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 more like a series of

suggestions than what you would call mandates. it does offer police departments grant money if they have their use of force policies independently reviewed and the president supports a ban on chokeholds unless the police officer's life is at risk, which some people say is a massive loophole. the president signaled his support for the law enforcement community. at times his remarks had the echo of a campaign rally. >> people want law and order. they may not say it. they may not be talking about it. but that's what they want. some of of them don't even know that's what they want but that's what they want. we will have reform without undermining our many great and extremely talented law enforcement officers. president obama and vice president biden never even tried to fix this during their eight-year period. the reason they didn't try is

because they had no idea how to do it. and it is a complex situation. >> the optics of this event were notable as well. the president privately met with black families who had been victims of police conduct and then very publicly signed the executive order surrounded by law enforcement officials. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell this afternoon told reporters that republicans might wait to take up the issue. as you might expect, he rejected the current bill in the house that the democrats are offering. >> they want to basically, as senator barrasso pointed out, federalize all of these issues. uh, that's a nonstarter. the house version is going nowhere in the senate. it's -- it's basically typical democratic overreach to try to control everything in washington. that -- we have no interest in that.

>> a potential sign of how fluid things might be right now on capitol hill, senator mcconnell appeared to break with the white house by saying he would support efforts to rename military bases named after confederate generals and republican senator lindsey graham said he wants to reexamine giving qualified immunity to officers. joining me, shannon pettypiece, garrett haake, and peter baker. since we had the most recent action on the hill this afternoon, garrett haake, i want to play this sound bite from lindsey graham because i think as folks tried to read the tea leaves, and you and i tried to do it a couple of times today, are senate republicans anxious to get this down now, or is this going to get punted to july which a lot of people fear means it won't happen at all? i want to play a piece of the opening statement from senator

graham. >> so what brings us here, i've learned over the years, but particularly recently, that every black man in america apparently feels threatened when they're stopped by the cops, that it's not 99%, it's like 100%. we want police officers to protect themselves and protect us. but mr. floyd died for a $20 bill. >> garrett haake, how many other senator grahagrahams are in the republican conference? >> a wide swath of senate republicans are getting an education on these issues as senator graham described there. what they're willing to do about it is a separate question. on the timing element, there is a small window to get this done. as you pointed out, the senate leaves in early july for a two-week recess. they come back briefly for a period of time in which they're probably going to be most focused on coronavirus relief.

and then they're out again for all of august. the fall of an election year is not the time that you would typically see anything this sticky actually get done. so you think if there's going to be action on this, it's going to happen quickly. now, whether senator graham's comments can be turned into legislative actions i think is an open question. to me this whole debate looks right now like the debate we so often see after mass shootings where congress comes back in, they say we want to address this problem, we're going to fight through it and find some compromise, then something else happens and it doesn't get done. whether there's enough stick-to-it-iveness here to keep a fickle president focused on this issue long enough to sign something is the test. and they're doing it against the clock. >> shannon pettypiece, does the white house -- is the reasoning for signing this executive order, is this the backup plan, if nothing comes out of

congress? one could argue, why do this now if you think something is going to get codified on capitol hill unless you don't think anything's going to get codified on capitol hill? >> as of this morning there didn't seem to be a ton of confidence in the white house. there is a wide track record to show things don't happen on capitol hill. garrett raised gun legislation, that was an analogy. i heard a source last week saying this seems to be going the way the gun legislation went, where nothing gets done. this is something they can do to, one, show moderate voters and show african-american voters that they are doing something here to try to address this issue of unrest without going too far where they would alienate law enforcement or their base which wants to see a lot of support for law enforcement and this tough law and order type president. so it took three weeks for them to thread this needle and this

