mistakes. that's no small task. they have a lot of speakers lined up. we're trying to figure it out. we'll have a busy week trying to figure out calendars and schedules. and then when's the veep, who's the veep? hopefully i'll have some scoop for you some time in this hour this week, but i can't promise it, yasmin. >> i know you will. i have confidence in you hans nichols. thank you. good to see you. i'm going to read axios a.m. in just a bit. you can read it too at signup axios.com. that it does it for me, i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts now. >> entitlements are on the plan? >> they will be. we have tremendous growth. this next year, toward the end of the year, the growth will be incredible and at the right time we'll take a look at that. >> earlier this year president trump hinted at cutting entitlements and over the

weekend he effectively did. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, august 10th, along with joe and me, we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kc d.c. on nbc, kasie hunt. political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele is with us. white house reported for the associated press, jonathan lemire. and former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner is with us. and joe, a lot happening over the weekend. and we've got major covid-19 news as well. >> yeah a lot happening over the weekend. of course, a lot of chaos, of course, coming from the white house. jonathan lemire, we have economists, we have people on the hill, we have business owners, we have ceos. we even have -- well, we have white house officials that are

sort of scratching their heads and asking what exactly happened on friday. the president tried to look like he was in control by pushing unconstitutional presidential directives which seem to go in all of these different directions and if that wasn't enough, friday night we had yet another trump friday night massacre where the new head of the post office just again not trying to hide it at all. apparently doing whatever he can to sow chaos inside the post office as he and donald trump appear to be working together to sow seeds of doubt on whether the post office is going to be able to carry out its functions as we move towards the most important election of our lifetime, certainly the most important election as it has to do with the post office's

participation. try to tell us all the things that were going on friday and this weekend. >> joe, it was a remarkable weekend. i was traveling with the president as part of the press pool of reporters. he spent the weekend at his golf club in bed minister, new jersey. on friday we weren't expecting to see him. he had no events scheduling and reporters got a lid saying there was no events. and then the you lid was lifted. i'll take a minute to paint a surreal seal. the president at the podium delivered the speech in front of an audience, members of his club, many of them drinks in hand, not wearing masks, taking up space in the room. and seemingly in violation of

the state of new jersey's guidelines for covid-19. if it's a political event, which this was deemed you can have up to 100 or so people in the room, there was more if you count the crowd, press, and secreta service. and they weren't 6 feet apart. the crowd booed the reporters and applauded him. it had the makings of a political rally at an official white house event. on friday night he said -- he thereund threatened the executive actions were coming and then saturday he signed them. the takeaway seems to be two things, one real doubts about whether they're constitutional. whether or not the president has the authority to take the powers of the purse from congress through taxes and spending. they expect legal challenges, democrats were critical yesterday on the sunday morning talk shows. i expect we'll see a lot on the legal front in the days ahead.

also there's a question of whether or not there's as much here as the president says. the unemployment benefits were $600 a week, now it's 400. and the white house wants states to pick up $100 of that, so it's reducing the federal contribution to 300 from 600. last night the president said maybe the federal government will fund the full 400. the evictions moratorium it's about exploring how to stop that, no real teeth behind it. you're right, the other story was the postmaster general. the president, who's always been defending it, the postmaster loses money, needs reforms. but we know, joe, this has been part of an all out assault on the integrity of mail-in balloting ahead of the election. this would seem to add to the chaos and delays. >> mika, there are, of course, one of two choices if you

support the president you can say the president is intentionally sabotaging the united states post office in the run up to the most important election of our lifetime when the post office is going to be playing its most important role. and the president has decided to put a man in place with no postal background for the first time in decades in that key position. so you say, yeah, donald trump is intentionally trying to sabotage the elections, or two, he is performing, which is the equivalent of at this point injecting somebody's body that has covid with bleach and disinfectants and trying to stick uv lights in there. and it's just a complete absolute ignorance of a situation. regardless, whether it's incompetence or intentional undermining of our democracy,

there aren't really a lot of good ways to look at this. and it does appear to be one of the great challenges that are going to be facing this country in the next two to three months having a president and a postmaster general who at the worst time possible are putting measures into effect that will undermine democracy. >> we're going to get to the economic and political fact check of the president's moves in just a moment. but you're right, the fact is, it's happening. but first where things stand with the virus, the u.s. surpassing 5 million covid-19 cases. the alarming tally, which really puts us number one in the world has doubled since late june. right now the country holds about a quarter of the world's cases. while topping the list for most reported coronavirus deaths globally. we top the lists for people who have died of coronavirus. so far five states account for

more than 40% of infection nationwide. hot spots continue to grapple with rising cases like florida which yesterday reported nearly 6,200 cases and set a new weekly record for covid-19 hospitalizations. over the weekend, california confirmed more than 10,000 deaths since the start of the crisis. and more than half a million covid-19 cases in all. texas also confirmed more than 500,000 cases as governor greg abbott extended his disaster declaration due to the pandemic. meanwhile, governor andrew cuomo reported the lowest rate since the outbreak. they've done it there. president trump signed a set of executive orders over the weekend expanding coronavirus relief. after lawmakers failed to reach a deal with the white house.

among the directives include deferring payroll taxes through the end of the year for americans earning less than $100,000. they also defer student loan payments through 2020. discourage evictions and extend enhanced unemployment benefits. the payments will be at a reduced rate of $400 a week instead of the previous $600 that democrats have been pushing to reinstate. the federal government will only cover 75% of the cost with the other 25% falling back on the states. here was trump's justification for that decision. >> why did you decide on $400 when previously families were receiving 600? that will be a hardship to many, what do you say to that? >> this is the money they need, the money they want. and this gives them great incentive to go back to work. >> a guy who claims to be a

billionaire many times over telling families faced with unemployment what they don't need. no, they don't need that money. this is exactly what they need. this is exactly what they want. it is, though, of course, most likely unconstitutional because you have the president, again -- once again infringing on article 1 powers. as far as spending and taxing. and steve ratner, it's just a bizarre list he put out there. he has had this obsession for some time about payroll taxes and cutting payroll taxes when economists, republicans, democrats, just about everybody on the hill have said, this does not make sense. this does not work. especially when you have so many people who are out of work and aren't paying payroll taxes right now. but take us through this bizarre laundry list of proposals by the

president, most of which will, i'm sure, be declared unconstitutional in time. >> yeah, joe. it is a bizarre laundry list. i think the president is -- was in a bad place politically. he'd be outma nufred by the democrats who passed the $3.4 trillion bill in may. and the republicans until a few weeks ago hadn't be able to agree on a counter offer so he had to show the american people he was doing something. so it's a bizarre list, a lot of odds and ends. i think we can litigate the executive order but it isn't much more than if he declared national ice cream day or another minor matter. to put it in perspective, you're talking about a couple billion dollars that may get to americans and the bid ask on the hill was between a tril and 3.4 trillion. if you want to focus on payroll

taxes for a second. you can see what's going to happen there. it's not a reduction, he doesn't have the authority to do that. it's a payroll tax de-feral until the end of the year and it's not clear that employers would cooperate since they might have the liability. and he's taking the money, $34 billion from fema, from disaster relief at a time when everyone is expecting a busy hurricane season and we've already had a bad storm. so all in all it's not much of anything. the last point i'd make about it is, it's not economically progressive in a sense. yes, it is capped at $104,000, but if you make $90,000 you'll get nine times the benefit of someone who made $10,000 is getting. and you can trust that to what the democrats wanted and what we did in the spring where checks

of 1,2$1,200 to all those below certain level. so to take that one provision it doesn't make a lot of sense. unemployment insurance if i can talk about that. we talked about the 400, which is really 300. the states don't have the money. that's the point of the exercise. there's nothing from what the president said for states, for schools, for hospitals, for testing. and andrew cuomo already said new york doesn't have the $4 billion to come up with their share of it. other states the legislature is out of session very hard to implement it. i think mika also mentioned the eviction order isn't really an eviction order it's an instruction to departments to stu study ways to help renters who are behind and can't pay their rent. and my approach would be to

point that out to the people and we can talk about litigation if people want but there's not much here to litigate, quite frankly. >> it was a huge, gigantic nothing burger when you look through the policies at the end. in fact, some of the policies he put forth are going to hurt people, hurt small business owners the most. mika, again i go back to the payroll tax cuts, economists, republicans, democrats, everybody opposing this, this is an obsession like hydroxychloroquine with the president of the united states. he's been told by republicans and conservatives on the hill time and time again that's not the answer. we don't want that. don't do that. the president goes ahead, he moves forward with it and what does he do? he just puts a deferal in place, he wants it to defer through his election. and then after the election, they have to pay it all back. so he's not giving them a cut.

a payroll tax cut anyway. he's deferring it until after the election and then the tax man cometh and asks for all that money back from small business owners, from working class americans, from people who aren't going to be able to pay a big lump of money at the end. it is sheer insanity by a president who's obviously very desperate for a lot of reasons. >> and the very people who could make a difference and say something, not really stepping up. there seem to be only a few republican lawmakers who expressed concern over president trump's new executive order. senator ben sasse of nebraska being one of the strongest. he issues a statement which in part reads, quote, the pen and phone theory of executive law making is unconstitutional slop. president obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite

immigration law with daca and president trump does not have the right to rewrite the payroll tax law. he went on to say, under the constitution that power belongs to the american people acting through maiembers of congress. the wall street journal writing, the good news is that president trump on saturday escaped the trillion dollar terms of surrender demanded by house speaker nancy pelosi, the bad news is he followed the barack obama method with executive orders, one of which stretches the law in a way that a future progressive president will surely cite as a precedent. this seams like an area where republicans could just talk about the law, joe. >> it seems to me, i remember quite a few, i think ted cruz went crazy when barack obama was signing executive orders. i know a lot of people were

concerned about it and criticized barack obama's executive orders. but silence. nothing but silence on capitol hill, other than we saw ben sasse and "the wall street journal" both who had criticized barack obama when he did it and are criticizing donald trump when he does it. but michael steele, let's step back for one second and look at this and realize what republicans are doing here. they are setting a precedent -- you know, they're so short sided because they're thinking that donald trump is going to be president forever. and they're so short sided that they don't realize that they are going to have a generation in in the minority to think about all the mistakes they made while trump was president and all the precedence that they set for the

line of democratic presidents who are going to be elected after this fall. because if you look at the demographic changes, you look at the republican party in disarray, i think there are going to be democrats elect to the white house for quite some time. and what have they done? they have so undermined their position as legislators by deferring time and time again to donald trump's own power grabs that as "the wall street journal" said, they're giving future president, kamala harris all that she needs to do something on abortion, gun laws, to do something on whatever they think they're the most afraid of, she can do a presidential directive and say, donald trump did it, ted cruz said nothing about it, i'm good.

