that does it for us. i'll see you back here tomorrow night. my colleague joy reid is up next. joy? >> hey, ari. thank you very much. appreciate it. enjoy the rest of your night. >> you, too. >> thank you very much. okay. well, when you're in a hole, keep digging? tonight, with donald trump engulfed with two burning crises, he's continuing to down play his role problems and focused on his obsession, fanning the flames of his culture war. as we enter the second half of 2020 on this july 1, the coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 129,000 americans with 2.6 million positive cases across the country, and more than 48,000

new infections reported just on tuesday. the most of any day of the pandemic. you would think that would merit some mention by the president of the united states, especially coming on a day that dr. anthony fauci warned that positive cases could rise as high as 100,000 per day. as the situation in this country has grown so dire under his leadership, that the european union has banned americans from entering their territory. headline, "americans, please stay away." instead of focusing on that or even better, doing something about it, donald trump said the virus could simply go away. he was, however, up bright and early rage tweeting at the media over reports that russia offered to pay bounties to taliban linked militants in afghanistan to kill american troops. he tweeted it was another hoax designed to slander him and the republican party. as the intelligence committee

received intelligence that trump tweeted that he said he never saw. donald trump was happy to offer up vitriol, saying painting black lives matter on new york's 5th avenue would be denigrating this luxury avenue with what he called a symbol of hate. a symbol of hate? says the same donald trump who just days ago retweeted, with comment, a video of an apparent supporter yelling "white power." other symbols of hate are those confederate statues he's protecting. trump tweeted people damaging monuments could face up to 10 years in prison. poet caroline randal williams writes of the efforts to take down those efforts --

>> i'm joined now by caroline randal williams, poet and writer in residence at vanderbilt university and author of that incredible "new york times" op-ed. tim o'brian from bloomberg opinion and tom any nollnichols "usa today." thank you very much for being here. caroline, president trump has a lot on his plate right now. there's a massive pandemic that's killed 125,000 americans, 2 million people infected. americans cannot go to europe, the eu is like state away. and there's this shocking, horrifying story that russia was offering bounties for u.s. troops. yet the thing that donald trump is the most fixated on is black lives matter and monuments. monuments, monuments, monuments. you wrote a beautiful, searing essay about your own personal family history, and when you

hear a president of the united states, he's not even a southerner, make that the most important thing, monuments over all of these other horrors, what does that -- what do you think of that? >> i think that he is an expert chaos monger. i think, you know, for me one of the complicated things about the monuments is that my -- of my two black great, great grandfathers, one of them was born a slave in maryland, and then enlisted in the union army to fight the civil war as a whole american. and so to me, the wild thing about the monuments is that they are about the well-being of american troops, and it's about honoring american troops, and it just seems to me that he has no capacity for honoring the brave men in the civil war and men and women currently prepared to

fight and die for this country. and it's wild that he's using the defense of american traitors as cover for not taking care of current american soldiers. >> i want to play for you, this is donald trump on fox news sunday. i just want to get your specific response to this, what he's saying to black americans, descendants of slaves like yourself, like myself, who want monuments removed. this is what he says. >> a lot of these people that want to -- they don't even want to take them down. what is is your message that their ancestors were enslaved? >> my message is, we have the greatest country on earth. we have a heritage, we have a history, and we should learn from the history. and if you don't understand your history, you will go back to it again. you will go right back to it. you have to learn.

>> he's added to that threatening to veto elizabeth warren backed bill that would remove confederate names from military bases and use a derogatory name for elizabeth warren for doing so. when you hear him say that, i'm curious to hear your reaction. >> i wish he would learn some history is my first reaction. i don't know what staking he thinks he has in the conversation. president trump's family, as far as i understand, none of them lived in this country during the war in question. so i don't know why he's got such a vested interest in attaching himself to a narrative of a history that suspect even his by any sort of meaningful, personal stakes, let alone regional, his family on either side wasn't even in this country

in the 19th century. i think i said it in my article as best i could, it's not about not knowing history, it's about acknowledging both sides of the history. you know, my understanding as americans is we don't tend to honor the defeated -- the people we defeated in war. we don't have forts named after benedict arnold. we have forts named after american patriots. i don't know why he can't grasp that. >> let me let tim o'brian take a crack at that. >> please. >> it is an odd thing about him. his family is german and scottish, and they were not, in fact, in the united states during the 19th century. they have nothing to do with this history. why is he so obsessed with it? >> you know, the short answer, joy, is because donald trump is an obtuse and obscene racist.

