what's interesting in the polling that we're seeing is just the extent to which people know someone who have died or know someone that has it or they themselves have have it. 58% of americans know someone who had covid but a fourth of those americans have been tested and a little more than 20% of americans know someone personally who has died of the virus. the interesting thing of those numbers, is how they've slowly been progressing upwards. the trajectory on those is clear as the virus continues to rampage across the country. yasmin. >> hans nichols great to see you my friend. you can sign up for the news letter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me, i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts now. >> blood along moves the wheels of history. >> they want to steal your

liberty, your freedom. >> i say to you, and you will understand that it is a privilege to fight. >> they want to control what you see and think, and believe so they can control how you live. >> we are warriors. >> don't let them step on you. don't let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future. >> salesmen of northeastern pennsylvania, i ask you once more rise and be worthy of this historical hour. >> that beacon shine bright once again for the world to see. >> you have the ability to choose your life and determine your destiny. >> we must never cede control of the motherland. >> leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the american dream, the best is yet to come. ♪ ♪ the best is yet to come

>> ladies and gentlemen, your 2020 republican national convention. wow. good morning, it's -- i just -- you know, willie, i just don't know where to go with what we all saw yesterday and what we saw last night. i was thinking back, people deeply offended in 1992 by pat buchanan's speech. and i mean, let me tell you something, that was -- that was churchill in the house of commons in 1940 compared to everything we saw last night. a bizarre collection of alternative facts and alternative realities told by cranks and misfits that would never be allowed inside any

convention before this. i mean, couples -- the couple that carried guns outside their house and pointing at black lives matter protesters saying joe biden wants to abolish the suburbs. you go down the whole list and, of course, donald trump -- even had donald trump yesterday, even with his people begging him, stay on message, try to paint joe biden as a left winger. instead, he repeated his lie that barack obama spied on his campaign in 2016. something that has been disproven time and time again. and his own aides were so discouraged that he did it because he can't stay on script. but, you know, you had don

junior saying that the choice was between -- this is very funny, actually -- church, work and school, or rioting, looting, and vandalism. yes, don junior and donald trump is the paragon of church, work, and school. and you just go down the list. even nikki haley, whatever she wants, i hope it's worth it for her. nikki haley going out and saying that donald trump did with north korea what barack obama and joe biden -- what? let them accumulate more nuclear weapons and advance their nuclear program, their missile program forward under the protection of an american president who continued to visit

him when all of his experts told him not to visit kim jong-un. again, it was just -- again, people were willing to go and shame themselves last night. and create an alternative reality of facts. and this doesn't work and it doesn't work because, again, so much of the night was focused on what a great job donald trump did on the coronavirus. it's as if these people never read a poll and never actually talked to americans to understand the overwhelming american -- the overwhelming number of americans think donald trump has, in fact, completely failed his handling of the coronavirus, because he has. >> yeah, without question. if you start last night with the guiding principle of today's republican party, it's to please

the boss. we know that because they scrapped having a platform at the national convention and said we support whatever donald trump does. so start there, please the boss. that's what the speeches were about. that explains nikki haley's speech. that explains the mccloskey's sitting on their couch in thesag joe biden wants to abolish the suburbs. it was a wild performance by the two of them. but for people who watch this network and are waking up with us, you might thought it was wild and you couldn't believe what you were hearing. but watching fox news or facebook all day, it sounds familiar with you. from the talk of preserving monuments, cities on fire. joe biden creating a socialist

awe to be utopia, it's a wild, wild world but one they live in every day. your point is the most important one, also, in order to please the boss, they're creating this multiple universe where the president of the united states who has overseen 170,000 plus deaths and millions of jobs lost is the hero of this story. he came in and rescued america from something china inflicted upon this country. it's a stunning narrative that has no basis in reality. >> it's a stunning narrative that says -- speaks ill of the people that were pushing that lie and it's not a medium size lie. it's the big lie of our time. and it speaks ill, of course, of the president and it speaks ill

of people who actually believe it. it certainly speaks ill of the people who promote it on cable news or promote it on facebook, because it's a lie. and everybody knows it's a lie. they know that donald trump mishandled this crisis in just about every way imaginable. you just look at the numbers and, you know, 175,000 plus people dead, perhaps many more actually, and 178,000 people dead from a virus that donald trump said was one person coming in from china was going to go away and then said it was 15 people but it was going to go away. and then said this was going to go away in april and has been wrong every step of the way, whether he's talking about hydroxychloroquine or whether he's talking about putting disinfectants in your body or uv lights in your body, or weather

he's intimidating his own fda now to try to push other treatments that just haven't had the scientific review that every doctor says they should have. but there is no doubt that there is an alternative political reality that's being created and people are willfully going along with this personality cult. and it is a personality cult, it has nothing to do -- you know, you can walk up to somebody at the airport and ask why aren't you conservative anymore? i am conservative still. i still believe in balanced budgets, free trade, nato, pushing back against soviet aggression, i still believe in freedom, i still believe that when a russian autocrat tries to poison and kill a political opponent you speak out. i still believe that when a russia autocrat puts bounties on

the heads of young americans fighting in war in afghanistan you speak out against it. i can do this all morning. you don't want to say that to me in the airport because you'll be the one sitting there looking stupid asking yourself why you entered this personality cult where you used to be conservative and why now you turned this country over to a former reality star that not so long ago was contributing to hillary clinton, giving her eight checks, giving kamala harris two checks as late as 2013 and 2014. who would give money to anthony weiner, who would give money -- i could just keep going all day. and this is who you're lying for. this is -- this is who you're covering for politically. nikki haley, this is who you attached yourself to. after all you know about him.

lindsey graham, after all you've said about him. it's really -- it's really a sight to behold. let's bring in chief political correspondent for politico, tim alberta. he has a brand new piece, he'll get to his new reporting. and to discuss it we've compiled a mini summit of conservatives, real conservatives by the way, people that believe the same thing today that they believed before donald trump started running for president, former aide to george w. bush, a republican by the way, elise jordan. former chairman of the republican national committee and the newest member of the lincoln project, a republican who ran the party when it had historic gains, michael steele. also managing editor of the

washington examiner magazine jay caruso. and author rick tyler. his new book" still right". rick, i knew you were a hippy. willie, take us through the first night. >> the republican national convention kicked off yesterday by officially reno, ma'minating donald trump for president of the united states. the speakers painted a bleak picture of a potential joe biden presidency while portraying donald trump as the man standing between order and anarchy, with one speaker calling him the, quote, body guard of western civilization. republicans also misrepresented the president's record, describing him as a leader who acted quickly against the coronavirus and also as a fighter for social justice.

this while the president continued to rail against mail-in balloting. >> they'll be sending them, they'll be dumping them in neighborhoods, people will be picking them up, they'll be bribing people to pick them up. this is common sense. this is nothing to do with politics. who's mailing them? mostly democrat states and democrat governors. supposing they don't mail them to republican neighborhoods? >> here's the thing. if they don't have any enthusia enthusiasm, you say are you going to vote? i'm not getting up to vote, i want to watch television instead of vote. here's a ballot, oh, here's a ballot, what am i going to do with this thing. then they have somebody knocking on your door, harvesting. have you gotten your ballot? yeah. are you go to sign it? if you want, i'll sign it. here it is get out of here. that's the most honest way of doing it and that's unfair.

>> that's not how it works. meanwhile, the republican national committee adopted a resolution yesterday declaring it will not adopt a policy platform for the election, as i mentioned, citing constrains on the size of the rnc. the resolution stated the party's quote strong support for president donald trump and administration and opposition to the policy positions of the, quote, obama/biden administration. they'll continue to support the president's america first agenda, without saying what that is. the resolution also accuses the media of misrepresenting the rnc not adopting a new platform in 2020 and calls on the media to engage in unbiassed reporting, et cetera. there's no platform this time, they say it's because it's hard to bring everyone together but

you could put a central idea and principles down on a piece of paper, and they've chosen not to. >> because it's a personality cult and what a better way to show the world what the republican party has become than to say we're not adopting a platform. we're going to support whatever donald trump supports. the reason they can't put down a platform is because all the things that used to be in a republican platform have to be taken out or a large chunk of it has to be taken out because donald trump veers left and right and center, and, you know, are you really going to say you support fiscal responsibility when donald trump has driven up the biggest deficits, federal debts, had the biggest budgets in the history of man kind? you can't do that. the whole reason i went to congress, balanced budgets, small government, fiscal responsibility, you can't put

that in a platform because even before the pandemic, donald trump's record on deficits and the federal debt and the size of federal budgets was worse than any president in u.s. history. and just look, you can look at the trump administration's own numbers, go online. far worse than barack obama's. the worse ever. are you going to talk about that? are you going to talk about like free trade? can't talk about that. because, of course, donald trump and his government by gesture likes to make a gesture that actually hurts farmers across america. hurts lobster men and women up in maine. you can't do that. so you just say, we're going to support whatever fearless leader tells us to support. and this is a -- this is deeply un-american. that's not a reach. by the way, it's not the liberal

media saying this. you have craig shirley said yesterday, i recall a day when the platform meant everything to ronald reagan. without a platform, the essence of the gop is the leader principle, completely an thit cal to american conservativism. tim, you've written an extraordinary piece on the republican party and what happened to the republican party and how it began even before donald trump became elected, but it certainly has accelerated greatly over the past several years. you've studied conservatives your entire career. what are you observing right now, this week? where has the party gotten in this week where they won't even adopt a party platform? >> joe, i think you saw some of it last night, obviously.

