everyone watching us and where we had gone. several people remarked today, we can't fly to europe these days the bahamas won't accept americans because they're smart enough to live in paradise after all. nope, going to the moon seems like the impossible dream on this particular july night in the year 2020. we let our guard down. we didn't choose greatness this time in plain english, we can't go anywhere, and we are stuck here with each other until we figure a way out of this. but 51 years ago tonight, it was different. that is our monday broadcast as we start yet another new week together thank you so very much for being here with us on behalf of all of my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night tonight democratic presidential candidate joe biden has just released a pretty remarkable statement that is, i

think, both a challenge to republicans and to the president to meet him where he is on this. i think it's also going to be seen as a red line, as a sort of threat slash promise for what he will do in the event that he is elected president in november. joe biden posted this online tonight. politico.com was first to get a hold of quotes from it, but now we've got the whole thing. quote, foreign interference in the u.s. electoral process represents an assault on the american people and their constitutional right to vote when foreign states direct hackers, trolls, money launderers and misinformation to subvert or cast doubt on our elections, they threaten america's sovereignty, our democratic institutions, and national security. they undermine the vote and voice of every u.s. citizen. they attack our very way of life quote, in spite of president trump's failure to act, america's adversaries must not misjudge the resolve of the american people to counter every effort by a foreign power to interfere in our democracy,

whether by hacking voting systems and databases, laundering money into our political system, systematically spreading disinformation, or trying to sow doubt about the integrity of our elections biden says, quote, that is why today i am putting the kremlin and other foreign governments on notice if elected president, i will treat foreign interference in our election as an adversarial act that significantly affects the relationship between the united states and the interfering nation's government. i will direct the u.s. intelligence community to report publicly and in a timely manner on any efforts by foreign governments that have interfered or tried to interfere with u.s. elections. i will direct my administration to leverage all appropriate instruments of national power and make full use of my executive authority to impose substantial and lasting costs on state perpetrators these costs could include financial-sector sanctions, asset freezes, cyber responses,

and the exposure of corruption a range of other actions could also be taken depending on the nature of the attack i will direct our response at a time and in a manner of our choosing he concludes, quote, i have no desire to escalate tensions with russia or any other country. i would prefer to focus the full energies of my administration on bringing the international community together to fight covid-19 and the economic pain it has caused and to tackle other pressing issues of international concern. but if any foreign power recklessly chooses to interfere in our democracy, i will not hesitate to respond as president to impose substantial and lasting costs. oh former vice president joe biden tonight throwing down the gauntlet as to how he will respond as president against russia or any other foreign country if they try to interfere with our election this time like they did in 2016 now, i think a couple things are

interesting here to me one thing that stands out is the list of examples he gives of the ways that foreign countries might interfere. it's pretty detailed and interesting. hackers, trolls, money launderers, misinformation to subvert or cast doubt on our elections, hacking voting systems and databases, laundering money into our political system, systematically spreading disinformation, trying to sow doubt about the integ ritz ri of our elections imagine if we had a whole of government response to try to stop all of that, right? to actually investigate it and punish it when it happened you know, dream big. dream of competent, uncompromised governance that stands up for our sovereignty against foreign countries that are trying to eat our democracy. dream big. i've had a few days off. i lost -- temporarily at least i've lost my cynicism after having a few days off. at least for me today it seems

possible dream about competent, uncompromised governance the way the biden campaign has put this out tonight, though, and the clarity of the language, it's sort of declarative line in the sand nature of this does also i think lay down a marker for republicans. no democrat is going to take issue with anything that joe biden said here. but what about republican candidates, republican senators, republican members of the house? do they agree? i mean do they think we should try to protect ourselves from this stuff and punish countries that do it to us it was not long ago at all that basically all mainstream republicans would have agreed with every single word of this from biden but this is kind of a test, right? after this many years of trump, can republicans still say so can they still say that foreign interference in our election is something that we will not tolerate, we will retaliate against, we will make sure nobody gets away with it interesting test for the republican party after this much

