♪ welcome to a very busy tuesday afternoon, particularly on the east coast, it's meet the press daily i'm chuck todd. this afternoon the death toll from covid in the united states

150,000 dead. it comes the day after president trump shared a video on social media falsely claiming there is a cure available for this disease. there is not. the video also claimed americans don't need to wear masks to slow the spread of the virus. every other study says they do. in just a few moment the president is scheduled to hold another coronavirus briefing at the white house and we expect he'll be asked about the other developing story in washington, because much of the day has been dominated by attorney general bill barr and first sworn testimony in front of this democratic controlled house judiciary committee, the same committee that held him in contempt last year. there's a number of headlines we'll get to, perhaps the biggest take away how partisan the attorney general appears. after watching barr spar with

democrats it at that peers the nation's chief law enforcement officer has embraced his roll of partisan warrior on behalf of the president. he didn't make many attempts to create independence. it was evident on issue after issue, especially when viewed side-by-side with the president's recent partisa partisan complaints. >> frankly roger stone was treated very unfair on this. >> do you think it's fair for a 67-year-old man to be sent to prison for seven to nine years. >> the unmasking is a massive -- a massive thing. it's -- i just got a list -- it's -- it's -- who can believe a thing like this. >> i ask another u.s. attorney to look into the issue of unmasking because of the high number of unmasking and some do not readily appear to have been in the line of normal business.

>> and watch, please, those mail-in ballots, you're going to watch that for me because, you know, they have a lot of problems all over the country. >> do you believe as attorney general of the united states that mail-in voting will lead to massive voter fraud? >> i think there's a high risk it will. >> the obama administration made a decision on testing, that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing. >> the problem with the testing system was a function of president obama's mishandling of the cdc and his efforts toent s is -- centralize everything in the cdc -- >> thank you, mr. barr. >> why are african-americans still dieing at the hands of law enforcement in this country? >> so are white people. so are white people. what a terrible question to ask, so are white people. more white people by the way, more white people. >> the number of unarmed black men killed by police this year

is eight, the number of unarmed white men killed by police in the same period of time is 11. >> what is worth -- >> for what it's worth on some of those things, you heard the percentage back-and-forth when it comes to black and whites and the percentage of the population. on the cdc testing, just a reminder, president obama stopped being president january 20, 2017. so whatever it was, there's been at least three years the trump administration has been in charge of the cdc. joining us now justice correspondent pete williams and with us from capitol hill our colleagues at the white house. pete, i want to start with you, and that's sort of what i was surprised -- maybe i shouldn't be surprised but it seemed as if bill barr gave all benefit of the doubt to any republican questioner who may have over- -- gone over their skis. at one point one member of congress said this extortion

scheme with michael flynn and barr would say i haven't come to the same conclusion as you have. a democrat misspoke he quickly tried to correct the record. he didn't seem to go out of his way to make it hard to criticize him for being partisan. >> there were a few times i noted it was a little surprising but other times he did depart from the president. the president said he didn't think roger stone should have been prosecuted that he was a victim of the muller investigation gone rogue. and bill barr thought the stone process kugsz -- prosecution was a righteous one, and that he serve time in prison just not what the original prosecutored recommended and he departed company by say he didn't he didn't think there was sign the 2020 election would be rigged

and also talked about russia did try it interfere with the last election. there were times he disagreed or departed company with the president but there were times he seemed to go out of his way on things outside of his lane to praise the president's efforts, for example in fighting the pandemic. >> did he just sort of view this as -- here's what it looked like to me, i'm curious, you've known him pay long time, pete, he just say look i'm going to good get beat up by the democrats, i'll take it because it's the only time i'm going to go up here this year and tomorrow i don't have to deal with this. it felt like he was trying to get an annoyance out of the way. am i overstating things? >> you know, these hearings tend to be like that. a lot of people are saying this is the worse they've ever seen. i think the one with eric holder couple years ago was even worse, it got very personal and very

testy between the attorney general and some members of the committee. so these hearings tend to be like that, especially when whoever is the party in control hectors the witness without much time to answer. clearly they wanted the question that barr has been the enabler in chief in the justice department. i think the message barr wanted on the question of use of force in portland that the federal agents are not there to try to do anything with peaceful protests, it's the people magazine people people it's the people violentlied attacking federal officers and trying to set fire to the courthouse that's why they're there, if the portland police would step up and help we could back off. >> what was each side's strategy going in, and how do they think they did? >> for democrats, pete laid it

out a little bit, they wanted no daylight between the attorney general and president. the problem is the democrats wanted the hearing for more than a year and finally got it and the number of issues had piled up to a point it was impossible to focus on any one issue so you saw a very political exercise, essentially consequence-free for barr showing he is in lock step with the president. and they had other key points, the point on roger stone for example that attorney general barr had not intervened on any other sentencing other than on roger stone. and i think democrats feel happy that they were able to shed lights on issues it didn't appear the attorney general was particularly interested in addressing, like system iks eickhoff -- systemic -- -- systemic -- they felt they were able to score points off him.

