good thursday afternoon. i'm ayman mohyeldin. we are tracking a lot of breaking news. in the u.s., more than 2.7 million people have contracted the coronavirus with over 129,000 deaths so far. today the labor department announcing that the u.s. added a record 4.8 million jobs in june, bringing unemployment to 11.1%. although it is the largest single month gain in u.s. history, as cases surge and some states shut down businesses, it is unclear whether americans are headed towards a recovery or reversal. and a news conference with federal prosecutors was held last hour after longtime jeffrey epstein associate ghislaine maxwell was arrested today by the fbi. she's being charged in connection with an ongoing sex abuse investigation involving

jeffrey epstein and minors. maxwell has denied any wrongdoing in the past. we want to begin this hour in texas where the number of coronavirus cases is exploding. between june 8th and june 21th, there have been about 75,000 new cases of coronavirus in texas alone. and that is just in those three weeks. harris county, home to houston, is the hardest hit in the state with over 32,000 cases so far. that is where we find msnbc's david gura live outside the houston medical center. david, good talk to you again. obviously, staggering numbers there. houston attempting to try to deal with this ballooning number of cases. do they have enough testing, you think, and resources to meet the need of those being hospitalized? >> let me talk about testing first if i could, ayman. three ways to get tested in this community. there's a city of houston testing apparatus. sites around the city you can go online to to try to get an appointment at. there's often a long line to get

through there. they test about 500 people daily at some of those sites. the county has its own testing program. yesterday i was outside of houston northwest of here and they test about 750 people per day. there's a private system as well. you can go to certain pharmacies, try to get tested there. but that's a small number when you look at the size of the population in harris county. more than 4 million people live here. so they are underresourced when it comes to testing and more demand for testing than there has been in recent weeks as folks look at these numbers. i had a chance to talk to the mayor yesterday. he's obviously very concerned about what's going to happen here in the coming days. his fire chief is as well. the fire department is in charge of the ambulance system within the city. that's the case here in houston as well. and i can tell from talking to samuel pena, the fire chief, he's already concerned about the strain that his department is under. take a listen. >> our firefighters are overworked. we're understaffed. over 260 firefighters right now in quarantine, which means they

are out for two weeks. we cannot use them for staffing. and that's putting a lot of strain on our ability to staff our ambulances and fire trucks. >> for some perspective there, 260 firefighters. that's about a quarter of the force that he relies on, on a given day. i said to him, you've got to be wrest ling with this testing issue as well. you want them to get out of quarantine and back into action. he said they have access to testing but it is by no means rapid. they have to wait a number of days to find out whether or not they're positive or negative. >> david, let me get your perspective on another issue that's been brought up. the strain of hospitals in houston. pro publica investigation into internal messages that have been showing a growing crisis as increased hospitalizations really put that system under pressure. how are hospitals trying to accommodate this sudden influx of patients? >> you know, it says something that here where i'm standing at

the texas medical center, the largest medical complex in the world, there's concern about where things are headed, but we know they've already exceeded the regular capacity for icu beds in this center. it's a similar story in public hospitals around this county as well. they are trying to move things around, maybe close down clinics, inpatient -- outpatient clinics to get that staff to the hospitals to help with care there. i spoke with the incident commander at methodist hospital behind me. she's looking at the data, wondering what they might need to do to compensate if these numbers go up. hard to think they'll not go up as we see this curve forming here. the numbers don't look good, and everyone here recognizing that. reckoning with that. just to go back to what the fire chief said to me yesterday. anecdotally as his ambulance drivers and firefighters are bringing patients to these hospitals, they are saying there's often a wait for those patients to get admitted to the emergency rooms here. just getting an indication of the strain they're under already at this point in the story,

ayman. >> david gura live in houston, thank you. next hour, vice president mike pence will arrive at another major coronavirus hot spot. the state of florida. he's set to meet with governor ron desantsis and discuss the sat's respon state's response. president trump is expected to travel to florida next week for a fundraiser. the state posted a new daily record. a staggering 10,000 new cases. the total number there now stands at over 169,000 cases overall. and in jacksonville, the site of the upcoming republican national convention, the city is now mandating mask wearing for public and indoor locations where social distancing is not possible. joining me from jacksonville, nbc news reporter dasha burns. so jacksonville now mandating masks. big question is, how could that impact the president's vision for the rnc at the end of august? >> yeah, ayman, that vision might have to change, especially

if this trend continues. now we don't know how long that mask order will be in place, but it could apply to the republican national convention held here august 24th to 27th. now part of the reason the president wanted to move the event from charlotte, north carolina, to right here in jacksonville is to avoid some of those restrictions and hold a more traditional trump-style rally. but that might not be possible. today i'm at a testing site at a large event complex here. this place also holds the arena where the rnc will take place. and we're going to have to see how that actually comes together come august. this testing site is seeing long lines. normally you'd see long lines of spectators. today we're seeing long lines of people waiting to get tested for covid-19. duval county is averaging around 384 covid cases a day. just two weeks ago, ayman, that number was closer to three.

that just shows you how quickly things can turn here and in fact, the surge began not long after the announcement the rnc was moving here. so this event could look significantly different than what was originally intended, ayman. >> dasha burns live in jacksonville, florida, thank you. as concerns grow about outdoor activities spurring coronavirus infections, miami-dade county is closing its beaches for the holiday weekend. hotels, motels and commercial lodgings are also restricting pool access and alcohol sales. this as cases of coronavirus in miami-dade county top 37,000 with at least 1,000 deaths so far. joining me is miami-dade county mayor carlos jimenez. mayor, thank you for joining us today. let me begin with, as we approach this holiday weekend, what led you to the decision to close the beaches and some other areas ahead of this holiday weekend. what most concerns you right now about the coronavirus in your

county? >> what concerns me the most is the percentage of positives that we're getting out of our tests. we know that we've had at least 200,000 or 300,000 people in miami-dade county that have had coronavirus. i would suspect the under counting, the official total versus the real total, is probably undercounted by a factor of 10, 15, maybe even 20, not only here in miami-dade but around the country. and so that concerns me that the positive rate has gone from about 8% to about 18% in 14 days. and that we've had a surge in the usage of our hospitals. we have capacity in our hospitals and we're not close to filling that but it's above the highest it was in april. so that's what's concerning to me. it appears that a lot of young people were not following the regulations that we put in here. we've had the mandatory uses of masks indoors, plus outdoors. if you can't maintain that distance of social distance of

six feet, social distancing, we changed that to everybody has to wear a mask inside and out. we did close the beaches for the holiday. we impose regulations on pools, et cetera, on our hotels. we now have closed our restaurants after midnight. no alcohol or food can be served after midnight and they need to close because some of these restaurants are turning into impromptu nightclubs which, again, have been closed here. bars have been closed here and so we need to look at what really transpired here. and interested to see the data from other states and other cities where there are similar things that opened up or have continued that caused this spike so we can determine what caused it. my suspicion is that people let their guard down, especially young people, and then young people were doing the things that young people do, and started partying with their friends and started spreading this virus around. now it's getting to their parents and grandparents. >> speaking of other cities

there, is it difficult to enforce these mandates when mayors across your state are taking completely different approaches from area to area, and do you think a statewide order from governor desantis is necessary at this point because he's been one of the governors in this country who has been reluctant to issue a statewide mandate or really any statewide approach on this matter. >> well, we've been very consistent down here in miami-dade county. people know what they have to do. especially young people know what they have to do. i don't think they really care what's going on in jacksonville or panama city here in miami-dade. they care about what's going on in miami-dade. we have the rules. they've been strict down here. and they have decided not to follow them. and some businesses haven't either, although we conduct thousands of inspections every single day, you know. it just got to the point that i believe people thought we had this beat. >> but, sir -- sorry, just to cut you off quickly, are you fining businesses and others that are not doing that?

i understand somebody may not care what somebody in jacksonville is doing. if they are driving through and stop at a gas station or do something in your county or city and they don't have a mask on, is that business being fined? >> well, if we find them, sure. and we close businesses and we have fined businesses, and we, you know, two weeks ago, we shifted from an education perspective to an enforcement thrust. and we are also changing some of our ordinances to make it easier to fine people. we can fine people now criminally. we want to do a civil fine and make it easier for our inspectors to go ahead and issue tickets to folks that aren't complying with the rules. and those businesses that are not complying with the rules, we are dealing with them in a much heavier handed way. closing them down, and then making it difficult for them to reopen. those are clear messages. but again, you know, it's also very difficult to police what's happening in private homes. and i also feel and think and

i've heard that there are private parties going on, you know, in homes and that kids are getting together, even adults are getting together, and thinking that, hey, this covid-19 is not a big problem. well, everybody is waking up to the fact that it is a problem. and that we have a lot of people here that are coming up positive and if these rates are correct, today's positivity rate in miami-dade county was something like 25%. that means 1 out of every 4 people you're meeting on the street probably has covid-19. so our message is this -- look, wearing a mask is a sign of respect. it's a sign of respect that i respect you and you respect me. since you and i don't know that we have or could have the virus, let's put on this mask so that we can protect each other and our message is, i protect you, you protect me, we become good citizens, and if we do that, and if we follow these rules, then we can tamp this virus down and move forward. which is what i want to do. the last thing i want to do is move backwards, but if we have to move backwards, if these

