good afternoon here in the east and good morning out west. i'm chuck todd. president trump is florida this hour which just reported well over 11,000 new cases of covid-19 and a record new number of hospitalization in the state, 435. this as trump's top infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci contradicted the president's campaign message using the very word that has been key to the president's political slogan -- great. >> how do you think the u.s. is

doing right now? like, just, if you're looking across the world, what are your feelings about how we are doing right now? >> as a country, when you compare us to other countries, i don't think you can say we are doing great. i mean, we're just not. >> the president fired back with a direct shot at fauci when asked about the state of the country. >> what do you make of these hot spots as we call them in florida and texas and other states, and dr. fauci's comments? >> well first of all, dr. fauci is a nice man but he has made a lot of mistakes. ♪ there are certainly signs that the u.s. is not in a great place. six states have set a record high for new confirmed cases or deaths yesterday alone. and the trends are heading up, not down. this as the nationwide fatality rate has now risen for the third straight day. the last time it went up for

four days straight was in april, which means we could be headed for a situation exactly like what we saw during the first peak of this crisis. joining me now, is katy tur. is it july 10 or april 10th? i'm confused. when it comes to this virus, it feels we are about where we are on april 10th. >> it is deja vu. as we said over and over again, watch what is happening in new york and on the east coast, because that is your future and lo and behold that is what has come to pass. president trump is in florida, as you mentioned, what is the epi center of this virus. for a briefing on drug trafficking, even as the state posts record high hospitalizations, the president is taking shots at his own public health experts for acknowledging the crisis. "the washington post" is out with a lengthy new report on how the president and his administration see the centers

for disease control, the cdc. quote, there is a view that the cdc is staffed with deep state democrats that are trying to tweak the administration, said one adviser. white house officials also say they have been deeply frustrated by what they view as career staffers at the agency determined to keep things closed. and "the post" reports during a may lunch with senate republicans, trump told the group the cdc blew it on the coronavirus test and that he installed a team of jean united states led by his son-in-law, genius, his word, jared kushner to handle much of the response. joining us is carol lee at the white house. carol, i'm struck by this idea that the cdc is filled with deep state democrats who are trying to close the country, presumably to politically affect the president. that is the sort of thing i was hearing from protesters who were holding signs at a new jersey protest a couple of months when i was down there.

it's also apparently being talked about in discussions at the white house? >> yeah. >> reporter: i think it's emb m emblematic that the president thinks the way things are or not in reality that he sees that as politically motivated against him and the, quote/unquote, deep state. white house has been privately griping about the cdc for months now. blaming them for early issues and in terms of testing, and then later saying that they will were as "the post" is reporting, trying to stop the president from opening or wanting to keep things closed. as you know, and everyone else knows, the members of the cdc, the health experts, they are coming at it from a very specific scientific perspective and they are giving their advice based on that. it's not about whether or not they support the president politically, but is not how president sees it. the tensions have been there from the start of the pandemic

and what we used to hear privately, particularly with dr. fauci is, starting to fill out with the the president criticizing dr. fauci and dr. fauci finding various ways to speak publicly. he was just speaking at a coronavirus conference that was live streamed where, you know, he said that the united states is having a real problem right now which is, obviously, a stark contrast to the president saying we are in a good place but that is just one example of how you see the president's health experts and policy advisers having to walk this line of where the president gets out there and says something that scientifically or realistically is not quite accurate. they have to have that balance and inevitably one-by-one, the president has soured on them. >> public opinion polls show broadly speaking the american public trust our health experts like dr. fauci and the cdc much more than they trust the

president right now. carol lee at the white house, thank you very much. we were talking about this, chuck. the president was supposed to have a rally in new hampshire on saturday and they are delaying it because of weather. i was talking earlier with our executive producer whether weather has interrupted any of his events in the past, and during 2016, there were a number of events they held out in the rain because he was campaigning. >> yeah. look. a tropical storm, which is unusual for the northeastern area, is headed up by you guys up there. i get it. but given all of the concerns, even the governor of new hampshire seemed to be hinting at that rally, me thinks the weather served as a perfectly timed excuse on that one as you and i were talking. let's move forward about what the president is up to today. it's not about the virus. as we are seeing there, president trump is getting briefed at u.s. southern command.

next on his schedule is a campaign round table with venezuelan voters. battling the pandemic is notably absent from the agenda in florida. a state setting new record for coronavirus nearly every day. more importantly, the president is in a county in the state of florida, miami-dade county that is essentially the epi center of the epi center. joining us now from doral is dasha burns, nbc news reporter and she has been following these developments in miami-dade as our county-by-county process. it's one of the reasons about miami-dade, it is about the venezuelan voters and cuban american voters and are they going to be comfortable with democratic foreign policy versus, you know, single issue voting and what about everything else? yet, he is going down here not talking about the pandemic at all. how is that playing? >> reporter: chuck, that is exactly right. this is a critical county in a critical state. you know better than anyone that the margins in florida when it

comes to elections can be razor thin. so there is a world in which a group like the venezuelan community here could have an outsized impact on the presidential race. this is an increasing influential group here in florida and doral is home to the largest venezuelan american community in the united states. so it's no coincidence that the president is coming here today to have this conversation. now unlike the national latino vote which tends to lean left, here in miami, this is a very different story. there is a lot of political diversity here, particularly within the venezuelan community where there are a lot of folks that leave conservative and independent and have actually moved more conservative recently of the democratic party has begun to use the term socialism which has a very particular connotation to the community here. earlier today, i spoke to ernesto acumen. i asked him how he feels when

the democratic party uses this term. take a listen to what he told me. >> that's one of the issues that we are very concerned because we came from a socialist country, we know exactly how them come and how they start and how they completely destroy venezuela. it was the richest country in latino america and right now, it's the poorest so we don't want that to happen here and that is why we want to be a very cloud voice against socialism. >> reporter: chuck, ernesto is in this church behind me here where the president is meeting with a group of venezuelan americans today. i asked him what he wants to hear from the president. he wants him to take a hard line stance against maduuro agreemen many of them supported him in the first place.

they want him to take a tough stance. >> he is there trying to do a little cleanup after he talked about -- seemed to hint he would be willing to meet with maduro which is public enemy number one to so many venezuelan americans down there and he is having to fix that as one of the fallouts from the bolton book for sure. stay safe out there and thank you. let's move to the other major sun belt state. coronavirus infections in arizona are rising at a staggering rate and over 112,000 confirmed cases so far. according to the johns hopkins hospital, the positive iterate in arizona is 27.4%. that means more than 1 in 4 tests are coming back positive. it also means we know we have a testing problem in arizona. maricopa county has the highest confirmed number of cases in the

united states with over 73,000 coronavirus infections to date. joining us is the mayor of fee administrati -- phoenix. we have spoken before. mayor, time is weird during this pandemic but i want to say it was about four weeks ago when you were begging the governor to give you more authority and now here we are. i assume you don't want to make this i told you so, but what do you need to do now? >> it has been such a tough situation out here. i have constituents who waited eight hours, 13 hours to get a test and you know many people won't wait that long unless they desperately need one. it is quite hot. we are predicting temperatures could hit 117 degrees this weekend. maricopa county, which is our public county health agency, just announced that they are going to be getting refrigerated

trucks because the health care system has run out of morgue beds. it is very scary out here. i wish we had given mayors the authority to act earlier. >> sorry to cut you off. you are out of morgue space? >> the abraz oh, health care system has run out of morgue beds and the county is getting refrigerated trucks. not throughout the county but one very important system. >> okay. >> madam mayor, that is exactly what was happening here in new york. not to get on the i told you so band wagon, but now that you're in the middle of it and now that you are, as you said, experiencing these incredibly hot temperatures, more people will be going inside where the ac will protect them. where do you stand on convincing the governor to mandate masks

across the state? >> i joined with mayors from across arizona in sending him a letter that encouraged much stronger measures, a statewide mask program makes sense to us. the mayors would like to see protections in every corner. my city council and i implemented one for the city of phoenix but we know that people in phoenix go to the cooler parts of our state for vacation right now. right now, many of those areas don't have a mask requirement. they are going to come home and stress a health care system that is already hurting. >> well, i understand the governor has now talked about, i think, trying to make restaurants cut back to 50%. does that do it? >> to me, it feels like a half measure. we had a group of mayors again, myself included, who said we need to go to takeout. we know that in situations where people are not wearing a mask and had extended contact that

they are more likely to spread the virus. we have to take this seriously. i am as concerned about fibula abo -- anyone as our economy but if we did not take public health, our economy cannot recover. >> you said you need more tests. how much worse does it need to get before the state starts considering shutting down again? >> we have such a lack of testing. we really feel like we don't have the right data. yesterday, our governor had a press conference and there were many people speculating that he might take significant measures, but he chose not to. if he is unwilling, i would welcome if he could remove some of the preemptions on local government and then we could move forward. for months, i have been asking for a federal surge in testing and getting no as an answer, but i am very excited that they have

finally changed their mind and the hardest hit area of phoenix is likely to get a federal surge in testing next week, finally. >> phoenix mayor, we have to leave it there. good luck. stay safe and let's hope we can see some trend lines go the other way before the experts tell us that any way. good luck out there. coming up, a judge in connecticut is trying to block the governor's executive order making mask wearing mandatory, just hours before that mandate was set to take effect. governor andy bashir joins us next. andy bashir joins us next not actors, who've got their eczema under control. with less eczema, you can show more skin. so roll up those sleeves. and help heal your skin from within with dupixent. dupixent is the first treatment of its kind that continuously treats moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis, even between flare ups.

