i will note according to the report last night a fund-raiser with senator elizabeth warren, she raised $6 million for biden. so he's bringing in the heavy hitters and obama is a warning shot to trump that this is what biden is going to do to raise money and compete with trump on an even level, or as close to even as he can, money wise. >> and, of course, senator elizabeth warren possible vp pick. alexi thank you. i'll be reading axios in a little bit you can sign up at axios.com. that does it for me this morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. again our testing is so far advanced it's bigger and better than any other country that we're always going to have more cases. as i said this morning that's probably the down side of having good testing you find cases that other countries that don't test

don't have. if we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any. >> i'm sorry. >> if you don't test, you don't have any cases. >> we tried to explain this before. >> what does he mean cases like officially, because people still have it. >> and they're dieiying of it. that's the remarkable thing. >> that's incredible. >> the united states has 115,000 people who have died -- >> 117. >> 117,000 people who have died of coronavirus. and donald trump keeps saying that if we don't test for the coronavirus -- >> let's just stop testing. >> -- then it will magically go away. we won't have any more cases. actually, testing for the coronavirus does not kill people. that's just like saying, you

know, pregnancies are -- pregnancies would be driven down to zero if we stopped having pregnancy tests. so we have brought along willie geist to explain what the president of the united states was trying to mean yesterday. willie, please explain it for us. >> well, i think he meant exactly what he said, and how do we know this? he said it before. he just showed yesterday what he said a month ago, in the middle of may, he made this almost identical comment that we thought was a slip of the tongue or misunderstanding, he means what had he says. he's frustrated because 2 million cases with 117,000 deaths, he just means we're testing a lot. and if we would just stop that testing we wouldn't have the alarm over the number of cases. i can't explain it any further than that except to say when you say it twice, i think it means you believe it. >> and mike pence told governors

yesterday to lie to their people and say that the coronavirus cases were going up because testing is going up. the fact is the percentage of the coronavirus tests are going up higher -- the coronavirus cases are going up higher at a higher percentage than the increase in coronavirus testing. listen, there are reports that restaurants are opening up and shutting back down. there are reports that in red state america there is some people that are beginning to get very worried about these coronavirus cases spiking. we're going to have the spikes, we just are. we can't keep the economy shutdown forever. we are going to have these spikes. and it's going to be difficult. there's going to be a lot of stopping and starting, especially if we're being reckless about it as a country. i don't think we will. i think some people are being reckless about it. but this is going to happen. we're going to have to sort our way through it.

and as we have suggested to the white house from the very beginning, it is far better to tell the truth to the american people, while we're going through this process because they will be able to handle the truth. the magical thinking is what has gotten donald trump in trouble from the very beginning. >> time and time again. >> time and again. tell the people the truth. say, this is going to be tough. we're going to have spikes as we reopen this economy. there are people that are going to get sick. and unfortunately there are people who are going to die. as we get to the fall we're going to have ann even greater challenge if history is any guide. and we're going to have to go through all of this together as a nation, but we can do it. we can keep the economy open, still social distance, still wear our masks, still protect people but we're going to have to do this as a countries. not the magical thinking not

that this is going away in the fall and not coming back. not saying our cases are rising because our testing is rising. >> the magical thinking begins and ends with the president. the american people see it in the numbers of people that are falling ill and dieing. it'll be so interesting at his rally where they're going to be handing out hand sanitizer, they're going to be providing masks. they've had people sign disclaimers. there's a real sort of confrontation between trump's bravado when he thinks he's macho and doesn't wear a mask and the people he's going to be speaking to. most of whom should be wearing mask at the least. >> not most. >> and most of them probably shouldn't be there. >> not most. all should be wearing masks. >> unless you have the antibodies, i guess. >> no. no. everybody should be wearing masks if they're inside an arena. >> absolutely. >> and even people outside

marching, if you're marching and you're not wearing a mask, you're putting the lives of your parents, grandparents and people in your family with underlying conditions at risk. so everybody should be wearing a mask if they're out among crowds. republicans or democrats, independents, marxist, anarchists, libertarians. it doesn't matter. if you're out in a crowd, please protect yourself, protect ourselves, your family members wear a mask. >> along with willie, joe and me, we have msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. historian and author, john meacham is with us. he's an nbc news and msnbc contributor. >> john meacham, it was one of those june days where the supreme court makes an announcement --

>> so big. >> -- and republicans and conservatives wring their hands and say what have we done? what have we done? we have had a republican president appoint another supreme court justice that has afforded the cause -- and all of a sudden this refrain, but the courts. he's a man who doesn't share any of our values. he's a man whose very life undermines everything we try to teach our children. he is cruel, he is ignorant -- go down the list. >> the list is so long. >> of all the terrible things donald trump is, they do, but the courts. and what they woke up to this morning reading the papers was the fact that a trump appointed judge just handed one of the

largest cultural wars victory -- culture war victories to liberals. and handed them one of the biggest culture war defeats over the past 50 years. >> the glib way of talking about this is they sold their soul and the check has bounced. so that's the clever way to talk about it for a second. the serious way to talk about it is, the system, by and large, worked here. and i think that justice gorsuch should be sprazpraised for this. obviously i would because i agree with the decision. but i think that ultimately the force behind the obsession and really the exultation of the supreme court over the sermon on

the mound which is what's happened with the religious right in the country begins on may 17, with the grown decision, through the decision in 52 and roe versus wade in '73 and the energy behind the obsession with the supreme court and the federal bench has always been a guiding principle for the right and they have always believed, as you alluded to, that eisenhower had stabbed them in the back with warren. that nixon stabbed them in the back three times out of four. they give him rehnquist. but the other three justices that nixon appointed they don't. ford gave them, of all people, john paul stevens, george h.w. bush gave them david suitor. basically they were never going to be fooled again. and that's a large part of why

that part of the electorate has done what it's done with donald trump. and yet, and yet which is the key phrase of american history, and yet the right decision was made. >>, you kno you know, willie, t this belief among political actors on the left and the right, that you can get somebody appointed to the supreme court and they can be taught to -- like you teach a dog to sit and do tricks and roll over, that you somehow can control a justice and ensure that that justice is going to stick blindly, follow blindly one ideological viewpoint or another. it always ends up being more complicated than that, at least for justices who are being intellectually honest.

and most of these justices are being and intellectually honest. and justice gorsuch had a different view than say scalia, but they would have had to debate, had a good conversation and agreed to disagree. it's far more nuanced -- these decisions are far more nuanced than outside agitators and people who make money raising money off of dividing americans over supreme court decisions. it's far more complicated than people on both extremes like to make it. . >> yeah, turns out they're judges and not politicians. and a supreme court justice believes his or her appointment is there to protect the constitution, uphold the law, analyze the law and not to do favors for the president or the political party that hut him or her where he or she is. and yesterday judge gorsuch did

just that. it was a 6-3 decision, joined by chief justice roberts, another conservative. so 6 to 3 decision. i'm sure donald trump is not pleased with the decision given that's his judge but gorsuch said an employer who fires someone on the basis of being gay or transgender defies the law, period. i'm looking at the law, looking at title 7 of the 1964 act and that act defies the law according to judge governrsuchg. we have some breaking news this morning. south korea says north korea has blown up an interliaison building. north korea had threatened to demolish the office as it stepped up rhetoric over south korea not stopping propaganda flying over the border. this shows the moment the

bombing took place. it comes as the united states and north korea remains deadlocked on nuclear diplomacy. joining us senior international correspondent kier simmons. so what exactly happened here? >> reporter: willie, this is symbolic and also i think potentially serious, not least for president trump as he heads towards the election in november. this inter-korean liaison office was set up in 2018 amid much fanfare. it was a symbol of peace now it's been reduced to rubble. there is the north korean, the threat to do this was made by kim jong-un's sister. and i think it's a sign of the tension inside north korea. for example, coronavirus, they've had to close their borders. that will have had real impact economic impacts.

they're angry about balloons being sent across the border from the south with news from south korea and dollar bills in them. but i think more broadly there is deep frustration in north korea in pyongyang about the stalemate with president trump and with president moon of south korea. i think you have to remember how much kim jong-un invested in that relationship and in those talks and there hasn't been progress now for some time. so, you know, i think in the months to come, what's being threatened is the classic escalation by north korea to get attention. willie. >> we should point out there was nobody in the building, it was closed at the time of the explosion. been closed because of coronavirus for several months. kier simmons. thank you very much.

president trump says he will sign an executive order on police reform later today. he claims it will be, quote, very comprehensive. so far we know it's expected to include databases that track police officers will multiple instances of misconduct. as well as language that encourages departments to involve mental health professionals when dealing with issues of homelessness, addiction and mental health. we're told language that acknowledges systemic racism in policing will also be included in the order. meanwhile, three republican senators tell the hill that majority leader mitch mcconnell wants to vote on police reform before the july 4th recess. senator tim scott of south carolina is working on that proposal. now to the anger and unrest in atlanta following the officer involved shooting death of rayshad brooks. thousands of protesters

peacefully marched to georgia state capitol yesterday demanding new laws. the mayor of atlanta announced a is series of reforms following the shooting of rayshad brooks. among the changes, officers will have to use deescalation techniques before employing deadly force. officers will be duty bound to interseed when they see other officers engaging in unlawful force. in announcing the reforms, the mayor stressed the importance that every member of the community be treated with dignity and respect. >> it's clear that we do not have another day, another minute, another hour to waste. we saw the worst happen on friday night with mr. brooks. it angered me and it saddened me beyond words. but i know that it is my

responsibility, as mayor of this great city, for us to continue to work to put that anger and that sadness into action. >> gene, i stated outright yesterday on the show that there are a lot of times i just don't put myself in the position of a cop and second guess him when he is in a dangerous situation and he's trying to figure out how he keeps people around him safe. how he keeps himself safe, how he gets home to his family at night. the same thing with soldiers and sailors and marines in war zones. we are fools when we try to put ourselves into their place and try to second guess if, for instance, if this had happened inside a closed building and somebody had come around a dark corner and had something, a taser that looked like a gun, and they were charging at the

police officer, i'm sorry i'll say it, who are we to judge, you think you can do a better job -- not you, but somebody thinks they can do a better job, be a cop. in this case the guy they were talking to for about 30 minutes, he was inebriated, he was tired, lethargic. he fought them to get away, resisted arrest and then lumbered off in the parking lot and turned around, did a quick fire of the taser. still lumbering around. i use lumbering because that reminds me what charles scott in north charleston was doing, lumbering around. he was going to run out of energy in about five steps. but like walter scott in north charleston, the cops here in this atlanta parking lot, shoot mr. brooks in the back. as you said in your column, this

