discredit dr. anthony fauci. it will be interesting to hear her explanation today to a new op ed from white house trade adviser peter navarro entitled "anthony fauci has been wrong about everything i have interacted with him on." okay. as for the virus itself, with infections surging, florida has broken its record for most coronavirus deaths in a day. at the same time in texas, counties are requesting refrigerated trucks as morgues fill up. and we're also following supreme court justice ruth bader gin gin ginsburg, who is hospitalized for an infection. we'll keep you up to date. ghislaine maxwell denied bail, by the way, and she is married. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," wednesday, july 15th. joe is off, taking a break. along with willie and me, msnbc

national affairs analyst, co-host of showtime's "the circus" and executive editor of "the recount," john heilemann, and nbc news and msnbc contributor shauna thomas. and willie, can't have a rally? bring the rally to the rose garden with a captive audience. >> yes, he did. for 63 minutes, only six of which were spent answering questions from reporters. it was hailed as a news conference. it was not that. chief correspondent for "the new york times," peter baker, describes the news conference this way in his lead piece for the paper -- "in theory, president trump summoned television cameras to the heat-baked rose garden early tuesday evening to announce new measures against china to punish it for its oppression of hong kong, but that did not last long." peter continues, "what followed instead was an hour of presidential stream of consciousness as mr. trump drifted seemingly at random from one topic to another, often in the same run-on sentence. even for a president who rarely sticks to the script and wanders from thought to thought, it was

one of the most rambling performances of his presidency." peter continues, "he weighed in on china and the coronavirus and the paris climate change accord and crumbling highways, and then china again, at military spending, and then china again and then the coronavirus again, and the economy and energy, taxes and trade with europe, illegal immigration and his friendship with mexico's president and the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in chicago and the death penalty and back to climate change and education and historical statues and more. he could go on for days, the president said at one point, and it sounded plausible," writes peter baker. "at times, it was hard to understand what he meant. he seemed to suggest that his presumptive democratic challenger, former vice president joseph r. biden jr., would get rid of windows, if elected, and later said mr. biden would, quote, abolish the suburbs. he claimed that mr. biden had gone so far right -- he meant

left. even for those who follow president trump and his shorthand, it became challenging to follow his train of thought to put it mildly." here's what we heard yesterday from the president of the united states. >> joe biden's entire career has been a gift to the chinese communist party. joe biden supported china's entry into the world trade organization, one of the greatest geopolitical and economic disasters in world history. as vice president, biden was a leading advocate of the paris climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our country. america lost nearly 10,000 factories while joe biden was vice president. this is what he wrote -- "high-speed broadband." we want high-speed broadband. well, why didn't he get it? three years ago is not a long time. and he didn't do any of the things. but now he says he's going to be

president. as president, he's going to do all of the things that he didn't do, never did. never did anything, except make very bad decisions, especially on foreign policy. we saved tens of thousands of lives, but we actually saved millions of lives by closing. if we had listened to joe biden, hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost. he said that the idea that china is our competition is really bizarre. he's really bizarre. but hunter, where's hunter? where is hunter, by the way? >> john heilemann, we'll give you the first crack at this, and good luck to you, sir. let me say, first of all, this violates not law, but tradition of presidents using the white house, particularly the rose garden, to give campaign speeches and to attack their political opponents during a presidential campaign or at any time. but also, there is a burning crisis going on in the country right now, and none of those 63 minutes got us any closer to solutions about coronavirus, about what's happening in southern california, in houston

and georgia and florida and arizona, across the country right now, or address concerns about whether or not kids will get back to school. that's what's happening in the country right now. instead, the president spent those 63 minutes attacking joe biden, often with lies. >> right. so, good morning, willie. good morning, mika. >> good morning, john. >> to go back to the topic of your question -- to go back to the top of your question, you know, yes. so, the tradition is, you know, we've all heard of the notion of rose garden campaign, right? presidents, incumbent presidents who use the power of the office to advance both the country's interests and their political interests. that's one of the things, power of incumbency. that's what you get when you're a sitting president. so, this notion that politics and government don't come together is, of course, false. but what the president's done here is, rather than doing what normal incumbent presidents do, which is to use the power of the office in that way, by using their kind of policy power to

enhance their standing with the american people as opposed to just using the rose garden to attack a rival, the president seems to be kind of doing exactly the opposite. not only is he violating tradition by launching this kind of personal invective and negative campaigning against his rival, something that generally presidents don't do from the white house grounds, let alone the rose garden, the east room, the press briefing room. president trump's used all of those staujs to attack joe biden, but this is the most glaring example. but he's also failing to do what normal incumbent presidents would do, right? which is, to your point, willie, which is to say, you know, there's a crisis in the cotr ina crisis is an opportunity to be seen as addressing it in a way that makes people feel more secure, that actually makes the problem -- reduces the problem that people are facing. listening to what the voters are saying. we had polling yesterday that showed that 70% of american parents are concerned about sending their kids back to school this fall.

the president yesterday not only did not address that in a kind of way that would make them feel better or do anything about it in a way that would make them feel better, but sort of mocked the notion that parents -- did an interview on cbs where he mocked the notion that parents would have these concerns. he was asked about it and said something like, well, if you're a parent who thinks that, somebody else should be taking care of your kids. the president should not -- he's behaving in not just a way that violates tradition, but in a way that is politically suicidal on a kind of daily basis. and this was just one more example of that. >> and so, the political suicidal behavior, john heilemann, i would say, especially on the schools issue, is that people are desperately looking for leadership on this, so when they don't get it from president trump, they will actually look elsewhere, because they need information, they need leadership. >> of course. >> they need to know whether it's safe enough to send their kids to school. and they have to make their own

decisions. so, they will turn away from him, which again shows this rose garden debacle, this completely inappropriate act, you know, completely defying tradition on every level, total abuse of power, using the rose garden as a campaign event, because you can't have your pitiful little rallies, because people won't come. so, you have a captive audience of reporters and cameras, and you use it for politics. you use it to go after joe biden. bret baier of fox, of trump-friendly fox news, tweeted this, that you know, had president obama done this -- he actually talked about this -- he said, had president obama done this, people would have gone crazy. take a listen. >> presidents in the past, by tradition, have stayed away from overt campaign rhetoric from the rose garden or the white house, but it is the president's discretion. it is worth noting, however, to be fair, that had president obama made this kind of speech from the rose garden, republicans on capitol hill would likely have been up in

arms. >> so, john heilemann, it seems to me that his desperation, and maybe, you know, doesn't it seem more and more obvious that he's desperate to grab the limelight wherever he can and with people looking for leadership in a crisis, it actually may turn them off? >> sure, yeah, of course, mika. and you made the point about the fact the president is trying to do a rally in new hampshire. they claimed that he couldn't do the rally because there were going to be thunderstorms. those thunderstorms never really -- a tropical storm that never arrived in new hampshire. i think they realized they were on their way towards another tulsa debacle. and you know, you're seeing it happen now in jacksonville, where i'm sure we're going to talk about it more today, where the convention, the republican convention is now imperiled there. there's discussion about scrapping the indoor element of it and pushing it, having it be outside, the possibility of

people having to wear masks there, which, of course, would be a appropriate thing for public health but not what the president wants. so, the president's best-laid plans, the things he's relied on as campaign tools, the things he loves to do -- the big rally, people standing shoulder to shoulder -- he's now for the sake of public health not really able to do that. so, of course, this is the perfect, from his point of view, the perfect captive audience, as you said. but i'd say one more thing, which is, just even if you forget about all of that, the grotesque abuse of public resources. >> yes. >> the taxpayer-funded stage. forget about all that. just take it as pure politics. if you just evaluate what he did yesterday in terms of his attacks on joe biden, did anybody hear an effective attack on joe biden? did anybody hear a frame on joe biden that might have a chance of, i mean, improving his political standing, of taking joe biden down a peg? if you listened to that yesterday, i defy you to tell me what the president's argument is against joe biden on the basis of what he said yesterday.

it was just incoherent rambling, and i think that's one of the other elements of what's happening here is the president is incredibly frustrated with the fact that in joe biden, who is not, i will say over and over again, not a perfect candidate, has his flaws, has his weaknesses, as all of us do, but the president's incredibly frustrated in that he cannot find an effective frame for joe biden. this is like the nightmare candidate for him. another septogenarian, white guy, and that is not the person the president wants to run against. we are in july and the president does not know how to make the case against joe biden and that was vividly on display yesterday in the rose garden. >> yeah, it's probably not a good sign for your campaign when in mid-july of your election year, your attack on joe biden is that he wants to, quote, abolish the suburbs and maybe even get rid of windows altogether, which was definitely begging for a couple follow-up questions about what he meant there in terms of climate change. but shauna, to john's point, this has been a frustration for

this campaign. they're trying to put joe biden in the same category with members of congress who are progressive boogiemen and women that they've been using now for a couple years. the label doesn't fit. donald trump knows that, on joe biden that he's a wild leftist, that he's a tool of the radical left. so instead, you get what we saw yesterday, which is this kind of hodgepodge, this mash-up of incoherent attacks on joe biden and not really a frame that he can use going into november. >> yeah. i mean, in some ways, it was sort of as president trump was playing his own version of 2020 bingo. he mentioned aoc. he mentioned bernie sanders. he mentioned green new deal. and it was a hodgepodge. but in some ways, i can imagine a world where, if he says all these sound bites and he says all these quotes, even if when you watch the whole thing together it doesn't make that much sense, then he's creating ads for his campaign. he's creating sound bites for certain shows on fox news or oan, who he called on an oan

reporter in that press conference yesterday. and he is looking in some ways for the best possible sound bite. and so, yes, if you listened to it from top to bottom, i didn't really understand it. i had to go back and listen last night before i went to bed because i was actually doing work at 5:00 in the afternoon. but there were certain key words, buzz words, that his base will like. they don't like the green new deal. they don't like alexandria ocasio-cortez. they don't like bernie sanders. so, he is trying to figure out what sticks. but when you take those things independently, you may have the makings of a campaign ad for his actual campaign. that's not what you're supposed to use the rose garden for, as mika already mentioned. this goes against protocol. this goes against tradition. but i think we always have to remember right now, we have to cite that it goes against tradition, but we also have to say, yes, presidents do do this now, because he is president and he is doing this, and people have to ask themselves, is that a president that you want?

is that the presidency that you want? because that is now the standard in some ways that he is setting. so, we all have to figure out when we are figuring out who to vote for in november, do you like this new tradition? >> yeah. it's a really good question. before his meandering rose garden appearance, president trump spent time earlier in the day weighing in on matters of race in a series of interviews. peter baker writes, "the appearance came on a day when mr. trump seemed eager to challenge convention and, at times, basic facts. during an earlier interview with cbs news, he denied that black americans suffered from police brutality more than white americans." >> let's talk about george floyd. you said george floyd's death was a terrible thing. >> terrible. >> why are african-americans still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country? >> and so are white people. so are white people. what a terrible question to ask. so are white people.

