♪ welcome to a very busy wednesday afternoon. it is "meet the press" daily. i'm chuck todd. we have a jam-packed hour of breaking news happening in the moment. perhaps close to the room where it happened. coronavirus cases are spiking in states across the country. the officer who shot rayshard brooks in atlanta has been charged with murder. and we're expecting reaction to those charges from brooks's family momentarily. we've also got a legislative showdown brewing on capitol hill on the issue of police reform.

but we're going to begin tonight with an inside account of presidential misconduct and incompetence from the president's former national security advisor, john bolton, who writes that he believes the president might have been removed from office if this information was known during the impeachment trial. the contents of bolton's book leaked out this afternoon in defiance of a justice department lawsuit trying to quash its publication and in defiance of the threats by the president that he would try to criminally prosecute bolton if he revealed information about their conversations. the "wall street journal" also published an excerpt from the book this afternoon. nbc news has also just obtained its own copy of the book and we are going through it now. but from what we have seen so far, the president's behavior as congressional congre chronicled by bolton seems to speak for itself. here's what bolton says about the president's foreign policy, according to "the new york times." the pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't accept.

bolton details conversations that the president had with chinese president xi in which he appears to overtly ask for help in winning re-election. bolton writes about watching xi basically manipulate the president through flattery and pandering. in one case, he claims mr. trump went so far as to support the construction of what are essentially chinese concentration camps for muslims. bolton's account also adds to the weight of evidence during the impeachment trial that the president was withholding support of ukraine in exchange for dirt on his political opponents. some house democrats who were involved in the impeachment trial are furious that bolton refused to testify in their investigation and instead they slam him for saving his explosive account for a tell-all book. so, what will the fallout be from all of this? this president has weathered the mueller probe, being implicated in a finance felony, more than 200,000 americans are projected

to die in october and one of his one-time closest advisors, long-time loyal republican, a long-time fox news contributor, is all but making the argument that the emperor has no clothes. joining me now, carol lee, nbc news correspondent, following the trump administration who has just gotten her hands on the book, andrea mitchell, who's covered bolton since his time in the bush administration. and michael steele, a former senior advisor to jeb bush and john boehner. andrea mitchell, you have known john bolton the longest of all of us in this conversation. i want to get into the details in a minute. but tell us about the john bolton you know. tell us about how credible you believe he is on things like this. >> he is credible. he obviously has a point of view, he has a deeply conservative point world view. he was known as a real bureaucratic infighter who

clashed notably with colin powell when he was over at the state department under colin powell during the first bush years, george w. bush years, but this is a yale lawyer. this is a man who understands intelligence as a consumer of intelligence, and for him to not understand the classification process is absurd. he is someone who won most of the battles that he fought. he was never properly confirmed as u.n. ambassador because of objections on capitol hill to him at the time, but he was a recess appointment and did serve for a year as u.n. ambassador. so he is very sophisticated about superpowered summits and he understands what he was hearing when the president said what you can get into what he said to president xi of china about helping him with his re-election. all of those things are -- he is a note taker, a classic fabled note taker, which made a lot of people in the white house nervous in the west wing. he'd go through yellow legal

pads and clearly was working on the book. >> i had somebody say to me about john bolton, no one -- you will have a hard time outresearching john bolton on whatever the issue of the day is, whatever the conversation. you will have a hard time being outprepped by him because he's a voracious note taker, a voracious reader and all those things. let's pull some of these excerpts. i want to start, guys, i want to do number one. we have a lot of excerpts we want to get through. control room, i want to do number one and number two basically back-to-back because it's all about the president's interactions with xi. here's excerpt one, carol lee. trump then stunningly turned the conversation to the coming u.s. presidential election. this is in a meeting with xi. alluding to china's economic capability and pleading with xi to ensure he'd win. he stressed the importance of farmers and increased chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. i would print trump's exact words, but the government's

