as fears heighten here at home and globally of a second wave of coronavirus, let's take a look at the facts of this pandemic. as we know them. at the bottom of the hour. today, there are more than 2.1 million cases in the u.s. the death toll has surpassed

117,000 people. and as restrictions are eased across our country the university of washington's institute for health now predicts an additional 84,000 americans will die by october 1. but some promising news as we mentioned before the break out of the uk today. researchers at the university of oxford say a decades-old steroid used to treat several common conditions reduces the death rate among the sickest covid-19 patients by up to a third. with us from london for more on this potential breakthrough, veteran nbc news correspondent bill neely, bill, tell us about this. >> reporter: good afternoon, brian. the drug is called dexamethasone, it's an anti-inflammatory steroid that's been used on everything from asthma to arthritis, even to altitude sickness the first drug

that's been proven to help the survival rates of covid-19 patients. it's available in huge quali quantities. these oxford university scientists tested around 6,000 people, many on ventilators, some on oxygen and a few less seriously affected, they gave them this drug for ten days and then they stopped the test because the results were so clear and those on ventilators had a survival rate, it improved their survival rate by a third. for those on oxygen, the figure was 1/5. quite dramatic results. remember it's not a vaccine, it doesn't prevent coronavirus, here's how the lead scientist at oxford university explained this drug and the breakthrough. >> it's not a cure, it's a particular patient group, those

with lung disease in hospital and it reduces their risk of mortality. so it's a big advance, first drug that's been shown to improve survival. but there's still a long way to go. >> reporter: so all the data hasn't been published but it looks like a big breakthrough, certainly those scientists are saying it's a major breakthrough. >> and bill, just for the sake of repetition, for people who may be coming to this late, this works and is proven effective on the sickest patients? >> reporter: on the sickest patients and actually those scientists say that up to 5,000 deaths in the uk could have been saved if this drug had been used, now this is my calculation just based on death rates, brian, that would translate to about 15,000 lives saved in the

united states because, half of the people who are on ventilators die, so something like this, you know, could be a huge breakthrough. also the scientists are saying that because it's cheap and available in large quantities, in poorer countries like india, peru, brazil, where this virus is rampant, this could be a real game-changer. brian? >> in the background the familiar sound of a takeoff from heathrow. nicolle, i'm reading an item that we reported on last night. this is from jacksonville, florida the headline, woman tests positive for coronavirus after a night out. she's a 40-year-old healthcare worker, she now regrets not being more cautious, a group of

16 women go out as a group, and now something like seven employees in the bar, 16 women reporting positive results for covid-19. last night a member of our staff made the calculation coronavirus has killed 1 out of every 389 new yorkers, a staggering stat when you think about it going into this. so, just a reminder, these medical advances are critical, following the numbers, following the advice, real data from these states couldn't be more important. >> and you hear bill talk about 15,000 people that would still be alive, changing the mortality rate is the difference between someone losing a parent or a child or a loved one and not losing them it's a big deal. i'm glad we got to talk to bill and thank you for joining us for

the better part of the hour. we'll be watching you tonight at 11:00. when we come back -- our interview with one of the leading journalists covering the pandemic. we'll find out what she's worried about most these days. stay with us. - [narrator] did you just reward yourself

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setbacks in plans, largely in places where reopening already began. according to "the new york times" cases are that still on the rise across 21 states. austin's stay-at-home order was extended for another month. in miami's mayor is halting that city's phase three reopenings after florida's cases jumped by more than 1700 yesterday. meanwhile, in arizona, cases surged, about 54% in one week. earlier this month as the state continues to average more than 1,000 new cases daily. joining us now for the big picture, pulitzer prize winning journalist, bestselling author and expert laurie garrett. she warned of an ongoing pandemic like this one in her

book "the coming plague." we're very lucky to have her as a science contributor here at msnbc. everything you say, when you talk everybody license. i asked you if i was being neurotic with all of the safety precautions, all the wiping down, strict social distancing, almost quarantining myself and my family and you said no. you said this virus is scary. we are as a country really opting out of a lot of things that let the hardest hit states bend their curves, new york city and new york state, is that a mistake? >> well, we're taking a big risk here in the united states right now. because we have a chaotic hodgepodge of policies all across america. some states opening, some states still very cautious, very much

shutdown, such as here in new york, and people are growing impatient, they're tired of being locked down, they're trying to get out, have more social interactions, hit the bars the beaches, all the things that people like to do in the summer. it's high risk, all of it. look at china right now, we have a second -- what looks like a second big epidemic unfolding all over again in china, this time in the capital in beijing, there's tremendous concern among the chinese that this actually is a different strain of the virus, a more as they're calling it a more transmissable, a more contagious strain the virus, you know, is changing with time. we have no ed that any particular change that's happened so far with the virus confers any certain attributes to it but we have to be careful, we have to be watching for all of these things. i think we're not in a second wave in america, we're still in

