. >> he was the last person alive who spoke on the march on washington in 1963. new reaction and tributes coming in right now. also this morning, president trump's mixed message when it comes to face masks. rolling out a national mandate, but saying masks are good. we will talk live with dr. thomas frieden who said no president ever politicized science the way president trump has. i'm kendis gibson. >> i'm lindsey reiser. congress member and civil rights activist and voting rights advocate and tireless fighter for equality. >> you can list it on and on. he had a long life in public service that started when he was only 17 years old. the year he met mlk.

lester holt takes a look back at lewis' life. >> when you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. to do something. >> reporter: john lewis devoted his life for the fight for justice and equality. >> something deep down within me moving me that i could no longer be satisfied. >> reporter: the son of rural alabama share croppers, lewis was inspired as a teenager by activism of rosa parks and dr. martin luther king jr. he joined the civil rights movement in the early days. sit-ins and movement rides. >> segregation was the order of the day. >> i wanted to do something about it. we wanted to redeem the soul of america and move toward a more perfect union. >> reporter: he was the leader of the student nonviolent

coordinating committee and organized the march on washington. >> i have a dream. >> reporter: lewis spoke that day, too. he was 23. >> we do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now. >> reporter: and he was among the leaders who met that day with president john f. kennedy. >> i was not concerned about making history. i just wanted to change things. >> reporter: on march 7th, 1965 in selma, alabama, he did both. >> we are marching today. >> reporter: leading a peaceful march for voting rights, lewis and others were attacked by state troopers wielding clubs and tear gas. it became known as bloody sunday. lewis suffered a fractured skull. >> i love consciousness. 50 years later, i don't recall how i made it back across the

bridge. >> reporter: televised images of the violence that day galvanized the nation. the voting rights act lsigned into law five months later. he worked tirelessly to turn voting rights into political power. >> too many people died in the state for the right to register and right to vote. >> reporter: he helped run volunteer programs for president carter. in 1986, was elected to congress from georgia. >> thank you. >> reporter: he served more than 30 years. an enduring systmbol and advoca for justice. >> let us vote. we came here to do our job. >> reporter: a leading voice and a moral beacon. john lewis was known as the conscious of congress.

admire admired. respected and loved. >> screen ratigenerations from story of john lewis will come alive. america will know change could not wait for some other person. >> we must never, ever give up. we must never, ever give in. we must keep the faith and keep our eyes on the prize. >> that was nbc's lester holt reporting. >> joining us now is reverend al sharpton. reverend, thank you for taking the time. as i woke up, i would not help but think with the passing of john lewis, this country is losing the remaining members of the founding fathers of modern black america. >> not only john lewis, reverend

vivian yesterday. john lewis, on his body bore the marks of the struggle. he was beaten as a freedom rider and beaten on the edmund pettus bridge. he was one of the leaders of the country. no one personified the struggle, progress and the yet remaining road that we have to travel more than john lewis did. as one that grew up in the north, i look up to john lewis. john lewis was 11 years younger than dr. king. he and jesse jackson and that age group were the hivibrant pa of the king movement. i was 15 years younger from them. we would learn from john lewis. i can't tell you how much john lewis would talk to us and preach you got to be nonviolent even in the north.

he lived it in private and he never, ever stopped. i was honored that the last march, this march before the pandemic across edmund pettus bridge. he showed up when we got halfway across the bridge. he was feeble, but he got up on the ladder. i was one of them to hold him up. he spoke saying keep doing good trouble. that was the last time i saw him. i hope that we can rename that bridge after him. even in his dying days with cancer, he came back to that bridge and that bridge represented our right to vote and we must protect that right to vote. i know martin luther king iii and i called for the commemoration march on washington. john lewis was there afor the