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kentucky's governor andy beshear signed an executive order ordering all kentuckian to wear a face covering. there is a legal challenge to that decision sparking confusion over the new mandate. a scott county circuit court judge issued a restraining order that limit the governor's ability to issue future executive orders concerning the pandemic. this comes as the state has seen a rented increase in the number of daily coronavirus cases. joining me now is the governor of kentucky andy beshear. governor, welcome and thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to know why you issued this order and how exactly you define it. >> what we are seeing across

this country is an explosion in cases. we see records set every sim day for the united states and then we see states like florida that has had more cases over the last, what, three days, 72 hours than kentucky has had during this entire pandemic. you see states like arizona, 1.5 times bigger than kentucky but is currently running out of bed space and icus. you see how fast that can happen. in kentucky, i think we have done a better job than just about anywhere in containing this virus in flattening our curve, but we have recently seen a real increase that suggests that we are also going to have escalating cases. so i want to do the same thing we did that made us successful before, take aggressive action early so that we are not trying to stop this thing when we have thousands of cases just when we have hundreds of cases. the mask rule is based on three

things. number one, health and safety of our people. every public health expert says that wearing one protects other people and now it even protects yourself. number two, protecting our economy. goldman sacks estimates wearing masks can save 5% of our g.dp. that is $20 billion in kentucky. number three, i want to put our state in a best position to have a meaningful year coming up. masks can help us do all of that and it's time to every kentuckian to step up, to do their part, it's as easy as no shoes, no mask, no service. we got used to this in the past and we have to get used to a new normal. >> what about the circuit court judge has issued a temporary restraining order? your own attorney general siding with this judge saying you're going too far? what does it mean? is there a mask order that takes effect tonight at 5:00 p.m. or is it not taking effect? >> no there is a mask order that

takes place at 5:00 p.m. tonight. that is both because we have done an emergency order -- i mean, an executive order and an emergency regulation. emergency regulations are still allowed. this will carry the full force of law. but we also are moving to get that restraining order from the judge thrown out. it's bizarre. number one, it constrains doing things in the future and tries to set a new process that would ultimately handcuff even texas governor in responding the way he is trying to. in the other, it removed every single restriction put into place on 500 something businesses from farmers market to part of a university to an expo center that can seat 7,000 people. the judge is claiming they don't have to wash their hands or clean those facilities. that is dangerous and it's irresponsible and we are going to what it takes to get it overturned. sadly we have the only a.g. in the country that are suing on

these type of things but it's fip. we are all going to face difficulties. our families are facing major difficulties and anxieties every day. we will deal with this. we will get the right restrictions in place and we will protect our people. >> political disputes between governors and the state legislatures, usually there is also this -- i think it's kind of -- we now know is more of a myth, but this sort of a rule urban divide on these ordinances, where you'll get folks who say, well, i understand why jefferson county might need it, but, you know, there is a lot of people there in and around louisville but not the rest of the state. did you contemplate a more, you know, sort of regionalized approach to this order in saying, look. all counties of this population or above, this is what it affects? these counties, no. if you did contemplate that, why did you decide not to? >> we looked at all of the options that are on the table. i think that there are very few states do it county-by-county.

most realize the coronavirus doesn't care about borders whether it's state, a country, or a county border, it doesn't matter, it will continue to spread. let me give an example of one amazing eastern kentucky county called bell county. great leadership there. good people. it went from having just a few cases to having dozens upon dozens in just a few days. they need it just as badly in bell county as it's needed in jefferson county. here is the other way to put it. so you really are lucky right now and your county has fewer cases. don't you want to keep it that way? don't you want to make sure we are protecting each other? to me, wearing one of these masks is such a small price to pay for being your brother and sister's keeper, for making sure you don't spread to this to somebody whose body can't take on it or protecting yourself and make sure you don't bring it home to your kids to protecting

people's jobs. $10 billion in our economy and 5% of the economy of the united states. if you truly want to get kids back to school, which we keep hearing, wear a mask. it may be that simple. >> governor, it's interesting to me the leading republican in your state, a gentleman by the name of mitchell mcconnell, has quietly become one of the le leadilea leading advocates of wearing masks in washington, d.c. have you reached up to him and he is going to speak up on your behalf endorsing this policy? everywhere he goes now in his own subtle way, he now promotes mask wearing. do you think given that the attorney general is a protege of his, that he'll step in publicly? >> well, the senator mcconnell and i have had a good working relationship in dealing with covid-19. we haven't always agreed and i'm still pushing pretty hard for that next round of cares act money which is going to be

needed for us not to have the largest budget cuts in our history. he is talking about wearing a mask for that, i'm grateful and he is doing it in public and i'm grateful. it shows wearing a mask is not political. it just smarts and protects people and the right thing to do so my hope is, yes, he reaches out to his protege, says this is a time when we got to put all of these things behind us and a time when you need a governor to react quickly when things go bad and this is the types of rules and restrictions that even the white house is telling us we should put into place and so if all of the public health experts agree and you have green light up and down much of government, it's a good thing. let's make sure we put our people over politics. >> governor, quickly, what is going to happen with college sports in the fall? >> in kentucky, it may come down to our ability to wear masks, to socially distance. i believe if we are willing to do this thing, if 80% plus will

wear a mask and socially distancing and follow the rulings rules and regulations we have an opportunity for it in the fall but it's on us as kentuckians and americans to just make the right decisions. to me it's an issue of faith. i believe that loving your neighbor is, you know, what we were told is most important commandment and i want to make sure that i honor that. if we can do that, if we can just be good people that look out for each other, then we can also do so much that we used to do. think about it. wearing a mask is very different but it's probably the thing that will get us back to our old normal as quickly as we can. >> kentucky governor andy beshear, you're not alone in saying that. thank you so much for coming on our show today and relaying your concerns and talking about your mandate. we appreciate it. chuck, over to you. >> as sean doolittle washington nationals closer said sports are

for rewards, for functional societies. coming up, as texas considers to see record daily rises in coronavirus cases, hospitals there are overwhelmed, forcing the governor to issue a hold on elective surgeries across more than a hundred counties in a desperate effort to free up hospital beds. we will talk to a houston e.r. doctor after the break about the situation. after the break aboue situation.

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pandemic. here are the facts as we know them this hour. michigan's governor issued an executive order today mandating people wear a face covering in indoor public spaces and crowded outdoor spaces. the order also says businesses open to the public must refuse entry or service to customers not wearing a face covering. i like the idea of the no shirt, no shoes, no mask, no services. in college sports, the big ten will move to a conference model only this fall so they have announced so far. all eyes are now on the s.e.c., acc, pac-12, and big 12 as they wave their options. pac-12 is expected to follow the big ten's lead. the ivy league started this when they suspended all fall sports. the first divisioni conference to suspend the season. roman catholic church is being reported to use an exemptedion to collect $1.4 billion in federal coronavirus relief aid. reports millions of dollars have

since gone to the diocese that paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy because of clergy sexual abuse cover-up cases. katy, over to you. >>ism going to leave that there, chuck. let's turn to houston. the mayor is being sued and others involved before cancelling the party's in-person convention that was scheduled next week, and expected to bring in thousands of people to the latest coronavirus hot spot. texas recorded nearly 11,000 new coronavirus cases on thursday, its largest number of new daily cases yet. here is mayor sylvester commentsing on the suit. >> going to the courthouse that is hearing and seeing cases virtually to ask them to agree to allow 6,000 people to meet in

pers person. >> the lawsuit argues that the gathering is protected under both the texas and u.s. constitutions. mayor turner says the party signed a contract with a clause that included cancelling for epidemics. chuck? >> well, i think they are on pretty strong ground there. staying in texas. the tenth day in a in a row, te reported a new number of coronavirus cases across the stated and hospitals in 100 counties have been banned for elective procedures. abbott told a local tv station on thursday, quote, i think the numbers are going to look worse as we go into next week. joining us now is an emergency medical physician at houston methodist hospital on the front lines of this crisis. doctor, i'd like you to react to governor abbott's sad prediction about next week that he sees next week being worse than this

week. how bad has it been and how bad do you expect it to get? >> thank you, chuck and katy, for having me on. a big thank you to all of our physicians and nurses and staff members working so hard on the front lines over eight facilities. it has been busy the past few weeks. we are seeing increased emergency department visits and increased hospitalizations and increased patients in the icus as well. we are concerned that some of these numbers will continue to rise. we did see some promising information yesterday that we might be hitting a little bit of a plateau within the hospitalizations, which is good, but, unfortunately, on the outpatient side, more and more patients are coming in affected each day. >> so tell me about what kind of patients are you seeing? are they older? younger? is there a pattern to the folks you're seeing once they need hospital care? >> absolutely.

