and it's testing the people on the front lines of this fight most of all. so abbott is getting new tests into their hands, delivering the critical results they need. and until this fight is over, we...will...never...quit. because they never quit. all of our beds are full. there are 12 patients waiting for admission to icu which we have no beds so that means we're pending transfer. half of them are intubated on ventilators. >> we don't enough nurses for these patients. >> one nurse is not enough for

one patient. that's how sick they are. >> sometimes patients don't respond. and you don't know why. and -- it's hard. it's hard to do that over and over and over again. >> sometimes everything you do is just not enough and every day things change. >> i feel like the worst is yet to come. >> this virus is no joke. it's something we need to continue to take seriously. >> beginning the show with a reminder of life for the medical workers on the front line of this pandemic. we haven't had to do that in a while when it was in new york. we have the spike. the surge is back and front line distress is back, as well. welcome to tuesday. i'm chuck todd. we begin tonight with what dr. fauci testified today is a disturbing surge of infections in states across the country while president trump is rallying crowds in arizona which

is one of those hotspots, perhaps the hottest of all the hotspots right now. the spiking cases in multiple states cannot be explained away by more testing. texas hit record number of hospitalizations 11 days in a row now. they have set a hospitalization record 11 days in a row. south carolina, eight days in a row of record hospitalizations. arizona eight straight days of hospitalizations. california with the highest number of hospitalizations since april 30th. governor abbott said it reported a record number of cases and urged texans to stay home. >> because the spread is so rampant right now, there is never a reason for you to have to leave your home unless you do need to go out. the safest place for you is that you're home. >> so those stay-at-home recommendations are a notable shift in tone for a governor

dechding his state's reopening plans in some of the redder parts of texas. cases are rising nationally and while some explained by a steady rise in testing doesn't seem to give experts like dr. fauci much comfort. today he testified before the house with a number of one-time familiar faces from what used to be those coronavirus task force meetings. >> in other areas of the country we are now seeing a disturbing surge of infections that looks like it's a combination but one of the things is an increase in community spread and that's something that i'm really quite concerned about that and you know that this is something that's been in the press over the past couple of days. we were going down from 30,000 to 25,000 to 20,000 and now we stayed about flat and now we're going up. a couple of days ago 30,000 new infer

infections. the next couple of weeks will be critical to address those surgings that we are seeing in florida, in texas, in arizona and in other states. they're not the only ones having a difficulty. bottom line it's a mixed bag. some good and some now we have a problem with. >> dr. fauci's testimony was as you might expect sobering and at times odds with the president. while the administration assured no second wave, dr. fauci said we don't have the first wave under control. he did a plead with the public not to congregate in crowds, protests or rallies. as the president down plays the rising cases pointing to a declining rate in deaths which you can see on the scaled graphic. dr. fauci today reminded the public that deaths lag considerably behind cases. and he also testified that he was concerned about the

consequences of president trump's decision to cut ties with the world health organization and officials emphasize they want more testing contradicting president trump's suggestion that testing should be scaled back because it's making us look bad. president trump this afternoon is in arizona to tout the efforts to build a wall and also rallying students in phoenix continuing to ramp up his re-election campaign. joining me now, colleagues kasie hunt following developments at capitol hill, joe friar in phoenix and starting at capitol hill. we got today what we haven't in 60 days which was a coronavirus task force briefing. it just happened to be done via a committee hearing in congress since we haven't had a public briefing in two months. >> reporter: that's right, chuck. they appeared here in person which we didn't see when they testified a few months ago at the height of the pandemic in new york when they were also going before the cameras

basically daily at about this hour of the day and the reality is while they were able to point to some successes and dr. fauci praised new york in both their kind of overall flattening of the curve but also in how they are carefully reopening according to rules he mentioned that, we do have those examples to point to but that curve that you showed is where we are right now and it's going in the wrong direction and dr. fauci said the next few weeks are absolutely critical to what happens next and it's coming as you've reported and point out when the president essentially wants to move on to a re-election campaign and move on from the coronavirus when many people across the country are still starting to feel its affects perhaps for the first time very intensely and, you know, you saw it in tulsa where there were so many people perhaps interested in signing up to attend the rally and did not feel comfortable going to an indoor