50th. he would be glad to know we will keep marching. >> reverend, you will honor the life of john lewis today. your action rally this morning as you are president of the national action network. i want to talk about the moment. his last public appearance where we saw lewis in washington, d.c. in front of the white house. what do you think his presence there meant to the movement? >> it meant a lot. it meant the movement is a series of continual struggles. it's continuity. for john lewis to breakdown the back of jim crow and embrace the movement for police reform and black lives matter with this era showed the continuity of movement. there is nothing new under the sun. he recognized that as he

continued dr. king's work and others work. this morning, the action rally will honor him and jamal bowman. he will be speaking. those that will continue his work in congress. he embraced the gun reform movement. the last act he did of civil disobedien disobedience. he led a sit-in around gun reform as we see this uptick of violence around the country. he did not see the fight around police reform and gun violence as separate. he saw it as one in the same. we must protect human life and protect human dignity. if we commemorate the value and sacrifice of john lewis, we strive to get to that level. >> he fought until the very end. even pancreatic cancer with the diagnosis last december.

revere reverend, give us a sense the last time you saw him. >> he came to the southern district of lawyers who honored him. he came to new york. i spoke there. he was feeble. he said to me, al, i'm watching you. you keep going. he said we want to see this struggle remain nonviolent. we talked about police reform and this was before george floyd, obviously. he always would talk to me like a big brother. like i said, he is 15 years older. a generation ahead of me. the north was different than the south. he wanted us to have the same principles and guidance. i came out of the king movement in the north. he would always not lecture you,

but also advise you in the firm way. the last conversation i had. the last time i saw him on that bridge in march when he surprised us going across the bridge. commemorating his march going across the bridge. one of the highlights of my life was the walk across the bridge where he and president obama and secret service behind him on the 50th anniversary of that march. i hope again we replace edmund pettus bridge. edmund was a slave owner. we need to rename that bridge after a freedom fighter. >> and son of alabama. >> absolutely. >> reverend sharpton, we will have more on the impact of congressman john lewis' life tonight at 5:00 p.m. on msnbc. reverend, i appreciate your words. >> thank you. congress member john lewis remembered with tributes this morning. former president obama tweeting quote not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out

in such a meaningful, remarkable way. john lewis did. >> martin luther king iii posting his tribute. john lewis was an american treasure. he gave a voice to the voiceless and reminded us the most powerful tool is the vote. our hearts feel empty. >> kamacal kamala harris said l fought for the cause for all americans. i'm devastated for friends, family and staff. my friend, thank you for showing the world that what good trouble looks like. >> let's go to georgia. the state that john lewis represented for more than 30 years. >> blayne alexander has more. how is mr. lewis remembered? >> reporter: good morning. it is no surprise that nearly

hours after we got that news of his passing already here in downtown atlanta, the heart of his district. we are seeing behind me tributes coming. signs and flowers and candles. i want to pull out and show you the magnitude of how he was thought of in the district. this is a mural that has been on the side of the building for some years now. this is something that, you know, you can drive down the main artery in atlanta. you see it from the highway. this is a place where people come and take pictures and honor mr. lewis. no question he is beloved here in his home district. certainly not only in his home district, but love from all over the country. a lot of it pouring in. i want to read a couple of statements. from his family, of course, the nation loved him and honored him as a civil rights icon. they say he was a father.

he was a blowrother. he will be deeply missed. we hear from the house. from house speaker nancy pelosi. tight titan of the civil rights nation. we are hearing from mccarthy talking about remembering when he traveled to selma, alabama with john lewis to commemorate the march across the edmund pettus bridge. he was a patriot in the true sense and my friend. one of the greatest honors of my life to join him for trips to selma to march across the bridge. life and legacy as a civil rights icon will endure. those are a few of the many tributes. you shared some rand we expect o see more. for a man considered not just a congress member, but as the mural says a hero. we are seeing more people coming

to remember the man larger than life. >> i have no doubt that memorial will grow this weekend as people remember john lewis. blayne alexander in atlanta. thank you. >> let's bring in michael starr harper. he has worked on the obama and hillary clinton presidential campaigns. michael, thank you for being here. you have been trying really hard to get that bridge changed to honor john lewis. >> yeah. when i started this venture, i said that we often don't honor people until they're gone. john lewis was alive long enough to hear us start the process. unfortunately, he is no longer with us and won't see us finish this. we will finish this. john lewis was an icon. we all walk in his footsteps.