the first wave. and the first wave is having wave lets. little wavelets. here's your texas wavelet. here's your oklahoma wavelet and so on. and you know, we're trying to see it as a continuous event, but we have such chaotic leadership across the country that it's all just one series of microwaves set by different policies from one part of the country to the other. >> well, and our politics have affected human behavior so dramatically, we have the president who's the most prominent republican official in this country doing what tony fauci who's the most prominent public health official in the country said we should not do which is to convene a large indoor gathering and invite 19,000 people for the indoor part and up to 60,000 for the outdoor part, can we beat a

virus in our current state of political division? >> there's no other country in the world that has as chaotic a response to this epidemic as we. you know, you have one policy one place. we have a president who refuses to wear a mask. has never been seen putting hand wipes on. doesn't practice what his administration preaches about personal protection. you know, the city health department in tulsa has said, you know, we really wish you weren't coming because as much as oklahoma might support the president, it's not anxious to see its epidemic grow and it's doing this in oklahoma. just a skyrocketing surge, particularly in tulsa. this is very worrying and if you have a rally of -- i mean, i

don't know how many people, 20,000 people both inside and standing around in lines outside supporting the president, and you say masks are optional for all of them, and we know the demographics of the maga crowd, typically at the president's rallies, are tend to skew to an older population, meaning a more vulnerable population. this could be a recipe for real disaster at least for oklahoma and i have called around and it does look like people are planning to drive in from texas from arkansas, neighbor states, and this could have ramifications that do on much more broadly than just tulsa. >> what's the duration in your estimation for the wavelets stage? i interviewed governor andrew cuomo last week, he said his crystal ball really can't make any predictions about the fall

because it's impossible to know at this point that the states that are surging are going to come back in and re-infect his state, are all conversations about opening offices and schools meaningless. >> i'm hearing from people wanting advice about opening next february. next march. i mean, the confusion rains across every business planning, cultural and entertainment planning. people's weddings, everything's on hold. america is it's not just us it's the whole world. across america we're feeling on hold. people can't make their plans. is it safe to go back to college or not? is it safe to go back to school or not? should the business reopen or not? just here with msnbc, the day when i return to the studios of rockefeller center?

or stay here and broadcast from this lovely skype? we don't know. the governor's right to say to you that we have really stark confusion, because these wavelet status quo, you know, it's predicted this will be 200,000 dead americans by certainly the beginning of september, labor day weekend period, possibly sooner than that. so that's hardly an end to the first wave, that's a very active considerable, horrible experience. and we just don't know here in new york all the precautions being taken, this is tourist mecca for europeans, it's a tourist mecca for people all over the world, and as we open up more in new york, are we in fact lay bear a vulnerable city and a vulnerable state that will get reinfected by visitors

coming in? and since we don't have a national policy every leader of every community has to make their own calculus. can i open to the outside? can san antonio let the rest of texas come down on the riverwalk, or is it too dangerous for san antonio? can anaheim reopen disneyland, or is it too dangerous for anaheim? >> i love to know the answers to all those questions that you give. please promise that you'll come back, laurie garrett, you're an international treasure, thank you for spending time with us. when we return -- the news today that north korea blew up a building it shares with the south with the pandemic raging. can donald trump possibly deal with kim jong-un as well? t of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub? grubhub's gonna reward you for that with a $5 off perk.

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the international community tries to focus on its recovery

from coronavirus, tensions between north and south korea reached new heights this morning. north korean officials have now admitted to bombing an office that coordinates relations between the two koreas, leafing what was a symbol of piece decimated. they quickly held a meeting in response to the attack. the state department also swiftly responded to the bombing writing, the united states fully supports the republic of korea's efforts to inter-korean relations and urges the dprk to refrain from further counterproductive actions. joining us now is senior international correspondent keir simmons. so i guess this is, while i was sleeping, i wasn't sleeping, i was covering coronavirus and the demonstrations in this country, but while i was sleeping, north korea bombed south korea. explain. >> yeah, right. a little nostalgia for you. if you remember back, i think the first time i appeared on

your show, the first time we met, i came on in the early days of the trump administration to talk about how dangerous it was when you remember there was that standoff between president trump and kim jong-un. well, here's the worst case scenario that this is the beginning of a ratcheting up of tension that sees a -- perhaps an intercontinental ballistic test that forces president trump to feel like he has to respond in the run up to the election where he's worried about the re-election. this building that was bombed on the border, this peace building set up in 2018, there was no one in it. it's on the border with south korea. so in a sense, it's the north koreans pushing america by pushing its ally south korea but not directly confronting america. another, i guess, piece of good news is kind of north korean kremlinology. kim jong-un's sister was the one

to threaten this. she's more and more powerful. with north korea to be powerful, you have to show strength. maybe there is some internal politics going on here aside from what i think is true, which is i think there is deep unhappiness in the leadership in north korea about a lack of progress as they see it over their talks with president trump. and as you say, they aren't getting attention, and they always get unhappy when they don't get attention. one other piece of good news, a lighter note, nicolle. i'm standing outside my house. as i look over there my 7-year-old daughters are just looking at us out the window to see us broadcasting. so they're just waiting for bedtime. >> well, we'll wave hello. just switch gears for me and tell me how it's feeling there. we were talking to laurie garrett about the pandemic, and here we oar are -- she said we're dealing with our second

