk about testing and tracking, but the critical piece we don't spend enough time talking about is the quarantine and isolation. how do we ensure that everyone in america who is infected or has had contact with someone who is infected has a safe place to be so that they don't infect others? that's been the key in so many

countries, is when they identify someone who could spread it they take them out of circulation in a way that's supportive, that's culturally appropriate some they're safe. we're not doing that. we are saying, hey, you are infected, go home and don't infect other people. that's not something that so many people have the opportunity to do. >> it is a difficult to do on the scale of a country our size but it is a worthy goal. dr. richard boeser, thank you. dr. joseph allen, thank you as well. he is assistant professor at harvard school of health and his new piece is in "the washington post". gentlemen, thanks as always. in a half hour we are expecting a new record high in the number of people seeking jobless benefits in this country, possibly about 40 million. we will bring you the new report from the labor department as soon as it crosses. "morning joe" is back in one minute. ything. with benefiber, ything. you'll feel the power of gut health confidence every day. benefiber is a 100% natural prebiotic fiber. good morning mrs. johnson.

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the minimum number was 100,000 lives, and i think we will be substantially under that number. hard to believe that if you had 60,000 you could never be happy, but that's a lot fewer than we were originally told and thinking. so they said between 100,000 and 220,000 lives on the minimum side and up to 2.2 million lives if we didn't do anything. >> they had minimum numbers of 100,000. i think we are going to beat that. 100,000 deaths, that was a minimum. if we didn't practice what we practiced and if we did it a different way, i guess we had a maximum of 2.2 million people. who knows even if that's right. >> we would have had i think millions of people die had we done it a different way. i think numbers are just coming

out where they're estimated 60,000 people will die. >> we would have had millions of deaths, instead it looks like we will be about 60,000 mark, which is 40,000 less than the lowest number thought of. >> one is too many but we're going towards 50,000 or 60,000 people. that's at the lower -- as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. we could end up at 50,000 to 60,000. >> i think we've done a great job. as you know, minimal numbers were -- minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people. minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people, and we're going to be hopefully far below that. >> that's one of the -- if you call losing 80,000 or 90,000 people successful, but it is one of the reasons we're not at the high end of the plane as opposed to the low end. >> that number has changed. >> it is going up. >> you said 60, 70 -- >> i used to say 65,000, and now i'm saying 80,000 or 90,000 and it goes up and it goes up

rapidly. it is still going to be, no matter how you look at it, at the lower end of the plane if we did the shutdown. >> it is thursday, may 28th, and the united states has now surpassed 100,000 deaths from coronavirus. along with joe, willie and me, we have nbc national affairs analyst, co-host of show time's "the circus" and editor-in-chief of "the recount" john heilemann. >> you know, willie, from the very start what we had suggested here was that not just this president but every leader across the world look at this medical crisis and do what winston churchill did in 1940. he prepared the british people for the worst. he wasn't talking about appeasement with germany. he wasn't talking about how it was going to be an easy ride. he even told members of the parliament that they may be lying on the ground choking in their own blood when the nazi's came to britain, but they would fight and they would fight this

enemy hard, and laid it out for them how bleak the future could be if they didn't do the right things. that's what leaders do. from the very start, this has been a president who has engaged in wishful thinking, in dangerous thinking, saying it is in january just one person coming in from china. in late february, even a month after his trade rep navarro said 500,000 souls could die in america because they weren't prepared. in late february the president is still saying it was 15 people and it was soon going to be down to zero. in march he said, told reporters he wasn't concerned about it at all. he told african-american leaders it was going to magically go away in march. he continued this. and then when actually the truth hit him in the face, then he

started saying, oh, it is only going to be 50,000. it is only going to be 60,000. we're lucky it is only -- well, here we are at 100,000, and despite the fact the president is now saying that this will not come back in the fall, every medical expert that has studied this says, yes, it is going to come back in the fall, and "the washington post" article this morning says it may be with us for years. we have to learn how to live with this. >> yeah. americans never got that churchillian speech from president trump giving hard truths about what it was going to look like. as we think this morning about 100,000 death, think just three months back in late february. we were all still in our offices, our kids were all still in school. >> gosh. >> bars and restaurants still were open. we had no sense, we americans really, how bad this could get but the president did. he was told, as you pointed out by his intel agencies, he was

warned by peter navarro in a memo, two memos actually. he knew. he knew how bad this could be and now he is shifting the goalpost. he said two days ago the deaths were projected to be a million and a half or 2 million. when, that was in a worst case scenario if we did no in. soy he so he is moving the goalt of framing 100,000 americans dying over the course of three months as a victory, as a job well done. a great success story as jared kushner put it a few weeks ago by the federal government in the handling of the crisis. this is a warning to stop and think 100,000 americans, not through the fault of president trump, through the fault of a disease, are dead, but that number certainly could have been lower. >> willie, as you pointed out the united states went from one death to 100,000 in just a few months time. with what "usa today" called the fastest killer in u.s. history.