>> yeah, this is the constitutional slop that ben sasse referred to. the one thing about constitutional slop it doesn't go down easily at all. and the republicans are going to rue this moment. they in some respects already have. because the question becomes ultimately, joe, so what? that's donald trump's bottom line. i'm going to do this, what are you going to do about it? so whether you're talking about some type of legislative remedy or some type of legal remedy, you go do that. in the meantime i've set the pattern in motion, i've established what i'm going to do. let me know when you catch up. so the idea that began going back about 20 years now of executive authority that's unchecked. we've given the executive branch an enormous amount of power by

allowing these things to happen and the question becomes for republicans, particularly after this administration and what we've seen the president do, what do you say when a democratic moves on, like you said, abortion, the environment, health care, and a host of other issues because they figure, well, i don't like what congress is putting forth. i'm not going to sign off on their bill so i'm going to create an executive order that's going to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. i'm going to go ahead and put in an executive order that is going to, you know, restrict, you know, companies and what they're doing in the environment. so these are the -- these are the stones that are being laid now on a path that republicans, while they were crying i think rightly about what obama did wi with daca through executive orders. they are now silent. they better pay attention to

what ben sasse is saying. this is the problem for mitch mcconnell, how do you get out of the constitutional slop. how do you reposition the senate going into the november election. on the back end of this is not a lot of good for you. >> okay. so kasie hunt in defense of republicans who are not speaking out vocally, what do they have to lose? what's the risk? what is it we can understand as to why they wouldn't speak out at this point? >> well, mika, it's the point that joe was making about a generation in the minority, and instead of taking that long view of this, they're taking a pretty short view saying we've got this election coming up in three months. they're increasingly afraid they're going to lose the majority in the senate and this generated a set of headlines that at least made it look like they were doing something and, you know, behind the scenes republicans are telling me, okay, democrats we dare you to sue over unemployment benefits because they don't think that

would look very good. and nancy pelosi and chuck schumer both declined to say they would do that when they were questioned about it on the shows yesterday morning. but the reality here is that this isn't one of the situations where president trump can go out there and write his own reality based on headlines. these are people in every state across the country in red states, blue states, swing districts, safe districts, whose quality of life has suddenly plummeted in the last couple of weeks. they are turning on the tv, they are following every turn of these negotiations because it is the question between whether they can put food on the table or not or make their car payment or not, or pay rent or not, you can't blow through that from a media narrative and republicans on the hill are well aware there are all these issues. they do not want to go out and attack the president, for the same reason they haven't wanted to attack the president any other time or on any other

issue. they know they still need to get a deal and that is the bet that nancy pelosi is making here. she knows how hard this is for so many people. she also can point to something that they did in may. she can say, we were going to fix this for you in may. it's the republicans who waited around all of this time and now here we are. and so, i see this continuing at least through this week. the president seemed to say democrats want to come back to the table but my reporting i talked to sources they said that schumer or pelosi has not talked to the president about this. i think we have chuck schumer coming up and i think we should ask him about it. >> yeah, i think we most likely will. and mika, you look at the situation that the republicans are in, and again, i know donald trump thinks that voters are stupid. he acts that way. he lies to them every day in a way that would suggest that he

believes that his supporters are stupid. but republicans and democrats on the ground understand they're a lot closer to their voters. they understand that so many people need help. they need relief. and the president's scam press cop be fre conference on friday and this spade of executive orders, unconstitutional as they are, not only unconstitutional, they're just ineffective and voters are going to find it out quickly and when they find it out, who's going to be hurt? republican senators who are already fighting if the their lives and, of course, a president who continues to lose badly in swing states. >> and let me add to that dynamic as we get into the new swing state polling. the other aspect of this is that republicans aren't stupid, are they? i mean, it's one thing to assume voters are stupid, that's bad enough. but they can't be stupid. they must see what's happening

here. they know the law. many of them are not stupid. they see what's happening with the post office. i assume republicans love their country, they're there to serve. to me it's still vexing as to what exactly is going on even if it's at the risk of their political jobs. polling shows vice president joe biden is pulling ahead of president trump in states trump won in 2016. in the new cbs news/yougov poll. out of pennsylvania, joe biden leads president trump 49, 43. in wisconsin biden at 48% compared to donald trump 42. and a statewide poll from michigan found trump trailing biden by 11 points, 40% to 51. and joe, again, i raise the issue of what is happening with the post office. when president trump looks at the numbers, it's a worthy question, is it not, that --

>> yeah. >> -- there is sabotage involved here. >> the president is desperate and we know he'd do anything to get re-elected. so the question is for people as they're looking at the president of the united states deciding the radically restructure the united states post office just months before the most important election of our lifetime and the election that the united states post office will play the most important role. deluged with a million ball llo -- b ballots. >> in the middle of a pandemic. >> yes. i'm curious if there's a republican senator brave enough to take up the cause and say it's not going to be allowed. but you look at the polls, jonathan lemire, and they line up fairly consistently what you've been hearing what we've

been seeing, and that is michigan, apparently out of reach right now for the president. and wisconsin and pennsylvania both still solid -- solidly in the biden camp. you look throughout the state of pennsylvania, with the suburbs of philly, philadelphia proper, look at scranton wilkes-barre. a big media market that usually breaks big for republicans. that's now -- biden is doing well there, of course, because it's his hometown. the president is facing real difficulty as we get halfway through august. >> that's right, joe. and the president has received new briefings from the campaign staff about where things stand. first, a little more politics this weekend, of course. this is the white house with the executive orders and they're dubious constitutionality. this is them trying to frame the

president stepping in the breech, this is the president is a man of action trying to get it done. but there seems to be lesser than expected. one other thing to flag, payroll taxes help fund social security so this is the president trying to cut into that. the president denied that yesterday saying social security wouldn't be touched it would come from an unspecified general fund. that's something we need specifics on. back to the swing states the president and his team their new internal polling, he was briefed on this over the weekend suggests what you said, joe, that michigan is basically out of reach. the trump campaign has stopped advertising there, they are not playing there. they've all but ceded michigan. another state you and i talked about in the early parts of the campaign they thought had the chance to flip, a state they lost in many 2016 but feel they can turn thing around in had this time, minnesota, now

they're conceding it out of reach and they're not going to play there. they feel the gap has narrowed in some of the battleground states, new hampshire one, wisconsin another state that won't have college students on campus this fall who won't be able to register to vote there, same day voting in if madison, wisconsin not going to happen because students likely won't be on campus. but pennsylvania is trying to make a push here. joe biden has been ahead, as you said, the white house team, the campaign team thinks it's within reach. they feel they've whittled off a little of his margin. and then there's the fire of who vice president joe biden's pick will be that will be a focus the next few days and for the white house a relief. this whole campaign -- every day of the campaign has been about donald trump for at least a few days they feel that scrutiny on

biden and his pick the story will be about joe biden and his pick. >> i don't see them making a play for it in new hampshire. wisconsin could be competitive till the end. but again, you look at the breakdown in pennsylvania, i just don't see how they make up enough votes to make -- put pennsylvania in their column by the end. so this map continues to shrink by the day for the trump campaign. >> which i think explains the other side of the story. we'll continue to cover the post office issue. still ahead on "morning joe," as jonathan just mentioned former vice president joe biden is set to be closing in on his pick for a running mate. stakes are high and could potentially make history. plus chuck schumer will be our guest on the heels of the

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the federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story as the states are reopening now, this may will be a transition month. i think you'll see by june a lot of the country should be back to normal. the hope is by july the country is really rocking again. >> i think they provide significant economic assistance even though the numbers are coming in strong, a good jobs number on friday, declining unemployment. we created 9 million jobs in three months, that's a record but there's still a lot of hardship out there, a lot of hard braeak and the point that president trump made is that on several occasions we tried to get a compromised deal on the unemployment assistance which ran out, the federal unemployment assistance, that's a key point. >> jared kushner back in april and larry kudlow yesterday.

and steve ratner, what are they talking about? you have charts. >> what they're talking about is their spin on the economy. this is the ying and yang of politics. the republicans want us to think the economy is recovering rapidly and the facts are not quite the same. let's go back to friday's jobs number and look at how that fits into the resent historic perspective. you can see the dramatic drop in jobs in march and especially april, recovery in may, a reasonably strong june and then this three-month job record that larry kudlow is touting includes 1.8 million from last month but see the deceleration from 4.8 million in june to 1.8 million in july. i think all of us think it's a direct consequence of states opening and having to close again as the virus spread. i'll show you other things about

the slow down in economic activity. we lost 22.2 million jobs since this started we've only regained 9.3 million. at the rate we're going, it's months, perhaps longer, before the economy fully recovers. if we can look at the unemployment rate which was also reported on friday, and there was a decline to 10.2%, and so again you can see unemployment coming down steadily through the recovery, you can see the jump up in the spring, you can see where it's come down to, but if you look at what economists are currently forecasting they're looking for just under 10% right around election day, there are two more jobs reports before election day, and that will bring us back to where we were in december of 2010. the president will be claiming unemployment is coming down, things are getting better. the reality of where we'll be at that point in time is a place no president wants to be when he's fighting for re-election.

these numbers confirm other data we're seeing about general slow down in the return to normal here as the states have to close and reopen and so forth as they fight the virus. so this last chart is one from the chase bank, which tracks consumer spending on their credit card and again you can see the same kind of pattern, sharp drop off during the spring as we went into shutdown, lockdown mode, can you see a steady recovery but when you get to the middle of june, that recovery stalls out and we are sitting at roughly 10% less consumer spending every month than we had a year ago. and not really getting better at the moment. and lastly i would say there are indications out there that -- i don't want to predict jobless numbers that are so hard to predict right now, but when you put it together with data about layoffs, it does scare me and worry me about an august -- a

possible august pretty bad jobs number and other economic data we're not going to like. so all of this simply confirms we needed another package. you had unemployment insurance expiring. you had the payroll protection has expired now and this is why congress needed to act. and this is why the president is trying to look like he's acting, even though there's very little that's going to help this problem in his package. >> we certainly need another package passed whatever that looks like, whatever compromise democrats and republicans can come up with. you're right, steve, a lot of economists worried that august, september, october, may limp along. michael steele, looking at the numbers as they are and if we end up above 10% at the time of donald trump's re-election attempt in november, you're going to have two messages. you'll have larry kudlow bragging about how great the economy is doing.

