nokes week. because, if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." because, if it's sunday, it's "meet the press. it's "the press." and the gulf coast is bracing for two powerful storms, marco and laura are expected to make rare back-to-back landfalls in the united states.

good morning, everybody. it is monday, august 24th. and i'm yasmin vassoughian. we do have a lot to get to this morning, but we want to begin with white house senior adviser, kellyanne conway, announcing that she is leaving the white house. in a letter posted to twitter, conway cited her four teenage children, writing this. as millions of parents nationwide know, kids doing school from home requires a level of attention and vigilance that is unusual at these times. before becoming donald trump's third campaign manager back in 2016 and the first woman to run a winning presidential campaign, conway was a veteran republican pollster and a supporter of ted cruz's 2016 campaign. she soon emerged as one of the president's most vocal defenders, infamously coining the phrase, alternative facts, to explain away the white house's falsehoods about trump's inauguration attendance. conway says she will leave at the end of this month. her husband, attorney and harsh

critic of the president, george conway, also announced yesterday that he was withdrawing from the anti-trump conservative group, the lincoln project, to devote more time to family. he tweeted this. needless to say, i continue to support the lincoln project and its mission passionately. so despite concerns from some of the nation's top health officials, the trump administration has granted emergency authorization for the use of convalescent plasma to treat covid-19. initially, the fda held off on the move after top government health officials including dr. anthony fauci and frances collins raised concerns that data from clinical trials was too weak to support widespread application of this treatment. an emergency authorization does not require the same amount of evidence as fda approval. according to bloomberg news, quote, researchers fear that the fda's decision to issue an emergency waiver will make it

harder to get patients into clinical trials and get a clear picture on weathhether and how convalescent plasma actually works to treat covid-19. so far, clinical trials have not proven whether plasma can help patients battle the coronavirus. all right, so that announcement about plasma treatment coming as the president ramps up pressure on the fda, accusing the agency, without any evidence, of delaying coronavirus vaccine development. on saturday, he tweeted this. the deep state or whoever over at the fda is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines of therapeutics. obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after november 3rd, most focus on speed and saving lives. last night, the president appeared to double down on those accusations while his chief of staff, mark meadows, defended them. >> i think that there are people in the fda and actually in your

larger department that can see things being held up and wouldn't mind so much, that's my opinion, very strong opinion. and that's for political reasons. this has nothing to do with politics. this has to do with life and death. >> why is he tweeting out that some people at the fda, the deep state at the fda, is trying to hurt him and delay any kind of scientific progress until after the election? >> well, we're not going to cut corners on any kind of research we can do, but what we will do is cut the red tape. and what the president was specifically addressing is something that i've been involved with over the last three or four weeks, a real frustration with some of the bureaucrats who think that they can just do this the way they normally do it. we're facing unprecedented times, which require unprecedented action. this president is right to call it out. sometimes, you have to make them feel the heat if they don't see the light. i applaud the president for

putting out the tweet. >> so former fda commissioner scott gottlieb defended the agency against those accusations by the president. >> when it comes to regulatory decision making in that agency, it's a foundational truth that what guides that agency is science and deeply sees the sense of public health that guides that agency. i reject the idea that they would accelerate anything based on any kind of political consideration and any consideration other than what's best for the public health and a real sense of mission to patients. >> meanwhile, "the new york times" is reporting that trump aides met with congressional leaders last month and told them that the administration may approve a coronavirus vaccine before the november election. two people briefed on the discussion telling "the times" that those administration officials said a vaccine would probably get emergency approval before the end of phase iii clinical trials in the united states, perhaps as early as late

september. a white house spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for the -- from "the times" for comment. all right, so night one of the 2020 republican national convention is set to kick off today. the list of notable speakers includes current and former trump administration officials, conservative allies, and several of the president's own family members. the president is also set to speak every single night of the convention this week. exactly what the event is going to look like remains up in the air, as republican officials were still deciding down to the wire what segments to air live or taped. two producers of "the apprentice" have also been involved in the gop convention planning, including the show's creator, mark burnett. as far as the messaging goes, convention organizers telling "the washington post" that trump and his surrogate speakers are going to showcase optimism as they're putting it, and inspire nope a season of worldwide despair, with programming planned around themes of

