life much harder for millions of working class americans. new information on what's being done on capitol hill at this hour to help. they came, they partied. they got covid. now a state that flattened the curve is trying to keep the numbers from spiking again. plus, what's behind the president's promise to ban tiktok? but we begin with this breaking news. millions are preparing for hurricane isaias as it approaches the united states. this morning, the category 1 hurricane made landfill on andros island in the bahamas flooding streets and destroying homes and killed at least two people in the dominican republic and it has caused millions in damage in puerto rico. on the mainland u.s. hurricane watches and warnings are in effect for parts of florida's east coast. rain bands are reaching florida right now, in fact, and a new tropical storm watch posted for parts of georgia. officials are urging all residents to complete all their preparations asap.

our nbc team is following the latest as it inches closer to the u.s. we'll begin right now with nbc's press pallone standing by for us in daytona beach, florida. things don't look bad now. beachgoers behind you. nice rolling gentle waves. are folks even preparing for this storm? >> reporter: hey, alex, sometimes you draw the short straw and sometimes you draw the long straw. i think i'm doing okay. live look at daytona beach. the world's most famous beach. locals tell me it's a lot quiet than it normally would be. whether it's because of the potential hurricane or covid, probably a little bit of both is what we've got going on here right now. it is absolutely gorgeous. picture perfect. low 90s. lots of humidity as you might expect. if they know point hurricane, they've said, oh, there is a hurricane coming.

this one popped up so fast they don't seem to be all that concerned about it. one guy who came by said we don't worry about category 1s. now, we can debate whether that's a good idea or not but right now the forecast is kind of showing that this area probably won't be very affect until tomorrow afternoon. they have time to prepare here. governor ron desantis has declared states of emergency in different parts of the state, especially east coast of florida. there are hurricane warnings up and down the east coast. if this area gets sideswiped or hit by this hurricane, right now in many areas, shelters are not opening. they don't think that's going to be necessary but the governor said that if anything changes, they can fix that in a hurry. they can get people into shelters. >> if you are ordered to evacuate, you know, please take it seriously and go. state of florida has helped and the counties have been involved in really having shelter options

in an era of covid-19 and so we have the noncongregant options available for people who may be experiencing covid-19 symptoms and a lot of that will be using hotels to be able to do that and that has been something that's been prepared for. >> reporter: now, alex, the big concern here especially in this part of florida's coastline, daytona beach, is the storm surge. some forecasts say that the surge can reach two to four feet at the height of the storm. right now you're looking at low tide. we're going to hit low tide in about 40 minutes here. high tide will come about 8:00 tonight, 7:30, 8:00 tonight but they'll really be watching it about 24 hours from then, that high tide tomorrow night when the storm is really hitting because if this boardwalk starts to get topped by water, then police say they would come in, they would close all of this down, alex. >> i am glad for to you have a

nice day at the beam for all those floridians enjoying daytona beach but we're seeing on a split screen a fair amount of high wind and much heavier waves. when you look at the turbulence, the red that's put there in that graphic and you see that thing is barreling towards the u.s., everybody needs to stay vigilant. thank you, chris, for that. meantime, everyone, more breaking news to share. negotiations are under way on capitol hill between top democrats and the trump administration after the $600 a week enhanced unemployment benefits expired. let's go to josh at his post at the white house. good day to you. tell me who is meeting and where things stand right now. >> reporter: alex, for the last three hours house speaker nancy pelosi has been huddled in her second floor office suite over at the capitol with senator minority leader chuck schumer as well as steven mnuchin and the white house chief of staff. s this they try to extend the

unemployment benefits that have expired. he said the trump administration is ready to headache a deal on behalf of the american people but heard from pelosi as she was heading into that meeting affirming that the democrats do not want a short-term deal of that's a reference to something the white house has been pushing where they want to extend these now expired unemployment benefits by one week to tide people over for a bit. democrats very concerned that if they agree to a short-term deal they're not going to have enough momentum and pressure to be able to then get a bigger deal that includes other things that democrats also want to see as they try to shore up this covid relief. just another reminder of the wide gulf still separating democrats and republicans as they try to come to some agreement on this. >> there is definitely a wide gulf. let me ask you something else, josh, with the development regarding retired lieutenant

