slaves they owned 200 years. ago. we don't know what direction it'll take politically in this country or other countries because the legacy is long, difficult, and troubling. yasmin. >> yes, it is. hans nichols, so great to see you this morning. we'll be reading axios a.m. in just a little bit. you can sign up for the newsletter. that does it for me on this friday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. i want every single american to know, if you're sick, if you're struggling, if you're worried about how you're going to get through the day, i will not abandon you, i will not leave you to face these challenges alone, and we're going to get through this together. >> what do you say to americans who are watching you right now who are scared? >> i say that you're a terrible

reporter. that's what i say. i think that's a very nasty question. and i think it's a very bad signal you're putting out to the american people. >> that's a contrast. good morning welcome to "morning joe." it's friday, june 26th. with us we have white house reporter jonathan lemire, columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" eugene robinson. and donny deutsch is with us as well on this friday morning. we have another slate of new polls to show you this morning on the heels of the ones we s w showed you yesterday showing joe biden with sizable leads in six battleground states that trump won in 2016. this morning we have numbers from four more key states, including battleground florida where biden is up nine and deep red georgia and texas, which look quite purple right now. >> you see the opening

statement, and donny deutsch, joe biden showing empathy. which, of course, joe biden is better than just about anybody in the political state showing empathy for good reason, he's -- the stratetragedy that he's endn his life. and then you have donald trump who is asked what should he say to people that are scared and he attacks the reporter and says you're a bad reporter. he can't do it. but donny, i'm going to start this morning, this friday morning, and hope everybody has had a good week. going to start this friday morning with just asking the question again, does this guy want to be elected -- re-ele re-elected? does he want to be there? there's nothing logical, i understand, about how donald trump acts, but he did know in

2016 when to be quiet, how to operate to at least keep himself in the game. he's not acting that way now. we'll be talking about how he's trying to abolish the affordable care act at the height of, you know, the rise in pandemic deaths at a time when americans are more scared of their healthcare, he's stopping funding -- even ted cruz and john cornyn are writing him a letter telling him he can't do that as the texas governor is telling texas residents stay at home. this is getting worse. it's getting worse in arizona. it's getting worse in florida. this guy that you and i have known for many years, he's -- not only is he not acting like he doesn't want to get re-elected, he's acting like he really wants to lose badly and

take the republican party down with him. i mean, none of this would make sense in the conventional sense. but you look at every single move he's making, he's on the 25% of a 75/25 issue and it keeps happening every day. >> yeah. last night in that sham of a town hall with sean hannity, a big proponent of stop and frisk, anything that shows anybody could be so tone deaf towards what's going on in the country right now, is somebody in favor of is stop and frisk. >> you have to be kidding me. >> joe, you said something last week, a high level insider at the white house thinks there's a chance that august he's way behind that trump drops the mic and says i'm not doing this anymore. i don't think that's going to happen, but you look at all of these bread crumbs he's leaving

behind and you go does this guy want -- you go, what does he do if he wants to be elected president -- or re-elected president, does he come out and say, let's aum all start wearing masks, this is a problem with coronavirus. let's get together with race else ares. you go, can he do that? can coke become new coke? his brand is so entrenched at this point. he has created an authentic brand, he's so consistent, is it even feasible with him, credible, if he could do it, stand up there -- and he's so baked at this point. he's so baked in. i don't know how he makes the move. >> that's not the point, though, mika, he's bleeding in the polls. >> um-hum. >> he knows and his campaign knows, and republican senators know, and republican house members know, and local republican officials who were

running for office know what to do if they want to stop the precipitous slide in the polls. they can look at republican mike dewine. 75% approval rating. they can look at other -- they can look at charlie baker in massachusetts. they can look -- they know what to do. mika, i'm telling you, this looks like a deliberate attempt to drive his campaign into the ground every day. he knows what he's doing. >> um-hum. >> is going to lower the poll numbers and they are, they are collapsing every day. >> he can't do what donny was proposing, a last minute pivot, maybe someone else could. he doesn't want four more years, it's clear by his behavior, the attitude toward the health of the american people, he doesn't want to be there. but what's the potential because

he also doesn't like losing? >> i have somebody again that said last week in his inner circle that has told me for three years that donald trump fears losing a lot more than he cares about winning. and this person had said, for some time, if it became obvious to him that he was going to lose, he would do an lbj and get out of the race. now, there is nobody -- we have a lot of news to get to -- >> to get to this. >> -- we're going to get to the news. i'm going to ask jonathan lemire there. at the top of the show, at 6:07, there is nobody on the planet that i have heard that is suggesting anything other than donald trump is running for re-election and he is going to be there until the very end. i'm just saying, this is not a guy who is acting like he expects to be around january

21st, 2021, in the white house. and he is acting like he's setting everything on fire before he leaves. i'm only saying this, nobody else is saying it, but i could see, as a possibility even a slight possibility, that this guy in august says what peggy nunan wrote a couple weeks ago, i gave you the best economy ever and the press has been lying about me for years. they've been investigating me for years. despite that i did a great job. you guys do not deserve me. i'm going to do what lbj did and i'm going to leave. that way the only political race he has that people will judge him on politically is one of the great political upsets of all time, he and harry truman in '48. and he can walk away without a loss. where right now, if the election

were held today, joe biden would likely win by -- get 375, possibly even 400, electoral votes. donald trump does not want to carry that around the rest of his life. he wants to carry around the fact that he scored one of the greatest political upsets of all time. he's known when to leave the stage before. again, i'm the only one saying this, i would not be surprised if he left the stage again. and again, i'm the only person saying it, don't think it'll happen, but it's a possibility. >> so let's get to the big news overnight came another move by the trump administration, to your point, joe, to strike down obamacare in the middle of a pandemic. amid the surging coronavirus pandemic and record unemployment, the justice department brief late last night asking the supreme court to overturn the affordable care act. the move came on the same day the government reported nearly

half a million people who lost health insurance during the coronavirus shutdown enrolled in coverage through health.gov, a 46% increase from the same time last year. the legal brief makes no mention of the virus. back in 2017, congress eliminated the penalties that enforced the individual mandate, that was followed by a lawsuit from a coalition of public attorneys general arguing that the entire law must be struck down, including popular protections for preexisting conditions. joe biden had this to say at an event in pennsylvania yesterday. >> perhaps most cruelly of all, if donald trump has his way, those who have complications from covid-19 could become the new preexisting conditions. so survivors will experience

lasting health impacts like lung scarring and heart damage. and if donald trump prevails in court, insurers would be allowed once again to strip away coverage, jack up premiums, simply because of the battle they survived fighting coronavirus. mr. president, drop the lawsuit. stop trying to get rid of the affordable care act. stop taking away people's health care and their peace of mind. now more than ever stop trying to steal their peace of mind. i cannot comprehend the cruelty that's driving him to inflict this pain on the very people he's supposed to serve. >> and there we go. gene robinson, there we go. gonna get to jonathan in a second to get the reporting on

this, but you tell me, gene, what -- >> yeah. >> -- man or woman who wants to be re-elected president of the united states decides when everything is going bad for him and his poll numbers are collapsing, that he's going to choose this time, in the middle of a pandemic, that's killed 125,000 americans, likely kill 150 or more by the time of the election, to actually cut work, to try to take away health care for millions of americans in a program that is actually very popular now. and at the same time work to defund testing for states like texas, arizona, and florida, and even get ted cruz and john cornyn writing letters saying, mr. president, now is not the time to defund testing. as houston's top health care official said, this would be

catastrophic. and yet, donald trump is doing it. can you explain it? maybe you can explain it better than me. >> well, it's -- it's baffling. it's incomprehensible. and if he does want to be re-elected, it's the stupidest possible way to try to go about it. look what he's doing. he's not only doing this to himself, he's putting the republican party, you know, on the side of taking away health care from millions of americans in the midst of a pandemic. he's putting the republican party firmly on the side of structural racism and specific racism and the term kung flu and the idea that all the protesters protesting police violence are

thugs. he's putting the republican party not just on the wrong side of history in issue after issue after issue but on the wrong side of this election. you see it in every poll. and what you've seen, you know, you don't have to take an individual poll, take the suite of polls we've seen over the last month, especially the accelerating decline over the last couple of weeks. he's trying to drag his brand down to a historic defeat where it loses not just the white house but loses the senate, loses legislative seats. loses the whole ball of wax, it is incomprehensible. and republicans are going along with it. they're writing little letters, please mr. president, don't take away our testing for covid. but they better start speaking out and they better do something

because if they don't, i mean, this is -- this is -- we're getting into going off the cliff at this point. >> off the cliff. and actually "the washington journal" editorial page this morning, thanks john heileman for pointing this out, john texted me and talked about how "the washington journal" editorial page, of all pages, taking donald trump to task saying mr. trump's base of 35% will never leave but the swing voters who stood by him for three and a half years has fallen away in the last few months. this includes those who took a riske on him in 2016 as an outsider who should shake things up. now millions of americans are close to deciding that four more years are more risk than they can stand. as of now, mr. trump has no second term agenda or even a message beyond four more years of himself. his recent events were dominated

by personal grievances. and they go on to say, perhaps mr. trump lacks the self-awareness and the discipline to make his case. jonathan lemire, again, been saying it, a broken record. donald trump is looking at issues that are 75/25 issues and he's consistently, every day, jumping on the side 25% of americans support and 75% of americans oppose. stopping testing, federal funding of testing in states like texas and arizona and florida and now, saying he's going to gut the affordable care act. all of those things, damage him with working class americans, with middle class americans, with suburban americans, with black americans, with hispanic -- you name it, again he's chosen an extraordinarily

unpopular position to take. >> first, joe, i'll note you mentioned his lack of second term agenda, he was asked that question in a friendly interview from sean hannity last night and he didn't have an answer. he gave a rambling recounting of how he was ininaugurated and devolved into an attack on john bolton. we look at the battleground state polls, it's not working, at least right now. their strategy is to double and triple down again on the base. the effort to repeal obamacare is part of this. it was a 2016 campaign promise of course it has not come to be just yet. we've seen a renewal in the last week or so to focus on cultural or deep issues in the president's mind, what he thinks his base cares about, the confederate monuments, the trip to the border wall this week in arizona, i was part of that trip

when he went and noted the new construction there. what his advisers are doing is making this that. and it's a risky one. they think about 40% of the country really likes donald trump and they feel like the other 60% there's not a lot they can to to persuade them. they feel opinions of trump are baked in. so they believe the 40%, their estimate, of the country that likes him, really likes him, they're enthusiastic and his goal is to turn them out, to give them things to be excited about so in november they turn out they hope at a high ir rate than the 60% or so who don't like him but their feelings about joe biden are tepid. we know that donald trump does better than joe biden from a number. so they think they can get more of the base to turn out than the rest of the country will turn out for biden.