promise, opportunity, and greatness, for the country and a second trump term. and democratic presidential nominee joe biden and close allies raised $70 million during their four-day democratic national convention last week. biden's election campaign announcing that on friday. according to the campaign, the convention's broadcast drew 122 million views across 15 digital platforms, live streams, and also attracted 85.1 million to the television broadcast. meanwhile, the president's campaign and closely allied groups pulled in $165 million during the typically sluggish political fund-raising month of july. that tops biden's haul of $140 million. let's get into this a bit. joining me now, author of "the washington post," early morning newsletter, "power up," jacqueline alemany. great to see you on this monday morning. so let's get into the rnc, night

one, just 12 hours or so away from now. what are we expecting to hear tonight? i talked about some of the themes that the trump campaign laid out, that they want to get across to the audience. but what are we expecting to hear? and who exactly, speaker wise? >> yeah, i think one of the themes that you didn't"me" them. this is certainly the trump convention, as you noted. he's going to be speaking every single night. quite unusual for a convention where they usually save that for the final night, for the incumbent or the nominee to accept the nomination on thursday night, to cap off a final four days. but we know that the president likes to think of himself as his best messenger for, you know, four more years of policy that we're not quite sure of yet. late last night, the campaign released the broad outlines of what they want to accomplish with four more years of trump in

the white house. but that messaging has been pretty difficult for the trump campaign to narrow down. but who we're going to see tonight is senator tim scott, as you noted, donald trump jr., and former ambassador to the u.n., nikki haley. and these are some people who actually do kcover a span of topics that the president does need some help messaging help with. nikki haley can perhaps speak to the gender chasm that the trump campaign is dealing with. biden leads with women by a large margin. and you have senator tim scott, who is the lone black senator in the republican's upper chamber, who's going to be speaking to the country during a moment of racial reckoning, which the president himself has really struggled to address. and also trails behind joe biden in terms of his handling of the protests sparked by the death of george floyd. >> so while we anticipate that beginning this evening, i also want to mention kellyanne conway's departure. fairly surprising to hear, to say the least.

both kellyanne conway departing the white house and also her husband announcing that he will be departing the lincoln project. what reactions are you hearing to this? >> look, i think what we're seeing a lot of is sympathy, quite frankly, and iyou know, respect for kellyanne's service and her trailblazing status. but the drama in the conway family has played out fairly publicly. you just need to go to twitter to see, you know, a variety of family members in the conway family, all putting forward very different and aggressive political views. and as kellyanne noted herself in her statement, she's going to focus on less drama and more mama. this is a really challenging time for most parents who have to adjust as to how their children are going to acclimate and go back to school during potentially what might be virtual schooling or hybrid in the coronavirus pandemic.

but i think people were surprised to see both parents sort of, you know, put up the white flag here and call it quits in favor of parenting and taking a step back from the political arena. that being said, you know, as our colleague, ashley parker scooped, kellyanne is in talks with the campaign and while she said in the interview that she's not going to be consistently traveling, she likely will be advising the campaign in some capacity. >> all right, "washington post's" jacqueline alemany, thank you, jackie. stay close. i'll talk to you again in just a little bit. still ahead, everybody, a new lawsuit seeking to block an executive order by the president blocking a popular chinese messaging app. and later, house lawmakers pass a $25 billion emergency funding bill for the u.s. postal service, but how will it do in the senate? those stories and a check on your weather, when we come back. n your weather, when we come back. (neighbor) whatcha working on...