current alexander vindman in the president's impeachment trial later fired by the white house, josh, he wrote an op-ed today in "the washington post." what's he saying in it? >> well, he is defending his decision to testify against the president as well as accusing president trump in no uncertain terms of retaliating against him for his decision to do so. you may remember lieutenant colonel vindman's testimony regarding that now infamous phone call between president trump and ukrainian president selenski. the alleged quid pro quo between the two and now vindman you may remember his testimony where he talked about he actually spoke directly to his father saying don't worry, dad. i'll be okay for telling the truth. he's now saying he stands behind that conviction but adding, i made the difficult decision to retire because a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by president trump

and his allies forever limited the progression of my military career. vindman saying he has never felt our nation's values under greater threat than they are right now. lieutenant colonel vindman joins a growing list of former national security officials in this administration who have come out to criticize the president and his handling of these issues including other people like john bolton and, of course, former defense secretary jim mattis. >> yeah, let me add the president's former fixer michael cohen. the word retaliation was used by a judge who said he should not be in prison and should be sent back home, interesting sort of the tenor of all this which permeates a lot of facets of this white house. thank you so much, josh. now the very latest on the coronavirus pandemic. a new cdc study shows children of all ages are susceptible to the virus and play an important role in transmission. the analysis details an outbreak at a camp in georgia last month where after less than a week together in close quarters, 260

staff and children tested positive and most of them were 17 and under. cdc says only staff members were required to wear masks. dr. anthony fauci expressing cautious optimism on the time line for a vaccine as he and other top government officials testified before congress. >> there's never a guarantee that you're going to get a safe and effective vaccine but from everything we've seen now in the animal data as well as the early human data, we feel cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year and as we go into 2021. so i don't think it's dreaming, congresswoman. i believe it's a reality. >> and california reaching a grim new milestone becoming the first state to reach half a million cases of coronavirus. more than 9,000 deaths reported in the golden state. nbc's scott cohn is at a testing site for us in san jose, california. scott, troubling and significant

this milestone here. what are you seeing there? >> it absolutely is troubling and significant. you're right, alex. this is what they're calling a pop-up testing site here in san jose in santa clara county that began treating patients back in january. demand is robust. people were lining up early this morning before the testing site opened a short time ago and what they're doing basically is giving people wristbands and a slot, a time slot to come back for further testing. but the question of getting these tests turned around is an iss issue. according to quest diagnostics which is one of the leading test kit manufacturers in the u.s., they say that demand for our molecular diagnose noic testing remains high as the virus has spread and persistent high demand has strained our testing capacity and extended delays for test results. the turnaround time as a result

average for reporting of test results is now now roughly one or two days for the priority 1 patients. that's people who are hospitalized or symptomatic health care workers essentially and seven days for all other patients. experts are saying those delays are a big problem. >> you need competent leadership and coordination. the president gave this to jared cu kushner in mid-march. we're five months later and still don't have adequate testing. that sin competence. you need to tell the testing companies that they need to beef up their activities, they wanted these tests, they're getting paid very handsomely, $100 a test. if they can't give results in 48 hours maybe we shouldn't pay for them. >> reporter: here in the state of california, governor newsom a couple of weeks ago said that they were changing the test

protocols to create this sort of tiered priority with the hospitalized patients taking the most priority and asymptomatic people coming in later. but clearly that creates all sorts of challenges just in terms of monitoring the progress of the disease but as we said, we hit this grim milestone now of 500,000 cases in california. >> scott, thank you so much from san jose. she squared off with attorney general william barr at that capitol hill hearing. in a moment i'll play some of the contentious exchange. you'll want to hear what she's saying about it today. i'm greg, i'm 68 years old. i do motivational speaking in addition to the substitute teaching. i honestly feel that that's my calling-- to give back to younger people. i think most adults will start realizing

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all right. we'll take you -- take a listen to nancy pelosi who is speaking on capitol hill. let's take a listen to what she is saying about another coronavirus relief bill. >> in order to meet the knees of their families. so it's very important for -- as we come to -- this is not a usual discussion because the urgency is so great. healthwise, financial healthwise and, again, the health of our democracy, because our elections will be affected by the coronavirus and we must address that. >> thank you, everybody. >> thank you. >> caught the tail end of that. very quickly got to the podium. of course, new york senator chuck schumer and nancy pelosi. as millions are preparing for hurricane isaias, we're going to talk about what's happening with that. it's approaching the united states right now and joining me is msnbc meteorologist janessa