you know, when the party's nominating convention is kicked off with a speech by charlie kerr, it's a little bit surreal in the sense that charlie kerr is the type of character who would typically be kicking off a see pack, getting in front of a party activist and getting them riled up with rhetoric. calling donald trump the body guard of western civilization, whatever that means. and, you know, you go down the line, some of these other party activists, kimberly foil with her retune, which was a beautiful bit of editing by you guys. matt gates who self-describes as a florida man, getting in front of the country and, you know, basically describing a collision between the cosmic forces of

good and evil. you go down the line and what does it all have in common? you're not hearing anything about what this party would do to improve your life by way of policy making. you're not hearing anything about what this party would do specifically to enforce laws or introduce new laws or amend existing laws. how would they change the policy structure in america to help more americans, you know, afford college? how would they help americans get better health care? how would they help americans, and people who want to come into america, navigate a broken immigration system? some of this stuff could be addressed even in a round about way but you don't hear that anymore. what you typically here is sort of a salute to the president,

the leader of the party, and the idea that he is the bull work against anarchy, that he is the only thing standing between freedom and tierney. and as cartoonish as that may sound to us, this is very much the life force of the modern republican party. you're not going to turn on the television last night and hear an extended offering of ideas that relate to any sort of coherent ideology because there is no coherent ideology, joe. you made the point earlier when you're stopped in an airport you can define what it means to be a conservative. but if you were to stop any republican member of congress and ask them what does it mean to be a republican, you would not get a very satisfactory answer because today what it means to be a republican is that you are going to support donald trump and you are going to

support his -- fight for traditional values but beyond that there's not a lot to offer in the way of ideas. >> you know, and willie. tim had an incredible quote from frank luntz, who's been the word smith of the republican party now for 25 years and has been the one who's been able to define what being a republican means and why the policy that they are pursuing at the particular time is best for the country. and tim asked frank what does it mean to be a republican? and frank sat there for some time and got very frustrated and finally said, i can't tell you. i don't have the answer for the first time in my life. there's a good reason. because it doesn't stand for anything but what donald trump

that particular moment says it stands for. it is a personality cult and history will show it to be that. but even frank luntz trying desperately to define what values this party stands for, couldn't do it. >> as you said many times on the show, it's not even about defending toudefen defending trump it's about being anti-anti-trump. elise, as you watched last night and viewers are going to get sick of me and joe and mika saying this over and over again, but it was like watching donald trump in 2016 in that this campaign is being run like he's an insurgent challenger and he's describing a country over which he has no control, matters he has no say, he's the sitting president of the united states and has been for three and a half years.

so the held scape that all the speakers are describing that he's going to come in and save them from is the country over which he presides. >> in 2016, at least there was the mild threat of a contested convention and an uprising on the floor that kept donald trump perhaps a little bit more in check, doubtfully not. but tim, i wanted to ask you, i just can't figure out what's the calculus of the nikki haleys, the tim scotts, who don't really give the kind of kimberly guilfoyle barn busting speech but somewhat defense of trumpism and speeches designed to benefit their political futures. but how does being at the cult of trump actually -- why is that the calculation that these politicians are making right

now? >> well, look, i think for many of them they feel as though there's no choice, right. if you -- especially in the context of a convention and make no mistake, this is not a convention to project a great, coherent vision for the country. this is not a convention to make the arguments for donald trump's, you know, grand plan for governing america. this is pure and simple the trump show. there's a reason that, again, you go through the speaking lineup last night, you listen to some of the rhetorical through lines. there is one viewer sitting in the auditorium offering feedback on these things and it's the president himself. i think, obviously, if you're going to speak at this convention, you had better be equipped with a forceful defense

of trump. you had better be sure to make the argument that this guy is not nearly as bad as everybody else is going to make him out to be, really he's misunderstood, i know him a way you don't know him, we heard a lot of that last night. for somebody like nikki haley in particular, this is somebody that probably wants to be president one day and recognizes even as she had the potential to try to rebrand the party and expand its appeal and reach out to new and nontraditional republican voters that that element of a political strategy can only work if first and foremost you have secured a base. and this base is no longer a conservative base, it is a trumpian base. the president controls the american right in a way that no politician, i would argue even ronald reagan, never did. so nikki haley, tim scott, any of these folks who want a future

in the party they can't afford to not embrace the president and embrace his base in a way that allows them to have a foothold for those people to then hear the rest of what they have to stay. >> tim alberta thank you for being with us. an extraordinary piece, "the grand old meltdown". we do appreciate it. michael steele i want to go to you next but i can't do it right now because rick tyler has a background i think if i go to him, he's guaranteed to have a ten of ten and i want to make sure the weather holds out for him so he gets his 10 of 10 rating. it's the garden of eden, i tell you. how did the man find it? anyway, you win. not only today but you win for the entire campaign season. >> i hope you're happy. >> exactly. so we -- it's interesting that elise was talking about the 2016 election being contested and

yes, it was contested by a guy you worked for again. so people who are in the trump cult who look at you and wonder why you're outside of the trump cult borders and calls you a left wing liberal, or whatever they call you. you ran ted cruz's campaign, communications four years ago, the same ted cruz, who like lindsey graham, like nikki haley, like all of them, trashed donald trump, said he didn't have the character to be president, said he was a liar, said he was a cheat, said basically he was a scum bag that was unworthy of the presidency. they all said it, we can get out the quotes but by this point if you don't know the quotes, folks, then enjoy the cult. but nikki haley, i mean, he tells the world what it needs to

hear, nikki haley says. i'm just wondering rick tyler, what you think about that when you consider the insults against germany, our closest ally during the cold war. the attacks on nato and the ignorance in claiming that nato is not paying its dues. what he says about putin, what he says -- even said last night with a political prisoner next to him about erdogan, the man who imprisoned this person, he embraces autocrats, attacks democratically elected allies. gives cover to kim jong-un to expand his nuclear program in an unprecedented way most likely. and nikki haley stands up and says, he tells the world what it needs -- i mean, how desperate are these people? >> i think my favorite speeches are those given by politicians who think they're going to be

president but will never be president because nikki haley has jumped into a car that has no engine and she's not going anywhere. look, i -- the convention to me is so unremarkable because it is -- it was so predictable. it was boaring. most of it was boring. it was punk chaited by bursts of insanity. kimberly g kimber kimberly gar foyle, that was six minutes of hell i'll never get back. if you watched the convention, no reason to tune in tomorrow night you know all you need to know. this is a choice election. they'll make the choice between donald trump -- by the way they pointed the picture under a biden administration all the

things happening, joblessness, people losing their farm, deficit spending, socialism, debt, foreign relations in the gutter, riots on the street. all those things are happening now under donald trump's administration. they haven't happened under joe biden, he has no power. these things are happening now and trump in his speech yesterday, i became infuriated because i couldn't keep track of the lies. he emptied the -- drained the lake so there's no water, it filled up a quarter way and he called that a great accomplishment. if you look at the coronavirus, which is what people are going to judge this by because it affected them economically. no comparison as the way the united states has done compared to the rest of the world. if you look at the asian countries from india to japan, about 4.6 trillion people,

that's a lot of people, that's cambodia, south korea, japan, vietnam, you add those up, 4.6 trillion people and yet they've had 120,000 deaths. united states is .33 -- i'm getting these numbers wrong, sorry. .33 million people and we have almost 180,000 deaths. there's clearly a mismanagement of what is happening. that's what the president will be judged on, despite the alternative reality, which is all to predictable. >> as beautiful as the garden is, it is early there still. 4.4 billion people. and the united states has -- the united states has 330 million people. and the comparison is just -- it's distressing and a lot of people are dead that didn't need

to be dead. and there's no way donald trump can run away from that fact. so michael steele, you've run these things before. you've run the republican party before. tell us your take from last night. and if like tim alberta, you can give us insights on how we got here, our party got here, and how there are some people that are friends of ours and family members of ours who actually bought into what they heard last night. if you'd like to provide the insights, i'd love to hear them. >> let's start with the hard stuff, right. look, i think last night, and both tim and rick tough on this, was pretty much more of the same. it was a rollout, despite even with the coronavirus situation and the way these things have to be staged, it really fell into

the same bucket in terms of the narrative itself. it is really driven not by the policy, not driven by the platform, it's driven by the president. and for that narrative to really take hold in this environment, there is really only one thing you can say and that is what you heard. that the world is better with donald trump than it has ever been before or will ever be, that's why we don't need to give you a platform, because what we're doing, it's good. so the question still remains, do you want to continue as a national party to talk to a small room of people or do you figure out at some point that you're going to need more than that to win? no matter how you cut this thing, when you look at where the public is starting to settle, this election, joe, i would dare say this, it's starting to settle a lot quicker

than '16 or any other presidential election. why? because the american people are making up in their mind this is a referendum on the president. it is not a big policy debate. so trying to now reshape the stage or the conversation to say that the president is all about this policy and all about, you know, standing in the breech, that is not finding credibility with the american people. for republicans like yourself and myself and elise and rick and others, this reminds me of a lot of what an applebalm talked about in her piece about the complicit, the collaborators, the ones who make that calculation, i'm all in because i have a political future and i won't have it without donald trump, i'm all in because i actually agree with stephen

miller that we should put kids in cages. then you have those of us who say wait a minute, i'm standing on principle. i believe in the foundational ideals of our party, what lincoln and others created the party for. we created the party to free slaves and tear down walls, right. we created the party because we believed in a free enterprise system in a marketplace not only for the economy but for ideas. and so, we now are the ones who everyone look at and go what's wrong with you, that's not the correct question. the question is what's wrong with them, what's wrong with you, and what it is is one man. we get up every day america and we spend most of our day talking about one man. think about that. and what do you have to do to stop that kind of crazy? that's what this election is about. >> yeah. you're right. a party that was founded on freeing slaves and a party that,

of course, ronald reagan famously made about tearing down walls. and now it is about putting children in cages and, by the way, we now know that the white house people sat around a room and all raised their hands in support -- >> voted for it. >> -- of the policy of caging children as a way to send message to their parents. if that works with evangelicals, you're reading a different bible than i've been reading my entire life and that, actually, you've been reading your entire life. so jay, let me bring you in. you have quite a piece. you talk about two candidates that the republican party is now supporting. and you also are talking about

the cancer within the gop grows and there's little time to stop it. this is, i think, noteworthy, especially coming from you because there are times that you and i have disagreed quite actively about things that donald trump and the republican party have done over the past several years. i have been very critical at certain moments and you thought i've been overreaching, but in this case here you are during the convention talking about this cancer growing within the party. tell us about it. >> well, i was writing about the nomination of maura luper in florida and margery taylor green in the 14th district of georgia. lumer is going up against frankel, likely going to lose and lose big but green is going to win likely, and she's a

q-anon conspiracy theorist. lumer i think has been kicked off every social media platform on the planet. she can't even use uber eats -- >> why has she been kicked off? what has she done to get kick off the platforms. >> she's embraced all kinds of whacky conspiracy theories, including the parkland shooting in south florida was a false flag. probably why she got a maximum donation from alex jones for her campaign. when you look at that and you compare it to -- here's the thing, joe, you know this. there's been whacky candidates this, i've written about this, but they're never embraced by the party and certainly not by the president of the united states. but the president of the united states went and congratulated both lumer and green and doesn't

care about their conspiracy theories. it's dangerous, if you look at last night. i'm going to shine a light on the speakers, you have tim scott, i think his speech was good, talked about school choice where he came from, unfortunately it was overshadowed by the couple from missouri who were talking about -- i described it as -- they were saying if biden became president it would be like manhattan from "escape from new york" that's what they're trying to say the country would be like. you had kimberly guilfoyle's bizarre shouting, and then donald trump jr. saying about everything in the republican party and a few months ago he was telling everyone that mitt romney should be expelled from the republican party because he voted to remove his father from

office. so you have this very narrow party that's all about winning in the sense that you have to adopt whatever viewpoints trump has and if you don't, then you are kind of a traitor or you're outside of that -- you're outside the coalition that quote/unquote wants to win. and what's going to happen is that you're not going to get the kind of candidates that you want to be able to run if you're going to continue to embrace people like margery taylor green and laura lumer. >> jay thank you for being with us and rick tyler thank you as well. rick's new book "still right". it sounds a little freaky to me, come posting, i don't know what that is. jay brings up some -- i don't think i'd like it.

