oregon. like other nights friday started with several peaceful rallies but ended in violence. another day of more than 70,000 new cases of coronavirus reported in the united states. we're hitting near peak hospitalization rates as well. and 101 days until the presidential election. >> all americans need to recognize it's up to us, wear a

mask when you're out of your house. >> how coronavirus is definitely affecting the way we vote and who might win. "velshi" starts now. good morning to you. it's saturday, july 25th. president trump and the federal government's response to the covid-19 pandemic continues to have devastating effects on jobs and the economy. more than 1.4 million americans filed for new unemployment claims last week. that's the first time that has gone up since march, reversing a downward trend. new weekly claims have hovered above 1 million for 18 straight weeks now which is shocking when compared to the fact that the number never surpassed 700,000 in a month before the pandemic hit. tens of millions of americans remain on unemployment but because of disagreements among congressional republicans and

the white house, there is almost certainly going to be a lapse in the $600 per week enhanced federal pandemic unemployment benefits upon which millions of americans currently rely. a staffer for republican congressman verne buchanan of florida died from coronavirus becoming the first confirmed coronavirus death of a capitol hill staffer. nationally there are more than 4.1 million total cases. 1 million of those diagnosed in the last two weeks. new case numbers are above 70,000 a day and fast approaching 150,000 total deaths in the united states. recent polls from nbc news and other outlets show americans overwhelmingly disapprove of trump's handling of the pandemic with disapproval ratings hitting record highs and approvals hitting record lows. another recent poll showed that 62% of registered voters believe that donald trump is actively hurting efforts to slow the

spread of covid-19 with just 31% saying trump is actually helping. this week trump resurrected the coronavirus press briefings w s which the white house previously said weren't needed. for three straight days trutrump held court. the first two briefings trump held solo without medical officials, experts or anyone else from the administration. dr. deborah birx did join trump for the third briefing but she did not get invited to speak, those mlb hall of fame pitcher mariano rivera did as he was also involved in the briefing. the briefings were littered with contradictions with run-on rants and straight-up lies. for example, in arguing for reopening schools trump said children don't catch it easily and don't bring it home easily, which makes no sense. trump also said the situation will get worse before it gets

better. somehow also making the claim that the country is in very good shape. other than if you look south and west. so as long as you don't look in two of the four cardinal directions we're in good shape, even that is not actually true. this type of elementary response shouldn't come as a shock considering the man who made those statements is also the man who said this. >> let him take the same test that i took -- >> incidentally i took the test, too, when i heard you passed it. >> how did you do? >> it's not the hardest test. >> no. it's like a memory question. it's like you'll go person, woman, man, camera, tv. so they say can you repeat that? so i said, yeah. it's person, woman, man, camera, tv. the okay. that's very good. if you get it in order you get extra points.

then 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes later they say remember the first question -- not the first but the tenth question? give us that again. can do you that again? you go person, woman, man, camera, tv. if you get it in order, you get extra points. they said nobody gets it in order. it's actually not that easy, for me it was easy. you go person, woman, man, camera, tv. they say that's amazing. how did you do that? >> person, woman, man, camera, tv. should be noted the president is talking about a test for cognitive issues in pre-dementia not in intelligence. in all seriousness when someone says they don't know who to believe when it comes to the pandemic or anything else, just remember you witnessed the president of the united states bragging about remembering the

list of five nouns. joining me right now is dr. nahid bhadelia, she's also an msnbc contributor. thank you for being with us. i want to talk about the issue that is at hand for anybody who is a parent, a teacher, they are worried about schools because at this point, towards the end of july, you're really starting to worry about schools. they start in florida in about three weeks, and in other states in weeks coming ahead of that -- weeks following that. let's talk about what the president said. children don't really get it and children don't convey the disease. we know schools have been closed for most of coronavirus. we have not tested that theory all that well. what do we know about children and coronavirus? >> ali, thank you very much for having me. so, there is some data, even the data is evolving, we know children can get sick, sick enough to be hospitalized even if the mortality rate is low. children under 10 seem to be a bit more resistant to getting the infection and spreading it,

