our strategy to safely re-open schools mirrors our approach nationwide as we race towards the competition. i'm not competing with anyone. we've got to open up our schools, open up our businesses. a lot of it has been open, but we can do better. >> president trump offered the same message yesterday. he has been pushing for weeks now that schools must re-open as his white house new guidance to do this is vague and encourages mask wearing. number seven on an eight-point list rather than requiring it. nationwide the president's push to re-open schools 100%, as he puts it, may have backfired. "the new york times" puts, quote, rising infection rates were the major driver of the move to continue remote learning. mr. trumps aggressive demands

for re-opening classrooms helped to harden the views of many educators it would be unsafe. school that is are trying to re-open are seeing the dangers of in-person education firsthand. georgia, the district's largest school where these images of crowded hall ways went viral last week, now has 35 confirmed cases after re-opening for mostly in-person instruction. about 20 miles to the east in woodstock, georgia two schools that didn't require masks have now more than 1,100 students and staff in quarantine. to that end nbc news correspondent ellison barber is with us from woodstock, georgia. what are they saying there now? >> reporter: the high school we're in front of is woodstock

high school. they decided to temporarily halt in-school learning. school officials learned at this school right now at woodstock high school there are 300 students and staff in quarantine. they have 15 tests for students out pending results. they think some of those presumably come back positive. they'll have to quarantine more people. that's one high school here. countywide the school district has reported 78 confirmed cases among staff and students since the first day of school august 3rd. at 21 different schools 1,358 students and staff are now in quarantine. we spoke to one high school student who found out a couple days ago that one of his

classmates in a study hall tested positive for covid-19. he said in that classroom only half his peers were wearing face masks. he said some other rules like trying to control the traffic patterns down hall ways to keep students from congregating, he says school administrators at his high school in cherokee county aren't really enforces them. listen here. >> teachers and administration have been told that they need to take authority when they see other students that aren't following the directions in the hall ways. me, i haven't seen any of the students doing that or being told to do otherwise. i feel like i could be at risk for being positive with covid because someone didn't do their job right and didn't enforce something that should have been

enforced. >> reporter: in cherokee county schools face masks for students are encouraged but not mandatory. brian? >> ellison barber, woodstock, georgia, thank you for starting us off. to our conversation we welcome back the president of the american federation of teachers labor union randy winegarden. let's begin at a counter intuitive spot. where can schools open in your view based on what you've seen? where should they re-open? who has done it right according to what you've picked up on your radar? >> we represent, brian, about 3,500 places in american. that encompasses about 40 different states. it's really wonderful to be with you today, by the way. the places in the south and

southwest have been real danger zones. you know, we've seen that in terms of the surge, but also they are some of the first to re-open. a lot of them re-opened in august instead of september. the places in the northeast where i would say that ned lamont, phil murphy and andrew cuomo have really tackled the curve and tried to stop the virus, those are places that on a threshold matter, things could re-open. then you have to do all the steps to make sure that there's testing and tracing and that you have the -- that you prevent the virus from transmitting in a school. so there's really a two-step process in those places. when governor cuomo said you could re-open in new york, it

doesn't mean that they will re-open because it is a real logistical challenge to make sure that those other steps are taken. let me just say one other thing which is we've been at this since april because we know schools. we know in the best of times it's hard to do a re-opening. this in the middle of a pandemic when safety comes first it's outrageous that the president just talks without saying anything and it was only yesterday that he finally admitted to needing the kind of safety measures that congress has still not funded. >> i want to show you a bit from yesterday's briefing. when he goes dark on this subject, he goes very dark. it tends to be through a political prism. here's what he said about his guess as to what happens the day after election day. we'll talk about it on the other

side. >> i have a feeling that on november 4th somebody's going to announce schools are open. the country's open. everything's open. i really believe a lot is done for political reasons. >> so, randy, there's your standard dark view that we're doing this all and impacting all these children and parents for the media image of our schools sitting idle. allegations of politics work both ways. this president would like to approach election day insisting to americans everything's fine. look at all our schools up and functioning. >> so, look, you know me for a long time. in the aftermath of 9/11 we had to make sure new york city recovered. rudy giuliani was the mayor. you had to try to do it, whether you were a democrat or republican. in the aftermath of covid, i

don't care who is in that office in the presidency -- obviously i'm supporting joe biden. you need someone who is competent and had that leadership. schools should never have been political and ironically if he listened or devos spent a minute trying to listen to us they would have had a real partner in re-opening schools because we understand more than they do the cost to children, that children are losing out from remote instruction. any parent and any teacher is going to tell you we have a responsibility to keep people safe first and foremost and engage secondly. ultimately his view of looking at it only through his own prism has actually hurt him getting more schools open. >> when was the last time you had a conversation with the secretary of education?

