comey, working for last president, was reluctantly drawn into the 2016 election. democrats on the house judiciary committee today calling for the current fbi director christopher wrey to open a criminal investigation into donald trump's efforts to corrupt the u.s. postal service and have a political donor work to disable the post office ahead of the november election. new york times today reporting two democrats on the house judiciary committee urge the fbi director on monday to open a criminal investigation into the role that the postmaster general louis dejoy played in mail delays they said threaten to compromise the november election. the committee members ted lou of california made the request in a two-page letter to fbi director. they also called on the bureau to scrutinize the actions of the postal services board of governors. in addition to calling on law enforcements to investigate whether crimes have been

committed by donald trump's allies, house democrats are can selg pl -- cancelling planes for break to try to rescue the postal service. postmaster general agreed to testify before the house oversight committee. that emergency hearing now set to take place a week from today. moving up testimony that was scheduled for next month. while donald trump has been sow doubt about the legitimacy of the election for many months, the postal service functioning as a arm of his war on democracy has jolted democrats into action. today's move is to restore the functionality of and confidence in the post office, follow warning the states that mail in ballots may not arrive in time to be counted. a development that the washington post reports may have already had donald trump's desire to fact quote thousands of voters have called government offices in recent days to ask whether it's safe to mail their

ballots. attorneys general from six states are huddling to discuss possible lawsuits against the administration to block it from reducing mail service between now and the election. several sources told the washington post. it's the kind of chaos and confusion that trump's critics have warned about over the course of his presidency each time he's trampled over another norm. retire ed navy admiral, former commander of the u.s. special operations wraarns this time th consequences could be catastrophic. he writes as trump seeks to undermine the u.s. postal service and stop mail in voting, he's taking away our voice to decide who will lead america. it is not hyperbol toerks say the future of the country could depend on those remarkable men and women who brave the elements who bring us our mail and deliver our vote.

let us ensure they have every resource possible to provide the citizens of this country the information they need, the ballots they request and the postal service they deserve. donald trump's war on an election that hasn't happened yet is where we start today. dr. jason johnson a professor at morgan state university is here. rick, i have to start with you. i wrote that, i read it but hearing it out loud is impossible for it to sort of sink in we're talking about the news in america. these are headlines that you're used to reading in a third world country. how did we get here? >> well, by the way, we need election observers in america. >> we do. >> stand up to other people. i want to talk about, unraveling our institutions is what

authoritarians do. donald trump is trying to do that. i'm so glad you mentioned congress coming back. i want to put a little historical context. the postal power is in the constitution that is given to congress. congress needs to use it. mail in ballots have red and blue voters. i'm glad they are coming back. one of the ways we undermine trump's abilities to undermine our institutions is institutions like congress functioning. i'm glad they are coming back and nancy pelosi has summoned them and they are suing the federal government. the federal government is a custodian for the postal service which congress operates. >> there's so much to unpack there. i want to put a pin in the political conversation because i'm told that the new campaign manager is out of his mind. a word i can't say on tv that trump is undermining the mail in vote because trump needs a lot of mail in vote. all members of the military vote by mail. a lot of people in states that

trump would need to vote for him, vote by mail. i want to go to the other development and the other sort of his ttorical echo with you jason. i think i was in one of these studios when jim comey, very reluctantly entered in a pretty large way into the 2016 election. you now have congressman jeffreys letter, a where for christopher wrey to do the same thing. i know none of us is postal law scholar here but it's worth examining whether donald trump has so dismants led every institution including his own fbi that they can't look for crimes where crimes may exist,

jason. >> this is why this is so problemat problematic. we have been talking about this for a long time. when trump first got into office and taked the cia and the fbi, we were concerned. on your show and several others. he's really attacking the morale. that was just the beginning. first the morale. then was forcing out or prrning out or out and out firing the people who would care about the integrity of institutions and then it became moving in his cronies. whether that was getting rid of co comey or every other person. he's tried to make every single branch of the government just as arm of his desire to stay in office. talk about the fbi, cia, the post office. think about this. three years ago, we never would have thought the post office would have matter. it would have been the last thing we were concerned about. just goes to show when you have a dictator come to power, an attempted dictator come to power, there's so much thing as

an inimportant government agency. everything can be weapon otherwiized when you have someone whose only goal is to stay in power. >> if you have to look into the way he's grown into the job, he's grown into what jason has described pst. he's grown into an understanding of how to use it and bend it and krunt corrupt it to his political will. here are the laws. the questions law enforcement will have to ask to see if there nst probable cause to investigation whether crimes were committed. whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of mail or any carrier carrying the mail shall be fined under this title or imprisoned. whoever, being a person employed in any administrative position by the united states or any department or agency thereof uses his official authority for the purpose of interfering with

or affecting the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office of president shall be fined under this title or imprisoned. donald trump has done both but far less grammatically correct on twitter in the last five days. >> yes. nicole, looking back at all of the times we saw him push and push and push to test whether or not he would get phone calls from republican leaders which we would find out about later and not in the moment, urging him to stop, that was the education process for him in 2017, '18 and '19. he extorted a country using congressionally approved funds.

congress se from that point forward we knew on february 5th what donald trump would do the rest of the year because no one has told him to stop. it's true that tampering with an election is a crime, slowing the mail is a crime. i don't know the fbi will come up with actual crimes here. think about how politically destructive this is for the president. he did not wait till the end of september or middle of october. he told us last week he was doing this to undermine a balloting getting into the mail service and being counted which might help him get defeated. people are watching what are called cost cutting measures and seeing if shelving is removed and machines are removed are corner sidewalk mailboxes removed, that is not an administration trying to help its citizen vote or survive a pandemic. i just don't know how this does not boomerang on him in the weeks to come. >> rick, do you know who is, i'm

trying to think of family friendly use word to use. you know who is up bleep creek is mitch mcconnell. you know what else is on those ballots in mail, the votes for senate. mitch mcconnell better start preparing for a downside. they have some nice little file folder boxes on wayfair he can shove all his papers in. he could lose the ma jurjority this single dirty trick out in the open. democrats have asked the fbi to look at it. mitch mcconnell should ask the fbi. if nobody votes by mail, he will be a very sad minority leader come november. >> absolutely. in an era when so many institutions by congress have poor approval ratings, the post office, as challenged as it is, has a 77% approval rating in america. that means republicans and democrats love it. the post office may be the third rail of american politics for him. people are so much for it.