is basically what they came up with. >> shannon, did you get a good explanation of why some of the families of police -- who were victims of police brutality weren't there for the signing? >> so we were told, and the press secretary, kayleigh mcenany, just addressed this when she talked to us a few minutes ago, that it was the families' decision, that they chose not to come out. we had been told earlier in the day not to necessarily expect the families to come out or for the press to be allowed in the meeting because the white house didn't want this to appear this to be a photo op and the testimonies didn't necessarily want that either. so they say this was to respect the idea of not turning it into photo op but having it about more focused on a learning session for the president. >> peter baker, the president said americans want law and order, they demand law and order, he said, they may not be saying it, they may not be

talking about it, but that's what they want, some of them don't know that's what they want but that's what they want. i heard that sentence and heard, no reform is getting signed. this is him, i thought, saying what he believes is his gut on this. when you say the words "they don't even know what they want but that's what they want," that tells me he's going to govern with his gut on this issue, no? >> yeah, i think so. i heard that too and i heard him saying basically, don't trust all these polls out there telling you that everybody is gung-ho for radical reform. in his mind, that's not where the american public -- it's certainly not where he's betting the american public is. he wants to keep this law and order image even as he signs this order. for whatever reason, the families didn't want to come out or he didn't want them to come out, he signed this order backed by law enforcement officials, the message was clear, yes, he was going to be part of the

conversation, he wants to be part of the conversation, but he's not planning on doing anything to alienate what he sees as an important part of his constituency. when he says president obama didn't do anything, it's certainly true president obama struggled with this as well and failed in the sense that he didn't solve theit's not true to say he didn't do anything. he had a number of consent decrees in cities, policies that were undone by trump's justice department. so president trump is for the first time in his presidency trying to find a way, as shannon said, to thread the needle. >> is there anything in his background, peter, that you think he wants to sign this reform bill, or not? i mean, i just think that -- again, i go back to, why do you do the executive order now? you do it because you don't think there's going to be any legislation. >> i think that's right. he wants to have something he

can say he has done. he wants to be able to tell audiences, yes, i'm for reform, but let me tell you why i'm really for the cops because i think the cops are being maligned here, 99.9% of them, he said the other day, are great people. that's his line going forward. but he wants something to point to so he can say, i'm not entirely insensitive to the needs of the people protesting racial injustice here. you're right, i don't think we should expect great legislation necessarily to come out of this, the two parties, the two houses are pretty far apart. if there were some sort of a bipartisan bill, i think the president would probably sign it as long as it didn't seem to be too anti-police. >> shannon, do you get the sense that the folks around the president are trying to move him into a police reform mentality? because it does seem as if, whether it's the actions by mark

meadows or some other folks in the congressional liaison office, that there's a little more -- staff seem to be a little more interested in this than maybe the principal. >> well, they want to put the question behind them of what is the president going to do about this, which is the question we had been asking for three weeks as we saw this unrest unfolding in the streets and a real growing national movement calling for some sort of change on policing in america. we kept asking, the white house and the president, what is he going to do? now they have something they can say he can do. i don't anticipate we're going to hear a lot about this issue from now on from the white house. i think this is them putting this issue to rest so they can now move on to the things they would rather be talking about, the economy, get back to issues they're strong on like immigration, and not continue talking about these racial issues. >> in some ways they're basically saying, you're turn, capitol hill, and in fact that's

where i'm going to turn next. shannon and peter, thank you, garrett haake before that, thank you, sir. joining me now is indiana republican senator mike braun working on a policing bill in the senate. senator braun, a couple of comments up made today that have a lot of people interested in hearing a little bit, understanding your perspective more, a couple of things, number one, you seem concerned that your side may not be going far enough. where does that concern come from? >> i think when you have a watershed moment like we've had over the last a couple of weeks and it's been building up over a long period of time, you either make a move on it or you do like we oftentimes do as a party, and today at lunch i cited health care reform, and i've been the most vocal republican out there. industry, be transparent, embrace competition, or you'll

have drastic legislation come through that you don't like. very analogous to this. i agree with president trump, being a policeman has got to be the hardest job out there. your life is on the line every time you suit up. and if we don't reform it in a way that makes everyone look like they're part of a system that too often horrific things happen, you miss an opportunity. so i think if we go too light, just like we did on health care reform, you're defending, well, why aren't you for covering preexisting conditions or caps on coverage? i was for that boldly back in 2008, because it was the right thing to do. here i think it's very analogous with what we've got with police reform, to keep -- you know, this idea of going to like defunding police forces, to me that's crazy talk, maybe analogous to the green new deal. but oftentimes it gets some version that have because we're slow-footed in the process.