numbers don't get better, we may have to move backwards and start to shut things down that we opened, you know, two, three weeks ago. >> mr. mayor, i want to ask you about another story getting a lot of attention this morning. a miami-dade police officer has been relieved of duty after he struck a woman at the miami international airport. a video which i am sure you're aware has now gone viral on twitter and elsewhere. the video is jarring for a lot of people at home. your police chief said an investigation has been initiated and you condemn the action on twitter. what more have you learned about this incident? are there any actions that you can take, a, to prevent it from happening, like instituting new training for officers, but also in response to this specific incident and this officer? >> well, look, one of the things i did, you know, four, five years ago is miami-dade police is one of the first departments to have body-worn cameras. we have the evidence. we have the video evidence and

that was being reviewed yesterday. and so i expect action to take place today. our police director has also condemned the action. do we need further training? look. our officers are trained not to do that. so, obviously, this officer went above and beyond. he used excessive force. he did not have to do what he did, obviously. and it's going to cost him dearly. all the other officers that i've talked to of the miami-dade police department, which is one of the finest police departments in the united states, have all said they don't understand why that individual, that -- why that officer did that. and certainly, do not condone the actions of the officer. my apologies to the lady. apparently she was at miami international airport getting home. she just missed a flight and was really irate because she missed her flight. and -- but again, there is no excuse for what the officer did. and swift action and swift

disciplinary action is going to follow. we already suspended him. there are certain procedures that our police director has to take in order to follow up with further action. but, believe me, further action is coming, and it's coming very quickly. if we hadn't had those cameras, this would have taken a much longer time. so, you know, our belief in body-worn cameras is very strong here. our training is very strong here. he went out -- completely outside the training. we have 3,000, you know, great men and women that serve our police department. this was just one of those, you know, one of those people that went outside what they should have done. >> all right, mayor carlos jimenez, thank you for joining us this afternoon. appreciate your time as always. >> my pleasure. to all of our viewers this week, we have been answering your questions about the coronavirus at 11:00 a.m. every day. submit yours on twitter using #msnbcanswers or email

talk@msnbc.com. coming up -- ghislaine maxwell, the longtime confidante of jeffrey epstein arrested this morning. we'll have the details after this quick break. something great from mr. clean. stop struggling to clean tough messes with sprays. try clean freak! it has three times the cleaning power of the leading spray to dissolve kitchen grease on contact. and it's great for bathrooms! just keep pumping the power nozzle to release a continuous burst of mist and make quick work of big jobs. it even works on stainless steel.

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we just heard from the u.s. attorney's office in manhattan detailing the arrest of jeffrey epstein's longtime confidante ghislaine maxwell. federal prosecutors charging maxwell in a six-count indictment with conspiracy to entire minors to travel and engage in illegal sex acts and two counts of perjury. the fbi arrested the 58-year-old in new hampshire thus morning in connection with an ongoing investigation into epstein's alleged sexual abuse ring. last hour, we heard from the u.s. attorney's office in new york about those charges. >> maxwell was among epstein's closest associates and helped him exploit girls who were as young as 14 years old.

combating the exploitation of children is a priority of our office. we are committed to pursuing and prosecuting those who exploit and abuse minors. >> joining me is tom winter outside that office there. tom, what information did we learn from officials and how did the arrest transpire this morning? >> well, first off, ayman, we got a heads-up that approximately 3:30 p.m. today, there will be a removal hearing fr for maxwell. she was arrested around 8:30 this morning as part of a joint investigation with the nypd. this has been going on for approximately a year and essentially ayman, what we heard at the press conference was this is a detailed investigation. they were not going to go into more information as far as what evidence exists, but it appears there's additional corroborating information that goes beyond --

it goes beyond what the victims have testified to here. both the fbi and the nypd, nypd in particular talking about how this is really about the victims and how they have been disappointed. they acknowledged in the past the justice system, the justice department has let down these victims. they've come forward today. i think a key bit of information here today and the acting u.s. attorney audrey strauss said it best. this indictment was a prequel to what we saw last summer when jeffrey epstein was indicted. specifically the conduct here that we're seeing for the first time in charging documents goes back much farther than we've known in the past. it goes back to 1994 with girls that were age 14. so i think it's kind of a surprising how long this occurred. epstein really didn't pop on to law enforcement's radar until the early 2000s. of course, there was the nonprosecution agreement and everything that we've covered at length about that. why he did not face stiffer charges and federal charges back

then. it's also conduct that's alleged here that goes across international waters and across the country. from his ranch in new mexico to his house in palm beach in florida, to his upper east side mansion in new york city and also the acting u.s. attorney talked about charged conduct and activity that goes all the way to london, england. so, really, a widespread, long-term effort here by epstein, according to the indictment today, involved with ghislaine maxwell to bring in underaged girls for the purpose of him to engage in sexual activity and she was also charged with lying twice in a deposition that was tied to a federal court case in the court buildings behind me. so really a broad-based investigation and one that they say is very much ongoing. >> very significant investigation on a very important story. tom winter, thank you so much. up next -- june job numbers are in. unemployment fell to 11.1%.

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it's almost half past the hour. let's get a quick update on the facts surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. right now in the u.s., more than 2.7 million people have contracted the coronavirus with the number of lives lost surpassing 129,000. the u.s. added more than 50,000 cases in a 24-hour period on wednesday alone. the largest single day total since the beginning of this pandemic. fast food chain mcdonald's now announcing it has paused its dining room reopening plan here in the u.s. for three weeks. franchises that have already reopened can stay open as long as local officials allow them to. and california's governor gavin newsom ordering the closure of

indoor operations for restaurants, bars and other businesses in 19 counties as cases in that state continue to surge. now the monthly jobs report, as we mentioned, came out today and it's crushed economists expectations. nearly 5 million jobs were added in june as many states have begown reopen their economies. the unemployment rate also fell to 11.1%. but initial jobs claims did rise by 1.4 million in the last week alone. so earlier, we heard from both president trump and his democratic rival joe biden speak out about these new numbers. take a listen. >> today's report is positive news, and i'm thankful for it, for real. but make no mistake. we're still in a deep, deep job hole because donald trump has so badly bungled the response to the coronavirus. >> that's shattering all expectations and shattering all records, historic records. history of our country, we've

never added anywhere near that. >> joining me now is nbc news senior business correspondent and anchor stephanie ruhle. good to talk to you always to put all of this in perspective. put these numbers in context. without context they don't really mean much. what does this mean to you? does it make you more optimistic about the economic outlook? or should we not read too much into it at this point? >> it's a complicated picture. listen, we are clearly on the road to recovery. that's a positive. but it is a rocky road. it's not a rocket ship as the president likes to say. right? if you think about march and april, we lost 22.2 million jobs. and between may and june, we brought back 7.5 million. now every one of those jobs that came back is hugely important, and we're happy about that. but when you look at the jobs report for the month of june, it's a snapshot. the president says this is extraordinary. what he's not saying is the extraordinary measures the government took to keep the economy afloat. it was june when the stimulus

payments went through. it was june when millions of americans finally got on that expanded unemployment. that means consumers are spending. that's good for business. it was june when ppp, that over $600 billion in small business loans, hit those small businesses. and in order to make that money forgivable, they had to hire back their employees. couple that with june being the month -- early june, when all 50 states had some level of reopening. of course, you're going to see retiring. so it's positive momentum. but again, to say that we're out of the woods, there's no one arguing that we're in a v-shaped recovery anymore. look at the last week. you are seeing in california 19 different counties now get partially shut down. new york delayed when we're going to allow in-restaurant dining. and you've got states across the board now taking more restrictive measures. we are in an economic crisis because we're in a health crisis. as long as we live with corona spreading, we're going to live with this situation. >> all right, stephanie ruhle,

as always, thank you. appreciate it. joining me now is robert reich, an economics professor at the university of california at berkeley and former secretary of labor in the clinton administration. also the author of "the system -- who rigged it, how to fix it." thank you for joining us. let me pick up on that point about the shape of our recovery, whether it's a u-shaped or v-shaped recovery. give us your perspective. are we on the right track towards recovery and which line are we in? the president is trying to portray this as a v-shaped recovery. >> that's what the president obviously wants to, do ayman. the reality is it is impossible to talk about this so-called recovery unless you talk at the same time about the coronavirus. because the reason we got into economic trouble in the first place is because of the pandemic. and the pandemic is really

running the show here. the reason we've got more jobs coming back in june is because, at the end of may, a lot of governors started to reopen the economy. particularly in retail, restaurant, hotel, hospitality and that accounts for most of the growth in jobs. and as stephanie said, we also had a lot of unemployment, extra unemployment assistance in june. now, remember, that jobs report, that survey by the labor department, happened before the surge in new cases. yesterday's case number of new cases for the pandemic, for the virus, was about 52,000. that's a record. that has caused governors and some mayors to pull back and start shutting the economy down again. and that is going to mean fewer jobs. in fact, that does mean fewer jobs. to say that we've got more jobs

in june because the economy is coming back is a little bit like saying the sun rose because the rooster crowed. no, it's all about the pandemic. >> let me get your thoughts about the paycheck protection program, if i may because congress, obviously, just extended the deadline of it at least until august 8th. it came just as the program was set to expire with more than $130 billion that remained untapped. is that going to make a difference? can it make a difference, the fact that they extended if that money had not been used already? and if so, why hadn't it been used already? >> ayman, it's going to make a little bit of a difference. it's better to extend it than not extend it and leave $130 billion on the table. but the big question really facing the economy and facing the workforce right now is

whether those extra unemployment benefits are going to be extended beyond july 31st. and congress, the senate has got to agree with the house in terms of extending those. if they are not extended and also we go back into this pandemic in terms of more and more cases, we are going to be back into a very, very difficult economic situation and there's going to be a lot of -- there are a lot of families that also are going to be hurt very badly. >> all right. former secretary robert reich joining us this hour. thank you for joining us. appreciate your insights, as always. tonight, make sure to tune in for a special report, "america in crisis: economic turning point." stephanie ruhle will co-host with jose diaz-balart and cnbc's wilfred frost. you do not want to miss that important conversation. coming up -- minority communities are among those

feeling the wrath of the coronavirus the most. from high infection rates to staggering unemployment. after the break we'll take you to one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic. people reaching their breaking points as their cries for help go unanswered. you're watching msnbc.