trump. also i should point out that this big brushback from vice president biden comes out tonight within hours of this from the top democrats in the house and senate and the democratic leaders of the two intelligence committees. a demand that the fbi conduct defensive counterintelligence briefings for all members of congress quote, dear fbi director christopher wray, we write to request that the fbi provide a defensive counterintelligence briefing to all members of the house and the senate regarding foreign efforts to interfere in the 2020 u.s. presidential election we are gravely concerned in particular that congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election in november so this is all four of the democrats that are in so-called

gang of eight, the top democrat in the house, the top democrat in the senate -- the gang of eight tends to get briefed on the most secret, most compartmentalized intelligence that the intelligence community is required to and must share with congress. they apparently attached to this letter a classified annex spelling out more of what they meant. but i mean what they're saying here is bombshell, right they're saying congress right now is being targeted by a concerted foreign influence campaign to influence the november presidential election by influencing congressional activity and public debate, by getting congress to launder and amplify foreign disinformation that is a information government messing with our election. tell me more well, natasha bertrand in her second scoop of the day at politico.com today, she actually does tell us more. she reports along with kyle cheney and andrew desiderio,

that apparently what's going on here, according to sources familiar of what prompted this letter to the fbi, apparently what's going on here is that a specific republican senator, ron johnson of wisconsin, that the republican party put in charge of the homeland security committee, this request to the fbi is apparently at least in part because senator ron johnson, either inadvertently or on purpose, has apparently been taking disinformation created by a foreign intelligence service in order to mess with our election, and he has been using it in his committee as if it's a real thing senator ron johnson has recently been threatening subpoenas and planning to use his committee to air what amount to increasingly wild allegations against joe biden, timed to coincide of course with the november election the fbi's foreign influence task force apparently warned senator ron johnson once before about the nature of the russian intelligence-linked sources that he has been using to build up

his evidence for this particular dog and pony show. but now because senator ron johnson is apparently continuing along the same lines, using the same kind of sources to get this stuff and to try to inject it into the american discussion and the work of the u.s. congress, now the top democrats on the intelligence committees and the top democrat in the senate and the speaker of the house have asked the director of the fbi to please brief the entire senate and the entire house on what exactly senator ron johnson is trafficking in here and how this is the work of a foreign country that means to harm us, and so maybe we shouldn't help them do that now, this letter was apparently sent to the fbi last week. they made it public today. today was also the day by which they wanted a response from the fbi. so far not a single republican in either the house or the senate has said beep about any of this, nor has the fbi given any public-facing response but it's interesting what these democrats are asking for is to brief everybody, democrats, republicans, all house, all

senate dramatic we will keep you posted. a couple of other fast-developing stories we are watching tonight this is an awkward one and i don't know how this one resolves but the sheriff, the elected republican sheriff in duval county, which is where jacksonville, florida, is, he tells reporter marc caputo tonight, that there is no way that the republican national convention can be safely held in jacksonville, florida, next month. you'll remember the background here, right? and the timing ends up being important. the president and the republican party had initially planned to hold their convention for the president this summer in north carolina but then again in their infinite wisdom, they decided at the last moment that they would move it to florida instead because north carolina officials were worried about rising coronavirus cases there. the rnc and the white house said they wouldn't change their plans for their convention whatsoever to accommodate concerns about spreading the virus. the president said he wanted a

full convention and a packed arena, and north carolina was like, that's crazy have you seen our covid numbers? so the rnc and the white house decided fine we'll pack up. we'll move it instead to florida. now of course in the interim weeks, florida has become by some measures the world epicenter for coronavirus infections excellent foresight there. excellent planning the sheriff in the jacksonville, florida, region today lays it out in blunt terms it makes me think i do not know what they're going to do about the rnc and this late plan to move it to jacksonville. quote, the sheriff of jacksonville, florida, says he can't provide security for the republican national convention because of a lack of clear plans, a lack of adequate funding, and a lack of enough law enforcement officers quote, as we're talking today, we're still not close to having some kind of plan that we can work with that makes me comfortable that we're going to be able to keep that event and

