good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington, where the government's top infectious disease expert, dr. anthony fauci, is blaming the new spikes in the coronavirus on reopening too soon. >> even the states in which the leadership in the form of the governors and the mayors did it right, with the right recommendations, what we saw visually in clips and in photographs, of individuals in the community doing an all or none phenomenon, which is

dangerous, and by "all or none" i mean either be locked down or be opened up in a way where you see people in bars not wearing masks, not avoiding crowds, not paying attention to physical distancing. we've got to get that message out, that we're all in this together. >> this as the republican chairman of that senate republican, republican senator lamar alexander of tennessee, said the president should wear a mask from time to time even if he is protected, in order to take the politics out of the public health debate. as the pandemic surges in the south and southwest, here are the facts at this hour. across the country, levels of the coronavirus are spiking in 29 states, with cases in 11 of them rising by more than 100% in the last two weeks alone. the spikes are now forcing 16 states to pause or partially reverse their plans to reopen. california governor gavin newsom has ordered bars to close again in seven counties there after cases rose by nearly 50% in the last seven days. and in arizona, governor ducey

is shutting down bars, gyms, and movie theaters for at least one month. even in new jersey, which is on the downward slope of infections, new jersey is backtracking as the governor there says he will not permit indoor dining to reopen this week as had been planned as a result of these dangerous spikes. the european union know officially announcing a travel ban today against americans. americans will not be allowed on nonessential travel to eu nations. also breaking today, house democrats at the white house went to be briefed on those reports that russia was paying bounties to kill u.s. troops in afghanistan. they were denied access to u.s. intelligence officials, unlike their republican colleagues who did meet with top intelligence leaders last night. we'll have more on that including their reactions a little later in the show. first let's check in with two covid-19 hotspots. nbc correspondent sam brock joining us from miami beach, florida, and erin mclaughlin at

manhattan beach, california. sam, beaches in south florida are closing but not in central florida. how did that work? >> reporter: so andrea, good afternoon, it's basically been consensus in south florida that this is the right thing to do. miami-dade county's mayor announced they were going to close all the beaches down here and the rest of the local counties fell right into line with that, whether it's monroe county which has the florida keys, broward county, palm beach county, so you don't have a situation where people are flocking from one beach, 35 or 40 minutes to another one. central florida, volusia county, where daytona beach is, they're staying open. and only about an hour or two hours west to collier county on the other side of the state, they're staying home. you end up with a situation where it's kind of like whack-a-mole, where people can just move where the beaches are open. public concern is heightened on

this. volusia county plans to use drones to try to prevent people from breaking social distancing rules. but it's hard to contain when not everyone is on the same page. with that, the latest numbers from florida, 6,000 more cases today, andrea, which makes 29,000 cases in four days, pushing florida past 150,000 cases total. there have been 3,500 deaths. this has been one of the hotspots in the country right now. i'm on ocean drive, which is very famous around the world for tourism certainly, people who want to come and party. look over my shoulder, these are all empty chairs. these hotels all up and down the strip are usually packed. right now, andrea, they are not. and it's all because of the fact they are trying right now, public officials, to do whatever they can to keep people safe. back to you, andrea. >> thanks so much, sam. now to erin in manhattan beach, california. erin, that's where california's governor and the mayor in l.a. all did the right things, according to public health

guidance, but the case count is exploding to more than 200,000. now the governor is shutting down bars and beaches. what's the explanation? >> reporter: experts i've been talking to, andrea, say it's down to people not following those guidelines. social distancing, wearing masks. and as a result, california in the last week, according to officials, has seen a 45% surge in cases. officials here are so concerned they've taken the drastic action of closing beaches, including the one i'm at right now, for the upcoming fourth of july holiday weekend. also prohibiting fireworks. it has officials here in the seaside city of manhattan beach furious. the may pro tem says she's disappointed with the decision to close the beaches for the holiday. take a listen. >> i'm really disappointed, to be honest, erin. i think the beaches are the