we're seeing in recent weeks as the president is reflecting in the polls, his standing is slipping. there is enthusiasm and it's not necessarily for biden but it's growing against trump and that here is what is so tricky and risky about the play. but they feel it's the only one they have. they don't feel they can change people's opinions of trump and they're foy cussed on trying to please his base and drive up joe biden's negatives. >> actually, they also know they can't change trump. again, talking to people inside the white house and you ask why does he do a or b, instead of c or d, they will say, because if we go and try to reason with him, if we tell him not to do something because it hurts his cause, then we put it in his mind and he will immediately tweet on it. they've absolutely no control of

him. and they don't give him good advice on restraining from certain destructive behaviors that would hurt his campaign, hurt his white house, hurt the country, because -- and they're right, if they put that thought in his head of not doing something that's destructive, then it's in his head and he will immediately do it. >> double down. >> so they don't -- they have no control over this candidate who, again, continues to pick the wrong side of a poll issue and pick being on the wrong side of history every day. and again, mika, you have to beg the question. we'll show these polls -- >> yeah. >> -- but republican senators don't have to go along with this. they don't have to lose by 10, 15, 20 points. they don't have to. one other thing, too. it would only take a couple of

republican senators to stop this madness. it's not like republicans have a 10-point vote margin in the united states senate. it would only take a handful of republican senators saying, enough. >> yeah. >> this destructiveness has to end. >> so speaking of the destructiveness, here's the result of all of this. as jonathan lemire was pointing out, new fox news battleground polls show joe biden is leading or statistically tied with president trump in four key states. biden leads trump by nine points in florida, 49 to 40%. biden is up two points in georgia, 47 to 45. it's the same for north carolina. only one point separates biden and trump in texas, 45 to 44. and these fox polls follow the "new york times" siena college

poll from yesterday among registered voters in six battleground states that trump won in 2016. biden is up 11 points in michigan, 47 to 36%. biden is also up 11 points in wisconsin. 49 to 38. biden has a 10-point advantage in pennsylvania. 50 to 40. biden is up six points in florida, 47 to 41. biden's lead, 7 points in arizona, 48 to 41. and the former vice president is up nine points in north carolina, 49 to 40%. >> so here we go, gene robinson, let's go through these. from the fox news polls that we talked about yesterday. biden up 11 in michigan, 11 wisconsin, 10 in pennsylvania, and two -- >> "new york times." >> this is the "new york times" i'm sorry. and seven points in arizona.

fox news poll has donald trump down nine points right now in florida and him losing georgia, north carolina, and texas. it's almost as if every warning we've given to the republican party since 2016, it's coming true, gene. every warning. i love quoting richard haas when he said the pandemic didn't change history. it has accelerated history. and states like georgia, texas, and arizona really shouldn't have been competitive until 2024, even at this stage of the campaign. >> exactly. that's exactly right. >> donald trump and this pandemic have made georgia, texas, and arizona -- well, i would say toss up states. arizona is not a toss up state. right now that leans blue. but georgia and texas we've had

polls out of those two republican states for the last month, month and a half that show it deadlocked. >> yeah. i thought it would be two more presidential year elections before texas became a purple state, a genuinely purple state. donald trump has -- you're right. he has so accelerated history that these polls show texas up for grabs, which is absolutely astounding. who can -- you know, who can -- i guess that's a political accomplishment, but it's of a self-imlags variety, it's just incredible. and he will not stop. he either cannot or will not help himself. jonathan mentioned the enthusiasm theory of the trump campaign to drive up the enthusiasm of his base and try

to get them out. but the more predictive figure is fear, really. and the polls indicate that more people fear -- are fearing another donald trump presidency than fear joe biden presidency. and that is a real motivating factor. it was the opposite four years ago, the fear numbers, fear of hillary clinton presidency that was higher than the donald trump fear factor. he was an unknown, people were willing to take a gamble on this businessman who was so successful, but -- but now that's completely reversed. and that's a very, very bad sign in these polls for trump. >> well, and, donny, the fear not only goes to donald trump

getting re-elected. the fear is from a lot of people that supported him in 2016 who are now fearful for their own lives because of the 125,000 americans who have already been killed by a virus that donald trump said was just one person coming in from china and would be gone. but now they look at scenes -- if you're a senior in arizona, and you look at scenes from that arizona rally for trump where young people are jammed into this auditorium, screaming and yelling and pushing the president to make racist statements and very few of them are wearing masks and you're a senior in arizona, you understand that if what everything we've heard about this pandemic is true, or most of it is true, that this is a super spreader event that will make arizona sicker, will make

communities and hospitals -- their facilities more jammed. and will literally threaten the lives of senior citizens. now that's not -- that's not political speculation. that's not ideological speculation. that's what republican and democratic doctors are saying from dr. fauci to dr. obbsterho, to any doctor we get on the show. so fear. so yes, the seniors weren't at the rally but the seniors in arizona saw the rally and understand that is a danger, not only to the people of arizona but more specifically to them. >> yeah. you know, it's interesting yesterday we talked about the churchill book and he said when people are experiencing something you can't twist it around, go against what people are actually experiencing.

so that is strongly why he has a 50% strong disapproval rating versus biden only has a 27% strong disapproval rating. i want to go back to where you started the show, your thesis that this guy is doing every single thing to lose. and you go, is there a chance he wants to? let me just tune up a trump thing. the one thing he's never been able to do with the presidency is monetize it. imagine if trump loses or drops the mic and 6 people who voted for him, join the trump revolutionary network at $6.99 a month and he makes $6 million a year, it's a way for him to come out and monetize this thing. don't think he won't say to himself, i'm still the president of a third of this country but i'm going to monetize it. look for the trump revolutionary network, $6.99 a month, that's his drop the mic moment.

it's not that crazy. >> no. i know you're laughing about it but he's been thinking about how to monetize this from the beginning. he didn't expect to win. he was shocked he won. and you're right. if he can have a hard core 35% of americans believing his conspiracy theories following him over the cliff as they have. even people with children who are sick, following him over the cliff, i've never seen anything like it before in my life, then yes, they'll pay $6.99 to listen to the trump revolution network or whatever he would decide to call it. you're laughing about it, i'm not laughing about it at all. i think he's looking at a loss and he'd rather go out because they think he's more marketable. rather go out doing, again, what

lbj did and decide he's not going to run for re-election. when you talk about lbj and campaigns you only talk about his '64 landslide. nobody talks about him getting out of the race in '68. i'm telling you, donny, you're joking about it. if you talk to most reporters they'll say there's no suggestion he's not going to drive this campaign to the very end. it just doesn't make sense to me. all right. we want to get now to the facts of the science of what the president is flouting in every move lately. joining us now infectious disease physician and medical director of special pathogens unit at the boston university school of medicine. dr. naheed bah dill ya. thanks for waiting we wanted to put this in context. we have the headline of the undercount of coronavirus cases. we have a number of states pausing their reopening because

the numbers are going up. we have president trump pulling federal funding for testing. we have president trump moving to invalidate health care for millions of america. and he tweeted last night, coronavirus deaths are way down. mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world. our economy is roaring back and will not be shutdown. embers or flare-ups will be put out as necessary. do you see this virus, at the rate it's going, as flare-ups and embers or how would you describe where we stand with the coronavirus? >> mika, it's been said multiple times but i don't think we've left the first wave and we are hitting like records every single day we're passing records of what we've had. and the president is missing out when he talks about the mortality being low, you get

cases first, a per sen taj of those cases then are hospitalizations. and the last indicator is deaths. so the rise in infections you're seeing now, you'll see a portion of those people get sick enough that will pass away and we expect the death rate to go up because of that. everybody's hope is that mortality rate is lower than what we saw during april and may because we know more about the disease, we have some tools to deal with it. but the thing that's working against it is the fact that now this pandemic is playing out in states that potentially don't have the same kind of resilience in their health care systems. texas, you know, you talked about texas, carolinas, florida, those are states even before the aca, even before the pandemic had high amounts of patients who were uninsured. these are states that have very low level of public health spending and on top of that if

you're taking away the safety net for people to be insured to seek that care, you're driving into a situation that might increase income inequality in this country because people who need the health insurance are people who are frontline, essential workers, highest risk of getting the disease, also the folks likely to get the disease and may need hospitalizations and would have the cost of those hospitalizations affect them really pretty -- you know, pretty severely economically as well. >> so let's look at this as well. according to johns hopkins university, out of the 20 countries most affected by covid-19, the u.s. has the seventh highest observed case fatality ratio for covid-19 and third highest per capita death rate. new modeling predicts the virus will kill 180,000 -- >> again the third highest per capta

capita death rate in the world. >> thank you. and the new modeling predicts the virus will kill 180,000 americans by october. what would be the steps taken to try to them thostem those numbeg them down. >> we lost a portion of americans in this fight because we haven't had a national vision or strategy for this pandemic. part of it is because science has changed and because of that public health policy has to change and we haven't had a national public health presence continuously to explain the changes. and the third is there are portions of our politics or politicians that have politicized interventions to the pandemic which has driven people away from the steps they need to take. so we need to basically take this -- take this to the local level. we have to take to cities. you might have seen the town hall that happened in florida that was televised where there

was this immense amount of anger for mask mandates that are necessary. that reminds me of 2014, one of deployments in west africa, an ebola treatment unit and outside the unit there were people angry with machetes because they were afraid we were doing something to their families. it's the same thing, the fear, the anger of the unknown. and we haven't had a unified public health voice to give that to the american people. so the drive needs to go to the local level. we need to win over communities, stakeholders, churches, local politicians, people who can help us get the message across. that's one of the biggest things i see that's missing right now. >> doctor, thank you so much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," the other part of the one-two punch of the pandemic. we talked about the health impact and up next we'll dig into the economic challenges