although this is going to be a hearing generating more heat than light. on an teefa, you felt it was designed to buttress the president's focus on those issues, starting with the eight or nine minute video showing various scenes of riot with reporters on the front end talking about peaceful protest. they were trying to paint a picture of america that the president has been trying to paint. i haven't heard from republicans afterwards to the degree in which they felt successful but for the democrats i think they got what they expected out of the attorney general, whether there's anything that comes of it when we wake up tomorrow is a whole other question. >> yeah, that's a fair point. whatever we saw today is something we're going to see in direct mail pieces, campaign rhetoric, on debate stages, i

don't know if it leads to any sort of form, capitol hill leading to justice or whatever on that front. i'd like to look forward here to a few minutes, this is the president's first is briefing that's scheduled to be about the virus since he went on a tweet tirade over the last few days to seem to under mine all of the good will they were attempting to get the president to buy last week on the virus when it came to masks and things like that. what should we expect this afternoon? >> well, i mean, officials in the white house were definitely sighing over this retweet storm that the president went on, especially as in recent days as they see infections surging in so many places, not just florida and californians and texas's of the country but also ohio and indiana flashing kwarning signs there -- warning signs there.

there's efforts about masks, social distancing, don't go out to bars, big emphasis on that, and despite the white house doing interviews the president is the loudest one of all. so that type of retweet storm overnight where he shares a video that suggests you don't even need to wear a mask because hydroxychloroquine is a cure and i shouldn't even say suggest but it actually does say you don't have to wear a mask because hydroxychloroquine is a cure that completely under cuts these efforts. i was just talking to a senior administration official few moments ago who said, you know, they just continue to try and emphasize to to the president he has to stay focused and stay on message, coming from jarrod kushner and mark meadows and top campaign advisors, stay focused and on message and that will get you through this.

as we've seen three you this presidency whether it's his lawyers or public health officials telling him what he needs to say he doesn't follow that advice. certainly 100% or even 50% of the time. so we'll hear what side of the messaging equation he falls on when he comes out in a few minutes here. >> right and how much clean up he feels -- that they've convinced him he has to do. thank you both for getting us started on the barr front. we're going to have shannon stand by as we wait for the president, could be any minute. but want to two to our three legal experts including former general council for fbi part of the muller team and former actist and lawful professor and former u.s. attorney. attorney

gentlemen, let me play a couple clips from the hearings, exchanged between nadler and barr. the point nadler is getting at is barr is a political aid, if you will. take a listen. >> have you discussed the president's reelection campaign with the president or with any white house official? >> i'm not going to get into my discussions with the president. >> have you discussed that topic with him yes or no. >> not in relation to this program. >> i didn't ask that. >> i'm a member of the cabinet, there's an election going on -- >> so yes. >> well the topic comes up in cabinet meetings and other things, shouldn't be a surprise, it's the topicic of the election. >> in connection with your discussion with the president and others around him of his reelection campaign have you discussed the current or future

deployment of federal law enforcement. >> i'm not going to get into my discussion with the president but i've made it clear i would like to pick the cities based on law enforcement kneeled and -- >> you can't tell me what you discussed. >> no i'm not going to discuss what i discussed with the president. >> i want to start with this, what i found interesting, early on the attorney general knew what nadler was asking and knew where nadler was going and chose to make nadler work at it and leave the impression, hey, maybe i am, maybe i'm not, you don't get to know. it seemed to set the tone for this hearing. thoughts? >> yeah that's the ag's style in large part. he likes to be combative. he like to the give as good as it gets. there was probably a more easier and correct and appropriate answer from the chief law enforcement officer of the united states he just wasn't going there, as you said, and kind of egged nadler on.

