good afternoon. we're continuing to follow breaking news out of california this hour. a fire followed by a loud explosion aboard the u.s. military ship, the uss bonhomme richard in san diego just south of the downtown area. dark smoke billowing out. we have confirmed 11 people have been injured. the extent of the injury still unclear at this moment. the huge challenge is putting out the fire. we'll bring you updates here on msnbc as we learn more. at this hour covid-19 cases skyrocketing past 3.2 million as several states report a record number of new infections. shocking numbers out of florida today as the state reports over 15,000 new cases. the sharpest single day spike of

any other state. this comes as the white house looks to discredit dr. anthony fauci who once played a very prom innoceinent role in the wh house pandemic response. a white house official providing nbc with a lengthy list of past comments that have not aged well, including fauci saying in january that coronavirus was not driven by asymptomic carriers and his comment in march that people should not be walking around with masks. fauci supporters acknowledge those early mistakes to the washington post attributing them to the challenges posted by a new, largely unknown pathogen as numerous hot spots i merge across the country, the president abandoned his anti-mask stance and dawns face covering for the first time publicly while visiting walter reed medical center. for some, it's too little, too late. new polling tracker reveals trump is trailing joe biden in florida by six points. the two candidates are virtually tied in texas and arizona. two other traditionally red

states according to this poll. this comes as president trump's decision to commute the sentence of his long time friend roger stone sparks out cry from both sides of the aisle. biden has condemned the mt.'s moves many conservatives are raising the alarm including william barr who recommended against granting stone clemency. robert mueller penned a rare and stinging op-ed defending the investigation saying stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. he remains a convicted felon and rightly so. joining me now to discuss all of this, hays brown.

all right. i want to start with you and some of the reporting that we have seen first by the washington post. also then supported by reporting from nbc news. you have the white house really marginalizing dr. fauci and what is perhaps even more alarming and i would love for you to underscore sort of how unusual and how rare this is to see the type of opposition research dump that we have now all seen being laid out against someone like dr. anthony fauci. >> right. you put it perfectly, it was an opposition dump. this list of mistakes that fauci has made since the beginning is the sort of thing you see from a political campaign to discredit their opponent. not what you see from a white house talking about a public ser van -- servant. that's what feels is fauci is

out there trying to speak the truth but it clashes with the narrative that the white house is trying to put out there. things are going to be okay. trump statement from a few weeks back that what we see embers out there of the coronavirus. fauci saying the exact opposite of that. he is saying we have extremely large fires blazing right now. we need to act quickly to take them out. that is not what the president wants to hear. him being put to the side is something we feared since the beginning. now the white house is following through and it seems like fauci is doing his best to get out there and, not necessarily on television which is where the president has most of his focus and he'll come directly into the president's line of sight but he's trying to get the message out there that this pandemic is not going away. it's getting worse again. >> this story about the president wearing a mask months

after health officials were telling americans across the country that they needed to be wearing masks in other words to stop the spread of this virus should not be remarkable. should not be newsworthy that the president wore a mask and yet here we are. what is more interesti ining th the president wearing his mask is supporters saying doesn't he look presidential. doesn't he look great and some of the reporting we're now saying they are trying to encourage him to do this. i wonder based on your reporting, do you have anything to add or if that signals any other movement inside the white house when it comes to responding to this pandemic? >> there's been concern within the white house about the president being off message when it comes to basic things like wearing a mask. reporters, for a while were required to wear a mask and then they weren't. it was moving in the opposite direction within the white house itself. we know there have been folks within the administration that

have contracted covid-19. it was a very big push to get the president to wear a mask. the reason he hadn't done so so far is he didn't like the look of it. certainly, this campaign now to publicly praise the look is meant to encourage the president to continue to do so. this is all as the administration is pushing for the reopening of the economy and the reopening of schools in a way that it runs counter in in ways to the cdc own recommendations as well as dr. fauci's advice as to how to do this safely. it's really amazing that at a time when we are seeing these dramatic spike in numbers, we're beginning to see the resulting spike in numbers of deaths as well that there's so much focus around just praising the president enough so he wears mask and signals to his supporters they ought to do the same. >> frank, even the surgeon

