flood, things aren't specific about pandemics, where governments forces a business to close down. businesses are telling us these payments are the difference between life and death. the insurance companies are learning these payouts could rival 9/11. so far the insurers are winning in the courts but you can expect congress to take it up later this year. nicholas johnson, great to see you. thank you, my friend. that does it for me on this thursday morning, i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. the one constant through all the years, ray, has been baseball. america's ru america's rolled by like an army of steam rollers, it's like a

black board, erased and built again but baseball has marked the time. this field, this game, it's a part of our past, ray. it reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again. people will come, ray. people will most definitely come. >> oh, they will come, willie. like moonlight graham on the side of the row -- >> three months late. >> baseball is back, my friend. baseball is back. >>, you know, somebody asked me the other night, isn't it weird to watch the baseball games as i watched the yankees and the mets with no fans and they piped in noise. i said maybe a little but you have baseball, it's back. i saw aaron judge trotting around the bases after he hit a

home run. everything we love about the sport is back. there is a little rain in the forecast tonight in washington so we'll keep an eye on that. but the defending champion washington nationals host the new york yankees. guess who's throwing out the first pitch? dr. anthony fauci. >> yes, how fun. >> then a late game out west between the giants and the dodgers. the season will be an abbreviated 60 game schedule, teams playing only in their own regions. there's rule changes, a designated hitter for the first time since that position was created for the american league in 1973. the use of a runner on second base to expedite an extra inning game, starting with a guy on second base in the 10th. and a virtual swapping of lineup cards. no spectators inside the stadiums and they'll pipe in

crowd noise using sound effects. i will take baseball, sports any way i can get them. and it starts tonight after a four-month wait. >> yeah, you know, yesterday i got to watch liverpool raise the trophy for the first time with premier league championship since that league was started in the early 1990s. and i was thinking, you know, it was so great to see it and i was so excited. and yes, the players looked a little -- a little confused when they were jumping up and down with their trophy in an empty stadium, but at the same time it was just -- it was just so exciting. and it really was a continuation of an earlier season but a continuation of something that's happened for well over 100 years and that's the same with baseball coming back tonight. we're all excited. mika, i know you're very

excited, though despondent over mookie's long-term deal with the dodgers. >> i am. it's fun to have the family around the tv watching baseball. we also have analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele. columnist, david ignatius. and white house correspondent for "reuters," jeff mason joins us this morning. we have a ton to get to. president trump is doubling down on his plan to send more federal law enforcement officers into some of america's biggest cities despite local leaders saying they are not welcome. plus california passes new york's total for the highest number of coronavirus cases. this as a growing number of states impose new mask restrictions. we'll get to all of that. but first person, woman, man, camera, tv.

for the second time this week, president trump spent time bragging about his cognitive testing results. this time in an interview with fox news contributor dr. mark segal. >> it was 30 or 35 questions, the first questions are easy, the last questions are much more difficult. like a memory question. it's like you'll go person, woman, man, camera, tv. so they say, could you repeat that. so i said, yeah. so it's person, woman, man, camera, tv. okay. that's very good. if if you get it in order, you get extra points. now he's asking you other questions, other questions and then ten minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes later, say remember the first question, not the first but the tenth question, give us

that again, you go person, woman, man, camera, tv. if you get it in order you get extra points. they said nobody gets it in order, it's not that easy, but for me it was easy. that's not an easy question. in other words, they ask you, they give you five names and you have to repeat them. that's okay. if you repeat them out of order, it's okay. but it's not as good. but then, when you go back about 20, 25 minutes later and they say go back to that -- they don't tell you this, go back to that question, repeat them, can you do it? and you go, person, woman, man, camera, tv, they say, that's amazing. how did you do that? i do that because i have like a good memory because i'm cognitively there. >> willie, this is obviously not the top news story -- >> its's a test for people with

alzheimer's. >> -- of the day. we'll get to the top news story. but my mom has dementia, she would take this kind of test. it certainly has its importances. but donald trump goes back and brags about how he can say five words in a row. and he talks about how tough the final questions on this test are. it starts easy but then it gets tough after you have to say what an elephant is. >> it doesn't, actually, though. >> you go down and at the end of the test which he says is so difficult, he wants -- what's the day? what month are we in? what year are we in? what place are you in? what city are you in? and then, subtract seven from 100. i mean, it just is -- you know,

what do banana and orange have in common? what are they? again, it's -- he spent how long -- we'll get to our top story in a second here. but we didn't talk about this before but he keeps obsessing over taking a test that is given to alzheimer's patients. it is a bizarre, bizarre thing. >> it is a weird flex. >> this may be one accomplishment -- maybe this is what he considers to be his great accomplishments over the past four years. >> first of all, we have to give dr. mark segal an emmy or cable ace award for keeping a straight face through the interview. but you pointed out, this is a serious test meant to measure cognitive decline, meant to see if someone has dementia, they

take that test and doctors and neurologists measure how they did to see if they do, in fact, have dementia. the neurologist who created the test said this was no way created to measure intelligence or iq as the president claims it's a medical test to see if someone has dementia. so the fact the president goes back to this as a highlight of his campaign he's trying to set it up with a contrast with joe biden about cognitive decline. who has more, sit me or jobe biden. i'm not sure that's an argument that donald trump wants to have but he goes there again and again. let's go to portland, mika. >> late last night, the mayor was hit with tear gas fired by federal officers outside a

courthouse. while the mayor attempted to calm the crowd, many protesters called for his resignation where protests grip the city that president trump has sent the officers. activists called on the mayor to defund the police by 50%, and release protesters from custody. this comes as officers have fired chemical agents, flash bag devices at the crowd in recent nights dressed in camouflage and tactical gear and unleashing tear gas. federal officers have clashed violently with protesters and pulled some people in unmarked vans. in what governor brown called a blatant abuse of power. the demonstrations have rocked portland for 55 consecutive nights since the killing of george floyd in police custody

in minneapolis. meanwhile, this seems to be part of the president's latest efforts to play so called law and order at the center of his re-election campaign. president trump announced plans to send federal agents into chicago and says more cities all run by democrats will be added to the list. more than 200 federal agents have already been deployed to kansas city, missouri to address a surge in violent crime. now the justice department is expanding the program, sending roughly 200 federal agents to chicago and 35 to albuquerque, new mexico. attorney general bill barr said this operation is not like portland where unidentified agents targeted protesters, barr says the program adds man power to existing federal task forces that already work with local police. >> this is a different kind of

operation, obviously, than the tactical teams we use to defend against riots and mob violence. and we're going to continue to confront mob violence. >> for decades politicians running many of our nation's major cities have put the interest of criminals above the rights of law abiding citizens. these same politicians have now embraced the far left movement to break up our police departments, causing violent crime in their cities to spiral, and i mean spiral seriously out of control. we will never defund the police. we will hire more great police. we want to make law enforcement stronger, not weaker. what cities are doing is absolute insanity. >> well, you know, i'm really happy that donald trump is now on the side of joe biden, who

said he's against defunding police. i have to say maybe this is an inflection point where both sides come together. i'm so happy that donald trump came out yesterday and said that he still is on the side of james clyburn who said, weeks ago, that defunding the police was -- might make a good slogan, but it is a stupid policy idea. that, of course, the democratic whip in the house of representatives. and, of course, one democratic politician after another, mr. president, have said they are against defunding the police. so it's so good that you had the courage to go out yesterday and repeat what joe biden says. it's so good that even after jim clyburn said it, you weren't afraid to go out and say, in effect, hey, jim clyburn is

right. nancy pelosi is right. the national democratic leadership is right. we shouldn't defund the police. such good news. hallelujah. >> yeah. >> just very quickly, of course, it's important to say that what is going to happen in chicago, kansas city, are, in fact -- they're going to send, it appears, federal officers to help with existing task task forces. it sounds more like an investigative approach. doesn't sound like anything like portland yet, of course you have to see what happens. but unless people in those cities start attacking federal buildings, i suspect they will have no excuse to do the sort of things that they're doing out in

portland. and yet, even with that happening, david ignatius, so many people are looking, as we are, at what's happening in portland with unmarked police officers throwing protesters into the back of vans with no probable cause, and then whisking them away and interrogating them as deeply un-american, extraordinarily frightening in 2020 for the united states government to have a president who is using these tactics that, you know, of course, people used in the past. >> joe, as you say, the deployment of those forces, in portland especially, look like the version of the little green men we talk about in russia. people who come out without clear identification, doing the bidding of the president back in

the capitol. and i think people in oregon, rightly, have been furious about this. there is a significant legal challenge. we'll see how that turns out. i think more fundamentally we have to see that this is a standard page out of the republican playbook. they do this every four years. they agitate about law and order, the democrats are weak on law and order, that crime is up. it's just, it's a standard gop line. it's good that biden and pelosi have been firm in saying, no, we don't want to defund the police. we want better policing, policing more in touch with the community. but i think this was to be expected, especially with a president whose other major issues are collapsing because of the pandemic, because of the economic slow down. i think if in these cities where

federal forces are being deployed there are violent protests and there have been violent protests in some of the cities, that's going to play directly in trump's hands and we'll see the inflammatory claims he makes. so we'll see people protesting the president have to be careful they not give him ammunition. but this is a tactic that has unfortunately worked for the republicans in the past for several decades. and this is the donald trump version of it, sharply, sharply phrased. biden has been smart not to fall into the trap. i hope he stays sensible in supporting, as i wrote in a recent column, law, order and justice, they go together. those three are three legs of where the democrats stand on these issues. >> you're so right about the protesters not playing into the president's hands. two things can be true at once.