>> not since i invited her to the schools in ohio that day in april 2017. >> wow, that's bracing to hear. thought i would ask. randy, winegarden, it's a pressu pleasure to see you. thank you for joining us live. we appreciate it. another competing topics for our interest and attention, when we come back, the retired u.s. army general who oversaw the recovery in new orleans after katrina says we're losing this fight against covid. the lt. general will join us after this break. ♪ america runs on dunkin'

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testing plan. as virus cases rise, public hae health experts warn time is running out to get the pandemic under control. one of those critics is lieutenant general russell honore who led the task force after hurricane katrina and said the federal government needs to formulate a national strategy immediately. he said it's time to use the department of defense to coordinate logistics, command and control. we need to be quick, flexible, accurate to win this war. we welcome back to the broadcast the former of the commander of the committee of joint task force during hurricane katrina, 37-year armed forced veteran, lt. general russell honore. general, i have to ask you about what is happening to the u.s.

postal service, knowing something about the intimate and visceral relationship members of the armed forces have all of their lives with the post office? >> soldiers, sailors and marines around the world rely on the post office. i rely on it. my escripts are not arriving on time. i have to go to walgreens because escripts use the post office. our soldiers deployed depend on it. our veterans depend on it to bring medicine from the va or if it's coming through medicare. this is a problem. i don't know if the white house understands the second and third order effect of slowing the mail down. that is what's on the front of the chests of the white house.

they're slowing the mail down. that is not good for whatever reason. veterans are not -- i have the option to drive to the store. what about my battle buddies who don't have that option? they have no one to take them to the store when their meds don't show up. this has to stop. i say, yes, if you have to march on washington, we have to fix this. this is not right. >> general, to your point about testing, talk to the folks watching and mostly civilian audience about the logistical strength of the d.o.d. that you know so well that folks may need to be reminded about. >> first of all, when you look from bottom up there's an old saying in the national guard they're in every area code, we have armories, that's command and control. at the upper end of this out of washington we have to most powerful military in the world

whose mission is to protect the people of the united states. it has the most sophisticated logistic system in the world that could supply anything, anywhere, any time. it's time to use that instrument of power called the department of defense to organize hhs and cdc in the distribution and command and control of the test kits and the logistics that's needed to get it done. that's what we're great at -- command, control, logistics. we need to use that instrument. i defer to the admiral and his civil medical corp. we're talking about 2 million people that could be committed to get the tests where we need, when we need, with enough logistics using the defense production act. it's time for the white house to move on this. people are dying. in the fall all of the doctors

are saying we've got another big spike coming. that's going to be the convergence of flu season, schools trying to open and we still don't have the test kits. when one child comes up sick in a classroom, they're sending the whole class home. they're waiting ten days. that does not have to happen. if we have enough testing, we could test everybody the next day. everybody that's good we can bring them back to school. that amplifies when we talk about teachers, bus driver, firemen and policemen who are being sent home because we can't test them. this is a problem that the department of defense can fix. they need to be encouraged to do it. the white house is saying slow down testing. florida and texas has less testing this week than two weeks ago. the numbers are falling out of the roof. this is ridiculous.

>> general, i am -- i hope you know i'm being sincere. i'm sorry you have to get in your car and go to a drugstore because the prescriptions due to you are not coming through the u.s. mail. i know how closely you try to guard your health and how diligent you've been during the pandemic. we'll have you on again. we'll keep talking about this subjects from the mail to testing. it's unbelievable this makes for our conversation these days. thanks to my friend lieutenant general russell honore, 37-year veteran of the armed forces. when we return stopping the spread of coronavirus among a vulnerable community of critical workers we all depend on.