and he's been this way for, you know, most of his adult life. just last night, even before the stuff he tweeted about the black lives matter symbol on 5th avenue, he said he planned to undermine federal housing laws that -- dating back decades that have attempted to degrade the suburbs, saying he would protect the suburbs for the great american voters out there. let's remember in 1973, donald trump and his father attained roy cone to fight off a justice department suit that was launched because they were discriminating against people of color who wanted to rent apartments in the trump buildings. 47 years later, donald trump is doing exactly the same thing. he's finding different ways to express racism and weaponize his racism because that's where he resides. today, he calls a black lives matter symbol being proposed --

to be painted on 5th avenue as a symbol of hate. when quite obviously, trump tower has become a symbol of hate. the only black lives donald trump has been comfortable having at trump tower is his doormen. he is now, we know in the polls, he is slipping precipitously downward, and he's afraid of that. and the only card he's got left to play right now, it's a measure of how craven and desperate he is, is that he's appealing to racism. because he's a racist. and it's a measure of how much work this country has to do still. even with everything going on around us, even with donald trump having irresponsibly fumbled the coronavirus response, and now not responded properly to this epic and historical protest movement, that 29% of voters still like him.

that to me still stuns me and we've got work to do. >> you know, tom, one of the reasons he is -- the lincoln project has been hammering donald trump. the reasons he's losing are all self-inflicted. there's a piece in "the washington post" saying donald trump's twitter feed reads like a crime blotter, as he stokes the culture war. here's a little bit of it. e bit. >> and here he is retweeting this thing they're calling ken and karen, this couple waving

guns at protesters. he's retweeting insane stuff, and white power, people screaming white power. it is weird. but i wonder if you can get your head around it, as somebody who has followed national security and studied it, the fact that donald trump would not take the easy way out here, which is to absolutely condemn russia for attacking our troops, even with that information on hand. he cannot even articulate normal commander in chief words. >> well, there's a couple of thungs going on. one is, the basis of confederate bases and statues, it's part of a strategy of fear. aside from his own problems with racism, his goal is to make his base as afraid and terrified as possible, that basically his argument, is unless you re-elect me, you're going to be overrun by rioters and criminals and all these people that are on wanted

posters. you know, neglecting the obvious problem that the greatest amount of disorder that's occurred has been on his watch. when it comes to the russians, i think it always boils down to the fact he's terrified of vladamir putin. he knows that the russians know damning things about him, his finances, his history, and he's constantly afraid of ever giving offense to vladamir putin. i think that's part of a larger problem he has, that he's just terrified of men more powerful than he is. in putin's case, there's a special fear, a craven kind of terror that overcomes him when he has to say anything about russia. in this case, as you say, it's an easy call. the russians are threatening our men and women in uniform. he could step forward and take the mantle of commander in chief. i don't know why we would expect him to do that now.

he hasn't done it in 3 1/2 years, and i don't think he's going to change one bit. >> tim, he could do it and help himself and he won't. >> he could do it and help himself and he won't because he doesn't have the capacity to do that. you know, it's an honor for me to be on the program tonight with caroline, because i think her essay in "the times" was challenging, it was courageous. it educated me. and i suspect donald trump doesn't read and i suspect that any of the important sentiments and history that were in caroline's gorgeous essay would be completely lost on him. because he has no interest in this. he sees things through two pr m prizms, self-aggrandizement and self-preservation. and right now, he is in self-preservation mode. he will use racism to appeal to

his base and will try to take us all down with him. we have to steel ourselves for what he's prepared to do. >> absolutely. a final word to you, caroline, because i'm honored that you agreed to come on tonight. that's say was outstanding. i wonder what you make of the fact that you do have some people taking the easy road to use things like symbols like the confederate flag as a cover. without actually looking to make change. you have tate reeves in mississippi sign a bill that was passed to take down the confederate flag. at the same time, he vetoed bills that would have helped actual people, bills that had to do with allowing people to not have their water turned off during the coronavirus when you have to wash their hands. he vetoed that. the poor people's campaign said the following about this, his decisi -- his decisi -