webb. i understand we got an update. what did you find out? >> yeah, we're seeing the disorganization of isaias. it's making its way across the grand bahama but already seeing one landfill. the storm system is really running into some drier air so we're seeing the national hurricane center putting out another update and you can see it's inching closer to the east and that's really good news for south florida. but still very close, this is about a 20-mile difference across daytona and then it continues into sunday afternoon. still potentially a category 1 hurricane, but right now it's very disorganized and losing its force. now, look at another potential landfill for charleston, south carolina and then even monday into tuesday it will race up to the northeast from new york all the way to boston. we're really going to be watching that going into tuesday for your wednesday as well. so even though we're not going

to see landfill across miami, i know many people there on the beaches right now, the storm surge is really going to be an issue but still hurricane warnings in place across south florida as you said. they now extend into southeastern georgia. i think this will continue to make its way up the coast. >> okay. thank you so much. we'll keep a close eye on that with your help, janessa. once again we give you a look at capitol hill. you saw the end of a meeting at least part of it at least with the democrats and administration officials wrapping up attempting to strike some sort of a deal after the federal government's enhanced unemployment benefits expired last night. certainly a blow to the millions of americans who lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. joining me right now congresswoman mad lean dean, democrat from pennsylvania. she serves on the judiciary and financial services committees. i'm glad to have you here. thanks for joining me. as we understand it despite what we heard from nancy pelosi and

previously chuck schumer, democrats and administration officials seem to be world as part. do you expect both will come together and strike a deal? >> i certainly hope so. we're finishing yesterday with our work on capitol hill, but we are on call to come back at any time and i hope it's sooner rather than later. when you think about it, it was yesterday that the moratorium on evictions has expired as well as the federal unemployment compensation. i just don't understand how senate republicans can go home and not worry about the families that are going off a cliff, a financial cliff as we face this extraordinary pandemic over which we have no control. >> so i'm curious what the big sticking point is. is it the amount? is it $600 and if that's the case would compromise be better than nothing even a lower amount for those americans that right now will get nothing if this

doesn't get resolved? >> there's so much more in the package than unemployment compensation, but that is certainly a critical part. republicans had suggested maybe we should guarantee or provide 70% of a person's former income. these are millions of families out of work through no fault of their own. they don't have 70% expenses as a result of that. their rent didn't go down 30%. their mortgage didn't go down 30%. their food cost didn't go down, so i don't understand that kind of a notion. the other idea of giving sort of some short-term a couple of weeks, that's not how a federal government should respond in a pandemic. the house passed in may the heroes act that would have, of course, extended unemployment compensation, it would have included direct payments to families. i introduced a bill that payments for the people, after all, this should be about the people. direct cash to people continuing during this pandemic.

instead the republicans put forth little or nothing. the other thing that is in this bill, our bill that i hope will make sure we get across the finish line is the protection of our elections. we had $3.6 billion in the bill to protect our elections. mail-in ballots for people so that they can safely vote from home. there's an awful lot in here. support for the post office is critical. none of this is by accident that the administration and senate republicans are sitting on their hands, mitch mcconnell said let's wait and see when we passed the heroes act, that's his response, let's wait and see. here's what we see people going off a cliff because they don't have unemployment compensation and don't have protection from evictions. >> in terms of this conversation, we have to reference the president as you know who tweeted thursday about possibly delaying the november election. something that he does not have the power to do. it is something both democrats and republicans in congress have said no, they have shot that

down. why tweet it, is it a distraction or is he trying to sow the seeds of doubt on the validity of this election because he's worried he might lose? >> all of the above, alex. he's losing. he knows it. he's in a panic. he actually tweeted that the day we buried john lewis. imagine that, a civil rights hero, a hero for human rights, for people's rights, for voting rights. the president is in a panic because he knows he's losing. he's in a panic because he's also losing lives of american people, 155,000 americans are dead and he has failed to lead. so what does he do? sow confusion, sow doubt, sow fear. he's been incompetent. all he can do is strike out and use others around him like attorney general barr to sow doubt and to actually attack with pepper ball spray

protesters -- >> you mentioned attorney general barr. i want to play part -- pretty contentious exchange with him. it was about the use of chemicals to clear protesters in lafayette park before the president's photo-op. let's play that. >> when asked about the use of pepper bombs fired at americans in lafayette square you said, quote, no, there were no chemical irritants, pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. it's not chemical, quote. >> everything is chemical. i was referring to a dichotomy, a dichotomy in these things between chemical compounds and naturally occurring substances. >> attorney general, reclaiming my time. there are rules by which we operate here. i would ask you to respect them. >> so what was your takeaway from your questioning of the attorney general? did he contradict himself there? >> yes, and that was the theme of his testimony, you saw that