safest place for young people and families to gather, there's lots of fresh air and space to socially distance. i think the fear is a problem now. we need to keep this in perspective. people are not dying on the street. this isn't the plague where 50% of anyone who got covid died. this is not the plague. i don't know anybody who has died of covid. maybe you do. >> reporter: now, that is a viewpoint shared not only here but also in neighboring orange county where cases are also on the rise. california is divided in terms of how to handle this pandemic, as we heard from dr. fauci in that hearing, and collective action is needed to beat this virus, andrea. >> thanks so much. that tees us up perfectly because joining us is dr. kovita patel, a medical adviser to

president obama. dr. fauci is warning more people will die. we're seeing these surges in california where the governor did shut down early, and now they're having to backtrack. >> absolutely, andrea. and not only happening, as you mentioned, in areas where governors had to backtrack, but even in states like new jersey and, concerningly, other parts of the northeast that have made significant progress. i think something to emphasize, all physicians on the hearing at the senate committee hearing said was that people should be wearing masks, people. they should be socially distancing, period. so there was kind of an interesting unanimity and even a bipartisan call for everyone to really put masks on and be distanced without any politics to it. >> and in fact, it's noteworthy that in states like florida and texas and arizona, where the

republican governors were so resistant, they've had to roll back, miami beach, the beaches for the july 4th weekend and all that, is most noteworthy, as well as the terrible surges in texas. and we're seeing hospitalization rates rising there. >> yes, these are large states where the burden of hospitalizations has crippled some of the health systems. you're already seeing some of the hospitals in texas, california, florida, who are already asking for outside assistance. even in other states where they're already putting in place their disaster management plans. doctors are quite fatigued and nervous. front line workers have already been battling this for months. the plea is the simple personal responsibility part could have a

huge effect on relieving the burdens on the systems at hospital and state levels. >> dr. kavita patel, thanks so much for your expertise. in west virginia, 200 people are being asked to quarantine after being potentially exposed to the virus at a planet fitness gym. joining me now is democratic senator joe manchin of west virginia who serves on the armed services committee. senator, why was that gym in morgantown even opened in the first place? >> in the second round, the governor opened up the gyms. one of the customers on june 24, between 9:00 and 3:00 p.m., they know what shift and person was diagnosed, and had the virus. and they've asked everybody that was there during that period of time, i think 205 of their customers, to self-quarantine for two weeks. they opened up again this morning.

>> you are sort of uniquely knowledgeable on so many fronts, because you were a governor. you're from a red state. you are a democrat. do you relate to what governor abbott, what governor desantis did, in texas and florida, and following the president's lead, this is so political, you're not a real man if you wear a mask. we saw the rally in tulsa, the rally in phoenix. how did this happen? >> leaders don't truly lead this way. a leader should take all the precautions you can. when you take the oath of office, the first thing you should think about, if you're a governor, and the president takes the same oath, you think about how to protect your constituents. i was responsible for 1,800,000 people in west virginia and i wanted to know everything i could do to keep them safe. if they're telling me they're going to open back up, well, it's hard to go to a restaurant and have mandatory masks at a

restaurant because, you know, you can't eat your food. it's hard to go to a bar and enjoy your favorite beverage with a mask on, so maybe those precautionary measures should be taken. on the other hand, i believe any type of a business opening up, first of all, we shouldn't ask them to open up unless they have proper ppes, personal protective equipment. that means every building, every business, whether it be a barbershop or a parlor, hair salon, whatever, would have had protection for all their employees. and then we should have been testing. i've always said this. i want to know if i'm going back in my work, my workstation, and all of my colleagues that i work with, are they virus-free? that would have been the first precaution i would have taken. and next of all, as a businessperson, if the governor is not going to do it and say to all businesses, if you're going to have people in your business, you have to have a mask on when you go in. in washington, d.c., went to a cvs a month ago, i said i forgot

my mask, they said it's mandatory, and from that day forth, i never forget it again. unless you make it mandatory, you're going to have a problem, until we get an antibody or a vaccine. it's going to be uncomfortable. it's not who we are as a people. but it's going to be safe. all the experts and scientists are telling us. i wish the president would heed their advice. >> and i also want to ask you, you come from a military state. now there are these reports that the russians were paying bounties to target our soldiers, to kill u.s. soldiers and kill our people in afghanistan. house democrats were briefed separately from the house republicans. and when they went to the white house, they did not have any intelligence officials whereas the republicans last night had the head of intelligence, the cia director, the director of national intelligence. the white house is treating them differently when these briefings used to be bipartisan, in any

