how can we get past that? >> there's no secret formula for that except to say get past it. it should not be a political issue. it is purely a public health issue. >> we haven't beat it. everything people are doing, they're going to have to say, wear a mask. are you social distancing. so i hope everybody takes it seriously, we haven't beaten this, we don't have a vaccine yet, it seems like the doctors have done a good job trying to figure out how to keep people alive and roecover, but we're nt where we need to be. >> it's a virus. it's a respiratory virus that spreads from person-to-person and the more people you come into contact with in an unprotected setting the likelier you are to be infected by it.

we can't shut down the economy again so we hope people protect themselves. we know they've been told how to do it, just do it. >> those are florida senators, rick scott and marco rubio, agreeing with, wait for it, dr. fauci. >> science. >> i would guess, also, and i'm grateful. i am very grateful that they came out -- >> yes. >> -- and said what they said for the deniers who are still out there. the deniers that went to palm beach county, you saw the videos, talking about witches and warlocks and devils and conspiracy theories spread, of course, on facebook that masks are of the devil and get in the way of god's breathing. no. we're actually temples that god has created, it protects the temple from collapse. that's another way to look at it. by the way, marco rubio and rick

scott and some other republicans who can no longer look at these super spreader events that donald trump is forcing people to put in place in arizona -- >> in the tulsa. >> -- in tulsa, in any area that kills, it will kill senior citizens, arizona's senior citizens their lives just got a lot more complicated after the super spreader event that donald trump pushed in arizona so he could do what? so he could spread conspiracy theories about american democracy. and so he could say racist ramblings meant to inspire his 35%. and, of course, all of this comes, all of this comes with a president of the united states and his allies on facebook, his allies on talk radio, his allies

on cable news, continuing to downplay the dangerousness of this virus, like larry kudlow. and, of course, kellyanne conway, back in march saying that the virus was contained. >> oh, yeah. it's done. >> and then 120,000 americans died. and now kudlow is once again saying that it's under control. donald trump not wearing a mask, going to factories in maine, who are ramping up as quickly adds they can on testing supplies, not wearing a mask, and making those people destroy -- making those people destroy everything that they were producing while he was there because the president of the united states wouldn't wear a mask and here is the catch, and it's what we've been saying every day and everything is on tape, so go

back and look at it from the beginning of this. from the beginning of this crisis where the president was denying this, we were saying, just follow the science. just following the doctors. just do what the doctors tell you to do. that's what joe biden was saying at the end of january. and yet the president still won't do that. the president -- >> it's funding, he's pulling back. >> -- saying this is going to magically go away. the president still refusing to tell his supporters that go to his super spreader events that people will look back on 20 years from now in horror, in horr horror, the president still saying he's not wearing a mask. and by the way, all of this comes on a day when the united

states hit a new record for daily coronavirus cases two months after the previous record. and months after the president said it was just one person coming in and it was going to go away. it's 15 people coming in, it's going to go away. it's telling african-american leaders it's going to magically go away. it hasn't gone away. we're going to show you some polls from swing states. and we can give a lot of grand explanations for why those numbers are as low as they are. we can get political scientists from around the globe, the greatest minds, to come in and dissect the cross halves and tell you why donald trump is losing so badly nationally and in every swing state. but we don't have to do that.

he hell, i told you that. i told the president this on the show every day back in march. it's going to be like romper room, i can look in, we can talk about it, but would you like to sing along with me? here we go. here it is. >> no. >> this is a medical crisis. all right. when you take care of the medical crisis, then the business crisis will be taken care of. and when the business crisis is taken care of, your political crisis will be taken care of. said repeatedly. it hasn't been taken care of, mika, he cannot bring himself to follow science, to save the lives of senior citizens and just let his doctors lead.

and because of that, his support continues to drop to historic lows for any incumbent running for re-election. >> you just got to wonder if he wants to win. along with joe, willie and me. we have nbc news capitol correspondent and host of kc d.c., kasie hunt. host of politics nation and president of the national action new york, reverend al sharpton and politics editor for the daily beast, sam stein. a great group with us to go through the polls. new numbers, president trump trailing joe biden by sizable margins among registered voters in six battleground states that president trump won in 2016. according to a new poll out this morning, biden is up 11 points in michigan, 47% to trump's 36%.

biden is also up, 11 points in, wait for it, wisconsin. 49 to 38. the latest marquette law school poll has biden up by 8 points. back to the sen numbers, biden has a 10 point advantage in pennsylvania, 50 to 40. trump carried michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania by less than a point. biden is up 6 points in florida, 47 to 41. biden's lead by 7 points in arizona as well 48 to 41. and the former vice president is up 9 points in north carolina. 49 to 40%. willie, it kind of explains the congressional races in north carolina. biden is doing well there, doing well in a lot of states that trump won.

>> sorry, is that me? you've looked through these straits we've focused on these national polls that have shown 14 point spread, 12 point spreads, 10 point spreads and those are interesting in the cross tabs how poorly the american is doing among women, independents, those specific groups. the important numbers are the ones you ticked through. these are six states that president trump won, won many by extraordinarily narrow margins, the famous 77 votes across michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. michigan has to be of concern a place he won by only 10,000 votes. wisconsin he won by 23,000. pennsylvania by 44,000 votes. he didn't have a margin for error to begin with and these states now are starting to get away with him.

>> like joe, i don't think it's complex to explain it, they look at the tweets and the rhetoric and point to that in the end, in the eyes of a lot of voter, he failed at two crises, one is the medical crisis around coronavirus and the second is the protests emanating from the george floyd killing. both have been objectively botched if you at least judge the polls here. so the question for trump people now is how do you turn this around? what can you do at this juncture to recoop some of the lost ground here. they're doing exactly the wrong thing, honestly. they're doubling down on their rhetoric. dismissing the covid cases. mike pence last week was talking about no need to worry about a second wave. we're still in the first wave. that gives this aura they're dismissing a crisis people are feeling tangibly in these critical states.

there was a more ominous time under the ser vow of these polls which is trump holds a decent standing on the economy. they tested how each candidate stood on the economy and trump did well there. there's been a boat load of economic assistance that congress passed in the early spring to deal with the covid crisis. that is going to run out soon. if congress does not extend that unemployment benefits, federal assistance for businesses and like, we could be dealing with a much bigger economic catastrophe than we have. at which point trump's one read of hope could vanish further. it could actually get worse. >> joe, i'll save you our daily caveat, it's four and a half months to the election, everything can change. so we'll look at these polls and it's interesting today. but joe, we talked about on this show over the last few months how the president has been out

of step with the country. first on coronavirus, then on the protests and the movementle in the streets. and again now as we see these spikes in florida, in california and texas, the federal government under the trump administration is pulling back funding for some testing sites. you had vice president pence calling around talking to republican senators yesterday. assuring them that they shouldn't worry about the numbers, yes, the cases are up, but mortality is down. they're trying to spin their way out of a public health crisis. you can't do that. >> again, we're seeing the effects of what happens to governors who are seen as responsible, whether you talk about a republican midwest governor from ohio who has high approval ratings or a democratic midwest approval rating from michigan who has high approval ratings. but you're right, the president, he's isolating himself on every issue, 75/25 on the coronavirus.

remember the poll about people wanting their kids to go back to school. here's governor dewine's approval rating, 75% in ohio. a state that president trump is down, and struggling in a state he won easily before. you can talk about going back to school, remember we showed that poll some time ago. and something like 80% of americans with children were not ready to send their children back to school and at the same time the president was pushing for them to send their children back to school. not because of education but because workers needed some place to park their children to get back to work. but even small business owners understand that if we have another round of deadly waves of coronavirus, they're going to have to shut the businesses down again and it's already happening in some parts of america. >> it's been so devastating. >> when you look at john cornyn,

willie, from texas, actually criticizing the president of the united states for stopping funding of testing sites, think about this. he wasn't joking. he's now calling for the stopping of funding of testing sites as we go up. we can add texas and georgia, willie, to the states that are also in danger because some recent polls have showed that he's tied there. so i guess the question is, what's the dynamic that's going to change, willie? what dynamic is going to change? how are these numbers going to get any better if he continues to spout out information that's false about the worse pandemic in over 100 years? >> yeah, you cannot wish away coronavirus. you cannot wish away a public health crisis.

you can't say it's going to just disappear. you can't send people out, economic advisers, on tv saying we have it under control. that's not how it works. vice president pence can't call around to governors, republicans in states where it's spiking tell them not to worry about it. and yesterday we learned the trump administration is planning to end its funding and support for testing sites at the end of this month. the move will impact 13 federally supported testing sites in five different states. at least seven of those sites are in texas, where as we said coronavirus cases are surging. houston's health department reacted in a statement saying, quote, losing the support of the federal government for testing sites will undoubtedly have catastrophic cascading consequences. that's for houston where the cases are going through the roof and the hospitals are under stress. in a conference call with the press, john cornyn said it's

pretty clear to me and all of us that with the up tick of cases now is not a time to retreat from our vigilance in testing i believe they need to extend the federal support in texas at least until we get the most recent up tick in cases addressed. kasie, we are hearing from republican senators who on most issues are reluctant to cross the president, criticize the trump administration not being able to help but to say something when the federal government is pulling back funding for testing just as this becomes a very serious crisis in their states. >> and they are trying to deal with the crisis. and you are seeing, we talked about marco rubio earlier who said bluntly, where a damn mask. imagine if republicans had been delivering that message from the beginning and the way they framed that rhetoric showed what a difference the president could

make if he was willing to do that. to go back to joe's point, if you solve the medical crisis you solve the cascading other crises that could potentially help him in november. wearing a mask is the simple most straightforward easiest thing that everyone can do. there's so much evidence that it actually works. and yet this president is not leading on that issue. willie, i think you're right. every single person in america has had their life affected by this coronavirus crisis. that means that the president is not capable of creating his own media reality and universe for all of us or his supporters anyway, to live in. because they have evidence in their daily lives that contradicts that. if you're an elected official in one of these states where this is particularly exploding, you certainly cannot create a reality that's different from the one on the ground. i think the question sam stein raised is an important one as well. we don't know that congress is

going to offer an additional relief package. i would be surprised if they, for example, extend those unemployment benefits. it's certainly not going to happen at the level of support where it is right now. they've essentially floated this economy for about, you know, the three to four months we've been through this already, and at the end of july, the bottom could fall out the from under this. if, in fact, we haven't addressed this medical crisis. let's not, i don't think, let us on the accountability that needs to be in place for what these members of congress are going to do next. >> reverend al we talked about yesterday the demographic groups where the president was losing votes. of course, he is among black americans. but also so many of the things he's done throughout his presidency have had a negative impact on white voters with college educations, white voters in the suburbs, i'm not