on i think it was "face the nation" he had said no chemicals were used. it's not chemical. i showed him the definition of what a pepper ball is. it is an instrument by which chemical irritants are deployed with blunt force trauma. so while his words said it's not chemical, he stood there and said, of course, it's chemical. everything is chemical. he did that over and over. claiming both sides or speaking out of both sides of his mouth. i don't know why he thinks that's effective and it's very puzzling for the top law enforcement officer of our country to be so imprecise. >> can i ask you what the big takeaway was from that hearing? and i don't want to put it in terms of did one side or the other win, did congress members that were asking questions win? did the attorney general win? it's not like that. there were a number of people with whom i spoke afterwards who said it was just kind of ugly on all sides. >> it was.

it was sad and it was ugly. and the behavior of the attorney general, the difficulty to get him to answer in a straight way, nobody won and what i think it revealed was the american people are losing. we are losing control over the rule of law. you know, at john lewis' funeral president barack obama spoke about democracy. that it's a precious and fragile thing. that it's something that needs tending to. that's what i think that hearing was about. we have to tend to our rule of law. we have to tend to our constitution. value it. uphold it preciously and those who do not must be put out of office. they are a danger to our democracy, to our live, our livelihoods and the life of our democracy. >> let me ask you one more question regarding louie gohmert who tested positive for coronavirus this week and he was seen around capitol hill almost immediately before coming forth with that news walk around with

a mask and fraternizing with other members of congress and the like. why is it that congress does not have a rapid testing system in place like the white house does? shouldn't it? >> you know, i've heard speaker pelosi speak about this and her point was that just to have rapid testing for us, members of congress, seems awfully inequitable. until we have rapid testing for everybody and i'm thinking of the staff who stand there all day long as we go in and out to vote, or we go in and out of committees. louie gohmert is just one of many irresponsible willfully ignorant members of the other side. take a look at that dais when we were in the hearings or the markups in judiciary with jim jordan, the ranking member sitting next to jerry nadler most of the time not wearing a mask for hours on hours, mr. johnson, the same thing, scoffing and holding up his cup

of coffee. my con stitt wants want serious lawmakers. my con stitt wants want people who will lead and protect others from the possibility of the spread. how this mask thing became an issue to the irresponsibility and to the lives, to the deaths of many americans, i will never understand. but we will hopefully get control over it because we'll do the right thing. we just need to do a measure of the right thing when other leaders fail to lead. >> sounds to me like your con stitt wants are ago asking the t questions. a spike in case, what caused an outbreak of coronavirus here in the northeast and a doctor's take on what could bring it all under control. rol.

a flood of house parties with covid-19 infections and one

cluster included almost three dozen lifeguards who appear to have caught it at house parties that were on the jersey shore where we find msnbc's cori coffin wearing a mask, i'm very glad to see, my friend as you always do responsibly. it seems to be younger people taking these risks. is this something officials can try to control? >> i think that is the big question that they're asking themselves at this point, alex. the first step is i'm trying to implore people, trying to show them the data, show them that it is in their best interest to continue to adhere to these guidelines and the last thing they want to do or second to last thing is roll back the easing of restrictions which they will do if they have to because the last thing they really want is the spike in cases. now, the update on the lifeguard cases we have just gotten the most recent numbers, 34 of those 35 lifeguards infected have recovered, we're told. one is still showing symptoms being monitored and the last reported case from that

particular cluster was on july 24th. i spoke with beachgoers out here about the recent spike in new jersey in general and right here on the coast. listen to what they had to say. >> i think that's kind of crazy to be honest. we've been pretty diligent at my house and stayed put and i think that people need to be careful. you know, i've seen people inside crowded areas inside homes is probably not the best thing or inside closed -- in a closed in area. the picture i saw of that house, i don't know where it was, 700 kids, that's just insane. >> i think you need to keep it to a minimum. you can't be having too many people because, you know, we had a birthday party but we kept it to a minimum and hand sanitizers everywhere and wipes and everything else we had. >> and, you know, that's kind of what is seems like a lot of folks are doing on this busy beach day. a surf competition you're seeing but for the most part we have seen people stay in their own