arena. and in some ways there's an irony to the reality that the president's own failures in the public health sphere may mean he can't run that re-election campaign he so desperately wants to. the events that fed his approach to everything, the energy that he would get from the crowds, they can't gather anymore so instead, of course, we have this event based on an issue a touchstone for him in 2016 that he used in times of trying to energize his base of supporters when our focus is somewhere different, chuck. >> i'm curious, i saw one exchange with one house republican who essentially wanted to get dr. fauci to say that everybody is trying their best in the white house i guess. he was not happy. seemed to imply that fauci going out of the way to criticize the president and i noticed there wasn't -- that was an exception. there didn't seem to be a lot of

house republicans trying to protect the president as much. as we had seen in previous years. >> reporter: i didn't think so, chuck. i think the coronavirus hearings an exception to the pattern of republicans tending to stand up for the president in these kinds of hearings. i think you saw that on the senate side, as well, with lamar alexander. this is an issue for members of congress that crosses their roles as officials for a local area representative of their constituents and the national conversation. there aren't as many issues that fit that quite so neatly as this one and i think for each member it was important to be seen taking this seriously in front of the constituents they face in fall. they have hospitals in the district, doctors, they need ppe and trying to scrounge it up in the past with those problems so yeah. i think the tone was different and for a good reason.

>> getting us started on capitol hill, i think the president undere underestimates that issue for fellow republicans on the ballot with him this cycle. thank you. joe, set the scene for us right now. the president is arriving. the state is literally the hottest of hotspots in the country right now. we've got the hospitalization issue in arizona which is bordering on a crisis situation so set the scene. are you seeing people take precautions? what are you seeing on the ground there? >> reporter: yeah. so right now the group, a lot of students and other adults have moved inside the church. they're listening to other speakers waiting for the keynote speaker, the president, on the way here to the mega church and on the inside right now the vast, vast, vast majority of people are not wearing masks inside. they are all sitting close together and a situation that public health officials won't be

thrilled to see. very little mask wearing and of course that becomes a problem not just when people cough or sneeze but chanting or yelling or anything like that. we saw this sort of earlier today. we saw the lines forming, people in lines if hours waiting to get in. very few people wearing masks then and under the impression they would have to wear them on the inside and seeing very few people doing just that. set the scene in arizona. this is one of the hottest hotspots in the country. just today the newest numbers came out, another record. nearly 3,600 new casines annound here today. the icu beds 84% full right now. another major problem is testing, a lot of folks say it is hard to schedule a test. if you go and wait in line for a test then you have to wait hours to get it and if you get a test some people say the wait to get the results might be seven days or even longer and testing is a problem.

all this adds up to a situation of last week the governor said, okay, i'll let cities and counties if they want to let people enforce mask rules they can do that and a number of cities and counties jumped in including phoenix and maricopa county. back to you. >> getting us started, both there. that testing issue is specifically in arizona really rings awkward for a president who is talking about slowing testing down. i have a feeling arizona residents will be scratching their heads on that way. thank you both. here with us, dr. richard besser of the cdc, former director. it seems if and dr. fauci seemed to hint at this gently, we are right back to where we started. it feels like we are back where we were on, i don't know, late march where cases are rising.

not as much testing. the only good news is we have more testing than we did then but it seems like the caseload is back up, the curves in the wrong direction. is there any way to turn this around? >> chuck, i think in many ways we are in a worst place than we were early on and what i mean by that is we are in a situation seeing incredibly mixed messages. we are hearing from some political leaders that there's nothing to worry about. get back to your social life. and we are hearing from every public health leader in the country as well as a lot of political leaders that this is really serious. that we are in the early days of the pandemic and what we do as a nation, what we do individually, collectively, is going to determine how many people die from this in the months to come and whether we're able to get the economy up and running in a sustainable way. and you're seeing in different states, different approaches to this. you know? we are seeing in some northeast states, new york, new jersey,