wavelets. how do you feel there? >> i've said it before. i think there's a sense of post-traumatic stress here. people are kind of looking around at the economic signals are really, really troubling, disastrous you might even say. i think one of the key lessons for governments around the world is we are spending so much time. whoever our government is, trying to -- listening and trying to understand how it's going to affect the political decisions being made. really decisions are being made by the virus. the virus is running things. and we're just trying to control it. and that is true all around the world. >> truer words haven't been spoken all hour. keir simmons, thanks for spending time with us. tell your daughter time for bed. coming up -- donald trump's strategy and constant state of denial. "deadline white house" begins next.

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hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. on the 22nd day of demonstrations, demanding an end to police violence, and that progress be made on racial injustice in this country, and as the nation heads toward coronavirus spikes in a dozen states, donald trump has landed on denial and distraction as a strategy for both with 76% of

americans in agreement that systemic racism is a major problem in this country. donald trump today standing in opposition to that belief. in fact, in a rose garden event today on police reform, he shunned the notion of institutional racism and clung to his claim this all boils down to just a tiny amount of bad apples. >> americans want law and order. they demand law and order. they may not say it, they may not be talking about it, but that's what they want. some of them don't even know that's what they want, but that's what they want. nobody needs a strong, trustworthy police force more than those who live in distressed areas, and nobody is more opposed to the small number of bad police officers, and you have them. they are very tiny. i use the word tiny. it's a very small percentage, but you have them. but nobody wants to get rid of them more than the overwhelming

number of really good and great police officers. >> trump's announcement today, which veered frequently into the realm of his base-stoking campaign rallies also featured some of his go-to dog whistles like preserving our heritage. making calls for confederate symbols to be dismantled. all that undermine anything progress he might have hoped to make toward uniting the country. progress that might have come from a different executive order. he did greaaddress some of the issues like chokeholds and announced a database to track police misconduct. but if all of that leaves open any doubt about the trump administration's denial that systemic racism in america is a problem, here are some of trump's top officials. >> i don't believe in systemic racism. i think the american system is the best system ever devised for

mankind for history. >> do you think systemic racism is a problem? >> i don't think there's systemic racism. >> is america systemically racist? >> of course not. you know, i've seen systemic racism growing up. we are so much better than that now. >> do you believe there is systemic racism in law enforcement? >> i think there's racism in the united states still, but i don't think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist. >> the consistency of messaging there is a rarity for this administration. and it says it all. and on the other crisis gripping the country with rising fears, the rising numbers of coronavirus cases, donald trump displayed a similar strategy. denial. trump claiming yesterday that with cases on the rise in 22 states and hospitalizations increasing in ten states, the problem isn't the virus at all. it's testing for the lethal

virus that's to blame. listen to this. >> again, our testing is so far advanced. it's so much bigger and better than any other country that we're going to have more cases. we're always going to have more cases. and as i said this morning, that's probably the down side of having good testing is you find a lot of cases that other countries who don't even test don't have. if you don't test, you don't have any cases. if we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases if any. >> i can't wait for sarah cooper to get her hands on that. "the new york times" writes, vice president mike pence encouraged governors on sunday to adopt the administration's explanation that a rise in testing was a reason behind new coronavirus outbreaks. even though testing data has shown that such a claim is misleading. the president being awol on the two main story lines in america is having a dire political impact on trump in places where he usually finds lots of support. in the critical state of

michigan, a state trump managed to win in the last election, his opponent joe biden is up by a full 16 points. the margin that's widened by four points in just the last two weeks. in iowa, a state trump won by nine points in 2016, he's now in a statistical tie with joe biden. as the same poll also shows a majority of iowans disapprove of trump's handling of both race and coronavirus. the president's willful abdication of leadership is where we start with some of our favorite reporters and friends. white house reporter jonathan lemire is here. also former congressman david jolly and kim atkins, senior correspondent for boston's public news station wbur. jonathan lemire, it seems like when you've got a number like 76% of americans that have watched the events, they watched an unarmed black man die on a piece of tape where someone with his hands in the pocket, a police officer with his hands in

his pocket killed him. you've got 76% of the country coming to the conclusion that systemic racism is an urgent problem. for the president to stand up and say anything less than what 76% of the country is, in large numbers, marching against, protesting for, puts him outside the main stream of american public sentiment in a pretty dramatic way. >> first of all, nicolle, i forgive you for stealing my sarah cooper joke i had in my notes. >> can we talk about her for one second. her brilliance -- >> she's a treasure. >> -- unrivaled. she is a national treasure. >> it's extraordinarily funny. if you don't follow her on twitter, you should. yes, you are right. the president, as we know, continues to double down, triple down, quadruple down and so on on his base. he believes he has -- that's his political -- that's his survival

