assault right now, brian. >> wow, let's hope those briefings carry more raw information than the ones we have come to expect on the coronavirus. two of our frequent guests for very good reason, certainly focuses the mind. frank figliuzzi and joyce vance. another break. when we come back -- new developments in that devastating series of explosions in beirut, that's next. hike!

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the death toll continues to rise after that massive, mushroom cloud shock wave explosion after a previous explosion yesterday in beirut. lebanon has been suffering from a severe economic crisis and this explosion left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, streets filled with glass and debris. right now, officials say the explosion killed at least 135 people including at least one american citizen. lebanese officials say the probably cause a fire that ignited a storage of am moan yum

nitrate. it killed people in the streets, it injured and killed people sitting in their apartments. it was measured by seismic equipment all over the globe. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has been following and reporting on this story and is with us with more. richard? >> reporter: well, unfortunately, brian, they have not been recovering many survivors, that was the big effort today, they pulled out one person early in the day, it was seen as something of a miracle, people were applauding, some were cheering, some were crying, not followed by a steady stream of survivors, this wasn't just a natural disaster or a building collapse, this was a huge explosion that sent this shock wave ripping through the city. and it blew out glass, it pushed over buildings.

beirut is not a big city, the port is at the center of it and it radiates out from the port and there were very few buildings in beirut that weren't impacted by this. so much of the city right now is damaged. so many people don't have windows, don't have doors. and they know or they believe they know what caused the explosion. there was the initial fire that you talked about at the port, and the cause of that fire is still -- is still unclear, but that fire set off this huge explosion with almost 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate. why was it sitting in the port in the center of beirut in a densely populated area? it turns out that it had been there for six years, and there's a long backstory to this that's just starting to come to light

that's very revealing and that is now upsetting many lebanese people as they're learning more and more about it. what happened was, six years ago, a cargo ship left from the country of georgia on the black sea and was heading toward m mozambique. the ship ran into technical problems, entered beirut port and was confiscated, the local authorities took the crew, they eventually let the crew go and they seized this cargo and we know now that customers that port officials were complaining, complaining in writing to courts and to security agencies that they thought this material was dangerous, they wanted to get rid of it, they wanted it out of

the country, certainly out of the port, they said the letters were never answer, the material stayed there and it deteriorates over time if it's not kept in perfectly pristine conditions. it tends to solidify, it becomes more unstable and we saw the result of what happened when the fire ignited right next to it, it let off a huge explosion and then that shock wave which people said -- it felt like an earthquake storming through the city. >> unbelievably sad, richard engel, keep us posted on all that. thank you. brian williams, what a -- i don't know of smorgasboard of tragedies, calamities, human suffering, it boggles the mind.

there's a feeling of it all just being too much. >> two more points before i depart. number one, some talk on social media last night at how little attention it garnered when the president came out in the briefing room and said it was a bomb, an explosion, quoting, the generals in the oval office what they probably expected might have been a confidential discussion but has been roundly rejengted as a theory as of now, as of today, maybe the pentagon knows more than it is saying and secondly, poor beirut. >> a beautiful city. >> the life in that city, always been called the paris of the middle east. they've been hard times, they've been through good times. clearly we feed to be thinking about them and our lebanese

american friends who have friends and family there. thank you for having me. i'll be watching thank you. we'll be watching you at 11:00. stay safe out there. when we return -- we've watched donald trump trample presidential homes in for 3 1/2 years now and he may be about to bust through another one, that's next. one, that's next given my unique lifestyle, that'd be perfect! let me grab a pen and some paper. know what? i'm gonna switch now. just need my desk... my chair... and my phone. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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walk to end alzheimer's alzheis everywhere.tion all of us are raising funds for one goal: a world without alzheimer's and all other dementia. because this disease isn't waiting, neither are you. go to alz dot org slash walk. today marks 09 days until election day. what better way to mark it than another norm possibly trampled by the sitting president. the washington post is reporting republican national convention planners are considering using the white house south lawn as the backdrop for donald trump's nationally televised nomination acceptance speech this month, the washington post puts it, quote the decision to stage the most high-profile political event of trump's re-election campaign at the national seat of presidential power the latest break by trump and presidential powers which have historically drawn clear lines between official business of the president and campaign events.

compare that to the presumptive democratic nominee's plans. dnc announced today that joe biden won't travel to milwaukee to accept his nomination in order to protect public health. joining our conversation, michael steele. michael steele, the campaign doesn't need a lot of paid messaging, the contrast in how each man views the pursuit of the presidency is speaking volumes. i wonder if you think people will hear it. >> i think they will. i think they do. i think people are looking at all of this and to be rather frank about it i think at will of voters out there are already beginning to cement how they're approaching this november election, really the wild card is what they're going to do with senat senat senatorial and congressional

races. for the presidency, they've had four years to assess the man, the current crises this country faces, yes, the good old days tax cuts flowing and, you know, a lot of high-fiving about where things were going, but now, this is the stark reality of leadership, we see very boldly and very clearly what it requires of the individuals who occupy that oval office. so, i think voters are looking at this. this latest move by the white house to say, you know, we're probably going to have the president give his acceptance speech on the white house lawn. two thoughts there, one, it's bright shining object that they're throwing out just to see how much of this they can get away with and two, again, it shows that the white house is nothing more than a backdrop to this administration. it has no historical value.

