once congress returns to wash from the july 4th recess one of its top priorities will be to work on another coronavirus relief package. a sharp difference between the two parties over what should be in that bill. coronavirus cases in dozen of states, senate republicans are on the fence or opposed even though president trump said earlier this week he isn't ruling that out. >> i support it but it has to be done properly and i expect larger numbers than the democrats. it has to be done properly. we had something where it gave it a disincentive to work last time. we want to create a very great incentive to work, so we're working on that and i'm sure we'll all come together. >> the change of heart among senate republicans may be

prompted by the june jobs report, more than 4 million americans returned to work. the data was gathered before the recent surge in cases. joining me now is to take a closer look at this, peter navarro, white house director of trade and manufacturing policy. peter, thank you for being on the show. a number of stark warnings in recent days from current and former trump officials about the coronavirus. let's listen. i'll get your response on the other side. >> do you think that the president sort of -- i mean, he obviously really wanted to hang on to this trade deal as much as possible, because but given everything that's happening is that over? >> it's over. yes, i think that here's i think

the turning point, they came here on january 15th to sign that trade deal and that was a full two months after they knew the virus was out and about, it was at the time when they already sent hundreds of thousands of people to this country to spread that virus and it was just minutes after wheels up when that plane took off that we began to hear about this pandemic. >> that wasn't exactly what i was looking for. that was, you said those comments were taken out of context. you said it had nothing to do with the trade deal. tell me where we are. >> let me explain what i said. what i said was that any trust of the chinese communist party is over because of their

behavior not just in coming here to sign a trade deal without telling us there was a virus and pandemic afoot but also everything that has transpired since, and ali, i was watching the show a little earlier and i saw those scenes of the ghost towns on the beaches in my home state of california, it's just breaks my heart to see that and what breaks my heart also is, what you talked about, which is the partisan nature now of the debate over this whole pandemic. what we have, is americans angry about being locked down, anxious about their economic future and fearful of getting the virus and we're a house divided now with democrats blaming republicans, republicans blaming democrats, i want everybody right here today, as the day before america's independence day, to understand where this virus started the

chinese communist party making us stay locked in our homes, they spawn the virus, they hid the virus, they sent hundreds of thousands of chinese nationalists over here to spread the virus before we knew and -- >> peter -- >> my point is. >> what are you talking about? >> the date line is november, they spawned the virus, probably came out of the biological lab, for two months they hid the virus from world and the possibility of a pandemic behind the shield of the world health organization, while they did that, they vacuumed up the world's protective equipment -- >> so you're saying this is deliberate, the chinese deliberate did this? >> here's the point, while they were preventing any domestic travel from wuhan, to beijing, locking down their transportation, they sent

chinese on aircraft to go around the world -- >> are you saying they deliberate deliberately did this? they spawned the virus. they deliberately created the virus? >> let me be really clear, i don't think it matters whether -- what they deliberately did, ali, and this is beyond reproach in terms of fact, they deliberately allowed chinese nationalists to come to the united states, italy, and everywhere in between, who were infected while they were locking down their own transportation network. it's important for americans to understand that, we're angry -- >> what do you mean deliberately? do they sent people who they knew infected to italy and the united states and other placings? >> they initially -- let's be careful, clear with words, what

they did during this period of time when they knew there was a pandemic, they didn't allow their people to travel inside of china but they allowed people in china who were likely infected to go around the world. effectively seeding and spreading. what was intentional is to protect their country even as they send -- >> let me ask you this, let me ask you this, though, i'm going to put that aside for a second. here's what i'm going to ask you, let's say that's true, those people, hundreds of thousands you say went out, went to italy, went to the united states, went all over the world, why is our new disease count, so much higher on a seven-day rolling basis than anywhere else in the world, at what point does that become our problem to

contain that virus? >> that's a very interesting question and it goes to origins of the virus. when the virus came out, one of the other things that the chinese did is not really divulge what the genome sequence was so we could get a handle on that. they scrubbed those labs where this might have come out. everybody thought and this was a reasonable resumption that come summer heat and humidity will get rid of the virus. this looks like a weaponized virus, this is a virus which -- >> that the reason, again, peter, you look at other places in the world, canada, australia, south korea, italy the united kingdom, no one is experiencing the way we are, we don't have any discipline in this country and messaging from the white house about masks and testing and i dispute your characterization. what we're seeing your network

and other network we're seeing spread across other countries, moving very rapidly, this is a virus that we have to contain. the other thing that i want to share with you today which is important, we need to start pointing the blame at where it originated, china, also really important, a study yesterday that came out on hydroxychloroquine, first early treatment study of hydroxychloroquine that shows there's a 51% reduction in mortality rate without any adverse effects. it came out from the detroit medical center, beautifully executed study. >> i have seen the study. >> these cases -- as these cases do accelerate as you point out, we also have to think our strategy about therapeutics. >> can i just -- $11 is still

more money than masks. why aren't we on the same page on masks. you're going at it with dr. fauci. he's leading the charge there. you're not on the same page. fauci we should be social distancing and wearing mask and i agree with that. let's talk about dr. fauci as to why he shouldn't be viewed as the oracle on this. on january 28th, i penned a memo that warned of global pandemic from the virus that killed possibly millions. exactly the same time the president of the united states pulled down all the chinese flights. you know who was fighting me was dr. anthony fauci and in that very same time period, even to a month later, fauci was telling people that there was nothing to worry about in america. you played these clips right on the television.

