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we've got some breaking news to tell you about. it's about the biden presidential campaign. a coalition of democrats have given the presummit tif democratic nominee a road map of progressive priorities that he'd like to enact if and when if the former vice president wins the white house. mike momeli has covered the campaign. >> reporter: the conventional wisdom if you want to win the democratic nomination for president you run to the left in the primaries and once you have it you sort of shift to center and to win in general election. with joe biden, we're seeing the opposite, he very proudly held to the center of the party throughout the democratic primaries as a record field of

democrats were running hard to the left. as soon as he became the nominee he began an effort working with bernie sanders cheefl to get their teams together to work on a set of policy recommendations that they could make to try and find common ground with the eye toward unifying the party in november. a first look at what a hundred-page document that results from the work of these biden/sanders task force members. what i think the overarching theme here, while you don't see words like medicare for all. you don't find the words green new deal. biden pursued a more moderate path on climate change, often to the ire of some of those in the base. but you doe see a growing consensus among both biden and sanders' allies that the coronavirus and also the criminal justice reform push we've seen in the wake of george

floyd, putting forward a more progressive and more robust federal response is needed at this time. we've seen this document, a hundred pages, it will take the form in platform language that will go to the dnc, biden's campaign said he'll review these recommendations as well, but it's really important benchmark for this campaign in showing just how united this party has begun. the expectation was this might not be the case. sanders offering a statement, not everything he would have written in the recommendations that this offers a real strong road map for democrats should they win in november, control both the white house and congress, nicolle. >> mike, if i might -- here's the skunk at the garden party question, we had this discussion last night.

the party famous in recent years for purity testing, this speaks to turnout. are there democrats who would be willing to make great the enemy of the good, are there democrats who are going to throw down over the perceived moderation of the presumptive nominee of the party or is this exactly a way to show, to try to illustrate a coming together and a satisfaction of the goals not held by the folks around joe biden? >> that's exactly what this entire process, brian, was designed to help achieve. bernie sanders knew as early as the middle of march that he was unlikely to be the nominee but the team reached out the biden campaign knowing that the support of his following, his movement would be critical in helping to insure a close election in the fall, critical

for joe biden to win. the biden campaign knows they need to do everything they can to expand their view in the party as well. and so, while it was interesting to note that over -- talking to sanders' participants in this process, these eight different -- six different task forces have eight members each, they've been meeting by video conference over the last six weeks a recognition on part of the sanders' members but biden was running on a more progressive platform than they gave him credit for in the nomination. what you'll see now, now that these recommendations are going to be released publicly in the next few minutes here, some of those critics of the former vice president through the primary that he wasn't progressive enough praising while not the final result if they were in

charge but some real moves in their direction. >> all right, mike, thanks. and brian, this is the part of the show where we lose you until later this evening. i have to confess that if you saw me looking around i have about an inch of standing water in my home studio today from a wild thunderstorm that past just as we were coming on the air. we always back each other today. >> well, just as covid has forced us all inside and we've all as i said last night got a ma master's degree in electronics and technology, home improvements have also come up as leaks are sprung and we can't control the weather. you lose me but you gain a viewer. i'll be watching. thank you. see you tomorrow. >> thank you, my friend. up next for us -- how bad will this outbreak get?

lorie garrett will join us next, she warned of pandemic just like this decades ago. we'll ask her what we need to focus on next. we'll be right back. l be right . when you shop with wayfair, you spend less

and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams. spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair today. startling numbers show a worsening pandemic across the southern and western states. how bad will this get and how

did we get here? officials in florida added nearly 10,000 new cases this morning right on track with its alarming last couple of cases. both miami-dade and broward county hit single-day totals. meanwhile, texas passed a rare milestone yesterday seen only in florida and new york until now. with more than 10,000 new cases reported in a single day, back with us today for the big picture some of the best answers available on this planet, pulitzer prize winning science journalist lorie garrett. she warned about an upcoming pandemic in her book "the coming plague." we're lucky to have her here as science contributor at msnbc. some of these headlines, how are

we at a place where three states have the world's worst outbreaks? three states in our country. >> well the milestone of 60,000 new cases in 24 hours for the united states is absolutely hideous. we're going 100% in the wrong direction and we're doing it very fast. now states like arizona, florida, texas and southern california are beginning to feel what it was like here in new york city in march. and early april. when we had refrigerator trucks lined up outside hospitals to hold the bodies because no one could claim them fast enough and get them to graveyards fast enough. it's a grim picture. and, you know, a week ago a lot of the political leaders in those states were smugly saying, you know, most of these cases

are younger and we won't have the kind of death toll. our death numbers aren't going up. now they are. it's about one stage happens, then another, then another and we're now approaching that horrible death stage in these, you know, upsurging states. >> lori, i want to ask you about the president's declaration today that schools go back or he withhold federal funds. if he does that he's going to undermine the cdc, the cdc issued guidelines that he described as too tough, what are the dangers not just for kids but for anybody that interact with, teachers, people in their homes f we screw that up? >> oh, my god, nicolle. the list of dangers is so long. just imagine all the teachers unions, every one of them has to be wondering, wait a minute, you're asking me to risk my life

to go into a classroom not knowing which children may be infected and not having adequate funds and support to have them all six feet apart and take all the right precautions and not even being issued steady supplies of masks so that i'm mask and my students are masked. it's crazy. it's crazy. these kids are going home after school, possibly infecting their families. possibly infecting grandma and grandpa and causing death and havoc wherever they go. this is just so wrong-headed i find it impossible to comprehend. of course, it's all tied into a desire for economic growth on the one hand against a growing pandemic. and you can't get the economy rolling if the kids are still at home because some parent needs to stay home with the children.