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welcome back. a california court has ordered the president to pay adult film actress stormy daniels $44,000 in legal fees for a case that was dismissed. the order from a los angeles court found that daniels won her lawsuit against the president to nullify an agreement to stay silent about a sexual relationship she had with him years earlier. daniels, who filed suit under her name, stephanie clifford, was paid $133,000 for her silence by the president's attorney at time, michael cohen. the deal was brokered 11 days before the 2016 election. daniels sued in 2018 to nullify the deal and payment of legal fees was part of that claim. and the lawsuit was dismissed because neither party was silent about the arrangement, but daniels was found to be the, quote, prevailing party. the white house has not responded to requests for comment. and u.s. users of wechat are

suing the president to block executive orders that would effectively ban the use of the chinese messaging app. people who say they use the app for work, worship, and keeping in touch with relatives in china say the august 6th executive order violates their freedom of speech and right to free exercise of religion. the suit to stop enforcement of the order that will ban some transactions with chinese owners of wechat was filed in a san francisco federal court on friday by a nonprofit called u.s. wechat users alliance and several independent citizens. an attorney for the plaintiffs told the associated press, quote, this -- we think there's a first amendment interest in providing continued access to that app and its functionality to the chinese/american community. the commerce department, which is also named in the suit, said in a statement last week that it's weighing what transactions should be barred. the white house has not responded to requests for comment from them. joining me now, msnbc legal

analyst, danny cevallos. danny, good morning to you. great to see you this morning. >> good morning. >> freedom of speech, i guess, has some limits. >> lots. >> are any of those limits being drawn upon in this executive order? or do the plaintiffs have a pretty good case here? >> i can already tell you what the trump side's argument's going to be in response to this lawsuit. they're going to say, we're not discriminating against free speech, we're not discriminating against chinese americans. we're not suppressing your right to religious expression at all. you can still use other apps, you can use other means of communication, you can open up your window and shout out on to the street. your first amendment rights are not being suppressed, they're going to argue. they're just going to say that you can't use this particular app. and they're going to say, they're not discriminating against chinese americans or national origin, they're discriminating against a foreign company and arguably, a foreign country.

and we have to be clear that discrimination against people based on their national origin is unlawful, but discrimination by the government against other countries happens every day. that's what foreign policy is. they favor or disfavor other countries and that's going to be the trump side's argument in this case. there's no discrimination against these fundamental constitutional rights. we're discriminating against a foreign company, and that has an only tangential impact on your first amendment rights. you can go use facebook, instagram, anything else. >> well, why can't users of these apps like wechat and tiktok, the other company that's effectively being banned, why can't they decide for themselves that they don't care about the privacy risks? >> that's the most fascinating part of this lawsuit to me, which is, both sides agree that, look anytime you use any social media, you're giving up all kinds of data. it's being collected. the lawsuit itself says big

brother is watching. and for those of us what use social media, when the product is free, you are the product. believe me. and so the problem here is that trump is saying, no, you can -- it's perfectly fine for american companies to collect your data and use it for whatever they want. it's just not okay for this chinese company to do it, because we don't trust it for whatever reason. and any challenge to that is going to be that, look, so many people use this app that you're effectively suppressing our rights to free speech. and that's going to be an uphill battle, because the mere fact there's an incidental effect on your constitutional rights is not the same as an intentional targeting of your constitutional rights. >> all right, danny cevallos, my friend, thank you as always. good to see you this morning. >> good to see you too. still ahead this hour, we are tracking the tropics. bill karins joins us with a look at what to expect as the gulf coast braces for two big storms

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welcome back. the gulf coast is bracing for a punch of severe weather with a pair of storms moving in. marco was downgraded to a tropical storm late last night after reaching hurricane status yesterday and tropical storm laura is forecast to make landfall later this week, possibly as a hurricane. for a first look at your forecast, i want to go to meteorologist bill karins. bill, we haven't seen something like this, where two storms at the same time are bearing down on the gulf coast. so talk us through how bad this could potentially be and what residents there should be bracing for. >> all right, yasmin. first off, you need to put both your feet on the floor and sit gently on your chair, because i'm about to give some good news in 2020. this hasn't happened many times this year, but marco got sheared apart last night. marco looks almost like a