new york city is moving to phase three of reopening next week as the state's number of coronavirus cases is on the decline. but some of the city's minority communities devastated by the outbreak, they are still

struggling. the neighborhood of corona queens was one of the hardest hit areas. 1 in 23 people here have had the virus according to "the new york times." joining me from corona is msnbc correspondent ron allen. good to talk to you. what have you heard from the community and the people there saying about both the reopening and how the virus and the pandemic played out there? >> they're struggling and hurting. this is one of the most vibrant areas. an outdoor market where people are trying to sell what they can and get back going. it's also a place you can buy all kinds of masks for covid-19 and a free test over here which are reminders of how hard-hit this community was. there are some predictions that as many as half of the immigrant workers in these communities might not get back to work at any point because of the pandemic. that's why a lot of leaders are crying out for help. every day before noon, hundreds line up outside catalina cruz's

office in corona. the queens lawmaker set up her own food pantry to help neighbors. >> six feet apart, please. >> the city is reopening, the country is reopening, but there's still this. >> yes, because what happens in our community is the majority of people didn't qualify for any of the financial help that's out there. >> reporter: corona is a denseny packed community with immigrants working low-income jobs in transportation or health care. making them especially vulnerable to the virus and leading to one of the highest infection rates and covid-related deaths per capita in the country. many used to work in a vibrant cash economy off the books like this woman who is undocumented and now ineligible for government help. >> the restaurant where i used to work is permanently closed now. >> reporter: cruz knows her plight very well. >> my mom was a street vendor, a nanny. she cleaned people's homes. >> reporter: cruz was just 9 when her mother brought her here from colombia. she's the first former dreamer

ever elected to state office in new york. >> where's your husband and the baby? >> reporter: now crying out for help for her community. when you see this and what you've seen over the last few months, how does that make you feel? >> it's gut wrenching because there's only so much i can do for folks. >> reporter: new york's department of small business services tells nbc news cruz's borough of queens got about 16% of the recovery loans issued by the city. manhattan got 57%. and the bronx, the city's poorest area, received just 2%. >> the bronx, for decades, has always been the last to get help. >> reporter: michael blake, cruz's bronx colleague, says deep systemic inequalities have made surviving covid difficult. >> they are trying to figure out remote learning. you can't tell people to be socially distance in a house where there's five, six, seven people in a home. >> reporter: mott haven bar and grill does what it can to

survive like making meals for a nonprofit that serves new yorkers in need. >> will your business survive? >> if it wasn't because of the essential meals, no. if this stops, i don't think i can survive. >> without this, you're in deep trouble? >> oh, yeah. i'm trying to remain positive. >> reporter: the restaurant's meals go to places like cruz's office food pantry here and so many other places in new york's most vulnerable neighborhoods, lines still stretch around the block. there are estimates in the bronx, the outer boroughs, as many as 70% of the restaurants may not open. and half the small businesses may not reopen. it's a staggering amount of economic devastation. and, of course, they are looking for more help from state, federal, local government to avoid this devastation. and the bottom line is that there is a lot of hope here that the health numbers stabilize, continue to remain flat, so that this community can pick itself up and that there's not a spike in cases here as has been the

case in so many places around the country we're seeing now. >> ron allen with a very eye-opening report. thank you. joining me is msnbc medical contributor dr. kavita patel. let's talk about the numbers and where we stand today as a country. the u.s. recording its largest single day record of coronavirus. nearly 50,000 on wednesday alone. what are you seeing as the main driver behind this rise? >> so there are several drivers. one, certainly the reopening. and, two, just the fact that in the reopening we had a number of bars, restaurants, public spaces like beaches where we saw a great deal of younger people, what we call kind of congregate se settings. large crowds of young people. as we know from the testing and reporting that it is a lot more young people accounting for these new cases. but don't let that deceive you.

it doesn't mean these are not leading to hospitalizations. we're getting better at treating people in the hospital, and that's why you see lower death rates, ayman. but it has to do with the fact that the country has reopened a little too soon and candidly, capacity at bars and restaurants was probably higher than they should have been which is why you're seeing states like new york and other states rolling back and pausing on some of those settings. but as you've already been reporting, it's devastating to the economy, but without health, we're not going to be able to recover with the economy. >> it seems the president does not want to accept that reality because he once again said that he expects at some point the virus will eventually just disappear. let me play it for you and our viewers what he had to say about this. >> if 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. >> you still believe so? disappear -- >> i do, sure.

>> he hopes that it will just disappear. then says he believes that it will just disappear. what is your reaction, doctor, to the president's comments? >> well, there's no scientific proof or reason to believe that this virus will disappear, and we just know not only from coronavirus and its cousins, other coronaviruses, the common cold, for example, or the influenza virus, even like the pandemic flu, that we talk bodied about in 1918, we know these viruses don't just go away. they either mutate and come back stronger, or we have to have some plan for immunity, either through being infected or through a vaccine. so even in an optimistic -- it's irresponsible to make statements that the virus will go away. a better statement and hopefully people will listen is that as we're heading into a holiday weekend --

be smart or at least try to wear a mask and wash your hands and keep a distance from people as we're trying to come back into this new normal. >> some good words of wisdom and advice for those planning on celebrating this weekend. dr. kavita patel, i appreciate your insights. the congressional leaders get the answers they were looking for when the trump administration briefed them today on what it knew about the intelligence that russia allegedly paid bounties to the taliban to kill u.s. troops in afghanistan. but first, as we head into the fourth of july weekend, we are honoring veterans who continue to serve their country. here is a look at one veteran's inspiring mission to raise awareness around mental health one step at a time. i'm a veteran of the united states marine corps. in april of 2019, my marine brothers and i lost a comrade we served in afghanistan with to suicide. after that point, i felt it in my heart to bring veteran suicide to the forefront and did

so by embarking on a walk 810 miles around lake michigan in support of the mission 22 organization. mission 22 is an organization that works nationwide to help veterans and their families find the help and resources they need to overcome various mental health challenges. with covid-19, we're seeing a lot of folks losing their jobs. a lot of folks facing some hardship. and that includes veterans as well. and so i feel that now is an even greater time than any to reach out to those veterans and make sure they're taken care of. whether it be financially or making sure their mental health is staying strong through this season we're in. in august, i'll be embarking on another mission. a 300-mile walk. i'm going to continue to bring awareness. raise funds in whatever way i can and serve the best way i know how to do. usaa is made for what's next no matter what challenges life throws at you, we're always here to help

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today, the group of

bipartisan donegressional leaders known as the gang of eight were briefed by intelligence on reports that russia paid the taliban to kill american troops. the white house still claiming the president was never briefed. the president calling the intelligence the hoax even though officials in the u.s. and uk knew of the reporting. joining me now, msnbc's capitol hill correspondent garrett haake and nbc news national security and justice correspondent ken dilanian who has been reporting on this story extensively. garrett, let me start with you. what's the latest from that meeting? >> well, that meeting has now broken up. as i warned you earlier this morning, part of the reason the gang of eight is able to get briefings from gina haspel is they're the group least likely to talk about what they learned. here's chuck schumer giving the sum total of information that has been publicly said about that meeting earlier today. take a listen. >> anything about the briefing,

but i believe that the president is not close to tough enough on vladimir putin. >> that eight seconds represents everything that has been publicly said about what went on in that room, although i can tell you, gina haspel wished the press corps a nice fourth of july. i joke about this, but this is kind of lockdown you see with information that is shared with the gang of eight. we'll hear from nancy pelosi a little later this afternoon. she rescheduled her weekly press conference until later today. it's possible we'll get some shading out of her on this, and the way i will phrase the question and i think the takeaway that might get news out of this is what if anything does congress feel it needs to do based on what they learned. they won't tell us what was discussed in the briefing, but perhaps we can learn whether this or anything the congress has learned over the past week we have been following the story has animated them to take a stronger posture toward russia, whether it be with sanctions or another tool at their disposal. >> if there's anyone who can get

information out of folks on capitol hill, it would be you. best of luck trying to get something out of them. ken, officials have told nbc news that information about possible russian bounties was included in the president's written intelligence briefing, but kurbt and former officials have also said president trump usually does not read his briefing material and he's extremely difficult to brief. you report some current and former officials say certain subjects can provoke an eruption that will send things off the rails. what can we make of this in terms of learning what the president did or did not know about this issue? >> ayman, this is what my intelligence sources see as the real scandal here, that the national security state appears to have been paralyze in the face of this provocation by russia and intelligence about it because no one was willing to tell the president. the cia knew, the state department knew, the military knew, the british government new. some members of congress were briefed on this a few months