informati administration i've ever covered. what's going on here? >> since i've been here, almost ten years now, it's always been bipartisan, especially intel. intel has always been bipartisan. if we have something of national concern, this is the highest attack we could have on our soldiers, when there's a bounty put on americans' lives, and we're not going to do everything we can to bring pain upon the country that did this, which would be russia? i'm going to the scif after our interview here, and i'm going to read the report about the intelligence available to us. but to have the president or anybody saying, i'm going to meet with the caucus, democrat, republican, that's never been done. that's not how you bring people together. you don't divide the country. you start bringing them together. this is the united states of america. it's not a republican country. it's not a democrat country. it's a country of all people who love freedom and democracy.

you can have your different values. but at the end of the day you better come together. and you can't have your leader dividing you continuously. >> this intelligence was serious enough for us to warn the allies about their troops and to better protect our troops as well, to do more force protection, and to have the security council interagency meeting. yet the president, after all that, called vladimir putin or talked to vladimir putin six times, invited him to the g7 here in the u.s., and did not apparently raise this issue with putin. what's going on there? >> it's unbelievable. i can't even speak to that because it's so unbelievable, unfathomable. there should have been one conversation, the one conversation after you were briefed and intelligence criss-crossed each other knowing that it was factual, if all that happens, and it's factual, and it had to be at a high enough level to get to the president if he was briefed, and if he was briefed on this, and at that point in time make a phone call to putin and lay down the law

that we'll retaliate, you better stop immediately, you better basically make amends to the families that we lost our service members to. but also we will make it punishable as much as humanly possible to make sure no other country targets an american service person with a bounty. that's not acceptable by the superpower of the world which is the united states of america. >> i also want to ask you about the c.a.r.e.s. act. the money has not yet been fully distributed. what's happening in your state? what are you concerned about? >> up until just recently, the governor finally, after we've been prodding and prodding for the last two months, they've been sitting on $1.25 billion. we fought for that. it was the democrats that basically held up the c.a.r.e.s. package until we got the states

involved, 150 billion, and the hospitals, that wasn't even in the c.a.r.e.s. package that came from mitch mcconnell. so we got this in. every state got a minimum of 1.25. west virginia got 1.25. our governor sat on it for two months. now he announced he will let money start flowing out. he gave a litany of things he wanted it to go to. if you can believe this, he has $100 million of that going to road projects. he says they're coronavirus roads. i don't know a pothole that's been affected by coronavirus. so i'm going to see -- that doesn't make any sense to me at all. he has another $600 million going to the workforce investment, which is unemployment in our state. we've been helping that all along and that will be backfill. so i want to see, basically, we thought about 4 or $500 million of that should go to our rural communities and cities to keep them afloat. anybody that had a coronavirus expense basically for 911 operators, their first line

operators of defense, as far as their rapid response, health care, your police force, all that could have been paid for from march 1 through december 30 basically with this money. and why they have -- 22 states haven't put it out yet. ours is one of them. but now they did announce they're going to. we have a state that meets all the criteria. but it's going to be more difficult to get more money to help the states when the governors are playing games with it and sitting on it. if they're playing politics, shame on them, that should never happen and we should basically stop it. >> we're going to stay on it and i know you are as well. thanks so much, senator. >> appreciate being with you, bye-bye. coming up next, we are watching surprising developments in two states. election results in kentucky show a newcomer may come out on top. while in colorado, a former presidential candidate previously considered a shoo-in is fighting to win his primary today.