we picked up x number of jobs in the past five months it's a record. then you have democrats talking about unemployment over 10%, unprecedented hardship across america, it didn't have to be this way. how do you sort through that? how do you think that breaks down for voters in the six or seven states that matter the most? >> joe, it's going to be critical. there's no doubt about how this narrative is received by voters as they turn into september, as you know -- >> what's the -- what's the more compelling narrative that you would like to have when you ran a national party, which of those two narratives would you rather have going into the fall, all things being equal? >> you want a narrative you can talk about positivity in the economy, job growth and creation, you can talk about stabilized, you know, financial sector where businesses are

investing and small businesses in particular are taking advantage of those opportunities because they are the engine that creates jobs. but this is the reality. it's not like you're creating jobs. people are going back to jobs they had. they're being rehired. the administration is walking as 23 these are new jobs as if this is somehow freshly minted employment. these are folks getting back to where they were. and then you layer on top of that, the still uncertainly about what the fall looks like in a world of covid-19. we don't know that. these rosie scenarios are not taking into consideration what the doctors and scientists and researchers are telling us lies ahead. so voters are putting this in perspective. so despite the rosie packages put out by the administration, as steve laid out, the numbers for candidates on the ground to go into town hall meetings,

virtual or otherwise are going to tell a different tale. that's why what you see happening coming out of the senate is so important to hold that majority, because you just can't go out and sell this idea that we cut the payroll tax, no, you didn't, you deferred it. so as an employer i have to pay that on the back end. so the mixed messaging is a problem for the administration. >> you're right. i'm going through it in my head listening, i'm trying to figure out what message i want to deliver in a town hall before an election. you can say things are getting better but if you sound like larry kudlow and talk about how great the economy is and it's record breaking you're going to make people inside that town hall upset. they'll say you're a creature of washington what do you know about the pain my family and i have been through in the past

six months. so there is danger in taking that positive tact. of course, democrats want to focus on how -- i think the strong message is, mika, that this is the worst economy collapse since the great depression. and it didn't have to be this way. it didn't have to be this bad. if the president had moved in late january, like joe biden had told him to move in late january, if he had used the defense authorization act and started -- the defense production act and started an aggressive testing regiment, started an aggressive regiment as it pertained to all of the other things that we needed to do, if we, in fact, had a president who acted like a wartime president because, make no maistake, our children are going to look back on this time like it was a war, because their lives have changed in radical

ways. in ways that no generations' lives have been impacted where they go inside and basically duck and cover for six months. and the deaths now up to 160,000. guess what we're approaching three vet vietnams. more people have died in this war than american soldiers died in world war i. so this is serious. this is extraordinarily serious. and americans feel it. and as we move towards this election, it's going to be very difficult for republicans to come up with a message, especially with this president acting the way he is. but to come up with the message

that is going to sell inside that room, that's going to sell on tv, that's going to sell on radio. they have a couple of months to figure it out. but as we've been saying for some time, early voting begins in a few weeks. >> all right. steve ratner thank you very much. coming up intelligence officials gathered last year to write a classified report on russia's interest in the 2020 election. now a new investigation from the "new york times" is uncovering what those officials found and that is next on "morning joe." od that is next on "morning joe." ng for this for a long time. they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident, even if it's your fault. cut! sonny. was that good? line! the desert never lies. isn't that what i said? no you were talking about allstate and insurance. i just... when i...

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when president trump spoke to vladimir putin july 23rd, did he tell him to knock this off? >> the president has told the russians, we've told the russians, ourcount counterparts to get involved in our election. >> did president trump tell that

to president putin? >> what i didn't get involved in, unlike my predecessors, i don't get involved in conversations that the president has with foreign heads of states. whether it's france or russia. >> what do you do then? what do you do? you don't talk to him? you talk to him about whiffle ball? do you talk to him about goonies too? do you -- what do you talk to him about if you don't talk to him about discussions with foreign -- was goonies 2 a movie? >> that was the national security advisor. the united states national security advisor robert o'brien being pressed yesterday on whether president trump confronted president putin about

elections. >> we have an update quickly. alex, can you give us insight there? what was it again? goonies 2, never say die. he said it went straight to netflix. >> your father and brent, we never talk about him -- >> yes. passed we this weekend. >> your father had such great respect for him and i'm sure he would agree with richard haass he was one of the greatest national security adviser who sat in the oval office, other than the one who worked for jimmy carter. >> i don't know. >> but those guys, national security advisers were constantly talking to their president, constantly finding out about those conversations, and then figuring out how to craft it in the policy. how to craft it into initiatives.

that is the problem, again, just an extraordinary breakdown of all interagency workings with this administration. you have a president that nobody talks to and a president that talks to nobody. and that's what makes this situation, and the situation we've had from the beginning with russia so dangerous where the president of the united states is talking on the side to foreign minister of russia saying, i just fired the fbi director so this whole russia thing i got a lot of pressure off of me, or constantly talking to vladimir putin alone. and this is what robert draper actually has dug into in this incredible "new york times" piece. >> and big picture, read ann applebalm's book, madeleine albright's book on why this is

so important. but that current piece of sound from the national security advisor follows a new intelligence report that shows russia is working to denigrate joe biden to boost president trump's chances for a second term. that's according to the top official at the national counterintelligence and security center who on friday released a report about foreign interference in the upcoming election. the report also found that china has been, quote, expanding its influence efforts ahead of november and would prefer that trump does not win. but officials said chinese leaders have not yet decided to weigh directly into the presidential contest. officials briefed said they believed russia to be the far graver, more immediate threat. joining us now, former chief of staff of the cia and nbc news national security analyst robert

bash. and author, robert draper. he's the author of the new book "to start a war how the bush administration took america into iraq". and he has the cover story for the latest issue of the "new york times" magazine entiled "unwanted truths, i inside trump's battles with u.s. intelligence agencies". >> robert draper, great to have you here. of course, one of the parts of your story that sticks out the most is the fact that there was a conclusion, a report and a conclusion that -- let me get the exact wording right here. that russia clearly favored the current president, but after dan coats left, it was changed and the language was watered down. donald trump exerting tremendous influence over the intel agencies and believing that they

are supposed to do his bidding and not the bidding of the united states of america. >> as you mentioned, joe, this is a national intelligence agency that came to the conclusion that russia likely favored the current president in this november election, which should not seem startling, putin himself said he favored the president in 2016. but knowing that at any time the subject were brought up to president trump he would become unglued essentially because it called into question the legitimacy of his presidency, people always walk on eggshells. so when this particular national intelligence estimate was coming down the pike for fear of incurring the president's wrath, it was watered down as you indicate to say russia probably judges under a different administration the u.s. relations might suffer. it seems like a small

distinction but it's critical because it allowed republican lawmakers when a national security official testified on the hill about russia favoring trump to say, no, there's nothing in the intelligence that says that whatsoever. >> you're right about the damage that many believe donald trump has caused the intelligence communities and some believing it's going to be hard for the intelligence communities to recover, even if he's defeated this fall. explain that. >> for one thing, i think that we have seen agency after agency under president trump excerpt his own influence and bend them to his will, department of justice, homeland security, health and human services. it's particularly important when the entity that the entity that exists to bring the president the truth, the uncomfortable truth even is bent to his will, it comes back to what you were talking about in the earlier segments, the happy talk related to the economy, the coronavirus,

and it's not that the -- the cia is to give you the hard truth. it's creating a demoralizing situation in the intelligence community, but also turnover in officials and a loss of credibility with our counter parts. >> robert's book is extraordinary. ann applebalm's book where she talks about the alternative realities that robert just talked about. this is directly from the autocrats play book. whether you're looking at hungary, at poland, whether you're looking at what's happening across the world in turkey, in the philippines. the first thing you do is you devalue the truth. you lie so often that you're able to create an alternative reality and then you feed that alternative reality to your numb

supporters and fairly soon they live in that alternative reality with you. and so, anything that tries to break through that cult-like following suddenly becomes fake news. suddenly becomes propaganda. suddenly becomes a plague from george soros, suddenly becomes something that academia is doing to undermine the great donald trump. that's how he's conditioned his people. we've seen it in autocratic regimes likehungary, turkey, across the world, and, of course, vladimir putin in russia. let's look at donald trump responding this weekend to a question about his intel community. >> mr. president, your intelligence agency today said that russia is already meddling in this year's election to hurt joe biden and that china is considering meddling to hurt you. do you believe that

intelligence? what do you plan to do about it? >> it could be. i could be very much. i think the last person russia wants to see in office is donald trump because nobody has been tougher on russia than i have ever. >> that's not what the intel community says -- >> i don't care what anybody says. >> jonathan lemire, as you know very well because you were there, as the action center would say, ke creation. you were in helsinki, when you asked vladimir putin and vladimir putin said, you know what, i'm for donald trump, i wanted donald trump to win. so again, more alternative facts. donald trump lying through his teeth. he was there -- perhaps he doesn't remember helsinki if the president's supporters want to say he's got a bad memory and lost five or seven steps okay they can go with that excuse or

go with he's a bald faced liar because he was with you in helsinki two years ago when he heard vladimir putin saying, yes, i wanted donald trump to win. >> that's right. in helsinki, joe, the president, of course, sided with russia over his own u.s. intelligence conclusions about the 2016 election interference and indeed, even though putin, of course, denied beings involved with the interference, he flatout admitted he had been favoring donald trump to win that election. and the president -- i want to go to jeremy bash. i was there when he answered the question over the weekend, he grew testy as the second part of the answer because he was saying, here, china is trying to bring me down. the intelligence conclusion officers suggest that iran would prefer the president to lose. but walk us through the differences here. it seems to me that this report suggests while china and iran may have preferences that the

president lose, they're not actively trying to undermine him like russia is trying to do with joe biden. what was your take? can you walk us through it? >> that's right, jonathan. and china and iran, the fact they oppose american policy decisions that's par for the course. they're adversaries. but what's disturbing, abnormal, dangerous is that russia is trying to support donald trump in the election. and the key difference between 2016 and 2020 in 2016 when the russians supported trump he was a candidate, he had no thought to reward the russian federation. now he's commander and chief, he can invite them to the g-7, slow roll sanctions, he can refuse to push back on them when they pay bounties to the taliban to kill american troops and under mine nato. he can do all five of those things as commander in chief. that's a quid pro quo, a reward

for the support the russia federation is giving him during this election cycle. >> robert draper, it's kasie hunt. i'm thinking back to when we first went through this in 2016. we learned after the fact that the obama administration and members of congress, the people in the gang of eight, were watching what was happening and trying to figure out what to say in public about it. now obviously we saw this memo go out late last week, which is more than anything we ever saw in 2016, but i'm wondering what reporting you have, about whether there are disagreements and pressures going on behind the scenes between republicans and democrats on what to say in public this time around? >> well, i guess let's divide between the senate and the house. i mean, on the senate side, kasie, republicans are largely in lock step with the democrats, with the pointed exception of

senator ron johnson who has been basically spreading disinformation regarding the bidens, presumably in an effort to hurt biden's campaign. on the house side it's contention though. it's hard to see where house republicans have embraced their responsibility to provide oversight. if anything they have been -- as my story details, it's -- devin nunes immediately went after closed session classified hearing to the white house and described the contents of that, which by the way is the kind of thing that never would have happened under previous administrations. there shouldn't be any lawmaker, democrat or republican, reporting findings of a top secret briefing directly to the administration. shows you a true and unfortunate erosion of oversights occurred with this administration. >> jeremy bash, thank you very

much. and robert draper, thank you as well. we'll be reading your cover story in the new issue of the "new york times" magazine. it is just past the top of the hour on this monday august 10th, kasie hunt, jonathan lemire and michael steele still with us. and joining the conversation is michael barnacle and errin haines. and we start with president trump's unscheduled news conference on friday night that appeared to be a shot for members of his bed minister golf club. many members walked into the room not wearing face coverings, this is a problem health wise. masks were handed out before the president arrived. new jersey's social distancing guidelines were also completely ignored after reporters raised

concerns, "the washington post" said a club official told the crowd to, quote, spread out a little because tweets are going out. really? what about your life? when asked about the lack of safety precautions, the president played to his audience. >> the pandemic is disappearing, we lost 6,000 americans this week and in this room you have dozens of people not following the guidelines of new jersey which say -- >> it's political -- you're wrong because it's a political activity. they have exceptions political activity. and it's also a peaceful protest. so as you know -- [ cheers and applause ] >>, you know, the number of -- to me they look like they all have -- pretty much all have masks on. you have an exclusion in the law that says peaceful protests or

