♪ i just saw a patient and admitted a patient who was 26 years old with covid. doesn't look good. i think he'll be fine but he's requiring lots of oxygen. we are at capacity meaning that we have no beds so he'll probably stay in the e.r. where at over 100% capacity if that's possible. >> i don't think we hit that peak at all so i think we are

going to be seeing increased numbers. we have been trying to avoid using the ventilator, doing the other therapies to try to get them better and not worked for us as of right now and so we have had to put the patients on the ventilator. >> not having a definitive treatment for this disease and, you know, we are doing everything we know what to do and we're still dying from it. it is tough. >> and once again, we begin this show with sound from medical workers on the front lines of this pandemic. welcome to monday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm katy tur. dr. fauci warned that cases would spike and death toll to rise to disturbing levels if the country and the leaders did not take control of the outbreak. they have not. and now cases are exploding. on friday the u.s. just reported a record 70,000 plus cases in a

single day. hospitalizations are soaring as you can see. the number of deaths across the country is going up and the president is deploying disinformation tactics and treating public health experts like they're campaign opponents. florida shattered the single day record over the weekend with 15,000 cases yesterday. the single biggest tally of any tate in this pandemic. if florida were a country, they'd have the fourth fastest growing case rate in the entire world. deaths as you can see are going up. governor ron desantis will hold a press briefing in miami as he faces criticism. we'll keep a close eye on that. as cases and hospitalizations also surge in california, the state's governor newsom has now ordered every county to close indoor restaurants, bars and theaters. texas broke its single day case

record over the weekend, as well. hospitalizations are soaring there. deaths are climbing there, as well. the governor is threatening another stay-at-home order. the military is deploying hundreds of medical personnel to that state. since friday roughly 20 states have reported a record number of cases and/or hospitalizations. the country's testing capacity once again is overloaded. hospitals are overwhelmed and a number of hotspots, protective equipment is running short. morgues are full and as i mentioned but it bears repeating the white house is deploying disinformation tactics and treating public health experts as they're opponents. the president down played the crisis and retweeted a conspiracy theory claiming that the cdc and doctors are lying to the public to try to hurt his re-election chances. his aides are trying to

discredit dr. fauci with campaign style opposition dumps. just let that sink in for a moment. the white house is dropping oppo on the nation's top infectious disease expert amid a raging pandemic. our nbc news team has the latest on the coronavirus from washington and around the nation. joining me first from the white house is monica alba. monica, starting with you, this research dump on anthony fauci, what does this signal to you about the white house's strategy for this pandemic going forward as hospitalizations are on the rise, as cases are on the rise, as red states grapple with this disease? >> reporter: remarkable document in and of itself sent to

reporters and because of what it contains because if you look at the timeline showed of the president, the vice president, others in the administration making almost identical comments to what dr. fauci was saying in the early days of the pandemic as we learned collectively what was contributing to the virus spread before knowing the details and trying to paint an incomplete picture which is perhaps the greatest metaphor for the health crisis. we saw the president earlier today at an event with nothing to do about the pandemic and he was asked specifically about the relationship with dr. fauci and he said that they were not at odds, taken his advice but at times disagreed with him and dr. fauci did not hesitate to contradict the president with an inaccurate claim and what's notable is that this is a significant escalation from the white house taking time and resources to try to undercut and

diminish the presence of the nation's top infectious disease expert dr. fauci and said he'll continue to be advising the president, that the president hasn't lost confidence in him and taken the sort of backseat role where he is reaching americans in far different way than the president is and continues to do media interviews and not briefed the president specifically on the pandemic in more than two months and not come face to face with him we're told since early june and comes as the president is trying to paint this rosier picture overall of what is happening. the press secretary earlier today from the podium said we'll continue doing what they're doing and when pressed on what that means specifically especially in these spiking cases and red states as you mentioned she didn't have much of an answer beyond we are just going to keep doing what we're doing and as you see there that polling that americans really have turned to dr. fauci as a more trusted source of

