rolling out slowly as coronavirus spreads quickly? i am issuing a face covering requirement for all counties with more than 20 covid cases. five states do their elections almost entirely by mail. more states will not do the same if the president has his way. >> it absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud. those things are delivered into mailboxes, they can be taken out. and 54% of voters say reopening grade school campuses makes sense somewhat or very uncomfortable. what might the fall term look like for teachers, students and parents? "velshi" starts right now. good morning. it's sunday, july 5th. doe don't attempt to adjust your sets, i'm sitting in for alley

velshi, coronavirus continues spreading like wildfire. the new normal in the u.s. seemed to be at least 50,000 case of covid-19 per day. that happened again yesterday. florida is among the states that continue to break their own records daily. yesterday they reported nearly 11,500 new covid-19 cases. the state does not have a state-wide order to wearing a masks in public. its infection rate now is close to what new york state faced in april when it was the epicenter of this global pandemic. florida residents comprised nearly all of the state's new cases. one florida resident is going on with his campaign's re-election fund-raising event despite the outbreak. president trump plans to host a dinner this week at a private home. ticket price for a couple -- $580,000. this independence day weekend mr. trump has been busy with publy events raising concerns

about people in close quartering fueling new infections. last night's event at the white house and friday's event at mount rushmore, were official white house programs. but trump campaign previewed the president's remarks rather than the white house itself helping lend credence to one of john bolton's new book, that everything the president does now is focused on his re-election. but how well is it working? perhaps playing w ining well fo base, but the difference could not be more stark between what mr. biden and mr. trump said on the fourth of july. let's begin this morning with nbc white house correspondent geoff bennett. it good morning to you and what does this weekend tell us about the president tell us about his

approach. >> reporter: largely one in the same. what we heard with the president this weekend combined with what we heard in the president from recenty rallies in tulsa, oklahoma and phoenix, arizona, we have learned a metric ton about president trump's re-election strategy both in terms of substance and what political people like to call optics. right? how theetzse events look add fe. what is clear, president trump is diving deep in sowing division and white racial grievance and trying to exploit culture and racial flashpoints to make a direct appeal to his core base of white supporters most pronounceed by the way the president has dealt with this national reckoning on racial justice issues. the president referring to demonstrators who have been calling for removal of confederate and krofcontroversi statues referred to as thugs,

trying to attack the country's heritage. the president said something in his speech that struck me. american heroes defeated the nazis, dethroned the fascists, toppled the communist claimed american values. the same breath, now in the process of defeating the radical left. drawing an implicit line between not fascists and communists and what he calls the american left. american citizens, demonstrators, protesters calling for a rethinking of racial issues in this country. okay. that's the substance. talk about the optics, because the approach on the part of the campaign is that the campaign if there's no pandemic. that's why the president has not been seen except for once when captured clan december tes dece

clandesti clandestinely. and a white house official told us masks were provided but not required. social distancing was encouraged but not enforced. the question is, is any of this working? is this approach working? right now appears it it's not. you mentioned joe biden is leading president trump nationally by double digits and the president is also trailing biden in those six key battlegrounds states president trump won in 2016 and hopes to retain in 2020. i've talked to people close to the president who say in order to turn things around he has to show a willingness, capacity, desire to shift to this ever-evolving political landscape both in terms of racial issues and the coronavirus virus crisis? >> rhetoric from 2016 and 2020. i'd want to note those who noticed the metric time is actually larger than the custary time. about 2,200 pounds. we learn more than a regular ton would have taught us over the

last weekend. thank you, geoff. nbc's geoff bennett joining us from the would jushgs continue our conversation now with jennifer rubin, opinion righter for "washington post" and msnbc contributor. one of her new pieces focuses on joe biden's response to the unemployment numbers is helping him in polls. also with us, eugene daniel, a national political reporter for politico. good to have you both with us this morning. jennifer, start with you and those poll numbers. for the longest time an easy bracki i bragging point for the president. the economy. the pandemic struck and polls favor him over joe biden on the economy. where does all of that put us now? >> i think he's in a desperate position, and it seems as though he's not even trying right now. because when you look at polls, not only is biden substantially ahead, but he's over 50% in many of these polls. that means in order to win, trump has to win back those