prepublication review process has decided otherwise. so, carol lee, before i get to the specifics on the uyghurs there, first of all, there's an indication where he's admitting that, yes, there is stuff that has been taken out by the trump administration. >> yeah, that's right, chuck, and we know that he did remove some materials to try to appease the nsc review of his book, but i got to tell you, there's enough in here, and it's -- and i'm just beginning to go through it, but there's -- i can't even imagine what was in there that he removed because so much of this book is so damaging to the president and so detailed. i mean, he's in the room, word for word, about conversations that the president is having with world leaders and, you know, so whatever he removed, it doesn't seem to have hurt his ability to tell this broad story and paint a portrait of a

president who very clearly, in john bolton's view, was unfit for office and primarily put his own interests above anyone else's, including the american people. >> let me read you this other excerpt on the uyghurs. and this is, again, an interaction with trump and xi. this is part of the "wall street journal" excerpt. trump asked me at the 2018 white house christmas dinner why we were considering sanctioning china over its treatment of the uyghurs, a largely muslim people who live primarily in china's northwest xinjiang prochks. at the opening dinner of the osaka g20 meeting in june 2019 with only interpreters present, xi had explained to trump why he was basically building concentration camps. according to our interpreter, trump said that xi should go ahead with building the camps, which trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. andrea mitchell, the uyghur

situation, what was fascinating about this is about an hour ago, the president signed a senate resolution that condemns china on their treatment of the uyghurs. i guess timing is everything. >> timing is everything, and it is convenient now for him to be taking on china when he appeased china and, as you can see in this book, in the excerpts we've seen so far, was willing to ask xi for help in the election, was willing to sanction xi's human rights abuses, gross human rights abuses in terms of what the translator reports he said to him about the concentration camps. it is the appeasement of dictators. i don't know if you're going to get to the china and turkey obstruction of justice issues, but again -- >> i got that coming. don't worry, andrea. >> a very careful man. >> also got some venezuela coming. >> well, i think what you see here is what has been taken out in this instance is the direct quote of the president with another head of state, so that

could arguably be classified. but what is not is the other conversation with john bolton about the uyghurs and the concentration camp, so that nothing that the president says to bolton, unless it's sources and methods and covert action, would be classified in any understanding of the classification process. and john bolton knows that very well. and i should also point out that the man was then reclassified in the nsc is a devin nunes person in the nsc so there is a very heavy hand by people who are hand maidens to the president on this intelligence process. >> michael steele, there are a lot of senate republicans who care deeply about -- there's a lot of senators, period, who care deeply about this treatment of the uyghurs but quite a few senate republicans have been very outspoken, mar co rubio.

it's like, pay no attention to what you're seeing over here. i'll just concentrate on, well, i got the action i wanted. is that -- is this more of what we should expect on the reaction to this bolton book? >> probably. i mean, look, there's a couple things going on here. one, this is a uniquely damaging account of the presidency because it's a known figure on the right, a long-time fox news contributor, figure in previous republican administrations, attacking the president for failing to live up to conservative ideology, conservative priorities. whether it's on venezuela, being tough on china, holding them to account for their mistreatment of the uyghurs, these are all conservative -- pulling out of nato, strong alliances are a conservative priority. he is going up against conservative priorities. at the same time, he's going to be president for another six months. any republican senator who's inside, who's counting on his voters' support in november and even if you're in the in cycle, if you're the senator from florida, marco rubio, it's coming into hurricane season.