information especially as compared to the president. katy? >> monica, dr. fauci is a member of this administration. in some ways, the top infectious disease expert, a member of the president's coronavirus task force. he is one of the president's own experts. what does it say that he is treating him and the cdc and wearing a mask but not opening schools and taking safety precautions as a political opponent, all of those things as politically detrimental to the president of the united states? >> reporter: it shows you where the president's mind is on this and that's on the november election and basically resting his hopes for a second term he believes on this and that's why he is trying to make such a pivot for the economy and when dr. fauci has said we need to slow down, be careful, here are the things to do the president essentially cast him as dr. gloom or somebody who's been so extreme and said please don't listen to him, listen to me, i

want to get schools to reopen. you see a very, very clear dynamic here where dr. fauci relies on science and data and exper's the and the president is focused on what happens four months from now and making the pitch to re-election voters essentially saying don't listen to the doctors and health experts who are painting a darker picture of what's to come. trust me. that's a pretty risky political bet heading into re-election in november, katy. >> you cannot insult or even ignore an infectious virus into submission. it is not a political opponent. let's go to erin mclaughlin in california. it is an interesting case seeming like that state had a handle on things. they went through a lockdown and came out of a lockdown and now lockdowns back into effect.

tell me what governor newsom outlined today. >> reporter: once again, governor newsom taking drastic action, ordering certain businesses closed across some 30 countie counties representing 80% of the population of california including salons, gyms and houses of worship, taking a further step for the whole of the state ordering indoor dining shut down as well as bars and he's pointing to some really grim and disturbing statistics here in california. hospitalizations are on their way up, some 6,485 hospitalized due to covid-19 and a positivity rate of 7.7% and that is climbing, clearly authorities here in california are struggling to get the situation under control. >> another place to struggle is texas. that's where we find priscilla

thompson. the governor has come out, issued a mask mandate. hospitalizations are still on the rise. deaths are still on the rise there. i'm wondering, are you hearing anything about greg abbott deciding to go to a lockdown the way that california deciding to shut restaurants and bars and indoor activities that could contribute to this virus? what is on the table right now in texas? >> reporter: katy, governor abbott has softened to the idea of another lockdown if things don't turn around here but the one thing to see here is federal resources that are on the way. today one of those urban augmentation task force touched down on the ground here in houston. it is an 85-member unit and we just heard from the houston health authority that they were scouting locations today. it looks like they're taking over a wing of one of the

medical facilities here in houston setting up anywhere from 35 to 50 beds in order to help relieve some of the strain on the hospitals here and that is in addition the governor today announcing that 4 more of the task forces are coming to texas somewhere in the state to bring the total to 6 of those task forces that are here working to support medical professionals indy asian -- addition to those coming in to help as the spike in these cases is seen and, you know, one thing to point out is that those resources are really needed very urgently here in houston. today the state of texas reported 5,600 new positive cases which is lower than what we were seeing last week but more than 1,500 of those cases came from the city of houston so that is why you hear the mayor here calling on the governor to

issue a statewide order or give him the power to issue a citywide order but the mayor said he did not receive a response from the governor and the requests largely unanswered. katy? >> continuing down the sliding scale on urgent action from governor newsom to governor abbott, let's go to governor desantis and florida where we find sam brock, so governor desantis, sam, criticized for not taking this seriously, being flippant about the virus, mocking blue states like new york as they were dealing with the outbreak. florida recorded over 15,000 positive cases on sunday. that's the most of any state anywhere during this pandemic. we are going to hear from him in just a few minutes. is there any expectation that he's going to change his tune and start issuing statewide orders? at least to wear a mask or orders that might roll back some

of the reopenings? >> reporter: at this point, katy, to change his tune it would be a complete 180. i couldn't help but being struck when erin was speaking about in california waving the red flag at a positivity rate of 7.7%. right now in florida 20.7% last thursday, climbing down. the only good news from that is they have done more tests and down to 12.9% now but that is so far beyond what anywhere else in the country deemed acceptable right now that you would expect advanced measures, whether a lockdown, a statewide mandate for masks, something in that ilk. miami-dade county is the epicenter of the global epicenter. the icu capacity there 97.6%. if you tested someone in miami over the last couple of weeks better than 1 in 4 chance to