>> do you worry that people will have the appropriate level of outrage and they'll do cosmetic things that will change and get rid of the monuments for instance, but things like that will still happen? tate reeves wants credit for taking down the flag, but he's taking away water from poor people at the same time? >> i'm so glad you framed it that way. i think tim just a minute ago, you said how you were astonished that there's 29% that still condone him, but he is completely cowed by people with power over him. that 29%, those are the racists that aren't afraid to be aligned with one in public still. and there's way more in america than that. i think the republican party has some house keeping to do in terms of how they manage to get to a place where the guy that they figured out how to get into

power, he bows to strong men and miserable bigots, right? on these terms in this space. but i would say i am relieved that he's not taken the easy way, because it means that we are going to at least weed out the worst of the worst of the people that are still attached to this man. and i am for one tired of being gaslit, and i'm tired of being gaslit by my conservative friends. i'm dlilelighted that some of t have enough shame to say i don't want to be attached to outright racism. but their party brewed this for all of the years leading up to this man. like this didn't just happen in a void. it's been incubating period for decades, if not centuries, right? so i think i might have frozen. but did i get to the incubation period part? >> you did. you absolutely did.

your point was heard. >> good. it's been incubating and it's good to be out in the open now. now we can deal wit. >> amen to that. absolutely. caroline randal williams, thank you so much for being on tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> everyone should read your essay. tim, tom, you are making trump's life miserable, tom. coming up, all the things the republican leaders will not do to stop the spike in coronavirus cases. donald trump's fourth of july event won't have social distancing, trump won't wear a mask, and florida's governor won't reinstate restrictions. and panic in trump world. three out of four americans believe that the country is on the wrong track. how soon until republican candidates distance themselves from their toxic dear leader? we have a lot more ahead. stay with us. we have a lot more ahead stay with us ...you can do no wrong. where did you learn that? the internet...

yeah? mmm! with no artificial preservatives or added nitrates or nitrites, it's all for the love of hot dogs. they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident. cut! is that good? no you were talking about allstate and... i just... when i... accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. struggling to clean toughm mr. clean. accident forgiveness from allstate. bathroom messes with sprays? then you gotta try mr. clean magic erasers. just wet.. squeeze..

and erase tough messes around your bathtub and shower. mr. clean magic erasers. there's no clean like mr. clean

welcome back. america is facing alarming rise in coronavirus cases. reaching more than 40,000 new infections a day in four out of five past days. yesterday alone, the country had 48,000 new infections. the surge is hitting states throughout the south and the west, especially hard. according to "the washington post," seven states are seeing surges of at least 25% in hospitalizations. today, arizona and texas both posted a single day record in positive cases and deaths. now, despite these deeply concerning numbers, president trump again today said the virus would "disappear." >> i think we're going to be very good with the coronavirus. i think that at some point, that's going to sort of just disappear, i hope. >> days away from the fourth of july, cities across the country are reinstating or tightening restrictions. california governor gavin newsom ordered bars and indoor dining

to close again in 19 counties, and pennsylvania is mandating masks for anyone leaving their home. i'm joined eed by my guests. doctor, it feels like it's a broken record to say this, but this seems to me, none of this had to happen. it was so simple that the united states could have done what italy did, what every other country did, and locked down the country right away and we couldn't be here. this unpreventable death is shocking, but in your view, does then going back and reimposing closings, after reopened parts of these states, will that do any good at this point? >> yeah, you're right. we didn't have to be here right now. we actually knew what it would take as other countries have done in order to prevent us from getting to this point, which is