thanks. so i would say on the initial phase what we are seeing early in march and april were older patients who were coming in. a lot of them were critical. albeit, they are coming in in lower numbers. this second wave has been particularly concerning. it's hitting lower socioeconomic levels and hitting minority communities. we are seeing multiple younger patients who are affected as well, patients under the age of 50 and some under the age of 40. we know that this disease is preventible which i think is one of the frustrating parts, right? we know if you can socially distance and wear a mask, this is a preventable disease. in fact, you guys may know this, but at present, coronavirus is the sixth leading cause of death in america. we had a virus wasn't on our radar 12 months ago and all of a sudden it's moved into our top ten causes of mortality. as an emergency medicine physician, we find this very concerning as especially as we mentioned this is something which is preventible. >> yesterday, the white house

press secretary said the rise in hospitalizations across the country was in large part due to people coming in for more elective surgeries. is that what you're seeing at your hospital? >> that could not be farther from the truth. we are seeing increased covid cases in all different groups. we are seeing them in patients who are outpatients' seeing them in hospitalized patients and in our icus. multiple patients are coming into the hospital who are sick or admitted with this virus for someone to politicize this or suggest that increased testing is why we are seeing these numbers is absolutely not true. >> dr. neil gangy of houston methodist there on the front lines of fighting this pandemic, thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective what you're seeing on the front lines. good luck and stay safe. >> thank you. >> over to you, katy. up next, president trump's

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president trump says he is looking at a possible pardon for his long time friend and adviser roger stone. stone is heading to prison next week for lying to congress, witness tampering and obstruction, unless the president steps in. here is what he said this

morning and last night on fox news. ir >> i'll be looking at it. all of these guys comey and biden and obama are walking around. >> are you thinking about pardons or commutations at all? >> i am always thinking. i am always thinking. so you'll be watching like everybody else on this case, you'll be watching but roger stone, manafort. >> politico reports that the white house is divided. some advisers encouraging the president to pardon stone, while others say it isn't worth it. meanwhile, another one of president trump's sorkassociate his former attorney michael cohen, was sent back to prison on thursday after refusing to sign a home confinement

agreement. nbc news investigator correspondent tom went joins us now. what happened inside that courtroom? michael cohen was expecting to exit there and go back home. now he's in custody again. >> that's right. he was going into apparently to sign documents according to his attorneys and also perhaps something tied to his gps monitorsing. he ended up on his way back to jail. essentially what happened here is according to his attorneys and law enforcement sources to nbc news, he refused to sign a document that laid out eight specific terms of his release. now it's important to note when i say release, i don't really mean release from jail. this is video we took yesterday. the reason michael cohen was able to be out of jail was because of covid-19 concerns. it's not because he was released. it's not because he is on probation. so essentially it would be like being sentenced to your own apartment which i think a lot of us probably feel these days but, obviously, there is some restrictions because michael cohen pleaded guilty to serious crimes and was sentenced to

jail. so the idea that he could be out and about surprised some people. the idea that he would be eating outside surprised some people. his attorneys say they don't believe that him being spotted and being in the "new york post" is being outside of his apartment at a new york city restaurant had anything to do with this. i think what is important to know here is that on that first condition of his release that he should not talk to the press, should not talk to tv reporters, print reporters, not to have anything to do with books is a bit of an unusual clause. i've asked the bureau of prisons overseeing this and not the marshals referred all calls to the bop. is this a normal cause somebody should be in what is called a custodian release or is it unique to michael cohen and i said asked did he violate any of the rules in terms of prison to be served at home and to yesterday's action and i received no response from b.o.p.

it's important for people to understand it is okay for inmates in a federal jail facility to, one, write a book, which michael cohen said that he has done, that he has completed while he has already been serving his time. and it's also okay for inmates to speak to reporters. it's not something that is prohibited. as a matter of fact it's something that is allowed under the first amendment and accounted for in the bureau of prisons on policy manuals when i was looking this up and doing some research on it this morning. it's a little unclear here as to why michael cohen was given these terms. we don't know the original rules for which he was permitted to come home from covid-19 and be able to serve occupy the balance of his prison sentence at home. still a lot of questions here that remain to be answered. >> yeah. yeah. it is weird. i was going to say prisoners write books and talk to reporters. given those two things, what are michael cohen's lawyers planning on doing with this? do they have any next steps? >> they can certainly go to the judge or go to the court and say

what gives here? your honor, is this normal? can you look into this? maybe take time to look at the various policies and procedures that i have and get answers for themselves. it would be great to get some clarity for them as far as what the exact and specific terms of was his original release and any trip wires there that michael cohen may have looked at. you and i talked yesterday on air. we have talked amongst ourselves about his ability to perhaps be a witness in any upcoming criminal trial involving the trump organization in the manhattan district attorney's office. he is his own worst enemy here a little bit. if anything, he should have wanted to have kept a low profile. this does not -- it does not look when he's on the fronted cover of the "new york post" out eating at a restaurant when he is supposed to serve the balance of his prison term. a lot of questions here and we have to wait and see where this develops from here. >> tom, on the roger stone front, the stone camp feels

pretty optimistic that the president is going to do something on his behalf, likely a com mutation, not a pardon. among the people who is arguing against any action is the attorney general. >> right. >> apparently, one of his motivations is that he fears a mutiny inside justice. if the president does this, as if there hasn't been one already. i'm curious. what is you in the nonpolitical sector of the justice department, what kind of reaction would a stone commutation get? >> i think current and federal prosecutors look at the stone case and some may agree or disagree with the sentencing guidelines which may have led to the original mutiny if you will to use your phrase, chuck. i think they say at the end of of the day it doesn't matter. roger stone lied to congress and he went to trial and a jury of his peers convicted him. period, ends of story.

the witness tampering aspects of his case and i think they look at that and say you can't do that. in this country you should not be able to go to congress, lied to them and get away with it particularly if they are conducting an ongoing investigation if the lies suit you and if the lies might sue the president's campaign. so i think if you looked at a commutation or a pardon here out and out pardon, i think you'd be looking at a scenario here where there would be a lot of people probably not federal prosecutors that would raise a lot of questions and be really upset about what happened. >> tom on the investigative beat for us, as always, thank you. >> thank you. coming up, weather delay is in the trump campaign postpones tomorrow's rally in portsmouth. tomorrow's rally in portsmouth 'e there! maybe over here? oven mitts! oven mitts! everything's stuck in the drawers! i'm sorry! oh, jeez. hi. kelly clarkson. try wayfair! oh, ok.

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president trump's campaign rally in portsmouth, new hampshire, which was scheduled for tomorrow, is now postponed

because of the weather. tropical storm fay is currently churning in the mid-atlantic and toward new england. the weather gives the trump campaign more time to plan around some of their issues from the tulsa rally. also, tomorrow's event was supposed to be outdoors. people were also encouraged but not required to wear masks. and the campaign did not set any expectations on how many people would be in attendance. learning from last time. >> but when the rally was rescheduled, they know what they want to avoid, a campaign official tells nbc news, we cannot have a repeat of tulsa. joining us live from portsmouth is allison king. so allison, what can you tell us about what was going to happen tomorrow? >> yeah, so there was going to be this outdoor rally at an airport hangar here in portsmouth, and as you pointed

out, people were strongly encouraged to wear masks. they were going to offer hand sanitizer, but there was no mandate. and governor sununu was getting some pressure from mepeople tha he should put the mandate out here, but he said he wouldn't do that. he didn't do it for the black lives matters rallies, and he wouldn't do it in this case. people were concerned about this. i talked to donald trump's 2020 cochair here in new hampshire about what next, what's the contingency. he said some time in the next two weeks, they plan to bring this rally back, hopefully in the same place. and that they plan to go forward. i can tell you that there has been some skepticism about the weather issue because the weather is scheduled to be fairly nice at that time here in new hampshire. al says because people come all day to line up and there could be a downpour, that was their main concern. >> i have been to a number of

rallies before where people have waited in downpours or negative 5 degree temperatures. usually that doesn't stop anybody from coming and lining up. i'm curious, what is the support for trump in new hampshire look like right now? a few months ago, the beginning of this year, he packed a big venue in manchester. is it the same now that the coronavirus has hit? >> yeah, so donald trump certainly has his solid base of republican support that's not going anywhere here in new hampshire. and certainly, we have talked to people here in portsmouth who were very excited to go to that rally tomorrow. however, you know, based on what's going on, obviously, in the past few months between covid, between the economy, between the racial issues, there are definitely a sense that donald trump, for people who sort of maybe voted for him in 2016, independent types on the fence, they're breaking towards

joe biden. >> allison king, good to see you, with our nbc owned boston station, wbts, thank you. and chuck, over to you. well, coming up in our next hour, the mayor of miami, the two candidates in texas' senate runoff, two democrats, that is, vying to take on john cornyn, and the attorney general of california, talk about a packed hour. don't miss it. hour don't miss it. the sleep number 360 smart bed is on sale now. can it help keep us asleep? absolutely, it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable it's our weekend special, save up to $900 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. plus 0% interest for 48 months. ends monday.