massachusetts where the curves have really turned and numbers going down and need to see the proof of concept. can they open up carefully and slowly? do they have the public health systems in place to test and track people, provide the capability for everyone to isolate and quarantine in a way that you can allow people to have more activity? some cases but the cases won't turn into localized outbreaks or outbreaks that overwhelm the health care system. >> how would you explain why the eu is basically flatten their curve almost down i think at 4,000 cases collectively and the european union collectively, those nations, this is a very -- as close to an apples to apples as we can get between the united states and europe, they spiked about a week before we did but we were on the same trajectories going up. and their roller coaster went down. ours didn't. >> yeah. when you look at europe and

break it down country by country, some have done better than others and some have had spikes and readjust. in the united states we see a lack of leadership from the top that says we are in this together, building a national spirit, building an approach. you would expect to see in the u.s. and it is appropriate that things taking place on a different time course and different states depending on what's going on locally. what you don't want to see is states that are seeing an increase in cases not reacting very quickly. telling people, hey, it is okay. go about your business. what you want to see is slow, careful opening, based on the best public health science to react and adjust as you're seeing what's happening. i'm very worried that even in the states that have seen a big downturn there is not the engagement at the community level and in particular of communities of color to ensure that people who are going back to work have the protections

that they need, that they're able to get sick leave or time off if they need to quarantine. we are going into a period of increased economic activity just at the time when the supplemental protection is running out and mortgage foreclosure protection is running out so you're going to see people who are in a position of having to decide, hey, i know i was exposed but if i don't go to work i won't put food on the table and may get evicted and you want it to be as easy as possible for everyone in america to do the right thing to protect themselves, their family and the community. >> you heard the governor of texas is not ready to institute a stay-at-home order but he's recommending people stay at home. right? maybe that's politics that's preventing him but he is letting the local communities issue mask ordinances. what would you advise the

governor of texas to do? he seems to be the startled by the numbers. you could -- the shift in tone is pretty obvious to watch over the last 72 hours. >> if you recall early on, in the u.s. where there was somewhat delay in terms of telling people to go into a shelter in place and social distancing and the modeling work after that, every day really matters so in a state that is seeing a dramatic increase, in states that are seeing the health care system, feeling the pressure, running out of beds and icu beds you have to take it seriously. one of the reasons for that is that there's a tremendous lag between the increases in cases which states will see and hospitalizations and deaths from this disease. because it takes a while from being exposed before you have symptoms, and then from having symptoms to severe symptoms that take you to the hospital and then being in the hospital it

can be a couple weeks before you recover or succumb. you have to act really quickly seeing signs that things are moving in the wrong direction. >> dr. besser, former acting director of the cdc, i had more questions but i don't have enough time. i appreciate you coming on. >> thank you. >> you know? hopefully some warnings will get heeded. ahead of a big hearing tomorrow, a former prosecutor says roger stone got special treatment from the department of justice. plus, democrats appear to be ready to block the republicans' police reform bill tomorrow calling it inadequate. i'll ask senator dick durbin if there's a chance to find common ground. six states hold primaries today. the races that could be opportunities for progressive candidates. ur cells. trillions of them. that's why centrum contains 24 key nutrients to support your energy.

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top senate democrats are making it pretty clear they will not be supporting the republican police reform bill set for a test vote tomorrow calling the bill quote woefully inadequate. senators sent a letter saying in part this bill is not salvageable. mcconnell accused democrats of playing politics before the letter was sent. >> the american people expect us to do our jobs, discuss, debate and legislate on the subject that captured the nation's attention. discussion, debate, votes on amendments, tomorrow we'll find out whether even these modest steps are a bridge too far for our colleagues on the democratic side. >> with me now is senator dick durbin of illinois. good to see you, sir. >> good to see you, too, chuck. >> let me start with tomorrow's vote. are you whipping that vote?