voters. but he's not winning back anyone. he is basically playing to that core group of voters who thrive on racial grievance, on fear, and by approaching it in this way he's really cutting off any hope of ever extending his base of support, and i think what you see is now republicans around the country realize that he's not really trying to win, and in order for them to survive they're going to have to be distancing one another. but i do want to point out sometimes we in the media make too little of how crazy the president sounds and looks. these were bizarre speeches over the weekend. these were inflammatory, hateful, ahistoric going to war with fellow americans. sometimes hard to convey because we'll show a clip of a speech or give a quote of a speech. sitting there watching it you

realize how disturbed and how disturbing this president really is. >> before i come to you, gene, jennifer, yards with regards to the president is doing, it worked in 2016. he won the presidency without winning majority of electorate. maybe the strategy is, he did it before, and he can do it again? >> well, it's a different country than it was in 2016, and we know what donald trump does. for one thing, he doesn't protect 130,000 americans from being killed. so you're right. i think that's all he knows how to do. that's been his entire political career from birtherism to that ride down the escalator, to calling the mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. that's all he does. it doesn't work when you're actually an incumbent when you're responsible for the welfare of the country and it really doesn't work when the country is undergoing a bit of a racial reckoning and a bit of an

introspective moment in which i think americans are looking for some kind of moral leadership, some empathy, some largeness of spirit and he has none of those things. >> eugene, we alluded to earlier. the difference between president trump's and joe biden's messages on july 4th could scarcely has been more different. watch. >> a campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children. >> american has been a constant push and pull between two parts of our characters. the idea that all men and women, all people are created equal and the race has torn us apart. angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. >> we have a chance now to give

the marginalized, demonized, isolated oh fresppressed a full of the american dream. >> mate no mistake, this left wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the american revolution. >> we have a chance to rip the roots of systemic racism out of this country. we have a chance to live up to the words that have founded this nation. >> we will not allow our country and all of its values, history and culture to be taken from them. >> this independence day let's not celebrate the words. let's celebrate that promise. >> -- again every law of society and nature our children are taught in school to hate their own country. >> so, tru truly putting race c stape of his re-election.

and same question to you. where does that put us, eugene? >> quickly play where is we have a president who doesn't feel the need to be able to play in the gray area. so much about politics is the good and the bad news, both are coming, right? and as he tries toáçáçáç1g that says the country is the best economy we've ever seen and millions of jobs that will last, you have covid-19 rising back up and he wants to reopen country. those are areas he could have had some gray area. telling people that we're moving in the right direction, but, you know, these are the things we need to continue to do to make sure those are safe and he doesn't do that, because what he's been concentrating on and has since he started running for president is that everything is fine. and fine for who?

right? we talk to democrats even some republicans asking them what do you think about the president's speech? there are questions i've asked over and over, you have, like jennifer said a huge reckoning in america in way we haven't seen since 1968 and compared to 1968, it's much, much different. right? it is a larger movement. and the black lives matter movement is actually trending upward. i mean, people are starting to think that is a better way to go and president trump is going the opposite way and moving into what we can throw at the white base at a time when this country the last five months feels very different. issues seeing what mechanism works during that time. >> eugene daniels of politico and xwjennifer from the w "washington post," good to have you both with us. and strain on tens of millions of worksers.

some not feeling any signs of recovery, particularly people are clef. wisconsin congresswoman gwen has plans to assist these communities. she'll tell us about them, when we come back.

coronavirus cases across the country are rising fast. before and during this holiday weekend. this could be the fourth day in

a row with more than 50,000 new cases. america has more than 2.8 million confirmed cases of covid-19, and moor than 130,000 known deaths. meanwhile, the virus' economic toll is also deeply felt. unemployment still over 10% despite adding jobs in june, especially slow for african-americans. we currently have the highest unemployment rate of any racial group. 15.4%. joining us now is democratic congresswoman gwen moore of wisconsin representing the milwaukee area. she's also a member of the house ways and means committee, and of the congressional black caucus. congresswoman, good morning. >> good morning. how you doing, joshua? >> i'm well, thank you. i do want to talk to you about what's happening in wisconsin. covid-19 cases are surging there. there are more than 31,000 cases in the last two weeks, wisconsin has seen its percentage of