hello, there. i'm chuck todd. it's 11:00 a.m. out west, 2:00 p.m. in the east. the president is actively campaigning in florida, a state that just recorded its highest increase in hospitalizations in a single day, and he happens to be in one of the worst counties, miami-dade county. more than 244,000 floridians have been infected, 4,202 have died. that hasn't stopped the president from pushing the governors to push the reopening. in this case, reopening schools. he's not getting much backup from the cdc whose school opening guidelines he called tough and expensive. despite the criticism, robert redfield made it clear he had no intention of changing them. redfield is not the only health official whose message runs counter to the president. dr. anthony fauci says he's still trying to figure out where the president got the claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are harmless. let's brin in my coanchor for

the hour, katy tur. katy, i head scratch about florida. not that he's there at this point, he travels. but that it's like, you're showing up at somebody -- at a wedding and you decide you only want to talk about some sort of job event. it's just sort of weird, the county is in a crisis right now with this virus. but let's talk venezuela politics. >> yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. it's part of the stratanying right now that you're seeing out of the white house and the campaign, which is to keep the president away from the coronavirus as much as possible. that's why you're not seeing hip attend the coronavirus briefings any longer and to focus on the economy and to focus on what he can campaign on. so while it is weird and uncomfortable because that is the issue that is consuming all of us, it is what they want to do. they want to keep him off that message and on to the one they believe works for them, so again, the president is in florida today despite, as chuck

was saying, that new record in hospitalizations. and at this hour, he's participating, as chuck was saying, in a roundtable discussion with venezuelan migrants and residents in doral. florida is home to the largest venezuelan community in the united states. earlier, he met with leaders of the u.s. military's southern command in miami. he was briefed on the administration's counternarcotics operations, and before returning to washington tonight, the president will attend a fund-raiser in hillsborough beach for his 2020 campaign. the common thread, as we keep saying, is none of these events is related to the virus or the spike, chuck, that is currently being experienced in florida. >> and to even more bizarre, he's doing a fund-raiser at a time when republicans in florida are fighting over raising money for a convention he's thrust onto jacksonville and taken away resources from that.

this whole trip is bizarre on so many levels. this trip to florida comes as the state emerges as sadly the world's new epicenter for the coronavirus. hospitalizations there have jumped more than 13%. nearly halff the state's intensive care units are at least 90% full. in miami-dade, mayor carlos jimenez announced the hiring of 250 additional contact tracers. some local officials say that's not enough. joining us from miami beach is sam brock. sam, i had a buddy sadly say to me, he says, i'm starting to refer to us as south covida. it's dark humor, but he was trying to make the point to me it's bad in miami-dade right now. >> i think there are few places in the country that you could go right now, chuck, where you would find a worse situation numerically than what we're seeing in miami-dade. let's get to some of the numbers right now. 11,400 new cases today brings the state's total for florida to 75,000 cases in eight days.

now, there was a bit of a silver lining to what we found out today. the positivity rate, which is of course the percentage of people who test positive divided by all those testled in a given day, jumped down to 15% today. it was 20.7% for the state of florida yesterday. which is to say yesterday more than 1 in 5 people who were tested tested positive for covid-19. that figure has come down a little bitoday, but you mentioned some of the hospitalization numbers there, chuck. in miami-dade county, about five or six hospitals right now are showing zero available icu beds. and doctors that i talk to say it goes beyond just that. it's the staffing as well. not just the available beds, but the specialized nursing and doctors and technicians you need for all of those patients. you mentioned 250 contact tracers. that was news that the miami-dade county mayor carlos jimenez announced yesterday he was bringing to the county, but five different mayors locally came out and said that is nowhere near enough. what this area needs to corral the surging pandemic.

here is the mayor of miami beach. >> the cdc created core state responsibilities on contact tracing. and they said you shouldn't reopen unless you're prepared to call every single person, every single person who has tested positive. call their contacts, tell them you need to be tested. you need to be quarantined. if only 17% of the people who are tested are reached out to, are contacted, then we have no effective contact -- we effectively don't have a contact tracing program. >> those leaders said that back in june, about a month ago, if you looked at the numbers, roughly 90% of folks testing positive in florida were getting some sort of outreach from contact tracers. the latest figure they cited is now 17%. this, of course, as the state has seen a record number of cases, chuck and katy, to the point where now they are shutting things back down again from beaches to bars and

restaurants, it's still a hot topic of debate as officials try to figure out what's the best course of action moving forward. guys. >> yeah. sam brock on the ground for us in miami. sam, thank you. katy. >> and despite a deadly resurgence of covid-19, as sam was just talking about, governor ron desantis is pushing to reopen classrooms this fall. just yesterday, he told reporters that if retailers were allowed to operate, schools could, too. >> if a parent wants to opt for virtual education, they should absolutely be able to do that. we shouldn't be forcing them to do any types of decisions, but i'm confident if you can do home depot, if you can do walmart, if you can do these things, we absolutely can do the schools. >> joining me now is the mayor of miami, francis suarez. mr. mayor, thank you very much for being here. i'm wondering what you make of the governor's comments right there, comparing schools to home

depot or walmart? you go to home depot or walmart maybe once a week. you go to school for 30 minutes, maybe. you go to a school five days a week for eight hours. how do you feel about that comparison? >> you know, i actually heard the superintendent of miami-dade schools make some very good points in an interview. one thing he was saying was that according to the president's own cdc guidelines for reopening, we would have to be outside of phase one, which we're not right now. we're not right now outside of phase one to be able to open schools. so according to the president's own criteria for opening schools, we're not in that place right now. and i don't know where we're going to be in august. we could be, you know, maybe in phase two. but we also could be at a stay-at-home order. we don't know. you know, certainly the trends that we're seeing, the hospitalizations, the icus, you know, the lack of contact tracing, all does not bode well right now. we are starting to see some trends based on the fact that we

implemented a mask in public rule, our increase rate has dropped from 125 new cases a day to about 61 new cases a day, which is a growth rate, which means there is some sort of flattening since we implemented a mask in public rule. that's something that should be federal and state policy as well. >> how long are you willing to monitor that? when i talked to you last, you said that you hadn't taken a stay-at-home order off the table. things have only gotten a lot worse since then. so i wonder, are you going to give this mask order another week or two or three weeks to see if it works before you might consider shutting down miami again? >> you know, that's a question that is a very difficult question to answer. what we're doing is actually trying to finally -- and i was one of those mayors in the prior report that called for the 500 new contact tracers. that was at miami city hall that we had that press conference. i think we're finally starting to get some good data from the

contact tracers that we have. it's not significant enough in terms of significant sample size for us to make decisions, but we're waiting on getting some of that data to make some additional decisions. we have been very aggressive down here. we're seeing some slight indications of a flattening. and we're hoping that that continues going forward before we have to make some more dramatic decisions that could have, you know, far reaching economic consequences. and we don't really know how the federal government is going to respond to that. is there going to be another stimulus? how are we going to take care of everybody? those are things we also have to talk about. >> mayor suarez, i am curious as to, i have been very curious as to what is the cooperation level between the county, what are we up to, 31 municipalities in the county now, i think at this point, obviously, you're the biggest, 34 now. you know, there's a lot of things that are siloed in dade

county, excuse me, miami-dade county, i'm showing my age. the school board and the school system doesn't answer but to the school board. you have the county, you have the cities. has it made your response more complicated or is there general cooperation? >> it's made the response significantly more complicated. you know, like you said, we are very siloed. and the fact of the matter is i called the county mayor after the press conference. we have to do a better job communicating. all the experts, i was with a doctor from johns hopkins last night for about an hour. he said communication is the best vaccine right now. i found that to be such a profound statement. i think consistent communication, frankly, is probably even a better vaccine. so i think what's important is, for example, mask in public rule. we implemented it, about 15 cities implemented it, the county didn't implement it at the same time, it took about a week, and we're starting to see the benefits of that, but having that consistent message is something that would be

incredibly helpful because it would increase compliance, and right now, part of the other issue we have is we can implement all the orders we want. if i put a stay-at-home order tomorrow and people don't comply, it would be impossible to arrest everybody. we have to have a consistent strategy, a consistent message. i think that will increase compliance significantly. >> it seems odd that we had this conversation for about five minutes now. the president of the united states is a stone's throw away from you right now. if you could have a few minutes with him, he's in doral, not far from where you are right now. if you could have a few minutes with him when it comes to the virus, what resources would you ask of him right now? >> the first thing i would ask for is contact tracers. which is what we asked the governor yesterday. the second thing i would ask for, and i think your reporter alluded to this in his report, is when you increase ventilator capacity, it's not just the machine. you need the nurses and the doctors and it's a team of