political activity -- >> yeah, it says political activity or peaceful protests. you can call it political activity but i call it peaceful protests. they heard you were coming up and they know the news is fake. they understand it better than anybody. they asked whether or not they could be here. >> and again, constantly attacking mika the news. again, that's what autocrats do. that's what dictatordictators, throughout history, have done. we're not saying obviously that donald trump is a dictator he can't be because madison had checks and balances that ensure that he candidate do the kind of things that he's trying to do and that he can be checked by courts and the press. but again, he goes to his country club, a group of people are around, and then they're told to put on masks, not because over 150,000 americans

have died, not because their own safety is at risk, but they're told that tweets are going out showing them not doing what every doctor, and what every medical provider is telling them to do. it's a cult. it's just a cult. it's a cult that ignores medicine. it's a cult that ignores science. it's a cult that ignores what epidemiologists who have been studying pandemics their entire life are saying. it's a cult that ignores scientists and they think they're proving something by getting sick and getting their parents sick and killing other people around them. no, they're not proving anything, other than they're putting the -- their own cult-like beliefs ahead of their own safety and the safety of others around them. it's bizarre. again, it's one thing when you

were in that cult and believing the lies about robert mueller and you were in that cult and baliing t believing the lies about russia, the lies that the president said about ukraine, that's one thing. but now you're going all in, all over america people refusing to wear masks, people suggesting that this is a conspiracy led by dr. anthony fauci and george soros. come on, it's really -- it's gotten to such extremes that senior citizens in florida are dying. senior citizens in arizona are dying. senior citizens across america are dying. and guess what, a lot of kids are getting infected too. >> that's right. >> guess what, that picture of that georgia hallway, who's surprised? now we're finding out kids in that hallway have been infected with the coronavirus. and yet members of donald trump's cult, instead of

focussing on the pandemic and protecting themselves, protecting their loved ones, protecting the economy, protecting ma protecting america, instead they're cheering when donald trump bashes members of the press. yes, this will be written for generations to come. and yes, donald trump, and especially republicans in the senate, will be the ones found guilty of negligent behavior that killed a lot of americans. >> so i agree with everything that you said about the consequences of people dying because they're not following the guidelines and this president is setting the worst example ever and has botched this pandemic -- it almost looks purposeful it's so bad. so bad. but at the very top you said that this is what dictators do

and it won't be allowed because of madison's checks and balances. tell me what hasn't been allowed in this presidency? he may have been criticized by the military, by the intelligence community, but what exactly hasn't been allowed so far as we head into an election where it appears the postal service is being sabotaged. i just want to understand where the checks and balances are that are actually stopping corrupt, unlawful behavior? >> well, you can go all the way back to the first week of the presidency. you can look at the courts that struck down his first two so-called muslim bans. and wouldn't allow those so called muslim bans to go into effect until they were drafted in a way that was constitutional that didn't violate people's constitutional rights. you can go through three and a

half years of judicial rulings that time and again have held the president of the united states in many check. all the way to the decision this past month from the supreme court that said the state of new york could have access to donald trump's tax records for the purposes of a pending investigation, a possible criminal investigation. you can look not just at the judiciary, you can look at the military and their response to june the 1st, after making an egregious error, the chairman of the joint chiefs the next day came out, made a very -- >> rebuked him. >> -- strong, definitive statement and rebuked the president of the united states and then went on video link and apologized to every member of the armed services. every man and woman, every fellow general, admiral, every

private. yes, there have been checks and there have been balances in real time. the house of representatives impeached the president of the united states. and impeached the president of the united states because he used his office of the presidency to leverage foreign aid to a country who had been invaded by russia to try to get dirt on his political opponent. >> and has that stopped him? >> those facts -- those facts, those facts are very clear. and guess what, just like the republican house of representatives face the music in 2018 and lost by the greatest landslide margin in the history of this this republican, in terms of voting, those senators that voted earlier this year to allow a commander in chief to use his position to leverage a

foreign leader who is under attack by a foreign country, the russians, to get dirt on donald trump's domestic opponent, every one of those senators will have to face voters this year. and mike barnicle, i've got to say. if if you look at what has happened to the republican party on the local level, on the state level, on the national level, since the day that trump has gotten elected, you see from virginia to kentucky to louisiana, across the fruited plains in house races, in senate races, and now in a spade of polls that are coming out, that madis madison's systems of checks and balances has worked pretty damn well up to this point. yes, we have a real challenge with the post office.

donald trump appears -- and i say appears -- to be trying to throw the united states postal service in a state of chaos. and he's probably succeeding at doing that. it's now time for courts. it is now time for the united states congress. it is now time for others to stand up and hold this president accountable. they've done it before. we'll see if they have time to do it now. >> joe, you know, through the clouds and the obstruction of the last three and a half years you're right. the one glimmer of hope is that the system of checks and balances has worked in the past, the courts have done their job in the past. but, you know, just listening to the program for the last hour and ten minutes or so, i mean, what we're dealing with you can almost hear the nuts and bolts of our democratic form of government just popping, breaking and the system breaking down through malicious intent,

the president's press conference -- or faux press conference saturday night in new jersey where president trump gets the crowd going and calls it fake news. you know it's fake news. we know what's not fake, the virus is not fake. millions of people unemployed this week, that's not fake. millions of people facing eviction, that's not fake. the republican party, joe, we're going to have an election in november 2020, the election of november 2020, but it's more than about 2020. if you look at the demographics of this country and if you look at the stain -- i mean the stain that donald trump has put on the republican party in those who just mindlessly have followed his every word and movement, this is also about 2024 and 2022 for the republican party. people forget a lot of things we

are a country of am neez yaks with 8, 9, 10 news drops a day, people tend to tune out. but people don't forget things like not getting a paycheck, not having someone come for them, to help them. govern government is there to help people in trouble. this time people are in real trouble and nobody is coming, nobody is coming largely because of the republican party led by donald j. trump. >> kasie, let me ask you, what is being done on capitol hill? what can be done on capitol hill to counter donald trump's friday night massacre at the united states post office? again, just an absolutely bold attempt to sow chaos inside a bureaucracy that's going to be determining how votes are

counted and how quickly we get the results and how much chaos is, in fact, experienced in the counting of those votes to see who the next president of the united states is. >> i can tell you, joe, democrats have been focused on this p. they dragged the new postmaster general into the capitol last week and had a heated meeting with nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. democrats were willing to take down their budget request in the coronavirus legislation, they were going to compromise and drop some of the funding but what they wanted in exchange was demand policy changes to address what you're talking about. my own family sent a standard business letter in the mail, two weeks to go from the east coast to the state of michigan. you can see some of the effects playing out across the system. i think a lot of americans can speak to what's going on already. so i do think there is urgency on the part of democrats.

it's been one of their lines in the sand in terms of the relief packa package. but if we get no relief package i'm not sure there's a vessel to address it here. this is what i don't understand. you covered and known donald trump for a long time. he always seems to be acutely aware of his own self-interest and has been willing to act in his own self-interest. what nancy pelosi and chuck schumer have been saying to him all the way along is, sure, we'll spend $3 trillion to try to help americans and help the economy. the president's been saying all along if the economy is good, i'll win the election. they're in many ways offering him a political gift. now, of course, they are looking at the realities americans are facing and saying this is why we need to act. but why the president seems to be listening to mark meadows on this and not looking at the broader picture is a mystery to

me. i'm wondering if that log jam breaks this week or we head into the fall with no relief in sight on the postal service or any of these issues, joe. >> it's a mystery because as i have been saying since 2015, donald trump is not a conservative. he's to the really what we usually define as being a republican. he's a big spending democrat. and so, yes, it is odd. this is another one of those times where another one of those 80/20 issues where donald trump is choosing the 20%. choosing to do nothing. choosing to put out a spade of meaningless and at the same time -- this is quite an accomplishment to put out a spade of meaningless executive orders that are both meaningless and unconstitutional, that is your daily double for donald j. trump. but it is interesting that this

man who's been willing to throw money at every problem over the past three and a half years who before the coronavirus breakout was the biggest spending not only republican but biggest spending president in the history of this republic. spent more on government than any president ever. ever. it is curious that with his polls dipping, he's just not doing anything. it's also very curious for mitch mcconnell who's in a battle of his own. he upnderstands he's in a heate battle. he understands that martha mcsally is way behind, corey gardner is way behind. susan collins in maine is fighting for her life. he understands that thom tillis is fighting for his life. he understands there could be a

big flip to the democratic party and democrats could take control of the senate for a very long time. it's curious they're dragging their feet because a lot of their supporters, contributors are saying don't give $600 in unemployment benefits, that's too much money people won't want to go to work if you give them $600. but that's where we are. let's look at a couple polls that came out over the weekend. one that came out on friday that is going to be telling, joe biden sitting at 49% and donald trump at 43% in in the state of pennsylvania. that is a six point lead for joe biden, among registered voters. let's go to wisconsin. you have a six point lead among registered voters there, 48% to 42%. i'll be honest with you, i don't know why anybody is doing polls with registered voters right now, instead of likely voters. likely voters tighter look at the electorate.

here's a likely voter poll out of michigan. joe biden at 51%, donald trump at 40%. and errin, here we have in every swing state we've seen one poll after another over the past several months where joe biden remains comfortably ahead. >> yeah, and you took the words out of my mouth, joe. likely voters is who we need to pay attention to in these polls in battleground states. this is important especially as we consider what many americans consider, which is the conversation around how people are going to be able to safely participate in this democracy headed into november. we're seeing, you know, that voters are enthusiastic but younger voters polling has shown, even though they're paying attention to this election are not sure how they're supposed to be able to do that. you have african-americans, many of whom as we know are being

affected by this pandemic who are thinking about voting from a public health perspective, not wanting to stand in long lines which happens in black communities across the country and exposing themselves to coronavirus possibly versus trying to get a mail-in ballot that may or may not be happening and then trying to mail that in and that vote may or may not be counted given the current dynamics with the postal service. i think that likely voters peopling wanting to cast ballots what we should be paying attention to in this moment because those folks want to participate in the election and not sure how they're going to be able to do that safely. >> jonathan lemire let's put those polls back up again and have you go through what the president and his team are talking about in their strategy moving forward with several months to go. and also, if you will, tell us

again, when does early voting start and we'll start with this again, pennsylvania poll with biden up six points. wisconsin biden up six points. michigan biden up by 11. jonathan, give us the breakdown. >> the first state is north carolina, which is i believe september 3rd. that kicks off the early voting. north carolina key battleground and other states begin on the days and weeks to follow. september 3rd, two months before election day. so a lot of votes are going to be banked so the president, trailing and his campaign acknowledges that, are running out of time to change those voters' minds. but it's true, those who vote early tend of their minds made up. we were talking before about the polls, both campaigns agree that there are six battleground states to decide this election, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, arizona, north

carolina, florida. that's setting aside somewhere now the president has to play defense and has had to spend resources and had to go the past week to places like ohio, texas, georgia is another one he has to play defense. we don't see, outside of perhaps new hampshire, a place where democrats have to do the same now that the trump campaign has ceded michigan is a place that is fulfilled. so they can afford to lose one more of the other side. they can lose wisconsin, pennsylvania, but they have to win the rest of them, if they lose two the ball game is over, they can't get 270 electoral votes. they are concerned about where they stand in some of the states. arizona in particular has been a place of worry for the president's team of late. that's a state hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. it's not a coincidence that the