and this holds the economy back. but it's a false dichotomy to pit one against another. this pandemic is out of control. >> i want to ask you two questions. you can picketter one. on the one hand, i think about schools all the time. i have the privileged of working in my now-flooded basement. my little boy is upstairs. i understand the angst. i don't understand how if in a bubble with all the money on earth, the nba can't or baseball can't in a bubble with complete access to as many tests as they need get their sports leagues off the ground, how are on earte

the schools supposed to get off the ground in a safe way? >> i compound that question by saying that we already have a situation all across america where school districts are, let's say, segregated economically, if they have a strong property tax base they have better supplies, better paid teachers, better facilities than those are in inner city or desperate rural areas, on native lands and so on. this is only going to exasperate that. schools are going to be hard pressed to meet any kind of standards of safety for their children and for their staff and the employees and the families back home. if we don't have strict quarantine measures in place and

strict safety protocols in place, we will see a cycle emerging through the school systems. we need to look at countries that have managed to reopen schools safely. top of that list is south korea, if we follow their protocols, japan's protocols, if we followed new zealand's protocols for reopening schools we could do this safely but it requires a uniform set of policies that cut across all school districts, rich and poor, allocating resources to the poorer school districts so they can meet those standards and it requires a real consequence reached with all the workers within the educational institutions so they feel safe and committed to the process. >> laurie garrett, there are very few silver linings to covering this story, one of them is getting to benefit from your

knowledge and expertise on it. thank you so much for spending some time with us. we're always grateful. when we return -- an emergency room nurse who sounded the alarm on the shortage of ppe early in this pandemic, supplies are once again getting dangerously low in the midst of this new surge.

. as the coronavirus continues to run rampant across the southwestern united states, we're now learning more about the scale of the outbreak along

the southern border. as of this morning, nbc news hapz learned that nearly half of all employees at an arizona i.c.e. detention facilities have tested positive for coronavirus. quote, the reporting reads in part, core civic, the company contracted to run the eloi detention center in arizona said 127 of about 300 total core civic employees at eloi have tested positive since the start of the pandemic. although some have recovered and are back to work. i.c.e. reported that 242 immigrants held in that facility have also tested positive so far. but the spread of the infection isn't the only health risk facing this particularly vulnerable population. immigrant advocacy groups who spoke to migrants at that facility back in june detail inhumane, unsanitary conditions as a result of a decline in staffing. we are trying to hook up our colleague, julia ainsley, who is on this beat for us. do we have julia?

we don't have julia. if we get her, we'll come back to this very important story. something she has been on full-time for us. coming up for once donald trump's pressure campaign to reopen schools, science be damned. "deadline: white house" after this. damned "deadline: white house" after this ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) once-weekly ozempic® is helping many people with type 2 diabetes like emily lower their blood sugar. a majority of adults who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. here's your a1c. oh! my a1c is under 7! (announcer) and you may lose weight. adults who took ozempic® lost on average up to 12 pounds. i lost almost 12 pounds! oh! (announcer) for those also with known heart disease, ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or death.

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hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. donald trump's coronavirus failures manifested themselves in the pressure campaign he ran from the white house to push states to reopen ahead of his own coronavirus task force guidelines, only doing so after a state displayed a 14-day decline in cases. none of the states that rushed their reopenings had met those cdc guidelines and here we are. more than 3 million cases, more than 132,000 deaths. rising cases in dozens of states, with seven states once again breaking hospitalization records. trump's response? well, today there's a new pressure campaign. this one, a science be damned rush to send all kids back to school in september. all kids, in all states. and while a return to the classroom is certainly something that every parent, kid, and teacher looks forward to

desperately, only donald trump could make this the new political battlefield of his failed leadership of a country in crisis. america is the worldwide epicenter for new cases in large part due to trump's failure to test, to trace, and to advocate social distancing and mask wearing. and now he has the nation's schoolchildren and their teachers and their families in his sights. i can't imagine anything scarier. "the new york times" writes it like this, in a day-long series of conference calls and public events at the white house, the president, education secretary betsy devos, and other senior officials opened a concerted campaign to lean on governors, mayors, and others to resume classes in person months after more than 50 million children were abruptly ejected from school buildings in march. let me be clear, once again, there's no division here. every parent wants her child back in school. but americans are wary of the surge in cases and they are paying close attention to whether school reopenings can be