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president wants us to believe there's a choice between the economy and public health. amazingly, he still hasn't grasped the most basic fact of this crisis. to fix the economy, we have to get control over the virus. he's like a child who can't believe this has happened to him. all his whining and self-pity. this pandemic didn't happen to him. it happened to all of us. and his job isn't to whine about it. his job is to do something about it, to lead. >> to lead. >> wouldn't it be nice. joining us now former treasury official and "morning joe"

economist analyst steve ratner. he's here with charts now that most states are trying to open up. what does it look like? >> let's start with the unemployment numbers that came out yesterday, the jobless claims numbers that showed a smaller than expected decline. we're stuck with the million and a half level that you see at the bottom. the other number to keep your eye on is the headline at the top, which is how many people are still on unemployment. still receiving unemployment benefits, obviously people go on, people go off, but we are still at high levels. we've come just below 20 million for the first time, 19.5 million americans still receiving unemployment insurance. but if you then take a look at the jobs that have been added back, what you'll see is how far back we have to come. so over on the right, in the right corner there you can see that in may we gained

2.5 million jobs, that was surprisingly good news, and in june economists are expecting 3 million new jobs. but look how far back we have to go. we've lost 22.1 million jobs, almost exactly the same number of jobs as we gained in ten years after the economic crisis. plus the fact we have 20 million still on it, plus the fact we have so far left to go, means it's going to be a slow recovery. you've been talking a lot about the impact of the virus on the economy, on the openings and so forth. and i thought it would be interesting to connect the economics to the virus. so this compares the number of -- the percentage of people who are going to restaurants based on open top table data, that's the horizontal line at the bottom, minus 100% essential

restaurants get no business. and then the vertical access is how many new cases have come up over the last two weeks permanently in population. on the left you can see the states that have been successful, new york, pennsylvania, new jersey, thing likes that. reservations are down to basically zero and cases are dropping. if you look at the right-hand side of the chart, arizona at the top, florida, texas in there as well, you can see they have gone back to restaurants to some degree, restaurant reservations down 50 to 60% but the number of cases is as high as 125 over the last two weeks in arizona per million population. and numbers almost that high elsewhere. this is the yin and yang of it. businesses reopen, jobs get

created and you have the outbreak of the virus. the problem is how do you manage the two? i think we would all agree we have done as bad a job of managing as one can imagine but we need to do better if we want to get the economy going again. >> jonathan lemire is with us and has a question. jonathan? >> steve, what we're seeing as some states experience a real surge here of infections in recent weeks we're seeing some governors push pause on the reopening, oregon and now this week texas. do a little forecasting here. how damaging is that going to be to the economy? the states we've already seen paused but also the possibility of others, particularly in the sun belt, maybe arizona, florida, may have to do the same. what's the impact we're going to see there? >> you're seeing a slight impact already. you see a slight effect in that

in these states where you have these outbreaks, the amount of money consumers are spending, the amount of commercial establishments they're engaging with has flattened out and even turned down in some places. so the economic benefit they thought they were going to get from opening early may well have disappeared and turned into an economic detriment by virtue of having opened earlier, they're going to have a pull back sw it's going to affect jobs and the recovery. it's going to be a very long road back. >> thank you so much. >> thank you, steve. >> great to see you, great to look at the charts. donny deutsch, you've been a business man, worked for businesses, advised businesses your entire life, there is a balancing act here. we can't just keep the economy shutdown indefinitely, too many americans are being hurt. there have been some states that have reopened. we see the cases are going up in the a lot of those states. but when you look at this, what

sort of balancing act do governors need to make considering that there are now almost 20 million americans that are having to get unemployment benefits and a lot more who are not even getting those benefits, that either don't have a job or are dramatically underemployed? >> i think the word you used the exact word is balance. you look at it -- don't look at it month-to-month. look at this at as 18-month plan and say for the next 18 months we are going to be wearing masks, having extreme testing, there's a new normal. instead of looking to get back to where we were, say we have a long, long kind of expansive period we are going to be in the middle. we are not going to be open and we are not going to be closed. what does that balancing act look like, it is a new normal, look at it as an 18-month run and look at it as, okay, we have

some businesses open, restaurants outside, masks, that kind of middle ground but stop looking for the finish line because it's not anywhere near. >> no doubt about it. >> donny, thank you very much. >> and obviously one business that's going to be reopening up this fall, i'm sure, the kids are demanding it, saturday night politics with donny deutsch you know that has to be coming. >> in the tight t-shirt, he did it again. >> lose the tight t-shirt. >> donny, thank you very much. coming up if the neighbors heard a lot of shouting yesterday, it's joe celebrating liverpool's first premier league title in 30 years. roger bennett joins us next to talk about it. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction 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.

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there are people searching - headed in your direction. so, since people are still looking for what you do, godaddy is making it possible for you to create a website for free. start now at godaddy.com with us now, nbc sports soccer analyst and co-host men in blazers roger bennett. roger getting over what may be the worst thing to happen to the bennett family since his father took a walk around penny lane with brian epstein. thank you for being with us. i'm going to be gentle here because i understand this would be like me talking about the ja yankees having a record breaking season. just as somebody who loves the sport, dissect if you will, the

incredible job that klopp did. the incredible job that fenway sports group did. they gave the red sox the first world series since 1918. >> america. >> yeah. and then this. now it's pretty extraordinary. >> it is extraordinary. liverpool football club last night won their first title in 30 long, generational years. a team that used to win the title by devine right. i've enjoyed it as the fan of their rival for 30 wonderful years but now they restored their glory. it would be like the boston celtics coming back to dominate in the nba again. taken a remarkable manager and team and american owners, fsg, the owners of the boston red sox took the team over in 2010 and

with incredible strategy and a remarkable learning curve, they made early mistakes, they have transformed this team, put it back on its perch and last night, probably the greatest night since the release of sergeant pepper, joe. >> no doubt about it. they took the team over in 2010, as you said yesterday, this was a club that was in shambles. i remember, you know, watching year after year just ugly, ugly football, boring, uninspired football. and wondering what it would be be like cheering for a team that was exciting, that played total football. and klopp did that. yet with the offensive talent, i look back to them getting van dike as the moment this team went from good to being the best in the world what do you think?

>> fsg put together a squad using much of what they learned from saber metrics in major league baseball. but their manager, klopp, a remarkable man, he's like a german jim harbaugh, in a leadership that transcends football. he arrived four and a half years ago with his heavy metal football. he builds this squad, this joy, he's a religious man, a remarkable man. every time i interviewed him, i have left feeling better about my own life, not really about football. his message is don't just enjoy the winning, enjoy the moments along the way. when a player leaves don't think about what we lost, think about the opportunity that's been created and he said winning is not the only thing that matters in life, it's how you win, what are your values and he led with those values which are win or

fail beautifully. that's an amazing way to live life, win or fail beautifully. john oliver comes on our show all the time, a massive liverpool fan, i said to him, could klopp, is he the president the free world needs right now? he said, yes, but the liverpool football club needs him more. >> what about the fact that it was an american who helped make the difference for chelsea yesterday which helped catapult liverpool to their first championship in 30 years? >> ladies and gentlemen, watch this kid, 2/1-year-old -- look at that, the hershey, pennsylvania stutter step, scoring his seventh goal of the season. look at that, i belong he's saying. it is a remarkable story. this kid from pennsylvania, who arrived at chelsea this season, too much competition.

he really -- he found it very difficult to begin with but that is a tenacious kid, forced his way back to the team, scoring goals. to have an american score the goal last night which denied liverpool's closest pursuers the chance to catch them and hand the title to the american team, soccer is not meant to be big here, but it was an american scoring the goal and an american owning the team, and lebron james is among the others, who i believe is the first black american to own football. >> is this son of hershey, pennsylvania the best on the stage? >> he's the best football player to have played in human civilization in my mind. we have this young group of young players, a number of the german league that's come through, your team allowing you,

joe, to make memories with your family that will last a lifetime, as did last night millions of liverpool fans around the world. i'm a horrible man, i support liverpool's rival but i will not begrudge liverpool the title. it's a feeling they need right now. the joy. part of that story was a little american kid. hope all goes well for our country, too. america. >> all right. >> liverpool's roger bennett. thank you. when you come back we would love to hear some old family stories. >> okay. still ahead, president trump wants to overturn obamacare amid a pandemic. it sounds so ludicrous. advocates for stop and frisk during a -- he advocates for stop and frisk during a movement for social justice as well. is this the strategy of a

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when it comes to covid-19, president trump has given up. >> the trump administration is planning to end its funding and support for coronavirus testing. >> trump got jealous of dr. fauci and birx and upset by bad reviews so he cancelled the task force altogether and so cases in the u.s. have risen. so while trump might be finished dealing with the virus, the virus isn't finished with us. this is what it looks like when a president gives up. we will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them. as they slipped the surlily bonds of earth to touch the face of god. >> those who are lost now, their legacy must be our lives.

>> they can hear you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. ♪ amazing grace >> i am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers. we dominate the streets. >> i won't traffic in fear and division. i won't fan the flames of hate. >> it's time to pick up our heads. remember who we are. this is the united states of america. >> all right. two new ads from conservative groups working to unseat president trump. the first one was from republican voters against trump and that last one was from the lincoln project. >> by the way, all of those

people who set those ads and those ads are set to air in wisconsin, ohio, pennsylvania and michigan, it bears repeating. every one of them not only republicans, but republicans who, at least the ones that i know that are involved in there, worked on republican campaigns, spent their adult life promoting republican candidates, and probably very few of them ever voted for any democratic president. ever. fascinating. >> they might now. the ap's jonathan lemire and "the washington post" eugene robinson still with us. and joining the conversation, c cc co-host of the circus, john heileman and reporter for "the washington post" eugene scott.

new polls show joe biden is leading or tied with president trump in four key states. those states are, biden leading trump by nine points in florida, 49 to 40%. biden up two points in georgia, 47 to 45. the same for north carolina, only one point separates biden and trump in nevadtexas 45 to 4. those polls follow the "new york times," siena college poll from yesterday. 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 in pennsylvania.