>> sounds like you're thinking that if you fail to act now or if it's too watered down, you're not going to like what's coming next, is that sort of your message to the republican conference? >> that would be in a practical sense. but sometimes when you're talking about transparency, accountability, where do those issues go for republicans? and i think that when we're not wanting that, and i'm talking about reforming qualified immunity, not getting rid of it, get rid of the frivolous lawsuits that arise but hold accountable, uh, those horrific events were a few people do it and otherwise you're going to be dealing with this on a cascading basis over time. >> i know you're trying to find what you believe would be a middle ground here on some qualified immunity. what do you think that looks like, and is that -- you know,

is it protecting them from civil suits but not criminal? what do you see as a necessary protection? >> now, when you are violating civil rights to the extent of one losing his or her life, there needs to be the criminal accountability. and that oftentimes happens in a few cases. but through police unions, which has got kind of a weird dynamic, i don't think i was supported by the f.o.p. back in '18. we're here defending some of those practices that make it opaque and resist accountability. and again, democrats are now going for that, and they've been the ones kind of aligned with police unions. so you can have all kinds of weird dynamics when you don't take something that's straightforward like accountability and transparency which is what i'm trying to do by modifying, reforming

qualified immunity. >> do you think this issue, the president said he thinks it's a tiny fraction of police officers, you talk to some folks and they think this is cultural, this is systemic. you brought up the issue of police unions. isn't possible that everybody is correct here and that maybe the real problem is the immediate protection, right, there's always -- there's this clubbiness, maybe that's where the police union comes in, it's a rally around, there's no way our guy made the mistake first, and you see this when you see these press releases, right, from the minneapolis police department, their initial description of the george floyd death, what happened in buffalo. there seems to be -- that's where it seems to be systemic, like almost a systemic, knee-jerk coverup reaction. >> i would agree with that definition of systemic. when it comes to whatever your behavior is, whatever your performance is, if there is not

transparency, and there is not accountability, things aren't going to work right. and all of us, throughout the rest of the world and our businesses, what we do as citizens, we have that potential liability. and we should, and that doesn't mean police forces should be immune from it, especially to where it would -- look at it this way. if you fix that, you've eliminated a lot of what everyone's wrestling with now and it's better for you in the long run if you've got clear guidelines on that so you don't have to wonder what makes sense and what doesn't. >> i saw your leader, senator mcconnell, said that the democratic bill coming in the house is a nonstarter on this front. let me ask you this. is this one of those times when a good old fashioned, here is the senate bill, here is the house bill, go see if you can

work something out in conference, is that a path that's realistic in this case? >> it ought to be. i think it ought to be for the sake of all the people that serve on, you know, law enforcement and for the american public. again, i cite the time i've been here, the most outspoken republican on health care, the best we've done so far is agreeing somewhat on stopping surprise billing. that's awfully low-hanging fruit. so who knows if we'll get anywhere. i'm willing to step beyond and do something that i think gets into one of the meatier issues on police reform. and i'm okay with that. >> senator mike braun, republican from indiana in his first term, and i say that, i'm reemphasizing that, because, senator, you remind me of a lot of first term senators who after a few years you get really frustrated by that place. it moves a lot slower than you thought going in, doesn't it? >> i've got a high tolerance

level and i'm patient. so we'll see. >> senator braun, as always, sir, thanks for coming on and sharing your views with us. thank you. >> you're welcome. up ahead, i'm going to be joined by the chair of the congressional black caucus, democratic congresswoman karen bass, on the prospects for a bipartisan deal on capitol hill on police reform. if you hear mike braun, i think they may work out a deal. plus the coronavirus treatment that new research shows could help some of the sickest patients.