ago, but donald trump was not told, and they play this game where they put it in writing in his presidential briefing papers knowing he doesn't read that, and then they didn't bring it up with him, in part because absolutely mention of russia, we're told, has the potential to cause a diatribe in the middle of the intelligence briefing, to send it off the rails, and the result is, look, we can debate, you know, you heard chuck schumer criticizing the president. we don't know what the intelligence says and whether it's strong enough to provoke an action by the trump administration, a response. we are not in a position to evaluate that. what we can say is, it's fair to say that the president should have known about it. while he's talking on the phone to vladimir putin six times, because you have to factor that in. and now it appears they're reviewing the intelligence, and i'm being told it's fairly strong. particularly the cia people believe in this intelligence, that the russians were paying bounties to kill american troops. but now, trump's got his back up and he's calling it a hoax,

which even members of his own administration don't agree with. >> ken, let me get your thoughts really quickly because you know that world much better than i do, but when you have someone who is a staunch ally of the president like dni ratcliffe, is there any reporting and anyone from the sources that you have spoken to that say that kind of appointment ultimately trickles down into the kind of intelligence that is presented to the president? >> well, it absolutely -- they are absolutely worried about that, of course, yes. you have a bunch of politicians now at the helm of the intelligence agencies with the xegz of gina haspel who is a career spy and cia director wrbs but she wasn't at the briefing the other day. she was there today. it's not going to affect the intelligence collection, but the question of what gets presented to the president, how this intelligence is dealt with, they tried to blame his briefer, a career cia officer, for why he wasn't informed. she didn't make that decision on her own. our reporting shows people like

ratcliffe and haspel and the chief of staff, they get together and decide what to present to the president. if they're not willing to speak truth to power to him, then the intelligence doesn't get acted on. >> all right, ken dilanian, garrett haake, we'll let you both get back to work. that wraps up things for me. i'll be here tomorrow morning, 10:00 a.m. eastern. my colleague katy tur picks up the coverage after this quick break. fter this quick break. $9.95? that's impossible. hi, i'm jonathan, a manager here at colonial penn life insurance company, to tell you it is possible. if you're age 50 to 85, you can get life insurance with options starting at just $9.95 a month. okay, jonathan, i'm listening. tell me more. just $9.95 a month for colonial penn's number one most popular whole life insurance plan. there are no health questions to answer and there are no medical exams to take. your acceptance is guaranteed.

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it's 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in the east. the state of florida just announced staggering new coronavirus numbers today. more than 10,000 new cases have been reported in the last 24 hours. a new record topping wednesday's record by more than 4,000. in a victory lap speech touting today's jobs numbers, the president refused to acknowledge the reality of this pandemic. he called the hot spots temporary. he said the crisis is being handled. and he said the states have all the medical equipment they need. but in a newly released memo, the country's largest medical equipment distributors told the house oversight committee that the supply of personal protective equipment for medical staff is not meeting demand. and one california icu nurse told nbc news that the virus is here to stay. >> nigh husband comes home sometimes and he's emotionally distraught, having to do cpr

because a young patient with no previous medical history couldn't breathe, and there was nothing they could do for him. i want our community and i want the whole world and everyone watching to know that covid-19 is real. covid-19 is here. covid-19 is probably here to stay for a long time. >> the state of arizona is also struggling. it recorded more than 3,000 new cases of covid-19 today. and yesterday, it set a new record with nearly 5,000 cases. experts saw this coming. they have been warning of an impending spike since may. now, it's here, and the city is bringing in outside help. nbc news reporter vaughn hillyard is standing by in phoenix. you have been covering this story for many weeks going on months. and frankly, you have been saying the same thing. that there is a spread coming, and the state has not been prepared. what's happening today?

>> well, we have been talking, having a conversation for two months, katy, realizing the numbers of covid cases were going up, but also that percent positive number was going up. new numbers out today, that percent positive number is now 29.4%, another percentage point up from yesterday. that's why where wanted to meet with the head of some arizona national guard today. he's also the director of emergency management here in the state of arizona. works closely with the governor, doug ducey. major general nick mcguire, we just spoke a few moments ago and had conversations about what is now going to be taking place going forward. one of those efforts is bringing in 500 outside medical personnel to help these medical facilities across four different counties, because when we're talking about bed capacity, icu capacity, a lot of the issue at hand is the fact that there's not enough manpower here across the state. that is why today they're finishing up putting out a

contract to bring in 500 medical personnel from out of state. they already have about 62 federal workers temporarily here on the ground to provide services. take a listen to part of our conversation, when i ask general mcguire whether the state of arizona is prepared going forward. >> getting resources to us, equipment, ppe, those types of things. as we prioritize based on greatest need. arizona is a priority state for those types of things. we are prepared. we have -- we have been working towards this, as i told people months ago, we built out st. luke's. we stockpiled ppe, we did this in the hope there wouldn't be a second wave or a first wave or whatever wave we're going to call this. >> katy, you heard him mention st. luke's. that's a hospital facility that is prepared to be open, essentially they would have 334 beds in a necessity that hospital expansion is needed. they also plan to have by next week 300 guardsmen helping with

contract tracing efforts here at the county level. katy. >> vaughn hillyard, vaughn, thank you very much. >> california governor gavin newsom is rolling back his state's reopening. some nonessential businesses including indoor dining will close again in 19 counties. as the governor warns that the virus is spreading at an alarming rate. the shutdown impacts roughly 70% of the state's 40 million residents, but experts have warned this kind of patchwork shutdown can be less effective. nbc news correspondent eric mclaughlin is at a restaurant in los angeles for us. this patchwork, how is it working? >> well, it's hitting restaurants such as the one i'm at right now, katy, particularly hard. this is antonio's. it's an incredible mexican restaurant that's been here in melrose for some 50 years. owners said they spent quite a bit of money and investment getting ready for indoor dining. you can see stickers on the

table, they moved their menus online. this is one of many measures that they have taken, now having to shut down again. now, worried they won't survive this. take a listen. >> it was quite shocking for us, because we just barely opened after all of the things we had, you know, going on, and so it was quite shocking for us. it was very hard because we're like a family. we work all together for so many years. and it was hard to, you know, have all of our staff have to leave. it was very hard for us. >> that's irma rodriguez, she's been working here since she was a 12-year-old girl. now she's wondering how things are going to progress going forward. this order is in effect for at least three weeks. while she says this restaurant has been following the rules, we know that many restaurants throughout california have not. for example, public health officials here in l.a. county say they estimate that almost half of all restaurants that

they have inspected have not been following masking protocols, have not been following social distancing. contributing to that 45% surge in cases that the state has seen over the past two weeks. big focus also on masks in the area. rodriguez was telling me she said that was one of the toughest things to enforce here at this restaurant, getting customers to wear masks where appropriate, and that effect, the l.a. sheriff here in west hollywood announcing overnight that they're going to be ticketing anyone out and about without a mask in west hollywood. some $300 fine for not wearing that mask. >> erin mclaughlin, thank you very much. >> and the state of texas saw more than 8,000 new cases of covid-19 yesterday. topping the previous record set the day before by more than 1,000. hospitalization rates also broke the previous day's record. nearly 7,000 texans are currently in hospitals for covid-19 treatments. and many of those icus are

nearing or are at full capacity. joining me now is the founding dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine, dr. peter hotez. thanks as always for being with us. the federal government is going to come in and add more icu beds, more capacity to these hospitals. will it be enough? >> well, thanks, katy. no, it won't be enough because we're not taking sufficient measures to halt community transmission. we are seeing the steep acceleration of the number of cases every day. we broke the record yesterday, which broke the record the day before that, and these numbers of cases will continue to climb with some projections saying the numbers could double or triple in the coming weeks in july. and so the problem is we've got to figure out a way to halt community transmission. >> so how do you do it? >> well, there have been some measures that have been put in

place, including closing the bars, reducing restaurants to 50% capacity, encouraging mask use in certain metro areas like in houston, harris county, it's required for business. the question is going to be, are those measures sufficient. i'm not sure they will be because of the very dramatic steep acceleration. remember, it's not only happened in texas. we just heard florida, california, arizona, across the south, we are seeing a massive rise. dr. fauci is now predicting getting up to 100,000 cases a day. if you extrapolate times the populations of florida and texas and arizona, we're already at that level with no end in sight. i don't really see a lot of alternatives other than to go back to lockdown status. i'm happy to look at other incremental measures, but so far, i haven't seen evidence that's going to be adequate. >> i want to ask you this.