there would be no barack obama. there would be no michael starr hopkins without his effort. he gave his body to ensure african-americans had ee kwqual and the right to vote. >> we know congress member lewis asked former president obama to sign his photo of the inauguration. obama wrote, because of you, john. it goes to what you were saying. what can you tell us about their relationship? >> john lewis and barack obama. a mentor/mentee relationship. obama talks a lot about him being a community organizer coming up through the ranks in chicago. community organizing is john lewis' specialty. someone who began at 17 dedic e dedicating his life to community organizing and equality and throughout his life. whether it was crossing the

edmund pettus bridge and being attacked or gun reform and protesting in the well of the house of the representatives. everything he did was about protecting the moral conscious of the country. in a moment like this where the country is questioning its conscious, literally, his voice will be deeply missed. >> fortunately we have the memories of his speeches. so many things he has done. he called himself the protesters protester. with this year having pretty much the biggest civil rights protest since the 1960s. what do you make of the timing of his death? >> it is hard because the protests have been so strong and protesters have been so committed to equality. i would have loved for him to see this. i know that somewhere up there shining down he'll be watching and rooting for us to start more

good trouble because that's what we have to do. not just in the election year, but moving forward. we have to be committed to starting good trouble. that is a direct result of john lewis. >> michael starr hopkins. we know this is a tough day for you and for so many in the country. we really appreciate you coming to speak with us. >> michael, what is the petition up to right now? how many people signed it? >> last i checked we were around 500,000. people should go to the johnlewisbridge.com and check it out and learn who edmund pettus was. >> no doubt that petition will double before the weekend is out. michael, thank you. >> last month, congress member lewis spoke from his home. the protests for police reform gave him hope and dr. king would be proud. >> i think it sent a message that we will not give up on justice. we will not give up on fairness.

that we will continue to press and press on for what is right and for what is fair and for what is just. >> today i feel more lucky. more than lucky. more than blessed to be here and see the changes that have occurred. to live to see a young man, a young friend, like president barack obama being president of the united states of america. it was worth the pain and that's why we cannot give up and give in or become bitter or hostile. ♪ water? why?!

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territory for the number of covid-19 cases in the u.s. the country adding more than 75,000 new cases. that puts the nationwide total at 3.6 million. >> dr. fauci says states seeing a spike should rethink reopening plans, but stopped short of calling for a new wave of shutdowns. >> we need to reset. you may need to pull back on a phase. you don't necessarily need to lockdown. you have to do three or four or five things. universal wearing of masks. stay away from crowds. close the bars. >> in arizona, testing blips in phoenix as coronavirus cases surge there. as many as 5,000 tests will be conducted daily at two sites over 12 days. total is 60,000 residents. >> hope they get results turned around quickly.

california governor says most classes will be online this fall and only counties that drop off the state's coronavirus watch list for two weeks are allowed to send students back to the classroom. dr. fauci is calling on everyone to wear masks, but the p president is not. >> we have josh with more from the white house. >> reporter: it was one week ago where the president decided to wear a mask in public at walter reed. his advisers were hopeful he was turning a page on the reluctance to wear a mask that his advisers say is critical to slowing the spread. now president trump is back tracking from that embrace of masks. telling fox news he does not support mask mandates as more than half the states have a mask mandate in effect statewide.

the president saying he disagrees with the cdc director of the masks and if they could actually be used to get the virus under control if we were able to get universal embraces of masks by americans over the next four-to-six weeks. the president coming under fresh attack from one of his own. mary trump. she has been on a media blitz. mary trump telling rachel maddow that the president's failure in her words to successfully address the coronavirus weighed heavily on her as she was writing the book. >> even at the time i was writing we were, i think, in new york past the worst of it. it was clear that the rest of the country was not doing what it needed to do. i want people to understand what

a failure of leadership this is and the reason he is failing at it is because he is incapable of succeeding at it. it would have required taking responsibility which would, in his mind, have meant admitting a mistake which in his mind would be admitting weakness. in my family was essentially punished with the death penalty. symbolically or otherwise. >> reporter: the president responding to mary trump. responding the way he often does when criticized with insults and character attacks. mary trump is quote a mess. claiming he barely knows her. kendis and lindsey. >> josh at the white house. thank you. the president stands on science and the spread of covid-19 led to the joint op-ed.

