from them so far. >> alexi thank you so much. that does it for me on this monday morning i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. the entire thing was offensive. certainly the comment about the whyte power was offensive. we can play politics or we can't. i think it's indefensible we should take it down. >> just another typical weekend for the president of the united states. tweeting out a white power video before later suggesting he didn't know what was on the tape when the words white power were eight seconds in. claiming ignorance on a russian plot to have u.s. troops killed in afghanistan. >> claiming ignorance when everybody else in the government, his security people seemed to know it and even the british were notified. really is the president so addled they didn't tell the president of the united states when we're telling our allies? no.

they're lying and you know they're lying. >> if this isn't the turn, i don't know what it is. >> well -- >> and golfing amid a public health crisis that killed over 125,000 americans and counting. infections are surging with arizona, florida and texas as the latest epicenters. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," it is monday june 29th. with us we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. former chair of the republican national committee now an msnbc political analyst, michael steele. correspondent and host of kasie dc kasie hunt. and the reverent al sharpton, great to have you with us on this monday morning. the u.s. has get erred

intelligence that russia has offered to pay bounties to those who kill americans. the "new york times" first broke the story on friday,s aspects o which have been patched and reported by cnn, "the washington journal," and abc news. according to the times large amounts of american cash at a taliban outpost in afghanistan helped tip off officials. but we have not confirmed the u.s. verified any bounty payments were made. according to intel gleaned from intergraduatiorogation interrogations, "the washington post" reports that the russian bounties are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several u.s. service members. nbc news has not independently confirmed that reporting. two officials tell the times that u.s. intelligence officers

and special ops forces in afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as january to a suspected russian plot. officials developed several potential recourse options for russia, including sanctions, but none have been activated by the trump administration. the paper also reports two officials said the information about the bounty hunting was well known among the intelligence community in afghanistan, including the cia's chief of station and other top officials there, like military commandos hunting the taliban. the information was distributed in intelligence reports, and highlighted in some of them. the assessment was compiled and sent up the chain of command to senior military and intelligence officials. eventually landing at the highest levels of the white house. the paper also reports the administration shared information about the assessment

with the british government, as joe mentioned, whose forces were among those said to have been targeted. the times also reports that president trump was briefed on the findings and the white house's national security council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late march. according to the times, the reporting was described in the president's daily brief, a written summary of high level national security matters. problem there for the president is that it's written. it would be unusual if something like this was verbally said to him. something so explosive. yet a senior administration official tells nbc news that the president was never briefed on the issue because there is no consensus within the intelligence community on these allegations. >> because against again all the reporting and the sourcing and the white house and trump himself denied knowledge of the

russian plot but didn't deny existence of the report. >> yeah. >> national intelligence director john radcliffe also denied late saturday trump had been briefed, but russia and the taliban have, of course, denied the report. >> let's bring in charlie savage, who broke this story. >> thanks for being with us. the "new york times" reporting this was well known among cia and the intel community, caused so much concern we notified our allies in britain and the "new york times" also reporting this was in the president's daily briefing and also the president himself was briefed. is that correct? >> i think also could be the same thing there. what we have at this point and we're continuing to peel back the onion on this. we have one official telling us this was briefed at the highest levels of the white house.

and we have another official telling us it was in the written presidential daily brief document, the written briefing handed to mr. trump. whether or not he read it maybe is another question and we are still trying to figure out what they mean when they say he wasn't briefed, assuming there is a grain of truth to that, which is an assumption we have to proceed with, but we have flagged with a grain of salt. more broadly it's important to recognize the assessment has been confirmed by many other publications with their own sourcing but the administration has not denied this was developed months ago by the intelligence agency, they convened an interagency meeting about it in late march to wrestle with what to do about it. they ordered and commissioned a set of -- a menu of options of responses beginning at the lowest end with telling moscow

we know you're doing this, knock it off, a diplomatic complaint and proceeding up a sliding scale of sanctions and more aggressive steps. and they have not denied that the white house has not authorized any of those steps not even the mere diplomatic complaint. so they seem to have coalesced around a strategy of focussing on the notion that trump was not briefed, whatever that seems to mean and they're not providing granular detail on whether they don't count having it written in materials in his hands if he didn't read it. but notably trump himself seemed to be casting apersians on the intelligence or the existence of it, scacalled it so called or suggested it might be a hoax, like the russia hoax but that goes beyond the communication strategy developed by the people around him. joe?

>> once again, charlie, we have the white house unfortunately having to scramble because the president changes his mind on what lie he wants to pursue -- me saying that not you as a reporter. >> thank you. >> but it's fascinating that at first donald trump said he didn't get the briefing and then he changes his story and starts suggesting that this might be a hoax. and yet, charlie, didn't you say in march this was considered so serious by the intel community that the national security council convened a meeting in late march to figure out how to respond to vladimir putin's russian government putting bounties on the heads of american soldiers and they came up with several options. none of which have been followed through on by this president. so it begs the question, if they didn't think this was -- well,

let me state it another way. if they thought this intel was so damning that they needed to convene interagency meetings so figure out how to respond to the threat, doesn't that suggest right there that, first of all, it was important enough to take to the president of the united states, which, of course, your reporting says they did. and secondly, that donald trump is, once again, undercutting his own intel agencies like he did at helsinki. >> certainly saying "so-called" and saying "everyone has denied this," which means the russians denied this, careys echos of the helsinki summit when president trump said putin had strong denials that russian meddled in the 2016 election which the

american intelligence community said it did. if the that's what you're referring to. building on that for one second, late yesterday, 48 hours into this thing, the administration put out a new claim, which was this was never briefed to the president because there was disagreement. there was not a consensus within the intelligence community that it was real and a senior administration official on team trump putting that out yesterday. and, you know, we'll continue to explore that and dig into it, but our information is contrary to that. we are hearing that actually, there was not push back or a disagreement among the intelligence community that this was real. there were differents a aspects this, different a types of intelligence, signal, and different agencies because of their expertise placed different level of confidence into different types of intelligence

streams. so there were disagreements on a confidence level at different aspects of this complicated thing but that is different than saying people just didn't even agree about whether there was any there there, which is the latest message from the white house. >> okay. thank you so much, charlie. jonathan lemire, the cia station chief in afghanistan knew about it, it was well known by the cia there. it was well known in washington d.c. taken so seriously they convened a meeting at the end of march. it was put in the president's daily briefing. and yet, the president -- president's going back to what he did in helsinki where he's once again undercutting u.s. intel agencies, once again undercutting a cia station chief and the findings they found in afghanistan. and deciding to go with vladimir putin's word that he didn't put

a bounty on american soldier's head instead of his own intel community. the president, again, knew about this, according to the reporting, in late march. here we are in late june and the president still hasn't even brought it up with vladimir putin who he was calling his good friend two months after he was notified of this. two months after he was notified of this. >> it's an extraordinary piece of intelligence, joe. if we're to believe that the president wasn't briefed on this, then that raises a host of questions why he wasn't? was he not trusted with the information or those briefing him afraid of what his reaction would be. but it defied logic that he wouldn't be told about this. you're right, there are echos of helsinki here.

echos of his repeated deferns to vladimir putin. no retaliation, no warning, no stern message sent to moscow. no sanctions, no broadsides at putin since march, since this information came out. there hasn't been anything over the last few days since the story became public, other than denials and an effort by the administration to keep the president out of it. and the president on twitter the last couple days, as you say, sort of denigrating the quality of u.s. intelligence which is what he did in that summit in finland almost exactly two years ago, but it speaks to a broad pattern of deference to vladimir putin. of course, he spoke admireingly of him during the 2016 campaign, he called for russia's help. his relationship to russia was the center of a two year probe let by robert mueller. since then we have seen, even as the administration at times has moved to be tough on russia, the

president himself has been an obstacle to that. he has never wanted to crack down on moscow, condemn putin in some of their lower profile meetings as well. we know they speak on the phone with some frequency. in the last couple months president trump wanted to invite vladimir putin for an expanded g-7 meeting over the objections of the other european countries who were in that group of nations. he wanted to invite vladimir putin to the white house soon after helsinki. this seems to be another moment in a pattern where he simply will not challenge vladimir putin. >> michael steele, that's what makes all of this so consistent with the way he's behaved in the past but also so disturbing. when this first came out, you look at the news, go wait a second, donald trump is in this terrible position because we know he's never going to

criticize vladimir putin for reasons that perhaps you and i will only learn years from now. but we know that. but he's just gotten word -- or he got word in march from his intel agents that vladimir putin is now putting bounty on the heads of young americans and having islamic militants trying to kill young americans to get cash from the russians. that was in late march. and this is what donald trump said on may the 8th, a couple of months later. we have this great friendship. and by the way, getting along with russia is a great thing. getting along with putin and russia is a great thing. that's donald trump after he had in his presidential daily briefing that vladimir putin put bounties on the heads of young american troops. and i just -- michael, does the

white house really expect everybody to be so stupid to believe that -- >> they do. >> -- you have one of the most serious pieces of intel to come across a president's desk at a time he's trying to invite him to the g-7, at a time he's continuing to say that russia's a good friend of his, and they're not going to tell the president? that suggests he's so addled and so mentally deficient they didn't think it was worth their time telling him or that he's a source of the russians and they couldn't trust him. there's no other good explanation why you wouldn't tell the president that the leader of russia is putting bounties on the head of young american troops. >> i will take up that challenge and they they did brief him. i do not believe that something as important and severe as this was left untold to the president

of the united states. what i think is disturbing is his reaction to it once he was told. the fact that there has been nothing done. there has been no rebuke officially from the united states and the fact that the white house, even over the course of the president's tweets still has not denied the underlying intelligence that this is, in fact, what happened and this is, in fact, what we do know. and the reality is, the president tweets this is something to make republicans look bad. no, this is something that makes you look bad because the fact of the matter is, you're the one who's in the focus here. this is not a political issue. this is a bounty placed on the heads of american soldiers. you are the commander in chief, all right. so if this isn't about politics. this is about what you do as a leader of men and women in uniform. who now find out that you are okay with a bounty on their head

by your -- by our adversary. so this is what he's going to have to account for. he can't spin this out. there may be some republicans who will run to his defense, that will be curious to watch. >> no. >> you can't -- >> i can't sigh that. >> come on, now. there has to be a line. kasie hunt, liz cheney has good questions about this. she was tweeting over the weekend. she's one republican who wants to know why weren't the president or vice president briefed? had. >> they were. >> was it in the presidential daily briefing? >> yep. >> who knew and when? what has been done in response to protect our forces and hold putin accountable? what say the republicans at this point, kasie hunt? are they so morally worn down by this president that they will not have the right answer for the united states of america? >> well, mika, we obviously have to put that question to republicans and i think that

third piece of what liz cheney underscores there, what is being done, is a question that, you know, every lawmaker has a duty to answer now that they are aware through the public reporting that this was going on. we're still trying to figure out who, if anyone, in congress knew. why they would have talked to them or not. my colleague, ken dilanian has some reporting that perhaps some were briefed but the ap reporting that briefing is not happening until today. we're trying to nail down the details. but the reality of the story is there's no good answer for the president if he didn't know because his intelligence officials were afraid to bring it up to him and underscore it because they weren't sure if he would approve one of the options they had on the table and the times did report there were various potential options discussed.

