us during this pandemic. in the midst of this national trauma so many of our fellow americans are rising to the occasion. their words and deeds serving as a crucial reminder that in this time of stress and catastrophe we really are all in this together. stlooe really happy to have you with us tonight. it is thursday, july 2nd. and tonight i am happy to report that we have crunched the numbers. we have gone over them closely, very closely, in keeping with the times we have actually even made a graph to help our understanding of these numbers, but according to our very, very, very careful calculations we here at the rachel maddow show have determined that we, us, our collective humanity, we have arrived finally at the half way point of 2020. you guys, technically as of today, we are half way there. it's a leap year, so there are

366 days this year. at least there will be by the time we get to the end of it provided the giant meteor doesn't get us or the sun doesn't burn out. so there will be 366 days by the end of this year. divide by two to find the half way point. that's 183 days. count up all the days we've had so far. yesterday was day 183. that means at midnight we hit day 184, which means we have made it through the whole first half of this year that we all wish would stop already. honestly, 2020 would have ban catastrophic year in the news if it had stopped three months ago. but we have made it half way through. they cannot make us do that again. and it is astonishing that this first half of this year alone more than 128,000 of our fellow americans did not make it to see

this point. because of the coronavirus. and there will be more to come. nbc's tabulation of the new case numbers today, these are tabulated as of 6:30 p.m. eastern time each day, nbc news' tabulation as of 6:30 p.m. tonight shows that today america just shattered the record for new infections in one day, and that is a record we only set yesterday. today per nbc's numbers, we had just under 55,000 new coronavirus infections reported in the united states in the past 24 hours. 54,915. for context, when it felt like the apocalypse especially in and around new york back in april, the case numbers then were 30,000, 35,000 a day at the worst of it. now we're at 55,000. and the curve is shooting straight up. so the first half of 2020, which

we are through now get to do thf of 2020. we can do it. but as we put the first half of this behind us, as we start on what we all want to be a better second half of this year, it is interesting there does appear to be this sort of recursive thing going on in the news. the news just keeps repeating itself. the same stuff keeps happening and just slightly different iterations. both related to coronavirus and not. for example you might have seen the news today that the justice department has removed the u.s. attorney, the top federal prosecutor in new york, one who has been overseeing some sensitive cases that touch on the president's interests. and, no. you're not watching a re-run. it's just that it happened again. it was two weeks ago that the justice department ham handedly pushed out the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. that is the top federal

prosecutor in manhattan, geoffrey berman. tonight it's a different one. tonight the top federal prosecutor in new york they've taken out is the u.s. attorney not for the southern district but for the eastern district of new york which means he is the top federal prosecutor whose office is in brooklyn. they did the sdny attorney two weeks ago and tonight the edny district attorney as well. what's been going on in that office? lots of stuff. a big, powerful office with its fingers in lots of different pies of national significance. about a year ago you might remember the associated press was first to report that that prosecutor's office had opened its own investigation related to president trump's inaugural committee. the ap reported prosecutors working with a grand jury in edny had sent subpoenas to the inaugural committee and the committee had complied. the office had also questioned tom barrack a close friend of the president, head of the

president's inaugural committee. we don't know what became of that investigation. but that was edny. you might also remember around the geoffrey berman firing when they fired the manhattan federal prosecutor two weeks ago one of the controversies there was the ongoing prosecution of our ex-boyfriends lev and igor to friends of the president's lawyer rudy guiliani -- two friends of the president's lawyer rudy guiliani who did lots of work with him in the ukraine. it was their work with rudy guiliani that led to the president's impeachment in december of last year. that was only december, last year. he was impeached. in the sdny indictment against lev and igor they are alleged to have funneled illegal foreign contributions into republican campaigns including the main pac supporting the president's re-election efforts. but in conjunction with that case there have been some interesting other prospects raised. in december, prosecutors in the lev and igor case told a judge they expected there to be a

superseding indictment in that case. they expected there to be another indictment related to the facts in that case. well, that came around the same time as a whole bunch of public reporting that lev and igor's friend the president's lawyer rudy guiliani was himself under serious scrutiny by that prosecutor's office in new york. multiple sources telling multiple news organizations that they had received detailed subpoenas about rudy guiliani's business dealings and foreign entanglements, and it seemed to be a very active, very aggressive investigation. and then the prosecutors from that district tell the judge in open court, yeah, we expect more indictments here. we expect more defendants to be charged. so that happened in december. two months later in february attorney general bill barr made this really unusual announcement. that had a big impact on the prosecutors' offices in new york. he announced any investigation, any federal criminal investigation having anything at all to do with ukraine like, say, the lev and igor and