more white people, by the way, more white people. >> as the "washington post" notes, more white people are shot and killed by police when considering absolute numbers. however, blacks are fatally shot by police at a higher rate when accounting for population differences. later on in that interview, the president dismissed concerns over the confederate battle flag as an issue of freedom of speech. >> back in 2015, you said the confederate battle flag belongs in a museum. do you still believe that? >> all i say is freedom of speech. it's very simple. my attitude is, freedom of speech. very strong views on the confederate flag. with me, it's freedom of speech, very simple. like it, don't like it, it's freedom of speech. >> would you be comfortable with your supporters displaying the confederate battle flag at political events? >> well, it depends on what your definition is. but i am comfortable with freedom of speech. it's very simple. >> but you understand why the flag is a painful symbol for many people because it's a

reminder of slavery? >> well, people love it, and i know people that like the confederate flag and they're not thinking about slavery. i look at nascar, you go to nascar, you had those flags all over the place. they stopped it. i just think it's freedom of speech, whether it's confederate flags or black lives matter or anything else you want to talk about. it's freedom of speech. >> and in yet another interview yesterday, trump also falsely claimed that a white couple in st. louis who confronted peaceful marchers outside their home with guns were on the verge of being attacked. trump told townhall.com, "they were going to be beat up badly, and the house was going to be totally ransacked and probably burned down." as the "times'" baker notes, "video of the episode, which became a flashpoint in the national debate over racial inequality, showed that the protesters at no point physically threatened the

couple." they were, in fact, peaceful. shawna, what stands out to you? we just ran several sound bites. it seems to me that the president is choosing to say things that are roiling the race issue, especially when it comes to police shootings, white versus black. why did he have to say that? why would he choose to say that during that interview, politically? >> i mean, first, i give katherine harge some prompts for trying to have a somewhat nuanced discussion with the president about this. but as we know and as we've been saying for four years, five years, even, it really does come down to president trump's base. and at some point, he has gotten the message that there is a part of his base that doesn't want to engage in this conversation about race that we're having in this country, that there's part of his base that wants to be able to fly confederate flags -- not all of his base. and we also know he doesn't really have a grasp of history

of this country. so, i'm not giving him a pass for not really being able to grapple with the issue of the confederate flag and what that stands for, but i don't think anyone is surprised by his answers at this point. you know, i also think the follow-up question for the president, if he is going to keep repeating the phrase freedom of speech over and over again, is do you believe in the freedom of speech and the protesters who have been in the streets talking about black lives matter, talking about our need to reform the police systems in various cities and localities? does freedom of speech extend to people who may not be your supporters? because that is also what the presidency stands for. and i'm not sure we've ever gotten a clear answer about that. but this comes back to what i said about sort of trump 2020 bingo. you want to avoid making anyone mad over the confederate flag who might want to turn out and vote for you, but also freedom of speech, and you know, your

ability to not have to wear a mask and all of these other things, that checks some boxes. and so, i think he feels that the safest answer and the answer that will please people is just keep repeating freedom of speech. and if he can avoid that larger conversation about race, i think he's going to try to do that from now on. >> john heilemann, the thing about the 2020 bingo, though, is he's got all his chips on the base, and he needs a couple more letters if he's going to be re-elected. when he says -- it was very telling, i thought, when his answer to the correspondent's question about african-americans and their relationship with police, he immediately leapt not to address that question but immediately leapt to the defense of white victims of police violence in this country, of which there are many as well, just more african-americans are more likely to be shot and killed by police on a per-capita basis. that's just a fact. so, john, he's got the base, the base that likes the confederate flag, the base that wants him to

defend white people generally. what is he doing to expand the base? it's a question we've been asking now for mons he plows doo the people who already are going to vote for him. what about the rest of the votes he needs? >> right. that's the question, willie. and you know, what a large part of the trump re-election strategy before the pandemic hit was premised on the notion that, number one, the president would lose the popular vote against any democrat, and certainly against joe biden, and that number two, he could try to run basically the same play that he ran in 2016 that worked for him, which was to, you know, as we've said many times, pull that inside straight by pulling up a narrow electoral college victory, focus on those upper midwest battleground states in michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania. and because they had a huge financial advantage over the democrats and had been raising money for so long, do a lot of advanced targeting i those states of trying to find more of

the kinds of voters who made up the trump base before, so find white, noncollege voters who didn't vote in 2016 and turn those people out in large enough numbers in places like michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, maybe minnesota, that the president could win in the electoral college again in 2020 the way he did in 2016. the problem is that that's still the strategy, and that's what they're doing. it's an all-base campaign, and now, of course, they're fighting this battle on not just those three states, they're now trying to fight that same battle in states that should have been comfortably, or they thought should have been comfortably in their column, so in north carolina, in arizona, in florida. those are the ones we always mention. those are the core six battleground states. then you expand to other places where trump is fighting, in georgia, where he is struggling in texas, where he's struggling. we've seen polling in places like kansas. we saw a poll from alaska where the president's up by three points in alaska, which is within the margin of error.

that's a statistical tie in one of the most conservative states in the country. so, what the problem for the president is, the strategy is still the same, but the problem is that every other avenue for adding the votes that he needs has been cut off. and in places that are purple states, and increasingly, even late red states, the president, by just trying to turn out more of those white noncollege voters, the rest of the country has gravitated towards not trump, and in this case, not trump is joe biden. and you know, you can run this racial playbook that shawna's talking about, and that is obviously very comfortable for the votes he already has and might scare up a few votes that he doesn't have, people who like him but didn't vote for him in 2016. the problem is that every time he does one of these things, he just makes it -- he makes biden stronger with disaffected republicans, makes biden stronger in the suburbs, and makes the electoral math harder for him. that's why i keep going back to the question of political suicide. it's a comfortable place he is.

that play in that bingo match is comfortable for donald trump, but right now the math is really, really not on his side and he's doing nothing to change the equation. >> yeah. as you were talking, john, we put up a poll that showed the president down ten points, at least in that one poll, in the state of florida as well. let's bring in nbc news correspondent kara lee from the white house. she has new reporting that goes inside the trump camp punch on biden. good morning, good to see you. this is what we've been talking about for the last few minutes. this was supposed to be in some ways a campaign turn yesterday for president trump in the rose garden as he literally read from a list of attacks on joe biden. there was no coherent thread behind them or through them, but the president going after joe biden with this itemized list. what is the strategy exactly? what is that label? what is that brand that they're trying to put on joe biden as we turn toward election day? >> reporter: well, it's a great question, willie, and the president's advisers, according to sources that we've spoken with, have been trying for weeks

to get him to, as they said, not make the election about him, that if the election is about him, he will lose. and so, they've tried to shift him to pivot to a strategy of focusing on biden, looking at his record. and their argument is he has a very long record. there's a number of policies that the president could be attacking. he has a number of statements in his background that they could be reviving. and so, they've tried to push him into focusing on his opponent and attempt to deflect, frankly, from his 3 1/2 years in office. but we've seen the president instead nursing grievances publicly. he's embracing old tricks that he feels worked for him well, such as applying nicknames to joe biden, like sleepy joe. but as one official told us, sleepy sounds pretty good after four years of exhaustion. so they want him to move away from this. and yesterday he tried to do that, but he did it in a way that was not at all, i think, what his advisers had in mind. the setting, the rose garden. you don't see presidents stand

in the rose garden and deliver the kind of speech that he did. then if you look at the speech itself, it was mono toned. his heart didn't seem in it, as one adviser's told us. and he really just, you know, had this muddled delivery where he went off on various tangents. and so, to the frustration of his advisers, who say that the president is acutely aware that he could win, he can't get engaged on a strategy that they feel is effective, where he had a clear attack on his opponent and the election is not about him. and it's not clear that he's going to be able to make that pivot, particularly when he doesn't have any other venue than the complex here at the white house and what we saw yesterday, where he pretty much delivered a speech that he probably would have given on saturday night if he had that new hampshire rally. >> i am not sure anyone has the guts to tell him that it looks desperate. nbc's carol lee, thank you very much. to the coronavirus now. florida confirmed 132 new deaths

from covid-19 yesterday. that is the biggest single-day spike the state has seen since the beginning of the pandemic. this does not necessarily mean all 132 people died in the past 24 hours, as the figure likely includes deaths that happened over the weekend but were not reported until monday. previously, the highest single-day record was set last thursday with 122 deaths. so far, florida has reported nearly 292,000 cases and over 4,500 deaths. let's bring in the mayor of miami gardens, oliver gilbert iii. he was part of a roundtable florida governor desantis held with florida mayors yesterday afternoon. thank you very much, mr. mayor, for coming on the show this morning. i guess, first of all, tell us, what is going on in the miami-dade area? what is happening with this rise in case and apparent rise in

deaths? >> well, first of all, let me say thank you for having me, mika. i have a new appreciation for you all getting up this early in the morning because i watch you all the time, but i never understand what it is to actually be fully dressed and talking to someone this early. you know, it's interesting -- >> thank you. >> in south florida, i really do think we opened up too quickly, and i think that that's actually borne out in the results that we're seeing. i don't think that we actually stayed closed long enough to develop the type of habits that actually allowed for us to beat the coronavirus. and so, you see these huge jumps in cases. and what we've been saying all along is, when you see these huge jump in cases, eventually those cases will translate into hospitalizations, and eventually, those hospitalizations will translate, unfortunately, into death for a lot of our fellow americans. and so, it's problematic from that perspective. also we know now that we have to either -- we can't maintain this rate. so if we don't do something,

don't slow down, we will have to look at rolling back some of our openings, because we can't have thousands and thousands of people testing positive for coronavirus every day. >> no. and i mean, just to go through some basic science -- and i think what's very frustrating about this, mr. mayor, is that everybody knew from the beginning, if they listened to the cdc, if they listened to dr. fauci, if they listened to their own doctors, if they listened to the doctors who came on this show, is that if you mitigate and if you wear masks and if you socially distance, and yes, if you lock down and you do it for a significant amount of time, like other countries, you can ward this off, you can bring those numbers down. and the leadership was so, quite frankly, skitchizophrenic on th that people were not given the guidance they needed, so here we are. so, my next question to you, sir, is where are we with testing? because i know some people in florida who got tests ten days ago and do not have results.

>> yeah. in miami gardens, we have the largest testing site at hard rock stadium. i think we tested more people than any single site in the state of florida. the problem is, is that when you have this explosion nationally, i guess the retesting agent is in short supply. so people are actually getting tested, going through almost the entire life cycle of the virus, and not actually getting their results back until the end. and that's problematic from a couple perspectives. it doesn't allow us to actually contact trace. so, if you are infected by someone and you won't know it and we won't know to try to call you until that person tests positive. and if you look at the gating criteria from the cdc, one of the things they said for reopening was that you had to have a robust contact tracing program. if it's taking this long to get your results back, it's virtually impossible to successfully contact trace, and that's also allowing the virus to accelerate. people aren't being told that they had been exposed to someone who tested positive until well

after they're into the virus, because the tests aren't coming back sooner. and that's going to be not just a florida problem or not just a miami-dade problem. it's a national problem. evidence is that we weren't actually prepared to actually open up at this level. so, if you can't have significant contact tracing, you need to have fewer people exposed so that you have more time, but we can't have the virus spread at this rate in miami-dade county, in florida, in the country. >> mr. mayor, it's willie geist. great to have you on this morning, even at this early hour. we appreciate you being with us. let me ask you about schools. superintendents down there have started to say they believe the recommendation is that they should be 100% online when you all go back in about five weeks, but that it will be up to each individual school district. how are you and people on your school board thinking about that question right now as parents really want to know, really need to know, because of the implications it has, not just for their kids but for their own lives, in child care and their

own jobs? how are schools looking in your city? >> well, it's not in -- our schools are governed by miami-dade county. we have a wonderful school superintendent, roberto calf va, and i have a good school board member, but from a parents' perspective and overseeing the policy for the city perspective, it's very difficult for me to say that you should go ahead and say that you're going to open up schools now when you have this record type of increase. and i hear people saying, well, the risk to kids are minimal. what does that mean? because these are our children. so when we send them back and the risk is minimal, what would be an acceptable loss if you send your kid to school and it was your kid who got sick, and unfortunately, it was your kid that might pass away? there are a lot of kids with pre-existing conditions like respiratory illnesses and asthma. what do we do for those? so, i understand the argument that parents want their kids in school. everybody is tied up in their house with their kids. i understand that. but we don't want them to send

them to school into what could actually lead to their death. i think that when people say, let's go ahead and do it, they're ignoring some very basic fundamentals about what schools are, about how kids interact, about how they're in the cafeteria together and how they're on buses together and they're on playgrounds together and how the general interaction of adolescents, it's in and of itself not conducive with social distancing. my 13-year-old, he'll wear his mask and hang out when we're together, but the minute he's not around me, he's like, take this mask off, i'm out of here. so, i don't know they're actually thinking about how this is actually going to work and what the actual real-life results are. because the minimalize risk that you're talking about means that somebody's kid might get sick and somebody's kid might die, and i don't know that that's an acceptable risk from us. but we have a very capable superintendent and school board. they're on that. >> mr. mayor, also, obviously, as we close here, if things had

been done right from the get-go, kids might be going back to school. so we're learning that the science works, if you apply it. mayor oliver gilbert iii, thank you very much for your plain talk this morning. you can go back to bed. i get it. >> thank you. >> thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," the white house ramps up its attacks on dr. anthony fauci, even after president trump insisted this week that he and dr. fauci had a very good working relationship. that is the northern version of "bless your heart." mm. plus, the politics of a coronavirus vaccine. richard haass joins us. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. what do you tell parents and teachers who feel that it's unsafe to go back. >> i would tell parents and teachers that you should find yourself a new person, whoever's in charge of that decision, because it's a terrible decision, because children and parents are dying from that trauma, too. they're dying because they can't do what they're doing.