is not complicated. >> no, it's not complicated. i think rayshad brooks should be alive today. this is a guy who, you know, committed the initial offense of falling asleep in his car in a wendy's drive-thru, and 45 minutes later he's lying dead shot twice in the back by a police officer. and again, he was -- you know, he -- it's -- he's not blameless in the sequence of events. he should not have resisted arrest, he was trying to talk the officers into letting him walk to his sister's house, you know, he was -- and drunk driving is a serious offense, i take that very seriously. but you get to the point where, as you said, he's lumbering away. he's -- in the course of lumbering he turns and takes a

wild sort of shot with a nonlethal weapon, a taser, at the police officer and, of course, misses and the officer decides to shoot him twice in the back as he's running away. that should not have happened. and it's the kind of thing that keeps happening. his life was not -- was not valued. and that's why protesters have been in the streets for the last three weeks and that's why they will continue to be in the streets until this sort of warrior-style -- you know, ultimate force method of policing, particularly policing african-americans is reformed. until something is done. and, you know, more than quite likely more than --

de-escalation techniques. you know, this is not rocket science. >> yeah. >> you remember dylann roof who killed nine people in mother emmanuel church, armed and more dangerous than you can imagine, somehow manages to get captured alive and they take him to burger king and he lives to stand trial. and yet, rayshad brooks is dead. and so it's hard to convince me that there's not systemic racism in our policing. and it's hard to convince me that something terribly went wrong last friday night. >> willie, it is -- it's not just about, again, what they are taught on paper, on these reforms that they're pushing forward in atlanta, which are

good reforms. but also they have to look at race and they have to acknowledge race and they have to understand that if this were a white kid in a white suburban neighborhood in atlanta that was just sleeping it off, he tried to resist arrest and was lumbering away, cops wouldn't shoot him in the back. it would have -- actually, it would have never escalated to that point. we've seen it, you and i have seen it, i'm sure mika has seen it over our 50 years or so, you're much younger, of course, but white kids that, you know, run afoul of the cops aren't shot at. they're put in the back of police cruisers -- >> they're given a break. >> -- they're given a break. and willie, the fact that this happened in the middle of the george floyd protests. it wasn't even linked to the

floyd protest. this happened with a guy who was trying to sleep it off, on his own in a wendy's parking lot is just beyond outrageous. >> when we talk about reform and deescalation and the use of lethal force, as gene points out, this is exactly what we're talking about. this should be used to teach that. the man, as you said, almost 30 minutes was sitting with the cops they were talking with him, there was a scuffle, he grabbed a taser, he turned to fire the taser at him. and the question people have watching the video, why did you have to shoot the guy to detain him? he's drunk, he's running slowly, you have his name, his id, his car, you have everything you need to detain him if you need to. how does it get to the point where you pull out your service weapon and shoot the guy in the back of a wendy's parking lot.

that's what we're talking about when we look at deescalation and what a police officer should do. obviously as joe said, 99 out of 100 police officers would not have done what that officer did. that officer was fired, the atlanta police chief resigned the next day. they know how bad this is, we heard that from mayor bottoms. the question is what is it about the culture or that officer that led him to think a guy we can find easily needs to be shot to be detained. >> right. a guy, as you said, they knew where he was, where he lived. they knew where he was probably trying to go, right, because he said he was trying to get to his sister's house and she lived nearby. so they knew that. he was gonna run out of steam, in that event they probably would have taken him into custody before he got out of the parking lot. but it happens again and again. so this is the -- this is part of the talk that -- that -- that

my wife and i had to have with our sons. they grew up going to integrated schools. and they have -- had black friends and white friends. and we had to tell them that in a situation, if you're with your friends and there's some reason why you're interacting with the police, they're going to get the benefit of the doubt. the white kids are going to get the benefit of the doubt, and you're not. and you need to be aware of that. that's, you know -- that's just a reality. and it's got to change. it just has to change. enough of this. we've had enough of this. >> absolutely. >> by the way, gene and i, have been having this conversation -- >> years. >> -- on this show for at least seven years, eight years, gene

on this -- >> we have. >> -- you, of course, have been living it your entire life and having to have that talk with your children, it's -- it's unbelievable and again, mika, the fact that this occurred in the shadow of george floyd's death and the nation -- >> it hurts. >> -- wide protests shows we still have such a long way to go and john meacham how offensive that yesterday we had to watch a steady stream of conservative -- so-called conservative outlets justifying the shooting of this man in the back. >> my god, yes. >> you know, there comes a point, and we're far, far past it, on a variety of subjects, where the machinery are partisan conflict and reaction and opinion mongering needs to slow down. every piece of data, no matter

what it is, goes into this cuisinart of conflict and comes out. and no one has the human ability to take in the facts and decide what they really think. they know what they think, no matter what the facts are, because of the nature of the event. and that's not particularly new, but lord, is it as urgent and as real and as tactile as at any time in american history. 100 years ago, walter lipman said one of the problems of the modern era was going to be that we would not see and define but we would define and then see. and when it comes to race in america, that is all too true. >> it is. and really important words, also important willie, that when we

get meacham to fire up the camera, we not only get walter lipman quotes but we get phrases like the cuisinart of conflict. >> that's good. i like it. >> willie, what are we putting into the cuisinart of conflict next? >> i want to point out that that's a cuisinart -- >> still ahead on "morning joe," we'll be joined by the president of the human rights campaign on the heels of that landmark ruling by the supreme court on lgbtq rights. plus senator chris coons and cory booker will be our guests this morning. we have new polling to show you on the presidential race and the first look at the dnc's very first general election add. and major league basketbabasketbaleball. >> what's wrong with you guys?

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former president barack obama will join joe biden for a fund-raiser next tuesday. biden announced the virtual grass roots fund-raiser on twitter yesterday shortly after his campaign announced that it and associated democratic groups $81 million last month. biden's strongest ever month of fund-raising this cycle. the fund-raiser will mark the first time that biden and obama have appeared on screen together since the president endorsed

biden in april. meanwhile, the dnc is out this morning with a new ad entitled decent. marking the five year anniversary of donald trump's decent down the escalator to begin his presidency. >> five years ago, donald trump descended to the basement of trump tower, for the past five years he's brought america down with him. giving massive tax cuts to billionaires, praising white supremacists, stoking racial division. a white house in chaos. losing 300,000 jobs in a failed trade war with china. locking children in cases. he misled the american people on coronavirus stating it would miraculous go away, it didn't. now over 100,000 dead americans, 20 million jobs destroyed. recession. >> i don't take responsibility at all.

>> he turned our military on american citizens. you have the power to end the decent of our nation, to choose justice, unity, leadership because we can't afford four more years of trump. >> i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> let's bring in nbc news correspondent heidi pris bella who first obtained the ad. what's the strategy behind it besides trying to describe the entire presidency as a decent. >> it's the beginning with mika, of a five week campaign that sets off the entire general election offensive here, this is just the first ad there will be a series to follow this. as you saw from the beginning of the ad, they are tying this, today, the five-year anniversary of trump's decent down the golden escalator at trump tower to what they say is the decline of america, and they hit him on

so many issues in that ad, but i'm told by the dnc in the coming weeks the general election strategy preview will unfold to show that there will be a heavy focus on china, starting next week the dnc will be rolling out additional ads showing that the president's negotiating style and his dealings with china have really been to the detriment of the american people focused in the that first week on the 300,000 jobs they say have been lost. but following after that in terms of how the president has dealt with china on coronavirus, ignoring the coronavirus threat for so many weeks as he tried to negotiate that trade deal downplaying the threat. one thing that's significant here as well is that this is going to mark a big change from 2016 later today i'm told by the dnc that elizabeth warren will be joining dnc chair tom perez to kick off this entire initiative. and that is going to be a show

of unity between the progressive wing and the more moderate wings of the democratic party, which is a big change from 2016 when you had all that turmoil between the sanders campaign and the hillary clinton campaign, and then there's going to be a five-week battleground tour by tom perez, as well as elizabeth warren and it will bring in other party heavy weights who will be teeming up in florida next week. mika. >> willie? >> we talked before the pandemic how quickly the democratic party got behind joe biden. as candidates dropped out of the race, most notably, bernie sanders, they hopped in and supported joe biden. we didn't have the protracted fight like 2016, i think the clinton campaign had a strained relationship with the dnc on many levels. it doesn't appear to be that way

this time around. >> no, i'm told also that we can expect there to be a very strong presence by the dnc as opposed to 2016 in terms of the offensive strategy here. here you see the biden campaign doing a lot of work in terms of proactively disputing narratives put out by the trump campaign. but in terms of going on the offense, if you look at what's happening here with this ad, as well as some of the outside super pack like priorities usa, the campaign does seem okay leaving a lot of this offensive role to the dnc. they have some heavy weights like stephanie cutter, adrienne watson, the dnc director, who have been working on this initiative, collecting this information, creating a big database that they'll be using to hit trump, basically on a lot of promises he made in his 2016

campaign as he returns to those areas to get him on the trade issue, on health care, and very much so on coronavirus, but again i want to stress that this china narrative is going to cut really deep just because of how prominent that issue was by the president, the case that he made about being tough on china when, in fact, you look at the jobs issue, when you look at coronavirus, democrats argue it's been arguably one of his biggest weaknesses. that and his ability to negotiate as a businessman, which was seen as such a strength by so many of his supporters in 2016, willie. >> hili heidi thank you so much. thank you for bringing that. fascinating. john meacham let's strip this down to its bare essence which i tell people when they

come to me saying they want to run, i say what's your bumper sticker? the bumper sticker here is, trump is a bad president. whereas in 2016, the bumper sticker was hillary clinton was trump is a bad guy. people in 2016 said yeah, he's a bad guy. maybe we need a bad guy. in fact, the 2020 trump campaign ad is trump is a bad guy, maybe we need a bad guy right now. but what this biden ad does is he shows how trump being a bad president is impacting america. he's cutting your health care working class americans, he's promising to cut your health care guarantees you had under the affordable care act. he's giving tax cuts not to you not to the small businesses that pl employ you, but the billionaires. he's got a failed trail war -- a

failed trade war that cost billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. 100,000 americans are dead because he couldn't manage the pandemic because of his magical thinking. tens of millions of jobs are lost because he didn't act quickly enough on the pandemic. we now have a recession. and then, of course, donald trump saying i bear no responsibility. they actually connect donald trump's personality and donald trump's job performance to people's lives. this is what the hillary clinton campaign didn't do. what they couldn't do in 2016 because he was running as a challenger. this is exactly what the biden campaign is doing right now. >> yeah. in a lot of ways american politics in our era can be trazed to tuesday october 28, 1980 when ronald reagan and jimmy carter last met in debate

in cleveland. and we all remember the great line, there you go again. which is actually delivered as carter was telling the truth about reagan's opposition to medicare in the 1960s. but the summary statement, it was after that debate that the numbers moved and the reagan era was to begin, was are you better off today than you were four years ago? he said, is it easier for you to buy things in stores than it was four years ago? that is part of the biden message. but even more than reagan, i think that biden is asking that question economically, but also culturally. are we better off as a broad nation than we were four years ago? are we more or less divided? are things more or less sulfurus. is our partisanship more reflex i've as opposed to reflective.