is based he believes on keeping that group of supporters happy. as frank luntz, a republican pollster told my colleague the other day he's never seen a politician more out of step with a moment than president trump is right now with these protests. and the energy behind them. the crusade to try to call out this racial injustice in law enforcement and across american society. indeed, that systemic racism. so setting aside even a moral argument, if we were just to look at this as a political calculation, it's bad politics for the president to be so out of step as he appears to be. today he was in the rose garden. he had this skiexecutive order. he received some praise from val demings for the database of officers written up foruti usin excessive force. but this was a small measure and the optics can't be overlooked. previously, prior to coming out

to the rose garden, president trump did meet with some of the families of those who have been the victims of police misconduct, but none of them attended the ceremony. the president was flanked, again, by law enforcement officials and police unions. the people that he is trying to court and trying to count on their support this november who backed him largely last time as well. and we're seeing very little in terms of actual engagement with these protests that are still out in the streets. today in the rose garden, and he rambled on. it turned into a campaign rally just behind the west wing there. after he left his scripted remarks, he started blasting democrats and the media as he often does. he also returned to the language these protests are full of looting and violence. and that simply hasn't been the case outside of those first few days. for large part -- an exception here or there, of course, but these are peaceful protests drawn from a wide swath of

america that enjoy massive public support. and it seems the president simply is unable or unwilling to see that. >> let me put up a picture of what jonathan lemire just described. the president was flanked by white men. law enforcement officials and i think as jonathan just reported, one african-american law enforcement official is seen there in the images. if there's a wider shot and that picture is vastly different, we'll look for it and show it to you, but this is what we saw today in the rose garden. and kim atkins, nancy pelosi put out a statement and it seemed to represent that she's done grading donald trump on a curve. of course, it's good he met with families. of course it's good he appeared sympathetic. of course it's good that he did something. but this is a moment that 76% of

the american people and 76% of this country hasn't agreed on much over the last four or five years, wanting to see something dramatic done. this wasn't that. >> no, it was not. and to your point on denial, it seems that the president wants to deny anything that he sees as going against his campaign message. and his campaign message is that he is a law and order president, just as he's always said he would be. and that he is courting and relying on the support from law enforcement. and he sees anything that is -- goes too far in terms of reform as being anti-police. he wants to -- his gut is to make the police stronger, is to give them more. even when he was describing today some of -- part of his proposal that would increase funding for training on de-escalation techniques. he was talking about nondeadly techniques but he said very strong, very powerful nondeadly

techniques. his gut is to talk about the power and the force of the police officers, not turning that down, which is what the public is calling for. and also today, it wasn't just a campaign rally, but he made statements including right at the end when he said we can't deny our heritage, our history. that's a call about the tearing down of confederate monuments that's been happening which he sees as something that goes against what his base wants. so there is this -- while there's a denial that there is systemic racism in the criminal justice system and every other system in america, there is this, at the same time, just pushing the division, the racial divisions that he thinks is a political winner for him and that underlines all of this and prevents him from giving a broad-throated support for some of the reforms that people are calling for. >> you know, david jolly, i

think it's more than pushing division. it's coming down on the side of the people that oowant -- to us the word protecting our heritage, to stand there with a crowd that does not look like the folks who have taken to the streets. nbc news reported that he has said inside the west wing, these protesters aren't my people. he does not view the will of 76% of the country as his problem because he doesn't think those people are available to him. and he's probably right. but people should not look at what he did today as anything other than dress up remarks about protecting our heritage. i think the most sinister thing he said was you don't even know how badly you want law and order. people don't know how badly they want it. to me that's him saying the quiet part out loud. i'm about to show you. and i think anyone that is aghast at what he did in lafayette square should watch this space.

>> donald trump is engaged in pure, raw political calculus. that's all. he is not a leader for our time. he is not a leader in this moment, and we shouldn't look to him for anything more than what we saw today. the unifying call here, when he calls for law and order, the imagery that he knows he's evoking among some in his base is white police officers cracking down on black crime and black assailants. that's the imagery he's creating. the reality is law and order's first cousin is justice and swift justice. the unifying call is for a political leader to come down on the side of swift justice for george floyd and those who took george floyd's life. and the other cousin of law and order we talk about the cops being the law and order wing but it's also prosecutors. it's attorneys. and do they have the tools and resources they need and does the law allow them to prosecute people who engage in homicide regardless of whether they have the uniform or not? and if donald trump is going to

miss the turntopportunity, i th it's also there for democrats to come down on the side of swift justice. i'm a little wary, and i am a little wary of politicians who seek to prescribe certain use of force techniques because we know there's a balance. we do want law enforcement to have the tools necessary in critical situations and not have to think, what are the public policy implications donald trump or nancy pelosi in this situation. but what we do know is that the american people know that there are incidents like george floyd. we see them all the time. and they should be prosecuted. and donald trump and the republicans have an opportunity to come down on that side of law and order as well. they're going to miss this. and it's because it's a pure political calculus that they have to replicate. the demographic electoral behavior of the 2016 election. they have no other strategy but to divide the nation culturally.