>> no. >> it doesn't have anything to do with steak, does it, baked potatoes? >> no, it's not for you. >> so, you know, jay brought up a great point. i think it's something that we should underline. you know, political parties have always had wackos and right wing and left wing crack pots. i know a lot of people thought i was a right wing crack pot when i was in congress. but you've always had those people in the party extremists, but they've never been embraced by the party. they've never been embraced by party leadership, never been embraced by the president of the united states, and you have a couple of candidates here who believe in the q-anon conspire theories that facebook promotes

happily and aggressively about what is it, cannibalism and crazy stuff and donald trump accepts it, and embraces it, as does the entire republican party as does kevin mccarthy. >> that happened in the briefing room at the white house. you have the groups that live in the shadows in a different time and place and now elevated by president trump, even his chief of staff was asked about q-anon he said it's a small group we don't know much about them. rather than coming out and saying, what most people would do, a group that has fantasy stories about cannibals and fed pedophiles is not a group that we want their support. joe, one of the most jaw dropping moments last night i thought was a taped piece.

when the president of the united states looked at pastor andrew brunson, who was held in a turkish prison for two years and was freed with donald trump's help, he looked at pastor brunson and said erdogan was good. >> they had you scheduled for a long time. >> yes. >> i have to say that to me president erdogan was very good. i know they had you scheduled for a long time and you were an innocent person and he ultima ultimately, after we had a few conversations he agreed and we appreciate that. >> so, joe, he says to his face, to pastor brunson's face, the man who was held by erdogan for two years in a turkish prison, erdogan was good. they watched it and left it in,

an ad lib from the president of the united states. again, going out of his way to look in the eye, pastor brunson and say erdogan was good to me, he did a good job getting you out. and pastor brunson did all he could do, i love the turkish people was his reply to the president. >> as we said here from the beginning you have to follow the money. you have to figure out why does donald trump have this tick where he's always being complimentary of erdogan or in most instances we've seen of late, he's complimentary of erdogan, why is he that same way with putin, why is he that same way with the philippines autocratic leader. why is it, again, that he embraces these autocrats. these anti-democratic leaders.

hungary, the justice party in poland, he embraces these leaders and yet it's our democratic allies, in germany and in france, it's nato that he constantly derides. and again, i go back to what nikki haley said, he tells the world what it needs to hear. i mean, if she does want to be president in 2024, that's going to be a very interesting 30 second commercial. those words ringing with the hell scape that our foreign policy has been over the past four years. >> we're going to see something else very unusual tonight, joe. secretary of state mike pompeo will address the rnc from jerusalem. for new reporting on that let's bring in reporter for nbc news josh letterman. your new reporting wi, let's st

with how unusual this is. >> good morning, willie, we're hearing from diplomats across the spectrum of current, former, serving abroad, currently in the u.s. who are appalled by this decision, the complaints fall into two buckets, the first bucket of outrage, so to speak, has to do with the fact that the secretary is using jerusalem as the prop to win over voters for the president's re-election. and the idea that politics is supposed to stop at the water's edge and he's infusing u.s. foreign policy with domestic prix and america is weaker on the stage when people think our foreign policy is subjects to the whims of our elections every four years. and the second bucket of outrage has to do with what one diplomat

told us was secretary pompeo shredding the hatch act after his own state department hammered into diplomats the need to keep work and personal life separate. you can't do it in government, it's against the law, violates ethical guidelines that we obtained. nbc news also obtained an email that pompeo's deputy sent to the workforce this year emphasizing the need to stay out of politicking in the election. he was saying he's not responding to friends about politics just to stay safe saying i will be sitting on the sidelines of the political processes here and will not be attending any political events to include the national

convention, pompeo clearly not taking that advice. the diplomats say there are clear guidelines being violated here and the message being sent is that diplomats are not expected to adhere to the same obligations as the secretary. now the state department is saying that pompeo is appearing at the rnc this evening in his personal capacity and no state department resources are being used. however these diplomats we've been speaking to that are familiar with how the secretary's travel works say that's not possible. the plane the secretary took to israel is a u.s. government aircraft, the security agents from diplomatic security and advisers that travel with him are on the u.s. taxpayer payroll. all of this being used to support a political partisan endeavor that one diplomat told us was un-american. >> that's preposterous that the

secretary of state could step out on his own and make the speech with everything that moves with him. still ahead on "morning joe," researchers say a man in hong kong is the first person to become infected with coronavirus for a second time. what that may mean for immunity to the virus. plus postmaster general louis dejoy admits to knowing, quote, very little about aspects of the postal service but refusing to make changes that have slowed mail delivery. we'll go over highlights of his testimony on capitol hill next on "morning joe." testimony on capitol hill next on "morning joe.

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>> what is the cost of a first-class postage stamp? >> 55 cents. >> just wanted to check.

what about to mail a postcard? >> i don't know. >> you don't know the cost to mail a postcard? >> i don't. >> what if it's like one of those greeting cards that's a square envelope, what's the postage? >> i'll submit i know very little about postage stamp. >> can you tell me how many people voted by mail in the last presidential election? >> no, i cannot. >> i am concerned about your understanding of this agency. and i'm particularly concerned about it because you started taking very decisive action when you became postmaster general. you started directing the unplugging and destroying of machines, changing of employee procedures and locking of collection boxes. >> again, i will repeat that i did not order major overhaul plans, the items you identify

were not directed by me. >> can you tell me who did institute the changes if you did not as postmaster general -- >> the postal service has been around for 250 years. there were plans, there were many, many executives, almost 30,000 executives within the organization -- >> mr. dejoy. >> there are plans that existed prior to my arrival that were implemented. >> mr. dejoy, if you did not order these actions to be taken, please tell the committee the name of who did. >> i do not know. >> mr. dejoy, will you commit to reversing these changes? >> no. >> after 240 years of patriotic service delivering the mail, how can one person screw this up in just a few weeks? >> i'm very proud to lead the organization. the rest of your accusations are -- >> will you put the high speed

machines back? >> no, i will not. >> you will not. >> will not. >> you will not. there you go. >> have any plant managers across the country in the usps requested mail sorting machines be reconnected? >> how would i know that? >> you're in many charge. you don't know if there are plant managers that have requested -- >> no, i don't. >> how would i know that? postmaster general louis dejoy appeared on capitol hill yesterday to defend recent changes to the u.s. postal service ahead of the november election. let's bring in white house kor spore dent geoff bennett who covered the hearing. and david becker. gentlemen, good morning to you both. geoff, i'll start with you. you were in the room covering the hearing yesterday. was it as contentious as it appeared in the clips? >> it was contentious and long. the exchange from congresswoman katy porter and dejoy came at

the four or five hour mark. the postmaster general, louis dejoy, he spent much of his time emphasizing and explaining things he said he did not do. he said he did not mandate the removal of the blue collection boxes and the removal of the high volume sorting machines he did not mandate the reduction of hours, cut backs to overtime. katie porter asked the obvious question, if you didn't man date it, who did? he said he didn't know. but the thing is, according to internal postal service documents that i've read, that the committee investigators read, they all say these service slow downs started to happen around early to mid july. that is after dejoy took office and he implemented this

restructuring. a couple of weeks ago, according to an internal memo i obtained he told postal service workers that the delays, he used the phrase, were the unintended consequences of his policy changes. so on the one hand he's taking responsibility for something but in the hearings saying he doesn't know where they came from. the postal service has a larger retail operation than starbucks, walmart, and mcdonald's combined. and yet, dejoy, who as we know by now had no direct experience working at the postal service before he was appointed to lead it comes into this job and doesn't know the answer to these basic questions, not just about how much does a postcard cost to mail, but who instituted these changes, who instituted these changes that have caused these unacceptable delays. >> he says he's not going to put the machines back.