but a new study from south korea announced kids between 10 and 1 can potentially transmit the disease as effectively as adults can even if they are not showing the symptoms or do not get that sick. we have clusters from summer camps in the u.s., in arkansas, in texas, in missouri. you've seen clusters happen where kids of every age. it's not a risk-free endeavor. any state planning to open schools has to plan for potential outbreaks and what the management of those outbreaks will be and how kids will continue their education if that happens. >> i want to ask you about whether you get sick or get symptoms and whether you can be infectio infectious. one thing you mentioned, though we saw a 9-year-old child die this week in florida, is when children get it, they don't tend to -- the mortality rate is not as high as adults or older americans. does that mean they're less infectious?

>> no. i mean, for younger kids, it may mean they don't transmit as much. but older kids can still be infectious, which is why when you look at the cdc guidance, the two things that stick out to me, one in a positive way, they're still stressing if you have a widespread community outbreak you should consider whether schools should open at all. that's one of the criteria that they have in place. the other thing they mention, they don't think a test-based surveillance system is necessary. and if you only use symptoms with kids, there's less liy're to be symptomatic but still transmit the disease. which is why i think a test-based strategy will be important in areas where there's a lot of disease activity. >> you are talking about test-based strategy. the president talks about how many tests we have. one problem we're finding, particularly when you require testing and contact tracing to find out who an infected person was in contact with, is that the

tests are still taken in some parts of the united states seven days to get back. sometimes 5 to 7 days. the president talked about some hospitals you can get them at where you can get a 24-hour turnaround. if we can't turn around test results in 5 to 7 days, an infectious person has that much time to spread the infection to other people. >> well, let me also stress it this way. if you're looking at public schools or schools that don't have a high student to teacher ratio, and now one of the teachers gets sick, they're waiting for the test for seven days, imagine the impact that would have, which is why i think it's so important not jury fst the surveillance aspect bus to consciously open schools in those areas would be a disaster. the thing that sort of occurs to me, ali, is that i don't think it's going to be a one size fits all solution. i think that in areas that are seeing big outbreaks, the need to consider whether they should do remote learning and then in areas where we're seeing low

prevalence, we could open the schools, particularly for younger kids, then learn from that and apply the best practices so that we can transmit it to the rest of the country. if we don't do that, the groups that sort of are the most vulnerable are large city public schools that have huge class sizes, don't have as many resources to begin with. many of which are attended by kids that may come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, from multi generational families and kids of essential workers who may not have other options for education for their children. a huge percentage of that is minority students. >> dr. nahid bhadelia, thank you for joining us. texas is continuing to get hit hard by coronavirus. new cases and hospitalizations including an increase in deaths. joining me now is the mayor of austin, texas, steve adler. good to see you again. what's happening in your state and what's happening in your

city? >> well, what's happening in my city is different from what's happening in other cities in texas. we were on a trajectory just three, four weeks ago that was going to overwhelm our icus. we were able to get to a plateaued place based almost solely on universal adoption of masks in the city. down to the rio grande valley, they have run out of room in the hospitals having to make difficult choices about who to help, who -- they don't have the capacity to help. the numbers continue to go up in the state. even though we leveled off on new cases, there's been a 20% increase in deaths in the last seven days. it's the tail of that increase trajectory that we were seeing four weeks ago. >> i want to ask you about the conversation i was just having with dr. nahid bhadelia. your county health authority,

dr. mark ascot said on tuesday it would cost the austin school district $48 million for safe school opening. what does that look like and what is the plan right now? >> the plan is being studied right now. everybody wants to go back to school. we understand that, but the infectivity level is so high in our city that on the first day of school we would have so many people showing up already infected, both students and teachers. so we're trying to lower the infectivity level overall in our city. there are some plans to be able to open up some schools with low numbers of students that have special and unique needs to be able to be in school. but i would imagine that we're going to be able to tie the increased attendance in schools to how well we do lowering infectivity throughout the city. you know, there's cities around theaustin included