these can be deeply troubling, disturbing rallies or attacks against rallies, against peaceful protests for the most part. the seizing of americans off the streets by unmarked police officers, thrown into unmarked vans and whisked away with the police not having probable cause. and at the same time protesters, it would -- if they want federal officers out of their cities doing this, of course, they can do court challenge and should do court challenges. they should also, you know, if they stay away from federal buildings, the president and barr have absolutely no legal standing to be where they are. they can protest in other places and that takes all legal rights, any legal rights they may have through this order to continue. but willie, this law and order

approach, this extreme law and order approach that the president has tried since the death of george floyd has backfired on him tremendously. his poll numbers dropped after june the 1st. and, you know, his aides thought that was a great idea. i'm sure they think this is a great idea as well. but in the latest poll, he's losing by 9 points on the issue of law and order to joe biden. this doesn't help the president. and yet he continues to double down on it. >> yeah, it's just the latest area where the president curiously digs deeper into a hole he's made for himself that's not helping in the polls. it's interesting to listen to mayor lori light foot of chicago who's on the show later today, and also is not in favor of defunding the police. but she said, listen, if you're

coming to chicago to help us investigate crimes, investigate shootings, great. but if you're coming to sweep people up and put them in unmarked mini vans we don't want that. she talked to the president yesterday and we'll ask her about that. michael steele, as someone who was lieutenant government, tom ridge first homeland security secretary and governor of pennsylvania said it would be a cold day in hell before he let these agents come to his state, his city. that guy is a republican. what do you make of this? >> i think tom ridge, governor ridge has it right. i know from maryland to massachusetts to california to florida all across the country, governors, whether they're republican or democrat would not welcome the kind of approach

this president is taking. not only does it set up the obvious constitutional problems between the 10th and the 14th amendment and lord knows what else. but the idea that the federal government is going to come in and do something over and above what the local officials, the mayor and of course the governor and state officials are already doing speaks to their individual sovereignty. speaks to how they manage and run the cities. mr. president, once you bring your troopers into our states do you now want to stay and clean up the mess that you create afterwards? because the states are left with that, they're left with the cost, the disruption amongst the citizens. the citizens of oregon will decide whether or not they like what's happening in oregon. the citizens of portland will decide relative to their elected officials whether they appreciate the ongoing protests since may 25th.

donald trump can sit back and be dismayed. donald trump can be concerned. but unless the governor calls him and says, look, i need help. you stay your behind out of the state. that's how this works. how this has work. when you look at federal intervention it's because it's asked for and appreciated and welcomed by the local or state officials who have a problem they cannot manage. that's not the case in many portland, not the case in chicago, and what the president is doing is stoking a law and order meme to appease not those folks but those white citizens who look at these places, these largely black and brown cities, these urban centers and says we got to do something, mr. president. and he's like, i'm here to the rescue. >> so jeff mason, i want to hear what you're hearing from the white house. but some analysis leading into the question out of this conversation is that, yes, everything michael steele said,

but i kind of look at it through the lens of a buildup toward the election with grave concern. you look at what happened june 1st. when the president had his photo op outside the church with his bible and what happened to peaceful protesters who were shoved out of the way and gassed. it happened, and now it's over. no recourse. maybe a few people got mad at the president. but he blows through stop signs and nothing happens. now, roiling hate, stirring up violence, putting perhaps a stronger reaction in place than needed, hoping perhaps to ratchet up tensions which could perhaps ratchet up violence and put this president in this law and order position where for his base it appears he's, quote, keeping the peace. i look toward the election with

grave concern and i'll say it basely, this man won't leave. but what are you hearing inside the white house about these preparations to move into other cities? >> well, mika, i think the point you make about a build up is worth underscoring. it started after the death of george floyd. we're now in july and continuing to talk about law and order. and at the same time, seeing his poll numbers go down because of his response to the coronavirus. voters across the country unhappy with that response and was noted earlier, unhappy with his response to the protest to the death of george floyd. it's a continuation of that. the politics are also pretty clear in as far as he's focussing on the cities and states run by democrats. he says that, focussing on chicago, albuquerque, when if it's just about a surge in crime, it's happening in cities

run by republicans as well. one of them being jacksonville where the republican national convention is set to take place next month. but you don't hear the president talking about it on an equal footing. it's focused almost completely really on cities and states run by democrats. so the political strategy there is clear and he has employed that -- or implemented that strategy from the white house. >> jeff mason, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," key new research on the coronavirus. can you get the virus more than once? a new study suggesting reopening schools would trigger new outbreaks. our medical experts are standing by. and as we mentioned, chicago mayor, lori lightfoot joins the conversation after the president announced he's sending federal agents to her city. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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remember: you haven't saved...until you're an rxsaver! we're working with very talented people, very brilliant people and it's all going to work out, and it is working out. nationwide beyond the outbreak in several states cases remain low and very stable. 19 states have positive test rates of less than 5%. eight states have positive test rates of less than 2%. our nationwide positive test rate is beginning to decline is at 8.8% compared to over 16% at its peak in april. it's coming down. it's coming down fairly rapidly. as far as the outbreak in the sun belt, i said yesterday we continue to combat the rise of cases in in the south and

southwest and west. we're closely monitoring and aggressively acting to control the infection in arizona, texas, california, florida, and they're starting to come down. they're doing a good job. there are likely a reason for a spike in the cause. the cases started in young americans after the demonstrations which you know well about. also sharing a 2,000 mile border with mexico as we know very well and cases are surging in mexico unfortunately with the president and -- it's a big problem for mexico but cases are surging sharply and all across the rest of the western he misspear. 250 miles of new wall across the border has had an impact on people coming in.

we have record low numbers of people coming in illegally has helped greatly. >> i must say he has done a lot of pathetic things. but yesterday he blamed black people, black lives matter, and brown people from mexico for a spike in states like florida. it's interesting, new york, which has cases down, probably more people protesting than any other city. but jeff mason, this has been an interesting few days. yesterday or the day before the president was talking about the importance of wearing masks. i remember you asking him a question and -- with a mask and the president telling you to take off the mask and you refused. and then he derided you and said, oh, you're trying to be politically correct. do we expect the president to continue down this path?

what's caused this dramatic change? and what is the strategy moving forward? you were in there again yesterday, i take it the president didn't mock you for wearing a mask yesterday, but what's the strategy moving forward? >> he did not. but you're right, joe, he did earlier in the pandemic and called it politically correct to wear masks. that illustrates how big of a shift it is for him now to urge americans to wear masks. he also held up his briefly yesterday at the briefing and did the same the day before. but not long enough -- just barely long enough for someone to get a picture. i think your question of what happens next, it'll depend on whether or not these cases come down and to your question as to why now, it's both for health reasons and political reasons. it is very troubling to the white house and the president's campaign that these big spikes in coronavirus cases are happening in states like

florida, like texas. he referenced the sun belt, obviously they want to get that down for health reasons but also for the fact that it's damaging to him politically going into november that these big spikes are happening. it comes, of course, from a health perspective, extraordinarily late for him to be talking about masking now. it might be too late or it's certainly very late in terms of health but in terms of politics, i think his advisers are thinking it might help turn things around for him going into the election campaign. >> you know, mika, by the way, while the president is talking about how wonderful things are going, things are still continuing to spike. >> terrible. >> in states. i saw ashley parker, reporter from "the washington post," saying it's only anecdotal but i've been waiting ten days to get the results of my test. sadly, something we hear time and time again. the testing regiment is still

pathetic. so the government's own numbers may be radically underestimated. >> we have hospitals that are, you know, going through dire circumstances, willie geist it's -- >> if i can also add, too, by the way, deaths -- the deaths once again over 1,000 deaths, mika, per day. we're back at that just absolutely terrible -- that terrible statistic. over 1,000 deaths every day from this. >> seems, willie, his numbers are a bit skewed. >> and hospitalizations near their april peak, what was happening in new york city. we're back to that almost nationally. i wanted to add in, i took a coronavirus test, my whole family took a coronavirus test on a thursday, two weeks ago, we didn't get the results back until two sundays later. it took a full ten days like ashley described. i only got my test results back

and then we had to call a couple days later to find out my wife and kids were negative. all four of us were negative. the testing there may be more of it but they can't process it fast enough. and the results ten days later is meaningful given the interactions in the previous ten days. so there's not a point to the test chl when the president talks about test results not coming back positive that's because they're not coming back. you can't do contact tracing by the way. it's a complete joke the way he tries to package this up. and you wonder why he doesn't have his doctors up there with him, the answer may be because they would refute what he is saying. joining us "morning joe" chief medical correspondent dr. dave campbell. and medical director at boston

university school of medicine dr. naheed bah heel ya. i'm going to get to you dr. dave in a second, but doctor badilia, big picture for us how america is doing, especially in the hot spots, florida, texas, how america is doing and what we can expect in the next few weeks given how the u.s. government is still handling this virus. >> thanks, mika. before i answer that, i want us to reflect on the fact if we're looking at ourselves as another country where the only information we got about the pandemic was from a politician from a podium, how strange would that look not to have any public health folks up there. >> good point. >> the hospitalization peaks is an important measure. the reason why the hospitalizations and deaths we're seeing now are lagging

behind by nearly a month. these are the reflections of cases that occurred a month ago. in the last month our cases have started to spike, which means we will see unfortunately an increase in the death over the next few weeks. the other thing is that initial, you know, sun belt states are now seeing a spillover of cases. you're seeing other states around them, north carolina, alabama, are starting to see their own large every outbreak. that's going to be important because we're all connected as we walk into the fall. >> so, i want to bring up, dr. dave, before i get to you what dr. shaw said on our show yesterday. looking at florida and some of these places, texas, that are experiencing surges. these are global surges. meaning that florida is a global hot spot. it has more cases and more problems than any place in the world. not just the united states of

america. that's how bad we are doing. and i really thought that was striking that he had to actually expand out to the entire world to show just how bad things are in, for example, florida. dr. dave, you're looking at covid-19 antibodies. you hear someone has the antibodies and therefore they can't get it again. is that still the case? >> what we know is we don't know and we want to desperately find out if you can catch and develop coronavirus, covid-19, a second time. that's important also to know the likelihood that vaccines that are being developed right now are going to be effective. we've known from china that the number of antibodies, the level of antibodies drop in infection

and drops in those with mild disease or those that are asymptomatic. now we know out of a study that got published from ucla and the new england journal that the number of antibodies really does drop and it drops in people who have had mild disease and drops over the first few months. it has broad implications because we also know that vaccine developments are being ramped up. we know the federal government has developed an agreement with pfizer to make lots and lots of vaccines, 100 million vaccines and then 500 million more. so the big question everybody has, especially anybody that has had covid-19, is whether they are immune and for how long they may remain immune if they are. and by six months into this pandemic, scientists don't know. mika. >> doctor, i want to ask you

about schools. the president talked about that at his briefing yesterday said he 100% wants schools across the country to be open. this is not a far-off question. it it's going to be august next week, a month people go back to school. the argument the administration and the president is hanging its hat on is that children don't get coronavirus as easily, don't transmit it as easily therefore it's not a threat if they brought it home to the adults. this ignores the adults in the schools, which is the frustrating part of the argument, the teachers, custodians, bus drivers, cafeteria workers. could you clarify whether or not children are less vulnerable to this disease, as the president says? >> willie, thanks so much. the data around school openings as we discussed before has been mixed from around the world. you're seeing potential outbreaks in some areas particularly where prevalence is high. the newest study we have from

