immediately available to them and take the frustration out. we don't justify it. we challenge them. but in order to challenge them, you have to expose it. don't be used by the forces that suppress you in the first place. >> all right. reverend al sharpton, thank you so much for joining us this hour. that does it for me this hour. my colleague steve kornacki picks it up next. good evening. i'm steve kornacki in new york. as coronavirus cases continue to surge in states across the united states, the south and the west in particular, many local gastroenterologis governments are grappling with how to curb outbreaks. there have been 3.5 million cases of the virus nationwide. the death toll approaching 139,000. in florida, officials reported nearly 14,000 new cases today and the highest daily hospitalization and a record

number of deaths as well in that state. mask requirements have emerged as a point of contention between some state and local leaders. florida, for example, does not have a statewide mask requirement though local communities can set their own requirements. in neighboring georgia, governor brian kemp has voided all local government mask mandates. this after 15 municipalities had put them in place. kemp says that mask use shouldishould be voluntary. today the governors of colorado and arkansas imposed new mask requirements in their states as well. and in alabama, a mask mandate went into effect within the past hour after governor kay ivey said that covid numbers in her state are heading in the wrong direction. across the country several major retailers have announced mask requirements of their own. this includes target, cvs, and the supermarket chain publix. more than half of all states have some form of a statewide

mask order in place. arizona, which is seeing some of the highest rates of new cases in the country, does not have a statewide mask mandate, but local governments there can enact their own, and many have. maricopa county, where more than 60% of the state's population lives, does have one in place. amid concerns about hospital capacity there, the state announced it would bring in nearly 600 nurses from other states to assist with covid treatment. and i am joined now by three mayors from states we were just talking about, rick kriezman from st. petersburg, florida, stephen read from montgomery, blamd, and anna toll var of tulsa, arizona. welcome to all of you. mayor read, let me start with you. mask requirement within the last hour going into effect in your city and in your state. how do you enforce this? >> well, i think we enforce it by just making people aware of the importance of wearing a mask anytime they're in public. what we're really looking to do

is to bring attention to this issue and stopping the spread of covid-19. our areas of enforcement range from partnerships with businesses to certainly law enforcement being a last option. what we really just want to do is encourage everyone to wear a mask when they're out in public, and we're going to work with our business owners and we're going to work with our community to really bring about more participation in wearing masks, which we've been doing for the last few weeks. >> before this requirement went into effect, when it was still voluntary, what was it like in your community? how widespread would you say mask use was? how many people were, how many people weren't roughly? >> well, we saw a tremendous uptick in people wearing masks, and a lot of our frontline workers were thanking us for signing the executive order. and many of our businesses were also doing that as well because it gave them some fallback to try to encourage people to wear

those masks when they were coming into their establishments. so we saw a tremendous uptick, and i think we've seen the positive results of that with our case growth going down tremendously as well as our hospitalization rate. >> mayor tovar, let me bring you in. there was an interesting story here in the "usa today." they have a study here on attitudes towards mask-wearing in different parts of the country. they found the state where you are, arizona, is the most resistant state in the country when it comes to wearing masks, when it comes to people's willingness to do so. this according to a recent study examining anti-mask activity online. after arizona, the states with the most anti-mask online activity are nevada, florida, idaho, and maine. so you're there in maricopa county where as i understand it, there is a county mask ordinance, no state mask ordinance. we read this story in the "usa today." they say folks in arizona just don't like, just don't want to wear masks. is that what you're finding in

your community? >> yes, that is true. but the science is clear. masks do work, and they are effective. but it is said to see that from a national perspective, the president isn't leading on this issue, and the governor in our state isn't leading as well too. if we would have required masks months ago we wouldn't be in the surge we are today. you know, we were able to put in the mask mandates as local mayors just not too long ago, and for me, we should have did it months ago. so right now we need to take this opportunity to know that we need a statewide mask mandate. i join today with my sister mayors from phoenix, tucson, and flagstaff in requesting that the governor truly take this one issue seriously and lead on it because this ultimately will save lives here in arizona. >> i'm just curious. you say there is something to it, that the study we're seeing here saying arizona, a couple other states, idaho, maine, nevada, florida, particularly

