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, for me it was easy. ♪ >> that's not an easy question. >> if you repeat them out of order -- >> good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." willie. >> that was so easy to make. >> i'm sure in 1971 when craft work was putting together a band that would bring electronic music into the main stream they knew that's where this was going to end up. a president very proud of the five words. >> everything is a game show with him. >> it's number four on the edm chart this morning. it's going right to the top. as jonathan lemire is going to tell us in a moment from his reporting, the white house likes this story line for the president.

i'll say it again, they like this cognitive test narrative out there right now. it reminds me when they fought his walk through the park -- thought his walk through the park on june 1st was iconic. i'm not sure they have the best political acumen at this point. >> maybe not. but before we get into polls that suggest americans don't think the fact that the president can identify an elephant is the most convincing thing. we'll -- a lot of polls in a minute, but you're actually -- you've written a story about the president's obsession with this cognitive test that's meant for alzheimer's patients. >> the president, about a month back started talking to advisers about this cognitive test he took at walter reed. of course, the trump campaign has been trying for a while now

to paint joe biden as having lost a step. it was not proving effective, as evidenced by the deficit in the polls that you just mentioned. but the president thought he could amplify this argument. he was talking to aides on air force one and started talking to aides and remembered this test that he was asked to remember these five words and repeat them in order. occasionally he would change the words if for the occasion. and then he started talking about it at interviews, which of course culminating in this interview with fox this week that has gotten a lot of attention. the trump campaign, the white house, wanted to make mental dexterity a campaign issue and they brought a lot of attention to that.

but probably not to the candidate they would have assumed. the reporting we did in the story today suggests this is a test it's menant to be easy, you're meant to do well. the only concern is if you don't do well. the president very proud of his five for five. >> again, willie, future generations will have to look back and say what in the world was going on with voters and reporters that they could -- that they didn't immediately talk about this guy's fitness for office because he's proud that he can identify an elephant. this test that's so hard asks him to subtract 7 from 100. the final five questions are, where are you? what city are you in? what state are you in? what is today? what month is it? those are the final questions

and he said the last questions are really, really tough. so again, it's just absolutely bizarre. but let's move on to happier pursuits. baseball, willie, baseball is back. >> everybody was watching. >> i think everybody was watching. and willie, you know what i like to say -- hold on one second i'll tell you. i like to say that the one constant through all the years, roy, has been baseball. now, baseball is back. i have to say with or without people in the stands, man, it was awesome watching last night. >> it was kind of nice. >> i felt the same way. my dad called me in the middle of the yankee game last night and said is it me or is it great? we were all waiting to see is it weird, does it not feel right? of course there were no fans, it

was strange. but the team is no longer in their spring training uniforms, wearing the real thing. two of the best pitchers in baseball, the yankees got the win. garrett cole gave up one home run. scherzer was a little shakier. i think once we sit sethettled through the first inning or two, okay, there's no crowd but everything else felt normal. the dodgers and giants played later. the giants won that. they piped in crowd noise, that was kind of strange they have to work on that. but for the most part you sat alone or with your daughter or son or wife, and you got to watch a real meaningful sporting event for the first time in

months. >> i know you're saying meaningful sporting event other than liverpool lifting the trophy. >> yes. excuse me. american sporting event. >> for those of you who didn't watch last night, mookie had a good night in los angeles. stanton was really -- he was on fire in washington. and if you didn't see it last night, tony fauci threw a fastball high and inside, right off the plate. it reminded me of maddox in '90, '91, complete control. let's bring in columnist and analyst eugene robinson and former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance. we have a lot going on today, mika. >> we'll look at the coronavirus case numbers that are climbing. the u.s. has reached another record, 4 million infections

recorded. health experts warn that the virus is spreading rapidly. it was just over two weeks ago the u.s. hit 3 million cases. so something big is happening here. and certain areas of the country are the coronavirus hot spots of the world not just of the country. plus, president trump abruptly cancels the republican national convention in jacksonville, florida. remember he went there, taking it away from north carolina saying they were being too tough and too hard, trying to mitigate the coronavirus. >> just like north carolina, get behind me, you are dust on my shoes, insulted north carolina's governor said we're out of here. i'm going to florida and -- >> no. he's leaving because of coronavirus concerns. >> hey, what's up? >> yeah. >> hey, i didn't say that about you. >> okay. >> and now he's back. >> but first we have new polling

from key 2020 states. interesting numbers here quinnipiac polling out of the state of florida shows president trump trailing by 13 points. former vice president joe biden leads president trump 51% to 38% among florida voters. broken down by age, biden leads among voters 49 years old and younger. and the two are statistically tied among voters age 50 and older. biden leads trump in three fox news polls in pennsylvania biden leads by 11 points, 50 to 39%. michigan, 9 points, 49 to 40%. minnesota leads 45 to 44%. and texas has biden leading trump 45 to 44. that's statistically tied

falling within the poll's three point margin of error. >> willie, we can go through all of these numbers. i'm hesitant to suggest this is where the real numbers are right now. obviously we're at the end of july when i saw the quinnipiac plus 13 out of florida, i thought that's probably an outlier, maybe we're close to eight, nine, based on the polls. but you look at the fox news polls, pennsylvania trump up by 11. that makes more sense to me given the makeup of that state than the plus 13 from florida. but there are other polls out of florida that show -- michigan plus nine, minnesota a state that trump's campaign believed for three years they were going to bring along into their column, along with new mexico, those are long gone. they're not going to be able to campaign in minnesota or new mexico because they now have to worry about texas.

we've probably done five, six polls over the past month basically show texas deadlocked within the margin of error except the dallas news poll this week that showed biden up by five. bad across the board right now. yes, it's early, blah, blah, blah, it's early. it's important to remember as donald trump's people are starting to tell him, early voting starts soon. we're about six weeks away from people starting to vote early. and some of these attitudes about the president seem increasingly locked in. >> yeah, and it's no mystery when you look inside the polling, specifically in florida, in the q poll it shows that donald trump and governor ron desantis are completely upside down on the handling of the coronavirus crisis. a couple months ago, remember, people were asking where does governor desantis go to get his

apology. from that moment forward florida has fallen apart and become engulfed in coronavirus, now he's suffering for that, the president is suffering for that. the residents are looking around going this isn't going well, o leaders haven't handled it well. a spread in florida shouldn't be surprising. it may not be that big as joe pointed out. but state by state, on an issue touching the life of every american, donald trump is upside down in his handling of the coronavirus crisis. >> he is. first of all, willie, person, woman, man, camera, tv. just to establish that i can take that test, too. >> look at you. >> wow. >> we'll ask again in 15 minutes for extra points. >> i'm going to have to really try to keep that in mind. these questions are tough. i think he's totally upside down

on the coronavirus issue. and, look, if these numbers in florida are anything like what the -- what the result ends up to be, this is beyond a blowout. this is -- you can't possibly lose florida by those kinds of margins and expect anything -- you know, expect to come close in the general election. and for that poll to come out and then all those fox news polls, the president's favorite poll that show him well behind in those midwestern battleground states and pennsylvania, these are devastating blows to a president -- again, this close to an election. and yes, caveat, caveat, early, early. but not so early.

not that early at this point. we're getting toward the end of the summer. we're getting to the point where traditionally, you know, pundits say people are starting to pay attention. first of all, people have been paying attention to this election all along. there's nobody in this country that doesn't have an opinion about donald trump and who doesn't have an opinion about this election. the question is whether those opinions are hardening and whether those opinions are hardening in a way that's just can lamtus for the president. that's a possibility. we'll see, not a good day in polling for him at all. >> you bring up a great point that people do say it's early. and i think some of us who are a bit older look back to past elections and look back to 1988

where michael dukakis was up by double digits after his convention. george h.w. bush hadn't defined himself. people didn't know who michael dukakis was. i remember my dad seeing him mow his lawn and saying i might vote for him, then a minute later, no. but people know who donald trump is, who joe biden is. i know people are thinking, if you look at the polls and see a lot of biden support es are coming out and motivated to vote specifically because they're going to vote against donald trump. they look at that as good news. it's really not. it's just like all the women we saw standing in the rain in northern virginia who told reporters they were going to stand in the rain as long as it took to vote in a gubernatorial race to send a message to donald trump. you look at 2018, a historic

sweep for the democratic party, getting more votes, winning more votes over congressional republicans more than any time in the history of america. it wasn't that the democrats put up these wonderful candidates in 2018. there were good ones, it was that people were motivated to go out and vote against donald trump. and jonathan lemire, you look at these numbers again. florida plus 13, i think there was another florida poll out that had 7, 8, 9. i think the average is 7 or 8. pennsylvania plus 11, again double digits make sense to me in pennsylvania more so than florida because you look at the philly suburbs, at the huge numbers that biden is going to roll up out of pennsylvania. western pennsylvania and the pittsburgh suburbs are doing well there, the trump team is, but nothing like 2016. pennsylvania is going to be a rocky road. we know how bad michigan is going to be.

you have texas in the mix, you have georgia in the mix, arizona in the mix. three states months ago the trump team thought they were going to win. i say this, i say what does the campaign think? you can't just pull up the stakes and go home. so what is the trump campaign thinking right now? what is the white house thinking? how do they -- the water is flooding onto the decks. what do they do, especially since, as you talked to me last week about the trump team's problem, that people start voting early over the next month, month and a half? >> there is widespread alarm, joe. it's not that early anymore. because of early voting beginning in a few weeks. we are now in the middle of the summer. the efforts to expand the map are all but gone. the new mexicos, minnesotas, it's not going to happen to

expand the states. so they're facing deficits they have to win. michigan has been on the verge of being gone for a while. pennsylvania, we were surprised the polls didn't have joe biden up more. particularly considering the strength around scranton and that area, he's from scranton, it's been discussed. now we are seeing the margins grow there as well. let's circle back to florida, maybe the margin is 7 or 8. florida is a state, there's no path without florida. he's not re-elected if he doesn't win florida. that's why canceling the convention was so deadly to the president. there's surges of cases in the state he had to, and a number of republican senators had said they wouldn't attend, they were having trouble raising money, getting guests committing to stay for a few days. the last thing the president wanted was to appear in a minor

league ballpark and only have a handful of people there. they're not going to bean in cardboard cutouts like we saw last night in the baseball games, it was tough to see mookie in a dodger uniform -- but the campaign is running out of events to change the momentum. there's no longer a convention. it'll be a speech some virtual events. he can't have a campaign rally. no discussions of having rallies. they are under water. we have seen an effort in the briefing room this week to try to stick to his talking points. it's not a new tone, we've seep the tweets. but right now they are in trouble and they know they're running out of time. >> he kept talking about telerallies. i don't see that working for him because he doesn't get the feedback that some would say he so desperately needs. i want to get to joyce vance on the next story. the trump administration said yesterday it's revoking an obama