general is reversing course on wearing mask. >> we had no data to suggest this would go away. we know 90% of our population is still at risk for the concern. we were hopeful it would diminish in the summer but we didn't count on it. yes, there's a possibilities it could be worse in fall and we are all continuing to increase everything we do. >> that was the secretary of health and human services. i know you look at everything through a security lens. how to we keep our country safe. what i'd like you to do is equi equi connect the stories. when you look at the dump against fauci and you see the president wearing his mask and you see betsy devos saying that schools should open, what does that all say to you about the state of response to this pandemic? >> the response should not surprise any of us because it's

literally a page out of the same play book that trump uses when he handles national security matters. when he denigrates his intelligent services and chooses to turn the rule of law on its head by commuting sentences and offering to pardon his cronies. all of this is a playbook that says i'm the only one that gets it right. i detest experts in the science field or the intelligence field and i will never, ever concede that i may have taken us down the wrong course. i'll never apologize. i'll never suggest changing sour courses. the wearing of the mask yesterday was not, as we can see by fak he's ait canni innin inns was a response to falling where the nation is telling him, you're screwing this up badly and we need some different conduct from you. that's what that mask was about.

look, from a security standpoint when i saw him wearing that mask, i couldn't help but think that he is wearing a mask as he is visiting wounded soldiers. some of them were likely wounded in combat at the hands of russian funded taliban terrorists. think about that scenario and think about whether that went through the head of those soldiers lying in their beds. >> zincynthia, i do want to picp on the roger stone story and the message the president is sending by commuting his sentence. >> the message is if you help me, i will protect you. that's stone was counting on that. he has bragged that he did not roll on the president. he expected a pardon and he got it. it's not surprising at all that he got pardoned. the president has been saying he will do it for a long time. the problem, to me, the biggest

problem is that is the silence in the organized republican party. they have tolerated this behavior. we can tie together the fauci story. the president is attacking fauci. where is the organized republican party defending this man who is a patriot. who is fundamentally the guy who solved the aids crisis, who has given 50 years to his country and nothing when the white house does an opo dump on it. the president takes putin's word over our intelligence services or says nothing about the fact that putin has money on the head of the american soldiers. the president does nothing. none of that is surprising anymore. it's shocking to me that nobody stands up to him. i think that will be a long term legacy of this presidency. >> to your point about congress, hays, you have the washington post reporting that senate

judiciary committee lindsey graham will allow mueller to testify or is open to allowing mueller testify before his panel in the wake of the op-ed that mueller wrote. i wonder what you make of that news. >> i think that this news comes on a couple different levels for lindsey graham. he's facing a harder than expected re-election campaign in south carolina this year. he knows he needs to sure up the base to make sure they do come out and vote for him but he also needs to make sure he isn't seen as too hyper partisan, too extreme to win over the votes that he needs to in south carolina and more urban areas to get re-elected. that's on the political side of things. in terms of what this will look like and mean, it's hard to say especially since lindsey graham has done things like, he still wants to pursue whether or not hunter biden did anything wrong in ukraine even after the

president's impeachment trial. he's trying to have it both ways. he is focusing on making sure that he is not so politically out there that he comes across as being unelectable come the fall. >> frank, i wonder what you makes of this schism between barr and trump when it comes to commuting roger stone. >> i'm at the point now where i believe wholeheartedly that any messaging that comes out of doj and the white house is coordinated and designed to deceive. i'm not buying it that barr was pounding his fist on the table saying you shall not commute the sentence of roger stone. i think this is a bunch of pr that we're getting to show there is some distance and professional distance happening at doj. i don't believe it for a second. i don't trust this attorney general. i don't take saying that lightly. this is not someone whose track

record speaks to truth and voracity. >> cynthia, do you agree with frank's assessment? >> i do. i think it's gutless to leak that you disagreed with this commutation. he stands up for the president and has violated the rights of people protesting in laufayette park. now when the country is a opposed to the commutation of stone, instead of having the guts to come out publicly and tell the president, if you do this, i will resign, he leaks to some reporters and says that he disagreed with it as well as other people in the white house. i think it's gutless and predictable. if they want to make a difference in the department of justice and the justice system in this country, they need to come out aggressively instead of just leaking. >> this all happens as we're a