overgeneralizing, i'm looking where the trends have gone down the most. after charlottesville it wasn't just black americans, jewish americans that were offended by that. it was white voters, especially in the suburbs, especially with college degrees and advanced degrees, and you have the same thing still happening where the president goes to arizona, conducts a super spreader event in a state where senior citizens have every reason to be scared to death that they're going to catch this disease and die, and you have the president making racist comments and just reveling. and making racist comments about asian-americans. and that doesn't just send a message to asian-americans. that sends a message to latinos, to black americans, and that sends a message to white americans in the suburbs who may

have voted for him in 2016 because they said what do i have to lose, but in 2020, we'll never do it again. because he keeps doing this. >> the confusion in donald trump's mind that many of us that have dealt with him for years understood that americans have now become very aware of is he sees people that supported him or voted for him as his fans, rather than voters that saw him as an alternative to whatever it is they were afraid of or voting against. so he used culture wars to win in '16. not understanding that those people expected him to govern. so now when you're with a pandemic that impacts everybody in the country, everybody household, and then you couple that with a reaction in every state of the union to the death of george floyd and how we're going to deal with policing and

criminal justice, and you can't govern either, the people are saying, we're not supporting someone, even if we agree with them on certain cultural issues that cannot govern in a way that affects my very health and the stability of my city. he doesn't get that. he thinks he's elvis rather than roosevelt or even reagan. and when the call for a roosevelt or reagan to gof ern, whether you're right, left or middle. he comes out like a rock star giving his latest hits. not understanding the audience isn't there for that. they want to be saved and a stabilized, not be entertained. he's giving entertaining lines. we need principles and stability in washington. >> one of the reasons when he goes into late elvis mode, one of the arenas are half empty are

because there are a lot of people, sam stein, who are scared, rightly so, that if they go there -- it's just like -- again, what we've been saying all along. lie about james comey if you want to, his base doesn't care. they'll go along with the president. side with the soviet union's former kgb boss over your own intel community. they may be a little disturbed but their retirement plans are going okay and they don't watch a lot of news anyway. go after robert mueller, that's fine, they don't care. go ahead and ask ukraine to rig the election for you. to interfere -- again they're not going to pay -- but you tell them, hey, come see me in tulsa,

they're going to check with their doctor -- >> yeah. the. >> -- hey, doc, we've been coming in here for 25, 30 years, i voted for this guy in '16, my kids want too go to the rally, i'm not so sure. doctor says, no. no. unless you want to die or put and your family at risk of dying, stay away from the damn rally. by the way, where a damn mask. that's what millions of americans are hearing from their docto doctors. so they're not going to believe a former reality tv show host over their doctor of 20 or 30 years. and that's just something he's never going to be able to break through. so he might as well follow the doctors. >> right. this is -- i mean, look, there's been obviously instances where

the president's policies have been directly tangible to the lives of americans. if you're a muslim, for instance, the ban affected you, living in puerto rico, the hurricane there affected you. but in this case the coronavirus, his policies are tangible -- or his lack of policies i should say are tangible for basically every american in our country right now. so to your point it's no longer a debate about whether it's okay to ask for foreign assistance in an election. you can rationalize that mentally if you are supportive of the president. in this case it's a question of whether you want to get sick in support of this president and that's much more tangible. i keep coming back to this idea here, one of the problems trump faces he has a dim view of his own supporters and of americans in general. the polls tell us a very clear story here. which is that people are really worried about this, and they're

willing to upend their lives, make serious personal and professional sacrifices for them and their kids in order to get their arms around this and protect themselves from this. trump is not asking us to do that, he doesn't think people are willing to wear masks, he's not willing to wear masks. he doesn't think people care that much to avoid rallies in big arenas. and he hasn't asked much in the way of a national sacrifice. so i guess one of the things that i'm struck by is that he just doesn't really think that people will stomach the policies that they need to stomach and that public opinion shows that they're willing to stomach, and i think that's hurting him. >> we'll have eric larsson on -- yes, kasie? >> i was going to say. to that point, if he was willing to support those policies he might have a better chance of winning the election. that's the thing you said this

week on the show about being convinced perhaps he doesn't want to win the election. if he could solve this crisis, he might get to the point he could put himself back in the running to win the election. right now the polls are showing if the election were held today, biden would pull this out. you mentioned super spreader events. and let's not forget the convention in florida because he wants to give a speech and have the coronation in the audience. the dnc made plans for the convention, it's going to be a smaller event. and yet the president wants to bring thousands of people to jacksonville, florida, florida which is a hot spot. >> he brought far fewer together forcing them to listen to him at west point. how did that work out for him? but not following doctors,

willie, we got to go to break but where has not following doctors led to donald trump? magical thinking. michigan down 11, wisconsin down 11, pennsylvania down 10, texas practically tied. georgia, he needs to follow the doctor's advise. room raider is going to have fun with this. alex, i promise we'll go to break if you show sam stein quickly. i want willie to look. this is a first since we looked into people's homes. >> that's good. >> if you look over sam stein's left shoulder, he has what appears to be a picture of an early atomic test from one of the bikini islands over his shoulder. >> i'm the only one on the show -- >> the 1940s.

>> -- strategically placed in front of a monument in washington. >> the atomic test over his shoulder. that's an interesting way to wake up in the morning, isn't it? >> i wonder what message sam is sending with that photograph, a show of strength. i don't know what that is. right above the pottery he finished last night. >> sam, bring the baby tomorrow. i want to see the baby. >> he's upstairs. you don't want the baby. >> i do. please bring him. former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb will be our guest this morning. amid nationwide protests over racial injustice, president trump is preparing to sign an executive order protecting confederate statues. we'll talk to the president of the naacp, derrick johnson. and ed luce of the financial times, with a piece entitled

"confederate ghosts still haunt america." you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. g "morning " we'll be right back. my nunormal: fewer asthma attacks. less oral steroids. taking my treatment at home. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your doctor about nucala at home. find your nunormal with nucala.

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as new coronavirus cases surge across the u.s., stocks plunged yesterday over fears officials could move to reinstate lockdowns. the dow dropped about 700 points, the nasdaq fell 2.5%. all three benchmarks posted their worst day since june 11th. california governor, gavin newsom said earlier this week the spike in cases could force the state to put in place stricter measures on businesses and social gatherings. companies hit hard by the pandemic, such as cruise line leds the markets decline with home builder and bank stocks also tumbling. joining us editor at the

financial times edward luce. >> thanks for being on with us, it's hard for a layman such as myself, and also will ie who we said invests at the dog track. i understand the ebbs and flows of wall street as the market as gone up and down. we have a tough stretch ahead of us. seems like yesterday was one of those few days lately that reality set in and there was an understanding that this was not going smoothly and in the united states it's only going to get worse for a while. >> yeah, the market had been clearly in the previous few weeks betting on a v-shaped recovery essentially taking its cue from the president, vice president, jared kushner, those saying this is a great victory america can unlock, as it were. it can socially crowd. we've got over this great challenge and it's going to come

roaring back. i think the reality is settling in now. i think with the european union's announcement the plan to prevent americans from traveling to europe from the coming month but allow people from africa, china, cuba, countries that have the coronavirus under control, that was a stark reality moment that america doesn't have this under control. that the first wave is still on. and that we're going to see mounting infections and, therefore, death rates through july and through august. it bears thinking about yesterday america had almost 40,000 new infections. europe had about 5,000 so talking about 10 times the rate of infections. >> u.s. marshalls have been told to help protect monuments around the country as protesters have

targeted and vandalized statues that some consider offensive. these are the protests when people are squashed together like that worry me as much as the rallies. the army deployed around 400 members of the washington d.c. national guard to help protect these structures. meanwhile, president trump says that he is preparing to issue an executive order protecting statues and other historical monuments. a senior with white house official tells nbc news that it will likely be coming by the end of the week. >> ed luce, you've written about this and the confederacy. i have to say, also, of course, there are people enjoying smashing things up, taking down statues of ulysses grant, a man as responsible as nig anyboanybg with abraham lincoln, for ending

slavery in the united states. with that in mind, there are some monuments pulled down. the overwhelming majority are confederate monuments and you write about this in the financial times this week. >> yeah. so we've got a president, i think, probably for the first time since woodrow wilson, who is openly row mant tuesdaying confederate figures, depefendin them as american heroes. most civil wars do end in one side or the other prevailing and one narrative or the other accepted by the nation or separate nations created. neither of those things happened in the united states. and the fact that we've got, you know, 155 years after the civil war, a yankee president, to use that term, a yankee president

romanticizing confederate figures as heroes and talking about the confederate part of the story being part of america's heritage is extraordinary. it's a doubling down on the dogwhistle we've been hearing from some republicans since the '60s. this makes it more explicit. i guess the upside and the battle over the confederate monuments, if he's repudiated in november then we have a strong repudiation of that wolf whistle. but you have to have pinch yourself that people who tried to destroy the union, fought against the stars and stripes, a war that took more american lives than the first world war, second world war, vietnam war and korean war combined, is defending figures against america. it's a very surreal sort of

"alice in wonderland" situation. >> figures from my region, i love the south, proud to be from the south, proud to be a southerner. but we're responsible for 700,000 american deaths. those confederate generals and leaders were responsible for more american deaths than hitler and stalin, and you fill in the blanks. add them all up. and those confederate generals were responsible for more dead americans than all the tyrants in the history of this country that we fought against. reverend al we've been talking about how donald trump is swimming against the political tide in one issue or another. we can talk about black lives matter, those marches where 75% of americans are supportive of the marches, think they are

important and again the majority of americans opposed to donald trump's views on these marches and how he's responding. now we have a president who won't endorse reforms that will protect the lives of black americans but now is trying to make a wedge issue out of protecting statues and monuments, many of them, of course, confederate monuments. >> when you look at the fact -- one of the things that is not mentioned enough is that these statues are in public places that are maintained by people employed by taxpayer dollars. so he is, in effect, asking black americans, brown americans, and all americans, to pay to help extol people that literally fought to keep their forefathers enslaved.