president had the governor of arizona here at the white house for an event last week where he talked about things getting better, played up how the federal government has stepped up for arizona that was with an eye towards november. they can't i win at all, there's no path to victory without florida they're trailing there but feel reasonably confident about florida and north carolina too. but it's the states, pennsylvania and wisconsin where they know they're down and need to reverse fortunes as quickly as they can. >> michael steele, if you're joe biden this week and you're looking at putting out a vice presidential pick you look at the polls and see you're ahead in all of the polls, what's your play, do you go safe with your vice presidential pick and what's your strategy going into the fall? >> that's a good question. i don't think joe biden is

necessarily beholden to the conventional thinking around the vice presidential pick this time. he made it clear he's going to pick a woman. i think he wanted someone to work with him as he worked with barack obama. that's something a lot of voters appreciate. they watched joe support president obama over those eight years. and sometimes, in some instances lead, like he did, for example, in pushing gay marriage to the forefront of the conversation. so biden is looking for someone who is going to complement him in that regard. going forward from the announcement, i think he wants someone who has a little scrap in them, able to go out and hold their own. going to take a lot of incoming from the trump team, maybe some corners of the press. so these women he's looking at sort of fit into that bucket nicely. they have the scrappy nature about them they can stand their

own ground as they go and talk about what the administration is going to do. i think thirdly he's going to look for someone who can help him lead in the recovery. in the post trump era. how we rebound from covid-19. how we re-establish the economy. and how we move forward on some short term term goals the administration wants to set in the first 100 days with the potential vice presidential nominee leading in some of the quarters. i think biden is in a good position. in some sense, joe, we've sort of vetted his pick all together. so there aren't going to be a lot of surprises that we're going to see or hear. >> let me ask you this, governor wh whitmer's name has jumped back into the conversation the past several days. before george floyd's killing there was talk that whitmer was a leading candidate.

then after the killing and the remarkable protests, people started saying it needed to not just be a woman, it needed to be a black woman. what's your feeling? does it need to be a black woman? could it be governor whitmer, where is joe biden in that process? >> i would contend governor whitmer was never off the table. she was probably off the table in some quarters, folks that are their own reasons to push her off the table. from what i understand inside the biden campaign she was never taken off the table. why? because she brings qualities to the table that are important. she's a governor governoring through covid-19, stood her ground against this president. while the awfulness of floyd's murder certainly impacted her in her state, she handled that as well as best she could given the national outcry. so there's -- there are a lot of

things that still kept her with the biden team. i think whether he picks a black woman or not, from what i hear from a number of folks now, that's dissipated a bit. at the end of the day, the question is what are you going to do? are you going to walk away from the ticket because he picked a qualified woman to be his running mate. so i think people are giving him the benefit of the doubt on that, much more now than three or four weeks ago. >> you're writing now about elizabeth warren, so would the selection of elizabeth warren cause a problem for the democratic base does it need to be a block woman or could it be elizabeth warren or governor whitmer. >> i got an earful over the weekend from black women organizers, activists, the type of people who really are the get

out the vote machine for democrats that's going to produce the kind of turnout that they are going to need to win in november and what they all told me was this is no longer a recommendations for them. this is a requirement. this is something that they will take if he does not pick a black woman as a signal that he does not value them and their contribution to the party. and really because this, as opposed to, you know, a cabinet nomination or a supreme court nomination, for example, this is a decision solely up to joe biden and so him saying, you know, i want a black woman as my governing partner a chance to make more history. there's never been a woman vice president but there's never been a black woman nominated by a major party so they see that as a return on their investment, if you with will. that investment being the votes that made him the presumptive nominee weeks ahead of schedule.

and a lot of them were alarmed when they got wind of the gretchen whitmer interview last weekend and were surprised she was still on the table. governor whitmer is someone focused on addressing the pandemic in her state so his profile was rising with her responding to that as opposed to some of the other people in the conversation who, you know, by associating themselves with the vice president doing events, were able to raise their profile in this conversation. she didn't necessarily have that challenge. and so, you know, elizabeth warren you mentioned, is somebody who i had, you know, a chance to observe her during her 2020 presidential run and she was somebody who, especially a lot of black women, were open to because she talked so much about systemic racism and made the

connection between that systemic racism and how she would address that in policy if if she were president. she didn't become the nominee but folks looking at the number two spot knowing that's going to be a woman, for a lot of the black women i hear from, if it's not a black woman, elizabeth warren is the main white woman whose name i hear saying they would be okay with supporting. but i think for all the conversation what i hear most from black women is not putting a black woman on the ticket could be the difference between black women voters simply showing up in november and really showing out and bringing their sorority, church, salon, their community, the way they do normally when they head to the polls. >> mika, joe biden has quite a choice in front of him. but from everything i heard, so much of it is going to come down to who he's most comfortable with. >> yeah. >> whether it's elizabeth warren or whether it's great chen

whitmer, susan rice, kamala harris, for joe biden, having a partner in governing obviously is so extraordinarily important to him. >> from a know your value p perspective i'm excited there's a strong bench to choose from, so many great options which is hopeful. we'll see what happens. still ahead on "morning joe," chuck schumer is our guest after calling the president's executive orders on pandemic relief insufficient. plus the author of a revealing new book on donald trump's most divisive and inflew enshl aid, steve miller and how he reportedly made white nationalist a key part of the agenda. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. you're watc we'll be right back.

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>> did the -- i'm sorry, go ahead mika. >> okay. he's been the man behind some of president trump's most controversial policies and speeches. now a new book the taking a closer look at stephen miller and his impact on the administration. joining us now investigative reporter gene garara, the author of the new book entitled "hate mo mongerer". >> even the title is harsh but if you do a basic google search you see that david duke praising donald trump time and time again for his policies after charlottesville. and you see stephen miller as a senate aide passing around articles written in white nationalist publications and

even being praised by white nationalist richard spencer. what did you find out in researching your book? >> stephen miller is a case study, in my book i show how he was indock ter-nated during a difficult time in his life. his family had lost a lot of money, he was feeling displaced and this is when he meets a conservative writer through his high school named david horowitz who introduces stephen miller to the fantasy he needs to save the united states from the destruction in the form of too many brown and black people coming here. this is the man who becomes like a father figure to stephen miller and believes the racism -- this is shaping stephen miller's clear feeding explosive talking points for the trump campaign, feeding policies through miller that you saw trump adopting thereafter.

so miller, with his help and the help of other extremist mentors learned how to launder white supremacist viewpoints through the language of economics and national security to make it palatable through the main stream. that's what i show in my book. >> so stephen miller had a remarkable rise from a congressional aide who would pepper reporters inboxes with talking points about immigration. to a top adviser to jeff sessions and now being a powerful voice in the building behind me. see how you see those ideas you're talking about being enacted in policy, what imprint have you seen? >> i truly believe, you know, after reporting for this book, if you want to understand the

disaster that we're living today, in 2020, you have to understand stephen miller. stephen miller is a public relations flack who at the age of 31 with little policy experience was put in charge of making policies for this country and from day one in the white house he began to narrow the focus of the department of homeland security away from its focus of protecting the american people from a broad mandate of protecting them from terrorism, from public health crisis like the pandemic into something laser focused on something like keeping brown and black people out of the country, people that were asylum seekers, people that didn't break laws, truly families. and for stephen miller it's about reengineering the demographics of the country. in the book i connect the dots between everything that miller does and his white supremacist

influences. miller pulls policies from think tanks created by white supremacists who believe in population control for nonwhite people. he pushed through his white nationalist agenda and as a result of this, from my conversations with officials from the book, americans have been left vulnerable to a range of real threats, including the public health crisis we're seeing today. >> this is michael steele, to pick up on the reengineering part of this narrative in your book. how has he been able to get the republican establishment, which he presumably been outside of, to so conform in such a short time to this sort of white supremacist narrative? is that something that's sort of baked into the party? so it was an easy transition? what's your analysis and what does your book tell us about how

he was able to broaden the scope of that philosophy to not just policy but to the body politics as a whole? >> that's a great question. as i show in the book, stephen miller was instrumental in trump's win in 2016 because of his anti-immigrant agenda. the republican party realized the hostility of anti-immigrants was speaking to voters. beyond that a big part of the reason he's been so influential in the white house is that stephen miller gets donald trump in a way i believe no one else in the white house does. part of it has roots in his childhood, stephen miller's father was a real estate investor described to me as being trump like, plagued by bankruptcies and legal disputes. he grew up in a similar family is part of it. the other thing is that stephen miller, and this is important, stephen miller always encourages

trump's most aggressive and violent impulses, which trump appreciates because every time he listens to a more moderate adviser he gets pummelled and ridiculed by his base as weak. he wants to be seen as a killer and stephen miller shares his instincts for violence. he has his fingers on the pulse of his most violent voting base to see these really hostile policies separating childrens from parents, turning away the most vulnerable, most desperate people at the u.s./mexico border. so all these cruel policies, he needs the, you know, hatred in order to rally people around the policies and he's been effective of getting that hatred through systemic demonization of immigrants as well as the people who support them in the democratic party. >> you know what's fascinating is you are so right.

all of the aides that have come in and out of the white house, there have been a steady stream, an unprecedented stream, the one person who has held on is stephen miller because stephen miller always plays to the lowest common denominator when it comes to anti-immigrant racist rhetoric. the book is "hate monger". jean thank you so much. that's fascinating that stephen miller has held on and held on by being that voice that is the most extreme voice in donald trump's ear. and he's held on over the past three and a half years. what's also interesting is, i laughed about it during the campaign and afterwards, how stupid donald trump's argument was about everybody crossing the border. and if you remember throughout 2016 and into 2017, i kept

repeating that cross border crossings were at the lowest point in half a century. there was no crisis. when barack obama left office -- let me say this again because i know, again, people, there is sort of this cult of personality and people get really upset when you give them the facts and they go against the alternative reality that donald trump has spun in their head, when donald trump got into office, you saw him building the wall -- which by the way he never did, and mexico never paid for that imaginary wall -- >> never did. >> -- but when he got into the office, cross border illegal crossings were at a 50-year low. i was in elementary school playing tee ball when they were that low. and, you know, i'm really old. so the point is, donald trump

and stephen miller are doing -- and yes, i'll say her name again -- what ann applebalm writes about when she says that victor ormond is still using the invasion of hungary to hold onto power when no such invasion ever took place. they just don't have -- they just don't have a lot of muslims in hungary, yet he continues to use this lie. cross border illegal crossings exploded under donald trump. he couldn't do a good a job at it as barack obama. it's a reality if you look at donald trump's own numbers inside the government but how fascinating and frightening there are enough people out there who want to be a member of

a political cult that they just ignore the facts that even the trump administration is putting out. >> it's hard to watch what's happening to our country, actually. i'm going to point out a new study that finds low income voters have the power to affect the outcome of more than a dozen key senate races as well as the presidential election. joining us now reverend william barber. first of all, tell us about this voting block, and i just wonder, as we look ahead to this election, just the impact on everything that's happening with the election, the president beginning to appear to sow doubt in it, postal service problems, how could this voting block be impacted, and how could it be ever so powerful? >> thank you so much mika and joe. before covid there were 140

million poor people in this country. 700 people dying a die from power and wealth according to one report. this new report we sponsored called unleashing the power and the university, and it says clearly the senate is in play and poor folk and low income people have the power to make the play. in 2016, presidential election, there were 138 million votes out of 225 million eligible. 34 million of poor and low income people didn't vote. many of them said they didn't vote because they didn't hear the issue, they weren't talked about. we talked about the middle class and the wealthy. what that meepz is poor and low income people constitute over one-fourth of the electorate and it's almost 40% of the total population of the voters. what that means today? that means if these potential low income and poor voted at the

same rate as middle and high income voters in pennsylvania, in new hampshire, in minnesota, in maine, florida, new mexico, north carolina, georgia, texas, mississippi and ohio, if poor and low income voters just 1% to 20% higher, they could fundamentally shift the vote. michigan is 1%. so it's actually not good politically if any party is not reaching out to these voters. and they're most concerned about raising the living wage. they're most concerned about health care. they're concerned about racist and voter suppression that not only hurts black people. most white poor people put numberwise there are more white poor but black poor. not percentagewise, but number.