he's trying to undermine it at every which way and it's going to boomerang against him as you said. >> the other people of election interference is around delegitimizing faith in the vote that does arrive in time. jim baker and jimmy carter looked at this after 2000 and voter fraud is not a widespread thing. it just isn't. here is mark meadows saying because it isn't, it is. he said while there's no evidence of fraud, quote, there's no evidence there's not either. i'm not tall but there's no evidence that i'm not. what does that even mean? they are down to talking in nursery rhyme? >> right. nicole, it means we're just going to cheat. i've got a piece coming out

tomorrow where i've done some research about how we got here. part of why we're in this situation -- >> how did we get here? spoiler alert. tell me. >>. >> it's because out of the board of governors. we only had one member. there were certain democrats and republicans who kept blocking barack obama appointments with the board of governors. in early 2017, he demanded all this voting information from the states. now, they using that information to go out and specifically target areas where they are trying to take away machines. they are taking mailboxes from specifically black and brown and democratic areas. this is not by accident. this goes back four years. congress has to act and they have to act aggressively. there's no greater concern they should have right now than

fixing this problem and i go into the details and some of the people in congress and responsible. >> who? >> there were several democrats and several republicans who kepkept blocking some of barack obama's nominees. there were concerns by senator sanders and mitch mcconnell. there were several nominees who were in favor of privatization. sanders said the unions don't want that. the problem a lot of people don't understand is this you're required as the president to nominate both republicans and democrats to the board of governs. you can't have it dominate bid your own party. when anybody disagrees, you block the slate. we had no board of govrps. trump comes in and fills it with his cronies. that's why we can't get anyone

to stop dejoy today. >> he's got the people that have defended republicans that were ensnared in the scandal on speed dial. sounds like he might need one. we don't know he's committed crimes but sounds like the democrats will press the fbi to ask the question and to investiga investigate. he is almost prototypical. he's a megadonor. he had business conflicts of interest and almost the prototypical trump appointee. >> this is only one part of this mess with the post office. new americans will probably end up knowing about this with lewis dejoy and his wife having holdings in companies. he's donated 2.7 million to trump and republicans since 2017.

it's going to be very interesting to hear his responses when he's in front of members of congress who will ask him why, as i mentioned before, removing machines and removing mailboxes helps fix the post office and create a better service. they are crippling it and pretending it's to save money when it's all we said a service that's not supposed to be a for profit service and should be aided more than ever in pandemic. their reforms and business plans for the post office could have been two years ago or next year. dejoy in the hot seat will be very interesting. the republicans will do what they can to help him out but i think it's going to be very hard for him to describe why his efficiencies are helping the postal service along. >> rick, there is in all of this this almost tacid concession from trump that he can't win this election fair and square. i've worked on presidential

campaigns that, i think i've said this, one that won, one that lost come election day but the polls must be confirmed by donald trump's private polling for him to be acting this way. to say today that he will not go quietly if he loses. to be literally lifting mailboxes off the streets of swing states, to be talking day in and day out about the mail vote being fraudulent. if you thought you had a chance of winning, you would be the one sending out more applications for mail in votes. let me put up some of those polls that must match his internal polls. nbc wall street journal has biden at 50. trump at 41 and the battleground states that is largely unchanged with biden at 49 and trump at 42. this also probably explains some of the reporting in the times in post about his donors drying up.

i think that a donald trump sure of his own defeat while alarming, is a riveting spectacle. all four of his have grieved the loss of norms. i think his conduct in the coming 80 days is on a different footing. it's heartening to see kamala harris smack down the birther lies and more speed than anyone has taken to the donald trump campaign in a long time. >> i think you're right. he doesn't want the votes to be counted because he doesn't have the votes to win. he's been doing everything he can to suppress the vote. the republican party and conservatives have been trying to suppress the vote for decades now because the votes are not on their side. i do think that most dangerous

period will be that period after the election, before the results are tabulated. those first few days, people cannot expect to have a result on election night. that is a very fraught period because you have a president who will hold onto power with any means necessary. that's when we really, really have to be prepared. that's when our institutions really have to be prepared fo function. >> jason, other than trying to take down his wi-fi, how do you prepare for that? >> honestly, responsibility starts with us. what's gieng going to be key about election night will be messaging. remember in 2018 we had the midterms and everybody talking about a waver and it didn't look like a wave that night but eventually martha mcsally loses and it's going to take a while. it's going to require patience. if we go back to the year 2000, the fact that george bush was

declared the leader first, that's what everybody remembers. it's going to be important for the press on election night to say hold on, calm down. regardless of what donald trump says because you know he's going to claim he won. he's going to claim he won no matter what the results are. no matter what joe biden says. we have to tell the american people to be calm, pashttient. the president will try to win a nar tifr battle that the longer this goes on, the more he's trying to be chaeated when the reality is, it will take a long tiemg. the most dangerous animal in the world is one that's wounded and he's bleeding now. >> thank you. another official from the trump administration speaking out saying he fears a second trump term but now is no time to be staying silent. we'll talk with a member of the

senate intelligence committee and about how dangerous it is that the commander in chief doesn't buy the warnings from his own intel community. also, riding a wave of good buzz from his v.p. selection in a steady surge in the polls. joe biden all remote convention kicks off in a few hours. we'll talk about donald trump's unsuccessful attempts to smear senator kamala harris and michelle obama's return to the presidential political stage stien tonight. it's not trump's attempts to meddle with the post office and sow distrust, donald trump is revealing his willingness to deploy a full arsenal of autocratic tools by distorting the functions of multiple agencies of the u.s. government. all those stories still coming up. government. all those stories still coming up a sluggish gut. miralax is different. it works naturally with the water in your body to unblock your gut. free your gut, and your mood will follow.

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i'm miles taylor. i served as the chief of staff under the donald trump administration. i would go into the office, read my intelligence brief and it was my job to help the department of homeland security to keep our country safe. what we saw, week in and week out and after two and a half years of that administration was terrifying. we would try to talk about a pressing national security issue, cyber attack, terrorism attack. he wasn't interested in those things. he wanted to exploit the department of homeland security for his own political purposes and fuel his own agenda. >> the claims made by a former top official, telling us what he saw as a series of troubling

scenes underfolding every single day at the trump white house. a political member of the trump administration who voted for trump four years ago and now says he just can't and won't and will be voting for joe biden this time around. his name is miles taylor. he wrote an op-ed in which he calls trump dangerous for america. he write, top dhs officials were regularly diverted from dealing with genuine security threats by the chore of responding to these inappropriate and often absurds executive requests at all hours of the day and night. one morning it might be a demand to shut off congressionally proved funds to an ally that angered him and it might be a request to sharpen the spikes on top of the border wall so they would be more damaging to human flesh. trump showed little interest in subjects of vital national security interests, including

cyber security, domestic terrorism and malicious foreign interference in u.s. fairs. let's bring into this conversation independent senator angus king who is a member of the senate intelligence community. first your reaction to this inside account that tracks almost exactly to the testimony of the 17 witnesses in the impeachment investigation? >> first, i want to congratulate you on the new program. >> thank you. >> i'm talking to my grand children, forget senator, governor, it's going to be i was on the premier of nicole wallace new show. this is a big deal. >> that's too kind. thank you. >> i read that piece this morning and my immediate reaction was, it's totally believable. that's what's really sad about it. this is somebody who was literally in the room where it happened. he saw it and heard it. i think it goes to a deeper problem here and that is this is a man who has never had anyone say no to him in his life.