are you encouraging democrats not to vote to allow the bill -- allow debate to begin or the letter that schumer sent speaks for itself and you're not whipping? >> the democratic caucus operates differently than most. we had a discussion naturally, a telephone conference discussion and there's strong feelings expressed in it and the end members started to step forward saying we'll stick with booker and harris on this and momentum building for that. i would say there's a significant number that joined me and chuck and booker and harris in saying we have to vote no on this motion to proceed. this is the wrong way to do a job that needs to be done. >> do you think that there are seven democrats that might vote with the republicans tomorrow? >> i don't know the answer to that but i think that the momentum is growing in our caucus to stand together and here's what it boils down, chuck. we realize and i bet you do, too.

this is a unique moment in history. i have seen political activity and movements. i have never seen what's going on on the streets of america and around the world. george floyd struck a cord. it changed the way we look at the issue of race and law enforcement. and now we have to seize this once in a lifetime opportunity. not to come through with a bill which doesn't meet the needs and make real change but something that really is significant. >> i guess the question's going to be, senator, how do you answer saying you are not letting them put forth what they're going to put forth? you have a house bill you like i have a feeling that's likely to pass the house. let's -- i get the lack of trust with the amendment process these days with leadership. i understand that issue. >> yeah. >> but you're going to have to -- how do you answer the criticism that you are not letting the other side put their money where their mouth is, lay

the cards on the table here, see the -- you have multiple chances to negotiate. you have a conference committee, vote it down. why not let the process start tomorrow? >> the reason why the major civil rights groups and police reform groups all universally opposed the republican amendment is they understand the process in the senate. we do, too. you do, too, chuck. when mcconnell calls something on the floor he decides whether there's an amendment offered. ever heard of an amendment tree? he fills it. coming to the amendments offered he'll decide which ones we get to vote on and then decide to stop or pull the bill. that is not way to get this done. i have been involved in immigration, criminal justice reform, in a lot of these others. the most recent being the first step act under president trump. every one of thome started off with a bipartisan basis, a handful of senators, both parties said this is what we believe in and now fight for it. we'll fend off amendments that will hurt us and we can move forward. that's how the senate really

works coming to historic significance. >> if senator mcconnell said open amendment process would your mind change on starting debate? >> if the starting debate on as suggested today on a bill with bipartisan backing it can make a difference. i have been in the rooms where you sit down and literally spend hours at a time to try to find that common ground and once you found it you said this is isn't exactly what i want you and you want and together it's a good offering. it will get the job done. stand together on a bipartisan basis for it. that's how things should work dealing with real change. i don't want to miss this opportunity. this young generation that's out in the streets, many different ages but the younger people are looking at us, us grown-ups saying, we can't miss this opportunity with something that doesn't get the job done. >> so in some ways your decision

not to let this bill advance, this is basically a lack of trust with the way the leadership has conducted business on the floor of the senate? >> i won't go into k45chapter a verse how i became a disciple of that point of view but i can back it up. i do believe sincerely there are senators, democrats and republicans, willing to sit down now for a bipartisan coalition and that's what chuck schumer asked for today. i hope we can move on that. we ought to be sparing future victims from what we've seen too often in the videotapes. >> you have worked a lot -- i want to pivot to immigration here. the president wants to suspend the work visas and you worked hard on a bipartisan, a lot of support on the eight side of the aisle of this. lindsey graham gently tweeted criticism yesterday on the president's decision s. there

anything to do the tie the president's hands on this? >> last thursday when the supreme court reached the decision on daca it was the worst day in steven miller's life, been a tough character to work with. over and over again he fends off people to come to this country to be part of the heritage of a country of immigrants and now he had a bad day last week and answered it this week with an earth effort to exclude people who come here to work and what are they trying to prove? we want to make sure that we have an immigration system that works and they want to shut it down. they are taking some of the steam out of the criticism thrown at them for the way they handled daca. >> i understand that but is there anything you can do to stop him from doing this or no? >> nothing that would survive a president's veto. so let's be honest about it. he is in charge. the election's in four months and a few days if i remember

correctly. the american people get the last word on the subject. >> senator dick durbin, democrat of illinois, i appreciate you coming on sharing your views on both of those key topics and we'll be watching tomorrow. thank you, sir. >> thank you, chuck. up next, some new allegations that roger stone got special treatment from the justice department. plus i'll talk to the former acting white house chief of staff who admits president trump didn't hire very well. mick mulvaney on the president, the administration and the fallout of the bolton book live in a few minutes.

