good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington where senate democrats have been grilling the postmaster general in his first congressional hearing over those budget cuts, the budget cuts that upended mail delivery of prescription drugs and other necessities. they say putting mail-in voting at risk during a pandemic. >> there will be no post office closures or suspensions before november 3? will you be bringing back any mail sorting machines that were removed since you became post

mastery gener master general? >> there's no intention to do that, they're not needed, sir. >> did you discuss those changes or their potential impact on the election? i remind you you're under oath. >> i've never spoken to the president about the postal service other than to congratulate me in the position. >> today's hearing follows news this morning that six states and the district of columbia are filing a new lawsuit against the postal service over their concerns with efficiency and possible cutbacks as 20 states have now filed suit against those cuts. the fight over reversing the cuts is critical as we are now officially in the election, the general election campaign, with joe biden accepting the democratic nomination in a speech widely praised for not only attacking the president but presenting himself as the person who can take on four unprecedented crises at the same time. the pandemic, the economic collapse, the racial awakening

and protests, and climate change. and what biden is describing as a unique fight for the soul of the nation. >> character is on the ballot. compassion is on the ballot. decency. science. democracy. they're all on the ballot. who re are aswho we are as a nation. who we want to be. that's all on the ballot. the choice could not be more clear. >> more on last night's big democratic kickoff and the republican convention that starts monday in a moment. but first, that post office hearing. nbc white house correspondent geoff bennett and nbc's heidi przybyla on capitol hill. geoff, you've been following the ins and outs of this for weeks now. what will the important bottom lines from this hearing today be? >> reporter: andrea, i think it was important and instructive for lawmakers to get mr. dejoy on the record talking about his policy changes, his cutbacks,

his crackdowns, and his motivation for those changes. among the important takeaways, he said he's extremely confident, extremely highly confident, he said, that even mail-in bolts sent close to the election will be delivered on time. in an exchange with senator mitt romney he said, we will scour each plant each night leading up to election day. but in an earlier exchange he said it's important for people to request those ballots early and send them back early. but in an interaction with senator gary peters he disputed, dejoy did, that he has implemented cuts or curtailed overtime, which tonight add up with the reporting i've done. i've talked to employees who said the cuts to overtime have changed the culture at the postal service. they are used to processing and getting mail out on the day that it comes in but they're saying across the country, mail has been sitting at these facilities. a couple of days ago we had that exclusive picture of an

overflowing mail bin at a processing plant in new york that had sat there for nine days because of cuts to overtime, andrea. >> and i was really struck by maggie hassan, senator and former governor of new hampshire, who said the only sorting machine in the whole state had been removed, is not being replaced. she was drilling down on him and he said, i'll get back to you on that. she said, i want to know by sunday night because there is that big house hearing, led by the democrats, not a helpful trump-supportive senator, as senator ron johnson, the chairman of today's committee hearing, was. he said, i'll get back to you. heidi, you have new reporting on dejoy's appointment in the first place. >> reporter: right, andrea, a lot of questions about how he got his job in the first place, the first postmaster general in

a couple of decades with no experience. nbc has confirmed there were a series of private meetings between secretary mnuchin and the republican members on the board who had been installed by president trump. what happened in those meetings, i am told, is that mnuchin was advocating for a swift move on appointing a new postmaster general and that he wanted to be very much kept in the loop of their deliberations and before they made any final decision. we don't know specifically what was said because these were one-on-ones, andrea, and they are not subject to the sunshine act which was created for transparency in federal agencies, communications with the executive branch. but it does line up, andrea, with some pretty stinging testimony that we heard yesterday from the former ig at the postal service, former vice chair of the board, who said he knew a lot of these republican board members had to go over to mnuchin and, quote, kiss the ring, even before they were concerned. he left the postal service over what he felt was undue executive

influence over the postal service. he said mnuchin was playing a leading role in that effort. why does this all matter? andrea, this is supposed to be a uniquely independent service organization which provides essential services to the american people. it's got a whole separate organizing principles, including funding that is not from the federal appropriations process. and this would be a clear violation of this organization's charter. two other quick things i wanted to mention from this hearing that were really notable. number one, a lot of the republicans in the hearing were saying these delays are directly tied to covid, andrea, yet we've obtained a chart from usps showing a precipitous decline in online mail delivery that lines up weeks after dejoy was appointed. that was not line up with when coronavirus started, which as you know, was back in february and march. the sorting machines being

decommissioned, they actually cost money to take these machines out of commission, andrea. >> and geoff, briefly, the president is still attacking mail-in voting even though he voted by mail himself, he and the first lady. is anything going to get fixed on capitol hill? >> reporter: it's interesting, mitch mcconnell is among those who is breaking with president trump and actually touting the fact that mail-in voting is safe and effective. kentucky had a primary back in june. 70% of primary voters in that race, they voted by mail. so it's not just mitch mcconnell who is touting vote by mail, it's also louis dejoy. look at this exchange between him and senator rob portman earlier. >> i voted by mail for a number of years. the postal service will deliver -- deliver every ballot and process every ballot in -- in time. that it received.