the community safe, says duval county sheriff mike williams quote, it's not my event to plan, but i can just tell you that what has been proposed in my opinion is not achievable right now from a law enforcement stand, from a security standpoint he said, quote, we can't pull it off in any kind of current that time frame, with this current configuration of the event apparently, according to caputo's reporting, the rnc and the white house still haven't even finalized their plans at a basic level. they still haven't even decided which convention events they want to be at which venues the thing is basically one month from right now these things take months and months and months to plan just for the security even in the best of times. but now, which is not the best of times, they're apparently just winging it and assuming it will all come together good luck, jacksonville. good luck, florida, here they come, ready or not

i really don't know what's going to happen. the democrats already have pared way back their plan for an in-person convention of any kind republicans are apparently still planning on one sort of except for the part where they're not actually planning anything when local police officials, especially from your own party tell you what you're thinking about doing can't be done, something has to break something has to go. what breaks shouldn't be florida. a more sobering and in some ways heartening story that we've been following all day today is the very fast decision by the democratic party in the state of georgia to choose a democrat as the nominee to run for the congressional seat of the great john lewis in georgia. after a lightning-fast process today, the georgia democratic party has chosen this woman, state senator nikima williams, has their nominee for john lewis' seat. and we've been watching this

closely because of a quirk in georgia law. this decision had to be made this quickly because of a weird element of georgia law that forces the party to make its decision about who its nominee for the seat will be less than 72 hours after congressman lewis died i mean the state of georgia, the whole country is only just starting to mourn the passing of john lewis, this moral giant who walked among us. i don't have my head even a quarter way around what i might ever be able to say that would do justice to the legacy of john lewis. but already his political allies who knew him best, his party in his home state of georgia, they've already had to choose who will run for and very likely win his seat in congress the timing is just surreal but because of georgia law, the decision had to be made, and senator nikema williams we now know will be the democratic nominee. she will face a republican who, i kid you not, was part of a

major auto theft ring but was pardoned by president trump. that's who the republicans picked as their nominee who they thought would be running against john lewis that person will now be running against nikema williams. the family of congressman lewis, i should tell you, has not yet said what they are planning for his funeral and memorial arrangements the civil rights legend c.t. vivian also died this weekend. his funeral will be held on thursday, and out of respect to reverend vivian, john lewis' family says they're not going to announce any of their arrangements for the laying to rest of congressman lewis until after reverend vivian's funeral happens on thursday. they won't say anything about what john lewis will -- what they will do about john lewis' memorial until then. but again, of course, we'll let you know and on top of all of that, today also represents six months exactly since the first

coronavirus case was diagnosed in the united states it was january 20th, that the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in a man in washington state. six months on from that date, "the new york times" and "the washington post" have both done big picture disaster reviews of what's gone so wrong with the coronavirus response in our country compared to literally every other country on earth "the washington post" calling it the crisis that shocked the world, america's response to the coronavirus. quote, if there was a mistake to be made in this pandemic, america has made it. the single biggest miscalculation was rushing to reopen the economy while the virus was still spreading at high rates through much of the country. in the tm"the times," the headls "inside trump's failure: the rush to abandon a leadership role on the virus. quote, each morning at 8:00, as the coronavirus crisis was raging in april, mark meadows, the white house chief of staff, convened a small group of aides

to steer the administration through what had become a public health, economic, and political disaster seated around mr. meadows' conference table and on a couch in his office down the hall from the oval office, they saw their immediate role as practical problem solvers. but their ultimate goal was to shift responsibility for leading the fight against the pandemic from the white house to the states they referred to this as "state authority handoff," and it was at the heart of what would become at once a catastrophic policy blunder and an attempt to escape blame for a crisis that had engulfed the country "the post" concludes, quote, perhaps one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in generations. six months since the first came in america and 140,000 deaths down the line, with press like this about the catastrophic failure of leadership that explains our country's calamity