he never was accountable to anybody. my son asked me couple of years ago did he have a board of directors on his company in new york. i said, i don't think so. it was family owned company. here he is, he thinks he's the president of the -- or the ceo of america and it's family owned company. he can't stand opposition, a judge, a congress, cabinet members that speak out. he can't tolerate that. he thinks he's going to run everything out of his hip pocket. what worries me and i say your previous interview and i've said this to someone privately to some of my republican colleagues. because he seems to have no limits, i worry about what might happen between now and november given the fact that it appears he may well lose this election. i worry about something he could do that would be truly dangerous. messing around with the post

office, sabotaging the census and post office, that's bad enough. i'm not going to speculate on what it is but it's what really keeps me awake at night. >> i won't press you to speculate on what it is but i'd like for you to reassure our viewers what could be done about it. i think there is a real sense that no one can stop him. mueller tried and failed. the impeachment process was a noble effort but ultimately republicans didn't want to hear from right wing or john bolton and that process failed. he's only emboldened every time he returns against a guardrail and steam rolls right over it. >> that's a legitimate question. here is the problem. congress can do something. we can hold hearings. we can try to hold people to account, put people under oath, cut off the funding. ultimately, there's a reason that it's called the administration.

they are in charge of administering the laws. there's a huge amount of sort of flexibility. he puts his friends on the board. they choose a republican donor and he sabotaging the post office. can you imagine taking away m l mailbox mailboxes? mail sorting machines. it's just unbelievable and test both malicious and incompetent which is a bad combination. >> congressman, jeffreys and lou have asked the fbi to look into whether the two sta constitutut are violating. would you join your democrat colleagues in the house in calling on fbi director wrey to

open a criminal investigation? >> i think it should be looked into. i don't know if i'm ready to go as far as a criminal investigation. i think it should be discussion of what's going on. if you or i and went and pried somebody's mailbox off the wall of their house, that's a crime. to pry mail boks out of the city streets and if it appears the intent is to keep people from exercising their right to vote. try to put people in a position where they have to choose between their health or being able to exercise their institutional rig constitutional right to vote. i think it does bear investigation and it's found the changes are being made for political reasons, it should be pursued.

it serves areas where it doesn't make economic sense. that's the whole idea of the post office. that's why it was in the constitution. it's a fundamental part of our national infrastructure. i've never seen anything like this. there may be issues. we can argue about what the right package right should be and those kinds of things but not in middle of a pandemic. not in the middle of an election. i was born at night, but it wasn't last night. this is ridiculous. >> i want to ask you about the broader effort. the assault on the post office and the weaponization through his political mega donor, they

have spoke about what donald trump wants to do. it's a piece of a constellation. he said he won't go quietly. he's been attacking the mail in vote which is politically moronic. some people that mail in their bo ballots might vote for him and other republicans. >> including him. >> including him. >> he voted by mail. >> what do you do where maybe there aren't laws being broken but harm being done to -- the peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of democracies. we're so far from being the brightest or the mostvibrant. we're one without a pulse. >> the undermining of the election and the peaceful transfer of power are the worst. i can remember government 101 freshman year in college that i

literally remember this. the teacher saying what distinguishing our country from post other countries in the world and in the history of the world is the peaceful transfer of power. that relies on trust and relies on confidence and it relies on people believing that the results are what we're told they are by the town clerks all over the country. to undermine that, it's really undermining the country. i think it's the most inexcusable of all these things. if you recall in 2000, al gore had a good case. he could have pursued that case. there were other things he could have done. he stopped because he said it would hurt the country. richard nixon in 1960 said the same thing. there were places he could have contested the vote in 1960 against john f. kennedy. gore and nixon said it would hurt the country to continue this uncertainty and raise people's expectations and

potentially lead to violence and that's against the long term interest of the country even though they were giving up the presidency. what hooe doing here is the deepest and darkest thing of all. i don't think he really understands this. i don't think he really understands the importance of the peaceful transfer of power of public confidence in our electora process of rules and guardrails and checks and balances. you got to remember this is a guy who never had any political experience until he walked in to the oval office almost four years ago. he never been a city council or mayor or governor or a dogcatcher. here he is running the largest organization in the world. i don't think he gets in his gut what this country really is all about and how our system works. it's very dangerous what he's doing. >> almost four years ago your

former colleague senator corker said that he had not yet displayed the competence or fitness for the office he hold. it's four years later. you know how much respect i have from you but he should have learned the job that he toholds. i hope we can agree on that. >> yeah. look at the coronavirus. i think that will go down in history as probably the greatest failure of presidential leadership with the possible exception of james back to you kcan -- back to youchanon in th to the civil war. we're bearing the cost of it. it's large ways and small. when i first went to the senate, when president obama was in office, i came home and my wife said what have you learned. what are you learning? i said it's really important who the president is. in all kinds of -- not the big ways we know but in small ways who is appointing to various

agencies like postmaster general. boy with have we learned that t time. many of the people who are being hurt, rural peeople, elderly people are the people he says and prides himself on representing. those are the people that are the collateral damage in his efforts to undermine the election and mail in voting. >> senator, we'll be calling on you early and often over the next 80 days. thank you for spending time with us. after the break. >> i hope we have a chance to talk about some more fun things as we go along. >> we'll lighten it up. she's still one of most influential figures in the modern democratic party and in entire country. tonight she'll speak to the world. we got a first look at former first lady michelle obama's democratic convention speech, next. s democratic convention speech, next

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president. he knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic and lead our country and he listens. he will tell the truth and trust science. he will make smart plans and manage a good team. he will govern as someone who has lived a life the rest of us can recognize. >> joining our conversation associated press white house reporter jonathan and elana beverly. michelle obama has such a singular place in american life. so beloved. i think her book might be one of the best selling, not just political memoirs but books. not what are they hoping to get. it's not all calculation but

what do they gain by seeing her and sort of inviting her own back into this arena where she was a reluctant par tticipantpa? >> don't call it a comeback. they gained so much from this. i think you'll hear michelle obama being the quintessential first lady and being a validater if chief for joe biden and for senator kamala harris and explaining she understands everything that americans have endured for these last few years. that we will persevere. although it's been hard, it's time for us to get to work, to get to work, to get those two in office so we can start to resume the types of lives that we all want to live. i think she's going to be the uniter in chief and the valid e validater in chief.