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and we have breaking news in kentucky, as mail-in ballots were still being counted a week after that race between charles booker and amy mcgrath. and the momentum now shifted, and msnbc national political correspondent steve kornacki is at the big board. it's mcgrath. >> there it is, andrea, you see the decision checkmark, we're officially calling this democratic senate primary in kentucky for amy mcgrath who will face mitch mcconnell in what will certainly be an uphill fight in the fall but it will get national attention. the primary for in-person voting was last week in kentucky. of course there were some votes that were cast in person last week. there were a lot more votes that were cast by mail. and that's what county by county

has been released this morning in kentucky. a lot of these counties had given what you say the vote was on election day, but that was a small share of it. today we're getting the mail-in totals. you can see the darker shade here is mcgrath, geographically winning county after county. two main sources of strength for charles booker were his home base in louisville, a quarter of the state in terms of the democratic electorate. the other was around the university of kentucky in electing telect i lexington. we wanted to see was booker going to get big enough numbers out of these counties to withstand what was going to come out for mcgrath in the rest of the state. we got the results in lexington a few hours ago. that lead has built for mcgrath, it's up to 10,000. there's not a lot left here.

so mcgrath is going to be winning this and will go on to face mcconnell. this is what elections are going to look like in a lot of states this november. i think it's something to keep in mind. for the last week we were looking at very, very partial, very incomplete results. for instance, i'm going to show you this one right here. this is fayette county, lexington, second biggest in the state. booker ends up winning this county by six points. for the last week, though, we had very partial results that showed booker ahead by 50, five zero, points. that was from the same-day vote. very small share. that was released right away. that had booker up 50. that vast sea of mail-in ballots, though, very different. and it cut a 50-point booker lead down to six. so keep that in mind. i think everywhere across the country, we're probably going to get partial results, election night right away and then an ocean of mail-in ballots that

could be very, very different. >> and that became a tight race after the protests on breon na taylor. she said she had not gone to a protest initially, so she sort of stumbled on that. he was a state rep who waged an aggressive campaign in the closing weeks against this marine lieutenant colonel and helicopter pilot. a great race to watch against mitch mcconnell. thank you very much, steve kornacki. in a 5-4 ruling, the supreme court said that when montana's supreme court excluded religious schools from the state-funded scholarship program, it violated the u.s. constitution. the montana court had ended a state tax credit for both religious and nonreligious schools, saying it was in conflict with the state constitution, barring all state aid for religious education. we're still awaiting eight more

decisions from the supreme court in this term, which is clearly going into next week. it's the longest we've had, that's because of the pandemic. coming up next, shut out. why weren't house democrats briefed by intelligence officials when they went to the white house today about reported russian bounties on u.s. troops? we'll get the answers next on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. reports" on msnbc. little things can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines,

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of whether russians will putting a bounty on american troops. i do not understand for a moment why the president isn't saying this to the american people right now and is relying on "i don't know, i haven't heard, i haven't been briefed". >> "the new york times" reports that president trump was provided a written briefing in february that russia was targeting u.s. troops. and the associated press reports the president was briefed even earlier by national security adviser john bolton. in a radio interview today about his book, bolton declined to answer questions about that, saying he did not want to say anything that could lead people to say he would, quote, discuss something that could be classified. joining me, brett mcgurk, jeremy bash, and peter baker, "new york times" chief white house

correspondent. jeremy, it seems to me bolton is confirming while not confirming, but the fact that the democrats didn't get the same briefing the republicans got, and they weren't briefed together, and it wasn't the big eight or the gang of eight or any of the top leaders, this is not the way it has ever been done under bush, clinton, bush, and obama. >> that's right, andrea, intelligence briefings to congress, which by the way is required by the law, have always been bipartisan. so obviously the white house is playing politics. i think the question is why. and i've looked at more than a thousand pdbs during my tenure at cia and dod. there's a lot in there about the election scandal in mali or what china is doing in space. something about russians putting a bounty on the heads of the united states would absolutely jump off the page. if the president ignored it, didn't ask followup questions, or his own staff didn't want to

hall him about it because they were scared he's so pro-putin he wouldn't react kindly to the information, it shows you just how distorted, how warped our national security decisionmaking process is. we've warned for a long time, andrea, okay, the president doesn't take in security briefings, he doesn't listen, are there consequences? now we know there are consequences. there are three dead americans from an ied blast the taliban carried out that may have been linked to this bounty program. we need to get to the bottom of this to get answers for the families of those three fallen heroes. >> this may get down to what is the meaning of the word "briefing," because they seem to be very lawyerly in talking about, well, he wasn't briefed, but does that mean he got the president's daily brief and he just didn't read it? or they didn't verbally brief him on it, as bolton reportedly