it has no real meaning to the american people through their eyes. . it's just another prop. like any prop we just use it to stage what we want to do to get people to do the rah-rah thing come november. >> number two is we are all props in donald trump's show, he's playing president, he's pretending to lead his people, doesn't even pretend to what lead the rest of us out of real suffering, i mean, and i guess the hallmark of some of the most lasting moments of bill clinton's presidency was after oklahoma city, after 9/11 in george bush's. they sought to hold all of us in our pain and grief. and to see this president not want to play that part of the presidency is still jarring.

>> well, nicolle, it's too personal. if you have never had real personal attachments -- if you can't -- if what we read from his niece's book, if you can't attach to your daddy, your mama, you're not going to attach to total strangers, you're not going to see nicolle or michael or, you know, malik or henriett, as some further extension of yourself. given the role you have as president. the presidency is not just someone who you know out there to sign an executive order or to command the congress to do this, that or other thing. the presidency is something that we look to in moments like coronavirus, moment of civil unrests in our community. i'm not surprise by this lack of

atta attach. to us. we understand that. we have to ask ourselves, is that who we want to be president? with the next crisis, do i want to be further relegated to prop status with bad, harmful, sometimes, you know, deadly information being told to me and my family, or do i want a president who's actually gives a damn what happens to me, my neighborhood, my family and the country? >> i got a little bit of political scoop that i want to run by you, i understand that the trump's interim polls have him way down in arizona. what would look like for a republican incumbent president to lose? >> and in ohio and elsewhere, that's what driving what's happening right now, we're wanting to use the white house as a prop that will bolster those numbers and get people

reinvigorated. we're way beyond at that point. the numbers are -- a truth for his team and he realizes that he doesn't want to accept. in less than 90 days left he's got a hell of and a long row to and the american people are steadily walking in a different direction than he is. >> michael steele, i could swap political facts and reporting with you for much longer. let's make that the case next time. >> you got it. >> thanks for spending time with us today. when we return, nurses on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic still, still working without enough protective equipment. and now demanding answers. that story, next. and now demanding answers. that story, next ...to soccer practices... ...and new adventures. you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past... they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. let's help protect them together. because missing menb vaccination could mean

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after weeks of seeing cases of coronavirus spike, there's a bit of positive news this afternoon coming out of california. california governor gavin newsom announced a 20% decline in the weekly average of positive coronavirus cases. still, california nurses say they don't have enough personal protective equipment to last throughout the pandemic. and today, nurses around the country are rallying for more ppe and what is for them a national day of action. msnbc's steve patterson joins us now from good samaritan hospital in los angeles. how are they getting their message out and what is the difference, what is the gap between what they need and obviously deserve and what they're getting? >> nicole, let's start with this. it's been almost two decades

since california became one of the first states in the country to implement patient-to-nurse ratios, meaning there needs to be a minimum level of nurses to handle an influx of patients. it's particularly important in a time of crisis like right now when dealing with a pandemic crisis. several states still don't have those implemented. they also say, i spoke to several nurses today who say that even the ones that are implemented in california aren't properly being respected. also, you mention the ppe, the equipment that is so vital to them doing to work that they need to do, i spoke to several nurses today who say, despite this happening for months, some of them still don't feel safe walking into those ers and icus and covid units, where they continue to treat an influx of patients. i spoke to one woman, i keep telling this story today, but it's so impactful, that one woman says she's been wearing her n 95 mask for so long that she started to feel it fray on her face. you can imagine what the

unnervedness of that is like walking into a covid unit treating those patients. also, the elective surgeries that have been put off for so long. it sounds like such a light thing, but some of these surgeries are vital to patients that need them. they want to get that up and running again, and they say the only way they can is by stabilizing the virus and also getting if right materials that they need to properly do their job. that also means proper staffing, because they say a lot of these hospital systems aren't keeping those staffing ratios up to par with what they need to do. also, i want to talk about the numbers, as well. because i think today they're seizing on it, because there is so much reporting on the positive numbers that we're seeing, the declines in the state of california. they say they simply are not seeing that reflected in their hospitals at this point. that they're still seeing an incredible influx of patients every single day. and there has been some question about the reporting of those numbers in california, when it comes specifically to the number of cases that are declining. so that's something to look

into, too, as well, nicole. but an important day for nurses across the country. back to you. >> nbc's steve patterson in los angeles, where all of the national stories are happening day by day by day, right in front of your eyes. thank you for your reporting on all of them. coming up for us, growing fierce that attorney general bill barr will weaponize the justice department to help donald trump win re-election. "deadline: white house" when we come back. ection "deadline: white house" when we come back. ♪we ain't stoppin' believe me♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪ ♪won't wait♪ ♪we're taking everything we wanted♪ ♪we can do it ♪all strength, no sweat i thought it had to be thick to protect. but new always discreet is made differently. with ultra-thin layers that turn liquid to gel and lock it inside. for protection i barely feel. new always discreet.