i think that's what they are banking on for this opening night. >> the fight over how women will vote is a fight that is always underway. probably only with president is the president tweeting at suburban, he calls them quote, housewives. michelle obama has broad appeal. she's also very, very, very effective at turning out must need parts of the electorate. if joe biden can reassemble the obama coalition, his lead seems to be even more secure. she's important politically too. >> she is. let's reiterate how much the president has struggled with the women vote since the day he took office. almost immediately, women, similarly suburban women sort of soured on him. we saw that trend continue in the 2018 midterms with republican candidates being

proxy for him and what we're seeing in polling this year. they have a significant gap there. it's part of their push, lately, with limited success, to try to woe suburban voters. a lot of that is aimed at the suburban housewife. she's one of the most popular figures in america no matter which political party you belong to. she's been an extraordinary advocate for her husband. it's not something she does, she does it with quite some reluctance. it's not something she wanted to do. earlier this week we have the michelle obama for president or vice president. there was never anything there. she can make it and she can help tonight, beginning tonight turn out women voters and women of color and any minority voters who have looked up to her and her husband for a long time who

would see themselves inspired by tonight. >> i don't mean to be chopping us up as a voting black, we're half the country. she also reminds us as who we are as a country. what role does she have in elevating the country? i think a lot of people still feel that way even if they are a little gun shy about not engaging trump where he plays which is down in the dirty tricks, like what we're witnessing with the post office.

>> i don't think we'll get the buzz word like when they go low, we'll go high. i think we'll get a very real talk about what it's going to take to get an administration back in order that is ready to roll on day one. ready to turn the ship around to improve the quality of life. what it is meant for our families, the fears that parents have in terms of sending kids back to school and try to make a decision of how they will not be left behind. i think she will speak to those issues but also speak to the importance of the institution of the white house and having a leader like joe biden who is going to be able to help to turn the ship around. it's going do be real and awe then tic. that's what she is known for.

i know she's a hugger. she won't be able to hug the crowd but remind us of the decency of america and who we want to be. >> all right. after the break, kamala harris sounds like she's already ready for a political fight. her response to donald trump's latest smear, next. o donald trus latest smear, next we made usaa insurance for veterans like liz and mike. when their growing family meant growing expenses, our agents helped make saving on insurance easy usaa. what you're made of, we're made for.

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impacting the american people. and i expect that that le engage in dirty tactics and this is going to be a knock down, drag out. and we're ready. >> she sure is. that is senator kamala harris responding to a racist lie amplified by donald trump last week. the lie went like this, that perhaps harris wasn't eligible to serve as vice president because her parents are immigrants. jonathan and alana are back. it is undeniable, jonathan, lemire, they do not know how to comfort senator harris. i have been told that she was one that they were worried about for the purposes of that pence/harris debate but it seems generally speaking she mucks up a lot of the attacks that they plan to spend the next 80 days launching against this ticket. >> hours after joe biden named kamala harris as his running mate, you might recall the president came to the white house briefing room and deemed

her his, quote, number one draft pick, suggesting that is what he wanted biden to pick. that is not true. just 48 hours prior as i wrote for at associated the press, the president was returning from bedminster back to washington and told aides and some friends on board that he was really hoping that biden would take susan rice or congresswoman bass. that is who he thought his campaign would do the best job attacking, that he didn't want him to take kamala harris. she was not the one nun draft pick. and we've seen the campaign trying to lay a glove on her. there is incoherent messaging saying she's too progressive and not progressive enough. they point to her record as attorney general as being too tough and too much of a cop and she's a member of the aoc squad and they haven't figured this out yet which is in part why the president last week touched upon

attacks only described as sexist and racist. reviving the birtherism lie which he used against barack obama and started his career by pair odding this lie. jared kushner and others said this is not a line they want to pursue. the campaign also said that. but it is just showing what a challenge at least so far senator harris is posing toward the trump re-election team. >> alana, i played that sound because it is important for voters and for the media and katy tur said when it comes to misinformation, you're either killing it or spreading it. that is the choice. i think fool me one shame on me and fool me twice, shame on me, the racist and misogynist forms. >> we're prepared but part of the reasons why the attacks work

is because they play on such deeply ingrained gender and racist bias in our culture. so i will let your audience know that ultraviolet is an organization that has a playbook, if you will, that will share with you how to identify these stereotypes and racist and gender tropes. we're ready. there have been formal organizations of women and men who have said we are bracing for these attacks, we know that they're coming. we know they're going to be especially pernicious because they're going to play both on race and gender. they're going to try to suggest she's unqualified and she isn't smart enough and run the playbook and throw it at her. saying she's overly angry and too emotional. all of those are gender trope and they're going to add an additional layer of racism on it. so we could expect and are bracing for it but this is a new

era, a new political culture era for women and women of color. we're ready and going to call it out every time we see it. >> and jonathan lemire, i can't imagine anyone is telling donald trump not to do these things but do the people at the campaign think they're helping him. >> right now, in terms of the racist and sexist attacks, this is not someone is in his ear and they do need and they know this and recognize this, coming up with something more effective than what they've thrown out there so far. they could read the polls. beyond' some in the trump campaign suggest the deficit has narrowed and the race has tightened a little. but donald trump is losing. and they fully check that the biden/harris ticket will get a bounce out of in week's convention. we don't know what the convention will look like. no one does in the time of the pandemic. but they acknowledge right now that joe biden is on a hot

streak and they feel the pick of harris is who they didn't want him to come away with. and so far they're befuddled as ho to you ho answer it. >> they are in deed. my thanks to -- go ahead. did you want to say smig. >> i just want to say congratulations on the two-lauer block. >> thank you. >> this is just a testimony to how amazing you are, how you're always digging into the issues and helping us cry to create a better world for the type of place we want my daughter and your son to grow up. >> that is too nice. if i had a six second delay, would you say too nice. but that is our tease. don't go anywhere. a second hour of "deadline: white house" next. r of "deadlin white house" next. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. (mom vo) we got a subaru to give him some ato reconnect and be together. and once we did that, we realized his greatest adventure