if you publicly attack the president of the united states and a hurricane hits florida, do the fema trucks come a little slower? there are real consequences to breaking with this president. he has no compunction about using the powers of his office to punish people that he doesn't like or who criticize him. >> i want to do a couple of other excerpts here, guys. number seven and number eight is where i want to head to next, i'm pairing these up here. number seven is a -- is an example of where, essentially, andrea mitchell, john bolton is outing some of the sycophants in the administration and how they talk behind the president's back. mr. trump did not seem to know, for example, that brit season a nuclear power and asked if finland is part of russia. mr. bolton writes he came closer to withdrawing the united states from nato than previously known, even top advisors who positioned themselves as unswervingly loyal mock him behind his back. during mr. trump's 2018 meeting

with north korea's leader, secretary of state mike pompeo slipped john bolton a note saying, he's so full of "s." how's mike pompeo going to spin out of that? >> well, it is incredibly embarrassing and not only that, right now, mike pompeo is sitting in hawaii meeting with the chinese foreign minister, dispatched to try to pressure china on a number of issues, and this embarrassment -- imagine the leverage that the chinese have with us about this bolton book as it's being revealed in realtime. and by the way, pompeo is there without a press corps, which is unheard of for a secretary of state to travel to a meeting with a chinese leader, chinese counterpart, without a single member of the press, which they refused to bring with us -- bring us with them. that said, pompeo is going to be really damaged by this because he has made excuses for this president for not only his ignorance but for other, you know, questionable legal issues

in a way that, frankly, rex tillerson did not. remember when rex tillerson called him a moron over at the pentagon, when we reported that and the ramifications of that were his being ousted. >> right. carol lee, let me read you the number eight control room. this one is on -- combines putin and venezuela here. in one may 2019 phone call, for example, russian president vladimir putin compared venezuelan opposition leader juan guaido to hillary clinton. part of what bolton terms a, quote, brilliant display of soviet style propaganda to shore up support for the venezuelan leader nicolas maduro, putin's claims, bolton writes, largely persuaded trump. now, this is another one where there's no doubt, carol lee, bolton was much more aggressive at wanting to counter maduro in ways and he had some support in the administration, but here's bolton essentially saying,

carol, the president's the one that blinked and that's why maduro's still in power. >> yeah, and this was one of the issues, chuck, that came up when the initial fight between the white house and bolton over his book, there was some things he said he wanted to talk about publicly on venezuela and the president tweeted at him and basically said that he was tougher than john bolton was and they -- and that bolton said, well, you'll see in my book. what's so fascinating about the putin anecdote is what bolton really writes about is how world leaders like vladimir putin would find ways and how easy it was, according to john bolton, for them to be successful in this, to flatter the president, to get what they want out of him. and -- or speak in a language that the president understands, and it was always usually political, which is where you get the hillary clinton analogy. and i had -- and the other thing with venezuela is that was one of the issues where bolton got president trump to go along with

him until it didn't go fast enough for president trump, until he didn't think it was moving -- it was making him look good and that's what else bolton writes about in this book is that everything is about an image, not necessarily the policy, and that's where the venezuela issue came down as well. >> tell you, the actual clouds are rolling in now in the washington, d.c., area, and one of the dark clouds might be bolton. i got thunder and lightning outside my window here. i want to read excerpt ten and then let's line up the responses, the reactions from jeffries and swallow here. let me read you this one on tiananmen square. trump refused to issue a white house statement, bolton writes. that was 15 years ago, trump said, inaccurately. who cares about it? i'm trying to make a deal. i don't want anything. and that was that. michael steele, the president's grasp of facts has always been a

struggle on some of these things, particularly he remembers history the way he's decided he wants history. again, i go back to, this is sort of like baseline stuff, and you got to think that at least so many elected republicans have to be offended by not even knowing this stuff. >> well, i think if anyone was going to be offended enough not to support trump, that would have happened back in 2016. i think this is a very damaging portrait of him because it's exactly how he doesn't want to be seen. he's portrayed as stupid, as gullible, as someone who is so out of it that even his own aides are mocking him behind his back and world leaders are plotting to, you know, to lead him around by the nose to policies that his aides are trying to get him not to do, so i think that they're -- the perception is going to continue to be bad for the people who choose to engage with it, and i think you're going to see a lot of elected republicans simply refusing to engage with this.