people are resistant to the idea. what is that? what would you chalk that up to? >> i would chalk it up to that we don't have a governor that is leading on this issue, that's making it a partisan issue when it should just be clear that the science is there. masks save lives, so we should all do our part together in making sure that we're slowing the spread. it shouldn't be a very political issue, but it's turned into that here in the state of arizona sad to say. but as mayors of arizona, we are pushing forward and making sure that we're doing our part. but, again, it could be so much easier if we had national leadership from our president and also from our governor here in arizona that would take it upon themselves and lead right now on this issue. >> mayor kriezman, st. petersburg, florida, let me bring you in on this. we've been talking a lot about florida this week. we had a doctor from a hospital up your way talking about the

nature of the outbreak in florida. you tweeted this the other day. you noted your county's rolling two-week average of the positive rate, the percent of tests that come back positive, you said monday now at its lowest total in more than two weeks. data may be reflecting our mask mandate. it's still early, but we hope this is the beginning of a positive trend. just as an update, the positive rate in pinellas county, st. petersburg, under 10% now, 9.9%. we also hear about 10% as sort of a target to get going in the right direction. when you attribute this to mask use, what's the data there that you have to show for that? >> so we implemented the mandatory mask policy in st. petersburg about june 23rd. so it's been about three weeks now, and this is about the time that we were expecting if we were going to see some kind of impact from putting that order in place, we thought this is about when we'd start to see it. and so we've seen much better

compliance with people wearing masks since we put the order in place. we have done something we call the saint pete way where we were encouraging people saying if you live in saint pete, take care of your community. wear a mask. we had some compliance but not as much as we wanted, and the numbers weren't going down. that's when we put the order in place. so we think there is some correlation, but, again, it's a little early from a data standpoint. we want to see more data before we're convinced there is that correlation between the mask order and our numbers starting to come down. >> let me ask you about another issue we've been talking about. charles lockwood we had on the other day was talking about how the average of these new cases in florida, around the state, you know, much lower than we'd seen in some other states, a younger population getting it. efforts to keep the outbreak confined to younger, healthier populations and not let it get

into nursing homes, not let it get into places where the elderly, vulnerable populations are -- what steps are you taking there, and what success? are you having success there? >> you know, that really is our biggest concern. our highest percentage age-wise is 25 to 34, and you're absolutely right. that age group tends to not be hospitalized asfrequently, and certainly the death rate isn't found -- the highest percentage isn't found in that age bracket. it's in our older residents. our big concern is the people of that age are going to go home. if they're living at home with family or they go to visit mom and dad or grandma and grandpa, they're the one who's are susceptible. so putting that mandatory mask order in place in particular in our restaurants and in our bars was really important because in our community at least, that's where that age bracket we tend to see the greatest population

of them congregating, and that's why we think we were seeing that percentage be our fastest growing percentage as far as positive testing. >> let me go back to mayor reed in montgomery, alabama, because here is another hot button issue in your city and across the country. we've been talking so much about reopening schools. do they reopen this fall? is it in-person learning? is it remote learning? this is an issue coming to a head in your city. august 10th schools are scheduled right now to reopen for the fall. there was a montgomery school board meeting on tuesday night. it was heated. most questioned returning to school as the number of coronavirus cases in montgomery continues to rise. do you expect schools in your city to open as scheduled august 10th? and if so, what will it look like? >> well, i'm encouraging our school board to really take a hard look at this. we have to make sure again we're following the data and we don't impose any false deadlines on