now, that shows when cities are scared, they can do the behaviors to drop down the number. we haven't seen enough cities and places able to sustain that discipline when they're fighting to hold on to keeping the economy open or fighting to hold on to keeping schools open. it seems people relax and they forget that this virus is real infectious. they stop wearing masks. >> i will have a conversation later today about -- later this morning about the rent and eviction moratorium for most americans that is expiring already. you have extended it in the city of austin, which means evictions and moratoriums cannot -- you still have a moratorium on evicted people? >> that's correct. just extended that until the end of september. it was necessary to do because people are still out of work. >> yes. that's correct. we'll have to discuss that on a national level as well.

mayor adler, good to see you as always. over the next six days, the legend day life of john lewis will be celebrated. starting today a service remembering the boy from troy, he was from troy, alabama. it begins at 11:00 a.m. the late congressman will lie in repose. tomorrow john lewis' body will be taken across the edmund pe pettus bridge. as we go to break, i will leave you with this quote. release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. release all bitterness. release all bitterness ♪we ain't stoppin' believe me♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪ ♪won't wait♪ ♪we're taking everything we wanted♪ ♪we can do it ♪all strength, no sweat when you think of a bank, you think of people in a place.

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for $20. i got these three suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. . abraham lincoln described america's government as being of the people, by the people and for the people. but the federal government today, the parts we can see in portland, oregon doesn't look like a government of the people or one for the people. one cannot witness federal agents in portland and arrive at any conclusion other than what our federal government is doing is both wrong and unconstitutional. even parts of the government seem to know it's wrong. the department of justice's inspector general is investigating the agency's own response. when we see governments around the world express dissent or opposition most of us are

universally critical of it. the first amendment of the constitution prevents the government from prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of the people peacefully to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. that is the right to protest. for the government to ignore those words or to bend them so that the presence of federal troops at demonstrations are seen as necessary to counter the proportionately small examples of violence or destruction of property points us collectively down a road to authoritarianism. like a lazy weekend drive, the road to authoritarianism is slow. the bends are almost inperceptible. authoritarianism doesn't just happen. laws are ignored, norms are set aside. they el tell us it's about publ safety, good order. those words and the things happening in portland portend a slide away from democracy and

towards fascism in this country. it is illiberal, anti-american and it should trouble us all deeply. protest is the tool of the voiceless literally because a single voice is hard to hear. but the voices of dozens gets media coverage. the voices of hundreds gets the attention of the powerful. the voices of us thats gets laws change. the thousands of tens of thousands change the world. protest is how we got america in the first place. without protest america would be a british colony, there would still be slaves, women still wouldn't be able to vote and you could be fired because you love someone of the same gender or someone of a different race. protest, whatever side of the issue you are on, is something our government of the people should protect. america has done so grudgingly in the past. during the march from selma to montgomery in 1965. the issue being protested should not change your view of the

sanctity of protest. protest is the sound of democracy out in the streets of america. that we can protest without fear of harassment and without fear of arrest and detention should be celebrated, encouraged and protected by the government of the united states of america. the it sure can.in bed? yeah, for sure. thanks, boys. what about that? uhh, yep! it can? yeah, even that! i would very much like to see that. me too. introducing new tide power pods. one up the toughest stains with 50% more cleaning power than liquid detergent. any further questions? uh uh! nope! one up the power of liquid with new tide power pods.