test positive. we are waiting to hear what governor desantis may or may not do. he is closing down bars. could there be a statewide lockdown? unlikely but we'll have to see. >> sam, you are standing outside of disney world. it is reopened but at the same time disney in hong kong is shutting back down again as a few new cases are coming out in that place. what is happening with disney world? do they feel comfortable staying open? why are they staying open? as florida recorded 15,000, more than 15,000 new cases on sunday alone. >> reporter: what a juxtaposition between the rest of the country and florida and disney world opening up in the surge and hong kong they're closing down disneyland. what's going on as far as disney is we have reached out to them a half dozen times and not received a single response on the visitors over the weekend.

on criticisms of opening right now. only left to speculate about making the plans well before florida saw this immense surge of 75,000 cases a week really but for the last couple of weeks and the population right now is greatly reduced with an online reservation system and capping the number of people in the park. we have talked to families saying i looked around and i could walk around and barely bump into anyone and keeping the numbers down and why still open at this point? perhaps it is the financial aspect of billion dollars every single month to remain closed and disney has yet to give us a response on where their psychology for this is at. >> 15,000 cases on sunday. 12,000 cases today. 52 cases, just 52 in hong kong and disney shut down. monica, another question to you and i will ask you on the subject of schools. we saw betsy devos defending

schools reopening across the country and news of california san diego and los angeles will have all online schools, there are other counties in this country considering the same thing for the fall. as this virus surges again is the white house going to soften the position on mandating from the podium even though they don't have the authority to do it but from demanding that schools reopen across the country? >> reporter: if you ask the president as a reporter did in that event earlier today the answer is, yes, schools must reopen. he didn't leave wiggle room there and notably earlier today press secretary said we defer to localities of what they think is best in their district. that's a change when the white house said in effect we don't like the current cdc guidance on reopening and offering guidelines and unclear whether the white house still intends to do that. our read from talking to officials here today is they may

lead and may say that in terms of localities they're okay with a north dakota making a different decision than a florida. that was a shift in position over the last few days but the president is firm on this and he was presented with a question that was pretty simple and on the mind of probably millions of parents in this country which is, if you're worried about sending your child back to school in the fall what should you do? the president answered in a couple of sentences with a stance, schools must reopen. schools must reopen. he doesn't seem to be seeing any hybrid approach or any middle ground. his position on this is really clear as educators and lawmakers and localitys have to make decisions in the next few weeks about what the fall semester might look like, katy. >> lots of schools start up in mid-august. thank you, everybody. ahead, much more on the raging coronavirus crisis in florida. more than 12,000 new cases and

infections today after this weekend's 15,000 case count. i'll talk with a florida mayor about the rush to respond. later, the growing bipartisan backlash over president trump's commutation of roger stone. could this be a sign of a true rift between the white house and republican lawmakers? hi, i'm pat and i'm 75 years old. we live in the mountains so i like to walk. i'm really busy in my life; i'm always doing something. i'm not a person that's going to sit too long. in the morning, i wake up and the first thing i do is go to my art studio. a couple came up and handed me a brochure on prevagen. i've been taking prevagen for about four years. i feel a little bit brighter and my mind just feels sharper. i would recommend it to anyone. it absolutely works. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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welcome back. coronavirus cases are surging across the country and the white house is taking the extraordinary step of trying to discredit the nation's top doctor. the white house sent nbc news and other news outlets a file of what is essentially opposition research on dr. anthony fauci, a key member of the coronavirus task force and the man who is guided the country through pandemics under six presidents. it comes as a time when the nation is struggling to control

the virus, regularly setting records for new infections and as deaths across the country start to tick up and as a trump loyalist former acting chief of staff admits the u.s. has a testing problem. pulmonologist and msnbc medical contributor dr. ben gupta joins me now. there's a real testing crisis across the country. in new york, it'll take you seven days to get the results of a test. mick mulvaney was complaining about a wait for his son and that his daughter didn't qualify for a test. in arizona, serven days at the least. there is part of that to do with quest diagnostics and lapcorp not processing tests as quickly as it needs to. what do we do to fix that