era housing regulation designed to eliminate discrimination in the housing suburbs. president trump tweeted a new york post article tweeting joe biden's disastrous plans for american suburbs and he wrote, the suburban house wowives of america must read this article. biden will destroy your neighborhood and your american dream. i will preserve it and maybe it even better. i don't know where to begin, joyce. maybe with the word "housewives"? >> it feels 1950s. maybe it's appropriate for this president and his views and comments about women yesterday and his comments about dr. birx and her ability to tie a scarf. >> oh my god. >> it's a serious topic and

these protections were put in place during the obama administration. of course trump and his family have had issues in the past with fair housing act regulations. this was an effort during the obama administration to advance the protections and the inclusivity of our society. it was undone with an inappropriate slash dash process. but it is so on brand for trump to try to take us back to what he must view as the good old days where women prepared dinner for their husbands and met them at the door with a martini in hand. >> i don't think a lot of people responded quite well to that. the president's former fixer, by the way, michael cohen, remember he was put back in jail. he's going to be released back into home confinement after a federal judge agreed his return to prison was retaliation for writing a book about the

president. the judge ordered cohen released by 2:00 p.m. today. in a ruling sharply critical of the justice department's defense against the charge of retaliation. doj lawyers argued cohen and his attorney were combative in the discussion about his house arrest agreement. they also claimed not to know he was writing a book when they included that restriction in the document he refused to sign. the judge wrote the return to prison was retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his first amendment rights to publish a book. in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at the terms and conditions of supervised release, i've never seen such a clause. in a statement after the ruling, a bureau official called the decision patently false. what's going on, joyce?

>> by the way, joyce, we heard from people close to cohen and the cohen family, that he had gone in there simply to discuss the terms of his release and they were talking about the book, and he said he should be able to write the book. they said let's go check, they left, come back in, and according to reports, they immediately locked him up, sent him to solitary. if all of that is true, and that's what the reporting shakes out as true, another black eye for donald trump and for bill barr's justice department. they put a guy in solitary confinement because they didn't want him to write a book about the president. >> my immediate reaction to this situation was that if this was a provision applied only to cohen, this notion he couldn't write a

book, couldn't talk to the press, couldn't use social media, if that was only a condition in his terms of early release and furlough during covid. that the bureau of prisons had a problem. and that turns out to be what the reporting confirmed. no other releasee was required to execute this policy. in my 25 years as a federal prosecutor i never saw this restraint on the first amendment used. i think you're right, joe, this is a bad problem. the bureau of prisons is part of the justice department, the director of the bureau of prisons reports directly to the deputy attorney general and is spi supervised by the attorney general, there will be an effort to write this off as a low level mistake inside the bureau of pris prison. i think it deserves careful scrutiny. this is a black eye on doj, as you pointed out. let's talk about how bad this

is. we've seen the president abuse the rule of law by using his power to help his friends, roger stone and mike flynn. now we're seeing him use his power, abuse the rule of law by locking up someone he thinks is an enemy. that's dangerous, treacherous territory for any democracy. >> it is. and gene, joyce and i and others who went to law school, the one thing we learned about the first amendment is, it's not absolute. you have time, place manner restrictions on it. there are times you don't have a first amendment right to say, the most obvious example that you hear your first day in law school, they're talking about you can't shout fire in a movie theatre. you can't slander people. et cetera, et cetera. and as joyce said, if this were something that they attached to many furloughs, to other

furloughs, you can't write a book or you can't talk to the media, that would be one thing. but my gosh, the constitutional warning flags that go up here when the most sacred speech, political speech, the most protected speech in the united states constitution that the supreme court has just said time and time again is political speech. those protections are almost absolute. and so, if you haven't -- let's say he was writing about his victims. let's say he was writing about something else that seemed to make more sense. don't profit off of your crimes. that would be one thing. here, though, we're talking about again the justice department sending a guy back to prison, because he's going to engage in political speech. yeah, talk about treacherous --

as joyce said what treacherous ground this justice department continues to tread. i wonder what barr is going to do five months now. >> when trump won't leave. >> this is treacherous ground they continue to stumble over because they did it so clumsily that the judge immediately took a look at this and said this is ridiculous and so is reversing it. so the net effect is to do the same thing with this, i guess, upcoming cohen book that they keep doing with all the books, that the president did with john bolton's book, with mary trump's book. he's giving it a lot more oxygen, publicity in making sure that everybody is going to pay attention to it. you know, anticipate it and wait for it and get ready for it. and be curious about what's in it. so, why did they think they

could get away with this? why did they think they could apply a condition that joyce vance has never seen before, that the judge has never seen before. do they think everybody is that stupid? do they think they just have a right to do anything they want to do and nobody will notice? nobody will ever call them on it? it's a -- it's a -- i mean, that's -- on the one level, deeply disturbing attitude, but also it's dumb. it doesn't make sense because there's nothing subtle or clever about it. it's just dumb. >> unless it works. so -- and in many cases, that attitude has worked for this administration. things have happened, people have been shocked, investigations have gone under way and it's been normalized and the shock wears off and it gets

worse and worse and worse and worse. joyce vance, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," democrats outraise the republican incumbents. the president spoke to vladimir putin yesterday. >> that's good. >> yeah, the russian bounties. >> i wanted him to talk to vladimir putin about killing american troops -- >> yes. that would be -- >> -- about putting bounties on the heads of young u.s. soldiers and marines and airmen, sailors. yeah, that's really good that they had that call so he had the opportunity to really condemn vladimir putin for trying to kill young americans. >> yeah, but looking at the read out here, it appears that didn't come up.

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visit tdameritrade.com/learn ♪ we're going to get to the rnc story in just a moment. but gene robinson, i wanted to point to your piece in "the washington post," kim kardashian west just performed a public service. i felt the same way. i came upon her statement on twitter, which was posted on a story on instagram. it was not in defense of her husband, but in explanation of what it's like for family members when they're dealing with a family member who they love so much who suffers from by

polar disorder. and she had an eloquent statement asking for understanding nothing more. i thought, like you said, she spoke for so many people in that statement. >> i think she did and that's the reaction i've gotten from the column. people have been wanting to tell the stories of their families, their struggles with the family member or friend who has bipolar disorder or another mental illness or for whom they struggle to get help. you know, look, i'm not a -- i don't chronicle the kardashians. i've never written about them before -- >> neither do i. >> -- and i'm not a fan. but i -- but i just thought that statement just really stuck with me. when i sat down to write a column yesterday, that's what i was thinking about. if you saw kanye west's event on

sunday and you saw -- >> right. >> -- at least i saw a man clearly in trouble. >> yeah. >> and then that -- the statement she released just spoke of the frustration and the anguish that the family has. it's not possible to compel an adult, who is in need of -- urgent need of psychiatric attention to get that attention to take medication if the person is not judged to be a threat to himself or others. and that seems to be the situation here -- >> and gene, so many times, so many times people who are suffering take meds and then they think i'm fine and then they get off their meds and then they don't know that they are falling out and acting differently. and the family member can't just

force them to take meds again. the family member can't just force them to get help. when they're adults you're dealing with someone who you love so much but you have to find the right moment where help can meet the person who wants the help. and sometimes they don't. and that's the spiral of frustration that family members are in, they want to help so badly, they can't. meanwhile, the outside world is judging them, why won't he get help, what's wrong with them? and they're just so alone. >> they are so alone, and that's -- one person wrote to me and, again, i'm not a psychologist, i don't know this to be true, but said that refusal to take meds is not atypical of someone who suffers from bipolar disorder and is kind of in a manic phase and feels on top of the world and vulnerable and doesn't need or

want to take the medication when he or she needs it most. and so, it's just a -- it was just a heartbreaking situation. >> thank you, gene. the pain of this definitely she showed has no boundaries. let's get to what's going on with the rnc. willie? >> the surge in coronavirus cases in florida as we mentioned has forced the president to cancel the jacksonville portion of the republican national convention. the three-night planned celebration which was to be capped by the president's acceptance speech was supposed to begin exactly one month from today. this is the second time the president has cancelled plans for the full-scale event he hoped for. last month he moved the event from charlotte after refusing to scale down because of the virus. tweeting, quote, democrat governor roy cooper is still in

shutdown mode. another tweet, he wrote governor cooper is still in shelter in place mode and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised. the governor responded stating we have been looking for a safe convention in north carolina, and it's sad they wouldn't scale down to keep people safe. after scaling down in florida and north carolina, the president said it'll be what the governor of north carolina proposed from the start. a scaled down convention. >> the delegates are going to north carolina and they'll be doing the nomination. and we're going to do some other things with telerallies and other things the week we're discussing, which will be really good. i think we're going to do it well. i'll still do a convention

speech in a different form, but we won't do a big, crowded convention per se, it's just not the right time for that. i looked at my team and i said, the timing for this event is not right. just not right with what's happened recently, the flare-up in florida, to have a big convention is not the right time. it's really something that, for me, i have to protect the american people. that's what i've always done. that's what i always will do. that's what i'm about. they said, sir, we can make this work very easily. we have great enthusiasm, incredible enthusiasm, even the polls say the most enthusiasm they've seen, we can do it safely, we can do it responsibly. i said there's nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe. >> jonathan lemire in some ways the president looked defeated in

that briefing yesterday, having to concede finally yes, the problem is way worse than i've been describing it. the coronavirus problem is generally much worse than i've been describing it. so bad in florida we can't have the rnc in jacksonville. it's the right call. i think about tulsa when his supporters didn't show up for him at that event the president i think got a wakeup call and didn't want that to happen again in charlotte or jacksonville. >> this is something the president really fought up until the last couple of days, willie, according to our reporting. as you say, the convention in cleveland in 2016 was an over-the-top spectacle. he had plans to over do it this time around. then he got in an argument with the north carolina governor. the one thing that's going to happen is going to be in charlotte, a smaller thing for

delegates, that's going to happen but the show is gone. at least in any way resembling what the president had hoped. it is the fear of empty seats. they were having trouble raising money, getting commitments to attend. a lot of significant republican leaders, including a number of senators had said they were not going to go. and the president, you mentioned tulsa, that's right. think two weeks later, also, in a state, new hampshire, where the covid rate was low. where the event was going to be outside. things that should be safer, should be allowed to draw a crowd, they weren't getting commitments from nearly anybody to attend that. they cancelled saying the weather was bad but it was concerns that no one was going to show. that's an embarrassment the president couldn't face, going to jacksonville and having no one be there. now there'll be a speech, unclear if it's from the white house or somewhere else. the democrats, as of last night,

were planning one day in milwaukee where joe biden would talk. this is a devastating blow for a president who not only enjoys the spectacle but needs things to change the momentum of the race and they were banking on the rallies and the convention to do that and those are gone and you're seeing the president pin a lot of attention to the upcomi upcoming debates to do that. but they're running out of times. >> joining us is director of communications for president obama and for hillary clinton's campaign, jennifer palmieri. she's the author of the book "she pro claims," this book, the timing perfect. good to have you on board. first of all, politics, biden is doing quite well in a lot of the polls, and now the president

moving away from jacksonville. what are the democrats planning for their convention? do we know anything? >> i know a little bit about what they're working on. they haven't made all their plans public. but you can put on a really great -- you can put on a really great show virtually as we learned in the last few months but you think about the important moments in presidential history when we heard from our presidentis in oval office addresses, you don't need a big crowd to have a big moment. i think that's what the biden team has internalized and they're planning for such. i know they feel great about where they are in the polls right now but not over confident. there's no democrat in america that feels over confident given what happened last time. >> that's for sure. >> you wrote about this in

