good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where the trump campaign promised optimism and hope. instead, most of the speakers at the first night of the republican convention talked about fear and loathing. >> he started a movement to reclaim our government from the rotten cartel of insiders that have been destroying our country. >> they'll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your harm and invite ms-13 to live next door. >> make no mistake. no matter where you live, your

family will not be safe in the radical democrats' america. >> don't let them step on you. don't let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future. >> joe biden and the radical left are now coming for our freedom of speech. they want to bully us into submission. >> the speakers did include many people of color as the campaign tries to peel away black voters from joe biden. two of the speakers stood out for a strikingly different tone from the rest. >> my father wore a turban. my mother wore a sari. i was a brown girl in a black and white world. we faced discrimination and hardship. but my parents never gave in to grievance and hate. america is a story that's a work in progress. now is the time to build on that progress. >> our family went from cotton to congress in one lifetime.

and that's why i believe the next american century can be better than the last. >> nbc white house correspondent and "weekend today" co-host kristen welker is starting us off. kristen, thanks very much for being with us. look, there are some people critical of nikki haley's comments because she was saying as well that america is not a racist country, and yet she's not a black person, and she doesn't have a history of -- family history of slavery. >> reporter: that's right. look, nikki haley clearly aiming to counter some of the criticism that this president has received, that his campaign has received, that he isn't meeting this moment when it comes to the protests that have been stretched out all across the country, calling for change in racial issues, and these racial tensions. nikki haley trying to make the case that america is not racist. as you point out, andrea, there are some who are saying, look,

while she certainly has the experience of someone who has lived here as an immigrant, someone who is of color, can she speak for all black and brown people and make that strong pronouncement. but the bottom line is what we heard from nikki haley, the former u.n. ambassador, a rising star in the republican party, what we heard from tim scott, you played those very powerful words from him, an attempt to reach out to some of those voters of color, as president trump is facing an uphill battle with them. polls show that right now, joe biden is earning more than 80% of their support. president trump notching in the single digits. so he's trying to peel away at some of those voters. it's also a message, andrea, so some of those voters who live in swing districts and swing areas, trying to essentially argue that, look, president trump is on the right track and is listening at this moment of racial strive. so that was part of what we heard last night, andrea. and then the other piece of it, those very fiery remarks that you heard from some of the other

speakers like kimberly guilfoyle who critertried to paint a pict doom and gloom if joe biden and kamala harris win, trying to argue the country would become socialist, kimberly guilfoyle making the case that the country would be ruined. i asked one administration official about that mixed messaging because of course republican officials had said, look, the tone of this will be optimistic. when i pressed some officials here about whether what we heard last night was actually optimistic, one said to me, what we heard was passionate, they are defending that first night, they feel good, they feel confident heading into tonight when we'll hear from secretary of state mike pompeo who will be speaking in israel and of course the first lady who will be speaking in the rose garden, andrea. >> which is controversial on both counts because of the hatch act and because of tradition that secretaries of state do not speak at conventions and that no one, including the president and the first lady, in the past have spoken at a convention from the white house as well.

you're going to be very busy, kristen welker, a busy day over there. meanwhile, peter navarro is an assistant to the president and director of the white house office of trade and manufacturing policy and joins me now. welcome, it's very good to have you here with us today. >> good afternoon, andrea. >> i want to ask you about the first night of the convention because there were speakers and videos painting a very rosy picture of the president as a champion over the coronavirus, yet there was no mention of the nearly 180,000 americans who are dead, and that there are nearly 40,000 positive cases every day, close to a thousand deaths a day. the convention seemed to be an alternative reality. despite recent hopeful trends in treatment, we'll get to that in a moment, why no acknowledgement of the pain and suffering that has been caused? >> let's talk broad brush about what i saw last night.