little bit more than 100 days away from november's elections. you've seen the polls that coming out specifically in battleground states and in states that are often republican strongholds. florida, texas, joe biden leading donald trump in many of these polls. what do you make of these numbers, specifically, the numbers about voters really casting their ballot or making their choice predicated on the president's handling of this pandemic? >> i think the fact we're seeing places like arizona, florida and texas be the states that are turning from -- that a looking a lot less red at this moment, it's not coincidental these are places where in realtime we're seeing extreme spikes in the coronavirus and both in incidents diagnosis and in deaths. this is, to call it a referendum on the white house's response to the coronavirus is putting it

mildly. the president is the incumbent. an incumbent president has to lead on his record and how he has led the country. the number one issue facing all americans right now is this pandemic and what the poll numbers are saying is that voters, as of now, it's still some time. things change very quickly inth voters are saying right now is that they are not satisfied with the response that is coming from the federal government from the white house. it is misleading. it is confusing, at best a and states are left to fends for themselves and americans are being affected not just in the economy but in fearing for the held and lively hoods of their loved ones. this is a major issue where donald trump seems to be losing at this point even as joe biden hasn't been able to be out come paining as much. the president is losing this election at this point. >> major issue, indeed.

thank you all. a woman who lost her father to coronavirus says it didn't have to happen. she'll tell me why she says the governor of arizona is responsible, next. a is responsibl ne,ext. whether it's bribes to roll over. ...or an overdue makeover. get all your pet essentials right when you need them, with curbside pickup at petsmart. just order online, drive up, check-in, and pick up. if you have a garden you know, weeds are low down little scoundrels. draw the line with roundup. the sure shot wand extends with a protective shield

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as coronavirus related deaths soar past 135,000, it's important to remember those deaths are more than just numbers. in a iing obituary that hz gone viral, she blames her father's death on the lack of leadership. the politicians that continue to jeopardize the health of brown bodies. first, i'm so sorry for your loss and so grateful that you're taking the time to speak with us. the obituary has struck a cord. why do you believe that is? >> i believe people in the united states and beyond are fed up with the leadership or lack

thereof from our elected officials and their mismanagement of this pandemic. in the case of my father, he was listening to the shelter in place ordinance. i was very concerned about the pandemic early on. i have friends who study pandemics. my work is working to stop deforestation which helps to curve pandemics. they opened things up and down playing the severity. my dad had mixed messages and thought it was same go about and assume life add normal. i believe they have blood on their hands. not just for my father's death but for countless individuals all across the country. >> governor doocy still refusing to implement a mask man date.

what would you like your message to be to the governor and other elected officials? >> twofold. first of all, listen to scientists. mandate mask wearing. slow down the opening and listen to the people. i believe that the movement that we're starting to build through marked by covid will soon have people all across the country coming forward to share their stories and it's only going to be a matter of time before they can't stop listening to us. >> your initiatinitiative, tell bit more about it and what you hope it will mean for other families that have been impacted by this virus. >> sure. my dad's name was mark. it's a little bit of a nod to him. i've been really inspired by the aids memorial quilt which during the aids crisis did a fantastic job of helping to put faces to the numbers of lives lost and

kind of taking a page from that, we're starting to collect stories through our facebook page and through our website marked by covid and starting to tell people stories. we're also encouraging people to bring pictures and momentos of their loved ones to their state capital and levaving those ther to start to demonstrate the overwhelming loss that we're experiencing from this terrible mismanagement, this down playing of the virus that's resulting in unnecessary and preventible deaths. my father, his life was robbed. i am just getting started. >> i'm looking at all of these images that you shared of your dad and looks like he was a lot of fun. looks like he had great sense ov humor. what do you want people at home to know about your dad? >> my dad was a good person who

did not deserve to die alone in a hospital with only a nurse holding his hand. he was a huge generous individual that would give the shirt off of his back, drive across town, help somebody, a friend of a friend move furniture in 115-degree heat. my dad didn't deserve this. he was loved my many and will be missed for the rest of our lives. >> thank you so much. up next, how universities are fighting the trump administration to keep foreign students in the country. for some the debate over statues in america hits close to home. why he thinks statues honoring the founding father should be removed. ng the founding father should be removed. get out and go again. to visit all the places we didn't know meant so much. but we're all going at our own speed.