potentially the rudy guiliani cases, they all now needed a few extra layers of supervision. the attorney general put out this weird notice saying that any new information about anything related to ukraine or any ukraine case, any decision on opening a new investigation that touched on ukraine or expanding any existing investigation, any widening or expansion of existing matters, anything to do with ukraine, had to be cleared with attorney general bill barr personally and it also had to be run through the u.s. attorney's office in brooklyn, the u.s. attorney's office in the eastern district of new york. which is very strange, right? i mean, there's other prosecutors in other districts. there's for example geoffrey berman in sdny prosecuting lev and igor and reportedly investigating rudy guiliani, too, and expecting a superseding indictment. this is the attorney general basically publicly pronouncing

that office will not be allowed to make important decisions about those investigations or any prosecution decisions on their own. they had to run anything they wanted to do not only through the attorney general's office but also through a random other prosecutor's office. you have to answer to him, too. he is at the same level as you and not in your district but you have to run everything through him. well, that other prosecutor, who was put in charge of anything related to ukraine, his name is rich donoghue and until today was u.s. attorney in the eastern district of new york but now tonight he is out. they've given him a different job at main justice and they've cleared him out of edny to make room for somebody else. so we don't know whatever happened to the rudy guiliani investigation. we know that lev and igor's trial has been delayed until after the november election. but what's going on between the attorney general and these ongoing cases touching the president? i mean, we've seen a lot of this, right? but today's news isn't a re-run.

they're just -- they just keep doing the same play over and over again. it is recursive news. i mean, bill barr has now taken out the u.s. attorney in washington, d.c., he's taken out the u.s. attorney in sdny. he's now taken out as of tonight the u.s. attorney in edny. these are all the major prosecutors' offices basically in the country where there are major ongoing prosecutions and investigations touching on the president, his businesses, his inaugural and campaign personnel and all the fallout from the help from the ukraine in the last election. bill barr has been one by one picking out those u.s. attorneys and removing them from their posts. like i said, we are at the half way mark of this year. we are at the half way mark right now for 2020. it's hump day for the year. but it's kind of like groundhog day for the trump administration and the rule of law. they just keep doing this. we keep seeing these same things again and again. there's also a very familiar

feel in this recursive news we are now getting in the headlines about coronavirus. i mean, it was back in february when the trump administration screwed up the development of an american test for covid that was sort of the original sin in terms of why we didn't have testing when the whole rest of the world did. that screw up was in february. by march, as case numbers were ticking up and it was starting to look very serious in some parts of the country, we were seeing the consequence of that testing failure by the trump administration all over. this was a headline from back in mid march in the "denver post." line cut off at denver's drive-thru coronavirus testing site after wait time hits four hours. this was a headline from new mexico around the same time. again, back in march. long lines for coronavirus testing in las cruces. supplies run out after just two hours. at the time, again, months ago,

"new york times" running big national stories with headlines like this one. the lost month. how a failure to test blinded the u.s. to covid-19. you see the date on that. that's from march. the lost month. that was the lamentation back in march. wow. we lost a month. we lost a whole month between february and march that we could have been testing for coronavirus. we could have been understanding our epidemic. we could have been working on it. it set us back a whole month. well, now it's july. what's our testing situation like now? we lost a month. we had that time to catch up. now it's july. now we're half way through the year. now we've had multiple months to try to sort out those early problems. but this is still what the local news is like around the country right now. >> the family clinic has been open for testing for about three months now but in recent weeks lines have snaked through the parking lot, people waiting for

hours to get tested. >> tell me how long you've been out here. >> we've been here since around 6:40. >> what time is it now? >> now it is 11:12. we've advanced a few feet i want to say. >> reporter: this family one of many waiting in line to get tested at the family clinic. >> we thought probably two hours, three. we're heading toward five or six hours now. >> thousands have rushed to utah covid testing centers in recent weeks with medical professionals saying they are seeing a 50% increase in those wanting to be tested. >> this is making for long lines at the drive up testing sites. >> we have higher demand because of prevalence in the community. >> reporter: according to health directors this backlog is occurring statewide. >> some people are being turned away due to the influx of those who want to be tested but health officials emphasize though not everybody needs it those in close contact with someone who has a confirmed case should consider testing. dr. roman nation says the clinic is trying to prioritize those