while the pace of deaths has slowed, the united states leads the world by far. more than double the number of deaths than the uk, which is ranked number two. president trump did not take questions from reporters in the hours after the milestone, but the white house did release a statement through a deputy press secretary saying the president's prayers are with those who are grieving. as "the washington post" notes, president trump has spent his life enthralled to numbers, his welt, his ratings, his polls. even during the deadly coronavirus pandemic he has remained fixated on certain metrics, favoring rosie projections and obsessing over the. >> translator: rating stock market. as the nation reached a bleak milestone this week, 100,000 americans dead from the novel coronavirus trump has been uncharacteristically silent. the closest the president came

to addressing the death toll was a tweet from tuesday. it reads in part, for all of the political hacks out there, if i hadn't done my job well and early we would have lost 1.5 to 2 million people as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number. >> well, of course, john heilemann, he didn't do his job. >> no. >> he only talks about a toothless ban from china which, of course, you know, 430,000 people got in from china from the beginning of this pandemic. 40,000 got in from the -- to america from china even after he put in place his toothless pandemic. but you do, you want to look at the numbers and look closely at the numbers now that the president doesn't want anybody to look at. we are 4.3% of the world's population and we have close to 30% of the world's deaths.

think about that. despite the fact that since 1950 the united states has won, its scientists have won half of the nobel prizes awarded for science since that time. we dominate in science and technology and medical technology, and yet we were woefully ill-prepared for this, woefully ill-equipped. that, of course, started with donald trump. >> yeah. joe, i think it started, you know, well before this year, well before the brutal period of january and february and into march, those first two-and-a-half months where the president engaged in happy talk and ignored warning, all of those things. we have read in-depth reporting on that in real-time by newspapers like "the new york times", "the washington post".

we will read books about it some day that will be more vivid. we have seen the e-mail traffic. we know how much the president was asleep at the switch in that period, but you go back further into it. you go back into the period in the administration when the president eliminated the office that was supposed to be focused on pandemic preparedness, just cut it out of the administration. so left our guard down even long before this thing was on the horizon. i think all of that is powerful and i think it is -- you know, you think about the phases of this year that we discussed on the show so many times. we started with the period of down playing. we went from down playing to blame shiftic, ang and then we to goalpost shifting, pushing the goalpost. now it is just subject changing. the president doesn't want to talk about it anymore. on a day when we reach this grim milestone and where joe biden was out addressing the country as if he were president of the united states, talking about what it means that we lost

100,000 souls to this disease and try to be honest with the american people, what a normal president would do, donald trump has a deputy press secretary put a statement out and pretends like we're not even here. so i mean this is, i think, the political cost for the president will be great and the shame around this is even greater. >> well, john, you bring up a very good point. he didn't talk about this. he was silent about this. but, of course, he has known since this "new york times" article was coming, he has known that the 100,000 mark, death milestone was coming. he has done whatever he could do to include something i know about very well, hurt a family in florida because he just wants to distract. he wants to have fight with cable news host. he wants to have fight with twitter. he wants the press to follow those fights. you wants to talk about that

because he doesn't want us talking about the fact that back on january 22nd he told cnbc while he was in davos that he wasn't worried at all, that this was just one person coming in from china and it would be fine. a month later he said it was 15 people, but it would soon be down to zero. john, one warning after another from the state department, from the pentagon, from the intel community. he got all of these warning and doesn't want people to talk about that. he wants them to talk about how vial his tweets are or how dangerous his fights with twitter is. he wants that to consume the top of every hour on cable news instead of this 100,000 person mark. 100,000 americans, john, dead. >> history, joe, will record

