a transition candidate. does that mean a one-term president? what does that mean? >> no, that isn't what it means. >> so you're leaving open the possibility you'll serve for eight years? >> absolutely. good morning, welcome to am joy. i'm jonathan capehart. we are now 70 days from the election with joe biden enjoying a post-bounce leap in the polls. he went from 40% to 45% according to a poll released today. now it's president trump's turn. the republican national convention kicks off tomorrow where trump will be the first impeached president in american history to get nominated to a second term. the gop's prime time spotlight will start one day after the post published this audio of mary trump secretly recorded by

trump's niece. >> i'm talking too freely, but you know, the change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying, holy [ bleep ]. but he's appealing to the base what they're doing to the kids at the border. >> maryanne trump also said about her brother, all he wants to do is appeal to his base. he has no principles. none. none. and his base, i mean, my god, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. not do this. how do democrats counterprogram the rnc? joining me now is chief of staff to vice president nominee kamala harris, senior adviser to the biden campaign and author of "moving forward." it is great to see you, especially in this new role. welcome. >> thank you so much, jonathan.

so good to see you as well. thanks for having me. >> thank you. so as i ask the question, how are you going to counterprogram the rnc? are you going to do that? usually, you know, the campaign of the other side stays dark while the other one has its convention. >> well, first, let me just step back to last thursday night, what the nation saw during the democratic convention from joe biden. you saw a leader, you saw a presidential address. and honestly, frankly, it's something we haven't seen in three and a half years. you saw a leader meet the moment. joe biden met the moment. he laid out what the crises were in this country but not just laid that out, he also offered up solutions. and something that we saw as a nation is that a joe biden and kamala harris ticket will aggressively tackle covid-19 and also make sure that we get the economy back on track.

so what we're going to see in the next 72, 71 days, it's the same thing from donald trump that we've seen before, someone who is going to not really speak to the severity of covid-19, he's not going to talk about the economy. i mean, he probably won't even mention covid-19, to be quite honest. meanwhile, more than 170,000 americans have died. and this is it, this is donald trump. he's someone who is going to sit on his hands and do absolutely nothing. so that's what we're going to see. we are going to continue to remind the american people that joe biden and kamala harris are ready to lead, as we saw last week, and we also saw their enthusiasm for that ticket in the past 10 days. and the american people want change. that's what they want, and they're ready for change. >> but, karine, i want to go back to my original question. i get what you're doing in the

next 70 days, but when it comes to the next four days of the republican convention, does the biden/harris ticket plan to counterprogram, go toe to toe with the trump convention as it rolls out? >> i think we're going to be doing what we've been doing, showing contrast. showing contrast as to what the donald trump campaign or donald trump administration has not done, has not been leaders, has historically in governing has failed governing, but how joe bid sk biden and kamala harris are going to be leaders in this moment. they are going to be laying out their plans as joe biden has been doing in the last couple months. this is what the american people want. they want compassion and empathy to come back to the white house. i think that's what we laid out the last couple of days during last week of the convention. we're just going to continue doing that. we're going to continue to show

the contrast and speak to the american people. that is our plan. >> do you worry, though? word has come out that the president plans to speak every night of the convention next week. given what you were talking about in terms of making the contrast, are you worried that the biden/harris ticket won't be able to break through because not only is the president at his own convention, but he's going to use every night to speak directly to the american people? >> look, i think the reason why donald trump is going to be at his convention every night is because he doesn't really have the unifying message that we had. it's not surprising -- this is what he does. he likes to show this reality tv of himself, of a presidency, and doesn't have really many people to come out and speak on his behalf to validate his presidency. he hasn't even laid out what he's going to do the next four years if he were to get reelected. if you look at our convention,

it was diverse. we talked about real issues that matter to the american people. you saw energy. as you mentioned at the top of the show, you saw republicans, democrats, progressives, and that's what our convention was about. it was about uniting america. that's not what donald trump is going to do. as we know, it's going to be hate-filled, it's going to be division. that's all he knows. that is the playbook that he has had since 2016, so there's not going to be anything new there. it's going to be actually the same old, same old, same old. how do you bring the country together? that's what americans want to hear. how are you actually going to bring about change? that's what americans want to hear. he's not going to do that. what we're going to do is the job we've been doing the last couple of months, which is continue to show the contrast, continue to call him out on his lack of leadership, especially with covid-19 and the economy. >> one thing, the abc news ipsos

poll that has come out shows that the convention seems to have worked, at least, in the responding to this poll. vice president biden, the democratic nominee, has jumped five points since the last pol , at 45%, and the same thing holds true for the vice presidential nominee kamala harris who was at 35% in the last poll and is now up to 41%. can you keep that momentum going when the rnc is next week and the cavalcade of hate we're going to see in the next four days? >> look, jonathan, the energy we have seen with the biden/harris ticket has been tremendous. in the first 48 hours after joe biden named kamala harris, we raised $48 million in 48 hours. that is tremendous. the energy is there. and we are so proud to see this

ticket and what they're laying out for the future. and so that's what we have on our side. we have energy, we have enthusiasm. and another thing, just looking at the numbers for a second, we were able -- the campaign was able to catch up from $100 million gap that we saw with cash on hand, and what we have been able to do is that because of that, we're able to put the trump campaign on defense in states that they won in 2016. now, i want to be clear, we're not going to take this for granted. we're going to continue to fight, we're going to reach out to key constituencies, we have to continue to build that coalition, it's going to take everything to win, but we feel really good about how we look as a campaign going into september. and the convention brought people together. all you had to do was watch it last week and you saw the energy and the diversity that came

together, and you saw a president, as i said at the beginning, vice president joe biden, lay out what his vision is for the country. you saw kamala harris lay out what their vision, their shared values was for the country. that's what americans want. they want change. they want out of this mess that donald trump has put us in. >> karine, two things before you go, we're running out of time. one, you mentioned the 48 million raised since kamala harris was named on the ticket, but also since the convention, the ticket has raised $70 million, so that gets to the point you were making about how you closed the monetary gap with the president. i want to show this clip real quickly from the interview that the ticket did with abc and have you talk about it briefly on the other side. >> president trump has referred to you as nasty, a sort of madwoman, a disaster, the meanest, most horrible, most

disrespectful of anybody in the u.s. senate. how do you define what you hear from the president? >> listen, i really -- i think that there is so much about what comes out of donald trump's mouth that is designed to distract the american people from what he is doing every day that is about neglect, negligence and harm to the american people. >> and incompetence. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> so, karine, real quickly, the mysogeny in that comment from the president coupled with the racism we've already heard come from this president, how are you going to deal with that in the 71 days going forward? >> let me first say that senator harris answered that question with such tact and grace. also, we have to learn from listening to the person who said that, right, which is donald trump who, as you said, disregards women of color, he

disregards black people, people of color. this is what he does. and, honestly, what's nasty about all of this is his record, his record on the global pandemic to the economy, and what he has lacked the ability to do is to lead. and that is -- this is what he does, right? it's an old playbook, but this time around it is not working because we saw it in 2016. this is what he's going to continue to do, but the polling shows the american public is not happy. they are tired, especially of his leadership on covid-19, and now we just have to continue to lay that out, lay out that contrast, speak to the american people and do our jobs that we are doing as a campaign in building that coalition and, like i said, speaking to those key constituencies. >> karine jean-pierre, thank you for being on the show. i know this will not be your last time on the show.

thank you very much. >> nice to see you. thanks to you. coming up, the latest on the post office scandal and the shock be number of votes that have already been rejected this year. you have to stick around for this one. coming up next. k around for this one coming up next allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident, even if it's your fault. cut! sonny. was that good? line! the desert never lies. isn't that what i said? no you were talking about allstate and insurance. i just... when i... let's try again. everybody back to one. accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. with safe, convenient service. we're here for you >> tech: we'll come right to you. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: you'll get a text when we're on our way. >> tech: before we arrive, just leave your keys on the dash. we'll replace your windshield with safe, no-contact service. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: and that's service you can trust when you need it the most. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: schedule at safelite.com.