you know, dr. birx, she's my he heroine, she's tackled this and really good people in government but our disagreements, the disagreement we're having right now is how fast we can open the economy and what we learned from initial lockdown is that is going to kill more people locking them down throughout alcoholism, depression and the kind of economic fallout that we get than opening up. this is a -- >> okay, do you believe that to be the case? we've lost 130,000 people so far most conservative estimates another 35,000 people in the next three weeks or something like that, i mean, do you really think that not wearing masks and social distancing as policy is better or worse? >> so, to be clear what the president did in bringing those

china flights is save hundreds of thousands of people from dying. people are dying, but remember -- >> i don't understand. but peter -- peter, a lot of people dying still. >> now, the president has been clear about this, he supports masks and social distancing. . vice president has been -- >> but he's going to a july 4th celebration where he's not supporting that. the governor of south can coe that said there's no social distancing. clearly what you're saying is not true, peter. >> i get it. it's like the agenda on the media basically is to focus all the negative energy at donald trump. the two things that i want to share with your audience today the chinese communist party is spobl for every bad thing we're second experiencing right now. number two, hydroxychloroquine

needs a second look. people in early treatment were taking this drug under the supervision of their physician, we have the potential to save tens of thousands of american lives and millions worldwide. i'm the defense policy coordinator, i'm sitting on 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine in the stockpile -- >> you think that's a better solution than masks and social distancing? >> no. i'm a multivector approach guy. we're going to attack this from everywhere we can. i'm the guy who helped get two n95 masks factories going in a matter of months. i'm the guy who helped in maine with the president up our swab production by 20 million. i got a million swabs over from italy in 72 hours with the help of the pentagon and fedex. i understand as well as anybody

what we need to do is attack this from every angle. i'm tired of the american people turning against themselves and a house divided making science partisan and not blaming the chinese communist party for killing americans, for putting us out of work and destroying trillions of dollars of worth. a message that should be carried to the audience. i don't hear it. it's about this trump this, he's the bad guy. >> well, we have to fight the disease here. i think we need to get the disease under control in america. >> peter, thank you. all right, coming up next, big differences between soldiers killed on foreign soil and those who are targeted at the behest of russia, the latest on the

russia bounty story. ory. [♪]

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containing this virus and containing the spread of the virus, that shed the light on it. they seem to be going down some rabbit hole about the chinese communist party. speaks volume why we're not able to get a handle on this. >> i mean from the beginning of this pandemic the president's strategy and the white house's strategy is to deflect blame elsewhere, whether it's china, world health organization, democratic governors, there's always been someone else to blame and trump has consistently touted his response has been close to perfect even while his poll numbers have take an dive because of his response, june was seen as the worst month for him politically speaking, and he's failed over and over to really acknowledge in any serious way as we've marked, you

know, 100,000 dead in america, now we're up to 120,000, we're reaching new record case numbers a day, now, every day in a row, the president we saw him yesterday hold a news conference in the morning to talk about the good jobs numbers. the i alone can fix it president doesn't want to shoulder any of the blame of this pandemic. his attempt to put forward an alternate reality hasn't been working for him in this case. >> right. i think that's important. peter will have you believe it's the msnbc viewers who don't hear that alternate narrative. it's not just national poll. monmouth shows joe biden at 53%. donald trump at 41%. but in six states, six key

batt battleground states that donald trump won in 2016, key to who wins, joe biden inmichigan, north carolina, pennsylvania and wisconsin. and again, these are not stand-alone outliar polls. >> no, it's across the board. national polls, battleground polls. this campaign is facing a reality that a race that -- where they looked like they were ahead moneywise, ahead in polls, that they could lose and lose by a lot to a candidate that they view as very weak as someone who, you know, should have been an easy matchup for the president is now not doing much campaigning outside of his home, and still managing to beat him by double digits. the campaign -- >> so let's talk -- i'm sorry to interrupt you, annie.

a bit of a delay. part of the issue here is that donald trump said again yesterday, for i don't know how many times since february, that this is just going to go away, just going to disappear. when you combine that with, this is where it came from. the chinese gave it to us and it's just going to go away, we're missing the whole middle section there about the fact it got here. everybody -- every other developed country that confronted this virus has done a better job than the united states has. but every time we look for a pivot, we don't get it from this president. >> we don't get it. we get pushing the marker ahead of us. we have -- remember, he wanted to reopen on easter. that got moved. jared kushner, a top adviser to the president, said he told fox & friends back in may, by july, our country will be rocking and rolling again. here we are in july with a lot of states rolling back their reopening plans because of a surge in cases.

this -- this president wants to get to the end. he wants to get back to where he was where he can campaign on the economy, campaign on a message that says your 401(k)s are going to be doing so well you'll have no choice but to vote for me. that's the mode he knows how to do. and that's not where we are, and his hope is that there's an economic upturn right around november and that that will push him through to get another four years. >> annie, good to see you. annie karni of "the new york times." finally, as the president celebrates the fourth of july at mt. rushmore, he's left amid a swirl of new questions about the reports that russia paid bounties to taliban militants to kill u.s. troops in afghanistan. u.s. intelligence officials briefed top lawmakers. this group here, frequently called the gang of eight. it's the leaders of both parties in the senate and the house and chairs of both intelligence committees, about the program. that briefing came after new

intelligence revealed that the bounty program may have resulted in the death of three u.s. marines. a new report from "the new york times" gives us new details about the bounty program itself, specifically, the report mentions an afghan contractor who intel officials identified as a, quote, key middle man between the gru and militants linked to the taliban who carried out the attacks. he was among those who collected the cash in russia which intelligence files described as multiple payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars. another alarming component of this story. president trump hasn't done anything to hold russia accountable for this program. in fact, he's treating intelligence, the intelligence around this fas it is all fake. joining me, the correspondent for "the new york times" who spent years covering violent extremism in the middle east. thank you for joining me. let's just, before we determine what intelligence the president got and whether or not it rose to a particular level, he's not even there yet. he's still suggesting the