that's a theme that's come up in this presidency that he hasn't been willing to take actions presented to him or he's doubted the information underneath it. so perhaps that's part of what happened here. but there is no good explanation. any one of these kind of rabbit holes you go down has its own set of land mines and enormous problems for this president. i think the fact you have liz cheney, who has shown a willingness throughout this administration to push back against the president on matters of national security. liberal democrats don't agree with liz cheney or any other member of her family and that's understating the issue on some of this stuff but there are a lot of republicans who have been in that camp historically. i think this is something that's going to put an incredible amount of pressure on them. and it is one more thing, as, you know, there are so many other issues they have to grapple with with this president and his poll numbers are

falling, the trend lines are terrible for him. and to have this sort of clear cut moral issue that talks about the men and women that are still on the ground in afghanistan fighting for us every day, the president has potentially known about this for months and he does nothing to protect them, that is -- trying to answer those questions and defend this president is a very, very difficult position to be in so if that is going to happen, i think those contortions will be pretty obvious. >> think about that if you're a parent that have a son or a daughter in afghanistan. and the commander in chief has known for months that vladimir putin and the russians have put a bounty on their head, to have them killed by islamic militants and the president of the united states does absolutely nothing about it? and it's considered so serious

that the national security council convenes in march to consider sanctions or at least a diplomatic scolding. and trying to figure out what actions to take. and three months later, no actions have yet to be taken. think about being the father or the mother of a child in afghanistan. or the husband or the wife, the spouse, who's in afghanistan. and this is considered so serious that the cia station chief warned about it in afghanistan. that it was, quote, well known in afghanistan that vladimir putin had put bounties on young

americans' heads for islamic militants to kill them and the president is doing nothing. this is considered so serious by our intelligence agencies that they convene a meeting at the end of march, and we notify -- our government notifies the british government to warn them that there are also bounties on the heads of british soldiers from vladimir putin. and yet, this warning, the white house wants you to believe that despite the fact the cia knew it, despite the fact that the president's own national security council knew it, despite the fact that it was so

serious they convened a meeting in march to consider a range of options to take against the russian government and vladimir putin for putting bounties on the heads of young american troops, despite the fact it was considered so serious they notified the british, think about this. you're being told that they notified the british government, but they didn't even tell the president of the united states. i just ask, how stupid do they think you are? and how low does the president think he can take you, and his

supporters, in supporting a president who was told in a presidential daily briefing months ago, to the man that he called a friend of his in may, was putting bounties on the heads of u.s. troops back in 2019. it is -- it is just mind blowing. mind blowing. and here's the thing. it's all going to come out. the truth is all going to come out. there are going to be people testifying before congress, under oath, they've got the presidential daily briefs. they have the intel. it's all going to come out. so, republican senators pick sides. and there are only two sides to

pick here by the way. there are only two sides to pick here. this isn't about being a democrat or republican, a trump supporter or opponent. you can pick the side of u.s. troops or you can pick the side of vladimir putin. there's really, there's no gray zone here. you can't stick your head under the covers and pretend that donald trump is going to go away. because yes, he is. he's going to get voted out. you think he is. so you think you can -- no, you can't hold on for six months. speak out for our troops today. >> this stain will stay. >> speak out for our troops today. charlie, the report, the latest report from "new york times" is, that information is that u.s. troops, actually with bounties on their head, were actually killed. can you -- is that -- is that "the washington post"? it may have been "the washington post."

tell us where you i're going ne and your team. where you're going next with this reporting. >> that's certainly a place to be drilling down more. yes, the post were the first to say that troops were actually believed to have been killed under this. we had previously reported that bounties had been collected which is 95% of the way there. and we have subsequently confirmed yes, there are several incidents that they have been looking at as part of this process that was going on behind closed doors since the first part of this year in trying to tease out what was going on here and why and what, specifically, manifested. in addition we're still peeling back the onion of how this unravelled and what the intelligence was that led to this assessment in our reporting today we discussed the discovery of a large amount of money at a taliban compound that was raided. it's not unusual to find some

money but apparently an extraordinary amount of american cash which was unusable and raised suspicions that something unusual was going on, so that's another layer to peel back and we have some other threads we're pulling on as well but i will not put those on television until we have nailed it. >> thank you, charlie. >> charlie, incredible reporting. what a story. we want to now get to this, which would have been our lead this morning, president trump's retweet of a video over the weekend showing a man in a golf cart with the trump campaign gear, wearing it, shouting the words, white power. according to the tweet, the video was from a florida retirement community known as the villages and featured residents protesting against each other. the man who is heard shouting white power was responding to protesters yelling racist. the tweet was removed from his feed hours later. in a statement the white house

said trump is, quote, a big fan of the villages but did not hear the one statement made on the video. we'll note back in april when the president retweeted a tweet which included the #firefauci, trump was asked if he noticed the hashtag. >> why did you retweet something that said fire fauci. >> i retweeted what does it matter. >> did you notice that? >> i notice everything, yeah. >> he notices everything. >> reverend al in the video, it opens quickly, it's loud, the words are very clear, the words "white power, yeah, white power," eight seconds in. i guess i could believe the president wouldn't have the attention span to get to the end of the video but this is eight seconds in. your response?

>> it was eight seconds in, you couldn't miss it if you tried. but the overriding factor here is that the whole point of the exchange was one side calling the other racist and the other side saying, white power. so if he did not get the depth of the exchange, then what did he retweet it for? you don't retweet things unless you're trying to project some reason to retweet it. it is obvious on its face that he heard it and he intended to send a signal to his so called base or his assumed base. what is so troubling here, though, is in the midst of this movement around social justice, systemic racism where the president has had political laryngitis in even addressing the issue of systemic racism, addressing what happened with george floyd, he would choose to retweet white power while whites

and blacks are marching all over the country trying to get the country to come to terms with it. he would tweet white power video on a day the state of mississippi is voting to move the confederate emblem from their state flag. he would, on that day, try to somehow feed into the american consciousness through his base supporters that it's already to yell white power. i think the timing of this and the fact that he's the president of the united states is what's so alarming. we expect this from any normal bigot but for the head of state to do this on a day and in a time like this is absolutely ridiculous. >> rev, joe, it just shows the white house response to this, the president's response to this is so obviously a bold-faced lie. it just shows at this point, when we have this incredible

reporting from the "new york times," from charlie savage, about the russian bounties, just how easily it is for this white house and this president to lie and to take no responsibility. >> well, they're going to peel back the onion as it pertains to vladimir putin's bounties on the heads of american troops, that's going to come out. something like this, though, rev, again eight seconds in this long video, it's the first thing you see on the video, a guy shouting white power. >> it's what it's all about. >> in his trump gear. but it's interesting, donald trump only took this down after getting criticized by republican senator tim scott. >> he never even addressed the criticism of -- tim scott went on national television, the only black republican in the u.s. senate and even tim scott could

not defend this and he said it was offensive and it should be taken down and then three hours later, the president takes it down. but again, with all that is going on that the president has not addressed, including boycotting of facebook for talking about postings of hate stuff. the president would retweet this in the face of this. the reason i'm emphasizing the climate from the mississippi vote to facebook to what's going on in the george floyd reaction is because his retweeting this is intentional. this is him firing a shot -- >> of course it is. >> -- back to all of us fighting for another way in this country. it's intentional, it's his statement, it's his saying this is what i think of your movement, this is what i think of you're trying to do in america, and we get the message. we're going to send him a message back. >> jonathan lemire, this is just again, this is in line with what he's been doing over -- well,

you could say the last three and a half years, but especially the month of june, which has been a colossal mess for the white house, for donald trump's political standing starting june 1st when he sent in the riot squad to clear out peaceful protesters, lied about it, held up a bible, and his numbers have been collapsing ever since. now he tweets out, again, a white power video, which is, sure, again to lose some votes not only among black voters but again going to those suburbs going to the swaths of former republican voters that his campaign desperately needs back for him to remain competitive. just put the morality of it all to the side, the racism of it to

the side if you are a trump supporter because you obviously have to put racism aside if you are helping him get re-elected, and look at the fact he has undercut himself and his position and his re-election again at a time when his numbers are going straight down. >> you're right, joe, obviously questions have been swirling prior to june 1st about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic but that's a key day. it's been downhill since then. i've talked to a white house adviser in the last 72 hours or so who pointed out a near daily basis there's been blow back to the president, a lot of it is his own doing, in front of our eyes, that includes the last week or so the debacle that was the tulsa rally. questions remain about his relationship with vladimir putin and bounties on american soldiers and now this video,

which again echos previous moments where he has given at least a nod and a wink, if not more, to very racist sentiments, charlottesville being most famous but there have been plenty of others we can go over time and again. this is going to send a disturbing signal to the suburban voters. the white house and the campaign thought they'd make a play for african-american voters this time around and that seems that ship has more or less sailed. and michael steele, i wanted to go to you with this, the claim is almost preposterous that the president didn't hear this eight seconds into the video. but i want to focus where this happened, the villages is the largest retirement community where senior citizen voters last time voted for president trump at an extraordinary amount he cleaned up there.