♪ upbeat music >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

how dare you refer to this as a sham bill. the only sham here is the patriotism you continue to espouse while we stand here in defense of the u.s. postal service and you disrupt services. >> we're here to save the postal service because it is being sabotaged by a desperate president in order to cheat in the 2020 election. >> our message is simple. protect the postal service. the house passed a bill giving $25 billion of emergency funding to the u.s. postal service. the bill comes amid growing

fears that the postal service is being maligned in an effort to interrupt mail-in voting for the november election. mit more than 550,000 primary absentee ballots have already been rejected this year, significantly up from the 318,000-plus ballots rejected in 2016. the uptake is particularly alarming as millions more voters plan to vote by mail this november due to the coronavirus pandemic. joining me now, vanita gupta, president and ceo on the leaders conference of human and civil rights. and anita jayapal. thank you both for joining me this morning. you sent out a tweet about a hearing that the congressional

caucus had last week about the postal service. you wrote, our hearing on the sabotage of usps was stunning. it revealed the blatant corruption of this administration and their complete disregard for our democracy. it demonstrated that they'll always put their power and profits over the ingwithbeing of people. there will be accountability. what question do you want the postmaster general dejoy to answer? >> this included a hearing of david williams, who is the former inspector general of the usps also on the board of governors. i believe he was the vice chair of the board of governors of the postal service. he was appointed by trump, and he has served multiple administrations over the past couple decades. what he said was, number one, he was in the room for dejoy's job

interview. he could not understand how this job could have been given to dejoy who did not have the experience. he said that other people in the room were putting the answers into dejoy's mouth because he didn't know the answers. he had a tiny bit of very narrow logistics experience, but it was insufficient to actually get the job. he's a mega donor to donald trump and he has enormous amounts of stock in companies that benefit from the privatizing of the postal service. so this is corruption through and through. and he pointed out that the postal service is a 250-year-old organization. dejoy was on the job for five weeks and started implementing these sweeping changes, and he's obviously implementing the agenda of this president. so on every account from the mail sorting machines being taken out to the slowing of mail to the denial of overtime to

postal workers so they can deliver ballots, this is an enormous corruption of our democracy. >> congressman jayapal, you mentioned sweeping changes. i want to play this clip of dejoy before the senate on friday. take a listen. >> are you limiting overtime, or is that being suspended right now and people will work overtime if necessary to move the mail out every single day? >> senator, we never eliminated overtime. >> it's been curtailed significantly, is what i understand. >> it's not been curtailed by me or the leadership team. >> will you be bringing back any mail sorting machines that have been removed since you became postmaster general? will any of those come back? >> there is no intention to do that. they are not needed, sir. >> congresswoman jayapal, i would see tweets from the

president saying, quote, unquote, the postmaster is lying. from everything you've seen about the postmaster, do you think he was lying or telling the truth about anything last week? >> i didn't see the whole testimony, so maybe there was one small area where he was telling the truth, but he was certainly lying or is incompetent to be running the post office. either one is unacceptable. the reality is we had almost half of our sorting machines in the seattle-tacoma area removed, almost half. now postal workers are starting to put some of them back on their own because they're so outraged. and the idea that he is not occcurtailing overtime is absolutely not true. someone in that service is curtailing overtime, and i think he lied before the committee. it's inconceivable that these changes would be happening

without direction from the top. and we've seen this over and over again, jonathan, where people in the trump administration just lie. they come out and they lie, and the only reason is they have personal corrupt interests at stake and it's all about making money for themselves. and let's not forget that dejoy made a max contribution to kevin mccarthy just before he was appointed. he is a -- he is just an emissary of the president to do whatever the president wants, and the president has already told us that what he wants to do is make sure that nobody can vote by mail, even though it is so safe and the mit study, as i said in my hearing with bill barr, has shown that over the past 20 years, over 250 million mail-in ballots have been sent in, and the fraud rate i is .0006%, so extremely safe and

necessary in a pandemic. >> vanita, let me bring you into this conversation, and on that point about the safety of mail-in voting, but i want you to react from that story by npr about the high numbers of absentee ballots that have been rejected so far. >> yeah, so there is a -- the npr story is obviously deeply concerning, but the good news is that the primaries were a wake-up call for election officials around the country, and since the primaries, a number of states have adjusted their rules, mostly through litigation and litigation remains very alive. but states like georgia and florida and iowa have changed the rules by which signature mismatching laws can prevent people from having their absentee ballots counted. so one of the key things, though, is that voters are

empowered to be able to track their ballots in the states. it's why everyone across the board is saying vote early. get your absentee ballot early, get it now, fill it out carefully, check it twice and then send it back the way your state requires. go to vote.org. it explains all the different ways in each state that you can do this. voters should actually feel empowered to track their ballot and make sure it has been received and counted. then in the worst-case scenario, if they are unable to track it this way, then vote early in person. so the message, the key message here is vote early. there are a lot of advocates and lawyers that are working to make sure every single ballot is counted and working to make sure that states actually ensure that we don't see these high numbers of rejected absentee ballots which predominantly hit folks of color. but voter empowerment in this election is perhaps more

important than ever, and voting early is going to be a key component of success for this election. >> vanita, you've given great advice to our viewers. go to voter.org, and i would also recommend voters to the lower right-hand corner of your screen where it says "plan your vote," and vanita says to plan and vote early. vanita and congresswoman j jayapal, thank you for being here. next, we folk on uscus on af voters that go too often ignored. keep it right here. ignored. keep it right here

i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424.

it'can it help with snoring?le of the year on the sleep number 360 smart bed. i've never heard snoring. exactly. no problem. ...and done save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, free delivery when you add a base. ends monday. the ultimate sulfate-free lather test competitor / pantene add water / add shampoo add dirt / add oil blend for 15 seconds

2x more lather pulls dirt & oil out of your hair 0% sulfates, parabens, mineral oil, dyes pantene nutrient blends ♪ i got it all from you ♪ i'm always pushing through ♪ i know we'll make it to the finish line ♪ ♪ i know you're waiting on the other side ♪ ♪ i'm like you on-demand glucose monitoring. because they're always on. another life-changing technology from abbott. so you don't wait for life. you live it.