the peak here in new york was in mid-april. that means texas, florida, arizona, california, a number of other states, saw what was coming or what could be coming and all of that time to prepare. what did the state of texas do to prepare to be ready for exactly the circumstance that you're in right now? >> well, we had a strong start. we saw what was happening in new york, and locked things down pretty early so we never saw that big surge. the problem was this -- the epidemiologic modelers indicated that for this to really go back to containment mode, meaning less than one new case per million residents per day, we had to keep that lockdown in place throughout the month of may, and we weren't prepared to do that. and i believe a lot of that is because we did not get the guidance from the federal government. they were not there providing specific information about the models, what the consequences

are if we open up now versus then, and so i think the part of the problem is our national response is not really a national response. it's letting the states make the decisions and take the leadership, the federal government will provide backup in terms of ppe and fema and all the things you have been hearing about, and gloves, but they're not taking ownership and leadership in terms of a strategy. that's been the fundamental flaw all along. the states just don't have the horsepower to do this on their own. >> the other day, vaughn hillyard was interviewing a doctor in arizona who said that they're seeing so many patients in their icu that they're going to have to start triaging who might survive this and who might not survive this, and prioritize their treatment. are you seeing a similar scenario in texas? >> you know, we have pretty good hospital capacity at our texas medical center. the texas medical center is the world's largest medical center,

a medical city of 60 institutions, 100,000 employees. so we still have beds. we still have room, but -- room to accommodate patients, but who wants to get there? again, if we continue along the same trajectory, double, tripling the number of community transmissions by the end of july, we can't sustain it. no health system can sustain it. there's going to have to be a shift in direction and a new strategy. >> dr. peter hotez, thank you very much for coming on and giving us your time and expertise. we appreciate it, sir. >> thanks so much. appreciate coming on. come gelain maxwell was arrested this morning by the fbi. she was taken into custody in new hampshire as part of an ongoing investigation into epstein's child sex trafficking operation. maxwell will make her first

virtual court appearance today via video. she is expected to be charged with six counts, including conspiring to sexually abuse minors and perjury. we should note in public court filings and statements, ghislaine maxwell has denied any wrongdoing. for more on this story as it's developing, let's turn to nbc news correspondent tom winter. what's happening? >> well, katy, speaking of developing, literally as i was coming on to speak with you, our colleague pete williams digging into some additional court papers, which give us a little bit of a sense of how ghislaine maxwell has been liveing the past few years at different points, federal prosecutors say she's had up to $20 million in her bank accounts. they have identified at least a dozen bank accounts that she's had over the past three years. that includes the past two years, rather, that includes different points hundreds of thousands of dollars in those accounts up to the $20 million figure i detailed to you. since december of last year, so in the last six or seven months,

she bought a 156-acre house in new hampshire. we're in the process of getting pictures of that which we'll get on air here as soon as we can. but looking at that, it's 156-acre property which was purposed in all cash, katy, on top of that, prosecutors say over the course of the past several months to a year, she's changed up her cell phone number, she's registered those numbers under a different name. she's received packages under a different name, so she's been very careful to cover her tracks, according to the federal detention memo filed in the case, as i first said when we broke the case with stephanie ruhle, prosecutors were likely to label her an extreme flight risk and in court documents they have said as much and are asking for her to be detained pending trial. in other words, she's not going to be getting out anytime soon provided a federal judge agrees. >> tom, why would this be a sign to the public corruption unit.

there are prosecutors speculating on twitter including prosecutors who are analysts for us, that it could mean there might be public officials involved in this investigation? >> a really great question. i'm glad we have an opportunity to speak about it. this is the same unit looking at the epstein charges for the past year or so. the investigation really beginning in earnest in december of 2018, katy, and so essentially here you've got more robust unit with more prosecutors and more resources for a sexual trafficking case that is this expansive, that spans multiple continents, that really goes essentially coast to coast, katy. it's a unit that's more geared up from a resource standpoint to handle this. obviously, long term questions are going gee asked about alex acosta and given the behavior we have seen today, remember, this is the first time that federal prosecutors and people have alleged in writing that this conduct goes back to 1994. it involves women as -- or girls i should say, as young as the

age of 14. so it's going to raise some pretty significant questions as to what federal prosecutors were doing agreeing to a nonprosecution agreement with jeffrey epstein in the early 2000s when at that point it appears according to the allegations today he for ten years had been sexually trafficking young girls. that raises significant questions so we'll see whether or not there's an investigation there that is ultimately worth exploring or is being explored by federal prosecutors, the fbi here in new york city. >> galling questions. that's how i describe it. tom winter, thank you very much. and still ahead, florida has just reported more than 10,000 new cases in one day. that is close to what new york was seeing at its worst. plus, today's jobs report was better than expected, but it does not tell the entire story. president obama's former acting labor secretary will help us read between the lines. first up, though, to capitol hill, where congressional

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i'm not going to say anything about the brief, but i believe that the president is not close to tough enough on vladimir putin. >> that was senate minority leader chuck schumer as he emerged from a briefing with top intelligence officials, the gang of eight was briefed on intelligence that russia paid boun bounties to taliban fighters to kill u.s. forces. the meeting comes as "the new york times" reports that u.s. intelligence identified an afghan man as a conduit between the russian military and militants linked to the taliban. according to that reporting, he, quote, was among those who collected the cash in russia, which intelligence files described as multiple payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars. for its part, the white house continues to deny that the president was ever briefed on

that intelligence. national security adviser robert o'brien said a career cia analyst made that decision based on a determination that the information was unverified. despite that information being in the presidential daily brief, the president is still saying it is a hoax. >> this didn't rise to the occasion. and from what i hear, and i hear it pretty good, the intelligence people didn't even -- many of them didn't believe it happened at all. i think it's a hoax. i think it's a hoax by the newspapers and the democrats. >> msnbc correspondent garrett haake joins me from capitol hill. he thinks it's a hoax by the media and the democrats. there are republicans on the hill, though, that are concerned about this reporting and this intelligence, right? >> there are. and they're concerned about force protection, and that seems to be the issue that has animated most of the folks who have gotten briefings on this,

whether they be lower level briefings or briefings like the one that just concluded with the cia director and the head of the nsa. briefing the gang of eight, in fact, just a short time ago, nancy pelosi and chuck schumer put out a joint statement that i wanted to read to you. it reads in part, force protection is a primary purpose of intelligence. it should have the same importance to the commander in chief. any reports of threats on our troops must be pursued relentlessly. it goes on to say these reports are coming to light in the context of the president being soft on vladimir putin when it comes to nato, the g-7, crimea, ukraine, and the ongoing undermining of the integrity of our elections and concludes, our armed forces would be better served if president trump spent more time reading his daily briefing and less time planning military parades and defending relics of the confederacy. that last graph was interesting to me, my immediate thought was is it that not a back door way of confirming this information was included in the president's daily brief?

intelligence leaders, the gang of eight, they do not talk about the contnlts of these briefings. but they oftentimes will give us some characterization of what they learned and whether or not it elevates or lowers their level of concern about an issue. this suggests to me an elevated level of concern among congressional leaders with the information they have gotten, and in just a minute, as soon as i'm done talking to you, i'm going to run downstairs for nancy pelosi's weekly press conference where i think the question now is what if anything does congress choose to do about it at this stage? >> yeah, whether they're more concerned now having gotten that intelligence or less concerned. also a way to get at that question. garrett haake, thank you so much. let us know what happens from the briefing. >> will do. >> we would like to know, frankly, and appreciate your time. >> meanwhile, the jobs report from june was significantly better than economists expected. you might even call it a rare bit of good news if it weren't for those millions of americans who were still unemployed. the u.s. added 4.8 million jobs

last month and the unemployment rate dropped more than two points to 11.1%. the number of jobs added marks the largest single month gain in u.s. history. and the president took credit for it this morning. >> with all of the trials and tribulations that we read about every night, much of it totally fake news, fortunately, and if the consumer didn't get it, you wouldn't have good consumer confidence. this is not just luck, what's happening. this is a lot of talent. >> joining me now, the acting secretary of labor under president obama, seth harris. he's currently a professor at cornell university's institute for public affairs. seth, thanks so much for being here with us. can you just interpret these numbers for us? >> well, it's a very good report. the unemployment rate came down. the job growth was very substantial, but it's meaningless unless you put it

into context. let's start by saying that the president is claiming credit for a horrible unemployment rate, 11.1% is a higher unemployment rate than we had at the height of the great recession. and at the same time, the 4.8 million people who got jobs essentially were reclaiming their old jobs. they were temporarily furloughed, all of them, and they went back to work in their old jobs. so we're not seeing growth in the economy. this is not an indicator of growth. the other thing we have to focus on, katy, is these numbers were collected three weeks ago. and the world has really changed in three weeks. you know, california, arizona, florida, texas, other jurisdictions have reclosed. we have seen a really dangerous scary spike in infections and hospitalizations. we have seen quarantine orders and all kind of things that really will radically slow the economy down. so it's a good sort of museum piece, but we're in a different

place now, and it's not at all an indicator of where we're going. >> let me ask you this, because adding any number of jobs has got to be good news considering where we were. how much better could it have possibly been given the circumstances that we're currently seeing ourselves in? >> well, i think a big part of the reason that we're seeing even this amount of job growth is because of the massive spending from congress in the c.a.r.e.s. act and the other bills they have passed, and the huge infusion of capital coming out of the federal reserve. it really is government that is propping up an economy that is weighted down by this pandemic and by the fear that the pandemic is creating. workers don't want to go back to work. consumers don't want to go out and buy. particularly older americans don't want to come out of their homes at all. it is a scary environment, and that's very bad for the economy. too much uncertainty for people either to invest or buy or go out and spend.