and it was that way all day long. i think with respect to the ag today, as long as he was talking about d.o.j.'s federal law enforcement effort with respect to protests around the country, he was comfortable, that's a battle he likes to fight. when he's talking about gwynn and colin and stone and issues that's indefensible he's on the defensive and uncomfortable so he tried to steer it back to what he thinks is an issue where reasonable minds can differ. >> kneel, neil, what do el, neild . >> -- >> neal, what do you think of that take. he had a more well-thought out defense on portland and slipped on other topic. >> yeah i don't think much of it was well-thought out, chuck. what trump has done to the presidency today's hearing shows

barr did the same to the attorney general. he came across so partisan across a range of issues and the united states attorney general is supposed to be above all that. right before the clip you played, nadler called barr waging a war against the court's professional quorum and you don't hear the response to that. i think the hearing today showed barr sided with the president at least as much as fox news, if not more, on roger stone, which is one of the examples pete gave. he said it was a righteous prosecution at one point but barr let it stand and one time he intervened ever on a sentencing, brought in with representative swallow was in this case, stone and rutledge, the president aes friend. so i profoundly disagree with

that. >> if we spent a long time assessing these folk's ability, are they any good in a courtroom, can they elisionit information. -- elicit information. i thought eric swallow is one of the few he solicited an interesting line of questioning, he set up the predicate. if you pardon someone in exchange for x. he set it up. anyone else effective. >> swallow in terms of mechanics did a really good job. you have to remember this is unlike a courtroom people are acting within a five-minute time frame. this is really not set up to get the best answers, but i thought representative j paul did a terrific job in showing this sort of what i call opportunistic federalism where

they are perfectly happy have, you know latter -- unilateral action in portland but when it comes to michigan white supremacy, saying they can handle it on their own. i thought one representative did phenomenal job cornering the general, what came out was a false statement, he said you said in a press conference that the white house fully cooperated in the muller investigation and the attorney general would not repeat that under oath. he said, no, no, what i really meant was fully cooperated only with respect to document production. i went back to look at the statement from the attorney general that's not true, he said with respect to documents and witnesses. so i think there's a number of people who within a very limited time frame that they were given did a good job.

>> let me get at the morale issue since you're all justice department veterans. greg, let me start with you, the questioning on the removal of u.s. attorneys, i thought demmings said something interesting, i solved a lot of crimes looking at patterns of practice and started looking at various u.s. attorneys that have been removed. what's your sense in what morale is like under barr's justice department. >> chuck, i don't think there's any doubt that moral is low, indeed, very low. i speak to fbi officials and u.s. attorneys on the field on a regular basis and even those who are inclined to be supportive, namely the u.s. attorneys that have been appointed by this president to some extent are scratching their heads on a daily basis in terms of what is coming out named

justice. so the real work of the department gets done every day, agents are doing their work. lawyers are doing the work. important work is getting done but with a lot of bewilderment about what is happening in washington and i think with some anticipation of a change come january and i just don't -- you know, i'm a three-time veteran of the department and never seen anything quite like this. >> right. you know, before i get to you neal, i want to play the doug lags mcarthur spot. to say that this had to do with the photo op, i don't mean to analogyize this to a military operation buts akin to saying -- >> oh, all right, oh, well. >> today, my administration has taken a momentous step towards achieving american pharmaceutical independence,

very, very big, big step. a focus of our campaign to bring america's critical supply chains and medical manufacturing back to the usa. we've been working on this for a long time. this is a i core of our strategy to protect our people from the horrible china virus. should have never happened. should have never been here. they should have stopped it. in the decades before i took office nations were allowed to freely plunderer our factories, loot our industries, and take our business out of the united states. millions of jobs were vacuumed out, just taken out so easily. our politicians let that happen. and our communities were stripped and chipped in many cases to china and countries all over the world. nearly four years ago we launched a bold effort to revitalize american manufacturer

and act fair trade deals to bring industries back home where they belong. when the china virus landed on our shores it became clearer than ever before that restoring american manufacturing is a core matter of national security. we must never be reliant on a foreign nation for america's medical or other needs, that includes many other needs. i just want to say that pfizer just announced a little while ago that they're combining phase two and phase three trials and the vaccine looks like it's really heading in a very rapid and positive direction, first time that's happened, and they're many months ahead of any other trial. there's never been anything like it. it's the fastest ever and to me it's very exciting. to me i'm proud to announce one of the most important deals in the history of u.s. pharmaceutic industries. my administration has reached a