done safely. that sentiment not coming through so far in trump's public pronouncements on the topic, which today included a threat to, quote, cut off funding if democratic governors don't reopen their schools. and he outright broke with the cdc, saying he disagrees with the cdc on their, quote, very tough and expensive guidelines for opening schools. the president adding this, quote. while they want them, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. trump also sounding a contradictory message from dr. fauci, who was notably absent from today's coronavirus task force briefing on the death rate. fauci warning americans not to take too much comfort in rosy mortality numbers. >> it's a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death. there's so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus. don't get yourself into false

complacency. >> and because false narratives are his jam, the president then did just what fauci warned against, spreading this disinformation on twitter, celebrating a so-called plunge in the death rate. a ten-fold decrease in mortality. america's isolation on the world stage is underscored today, though, by canadian prime minister justin trudeau's absence from a white house trade event. according to a spokesperson for trudeau, there were discussions about his attendance today, alongside the president of mexico, but ultimately, he declined to make the trip, citing in part concerns over coronavirus here. and donald trump's isolation from some members of his own party is also underscored today by the growing list of no-shows at his nominating convention this summer, which has now expanded to at least five republican senators and counting. the state of the president's ongoing attempts to inject himself into the public health decisions around coronavirus is where we start today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends.

with us from "the washington post," white house bureau chief, phil rucker. plus, global health policy expert and msnbc medical contributor, dr. vin gupta, and ron klain, ebola response coordinator, now an adviser to joe biden. phil rucker, let me start with you. it has been pointed out to me by sam stein, who's also covering the president, the administration's moves, to tie funding and threats to cut funding to reopening in the fall, regardless of where the pandemic stands and where the surges and spikes are come september. where's this coming from? it was sam's theory and he was still reporting this out that it was tied solely to his burning desire and dependence on the economy churning back up ahead of his campaign intensifying in the fall. >> you know, nicole. there could be a couple of factors at play here. certainly, the economy is driving the president's push to

reopen the schools. and it's for a very simple reason. you can't reopen the economy. you can't have people go back to work if they have nowhere to send their children during the day while they're trying to work. so if the schools are going to be closed in the fall, it becomes then very difficult for economies to get fully back up and running. but there's also a political consideration at play. the president has been losing ground to joe biden in a lot of suburban areas, among a lot of educated white women. many of them are mothers. many of them have kids in school. many of them would like to see their kids go back to school safely in the fall. and so there may be a calculation here on the part of the president and his advisers that advocating for a reopening of these schools could help win back some of those voters he's lost over the last few months. however, parents want their kids to go back to school safely. they don't just want the schools to reopen, but they want to be able to have faith and confidence in their public

schools and in their private schools, if they send their kids there during the day, their kids aren't going to be sick or their kids aren't going to be going to some environment where teachers are getting sick or bringing the infection home to their parent. >> phil rucker, for all of my criticisms of donald trump, the president, i imagine he sets out to be a good parent. do you know the answer as to whether or not barron trump will be heading back to school in the fall or if any of jared or ivanka's children head to school in the fall? >> those are both great questions. i don't know the answer to that. i don't know if those decisions have been made. i don't know if the school that barron trump attends or the school that the kushner school attend have made their decisions about if they are going to be reopening. they attend private school, so those are decisions that they are making as opposed to the state and municipal government. >> you know, i just would be curious if they were in school

until the moment that those states shut down or if they had any health concerns and pulled barron trump out of school ahead of those shutdowns. and the point isn't to bring the kids into the story. it's to try to understand if donald trump understands the life-and-death decisions families are making. and ron klain, if you could just for me crystallize why -- what does the cdc insist to do? inform policy? why is the cdc there? >> the cdc is the world's leading public health agency and they exist to provide public health guidance to the country. and they've issued guidelines on how schools can reopen safely. the six words you didn't hear out of donald trump's mouth about this school campaign were, here's what i'll do to help. i think that's the crazy thing about this, like every other crazy thing about his coronavirus response. there are ways schools could reopen. the cdc has laid out a path to do it. trump is saying, hey, those guidance, pay no attention to what the cdc is saying, just reopen, as opposed to, yeah, it

is hard to reopen, so this is what i'll do. the federal government will pay to deep clean the school, will pay to provide teachers masks and gloves and the things they need to be safe. will pay forplexi glass barriers. there's a lot the government could do to make this safer, following the guidelines, funding the schools. those are two things. undercutting the guidelines, taking money away from schools, that's moves in the opposite direction. >> but the cdc isn't like congress or the teacher's union or another branch of government. and i just want to underscore this, because i want to play for you what mike pence and cdc director redfield said about the cdc today. so just answer that and then i'll play what the head of the cdc and mike pence said about the cdc guidelines for opening school schools. let's watch that. >> we don't want the guidance from cdc to be a reason why schools don't open.