so it could have been a lot better if we had been reopening the economy safely, if people had confidence that when they went outside, they were not going to get a deadly condition. and we're not seeing that. we're seeing governors rushing to reopen. we're seeing the president walking around without a mask. we're seeing him offer very little help to the states, to employers, to workers, in figuring out how to keep themselves safe. the economy could be much, much better. what we're seeing now is the effects of big government investments. we'll hopefully see more big government investments, but at the end of the day, if we don't treat the fear, which is the biggest symptom of this pandemic, we're not going to have the economy improve. >> well, let me ask you this, i have heard this from a lot of economists and frankly a lot of health officials. they said the economy and this pandemic are one in the same right now. you need to address the pandemic in order to address the economy. you can't do the economy without addressing the pandemic. and goldman sachs released some

analysis this week saying economic growth -- linking economic growth with mask wearing. saying wearing a mask could save the economy from a 5% hit. that's a big number. >> and it's almost certainly correct. you know, so we know from dr. fauci and scientists -- i'm not a scientific, but they are, they're experts, and they're telling us that masks significantly slow the spread of the virus. that will bring down the number of people who are hospitalized, the number of people who die, and it will help to treat the symptom of fear that we have in the economy. you know, the reason that people are fearful is because they're looking at others who are behaving extremely irresponsibly with the tacit sanction of republican governors and president trump, and they're scared. and they should be scared. if everybody were wearing a mask, and we could trust that our neighbor was going to take care of us and look out for us and try to keep us safe, well

then we might be willing to go outside. then we might be willing to spend more in a store, go to a retail store, sit outside at a restaurant. but as long as people are behaving irresponsibly, there's no reason to do anything other than fear going outside. >> yeah, i saw a maskless person stocking the shelves at a local pharmacy, and i have not been back to that pharmacy because i just am worried about what might be in there and the precautions they might be taking, so good point. secretary seth harris, thank you for joining us, sir. >> thanks, katy. appreciate it. and still ahead, is it possible that nobody told the president about intelligence that russia was offering bounties to kill u.s. troops? new york congressman sean patrick maloney will tell us what he thinks. >> first up, though, florida's coronavirus cases are rising faster than any other state. we'll go to jacksonville where city officials are racing to get ready for the republican national convention.

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coronavirus developments. and here are the facts as we know them this hour. as hospitalization rates rise in many states across the country, the house oversight committee received a dire warning. there are still severe shortages of personal protective equipment. a memo from the committee

obtained by nbc news outlines discussions with medical equipment distribution companies. the companies also say the prices for raw materials have increased dramatically. fda commissioner dr. stephen hahn says there is a plan to get those supplies to areas that need them most. he also says operation warp speed to quickly develop a coronavirus vaccine is still on track. >> we are on target to reach a vaccine by year's end or early next year. i'm cautiously optimistic. >> former republican presidential candidate herman cain has been hospitalized after testing positive for covid-19. he was at the trump rally in tulsa on june 20th, as an official campaign surrogate. although there is no way to know whether he contracted the virus there. the trump campaign says cain did not meet with the president. >> meanwhile, vice president pence is on his way to tampa to meet with governor ron desantis. florida is reporting more than

10,000 new cases of covid-19 in a single day. it is just shy of the nation's single day record, which was set in new york back in april when it reported more than 11,000 cases in one day here. president trump is expected to travel to south florida for a fund-raiser next week. and on the other side of the state, the city of jacksonville prepares for the upcoming republican national convention. officials there now require people to wear masks in public, as coronavirus cases climb. joining us now from jacksonville is nbc news reporter dasha burns. what does it look like out there? >> hey, katy. well, it's unclear how long that mask order will be in place. but at the rate things are going here, it could apply to the republican national convention held here august 24th to 27th. part of the reason the president wanted to move that event from charlotte, north carolina, to right here in jacksonville is to avoid some of those restrictions

and hold a more traditional trump style rally. it's unclear whether that's going to be possible now. today, i'm at a testing site that's been set up at a large events complex that also happens to hold the arena where the rnc is set to take place. now, normally here, you would see long lines of spectators waiting for a concert, a game, or a rally. but today, instead, we're seeing long lines of people waiting to get tested for covid-19. and just to show you how quickly things can take a turn, the last time the vice president visited florida and spoke with the governor, the governor was boasting about the state's response to the virus. take a listen to what he said back in may. >> you got a lot of people in your profession who wax poetically for weeks and weeks about how florida was going to be just like new york. wait two weeks, florida is going to be next. just like italy, wait two weeks. well, hell, we're eight weeks away from that and it hasn't happened.

>> and he was referencing the media there, katy. of course, it's now about six weeks later, and things look very different here. in fact, just after the rnc was announced it was coming here to jacksonville instead of north carolina, that's when we started to see a surge of cases. it just shows things can really turn on a dime in this environment. and that convention could look very different than originally intended, katy. >> wow. that sound bite looks particularly bad when you consider that florida had more than 10,000 cases confirmed in one day, which is close to approaching the single day record here in new york. dasha burns, thank you very much. and autopsies have long served as a way to learn more about deadly viruses. and it's no different with the coronavirus. with the planet now facing an epidemic that has killed more than 500,000 people, researchers are focusing on these postmortem examinations for new answers on

how the virus kills and how doctors can stop it. joining me now is dr. amy, chair of pathology at nyu winthrop hospital and a director of nyu's medical school on long island. thank you for joining us. i found this to be a fascinating article in "the washington post" about what coroners were finding. what autopsies were revealing. but in layman's terms, can you try to relay the information that's coming from these examinations? >> sure. thanks, katy. so the main thing that we're finding is really related to fatal and severe covid infections. that clotting definitely plays a role, and initially, the clinicians were sort of only reporting clotting that they could see. but what we're finding at autopsy is that clotting is very diffuse and severe throughout

the body in multiple organs throughout the body, and this definitely can play a role in how patients that have severe infections may end up dying of the disease. >> and is that part of the reason why blood thinners are now being used for patients in the hospital? and does it mean that people out of the hospital might want to take a blood thinner? >> i think that's part of the research that's ongoing. and definitely especially with the autopsies that pwere performed at my hospital, the autopsy pathology tried to turn this information around very quickly so that we could benefit the patients who are alive and suffering in the hospital. i saw a change in my autopsy findings from the beginning to the end just basically simply on the fact that many patients started to receive anticoagulation therapy. so now, i think, is where some of the hard work comes in of clinicians doing those trials of various anticoagulants to see

which one will really be key in determining how we can prevent severe infections from becoming fatal. >> so one of the findings that was written up in this report was the similarity between coronavirus and dengue fever, even though it's not quite the same, the cells that it's attacking appear to be the same. can you -- or involving. can you explain that? >> sure. so we found that mega carrier sites, which are bone marrow cells, normally really only found in the bone marrow itself or in the lungs, were in various organs in the body. and why that's important is because mega carrier sites produce platelets which are critical in blood clotting. and as i developed sort of many, you know, as i looked at many of these autopsies, what we found was that mega carrier sites were found similarly in diseases like dengue virus, and dengue virus,

although it produces a bleeding disorder, it seems these cells and platelets may play a role in the severe fatal infections in both of these different types of viruses. >> so so far, we have been told if you have any sort of lung condition, you might be more susceptible to this virus. is there anything that you're learning in these autopsies that there are potentially other conditions beyond the way it attacks the lungs that people should be more heavily concerned about? >> in my study, we found that being overweight or obesity was prevalent. and i think we're learning more and more every day about the risk factors. definitely older age, hypertension or high blood pressure, obesity seemed to be links to having more severe infections. >> why obesity? >> we're not really sure.

i think that it may have to do with the way the body reacts in terms of the immune system and producing various substances that activate the immune system. >> interesting. we're also seeing more younger patients in hospitals in places like texas, where there was one hospital group reporting that 60% of the patients with covid-19 were under the age of 50. 30% under the age of 50 in the icu. what can you tell us about the way that it's currently attacking young people, when the initial assumption was older people were more susceptible? >> again, i think that we are still defining this disease, which makes it even more important to stay vigilant about social distancing and wearing masks. there does seem to be some relationship between sort of the

initial dose of virus that you receive when you're first infected and how severe your infection will be. i think that may play a role in some of these patients that are younger but still have very severe infections. >> doctor, thank you so much for coming on and helping us understand this reporting. we appreciate your time. >> thank you so much, katy. and remember, if you have any questions about the virus that you want answered, tweet it using #msnbcanswers or email talk@msnbc.com. cleg melvin could answer your question live on television with a medical experts, 11:00 a.m. on msnbc. >> coming up next, is it even possible that no one told president trump about the alleged russian bounties on u.s. troops? new york congressman sean patrick maloney who was just briefed by our country's top intelligence officials, joins us next.