south caroli south korea saying children under 10 are less likely to get it. but children under 18 are just as sufficient transmitting it, they may transmit it to teachers, parents, so that remains the risk. the older the child, i think the pattern is emerging, the more they may transmit this. i don't think there's going to be one answer to all school openings across the country in the fall. i think it's going to depend on whether or not the community prevalence of the disease is high. whether or not you're in a metropolitan area and whether your public schools and others have the reresources. if we don't have the protective equipment how do we generate it, if we don't have enough tests for people who are currently sick, how do we get enough tests when there are outbreaks in

schools. and the last bit it may depend on the age of the child, the younger children who don't have the capacity for remote learning versus the older children, there might be different tools. so i don't see how the white house pushing one strategy is helpful for anybody. >> dr. dave just as we close, i'm looking at florida, it could be texas, but i'm also wondering about other states that could end up like florida and be in florida's position. how do you feel, as a doctor, about schools reopening? >> i feel that it is important to differentiate different parts of the country and different school districts, depending upon the community spread that's found. really, if i think about what dr. bhadilia have said and others have said, and wondering

do we really have to worry about the emotional stability of kids in the next couple of months, do we have to worry about things that are, i think, less important, perhaps this is a controversial thought but less important than the potential for severe illness and death in older adults, in teachers and administrators, so if we have toerr on the side of safety we should err on the side of protecting the individuals in schools and pause on reopening the schools. but it should be different in different parts of the country. there are areas schools can open and social distancing be included and face masks used. and fortunately the younger kids, the ones uncontrollable with social distancing and face mask use seem less likely to transmit the disease. and the 10 to 18-year-old group,

a little bit if not a lot more likely to transmit, they're going to do better with home learning, distance learning, so all in all i'm optimistic about schools but not to necessarily reopen schools across the country willy nilly. it has to be thought about carefully, and the age of the child has to be considered, community spread has to be considered. south florida, forget about it, far too much community spread right now. texas, houston, forget about it. >> but south florida some schools are planning to reopen. >> sure. and let's see like we did after memorial day and after july 4th, whether we see increasing surging or outbreaks in areas where schools reopened. that's a frightening thought mika. >> wow, dr. dave campbell and

nahid bhadilia, thank you for being on the show this morning. coming up former u.s. attorney, barbara mcquad on the boundaries she said the president is pushing seasonednd federal agents. g in federal agents as a caricature artist, i appreciate what makes each person unique. that's why i like liberty mutual. they get that no two people are alike and customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. almost done. what do you think? i don't see it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ with spray mopping to lock away debris

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this is not the enemy. this is not the military. this is donald trump's video game fantasy world where he gets to play tough guy dictator, except real people are getting hurt. he's dressing up federal law enforcement like they're on the streets of cabal. he's ordered them to attack

citizens like they're taliban insurgents. he has federal shock forces detaining people without evidence of a crime. mr. president, here's something you'd know if you paid any attention in briefings or instead of playing dress up you actually served when you were called. the united states military is sworn to support and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. all enemies of our constitution, like you. >> those are tough words. those words came from a group of american veterans. the vet group vote vets. a lot of military men and women, especially a lot of retired military leaders, deeply dist b disturbed by what they're saying in portland and some suggesting that it looks more like what vladimir putin sois doing in russia. and somebody else who agrees

with that is u.s. national editor of the financial times ed luce, he's out with a piece called donald trump's little green men and also with us barbara mcquad her op-ed today, trump's portland strategy, look tough and beat biden. but he's making cities less safe. let's start with you, ed luce, and talk about donald trump's, quote, little green men. give our viewers some context to that. >> thanks, joe. well, as you remember in 2014 when putin annexed crimea and then fermeanted unrest in eastern ukraine, he sent in a lot of russian troops that had their insignia removed and were driving in unidentified vehicles. that everybody knew were taking orders from him.

but which had just enough plausible deniability for him to claim that they were operating independently. and they were dubbed the little green men, like martians just sort of turning up. he also directed information warfare at eastern ukraine saying russian speakers were willing slaughtered. the reason i call these dhs and other federal agents trump's little green men is because we have some plausible deniability. he's hyping up with information warfare putin-esque warfare, if you would like, the idea that american cities are like afghanistan really this is slaughter and radical anarchists are ruling places like portland, chicago, albuquerque. and so there's some plausible deniability. but the real intention here is

to change the subject, first of all, from these disastrous pandemic numbers and the economic numbers going back in the same direction. and to stoke up the idea that the real issue before americans is a culture war. that is a culture war against america's cities. essentially we have an american president running against cities. the country that invented the sky scraper. so i think diversion is the first point but i do think, you should, as maya angelou showed you, when somebody shows you who they are, you should believe them the first time. and trump is saying in advance of november this will be the most corrupt election in history. these little green men are there on the ground. it's worrying how he's putting them to use. >> barbara, you're looking at this from a legal perspective,

the federal agents in portland are there protecting federal property as the president said, that's legal. so what do you see as the constitutional problem as you write about that in "usa today" and how do you see the difference between portland and chicago where federal agents are going in to help stem the violence, the shootings we've seen explode in that city over the summer? >> i think what's happening in portland is there is a strategy to send department of homeland security agents in to protect federal property. but they're using that then as a pretext to expand on that authority and go out into the streets. they have the authority to protect federal property from violence or assault on federal officers but one of the allegations in the lawsuit filed by the attorney general of oregon is agents are then going out on the streets and arresting people without probable cause, that's a violation of the

constitution. where i think it becomes damaging to law enforcement and federal law enforcement is now the conflation we're seeing. we're hearing william barr talk about sending department of justice agents into cities like chicago and now albuquerque, to surge and protect the cities from violence. ordinarily that kind of activity is welcome by cities. it's done in coordination with local law enforcement, i've seen it done in detroit, but it's done with the greatest respect of local law enforcement to say how can we help? can we supplement your resources? what do you need? inste instead, sending people in without insignias, with military fatigues, the way it's been done in portland, most cities are resisting this because it's seen as political theatre in an effort to prop up president trump's re-election campaign as opposed to a genuine effort to

help people in local communities. >> david ignatius, the united states has been through periods of unrest, you can look at 1968 and there was widespread rioting throughout that year. and the years following. and yet, the federal government never implemented the sort of activities that we're seeing now from barr and trump with these, as ed luce says, these little green men. what are your biggest concerns, and are there others that you have spoken to that share mika's concern that that is actually a ramp up to a very volatile fall leading up to the election? >> joe, i think mika put her finger on the biggest worry. the president has said directly that he's terribly afraid there's going to be fraud in november. we know that we're going to have because of the pandemic a need

for an unusually large pool of mail-in absentee votes. it'll take some time to count them. i'm guessing that election day is november 3rd. it may be well into the next week before we really have a final count. what happens in that period? do we have little green men on the streets trying to enforce putting quotation marks around law and order? the one positive thing i'd note, and i'm curious what ed luce thinks about this. the deployment of these dhs little green men forces in portland followed the refusal of our uniformed military to participate further in suppression of protests. general milley made a mistake going out in the streets with president trump on that day when he went with the bible in front of st. john's church. but milley recognized had he

made that mistake and through the next through days he was clear in messages to the troops, in public statement that is he served the constitution, didn't serve the president, he served the constitution. so all of a sudden we had this new force under general dhs control, under justice department control, but i think i'm reassured that our actual uniformed military has been strong in saying, no. we're not going to be part of this. we're independent, we're apolitical. ed, do you have that same feeling? >> entirely. and i think it's a very good point. if you're going to make the analogy with putin, which is valid in many cases how trump thinks, then this distinction is important that the military unquestionably with or without insignia serve putin. in the united states since the lafayette clearing it's clear that the pentagon, military and

esper, have been forced to restate the time honored principles of the united states. the fact is the dhs has five separate federal armed agencies in its oversight. it has an acting secretary. somebody who has actually broken the vacancies act, chad wolf, who shouldn't be in the job, who is prepared, quite clearly, to treat these agencies as a semiprivate army and bill barr is prepared to draft the legal pretext for this. so i think that's a measure of how the pentagon is not pliable to trump's political theatre but how there are other agencies that are. >> michael steele, jump in. >> i think it raises sfor me soe bigger questions that get to the heart of what our constitution is there for, to protect

individual rights and liberties but also empowers governors and mayors of cities against an aggressive federal government. so my real question for barbara goes to that point. you've got secretaries of states, you've got mayors, all threatening, governors threatening lawsuits in some cases, portland, there are lawsuits in place, how do you assess the legal challenge of these jurisdictions against what this president is doing, given exactly what has just been said that the president sort of sets up this straw dog pretense that i'm here to project the law and order under the constitution as opposed to as the states see it, violating their sovereignty. >> you raise the very same point that a number of mayors have raised in a letter saying this is a violation of 10th amendment rights in a federalism, the idea of states rights.