>> what is not the intent of cdc's guidelines is to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed. >> so ron klain, the cdc, which advises policy making from the executive branch of government. they don't work for congress, they don't work for teachers, they don't work for the media. they work to make sure the president and vice president and director of the cdc make decisions saying today, mike pence, we don't want the guidance from the cdc to be the reasons that schools don't open up. >> i mean, what other reason would a school not open up, other than, it hadn't met -- and there is a pattern here. states didn't open up -- or states that did open up in defiance of the cdc guidelines are now surging and spiking. we have three states that are the world record holders of new covid cases. >> yeah. you're exactly right. i think this is such an important point. this is deja vu all over again to what happened in april. in april, the cdc put out

guidelines on how to reopen businesses, when to reopen, stages to reopen. dr. fauci went to the white house briefing room and said, here's our plan on april 16th. the next day, trump tweeted, liberate michigan, liberate minnesota. basically, was egging states on to ignore his own administration's guidance. what's the consequence? the consequence of that had been, not only soaring cases of the disease, but really a hit to the economy in those states where people are not going to businesses, not going to restaurants. now, trump's intent on repeating that all over again with the schools. he should say, these are the guidelines, people should follow them, we at the federal government will help you pay for it. it's a crime that we tell teachers in america that they have to buy their own chalk for their classrooms, that they have to buy their own school splice for the classroom. now we have to tell them they're going to have to buy their own ppe to teach, their own

sanitizer, their own deep cleaning supplies for their classrooms? this is the kind of thing that the federal government, washington, should lead on and help our schools work their way through. >> dr. gupta, here's what the white house is doing, according to nbc news reporting, instead of listening to the cdc. quote, the white house plans to issue its own guidelines for the reopening of schools, because officials now say the ones released earlier this summer by the cdc are too restrictive. a senior administration official tells nbc news. the white house guidelines will include some of those issued by the cdc and recommendations from the american academy of pediatrics. the official also said the white house is discussing ways to tie federal funding for schools to the pace of their reopening plans as part of congressional negotiations over a phase iv stimulus bill. so this is jacking up the decision about schools with politics, tying federal funding to the pace of their reopenings? reopenings should be based on the safety of students and

teachers. what other role for the federal government is there? >> nicole, good to see you. obviously, amplify everything that ron just said, but taking it a step further. you know, you talk to pediatricians. my wife is a pediatrician. you talk to people, principals, school districts, we've been having this conversation here in seattle, people want testing, nicole. as the backdrop of any type of return to school strategy. whether it's a university or a school district. the cdc guidelines, i don't think, went far enough. they talked about -- i have no idea what the president is talking about. it was actually quite circumscribed and quite narrow. hey, let's put some staggered schedules, let's do some virtual learning with some in-person learning. let's make sure there's adequate ventilation and make sure that desks are six feet apart with infection and sanitation protocols. why is that too onerous? why is that too impractical? it doesn't make any sense. they didn't even mention, let's get some point of care testing

clinics on site. let's have some act to get some rapid diagnostics, when they come online, we hope by the end of the year. and the federal government should be subsidizing that effort. making sure underserved school districts have that capability. >> dr. gupta, let me ask you something i asked lori garrett in the last hour. we covered the attempts to get major league baseball off the ground and get the nba off the ground and soccer off the ground. they are in a bubble, as kerry sanders reported, so they're not out and about in the community. they are tested daily twice a day if they need it, they have multiple doctors and more money than god, and they can't pull this off yet. how if you can't do it with more money than god in a bubble with unlimited testing are you going to do it in public schools? >> you raise a great point. you raise an excellent point. and that brings the larger question here of, we think testing is effective as a strategy to control the disease,

because what's behind it, tracing. but right now, we don't even have the right tracing. we don't have the right testing to inform contact tracing, nicole. there's a lot of holes here. you can't have a test that's premised on a five to seven-day turnaround to be backed up by contact tracing. and every school district i've spoke to suggests, we're going to have contact tracing online, so what kind provide these tools? contact tracing right now for the country is utterly useless with testing that takes five to seven days to finalize. that's the kind of testing that most people have access to, including schools. >> phil rucker, let me come back to the president, as distanced as we've been talking about from the cdc. he's got the vice president and the head of the cdc following him in distancing themselves, somewhat inexplicably from the cdc. he's also got some distance growing between himself and lisa murkowski, mitt romney, susan collins, lamar alexander, and charles grassley on thinking that a gop convention is a good

idea. does this white house plan to respect people's decisions not to show up or will they attack them? >> well, nicole, so far the white house seems to have respected those decisions, because we haven't seen an attack yet. but as you know, the president doesn't let these things go unnoticed. and it might just be that there's a delay, a lag time here in president trump noticing that five republican senators are going to skip the republican national convention. and perhaps more. so we'll see if he reacts to that. but the planning for this convention is very much underway. rnc officials have been down in jacksonville finalizing the arrangements, even as that city emerges more and more every day as a coronavirus hot spot with the spread down there and new regulations by that city's mayor, who only a few weeks ago, a republican, had been courting this convention, now masks are required indoors for gatherings