non-story today along the gulf coast. and that is fantastic news that the storm has weakened significantly. there'll still be some minor issues, but our attention is now almost all shifting towards laura and what that storm could do. you can see both storms here. laura just north of jamaica, in between jamaica and cuba. and you can see marco along the northern gulf coast. let's talk about marco. a look at the radar first. it doesn't look very impressive. it's not even raining in many areas of louisiana. there's a batch of heavy rain that's moved away from the center. that's what we call the mid-level center. usually the storms are vertically stacked like this, but they got sheared apart. so the middle of the storm is heading towards like panama city and pensacola, where the bottom of the storm is heading towards biloxi and new orleans. and that means the storm is much weaker and the effects are not going to be that severe, because the storm is just disorganized. you look at the current wind gusts, it's barely blowing in new orleans. this storm has quickly weakened. that's what happens. marco was always a small storm

and we knew it had the potential to get sheared apart and it happened last night. big storms take longer to get sheared apart. the small storms just ripped apart last night. winds are at 60 miles per hour. look at this new warning. likelihood of power outages is very unlikely across louisiana today. and just look at the storm kind of dying off as it heads towards houston over the next couple of days. marco kind of being a nonevent. the only issue that could happen, we could still have some storm surge problems and that will be it. now let's track laura. laura still now 65-mile-per-hour winds, just along the south cuban coast. let me show you the position for the european and the american models. the european model has it coming inland right around port arthur, lake charles, likely as a gory two or three hurricane. this would be wednesday night. the american model's just offshore of that. here's all of the computer

models kind of thrown together. notice the areas it's targeting is still for the most part, houston to new orleans, with lake charles, bow manhattmont a arthur being the areas most like to be hit. >> well, let's hope that laura possibly weakens the way that marco has and that it doesn't pack the same punch that we were expecting. you never know. thank you, bill. still ahead, everybody, we'll get to the secretly recorded audio of the president's sister saying he has no principles and the reaction to that in washington. also, some postal service workers reinstall mail sorting machines despite controversial orders to not put the machines back in use. we're back in a moment. ines back in use. we're back in a moment

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welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vassoughian. we're going to begin this half hour on capitol hill, where in a rare weekend vote, the house passed a $25 billion bill for emergency funds to the u.s. postal service. the money is aiming to reverse recent cost-cutting and operational changes that many fear could jeopardize mail-in ballots. the vote passed 257-150, earning some support from republicans, who also expressed concerns about delayed mail ahead of the election. the bill is likely to meet significant opposition in the senate. meanwhile, postal workers in washington state have reinstalled high-speed mail-sorting machines against the u.s. postal service's orders. according to kuow public radio,

40% of the mail sorting machines in the seattle tacoma area were recently disconnected or dismantled. workers in the tacoma, washington, sorting plant said 8 of their 18 machines that sort and postmark letters were disconnected and pushed into a corner. at least one facility in the area has defied the orders to keep decommissioned sorting machines out of use. and twitter hit president donald trump with a warning label on one of his tweets about vote by mail, saying the post violated the company's rules around elections. twitter said it added the label, because the tweet promoted misleading claims that, quote, could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting, marking the second instance in which the social media company has taken action on election-related posts shared by this president. trump's tweet had claimed, quote, mail drop boxes are a voter security disaster. they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times. also, who controls them?

are they placed in republican or democrat areas? they are not covid sanitized. a big fraud. twitter said the tweet violated the voter rules about civic and election integrity, but did not remove it because the company determined that it may be in the public's interest for the tweet to remain accessible. so in secretly recorded audio obtained by nbc news, the president's sister, mary ann trump barry, criticizes her brother as a liar with no principles. >> his [ bleep ] tweet and the lie, oh, my god, i'm talking too freely, but you know. the change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying, the holy [ bleep ]. but that's all about his base. all he wants to do is appeal to his base. he has no principles. none. none. >> okay, so the audio first