biden is up six points in florida. 47 to 41. biden leads by seven points in arizona, 48 to 41. and the former vice president is up nine points in north carolina, 49 to 40%. >> and in their latest editorial that you talked about, john heileman, "the washington journal" absolutely savaged donald trump. they wrote, president trump may need a new nickname for sleepy joe biden, how does president elect sound? that's what mr. biden will be on november 4th. as for mr. trump he heads for what could be a historic repudiation that would take the republican senate down with him mr. trump refuses to acknowledge what every poll says is true, his approval rating has fallen to 40% or below that is george

h.w. bush or jimmy carter territory, the last two presidents to be denied a second turn. trump turned his daily pandemic pressers into brawls with the bear-baiting press and any politicians who didn't praise him to the skies. lately he has all but given up even talking about the pandemic when he might offer hope and realism about the road ahead. his default now is defensive self-congratulations. as of now, mr. trump has no second term agenda or even a message beyond four more years of himself. and john, as you pointed out to me earlier this morning peggy also writing this is a week that donald trump lost his grip on history and the man doesn't even understand his own base. she said she's never seen that before in politics. these numbers, florida biden plus nine, george plus two,

texas plus one, michigan plus 11, pennsylvania plus ten, arizona biden plus seven, is this the week, is this the month, starting on june the 1st, that donald trump has lost his grip on history and american politics? >> well, i definitely think it's the month, joe, if we stay on the current trend this is the month we'll look back and not say this was the month that donald trump lost the presidency. i think that was really the spring of 2020 phenomenon. this was the month when reality for everybody else set in in the sense we've now seen a succession of national polls and they have been the market leader in some sense and bringing up the rear have been the battleground state polls we know that donald trump is worse off at the national level than he is in the battleground states that's how he won in 2016, he

fl threaded the needle even though he lost the popular vote. we knew he was going to lose the popular vote in 2020. but you look now at the consistency of these numbers from the most rep tab gold standards in in the country -- i don't want to hear the polls were wrong in 2016. there were good wisconsin pollsters missed by a couple points. michigan pollsters who missed by a couple points. the national polls were not that far-off in 2016. we're not talking about missing a point or two here, all could be off by a point or two, and donald trump would be on the path to getting crushed still. this is a systemic thing we're

seeing from the national level down to every single battleground state where joe biden is ahead outside the margin of error. that is not 2016 all over again. i'm sorry. it's possible -- i'm not saying donald trump can't turn it around. i'm not saying it's impossible. i'll never say that, never. i will say right now we have a comprehensive, thorough, incredible picture of a national and battleground state electorate that has rejected donald trump and this is the month that the reality has set in for everyone it seems like except donald trump. i think he's not just lost touch with his base and the political reality, he seems to have lost touch with reality full stop. i go to a comment you made at the top at 6:00, it raises questions, no one is going to say this is true, he's going to drop out of the race, but it raises the question, does he want to win? everything he is doing is what you would do if you were trying

to throw an election. >> no. he's not acting like a man who wants to win. i was going to ask you about that. we can go back several months. you can go back to how we responded to this pandemic in january when he was being warned by just about every agency, we can go down the list but we've done that too many times already. in february when he was saying it was going to magically go away. praising china's leadership in march. again, talking about it magically going away. he's made the wrong call every time. and even where things are more obvious, where you can look at polls and see that 75% of americans support, for instance, the wearing of masks, or 75% of americans are against sending their kids back to school right now. or 75% of americans support the civil rights marches in the

streets. or a majority of americans support the affordable care act. day after day, week after week, month after month, donald trump takes the wrong side in what we in, you know, politics -- at least what we called around our office 80/20 issues. you want to be on the 80 side of the 80/20 issues. donald trump day after day is picking the 20% position. and i don't -- i'm sorry, i don't see how that suggests this man wants to win, or that this man gives adam abo damn that he destroying the republican party and republican senators, destroying the movement that he's been doing for many years

and isn't going to take a quick off-ramp at the very end so he doesn't lose to joe biden in a landslide. >> look, i think the main argument, joe, about this, the only argument that suggests that that -- that argues against entertaining the possibility that donald trump might get out of the race, and it's a powerful one, i think, is the fact that he would be looking in the michael cohen case and potentially other investigations, if he were to leave the office and announce he wasn't running for re-election, he would be looking at different criminal prosecutions in the southern district of new york. there's an outstanding campaign -- that campaign fund-raising case is what sent michael cohen to prison for a period of time. donald trump is implicated in that, we know there are other ongoing investigations that many people around the president and observers have said that trump

faces liability and vulability on a number of legal fronts which is what people assumed would keep him in this race. i think there's a good reason to think in the end he'll try to pull it off. you raised the mask issue. there was a time three months ago when the virus was largely confined to the blue states and hadn't spread to any red state in a meaningful way where you could understand in a primate, like a monkey logic, that trump was like the right side to be politically with my states is to be anti-mask wearing, try to make it a culture war, it's a blue virus not a red virus. all of us intelligent enough to understand the virus knew it would get to the red states. just three months ago you could understand why that culture war made sense. now you see massive outbreaks in

florida, texas, oklahoma -- >> arizona. >> -- where people are being affected and they're seeing that their lives are at risk and he's still on the wrong side of basic public health matters. it defies any political or human logic the way he's behaving right now. >> it does, you add it up, it just absolutely defies logic. challenging obamacare in the middle of a pandemic, taking away people's health insurance when they're desperate when more people have gotten on it because of the pch of the pandemic, they don't have jobs, work or money, cutting the aid for testing. saying i told them to slow the testing down and i'm not kidding about that. here's the president in the middle of three major crises, a health one, financial one, and racial unrest. here he's talking about inner cities. >> you look at honduras,

guatemala, look at these places, we have cities that are worse, in some cases far worse. look at detroit, look at what's happening in oakland. look at what's happening in baltimore. and everyone gets upset when i say it, they say is that a racist statement? it's not a racist. frankly, black people come up to me say thank you, thank you, sir, for saying it. they want help. these cities, it's like living in hell. i know it's con row verse shl to say stop and frisk, rudy giuliani was a great mayor he did it in new york, it worked great. bloomberg blue it, he went crazy with it. he took away a lot of rights. >> this is the president, again, who had quite a day yesterday comparing unfavorably american

cities to other countries and comparing democrats unfavorably to kim jong-un, vladimir putin, and president xi. and then talking about stop and frisk in the middle of the most significant civil rights movement in 50 years. again, this is a guy whose campaign told me repeatedly donald trump was going to get more black votes than any republican president in 60 years. how do you even respond to what he said yesterday? can you explain to us what he's trying to do? >> the best way to respond is looking at the data. most recent washington postpoll shows more than nine out of ten americans disapprove of how the president has responded to the killing of george floyd and the racial unrest in part created by his rhetoric and world view. the reality is the president has reminded us his campaign strategy is to win and turn out his base.

but what he seems not to understand is that most americans are not in his base and he has not made any effort to trying to win over those voters. in fact, many of those voters who backed him in 2016, women, independent voters, suburban voters, have walked away from the president. one of the reasons is he is the main spokesperson of his campaign. in 2016 you had people on the trail like ivanka trump and other individuals who were more winsome and attractive to the voters but these people have given up the mic to the president and the voters are not hearing something they like, in fact, they're hearing something that concerns them and is causing them to look the other way. >> gene robinson, let's talk about yesterday. and again, donald trump making moves that will only hurt him among voters. you talk about -- whether you're talking about stop and frisk in the middle of this movement, whether you're comparing

american cities to foreign countries in a negative way, this is -- this is not only hurting donald trump with black americans, but as we said yesterday, it hurts him with suburban -- with white suburban voters, with white college educated voters. it hurts him with white women with and without college degrees. if you just look at the polls and look at the trends, this sort of rhetoric, just guts him politically and yet he continues. >> he continues. and it's hurting him with just about everybody right now. he's -- how do you lose support across the board, do what donald trump is doing now. and so you have, you know, this incredible reaction to the death of george floyd, you have people

in the streets still, you have polls showing the vast majority of americans in various ways support the aims of the protesters at least, if not all together their methods. and you have donald trump playing exactly against it. i think he may believe he's running the richard nixon 1968 playbook. but he's -- what he's really doing is running the george wallace 1968 playbook. stop and frisk and law and order and dominate the battleground and all this sort of crazy stuff. and on top of that, i mean, he's running quiet clearly the most openly racist campaign, not just for african-americans but for asian-americans and latinos, et

cetera, since george wallace in 1968. and george wallace did not win in 1968. he won five states, but five states don't make you president. and donald trump seems to be choosing that path as opposed to any sort of sane path that might deliver him a second term and might save the republican party from a historic defeat. >> you know, it just bears repeating for donald trump's supporters who think that what worked in 1968 will work today. in 1968, white americans made up 85% of the country. today, white americans make up 61, 62% of the country. and as people love to say, ronald reagan, in 1980, got the

same percentage of the white vote john mccain got in 1988, there was a big difference. this 1968 strategy is doomed to fail, not just for donald trump, but also for the republican senators following him. jonathan lemire, so the news is bleak, people inside the white house know the news is bleak. do you -- when you talk to white house aids and people who work inside the trump white house, in the west wing, do they understand how bleak things have become or are they still whistling past the graveyard, putting on a brave face? >> joe in the last few weeks, as these national polls continue to get worse and worse for the president, the chorus, the mantra we hear from trump

advisers doesn't matter, it's the battleground states and though he was losing in the battleground states the margins were slim, a few points here or there. the last few weeks, the margins have widened, joe biden is up six, seven, eight points in florida, wisconsin, arizona, those are likely to determine the selection. there's a growing concern that they're in a bad spot right now. as we talked about last hour about my new story, the bet is to the 40% or so that the country likes the president and the key is to turn them out, get them enthusiastic, have them show up in november while the larger portion of the consultant th -- country that likes joe biden but doesn't like him so much, depress that turn out, part of that could be making attacks on mail-in balloting. but the problem, the trump

campaign hasn't been able to find an attack on joe biden, whether it's china, hunter biden, that's really worked. part of why the president won in 2016 is hillary clinton's negatives were so high and they leaned into that. they had great success exploiting that and they have not been able to do that, this time around. maybe their only positive argument is the economy. we built this economy once, we can do it again to reopen it, restart it. we're seeing the outbreaks now, statement states already slowing down, they had to push pause, if there's another wave this fall that could halt economic expansion that could be the death nail for this president's chances. we talked earlier, the coronavirus task force briefings there haven't been any in weeks. there is one today. the president is not presiding over it, it's hhs, vice president pence will be there,

but for the first time in a long time, this administration is having a coronavirus task force briefing but will it be acknowledging the alarm, there's a problem again, or an attempt to play it down to try to calm fears? how much politics will be involved with the science. >> that will be fascinating. >> it will. john heileman, the strategy for the trump campaign has been to disqualify their opponents, whether it was his republican opponents, saying that ted cruz's father killed jfk, suggesting it, or attacking ted cruz's wife personally, in the most personal ways. we can go down the list. he attacks all of his opponents, and hillary clinton. he's been trying to do it with joe biden for quite some time. got himself impeached, in fact, trying to do it. how much money have they spent trying to drive joe biden's

approval ratings down and yet, in the latest fox poll i've seen, he was plus nine, which is pretty remarkable for politics in this era. >> right. they've spent millions so far. they will spend many, many more millions if donald trump does what we all expect him to do and defies your not prediction but suggestion he will leave the race, they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to disqualify joe biden. but the problem, joe, they will spend more but i'm not sure that will be more effective unless they find new frame. what we've seen so far, this is the only theme we see reoccurring in trump's trips to tulsa or arizona or green bay or anywhere else we goes. the only theme db he has two, one which is joe biden is old and we've talked about this many times on the air, he's out of it, borderline senile and maybe

he's lost it and he can't govern. the other is he's a tool of the left. and to go back to the question of law and order, that joe biden isn't running his own campaign. this is where the extremes cross. he says biden is not in charge of his own campaign, suggesting he's out of it and not in touch. and that really who's in charge is the radical left if you let biden become president the radical left will be in charge and there's bedlam. if there's a logic to him, that's what it is. and the problem is americans know joe biden and no one looks at his record, who's watched him in the united states senate as vice president, as a candidate, no one thinks that joe biden is a tool of the left. he's ever been -- he's had problems in the democratic party because he's not progressive enough for some of today's lefties. but that has given him an incredible shield against trump's attacks.