""vanity fair"" it was reported that the congressman from florida berated alexandria ocasio-cortez. according to the article yoho approached alexandria ocasio-cortez, and, quote, in a brief but heated exchange, yoho told cortez she was suggesting for recently suggesting that poverty and unemployment are driving a spike in crime in new york city during the coronavirus pandemic. you are out of your freaking mind, yoho told her and she shot back saying she was being rude. the hill reports the two then parted ways after which yoho offered a parting thought to no one in particular, using the words fing b, we know what that

means a vulgar insult to women. in a statement to nbc news, a spokesman for yoho denied he used the slur, he did not call alexandria ocasio-cortez what was reported or in any name. who added instead he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away, summarizing what he believes her policies to be, bull you know what. on wednesday yoho reflected on his comments on the house floor. >> i rise to apologize for the conversation i had with my colleague from new york. it is true we disagree on policies and visions to america but that does not mean we should be disrespectful. having been married for 45 years with two years i'm cognizant of

my language. the words attributed to me were never spoken to my colleague, if they were construed that way, i apologize. i know the face of poverty, for a time it was mine. i cannot apologize for my passion or for loving my god, my family, my country. those comments prompted alexandria ocasio-cortez to address the controversy yesterday herself. >> in front of representatives representative yoho called me, and i quote a [bleep] [bleep]. these are the words that representative yoho levied against a congresswoman. a congresswoman that not only represents new york's 14th congressional district but ever congresswoman in this country because all of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, some shape, at some

point in our lives. this is not new. and that is the problem. it is cultural. it is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting, of violence and violent language against women. an entire structure of power that supports that. >> jen palmieri, she proclaims, what happened here? >> i actually think what -- because the truth is that women who challenge norms by what they say and their very existence and what the work place and politics represent face the abuse and attack from men, dinosaurs, like yoho every day. what's interesting when i heard about yoho's reaction to her, it reminded me of brett kavanaugh in his nomination hearing where

he was frustrated and angry and felt threatened that a woman was going to take away something that was due to him. i see the same sort of frustration from yoho. not a new experience for women right. and what she did so well is you control that emotion and you channel it into something that's going to benefit you and women. and that's what she did on the floor yesterday. and that is why women like her with thrive and men that are not willing to adapt, like yoho will continue down a path of irrelevance. it's upsetting she was subject to that language but we should look at it as a positive moment for women and how she handled it. >> thank you for coming on. once again for balance here, we want to mention he says he did not say it or he did not say it

towards her. we cannot corroborate the reporter this was there, but it was written in "the hill". coming up kiersten neilson oversaw the trump administration's child separation policy but now she claims it never existed. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right back my grandmother my brothers and sisters my friends for going back to school the bbq the lake the beach my place for my neighbors my community my people my country my home for him for her for them for you. ♪

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godaddy is making it possible for everyone to create a website for free. learn more at godaddy.com the truth is there was no policy to separate families. such a policy was requested of me. it was requested of general kelly as well when he was secretary. and we both dismissed it out of hand. there was no direction to separate families who legally entered the united states. >> that was former secretary of the department of homeland security, kirstjen nielsen, making the claim that a family separation policy along the

southern border did not exist in the trump administration. however as jacob soboroff points out she signed that policy into existence. joining us the author of "separated inside an american tragedy," jacob soboroff. jacob, i'll let you take it, but i'm reminded two years ago, june of 2018, when chief of staff john kelly, the attorney general jeff sessions said this policy was being used as a deterrent to stop immigrants from coming into the country along the southern border. what's your reaction to the comments from the former homeland security secretary? >> you showed mid tweet, willy. i try not to tweet in all caps because i find that obnoxious but she did, she signed the policy into existence. not only did i see the separations with my own eyes, not only did kirstjen nielsen sign a memo in which she chose from three options, she picked

option three to separate children from their families, it was laid out in that memo, she was warned -- i write about this in the book -- it could violate the constitutional rights of the children and parents coming to the country at the same time and it ended up 5,000 kids have been separated by the trump administration since 2017. and it's still happening. monday is the deadline for over 300 parents and children that might yet be separated by the trump administration. i was flabbergasted, that's all i can say. >> you've heard the case made for a couple years now, i've heard it in my correspondents around the white house as well, there is no policy to separate families. we are enforcing the law and one of the fallouts from enforcing the law is occasionally a child is separated from an adult m migrant who comes here illegally. what do you say to that?

>> it's a fete of verbal gymnastics. jeff sessions did announce the policy after kirstjen nielsen signed the decision memo, she did not have to do it. in researching for the book i clearly learned she got the memo in late april, it sat on her desk, she considered signing the memo, in between the time she got the memo, signed it, she prepared for an interview with me on dateline. we sat down together on may 9th, day of the cabinet meeting when president trump yelled at her in front of the entire cabinet and she considered quitting. you can look up the document, see it yourself, kirstjen nielsen signed a department of homeland security decision memo that allowed this to happen and today separations continue. >> you've led me to my next question. you have new reporting on that about how many children still

are detained along the border despite an order from a judge. >> well, this is really extraordinary, willy, because the 346, i think is the number of parents and children combined in i.c.e. family detention. it's simple, the trump administration amidst a covid outbreak, could let them out right now. the judge here in california has ordered the children released by monday, the trump administration has continued to refuse to do so. they put forward now another argument that they are not in favor of separating children from their families and don't want to release the kids without their parents. they could release them together. it's up to them, it's their decision. and i.c.e. as the discretion to do so. this is being fought out in court and monday is the deadline. we'll see if the children and families will be separated from each other. >> jacob's new book "separated" is a must read. it's out now. more on the new polling this

morning. joe biden takes a slight lead in texas where they're running neck and neck. plus, senator amy klobuchar joins our conversation as lawmakers debate a new relief bill amid this big economic downturn. "morning joe" is coming right back. downturn "morning joe" is coming right back but a better one than ever before, with scam protection built into its core. introducing, scamshield, free from t-mobile. get fewer scam calls. period. with t-mobile's supercharged network, you can say goodbye to annoying scam calls, and feel free to answer your phone again. hello

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just fine. we have it under control. my administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat. a lot of people think it goes away in april. i think it's going to work out fine. we have it very much under control. we're close to a vaccine. because of all we've done, the risk to american people remains low. 15 in a couple days is going to be down close to zero. one day it'll disappear like a miracle. >> this is the new hoax. >> one person passed away overnight. a flu vaccine you don't think it'll have an impact on kro coronavirus? it'll go away, just stay calm. >> i don't take responsibility at all. >> we're not going to let the cure be worse than the problem. the cdc is recommending the use of face coverings. >> just minutes after the report, the president began

tweeting, liberate michigan, lib rat minnesota. >> i've seen the disinfectants, is there a way to do that? : we have met the moment and we have prevailed. many of these people aren't very sick but still go down as a case. the virus is abating, dying out. >> the chinese virus, kung flu, i have done a phenomenal job with it. the reason we have more cases than other countries is because our testing is so much. >> kung flu. >> i think at some point that's going to just sort of disappear. >> we are likewise getting under control. >> we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless. >> we want to get our schools open. >> i didn't listen to my experts. >> we have therapies and we have vaccines. >> you're losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed. >> we're at about 135,000 and

we'll be at -- somewhat higher than that by the time it ends. >> it will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better. that's the way it is. that's the way it is. that's the way it is. >> the lincoln project is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> one of the latest from the lincoln project. >> yes. you go down and most campaigns you have one defining moment or a series of moments, a series of quotes that shape an election. but, willie, we've talked about this a lot before on the show when the president was holding all of his press conferences and all of his briefings it seemed every day, he gave that one moment that would shape an entire campaign and he did it repeatedly. and in other interviews, i just look at -- just pulled out five or six of these quotes that in

any presidential election it would be tough enough for a candidate or a sitting president to get around for this president, he's got so many, of course we talked about the one person coming in from china. the glaring quote, i don't take responsibility. the injection of disinfectant. the virus is dying out. kung flu. it will magically disappear. i didn't listen to my experts. and then, of course, his braggadocious claim that he told his experts to slow -- to slow testing down. again, you can take -- you can take one of those, it's one person coming in from china and even if he had done everything else right from that point on, he would still have to face that music in this an election when

he was running and 150,000 or 175,000 people were dead because of the coronavirus. because, of course, we're not even talking about january and early february, what was happening inside his administration and how people were trying to get the president to focus there. it goes back to what i was asking jonathan lemire last hour. what does one do if you're working on the president's campaign when you have these quotes, you see this number, and there seems no pathway forward to victory? >> yeah, you know, you watch that summary from the lincoln project. we've prepared our own summaries like that as well. it's not just damming, it's infuriating to know we are at today 4 million cases in the country when you go back to mark and the world stopped that famous week in march, remember

the night he made the speech from the oval office, the nba pulled players off the court, tom hanks announced he and his wife had the coronavirus and everyone woke up to the seriousness of this, except the president, he never woke up to how serious this is. and now we have 4 million cases. and he closed his eyes and hoped it would go away so he could go on to re-election. wasn't a strategy in march, it's not a strategy now as we move into late july. jonathan lemire from the associated press is still with us. the question joe asks, i think answers its. how can you shift your tone as some people have put it? how can you change now after ignoring this crisis at the middle of our lives for four months and wishing it away, how can you suddenly turn and take it on? >> that's a challenging ask to say the least. as we've been talking about on this show all week we're not

going to give the credit for a change in tone. yes, he stuck to his talking points. but it's a realization for him and the people around him bowing to reality here. the virus is surging out of control. the death total is rising. the u.s. is setting records by the day in terms of number of fe infections. there is still not a significant testing strategy. we're hearing reports of delays of a week, ten days, two weeks to get your covid results which defeats the entire purpose of having a test. the virus could have run its course in that point. significant obstacles still remain to opening schools. we saw the cdc yesterday put out guidelines that are nudging schools towards a full reopening. students and teachers in classrooms, polling suggests that's not necessarily what americans are comfortable with and the president had to give