and it's a pretty straightforward question. the other thing is people say this is a referendum on the incumbent. i don't accept that. i think presidential politics are about choice not a referendum. and so, it's not just enough -- no one ever came to the country and said, do you want donald trump to be president? that wasn't the question in 2016. it was which of these two people do you want to be president, once again we have the question who do you want of these two people? it seems to me one of the strengths biden has is he is a figure from that fdr, reagan consensus that trump represents a reaction and god willing an b abberation from. coming up the news out of the supreme court yesterday was not just what they ruled on but also what they didn't rule on. we'll explain that after a quick break. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction

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supreme court decision that made it illegal to fire someone for being gay or transgender. the opinion was written by trump-appointed justice neil gorsuch. the majority found that title 7 of the civil rights act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex also applies to sexual orientation and

transgender status. the judge wrote, an employer who fires an individual for being homo sexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. sex plays an unnecessary and distinguishable role in that decision, exactly what title 7 forbids. the judges that decented said no one in 1964 would have thought that discrimination on sex would be on gender identity. joining us now president of the human rights campaign alfonso david and president and chief executive officer of the national constitution center jeffrey rosen. good morning, it's great to have you both with us. alfonso let me begin with you. they're calling this a landmark decision, it is, a long-time coming since 1964 civil rights act. what does this mean to you, to

the lgbtq community and what does it mean to america? >> thank you so much, willie. the united states supreme court yesterday stood on the right side of history. when it declared a -- >> all right. mika, it sounds like we've lost alfonso's audio here. >> absolutely. we can try and adjust that. these are always a little tough. there were other surprises from the court. ten appeals that looked to broaden the second amendment right to include owning a semiautomatic rifle and carrying a handgun in public were denied argument. one was a challenge to a new jersey law that requires a person to show a justifiable need in order to obtain a gun permit. in their decent, justice clarence thomas and brett

kavanaugh called the standard a, quote, onerous burden on a fundamental right. but kavanaugh, along with trump appointee, kneel gorsuneil gors with the majority in denying the appeal of a california sanctuary law. the court chose not to intervene in california law enforcement's refusal to assist federal agents in taking custody of immigrants as they are released from jail. the court also decided not to hear cases pertaining to the court created doctrine of qualified immunity, which protects police officers from lawsuits for their onduty actions. jeffrey rosen it is hard sometimes for laymen and women to understand that the supreme court, like for instance, people saying, i wasn't surprised by justice gorsuch's decisions, he likes gay people.

that's not how it works. he's -- he looked at the text, he interpreted it based on a lifetime of judicial reasoning. it's the same thing on the other side, where, for instance, people that want expansive gun rights don't understand that the supreme court is very conservative with a small c when it comes to being deferential to states dining roetermining how going to make those decisions, be it a ban in connecticut or in new jersey. sort through what you saw yesterday and how, when it came to the -- the culture wars, whether it's gays, guns, sanctuary cities. that this proved it was not conservative with a big c but pretty conservative with a small

c. >> that's exactly right. and it's so important to understand that the justices are deciding these cases in terms of their constitutional methodology, not their partisan politics. that's why justice gorsuch's decision was so inspiring. it was an example of principled textualism he said, channelling justice scalia, we look at the original public meaning of the law as it was understood when it was passed. it doesn't matter if the people who passed it in 1964 didn't expect it to apply to gay and lesbian people, we're bound to follow the text regardless where it leads. and the decenters said it's up to congress to make the changes, not the court. so there was a bait within the conservative clock about how to interpret text. and it wasn't about whether you like gay people or don't like gay people and justice gorsuch said sometimes there's an elephant hiding in plain sight

and this is a momentous change and we have to decide it. same thing for the guns or the qualified immunity decision. there it was justice clarence thomas who wrote a decent saying i think qualified immunity is inconsistent with the original understanding of the law that created protections for police officers and therefore we should abolish qualified immunity. he doesn't want to do that as a policy manner, but the law commanded it. it was a historic day yesterday we saw in all of these cases justices reaching conclusions that may have clashed with their political preferences and it provides inspiration for americans all over the country on all sides of the aisle who are hungry for a vision of non-partisan reason channelled by our government not led by passion. yesterday inspiring 6-3 decision of the supreme court, we have a vision of a court led by reason

rather than passion. >> and you're exactly right. clarence thomas did that coming from the right on qualified immunity for police officers, saying, wait a second, hold on, no. this is not -- qualified immunity does not mean this. we have to look at this more closely. you're right, same thing with neil gorsuch. everybody can call themselves textualist when they look at the word sex, in deciding whether sex had to do with gender or with something more. jeffrey if we can just -- i want to give one of my favorite examples of a court doing this. and have you talk about it explain to people who don't read supreme court decisions. i remember back -- i remember everybody being shocked when chief justice roberts made the decision he made on obamacare.

at first i was stunned and then i read the decision, i laughed and said this is one of the most conservative decisions i've ever seen. and it is in line with john roberts' judicial philosophy. he basically said it, don't ask me to do from the court, from the bench, what you can do in the voting booth next year. you don't like obamacare, fine. go vote. that's your job. i'm not going to legislate from the bench. i thought it was brilliant. if i'm trying to explain actually conservative judicial philosophy, even if the outcome was not the outcome, i would do that. i also remember talking to jeb bush when jeb was governor of the state of florida, jeb very pro-life. i said, i know a guy who would love to talk to you, he's interested in being on the

florida supreme court. he said bb is he a conservative? yes, he's a conservative. no, is he conservative? i said whab do you mean? if he's pro-life, is he going to follow the law or the pro-life believes? i said, he'll follow the law. okay, i'll talk to him. that's what being a judicial conservative is, not legislating from the bench. following the law. >> that is so true. it's a central point and it's right about jeb bush. you know, jeb bush was the president of the national constitution center, he was succeeded by vice president biden and our current chair is neil gorsuch, we have liberals and conservatives. all of them believe what you said, it's the job of judges to follow the law regardless of where it leads. that's exactly what john roberts was doing. he said, we have to defer to congress as judges and if

congress wants to change the law, they can. if there's some plausible hold for obamacare, i'm going to take it. that's what neil gorsuch said too, it's not up for us to dislike this result because congress didn't anticipate it. these are the words they chose we have to follow it where they lead. there's a lot of cynicism about courts in the country but what we're seeing here is judges doing exactly what they're supposed to do. following the law where it leads leighing it up to the political branchs to make important political decisions. and it's a ray of hope that in the partisanship we're seeing citizens can look to the courts as an ideal of nonpartisan adjudication where judges separate their political senses. >> we have reconnected with alfonso. our apologies about the

disconnect there but i want you to continue what you were saying earlier. most people this opened eyes, they said you can still be fired for being gay and transgender? and the answer was yes. how monumental a decision is this? >> thank you, willie. this is a landmark decision for lgbtq people. in 29 states in this country they had no state law protections. so this decision is a huge, huge decision for those people who were worried if coming out at work, worried about talking about their partners or spouses at work, worried about being themselves. and we are proud of this decision, as jeffrey said, the majority of the justices honored the rule of law and decades of legal precedent to affirm that lgbtq people are protected from discrimination under federal law. work is such a central role in our lives it allows us to

provide for our families, to provide for ourselves. and work is also part of our identities. it's key to how we and the world and society sees ourselves. so this is such a fundamental decision for us. and we are really, really happy with the court's ruling. it is not the end of the road for us. this ruling is not the end of lgbtq, the fight for equality. we still have to pass the equality act which is currently still stalled in the senate. we still have to elect a president who is pro equality. elect congress, a senate that is proequality so they can pass the equality act. many people don't know this, but there are not sufficient protections for lgbtq in public accommodations, in credit, in education. that's what the equality act would do. if i walked into a gap department store or knneiman marc

marcus, there's no laud that would protect me because i'm lgbtq. the equality act would change that. if we had a president who was pro equality that president would sign it into law. we still have a lot of work to do but yes, this is a landmark decision from yesterday. >> in their decent yesterday justices alito and thomas said, this is legislating from the bench. if you want to change discrimination against grey and transgender people pass a law to do that, that's not our job to do so. what's your response to that? as you pointed out you've been trying to do that in 29 states without much luck? >> i think that's a con vie yent argument for decent. we have to recognize we have more than 20 years of case law that the supreme court relied on in supporting -- that rely on title -- to lgbtq people. >> we got some of that.

president of the human rights campaign, aphlfonzo david, than you very much. and jeffrey rosen thank you for being on the show this morning. eugene robinson is still with us. and joining the conversation washington anchor for bbc catty kay and president on the council of foreign relations, author of the book "the world a brief introduction" richard haas joins you. richard in your latest piece from project syndicate you write, the united states finds itself confronting several daunting challenges simultaneously, there is the covid-19 pandemic which has already claimed nearly 120,000 lives and shows little sign of abating in large swaths of the country. the economic impact has been

devastating. on top of all this is the explosion of protests in the wake of the killing of george floyd. it comes as no surprise that the american public and their elected officials have focused their energies on these domestic challenges. the problem is that much is happening in the world that calls out for american attention and it is not getting it. worse, what attention u.s. president donald trump's administration is giving the world is mostly the wrong kind. threatening to withdraw nearly a third of u.s. armed forces stationed in germany and all in afghanistan, and announcing america's departure from the world health organization and the open skies treaty. the result is heightened concern among america's allies about its reliability and quite possibly increased vulnerability to adventurism by u.s. rivals and foes. one can only hope the u.s. sorts itself out sooner rather than

later. history has no pause button. that is so true. >> richard, you look at what israel is doing right now, specifically benjamin netanyahu, and aggressively moving on settlements, you look at what china is doing right now, you look at what the rest of the world is doing right now, and one ambassador described it to me as a fire sale. that they believe the world now believes that donald trump will be out of office six months from now, and this ambassador lamented that in six months they will be forced once again to sit down at the table, talk, work through the process and negotiate with the united states. but for now, not just the bad actors but even some of our allies are going to do whatever they want to do because they know that donald trump is distracted and he looks upon the rest of the world with utter,

sheer contempt, especially our allies. >> i think the rest of the world, joe, has decided that regardless of what happens in november, the u.s. is essentially checked out for the duration of this year. so the germans, for example, their reaction to the troop cuts is to work on rebuilding europe, it's one of the pieces of good news in the world where you see the european central bank, commission coming together to try to jump start europe's economy. so we see that going on. you began the show this morning, you had something on north korea. my guess is the north koreans decided the americans are distracted, here's a way to put pressure on south korea. that's right out of the historical playbook. south korea is up against north korea, they don't have geography like we do to ignore what's going on. i think what they're hoping is

to take advantage of the bad u.s./south korea relation ship and get them to relieve some sanctions because the united states is not interested in serious diplomacy. >> catty, you look and see germany, of course, there's obviously a tiff between the united states and germany. donald trump talking about unilaterally removing troops there. korea donald trump goes with great fanfare and against the advice of every foreign policy expert saying you don't start with a summit, you end with a summit now, of course, the north koreans are literally blowing apart that peace process. and then china, in the middle of a pandemic and while donald trump is distracted and disinterested, china moves hong kong, this is an international fire sale.