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cooked hillary clinton when during one of the debates, she asked whether or not i would leave office, would i accept the results of the election. do you remember. >> -- would you accept the results? i go by the election. now, with being said, i have to tell you that if you go with this universal mail-in, where you send millions of votes, in california tens of millions of ballots being sent to everybody and their dogs, okay. dogs again. people that have been dead for 25 years are getting them. you have to see what is happening then you'll never have a fair election. >> hi, again, everybody. it is 5:00 in new york as donald trump's assault on the integrity of the upcoming november election grows darker by the day, this time the president undermining one of the hallmarks of democracy. the peaceful transition of

power. donald trump today openly musing about not going quietly if he loses in november. raising the spector of a now publicly stated intention of refusing to accept the result of an american election. trump also repeated without any evidence his allegations of fraud. and raising questions about the security of mail-in voting. those claims from trump about rampant voter fraud are false and republican senator mitt romney said so much this weekend. quote, i don't know of any evidence that voting by mail would increase voter fraud, end quote. trump's lie was an important lie for republicans to fact check. of all of trumps thousands of lies, it is disinformation like this meant to undermine the u.s. election and represents yet another exhibit of donald trump ripping a page straight out of vladimir putin's playbook. peter baker wrote this today, how many ways are there to say

that this is not normal. baker adding, quote, president trump of course long ago redefined what constitutes normal in the white house. but with 77 days left in the campaign that polls show he is losing, he is pushing all of the boundaries at once. now, running as the incumbent, he has levers of power available to help salvage a flagging campaign. and donald trump's pattern of conduct in recent weeks proves the pound. autocratic style overreach, coopting more federal agencies for his own political gain. like the department of homeland security and the crackdowns on protester in cities run by democrats or a military for a photo op after clearing of mostly peaceful protesters and the purge of inspector generals across multiple agencies. he replaced five of them in the span of a few weeks and triped

to bear the departure on friday night. and commuting the sentence of an ally who committed crimes on trump's behalf and openly pressuring the justice department to drop the case against mike flynn. not to mention trump's recent warning to attorney general william barr on the investigation into his political enemies with this suggestion on fox news. >> bill barr has a chance to be the greatest of all time. but if he wanted to be politically correct, he'll be just another guy. because he knows all of the answers. he knows what they have and it goes right to obama and it goes right to biden. >> that is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former congresswoman donna edwards and also axios reporter alexi cannon and claire mccaskill. on the reporting, peter notes and you've talked about this

before and your colleagues at axios has covered this and illustrated this in jonathan swan's brilliant interview. donald trump has benefited from the volume business of chaos and norm-busting now but it seems that all t all points to then deniable acceptance on his part if this election is fair, he's going to lose. >> well, thank you for having me, nicolle and congrats on your next hour of "deadline: white house." so glad to be here for this episode. but this is exactly right. president trump has all of this chaos as you put it and it has been going on around him since he took office. and now we're seeing the way in which that is dragging him down in the polls but not just seeing republican voters and independent voters or even democratic voters who took a chance on him in 2016, we're seeing in polling they're moving toward biden and that is something that the trump campaign is seeing in internal

polls as well. the trump campaign anticipated that biden will get another bump however slight in the polls after the democratic national convention this week. and that is exactly why you see president trump out there doing this the sort of toner programming, giving speeches at different states around the country to try to get over this situation where he can't have normal traditional campaign rallies. but that is because he's trying to mitigate what he sees as the losses coming in in the polling and in the public polling. and i know a lot of people say well we have 70 sundays until the election and any number of things could happen. that is very true. but there is a trend in the polls over the last four to five months showing voters moving away from trump but key groups of voters, those 65 plus who made up a quarter of the electorate in 2016 and college educated voters, all of these different types of voters who the president no longer can rely on even persuading to vote for him and so he's turning to a

base turnout strategy. >> claire, our colleague rachel maddow said watch what they do and not what they say and the counter programming strategy is sort of the public face of what to do while the democrats hold their convention this week. but the conduct, i mean, two democratic congressman called an fbi director christopher wray to investigate whether crimes have been committed in the duct around the postal service slowdowns and you've been tweeting up a storm about that. the conduct is, at this point, more shocking than the inappropriate things he says in his constant barrage of phone in right wing interviews. >> yeah, what he's doing is a problem. and he's flailing. he's -- by the way, i'm so glad to be in the first of the second hour. i love hanging out. we all need more nicolle, more

nicolle wallace helps us feel better. so it is great to be here. >> thank you. >> he picked on the wrong place though when he picked the post office. >> why? >> and he did it in plain sight. because people love the post office. they love the u.s. mail. i mean, it is way more popular than i could ever be. it is way more popular than any politician. it is even more popular than michelle and barack obama. it is the most popular institution. it is right up there with the u.s. military. in fact, probably even higher. and the problem is that among his voters, a lot of them are rural residents and, nicole, the post office is a life line for them. they know what will happen if the post office is privatized, they'll charge more for the last mile of delivery and all of the small businesses trying to hold on in rural america right now, that need postal delivery, all of the veterans out there getting their medicines in rural

america, all of the small communities that look to that little brick and mortar place as kind of an anchor in their community, they do not want the post office to go away and he took on the post office. now, he's trying to back that postal truck up today, saying save the post office. which is a little bit like the guy who sets the fire telling the fire department where to point the hoses after he set the fire, right. so it is really obviously, i think, to people not in his base that this is a man who is desperate and who is searching for a grievance and he picked the wrong one when he picked the united states postal service. >> let me follow up on that. inside of his cal sievized base is the people you just described. it is an elite solution to say i'll just fedex it. there are a lot of people for whom a $22 overnight letter is outside of their budget and

there are a lot of people and veterans as you said who receive their medicines through the mail and a slowdown, a slowdown, which has already happened, that is not what they're threatening, their threatening a shut down. the slowdown is already probably endangered people's health. >> yeah. he put his person in there, like he has all over government, someone who is a cheerleader and not a competent leader, not an executive that is going to look to do the right thing but rather to do what pleases trump, and they have begun to take out sorting machines, they have cut overtime, they have done everything you should not do during a pandemic or in preparation for a election where a lot of people are going to use the mail to deliver their ballots to the election authorities. and everybody in america sees what is going on and they know he's trying to cheat and it is fl -- it is not going to help him in the polls. it is going to hurt him. >> donna, let me read you what the board claire said on the

slowdown for the postal service. this is from david fineman. he was on the network today and he said this, quite frankly if you keep this slowdown happening, people will die. you know, somebody is not going to get the prescription drug that they need and get it on time and some fatality will occur. on the other hand, the post office could do the job. they could do the job. christmastime, i'm sure you see packages come on time. somebody sends a package from philadelphia to kansas, they get it on time. there is no reason that the postal service can't work in an efficient way to conduct an election. once again, we have a president doing the opposite and as the former board chairman there said, people will die. >> well, you know, nicolle, this is very pernicious. on the one hand the rural voters that claire is referring to, depend on the postal service as their life line. a spent a lot of time in my rv

in rural america and i could tell you two things to count on, a small little post office and a volunteer fire department. and people out in those communities really depend on the postal service and they know that if a postal service were going to an all for-profit postal service, they would not receive deliveries of important and critical medications and their prescription drugs. the other thing is that from a standpoint of voters who live in cities and urban areas, removing post office boxes and slowing down the mail for the purposes of trying to interfere, i believe, with the election, means that you are going back door way to suppressing the vote of african-american, latino and other communities of color. and so the president really knows this.