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i just talked about the importance of protests and the disturbing actions of our federal government in trying to suppress that. let's look at what happened last night when peaceful protests in portland quickly escalated. fireworks were set off towards the courthouse minutes before tear gas was deployed on proteste protesters. the clashes continued with federal agents exiting the building firing pepper balls and more tear gas. mara bennett talked to one protester. >> the commander in chief as it stands, he's way out of line.

your duty is to protect and serve those of this country. you're fighting against those who live and who are members of this country. so as of last night i'm denou e denouncing my membership, it's right here. i am no longer a trump supporter. >> wow. here to discuss the assault on our democracy further is former u.s. attorney joyce vance. she has a new piece titled trump's use of federal agents in portland may go beyond what is lawful. here's how we can get answers on what is going on. also with me is clint watts, fellow at the foreign policy research institute. he's the author of "messing with the enemy." clint began his fbi career in port laland portland, oregon.

joyce vance, the attorney general of oregon filed suit against the federal government and that suit was dismissed yesterday. the argument was that the state did not prove that it had standing in this matter. for people like me, people watching this who have copies of the constitution, the first amendment seems to protect peoples right to protest. i wouldn't have guessed that the state of oregon would need to have standing in this, but this is what those of us who are not lawyers don't understand. >> standing is a technical legal issue in every lawsuit. you have to be properly classified under the law in order to bring a lawsuit preparing claims like the state of of gon dregon did here. i would not be unduly distressed by this dismissal. i suspect we'll see others step up with plaintiffs who have proper standing and these claim also proceed in federal court. this is just a little bump in the road. >> clint, there's a separate issue here, i want to speak to

you about this because you're a former fbi agent. there was a navy veteran who went up to talk to some of the people there and say this is not what you signed up for. you didn't sign up as federal agents of the united states to tear gas and pepper spray protesters. he didn't get a chance to, they beat him. we saw the video on tv. they broke his arm and his wrist in doing so. but there is something here. as fbi -- former fbi -- sorry, current fbi, current dhs, current cbp officers get deployed to other cities in america, there may be a moment of reckoning here for people to say this is not part of the deal. >> yeah, it's a really strange period. first off, these individuals deployed by dhs are not trained usually to deal with protests. it's a totally different environment. that's why we have state and local law enforcement. that's why we bring in federal response. we saw in d.c. the military take a hit, right, for their

deployment to d.c., being seen as inside the united states. what was the other resource that was left? trump always turns to the dhs when he wants to get something done. he sort of forces them into this. what we'll see is these institutions are sullied in the process of what is a political maneuver. the ability of the public to trust and the department of ohm land security is essential. it's homeland security. it's protect and serve. that's what the job of the agency is. as you see the cities and states push back, you could see limits of power. these are things we have fought for at other times. you could see a break down of the federal system and people who joined these staugs instito enforce the law say i'm not here to fight a protest. >> federal power is one that is usually trumpeted by conservatives and my friends who are big proponents of the second

amendment. i'm not hearing those voices as clearly. people coming out to say this is not the role of the federal government. i have spoken to a number of united states senators this week who are party to a bill to limit federal authority in doing things like this in states and in municipalities. but it should be fairly clear in the constitution, this is not allowed. >> we seem to be upside down right now because the voices you would expect to hear speaking out, the states rights voices have been completely silent in the face of this. and it's important for us not to overreact. i find it easy to look at pictures in portland and to have an emotional response, but we do need to remember, it's poignant this weekend as john lewis' body goes across the bridge in selma one last time, makes the trip from selma, alabama to montgomery, alabama that there is a scope for federal

enforcement and we want to preserve that ability but it only works if we can have faith in our institutions. if we believe our institutions are protecting and serving us. if we believe that law enforcement is acting within the constraints of the constitution. these principles of federalism, they're not just words on paper. they are real principles that reflect the american way of life, that have permitted us to live with such freedom and with the ability in every generation to expand that freedom, to enhance our vision of who should have a role in this country. so letting that get frittered away in the political service of this president is dangerous and i think it's important that people stay vigilant, as you say we protect that first amendment right to peaceably assemble and to protest. >> and tom ridge, clint, who was the first dhs secretary, former governor of pennsylvania said this week, he said he wouldn't allow this on his watch as governor and certainly not as