and we'll see what kind of accommodations the president and his staff end up making as we get closer to that late august date. do they perhaps have some of the events take place in an outdoor venue instead of the indoor arena and do they try to socially distance people inside the arena so not every seat is filled. is everybody going to be required to wear a mask inside that arena? those are all details to be announced and we don't know the answers yet. >> and ron klain, what is joe biden's state of mind or plan right now on a convention? >> well, of course, we're going to have a convention in milwaukee. it's going to be a very different kind of convention. it's going to be a convention that relies on a lot of remote sites. it's going to be a convention that follows public health guidelines. let's just start there. it's not going to put people at risk. it's going to be conducted in an appropriate way. and you know, it's going to be a convention that's going to be a very different kind of convention. no question about it, nicole. and people like you and me who love conventions, we're going to miss that. but safety is first and setting

an example is first. and i think that's what people have seen from joe biden throughout this campaign and that's what they're going to see next month when the convention rolls around. >> dr. gupta, i know people who are more scared now with the surging numbers coast to coast than they were in march and april, when this was new and really focused in my hometown of new york city. do you recommend gathering indoors for any purpose other than running in and out of the grocery store? >> the short answer is "no." i do not recommend that at all. i love what governor murphy and bill de blasio have said. they've said, indoor dining, we're done with it. outdoor dining is okay. because indoor transmission is 20 times higher in certain case ifs you're dining close by. because we think that that's maybe there's quote/unquote airborne transmission. i hate that term, it's confusing, but small droplets potentially from somebody

infected with covid-19 might persist in the air for hours over long distances. indoor, that's why the school policies by the cdc made so much sense. ventilation. it makes no sense why opening windows is such a trigger word or trigger phrase for the president. we need ventilation. that's why indoor anything, we can't have it right now. outdoor congregations, less than 10 with social distancing and masks, potentially. but indoor dining, definitely not. we need governors across the country to take a strong stance. >> that's why you always need phil rucker, the author of "a very stable genius" to explain why things like open windows bother him. thank you all so much for starting us off on another remarkbleand surreal day of news. when we come back, a decorated officer, an impeachment witness, retiring from the army today because he says there was no future for him because of donald trump. and attacks from a trump loyalist on a double amputee war veteran as well as a sitting

u.s. senator. another flashpoint between the white house and the military this afternoon. and republican voters making the case for voting against donald trump. how they're trying to convince those few who might still be on the fence. plus, mary trump on how money and financial status has been the focus of the trump family for decades. all of those stories, coming up. . all of those stories, coming up. for the sweaty faces,

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you realize when you came forward out of sense of duty that you were putting yourself in direct opposition to the most powerful person in the world? do you realize that, sir? >> i knew i was assuming a lot of risk. >> and i'm struck by that word -- that phrase, "do not worry" you addressed to your dad. why do you have confidence that you can do that and tell your dad not to worry? >> congressman, because this is america. this is the country i've served

and defended, that all of my brothers have served and here, right matters. >> thank you, sir. i yield back. >> here, right matters. it was a seminal moment in the impeach trial of donald trump. lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, who served his country in iraq, and then as a national security in the white house, who obeyed a congressional subpoena and testified to conduct he witnessed, did what was right. but it cost him his job. today, lieutenant colonel vindman retired from the u.s. army after more than 20 years. in a statement released by his lawyer, he did not shy away from explaining his reason for retiring. quote, through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, the president of the united states attempted to force lieutenant colonel vindman to choose between adhering to the law or pleasing a president, between honoring his oath or

protecting his career. between protecting his promotion or the promotion of his fellow soldiers. these are choices that no one in the united states should confront, especially one who has dedicated his life to serving. joining our conversation, former rnc chairman michael steele, political strategist, steve schmidt, and axios political reporter, alexi mccanon. alexi, i start with you. >> thank you for having me, nicole. i think what's happening with colonel vindman is an example of this larger trend that we've come to know within trump's orbit. which is this evolving door that exists within his administration and his white house. who anyone who is perceived as being disloyal to the president or worse, insubordinate, as president trump called vindman when he fired him, as a way to justify him, those votes will be quietly or loudly, often is the case, removed from trump's orbit and humiliated on their way out. and you know, what's interesting

about vindman is that, you know, your opening touched on this, nicole. he was a particularly threatening character in trump's orbit, in that he spoke out against the president's authority and challenged the president's authority, which we all know something that he likes to, obviously, exert in any way he can, but also something that he simply cannot stand to be challenged on, even when it is something that he is getting impeached for. >> you know, steve schmidt, it's such an eerie window into how donald trump views the military, but there's now enough public-facing evidence that it is precisely how he views the military that they serve him, not the united states of america. and to see this career end for the perceived political crime of telling the truth, in the context of an impeachment trial is just remarkable, that there aren't more people jumping up and down, defending colonel vindman. >> for sure, nicole. this act of retribution against colonel vindman is appalling.