clusters they arrived in and practicing social distancing and that's even outside where cases actually have not been linked to clusters, rather inside parties, the one that the gentleman spoke about, that 700-person attended party that, one had to be broken up. that has since been traced back to several cases. airbnb now slapping 35 different listings with suspensions because of that and those latest numbers, i just want to put it in perry speck tiff for everyone. just to show you how serious this is for new jersey, the most recent report for yesterday was 700 new cases, 2500 in the last five days. at its lowest, alex, just 70 cases a day so it is concerning for sure. >> 700 people at a house party indoors makes so zero sense i can't go there. thank you so much. i appreciate that, cori coffin. joining me medical contributor dr. kavita patel. a quick question. we saw the graphic that cori

coffin put up that 35 lifeguard has contracted coronavirus. 34 of whom have recovered. is that part of the problem? that you see people of a certain age or maybe, you know, physical agility in good health, they might get the disease and some will, you know, many in those conditions, you know, will recover quickly. people say, eh? >> yeah, alex, you're absolutely correct, certainly the trend lately across the country has been younger people but do not make a mistake, younger people are also still being hospitalized at higher rates than average, so, yes, you're correct that, sure, you can have a good story where many recover, but here's the problem, alex, we have no idea how many of those people that were infected and recovered spread it to other people. in the state of new jersey we know that at least for every person infected they're infecting at least 1.4 other people, which is a bad sign.

>> too high. how can cities control things, though, like house parties where there are masses of numbers and things like people going to the beach although i will say behind cori it looked pretty good stacking their umbrellas together with a good six feet of distance apart >> that's the magic kind of question. what can we do? certainly the governor might take some drastic step has rolling back phases of re-opening but it feels like to penalize the state where a majority of people are trying to do the right thing is not what he or others want to do so i think you have to have policies in place whether it's rentals or vacation homes and honestly, alex, we're getting close to college, universities and schools re-opening and they are going to have to be vigilant even when they kind of have rules in the classroom of universities, they're going to have to make it pretty clear that any behavior that promotes

the kind of spread of a virus going to be taken seriously. >> as you well know a lot of these places scheduled to open, it's rather tenuous depending what happens the next couple of weeks. let me ask you about the summer camp we talked about where hundreds of kids at a georgia camp got infected with coronavirus. look, that camp, doctor, took precautions, it did not require, though, the campers to wear masks, they were singing, they are cheering. camp activity that helped the massive spread. do you think mandating masks alone would have helped these campers? is there data out there that shows that would have helped and that's needing to be applied for any students returning to classrooms in a few week there is now? >> yeah, alex, in the last several days we have new research that actually shows that even the younger children, zero to 5, 5 to 10 have a higher concentration of that viral genetic rna in their nose and

mouth and so that does lead one like myself to recommend that, yes, children can wear masks and certainly it's something that i feel like not only should it be a mandate but it does protect the workers too. so to me i agree with you, the doctor was trying to do everything possible, but when they don't have these restrictions or they don't have these mandates they can't enforce what is commonsense behavior. >> all right, let's hope folks are listening to you, msnbc medical contribute dr. kavita patel, thank you so much. new today big changes on the streets of portland. last night the 65th consecutive day of protest they were peaceful without any arrests and it comes after the federal government agreed to withdraw law enforcement officers from portland. but just weeks ago the president hinted that other cities like new york, philadelphia, detroit, baltimore could see more federal agents on their streets and in response, two top attorneys have penned an op-ed in "the washington post" entitled,

mr. president, stay out of our cities. joining me is the co-author and the state's attorney for baltimore city, mari lyn mosby. talk about the things that concern you most about what's been happening in portland. >> so, what we saw in portland was not only disturbing but it was un-american. the world witnessed in realtime protests and peaceful protesters. these weren't individuals committing acts of viets as they're being snatched away, detained in unmarked vehicles to undisclosed locations by people in militarized uniforms with these generic police badges jumping out of unmarked minivans that so so un-american. if they're federal agents as chad wolf indicated they were, they have a reasonable grounds to believe that a person was committing a felony, they would be able to arrest them. what we saw was that both federal agents were going well beyond this whole protecting federal property. they appeared to not only be