historic agreement with a great american company. you remember this company, it's called from the good old camera age, the old days, to begin producing critical pharmaceutical ingredients. it's called kodak, and it's going to be right here in america. i want to congratulate the people in kodak. they've been working very hard. members of my administration are present in rochester right now, rochester, new york, good place. they're trying to findize this ground-breaking deal. i want to thank governor cuomo and representatives. we've worked together on this great deal for new york and great deal for kodak. 90% of all prescriptions written in the united states are for generic drugs. we have approved more generic drugs than any other administration by far. generic drugs can be just as good as the brand names but cost

much less. yet in less than 10% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed to make these drugs, currently manufacturer in america more than 50%, however, are made in india and china. and you'll be seeing a lot of things happen, it's been happening, but it's happening at a more rapid pace right now. with this new agreement my administration is using the defense production act to provide $765 million loan to support the launch of kodak pharmaceuticals. such a great name. was one of the great brands in the world and then people went digital and kodak didn't follow but now under very extraordinary leadership they're following and doing something in a different field, a field they've really hired some of the best people in the world to be taking care of that company and watching that

company, watching over it. but it's a break through in bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the united states. under this contract our 33rd use of the defense production act, remember you were saying i didn't use it enough, i didn't use it enough, now you heard, it's it's the 33rd use. we don't talk about it all the time. we used it. and we used it as a little bit of a threat, frankly, with certain companies that weren't doing as we asked them to do and came through as both a threat and usage. but there's a 33rd use of the defense production act. kodak will now produce generic, active, pharmaceutical ingredients. it's a big deal. using advanced manufacturing techniques, kodak will also make the key starting materials that are the building blocks for many drugs in a manner that is cost competitive and environmentally safe. we'll be competitive with almost all countries and soon with all

countries. once this new division is fully operational, in addition to the other plants we've opened with other companies throughout the united states recently, it will produce as much as 25% of all active ingredients needed to make generic drugs in the usa. it's a big number. 25%. this agreement will directly create 360 new jobs at kodak's factory in rochester, that's just in the initial phase, and in minneapolis, a place i've gotten to know very well and it's a great place and i'm happy to help them with their recent problems, national guard i want to thank the national guard both state and beyond, i want to thank them, they went in and did some beautiful job. they cleaned it up. you don't hear about the problems any more. and indirectly we created thousands more jobs all across our pharmaceutical supply

chains. we've now been building a very big pharmaceutical supply chain. want to thank peter and adam for their tremendous work to make this deal possible. today's action is our latest step to build the greatest medical arsenal in history. we'll be able to do that through the defense production act and other authorities. we have invested more than $3 billion in our nation's industrial base. we've contracted with companies such as ford, general motors, phillips and general electrics to produce more than 200,000 ventilators by then end of this year, nearly 7 times more than a typical year. we've contracted with hon well, 3m. o & m. mode eck. liddell. to increase production of n95

masks and brought it from less than 40 million a month to over 100 million a month by august and 160 million a month in a short while. that's many times what we used to do. if you go back two years ago, many, many times. we're increasing domestic production of gloves by 1,000%. that's one thousand percent. we'll be manufacturing 450 million gloves annually by next year. we're working with textile industry to make american fabulous makes a lot -- makes a- fabric. we have 13 million reusable gowns in the stock pile and will continue to grow that number to 72 million this fall. which is a rapid escalation indeed. we made major investments in new rapid point of care tests.

so we have -- there's nothing like the rapid point, where you get your answer in five minutes to 15 minutes to maybe 25 minutes at the max. and we're already at about a 50% level and we're bringing it up very substantially. from there we're growing domestic production from less than 50,000 test kits per month in may to 8 million test kits per month. there's nothing like this that's ever taken place anywhere in the world or close. through our partnership with puritan manufacturing in the state of maine. great state. we've increased production from test swabs from 30 million per month in june to 60 million per month. now as you remember i went to maine where they do this. it was incredible, a great experience. we'll produce over 100 million swabs by january. we dramatically ramped up production for materials needed

for vaccine and on track to rapidly produce 100 million doses as soon as a vaccine is approved which could be very, very soon. and 500 million doses shortly there after. we'll have 500 million dos. and logistically we're using our great military. a group of people. their whole life is based around logistics and bringing things to and from locations and they'll be able to take care of this locationally and bringing it where it has to go very, very quickly. they're all mobilized. it's been fully set up. a very, very talented general is in charge and when we have that vaccine it will be discharged and taken care of. it will be very rapid process all over the country. and perhaps we'll be supplying a lot of the vaccine to other parts of the world like we do with ventilators and other things that we all of a sudden have become very good at making.