and the army chief of staff, frankly, should have been prepared to resign over it. this is a career army officer, a u.s. army infantry officer, combat decorated, recipient of the purple heart, the combat infantry men's badge. you can see his airmen wings, the combat chutist, his ranger tab there. somebody who's devoted his whole life to the service of the country. he was on the promotion list to the rank of 06 to full bird colonel. and what i hope happens here is that when joe biden is the president-elect, one of his first official duties will be to recall lieutenant colonel vindman to active duty, promote him to the rank of colonel, and let him resume his military career. this is an atrocious moment. more of the president's abuse of the united states military. you know, which extended, of course, to deploying the 82nd airborne to washington, d.c. with their bayonets. he has been a disaster when it comes to civil military

relations and the crisis between civilian leadership and the military is at its apogee under this president. we have a real crisis between the white house and the military. it's been brewing for some time because of this president's ineptness about the men and women he has the honor to command. and lastly, i think it should always be mentioned, somewhere today, donald trump will return the salute of an active duty mean at the white house and this is a president who when bounties were put out on to the heads of these men and women, when russian blood money was being offered for their deaths, you know, this president has done absolutely nothing about it. in fact, what he's done is reward the russians for their aggression and travesties against this country. >> well, i'm glad you brought that up. let's stay on this topic for a

minute. michael steele, donald trump ran in some ways as the mystery basket, right? the eccentric businessman. he's been revealed as being among other things decidedly and determined to help and support russia. just security has some new reporting out today with some additional incidents of donald trump pushing the cia to share intelligence with russia. there's the famous picture of him in the oval office in early 2017 with lavrov, where he's reported to have shared intel. hr mcmaster had to run out to the north lawn afterward to try to clean that up. i mean, helping putin and disrespecting and not viewing active duty military is sort of beyond the electrified third rail of political decorum. are two norms, he's going to have to stand behind the voters

changed from what he was in '16. and we'll see if those are two things that his base wants to take on. pro-putin when it comes to the security and safety of active duty military, and anti-military when it comes to people like lieutenant colonel vindman, who he got fox news to basically -- john yoo and laura ingraham were bantering about whether or not he might be compromised. ridiculous efforts to smear the military under donald trump. >> to both of those points, the critical one is the second one with respect to how the base absorbs all of this and the base has now been sufficiently conditioned to stand with donald trump. the narrative from fox, laura and others has been, well, someone like vindman is not a real soldier. he's, you know, out there to hurt the president, not to help the president. if he were there to help him, he would have never defied the

president's order, okay, to not appear. but vindman is an example. he's a physical manifestation of the valor, the commitment, the duty, the honor of a modern american military man or woman. someone who is at service under the constitution on behalf of the people of this country, not at service for one individual sitting in the oval office. even though that individual is the commander in chief, recognizing what those limits are. and that is repulsive to this president. i think steve put it very eloquently in terms of, when you look at vindman and you look at the president, you very clearly see the distinction and the difference between these two men and what they represent one who honors the salute and one who uses it as a problem. because, well, that's just what i do as president.

>> you're so right. it's zproeso depressing, though. and for trump to suggest he's not a real soldier, but part of the resistance, i believe he has shrapnel in him, still. what a time. nobody is going anywhere. up next, the latest line of attack from republicans who have turned against the president. we'll show it to you. you can't predict the future. but a resilient business can be ready for it. a digital foundation from vmware helps you redefine what's possible... now.

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do you feel you can keep the job you have or gain a job if you don't have one? are you pleased with the ability of young people to buy a home, of the elderly people to live their remaining years in happiness? of our youngsters to take pride in the world we have built for them? are you convinced that we have earned the respect of our world and our allies? let us resolve tonight that young americans will always find a city of hope in a country that is free and let us resolve, they will say of our day, and of our generation, that we did keep faith, that we did act worthy of ourselves, that we did protect

and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill. >> oh, wow. that's the latest line of attack from a group called republican voters against trump. one of the many, there are now many gop groups working actively to stop donald trump's re-election effort. this video blending former president ronald reagan's words from one of his best-known speeches with news footage, real footage of donald trump's america today, trying to make the case for how far the party has fallen, and i would add, how far the party has fallen under trump. another trend out there, republican-leaning voters who held their noses for trump in '16, but won't this time. from today's "new york times," quote, an emerging group of voters who dislike both major party presidential nominees in 2016, but who are now so disillusioned with president trump and sufficiently comfortable with mr. biden that they are increasingly willing to support the democrat. michael steele, steve schmidt,

alexi mccammond, no better three people to have this conversation with. steve schmidt, let's start with you. why are republicans so on their game to try to make sure -- is it guilty? is it -- a feeling that we're somehow complicit in bringing the party and the country to this place? >> i think republicans are part of a coalition that wants to turn donald trump out of office, because he's the worst president in the history of the country. he's a profound threat to the security of the country. and we have absolutely zero cla chance, z-e-r-o, zero chance of moving past this with donald trump in that job. he is completely unfit for it. he is unfit mentally, he is unfit physically. he is unfit intellectually. he is a conspiracy theorist who has the blood of over 100,000 americans on his hands, because of the incompetence and the