>> so you do support voting by mail? >> i do. i think the american public should be able to vote by mail and the postal service will, uh, uh, will support it, so in that sense, yes. >> reporter: so louis dejoy laughing there when asked the question do you support vote by mail because the question itself is laughable, the president is the one who is the outlier here in conspiracymongering and spreading unfounded rumors and innuendos suggesting otherwise, andrea. >> to be continued monday with the big democratic house hearing. thank you so much heidi and geoff. meanwhile, in the most consequential speech in his 50 years in politics, joe biden delivering an optimistic, hopeful acceptance speech while forcefully making his case against president trump's handling of the pandemic. >> the current president has cloaked america in darkness much

too long. if you entrust me with the presidency, i will draw on the best of us, not the worst. i will be an ally of the light, not the darkness. we'll choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege. our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation. he's failed to protect us. he's failed to protect america. and my fellow americans, that is unforgivable. >> joining me now, nbc news white house correspondent and "weekend today" co-anchor kristen welker, "usa today" washington bureau chief susan page, and "washington post" opinion writer jonathan capehart. kristen, the big finale was unexpected and really special at the drive-in movie theater and everyone flashing their car headlights and the fireworks and the rest of it. the speech itself, i want to

play one other excerpt, where joe biden really contrasts himself with what we've seen from donald trump with all the favoritism. take a look at this. >> while i'll be a democratic candidate, i will be an american president. i'll work hard for those who didn't support me, as hard for them as i did for those who did vote for me. that's the job of a president, to represent all of us, not just our base or our party. >> kristen, this was perhaps the least partisan political party acceptance speech. not only did they have republicans in really prominent places in the prime time program, but he is basically saying i will work for all of you and not making a raw appeal to the democratic base. >> i think you're right, andrea. and that is such a critical part of joe biden's strategy. he is trying to reach out not just to democrats who clearly he

wanted to energize this week but also to independents, to try to win over trump voters who may be open to a biden presidency. in addition to that sound bite you just played, he really reintroduced himself to the american people last night, andrea. not only talking through his biography, talking about the losses he has suffered in his own life, having to rebuild his family not once but twice, most recently after the loss of his son beau in 2015. but speaking directly to the people who are suffering, who have lost loved ones to covid and saying essentially, i feel your pain. this was his attempt to reach out to people who might be skeptical. the question is, will it work. i think you maybe another really important point which is that throughout this past week we saw democrats aggressively trying to reach across the aisle. we saw that from former ohio governor john kasich, colin

powell, cindy mccain, and senator bernie sanders, andrea, who of course tried to energize his progressive base and get them to rally behind joe biden but also talked about reaching out and being able to work with conservatives. so i think that was really at the root of this entire convention, trying to paint joe biden, frankly, as a moderate. will independents, will undecided voters buy it? that remains to be seen, andrea. >> and in terms of being uplifting, susan page, let me play a little bit of his closing, the closing of this really extraordinary speech. let's watch. >> let us begin, you and i together, one nation, under god, united in our love for america, united in our love for each other, for love is more powerful than hate, hope is more powerful than fear, and light is more powerful than dark. this is our moment. this is our mission. >> that close was not only uplifting but his forcefulness and the way he delivered it,

susan, really undercuts the caricature that donald trump on twitter has been using, you know, sleepy joe and demented joe, over the hill joe, can't put one word in front of each other, and now i can't either. you know, speak to me about the way that works. >> i'm struck that this convention, this speech, was so different from the ones we've become accustomed too. i think the democrats took something that was a problem, which was that they couldn't have a traditional convention. they turned it into an asset. they had such an intimate convention. the things we remember are the boy from new hampshire, the stutterer. the "new york times" security guard who said i love you after she took biden up the elevator for an endorsement, an interview with "the new york times," whose endorsement he didn't get. his speech had a somber, less partisan tone, that fits very much with the somber, serious,

stark time we now face as a nation, andrea. >> and it was more like a presidential address than a campaign speech, a rally speech. jonathan capehart, it almost became a fireside chat as did barack obama's, the other's, making a virtue of the fact they had to be virtual. here is donald trump responding in arlington, virginia at this hour. >> over the last week, the democrats held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in american history. they spent four straight days attacking america as racist and a horrible country that must be redeemed. joe biden grimly declared a season of american darkness. >> jonathan, i don't think they were attacking america as a racist country, i think they were attacking donald trump as a racist president.