that we could have waited. i mean, all these people sacrificed so much in terms of kids not going to school, people losing their jobs, for that initial shutdown to happen. we should have waited just a little bit longer for the shutdown to take effect, so that there would be a low enough level of virus, and we would have used that time to increase testing, tracing, isolation capabilities, so that we would be able to contain the virus when we reopened. unfortunately, that's not where we are right now. i do think there's a lot more that we could be doing. certainly, universal masking is critical. we need to be doing things that are sensible. people are not going to be locked down forever. i think instead of shutting down everything, right now the weather is nice, go outdoors, don't gather indoors. that means don't gather for house parties and dinner parties. instead, meet your friends and relatives outdoors. stay physically distanced from people who are not in your immediate family, and avoid

crowds. all of these common sense measures can make a big difference now, and we need to be implementing them this moment. >> and i almost -- sorry to the viewers, i'm going to play a little more president trump. but i'm going to play him back-to-back with a couple of governors. because the way with the way that donald trump has communicated about this virus, whatever he says is mirrored temperature cli by ma identically many many republican gofr forc governors. here's president trump saying this virus will disappear. >> this virus is going to disappear. it's going to disappear. one day, it's like a miracle, it will be disappear. you have to be calm. it will go away without a vaccine. it's going to go away. this is going to go away. i said it's going away and it is going away. you know it is going away. >> so you have had governors

like in florida who are just yes men to donald trump, refused to do anything to protect their citizens. here's the lieutenant governor of texas. >> fauci said today that he's concerned about states like texas that skipped over certain things. he doesn't know what he's talking about. the only thing i'm skipping over is listening to him. you know, you have a lot of doctors on your show from day one, your doctors have been right almost every time, and he's been wrong every time on every issue. >> that is completely the opposite of true. now here is christy noem of south dakota talking about the little party they're going to have with fireworks, which is also dangerous in that environment because of, i don't know, fires. >> so we will be having celebrations of american independence. we'll have a large event july 3rd. we told those folks that have

concerns that they can stay home. but those who want to come and join us, we'll be giving out free face fafk masks if they cho wear one. we won't be social distancing. we're asking them to come and enjoy the freedoms and liberties that we have in this country. >> you know, will humble, it is known now that woodrow wilson's failure during the so-called spanish flu pandemic in 1917 was that the government lied to the american public and allowed parades to happen and allowed big events to happen because they didn't want the wilson administration didn't want the public to freak out over this during world war i. and that was the reason for the lies. in this case, there is no reason. either way, it's indefensible. but when states are responding with trump speak instead of science, are we at a point now where essentially you are just more endangered by living in a red state? >> you know, it all comes down

to the decisions that your governors make in the end. the federal government is an important resource, it's funding a lot of the operations. but the critical decisions are made by governors and those governors are informed by whatever world view they have. they've been elected by the folks. in arizona, i could tell you the big mistake that we made was not that we opened up too early, but the way we opened up i think was very irresponsible. may 15th ended the stay at home order, it was very successful. but when we emerged from that, we didn't have any compliance measures in place, no enforcement mechanisms for businesses that didn't follow the cdc mitigation guidelines. as a result, business and human behavior devolved really into prepandemic attitudes. so what you see now is that arizona is the hottest of hot spots. i think it -- i know it's the hottest spot in the whole country, maybe even the worst place in the whole world right now. and it's directly tied to the

policy decisions made by our elected officials at the state level. they make these executive orders. they are the ones who make these decisions about resource allocation. and they're the ones who decide the face at which you open and how you open. so i just encourage everybody who is watching this broadcast that cares make sure you hold your elected officials accountable and ensure that their decisions are sound. >> yeah. dr. wen, new york was our italy, they were the first to get to -- really get hit hard. there was an aggressive move to tamp it down and flatten the curve. and other states had a lead where they knew this was coming and did nothing. now you have counties in miami-dade and broward and florida, you have places around the country closing their beaches this weekend. counties all over the country are closing their beaches. at this stage, will that do any good? >> i think it will do some good to impose these measures,