ourselves that are not going to be helpful for us to continue the trend of seeing our reduced case numbers in covid-19. the last thing we want to do is expose students, their parents, or our educators to a situation that we're not quite prepared for. so i believe they're having ongoing debates among themselves, and what we're just trying to do here at the city is share with them some information that we have, but also maybe being flexible about options, of pushing this start date back and maybe looking at both virtual as well as in-person, but giving people options about whether or not they start off with a virtual school year and then maybe transition to having the option of going in person should they choose at a later date. >> all right. mayor steven reed in montgomery, alabama, anna tovar, rick kriseman, thank you very much. coming up, what we know and

what we still don't know when it comes to covid-19. plus western intelligence agencies say russian hackers may be trying to get their hands on coronavirus vaccine research. how serious is that threat? and a republican governor with a blistering attack on president trump and his handling of the pandemic. we have got much more to get to. stay with us. when our daughter and her kids moved in with us...

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welcome back. it's been seven months since the first patients were hospitalized for the coronavirus in china, and since then much has been learned about the virus. but there is obviously still much that we don't know. doctors in the united kingdom have warned that, quote, the disease can damage the brain. according to the associated press, kidneys and livers fail in some patients and blood clots put limbs at risk of amputation.

some patients hallucinate or have trouble maining balance. some get a treatable paralysis in arms or legs. amid these growing concerns, six states are reversing their phased reopenings, and 15 have put theirs on pause. herd immunity, which was once talked about as a possible solution barring a vaccine, has proven elusive. mississippi governor tate reeves said that pursuing herd immunity would overwhelm hospitals and therefore, quote, herd immunity is not anything like a realistic solution in the short or midterm. i wish it was. for more on what we know and what we don't know, i'm joined by dr. ezekiel emanuel, former obama white house policy adviser, and joseph allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment science at the harvard school of public health. thank you for joining us. dr. emanuel, let me start with you. it's this question, i think, that scares people of long-term impact from coronavirus. you have it. you seem to get over it.

you think, okay, i got through that. is it possible that in months, that in years, some drastic consequence of this will emerge? what do we know about long-term consequences? >> well, because the virus is so new, the short answer nothing. we do know that it can take some people a long time to recover, that they have persistent symptoms. i know someone who mainly had abdominal systems, and despite the fatigue going away, the abdominal symptoms intermittently per sit. we don't know the consequences of lung damage that people might have. we simply don't know because it's just too new. >> that's obviously a gap in our knowledge. is that the biggest gap in our knowledge, what happens long-term? what are other big gaps that are out there right now? >> i think there are two really important gaps. the first one is why do some people get really sick and other

people don't seem to be affected at all or are totally asymptomatic? there seems to be something with puberty, children under 12 really don't seem to get this as a problem. but we don't have much more explanation, and the recent kerfuffle over type a blood type seems not to be the case. so why some people are really sick and others aren't. the second thing i think that is very worrisome and relates to the vaccine and possible ly getg out of this entire pandemic mess is the whole issue of how long does immunity last and is there a way through vaccines of trying to actually create a situation where there's -- you can get long term immunity to this. and that, again, we just don't know. we know that some people have she short term immunity. >> joseph allen, let me bring you in because you wrote a very interesting piece for "the washington post."

i perked up as soon as i saw the headline. you say six pieces of good news, optimistic news when it comes to the coronavirus. i think we could all use a dose of that. take us through what you think the most significant positive pieces of information we now have are. >> yeah. there's a lot of bad news out there, and i thought it was time to keep our eye on the end of the road here. there is some hope. you know, when you have every scientist in the world working on the same problem at the same time, it's inevitable some solutions will come up. we know about the ones that are making front-page news. let me tell you a couple that are just under the radar. one is treatment is going to be vaccine. we've already seen this for the most severely ill, but there are other treatments coming for everybody else, including monoclonal antibodies. these are engineered antibodies, and they look like they'll be a successful treatment coming this fall. another positive is that we're going to have rapid saliva tests

very soon. my colleague at the harvard school of public health, tests you can take like a home pregnancy test with a strip of paper. you put it in your mouth and it will tell you rapidly. really cheap, really fast. not perfect but doesn't have to be because it's cheap and we can take it every day. that's a game-changer. think about what that would do for consumer confidence. you want to go out. you want to go back to work, to a theater. you take the rapid test and show you're clear. the last one that is just on the radar too is this. a couple studies are showing that 20% to 50% of the population that was never exposed to this virus has immune cells that do respond to the virus. so there's some underlying immune memory from your memory t cells that's showing they're cross reactivity. we don't know why or what the implications are, but if is promising we're seeing that reactist.