reporting about the fact that there were these bounties offered is fake. meanwhile, your organization, "the new york times" and others, are getting fairly detailed reporting about how it actually works and whether there were actually lives lost in this process. >> that's right, ali. and i think that's the key thing here. it's not that unusual for an enemy of the united states, whether it's russia, whether it's iran, whether it's another state to look for ways to undermine our interest abroad and to put bounties on the heads of american troops. what is very unusual here is that in the white house, the leader of the white house is discounting the intelligence that his own intelligence agency has brought to him and has clearly briefed him on and is instead trying to cast doubt on those assertions. >> so there's a few issues here separate and apart from the bounties. that is whether there was bad intelligence about it, whether there was a bad intelligence process and people who had the intelligence were afraid to tell

the president because of how he might react. and that's the sort of 800-pound gorilla in the room. is the reason you wouldn't brief the president on this, if he wasn't briefed, because of his chummy relationship with russia, because he doesn't want to hear russia is doing things like this and because he's not going to take any action against russia for doing it? >> what my colleagues and i have been able to report is that this intelligence was given to the president in something called the presidential daily briefing, the pdb. and it was presented to him some time in february. later on in the month of may, it also appeared in the wire. this is another intelligence product that's made by the cia. now whether the president didn't read it, didn't take it into consideration, decided to look the other way, that i can't report on, but definitely our intelligence agencies took the trouble to bring this to the president and put it before him, and he appears to have not

reacted. >> what happens next? because there is pressure, and we've seen this before when it comes to russia or other countries. we've seen pressure from some members of congress and some senators to take action and then over time it tends to weaken and people start to obfuscate about what should be done. what is the policy response that's likely as a result of the discussions and the reporting that you're doing? >> to me, the corollary here is what happened in 2018 when it was revealed that the gru, the military wing of russian intelligence, had carried out a poisoning of a russian citizen on british soil. sergei scripov. there was a really outcry in europe at the time. dozens of diplomats were kicked out of the eu as a result of those actions. but here, on the other side of the atlantic, the answer was much more muted and did not take action until he was forced to do so by congress. i wonder if we're going to see a similar evolution here where --

we know congress is very concerned about this and i have to say that having spoken to the families of some of the service members that are stationed abroad in afghanistan, there is really a growing revolt among military families over what they see as their loved ones being put at risk. >> let me ask you about that because, obviously, there's frustration. particularly of families whose loved ones are posted in the middle east and afghanistan with the idea that for many americans they have not taken this effort seriously and their loved ones put themselves in payroll and faced death without real recognition of what they do. this has to be adding to that exponentially. the idea that not only are they in harm's way and in danger but in a way the u.s. government may have known about specifically. >> i was actually just speaking today to the family member of somebody that is overseas in afghanistan. and this person went so far as to say they feel completely alone. they feel abandoned by our

government and they feel the media is the only entity that is -- that has their interest at heart in this matter. >> thank you for your great reporting on it. and thank you to all of you for spending this hour with us. i'll be back at 8:00 eastern. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace begins after this break. ns after this break life isn't a straight line. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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it's 4:00 in the east. it's a white-knuckle fourth of july in this country as we become the world's example of how not to defeat the coronavirus. as david brooks of "the new york times" writes today, quote, we americans enter the fourth of july weekend of 2020 humiliated as almost never before. we had one collective project this year, and that was to crush covid-19. and we failed. that failure now intertwined in every aspect of american life. and hollowing the very functions of our government, grounding the vice president, whose secret service team is grappling with new infections.

"the washington post" reports, quote, vice president pence's trip to arizona this week had to be postponed by a day after several secret service agents who helped organize the visit either tested positive for the coronavirus or were showing symptoms. the secret service needed time to bring in healthy agents and other personnel. an administration official said the secret service estimated that a total of 8 to 10 agents and other officers from sister agencies, all of whom were helping prepare for pence's visit to arizona, had fallen ill. the awful tent kels of this virus wrapping around the country, tighter and tighter. yesterday the u.s. saw a record-breaking number of total cases for the sixth time in nine days with over 55,000 new cases. eight states had their own single day highs on thursday as well. but numbers like that have not deterred donald trump who will depart for south carolina later this hour for a fourth of july celebration at mt. rushmore.

the state's governor confirmed that masks will not be required and social distancing will not be enforced. but the republican mayor of the largest city near the monument, rapid city's steve allender urged caution say i think the jury is in on what we should be doing. i think it makes good sense for us to be wearing masks when we're going to public places. especially in places where we cannot control the distance between us and other people. that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. national investigative reporter for "the washington post," carol lenning. her byline is on that piece about the covid outbreak surrounding vice president mike pence's travel team. plus associated press white house reporter jonathan lemire and dr. peter hotez, an infectious disease expert and director of the texas children's hospital center for vaccine development. carol, i want to start with you since we started with your reporting. and having traveled all over the country and all over the world

with a president and this conversation that you and i have been having since you broke the story about a factory where they create ppp, where they slept there, i think this was in may. there because they didn't want to contaminate their factory. the truth is the hard, ugly truth is that the president and vice president are spreading covid wherever they go. >> i have to say, nicolle, it's 100% true. not only are they personally spreading it, they are a footprint on getting out among the people but especially in a few states, you'll notice. their demand on doing that is causing other people to get into harm's way. plus there's the mixed message. there are all sorts of health care officials in the white house and in the administration who are saying the jury is not only in. the proof is absolutely 100%. wearing masks and staying away from gatherings prevents the