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hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east at a precarious and pivotal moment for the rule of law and the fundamental norms of justice in the united states, 90 days out from an election that has already been attacked and undermined by a president who's losing. his lies, misinformation, and spin on coronavirus no longer fooling a vast majority of voters in this country. his misinformation has been debunked in real footime by the likes of chris wallace of fox news and jonathan swann of axios. trump's scattershot attempts to attack joe biden falling flat so far, and polls reflect the political carnage that show trump behind by wide margins nationally and in many of the battleground states. that is the state of the race, with 90 days to go. and the 90-day mark is a significant one, because in normal times, under normal presidents who respect our democracy and the rule of law that protects it, the 90-day mark triggers two critical guidelines at doj. as legal scholar ryan goodman

and former mueller prosecutor and fbi official, andrew weismann outlined in an opinion piece in today' "new york times." they write this, one of nothose guidelines is a written policy that no action be influenced in any way by politics. another unwritten norm urges officials to defer publicly charging or taking any other overt investigative steps or disclosures that could affect a coming election. attorney general william barr, they write, appears poised to trample both. weismann and goodman explain that at least two open investigations could be fodder for preelection political mat machinations by trump and barr. one, the increasing the origins of the russia probe, led by john durham, a u.s. attorney out of connecticut. the other on the so-called unmasking of trump associates by obama administration officials. both personally unleashed by ag bill barr. and as today's "new york times" piece explains, that puts the integrity of the next election at risk.

quote, it is not mere conjecture that barr could weaponize these investigations for political purposes. in both cases, he has already run roughshod over a number of related long-standing department practice. mr. barr and president trump have shown no compunction in publicly discussing these investigations, suggesting wrongdoing by democrats and deep staters. the alarming concern that donald trump and his allies will leverage the powers of doj was only amplified by the scene that played out on capitol hill today, with donald trump's allies in the republican-led senate judiciary committee calling former acting attorney general sally yates to testify as part of their investigation into the origins of the russia probe. what emerged was a clear attempt by republicans to undermine the legitimate investigation into security threats against the 2016 presidential election. what they got in return was hours of systemic and repeated fact checking from sally jaiyat of some of their chief talking

points, the red herring they used to defend michael flynn, who lied under oath, and their attempts to malign the men and women serving at the fbi and doj. here just some of today's most remarkable exchanges. >> your beef with flynn is that he was undercutting obama policy. is that what you were worried about. >> well, what we were worried about was that he was undercutting obama policy, and then he was covering it up. >> isn't it the fact that you're really investigating a policy difference? >> no, senator, that's not accurate. there was a cover-up before this. in fact, that's what prompted my concerns that he was providing false information to the vice president. >> miss yates, in your time at the department of justice, are you aware of any other political opponents of president obama that were being surveilled? >> again, senator, if you're talking about the court authorized surveillance of carter page -- >> i'm asking, are you aware of

any surveillance of any other political opponents, any other candidates for president in 2016. there were a whole bunch of them, including the chairman and myself. >> -- would have been a waste of time in my case. >> the answer to that is no, and i also think that with no information that the russians were working to aid another candidate other than donald trump. >> you don't like donald trump, do you? >> i don't like -- i don't respect the manner in which he has carried out the presidency. >> you despise donald trump, don't you? >> no, i don't despise anyone, senator. >> isn't it true that there were a handful of people at the department of justice during the obama administration that despised donald trump? and did everything in their power to keep him from being president? >> i'm not aware of anyone at the department of justice doing anything to try to keep donald trump from becoming president. >> were you part of that group? i'm sorry -- were you part of that group?

>> no, and i'm not aware of anybody doing that. and that would not only surprise me, but shock me. >> this is where we start today. former chief spokesman for the justice department, matt miller is here, plus former acting solicitor general, neal katyal, and former general counsel, andrew weismann is back. andrew weismann, since we started today with what you wrote today, what you laid out, let's go through how far back we are from the starting gate in terms of what attorney general barr is already shown us he's willing to do to contort the rule of law to use doj as part of donald trump's political operation. >> so, you can definitely go back to the start of -- actually, even before he was the attorney general, he wrote a lengthy memo about his view of the presidency. but right after robert mueller handed in his report, i think

that the world now can see what the attorney general is capable of, because he wrote a purported four-page summer of that report which everyone now can read that and compare it to the actual report. and then there's just been a series of events since then. the point of the piece that professor goodman and i wrote in "the new york times", though, is to really try to focus on what could happen now. how he could weaponize the department of justice to help an incumbent stay the incumbent. and that would be a violation of doj policy. >> andrew weismann, i think using present tense verbs keeps this real. and i think it's fair to say how he is using doj to aid donald trump. i think the very nature of the durham investigation, it's been going on for a very long time. obviously, investigations end when they end. but why would that still be