department of homeland security. the dhs was founded in 2002 in response to the fact that the cia and the fbi did not coordinate particularly well on the things that led up to 9/11 and had they done so it might have been -- it might have been prevented. the idea is to protect the homeland generally speaking from foreign actors or from terrorists. the danger in federal officers turning american protesters into something akin to terrorists or as the president calls them anarchists, that's dangerous. you as fbi agents learn that there is a constitution and you are there to protect it. >> that's right. it's just coming at a strange time when the dhs has other critical responsibilities they need to be focusing on, response to the pandemic would be a big one. election defense also falls under dhs. we need them to secure those electoral systems for the vote at a time of crisis when people

can't necessarily make it to the polls. look at all of this put together, i think any american would say if there's a crime violated they should be arrested and prosecuted, but that's not what is happening here. if this is deploying dhs to reduce crime in america why aren't we talking about st. louis, missouri or memphis, tennessee, where we could go and implement this. part of the reason we know this is a political stunt it is being pushed in a liberal/conservative way. if you want to get the folks at dhs, the fbi and all of criminal justice behind it, do a coordinated plan, state, local, federal, all working to reduce crime in a targeted way and focus on those cities that have a problem. i tell all the viewers out there, go look at the crime rate of portland, oregon versus

soluti st. louis, missouri, with you don't need this happening in portland, oregon. >> president trump is illustrating a number of cities being on fire and out of control. none of that is true. thanks to both of you. joyce vance, former united states attorney in alabama, clint watts an msnbc national security analyst. if you have been watching political ads you can tell some republicans have hit their limit. the never trumps at the lincoln project are fighting to kick trump out of office. i will speak with the group's co-founder next. the one and only rachel mad maddow will join me tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. to mark 100 days until the election. join us, our special coverage gets under way tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. eastern on "velshi."

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this is how it starts. without a warning or a warrant, heavily armed paramilitary units shove their targets into unmarked vans and race away. they fire on protesters with gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets. when the protesters put their hands in the air, they're assaulted with clubs and fists. this is how it starts. faceless enforcers say you don't have the right to protest. now trump's bureaucrats are promising to send their thugs everywhere. your town. your neighborhood. this is how it starts and how freedom dies. >> that was part of a political ad released this week by the lincoln project, a group of never trump republicans supporting joe biden in the upcoming election. the ad showcases the president's dissent into complete authoritarianism after dispatching federal agents to u.s. cities without the consent

from state or municipal leaders. the administration is doing so it says in a sway to spur crime in certain areas, but will these ads change the mind of some conservative voters or give an off-ramp to those too disgusted to vote for the president. i spoke about trump's fox news interview and the five words that were difficult to remember. and they tweeted back at me a new t-shirt idea. the montreal cognitive assessment is meant to detect alzheimer's or dementia. >> and so my fellow americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> person, woman, man, camera,

tv. if you get it in order, you get extra points. >> joining me now is rick wilson, co-founder of the lincoln project and a former republican political strategist. he's the author of a book titled "running against the devil." rick, thank you for being here. i've been looking for a conservative to talk about the fact that the things that donald trump is doing and arguably the things he's been doing for 3 1/2 years, but right now, the things he's doing should tear apart the heart of conservatives who believe in states rights, believe in smaller government and believe that the federal government should not be overreaching and believe in the first amendment of the constitution of the united states. >> the idea of constitutional feeli itity as an element of

conservativism in this country has been thrown out the window. donald trump is engaged in armored forces into the streets of our country not to engage in domestic law enforcement but to engage in a political prank meant to fire up his base. this is a -- this is a departure from constitutional conservat e conservativism, the scope of which can almost not be exaggerated. he is putting armed people into the streets at the orders of bill barr, who is acting like a third world interior minister because he is looking for a way to revive his political fortunes. it is such a departure from any kind of conservative principle that it shocks the -- it would shock the conscious of anyone who had one left in the conservative movement. >> in normal times you and i could have a reasonable debate if we were deploying federal forces to deal with crime in a city. there are reasonable people who would say that's not fair, there are reasonable people who say that is fair and helpful. but that is not what this is. this is entirely misdirected.