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i use rakuten for almost everything i buy. i just got paid to shop. my favorite thing about rakuten is just getting money back in the mail. i mean, who wouldn't want cash back. and you should sign up using my referral code because then we both get money. rack it up with rakuten, sign up today to get cash back on everything you buy. we're taking a closer look as we continue to do at the state of the coronavirus crisis among our essential workers. that includes farm workers who work every day to protect the nation's food supply. in california a large share of these workers are latino, a segment of the population we

know has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. latinos make up 59% of cases statewide in california as well as 47% of the death toll. for those workers who are undocumented this crisis poses a unique threat to their livelihoods as many of them fear a positive test result means having to miss work and a paycheck. for more on this we're joined by gaudy schwartz in ervin, california. hey gaudy. >> reporter: hey, brian. officials here are looking into a mystery. the county we're in now where the agriculture industry is front and center has a positivity rate of 17%. they're working off the assumption that has to do with the essential workforce you were

talking about, undocumented workers here. they're about 70% of that workforce by estimates. what they're doing is trying to figure out if there is something going on with the testing and possibly a fear of the testing. that's something we heard over the last few weeks here from undocumented workers. they said they're scared to take tests because they don't want to lose their jobs. two, they're scared they might get covid-19 from taking a test. three, that information might be used for deportation. authorities hearsay that is simply not the case on any of those fronts. they say they're trying to simplify tests so people know they can take the tests safely and that test is shared in confidence with the state as they try to contain outbreaks of

covid-19. that has been difficult. so what they're doing today, brian, is coming to the farms themselves. this is a vineyard and they're testing people inside of warehouses to make it as easy as possible for those essential workers. one other thing we know here in most counties the california occupation is not listed when it comes to the tests. they're not sure what the correlation is with the high percentage, high positivity rate, but it's something they're exploring. brian? >> gaudy schwartz in irvine, california. just try to put together a meal without these essential workers and not a lot of people are lining up for these jobs. thank you for being with us this hour. i'll be back at 11:00 eastern time. "deadline white house" begins after this break. hike!

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i'm joshua johnson in for nicolle wallace. just about the end of kamala harris' end of 24 hours of joe biden's running mate. on one side you have president trump making the case his actions on coronavirus have done more good and less harm than his critics and experts say. yesterday was one of the

deadliest days of the pandemic this summer. mr. trump and his allies are trying to solidify a line of attack against the democratic offenders. 82 days from election day, it's likely the driving force to undermine the voting process at the post office. the president threatened to impede mail-in voting. we will dive into that this hour and consider what congress might do about it. let's begin with the biden/harris ticket barely two days old. the running mates continued to present themselves as an alternative to four more years of president trump. they're setting the stage for this phase of cam paning, focused on a public health

crisis. joe biden called for a universal mask mandate covering everyone in all public spaces, whether you feel like it or not. >> when i get occasionally confronted with a person in the public about wearing a mask, i say, look, this is america. be a patriot. protect your fellow citizens. protect your fellow citizens. step up. do the right thing. do the right thing. >> that's what real leadership looks like. we just witnessed real leadership, which is joe biden said that as a nation we should all be wearing a mask for the next three months because it will save lives. the thing about joe that the american people know is that his role of leadership in our country has always been about

doing what's best for the people of our country, best for their health, well-being and their families. that's what real leadership looks like. >> president trump was rarely mentioned in those brief remarks. calling his name would have done little to sharpen the contrast. that's kind of the point. a national ad debuting tonight depicts the biden/harris leadership style. >> to fix the economy we have to get control over the virus. i'm releasing a plan to save lives in the months ahead. we need to increase federal support for testing. we need a clear message from the top of the federal government that everyone needs to wear a mask in public. every single frontline worker should have the personal protective equipment they need to be safe. we need to assure parents their

children will be safe and cared for when going to school. it's a simple proposition, folks. we're all in this together. we have to fight this together. >> let's bring in our panel for today. good to have all you with us today. let me start with you, eli, where do you think today fits in the larger strategy in terms of the painting the contrast between the biden/harris ticket and trump/pence ticket in 2020. >> the election has been mainly about president trump. joe biden has taken a back seat and benefited from trump's uneven performance and the handling of the coronavirus that has gotten just poor remarks from the public. today was about stepping out and

sharpening the contrast around the defining issue facing the country. they didn't have to do much. joe biden came out and said there should be a national mask mandate. this is something the president refused to do. he only started wearing masks in recent weeks after several months of muddling the message and saying dr. fauci says you should wear a mask, but it's optional. biden and harris did what a lot of people expected a normal president would do. the close of that ad you played summed things up. typically in a national crisis of this proportion, a president who comes out and says this is a moment for all of us to sacrifice, that's the kind of president that generally sees a bump in their numbers and a broadening of their support.