who had direct exposure to covid-19. >> the message we're trying to get out to folks is basically to prioritize essential workers and especially health care workers because those are the ones we need on the front lines to be able to work. >> reporter: the clinic has to create a waiting list due to the skyrocketing demand for testing. this week it started with 30 names. now it is more than 200 patients long. >> at our mobile drive through yesterday we literally had the line filled before the official start time which was 9:00 a.m. >> dejavu, right? i mean, that's all local news coverage from now. our testing was a disaster in march. right? that was supposed to be our lost month with the trump administration screwing it up in february and as of march we were still screwed up, a month behind because of what they'd done. that was march. our testing was a disaster in march and we thought we knew why. why is our testing still a disaster in july? why have we got people in hours long lines and waiting lists

with hundreds of people on them? right? why are we now having people wait three, four, five, six, seven days for test results, right? those were local news clips that i just showed you from dallas/ft. worth, from salt lake city, utah, from panama city, florida. honestly, pick your poison. pick anywhere. this is the local news tonight in alabama. long lines for testing in alabama. this is the news in texas. officials in texas's big cities say their public testing sites are being strained. austin, texas has begun to limit who can be tested. in georgia, georgia sees testing system strained with rise in covid-19 cases. here's the tennesseean tonight. long lines reported at coronavirus testing sites across mid state. here is the l.a. times today. as of wednesday, yesterday, there were no available appointments for coronavirus testing at l.a. county or l.a. city-run test sites. here is "the washington post" today. as cases surge, long lines for testing sometimes stretch miles in the summer heat. americans are trying to do the

right thing. americans are trying to get tested because they want to do the responsible thing because they want to keep themselves safe. they want to keep their family members safe. americans are trying to do the right thing and being very freaking patient about it i might add. it is not the american people who are failing here. it is the government that has failed to make testing available in any workable way. even after all this time. and so, okay. even if you forgive them their initial screw up, why months later are we still looking at the same groundhog day headlines about the inability of people to get tested? i mean, even the major lab companies are now reporting they are not able to keep up. they are not able to increase testing. wow. there's rising case numbers all over the country in most states right now. they're not prepared for that. they are not able to scale up. why is that? because even for the biggest lab companies in the country, which are the same giant lab companies

that we had at the start of this mess over these past few months the government has done no work to make sure the big lab companies in this country would scale up, would develop capacity to handle what we would need. we just squandered that time. testing didn't get any better. and the same goes for ppe. i know this is even harder to believe than the testing stuff, but this was today. this is not some historical artifact from the bad old days. this was today. >> this document confirms what our committee has been hearing for weeks, that we face serious shortages in personal protective equipment including masks and gowns. for example, page 4, shows the demand for n95 masks dwarfed supply in march, april, and may.

it also shows that we will need more than 160 million n95 masks in july alone but that imports and domestic production together will only supply about 130 million masks. that leaves a projected shortfall of about 30 million masks. how is it possible that more than five months into this crisis our country is still facing the possible shortage of 30 million n95 masks this month? >> this month. yeah. how -- how is that possible? that more than five months into this crisis our country is still facing the possible shortage of 30 million n95 masks this month. how is that possible?

but we are more than five months into this crisis, you know, i mean, for short hand it's easy to remember. this thing is called covid-19 because it was discovered at the end of the year, 2019. we are now officially tonight half way through 2020, and we still haven't sorted out ppe. not even for health workers. nbc news obtained a document today showing that the major medical supply companies in the united states have just warned congress that there is not enough ppe. the supply lines have not been shored up that would allow us to make enough quickly enough and the shortages are back and they are real. quote, the health industry distributors association tells committee staff it has been imploring the trump administration to create a national supply chain for months. the companies told committee staff that obtaining personal protective equipment for u.s. medical personnel and patients under current conditions is, quote, not sustainable. this is the medical supply industry, itself, sounding the