d did, and he doesn't remember it? brett mcgurk, you've been looking at how many times the president talked to vladimir putin after president got this briefing. six times. how is that possible without the president mentioning this? >> andrea, that's why the explanation coming from the white house here, and i just heard what congressman schiff said, it sounds like they were briefed by the national security adviser, that's a conflict of interest. there's a breakdown in the west wing. but to have this information in the pdb, the president's daily brief, it is his briefing, he has to read it. the fact that he didn't, if that's true, is just a total dereliction of duty. our troops take an oath. i spend a lot of time in war zones with the men and women out there, they take an oath and are sent where the country needs them. there's an assumption that the commander in chief, they're there under his command, that he will care for them, and pay attention to what's going on.

for this information to come to him in the presidential daily brief, that means at least one agency in the intelligence community said this is extremely serious, mr. president. then to have a half dozen phone calls with putin and for him to have this in his head and not give brushback, for him not to say, i'm seeing this happen and you need to watch it, that's a dereliction of the president's duty to keep americans safe. "the washington post" has reported that in the president's daily brief, there were 12 warnings about the threat of the virus from china at the same time that he was totally dismissing this and saying "i just spoke with president xi and he says everything is under control." the president takes the word of foreign adversaries over the american intelligence community. it's a common story. it's a dereliction of the

president's duty to keep americans safe. this is an extremely, extremely serious story. we're going to learn more about it. it's sickening. our people out there have to believe that the president has their best interests in mind, and something here totally broke down. >> i wanted to share with you something that congresswoman liz cheney, who is the number third ranking house republican, just said in "the hill" in regard to briefings republicans got last night. take a listen to how strongly she is warning russia, something the president has yet to do. >> i want to be absolutely clear that america's adversaries should know and they should have no doubt that any targeting of u.s. forces by russians, by anyone else, will face a very swift and deadly response. >> peter baker, you've been around a long time, a number of white houses, you know russia well, having been a moscow

bureau chief there. this is so clear. the white house, to my hearing, to my listening, is playing all sorts of games with, well, it was not finished intelligence, and gina haspel has put out a statement from cia that actually indicates they were taking it seriously, they did warn the allies, and they did do force protection. so they did take it seriously enough. no intelligence is ever absolutely finished. >> well, of course that's exactly right. and jeremy i think will remember this, so brett, when the president, president obama was presented intelligence about where osama bin laden was, he was told it was i havea 50/50 c. he took action based on obviously incomplete intelligence. very rarely can you have completely definitive intelligence. you have to make judgments, you have to make decisions based on threads of information and take action or not take action accordingly depending on your judgment on it. i thought what liz cheney just said there in that clip was and,

something we haven't heard from the president. she's saying if anybody thinks they could do this, they ought to think again, laying down the sort of warning you would expect to hear from a president even if he wasn't 100% sure the intelligence was right, just a generic, do not try this or you will pay a price. this is a president who faulted president obama and faulted president bush for not taking mother action against iran for targeting american troops through proxies in iraq. and he authorized the assassination of qassem soleimani. and he has not spoken out about this, which is most interesting. >> jeremy, should general milley at the pentagon be speaking out more? it seems the conflict in the intelligence is between cia and dia, defense intelligence, or nsa.

>> i don't think we know yet, andrea, what all the different components thought of the initial raw reporting. but that's a little bit besides the point. the president seems utterly gleeful to have learned that he didn't receive an oral briefing on this when in fact his reaction should be exactly the opposite, he should be outraged. he should be saying to his national security adviser, if you don't tell me these things, you're fired. i mean, he did that on reality tv. he won't do that as president. so i think, again, it's a very dangerous situation. the president is the one to blame here. >> thank you so much, jeremy, brett, and peter, all, thanks. coming up, a new record in texas, a bad one. coronavirus cases surging, hospitals reaching critical capacity levels. we'll talk to texas congresswoman veronica escobar, next. air, you spend less and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one.