right now, the white house, in its infinite wisdom, has apparently decided they will have the president start talking publicly about the coronavirus again from the white house briefing room. that will start again tomorrow enjoy. i'm sure that will help. but, you know, the virus is fully capable of making its own news now and telling its own narrative. in florida, where again that jacksonville area sheriff says there's no way the republican party can safely do their rnc there next month, in florida as of today, the state says there are nearly 50 florida hospitals that have maxed out their icu capacity entirely. nearly 50 florida hospitals that have no ability to take another icu patient. 9 of those 50 maxed out florida hospitals, of about 50, are in miami-dade county. that county has now announced a new hotline for people to get themselves into a hotel room to

self-isolate if they have tested positive and they need to recover from the virus but they don't have a living situation where they can protect the other members of their household from getting it from them miami-dade again opening up a hotline where people can stay in hotel rooms to try to self-isolate better so as not to infect their whole household more places should probably be doing that in the great state of mississippi, the governor there, republican governor tate reeves, has just extended the mask order, the mandatory mask ordinance for mississippi from the original 13 counties that he announced last week to now cover 23 counties. and in mississippi, the state health director there is just laying bare the very serious problem they've got now in terms of their skyrocketing case count and in terms of what it means for their hospitals. >> as you've noticed, we've had quite a run of days, over 1,000, and we see no likely letup in that for the near future

any interventions that take place now are going to take weeks before any benefit is noted. if we look at the situation with hospitals, it's something that gives us great concern that we're growing so quickly really tells us that we're, you know, at the verge of really pushing our system over its capacity in large measure, we're already there. if we look at the number of hospitals that have zero icu beds, currently that stands at nine but if we look at the number of icu bets available for the four largest medical centers in the jackson metro area, there is one icu bed currently available. so, again, very, very tight. we have 16 hospitals that have less than 10% of icu capacity. again, that's reallykind of a pain point for us as far as icu capacity is concerned. >> mississippi state health director today nine major hospitals in mississippi have zero icu beds, and in the entire state capital region, in the entire jackson,

mississippi, metropolitan area as of today, he says there is precisely one icu bed available. keep mississippi in your thoughts in kansas today, the governor signed an executive order telling schools to delay by one month their planned in-person reopenings kansas schools that were going to open for in-person instruction next month will now have their openings pushed back to september 9th after labor day per executive order from kansas governor kelly in harris county, texas, which includes houston, the county executive in harris county and the top public health official in that huge county today asked harris county schools to please push their opening dates until october for in-person instruction. and that's important and remarkable sort of touchstone for harris county, texas but texas overall right now is in a very serious situation. as bad as the curves are right now and as bad as the numbers

are in these states that we've been watching so closely, in california and in arizona and in florida, when you look at their case numbers right now, you look at the very far right side of those curves in california, arizona, and florida, you think that maybe, possibly, they might be starting to see a slight slowing in some of those places that have just been rocketing to the moon but texas isn't showing any of that texas appears to still be full speed ahead, basically straight up in some parts of texas. of the 4,000 roughly deaths that texas has had from coronavirus, about 20% of those have been just in the past week. and what they call the coastal bend part of texas, local authorities are now saying they believe one in eight people, one in eight people is actively infected in all of those counties combined. the coastal bend region of

texas, one in eight people the rio grande valley is in such dire circumstances now that it's getting national attention "the new york times" today profiling one hospital in edinburgh, texas, in hidalgo county, in a way that really puts it on par with the horror movie reporting we got out of elmhurst hospital in queens, new york, at the early new york peak, which i know you remember. this is from "the times" now about a hospital in edinburgh, texas. quote, the three facilities this hospital is using to treat patients with covid-19 have been filled to capacity since the first week of july at times, a dozen or more ambulances have waited outside for beds to become available reclining chairs and hallway beds have been moved into the emergency rooms where some patients wait more than a day to be transferred into an intensive care unit. with 11,000 active infections in the region, public health officers estimate that hospitalizations could double within two weeks, about you ajtt

now. there is no flattening there is n aention to what's going on in the rio grande valley in south texas, specifically in hidalgo county, texas right now. officials there are also speaking out on their own terms, in some cases defying what the state's governor says they are allowed to do. what they are doing is asking for help and sounding a loud alarm, and we've got that coming up stay with us v. at the golden opportunity sales event. get zero percent financing on all 2020 lexus models. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. balanced nutrition for strength and energy.