wiggle room yesterday. he would understand if in some jury dicks that wouldn't be possible right away. and the president for him, we've seen how slow he was to respond to this. yesterday was another where he had to pull the plug on his convention something that he's been talking about for more than a year. and now no longer. why? because of mistakes he and his administration had made managing this virus. not just in january and february, but particularly in these last few months, last few weeks as it surged back to life across the country. >> as he was talking yesterday about the reason he needed to move it back out of jacksonville and do everything mostly online, he then began to beat the drum as to why it's important to open schools. then sort of showing that maybe

some can't. we got a great group with us this hour. let's start with polling, quinnipiac polling out of the state of florida shows president trump trailing by 13 points in florida. former vice president joe biden leads president trump 51% to 38%. among florida voters. biden also leads trump in three fox news states polls, pennsylvania biden leads by 11 points, 50 to 39. in michigan by nine points, 49 to 40%. and in minnesota by 13 points, 51 to 38%. and in a new quinnipiac university poll out of texas, biden leading trump by a single point, 45% to 44. that's statistically tied falling within the poll's three point margin of error. but wow. >> yeah. let me bring in donny deutsch. don donny, you're going to have to play ball with us today, i'm

going to throw the pitch to you --. >> he's ready. >> -- you can't watch it go by. when we were in law school, professors would throw at my classmates and i questions, cases that we wanted nothing to do with, and yet it was our job to figure out how to defend a person we didn't want to defend or make an argument that we wouldn't make most of the time because it wouldn't pass the straight face test as professor peerson said. i'm looking at the poll numbers, florida down by 13 in the quinnipiac poll we've said it's more like 8 or. pennsylvania plus 11. michigan plus 9. minnesota plus 13 for now. i'm not shocked by it. texas is even. but here's a campaign that several months ago they were saying they were going to win minnesota, win new mexico, they were going to expand their map.

now those states are gone. now they're fighting in texas, arizona, and georgia, and you've got these swing states that are looking more and more out of reach. early voting begins soon enough, very soon. we can no longer say this election is a long way off, it's not as far as early voting goes. so if you're hired to go in and give a message to this white house and say, guys and gals, early voting begins in a month, month and a half, this is what you have to do over the next 45 days to have any chance of keeping it close. what do you tell the white house? >> joe, that's a question i've asked myself. i always like to think i have the answer. sometimes there's a rubik's

coupe and there's no answer. when you start with the president's own words -- all you have to do is use the president's words in a life or death situation. you can fail on a trade deal or a conversation with russia. you can't fail when it comes to saving people's lives or causing people to die. that's what he did. i thought to myself many, many times what would i do? would i tell him to be the law and order president? even with all he's doing, "the washington post" latest poll has biden as a law and order candidate, 50 to 41. i go, i look at the right track, wrong track polls which has been the most accurate predictor and basically all four incumbents that won were around 45, 46%. the ones who lost between 17 and 20%. he's at 19%. i look at undecided voters, if

you have to vote for somebody they vote for biden. it is so overwhelming against him, i come back to there's one of two alternatives. he steals the election or he quits. one or the other. there's no path to victory right now. you guys have been talking in the past hour, it's not that early. i don't know where -- you never heard me say this on the show because i'm often wrong, ever in doubt, i don't know what i would do for this guy. joe, i'll throw it back to you. there's no movement because the world is not changing in the next 90 days, 50 mick mulvaney jobs not coming back. 200,000 lives are not coming back. race relations in this country are not becoming kumbaya. joe, the answer is i don't know. >> and you throw it back at me. i just got to say, you look at the suburbs, those aren't going back his way. the white house believed they were going to win 15 to 20% of black voters, that's certainly

not going to happen. you go down the list of just the demographic groups, and it really does, especially when you consider where we are in terms of the pandemic, it's going to continue, it's going to get worse in the fall, that's what every doctor has said for six months. when flu season hits and the coronavirus hits, we have been warned by the best doctors and epidemiologists in the world how bad that's going to look in the fall. you combine that with the fact that we had bad economic numbers coming in yesterday. that we're starting to feel the effects of not the second wave but an intensification of the first wave. and, you know, the only thing i -- the only advice i can give for someone in that position would be that actually look to the example of lyndon johnson in '69 and harry truman in '48.

sitting presidents with remarkable victories four years before and decided not to run in '68 and truman again in '48. people don't look back at truman -- or in '52 as somebody who didn't run in "52. you think of somebody who made remarkable progress on the world stage. same thing with johnson from '64 to '68 with his policies. that's the only logical path forward. there will be no rabbit pulled from the had. these numbers are what they are. and the demographic breakdowns are what they are. so actually, following lbj in '68 and just hoping your legacy will survive instead of having to carry with you a loss of 350 electoral votes, close to 400

electoral votes if texas and some of these states go this way. that's something he will not want to carry around the rest of his life. curt bardell we can ask the same of republican senators. you have donald trump losing by 13 points in florida, 11 points in pennsylvania, nine points in michigan, the last five polls have shown a split in texas, the last poll biden was up by five points, georgia appears to be a split. arizona is breaking bidens way. that means people like mcsally, cor corey gardner, thom tillis in north carolina, they're all in danger, and by the way, this could be the toughest re-election campaign that mitch mcconnell has ever had in kentucky if you look at the

numbers and the incredible money being raised by his opponent. when do republican senators decide to save themselves and walk away from donald trump in this campaign? they saw what happened two years ago, it was a nightmare for republican congressional candidates. when do they make that split? >> joe, i think that come labor day if things are looking as bleak as they are right now for republicans nationwide they'll start divorcing themselves from donald trump and trying to convince their constituencies that the last four years didn't happen, they didn't stand by with rubber stamp everything donald trump did to destroy the norms of this country. i think it's too late for them. people have long memories and at a time where coronavirus is the number one, two, and three issue

in this country and when people look around seeing their friends and neighbors are sick, kids can't go to school, everyone has lost someone because of the pandemic and we know it's not going to get any better, republicans aren't going to be able to pull the wool over voters' eyes and say, come labor day, we're sorry, we got it wrong with trump now we're going to tell you the truth, do the right thing, that's not going to work work. they are so tied into trump after rubber stamping his administration, letting him off impeachment, not pursuing legitimate oversight, as he breaks every law and norm he's ever seen as right now in real time the president is sending basically military personnel under cover into states and cities against their will. and as this virus rages on, there's no magic wand for the republican party to make this okay. they might try to save themselves, i don't think it's possible at this point.

the best thing to answer the question you asked donny, that president trump and the republican party can do is treat this pandemic with the severity it warrants, to tell the truth, listen to the doctors and scientists and health experts and try to save as many lives as possible. because at this point they've done everything they can to help spread the pandemic, lead to the loss of life and they need to start doing what they're supposed to do and keep people safe and worry less about the politics of this point. >> mika, it was actually, kurt said, what they need to do is listen to the doctors, listen to the scientists, listen to the epidemiologists. here we are at the end of july, joe biden was writing that in op-eds at the beginning of january, six months ago. half a year has passed, 145,000 people have died since joe biden asked the president to just

follow the doctors' advice, listen to the epidemiologists let them talk to americans and tell americans how to survive this crisis. and unfortunately, the president has done just the opposite of that for the past six months. let's hope that changes now but if the pass is pro log, it won't. >> it'll be too late for so many people but you're right we can only hope and it has the added value of helping politically to follow the science. what also helps is money. let's go to "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner. you have some charts on 2020 fund-raising. how is it looking? >> not so good for the republicans, mika p. joe talked about the polls before on the money side of it is also not looking so good. particularly for senate republicans. as you know for starters, that have a disproportionate number

of candidates up. there are 23 republicans versus 12 democrats. but if you take a look at the five most competitive races joe mentioned a couple of them a second ago you can see extraordinary things. in arizona mark kelly, the former astronaut maried to gabby gifford outraised mcsally. in maine a race the democrats want to beat susan collins, a moderate but voted too much with the republicans for their taste, 9.4 million for the speaker of the house of representatives in maine, 3.6 for susan collins. look at montana, steve bullock, more than he raised for his presidential race versus 5 more for the incumbent. north carolina cal cunningham

7.4 million versus 2.6 million for thom tillis, the incumbent. and colorado, john hickenlooper another governor rap for president now running for senate, 5.2 compared to 3.6. this shows the incredible energy on the democratic side in some of the key raises. just to put this in perspective, let's look at what happened in the last arizona senate race. you may recall after -- you may recall that martha mcsally also ran in that race against kyrsten sinema, who ultimately won. the left, the dark blue bars are how much money was raised this time around and last time using the second quarter cutoff. last time mcsally -- the two candidates together raised $16.3 million. this time they've raised 73.4. and in order, they have already raised roughly double what they

raised for the entire cycle last time so far in this campaign. if you look at the impact that's had on spending, can you see last time around the candidates together had only spent $9 million, and so far they've spent $39.4 million. again, more than the entirety of what they spent in the course of the last campaign. so it's an example of the incredible energy that's out there on both sides but a bit more on the democratic side as it concerns the senate. now, let me show you -- take a quick look at the presidential, the numbers are more complicated because of the committees and things. but what i'm showing you here is how significantly joe biden has been able to close the gap almost in his cash on hand between what he has and what trump has. if you look at this chart you'll see obviously during this hard-fought democratic primary season, the democrats, this includes party affiliates and this complicated world we're

living in today. didn't have much money. in the second quarter, joe biden's cash on hand went to 238 million. donald trump continued to raise money and have more cash on hand but the gap on cash in hand back in the spring many democrats were looking at as a pretty insurmountable mountain of 182 million at the end of the first quarter closed to a $57 million gap in this quarter. so it is looking like a lot of energy on the democratic side, on the money side, as well as when they talk to their favorite pollster. >> i was going to say, the money look like it's matching some of the polling there. steve, thanks for that. gene robinson, we've seen a lot of data in this segment, polls looking good for joe biden, months worth of polls looking good for joe biden, we've seen fund-raising looking good for joe biden. let me flip the question joe

asked donny. i can hear a lot of people saying let's not get complacent here. if you're joe biden, take it to the other side from donald trump, if you're joe biden, how are you feeling today, what are you doing today to make sure you maintain this progress? >> well, obviously you're feeling pretty good if you're joe biden, but your big concern, i think, is voter -- is voter access, is voter suppression. your big concern is making sure that americans who want to vote in november are allowed to do so, basically. in all 50 states and the district of columbia. and that requires waging battles in all those states against, you know, their lawsuits, the republican party has -- it is spending millions and millions