reported on by "the washington post" was secretly recorded by the president's niece, mary trump, who earlier this year published a tell-all book on the president's family, recordings amounted to more than 15 hours of discussion in 2018 and 2019 between maryanne trump barry and mary trump who used them as fodder for her book, including the claim that the president paid a friend to take the s.a.t.s for him. >> he went to fordham for one year and then he got into university of pennsylvania, because he had somebody take his exams. >> no way! he had somebody take his entrance exams? >> s.a.t.s or whatever. >> yeah. oh, jesus, you're kidding! >> that's what i believe. i even remember the name. >> all right. so the president and the white house yesterday pushed back on the newly released audio. trump issued a response saying,

every day, it's something else. who cares. i miss my brother and i'll continue to work hard for the american people. not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. our country will soon be stronger than ever. a white house official telling nbc news this. i can't fathom anything more despicable than surreptitiously recording an elderly relative without their knowledge. beyond that, i don't want to comment on family maeshtters. the recordings yesterday were also the subject of scorn from white house and trump campaign officials. >> just another day and another attack that we continue to see. 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. i mean, what family member tapes

another family member for 15 hours, secretly. >> this is something, unfortunately, when you get to the white house, you have family members who sometimes decide to voice their sibling rivalries or frustrations. i really do think that it's shameful that "the washington post" came and ran this story yesterday, literally the day after the funeral services for robert trump. >> meanwhile, house speaker nancy pelosi had this to say. >> it's heartbreaking to think that a family member of the president of the united states would have that view of him. you know, the president is calling everything a hoax. he calls the virus a hoax for a while, he's called the russian interference in our election a hoax, he calls everything a hoax. which is just a projection of what he is, a hoax, and this is just further evidence of his inauthenticity and his lack of integrity. a hoax. >> all right. joining me once again, author of "the washington post" early morning newsletter, "power alem.

another weekend, more revelations coming out, more leaks coming out. now these recorded tapes of the president's sister. what reaction, in addition to what i just played, are you hearing over the revelation from some of these recordings? >> yeah, well something to add to the litany of trump officials who came out on the sunday shows over the weekend to defend the president is that this week, the testimonials from trump's own family members who are going to be speaking during prime-time time slots during the rnc convention are going to try to vouch for the president's character, you know, you have, gen, don junior, don junior's girlfriend, kimberly guilfoyle, you have larry trump, you have tiffany trump. all of the daughters, jared kushner, tiffany trump, melania trump. these are people that are going to try to play a little cleanup here on these pretty damning recordings. but there was a lot of questions around mary trump, trump's

niece's book, and where this information that she revealed in "the new york times" best seller about certain topics, such as whether -- how she move that trump had had someone take the s.a.t. for her. so she did finally confirm that this came from maryanne barry, trump's sister herself. i think this was, you know, part of the effort to combat a lot of the attacks that trump's niece had been getting, claiming that this information wasn't accurate. but it is really hard to dispel, when you're hearing that from someone who the president speaks glo glowingly of, previously. a federal judge in new york, whose rivalry with her brother actually stems from some chagrin over the president trying to take credit for maryanne barry's current position. >> how does the idea of the president's family, how is it going to play out and affect the 2020 election overall? because on the one hand, you have these leaked recordings, you have the president's niece

writing this tell-all book. on the other hand, you have the rnc, you're looking at the list of speakers, as you just ticked through some of. and if you look at the whole entire list, it seems as if there were more trump family members speaking than there are legislators, you know, congresspeople, senators that are speaking. >> well, look, at the end of the day, donald trump jr., trump's son, is one of the most, you know, prominent and favored young republicans, rising stars in the party. he's kicking off this convention, and he is well-regarded by young republicans and has expressed some interest in a political future. i do think maybe perhaps in 2016, this would have been a little bit more of a trickier card to play against, you know, running against the clintons and claiming that the clinton dynasty was too long running.

that this whole, having an entire family come and speak would undercut that message. but i think, now, the president, quite frankly, isn't left with that many choices. there are a number of prominent republicans, those running in competitive races, who are not speaking at the convention. even senate majority leader mitch mcconnell initially said that he wasn't speaking at the convention, and then backtracked on that, and now is just providing some pre-taped remarks. so the president does need to fill some time. so i think it's pretty telling that the people who might be vouching for his personality, trying to maybe bridge that empathy gap that we saw a lot of last week emphasized during the dnc, is just going to be his own family members, rather than colleagues and, you know, former peers and friends. >> all right. "the washington post's" jackie alema alemany. thank you, jackie. great to see you this morning. still ahead, the latest on the current surge on the latest