this president has been incapable of doing that. you saw that in the advertisement from the biden campaign. they're trying to push those buttons and hit those notes that people are used to hearing from presidents, but haven't heard from this one. >> it seemed like kamala harris' role today was as the amen corner. her job was like, see, yes and amen to everything joe biden just said. >> we saw her supporting and backing up the things that joe biden was putting forward. that's part of her role as a running mate. the biden campaign signalled they want senator to be able to energize the base. she's kind of prosecuting the case against trump in the way

say he mishandled the coronavirus pandemic. kamala harris and joe biden are aligned in what they said today. what's interesting today, yes, they talked about the mask mandate, but a lot of people hadn't heard about what joe biden was saying how he would address the pandemic and how he would lead as president. this is easy for voters to understand and digest. he's suggesting folks should wear masks for three months. he's saying the experts are recommending, or the recommendations from the experts are this. he's not saying i, joe biden, want you to do this in the way president trump does. he's saying this is what i'm hearing from the expert. that's important for biden and senator harris to push forward. >> there was this whether you like it or not tone from joe biden saying masks work, masks

save lives. he mentioned the 45,000 person statistic. there was a statistic from university of washington, the imhe standard, that says universal masked wearing would save 66,700 lives between now and december 1st if we all got on board. >> yeah, dare i say it sounded presidential, right? what's interesting to me is i got to look at a lot of public and private poling on the coronavirus issue. this is the single biggest issue dragging down president trump's ratings. even in places where he's had success in the past, being a strong leader, whether you trust him in a crisis, as an unpopular president he's kept his numbers even. he's gone straight crater, right into the ground because voe

coronavirus has broken trust about how he handles these moments. it's smart for the biden/harris ticket. it's what they're focusing on and you'll see a lot more of that on the campaign trail. >> there was also a cut, eli, today from senator harris where she took on president trump over the vaccine, over the push toward some sort of vaccination which the president said is imminent, right around the corner. here's what senator harris said today. >> it's important the american people look at the election coming up ask the current occupant of the white house when am i going to get vaccinated? when i am actually going to get vaccinated? there may be some grand gestures offered by the opportunity president about a vaccine, but it really doesn't matter until you can answer the question when

am i going to get vaccinated. >> eli, this felt like the career prosecutor in kamala harris coming out with a concise pointed question that pins you to the wall and forces you to answer. doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room which is part of the point of having her as the running mate. >> yeah, she definitely can prosecute a case. we've seen from trump and his aides trying to define harris that she's a tough person for them to go after themselves, even as she's very skilled in prosecuting her own case against them. on the vaccines the white house will tell you that they're really invested and have thrown a lot of money into the pharmaceutical industry incentivizing the development of a vaccine and they have plans in place to get it to market and be able to vaccinate people as soon as a vaccine gets through trials

and is proven effective. the problem the democrats have with that is they see a president out there at the podium every night pushing this false hope that a vaccine is right around the corner when public health experts said really the end of the year is the best case scenario for that. democrats see a president selling a rosy picture of what's to come because they think -- he thinks he'll benefit from that politically. it is a reasonable question to ask. i think the white house would be better able to answer that than others because they've spent so much money and incentivized vaccine development the way they have. at this point it's not as glaring a failure as if lack of a national plan or the lack of testing, the delays and getting testing results. >> the president is expected to speak at a news conference in about an hour and 20 minutes.

the rosy picture is what the president was trying to state yesterday with the charts and graphs, some of which didn't have legends to explain what the numbers meant. i didn't quite get that. that feels like what we've been hearing with increasing both intensity and specificity in these briefings in the last few days at isras it relates to coronavirus response. >> one point on the -- his interview with my colleague, the president was waving around that big bar chart graph. he was showing it as a way to prove his point. the president likes optics and charts and visual aides to make his message stick. charts aren't reassuring the american people that their fellow americans aren't dying at an alarming rate.