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others see cracked concrete, instrundown courts.ere. i see a way to bring pride back to communities. that's why i made project backboard and a site with godaddy. how will you make your mark? make the world you want. new details are emerging about biotech company moderna's vaccine, showing that it gave the desired response from all 45 participants in a human trial. the results were published online in the "new england journal of medicine" and showed that the doses were safe and well tolerated. dr. anthony fauci called the results good news and went on to say in an interview yesterday the gold standard of protection against a viral infection is

neutralizing antibodies, and the data from the study, small numbers as it may be, are pretty clear that this vaccine is capable of inducing quite good levels of neutralizing antibodies. the next stage of moderna's study is scheduled to begin on july 27th and will test 30,000 adults with half receiving the vaccine, half receiving placebos. 90 different u.s. locations will be chosen for this study, and many will be in hotspots, such as texas, florida, california, and arizona, willie. >> all right, we'll take some good news on coronavirus. >> yeah. >> joining us now, president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, who's writing about the politics of a covid-19 vaccine. good morning, richard. good to see you. this has been held up as the holy grail, because it is. if we can find a vaccine, we can begin to get coronavirus under control. it's been an unprecedented race for the vaccine, as doctors have told us over the last few months. no one has seen a vaccine on

this scale so quickly. so, if it does come, let's say by the beginning of next year, that doesn't mean this is over, obviously. and that's what you're writing about. there will be a fight over who gets it first, who makes it, how it's distributed, how you get so many doses out around the world so quickly. so, what is the first problem you see, potentially, when this vaccine is established? okay, we've got it. what comes next? >> i think there's two big questions, willie. just say moderna's vaccine works -- and we don't know, but we obviously hope it does -- at most, they're talking about being able to produce 500 million to a billion doses a year. that sounds like a lot, but every person would probably need two doses. well, there's 8 billion people on the planet. do the math. that's 16 billion with a "b" doses you would need. they're able to produce possibly 500,000 to a billion. so the question is who gets it, in what order, who pays for it, what do we do in this country as opposed to the rest of the world? so, and again, it would take over a year.

so, it's possible as vaccines come on stream, we're talking about them being produced and distributed over the course of years. so, people in their minds think about a vaccine and they think, ah, it comes, it happens, we've got the solution. it's actually much more of process. not everyone will get it. not everyone will react the same way. we don't know what kind of duration or degree of immunity first. all of this brings us back to your other conversation. even with vaccines, we're still going to need good testing. we're still going to need all of the other things we do for mitigation. the vaccine is a tool. it's a powerful tool, but it's not a panacea. >> so, richard, you also in your piece anticipate vaccine nationalism, to borrow your term, meaning if there is a vaccine found -- let's hope it's in the united states -- that the countries that have the vaccine will keep the vaccine because they obviously want to take care of their own people first. what could that mean for relationships around the world? >> well, obviously, if we do

have a vaccine in this country, we have to have our own national conversation, willie. who gets it first in this country? is it first responders, hospital workers, the military, teachers and others? i think we need to be prepared for it. we're not having that conversation. who makes the decision? should it be up to moderna, if it's their vaccine? should it be the government? and then just, should we only use it in the united states or should we also make a percentage of it available? should our allies get them? should we license its production? if you do license production, what kind of a profit would flow to moderna? should we give some of it away to poor people around the world? because at the end of the day, we need these other countries to get back on their feet or the disease will never go away. and what worries me, and the phrase i use in the piece is catastrophic success. in the iraq war, things went so well militarily early on, the planning never caught up and we weren't ready for it. and my concern now is if things

in the laboratory go well -- and we obviously pray they do, willie -- i want to make sure that the planning is in place nationally and internationally so we're ready to distribute the vaccine on terms that don't cause greater friction in the world. >> so, richard, we want to ask you about the rose garden situation yesterday. we're going to take a quick break and on the other side we'll talk about that. a quick break and on the other side we'll talk about that. now is the time to support the places you love. spend 10 dollars or more at a participating small business and get 5 dollars back, up to 10 times with american express. enroll now at shopsmall.com. book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night.

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♪ live shot of the white house, as the sun comes up over washington, d.c. at 47 past the hour. richard haass is still with us. and richard, the event yesterday in the rose garden, it was supposed to be about china, the relationship with china. what impact did it have, since it was a rambling, i believe 63-minute diatribe that went in many different directions?

>> almost hard to know where to start, mika. in terms of china, the president announced new sanctions because of hong kong, essentially going after individuals associated with the decision and the banks they work with. and it really is part of this larger narrative of a serious deterioration in relations between the two most powerful countries of this era of history. so i know there's lots else going on, but just the u.s./chinese relationship is in free fall, and the potential risk here for an incident i think is growing dramatically, so i just put that aside. more broadly, this raises all sorts of questions about norms, about the use of the rose garden for something that is so nakedly political. and you know, you all were talking about it for the lack of a clear message. i think what vice president biden has done is articulated a message of economic nationalism, that in some ways steals the

president's thunder, and this administration's thunder. so, politically, they're on the defensive because of the economy and their inept handling of covid-19. and now the challenger is in some ways taken a march on what would have been their core substantive economic issue. >> john heilemann. >> hey, richard. i want to stick with china and ask you this. you know, one of the things that we've heard from the president's allies on capitol hill and from people inside the white house is that their fervent wish for the last few months has been, please stop talking about race, please stop talking about culture war stuff, please, focus on something that we could actually make up some ground on politically. and they always point to china. they say, china's really what you should be doing, mr. president. talk about china. attack joe biden on china. so, i want to ask you, you know, as you lay it out, you think about where president trump has been on the question of china, you think about where joe biden is on the question of china, and you kind of alluded to this in

your previous answer, but i want to be very clear about it. on policy and politics, talk to us about what the -- if we get a china-focused argument in this election, what's that going to look like? >> first of all, i don't think too many people at the end of the day, john, are going to push the lever or whatever you push now based upon china, with issues like race, tens of millions unemployed, over 135,000 people dead from covid-19. i just don't think anyone is going to succeed at putting china at the center of the election. the president's problem is that his policy has been inconsistent and incoherent. it's been fawning towards xi jinping, obsession with this narrowed trade deal. the united states did not join the trans-pacific partnership, which would have given us tremendous leverage against china. we hammer our allies in the region regularly, so you've got that softness. on the other hand, you've finally, belatedly, have

criticism on hong kong, on chinese treatment of the uighurs, a much tougher stance on the south china sea. so, the administration has been all over the place on china. vice president biden represents what has been the traditional view for decades -- let's bring china into the world. it didn't bring about the mellowing of chinese behavior at home or abroad that many people wanted, so a lot of the people around vice president biden and he, himself, are taking a tougher line on human rights and on, say, what china's strategic activity is in the south china sea. so, right now, there's actually not that much of a difference on where the two sides are. i think they're basically selectively cherry picking -- certainly the president was yesterday -- those aspects of past statements and votes that look, quote/unquote, soft on china. >> shawna thomas is with us, and she has the next question. shawna? >> hey, richard. >> shawna. >> thinking about the white house's or the administration's pullback on the student visa

rule that they were trying to promulgate -- do you think, other than the fact that it looked like that was probably illegal what they were trying to do, do you think that the president agreed to pull back because of business considerations? i mean, you why they decided to just kind of back off of that? >> it was interesting. it was an uncharacteristic policy reversal. it turns out, the business model of many of our colleges and universities is overwhelmingly dependent on overseas students. and this would have created a crisis around the country in a lot of places, colleges and universities. if they have tremendous problems, then the towns and communities around them also do. so, i think the immediate impact would have been hundreds of thousands, if not more, students would have been affected. this would have had tremendous economic implications for all sorts of institutions, and again, the larger communities, not to mention the longer-term issues for american competitiveness. and i think there was no one supporting this decision and lots of people pushing back against it.

>> all right, richard haass. thanks so much for coming on the show this morning. his latest book is "the world: a brief introduction." and still ahead, the ap's jonathan lamire joins us with his latest reporting. plus, the trump administration sidelines the cdc, ordering hospitals to bypass the agency when sending covid patient information to washington. we'll talk to a leading doctor from johns hopkins about the transparency issues here. "morning joe" is coming right back. ency issues here "morning joe" cisoming right back

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you can trust respected medical authorities. you know, i believe i'm one of them, so i think you can trust me. but i would stick with respected medical authorities who have a track record of telling the truth, who have a track record of giving information and policy and recommendations based on

scientific evidence and good data. so, if i were to give advice to you and your family and your friends of your family, i would say that's the safest bet to do, to listen to the recommendations from that category of people. but it's entirely understandable how the public can get mixed messages and then get a bit confused about what they should do. >> dr. anthony fauci says the public can trust his guidance on the coronavirus. white house trade adviser peter navarro begs to differ. we'll have more on that in just a moment. welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday, july 15th. and joe has the morning off. but along with willie and me, we have white house reporter for the "associated press" jonathan lami lamire, professor of history at tulane university, walter isaacson is with us this morning! former u.s. senator, now an nbc news and msnbc political

analyst, claire mccaskill joins us, and senior writer at politico and co-author of "the playbook," jake sherman. he's an msnbc political contributor. great to have you all this hour. so, what was supposed to be an official white house event announcing measures against china over its actions in hong kong turned into a pseudo campaign event. peter baker writes in "the new york times" that it became the campaign speech that trump canceled in new hampshire last weekend, amid those so-called concerns about the weather, there were concerns really of attendance, while citing that storm that never happened at all. peter called the event one of the most rambling performances of trump's presidency, writing this -- "he weighed in on china and the coronavirus and the paris climate change accord, crumbling highways, and then china again and military spending and then china again

and the coronavirus again and the economy and energy, taxes, and trade with europe and illegal immigration and his friendship with mexico's president and the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in chicago and the death penalty and back to climate change and education and historical statues and more. the president attacked his democratic opponents and their policies throughout his speech. he mentioned the name biden more than 30 times. >> joe biden's entire career has been a gift to the chinese communist party. joe biden supported china's entry into the world trade organization, one of the greatest geopolitical and economic disasters in world history. as vice president, biden was a leading advocate of the paris climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our

country. america lost nearly 10,000 factories while joe biden was vice president. is this what he wrote -- "high-speed broadband," we want high-speed broadband. well, why didn't he get it? three years ago is not a long time. and he didn't do any of the things, but now he says he's going to be president. as president, he's going to do all of the things that he didn't do. he never did anything, except make very bad decisions, especially on foreign policy. we saved tens of thousands of lives, but we actually saved millions of lives by closing. if we had listened to joe biden, hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost. he said that the idea that china is our competition is really bizarre. he's really bizarre. but hunter -- where's hunter? where is hunter, by the way? >> wow. he's really going to go after the kids? that didn't work last time, jonathan lamire, that whole