that, you know, "the new york times" ran that piece that said 100,000 was upon us over the weekend. as you point out, you know, this is not a partisan thing. there's no president that in my lifetime, in your lifetime in the same situation as donald trump who seeing that 100,000 milestone coming, knowing it was going to come either on last sunday, monday or tuesday or whenever it was going to come and would not have sat with his speech writers, again, republican or democratic, barack obama, george w. bush, george herbert walker bush, bill clinton, take your pick. they would have been sitting with speech writers for days, preparing a mournful, honest, grieving speech to the country they would have given. a remark somewhere. not necessarily an oval office address but they would have made public remarks to acknowledge this milestone had been hit because there are 100,000 families who lost someone in the course of the months. forget about who is to blame and

who has responsibility, just the country has gone through this awesome tragedy and trauma and every other president in our lifetime, democrat or republican, would have said this is a moment i have to meet, i have to acknowledge. i have to put aside my culpability in this, i just have to speak to this as the national hearer, the mourner in chief, the role is president typically has. donald trump had a press secretary put out a paper yesterday. that's what he did. there are many indications of president trump's absolute unfitness for office but it is one in a long list. it may be the most bracing and sad as we sit here right now and say, my god, he's going to pretend like this didn't happen. up next, we will show you how joe biden responded to the 100,000 death toll mark. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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dead americans. for contrast, here is how joe biden is handling it. >> my fellow americans, there are moments in our history so grim, so hard rending that they're forever fixed in each of our hearts, a shared grief. today is one of those moments. 100,000 lives have now been lost to this virus here in the united states alone. each one leaving behind a family that will never again be whole. i think i know what you are feeling. you feel like you're being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your chest. it is suffocating. your heart is broken. there is nothing but a feeling of emptiness right now. for most of you, you were unable to be there when you lost your beloved family member or best friend. for most of you, you weren't able to be there when they died

alone. with the pain, the anger and the frustration you will wonder whether or not you will ever be able to get anywhere from here. it is made all the worse by knowing that this is a fateful milestone we should have never reached, which could have been avoided according to a study done by columbia university. if the administration had acted one week earlier to implement social distancing and do what it had to do, just one week sooner, as many as 36,000 of these deaths might have been averted. to all of you who are hurting so badly, i'm so sorry for your loss. i know there's nothing i or anyone else can say or do to dull the sharpness of the pain you feel right now, but i can promise you from experience the day will come when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes.

my prayer for all of you is that day will come sooner rather than later, but i promise you it will come. and when it does, you know you can make it. god bless each and every one of you and the blessed memory of the one you lost. this nation grieves with you. take some solace from the fact we all grieve with you. >> and that is what bobby kennedy in quoting a greek poet called the awful grace of god, that joe biden was given the awful grace of god through the unthinkable loss of his wife and daughter and then, of course, his son. i think i know how you're feeling, joe biden said, and you

weren't even able to be there when your loved ones died. i am so sorry for your loss. i can feel your pain. then he makes that promise, willie, that i've heard joe biden make to gold star families. >> yeah. >> and that is that -- he said, i promise you that the day will come when their memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. i pray that that day will come sooner rather than later. listen, campaigns are about contrast, as i say all the time, as people who taught me how to campaign back when i was in my 20s. constantly said it was about contrasts. this campaign is going to be a contrast between a man with empathy and a man with no empathy. americans -- americans can clearly see that.

there will be some americans that will say, well, at this time we don't need a leader who is a good person, we don't need a leader with empathy. we need somebody who is tough. in fact, that's what the trump campaign has been, that's a message they've been sending out. now may not be the time to have a good person in the white house. now you may just need somebody who is tough and cruel. but if you want a president who is empathetic, obviously that's exhibit 1 that joe biden fits that bill. >> yeah. boy, that's a different definition of tough than i was raised to believe, going after a widower, for example, who is begging for mercy. >> oh. >> yeah. >> separating families at the border. >> nothing tough about it. >> no. but we've talked many times about how the president just doesn't have the empathy gene. that's not a political statement, that's just who he

is. we've known him for a long time. he's not good at consoling people. he can't rise to these moments of comfort. john heilemann, through some of the struggles that joe biden has had and that the trump campaign has tried to seize on in terms of his performance, i think most political observers would agree and have agreed for a long time that he's never better than in these moments where the country needs a hug effectively, a national hug, because he does know that pain all too well. >> right. i mean, look, i don't mean to be glib about it but, you know, empathy is joe biden's superpower, right. it is the thing -- i think in this campaign, the best moments that joe biden had when he was running for the democratic nomination, there was a moment in south carolina, there were a couple of earlier moments in town hall meetings, televised town hall meetings where he expressed that empathy you just heard in the prepared remarks, the remarks from yesterday where he expressed that and related