>> hang on one second. we're having audio issues. joel, let me come to you. those charts, i think to her point, i'm not sure how helpful they have been or how much more persuasive the argument is now, especially the argument about whether or not the u.s. will make a "v" shaped recovery particularly considering how deep the "v" may have fallen. >> the charts bely a bigger point whether having the president out there is helping the president and his allies. i'm not convinced that it is. the big bet he and his team made they'll put him back out there and it will boost his

popularity. all it's shown is he's woefully unprepared for the job. he's not ready for the moment. this is too big for him. for the trump presidency this was an experiment worth making because he was a businessman. it's been a complete flop. what we saw the first few months is it was a problem and now we're seeing it that nobody trusts the president and everything he's saying. >> that has to do with the president and how he presents himself. eli, what about the people around the president? they're trying to make the case for another trump/pence term and also trying to make the case against a biden/harris president. it seems like the hits are a little scatter shot. the strategy doesn't come

together yet. it may soon, but day one is a little all over the place. >> we're about 80 days from the election and that's putting it nicely as you characterize the situation. this is a president who is trying to figure out can i run on make america great again, then it was promises kept. he's making promises and throwing all these slogans out the window. they don't have an argument about what they've done. the focus is the pandemic. that's something the president doesn't want to talk to. aides have convinced him to go into the briefing room every night, read the script, cite a lot of numbers, say the right things about, you know, one person lost is too many, but he still doesn't have the answers. he's presenting a rosier view than the reality. to joel's point he has lost the trust of the country on this issue. the polls show that.

big majorities don't trust the information they're getting from this president. so what you're left with is a lot of scatter shot attacks and hyperbolic attacks about what a biden presidency would look like, the scary liberal people controlling joe biden, about the fact if biden is elected the whole country will be speaking chinese, the suburbs will be destroyed. it's a contaaricature of what they're presenting. >> the whole country would be speaking -- we'll save that for another. ol olexi, if there's a strategy from president trump, what does that look like? do we have signs a strategy is -- >> i'm sorry about the audio issues. this wouldn't be our new normal

without a tech problem. what we see in terms of the president and his allies is relying on fear. that's something i've been wracking my brain around whether we're talking about the ads the biden campaign is putting out about democrats defunding the police, saying you won't be able to reach the police or the things that eli took you through, the way he's talking to suburban housewives, it's a strategy that increasingly relies on fear. to me that's just at odds with what americans want. there's so much tangible fear and worry and stress that people are feeling that i don't know why they think that would be something americans are gravitating toward in this moment. >> thank you all for being here to start the hour. coming up next, president trump makes it plain he wants to block mail-voting anyway that he

can. what are democrats willing to do about it? we'll discuss that with eric swawell. plus schools are at the center of mr. trump's re-opening plans. new reporting suggests that may have backfired. porting suggests have backfired ...to soccer practices... ...and new adventures. you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past... they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. let's help protect them together. because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. another bundle in the books. got to hand it to you, jamie. your knowledge of victorian architecture

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for the post office. they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all these millions and millions of ballots. if they don't get those items, you can't have universal mail-in voting. >> millions of americans are eager to vote this november, especially by mail. president trump has stripped away any pretense as to why he's trying to impede this. the president denying the postal service the funding it needs would suppress mail-in voting. post offices around the country are removing mail sorting machines. why do that? good question. officials have not ex plaplaine. this is how postal workers sort our ballots.

19 machines across the u.s. have been removed or are scheduled to be removed. it's unclear how many machines will be removed and unclear what the stated rationale for that would be. joining us is california democratic congressman eric swalwell. his district borders kamala harris' hometown of oakland. welcome. >> thank you, josh. >> what do members of congress do about this? the senate has adjourned until after labor day. it is off the job for at least the next three and a half, almost four weeks. with everything else going on, including trying to figure out another stimulus package for the coronavirus, what does congress do about this? >> we fight. we keep fighting. we know who is counting on the mail. it's not only mail-in voting. it's 600,000 prescriptions a day sent to patients of the va.