open? and by keeping it open past this 90-day mark, what is the norm and then tell me what to expect from barr. >> so, the norm, assuming that john durham has sufficient predication for a criminal investigation is that in advance of an upcoming election, there are no overt steps that are taken. no report is issued, no indictments are brought, and that is a norm throughout the department of justice, and is adhered to religiously. and the concern is, we're 90 days out. what the attorney general is capable of is what he has done already, which is to talk about that he's very disturbed by what he's hearing in the durham investigation. he's not supposed to be commenting on that at all. and if you think about his boss,

which is the president of the united states, remember, the president of the united states was impeached on the ground that he was asking the president of ukraine to announce a public criminal investigation. again, something that is against doj policy. you are not supposed to do that. the attorney general himself has testified in his nomination hearing that it is improper to do that. that you either, to put it in the vernacular, put up or shut up, meaning that either a grand jury indicts or it doesn't. and if the grand jury does not indict, then the responsibility of federal prosecutors up to and including the attorney general is to stay mum. you don't say anything. so the concern is that he is going to continue to speak about the durham investigation and it could go so far as to actually insist that there will be some sort of either public indictment

or public report. and there would be just no justification for that, at all, to take that step between now and the election. >> neal katyal, let's shine a spotlight on mr. durham himself, who likes to shy away from it. but there is some public-facing information about his impulses and instincts in this current regime. and while his reputation in previous investigations was of someone who respected the rule of law, there are some troubling outward signs. one was that if someone running an ongoing investigation, he rapidly responded to doj inspector general horowitz when there were findings that he said denied line up with his. why would somebody do that in the middle of an ongoing investigation? >> nicole, i'm not going to speculate on that. durham has had a good reputation in the past. he's obviously investigating something now, you know, and i just have no way of knowing what that is. and i totally distrust barr's summary of the investigation, just as i distrusted what his

summary was. if one of my students turned in a summary like that of a report, they would have gotten an "f." i know barr has insinuated certain things about the durham report, but we have no way of knowing whether they're right or not. the i think the important point here is the one andrew and professor goodman made in today's paper, which is that we're 90 days out and this attorney general and this justice department has shown that in the past and in the present, they're willing to do the president's bidding. what's to stop them from doing the president's bidding 90 days before an election. >> and i guess the pattern, to notice, again, all we have is what's public facing, is that robert mueller spent 23 months investigating russian interference in the 2016 election and the president's efforts to obstruct that. bill barr spent about, i don't know, 48 hours lying about and then publicly disseminating a lie about it. bill barr has traveled with mr. durham. bill barr's pattern is to take

whatever mr. durham does and lie about it for the president's political purposes. is there any reassurance or any ability to make sure that doesn't happen again with an investigation that almost perfectly aligns with donald trump's political objectives? >> none whatsoever. and here's a really good example from last week, when attorney general barr went and testified. and there was a big cloud hanging over his head. all sorts of people, republicans and democrats, like ken starr's deputy on the day he testified said, look, there's all of these assaults by barr and the rule of law. and representative swalwell got barr to admit that only one time ever did barr interfere with sentencing, and that was for trump's pal, roger stone. and when swalwell then goes and says, hey, this is the same guy that trump was tweeting about, roger stone, he praised stone for having the guts not to testify against trump, barr's answer to that was, oh, i'm not familiar with that tweet, which is ridiculous. that's tweet that's all over the mueller report that barr claims

to have read and summarized. and so this is an attorney general, unfortunately, who's willing to play politics and at the expense of the rule of law. and i think, you know, andrew's exactly right to say, if he's done it in the past, done it in the present, what's to stop him from doing it in the future. >> and matt miller, again, all we have is what's out in the public for us to chew on and try to make sense of. but what bill barr has said in the public purview, to congressman nadler, is that, i'm part of the cabinet! of course we talk about the election. here he is with congressman nadler. have you -- now, yes or no, have you discussed the president's re-election campaign with the president or with any white house official or any surrogate of the president? >> well, 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 asked if you've discussed that -- >> i'm a member of the cabinet and there's an election going

on. obviously, the topic comes up zp >> so the answer comes up. >> if the topic comes up in cabinet meetings and other things. it shouldn't be a surprise. >> so as part of those conversations with the president or his people about the re-election campaign, have you ever discussed the current or future deployment of federal law enforcement? >> in connection with what? >> in connection with what you just said. in connection with your discussions with the president or with other people around him, of his re-election campaign, have you discussed the current or future deployment of federal law enforcement? >> as i say, i'm not going to get into my discussions with the president, but i've made it clear that i would like to pick the cities based on law enforcement need. >> matt miller, there is no need to discuss with your cabinet your political campaign. i worked for a president who ran for re-election and condi rice and steve hadley were the national security advisers. they learned most of what they knew about the campaign from press coverage. what do you see when you look at what's public facing, when you

