florida's emergency department as well. thank you, sir. thanks for your expertise. we got through it without an audio glitch. that wraps it up for me this hour. my colleagues are going to pick things up right now. good day. brian williams here with you on a friday afternoon. 3:00 hour in the east. 12:00 noon out west. nicolle wallace, thankfully, will be here with us momentarily. we want to begin with a look at the major stories we are following at this hour as part of our live coverage. the coronavirus took the lives of yet another 1,400 souls yesterday. that is the equivalent to an american dieing every minute now. the number of americans infected by the virus passed 4.5 million with roughly half a million cases reported in just these past eight days in our country. those dire numbers come as three members of the white house coronavirus task force appeared before a house panel focusing on

the response to this pandemic. dr. fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said he is optimistic we will see a vaccine at some point soon. >> as i have said often and i will repeat it for the record now, there's never a guarantee you will get a safe and effective vaccine. from everything we have seen in the animal data as well as the early human data, we feel cautiously optimistic we will have a vaccine by the end of the year and as we go into 2021. >> that would be nice. while there may be optimism on capitol hill over a vaccine, there is plenty of miss mpessip.

congress left for a break. all of this as the weather is having an impact on efforts to fight the coronavirus in florida, which, of course, is one of the major epicenters in our country. hurricane isaias is expected to reach florida this weekend after battering puerto rico and the dr. the looming storm has forced authorities to close outdoor testing sites in miami and other areas. with those facilities not expected to reopen until at some point next week. with that as the backdrop, i'm joined by my friend and colleague nicolle wallace. nicole, the loss of an american roughly every minute. that ought to personalize this story for people who may be still in denial or think we are getting on top of this. >> i think it does for the vast majority of americans. i think that's why donald trump sees every plunging poll

numbers. what's remarkable to me is that the front pages of all three major newspapers today has reporting and graphic depictions of the economic carnage as well. it's a known that trump isn't capable of feeling anyone's pain. the economy is someone he found himself to have some ability to impact. felt pride in it. he is now sitting up in the residence live tweeting a congressional hearing about his own incompetence instead of convening his economic advisers and do something about the economic pain on top of the human suffering from the virus. it's a stunning, stunning, stunning state of affairs. i know i say that all the time. he has given us another exhibit. >> you mentioned that hearing. we showed a bit of fauci's testimony. we heard testimony today

additionally from dr. redfield, the head of the cdc and admiral girard, the de facto head of government for our government. what was it like up there? >> unlike a lot of congressional hearings, we learned some useful things in this hearing today. we heard from dr. fauci disputing the president's claims about more testing being the cause of more cases in the u.s. he pointed to the approaches that the united states and countries in europe had that our shutdowns in the u.s. amounted to 50%. we were never able to return to a low baseline like we saw in europe. he took questions about hydroxychloroquine and said if he had seen evidence it worked, he would be among the loudest cheerleaders for it. he has to keep telling people that it's not effective. we heard from all of the public health experts who testified today about that vaccine. i think laying the groundwork for something that's going to continue to be an important

story into the fall and spring potentially of next year, depending on when a vaccine is available, that the speed at which they are developing it they say is not involved cutting any corners on safety. it's a function of improvements in technology and the vast resources that they are pouring into trying to get this up to scale. there are a lot of questions about reopening schools and whether or not that can be done safely. i think that's going to continue to be a driving topic as we proceed into the fall. the performative aspects notwithstanding. i can add in terms of the relief package, just now learning as of a few minutes ago that nancy pelosi, chuck schumer and the negotiators from the white house, the chief of staff and treasury secretary, will be back at it tomorrow morning around 9:00. no word on who is bringing the doughnuts. >> garrett haake, thank you. joining our conversation, two good friends of the show.

white house reporter john than lamiere and kimberly atkins. both msnbc contributors. jonathan, the president really not a a bidie abiding by when ya hole, stop digging. he was rebuked by figures across the spectrum of his critics from the right to the left for suggesting that an election be delayed. by the end of the day, a lot of people concluded he was throwing his own sort of shiny object into the arena to distract from the catastrophic economic news and the ever declining poll numbers. the knews tod news he halted al advertising. what's going on? >> i think sometimes it's overstated the apresident's -- how calculated the president is when he does try to distract. this is a case where it was

definitely intentioned. the president looking at the very grim economic numbers. this is not something he talked about with the campaign. there was not a plan behind this. we know that he has, of course, been sowing a lot of doubt about the election in the fall. even though he can't change the election date, even though he was reprimanded by democrats and republicans alike. it's part of his plan, including the attacks on the mail-in voting, questions whether states are able to handle this, alleging voter fraud. it's part of an effort to muddy the waters especially if we may not have a -- know who the winner is because of how slow the vote totaling is going to be. that's another thing he is leaning into to cause chaos that