people that go along with the ventilators to increase your ventilator capacity and your icu capacity. that's something that we would need urgently, and of course, listen, masks. we're giving out masks literally this morning, i was giving out masks in one of our hot spot zip codes in the city of miami. so that plus i think the last thing i would ask him is for a comprehensive strategy going forward. they laid out an opening strategy, but there was never a strategy to close if things didn't go the right way. it was always about if you had two weeks of data, you could go to the fex phase. if you have two weeks of good data, go to the following phase. there was never any guidance if things went in the wrong direction. clearly, they have. >> mr. mayor, i have a slightly off topic question for you. this comes from my colleague, jacob soboroff, who has just written a book, and he describes a conversation he had with katie miller, who is now one of the communications staffers for the vice president. at the time, she was working for

dhs. i'm going to read it to you and would like to get your reaction. she said my family and colleagues told me that when i have kids, i think i'll think about the separations differently in talking about the separations at the border. but i don't think so, she said. dhs sent me to the border to see the separations for myself to try to make me more compassionate, but it didn't work. it didn't work, jacob asked? i'll never forget what i saw. serious la, are you a white nationalist. she responds, no, but i believe if you come to america, you should assimilate. why do we need to have little havana? that comment has gotten a lot of reaction from lawmakers in miami and around south florida and a lot of reaction from some op-ed pages out there. i wonder what your reaction is. >> listen, we're very proud of having a little havana. we also have a little haiti which is something when i was a commissioner, we enacted as a formal policy of the city of miami. what makes the city of miami great and what makes our country great is our diversity. the fact we come from different parts of the world and we have all bought into this experiment

of freedom and liberty, so i don't even know where a comment like that would come from. everybody pretty much from, you know, with the exception of very few, are immigrants to this country. and so, you know, what makes this country great and what makes miami great is the fact that we're a variety of different, you know, diverse backgrounds. so i don't even know what to say about that. other than what i have. >> mayor suarez, always good to have you on. always good to hear your point of view from down there in miami. stay safe, stay healthy. and by the way, i have enjoyed little caracas these days. you can get great venezuelan food. it's only been an asset as far as i'm concerned. >> we have a little just about everything down here. >> that's exactly right. which is what makes it so unique. thank you, sir. >> katy, over to you. coming up later this hour, we're live in south carolina,

with an exclusive look inside one hospital's covid floor, as you'll see, it's overwhelmed and nearing capacity as cases state-wide surge. >> first, democrats have been trying to turn texas blue for years. this year, they're looking to flip a red senate seat. the two democrats vying to take on john cornyn join us coming up next. nlimited right. start with america's most awarded network. give people more plans to mix and match at a price built for everyone. with $700 off our best phones when you switch. because everyone deserves the best. this is unlimited built right. and mine super soft? with the sleep number 360 smart bed, on sale now, you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. so, can it help us fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet.

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but so far, the lone star state has eluded them. they have not won state-wide office in texas since 1994, but amid a recession, a global pandemic, and a historically unpopular incumbent president, two democrats see november as their shot to change all that. as the dallas morning news frames the two challengers, mj hegar of round rock is a former air force helicopter pilot who says she's the change agent needed in an environment dominated by lawyers. royce west of dallas is a longtime state senator with a record of tackling issues related to education, health care, and criminal justice. both candidates join us now. we flipped a coin to determine the interview order. and so now we begin with state senator royce west. state senator, thank you very much for joining us. first off, what is the issue that you think makes you the best person to challenge john cornyn in the fall?

>> i think the experience, the ability to bring people together, and recognizing and having done so with perinant issues prevalent not only in the state but in the country. health care, police reform, i passed the body cam bill, racial profiling bill. a person endorsed by julian castro, cedric richmond, most of the trusted democratic elected officials in the state have endorsed me, and they recognize that i'm the person with the experience and also the ability to bring texans together as i have done in dallas county in order to win the u.s. senate race and turn texas blue. >> let's talk about what the electorate there wants. beto o'rourke ran against ted cruz in 2018, almost won. ran as an outsider. with the fact that you have been a state senator for years now, and all of the endorsements you just listed, does that make you able to run as an outsider.

>> it makes me have the ability to be able to run effectively. i'm not going to characterize outsiders or insiders. the fact is you have to have a person who is bring people together. i have demonstrated that. i was able to get the endorsement of the tay hahno democrats, the texas coalition of democrats, texas coalition of african-american democrats, the university democrats, and many of the democratic clubs have endorsed me as well as there were 12 candidates in the original primary. who have their endorsed? they have endorsed me. i'm the only candidate in the race that they have endorsed. they, too, are working to help me become elected. whether you want to say that's an outsider or insider, i'm a candidate. >> given all we're facing right now in the country, in the next senate, if you do win, what do you think should be the top priority, coronavirus, racial

inequality, economic inequality? >> you said all of the above. all of them need to be top priorities. we're at a place in this country, where 76% of america believes racism is an issue in this country. and yes, black lives matter. so we need to make certain we deal with this systemic racism once and for all so our grandchildren and great grandchildren won't have to bear the burden of dealing with this particular issue. in terms of police reform, what needs to happen, and we haven't put this on the table, we need to have one law in this country when a police officer can draw his gun and kill someone. not 50 different definitions and different laws across the state of texas. we need to do the heavy lifting in the senate and house, bring the groups together to figure out exactly what that law needs to be, and we need to make it applicable to each and every state. not only a law, but policies also. that gives additional transparency and also makes it an even playing field in terms

of when a police officer across this country, a law enforcement officer should be able to pull his gun and kill someone. we need to get that issue dealt with, and we need to deal with qualified immunity also. >> it sounds like police reform is your top priority. i want to ask you quickly about texas, and given the skyrocketing coronavirus cases, the hospitalizations, do you think texas needs to shut down again? >> let me say this in answering your question. health care is also important for me in the state of texas. and in this country. health care should be a fundamental right. we know what's going on, and it's implaicit in terms of the coronavirus the number of peopl without health care. texas is the number one state in the country with uninsured. to answer your question, we need to look at, i think we opened too early, but i understand there needs to be ablance, and we need to continue to look at exactly what's going on in terms of the spread. i think the county judges and mayors should have more input into the process to make that

determination as opposed to the president that is continuously dividing the country. cornyn saying nothing, not even knowing the kids are susceptible and have tested positive for coronavirus. he comes out with a statement saying that kids aren't susceptible, when we have had, i don't know how many kids yesterday that tested positive, and we had a child in one of the high schools that i represent that died as a result of coronavirus. he was unaware of that. >> state senator, sorry to interrupt you, but we want to give equal time to your opponent. we have to leave it there, state senator, royce west, we appreciate it. >> let's bring in the other candidate, air force and air national guard combat veteran mj hegar. it's good to talk with you. let me start with the first question we gave to royce west. what is the issue that makes you the best candidate in your opinion to take on john cornyn?

we literally as you could see -- all right, we'll take a quick break. get her broadcast back, and we'll have it for you. coming up, mj hegar. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. [indistinct radio chatter] (mom) come on, hurry up! all systems go? (mission control) 5 4 3 2... ignition and liftoff. (vo) audi e-tron. the next frontier of electric.

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democratic candidate in tuesday's runoff for texas. mj hegar. i'll keep my question even tighter. what makes you the best candidate to take on john cornyn this fall? >> we absolutely need people with the right experience to represent us in texas. to go to d.c., and we have a lot of career politicians that are a lot more d.c. than they are texas there already. what we need are people like me who have experience serving in uniform, that have experience working in health care, i worked in health care for five years. i have two small kids, so i care about the world and the country that we're handing down to them.

but really, the top issue is absolutely health care. we had a health care crisis here in this state before the pandemic. we had nearly 1 out of every 5 texans without access to health care. so endorsements are important, yes, we both have lots of endorsements. i have planned parenthood and all of the gun safety endorsements, moms demand action and all of those, but the only real endorsements that matter are the voters. we got nearly half a million votes in the primary. it's really exciting. we're seeing a lot of firsts here, like competitive primaries which is very encouraging. we're also seeing john cornyn meddle in a democratic primary for the first time in nearly four decades serving in office. he knows he's vulnerable, that his time is up. he's got a 36 approval rating. it's time for him to go. >> your opponent has questioned your loyalty a bit to the democratic party. you got into some heated exchanges over, i think, a small donation you made to john cornyn. you voted for carly fiorina for

president in 2016. there's been -- >> that's not accurate. >> there have issues -- it's been too late on issues like black lives matter. what do you say to that critique? >> you know, i wrote six $10 checks to the six people representing me. three were democrats and three were republicans because they told me i couldn't get a meeting unless i was a donor. seeing that broken system is made me want to run, by the way. i did not vote for carly fiorina. i cast a protest vote in a republican primary. i mentioned there aren't obviously very often competitive democratic primaries. she had already withdrawn from the race. she was no longer an active candidate. i was trying to cast a vote against donald trump twice, once in the republican primary, once in the general. my values have been mischaracterized by my runoff opponent, but that's not what i'm focused on. that kind of stuff, though lies, turn off the electorate.