to -- talked to someone who had lost a wife at emanuel ame in charleston, for instance, and connected with people on a human level and expressed that sense of empathy and sympathy both. that is joe biden's superpower. to joe's point, it is the central contrast in this campaign and we will see it over and over again. i remember back in the middle of march, right, when the pandemic was upon us but hadn't fully exploded and donald trump did his oval office address the same night tom hanks announced he had coronavirus, the name night the nba shut down. it was a key moment in the evolution of the story. joe biden did an event the next day in delaware that i went to and stood up and said here was the contrast. this was donald trump behind the resolute desk in the oval office and here is me. now we are two-and-a-half months later, 100,000 people are dead. we see the contrast between

donald trump attacking twitter, trying to distract, trying to do all of the crazy stuff he has done -- and vial stuff he has done the past few days rather than addressing the thing head on and then you give joe biden giving that speech. joe biden is not a perfect candidate, he is not, but this contrast is a contrast that works powerfully to his advantage in a time of economic hardship, in the time of a pandemic. my gut is and the polling suggests right now that the american people are looking for an american leader who has empathy, he will try to rebuild the economy in a way that works for them. that's the seam that the biden campaign is going to drive into. joe is right. the trump campaign has new advertising up right now just this week that basically says, we are not for empathy, we are not for humanity, donald trump is a jerk. you know he's a jerk, we know he's a jerk, but his jerkiness, his nasty qualities are what is needed to rebuild the economy.

that's the contrast that will be on display for the next six months and we'll see what the american people think come november. still ahead on "morning joe," a new kind of tax credit is drawing bipartisan interest. we will talk to one of the lawmakers behind that idea just ahead on "morning joe."

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joining us now, senior white house reporter for nbc news digital, shannon pettypiece. she is here with her latest reporting entitled "trump finds himself playing campaign defense with core elements of his base." shannon, obviously we've been reporting on trump losing among seniors. are there other groups that are losing confidence? >> yes, there absolutely are, mika. there are some of these groups that republican strategists really thought the president would have in the bag at this point going into this key crucial summertime period. for example, take college-educated -- i'm sorry, non-college-educated white males. it was a key group to his victory. he got a record margin of any republican running for president of their vote. the latest poll numbers show him around 64% in that group. he is not losing them but he lost ground there. it is a similar thing among

evangelical voters. it was a group he won by 80% or so in 2016. he still has a commanding lead there, but it is narrowed. it is now around 70% according to a fox poll that came out just last week. of course, you mentioned a similar thing for seniors. so it is not just him being down in these groups where he's always been weak like suburban women or college-educated voters, it is also the groups that make up his base which is what is really putting pressure on his campaign going into the summer where a lot of people traditionally make up their mind about who they're going to vote for come november. >> yeah. you know, john heilemann, you look at these numbers that shannon talked about, he's down 10 points or so for non-college educated white males. we started noticing last year that the president was losing support from non-college educated white females. of course, though, you look at -- i mean let's get really

specific. the philly suburbs, the president can expect to be trounced there if the last three years of elections are any indication. you look at the i-4 corridor in florida. you go up to areas like mccomb county in michigan. i mean michigan is falling further and further out of their grasp. so the question is if you're in the trump -- if you're on the trump campaign team, you know, what do you do right now? do you just sit and ride this out? because the attacks against joe biden aren't working. do you just wait and hope that the economy turns around? >> yeah. well, so a couple of things here, joe. first, you know, you and i have been talking in the last week or two about where the trump campaign is advertising, right, because my view about when you are covering campaigns, don't pay attention to what the campaign is saying, pay attention what they're doing. where are they sending the

candidate and spending money. we know trump has been to arizona, he has been to michigan, he has been to pennsylvania. even in the middle of the pandemic he ventured into those three states but not doing a full-scale travel schedule. he went down to florida yesterday, obviously another battleground state. that's important. where are they on the air? we talked previously about the fact that they're on the air in all six of the core battleground states, right? michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, north carolina, florida and arizona, those are the six states donald trump won by the narrowest margin in 2016. all of those states he's advertising in. none of those states -- those are all states he won last time, right? previously he also was on the air in iowa, which is a state he won by nine points in 2016. so he feels like he needs to defend himself in iowa. so the new trump ad buys going up next week, joe, you know what list they add to the list right there? >> what state? >> ohio, another state donald trump won by seven or eight points in 2016. every state they're advertising in right now is a defense state.