the defund police calls, biden quickly said i'm not for defunding the police, i'm for reimagining the police, not defund the police p. they've been disciplined about not falling into the tramp of giving trump clubs to beat biden with as being a tool of the left, a pawn of the left. i think that's the problem that the trump campaign has right now is the frames that trump is trying to put on biden don't work. it'sing like, you know, you look at him, and say is joe biden senile? what about donald trump? joe biden makes gaffes, what about donald trump? joe biden is a tool of the left? most americans don't buy it. that strategy has inherent limits that we've seen, and i don't see any reason to think that's going to change going forward. >> republicans tried that against barack obama in 2008 and it failed miserably. certainly, joe biden is a pawn of the left will fail miserably. he lost early states it wasn't

until black voters in south carolina and the deep south moderating the ideological makeup of the democratic party that's when joe biden's campaign started to take off. as far as the suggestion that joe biden is too old or out of it, every time they say that, you have donald trump giving his critics, you know, video clips, you know, him at war with a ramp. him having trouble drinking a class of water. him stumbling over words, appearing to be completely out of it. so that's, again, campaigns are about contrast. that's the biggest problem, they can't find that contrast with joe biden that works. china, china a miserable contrast. it always has been because donald trump has praised president xi and said in the january 24th tweet what an

incredible job president xi had done with the coronavirus and how transparent he was. and then the john bolton bolt book comes out and you have donald trump begging president xi to intervene. and at the same time saying that he was good with concentration camps that would enslave 1 million chinese. the china card won't work either. so this campaign still needs to find a contrast with joe biden that will work with american voters and they still don't have it. coming up we'll show you the comment from the president that joe mentioned earlier where he said that democrats are worse than some world dictators. plus our next guest says that if true justice is ever to be achieved in the united states, the country must finally take seriously what it owes black americans. that conversation is straight ahead on "morning joe." d onmo ". woke-up-like-this migraine medicine. the 3:40 mid-shift migraine medicine.

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joining us now, domestic correspondent for the "new york times" magazine focussing on racial injustice, nicole hannah jones. in her latest essay for "new york times" magazine entitled what is owed, she writes in part, quote, if black lives are to truly matter in america, this nation must move forward slogans and symbolism, citizens don't inherit just the glory of their nation but its wrongs too. a truly great country does not ignore or excuse its sins. it confronts them and then works to make them right. if we are to be redeemed, to live up to the magnificent ideals upon which we were founded, we must do what is just. it is time for this country to pay its debt. it's time for reparations. okay. so let's take that a step further. what would those reparations,

which is a really big issue, especially at this time of momentum and racial -- effort for racial justice in this country. what do reparations look like, specifically? >> thank you for having me on. black americans face really a singular economic crisis, both prior to the pandemic and during the pandemic. what reparations would look like would be a comprehensive program. it would be an investment of resources into the racially segregated black communities and schools which were constructed in part by federal, state and local government. it would call for actual enforcement of existing civil rights laws against discrimination in housing and education and jobs. and most importantly it would include individual cash payments to black americans to make up for a gaping wealth gap.

black households have ten secen of every dollar that white households have. >> thinking back to president obama's view on this, which isn't completely different to what you just said, but i think some of the concerns might be that it creates some forms of reparations create an illusion that the job is done. we can now move on, instead of focussing on the first part of what you said, schools and policies that can have long-standing impact for black americans. >> i mean, the truth is, no matter what is done or isn't done, there's going to be the sense that we've done enough. that we've solved the problem. we know when president obama was elected, that became the tool, how can you complain about racial injustice there's a black man in the white house. so that's going to happen regardless. what we know is that you can

invest in infrastructure, you can invest in education, but none of these things are going to close the racial wealth gap. wealth is about money accumulated over time, passed down over generations and built over generations. what the data shows is black people who have college degrees, own homes, get married don't close the health gap. there's nothing that black americans can do that will close a wealth gap created by 350 years of policy. >> gene robinson, jump in. >> a couple of things, first nicole, congratulations on the pulitzer. >> thank you. >> well deserved. i also note that anyone interested in the issue might also want to check out the piece that was written in "the

atlantic" magazine several years ago which in a systematic waylays out the theft that took place over centuries and how that accumulated, interest accumulates, debt accumulates too and leads us to where we are now. but my question is, are our federal, political institutions capable at this point of having this discussion? or does it -- does it, like the protests that we're seeing now, does it have to begin at a more local level? can our federal government even begin to have it -- to have an intelligent discussion right now about the reparations issue? >> i mean, i hope so. i hope that despite all of the dysfunction that we're seeing that there are enough people in

congress who understand this issue, who actually care about the really devastating wealth gap. what we know right now in this pandemic more than half of black adults are unemployed. black americans were the only group of people that didn't recover from the last recession. the only group in america who earned less now than they did in the year 2000. we have to take it seriously. the good news is hr-40 which had been introduced 30 years in a row has more sponsors now than it's ever had. i just talked to representative sheila jackson lee yesterday and she said she feels there's more political momentum around taking this issue seriously than she's seen. >> eugene scott has a question. gene? >> nicole, hey. >> hey. >> a lot of the pushback to reparations comes from this idea, this misbelief that it's this new concept that america has never participated in

before, but that's not true. can you share a bit about how the u.s. government has actually, in the past, given certain groups reparations. >> absolutely. so one, let's just put it out there. we know that -- we understand the koconcept of restitution in the law. if a hospital does something that kills my husband, i can sue and see payment. black americans were fighting for restitution during slavery, after slavery, after race rites. and the only people that received reparations were white enslaves who were paid when their property, black people, e were emancipated. but we have paid reparations to native tribes to the japanese. we know holocaust survivors received reparations from germany.

even in this country we pay every year millions of dollars to help support victims of the holocaust even though that wasn't a crime we committed. that's a just thing to do. when it comes to black americans, we have delayed and wait until the generations of living victims died off and say there is no debt that's owed. one thing we should think about is, at the end of slavery, black americans exit slavery, literally with nothing, no land, no jobs, no homes, nothing. kerry lee merritt said we're the only group of people as a race that has zero capital. that has assuccumulated over ti followed by hundreds of years that did not allow black americans to accumulate wealth. we have to provide a stimulus to make up for that inequality. >> nicole hannah jones thank you

for writing the piece and coming on to talk about it. her latest piece is in "the new york times magazine". eugene scott thank you. coming up the president says democrats are harder to work with than the leaders of russia and north carolinkorea. a and north carolinkorea. ot 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.

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you can't wait -- i know most of you you can't wait to get to work. that's the way i feel.

and your job is much more pleasant than mine. that i can guarantee. that i can guarantee. you don't know what i have to go through with these people. they said to me, sir, a friend of mine, very smart, very successful person, used to call me donald, now he calls me sir. he said, mr. president, i said call me donald, i can't. mr. president, which is the toughest nation to deal with? is it china? is it possibly russia? is it maybe north korea? i said, no the toughest nation to deal with are the democrats in the usa. the democrats in the usa are much tougher to deal with than any of these people we deal with. they're far more unreasonable and they're, actually, a little crazy. >> a little crazy.

>> president trump yesterday speaking to workers at a wisconsin shipyard. important to keep in mind he's never kidding. joining us now president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book "the world a brief introduction," richard haas. also with us former under secretary of state rick stengel. his book entitled "information wars" how we lost the global battle against disinformation and what we can do about it. >> a few things to point out there. the president says -- let's people of wisconsin know he hates his job. >> hates it. >> i find it fascinating the guy that flies around on air force one and has servants at his beck and call all day talks to workers in a shipyard about how much harder his job is than their jobs.