when the china virus struck our nation we mobilized the government and private sector to acquire source and deliver life-saving supplies. hhs, fema and the private sector combined have coordinated the delivery of more than 196 million n95 rest separators. 815 million surgical masks 20 million gloves. 354 million gowns, that's a lot of gowns. last week fema completed a second shipment of personal protective equipment to over 15,000 nursing homes in the united states, our big focus has been on nursing homes and senior citizens, as you know, that's where we want to take care -- we have to take care of the most vulnerable. especially if they have a medical difficulty, a medical problem, in particular heart or diabetes, which provided a total of 1.2 million pairs of eye

wear. 14 million masks. 66 million pairs of gloves. and 13 million gowns. we have replenished the long-neglected national stock pile. in january the stockpile had 17.9 million n95 masks today over 50 million n95 masks and we'll be doubling that in a short period of time and then doubling that number. we've shipped more than 14,000 ventilators to needs across the country and more than 75,000 available to deploy. not a single american who has needed a ventilator has been denied a ventilator. if you remember early on when we were first hit with the virus the ventilators were hard to come by and now we're the largest maker by anyone in the world by far and we're fully

supplied and stocked and helping other nations, because ventilators are hard to build and hard to get. this is just the beginning. in the coming months will continue the largest on shoring campaign in american history. we'll bring back our jobs and make america the world's premier manufacturer supplier, it's happening right now and has been for quite some time. we're seeing improvements across major metro hot spots, looking at large portions of the country it's corona-free but we're watching very carefully, california, arizona, texas and most of florida, it's starting to head down in the right direction, and i think you will see it rapidly head down very soon. if you look, california, arizona, texas, and for the most part, most of florida, starting to head down. in the wake of the recent mask gatherings americans have witnessed in the streets of portland and seattle we're also

tracking a significant rise in cases in both metropolitan areas because of what's been going on. and we, as you know, have done an excellent job of watching over portland and watching our courthouse where they wanted to burn it down, they're nothing short of anarchists and agitat r agitators and beef protected it i -- we've protected it very powerfully. we didn't go there you'd have a billion dollar burned down building. we're working with the alaska americans and native communities. under c.a.r.e.s. act provided $8 billion to address the tribal communities who are very vulnerable to this horrible plague. it's the largest investment in inlandian country in u.s. history, there's never been an

investment that big in indian country. we need every american to prevent the spread of the disease. even though younger americans are at low risk, in fact some age groups are at extraordinary low risk, they can unknowingly spread the virus to others who are at higher risk. i ask all americans regardless of background or age to practice social distancing which people have got very used to but we have to keep doing it. remain vigilant about hygiene. avoid indoor gatherings, large gatherings, especially indoors, especially where you have crowded bars, and that you wear a mask whenever appropriate. through the genius of our scientists and devotion of our doctors, skill of our workers and dedication of our people we'll achieve victory over the virus and emerge stronger than ever before. we're looking at a very powerful

year next year economically, the job numbers will set records. retail sales came in two weeks ago at the highest number of in history of our country so we look like we're heading to very, very good economic times, that means, jobs, stock market is doing very well, it's getting to a point very close to what it was when we were hit with the plague. so i just want to thank everybody for being here. steve, please go ahead. >> could you clarify you're acceptance speech from public nomination will you give the speech here or somewhere else? >> we'll be doing the speech on thursday, the main speech, the primary speech. charlotte will be doing nominating on monday. that's a different thing happening. but they'll be doing nominations on monday. i speak on thursday.

>> from where? >> we'll be announcing it soon. >> so you could be going to charlotte? >> anybody have any ideas? we'll be announcing it very soon. >> mr. president, the negotiations are ongoing right now for the next relief measures, senate republicans have support their plan, do you support what senate republicans put forth and aspects you don't support. >> yeah there are actually, and we'll be talking about it. there's also things i very much support. but we'll be negotiating. it's sort of semi-irrelevant because the democrats come with their needs and asks and republican goes with theirs. so we'll be discussing it with mitch and all of the other people involved. kevin's been very active, as you know. all of the people involved, steve has been doing a great job, keeps everybody together, both democrat and republican. we'll see. we want to do what's best for