and this issue is teed up perfectly for somebody with little or no morals like president donald trump. >> the problem even with that, though, jonathan lemire, is that if you look at what he achieved in 2016, it is, today, and this can all change in a nanosecond, not available to him. he is trailing in states that he carried handily. so even adhering to his own political strategy, even making none of this about protecting people from racial injustice or police brutality. put it all in a political bucket for the sake of argument. the politics that trump has landed on suck for him. >> no question. and let's remember that in 2016, there's no doubt he drew an inside straight, too, being opposed by candidate whose unfavorables were nearly as high as his. he had some outside foreign help. he had some domestic help. the timing of fbi director comey's letter with a week or so to go in the election also

really changed things. that was the moment where both campaigns internals saw the shift. fri prior to that moment, hillary clinton was ahead. started moving toward donald trump and accelerated. he can't count on that inside straight again this time around. let's do a quick look at the state of play here. michigan, there's a poll that has him down double digits. we've reported some time ago that the campaign is not -- i wouldn't go so far as to say written michigan off but they're pessimistic about michigan. therefore, they need to look elsewhere on the map. they know right now they're down in pennsylvania to joe biden. joe biden, the pennsylvania native. that's a state that some believe may be trending slowly republican but joe biden is someone there who plays very strongly. he's down in virtually every battleground. maybe only some by a few points, but he's down. and some states they really thought they wouldn't have to worry about. the georgias, iowas, texas, ohio. he's down close there, too. if he has to spend time and

energy and resources there, that hurts him elsewhere on the map. >> and the group that has abandoned him most dramatically is women. ron brownstein tweeted a statistic about noncollege educated white women who are breaking very differently in 2020 than they did in 2016. >> yes, you are seeing that is a key factor, particularly in places like michigan and ohio and other places. and that jonathan was talking about. women stood solidly behind him in 2016. and if you lose that demographic, coupled with all the other things. elections are won on the margins. and what you are showing here is that those margins are widening. they are chipping away for him, and there's fewer places for him to go to try to make up the difference for where -- from where he is losing. and perhaps it seems clear that he still believes that there is some silent majority. he tweeted about this silent

majority that's still out there backing him. they may not be marching in the streets or know they need stronger police, but they're going to miraculously show up in november and prove america wrong. so far, none of the polling is showing that. and let's also not forget that role the coronavirus response has played in these states. they're still trying to figure out how to get out from the impact of coronavirus. there's not been a lot of leadership from washington, from the white house on that. if you take a state like michigan, which was hit particularly hard, but whose governor was in a fight with donald trump and whose governor is pretty popular, that's a real blow to the trump campaign. so all of these factors are coming together and making a very difficult situation for him now, and there's less and less time to try to recover from that. >> david jolly, there may be this hidden vote for him, again, the forgotten men and women, but

they'd have to be okay with being forgotten by donald trump. on both the pandemic, where donald trump wanted no role in protecting them, and on justice as you were describing. they would have to take on a lot more than just the guy on the "access hollywood" tape. >> yeah, the interesting thing electorally is, yeah, when we see a big off-year election, midterm election like the blue wave of 2018, you sometimes see that pendulum swing back two years later. i don't think we're really seeing that movement. and the interesting thing is in '18 you certainly had people outraged by trump's behavior in office but you had a lot of these suburban voters, particularly women, that were informed by donald trump's policies on immigration, kids in cages, on repealing health care with no alternative, on a tax plan that abandoned main street, and it was informed by policy that people still remember going into 2020. but to kimberly's point, 2020

now say reflection on donald trump's failed leadership when it comes to coronavirus, the collapsing economy and now the issue of race and criminal justice and civil justice, civil rights. so donald trump is in a hole for a reason and it's based on his own behavior and that of his administration. >> think about it. since 2018, those midterm elections, robert mueller found he obstructed justice. he's been impeached for trying to corrupt u.s. foreign policy, and he botched the response to a pandemic and racial injustice. but, you know, there's all that. jonathan lemire, david jolly, kim atkins, thanks for starting us off. there's been no shortage of reporting about attorney general william barr's intervention in doj cases. now two prosecutors have agreed to come forward under subpoena and blow the whistle on just what william barr has done to the department of justice. also, house speaker nancy pelosi joins us. we'll ask her about trump's rose

garden event and where congress is on passing their package of police reforms. plus, a promising new drug in the fight against coronavirus. we'll talk to a doctor about what progress looks like. all those stories coming up. save hundreds on your wireless bill