ukraine thing didn't work out for him when he was revealed for trying to peddle a foreign leader for dirt on a political rival. what do you make of what happened here? what traditions, what norms were broken along the way here? >> well, presidents, mika, have always tried to use official settings to sort of subtly score political points. there is nothing subtle about what we saw yesterday. this is yet another convention that this president has cast aside. this was direct political campaigning from the rose garden of the white house. as peter wrote in what was a terrific piece, this did feel like the speech he wanted to give in new hampshire a few nights before, before that rally was canceled on account of rain, though it never rained. it was really canceled because very few people were going to show up in the time of a pandemic. now, the backstory here is, for weeks now, advisers have really

pushed the president to go more negative on joe biden. they have actually felt like he's been surprisingly hesitant to do so, outside of casting out the sleepy joe nickname, which no one thinks is a good one inside trump's inner circle, by the way, that he had not directly challenged biden, delivering broad side after broad side, like he did on a daily basis in 2016 against hillary clinton, and that's what's spurred some of this talk in washington about how much does the president really want this fight? how much is he battling for re-election? spurred some chatter about whether or not he would even drop out. of course, the white house says that's not going to happen. but there seemed to be a lack of fire in the president in recent weeks. we saw yesterday he finally delivered some of those blows. and as discussed in the previous hour, there were snippets in there that could be effective going forward. you could certainly see them going into campaign ads. you could certainly see them expanded upon and becoming direct attack lines. but they were lost in the noise yesterday for the most part. this was a scatter-shot,

haphazard, rambling performance. yes, indeed, it focused on china. that is where they feel like they can score some points against joe biden. of course, though, it raises questions about the president's own relationship with china and all of the kind words he had for xi jinping in the early months of this pandemic, but that's where you saw him tryi ining to deliver these attacks, but it was such a mess. it remains to be seen. it's hard to imagine whether there are too many voters out there who are waffling between these two candidates or maybe have been a trump supporter before and now leaning biden, who would have looked at yesterday and said, okay, i'm with the president. >> claire, as you watched that speech yesterday from the president of the united states -- i guess we call it a speech -- he was reading a list of grievances and attacks on joe biden, incoherent though they were, you wouldn't have known that the united states, specifically certain areas of the united states, are on fire with a virus right now, that 135,000 people are dead, that there are 3.5 million cases of coronavirus, that states are shutting down again, that the

mayors of places like houston and miami are crying out for help from the federal government. you wouldn't know that we are in the middle of a crisis, that parents are wondering right now whether or not their kids are going to go back to school in five, six, seven weeks, whether or not they're going to have to figure out child care, perhaps take a leave of absence from their jobs to be homeschool teachers. the president stood there, attacked joe biden. we've talked about why that doesn't have a precedent in the way he did it. but what about coronavirus? what about the crisis in front of us? >> well, he doesn't want to talk about that. he thinks if he ignores it, it will disappear. you know, what yesterday really said to me was that his advisers may be telling him, you need to focus more on joe biden or you need to be more effective in showing empathy about the crisis of corona that is facing our country right now. but either the president can't do it or won't do it.

it's one of the two. and i'm believing right now that maybe he can't, that he just doesn't know how to relate to the moment and to understand where the american people are right now. i mean, one thing that's been consistent in the polls is whether or not the candidates relate to somebody like me. and biden is off the charts on that number, and trump, you know, really has struggled with that number in this particular cycle. i think he would -- and you know, the other thing that i think, willie, is that there is something going on in his head right now about the crowds. his lifeblood has been his rally crowds. i don't think we should underestimate what that sparse crowd in tulsa did to his head. i think he's really worried now. he thought that he was stronger than the coronavirus. as it turns out, the coronav

his rallies, they are disagreeing with him on a number of things that he's speaking about the coronavirus. and they canceled that thing in new hampshire because his staff knows that if he has another rally that's not full, he's in trouble, mentally. well, he's already in trouble mentally. >> claire, great point. you know, the rally in tulsa was sparse. they couldn't even fill the second section of the arena. they squished people together, endangering their lives. who knows if herman cain got the coronavirus there. he was sitting there without a mask, taking a picture of himself there, you know, bragging about not wearing a mask, and then he got very sick. and many others probably did as well. the science shows that these events are superspreaders. they are dangerous. the president endangered the lives of his followers, of his supporters, to get a photo op to get that sort of feedback he

needed, realtime feedback of people chanting and clapping for him and supporting him visually. and the attempt to make that happen, walter isaacson, in new hampshire failed, fizzled. they couldn't get the people. that's what the reporting bears out, that it wasn't the weather. there wasn't a cloud in the sky on saturday. it was drizzling on friday. it was not the weather. four years ago in new hampshire, people lined the streets for donald trump. they showed up for the primary, and they stayed there into the night. but this was a very different scene in new hampshire. they couldn't get the people and they had to use the pathetic excuse of the weather to cancel it. that will get into donald trump's head. i will just say, speaking from someone who used to know him very well, that stuff bothers him. but the rose garden event takes it to a whole new level. and looking at history, walter, what did it tell you, that the president used this event and this captive audience to really

kind of say what he wanted to say at a rally? >> well, i think the main thing about that rose garden event was how incoherent and how scatter shot and how driven by demons he now seems to be. and this is reflected not just in the weirdness of him rambling incoherently through a rose garden appearance and him violating, as everybody said, the norms of what you do at the white house. it's also reflected, unfortunately, in this coronavirus crisis. we have no way of having a coherent response to this crisis. we aren't gathering the right information. we're not doing testing right. so, we're the only country that seems to be totally losing to the virus. so, if he were just a guy driven by demons and weird insecurities doing this in the rose garden, that's be one thing, but it

connects to the incoherent and scattershot nature of the policy, especially when it comes to coronavirus, but even on showing some empathy, some care when it comes to the feelings of african-americans after the murder of george floyd. >> so, jake sherman, i want to get you in on this. the white house also has this effort, ongoing effort, to discredit dr. anthony fauci, and it reached a new level yesterday. nbc news first reported on the effort a few days ago that a white house official gave an opposition-style research memo to nbc and other outlets, listing nearly a dozen past comments by him, some taken out of context, that the officials said had ultimately proven erroneous. we showed you this attempt by the press secretary on monday to dismiss the reports. take a look. >> there is no opposition research being dumped to

reporters. we were asked a very specific question by the "washington post," and that question was, president trump noted that dr. fauci had made some mistakes, and we provided a direct answer to what was a direct question. dr. fauci and the president have always had a very good working relationship. >> all right. now there's a direct attack. president trump's top trade adviser, peter navarro, is criticizing fauci in a new op ed for "usa today," claiming that fauci has been consistently wrong, while advising on the coronavirus. navarro writes in part, "dr. anthony fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything i have interacted with him on. now fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn't matter when it's the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. the lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open. so when you ask me whether i listen to dr. fauci's advice, my answer is only with skepticism and caution."

um, jake sherman, with a president who lies by the minute, i find this to be repugnant on so many levels. and also, having watched dr. fauci at the briefings, when they used to actually have them, to try to inform the american people as to where they truly stand with the pandemic, he seemed to be completely on point with the science and what needed to be done to mitigate. it seems to me the president is lashing out at him. what are you hearing? >> well, first of all, who cares what peter navarro is listening to him? peter navarro's a trade adviser. i'm not even sure why it's operative that peter navarro is taking his advice or not taking his advice. that's the number one point. and the second point is, i think jonathan would back me up on this -- the white house is peddling opposition research on anthony fauci. responding to a question with a prepared opposition research document is, in fact, peddling

opposition research. the white house responds to plenty of questions otherwise without offering a trail of quotes that may or may not have come true. that's number two. number three, the white house clears op eds. peter navarro wouldn't just go out and write an op ed without either direct or implicit approval from the administration. i mean, this is just -- i think we're all losing sight, we, meaning the general public, about just how bizarre this is. this is an adviser to the president saying he's not listening to another adviser of the president. it's truly bizarre. and as we said in "playbook" this morning, this white house seems like it's in the middle of a fever dream and just confused, listless, restless, unaware of its surroundings, can't find a message, trying to throw things at the wall. i mean, a senior adviser to the campaign this morning tweeted,

"my one question for joe biden is where's hunter biden?" if that's what they think in the middle of unemployment and a toe day, i'm just, i'm befuddled. i'm completely befuddled if that's what they think the strategy is going forward. >> jonathan lamire, as mika pointed out, kayleigh mcenany was offended that the press would insinuate that there was opposition research being dropped on dr. fauci, despite the fact that we all got it, for one thing. but then yesterday, peter navarro -- i guess we're still calling it an op ed in "usa today," but it had the look of an email that was hammered out quickly with a quick list of complaints about dr. fauci, some not reflective of what dr. fauci had actually said. but there has been -- we've been talking about the last couple weeks, jonathan -- this parallel relationship, where the white house is saying one thing, trying to de-emphasize the coronavirus crisis, and dr. fauci literally every day goes on a podcast or does a conversation over zoom with

somebody where he actually points out what's happening and tries to keep those alarm bells ringing about coronavirus and the impacts on the country. and he said yesterday, i think we can be trusted, said i think people should listen not to politicians, but they should listen to medical experts who actually have experience and expertise in these areas. dr. fauci will be back today doing an interview. it appears he's going to keep marching on doing his job until he's told to stop. >> i mean -- >> that's exactly right. >> walter -- >> willie. >> sorry. go ahead. >> i'll go. >> go ahead, john. >> that's okay. basically, first, let me echo what jake sherman said is precisely right, how crazy unusual this is. this is extraordinary to see the white house, indeed -- yes, were they responding to a reporter's query? yes, they were, but they had that material ready to go, a list of bullet points, a list of things where they were trying to call out and discredit their own medical staff, the nation's

leading infectious disease expert. the op ed, whether hurriedly typed out or not, tries to discredit him, a person the nation trusts, according to the polling we've seen. and you're right, this is sort of a long and coordinated and not very effective attempt by the white house to try to change the conversation, to try to downplay the crisis, to try to suggest that the pandemic is something we just need to live with, we need to go back to work, we need to open the schools, we need to just move forward, and that is ignoring the reality on the ground, and we're seeing in most states in the country right including some that literally seem to be on fire from this pandemic. so, there's been some chatter about dr. fauci, who, of course, has received all this criticism from the white house. why is he still doing this? why is he putting up with it? echoing some of the chatter we knew, we had talked about previous trump cabinet officials, particularly in the

national security sector. like, they know better is the argument. why are they still serving this president? and it seems that dr. fauci has made this calculation, that he can still do more good from his post, even if he is being somewhat sidelined. we know he hasn't spoken to the president in more than a month, he hasn't appeared at one of these briefings in quite some time, as infrequently as they now do occur. we know that the west wing controls a lot of his media appearances now. they have blocked him from appearance on cable television where he would have certainly bigger audiences. but right now, he's finding alternate means -- podcasts, zooms, whatever it takes -- and he seems to have made the decision that it is more vital for him to be out there in any form, to get the message out and deliver this information and warnings to americans. >> all right. sorry for jumping on you there, jonathan lamire. my bad. walter isaacson, though, i was just listening to all of this, and it's a war on science, is it not? and how is that going to end? i mean, even the criticism of fauci talking about death rate was taken out of context and it

was incorrect. it wasn't quoting him correctly. they seem to want to defy actual data. >> well, you ny respect for gathering the data. they're working around their own centers for disease control now. they're working around the department of health and human services. they haven't been able to get a coherent plan even for testing, treatments, and viruses. it's been done in such a scattershot way. there was a wonderful "ap" story by marilyn marcioni about how none of this has been coordinated. and let me say about dr. anthony fauci. i go way back in understanding his history. i remember him in the 1990s, when he was fighting the aids epidemic. this man is a deeply committed public servant who has throughout been driven by science and also by empathy. he cared very much when he was dealing with the aids crisis.