they're not up on the air in minnesota, new hampshire, nevada, new mexico, none of those states he lost narrowly in 2016 that they said they would try to compete in and take away from democrats. he's not on the air in any of those states. he's on the air in eight states he won in 2016. still ahead, a new report on jobless claims is due out moments from now. how bad will it be? we will bring you the numbers as soon as they cross. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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♪ and we're back with breaking economic news. the u.s. labor department says that another 2.1 million americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, right in line with expectations. that brings the ten-week total since the pandemic began to nearly 41 million. this just in. the wash post "the washington post" is reporting that officials at the white house decided not to release updated economic projections this summer. that according to three people with knowledge of the decision. normally the administration unveils a federal budget proposal each february followed by mid session review in july or

august that includes updated projections on trends including unemployment, economic growth and inflation. budget experts told the post they are not aware of any previous white house choosing not to provide such forecast since at least the 1970s. "the post" reports two white house officials confirm the decision had been made not to include the economic projections as part of the mid-session release. the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said that the novel coronavirus is causing extreme volatility in the u.s. economy, making it difficult to model economic trends. the document is instead slated to be published just a few months before the november elections. >> so, willie, obviously more bad numbers. we can only hope that this is going to be the last batch of bad numbers to this degree as

the nation slowly but surely begins reopening, and perhaps working class americans, middle class americans, small business owners will all feel a sense of relief as we move into those summer months. >> yeah, another thursday at 8:30 eastern time and another devastating employment number. 2.1 million americans this time have filed for unemployment claims. we've got 40.7 million in just the last ten weeks. the peak was at 6.9 million. remember that one week at the end of march. you just can't overstate how bad this is, how devastating this is, how bad it continues to be. the published unemployment rate is 14.7%, but these numbers alone, 40.7 million, it is much higher than that. it is in the 20s and we may see that when the monthly number comes out next week. so this is, joe, a devastating

number. we are talking about the loss of 100,000 lives, but this is part of the national loss as well, as much so, of people losing their livelihoods, not able to feed their families, relying on food pantries, wondering what the future looks like, wonder if they will have another job as the people are competing for the same limited number of jobs. 2.1 million fellow americans filing for unemployment, nearly 41 million in the last ten weeks. >> so when you look at the two headlines this morning, the two big headlines this morning, one of them is in "the washington post" talking about crossing that 100,000 person death toll from the coronavirus, but this is the other, and that is continued pain and hardship for working americans and for americans thrown out of work. mika, you look at the other headline from "the washington post" this morning, talking about how the coronavirus is going to be with us for quite

sometime, for a long time. you just go back to what was said on this show several weeks ago, and that is that it is going to be with us for a long time but we have to learn how to live with it. that's why reopening the economy is so important, because of the pain and the agony so many americans are going through right now, but it has to be done safely so they're not going to be risking their lives or the lives of senior citizens or the lives of others in their families that have underlying medical conditions. we do have to reopen, but we have to do it in a wise, safe way. >> these staggering numbers also tell us and show us as we look at leadership, as we move into the future what can happen when leadership doesn't work, when it is not strong. there are many who believe this economic and human carnage, to use the president's word from

his inaugural, could have been prevented or at least lessened. we are here now because the response was not strong and it was not immediate. >> well, and the thing now is though we have to move forward. >> right. >> we have to be strong. we have to reopen the economy and we have to do two things at once. we have to reopen the economy safely and we have to prepare for the fall because dr. fauci and the other doctors -- >> yeah. >> -- have all predicted that this fall, this winter, the flu season could be even worse. we have no choice. americans are suffering economically, they're suffering as far as their health goes. we have to learn -- >> horrendous. >> -- how to do two things at once. >> joining us democratic congresswoman susan delbeny of washington. she created a jobs bill which is the central paycheck protection component of the heroes act. she is here now. thank you for joining us.