i think too many folks went down the dark, dim path of painting what happened last night. but i did enjoy, uh, if i cnikky talking about her experiences. tim scott, the cotton fields to congress, i think that was the line of the night. but i also, umm, enjoyed vernon jones and his -- uh, his talk, and herschel walker. so i thought there was fine balance last night. with respect to the virus that came to china and has killed over 170,000 americans, i take that one really personally, because i spent the better part of my life, since january 28, working on this. and this is an attack, this was an attack from china, whether it was an intentional or not, they hid the virus from us, and if there's any president that should be blamed for the americans dying, it's the

unelected president of china. what i've been doing, andrea, is working really hard on what we call inside the west wing our four main vectors of attack. i think we've done a great job building our domestic production of personal protective equipment, the gloves, the masks, the goggles, all of that. we're bringing our medicine onshore so if people go into the icu, they have what they need. that's vector one. the second vector is the testing, which we continue to rapidly expand. and more importantly from an innovation point of view, we're getting to the point of breakthrough where we can do point of care testing, like a pregnancy test, and get immediate results. the third vector of attack is our therapeutics. you have remdesivir i think was the first one out of the gate there. we've got dexamethasone. and then just on sunday, introduced convalescent plasma which we can talk more in detail about. the last vector --

>> let me -- >> -- is the vaccines. we're getting to a vaccine in the third of the time it usually takes. >> let me acknowledge -- >> -- over this convention. >> and remdesivir indeed. i want to talk to you, though, about the convalescent plasma and the emergency use. fda commissioner steven hahn has now apologized. he along with the president, secretary azar on sunday night, said that out of 100 people with covid, 35 were saved by convalescent plasma in a study. he now says the criticism of those false claims, exaggerated claims, was entirely justified and that he should have said there is a relative risk reduction, not an absolute reduction. in fact the study was only a subset of a subset, not a randomized study. you are a ph.d. economist, you're an expert, you know statistics inside and out. emergency approval of using plasma this way reduces the possibility of having a proper randomized study.

and it falsely inflates hopes. >> i don't accept that. >> so -- >> that to me is like a crazy talking point. >> the mayo clinic, sir, the mayo clinic, which did this study is saying that and dr. hahn is saying that. is dr. hahn, the -- let me just get my question out. is dr. hahn wrong? the question is, dr. hahn has said he was wrong to say this. >> on the issue of the -- not being able to do randomized trials, what is the calculus here, are we going to wait to use something that can save thousands of lives just so we can have a study that tells us what we already know -- >> yes, that is scientific practice, sir. excuse me. that is the way vaccines and drugs are approved. >> this is important. >> that's the test, effectiveness is the test. >> andrea, andrea, andrea. this is an important debate for the american people and your viewers to have. do you want to wait for a

therapy which likely works to get these scientific studies which are going to take three, six months, whatever, or do you want to have the right to try? president trump is the right to try president. here's what -- the debate over convalescent plasma puzzles me, frankly. this is a therapy that's been used for over a century. >> for other diseases. not for covid. this is a new virus, sir. >> exactly. but if it's used for other diseases -- here's my claim. my claim is that the odds of this being, uh, being able to hurt you are close to zero, so it's safe. the odds of it being able to help you are close to 100%. now, whether hahn -- he misspoke. >> close to 100%? that's not correct. >> the odds of this being able to help people is close to 100%. it's not going to help every person. hahn basically used absolute

numbers rather than relative. i'm not going to defend steven hahn. what i am going to defend -- >> but the president said that as well. >> andrea. andrea. >> it was the president, it was steven hahn, and secretary azar together on the platform at the white house. >> you do -- >> i just have to correct you as we move along. >> no, you're not correcting me. you're not correcting me. i'm telling you what i saw because i saw that in real time. the issue is simply -- the question for your viewers is simple. people are dying out there. does convalescent plasma likely help people in terms of saving lives. and i think the answer is -- is yes. the question of how much it helps, that's to be determined. but i think that -- that -- it's good that it's out there. but, look, uh, this is a crisis like no other. i think in terms of these dueling conventions, you saw the democrats basically make a really big bet, they didn't talk about policy, they didn't talk about their tax policies, they ran a convention that's going to