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and found our way home. together. masimo. together in hospital. together at home. nancy pelosi is holding her briefing. let's listen in. >> well, let me just say, garrett referenced my statement about -- i said earlier, i think, that when congress in a bipartisan way passed sanctions on russia, the administration told us to take out the sanctions on the gru, the intelligence as well as the defense sectors of russia.

those should definitely still be there. they were there in a bipartisan way. it's just the administration wanted them out. i don't know why. so we should have those in there, in any event. as this proceeds, we'll see what other sanctions there should be. but we want to move without doubt in anyone's mind that just because it's russia and just because all roads through the president lead to putin doesn't mean that we shouldn't be taking careful guard of our elections because 24/7 they are trying to undermine the integrity of our elections again. and other concerns that we have about russian behavior and cybersecurity and actual security issues. but we don't subject it to the same kind of scrutiny, this administration doesn't, because it's russia. yes, sir. >> on the domestic --

>> okay. >> did i cut someone off? >> to you, then. >> i'm sorry, on the domestic front, you're leaving now for a few weeks. you come back july 20th. is there enough time to negotiate a compromise on the next covid relief package? >> of course. first of l i'm not leaving for two weeks. don't biv my husband and my family any thought that i will be there for two weeks. no, we come back beginning of next week with the appropriations committee starting actually on monday for some subcommittees. my understanding, for sure, tuesday. so they can put the subcommittees can do their work on appropriations and the full committee the week after can do their -- each of those bills so that when we do come back, we're ready to go to the floor. many people will be here. some will be virtual. >> nancy pelosi giving her weekly briefing. delayed it by a day. we missed the top of her remarks

addressing the gang of eight briefing. we'll get you that information as to what she said or more likely did not say as soon as we get access to garrett haake. in the meantime, nbc news national security and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian is with us. ken, there's new developments on this story every day. the president is still maintaining it's a hoax, even though it was in the presidential daily briefing. you also have robert o'brien, the national security adviser, seeming to blame a cia briefer for not including it in the verbal briefing. but he gets the pdb as well. is there a reason why he didn't see fit to include it to make sure the president knew about it verbally? >> well, that's a great question that he has not answered. and when i talked to my intelligence sources, this is what they're fixated on. they're not saying, suggesting it's a scandal that the administration hasn't acted yet on this intelligence, because they don't know how strong it is. neither do we. and there are plenty of instances in the obama administration when pakistan was

funding the taliban or iran and perhaps the response wasn't what some people would have liked. the issue is the entire national security community, congress, and foreign government knew about the intelligence, but donald trump wasn't briefed orally on there is some suggestion that the people around donald trump are afraid to bring him a certain kind of intelligence, or they're strategic about it because they know the intelligence briefings could go off the rails if they bring up the wrong subject, russia included. that's really scary and bad in terms of u.s. policy towards russia. we don't know these bounties were paid and americans died because of it. it sure would be something you want to president to know when he's talking to president putin. he could have issued a warning saying you may not know this is going on, but knock it off. these are things presidents do

all the time. >> one of the words that the white house is sticking on is that there are unverified -- it's unverified intelligence. does verified intelligence exist? is the intelligence brought to the president verified by the cia or by another intelligence organization before it's given to the president of the united states? >> the answer is no. former cia director michael hayden would say, if it was a fact, it wouldn't be intelligence. intelligence is more of an art than a science. it's about analysts making their best judgments on scraps of secret information. it was never verified by the cia that the tall man in the compound in pakistan was 0 is a osama bin laden.

it was a close call, maybe 50/50 that bin laden was there. president obama had to make a judgment. intelligence is not fverified. it's given a confidence level, low, medium or high. we don't know what the confidence level on. it was seen as strong enough to share with the british government, to warn the military so they could take steps and have a national security council meeting to have options, yet the president said he was not told. >> ken, thank you very much. joining me is congressman shawn patrick mahoney. congressman, thank you for joining us. i understand -- do we not have the congressman? the camera just went down. thank you for bearing with us in

these confusing times. ken delaney, you're still with us. you answered a question which was did we know that bin laden was in that compound in pakistan. you said no. it wasn't a fact. they didn't know for sure the tall man there was bin laden. the world of intelligence can get very murky. when i've spoken to former cia officials on this show, they've always said, even when it's murky, something like this where u.s. soldiers are going to be put in harm's way potentially, especially when another foreign nation is behind that harm, that's the sort of thing that no matter what a president normally sees? >> yeah, that's absolutely right. the thing about this intelligence is it's not very surprising to anyone who has worked afghanistan. i just got off the phone with a former cia officer who spent part of his career in

afghanistan and he was saying it's no surprise the russians would be doing this. he said we did this to them when they were fighting in afghanistan. the cia funded insurgents and helped them kill russians. it's not a surprise if the intelligence came from deta detainees. it would be evaluated with other communication intercepts and intelligence. they would put it together and the analysts in washington would look at it and bring those findings to the national security koicouncil and normallo the president, but that didn't happen. >> ken delaney, thanks for sticking with us. i understand the congressman is with us now. congressman i understand you

were in a skif at capitol hill. were you having a briefing on this intelligence? >> let me say i have been briefed on it and i have read the intelligence that's been made available to the committee. >> are you more concerned or less concerned now that you've been briefed? >> i was concerned when i read it in the "new york times." i wish the president had been more concerned instead of getting the russians back in the g 8. that's what he's been doing. now we know at the same time there were these serious allegations about the russians paying intermediaries to kill our troops. why is the president going out of his way to get putin back in the g-8? our allies didn't want to do it and president trump canceled the

g-8 because of it. just think about that. >> do you think congress needs to act to punish russia? >> i think if these allegations are true there must be a response from the united states government. that should include things like economic and diplomatic sanctions. it could include covert actions. there are a range of responses we could take if it's determined that the russians are paying people to kill our troops. the russians need to know this is a line they cannot cross. >> you're saying if it's true. do you need to see more intelligence to confirm congress should act? >> what i'm saying is there are serious allegations. i'm not going to comment on the intelligence i received. the allegations that have been made public, the white house has concerned the existence of certain intelligence -- i mean, you just noted the national security adviser is blaming the

briefer. i guess you wouldn't blame the briefer if you were saying there was information in the president's daily brief that contained this subject. these allegations are deadly serious. let's not get caught up in the minutia. why are we inviting russia back in the g-8? why is the president trying to pull back our troops in germany at the very time he's aware of these allegations and this intelligence? that's outrageous. >> congressman shawn patrick maloney, thank you for rushing to the camera to talk to us. we'll see you soon. i'll see you back here at 5:00 p.m. eastern. in the meantime nicolle wallace picks up our coverage after a quick break. age after a quick break.

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hi, everyone. i'm nicolle wallace. it's 3:00 p.m. in the east. noon out west. brian williams is taking some well deserved time off. we are heading into the long fourth of july weekend with no sign that the coronavirus pandemic will stop ravaging our country any time soon. so far more than 2.7 million americans have been sickened and the death toll is approaching 130,000. the total number of daily cases in our country passed 50,000

yesterday. that's due to growing outbreaks in the south and west. many of the new infections came from arizona, california, florida and texas. days after saying the u.s. could see up to 100,000 new cases a day, dr. anthony fauci had another stark warning. >> what we've seen over the last several days is a spike in cases well beyond the worst spikes we've seen. that is not good news. we've got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak in the united states. >> donald trump has a wildly different view of the situation when he spoke today. >> the crisis is being handled. we are likewise getting under control some areas that were very hard hit. they're now doing very well. some were doing very well. we thought they may be gone.

they'll flare-up and we put out the fires. >> the president was celebrating the news that nearly 5 million americans returned to work last month and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%. the data was compiled before the recent spike in cases and before states started to scale back their re-opening plans. as the june jobs report came out, we learned another 1.4 million americans filed first-time unemployment claims. former vice president joe biden slammed the president for taking a victory lap. >> we should hope, but there's no victory celebrated. we're still down 15 million jobs and the pandemic is getting worse not better. millions of americans are still out of work wondering if their job will come back. they're worrying about how to pay the bills. >> questions still abound over allegations that russia offered money to taliban-linked

militants to kill american troops. officials went to capitol hill to brief the gang of eight. that briefing came as we learned more about the reports and the administration's response. "new york times" reporting intelligence officials believe the russians used an afghan business man as a middleman to distribute the payments. the "washington post" reports the white house is not planning any response because the president doesn't believe the reports are true. we'll have much more on that story coming up. right now let's get to the latest on the pandemic. our friend david gura is in houston for us. david? >> reporter: we are putting out the fires. that's what the president said. over the course of the last few

days i've been talking to local officials who are trying to do that largely without the aid of the president and his administration. i've talked to the mayor, the fire chief, hospital minut administration. the administrator of the houston methodist hospital took out an ad on the front page of "the houston chronicle" -- stay at home this july 4st weekend. there is a fire getting more powerful here. local leaders have their hands around that. our colleagues at nbc doing reporting on the conversations taking place among health care leadership worried about bed capacity. i'm at the center of houston's medical community. there are 1,300 beds here, icu beds. they've exhausted the capacity here and are moving things around to accommodate more beds. all of those patients are not

covid patients, but the writing is on the wall. they're worried they're going to get more here as the curve climbs. i talked to the mayor. i said what's going on here? are your hands tied? we've seen the debate between local officials and the city and county and state governor. greg abbott said he's concerned, encouraging people to wear masks. in harris county there's the desire to do more, to tell their citizens in a hot spot they need to stay in place. that's not happening. i asked the mayor to what extent are your hands tied? >> he took away the authority of the local governments. we don't have the tools we had in march and april and may, the tools we utilize to blunt the progression. we don't have those tools. that's unfortunate.