alarm. in july. and again, this sounds familiar because it sounds like a re-run of the ppe headlines that we saw months ago in march. but this is now. as we head into the back half of 2020, because this stuff didn't get fixed. in the time that we had in the time we thought we bought ourselves with all the sacrifices made by the american people, right, after the huge, big, first spike that was centered on new york and the tri-state area, it turns out we didn't shore ourselves up as a country in terms of testing and we didn't shore ourselves up as a country in terms of ppe. and in the meantime all of the states sort of randomly opened up without guidance and without regard for whether they had their own outbreaks under observation and under control. and so now we are into our second peak which is already much higher than the first and it is all over the country. and now what do we do? i mean, because we are living

this again. we lived in april through the heart break, right, of seeing hospitals in new york pushed to the breaking point. just the moral disaster there. the american catastrophe there. we lived through that in april with new york hospitals. well, today this is texas. this is the front page of "the houston chronicle" right now. stay at home this 4th of july weekend. it is the safest thing to do. and that's the front page wrap-around of the "houston chronicle" right now because this is the news in houston right now. right? this is the headline inside the paper. texas medical center hospitals go into phase 2 surge plans as icu capacity exceeds 100%. texas medical center, which boasts 1,330 icu beds under base operations, had 1,350 such patients in house wednesday.

1,350 patients in icus. roberta schwartz president of houston methodist hospital says, quote, it is actually possible we could become the next new york city. i can't believe we're now staring down the barrel of that gun. that said, here is one thing that isn't a re-run of something that we saw a few months ago or a few weeks ago. and it shows you i think positively that we have grown a little bit. we have at least learned something. in the interim, while we have been blowing it as a country and wasting all of the time that we earned ourselves with the sacrifices that the american people made, while we have been continually screwing up, we have learned something. we have learned for example that masks work. pretty well. to slow the spread of this thing. if you wear a covering that covers your mouth and your nose, that is going to make you much

less likely to infect other people if you have coronavirus, particularly if you don't know you have it. well, tonight the republican governor of texas, greg abbott, announced a mask requirement for anybody out in public in texas. it applies to anybody in any county in texas that has more than 20 cases. there is now a mask requirement statewide. we are capable of learning. we are capable of figuring some stuff out about how to do this better than we have in the past. we are capable of not just squandering all of our time and making all the same mistakes and enduring all of the same terrible headlines time and time again where you have to keep checking the dateline over and over again because you can't believe it's july and you're still seeing that when you saw it all through february, all through march, all through april, and you thought the terror of april made it sure we would never do this again. we are capable of growing and getting better. we can do it. we can learn i swear. now, i do not know whether to

include the federal government in that under the leadership of donald trump as president. but here's the test. because here, tonight, right now as we speak is this new question. this new very practical, very realistic question of why there isn't a federal mask requirement. texas just did it. texas just did it. why not the country? is that the one thing this administration might conceivably get it together to do even as they have failed in every other thing they were assigned? could they conceivably get it together to do that? and if so, how much of a dent could it make? live question tonight like it's never been before. and that's next. stay with us. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill,

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in germany nearly every train station, these big vending machines say masken.

i don't speak german but i know what that means. masken right across the top. face masks have been required on public transportation and in certain stores in that country since april. so this is part of how germany encourages people to follow the mandate. just find a vending machine. in singapore where masks are also compulsory residents can scan their government issued i.d.s at any one of more than 1200 kiosks. just scan your i.d. and out pop two free face masks. in austria face coverings are required when entering supermarkets and drug stores and so the government hands them out to you before you enter any of those types of establishments. dozens of countries have adopted mask ordinances since the coronavirus pandemic struck. and it would appear they are on to something. researchers at the university of washington project the lives of 33,000 americans could be saved just in the next three months just by october if we adopted

near universal mask use in this country. with that data in mind, one very prominent public health official from the obama administration is calling on the united states to adopt a national mask requirement. he says in part, quote, having everyone wear a mask in public is a simple, common sense measure that has been proven to significantly slow the spread of the virus. we've seen its tremendous success in countries around the world that have quelled their outbreaks. with the vaccine still months away a mask requirement will also free up vital economic activity without risking the massive spread of the virus. we have to do everything in our power to protect the precious health of all americans. you know, if there is somebody who is an expert on this type of stuff we might want to listen to, dr. coe is one of those people. he served as assistant secretary of health under precinct obama and oversaw 12 public health offices including the surgeon general. in addition to all the other public health initiatives he ran

during the obama administration he helped coordinate the response to the h 1 n 1 pandemic. he has had an incredible academic career. he served as six years as public health commissioner in the great state of massachusetts. this is somebody who knows a thing or two about enacting big public health policies and thinking about how they can be practically put into place. he is somebody who understands the science, has done the work both on the state level and the federal level. joining us now is dr. howard koh. he also served as assistant secretary of health in the obama administration. dr. koh thank you so much for making time for us tonight. i really look forward to talking to you about this. >> thanks for having me, rachel. >> since you have been talking about this, and because of your pedigree and what you have been through, i have been thinking about the prospect of a national mask requirement. i saw vice president biden was asked about it and said that he supports the concept this week.