the people. i want to do what's best for the people. i want to do what's best for the economy. because that means jobs and lots of good things, all right. >> mr. president, two questions. first, can you clarify your position on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine after you retweeted a video making claims it is effective -- >> it's recommendation of many other people, including doctors. many doctors think it is extremely successful, the hydroxychloroquine. coupled with the zinc and azithromyc azithromycin. i happen to have taken it for 14-day period and i'm here. i happen to think it works in

the early stages. frontline medical people believe that too, some, many. so we'll take a look at it. one thing we know it's been out a long time, that particular formula and that's essentially what it is, the pill, it's been for malaria, lupus and other things. it's safe. it doesn't cause problems. i had no problem. i had absolutely no problem. felt no different. didn't feel good, bad or indifferent and i tested. as you know, it didn't get me. and it's not going to hopefully hurt anybody. so we know from that stand -- because it's been so many years, from a safety standpoint it's safe. i happen to think, based on what i read, i read a lot about hydroxychloroquine, i happen to think it has an impact especially in early years. there was very good tests, ford. the doctor from yale came up with a very, very strong

testament to it. there was a large group yesterday that were put on the internet, for some reason the internet wanted to take them off. i guess twitter took them off. i think facebook took them off. i don't know why. i think they're very respected doctors. there was a woman who was spectacular in her statements about it that she's had tremendous success with it and they took her off. i don't know why they took her off. maybe they had a good reason, maybe not, i don't know. i can only say from my standpoint and based on a lot of reading and lot of knowledge about it i think it could have a very positive impact in the early stages. and i don't think you lose anything by doing it, other than politically it doesn't seem to be too popular, you know why, because i recommend it. when i recommend something they like to say don't use it. john, please. >> on that note, mr. president, last night tweets deleted by

twitter, you said dr. fauci misled the country about hydroxychloroquine, how so? >> no, not at all. i don't even know what his stance is on it. he was at the task force meeting a little while ago. i have a very good relationship with dr. fauci. it's interesting, we've listened to dr. fauci, i haven't always agreed with him, that's pretty standard, that's okay. he did not want us to ban our -- to put up the ban to china when china was heavily infected very badly, wuhan he didn't want to do that and i did. i did and it saved steps and thousands of lives. it's interesting he has a very good approval rating. i luke that. it's good it's goo -- i like that. it's good.

because remember he's working with this administration. we could have gotten other people, didn't have to be dr. fauci, he's working with our administration and for the most part we've done pretty much what he and dr. birx who are terrific recommended. and he has a high approval rating so why don't i have a high approval rating with respect to the virus. it should be very high. we just read off about the masks and gowns and vent lators, and testing, 55 million tests, we tested more than anybody in the world. i have a graph, perhaps you've seen it, we're up here and the rest of the world is down at a level just a tiny fraction of what we've done in terms of testing. so it sort of is curious. a man works for us, with us, very closely, dr. fauci and dr. birx, they're highly thought of but nobody likes me.

it can only be my personality. go ahead. >> also, dhs announced it will have a thorough review of the daca program whether to continue it or not. you mentioned after the supreme court ruling about daca you were thinking about path to citizenship for daca -- >> we're going to work with a lot of people on daca and we're legislation working on an legisla -- also working on an immigration bill, merit-based system, what i wanted a long time. it was an interesting decision because it gave the president as a president more power than many thought the president had. so the president is you know, which happens to be me, in a position i can do an immigration bill and health care bill and other bills. you've seen some of them come along. we're going to do tremendous -- just signed it three days ago -- tremendous prescription drug price reductions, tremendous,

over 50%. i mean, it's tremendous numbers we're talking about. you go to some countries and they'll sell like a pill for 10 cents and in the united states it costs $2. and it's the same basic factory, it's the same everything. the united states bears the cost of all of these low prices that you see all over the world where people go to canada to buy prescription drug from the united states, not going to happen with me. it's not going to happen with me. so, john, i think one of the exciting things got very little coverage but that's okay, the people understand it. i think we'll be reducing prescription drug prices by massive amounts, numbers that have never been done before. another thing, in 51 years, last year drug prices came down, first time in 51 years that they came down. now, with what i signed last week i think that drug prices

can come down by numbers of 50% and greater in some instances. >> are you still considering path for citizenship for daca -- >> we're going to make daca people happy and we're going to end up with a fantastic merit-based immigration system. please? >> yeah, on the drug pricing you said pharmaceutical representatives would be here for a meeting to talk about bringing drug prices down or negotiation that meeting was cancelled, why? >> i didn't know -- >> you said there would be a meeting today with drug companies. >> well, i said there would be a meeting, yeah, some time this week. yeah they want to meet. i didn't know it was cancelled. they want to meet. i thought the meeting was actually scheduled for tomorrow. >> we will see, i guess. >> i see how upset you are by it.