and you could hear him call out loud for the interference of the election and let me go back to your first point, is an incumbent president who is confident and competent is not afraid of counting the vote. this one is afraid. >> alexi, just today the democrats have really jolted into action, moving to the next part of this what can be done. david plouffe sent this tweet out over the weekend and knowing a bit about his political brilliance, i seized on this. he suggested to democrats prime time hearings, now. subpoenas to trump white house and campaign officials. this is a rico case. visit local post offices with cameras, show people what is happening. events with those getting a prescription late involve governors, no rest and no vacation, go to war for our country. the democrats, let's say,

they'ven him up on six so far and we have reported in the last hour that state attorneys generals are, at least six of them, looking at lawsuits. so that is action on the state level. what are you picking up in terms of a response to this action from trump? >> well, the point is exactly right, the democrats are trying to be highly visible on this issue. it is not something that they're going to take lightly and something they'll tweet about or send out emails or statements. they're getting out there, they're coming back early from recess to hold this hearing, to have the post master general testify so they could get answers. so that something could be done. because at the end of the day we need solutions about how to have a free and fair election but we can't have the solutions until we figure out the exact problem. so this is one part of what they're trying to do. that will be public and that information will come out. but, of course, house speaker nancy pelosi asked her colleagues in the house to do a so-called day of action tomorrow

and to go to local post offices in their district and do press events, whether with cameras or reporters or whatever, of course safe and socially distance but this is another way that democrats are trying to david plouffe's point in the tweet, trying to remain visible and get folks more involved in the process to show them what exactly is going on because otherwise unfortunately this is another scandal in the trump administration and it could come to a situation where voters or people at home who are not paying attention to the details think it is just a matter of he said, she said. this is what president trump is saying and what the democrats are saying and it is much deeper than that and they're going through the motions so people know what is going on. >> claire, you were quited in "the new york times" talking about outrage fatigue and i think what alexi just described is sadly the inevitable end result of every scandal that people go through the motions. two house democrats tried to do something different and it was

four years ago that jim comey was pulled into the 2016 election and congressman lieu and jeffries are seeking to bring christopher wray into this election by asking him to open a criminal investigation. do you support that? >> well, i think obviously the fbi should always be looking at criminal behavior, no matter where it is. i think the more that we go back to the norm where they are doing their jobs, without interference from the white house, the better off we'll be. the more we could keep politics out of that the better off we'll be but i'm hopeful they're liking at any violations of law here. but the one thing that is missing in all of this, nicolle, and i think we kind of give them a pass too often, and that is the senate republicans. >> of course. >> now there is some really bad stuff going on here. you know, my former committee that i was ranking on, homeland security and government affairs has jurisdiction for postal.

none other than ron johnson is the chairman of that committee. what is he doing? he's off doing put in's work trying to make hunter biden look bad and not calling a hearing on this. there is a lot of expertise in that committee about the postal service and the needs of the postal service right now. and the notion that all of the republicans, whether it is them failing to speak up when one of the colleagues is called a ho by a national republican talk show host and none of the women are of the senate are speaking up, the republican women. i mean, this is really outrageous, the way that all of the republicans in the senate are hiding under a rock. they're going to lose the senate over it and it couldn't be more deserved. >> and donna edwards, i believe that national radio host is a medal of freedom recipient. what about they're clearly being no lines around which the democracy means more to any

republicans than their fealty to donald trump. >> well, you have only to look at the post office, a post office that is constitution aol a mandated and yet you only have a couple of republicans willing to stand up in support of democracy and our constitution and i don't know what it says about them but i do know that if the american people can see out front what is happening, that they are going to reject this, i don't know how republicans kind of rebuild themselves after staying so quiet for so long about so many things. and you're right about the outrage factor. but every week it just gets higher. and i think if republicans don't say something and at least on this issue of the post office, say something for america and for american democracy, then i don't know how it is that they could reconstruct themselves and it is not up to me to figure

that out. but i do know that the american people deserve elected leaders willing to stand on their side. >> donna, alexi and claire, three of the smartest people i know. thank you for spending time with us today. with just hours to go before the start of the democratic convention, two of the smartest political operatives in the country are good friend steve schmidt and more on what could be gained by going virtual. and the sharpest ad from the lincoln project is out. it is a takedown of donald trump from those who know him best. and trump's message to americans living in the biggest cities, you should be left to, quote, rot. all of those stories coming up. all of those stories coming up try wayfair. you got this!

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the reviews are in. >> you have to go by where -- >> here is what trump's own people are saying about him. he's a [ bleep ] moron. rex tillerson -- >> we're lower than the world. >> lower than the world. >> he tries to divide us, james mattis. >> you had a group on one side and a group on the other, very fine people on both sides. >> he's an idiot, donald trump's kiev of staff. a professional liar, gary cone. >> this is my favorite lincoln project ad to date. you've seen the words of some of the many people who quit working for donald trump or were fired by him to make the case against donald trump. the case that the democrats hope to amplify during the party convention this week. joining our conversation, our

good friend, one of the people behind the ads, steve schmidt co-founder of the lincoln project and robert gibbs. steve, i have to ask you, there is one more indictment in today from myles taylor, former chief of staff at homeland security who writes this, like many americans i hoped donald trump once in office would accept the burdens of presidency for most among them the duty to keep america safe but he did not rise to the challenge. instead the president has governed by whim, political calculation and self-interest. he tried to turn dhs, the largest law enforcement agency into a tool used for his political benefit. he insisted on a near total focus on issues that he said were central to his re-election and in particular building a wall on the u.s. board we are mexico. there isn't anyone that came out and had anything good to say about donald trump behind the scenes. >> of course not, nicolle. good afternoon and congratulations on day one of what is going to be a great show

for sure. >> thank you, my friend. >> but we know that donald trump is exactly what he appears to be. serious people have taken his measure. we know the outcome. he is the greatest failure in the history of the american presidency. he is the greatest failure in the history of the country when it comes to anybody who has been charged with managing responsibilities in a severe crisis. no one has ever failed as totally as donald trump has failed. and so we see this man right now trying to sub vert the election, going after americans' right to vote. his attacks on the post office are positively murderous. people as you pointed out in the last segment will die when they don't get cancer medications or think don't get their antidepressants. this is just a horrible moment for the country. it is all on the line. donald trump is trying to sub vert the 231 year long electoral tradition in this country that

has gone on since 1788 from the election of george washington through civil war, world war and great depression and you see donald trump attacking what is the keystone of american democracy. the idea that we decide who our leaders are. we pick them. not the other way around. this is america. we tell the government what to do, not the other way around. and so we're in a very ominous moment for american democracy and we see on the republican side of the aisle, we see too few friends of liberty as they continue to debase themself in the cult of personality no matter the damage to small democratic traditions in this country. >> you know, robert gibbs, steve and i worked on the loosing mccain campaign in '08. >> i remember that. >> thank you. that mccain i think felt that the most important speech