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the president made news

friday saying in an exclollusiv interview he's planning to sign an executive order on immigration that includes a road to citizenship for daca resip yentss. >> we're working out the legal complexities right now but i'm going to be signing major immigration bill as an executive order. one of the aspects of the bill is going to be daca. we'll have a road to citizenship. >> the white house quickly came in and cleaned up trump's statement with this statement by white house spokesperson who said, quote, the president has long said he is willing to work with congress on a negotiated legislative solution to daca. one that would include citizenship, along with strong border security. this does not include amnesty. advocates say this is a politically motivated side show meant to distract from the sthut that the president spent three years trying to kill daca. when the supreme court, trump insisted he would try again. the uncertainty for daca driving

business leaders to pen a letter urging the trump administration to lever the program alone for economic and health reasons amid the pandemic fight. a critical deadline approaches, a federal judge urging i.c.e. to release children from three family centers by this friday. first, could you make heads or tails of what the president was saying there and more specifically, what is your response on the daca piece of his answer? >> we have seen this rodeo or this movie before. riding 2017 when the trump administration killed daca. we engaged in campaign to pass legislation and republicans and trump completely refused to pass permanent solutions. pain and the anxiety recipients

to pass an agenda with the help of stephen miller to attack immigrants. we will not be fooled. the only way to protect immigrants and daca recipients is by voting trump out of office. >> michelle, this entire exchange has sort of diverted our attention from what we know to be absolutelily try ltrue wh the changes to asylum. there was a story about a honduran who just two days after giving birth to her son in the u.s. was walked to mexico with her newborn. the family has tried asking for asylum protections but were sent to mexico to wait while cases were completed. what is it like for asylum seekers trying to seem asylum to

united states in america? >> they have cut off access in a number of unbelievable ways. we started with blocking people from blocking people from entering and they kept layering things on. now the most recent is the regulations to make it impossible for anybody to qualify. courts have said some of these are legal. we have some relief there. it is still legal to seek asylum. this administration has done so create so many obstacles that almost nobody qualifies. everybody gets stopped before they get to the border, when thigh a they are at the border or immediately once they get passed the border. >> this july 17th deadline is coming soon. a judge said all children need

to be released. what is left in question is what happens to their parents. i.c.e. is use their discretion to release the families together. do you have any sense of what is going to happen between now and friday? >> her order was clear the children need to be released. she described the detention centers as being on fire. they are not safe places for the children. you can't order the parents released. it's up to i.c.e. what we know in the past is they have no intention of separating families together. they can, of course. they have that authority and in fact there's really no reasonable justified reason for them not to release families together. it doesn't make sense to me they would want to do that.

it's clearly not what the public supports. it's not necessary. it's not safe. they really need to release them as soon as possible. >> the new york times has a very revealing interview out with elaine duke. she was the acting homeland of security for four months in 2017. she said after hurricane marie yea, trump raised the possibility of divesting or selling the island of puerto rico. i'm sure you have read this piece. i'm sure there's lots that stands out. that stood out to me. i wonder that what tells you about the president's response to crisis. >> we're seeing is a complete failure. we're in the midst of pandemic as covid-19 cases are on the rise and people are dying and our hospitals are at capacity. what we see is this president in the midst of this man

demonstrat -- pandemic finding every single opportunity to continue to go after immigrants and uses resources from the federal government to put people in cages and keep the families that michelle is talking about in detention and the latest, to go after students even with international student visas. >> i have to say, michelle, i care about immigration and i care about these stories. i see them as being very connected. i also understand that if you are not a policy person, it's easy to lose the threat on the story. very big picture. last 30 seconds we have left, what do you see as the common denominator in these stories? >> in every single one of these cases, what we see is the trump administration going after immigrants and using them as pawns in his political game. really not discriminating against whether they are here as students, as asylum seeker, as

family members, as productive members of society or not. regardless, he's just atakie a immigrants on every turn and creating chaos. >> thank you both. still ahead, political ad wars are nothing new in a big election but this year the president is facing a new challenge. attack ads from his fellow republicans. we'll look at the messages they have from voters. let's send it to lindsay for the news from san diego. >> we keep watching this mass ifr fire erupting aboard a u.s. military ship. that's just south of the downtown area. let's take a look right now at some of the video we have. for those of you listening on sirius xm radio. you see a mass ifr fire, billowing clouds of smoke. this fire was followed by a loud explosion. the navy is saying 18 sailors