we ran the cdc. no president polite siicized th science the way trump has. we have dr. tom frieden with us. i want to read a quote from the op-ed. we cannot recall a single time when political pressure led to the change of the interpretive change of scientific evidence. >> there is only one enemy here. that's the virus. the more we're divided, the more the virus will conquer. the u.s. laggard. the death rate is increasing. we have over 70,000 diagnosed cases. that means there are an estimated 2 million to 4 million people with covid-19 today. people got infected the last couple weeks and haven't been diagnosed. we are not too late to do

better. right now, the u.s. is failing in our response to covid-19. >> doctor, where are we when it comes to the virus? waves or no waves? >> we are in different places in different parts of the country. if you look at the northeast, the northeast like much of the world, has been able to tame this virus. it is able to begin reopening. if you look at much of the rest of the country, you are seeing big increases. places that opened too soon. that's why it is so important to emphasize there is not one answer here. we need to comprehensive response based on science and data. we need the three ws. wear a mask correctly. watch your distance. that means closing bars and indoor dining in the country. wash your hands regularly. wes also need to scale up contact tracing.

>> doctor, california did all of those correctly and now they're scaling back reopening. what did they do wrong? >> well, anytime you have lots of people congregating indoors, you have a risk of increase of cases. what we are seeing is places around the country reopened with too high of positivity rate and not well developed tracking systems. clusters from becoming outbreaks and outbreaks spreading and forcing people back indooindoor. one of the things we are figuring out is what can you do economically and educationally if you are careful and if you have universal masking and you make sure you are closing the large indoor venues. we know bars spread this explosively. restaurants can act like bars as

well. we want to get back to work. we want kids to get back to school in the fall. >> are you concerned that hospitals are encouraged to send coronavirus data to the trump administration to hhs and not the cdc? >> i think we have to see how that plays out. it's not simple to get data in from thousands of hospitals. making sure those standards are done right and the quality is good. i want to see how that goes in the coming days. they made a big switch in the middle of the big pandemic. they did it abruptly. let's hope it works out. >> you are not necessarily thinking it say bis a bad move. you are in a wait and see. >> you are retiring the network that worked well for decades. i don't think it was a wise thing to do. they said they will make it better. let's see if they do.

>> finally before we let you go, anytime i feel overwhelmed by all of the news of coronavirus, i look to an article about the latest in vaccine. how optimistic are you that something could be ready by the end of the year orig beginning next year? >> there is encouraging news. the news is there is a strong immune response to some people in some of the vaccines. it seems likely that will provide some protection for some people for some length of time. getting a vaccine out is complicated. getting it to arms and tracking for adverse events and making sure it is safe and effective. if it works well, we have to live with the virus. we need to do contact tracing and testing and we need to adapt our environment because the vaccine will not magically make the virus go away. there is not one thing. not masks, not hand washing, not

travel bans, not staying home. no one thing will stop the virus. we need to move to the new normal that basis our decisions on data and recognizes we are all in this together. >> dr. frieden, we appreciate your perspective this morning. thank you. >> thank you. a chance meeting with our next guest and congress member john lewis and lasting impact he says had on his life. battling sen ve skin, we switched to new tide plus downy free. it's gentle on her skin, and dermatologist recommended. new tide pods plus downy free. safe for sensitive skin with eczema and psoriasis.