perhaps of the campaign was the concession speech, the president then senator obama's victory was clear as could be. but there was such an important role he felt he had to play if doing what steve said and in bestowing legitimacy and honor on the outcome on the peaceful transfer of power to president-elect obama. and trump mentioned flippantly, i might not go quietly. where claire said we are with the outrage fatigue, why doesn't that make republicans stand up and say it is a republican now but if a democrat -- an incumbent democratic president were to dishonor the tenants of democracy, we'd freak out. >> well, we would freak out. and i wonder how do we send a secretary of state into meet with the chinese and make a point about hong kong if the same thing that the chinese are watching on tv is the same thing we might castig ate they're

trying to do there. so we've got to be very careful here. and it will be interesting to watch as you and steve talked about, who stands up to be accounted for. mitt romney has begun to do that. i believe we're certainly at a -- we're nearing a point of no return. where it is going to be hard to put norms back into play if we don't have an election where everybody feels confident that they have the ability to vote, and that we have some norms about how the election operates both throughout the campaign but on election night and into a transition such that it is orderly, and such that it continues to be a beacon of hope throughout the world. places that desire to see democracy, an idea that we desire to export to other countries, it is fundamentally crucial and i think you know history is taking note. history is taking a role call.

and i believe as we get closer to this -- the end of this campaign, i personally believe more people will stand up to make sure they're accounted for by history. >> i want to push on something you just said because i think about this all of the time. i lay in bed and think about this. who are these referees? because i think this work of sowing distrust in the outcome of the election that's been tragically success. i think polls show that 40% of people worry they won't be able to trust the result and that is either people that fear be disenfranchised by what is underway, this corruption of the postal service or people that are hearing trump say that mail-in voting is fraudulent. we are -- talking about mccain, we're absent a lot of any real referees and i was thinking this morning who could you put in charge? could you have jim baker and jimmy carter who looked at voter integrity after the 2000 -- who

would you have and that is why republicans will be featured at the democratic convention to show it is as steve coined it a coalition of the descent rejected all of this anti-small democracy movement from trump. >> absolutely. i think those republicans are there to suggest, again, that norms have been broken. that we've gone through, we've broken glass in case of emergency. and i think you see it in the polling where people are in the suburban voters and others that don't necessarily pull a democratic lever on election day. that will be doing so this time. so i think that is going to be important. you mentioned the referees. well first of all, it is -- isn't it stunning that we're sitting here talking about who might be the election observer in our country in which we normally send somebody like a jimmy carter over to observe the norms of elections in other

countries to assure their integrity. i think it is important people stand up and be counted. as a kraim practitioner, i've said this, the only consistent message that donald trump and his campaign have had for the past eight months is that the election is rigged. that is it. you can't -- they've thrown everything else against the wall to try to define biden and it really hasn't worked because they haven't stuck with anything. the only thing consistent is that this election is rigged and there is a huge danger that what comes out of this a lot of people not having faith in their government any more. it makes it hard to get things done. it makes it hard to do the things that you have to do to keep this country safe. and i think it will be a tragic epithet for donald trump to go out like that. >> go out, he may not do though, steve schmidt. his comments today that he may not go quietly. and i didn't see too much made

of it because as ashley parker has said, there is such a diminishment in the seriousness with which donald trump is taken but around the world he's still president of this country saying that he may not accept the results of the next election. >> it is appalling and it is appalling to see an american president becoming the greatest threat to american democracy that american democracy has ever faced or at least since the second day of the battle of gettysburg and the confederates were moving forward. at the end of the day, as the democratic national convention convenes, we have one democratic party in this country and we have one autocratic party in this country. we have one of our great political parties has become unmored from the concept and tradition of american democracy from the small liberal democratic ideal, from the ideas of small republicanism, this is

a tragic hour. we have a president overtly trying to suppress the votes of americans. making it difficult to vote. and hampering with the post office. first post master general of the country was dr. benjamin franklin. he understood that for the first service that a functioning national government has to provide is the ability to communicate, the ability to deliver the mail. the post office is as old as the republic. you see an american president tampering with the mail which the entire country relies on for the delivery of essential goods and products and medicines and services is an appalling moment. the analogy is donald trump is losing this election because he's the greatest failure in presidential history because 170,000 americans are dead because of his malfeasance and incompetence and many thousands more will die. we have a shattered economy. and donald trump is being judged

on the record. so he's decided to try to hold on to power by any means necessary. but no one can stop anybody from voting in this country. we will vote. the american people will vote. it is our right. it is our franchise that is in blood for our inheritance by our american ancestors from lexington and concord to the edmund pettus bridge. and we'll have an election, no patter how hard donald trump tries, we're in a dangerous moment in this country because donald trump has presented himself as the proverbial enemy from within and abraham lincoln warned us about. that the only thing that would unravel the american experiment was an enemy from within. not one from overseas. and so american democracy is under threat. it is our obligation as americans to perfect it. that puts on the line as the

democratic convention started tonight. >> and i want to reach in and block the wind from your microphone to take in every word. two of my favorite friends, thanks for spending time with us today. donald trump has a message for cities run by democrats. quote, let them rot. we'll get reaction from the mayor of chicago after a short break. hicago after a short break. - [narrator] this is steve.

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begin to make their case to the country, the 2020 national democratic convention, they will be buoyed by fresh polling showing joe biden and kamala harris have a near double-digit lead. donald trump's baseless attacks on cities run by democrats, however, may have hit their new low. over the weekend trump shared a video on twitter of black lives matter protesters in new york city, seemingly shouting at a driver and stopping traffic. the attached message re-tweeted by the sitting president said this, quote, leave democratic cities. let them rot, end quote. it is the latest and most desperate attempt to find an advantage as he's at war against the postal service and refusing to shut down the notion that senator harris wasn't born in this country. "new york times" peter baker said it is all part of the latest framework to trump's candidacy writing this, quote, president trump long ago redefined what constitutes

normal in the white house but with 77 days left in the campaign he's pushing all of the boundies at once, that would cause jaws to drop barely seems to register because it is quickly overshadowed by the next statement or action. joining us one of the speakers at tonight's democratic convention, chicago mayor lori lightfoot, mayor, thank you so much for spending time with us. what are you going to talk about tonight. give us a preview if you will. >> i had a privilege of being on a panel discussion moderated by the vice president talking about issues of race and equity in our cities. and i think it is a great testament to joe biden that not only he understood the importance of having a conversation, but he leaned on himself and drew people from a lot of different perspectives to talk about issues of race, policing, and really i think the things that are top of mind in this moment and how we could