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before the end of the year, i predict we will have a very successful vaccine, therapeutic, and cure. we're making tremendous progress. and i will tell you we're very far advanced. we've already started tests and

trials. so i think we're going to have a very, very good answer to that very, very soon. >> welcome back. that was president trump today at an event where masks and social distancing were a bit scarce, sounding much more optimistic about a vaccine timeline than what we've been hearing from public health experts like anthony fauci. but there is some potential good news today on the research front. researchers announced a common steroid has been found to reduce deaths in the sickest patients. it comes as the death toll in the united states surpasses more than 117,000, more than 2 million cases reported. the imhe raised his projected death toll to over 200,000 by october. the previous projection was about 170,000. seven states just set records for the number of new cases in a single week. all of those states are in the south and the west. with me now is a pulmonologist, pandemics consultant, also an

nbc news medical contributor. dr. gupta, we're glad to have a pulmonologist on today. i assume this drug, this version of a steroid that oxford put out a press release on, and i know there's a lot of questions about -- there's a lot of stuff we don't know yet about the study, but explain how you -- explain what your understanding of why this potentially could be effective. >> chuck, good to see you. you know, ultimately if this study proves to be true, and we want to look at the data and actually see what the researchers did, right now it's just a press release, if the study proves to be true, then it confirms what we think we know about covid-19 and the most critically ill, that it causes a lot of inflammation and that giving a steroid like dexamethasone in this case could actually prove to be helpful. it would make sense. up to now, in cases of severe

lung illness from, say, strep pneumonia or different bacteria, steroids can cause harm, not benefit. that's why it's critical to look at the data. there's too much of a movement to issue press releases in the era of covid-19, not peer-researched studies. >> they do emphasize this is only at the most acute moment when you're having these respiratory problems. does that narrow window tell you there's only a small window when this is safe? >> likely. likely. so it's when somebody is on a ventilator and they're seeing me in an icu, when we think dexamethasone, which is a really powerful steroid, might calm down the inflammation that coronavirus causes in the body and might help us get a patient

off a breathing tube. that's what we think this trial is showing us, that a third of individuals on a ventilator actually came off them whereas they otherwise would not have if they had not had the steroid. that's what the repress release shows, but we need other eyes on it, we need peer reviewers to say, yes, we can use this. >> in patients you've been treating, have you found steroids effective at times? >> honestly, chuck, i've thrown the kitchen sink in the last 2 1/2 months. i've taken novel agents that tackle inflammation, old agents like a different type of steroid. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. that's the point of peer-reviewed search. you figure out what works. and it's important to figure out what works because in the case of hydroxychloroquine, we thought it was harmless, but

potentially beneficial. turns out it's harmful and no benefit. steroids can be harmful. we need to confirm there's a benefit. >> so this new projection by ihme at the university of washington, what is the biggest contributing factor here, that they see this projection going up to 200,000? >> it's key not to read too much into vice president pence's op-ed today, where he directly suggested the only reason for the increase in cases is an increase in testing. that's part of the explanation, but another part of the explanation is we're seeing people move around more. we're seeing mask adoption plummet. one in two americans say they wear a mask some of the time, and that number is lower if you're a republican versus a democrat, according to a poll. we know in ten states, some of the most populous in the country, hospitalization rates