this is not about an opinion. i have no choice but to pay taxes but i'm going to pay to uphold somebody who fought to keep my great grandfather a slave, make sure the statue for him is polished, maintained and secured. that's an insult to all of us. when we look at the fact that we are dealing with -- donald trump is right about one thing, he said this is our history. it is a history of people that tried to overthrow the government to maintain enslaving people that looked like me. that's the history. that's not a history that we want to exalt, a history we want to salute. we should have the statues of those that fought and defeated them, not the ones defeated. how would a world war ii veteran feel about paying taxes to have a statue of mussolini or hitler in their public square. that's how many of us black americans feel in parts of

america and that's what donald trump is standing up against. >> as was noted yesterday, many of the statues weren't put up after the death of these men, they were put up in critical times when black americans were achieving new rights and put up as protests against that, whether you talk about in the late 1800s or whether you talk about in the 1950s and early 1960s as the civil rights movement began exploding across america and a real and meaningful way. that's when many of the monuments started being put up as an act of defiance towards integration. as an act of defiance against the expansion of black americans' rights. not as a tribute to the men that they put up on those pedestals. >> yes, of course as a message to say to black americans we're

still in charge here. you may be getting new rights and segregation may be officially coming to an end but we're in charge here. i often thought walking past the statue of a slave owner and i say what am i supposed to tell my daughter or son walking past that monument and my son or daughter looks up and says who is that dad? i have to say, that's jefferson davis he was the president of the confederate si, a movement that sought to uphold slavery. that just came down two weeks ago so for generations mothers and fathers have had to have that conversation with their sons and daughters and hopefully now they won't have to. >> that's a good point. the other side of that is black parents who had to explain to their kids who that was, that's the president of the confederacy

who fought for slavery. and the child to say how do they have a tribute to that? the answer is, they shouldn't. it has to come down. we're not talking about people to disagree with. we're talking the only reason they're in history is because they fought to overthrow the government and defend slavery. that's the only reason we heard of jefferson davis and other confederates. there are presidents that may have owned slaves or done things we disagree with but they're presidents or other office holders. the only reason we know about jefferson dossiavis is reran agt this country. >> reporter: mr. johnson, great to have you on the show. we have a lot to talk to you

about, including facebook advertising and the boycotts recently. love to get your take on the statues, why it's taken us so long to get here on the figures like jefferson davis, busts to nathan bedford forest you can find across the country, the founder of the ku klux klan. should they be torn down? should it go through legal channels? should it go through state legislatures or mu ninicipaliti? what do you think? >> i think they're doing what they should have done years ag. i live in mississippi we have counties named after confederate soldiers, schools named after confederate soldiers. it's an ideology that has spread across the nation. many of the statues were erected in defiance of inspiration and

advancement of civil rights law. particularly after release of birth of a nation where we saw klan membership born across the country. it is a mind set of white supremacy we must fight against. i was a plaintiff in 1993 in the state of mississippi to take down the flag because it was never legally implemented. we've been fighting that legal challenge, we had a referendum in 2001, you cannot put hate on a ballot for the ref ren dumb for the majority to vote against the minority. >> so let's move to this. certain brands have started to pull their advertising from facebook in an activist campaign to force the social network to counter act hate speech on its platform. the stop hate for profit campaign, which started just

last week is spearheaded by a coalition of organizations including the naacp, the anti-defamation league, common sense and several other civil rights groups who say facebook is not doing enough to keep hate speech off its noplatforms. as a result they've been targeting major advertisers to help support the movement. i've been wondering, derek, about the advertisers for facebook and twitter as they push hate speech and push conspiracy theories, at what point, since they won't hold themselves accountable what holds them accountable? i think going after the advertisers and asking them if they support this kind of language and lies on these platforms, if they don't support this, why in the world would they advertise on those

platforms? >> you know, facebook have had the opportunity to both benefit from hate speech, they allow racial hate groups, white supremacy groups to buy ads. they place those next to brand names. we have had meeting after meeting with facebook. reverend sharpton and i met with mark zuckerberg in his home to say they have to end this. they have allowed foreign nations to interfere with our election, and they refuse to do anything about it. unfortunately for the american public, the power of facebook has -- there's -- it's above regulations. you have one person who owns 60% of the stock. there is no governmental oversight. they have become a public utility without any oversight from anything. so now we must stand up with corporate partners who say they denounce white supremacy, racial

hatred and stop spending ad money on that platform. they're probably one of the biggest threats to democracy we see. . >> they are, reverendal, a threat to democracy. >> totally. >> they are a threat to black americans. they're a threat to black americans because they will not stop the hate speech from spreading. they're a threat to senior citizens because they allow conspiracy theories and movies to be spread around on their platform. and like derek said, they're not held liable. congress has given them complete immunity. if you're a black man or woman in america and violence is visited upon you because of some hate group on facebook, then what can you do about it? it's like the federal officer that was shot in oakland. the person that shot him was a

member of a hate group facebook page. not only was that bad enough, rev, but they were allowing them on there, facebook was actually pushing other people who weren't a part of that hate group toward that hate group, recommending that they become members of that hate group. rev, rev, the naacp, the anti-defamation league, and, of course, you and other organizations have been pushing for them to get rid of the hate speech and mark zuckerberg refuses. he said he won't even touch the president's most violent rhetoric. hell, even twitter agreed to do that. >> absolutely. twitter has agreed. and as derek johnson just said, we went to zuckerberg's home, had a meeting for several hours. this is not something we jumped out there to say.

we tried to reason with them and they will not do it. the only motive one could really come with is saying they just put their profits and making money over the safety and the bringing together of the american public or the consumers for that matter around the world. therefore, you have a responsibility to say, fine, we won't be a consumer. how did we deal with the civil rights movement and reenergizing of it in the late '50s and '60s that you just talked about joe, they had a boycott. when rosa parks would not give up her seat and was arrested for using the front of the bus. they had the economic leverage saying fine we won't ride the bus. it's better to walk in dignity than ride in shame. i would rather watch another site with my dignity than to shamefully watch somebody that will give creditability to a

hate posting or bigoted posting, put it next to a brand name, giving it credibility and main streaming that hate and bigotry, we can't support that. >> that ed luce is a problem. facebook allows hate to be main streamed. facebook allows bigotry to be main streamed. facebook allows conspiracy theories that lead people to go to palm beach county commission meetings and talk about masks even being the work of the devil. and this preposterous conspiracy theory move, plandemic that facebook promoted to such a degree that doctors i talk to are still having to tell their patients, it's all a lie.

it's a lie. it's a conspiracy theory. but mark zuckerberg won't be responsible. and he's worth about $85 billion now for trafficking in this negligence. pushing deadly conspiracy theories that actually will end up killing americans. it's just that plain and simple. if a car company did that, americans could hold them liable, but not facebook because congress keeps protecting the 85 billionaire. >> yeah, if you look at facebook's profitability in the last three years since the whole facebook role with cambridge analytic and the russian news campaign of 2016 has come to light. it's multiplied. the profitability line shoots sharply upwards. this isn't bad for mark zuckerberg's bottom line, it's good. being defined as the new tobacco

is good for the bottom line. hitting facebook where it matters, through advertising, is the only way to do anything. i think he has tried to vir which you signal while profiting from the dissemination of theories. i watched the same palm beach county hearing that you did, joe, the talk of masks weren't mandated by the bible. the pedophile rings and scientists are recommending masks. this kind of deranged nonsense is enabled by facebook. so by cutting advertisers and deleting your account, my wife just deleted her account a couple of weeks ago. is the only possible response. >> that and maybe congress. >> that's what it might come to. >> being responsible and holding facebook responsible for their

neglect actions that are killing americans and that are spreading hatred, bigotry, and racism. people still talk about birth of a nation. they'll be talking about facebook. they'll be talking about the conspiracy theories. they'll be -- >> they already are. >> -- talking about the racism, they'll be talking about the sewage. they'll be talking about facebook as a threat to american democracy unless congress holds them accountable and lets americans damaged by facebook's actions sue facebook in the court of law. then guess what, oh my god -- >> things would change. >> -- how radical that would be, we would have a company that had to be driven by free market forces. oh my god, capitalism. oh my god, the invisible hand. oh my god, personal

responsibility. republicans, they like personal responsibility. what about personal responsibility for mark zuckerberg? what about personal responsibility for jack dorsey? what about personal responsibility for people who make $85 billion? civil rights leaders in america are begging them to stop the spread of hatred. to stop the promotion of tweets that go immediately over to facebook and even if twitter will take care of those tweets, zuckerberg says i'm not touching it. ed luce thank you so much. >> appreciate it, ed. your piece in the financial times is entitled "confederate ghosts still haunt america". on your point, joe, to tie up something, twitter made changes after we reached out to them, yes, we did speak, but they did not do enough. they keep trying to do little

things here and there to shut up people who might have a platform to say something that's actually making sense about this issue. so yes, thank you for your changes, not enough. thank you for your calls, not enough. willie? >> not enough. yeah, willie, it is crazy. >> at jack. >> it is crazy what these social media companies get away with. when 230 was passed back in the '90s, it was for people that just sent in comments to articles or chat boards. it was such a different thing than what we're talking about now with a ceo who makes $85 billion and ignores the naacp, ignores the anti-defamation league, ignores reverend sharpton, ignores the civil rights leaders of our times saying hey, you don't understand. you are spreading racism across

america and endangering black lives. they're not doing a thing. >> it's not enough to periodically put out a statement when mark zuckerberg and sometimes joined by his wife says he's shocked and stunned and deeply saddened by seeing what's gone on on the website he runs. you can't be upset about certain things when you get heat for them and not address the underlying problem. i suspect we'll be talking more about this. derek, i wanted to ask you about the state of platform. there was talk in the last several weeks about not letting this moment go, the movement in the street had to yield something significant on policing in the country. yesterday the senate couldn't get enough votes from democrats to debate the republican version of the bill. are you confident based on what you're seeing in washington that there will be real change from the federal government on policing? >> i think the real change we're going to see is going to happen in november. unfortunately, the police union,

nra have such a grip on the republican senate we cannot move the conversation past the stalemate we're currently seeing. the house made tremendous advances with the bill, they are prepared to pass. the senate, however, have all the posture of changes but none of the substance of change. we cannot allow a bill to pass with a substance that's going to do something it's not going to do. we need more teeth in the bill. i hope the members of the senate can sit down and negotiate a bipartisan approach, but at this statement i'm concerned what's happening and november is going to be the real change we look for. >> derek johnson, the president and ceo of the naacp, thanks so much. great to have you with us. kasie on this topic, senator tim scott made an impassioned speech yesterday talking about the rhetoric he's heard from speaker pelosi saying you have to at least talk to us. if you can get 80% of what you

want, that should be worth it and then you can fix the rest by winning the election in november. what's the state of the negotiations as you talk to people on both sides of it? >> i think senator tim scott is very sincere and i think the democrats believe that he is sincere and there are real conversations and relationships between senator scott and particularly senator cory booker on the democratic side. but so far those relationships have not been enough to overcome the realities that are driving this on the hill. which is that the trust between chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell is at an all-time low, which is saying something. democrats don't believe that mitch mcconnell is sincere in trying to do this. and they think he sees the writing on the wall and that from a political perspective, they need to be seen as doing something. they are also, in turn, this is the raw politics of this, i'm

not trying to make a statement on the morality of it, but there is a perception, why should they help mitch mcconnell, senate republicans look better if the they don't feel that the policy is where it needs to be. and that has led to this sta standoff. and, you know, i think in a different world, in a previous congress, you could have had a serious conversation at this kind of time, but this is where the toxicity of the relationships on the hill, the influence of this president really hurts in terms of trying to actually get something done. so i think they're making a pretty big bet that it's going to be a great year for democrats in november and that there will be a chance to write a stronger bill on this if the president trump ultimately ends up out of office. because there is also the overlying reality that the president will have to sign off

on anything for republicans to pass it through the congress, the senate, i think democrats don't trust that the president actually cares about these issues. the president goes out every day and gives them reason to not trust him. >> all right, kasie dc, thank you for being on the show this morning. we are just one minute after the top of the hour. and president trump is trailing joe biden by sizable margins among registered voters in six battleground states that trump won in 2016. according to the latest "new york times" poll out this morning, biden is up 11 points in michigan, 47% to trump's 36%. biden is also up 11 points in wisconsin. 49 to 38. biden has a 10 point advantage in pennsylvania. 50 to 40. trump carried michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania by less than a point last time. biden is up six points in florida.