have been transportsed the the hospital. they have minor injuries nape are all expected to be okay. the entire crew of the ship is accounted for. this is an amphibious assault ship. the cause of the fire is still unclear. we know a public affairs officer for the naval base in san diego is telling our nbc affiliate there that the ship had undergone a regular maintenance cycle right before fire was reported. the video just cut out but we have another feed right there. this ship has called san diego home since 2018. it was docked in japan before that for six years. you see it's very close to other naval ships there. that fleet has about 46 ships but it looks like the fire just contained to the bonhomme richard. we know about 160 sailors were aboard when the fire erupted. we'll continue to bring you updates here on msnbc. we'll be right back. u updates here on msnbc. we'll be right back. s. essential for sewing, but maybe not for people with certain inflammatory conditions. because there are options.

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president trump is spending ten times more than vice president biden on tv ads. a new university analysis says trump spent $31 million to biden's 3 million in may and june. that kind of spending may not mean bad news for biden. outside groups including republicans against president trump are spending millions more like the lincoln project that put out this ad overnight. >> now, trump saves roger stone. stone lied to cover up russian

involvement in trump's campaign to protect donald trump. 7 felony convictions. >> i am the law and order candidate. >> trump is the most corrupt president in u.s. history. there's only one way to end the trump crime spree. throw him and his crooks out of office. on november 3rd, vote for justice. >> let's bring in colin. great to see you both. ad that we just saw, what is the impact of an ad like that? >> look, i think it has great impact. i think what the lincoln project has been successfully able to understand and do is the new media environment in which we live in. lots of campaigns are run over a five or ten ark. they are makie ining themselvesn in the media cycle and injecting themselves in political pop culture. i think that, over time, is very effective. >> thea agnalysis found that 86

of the pro-biden ads are from outside groups. you think about frame works, not just the ad itself but the frame you're using to persuade someone who perhaps didn't vote for a democrat in 2016, how is that different and how are you seeing that play out in these ads? >> i'm so glad you asked in that way. i think it's incredibly important when we're evaluating these ads that we evaluate them through the lens of a fair intended purpose which is to persuade soft trump supporters. we have done incredible amount of research on soft trump supporters and almost every one of these lincoln project ads, much to my dismay miss the mark. first of all, soft trump supporters tend to be more women than men. they tend to be younger rather than older. first and foremost if your effort was persuasion, you would want ads that target women. the lincoln project ads don't.

second and most importantly, if someone voted for trump in 2016 and still maintains some measure of attachment, what we have seen in our research is that in order for an ad to move them away from that decision that they made, we need to do something we call open up the permission architecture for them to reckon with the fact that they thought one thing. they felt one way. they had one view and they were wrong and they now need to come to terms with the fact they changed their mind. what a lot of the ads do structurally is they are ads by never trumpers, for never trumpers. it's why democrats can't get enough of them. when you're a person who is not a never trumper, we need to open up that valve for you to hear it's okay you made this choice. that's what the testing shows

what a lot of these ads. they are incredibly successful among never trumpers. we can't get enough of them. among political people who live, eat and sleep politics but among their targets they don't tend to work. >> i want to show you another ad from a group called republican voters against trump. it was an ad that came out this week and it was using ronald reagan's iconic city on a hill speech against trump. >> are you convinced that we have earned the respect of the world and our allies? let us resolve tonight that young americans will always find the city of hope in a country that is free and let us resoevrr they will say we did keep faith with our god. we did act and we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill. >> who does that ad move?