a little breaking news this morning. donald trump's niece, mary trump, has just released a news statement regarding the secret recording of her sister, maryann

barry, part of what they wrote overnight. she writes, she felt it prudent to have conversations in order to protect herself. she never believed much of what she heard, including her sister. she said donald trump paid someone to take an s.a.t. test for him. those with questions about who dave shapiro is, why the president paid someone to take the s.a.t. we have more "am joy" after the break. "am joy" after the break. from chicken of the sea, comes new wild catch. premium, ready-to-eat fillet pieces of albacore tuna, or alaskan salmon, or ahi yellowfin

with just water and sea salt. new wild catch from chicken of the sea. enjoy the catch of the day any day. new wild catch from chicken of the sea. i am totally blind. and non-24 can make me show up too early... or too late. or make me feel like i'm not really "there." talk to your doctor, and call 844-234-2424.

book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night. the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com.

just over at the present years ago, i joined the military where firing me for being who i am wasn't just possible, it was policy. now in 2020, it is unlawful in america to fire someone because of who they are or who they love. the very ring on my finger, a wedding we celebrated here where i'm standing, reflects how this country can change. love makes my marriage real. but political courage made it possible, including that of joe biden, who stepped out ahead even of this party when he said that marriage equality ought to be the law of the land. >> lgbtq voters are a key votin

10% of the democratic electorate. more than 40% of lgbtq voted for democrats in 2016. but not near as many are enthused for a biden vote than the community. perhaps because the community has not forgotten bernie sanders' spotty record for gay rights. two years earlier he voted to cut off funds for schools teaching students of homosexuality. bernie sanders has a strong record when it comes to gay rights. back in 2017, kamala harris was the attorney general of california when a federal

appeals court allowed same-sex marriages in the state to go forward. >> i have the attorney general on the phone right here. >> you must start the marriages immediately. these marriages are legitimate, they are legal and it's going to continue, and it's about time. >> but her record as california's top prosecutor isn't spotless, especially when it comes to the rights of transgender people. as an example, harris defended the denial of medical care to transgender people in prison, a position she has since distanced herself from. some trans activists who were skeptical of harris now say they support her, like jessica ross, who says she believes harris has held herself accountable. still, for many lgbtq voters, the decision about whether to support biden/harris 2020 remains complicated. so here's the question. how does the democratic party bolster enthusiasm for this ticket when neither their

candidates nor their records seem to spark at the primaries? joining me now to discuss the lgbtq vote are kate sasan, isa mills, and brandon wolff, lgbtq activist and pulse nightclub shooting survivor. thank you all very much for being here this morning. >> thanks, jonathan. >> brandon, let me start with you, because i know i said in the intro that senator bernie sanders had a bulk of the support of the lgbtq vote, but you had another horse in that race. you supported who? >> i supported senator elizabeth warren in the primary. >> and why senator warren as opposed to bernie or even biden, harris or any of the other people? mayor pete, even. >> well, my support for senator warren and her lgbtq platform

was really rooted in two different places. first of all, she put our voices at the table, and she didn't do so in a way that was simply an attempt to check political boxes, but she did it in a way that said she fundamentally understood that as a female gender white woman, she couldn't imagine what it was like to be lgbtq. she sat down with us, asked about the complications we're facing and what help we needed. because she chose to listen and learn, she didn't create some narrow lgbtq plan that pigeon-holed us into a policy proposal. she coordinated an lgbtq perspective into every single one of her plans, whether it was housing, criminal justice reform, and she understood that marginalized communities faced the same struggles as others, just with inequality heepd aped

top as a multiplier. that's really what i'm looking at right now, biden/harris versus trump/pence. which of those men are going to listen to our struggles? which of those men in january 2021 are going to sit at the desk of the oval office and understand that we need policies, not performances. when i put that contrast in that way, the choice seems very clear. it's got to be joe biden by a mile. >> kate, i bring you into this conversation. you write for the "19th." you wrote a piece sort of outlining the issues that the lgbtq people have with the biden/harris ticket. i want to put this up from "out" magazine. he wrote, i believe that people can evolve but i don't believe

that harris has or will. it was not that long ago that as attorney general of california, harris argued in court that trans people should not have access to certain necessary care and that sex work should be criminalized because it fa sill tats the spread of hiv, and that early parole for people locked up in california's unconstitutionally overcrowded prisons would jeopardize a critical source of free labor for the state. from your reporting within the lgbtq plus community, has the community started to shift from being, for lack of a better word, anti-biden, anti biden/harris, to shift over to where chase is now who says it

must be biden/harris. >> i don't think there is any question about whether lgbtq will fall over themselves to vote for donald trump. by and large this community feels the election is life or death. the trump administration has been so targeted in their attacks, especially toward transgender people, that there is no doubt about the need to get out and vote. i think the question here is, are lgbtq voters who are historically not just voters but activists a lot of times when it comes to voting going to really rally their communities around getting out the vote of their friends or will they hold their noses to vote. that is a really key distinction in this election. you never want to be some of the voters voting against the other candidate. they're excited about this ticket, and i think there are really mixed reactions to the biden/harris ticket. >> that's interesting the way you put it, whether it's a

distinction between getting out and being enthusiastic and rallying to vote versus going to the voting booth, holding your nose and voting. it reminded me of what i would hear from african-american voters when they were waiting for joe biden to pick his running mate and saying, if it's not a black woman, that will determine whether i rally around people, get people to vote or just go vote, and that's the only thing that i do. iesha, to that point, should the biden/harris campaign be concerned that lgbtq-plus voters might not be as enthusiastic as they need them to be to vote in 2020? >> well, jonathan, let me just not think about the strategy for the biden/harris campaign but speak to what lgbtq voters should be thinking about glards

to this election. hands down, biden/harris will be far better for us as people than trump. there is not a decision point here. whether you're tepid about the two of them or not, our lives are at stake and it is consequential that we show up in ernest to get rid of the guy that's currently in the white house. that just goes without saying. if we remember 2016 and how we got ourselves into this mess, we had a similar situation where the conversation constantly circled around whether people were enthusiastic about hillary clinton. did folks actually like her? were we holding our noses to go and vote for her be it african-american men or whatever the conversation of the day was about. we saw where that got us. the idea that we even have a choice to disengage or engage less than we otherwise would is not a choice, in my opinion. so for all of us in the lgbtq community, i would remind you

that the stakes are high and we have to show up. the second thing is we like to critique our candidates and look at their record, and that is extremely important. also given where i have been situated in this movement have been on the side of the honor and privilege of moving things forward. surely biden, who has been around 44 years, has a record. kamala has a record. the question is, when they get elected, what are we going to do in the first 100 days as a community to hold them accountable to hiring even more recordbreaking numbers of lgbtq people into the administration that obama did, and he made history with those numbers. who are we getting in cabinet seats? what policies in the agencies are we going to be able to advance to support lgbtq people? we also should be thinking about our agency and our power as a movement to force their hand and hold them accountable for changes we need to see. i would say everybody needs to