43% of this country should not be left off the table. they have the power to fundamentally transform this election and elections to come. >> mike barnicle is with us, reverend barber, and has a question for you. mike? >> reverend barber, it wasn't that long ago, within the past couple of decades when america was engaged in a war on poverty. for the past 3 1/2 years america has been engaged, at least the top of the american government, has been engaged in a war on poor people. in the last five months or so the battalion of poor people in this country that you just outlined has been joined by a second battalion of formerly middle class people who have nearly lost everything due to the virus and due to the incompetence of the trump administration. how do you join those two groups together and get them to vote en masse? >> well, you're exactly right. it's been a long time since we

have had really a war on poverty. it's actually been longer than 3 1/2 years. most part, we wrote poverty and the poor out of. we talk about the middle class and wealthy. but in these past few years, even before covid, the poor people's campaign was organizing in appalachia and in alabama. 143 million poor and low wealth people, 66 million whites, 26 million blacks were beginning to say, wait a minute, this government is not serving us. in fact, it's become a war on us. one of the things we found talking to poor people and all across this country, that they are clear that systemic racism, systemic poverty, the war, economy and the false about religious nationalism is hurting us all. i could break down in each of those areas what they mean by racism. not just black people but brown people and white people. one of the phrases we have now

is that if you scratch a lie, you'll find a thief. well, if racism is a lie, so if you scratch a racist you'll also find somebody who will steal your health care, who will steal your living wages and who will steal from you, period, regardless of what race you are. in kentucky last year, we saw this play out. what black and white people, we call it from the holler to the hood came together and they fundamentally shifted the electorate in kentucky. several counties that had been trump counties turned in the last election. we never endorsed the governor, but we talked about the issues. and the governor who is now the governor began to push issues that matter to people regardless of their race, creed and color. what has to happen is to lift up poor and low wealth people, who talk about the issues that impact their lives. if you can't do this in covid, god help us, because what covid has done, it has exposed too

fissures in this society and that is systemic racism and systemic poverty. we talk about those issues and lift up those issues, it actually brings people together. you can actually have a grown-up conversation about racism and about poverty in this moment. and it can fundamentally change the electorate. not just now but in the days to come. and in the years to come. and so what we need politicians -- so often in the past, let's be honest, republicans have racialized politics, democrats have run from poverty. republicans are making a matter of personal choice. democrats talk about those trying to get into the middle class or just the middle class. stop that and talk about poor and low income people. even in 2016. the fact of the matter, according to a "new york times" charge, according to a "new york times" chart, poor and low income people under $50,000

actually voted more than democrats, but too often those persons are not talked to. and we leave 34 million people off the table and unengaged in our electorate and you cannot do that if you want to fundamentally transform this democracy. >> reverend barber, thank you so much. we'll be following today's moral monday marion line. thank you very much. still ahead -- concerns the president's executive order on pandemic relief could be unconstitutional and ineffective. plus, major changes to the u.s. postal service that democrats say are meant to undermine the influx of mail-in ballots ahead of the election. top senate democrat chuck schumer joins us. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪

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entitlements? >> at some point they will be. we have tremendous growth. we're going to have tremendous growth. this next year, it will be toward the end of the year. the growth is going to be incredible and at the right time we will take a look at that. >> early this year, president trump hinted at cutting entitlements. over the weekend, he effectively did. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, august 10th. along with joe and me, we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "kasie d.c." on msnbc, kasie hunt, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele is with us. white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. and former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner is with us. joe, a lot happening over the weekend. we've got major covid-19 news as well.

>> yeah, a lot happening over the weekend. of course, a lot of chaos, of course, coming from the white house. jonathan lemire, we have economists, we have people on the hill, we have business owners, we have ceos, we even have -- well, we have white house officials that are sort of scratching their heads and asking what exactly happened on friday. the president tried to look like he was in control by pushing unconstitution unconstitutional presidential directives which, again, seemed to go in all of these different directions. if that wasn't enough, friday night we had yet another trump friday night massacre where the new head of the post office just, again, not trying to hide it at all. apparently doing whatever he can to sow chaos inside the post

office as he and donald trump both appear to be working together to sow seeds of doubt on whether the post office is going to be able to carry out its functions as we move towards the most important election in our lifetime. certainly the most important election as it has to do with the post office's participation. try to tell us all the things that were going on friday and this weekend. >> yeah, joe, it was a remarkable weekend. i was traveling with the president as part of the press pool of reporters. he spent the weekend at his golf club in bedminster, new jersey. on friday, we weren't expecting to see him. reporters got a lid, which is to say the president wouldn't be appearing in public. that lid was lifted and we were summoned to his golf course in bedminster. i'll take a second to paint what is a pretty surreal scene. the president with the

presidential seal and podium and monitors behind him, delivered a news conference with an audience. the audience being members of his country club, who we witnessed come downstairs from the upstairs dining room. many of them drinks in hand. most of them not wearing masks. as they took up space in the back of the room, not socially distanced, as you can see there, and seemingly in the state of new jersey's guidelines for covid-19. there are -- if it's a political event, which this was deemed, you could have up to 100 or so people in a room like that. there was more if you count the press, secret service, and they weren't six feet apart. as the president spoke, the crowd tended to boo the reporters and applaud him. it had the makings of a small political rally in what was obviously a very official white house event. i'll tick through it real quick. on friday night he said -- he threatened these executive actions were coming. on saturday he summoned us back to the golf club and signed

them. the takeaway seems to be two things. one, real doubts about whether they are constitutional. whether or not the president has the authority to take the powers of the purse from congress, taxing and spending. they expect legal challenges. democrats were very critical yesterday on the sunday morning talk shows. a expect we'll see a lot on the legal front in the days ahead. also, a question of whether or not there's as much here as the president says. first, the unemployment benefits were $600 a week. now it's $400. and the white house wants states to pick up $100 of that. that's actually reducing the federal contribution from $600 to $300. as he left new jersey, the president said maybe the federal government will fund the full $400. the evictions moratorium, it's about exploring how to stop that. if there's no real teeth behind that. certainly, joe, you're right, the other story was the postmaster general. the president on the tarmac yesterday coming back to

washington, said, he's always been defending it, the post office loses money, it needs reforms, but we know this has been a part of the all-out assault on mail-in balloting ahead of the election adding to the chaos. >> mika, there are one of two choices. if you support the president, you can either say the president is in intentionally sabotaging the united states post office and the run-up to the most important election of our lifetime when the post office will be playing the most important role and the president has decided to put a man in place with no postal background for the first time this decades. in that key position. you can say, yeah, okay, donald trump is intentionally trying to sabotage the elections. or, two, he is performing, which is the equivalent of, at this

point, injecting somebody's body that has covid with bleach and disinfectants and trying to stick uv lights in there. and it's complete, absolute ignorance of a situation. regardless whether it's incompetence or intentional undermining of our democracy, there aren't really a lot of good ways to look at this. and it does appear to be one of the great challenges that will be facing this country in the next two to three months. having a president and postmaster general who at the worst time possible are passing measures, putting measures into effect that will undermine democracy. >> we're going to get to the economic and political fact-check of the president's moves in just a moment. you're right, the fact is, it's happening. but first, where things stand with the virus. the u.s. surpassing 5 million covid-19 cases.

the alarming tally, which really puts us number one in the world, has doubled since late june. right now the country holds about a quarter of the world's cases. while topping the list for most reported coronavirus deaths globally. we top the list for people who have died of coronavirus. so fash five states account for more than 40% of infections nationwide. hot spots continue to grapple with rising cases like florida, which just yesterday reported nearly 6,2500 cases and set a new weekly record for covid-19 hospitalizations. over the weekend, california confirmed more than 10,000 deaths. since the start of the crisis. and more than 500,000 covid cases in all. texas also confirmed more than 500,000 cases as governor greg abbott extended his disaster declaration due to the pandemic. meanwhile, governor andrew cuomo announced that new york reported

its lowest positive test rate since the start of the outbreak. they have done it right there. as we mentioned, president trump signed a series of his executive actions over the weekend expanding coronavirus economic relief, up-ending negotiations with congress after lawmakers failed to reach a deal with the white house. among the directives announced from his new jersey golf club, include deferring payroll taxes through the end of the year for americans earning less than $100,000. they also defer student loan payments through 2020, discourage evictions and extend enhanced unemployment benefits. the payments will be at a reduced rate of $400 a week instead of the previous $600 that democrats have been pushing to reinstate. the federal government will only cover 75% of that cost with the other 25% falling back on the states. here was trump's justification for that decision.

>> why did you decide on $400 when previously families were receiving $600. that will be a hardship for many. >> this isn't a hardship. this is the money they need and this gives them a great incentive to go back to work. >> i love the guy who claims to be a billionaire many times over telling unemployment families, families faced with unemployment, what they don't need. oh, no, no, no, they don't need that money. no, no, no. this is exactly what they need. this is exactly what they want. it is, though, of course most likely unconstitutional because you have the president, again, once again infringing on article i powers as far as spending and taxing. and, steve rattner, it's just a bizarre list that he put out there. he has had this obsession for some time about payroll taxes and cutting payroll taxes when

economists, republicans, democrats, just about everybody on the hill have said this does not make sense. this does not work. especially when you have so many people who are out of work and aren't paying payroll taxes right now. but take us through this bizarre laundry list of proposals by the president, most of which will, i'm sure, be declared unconstitutional in time. >> yeah, joe. it is a bizarre laundry list. i think the president is -- was in a bad place politically. he had been outmaneuvered by the democrats who passed their $3.4 trillion measure in may and the republicans until a few weeks ago hadn't been able to agree on a counteroffer. i think he felt he needed to do something to show the american people he was doing something. but as you say, it's a bizarre list. it's a lot of odds and ends.