it was that strength among that population across the nation but particularly florida that helped him win the election. if he's seeing these large anti-trump demonstrations there that speaks to his standing among seniors but also florida, a state he can't win without. what's your assessment so far? >> that's right, that's why you saw the president do the retweet of this, to send the message out to that senior base that's been with him that yeah we're still in this fight. there's one part where someone said to me this weekend, i just don't think the president was aware. i'm like, dude, the president was more than aware of what he tweeted out. it wasn't hard. it wasn't like he saw the headline and said let me tweet it out. he knows exactly what he's doing. he's trying to find ways to recoalesce this base. it's fractured in places he can't afford to have it

fractured, among seniors, core republicans. he's dropped from 95% to 84%. you're seeing suburban voters move off, independent voters move away. to joe's point and to yours, that steady decline is a hemorrhaging that donald trump cannot afford. if he's competitive in florida, where does he go after that? how does he then hold together the rest of the coalition? that's the internal discussion right now that the campaign is having to deal with. the reality on the ground is that he's hemorrhaging support in some key areas, in some key states and there is no strategy in place to get that back. why? because of now what we see with the russians, what we see with these tweets, the president becomes his own worst political operative. instead of trusting the people around him telling him to stay on this particular message and push these themes, the president goes off, he likes a tweet because it's favorable to him

somebody -- pro-trump, white power, he tweets it out and the rest, as they say, is a you-know-what show. >> he tweets it to 83 million followers, this racism and hate speech flourishes on places like twitter and facebook. and a question we raised on this show last week about facebook. are advertisers going to continue to be okay with this as our democracy is impacted so greatly by hate speech flourishing on their sites. reverend al you were talking a lot yesterday on your show about the facebook advertising boycott. there are multiple advertisers saying, no way. this has to stop. we don't know if this is the turning point for president trump but could it be the turning point for social media? >> i think it will be a turning point for social media. this boycotti i initiated that

we've all joined in is to say you cannot take our consumer dollars and finance hate speech. even though you can argue you have a first amendment right to free speech we have the right to say you will not do it with our dollars and sponsorship. so if you want us to consume your product, you cannot take the profits from our pockets and invest in giving someone a platform to spread bigotry and racism. it's just that simple they have the post what they want and we have the right to withdraw dollars and you will go broke and bankrupt for investing our dollars in something latently that is budgigots and you will identify. derek johnson head of the naacp

and i and others had a meeting in mark zuckerberg's house with him around voting stuff and around these similar types of issues and tried to make him understand what it's doing. we could not get to his head so we will get to his pocket to make him understand you can do it, but you will not be making a profit in doing it. not off of us. >> again, this is the free market, mika, there are a lot of right wingers, not conservatives, there are right wingers that are talking about going in and controlling content on facebook. which, again, it's -- there's nothing conservative about that. all the rev is saying, all i'm saying, is let free market forces decide this. >> right. >> it's mark zuckerberg and cheryl sandberg's platform, they have decided they're going to

turn it over to white supremacists, they're going to allow pizza gate to continue to flourish on there. they decided they're going to promote boog a loo boys. they decided they're going to turn it over to foreign country that is interfere in american democracy. they decide when somebody tells the board that they have turned it over, their website over to the russians that cheryl sandberg is going to scream and yell and get angry because somebody told the truth about russian infestation that they still were having problems with six months a year later. i mean, you know, they can do that if they want. if mark zuckerberg wants to let white supremacists thrive, that's his business. but nobody has to advertise on it. that's called the free market. and one of these days, congress is going to realize that we

stepped over the line in 1996 when we granted them immunity through section 230. because nobody saw this coming. that you would have a company this powerful and a guy worth $85 billion, $85 billion, wanting to get even richer because he wouldn't tamp down on hate speech. wanted to make more than $85 billion because he wanted to let white supremacists on his website. wanted to get even richer because he wanted pizza gate conspiracies to still thrive on his websites. as if shooting up that joint once wasn't enough for mark zuckerberg. they have no controls. no meaningful controls at all. and now, too little too late. too little too late.

what they're trying to do is nothing. if you're a racist, if you're a bigot. if you're -- if you hate black people, if you hate asian people, if you hate jews -- >> if you hate america. >> -- where do you go? if you're a foreign country, if you're china, iran, russia, if you consider yourself an enemy of america and you want to undermine american elections in 2020, where do you go? that guy. he's holding up his hand, come to me. i'll take your money. i'm worth 85 billion but i need more money. i'll take your money. that's where you go. and facebook will not do the right thing. they refuse to. so, congress, you need to strip them of their 230 immunity and go back and rewrite the bill. but americans have the right to

sue facebook. americans should have the right to sue twitter. americans should have the right to sue anyone who causes harm in their life. that's called the free market. enough with this immunity for billionaires. it's outrageous and it needs to end. reverend al, i want to thank you you, derek johnson of the naacp, mr. greenblatt with adl on your show last night, you're fighting the good fight. thank you. >> i think it's important to do it and do it together, to show this is about all of us, blacks, jews, latinos, everyone, saying particularly to advertisers you cannot main stream hate. to have your brand next to this is to give legitimacy to that

and you can't do it with our dollars. it's free market driven and we're saying to the congress you have to deal with 230. we must say what is not acceptable in this country. we don't want to silence you, but we're not going to condone you, main stream you and endorse you that this is proper behavior. >> 100%. reverend al, thank you so much. still ahead on "morning joe," politics and the pandemic. the republican national convention is just weeks away. and it's set to take place in a state with a surging rate of infections. we'll talk to a physician who is calling on local officials to step up safely. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. "morning " we will be right back. you can't predict the future. but a resilient business can be ready for it. a digital foundation from vmware helps you redefine what's possible... now. from the hospital shifting to remote patient care

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it was another record-setting weekend for new cases of coronavirus.

three straight days some of the highest numbers yet. a record 46,000 cases friday, almost 43,000 on saturday and more than 41,000 yesterday. florida, south carolina, nevada, and georgia all reported their highest number of daily cases on saturday with more than 2.5 million cases in the u.s. now reported, and new infections surging, health and human service secretary alex azar issued this warning. >> the window is closing. we have to act and people as individuals have to act responsibly, we need to social distance, we need to wear our face coverings if we're in settings we can't social distance, particularly in the hot zones. >> now several governors are rolling back reopening plans. in texas governor greg abbott

shutdown bars and limited str n restaurant dining amid a spike of cases. in california governor gavin newsom rolled back bars reopening in seven counties, including los angeles. and in florida more beaches closing to stop the spread of the virus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings. one of those large gatherings still scheduled in florida is the republican nationally convention in august, which was just relocated to jackson ville. now over 200 florida daughters have signed an open letter to jacksonvil jacksonville's mayor to at least institute social distancing and mask mandates at the rnc. joining us is one of the doctors who signed the letter, dr. carolyn mcclan han, and

state attorney david berg. what is the risk of the rnc taking place with people not necessarily having to wear masks and all clustered together? i ask this because so far at trump events they have removed stickers to guide people about social distancing and they have clustered people together all chanting and waving their arms in a hot environment, at least two i can think of right now. i think it's possible to conceive they would try to do this again in jacksonville. how dangerous could that be for people as it pertains to the coronavirus? >> this definitely can be a nightmare. one of the problems is, when you get a bunch of people, you can say social distance, but people don't social distance. and one of the problems that has really irked me in jacksonville, is our mayor has not had a mandate for face mask wearing

yet and we need it. our numbers are surging in jacksonville, i work at a free clinic and they are the servers at bars, they are the janitors that will be cleaning up after people. i am so nervous that our cases are just going to surge from all of this. >> dave aaronberg, i'm curious after watching pence's event yesterday, i believe it was in dallas where there was a large choir singing, all standing close together. i know at trump rallies they had people sign a disclaimer saying that the trump campaign can't be held liable if you contract the coronavirus at a trump rally. but what about the rnc in the state of florida, if we get a surge is it truly not the rnc that could be held liable for

violating cdc guidelines, violating science and the advice given from the government about what it takes to stay safe from the coronavirus? >> mika, there could be some civil liability if you can tie a case of coronavirus to that event. although the rnc would probably say, there were a million different reasons why that person contracted coronavirus not our super spreader event. you can rest assured that attendees will be force todd ton the same type of waiver as people in tulsa. dr. carolyn should be commended in writing that letter but i don't think it's going to make a difference when the individuals making the decisions here, the governor and mayor of jacksonville will be taking marching orders from one person alone, president trump, and president trump does not want the convention moved again. he wants it in jacksonville at

the end of august and he doesn't want people forced to wear masks. he doesn't want the world to see a packed convention with his supporters wearing masks because president trump sees that as a sign of weakness and runs counter to his narrative of transitioning no greatness. it's sad when it comes to public health it is now politicized but that's what we have in the year 2020. >> doctor, kasie hunt has a question for you. kasie. >> hi, kasie. >> doctor, good morning. even if every precaution was followed, if every single person in that hall wore a mask, if they were sanitizing everything after every event, taking the extra time, is it at all possible that this would be a safe thing to enter at all? and setting aside, we have seen those pictures from the rallies, the president himself refuses to wear a mask, i'm not saying these things will happen, but is

it even possible to make it safe? >> no. i mean, you're asking for nirvana, for them to act like it's perfect, and it won't be. even with mask wearing, there is a small amount of transition that can occur. and i just am concerned that even if they do all the best things that with that many people, that's a lot of people for even half a percent transmission to occur. so it's not going to work, and it's just crazy. the democrats are planning a totally virtual convention, why can't the republicans do that? i want to be clear here, we don't care which convention it is or whatever. it's, there shouldn't be a convention putting all those people together. >> doctor, thank you very much. dave we'll see you later this week. thank you as well. coming up a federal judge