show up and vote. that shouldn't even be a conversation about whether we're bored or not, and secondly, what are we going to do when they get into office to make sure we are driving forward the advancements our community needs? >> aisha, what you said is reflective of yvette nicole brown said on the show yesterday when she basically said you need to have them in office, and once they are in office, that's when you really get to push and hold them accountable, because at least you know then you have somebody who is actually going to listen to what you have to say. brandon, president trump retweeted a tweet from richard grinnell who was with chair of the long-time republicans, and you can see on the screen, president trump made history for lgbt americans, and nobody knows that better than rick grinnell. this is from the lob cg cabin

republicans, but he has also called donald trump the most pro-gay president in history. >> it's total garbage. you don't get to be a leader of the lgbtq community and leave large chunks of them out. we don't have to guess what kind of president donald trump is for lgbtq americans. we don't have to believe richard grinnell on how donald trump will treat lgbtq americans. we already know because we've seen the policies in action. this is a president who fired thousands of transgender people who made the incredible sacrifice for the u.s. military. this is a president that said same-sex couples should be barred from adopting children. this is a president that four months after the shooting at pulse nightclub tried to rip nondiscriminating republicans,

lgbtq folks, from going to see a doctor. to aisha's point, there is really no choice here, there is no binary, there is no decision to engage or disengage. we have an amateur fascist in the white house who has lgbtq folks squarely in his crosshairs, and our fight today is to wrestle the country back out of his greedy, corrupt hands on november 3rd, because quite frankly, there may be no democracy left once he's done with it. >> kate, i want to get you to answer basically the same question that i had in mind when yvette nicole brown said what she said yesterday that progressives would have the ear of the administration if it's biden/harris. do you think the lgbtq-plus community believes they will be heard if the biden/harris ticket becomes the biden/harris administration? >> i think to an extent, yes. we saw throughout the convention

a lot of lgbtq people, speakers, saying this is the most pro-equality ticket that we've ever had. and that is really absolutely true. when we saw obama run in 2008, in 2012, we didn't have, you know, a president or a president running who supported marriage equality. and so things have really moved. it's absolutely true that this is the most co-equality ticket that we've had, and we saw a speech on the last night of the convention from biden where he wasn't talking about lgbtq people, and all of twitter, all the lgbtq people were commenting, and they weren't commenting on whether or not there were mention of lgbtq issues, they were talking about how well they did at the convention. i think that's really significant, because you're no longer looking to say, did they check all the boxes of

mentioning trans people, of mentioning queer people. you're really looking to see, okay, are they presenting well? and that's a huge shift, because i think the assumption now is that the administration, this administration, would for sure prioritize queer people in office. >> aisha, let me give you the last word. react to what kate just said. >> let's also be reminded that queer people, lgbtq people, we are also women, we are also black. we are latin x. we have a range of issues. some of us are poor, we are domestic workers. i also just want to remind us that for our community, we are not necessarily singular issue voters. so marriage equality is a law of the land. that was a big issue that i was a leader around. we ultimately won. we need to preserve it, but moving forward our lives

holistically matter. we want health care. we are dealing with covid, our schools are horrible, there are so many things that affect us. so as we think about this ticket, as we as a community think about how this administration will support us, all of us at our kitchen also considering every other issue that affects our lives and the biden/harris ticket is the only ticket, the only administration to be that is going to support the vast majority of americans. that is the only thing that matters in this conversation. >> with that, we have to leave it there, thank you for having this really important conversation. the mother of all never trump mega panels will tell us if the word "republican" still has any significance. has any sie >> tech: when you've got auto glass damage...

...safelite can come to you. >> tech: and you'll get a text when we're on our way. >> tech: just leave your keys on the dash and we'll replace your windshield with safe, no-contact service. >> tech: schedule at safelite.com. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

>> techand your car., we're committed to taking care of you >> tech: we'll fix it right with no-contact service you can trust. >> tech: so if you have auto glass damage, stay safe with safelite. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ the qanon movement appears to be gaining a lot of followers. can you talk about what you think about that and what you have to say to people who are

following this movement right now? >> i don't know much about the movement understand they like me very much which i appreciate. i've heard these are people who love our country. >> you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. >> and good morning and welcome back to "a.m. joy." i'm jonathan capehart. donald trump has remained on brand throughout his presidency, praising the viral conspiracy theory qanon on thursday after he called white supremacists marching in charlottesville very fine people. but donald trump's tendency to fan the flame of white supremacy has become emblematic of a bigger problem for the republican party that seeming lost its way. donald trump is the antithesis of the values traditionally touted as the core of the republican party and his absence

of principles is a reality that trump's very own sister admitted in a new secret audio released late last night by "the washington post." the down fall was more apparent at the democratic convention this week when multiple republicans like collin powell, and john kasich made pairappears in support of joe biden. ideals many revered republican presidents like dwight d. eisenhower, ronald reagan, and the bushes sought to project as the cornerstone of the republican party. but in the attainment of power, the republican party readily traded in those core values and not only embraced but became the unconventionism, lack of decency and hatred spewed by donald trump. on the eve of the republican

national convention is the grand old party at all redeemable or has it permanently morphed into the party of trump. joining me now is stuart stevens, whit ayres, elise jordan, msnbc political analyst and former rnc chairman, michael steele, david jolly, msnbc political contributor, and tom nichols, opinion columnist at usa today. this is a huge panel, a mega panel. stuart stevens, i have to start with you, i want to thank you for this book. i have it right here. and i want to read to the audience who might not have a chance to read it, in this one paragraph, you crystallized the

thesis of your argument here. you write, how do you abandon deeply held beliefs about character, personal responsibility, foreign policy and the national debt in a matter of months? you don't. those beliefs were deeply held. in the end, the republican party rallied behind donald trump because if that was the deal needed to regain power, what was the problem? because it had always been about power. the rest, the principles, the values, it was all a lie. stuart stevens, i'm still -- i'm halfway through your book and for me as, you know, someone who is left of center, i found it breathtaking not in what you're revealing, but in the validation for what i long sort of sensed and thought as a democrat, that what the republicans were up to. talk about why you felt it was

important to cop to what you've been doing as a senior republican -- well, former republican, i suppose. >> it's not a book i ever thought i would write. but it's a book ultimately i felt like i had to write. i think a lot of people were wrong about donald trump in 2016, but it was hard to find anyone who was more wrong than me. and looking back, it's because i didn't want to believe this about the party i had worked for all these years. you can't really sustain that. it's a simple fact, the republican party is the party that endorses roy moores and attacks john bolton. how did this happen? that's how i started to write this book. i wanted to go back and look at something i thought was impossible. i looked at the history of the party and i think it's clear

there's always been two sides to the party, eisenhower and mccarthy side. as someone who worked for george bush in 1999, we were confident that our view of the party was the dominant view, we were on the right side of history. we were the dominant gene and the other was recesssive. now i have to conclude that i was wrong. we were the recesssive gene and the party has become very openly, unlike anything we've seen in modern history, a like grievance party. >> you were the chairman of the republican national committee. you were the chairman that, like it or not viewers, michael steele successfully ushered in republican dominance of the house, retaking of the house from democrats in 2010. but i would argue, steele, the