one plausible explanation is it's related to exposure to other common cold coronaviruses. >> when you say they'll have more treatments out there before you get to the vaccine, is there any expectation there about if these treatments are developed as you're describing them, how dramatically that could reduce the death rate before you got to a vaccine? >> well, look, i think it's going to have dramatic impacts. it's going to beat the vaccine. i'm almost positive of it. the other thing with the vaccine, one it's ready, the hard part of vaccines is then manufacture and distribution. so here's the thing with these treatments. if they reduce the likelihood of death, i think that will also free up the economy. most people aren't scared of getting sick and getting through it. what people are scared about are these -- are death, hospitalizations, or long-term impacts. so as more and more of these treatments come up and not just for those who are very ill, therapeutic treatments even and these monoclonal antibodies are in line to come out this fall.

i think we'll see a lot of improvement in our ability to get back to normal and restart this economy, which is also a public health crisis. >> dr. emanuel, let me get you back in. on vaccines, there's this one out of oxford that's been getting a lot of attention now. now we've got this report here, the oxford team aiming to start lab-controlled human trials. they want to do tests on volunteers who will be intentionally exposed in a challenge trial, called a challenge trial. can you take us through what's going on over there? >> yeah. so what's a challenge trial? a challenge trial is you take a normal person, and you give them the vaccine. you allow them to develop antibodies, and then rather than just wait for them to get exposed to coronavirus in the community through their daily activities, many of them won't be exposed. you actually expose them to a set dose of the virus and see if they get infected or if they can resist infection.

and that's the main advantage. the only reason to do challenge studies is to speed up the trials. they are actually complicated -- [ inaudibl [ inaudible ] -- issue of trying to get, you know, trying to get the right dose to them. and in the end, will it speed it up, or if you test the vaccine in call it brazil or a hot spot like arizona in the united states or texas, will that get you the answer just as fast? the other thing is that mostly in these challenge trials, you deal with very young, healthy, 18 to say 50-year-old people . o we're not going to know critically whether older people will respond to the vaccine. you're unlikely to do a challenge trial in very old people over 65. so that will leave a big hole in our understanding of how well the vaccine works, especially among vulnerable populations. >> all right.

dr. ezekiel emanuel and joseph allen. joseph allen with the good news tonight. thank you very much for coming on. still ahead, u.s. intelligence officials are accusing hackers linked to a russian intelligence agency of trying to steal information on vaccine development. that is next. stay with us. usaa is made for what's next no matter what challenges life throws at you, we're always here to help with fast response and great service and it doesn't stop there we're also here to help look ahead that's why we're helping members catch up by spreading any missed usaa insurance payments over the next twelve months so you can keep more cash in your pockets for when it matters most and that's just one of the many ways we're here to help the military community find out more at usaa.com ♪ oh, oh, (announcer)®! ♪ once-weekly ozempic® is helping many people with type 2 diabetes like emily lower their blood sugar. a majority of adults who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it.

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welcome back. with countries all around the world racing to find a vaccine for the coronavirus, intelligence agencies in the

united states, the united kingdom, and canada are accusing hackers associated with russian intelligence of trying to steal their vaccine research. the national security agency says the hacking group apt 29, also known as cozy bear, is behind the attempted theft. they are also the ones who hacked into the democratic party's servers during the 2016 presidential campaign. today white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany was asked if president trump had a response to russia's alleged actions. >> we worked very closely with our allies to ensure that we would take measures to keep that information safe, and we continue to do so. we're aware of those activities. >> the russian government denies the hacking allegation. i'm joined now by ken dilanian, msnbc national security and justice correspondent. ken, thanks for joining us. first of all, where are they trying to steal the information from, and do you know if they've gotten anything?