there's been a continued disconnecting of mail sorting machines. geoff, was there any justification from republicans, any justification from dejoy on disconnecting these mail sorting machines? any suggestion that it's going to do anything but make it more likely that voters will be disenfranchised this fall who vote by mail? >> he was asked that joe a number of times. and the most that he would say is that these machines are no longer needed. now it is true that the plan to remove some of the high volume sorting machines was created by dejoy took over, but he is the one who executed it. as the former usps inspector general said it costs money to remove these machines and in some places across the country they weren't needed because the postal service right now does

have extra capacity but in other places they were needed. kimberly carol, she was the first to flag the fact these were removed, she said in her shop they need it had machine because there were cuts to overtime and the machines that process 35,000 plus pieces of mail an hour, with 99% accuracy, without these machines they're creating delays. we also know there are at least two facilities one in dallas, texas, another in taco ma, washington, where postal workers have tried on their own to repair and reinstall these machines. we heard from a postal employee in dallas who gave us images of one of the dismantled machines and the person there tells us they tried to reinstall them, they were working on it over the weekend. they got to a point they realized the bar code readers

had been trashed now they can't reinstall the machines they say they desperately need. >> geoff bennett, thank you so much. we appreciate you being with us. david becker, you saw the hearing yesterday. give us your perspective, if you will. >> i think it's a little troubling that we still don't have definitive answers about how the postal service is going to provide the services necessary for this election. i think the most troubling lack of information that the postmaster general didn't seem to have was not even understanding the degree to which american voters rely upon the postal service historically, particularly military voters. the answer to the question of how many voters voted by mail in 2016 is well over 30 million. about 25% of all voters. this year we expect that number to perhaps double. so that's concerning. you know, i think regardless of whether it's the sorters or whether it's the new overtime rules and the transportation

rules, we know there are delays. we know people are going to rely upon the postal service this fall. we know american voters have relied on it for about 200 years for voting. and in particular our men and women serving in the military rely upon it. so the key here is going to be, we hope that the postmaster general is sincere about treating the mail -- election mail at least as well as first class mail and delivering it on time. but all voters are going to have to act early. early is the watch word. request your ballot early, go vote in person if you have any doubts. >> talk about the high speed mail sorting machines. it's been -- many people have pointed to this as evidence of dejoy's malevolent intent. why don't you put that into perspective for us. do these cycle in and out regularly? are you concerned about the

disconnecting of these machines? do you think it's part of a bigger plot to slow down voting or is this just something that happens regularly? >> well, we have to remember that a lot of these concerns are derived from letters that the postal service's general counsel sent to nearly every state last month. they told every state the deadlines and rules the states have had in place for years might be insufficient for the first time in our nation's history for the postal service to deliver all of the ballots on time. this was after the rules changes with regard to the sorters, i'm at least as concerned about the overtime and transportation rules which i think the personnel rules are clearly having an impact. no question about the delays that voters and citizens are seeing all over the country. so i'll trust the postal workers on these issues. the postal workers seem to know

best what's going on. they're the experts when it comes to delivering of the mail. they seem to have significant concerns and the delays that we're seeing in the mail right now and the letters that the postal service themselves sent to election officials in the states, those are facts. we know about those. so hopefully the commitment that the postmaster general has seemed to make with regard to treating election mail appropriately this fall, those commitments will be met. >> all right. elise jordan is with us and has a quick question for you. elise, first i want to ask you what your reaction was to dejoy who actually seemed contemptuous of his questioners. didn't know what he was doing. didn't know the basics about the post office operation that he was running and kept saying he had no idea what was happening under his own nose.

it's just hard to believe. he had to be lying. this is a guy who amassed a fortune being -- you know, managing his own companies. >> joe, it just blew my mind that the postmaster general was so ill prepared for a major congressional hearing. and also, one that katy porter was there for. you don't want to go in front of congresswoman porter and not have all of your details ready. but it was just astonishing, the level of preparation was just pitiful. and he didn't seem to understand that he works for us. he works for all of the constituents of these congressmen and women who were at the hearing. david, i just want to ask you, do you think that potentially the post office issue, though, because it has received so much attention, do you think it has

been nipped in the bud a little bit just because there is so much public awareness and outrage? >> well, i hope so. i think that, you know, initially a bipartisan group of secretaries of state tried to get a meeting with the manager and he was unresponsive to that. but we've gotten some answers out of the two hearings one in the senate and one in the house, where i think the key commitment and we hope it is met is that election mail will be treated at least as well as first class mail which is what it's been treated always historically, that's important. another key element that's come out of the -- these hearings and the public concern about this is that american voters are very attuned to this. this is going to be very important. this isn't like any past election, we're still in a pandemic. there are people at risk that can't vote in person but there are a rlot of people that want o

participate. knowing we need to make a plan early, request ballots early if we want to vote by mail. but we'll have at least half of all voters maybe many more who want to vote in if person, there are going to be a lot of safe in person voting places this fall, there's going to be ppe, masks, social distancing. if you have any questions about the postal service, look up the voting early date, and go vote early in person if you can, get that done to make sure your voice is heard. >> director of the center for election research and innovation. david becker thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. as we mentioned, the republican national convention kicked off yesterday by officially renominating donald trump for president of the united states. the convention speakers painting a dark picture of a joe biden presidency while portraying donald trump as the man standing between order and anarchy.

one speaker calling him, quote, the body guard of western civ civilizati civilization. they also misrepresented him in response to the coronavirus. meanwhile, the republican national committee adopted a resolution yesterday declaring it will not adopt a policy platform for the election, citing constraints on the size of this year's rnc instead citing strong support for president trump and his administration and opposition to policy positions of what they call the obama/biden administration. they said the party will continue to support the president's america first agenda, in their words without saying what that is, joe. >> michael steele is still with us. and joining the conversation, washington anchor for bbc world,

katty kay and eugene robinson, reporter jonathan lemire and chief correspondent for the "new york times," peter baker. we don't have to compare donald trump to regimes that arose in germany and italy in the 1930s. you, in your reporting, have been reporting over the past five, six years regimes that have been rising across europe and hungary, in poland, that have had the same sort of authoritarian lean with the law and justice party that donald trump's republican party now has. and it's just shocking. especially to disciples of ronald reagan and other conservative giants in our lifetime that the republican

party of donald trump would not even adopt a party platform and basically said we believe whatever this former democrat says. >> yeah, there's not even a debate in the party anymore about policy. all of those things, joe, that you would associate with the republican party that i have grown up knowing as the republican party, fiscally conservative, anti-deficit, anti-authoritarian, anti-russia, pro spreading democracy around the world. those things the republican party was known for don't seem anywhere, at least on the first night of the republican national convention. there's no actual real discussion about conservativism and what it means. it's more that it's about being anti-everybody who's anti-trump. it's not even kind of about a philosophy. it's about one particular person. and, you know, when you look at

those authoritarian regimes in other countries around the world, the irony, of course, is it's america who always stood up against that kind of -- what we've seen in poland, hungary, what we've seen with alexi navalny the russian opposition that is now in hospital. that's what american conservativism was known for. it was all about democracy and america promoting democracy around the world. there's none of that we're hearing in this week's convention. talk about the platform, what does anyone remember from the platform discussion in cleveland 2016 it was the fact that the policies on russia were watered down to satisfy donald trump. i don't know if that's why there's no platform this time

around but last time it was focused on what donald trump didn't want and he was unhappy last time that was making the press. this time no platform at all. >> and peter baker this is unlike any convention you have covered, unlike any convention that a lot of republican stalwarts that helped ronald reagan get elected have never seen. as craig shirley, a reagan biographier for years has said and as he said yesterday, the republican party deciding to embrace a man, to embrace a leader and not have any statement, a philosophy, is just the opposite of what conservatives have always said they've stood for through the years. but there we had it yesterday, a party with no platform. a party with no based agenda or

values or beliefs. a party that seems intent on creating conspiracy theories and cultural wedge issues. and then being what some have called a government by gesture. and little more. >> yeah, look. this is all trump all the time kind of convention. the platform in effect is in keeping with the skoed yule you're going to see. we saw, president trump three times yesterday, one when he spoke at the roll call during the day and twice last night, beamed in from the white house. we don't normally see presidents on the first day of the convention, normally wait until the last day when they give their acceptance speech but president trump doesn't want to wait until the last day because this is his convention. it's all about dominating the conversation has he has really in this country for four years. he believes and continues to

believe he is his own best message, and the message is whatever he decides on any given day. and he's the voice you're going to hear the most, and most consistently throughout the week. last week they said the democrats presented a dark vision of america and they would provide an optimistic vision of america. i think what you heard last night was a dark vision as well, a vision of america where cities are in flames and socialism is around the corner. that's his stronger argument against biden that he's made at this point is trying to say why biden is disqualified or not an acceptable alternative to him you may not like president trump the republicans are saying but he's the one holding back a much, much worse fate for america where government is in control of everything, your guns are taken away, and the cities are in chaos. that's the vision you're seeing this week. it's a trump driven show, vision, not philosophy per se,

but a continuation of the last four years at large in these four days we're going to see this week. >> jonathan lemire at the white house we've been detailing this morning this rewriting of history last night in terms of the president's handling of coronavirus, the story told last night was this came from china, it attacked the united states and donald trump was on the front lines saving us from it. 178,000 people dead is the new number overnight by our nbc news tally to go along with the millions of jobs lost because of the way the federal government and others have handled the crisis. all that said i have to believe the man in the white house behind you is pleased with what he saw last night because the first order was to praise donald trump. >> no question, willie. last night symbolized the complete medicaling between the republican party and president trump how he has utterly taken over and made it submissive to his whims and wishes,

personality, it was all trump all the time. he gave a rambling hour long speech during the day in charlotte, other appearances in north carolina, threatened to step on any headline that came out of last night. we had a view of him talking to hostages that his administration helped free from overseas, but you make an important point. last night was frankly the convention that donald trump always wanted to run. it was reflective of the campaign that he wished he was running now. one that was focused on culturally divisive issues on the -- we saw them talk about, you know, cultural totems, american heritage and history, log sections about respecting the flag. and very little about the coronavirus pandemic. and in the discussion we did have about covid-19 it was always set in the context of the

president's alleged successes which we know doesn't square with reality. the president and his team were not just slow to respond in january, february, and march, when the virus first reached the shores but perhaps more damning and this is what americans seem to be holding him responsible for the wave in may, june, july, that was borne out of his push to get states to reopen. americans seem to forgive earl l ly mistakes. last night we saw other voices in there, republican stars, diversity in terms of nikki haley and tim scott who might indicate what a republican party future might look like post trump but this is the donald trump show and it's going to be each night this week. >> gene robinson, it was an

alternative reality that was laid out. this was a series of straw men being set up and then knocked down by donald trump. it was government by gesture. and as the "new york times" said, at times the speakers and prerecorded videos appeared to describe an alternate reality one the nation was not nearing 180,000 deaths from the coronavirus, in which the president had not spent much of the term appealing to kpen phobia and racial an an mouse. and then don junior saying the choice between donald trump and joe biden was a choice between chun church, work and school and rioting and vandalism. and the couple from missouri

with the guns on the front lawn said joe biden wanted the abolish the suburbs which leads me and other people who are still conservative that i have known growing up to look at this convention and say, how in the hell could anybody be so stupid to follow this man? it's really it's -- it's just staggering. and i -- i can't believe all these years later this guy is still capable of going through even -- you know, it's funny, gene, let me say really quickly. we've seen in the atlantic last summer, every six months someone says how much lower can donald trump go? then he goes lower. here every step is closer to

authoritarianism, at least in his own party and we saw that last night. >> we should know by now there is no bottom so there's no answer to that question. how low is necessary, i guess. look, it is -- it is an odd argument to make that everything is -- everything is collapsing around you, everything is going to hell, there's anarchy, there's, you know, this awful situation and let's have four more years of it, which is the basic argument that we're hearing. but that is the argument and it was the most sort of dear leaderish -- even in the context of political conventions where the presidential candidate is treated to a kind of -- that -- that one expects, you know, joe biden he's the greatest guy i

ever met, blah, blah, blah. but this went way beyond that. the body guard of western civilization. and whatever it was that kimberly guilfoyle was saying or yelling about president trump. it's all a cult of personality. that's what the republican party is now. and it wasn't that years ago. i disagreed with a lot of its policy positions but it was a coherent political party that had ideals and had policies. and now it has whatever flitz across donald trump's consciousness and what he sees in a given evening on fox news. and whatever he thinks is going to give him an advantage. that's the philosophy of the republican party. >> yeah, and you know, i

misspoke before when i was saying how, you know, how low can donald trump go. i'm not surprised by how low the guy goes. i think what shocks me the most is how low his party allows him to go when it only requires three republicans in the united states senate to stand up for conservative values for republican values for democratic values and just vote no. and just stop him from doing what he's doing. but i think that is what has shocked me the most is people that i know, people that i worked with in the past they sit by quietly and allow him to do that where none of us, i guess, at this point are surprised by anything donald trump would do . i said on tv he'd shoot journalists if he could get away with it. one reason he's not criticizing vladimir putin for killing political opponents because if he could do it, he would.