republican party you worked for as chairman is not the republican party that's there now, is it? >> yeah, i think that's exactly right. it is not. to stuart's point, there have always been for quite some time threads, however, that have been woven into the fabric of the party, that, you know, while we have promoted and pushed policies as we did back in the '50s and '60s around civil rights, as we did under eisenhower and then of course under reagan in the 1980s about, you know, a broader relationship with the global community and, you know, peace, truth, strength, all those things and some of the domestic policies, there was always this thread that was also a part of the narrative. and we -- and that thread came from those moments from the goldwater period, nixon and his deal that we cut with white

segregationists in order to win the presidency in 1968. we know it now as the southern strategy which is one of the reasons why one of the first acts that i committed, one of the first speeches i gave was to declare being aware of this thread that this was not the way we were going to go. that the southern strategy would no longer be the dominant thread, the dominant thought within the party. and so we had to work with tea party, we had to work with all of these factions in order to cobble together success and hold that eisenhower, reagan, bush coalition together. after i left, all hell broke loose and they put out this autopsy which donald trump crapped on the day he came down the escalator and not one person in the party said a thing. in that moment, that told me everything that from here on out, they were going to -- they

were going to rely on that instinct because of the greed, cutting the money deal, and the power. >> as i wrote at the time about that autopsy that you're talking about, chairman steele, i said you do write autopsies about dead things. so whit ayres, if i remember correctly, were you a part of the team that wrote the autopsy? >> i was not a part of the team that wrote it, but i was very supportivi supportive of it and i wrote a book trying to amplify some of the messages. i part ways with my friend stuart on his argument about dominant and recesssive. if you look at the people whom the republicans have nominated this century, george w. bush, john mccain, mitt romney, and donald trump. which one doesn't fit with those four? in my career, i've worked for senators marco rubio, governors,

no one would argue that trumpism is a dominant gene with any of those people. so i think there's still a lot of hope left for resurrecting the republican party and we'll have to see how the trump era ends before we know how to do that. >> wait a second, whit. you're talking about senator rubio, marco rubio of florida. but he is fully under enthrall to president trump. you don't think that the republican party is no more and that it is indeed the trump party which has completely abandoned all of its principles? >> marco rubio took the lead on enforcing sanctions against russia. he was the chairman of the intelligence committee that just put out a highly critical report about russia and the interaction

with our politics in 2016. no, i think there are plenty of people who have a very different perspective who will still be around, i hope, after the 2020 election, as long as we don't go out and run campaigns against all of those who will be the core of resurrecting the republican party. >> well, when it came time to show some separation between himself and the president, senator rubio did not vote to convict the president when it came time to do so. david jolly, you were a former member of congress. you're no longer there. are you even still a republican? >> no, i'm a registered independent. i want to pick up on the conversation with whit. that is the tension. you have some of those voices that tow more traditionally, but they have turned around and endorsed donald trump and even when they offer criticism, they refuse to name donald trump by

name. one of the reasons i left is i realized i can never trust these colleagues again because their personal reputations are in tatters. look, the republican party today is an association of largely white populists within angry, antigovernment grievance agenda with little nod towards policy. the last time we had a real flirtation with consecutive republican policy was the early days of bush 43 around education and lowering tax rates for everybody. but to michael's point about trump kind of turning the corner on everything, i disagree. i served in the house before donald trump but after the tea party wave. two incidents that i will never forget that led to my break with the party, one under john boehner, within a period of ten days we added $500 billion of debt with no way to pay for it. i remember asking the ways and

means chairman, how are we going to pay for this? he said, we're not going to talk about it. i voted against a bill i cosponsored because of that. and i asked a leadership candidate, where are we going to do something on immigration? tell me that and we have my vote. he said, can you imagine what the american people would do if we passed an immigration bill. that was in 2013, 2014, 2015, before donald trump. the corner had been turned before trump came down the escalator in my personal experience. >> elise jordan, did the republicans turn a corner before donald trump but after the tea party? >> i think there was some pretty disturbing trends that had always been there, but that someone like myself looked aside. i worked for president george w. bush and he really, you know, went -- after 9/11, went out of his way to say, let's not hate monger against the followers of islam.

he spoke at the naacp. he was rooted in his belief that every american child deserved equal education and ousted the senate majority leader who was quite effective over comments he made about strum thurmond. you have republicans who led and tried to put the dirtiness in the past, but then you have donald trump who eagerly resurrects every dirty element of the past. and so, no, i don't necessarily think that it wasn't always there to some extent. i just think that for me, it was easy when you had leaders who didn't believe that, to not believe that it ever was there. >> tom nichols, you are a senior adviser to the lincoln project which, you know, its sole purpose is to take it to president trump and to really create a decision, a binary

decision, you're either for america or you're for donald trump. why is it so important for you and the lincoln project to be so out there and stark in your opposition to president trump? >> some of this has to do with the discussion that we've been having in between whit and stuart. the problem is that by the '90s, there wasn't a republican party, there were several republican parties. and my personal guild is, stuart was in mississippi, i was in massachusetts. i didn't pay attention to those other republican parties. i was surrounded by people like william cohen, i had grown up with ed brook, i worked for john heinz of pennsylvania who today would have no home in the republican party. and we didn't want to think about how the party was coming apart. it's now dominated by donald

trump and by people who have bent the knee to donald trump. once you do that, once you betray the constitution, there's no coming back. it does no good for marco rubio to allow -- he got a little bit -- rubio got a little bit of positive spin for saying he allowed the report to come out, as if this were a favor to the american people, and then he betrayed it by attacking the report of his own committee. the party has -- the president has, i think, is a binary choice because at this point, you know, any other choice really is almost inexplicable to me. this isn't a 1996 where you're picking between bill clinton and bob dole. this is a time for choosing. but also, there has to be a voice raised and a vote cast against the enablers. we're all former -- we're either current or former republicans. we have a sentimental attachment to the republican party. we all loved "old yeller," but

at some point you have to take him behind the barn and put him down. >> wow, that's an analogy. let's talk about the convention because it kicks off tomorrow. it's going to be four days of what i anticipate to be ugliness and dark, grim talk. we know now that the president plans to speak to the nation every night during the convention. whit, you are the -- you are the pollster i've been reading you for years. will a convention along the lines of what i've just outlined and what i think we could pretty much expect, will that work for the president in terms of pulling support and being successful in november? >> jonathan, what will work is for the convention to give people a sense of hope that we

have a well thought out strategy and plan for getting on top of this pandemic. we will never get our economy going again, we will never get our schools open until we start controlling the pandemic rather than the pandemic controlling us. so that is what would be most effective. i'm not suggesting you're going to hear that. but what would be most effective is a compelling argument that gives people hope that we know how to get out of this pandemic. >> michael steele, do you have any hope that that's what we're actually going to hear out of the republican convention? >> hell no. that ain't happening. come on? donald trump is speaking every night. what do you think donald trump is going to say every night? >> he's going to pivot. he'll pivot. >> pivot to what, elise? >> exactly, elise. it's just -- come on, people.