this is a republican view, traditionally of the world but not this one. it is my view that this isn't about respecting state's rights or the normal concepts of sovereignty, but president trump flexing his law enforcement muscles to show the american public how tough he is on crime. so ordinarily we would expect that. as i said, typically when federal agents come into cities, it is done with the greatest coordination of locals, of police chiefs, of mayors to talk about how can we complement what you're trying to do on the ground because such an important part of policing is legitimacy. when people see an occupying army, it is not effective in calming people. one of the things law enforcement tries to do is bring calm to chaos, de-escalate situations and sometimes a show of force can do that. but what we're seeing in portland is the wall of moms, people opposing it, the mayor

and governor have asked them to leave because they're escalating tensions. so this is not helping keep cities and states safe. which is why we're seeing that opposition and asking them to leave. >> so, barbara, we're at the top of the hour and we're going to move the discussion guaforward before we let you go, i need to ask you, what are the legal remedies? what can we expect the courts to step in and do? you had yesterday ron wyden talking about the united states of america staring down the possibility of marshal law in the middle of an election, certainly something no one would put past donald trump and if we, in fact, are going to have an election that is fair and if we are going to have a peaceful transition of power that's going to be dependent on the united states military standing in the gap to protect and defend the

constitution of the united states. they have spoken out on june the 2nd and said that's exactly what they ' they're going to do. but the other half of that equation are the federal courts across america. what can the courts do in this case where this -- these forces inside bureaucracies, in the centralized state are spreading out across america and doing what vladimir putin did, and russia in 2014. >> joe, i don't think i have a lot of optimism there. i think the courts can stop federal agents violating the constitution by arresting people without probable cause or if they go beyond their congressional mandate of their jurisdictions and the crimes they can investigate and arrest for. but the powers are broad and that's where having a

responsible commander in if chief and attorney general are important. but william barr has shown he'll look for every loophole in the law to give president trump what he wants. >> so we've seen after donald trump is voted out of power and removed from from the house, if he won't go voluntarily, the president and congress have a new post-trump law to push through and reform. because donald trump has proved we can no longer depend on the good faith of any commander in chief going forward. barbara mcquade, ed luce, thank you. david ignatius and michael steele stay with us because we want to continue the conversation with john heileman and former aide to george w. bush's white house, elise jordan. and professor at morgan state

university, jason johnson. let me go to you john heileman. we were talking before you came on this morning about oregon senator ron wydenwyden's jarrin statement if you look at what's going on in portland you can understand why he's saying that and the president talking about spreading this to other cities and taking what the president said immediately following the death of george floyd and what he did on june the 1st. this president is going to push out and seize whatever power he can. he is, after all, a president who has bragged repeatedly that article ii gives him unlimited power. where do we find ourselves moving towards a fall election? >> joe, i heard that ron wyden quote yesterday on our air i think in the 5:00 hour. he said, it was galvanizing entand

frankly, something we talked about on the show on tuesday, which i raised the spechter and people didn't like the language, i said something about a test run for trying to steal the election. i stand by that and i think when i heard widen say it, it was a better way of saying what i had been trying to say on this show tuesday, which is what do we know about donald trump? we know donald trump witnessing what he did in lafayette square on june 1st. we know he's perfectly willing to use federal forces against peaceful demonstrators he's doing it again on the streets of portland and at the same time violating the normal, as michael steele pointed out earlier, the way in which policing is supposed to work in america. obviously the behavior of those federal forces in camouflage, unmarked, grabbing people without a warrant, without probable cause, putting them in unmarked vehicles where the chain of command is unclear, where people are taken is

unknown, what the resource is for those people's families and friends, people who care about them on the street, want to know where to go to get that person out of custody, have no idea where to go. you think about the expansion of this and where it goes next. what we know about donald trump is he's willing to use force to break up peaceful demonstrations. we know that the president since 2016 has been saying the system is rigged and the election is rigged. remember in the third debate in 2016 to chris wallace, who he said it again to just the other day, he said the system is rigged, i won't necessarily accept the results of the election if it doesn't go my way. he won in 2016 but we know he was setting himself up to reject the outcome in a peaceful end to the election. he said it again, he's been saying it over and over again in 2020 that he's not necessarily prepared to accept the results of the election. he's been denigrating and

calling corrupt a form of mail-in voting that 40 million people engaged in 2016. so what is -- he's telling us what he's going to do here. he's saying i won't necessarily accept the results of election if i don't like m them. the way we know tens of millions of people are going to vote in this country he says is prima facie corrupt -- >> the way his press secretary votes. the way his family votes. >> mail in. >> the way republicans have always won elections in the past. >> military. >> yes. >> john i can say this to you briefly and then we can move forward. can you underline what i said to speaker pelosi the other day and agrees, we republicans have always won by mail-in votes by absentee votes. whenever i walk around a war room on election night when i was a republican and people would whine i'd go wait for the mail-in votes we win those outright. so this argument doesn't make sense because republicans

usually do extraordinarily well with absentees and the mail-in votes. >> 100%, joe, that's exactly right. and there are republican elected officials around the country, another reason why they're so upset with donald trump in addition to the political mess he's put them in. they understand he's undercutting a way in that republicans often dominated absentee voting and mail-in voting but donald trump fears it. so undermining a form of voting we know is more important in 2020 than ever because of coronavirus, telling us that he's not necessarily prepared to accept the results of the election, using federal forces against peaceful demonstrators outside the white house, now in portland and encroaching on the state policing power. they're trying to make it sound like chicago is going to be different but he's setting precedence now and i think mika was right this morning when she raised the proper concerns and the ron wyden quote to me

crystallizes it. this is what's if you're an authoritarian president preparing to resist a loss in an election. you would be saying the things that donald trump is saying and gradually rolling out federal police power into the states against the wishes of the mayors and governors in question. this is how it would happen. this is how the movie would play out and anybody who's not looking at this with a state of alarm and concern and worried about is this president going to employ formally martial law, is that on the president's mind? is there anybody having watched donald trump for the last three and a half years who doesn't think donald trump would try to employ martial law if he thought that was the only way to stay in power. i ask anybody who doesn't think that's possible? >> i think, willy, even donald trump's allies understand he

will do whatever it takes to stay in power. i mean, he's -- here is a guy, again, who has said repeatedly that article ii gives the president unlimited power. he has sent his aides and advisers on sunday shows to say the president's power shall not be questioned. and that remains, actually, how donald trump views his power inside the white house. >> 100%. >> he's being very specific about it. he tweeted three days ago this election would be rigged. so he's softening the ground looking at his own polls for what he sees coming november 3rd. let's be specific about what the president is proposing in american cities. yesterday he announced he planned to send federal agents into chicago and more cities, run by democrats, will be added to the list. 200 agents have been deployed to

kansas city to address a surge in violent crimes there. the justice department is expanding the program, sending about 200 federal agents to chicago and 35 to albuquerque, and explaining the reason for the program, attorney general william barr blamed the spike in crime in some cities on what he called extreme reaction to the death of george floyd. >> we did start this program, which we called relentless pursuit. unfortunately covid intervened and we had to abort that effort. and since then, we had that terrible event in minneapolis. but then we had this extreme reaction that has demonized police and called for the defunding of police departments and what we have seen then is a significant increase in violent crime in many cities. and this rise is a direct result of the attack on the police

forces and the weakening of police forces. >> jason johnson i'll let you tackle that statement from attorney general william barr. i will point out as you answer that lori lightfoot, the mayor of chicago who will join us has not called for the defunding of police. said it's a nice hashtag but doesn't help us stop the gun violence in our city. >> the united states' main attorney would refer to a police officer being on someone's next for 8 1/2 minutes as extreme. this is something that donald trump has made clear, not just since he came into office. we've seen this show, this movie as john heileman says, this is "house of cards" we know heading into election day that trump will say there's crime near voting centers, there's a terrorist attack near voting centers and he'll put troops and

people, or tell the same vigilant t vigilantes he used to fight against masks in michigan, send people there to try to shutdown the vote. i think what's important it's not a matter of the mayors fighting back. trump not happy about mayors, and mayors if they happen to be people of color or women. the question is going to be will the governors step up. with the governors who are sometimes republicans and sometimes democrats say you can't send an occupying army to my state. you can't send troops to my state. because at this point at the border we have missing children or black vans taking people and disappearing, this is argentina, this is brazil. this is the countries that had dictators take over and that is what donald trump is doing. it's up to local governors to fight back and if they don't, we won't have a functional election

in november. >> elise jordan, this is also -- a friend just texted me and said this is also the caravan. an election is coming up, remember all those caravans that donald trump and fox news said were about to invade america but never did after the election was over? it all went away. remember the troops that donald trump sent -- took out of their homes so they couldn't be with their families for thanksgiving or over the holidays because he deployed them through the end of the year because of this quote caravan, all the caravans coming up. and then the day after the election nobody was talking about the caravans anymore. donald trump tried to send troops to lafayette park and the u.s. military told them to go to hell, they knew how to read the constitution. now he's sending bill barr's groups, these little green men, to portland and other cities. this is the caravan on steroids.

>> there's nothing else to call it except creeping auth authoritarianism. i don't know if it's creeping anymore if you have the president using federal power for his own purposes. this is a natural, i feel like, build up of the post war on terror, when you have the local police stations being outfitted with m rwraps, it makes it easir to just keep escalating. and i hope that governors, that they speak out. i hope that people speak out, but it's very scary that donald trump has this much power at an election time. and to underscore what everyone else has been saying, he has clearly signalled -- donald trump has clearly signalled that he is going to sow chaos and doubt about the election results if it does not go the way he expects it to go.

i think we need to all be taking that with dead seriousness. >> you know, david ignatius, we had this discussion after tom cotton wrote his op-ed for the "new york times" talk about how donald trump should send troops across the nation and tom made the mistake of attaching a study that showed this happening before, but in every case, you had people, if it was los angeles, it would be governor pete wilson during the rodney king riots who asked the federal government to send troops. if it was baltimore's riots in the 1960s. there was the example of then governor spear row t ago knew asking for troops to be sent in. if it was detroit, it was only after the request of the governor of michigan asking to

send in the troops. the only time the united states government sent in troops to states was little rock when the state governments refused to enforce federal laws. well, portland's mayor and the state's governor have all said we will enforce the laws, get out. this is a breach of our history. this is a breach of our laws. this is a breach of if not the constitution itself but certainly of constitutional norms that have always required a state request to have the federal government come in and do things that they can't do themselves. that is not present here. >> joe, i think you're right. i think we should take comfort from the fact that we are not argentina or brazil yet, thank goodness. we have a military that's pushed

back hard, hard on the idea that the president would use them to suppress domestic protests. that's not going to happen. i think people listening to this segment, rightly, will wonder what can citizens do to make sure that the election that's coming up in november is fair, that there's not an attempt to interfere with it by little men in green or anybody else, and there are some answers. just want to note. our elections in america run by state and local governments. every state has a secretary of state typically in charge of the election. there is, in every state, most states an election director. a national association of them. they are putting out material every week to try to alert people how to keep these elections safe. if people want to know what can i do to try to make sure that this is a safe and legal november 3rd election, volunteer

as a poll worker, not necessarily a poll watcher but working in the polls, working to help make the elections work, help out in the different ways required to deal with absentee votes. but there are a number of things that citizens can do now with four months ahead to get ready to help administer a fair and just election. >> yeah, well, okay. so jason johnson, let's look at how this president is playing politics and connecting exactly what we're talking about to the coronavirus. at his first return to the coronavirus briefing on tuesday, his take on the virus was that we are in the process of developing a strategy. again, this is a virus that other countries have mitigated quite effectively with very easy measures.