it's why we were 49th of 50th in voter turnout in texas. i'm going to harness the grassroots energy and excitement and there's no excitement or grassroots energy around politicians bickering and lying about each other. there's a ton of grassroots energy around protecting social security, getting kids out of cages, gun safety legislation, and health care reform. so that's what we're focused on. >> would you be asking the governor to shut down the state right now due to the virus? >> you know, i think that it's clear that we need to take actions that haven't been taken yet. there's been shut down and open up. i of course, want to open. i have been saying since march, if we're going to do it, we have to do it in a way that doesn't cause increase in infections because of my time working in health care. i don't think it's about close or open. i do think masking is important, but the conversation that's not happening is testing and contact tracing. we can mask and close all we want, but if we don't have easy ready access to testing and

contact tracintracing, it's not to happen. we're talking about opening schools without taking the actions necessary to protect our students and teachers. john cornyn recently said we're not sure whether kids can get coronavirus. we have almost 2,000 cases of kids under 19 in texas with positive covid-19 tests that would tell him yes, we can get covid. we need leadership that's going to listen to science and data, that understands how to manage a crisis, and who is going to put working families in texas ahead of the special interests and corporate donors. >> you get to the united states senate, are there senators that you feel like you would end up gravitating towards or senators that are model senators for you, maybe in how they work, things like that? >> well, i mean, i'm already working with several. you know, before i ran for office, senator gillibrand was working on a lot of legislation that was going to do things like, you know, when i was in d.c. working to open jobs for

women in the military, she was working on getting jurisdiction out of the hands of the military for sexual assault and those types of things that i support. so i'm sure i'll be working with her on those. tammy duckworth is someone i respect a lot. senator warren endorsed me and i have been working with her on getting corruption out of politics. that's one of my main issues. so yeah, i'm looking forward to working with them. >> okay. well, we wanted to keep it as equal as we could. we got close there. too bad about the tech mishap, but we got through that as well. welcome to campaigning in the era of a pandemic. mj hegar, democratic candidate for senate in texas, thank you. and katy. >> thank you so much. >> and our thanks to senator royce west for joining us earlier as well. coronavirus cases in the meantime are on the rise in south carolina. now surpassing 50,000. right now, 75% of hospital beds are in use across the state. nbc news correspondent elson barber got an exclusive look at

a covid floor in one hospital where doctors fear they could hit capacity in just days. ellison barber joins us from west columbia, south carolina. what did you find? >> hey, katy. when we went inside lexington medical center, the first thing we saw was the emergency department. a little later, we made it to the covid icu floor. we saw doctors and nurses fighting to keep people alive, trying to comfort people who were isolated and all alone. within minutes of walking onto the covid icu floor, we saw a patient being intubated. as she was being placed on the ventilator, i could hear the sounds of the beeping, listening just to doctors telling her it was going to be okay, trying to explain to her why they needed to do this. you could hear this large whoosh of the sound of the ventilator once the air started. the thing i kept looking at and couldn't stop looking to on the side was a series of framed

photos at the foot of her hospital bed. one in the middle was a photo of a huge family. this was someone's mom, someone's grandmother, someone's spouse, someone who was loved, and she was in this room fighting for her life in the fight of her life, and she was all alone. there was nowhere there able to be by her side. doctors here, they say they are in the middle of a surge. there is no doubt they say their cases are rising, not only across the state but in this area as well. and right now, they say they're growing increasingly concerned that they do not have the capacity to keep treating people if the numbers continue to grow and raise at the rate that we're seeing right now. there's a little more of what we saw when we made it inside onto the covid-19 icu floor. >> right through these doors is the covid-19 intensive care unit. there are patients behind this door being treated right now, and doctors and nurses first come to work to take care of patients on this floor, the first thing they do is come in this room so they can put on all of the necessary ppe.

they are actually storing in these bags some of their face masks that can be reused so they don't risk running out of their protective equipment. this room used to be a family waiting room for visitors. now, it's turned into much needed space where doctors, nurses, can take the necessary precautions safely to go inside and treat the rising number of covid-19 patients. >> they have treated covid patients on the icu floor as old as 105, as young as 21. right now, this hospital says of their total deaths from covid-19, about 31% of the total deaths have happened in the last two weeks. katy. >> as young as in their 20s. ellison barber, powerful stuff. thank you very much for bringing it to us. we appreciate it. chuck, back to you. well, after the break, the attorney general of california is here to lay out a new lawsuit

that he is filing against the trump administration and it's over a policy that is forcing international students to leave the country unless they're taking in-person classes this fall. we'll get into that suit. you're watching msnbc. g msnbc. hey, can i... 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.

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and lawyer has been remanded back into custody yesterday for refusing to sign a release agreement that parred him from speaking to the media. katy, over to you. >> and universities and states are beginning to take legal action against the trump administration's new immigration policy targeting international college students. the i.c.e. mandate directs international students enrolled at universities to take at least one in-person class or lose their visas and leave the country, but many schools have announced they're switching entirely to remote learning this fall. acting deputy secretary of homeland security ken cuccinelli said the policy should motivate schools to reopen, despite a spike in coronavirus cases across the country. >> setting the rules for one semester, which will finalize later this month, that will, again, encourage schools to reopen. >> after those comments, harvard, m.i.t., and other

schools started legal action to protect thousands of their students. now california is joining in on the fray, becoming the first state to file a lawsuit against the new policy. it is the state's 86th lawsuit against the trump administration. joining us now is california attorney general xavier becerra. mr. attorney general, always good to have you. thank you for being here. as the state, california has the most international students in the entire country. 185,000. you call this policy cruel. but you also call it arbitrary. what exactly is the legal action you're taking and why do you think it's going to be successful? >> well, because it's arbitrary and therefore it is placing a lot of people not only in danger of losing the opportunity that the federal government three months ago told them they had, but it's also dangerous. arbitrarily, it causes danger not only to the students but think about the professors that would be required to be now in

person in class. think about all the students that would be susceptible to contagion. and so it's not just arbitrary in flip-flopping from a previous order that said that these students could continue forward through online classes, but it's arbitrary in that it didn't take into account the dangers it poses not just to the students but to everyone who would be around the classroom setting. >> mr. attorney general, is there an alternative solution you would propose in trying to remedy this? forget what dhs is trying to do. by the way, we may have an issue where some of the students are barred from their own countries from coming to our country because of our coronavirus mess. >> yeah. again, the problem we face today, chuck, is of the administration's own creation. they're the ones that said back on march 13th what the guidelines would be. everyone then started planning

based on those march 13th guidelines. not just the universities but as you just mentioned, all those students who in many cases had to travel from abroad or are still here. and so for them to just flip-flop without explaining why is arbitrary and capricious. you can't do that. you can't make these kinds of changes that affect people's lives and affects not their lives but their economic wellbeing and health status. what we're simply saying to administration is stop. act the way you're expected to act. obey your own rules. >> i'm just curious, mr. attorney general, there have been a lot ofedetics that have come out of whether it's the dhs or the president, that are immigration related that have all been sort of under the umbrella of covid, or they have announced it under the umbrella of covid. do you see a pattern here that, you know, that would end up generating a lawsuit where

basically we're seeing whole sections of different immigration policy being temporarily changed, and the virus is being used as the excuse, but there doesn't seem to -- but the pattern seems to be some things that they hoped to accomplish two years ago, for instance. is there enough of a pattern there to actually file a suite on all of these immigration related, i don't know what to call them. they're not law changes, but they have been sort of restrictions that have been added due to the virus. >> well, chuck, you point out what everyone is saying. that this administration is exploiting the pandemic, rather than doing their work of preventing the pandemic, they're exploiting it for their own political gain. does that rise to the point of a lawsuit? well, we have to take each particular instance and then decide. i always say, i don't listen to what the president says. i act on what he does. and when we have enough facts, we'll act. in this case, we believe we have sufficient facts to sue this administration for this action,

as we had to do on various actions. we had to sue secretary devos and the department of allocation for trying to misallocate the c.a.r.e.s. money to help communities. in this case, money supposed to be directed to k-12 schools that are most impacted and least able to sustain the fiscal hurt. and they're trying to send that money to some of the most privileged schools in america. it just doesn't make sense. >> mr. attorney general, you're working under a timeline, a time crunch here, for this lawsuit. a lot of universities start back up in august. when i was going to the uc system, it started back in late september, october. do you expect to have an answer before schools reopen, even if it is just online, and if not, what are you telling those students to do in the meantime? >> first, i have to say msnbc was very smart to get a uc grad to be such a prominent role on its network, but secondly, we're

ready to go in and seek an injunction against the administration to stop them from moving this forward. we're not just going to wait for the lawsuit to run its course. it could take a while. we'll go in and seek a temporary injunction to get the court to stop the administration from moving forward while we litigate. this would prove what the administration did is not only harmful to people but against the law. >> california attorney general xavier becerra, let me say, go gauchos on behalf of myself and on behalf of my mother. go bruins. thank you very much, sir, for joining us. we appreciate it. and as schools here in the u.s. are trying to formulate new plans for how they can reopen safely, president trump has pointed to europe as a successful model american schools can follow. so what can the u.s. learn from what they were able to accomplish overseas? joining me from london is nbc news foreign correspondent molly hunter. molly, what did you find out? >> hey, katy. the data is limited. and it's hard to compare a