47 to 41. biden's lead by 7 points in arizona is 48 to 41. and the former vice president is up nine points in north carolina, 49 to 40%. >> willie -- >> can i show you ohio? >> sure. >> the latest poll has biden up by 1 point, 46 to 45. trump won the buckeye state by eight points in 2016. >> it is early. michael due kas kis was ahead by double digits over george h.w. bush in the summer of 1988, so anything is possible. we'll have to look and see what happens over the next month or two to see if these numbers harden but the trajectory is terrible, michigan, biden plus 11, biden plus 11, pennsylvania. arizona biden plus 7.

north carolina biden plus 9. just a snapshot of a day but republicans and democrats and people on the biden team and people on the trump team understand this election, this campaign is going in one direction and that is away from donald trump. at least for now. >> yeah, we understand why many democrats and progressives are nervous about jumping to any conclusions at this point, they feel burned by 2016, don't want to get complacent, i understand that. but we've had a couple weeks of terrible polling for the united states. both on the national levels when you look at the demographic groups he won in 2016 and is now losing or at least needs to do better among. and now state by state the ones that matter. that he won by just a sliver. it's interesting to consider what joe biden has had to do to

earn this lead. for the most part all he had to do is stay home. he's been in his house, working, addressing groups, doing town halls, media interviews, but when you think about a presidential campaign it's marked by long plane rides and bus trips and 18 hour days. he's going to the living room, addressing the country,rviews, and letting the president handle the coronavirus, the way he's handled the pandemic trying to wish it away. and handling the movement in the streets after the killing of george floyd. joe biden has sat back and tried to offer humanity to both of the conversations and the numbers do the rest. joining the conversation is mike barnic barnicle, white house correspondent, yamiche alcindor and correspondent steve kornacki. steve, it's great to see you

again. i'll let you take the wheel on the polling here. what do you see in the state by state polls and also the national polls, some of the cross tabs in the last two weeks. >> this is an interesting sort of way of getting confirmation, we we'd had national poll numbers the last couple weeks that have looked bad for the president. you wonder, is it possible they're missing something, are these outliers p. when you get state polls that match the national polls that's confirmation we are in a situation you're describing. the way i look at it, we had moments in 2016 where donald trump hit ebbs, the gap that he faced against hillary clinton would get extra large and a week or two later it would rurp to baseline. there is a question whether trump is in an ebb right now. although this ebb is worse for him than any ebb in 2016 when i look like gaps in these states,

polls that show him down, 11, 12, 13 points nationally. he would be behind hillary clinton in 2016 but not quite that far behind hillary clinton. it seems in these battleground state polls from the "new york times" and siene, p biggest shift is among white voters, about two-thirds of the electorate in november, a group donald trump won by 20 points in 2016 and now in these states it's down to 4 points. there's been a margin among white voters, kind of split in half, with a college degree, without a college degree, two groups that are die verging in the last couple of years. here's a biden lead in these states in this "new york times" poll a biden lead of 21 points among white voters with a college degree. this used to be if you go back a generation wi

generation, really, a bedrock constituency. white voters in the suburbs have been moving to trump. you see it with joe biden opening up an enormous advantage there. the other one that jumps out to me. if you go back precoronavirus when the polling between biden and trump was more competitive, closer one of the weaknesses biden had, he didn't have the support among younger voters, you expect yungser voters to be on the democratic side. it was a 17 point advantage for biden in this polling among 18 to 29-year-old voters last fall. it's now nearly 40 points. it's moved much more in line with expectations. it's an area biden was lagging. it may be an effect of the protests the last few weeks. but more than a doubling of biden's advantage among 18 to 29-year-old voters. that's a place there was slack

for biden a while back. you're not seeing it now. >> mike barnicle, i know you have a question for steve kornacki but can't help but talk to you about a trend you and i both know and have both seen in our adult lifetimes. ronald reagan -- it was ronald reagan who made the suburbs solidly republican. and certainly did that in 1980, '84, '88, and it remained that way. the suburbs remained solidly republican, especially the white suburbs remained solidly republican and as steve kornacki said until recently. and what ronald reagan built in the suburbs, donald trump has destroyed. we don't have to look at these numbers that we've gotten from the "new york times" poll this morning, we can look at the election results from 2017,

2018, 2019. the reagan coalition has been blown to bits by donald trump, and right now these numbers suggest, if we continue in this direction, we will see it in the most dramatic way come november. >> um-hum. >> yeah, and it's easy to understand why, joe. if you look back to ronald reagan running for president, re-running for president, he didn't go out race baiting, scaring people every time he went on the campaign trail. that is what donald trump has done each time he's been out in the past two or three weeks. he did it in tulsa and arkansas, race baiting and social arson, pouring gasoline on open wounds. and it is incredible. incredible that we have more than 40 million people

collecting unemployment benefits in this country, and that issue alone is overshadowed by two paramount issues today, the virus and race in america. and steve, i'd like you, if you could, address the underlying elements in the poll when it comes to women in the suburbs, college educated women and non-college educated women, where are they? where do you sense they're going? >> this is if you -- if you looked at the national time that was put out yesterday, today the "new york times" has the six battlegrounds, the national poll yesterday had trump down 14 points nationally to joe biden 50 to 36. in that poll, white women with a college degree, college educated white women were with joe biden by nearly 40 points. so that is -- again, we've talked about this has been a story that was told before donald trump that hey, you sort of had these noncollege white

voters were trending towards the republicans, college educated more towards the democrats. there was some foundation before that before trump but trump came along in 2016, got elected. the last three years have gone as they have. and the divergence is a massive chasm now. you have trump doing well, relatively speaking with non-college white men and then you go to the other end, college educated white women you have a 40 point gap. a huge divergence has opened up there. >> steve, sam here. less of an imperial question more philosophical one. a theory about presidential elections which is they tend to be reactive events. by that i mean bush was going to follow because he was preaching morals in in the white house, and obama was preaching post

partisanship. and trump preaching post obama. and biden, a guy not in your face, return to your norms, staying in his basement, but not offending people, does that help him in he's creating an obvious contrast to the showmanship be in your face elements of the presidency. >> that's what will liwas talking about, i think he was right. biden has ceded the stage to donald trump and let him be the star the last few months and let people make up their minds based on that. i look at the poll numbers and ask myself, did it have to be that way. if the democrats nominated anybody else, would it be this way? would bernie sanders, elizabeth warren also be 14 points up? i don't know what kind of campaign they'd run, but we talk

about the strengths that biden has with the suburban voters and i wonder if bernie sanders would still be leaning in had on the democratic socialist message, would that be putting those gains that democrats made in the suburbs putting that at risk to some extent. elizabeth warren, i just wonder if she leaned in or another candidate got forward and leaned in more in a more aggressive fashion on these protests, i wonder, you know, biden has put this election in the position -- has put this campaign in a position where like willie is saying, trump is the featured player right now and people are basing their judgments i think based on their assessment of trump and that's it right now. >> so yamiche, i'm wondering what -- how the president's advisers in the white house are feeling about the president's decisions. let's just focus on corona. pulling back federal funding on

testing, having events -- >> super spreader events. >> -- super spreader events. these are events and decisions that go against the science and endanger the american people. and i guess i can also filter your question down to the trump campaign, which could be like making t-shirts saying trump 2020, he's killing us. i mean, his decisions are not helping the american people stay alive during a pandemic. he's actually adding to the problem. what are his advisers saying? are they frustrated? are they will him on all of this? >> well, the white house and the trump campaign are largely circling the wagons around president trump because president trump has decided to posit himself as anti-mask, anti-pandemic, which i mean wanting to put the pandemic in the rear view mirror and barrelling forward through

november. i think you have a president on defense, on his heels, he feels that and you see him today going to wisconsin to have a town hall with fox news. you see him going to speak to what will likely be a large crowd of trump supporters in wisconsin. but in reality, the president can't run away from the idea that there is federal funding being pulled from some sights. yesterday white house officials held a call that said these 13 sites losing federal funding they're going to be transitioned to state funding and the idea that states will control. they said that's the best way to do it, to streamline things. but then quickly after that, you had people like senator cornyn, who is a reliable republican ally of the president, and health officials saying in a place like texas we don't need to change things up, pull federal resources. in fact, we need more federal resources. you have the white house justifying the president's stance here, because it is his

stance that he's decided, you have health officials and republicans saying this is not going to be good not only for the country but also for november. >> willie, we've seen such colossal stupidity on the part of not just politicians who follow donald trump but online of people who follow those politicians that follow donald trump. but here you have john cornyn asking the right thing, why are you cutting funding for testing at a time cases are spiking. and houston's health officials saying this would be catastrophic. it wasn't too many weeks ago willie, people were saying when does ron desantis get an apology, asking because cases dipped a bit in the second inning of a nine inning game as doctors are telling us on this

show, that somehow ron desantis is owed an apology. but now you have ron desantis and marco rubio in florida, along with rick scott in florida saying, come on, let's get serious, marco rubio saying wear a damn mask. if the president said that three months ago, the numbers would be radically different today. hell, if he'd say it today, where a damn mask, the numbers would be different going into the fall. >> could save lives. >> would save lives. we've heard it from scientists. >> wouldn't want to do that apparently. >> from epidemiologists. but you're hearing it in texas, in florida, you're hearing it from republicans that have sat silently by and let this president be extraordinarily reckless. it shows how increasingly isolated he's finding himself on the two key issues of the day,

the pandemic and racial justice in america. >> yeah, how to know in the age of trump when something is a very serious problem, when a republican senator actually speaks up and crosses donald trump, that's when you know it's serious. houston is looking at a situation, not in terms of raw numbers and hospitalizations, relative to their city like what new york had a few months ago, overwhelmed in icus, turning other hospital beds into covid-19 beds. this thing is exploding in texas, california, florida where they had a record day, it's exploding across the sun belt as well. when you look at the way the president is addressing this and handling it, as everybody has been saying is, he continues to wish it away. he's pulling federal funding as if to send a signal to the country that we've moved on from this. let's not forget he moved on about two and a half months ago. he wanted this to end easter. he was going to turn the page in

easter, in the middle of april. we're into late june and seeing just as this was predicted by doctors fauci and birx and others. it would suppressed in new york and the hot spots on the east coast and come back other places. here we are where the doctors told us we would be and president trump in this moment where we're seeing a record number of cases in this day pulling federal funding for testing sites, including 7 in the state of texas where it's the spike right now. >> he wasn't kidding. he's going to pull back on testing. he's not going to fund it. he's never kidding. that's something we're learning about this presidency, he's never kidding. steve kornacki thank you very much. great to have you on this morning. fascinating polls. keep us posted. in a house judiciary committee hearing yesterday, members heard testimony on what