logjam? >> unfortunately, katy, there's not a lot to do. at a minimum it is 72 hours in a best-case scenario for that quest test to finalize the result. we are seeing five to seven days and some cases 27 days i have heard. makes contact tracing utterly useless. the larger question is if we make good on secretary devos claim that schools reopen and children are not at risk of schools reopen then we need point of care testing and that we think might actually happen by the end of the year, that's the type of test with a swab of your nose or spit into a tube for a result within 30 minutes. the problem no one in the administration is messaging on that type of test because that test is not available right now at scale. it is available if you're a major league baseball or nba but not school districts and that requires money. it will be available commercially by the end of the year and they need help. press secretary saying each

locality does their own thing is great but they still need federal support, federal money to support testing and then also to build out space, to build out the infection control barriers we need for schools safe return. >> if money doesn't get to schools and it looks increasingly unlikely that the money they need is not going to get to them, we don't prioritize education as other nations do, with our funding, is there something that the nation can do right now to make it safer in four to six week's time when schools start to reopen? if everybody in the country started to wear a mask tomorrow, could we be in a place where the curves flatten and decrease in places where they're currently spiking and we don't see anymore new spikes? >> yes. but that's going to require -- i hate to say this. no more bandanna masks. a study saying these t-shirts

don't do a darn thing. i have seen way too many to count and we have to comply with the rules and needs to be enforcement, katy. not just masks but a fine if you don't ware a mask. we need florida to lockdown, the hotspots need to lock down like new york did when they were not as worse of a position as florida. govern kno governor desantis, shutting down restaurants, common sense things, pausing on a fall semester for school reopenings. they need strong measures, katy. they need strong leadership. i don't think school's ready for reopening by the fall. i don't know a single teacher that wants to enter a classroom without the precautions in place. >> why is it that we as a country are not taking this virus and the necessary precautions and steps personally

as populations of other country? we are a much larger nation but why aren't we taking it as seriously at people in italy or hong kong are taking it? why are we out here and having a fight about what precautions are necessary, having a fight about whether or not this is a hoax, having a fight about whether or not to believe the top infectious disease expert should be listened to? why are we having such a hard time here? >> if i had the answer to that, katy, my gosh, i would say it right now. here's what i will say. the admiral over the weekend giroir basically stating that dr. fauci doesn't have a wide enough conception of the public good. what is he really saying? basically saying that there's a different way of thinking about the american public good and reopen schools that isn't through the lens of contending

with the outbreak as if dr. fauci doesn't have that interest in mind. there is a notion, this deranged demented view of individual freedom where i get it all the time. wear a mask. my body, my choice. there is an a deranged view of individual choice and people saying they won't wear a mask and saying that dr. fauci doesn't have a wide enough view of the public view and so distorted reality. the only way through this, the only way to normalize life is to contend with this virus head on. that's the only interest of everybody in public health and wearing a white coat but that rhetoric is twisted unfortunately. >> you know, i'll say this. new york went through a multi-month lockdown, painful, things are starting to reopen here. you can go to outdoor dining, walking into a shop with social distance and wear a mask. throughout new york city on

saturday for the first time we reported zero covid deaths for the first time in a while, at least. thank you so much for joining us today. coming up, the mayor of orange county, florida, on the you a urgent crisis. are phoenix schools ready to open? i'll have sk the superintendent about the plan for his students this fall. ♪ ♪