>> steve, nbc news interviewed the top british cybersecurity official about this today, and he said there is no evidence that these russian hackers have actually stolen any data. he wouldn't say explicitly who -- which institutions are being targeted, but he said it's health care institutions, research facilities, places that are involved in vaccine research, places that this group normally does not target because this group known as cozy bear is associated with russia's version of the cia. they are not the gru, the guys that do the hack and dump and influence operations. they're an intelligence-gathering group. they usually operate quietly. they steal national security information for the benefit of russia. and so it was unusual and alarming for the national security agency and the british cybersecurity agency to see this group all of a sudden start targeting health care institutions, and they are saying that it's about stealing vaccine research, steve. >> obviously we don't want anybody stealing any research from this country, but what are the implications there if russia

or anyone for that matter, but russia in this case were able to steal that information to jump ahead of us potentially in developing a vaccine? what are the implications there if they were able to do that? >> sure. it's not terribly surprising, right, that a foreign intelligence agency would be trying to steal this information. in fact, the u.s. government says that china is also doing this kind of hacking, and it appears to be kind of a vaccine nationalism going on, steve, where countries are racing to be first to perfect this vaccine. of course whatever country gets it first is going to give it to their own citizens first presumably and could stand to make a lot of money potentially. now, what my sources say is china is a more realistic candidate to actually best the west and develop a vaccine first rather than russia, which doesn't have much of a bioresearch sector. nonetheless, the russians are out looking for this information, to help them, to help their scientists. so are other countries.

it's a race to get -- to be first with the vaccine, steve. >> we had that clip there from kayleigh mcenany at the white house today. her response. i also put this up. this is from congressman michael mccaul. he's a top republican on the house foreign affairs committee. his statement today on this is as folz. russian cyberattacks on organizations combating the covid pandemic and working tirelessly to develop a vaccine once again show vladimir putin is not a friend to the united states. sadly, this is part of a larger pattern of russia launching cyberattacks that seek to destabilize and undermine democratic institutions here in the united states as well as in allied countries like the united kingdom, germany, estonia, ukraine, and georgia. we must continue to work with our allies to expose this despicable behavior and hold the putin regime accountable. so some strong words there from the top republican on the house foreign affairs committee. >> yeah. >> heard the statement there from the white house. that was sort of a short

response there. do you have any sense of what is being done in response to this by the government, by the mr. ing? >> look, the intelligence agencies are pushing back both against china and russia, malicious cyber activity. the difference is we're hearing nothing from the political leadership of this country, from donald trump, from the white house. you have the british condemning this action today and calling and deplorable. you had a top republican in congress saying that it's deplorable and terrible and needs to be responded to. this is going to have. it's a tit for tat intelligence battle, but what's different here is donald trump is not condemning it, not responding to it, not inflicting a price, a political price, in terms of sanctions or diplomatic activity on russia. the intelligence agencies are doing what they can in the shadows, but donald trump is awol in terms of responding to this russian aggression on this issue and on the question of paying bounties to kill american troops in afghanistan. across the board, donald trump is missing in action against russia. >> ken dilanian, thank you as

always. appreciate that. still ahead, a major staffing shake-up at the top of the president's struggling re-election campaign. could it help, or is it too little, too late? back after this. ♪ ♪ [ engines revving ] ♪ ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. you think it smells fine, s in your car. but your passengers smell this. eliminate odors you've gone noseblind to for up to 30 days with the febreze car vent clip. wow, it smells good in here.