can we stop pretending that this is going to be a republican national convention. this is donald trump's reality tv moment. this is going to be every night just heaps and gobs of praise and nothing -- the last three years, nothing bad has happened and covid-19 is china's fault. it's not anyone else's, but china's. the way it spread the way it did is because the governors in blue states didn't listen to donald trump. that's what this is going to be about. and i think it's important to step back and go to the first part of the conversation we had. the piece that was written in "the atlantic," history will judge the complicit has a whole -- at the beginning of the talks about collaborators. and the one thing that i took away from that is that we -- a lot of folks are kind of looking at this a little bit ass backwards. this isn't about the republican party and donald trump and, you

know, all of that going in this direction. you really need to stop and ask yourself, why is whit ayres and elise jordan and rick wilson and so many others, you have members of congress and so forth, why are they where they are? why have they stepped away? why are they not collaborating? because that's the question for a lot of us. and it's because fundamentally we believe in something. we believe in something other than one man. we're about something other than one man. and we're willing to speak to the country about something other than one man, and those are the values, principles and ideals that brought us into this party in the first place. i've been a republican for over 40 years. since 1976. i'll be damned if i'm going to see that ground to donald trump who is not now nor has he ever been a republican who is not now

nor ever been a conservative. you want to play this game that donald trump is like you, you're stupid. you're being played. you're getting punked. what's so bad about it is you're complicit in your own punking. and those who have said i'm not doing that because that's not me, understand why. we refuse to collaborate. >> david jolly, again, you were a former member of conversation. did you have conversations then while a member or have you had conversations since leaving with folks who are still republican, still at the capitol, about why they're still there, why they're still in the party and why, to use chairman steele's word, why are they remaining silent and being complicit in trashing the values of the party and putting the nation at risk? >> jonathan, it's been an interesting journey to watch. in december of 2015, i took to the house floor and called on donald trump to drop off the

race. this was immediately following his proposal for a muslim ban. i could see the party, my colleagues distance from me at that point. they thought i was foolish or doing that. they saw the strength in donald trump. they expressed private remorse over some of his activities and then what you saw was -- and in the words of one colleague, they're keeping their head down and trying to stay out of the way. as they saw donald trump complete the full takeover of the party, we've seen what we've seen, which is the public embrace by otherwise traditional, down the line republicans of donald trump. it's what i said earlier, it's one of the many reasons i left is because i realized those are not colleagues i could ever serve again with. and so the question is, could there be another republican party after trump? well, the broader question is, after this generation of republican leaders might we see one because i don't believe a republican party under in generation of republican leaders, my former colleagues,

is one that can be trusted even after a trump presidency. >> one of the things in terms of whether people remain silent or they actually speak up, an opportunity could provide itself -- present itself tonight because take a look at this tweet from kaylee mcen enny. news conference at 6:00 p.m. tonight concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the -- i'm not even going to say it because it's racist. secretary azar and dr. hawn will be in attendance. what on earth could he possibly say at 6:00 p.m. tonight about a therapeutic whatever that should garner national attention? >> you know, i would absolutely love nothing more than if tonight donald trump could stand at the podium and announce that, yes, there's a miracle cure for coronavirus. do i think that's going to happen? no.

i think it's going to be more of the same of jared kushner ordering over a million test that is are sitting at the uae embassy right now to the sum of millions and millions of dollars and that it's just going to be another road of nonsense. and so tonight let's hope for the best. but given that this administration has failed completely when it has come to managing and containing this pandemic, we're likely going to see theatrics that are not backed up by science. it's incredibly sad for the over 170,000 men and women who have died in this pandemic and all of their suffering family members. >> tom, the fact that the president of the united states is embracing qanon, what does that say about -- leave aside the party because it's now just the trump party. but what does it say that now

conspiracy theorists are not only being embraced by the president of the united states, but one could be coming to congress after this election? >> the first thing to understand is that donald trump doesn't understand anything. he couldn't careless what "q" is, what it's about, what power it has. you just -- whether it's going to elect members of congress. all he heard is that they like him and in his hyper narcissistic transactional brain, that's good enough. and that gets back to the root of the problem that we've all been discussing, that the test for donald trump, no matter how crazy, no matter how hideous, no matter how awful it is, is it good for me? is it somebody that feeds my narcissistic problem and there's an entire party of people who have said, that's what it takes to remain in the emerald city, that's what it takes to not have

to get beaten and go home, then i will do that, no matter how destructive it is to the constitution, no matter how much i have to betray my country, if telling donald trump that "q" is a -- there are good people in "q" and they love him and let him run with that instead of commenting on it or opposing him, that's what they're going to do. the republican party has lost its mind at this point. i just want to say, i'm tired of the -- you know, david jolly put this well. the people who say, well, quietly or off the record, if you don't say it publicly, if you're an elected official and you think your job is to say things quietly, then you're in the wrong job. you can't do this publicly, then get out of town and, you know, stop trying to gain some kind of cred for the things you're saying quietly. >> stuart stevens, let me end with you, with this question, given what you've written in this terrific book and what you've said on this air, if the

biden/harris ticket becomes the biden/harris administration, how long after the election will the gop pivot back to those principles they so readily abandoned with the election of donald trump? >> i don't think there's going to be any pivot. i think it's -- they have to lose. we've proven over the last few years, there's no line donald trump or the party can cross that will make republicans stand up for what is a -- as tom said, their oath. they're going to have to lose. what's going to happen to the republican party nationally is what happened to the republican party in california, we went to the republican party party in third place now. that's what's going to happen. of americans 15 years and order, the majority are nonwhite. and the odds are, they're going to turn 18 and still be nonwhite. and it's a death sentence. i think we're in for a period of

center lift government and there is a need for a center right party and some more rooted in reality and rooted in some sort of moral structure and comprehensive theory of government will emerge. i don't think it's going to be soon. it's like the subprime mortgage crisis, it could take a little bit longer, but there's no future for the party that now is on the wrong side of a cultural war with nascar. how bad do you have to be if that's your base and you're on the wrong side? that's the future of the party. >> stuart stevens, whit ayres, david jolly, and tom nichols, thank you very much. elise jordan and michael steele are sticking around. donald trump's immigration policies are so cruel they've alienated his own family. that's next. >> tech: we'll come right to you. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: you'll get a text when we're on our way.