so we have the power of the purse. we have the leverage of oversite. we ha we'll continue to fight, joshua. this president has never met a deal or seen an election he wasn't willing to cheat. he will do anything to avoid losing the election. he also could likely face criminal charges if he loses the election. we're not going to let it happen. >> do you believe the president's claim about the post office is a serious one? he's talked in the past about how stupidly the post office is being run, they've been played for fools by amazon and so forth. the post office has discretion in terms of the way it moves mail. it can't move mail for free. how seriously do you take this in the scope of everything else the president is saying and doing right now? >> our elections are

decentralized by state and county. the constant is the united states post office who delivers the mail to those registrars of voters. if you can dismantle or sabotage that process, you may be able to save yourself. that's what the president is trying to do. by doing that he's willing to hurt veterans relying on prescription drugs. don't discount the american people. the american people are determined in this election to vote anyway they can for their health, for their jobs, for clean government, for their lives. this election is coming whether the president wants it or not. we'll fight like hell in congress to make sure the mail works. >> in terms of people voting no matter what, how do you view this in light of some of the other known threats to the election including russian election interference? they seem similar to me only

insofar as they both would make a voter say my vote ain't going to count. there's too many things going on, but to hell with the. >> here's the gauntlet that the biden campaign has to get through. any typical election any president who has the worst economy since the great depression would be thrown out. the gauntlet of conveying misinformation, welcoming foreign interference and trying to suppress the vote, that's what they're up against. all the american people have to do is sacrifice a little. look at john lewis what he sacrificed to make sure so many had the right to vote. if we do all we can to show up at the polls, we can clean up the mess donald trump has made. he believes by having us talk about suppressing the vote that actually suppresses the vote.

he can move the post office, try and wind it down, affect how mail is delivered. too many people understand what's at stake. he's not avoiding defeat. >> let's be clear, the idea of sacrificing by buying a stamp compared to what people have had to do in order to make sure we have the right to vote -- that's like saying you're going at a hardship to watch netflix because they lost your password and you have to go look it up. a stamp is not a sacrifice. >> right. the conversation came up earlier today in terms of the potential of this being another act that the president has committed that you might consider impeachable. now the senate has gone home. they're gone for the rest of the month. i don't think mitch mcconnell is eager to call another impeachment trial even if new articles of impeachment got passed. you mentioned that the president has a number of criminal matters

that he's probably quite rightly concerned to have to face if he loses election. it's got to be a weird feeling for you as a member of congress to see these things happen and know that you really don't have an avenue to impeach him for this or anything else before the election. that's got to be frustrating. >> i'm convinced the impeachment and removal will happen at the ballot box. the day after donald trump was elected millions of women marched. there were marches for science and the march for our lives after parkland. we swept the midterms in 2015. won the governor's seat in kentucky. oklahoma voted to go into obamacare. people have been marching. they're going into the ballot

box. a reckoning is coming. we don't have to impeach and remove him. the american people are going to do that. >> your district facebooks kamala harris' stomping grounds. you've known her for a while. give me a sense of something that californians know about kamala harris that you hope the rest of the country will learn about her that could bolster their ability to see her as their next vice president. >> she's an exceptional candidate. she comes from the al me da county district attorney's office. our creed was we don't seek wins. we seek justice. as californians many benefited after the great recession and mortgage crisis when she fought

for a better deal for californians and got billions of dollars for californians, more than any other state in the country. that's because she was prepared, patient and determined. that's the kind of partner joe biden will have. >> al me da county is a complicated district with all kinds of con constituency. >> that's right. >> congressman swalwell, good to see you. thanks. >> my pleasure, josh. nancy pelosi says the president's attack on the pose office shows he's afraid of the american people. that fight over much needed funding escalated today. we'll pick up the story when we come back. lower their blood sugar. a majority of adults who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. here's your a1c. oh! my a1c is under 7!