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welcome back. as president trump tries to get his campaign back on track, his response to the coronavirus pandemic threatens to overshadow every other issue in this race. today he is taking heat from a republican governor of a blue state. in an excerpt from his upcoming book published in "the washington post" today, republican governor larry hogan of maryland says the president let his state down, referring to trump's handling of the pandemic. hogan writes this, quote, eventually it was clear that waiting around for the president to run the nation's response was hopeless. if we delayed any longer, we'd be condemning more of our

citizens to suffering and death. speaking of his fellow governors, hogan says, quote, we expected something more than constant heckling from the man who is supposed to be our leader. in an interview today on msnbc, hogan said that president trump undermined the fight against the virus by repeatedly challenging the advice of his own health experts. >> sometimes the president was ignoring the advice of his own people, and he was going in a completely opposite direction, saying an exact opposite message of what the entire rest of the administration was saying. it's one of the things i'm talking about, the mixed messaging, the pinball, if we get the good advice from the experts, and then we hear something different from the president. we just need the president to lead and focus on these issues and maybe not worry so much about his twitter account. >> we've seen numbers for a while now showing that the public does not like the president's handling of the pandemic. now more new polling shows the trump campaign in a big hole, and a big staff shake-up indicates they know it's there. that's coming up next.

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walk to end alzheimer's alzheis everywhere.tion all of us are raising funds for one goal: a world without alzheimer's and all other dementia. because this disease isn't waiting, neither are you. go to alz dot org slash walk. welcome back. with less than four months now until election day, there has been a major shake-up in the trump re-election campaign. after more than two years on the job, brad parscale has been removed as trump's campaign manager. this a decision that caught some top campaign aides off guard according to nbc news. president trump announced the news of parscale's demotion last name. he elevated bill stepien in his

place. this comes as trump falls farther behind his democratic opponent joe biden, who according to two recent polls is leading nationally by double digits. most famously parscale boasted of a million ticket requests for trump's rally in tulsa last month predicting there would be a full house. but the reality proved different with rows of empty seats in the venue's upper levels. today politico reports that two sources, quote, describe parscale as deeply hurt in the wake of his demotion. for more i'm joined by peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," donna edward, former democratic congresswoman from maryland, and john brabender is a republican strategist. thanks to all of you for being with us. peter, let me start with you. i'm curious what your sense is of how the president sees this race. and i ask that because the rest of us i think look at this polling and pretty much say,

well, this is a tough spot for him to be in. but i know trump has that experience of 2016 of feeling like he knew what he was doing and everybody else around him didn't, and he won the election. so in light of that experience and how he processed it, does he see trouble here? do you have a sense of that? >> yeah, steve. i think you're exactly right. whatever he's told by advisers, you should do this, you should do that, you should be more restrained or more disciplined or reach out to these types of people or those types of people or stop saying these kinds of incendiary things, he said, i'm the guy who won. it worked for me last time. i'm going to work the same way i did last time. the challenge is that the strategy that he had adopted even before the coronavirus was always going to be an uphill battle. reproducing this kind of flukey win last time where he won the electoral college even though he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes is an unlikely route to a second term. it's been made almost harder -- much harder actually by the

coronavirus and the george floyd aftermath and the demonstrations in the streets and the polarization of the electorate. and he has played to that polarization. divisiveness has been his calling card even as his advisers try to, you know, suggest other routes for him. and i think that you saw his frustration with brad parscale, but you hear from the people around the president. the problem isn't brad parscale. the problem is the candidate. and this is a typical situation when a president is this far behind. >> so, donna edwards, the switch there at the top of the president's campaign, do you think that makes a difference? do you think that could make a difference? do you think a new campaign manager could succeed in some way redirecting the campaign, redirecting how the president approaches it, or do you think there's no difference there at all? >> i don't think it makes a bit of difference. look, the president believes that he is the best arbiter of his own message. he believes that he can run things better than anyone else. you have only to look at his multiple changes at the top in

the white house among chiefs of staff that he believes he should run his own show. and i don't think that this change at the top of the campaign really matters much at all when it comes to the broader message of the campaign because trump is his own messenger. now, whether stepien will be able to guide the nuts and bolts and things of a campaign, i'm sure he will. but he won't be able to control his candidate. >> what do you think of that, john brabender? i mean this is the trump we saw throughout 2016, throughout his presidency, throughout this campaign so far. is this pretty much what it's going to look like the rest of the way, or do you think there might be any significant changes here? >> well, first of all, i think we have to understand there were more changes than just brad parscale. they also overhauled the communications department, which i think was the most critical area to overhaul. they brought in jason miller, who was there in 2016.