>> i have a feeling we're going to have a lot more no comments in the coming days when senate reporters start asking senators. i'll tell you, though, as damning as bolton is about president trump, if you're wondering whether democrats are going to welcome john bolton with open arms, take a listen to akim and eric. >> it's curious to me that now he has something to say when he could have stepped forward as a patriot when the stakes were high and the president was on trial and he ran and hid in the other direction. >> thank you, john bolton, for being the firefighter that shows up to the building that's already burned with the fire hose and saying, i'm here to help. >> andrea mitchell, look, john bolton's got thick skin, he's taken attacks before. do you think he has -- do you think he has guilt? do you think he has second thoughts that he didn't find a way to testify during the impeachment? >> no, i think that if he has any future in republican service

and republican politics as a republican commentator, to have joined the impeachment fight and perhaps with the most persuasive evidence of all would have been really a death penalty in terms of any future in the republican party. >> john bolton would have testified eight to ten times, he writes in the book, that he and pompeo and esper tried to get him to give that aid to ukraine. that would have been among the things he testified to. carol lee, andrea mitchell, michael steel, thank you for helping us get through this bombshell of a book. thank you for getting us started. up ahead, prosecutors file murder charges against the police officer in the rayshard brooks case. we're live in atlanta with the latest on the legal developments.

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welcome back. as we said, it's been a very busy afternoon around here. we're following breaking news in atlanta where just minutes ago, prosecutors filed charges against the now former police officer who shot and killed rayshard brooks. garrett rolfe faces life in prison without parole or even the death penalty if he's convicted. meanwhile, a second officer involved in the incident, devin brosnan, faces three charges,

including aggravated assault. brosnan, though, is now cooperating with prosecutors and has already agreed to testify against rolfe. joining me now from atlanta is my nbc news colleague katie beck, who's been at the site of this shooting all day long, and more -- all day long, katie, there have been more and more folks coming. what do you see there? what are you reporting? >> reporter: well, chuck, in the past hour and a half or so, the tensions here have really escalated. the demonstrators and protesters that were in the wendy's parking lot have actually spilled out into the street and as you can see, have created a barricade with their vehicles and with themselves and are actually blocking all traffic from passing by right now. we are actually surrounded by helicopters on all sides as this is going on, and for now, it has remained peaceful, but there's certainly still a lot of outrage, despite the felony murder charge. the final word on this has not yet been said, obviously. this is just the beginning of the case and the folks here are saying just the charge is not enough.

we want to see a guilty verdict before we're satisfied. >> and katie, the fact that one police officer's already going to testify now against the former officer, the fact that they've got that cooperation, does that explain, perhaps, why he took a few days? the d.a.? >> reporter: i think that is extremely unusual and that district attorney paul howard has said that's incredibly rare for somebody to be able to have cooperation from a police officer in excessive force case. but at this point, obviously, as you can see, there's still a lot of outrage over the decision. >> no doubt. katie beck on the ground, you've been there all day in atlanta. katie beck, thank you. we'll let you get situated there. with me now is kristen clark. president and executive director of the lawyers committee for

civil rights. kristen clark, thanks for coming in, so i want to start with what do you make of the -- of these charges? is it -- are they -- is it more than you expected? >> yeah, absolutely. and the continued rage and frustration and anger that we're seeing playing out in atlanta and in communities across the country is understandable, because while charges have been announced today, there's still been loss of life, loss of a black life, loss of an innocent life. and so, the frustration that is out there is understandable, but the announcement of charges today is attributable in no small part to the continued press and demand from the public for accountability. it is exceedingly rare that we see a prosecutor move this swiftly to announce charges in a case like this days after the fatal shooting of rayshard brooks. we saw the fulton county