he's not just some political appointee. he's a career public servant at the national institutes of health. and i think something that will come out of this epidemic, i hope, as a backlash against the trump administration, is an appreciation for science, it's for looking at the data. it's saying let's look at remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, whatever it may be, and figure out what the numbers are. let's gather the data of people who have gotten covid and figure out, where did they get it? how many people were in bars right before then? how many people were at family events? we're not being data driven and we're not being science driven, and that goes back to the incoherent way the mind of the president of the united states works. >> jake sherman, jump in. >> yeah, i just got a text message from a senior white house aide who notes that peter navarro went rogue and he bypassed the op ed approval

process in writing in the nation's largest paper, "usa today," that he doesn't trust anthony fauci. so, again, i'm not actually sure if that's better or worse, frankly, and it kind of leaves me speechless that a senior aide to the president would publish an op ed on his own, but that's what their line is, is that they didn't approve this op ed, and they did it without permission. >> okay. terrific. senior adviser to the president, ivanka trump, is facing backlash and is potentially in violation of the ethics law after she shared a photo endorsing goya black beans on her social media accounts. yesterday the president's daughter posted "goya food slogan, if it's goya, it has to be good" in both english and spanish alongside a smiling

photo of herself holding the can of beans. the endorsement follows the ceo of the company declaring last week, "we're all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like president trump during a white house event." however, the president's daughter may have violated the department of justice's misuse of position rules that state that the executive branch titles, quote, should not be used to endorse any product, service, or enterprise. i mean, claire mccaskill, just take it away. >> well, this is a white house -- yeah, this is a white house that's ignoring a lot of law. i mean, kellyanne conway violates the hatch act almost every day. i mean, there used to be a time where law was respected, of all places, in the white house. but the trump family is so used to promoting their own brand illegally that they don't see the line there about promoting a

different brand. the other thing that ivanka did yesterday that is just so forehead-slapping is this new slogan they're putting out, that she announced yesterday that #trysomethingnew. this white house is so out of touch, they didn't even realize that on its surface, this is a really dumb slogan, because people who are out there desperate for work, this isn't like, oh, go shopping, try something new. this is not the way it feels. and then secondly, it's an incumbent white house saying, "try something new." okay, we get it, let's do try something new, on november 3rd. let's try something new. so, she is really -- i think they're flailing. i think everybody's said this this morning. i think the white house is flaig f flailing for a message, they're flailing in the polls, and they clearly have no respect for the rule of law. >> all right. and before we go to break, jake sherman, you bring us every day

the politico morning consult poll. what are you looking at today? >> very interesting. a lot of very interesting dynamics. number one is that not only is trump unpopular -- his approval rating is sinking, people think the country's on the wrong track, but 65% of respondents believe that his policies are wrong when it comes to cutting funding for schools that don't open. so again, not only is the rhetoric somewhat bizarre and off kilter, but then his policies that he's pushing in the middle of this pandemic are becoming less and less popular as time goes on. so i mean, as you see on the screen right there, those are stunning numbers for a proposal that the president keeps on repeating and is making a centerpiece of his proposals at the moment. >> all right, jake sherman. thank you very much. walter isaacson, thank you as well. great to see you. and still ahead on "morning joe," coronavirus infections are surging across the country, but hospitals are being asked to

stop sending their data to the cdc? starting today, it will go to washington instead. we're digging into that new reporting. plus, one of our next guests spoke with dr. anthony fauci yesterday. the top takeaways from that conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ching "morn" 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. accept our summer invitation to get 0% apr on all 2020 lincoln vehicles. only at your lincoln dealer. no uh uh, no way come on, no no

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obviously, the more you test, the more you're going to pick up, so increase in testing is going to give you increases, but there is no doubt that there are more infections, and we know that because the percentage of cases, of the cases that are tested that are positive, is increasing. therefore, inequivocally, you're seeing truly more new cases. in addition, we're seeing now more hospitalizations, which lag behind infections, and we're starting and will see, though not as much as we've seen, very likely more deaths. so, clearly, there are more infections.

>> that was dr. anthony fauci's warning about the increase of coronavirus cases in the u.s. during a discussion with georgetown university yesterday, which was co-hosted by our next guest, mo alathi, the founding executive director of georgetown university's institute of politics and public service. also with us, columnist for the "washington post," karen timulty, and infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at the johns hopkins center for health security, dr. amish adalja. great to have you all aboard this morning. so, mo, i'll start with you. what did you learn from dr. fauci yesterday about where we stand? and did he have any response to what appears to be an effort to discredit him by the white house? >> no, it was great to have him, and me seemed eager to talk with

the students at georgetown, and they were incredibly eager to hear from him. i think there was a real hunger to hear more from dr. fauci. i think there were a couple of key takeaways. one, there were maybe at least three places where he broke a little bit from the administration line. one, the clip you just played on sort of how bad the pandemic is right now and the fact ha it's not all attributed just to testing. two, there was a real disagreement, i think, on school reopeni reopening. he didn't seem anxious to call on every school district to open immediately, that it should be left up to each locality based on the situation there. and three, there was a disagreement on the world health organization, where he said, there may be problems there, but it's better to fix from within. but i think one of my biggest takeaways was that question on trust. you know, there's a lot of bad

information out there. there's a lot of politicized information out there. there's a lot of arguing. and so, i asked him, you know, with all of that, people are confused. who should they trust? and he kind of chuckled, and he said, i get why people are confused, but trust the science, trust the medical doctors, and i think i'm one of them. and i thought that was a really powerful moment. >> karen, your latest piece for the "washington post" entitled "trump and his minions are trying to destroy fauci," no wonder the u.s. is doing so poorly. you write in part this -- "fauci, unlike trump, is willing to recognize and admit his missteps. trump, who is allergic to admitting error, has apparently decided that he doesn't want to listen to fauci's expert advice anymore, if, in fact, he ever really did. but as for the rest of us, we should be learning and adjusting as fauci does. it could mean the difference between life and death." and kareow, i just

remember that coronavirus briefing where the president was talking about injecting bleach into the body. it was one of the low points of what's been, what many believe, a very botched and dangerous response to the pandemic. and yet, dr. fauci now is the focus of this campaign to undermine him. is your belief that this is just to assuage the president's ego? >> well, certainly, when you have something like fewer than one in three americans saying they can trust the president on this and 70% of americans saying they feel they can trust fauci, yeah, there's probably some poll number envy in here, as there always is. but i do think that dr. fauci's experience -- and i've talked with him about this in the past -- his experience with the aids epidemic was, it took a while to figure out what this

was and who was vulnerable and what behaviors could stop it. and in many cases, as dr. fauci was leading the fight to figure out aids and to find treatments for it, government would interfere. there would be big debates over whether this was a moral question or a health question. and should we test everybody? but that might drive people under ground. so, dr. fauci knows that you don't know everything at the beginning of a situation such as this. you learn and you adjust. and you know, it's ironic that what the white house is criticizing him for is underplaying the threat early on, which is something that the president of the united states still does practically on the hour. >> so, dr. adalja, i want to ask you about this new story about the cdc being bypassed now with information sent directly to this new clearance house from hospitals and cutting out the

cdc in some ways. but let's pause quickly and take a snapshot from your medical perspective about where we are. we've see tse hospitalizations in texas, in arizona, southern california now having to close the state of california, having to roll back on its reopening. south florida is a cause of great concern, georgia, south carolina. where are we now in this coronavirus crisis? >> in many parts of the country, we're not in a good place. none of us expected in july we would still be facing some of the same problems we faced in march -- testing delays, bed capacities, worrying about personal protective equipment. and it didn't have to be this way. but it's clear that people continue to want to make the same mistake over and over again and not put in place the infrastructure of testing, tracing, isolated and maintaining hospital capacity. that's been the whole story of this pandemic and it's something that most of us back in january thought the united states would get right because we were supposed to be the most prepared country for a pandemic, but clearly, there's not political will to actually be able to do

the simple core function of public health in government when it comes to an infectious disease emergency. >> so, as i mentioned, doctor, beginning today, the trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the cdc and send all coronavirus patient information to a central database in washington. the instructions recently were outlined in a little-noticed post on the department of health and human services website. "from now on, hhs, not the cdc, will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, how many beds and ventilators are available, among other vital information." in a statement to nbc news, hhs spokesman michael caputo called the cdc's system inadequate and said the change would result in a faster system. officials also claim the change should ease data gathering and assist the white house coronavirus task force in gathering scarce supplies like personal protective equipment. some public health experts worry the data could be distorted for political gain in the

administration's latest move to stifle the cdc. so, dr. adalja, what do you read into this, basically, creation, as dr. scott gottlieb, the former fda commissioner said this morning, reinventing the wheel? the cdc already does this, but now the trump administration is creating a new database and hospitals are expected to use it and not the cdc's. >> it's completely understandable that everybody's going to view this with suspicion, including me, because what we've seen from the beginning of this pandemic is the cdc being marginalized, politicized, being unable to speak directly to the american public, and we've all suffered from it. we haven't heard from nancy messonnier since early february when she warned of a pandemic. we know that the cdc has been basically demoralized and has to second guess yrnsion aeverythin their allegiance is not to reality but what the president's narrative may be. and that's bad for science. that's bad for everybody. this is really going to be second-guessed, even if there might be legitimate reasons to improve the cdc's program. i don't think you should do it

in the middle of a pandemic in a little-noticed posting, because it automatically is going to be suspect because we've seen this pattern over and over again. we saw rick bright basically removed from his role because he disagreed with the narrative from the white house. so, anything that happens now is always going to be viewed with suspicion because they cast a cloud over this by being basically at war with reality when it comes to this pandemic. so any action is going to be thought of as furthering some political aim, rather than actually dealing with the problem at hand. >> claire mccaskill has the next question. claire? >> dr. adalja, i am curious. it is still, frankly, astounding to me that the president of the united states does not understand the value of masks. every public health expert, i don't care if they're republican or democrat or somewhere in between, has underscored the importance of masks. he's worn one one time for a photo op at a hospital. but you know, the vice president and the president and the governor of my state, all of

them basically sending the signal to america that if you're on their side, you don't wear a mask. can you talk about how that is, in fact, driving deaths in this country right now? >> what we know is there are people out there that are infeblgted that don't know they have it or they have mild symptoms, they think it's something else, and they're going out and spreading this infection. and a simple face covering, and it doesn't have to be a mask, maybe it's a face shield. we have more data on face shields and being an acceptable alternative. that can decrease transmission in crowded situations indoors. and it's really one way that we can move forward, where people will be confident that when they step out the door, they will be exposed or exposing someone to the virus. and i don't think it's something that need to be politicized. this could be adjudicated by looking at the science and the epidemiology and making a decision, but now it's become sort of either a badge of honor or dishonor, whether or not you wear it. and the whole conversation about

how to control transmission in public settings has been sidetracked by whether or not somebody's -- whether or not somebody wears a mask or doesn't wear a mask and if they get into a fight over it or what that says about their politics. and again, this is just another example of how not to handle an infectious disease emergency. this shouldn't be a political issue. this should all be driven by science and public health and making decisions based on that type of data, looking at reality, not looking at politicians. >> jonathan lamire. >> thanks, mika. mo, we know right now that this pandemic is shaping this election. and election day is now four months away, under four months away. talk to us a little bit about how you see the mechanics of voting at the time of this coronavirus, where we are seeing some states with these off-the-charts surges, and we've seen a campaign being waged by the president on mail-in voting. what are your concerns? how do you see this playing out? how are states going to safeguard the vote and try to

assure their citizens that they won't get sick when they go cast their ballot? >> yeah, it's interesting. earlier this summer, we hosted at the institute both national party chairs, ronna mcdaniel and tom perez, separately, for conversations on how covid was impacting the election. and they both really zeroed in on the same phrase but came at it very, very differently, and that's election integrity. and this battle over mail-in voting, i think it's starting to get a little bit more play, but it's really one of the sleeper battles of this election. one of the big problems we have is that our decentralized election system allows for challenges in two main ways. one is there are going to be some communities that do allow mail-in voting. there are going to be others that don't. so there's going to be huge voting disparity there. what we saw in georgia with their primary recently was

ridiculous lines that disproportionately impacted communities of color. the second area where this is going to be a problem is with election security. we saw in 2016 the lengths to which foreign actors were willing to try to interfere in our elections. all they have to do is get into one county, and they can muck the whole thing up, and there hasn't been a lot of impact by the federal government -- or, attempts by the federal government to address that. so, that sort of dual whammy of election security and election integrity is going to really, i think, could have a huge impact on the election. >> mo elleithee, thank you very much. karen tumulty, we'll be reading your latest piece in the "washington post." and dr. amesh adalja, thank you as well.