locally politicianing in violation of the tenth amendment of the constitution which is assigns police powers to local police and local prosecutors and states' rights but appear to violate the first amendment, constitutional rights of those that are peta peacefully professing as well as violation of the fourth amendment which is they -- there was no probably cause for any that were taking place. so we wrote this op-ed because we wanted to just assure the president, you know, it's an election season. three months before an election. if you come to baltimore with your militarized agents atta attacking citizens, arrests people illegally, kidnapping people then according to the tenth amendment we will have one standard of justice and prosecute you. >> what would that look like? you have then i guess local authorities prosecuting federal

authorizes? >> yes, i mean, in essence you break the law, we have the power to be able to prosecute you under state law. i'm not naive to think we would have any sort of cooperation with this administration but we could defer that prosecution until we do. we have the power to bring in witnesses and to subpoena witnesses to a grand jury. we would prosecute them the same way you prosecute anyone else that would attempt to assault and kidnap and detain people illegally. >> but, if you were to charge these agents, couldn't those charges be overruled? couldn't they just be tossed out bur -- by the federal government. >> they can make a motion to remove it but there are certain elements in which that would have to take place, right? we could still initial nate prosecution and that's what we intend to do. when we look at what's happening in this country, by this president, as i said, he's created this -- these vigilantes to go in here and in essence

assault citizens and it's not a crime problem as he's targeting majority black cities and democratic voting cities pretty much before on election, right? it's not a crime problem. it's a polling problem where he's trying to placate to his ra racist supporters and i won't be a part of that. the people of baltimore elected me to prosecute and hold one standard of justice regardless of race, religion and that's what i'll do. >> there were protests in all 50 states at one point under way certainly. but to your point the president certainly has a very long history of criticizing many cities including baltimore. you'll remember in 2019, i just have to read the quote because it's pretty horrible. he referred to it as a disgusting rad and rodent infested mess, the worst in the usa in a place where no human being would want to live. >> yeah. >> i think you live there quite nicely, by the way, just for the record.

why is he so focused and fixated on that city? >> so, the one thing i can just say to you is and i welcome federal sort of collaboration to combat crime but i do question the timing and motives of this president and his initiative. like you said last year he referred to our city as rat infested, baltimore's crime problem since the trump administration and now three months before his election he intends to send federal troops into baltimore and to democratic voting cities, that's not going to happen. one of the things i can say crime is and has been a problem in the city of baltimore but so is poverty, so is education, so is unemployment, so are the racially dissprart problems that the pandemic has exposed and systemic racism that are the root causes. if trump is serious about helping since his administration in baltimore, chicago, new york,

he would invest federal dollars and reducing racial disparity and help in education and employment. not assault and arrest those protesting in support of that type of investment. >> marilyn, thank you so much. president trump's smear campaign against the election. why it might be more reckless and dangerous than you think. erk how about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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i don't want to delay.

i want to have the election. but i also don't want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing. i don't want to see a crooked election. this election will be the most rigged election in history if that happen. >> president trump once again at the white house pushing his narrative on the november election with the prospect of greater mail-in voting and all came after he suggested covid-19 might prompt an election delay. joining me now senior political reporter for "the guardian" daniel strauss and msnbc political analyst zerlina maxwell. daniel, i'll start with you. is it about laying the grundwork to delegitimize the election were president trump to lose? can there be any other reason. >> look, there's no way that the president can delay the election. this is in the constitution. it's administered by congress and the states so there's no way he can say, i need the election

to be delayed. it's hard to say what his motive is here but he has expressed a range of arguments about the election cautionening -- cautionening it voting by mail is full of rearer and rife for fraud and those are suggest that he just wants to argue there are problems with the election and he won't accept the outcome if the outcome is not to his liking. >> yeah, and believe me he has said that in as many words with regard to previous interviews. zerlina, how crose sink might this be? both in terms of a constitutional sense and a practical sense? >> well, i think that's a good question, alex, there are two things i think about when i see the president saying this election is going to be rigged and that we may need to delay it. one, i think it's an admission on his part that he doesn't feel very confident that he's going to win this election. but the second piece of it is

that it's a threat because with the increase in mail-in balloting this november due to the covid pandemic, the delay in counting those ballots, he's setting us up for the november 4th through january 20th period for chaos and for disinformation and for an undermining in the integrity of the process and so i think that it's both a distraction but it's also a threat and he is admitting that he feels he's in a weak position but that means that we need to push for that $3.6 billion that's in the next package to secure the vote and ensure that people are able to have their mail-in ballots counted and they're able to submit them through the united states postal service which trump is also attacking and that that period post-election, they aren't able to manipulate the ability of those local election boards to count those ballots. >> yeah, i should say that's something you might have heard representative madeleine dean