and there's no telling what's going to happen between now and the end of the year. >>, you know, i think it's easy to get distracted when we are in the middle of so much news going on in this country between the protests on the streets, the handling of the covid crisis and an election coming up as well. it's perhaps easy for us to not pay attention to the degree to which america's brand has been diminished during the course even of the last six months. it was already diminished because of president trump's decision to pull out of the paris accord, the iran nuclear treaty. but really the last six months where the united states has failed to lead in the coronavirus. didn't show up where every other leader was there, even the chinese sent somebody. i think richard if you want to see the process in which

america's departure finally exited the world stage, it's really been the last three months, it was rapid there was this snowballing effect. whether it's the end of the trump presidency, say president trump gets re-elected in november, does he reengage or has he left the stage now and we're in the process of the chinese basically fulling taking over the position that america had abandoned? >> look it's hard to make predictions about the future. but i see no signs that this administration would fundamentally reengage. mr. trump's entire world view is predicated on the idea that the costs of american leadership are greater than the benefits. that alliances essentially aren't worth it and by and large when people get re-elected they see it as a mandate to continue what they're doing. i would think if mr. trump is re-elected, if you read what he

said the other day at west point he talked about america not being involved in wars in countries in places that americans never recognized the names of. i think we see further detachment, withdrawal. a combination of isolationism and yuan hat a lichl. one thing we would see use of is tariffs, essentially trade wars. one other thing, i'm not sure it's china that takes over. i think china is limited by its own internal problems its model is not appealing to a lot of countries given what's going on. i think the alternative to the world led by the united states working with partners and allies is a world that isn't led. a messer, more violent, less democratic world. i think that's where we end up if we continue on this course. >> richard haas, thank you very

much. richard's book is "the world and introduction." today president trump is expected to sign an executive order on police reform that he says will bring, quote, law and order. joining us now senior white house reporter for nbc news digital shannon pettypiece. good morning, what is the president proposing and how does it line up with what democrats have proposed in the house and also what republican senators, led by tim scott of south carolina are working on. >> reporter: there's three things that administration officials tell us will be inincluded in this. one is a database that will track police officers accused of using excessive force so they can't go from one police department to another without a record of uses of excessive force. the other is language to have police work closer with social workers and mental health p

professionals. the third point is tying federal grants to programs that police department could implement, training programs on use of excessive force. that's something the administration pushed for and while they can't mandate police departments to do that, it's something they encourage them to do by tying them to the federal grants. one thing that will not be included or discussed today is issues of systemic racism and racial profile. i asked a senior official ability this yesterday, whether the president is going to address this, and they said tomorrow is going to be law enforcement and talking to families affected by police violence. so don't expect a speech on race to come out of this. you also mentioned what happens on the hill. the white house is calling on congress to take action. they've been letting republicans on the hill take the lead on this and, you know, our reporting indicates that the president is keen to sign something if it gets to his desk. but there is common ground on the hill, but we've seen this before on a number of issues,

gun control is one of them where it looks like there's common ground but members of congress aren't able to get it together and they're up against a deadline because in july we're expected to see them get into another stimulus bill. so we have a few weeks of legislative attention to get something through to get it to the president's desk. so the clock is ticking on this one. >> when asked yesterday about what this executive order achieves given all we've seen in the last three weeks in response to the killing of george floyd in minneapolis, the president said again and again, law and order. shannon pettypiece outside the white house. thank you very much. let's bring into the conversation legal analyst for msnbc, maya wiley. good to see you again. the president has this executive order, it does not get to most of the concerns that we've heard from activists in the streets and democrats in the house and some republican senators across

the aisle. what do you see coming out of all this? we have the president talking about law and order but you have democrats serious about banning things like chokeholds and no-knock warrants and tim scott and other republican senators, even mitch mcconnell, saying he wants to get something done on police reform before the july 4th recess. what do you see in total coming out of this? >> in total i see coming out of this nothing sufficient to address the fundamental problem of policing in the united states. and i say that, one, because we have a president who keeps reinforcing a fear mongering about the need for law enforcement. we saw him do this when he ran for president, the suggestion that there was just rampant violent crime across communities of color and that people of color were constantly committing them in various ways. none of that is borne out by the data or the truth, which is that

we've had historic low crime rates for a very low time and, in fact, they started dropping back in the 1990s and they've continuously dropped for three decades. the problem of violence that he keeps suggesting means that we can't have meaningful reform. it just simply ignores the facts. and what i will say about what the democrats have been trying to do that has been unanswered by this white house is to create a different set of rules around how you get police accountability. in other words, the issue of whether or not you can go after the police when they've done something wrong and more likely get a judgment against them. that's not going to solve the problem either. but it is a recognition that there is far too much misconduct that goes understand answered, and that in order to create more of an environment that says, you

can't get away with bad acting, training is not enough, because as we've seen in these recent deaths, most of it goes counter to what they've been trained to do. so it's simply inadequate and we need more. >> there's so many components to this problem. gene robinson, i want to play for you top white house economic adviser larry kudlow yesterday, repeating his assertion that he does not believe in systemic racism. what this exchange with cnbc's sarah eisen. >> you said, i don't believe there's systemic racism in the u.s., which i found surprising given the moment we're in and given the economic data which has only exacerbated the inequality we've seen post covid-19. can you clarify what you meant? >> i don't believe in systemic racism. i think the american system is the best system ever devised for man kind for history. here's a thought.

president obama, the first black president, was elected twice. and he got 79 million white votes. 79 million in two elections. now, therefore, i find it hard to understand something called systemic racism. systemic problem, no. systemic means america's bad. america is wrong. i don't believe that. i never had believed that and i never will. >> larry, i don't think it means america is bad. i think you have to look at the explanations for why, you know, the net worth of a white family is ten times more than the net worth for a black family or a black family led by a household with an advanced degree doesn't make as much as a white family led by a household with a high school degree. the statistics are endless. half of black men right now don't have jobs and black adults. that's what i think people are referring to when they talk about systemic racism in

society. >> i'm not sure what this systemic term really means. but you're describing very important economic problems. family break up problems. this is a complicated matter. we won't settle it, i doubt, on this broadcast or this interview. >> gene robinson, your thoughts? >> there are not words. i just -- i mean, it's -- you know, there are not words. what can you say? i have a black friend, therefore, there's no racism. that's kind of the argument that he's making. he sounds determined not to get it. i mean, larry kudlow is not in all regards an idiot, right, he's not. he's an adult who manages to get up and get dressed every day and do his job. and thus he's got to know better

than that. there's something -- >> yeah. >> i'm wondering if there is a white house ban on that term, on that term, systemic racism, that's being enforced somehow and that he has to sort of willfully deny what -- you know, sarah eisen just throws number after number after number at him and he's like, well, we can't solve this in this interview. just give me a break. just give me a break. >> we've known kudlow. i've known larry for a while. i think you've known lairrry foa while. >> yes. >> the larry kudlow we knew before he walked into trump's white house gates wouldn't go around saying there's no systemic racism and also wouldn't say, hey, we've got this thing contained before -- >> all set. >> -- before 117,000 americans

died. this is just another example of somebody who -- >> it's not. >> -- who -- who's sold their political soul at least to donald trump. >> it's not the larry kudlow i thought i knew and the larry kudlow i watched on cnbc all those years and the larry kudlow who i thought of as a principled conservative, free marketer, who played it straight, but remember that earlier larry kudlow also thought that tariffs were a bad thing and understood that the cost of tariffs are actually paid by u.s. consumers and not by china, as the president says. this new larry kudlow seems to have forgotten all of that or gotten awfully confused about that. so it's a -- you know, has he sold his soul for his political

ambition to be close to power, i don't know. but sounds like it. >> maya, i'm always -- june is -- june is always, for me at least, i'm a nerd, i grew up, i loved reading the brotheren, the report on the supreme court, and i'm fascinated by how the justices work together, get to what they get to and also for instance justice scalia and justice ginsburg being close friends and what always went back and forth between different sides. yesterday just an absolutely fascinating day. clarence thomas in decent taking a position that most conservatives wouldn't take on immunity for police officers and then, of course, justice gorsuch and justice roberts reading of title 7 and the term "sex" being more expansive than what three members of the court read it as. what was your takeaway after reading the opinions, looking at

the news of what happened yesterday, which many people believe is -- many people in the movement believe is the biggest victory that they've yet achieved? >> it's a massive victory and it was a very large and very pleasant surprise that went against many of our fears about this court, which is that it would be so deeply idealogical, so deeply ensconced in its own view of the world that it would ignore the way many people actually experience life in this country. and that's not what we saw yesterday. and the fact that it was, for instance, on protecting lesbian, gay, and trans people in the work place, protecting them against discrimination was a 6-3 decision, not even a 5-4

decision. we're kind of used to seeing a justice roberts decide he's going to kind of modulate the court and vote with the more liberal wing of the court periodically like with affordable care act, for example. but the facts that gorsuch wrote this opinion was a big surprise. and i think one that is an important counter point to what we're hearing from a larry kudlow. what we're hearing from a donald trump. which is something to say we have to work past ideology to get to the practical experience of real people and whether or not they're going to get the equal protection of the law. so it was a huge day. >> and you know, mika, one of the things that you look back at neil gorsuch since he burst onto the national scene, and i -- early on, before -- after he had

been selected but before he got on the court, donald trump was attacking a federal judge for ruling against him, i believe it was on the so-called muslim ban. and neil gorsuch actually said, he was distressed by the president attacking -- attacking a sitting federal judge, which, of course, is something that, as we've learned, most people around donald trump are afraid to speak their mind and afraid to prove that they have their own independent thoughts. justice gorsuch from the very beginning of this process has shown that when he feels like it, he does speak his mind. sometimes to the -- as the articles have shown, sometimes to the irritation of his colleagues on the supreme court, but he certainly is not going to bend to donald trump's will or do anything other than what he

personally thinks is right. liberals don't like that 99% of the time. but there will be cases -- >> there will be these moments. >> -- such as this one where he will be lined up with them and he bill not blindly follow the ideological path chosen for him by donald trump. still ahead on "morning joe" senators cory booker and chris coons join the conversation. plus the power of black lives matter, we'll look at the new issue of rolling stone on how the movement was built and where it goes next. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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welcome back to "morning joe." that is a live picture, chicago illinois, wrigley field, home of the chicago cubs. despite continued uncertainty

during the coronavirus pandemic nearly every major sports league has a plan for return to play games with nascar and the pga resuming competition already, the nba set a tentative start date of july 31st, with plans for 22 of the 30 teams to play at walt disney world resort in a bubble of sorts in florida. the wnba announcing it will return as well. the nhl unveiled a restart, the date has yet to be determined. major league soccer is set to be resumed with a world cup style tournament dubbed mls is back on july 8th. and the u.s. tennis association is set to announce it will hold the 2020 u.s. open tournament as originally scheduled starting august 31st at the billy jean king national tennis center in new york city.