look at what andrew and ryan have written, and when you just look at the patterns of bill barr auditioning for the job he has, after donald trump publicly stated he wanted roy cohn, after humiliating jeff sessions for honoring doj policy. after writing a 19-page memo that we think trump may have seen, saying a president can't obstruct justice. he somehow ends up with the job over other people that wanted it, people like chris christie, who had worked there more recently than bill barr. and now the durham probe hangs over the last 90 days. >> you know, if you go all the way back to barr's confirmation hearing, there's a pattern. he has a tell. he often gets asked a question, the one you just showed is an example, where there's an answer you expect an attorney general to give. in the confirmation hearing, the answer you would expect him to give is that he would recuse himself from the russia investigation because of his previous writings on the topic. and he didn't give that answer

and we found out why shortly after, he wanted to interfere in the mueller probe. and he wanted to then go back and discredit it afterwards. when you see him to refuse to rule out releasing a report from john durham in the last 90 days or 60 days or 30 days before an election, it's again because he intends to do that. and the thing that worries me is that he has two goals here. one is fairly obvious. one is that he intends to try to smear joe biden in the hospital because joe biden did anything, but to just try to tar the entire obama administration by claiming there was this plot to get donald trump. by the way, a point that sally yates debunked pretty effectively today. but then i also worry that there's a second goal. and that is that if russia or any other country interferes in the election again, or if trump is caught soliciting help from a foreign government again, as he done with russia and ukraine and china, that barr is able to release this report that attacks what happened in 2016 and is able to just put out this fog that says all of these deep

staters that have made claims about foreign interference in the past, you can't believe what they said about 2016 and you can't believe what's going on right now. and at the time when off politicized ag and a politicized director of national intelligence, i think that would leave the american people really left wondering what they should be believe, right before they go to the polls. >> matt miller, i want to get to you on the record on sally yates testimony today. she put so many important facts back in front of the public. and i think it's important to remind people that when she went to the white house with her concerns about mike flynn, potentially being compromised, he hadn't yet lied to the fbi. and she went over to enlist a very trumpy, a very republican senior official, the white house counc counsel at the time, don mcgahn, and confided in him. the whole line of questioning seemed to insinuate there was some sort of democratic coup underway. that was revealed into her sort

of putting the facts into focus after so many years of spin. do we have some more of sally yates thon this? let me read what she said on this. lindsey graham, of course, says, your beef with flynn was that he undercut obama policy, is that what you're worried about? she said, what we're worried about is that he was undercutting obama policy, and then cutting it up. she said, graham hadn't even talked about to the fbi. you investigating a policy difference? no, that's not credit. there was a cover-up before this. flynn had lied about his conversations to the vice president and press secretary, and we know that, because they then went out and lied to the public. what do you think is important about the fact that we still don't know why mike flynn told those lies about russia as we head into another election now with a known known of russia's intent and ambition to meddle again. >> the unanswered question has always been, what was the

president's involvement in this and why did mike flynn feel the need to lie? and sally yates debunked a number of republican conspiracy theories. one is this exact one, that came up when the attorney general moved to dismiss the flynn case. this argument that the lie that mike flynn told was immaterial, that it wasn't relevant to the underlying investigation. that according to barr kinds of take on it should have been closed in the first place. sally yates made very clear today that that lie was not only material, but it hindered the fbi's probe, not because he didn't know what they had talked about with ambassador kislyak, but what he did by lying was he withheld from the fbi the answer to their next question, which is, why did you lie? who did you talk to on the transition team? why did the president-elect know? and because he lied, they couldn't ask him those questions at the time and in a very real way, hindered that investigation. and that along with a number of other points, i think the most important one being that

president obama and vice president biden had somehow ordered sally yates to set mike flynn up in the oval office. sally yates completely blew those arguments out of the water today. >> let me read that. we're tight on time, but you're right. this was the questioning from senator grassley, matt miller? >> no, it was the opening one by lindsey graham. i think she did her opening statement and lindsey graham came at it and tried to establish. there was this january 5th meeting. the republicans have argued that it was a meeting to set mike flynn up and she made clear that that wasn't the case. obama did what you expect a normal president, a president who believes in the rule of law to do, which is to say, i don't want to know about any investigation and i don't want to interfere in any investigation. you follow the facts where you're supposed to take them. >> matt miller, let me give you the last word and try to answer this question. why are the republicans in the senate so intent on furthering the fiction around russia's role in 2016? >> you know, there's a great way to answer that by watching what

one republican senator did today. sally yates came into the hearing and exploded this myth about what happened in this oval office meeting. an hour after she did that, a republican who sits on that committee, marsha blackburn of tennessee, tweeted that president obama and vice president biden ordered sally yates and susan rice to investigate flynn. and what i mean by that, if you've been in fact land and watched this hearing today, you think it's a disaster for the republicans. all the points they've been making for months are completely exploded. if you live in conspiracyland where facts don't matter, you can ignore what sally yates said and make up your own version of what happened in this hearing today. that's what we saw our republican senator doing. and i expect if you turn on fox prime-time programming tonight, that's what you'll see. and if you watch the president's twitter feed, that's what you'll see. i suspect today was bill barr trying to discredit people from the intelligence community and law enforcement community in advance of the upcoming election. i think it was again just to establish this conspiracy land

narrative that is completely devoid of the facts. >> there's a choice in november. facts and fiction. matt miller, neal katyal, andrew weismann, thank you all so much for starting you off today. nice to see all of you. coming up, donald trump must have missed his hr ethics class when he got to the white house, among other things. today, confirminge is thinking of holding his re-election acceptance speech as the white house as its backdrop. we'll look at the thorny ethics questions it raises. and once again the president insisting this thing, this deadly virus, will go away, like things go away, end point, as he pushes our children to go back to the classroom. plus, getting ahead of his, quote, great generals once again, u.s. officials having to correct the president over that deadly and tragic explosion in beir. all of those stories, coming up. alofl those stories, coming up. out there, which one should i use? try crest pro/active defense. it neutralizes bacteria for a healthier mouth than even the leading multi-benefit toothpaste.