>> i am reminded that the president of the united states is a master of projection. i think he is forecasting what we're going to see next week at the republican national convention. you know, after watching the four days of the virtual democratic convention and seeing how well they were able to pull it off from a production standpoint and from a storytelling standpoint, i do think that the key line that you just showed in his very impassioned closing of his remarks where he said, i am the democratic candidate but i'll be the american president, that line crystallizes what the last four days have been. you can go back and revisit all of those speeches that we heard and the videos and everything that we've seen, and there is nothing in what we've seen over the last four days that would turn that phrase into a lie, that what we saw was a party,

the democratic party, making the case for the country to rally around this man who wants to unite the country together, wants to stitch it back together after four years of a president and presidency that has rended the garment of unity that is this country. if joe biden's speech was not the partisan speech we've been used to at conventions, that it was more a presidential address, more of a conversation with the country about, yes, i see the reality, i feel the reality, and if you elect me, all of you, whether you voted for me or not, i am going to lead us out of this, but it's going to be not just me, all of us. and so that's why listening to the president denigrate what's happened over the last four

days, i think sets the president up rather poorly, because i do think the criticism of the dnc is exactly what we're going to see out of the rnc. >> just briefly, susan page, was it a mistake to have so many republicans and to give mike bloomberg such a prominent place when there's a lot of opposition to bloomberg within the democratic party? we saw it on the debate stage. and aoc, for instance, the rising progressive star, got such short shrift. >> ask me after election day and i'll tell you if it was a mistake. if it succeeds in getting joe biden these moderate voters in places like michigan and ohio and pennsylvania, then it wasn't a mistake. if it cuts down on the enthusiasm from progressive voters, from younger voters, from minority voters and we don't see them coming out, then it was a mistake. >> susan page, kristen welker, and jonathan capehart, we'll see

you hosting "a.m. joy" saturday and sunday, so tune in on the weekend for jonathan capehart. thanks to all. meanwhile, new details about steve bannon's arrest and charges. house intelligence committee chairman congressman adam schiff joining me later this hour as the list of trump associates arrested or convicted grows. plus how a 13-year-old overcame his stutter. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports," that touching moment coming up next. up next

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and so we must decide whether we will continue to be prisoners of the darkest of american forces or will we free ourselves to write a brighter, better, noboler story. that's the issue of this election. a choice that goes straight to the nature of the soul of america. >> jon meacham, pulitzer prize winning presidential historian in an unprecedented appearance at the democratic national convention. he joins us, his book about john lewis is published next week, we're so excited about that. thank you for being with us, jon, late night, early morning. what made you to take this step,

endorsing joe biden, speaking at a national convention, why now, why this year? >> andrea, we've known each other a long time. i don't know your politics. i don't think you know mine. but every once in a while, a choice presents itself where i believe, for me, ambivalence or neutrality is not an option. and we are facing a grave crisis, a crisis, remember, the word is greek, it comes from hippocrates, meaning a moment of decision in an illness where a patient lives or dies. we are facing a democratic, lower case "d," crisis in the country. it's not a partisan point. i'm not a democrat. i'm not a republican. i have voted for both parties. i cast my first vote as a freshman in college in the

tennessee republican primary for george herbert walker bush in 1988. and so it's just -- this is not some sort of radical left historian media figure representing the deep state. what it is, is a citizen who was very fortunate to have benefitted as much as i have from this country and my background, and i'm aware that i'm a product of privilege, you know? if you look like me, the country has tended to work out for you. the point of america should be that everybody should have a fair shot, what lincoln called an open field and a fair chance for it to work out for everybody. and joe biden represents our best hope for restoring that possibility. and i want to say quickly, because you and i have now done this longer than either of us probably want to think about,

when you talk about restoration, this is not about going back to something. this is about looking back, trying to see where we have come through crises before, and what can we learn about that as we address the crises of our own time. and i believe, as john lewis said, if you see something, say something. and what i've seen is that we have an incumbent president who needs to lose. and joe biden needs to win. and so i said it. >> and perhaps it was best illustrated, your conclusion, your conviction, perhaps was best illustrated by what many people are saying was the highlight of the night, aside from biden's speech, which was extraordinary, but 13-year-old b brayden harrington, a young

teenager biden met in new hampshire, brayden telling his story as he courageously did about his stutter. let's watch. >> without joe biden, i wouldn't be talking to you today. about a few months ago i met him in new hampshire. he told me that we were members of the same club. we stutter. he told me about a book of poems by yeats he would read out loud to practice. he showed me how to mark it to see how to read out loud, so i did the same thing today. >> i can't watch that without choking up, jon. >> well, we were watching last night with our kids, 18, 16, and