but not major league baseball. the hopes of a 2020 season dimmed yesterday when the commissioner walked back a quote saying we are going to play major league baseball this year. yesterday he told espn, quote, i am not confident. i think there's a real risk and as long as there's no dialogue that real risk is going to continue. according to the los angeles times, they said the mlb will not continue with a schedule unless there's a waiver. the players association said, quote, players are disgusted that after rob manford told players and fans there would be 100% a 2020 season he has decided to back on his word and is threatening to cancel the entire season. any implication that the players' association has somehow

delayed the progress on health and safety protocols is false as rob recently acknowledged the parties are very, very close. this goes on and on, buster the great baseball reporter for espn is saying it's a long shot there'll be a 2020 season without an arbiter that can get between these groups. it was just a week ago that rob manfred said he was 100% confident we would have baseball now it appears over the questions of money and the players have said again and again when and where, we're ready to play. but the owners and the commissioners of major league baseball are not going there. >> it's pathetic. this weekend i thought, okay, maybe the commissioner is going to craft a compromise between 50 and 80 -- 50 games and 80 games, 100 games. but what we're finding now is he

appears to be nothing more than a lacky for the owners, who aren't going to open their books. who aren't going to show how much money they are making off of their players. and who are deeply offended because some people are suggesting that they're trying to make a windfall off of this pandemic. well, you never heard that here but it's starting to look that way. this is disgusting. it's disgusting for the owners, what they're doing. it looks really bad on the players' part -- let me step back. it did look really bad on the players' part until the players, like we saw last night, a lot of the players tweeting out, max scherzer said, hey, tell me where to show up, tell me when to report, tell me how many games i'm going to play, and i'll be there. i'll do it. and the owners can't take yes for an answer. i don't know how much blood they

want to squeeze from the turnip but this is ridiculous. i don't care -- i don't -- i don't care what team we're talking about. whether we're talking about the red sox or the yankees or the oakland a's, they need to get together and figure out how to give this country a baseball season. we need baseball now more than ever. and yes, it's just a -- it's just a distraction. we get it. but damn it, maybe we need a distraction and maybe the owners need to go ahead and tell the commissioner he has permission to let the players -- here's mike barnicle by the way, put that tweet back up. the owners need to give the players -- the commissioner needs to give the owners permission to move forward and let the players report. if there is no 2020 major league baseball season, baseball cannot

keep calling itself america's game. that because when america needed it most, baseball disappeared in the sea of greed. and they are, willie. there's no excuse. every other sport has figured out how to do this. they haven't figured out how to do it. and this is all on the owners at this point. this is all on the owners. when the players say, tell us when to report and how many games you want us to play and we'll be there, you can't blame the players anymore. by the way, the commissioner needs to step up and be a commissioner and not just a tool of the owners. >> well, he is. i mea almost by definition. but the players are winning the public argument. they said we'll take the prorated salary, play whenever, wherever you need us to play. what the owners and the commissioner is saying is you waive the right to sue us for back pay, a billion dollar suit

to get the other money. waive that and we can talk. it doesn't appear there's going to be talking. we had bryce harper tweeting out a picture of himself yesterday in a philadelphia eagles jersey, saying i have to play some sport so maybe i'll play for the eagles if they won't let me play baseball. this is bad in its own merits but when you have nba doing everything they can do, the wnba, golf, nascar, every other league says we're going to figure something out, people want sports we want to play sports this shouldn't be about money, it should be about getting out there and playing games. is mlb going to stand alone and have they considered the lasting damage it will do to their game if they are the only league not playing games. >> let's get this straight. while the baseball players are on the field, risking their health, risking their lives, risking the lives of loved ones

and the owners are sitting up in their box in empty stadiums, not taking any risks, not taking any health care risk whatsoever, the owners are saying, okay, the only way we're going to let you report and start playing america's games is if you waive legal rights in the future? i'm sorry that's just sick. they want them to risk their health, they want them to get out and play based on what the owners say how many games they're going to play and then they want them to waive future legal rights. how stupid do baseball's owners think we fans are? how stupid do baseball owners think the baseball players are? it's absolutely ridiculous. they're disgusting people. >> oh my gosh. all right. we'll leave it right there. is that how you want to end that conversation? we can do it. >> that's how i want to end the conversation. >> all right.

fine. especially p given everything that's going on in the world, the context, god. >> this is not the time to be this greedy. again, there are a lot of americans that need to distraction, all right. a lot of americans need the distraction. a lot of kids need the distraction. from the horrifying news they see on television every day. and barnacle is right, baseball cannot call themselves america's game if at this moment every other sport rises to the occasion. every other group of owners rise to the occasion. every other group of players rise to the occasion and major league baseball does not. that's where i want to end it. okay. joining us now senior writer at rolling stone, jamille smith. he's here with the latest issue which includes his new piece, the power of black lives matter. it's great to have you on the show with us. a powerful cover.

let's talk about that because black lives matter has been around, but the moment has certainly changed. what is the power, and what will they be able -- what will black lives matter be able to do to influence policy? to change history? >> well, i think, mika, already they have. i think one of the things we talk about in this article is the fact that they raise the floor for what's possible. i speak in this piece to the three founders of black lives matter, alicia garza, opal tameti and patrice colors, the three women who originated just not the term but really founded the organization that really spread the word and put this, you know, out into the space. frankly, when you talk about black lives matter, we're not just talking about the three words that are put on signs and that we speak about every day but really the organization, the global network that really is --

has done work in various cities that currently has 13 chapters in america and three in canada. so we really have to understand this as a civil rights organization and not simply a slogan. >> gene robinson, jump in. >> jamille, what makes this time different? is it the graphic, sustained nature of the way george floyd was killed? is it the accretion of these -- excuse me, these incidents of deadly police violence over and over again, or is it something -- the trump presidency? is there something about this moment that makes things possible that weren't before? >> i think you really bring something into focus there, gene. i think the trump presidency has acsen waited systemic racism throughout our society. but we're in the middle of a

coronavirus pandemic that is disp disproportionately killing african-americans. two days after floyd's death we reached the 100,000th death in america and so we're thinking about 13% of americans are african-american. we're talking about 23%, about, of the deaths at that point were african-american. so we have to understand all of this within the context of the sort of passive acceptance of black death on a daily basis. not just within our, you know, media cycles but this government, we saw this government accentuating the push for the return to a new normal almost as soon as it became evident that the disproportionate suffering was on the backs of african-americans and indigenous americans in particular. i think we need to understand that people are on the streets not merely because they are

suffering from police violence not merely because they live in fear of agents of the state but because they are at home and seeing their family members suffer from this disease and seeing a government push out folks, and hey, let's pretend everything is normal and fine when, in fact, our communities are suffering. >> maya wiley? >> thank you, hi, jamille, good morning. >> good morning. >> i wanted to build on eugene's important question. in your view, is this a moment or a movement? and i ask that in part because part of what we're seeing is people engaging, particularly people who are white in very large numbers who may or may not be directly connected to the black lives matter movement, may or may not be as implicated in death rates like we have seen in the black community. what's your take in view of the

facts and what's happening on the ground? >> this is, in fact, still a -- i think this has always been a movement but the last seven years we have seen a conscious effort to build upon the past successes of, you know, what we've seen. the move. achieve. we've seen the movement achieve -- people saying black lives matter, just as a matter of fact. you know, black lives matter is a thing. black lives matter is a matter of fact in america. but black lives matter is now -- you know, we see it slapped on corporate statements we see people having more ease expressing it. that is, in and of itself, an accomplishment but that does not make it real. that does not make it a fact in america as we saw in the george floyd video. you think that is, in fact, to gene's point earlier, that is what's different.

we see people being able to put it on corporate statements people beings able to say it more easily. and i think white accountability is more con speck wow. i think that folks are not seeing the same results on the street in terms of policy and police culture. so i think it's raised the floor for their demands. so we're talking about people defunding the police. we're talking about people reimagining what our societies should be organized around in terms of law enforcement in terms of our government and i think people are, you know, thankfully, i should say, thinking of new ways to deal with law enforcement, to deal with public safety. i think these are solutions we should be openly discussing and embracing, frankly. jamille smith, i don't disagree with that. thank you very much. his article is in the new issue of rolling stone. thanks for being on this

morning. coming up the senate judiciary committee will hold a hearing today on policing reform, the first such hearing since the death of george floyd sparked nationwide protests three weeks ago. judiciary committee member chris coons is standing by. he joins the conversation next on "morning joe."