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and i'll probably do mine live from the white house. >> so it looks like live from the white house. so would you say you're locked in on that? >> no. >> okay. >> if for some reason somebody had difficulty with it, i would -- i could, you know, go someplace else. the easiest, least expensive, and i think very beautiful would be live from the white house. >> no, the president wasn't talking about a state dinner or the location of a new policy rollout or melania's new rose garden. he's talking about his own acceptance speech during his own republican national convention, which is having to make adjustments now due to the coronavirus pandemic raging across the country. trump's comments this morning only confirm reporting in "the washington post," which said that the white house south lawn is being floated as one of the possible backdrops for his

speech. and just in the last hour, the trump campaign is asking for a fourth presidential debate to be held in the first week of september to get ahead of early voting. in their request, the campaign included a request of possible moderators, many of whom have been friendly to trump in the past. joining us now from "the washington post", phil rucker. also with us, charlie sykes, and our friend, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department, elise jordan is back. phil rucker, this was first reported by your paper, by you and your colleagues. take us through what you've learned. >> well, nicole, the president is looking for sites to give his convention acceptance speech and is interested in doing it on the south lawn of the white house, which of course, would break precedent, past precedents, including george w. bush tried to avoid doing any sort of political activity at the white house, in part because of the hatch act, which prevents using federal property or federal employees for campaign purposes, although the president himself

is exempt from that act. nonetheless, the president -- trump, that is, seems to be wanting to push the envelope here and do the speech there. they're also looking at other historical venues around the country for other elements of the convention week festivities, according to my colleague's reporting. and so we'll have to see where they land on some of those decisions, but trump at the white house would certainly ruffle feathers, so to speak, and invite a lot of ethics complaints, because it would be violating the norms in this country. >> oh, charlie sykes, i don't know of anymore feathers to be ruffled or norms to be annihilated by donald trump, but he has, i don't know a more polite way to say this, screwed himself over on the mail-in vote. let me just say it. i heard that his new campaign manager, bill stepien is very concerned about the mail-in vote for trump. a lot of older voters and a lot of people afraid of contracting coronavirus may have very well have wanted to participate in the mail-in vote, which donald

trump has called fraudulent. so he's now trying to clean up a little bit, to try to be good for his new campaign manager, mr. steppian, for a few days before he starts the cycle of abuse with him, too. so he's suing nevada and telling floridians to go ahead and vote by mail. what do you see? >> this was pretty extraordinary, where every single day, it was mail-in balloting is questionable, leads to massive fraud. maybe we need to delay the election. and then we get that tweet today where it says, except in florida, it's fine, go ahead. and i think it's exactly as you describe, people in the republican party are deeply worried he'll step on his own base. that he's going to manage, ineptly, to suppress his own vote. look, donald trump's instinct is that he knows he's losing and wants to create as much chaos as possible. he's hoping to exploit the chaos rather than fix it if there's a legitimate concern about mail-in balloting.

and the experience in new york suggests there ought to be some legitimate concerns. he ought to be coming up with a way to fix it. he's not. but i do think on this particular issue, you see that he's flailing around. that he's trying to set up an excuse for a defeat, he's trying to challenge the legitimacy of it. there's no principle, no consistency. it's what works in his benefit at any given moment. but we've learned this about him. >> elise jordan, he's seeking more debates, not for a fulsome exchange of policy differences, but ostensibly, because he's starved for the ratings, for the tv attention. i understand this to be an effort that rudy giuliani's participating in, when the debates are being negotiated between george w. bush and senator kerry, it was jim baike. sigh what you will about the gravitas drop-off there, but what do you make of what appears to be a debate gambit.