that, obviously, speaks for itself. but richard haas, i'll begin with you. the president had a busy day yesterday. talking about reimplementing stock and frisk in the middle of a civil rights movement p talking about overturning the affordable care act in the middle of a pandemic. talking about abolishing the preexisting condition protections that are overwhelmingly popular in this country. and talking about hating his job. but then saying that the democrats are actually more unreasonable and worse than dictators in north korea, russia, or china. i remember when harry reed criticized george w. bush when he was in russia and i criticized harry reed for six months to a year for that because i didn't think you attacked a president when he was

negotiating over seas, here though, here's a president of the united states comparing american public servants unfavorably to kim jong-un. are there any parallels in american history to this? >> needless to say there are no parallels to a president of the united states. by the way, dealing with democrats or anybody in a democracy is meant to be difficult. the purpose of the framers was not to make american democracy efficient or easy. it was to make it careful and fair. and to provide checks and balances. and places where politics are not difficult, like north korea, are basically a giant concentration camp where people get killed with impunity. it may be quote/unquote easy to deal with a dictator but i don't see much in the way of results. north korea has more nuclear weapons and missiles than it had when the president came into office. russia is still parked in

ukraine, actively using force in the middle east. china is now pressuring india, pressuring vietnam, pressuring japan, taiwan. so it may be quote/unquote easy in terms of socially meeting but i don't see anything else in the way of results. >> and as john bolton wrote in his book, revealed to all of us, donald trump is a man far more comfortable talking to dictators and giving dictators sweet heart deals than he is dealing with democratically elected leaders. jonathan lemire with the associated press is with us and has a question for you, rick stengel. jonathan? >> rick, good to see you. let's switch to europe for a second and i wanted to get your reaction to two things happening this week or so. first of all, the president announced -- not done but the idea he's going to be shifting a lot of troops from germany to poland. i was in the rose garden this

week when he stood and talked about that. but secondly, the eu when it loses travel restrictions for their borders allowing travelers to move between them but may no united states on that list. travelers of the united states, like those from russia, brazil, other hot spots, would not be able to come to europe. tell us what that means about how the president has handled the pandemic on these shores. >> thanks, jonathan. i'll start with your first question about reducing troops in germany. this is the dream of vladimir putin to try to put distance between germany and america. this is what he never thought in his entire lifetime there would be an american president that would get crosswise with the head of germany, pull american troops out of germany. so it's an appalling signal. it makes putin happy. it makes everybody in nato

unhappy. speaking of the eu, karma is a boomerang, as they say. remember how donald trump made fun of italy and the european countries for not reacting precipitously enough to covid-19. now, of course, europe is looking at us as a disaster area, as the sort of ground zero of how not to treat the illness and they're saying, look, we can't afford to have american visitors come here. i mean, you know, they're looking back to world war i in 1918 was the last time americans brought a virus to europe and look what happened then. so i think it's kind of a come uppance for trump. even american voters have to look and say, wow, my god. our greatest allies are saying we can't even visit there because americans are dangerous .may be carriers of this virus. it's really an extraordinary thing. >> and donald trump retreats, as rick single said, from germany,

a dream not only of vladimir putin, but a dream of every leader in the soviet union from 1945 to 1991. donald trump is doing what the soviets could never do to the united states of america and that is get them to beat a speedy retreat from germany. john highlyman, i know you have a question for richard haas, but let's take a listen to this clip first. >> let's talk about a second term. if you hear in 131 days from now at some point in the night or early morning we can now project donald j. trump has been relethed the 45th president of the united states, let's talk. what is at stake in this election as you compare and contrast and what are your top priority items for a second

term? >> well, one of the things that we'll be really great -- you know, the word experience is really good. i always say talent is more important than experience. i've always said that. but the word "experience" is a very important word. it has a very important meaning. i never did this before. i never slept over in washington. i was in washington i think 17 times. all of a sudden, i'm president of the united states. you know the story. i'm riding down pennsylvania avenue with our first lady and i say this is great. but i didn't know very many people in washington. it wasn't my thing. i was from manhattan, new york, now i know everybody. and i have great people in the administration. you make some mistakes like an idiot like bolton, all he wanted to do was drop bombs on everybody. you don't have to kill people. >> do know, john heilman, how something can be so perfectly predictable and yet so shocking. but there it was. donald trump asked about his second term agenda in the friendliest form possible, he had no agenda. no issues. no plans.

no nothing. the only thing he said was i know a lot of people and used that as an excuse to attack idiot -- i think i said -- john bolton, yet another person he hired after promising the best people and yet another person, one of dozens of people that he hired high ranking positions only to tell americans later what total losers they were. >> well, right. and, you know, just -- it's a bundle of nonsecoquiturs and narcissistic -- like nothing that addresses the question. obviously, i'm saying these things that are completely obvious. i know sara cooper is going to -- this is the next great sa sara cooper video, for sure. >> i was just thinking that. >> yeah, right? this will be one of the classics. >> how do to a job interview.

>> we both heard this thing and thought, like, what is this? and it raises, hey, you've worked with presidents. i'm curious what you see in this to the extent you see anything beyond what we've already said which is incoherence and illegal logical nonsequitur, but does, does this not raise the possibility in a change way that if donald trump has, as we've been suggest all morning, perhaps recognizes he's losing and has some ways given up on running a normal campaign or to try to turn it around, is it not possible that the last thing in his mind somehow some foreign power is going to come to his rescue, whether it's russia or china or someone else and that's the way he can win this thing, not by turning his campaign around, but by somehow turn to go foreigners to intervene. >> it was stunningly revealing. talk about out of gas, no agenda, no second term plan. this is a guy who totally

operates on instincts. it's tactics. it might be that he has this idea. the fob for him to depend on a foreign country to quote/unquote save by by create ago crisis is a lot of donald trump's foreign policy is about not having a foreign policy. it leans in the direction of minimalism, isolationism, unilateralism. he wants to get out of afghanistan. so it's hard for me to see him wanting to get into anything big. something small, though, he wouldn't mind and the two possibilities i would think, john, one would be iran. the possibility of u.s. and iranian slips colliding in the persian gulf, an iranian-backed militia attack u.s. forces in iraq, maybe something with the nuclear agreement or possibly china. china, they sunk a vietnamese boat. they're buzzing dtaiwan. could that lead into an incident which would feed into his anti-china strategy?

but be careful what you wish for. something like that could quickly escalate and get out of hand and i don't think that is what the country needs at a time we're dealing with everything from covid-19 to divisions over race to tens of millions of unemployed. >> rick single, let me ask you a question in the other direction. what happens if joe biden is elected president? what should his number one priority, his top priority be, his top focus be in terms of a specific country or alliance on january 20th, 2021? >> well, i think the first thing he has to do, joe, and i'm sure we all agree with this is kind of heal the breach, to kind of heal the country spiritually, to heal the country economically, to heal the country in terms of inequities and racial justice. just the kind of moral resonance of joe biden is what the country needs after the kind of criminal

activity of a president who has violated every norm. so i mean, his mere presence will do a lot just to move the country forward. but going abroad, i think he has to look at iran and think about how to kind of reup the iran deal. the iran deal made us safer. every day we are getting less safe because iran is putting back together its nuclear capacity. i think one of the first things he should do is go back into the paris climate accord, which trump got us out of, which makes us an international pariah. and i think he has to make some kind of agreement with vladimir putin to kind of stop russia from continuing to invade and infect our country. i mean, i wrote a new forward to my book about how much domestic disinformation is greater than foreign disinformation, but the russians will be trying to work this election exactly like they

did in 2016. they have a lot of learning and barack obama said to them, stay out. joe biden has to tell them to stay out, as well. >> rick single, thank you so much. we'll be looking for the new paperwork edition of your book, information wars. and richard haas, new book, "the world a brief introduction." richard, thank you, as well. up next, the stark differences between the two presidential contenders when it come to addressing the nation. we'll kick off the hour with an illustration of that divide right now. so i want every single american to know, if you're sick, if you're struggling, if you're worried about how you're going to get through day, i will not abandon you. i will not leave you to face these challenges alone. and we're going to get through this together. >> what do you say to americans

watching you right now who are scared? >> i say that you're a terrible reporter. that's what i say. i think that's a very nasty question and i think it's a very bad signal that you're putting out to the american people. >> well, that's a contrast. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, june 26th. with us, we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lamere, pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" eugene robinson and donnie deutsch is with us, as well, on this friday morning. and we have another slate of new polls to show you this morning on the heels of the ones we showed you yesterday showing joe biden with sizable leads in six battleground states that trump won in 2016. this morning, we have numbers from four more key states, including battleground florida where biden is up nine and deep,

red georgia and texas which look quite purple right now. >> yeah. you see the opening statement. and donnie deutsch, joe biden showing empathy, which, of course, joe biden is better than just about anybody on the political stage showing empathy for good reason. he's the tragedy that he's endured in his life. and then you have donald trump who is asked what -- you know, what should he say to people that are scared. and he attacks the reporter and says you're a bad reporter. he can't do it. b but, donnie, i'm going start this friday morning -- and i hope everybody has had a good week -- i'm going to start this friday morning with just asking the question again, does this guy want to be elected, re-elected president of the united states? does he want to be there? i don't -- i -- there's nothing

logical, i understand, about how donald trump acts, but he did know in 2016 when to be quiet, how to operate to at least keep himself in the game. he is not acting that way now. we're going to be talking about how he's trying to abolish the affordable care act. at the height of the rise in pandemic deaths, at a time when americans are more scared of their health care. he's stopping funding. even ted cruz and john cornyn are writing him a letter telling him he can't do that as the texas governor is telling texas residents stay at home. this is getting worse. it's getting worse in arizona. it's getting worse in florida. this guy that you and i have known for many years, he's -- not only is he not acting like

he doesn't want to get re-elected, he's acting like he really wants to lose badly and take the republican party down with him. none of this would make sense in the conventional sense. but you look at every single move he's making. he's on the 25% of a 75/25 issue and it keeps happening every day. >> yeah. i mean, last night in a sham of a town hall with shawn hannity, he was a big proponent of stop and frisk. if there is anybody that can be so tone deaf to what's going on in this country right now -- >> you've got to be kidding me. >> yeah. i mean, you go, this is -- he just -- and joe, you said something last week that caught me that was somebody you said that was a high level insider in the white house. he thinks there's a chance that, you know, august, he's way behind, that trump drops the mike and says, i'm not doing this any more. i don't think that's going to happen, but you start to look at

all of these bread crumbs he's leaving behind. and you go, does this guy want to be? so you go, what does he do at this point if he wants to be elected president. does he shift? does he all of a sudden come out and say, you know, let's all start wearing masks, this is a big problem with corona, let's all get together and kumbaya with race relations. and you go, can he even do that? his brand is so entrenched at this point. the one thing you have to give this guy is he's creating an authentic brand and he's been consistent. is it even feasible for him? if he could do it, stand up there and he's so baked at this point. he is so baked in. i don't even know how he makes a move. >> but that is not the point, though, mika. he's depleting in the polls as a precipitous rate. he knows and his campaign knows and republican senators know and

republican house members know and local republican officials who are running for office know what to do if they want to stop the partnership tuesday slide in the polls. they can look at republican mike dewine with a 75% approval rating. they can look at other -- they can look at charlie baker in massachusetts. they can look. they know what to do. mika, i'm telling you, this looks like a deliberate attempt to drive his campaign into the ground every day. he knows what he's doing is going to lower the poll numbers and they are. they are collapsing every day. >> so, you know, he can't do what donnie was proposing which is a last minute pivot, but maybe someone else could. he doesn't want four more years. that's clear. you can tell by his behavior. his attitude towards the health of the american people, he

doesn't want to be there. but what is the potential? because he also doesn't like losing. >> well, i had somebody, again, as i said last week that is in his inner circle that has told me for three years, that donald trump fears losing. >> yeah. >> a lot more than he cares about winning. and this person said for some time, if it became obvious to him that he was going to lose, he would do an lbj and get out of the race. now, there is nobody, and we have a lot of news to get to. there is nobody on the planet that i have heard that is suggesting anything other than donald trump is running for re-election and he is going to be there until the very end. i am just saying this is not a guy who is acting like he expects to be around on january