how will this bill help americans get through this? >> well, first of all let me say thank you to all of you for recognizing the over 100,000 lives that have been lost across our country, almost 1,100 in my state of washington. these are our friends and our family, our loved ones. we all grieve for them. you are also right in that we have done -- we need to do more to make sure that families who are struggling economically can get by, and one of the key components is to make sure that we keep people connected to their jobs, getting a paycheck and receiving benefits. so a key part of the heroes act, based on legislation that myself and stephanie murphy from florida, introduced would be to expand the employee retention tax credit. it is a tax credit that was put in place in the c.a.r.e.s. act in a small way to help cover payroll. we expand it so it would run from march -- so you could look

backwards -- through the end of the calendar year and would help cover up to 80% of qualified wages so that a small business would have their payroll covered. you could also get money for overhead to make sure that they're able to keep their employees in their jobs, getting a paycheck, on benefits and reduce unemployment. >> willie. >> congresswoman, it is willie geist. thanks for being on this morning. this obviously will be welcome news to small business owners. who exactly would qualify for this? there was some trouble as you know with the first round of ppp of the small business getting the money to survive. who do they go about it and who qualifies. >> this is any business that suffered greater than 10% revenue loss from the previous year would qualify, 1500 employees or less. it is separate from the paycheck

protection program, the ppp loan program. it is a tax credit, advanced refundable tax credit. the way it works is directly with the irs. you would be able to claim your qualified wages up to $15,000 per employee per quarter. then you would be eligible to an 80% tax credit from that. the elegant way we made it work -- and i used to run the department of revenue for the state of washington, so i know putting programs in place is hard. it is more than just the legislation. we work so that you would -- through the irs a business would not have to pay their payroll taxes or certain withholding. they would basically be able to keep that money based on the credit they would receive. instead of writing a check to the irs and then the irs sending you money back, you would be able to keep those dollars in place and keep that credit. so it would be able to get up and running quickly, no middle man and help businesses right away.

>> congresswoman, looking at the latest jobless claims, 2.1 million filed last week, bringing the total over ten weeks to 41 million, what are your concerns specific to your constituents in the weeks and months to come? >> well, i have many concerns. you know, one is testing and making sure we are able to get testing and contact tracing up to the level where as we start to reopen we can make sure there are no further spikes. in washington state we've done a great job of bending the curve and we're just starting to do a phased reopening, but testing and contact tracing will be critical to that. we need to make sure that we help our communities, help folks get back on their feet. one thing about the employee retention tax credit is because it runs through the end of the year it gives that certainty to businesses and to their employees so that they know that program is available and those resources are available even as they start to reopen because we know it is going to take time. so making sure we are doing the

public health side of contact tracing and testing is very, very important, making sure we are doing the other side of providing the economic resources including not only employee retention tax credit but all of the things in the hero's act, support for state and local government. we know that the more we do now, we help prevent this crisis from becoming even worse economically and we help the recovery happen faster. it is very important that we move legislation through to help our communities. >> congresswoman susan delbeny, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. still ahead, our next guest says the white house has failed to lead by example so now it is up to state leaders to issue mandates for face masks. dr. ben gupta is next on "morning joe." this note before we go to break. today right after the show, cnbc contributor and best-selling author joanne litman joins me on "know your values" instagram page to discuss the impact of

covid-19 on women and how to use the comeback career strategy to keep moving forward. also today, msnbc anchor yasmin have suingan is back on "know your values" and still yasmin n is back on "know your business." underscore know your value on instagram. we'll be right back. you wouldn't do only half of your daily routine, so why treat your mouth any differently? complete the job with listerine® help prevent plaque, early gum disease, bad breath and kill up to 99.9% of germs. listerine® bring out the bold™ in the 2020 census guyisn't complicated.o counts everyone living in your home on april 1st counts. my aunt and uncle who live with us, count. my best friend who sleeps over every friday night, doesn't count. (laughs) my new baby sister, she counts. my mom's best friend, who's been living with us, she counts. the dog, mr. bebe, should count,

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morning, even if a vaccine is developed, the coronavirus may never fully go away. covid-19 is now being equated to an endemic. a disease that sticks around despite its efforts to knock it out like hiv, chicken pox and measles. but the longevity of the coronavirus does not mean that exposure will always be dangerous. there are already four endemic coronavirus that circulate continuously which cause the common cold. many experts believe this strain can become the fifth. regardless, experts in epidemiology, disaster planning and vaccine development say embracing this new reality is crucial to the next phase of the pandemic response. joining us now is dr. vin gupta, a pull monologist who has treated critically ill coronavirus patients in washington state. he's also an nbc news medical