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let's get to the latest on the covid-19 outbreak. florida surpassed 600,000 reported cases since the beginning of the pandemic. it joins california as the second state to do so. texas, which is reporting the third most reported covid-19 cases is not far behind, with just over 596,000. we are also keeping a close eye on hawaii, north dakota, and iowa, all of which set single-day covid case records last week. this is coming as concerns are growing over the surging infection rate in the state of hawaii. right now, at least five hospitals in oahu report they are at or near capacity there. all right, let's switch gears and get a check on your weather,

once again, with meteorologist bill karins. hi, bill, take us through it. >> let's start with marco, quick. not going to spend a lot of time on it, because this storm turned into a whole lot of nothing overnight. there's still some storm surge issues we're going to deal with, maybe some isolated flash flooding. considering it was a hurricane, this storm got ripped apart. it's not even raining in louisiana. just some rain that's heading northwards into the panhandle of florida. nothing you can't handle. the new forecast from the hurricane center has the winds weakening dramatically today. in the new orleans area, we'll get maybe sop squalls that will go through. i do not expect it will lose a lot of power from this storm. all good news with marco. now, laura, all day yesterday, you know, all the meteorologists around the country, we knew that laura was the storm to focus on. this was the one that had the potential to at least be a very dangerous storm. right now, it's just south of the cuban coastline. it's over the warm water of the caribbean. it got disorganized over cuba and has a little bit of sheer coming off the north right now, but still has 65-mile-per-hour

winds. it won't take much to go back up to hurricane, to become a hurricane as we go into tuesday. and then you notice, the hurricane center has it going up to a category 2, 105-mile-per-hour hurricane, making landfall between houston and new orleans wednesday night. so all of a sudden, that's a pretty serious storm, with the possibility to get even stronger. it easily could get up to major hurricane status, category 3, maybe category 4, worst-case scenario. and then it will turn into a big rain event heading up through areas of arkansas, tennessee, and kentucky friday through saturday. let's focus on our computer models. our cone of uncertainty is narrowing. to the far right, it would be new orleans, to the left, it would be the houston area. most of the computer models are. itting the lake charles, the bowmont area, port arthur, and southwest sections, you know, cameron parish there in louisiana. our european computer models, known as the most reliable, here's the overnight model. it takes the storm towards port arthur and lake charles with a landfall possibly wednesday

evening. and also, our american model is not far behind it, just to the south of that at about 8:00 p.m. wednesday. there's pretty good agreement of where the storm will be headed, yasmin. tomorrow's the day that we find out how strong laura can get. once it gets over the warm water of the gulf of mexico, it will have about 36 to 48 hours to try to become a big, intense hurricane, and, you know, right now, from houston to new orleans, you need to be preparing, as if a possible major hurricane could head your way wednesday night. >> i know you'll be tracking that for us, bill. thank you. still ahead, everybody, we're going to go live to cnbc for an early look at how the promise of new coronavirus treatments is moving markets. this story is driving your business day, coming up next. inr business day, coming up next

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welcome back. time now for business. the trump administration has now approved emergency authorization for the convalescent plasma treatment to use on covid-19

patients. cnbc's julianna tattlebaum is joining us live from london on this. julianna, good morning to you. great to see you on this monday morning. talk to us about how global markets are reacting to this latest news out of the white house. >> we're seeing markets around the world rally this morning on the news over the weekend that the fda said it was granting the emergency authorization for convalescent plasma to be used in treating covid-19 patients. the idea here is the treatment uses blood for covid-19 patients that have recovered and built up anti-bodies against the virus. however some of the nation's top health officials have warned that the clinical data is too weak to be granting access to this drug. an emergency authorization doesn't require the same amount of evidence that fda approval