21st, 2021 in the white house. and he is acting like he's setting everything on fire before he leaves. and i am only saying this. nobody else is saying it. but i could see, as a possibility, even a slight possibility, that this guy in august says what peggy noonan wrote a couple of weeks ago. listen, i gave you the best economy ever. and the press has been lying about me for years. thooefk investigating me for years. despite that, i did a great job. you guys do not deserve me. i am going to do what lbj did and i'm going leave. that way, the only political race he has that people will judge him on politically is one of the great political upsets of all time. he and harry truman in '48 and he can walk away without a loss where right now, if the election

were held today, joe biden would likely win by -- get 375 possibly even 400 electoral votes. donald trump does not want to carry that around the rest of his life. he wants to carry around the fact that he scored one of the greatest political upsets of all time. he's known when to leave the stage before. again, i am the only one saying this. i would not be surprised if he left the stage again. and, again, i'm the only person saying it. don't think it will happen, but it's a possibility. >> up next, the details behind the trump administration's call for the supreme court to strike down obama care amid a pandemic. you're watching "morning joe." . you're watching "morning joe." cancer won't wait.

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the big news overnight came by the trump administration to strike down obama care in the middle of a pandemic amid the surge in report unemployment. the justice department breach asking the supreme court to overturn the affordable care act. the move came on the same day the government reported that nearly 500,000 people who lost health insurance during the coronavirus shutdown enrolled in coverage through healthcare.gov, a 46% increase from the same time last year. the legal brief makes no mention of the virus. back in 2017, congress eliminated the penalties that enforce the individual mandate. that was followed by a lawsuit from a coalition of republican attorneys general led by the state of texas arguing that the entire law must be struck down,

including popular protections for those with pre-existing conditions. joe biden, anticipating the trump administration's filing in support of this case had this to say at an event in pennsylvania yesterday. >> perhaps most cruelly of all, if donald trump has his way, those who have complications from covid-19 can become the new pre-existing conditions. and if donald trump prevails in court, insurers would be able to jack up premiums simply because of the battle they survived while fighting the coronavirus. mr. president, drop the lawsuit. stop trying to get rid of the affordable care act. stop taking away people's health care and their peace of mind.

now more than ever, stop trying to steal their peace of mind. i cannot comprehend the cruelty that is driving him to inflict this pain on the very people he's supposed to serve. >> and there we go. we'll get to jonathan in a second to report on this. but you tell me, gene, what man or woman what wants to be re-elected president of the united states decides that he's going to choose this time in the middle of a pandemic that has killed 125,000 americans, who will likely kill 150 or more by the time of the election, to actually cut work to try to take away health care for millions of americans in a program that is

actually very popular now. and at the same time, work to defund testing for states like texas, arizona, and florida and even get ted cruz and john cornyn writing letters saying, mr. president, now is not the time to defund testing. as houston's top health care official said this would be catastrophic. yet donald trump is doing it. can you explain it? make you can explain it better than me. >> it's incomprehensible. if he does want to be re-elected, it is the stupidest possible way to try to go about it. so look what he's doing. eat putting it republican party, you know, on the side of taking

away health care of millions americans in the midst of a pandemic. he's putting the republican party firmly on the side of structural racism and specific racism. the term kung flu and the idea that all the protesters protesting police violence are thugs. he's putting the republican party not just on the wrong side of history, in issue after issue after issue, but on the wrong side of this election. and you see it in every poll. take the suite of polls we've seen over the last month, especially the accelerating decline over the last couple of weeks. he's trying to drag his party down to a historic defeat where

it loses not just the white house, but loses the senate, los loses ledgit lafb seats and republicans are going along with it. they're writing letters, please, mr. president, don't toy away our testing for covid. but they better start speaking out and they better do something. because if they don't, i mean, this is -- we're getting into going off the the cliff. >>. >> john texted me and talked about how "the wall street journal" editorial page taking donald trump to task saying mr. trump's base will never leave, but the swing voters have fallen

away in the last month. this includes those who took a risk of him to shake things up. now millions of americans are deciding four more years are more risk than they can stand. as of now, mr. trump has no second term agenda or even a message beyond four more years of himself. his recent events were done nated by special grievances. and then they go on to say perhaps mr. trump lacks the self-awareness and the discipline to make his case. jonathan lamere, donald trump is looking at issues that are 75/25 issues and he's consistently every day jumping on the side that 25% of americans support and 75% of americans oppose.

stopping federal funding of testing in states like texas and arizona and florida? and now saying he's going to gut the affordable care act? all of those things damage him with working class americans, with suburban americans, with black americans, with hispanic -- you name it, again, he's chosen an extraordinarily unpopular position to take. >> you mentioned his lack of second term agenda. he was asked that question in a friendly interview last night and he didn't have an answer. what the president and his advisers have done, we look at the battleground state polls, it's not working. their trat city is go double and triple down on the base.

the effort to repeal obamacare was part of this. it's a 2016 campaign promise. it's not come to be just yet. we've seen a renewal of trying to focus on cultural or deeply conservative issues in his mind. the confederate monuments, the trip to the border wall this week in arizona. i was part of that trip when he went and noted the new construction there. and what his advisers are doing are making this set, and it's undeniably a risky one. they view, they think, about 40% of the country really likes donald trump. they feel like the other 60%, there is not a lot to do to persuade them at this point. so their plan is, they believe that that 40%, again, their estimate of the country that really likes him, and his goal is to turn them out, to give them things to be excited about,

to be enthusiastic about. so in november they'll turn out, they hope, at a higher rate than the 60% or so who doesn't like them. so they think they can get more of those people to turn out but what we're seeing here in recent weeks, his standing is slipping. not just nationally, but in those key battleground states. .and it's not necessarily enthusiasm for biden, but enthusiasm against trump.and it enthusiasm for biden, but enthusiasm against trump. they don't think they can change people's opinions of trump, and that is why they're focussing on trying to please his base and trying to drive up joe biden's negatives. coming up, we'll check in on the surge of new coronavirus

cases across the nation. dr. lena wynn joins the conversation, just ahead on "morning joe." n joins the conversation, just ahead on "morning joe."

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as the president has been discussing the coronavirus, he's been calling it the kung flu. >> do you think that's the most

pressing issue you have about the coronavirus? >> think about that. >> i'm thinking about why that is your most pressing issue about the question. you're concerned about somebody and the way they name it. that's appalling to me. you know what? i think we should all focus, learn more about this disease, and stop this virus. but every time i've come here, you've always had those type of questions. it's interesting to me if that is what your viewers care about. you know what my constituents care most about? their safety and their health. and if you want you to debate what is it call and what it's note, that's not what they're interested in debating. >> house leader kevin mccarthy asking about the repeateded use

of a term of the coronavirus.d of a term of the coronavirus. uf a term of the coronavirus. with alabama's rural black belt region being the hardest hit. while the 17 counties that make up the black belt is home to just 11% of alabama's population, it accounts for 27% of all confirmed coronavirus cases as of yesterday. a quarter of all deaths in the state have been black belt residents. joining us now, democratic congressman terry suewell. also with us, jonathan capeheart. good to have you both. congresswoman sewell, let's start with your district. and how your district is faring

with the coronavirus. then your analysis of this president's leadership in trying to guide this country overall through this pandemic. >> mika, my district has been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. i represent the black belt of alabama as well as the cities of birmingham, montgomery and tuscaloosa. and the reality is that african-americans in alabama make up 26% of the population, but we make up almost 40% of the confirmed cases and close to 43% of the deaths. so it's simply unacceptable to reopen the economy and assume that healthy economies don't need healthy people. the reality is that we opened too soon. i have been using my platform and my voice to amplify the need to be our own public health advocates. it is unsafe. it is safer for us to be at home if we can and we should use

every precaution when we go out in public. i have been really disappointed in our governor leadership. there has been no national strategy to fight coronavirus and we are seeing black lives are more at stake during this pandemic and we have to do something about that. so i think it's important that our local leaders have done a great job of passing ordinances in those cities to provide facial coverings and to do all they can to save lives. i really, really hope that we can not just put a pause on this, but seeing the number and the rise in the state of alabama, he need to make sure we are doing everything we can to mitigate the risks. >> jonathan capeheart has the next question. jonathan. >> congresswoman, great to see

you. >> great to see you. >> for folks who don't know, your district is a historic district within the country, but also within alabama. it's selma. so what i'm wondering is what are you hearing from your constituents? you said there's no national leadership, you're disappointed with the state leadership. what are your constituents staying to you about the vie are u virus? >> i feel like the bulk of my constituents are quite concerned and the fact that contact tracing hasn't begun in the state of alabama. we are still in the midst of this pandemic and will be so until we find a vaccine and therapeutic treatments. so the big concern for a lot of my constituents now is as we're relaxing the standards in the

state of alabama and we're seeing this national daily high not only in the state of alabama but across the southern states, texas and florida and other states are similarly seeing increases, they want to know they have access to test, they have availability for masks and that their elected officials have their best interested at heart. this is about saving lives and i think nothing is more important than that. i represent my hometown of salma, alabama. my district is quite concerned with the civil unrest in the streets. yesterday also was the 7th anniversary of the shelby versus holder decision and we've seen nothing if not an increase in voter suppression since the shelby decision. so folks in my district are interested not only in saving

their own lives, but making sure they have a fundamental right to vote in the districts coming up. our seniors and ur disabilities, yesterday the 11th circuit actually affirmed that lower court decision. it's only for three counties. why only three counties? we know all alabamans are safer voting absentee. we should be reducing the restrictions during this pandemic while exercising our right to vote. >> jonathan lamere. >> congresswoman, with the number of coronavirus infections surging in alabama, i wanted to ask you about two things.

both for your district and for the state as a whole. and the answers i recognize will be different from where you represent versus the entire state. tell us where you are about hospital capacity, particularly about the icus. but secondly, on mask wearing, are your constituents seeing an ek totally, are they wearing masks? what about the rest of the state? we know the president has politicized this issue. what are you seeing about masks? >> first of all, you are absolutely right. we are most concerned about the rise of hospitalization and the use of icu beds. we have seen over the state of alabama, our state public health official has said he thinks we're under control in the whole state. but in my district, we've seen a huge increase in hospitalization and usages of icu beds. i've been very proud of my local officials, my city mayors have

really been calling the alarm on this. and i'm here today to also really raise awareness that alabama, especially in our at risk population, my district is 6 61% african-american. the cities of montgomery, selma, huge populations. and we have to take this seriously. i am seeing folks in my district wearing their masks. i see leadership from my churches. the pasters are insisting that they're still slowly opening the church up. i see drive by church services in my district. and so we're taking it seriously in my district. we need the state to take it seriously, as well. i think what we lacked in state and federal leadership, we are more than making up for it in local leadership and i'm proud of that and want to encourage

it. every day i'm on zoom calls and they are saying we have to be our best health he advocate here and still understand that we're safer at home if we can. so many in my district is filled with front line workers, our grocery stores and delivery drivers, they haven't had a chance to break. they have to take this seriously and they're doing so. but we need encouragement from our nation. you know, we came back two weeks ago and passed the heros act. until we find a cure, a vaccine for this virus, we have to be vigilant in making sure we are practicing social distancing and following health guidelines and i am just -- i just want to reiterate how important that is, especially since we don't have a vaccine and we're hearing that we may not have one until the beginning of the year.