positive tests double between saturday and sunday. how are you seeing the state's approach evolving? >> joshua, i'll tell you the truth. we've had marvelous, a governor, that has put stay-at-home order in place only to have them overturned by republicans. this has become a very, as you know -- wisconsin is similar to many other states. you would think in the south where republicans are in denial in syncsy donald trump about the voracity of this virus, and impeding the health and safety of folks,& economic outcomes that trump desires. so we're very much in the cross fires of that dilemma. >> the cdc recently investigated wisconsin because of the number of young people who are being infected. did they figure anything out

that maybe is affecting the state's approach to reaching that demographic? >> well, i do think that there is a real division between those people who feel unsafe. the cdc has dawn good job of indicating that there are certainly vulnerable people. people are compromise, and co-morbidity and i think that that in addition to the president's arrogance gives people the false security that they'll be okay. i think young people feel, young people say that i you know, my immune system is strong. and i don't think that they're really at any risk. the president has as much as said that people aren't going to get that sick. the other thing that really has struck me, joshua, is that this, this disparate impact on black

and brown communities is yet another sort of sumpterfuge, that this is a problem for "others" and they just really need to get back to the meat packing plants and the delivering our stuff and stop complaining. as the president indicated, we just need to live with this, because we've got to open up our economy, no matter what. >> can you talk a little bit more about wisconsin's communities of color? i think that many people think about wisconsin as a very, a very white, almost like 108% white state that they think about wisconsin, and they figure the only black people in wisconsin play for the bucks, brewers and no other color in

the state of wisconsin but that's not at all the case? >> that is not all the case. we only have 5% or 6% of the state's population that's african-american, an even smaller population of people who are latinx, which, why it is so significant to look at numbers of cases and deathi s among the african-american community and the huge surge among the latinx community. someone asked me sarcastically a while back, is this a virus, a virus that's racist? no. the virus is not racist. but i think the virus is a leading indicator of all the otherparaities we see in terms of health, in terms of housing, in terms of front-line jobs. when you think about it, think about who works in these food processing plants. latinx people.

who are the people on the front lines working in nursing homes? black women. 70% of that work force. so when you think about the people who are wiping down tables in the restaurant, that the president wants them to get back to work and not provide them with anymore economic impact payments, we just can get over ter and get back to work, i think that this is yet another message about the two americas that he sees. and i think that his unwillingness to sign and push that h.e.r.o.e.s. act, which would provide continuing relief is yet another portion of his denial. i mean, this president has squandered february, march, april, may, june -- in terms of getting this virus under

control. because she in denial. >> is there one particular program, before i have to let you know, congresswoman, one thing in particular at the top of the things you would like to see done to help struggling communities? particularly communities of color? >> oh, my god. for the going forward i would love to see a greatly expanded earned income tax credit, but that's down the line during some sort of reconstruction or recovery. right now, right this minute, we need to get money to our school districts, to state and local governments, who are facing bankruptcy, quite frankly. the president has proposed that what they ought to do. we have got to get more economic impact payments to people. we've got to come out of denial. our economy hists shared with u this economic crisis is going to last through 2021. we don't have a vaccination. we don't have good therapeutics

and are getting to a point, a tipping point where we may not be able to use tracing and isolation mitigation effectively. we need to get this h.e.r.o.e.s. act passed and we need to do it now. >> wisconsin democratic congresswoman gwen moore. i think i saw you put your hands up for the milwaukee bucks you root for? >> if we ever get our cities back, yeah. >> they're xibled edscheduled d of july in this shortened nba season. we'll cross our finger. for now, thanks for making time for us. appreciate it. >> thank you, joshua. president trump says that he did not know russia may have bank rolled bounties on american troops. we'll ask a former state department official about that, next.

puberty means personal space. so sports clothes sit around doing a little growing of their own. ohhh. ahhgh. so imagine how we cheered when we found tide pods sport. finally something more powerful than the funk. bye. i love you too! he didn't say that. tide sport removes even week-old sweat odor. if it's got to be clean, it's got to be tide.

hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today.

i got this mountain bike for only $11. dealdash.com, the fair and honest bidding site. an ipad worth $505, was sold for less than $24; a playstation 4 for less than $16; and a schultz 4k television for less than $2. i won these bluetooth headphones for $20. i got these three suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. we never heard about it,

because intelligence never found it to be of the, of that level where it would rise to that -- when you bring something into a president and i see many, many things and sure i don't see many things that they don't think rose to the occasion. didn't didn't rise to the occasion and from what i hear, and i hear it pretty good, the intelligence people didn't even, many of them didn't believe it happened at all. i think it's a hoax. i think it's a hoax by the newspapers and the democrats. >> well that would be one heck of a hoax. claiming that russia offered afghan militants money to kill u.s. soldiers. president trump has consistently denied knowing anything about these bounties. we are among the news outlets that have corroborated the story. the "new york times" reported it first more than a week ago. the "times" also reports that trump administration is sowing doubts about intelligence on russia's bounties releasing a new memo apparently aimed at

justifying, not acting, on what it depicts as questionable intel. now, there is still many questions about what the president did or did not know. it is also highly debatable what the u.s. should even do at this point. even if the intel was perfectly clear, that doesn't necessarily clarify america's next move. a big reason for that, vladimir putin himself. russia's president has a big agenda in afghanistan and beyond. russiawzñ pakistan and other sts stand to gain if nato withdraws from the area. foreign policy magazine writes "over the past several years it has been quietly working in the background to enhance its ties with the taliban wit purpose of expanding its strategic interesting in fs fs once nato and afghanistan leave and russia will have an opportunity once again to step in." discuss with a former assistant

secretary of state for european and you're asi eurasian affairs and jeremy bash, msnbc national security analyst. good to have you both with us this morning and ambassador newlin, let me start with you. what do you think putin's strategy is when it comes to afghanistan? particularly how that strategy might be served by putting out hits on american service members? >> well good to be with you this morning, joshua. look, putin wins either way. whether he's done it or whether he has only summed out about his ability to do it, beaux it complicates the u.s. ability to withdraw in afghanistan. you know, you could argue this round or flat. if u.s. soldiers are losing their lives in afghanistan and we decide that it is too soon for us to withdraw, then putin gets a more stable afghanistan on his border where he can continue to sow trouble anytime

1q"tr#, in fact, the killing of americas participates a faster withdrawal, then putin gets more influence with those who gain, namely the taliban. long given them weapons, this would be the next es xa lace and justify say it says america contributes to the death of russians in syria, in ukraine >, ambassador, do you think vladimir putin would have cared about getting caught? >> this is his m.o., joshua. what he does is he hires either one-off mercenaries or folks who are deniable in terms of being direct russian citizens, or he uses his tru to pay surrogates.

that way he can deny he was involved while getting the ben f of the operation. it is classic putin. he does it all over the world whether killing or messing with u.s. and other elections, whether he is claiming that his forces are not in ukraine when obviously they are. >> russian military installments. nbc news confirmed this was in the president's written intelligence daily briefing. he typically skips reading that and quite possibly would not have known unless someone told him verbally. what the your read on that, jeremy? >> well i think it's undoubt thundoubtable he knew about this. told about it in written briefings. definitely something the national security adviser or staff would tell the president. the fact the pdb contains a lot

of information, an election in molly and economy in argentina that is not of this stark and serious nature that involves lives of our service members. so the president either was told about it and dismissed it, forgot about it, and is frankly incompetent at his job of commander in chief or acquiesced to russian activity. either way it's incredibly disturbing and dereliction of his duty because he bears responsibility of protecting our forces he sends into harm's way and i think families of all the service members serving in afghanistan and those who lost their lives deserve more answers about what the president knew and when he knew it. >> jeremy, is this the kind of thing where if i'm in the intelligence community and been trying to tell the president about this, where i would, you know, follow a certain chain of command and just thieve in the president's daily briefing, or is there a point i, part of the i.c., go to the white house, mr.