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more news on how our health care providers are being impacted through all this. hidalgo county health authority says more of them are getting sick and unable to see patients while they're in quarantine. an exhausted workforce up against the virus. >> we know that this week we've had at least half a dozen doctors go down in the line of duty that are out. we've had more nurses that have passed away, and we know we've had a triple digit number of

health care providers that have also dropped out of the system >> a triple-digit number of health care providers that have dropped out of the system. that is the situation in hidalgo county, texas, right now in the rio grande valley. that's the head of the local health authority saying, we've had at least a half dozen doctors go down in the line of duty one other thing from hidalgo county this weekend the chief executive in the county, judge richard cortez, told residents of hidalgo county about what it's like to be moving in refrigerated morgue trucks for his county hidalgo county is asking funeral directors to come in from other places to please help them deal with the surge in deaths there because the morgues in hidalgo county are full, and so they are having to add trucks now to try to make do >> this morning as we were traveling and moving one of our

refrigerated trucks to be used as a morgue, we passed by a flea market and that flea market was just full of people the actions that we have taken in the past in some way are directly a result of the tragic events that we're seeing today and there's a way that we can stop that. >> joining us now is judge richard cortez he is the judge in hidalgo county, which means he's the top elected official in charge of that south texas county, that is experiencing an overwhelming outbreak right now thank you so much for being with us i know your time is really precious >> my pleasure to be with you. >> looking at this from the outside, it feels like there's a number of consequences of how large the outbreak is that are bearing down on you all at once. obviously you've got hospitals

under strain you've got health workers who themselves are getting ill, and the system for handling deaths, for handling people who have died because of coronavirus seems itself to be overwhelmed i want to ask from up close, from your perspective, if that perception is correct and if you think you're at the worst of it or you're worried this is even going to get worse. >> rachel, no, i believe you're correct. i mean it really is that bad we're really struggling with the situation here in hidalgo county but i'm also very, very optimistic tonight i'm very optimistic that as america sees the pain that we're going through here, we will follow the american tradition for americans to help us, and we need a lot of help and i hope it will come to bear. >> what kind of help do you need i know that the state has arranged for some additional

medical personnel to come at least to the region. i know that you were hoping for a private field hospital from a charitable organization to potentially be set up in the county, although it seems like that may not now be on the decks. what do you need what could the country do for id all hidalgo county that would make a difference for you right now >> well, to care for the patients that are already with the virus, we need personnel, doctors, nurses,e pes of differ. oxygen, of course, is in big shortage right now there's extremely important for us to have the necessary supplies and as you said at the opening comments of your show here, all our hospitals are really maximized. i couldn't be so proud of all of our hospitals, all our health care workers to really be working in the conditions they're having to work today so we need to add more capacity

and move on some of the patients that still require some service but less service than a fully acute hospital so we're looking into those things and of course the state of texas can help us with all that. >> in practical terms, if, as you said, all of the regional -- all the local and regional hospitals are basically full right now and can't take patients, there's nowhere to move people even if a patient is in a place where they can't get optimum care and they need to step up their level of care, it's very hard to find them a bed to move them to in a larger facility, more advanced facility if those hospitalization numbers that you have now are going to double within a couple of weeks, it just seems like an overwhelming amount of new capacity that you need to be able to find ways to -- where to