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in the last year, flag draped coffins have returned from afghanistan.

now we know vladimir putin pays a bounty for the murder of american soldiers. donald trump knows too and does nothing. putin pays the taliban cash to slaughter our men and women in uniform. and trump is silent, weak, controlled. instead of condemnation, he insists russia be treated as our equal. instead of retaliation, he invites putin to america. when trump tells you he stands by the troops, he's right. just not our troops. the lincoln project is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> welcome back to "morning joe," it is monday jb june 29th. with us we have reporter jonathan lemire, author of the

book "a world a brief introduction," richard haas. retired four star u.s. army general and msnbc military analyst barry mccaffrccaffrey. and msnbc news and nbc contributor shana thomas. the u.s. has gathered intelligence that russian intelligence officers have offered to pay bounties to taliban fighters who kill americans, three people briefed on the matter told nbc news. the "new york times" first broke the story on friday, parts of the story have been reported by cnn, "the washington journal," abc news, and the associated press. the recovery of large amounts of american cash at a taliban outpost in after fan helped tip off u.s. officials. but nbc has not verified any

such bounty payments were made. according to information gleaned from captured militants in recent months, "the washington post" reports that the russian bounties are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several u.s. service members. nbc news has not independently confirmed that reporting. two officials tell the times that u.s. intelligence officers and special operations forces in afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as january to a suspected russian plot. officials developed several potential recourse options for russia, including sanctions, but none have been activated by the trump administration. the paper also reports two officials said the information about the bounty hunting was well known. among the intelligence community in afghanistan, including the cia's chief of station and other top officials there, like the

military commandos hunting the taliban, the information was distributed in intelligence reports and highlighted in some of them. the assessment was compiled and sent up the chain of command to senior military and intelligence officials, eventually landing at the highest levels of the white house. the paper also reports the administration shared information about the assessment with the british government whose forces were among those said to have been targeted. the times also reports that president trump was briefed on the findings and the white house's national security council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late march. according to the times the reporting was described in the president's daily brief, a written summary of high level national security matters. it would be unusual if top officials did not verbally brief

the president on something so explosive yet a senior administration official tells nbc news the president was never briefed on this issue because there was no consensus within the intelligence community on these allegations. >> actually, that's ridiculous, because first of all, summarizing what you just read, i was writing it down here, it was well known in afghanistan, including by the cia station chief there that vladimir putin was putting cash bounties on the heads of young americans. there were intel reports. they were in the the president's daily briefing according to the times report. they convened a national security meeting in march. national security council meeting in march to go over the options of how they -- >> how to deal with this -- >> how to respond to vladimir putin and russia putting bounties on the heads of young american troops.

and probably most damning to the president who is lying this morning and saying this is much ado about nothing, it's fake news, throwing his intelligence community again under the bus and the lies are inconsistent saying he was never notified of this. the trump administration was so concerned about this information that they held that national security council meeting at the end of march to figure out what response to take to the government of russia. and get this, this is what the trump administration is telling you this morning, and donald trump is telling you, that the trump administration was so concerned about this information that the trump administration notified great britain. but the trump administration didn't notify donald trump? it doesn't pass any sniff test. and i have a feeling republicans and democrats alike on capitol hill are going to be calling people to the hill to get to the

bottom of this. general mccaffrey, thank you for being with us this morning. we're greatly honored and we greatly appreciate it. give us your take on what you've read so far about this russian plot to kill american troops and america's failure to respond several months later. >> it's simply dumbfounding. the attack on u.s. troops normally results in an nsc determination on what action they're going to take. the obvious immediate action would be to go to the russians and tell them to knock ito off. it's also imperilling mr. trump's own withdrawal policy. i would like to know who in congress was informed, what's the oversight function of congress in this affair. but this bottom line is, the commander in chief of the armed forces, knowing that the

russians were trying to target u.s. forces continue to work on getting him in the g7 instead of protecting the troops. joe, this is an astonishing situation, a failure of leadership of our 2.1 million men and women in the armed forces who are supposed to be able to trust their chain of command. i might add, what did secretary esper, the secretary of defense, know? who did he tell to take what action? it's just an astonishing failure of leadership. >> general, in all of your years in service dealing with civilian leadership, is it possible, based on your decades of knowledge and experience working at the top levels, that a cia station chief, as well as the military community in afghanistan would know that russians are putting bounties on their troops heads, that the

national security council would know about it, they'd be so concerned they'd notify our allies about it, and yet the commander in chief of the united states would not be told about it, would be kept in the dark? >> it's impossible. >> do you see that as any possibility based on your decades of experience? >> i've been in and out of the white house during three administrations, democrat and republicans, there is zero possibility, particularly with mr. trump trying to kedeal with the russians to get them back in the g7 they wouldn't be told we have a problem here, these people are killing our own soldiers. there is zero probability. so the pathetic lying, mr mr. granal saying we didn't tell the president, it's a failure of

leadership in a national apparatus. >> david ignatius, if it weren't credible the cia station chief wouldn't have passed it to the nsc, the nsc wouldn't have had meetings in march trying to figure out what to do about this and wouldn't pass it onto the british government as we have done, certainly. give us your reaction to the shocking story that's come out and the fact that the white house has done nothing about it for three months now. >> joe, based on my reporting trying to confirm the "new york times" excellent story. it's clear in late march you had senior u.s. commanders, senior civilian intelligence officials, in effect pounding on the door of the white house saying we need to do something about this, we need to come to a conclusion about what damage the russian program is doing, we need to reassess our programs in afghanistan.

and they couldn't get an answer. to this day there's not an answer. there's not a real response. was this because the president was briefed and did nothing or because he wasn't briefed because people were afraid to give him bad news and kept it to themselves. i don't know. but it almost doesn't matter in terms of the breakdown in terms of the way the government is supposed to work. in some ways it's almost worse they departmeidn't tell him. mr. president while you're encouraging russia to rejoin the ga, we should mention russia is putting bounties on the heads of american soldiers. if they didn't tell him that, it's a stunner. we know this has become a subject of intense debate within senior members of the military and the cia and they were pushing towards two sides towards the nsc in march for meetings and conversations. i think people are steamed up

about it, there's nothing that would make american commanders angry other than the idea that their soldiers had targets on their back because of the actions thof somebody that the president was still speaking of as a potential ally. with your decades of experience in washington d.c., reporting at the highest level of governments, white house, the highest levels of the intel community, what chance is there that it would be commonly known, among americans in afghanistan, that vladimir putin's russia was putting bounties on the head of american troops that the cia station chief would know about it, so the cia in washington would know about it, the national security council would know about it, they'd be so concerned and call a meeting in

march and based upon your reporting were banging on the president's door, begging him to take action and warn our allies, our closest allies, that there were targets on the heads of their troops as well. and nobody in the white house would tell donald trump? first of all, what are the answe chances of that, and secondly, how badly would that reflect on this president if that were, in fact, the case? i don't know which would be worse. >> i don't know either. let me be clear about my reporting. they were pounding on the door of the white house, of the nsc operation, i don't know if they were pounding on the president's door. that's one of the mysteries here. one of the things that i've watched with this administration is a fear, a growing fear of telling the boss the truth.

because the boss will go nuts. and he'll be angry at you and fire you. we saw this again and again in his interventions in military issues in the case of eddie gallagher, the navy s.e.a.l., the case of the removal of captain crozier, the captain of the theodore roosevelt, the famous photo op at st. john's church, the president goes ballistic if he gets news he doesn't want to hear. i think this may be a situation like that. but what i'm confident of is that as people are trying to establish what happened, and understand this is an intelligence puzzle, they're working off limited information, they want to know were americans killed, how did it happen? i think what upset them most was we were continuing to have a normal dialogue with russia as if nothing had happened. and i think that really bugged people.

>> yeah, jonathan lemire, i'd like you to take to richard haas, but is it possible republicans blow this off? >> it's hard to see that happening, mika. we know it's famous how the republicans, those are on the hill, claimed they didn't see the president's tweet or hear what he said and try to run from it. this is going to be a tough one particularly since the party for so long has tried to be tough on russia. i'll further to david's point there, certainly there is a growing sort of trend within the west wing to not deliver the president bad news for fear of his reaction. most recently when he was told a week or so back that news had gotten out that members of his campaign staff tested positive for the coronavirus. i'm told it was a legendary t

tantr tantrum. that they'd rarely seen him so angry. richard haus we've been talking all morning about how the president has been deferential to vladimir putin, helsinki the most famous example. take the other side of this, talk about where vladimir putin's angle is on this. why would he push for these bounties on american soldiers? in a normal world wouldn't he be fearful of the repercussions from the united states as russia is trying to get back in the g7 and increase its foothold on the world stage or is he so confident there wouldn't be any repercussions from president trump? >> give me 30 seconds to get to that. i spent four years working at the nsc. you wouldn't bring intelligence to the nsc unless you had high confidence of it. the nsc is not an intelligence agency it's a policy-making body. that's the first thing.