of dollars in litigation, especially trying to restrict ballot access because they know if -- the more people who vote, the worse republicans are likely to do. and so, that's -- i mean, i think that really is trump and the republicans only play at this point and that is a card that they are playing. and i think the biden campaign and the dnc need to devote a lot of time and effort and energy and resolve to ensuring ballot access. to ensuring that people in this time of covid get to vote by mail when they need to. and ensuring there are enough polling places open on election day so that voters can actually cast their ballots and express their will. i wanted to add one race to

steve ratner's list. it kind of shows where we are this year. a race that no one would have thought would be competitive in my home state of south carolina between lindsey graham and jaime harris harrison, the democrat. harrison is outraising lindsey graham. so i'm not sitting here predicting that south carolina, a pretty red state still, is -- that that seat is definitely going to flip, but this could be the toughest race lindsey graham has ever had. i think it already is the toughest race he's ever had. and that tells you something. you look at that, you look at the texas numbers, that tells you a lot about this year but the key is access to the voting booth. access to the voting booth. >> well, and that's absolutely what a lot of people are worried about when they look at the options in front of president

trump and the extent that he will go. joining us now, senator amy klobuchar. she is leading legislation to expand mail-in ballots and early voting. it's so great to have you on the show, senator. >> thank you. >> it's great to see you. i'm wondering exactly about what you're working on? how safe will mail-in balloting be? >> exactly i was cheering here in the rotunda as the results were coming in on the polls for joe biden and our senate candidates, but two eugene's very smart warning there at the end. and that is that, yes, the people are with us and they've been with us for a while and they want competence and compassion in the white house in the name of joe biden and they want a change in the senate so we get things done and we're not waiting for 60 days with a bill on mitch mcconnell's desk just to get testing out to the states. but here's the problem.

and you know it. right now the republicans are refusing to put money in for voting. roy blunt, who i respect a lot, has been open to it but look at what's happening, republican governors, republican secretary of states are asking for this funding from the federal government. why? switching to voting by mail is a big change in our country you have postage, you have envelopes, also you have voter suppression rules as eugene pointed out in a lot of states in this country that are being battled out. but for me what we can do right now is help states so they can keep their polls open more in advance, that's safer for voting. so they can make sure they have a new generation of poll workers trained that aren't as vulnerable at the polls on election day and yes, for the postage and the envelopes, this should be a bipartisan effort. we should not deny people the right to vote and they shouldn't have to choose between voting and keeping healthy.

i'd rather put ballots in the mailbox than put voters in the hospital. >> senator, it's willie geist, it's good to see you this morning. >> hi, willie. >> the president has said that mail-in voting will lead to fraud, the election will be rigged, at one point suggesting children will go to mailboxes and take ballots out, there's no evidence to that we've said that many times. what's the objection you're hearing from your republican colleagues? the truth is mail-in balloting has helped republicans, it gets votes on their side of the tally. what are the republican senators that you've worked with for many years telling you? why do they object to this? >> some of them say they don't want to put minimum requirements in in, like having the poll places in two weeks ahead of the time. when it comes to the money there's less disagreement.

they already agreed to put $4 million in, they're willing to change some of the requirements on the money. i think some of them say what difference will it make now? you can still buy stamps and you can still train workers and you can still keep the polls open. that's why you have republican secretary of states, like in the state of iowa, who basically said you're saying it's not right to vote by mail and it's somehow fraudulent, that's just wrong -- i'm paraphrasing him -- but secretary of states of across the country have taken this on. and people like mitt romney, utah, has over 90% vote by mail. this is not a partisan issue. i think with the heroes act putting 3.6 billion in, we're in a better place to negotiate this going forward. but we're still waiting for

their bill. americans have waited, they've waited for testing, they're waiting for results, the time has gotten worse. they're waiting for protective equipment, they shouldn't have to wait for the heroes act to pass. we must get this done. >> donny deutsch is with us and has a question for you. >> hi, donny, how are you? >> hi, senator. great to talk to you. keep up the great work. mr. trump has basically said i'm not going to accept the results. what happens on november 5th and it's a victory on paper for joe biden and the president says i'm not leaving. there's 400,000 illegal votes in pennsylvania, 300,000 illegal votes in arizona, what happens? >> i think the constitutional requirement rules, our democracy

rules we have always had a peaceful transition of power in this country. every kid remembers growing up seeing the inauguration day where you will have the previous and current president together with their families. this is going to happen again. and i think one of the reasons it's going to happen is it's going to be such an overwhelming vote across the country that he isn't going to be able to play games like that. as i listen to eugene, i just kept thinking, win big, win big. winning big and having americans learn all the rules in their states and they have to do this on voting early and how to do it by mail, average is 25% only in our country that have voted by mail in past federal elections. now it's going to be well over 50. if they don't vote by mail they have to learn how to vote early. they have to take precautions but we have to do everything to get that message out there. and he just was exactly right

because the people are with us but we have to make sure they can vote. that's what this is about. how do i get at your question, donny? it's by winning big. that's the simplest way to do it. >> senator amy klobuchar, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. >> thank you, look forward to being on again. thanks, everybody. >> the president's former fixer, michael cohen, will be released back to home confinement after a federal judge agreed his return to prison was a retaliation for writing a book about the president. u.s. district judge alvin hellerstein ordered michael cohen released by 2:00 p.m. today in a ruling that was critical of the justice department's defense. th the doj said michael cohen was combative when it came to talking about his restrictions.

the judge ruled cohen's return to prison was retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his first amendment rights to publish a book he went on to say. in 21 years of being a judge and sen sentencing people and looking at the terms and conditions of supervised release, i have never seen such a clause. in a statement after the ruling an unnamed bureau of prison official called the judge's ruling false. joining us is mimi rocah, she is now the democratic nominee for district attorney of west chester county. congratulations on that. >> yeah, congratulations on that, mimi. but following up on the last segment we just had, mika and i stayed up the night of your election to look at the results. then we checked the next

morning. then we checked the next day. then bechecked the next week. then we checked the next week. i remember telling jonathan lemire after about three, three and a half weeks of not knowing who won your county wide race in west chester county, i asked jonathan, i said if they can't count votes any faster than that in west chester county of all counties, in the middle of the summer, how bad is november going to look? what insights can you give us on why that took so long and why we shouldn't be worried about november? >> yeah, well, thanks so much for having me. and i'm very excited about our victory. and to senator klobuchar's point our victory was overwhelming, we won by 72% overall and 75% in

absentee ball los. even though we didn't have the official results the day after the election, i was able to sit comfortably and know that we had a very large lead that would be very hard to overcome. and, in fact, as they were counting absentee ballots and we were getting unofficial day by day results that lead continued to grow. so to senator klobuchar's point, joe biden we need him to win not just by a little bit but by overwhelming amounts so we are not sitting there the day after the election wondering if it can be thrown the other way but absentee ballots, which we know that president trump is going to say, you know, are fraudulent, even though he will have no basis for saying that. so what i think -- look, first of all, the takeaways from my election to me in my mind are that democrats want to vote. they want to vote in droves.

the absentee ballots went from 5,000 approximately in the last county wide election to almost 60,000. the lines to vote in person on election day, people waited in line for three hours sometimes or more in 90 degree heat. they were not giving up their right to vote. so democrats are motivated to vote. they will do it. we just need to give them the access. we need to have efficient mail-in processes here. they had to wait, by law, for seven days to begin counting the absentee ballots so there was legitimate reasons for delay but then a lot of things went wrong and on voting day there were not enough places for people to vote. i think they underestimated how many people would show up in person to vote and there is people examining that now in this county. we can take some national lessons from that.

>> kurt is with us and has some questions for you, mimi. >> congratulations on your victory, well deserved we know how hard you worked. looking at where things stand, this is going to perhaps be the most legally challenged election since the 2000 bush/gore race. what do democrats and the joe biden campaign need to do to prepare for that what used to be an unthinkable scenario but is the worst case scenario where the republican party, donald trump and his enablers refuse to accept the results of the election, refuse to allow votes to be counted, referred to thinks as fraud with no evidence. what should democrats and biden be doing right now to prepare for that? >> well, i'm sure they are doing this. what they need to be doing is preparing election lawyers. lawyers who will be, even before but certainly on election day and every minute jafterwards to

bring challenges in every voting district. look, we done want to end in another bush versus gore supreme court decision. but i will say over the past few months we've been heartened by the court, not just the supreme court but courts around the country that seem to be holding democracy really by a string but holding it up. and i think that is going to be a necessary -- absolutely necessary thing to have a real plan for. but again, it's also got to be about messaging now and making sure that, hopefully from the press, that donald trump and his allies are not allowed to get away with baseless claims about mail-in votes being fraudulent. and democrats showing that this is not only dellegitimate but necessary in the time of covid voting. >> mimi rocah thank you so much

we appreciate it. kurt bardella thank you as well. appreciate it. donny, usually this weekend if it were like things in in the past, i would get popcorn, my entire family would sit around the television and watch saturday night politics i'm sure i'm going to get the chance to do that again in the fall because it's so incredible but i would want to know your insights on saturday night politics on exactly what happened with michael cohen because we know that you talk to michael and the family all the time. before you leave us, what can you tell us about the insanity that's happened in the past couple weeks in his case? >> we'll probably have more on this on "saturday night politics" in the fall. >> of course. >> what was so tragic, i spoke to his wife the next day after, and as -- just picture this. you're going in there and you're basically saying i have issues with one clause here.

they walk away and come back and chain you. they chain you, cuff you, that's okay -- no i'll give you. i have not spoken to michael as michael has been in solitary. what i would advise -- what he described solitary to me as shaw shank redemption. he said you're in there 23 1/2 hours a day, they slide your meal under, you get to shower once every three days, a half hour of sunlight. it's a tort rous situation, why? because he wouldn't sign something that hasn't been signed ever. michael, it's a crazy world out there, until the election, i would lay low. love and hug your families. but thank god justice prevailed because sometimes in the administration it's not. up next, the foreman

chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mike mullen will be our guest. f staff mike mullen will be our guest. how about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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joining us now, the 17th chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, retired u.s. navy admiral mike mullen. and dr. chris howard, the president of robert morris university near pittsburgh and a u.s. air force veteran. they both serve on the advisory board of with honor action. and they are urging congress to pass the core act, which would be the largest expansion of voluntary national service in the country. welcome. >> admiral, thank you for being with us. dr. howard, thank you as well. admiral we'll talk about a couple events that happened over the past few months but let's

talk about the core act and why you believe it's so important that congress passes this bipartisan bill. >> someone that wore the uniform for four decades i have an appreciation of the benefits and privilege of national service. this act focuses on creating opportunities for upwards of 600,000 individuals who could sign on with senior core, expanding the jobs significantly and jobs could be focused in rural areas, focused for public health officials, for many young people who are seeking jobs at a time when our unemployment is very high and expose them to national service and i think, as has happened certainly throughout my life, watch lives change forever. it's a bipartisan bill, 16 senators, eight and eight from both sides of the aisle.