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or there. plus, there are lots of things you can do at home. like, stay active with some sick dance moves. be daring. and whip up a new dish. i love the combination of gummy bears and meat. you can do video calls for all of your important meetings. what? sorry. or just have some fun. ok, not that much fun. now, this does not come naturally to me. but, try to be kind to each other. this is a tough time for everyone. so that's it. stay home. stay healthy. and remember, we're all in this together. what? but totally separate. you know what i mean. yaaaaay! welcome back to "morning joe." that's a live picture of the united states capitol in washington, that's where we find

democratic senator chris coons of delaware, member of the ju dish committee. today senator chris coons is introducing a bipartisan service bill that will expand services critical to help those impacted by covid-19. good morning, it's good to have you with us. explain a little bit more about what this bill would do. we've seen so much legislation, so much money thrown at this problem, at this pandemic, what's different about this bill? >> it's great to be on with you. first what's different is how broadly bipartisan it is, we have a dozen initial cosponsors, democrats to republican leaders like senators wicker and rubio, graham and cornyn. it would double the slots available for local nonprofits to launch new and expanded programs to help us recover from the economic recession. we've had 40 million americans

apply for unemployment and the pandemic. as jamille smith said in your last segment. we are going through three different pandemics at the same time, covid-19, the recession, and systemic racism, all three of which impact more heavily black and brown communities in america. and this expanded opportunity to earn a college tuition scholarship and wage, this bill would increase the living stipend. this would create a great new way for folks of all backgrounds in our country to come together and serve and strengthen our communities. >> senator coons, economies on both side of the atlantic shutdown because of the coronavirus. but what we're seeing coming out of this is actually the unemployment rates right across europe have ticked up much, much less than here in the united states. was that a failure of the

structure of the original financing, that people didn't get the money in time? was it not tied to keeping on payroll? what happened there? why were the europeans able to prevent unemployment because of the coronavirus and the americans weren't? >> i won't pretend that i have a deep knowledge of the european labor markets but my impression is that the assistance from congress that we provided, about 2.3 trillion in the c.a.r.e.s. act now two months ago, took a very long time to get out to the average american who was unemployed and the assistance to small and large businesses took a while to get out. in europe there is a common practice of job sharing of keeping people on the payroll but having them take less time, fewer hours whereas in the united states we tend to have people on payroll or off payroll. and unfortunately due to the some of the antiquated systems we have here our federal and state departments of labor took

a long time to get unemployment checks out to folks. we're now facing a second wave i'm concerned of business shutdowns so i'm also introducing a bill this week that would extend our paycheck protection program, or ppp, for the smallest businesses. we'll extend that for a second round for the smallest and hardest hit american businesses to try and avoid another round of layoffs. >> who has the next question? >> thank you. senator coons, i'm so happy to hear you talk about small businesses, particularly rural and cities of color, microbusinesses very hard hit and ppp, has not been a sufficient solution for them. anything you're proposing or that you are discussing in the senate, are you going to figure out ways to incorporate the very

small mom and pop shops that prop up communities that maybe have four employees and can't pay the rent? >> yes. that's exactly the focus of this prioritized ppp. he would make the first round of ppp to those first who have fewer than ten employees and lost half of their income and would allow them a rapid approval for second ppp round. i'm actively engaged in supporting a new round of financing through what are called community development financial institutions or cdfis. these are often at the very lowest level, grassroots organizations that prioritize minority and low income communities, stepping stones, federal credit in my own hometown provides affordable mortgages, pay loans, car loans with a locally based financial institution. we're trying prioritize getting

resources out to that vehicle. responding to the protests of the last three weeks requires xrens si policing reform and also requires more resources for economic opportunity and for health equity so that black and brown communities across the united states see action immediately. >> senator coons, the judiciary committee where you sit will hold a police reform today. there's a lot of ideas out there. the president today will announce an executive order with his ideas. you know some republicans in the senate are also working on their own package. what do you see as plausible coming out of all of this? what concrete changes to policing in america will we see in the next few weeks? >> well, policing is mostly a state and local matter. but at the federal level we can have a big impact. first we could have a big impact

by changing the standard for when it's possible for a federal prosecutor to come in and prosecute a federal civil rights violation. that's a provision in the senate and the house bills, the one i'm co-sponsoring, led by senators booker and harris, called the justice and policing act. it would also give subpoena power to the federal department of justice to do pattern and practice investigations of police departments that have a long history of abuse in terms of their use of force policies. i do think you'll see broad agreement on changing use of force reporting and on preventing officers who have been decertified in one state from simply moving to another and being rehired by another agency. i think you'll see a ban on chokeholds and hopefully the funding, federally and at the state and local level for the reliable and continued use of body cams and the release of that information to the public. >> we'll be watching that hearing today. as i said, we'll see what is

exactly in the president's executive order. senator chris coons of delaware, thank you. ahead, senator cory booker of new jersey will be our guest. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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our testing is so far

advanced, we're going to have more cases. we're always going to have more cases. i said that's the down side of having good testing, you find cases that countries who don't even test don't have. if you don't test, you don't have any cases. if we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any. >> i'm sorry. >> if you don't test, you don't have any cases. >> we tried to explain this before -- >> does he mean cases, like officially, because people still have it. >> and they're dying of it. that's the remarkable thing, is that -- >> that's incredible. >> -- the united states now have 115,000 people who have died. >> 117. >> 117,000 people who have died of coronavirus and donald trump keeps saying that if we don't test for the coronavirus, then it will magically go away.

we won't have any more cases. actually testing for the coronavirus does not kill people. that's just like saying, you know, pregnancies would be driven down to zero if we just stopped having pregnancy tests. we brought along willie geist to explain what the president of the united states is trying to mean yesterday. willie, please explain it for us. >> well, i think he meant exactly what he said. how do we know this? he said it before. he just showed it yesterday, what he said a month ago, in the middle of may, remember he made this almost identical comment which we thought was a wild slip of the tongue or misunderstanding, he means what he says. he says he's frustrated because 2 million cases, 117,000 deaths just means we're testing a lot. if we would just stop that

testing, we wouldn't have all the alarm over the cases. i can't explain it any further than that except to say, when you say it twice, i think it means you believe it. >> well, mike pence told governors yesterday to lie to their people and to say the coronavirus cases were going up because testing is going up. the fact is, actually, the percentage of the coronavirus cases are going up higher -- the coronavirus cases are going up higher, at a higher percentage, than the increase in coronavirus testing. listen, reports restaurants are opening up and shutting back down. there are reports that in red state america there are some people beginning to get very worried about these coronavirus cases spiking. we are going to have these spikes, we just are. we can't have the economy shut down forever. we're going to have these spikes. it's going to be difficult. there's going to be a lot of stopping and starting, especially if we're being reckless about it as a country.

i don't think we will. i think some people are being really reckless about it. but this is going to happen. we're going to have to sort our way through it. and as we have suggested to the white house from the very beginning, it is far better to tell the truth to the american people while we're going through this process because they will be able to handle the truth. the magical thinking is what has gotten donald trump in trouble from the very beginning. >> time and time again. >> time and again. tell the people the truth. say, this is going to be tough. we're going to have spikes as we reopen this economy. there are people that are going to get sick. and, unfortunately, there are people who are going to die. and as we get to the fall, we're going to have an even greater challenge if history is any guide. and we're going to have to go through all of this together as a nation, but we can do it. we can keep the economy open,

still social distance, still wear our masks, still protect people. but we're going to have to do it as a country. not the magical thinking. not that this is going away and not coming back in the fall. and not saying the cases are rising because our testing is rising because that's just not really accurate. >> the magical thinking ends with the coronavirus. i think the president thinks he can have his magical thinking, but the american people see it in the number of people falling ill and dying. it will be so interesting at his rally where they'll be handing out hand sanitizer, providing masks. they had people sign disclaimers. there's a real confrontation between trump's bravado when he thinks he's macho when he doesn't wear a mask and the people he'll be speaking to, most should be wearing masks. >> all, not most, not most. all should be wearing masks.

just like -- >> unless you have the an antibodies, i guess. >> no. everybody should be wearing a mask inside an arena, and everybody outside marching, not even inside an arena. if you're outside marching and you're not wearing a mask, you're putting your parents and grandparents and people with underlying conditions at risk. everyone should be wearing a mask if they're out among crowds. republicans, democrats, independents, marxist, anarchists, libertarians. it doesn't matter, if you're out in crowds, please protect yourself, protect others, protect your family members. wear a mask. >> along with joe, willie and me, associate editor of "the washington post," msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson, historian, author of "soul of america," jon meacham is with us. he's an nbc news and msnbc

contributor. >> it was one of those june days where the supreme court makes an announcement. >> so big. >> and republicans and conservatives wring their hands and say, what have we done? what have we done? we've had a republican president appoint another supreme court justice that has afforded the liberal cause. all of a sudden this refrain, but the courts. he's a man who doesn't share any of our values. he's a man whose very life undermines everything we try to teach our children. he is cruel, he is ignorant. go down the list. >> the list is so long. >> they go down the list of all the terrible things donald trump is, and then they go, but the courts. and what they woke up to this

morning, reading the papers was a fact that a trump appointed judge just handed one of the largest culture wars victory -- culture war victories to libe l liberals and handed them one of the biggest culture war defeats over the past 50 years. >> the glib way of talking about this is they sold their soul and the check has bounced. so, that's the clever way to talk about it for a second. the serious way to talk about it is the system, by and large, worked here. and i think justice should be praised for this. obviously i would because i agree with the system. ultimately the force behind the

obsession and the exultation of the supreme court does begin, more or less, on may 17, 1954 with the brown decision, runs through the school prayer decision in '62, obviously roe versus wade in '73, and the energy behind the obsession with the supreme court and federal bench has always been a guiding principle for the right, and they have always believed that eisenhower stabbed them in the back with warren, that nixon stabbed them in the back three times out of four. they give him rehnquist, but the other three justices nixon appoints, don't they.

they gave them, of all people, john palm stevens, george h.w. bush gave them david souter. they were never going to be fooled again. that's a large part of why that part of the electorate has done what they did with donald trump. and yet, and yet, the key phrase of american history, and yet the right decision was made. up next from atlanta, where family members of a man killed by police are demanding justice for rayshard. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction

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press, north korea threatened to demolish the office as it stepped up its fiery rhetoric as south korea tried to stop activists from from dropping leaflets. this shows the moment the bombing took place. the move by the north korea comes as the united states and north korea remain deadlocked on nuclear diplomacy. joining us from london, nbc news senior international correspondent, keir simmons. good morning. what exactly happened here? >> reporter: well, willie, this is symbolic and also, i think, potentially serious, not least for president trump as he heads towards the election in november. this inter-korean liaison office was set up in 2018 amid much fanfare. it was a symbol of peace. now it's been reduced to rubble. there is the kind of north korea criminology, if you like, so the threat to do this was made by

kim jong-un's system, and i think it's a sign of the tension inside north korea. for example, coronavirus, they've had to close their borders. this would have had real economic impacts. they'reabout balloons being sent across the border from the south with usbs in them, news from the south, and even dollar bills in them. more broadly, there is the frustration in north korea, in pyongyang, about the stalemate with president trump and with president moon of south korea. i think you've got to remember how much kim jong-un invested in that relationship and in those talks. and there hasn't been progress now for some time. so, you know, i think in the months to come, what's being threatened is the kind of

classic escalation by north korea to get attention, willie. >> we should point out there was nobody in the building. it was closed at the time of the explosion. it's been closed because of coronavirus for several months. keir simmons, thank you very much. mika? president trump says he will sign an executive order on police reform later today. he claims it will be, quote, very comprehensive. so far we know it's expected to include databases that track police officers with multiple instances of misconduct as well as language that encourages departments to involve mental health professionals when dealing with issues, homelessness, addiction and mental health. we are told language that acknowledges systemic racism in policing will also be included in the order. meanwhile, three republican senators tell "the hill" that majority leader mitch mcconnell wants to vote on police reform