12. and in most households, with 18, 16, and 12-year-olds, silence is a rare commodity. dead silence. open mouths. and the girls were welling up. because you used exactly the right word, which is "courage." imagine the courage it took that young man to say what he said. imagine the courage it took joe biden to overcome that and enter the public arena where all you do is talk, right? so what kind of country do you want to be? do you want to be a country where you have a president of the united states who makes fun of people who have these struggles? or do you want a president of the united states who embraces those folks and helps them? this isn't hard. actually, i mean, you very

kindly said i stepped out and it was unprecedented, and true enough. that's nothing. nothing compared to what that young man did. and to the struggles that working people are facing in a consuming pandemic that's pushing us toward jobless numbers like the great depression. so again, i don't know how in a country that in the late 18th century, for all its failings, was founded with the idea that reason, the capacity to think, to take data and change your mind if that data leads you to doing that, the whole project of the enlightenment was supposed to be able to take a stand against passion, against appetite, against raw ambition. it's very clear. it's very clear. >> jon meacham, thank you so

much. as you say, we've known each other a long time. you've never been more important. with the democrats pulling off their historic virtual convention, how will the republicans manage theirs? they've got a rose garden. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. hell reports" on msnbc. ...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. ask your doctor if your teen here's another cleaning tip from mr. clean. cleaning tough bathroom and kitchen messes with sprays and wipes can be a struggle. there's an easier way. try mr. clean magic eraser. just wet, squeeze and erase tough messes like bathtub soap scum... and caked-on grease from oven doors.

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these heroes are doing their jobs. now government must do theirs. keep working through a special session to combat this crisis right now and provide the revenues to solve the problems we know are coming. as the democratic convention wraps up on an unusual high, a

wilmington parking lot was transformed into a drive-in theater showing joe biden's big speech, and fireworks. all eyes are now turning to the republicans and president trump's unprecedented plan to use the white house for his big moment. how will the biden campaign counter the advantages of an incumbent willing to use all the perks of the oval office for maximum political effect? joining me now, nbc news political reporter mike memoli who has been covering the biden campaign and joe biden for years, and msnbc senior politics editor beth fouhy. welcome both. that was quite a wrap-up. you were one of the few people in the convention center itself, in the hall itself, which had been reconfigured from the night before where i frankly didn't feel that in the final moments, it really worked, to show kamala harris and the bidens joining her but in a completely empty convention stage. it was so much more, i think, powerful to have joe biden just in the darkened space, almost like a presidential address, and

then the big finale outdoors. >> that's right, andrea, i've been comparing it with past speeches. we know how much biden feeds off crowd energy, how important seeing that his message is connecting with voters and how it helps his performance. they really worked hard on making this a success. as you know, biden's speeches are often being written up until the last minute. i'm told that speech was locked in at a fairly early stage and it gave biden an awful lot of time to rehearse it, to practice it, to be comfortable with his delivery. he knew what the stakes were for this moment. that environment, we talked about it being like the state of the union response, often very cold, but the biden campaign actually in the end sees this as fitting the moment. this isn't necessarily a time for celebration, a big, rowdy convention speech.

it was a time for him to have a direct conversation with the american people about his vision for the country, what he sees that's wrong in the oval office and what he would do if elected to do it. and they feel really that it was more of a success than they could have hoped for. >> whoever thought of flashing the headlights and turning their parking lot into a drive-in theater to watch the speech and honc honk their horns, that was brilliant. beth fouhy, monica alba has been reporting on some of the details of what to expect from the republicans. first of all, we've got some pictures that show the republican delegates arriving in north carolina where it was originally supposed to be held, because of covid, could not. the state cracked down. so they're doing some of the official business actually in charlotte, north carolina, but never getting to jacksonville, florida, as they had planned. the president is going to have all of his events in a big

auditorium, one of the official auditoriums on constitution avenue here in washington and then his speech is going to be at the white house and we've already seen some still photos, i think we've got, of them beginning to set up the south lawn of the white house, a huge break with tradition. you can see that they're really building -- there's some real construction going on out there. what's the latest also on the fireworks permit that they want to have a big fireworks display on the mall connected to the acceptance speech? >> well, we know that president trump really thrives on those big crowds. and of course he wanted the jacksonville venue because he was promised he could do a big rowdy convention speech with supporters who weren't going to be social distancing or wearing masks. obviously that went away because it's not safe to do that and the president grudgingly had to acknowledge that. as that video that you just showed tells us, he does expect a crowd on his lawn, giving him in-person applause for the speech he's going to deliver.