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okay. mark your calendars. a week from tomorrow, a crucial public hearing on capitol hill. a pair of officials from william barr's much-criticized justice department have agreed to testify under subpoena on the topic of the politicization. democrats are calling these two whistle-blowers. the first official is aaron zelensky, a career prosecutor and a member -- former member of robert mueller's team. you may remember him because he

ended up working on the roger stone case even when the mueller probe wrapped up but he quit that prosecution when political appointees intervened to seek a more lenient sentence for stone. the second is a career official at the antitrust division that faced criticism from democrats for opening a federal investigation into a fuel efficiency deal between california and major automakers. democrats say the move was politically motivated. joining us to discuss, former chief spokesman for the justice department, matt miller. my question for you, why didn't they think of this sooner? >> i think the committee has been trying to do this for some time. the problem i suspect it's been hard to get whistle-blowers to come forward. i think this really will be a barn burner hearing because the thing you've heard people like me and all the former colleagues of mine from the department who have left, all you've heard us say for the last three years is the department more and more looks like an agency that's set up to retaliate against the

political opponents and reward his political enemies. but i think it adds some real saliance to the issue to see people who work inside the department who are firsthand witnesses who can come forward and testify. what i hope this does is open the floodgates to other whistle-blowers. the thing i hear from people inside the doj today is, as bad as it looks on the outside, it's much worse on the inside, and i hope these two people coming forward will give a little courage to some other people inside the department who have been concerned about what they've seen. >> i want to ask you about that dynamic because i talked to a former military official who was talking about sort of it takes one crack in the wall and then out gush other retired generals. and that's exactly what happened. jim miller wrote an op-ed about donald trump's use of the military and federalizing the police response to peaceful protesters, demonstrating for racial justice and then through the flood gates poured jim mattis and three former chairman

of the joint chiefs. a few days after that, the current chairman of the joint chiefs weighed in. do you think the same thing could happen at the department of justice where if a couple of highly regarded career officials speak that behind them could flow others? >> it absolutely could. and i think what we ought to watch for is what happened with the senate -- the house intelligence committee's investigation into the ukraine scandal. at the beginning, it looked like the administration was going to be able to block all compliance with their subpoenas. and it just took one witness to come forward. once that one witness did, schiff wasn't able to get the cabinet officials, the president to come testify. there were people who weren't going to come who were close to the president. but other career officials who put their loyalty to the country over their loyalty to the president did comply with subpoenas and come forward. what we -- aaron zelensky is going to grab a lot of the headlines but having someone from the antitrust division is key. you mentioned the auto

manufacturers case. the antitrust division intervened to try to block a merger involving cnn's parent company because the president had attacked cnn and attacked the merger repeatedly. seeing someone from one of the less high-profile departments will prove the rot is much deeper inside the department than we think. not just the high-profile cases. that corruption has perminaeate down all throughout the department. >> it's an unbelievable state of affairs. we'll be talking to you much more as this hearing nears. matt miller, thanks for spending some time with us today. after our quick break, a conversation with house speaker nancy pelosi. what did she think about that performance in the rose garden today? we'll ask her. ♪ thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance.

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this is not a time for half steps and half measures. it's not a time to nibble around

the edges. it's not a time to find the lowest common denominator. it's not a time where so many americans feel a metaphorical knee on the neck of justice for us to pull our knee halfway off of that neck and call it progress. no. this is a time for us to do what is right and necessary to end the kind of violence and murder and unaccountability that we see that is too endemic in our nation. >> senator cory booker who introduced the democrats' justice in policing bill last week stressing the need for drastic and urgent reform. what came out of the white house today, coming up short. the president's executive order on policing was not the sweeping change many have been calling for, including our next guest who said in response to the president, quote, during this moment of national anguish, we must insist on bold change, not meekly surrender to the bare minimum. joining us now, speaker of the house, nancy pelosi.

madam speaker, is that what this was today, the bare minimum? >> yes, it fell sadly and seriously short. one thing i did agree with the president is congress should act. he alluded to that a number of times. congress should do more. yes it would be easy to do more because he fell so short. meekly surrendering. >> did you view it as -- i mean, it's hard to project onto donald trump any strategery, as my old boss might have said, but did you view it as an open conversation or do the optics speak for themselves that he was flanked by a largely white male law enforcement crowd. is his position clear to you, or is there a compromise to be reached with him? >> i hope there's a compromise to be reached in the congress of the united states. i'm more concerned about what mitch mcconnell said about our bill, the george p. floyd

justice in polic of, what, ending racial profiling? we won't have any of ending chokeholds? we won't have any of no-knock warrants? the list goes on and on. that is serious. how many more hundreds of thousands of people have to demonstrate in the streets, protest peacefully for justice in policing. how many more people hav brutal? and so for the leader of the senate to say it's going nowhere, we won't even -- we don't want any of that, is really disgraceful. and really ignores the concerns of the american people. we all know that we need to have guidelines. we need to have training, database. we need all of those things but we also need to have some serious legislation to make sure

it happens initial s nationall. i feel disappointed by the dangerous statement made by the republican leader of the senate. >> madam speaker, you have, as of today, public opinion behind you and what you're talking about. you have 76% of americans who see systemic racism as the problem. the president and at least other people around him don't agree on whathe problem is. so i guess i'm asking where you take this majority of public support that is behind your views on this issue and those being articulated by democrats and maybe a couple of republicans. mostly privately at this point. and how you push forward with the change that the demonstrators are asking for with the president and his administration dug in around incrementalism.