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i'm very worried about mail-in voting because i think it's subject to tremendous fraud and being rigged. now, absentee ballots are okay, because absentee ballots, you have to get applications, you have to go through a process. if i'm here and i vote in florida, you get an absentee ballot, but you have to go through a process. absentee ballots are great. but mail-in voting, where a governor mails millions of ballots to people all over the state -- california, millions and millions of ballots, as an example -- then they come back, they don't come back, who got them? >> president trump continued to wage a war against mail-in ballots yesterday while praising the same act of absentee voting. amy walter of the cook political report tweeted a very animated fact-check that there is no

difference between mail-in voting and absentee voting. claire, is that true? >> yeah, basically, that's true. some states, you have to have an excuse to not vote in person. and so, you have to tell the state, i can't come to the polling place and therefore i want to vote absentee. other states, you don't need an excuse. you can just get a mail-in ballot. and in some states, like four or five, six states, ballots, in fact, are mailed out. but here's the thing, the process is the same for all of it. they're not willy-nilly mailing out ballots. every ballot is registered. every ballot is numbered. every ballot must be signed. every ballot is scanned and checked. so, there are safeguards in place for both absentee ballots and mail-in ballots. and the president is creating an

excuse for his loss, in my opinion. i think he's going to lose and then he's going to say the election was fraudulent. but they are essentially the same process. and there's all kinds of safeguards in place. there's no fraud going on in oregon in connection with their mail-in ballots. people of oregon love their mail-in ballots, and there's no fraud. >> okay. and early voting is weeks away. this is going to be very interesting. joe biden's campaign is trying to reach voters, not just in this country, but also those who live overseas. in 2016, more than 622,000 u.s. citizens living in canada were eligible to vote in the presidential election, but only 5.3% of them did so. joining us now, former u.s. ambassador to canada, bruce h m hayman, who is working with the biden campaign to increase turnout amongst overseas voters. great to have you on the show, mr. ambassador. i would think -- correct me if i'm wrong -- the opportunity here is that president trump has

really made himself quite notable worldwide and not in the most positive way. and might that boost turnout overseas? is there a real opportunity here to get voter turnout for joe biden overseas? >> i think you nailed it right on the head, mika. i think that there is an incredible opportunity here to engage americans overseas. in fact, many of us know americans who live outside the united states. but numbers run as high as 9 million. and if that is true, that's the equivalent of the 11th largest state in the united states, which would mean there would be about 6.5 million worldwide eligible voters. and in 2016, you used the number for canada, but it looks like around 7% voted. and so, that's the opportunity. and so, the biden campaign has looked at this and understands and appreciates all americans have the right to vote, regardless of where you live.

and americans overseas are going to be approached in the most comprehensive way any presidential campaign has ever approached them, and have a multi-factored approach i think is incredibly unique and glad i'm here to share it with you. >> mr. ambassador, willie geist. good to have you on the show this morning. most would be surprised by the figures, particularly the 7% turnout rate among those 6.5 million eligible vetters living overseas. why is that number so low? why don't mow americans overseas vote? is it practically difficult to do, or what's the reason about that? >> a good question to my commodore there. >> ah, anchor down! >> yeah. i think you graduated a little after me, but most americans don't vote because they didn't know that they could vote. in surveys that we took. second, they thought they needed to have a residence in the united states. they don't need a residence currently in the united states

to vote. they're protected by law. if they'd never voted, they still have the right to vote. we're taking this approach, and we're going to do a multifactor approach. one of the most important aspects of this is, that we have now asked ambassadors who served the united states, like i have, to join in with their partners, like i am, to come together and go back to their countries virtually and engage americans in those countries. we have had over 200 ambassadors and partners on a zoom call last week, and if you're an ambassador, served the united states and you want to participate in this, raise your hand. we'd like to have you as an ambassador for biden. help supporting getting americans out to vote. the second thing we're doing is we're engaging a group called democrats abroad. many in the united states don't know them, because they're abroad, but they're in six continents. i'll let you guess which they're not in, but 170 countries, 45 countries they have substantive organizations and we have 12,000

volunteers that are going to engage directly on the ground in getting out the vote effort, and we're going to engage influencers, youth, this is a really big effort for the biden campaign. >> historian and professor at tulane, walter isaacson is still with us and has the next question. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. good to see you again. tell me -- >> good to see you, walter. >> thank you. on that particular issue right now, particular things happening, particular things this administration is doing, or the whole situation right now, that will stimulate americans overseas to vote in greater number, following up on willie's question why they haven't voted in the past. are there reasons now they're going to start voting? >> i think they're watching what's happening with the

relationships with the country they're living in. the countries with the largest number, canada, mexico and the uk, but also a lot of countries throughout western europe, japan. strong ally. australia, and they're watching the relationship that donald trump has now created with each of those country, and i think they're going to be incred befory motivated. they're not just american citizens. they are citizens of the world, and if you need to vote and you're going to vote you need to go, votefromabroad.org. every american in the united states, get your phone, computer out go to votefromabroad.org. it's important you do it now. everything is fast-forward from the international side. ballots center out 45 days internationally ahead of the election. september 17th you'll get the ballots. request them by email so they

come to your email box, not via mail. 100 countries's don't even have an effective postal service right now. so we need to get those ballots back and we need to turn them back to the united states right away. and to do that, you need to retgister right now from votefromabroad.org. >> former ambassador to canada. bruce heymann, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. author of memoir "strengthening the canada-u.s. relationship in type times of uncertainty" and thank you very much. a new york federal judge yesterday denies bail to ghislaine max wahmaxwell, accus trafficking one women nor jeffrey epstein. the request rejected for $5 million bail and house arrest in

a manhattan hotel saying "it was practically impossible to set conditions to guarantee her appearance at trial. the risks are too great to release her from jail" adding that maxwell's ability to stay out of the spotlight in such a sensational high-profile case shows she has an extraordinary opportunity to evade. and from a brooklyn detention center and several of jeffrey epstein's accusers were on the line to ask she be held in jail until trial. t t the "new york post" reportedly cried when the judge announced her decision, and this revelation. maxwell for years perhaps decades was thought to have been single, according to federal prosecutors. her marriage was disclosed in a glancing comment from assistant

u.s. attorney alison mo on tuesday's detention hearing. she spoke early minutes about the lack of transparencies as to who would cosign her bond if given bail jl she told the court "in addition to failing to describe in any way the absence of proposed cosigners of a bond, the defendant also makes no mention of what's so ever about the financial circumstances or assets of her spouse whose identity se declined to provide to pretrial services. she did not who say she believed maxwell's spouse was or give any indication how long they had been marry me iedmarried. trial is set for next year and expected to last three weeks. still ahead, former attorney general jeff sessions lost his bid to reclaim his old senate seat. the "new york times" jerear jer

peters joins. and the president turns the rose garden conference into a pseudo campaign event. a lot to cover this morning. we're back in a moment. "morning joe" will return. i had shingles. horrible. a young thing like me? [camera man] actually anyone 50 or over is at increased risk for shingles. the pain, the burning! my husband had to do everything for weeks. and the thing is, there's nothing you can do about it! [camera man] well, shingles can be prevented. shingles can be whaaat?

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where when biden and obama used to bring killers out, they would say, don't bring them back to our country. we don't want them, but we have to, we don't want them. now they take them. some day i'll tell you why. some day i'll tell you why. they take them and take them very gladly. used to bring them out and wouldn't let the airplanes land in they came. we don't want them. no, but they entered our country illegally and are murderers,

killers in some cases. >> if you had trobl following the president's line of thought there you're not alone. supposed to be a news conference about china, but president trump turned a rose garden event into an impromptu campaign rally to attack joe biden. the "new york times" call it a meandering monologue, plus, white house press secretary insisted there is nothing to the reports the white house is pushing out to discredit dr. an thoech fauci. it will be interesting to hear her explanation today to a new op-ed from white house trade advisers peter navarro entitled "anthony fauci has been wrong after everything i've interacted with him on." okay. as for the virus itself, with infections surging, florida has broken its record for most coronavirus deaths in a day. at the same time in texas, counties are requesting

refrigerated trucks as morgues fill up, and we're also following supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg who is again hospitalized. this time for a possible infection. we'll update you on her condition this morning. a lot going on. ghislaine maxwell, by the way, denied bail and she's married. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday july 15th. joe saw of this morning taking a break along with willie and me, we have msnbc national affairs analyst, co-host of showtime's "the circus" and executiver of " "the recount" and can't have a rally, bring the rally to the rose garden with a captive audience. >> yes, he did, for 63 minutes. 6 of which answering questions from reporters. it was hailed as a news conference. can was not that.

from the "new york times" "in theory president trump summoned television cameras to the heat-baked rose garden early tuesday evening to announce new measures again china to punish it for its oppression of hong kong nap did not last long." peter continues "mr. trump drifted seemingly add random from one topic to the other often in the same run-on sentence. even for a president who rarely sticks to the scripts and wanders from thought to thought one of the most of ahis presidency and military spending and china again then the coronavirus again, and the economy and energy, taxes and trade with europe. illegal immigration and friendship with mexico's president and the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in chicago and the death penalty and back to climate change and education,

and historic's statues and more. he could go on for days." it sounded plausible. at time, hard to understand what he meant. he seemed to suggest that his presumptive democratic challenger former vice president joseph r. biden jr. would get rid of windows if elected, and later said mr. biden would "abolish the suburbs." he complained mr. biden had gone so far right, he meant left. even for those who follow mr. trump regularly and understand his shorthand, it became challenging to follow his train of thought, to put it mildly. here is some of what we heard yesterday from the president of the united states. >> joe biden's entire career has been a gift to the chinese communist party. joe biden supported china's entry into the world trade organization, one. greatest geopolitical and economic disasters in world

history. >> as vice president, biden was a leading advocate of the paris climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our country. america lost nearly 10,000 factories while joe biden was vice president. >> this is wa he wrote. high-speed broadband. we want high-speed -- well, why didn't he get? three years ago is not a long time, and he didn't do any of the things, but now says he's going to be president, as president he's going to do all the things that he didn't do. never did. never did anything. except make very bad decisions especially on foreign policy. >> we saved tens of thousands of lives but we actually saved millions of lives lie closing. >> if we'd listened to joe biden hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost. >> he said the idea china is our competition is really bizarre. he's really bizarre.