put those people, but also who can treat them. >> that is correct i mean that is the challenge you know what? we're going to find a way. we have to find a way. we cannot leave our people unattended we have close to 2,000 beds in our hospitals here in hidalgo county, and over 1,000 are already occupied by covid-related patients that's a huge percentage, which means that the other people that normally need care for other diseases and other ailments are really also in danger. where do we put them those people are not going to stop needing services also so it's a huge problem, and here again we're doing everything we can to manage it >> judge richard cortez joining us live from the great city of mcallen, texas, in hidalgo county thank you so much for your time tonight. keep us apprised we are watching a lot of different hot spots around the

country. right now nothing seems as worrying to me in the country as the situation that you and your colleagues are trying to management come back and help us keep the country apprised on this. >> thank you very much thank you very much. >> all right much more to come here tonight, including the great joy reid, one of my most beloved colleagues ever, fresh off her debut show on joy reid's first tv show in prime time, she interviewed both joe biden and hillary clinton. talk about coming out of the gate strong, joy making us all look bad joy reid joins us ahead. stay with us every day. people are surprising themselves the moment realize they can du more with less asthma. thanks to dupixent, the add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma. dupixent isn't for sudden breathing problems. it can improve lung function for better breathing in as little as 2 weeks and help prevent severe asthma attacks. it's not a steroid but can help reduce

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this is about the next 10 years. pero hoy, tu puedes hacer algo. you can make a difference today by completing the census. the census impacts everything from hospitals, schools and public transportation. it is more important than ever before

that everyone's voice is heard. the census builds america, so the census count should look like america. shape the future of brooklyn. kansas city. tucson. atlanta. oregon. los angeles. d.c. start here at 2020census.gov. former vice president joe biden, we are out of time. i have more questions, though. will you come back >> i'd be happy to come back by the way, with he were thinking of you as vice president, but then you took this job so, you know, what can we do >> well, i appreciate -- >> i wish you the best of luck. >> thank you very much. >> i'm really -- presumptuous

for me to say i'm proud of you doing this. >> thank you. >> it's a presumptuous thing to say, but it really is beyond time. >> thank you very much, mr. vice president. really appreciate it good luck with the campaign. >> it really is beyond time. hey, happy birthday. we get to celebrate a birthday today because today a show was born the show is now about two hours-ish old. it's called the reidout. joy reid you can watch it every night monday through friday right here, 7:00 p.m. eastern. the host is my cherished colleague and frequent co-conspirator joy reid. on the very first episode of her new show, she interviewed hillary clinton. she also interviewed the former vice president and current presumptive democratic nominee joe biden. and as far as i've seen, until tonight, nobody had gotten this news out of him about the choice of a running mate. of course, though, it was joy. of course joy is the one who was able to get this news from him here it is >> are you committed to naming a

black woman as your vice presidential running mate? >> i am not committed to naming any but the people i've named, and among them there are four black women. so that decision is under way right now. >> have you narrowed down your choices? >> well, i'll tell you what's happening. we're getting the detailed analysis that is done. i've been through one of these vets, as they say. it takes about six weeks, and you go into everything it's like having a public physical examination, and that is just being finished i'm having a two-hour vetting report from the lawyers and women and men of color as well as white folks who are doing the vetting. and we've gone through about four candidates so far in the two-hour vetting then when i get all the vetting done of all the candidates, then i'm going to narrow the list,

and then we'll see then i'm going to have personal discussions with each of the candidates who are left. >> all right well -- >> and make a decision >> now we know how he's going to make the choice. joining us now is the great joy reid, my friend, the new host of msnbc's the reidout which is every night here from now on until the end of time, 7:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc joy, how are you -- okay how are you doing? highw how does it feel? how did it go? >> so first of all, you know, my philosophy on booking has always been, just ask for everybody jesus, can he do it? let's just ask you never know he might say yes so we just started throwing out asks for people, and we got sort of a bounty of people tonight, and the guests were really great. they were really on. they were all ready to talk. so it was wonderful. it was very exhilarating i'm very proud of the show that we did tonight, and i love, love, love being in your neighborhood the only downside is i can't do my thing where i go by your