before the july 4th recess. senator tim scott of south carolina is currently working on that proposal. now to the anger and unrest in atlanta following friday's officer-involved shooting death of rayshard brooks. thousands of protesters peacefully marched to georgia state capitol yesterday demanding new laws aimed at police reform. the mayor of atlanta announced a series of new police reforms following the shooting death of rayshard brooks. among the changes, officers will now have to use de-escalation techniques before employing deadly force. officers will also be duty-bound to interceed when they see other officers engaging in reasonable applications of force. in announcing the reforms yesterday, mayor stressed the importance that every member of the community be treated with dignity and respect. >> it's clear we do not have

another day, another minute, another hour to waste. we saw the worst happen on friday night with mr. brooks. it angered me and it saddened me beyond words, but i know that it is my response as mayor of this great city for us to continue to work to put that anger and sadness into action. >> gene, i said it outright yesterday on this show, there are a lot of times i just don't put myself in position of a cop or second guess him when he's in a dangerous situation and he's figures out how he keeps people around him safe, how he keeps them safe, how he gets home to his family at night. same with soldiers and sailors and marines in war zones. we're fools when we put

ourselves into their place and try to second guess if, for instance, if this happened inside a closed building and somebody had come around a dark corner and they had something -- a taser that looked like a gun and charging at the police officer. i'm sorry, i'll just say it. how are we to judge? you think you can do a better job? not you, but somebody thinks they can do a better job? be a cop. in this case, a guy they had been talking to for 30 minutes, he was inebriated, he was tired, he was lethargic, he fought them to get away. he resisted arrest. and then he lumbered off in the parking lot and turned around and did a quick fire of a taser at him. still lumbering around. i use the word lumbering because that reminds me of what walter scott in north charles stone was doing, lumbering around. he was going to run out of energy in about, you know, five

steps. but like walter scott in north charleston, the cops here in this atlanta parking lot shoot mr. brooks in the back. as you said in your column, this is not complicated. >> no, it's not complicated. rayshard brooks would be alive today. this is a guy who committed the initial of falling asleep in his car in a wendy's drive-through and 20 minutes later he's shot in the back by a police officer. again, he was -- he -- he's not blameless in the sequence of events. he should not have resisted arrest. he was trying to talk the officers into letting him just walk to his sister's house.

you know, he was -- and drunk driving is a serious offense. i take that very seriously. but you get to the point where, as you said, he's lumbering away. in the course of lum berg, he turns and takes a wild shot with a nonlethal weapon, a taser, at the police officer and, of course, misses. and the officer decides to shoot him twice in the back as he's running away. that should not have happened. and it's the kind of thing that keeps happening. his life was not valued. that's why protesters have been in the streets for the last three weeks and that's why they will continue to be in the streets until this sort of warrior style, you know, ultimate force method of

policing, particularly policing african-americans, is reformed, until something is done. and more than -- quite likely, more than -- de-escalation techniques. this is not rocket science. you remember difficuylann roof killed nine people in mother emanuel church, armed and dangerous, somehow manages to get captured alive and take him to burger king and he lives to stand trial. and yet rayshard brooks is dead. and so it's hard to convince me that there's not systemic racism in our policing. it's hard to convince me that

something terrible happened last friday night. coming up, an unexpected milestone a half century on. we'll discuss the supreme court's historic ruling. first, senator cory booker is standing by. he joins us straight ahead. "morning joe" is back in a moment. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction

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was arrested, there were several police officers, and the police officer that approached the door of the automobile he was driving, he reholstered his gun. he didn't point it. he reholstered his gun. there was a tremendous difference in his arrest than what we've seen in the last several days. >> that was jim clyburn on how officers with the arrest of rayshard brooks and dylann roof. let's bring in cory booker of new jersey. senator booker is also the co-sponsor of the justice in policing act proposed last week and also introduced legislation to remove confederate statues from the capitol. senator, always great to talk to you. just sitting there listening to

jim clyburn, one thing is obvious, we can pass all the reforms we want. you have some great legislation right there that goes to procedures and reforms inside police departments and policing across america. but we have a cultural problem here on how white suspects are treated differently from black suspects. how do we bridge that gap? >> again, king said it so eloquently, i can't pass legislation to make you love me but i can pass legislation to stop you from lynching am he. we've seen lots of reforms passed. you've watched this from the kerner report to obama's task force on policing. there are thing we could have done and implemented as federal law that would have saved br breonna taylor from being killed. those officers haven't been even arrested yet. there could have been thinking to save eric garner from a

chokehold. we aren't doing things we know will save laws or those officers clearly violated federal law. i'm not one of these people that believe we are powerless. we're not. we are lacking courage and political cowardess and doing things that, mark my words, will get done one day. there are practices in this country we will look back and say are archaic. but will we step up and do things we know will save lives in america. >> willie? >> snoenator booker, willie gei. i want to speak about equality which protects individual police officers from civil actions by complaintants. do you see this as something that can be overturned from the federal level? we've heard a lot from republicans that say these are state and local issues. all these police reform ideas,

or most of them anyway. what about qualified immunity, something even clarence thomas, obviously a conservative justice on the supreme court says should be looked at. >> this is the weird positioning. i'm going to call it out in the hearing today. somehow this is a right versus left thing. that's just wrong. from clarence thomas to george bush's -- the father's first address to congress calling out racial and religious profiling. on qualified immunity, i was looking at a document from the cato institute listing a whole bunch of other conservative organizations that all think it's outrageous that we are a country where you can violate another person's civil rights and you cannot be held accountable through a 1983 civil rights claim. it's unconscionable to me. and the stories of failed attempts in civil court to sue somebody, shields are stunning. pregnant woman in washington, seven months pregnant, dragged

out into the streets by police, tased three times. shielded by qualified immunity. a man in a utah hospital suffered from pneumonia, delirio delirious, stumbling around, shot by police. i could go through these cases that are heartbreaking and painful. the thought we don't have the ability to hold those officers accountable, either through qualified immunity on the civil side or the criminal side is unconscionable. let me say this. if there is no accountability, there will be no change. if officers know they can do things that are so far against our community standards but know they won't face criminal or civil penalties, there will be no change. >> senator, you come at this not from a theoretical point of view, all of this, because you were the mayor of newark, new jersey. you've had to deal on the ground, unlike many senators you serve with on a police level, on

a community level, and you have to look at these things very specifically and look at the impacts inside the community as a mayor. what have you brought, do you think, to the debate you shared with other senators about the complexities of the conversations we're having right now? >> look, i know police officers. i've virtually lived with them for years of my life. i know one much my -- some of the great police officers would talk to me about people using force and being, quote/unquote, justified in use of force but still dead wrong in using deadly force because they were not trained well, because they didn't show the kind of restraint or ability to deconflict a situation. one of the best lessons i learned the hard way, as mayor of the city of newark, where i was an african-american mayor of a majority black city, with a majority black city council, black police chief, so much is

baked in and endemic systemic racism and you have to go further to create accountability. one of the fundamental things you need for accountability is the sunshine on the data of the actual practices and procedures of police department, which we don't have in the united states of america. it took the justice department coming into my police department, using resources we didn't have to analyze the data and demonstrate to us a lot of our practices and how they were wrong. this is not about good intentions. this is not about a few bad apples. this about a system of policing in our country that has gone way off the rails. and unless we begin to mandate certain things, reporting of use of force, reporting of misconduct, reporting of racial data, of stops and more, then we're not going to get truly at this. we'll be anybody. ing across the edges. what i'm worried about now is people are going to try to use some diluted, lowest common denominator reforms and saying

taking your knee halfway off someone's neck should be celebrated as somehow justice. we'll find ourselves if we don't do the real reforms back here again after another spate of killings by police captured on videotape and we realize, we didn't do everything we could do and should do we knew would be able to stop this problem. >> senator, since this is a systemic issue and everything should be on the table, i wanted to ask you about police being armed. it's a big difference from other countries, obviously, but last year in the states, we don't have perfect data but 458 people were killed by police. in germany it was eight. in britain it was zero. in japan it was zero. one of the big differences is police in those countries are not alled. not all police carry arms in those countries. is there any conversation to be had given how many arms there are in society whether police should be carrying weapons,

whether all police should be carrying weapons at all times. >> let's give balance. some of that is obviously we as a nation, where the guns are proliferated. where police who approach a car don't know if that person is armed or not. but when you look at police use of force, it doesn't account for that massive disparity. as said by clyburn beforehand, as a man with guns pointed at me, we have police officers unholstering weapons. think of the deaths of what we've seen on videotape recently that are unnecessary. this is the point. i've seen this, again, in a community where you do have, in every community, people with mental health challenges, serious mental illnesses, schizophrenia, how sometimes autism can manifest itself by a parent attempt. if you have people, and there's

pilot studies that have shown this in america, that actually bring mental health professionals familiar with these types of mental health situations can be de-escalation. elevate the sanctity of human life. the bill that kamal a and i hav tailored is about accountability but the largest is all society cannot be addressed with police in prisons. we have overcriminalized everything from poverty to sexual trauma to mental illness to addiction. we have to stop that. we can imagine a more beloved community where people that are hurting or hurt, people that are fragile, people that are sick and have health care issues we address those in that context and not a policing one. when we get to that point and begin to empower fragile folks in fragile circumstances, we will see our need for police

dissolve and have a very light kind of police force compared to what we have right now. unfortunately, as you compared us to other nations, we have a country right now that is only 5% of the planet's population. but we have so criminalized this country that we have one out of every four incarcerated people on planet earth in our prisons and jails where we do things in prison and jail to further harm, hurt and traumatize them. put them on the streets with even less ability to economically sustain their families or address their fragility and we end up with cycles of recidivism, destroyed lives, destroyed families and communities. >> senator booker, thank you for being with us. we really do appreciate it. >> thank you very much. coming up next, we're going to be talking to an infectious disease expert about the spike in the coronavirus cases and whether he's concerned about the virus spreading at large gatherings, like the protests or the president's upcoming rally. dr. michael osterholm is our

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university of minnesota, dr. michael oyster home osterho.

thank you for being with us. we had this discussion about a month or two ago. you basically told us, we need to grow up. that, yes, we're going to have to reopen the economy. and, yes, we're going to have spikes when we reopen the economy. we just had breaking news five minutes ago that retail sales jumped 18% because e-economy is reopen. at the same time, we're seeing a spike across the country. tell us how we should be looking at that. >> well, actually, believe it or not, it's much more complicated than that that. i wish it were that simple. right now we have 21 states where the number much cases are going up, and quite dramatically. you already discussed that earlier in the show. it's not just that testing is going up, but the number of positive tests are going up. we're looking at hospitals right now that are literally on the brim of overflowing with intensive care patients. in 21 states, we have cases decreasin decreasing. we don't understand exactly what's happening.