obviously there's been sufficient -- that people take it seriously. the array of options people were looking at to simply sanction. i say you go to putin, if no americans had been killed, knock it off. if any american is killed, then russian troops in ukraine or the middle east are going to pay a price. i'd be very direct. putin doesn't want that. the one thing putin doesn't want to have is on russian television, russian troops coming home in body bags. the foreign wars are unpopular, controversial in russia against the backdrop of the economy doing badly, against the backdrop of covid-19. why would he do that, either he thought the united states would not retaliate or this would be the last nail in the coffin to

get the united states out of afghanistan, which we've seen happening anyway with a unilateral withdrawal. but he may have said this is so good, i may have take some risk to this. but i think we should raise the risk and that will get him to backoff. >> you said that putin might have assumed there would be no response to this, that's exactly what's happened according to all reports. they -- the nsc got this information in march, have been looking for policy approaches to respond and the president's -- and the white house has done nothing. general mccaffrey, let me ask you what would the proper response be to learning that vladimir putin is putting bounties on the heads of american troops? >> i think richard pretty much outlined the range of possibilities. look, it would be straightforward. when people target u.s. combat forces we normally try and kill

them. so we should have gotten after the network and the taliban and russian agents in afghanistan almost immediately once we had this kind of information. i think the other thing, as richard points off, there's tons of offset measures we could take in national security to push back on this. it doesn't make any sense. i think poor mr. trump either didn't know because they were afraid to tell him, which i don't believe, i think he knew full well what was going on, he didn't want to jeopardize his angle at getting mr. putin back into the g7, g8, it's a shameful failure of leadership by our president. >> general what should military leaders, the secretary of defense, what should they do today? what should their reaction to all of this news be today?

what would you be doing if you were still a leader in the united states armed forces? >> one of sheer embarrassment, they better be pulling out the records to understand what did they tell the president, what were their determination, what did the commander know and do? what were the rules of engagement? did they change any country to protect our forces? why didn't sent com immediately authorize counter attacks against the taliban and any russian agents involved in this. let's not let congress off the hook either. did they know about this issue and what actions did they take in terms of an oversight function? our government in the national security arena is breaking down. >> general, we thank you so much for your insights. and thank you so much for being on our show this morning.

we greatly, greatly appreciate it. all right. that last thing he said is entirely true. we are watching this happen before our eyes. the question will be, if the republicans can step up -- >> well -- >> yeah -- >> the general brings up great points. what did they do in the field? how did they change the terms of engagement in the field? what -- who knew what on capitol hill? when did they know it? >> are we witnessing the collapse of our systems all for the sake of trump? >> well, there are reports out there that are written that congress needs to get -- that congress needs to get to the bottom of this and figure out who knew what and when they did it and what did they do to protect u.s. troops and why, as richard -- richard, i want you to underline. we're going to another story but before we do, i want you to

underline again the fact that if if it gets to the nsc, the debate over whether it's good intel or not is over. the nsc is not comprised of some intel judges or philosopher kings who scratch their head and try to figure out whether it's true or not. when it gets to the nsc, they have decided that the intelligence is good, now they need to figure out the policy and how to act on it, right? >> 100%. that's why the director of national intelligence was created. that's why the director of the cia had a separate hat. the idea was to come up with a coordinated intelligence position. present it to policy makers and say, here's our intelligence, here's our confidence in it, over to you and then you would discuss what we do in terms of sanctions, targeting the

taliban, in terms of telling the taliban, look, this goes ahead, the negotiations are off, what have you. that would be the men ewe u of options. that's what the nsc does, gets the intel and acts on it. this is an indictment of the new national security adviser, mr. o'brien, what did he do with this? what options were presented to the president, if not, why not? . >> this has to matter. richard haass, thank you very much. >> the book is "the world a brief introduction". >> might be learning more. now to the president's retweet of a video over the weekend showing a man in a golf cart with the trump campaign gear shouting the words white power. according to the tweet it was from a florida retirement community known as the villages. the man who was heard shouting

white power was responding to protesters yelling racist. the tweet was removed from his feed hours later. and in a statement the white house said trump is, quote, a big fan of the villages but didn't hear the one statement made on the video. >> the statement was at the beginning of the video. >> want to get shana thomas' take on this. also joining us, curt bar della. a "morning joe" contributor. shana, i'll start with you, it's just -- i'm not going say it, it's not possible he didn't hear those words. it is beyond disgusting. he retweeted that. but given where we are at this moment in this country with all the racial unrest we're seeing, what are the potential ramifications of this being tweeted to president trump's 83 million followers? >> i mean, i -- you know what, i don't know if he saw it, i don't know if he saw it and saw the

villages and saw trump signs and was like, people like me. but it -- at the very least someone on his team had the wherewithal to actually delete a tweet from his feed but him tweeting to his 83 million followers, the thing is, does it change your mind about president trump? does it change anyone else's mind? if what he is trying to do is win an election, i know joe has started to think maybe he doesn't even really want to win this election -- but if what he's trying to do is win an election, you need to gather votes. he is losing in battleground states. yes, the election is four months away. we take polling with a grain of salt, that's fine. you are not going to build up a coalition of people in america who want to vote for you if you're tweeting something where someone is yelling white power. especially in the situation we're in. we are trying -- the president aside trying to have a national

conversation about race in this country, this inflames tensions, but overall from a political standpoint, how does this make people vote for you. maybe it shores up some of your base, maybe not even all of your base, maybe it shores up some of your base to put this out in the world and distract and do what the president does sometimes but i don't know how you make your polling numbers better, what you put up on the screen there. >> this is what we've been talk about for some time, of course this is going to be offensive to black americans. but donald trump in thinking i'm going to somehow solidify my base, if you look at the numbers and see where he's lost support over the past several months, it's not just black voters he's loo losing, which is significant enough when the campaign team said they were going to thread the needle and win this year with 15, 20% of the black vote. but you chase off suburban

voters that the trump campaign is desperate to get back because they understand they can't win without getting those voters back. you chase off asian-americans, once a consistent voting block that's gone more democratic over the past several years. so you chase off asian-americans. you chase off hispanics. you chase off the college-educated white voters breaking away from the republican party in droves since donald trump became president and you go back to 2018 and you've written about this. donald trump tried racism in 2018 to solidify the base, right, in an off year election where off year elections are always older and wider and more conservative. it didn't work in 2018 when he kept spreading the lies about the caravans of hispanics, of brown people, coming up with

lepro si. it didn't work. him sending troops to the border. him trying to get people whipped up into a racist frenzy, ended up backfiring. and donald trump's republican party lost the midterm elections by historic numbers, the greatest vote loss in the history of this republic in a midterm election. it didn't work then and it's not working now. so i ask, why is this guy doing this if he wants to get re-elected? >> well, i think you're seeing, joe, this is like a team that's tanking on purpose almost because they're not up to the job, they don't want the job anymore, it's not fun for him anymore. time and again we've seen, when someone reveals who they are, it's best to believe them. this is the same guy who mockingly refers to the coronavirus as the kung flu

virus, speaking as an asian america that's racist by the way, we saw in 2016, for all the talk about the 2016 election, it seems as if republicans have amnesia that there was a 2018 midterms, trumps was using the politics of race and divisiveness and scare tactics like the caravan at the voters, to scare people into voting for republicans. they lost in places they never lost before, places like orange county in southern california, they got annihilated and in 2018 there was no coronavirus, the economy wasn't on the brink of collapse. there weren't questions about the national security credentials of the president. as he's turning his back on american troops being targeted by russia. none of that in 2018 and the republicans still absorbed catastrophic losses. at some point you have to ask when are republicans in congress going to get it that trump, he's

already gone. he's given up, he's not going to win. he doesn't care about them, there's no loyalty there. are they going to stay with him, go down with the ship or wake up and realize the best thing they can do for their own self-interest is to cut loose of this while they can. if they stay with this you're going to see a situation where the republicans are forever affixed to donald trump, the republican party will not recover from this. a generation of voters will never look past the fact they stood by donald trump while these things were going on, people are dying from the virus, he's ignoring this, ignoring our troops, this is could be a wipe out that the republican party may not recover. >> curt, thank you. we appreciate having you on. let me follow up on that, david ignatius. charlie yesterday tweeted out he was hearing from sources close

to donald trump that for the first time there's a suggestion that donald trump may decide to take lbj's route and not run for reelection. gop operatives are for the first time raising the possibility that real donald trump could drop out of the race if his poll numbers don't rebound. over the weekend i spoke to a sample of major players, one described trump's psyche as fragile. charlie has good contacts with not only administration but also contributors to the administration. we've been hearing for the first time republicans are starting to talk on capitol hill about the possibility that they cannot follow this man into the abyss much longer because they see the poll numbers and understand how badly things are going for them. first of all, i'll ask you, have you heard anything from gop operatives that he may be considering not running again,

or anything else from republican sources? and where does the republican party go from here? >> joe, i haven't been hearing that trump may throw in the towel. i have to say that would be uncharacteristic from him from everything we know about him. but you do see some key republicans, ed rawlines, carl rove, saying if he continues under the direction he's going, he's going to lose. being straightforward and emphatic. i think the audience for these comments is gop members of the sp senate. because i think the senate now increasingly is in play. if there's one thing i know watching the republicans, it's the power of raw self-interest. even mitch mcconnell, if he feels that the republican ability to maintain control of

the senate is hostage to this increasingly erratic president, i think it's possible that he'd begin to distance the party from trump. how trump would react to that, it's hard to predict. trump still has this idea that a base that let's guess at best 30%, can get him elected and can carry with that 30% base a republican senate it ain't so. the numbers don't work that way and i think it's becoming clearer and clearer to operatives who work in campaigns, they're advising people running for the senate and house seats you have problems. you have to distance yourself. the decision of mike pence to start wearing a mask last night. that tells you something basic about politics. it's a public health message sure but it's a political message and all that stuff we've been pushing is making the american people angry and we have to stop. i think you'll see some other examples of that.

this is -- to close it out, this issue of russian bounties to kill american service men and women in afghanistan on their way out as they try to negotiate a peace agreement that's not going to sit well with republican members of congress. you heard it from liz cheney, she's made and there's a dozen more people as mad as she is. it's hard for trump to manage this, and he's going to have to give answer and distance himself from positions he's taken. >> david ignatius, thanks a lot. >> thank you, david. mika, you saw the picture, of course -- speaking of liz cheney, of vice president cheney wearing a mask. >> real men wear masks. >> a great image. >> that was wonderful. still ahead on "morning joe," does trump's re-election hinge on getting voters to hate joe biden? mrk mcginnen is writing about that and he joins us next on