so there's a real opportunity here to support national service at a critical time coming out of covid over the next couple of years. >> and dr. howard, you and the admiral and the entire board explain why this is such a critical time to expand this badly needed program because of covid, because of the health care concerns, the economic concerns and also, yes, the educational challenges that so many of our american children face right now. explain why now is such a critical time to pass this bill. >> i think you hit the nail on the head with all the areas. we're in a health care crisis, a medical crisis with covid-19. we get more people in the field supporting public health officials. we get a chance, in an economic recession, maybe a depression, recession at least, to give people jobs and opportunities.

a chance to get people in the classroom. while these folks i work with closely, three stints as an administrator in higher education, they get out there as tutor, they're in the rural areas and inner city areas helping people who need it the most. but we need a breath of fresh air that civic right of passage, and our veterans, and the privilege to serve as the admiral pointed out is something that every american can opt to do, whether they do it in uniform or the other 168 other post 9/11 and civilian organizations that work together to galvanize bipartisan support for this great effort. >> jonathan lemire from the associated press is with us and has a question. jonathan? >> doctor, i'll stay on this topic here. i mean, certainly you just alluded to it, a time of

pandemic, so much of the country is suffering with health ailments and also people are out of work. there's a sense the economic recovery is going to take quite some time. does this play to make a difference? but also, fill a void in their lives right now if they're struggling to get back to work, to figure out whenat's next for them? >> that's a wonderful quip that says dignity in all work and especially americans serving other americans in such tough time and, yes, that is a big part of it. the stipend increased. the college benefits in terms of tuition to receive. dollars to be able to help you go to college and expand your horizons, i think all this leads to a greater good for american

good who serve and are served by those folks. >> admiral mullen, i want to talk briefly about june the 1st. i have said since that that might be a day that west point and annapolis and other academies may point to to teach those in uniform whatn not to d when it comes to the divide of civilian command and military leadership. but i was very heartened by those who responded to your call, including the chairman of the joint chiefs. and thought personally, thought that the military behaved in an honorable way after the debacle of june the 1st. i'm curious your thoughts a

month after you so importantly -- i just -- so critical what you wrote in "the atlantic" and we just can't thank you enough for that but what are your thoughts a month and a half later? >> well, that was obviously a very tough day for the country, joe, and certainly, had the military in a very, very difficult position. and what i was worried about, i wored about a lot of things, i talked about the american people are not the enemy and with what's going on in portland right now, you know, i worry about the same kind of approach, quite frankly. the american people are not the enemy. what was also going on there which is what really brought me out was my view in lafayette square that the military would be used as a political tool and that is not who we are. we are apolitical. we need to stay apolitical and in a time when everything is

getting politicized, politicizing the military would be very bad for the country but i also worry it is not over. there's a lot of time between now and the end of the year and a lot of opportunities. there's discussions now about the military heading out to portland. there are people in america that think the military is already there. so it's really important for the current chairman general milley who i thought did the right thing later that week after a significant mistake, keep the american people informed on where the military is and what it's doing specifically and not conflate it with those individuals who are there in portland right now against the local leadership's wishes and yet in their own way look very much like the military so it's a very, very treacherous time for us and i'm hopeful that the military can remain out of all of this as we transition through

this election cycle. >> admiral, what advice would you have for young men and women in uniform across this country and across this world in the coming months as you said, many fear the president will use the military inappropriately in the coming months if he fears that he may not win at the ballot box? what advice would you have for our armed forces? >> they have the young, particularly the young ones, the average average in any military unit is about 21 years old. it is the leaders in the military that have to set the tone, that have to make the decisions, that have to distinguish between what's right and wrong, what's legal and illegal. i have great faith in our young military men and women that they will follow those leaders but it is really critical that the leaders focus on this and ensure that they make the right decisions to lead them well,

supporting the constitution, supporting the oath that they took in what is a very, very difficult time for the country. >> admiral mike mullen and dr. chris howard, thank you both for everything you're doing, pushing congress to pass the corps act which would be the largest expansion of voluntary national service in the country. and still ahead on "morning joe," with months until election day, polls show president trump trailing joe biden in several key states. we'll dig into the new numbers next. find your keys.

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camera, tv. okay. that's very good. if you get it in order you get extra points. okay. now he's asking me other questions. other questions. and then, ten minutes, 15, 20 minutes later they say, remember that first -- not the first but the tenth question, can you do that? you go, person, woman, man, camera, tv. if you get it in order you get extra points. they say, nobody gets it -- it's actually not that easy but for me it was easy. >> hello? >> that's not an easy question. in other words, they give you five terms and you have to repeat them. that's okay. if you repeat them out of order that's okay. >> good morning. welcome to "morning joe." willie -- >> so easy to make. >> in 1971 when kraft work was putting together a band that would like bring electronic

music into the mainstream that they knew that that's where this was going to end up, a president very proud of the five words he could say -- >> everything is a game show with him. >> it's number four on edm chart this morning, going right to the top. you know, as jonathan will tell us in a moment, the white house likes the story line for the president, i'll say again, this cognitive test narrative out there rite now and reminds me of when they thought his walk through the park to the church was quote iconic. >> maybe not. maybe not. but you actually -- jonathan, before we get into a spate of polls that suggest maybe americans don't think the fact that the president can identify an elephant is the most convincing thing, you actually -- we'll get to a lot of polls in a minute, but you're

actually -- you've written a story about the president's obsession with this cognitive test meant for alzheimer's patients. >> the president about a month back started talking to advisers about this cognitive test as part of the physical two or so years ago. of course the campaign is trying for a while now to paint joe biden as having lost a step, they play videos of stumbles and gaffes and so on and not proving effective as proven by the deficit in the polls that you mentioned but the president thought he could amplify this argument and talking to aides, at the white house, air force one, remembering this test and how he was given five of the words and he was asked to repeat them in order, joe, that's important. in order. and he would from time to time do so. in the west wing, on the plane, change the words occasionally to match the setting. you know?

masks and cameras and men and women, whatever it might be. and then he started to talk about it in interviews, interviews. which, of course, could ulminatn this interview with fox and they wanted to make mental dexterity a campaign issue and they brought a lot of attention to that but probably not the candidate because you are right. the reporting that we did this story today suggests this is a test meant to be easy. you're meant to do well. you don't get bonus points for getting it in order. only concern is if you don't do well. the president very proud, though, of his 5 for 5 mark. >> again, willie, i mean, if future generations have to look back and say what in the world was going on with voters and reporters that they could -- that they didn't immediately talk about this guy's fitness

for office because he's proud that he can identify an elephant. this test that's so hard, asks him to subtract 7 from 100. the final five questions are, where are you? what city are you in? what state are you in? what is today? what month is it? those are final questions. he said the last questions are really, really tough. so again, it's just absolutely bizarre. but bring in columnist and associate editor of "washington post," msnbc political analyst eugene robinson and -- >> the great -- >> joyce vance. we have a lot going on today. >> we'll look at the coronavirus case numbers that are climbing. the u.s. has reached another record, 4 million infections recorded. health experts warn that the virus is spreading rapidly.

it was just over two weeks ago that the u.s. had hit 3 million cases. so something big is happening here and certain areas of the country are the coronavirus hotspots of the world. not just of the country. plus, president trump abruptly cancels the republican national convention in jacksonville, florida. remember, he went there taking it away from north carolina saying they were being too tough, you know, too hard trying to mitigate the coronavirus. >> just like north carolina! >> yeah. left them. >> get behind me. you are dust on my shoes, insulted north carolina's governor. >> now he is high tailing it out of jacksonville. >> i'm not going to -- >> no. he is leaving. >> hey! >> because of coronavirus concerns. >> what's up? hey! i didn't say that about you. >> okay. >> now he is back. >> but first, we have new polling from key 2020 states. interesting numbers here.

quinnipiac polling out of the state of florida shows president trump trailing by 13 points. former vice president joe biden leads president trump 51% to 38% among florida voters. broken down by age, biden leads among voters 49 years old and younger. and the two are statistically tied among voters age 50 and older. biden leads trump in three fox news states polls, in pennsylvania, 50-39%. in michigan, 9 points, 49 to 40%. minnesota he leads by 13 points, 51 to 38% and a new quinnipiac university poll out of texas has biden leading trump by a single point. 45% to 44%. that's statistically tied. falling within the three-point margin of error. >> willie, we can get through

all of these numbers and i'm hesitant to suggest this is where the real numbers are right now. obviously we are at the end of july and when i saw the quinnipiac plus 13 out of florida i thought that's probably an outlier and maybe we are closer to 8, 9 based on the other polls but look at the fox news polls, pennsylvania trump up by 11. that makes a lot more sense to me given the makeup of that state than the plus 13 from florida but there are other polls out of florida that show wide disparity. michigan plus 9. minnesota, a state that trump's campaign had believed for three years that they were going to bring along into their column along with new mexico. those are long gone. they're not going to be able to campaign in minnesota or new mexico because they now have to worry about texas. we have probably done five, six polls over the past month,

basically show texas deadlocked within the margin of error except that "dallas morning news poll" showing biden up by 5. bad across the board right now. yes, it is early. blah, blah, blah, blah. it is early. but it's important to remember as donald trump's people are starting to try to tell him, as jonathan lemire reporting, we are six weeks away from people starting to vote early and some of these attitudes about the president seem increasingly locked in. >> yeah. it is so mystery. the when you look inside the polling specifically in polling in that q poll showing that president trump and governor desantis upside down on the handling of the coronavirus vir crisis and some asking where does governor depan tsantis go k

for an apology and now suffering for that. the president is suffering for that. floridians are looking around them saying this isn't going well. our leaders haven't handled it well. gene, the 13-point spread in the state of florida is huge but a spread in florida shouldn't be surprising and may not be that big as joe points out but on the issue touching the life of almost every american, donald trump is upside down in his approval of handling of the coronavirus crisis. >> totally is. first of all, willie, person, woman, man, camera, tv. just to establish that. >> look at you. >> i can ace that. >> look at you. >> wow. >> i ask again in 15 minutes for extra points, yeah. >> yeah. >> okay. i'm going to have to really try to keep that in mind. these questions are tough. no. i mean, he is totally upside down on the coronavirus issue.