the man runs around saying article two of the constitution gives him unlimited power. he is held in check by restraints that america has that other countries don't. there is no bottom for donald trump. the question is, why are republicans -- why are all republicans in this party going along with it? it's a question that i don't think i'll ever be able to's sufficiently. i want to ask peter baker and jonathan lemire and michael steele one last question. it's one that willie raised earlier. and that is, i'll start with you, peter. how can donald trump and his republican party campaign against the american carnage that is strewn across american streets and in the united states economy and with this pandemic -- how do they campaign against something that donald trump owns as president of the united states? >> yeah, it's a great question.

obviously a president who is running for re-election after four years owned whatever is happening in the country, whether it's his fault or not. that's true, we've seen that time and time again. and it's -- there's not a lot of history where the president winning a second term as far back as this president is, this state of the campaign with this set of numbers on the virus and the economic situation, but, you know, i think what you're going to see again is a president who's trying to make this a choice not a referendum, because of the virus, because joe biden has been out of sight through much of the spring the focus is on donald trump, do you want him to be president or not, do you want a second term for him or not? and what he'll continue to do this week is present the alternative. not just do you like me or not, but do you want what the democrats are selling? and what they're selling is

worse than i can bring. he's pointing to the pre-pandemic economy saying it was great. he's making the argument i can bring it back, joe biden will wreck it by taxing and taking over health care and so forth. the referendum is his best option to make it a choice between one acceptable choice or another is to either suppress the vote for your opponent or rally your base. if you're a supporter of donald trump, you probably liked what you saw last night because it speaks to the anxieties of his base. i was struck by how much of a base message it was. it was not reaching out to anyone in the middle, the other party. it was all about rallying the people he came with four years ago, not expanding his support beyond that. i don't know if he can pull the same inside straight as he did last time. >> that's what's been so

baffling since the american carnage speech, the inaugural speech he's been playing the game of politics like it's a game of subtraction instead of a game of addition. he continues doing it even now down in the polls. jonathan lemire, first of all, i just have to correct something that donald trump says every day. i don't expect people in his personality cult to listen but reporters certainly need to listen to this who talk about the great trump economy before the pandemic as peter baker said and as you said jonathan lemire, that's an exaggeration, as we saw yesterday. you look at the last 11 presidents in terms of gdp growth, donald trump ranks 7 out of the last 11 even before the pandemic so another lie but a lie too many people in the media picked up over the years and assumed was true.

jonathan lemire you've written about this. this guy is running as an insurgent against the chaos in america, the bad economy, the social chaos, the pandemic, how does the white house believe they can run this guy, who's been president of the united states for three and a half years with a republican majority for two of those three and a half years how can he run as a resurgen resurge resurgent? >> it was striking last night, seeing it was a republican convention planned in february when everyone thought that bernie sanders was going to be the nominee, talking act socialism and scary leftist policies. there was no adaptation for the fact that joe biden is, in fact, their party's nominee. and joe, you make also a good point to underscore the idea of economic growth. and this president, it continued

by no means this president and his team suggest day after day. he is president, but the phrase that used to be on harry s. truman's desk, the buck stops here, has never really applied with donald trump. he is always been very quick, this started during the campaign, frankly predates that when he was a celebrity businessman in new york, but certainly since taking office here passing responsibility elsewhere. that's always one of the plays, staff, political opponents, members of his own party, certainly that's a trend that's only accelerated since the pandemic reached american shores. initially the blame was placed on democratic governors for their response not coming up with life saving medical equipment, and then democratic governors and mayors were blamed and still blamed for the unrest we have seen in american streets over the death of george floyd,

suggesting the chaos is at their feet. that argument is a tough one to make. at the end of the day, the president of the united states is in charge. he is being judged on his record. and his campaign has been candid about the point peter just said, they know right now, every race that features an incumbent is something of a referendum on the current president there's probably never been one more like that now. this race is scarily about donald trump in part because of donald trump where the focus has been on him because of the virus and joe biden has been able to play offstage. they're trying to change it, make a choice election, and doing it by trying to scare americans. that's their plan we saw last night. it's going to continue all week. >> michael steele in a conventional convention, if you forgive that term, you might see something like locking down the

base on night one, which is what it looked like they were doing last night and then expanding the electorate over the course of the week. tonight we have the first lady, two more of president trump's children, mike pompeo is speaking from jerusalem as we reported earlier. it doesn't look like they're expanding the audience much. as someone who it feels like a lifetime ago remmed to run the republican party, what is the strategy here? how are they expanding the electorate with the spikers and the list and the content and the picture they're painting at this convention? >> part of that is difficult to do because the narrative has already been set by donald trump. he has -- he's the one who has designed and remastered this convention into his own liking. so it becomes harder, then, to bring in the other voices that would essentially do that

because then they are having to buy into a narrative that they may not necessarily buy into. and i think that's why this has been relegated to largely a family outing. this staging is to promote and elevate, you know, those political figures like a tim scott because he services a particular agenda for the president, reinforces the narrative, he's a different face that people in politics generally like, so therefore that's respectability. but by and large it's going to be this family focused piece. i think an interesting and underlying situation or development is really what joe put his finger on with his question to peter and myself. and that is, where does -- how does this work? how do you not -- how do you get away with not expanding the narrative? the reason you do, i think, is

in large part because donald trump's view of this is, look, i've not been able to do what i have promised you i would do because they came after me with comey and mueller. they came after me with impeachment. they got in the way of my efforts of trying to -- states did, got in the way of trying to deliver you the results that you need and deserve on covid-19. they recast these narratives in light of donald trump as victim. and so, his base is buying that particular piece. so the idea pushing towards a second term is, i will be free and clear. there will be no more impeachments, no more muellers, none of that to stand in my way. give me the chance to finish what i promised you i would do.

and america, that's a promise you don't want kept. because if you think the last four years were crazy. oh, baby just wait until donald trump feels completely unfettered because the senate and the house republicans have already told you, we're with him. so there is no check there. there is no counter weight in the constitution. so it's going to be an interesting narrative. and so far with the base, they've been very effective in making it. >> you mentioned senator tim scott who closed out the night last night. he said to savannah guthrie a few minutes ago on the "today" show this idea that mail-in balloting will lead to a rigged election, quote from tim scott i have confidence in our process, mail-in ballots will prove to work out just fine. that's from senator tim scott. jonathan lemire, peter baker thank you both. still ahead on "morning joe" we

saw president trump take his campaign against mail-in voting to the rnc. next we'll talk to historian john meacham as he debuts his new biography on john lewis, a man who risked his life for voting rights. "morning joe" is coming right back. voting rights. "morning joe" is coming right back ...and new adventures. you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past... they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. let's help protect them together. because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. ask your doctor if your teen try wayf♪ r. you got this! ♪ perfect. -you're welcome.

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what began on monday evening as a peaceful demonstration in response to a police shooting of a black man named jacob blake in kenosha, wisconsin turned into a violent protest. many people injured as cars and businesses were set on fire, multiple buildings burned to the ground and looters ransacked stores. the national guard was called in to enforce an 8:00 p.m. curfew following the police shooting. we're about to show you the moment of the shooting i want to warn you it's disturbing. 29-year-old jacob blake remains hospitalized in serious

condition after a video on social media appears to show officers shoot him in the back multiple times. his attorney said three of his client's children watched the scene unfold from inside the car. the officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave. the wisconsin department of justice has launched an investigation into the situation that you see in the video. gene, your writing about the shooting of jacob blake this morning, what do you see in that video? >> what i see in that video is awful, willie. i don't see everything in the video. you don't -- you can't see what happens at the moment of the shooting. you can't see whether there is something, anything, that he does when he enters the car that

causes this police officer to instantly fire seven shots toward his back at point blank range. but what i see is an incident that started as a domestic dispute. it's already been allowed to spiral out of control, so he's walking around the car, jacob blake is, away from the police officers and the officers are trailing him with their guns drawn, pointed at him, what in the world -- how do you get from domestic dispute to that? he doesn't have a weapon, he's not threatening the officers in any way at that moment that we can see. you know, i see a reason -- a reason for why black lives matter is one of the great

themes of this year. and why it's going to stick around. it's going to continue to be near the forefront of our consciousness, because things like this keep happening. there's just no -- you know, a domestic dispute and it ends that way. there's something wrong with the mindset that went into that encounter. the mindset on the part of the police that went into that encounter that let it get to that point and it's a tragic one. >> jonathan, jacob blake is in serious condition, we hope he's doing better, hope to god he survives that shooting. mentioned his three children, ages 3, 5 and 8 inside that vehicle when the shooting took place. it's interesting, as you watch that video and the scene unfold in kenosha, wisconsin, and you listen to the speeches last night in the republican national convention and it was about cities on fire.