go ahead bloomberg, you look like mr. bloomberg, go ahead. >> thank you, mr. president, talking about the supplemental employment aide if the deal hashed out by congress isn't completed by the end of the week -- >> we'll do something. we're going to take care of the people. good question. we'll take care of the people. >> last night you said masks don't work and there's cure for covid-19, doctors saying it's not true and a video saying -- aliens --? >> i can tell you this. she was on air along with many other doctors. they were big fans of hydroxychloroquine. and i thought she was very impressive in the sense that from where she came, i don't know which country she comes from, she said she has had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients and i thought her voice was an

important voice but i know nothing about her. go ahead? >> [ overlapping speakers ] >> okay. thank you very much everybody. [ overlapping speakers ] >> all right. well, we just heard the president there get through a lengthy defense of the retweeting controversy that we were discussing before the beginning of this. but we've got to start with an important fact-check. on the issue of hydroxychloroquine. i believe the doctor who is with us, it feels as if the president said it was safe. i just want to read a summary, doctor, of what the fda has said on this and then i'll let you go further. summary of the fda review of safety injuries the use of hydroxychloroquine -- is now available -- ow availabl

didder, didder, doctor, forget the debate whether it works or not, the president indicated there's no harm in taking this. and it seems as if, no, no, no, there is harm in this. and i wanted to get at that first. what else should viewers know about what the president said or shouldn't have said? >> so, chuck, great point on that data the fda revoked revocation of the use authorization. one thing i want to point out is

the president said why does dr. fauci have a high rating, and i don't. when fauci didn't have the information on the mask then we saw evolution and science that a-symptomatic spread, people can spread this without symptoms, dr. fauci changed his recommendation. here we now have hydroxychloroquine there are some promise early on based on animal data maybe there might be efficacy since then we have a randomized control trial not good for those exposed, not good for out patients, another from thousands in the uk, early and late hospitalized patients showing it is not effective and it also causes all of the hardaway you mentioned. here's where we reflect on the data that exists. next we got to looknd change our recommendation that's what the fda and has done and majority of the practicing physicians in the

united states have done. they do not prescribe this for covid-19 any more. >> glad you talked about the president's complaint about dr. fauci's rating and his. he said the quiet part out loud vups -- obviously on that froob front. want to talk about p kodak, the company that would work on the vaccine. let me ask. we heard pfizer is combining phase two and phase three, that that's good news, that's what the president said. is there any concerns about speeding up phase two and phase three trials on something like this? >> chuck, well, actually, it's often done in other settings as well. ebola saw the similar combination. what you're doing is in phase two you're taking a smaller group of people, vaccinating them and mounting a response

they want and test for safety and then transition bunch of those people and include more people to look at a larger group and test whether that vaccine actually protects. it's not that part. it's whether or not phase two or three combined is long enough to capture that data about whether or not the vaccine can be productive and whether we get any signals about whether in that larger group that the vaccine remains safe. i wouldn't be as concerned about that. one thing i'd say is that i actually personally that it's good we're using the defense production act to repateate american production because we're clearly not keeping up with the supply. when talking about the fact we put this into place but we see these now looking at the end of fall or beginning of next year we'll see the results of this one blunders, if we had done this in april would we be in the

place year in currently. now that we're here isn't the best strategy while waiting for things to kick in to continue to curb the disease intervention which is masks, the cheapest best way, that's why everyone's talking about it. >> wonder when we will get the faster more reliable test. where's all of that? where are the reagents using the dpa for. there's a lot of questions. i want to get to the political side of things. shannon, we previewed what happened over the weekend and sure enough this feels as if whatever good will the president's adviseors thought he might have bought last week to show he's got his arms around this virus, i mean, this wasn't the bleach moment, but again he is prescribing something his own fda said don't do it. >> interesting thing here is that there's a real sense of urgency among people in the administration to get out the public health message, the

masks, the social distancing, the avoid large crowds, don't go to bars. there are people in this administration who believe if we want to get out of this situation we're in and have schools open and sports back, we have to get that message out. here you have the president with a press conference on cable news and viewed many police stations with any police stations with -- and viewed many places with the opportunity to get that message out and he did, this is a rare time he said those things, wear masks, practice social distancing, he got into that for maybe 15 to 30 seconds of this. as soon as he was off the prepared remarks he doubled down on the tweets about hydroxychloroquine, he actually went out of his way to elevate this doctor in this controversial video and called her very impressive. my colleagues have done research into her background. she's talked about how demons can cause illness and how alien