but i now tonight feel like this is a live, practical question for the country in a way it hasn't been before because of the decision that was just made by governor greg abbott in texas. just wanted to ask if you share that sense or you think i might be approaching this the wrong way. >> i think you got it right. let's take a global view on this. as you pointed out we are now into month six of the worst pandemic this country has endured in a century and around the world we see so many countries that got to the other side of this crisis with cases going down, countries in europe, asia, australia, new zealand. but here in the united states we have trends going the wrong way. we've been setting records over the last several weeks as you've noted some 55,000 new cases today. my good friend dr. fauci is concerned about those numbers riding to 100,000 new cases sooner rather than later. this is really alarming. you have to ask yourself why

aren't we getting a better handle on this pandemic right now? it is because other countries have realized the power of prevention, the power of public health. right now as you know we don't have a vaccine yet although there's a lot of research. we don't have a cure yet although we have some great advancements in therapeutics but what we have is the power of public health. social distancing, hand hygiene, and wearing masks. you've pointed out the very important scientific data that's coming out almost weekly now showing that masks decrease transmission and can potentially save lives. it's time right now for our country to embrace the maximum prevention possible. the announcement by the governor of texas today was welcomed news but is not enough. we only have 20 states where they mandate for mask wearing. we need to make it 50 states. we need to move as fast as possible to national coverage, a national plan to address this

national crisis. >> i feel like we are living through a pivot point right now when we are seeing, certainly, there are still people who decided that masks are, you know, a deep state plot to rewire their fillings and take away their guns. 'v conspiracy stuff and people still opposing masks as if they represent some sort of grave infringement on freedom. but at the same time, we are seeing even high profile republican and conservative politicians start to change their own public behavior and the way they are talking about these things including it should be noted the president softening his tone and talking about how he thinks masks are good and he doesn't mind the way he looks in a mask. he, himself, has moved some distance in terms of his public remarks. how fast do you think this transition could happen? is there some sort of public health allegory we should look at in terms of other things that

have been, that had initial resistance that the public ultimately came around to in terms of understanding when this sort of transformation you're describing needs to be happening? when we could expect it or hope for it? >> well, right now, rachel, we can all make our plans but it is the virus that is dictating the outcomes. and so in the face of that we need to practice the maximum prevention we can. more and more people are starting to understand the science here and the fact that this can be very powerful for public health. we now understand if you wear a mask you not only protect yourself but others around you, family, friends, people you care about and love. this is a way actually of boosting freedom for people as we talk about the july 4th weekend, freedom to interact with other people, freedom to go out in society and help businesses get started again. freedom from danger. freedom from infection and hospitalization. and so we need to rally around

this national strategy for the country not do it state by state. >> dr. howard koh professor of public health leadership at the harvard school of public health. the way you just described that and framed that just now in those closing remarks is absolutely priceless. it shows that you were assistant secretary of health during the obama administration, sir. thanks for talking to us about this. and, please, come back. i think we are in the middle of a transition here and we'd love to talk to you about it as this policy develops. >> thanks so much, rachel. >> all right. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. omizes your car ine so you only pay for what you need? given my unique lifestyle, that'd be perfect! let me grab a pen and some paper. know what? i'm gonna switch now. just need my desk... my chair... and my phone. only pay for what you need.