and look. if these numbers in florida are anything like what the result ends up to be, this is a -- this is beyond a blowout. you can't possibly lose florida by those kinds of margins and expect anything, you know, expect to come close in the general election. for that poll to come out and then all of those fox news polls, the president's not favorite poll that show him well behind in those mid western battleground states and pennsylvania. these are devastating blows to a president, again, this close to an election. and yes, caveat, early, early. but not so early. not that early at this point. we are getting toward the end of

the summer. we are getting the point where traditionally pundits say people pay attention. people have been paying attention to this election all along. there's nobody in the country who doesn't have an opinion about donald trump. and doesn't have an opinion about this election. the question is whether those opinions are hardening and whether those opinions are hardening in a way that's just calamitous for the president, and i think that's a possibility. we'll see. but that's a possibility. not a good day in polling for him at all. >> still ahead on "morning joe," president trump forced republicans to move the rnc to florida after a fight with north carolina's governor over strict coronavirus measures. well now, the president is canceling florida's events because of coronavirus. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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surge in coronavirus cases in florida forced the president to cancel the jacksonville portion of the republican national convention. it was supposed to begin exactly one month from today. this is the second time now the president has canceled plans for the full-scale event he had hoped for. last month he moved the event from charlotte after refusing to scale down due to the virus. the president tweeted in may, quote, democrat governor roy cooper is still in shutdown mood and unable to guarantee that by august we would be allowed full attendance in the arena. another tweet from the president, he wrote, governor cooper still in shelter in place mode and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised.

the governor responded back then, quote, we have been committed to a safe rnc convention in north carolina and it is unfortunate they never agreed to scale down and make changes to keep people safe. protecting public health and safety in this pandemic is a priority. so after canceling in north carolina, now canceling in florida, the president said the event essentially what the governor of north carolina had proposed from the start. a scaled down convention. >> so the delegates are going to north carolina. they'll be doing the nomination and we're going to do some other things with tele rallies and online the week that we are discussing which will be really good. i think we are going to do it well. i'll still do a convention speech in a different form. but we won't do a big crowded convention per se. it is just not the right time for that. i looked at my team and i said, the timing for this event is not

right. just not right with what's happened recently, the flare-up in florida. to have a big convention is not the right time. it's really something that for me i have to protect the american people. that's what i have always done. that's what i always will do. that's what i'm about. they said, sir, we can make this work very easily. we have great enthusiasm, incrediblen thuz achl. even the polls say about the most enthusiasm they have seen. we can do this safely and we can do it responsibly. i said there's nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe. >> jonathan lemire, in some ways the president looked defeated yesterday in that briefing to concede that the problem is worse than i've been describing it, so bad in florida, in fact,

that we can't have the rnc in jacksonville. it's the right call. i think about tulsa when i see that when his supporters didn't show up for him at that event. i think the president got a wake-up call and didn't want that to happen again in charlotte or jacksonville. >> this is something the president really fought up until the last couple of days, willie, according to our reporting. as you say, you know, the convention in cleveland in 2016 was an over the top spectacle. he had plan to try to out do that in time around. got in the fight with the north carolina governor and amusing i suppose that one event to happen is still going to be in charlotte, a smaller thing for delegates to come in, the business side of the convention but the show is gone. at least in any way resembling what the president had hoped and that is right. it is the fear of empty seats. they were having real trouble

raising money, commitments to attend. a lot of significant republican leaders including a number of senators had said they were not going to go. and the president, you mentioned tulsa. that's right. but also think two weeks later in a state, new hampshire, where the covid rate was low, where the event would be outside. things that should be safer, should be allowed to draw a crowd they weren't getting commitments from nearly anybody to attend that and really concerns that no one was going to show and an embarrassment the president couldn't face is jacksonville and no one be there and now looks like there will be some sort of speech, unclear if it's from the white house or somewhere else. they have other events to do remotely. the democrats still planning one day in milwaukee where joe biden would talk but not expected to be in front of a crowd but this is a devastating blow for the president that enjoys a spectacle and needs things to change the momentum of the race

and they were banking on a return to rallies and the convention to do that. those are now gone and you are seeing the president and the team suddenly shift and pin attention on the upcoming debates that maybe that's where they can do it and running out of time and facing steep deficits. coming up on "morning joe," with the pandemic surging our next guest says policymakers have three scenarios for what happens next. dr. lena wen joins us next. t-mobile and sprint have merged.

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i just want to make it clear to the american public, what we have now are essentially three new yorks with these three major states and so we're really having to respond as an american people and that's why you hear us calling for masks and increased social distancing to really stop the spread of this epidemic. >> white house coronavirus task force coordinator dr. deborah birx speaking last hour on the "today" show speaking of the outbreaks in florida, california and texas and as well as arizona. cases of coronavirus in the u.s. doubled in just six weeks to 4 million and here's a look at how that plays out in several states.

yesterday alabama set a daily record recording nearly 2,400 new cases joining 4 states who hit the single-day peak for new cases on thursday. in hawaii officials reported 55 new infections and state leaders are now expressing uncertainty about reopening schools. officials in indiana reported a record daily rise in infections on thursday with 954 new cases. this as missouri once again reported its largest single-day increase in new cases yesterday marking the sixth time in nine day it is state set its own single-day high and new mexico reported 343 new cases thursday, the single-day highest number for that state to date. meanwhile in florida, some researchers say the death toll could double by labor day. unless people devote themselves to social distancing and facial coverings. joining us now, emergency

physician and public health professor at george washington university, dr. lena wen. she has five tips on how to talk to people who are skeptical about wearing masks at know your value.com. might want to check that out given how florida is doing and also with us assistant professor of family medicine and physical medicine and director in adaptive sports at the michigan center for human athletic medicine and performance, dr. farami lakami and great to have you both on the show this morning. lena wen, dr. shaw talked earlier this week about the show and also dr. gottlieb, about florida not just being a hotspot in america but leading the world globally with coronavirus problems. we're breaking records that go beyond the united states of america. where are these numbers leading

in these hotspots in states like florida, texas and california? >> we don't know, mika. this is the most concerning part because we do know that in the last 15 days we have added 1 million more infections here in the u.s. we also know that there are at least 12 states where the virus is surging out of control. that are -- we're facing explosive spread and more than 30 are seeing increases and so i think that at this point we are facing this critical juncture which is we can decide going on the status quo and implementing these policy half measures, for example, some of the states closing only bars but not restaurants or requiring masks in cities or counties but not the entire state and we don't know the end game except we know there's a lot of unnecessary preventable suffering and death. or, we can do something very difficult which is to implement

shutdowns again in these states that are so hard hit and i know this is very difficult to say, it is even more difficult to do, people have already given up so much but at this point this may be our only hope for containing the infection. >> and just following up really quick, is there a parallel between states that have mitigated better compared to these states that have hotspots? >> absolutely. we look at the new york region, for example. they were able to suppress infections and at this point as a result they have enough testing and contact tracing in the areas although now we are seeing huge national shortages leading to these areas facing major problems, too. it can be done. other countries have done it. we have done it and now it is time to say can we also value the lives in florida, texas, arizona, california, et cetera the same as the folks in the new york region have done, too? >> dr. wen, the president was

talking yesterday again at the briefing of schools, made a bit of a concession saying maybe a couple have to open a couple of weeks late and said it is safe to open them. talk about a blanket national policy for states that have different problems, districts and cities with specific problems. what is your read right now about getting back to school? you have children. you have worked in the city of baltimore on questions like this. obviously it is different everywhere but what do you think about schools right now? >> i think it's exactly what you said, that this is different in different parts of the country so there are parts of the country where the infection is under control and it would be safe to open schools. although carefully, implementing safeguards to protect the children and the staff and teachers and their families but in many parts of the country in the places of active surge, you cannot open schools safely. ul you would not want to get that

many people together in an indoor closed space, children, adults or otherwise and that's a single-most important thing to do now, work to suppress the level of infection to get the children back in school and so that we can protect the health and well-degree of their families, too. >> doctor, want to turn to you on questions about disabled people in this country. they haven't got enough attention, the focus of a the lot of your work. when we talk about long term care facilities, we think about seniors, veterans but there are long term care facilities housing many disabled people in this country who we want to make sure are taken care of. how hard has the pandemic and last four months been on the disabled community? >> that's a great question. this is an ironic timing given the 30th anniversary of the ada on sunday and underscores the

fact there's certain populations of individuals disproportionately impacted by the things going on right now and so i think a lot of attention right now is on not just individuals with disabilities but marginalized populations like people of color like we are seeing with this epidemic and how we can create solutions that not just are best for the majority but also address the moininority populats impacted disproportionately. >> how do we address that inside of our schools where a lot of our children are disabled and with special needs and we need to look out for them always, but especially now? how are you looking at going back to school? >> thanks. so one of the things i like to highlight is that i often tell people i don't even like the term special needs because all of us have needs and the needs of our disabled students and community members are no more special than the needs of everybody else and so one of the

things i sometimes say is that everybody can use a ramp but not everybody can use the stairs so at the university of michigan our president has put together a campus health response committee which is looking at how we can then safely return to school if that is possible. so i think that when we put our minds together and we have a public health informed approach to how we can do these things, if we can safely do so we will and will be different in different parts of the country but we have to have a uniform approach to saying if this is not safe we have to then tell people, unfortunately, we may not be able to go back to business as usual as people like to say. >> i'll follow up with that. what are the things you are looking at to make it safer to go back to a school or college with dorms? obviously masks and hand sanitizer but what other measures could be considered to try and sort of rework things so that people can safely return

and i would think some of these practices may stay with us. >> thank you, absolutely there are multiple things that need to be looked at from testing to social distancing to d de-densifying and multiple factors to be considered and need to think while we talk about return to schools, elementary school or college, these people are members of a community at large and so the community is something that you also have to think about when you're thinking of bringing tens of thousands of people back to a place like ann arbor but at the same time the mission of some of these institutions, education, clinical care, these things are things that will have to go on at some point and how we are able to then return to that while still keeping in mind the fact that we have an active pandemic and i like to talk about two pandemics actually in terms of the social justice and

racism that we are seeing being discussed more directly and then covid-19 and thinking that if we address the needs of our disabled community or people of color we what we're doing is addressing all of our needs because this isn't something that's unique to those populations but they are disproportionately impacted and when you create a solution best for that community you're truly creating a solution that's best for our entire community. >> i'd like you to talk about returning to school and whether or not it's safe. you have been on the cutting edge of this from the get-go saying this isn't a snow day and i believe that this continues. but also, the doctor used a really important word that i've been thinking about a lot. de-densifying. you have a bigger interest in public health, city planning. will we be looking at new ways to develop cities and the -- how