district attorney today announce 11 charges, that 11 charges would be brought against the shooting officer. the other thing that is quite remarkable here is that the second officer at the scene has agreed to be a cooperating witness. that is literally the breaking down of the wall of silence that has so often acted as a shield for cops who commit misconduct and who use deadly and excessive force. i believe that the d.a. observed that in 40 instances in which cops have been prosecuted in fulton county. this is the first instance in which he could recall a cop agreeing to serve as a cooperating witness. so, a long road ahead, but it was very clear that the d.a. moved swiftly, moved intentionally, reviewed the evidence, and found that mr. brooks was cooperative and did not pose any resistance, shot in the back, and was not

even told that he was being placed under arrest. all of this runs afoul of the law and i think will make for a very strong case as the prosecution moves forward. >> you know, it's -- i mean, it's interesting, the 11 charges. i want to read them here. felony murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, four different charges on that, criminal damage to property, four separate charges of the violation of the oath plus aggravated assault in general. by putting all those charges on there, how much of that is also making sure that if you can't get felony murder, you're going to get a lot of the other stuff? is there something there to make sure -- i mean, is this equivalent of throwing the book at this officer so that some justice is done no matter what? >> you know, it didn't feel that way. it feels like this is a district attorney who's doing his job and who's leaving no stone unturned in terms of identifying all of the things that went wrong here and that ran afoul of the law

and that ran afoul of policy. the cop never told mr. brooks that he was being placed under arrest, rendered no medical attention to mr. brooks as he lay on the ground, losing his life. you had another officer who came and pressed his foot into mr. brooks's shoulder, so in every respect, there is so much that went wrong here, and this seems like a district attorney who actually has the political will to do his job. i'm hopeful that we'll see justice at the end of the road here, but it is also a reminder that the officers who took the life of breonna taylor, three months later, still are sleeping in their beds at night and have not been brought to justice. so there's still work to do in terms of the demand, the press, and the push for real police accountability in our country. >> but i want to go back to the point you made that the fact that another officer is willing to testify against another officer, i mean, that -- and

maybe he was trying to save himself from different charges, but i mean, one of the difficulties here in getting justice from -- in these cases has been sort of the -- that nature where the police sort of, you know, closes -- closes ranks and you don't hear anything. do you think we're there without these -- without this massive protest movement? >> i think it was the combination of intense, relentless protests that are happening in the streets in pla atlanta and across the nation that it is very clear that the public is saying, enough is enough. we're not going to turn a blind eye. we're not going to forget a week from now about this tragic shooting. people are in the streets and pressing their demands, so i think that that was helpful. but this is unusual. i was a prosecutor of police misconduct cases at the justice department. it is rare that you see the wall

of silence break and penetrated, and i think that here that the officer relented, likely in part because this case is under such intense national, if not global scrutiny at this stage. it's a reminder that if we start to see more cops who are willing to do the right thing and to call out injustice when they see it, that we might make progress and move forward. >> well, that's what a lot of people are asking, the duty to intervene when you start to see these things. maybe more police officers will start to think about that. kristen clarke, really appreciate having your expertise and point of view with us today. thank you very much. coming up, the push for police accountability on capitol hill. we'll get the democratic response to the policing bill released by republicans today and whether there's any hope for some compromise. plus, an nbc news exclusive interview with virginia governor ralph northam, what he's telling our own jeff bennett about confronting painful truths about race.

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what role do you think white people have to play in pursuing racial justice? >> i think white people need to listen, and i think they have recognized or are recognizing the pain that exists because of the protests. >> welcome back. that was virginia governor ralph northam with jeff bennett in an exclusive interview earlier today one day after he announced his commitment to make juneteenth a paid statewide holiday in virginia. he talked about what he learned after a decades-old yearbook page surfaced last year. northam maintains he was not in that photo, though he acknowledged another incident of bla blackface, and his view of america's legacy of racial inequality. take a listen.