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welcome back. florida governor desantis was heckled by an angry resident moments ago. the man saying you are doing nothing to him. as disturbing covid-19 numbers come out of the state today. the governor is still holding that news conference but so far not announced any updates or protocols for the state. this as florida has shattered records of 15,000 new cases over the weekend. 15,000 new cases over the weekend. that is the most of any state at any time during the pandemic. that number out 12,624 today. the state surpassed numbers reported by new york during the height of its battle with the coronavirus back in april. and all of this as disney world opened for visitors in orlando and the debate of school

reopening also continues. joining me now is the mayor of orange county in florida, jerry demings. welcome, mayor. thank you for being here. governor desantis so far hasn't yet announced any major changes in protocol for the state. 15,000 new cases on sunday. over 12,000 today. what would you be putting in place if you could ask the governor to change something right now? >> well, first, let me say good evening to you, katy. we are always happy to be on the show. here within orange county we are both excited and concerned at the same time concerning the reopening of disney. we are excited because it was a long time coming. disney closed the doors back in mid-march and so they have had a four-month period of time now to really evaluate and come up with a very robust plan of how to

keep their guests safe as they reopen. but i'm also concerned because it's at a time when the numbers here within our county have increased significantly. we have about 19,000 cases of positive coronavirus reported in our community. to putt that in perspective, miami-dade county has over 60,000 cases but the positive thing here is that we have not exceeded our capacity within our hospitals. we are nowhere close to that. in fact. because of that, i'm reasonably confident that given the protocols that disney has put in place we should be able to have a successful outcome. of course, we are living during the era of a pandemic, none of us have been at this relative place before so it's really a living lab, it is an experiment. if there's any place on planet earth to get it right it's disney. they have an abundance of

technology and engineers and others who have looked at this and consulted with our local health offices to be able to reopen in a safe manner so we remain highly optimistic at this point. in addition we have several other theme parks that opened locally prior to disney. universal and sea world that opened and not tracked an outbreak to either reopening and we'll move forward but i want you to understand that we are going to be monitoring the numbers very closely here and if there's adjustments to be made i'll be the first to make the adjustments. >> mr. mare youyor, can you hea now? >> i can hear you now. >> okay. great. florida as a state just surpassed over the weekend 15,000 new cases. that's more than new york ever did. when new york was at the height of the crisis the state entirely

shut down from new york city all the way up north to upstate to buffalo. it was shut down, the entire state with free movement in this state. florida has more cases than new york did during its height. you don't have enough testing in florida to be able to tell where the virus is. you certainly can't do contact tracing. i'm a little confused how you're defending the reopening of a theme park in the middle of a pandemic when the state has no handle on the spread of this virus, especially considering that in hong kong there are 52 new cases and disney has shut down there. >> i can tell you two things that we primarily look at. the positivity and the hospital capacity. so what we are not seeing is that people are very kricritica ill, even those that are testing

positive. they tend to have minor symptoms and primarily they're asymptomatic so that is a significant difference i think than what you saw back in new york at the height of the surge during that period of time. the hospital system had been overrun. there were many, many more -- >> there are a number of hospitals in florida talking about not having icu capacity, mr. mayor, hospitals in florida worried of running out of beds. death is a lagging indicator as we have seen. deaths are upticking right now. and you're defending the opening of a theme park, also just to be clear, you might not have a ton of cases in orange county but it's not only orange county residents that are going to walt disney world. it is people from all over the state and frankly all over the adjoining states who are able to drive in for the most part. it is not con funfined to just

county. >> i'm saying i'm not in the business to defend a corporate decision by disney. our government put out a statewide executive order that gave guidance to the reopening. disney followed that particular plan and we had the privilege to review it and so that's where we are here in the state of florida. governor desantis continued to say that he supports the reopening so given that at the local level while we have to do -- what we have to do is if the businesses reopen they do so in the safest manner possible and what i'm saying to you is that we believe that the measures that disney put in place should give us a kind of outcomes. at the same time that the guests are coming into the park they're hosting the nba. i would dare say that that environment is pretty secure because the players are living

within an isolated area there. in addition, they're being tested on a very regular basis and people aren't going to be allowed to go in to that particular space and so with the nba and major league soccer reengaging there the environment is likely safer there than it is in the general public at large because they're not going to -- >> there have been nba players who have tested positive. yes, it is an experiment and you said you didn't want to sound like you were -- with all due respect a corporate flack for disney and sounded like you were defending a disney decision more than you were sounding like the mayor of orange county, with all due respect, sir. >> that's an opinion that you might have but what i'm saying here is i spent nearly four decades in crisis management and i always will make my decisions by putting the people over profits at any given time so