>> first of aushlgsll, i think the president had today was a photo op, and he did say congress should act. the leader of the senate who was there the republican leader of the senate said the house bill is going nowhere. we'll have none of that. you heard senator booker's response to all of that. what we are proposing is something that is proposed by the congressional black caucus in the hopper for a number of years, worked on for a long time. understanding the nature of the problem. and you know what? the american people understand it, too. and so here we have a place where we congressional black caucucaucus karen bass, conversation and communication with the fraternal order of police, respecting any suggestions that they may have. so this isn't about drawing red lines in the sand. it's about making a big difference, taking a giant step

forward and saying to the leader in the senate, you call yourself the grim reaper. how aptly named you are when you see how many people have died. how many people have died. how much lack of confidence there is and whether there is racial -- systemic racism in our country, and clearly, there is. but this is -- we have an opportunity for america. this is a time of reckoning to say we're going to make a change that is real. not cosmetic. not perfunctory, not a photo op, but legislation that is real. and it -- and the people understand, the people understand. so they have to know, as you've heard me say many times, nicolle, that president lincoln said public sentiment is everything. with it you can accomplish almost anything. without it, practically nothing.

well, public sentiment is there. and if the republicans in the senate want to choose to ignore the public sentiment about justice in policing, they do so at their peril. i hope they don't. we'd rather have legislation than an issue with the republican senators. i think one of the reasons the president -- >> oh, go ahead. >> one of the reasons the president put that out there today at the same time as he was photo op'ing, the chairman of the fed was testifying before congress, and he was talking about the facts of what's happening, that in this last quarter was the biggest dip in the gdp, in history. >> right. >> the biggest dip in the gdp. he talked about how unemployment was increasing for people of color, how the reason that there was some apparent improvement in the numbers in the may report

was because of unemployment insurance and direct payments which were injecting demand into the economy. we need more of that. and the grim reaper is saying -- he's not doing that either. what is he doing? ignoring justice in terms of economic justice, in terms of the coronavirus, which we need to address, which we do in the heroes bill, but he won't hear of that either. what is this? we are -- >> madam speaker, it sounds like you are outbranding the party that tries to brand people. do you think the senate republican majority is in trouble? >> my focus is on the house of representatives where we won the majority, and i'm very proud of that. and we'll increase our majority. i do think that in doing so we will help to win the senate and also to win the white house with

joe biden proudly carrying our banner. i do know that the senate is hard at work in winning the senate for the democrats and, frankly, for the american people and for people who care about justice of all kind in our country. but i think the more the public knows about the grim reaper and how things are not going any place there, it seems the only thing he wants to do is to approve judges that don't support what people are basically in the streets fighting against. >> i want to ask you two more questions. i share a hometown of san francisco and the decision yesterday in the supreme court was truly historic. your thoughts, and your thoughts on neil gorsuch writing the opinion for the majority. >> it was exciting. it would have been a horrible thing if the court had gone the other way. what would they have said?

that the lgbtq, that you could be discriminated against in the workplace? but this is not the whole job. we still need to pass the equality act. we passed it in the house. the grim reaper says it's going nowhere in the senate, but nonetheless, we want the american people to know there is an opportunity to do more. this court decision was about discrimination in the workplace. but there's discrimination in many other areas of our economic and social life in our country that the equality, whether it's credit, whether -- the list is a long one, and we were very proud to introduce it and pass it in the house leadership of john lewis and other members of the congressional black caucus who had fought for the original civil rights act. this expands it to include lgbtq. i was particularly happy about the transgender piece of it because they are so

discriminated against and so needed that decision. but we need more. but it was exciting. i have to admit. >> my last question -- it was exciting. the sort of rare glimmer of positive news on this sort of bleak moment that we're in. and on the topic of the bleak moment we're in, what do you fear about where we're heading on coronavirus? and what concerns do you have about the president convening rallies with 20,000 people in indoor spaces, about states having what laurie garrett who writes on this for a living calls a patchwork of policies and a president who doesn't model some basic protective behaviors like mask wearing and social distance? >> well, i have three words to say to the president on that. science, science, and science. science did not gather people in large numbers in close proximity without masks. it's a dangerous thing at the

time of a pandemic. science to say we need testing, testing, testing. we all know that. and yet this president has miserably failed. yesterday, the 15th of june, let's go back three months to march. the 15th of march there were 60 known deaths in the united states from the coronavirus. yesterday, three months later, the 15th of june, there were 115,000 deaths from the coronavirus. a dismal failure on the part of the president of the united states. calling it a hoax, it's going to disappear magically, a miracle is going to happen. what? we lost time and we lost lives. so i would say the science to test, trace, treat and isolate. the science to wear masks and keep your distance and don't gather in large numbers like