welcome back. the state of texas is joining the likes of new york, california and florida with more than 300,000 coronavirus cases. >> nbc's pricilla thompsunderson texas. the numbers continue to grow sadly in texas. >> reporter: kendis, lindsey,

the governor last week said the situation would get worse. we did see that bear out this week. texas reported four straight days of more than 10,000 covid-19 positive cases. three straight days where it set new records in terms of death. the deadliest day coming on this friday with 174 people reported dead as a result of the virus. hospitalizations here also at an all-time high and that positivity rate as well. so these numbers we're hearing and seeing are certainly not going in the right direction. you know, the calls are growing louder and louder from local leaders asking the governor to issue a shutdown order or grant them the power to do so. we heard from the governor this week declaring emphatically there is quote no shutdown coming. he said he is pointing to some of the reopening roll backs he approved over the past couple

weeks. including closing bars. those have been closed the past three weeks. also instituting that statewide mask order which covers most areas here in the state and that's been in effect for two weeks. you know, i think this next week is really going to be a crucial one. doctors say it takes two-to-three weeks whether mitigation efforts are having an effect. we will be watching closely to see if the numbers begin to come down. kendis and lindsey. >> hate to see the images of the cars standing in line at food banks. pricilla thompson, thank you. florida is the new epicenter of the pandemic. officials adding 11,000 new cases there. bringing the statewide total to 320,000 cases. >> let's go to the frontlines in florida. joining us is dr. ashby. he is always the lead of the

florida state committee to protect medicare. doctor, last week, we were seeing p hospithospitals nearin critical capacity. is that still the case? >> that is still the case unfortunately. thanks for having me. my hospital in particular our icu at capacity. the hospitals across the state, not just miami, at capacity. there are many more with 90% capacity. we are actually concerned. we are in a all-hands-on-deck sno scenario. the virus is not being contained. myself and my colleagues are concerned about our capacity at this particular point. >> you are at capacity. give us a sense of what it looks like in the emergency department there and what happens if somebody comes in and they need to be in intensive care? >> that's the million dollar

question. we know we have mechanisms to reroute patients to hospitals to accommodate them. what i worry about is if our folks -- people of color for instance. i can tell you a story about his daughter got turned away when they presented to the er sick. these are stories that don't get told, but these happen with the health care system that leads to the quote/unquote disparity. at this junction, i'm concerned about the people who are not getting adequate care. this will bear out later on when we see the disparity and death rate when people don't have adequaad adequate access to health care. >> there is an 8:00 p.m. curfew for miami beach entertainment

district. places can offer delivery. will that help curb the spread? >> we are back to the piecemeal approach. reactionary approach. doctors such as myself and other health care professionals have been calling for a proactive approach to dealing with this coronavirus. what you are seeing now are reactionary measures like the mandate and the calls for lockdown. if we actually did the work ahead of time and got out ahead of this, we would not be dealing with this currently. unfortunately, our citizens of the state are paying for this with their lives and livelihoods. >> that said, that's all in the past. we have the situation that we have now in florida. if you are talking with governor de santis or mayor of miami right now, what is the most vital thing you would tell them? >> it is not one particular thing. no particular silver bull bullets. we need to increase the use average of masks.

the fact we have limited mask usage in miami-dade county. that is a concern. we need widespread usage. we need another lockdown unfortunately. i don't want it. no one in the community wants it because it hurts our economic interests. however, we have to put the public health interests over the immediate economic interests currently. therefore, i think we need to head to a lockdown. that's the only option at this point. the mitigation efforts are inadequate. >> doctor, before we let you go, we are remembering the life of john lewis. will you tell us about your interaction? >> my friend and myself, a cardiologist as well, we were at the capitol building in d.c. we were there for a conference.

we happened to bump into john lewis. during the conversation, he invited us to his office. during that time, he sat and told stories about the civil rights era. he actually got pictures from bloody sunday where you see him getting beat and bloody by the police officers during that march. during the course of the conversation, he looked at us and told us he was in awe of our accomplishments and the fact we are healers. you know, we looked at each other and said we would not be here if it weren't for you. this white coat that i'm wearing is because of dr. lewis and others like him who fought and rebelled and sacrificed to give me the opportunity to be here. john lewis has impacted my life in ways i cannot imagine. for me, my mandate is to pay it forward. i'll continue to fight for my

community and continue to fight against quote/unquote disparity and allow every citizen in the united states to have pursuit of happiness and freedom. >> well said. we want to thank you for all of the work you are doing. stay safe in florida. >> thank you. what is going in portland, oregon? federal agents are accused of using militarized tactics to arrest protesters. >> the mayor says it is an attack of our homeland security. a member of the task force joins us next. a member of the task fos us next. thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed

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we continue to follow the breaking news. congress member john lewis passed away. he marred with martin luther king junior. he passed away with cancer. >> joining us now is new york congress member kathleen rice. member of the homeland security affairs committee. >> thank you for being here. tough morning for anyone in the congressional bodies. what is your feeling as you heard he passed away. >> it is news we were dreading. john lewis was the conscious of the congress. he certainly was the moral backbone of the country. encouraging us to get into good trouble.

you see people doing that across the country carrying on with his legacy. it has the greatest honor to serve with him. i look forward to continuing his fight that we see all over the country. still to this day. >> representative rice, we know congress member lewis had his skull fractured on the edmund pettus bridge in selma. now some accusations of brutality going on in portland. federal officers squaring off with protesters last night. the governor there calling it political theater. here's what the governor told msnbc last night. >> americans ought to be outraged and oregonians are. this is unacceptable. this was purely a photo opportunity for political theater for the trump administration. he is trying to distract. if they were trying to problem solve, they would have called

and said let's have a conversation. let's work to tackle these issues. they're not interested in problem solving. >> videos surface of camouflage forces driving unmarked vehicles and tear gassing protesters. is this an abuse of power? >> i couldn't agree with the governor more. this is just outrageous behavior. i think it is really important for every american to understand what is going on here. we shouldn't be surprised. the president talked about doing this a couple of months ago. in fact, we were waiting for this to happen in new york because he threatened this new york a couple of months ago. what he is doing is going into the state of oregon wherefo for the most part, peaceful protests are happening which is within everyone's right to engage. they are causing conflict there. they are taking people off the street who are doing nothing

more than exercising their right to peacefully protest. every single american should be afraid of this because this is what authoritarian dictators do. he wants the pictures of the craziness. the craziness is created by the officers who have yet to be identified which agency they are acting under. they are pulling people off the street to seem like there are problems going on. when all that is happening is peaceful protests. we have to be outraged by this. i hope every american understands this could happen in their state and their community. >> a lot of people, congresswoman, says this is a sign of what's to come. no matter your political vent, it is frightening to see the people taken away by masked gunmen into the unmarked vehicles. i want to switch topics and talk about one other thing. 18th? we are already past the middle

of july. by the end of the month, expanded unemployment benefits and eviction freeze set to expire. you get any confidence that agreement of some sort can be worked out on capitol hill? >> well, so it is important to understand that the house acted on this very issue two months ago. we passed the heroes act, and what that would do is extend the unemployment benefits that people are receiving right now that are set to expire in just about a week's time until january of 2021. why is that so important? because people are still not back at work. we have a lot of businesses that have gone away and are never coming back, and it is unconscionable that mitch mcconnell refuses to bring the heroes act to the floor to help save people from falling into truly a serious situation where maybe up to this point they've been able to pay their rent and their mortgage because of the supplemental unemployment insurance, but once that stops, you're going to see people not being able to pay that, and then

the fear is they're going to be evicted, and the last thing we want to see is people being evicted during a pandemic. this is absolutely outrageous. mitch mcconnell needs to bring this bill to the floor. we need to pass it as quickly as possible. there can't be any gap between the aid that people are getting now and what's going to happen at the end of this month. the house has abocted. now we need the senate to act. >> congressman kathleen rice, really appreciate your time on especially what has got to be a tough day for many members of congress. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> yeah. >> record breaking numbers continuing to rise, floria flor mayor explains what he's doing to try to spread the curve of the virus in one of the country's bigst hgest hot spots. powerful relief. hisamitsu.

no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. florida is ramping up coronavirus testing as the state hits a record number of cases and deaths.