would require. but this is getting markets going this morning. this along with a report that the trump administration is considering bypassing normal u.s. regulatory standards to fast track a vaccine, one of the leading candidate vaccines in the coronavirus, the fda could award emergency use authorization in october, just before the pivotal november elections. a lot of people warning around the risk of politicizing this whole process and mixing politics with drug approvals. nancy pelosi over the weekend calling on the fda not to succumb to political white house after president trump weighed in over the weekend. so a lot to watch in washington on the health care front. >> let's switch gears here and talk about tiktok for a moment while i have you. you have facebook ceo mark

zuckerberg, he offered a warning to washington last fall about tiktok. intentionally some say stoking fears about the chinese social media site. what can you tell us about this? >> that's right. "the wall street journal" reporting mark zuckerberg was making the rounds in washington, warning around the company, as he was fending off u.s. regulators. few tech companies fail to gain more than facebook with troubles with tiktok. julianna tatelbaum live from london for us. thank you so much. good to see you this morning. up next, everybody, a look at axios' 1 big thing. and coming up on "morning joe." on the heels of passing emergency funding legislation for the u.s. postal service, congresswoman carolyn maloney

will join the conversation. "morning joe" is moments away. cn "morning joe" is moments away. . get an exceptional offer at your local audi dealer.

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welcome back, everybody. joining me now with a look at axios a.m. national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan. great to see you on this monday morning. >> you too. >> give us axios' 1 big thing today. >> we have new reporting on the republican national convention which starts today. sources close to the convention planning tell me the president plans to leverage all his advantages. the powers of the presidency, the executive powers of the presidency and the setting of the white house to juice ratings and seize attention. we already knew he was going to do his speech, break with precedent and do his speech from the south lawn of the white house before a live crowd. but i'm told it goes further than that. think of executive power as performance art. an example being remember the state of the union speech

earlier this year president trump told people after that speech his favorite moment was mid speech when he awarded the right wing talk show host rush limbaugh with america's highest honor, the presidential medal of freedom. this was a reality tv surprise but using his executive powers, i'm told this is the kind of idea he wanted to replicate during the convention this week. >> we know that last week for the democratic convention they had a lot of preparation, they had decided a lot earlier that this was going to be a completely virtual event. the republicans on the other hand kind of waited until last minute to decide they're going to be virtual. so they haven't necessarily had the time that democrats had to prepare. are republicans aware of this and how are they going to make

up for that? >> they're very much aware of that. joe biden decided much earlier than donald trump they were going to have an all virtual convention. donald trump held onto the idea he wanted a grand convention and to the extent they contorted themselves moving it from charlotte to jacksonville so he could have his big crowd, then the pandemic surged in florida and that was seen as not feasible by his political team. so yes, they had to scramble. they see their biggest disadvantage lack of time for preparation and obviously democrats have hollywood on their side in terms of star power and production value. so they're going to have quote/unquote more real people although the democrats had lots of people that would fit that cliche. but you'll see embrace of the culture wars, the example being

the couple from st. louis infamous for brandishing guns at the black lives matter protesters. so they're going to embrace the culture wars, it's a law and order, pro law enforcement, pro military red, white and blue trump patriotism type of event. >> i want you to talk about a new axios report. senior health officials seems were taken aback last week when peter navaro accused them of being part of the deep state. that was during a meeting that was supposed to have been about covid and the national stockpile, what's the reaction? >> this is a stunning scene that i reported. the meeting was last monday. and peter navarro, president's

trade a adviser with top health officials with health and human services said, quote, this is to the fda officials, quote, you are all deep state and you need to get on trump time. trump time being his word for how fast trump wants things done. when you talk about political pressure and the fda, i think that's a vivid example of it. >> yeah, absolutely. jonathan swan great reporting on that. thank you. i'll be reading axios a.m. in just a bit. you too can read it just sign up at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this monday morning i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts now. the american people remember ronald reagan was 77 when he left office, you would be 78 when you entered office. you said yourself you are a