i won't insult strategies by calling ate debate strategy. donald trump seems really desperate right now. he is in a tough hole. he's got to get out of it. as you mentioned, he misses the high ratings and his huge rallies and misses the adulation he gets. and he has this theory that joe biden is going to choke in a debate against him, so he sees more debates as advantageous. the list of moderates suggested by the trump campaign, i found very interesting. funny enough, nicole, you weren't on it. i was shocked at the omission. and also, jonathan swann didn't make the cut. chris wallace didn't make the cut. it's -- just shocked. but i think that anything donald trump can do to claim attention, claim the spotlight to try to continue the story line that joe biden is avoiding debates, that joe biden might not have

debates, he's saying he might boycott debates, which is not true and is a narrative that has been pushed without any sourcing, without any affirmation from the biden campaign, and so really, this is just another antic of, in a day of sad, sad antics that the country is crumbling under the weight of this pandemic. >> phil rucker, i have a serious question, and it's going to come out -- i don't know how to strip it of its snacker, but who thinks that seeing more of donald trump talking is going to help him politically? >> well, that's just the thing, nicole. the president and his team seem to be assuming that a debate is good for him. and yet wherever we've seen him questioned at length with follow-ups and really pushed back in some of these interviewed, as happened in the great interview that jonathan swann conducted with axios for hbo a couple of days ago, trump has not fared well in those

settings. and, you know, i guess he's looking for an opportunity to shake it up and generate some new momentum for this campaign since he's losing right now, but it's a bit of a leap to just assume that trump would prevail in these debates, given his interview performances. >> a bit of a leap seems like the truest thing i've heard all day. phil rucker, thank you for spending some time with us. we're grateful to see you, my friend. elise and charlie are staying put. up next for us, trump's merry-go-round of one-liners on the pandemic is getting tiresome. what we're hearing again this time and why schools and local governments are finding they're on their own. they need to make their own decisions now. decisions now.

chicago officials announcing today that its public school system, the third largest in the country, will start off its academic year fully remote. that decision made public about two hours after we heard the president on fox news call for all schools to reopen, a push he's made repeatedly, disregarding the experts. trump said children are immune. they aren't, according to health officials, his own. he also says that the virus will just go away. and again, according to health officials, including his own, it won't. joining our conversation, dr. irwin redlener, director of the national center for disaster preparedness at columbia university and an msnbc public health analyst. dr. redlener, i always wonder idea the breaking point would be, and if it isn't playing with the lives and safety of our

children and their teachers, i don't know what is. but i said this to brian last hour. fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. he lied about reopenings being safe, here we are. and he's lying about school reopenings being safe. do you think we will respond differently? >> just incredible, nicole. there's 55 million children who have been out of school now and many of them are obviously going to be back to school under circumstances that i am not at all confident will be safe for them or their families, for that matter. and i completely agree with the school systems that are just taking the bull by the horns and are going to try to make sure that every child has access remotely to their education, as opposed to having to go into a classroom. it is just too many problems and issues that we know about, children are -- not only are they little, but probably very symptomatic, very -- even when they're very asymptomatic, can

transmit this virus. israel tried this in may. they were doing quite well with the virus, in general. they reopened all the schools and they had massive outbreaks after that. we've already had schools in india, in georgia, in tennessee that have started classes a few days ago, and they're already getting cases reported. so this is a very risky business for these 55 million kids. and we should be a lot more cautious and careful about when and how we do this, nicole. >> why aren't teachers being treated the same way, front line health care workers are. i understand the evolving science and data around kids, even though everything that i've seen of late shows that children, even small children, carry large virus load in their nasal passages, children's infection rates in places where large numbers of children have been tested are as high as adults. why are we talking about teachers basically being sacrificed to sacrifice their health and their lives in this political football match. >> yeah, you know, and some of us have been talking about

teachers and teachers and the staff, the cafeteria staff and the bus drivers. all of these people are going to be vulnerable to catching the infection from children, and there may be wildfire-like spread of this virus in the classrooms once children start occupying them. we have to be extraordinarily careful to make sure that the teachers and the other staff are protected. and right now, i'm not at all comfortable. even things like keeping proper ventilation in the schools, nicole, is very complicated. a lot of old schools have antiquated ventilation systems, which of course make it much more probable that the virus will be roaming around the rooms and the corridors of the schools once the children have reoccupied them. >> dr. redlener, i never meant to suggest that you were talking about teachers. i'm saying, why aren't we having a robust debate as a country about what we're asking teachers to do. let me also read you some of the

ground truth, the reality of what this debate looks like. this is from "the washington post," from an arizona superintendent over the weekend. this headline is, i'm sorry, but it's a fantasy. the governor has told us we have to open our schools to students on august 17th, or else we miss out on 5% of our funding. i run a high-needs district in middle of nowhere arizona. we're 90% hispanic and more than 90% free and reduced lunch. these kids need every dollar we can get. but covid is spreading all over this area and hitting my staff and now it feels like there's a gun to my head. i already lost one teacher this to virus. do i risk opening back up, even if it's going to cost us more lives? or do we run school remotely and end up depriving these kids? there's your superintendent, living in the real world. he's either going to have federal funds stripped if he doesn't open or risk losing a second teacher or staff member's life if he does. >> what an outrageous threat from the government, nicole. i mean, it's just -- it's

unspeakable that anybody would even bring up such a possibility of threatening schools with reduced money, especially high-needs schools, and especially schools with children with special needs. it is just unspeakable. and i think that we need to find a way of rejecting that. the governors have to stand up to the federal government, you know, betsy devos at the department of education has been one of the purveyors of this kind of nonsensical and dangerous threats that are being suggested for schools that don't reopen the way the white house wants them to. and i'm just hoping that the governors will find the gumption to stand up to these kind of threats and that families won't accept it, either. not to mention the teachers and everybody else that's involved here. it's just a terrible rock and a hard place that these schools superintendents and principals are now facing. and we cannot, of course, ignore the fact that kids need to be

educated, but we have to find ways to do that safely. i think we can, but it's not going to be under the threat of reduced funding. >> dr. erwin redlener, always grateful to get to talk to you about all of these things during these extraordinary times. up next for us, trump speaking out about a deadly, tragic explosion all the way on the other side of the globe. we'll bring that to you, next. we'll bring that to you, next. attention veterans with va loans.