"morning joe." >> let's be honest about it the president is behind today. the national polls suggest he's behind the it's now close to 9 points, six weeks ago it was 5. these things happen in campaigns. the question is not where are the polls today but what does the president need to do in order to regain the advantage? n order to regain the advantage? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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on the campaign, it really does sound, though, like you're saying do as we say not as we do. telling people to listen to local officials but in tulsa you defied local health officials to have an event that dozens of secret service agents and staffers are quarantined after positive tests. in arizona one of the hardest hit states you packed a church with young people who weren't wearing masks. how can you say that the campaign is not part of the problem that dr. fauci laid out? >> well, i want to remind you again that freedom of speech and

the right to peacefully assemble is enshrined in the constitution of the united states. even in a health crisis, the american people don't forfeit our constitutional rights. and working with state officials, as we did in oklahoma and as we did in arizona, we're creating settings where people can choose to participate in the political process. and we'll continue to do that. i think it's really important that we recognize how important -- how important freedom and personal responsibility are to this entire equation. >> vice president mike pence pressed at friday's coronavirus task force meeting by cbs reporter paula reid, citing the rampant spread of coronavirus in two facilities a federal judge

in california ordered that immigrant children must be released from detention centers due to covid-19. the order applies to 124 children who've been held with their parents for more than 20 days in centers run by immigration and customs enforcement, or i.c.e. there are two such centers in texas and one in pennsylvania. let's bring in nbc news correspondent julia ainsley. tell us exactly what will happen, julia, as these people are released, and does it apply to more that are potentially coming through? how does this change the entire process? >> well, mika, i wish it was necessarily good news for these children but right now it's up in the air as to how the government will respond. the judge in this case can only rule on children. that's been her jurisdiction because of a settlement she first started in the '90s. now these children will be

ordered to be released by july 17th but the government has to decide if they're releasing them with their parents or without. the judge gave them the july 17th deadline because she has ruled that month after month since the coronavirus began that these children need to be released but so far the government has found ways not to comply. one way they did, we reported on this last month, they gave parents a form that said you can release your child to someone and you can stay here, so they had a choice of staying with them or releasing the child. they took it to the judge and said the parents decided to stay with their children. she said that's not enough. the children need to be released. some of the children have been there as much as six months because these families have federal stays from courts that says they cannot be deported and the government is holding onto them until that stay might be

lifted. in the meantime, the judge says you must release the children. the question is whether or not the government will release them with their parents or go back to a policy of family separation that the president said he would never repeat again two years ago. >> that sounds exactly like what you're describing, if these children are released without their parents, they're going to be separated and where would they go? >> that's the big question. one thing interesting in the judge's order, she pointed to a federal judge in d.c. who does have jurisdiction over the parents. she said the children could be released with their parents or without or another court, really pointing to d.c., could decide what to do with the parents. so if that d.c. judge decides that the parents need to be release as well, that could happen. i should also point out that we are just now hearing about cases in these family detention centers, there are 11 cases in one of the centers in texas that you mentioned that the pandemic

has been spreading through wider i.c.e. facilities for some time now. jacob soboroff and i reported on cases spiking in arizona and watching what's happening in the federal prison population is unsurprisingly so happening in i.c.e. detention. so the lawyers are saying the children need to be released. other lawyers are advocating for other immigrants caught in the system. but the government says they've released as many as they can and these people need to be held. it's a hard case to be made when you're talking about families and children but this is their policy they would hold people until they're deported, even if it means defying a judge's order. and that's what we'll be watching for. >> julia ainsley, thank you very much for coming on this morning with your reporting. joining us now former adviser to george w. push and creator and executive producer of "the

circ circus". mark mcginnen. he has a new piece out "trump's re-election may be pressed on getting people to hate biden". i think that's a hard ask, getting people to hate joe biden. he's been serving in washington for decades and universally likable. not a lot has stuck to him and a lot has been thrown at him over the past two years. what are they planning and why would this be the strategy when he doesn't really have the issues, let's put it this way, that someone like hillary clinton had? >> exactly, right, mika. that's the challenge. and that's why you see the frustration in the campaign and just this week talking about changing the nickname trump has for biden. they're frustrated, and here's why, in 2016, the double haters as i call them, were a significant amount of the electorate. because donald trump and hillary clinton were the two most

unpopular nominees in presidential history and 20% of the electorate didn't like either candidate but still voted but of those 16% voted for trump. flash forward now, look at that same numbers, the double haters are voting for buy -- biden anywhere from 20 to 60 points. the voters have a history with buy d biden, they know him, they're familiar with him, he doesn't necessarily light their fires but they're comfortable with him. the task that the trump campaign has which is to make biden has unlikable as donald trump and win those double haters is a massive challenge. but i guarantee between now and the election they're going to do everything they can, spend every penny -- don't be surprised if we're hearing hunter biden was patient zero in wuhan and

brought the virus to the united states. that's the things they're going to be grasping for. >> i don't see it. jonathan lemire? >> mark, you're exactly right with the trump campaign's inability to this point to drive joe biden's negatives. they tried everything, china, hunt biden as you say. i want to talk to you about the enthusiasm, the trump campaign over the weekend put out a memo touting their candidate has more enthusiasm than those backing joe biden and that's their theory of the case right now. they know they're down in the polls, they know they don't care so much about the national polls, they're worried about the battleground states but they point to enthusiasm, they suggest 35, 40% of the country likes donald trump and we're passionate about him and will turn out to vote. even though there's a larger part of the country that doesn't like him maybe some of them are more tepid in their support of

joe biden and they're trying to suppress that turnout. what you do take on the enthusiasm argument? we're seeing enthusiasm decline for president trump and rise for joe biden. can it work for this campaign? >> they're grasping at the only straw they have. that's the life support is the support among the core supporters in the republican party and how committed they are about president trump and have been. but those numbers are diminishing from the mid 90s to mid 80s now. i guarantee you, i can't predict with any presentaticision the o of the election, i stopped trying to do that in 2016, but i am confident, i'll bet the house we'll see a historic turnout on both sides. there won't be a problem on the del democratic side at least in

terms of the turnout. >> mark, shana thomas has a question. >> mark, i think it's interesting. i don't know if you saw the president's answer to sean hannity, when sean hannity gave him a lay yaup, what's your sec term agenda and president trump went on a rambling thing. do you think this president and campaign can message biden hate if they cannot effectively message what they're going to do in a second term. and as you know, the second term for a president, this campaign, it's a referendum on president trump, not on joe biden. . how can they effectively message joe biden if they can't effectively message themselves? >> that's a great question. that i think is the greatest problem right now strategically, they don't have a clear rational for a second term. that was shocking to me when hannity asked that question and trump was unable to answer that. that was something locked and loaded like the day after the

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none of which have been followed through on by this president. it begs the question, if they didn't think this was -- let me state it another way. if they thought this intel was so damning, they needed to conduct inner agency meetings to figure out how to respond to the threat, doesn't that suggest right there that, first of all, it was important enough to take to the president of the united states, which, of course, your reporting says they did. secondly, that donald trump is once again undercutting his own intel agencies like he did at helsinki. >> first of all, saying so-called, everyone is denying this, the russians have denied

this, carrying echoes of the helsinki summit where president trump emerged with vladimir putin saying they had strong denials of meddling in the 2016 american election, and says i don't know why it would be them. i think building to that, the leak yesterday, you know, 48 hours into this thing, the administration put out a new claim, this was never briefed to the president because there was disagreement, there was not a consensus within the intelligence community it was real and a senior administration official on team trump that is putting that out yesterday and will continue to explore that and dig into it, but our information is con temporary tr. we're hearing there was not

pushback among the intelligence community. there were different aspects, different types of interrogat n interrogation, and different agencies because of their expertise place different levels of confidence into different types of intelligence streams. there were disagreements on a confidence level on different aspects of this complicated thing. that's very different than saying people didn't agree whether there was any there will, which is the latest message from the white house. >> "new york times" washington correspondent, charlie savage. we'll get reporting from capitol hill, including one republican who is calling the white house on the carpet. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. a new moment in wireless has begun. t-mobile and sprint are joining forces. by bringing together our two networks,

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welcome back to "morning joe." we've been talking about u.s. intelligence that shows russians had tried to bribe taliban fighters to kill u.s. troops in afghanistan. liz cheney has some pretty good questions about this and she was tweeting over the weekend. she's one republican who wants to know, why weren't the president or vice president briefed? >> they were. >> was it in the presidential daily briefing? >> yep. >> who knew and when? what's been done to protect our forces and hold putin accountable? what's to say the republicans at this point, are they so morally worn down by this president that they will not have the right answer for the united states of america? >> mika, we obviously have to put that question to republicans. i think that third piece of what liz cheney underscores there, what is being done is a question every lawmaker has a duty to answer now that they are aware

through the public reporting that this was going on. i mean, we're still trying to figure out who, if anyone, in congress knew why, if they would have talked to them or not. the ap says that briefing won't happen until today. we're still trying to nail down all those details. i mean, the reality of this story, it just underscores there really is no good answer for the president if he didn't know because his intelligence officials were afraid to bring it up to him and underscore it because they weren't sure if he would approve one of the options they had on the table. "the times" did report there were various potential options discussed. that's a theme that's come up in this presidency that he hasn't been willing to take actions presented to him by his intelligence or he's doubted the intelligence underneath it. perhaps that's part of what happened here.