they believe is attorney general william barr's abuse of power and political influence at the justice department. here is what former roger stone pr prosecutor aaron zelensky tested to. >> we don't cut them a break based on politics. but that wasn't what happened here. what i heard, repeatedly, was that this leniency was happening because of stone's relationship to the president. that the acting u.s. attorney for the district of columbia was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the department of justice and that his instructions to us were based on political considerations. and i was told that the acting u.s. attorney was giving stone a break because he was afraid of the president of the united states. >> he was followed by a senior official in the anti-trust division who told the committee

of improper investigations and mergers in the cannabis industry and the acknowledgement of bias by his supervisors. >> in response to staff concerns about the investigations, the head of the division acknowledged at an all-staff meeting that the cannabis industry is, quote, unpopular on the fifth floor unquote, referring to ag barr's offices. but personal dislike of an industry is not a valid basis on which to ground an anti-trust investigation. >> so joining us now, msnbc law analyst benjamin whitis, break it down for us, ben. what do you make of it? >> in some ways it's not surprising in the sense that people like us have been sitting around for months saying bill barr is mipoliticizing the juste

department and that was clear from the public acts in cases like the roger stone and flynn case. on the other hand, to have career justice department officials say it, and say it clearly and unambiguously, and to describe the internal pressures they're under to deliver the political results that we've all seen is stunning. and i think it's unprecedented in my years of watching the justice department. and the fact that the justice department allowed these two men to testify yesterday shows the degree to which they are kind of unable to keep a lid on this p, and to keep -- you know, to prevent it from spilling out that this is really what is going on in the department. >> sam stein, jump in.

>> ben, i want to talk about that and also another major story that happened yesterday, which was the appeals court basically saying that the judge did not have standing to question the government's decision to pull charges from the michael flynn case. do you view these in similar veins in that in this case we have a trump friendly appellate judge basically making this decision? is this in your mind a similar perversion of the justice system to help a friend of the president, so to speak or is this a thing that has more grounding on the merrittits. >> let's break out two questions here. one is whether the justice department's action in the flynn case is part of the pa tern, the answer to that is, yes. that's an easy one. just as mr. zelinsky testified yesterday they were under

pressure in the roger stone case to ask for a more lenient sentence for political reasons, the justice department asked for dismissal of the michael flynn case for the same political reasons, which is that michael flynn was a -- is a friend of the president, is a former associate and his conviction looks bad for the president, right. and by getting rid of it, you can cast apier aspears on the l russia investigation. in the d.c. circuit case, the one that was decided yesterday -- or at least the panel decided it, is whether the courts get to do anything about that and have any oversight function with respect to the justice department's decision to dismiss a case. and this panel said, no, they don't when the justice department says we want to dismiss a case, the court just has to say, you know, yes, sir,

to the attorney general. i expect that this will probably not be the last word on that from the d.c. circuit. there are a number of other judges on the court and this was a particularly friendly panel to the justice department. i suspect some of the other judges may want to weigh in. >> so yamiche, how is the white house responding to all this? this testimony from aaron zelinsky, the pressure the justice department put on this flynn case on behalf of president trump? in other words, out in the open we're hearing the attorney general and the justice department is working as a political arm of donald trump. have we heard from the white house on this? >> what we've heard from the white house consistently is that michael flynn is some sort of the judicial victim and he was targeted by the federal government unfairly. so the white house in some way is sticking to that line. i will say, though, of course, there is this idea it was the justice department that

essentially was the one who got michael flynn to say, yes, i did lie. i am pleading guilty. so there is this idea that i think as this case moves through the courts, attorney general barr is feeling like okay i need to do this. i need to make sure that i am continuing to do the things in some ways that president trump has said on twitter in. >> in person, which is that michael flynn was targeted unfairly. but in reality you see with the court, the white house is going to in some ways look at this as a win, a victory for their side because they don't to say that michael flynn was some sort of victim of president obama when they don't have the evidence to prove that really. >> thank you so much yamiche and benjamin. >> still ahead on "morning joe." earlier this month, the white house's press secretary compared this moment of president trump outside of a church to winston churchill surveying world war ii

damage. up next we'll talk about what leadership looks like during national times of crisis. as we go to break, a look at this week's cover story for time magazine, entitled "america must change". the issue features a piece by eddie glaude jr. ahead of his new book next week on james baldwin. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe" 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.

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through all of time we've seen presidents and leaders across the world who had leadership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any given time like church hill we saw him inspecting the bombing damage, it sent a powerful message of leadership to the british people. >> white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany with that comparison earlier this month

defending the president's photo op outside st. john's church. joining us is eric larsson, his most recent book, the splendid and the vile, thank you for coming on the show. >> erik thanks for coming back. i don't really want to talk about this president, but i want people who may be supporting this president to consider who they vote for when looking for their next president as well as other americans. because winston church hill did something, you can see it so clearly in your book. time and time again when he had bad news to deliver to the people, he did it. he never sugar coated -- he never sugar coated just how bad things could be. i go to page 57 where it is one of those remarkable moments you describe when many people in the conservative party wanted to

strike a peace deal with churchill, he went and talked to members of parliament and said, i am convinced that every man of view would rise up and tear me down from my place if i were for one moment to contemplate parlay or surrender. if this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground. a far cry from a president who won't wear a mask. >> very much so. >> talk about churchill if you will, though, and how he -- you explained churchill always gave the bad news but then always lifted his supporters up and the british people up believing they could get through those tough

times. it was a formula he did time and time again throughout the book -- or throughout the war, and certainly you can read throughout the book. >> yeah, with regard to churchill, there was a lot you can say was bad about him, but not this particular period, he was the man for the hour. the thing that characterizes him as a leader, there were a number of things, one in terms of sheer or tour, he did give a sober appraisal of the facts. sometimes to the point where as home intelligence reports in britain reported sometimes to the point of scaring his audience to death but then he would follow with realistic gro grounds for happy talk. realistic grounds for a solution to the problem, in this case the air campaign against britain. and then he would follow up with one of his amazing flourishes

that that would get people rising out of their chairs saying i'm going to get up and go do battle. but he also had a way of -- he was incredibly well read, had a great understanding of british history and he had a way of putting his audience into that story, as if they were soldiers on behalf of the empire and its history. that's a powerful thing to do. >> you referenced churchill's flaws, and there were many. one of my favorite quotes is when winston is right, he is wrong, and when he is wrong, my god. and churchill being the man for the moment is summarized by a quote, i love you get the diaries that the government asked people to keep during the war and this one that really

summarizes how people felt about winston churchill. one volunteer wrote in her diary. if i had to spend my whole life with a man, i would choose chamb chamb chamb chamberlain, but i would sooner have mr. churchill if there were a storm and i were ship wrecked. >> that's exactly the case. that sums it up. he had his flaws. but another thing he was very, very much aware of was the power of symbolic acts. i don't want to be speculative throughout history but churchill would have been wearing a mask in public because he understood the power of symbolic acts. the ability to convey to people a message broader than what they're simply looking at in terms of newspaper photos and so forth. and that cuts to the frankly

inane comparison of churchill and a certain current president of the united states. this idea that first, you know, blowing people out of a church square and then visiting and holding up a bible has anything to do with what churchill did on the morning after september, the first visit to the bombings after londons. unless it turned out they bombed so churchill could make a photo op which was not the case. >> and he went there and openly we wan wept. >> yes. >> and people saw their prime minister weeping at the bomb damage he was surveying. one thing churchill also did, he surrounded himself by great people. again, this is not about the current occupant of the presidency. i do, though, think this is a

great trait for any leader. you surround yourself with people who get things done and lord beaver bebrook. the toad, the man loathed throughout most of britain. i have to say reading your book the man most responsible for great britain surviving after winston churchill, beaverbrooks, he said some people take drugs i take max. can you talk about the story? >> sure. >> absolutely extraordinary job he did getting planes off the assembly line and up in the air so the r.a.f. could defend. >> he was a long-time friend, their friendship waxed and wained, long-time friend of churchill, he was reviled by

just about everybody else in white hall. churchill's life did not like him at all. but within days of becoming prime minister, churchill, who had a deep and realistic understanding of the truth of the moment, he appointed beaver brook to a new ministry that churchill just created called the ministry of aircraft production. something beaver brook became the minister of aircraft production because churchill believed he had just the personality -- he previously was a newspaper bar ren. he had done an amazing job of building up the evening standard and churchill felt this was the man who, if anybody, could build up britain's fighter strength it was going to be beaver brook and it turned out to be absolutely true. mike barnicle is with us and

has a question. >> everyone like churchill has a massi massive ego and we've learned that through history. but what was it, for instance, in the speech after dunkirk, where he basically gives the bad news right uptop, withdrawal is not victory and tampers down the pride a bit people felt by addressing reality. what was it about him that gave him supreme confidence he could do something that leaders ought to do more offer, deliver bad news? >> you know, i -- a lot actually comes down to that thing called character. and he, if anything, he embodied character. but, you know, his appraisal, you know, how he came to burnish these skills of leadership is something that i -- i've thought

a lot about and it's hard to pinpoint any one thing. but he understood something very fundamental. and that is, you know, you can't make a public believe something other than what they are experiencing. the british public understood that they were facing an existential threat. to tell them anything else would have been to create a disnons that would have undercut mortality. the dunkirk speech was a brilliant speech. the format is something he repeats over and over and over. it was a gripping retelling of did you kn dunkirk and his matter of fact terms, we were going to fight on the beaches and so forth. it was actually a brilliant speech. there's a later speech that i think is more important but

maybe we don't need to get into that. >> you know, it is interesting that most of the world thought britain was going to fall. certainly that was a message that roosevelt was getting back from his ambassador, kennedy. and yet, if you look at public opinion polls in britain at the time despite the fact that things looked so grim and dark, an overwhelming majority of british people always believed they were going to survive and prevail. i want to ask you, though, the final question, erik. i have to say, somebody that's been reading about on this topic for most of my life, certainly my entire adult life. the one thing i got out of your book that i haven't gotten out of any other book on the battle of britain. was the grimness of the raids night after night. and wasn't church hill going,

you know, we think of this time period and think, they faced the threat, churchill gave the speech in parliament, everyone said hip hip hoo ray and they braved on. the grimness night after night, churchill breaking down, wondering how much bad news he could give britain. the famed r.a.f. helpless to stop the german bombers coming in at night. and finishing the book, going away with the real belief that had churchill not been distracted by the russian invasion, had goring got his wish and continued to have bombing raids on britain -- if hitler had not been distracted by the coming russian invasion and had goring got his wish to continue bombing the british

isles, you do wonder at the end of the book how great britain could have survived. >> you know, there is always that question. again that's speculative history. you have to pay attention to what would have happened with -- what would have happened with roosevelt. seeing that happen would roosevelt have stepped up to the plate and perhaps not waited for pearl harbor, which is, of course, what got america into the battle. but you know, again, this -- we have to come back to the ability of churchill. to build national confidence and help people as he could, find their own courage. and he did that just by showing courage and absolute confidence himself. here's a man, i think probably the thing that says it all, one night there was an intense air-raid and churchill would go to the roof top to watch the raid. one night there was an intense

air-raid, he was having a dinner party, he goes to the roof top to watch this raid as one does and he brought his guests up with him and his staff to watch the raid. as they're up watching this intense air-raid unfold, churchill quotes a poem called "locksley hall," which seems to fortell aerial warfare. here's a man with the presence of mind to be on a roof top quoting poetry. he was a master at the art -- teaching the art of being fareless. fearless. the book is "the splendid and the vile". erik larson thank you for coming on the show. >> great conversation. we appreciate it so much. coming up the united states hit a record for daily coronavirus cases. former fda commissioner

dr. scott gottlieb is our guest next on "morning joe." r guest next on "morning joe." we miss you. like real bad. we can't wait to get you back so we've added temp checks, face coverings, social distancing and extra sanitizing to get the good times going again. we're finally back... and can't wait until you are too.