safety is of the utmost concern to me and to the health officers who are here and i think that that is the case for disney. you have corporate responsibility at play here and trying to make the best decisions for our populous. it is not sustainable for the long term to shut down our full commerce so we have to learn how to live with the virus. none of us at this point know really what the pandemic is going to do. we have the body of knowledge of our past experiences that we can lean on going forward but we haven't been in this place before. so i think, again, what we're trying to do here is take a look at the existing data within our county, within orange county here, to make the best decisions going forward so as i started out i said that we were excited for the reopening but it is also concerning to me at the same time and we will have to see. if this is -- if we have the

outcome we want to see then we'll make appropriate decisions but what i say to our public here is that if at any point when we evaluate the data on a day-to-day basis if we need to make ajustments i will not hesitate to make that decision within the authority that i have as a local county mayor. >> mayor jerry demings, thank you very much. florida had more cases on sunday than any other state at any other time during the pandemic. and not everyone from florida -- people go to disney from all over the florida and the country frankly. thank you very much for your time, sir. we'll be right back. safety firs. safety firs. ♪ ♪ and we always will. ♪ ♪ for people. ♪ ♪ for the future. ♪ ♪ and there has never been a summer when it's mattered more. wherever you go, summer safely.

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welcome back. as we mentioned earlier, los angeles and san diego school districts have decided they will not be holding in-person classes this fall. announcing the decision in a joint statement earlier this afternoon. school districts across the country have looked at the covid

response in the states and are taking similar action. one example, the phoenix union school district in arizona, another state where cases are spiking, has decided to hold classes online until at least october. maricopa county makes up the majority of the cases in arizona. the county reported nearly 1,100 new cases today bringing the county total over 81,000. joining me now is chad gueston the superintendent of phoenix union high school district in arizona. sir, thank you very much for joining us. schools are going to go online until october. what needs to change between now and october to get kids back in their classrooms? >> as you have just alluded to here in arizona unfortunately we have a massive spike in new cases virtually every day and until we can guarantee to our broader community that it is safe and responsible to do so we will not bring our staff or

students or families back to in-person learning and at this point we have made a decision to at the earliest start in-person learning in october. >> is there something that could happen statewide today that maybe you rethink that decision and are able to open classes earlier than you expect? >> for one, i would love to see some precautions taken across the state to start to decrease the new cases here in arizona but what we have also heard at the same time from our broader community is that our parents, staff, students don't want week to week decisions. as we think about families planning for child care, and planning to go back to work, we think about our employees really planning high quality lessons for our students, week to week or every other week decision is not what the broader community is asking for and we believe

we'll go quarter by quarter. the gentleman on the show earlier today said that he thought that perhaps school wouldn't come back the whole first fall semester and if we have to make that drastic of a decision we will and won't come back until it's absolutely safe. >> would you appreciate more guidance from the federal government about what is safe and what is not safe? cdc issued guidance. the president doesn't like it. betsy devos was on a sunday show over the weekend saying it's up to individual localities. they won't get in the way by issuing broader guidance. what would you like to see? >> ultimately, you know, i had a chance to watch secretary devos this weekend and i think it's really important that we stop for a moment and reassure america, america's families, educators that school system leaders in the country are engaged in thoughtful planning, looking at guidelines that come

from medical experts. i'm a part of the national organization and we engage in phone calls and virtual meetings almost every week and planning for launch of school for national and international trends and best-case scenario and worst-case scenario and will take the guidance that we can get. please. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. how much money is it that you need to reopen school safely in october? how much extra money for ppe and hand sanitizer and creating classrooms that are socially distant? >> we are talking millions. even by c.a.r.e.s act funding that was just more than $10 million we'll spend over $10 million just on technology alone and so that doesn't include smaller class sizes, changes to

transportation, personal protection equipment. millions of dollars. across the nation, billions. >> so i'm assuming you are asking congress to step up the funding for local schools. >> absolutely. post-recession we had over $100 million in a stimulus package so far. >> chad geston, thank you very much for joining us and giving the reality of what you need in order to keep kids and teachers safe. we appreciate your time, sir. >> thank you so much. and coming up next, how the presidential grant of clemency for roger stone sets a dangerous new precedent. (vo) the time is coming for us to get out and go again.