there is no good explanation. any one much these rabbit holes you go down has an enormous set of problems and land mines for this president. i think you have liz cheney who has shown a willingness throughout this administration to push back against the president on matters of national security, and trust me, liberal democrats don't agree with liz cheney or many other members with her family. that's kind of understating the issue on this stuff. but there are a lot of republicans who have been in that camp historically. i do think this is something that is going to put an incredible amount of pressure on them. it is one more thing, as there are so many other issues they have to grapple with with this president and his poll numbers are falling, the trend lines are terrible for him. to have this sort of very clear cut moral issue that talks about the men and women that are still on the ground in afghanistan

fighting for us every day, the president has known about it for months and he does nothing to protect them. trying to answer those questions and defend this president is a very difficult position to be in. if that's going to happen, i think those contortions will be pretty obvious. >> think about it if you're a parent that have a son or daughter in afghanistan and the commander in chief has known for months that vladimir putin and the russians have put a bounty on their head, to have them killed by islamic militants and the president of the united states does absolutely nothing about it? and it's considered so serious that the national security council convenes in march to consider sanctions or at least a diplomatic scolding.

and trying to figure out what actions to take. and three months later, no actions have yet to be taken? think about being the father or mother of a child in afghanistan or the husband and wife of a spouse who's in afghanistan. and this is considered so serious that the cia station chief warned about it in afghanistan, that it was, quote, well known in afghanistan that vladimir putin had put bounties on young americans' heads for islamic militants to kill them and the president's doing nothing. this is considered so serious by

our intelligence agencies that they convene a meeting at the end of march and we notify, our government notifies the british government that there are also bounties on the heads of british soldiers from vladimir putin. and yet, this morning, the white house wants you to believe that despite the fact that cia knew it, despite the fact that the president's own national security council knew it, despite the fact that it was so serious that they convened a meeting in march to consider a range of options to take against the russian government and vladimir putin for putting bounties on the heads of young

american troops, despite the fact it was considered so serio serious, they notified the british. think about this. you're being told that they notified the british government, but they didn't even tell the president of the united states. i just ask, how stupid do they think you are? and how low does the president think he can take you and his supporters in supporting a president who was told in a presidential daily briefing

months ago that the man he called a friend of his in may was putting bounties on the heads of u.s. troops back in 2019. is it -- is it just mind-blowing, mind-blowing. here's the thing, it's all going to come out. the truth is all going to come out. there are going to be people testifying before congress, under oath. they've got the presidential daily briefs. they have the intel. it's all going to come out. so, republican senators, pick sides. there are only two sides to pick here, by the way. there are only two sides. this isn't about being a republican or democrat, a trump supporter, you can pick the side of the u.s. troops or you can

pick the sides of vladimir putin. there is no gray zone here. you can't stick your head under the covers and pretend donald trump is just going to go away. yes, he is. he's going to get voted out. you think he is so you think -- no, you can't hold on for six months. speak out for our troops today. >> yeah, this stain will stay. >> speak out for our troops today. coming up, president trump retweets a racist video showing a supporter yelling, white power. reverend dow reports to that next on "morning joe." dow repot next on "morning joe." some companies still have hr stuck between employees and their data.

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we want to now get to this, which also would have been our lead this morning. president trump's retweet of a video. over the weekend showing a man in a golf cart with the trump campaign gear, wearing it, shouting the words, white power. according to the tweet, the video was from a florida retirement community known as the villages and featured residents protesting against each other. the man who is heard shouting "white power" was responding to protesters yelling, racist. the tweet was removed from his feed hours later. trump is, quote, a big fan of the villages but did not hear the one statement made on the video. the president retweeted a tweet which included the #firefauci,

trump was asked if he noticed the hashtag in question. >> he's a wonderful guy. >> why did you retwee retweet #firefauci. >> i retweeted somebody, they said fire, doesn't matter. >> did you notice that when you retweeted that? >> yeah, i notice everything. >> he notices everything. >> reverend al, first of all, in this video, it opens very quickly, it's very loud, the words are very clear and the words "white power, yeah, white power," eight seconds in. i guess i could believe that the president wouldn't have the attention span to get to the end of the video, but this is eight seconds in and it's clear as day. your response. >> it was eight seconds in, you couldn't miss it if you tried. but the overriding factor here is the whole point of the exchange was one side calling the other racist and the other

side saying, white power. so, if he did not get the depth of the exchange, what did he retweet it for? you don't retweet things unless you're trying to project some reason to retweet it. it is obvious on his face that he heard it and that he intended to send a signal to his so-called base or his assumed base. what is so troubling here is in the midst of this movement around social just, around systemic racism where the president has had political laryngitis and even addressing the issue of systemic racism, even addressing what happened with george floyd, he would choose to retreat white power while whites and blacks are marches all over this country to come to terms with it. he would retweet white power video on the date the state of mississippi is voting to remove

the confederate emblem from their state flag. he would choose on that day to somehow try and feed into the american consciousness through his base supporters that it's all right to yell white power, so i think the timing of this and the fact that he's the president of the united states of america is what's so alarming. we expect this from any normal bigot, but for the head of state to do this on a day and in a time like this is absolutely ridiculous. >> joe, it just shows the white house response to this, the president's response to this, so obviously a bold-face lie. it just shows at this point when we have this incredible reporting from "the new york times," from charlie savage about the russian bounties just how easily it is for this white house and this president to lie and take no responsibility.

>> well, they're going to peel back the onion as it pertains to vladimir putin's bounties on the heads of american troops. that's going to come out. something like this, though, rev, again, eight seconds in, this long video. it's the first thing you see on this video, a guy shouting "white power". >> that's what it's all about. >> in his trump gear. it's interesting, donald trump only took this down after getting criticized by republican senator tim scott. >> he never even addressed the criticism until tim scott went on national television. the only black republican in the u.s. senate and even tim scott could not defend this. he said it was offensive and it should be taken down. and then three hours later the president takes it down. again, with all that is going on that the president has not

addressed, including boycotting facebook for boycotting posting of hate stuff, the president would retweet this in the face of -- the memphis and the quote and facebook in the wake of the george floyd reaction, because his retweeting of this is intentional. >> of course it is. >> it's a shot back for all of us fighting for another way in this country. it's intentional. it's his saying this is what i think of your movement, this is what i think you're trying to do in america and we get the message and we're going to send him a message back. >> coming up, two public servants looking to make history this november. we'll talk to a pair of could-be congressmen straight ahead on "morning joe." ning joe." you can't predict the future.

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yeah. this moving thing never gets any easier. well, xfinity makes moving super easy. i can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. wow, that is easy. almost as easy as having those guys help you move. we are those guys. that's you? the truck adds 10 pounds. in the arms. -okay... transfer your service online in a few easy steps. now that's simple, easy, awesome. transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. visit xfinity.com/moving today. welcome back. eddie glaude is a mississippi native who teaches at princeton university. we have a story about mississippi and a story about princeton for you now. mississippi lawmakers passed a bill to remove the confederate emblem from their flag, a symbol that has flown for 126 years.

the bill passed in the mississippi house in a 91-23 vote and then the state senate, 37-14. it will now go to republican governors tate reeves, who has said he will sign it into law. >> eddie, before we get to princeton, let's talk about your own state of mississippi and a place that i grew up in for part of my life. i don't know that there's a more dramatic example of how much 2020 has changed things than what we saw this weekend in mississippi. talk about it. what does it mean and what does it mean to you personally? >> well, it's historic. i grew up seeing the flag, seeing this homage to the confederacy. yesterday was historic, to my mind. you think about the confederate flag entered and became a part of mississippi's flag in 1894 as

mississippi was leading the way in passing jim crow laws. and we know that it has been in interesting sorts of way a metaphor for the brutality, the cruelty of white supremacy in the country. so we're at this moment now that even the state of mississippi has decided to turn its back on that particular hateful symbol. this is an important moment. i think it's also important for us to understand it was a combination of forces. not only activists from the ground, who have been clamoring for the state to remove that symbol, but it's also big business. you think about the s.e.c. telling mississippi, we will not hold championship events. we're thinking of not holding championship events in mississippi is it you continue to do this. i think this is a wonderful first step, wonderful symbolic gesture. now mississippi has to begin addressing some of the more systemic issues that haunt this state. >> let's talk about the mississippi we grew up in. i'm older than you, but, again,

it seems the longer things go, i'm older than everybody. i was there -- started first grade in 1969 and it was the first year mississippi integrated schools. i always told people it changed my life. that was -- to me, that was normal, being in integrated schools because that's all i ever knew. but i grew up, you know, being an archie manning fan, being an ole miss rebel fan, having posters up that had old reb on there. i've always talked about the confederate flag. heck, '80s, '90s, mainly the '80s, we didn't think anything of it. pensacola, city of five flags. british flag, french flag, spanish flag, confederate flags. you look up, yeah, that's a part of our history. it is something how even in the

past 25 years, things have changed so dramatically in the way a lot of us white southerners have looked at those symbols where we didn't understand the way we should have understood just how hurtful it was. so, you and i grew up in the same mississippi, but we looked at everything differently growing up because of our backgrounds. >> right. we always talk about the proverbial railroad tracks that separated town. on my side of town we were not, shall we say, excited for ole reb, ole miss miss. we looked to jackson state or delta state or mississippi state, those sorts of schools because ole miss represented the sort of citadel of mississippi, of this closed society it was once called. i think we're actually in a moment. think about all the activism

around same-sex marriage and, boom, it suddenly happened and it became a part of the kind of culture. it seems to me that we're at that moment where the kind of sentiment around the confederate monuments memorializing that type of moment the sentiment has has congealed that this stuff is bad and we need to put it aside. i'm delighted my state, the state i love so dearly, has made this move. it still has a long way to go but i am delighted it's made this move. >> jon meacham, you grew up in the south, younger than me but everybody is. you grew up in the south. we grew up, you know, listening -- hearing bands play dix dixie, listening to other songs, having symbols, looking at confederate statues.