where is hunter, by the way? >> john heilemann, first crack at this and good luck. first of all violates not law but tradition presidents using the white house to attack opponents during a presidential campaign or at any time and a burning crisis going on in the country right now and none of those 63 minutes got us any closer to solutions about coronavirus. about what's happening in southern california and houston and georgia and florida and arizona. across the country right now. or addressed concerns about whether or not kids will get back to school. that's what's happening in the country right now. instead the president spent those 63 minutes attacking joe biden, often with lies. >> right. so good morning, willie. good morning, mika. i think -- >> good morning. >> top of your question -- to get back to the top of your question, you know, yes. so the tradition is, you know,

we've heard of the rose garden. presidents, incumbent presidents, who use the power of the office to advance both the country's interest and their political interest. one of those things power of incumbency. you get that as a sitting president. this notion that politics and government don't come together is, of course, false, but what the president's done here is rather than doing what normal incumbent presidents do, use power of the office in that way by using their -- their policy power to enhance their standing with the american people as opposed to just using the rose guard ton attack a rival, the president seems to be doing exactly the opposite. not only violating tradition by launching this kind of personal invective and negative campaigning against his rival, something that generally presidents don't do from the white house grounds let alone the rose garden, the east room, the press briefing room. president trump has used all of those stages to attack joe biden but this is the most glares example, but he's also failing

to do what normal incumbent presidents would do. right? to your point, willie, to say there's a crisis in the country. for most incoumbent presidents this is an opportunity to address it in way that makes people feel more secure. that actually makes the problem, reduces the problem that people are facing. here, listening to what the voters are saying. we had polling yesterday that showed 70% -- 70% -- of american parents are concerned about sending their kids back to school this fall. the president yesterday not only did not address that in a kind of, in a way that would make them feel better or do anything about it to make them feel better, sort of mocked the notion that parents did an interview on cbs did a notion mocked parents would have these concerned. when asked, if you're a parent who thinks that, somebody else should be taking care of your kids. the president is not behaving, not just a way that violates tradition but in a way that is politically suicidal on a daily

basis. this was one more example of that. >> and so the political suicidal behavior, john heilemann, i would say especially on the schools issue, is that people are desperately looking for leadership on this. so when they don't get it from president trump, they will actually look elsewhere, because they need information. they need leadership. they need to know whether it's safe enough to send their kids to school when they have to make their own decisions. they will turn away from him. again shows this rose garden debacle. this completely inappropriate act, you know in a completely denying tradition on every level, total abuse of power. using the rose garden as a campaign event, because you can't have your pitiful little rails because people won't come, so you have a captive audience of reporters and cameras and you use it for politics. you use it to go after joe

biden. bret baier, trump friendly fox news tweeted this, you know, had president obama done this, he actually talked about this. had president obama done this people would have gone crazy. take lachb. >> listen. >> presidents in the past by tradition stayed away from overt campaign rhetoric from the white house but it is the president's discretion and worth noting, however, to be fair, had president obama made this kind of speech from the rose garden republicans on capitol hill would likely have been up in arms. >> so, john heilemann, seems to me that his desperation and maybe, you know -- doesn't it seem more and more obvious that he's desperate to grab the limelight wherever he can? and with people looking for leadership in a crisis, it actually may turn them off? >> sure. yeah, of course, mika. you know, you made point about the fact the president, you know is trying to do a rally in new

hampshire. they claimed he couldn't do the rally because there were going to be thunderstorms. those thunderstorms never really, tropical storm that never arrived in new hampshire. i think they realized they were on their way towards another tulsa debacle. you're seeing it happen now in jacksonville where i'm sure we'll talk about it more today for the convention. the republican convention is now in peril there. there's discussion about, you know, scrapping the indoor element of it and pushing it to be outside. the possibility of people having to wearing a masks. appropriate thing poor public health but not what the president's wants. the president's plans, things he'see lied on for campaign tools, the things he love to do, the big rally. people standing shoulder to shoulder. now for the sake of public health not able do this and of course, from his point of view this is the perfect captive audience as you said. i say one more thing. right? even if you forget about all the grotesque abuse of public

resources, taxpayer-funded stage, you forget about all that. just take it as pure politics. if you just evaluate what he did yesterday in terms of his attacks on joe biden, did anybody hear and effective attack on joe biden? did anybody hear a frame on joe biden that might have a chance of proving his political standing of taking joe biden down a peg? quite the contrary. i defy you to tell me what the president's argument is against joe biden on the basis of what he said yesterday. incoherent rambling and one of the other elements that's happening. the president is incredibly frustrated with the fact in joe biden who is not, say it over and over again, not a perfect candidate, has his flaws and weaknesses as all of us do, but the president is incredibly frustrated in that he cannot find an effective frame for joe biden. this is like the nightmare candidate for him. another septuagenerian relative moderate conservative even white guy. not what donald trump wanted to

run against and yet to, now in july, the president does not know how to make the case against joe biden. that was vividly on display yesterday in the rose guard's. garden. still ahead on "morning joe," police violence, the confederate flag and armed intimidation. president trump tossed red meat to his base while turning off just about everybody else. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ight back.y come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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before his meandering rose garden appearance, president trump spent time earlier in the day weighing in on matters of race in a series of interviews. peter baker writes, the appearance came on day when mr. trump seemed eager to challenge convention and at times basic facts. during an earlier interview with cbs news, he denied that black americans suffered from police

brutality more than white americans. >> let's talk about george floyd. you said george floyd's death was a terrible thing. >> terrible. >> why are african-americans still dieing at the hands of law enfor enforcement in this country, and so are white people. so are white people. what a terrible question to ask. so are white people. more white people, by the way. more white people. >> as the "washington post" notes, more white people are shot and killed by police when considering absolute number, however, blacks are fatally shot by police at a higher rate when accounting for population differences. later on in that interview the president dismissed concerns over the confederate battle flag as an issue of freedom of speech. >> back in 2015 you said the confederate battle flag belongs in a museum. do you still believe that? >> freedom of speech. simple. my attitude is freedom of speech. very strong views on the

confederate flag. with me it's freedom of speech. very simple. like it, don't like it. it's freedom of speech. >> would you be comfortable with your supporters displaying the confederate battle flag -- >> depends on what your definition is but i am comfortable with freedom of speech. simple. >> you understand why the flag is a painful symbol for many people, because it's a reminder of slavery? >> people love it and i know people that like the confederate flag and they're not thinking about slavery. look at nascar. nascar, those flags were all over the place. they stopped it. i just think it's freedom of speech. whether it's confederate flags or black lives matter or anything else you want to talk about, it's freedom of speech. >> and in yet another interview yesterday, trump also falsely claimed that a white couple in st. louis who confronted peaceful marchers outside their home with guns were on the verge of being attacked. trump told townhall.com they were going to be beat up badly

and the house totally ransacked and probably burned down. as the "times" video notes, became a flashpoint in the national debate over racial inequality showed the protesters at no point physically threatened the couple. they were, in fact, peaceful. up next, we get reaction to those comments and what it means for the president's diminished standing among the american people. "morning joe" is coming right back. ing right back. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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shawna, what stands out to you? we just ran several sound bites. seems to me that the president is choosing to say things that are roiling the race issue. especially when it comes to police shootings, white versus black. why did he have to say that? why would he choose to say that during that interview? politically. >> i mean, first, i give the reporter props for trying to have a somewhat nuanced discussion with the president about this. but as we know and as we've been saying for four, five years even, it really comes down president trump's base.

at some point he has gotten the message there is a part of his base that doesn't want tone gauge in this conversation about race we're having in this country, that there's part of his base that wants to be able to fly confederate flags. not all of this base, and we also know he doesn't really have a grasp of history of this country. so i am not giving him a pass for not really being able to grapple with the issue of the confederate flag and what that stands for, but i don't think anyone is surprised by his answers at this point. you know, i also think the follow-up question for the president, if he's going to keep repeating the phrase "freedom of speech" over and over again is, do you believe in the freedom of speech and the protesters in the streets talking about black lives matter? talking about our need to reform the police systems in various cities and localities? those freedom of speech extend to people who may not be your supporters, because that is also what the presidency stands for. and i'm not sure we've ever

gotten a clear answer about that. but this comes back to what i said about sort of trump 2020 bingo. you want to avoid making anyone mad over the confederate flag who might want to turn out and vote for you. but also freedom of speech, you know, your ability to not have to wear a mask and all of these other things, that checks some boxes. so i think he feels that the safest answer and the answer that will please people is just keep repeating freedom of speech. and if he can avoid that larger conversation about race, i think he's going to try to do that from now on. >> coming up, what jeff sessions' defeat means for the future of trumpism. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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i think lgts time for this

republican party to listen to the donald trump agenda because he's talk and those things frankly and openly and i think they were huge factors in his ability to win that past election, fanned he gets on message and stays on it, stays on those principle positions i think he'll be in a position to come back and win this election. >> former attorney general jeff sessions with that message to the republican party and donald trump in his concession speech yesterday after losing his bid to reclaim his old u.s. senate seat in alabama. sessions conceded yesterday's republican primary runoff to trump-backed former college football coach tommy tuberville. tuberville will now take on democratic senator doug jones in november's general election. joining us now, "new york times" reporter jeremy peters. professor at linden b. johnson school of public affairs at

university of texas, msnbc contributor victoria and host of "politics nation "anreverend al sharpton. good to have you all for this segment. jeremy, start with you and your analysis of the jeff sessions/tommy tuberville race. jeff sessions was sort of a trump person, until he wasn't, but sort of embodied the trump message, and yet trump backed tuberville. what's your analysis of the outcome of this race? >> well, i think you know, whatever trumpism is, mika, after last night's loss for jeff sessions, you can honestly say that it is more about the man than it was ever about the ideas. jeff sessions was not only faithful to the trump agenda, jeff sessions was onboard with the trump agenda before trump

was ever a political figure. jeff sessions was fighting immigration reform and helped defeat it in the senate in the 2007. when donald trump was still hos sessions brought those -- and when campaigning for president jeff sessions was the first republican senator to endorse him. the ideas that lit this populous, nationalist brushfire that helped donald trump get elected were jeff sessions ideas before donald trump ever embraced them. now -- after a three-decade political career -- jeff sessions is kicked to the curb because donald trump decided he is disloyal and unworthy of service, and alabama voters seemed just fine with that. >> jeremy, throw in giving um

his job to become attorney general where he was one of the architects of the family separation policy and talk and leavings with dignity intact. up for debate now. his political kpreer career is . how are the people inside the state handicapping this race in the fall? doug jones has a tough fight to keep his seat against tommy tuberville last night called president trump the greatest president of my lifetime, which for a republican to say that, he was alive obviously when ronald reagan was president, that's a big statement, but the goal here, to hug donald trump closely. what does it look like in the fall? >> well, that's just the kind 6 statement that these republican politicians feel like they have to say. whether they believe it or not. and, willie, you and i both know from our conversations with these republicans, for the most part they don't believe that. it's something, compulsory for a republican running for office today to say. now the doug jones race is interesting, because nobody has been, you know -- a more loyal

soldier, having such a precarious political position being kind of caught between the right and the left. he voted for impeachment, has always been pretty good with most democratic issues, but i don't yet see evidence the democratic party will put much money or resources into his race, because frankly, talking about a state donald trump won in 2017 by almost 30 points. eve an really politically vulnerable donald trump like the one we see today, even with that, it's going to be hard for doug jones, or any democrat, to win in alabama. >> yeah. no question. jeremy, move one state east. you're covering the state of georgia as well right now. the president of the united states will be there today. georgia is now a battleground state. he won by about five points last time around n. that state has not gone for a very long time to a democrat, but they're hopeful joe biden

may snatch that one away. what is are grounds as this may become a battleground? >> the republican larger strugglesed upper this increasingly unpopular president. i mean, you have a really winnable senate race. two of them, actually. and there is real question right now on a lot of republicans minds, real heartburn, that this is going to be really, really close. david perdue is about even in a lot of polls with hess dimmick challenger john ossah. that's alarming. donald trump losing in a fox news poll that came out last month. trump is headed to georgia today to talk about the need to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. if you were going to georgia in july as a republican presidential nominee, that should tell the country how big a red flag there is hanging over your re-election prospects.