the president is criminalizing protests. you and i think are both on the same side of the issue, we protest protests in this country no matter what people are protesting, even if you don't agree with them. >> the founders viewed the first amendment as something so vital and we don't have to love the content of a protest to understand that its maintenance and allowing it to happen, even if it comes up to the edge sometimes is fundamental to american freedoms. because the minute the trump folks who are cheering about this, who think this is the greatest thing since prepared mustard, the minute this thing -- if it was flipped back on them did -- let me say this, if obama deployed forces to any city in this country, there would be impeachment hearings 24/7 from republicans in congress. one thing i think really -- it's

a false choice, they say you either want these anarchists to burn down the courthouse or beat protesters. that's a false choice. there's ways to manage these problems. there's ways to protect federal facilities. if people are engaged in violence or law breaking on either side of the equation, they need to be held accountable. >> but that's not happening. but i do appreciate you making a reference to prepared mustard. i think it's very good. rick, good to see you as always. rick wilson is the co-founder of the lincoln project and the author of "running against the devil." covid-19 changed the landscape of our democracy. voting in november is unchartered territory. i spoke to a diverse group of voters in the swing state of pennsylvania about that and the state of american politics, we'll have that for you tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. eastern. here's a preview. >> i just have been so disappointed with what's going on in this country for the last

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it's changed the way we vote and more americans casting more absentee ballots and multiple states moving towards mail-in voting. one place that would be closely watched this fall is the battleground state of pennsylvania. donald trump beat hillary clinton by less than a percentage point to win the keystone state in 2016. a new fox poll gives the native son, joe biden, he is from skra scranton, an 11-point advantage over donald trump. this year the state had its first presidential primary in which pennsylvanians could take advantage of no-excuse mail-in voting, which is the way it should be, and many of them did. the state says nearly 1.5 million voters cast an bency or mail-in ballots in the june primary compared with 84,000 back in 2016. that helped lead to a long wait for all the votes to be counted and that creates questions about what we can expect to see this fall. joining us now to take a closer look is kim wehle, professor of law from the university of baltimore and the author of a new book, which i think you know

i like, "what you need to know about voting and why." if you have gifts or occasions coming up, get this for people. this is really important. also joining us, democratic national committee chair tom perez. thank you both for being here. tom, let me start with you on the larger issue of donald trump going out of his way daily in tweets, in announcements, in press conferences to already delegitimize mail-in voting. he said this will be the most fraudulent election we'll see. he told chris wallace a week ago he's not committing to the results of the election. tell me how you think about this and deal with it >> vote by mail is safe, secure, it's been used with great success across the country. donald trump votes by mail. most of his cabinet votes by mail. across this country, ali, you mentioned we're 101 days until the election. actually voting starts september

14th in arizona. voting starts in about six weeks in north carolina. and we understand that. what we want to make sure happens this november is that people have choice. it's really important to make sure people have choice. person, we need to make sure they can vote in person. people who want to vote early, the more you maximize early voting then you can minimize lines and you can be consistent with social distancing principles. and then, of course, no excuse absentee. you mentioned pennsylvania. we have other states that are doing the same. and what we've been doing is working vigilantly to build out the most aggressive, expansive voter protection infrastructure that we've ever seen not only at the democratic party, but in the democratic ecosystem. we understand what donald trump is trying to do. and here's the drill. it's not working. it's not working because people understand vote by mail is easy,

it is safe. they've been doing it in florida for some time. they've been doing it across the country for some time. and what we will continue to do is educate voters, organize. the reason we were able to win the primary in wisconsin in april is because we ran a really aggressive campaign. so success for vote by mail involves organizationing. >> yeah. >> and it involves continuing to sue. it involves making sure that people know the rules of engagement. pennsylvania has a new set of rules of engagement, and we need to do more and we are doing a remarkable number of things to make sure people are prepared and can exercise those rights to vote. but we have to have choice for voters. that's critical. >> kim, here's the one issue. i've talked to a lot of people who participated in protests and they're really into the protests, and more than a few of them told me they're not that into vote negligent believe in the concept of the protest here