this president can't get it right. and many ask why. i think at this point, if we can assume he is not so stupid, not so completely i literal he can't figure out how to listen to the scientists you have to wonder why he will not nationalize the response, where he willfully wants to reduce testing so you get less numbers, you have to ask the question, that's what i'm doing. by the way, also at that first return to the coronavirus briefing, i think it's important to mention again the other lead story yesterday that we should be following for weeks and months to come, he wished gi lain maxwell well. this is a woman accused by his own justice department of abusing children. that was the first briefing. in the second briefing he talked about the return of the coronavirus to major areas like florida and blamed it on

protests. please tell me what the political -- actually, we have that, so let's take a listen. >> as far as the outbreak in the sun belt, i said yesterday we continued to vigorously combat the rise of cases in the south and southwest and the west. we're closely monitoring and aggressively acting to control the infection in texas, arizona, california, florida. arizona starting to come down. they're doing a good job. they're talented people. there are likely a number of causes for the spike in infections. cases started to rise in young americans shortly after demonstrations, which you know very well about. we're also sharing a 2000-mile border with mexico as we know very well and cases are surging in mexico, unfortunately. with the president and -- it's a big problem for mexico but cases are surging sharply and all

across the rest of the western hemisphere. 200 miles of newly constructed wall on the southern border has had a great impact on the people coming in and we have record low numbers of people coming in illegally, that's helped greatly. >> all right. so how special -- >> what the heck? >> jason, for everybody that talks about the president's new tone a couple of days ago, it's very interesting that now he -- he does have a enough -- he has a new theory of the case at least -- >> yes. >> -- and it's a racist theory that the coronavirus spikes that are being caused because people blindly following his lead have been contempt chuous of wearing masks, social distancing, of stay-at-home orders has caused the spread in their states but

he's blaming black and brown people, blaming black lives matter protests when it's interesting, that new york city, the epicenter of the protests, the lowest since march 18th. >> yep. >> in new york city where we saw protests nonstop, hospitalizations the lowest since march the 18th. nine deaths compare that to florida and other states. so, of course, that's one part of the lie and the second part of the lie is so preposterous i'm surprised stephen miller could pass it on with a straight face and that is that ron desantis' mistakes are the blame of mexico. this is his new theory. this is his new caravan theory. let's blame this not on my stupidity, donald trump's stupidity. let's not blame this on ron desantis' short sidedness.

let's not blame it on brian kemp's anti-science, anti-medicine views. let's blame it on black and brown people. >> so here's the thing, joe. it's not a new theory. it's a repackaged version of everything he's run on. this is just a scientific patina on top of they bring disease, they bring crime. this is just a new version of what trump has always said and repackaged. here's what's interesting and e ironic. if we remember the beginning of the press conferences the president had, remember he said in the hot states like florida and georgia the heat was going to make coronavirus disappear and last week you had 15,000 new coronavirus cases in one day in florida, it's now the hot spot of the entire country, it's not just the president has lied, been wrong on science, but now you have over 1,000 people dying

a day. i'm working on this piece that's going to come out tomorrow talking about the opening of schools in georgia and florida as a president death fails to sy leadership, you have governors sending kids to school in the next couple of weeks without requiring them to wear masks, without requiring teachers to wear masks. by putting college kids back on campus. i'm a college professor, you can't stop meningitis on campus, the flu, you think you can stop kids from gathering? you have governors sending our children to a coronavirus slaughter. this is an abdication of power but it's the same callousness towards anybody and everybody he's shown. he's going to smear it today, instead of immigrants and muslims now he says mexicans and

black lives matter. >> it's going to be august next week, michael steele, there's still not a plan in place. in fact, the president said yesterday at the podium, it's all going to work out. that's the plan. and then later in an interview with fox news he said it's going to burn out. he's living in this world of magical thinking, hoping, clicking his heels together, closing his eyes that coronavirus will go away as it exploding across the country. not willing to tackle it, put the doctors at the podium and be real with the american public about what's happening and introduce a plan, not wishful thinking, a plan now on july 23rd to get this under control. >> you know, i think all of that's a good foundation, willie, for the point that the president doesn't have a plan. but i step back a little bit and go, maybe he does. the president will always tell us what it is he intends to do.

he always has. he can't help himself. remember what he told us at the beginning of his administration. what's the goal here? to deconstruct the administrative state. that's the ultimate plan. the idea when you get into a national crisis of this level, this size, this impact, the plan, it's already been laid in place. and so, that's why you can push military forces onto city streets. that's why you can play down the virus, because the institutions that are there to deal with these issues at a critical time have been so thoroughly weakened that their impact is not going to be the same even if there was a plan going forward. we've got an attorney general who sits there and looks at what's happening to citizens and goes, okay, we need to do more of that because they're the problem. so this idea that we're going

to, at this point, three months out from a national election, expect a plan to deal with this virus, to deal with black lives matter and the civil rights offenses there, to deal with the sluggish economy the way i think any other administration would besides just opening up america, that's -- this is the plan. this is -- it doesn't get any better than this, folks. so y'all need to get your heads wrapped around the fact that your rights right now, your responsibilities right now are right in front of you as you prepare to go to the ballot box, which by the way, he's trying to put a lock and key on for this november. so you got to think about that. that's the plan, folks. >> i'll take it a step further, michael steele, what you're saying, the crazier things get, the worse things get, the easier it is to do what he wants to do, which is what michael steele

just laid out. >> exactly, mika. exactly. >> michael steele, jason johnson, and david ignatius, thank you all for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," tensions with china are ratcheting up as the u.s. closes the chinese consulate in houston, accusing it of being a, quote, massive spy center. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. we'll be right back. find your keys. find your get-up-and-go. find pants that aren't sweats. find your friends. find your sense of wander. find the world is new, again. at chevy we'd like to take you there. now during the chevy open road sales event, get up to 15% of msrp cash back on select 2020 models. that's over fifty-seven hundred dollars cash back on this equinox. it's time to find new roads, again. brushing only reaches 25% of your mouth.

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they were that good, right? and now we have his new book -- >> they were. >> -- and the world, a brief introduction. i know your favorite chapter and my favorite chapter on hot sauces. richard hass has done it again, hasn't he, willie? >> it's a strange title for a barbecue book, "the world a brief introduction". i like the misdirection. it's a series of dry rubs you can put on any meat, not just steak, works on chicken. that's the genius, richard, in the marinades you write about. >> ham. >> brilliant. >> richard -- >> good morning. >> good morning, richard. we'll get to more serious matters with you in a minute. >> he has nothing. >> also joined by a member of

the committee on foreign relations, senator chris coons of delaware. i'll keep you out of this conversation blessedly, senator. >> thank you. >> let me talk about this morning, the plan introduced by the justice department and president trump yesterday to send federal agents into some american cities to stop violence. they make a distinction between portland where federal agents there are protecting federal property. in chicago, for example, they say they're going in to stop the gun violence and assist local police there. when you look at this from a constitutional perspective, a state's rights perspective, how are you viewing operate legend put forward by the justice department? >> this strikes me as a terrible idea for several different reasons first practically. state and local law enforcement routinely participates in task forces with federal agents but not having federal law

enforcement and agents forced upon them where they haven't asked for the help where the mayor or governor is not seeking the help. this is the first example i can remember the federal government forcing this assistance onto communities not asking for it. that also is the constitutional implication here as the previous segment was talking about, there are very few instances in american history where there was federal action over the requests of a governor the only thing i can think of is during the civil war or the civil rights movement. this is a different thing we have the mayor of portland saying do not come into our community with unmarked agents. that's setting a terrible precedent that the attorney general and president are now doubling down on that and insisting on sending extra law enforcement to these cities

where it's not welcome is setting a terrible precedent. >> we want to talk about the closing of the consulate in houston and what impact that's going to have on our relations with china but before we do that, why don't we talk about the pr disaster that portland will be for the united states worldwide. the chinese have already used the george floyd death and the protests that followed and the disturbances that followed for propaganda purposes across the rest of the world. now they'll super impose images of what's happening in portland with images of what happened in hong kong. of course, it'll be a moral -- they will be breaching moral equivalency where there is little but at least donald trump is giving them images for them to use against us across the world. >> you're right. an important part of foreign

policy is who and what we are. people see images like that it obviously diminishes our reputation and standing. it totally denies us the right to stand up and criticize the chinese, say, for what they're doing in hong kong or what any authoritarian is doing day in, day out. it's also corrosive with our democratic allies. this just reinforces their doubts that the united states is not the country they thought they knew and it raises real questions for them about whether they can put their security in our hands because this suggests to them that we have changed. and the country they initially made their commitments to and with is now a very different country. >> let's talk about houston. that consulate in houston opened up in 1979. that was the year that the bra zin ask you's hosted young somehow ping in their home.

that's how long this consulates been open through a lot of good and bad times for both countries. what are the consequences of closing this consulate? because it seems like it's just going to start a series of escalating moves by both sides. >> look, no one should doubt that the chinese are doing inappropriate things, whether it's taking intellectual property, certain types of espionage, potentially using students getting access to laboratories. you mentioned 1979, ping's china and xi jingping's china is far away. we could have responded with a scalpel, instead we responded with a sledge hammer. we could have diplomats leave, students leave, deny students access to certain laboratories.

instead we did this big close the consulate. this is a page out of the cold war playbook. china will respond in kind at a minimum. we have six consulates in china we are far more dependent there for what's going on. so my concern is china will respond and the net is one we are worse off. china has more ways to get into the united states. we're much more open. and second of all, this continues to spiral down to the world's most important bilateral relationship. pardon me for saying the obvious but this looks more about politics here than it does about foreign policy. we ought to be working with china to deal with north korea's nuclear missile challenge, with climate, real trade issues. this is not diplomacy to me, this is politics. >> senator, do you agree with some of your republican colleagues who say the closing

of this consulate in houston is long overdue. marco rubio said it's a massive spy center, what do you make of this here? >> i agree with what richard said. there are ways we can do effective counterintelligence and limit the ways in any particular consulate in the united states is a basis for ip theft or intelligence gathering in the country but i'm concern about where the china/u.s. recklessly endanger another person is going. seems to be headed to a cold war. we're an open society we have relatively few avenues into china. china under xi jingping is more aggressive than it was decades ago. but we need a strategy to deal with china.