that's always been sort of donald trump's takeaway in the movement we've seen for racial justice in the streets in that it is anti-police and leads to looting. we heard about that last night, cities on fire rather than focussing on the message and why people are focused on scenes like we saw in kenosha. >> before we came on, i was reading our story in "the washington post" about the convention and this line from mrs. mccloskey's speech leapt out at me. she said when we don't have basic safety and security in our communities we'll never be free to build a brighter future for ourselves, for our children, or for our country. what do you say to the blake family? why doesn't that apply to those three children in the backseat of that car? why doesn't it apply to that community? why doesn't it apply to the

families of tamir rice and ahmed arbery, breonna taylor, why doesn't that sentiment that the mccloskeys thundered during their speech apply to black americans, especially since we were brought here in 1619 have been living under the same threat, the same fear, and yet the mccloskeys, the president, republican party seemed willing to turn a blind eye to people who are scared and tired. tired of being hunted. and that is what we saw in that video of what happened to jacob blake. and that's why, watching the convention speeches last night was like watching a signal come in from earth 2.

that for folks who were giving those speeches and for the republican national committee the things that we're talking about right now don't exist. or aren't even important. and it is beyond troubling to me that, you know, the president can get away with speaking solely to his narrow base, yet the democrats would have been wildly criticized if they had not taken the time during their convention to reach out beyond their base, which is exactly what they did. we've got three more nights of what we saw last night. and what happened to mr. blake and what we're going to see over the course of the republican convention are two -- not two different americas, two completely different realities. >> two different sets of realities. one of the realities, by the way, is overwhelmingly supported by 25% of americans, which again

if you look at all the polls this summer since the death of george floyd, donald trump has been trying to stoke racial animous as much as possible talking about the fierce dogs that were going to go out and eat protesters or however he said it, talking about the incredible force used against protesters, talking about riots remember the one he started on june the 1st, that was very fascinating that a president would start a riot in lafayette square so he could hold a bible upside down in front of the president's church -- st. john's church, not this president's church but the church of presidents. but yeah, this is another example of the 75/25 world that donald trump and donald trump's republican party lives in. if you look at every single poll, what they try to do is try to brush past george floyd being

murdered. they try to brush past the shooting yesterday in wisconsin. they try to ignore the peaceful protesters there. and then, yes, they find the people who are undermining the legacy of john lewis who resort to violence. it's that simple. it's that simple. they try to push aside things that are unconfidentabmfortable and just find the worse actions of people and say, look, white people in the suburbs, they're coming to get you next. black people get shot in the back and donald trump's message is, watch out, white people, they're coming for your beautiful, america, suburbia dream, lots of luck with that message, fella. it doesn't sell.

we have jon meacham with us. and his new biography of john lewis is out today. i was thinking about john last night as these events were unfolding. and i was also, you know, watching some of the republican convention and the hatred. and i just thought about john lewis and what made him so special. and, you know, this is a guy that i knew, a guy that i travelled back and forth from congress with. he called me, you know, his travel buddy. every time i was in his presence, john lewis made me smile. he made people around him smile. he was a joyful spirit, despite the fact, jon, that he was a warrior for civil rights. >> he was incredible. genuinely incredible. i argue in the book without

embarrassment and with great conviction that he is a saint in the classical sense of the term. he is sacred and holy and set apart. what is so fascinating is that he is set apart by his virtue and his action. and he walked among us. you two were on i bet a lot of delta flights to hartfield-jackson airport. >> we were. >> one of the great honors of my life i met him 28 years ago, and was lucky enough to know him through those three decades. and every time i was with him, and i am one of an infinite number of folks who can say this, he communicated by his word and deed, a sense that he -- that we should be better americans. and better christians.

and it wasn't sectarian, and it wasn't preachy, though he started out preaching to the chickens to overcome a stutter back in troy. as he said, the chickens listened to him more carefully than folks in congress like you joe who listened to him. but he embodied the best of not only what america could be, but what of humanity can be. we look at what's happening now. one of the reasons i wrote this, honestly, he was diagnosed obviously and left us in july. and i was on the bridge with him with a thousand other people in selma in march. and you realize that this is really an american founding father of the modern america. this country really came into being as we know it in 1965 with

the voting rights act, the civil rights act the year before, the immigration act that shaped the demography of the country. in that totalitarian violence against people because of the color of their skin. and what is happening right as we speak in wisconsin and elsewhere, there is still this state-sanctioned violence. a disposition, as jonathan and gene were talking about, a state-sanctioned bias toward people -- toward punishing people because of the color of their skin. and if you -- if you're a christian out there, if you're even a secularly-minded person with any inclination to reach out instead of clinching your fist, john lewis is the place to

start. >> jonathan capehart is with us and has a question. jonathan. >> jon, we were in selma together on the bridge with congressman lewis in march, and in birmingham you gave a stirring and spectacular speech there. but i want to talk about your book. and i learned something over the weekend that i didn't know. i don't know if you've said this on -- here on "morning joe," but congressman lewis read your book before he passed away. and i would love to know, honestly, what he thought of it. >> he was as ever incredibly generous. i asked him to write a kind of -- an afterword for it. it's kind of a last testament. and i want to get that out to folks some time today. you know, i've had this experience twice where i've been lucky enough to have a subject read something, both with george

herbert walker bush and now with john robert lewis. and i was as scared as i've ever been. i was more scared of what john lewis would think than even barbara bush would think about writing about her husband. and that's a level of fear that everyone here understands the depths. i've still got scars from parts of the bush book from mrs. bush's knitting needles. but john's reaction was predictably generous. i mean, incredibly kind. i don't mean to be sent mental about it. this isn't sentimental because it's genuine. kind words from him kind of subviews your soul with a kind of warmth, right? because he had done it. and, look, what i've done here is diminimous compared to what young man who -- with the stutter did the other night at

the democratic convention, or what the black lives matter activists are doing or what genuinely courageous people are doing to try to make the arc of a moral universe not just bend, but swerve. and the other thing to remember about congressman lewis is he was so young, right? he came to nashville when he was 17. he went to a small college, american baptist theological seminary up on a hill, not far from where i'm sitting, three or four buildings, overlooks segregated nashville. they call it the holy hill. and one of the things i found, and he was very -- i know he knew this, but we did have a lot of conversations about this. he had this amazingly biblical life. you know, he was not john to his family. he was robert.

and he comes to nashville, he goes to a mountain top and he's renamed. he becomes john in the way abraham and elijah and peter were renamed. and there's a biblical theme that runs through his life. >> jon, when you spoke to congressman lewis over the course of this year and he looked at what was happening around the country, was he hopeful that this time might be different? did he have reason for optimism? >> he was hopeful despite all. he and i had this argument for years, which is he believed, unlike reinhold neeber and others with a tragic sensibility. he believed if we put our hearts and minds in the right place, if we put them in tune with the

gospel, in tune with all the world religions to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we thought we could bring together the beloved kingdom on earth. i don't believe that. i think we're fall and frail and foulable and it's going to take a cataclysmic event to do that. dr. john lewis, john by diane nash, believed that that could happen. and at every point, unto the very end, that last trip to black lives matter. i think jonathan was with him. to the plaza. and into the last conversations we had, he did believe, katy, he did believe that if you see something, you say something. and if enough of us say something and do the right thing, we will, in fact, bring about that beloved community. he was always hopeful. what makes his hope so

convincing is that he had the scars to back it up. he be, as bernard lafayette told me, they knew always to go for john's head. his friends told me, three or four of them, they were surprised he made it through 1965-66, because he was always on that front line. he never raised a fist in response. he bore witness with his body to the sanctity of human life and to the sanctity of the vote. >> the new book is "his truth is marching on: john lewis and the power of hope," jon meacham's book out today. jon, thank you so much for being with us. jonathan capehart, thank you so much for being with us as well. i loved watching you this weekend. hope to see you plenty of weekends ahead. still ahead, former

republican candidate, presidential candidate turned joe biden, carly fiorina will join us for the rnc and the future of the republican party. "morning joe" coming right back.

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for the world to see! you have the ability to choose your life and determine your destiny! >> we must never cede control of the mother land! >> leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the american dream, the best is yet to come! ♪ gentlemen, your 2020 republican national convention. wow. good morning. it's -- i just -- you know, willie, i just don't know where to go with what we all saw yesterday and saw last night. i was thinking back, people

deeply offended in 1992 by pat buchanan's speech. and i mean, let me tell you something, that -- that was -- that was churchill in the house of commons in 1940 compared to everything we saw last night. a bizarre collection of alternative facts and alternative realities told by cranks and misfits that would never be allowed inside any convention before -- before this. i mean, couples -- the couple that carried guns outside their house and were pointing at black lives matter protesters, saying that joe biden wants to abolish the suburbs. you go down the whole list. of course, donald trump, you even had donald trump yesterday, even with his people begging him, stay on message, try to

paint joe biden as a left-winger. instead, he repeated his lie that barack obama spied on his campaign in 2016. something that has been disproven time and time again. and his own aides were so discouraged that he did it, because he can't stay on script. but, you know, you had don jr. saying that the choice was between -- this is very funny, actually -- church, work and school, or rioting, looting and vandalism. yes, don jr. and donald trump is the paragon of church, work and school. and you just -- you just go down the list. and even nikki haley, whatever

she wants, i hope it's worth it for her. nikki haley going out and saying that donald trump did with north korea what barack obama and joe biden never got -- what, let them accumulate more nuclear weapons and advance their nuclear program, advance their missile program forward, under the protection of an american president who continued to visit him when all of his experts told him not to visit kim jong-un? again, people -- people were willing to go and shame themselves last night and create an alternative reality of facts. and this doesn't work and it doesn't work because, again, so much of the night was focused on what a great job donald trump did on the coronavirus. it's as if these people never

read a poll and never actually talked to americans to understand the overwhelming american -- the overwhelming number of americans think donald trump has, in fact, completely failed his handling of the coronavirus, because he has. >> yeah, without question. i mean, if you start last night with the guiding principle of today's republican party, it is to please the boss, donald j. trump. we know that because they scrapped having a platform at this republican national convention and just said, we support whatever donald trump does. that's literally what they did. there was no platform. that's it, please the boss. that's what all those speeches were about. that explains nikki haley's speech, it refers to the mccloskeys sitting on their couch in the parlor about the abolishing of the suburbs. that's a line ripped directly from president trump. he says, quote, joe biden wants to abolish the suburbs by, god

forbid, allowing black people to move in. they made that case. it was a wild performance by the two of them. but the theme for those people that watch this network and are waking up with us and watched last night, you might have thought it was wild and you couldn't believe what you were hearing, but if you watch fox news or if you're on facebook all day, it sounded familiar and it resonated with you from don jr.'s speech to the talk about preserving monuments, cities on fire, joe biden creating a social utopia. it's a wild, wild world but one they live in each and every day. so, i'm sure with a lot of members of the base, with whom they were speaking to, it rang true. your point is the most important one, which is, they're also, in order to please the boss, creating this alternate universe where the president of the united states who has overseen 177,000 deaths and tens of millions of jobs lost because of his mishandling of the coronavirus is the hero of the

story. that he came in and rescued america from something china inflicted upon this country. it's a stunning, stunning narrative that has no basis in reality. >> it's a stunning narrative that says -- speaks ill of the people that were pushing that lie. and it's not a medium sized lie. it's the big lie of our time. and it speaks ill, of course, of the president and it speaks ill of people who actually believe it. it certainly speaks ill of the people who promote it on cable news or who promote it on facebook, because it's a lie. and everybody knows it's a lie. they know that donald trump mishandled this crisis in just about every way imaginable. you just look at the numbers and, you know, 175,000 plus people dead. perhaps many more, actually.