spread. but donald trump -- and the vice president is following his lead. >> you know, jonathan lemire, i wonder with the white house, if they're going to have to say to their voters when weeks and weeks of this adds up to, as carol's reporting, just an undeniable sort of path of disease they're spreading around the country. >> there is no avoiding this, nicolle. we know about the number of staffers and secret service agents that tested positive after the president's rally in tulsa. we know when the president -- i was part of this trip, was in arizona last week, a rally in a mega church. no social distancing practiced there. no one was in a mask. that's a state that's had perhaps more than any other of the surge in number of virus

infections. and now this terrific reporting about the vice president's trip there. as much as the white house is trying to turn the page, they can't outrun this virus. and that is becoming stark relief this week in particular. last week we had the president hastily call a news conference, although not really a news conference. he appeared before the press at the white house to tout the latest jobs numbers, to tout the economic comeback. he believes he is overseeing. but yet he refused to take questions about the russia bounty story but also this. the fact america is -- the united states is setting records in terms of cases in terms of covid-19 diagnoses. and it's not just because testing has improved. the percent of positive tests has also skyrocketed. we're not beating this virus right now, and it's going to be difficult for this president to make a case politically that he is. as a final point, there are some people, and his voters, among his voters who thought, despite

the missed signs, despite the evidence, the president could have done more back in february and march but were willing to say this virus was -- who could have been prepared for this. it started over there. we were caught off guard. we're now doing our best. we've had to live with this for months. we know what it takes to beat this virus. and yet i think there's a sense of real blame now at the white house, at the president for encouraging americans to go back to normal to reopen these states when we weren't ready and now we're seeing that surge. that's part of why we're seeing his poll numbers plummet right now because he's being held responsible. >> dr. hotez, he is responsible, not for the fact that coronavirus exists, but for the fact that david brooks articulates. that he h we had one mission. the president's mission was to model life-saving behavior to support of the governors in testing and contact tracing and surging supplies to states in crisis. he did none of that. and i suppose it amounts to good

news that in month four the governor of your state, the governor of texas has decided that masks might be a good idea after all. but how did we get here? >> well, there's no real good news, nicolle. we've had this massive resurgence of covid-19 in the united states mainly focused in the southern u.s. we're at 40,000 cases last week. that was 10,000 cases -- 5,000 to 10,000 more than our peak back in april and may. now in the early part of this week, 50,000. now we're headed to 60,000. and dr. fauci has predicted we'll soon get to 100,000. if you look at the -- if you extrapolate times the populations of texas, arizona and florida, we're already there. so you have this steep acceleration in the number of cases. it's being paralleled by hospital admissions, intensive care unit admissions, the positivity rate is going up. so this is terrible public

health crisis that we're now facing. and we still, as far as i can tell, do not seem to have any national plan or road map for what to do. it's still business as usual. let the states decide. the federal government and the task force will ensure that we have adequate supplies and supply chain management for ppe and masks and other measures, but there is no federal plan or road map of how to take this on. of course, if you listen to the messages out of the white house, there's not even recognition this is a serious problem. there's still the deflections we're hearing about china is to blame as the chinese communist party. there is no plan, no road map. and we need to now take some substantive action to chart a new course for the country. otherwise, the number of cases, hospitalizations, injuries and deaths will continue to skyrocket. >> dr. hotez, is there a single country that has managed to bend

their curve without those things you just detailed, a national strategy, a national capacity to surge supplies, national standards for social distancing and mask wearing? national testing regimen? national contact tracing programs? is there any country on the planet that has bent their curve or beaten covid without those things? >> not that i'm aware of. this is hard work to turn this virus around. especially if you're doing it without a vaccine. it's like trying to fight with one hand tied behind your back. so you need the full force, the full power of a country's national government, federal government to take this on. and that's what we need now. we need the full force of the cdc out front leading this, telling the governors what needs to be done and giving the governor some governor because they're taking a lot of political flack from their left and their right and making decisions often based on that. we need now very concrete,

clear-cut federal guidance, help with all the things we need, surveillance and contact tracing. at this point, things are getting so out of hand, i'm not even sure that just wearing masks alone and the other measures being proposed will be adequate. we may have to move back into lockdown in some states or even a full national lockdown as well to contain this. it's getting that bad. >> carol, i think what your reporting underscores is that not only are we lacking all those measures that would protect people, that would help us defeat the pandemic at a national level instead of this hodgepodge, but the vice president and president aren't even interested in protecting the men and women who take a bullet for them. what your reporting leaves you sort of trying to process is that the secret service, the men

and women responsible for protecting the lives of the president and vice president, there aren't enough of them because they are falling sick with covid. these are the closest physical people, other than their families, to the president and vice president. and we don't have enough of these men and women because of covid. i mean, what is the response from secret service to the fact that they can't staff the vice president? >> well, they are in a horrible place, nicolle. an absolutely horrible place. because they're never going to rat on the boss/complain about the boss, which is the president and in this case, the vice president. but you're absolutely right to bring up the analogy of some people who would take a bullet. that's the kind of patriot we're talking about when we're talking about a secret service agent. will literally be trained to jump in front of a bullet on its way to a person they are protecting. the president especially. but also the vice president. and here the president and the