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and i met with some of our

great generals and they just seem to feel that it was -- this was not a -- some kind of a manufacturing explosion-type of event, this was a, seems to be, according to them, they would know better than i would, but they seem to think it was an attack. it was a bomb of some kind. >> it was an attack what happened in beirut was an attack, a bomb of some kind. that's what president trump yesterday said. the massive explosion that rocked beirut killing dozens, including at least one u.s. citizen and injuring thousands was likely, quote, an attack. quote, the generals told him, the great generals. but just officials are telling nbc news that they have not made any determination about what caused the explosions and that they're still looking into it, and lebanese officials also seemed to break with trump's claim. "the new york times" writes this, quote. the head of lebanon's general security service warned against speculating against truchl befo terrorism before the facts are known. charlie and elise are back with

us. >> elise, i'm never undisturbed by the way he talks about generals, telling him something that either they didn't tell him or he wasn't supposed to say in a press conference. what do you say about this? >> nicole, it makes me want to cry that the president of the united states would go out publicly, completely fact-free, and speculate on such a tragic event that is only going to send lebanon into further chaos and spiral, an already suffering economy and people. i can't image that a president of the united states would want to contribute to instability by calling something an attack before local authorities have said such, without any information that it actually was an attack. "the guardian" is reporting that it was very likely ammonium nitrate that was left from a ship and that was stored there for many -- for about six years.

and just today, d.o.d. secretary mark esper contradicted the president and said that they didn't know that it was an attack. so when you have the secretary of defense contradicting the president of the united states on something factual and of such enormity, we should all be very, very scared about who is at the helm of our nation's foreign policy. >> and the pattern is so well established at this point, charlie sykes. i'm thinking about the great jonathan swann line of questioning about the generals in afghanistan, who have said publicly, and who had talked to donald trump about russia's role in arming the taliban and donald trump's response to jonathan swann was to smear the general and go with the russian version of events. how is there anyone who put sort of support for the military at the top of the things they vote on, which i think is a whole lot of people that could cast a ballot for this guy?

>> well, excellent question. but you know to elise's point about how weird this was, this won't even make the top 1,000 weirdest thing that president trump has done. this is someone who has access to the world's best intelligenc keeps doing this. it is his inability or unwillingness to be able to sort through true information from false information and i guess, you know, we've been wrestling with this for the last four years, but it's not just that donald trump lies reflexively and constantly, it's that he's addicted to the bs. that he needs to come out and throw stuff up against the wall. and this is who he is. and, you know, you've been asking the question, who thinks it's a good idea to have the president talk more? the only possible answer is, donald trump himself, who is flailing out there, but what a strange incident for him to come out, attribute something to the

generals, which almost certainly the generals didn't say, but it is so now consistent with this president who has just torched his credibility on one issue after another. we are 90 days away from the election and once again, we were reminded, you cannot believe anything that the commander in chief says. so, your question, if you had children, you know, sons or daughters in the military, i would be very, very nervous about this. >> donald trump, addicted to the bs. as only charlie sikes can put it. elise jordan, thank you, as well. on the other side of a quick break, honoring two more lives well lived. honoring two more ls well lived humana calls it human care. it's talking to a doctor from your couch, or helping you find a cheaper prescription before you ask. it's helping you fix the rugs so you don't fall, and keeping you social, online or off.

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will learn about his father like we did, through stories of his boundless energy and kind, kind good heart. and then there's robert matta of austin, texas. in 17 years as an elementary school crossing guard, he never missed a day of work. the intersection of glen lane and cooper drive was his kingdom. when he presided over with uninterrupted benevolence. one of the neighbors told the nbc affiliate in austin, texas, that robert was the friendliest man he'd ever met. always latughing and waving and talking. robert had fight in him, too. he was a veteran who once survived a brain an yuchl and his battle with coronavirus lasted a full month. but he couldn't fight it forever. robert died of the coronavirus a couple of weeks ago. that doesn't mean he's done watching over his intersection. now he's similarly doing it from a much higher vantage point. thank you for watching and letting us into your homes. our coverage tonights with the

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welcome to wednesday, it is "meet the press daily," i'm dayty tur in for chuck todd. if it is 5:00 p.m. in washington, we are once again expecting the president to hold a news conference this hour. it comes as he is once again saying that this virus will go away, as he pushes for schools to reopen. meanwhile, dr. fauci is once again warning that new cases remain at about unacceptably high level and he's once again warning that they must come down dramatically before we can safely reopen. >> as long as you have any member of society, any demographic group who is not seriously trying to get to the end game