are climbing. icus are experiencing surge capacity in arizona and florida. so who cares about what the cases are doing when icus are filling up? vice president pence is only telling part of the story. the real story here is that cases are increasing out of proportion to the number of tests in 20 states. and some of our most populous states in the country. so we need to make sure we pull back the curtain and look at reality. reality here is that something's happening here and it's not just that we're testing more. we're having newer outbreaks and potentially a worsening wave here. >> is it reassuring or alarming that these outbreaks are taking place in different parts of the country and we're not seeing a recurrence, for instance, in the northeast? >> i think it's reassuring but it also tells me that every zip code in the country needs to learn their own lessons, that we're not adopting best practices from new york or from

seattle or from places that really put down stringent lockdowns and have had wide adoption of masks and social distancing. we're having -- every geo is having to learn for themselves. that's unfortunately the way this goes when you don't have federal leadership giving you a consistent message. and that's what happens. 50 states, 50 different approaches. >> it's been a long time since we've heard people talking about wearing masks. we'll talk about it here, if you're going to a protest or a trump rally, wear a mask. dr. gupta, thank you, always great having your expertise. ahead, texas is facing a coronavirus spike but they're still moving full steam ahead with reopening. we'll talk to a local leader in and around houston who is already sounding the alarm. >> i want the reopening to be successful. i want the economy to be resilient. but i'm growing increasingly

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details of conversations they had together. let's bring in our justice correspondent pete williams who joins me now. and pete, i assume the justice department has jurisdiction. this is just -- where is their jurisdiction on this? >> they say this is all about whether or not he lived up to his obligations that he signed when he came to work for the federal government, that he wouldn't disclose classified information. we see these lawsuits all the time, if somebody violates that obligation, those oaths that they sign. so that gives the government jurisdiction here. >> he submitted this for classification. it seemed to go through the process. and that's what's sort of, i guess, odd about this, is that he did submit it through the process, and it was held up and held up and held up, and they didn't -- i guess they violated -- they were supposed to get it back to him in a

certain amount of time. is this thing going to go anywhere? >> well, what the government says here, its version is, yes, he was obligated to give his book to the security council for security review and he did it, but they say they're not done. and they keep telling him there's classified information in the book, some of it, entire paragraphs, they say, at all the different levels including top secret level of classification and that he hasn't taken it out. so the security review, they say, isn't done. so here is what they asked the judge to do. they say, order him to finish the security review, order him to tell the publisher that the security review isn't done so therefore they can't publish the book, and perhaps most exotically of all, set up, order him to set up a trust for the benefit of the u.s. requiring an accounting of any profits that he makes from the book or anything related to the book including movies, so they

basically say, if he doesn't abide by these agreements, make sure that we know how much money he's making and put it in a trust until we can resolve this. now, obviously they don't say what the classified information is that he, you know, has in the book. they just say, trust us, it's there, and they cite a number of examples where they say he's gotten ahead of the process by giving a manuscript to his publisher, leaking certain facets about what's in it and so forth. >> pete, there's a small problem that justice might have here, even if they get their -- a lot of reporters have signed a nondisclosure agreement to read the book. but the nondisclosure agreement expires when the book goes public. but this is certainly all around major newsrooms everywhere. it's like keeping the barn door closed here. >> that's a different kind of nondisclosure agreement, of course, an agreement between the

reporter and the publisher, this one is between bolton and the government. the government says, that's proof that he is not living up to his obligation, he shouldn't be sharing it when they're not done with their security review. the president said something kind of strange yesterday, he said, well, he had several conversations with me and any conversation with me is classified. that's obviously not the case. second, as you noted earlier, his lawyer says they're marking stuff classified that isn't classified. >> and correct me if i'm wrong, this would be one of the longest reviews a book has ever gotten, right? the process, they keep dragging it on and on and on. so there does seem to be -- >> yeah, exactly. >> -- shenanigans here. >> the judge will have to decide is this classified or not and who is living up to what. i don't know how they stop the

publication of the book. that's pretty hard to do. >> i don't either. i guess they -- there's more press for the book, so maybe the publisher is happy at the end of the day. >> i don't know about that. >> jeez. pete williams with the latest on this one, thank you, sir. >> you bet. coming up, the houston official that's been sounding the alarm about too many coronavirus cases and not enough hospital beds. we'll be right back. well, dad's still dead. i've been dating someone for a little while now. toilet takes its sweet time, huh.