contributor. his new op-ed "think" "governors must insist on mandatory masks now." >> doctor, thank you for being with us. looking at the headline of "the washington post" talking about how the coronavirus will be with us for quite some time, it's something we've heard for a while but that politicians don't really want to talk about a good bit. and most americans have believed, oh, we have to get through three or four months and we're on the clear. obviously, that's not the case. the next step is, how do we reopen and how do we learn to live with this in the safest way possible knowing that infections are going to happen? how do we do that? >> joe, thanks for the question and thanks for having me back. i want to emphasize mika's point. the response was not strong. we can't compound that with continued weakness and continued weak policies. and that's what you're seeing on simple things, joe, to restart the economy safely. we all want to restart the economy. i couldn't agree with you more. that's why i wrote the op-ed and

i've been messaging on this piece on masks. it's the one thing right now, given the current administration's weakness on testing, broader weakness on just public health messaging, it's the one thing we definitely know now we didn't know eight weeks ago that can allow us to re-engage in the workplace, get on the subway, potentially get our children back to school and mitigate transmission of covid-19 potentially 12fold. there's a reason japan and hong kong, that are mask-wearing societies in public, barely have any transmission. and what we know now if you want to go and dine into a restaurant, just the simple act of being next to other people, normal speak, can transmit droplets. normal speak. that could carry covid-19 up to ten feet and they can linger. those droplets around you for about 15 minutes. i mean, this is around us. it's coming for all of us, unless we mitigate and take common sense measures.

and here's the thing. a lot of -- it only takes one or two people of every 10 to say i'm not going to wear a mask. i know better. that's why we need strength here. it might seem like it's overbearing but it's the right thing to do to get our economy going. >> dr. gupta, it's willie geist. good to see you this morning. it does appear in polling, first of all, but also anecdotally a vast majority of americans understand what you're saying now when you have fox news hosts talking about it because they know they're talking to the president, talking about the importance of wearing a mask when you have the president's own family yesterday at cape canaveral all wearing masks. you have mitch mcconnell giving a speech in kentucky yesterday about the importance of wearing a mask. your message has appeared to have gotten through. so are we talking here in your recommendation about passing a law that mandates it or just that governors say, hey, businesses, if you want people inside your stores or you want people inside your restaurants, you must have a mask? >> i think we need a law,

willie. and the fact is, we passed laws for banning indoor smoking because we know exposure to second-hand smoke is detrimental to your health. you can't just rely on recommendations, unfortunately. behaviors are behaviors. human beings are peculiar. and a lot tend to be cynical. and i understand why people don't want to wear masks. i don't want to wear a mask if i can avoid it. i'm sure you don't want to wear a mask if you can avoid it. it's frightening to children. now is the time for urgency. we do not have time to assure all americans along on this policy. we have to be strong. and that's why i think what really got to me was the security guard in michigan at the family dollar store who was trying to require somebody to wear a mask before entering that store and he got shot and killed. and there's been other stories similar. violence in a target store in los angeles. other similar stories. we can't have this. we need to hold the line and that's why we need strength here. just the symbolism of that type of policy will keep infection

control at the top of mind at a time when the cdc is saying, by the way, you don't have to worry about cleaning your workspace anymore. that's not the type of message we need from our public health institutions. we need infection control at the top of mind. keep cleaning your workplace right now because that act is going to help us realize we're battling this for the foreseeable future. >> dr. vin gupta, thank you so much for being on the show this morning and spreading that message. joe, final thoughts in our final 30 seconds this morning? >> i just want to follow up. people need to understand that masks -- there's nothing political about it. >> gosh, no. >> if you listen -- again, even to the president's fiercest defender sean hannity. mitch mcconnell. it's the right thing to do. and a guy getting shot for wearing a mask? you know, johnny cash's daurk daughter, i was talking on instagram live yesterday and he told a story about how johnny cash's daughter got abused,

yelled at and abused for wearing a mask inside a store. >> yep. >> yeah, roseanne cash, i read that, too. her daughter got yelled at for wearing a mask. but if we want to stop the death, 100,000 of them if we want to go back to work, 40.7 million people unemployed over the last ten weeks, wearing a mask is a good start as dr. gupta says. >> that does it for us. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's thursday, may 28th, and here are the facts at this important hour. this morning, the number of americans who have died from coronavirus has passed 100,000. what does that number look like? it could fill the rose bowl in pasade pasadena. 100,000 people gone in less than 100 days. in addition to the toll our physical health, there's also the massive toll on our economic health. this mornin