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welcome back. we're learning more today about president trump's commutation of associate roger stone's sentence. according to documented posted by the office of the pardon attorney, stop is not only spared prison time, but off the hook for supervised release and no longer has to pay a $20,000 fine. in other words, nearly his entire sentence is voided. for more, i'm joined by chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney, now an msnbc contributor. chuck, always good to see you. stone has been commuted, but do prosecutors have any other recourse? >> they do, katie. that's a terrific question. they can still put roger stone in the grand jury. the grand jury is entitled to

any person's evidence, including roger stone, whether pard onned or commuted or convicted and incarcerated. that doesn't mean he will cooperate. but they can sure try. if you want to gather evidence about stone about what he knows about the president's involvement, and the president's own knowledge, that's a place to start. put him in the grand jury. >> there was reporting that there was a lot of hand ringing about this exhucommutation that everybody in the white house agreed with it, that the doj didn't necessarily agree wit. what would this do that other instances of the president treating the rule of law differently, that's putting it nicely, to those in the doj? why would this mean so much more? >> it's deeply displaying. but presidents have given out very sort of bad, questionable

pardons. bill clinton pardoned mark rich, who had fled this country in the wake of an indictment against him and had been a major contributor to the clinton campaign. that was a terrible misjudgment and it was disheartening. but this is materially different, and here's why. in this case, stone had evidence about the president's own misconduct. i can't imagine the framers when they conceived of the pardon of powering adopted it from the british monarchy, imagining that a president would use it to essentially try to undermine an investigation into his own conduct. and so this is really awful. and it's really disheartening. but i can't imagine anybody who cares deeply about the department of justice, the men and women who have spent professional lives there, can see this is anything but a corrupt and crass move by the president. >> one more question to you. robert mueller spoke up about this. and now lindsey graham wants to

pull him in front of the senate judiciary committee. what do you make of that? >> well, first of all, i'm so glad bob mueller wrote an op-ed for "the washington post." it's not so much what he said, because what he said in the op-ed is really what we've all been saying, outlining the contours of the case. it's the fact that he said it. he's a man of such great integrity and decency, a marine infantry officer in vietnam with a purple heart and bronze star. it's the fact that he said anything, because he's never inclined to do that. but this must have bothered him so very much that he felt the need to speak up. lindsey graham is really just trying to make a mockery out of this entire matter. i don't think he wants the truth. i think he wants another platform to try to undermine the investigation. it's sad and pathetic. but my thanks to bob mueller, not only for his work as special

couns counsel, but putting his name to this op-ed and telling us what really happened. >> chuck rosenberg, chuck, thank you so much for joining us today. always good to see you, my friend. we'll be right back. friend we'll be right back. don't just think about where you're headed this summer. think about how you'll get there. and now that you can lease or buy a new lincoln remotely or in person... discovering that feeling has never been more effortless. the lincoln summer invitation sales event is here. we're helping members catch up by spreading any missed usaa insurance payments over the next twelve months so they can keep more cash in your pockets for when it matters most find out more at usaa.com for when it matters most ♪ ♪all strength ♪we ain't stoppin' believe me♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪

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that is all for tonight. chuck is back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily" and catch both of us at 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow, as well. "the beat with ari melber," except not ari melber tonight. stephanie ruhle is in for ari. i'm so used to saying "the beat with ari melber" that it just came out of my mouth before i could see your lovely shining face. good to see you, my friend. >> katy tur, yours truly, joy reid, we're about to have a girl party tonight on msnbc. >> you got that. >> all right. have a good night. welcome to "the beat." i'm stephanie ruhle in for ari