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welcome back. assisting u.s. attorney zelensky, a prosecutor working on and then withdrew from the roger stone case plans to testify tomorrow that the team was quote pressured by the highest levels of federal justice to argue for a lower sentence for stone. he plans to tell the committee that quote what i heard repeatedly was that roger stone was treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the president. joining me now is nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. pee that's a charge whispered about, had been blind quoted about, sourced up. now hearing firsthand. what is the justice department saying? >> well, remember what the

justice department said at the time was that the attorney general didn't think that that initial sentencing recommendation accurately reflected similar sentences for similar offenses and he thought it was out of line. zelens ze len ski doesn't say where the pressure was coming, hearing from the supervisors the attorney in the acting position feared the president and was getting the heat from the justice department to water down the description of stone's crimes and call for a lesser sentence. interestingly, the sentence that the judge ultimately imposed of three and a third years pretty much in line with the justice department's revised sentence recommendations. zelinsky was like seven or eight years but i think interesting things. number one is he is stepping forward to say all of this which

is gutsy. he is still an unlike one of the four prosecutors who stepped down and quit the government altogether, he is a prosecutor. he is now at the u.s. attorney's office in maryland but secondly the justice department reviewed and completely cleared his testimony. that's interesting, too. >> it is. you have an update by the way on a fbi investigation involving the nascar driver bubba wallace. i don't mean to take a bit of a turn here but we got this breaking news and it's -- well, it is important to get it out there. what do you got? >> i think it's interesting because remember bubba wallace said he found this noose and the fbi investigating whether there was a hate crime here now saying that there wasn't and said they have concluded that that noose was in the garage four as early as last october, october of 2019. bubba wallace didn't get assigned that garage until last

week and the justice department said there's no way that whoever put that noose there would have known that bubba wallace was going to be assigned that specific garage so they say there's no federal crime here. >> well, they came in pretty quick and i guess they are now done with that investigation. pete williams -- >> yes. >> with the latest there, justice correspondent, thank you, sir. >> you bet. and right after the break, we'll speak with former acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction

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john bolton is a stupid guy, and he was a guy with no heart and i fired him and i didn't think it was a big deal. and i wasn't around him very much. but what hi did do is took classified information and he published it during a -- one thing to write a book after. during. and i believe that he's a criminal. and i believe, frankly, he

should go to jail for that. >> welcome back. that was president trump continuing his attack on a former national security adviser john bolton as bolton attacks him on the book tour saying that working in the president trump white house is like inside a pinball machine. as we have said, bolton is now the fourth former top administration official to question the president's fitness for office. former secretary of state rex tillerson, mattis and kelly have gone public with warnings about the president's competency or character. joining me is mick mulvaney, his tenure at the white house overlapped quite a bit with john bolton's time as national security adviser having the competing offices in the west wing, two of the few with a fireplace in them if i'm not mistaken. thank you for coming on. good to see you, sir. >> how are you been? >> oh, you know, locked up like

the rest of us here a little bit. let me start quickly, i want to get to the book but the virus. you were chief of staff basically in the early days of this start of the pandemic. >> yeah. >> you got -- you look back on some things that you wish you'd have done sooner, wish the administration had done. have you done your own after action report and feel as if there's things you would have done differently now? >> chuck, it is easy to look back and say would you do things differently? the information changing rapidly. from early on, the only metric, we the only measuring stick was the previous coronavirus as we had dealt with which was sars and mers. these are deadly diseases, a higher fatality rate than coronavirus. but they weren't nearly as contagious and didn't know that at the time and we thought if we can keep coronavirus covid out of the united states we could really prevent serious