tru trump, i need to talk to you right now and make sure that he hears it? >> sort of attuned that senior officials did reach out to the national security adviser and said mr. o'brien what are we doing about this and of course there were meetings about this. i think the senior intelligence officials believed that the administration was working on a variety of responses, but the idea that the national security staff didn't tell the president or the president heard about it and didn't want to take action and even to this moment since he has been been briefed, since the whole issue came to light several days ago he hasn't once condemned putin or defended our service members, only dismissed knowing this. we need to evaluate for ourselves and provide answerses to the set of members risking their lives. >> ambassador what is top of your list if advising the president? briefly. >> at a minimum, instead of

denying it happened or calling it a hoax, the president should be orders the u.s. military, nate oh intelligence community to do a full investigation, a full xrscrub. also warning putin how serious this is and the kinds of consequence there's can be for this, whether political, military or economic, and he should be expressing support for the u.s. military and for nato military who are putting their lives on the line, as jeremy said. rather than this being all about him. rather than the security of the united states and our allies. >> briefly, jeremy what will you have the president do, briefly? >> i would say rescind the invitation and join the g7. reverse the decision to pull troops it out of germany and also call for a full and open investigation to protect u.s. service members. >> i totally forgot about the whole g7 thing. one of those areas russia is trying to have more relationship with the west. i could see how that might have

a real -- might hurt where russia needs more ins flurfluen. good to speak to you both. still to come, a tough choice for parents to make. sending your kids back to school could hinder their health. keeping them at home could hinder their education? what should you do? we'll think through it together, next. stay close. and stay asleep longer great sleep comes naturally with sleep3. only from nature's bounty. ♪ ♪all strength ♪we ain't stoppin' believe me♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪ ♪won't wait♪ ♪we're taking everything we wanted♪ ♪we can do it ♪all strength, no sweat

the july fourth weekend is the unofficial midpoint of summer. the stresses are going back to school are very different this year. colleges and universities face their own unique challenges. set those aside and focus on grade schools for now. typically we'd see lots of back-to-school ads for new clothes and backpacks and school

splice. enough to make many of the more than 50 million kids in america cringe, but there may be not need for that this year. politico cut right theater o th of what many parents of asking themselves, "how the hell are we going to do this?" two big challenges school districts face. some districts have a long way to go in getting ready. late last month a politico morning consult poll showed 54% of people are not comfortable sending kids back to campus, just just for k-12 schools. day cares a bit higher. as if millions of households didn't have enough to worry about. many have to decide whether to send their children back or keep their children home. both have benefits, both have risks, both have unknowns. talk about online learning in just a moment. first, let's begin with nbc investigative reporter who is the mother of three school-aged

kids. brandy, good morning. >> good morning, joshua. thanks for having me. >> you've been tweeting about being a parent in the age of covid-19. i love the tweet you shared yesterday. you wrote "if want to know what having three small children is like just put all the stuff you like in a room and give some very cute person all of your money to destroy that stuff." i know that humor comes from a very real place. so how has it didn't for you suddenly having your kids home all the time? >> yeah. if you don't laugh about it you'll just cry. you know, i love my children so much, but i -- and i'm not new to this rodeo. three kids, one with special needs. two very young. been up in the middle of the night before, all night, bthis s an exhaustion i've never felt in my life in any other ááááóf% circumstance, parenting or no. i get up at 5:30 in the morning,

a little person comes in my room and says, i slept in my own bed and that is the last thing that he'll do independently until they go to sleep. it they need to be fed and need to have their noses in books and need to be played with and engaged and they really need love and that's really, really hard to do when you're also working a full time job from home. i'm luck toy have a husband who's very engaged but every day just seems impossible. >> a lot of us who work at 30 rock live in new york. this state was expected to announce its plans for schools, but then new york's governor andrew cuomo said this on "meet the press." >> children have missed school. children have missed interaction with other children. that's part of the socialization process. we're preparing to open schools. we have plans to open schools, but, look. chuck, i'll be honest with you. it's two months away.