>> you gave a speech last summer, it was some months after the whole blackface scandal, and you said that you had to confront some painful truths about race. what were those truths? >> yes, you know, i grew up in a very rural area of virginia. i'm a product of public schools. i was in the sixth grade when schools were desegregated. my parents chose to keep me in public schools, which was a, i think, just a great idea on their part. i grew up understanding white privilege. i was always taught to treat people fairly. we helped individuals on the eastern shore, that's the way my parents raised me. but what i didn't realize, and what i have learned is really that black oppression exists here, is alive and well in 2020. >> and jeff bennett joins me now from richmond, virginia. and jeff, the -- trying to figure out sort of ralph northam

after all this has been reticent to talk. he's been hesitant to do things much like this. what did you make of his, and what did you make of the contrition? >> reporter: yeah, and chuck, one of the reasons why i was so happy that the governor granted this interview after i had been pushing for it for a year and a half is because here you have a man who is from virginia, was raised during one era of transformational change, the '60s, and is now leading this state which used to be the capital of the confederacy during another era of transformational change, and so i wanted to find out how that blackface scandal really informed the work he's doing now on racial equity. to refresh people's memories, one of the reasons why he said he was not going to step down when that blackface scandal happened was because he said instead, he was going to pursue the rest of his term focused on racial justice issues.

and to the surprise of a lot of people, ralph northam supporters and detractors, he's actually done that. he hired a chief diversity officer named dr. janice underwood who's really done a lot of the heavy lifting and a lot of the hard thinking about how to tackle this in a -- in sort of a comprehensive piece by piece way, and so together, the two of them have really come up with a plan for how to address racial inequities in virginia. it's really a plan that could be rolled out across the country if other elected leaders wanted to do it. and so for the last few weeks, really, we've heard people articulate the problem of systemic racism but virginia is really a case study for what can happen when people think about how to address it in a targeted way, chuck. >> so, geoff, this is an awkward way to ask this question. so, would he not be this focused on racial justice and these injustices without the blackface scandal?

>> reporter: in a word, no. i mean, i asked him that question. i said, would you be this champion for racial equity had this scandal not happened? and he made the point that he had in the past focused on expanding medicaid and focused on expanding access to voting, but one of the reasons why governor northam is still governor northam after that scandal is because african-american virginians, in particular older african-american virginians, i was here when that scandal broke and talked to a lot of people and one of the things i heard from them was, we're not going to judge ralph northam by what he did or didn't do some 40 years ago. we're going to judge him by the man he is now, by the governor he is now, and so it was their support that allowed him to remain in office. and so, that's one of the reasons why i think, politically, he has focused on this issue of racial equity, apart from just the social good of doing it as well. >> geoff bennett, great get

today. this is a sitdown i have been interested in just watching and seeing, so i'm glad you got it. nice work, sir. and we'll watch more. >> thanks, chuck. >> you're going to see more of geoff's interview with the virginia governor tonight on the "nbc nightly news" with lester holt. coming up, as senate republicans reveal their police reform bill we're going to talk to a democratic senator about his party's plans plus his reaction to what we're learning from the bolton book. my name is trisha. i'm 70 and i live in mill valley, california. 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. you may be learning about, medicare

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welcome back. just 24 hours after president trump announced his executive order on police reform, senate republicans unveiled with the white house's support now a policing reform that discourages but doesn't ban chokeholds. democratic leaders like house speaker pelosi and judiciary chairman nadler are calling the gop bill a sham, illusory, and window dressing, toothless. both sides seem to recognize that they are far apart and making a deal will be difficult buff leaders on both sides also seem to agree that they do have to try to come together. >> i want you to know that we're serious about making a law here. this is not about trying to create partisan differences. this is about coming together and getting an outcome. >> this bill will need dramatic improvement. let me be clear. this is not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. this is about making the ineffective the enemy of the