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us this morning is dr. gottleib. we've been talking about huge swaths of the american population. what can you tell us about why we're seeing the spikes in

coronavirus and what can be done at this point to mitigate those numbers? >> well, look, we opened against the back drop of a lot of persistent issues in those states. right now, there's a lot of spread in these states. a lot of this is in a younger demographic and the fact that we're capturing these cases, people are presenting illness and younger people are being hospitalized at a higher proportion suggests there's a lot of infection underneath these cases. so i think these states, texas, florida, arizona, california, even south carolina, alabama, arkansas, i think they have a lot of spread at the community level and it's going to take time and it's going to take more aggressive steps to try and snuff this out. whatever they do right now isn't really going to have an effect for two or three weeks. we saw new york city, they peaked in the number -- they announced they were doing the shutdown march 20th.

they didn't peak until around april 7th in the number of cases. so the steps we take right now really aren't going to have an impact for another two, maybe three weeks. >> so governor abbott of texas said a couple of days ago, not in an order, but when he was talk in an interview that texans should stay home unless they need to go out. what would you say if you were advising the governors of those big states that are seeing spikes again, should they stut sh shut down businesses again? >> look, they're not going to shut down businesses again. that's the bottom line. i don't think there's a political will to do it. i don't think the populations of these states would tolerate broad shutdowns. i think they need to determine where the spread is occurring at the highest rate and target interventions towards those venues. so if it's spreading in bars, they might have to shut down bars. in some parts of these states, they're going to press up against their hospital capacity.

it's not what's happening today. it's what's happening two or three weeks out. and you have to believe there's a lot of community spread already in these states. it's going the continue to build over the next two or three weeks. even if they start taking aggressive steps today. so if their hospital systems are pressed right now, they need to start taking steps to enable that. so you look at some cities like houston, all of arizona, really, are getting pressed. even miami dade. now certainly states like florida and texas and california have a lot of excess capacity. but there will be parts of those states, some cities, that do start to get pressed. so, for example, the texas medical center predicts in the next couple of days, they're going tv to go into what they call sustainable surge capacity. and within two weeks, they'll have to go into what they call unsustainable surge capacity. so you need to start making accommodations now to provide for that. >> dr. gottleib, in states like arizona, florida, texas, california, that are struggling with new record numbers, for any

entity planning on having an indoor event that is several hours long, over 500 people, sitting close together, mostly not wearing masks, what are the chances you go to an event like that and you come home and you're fine and your family is fine? >> look, the prevalence nationally now is probably 1 in about 200. maybe the actual prevalence is actually 1 in figure 300. in these states, it's higher. so if you go into a big congregate setting in an indoor venue, there will be infected people in that crowd. indoor settings for sustained periods of time are high risk venues. so you could have spread coming out of those kinds of venues. i would not be going into those kinds of settings right now. even in the northeast, quite

frankly, where the prevalence is much lower. i would avoid those kinds of settings. >> and what about going to the doctor, to the dentist, to the gynecologyist. are you still advising that people put those appointments off if they don't have to go? >> no. i think people should be trying to seek elective care right now. certainly in states like texas and florida where there's outbreak situations in cities like houston, you need to be more mindful of that because the prevalence is high. but here in the northeast, i think people who put off elective procedures should go out and get them. in fact, i went to the dentist. i had my annual physical. i think this is an opportune time to do that. right now in parts of the country like the north and the northeast, even in northern california, the prevalence is probably as low as it's going to get for a while. >> mike barnacle. >> dr. gottleib, apparently a significant percentage of people infected by the virus never show

any symptoms. what do we do about that, if it is true, and does this happen among a specific age group or younger people or older people? what about that? >> well, it appears that younger people are more likely to be asymptomatic. so anywhere from 20% to 40% of people are asymptomatic. there is a suggestion that people are who are less symptomatic are less likely to transmit the infection. this is true of a lot of viruses where you can get asymptomatic disease. even with the flu, about 50% of people who get that are asymptomatic. it's higher with covid. that is what makes this difficult because a lot of people are asymptomatic or mildly asymptomatic and still can transmit the infection. so you're actually most contagious right before you develop symptoms. this is why this spreads so efficiently. >> dr. scott gottleib, thank you

very much, once again, for being on the show this morning. still ahead, the trump administration is cutting off funding to coronavirus testing sites in five states, including the home state of one of our next guests, senator dick durbin of illinois will join us. we'll ask him what is next for police reform, too, after democrats blocked a republican bill on the issue. republican bill on the issue. where will you go first? wherever you make go, lexus will welcome you back with exceptional offers. get zero percent financing and make no payments for up to 90 days on all 2020 lexus models. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. for as little as $5, now anyone can own companies in the s&p 500, even if their shares cost more. at $5 a slice, you could own ten companies for $50 instead of paying thousands. all commission free online. schwab stock slices: an easy way to start investing

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face coverings have become a polarizing issue. how can we get past that? >> there is no skreetd formula for that except to say get past it.it should not be a political issue. it is purely a public health issue. >> i mean, we haven't beat it. i -- you know, everything people are doing, they're going to have to say, you know, wear a mask. are you social distancing? so i hope everybody takes it seriously because we haven't

beaten this. we don't have a vaccine yet. hopefully we will have it at the end of the year. doctors have done a good job trying to keep people alive and recover, but, you know, we're not where we need to be. >> everyone should just ware a mask. it's a virus. it's a respiratory virus that spreads from person to person. the more people you come in contact with in an unprotected setting, the more people will be affected by it. this will be our challenge moving forward until we have a vaccine. we can't shut down the economy again, so i just hope that everybody does the best they can to protect themselves. and we've been told repeatedly just do it. >> those are florida senators rick scott and marco rubio agreeing with -- wait for it -- dr. fauci. >> science. >> i would guess also -- and i'm grateful that they came out and said what they said. >> yes. >> for the deniers who are still

out there, the deniers that went to palm beach county. you've seen the videos talking about witches and warlocks and devils and conspiracy theories spread, of course, on facebook. that masks are of the devil. it protects the temple from collapse. that's another way to look at it. and by the way, marco rubio and rick scott and some other republicans who can no longer look at these super spreader events that donald trump is forcing people to put in place in arizona. >> in tulsa. >> in tulsa. in any area that kills, that will kill senior citizens, arizona's senior citizens, their lives just got a lot more

complicated after the super spreader event that donald trump pushed in arizona so ekdz do what? so he could spread conspiracy theories about american democracy and so he could say racist ramblings meant to inspire his 35%. and, of course, all of this comes, all of this comes with the president of the united states and his allies on facebook, his allies on talk radio, his allies on cable news continue to go down play the dangerousness of this virus like larry kudlow. and, of course, kellyanne conway back in march saying that the virus was contained. >> oh, yeah, it's done. >> and then 120,000 americans

died and now kudlow is once again saying that it's under control. donald trump not wearing a mask, going to factories in maine who were ramping up as quickly as they can on testing supplies and not wearing a mask, making those people destroy -- making those people destroy everything that they were producing while he was there because the president of the united states wouldn't wear a mask and here is the catch. and it's what we've been saying every day and everything is on tape. so go back and look at it from the beginning of this, from the beginning of this crisis when the president was denying this. we were saying, just follow the science. just follow the doctors. just do what the doctors tell you to do. it's what joe biden was saying at the end of january.

yet the president still won't do that. the president still saying this is going to magically go away. the president still refusing to tell his supporters that go to his super spreader events that people will look back on 20 years from now in horror, in horror. the president still is not wearing a mask. and by the way, all of this comes on a day when the united states hit a new record for daily coronavirus cases two months after the previous record. and months after the president said it was just one person coming in. it was going to go away. it's 15 people coming in, it's going to go away. it's telling african-american

leaders it was going to magically go away. it hasn't gone away. and i just want -- we're going to show you some polls from swing states. and we can give a lot of grand explanations for why those numbers are as low as they are. we can get political scientists from around the globe the greatest minds to come in and dissect the cross halves and tell you why donald trump is losing so badly nationally and in every swing state. but we don't have to do that. hell, i told you that. i told the president this on the show every day back in march. it's going to be like romp room. i can look in and put up my -- we can talk about it, but would you like to sing along with me? here we go. here it is. >> no. >> this is a medical crisis.

all right? when you take care of the medical crisis, then the business crisis will be taken care of. and when the business crisis is taken care of, your political crisis will be taken care of. it is stayed repeatedly. it hasn't been taken care of, mika. he cannot bring himself to follow science, to save the lives of senior citizens and just let his doctors lead. and because of that, his support continues to drop to historic lows. >> you have to wonder if he really wants to win. along with joe, willie and me, we have host of kasie d.c.,

kasie hunt, reverend al sharpton, and sam stein. new numbers out this morning, president trump trailing joe biden by sizable margins among registered voters. according to the latest new york city/cnn college poll out this morning, biden is up 11 points in michigan. 47% to trump's 36%. biden is also up 11 points in -- wait for it -- wisconsin. 49 to 38. the latest marquette how school poll has biden up in that state by 8 points in that poll. back to the "new york times" numbers, biden has a ten-point advantage in pennsylvania,

50-40. 2ru678 carried michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania by less than a point. biden is up 6 points in florida. 47-41. biden's heed by 7 points in arizona, as well, 48-41. and the former vice president is up 9 points in north carolina, 49-40 percent. it explains the congressional races in north carolina. biden is doing well there. he's doing well in a lot of states that trump won. >> yeah. i moon, you've looked through these states. we've focused on these national poll that's have shown 14-point spreads, 12-point spreads, 10-point spreads and those have been interesting for their cross tabs in how poorly the president is doing among women, among independents. you can tick through all those specific groups. but the polls that matter are the ones that you just ticked through. sam stein, if we go through, again, as mika said, these are

six states that president trump won. he won many of them by extraordinarily narrow margins. it's the famous 77 votes across michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. michigan in particular has to be of concern. that's a place where he won by only 10,000 votes. wisconsin he won by 23,000 votes. pennsylvania by 44,000 votes. he didn't have a margin for error to begin with. and these states now are starting to get away from him. >> yeah. and like joe, i don't think it's particularly complex to explain this all. people look at the tweets and the rhetoric. but he's failed at two crises, one is the coronavirus and the second is handling the protests that emanated from the george floyd killing. both of them have been objectively botched if you at least judge the polls here.

so the question for trump people is huh do you turn this around? what can you do to recoup some of the lost ground? honestly, they're doing the exact wrong thing. they're completely doubling down on their rhetoric. mike pence last week was talking about no need to worry about a second wave. well, we're still in the first wave. there is an even more ominous sign underneath these polls which is trump still holds a decent standing on the economy. there has been a boat load of economic assistance that congress passed in the early spring to deal with the covid crisis that is going to run out fairley soon. and if congress does not extend that, unemployment assistance

and the like, we could be dealing with a bigger catastrophe that we have. so what this does seem like the native, it could actually get worse. still ahead, sam just mentioned the end of economic relief. this is also the end of government support for the resting of the coronavirus. we'll have the latest for shaurt for testing sites. for testing sites. hey, can i... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey!