many people are clustered on top of each other and pouring into restaurants and stores? when you think of new york city, you think of a very dense population of all american cities and i just wonder if that still works anymore. >> that's a really interesting question, mika. i think that for the purposes of school we need to work on separating children and as a result so many inner city schools facing significant challenges with their economics, it's going to be particularly challenging for them. they need to have actually more classrooms, more space. they need to be looking at changes to the air flow system, buying new supplies, figuring out testing and can't have if we have a 14-day testing delay. how on earth do we tell a child to stay home for 14 days and the families as well if we don't have the ability to test them when people get ill? there's so many questions and

resources that we need coming to things like getting kids back and then i think the broader question then becomes how will we live in this new pandemic normal if you will? what are we going to do with our cities? around the world the key is going to be containing this virus because so many other countries have been able to suppress the virus and so their cities and people are able to get back to normal with schools, with living in apartment buildings with a lot of people and ultimately that's going to be our solution, keeping the virus in check. >> fascinating. before we go, thank you so much. you're a disability rights activist and you have a pretty incredible story. can you tell us your story? >> well, thanks. i try not to focus too much on my story. i'm just one example of all the people out there that have a voice that's often not heard but what you're probably referring i was in the third year at yale

when i then had a spiral cord injury myself and paralyzed me from the chest down and left me with minimal use of the upper extremities but i got a master's degree at notre dame and i finished a family medicine residency and appointed and now back at michigan and assistant professor of family medicine, physical medicine and the interim director of services for students with disabilities and the director of adaptive sports and fitness. once again, it is not about me and my story but what that's showing is the fact if i hadn't been given an opportunity to demonstrate what i could do people too often look at issues with disabilities and limit them based on what they think they cannot do. we're trying to demonstrate that disability is not inability and hopefully the 30th anniversary of the ada shows people that

there are many more people with many more talents than me out there that don't have rights to the things simply because of the structural barriers or perceived limitations this people put upon them. >> doctor, thank you. thank you very much. please come back on the show soon. we appreciate it. up next, the program that the trump administration is using to send federal agents to chicago is the same one that deployed 200 agents to kansas city, missouri, earlier this month. we're going to ask that city's mayor how it's going so far when he joins us next on "morning joe."

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just to give you an idea of what's possible, the fbi went in very strong into kansas city and within two weeks we've had 200 arrests. >> the real measure of success

of an initiative like "operation legend" is the ability of communities to feel safe. it is not about the number of arrests but the ability of kids to be able to play outside of their homes, about families to be able to walk to and from work. >> fbi director chris wray on wednesday checking attorney general barr for tying success in crime fighting to arrest numbers. it happened as the president announced he was expanding a program to send federal agents into more u.s. cities. and not only that, kansas city officials say they have no knowledge of barr's claim of 200 arrests. the mayor says the u.s. attorney's office has only announced one arrest. and the mayor of kansas city quinton lucas joins us now. so good morning. thank you for being on. what's with the disparity in

numbers? >> i don't really don't know. people started to ask me after that press conference where are the 200 arrests. how can they get that actually accomplished in less than two weeks? we are not that large of a place. how can you have an operation about solving unsolved murders 200 arrests not relatted to murders themselves? it is an ongoing challenge and concern. i have a strong relationship with our local u.s. attorney here but the challenge is that from washington and i think from leadership there is this desire to have a political and politicized operation and that's why you get claims like that that ultimately run foul. >> mayor lucas, it is willie geist. is it true you learned federal officers were in your city by reading twitter? >> so the u.s. attorney's office had talked to my office previously about federal support.

and then there was no conversation and then one day i'm actually sitting in this office and they say, well, you were name checked at white house press briefing, they rolled out a program. we learned about at least some of what it was doing and then basically every few days something else changed, the number of officers 100 to 225 and heard about the arrests and operations and it has been nothing short of frustrating. look. we do have a violent crime challenge in my city and many others. we want to solve murders and don't want just a bunch of federal troops on the streets basically doing warrant checks and, you know, doing sorts of things that we don't need and haven't asked for. so that has been a concern and i think the communication has left a lot to be desired. >> we had mayor lightfoot of chicago on the show yesterday and she said she spoke briefly to president trump a couple days ago as the program is coming to

her city and got some assurances that chicago would not look like portland with federal officers in camouflage in the streets, that they would be there to help in making arrests and performing investigations into violent crime so what does it look like as the other cities wait to see what will happen with them, what does it look like for you? how's the relationship between your law enforcement and federal law enforcement? is it working? >> so i think we always have a strong relationship between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement, particularly on things like background investigation. looking at ballistics, the illegal distribution of firearms throughout our city that come into kansas city. a lot of guns aren't produced here and most of the guns used in murders on our streets aren't your old grandpa's beretta and wanted cooperation and did not look like portland. i think lots of my community is

concerned that there could be some mission creep over time and so that's why we've tried to stay pretty vigilant. i have talked to mayor lightfoot and tim keller of albuquerque but there's an open question because what you saw from the statement of general barr to sell success pretty quickly and perhaps it relates to election year politics but for us they're real issues, real people and real justice we want found and not just kind of a shell. >> you acknowledge, mayor lucas, a moment ago you have a problem with violent crime in your city. how do you diagnose that problem in your city? you can just speak to kansas city. what is going on to make the numbers skyrocket as they are in chicago, new york city and across the country? >> you've seen a dramatic increase in gun violence throughout our country and i think you need to look at a few more solutions than just all

enforcement. perhaps unsurprisingly the administration and many others go with a whole idea of throw more agents, more officers, more troops at a problem. we are seeing perhap that is alone isn't the solution and need to work on intervention, prevention and political moment that we're in now is saying, how can we better police? how do we make sure that folks that are in trouble or getting in trouble know there's a different path and a different way? i have worked with the department of justice previously on a program "operation relentless pursuit" which looked not only to agents on the ground but other resources in cities like kansas city, baltimore. we need to do more and have more broad-based work in how we prevent the increase in violent crime. it never goes anywhere. you know? 95% of our homicides are relatted to gun violence, continues to be a problem with a flood of illegal firearms in cities like kansas city and chicago. we need the atf's help to track that down, getting distributors,

stopping some of the practices where people distribute firearms and parts and unfortunately there's never much discussion about that. >> the mayor of kansas city, missouri, quinton lucas, thank you very much for coming on the show. keep us for coming on the show. keep us posted. appreciate it. up next, our next guest is a former military official who voted for donald trump in 2016. he's now president of a group working to defeat him. keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪ don't just think about where you're headed this summer. think about how you'll get there. and now that you can lease or buy a new lincoln remotely or in person... discovering that feeling has never been more effortless.

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integrity, honor and service. revered principles of the united states military. the most trusted, respected and, until now, apolitical organization in america. that trust and respect enshrined by the severalless sacrifice of generations of american men and women has been cruelly undermined by donald trump. trump uses the power of the presidency to sully the morality of the military and distort its mission for political gain. our military and national security members took an oath to defend the constitution. an oath of service before self. meanwhile, donald trump betrays that oath by mockingly wrapping himself in the flag and using our military as a campaign prop. stop the shuffle down this

slippery slope. we all have a new mission. it's time to rejoin the fight. >> that was an ad from the council on american security, a group founded by former military and intelligence officials. that, as you just heard, had been a nonpartisan group. now it's working to defeat president trump in 2020. even though some of its members voted for him in 2016. joining us now, the group's co-founder and president, retired u.s. navy lieutenant commander greg keely. he's one of the members who supported the president four years ago. thank you so much for being on. i want to hear more about what you all are doing. first, i would love to hear the arc of your story from voting for trump to now leading this effort. what changed for you? what was the breaking point? or was it a group of things? >> thanks, mika.

happy friday. you know, the council on american security is nonpartisan. i want to stress that to folks. the tipping point was trump abandoning our kurdish allies in syria. after a phone call with president erdogan, he abandoned our syrian allies. these are guys and women that have been fighting alongside american troops since the iraq war. our only group of allies. after he was outnegotiated on a phone call with president erdogan in 24 hours, trump abandoned those people. i know some of the people that were there and they slaughtered thousands and thousands of kurds. they slaughtered their families, their children. trump effectively signed their death warrant. for me, that was the tipping point. for me it's his interference in the code of military justice. pardoning a war criminal that his own shipmates reforeas a freaking maniac. politicizing the military.

ambushing the chairman of the joint chiefs. recalling the cadets to west point. abandoning nato. there are so many tipping points that our members from the intelligence and military communities, you know, have been a pivot. you can take your pit. for many it's a cumulative effect. >> commander, it's willie geist. thanks for being on the show this morning. you referenced it briefly, that june 1st moment when the lafayette square was cleared so the president could walk to the church. you had general milley in his uniform walking the street. he didn't know where they were headed. later he said he regretted being a part of that. what did you make of that scene on june the 1st? >> oh, willie, it was -- i was speechless. and i'll be quite honest, a majority of our membership or folks that have come to us in the last month or so have been because of that milley incident

with the president. i think what the president doesn't seem to understand is that every one of the people in camsec all took an oath to defend the constitution, defend the country. donald trump talks about the silent majority. the military -- people that served in the military, retired or not, that serve in our intelligence communities, retired or not, are silent. they normally stay silent because that's because they're required to. and rightly so. donald trump has politicized that. we saw it at west point, with general milley. he doesn't want to go to war with our military. he said that to the joint chiefs just after taking office. he doesn't want to go to war with our military but he'll certainly use you in a parade or campaign. >> thank you so much. co-founder and president of the council on american security. a group founded by former military and intelligence

officials that had been a nonpartisan group but is now working to defeat president trump in 2020. willie, before we go, what are you looking ahead at today given everything that has happened so far this week? >> well, the president limps into the weekend. we showed all those polls from battleground states, including in florida. the q poll has him down 13 points. and as i said at the top of the show, it's no mystery why. it's for his handling of this crisis. he had to cancel the jacksonville portion of his national convention. he does not have a campaign that he wanted when we entered this crisis four months ago. he wanted to run on a strong economy. that's gone. and americans are looking at the way he's handling this crisis. they don't like what they see, and that's why his numbers are where they are. >> all right. everybody, try and have a great weekend. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now.

>> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is friday, july 24th. and here are the facts at this hour. we begin with a new milestone. not a good one. 4 million cases of the coronavirus in the united states of america. and take a look at this graph on your screen. it took us three months to record the first million cases. 16 days to record the last million. nearly 71,000 cases were reported just yesterday along with 1100 deaths. more than 145,000 americans have now lost their lives to this virus. all of this comes as the cdc releases guidelines for getting kids back to school. here's the big problem. we were waiting, waiting, waiting for these protocols but their guidelines, most of it we already knew. like encouraging good hygiene. for things like what to do if students test positive, the cdc says, it's up to the schools to come up with a plan. the cdc is encouraging kids to go back to the