country like denmark, which saw 16 new covid-19 cases yesterday, when we're talking about opening up schools in the u.s. which saw 60,000, because it's not just about the adjustments that these schools are making in classes. it has a lot to do with the environment, with the level of infection in these communities. but there are a few trends, and i'll run you through what we have learned. in denmark, late april, i was there when they opened up schools. april 15th, they started with the younger students. there was a lot of debate whether to send back students headed off to university or kids who really couldn't distance learn at home. they were just too young and they needed that interaction. they went for that, and they started with pods of four or five kids. now, a lot of people have asked, how do you supervise those pods of four or five kids when they came from bigger classes? of course, teachers had to split themselves in several pieces, but they also used assistant teachers, carers, babysitters. they brought in extra help to

supervise these pods. people we have spoken with in denmark this week, we spoke with a mom we met in april. we asked how the last two months have been going, she said it's been really well and really clear, communication from the government, communication from the school has made her feel really confident. she's nervous whether it will still be that way in the fall after everyone has gone off and traveled all summer. let's move on to france. i was also there the week schools reopened, it was may 14th. we spoke with the deputy mayor in paris. paris, of course, a really diverse, big city. not unlike the new yorks and l.a.s, and they were doing something quite different than in copenhagen or here in london. they were literally hand-picking the first students to go back. they were picking kids from essential family workers and kids in the most vulnerable families who didn't have ipads at home, who maybe couldn't distance learn, which is a really interesting, smart tactic, and certain it's working so far. katy. >> so interesting to at least get a glimpse of denmark and

paris. molly, thanks so much for bringing that to us and helping us learn what might work here. chuck, over to you. >> you know, comparing to europe, we have to get our virus under control like they did before you can start reopening schools. that is step one before schools. step one before the process takes place. coming up, we're tracking tropical start fay. bill karins joins us after a quick break. eak.insurance so you only pay for what you need? given my unique lifestyle, that'd be perfect! let me grab a pen and some paper. know what? i'm gonna switch now. just need my desk... my chair... and my phone. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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that doesn't see these kind of winds very often. >> it's amazing tropical storm warning for new york city, right over the top of it, but thankfully this is lower, weaker tropical storm and it's actually moving a decent clip. we don't have to worry about a horrific flooding. in some areas this will be a welcomed rain. there will be minor problems. beach closures because of rip currents. some of the pictures from atlantic city and this is where we're going to see the landfall, landfall like a big hurricane, even tropical storms getting landfall the center of the storm is crossing land. that will happen over the next hour over top of atlantic city. really hasn't been all that bad. some areas have gotten 2, 3 inches of rain. so, i think the worst part for the jersey shore just lost revenue from summer beach days.

let's get into some of the stats, 2:00 update from the national hurricane center, they did find 60-mile-per-hour winds over the ocean. we're waiting to see if that any translates and moves onshore. along the jersey shore and long island, possibly near new york city, that faster movement gets everyone in and out of the rain quicker. slow-moving storms give us the epic rainfall totals. by 8:00 p.m. this evening, new york city. saturday morning, north of the capital district, into areas of northern new england. it will last about 12 thours or so and then it will be gone. by saturday it's gone. still have tropical storm warnings. dangerous beach days. we can get minor flooding. rainfall totals as we said up to about 7 inches, isolated.

this is our "f"-named storm, our fifth named storm. >> trust me, i think about it all the time. hurricane andrew with an "a" was in late august, and we're already in mid-july, it e's already f. >> that will do that for us. in the meantime, nicolle wallace and brian williams pick things up after a very quick break. it's our weekend special, save up to $900 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. plus 0% interest for 48 months. ends monday. ior anything i want to buy isk going to be on rakuten. rakuten is easy to use, free to sign up and it's in over 3,000 stores. i buy a lot of makeup. shampoo, conditioner.

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good day, brian williams here with you. 3:00 p.m. here in the east. 12 noon out west. thankfully nicolle wallace will join us momentarily. but first the headlines and the facts as we know them at this hour. nearly 60,000 more americans were diagnosed with the coronavirus just in the space of yesterday. that's the highest number thus far, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to nearly 3.2 million. a number of states including texas and florida set new daily infection records as well. florida and tennessee reported their highest daily death tolls with the virus now killing more than 134,000 souls across our country. texas' governor greg abbott said his state may need to be locked down again to slow the spread of

the virus after the state reported another 10,000 new cases just yesterday and after the daily death toll there has now passed 100. the world health organization expanded its guidance to include the possibility that the virus could be spread through tiny droplets that linger in the air, even though the agency maintains it spreads through close contact with infected people. the move comes days after as we reported here hundreds of scientists signed an open letter urging the w.h.o. the acknowledge at least the possibility of airborne transmission. president trump is postponing his rally scheduled for tomorrow night in new hampshire, not because of the pandemic but because of tropical storm fay. his campaign says it will be rescheduled for some time in the next couple of weeks. as the number of infections grow so do does the rift between the president and his top health officials. while the president keeps

repeating inaccurate claims about testing and case numbers and how long the virus will stick around in our country, the washington post reporting his administration is sidelining health experts and pressuring the cdc to downplay the dangers of the virus. one adviser told the post, quote, there's a view the cdc is staffed with deep state democrats that are trying to tweak the administration, one recipient of this treatment may well be dr. fauci who told the financial times he hasn't seen trump in person since june 2nd, hasn't briefed him at least two months, so dr. fauci who hasn't been seen in a white house coronavirus task force briefing in weeks is forced to get his message out to the public through interviews with lawmakers, podcasts, websites, like the one he did thursday with fivethirtyeight.com.

>> how do you think the u.s. is doing right now? just in a -- if you're looking across the world, what are your feelings about how we're doing right now. >> as a country when you compare us to other countries i don't think crow can say we're doing great. we're just not. >> please remember he's our prethem meant disease specialist. the president tried to even up the score last night on fox news. >> dr. fauci's a nice man, he's made at lot of mistakes, you don't have to ban them from coming in from very infected china. i banned europe from coming in when italy and france and spain were having all the problems. we have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. they've been wrong about a lot of things includes face masks, maybe they're wrong or not. lot of them said don't wear a mask, don't wear a mask, now

they're saying wear a mask. lot of mistakes were made. a lot of mistake and we're joined by my friend and colleague nicolle wallace, host of "deadline: white house," nicolle, i brought something today to put on the screen, recognizing the daily flurry and the numbing possibility of all the numbers. these are percentage increases, these are not total cases, florida for example, that's not an increase in 1,393 cases, that's an increase of 1 3shgz,3 coronavirus deaths. idaho, arizona, south carolina, texas, those are percentages, meantime places like new york are showing a 52% decrease in cases. so, we -- we correctly refer to this as the second spike of the first wave, this is big trouble

and a rolling crisis. >> the saddest thing about it it didn't have to be this way. new york showed the country how horrible the pandemic was, how quickly and easily coronavirus spreads. there was incredible reporting from our news organization, from "the new york times" of the apocalyptic scenes in the emergency rooms there. the science was trying to figure out. they know more out. the country, the governors stumbled eyes wide open and intentionally into those numbers. those states opened with trump cheering them on in defiance of trump's cdc. you don't wish this pandemic on a single soul. the leaders of these states knew

exactly what this pandemic did, exactly how they acted because all they had to do was look at new york and new jersey and some of the earliest hit states. flout the recommendations to wear masks anyway. i just hope that there's some better sense, i mean it's never too late to do healthier things and, you just hope that these trump allies have seen that trump has been so wrong about so many things and he's on the cusp of being wrong about a whole bunch of new things, schools reopening. the professional sports are in a literal bubble. they can't keep the infections under control in those bubbles for professional athletes. i'm not sure how we get all of our kids back to school safely. it's unbelievable. >> i know for good reason we tend to see politics intertwined in everything but just in the

cases of texas and florida, two ardent supporters of donald trump, 50 million americans live in texas and florida. again, these texas cases up 1300 .as we've been reporting the state of texas has been struggling to deal with this surge, hospitals are being overwhelmed by the growing number of patients, but they're not the only ones being stretched to the limit. so are the first responders. those called upon to transport dozens of covid-19 patients to the hospital every day, and by doing so, even though it's their jobs, putting their own lives and families at risk. just as we witnessed during new york, as you mentioned during the bad old days in april. correspondent and texas native garrett haake spent some time with paramedics in ft. worth.