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yesterday we learned the trump administration is going to end its support for testing sites at the end of this month. at least 7 of those testing sites are in texas where, as we

said, coronavirus cases are surging. houston's health department reacted in this statement saying, quote, losing the support of the federal government for testing sites will undoubtedly have catastrophic cascading consequences. in a conference call with the press, republican senator john cornyn said it's pretty cheer to me and i think it's clear to all of us that with the uptick of cases, now is not a time to retreat from our vej lens ineig testing. so, casey, we are hearing now from republican senators not being able to help, but to say something when the federal government is pulling back its funding for testing just as this becomes a very, very serious crisis in their states.

>> and they are trying to deal with the crisis. we talked about marco rubio earlier who said bluntly wear a -- mask. if republicans had been delivering that message to americans from the beginning and i think the way they frame that rhetoric shows what a difference the president could make if he was willing to do that. and to get back to joe's point, if you solve the medical crisis, then you solve the other crises that could potentially help him in november. wearing a mask is the most straightforward, easiest thing everyone can do. there is so much evidence that it works. and every single person in america has had their life affected by this coronavirus crisis. and that means that the president is not capable of creating his own media reality and universe for all of us or

for his supporters to live in because they have evidence in their daily lives that contradicts that. if you're an elected official in one of these states where this is particularly exploding, you cannot create a reality that is different from the one on the ground. we still don't know that coming is going to offer an additional relief package. i would be surprised if they extend those unemployment benefits. it's certainly not going to happen at the level of support where it is right now. they've essentially floated this economy for about the three to four months that we've been through this already. and at the end of july, the bottom could fall out from under this if, in fact, we haven't addressed this medical crisis. so let's not let up on the accountability that needs to be in place for what these members of congress are going to do

next. >> and reverend al, we talked about yesterday the demographic groups where the president was losing votes. of course he is among black americans, but so many of the things he has done through yot his presidency have had a negative impact on white voters with college education, with white voters in the suburbs. but after charlottesville, it wasn't just black americans, jewish americans that were offended by that. it was white voters, especially in the suburbs, especially with college degrees and advanced degrees. and you have the same thing still happening where the president goes to arizona, conducts a super spreader event in a state where senior citizens have every reason to be scared to death that they are going to catch this disease and die.

you have the president making racist comments and just reveling and ask making racist comments about asian americans. and that sends a message to latinos, to black americans, and that sends a message to white americans in the suburbs who may have voted for him in 2016 because they said what do i have to lose, but in 2020, will never do it again. because he keeps doing this. >> the confusion in donald trump's mind that many of us that have dealt with him for years understood that americans have now become very aware of is he sees people that supported him or voted for him as his fans rather than voters that saw him as an alternative to whatever it is they were afraid of or voting

against. so he used cultural wars not understanding that people expected him to governor. now when you have a pandemic that impacts everybody in the country, every household, and then you couple that with a reaction inner state of the union to the death of george floyd and how are we going to deal with policing and criminal justice and you can't govern either, the people are saying we're not supportsing someone even if we agree with them on certain cultural issues that cannot govern in a way that of course affects my health and the stability of my city. he doesn't get that. he thinks easel advice rather than a roosevelt or a reagan. he comes out like a rock star giving his latest hits, not understanding the audience is not there for that.

they want to be safe and stabilized. not to be entertained. we need governing principles and a governing stability in washington. coming up, as protesters across the country target historic statues of figures who many consider to be offensive, president trump says he's prepare to go issue an executive order protecting statues and other historical monuments. columnist ed loose joins us with his piece, how confederate ghosts still haunt america. and as we go to break, here is president trump yesterday claiming that without evidence demonstrators targeting statues are considering taking down statues of jesus. >> oh, my. >> the fbi is investigating hundreds of people throughout the country for what they've done to monument statues and even buildings.

so we have very strong laws already on the books. we have a law that's ten years -- ten years, that's a long time -- to have fun one night. many of the people knocking down these statues don't even have any idea what the statue is, who it is, when they want to knock down grant. but when they look at how they're looking at jesus christ, they're looking at george washington, they're looking at abraham lincoln, thomas jefferson, not going to happen. not going to happen. not as long as i'm here. as far as democrats are concerned, i think they could care less whether or not it happens. i think they could care less whether or not it happens. tips to help you get through these challenging times. first, practice physical distancing. i'm sorry, i did not see you there. i've been doing it my whole life. or there. plus, there are lots of things you can do at home. like, stay active with some sick dance moves. be daring. and whip up a new dish.

i love the combination of gummy bears and meat. you can do video calls for all of your important meetings. what? sorry. or just have some fun. ok, not that much fun. now, this does not come naturally to me. but, try to be kind to each other. this is a tough time for everyone. so that's it. stay home. stay healthy. and remember, we're all in this together. what? but totally separate. you know what i mean. yaaaaay! with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad. to sleepy smudges... to shower-skipping. these days call for a quick clean.

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the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad. hellbut you already itknew that.. and i've got some tips to help you get through these challenging times. first, practice physical distancing. i'm sorry, i did not see you there. i've been doing it my whole life. or there. plus, there are lots of things you can do at home. like, stay active with some sick dance moves. be daring. and whip up a new dish. i love the combination of gummy bears and meat. you can do video calls for all of your important meetings. what? sorry. or just have some fun. ok, not that much fun. now, this does not come naturally to me. but, try to be kind to each other. this is a tough time for everyone. so that's it. stay home. stay healthy. and remember, we're all in this together.

what? but totally separate. you know what i mean. yaaaaay! u.s. marshals have been told to help protect national monuments around the country as protesters have targeted and vandalized many statues where some are control evangelists. according to "the washington post," defense officials say the army deployed around 400 members of the washington, d.c. national guard to help protect these structures. meanwhile, president trump says he is preparing to issue an executive order protecting statues and other he or sheal monuments. a senior white house officials say it will likely be coming by

the end of the week. >> there are people that are just enjoying smash things up that are taking down statues of ulysses s. grant. so with that in mind, there are some monuments being pulled down. the overwhelming -- that don't need to be. the overwhelming majority are confederate monuments. and you write about this in the financial times this week. >> yeah. so we've got a president, i think probably the first time since woodrow wilson who is openly romanticizing confederate figures. it's an extraordinary thing. most civil wars do end with one

side or the other being accepted by the nation or else a separate nation being created. neither of those things happened in the united states. and the fact that we've got 155 years after the civil war a yankee president, a yankee president row mantizing confederate figures as american heros and talking about the confederate part of the story being part of america's heritage is extraordinary. it's a doubling down on the sort of -- we've been hearing from some republicans since the 60s. this now makes it more explicit. as i say, you have to pinch

yourself that 155 years later, n in a war that claimed more american lives than the first world war, the second world war and vietnam combined is defendi defending these figures. >> i love the south and am proud to be a southerner, but these are figures that from my home region were responsible for the death of 700,000 americans. those confederate generals and confederate leaders were responsible for more american deaths than hitler and ho chi minh and stalin. you fill in the blanks.

add them all up. rev rental, we've been talking about how donald trump is swimming in the political tide, we've been talking about where 75% of americans who are supportive of the marches think that they are important and the majority of americans oppose donald trump's view owes these mars. but now we have a president who won't endorse reforms that will protect the lives of black americans, but now is trying to make a wedge issue out of protecting statues and monuments, many of them confederate monuments. >> one of the things not mentioned enough is these statues are in public places

that are maintained by people employed by taxpayer dollars. so he is in effect asking black merchs americans, brown americans and all americans to pay to help to ex toll people that fought, literally fought to keep their forefathers enslaved. so this is not about an opinion. i have no choice but to pay taxes. but i'm going to pay to uphold somebody who fought to keep my great grandfather a shave, make sure the statue for him is polished, maintained and secured. that's an insult to all of us. when we look at the fact that -- donald trump is right about one thing. he said this is our history. it's a history of people that tried to joef throw the government to maintain enslaving people that hooked like me. that is the history.

that is not a historic we want to salute. we should have the statues of those who fought and defeated them. how would a world war two veteran feel about paying taxes to have a statue of hitler or moussilini in their public square? that's how many of us in black america feel and that's what donald trump is standing up against. coming up on "morning joe," senator dick durbin joins the conversation. after senate democrats blocked a republican bill on police reform. "morning joe" is back in a moment. "morning joe" is back in a moment how about no

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welcome back. the labor department just released its weekly number for jobless claims. nearly 1.5 million americans filed for unemployment last week. a bit more than the 1.3 million expected. this is the 14th week in a row that claims have topped 1 million. that brings the total to about 47.2 million.

meanwhile, senate democrats blocked the overall regarding policing. the republican police reform bill did not include outright bans on choke helds and no-knock search warrants. here is part of the way that republican senator tim scott reacted after the failed vote. >> when speaker pelosi says one of the most heinous things i can imagine that the republicans are actually trying to cover up murder, the murder of george floyd with ur haegz. that is not politics. that is not a game to win.