vice president have put these people in harm's way and, to be honest, without real necessity. it's different when, you know, we're at war or we're in real crisis. but to go out and do a public event so that you can say you care about coronavirus is not the best probably way in the secret service agent's way to -- not the best reason to put their health and the health of their families and their children at risk. the other thing that stunned me about this, nicolle, in the reporting that josh dawsy and i did, the secret service was warning pence and his staff, we can't do it because we have to get healthier agents in place. these people are too sick. we need to wait. and instead of saying, you know what? these people are getting sick, maybe we won't go, they said, okay, cool. we'll go. that is sort of like, again, a warning sign because in tulsa, on june 20th, secret service agents who were doing advance work for the president got sick. then, secret service agents in

arizona got sick. well, guess what. i'm going to predict we're going to have a story about south dakota pretty soon. >> jonathan lemire, let's talk about this trip. it seems to represent this sort of ugly braid of everything going on in the country. no masks, no social distancing. the president putting the secret service in the reporters and everybody else who has to travel just to move a president, it's literally thousands of people that have to get on planes and in cars and relocate just to move a president around physically. but there's also more than an undercurrent of the other side of the tensions and upheaval of this country. talk about the fraught trip today. >> yes, nicolle. the timing of this is far more significant than just the fact it's july 3rd. but the moment we have in the country right now. first to your first point. it's thousands of people who are putting -- who are put in play

and frankly at harm's risk to move a president, as you know and i know. i can speak to the arizona trip a week or so ago. the number of staffers who traveled with the president on the plane. the teams on the ground to meet us at the airport. we had a couple different stops that day culminating in that mega church rally. the press pool, the 13 or so of white house travel with the president, we were the only ones in that church wearing masks. no one else was. and i suspect it will be a similar scene tonight in south dakota. the governor of south dakota, a trump ally, has said social distancing will not be required. asking, of course, people, if they are sick to not come out. saying masks are optional. there's no way to enforce that because there's no plans for example checks or anything of that nature nor testing for people who are coming in and out of this rally. more than 7,000 people expected to attend. and, of course, also, you know, mt. rushmore is a great patriotic monument, of course, but it's also -- questions have

really been raised about thomas jefferson, in particular, but also george washington for their holdings of slaves when they were alive and how that comes in a moment we're re-evaluating statues across this nation. confederate generals but also founding fathers and what that means. of course, for the president, this is his attempt to take advantage of that patriotic backdrop to create images that i'm sure we'll see in a campaign ad soon enough at a moment where right now his team, they can't schedule rallies. there are none on the books because of the coronavirus surge. they're not sure how to handle that. this is a moment they feel can make you look presidential. try to have an image that can attempt to turn his fortunes around and begin that quest four months until election day. >> dr. hotez, texas has 182,000 cases. 2,562 deaths on record. what's your gut tell you about how much worse this is going to

get before it starts to get better? >> yeah, some of the projections are pretty dire. the models coming out of the university of pennsylvania show as bad as things are in houston right now, for instance, those numbers can double within the next two weeks and then double again by the end of july. so we are on the steep acceleration and especially in the metro areas, austin, san antonio, dallas, houston, but now some of the rural areas as well. the governor, governor abbott, is now taking some measures, mandating the use of masks, closing the bars, putting restaurants at 50% capacity and some of the county judges are also taking even more aggressive measures. the question is, will it be sufficient? given the trajectory of these cases and some of the predictive models. and the answer is, we don't know. it may require us to go back into full lockdown, especially

in the big metro areas. and i think they actually have to happen. but we'll -- and if we make that -- have to make that decision, we'll need to make it soon. >> dr. hotez, you were more alarmed than i have seen you at any point in the pandemic. does it worry you most the absence of national leadership or are you worried about public opinion becoming a little indifferent to doing the things that the places that have bent the curve did to be successful or both? >> well, i am expressing alarm because i think we're at a critical juncture. right now the cases are climbing to 60,000 per day, and there seems to be no sense of urgency, no sense of recognition, no sense that we have to act now coming from the federal government, expressions of either the white house coronavirus task force or the federal government. and this is our last chance. if we don't do something now it will continue to spiral.

and we are in a public health crisis. and the fact there is no or little expression of concern is a terrible -- is putting us in a terrible situation right now. >> it is almost surreal to be covering a president heading out for a large event where no masks and no social distancing will be in place. and as you just described, a spiraling public health calamity in our country. carol, jonathan lemire, dr. peter hotez, three of the best expert voices on all of it. thank you for starting us off. when we come back, new reporting about donald trump's month of campaign misery in june and how he is the biggest obstacle to any course correction. and the president's inaction on russian bounties. speaking far louder than words. how the battle lines are now drawn on that front for november as well. plus, we'll go to texas where covid cases are exploding. all those stories coming up. this is an athlete, twenty reps deep, sprinting past every leak