he can muddy the waters on this. one thing that is striking is the -- he was privately, according to our reporting, told by republicans that by calling attention to this, suggesting there's voter fraud, he is signaling he knows he is losing and that potentially could be damaging for republicans in their ability to hold on to the senate. that's partially why we have seen last night and again today, including a tweet that came a few seconds ago, message from the president talking about how well he is doing as he is trying to change the narrative a little bit. the campaign says the advertising pause is that. they are trying to retool their message, distribute better. it's a lot of unfocused, worry for a campaign losing and has less than 100 days to turn it around. >> kimberly, they might rethink the five words as a sign he is all there. i think him knowing ez lo iningg is a marker. i want to show you a clip that is remarkable for the absurdyab

of the questions and watch him talk about it. >> there are those that say you can test too much. you know that? >> who says that? >> read the books. read the books. >> what books? >> let me explain. >> does anyone think that he read any manuals or books about coronavirus? >> i think that those are the same sources of the polling that he likes to cite that shows him ahead right now in the election when just about every other public available poll shows him behind, even in crucial swing states. this is what the president does. he digs into his own narrative, even when there is nothing there to support it. even more concerning is that you see some people from the

campaign continuing to dig into that narrative as well. of course, today we had experts on capitol hill talking about the advancements that have been made in trying to fight the coronavirus. really, not all of them werecop and problems we have had. we have seen mechlz congremberss pushing toward opening schools knowing we do not have testing capacity in order to reopen schools in a lot of places safely. myself, i looked into trying to get tested so i can visit family. wait times for results are upwards of seven days which rendered those tests useless. that's not where we should be five months into this pandemic. the president keeps trying to find positive spin to put on this, even when he has to make up the data. the reality is on the ground that's why we see parents and local officials really wary to open up schools.

there's a new headline about a school system that will probably not reopen fully in the fall. this is happening in places like boston and elsewhere. >> kim, now that you are an editorial type, thinking and writing deep thoughts and no longer on the daily grind of deadline journalism, i will give you one. is this the era of impunity? i'm speaking specifically about the fact that the u.s. senate -- those who could travel left town thursday night to get their long weekend in. we have this ongoing story about the supplemental payments that expire effective today for people with the same hopes and dreams but unimaginable financial problems compared to the 100 members of the senate. >> yeah. i think it can be called malpractice, frankly, for this. we know that these unemployment

benefits, these -- this emergency help that was extended to americans kept upwards of 10 million people out of poverty. it kept them in their homes. it kept them from losing everything in many cases. nobody who is employed on capitol hill is in that position. but due to political maneuvering or lack thereof, they left town and left these people as of today without that life line. particularly republicans who tout the importance of the economy so much. it is really hard to see how they expect that economy to stay afloat, an economy that depends so much on consumers to do so if consumer pockets are bare because they lost their jobs and no longer have assistance to keep from losing everything. i would call it malpractice. >> jonathan, mindful we have a

white house veteran in nicole as part of the conversation and mindful of the number of white house norms that this white house has not followed, i note the president's tweet you mentioned about how well he is doing in rasmussen. we have ever reason to believe they are doing the same internal white house or party polling that other white houses in recent history have done. we have every reason to believe this president knows the score in reality. right? >> this say president who carefully tracks his poll numbers. let's recall that during the 2016 campaign when he was leading in the polls, he would recite them every night. he is not doing that besides the occasional tweet about rasmussen. the campaign has previewed some of the numbers to reporters in recent days. they acknowledge, despite what the president says, the campaign

acknowledges they are losing. their line is that it's closer than the public polling would suggest. they are only down a handful of points in most of the key battlegrounds that will decide the election. we saw some of that in public polling the last day or so. gaps by a point or two instead of eight or nine in arizona. he is still losing. they feel like they have time to make it up. the biden campaign doesn't want to be overconfident. they recognize there's twists and turns ahead. they also believe they are winning. certainly, the president is within striking distance. it is harder to see him complete that comeback if the economy -- if the economic recovery falters. certainly, what we have seen the last few days, a very worrisome data suggesting it might as coronavirus cases continue to surge in the southwest and southeast. now we have new hot spots emerging. i was at the white house when they talked about how states on the radar are the midwest, ohio,

indiana, wisconsin, colorado. these are the ones that they are concerned about. a number of those are the swing states that are going to decide this election. the president says privately to his associate, i have time to turn this around. remember in 2016, it was late breaking events that propelled me to victory. that's true. that is hard to count on for happening again. with the rise in early voting, even if there are late breaking events in october, a lot of americans have cast their ballots long before then. >> wishing two friends of ours a good summer weekend, if such a thing is possible during a pandemic. jonathan, kimberly, thank you for being a part of our live conversation this friday afternoon. we wrap up the week. a break in our coverage, another move raising fears of