that is you lose, you all sooner or later lose, but immediately, every kid around the nation that heard that nonsense lft that moment. >> joining us now, the second ranking democrat in the senate, member of the judiciary committee, senator dick durbin. you were one of those no votes yesterday on the motion to proceed to debate this republican bill. part of the argument if we played out that full clip from senator scott was democrats don't even want to talk about this bill because they can't be seen as having republicans on their side in matters of relief reform or the way african-americans are treated in this country. why not vote at least to debate it. just talk about it with republicans. >> willie, this in chicago is

called the old okey doke. mitch mcconnell doesn't send a bill to his committee. this should have gone through the senate judiciary committee where it would have had full debate and amendment and ended up being a bipartisan measure. instead, he brings it to the floor and says i'll bring it to the floor under my control. he didn't sit down with any democrats and say let's work out a procedure on the floor. it was merely checking the box as far as we're concerned. at this moment in history, i can telling you something unique is happening in america and across the world after the killing of george floyd one month ago today. george floyd's murder, 8:46, hit us like a ton of bricks and i think people have said and they've shown it by marching and

their response, they're tired of this. they want to come out from under the shadow of racism. and they want something significant and historic to respond to it. what we had yesterday from republicans did not meet that standard. and we are saying at this point, we need for you to join us in a bipartisan effort that's real. >> i understand your frustrations with the majority leader, but do you believe senator tim scott, who has been leading this effort on the republican side, is a good fathd partner? do you believe he wants reform to policing? >> absolutely. absolutely. i respect him personally. i count him as a friend. and i do feel that way. but at this point, there are forces beyond his control in terms of republican leadership and their decision of how to handle this to the senate floor. i was in the gang of eight for

immigration reform. i sat down and put together criminal justice reform. it was always a bipartisan effort. what he called for yesterday, i'm afraid, was just a symbolic vote. >> and what did you make of mosey yesterday saying tier trying to get away with the murder of george floyd? >> she has explained what that was all about and i will stand by her words on this. but we shouldn't bet something this historic and this meaningful being diverted by one word here and one word there. each of us counts on being a word smith at the right moment. sometimes we're better than others. but the issue is whether or not we're going to bring justice to america and end racism that we've seen graphically in the

videotapes. >>. >> do you think that rhetoric is helpful? >> don't forget forea moment we're 3 1/2 years into a presidency where this president every five minutes tweets or says something outrageous that doesn't help the situation. but we ought to be bigger than that. this generation is telling us, grownups, it's your turn. change america and no excuses for it. >> senator, i want to ask you about daca. joe biden says he would make it permanent. what do you think should happen and what are you worried about? we've got an election coming up that could solve the question but we don't know which way it's

going to go. >> i think last thursday's decision was the worst day in steven miller's lyife. this is a man who has been barking about be tough on these young people. what the supreme court did was say that the president's action was arbitrary and capricious. but he also went on to say, and i've read it very carefully, these are the things that have happened because of the kraeven of daca. young people have made decisions in their lives about their future, their education, their jobs, employers have hired them and trained them and prepared them. before you eliminate daca, you have to look at that reliance and address it directly. that will be quite a challenge for president trump to do if . if he has good political sense,

he will steer away from it. these young people are a part of america and should be citizens in america. the president got it wrong and if he returns to it, he's grabbed the third rail of immigration. >> reverend al. >> senator durbin, i agree with you about the gop bill on the police reform and many in the community had the hope democrats would lock it. but two questions. one, what is the next step because we still want to see some real reform bill like the house bill. where does it go from here and what is the timetable? and secondly, you're the senator from illinois. we are just as concerned that you had over 100 people shot in chicago over father's day weekend. how are we dealing with gun and the and the problems of inner-city crime at the same time as we're dealing with police reform? >> rev ren-- reverend, there is

lot going on, conversations in the senate, about a constructive way to bring this issue forward and to deal with it responsibly. our leaders on it, cory booker and kamala harris. good bill, i'm cosponsor of the bill. i think it hits the main points. so i am not despondent. i think we can get back on track to do the right thing. the city of chicago, i called the mayor just a few days ago and said what can i do to help you? at this point, one of the problems we're facing is that the whole criminal justice system is basically shut down because of covid-19. the arrests, the incarcerations and such. and many of the people who are the gang bangers involved in

this are back out on the streets in a matter of hours. we have to get the justice system back up and working. but i'm sure you know better than anybody on this presentation, we have to deal with the root causes. what in the world is driving these young people to join these gangs, get a gun and get out and shoot a 3-year-old can in the back seat of a car? there is a lot of reasons for it. but part of it is that they are victims of 2r5u78 ma. we can turn this around, but we have to be part of the solution. >> 106 people were shot in chicago over the weekend. the last weekend in may, they

live in specific areas of chicago, as you know. thier not living up on the gold coast off lake michigan. they're black and brown, they're poor. this problem is so much bigger than just police reform, defunding the police, redefining police work in america. when this moment that we're living through, this vital moment that began with an 8:46 execution, a public execution of a black man, are we going to miss this moment and not get real about the root causes of all this violence that you just alluded to? everyone knows what they are. yet we've spent decades just talking around these issues. >> mike, you and i are almost contemporaries. i don't think there's been anything that has mobilized the

american people like this killing of george floyd, this dprafic videotape which i can't get out of my mind you and i'm sure you can't, either. i missed part of the question. he asked are we dealing with gun safety. gun safety has befuddled us. think about your neighbors where someone walked into a classroom and killed beautiful first graders in their desks and teachers in their room. and that didn't bring us the gun safety and sensible gun legislation. that is a tough, tough, tough issue. i'm all committed to it. but what it takes to move the american populous and to move the american voters, we're still looking for it. when it comes to the policing issue, there are no excuses.

we have to move on this. >> senator dick durbin, thank you very much. up next, before running for office, jamal baubin had no political experience before he decided to quit his been in congress since 1989. now, jamaal is on the precipice of winning that election. we'll speak with him, next on "morning joe." the 2:20 back-to-back calls migraine medicine it's called ubrelvy the migraine medicine for anytime, anywhere a migraine attacks without worrying if it's too late or where you happen to be. one dose of ubrelvy can quickly stop migraine pain and debilitating symptoms in their tracks within two hours. unlike older medications, ubrelvy is the first pill of its kind to directly block cgrp protein believed to play a role in migraine attacks. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. few people had side effects, most common were nausea and tiredness.

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we celebrate this movement, a movement designed to push back against a system that's literally killing us. it's killing black and brown bodies disproportionately, but it's killing all of us. but our movement is designed to restore that faith, to restore that hope, to bring back the belief in what is possible. to root our values in everything we do. values of humanity, equality and

justice. >> he's being called the new star of new york politics. and that's without having officially won his election. jamaal bowman has not yet been declared the winner of tuesday's primary election for the congressional seat currently held by the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee. but he does have a big lead in the vote count so far over longtime congressman eliot engel. the race likely won't be official for several days as mail-in ballots get counted. and the former middle school principal joins us now. welcome to the show. congratulations so far, i guess. tell us how your skills as a middle school principal actually could apply in leadership in congress? and i say that knowing that middle school is like the toughest time for kids. >> well, emotional balance is very important. >> yes. >> as a middle school principal.

as an educator at any level, our job first and foremost is to serve our constituents. we have to serve our children, our families. as a principal, you also serve the teachers under your watch. but you're also building coalitions and working to build collaborative leadership structures to not just write policy but enact policy and revise policy as needed to make sure your kids are safe and make sure they're thriving academically, socially and emotionally. i hope those skills are transferrable. throughout the campaign as i've connected with voters across the district, people seem to really lean into the fact that i've been a principal and educator for 20 years. >> i love it. and that emotion regulation you could definitely help some republicans on capitol hill with that. what was behind your decision to run? >> i was tired of children suffering. you know, when you work in title 1 schools for 20 years, you see

the impact of bad policy on the lives of your kids every day. children can't thrive in school when they are dealing with food insecurity, housing insecurity, criminal justice entanglement and just lack of opportunity overall. as we all know, our communities have been historically neglected and historically disinvented in, in terms of housing, education, health care and environment. for me, the tipping point was 2017, 2018 when 34 children died within the k to 12 school system in the bronx and 17 died via suicide. and that level of trauma is connected to poverty and directly connected to bad policy. >> jamaal, it's willie geist. great to have you on the show this morning. if these results hold up when all the votes are counted, you will have unseated a 16-term incumbent in eliot engel. a man who has been in washington and congress since 1989. what did you hear from voters on

the street during the course of this campaign that told you they might be done with congressman engel? >> well, they said just that. that they were done. they said he was absent. he was not present. he was not engaged. it was time for a change. the school that i founded in 2009 exists within the district. and while working at the school for ten years, i never seen a flyer announcing a town hall by engel's office. no assemblies organized by congressman engel's office. when you look at pockets of the district, we have poverty rates as high as 30%. you're three times more like three die of asthma in the bronx than anywhere else. we have developments that haven't received a dime from the federal government in over ten years. we need a fighter and an urgent champion and a coalition builder for these issues. and congressman engel, unfortunately, has not been that over the course of his career.

>> jamaal, this is al sharpton. as you are -- congratulations, by the way. some of my friends were involved in your campaign. and as you, i feel, will win this, as you go to washington, what will be the legislative priorities for you and the committees that you want to join that most attract what you want to be about as a congressperson to serve your constituents? >> i would love to be a part of the education and labor committee. obviously, due to my 20 years serving our public schools, i would love to be a part of the budget committee as well as the small business committee. small business is the life blood of our country and unfortunately, we continue to disproportionately support large corporations and the wealthy while small businesses continue to suffer. the c.a.r.e.s. act is an example of that. how we bailed out large corporations and left the

working class to sort of fend for themselves. our legislative priority right now is getting people back to work in as safe an environment as possible. this is the biggest crisis we've had since the great depression, and we need bold, urgent action, similar to a new deal that was implemented by fdr. we need a green new deal in this moment and an administration that gets people back to work earning a family sustaining wage. that's the priority, but in addition to that, we have to look at it through a racial and economic lens. we have to deal with institutional racism very seriously and very urgently. we haven't from a political perspective. and that's something i've been fighting for throughout my career in education. >> mike barnicle? >> mr. bowman, 17 suicides of young people in a school district. middle school children who are

homeless. middle school children whose best and most safest aspect of a day is at school. maybe the only place where they can get a good meal. how do you think you're going to turn the attention of people in congress who are virtually clueless -- clueless -- to life on the street as you've experienced it and know it. how do you do that? >> well, it's my job to use the power of my voice and to share my personal and professional experiences as much as possible. and to do my best to meet people where they are. poverty is not unique to the bronx. there's rural poverty across this country that also produces a level of trauma and poor education health and economic outcomes. so i think we have a lot more in common than we give ourselves credit for and it's about me telling my story and telling the story of my students to bridge the gap. at the end of the day our

democracy cannot be healthy and cannot thrive with this level of racism and economic inequality existing within all of america's institutions. it's not just police brutality. it's underfunded schools, lack of job opportunities. it's the wealth gap. health outcomes. this is how we deal with institutional racism honestly and directly through our stories, our connections and our voices. >> jamaal bowman, thank you very much. best of luck to you. great to have you on the show. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is thursday, june 25th. here's what's happening this morning. if you think the coronavirus pandemic is over, you are wrong. for much of the country it is worse than ever. here are the facts this hour. on wednesday, more than 45,000 new cases were reported across this nation. that's a new daily record. and it is