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we are now in a situation where we are co-existing with covid-19, where we do not have to choose between either returning to jobs or protecting health care. we do have the tools and the strategies in place where we can achieve both of those ends. >> welcome back. that was texas governor greg abbott this afternoon, assuring texans that there are plenty of beds available if they get sick and that the economy can also

reopen. texas has broken its record for coronavirus-related hospitalizations with more than 2,500 reported today. the state is seeing an uptick in new cases, likely to increase as the state moves forward with its reopening plans. retail businesses can operate at 50% capacity and restaurants are now allowed to operate at 70% capacity for dine-in service. masks are recommended but not required. today abbott gave no indication that he will hit the pause button on reopening. the state's largest cities are sounding the alarm. one of those leaders is around houston, harris county, where houston is located, the largest county in texas. joining me is that county's top executive, judge lina hidalgo. judge hidalgo, i know we had a bit of a technical issue but the good old fashioned telephone

works just as well. we heard the governor say we can reopen safely and handle this influx in hospitalizations. is that the story in harris county? >> look, i want to be very clear with people. there are two points to this. one, our hospitalizations are increasing for covid-19 day after day, we're at all-time highs. the seven-day increase and the 14-day increase are all statistically significant. the other point, and i agree here with the governor, we still have plenty of space. what we have to take away from that is, this could change overnight. and i'm not in the business of tempting fate, because it's our community, our health care system, our lives that are on the line. so what i'm telling my community, houston, 33 other cities and unincorporated areas, we're not overwhelming the hospital system, but we can't

push it farther. we have room in our hospitals, but that doesn't mean we want to see you there, that's the crux of this. >> judge, a couple of things. number one, do you have enough contact tracers in your county, in your opinion? and number two, what are you learning from the tracing? is this a spike that is spread out, or is there some concentration or rhyme or reasons to this? >> yeah, that's what's interesting to this, there's so much texture to all of this. we launched a contact tracing effort very aggressively, ahead of schedule, when the governor announced reopening. my commitment was, i would have done this in a different way, not as fast, but i'm going to do everything to make this succeed. we've got over 400 contact tracers now. we have more capacity than the demand. so in theory, yes, we have the

capacity to interview more than the cases we have each day. we have the capacity to contact more of the contacts than we have each day. yet, with that, with the testing, going into nursing homes, everything we're doing, we're not seeing a positive impact in the spread of the virus. we're not seeing our public health interventions really make a dent. my hunch is the numbers are just so high, the degree of spread is so big, that we really need the community to pitch in here. when you map out the contacts and the cases, the vast majority of them don't have those epidemiological links. we don't know how they got it, how they're connected to one another. we're very much at the edge here. we really are tempting fate. that's why we need folks to remember to minimize contacts. it's not back to normal. >> if you could design a

gradation of pausing here, what would it consist of? do you want restaurants back at 25% capacity? would you like gyms pulled back? is there a couple of things you would like to see the governor have more leeway on? >> it's -- what i'm doing right now, i'm telling the community directly, i no longer have the authority to issue orders and say this needs to be open and this needs to be closed, as i did early on in the crisis. but i do have the ability to communicate with the residents of this county. and so we unveiled a very clear color coded system. right now we're at orange which means we're not at the point where we're about to run out of hospital space, but we can if we keep going in this direction. the guidance is to minimize contacts. if you're somewhere where you can't keep six feet distance, where you're sitting close to somebody for a continued period of time with somebody that's not

a member of your household, you need to do something else. go buy something in a store, in and out. restaurants, if you're nearby. just avoid close contacts. if you're sitting near a person who has the virus, might catch it. i want to give the community its best shot to succeed because i want the economy to be sustainable. >> judge lina hidalgo, good luck. and, you know, i can hear it in your voice, you're hopeful and you're -- but you want to be realistic, i get it. i think a lot of us get it. please wear a mask, everybody that's listening, please wear a mask. up next, we're going to talk to one of the key members of congress leading the way on policing reform in the house after this.