extremely skilled. ie i've known jason, worked on campaigns with him for 16 years. hogan gidley is there who moved over from the white house press operation. the biggest problem this campaign has today is not operations, fund-raising, digital or data, which brad parscale is probably the expert in the country on this. it actually is communications. and the problem is in a campaign where you're an incumbent, you own everything that happens whether you're responsible or not. president trump was elected to be a disruptive force in washington. it doesn't mean he was elected to manage disruptive times. so that's the paradox going on right now. but i will say this. the campaign's not wear it should be, but there certainly is plenty of time, and i think these changes, you're going to see big, big differences particularly on the communications side. >> let me ask you about that when you say communications. in our nbc/"wall street journal" poll, the coronavirus, the president's handling of it, he's about 25 points underwater on

that. he's barely over 30% in terms of people saying they approve of how he's handling this. does the president need to change how he communicates on the coronavirus? >> well, i think the way we're even having this conversation signals the problem. we have not mentioned joe biden once. what this race today is, is a referendum campaign on an incumbent president who has had three major negative things happen that i think admittedly were outside his control. what they have to shift this to is a choice election. do you prefer donald trump, who already has experience and can show he can get the economy going again, or joe biden, who certainly at the very least has significantly slowed down and maybe more? i think that's where you're going to see is they want to change this from a just let's give donald trump a grad for everything he has to deal with. i think they want to change this, looking to the future and all we have to do, you can have a choice between column a and

column b, and i think they feel that works a great deal to their advantage. and that's what they're going to start talking more about quite frankly. >> so, donna, let me ask you about that because looking at that nbc/"wall street journal" poll yesterday, it was one question after another of good news for joe biden except for one, i think. there was one question there, and i think it surprised me when they asked, positive or negative view of the candidate, trump and biden. trump's was very negative. it was 39% positive, 54% negative. but biden's was upside down as well. only 34% viewed him positively. 46% had a negative view of him. is there a vulnerability there for joe biden if the spotlight returns to him in a way it hasn't? >> well, i mean i think the major thing that joe biden has to be concerned about is how in this environment where the president is making bad news day after bad news day, he can break

into the news. i think he's doing somewhat of that by getting out these multiple policy proposals, talking about an agenda for the future. and i think that it's going to be incumbent no matter what the president does or how he wants to reshape this, this is a referendum election. it is a referendum on his failure to handle the coronavirus. it is a referendum on his failure to create unity instead of sowing division in the country. and the president is his own bad messenger on all of those things, and there's nothing that joe biden can do about that. but i think what biden needs to be concerned about, when i look beneath the lines in these polls that are recently emerging, is he has to also garner much more enthusiasm to make sure that every single vote shows up and that nothing is left on the table. i mean that's the challenge for democrats up and down the ticket, and i think joe biden is going to lead the way to that.

but you can't get around the fact that the president of the united states is failing at every single level, and these national polls reflect that. the state battleground polls reflect that. and a change of leadership lead the republican party is not really going to change that with respect to this president and this campaign. >> peter baker, there is a story in "politico" about what's going on, they say, inside the white house, trying to root out leaks. the white house they say the presidential personnel office is conducting one-on-one interviews and exercised some of the subjects loyalty tests to root out threats of leaks, according to 15 former and current white house officials. i'm wondering if you can just paint a picture of sort of what the world is like inside the white house around the president these days, months away from re-election, months away for a lot of these folks around him.