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in the aftermath of president trump trying to extort the nation of ukraine to help him against joe biden in this fall's election, it is still so crazy that that happened, in the wake of the president's impeachment for that bit of craziness, part of the fallout from that debacle was legal.

donald trump's attorney general bill barr set up a whole, unusual new command structure for all federal prosecutors who might be thinking about bringing any criminal charges that had anything to do with the nation of ukraine. like, for example, prosecutors in the southern district of new york who were reportedly aggressively investigating the president's lawyer and ukraine fixer rudy guiliani. any such investigations under this new chain of command suddenly had to be run through the u.s. attorney for the eastern district of new york, a trump appointee named richard donoghue. it was a seemingly random decision by the u.s. attorney general, but it got weirder today. as i mentioned at the top of the show, richard donoghue that u.s. attorney was moved out of that job at edny and is no longer the u.s. attorney there. now it remains to be seen who will ultimately be put in charge there and whether that person will also be tasked with riding herd on any and all ukraine cases in any jurisdiction

anywhere in the country. that's been weird. but there's also been fallout from the president's impeachment for the people who testified in the impeachment inquiry in particular for lieutenant colonel alexander vindman who in his role in the national security council, he listened in on trump's infamous phone call last july in which the president pressed the ukrainian president to dig up dirt on joe biden. lieutenant colonel vindman's testimony appeared to particularly get under the president's skin and as soon as the impeachment process was over, when senate republicans acquitted the president in the senate, not only was lieutenant colonel vindman fired from the national security council and escorted off the white house grounds by security, so was colonel vindman's twin brother who didn't testify about anything having to do with impeachment but, you know, he does look a lot like the guy who did and so he had to get fired, too? lieutenant colonel vindman was booted from the white house in what appears to have been a

clear act of retaliation for his testimony in the impeachment inquiry. but he remains an active duty u.s. army officer and is currently due to be promoted to not lieutenant colonel but full colonel. that said, a couple weeks ago trouble started brewing. "the washington post" was first to report concern among a number of military and government officials that colonel vindman's promotion was in jeopardy again because of his testimony in the impeachment. usually the army and pentagon sign off on a big long list of hundreds of officers being promoted to full colonel each year and then the white house signs off sort of proforma and it goes to the senate for a big confirmation vote but multiple voices told the post the list was unusually delayed this year over fears the white house would strike colonel vindman's name from this year's list. the "new york times" followed with reporting that white house staffers were signaling to the pentagon that they wanted colonel vindman's name dropped from the promotions list before that list even got forwarded to

the white house. they wanted the pentagon to retaliate against him so the white house wouldn't have to. that's all been dangling out there. we've been waiting to see what was going to happen. until. senator took a pretty drastic step right way. u.s. senator tammy duckworth sits on the armed services committee. she said today that she will block over a thousand military promotions from clearing the senate. she will block everybody on the list unless she gets written assurances from the secretary of defense that he has not and he will not block colonel alexander vindman's promotion. senator duckworth said in the statement, quote, this goes far beyond any single military officer. it is about protecting a merit-based system from political corruption and unlawful retaliation. senator tammy duckworth is an iraq war veteran, a purple heart recipient like lieutenant colonel vindman, she is in her

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are you ready? ask your doctor about prolia® fda approved for 10 years. senator tammy duckworth announced today she is planning to hold up the confirmation of more than 1100 military promotions unless and until defense secretary mark esper confirms the trump administration will not continue to retaliate against lieutenant colonel alexander vindman for his testimony in the impeachment. there have been recent reports that the white house has been pressuring the pentagon to essentially take colonel vindman's name off the list of officers who are set to be promoted. senator duckworth is taking direct action to try to block the white house from doing that. joining us now is senator duckworth of illinois a member of the armed services committee, veteran of the iraq war, purple heart recipient, former assistant secretary of the department of veterans affairs.

i appreciate you making the time to be here tonight. thanks for being here. >> thanks for covering this issue, rachel. it is so important for our military. >> let me hear just from you directly why you think it is so important and how you decided to approach it in this way. >> well, the military is supposed to be an apolitical organization. it should not be politicized. and i've watched under this president that he continues to politicize the military. most recently while using helicopters to suppress peaceful protesters in lafayette square. in this case, lieutenant colonel vindman, if he is on the list, has earned his way to the list. in order to get on the promotion list you have to have been recommended to be on there by your rater, your intermediate rater, and your senior rater so three officers above you have to concur you should get on the list. all i'm saying is that if his name is on the list, his name

should not be taken off by the dod and that it should be allowed to go forward with his name still on the list. i'm afraid the white house is pressuring dod to take lieutenant colonel the white ho taking his name off the list after he earned his way on it. based on gist job performance as evaluated by his supervisors. >> do you have any response in hand from defense sect's office or more broadly from the defense department? what are you expecting them to do in terms of what you announced today. >> all i've asked them to do is very simple, rachel, i ask them to certify by letter if his name is on the list they will not take it off the list before sending it to the white house. simple. basically don't politicize promotions.