blame the pandemic on the trump administration. that's their whole strategy. and we're going to fight back really hard from that. i mean, i think -- one of the most important clips i think you could play, andrea, at some point, is vice president biden's chief of staff saying how they did everything single thing wrong during the h1n1 crisis and it could have been the largest mass casualty event in history and i would remind you when the president pulled down the flights from china on january 31, he was called a xenophobe and a racist by biden, yet that saved hundreds of thousands -- >> well, that was out of context, sir. that's not the case. >> what context? >> and 40,000 people came in from china after he put that -- >> yeah, and it could have been hundreds of thousands of more. but, you know, andrea -- >> there were so many exceptions. let me ask you about vaccines, whether there's been a lot of progress. >> -- information about what we're doing and how we're trying

to help the american people stay safe. >> let's talk about vaccines where there's been a lot of progress and you said there has been so much hope. would you use the same standards that are not scientific standards and proceed with a vaccine before phase iii and post first phase iii trials are completed and all the studies are done on americans? >> that one's like, way out of my lane. what i can tell you is this. and this is the important part for the american people. as the science moves forward with phase i, phase ii, and phase iii, this administration is doing something that no administration has ever done before, which is to say we're preparing for mass production of a vaccine should it be found -- >> understood. >> -- to be safe and efficacious. that's my role. tonight i'll maybe touch on a little bit on what's going to happen tonight, it might be

useful. melania trump will be introducing the new rose garden. you know, i find her to be the -- the jackie kennedy of her time, the beauty, the elegance, the soft-spokenness, i think she'll deliver a powerful message to the american people. i think you'll see secretary pompeo talk very strongly, particularly about the problems we're having with the chinese communist party because he has been most eloquent, but one of the people i'm looking most forward to is a guy named jason joyce who actually is a lobster fisherman from maine and just in the past couple of months we've been able to do some things for the lobster fishermen that will help the state of maine in a tremendous way. that to me will speak to how president trump thinks about getting our economy back to work. so our message -- >> mr. navarro -- >> -- is to defeat the virus and get this economy back to where

we were on january 15 when the chinese forgot to tell us there was a global pandemic about to -- about to crush, uh, crush the world. >> mr. navarro, you brought up the secretary of state. he's the first secretary of state to ever speak at a political convention according to any records we've been able to check. he's doing it from an official foreign trip in jerusalem, was where he taped it, with the historic backdrop. diplomats, skurcurrent and form are in an uproar over this. >> good. >> as well as the president and first lady speaking from the white house. >> look, umm, one of the things, uh, that's remarkable about this, uh, this president is he keeps his promises. and he moved the embassy to jerusalem, promise made, promise kept there. just in the last couple of weeks with the help of secretary pompeo and jared kushner, we were able to get the first peace deal in the middle east in over 25 years. so, umm, i think it's a

beautiful thing, having melania trump speak from the rose garden and secretary pompeo speaking from the middle east to celebrate an achievement that really keeps america not only safe but allows us to end those endless wars that the american people really are so tired of going back to the bush administration through the obama administration. so, you know, i think it's going to be a great night. you will see -- you will see some strong messages about the strength of this presidency. you will see also messages of hope and optimism, because we see optimism right now. we see an economy rebounding. we know there's a struggle ahead. but we have a path forward on that. and we just need to work together on this. and i'm looking forward to the election because after it's over maybe -- maybe we can just stop all the sniping that's going on now. i understand it's the election season and this is how things go by it would be nice to join

hands once again as a people once this election is over. >> join hands is a great idea. as soon as it's safe from the virus, indeed. peter navarro, thanks for being with us. >> we're working hard on that. >> i know you are. nbc news has obtained exclusive images from a postal worker at a dallas, texas facility, of a mail sorting machine in july. they had to stop trying to repair the machines after discovering crucial parts that the machines were missing. joining me now is speaker of the house nancy pelosi. madam speaker, thanks very much for being with us. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> and of course you're joining us the day after a hearing, a very difficult hearing for the postmaster general indeed on the house side. let's start with the voting.