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think about what june 2020 did to donald trump's standing with the public. his conduct during historic civil unrest, the pandemic exploding across the country, and intel that he is still ignoring about russian operatives allegedly putting cash bounties on the heads of american soldiers. the effects these issues have had on his polling numbers is readily apparent. what about behind the scenes? that question is the subject of a remarkable new piece of reporting in "the new york times" titled "why june was such a terrible month for trump." from that peerks as demoralizing as june was for many republicans, what was less visible were the frenetic often fruitless attempts by top republicans to soothe the president and steer him away from self-sabotage while also ma

nipulating him to serve their own purposes. interviews with almost four dozen republican lawmakers, strategists and administration officials about mr. trump's re-election bid paint a picture of a white house in a re-election effort adrift. at once paralyzed by mr. trump's erratic behavior, it also dependent on him to execute his own houdini-like political escape. joining our conversation, the rev al sharpton, host of "politics nation" here on msnbc and president of the national action network, the associated editor for real clear politics, amy stoddard and john heilemann, national affairs analyst and executive editor of "the recount." heilemann, you planted the seed in my brain when you talked about how all of the republicans who are up in the senate have picked up the red phone with karl rove on the other end of it. just talk about how -- i think of trump as absent from being

able to rescue his own political fate and that of other republicans, but it's not really been the case that he's been such a detriment the way he is at this moment. >> well, right. you know, i think, nicolle, we've watched for 3 1/2 years as a lot of these republicans have lived in fear of trump where they understand the passion of his pace, the size of his base which is very large within the party. you have these senators who concerned that trump would turn against them and primary them, endorse a primary candidate against them. they've all been panicked. now they are past that point. the primaries are over. republican senators who are standing for re-election are now secure they'll be on the ballot in november and they're looking up at a lot of these states. i'm not just talking about the ones we always cite. not just the susan collins, maine or cory gardner in colorado but tom tillison in

north carolina. both of the republican senators who are standing in georgia right now totally freaking out about the fact that the president not only doesn't have coattails in those states and he has reversed coattails. it's been my contention for three and a half years with you that when you ask, when are republicans finally going to turn on trump. this isn't a matter of principle. this is a math problem. there's going to come a day where it's going to cost more to stick with him than it is to leave him. so far in their heads they've calculated it costs more to leave him than to stick with him. at some point the equation will change and when that equation changes, they will leave him and i think for the first time as we sit here, fourth of july weekend, happy independence day observed, i think we can now see that day on the horizon. it's there. it's on the horizon and that day is, i think, and you'll probably say it's way too late but when from my reporting, i think it's labor day. they've decided in consultation with leadership in a hard core

way they've decided, they looked up and said we're going to give trump a couple more months, let him do his convention. if things have not changed by then, they're just going to cut and run and they'll be off on their own and try to save themselves. it probably will be too late but that's sort of the plan now among senate republicans and a lot of house members, too. >> you know, amy stoddard, they deserve their political fate and the idea and i think john heilemann has it right. they're running away now because he's politically toxic, not because they're repelled by the fact the answer to intelligence saying the russians but bounties on american soldiers' heads was nothing. i mean, or that in the face of generational movement in public opinion toward or against police brutality and racial injustice has been responded to by donald trump launching a campaign to restore the confederacy.

and being awol on covid. we've had a lot of conversations about the loss of the moral compass of the gop. it's never been clearer to me than now. >> well, i think, nicolle, they were well aware that donald trump was unfit when he was elected. they supported him to get their policy agenda enacted. they loved what they did. it wasn't a lot. it was not a repeal and replace of health care. it was only a tax law. and judges. but it was enough to keep him with a chugging economy, you know, a result of a lot of deregulation, you know, with their voters that john heilemann was referencing. their base is very attached to the president. as long as those voters are happy, we'll be happy because we'll hold onto power. now that there's a crisis, which they knew that donald trump would not be up for, they are

really facing their own voters at home over the age of 65 asking them why the president won't wear a mask. and so it's becoming increasingly more difficult. it really will be hard. and whenever that day comes for them to say, we'll be a check on a democratic white house. you need to keep us in the majority in the senate if there's a president biden. that will still be very, very difficult challenge for republicans. and i think that the president is telling them privately that he does have a houdini plan. he always thinks he does. he loves magical thinking. there's whisperings about the possible retirement of justice thomas or justice alito. there could be a report. i think president trump thinks he's going to have some things behind curtain number one and so we'll see whether that departure really amounts to anything dramatic when september comes. i have my doubts.

>> you know, rev, eddie glaude on the night of tulsa and john heilemann, i think, has either started it or picked it up, i don't care what he has behind a curtain and replacing a conservative with a conservative really doesn't change this country at all. he is fat elvis, and he's running as this sort of guy replaying his old hits with no new ideas, and the difference, i think, what is so diminished from four years ago is that he was handed -- he was handed the crisis of coronavirus. he didn't create it, but he could have protected the country from it once it was here. and he failed. and in the wake of this national movement toward greater equality and bringing wide coalition together for change, he's not just awol. he's championing the restoration of the confederacy. i don't know that he can pull

down a curtain and save himself this time. >> we should look at what curtain that we're looking behind. it is not a curtain where it's surprise. it's a curtin of the wizard of oz and we see the wizard has no clothes. and the problem he has is with the pandemic which he could have handled better, the whole question of racism and his answer to that to defend the statues of confederates, who not only were racist and slaveholders and slaveholder defenders, but were committing treason against the united states. for all of the crises he's faced, it has unglued what has been -- let's be clear. this was never a marriage of love between him and the republican senators. it was a shotgun wedding. and when you have a shotgun wedding, any time you can find your way out of the house to get

back home to mother, you will. and that's what they are going to do. they were never in love with him. they had the shotgun primaries that they had. they did not want to have primaries with imendorsing their opponent and him running around the country like elvis. well, it used to be earlier this year elvis had left the building and the crowd is roaring. this time there's nobody showing up to see elvis. the arena is empty. the show is over. elvis is fat. and there's no colonel. >> such a good point about the shotgun wedding. lindsey graham was saying some of the worst things about him. all right. no one is going anywhere. after the break, it's been a week since we first learned about the russian bounty story. does it strike anyone as odd that president trump hasn't attacked the person or the country at the center of that