garrett? >> reporter: brian, this is difficult and dangerous duty for these paramedics in the best of times and these are far from the best of times. 100-degree day territory out here in texas and these paramedics are doing the same work e.r. doctors and nurses would be doing without the benefit of an e.r. around them. going out on a dozen calls they know are covid calls. for people who don't want to be transported. they wanted to be checked out and told if they're okay to stay home because they feel that's safer and it's not just the covid calls, if you get called to a gunshot or a car crash or to any of the other myriad things that a paramedic would be called, they have to treat these calls as they're responding to someone as covid positive as all. they have to protect themselves and their own families. one worker is paying for a hotel

room to make sure he doesn't bring the virus home to his son, a teenager. >> even when i'm home, me and my son used to be really close, we would sit real close to each other and since this whole covid has been going i make sure we stay, you know, a decent amount of distance from each other just because i'm afraid that i'd potentially give it to him if i bring it home to me. >> he's got to be proud of what you're doing? >> i'd like to think so. >> reporter: so, important and brave work being done here and i think it's important to note, this has been being done for months. the pandemic response in texas started the same time it did everywhere else in the country, only now are seeing this incredible spike here, the risk of exhaustion and fatigue and burnout is very real, nicolle. >> it's unbelievably sad

situation and the sacrifices they're making are always worthy of our attention. thank you, garrett n ft. worth for bringing us that reporting. joining us is an infectious disease specialist. and peter baker, "the new york times" chief white house correspondent. fortunately for us, both msnbc contributors. >> doctor, let me start with you. brian put up that graph with the explosion of cases in states that opened. what do those states do now. >> nicolle, one of the things that the administration's been trying to say the reason that cases are up because are testing is up, americans are hearing this and are confused. i think what they're trying to say, in new york in the worst month, there wasn't enough testing, you know, disease activity that we didn't pick up,

and now we're testing more, we're picking up the existing disease activity in the community, the death rate may have improved. the issue is still we're seeing the greater the number, the more cases you see being transmitted in the community. the greater the number, the absolute number of people who get hospitalized and then a portion of those will die unfortunately because of this disease and what we know about it. and the trouble here is that the national death rate, the daily death rate has switched, it's going up again. seven months into this pandemic. we shouldn't be seeing this. the trouble is for most of us who are watching this unfortunately predict those numbers will continue to go up because there's lag and the reason they'll continue to go up because many states that did open, they didn't roll back those reopenings until there was a huge spike in cases, so that trickle effect of seeing

hospitalizations and those deaths, we'll start seeing the results of that. what they do now they have to correct t take the correct measures. and they have to sort of do that with the recognition that the worst is yet to come before it gets better again. >> peter baker, anthony fauci dropping a bombshell yesterday, saying that he hasn't briefed the president in two months, hasn't seen him since june 2nd. is the president getting any information anymore other than from cable news he takes in? >> i think the president knows what he thinks about it. he's not interested in hearing from dr. fauci and other experts. he's very dismissive of dr. fauci last night in his interview with sean hannity on fox. obviously, deborah birx is still in the white house and other

advisers around him at times. but it doesn't seem like he's spending a lot of time discu discussing this with them. he has made clear, pushing for the reopening of schools that the concerns that so many doctors and educators have about how to do that safely if it can be done safely don't really figure into his calculation, he's made it very clear, all or nothing. they should haopen period. the guidance at cdc put out for schools was too expensive. so i think -- it's not surprising on the one hand he's not really hearing from dr. fauci these days because that's the approach he's taking. on the other hand, obviously it means he has put the economy and other factors ahead of the advice he's been getting from these public health experts, obstacles to his goal of reopening the country. >> peter baker, let's talk about the math that's always so important to this president.

dr. fauci when asked about credibility on covid, whose word do you trust, most americans poll him 3 to 1 over this president. when we come him the nation's infectious disease specialist, not a label we attach likely. he has such high credibility in his public utterance. very difficult to see him before a podium, any official backdrop these days, these days if you want to hear from the nation's preeminent infectious disease specialist, a pod cast to get the lastest from dr. fauci. >> dr. fauci has been around for a long time. he's been advising presidents going back to ronald reagan on questions about public health. democrats and republicans alike have long relied on his advice. the president last night said,

well, dr. fauci made a lot of mistakes. clear that dr. fauci is not a political figure. that's the danger here for him and other public health experts that they be seen as neutral, nonpartisan individuals. on the science and the facts as they see them and not being partisan figures. with the president these days clearly saying anybody who's talking about closing schools or keeping schools closed are only doing so for partisan reasons. only the hurt him. that's inflamed the situation. much harder for anyone to have a thoughtful conversation about these difficult issues when politics is so fraying that conversation. >> doctor, i'm remembering the first utterance of our surgeon general after the -- the initial rise of covid-19, that initial scare back in february and march

was to talk about the president's personal physical stamina and his fitness, it's also the surgeon who told us that we should not rush out and get or wear a mask in public. please reaffirm to those watching, the public role in public health, every time we don't hear the truths from these officials is a deficit for our society. >> that's right, brian. and here's the trouble, this administration has done the very damaging narrative which is they're conflating the need for public health measures put upon us for public health officials than necessitated by this tragedy which is this pandemic. if you completely destroy that trust in public health, what you're doing is your public won't follow those measures to

keep themselves safe. or take part in contact tracing. they won't take the vaccine out. already data that antivaccinati antivaccination groups are mixing with anti-mask groups. when the president calls out the cdc on twitter, public undercutting the credibility of the cdc, the very public health inf infrastructure we need to respond. dr. redfield said the cdc will not amending its guidelines. by amending guidelines to political pressure they're feeding into this. then talk about the fact that there's uncertainty because the science is evolving. >> to peter baker, our thanks to starting our conversation on a friday afternoon a break in our coverage.

we return -- a rare look inside a covid treatment floor in a hospital, in south carolina, where cases of coronavirus are currently spiking. and later -- again, just like the bad old days, the worst of it back in april, we're hearing it again from doctors and nurses not enough ppe to do their jobs safely. reports of shortages in states like texas, california. we'll get an update on that situation when we continue. ntine

welcome back. while it hasn't received most of the attention the state of south carolina is another one of those sun belt states witnessing a rapid rise in coronavirus cases. south carolina now has over 50,000 confirmed cases statewide. the daily beast notes that the state is now reporting more cases per capita than most nations on earth. frontline medical workers say hospitals in the area are under siege. and e.r. nurse in charleston warned, quote, we're going to be worse than new york. a doctor added, quote, we completely lost control of the situation in south carolina -- and it's completely embarrassing. now nbc news has received an inside look at the dire situation for those medical professionals as they lead this

fight. joining us now from west columbia, south carolina, alison barber, they were granted an exclusive look at the covid floor at the lexington medical center, one of the region's largest hospitals. >> reporter: hi, brian. we spent 4.5 hours inside this hospital yesterday. we started the day on the floor of the emergency department speaking to a woman who had been admitted to the hospital because for two weeks she's had covid-19 and her symptoms have gotten worse. from there we went to the covid icu floor, where currently they only have four beds that are unavailable right now, doctors say they're starting to get overwhelmed here. some people look at the numbers in south carolina and they say, just at the total number it's not as bad as new york or florida, but the doctors in this area say that comparison doesn't really work because it's about the overall numbers.

the per cent, consistently in state across the board you're seeing around 20% of the covid tests come back positive. this hospital says in the last 11 days the number of confirmed covid patients hospitalized have triple. when we walked into that covid icu floor, the first thing we found out there was a patient about to be intubated. the third patient so far that day to be put on a ventilator. three people had to be put on a ventilator. yesterday. from watching other hot spots places like new york and other countries is if you put a covid patient on a ventilator it's very hard to get them off alive. doctors were forced to do it three times. the one thing doctors, nurses, patients are asking is that people wear a face mask, we talked to so many doctors who

said that's the one thing that outside of the hospital that people can do to help them, help the people who are sick right now to try and stop what they call a very clear of surge of cases in the state of south carolina and in this particular area. after 18 weeks of fighting this pandemic, this hospital says their numbers are now worse than they were before, doctors say they need more testing. patients that we spoke to still fighting covid inside the hospital, they said the exact same thing. listen here. >> i got sick on tuesday, took a test on a wednesday. but i had to wait until the results come back. it really helped if i had got some attention before for the five days. by the time i got the attention, i couldn't breathe. i was weak. i couldn't walk from here to the

restroom. i used to wear a mask, mandatory situations mostly -- when i get out of here i'm going wear it everywhere. >> reporter: governor mcmaster announced today his plans to have places serving alcohol, bars, to stop serving and close after 11:00 p.m. the doctors, the nurses here that i spoke to, that's not really the action they were hoping to see from the governor. what the doctors here, from the ceo of the hospital, doctors working day-to-day on the covid floor, they want to see a statewide mask ordnance, requiring people to wear masks. >> that word behind ellison barber says it all the emergency under way. thank you for your reporting and

bringing us inside. another break for nicolle and me. when we come back -- the nurses in the thick of the fight, in the midst of a spike running low on the tools of their trade. again. (vo) parents have a way of imagining the worst... ...especially when your easily distracted teenager has the car. at subaru, we're taking on distracted driving... ...with sensors that alert you when your eyes are off the road.

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i know that it's not ununexpected to have an increase in covid cases. with the reopening of businesses and trying to get