>> tech: before we arrive, just leave your keys on the dash. we'll replace your windshield with safe, no-contact service. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: and that's service you can trust when you need it the most. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: schedule at safelite.com. ♪ upbeat music >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

simon pagenaud takes the lead at the indy 500! coming to the green flag, racing at daytona. they're off... in the kentucky derby. rory mcllroy is a two time champion at east lake. he scores! stanley cup champions! touchdown! only mahomes. the big events are back and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports.

you know in the change of stories, a lack of preparation, the lying, the [ bleep ] but he's appealing to the base. what they're doing with the kids at the border -- >> even donald trump's sister, retired federal judge mary trump barry finds his border policy appalling. the recordings were first published by "the washington post" which says under new york law, it is legal to tape a conversation with the consent of one party. joining me now is nbc correspondent jacob soboroff author of "separated." thank you very much for being here. before we start our conversation, i want to read this statement from president trump about his sister being secretly recorded. he writes, every day is

something else. who cares. i miss my brother and i'll work hard for the american people. not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. our country will soon be stronger than ever before. i just wanted to put that out there so people would know that the president responded to that recording. but, jacob, from your perspective, especially what not only president trump's sister, but a former federal judge, what she had to say about what's happening at the border, your reaction? >> first, good to be with you, jonathan. it's nice to see you. my reaction was i think the same as a lot of people, it is incredible to see that the sister of the president of the united states who perpetrated what physicians for human rights, the nobel peace prize winning organization called torture, she sees it the same way many of us do, exactly for what it was. and mary trump said she wrote

her book because of the family's separation policy and what it did. it wasn't just torture in the words of physicians for human rights, but it was government sanctioned child abuse in the words of american academy of pediatrics. ms. barry, who was a judge, sees it from that perspective, having dealt with immigration cases, the cruelty for exactly what it was. >> if i want to hit people to an exclusive you had on thursday that was breathtaking. trump cabinet officials voted in 2018, white house meeting, to separate migrant children, say officials. if we don't enforce this, it's the end of our country we know it. stephen miller, according to officials president at a white house meeting. you've been covering this story for the very beginning. again, your reaction to finding out yet another piece of this puzzle?

>> what's particular fascinating, jonathan, about the exclusive that we reported on late last week is that this event, the show of hands, literally, meeting in the white house situation room that stephen miller called for to move forward with wide-scale family separations and there were family separations that had happened at that point, happened at the exact moment that president trump's sister was telling her niece about how reprehensible that she felt the policy was. and what we uncovered by talking to two people in this room, senior administration officials, not just senior administration officials, but cabinet-level officials including secretary of state mike pompeo, john bolton, alex azar invited to the meeting as the secretary of health and human services, stephen miller said it was un-american not to move forward with the family separation policy. kirstj kirstjen nielsen kept her hand

down. but there was opposition that this would cause children to have a century of suffering. and they moved forward with the policy anyway with the stroke of secretary nielsen's pen. it's unbelievable to me having covered it, seen it with my own eyes that this is ultimately the inflection point right there in the white house situation room where basically it was put your hands up or down whether or not we're going to move forward with this thing. and stephen miller was successful in they moved forward with the zero tolerance policy. >> and you write in the story, any moral argument about immigration fell on death ears. incredible reporting in this book. jacob soboroff, thank you very much for being here. >> thanks. donald trump's chief of staff reacts to the bombshell recordings of trump's sister. more "a.m. joy" coming up.

but i know what time it is. [whispering] it's grilled cheese o'clock.

i've never met the judge. i was at the funeral the other day, i was hoping to meet her there. she didn't show up for her brother's funeral and the president that i have the privilege of serving is not the one that's being described on a 15-hour, i guess is what i'm reading, secret tape. what family member tapes another family member for 15 hours secretly? >> white house chief of staff mark meadows dismissed the

secret audio in which his boss's sister said her brother had, quote, no principles among other things. barry was taped by her niece, mary trump, in conversations in 2018 and 2019. "the washington post" published some of those recordings last night. elsewhere on the air waves nancy pelosi weighed in. >> it's heartbreaking to think that a family member of the president of the united states would have that view of him. calls everything a hoax which is just a projection of what he is, a hoax and this is further evidence of his in authenticity and lack of integrity. >> joining me now, my league, michele norris and back with us, michael steele and elise jordan. after hearing that statement from mark meadows on the sunday shows, i keep thinking, thanksgiving dinner in the trump house is going to be lit.

>> well, possibly. let's just say from the outstart, the family lost -- they buried one of their brothers this week. i don't agree with this president nor his policies but i offer condolences because losing a sibling can feel like losing an appendage. and another sibling, it's revealed that she said these very unvarnished things about her brother which are not surprising because they comport with so much of what we've seen and heard over his administration. families are really complicated. most people know that. but in this case apparently she felt comfortable enough with her niece to share this and it's interesting that she has not stepped forward to rebuke this in the time that this has surfaced. she's letting it hang out there so we understand this. but i will say one last thing. in trump's response, he said that every day is something

else. and that's actually something i agree with, a statement from him. every day there is something else and all of this including the statement from judge barry is a distraction that takes us away from the things we should focusing on, competency, cruelty, corruption, collusion and quite possibly the questions about the accuracy of the vote count in november. >> elise, the thing that stood out to me about mark meadows' statement is the fact that she pushed the president's sister under the bus by noting offhand that he didn't meet her. i guess she decided not to show up at her own brother's funeral. there was something else that came out in a white house statement about the secret recording where they refer to mary ann barry as, quote, an elderly relative. what do you make of the fact that the white house seems to be going to war for lack of a

better description, with the president's sister? >> are you kidding me? donald trump has herald his sister on so many occasions for being a judge of renowned and he's not going to be able to distance himself from his sisters, even though of course he'll try to. one other thing i would like to just -- i have to pick a bone with that mark meadows said was criticizing the secret recording, who would record a family member. if you read the book, you kind of get why she might have a secret recording of any of her aunts and uncles because they cheated her out of hundreds of millions of dollars in a nasty family inheritance suit. and she never really had recourse from that. so when you look at everything that happens, revenge comes. it might be best served cold, but it eventually comes.

and i think that's what mary trump has decided that putting country over family and disregarding the lies and telling the truth is much more important of a service to the american public. >> chairman steele, i want to shift gears here. have you listen to what chad wolf had to say about voting. watch this. >> has the president discussed with you deploying any of your law enforcement agents to serve as poll watchers? >> no, absolutely. he has not. that's not what we do at the department of homeland security. we have law enforcement authorities and law enforcement officers at the department. we have express authorities given to us by congress and this is not one of them. we do a lot of protection across the country, through a lot of different circumstances including portland and other cities, but this is not a mission for the department of homeland security. >> chairman steele, am i wrong in not feeling terribly

confident in the acting secretary and his promises that no, no, no, don't worry? >> no, i don't think you should be confident in his words there. going back about a month ago, who were all of these law enforcement officials without badges and insignias who were out there jacking up folks in lafayette park and other places around the country? so this is a serious issue that needs to be discussed out in the open, put as much light on it as possible simply because we know that this election is going to go through it by any and every means necessary that donald trump can think of. there is a reason why this reporting, jonathan, is already out here. reporters aren't making this up. they have sources that are telling them what the schema is, what the plan is, what the thinking is in parts of this

administration. that there will be law enforcement type style individuals who will show up at certain polling places on election day. we as citizens need to be concerned about and as much light as we can put on that now, we can be prepared for what will come. >> this is the reason why i asked chairman steele this question. have a listen to what president trump said to sean hannity on thursday on fox. have a listen. >> we're going to have everything, we're going to have sheriffs and we're going to have law enforcement and we're going to have hopefully u.s. attorneys and we're going to have everybody, attorneys general. >> michele norris, that to me, just to hear the president of the united states say that there are going to be sheriffs and law enforcement at polling places chills the blood. >> is it -- the question is, is he talking about accuracy, making sure people can have access to the polls, or is he