and 178,000 people dead from a virus that donald trump said was one person coming in from china, was going to go away, and then said it was 15 people, but it was going to go away. then said this was going to go away in april and has been wrong every step of the way, whether he's talking about hydroxychloroquine or whether he's talking about putting disinfectants in your body or talking about putting uv lights in your body or whether he's intimidating his own fda now to try to push other treatments that just haven't had the scientific review that every doctor says they should have. but there is no doubt there's an alternative political reality being created and people are willingfully going along with this personality cult. and it is a personality cult. it has nothing to do -- you can walk up to me at the airport and

say, why aren't you a conservative anymore and you can get a 30-minute talk about how i actually am conservative. i still believe in balanced budgets. i still believe in small

there's a reason that you go through the lineup last night, you listen to some of the rhe r rhetorical through lines. there's one viewer who is sitting in the auditorium offering feedback on these things, and it's the president himself. so i think, obviously, if you are going to speak at this convention, you had better be equipped with a forceful defense of trump. you had better be sure to make the argument that this guy is not nearly as bad as everybody

else is going to make him out to be. he's misunderstood, that i know him in a way you don't know him. we heard a lot of that. for somebody like nikki haley, this is somebody who probably wants to be president some day and recognizes even as she has the potential to rebrand the party and expand its appeal and reach out to new and nontraditional republican donors, that that element of a political strategy can only work if first and foremost you have secured a base, and this base is no longer a conservative base. it's a trumpian base. the president controls the american right in no way a politician, ever did. tim scott, any of these folks who want a future in the party, they can't afford to not embrace the president and embrace his base in a way that allows him to

have a foothold for those people to hear the rest of what they have to say. >> tim alberta, thank you for being with us. an extraordinary piece, the "grand ole meltdown." coming up next, carly phiorina joins the conversation. how she went from being a republican candidate in 2016 to supporting a democrat in 2020. that conversation just ahead on "morning joe." we miss you. it's totally not the same without you. we're finally back and can't wait until you are too. universal orlando resort. buy now and get two days free at the parks. restrictions apply. 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.

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welcome back. more than 14,000 firefighters now battling over 600 fires across the state of california. the fires which have been burning for ten days are now the largest in the state's history. seven people have died. more than 250,000 residents are under evacuation orders as the fires have burned through more than a million acres. record-breaking heat and a number of lightning strikes are a cause of the fires. let's go straight to meteorologist bill karins for a check on the hurricane headed to the gulf coast as well. bill? >> well, willie, we just found out this is now hurricane laura.

and laura is doing exactly what we feared over the last couple of days, beginning to rapidly intensify. it's getting its act together, and over the next 48 hours, it could become a beast of a storm as it approaches areas from houston to the louisiana/texas border. 75-mile-per-hour winds. category 1 hurricane. it should continue to intensify from now all the way up to the time of landfall. the hurricane center shifted up to a major category 3 at landfall. that will be wednesday night, some time around midnight or so into thursday morning. that's when the worst of the storm surge, highest winds, most destruction and devastation will be happening. now the question is, how much of this hits the 2.3 million people in the houston area or how much goes up toward beaumont, port arthur or lake charles. we have a little wiggle room there and people who need to make preps now. then the storm goes northward. power outages expected through louisiana. flooding risk through arkansas and tennessee.

our european computer model is to the left. we always show this because it's the most accurate. it has the storm going closer to galveston and galveston bay. that would be a much worse scenario for houston, too. galveston mayor ordered mandatory evacuation for 51,000 people on galveston island. they are going to do the coastal areas first and then we'll have to see how far inland they'll ask people to evacuate. but don't evacuate until you get your orders from your emergency manager. we don't want people stranded on the highways with huge traffic jams like with hurricane ike. this is the scary part. the storm surge forecast, 7 to 11 feet. picture you're on the beach, standing on the sand by the water edge. we expect the water to be 11 feet higher than where your feet would be with wave action on top of it. that is the scary part in the gulf storms when you get the storm surge. this is -- rita in the same area, 15-foot storm surge. ike, we had just to the east of galveston.

a storm surge there up to 17 feet. you get an idea, we're susseptsible to storm surge. if it gets up to a category 3, maybe category 4, we're talking structures, houses. that will be wiped away. that's how serious of a situation this is. we'll have water rises all the way to new orleans. won't be as bad in new orleans but especially the houston area to cameron parish. the wind gust potential, the right side is the dirty side where we could see the 100-mile-per-hour wind gusts. imagine the damage in lake charles and cameron parish from that. the back side will have the weaker winds. don't take this houston forecast for granted. this could easily shift and head your way later on today. we'll have updates throughout the rest of the morning on msnbc and over the next two days as laura now a hurricane, will be approaching the gulf coast. more "morning joe" when we come back. as a caricature artist,

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what are we going to see from your party next week? >> i think we're going to see something that's going to be very uplifting and positive. that's what i would like it to be. the overall is going to be a very positive, as opposed to a dark, a very, very positive message. >> in joe biden's america, god forbid what the next four years would look like. >> these radicals are not content with marching in the streets. they want to take over. they want power. >> they want to destroy this country. >> empty the prisons. lock you in your home. >> steal your liberty, your freedom. >> they want to abolish the suburbs altogether. >> defund, dismantle and destroy america's law enforcement. >> abandon buildings, liquor stores on every corner. drug addicts. guns on the street. >> crime, violence and mob rule. >> discarded heroin needles in parks. >> marijuana. opioids. >> cops killed. children shot.

>> marxist, liberal activists. >> socialism. >> marxist revolutionary. >> socialist utopia. >> war zones. >> bitter. deceitful. vengeful activists. >> pain and misery. >> human sex traffickers. >> abortion up until the point of birth. >> iran and isis. >> radical islamic terrorism. >> subverting our republic. >> open borders. close schools. dangerous amnesty. >> dying on wait lists. >> you may not have realized it at the time, but trump is the bodyguard of western civilization. >> my god. my god, the stupidity, it hurts. it hurts. willie, that is -- if the future of western democracy weren't riding on this election, that would actually be funny.

but the alternative reality that these people have created is amazing. and for somebody to talk about chinese propaganda when donald trump is the biggest proponent in this race of chinese propaganda in a january 24th tweet, praising president xi and saying that the american people loved president xi and thanked him for his transparency and for congratulating president xi when he consolidated power more than any chinese dictator since chairman mao. the lies are just so transparent, and laughable. they want to abolish the suburbs? come on. at least try. just try a little bit. that's just -- seriously, if a 7-year-old kid wrote that, you'd go, here, take that back and try a little harder.

it's just pathetic and sad. >> yeah, it's darkness and fear. you see it all in one place that brings it home. but the argument is, on what they believe the collapse of western civilization is imminent, literally. that's what that one speaker said. this is the bodyguard of western civilization. that's a line from a speech last night. so all these things you just heard described in those speeches, he alone can fix it. he said that four years ago. he's been president for 3 1/2 years, and here we are. let's turn to former republican presidential candidate carly fiorina who announced in june she'll be casting her vote for president for joe biden. also with us, presidential historian, author and biographer of "president ronald reagan." and katty kay is with us. >> sdrdescribe what you saw las night. you were in the middle of this process four years ago. of course, your ran for

president. president trump was unkind to you to put it miles mildly in pl terms. what did you think, as a republican, and you are one, about what you saw last night? >> well, i think the mash up that you just played was illustrative of a republican party that's become captured by donald trump and is painting joe biden and the democrats as scary socialists. i would say this, however, as someone who will vote for biden and hopes very much that he wins. i think democrats are going to make a very serious mistake if they dismiss and diminish the intelligence or the character of trump voters. it was one of the mistakes they made in 2016. hillary clinton calling trump voters deplorable. it's a mistake i hope democrats will not make again by saying

every trump voter is stupid or racist. here's the thing, and i'm sure the historian at the table can back me up here. distrust of the federal government is a longstanding american tradition. distrust of the media is a longstanding american tradition. distrust of politicians as crooks is a longstanding american tradition. trump didn't invent those things. he plays on those things. and there are a whole set of trump voters who know he's a terrible guy, but who say, my life is better under him, and i am afraid of these whacko liberal left wing people, and scenes like occurred in wisconsin last night, unfortunately, are playing to all of their fears. so i think the democrats are going to have to put up an economic argument. mike pence said it right. i mean, the most substantive argument that was made last night was mike pence saying, the

economy is at stake. that is an argument that joe biden is going to have to take on. and he is going to also have to reach out with respect and empathy and humility all of which he's capable of, to those voters who voted for obama and then voted for trump. the farmer, the factory worker, in places like iowa and wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania. not call them stupid. not call them racist. meet them where they are and understand why they voted for trump. >> yeah, we certainly should do that and understand why they voted for trump. but yeah, the economy. that is something that joe biden should talk about because it's the economy that has crashed over the past six months, and it's crashed in large part because donald trump refused time and time again to listen to doctors. he refused time and time again to listen to scientists. he mocked reporters who asked

questions in masks. we were saying repeatedly in march, as were doctors and scientists and other people that this president had to treat this as a medical crisis. that leads to an economic crisis that for him would lead to a political crisis. instead, he just kept ignoring his doctors. kept saying this was going to magically go away, and the economy has crashedcrashed. because of it small business owners have had their lives decimated because of it. craig shirley, as conservatives, you and i have watched what's been going on for the past four years and we've seen a president saying that the second -- that the -- article two of the constitution gave him unlimited power, that article two of the constitution allowed a president to do whatever they wanted. we've heard his aides go on sunday shows saying the president's authority shall not