senators from both sides yesterday made the point we need stronger alliances around the world of free, open and democratic societies to successfully respond to china's rise and expansionism, and frankly, president trump mostly has a list of grievances, an attitude rather than a strategy. >> senator, as you know, the president announced a few weeks ago that the united states would withdraw from the w.h.o. in response to its handling of the coronavirus crisis, the pandemic, it being too cozy with china among many other things that won't go into effect until next year if it happens. you introduced legislation yesterday, though, to block president trump and the administration from doing that. how will that work? how do you stop the president from doing it? why are you opposed to the withdrawal? >> the former legal adviser of the state department contacted me after president trump made that announcement and said i don't believe he has the legal authority to withdraw the united

states from the world health organization yuunilaterally. i looked into it and i agree. partly why senator leahey and i introduced legislation was to sharpen that point. i brought it up in a committee hearing this week, i think it's important that we recognize president trump continues to do things or say he will do things he doesn't have the legal or constitutional authority to do. so i'm trying to to make the point that in the middle of a pandemic this global organization that we helped create and fund and grow needs to be a key part of how we respond globally to the pandemic. there are reasons to be critical of its early response to this pandemic. but we will be more successful reforming and reviewing the w.h.o.'s actions by remaining a part of it rather than stepping out of it. this is just a part of a long pattern of trump's actions of withdrawal from virtually anything that is part of the

global network of organizations and alliances we've built over seven decades that have provided a key platform for our security and prosperity and to advance our values. >> these have taken years -- these are relationships that have taken decades and he breaks them down just day by day. senator chris coons thank you so much. richard hass one more for you. president trump denied that he asked his ambassador to britain if the british government could help get the british to play at his golf course in scotland. according to the "new york times," robert wood johnson iv told multiple colleagues that trump had asked him to see if he could arrange for tournaments to be played on trump property. johnson was warned not to do it by his deputy, citing unauthorized use of the presidency for private gain. the paper said johnson felt

pressure any way and passed the idea by the secretary of state for scotland, and it was confirmed to nbc news the times reporting on trump and turnberry. lewis also said he advised johnson acting on trump's requests would violate ethics rules and be generally inappropriate. >> we talked about the president -- >> there are reasons there are these rules. >> there are reasons. >> there are dangers to behaving this way. >> the pattern is so instructive. you have john bolton writing in his book that donald trump tried to do favors for authoritarian leaders and here you have again a man who's shown general contempt for democratically elected leaders and you have the

president shaking down the government of theresa may. what is the impact with the relationship with our closest allies? >> this is personal gain. if you have a scale of graph, though, it's probably not as bad as ukraine. this was the personal gain. ukraine was essentially putting political interests ahead of the country's national security. if you're on the receiving end. if you're the prime minister of the united kingdom, what this signals is the united states, rather than being a respected, trustworthy democracy is instead has become a personal rather than a government of laws and norms, it's become personal. what's so frightening about that if you're an american ally, it opens up the possibility that we could turn on a dime. so if they say no, which they obviously did here, who knows what the retribution would be. if you're a foreign country

dependent on us, that makes you rethink that. it diminishes our influence. this sets in motion a world where the united states doesn't have relations. and the great structural advantage of the united states, we get up every morning we have dozens of partners and allies in europe and asia to tackle a range of problems. we are doing one by one, step by step, undermining the entire structural advantage of america in the world. >> and with we have done it. elise jordan, you worked obviously for the state department. i don't have to ask whether this is this is the sort of thing that would have happened while you were in the state department or while anybody was in the united states state department over the past 240 years. again it's unprecedented, and it is undermining of just basic political diplomatic and constitutional norms. >> joe, just consider that

donald trump puts his own golf course and the financial well willi being of his golf course ahead of whatever issues might be at hand that we need the uk to help us in the world for national security and peace and prosperity. this should be a huge deal. it won't be because there are about 50 other huge fires going on at the same time, but it's ludicrous that the state department was going to be misused in this way and it's just embarrassing. it's absolutely embarrassing that this is the state of american diplomacy where you have the american ambassador to the uk going around, trying to get the british open at a golf course. it is just shameful. >> that's incredible. alesse jordan and richard haas,

thank you both. we want to turn back to the coronavirus now which is surging in several states and having a lot of trouble with testing capacity. joining us now, former fda commissioner dr. scott gottleib. dr. gottleib, thanks for being on. i'll pick one. i'll start and ask about testing. i'm hearing more and more stories of people getting test results returned. i know personally of some. heard of some on the air today. i hear about the president trying to draw down testing, the need for testing only gives him more cases and causes him heartache or a headache. where do we stand with testing and how is it impacting our ability to mitigate? >> well, i think the access to testing is likely to continue to be a challenging issue heading into the fall. about 25% of the tests that have been conducted in this country are point of care tests, the machines in doctor's offices that produce a rapid result.

those return results very quickly. another 25% are tests that are run in hospital labs. those come back quickly. but it's the only 50% that are run in the large commercial labs that are taking a lot of times because those commercial laps are backed up. and sometimes taking as long as two weeks. quest said it takes on average about six to seven days right now. that's not going to change very quickly. because these laps are trying to increase their capacity as quickly as they can. they literally can't get the machines to expand their footprints and testing demand is going up and it's going to continue to go up as we head into flu season. everybody that comes in with a respiratory pathogen heading into the fall is now going to have to rule out covid first. >> i did a test through one of those large companies you mentioned and it took ten days for me to get my negative test back, 12 days for my wife and

kids to get their back. if you're waying ten days, given all the contacts we had between the test and the result, what is the point of testing that way? >> that's right. after about 48 hours, the test really isn't that useful for the clinical management of the patient. at that point, you're not going to be able to use the result to do effective contact tracing. too much time has passed. and you're not giving information back to the provider and the patient that they use to sort of attend ewate their own behavior or even change management. i think most providers have to work on the assumption that a patient who comes in now with signs and symptoms of covid has covid in the absence of a test result that near not going to get back in a timely fashion. that is going to get more difficult heading into the fall and the winter when we need to rule out a compliment of respiratory pathogens. we need to find a way to increase the capacity of these labs, scale them quickly to get these turn around times fast. when we have these epidemics in

these states, whatever capacity we have in the united states gets strained very quickly. but even with all the tests we're doing on a daily basis don't have enough capacity for a big capacity with large epidemics. >> doctor, since the spring, you've been talking about your biggest concern being the fall. i know you and others were hoping that perhaps the cases would dip over the summer going into the fall, give us a bit of a break. the opposite obviously has happened. what does that suggest we're looking at this fall when flu season starts? >> well, there was interesting data that came out just this week from the centers for disease control and prevention looking at how many people have had infection in the united states. and it's more than we thought, but it's not a lot. it's in the single digits in most parts of the country except for really significant outbreak cities like new york where it's as high as 20% or more. so there's a lot of people that

haven't been infected. i think likely we'll see more of what we're having right now, this rotating series of epidemics located in the country in different times. texas, arizona, florida, there are indications perhaps that the epidemics in those states are start to go peak. it's likely to be a long plateau that is not going to be like the new york experience where there's a sharp up or a sharp down. they came down pretty quickly from their epidemic. these are likely to be more epidemic. but even when they states start to peak, georgia is getting hot, ohio is getting hot, missouri has an epidemic under way, missouri, tennessee, montana. >> former fda commissioner dr. scott gottleib, thank you very much. john heilemann, from pandemics to portland, things are not getting better in the united states.

we move into a fall where doctors have been warning us for six months that a combination of the in youflu along with the coronavirus is going to be disastrous even as donald trump said it was going to go away. how does this all set up for an election that many consider to be the most important of their lifetime? >> well, i think, joe, as we were discussing earlier, some of the very disturbing things going on with trump right now in terms of use of federal military, paramilitary, federal law enforcement is being deployed out to the states, i think we need to be vigilant. we have to keep an eye on this stuff. we have to record on it and hold trump accountable. but we also, as seasons, have to

protect our elections. listen to what donald trump is telling us he is planning to do and watch as it happens and take action collectively to try to stop it. i will say one thing, joe. one thing you took some comfort in is the fact that donald trump gave us more detail about his cognitive test. i'm thinking that person, woman, man, camera, tv, that sounds like the name of a new television show that we could watch. don't you think? like the waiting night line was born in the iran hostage crisis. we should do a new show on the disrepair of the president's brain, person, woman, man, camera, tv. it's an idea. phil griffin, where are you? come on, let's go. >> okay. we're going to explain that later. >> and you know, willie and i are already going to pitch a show, cooking show. haas's hot sauce.

we can give it to them, willie, as a package deal. >> okay. don't make that sound, willie. john heilemann, thank you. and still ahead, chicago mayor lori lightfoot joins us after the president announced plans to send federal agents to her city. and we know dr. anthony fauci played basketball in his youth. tonight we'll see how he is when he throws out the first pitch at the season opener in washington. the season opener in washington.

the one constant through all the years, ray, is in baseball. america rolls back like an army of steamrollers, it's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and built again. but baseball has marked the time. this field, this game, it's a

part of our past, ray. it reminds us of all that one was good and it could be again. oh, people will come, ray. people will most definitely come. >> they will come, willie, like moonlight graham on the side of the road. willie, baseball is back, my friends, baseball is back. >> somebody asked me the other night, isn't it weird to watch the baseball game with no fans and they piped in noise. i said maybe a little, but my gosh, you've got baseball. it's back. i saw aaron judge trotting around the bases after they hit a home run. everything we love about this sport is back.

there is rain in the forecast tonight in washington. so we'll conceive an eye on that. guess who is throwing out the first pitch, mika? dr. anthony fauci. >> how fun. >> then there's a game in the west between the giants and the dodgers. the season will be an abbreviated 60-game schedule. there are some rule changes, a designated hitter position for the first time, the use of a runner on second base to expedite an extra inning game. they'll start with a guy on second in the 10th inning. they'll limit up-close conversations with umpires, limit spitting. no spectators inside the stadiums and they will pipe in crowd noise using sound effects. joe, i will take baseball. i will take sports any way i can get them and it starts tonight after a four-month waits.