office when you're trying to work and say, you know, let's just have a conversation about russia what's happening why is this happening? so i do miss -- i do miss seeing you here in fabulous 30 rock but, yeah, this was fun. >> we will get some sort of bat phone system set up until we are back in the same place. >> we need a bat phone. >> we can do that. joy, let me ask you about -- speaking of russia, i want to play a clip of what secretary clinton said on your show tonight about commuting the sentence of roger stone, and i want to tell me what you think the implications of this are here's the clip. >> i want to give you a chance to respond to the fact that donald trump has new commuted the sentence of at least one of the people who was listening russia was clearly listening, but so was roger stone what do you make of the commutation of his sentence? >> well, i think it's pretty clear that stone threatened him. he probably threatened him privately, but he also threatened him publicly about what he would say if he had to go to prison

and this is a continuation of the cover-up it's an ongoing cover-up that trump and stone are two of the major participants in to try to prevent us from knowing all of the details about what they actually did in 2016 some of it was very public i mean asking russia in public to interfere in an american election, but some of it was clandestine, behind the scenes, sending messages, the kinds of things that we know about, and i think much more. so what he did was to use the awesome power of commutation as part of the pardon power of the president to basically shut up roger stone. >> yeah. >> so that roger stone would not spill any more beans about what actually happened and how much donald trump actually knew >> joy, i mean that's very pointed comments from her. >> yes >> i feel like what she's kind of saying there is hearkening

back to something from bill barr's confirmation hearing where he said, if a president commuted somebody's sentence or pardoned them based on a promise not to incriminate the president, that would be a crime. >> yes. >> it's kind of what clinton is alleging that trump did here, right? >> the words that stood out to me in the answer were two of the people in the conspiracy so it sounded to me like she does believe that there was a conspiratorial cover-up of what happened to her and to the election and that the implication is that the un-indicted co-conspirator in that is donald trump. >> joy reid, i know everybody has been saying it, but i freaking mean it congratulations. >> thank you. >> i am so glad that we are parked next to each other on the same block, my friend. >> yes. >> anything i can do to be helpful ever, anytime, always. >> bring a pie over. we'll do a virtual pie handoff because we're on the block now so just bring a pie. >> i'll squeeze one through the bat phone. >> that works.

>> get a good night's sleep. you've got to do it all again tomorrow you can catch the reidout at 7:00 p.m. eastern monday through friday right here on msnbc tomorrow night joy is going to be interviewing senator kamala harris and former attorney general eric holder. man, like i said, making us all look bad much more to come here stay with us is boost high protein... and now, there's boost mobility... ...with key nutrients to help support... joints, muscles, and bones. try boost mobility, with added collagen.

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you may have seen in recent days the footage that shows a protester being snatched off the streets of portland, oregon, and thrown into an unmarked van by what might be federal officers but who knows? they're wearing no insignia, they won't identify themselves their car is unmarked. in the first ten seconds of that video, you see these two armed men in fatigues with no badges they charge toward a protester then when the camera turns, you see he's backing away with his hands in the air it's sort of worth watching here watch this >> what are you doing? use your words what are you doing

use your words what are you doing >> i haven't done anything wrong. >> use your words. what is going on who are you? we'll get you out. what's your name tell us your name. >> what's your name? >> okay. you're fine. we'll get you out. we got you, friend >> we got you. >> you just violated their rights >> kidnapping people >> you just violated their rights >> they say mlg will get you out. that's national lawyers guild. what's going on? who are you? oregon residents being snatched off the street by who knows who has now given rise to a new lawsuit by the oregon state attorney general who is suing four federal agencies asking a judge for a restraining order to stop their operations. quote, ordinarily a person exercising his right to walk through the streets of portland who is confronted by anonymous

men in military-type fatigues and ordered into an unmarked van can reasonably assume he is being kidnapped and is the victim of a crime, making it impossible for citizens to determine whether they are being kidnapped by militia or other malfeasants dressed in paramilitary gear or are being arrested in addition to the four federal agencies she's suing, the oregon attorney general is suing john does 1 through 10, who can't be cited by name because neither their name or affiliation is known. joining us is ellen rosenblum, attorney general of the great state of oregon. i appreciate you taking time to be here tonight. thank you. >> thank you for having me, rachel that video makes me cry every time i see it. >> yeah. i mean have you and other state officials in oregon had any rational explanation of that specific incident, let alone the other similar incidents that are described in your lawsuit?