saying that's something the democrats are not willing to compromise on all that money in order to ensure a fair and stable election. let's take a listen to what the american postal workers union said to chuck todd. >> most of the changes that made us scratch our head have been implemented in the last few weeks. there is a new postmaster general who came in and implemented some policies that can do nothing but delay and slow down the mail. it's fair to say that this administration has a written plan and proposal to privatize ie sell the public post office to private corporations. >> so, daniel, is this a willful act by the trump administration to try to slow the mail to create a situation that raises electoral questions or is that beyond a level of coordination? >> so, i mean it's a little unclear right now. this new postmaster general is a trump donor who has since he

came into the position been trying to streamline the organization and issued a set of orders that are meant to speed up the postal service and how posts -- post workers move mail but the problem with these new orders and directives is that they sometimes -- they could cause delays in sorting mail or receiving mail and that could affect the election. if there are a large amount of mail-in ballots which there probably will be, any delay could mean that some ballots aren't counted. and so it's just really suspect right now that a former trump donor who is in this position might do something that might reduce the number of mail-in ballots that are counted. >> daniel, i'm so sorry to interrupt. we want to go -- we're seeing treasury secretary steven mnuchin and mark meadows speaking following the negotiations to try to get money to those who need it.

another relief bill. take a listen. >> going to commit as much time as we possibly can and for every hour past the expiration for a couple of key provisions that happened yesterday, the time is ticking, the clock is ticking and we need to be expeditious in our negotiations and i think the secretary and i on behalf of the president are committed to do that. i know he's asking us to not relent in those negotiations until we figure out if we can get a deal or not. >> i would just say that the four of us also agree the education issue is something that's very timely, schools are opening, there are schools that want to open that will need more money for social distancing, ppe, so schools are also another important factor in this and as the chief said, we're not going to come back tomorrow only because we thought it would be productive to have the staff but we will be speaking to both the president on a regular basis and the staff on a regular basis and

as i said we'll be back here every day until we solve this. >> can you clarify what the white house position is on liability protection in this? is it a red line for you as it is for the -- >> leader mcconnell has made it clear it's a red line and he's the one that establishes what goes before his senate colleagues and he's made it very clear that liability protection will be in any bill that gets passed and we support that decision. >> can you ask, is mcconnell going to be involved in these suggest. >> mcconnell is very involved so we just updated his team. we'll be in touch with him later today. but, yes, let me be clear, both kevin mccarthy and mitch mcconnell are very involved in everything that we're doing, as i've made this constantly, mark and i are a team. we check with the president. there's nothing that we're doing that -- without the support of the president and we are fully

in touch with kevin and mitch. >> you said that the president was checking in almost hourly. >> well, obviously he didn't check in while i was there. so maybe that was a little bit of hyperbole. >> although he did speak before we went in. >> i was on the phone speak bef in. >> i was on the phone literally as we went in and i'm about to call him as soon as we finish here. >> walking in or -- >> there's clearly a desire. they've made clear there's a desire on their part to do an entire package. we've made clear that we are willing to deal with the short-term issues and coming back to the larger issues. so we're at an impasse on that. >> were there certain things that you guys were able to sort of narrow out some sort of framework, whether it was --

>> i think there are things we agree on and, again, i want to be clear. there's still a lot of open issues. but, again, i think it was the most constructive meeting we've had, but, again, until there's a deal and we get something passed for the american people, it's not time. >> you mentioned a few days ago, you mentioned that state and local and -- i'm forgetting one other -- paints that you were pretty far apart on those. >> i don't think we're going to comment on the specifics of the negotiation. it's not helpful. i would say, again, as an overall perspective, there's things we agree on. there's things we don't agree on. we're trying to narrow down -- >> we're going to keep monitoring this from the control booth. what is your big take away? were you listen in to mark meadows and steve mnuchin? they said there was a possibility in their mind of coming through with a stopgap

that is not being well received at this point. he added that mitch mcconnell is very involved in these negotiations. >> the thing that stood out to me is the idea of liability protection being the deal breaker for republicans. and i just want to clarify for folks in the audience who don't understand what that means. that means that they are going to protect the companies that force their employees to go back to work in unsafe conditions. they're going to shield them from any lawsuits that may result. so if you are a grocery store employee, you don't feel safe going back to work, you're going to be evicted because you don't have your unemployment benefit or whatever benefit came in the original stimulus, now we're going to have to go back to work or perhaps put your kid in a school that you don't feel comfortable putting them in. and i think this is a really horrible question that parents and families are going to have to answer as we head into the fall in the middle of a pandemic. so i just wanted to unpack what a liability insurance point that they said is the deal breaker in this bill.