i think frankly we can eliminate plate the executive order but it isn't more than he declared national ice cream day or a minor matter. by my account, a couple hundred billion dollars that may get to americans. the bid ask on the hill was between $1 trillion and $3.4 trillion. if you want to focus on payroll taxes for a second, you can see what's going to happen there. it's not an actual payroll tax deduction. he doesn't have the authority to do that. it's a payroll tax deefrl until the end of the year. if congress doesn't act at some point, people would actually have to pay that money to the government. and because of all that confusion, it's not clear that employers would cooperate in reducing them for now since they might have the liability. thirdly, he's taking the money, $44 billion from fema, from disaster relief at a time when everyone is expecting a busy hurricane season and we've already had a bad storm. and so all in all, it's not much

of anything. the last point i'd make about it, it's not economically progressive, in a sense. yes, it is capped at $104,000, but if you make $90,000, you're going to get nine times the benefit that someone who made $10,000 is getting. and you can contrast that to what the democrats wanted and what we did in the spring where checks of $1,200 to all americans below a certain income with a gradual phase out for the wealthier americans. just to take that one provision, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. up next we'll get reaction to the president's actions, including a scathing response from republican ben sass. "morning joe" is back in a moment. "morning joe" is back ina moment ♪ ♪ ♪

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there seem to be only a few republican lawmakers who express concern over president trump's new executive order. senator ben sasse of nebraska being one of the strongest.

he issues a statement which in part reads, the pen and phone theory of executive law making is unconstitutional slop. president obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite immigration law with daca and president trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law. he went on to say, under the constitution, that power belongs to the american people acting through their members of congress. it's really needs to be more. meanwhile, "the wall street journal" editorial board is criticizing president trump's new executive orders writing in part this, the good news is that president trump on saturday escaped the $1 trillion terms of surrender demanded by house speaker nancy pelosi. the bad news is, he followed the barack obama method with executive orders, one of which stretches the law in a way that a future, progressive president will surely cite as a precedent. >> michael steele, let's just step back for one second and

take a look at this and realize what republicans are doing here. they are setting a precedent. you know, they're so short-sighted because they're thinking that donald trump is going to be president forever. and they're so short-sighted that they don't realize that they are going to have a generation in the minority to think about all the mistakes they made while trump was president and all the precedents they set for the line of democratic presidents who are going to be elected after this fall, because you look at the demographic changes, you look at the republican party in disarray. i think there are going to be democrats elected to the white house for quite some time. what have they done? they have so undermined their position as legislators by deferring time and time again to donald trump's unconstitutional

power grabs that as "the wall street journal" said in that editorial, they're giving future president kamala harris all the excuses that she needs to do something on abortion, to do something on gun laws, to do something on whatever they think they're the most afraid of. she can just do a presidential directive and say, donald trump did it, ted cruz said nothing about it, i'm good. >> yeah, this is the constitutional slop that ben sasse referred to. and the one thing about constitutional slop, it doesn't go down easy. it doesn't go down easily at all. and the republicans are going to rue this moment. they in some respects already have because the question becomes ultimately, joe, so what? and that's donald trump's bottom line. i'm going to do this. what are you going to do about it?

and so whether you're talking about some type of legislative remedy or some type of legal remedy, okay, you go do that. in the meantime, i've already set the pattern in motion. i've already established what i'm going to do. i'm going to go forward. let me know when you catch up. so, this idea that began going back about 20 years now of an executive story that is unchecked, we've given the executive branch an enormous amount of power, the congress has ceded an enormous amount of ground to this executive authority, by allowing these things to happen. and the question becomes for republicans, particularly after this administration and what we've seen the president do, what do you say when a democratic president moves on, like you said, abortion, the environment, health care and a hoe host of other issues because they figure, well, i don't like what congress is putting forth. i'm not going to sign off on their bill, so i'm going to go

ahead and create an executive order that will raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. i'm going to go ahead and put an executive order that is going to, you know, restrict, you know, companies and what they're doing in the environment. so, these are the stones that are being laid now on a path that republicans, while they were crying, i think rightly about what obama did with daca through executive orders, are now silent. they better pay attention to what ben sasse is saying. this is the problem for mitch mcconnell, how do you get out of this constitutional slop, how do you now reposition the senate going into this november election because on the back end of this, it's not a whole lot of good for you. >> speaking of the senate, up next we're joined by minority leader chuck schumer. the new york democrat joins us live straight ahead on "morning joe." joe.

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we have a system where we can do 100% or we can do 75%. they pay 25%. it will depend on the state they'll make an application. we'll look at it and make a

decision. it may be they they'll pay nothing in some instances. it will be like the national guard. the national guard, sometimes we'll pay all of it depending on the tragedy or whatever it may be, the disaster, and sometimes the state will pay 40%, 10%, 25% or nothing, depending on how it works out. >> at a minimum, we will put in 300 bucks and the states will continue with their 400 bucks, but i think all they have to do is put up an extra dollar and we'll be able to throw in the extra $100. it should be a total -- it may not be in every case because as you know, we're talking averages. some states higher, some states lower. but on average, dana, it will run to about $800. >> but the executive action says -- >> wage increase. >> the executive action says $400 and the state would pay 25% of this. you're talking about some other money that i don't know about. >> well, you know, we will stand

ready to repurpose if states put in a little more, is all it amounts to. >> okay. >> right now that number's going to run around $700. i think they'll get to $800. some states can get above $800 with our federal help. >> we need a bit of a reality check here. you do agree that the only way any of this could possibly happen is if the states actually ask for it and create a whole new system, and is that what your expectation is? >> well, look, if that's -- that's like topping it off. state benefits, i mean, we're talking about averages here across the country. >> well, one of the things i learned here at the white house going through a lot of work on executive orders is what we have the statutory authorities to do. i'm confident that every single one of those orders, which cleared through the office of legal counsel, will stand up. if you look, for example, at the

eviction and foreclosure language, in your opener there, you noted the words, shall consider. well, that's how you have to write it, but everybody knows in that bureaucracy that you damn well should do it and they will. >> it really is -- i know i'm not supposed to laugh at this. i'm not going to say the word. they're just making stuff up. it's really -- it is remarkable that at this stage of the trump administration, administration that started with people like james mattis and gary cohn in the white house and mcmaster in the white house, they're now to the point where they're just making stuff up. navarro, of course, well, you know, shall consider means you better darn do it. no, it doesn't. it just means, just consider. that's like me saying to my kids, i order you to maybe go to sleep at 11:00 tonight. i insist that you think about

doing your homework. it doesn't work. and then kudlow, he says -- he's just throwing numbers around. oh, well, maybe we give them more, maybe we give them less, depends on what the state -- no. you wrote an executive order that says you're going to give a certain amount and states are going to give a certain amount and now you're just making things up. of course, there are only three people out there that will get this reference, which is why i'm going to do it. he sondz like ron de kline from the rudles. you want the money? i don't know where the money is, but if you want the money, i'll get you the money. i don't know. they're just making things up. and it just goes back to me being just absolutely staggered at how stupid they think the american people are. how stupid they think

republicans are. how stupid they think voters are. on that high note, let's bring in minority leader in the united states senate, chuck schumer. chuck, i've got a question for you, my man, because i'm a simple man. i'm a dumb country lawyer. i don't really understand this constitution thing. of course, you know we republicans all carry around that little constitution in our pocket and then at times we'll pull it out like we're pulling out a shield against left-wing au autocracy. that little constitution we carried around in our coat pockets, it said article i powers were the power to tax and spend. that means that congress can do what donald trump is claiming to do. not donald trump. so, where does donald trump get the authority to do any of that stuff? >> well, he just makes things up. donald trump is the fables

president. he just makes things up as they go. what you saw kudlow say, which would be laughable if it weren't so sad, $400, $300, $800. he had no idea -- he's ready to go on a show before the american people and had no idea what the actual executive order said. it's a metaphor. the towering and and incompetence of this administration is why the coronavirus is raging here where in most european countries, most countries, asian countries, have gotten a handle on it. trump has never believed -- none the people around him believe things are on the level. if you spoke truth to power to the president, you're gone. and this incompetence is what -- you know, this is what's pushing many voters who voted for trump, not the hard core, but that,

say, 15%, away from him. for the first time they've seen this incompetence, they sort of suspected, but affecting them directly and they know it and it started when trump denied the crisis all together. it's a hoax. it will go away. don't worry about it. when he couldn't put a testing regime together. i called on him on march 6th. that's four months ago, to use the dpa and set up a real testing regime. they still haven't done it. it's one of the reasons covid is still raging. it's why these executive orders are laughable. this unemployment insurance one that kudlow so mauled is not going to be able to be put into place for a month or two, if at all. so here we'll have through september, all the people not t getting the money and the $600 -- they have no respect for the american people. that's part of the hard-right

philosophy. people, if they have a job, they'll sit back and take the money. that's not what american workers are like. they want a job, they want a permanent long-term job that will give them work and have pride in life. here's the most amazing thing, joe. 20 republican senators, some of whom running for president in 2024, don't want to spend one nickel. that, i would ask them to go back into the history books and look up a word. herbert hoover, when after the crash said, don't spend any money, and we have the great depression. if we were to listen to them, trurp -- by the way, meadows in our negotiations seems to have that philosophy as well. not mnuchin, but meadows. if they persist on doing these things, it's going to get much worse. so, we want to come up with a strong plan. the heroes bill was not a wish list. we stud dwred the needs of how

to get enough money to open up schools safely, of how to do testi testing, of what the state and local governments needed, how we run the post office, how we have elections, how we feed the hungry, and we came up with a strong plan. but we even were willing because we so much want to get this done, we said to the president's negotiators last week, we'll meet you in the million. we'll cut a trillion, you raise a trillion. they said, absolutely not. i said, it's your way or the highway? yep. they will not deal adequately with testing, with schools opening safely, from people being evicted from their homes, unemployment insurance, with state and local needs. it will be a disaster. so, why -- i hope -- i'm sorry. i hope senior voices in the senior party will prevail and say, sit down with pelosi, sit

down with schumer, and meet them in the middle. we're waiting for them to come back and say yes. >> you talked about the president surrounding himself with yes men, people that wouldn't cross him. i just got to say, side bar here, the most remarkable example of that for me recently has been the fact that the intelligence community for quite some time knows vladimir putin has put bounties on the heads of young american troops. in march, inside white house, they were desperately getting the. the to do something, but they were afraid to brief him on it because they knew it would make him angry. so, what is the next step -- you know, what is the next step? let's go from the relief -- hold one second, senator. first, we've talked about the relief bill. i've just got to talk about something a lot of people are concerned about, and that is the friday night massacre at the united states post office. that's the president seemingly

intent on reeking havoc on that institution, to slow down packaging and to possibly impact the election and how many votes can be counted. what can the united states house do to make sure the president doesn't undermine the election? >> the president has wanted to destroy the post office. he gets these little bugs in his head that have nothing to do with reality. no one tells him the truth. so, he's wanted to hurt the post office, maybe destroy it, end it, for a long time. now we have the covid crisis. and like everywhere else, some postal workers have covid. instead of beefing up the number of people at the post office, the new postmaster general, who has no experience in postal and a big contributor to trump, i called him, by the way, three times because i want to talk to him about what he was doing. he would not call me back.