>> no. we haven't had any explanation really at all. apparently donald trump sent these agents here to oregon to try to quell the violence that was occurring, and you can see right there that, in fact, it appears to be just the opposite, and this is not the only instance this is one that was caught on camera thank goodness for cameras because otherwise, you know, you can't make this stuff up but it's also a little hard to believe this is happening right here in portland so we brought this lawsuit because we had enough of it. the governor and the mayor of portland asked these people to leave. they won't leave the acting interim secretary of homeland security says they're staying, and the president announced today that he's sending these troops maybe he'll get them out of portland, but i don't really relish, you know, them going to any other places and engaging in this similar type of behavior because it's outrageous. it's a violation of the constitution, and we're not standing for it.

>> their presence is, itself, problematic in lots of ways that you just referenced and that are described in your lawsuit. but one of the things i worry about is grave misconduct by officers who are operating in this sort of way we've seen some misconduct documented and alleged by protesters, but in the case of particularly egregious misconduct, without name badges for the individual officers and without identifying information in terms of the agency that they're with, how would you and the state of oregon broadly or even local police pursue them in terms of, you know, trying to arrest somebody for a murder or an assault or something deadly serious in terms of the criminal law? >> well, we also opened a criminal investigation as to some incidents that have occurred, one in particular that there's also a video of, showing a federal officer essentially shooting some kind of a projectile and hitting a protester, a peaceful protester in the face.

that protester is still in the hospital, received plastic surgery, and we are investigating that particular incident so we'll be in a better position once our investigation is under way to hopefully identify particular individuals it's been acknowledged that it was a u.s. -- member of the u.s. marshal's service that was engaged in that behavior, so i don't think it's going to be quite that difficult to identify people we'll have to, you know, prove the other elements of the crime, and we are potentially expanding our criminal investigation to include other incidents that have occurred. >> ellen rosenblum -- >> it doesn't appear to be stopping >> yeah. i was just going to say, what you are fighting against here appears to have, among other things, mobilized even more people in portland and other places in oregon to get out and protest and make themselves seen good luck with this. keep us apprised. >> have you heard of the wall of moms just want to message the wall of

moms they're out there tonight protecting their kids. thank you. >> thank you very much ellen rosenblum, oregon's state attorney general all right. we'll be right back. stay with us good morning, blair. [ chuckles ] whoo. i'm gonna grow big and strong. yes, you are. i'm gonna get this place all clean. i'll give you a hand. and i'm gonna put lisa on crutches! wait, what? said she's gonna need crutches. she fell pretty hard. you might want to clean that up, girl. excuse us. when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you built with customizable coverage. -and i'm gonna -- -eh, eh, eh. -donny, no. -oh.

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we're committed to helping all families stay connected. learn more at xfinity.com/education. started off the show tonight by saying this was a busy day and a busy night indeed tomorrow we are expecting the president to restart his coronavirus briefings after several weeks off. that was apparently news

after the president publically announced it early tomorrow morning we're expecting what amounts to the british edition of the mueller report to come out the uk report on russian interference in their recent elections, including the brexit referendum due to cam out dawn our time, very early tomorrow morning. and michael cohen just filed a lawsuit, the president's lawyer just filed a lawsuit against william barr, the attorney general and the justice president and the bureau of prisons alleged he was locked back up last week specifically to stop him from releasing a book critical of the president like i said, busy times.