anything can happen in two months, but if this continues across the country, you're right, chuck. kids are going to be home for a long time. >> brandy, when you hear something like that, how do you or other parents you've talked to plan for anything? how comfortable are they sending their kids back? >> we don't plan. planning has gone out the window, and i think, again, as a parent of three, we've learned consistency and security is one of the main keys to being a good parent and having children that feel safe and able to sort of tackle the world. at this point we can give them neither. one moment we have the mayor saying, they're going to be open, don't worry. the next moment the governor saying, not so fast. in between i have kindergarten teachers telling me get your kid gmail and we'll have a staggered

xesh information and often proves to be false. there's nothing we can hang our hat on at this point which leaves us left to our own devices. >> nbc investigative reporter brandy zadrodsk. i, thank you for talking to us and hanging in there. >> solidarity. thanks. with all the uncertainty unfolding over the upcoming school year and solidarity of parents trying to make it work, a recommendation from the american academy of pediatrics that might surprise you. it says kids should, indeed, be physically present at school this fall as often as possible. that contradicts what the cdc advised. the cdc continues to say that remote learning is the safest option for everyone involved. joining us now to continue our conversation is sal qikhan, an online learning platform.

sal, good morning. good to talk to you again. >> great to be here, joshua. >> what are your thoughts on the recommendation from the american academy of pediatrics but sending kids to school physically as much as possible? >> i agree with it. i think that's the ideal. above and beyond learning academic skills kids need socialization, able to collaborate. obviously, a child care issue to brandy's point. that's the healthy situation and i'm not an epidemiologist, but we are definitely dealing with a very strange scenario right now, and obviously even before covid was starting to pick back up in the last couple weeks it looked like we were heading for a bizarre hybrid type of back to school. >> many kids do some combination of in-person learning and online learning. what have we learned so far about how to make those two mesh well? >> yeah. so there's a subset of students who can just take an online

tool, a khan academy and run with it's we've seen it in our data. ideal in conjunction with an amazing classroom and amazing teacher. said for my own children, pick between amazing teacher and amazing technology i'll pick the amazing teacher every time. luckily we don't have to pick. you can use that to not only do distance learning, make sure learning isn't bound by time or space so the teacher can look what the students are doing online and do more focused interventions. in normal times the way a teacher would use the academy, split ip students own time and pace. teacher understand where day where the kids are and takes kids aside physically and does focused interventions with the kids who need the help. now and this is really up to the epidemiologists to tell us what's okay, but a lot of that more focused intervention time that kind of in-person time will happen on videoconferencing somehow. >> and regarding kids who might be falling behind you have

parents working from home, only have not the time to be trained to be teachers. 64% of parents were concerned and lower income parents even more concerned about this. what would you say to parents dealing with this maybe for the first time? >> yeah. this is -- whatever the school -- whatever the situation is in a couple of months, this is what's so hard and brandy mentioned it it is so uncertainty rye now. what i tell every parent and also myself, easy for a parent to feel overwhelmed, say i have to replicate school at home. that's an unrealistic expectation. if students are able to focus on, say, 30 minutes, 45 minutes a day of math, of reading, of writing a day, then they're at least not going to atrophy. that's a big deal. normally during summer you already have summer slide, kids aren't learning and they're forgetting's now a six-month slide. so what we're trying to do on our side, releasing things

calmed, "get ready for grade level courses." everything is free, non-commercial and funded by philanthropy. students can learn at their own time and space, fill in gaps, anything they got rusty on and summer is a great time to start that. and hopefully teachers will use it in back to school. another thing i'm just working on, really in response to covid is something called schoolhouse.world, free, live tutoring for students who need that from really amazing volunteer tutors. on our side we want to create as many supports as possible for teachers, parents and students out there, and then if parents and teachers can provide just some of that support so they can get at least 30 minutes to an hour depending on age of the student, of work a day to really engage, ideally their own time and pace what they need it on then i think they'll be okay. >> before i let you go, where do you feel the speweet spot is?