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sometimes i try to read too hard to read between the lines. the biggest criticism was it was overly federalized. he criticized how you get there. should we take it as the glass has condensation in it? >> i think so. what we've seen from the republicans, they are looking at our bill and they have essentially taken the major categories. they just pulled the teeth out of it. we need to ban chokeholds. we don't need to gather data on no knock warrants. we need to ban them when it comes to drug cases. i like that they recognize that something profound needs to be

done but they take the teeth out of it so then it becomes more lip service. with people protesting for almost a month straight, in some cases, 50 states and countries around the world, it is time to do manage substantive. not just hit along the surface. >> so it does look like you have quite a few other republicans that maybe don't share the same view as senator mcconnell. i had senator mike braun on earlier. for instance, he wants to go there on qualified immunity. you heard lindsay graham. if there is a compromise here that allows some form of the immunity to stick but you also, it isn't a shield for a bad cop, there's a potential bipartisanship consensus. is that your goal, to reach out to individual members and build a consensus that way?

or are you saying, okay, senate, go pass a bill and then i'll see you in conference. >> either/or. i will tell you that obviously my focus right now is passing this bill out of the house and i am proud to say that we have over 220 democrats that have signed up because they know this is bold, they know this is transformative. and i believe that my republican colleagues will come along. maybe not in our time frame, because it is very quick. but the fact that they're introducing bills themselves that hit along the edges of what we're doing, that makes me feel very hopeful. >> are you, i talked to congressman jim clyburn about this last week. if you get a couple of things in a bipartisan bill, and it gets sent to the president, is that okay with you? knowing you can maybe come back later and try again for what you

didn't get? >> well, a couple of things isn't. even if we got every single thing we want in this bill, you know what, chuck? it's still not enough. there is a lot more for us to do. i'm not willing to talk about what i would be willing to let go of at this point in time. i think we have to keep pushing. we have to make sure that we get it out of the house in a very strong way. and then the harris booker bill is where we need to begin. i've had conversations with senator scott, i've had conversations with kevin mccarthy, and i do think that everybody recognizes we have got to deliver to the hundreds of thousands of people that are in the street peacefully. and i hope they keep it up. >> i know you're supposed to say that congress can walk and chew gum at the same time. can you deal with this and another coronavirus? if this all gets punted to july do you feel like if you can't get it done by fourth of july, it won't happen this year in.

>> i think we're going to need a little longer than that. it will pass out of the house next week. so the fourth of july is just one week later. i would love to think we would have everything done by then. one thing i know for sure, we can't pun this. we can't talk about the fall and we can't talk about we'll wait until after the election. the people in the streets want to see change and it is our responsibility to deliver this bold, transformative piece of legislation. we have to make this happen. >> congresswoman karen bass, from california, chair of the cdc. thank you for coming and. >> thank you for having me on, chuck. >> you've got it. we'll be right back. in your feet?

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you're looking now at some live pictures of a protest right now. it's a helicopter so you're not getting that. we were going to show you some pictures of a protest getting

underway in new york city. but we will hold off for now. that's all we have for tonight. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. good evening. >> good evening, chuck. thank you very much. welcome to "the beat." i am ari melber. we begin a question at the heart of the national protests and how politics works. here it is. what does winning look like? america has been living through these marches for weeks now. activist leaders say some things are already changing. rare charges of officers, some cities passing these big reforms we're covering. and they say other things are stubbornly the same. atlanta still roiling over the shooting of a black man who was shot in his car. he posed no immediate threat to anyone. there are questions about who are all these different protests moving? which goes to the question tonight that i begin