effective. >> the only way we get to a place where we have a law is to work with our friends on the other side, and we're willing to have that conversation. i think that there are things that i believe the conference will not support but they will all support a conversation. >> joining me now is oregon democratic senator jeff merkley, and senator merkley, i said earlier today on our call, i'm very curious to hear from some senate democrats today and where they are. let me ask you this. are you -- where are you on starting -- opening the debate on this next week if there's a open amendment process where basically they could start this bill and then it's amended and let's see where the chips fall. are you there yet? >> if there was a guarantee of an open amendment process, i would be comfortable with us going to the bill. there has not been, at any moment, an open amendment process under the leadership of mitch mcconnell, so i would want to see it written out and agreed

to under a unanimous consent agreement on exactly what that means, because the trust factor would be very low. >> it does seem as if, when you look at the two bills, the goals -- i mean, the good news here, just as a layperson, the goals appear to be the same. the things you guys are trying to reform are the same. it's how you do it. i mean, one is -- there's a lot of incentive-based stuff that i know that a lot of democrats think, boy, those incentives aren't going to work. that's no way to do this. is there a middle ground in your mind, or is this just going to be one way or the other way? >> well, there are pieces that overlap between the bills. the bill that the republicans put forward makes lynching a federal crime. that's a good thing. it makes sexual relationships between federal agents and people in custody illegal. who knew it wasn't?

i was shocked to discover that. but then you start looking at some of the serious pieces and you realize there's a whole lot of mirage. for example, on the database, which is something i've been very interested in, that you don't have people commit egregious acts and then retire or resign, go down the road and get hired by another department because there's no record of what these acts were and what actions were taken. well, the database is extremely nonexistent in the republican bill. taking on the absolute immunity -- i call it absolute immunity. the technical term is qualified immunity, but in practice, it's the absolute immunity that goes with actions even when you violate the civil rights of an american citizen in a horrific way. so, that is an issue that has to be wrestled with. you have the transfer of military equipment doesn't exist. you have a very weak provision on cameras. in other words, all the things that are in the booker/harris bill that really try to say,

we're not just going to pretend to make a difference. we're going to make an actual difference, in the republican bill, it's pretty much, we'll say something about this. we'll study it. we'll give a grant. we'll create a commission. but we're not really going to do anything that will change how things really operate. >> if you don't get an open amendment process, and you're right, history says you probably won't, that this is going to get a little bit controlled, are you comfortable seeing a bill you don't like go to conference because you like what the house democrats have done and maybe a conference negotiation can improve things in your view? >> well, i really believe we need to fight for the senate to be able to be a legislative body. on something as important as this, you need to be able to have senators be accountable to the people. accountability is what this bill is all about. and if we're not even

accountable to our constituents because amendments cannot be proposed that say, do you want a serious reform or a fake reform, then where are we? so, it's -- it does go to a broader conversation about the senate, but i do not want to all entertain at this moment being cooperative if this is a sham process on the floor. we need to have a real process, a real debate. citizens across the country are in the streets. they're in the streets every night in my home state and they're saying, it's not enough to just say you're concerned. it's not enough to say black lives matter. it's not enough to say we'll have a commission. the 1968 commission had essentially the same set of issues raised. we're half a century later and we still haven't done the basics. so, there has to be real substantive action. >> there's nothing wrong with an open amendment process, especially in a bill like this, let's see where everybody stands and there's so many people that have ideas. why wouldn't you want that

process there? i just curious, initial reaction to john bolton's book. i've seen -- i've seen house democrats are not happy. your reaction to the book? i know they're unhappy because they wanted him as a witness. you guys wanted him as a witness. you didn't get it. are you going to read the book? >> well, i'm certainly going to -- i mean, i don't know if aisle read it cover to cover. i'll read a fair amount of it. the thing that i heard today was that bolton is saying, look, president trump didn't simply try to get the government of ukraine to help in his election. he also tried to get the government of turkey. he also tried to get the government of china. and that the house should have brought a collective set of issues to the senate. previously i've been critical of the house not bringing the obstruction of justice issues which were so clearly laid out

in the mueller report. but this is different. in this case, if john bolton felt there was important information about presidential misconduct, why did he turn down testifying? a citizen who cares about his country, who is a patriot, gives that