ineptitude in the response to the coronavirus. the leading math and science country in the world is the epicenter of this and there's one reason, and that's presidential incompetence. full stop. secondly, when you look at the russian bount russian bounties, when you look at his disloyalty and treachery towards the men and women that he's sworn to command as commander in chief, the men and women who come from every race and creed, every corner of the country, the american people should not tolerate this. he has assaulted our institutions, he say desecrated his office. he has assailed the constitutional order. he has weakened the checks and balances. he has been a force for ill liber liberalism. we see his assaults on our allies and the weakening of the american position until four

years in, we stand at a moment of abject american weakness and tragedy that can't end until he's gone and that's why there's so many groups out there telling the truth on donald trump, trying to convince these republican voters to say, you're fired. >> michael steele, anything on your mind, but pick up this thread for me, too. i think on top of it, as lindsey graham once said, there is no more decent man. >> and the way the country felt about hillary clinton is 180 degrees away from how they feel for joe biden. they have concluded and are continuing to conclude, which is reflected to allow the polling and as steve and i will tell you, we're not advocating national polling at this point, because it's all over the map and you know it's not the most

reliable thing at times, but there is a trend line that's emerging in the behavior of the population of voters out there, as you just reflected and as steve spoke to, about where voters are moving. where republican voters are moving. that center left, center-right independent voter who may have stood with donald trump in 2016, is firmly and beginning to strongly move away from him. so this now becomes a political problem for the president. which is why you have the mt. rushmore moments. why you have the sort of dark, you know, authoritarian speeches that he's been giving. to bring that base back to him, but he's losing a lot of ground and that's the difficulty he has to face, because joe biden is f not the opponent that he had four years ago. >> alexi, i'm confounded by the conduct of trump and his allies, because their mission is just

what michael steele and steve described. to reassemble their coalition, which was barely adequate for him to win in '16. but you don't -- to reassemble that coalition, you need pro-life women who care about judges. you need people who -- and again, i don't even know where you find them at this point, because the debasement of the office is in front of everybody's face, but you don't get the coalition back in place by attacking tammy duckworth, who tucker carlson and donald trump have been going after on twitter and on tucker carlson's show for the last two days. you don't get them by standing in front of mt. rushmore and calling peaceful protesters fascists. the language suggests that at least in some corner of his brain, even trump knows it's a long shot this time. >> i mean, nicole, i feel like you and i have talked about this in the last few weeks alone, how

pahru president trump's stance on some of these major issues really overtaking the country is increasingly at odds with how the public feels and how americans at large feel. that's to say, with the protests, with the coronavirus and wearing masks and everything that you just mentioned, and we're seeing how this is affecting his re-election efforts. to your point, the president is relying on an increasingly small base of supporters who loved who he was in 2016 and continue to support him no matter what. but there are a lot of people who are viewing this, and i'm hearing this in focus groups and we're seeing it in polling, similar it to 2016, in that they kind of view this in a way, as a choice between the lesser of two evils. but they think that joe biden is the lesser of two evils, so to speak, not the way they saw hillary clinton in 2016. i think to michael steele's point, that can't be overstated enough. joe biden not being hillary clinton is a good thing for joe biden and donald trump being who donald trump is, has been a good thing for joe biden, who

otherwise has been able to run a campaign in this weird, new, virtual reality exactly adds he sees fit, without being dragged into the campaign trail or dragged into these rhetorical arguments by president trump. and that's what's really working for biden and hurting president trump. and we also see that in the way that president trump is struggling to define joe biden. crooked hillary clinton was a good way to label her because of the way that people had vilified her for decades. joe biden hasn't been a bogeyman of the right-wing machine for decades like hillary clinton has. so i think there are a lot of unique challenges inherent as to how joe biden is as a person and a candidate, that trump and his team are really struggling to figure out as they're facing an election in just a few months. >> and i think the public has the ability to have two ideas in their head. he was one of the closest friends of senator john mccain. lindsey graham spoke glowingly. i think that's one of lincoln projects great ads about lindsey

graham's comments. and i'm so glad to hear from all of you on all of these topics. thank you all so much. still to come for us, mary trump writing about the financial grifting of the trump family. our next guest says her account is an authentic one that won't soon be forgotten. stay with us. and because we don't know exactly when

this crisis is going to be over and we don't know exactly when the stock market will reach its bottom, we've got to be prepared for this to last a long time. if you assume that you're out of work for nine months but you end up only being out of work for three, well that's great. but if you think you're going to be furloughed for three months and it lasts for nine, well that'll be emotionally devastating. so, we've got to prepare ourselves. tangibly and practically, as well as psychologically and emotionally. tomorrow will likely be a cla clarifying moment in the years-long quest to identify donald trump's financial records. the u.s. supreme court is

expected to deliver its ruling on whether the tax returns trump has fought so hard to keep secret will be protected and shielded from congress and a new york state prosecutor. the only major window into trump's finances we've had so far came from a "new york times" expose in october 2018, where reporters uncovered decades of tax dodging and fraud schemes. mary trump, donald's niece, in her new book, talks about being the key source in that times investigation. writing this, quote, i hadn't fully grasped how much of a risk i was taking if anybody in my family found out what i was doing, there would be repercussions. i knew how vindictive they were, but there was no way to gauge how serious the consequences might be. anything would pale in comparison to what they'd already done. i finally felt as though i might be able to make a difference after all. i had to take donald down. joining us now, senior columnist for bloomberg opinion, tim o'brien. tim, you've read the book. tell us what you can.