although i have some concern about closing beaches, because i don't want to drive people indoors instead of being outdoors at beaches. but i do think that everyone, even the states that are doing relatively well, need to see this as a warning, that there is spread that could be happening in their communities right now. and there is not that much lead time before it gets to the place of exponential spread. so all the states should be considering a pause to re-evaluate exactly where they are, what is the impact of reopening thus far? they should be thinking about their priorities, that the priority is to have in-person schooling in the fall, maybe the decision needs to be made to not have bars be open in the summer. at the end of the day, we need to be concerned about the most vulnerable among us. we do know that it's african-americans, spanish-americans, native-americans bearing the brunt of this illness. so we need to watch out for everyone around us. >> yeah, indeed.

dr. wen, thank you so much. will humble, thank you both for being here. up next, more questions than answers about reports that russia paid the taliban bounties for killing u.s. service members. leon panetta joins me next. stay right there. panetta joinst stay right there usaa is made for what's next no matter what challenges life throws at you, we're always here to help with fast response and great service and it doesn't stop there we're also here to help look ahead

that's why we're helping members catch up by spreading any missed usaa insurance payments over the next twelve months so you can keep more cash in your pockets for when it matters most and that's just one of the many ways we're here to help the military community find out more at usaa.com to help the military community are you currently using a whitening toothpaste, but not seeing results? try crest 3d whitestrips. its enamel-safe formula lifts and removes stains to provide 100% noticeably whiter teeth or your money back. try crest 3d whitestrips.

welcome back. president trump is facing more questions over the news that the u.s. has intelligence indicating

that russia put a bounty on the heads of u.s. troops. trump dodged responsibility claiming he was never told. but multiple outlets have reported that trump was, indeed told. on more than one occasion. today, he's calling it a hoax, saying it was made up to slander him. but it's clear at the very least that the intelligence itself actually exists. and that the fact is so obvious that even republicans don't deny it. now former national security adviser susan rice writes in "the new york times" op-ed, trump fails to take action, not even lodging a diplomatic pro-test. now mr. putin knows that he can kill americans with impunity. likewise, former secretary of defense leon panetta writes, no matter what excuses the president puts forward, there is nothing that can justify the failure to act. i'm now joined by the author of that op-ed, leon panetta, former

defense secretary and cia director under president obama. director panetta, i don't know that i believe president trump when he says that he was not briefed. but if he was not briefed, when the national security adviser robert o'brian says that our allies were briefed, that our allies were told this information, if donald trump was not briefed when the allies were briefed, what would that say about president trump and his administration? >> it would confirm that it is very irresponsible, because frankly, that kind of critical information ought to be presented to the president of the united states. the national security adviser was not elected by the people of this country. he can take it on himself to decide what information should or should not go to the president of the united states when it involves killing american soldiers.

that is information that has to be brought to the president. so a, if the national security adviser did not present it to the president, then i think that was irresponsible on his part. on the other hand, if the president received that information, and i'm like you, i tend to believe that people brought it to hisattention, he's now using the excuse that he didn't receive it to justify the fact that he's taken no action to deal with this critical intelligence. >> i'm going to play for you, this is robert o'brian, saying what we just discussed, that allies were told but not president trump. here he is. >> although it wasn't necessary to give to the president on a strategic level because we were trying to verify it, the cia, as gina haskell said the other day, put it out to our allies, to our coalition partners, to the department of defense and they

have come out and said they took all force protection measures necessary. >> you have run the d.o.d. and the cia, is that how this works? that something as horrifying as our troops -- bounties being offered for the troops, would be briefed to the department of defense, briefed to the national security defense, briefed to allies but no one would mention it to the president? >> i find it very hard to believe, and if it's true, it just means that the white house is totally screwed up in the way they handled that kind of critical intelligence. i can't imagine that something that was contained in his pdb, going back to february, back to february, and presented to him, that at that point, the president should have been made aware of that information. when the national security council met on this issue in march to talk about options for action by the president, the