who knows whether that's going to be done safely or not? the white house insists and the campaign insists they're going to follow safety protocol, but president trump is not one for following the rules. he likes to break the rules. that white house speech, doing it in the rose garden instead of a more independent venue, using the trappings of the presidency so blatantly to talk about politics, that's par for the course for this president. and we'll see how it pulls off. >> thanks so very much, beth fouhy, mike memoli. all the republicans get their turn next week. and fighting for families. how the biden campaign is hoping to win back blue collar votes that president trump took away from the democrats in the rust belt states back in 2016. ohio senator sherrod brown joins me next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. tchell reports" on msnbc. when we started carvana, they told us

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joe biden's pitch to americans struggling with job losses on top of the pandemic

and underlying wage inequities that playing our economy. ohio democratic senator sherrod brown joining me now, great to see you, thanks very much. your reaction to the speech last night, how do you think he balanced the need to reach out to the center, to try to get some of the rust belt trump democrats back, as well as to inspire the base and, you know, widen the tent for progressives as well as others? >> andrea, you know how i respect you, but we don't use the term "rust belt," we find that demeaning in our part of the country. we're not rusty. >> okay. >> we have advanced manufacturing and all that. it's not a question of joe biden moving to the left. i'm clearly a progressive and i care about all these issues. it's just that he realizes he's going to be a consequential president for workers. you can see the contrast. they use the term dignity or

dignity of workers throughout the convention, a number of people. you contrast that with donald trump's betrayal of workers. and that's the message. and when it's workers, it's whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, whether you work for tips, whether you're mid-level management, whether you're taking care of kids or an elderly parent. if you love your country, you fight for the people who make it work. that distinction is so clear, that we're the party of workers. we understand essential workers are mostly women and are disproportionately people of color. we fight for those essential workers. one essential worker, a grocery store worker said to me during this pandemic, i don't feel essential, i feel expendable, because i'm not paid well and i'm not protected at work. biden and harris get that. trump just simply is indifferent, as we know. >> i want to ask you about our own poll. i take your correction, it's a

term we've used in polling and in politics for a long time, but i take your correction that that is a broad caricature of what those states, i'm a pennsylvanian by adoption, so i know exactly what you're talking about. let's talk about our polling, nbc news/"wall street" polling, that whites with college degrees support biden by 58% to trump, 35%. whites without college degrees support trump by 59% and biden by 27%. and that president trump has an advantage in handling the economy, go figure, but people still feel he's better to handle the economy. how does joe biden narrow that gap and in fact close the gap completely on the economy? >> well, whether he can close it entirely is difficult. even if he only closes the gap significantly, it's an electoral

college landslide. if you win ohio, it's an electoral college landslide, because you win ohio, pennsylvania, florida. this president has betrayed workers, he's taken overtime away from 100,000 ohio workers under a rule that obama and biden and secretary perez and i did. he won't raise the minimum wage. he told workers why youngstown, in lawrence town, don't sell your homes, these jobs are going back, then didn't lift a finger to help us keep them. he attacked goodyear tire, steelworkers who make tires, attacked them and attacked that company. trump's phony populism worked in the 2016 election. but i underscore "phony populism." voters who pay attention can see that it was phony now.

we've got to get workers' attention. it's on us to sell that message and i'll be selling that message every day in ohio, trump has been betraying workers, his phony populism only undermined workers. biden is running his campaign through the eyes of workers and will be the kind of president who fights for the dignity of work. that's going to come through. whether it closes the gap to zero is not the issue. it closes the gap by 10 or 15 points, we win big. that's our mission. that's what we're going to succeed in doing. >> was it a mistake to have john kasich, former ohio governor you know so well and other republicans, mike bloomberg in a prime place last night? >> no, i'm fine with kasich, i don't like what kasich does to workers, i don't like what kasich does to women, in terms of reproductive health. but i don't dispute -- they want to reach out to republicans, that's fine with me.