difficulties here and focused on containment and wasn't until it got to italy learning about how easy to move the virus, to contract the virus and that's when we knew we had to switch to mitigation. here we are three, four months into it and the cdc telling us now it is not as easy to get it from hard surfaces or easy who's asymptomatic. but given what we had the time i thought we did a really good job on trying to contain it and then trying to mitigate it. >> you look at our curve and the eu's curve. hard to sit say we have done a good job. >> look. we don't have the same type of culture, the same type of society they have. you have -- kumd, public health in this nation is driven by the

states. we don't have a sort of national public health system. we do but it's administered and run by the states why you see so many different policies across the 50 states, part of the way we are structured and will get a different result than in se china with an authoritarian approach or even in some european countries with a centralized approach. am i happy with the number of people that have the disease? absolutely not. we looked so closely at the numbers of people who are infected but that's not the critical metric. the critical metric is do we have enough capacity to deal with the folks who need to go to the hospital? it looks like if we get the disease but get decent health care the fatality goes down and where there's difficulties is when there's too many people getting it at one time to where they overwhelm the health care system and can't get the care they need and then the rates go up dramatically.

it is a dynamic situation. everybody hopes and wishes to do better. >> let me move to the bolton book. you made an interesting comment late last week when you said if there's one criticism of the president you thought is valid is not hiring very well. well, it struck me as sort of like i thought that was his chief pitch as a candidate. i want to play a bit from the president and as a candidate talking about the hiring process. take a listen. >> i know the best people. >> we are going to get the best people. i know guys that are so good. look. i have the best people in the world. the best people. the best people in every, every profession. we have to get the best people. we need to get the best and the finest and if we don't we'll be in trouble for a long period of time. >> look. i can go through the statistics.

four chiefs of staff. four national security advisers. why is the hiring process with this president so difficult? >> well, i mean, keep in mind, barack obama had four chiefs of staffs in the first -- >> not the first term. >> i think four in the second term but it's a tough job and not your question. i think if there's -- if you look back at those comments of the president running for office what the president didn't know is washington, d.c. and hiring good business people is one thing. people in washington, d.c. are different and learned the hard way with john bolton. i give the president credit for this. he was not afraid to hire people that would disagree with him. he knew i was fiscally conservative than he was. where i think he made a mistake is not realizing that washington, d.c. is full of people not interested in a debate but winning an argument.

we had a loft of folks who had different opinions than the president, going in the oval office, make the case and the president make the decision and then almost all of us said i had my say, i will be able to go forward and support what the president decided except for bolton. he still continuing to undermine the president today because he doesn't like the president's policies. he wants to be more militarily aggressive and think he would like to be at war with iran and maybe in korea with intervention and instead of going along with the president bolton tried to undermine him and the big difference and what i mean when i say -- >> when did you know that bolton was a bad fit? >> before i was chief of staff. i think bolton got there in april of '19. i was the chief of staff december of '19. john was tough to work with.

there's a book out that's accurately depicted and tough work with. he thought he was the secretary of state and then the president and then that's just tough, the joke in the building is president bolton. that's what folks referred to him. he was tough to work with. that's not a problem as long as at the end of the day you're willing to sort of rally around the president's decisions but john could never do that. his ego is too big to follow the president down any road that john bolton would not have gone down if he was president. >> in fairness, you have been around this town a long time. the book on john bolton was out. john bolton was a guy whose views well-known. he's a process guy. and it seems to me the most generous to say about the disagreements between you and bolton are this, he is a process guy to the "t." and the trump white house

doesn't do that. and that -- how much of it was that do you think the breakdown with the relationship between the president and mr. bolton? >> i would disagree with that entirely. john was a john process guy. he did whatever he wanted to do. he would not participate in the broader process. i think that's a major criticism of his but look. i wasn't involved in the hiring. i was surprised when he was hired. i'm not a knee owe conservative like he was. i was surprised by the hiring and the president give him credit always welcoming people, encouraged people that disagree with him to join the team and bolton not able to conform his behavior to be a good part of the team not the president's hiring. >> we have never seen a sitting president have a former secretary of defense, a former chief of staff, and a former secretary of state question the fitness for office. that's a big hurdle to go into re-election with, is it not?