>> yeah. yesterday, i got to watch liverpool raise the trophy for the first time with premier league championship. since that league was started in the early 1990s. and i was thinking, you know, it was so great to see it and i was so excited. and, yes, the players looked a little confused when they were jumping up and down with their trophy in an empty.stadium, but at the same time, it was so exciting. and it really was a continuation of an earlier season, but for something that has happened for well over a hundred years. that's the same with baseball coming back tonight. we're all excited. mika, i know you're very excited over mookie's long-term deal

with the dodgers. >> yes, i am. along with joe, willie and me, we have former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele with us. columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" david ignatius joins us. and white house correspondent for reuters, jeff mason, joins us. we've got a ton to get to this morning. we'll have the latest with the coronavirus as california passes new york's total for the highest number of coronavirus cases. plus president trump is doubling down on his plan to send more federal law enforcement officers into some of america's biggest cities despite local leaders saying they are not welcome. that comes amid what we're seeing out of portland. late last night, mayor ted wheeler was hit by teargas fired by federal officer as he stood alongside protesters masked outside the courthouse. while the mayor attempted to qualm the crowd, many protesters

called for his resignation as protests continued to grip the city where president trump has sent federal officers. free protesters held in custody and get federal agents out of the city is what protesters have been calling for. federal officers have repeatedly fired chemical agents, less than lethal rounds and flash bang devices at the crowd in recent nights dressed in camouflage and tactical gear and unleashing teargas. federal officers have clashed violently with protesters and pulled some people into unmarked vans in what governor kate brown called a blatant abuse of power. the demonstrations have now rocked portland for 55 consecutive nights since the killing of george floyd in police custody in minneapolis. meanwhile, this all seems to be part of the president's latest

efforts to place so-called law and order at the center of his re-election campaign. president trump announced plans to sent federal agents into chicago and says more cities all run by democrats will be added to the list. more than 200 agents have been deployed to kansas city missouri to address the surge in violent crime. now the justice department is expanding the program sending roughly 200 federal agents to chicago and 35 to albuquerque, new mexico. attorney general bill barr says this operation is not like what we saw in portland where unidentified federal agents in camouflage targeted protesters. barr says the program simply adds manpower to existing federal task forces that already work with local police. this is a different kind of

operation, obviously. and the tactical teams we use to defend against riots and mob violence. and we're going to continue to confront mob violence. >> for decades, politicians running many of our nation's major cities have put the interest of criminals above the rights of law-abiding citizens. these same politicians have now embraced the far left movement to break up our police department causing violent crime in their cities so spiral. and i mean spiral seriously out of control. we will never defund the police. we will hire more great police. we want to make law enforcement stronger, not weaker. what cities are doing is absolute insanity. >> well, you know, i'm really happy that donald trump is now on the side of joe biden.

maybe this is an inyou flexion point where both sides come together. i'm so happy that donald trump came out yesterday and said that he still is on the side of james clyburn who said weeks ago that defunding the police was -- might make a good slogan, but it is a stupid policy idea. and one democratic politician after another have said they are against defunding the police. so it's so good that you had the courage to go out yesterday and repeat what joe biden says. so good that even after jim clyburn said it, you weren't afraid to go out and say, in effect, hey, jim clyburn is right. nancy pelosi is right.

the national democratic leadership is right, we shouldn't defund the police. such good news. >> yeah. >> hallelujah. so just very, very quickly, of course, it's important to say that what is going to happen in chicago, kansas ski, it appears federal law officers to help with existing task forces, it sounds moore like an investigative approach. doesn't sound like portland yet. but unless those people in those

cities start attacking federal billion buildings, they will have no excuse to do what they're doing out in portland. even with that happening in portland, so many people are looking at what we are with unmark officers throwing protesters into the back of vans with no probable cause and whisking them away and interrogating them as deeply un-american, extraordinarily frightening for 2020 for the united states government to have a president who is using these tactics who, of course, people like pino shettie used in the past. >> joe, as you say, the deployment of those forces in portland, especially initially, looked like an american version of the little green men that we talk about in russia, the people who come out without clear identification, doing the

bidding of the president back in the capital. and i think people, rightly, have been furious about this. there is a significant legal challenge. we'll see how that turns out. i think more fundamentally, we have to see that this is the standard page out of the republican playbook. they do this every four years. they age state will law and order, the democrats are weak on law & order. it's a sd gop.line. it's good that biden and pelosi have been firm in saying no, we don't want to defund the police. we want better policing. we want policing that is more in touch with the community. but i think this was to be expected, especially for a

president who has pandemic failure issues. there have been violent protests in portland and other cities. that is going to play directly into trump's hands. we can the inflammatory claims that he'll make. to many people that protest the president have to be careful that they not give him ammunition, but this unfortunately is a tactic that has worked for republicans in the past, for several decades. and this is the donald trump version of it. especially sharply frayed. biden has been smart not to fall into the trap. i hope he stays sensible and supporting as i wrote in a recent column. law, order and justice, they go together. those three are three legs of where the democrats stand on these issues. still ahead on "morning joe," inside day two of the return of the coronavirus briefings, we begin, no doctors

in sight. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watc" we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com. ♪ you can't claim that because it's inanimate! people ask me what sort of a person should become a celebrity accountant. and, i tell them, "nobody should." hey, buddy. what's the damage? i bought it! the waterfall? nope! a new volkswagen. a volkswagen? i think we're having a breakthrough here! welcome to caesar's palace. thank you.

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we're working with talented people, very brilliant people and it's all going to work out and it is working out. nationwide, beyond the outbreak in several states, cases remain low and very stable. 19 states have positive test rates of less than 5%. eight states have positive test rates of less than 2%. our nationwide positive test rate is currently at 8.8% compared to over 16% at its peak in april. it's coming down. it's coming down fairley rapidly. as far as the outpraek in the sunbelt, we continue to vigorously combat the rise of cases in the south and southwest and the west. we're closely monitoring and

aggressively acting to control the infection in texas, arizona, california, florida, arizona, starting to come down. they've done a very good job. they're all doing a good job. they're all talented people. there are likely a number of causes for the spike in infections. cases started to rise among young americans shortly after demonstrations, which you know very well about. we're also sharing a 2,000 mile border with mexico as we know very well and cases are surging in mexico, unfortunately. with the president and it's a big problem in mexico, but cases are surging sharply in mexico and all across the rest of the western hemisphere. 257 miles of newly constructed wall along the southern border has had a great positive impact on people coming in and we have record low numbers of people coming in illegally. that's helped greatly.

>> i must say, he's done a lot of really pathetic things, but yesterday he blamed black people, black lives matter, and brown people from mexico for a spike in states like florida. it's interesting, new york which has cases down, but jeff mason, this has been an interesting few days. i remember you asked the question with a mask, the president telling you to take off the mask and you refused. and then he deride you and said oh, you're trying to be politically correct. do we expect the president to

continue down this path? what has caused this dramatic change and what is the strategy moving forward? you were in there again yesterday. what is the strategy moving forward? >> he did not, but you're right, joe, he did earlier in the pandemic and called it politically correct to wear masks. that illustrates something and now for him to be urging americans to wear masks, he held up his briefly yesterday at the briefing and did the same the day before. but not long enough, really, just barely long enough for somebody to get a picture. your question about what happens next, i think it will depend on whether or not these cases end up coming down. to your question as to why now, it's both for health reasons and political reasons. it's very troubling. if these big spikes in coronavirus spaces are happening in states like florida, like texas, he referenced the

sunbelt. obviously they want to get that down for health reasons, but also for the fact that it's damaging to him politically going into november that these big spikes are happening. it comes, of course, from a health perspective extraordinarily late for him to be talking about masking now. it might be too late or it's certainly very late in terms of health wrb b health, but in terms of politics, i think his advisers are hopeful it will turn things around for him going into the election. coming up on "morning joe," president trump insists a basic cognitive test for people with alzheimer's was difficult. "morning joe" in back in a moment. fficult. "morning joe" in back in a moment ta-da! did you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance

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person, woman, man, camera, tv. for the second time this week, president trump spent time bragging about his cognitive testing results. this time in an interview with fox news contributor dr. mark siegel. >> it was 30 or 35 questions. the first kwenl is very easy. the last questions are much more difficult, like a memory

question. it's -- like you'll go person, woman, man, camera, tv. so they say could you repeat that. so i said, yeah. so it's person, woman, man, camera, tv. okay. that's very good. if you get it in order, you get extra points. if you -- okay. now he's asking you other questions. other questions. and then 10 minutes been 15 minutes, 20 minutes, remember the tenth question? give us that again. can you do that again? and you go person, woman, man, camera, tv. if you get it in order, you get extra points. they said nobody gets it in order. it's actually not that easy. but for me, it was easy. that's not an easy question. in other words, they give you five names and you have to repeat them. and that's okay. if you repeat them out of order,

it's okay but, you know, it's not as good. but then when you go back about 20, 25 minutes later and they say go back to that question. and repeat them. can you do it? and you go person, woman, man, camera, tv. they say that's amazing. how did you do that? i doits because i have, like, a good memory. because i'm cognitively there. >> oh, my. >> this is obviously not the top news story of the day. my mom had disciplia dementia. donald trump keeps going back bragging about how he can say five words in a row. and he talks about how tough the

final questions on this test are. you go down and at the end of the test which he says is so difficult, he wants like what is the day? what month are we in? what year are we in? what place are you in? what city are you in? and then subtract 7 from 100. i mean, it just is -- you know, what do banana and orange have in common? what are they? i mean, again, it's -- he spent how long -- and again, we'll get into our top story in a second here, but he keeps obsessing over taking a test that is given to alzheimer's patients.

it is a bizarre, bizarre thing. i think this may be one accomplishment. maybe this is what he considers to be one of his great accomplishments over the past four years. >> first of all, we have to give dr. mark siegel an me or a case award for keeping a straight face through that interview as he nodded along. but as you point identity, the montreal cognitive assessment is a serious test meant to measure cognitive decline, it's meant to see if someone has dementia. they take that tests and, doctors, neurologists see if they do, in fact, have dmant comme dementia. the doctors who created this test came out this week and said

this in this no way is a comment on intelligence. as we roll out the clips, donald trump insists on making that point again and again and again. up next, chicago mayor lori lightfoot joins us on the heels of president trump's announcement that he's sending a surge of federal law enforcement to her city.