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welcome back. new data today reflects how far and wide the coronavirus is spreading across the country, now with more than 2.1 million cases and more than 117,000 dead. arizona, arkansas, florida, oregon, texas, alabama, north carolina, south carolina, nevada, utah and oklahoma, where the president is going to hold a massive indoor rally in a few days, despite multiple warnings from local health officials. the southern united states accounted for more than half of yesterday's cases. if graphics came with sound effects, this would have a red alert noise.

it showed nationally a curve that started to decline is increasing again. joining me is dr. schaffner. all of you said this is exactly what would happen about a month ago and here we are, that as we reopened, we'd get more cases. and, by the way, this virus, it spreads in unpredictable ways and here we are. it's exactly sort of what many of you said we would be at this point in time. what does this portend for the rest of the summer? >> well, chuck, the covid virus is not going on a summer holiday. it's with us, it will be with us all summer, so we have to be careful. we knew this would happen. as we open up, people will interact with each other. the more rent awe interact, the

opportunities for the covid virus would be transmitted one to another. the more transmissions, the more infections, the more illnesses, the more cases, the more hospitalizations and increasing numbers of deaths. so we knew that would happen. we had to open up. the trick was to do so in a very careful way, but in many places we're doing it in a careless way. people are not wearing their masks. they should be wearing their masks. obviously that's very, very important. that interrupts transmission from one person to another. six-foot distancing. avoid large gatherings these are all very good advice. these are the sorts of things that we should be integrating into the way we live for the months going forward. this covid virus is not going away. you know, it has only one function. job one is actually job only. it wants to keep reproducing to

go from one person to another. >> at this point, you know, could we get a contact tracing army up and running to the point where we could have -- basically have some of our cake and eat it, too? >> well, i would think that. i would think so. if we're all careful, we can have still a lot of fun, although it has to be modified. we have to do all these mitigation things that we've been talking about and also find the cases, do contact tracing, test them, keep them in quarantine and if we do all those things together, i think we can keep the curve flattened or maybe even begin to turn it down. and wouldn't that be wonderful. you know, now we have some treatments that might be working. we have to keep on the prevention side because even though we have some treatments, patients will still come into

that entensive care unit unless we can flatten the curve out in the community. >> what would your recommendation be to a governor or mayor right now on their localized spikes in we've been showing these by state. is there a point where we'd be like you're going to have to shut things down? you need to give your community a one-week break or you need to give front line health care workers a break here. what is that line in your opinion? >> well, i think right now i would like every mayor in the country, every governor in the country to tell everyone to wear masks, social distancing, avoid large groups. i would go to the religious groups and ask every religious leader to tell their congregation of all faiths, please wear masks. i would go to the chamber of commerce and ask them to ask every business to put a sign in

the door that says you're welcome here, we welcome your patronage, but you must wear a mask if you come inside. respect the people who work here. we need to normalize wearing masks. the masks and the virus -- >> we're doing just the opposite, dr. schaffner. we're doing the opposite here and it's turned into this political football, if you will, part of our culture wars and that -- that's something that i don't know how we stop. i know you don't want to get into politics there. let me ask you this, the difference between a first wave and a second wave, at this point does it matter? are we at an endemic so there is not going to be a definitive end to the first wave? >> i think that that's likely. i think we're still part of the first wave. the second wave that many of us

are thinking about is when things get even worse this fall because influenza comes back and we think the covid virus will also increase its transmission at that time. if we're not prepared, if we haven't normalized these social behaviors, then i think we will have a double barrel flu/covid virus season. >> dr. william schaffner, i appreciate you coming on with us and pleading with everyone to wear a mask. it's nonpartisan. >> next is ari. good evening, ari. >> this is a big story and we ha