and my response has generally been, just find one person and explain to them what the new rules of engagement are. the problem is we've got 50 different rules of engagement in america, they are all a little different. what is the most crucial thing people need to know about this election is? we think it's about who you're voting for, but it's actually about how you're voting. >> it's a number of things. one is we are voting in november not just for the president, but for democracy itself. you have guessed this morning talk about the slip into authoritarianism under this president. number two, we do have a safe system of voting. mail-in balloting has worked in a number of states, five states almost exclusively. however, states are strapped for money. it's hard to get volunteers to man the polls. they don't have the expertise across the board in mail-in voting. so there will be things that slip through the cracks and people need, as tom perez mentioned, to think about voting

now. we need to order your mail-in voting, your mail-in ballot now, need to register now. make sure you're registered even if you believe you're registered, and follow the directions very carefully. we saw in california, we saw in pennsylvania, ballots -- mail-in ballots that weren't counted because the signature wasn't where it needed to be or it wasn't -- the ballot was not post marked on time. and we're going to see soon millions of americans potentially become evicted. that's another complicating factor that, you know, 20 million people without an address could make things even more complicated. we're adding to that the difficulty in voting. i believe this has to be something every single person needs to take into their own hands. we see there is government that is going to make every possible effort, professionals on the front lines of democracy at the ballot box every year, but this year is particularly crucial in a pandemic. vote by mail. if that doesn't happen, prepare to vote early. states are going early voting.

and if that can't work for you, show up on voting day with your hand sanitizer and your mask and if they try to turn you away, ask for provisional ballot. and as you indicate, ali, i agree, get one person to join you in they've for the. we have approximately 50% of eligible voters who vote in america and the knight foundation in january did a study. the number one obstacle is apathy. the belief that your vote doesn't matter. we saw this in the civil rights movement. people like mlk marching that message for politicians to pay attention to these issues. the way that implaments inement policy is a one step two step, you have to do the follow-up to the vote on the process. >> tom, how are you preparing for the idea that donald trump says he is not committing to accepting the outcome of the election on the night of november 3rd and it may be several more nights because we've got mail-in voting. donald trump, you know what he's

going to do. he's going to delegitimize the results. how are you going tonight? >> our battlefield continues to increase. it's important to take a look at the last three years. i know we've had challenges, but the last three years, 17, 18, 19 and the 2020 primary have in common we've seen lights out turn out in the democrats. south carolina, kentucky, louisiana last year. democrats are motivated. our battleground continues to increase. voters understand that our democracy is on the ballot. we have a president who's the most dangerous president in american history and we have a candidate in joe biden who is the perfect candidate to meet the moment. a candidate who understands the struggles of the american people. and joe biden has attracted a remarkably do diverse away of supporters. so the best antidote to all this

fear mongering from donald trump is for us to turn out, to turn out in force like we have done in the primaries. that's exactly what we're doing in the democratic party. this is another weekend of action where we are going across the country in these critical battleground states. we take nothing for granted. we're organizing everywhere. and voters understand that this president has put their lives at risk, he's put their jobs at risk, he has upended the guardrails of democracy. and what i think the best thing that we can do as democrats, independents, former party of lincoln republicans is come out, vote in force. we've already seen that. and that's exactly what this weekend of action and every weekend of action -- we got 15 sundays until the election. we are not wasting a moment. and i'm very proud of the team we've built, the partnership we have with the biden campaign. and joe biden is, indeed, the person for the moment.

we can't lose sight of the lights out turnout we've seen. we tend to allow this president to try to distract us. in 2018, it was the caravans. this year it's all of the -- it's portland, it's trying to distract us from this. folks, he's trying to distract us because he's chronically ineffective and we will send a very strong message on november the 3rd and before by early voting and we will take the democracy of our country back. >> thanks to both of you for being with us this morning. kim, the author of what you need to know about voting and why. tom perez, the chair of the dnc. coming up, we'll discuss donald trump's federal agents descending on cities like portland. "velshi" continues in a moment. portland. "velshi" continues in a moment. lease the 2020 es 350 for $359 a month for 36 months.

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