dna is used in medical treatments. this is the type of doctor whose message is he is elevating and spiraling off to other issues, like his approval rating not as good as dr. fauci, which has nothing to do with the administration's message but all of the things the country is trying to get ourselves out of that pandemic. >> speaking of that message and prepared marks the president read at the beginning, i want to focus on the us of the defense production act and my head scratching, there's a lot of focus on all of the ways the government is standing up to get this vaccine up and running and we know the more he talks about the vaccine i get that from a political message standpoint but do we know why the dpa isn't used to improve the repa issue

to get tests faster or figure how to produce abbott test quicker and better, i know abbott has money to advertise on nats games but what about getting this test available for everybody faster. what's their hesitant using the dpa for this? >> i don't have a great answer for that but my colleague and i were talking to administration official couple hours ago and asked that very question because that official was talking about how they're trying to speed up production of these rapid tests and acknowledging what a problem it is when you have to wait six to ten days to get results. we asked why not use the defense production act and they pivoted to talking about all of the other times the defense production act has been used like we heard the president talk about today. i don't know the answer yes but when we ask it we don't get a clear response when it comes specifically to getting more rapid tests out there.

that definitely remains a question. >> doctor, look, we're civilians here, shannon and i, we're not in the medical community, is it in your mind realistic that the defense production act could be used to make these abbott tests more widely available, is that your understanding what you thought this might happen in an emergency like we're facing right now? >> well, chuck, i think in an emergency, even though we need to get on the other side of the crisis, it's necessary, that's making abbott tests as a marker because they can turn around the tests fast as they can. also direct to consumer technologies. you're seeing really cheap ones that would be at least good enough if it was positive you would know you would have to stay home. what about investing in those technologies. there's a plan for rapid

acceleration for diagnosists to identify all these technologies. next move would be for the administration to stay laser focused on all those things to move forward as well. one thing i want to reflect on, end of june, 150,000 people have died, covid-19 is now the fifth leading cause of death, it passed stroke. more than twice the number of people died of covid than in the vietnam war that are american. we need to find a solution. >> it's an important point, shannon, let me close with that with you, and curiosity, the president i don't think mentioned the death toll, we hit another grim milestone today. i know he wants to fast forward through this part of this crisis. he said very good economic times are coming. that seemed like a promise he's not going to be able to keep but i guess is a reminder where his head is at. what's the best explanation for

some of these decisions, not to talk about the death toll as the doctor pointed out, here we are in the end of july and those are some sobering statistics, he didn't want to touch them. and then, hey, good economic times are coming. are you sure? what are you promising? what are you selling? >> i think that is also what's being reflected in these poll numbers. i know my colleagues and i have asked the white house many times and asked the president will there be a national day of mourning for the people who are lost or any action taken to acknowledge losses, whether it's at the 60,000 or 100,000 mark. we keep asking these questions, we don't get a response. obviously the white house has yet to do anything like that and of course there's the poll numbers reflecting that the president is in a different place than the country. and while he continues to maintain he wants to put a

positive spin on things he says he's an optimistic person when it comes to the economy and talking about the vaccine, so many people have experienced this firsthand and obviously lost relatives and jobs and so many aspects of their lives and the president can't change the reality that people are facing. >> very quickly, on the negotiations for coronavirus relief, as the president was talking, i got in my inbox a release from senator ben sass republican from nebraska who basically accused steve mnuchin of being a big government democrat and can't trust him and pelosi. to me it feels we're at open warfare with the republican party and administration over the size of this package. >> it seemed over the weekend the two sides had come together but it is now starting to seem

like mcconnell and mnuchin want to make it seem they came to a deal but there's a lot of dissent. there's also a punish for fbi building to be put in there, going to be a big non-starter. >> really appreciate you both being here to help give sort of the facts that got missing in that briefing. that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back with more "meet the press" tomorrow. "the beat" starts right now. ari, one thing we can say is at least i'm handing you the bat yoonl on time. >> sometimes it all works out like that. thank you. good to see you, sir. welcome to this broadcast of the beat. we begin with breaking news. attorney general bill barr taking the stand, that he resist ed and delayed many months . this is the first time mr. barr ever