>> i think this goes exactly to what we were discussing which is creating a permission structure which i happen to agree with. i don't think the lincoln project is to create a permission structure. it's to get us to talk about the ads so they are shared more widely than they are just through the media box. this is beginning of creating that permission structure visually and using a validater that every republican holds in high regard in president reagan. i think it's really good start to beginning to create that permission structure. >> i've got about a minute left. if you are of the biden campaign, how are you creating ads that stand in contrast to these ads? >> the other thing the data tells us definitively is your other guest said, rightly so, trump is well known. a lot of the listen we have trump is because we talked all

the time about trump. giving trump more air time is actually not in our service. first and foremost, if i were the biden campaign, i would say a heck of a lot less about trump and a more about biden because it is that pro-active affirm tiff tifr thing. we need to give people something to vote for and not something to revile. people are sick and tired of being sick and tired. continuing to present them to problem is not helping us out. >> thank you both. up next, the changing face of america. i'll talk to a descendant of thomas jefferson. talk to a desf thomas jefferson

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they did in society. jefferson did many great things and did some bad things as well. we just hear about the great and wonderful things they did, but there are complexities in their lives. and for confederate statues, there should be no argument about that, they should just calm down. >> how do you think we complicate the way in which we tell the history of these men? >> it's complicated because we don't tell the full story. they just want to highlight the things they did that were great. we need to start saying, they were slave owners, they may have raped people, they did this, they did that, they taught hate. we like to forget about some of the horrible things that happened in america, but this country was built on the backs of slaves. they gave their blood, their sweat, and their tears. by not acknowledging that, we're taking away their voice, we're

taking away their lives and all they did. we should be recognizing them for helping found this country as much as we celebrate jefferson and some of the other people that are being celebrated through thee statues. >> there is this side by side image of your portrait next to thomas jefferson that has just gone absolutely viral online. i wonder when people see that, which questions it is that you want to spark in their own mind, what is the commentary of that image? >> i was shocked when drew gardner with the smithsonian did this project as well. i never thought i looked anything like him. but when they morphed us both together, it's a powerful statement, this is what happened to our country. it's like holding a mirror up to america so they can see this is what our complicated past has brought us to, the rainbow effect and the diversity. i always like to say jefferson helped create this country in more ways than one, not only the foundation of the country but the people in it as well, a

diverse group of people. that's one of the reasons i think racism and discrimination is so stupid, because people could be hating people that have the same blood going through their veins as they do. >> president trump has of course spoken about the need to protect these statues and monuments. on the fourth of july of visited mt. rushmore where thomas jefferson's face is etched in stone. if you could sit down with the president, what would be your message on this? >> i would try and help him understand how divisive some of these statues can be, especially the confederate statues. there's no real explanation of why we should be naming military bases out of people who tried to divide and tear down this country instead of build it up. even given the illustration, if someone you loved was murdered or raped or hurt by some of this -- one of these people in these statues, and someone wanted to put the statue up in your backyard, on your block, how would you feel having to drive past this statue all the

time of this person who hurt your family member? a lot of these statues were put up to put people in their place, to degrade people, to remind people what their place in society is and what has been done to their family members. that's why it's so sad that people are supporting especially the confederate statues because of what they represent to those people and what they represent to people in different communities. just walk in someone else's shoes for once, see how you might be made to feel. that's why we shouldn't have these confederate statues up. >> shannon, the thread of this conversation is not only what monuments should come down but what should be erected in their place. one of the suggestions has been that it should be black women who helped found this country, who led a path from slavery into freedom.

i wonder as a defendant of sally hemming, how that sits with you. >> it's the same thing, one of my white jefferson cousins, lucius k. tresscot said, put harriet tubman there, she represented freedom. i think it's a great thing to show a diverse group of people helped found this country. i think it's a great option. i also think people will find quarl quarrels out there with anybody, even jesus, people who aren't christian will say this and that. maybe we should do something that's a representation of freedom, maybe it's not a person, maybe it's a peace sign. one of the things this president really needs to do, but i don't think it's going to happen, is to bring this country together, to unify people and stop being divisive and dividing people. we need peace and unity. some of our leadership won't be

able to do that, so you can do it in your own neighborhoods, with your own family and friends and the people you meet on the corner. this is the opportunity to be the change we want to see in the world. >> shannon, thank you for your time. that wraps it up for this hour. i'm alicia menendez. reverend al sharpton will talk to jamie harrison, the man trying to unseat south carolina senator lindsey graham in november, next in "politicsnation." for small prices, you can build big dreams. spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair today. ♪ ♪all strength ♪we ain't stoppin' believe me♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪

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