if he doesn't win, they're done. they're out of jobs. what is the atmosphere like for them right now? >> it is a pretty sour atmosphere, you can imagine. it's been a tough year. if you are in this white house, you have endured an impeachable trial, the worst pandemic in a century and it's not over: . it's not even close to over. an economic collapse we haven't seen since the depression. racial unrest in the streets and demonstrations, you know, to solve injustice. and all of this is happening at the very time when a president is heading into, you know, a tough campaign that would have been difficult under the best of circumstances. and you have a candidate who is not, let's just say, you know, manageable. and i think it's pretty sour. look at the press conference he had this week at the rose garden. they gave him a script to attack joe biden, to do what john just

talked about, that it should be a choice election rather than a referendum against trump. they gave him things to talk about, criticisms against biden and that he would bring in a lot of bad ideas to the country, which is going to be a theme you would hear a lot on election day. but the president is over the map as he is delivering it. he can't sort of like stick to the script in a way that makes, you know, a strong, you know, attack on his opponent yet. i think that's frustrating to his advisers that would like him to be more disciplined, knowing that's never something that has been his strong suit. >> all right. peter, john, thank you all for being with us. and we'll be right back.

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from detroit, this is nbc "nightly news." >> good evening from detroit, where a mighty effort is underway tonight to get former president gerald r. ford to run for vice president on a ticket headed by ronald reagan. ford has so far refused, although some of the republican party's biggest names are urging him to run on a theory it would be the best the party could offer. >> that was nbc's john

chancellor 40 years ago tonight. that was night three of the republican national convention inside detroit's joe lewis arena. donald reagan was going to be the nominee for president. that much was known. but who was going to be his running mate. there were several names in the mix including a former president of the united states. but why? why would reagan ever want gerald ford as his vice president? and why would ford want to do it? it makes sense only when you remember that there was real doubt in 1980 about whether reagan could win the presidency. the fear was he was too conservative, too hawkish, too extreme. everyone remembered what happened 60 years earlier to barry goldwater. he didn't even get 40% of the vote. he lost one of the most lop side ed elections ever. would americans actually vote for ronald reagan. that's where the idea of ford came in. he had stature. he had experience. he'd come within a whisker of

winning a full-term as president in 1976 and he had only gotten more popular since. that was the idea, an all star ticket, reagan and ford. in that clip you saw was from the early evening july 16th, 1980 and drama would onld build as ford went from his mildly curious state to being very interested in that nam nation for vice president. the chatter grew louder as they prepared a resolution to draft him. a meeting and negotiations. then supposedly a deal. by now the hour was late, but delegates were asked to stay in the hall. ronald reagan was on his way over, and then he had an announcement to make. >> it seems to me, david, that let's see, donald reagan wouldn't come over here, keep these delegates waiting, word is around down on the floor.

>> they must all know. >> to say i have not struck a deal with former president ford. >> we have some more information now from chris wallace on the convince floor. >> two to pan. tell two to pan. >> it's push. it's push. >> you're on, chris. chris wallace, you're on. >> don is one of the regional political directors with an incredible announcement. >> i just got word from our trailer that the governor is coming over to make a speech. the governor is coming over to make a speech and the nominee is going to be george bush. that's what i heard just a few minutes ago. >> what a moment that was. that was chris wallace. he was with nbc news back then and his scoop was right. he told the hall that he wanted to go with george h.w. bush. and with that a reagan/bush era

was born. we have had two different bushes who served as president since then. but if reagan had gone with gerald ford that night, there likely would not have been any bush presidencies. it had genuine unscripted drama. it is easy to forget that's how it once was. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes is up next. tonight on "all in." it's not just trump. shocking new levels of denial from the governors doing their best impersonation of the president as the white house tries to force kids back into school, the alarming figure that nearly one-third of children tested for covid in florida came back positive. then senator kamala harris on her new plan to save americans from financial ruin. plus, nate cohen on the incredible shrinking party of trump. and donald trump's niece on