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americans filing for unemployment claims last week. last week, the number was 1.3 million. this is the first time in 15 weeks that the number of claims has risen from week to week. this marks the 18th straight week that new claims have stopped 1 million. with americans clearly still in need of sfnl help, senate republicans have reached a tentative $1 trillion deal with the white house over the next coronavirus relief bill. the news comes after week of division among gop lawmakers unhappy with the aspects of the p battled by president drump been which includes dramatically

talked about. republicans agreed to $70 billion for k through 12 schools on a per capita basis. with half of the money going to covering costs for schools that have reopened. an additional 30 billion would be dolled out to colleges and universities. they agreed to another round of stimulus checks for americans, but the details have yet to be rehe's heed. enhanced unemployment insurance benefits run out at the end of the month. the republicans now need to negotiate with the democrats to get to a final bill. willie. letters turn back n's turn

preside president's announcement that he will send federal agents to chicago. mayor lightfoot, i'll begin with you. you got a phone call yesterday from the president of the united states to explain exactly what the plan is to send federal agents to your city. how did you characterize your situation and how did you lay it out to you? >> well, the conversation didn't get into a lot of substance. we're fougnot going to have unn federal agents patrolling our streets, sweeping people off and denying them constitutional rights.

what i understand is these are going to be additional fbi, dea and atf agents who are going to be augmenting and assisteding in investigations around violent crime, but manage -- and this is a critical difference -- but managed by the u.s. attorney here in chicago who i know and trust. >> so what do you say to people who are looking at what's happening in portland right now and are anticipating already some form of mission creek where you have homeland security agents patrolling your streets. whabs if there is a confrontation? what dau power do you have? >> well, we always have the power of the courts. we are prepared along with our state partners to go into court and stop it. we've asked our residents to be

diligent. and we are looking out with our police department, as well. we will not hesitate to go into court to get a temporary restraining order and stop federal agents from acting like the police and denying our residents of their constitutional rights. we're just not having that in chicago. >> i think there are a lot of people, mayor lightfoot who look at the violence in your city and say that city needs some help from the federal government. do you all need help, from your perspective? >> look, what we need is our entire community to step up and not give any shelter to the killers. what we need is to continue to make the investment in our neighborhoods that are going to make the difference in the economic futures of our young man. the kind of help that we need from the federal government, swrnt heard the president or

anybody else talk about. we need a loophole. that is an area that the federal government is uniquely qualified to help us with and none of that help is forthcoming. we need the guns to be off of our streets. we need the federal government to step up. >> as you know, those solutions are going to take some time, but as of this morning given what you're seeing in your city this summer, does your police department need the help of the federal government? >> what we need is more prosecutions. we need the federal government to stop the flow of guns kroos our boarders. this is how you use mooum r maum, baltimore, others are seeing this. we rely on our law enforcement,

our prosecutors, our jails, our courts, our street intervention. everybody has been impacted by covid-19. so another thing we need from the gefederal government is to step up and lead on our public issues. that would help ee flormusually. >> rev rent, i'll give you the next question. >> yes. mayor lightfoot, just to make it clear to our viewers, this problem preceded you being mayor. a time of the problems on the ground preceded you coming in and you inherited it and you worked with community-based groups like ministers that i've worked with. so it has been real movement attempts by you and your

administration. having said that, i agree with you about the overall problems of gun control and getting the guns -- the loopholes out of the fwoox at all. but the question that i raised when i heard about the president saying that he was going go send in the feds and you jibbed it. he is not sending in -- like if a shooting happened. >> no. >> for example, the 15 shot at the funeral the other day, the penalty or the feds would have nothing to do with this. in many ways, he is making a bogus claims that he is taking care of that. it would still be the chicago police department dealing with that. is that correct? >> that is correct.

the reality is sending in federal agents that don't know chicago, aren't trained in our use of force which is de-escalation and only use of deadly force as a last and only result, that would be a disaster. we've seen that happen. we saw what's going on in portland. but also, this is going to exacerbate, not help the problem, which is why i've drawn sich a sharp line. yes, gun control, yes, assaulted weapons is a longer term solution. this is critically important now so we start to get the results. that is something that the federal government is uniquely qualified to do and they've advocated their responsibility. we need that now.

gun trafficking across state lines is real. it's showing up in chicago. we need this help now. >> mayor lightfoot, tell me what your thoughts are right now on chicago reopening schools, the dangers that children, family and teachers may face, the risks and how are you navigating that. >> look, we're always going to be guided by the public health guidance. we are starting to see some results. we just rolled back some of our reopening. we shut down end of hour bar service. we closed down in person training at our gyms. we've got to be continually dill again. we've never going to put our kids, our teachers, our staff in harm's way. we're looking at a potential hybrid model of inperson and remote learning. but if we can't open up safely, we won't do it.

>> all right. if mayor of chicago, thank you so much. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> reverend al, i wanted to ask you on another topic, talking about the president, yesterday he came out and he put the plame for the explosion of the pandemic on the black and brown lives from the black lives matter campaign. you look at new york city, the lowest hospital rates they've had since march and, of course, new york was the epicenter on some of those protests.

and then blaming it on an invasion from mexico of brown people, that that is what is causing it, black and brown people. are we going to hear that again? >> i think it is very clear that this president is going to use race baiting as the theme examine the strategy for his re-election. there is no evidence at all, in fact, the data says otherwise that the protests and the mobilizing around the country, that is still going on right now in portland and other places have caused any spike. we're getting ready tv a marshall mark, we're requiring people to wear masks and so social distance. they're outdoors. there is no truth to that. there's no truth to the americans coming up.

this is clearly designed and fabricated. just like he did with president trump, with the birtherism, he knows no other way and it does not work. it does not, in my opinion, do anything but defy the country and i think the country ought to ewe nice the and just that. he's out there projecting to the country, i'm sending in the feds because so many of them, implying blacks in chicago, shooting each other, well, they will have nothing to do with the shooting. they won't be on the ground where the shooting it. but it's always these people that are out of control. i mute whip them in line. they're going to invade the suburbs. they spiked the coronavirus with their protests.

i'm the one who taint them. that'ses what he's spelling. that does not existed, it is not happening and he cannot solve it. chicago is another example of his bogus kinds of announcements. >> reverend al sharpton, thank you so much. it's always great to have you on the show and thank you for your leadership. mika, yeah, this rampant racism does not work. it didn't work in 2018. it's not going to work now, talking about plaque people invading the suburbs, talking about mexican people invading america, claiming that is why the coronavirus is exploding. yesterday on "morning joe," we showed you an exclusive first look at the new socially distance conversation between joe biden and former president barack obama.

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this guy has generated a sense out there that people are waking up to that he ran by deliberately dividing people from the moment he came down that escalator. and i think people are now going, i don't want my kid growing up that way. >> you know what it's like as much as anybody to be in the white house during a crisis. you know what it's like to have to get laws passed through congress. you know what it's like to deal with foreign leaders. you know what it's like and how lonely it can be to make tough decisions where not every decision is going to be perfect, but you've got to make them. and to take responsibility for it. i've seen you with families that have gone through tragedies, and the thing i've got confidence in, joe, is your heart and your

character and the fact that you are going to be able to reassemble the kind of government that cares about people and brings people together. >> the biden campaign will be releasing the entire socially distants conversation between vice president joe biden and president barack obama at 10:00 this morning on both vice president biden and president obamao twitter pages. to the race for the north carolina congressional seat previously held by the president's current chief of staff mark meadows. last month we had madison kothorne on. he now will face the democratic candidate, retired united states air force colonel mo davis who joins us now. colonel davis, thanks for being on. we appreciate it. telluous you ought to be next to fill that seat in north

carolina? >> it goes back to what joe biden was just talking about. i think folks are warn out after 3 1/2 years of chaos. they want maturity and experience and a steady hand at the wheel. i think that's what i offer. i come into this race with 25 years of military service. i'm a disabled veteran that uses our v.a. hospital here in asheville. i think they want somebody that can hit the ground on day one and work for western north carolina and fight for them rather than defend a president full time. >> so, colonel, joe here. joe scarborough here. you're running against an opponent who has a very compelling life story. his family has been in the area for eight generations. he's overcome great obstacles in his life. if he's elected, he'll be the youngest person ever elected to congress. there's a lot there, right, that a lot of politicians would love to have. what are you trying to tell

voters in your district to stay focused on in this campaign? >> i think, joe, what they want here is somebody that's going to work for them. mark meadows kept talking about the great trump economy. may have been great for madison avenue and madison cawthorn, but for madison county, it wasn't so great. we have a high rate of poverty. every county in the district, broadband access is less than 50% in many of our counties. i think folks, they don't want the dog whistle issues. mr. cawthorn talks about his love for trump, love for guns and his anti-abortion stance. i think people want to talk about what's impacting them today, their kids' future tomorrow and that's what i'm focused on. so again, he talks about, you know, he wants to balance the budget by repealing welfare because welfare encourages women, particularly minority women to stay single and stay home and have babies to get

bigger checks. that's not a fresh voice. that's more strom thurmond than it is leading into the future. we need to move north carolina forward. >> how is north carolina doing with the coronavirus? obviously donald trump yanked the republican national convention out of your state. now he's trying to have it in florida. he may not be able to have it there either. but how is north carolina doing in the fight against the coronavirus? and what do you tell voters when they ask you whether kids should be able to go back to school this fall in your district? >> yeah, i think governor cooper is getting good marks for being prudent and reasonable. he caught some flack from folks for the convention moving out. our numbers here continue to go up, not down. and i think folks here are all for reopening schools, but as soon as it's prudent and safe to do it. so this area in particular, western north carolina, we're heavily dependent on tourism.

it's had a huge impact on our economy. we can help folks restore their livelihood. we can't help them restore their lives. it's having a big impact on campaigning. my opponent, he was at trump hotel the other night. a big crowd. no mask. hugging each other. i'm trying to be responsible. so it is having an impact, but we're not going to put lives at risk to try to win an election. >> colonel davis, we've got another devastating national number just a few minutes ago. 1.4 million new unemployment claims in this country. obviously, that's hitting north carolina. obviously, it's hitting your district as well. what comfort do you give to voters in what would be your district that the economy will recover? that their jobs will come back? >> yeah, well, as i said, the poverty rate in this district was above average before covid-19 hit. and folks are concerned about their jobs or concerned about health care. my opponent, his plan for health care is to have more insurance

companies and that doesn't help when you've lost your job. so north carolina is number two in silver and energy production. i'd like to see us become the place for energy production. those are good jobs and bring them to western north carolina and help lift us out of poverty and focus on the counties where we have a high unemployment and high poverty rate. we have better days ahead but have to have the will to do it. we've got to row together in the same direction for the common good for a change. >> by the way, for people who maybe have heard of colonel davis before, but you can't quite place him, he made national headlines in 2007 when he was a prosecutor against terrorists, suspected terrorists at gitmo, but refused to use any evidence against those defendants that he considered to be acquired through torture.

so he certainly -- he also stood up to the obama administration on issues of free speech, so you've heard of him before. we've introduced him to you. and hopefully we can have you back with us again, colonel davis, as well as your opponent. thanks for being with us this morning. good luck and stay safe out on the trail. >> same to you. thanks. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's thursday, july 23 rd. here are the facts at this hour. we start with a new spike in cases and deaths as the numbers get worse nationwide for the coronavirus. on wednesday, we saw more than 72,000 new cases pushing the total close to 4 million. reuters says the united states is recording 2,600 cases every single hour. more than 1,100 deaths were reported wednesday. the highest single day total