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it's now been a full week since "the new york times" first broke the news that the russians were paying bounties for the killing of american soldiers. in that time, we've heard a lot from this white house about what the definition of briefing is. and at the same time, not really much of anything at all. trump's attacked the media, called the scandal a hoax, gone after democratic lawmakers and political opponents alike. he's kwibld ovquibbled over whas to be briefed and reaffirmed all of us he does read. when it comes to actual governance, nothing. when it comes to russia, enough time has passed that it's pretty clear what we're looking at is the administration's final strategy on russia. they've concluded that doing nothing is their course of action. the rev, a.b. and john heilemann

are all back. this story is one the white house may not understand how it's being processed. this is sort of basic commander in chief stuff. the kind of attacks that republicans for decades sought to launch against democrats on questions of national security. it's now wrapped so tightly around this president that when he was briefed about a threat to american soldiers on the battlefield, he ignored it. and when he was -- impossible for him to ignore it any longer, his decision was to do nothing. >> right. so an unusual thing occurring here. we have these two blocks that seem like they're about different things. the topic we just talked about and this. it's the same topic. i think there is no -- you talked before, what's the thing -- what's the rabbit he's going to pull out of his hat? what's the plan to rejuvenate the campaign since he's not going to change his behavior. they're going to try to steal the election. that's what the plan is. the plan is to run a voter suppression campaign to do stuff

within bounds in some cases. run advertising to try to depress democratic turnout. try to mess with mail-in voting. try to suppress the vote in that way. and the other thing trump is counting on is help of foreigners. he's counting on what he got in 2016 on russia to weigh in. he's counting on china, iran, north korea. a number of other foreign actors hostile to the united states but might try to help donald trump win because they think he's a disastrous president. he'll not insult vladimir putin five months from an election where he needs vladimir putin help to win election just like he needed vladimir putin's help to win in 2016. it's the clearest thing in the world. there's plenty in the white house who understand how this is being processed and they understand the political vulnerabilities it brings. but the president of the united states is not going to imperil his re-election and not throw away one of the few remaining hail mary passes he has that somehow putin and others are going to come to his rescue. he needs putin too much to do

anything about this. >> john heilemann, i mean, talk about saying the quiet part out loud. donald trump's re-election strategy is to have foreigners help him again. i mean, what do we do? >> sure. >> william barr is the attorney general. i guess not much. he made it clear in his testimony before the senate judiciary committee that he was knowing what the laws there were and if someone offered donald trump help, you've got to look at it. >> i don't think there's any ambiguity. i don't think any serious person doesn't think -- across the range of activities, some dirty and nasty but legal and others dirty and nasty and illegal that the campaign's way of trying to handle the problems they're in right now is not to find a conventional strategy to right the ship but to use the line -- malign tactics and strategies to steal the election.

what can we do about it other than being vigilant and have the press continue to do what it's tried to do at its best? other than having democrats keep the pressure on donald trump news cycle after news psychele to hopefully have learned something so that we can do what we can do as citizens and as journalists, as other -- anyone who cares about american democracy. we're not in a position we can by force change the trajectory of this. the only way to react to it is to keep our eyes peeled and our vigilance high and call it out when we see it start to happen. >> a.b., this is just a really bleak picture that john heilemann is painting about the mission for sort of the last few remaining people on that line. it's the fbi director, it's the head of our national security agencies. the ones that trump hasn't reached into and messed with. >> i mean, nicolle,

unfortunately, we saw during the impeachment and afterwards that almost everyone in donald trump's executive branch at the high levels where they can bring great influence and enact, you know -- act on decisions that he makes. sometimes they tell him that they're illegal and he can't do them but have been corrupted in small ways or large and i'm once again focused on the members of congress for abdicating their responsibility in a separate but co-equal branch of government to do oversight on the executive branch and to confront the russians. so if they watch republicans -- and i will mention senator todd young of indiana and a few others who have spoken up about this story, but not enough. if they believe after watching the last four years, a campaign where the president lied to the american people while trying to do a trump tower moscow deal in russia that required the agreement and help of the

russian government and putin knew he was lying to the voters while that was going on, americans have watched him take the side of vladimir putin over our own government intelligence community. if republicans believe that it's okay, this russian bounty story, that it's okay for the president to violate his constitutional oath as commander in chief, then they're okay that we are a satellite of the russian federation. i hope the voters don't think it's okay. >> rev, a.b. is onto something here. it's now in the hands in a hundred and, i don't know, 35 days of the voters. and how does joe biden and whomever he selects as his running mate, how do they keep the public focused on what seems like an old story, donald trump in the pocket of vladimir putin? >> they keep it in front of the public by putting it in their commercials, by continuing to raise it, and i would, if i were

joe biden, raise it in the debates. i would ask straight out that when you were informed that there were intelligence reports or whether it was in writing or whether you were informed by john bolton, whomever, how did you then go and say we want to reinstate vladimir putin and russia into the g7? how do you then say you are going to bring putin to the white house? answer to the american people how you, as the commander in chief, that was given information whether you felt it was corroborated to all the degrees you wanted or not, that there was this possibility and there was this information. they are putting bounties on the heads of military men and women that you are the commander in chief of and you not only didn't do anything about it, inquire about it, you suggested, including them in the g7, inviting the man who the white house and had many phone calls with him and there's no record of you raising the question with

him one time. >> rev, are you surprised by the portrait that is being painted by "the new york times" today and others that donald trump appears to be someone who may not be interested in serving a second term? >> i'm not surprised because i think that donald trump is not one that can handle embarrassment and humiliation well. i think the thing that may keep him in the race is that he doesn't want to look like a quitter. but i think that as the days go by, he's got two choices. do i go out a quitter, or do i go out a loser? either one, he's not coming back to new york. he's headed to florida. >> all right. i'll hold my powder on that one. to be continued. rev al sharpton, a.b. stoddard and john heilemann, thanks for spending some time with us. after the break, officials in texas were so proud to be one of the first states to initiate their reopening. now, especially in houston, the disease is spreading at an

alarming rate. a live report with our friend david gura after this. wayfair has everything outdoor