bloomberg was very good, pointing out what a failed ba businessman is, he talked about trump as a failed businessman and a failed leader. we're 4% of the world's population and have suffered 25% of the world's deaths, not because other countries' doctors are better than ours or their public health system is, but because we have a leader that simply failed at every turn on this pandemic. so i thought that discussion was helpful. we will get republican votes and we're going to win back working class voters. trump won this state by eight points, i knew i had to get one out of every seven trump voters to come back to me, and i did, and joe biden will too. >> thanks very much, senator sherrod brown. how worried are the president and his associates about steve bannon and whether or not steve bannon might cut a

deal? house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff joining me next. stay with us. an adam schiff joi next stay with us >> tech: at safelite, we're committed to taking care of you

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former white house chief strategist steve bannon is out on $5 million on bail after being indicted on fraud charges. bannon was charged with fraudulently raising more than $25 million they claim would build sections of the southern wall and skimming millions for themselves. bannon was arrested off the

coast of connecticut on board a 150-foot luxury yacht owned by a chinese multimillionaire. go figure. joining me now, house intelligence committee chair, congressman adam schiff. congressman schiff, arrested by the postal services investigations unit on boats gets him off this incredible yacht? you can't make this up. >> can't make this up. but look, you know, donald trump promised the american people that mexico was going to pay for this wall. that was a lie. that was a fraud. it was a con. now steve bannon promised his daughters that all their money would go to building the wall. that was another lie, another fraud, another con. these are grifters, they're conmecon men. there's no honor among these thieves. i think steve bannon will do anything to save his own skin. but this is who the president

surrounds himself with. this is who the president himself is. they're all grifters. it's why so many of them like paul manafort has gone to jail, bob gates, roger stone, mike flynn, all indicted and pled guilty or convicted by juries. they're all grifters. the amazing thing is, as you pointed out, bannon is a wealthy man. donald trump is a wealthy man. donald trump didn't need to rip people off through trump university. bannon didn't need to rip people off this way. the president doesn't need to milk the presidency to get the british to play at his golf course. it's all about them, never about the american people. >> let me ask you about this. dan goldman says that in sdny, if he wants a deal he has to agree to tell prosecutors everything he knows about any other crime, you know, any other firsthand knowledge he has.

that would be the only way he would get a deal. every top lawyer, former prosecutor we talked to says this is really a very plain open and shut kind of -- obviously the allegations have to be proved, but it's a plain fraud case. they have a lot of evidence in the indictment. that said, you know, if he does try to get a deal, is it possible he knows some serious stuff about others in the administration potentially? >> i don't think there's any question that if he wanted to cut a deal, he would have plenty to say. if you look at the southern district of new york case involving michael cohen, one of the reasons michael cohen couldn't get a deal from the southern district is that he wasn't willing to cooperate completely on the broadest range of things he had knowledge. i think dan's observation is probably the right one. they'll drive a hard bargain in the southern district because if they got a strong documentary case of where the money went and it went into steve bannon's

account, that's a hard thing for bannon to refute. so, you know, there's a lot of leverage there. but, yes, if bannon decides to cooperate, i have no doubt, given the kind of rampant corruption and criminality in the trump administration, that he would have plenty to say. >> the president said last night on fox news that he's going to have sheriffs monitoring polling places. is that intimidating? >> absolutely. we have experience in this in california, southern california many years ago, there were efforts to bring out security law enforcement personnel to intimidate latino voters and discourage them from showing up at the polls. this is an old playbook that the president is using. we'll of course fight this abuse of law enforcement resources. and we are currently fighting and i the public outcry has been helpful, the effort to

degrade and dismantle the postal service to interfere with people casting votes by absentee ballot. but this voter intimidation, this fraud that the president is trying to perpetrate in terms of suggesting you can't vote by mail even though that's how he votes by mail, it just shows you the lengths this president will go to because he's so desperately worried about losing, the lengths he'll go to as president obama said to tear down our democracy. he just doesn't care. >> adam schiff, congressman, thank you very much. appreciate that. >> thanks. >> that does it for this edition for a busy week on "andrea mitchell reports." chuck is up now for the new hour of "mtp daily" here on msnbc.

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♪ if it's friday, joe biden delivers an historic convention address to a nation in turmoil. the democratic nominee did what he needed to do as the saying goes, so what does president trump do now? how desperate could he get? we're about to find out. plus as the president assails mail-in voting, his embattled postmaster testifies in front of the senate vowing he will pause