for yoonline education. disney, inhaled the whole class in 2.5 hours. it's the kind of thing online learning seems to be perfect for providing. you can't do that in the classroom. where do you see the sweet spot for students who are doing online learning? don't see that classroom. where do you see the sweet spot for students doing online learning? >> i think in any times, whether we're in covid social distancing or not, there's two big benefits of online learning. learning is not bound by time or space. and the second one is, there's always been the ideal in education that students should be able to learn at their own time and pace because when they move ahead at their own pace, there are gaps and those gaps are debilitating. it's hard to have a teacher of 30 have students working at their own time and pace. now they can have those tools. >> especially for those of us

whose pace is mach 5. good to speak to you, thank you very much. >> thanks. coming up, doctors are heroes in the age of coronavirus. too bad we're running out of them. [♪]

if you experience bladder leaks, you shouldn't have to sacrifice discretion for protection. try always discreet. the unique design features protective leakguards, which help prevent leaks where they happen most and an absorbent material that turns liquid into gel, for up to 100% leak free protection. the shapewear design provides a close and seamless fit, to ensure total discretion. choose the solution that keeps you drier. try always discreet underwear, with a money back guarantee. brand power. helping you buy better.

a new study makes a worrisome prediction about the future of health care, specifically the number of

doctors in america. the association of american medical colleges says the u.s. will face a doctor shortage in the next 15 years. this group has a direct interest in this shortage. it administers the medical school entrance exam, the mcat. it says we may lose up to 139,000 physicians in the next three years. now, that's not including the impact of coronavirus, because this study was completed before the pandemic began. but there's another problem that could make it harder to recruit med students. despite risk their lives to treat patients with covid-19, many doctors are facing serious pay cuts. here is nbc's dasha burns. >> i almost get nervous driving it because i don't know like what other people can handle. there are so many sick patients who require that level of care,

we're just cramming patients in. each of these patients has a tube down their throat. we're chasing that at all times. >> reporter: doctors dealing with a crush of coronavirus patients. >> i'm seeing patients that have been here since the beginning of the pandemic. we've had patients who are now on day 50, 60 plus, with the infection. >> reporter: lauren bloom and ronald dicacci are residents at rutgers hospital in new jersey. >> it requires a unified effort. it still does. >> reporter: it's not over? >> it's absolutely not over. >> reporter: as coronavirus cases surged, they were on the front lines. now after the physical and mental stress of nicing the pandemic, their in financial stress. rutgers declared a fiscal emergency because of coronavirus. the university froze wages for 20,000 employees, including

medical residents who are treating covid patients. >> residents are notoriously underpaid and overworked. >> reporter: what's your hourly wage? >> i take home just under $1,700 every two weeks. when you divide that by 80 hours a week, it's $10 an hour. >> reporter: ron, what do you make an hour? >> at this rate i anticipate earning $8.56. >> reporter: rutgers says the fiscal emergency led to the postponement of scheduled wage increases. according to the university, the wage freeze is allowed by the wage contract it has with its residents. senior administrators will also be taking a 5 to 10% pay cut and residents will receive supplemental payvyvyvyvy÷ thei efforts in fighting the pandemic. before this, they were not receiving hazard pay. this isn't the only place doctor

pay is being impacted. according to a study by the physicians foundation, 18% of doctors treating covid patients in the u.s. have been furloughed or received a pay cut during the pandemic. >> the people on the front lines are going through some of the most difficult clinical times with patients that they have ever had. and many of them are embarking on territory they never thought they would embark on. >> they're doing what they love to do but they're being asked to do it on steroids. and it's exceedingly difficult. >> we aren't asking for anything extraordinary. we're asking for the money that is in our contract. that's a fair wage. we've been all putting our lives on the line. so it's extremely demoralizing to feel that the institutions for whom we work don't support us. >> we're here to be doctors. we're here to care for patients. and i think the last thing we want to talk about is how much we're getting paid. >> that was nbc's dasha burns reporting. coming up, we head to texas,

one of the nation's coronavirus hotspots. we're live on the ground and we'll meet the mayor of san antonio where hospitals are nearing capacity when "velshi" continues on msnbc. it's pretty inspiring the way families redefined the word 'school' this year. it's why, at xfinity, we're committed to helping kids keep learning through the summer. and help college students studying at home stay connected through our university program. we're providing affordable internet access to low income families through our internet essentials program. and this summer, xfinity is creating a virtual summer camp for kids at home- all on xfinity x1. we're committed to helping all families stay connected. learn more at xfinity.com/education.