president of the united states should have been told about that. the national security council is meeting to present options for action. if none of that happened, then what's happening is that the president lives in splendid isolation from his responsibilities as president of the united states and commander in chief. so it just seems to me that they're trying to present some excuses for why they have not taken action to say to the russians that regardless of whether or not there were questions about this information, we are telling you that we will not tolerate your putting bounties on the heads of our men and women in uniform, and that we will take whatever steps are necessary to protect them and to stop you. >> there's a -- president trump has been called dangerous to the national security of the united states by his own former

officials. john bolton is out hawking a book which interestingly enough, he doesn't mention this, but he was national security adviser during some of this, and it's not clear whether he told. i think he's said he did something. could it be the only reason not to tell president trump would be that he's to adverse to any negative information about vladamir putin and russia, that perhaps his administration and his national security team thought he would be upset by hearing any bad news about russia? that is a very odd and strange thing that could happen in the united states of america, but could that be a reason that makes this make sense? that people are just afraid he would be upset because he doesn't ever want to hear anything bad about his favorite, favorite country, russia? >> he has made that clear, that he doesn't like to receive intelligence that counters his viewpoint of the world, even though it may not be the real

world that he's looking at. and so he may very well have sent a clear message, that he doesn't want that kind of information. but nevertheless, if you're in the intelligence services of the united states, your responsibility is to speak truth to power, regardless of the consequences. that's why you're there. you're not very much good to anybody, frankly, if you're withholding vital intelligence from the president of the united states because you're concerned that he might be angry or that he might not react well to that information. you can't do that. your responsibility, as an intelligence official, is to present the intelligence that you are getting to the president of the united states truthfully and directly. and that is what should have taken place in this situation.

>> well, we know that donald trump, per all of the reporting, is a person that is frequently overplayed by other leaders, particularly vladamir putin, abusive to leaders that our are friends. he doesn't seem to be the type of person to respond well to that information. but it's hard to believe that they wouldn't have tried to tell him. director, thank you very much for being here. still ahead, the trump campaign in full panic mode. that should be fun. stay with us. ha ha. stay with us ha.

if you've had the coronavirus, you've got a lot of fight in you. and you're in a special position to help us fight back. the plasma in your blood can literally save lives. but we need to act fast. please donate plasma now. please donate. donate. donate. donate now. you fought for your life. now let's take the fight to covid-19. go to the fight is in us dot org to find out how to donate. an herbal stress reliever ashwagandha, that helps you turn the stressed life... into your best life. stress less and live more. with stressballs.

widespread panic and pessimism. those are the two words used to describe the state of the trump re-election campaign right now. axios reports that donald trump's advisers are sounding alarms about his re-election

prospects. early optimism about an econo c economic -- and early hopes of rallies has dampened because of tulsa. and grim polling, showing biden ahead of trump in every single significant swing state. and in a new survey, 75% of voters, a record high, say that the country has pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track. the survey shows trump with a 39% approval rating. amid this political chaos, new reporting that trump is turning against one of his closest advisers. who might that be? that is up next. you get used to pet odors in your car.

you think it smells fine, but your passengers smell this.

eliminate odors you've gone noseblind to for up to 30 days with the febreze car vent clip. wow, it smells good in here. so you and your passengers can breathe happy.

with his poll numbers sinking, trump is reportedly turning on one of his closest advisers. trump has told people in recent case he regrets following some of son-in-law jared kushner's advice and will stick closer to his own instincts. he's indicated following jared kushner's advice has harmed him politically. i'm joined now by claire ms. cass kill and eugene robinson. eugene, here's a little bit of that report. trump never wanted criminal justice reform. he says privately it was misguided to pursue the policy, undercutting his instingtss and he probably won't win any more african-american support.