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"the washington post" reporting the department of homeland security has been compiling intelligence reports on american journalists covering the recent civil unrest in portland. keep in mind, the department of homeland security was created back in '02 after 9/11 as a way to protect the american people from future terrorist attacks on our soil. the report goes on to read in part, we quote, over the past

week the department's office of intelligence and analysis has disseminated three open source intelligence reports to federal law enforcement agents summarizing tweets written by two journalists, a"the new york editor and chief of law fair and noting they published leaked unclassified documents about dhs operations in portland. according to "the washington post," acting dhs secretary ordered the intelligence office to stop compiling intelligence reports on journalists after the report was published. joining our conversation is congressman max rose from new york. he is a member of the house homeland security committee. he is an active national guardsman who served nearly five years in the u.s. army and was a platoon leader in afghanistan. i worked in the press operations of the white house when homeland security was created. tom ridge was the first homeland

security adviser before there was a department. if we compiled intel on journalists covering the agency, then congressman waxman would have hauled us up to congress with our attorneys and there would have been hell to pay. what can you do -- this would appear that dls only stopped the practice because they got caught. that's why they are targeting the journalists that reported on unclassified documents. what can you do that would hold what would appear to be an out of control agency at least to the norms and laws as we know them? >> you are 100% right. they have to be held accountable. when you consider the role and function of law enforcement, of which dls falls under the umbrella of, they have three roles and functions. the first is public safety. the second is upholding law and the constitution. the third is maintaining the

trust of the community. they have utterly failed. it takes quite a lot for the secretary of homeland security to admit a mistake, to admit fault. even he has done this in this regard. we're not going to let up. we're going to get to the bottom of how this happen and who ordered it. we also can't look at this in a silo. for months and months, i have been trying to get this very same office in dhs to look into far right extremism, to look into extremism across the political spectrum, both at home and abroad. and they don't act with any sense of urgency around that. when it comes to reporters here at home, just doing their job, they do this. when it comes to russian bounties on u.s. soldiers, they ignore it. when it comes to people adhering and upholding and exercising their constitutional rights here at home, they act as if they are the enemy. the world has turned upside down.

we have got to act and hold them accountable for that. >> you led me to two of the topics i wanted to ask about. let me start with russian bounty reporting. "the new york times" broke the story more than a month ago. in an interview with jonathan swan, donald trump said it out loud. i didn't raise it with vladimir putin. not only did he not raise it, not only did he not say the intel was in my pdb and shame on me for not reading it, but he said, so what. >> yeah. i think he has in this one regard dishonored his title as commander in chief. russia has been using asymmetric warfare to endanger our soldiers in afghanistan and potentially in other nations as well. it is the commander in chief's responsibility to protect them.

when our soldiers sign on the dotted line to enlist in the military -- i swore that oath more than a decade ago -- we also make a promise to them that we are going to have their back, have their backs with resources but also have their back with strategies. i am dumfounded -- i think the american people are dumfounded as well that this administration, this president continually decides to take the side of russia. again, as i said before, don't look at this in a silo. you have to couple this with takinggermany,footsie with nato inviting them back into the g8. we are treating them like a friend who can be appeased. for this reason, i believe russia -- the state department should label russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. that's a bipartisan effort un r underway in the house and senate to push them to do so.

>> congressman, domestically, let's talk about these militarized feds that we have seen in portland. it's going to be a long, hot summer. we could see them in the streets of other cities as well. you would be forgiven for thinking that they were your brothers and sisters in camo as part of overseas dismounted infantry the way they present, their markings, the way they are outfitted for what looks like urban combat. this goes back to what is supposed to be the role of dhs and these vague law enforcement people who, again, look for all the world like overseas dismounted u.s. army infantry. >> sure. they have the same responsibilities as i would attribute to other law enforcement. again, public safety but also constitutional rights and

earning people's trust. you think about when i was a platoon leader in afghanistan. we were thinking about the same things as you go from village to village to village. how do you make sure people trust you enough to give you intelligence, trust you enough so as to not engage in attacks upon you? under no circumstances would i ever take the side of an aarc annarcists. if dls is hs is going to be on ground, they should not make this worse. that's what they are doing. they can be partners with law enforcement. we have seen that before. it seems in this odd moment in our nation's history, that that's their goal, to make it worse, to keep this as a moment of divisiveness where we are being ripped apart rather than

coming together to figure out how we can solve these incredibly difficult problems that we have ignored for all too long. >> from the halls of congress, new york city democratic congressman max rose has been our guest live. thank you very much for taking part in our discussion. when we come back, florida is about to find out what texas just went through. what happens at the unique intersection of a pandemic and an approaching hurricane. hike!

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