testing sites like this one at the hard rock stadiums in miami gardens. this comes after the number of cases in florida shot up 76% in just two weeks. >> joining us right now is the mayor of miami garden where that local is right there, oliver gir bert. what do you think is causing the number in florida to just skyrocket? >> well, i think we reopened too soon, and i think that we haven't disciplined ourselves as a community to actually do the things that can keep us safe independent of a vaccine, things like wearing masks, things like maintaining appropriate social distancing. look, we weren't closed long enough to actually change habitual behaviors, and so ultimately in the absence of a vaccine, things like making a mask second nature when you get up in the nature, you get out of the house, you're going to put on a mask. things like having an appropriate distance. those are the things that actually keep us safe, avoiding parties, avoiding social gatherings, those are the things that keep us safe in the absence of a vaccine.

>> when you exercise your power as mayor to encourage any kind of shutdown or enforce any kind of stay-at-home order because it looks like the governor's not going to. >> the governor's not going to. we kind of do our own thing here in miami-dade county anyway. in miami gardens we never really opened back up as most other cities. i think that's reflected in some of our infection rates. whereas there was a full open in other parts of the county, we never really reopened assembly uses. so you didn't have, you know, bars and stuff like that open in miami gardens and we also limit the capacity in some of our restaurants so that if it was 50% in the county, it was 25% in miami gardens. what we saw early on was that because of our demographic makeup, we're the largest predominantly black city in the state of florida, a lot of the comorbidities that make covid-19 dangerous exist at higher rates in the african-american community, so we understood that if you actually -- if you got a

foothold here, that it could be very bad for our population, and so we were wearing masks before other people were. we never fully incorporated into the level of opening that the county did, and i think that that's probably what's going to be needed. look, i know that everyone wants to be open because we all want to go back to our lives. we want kids to go to school. we want businesses to be available. we want to socialize. we like community, but right now we have to find different ways to actually engage with each other. if we don't, it could be deadly for some of us. >> it would be kind of difficult for you to control your message when i-95 is a gateway to your community right there, and it goes in to the rest of florida, kind of tough for you to be able to say wear a mask and do this when the rest of florida isn't. >> well, no, it's very tough. ideally this would be statewide, and ideally it would be regional. i think now in miami-dade, as a county we wear masks. you make a good point, and that

point transcends to closing down. look, miami gardens is the third largest city in miami-dade county, 113,000 people. my residents work in other parts of the county and other parts of south florida. even if we said, hey, you know what? i'm going to close down miami gardens, everyone's staying home i'd be telling my residents not to go to work in other places. that's why you need strong regional, statewide and national leadership. >> mayor gilbert, before we let you go, we need to ask you, you have met congressman lewis many times, of course, this morning we are remembering and honoring him. what can you tell us? >> i can tell you that that selfie, it was a wonderful selfie. he was an extraordinary man and in times like this you're reminded of him and his spirit and his courage and how he stood in the face of adversity, and he said we will not blink, and he moved us forward as a country. we need courage like that now facing the latest health challenge of my lifetime, probably any of our lifetimes.

>> he also was a very fashionable man. did he mentioned how much he respected your bow tie game there? >> i think he did actually mention my bow tie. you know, i've met him several times, and independent of being just an extraordinary leader, he's an extraordinarily humble man, just sitting there, he would sit there and he would talk with you, and he would tell you stories, and that type of engagement, especially from young leaders is very encouraging. sometimes you look at things that are and you assume they have to be that way. he looked at things that were and because they were bad, he said that we're going to end them. and we need that. we need that now. >> miami gardens mayor, oliver gilbert, we hope to have you back on very soon. thank you so much. >> thank you everybody for watching, i'm kendis gibson. >> msnbc's breaking news kochlk of t coverage continues next. of t coverage continues next. businesses are starting to bounce back.

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it is saturday, july 18th. i'm ali velshi. civil rights icon, congressman john lewis has died after a months' long battle with cancer. he was 80 years old. in a statement, lewis's family said, quote, he was honored and respected as the conscience of the u.s. congress and an icon of american history. we knew him as a loving father and brother. he was a stalwart champion in the ongoing struggle to demand respect for the dignity and worth of every