their response was promptly to politic size it by accusing, holding the promotion of thousands of officers, all this. they immediately responded by being political about it. all i was saying is just send me a letter and confirm you will not take his name off the will he is if he's on it. that is pretty simple to do. >> senator, let me also ask you about another, right now, just jaw-dropping divide between the president, what appears to be the president's interest and the interests of the u.s. military. i know you've been briefed with other senators about what's, these intelligence reports that russia was apparently paying bounties for american bodies. paying bounties to taliban fighters and others in afghanistan to kill u.s. troops and open source reporting in washington post and elsewhere that the intelligence community believes that in fact those bounties were paid because some american soldiers deaths were

initiated because that russian program. the white house believes, the president apparently believes there's no response necessary to this. i have to ask your take on this and you think this will ultimately resolve. >> well the way it will resolve is if the administration actually starts conducting an investigation into whether or not bounties were paid for the death of american serve men and women. -- service men and women. the briefing i received from the department of deof defense coul answer my questions or any of the senators on the committee in the room, we asked simple things, do you know the president was briefed on the 27th as open source reporting says he was on these bounties and they have no information on that. they -- the folks they sent to talk to us were not people who could answer any of our

questions. didn't send haskel talk to the arms committee. didn't allow us to talk to the u.s. forces commander in afghanistan. we didn't talk to anyone that could shed light on this. s telling that the president cares more about the naming of u.s. bases and keeping their names for dead confederates than he does about whether or not americans were killed with bounties placed on their head by the russians and he hasn't bothered to come out and come for the families of the fallen heroes by saying he will look into it. anything all he's done is deny and deny and plead ignorance. we know he was briefed. reports show he was in his presidential daily brief. if he did not pay attention and did nothing to do it it is

derrickel -- derelection of duty. >> i heard reports you're running mate to vice president joe biden i know you are not going to answer but asking to ask if you are in those discussions and if this is a job you'd like to do if vice president biden asked you to join the ticket. >> rachel, i'm all about serving my country and whether it was in the house and now in the senate. our country is facing some really dire crisis right now and we need to be able to dig our way out of it. i believe that joe biden is the best person. he has the empathy and understanding and ability to bounce back and help this nation to biebd our wound defended -- bind our wounds and to lead us out of the mess trump administration put us in with covid, our economy, and our

military overseas so whatever i can do to get joe biden into the white house i will do that. they have the process for the vice president selection vetting committee i'll leave them to it and focus on getting joe biden elected because he's the kind of person with the resiliency and empathy of the suffering of the american people that we need right now. >> senator tammy duckworm of the great state of illinois. senator i really appreciate you taking time to talk with us. i know your time is precious. thanks for being here. >> thank you. all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. stay with us for people living with h-i-v, keep being you.

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if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. [ chuckles ] so, what are some key takeaways from this commercial? did any of you hear the "bundle your home and auto" part? -i like that, just not when it comes out of her mouth. -yeah, as a mother, i wouldn't want my kids to see that. -good mom. -to see -- wait. i'm sorry. what? -don't kids see enough violence as it is? -i've seen violence. -maybe we turn the word "bundle" into a character, like mr. bundles. -top o' the bundle to you. [ laughter ] bundle, bundle, bundle. -my kids would love that. -yeah.

there are three u.s. states right now three u.s. states that aren't on the east coast. not in the northeast of the country where the number of new coronavirus cases aren't rising right now. it's only dani-leiindiana, nebr south dakota, only three states without rising numbers aside from the northeast. that could be fixed. tomorrow is headed to south dakota to do a fireworks thing at mt. rushmore the govern will

talk about the plans for that event. >> we will have a large event july 3rd. we told those folk that's have concerns that they can stay home. but those who want to come and join us we'll be giving out free face masks if they choose to wear one. we won't be social distancing. we're asking them to come, be ready to celebrate, to enjoy the freedoms and liberties we have in this country. >> we implicitly will not be social distancing. we ask you to come and be ready to celebrate. we will not be social distancing. south dakota, as i mentioned is one of the few states in this country that looked like they were maybe going to start to get out from under this thing but know what,s only a recovery if you can keep it. this is a heck of a way to do that. that's going to do it for us tonight. thanks for being with us tonight. time for last