>> well, joe biden is launch ag s launching a new set of ads in texas, arizona as well as florida and north carolina. here's a look at the one that's going to run in texas. >> i'm thinking about all 6 you acrosstexas and know the rising case numbers is causing fear and apprehension. people are frightened. they're especiallyorried about their parents, their grandparents, loved ones who are most at risk. this virus is tough, but texas is tougher. we can stop the spread, and it's up to all of us to do it. we have to step up and do both the simple things and the hard things to keep our families and neighbors safe. wear a mask. wash your hands. stay home if you can and socially distance when you go out. i want every single american to know. if you're sick, if you're struggling, if you're worried

about how you're going to get through the day, i will not abandon you. we're all in this together. we'll fight this together. and together we'll emerge from this stronger than we were before we began. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> victoria defrancesco soto. talk to me about texas. is it possible joe biden could take texas? >> mika, i've always been very cautious when i say, oh, texas is going to flip. it's going to go blue. every election we get that talk. i do think we are extremely close, and i'm going to go with the ocean metaphor, right? the blue wave. waves swell. you know? it doesn't happen in one fail swoop, and we've been seeing that. we saw hillary clinton lose in single digits. we saw 2018 a lot of pick-up across the state and even though

i remember bizezo, he host but came within two psercentage points of ted cruz. i think if the coronavirus storm is anything it can be a precipitating factor. so i'm still not going to put all of my money on texans turning blue, but i think what's really important is what i will put my money on, is that ins 2020 we are going see the ball moved down the field. i think that, you know, joe biden can come within two to three percentage points of trump in texas, and we might see, again, mj hager won the democratic runoff going up against cornyn also come within two to three percentage points. while those aren't wins outright, in the larger picture put texas on track to a very blue path in 2024. >> jonathan lemire.

>> reverend al, i want to circle back a little to the jeff sessions point, portion of this discussion. he said last night, this would be the last race of his political career. this effectively ends it. he, of course, was thought by notice have actually done the right thing in recusing himself from the russia probe while attorney general. of course, he incurred the wrath of the president who never, ever, ever forgive him for that. but let me give awe shot here. speak to what his legacy is going to be like at attorney general? because so much of what he did, people around the president will try to cool trump's anger, because they said jeff sessions was arguably his most effective cabinet member delivering the trump agenda. what do you think? how is history going to remember jeff sessions time as both senator but particularly as attorney general? >> jeff sessions was opposed by most of us in the civil rights community when he was nominated. had a terrible record in voting rights. a terrible record in terms of

dealing with policing and other issues, and once he was confirmed, he met with us and he told us in the first meeting two or three weeks after he took the position he was ending the consent decrees with policing whered there been a pattern in certain cities of police abuse. he was not going to aggressively fight for voting rights. so his legacy would be that he really turned back the clock on the justice department that had began to pursue fighting for better policing, dealing with voting rights and all, and that he lost his position with all that he did that was in lockstep with the president, donald trump, wanted to reverse the era of obama. he was rewarded with being kicked out the door, because he did what was right on russia. unfortunately, that will be a footnote that he did the right thing and will be the major

part, in my opinion, that he was the one that turned the clock back on the justice department from where we had advanced from robert kennedy to eric holder and loretta lynch. >> rev, stand by. jeremy peters and victoria defrancesco soto, thank you both for being on the show this morning. it is time now for "business before the bell "with cnbc's brian sullivan. brian, look at the stock market, how it's reacting to promising results from the coronavirus vaccine trial. >> two trials out there. hi, everybody. good to see you again. m moderna. not a lot of serious adverse reaction. all 45 did react. stock way up. the stock futures way up. market's going to soar today unless something changes because we all want this vaccine to occur one day after we have

67,400 new cases. a new record in the united states. also there's very favorable trial mika out of oxford, england, and the major pharmaceutical company astrazeneca. not just one positive potential vaccine. there are two. got to temper this. obviously you know, you've talked about it. a vaccine, gets done. gets approved. gets manufactured. gets distributed. it could be a ways off. we understand that, but i think the hope, the optimism that we might be able to come out of this absent just herd immunity and 70% of america getting it is a very optimistic thing and the market reflects that today. >> all right. quick on mcmahonices banks defaulting. a possibly we're going to see this? >> not yet, but watch this space closely, mika. the $28 billion was set aside by the banks that reported in the quarter for bad loans. i've said on my show on cnbc,

the job market. worry about the job market june of 2021, less june of 2020. this recession could be longer and deeper than you think. watch the banks. not in trouble yet but got about $90 billion of clos, collateral loan obligations. go back and watch "the big short." instruments not as bad but still out there. different forms, mika, but they exist. wells fargo has more thanes $20 billion and why that stock's been suffering. >> our company has big news today. peacock making announcements. what are they? >> yeah! peacock. okay. we all pay for streaming services. peacock, the new launch from our parent company and comcast. going to be free. there is a paid tier, and on that premium tier, i don't know if you know anybody that likes liverpool soccer team, mika, but you can watch premiere league games, yeah, on -- sit and watch

all day premiere league game, "morning joe" in the morning, a little cnbc and then premiere league. congratulations to our parent company as well. launches today. exclusive content, new shows, shows we love like "the office," "parks and rec," a little mika, joe, willie. premiere league. what's not to love? >> exactly. yeah. what i was going to say. cnbc's brian sullivan. thank you very much. and still ahead, if the george floyd case goes to trial prosecutors will try to argue that officer derek chauvin's intent was to cause harm. up next, we take a look at a new film that imagines the outcome of another similar case, had it gone to court. "morning joe" is back in a moment. nt. tell me about it. you know, it's made me think, i'm closer to my retirement days than i am my college days.

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how could we put our trust in the justice system when they fall us like this? >> in a statement, the officer accused of applying the choke hold writes, i feel very bad about the death of mr. garner. >> the time for remorse would have been when my husband was yelling to breathe. >> he was murdered. >> grand jury has found the evidence is just not there. >> not to indict. >> refuse to indict. >> no indictment. >> no indictment. >> thank you, miss garner, for

coming in. i appreciate it. want to have the opportunity to go over some of the charges that we're prepared to go forward on. >> and what was he doing? >> objection. >> you need some time? >> this is a little much for me. this is a lot. >> mr. panteleo, will you please stand? has the jury reach aid verdict? >> yes, we have, your honor. >> what is your verdict? a look at the new film "american trial: the eric gar nechlt r" story, part documentary, part unscripted history that imagines what could have happened if the nypd officer who killed garner had been put on trial. joining us now is the film's director, along with esop snipes garner, eric garner's widow.

i'll start with you. what inspired it and what questions does it answer? >> i was living in harlem as a film student when eric garner was killed back in 2014, and, you know, it was everywhere. you couldn't get away from it. the rallies, people in the grocery store, on the street when i was walking my dog, and everybody seems to think that there should have been a trial. and i think it was very difficult for everyone to understand how is it possible that a trial didn't follow such a brutal incident. and it occurred to me that i was living in new york that all the witnesses that would have participated in the trial are probably just -- live within a 15, 20-mile radius to me and it wouldn't be difficult to track them down and see if they would be willing to participate in this kind of project and, yeah, that's how the idea came about, to basically tell the story of

the trial that should have happened using the real witnesses that would have testified, giving people a chance to testify in that trial, and using real attorneys so that it's not about what i think should have happened, right? it's not about me writing a script, showing what a trial should have looked like in my opinion but rather how a trial could have really looked like if the people involved were to be given a chance to do it. >> we appreciate you being on with us this morning. i don't have to tell you that two days from now will be the sixth anniversary of eric's death. i wonder what it was like for you as a witness who participated in this film to sit and answer those questions, to relive that day, to relive the aftermath of it. was it frustrating for you? was it cathartic for you? how did it feel to sit and listen to the evidence in this

case? >> who are you asking, me or roee? >> i think he's asking you, esop. >> well, it was hard for me, of course, because, you know, this is a film to everyone else but it's my life. it's what happened to me, you know. my husband wasn't the greatest, but he was mine, you know, and he was be here to enjoy the life of raising our grandchildren and everything, and that was taken away from him. i just felt like maybe if people saw what this film bring about that it would, you know, unfortunately the trial came and went before the film came out

but i was hoping in some small way that it would get into people's minds and change their minds about the verdict but, unfortunately, that didn't happen. but it was just wishful thinking, i guess, on my part. it was hard for me to sit there and listen to it, even though i knew it was fake, it was real to me. and it's still real to me. and being two days away, i still can't believe that it's been six years that my husband has been gone. and i miss him every day. you know, people say when it comes around to july 17th. but, no, i miss him every day, every holiday, every birthday. my grandchildren's milestones, when he should be here, you know. it was really hard and it still is. talking about it, it's a little easier now to talk about it without breaking down, but i still break down sometimes

because it was just horrible, you know. and to see it over and over and over again in video made it even hard harder and even now, you know, they don't have any compassion for how the family feels. and every time something happens with police brutality, you know, his video is like a point of reference. >> in many ways, esaw, the whole movement that you and the family were thrust into, and i was there from day one. i can witness it. you and i became family. in many ways, eric garner's movement is really what started this whole wave, this new wave of police questioning and now george floyd and others have represented because black lives matter as a hash tag started with trayvon mattrtin, that was not a policeman. the police case was eric garner. the significance of this film

that you worked on and allowed yourself to go through the pain of the acting is so significant as we look at george floyd, because i can't breathe and questioning policing started with eric garner, but you and the family have had to live that for six years now every day. >> uh-huh. >> to us, it's history and it's a social issue. to you, it's your husband and it's their father and grandfather. and you lost a daughter in this. so, the personal pain of this, i was able to witness. no one could ever explain what they went through as we all try to fight to change the social climate, they still have to live with this. >> yes. and, you know, rev, you're my big brother, and you've been there for me since day one. and you continue to be there for me. i can call you at any time for anything, for any reason, even if it's just prayer, you know. anything. i miss you so much, rev.

let me just say that. you know, roee, he has become part of the family through this process, you know, of making the film, you know. roee has been there since, i would say, a year after eric died, you know, i met roee. i don't know what it is about him, but his ingenuity, his sincerity just shined through from day one and i just knew we were a match made in heaven. >> the film streaming now is "american trial: the eric garner story." we really appreciate this film, roee messinger, esaw snipes-garner, thank you both. roee, thank you for putting on this project and esaw, thank you for putting yourself through it so we could learn so much. thank you both. >> time now for final thoughts.

jonathan lemier, you go first. >> i'll just echo what a powerful moment this is. i covered eric garner's death on the streets of new york city and in the aftermath, i remember seeing reverend sharpton in a number of those events, certainly. it is remarkable. certainly, i'm sure every time this comes around, the wounds are reopened. and as much as what he said has become a rallying cry, helped form the >> reverend al? >> i think knowing how far we come, as we do have some cases where police are not at least arrested and charged so there won't be imaginary trials. there will be a real george floyd trial. but the day after we saw the president say more whites are

killed than blacks by police. we still have a long way to go in this country. >> willee? >> speaking as the president, the white house is is saying peter navarro, the trade adviser, went rogue, attacking dr. anthony fauci, which raises the question, will he be fired, as would happen in any other white house? >> here we go. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> oh, here we go is right. thank you, mika. hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's wednesday, july 15th. here are the facts of this hour. we begin with a very big number, roughly 68,000 new cases of coronavirus reported in the last 24 hours. that is among the highest daily counts we have seen thus far. we are now closing in on 3.5 million cases acros