>> i read it with great interest, nicole, because i wasn't sure going in if the tone would be bitter. if her accounts wouldn't be credible, if there wouldn't be anything new in it. and really curious about what the whole narrative would hinge upon. and what comes across deeply in this book is you have a very credible, measured, engaged narrator in mary trump. she's a trained clinical psychologist. she has a number of firsthand accounts of all of the dysfunction in the family, accounts that are new. i think specifically a lot of embroidery and really rich context about the hothouse emotional and psychological world donald trump grew up in, how it shaped him, and how it still informs who he is as president. a lot of her chronology isn't new, but the context and her perspectives certainly are.

and it really, i think, is a significant factor for all of us to understand just how troubled a man donald trump is and how completely unhinged he is psychologically and emotionally. >> jonathan swann in the last hour used the word "cruelty." he'd read the book as well, and said, what comes through is the cruelty of his father and i made the point and i'll put it to you as a question, as well. i think cruelty is the policy through line that most of donald trump's critics see in policies like the muslim ban, like caging children at the borders, like this science be damned, back to school, this inability to feel anyone else's pain. >> well, in fact, i think it begins with cruelty, nicole. but what it ends up in is revenge. and i think that trump's actions, a lot of his acting out

is, he feels aggrieved. and what's remarkable about this is this is someone who's born into an affluent family, physically healthy, had every advantage in the world, and he feels aggrieved nonetheless. and i think it's because he never felt he could live up to his father's expectations. there's a lot of people in the world who move past that, because they're healthy adults. donald trump never moved past that, and i think the danger that we're in and the kind of wild threat he poses, frankly, is because he is emotionally and intellectually undisciplined. and he's incapable of having empathy toward anyone else suffering the consequences of his inability to leave the federal government, his complete lack of interest in policy, and his -- this rampant, juvenile delinquency that has informed his presidency from every --

from the first day he was in office. >> and if cruelty is the ying, the yang is corruption. where does that come from? >> you know, there's always been a strong measure of grifter in the entire trump family. in thee trump family. you know, i think the beauty of what mary trump has brought into the world in addition to the psychological profile is she was the key source for "new york times," landmark reporting on how the trumps spent decades using a shell company to skim money out of their own business empire so they had to pay less in estate and income taxes and ultimately it would seem part of her inheritance. it is a family that collided with one another over emotional abandonment and cold hearted crash. those are the largest shaping

influences on every child in the trump family, but especially the president. i don't think we would have cared anything about the future of this family or their history but for the fact one of them landed in the oval office. >> yeah. just that. and responsible for the citizens. tim o'brien, thank you for spending time with us. we'll continue to call on you as this book continues to make headlines. when we come back, celebrating two more lives well lived. celeg two more lives well lived. with less of the sugar you don't. [grunting noise] i'll take that. woohoo! 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. with nutrients to support immune health.

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valentina blackhorse liked getting her hands dirty. even as a kid, sticks and mud, no problem for her. her dad taught her to build a shed, how to change brake pads on a car. that was one side of her. she also won a number of pageants. a young woman with a future. she had goals. her sister told ac central

valentina aspired to one day be a navajo nation council delegate gat or president of navajo nation. she was a leader, even in her own family. at 28 years old, she helped pay the bills, bought the best presents. when the pandemic spread, she was the one that encouraged her family to wash their hands and wear masks. it seems cruel. she died of the coronavirus a few weeks ago, leaving behind a one-year-old daughter and a very bright future. then sarah johnson of palo alto. her family told the nbc station in the bay area she was an om any investigator when it came to learning. she was brilliant. her high school counselor showed up one day to recommend she went to college. as the story goes, her grandfather responded quote, she's doing no such thing. she will get married. a few years later, sarah graduated from duke university.

she wasn't just smart, she happened to be a bona fide good person, tireless when it came to issues of social justice. sarah's daughter says she helped the church feed the poor. she died of coronavirus last month, but her legacy of good works an act vandalid activisio. thank you for letting us in your homes day after day during these truly remarkable times. our coverage continues with the fabulous katy tur after a quick break. r after a quick break. last night's sleep, interrupted by pain?

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if this continues the way it is, it's going to be we're going to look like the hospital in new york. if this continues, the capacity will be strained. >> even the largest hospitals have a finite number of beds and supplies. it is putting a large burden on our health care staff and our health care system as a whole. >> as a nurse, my main concern is manpower. this virus, it is wicked. >> we are seeing a lot of patients come in, we are playing musical chairs, moving one patient from one side to another. it is a lot of work. we are trying to tell people keep a safe distance.