>> oh, i think it's much more an inside the beltway kind of discussion. i don't think most voters really care what secretary tillerson thinks about the president or honestly quite honestly vice versa. we pay a lot of attention to it because we're from washington, d.c., you are. i'm back home in south carolina thankfully. but, you know, it makes for a good news story for a couple days and i don't think it drives an election one way or the other nor should it. >> curious. are you done with elective politics? >> yes. >> not running again? you are done? >> no. i'm too short to be president and not interested in being governor of south carolina so looking forward to going back to the private sector. in washington every now and then but mostly in south carolina. >> all right. mick mulvaney, i appreciate you coming on, sharing the campaign's perspective and your perspective on mr. bolton.

good to catch up and hope to have you on again, sir. >> thanks, chuck. >> you got it. it's a super tuesday of sorts for progressives. steve ckornacki has a predictio for we'll get the results next month the way ballots are counted. we'll be right back. all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad.

welcome back. you know what we like to say around here. if it's tuesday, someone is

voting somewhere. the somewheres today are in six states. it's something of perhaps a progressive super tuesday. it could be a big day for some progressive candidates. candidates in places like kentucky and new york have the opportunity to score some victories over so-called moderate or establishment candidates including the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee, congressman elliott engel. steve, this is probably the biggest progressive day we've had this cycle right now, perhaps. seeing, since it's new york. >> absolutely. and happening now with the black lives matter movement taking hold all over the country. take a look at this question from a poll within the last week. this was asking voters in each party, in the presidential race. to give you a sense of where they are, how important will race relations be to your vote for president? you see among democrats, basically nine out of ten democrats are saying they consider race relations extremely or very important. that's in the presidential race

but it gives you a sense of the mood within the party. you think back to 2018 two years ago. remember the me too movement was taking hold and what happened in democratic primaries, a record number of female candidates. will this happen among democratic voters translate into success for african-american voters? we have polls closing in a big chunk of kentucky in a few minutes. here's the senate primary. the state representative is running against amy mcgrath. the winner of this in the general election, a couple months ago it looked like she would be the democratic nominee. in the wake of the black lives matter movement, booker has gotten some attention, some big endorsements. seems to have some momentum. interesting test in kentucky. we've been talking about this all day here. mail-in voting. these are the stats. they've already got 560,000

ballots. they were received in the mail. they had another 100,000 plus cast in person today. you add these all up, this goes way past already kentucky, more votes cast than in the 2019 governor's primary than in the presidential player there. more to come still. the winner of the senate primary, it is still kentucky, a presidential year. donald trump won it 2-1 over hillary clinton in 2016. then in new york, a couple of house races. elliott engel, three deck it a incumbent. also, yvette clark nearly lost two years ago. now a rematch. an interesting test from the progressive to watch tonight. >> absolutely. hopefully we'll get results next week with the new counting. kentucky used to be such a fast counting state.

steve cokornacki, thank you. kentucky, you can count on 100% from everybody. we want to show you the scene in phoenix, arizona, where the president is about to address a crowd of mostly young people. what really stands out is that you see virtually no social distancing and virtual floy one wearing masks. a number of high level arizona officials are expected to attend and remember, arizona is arguably the hottest spot in the country. we'll be right back. i am robert strickler. i've been involved in communications in the media for 45 years. i've been taking prevagen on a regular basis for at least eight years. for me, the greatest benefit over the years has been that prevagen seems to help me recall things and also think more clearly. and i enthusiastically recommend prevagen. it has helped me an awful lot. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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well, that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." "the beat" with ari melber starts now. >> welcome to "the beat." we are tracking several big stories right now including more reporting on a story we brought you last night. trump attorney general bill barr's controversial ousting. one of the prosecutors over trump tower. we'll get tom. first, the preparations here at a mega church in phoenix, arizona, preparing for donald trump's political reopening. these efforts to hold campaign rallies as if things are back to normal. as you know, as people saw at that other rally, in terms of public health, as well as the political reaction, this is not normal. it's not even working. it's not going as president trump had hoped. this second rally which again is about to tee off. you're looking at the