that. and the science to recognize this is not magically or a hoax and i don't know what his scientific advisers are telling him that he is ignoring, but the fact is, scientists all over the country are saying we must test. now we don't have a vaccine, and we don't have a cure yet. we pray for that. science will be the answer to our prayers. we don't have that yet. but we do know what does work, testing, tracing, treating, isolating. and we should have been doing that for a long time. 115,000, maybe 116,000 in three months. and not a good projection, sadly, going forward. we all have all of this in our heroes act. in the heroes act we have testing, tracing, treating and we have unemployment insurance and direct payments. in our heroes act we have

support for state and local government which the chairman of the fed said today were big employers and meet the needs of the american people. so i wish the grim reaper would take up the heroes act because it's an answer in so many ways to the coronavirus, which has had an undue impact on people of color in our country. another injustice that we can correct. testing, tracing, treating, isolation. >> speaker nancy pelosi, thank you so much for spending some time with us. we're grateful. >> my pleasure. thank you. after the break, a promising new potential breakthrough in the fight against coronavirus. stay with us. needles.

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there's a promising new drug in the fight against coronavirus from "the new york times" scientists at the university of oxford said on tuesday they have identified what they called the first drug proven to reduce coronavirus related deaths. after a 6,000-patient trial in britain showed that a low cost steroid prevented the deaths of some hospitalized patients. it's a low-cost steroid called dexamethasone. it's an anti-inflammatory steroid that appears to help people with severe cases of the virus. it's still early. these results haven't been published in a peer-reviewed journal. and researchers need more time, but it's a start.

joining us now, former baltimore health commissioner dr. lena nguyen. we'recommissioner. we've all become rookie health and science experts. but what does it mean that they've tested it in actual patients but it hasn't been peer-reviewed yet? where are we with this treatment? >> nicolle, this is earlier, but if it bornes out, this is huge news because dexamethasone has been around for decades. it's widespread, it's cheap, it's a generic. the study did show that it has a significant effect on reducing mortality, on increasing survival for severely ill patients. so patients in the hospital, on a ventilator or on oxygen, have improved survival rates. that's really important. on the other hand, though, we still have not validated these results and in these times, because people do want to get out information quickly, these

results are being released much faster than they otherwise would. it's important for people to note that the study did not look at dexamethasone and the effect on patients who are not that sick. certainly nobody should go out and buy this steroid to prevent getting covid-19. >> dr. wen, where are we, do you think, in the pandemic? we spoke to lori jarrett in the last hour, she described wavelets, we're sort of in phase i but we're seeing wavelets in areas outside the epicenters. >> that's exactly right, we aren't in the second wave because we haven't gotten out of the first wave. we're seeing multiple areas in the country that are very concerning. arizona, alabama, texas, among others, are seeing quite significant increases in their communities and increases in the hospitalization rates, which is very concerning, because we're basically out where new york was

back in march in some of these areas. and we could seriously overwhelm our health care system. it's important for everyone to know that this is not inevitable in their communities, that there are ways for us to prevent that from happening by continuing our social distancing, wearing masks, being careful, because this is still a really contagious disease. >> dr. leana wen, it's always so great to see you, thank you so much for spending time with us on the headlines. after the break, we're celebrating two lives well-lived. well, you see here... there's a photo of you and there's a photo of your mommy and then there's a picture of me. but before our story it goes way, way, way back with your great, great, great grandparents. see this handsome man, his name is william. william fell in love with rose and they had a kid. his name was charles and charles met martha... isn't she pretty? yeah.

myi'm 70 and i live in mill valley, california. isn't she pretty? my biggest passion is gardening. i love to be outdoors. i have jaybirds that come when i call. i know how important it is to feed your body good nutrition. i heard about prevagen and i heard about the research behind it. taking prevagen, i have noticed that i can think clearly. my memory is better. i can say that prevagen is one of the most outstanding supplements i've ever taken. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. around the time rosemary finished raising three children, no small feat, by the way, she made a decision. it was time to go to college. at the age of 47 she enrolled at san francisco state university and graduated. that's the kind of woman she

was, never content to let life go by. she danced with her grandchildren well into her 80s. rosemary died of the coronavirus, tragically, early this month. we also celebrate the life of keith redding. he wore a suit to work every day. he was a project director for an fbi contractor but was most at home in biker boots and jeans. when he contracted coronavirus, his good nature and easy smile made him an instant favorite among the hospital staff. his case was an aggressive one and his family barely had time to say goodbye. if there is any silver lining, you'll find it in the imprint he left on the world. "the washington post" reports he

allowed doctors to share a rare 3d image of his lungs in the hope it might save somebody else. wow. thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. our coverage continues with chuck todd after a quick break. did you know prilosec otc can stop frequent heartburn

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welcome to tuesday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. republicans have signaled they're willing to move on the issue of police reform. the big question is, how far and how fast? i'll speak with one republican senator who wants his party to go farther and faster than they're moving right now. the president this afternoon signed an executive order which would gently nudge police departments toward reform. it feels