what do you make of this deciding to blame it on somebody to blame it on, right? he can't blame itself. it's the one quarter to the way sensible thing he's done in office that is responsible for his losing the coming election. you know, this is -- this is absurd. if you believe donald trump is -- has a very subtle mind and is playing three dimensional chess, then maybe you can credit his example of the silent majority. but if you live in the real world and you see that donald trump would be just eating the chess pieces if he decided to play three dimensional chess, you would realize this is not 1968 and the country is not as

white as it was in 1968 and it is not as overtly and happily racist as it was in 1968. so the idea there is this silent majority that will lift him to majority that the silent majority lifted nixon to victory, it's just absurd. but if he wants to go with it, let him go with it. >> even the suburbs are not as white as they used to. he's like, i'll save the suburbs for you. that's where a lot of black people live. according to history in statistics, donald trump might be toast. biden's lead over trump right now is the biggest at any stage in the contest since bill clon ton's over bob dole in 1996. there's a culture war him to exploit. but instead of simply pill

loring monument destroys, he created his own living documents, a white supremacist astride a golf court in a florida community. as a statement of values, it is grow totesq grotesque. your thoughts? >> well, you know, first of all, i think eugene and i agree that this is a guy who would struggle with the concentration needed for checkers, much less chess. and he says, well, the criminal justice reform is going to get him no more african-american votes. i'll tell you what's not going to get you anymore african-american votes donald trump, tweeting a white guy screaming white power. that is racist. this notion that jared was the brain child, trump has never wanted to expand his base. he's under the mistaken notion

that everybody who voted for him loved him. a huge s.w.a.t. group of people holding their nose. this time the people who don't like both candidates, joe biden is winning those votes and he will win those votes. >> i'm thinking about the senate races, too, because you have run in a wave year, claire. and it is difficult, right? if a wave is a wave, it is just a wave and there is not necessarily much you can do about it. but in this one, donald trump is running against joe biden, who is not anything that your average suburban voter is going to fear or have an attitude about like hillary clinton. this is a poll asking is biden more liberal or conservative than most democrats. more liberal 17%, about the same, 52%. he seems to be the average person. so i wonder if part of the problem is that he's up against someone who is very hard to

re-define. claire? >> it is very hard to re-define him. trump wants to make him radical and diminished and out of touch. guess what? look in the mirror. trump is the radical. trump is the one who is diminished and slurring his words and talking word salad and certainly he's out of touch because he doesn't realize this country is craving unity and compassion and empathy and stability. instead, he thinks they're craving him celebrating monuments to traitors. it's bizarre. and joe biden gets it, and he's not going to be able to re-define him, especially since he's trying to make him into what people actually think about donald trump. >> about donald trump. eugene, last word to you because it does seem like all biden really has to do is keep being joe biden and watch out for voter suppression. that's what it seems like, at

least on its surface. is there a bigger complication than that? >> i think it's pretty much that simple. i mean, he needs to -- he needs to lead. he needs to be a unifier. he needs to be -- he needs to do what he's doing and he seems to be doing very well. what everybody else needs to do, everybody else who wants biden to get elected needs to ensure voter access to the polls. that's going to be the key to this election. it will be the gop play. that is the ball game. >> absolutely. and pick a good vp running mate. that will be key. >> right. >> former senator claire mckas kill and eugene robinson. thank you very much. we are back in a minute. much. we are back in a minute.

hey, can i... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!!

that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today.

safe dbecause now you can expewatch all your favorite hulu shows and movies on xfinity. you're only a voice command away from award winning shows like the handmaid's tale, to new hits like little fires everywhere.

and fx originals you can only watch on hulu. that's just the beginning of what you can experience with hulu on xfinity. tv made simple, easy, awesome. nbc news is reporting that federal authorities are reviewing whether a civil rights investigation is warranted in the police-involved killing of elijah mcclain in colorado. he was a 23-year-old black man who died after police put him in a choke hold last year. he loved animals and music. according to his friends, taught himself to vie the vplay the vi. that vigil was cut short when police dressed in riot gear abruptly decided to disperse the crowd using what some described as tear gas. their actions were followed by

the news last week that multiple police officers were put on administrative lead for taking potentially inappropriate photos near the site of mcclain's death. musicians played in washington square park on sunday and monday. beautiful. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes is up next. tonight on "all in," the absolute failure of the federal response to the coronavirus with cases surging across the country. a president still insisting the virus will just disappear. then, why we are now in the worst case scenario and why reopening schools will be paramount to opening up the economy. trump calls the whole story a hoax, military families demand answers. "all in" starts