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the president is afraid of the american people. he knows on the legit it would be hard for him to when. he wants to put up obstacles. we don't agonize. we organize. if he refuses to honor the sacred right of the vote, removing obstacles of participation. >> house speaker nancy pelosi. she's among those calling the president out for what he said today, cutting postal funding would help his chances of

re-election by slowing down ballots of people who want him out. let's continue with "new york times" political reporter and elise jordan. nick, let me start with you. is this more heat than light? is this where the president is saying maybe i won't let you vote from mail and we're supposed to tremble? is there any evidence that looks like the administration is actively working towards really making mail-in balloting harder? >> sometimes in talking about the president we make things more complicated than they are. this is simple. the president thinks he's the victim of a conspiracy on mail-in voting. he has taken steps and has taken steps in the current negotiation with house democrats to in able

the post office. he has a campaign donor in charge of the place. he's put in shifts in policy for first class mail that have affected all kinds of things, affected every american. now he's saying openly, look, i want to starve the post office of money so they can't deliver mail-in ballots. it's not three dimensional chess. it's the president trying to turn another piece of the government into an arm of his re-election campaign. >> when you say the campaign donor in place, you're referring to the post office master general of the united states? >> yes. >> elise, what do you make of the assertion that donald trump is afraid of the american people? >> donald trump said so himself on fox news. he doesn't want widespread mail-in voting because it could hurt him. he said the quiet part out loud.

donald trump has opening stated his election strategy is not one of persuading voter, but that of voter suppression. nancy pelosi's comments are spot on. donald trump has said so much himself. >> nick, nbc's first read made this list of some of the actions and decisions the president has made that could affect the vote less than three months from now, including more stock in an intelligence report saying that china was more eager to see joe biden win than russia is eager to see donald trump win. these came from the same collection of intelligence information, but he is referred to one more than other and suggesting that florida's mail-in ballots are more secure because of governors present and past. ron desantis and other governors before him.

how do you expect the biden campaign to respond to all this? >> the democrats have had a robust effort in place by election lawyers in their party since the beginning of this administration and before to fund and mobilize legal action in swing states and nonswing states across the country. this has been playing out for years as democrats try to knock down barriers to voting and republicans for the most part try to erect barriers to voting. you'll see this play out in the courtrooms. some is -- watch it play out in the very last weeks of the election. it's going to be something people have to watch really closely. it's going to be happening a little out of sight happening in so many places and courts around the country. >> elise, there are so many different things on the list.

if we could take another look at that list, kanye west, i ain't mad at the brother. i'm not going to cast aspersions, but lord jesus. kanye west, really? did anyone have that on their bingo card? >> i know. you could look at it as a democrat and be frustrated or look at it as a human being who this is a man whose wife said he needs help and privacy. instead you have jared kushner meeting with him and not answering if they addressed his -- kanye's bid for the presidency. it's easy to dismiss this bid, this last-minute only going to be on the ballot in certain states, but when you look at the margin that the eventual winner

is going to have to achieve it could matter in milwaukee, ohio, pennsylvania. it could be a margin, a sliver of 2,000 or 3,000 votes that come down to a full electoral college victory versus winning the popular vote. this is a big deal. it's a big deal if jared kushner thinks he can meet with an opposing candidate and stay in the graces of good electoral law. >> presuming that kanye does become a candidate. nbc first read, go sign up. go to meetthepress.com and you'll find it. nick, the point that congressman swalwell made about also impeding veterans getting their medication, you know, i see that as being a factor too, even for republican voters, for

conservative voters. everyone needs to know when i put a stamp on a letter it's going to get where it's going. >> it's an important point to make, that the postal service is still the circulatory system of american life and commerce, even in this day and age. i order diapers myself on the post office route. old people get prescription medications. everybody gets something through the mail. i think part of what makes this dangerous for the president is the idea that he would tinker with this and disrupt the workings of this institution for his own benefit, but it could impact so many people who depend on the mail for all kinds of things. it's the basic part of the fa bri fabric of american life. >> if someone said if i give you

41 cents would you take this to alaska? just saying, post office. nick, kanye west, that was not on my card for 2020. thank you for being with us. still to come, families across the country are asking how safe are our schools? that's just ahead. stay close. se ♪ don't just think about where you're headed this summer.