finally pelosi and i said, we're not going to negotiate with them until we meet him. and the meeting is a disgrace. he is so far over his head. and to cut back on overtime, to cut back on the number of employees, particularly during the covid crisis -- i'll get to the elections in a minute -- but what about the people that need their medicine? what about the necessities sent through the mail because people don't go out and shop? i think what's motivating trump and his henchmen at the head of the post office is to screw up the system so they can claim the elections aren't done properly. if the mail is late, it doesn't work. what can we do about it? we are insisting in this covid heroes bill, that first the

postal service get the money it needs so it can hire people, so it can put in quloeovertime. that's what the experts tell us they need. second, if they don't rescind this language, and we made a strong pitch for them to rescind these rules that limit overtime, that don't allow them to hire people, we can insist and put it in the bill. that's one of our top priorities. i told them, we're not giving in on them. this is so vital. the fact that these guys would take the wellspring of our democracy, elections, and mess with them, whether it's russian interference. that seems to be okay with donald trump. whether it's not giving the states the money they need to adjust to many more people who will vote by mail and a need to have more places where people can drop things off so there will be social distancing if they don't want to vote by mail, the fact they're messing around with the post office. these are all the wellsprings of

our democracy. if americans believe after november that the elections weren't fair, where are we headed? that's been the core of the -- that's what men and women have died for, the right to vote in a free and fair election. we've been the hallmark of america. trump is trying to destroy it. we i think it's vital to prevent that from happening and we're using every way we can, including this covid bill, to make sure they don't do it. >> leader schumer, it's kasie hu hunt. this is all predicated on you passing a massive covid package. nice to see you. the president said last night, the democrats have called. they would like to get together and we say if it's not a waste of time, we'll do it. do you know what he's talking about? >> fables from donald trump. fables. that's what he seems to specialize in. i didn't call him. speaker pelosi didn't call him. no, we didn't call him. he makes these things up or

hears from somebody at one of his fund-raisers or country club, oh, the democrats are calling you, and he acts like it's true. here's how we left it. on thursday, i believe it was, we said, we're willing to come down $1 trillion, you come up $1 trillion. when you're ready, come back and talk to us. here's what i think might happen. this is an optimistic scenario. the republicans are in a pickle. you have 20 of them who don't want any money whatsoever and then you have 10 or 15, some running for re-election desperate to get a package. they're all hanging their hats on this executive order. that will solve the problem with we won't have to do anything. it's clear these executive orders are going to be men malat best. i've called them paltry or three words i've used which seems to be in the currency, unworkable, narrow and scanty. they're just -- they're all -- they just won't work. it may well be that the

republicans are willing to now sit down with us because they see what they were hanging their hat on, these executive orders are just being more or less regarded at best as ineffective and laughed at at worst. and hopefully -- >> mike barnicle is with us. >> we're ready. but they have to meet us in the middle. they can't just come to the table and say it's our way or no way. we'll never get a deal. the deal is not because we want to thwart them, but because what they're -- the greatest economic problem since the depression, the greatest health care problem since the spanish flu. we need bold action. we're not going to settle for some skimpy thing that doesn't work. what i called it, by the way -- what i've been calling them, what i've been calling this is unworkab unworkable, i can't remember the words, but they're good.

>> mike barnicle is with us and has a question for you. mike. >> fair too narrow. that's it. >> senator, let me interrupt you here for a second and ask you a simple question. millions of americans are now on the verge of economic collapse that will take them years to recover from. mnuchin and mark meadows come up to your office or speaker pelosi's office daily to discuss this problem. have you seen any evidence from them during these negotiations in the past three days that the president of the united states is actively involved on a minute-by-minute basis in these negotiations? in the last 72 hours, has the president of the united states called you personally to see if something can't get done? >> no, i've seen zero, zero evidence that he's involved at all. and he has not called us. i haven't spoken to him -- i spoke to him during the last bill when mnuchin was there. meadows wasn't.

we got more done. but i haven't spoken to him since. >> all right. thank you so much. it's great to have you on, chuck schumer. we greatly appreciate it. you know, mika, just to talk about the severity of this crisis, robert samuelsson in "the washington post" wrote this in a must-read op-ed. let's call it what it is, we're in a pandemic depression. he writes, it must be clear to almost everyone by now the sudden and sharp economic down turn that began in late march is something more than a severe recession. that label was, perhaps, justifiable in the 2008 great recession when unemployment reached a peak of 10%. it isn't now. the situation is so dire that it deserves to be called a depression. a pandemic depression. and in the middle of what robert samuelsson labels a pandemic depression, we actually have a major party that is suggesting that we do absolutely nothing in

the senate. that the president goes out and does some bizarre executive order that makes absolutely no sense on friday. and people in the middle of this pandemic depression are still suffering waiting for some aid from washington, d.c. to get them through august and get aring their kids back to school in the fall. >> things are breaking down on every level. now to unprecedented access that nbc news got on the wuhan lab president trump claims leaked the coronavirus. joining us from wuhan, china, janis mackey frayer. what did you find out? >> reporter: well, we spent months trying to get access to this lap here b here in wuhan, s fueling this intense political dispute over where and how the virus started. mystery surrounds the high

security lab at the wuhan institute of virology which handles the world's most dangerous pathogens, which makes it the target of conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus. you're 100% confident there's no leak, no accident? >> i'm confident. >> reporter: the institute granted nbc news the first independent media access to the lab. the director. >> translator: we had an encounter this novel coronavirus before, he says. without having this virus, there's no way it could be leaked from the lab. >> reporter: has anyone at the lab, either personnel or connected to the lab, a third-party contractor, tested positive for this virus? >> no. >> reporter: nobody? >> nobody. >> reporter: while there's some skepticism about the lab's claims, five leading virologists familiar with lab protocols told us it's improbable the virus somehow escaped.

this is a rare glimpse at the bsl-4 lab, a box within a box, with air locks on doors and separate filtration systems. technicians were trained in france and the u.s. windows to look out and see in. >> the china virus, the china plague. >> kung flu. >> reporter: for months the u.s. and china have been locked in a battle about the or other begin of the virus, and accusations that china delayed or did not share information. >> it's there's evidence it came from a laboratory. >> reporter: u.s. officials have yet to offer credible proof the virus came from a wuhan lab, a theory knocked down by dr. fauci for lacking any scientific evidence. scrutiny grew longer with the state department cable dated january 2018 with lack security and trained staff. the u.s. diplomats visited only

once in march 2018 for a seminar that wasn't about biosafety. at that time the u.s. officials didn't visit any of the labs, so i'm not really sure what the source of the information was for those concerns. for 15 years virologist peter collaborated with wuhan scientists, like china's bat woman, to catalog hundreds of bat coronaviruses. in april the nih killed funding for his new york based eco alliance because of his links to the lab. >> more or less all the bat coronavirus, whether they've done that, has been done in collaboration with us. almost all of it. so we know they did not have isolates of a virus that leads to covid-19 in the lab. >> reporter: china faces intense backlash for failing to contain the virus and for a lack of transparency that has allowed speculation about blame to flourish. what do you say to somebody who

says, i don't believe you? >> it's unfortunate that we have been targeted as the escape gsc. deep down inside we know we are innocent. >> reporter: we've been told the wuhan lab will join what the world health organization calls a scientific study. but that it won't be investigated as a possible origin for the virus. now, the world health organization has had an advanced team here. they've laid the groundwork. a larger w.h.o. team, that includes international and chinese scientists, are likely to get started in the next few weeks. but already the state department says that it expects an investigation that is completely whitewashed. they sent us a statement overnight that didn't exactly address whether u.s. diplomats had actually seen the wuhan lab. but they did reiterate that the criticism that they've had for

china over their lack of transparency. guys? >> all right. nbc's janis mackey frayer. thank you so much for that exclusive report. still ahead, after resigning from congress, last october, katie hill is reflecting on her journey from capitol hill to the author of an insightful new book on what led her to step down. and much more. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪

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joining us now, former democratic congresswoman katie hill of california. she's the author of the new book "she will rise: becoming a warrior in the battle for true equality" which comes out tomorrow. katie, welcome back to the show. it's good to see you. so many questions. i'd love to hear about the journey and your thought process in terms of writing this book. what was the message you wanted

to share. >> sure. this has been a crazy year for me, right? my brother died shortly after i resigned. >> i'm so sorry. >> thank you. but what i decided in writing this book, i needed to lay out what is going to be my mission for moving forward. and that's supporting women getting elected for office and helping to dismantsle the road bl blocks we all face to facing misogynistic society and how we're going to be able to change that. the bottom line is we need to elect more women up and down the ballot and for us to achieve change, that's what it's going to take. >> and you were one of those women who were elected. so i guess, how much does your book address your departure and what happened during that time? >> yeah, the first chunk of my book is really about what led to, you know, my resignation. what led me in my life to where i was, including the resignation. at the time, i felt like it was

the best and the only decision for me to make for myself, my family, my constituents, my colleagues, my staff. and you know, i can't say that i regret it, but i also feel there's a lot more that i can do by, you know, being on the outside and helping support dozens of women, maybe over the course of time, hundreds of women to make it into office and be real leaders and help make the changes that we need. >> kasie hunt? >> so katie, do you regret at all stepping back? do you feel as though the system in the situation that you found yourself in was more likely to push a woman out than perhaps a man? >> i think the system was absolutely more likely to push a woman out than a man, and i feel like, you know, we see the double standards play out in so many different ways. we're seeing it play out in the vice presidential pick and the

way that women are described -- the women who are in the running for that are described as overly ambitious or, you know, too in it for themselves. and you're just going to see that over and over again. but, yes, i think that the salaciousness of what happened with me and the fact that i was a woman, a young woman, all contributed to me feeling like i needed to step down. >> and katie, how self-reflective are you about that experience? you were a victim of revenge porn. i'm personally glad you're fighting back. i'm glad you're back on television. i'm glad you're working on your career again and you haven't let it destroy you. you were reportedly threatened by your ex-husband that he would ruin you. and i'm glad you're fighting back. i just have to ask, though, do you regret, as pictures were

released, anything about your life? it's totally wrong that the pictures were released, and that's worth fighting for, but anything about what happened in your life during that time, how self-reflective are you on a balanced level? are there things you wouldn't have done looking back? >> of course there's things i wouldn't have done. writing this book and being quarantined, there's been nothing but self-reflection. probably the longest period in my life to have done that. some of the mistakes are obvious, and i think when it comes down to it, the simplest way of describing it is that i allowed myself to get too close to my staff and to not draw, you know, the clear boundaries that you should have. and i think that was a trap that i fell into for a number of things i discussed in the book, including the relationship that i had with my husband. but the biggest guilt that i feel around it is the way this whole thing has impacted my

staff and i hope that, you know, i can gain trust and forgiveness moving forward. that's part of the work that i do now. >> totally get what you're saying. the new book is "she will rise: becoming a warrior in the battle for true equality." katie hill, i've tried to reach out to you a few times. your staff loves you very much. they were very protective and hung up on me, but in like a good way. so i do understand those regrets, and i wish you the best and come back. good luck with the book. >> thank you so much. good to see you. >> katie hill, thank you. michael steele, final word this morning. >> -- >> okay. we're not going to hear michael's words. i bet they're great, too. how about mike barnicle? final words this morning. do we have your audio?

>> hey, well, how about chuck schumer just on national television indicating that the president of the united states is invisible in these negotiations that affect millions of lives here in the united states of america. invisible. doesn't participate. >> all right. we will be watching this, praying for someone to speak out on the republican side. we love you, michael steele. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is monday, august 10th. and here are the facts at this hour. as of this morning, the united states has hit another milestone. more than 5 million cases of coronavirus across the nation. that number has doubled in just the past 44 days. more than 163,000 american lives have been lost. at the very same time, more than 30 million americans are collecting unemployment benefits, and they need serious