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that puts it at 1 in 8 people would be infected. >> close to 1 in 4 people testing positive in houston for coronavirus leading top local health authority officials to believe, as we've just heard there, that as many as 1 in 8 houstonians could be affected. texas governor greg abbott decided late yesterday to make masks mandatory in public for any county with 20 or more cases going as far away from trump's rhetoric as to say, quote, wearing a face covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways we have to slow the spread of covid-19. but with hospitals running out of beds, is the new mask mandate enough to reverse the current course in texas? joining us to help us answer that, standing outside of one of the hardest hit hospitals there, our friend, nbc's david gura. we talked to dr. hotez at the top of this hour. he's been one of these steady, sage voices of calm for the last

3 1/2 months. and what he is seeing in texas and around the country has him more alarmed than i've seen him. and he's from texas. so take me inside what's going on in texas. >> he plays a critical role here. i'm glad you spoke with him. i talk to government officials here. they talk about how he's on the conference calls local officials are having. he's bringing that voice of reason, focusing on the data, and it's sobering. but it's so important here. i'm in front of lyndon b. johnson hospital, the public health care system here in harris county. i spoke with the ceo of this system yesterday. he said this hospital behind me is already at capacity. they built tents on the side they can use for this triage. they can find out if a patient coming in here might have symptoms for covid-19, try to get them a bed here. if not, move them to the texas medical center proper where i was yesterday. official s here are looking at three things very closely. it's a dire situation. hospitalization as we see the number of icu patients ticking up. they are looking at testing.

that startling statistic of positivity. 1 out of 4. so many people here still haven't been tested and can't get tested. that's a huge problem for the city and county. and contact tracing. that's a program here still in infancy and the gentleman there with a high-ranking position in the department of health said you might not take the phone call and could be a critical phone call for you asking where you were or a friend and still trying to figure out the technical side of things to make that work. >> you know, texas, i spent a lot of time working for poll terns from texas and there's great optimism, independence, pride. what is the mood of the state under this absolute shellacking of coronavirus? >> reporter: you know, i think people are worried and you mentioned that 180 yesterday. it was starting to see the governor issue the executive

order. local officials here pushing him to institute a statewide mask mandate and we know there's a letter from the mayor of houston to the governor asking to did it a couple days ago. now we have got that mandate in place and i think underscores the seriousness of what's going on here and earlier i was talking to peter alexander and i got an alert like an amber alert and telling me that mandate in effect and i could be fined $250 if they were to aproproach me without a mask on. we focus the attention on the mask mandate. there's a ban on gatherings of ten people outside and no ban on gatherings of ten people inside and people are raising an eyebrow at that. this state has the texas republican party convention in two week's time in houston. last night the executive board of the republican board voted to

continue ahead with that. a lot of people including the mayor pushing back saying that is wrong headed and not what they need to be doing right now. >> we'll keep an eye on that. david, thank you so much for spending some time with us from there. after the break, a celebration of two more lives well lived. raise your rates just because of an accident. cut! is that good? no you were talking about allstate and... i just... when i... accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. (vo) at whether on the track,that exhor the everyday drive.ty, today, that philosophy extends to how we connect with you. we call it, audi at your door. whether a remote test drive, shopping, trade-in, or even service pickup, audi at your door can do this and more at participating dealers. the premium audi dealership experience, on your terms.

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the duty to care, to care for all of us, not just those who vote for us, but all of us. this job is not about me. it's about you. it's about us. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. gregory armstrong's family used to joke that he had nine lives. this was him back in the '70s. 45 floors up atop a chicago skyscraper completely untethered. real iron work before harnesses and bucket lifts he said of it. according to the chicago tribune he fell broke both arms falling off a bridge. toughness that couldn't protect him from the coronavirus. gregory died last month with

covid-19 as a contributing factor. in his final conversation with his sister after he'd been hospit hospitalized he was more concerned with plans to insulate the pipes in the house than his own health. he was a fixer, a hard worker and a fierce advocate for the people he loved. he was a single dad, had a daughter and stepped in as a surrogate father to two young men. his daughter said, quote, he was the world's greatest dad and grandfather. herve on earth is spending time with us. that is what he always called us. heaven on earth. and a devastating cautionary tale appropriate for the day before fourth of july, two weeks ago tommy macias posted this. some of you know but most don't i went out and i contracted the coronavirus. monday i tested for it and it was con fimpled on thursday. because of my stupidity i put my mom and sisters and my family's

health in jeopardy. this has been a very painful experience. this is no joke. if you have to go out wear a mask and practice social distancing. don't did a bleeping idiot like me. thank you to all my friends that have brought me food and everyone who has been there for me. hopefully with god's help i'll be able to survive this. love you all. tommy died the day after he wrote that. his family says he was truly a good guy. that he'd do anything for anybody, no questions asked. so let's honor his memory reading that one more time and following the advice. be safe like tommy said. this is no joke. don't go anywhere. there's another hour of deadline white house and breaking news into the investigation surrounding elisha mcclain in colorado. we'll be right back. tv announcer: come on down to our appliance superstore

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