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across the country some schools have begun re-opening. several are already seeing the virus spread. yesterday the trump administration released simplified guidelines for school re-openings. those guidelines did not impress randy winegarden union president of the federation of teachers. she called them almost comical in their lack of detail and rigor. the push to re-open schools has been a big focus for the president. many people argue that getting children back into the classroom is key to america's economic recovery. he would also argue it's key to his chances of re-election. joining us now is a practicing physician. she worked on fighting the h1n1 pandemic in 2009. doctor, what do you make of the guidelines that came out? they seem similar to the cdc guidelines that came out last month, but a lot of the bullet

points that came out, including the ones the president had in yesterday's briefing, seemed familiar. >> yeah, that's absolutely correct, joshua. the truth is that the points that were in the white house guidance released yesterday were really a redux from many organizations. candidly simplifying the guidelines is not what schools and parents need right now. what they're looking for is practical steps that go a level deeper and where schools are getting a lot of pushback rightfully so from educators, teachers, staff is just what you reported on. there are already outbreaks in school that opened and teachers and parents are concerned. having said all that, at least there's something now. we were waiting for months for something from the white house after president trump said i'm

asking the cdc to make this simp simpler. yes it's similpler, but the tra is already out of the station. children are already in schools, but a majority of them moving to remote. >> the cdc has also put in a long list of checklist of parents could ask their principles. let's play a quick cut of florida's desantis reacting to the effort of re-opening schools. >> martin county superintendent

told me she says opening schools is like a naval s.e.a.l. action. they will provide parents with a meaningful choice of in-person instruction or online learning. >> a navy s.e.a.l. operation? i think i know what she was going for. having a navy s.e.a.l. running this might get things done faster. what do you think, doctor? i'm not sure it's the right image to use. >> i'm a public health person and imagery of military, while i applaud people in service, is probably not the most accurate analogy. furthermore, honestly, joshua, it offers more conconfusion. if you're a parent listening to

that or if you're an educator, how do you interpret that? we need someone else to come in and replace what we're doing when we're the ones that have long-held relationships with families and students. just didn't anything. we're all looking for practical stips a tips and to the cdc checklist you're right to point out there's these detail questions we can ask educators. the problem is the answers are not there. not because educators don't have them but we still have stall in the funding to try to provide better ventilation, outdoor classrooms in places are climates aren't going to support that. we really do need some of those answers. it's going to have to come in the form of some tough decisions that somebody needs to make but so far congress has yet to act on that. >> before i let you go, i wonder what your sense is of the overall state of our fight on coronavirus. the new york times had a piece saying the actual death toll in the u.s. may be closer to

200,000 as opposed to 160 some odd thousands because of the way cases are being reported. we know things are bad. they may be worse than even we have been told officially. >> i hate feeling like i'm always talking about the negati negative. what you pointed out is true. it's something we have all known is the counts for death are probably higher because of the lag in data and because of how the deaths are diagnosed or the underlying reasons for deaths are counted. that unfortunate and the true reality. we have seen some grim statistics in the number of case of children. we know there's more children that have this. some positive signals, where we are with the coronavirus. we have more people wearing

masks than even. we heard vice president joe biden call for a national mask man date and showing that hospitalized patients are doing better. we have a lot more to do but we're learning and we're learning fast. >> the president will be speaking at about 5:15. we'll keep an eye on that and bring you highlights as warranted. thanks very much. after the break, a celebration of lives well lived. a celebration of lives well lived. my life. when i refinanced with sofi, that allowed me to pay off aggressively and save without breaking my back or breaking the bank.

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there were two sides of alex. he had been a green beret. he served 20 years as a medic. that's one side. those who knew him said the other showed man who cared deeply, who loved eternally, who wanted to protect others no matter the cost. after his military service, he became a paramedic. according to our nbc affiliate in san antonio, when the pandemic hit, he took on extra shifts. it was just the right thing to do. he died of kcovid-19 two years ago at age 59. he was able to say good-bye to his three children before he passed. covid-19 took the life of david lemare a few weeks ago. he was just 19 years old. since his death we have gotten faller picture of who he was thanks to those who knew him. he was the kind of student

teachers loved, not just smart but with endless potential. he started college with fall scholarship. he was part of the louisiana tech honors program majoring in biomedical engineering and chemistry. a high flier with a sharp mind and a good heart. thank you for helping us honor their lives and for making time for us this hour. until we meet again, i'm joshua johnson in for nicole wallace. mtp daily with chuck todd is next on msnbc. mtp daily with chuck todd is next on msnbc. y and it continuously eliminates odors in the air and on soft surfaces. for 45 days.

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welcome to thursday. it's meet the press daily. i'm chuck todd. we have surpassed 167,000 u.s. deaths from the virus. more than 1,000 people are dying per day on average. i think it's our 17th straight day. the actual dea