be questioned. and we get to this point where we have a frightening convention where they don't even put a party platform out there. i don't care who the republican nominee or the democratic nominee would be in this case. that would be against everything that we conservatives have stood for our entire lives. >> actually, the framers were fearful of executive authority, especially after the american revolution and what they saw the abuses of king george iii, which is why article one created the congress. and article two created a very limited executive office. you know, i can remember going back a long time ago. platform week for the republican party was in some ways more fun than the week of the convention. you got together with old friends. you could get reservations at the best restaurants and

delegates from around the country. housewives and retired military personnel and lay leaders and religious leaders and people from all walks of life would get together and form the committees. the domestic policy, foreign policy, military policy. social policy. they'd form these committees. and they'd take testimony from people from all walks of life. i remember in 1980, the republican platform in detroit was being destructed. the democratic mayor of new york city, ed kock, actually went to detroit to testify before the republican platform committee because he thought urban policy was an important issue and wanted to tell the republicans about it. henry kissinger, former secretary of state, also testified before republican platform committee. but as you know, as i know, and most people know, these platforms become the basis for what a republican party stands for. reagan said, he said of the platsform in '76, it was a b banner of bold unmistakable

colors, no pastels that give real solutions to people. he put his principles and ideals not in himself. at the 1980 convention he said to the delegates, don't trust me, trust yourself which is the essence of american conservativism. and it worries me that the party, because, you know, donald trump is going to leave office sooner or later. either next sdwjanuary or in fo years. if the party is without a platform, the party is without principles, then what does it stand for. the other thing is that they missed an opportunity because a president controls the platform. i remember in 1972, the miami convention, richard nixon controlled the convention from beginning to end. and believe it or not, in the convention hall, there were giant murals of -- at the republican convention, there were pictures of these two

communist leaders. that was nixon's policy at the time. trump could have used platform week to promote his own policies and put them on paper. some of them that conservatives can agree with that are good and he could have used them to emphasize his accomplishments or claim his plirn meaccomplishmene last four years. i consider it a missed opportunity to advance whatever he advanced but also a missed opportunity where the party is going to stand next january or four years hence. >> and katty kay, what concerns me the most, many things that concerns me, is i really think because of demographic changes in this country, i think that the democratic party is going to win texas moving forward and the democratic party is going to be in power for the next 30, 40 years and what concerns me is that whoever is president, republican or democrat, they are going to use all of trump's actions as precedent.

so whether it's a republican or independent or a democrat, they will be using all the precedence of the trump presidency. and again, it is a presidency that is devoid of a platform and a presidency devoid of traditional policies. you know, we used to support balanced budgets. you know, small government. we were anti-russia, anti-authoritarianism, pro-democracy, pro-freedom. we were the party that supported the freeing of the slaves. we were the party that supported the tearing down of walls. none of that was spoken about last night. because donald trump only wanted people speaking about him and building these imaginary strawmen that trump could then later knock down. >> yeah, the argument of last night was there's a culture war.

you choose which side of it you're on. you're either with donald trump or you're with everybody else. that's a common theme of populism, whether it's in hungary or poland. it's either you're with me or you're de facto against me. and everyone who is against me is a threat and is bad. and the policies and principles don't really matter so much. i wanted to ask carly something because you had some very sage advice there to democrats if they want to try to win over people who voted for trump back in 2016. but i guess the question for democrats would be, there is a strand of nativism in what we heard last night. and there are dog whistles about race when they -- with these iterations about suburbs and suburbs being destroyed. would your advice to the democratic leadership be just ignore all of that? don't take that on? in which case, the democratic party is going to accuse you of

pandering and ignoring something that's real, or how would you suggest they handle that? ignore the nativism in the trumpian party at the moment? >> no. you can't ignore it. it's appalling. and i haven't ignored it, nor should they ignore it. it's appalling. it's real. when the president's sons are holding up qanon as a legitimate political movement. it's appalling. and there are people in trump's base who are without a doubt racist, white supremacists and nativists. it is critically important to call out donald trump as a danger to the soul of america. i believe that. it's why i will vote for biden. it's critically important to call out his threat to constitution aal norms and precedence. it's critically important to call out how he is dividing this nation along every conceivable line, and it's critically important to call out that character matters, as does

leadership. and he has neither. at the same time, i think it's very -- by the way, i think the democrats did a really good job of that last week, and they must do that to galvanize their base. but as we know, the democrats need to get their base out to vote, and they also need to convince people who voted once for obama and once for trump to come back to the democrat party. and so to do that, my advice would simply be, do not lump everyone who voted for trump into the category of the worst of trump's base. see voters. see citizens as individuals and understand that the themes that trump plays on of, you can't trust the federal government, you can't trust the media, you can't trust politicians. they're all crooks. understand those themes have been around and alive and well in america for a very long time. and there is reason for people

to believe that sometimes you can't trust the media or the federal government or politicians. >> all right. carly fiorina and craig shirley, thank you. craig, we appreciate you being on. coming up next, a new behind the scenes account of the president's fateful call to ukraine's president. and what it says about american democracy. keep it here on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ ♪ the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com. ♪ at choicehotels.com. that gives me cash back onesome new aeverything.akuten that's ebates. i get cash back on electronics, travel, clothes. you're talking about ebates. i can't stop talking about rakuten.

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1234rks nearly a year after democrats launched an investigation into -- they became the first party in nominate an impeached president for a second term. joining me, "washington post" journalist kevin sullivan and mary jordan. co-authors of the book "trump on trial: the investigation, impeachment, acquittal and aftermath." good morning to you both. mary, there are so many rich details in this story that we haven't heard before inside your book. let's start at the begin with that phone call that's now a year and a month ago, july 25th, 2019, between president trump and president zelensky. you paint a scene of notes being passed back and forth as the call quickly took a turn against

president zelensky. >> we got to the ukraine side of the call. over there the advisers to the ukraine president were saying, say the word swamp. he loves that. and -- but at the heart of the book it's really an x-ray of how the president operates. and how he pushes conspiracy theories. he identified early that joe biden would be a potent competitor. so he sought to use the presidency, the power of that office, to pressure ukraine president to announce that he was going to investigate biden for corruption, to dirty his name. so the phone call details. we see on one side and the other side exactly, it's like his playbook. it's an x-ray on how trump operates. one, identify early a potent competitor. in this case, joe biden. and throw out fake theories. and it was -- it's really kind

of his operating manual, which is pretty important now as we head into the election. >> you paint another amazing scene about two months later, i guess, september of 2019, where speaker nancy pelosi is at home in georgetown in her town house getting ready to come into the capitol for the day. the phone rings and it's a call from the president of the united states asking her, are you really going to impeach me? tell me bhomore about that conversation. >> she'd already decided that's what she was going to do. she was getting ready. it was the white house. please hold for the president. so she does. and trump comes on the line and wants to talk to her about gun control. they're making great progress about guns and he wants to talk to her about this. he she's thinking, what are you talking about? there's been no progress on guns. she said something like, sure, that sounds great. then he pivoted immediately to, so you're really going to impeach me? and she said, yes. as a matter of fact, we are.

he tried to talk her out of it. she said national security is my wheelhouse. i was on the intelligence committee. i understand what you did. i understand that it was wrong, and we are going to impeach you. and he happened to be in new york that day. he was on his way to the u.n. general assembly and he just said, i have to go. i have meetings and hung up. >> they don't talk now. what happened, impeachment, people forget because of all that's happened since, really says a lot about the state of washington, d.c., right now. trump doesn't talk to the speaker of the house. congress, you know, was very clear that the senate, majority backed, was in lock step with the president, except for mitt romney, and mitt romney is not going to the convention now. but it's kind of -- it explains the paralysis and it's an x-ray on how trump pushes out, often by using very pro-trump media, conspiracy theories, fake things about other people and how he creates this new reality that is

just not true. there was no evidence of corruption -- >> kevin, do you get any sense of how much this weighs on trump, you know, on a daily basis, the fact that he is an impeached president? s affected him in the way that he governs since the trial? and affected him personally? >> i think it's driven him a little bit crazy. as we lay out in the book, he was absolutely applectic about the idea he was going to be impeached. this was going to be putting him in a club with bill clinton. he didn't want to be in that club. he kept telling everyone it was a perfect call. everyone in the gop was lining up behind him because i think they understood quite visceral way that this was something that trump absolutely, desperately wanted to avoid. and you could see as the process went along his tweets getting more and more angry and furious and desperate.

and we outline this in the book. we go into great detail about how this has had a tremendous effect on him personally. you're seeing that it still does. >> and image matters above all. in many ways to donald trump. and he does see this as nancy pelosi's said, as a stain. >> we have just scratched the surface of this new book called "trump on trial: the investigation, impeachment, acquittal and aftermath." kevin sullivan, mary jordan, congratulations and thanks for being with us. we have one final update for you just crossing now. the chicago sun-times is reporting that jacob blake, the 29-year-old black man who was shot multiple times by police in kenosha over the weekend is paralyzed from the waist down. the paper is reporting blake's father gave that update of his son's condition in an interview. doctors do not yet know if that injury is permanent. so we've been hoping for the best. we heard he was in serious

condition. now the "chicago sun-times" telling us he is paralyzed from the waist down. >> it's absolutely terrible. it's a tragedy, and you have republicans, of course, talking about what happened in wisconsin last night at the convention. it's going to be interesting tonight at the convention. are they going to be talking about what happened in wisconsin as it pertains to some people who were violent and went against what john lewis preached? or are they going to focus at all on this young man who was shot several times in the back as he was trying to get back into his car. of course, there were so many different ways to restrain him but instead, shot in the back and now paralyzed. we'll see if republicans look past that, willie, and try to ignore it again in their

dystopian view of donald trump's america. well, that does it for us this morning. thanks for watching. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's tuesday, august 25th. let's get smarter. we are gearing up today for night two of the republican national convention. maybe tonight we'll get that positive, uplifting message that president trump promised us. because last night, we certainly didn't get much of it. a night when republicans went out of their way to portray democrats as a party intent on destroying the united states of america. this evening we'll hear from first lady melania trump and two of the president's children, eric and tiffany. the speakers seemed intent on portraying the president as the only thing standing between the america we know and a dark on