>> congresswoman, we talked about voting rights. there is a move across the country to take down monuments or change names to monument that don't represent the right side of history. tell us what you are hoping to do in your district. >> i think we've seen 25 days plus of daily protests on the streets of america and across this nation. it's been a beautiful mosaic of black and white, all colors as well as all intergenerational and age. and i think sthis is a moment i time that we need to be unequivocal about confederate memorials. it's unacceptable. when we think about why these memorials went up, they went up as a form of honoring and glorifying white southern supremacy and it has no place in our dialogue. let's be very clear. what the moment calls for is action. it is changing laws and doing

things to bring about change. but we have to get rid of the easy stuff first. i think in order to get to the substantive changes, we have to be willing to recognize that these symbols of white supremacy need to come down. everything is t table. i also want to reiterate having grown up in alabama, that these decisions have to be localized and made by those communities. but i also know leadership from the top is necessary. and the fact that this president is doubling down on confederate monuments and doubling down on racist comments, even calling the coronavirus kung -- racist terminology is unacceptable. we need national leadership and

in void of national leadership, those of us who represents states and districts like mine must speak up and speak out and be unequivocal in our condemnation of confederate namings and it's important that we start in the south, important that we all be on the same page in this and listen to local leaders. >> congresswoman, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. best of luck to you. and up next, the white house coronavirus task force will hold its first meeting in nearly two months later today. but is it too late to stop this latest surge in cases? and as we go to break tomorrow evening, the european commission will present a global broadcast special calling on world leaders to make coronavirus tests and treatment equitable and available for all. hosted by dwayne johnson, the global goal, unite food our future, the concert, will

premier tomorrow night. the event will stream globally. the show ames to draw awareness to the disproportionate impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on marginalized communities. the concert will feature appearances from billy porter, charlise sp charlisetheron and the original cast of hamilton with jimmy fallon and the roots. be sure to catch the global goal, unite for our future, tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. right here on msnbc. night at 8 right here on msnbc. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction

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back now to the latest with the coronavirus. joining us now, emergency physician and public health professor at george washington university, dr. leena wynn. she previously served as

baltimore's health commissioner. great to have you on again. let's bring us back to the very first week of the pandemic when you came on this show and you were one of the first to be unequivocal, this is not a snow day. you can't get around this. this is real. this hockdown needs to happen. we have a president who says the mortality rate is going down. he's pulling back on testing. how would you describe where we are right now, realistically? is it exactly as you described in those first few weeks? >> it's worst. first, we actually know what works. that's tragic. we've seen the experience from our countries and we have the experience from our own country. when we sheltered in mays, when we were able to reduce the person to person tran mission, we did flatten the curve.

now we're choosing to not do it. the other reason that it's worse is we are seeing at the present the escalating numbers all over the country. before it was the new york region hit the hardest. now we're seeing new york style outbreaks happening all throughout the country. there is not the political will to impose these shelter in place orders again. i fear about who this is going to impact the most. it is going to be people of color. it's native americans, african-americans who are going to bear the brunt of the pandemic as they have the entire way. we know what to do. we can limit these mass gatherings down. we can make sure that we get our hospitals up to surge capacity. we can ramp up testing, especially for minority communities. we can be hiring contact tracers who are from these communities that they serve. increasing these isolation capacities, strengthening worker protections because essential workers tend to be people of

colors. there are tangible steps that we can take now and it's tragic that we have not seen our government leaders step up to take these steps. >>. >> dr. wynne, the coverage now of the surge of the cases in texas and arizona and other states reminds me of where we were when new york was going through its up surge in cases. and i'm wondering, are those governments prepared? are they ready? did they use that time when new york was bearing the brunt to get the ppe, to get things in case so when inevitably the surge in cases came their way, they were ready? >> i think hospitals are a lot more prepared than before. and we're not hearing about ppe running out like we did the first time. the problem is, though, that even if these hospitals are as

ready as they can be, there will be a point at which they reach that surge capacity. they only have so many beds. we're seeing in texas that already a children's hospital is seeing adult patients. that should concern us because this is houston. this is one of the great medical areas in the world. and if they are reaching capacity, 96% icu capacity for texas medical center, we should be concerned about what this holds. so it's way past time for to us be doing things like requiring masks for everyone. imagine if we see that there's a medication that can reduce a chance of getting covid-19 by five fold. that's what universal mask wearing is like. we should be doing that and these governments should be doing a lot more to at least encourage people to stay at home, limiting social interactions, even if they're not fully shutting down their economies in these particular areas. >> real quick, zahn thjonathan .

>> for the first time in a long time, the coronavirus task force is briefing the public. they've been meeting occasionally, but this is the first time we're going to hear from them directly in a while. what briefly would you want to hear from them today, from dr. fauci and dr. birx, assuming they're going to be the ones that are allowed to speak? >> i need to hear urgency and i want to hear this national strategy especially because the horse has left the barn. we have so many cases that are unconsiderelble. i want to hear what is that mitigation strategy? are they going to ask everyone to do that shelter in place. what is the strategy to go be and what is the federal government's role not only in saying the words, but making it happen to protect the lives of the american people. >> dr. halloween na wynne, thank you, as always. you've shared some great advice about the five questions to ask

yourself when contemplating summer travel amid this pandemic. every week she gives us five tips on dealing with this pandemic. and we thank you so much for that. and jonathan capeheart, thank you, as well. we'll be listening to the latese speech and spread of misinformation on its platform. verizon has now joined the growing list. the company's chief media officer released a statement writing, wrote, we're pausing our advertising until facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable and is consistent with what we've done with youtube and other partners.

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joining us now, disability rights advocate habben germia. she was the first deaf-blind graduate of harvard law school and named white house champion of change by president barack obama. she also received the helen keller achievement award and was previously honored with a spot on the "forbes" 30 under 30 list. her memoir he titled haben: the deaf-blind woman who conquered harvard law ""is the story how she dealt with adversity whether it due to ray, gender, disability or or mother's own experience as a refugee. and we welcome you to the show. thank you so much for coming on with us and thank you for the wonderful story and interview with did for know your value at knowyourvolume.com. i want to start by asking you

what your concerns are about people with disabilities who want to thrive, who want to reach their goals like you did. in the age of this pandemic with so much unrest in this country, as well as a pandemic with everything being online, how have things changed? >> i have a disability. very rarely is my disability a challenge. often its challenge is in the environment. and right now due to the pandemic, we're receiving greater differences in what disabled people have access to and what mainstream, not disabled people have access to. and that's not right. for example, access to health care. when things moved virtual, a lot of those things, videos, are nonaccessible. deaf individuals needs captions to videos, blind leaders need

access. so it's about reminding people don't forget the disabled. we're here, we're at risk. >> another concern, obviously, is the risk of getting the virus and suffer from it more than others might suffer from it because some people are asymptomatic. some people suffer greatly. there are reasons that disabled people clearly have a higher covid-19 death rate. what are you hearing about that? and what would you like people to know and do? >> so there's different kinds of levels to resources. some people have easy access to grocery services and can ask other people to do groceries for them, which is passing on the risk to other people. and others might not have access to the apps to do those assisted deliveries. or they might depend on personal compare dependents and in some

areas people are not taking the risk seriously. there are a lot of people who don't wear masks, who don't regularly wash their hands and take precautions. so we need to remind people all across the country, wear masks. it's not just about you, it's about the people around you. individuals with disabilities are at greater risk. especially those of us who fit into other categories like woman and people of color. >> you in your personal life have come overenormous challenges and you've had huge success. i was wondering whether -- how that makes you feel personally. does it make you feel very confident? do you have a lot of self-belief because of everything that you've overcome and everything you've achieved? or are there things that still lead you leaving afraid? >> you know, a lot of people say i over use my disability. i'm still deafblind.

disability is not the thing you have to overcome. it's societal low expectations, barriers in the community u. that's what needs to be overcome. so for example, harvard, i was the first deafblind person to graduate from harvard law school. not because i'm the smartest deafblind person. maybe i am, i don't know. but the real reason is because harvard finally changed to create more access for students with disabilities. i'm deafblind. that's not a crime. i don't need to overcome my deafblindness. it's society that needs to overcome ebb evilism. >> the book is "haben: the deafblind woman who conquered harvard law." absolutely unbelievable. thank you very much. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now.

hi, there, i'm stephanie ruhle. it's friday, june 26th. here are the headlines. multiple states the coronavirus has spread to more and more americans across the country. nationwide we saw 41,000 new cases thursday, not as high as before but far above anything in april or may. meantime u. the deaths are about a quarter of what we were seeing two months ago. overall more than 2.4 million contracted the virus in the united states and more than 125,000 lost their lives. on thursday we saw the governors texas, florida, arizona and new mexico announce their state's reopenings will be put on hold while they deal with the growing numbers. and robert redfield said the true number may be twice as hielg as the count. antibody indicates well over 20 million americans may have gotten it at some point. we have all angles covered but we must start with b