take advantage of this important national conversation to build authentic relationships and foundations on which we could really forge lasting solutions. so i'm excited about the conversation. >> i want to ask you about the tweet and let city's rot but i'm going to do it as michelle obama suggested, when they go low, let's go high. in an excerpt she released she said what joe biden will bring back to the white house is someone who understands the american experience and you have lived what this country has lived through, this now braided pain of pandemic that has hit your city hard, the disproportionate losses in communities of color and the reckoning that is happening. none of that has been anything that donald trump has even sought to participate in. what does that contrast look like when the democratic party is going to do this week takes their case to the country. >> i think the contrast could

not be more stark. every single day there is mounting evidence that donald trump is focused on division. he's still trying to play out some fantasy from 1968 of the richard nixon playbook to scare white suburbanites in the rural communities and that urban centers are teaming out of control places of lawlessness. it is just not working. and american people are smarter than that. democratic mayors across the city are facing the challenges head on and we're leading and we're leading without the support that we should be getting from the executive branch and from the white house. but try as he might to distract, to divert, people are focused an they're determined and we have to make sure that we forge ahead and we block out of the noise and not allow him to draw us into the cesspool of toxicity that is filled with homophobia, sexism, misogyny and xenophobia, every terrible thing that is

intended to divide us, that is the thing that donald trump has been ferming for the last three and a half years and has kicked into high gear az this election unfolds and as you could see his time in office is slowly but surely winding down. >> mayor lightfoot, i want to ask of you and we'll come back on the other side of your remarks because i want to ask you about your decision for chicago schools to start remotely. and i really i want to follow this conversation that you're going to help start at a national level as part of this convention tonight around these issues. so i hope that you will accept our invitation to come back on the other side of tonight's speech. >> yes. i will be with you tonight. so i'm excited about the opportunity. >> thank you. thank you for spending time with us today. as the democrats look to punish him from mishandling the coronavirus pandemic, donald trump embraced yet another quack medical treatment for the disease. that is next. disease. that is next

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but it only covers about 80% of your medicare part b costs. a medicare supplement plan may help pay for some of the rest. two: this type of plan allows you to keep your doctor - as long as he or she accepts medicare patients. and three: these are the only medicare supplement plans endorsed by aarp. learn more about why you should choose an aarp medicare supplement plan. call today for a free guide. here in the united states, the country now worst affected by coronavirus by far, the death toll has just topped 171,000 souls. and there are now more than 5.4 million cases here. that is out about of 21.7 million globally. tonight on the first night of the national convention, democrats will press the case against donald trump over his

utter failures to lead this country during a deadly pandemic. and trump may be helping them make their case. he's reportedly pushing another unproven treatment for coronavirus. and setting off a new round of alarm bells from health experts. according to new reporting in axios, trump has asked the fda to approve an herbal extract called oleander to be marketed as a potential cure for covid-19. though there is zero, zilch, no proof that it works. the idea was pitched to him in july by ben carson and, wait for, it the founder of my pillow.com. he recently took a financial stake in the company that makes the extract. easy dots to connect even for me. joining our conversation, the physician and fellow at the brookings institution and the former obama white house health policy director, our friend dr. patel. lucky for all of us she's a medical contributor here at nbc

news. i guess the news is not advocating and trying to corrupt the fda approval process around an unproven cure but the question is, is he relevant to the country's response to the pandemic at all any more? >> yeah, that is exactly the right question, nicolle. he's not relevant as a simple answer, but it is now gotten to where it is just comical at every stage, substitute hydroxy chloroquine and pushing for reopening in schools an you see the same playbook. and not only is he not relevant, but i'm just worried that we do actually have some progress in solutions and treatments and doctors and nurses making progress in clinical front lines, vaccines that are coming along that show promise as well. but you don't hear about that and you don't hear about the

plan to really encourage kind of the fall, the twin-demic, the potential of the flu season and another kind of bout of covid breakouts. you don't hear that. so not not only not relevant but at this point and i feel like i say this, he's committing political mal practice. this is liability that should be held for things that we should be doing and that states are doing, parents are doing, employers are doing but our national leader is not. >> you led us to this point so i'm going to read you what governor cuomo is expected to say tonight. he's speaking in tonight's lineup. making the point you just made basically, that he's going to say this, americans eyes have been opened, and we have seen in this crisis the truth, that government matters and leadership matters. and it determines whether we thrive and grow, or whether we live or die.

i mean, this pandemic seems to have revealed that for all of his bluster, when you rip down the curtain, was a guy who had no idea what he was doing and i just wonder what you think you k about this argument that former vice president biden and senator harris and with the assistance of governor cuomo tonight, plan to take to the country as part of the general election. >> yeah, i think that tonight you'll hear -- it will be the first of many nights we start to hear about not only a plan to deal with the coronavirus, but all along, the facets that we have learned to pull through the battle we are still in with disparities along income, gender, ethnicity. so you look to tonight of what i hope to be are clear messages not only how they'll pick up the ball from day one, but how they will tap into something -- you

talked about american entrepreneurialism, something i know we have, which is hope and perseverance, we're all tired of talking about covid. we're all tired of being where we're at. i hope you see a little bit of sunlight tonight in the form of solutions, not just on health but on the economy, on education, on job mobility and on the ethnic and gender income gap that we have. >> i think it's such an important point, and i think just on the seriousness, there's something almost like reading a story out of the onion, that president trump is about to start pushing an herbal supplement that the pillow guy told him about. just the contrast in tone and seriousness will speak for itself. dr. patel, thank you for spending some time with us today. when we return, as we do every day, we'll celebrate lives well lived. we'll celebrate livs well lived

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he was a builder by trade and a darn good one. he would drive around san jose, and he could point out to you every building he worked on. this one, ten years ago. that one, 35. ken's essence was so much more than his job. a close friend said "if there was a hall of fame of doers, his statue would be out front." confidence, boundless energy, all of them in a person who was

onto the next thing. get back from a vacation, let's schedule the next one. find something new, he would go first. ken was an unstoppable force. right up until he got sick. he died of the coronavirus at the young age of 65, and we're thinking of him and his loved ones this afternoon. and this is jimmy sanchez, a thrift store own we are a 1 in a million heart. his family says he had been living his dream. he loved collectibles, treasures, secondhand merchandise and owning a store he could build a career around that passion. it also allowed him to take care of his family. four children and a loving wife. jimmy was supremely generous for customers going through a hard time. how about some free clothes? if they had kids, maybe a toy would find its way into the checkout bag, no charge. that's who jimmy was, which makes it all the more devastating. he was only 40 years old when he

died of the coronavirus. a good man gone way too soon. thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for letting us into your home. "the beat with ari melber" with coming up at the top of the hour after a really quick break. of r after a really quick break

good evening to you. i want to thank our new neighbor, nicole wall losle wal. president trump under fire for undercutting an election where he appears to be walling behind, as we are, of course, hours away from political and pandemic history, the first time a major party has made its national convention virtual. the democratic party format here will be the same as past conventions. state delegates will formally make the primary winter party