how is that the priority and not getting the assistance to the people who need it, making sure people are protected from evictions and also the mail-in balloting access for a party that doesn't seem as concerned with the election being -- having the integrity that we can all trust in it and in the result. >> i wish i had the answer to that question, but i don't at this point. guys, thank you so much. good talking with you. here is a programming note for all of you, jonathan capehart will speak with nancy pelosi and former attorney general eric holder tomorrow on "a.m. joy i "starting at 10:00 eastern for you. let's go now to the 2020 veep stakes and senator kamala harris chiming in and respond to go criticism that she may be too ambitious to by joe biden's potential vice president. >> my mother, again, she had many says and one of them she told me years ago, she said,

honey -- and i'm saying this to all you young leaders -- people will be fine when you take what they give you. but oh, don't take more. and so i say that to say there will be a resistance to your ambition. there will be people who say to you, you are out of your lane. >> meanwhile, as biden gets closer to name ago running mate from this very wide field right here, the "new york times" reports lobbying has certainly intensified with various groups and democratic leaders furiously working to elevate their allies and sink their enemies. joining me now, alley vitale and amy allison, president and founder of she the people. it's the veep stakes, ladies. alley, i'll start with you. give me a sense of how fierce this lobbying is and what's going on behind the scenes.

>> alex, tis the season, right? i think there is this thing happening right now where the folks who are talking with the runs with an incentive to do the talking. you're talking about the wind the scenes lobbying campaigns. this is the chance. we know that joe biden said he would decide the first week of august. we know the decision has to absolutely come within the next two weeks before folks head to the democratic national convention or at least head there online in whatever sense they're going to be participating. but this is the time frame to make sure allies make their final pitches for folks as they move forward. the only person left to make this decision is joe biden. vice president is a role he knows very well. you talk to people in his campaign, they'll emphasize for you, again, he wants someone he can govern with. and as much as this is political, it's also personal.

that's why when we look at things like him calling congresswoman karen bass aside earlier this week in washington or the fact that elizabeth warren and joe biden talk regularly on policy, those are the kinds of interactions that matter just as much as the politics in this thing and that's why, over the course of the next two weeks, the interactions are going to be sort of something that are helpful tea leaves for us to guide us. >> i was going to say tea leaves, but definitely, that's it. >> amy, let's talk about your organization which surveyed the top women of color in politics. some of them saying a woman as joe biden's vice president selection is important. do you think joe biden should pay close attention to this number? >> absolutely. it's not just a personal and political decision, it's also strategic. we gather in the last few weeks women from battleground states and those are the states that would guarantee a victory for biden in the electoral college.

not just the popular vote, which i'll remind everyone hillary clinton won the popular vote in 2016. it's the strategic votes in states like michigan and georgia and arizona that matter most. and what we heard from women that lead organizations and local elected officials is there's an enthusiasm gap when it comes to campaigning for biden alone and the differencemaker for most of the women would be a woman of color, particularly a black woman on the ticket that would help pump up enthusiasm and increase turnout because women of color are the margin of victory in these key states. we think that a strategic choice of a woman of color is the best decision for the biden camp. >> okay. ladies, unfortunately, we're going to have to wrap it up right here. if you want to bhlame someone, don't blame me. we'll see you both again soon.

tomorrow night's casey d.c. includes a one one with stacey abrahams and gretchen wittmer. so we have gotten first word from that critical meeting on capitol hill that could keep millions of americans from falling off a financial cliff. and there's some breaking news on that hurricane, the new path that could cause some big problems in more than one state. stay with us. le in more than on. stay with us we made usaa insurr veterans like liz and mike. an army family who is always at the ready. so when they got a little surprise... two!? ...they didn't panic. they got a bigger car for their soon-to-be-bigger family. after shopping around for insurance, they called usaa - who helped find the right coverage for them and even some much-needed savings. that was the easy part. usaa insurance is made the way liz and mike need it- easy.

good day from msnbc headquarters. critical negotiations are wrapping up for the day on capitol hill. top democrats in the trump administration officials working. benefits expired overnight. let's go to