the same reopenings occurred, the same situation in terms of potential transmission has occurred, and i think this is one of those moments of humility as humans, what this virus is doing and why it's doing it, we're not sure. we know being in large groups and being close together indoors is surely going to put you at risk, but why some states are increasing, other states are decreasing, we have to understand that. >> what about protests you've seen over the past several weeks, how much concern have you had about that, how concerned are you about the president doing a rally in tulsa? >> well, i think you have to split these off into two separate areas -- indoors and outdoors. let's show the outdoor first, which is the one we saw on our tv screens on end. in that situation two weeks ago, i said, i don't know if it's going to increase cases or not because, number one, once you're outside, the virus tends to dissipate more quickly into the air. you're not in that cloud of virus when you're around someone and the air is moving.

on the other hand, you had people exposed to tear gas, smoke, coughing, getting the virus out. we had people that were arrested, put into holding vehicles for several hours at a time. then transported to jails, processed, all indoors. i can tell you as of this morning, we still have not had any clear evidence of any big increase in cases almost two weeks out. i would say if we go another week, we probably aren't going to see a lot of impact from the protests if we don't see a change in cases. as far as indoors, i mean, it doesn't matter whether it's a political rally, whether it's a rock concert, whether it's anything. if you're indoors with lots of people, there the air does concentrate the virus. it's around you. it doesn't go away. that's what we have to understand. you put yourself into harm's way like that, it's a problem. i summarized it simply by saying, i wouldn't want my loved ones in those kind of settings. >> dr. osterholm, willie geist. good to see you this morning. you said this virus will not

rest. in other words, it will continue to spread until it reaches 60% to 70% of the population. that's going to pop a lot of eyes by hearing you say that. what do you mean specifically by that number? >> well, willie, it's interesting because i've been saying this for months. so have a number of my colleagues. the fact that americans don't get it, you're right, i think it probably pops your eyes when you hear this. what we don't have is the battle mindset we need to take this virus on. we keep thinking we just get over the next week or the next month, if we just get things reopened up again, everything is going to be okay. i can tell you right now that's not the situation. when you think about all the pain and suffering, death and economic disruption that's occurred with 5% of this population having been infected, think what it's going to take to get to us 60% or 70%, by then enough people will be infected and hopefully have immunity that it slows down transmission in the community.

we're in this thing for months. americans and the world have to understand that's what we have to prepare for. economic news today is great. i'm glad to hear about retail sales. what happens if we see big spikes, big waves of cases that will come down the road in the months ahead. how prepared are we for that psychologically or the hospital standpoint. >> of course, there are also stories about restaurants across america opening up and then having to close down a week or two later as they try to handle some infections either in their staff or from people that came to the restaurants. dr. michael osterholm, we love having you on. we have a shorter window today, unfortunately. i'm told we go to bars in about 30 seconds to we have to let you go. >> thank you. >> i hope you'll come back very soon. >> thank you very much. have a good day. >> all right, thank you. coming up next, ten years ago, barack obama didn't support same-sex marriage.

this year you had mayor pete storming the national stage. we're going to talk about the fast pace of change in the gay community, including yesterday's historic supreme court ruling when "morning joe" returns. how about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad. in a 6-3 decision that surprised many observers, the supreme court yesterday made it illegal to fire someone for being gay or transgender. the opinion was written by a trump-appointed justice, neil gorsuch, along with john roberts, voted with the liberal members of the court. majority found title 7 of the civil rights act of 1974 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex also applies to sexual orientation and transgender status. justice gorsuch wrote, an employee who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would

not have questioned in a member of a different sex. sex plays a necessary and undistinguishable role in the decision. exactly what title vii forbids. clarence thomas and samuel alito dissent dissented. joining, pulitzer prize winning writer, jonathan capehart. with us, "new york times" reporter jeremy peters writing on yesterday's 6-3 supreme court decision. guys, good morning. it's good to see you both. jonathan, i want to start with you. i mentioned some people were surprised. maybe not by the outcome but by the vote, 6-3. i think you were one of them. >> yes, i was very surprised. i'm no lawyer, so there are lots of lawyers who weren't surprised because justice gorsuch is a, quote, textualist, he looks at

the case and does the case before him follow the text and that's the way he's going to go. but for those of us who aren't lawyers, this was huge. one, because the decision was 6-3. not 5-4. from a conservative court. also because justice gorsuch was appointed by president trump. nominated and was confirmed by president trump. and so the fact that you have this incredible new expansion of rights for the lgbtq community coming from this conservative court truly is breathtaking. and breathtaking also because it comes five years -- five years after the supreme court made same-sex marriage the law of the land. >> and jonathan, just taking a step back, take off your reporter hat for a minute and just speak as who you are about how big this is. i think most people in this country didn't realize that more

than half of the states in our country, it still was legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation. so culturally and practically, how big a deal is this? >> culturally and practically, this is huge. almost four years ago, i was able to get married to my husband, thanks to the supreme court. but we were also mindful that our saturday wedding, i could have been legally fired if i were in the other 29 states that -- where it's not protected. i could have been fired on my first day back at work after my wedding. what this ruling does is that it makes it illegal for someone to be fired because they are gay, lesbian or transgender. as an american, as a gay american, to have the supreme court recognize once again the

fact that i am human, the fact that i have dignity and that dignitiship affirmed is confirmed. but the fact it's coming from a conservative supreme court makes it that much more special and sweet. in the long run, we should not have to rely on the supreme court to guarantee these rights. in a functioning democracy, this should have been made law by the legislative branch. and this just shows -- it shows just how broken the legislative branch is. the equality act passed out of the house in this earlier this year and is sitting in the senate waiting for mitch mcconnell to give it a vote. but he won't because there are no judges. he's only interested in confirming more conservative young judges to the federal judiciary. >> so jeremy peters, you're

reporting all day yesterday about this case, about this outcome. it's interesting to look where the country is and sort of seeing the supreme court and states try to catch up to it. in a recent poll by cbs news, 82% of americans said, yes, of course, gay and lesbian people should be afforded the same rights in terms of discrimination as everyone else, including 71% of republicans. so this indeed was a long time coming. >> right, willie. and i think one of the key points to look at here is, while justice gorsuch justified his opinion in a fundamentally conservative way saying i'm reading the text of the law and the text of the law says you can't discriminate based on gender. and that should apply to sexual orientation and gender identity as well. there's something larger culturally going on here. and the changes that have been sweeping the nation with regard to acceptance of gay rights, of

transgender people did not stop at the supreme court steps. there are, as one lawyer said to me yesterday, i was interviewing justices of the supreme court now who know and probably love gay people. almost all of them probably do. and that's a significant change from just ten years ago. these gay justices have, in fact, clerked for justice gorsuch. so it's really kind of unthinkable that these relationships in his personal and social life would not have had an impact on his thinking here, though he did ultimately ground his opinion in a conservative interpretation of the law. even conservatives have gay friends, gay relatives, and i think that that awareness of them, that awareness that they're just ordinary people who are entitled to rights under the constitution is what was at play here in a pretty significant way.

>> jeremy, it's katty here. i thought your reporting on gorsuch's relationship with gay people in his past was intere interesting yesterday. is there anything else coming up in the next few months until the november election where you -- where the court still has to rule on this issue or where president trump might try to take counteraction in order to shore up his own evangelical base? pretty clear yesterday from his comments he was disappointed by the court's rulings. could you see him doing something to try to win back conservative evangelicals on the issue? >> so there certainly will be pressure on that katty. the conservatives, religious conservatives yesterday that i was talking to were quite upset and quite surprised by this decision. i think it's pretty fair to say this surprised people across the political spectrum. but there's only so much that president trump can do. he's issued so many skift orders already that undermine,

especially transgender protections. there's not a whole lot of arrows left to -- in that coil. so he's pretty limited. i will say this, though. there are a number of aspects of the law that conservatives -- religious conservatives, especially and their legal organizations. and these are well-funded organization, by the way, that have the ability to wage lawsuits and try to change the law here. they are looking at carve outs for religious exemptions and things like that to -- housing law to public accommodations law, to adoption law. they want religious organizations to be able to say, for example, no, i will not allow an adoption of a child to a gay or lesbian couple. so i would be on the lookout for cases like that. >> monumental decision in the supreme court yesterday. jonathan, want to get you in on

some campaign news as well. president trump is now in a statistical dead heat with joe biden in the state of iowa. the latest des moines register mediacom poll has trump up one point, 44% to 43%. that's within the margin of error. four years ago, donald trump carried that state by nearly 10 points. the poll also shows a significant gender divide with joe biden up 14 points among women in that state. 50% to 36%. president trump leads among men without college degrees by 36 points while joe biden is up 18 points among women without college degrees. another state where the two seem neck and neck is arkansas. president trump is at 47% and statistically tied with joe biden who sits at 45%. donald trump won arkansas in 2016 by nearly 27 points. one postscript to that poll, on sunday, trump campaign lawyer

jenna ellis tweeted out the arkansas poll as evidence to the campaign's complaint that cnn's recent polls do not match others. but cnn's recent poll that showed joe biden up big was a national poll which did match other recent national polls. ellis later deleted the post and tweeted she had posted the wrong poll before posting a link to a zogby analytics poll of who people thought would win the presidential election. all right. putting that to the side for just a second, jonathan. you look at some of these states that were runaways for donald trump in 2016. i'm not sure there are a lot of people who would bet much money that joe biden is going to win arkansas, but the fact in that poll is within the margin of error in iowa where donald trump won comfortably four years ago. there are places now where the trump campaign is going to have to put in time and money to hold where it is because it won by the narrow margin in 2016 in just a few states. >> right. we shouldn't be talking about

arkansas. we shouldn't be talking about iowa when it comes to former vice president biden's chances of winning there. the fact that we are shows that at least at this point in time, president trump is in trouble in those states. i think it was -- time has become elastic, but i think it was last week or a couple of weeks ago where i said president trump is playing into joe biden's hands. and i think these polls are bearing out what i was saying. what i meant by that was vice president biden started up his campaign talking about fighting for the soul of america. fighting for who we are as a nation and what we want to see from a president. and what we have seen since the killing of george floyd in minneapolis two weeks ago, two weeks, a day ago, is a president who seemingly is out of control, out of touch going all the way from his response to the coronavirus pandemic or lack thereof, right through to the

unrest around the country over the killing of george floyd. he doesn't seem in touch with the country. >> all with our usual caveats that 4 1/2 months is an absolute lifetime to election day. jonathan capehart, jeremy peters, great to have both of you with us. that does it for us on "morning joe." we'll be right back here tomorrow morning. for now, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. hair hey, steph. >> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle, it's tuesday, june 16th. here's what's happening. at noon today, president trump will sign an executive order on police reform. it comes just days after rayshard brooks was killed by police in atlanta sparking new protests across that city. the president's order will cover the use of force and police misconduct, but it does not touch the issue of racial bias. anything like that would have to be handled by congress, and that's where it gets a lot more complicated. democrats put out their plan last ek