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in texas, coronavirus cases are surging. hospitals are struggling to keep up. there are more than 150,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in texas. more than 2 whe,400 people have died. hospitalizations reaching an all-time high in the state, 6,000 patients are in hospital beds. that number is expected to rise. hospitals are seeing a growing number of young people infected with the coronavirus. at houston methodist, 60% of

covid-19 patients are under the age of 50. >> cases in texas are going up. i'm seeing a lot more cases every day than i was seeing for the last three months. i diagnosed more people with covid over the last weekend than i saw in the entire months of march and april. most of them are young, healthy people. most of them aren't terribly sick but some of them are. >> congresswoman veronica escobar from texas, great to see you again. i want to share something that dr. fauci just said at the senate hearing about the really bad forecast nationwide as to how many cases he expects to be seeing. >> we are now having 40,000 plus new cases a day. i would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around. and so i am very concerned. >> and given that concern, congresswoman, what would you say to governor greg abbott

about requiring masks and other decisions to be made, mandatory decisions in the state of texas? >> thanks for having me on, andrea, it's so good to see you as well. i wou i would implore that the governor take his cues from other governors who have taken strong, aggressive leadership. unfortunately what we're seeing in this country and in my own state as well is a crisis in leadership. from the white house, we have yet to receive a national test strategy plan. from the senate, senator mitch mcconnell has not allowed for debate on the heroes act which for texas alone would deliver over $35 billion in badly-needed help for state and local government, $1 billion for my district, el paso. in the absence of leadership from the white house, it's been punted to the governors. and our governor, unfortunately, we all predicted this would happen. dr. fauci warned all of the

governors from the get-go that if they didn't meet cdc standards and guidelines, they should not reopen. well, our governor was in a rush to reopen, wanted to claim mission accomplished early on. and these are the consequences. he needs a robust testing and tracing strategy, which is getting even more urgent when you look at the long lines in some communities like dallas and houston. he needs aggressive action on mandating, you know, masks. he needs to give local governments their power and their authority back. not only did he reopen the state but he tied the hands of local governments which are closest to the people, closest to their health leaders, and who know best what they should be doing for their communities. lastly, andrea, what's really important, one of the things i learned from dr. fauci was, and we've seen it, is that

vulnerable communities are most at risk. but those vulnerable communities include minority communities. we know that latinos and african-americans are even more at risk and require a specific strategy. dr. fauci compared latino and african-american communities. he said they are as vulnerable as nursing homes and assisted living facilities. so we need a specific plan for vulnerable communities from the governor. in the absence that have, simply pumping the brakes a little bit is not going to solve this problem. it's not going to give us the data we need. it's not going to give us the resources we need and it's not going to keep texans safe. one last thing i'll say, an elected official's fundamental responsibility is the health, safety, and welfare of his or her constituents. again, this is a real crisis and failure of leadership. >> and i know joe biden is going to be giving a speech on this

very subject and is going to be talking about, on day one, if he's elected, talking to dr. fauci. where do you stand on the people who might be chosen for vice presidential running mate? you know val demings well. >> the group of women you have on the screen are exciting, inspiring, incredible leaders. honestly, andrea, i don't think he can go wrong. there's so much talent in our country, so many amazing, incredible leaders. and i'm just really excited for the november general election. we desperately need strong,e e h ethical, committed leadership in this country that's committed to every single life in america. >> veronica escobar, so good to see you, thank you for joining us today. coming up, how president

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president trump set off a five-alarm fire in the white house sunday morning after vide his supporters at the villages in florida. >> white power! >> there you go. white power. you hear that? >> clearly shouting "white power." the video remained on the president's feed for three hours because he was out golfing and the aides couldn't reach him to take it down. kristen welker was part of the team that broke the story. that tweet just another, you know, one of a number of tweets, controversial tweets that have aroused concerns, even among the president's own staff. >> that's right. and this is from my colleague carol lee and i who were told by multiple officials here that tweet did set off a five-alarm