even -- you know, you go back -- if you want to really see a big change, go back and look at ken burns, the civil war, where you had a lot of historians saying, hey, the south wasn't fought -- the civil war wasn't fought over slavery. so much has changed before our very eyes over the past 25, 30 years. >> i think one of the lessons of this, and it applies to this moment and every subsequent moment, is in real time the lesson of this is, why not be on the side of liberation as opposed to captivity? why not be on the side of expanding the jeffersonian definitions of equality. why cling to a drama and a myth that may, in some way, give some infuse your life with a kind of

meaning, but at some level the still small voice of conscience suggest it was not about the best part of america. and the moral utility of history, it seems, is not to be self-righteous about the past, or aren't we more enlightened. but the only data set we have in politics, really, is history. and so what is -- what does history tell us? it tells us you would rather be on the side of seneca falls and selma and stonewall than you would on a kind of lost cause, you know, highbrow dukes of hazard sensibility. we're going to get to the princeton move in a moment. right now it seems appropriate to dive into eddie's extremely timely new book entitled, "begin

again," officially out tomorrow. eddie, that you can to us about the book, if you could. why james baldwin, the inspiration for it, and why now? >> well, thank you, mika. i've been reading and thinking about james baldwin for almost 30 years now. baldwin has haunted my thoughts, how to think about america. i think he's one of the most insightful critics of american democracy from the vantage point from black experience. there's also this delicate balance in his work between rage and love. there's a kind of righteouses indignation that seeps from every sentence. and then there's this kind of -- this love that emerges in the way in which he's willing to be vulnerable. he has this wonderful revelation in order to say something significant about the country, to criticize the country, we have to examine the messiness of

our own lives. also i think for this moment, it is his balance between despair and faith. baldwin lived to see dr. king assassinated. he lived to see the country turn its back on the civil rights movement. he understood what reagan's election meant for all the sacrifices that he engaged in, but yet he still held the faith that america could be better, that we could, in fact, be a new jerusalem. i wanted to figure out how he held those two in balance because my despair, at times, seems to overwhelm. that's why i wrote the book. >> i'll tell you, thank you for getting me a copy of it several months ago. it's an extraordinarily moving book. and a really important book for most americans, all americans to read, especially right now. my goodness, it's become timely. here's a passage from the book

about your visit to the remains of baldwin's home. >> the ruins were a fitting description for what baldwin saw in the latter part of his life in the united states. he saw decay and wreckage alongside greed and selfishness. he saw and felt deeply the effects of america's betrayal of the black freedom struggle of the mid-20th century. the country had refused, once again, to turn its back on racism and to reach for its better angels and our children were paying the cost. as i looked out onto the ruins and thought of the election of donald trump and the ugliness that consumed my country, i asked myself, what do you do when you have lost faith in the place that you call home? that wasn't quite the way to put it. i never had faith in the united states in the strongest sense of the word.

i hoped that one day white people here would finally leave behind the belief that they mattered more. what do you do when this glimmer of hope fades and you're left with the belief that white people will never change, the country, no matter what we do, will remain basically the same? amid the rubble of the construction site and the signs promising luxurious living, i thought of baldwin as an answer to my questions and part of the reason why i needed to write this book. he grappled with profound disillusionment after the murder of dr. king and yet held onto his faith in the possibility of a moment when we could all be fully ourselves, what he referred to as a new jerusalem. i had to understand how he did that and what resources, as he confronted his dark america, he might offer me as i confront the darkness of my own. >> jon meacham, your thoughts on

eddie and those pow. erful words. well, it's an amazing book and important and urgent. and what i would ask my friend is, what are those resources? what have you taken from baldwin as we address america in a moment of tumult and 127 days or so away from an election, but an election and a system so many people believe is fundamentally corrupt? >> right. let me just say this to my friend jon meacham. you saw that reference to better angels. that means the soul of america was on my mind as i was writing the book. but i think what i learned, jon, are a couple of things. one is that you have to bear witness. for what baldwin meant by

bearing witness, we had to tell the truth about the suffering in the country. we had to break through the illusions. we had to in some ways insist, we have to insist on a kind of uncomfortable position with regards to our self-understanding to our self' understanding so we can imagine ourselves otherwise. that's the first thing. the second thing i realized, this moving close to 7,000 words. just it's amazing -- no 7,000 articles, pieces of writing, right, is that we have to have faith that wherever human beings are, we have a chance. no matter how dark it is. no matter how bleak it may seem. if we are present in the fullness of who we are, we have a chance. there's no guarantee but we just have to step up. and for me, that was this amazing insight, this abiding faith in the capacity of human beings to be better, even though we reveal ourselves over and over again to be disastrous.

that's what i found. >> let's talk, eddie, about princeton, and it's very interesting. i have supported the princeton president's position all along. we've talked about it an awful lot. >> exactly. >> in 2015, i supported it much more strongly than i did after, let's say, charlottesville. but i thought it was interesting. i kept revisiting wilson and princeton in my mind over the past month and then when i saw this op-ed by the president of princeton, i said, my god, that's going around. all of these -- because you and i have talked about this a lot. how do you balance the good that he did, the progressiveness that he did with the fact that he resegregated the federal

government. and in 2020, and after charlottesville and after everything else, and for george floyd, that balancing act becomes far more difficult and you have to balance on the side, obviously, in this case, of removing wilson's names from institutions in princeton. talk about that process over the past five years. and once again how 2020 has changed the way we look at everything. >> joe, between the mississippi flag changing and princeton removing wilson's name, i think hell is freezing over. but we're in this moment that's really, really fascinating. what i loved about what was said in "the washington post" is that he realized -- he acknowledged how important wilson is and has been to princeton since conception. that princeton is a modern

university because of his leadership. he also recognized the way in which the university has told a story about wilson, redacted so much of who he was and what he had done. particularly the cruelty and insidious views he held around race. and so what he said was the country has engaged in a longstanding practice of disregard when it comes to the reality of racism and its impact on the lives of black folk and in some ways on the soul of the country. and the move he then made which is really important, in this moment, we cannot duplicate that disregard. what are we trying to commend to our students? woodrow wilson still remains an important part of who we are, but it is, i think, a moral and ethical decision to change the name. and this is going to be a

difficult conversation every time we have it. it doesn't mean we have to take down the washington monument or rid ourselves of jefferson and the like but it requires of us to tell the truth, right, about the complexity of these figures so that we can imagine ourselves without the safety of our myths and our legends, as john mentioned earlier. >> and jon, it is interesting the decision that princeton made regarding wilson. but you have others. and donald trump is now suggesting, of course, using this as a call to war that the statues of washington and jefferson and madison and others might be torn down and jesus, he's the only one left defending it. it is important to remember that this republic would not exist but for george washington. that martin luther king used as a righteous hammer the words of thomas jefferson that he drafted

in his letter from birmingham jail. he used it against segregationists to positive effect and james madison created a constitution that still, along with hamilton, that still holds tyrants in check in this country. and so it is a balancing act, is it not? and we have to be sure that we strike the right balance at all times. >> absolutely. and the history, the legislative history if you will, of each of these monuments and memorials is essential. you and eddie were talking about the mississippi flag. the fact is went up in 1894 when the black codes and jim crow was coming into being tells you all you need to know. the lincoln memorial was seen as a kind of -- the republican monument. fdr pressed for the completion of the jefferson memorial in 1943.

and it was -- in fdr's mind, at that point, this is what we are fighting for abroad. we're fighting for the ideals of religious liberty, individual liberty. not to say that everything should not be considered here. but i think one of the most american places in the world right now is the tidal basin because you have martin luther king staring in perpetuity at thomas jefferson. and whenever i'm there, i always think that it's king waiting and urging jefferson to be applied to everyone. and so i tend to be more additive and contextualist if you will. since we have a princeton guy we can use the word contextualist. i think that let's explore the mechanics of memory.

let's understand, as well, that sometimes to commemorate is not to celebrate. that's important it seems to me. and when you drive through washington, the monuments you see, by and large, are monuments to those who, however flawed, however sinful, however limited their views were, they were people who were trying to push us toward that more perfect union. and what i would argue is that the next great phase in american memory, in the mechanics of memory, should be finding ways to commemorate those who didn't just bend the arc of a moral universe but who insisted that it swerve. >> edie, we've been talking for some time about this issue and writing about it, having a special show to talk about it. and i look ford doing that. but just your final thoughts on

what jon said, king looking at jefferson at the tidal basin. king using the words of jefferson against segregationists in his letter from the birmingham jail. madison. how do we strike these balances and uphold the ideas of these very flawed men but understand that we move forward as a country because of many of these lofty ideas and beliefs. >> joe, that's such a wonderful question in so many ways. let me just say this really quickly. it seems to me that we need to tell our story in such a way where it's not about white americans extending the power of its tradition to black folk, including us. it's not about charity. it's not about a philanthropic enterprise but to tell the story of the country in such a way

that jefferson and king are inextricably linked. that they're part of the very fabric of the country. not so much about, we were once this and then king forced us to that. no, no, no. but the very way, the actual content, the substance of who we are bound up in the ugliness of slavery. bound up in the principles of american democracy, bound up in our constitution as flawed as it is and as it was, right, that this story is, we are constituents of it. we are critical part in it. and we need to tell that story in such a way that we don't -- that black folk don't feel as late comers if that makes sense. but the book gets at all of this, and we can talk about it over the course of the days. >> and we absolutely will. jon meacham and eddie glaude, thank you. we'll see you again tomorrow for more on your timely new book

"begin again." james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own. thanks so much. before we finish today, at 1:30 p.m. at know your values instagram, yasmin vossoughian is joined for a discussion on black women leaders then and now. head to underscore know your value on instagram at 1:30 p.m. today. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the conversation right now. >> thanks, mika. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's monday, june 29th. here are the facts at this hour. the number move to coronavirus cases is rising. in two dozen states across our nation. more than 41,000 cases were reported on sunday. the total jumping to more than 2.5 million people over the weekend. overall, more than 126,000 americans have lost their lives. but t