look, this inspires all of us to be working on the same page with the same message moving in the same direction. in the absence of a vaccine, you know, message becomes very important. >> reporter: nicolle, folks here are not reading out of the same book. i was at a testing site yesterday. as the president continues to talk about how we're putting out this fire, it was a county testing facility. fema is there giving supplies, but that's only because you have local officials and state officials begging the federal government to continue their support of that program. the trump administration just a few weeks ago thought we're done with this. we don't need to support these testing facilities. there were 750 people lined up yesterday waiting to make their way through the testing facility only to wait three to five days to find out the results. >> i remember texas beginning

right after georgia with their re-opening while new york was still suffering. it's sad to see them getting hit so hard. thank you for spending time with us and bringing your reporting. joining our conversation dr. irwin redliner from columbia university as well as "new york times" reporter peter baker. doctor, i have this flashback to before everything was shut down and you were at the table with me at 30 rock sounding the alarms and laying out the worst-case scenario. it's haunting to see it come to pass. >> nicolle, if you add to that the president's statements like he's coming from some alternative universe, not even recognizing the seriousness and taking credit for improvements that don't exist, you remember just a few days ago dr. fauci

predicted we would get to 100,000 cases a day, which is 1 million cases every ten days, we're in very serious trouble, nicolle. we have leadership focussed on facts that don't exist, the politic political campaign. it's a disconnection from reality that's extremely worrisome, nicolle. >> peter baker, the ugly truth is that donald trump screwing this up so cat catastrophically, what is the why? >> they hoped to get the economy going so that by the fall the president could make the argument i built the economy once, i'll do it again. what they didn't see was the connection between the risk of a second or continuing outbreak of this virus and how that would

prevent the economy from getting to where they wanted it to be. they had very good job numbers from june. as you pointed out, nicolle, it's a lagging indicator. that was two weeks ago before we saw the spike. texas had something like 1,100 new cases at the beginning of june. now they're at 8,100. florida was 670 and now 10,000 cases as of today. these are such extraordinary numbers that the economy will be tied to them. you can't get the economy going as they would like it to go if the virus is unchecked. that's what people across the country right now are feeling. >> i think, peter, the problem the president -- everybody wants the economic back. most americans can hold two

desires in their head at the same time. the president doesn't seem capable of it. this is why i think he's in dire political standing. here are his utterances on how the coronavirus will miraculously go away. let's watch. >> looks like by april, in theory, when it gets warmer it miraculously goes away. it's going to disappear. one day like a miracle it will disappear. it will go away. it will go away hopefully at the end of the month, if not soon after that. it's going to go. this is going to go away without a vaccine. even without it, it goes away. i think that at some point it's going to sort of just disappear, i hope. >> peter baker, why does he keep saying this? it's a split screen reality. dr. fauci on bbc this morning literally saying the opposite.

>> exactly right. it's hope over experience. history shows these terrible pandemics do go away, but after a year or two, not in the short term, not by the end of the month. the 1918 pandemic lasted through 1920. that's a long time to go. when the president is out there saying it will go away, he's giving the impression he means in the near future. that doesn't seem to be happening. summer hasn't snatched it. the warm weather is not the blockage people thought it might be. what will be worse is if we have a second outbreak in places that seemed to get through the first one, places like the north's whe east where numbers have come back down. texas, florida, arizona, california, these people are going through a horrific

scenario. >> dr. redliner, can you take us through the science as we know it? obviously it was a lie or fiction or dillusion that it would disappear in the summer. >> we're still in the middle of an outbreak in the united states. the string of ignorance that has come from the president since february is extraordinary. his inability to listen to the experts is amazing and very dangerous. we opened up businesses too early. yes, some people are going back to work. that's reflected in the new employment numbers. as they go back to work, the spread of this disease gets more and more intense and more and more widespread.

we have people who have taken the message of re-opening to mean we're back to normal. this is what we're seeing all over the country. it's hard to put that back in the bottle. i think president trump is just k exacerbating people following basic health principles like wearing masks and keeping separated. it's just getting mixed up in his narrative. the reality is we're going to get a second or third wave. we're probably going to get it just as we get the new season of -- the annual flu which is going to also overwhelm a lot of our medical facilities. so we're heading into a very, very uncertain and difficult situation complicated by the president's refusal to listen to experts. the very fact that day after day the president will say something

100% contradicted by tony fauci and other experts, difficult to explain how that's happening, but it is. >> i think the most difficult thing to explain is that it is happening still. he's still saying these things. it's just amazing. as a former white house staffer, it's amazing they let him say anything at all after suggesting people inject disinfectant. thank you both for spending time with us. new details are emerging about the russian plot to pay bounties to the taliban to kill u.s. troops. at the white house the president doubles down on doing nothing. later vladimir putin does something in russia president trump wishes he could do at home.

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what is important is the president's relationship with russia. this is -- at the same time that the white house was aware of this threat to the security of our men and women in uniform, the president was still flirting with the idea of having russia be part of the g-8. >> that was speaker nancy pelosi after she and the other members of the gang of eight were briefed by u.s. intelligence on

capitol hill on the explosive reports that russian officials paid cash to taliban militants in exchange for the killing of u.s. troops in afghanistan. the initial reporting caused alarm among law makers as intelligence officials noted three u.s. marines may have lost their lives as a result of this program. now "the new york times" reveals new details about the program including an afghan middleman and the price put on the lives of our troops. "the times" reports u.s. intelligence identified a man who acted as a middleman. quote, he collected the cash in russia which intelligence files described as multiple payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars. afghan officials said prizes of as much as $100,000 per killed soldier were offered.

despite the drum beat, the "washington post" reports that the trump white house does not plan any immediate response. quote, trump is not convinced he should do anything about the bounty issue which he decried in a wednesday morning tweet as just another made up by fake news tale that is told to damage me and the republican party. joining our conversation is greg miller, national security reporter for the "washington post." he's the author of "the apprenti apprentice." greg you were an author of a piece of reporting that i think of all the time of at least five meetings between donald trump and vladimir putin where there were no notes. i just keep thinking about everything in front of our face about donald trump's affinity,

affection, loyalty and service to vladimir putin. maybe it's time to move past the shock and make the reaction from donald trump will be to always side with vladimir putin over u.s. intelligence. >> i theshare your surprise. here we are after four years when russia influenced the u.s. election on trump's behalf, we're trying to understand trump's mysterious relationship and often sub serve i can't answer to vladimir putin and russia. you think about how many opportunities president trump has had to quiet those concerns through policies or statements and he's never once attempted to do so and we're seeing yet

another occasion now where as you just mentioned even after he has finally belatedly been briefed about this plot has not been prepared to take any steps against russia. >> you cover one of the most secretive government agencies in existence, the cia. can you articulate and do some story telling about what it says when intel ends up in the daily briefing? >> sure. so the president's daily brief which is known as the pdb is the most important intelligence report that u.s. spy agencies put together. it's geared toward the commander

and chief. it's the most prestigious thing they do. the material or items that go into this report aren't always completely verified. in fact, often they're not. they represent the most significant things that the u.s. intelligence agencies, including the cia, believe need to be brought to the president's attention. that's the reason it's called the president's daily brief. now the cia has a problem in this administration because this president routinely skips this, does not read the document. now we are told he takes an oral briefing two or three days a week. he's skipping and missing and ignoring a lot of material that the biggest and arguably the greatest spy agencies on the planet are trying to call his attention to every day. >> you know, i also take this story and this body of reporting

and your paper, "the new york times," you put it next to the way he sought to use the military to militarize and federalize the removal of peaceful protesters. you really have your most public-facing examples of the churn and disarray and damage he's done inside these agencies. can you talk about what happens -- what's the ripple when the president's national security adviser throws the president's briefer under the bus? just an unheard of chain of events for the modern american presidency. >> it reinforces this troubling dynamic we're witnessing. if you're his briefer and you're going to be flamed for not doing something -- if they're that prepared to throw you under the bus, you think twice about what you bring to his attention.

they're facing difficulty in trying to capture president trump's attention. they've redesigned his briefing material so there are a lot of pictures and other things because he's notoriously short of attention span. this is fairly unprecedented. i can think of only another case or two in recent history where the white house has gone after the intelligence services. i'm thinking about bush and cheney and the wmds, for them trying to pin the blame on something that the white house is responsible for. >> i lived through that. i said when the defense of the story is to blame the leaker, it's always, always true. is there anything you've seen in your reporting that suggests this wasn't a tip or a program that the intelligence community took very seriously? >> no. i think they did take it

seriously. the fact it's in the president's daily brief tells us they did. there was disagreement. nicol nicolle, you know how this works. sounds like there was some disagreement or another agency, the nsa, had some skepticism. we don't know how much of that has been worked through. i would reinforce the idea that intelligence is a business of trying to gather the best information you have and rarely is it perfect. rarely is it established and completely locked down. otherwise it wouldn't be intelligence. the bin laden operation, the operation to get bin laden was not -- there was no confirmation that he was there. that operation was launched on intelligence that suggested that he was there. a high probability that he was there. there was no confirmation leading up to that operation. this is how national security works. it's based on fragmented

intelligence all the time. >> that's exactly right. if you go back to intelligence about threats, threats are always uncorroborated until heaven forbid an attack is carried out. it suggests some pretty scary things about donald trump's lack of understanding about intelligence in year four of his presidency. greg miller of the "washington post," thank you for spending time with us. when we return the disproportionate impact of coronavirus in communities of color and how new york city communities are at a breaking point after dealing with the worst of this pandemic.

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