talking about intimidation? i leave it to the viewer to figure out what he's possibly talking about. to contextualize what michael steele just said, we have to look at what happened in 2016 and project what we possibly are facing in 2020. we know that there was interference in the 2016 election. we know that many of the election systems were hacked. we know that there are projected problems with mail-in and absentee voting because of the slowdowns at the u.s. postal service. instead of taking steps to produce more accuracy, what we're hearing is the language of intimidation which goes directly to the heart of american democracy. democracy is on the ballot in november and i'm tempted to say in october. the election this year is really an october event because of the way we now have to think about voting early. >> elise, yesterday, this is also along the lines of voting, yesterday the house was in session and passed a bill to

help the post office. have a listen to how mark meadows the chief of staff characterized it. >> the $25 billion largely messing bi messaging bill has nothing to do with voting, it has everything to do with a political statement. the speaker said she wasn't willing to do anything piecemeal, yet we have a piecemeal legislation on saturday. why didn't she do support for small businesses? why didn't she come in and do money for education and day care? >> i mean, elise, all those things the chief of staff is talking about, the house already did, it's called the hero.e.r.o act and they passed it in may and sitting in the senate. why won't they move on this? >> well, jonathan, when you're a senator and you get a vacation until mid-september during a

pandemic that is killing upwards of 170,000 americans, you don't get much done. and that's why mark meadows pointed out it's not going to go anywhere. but i think there should be pressure put on republicans to act and to keep this country running and functioning in the middle of a pandemic. and i understand that we all like to go home and spend time in his districts, but it's absolutely ridiculous that mitch mcconnell isn't calling his senate back into session earlier. >> michael steele, final word to you, at 6:00 p.m., the president of the united states is going to be saying something about a therapeutic advance or whatever. what are you expecting from him? >> you know, i'll go back with what was mentioned earlier. i'm hoping that it is something -- and i believe elise made this point, that is, you

know, important and will move us closer to getting ahead of this virus. my concern in the truth lies more in the fact that this is going to be an opportunity for the president to begin to showcase himself in sort of the lead-up to the convention, to show that -- how engaged and how important he is to solving this issue. and i think americans will just shake their head. i think they've stopped relying on the president to come forward with anything real. the scientists are telling us, there's no miracle cure that's going to get announced at the end of august, people. it ain't happening. all right? and so this is just really more part of the reality tv dog and pony show which is why, you know, from the postal service to the process of voting itself, it's so important that americans -- if you've never gotten off your behind to engage in the process of voting before,

if you aren't motivated to do that now, then i don't know what will. becau because, folks, this is the crucible moment where the citizens have a responsibility to take control of the government they want. our government is made up of people, us, we the people, not donald trump, not institutions, not mark meadows, not mitch mcconnell. call the senate back. let's get the nation's business done in the middle of this and not let's do this sort of, guess what i'm dangling behind my back and showing it a little bit here and showing a little bit there. so i think we'll just see what happens and we can hope for the best. but we've been there before. >> michael steele, michele norris, elise jordan, thank you very much for coming on the show today. >> thanks. up next, a very special who won the week.

we made usaa insurance for veterans like liz and mike. an army family who is always at the ready. so when they got a little surprise... two!? ...they didn't panic. they got a bigger car for their soon-to-be-bigger family. after shopping around for insurance, they called usaa - who helped find the right coverage for them and even some much-needed savings. that was the easy part. usaa insurance is made the way liz and mike need it- easy.

plan matters more than ever. unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans have so much to take advantage of. see a doctor from the comfort and safety of home with zero copay. call today to get more of the care you need.

weave we've reached that time of o the week again. who won the week? this week was already won four days ago, so this week, there was no competition. last time i sat in this chair, i had the pleasure of hosting a panel of five of the 122 black or multiracial black women running for congress this cycle. one of those won by a landslide on tuesday. here's what she had to say about her plan for america's future.

joining me now is that person. the democratic candidate for florida's 18th congressional district. pam keith. welcome back to the show. congratulations. >> thank you so much, jonathan. it's such a pleasure to be here. a delight. >> so, i said in this script that you won overwhelmingly. there's overwhelming and then there's by how much you won by. how much did you win by? >> i won 80% of the vote. >> wait. say that again. >> 80%. >> you got 80% of the vote. we saw you there talking and standing in the back of a pick up truck. we heard part of your message. why do you think your message resonated so overwhelmingly? >> well, i think part of it is that i'm a very straight talking person and i always start with, what's going on with you and your life? how do i make sure that when i'm

speaking to voters, i'm speaking about the things that are going on in their life. yes, i like to tell my story. i like to tell them my plan, but my plans are irrelevant if they don't match up with the people are actually experiencing and that is how i began this process in politics. to start always talking to people about what's on their minds, in their lives, their future, and that's why they responded so positively. and i built a track record of doing that. and so i'm so pleased. you know, i thought we were in a strong position that i couldn't have anticipated 80%. could not. >> what were your internal polls showing you? internal polls. i know they're expensive, but if you had one, what were you internal polls showing you at the time. >> well, at the time, showing that i had a 35% you know, you know, of the people that both myself and my opponent, there were a lot of people who didn't know either one of us.

i ran for the seat in 2018 and i did not have the big money. all i had was grass roots organizing. all i had was this team of amazing, engaged volunteers that just went all over the district. i gave so many speeches. so many town halls and gave out cards at the county fair and so all i really had was the grass roots with me. and i didn't know what ld look like when my opponent and i both started to spend on commercials and things like that. >> well, pamela keith, congressional candidate, you, too, will find out in 71 days whether you have won the election. real fast, what's that website again? >> pamkeithfl.com. keith like keith richard. >> pam keith of florida. thank you so much for coming back to the show. congratulations again. >> thank you so much. >> and that is our show for today. thank you for watching and i hope to see you one day soon.

next up, alex whit has the latest, including new details on the dangers of the conspiracy theorys. s of the conspiracy theorys. so you only pay for what you need? i should get a quote. do it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ with safe, convenient service. we're here for you >> tech: we'll come right to you. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: you'll get a text when we're on our way. >> tech: before we arrive, just leave your keys on the dash. we'll replace your windshield with safe, no-contact service. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: and that's service you can trust when you need it the most. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: schedule at safelite.com. ♪ upbeat music

>> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ shingles doesn't care. i logged 10,000 steps today. shingles doesn't care. i get as much fresh air as possible. good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age, increasing your risk for getting shingles. so what can protect you? shingrix protects. for the first time ever, you can protect yourself from shingles with a vaccine proven to be over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. talk to your doctor or pharmacist about protecting yourself with shingrix.

shingles doesn't care. shingrix protects. our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. with us... shingles doesn't care. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. daughter: slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide.

it's just about high noon here in the east. 9:00 a.m. out west. welcome to all of you. trump family drama goes public. the president's sister recorded saying he has no principles. but does the president's character matter to voters?

the qanon threat. a former fbi assistant director is going to tell me what troubles him most about the group. countermessage. how biden and harris plan to contrast trump's week with the republican national convention. and what was she like in the way back? college classmates of kamala harris will talk to me, but we begin to bombshell secret recordings of trump's sister sharply criticizing him. she spoke with the president's niece, mary trump, for hours. i believe it was 15 in total back across 2018 and 2019. apparently, unaware she was recorded, but she was saying things like this.