fire. officials here immediately trying to contact the president as well as one of the officials who has control of the president's twitter feed. they had a tough time trying to get in touch with him, but the urgency was added when the president's ally, senator tim scott, went on national tv and condemned the tweet and called on the president to take it down. so ultimately, they were able to take it down. but you're right, andrea, this does come against the backdrop of other incendiary tweets the president has sent out. they said the president didn't hear that apparent supporter yelling white power but president trump was asked about a controversial tweet several months ago when he retweeted something that said #firefauci, a reference to dr. anthony fauci, and the president was asked if he noticed that. the president said, quote, i notice everything. so a number of his critics saying it strains creduality

that he wouldn't be able to hear what's in that video. i've been talking to aides and they say coming against the backdrop of this tough re-election campaign, he can't afford missteps like this moving forward. andrea? >> thanks so much, kristen welker, on top of everything at the white house. joining me is dr. cameron webb, the democratic candidate for congress in virginia. he was a white house fellow in the obama administration serving on the white house health care team and continued his fellowship into the trump administration. good to see you. thank you, dr. webb. apparently once the trump team took over, your desk was moved into a hallway and eventually taken away. tell me what happened? >> well, that's right. so thanks for having me, andrea. i was in the white house from 2016 into 2017 and my first day when i arrived, all my belong g belongings had been moved out of my office. they moved my desk into a hallway in the executive office building. they kept the door to the office

of cabinet affairs always closed. they told me they were dealing with sensitive matters and despite my top secret clearance, they didn't want me helping out. that was my welcome to the trump administration back in 2017. >> did that in any way inspire you to want to run for office? >> that didn't inspire my desire to run. actually what happened, in the months that followed, i spent a lot of time just wandering about the executive office building because they didn't allow me to work on anything. i was connecting with other folks in the trump white house. i'd ask them questions about why they were believing the way they did on policy and education or health care or criminal justice reform. i got to know some of the folks doing the policy work. we got to have real conversations. i think that's such a critical part of our national dialogue right now. we have to be able to have conversations with people we disagree with strongly and still be able to finish the conversation and move forward. so i really fine tuned that skill walking through the halls of the executive office building because my desk was in the

hallway. >> and as a medical doctor, and you're from charlottesville, you're now set up to run against congressman good who describes himself as a biblical conservative. but you've been very critical of the president's actions on the pandemic, not modeling the wearing of masks, for instance. >> absolutely. and i want to first not give mr. good the label of congressman quite yet. it's an open seat so an exciting opportunity. but i think just the same, you know, whether you're -- no matter how you label your conservativism, in this instance, a lot of the actions when it comes to this pandemic have been unacceptable. i think we just haven't had, you know, in a lot of ways, we haven't had the response on the front end, the pandemic preparedness on the front end and even as we've seen it roll out, there's an infodemic. the information coming out of the triumph administration has been off base. it's the reason we're seeing a

lot of what we're seeing in arizona and texas and florida. and i think it's much harder to pull back after you have given such strong signals to folks to charge forward. there are lives on the line. i spent the last four days working in the hospital seeing this up close and personal. this isn't something to play around with. it's an important time to get this right. it's apparent to me the president doesn't have the temper want or insight to get this right. >> are you shocked by him retweeting this racist white power tweet? >> i'm not shocked. i'll tell you a story, andrea. for me, my very last day in the white house was august 12th, 2017. it was right after the unite the right rally. i came back into the office. i was supposed to continue working for a couple more weeks. i was just absolutely incensed about his comments about good people or blame on both sides. his tone deafness. he's shown that throughout.

he throws his dog whistles out there. these aren't mistakes and he can walk it back however hie wants but he's clear to signaling what he wants. when our nation is dead set on finding a path forward, on unity, on us coming together and you're seeing this in communities all across the country, this is a time when that messaging isn't going to work. he's trying to rally the people this message resonates with but it's going to fall short in november. i'm not surprised -- i just believe that the american people right now are not willing to tolerate it. >> thank you so much for being with us. that's such an interesting race in the fifth district in virginia. thanks again. that does it for us for "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show online on facebook and on twitter @mitchellhospitals. ayman mohyeldin picks up our coverage after a short break. you doing okay?

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