on saturday you passed a $25 billion emergency bill for the post office. we know it won't be taken up by the presidesenate. the president said he would veto it. how can you ensure the post office won't be crippled before the election? >> first of all, thank you for bringing up the postal service. it's a matter of good health for america's veterans who get almost 100% of their precipitations through the mail, 1.2 precipitations for vetteran and others went through the mail in 2019, so this is a health issue. in times of a pandemic, the worst possible time for the post office to be cutting back and of course the health of our democracy at risk. actually, what the president said is that if they pass a freestanding bill on the post office, he would sign it. "yeah, i would sign it," he said. that's what we did. until he decided he wasn't going to sign it. so let's not predicate anything on what he says or does, because

the association with fact, with science, withe ethics, with wha is right to be done for the american people, is a completely foreign notion to this president. and in terms of the -- >> he was -- >> i'm sorry, to your question, about -- >> go ahead. >> -- the postal service, if you want me to go to that, this is a big issue. it affects every family in america. i don't think members on either side of the aisle or either side of the capitol can tell you that they've ever had such an immediate reaction to a change in how an agency affects their lives. this is not a business, they keep saying it keeps losing money. it's a service. it's a service that largely pays for itself as it meets the needs of the american people. and what they are doing is wrong. what they're saying about it is not true. and what we will have to do is hold them accountable.

i'm very proud of the work of our committee and the committee chair, carolyn maloney, she will get the information. what you pointed out at the beginning about them dismantling the sorting machines, it's not only a matter of time and holding up the mail. it's a matter of workplace safety as well in terms of what kind of people can work in the post office if that kind of machinery is not available. so it excludes some from that. so in every possible way, they are sabotaging the mail. they're harming our democracy. they're injuring the health of the american people, starting with our veterans. and they will be held accountable. but in terms of the election, we don't agonize, we organize. and we will make sure that people have a plan to vote, they vote early enough so that they're not counting on any of the president's henchmen to deliver their mail on time.

>> i wanted to play an exchange with congresswoman katy porter with dejoy yesterday. >> do you know about, within a million or so, can you tell me how many people voted by mail in the last presidential election? >> no, i cannot. >> to the nearest 10 million? is that a no, mr. dejoy? >> i would be guessing and i don't want to guess. >> madam speaker, is he qualified for this job? >> well, if the qualification is that you're a mega donor to donald trump and chair his inaugural committee, that's the criterion, then he qualifies. but on the basis of knowledge of the system, he's known how to profit off of it. he's known how to compete with the post office. he just doesn't share the value

of it being an all-american service to the american people, written into the constitution. our first postmaster general, benjamin franklin, abraham lincoln was a postmaster, harry truman was a postmaster although he yielded the position to a widow who needed the money when he was a postmaster. this is as american as apple y pie, baseball, you name it, except when it comes to these guys who want to privatize it, make a profit off it, all they care about is show me the money, for them, instead of show me a service for the american people. no, he's the absolutely wrong person for the job. there has to be some scrutiny over how he was chosen and i think it has a lot to do with secretary mnuchin who wanted to

weigh in on how the post office was run, in a way that was inappropriate for the secretary of the treasury to do. >> i want to ask you about the whole issue of convalescent plasma, and the fact that fda commissioner steven hahn has apologized for what he said alongside the president and secretary azar about the efficacy of convalescent plasma justifying emergency use authorization. peter navarro was just defending that, saying if any one person can be helped, that it has 100% ability to help people. but that's not what the data show. they're not using the scientific standard of randomized studies. do you have concern about this, which may not be harmful, but that would mitigate against being able to have proper randomized studies once it's out in widespread use? >> let's just say this, let's enlarge the issue to say, what the white house is doing is politicizing science. it's shameful but i'm so glad

that so many scientists and medical professionals are speaking out to say this is not right. shame on hahn for what he did. and he even had to backtrack on what he said, because it was not science based. he was just there as a prop for the president to pretend that something was happening. we all pray for a therapy that will make things better for people. we all pray for a vaccine. so we're all on the same team when it comes to that. but don't, as -- i don't even remember his name -- >> peter navarro. >> yes, i know his name, i just didn't want to use it because i didn't want to validate what he's saying. they take speed over effectiveness and safety. and again, this is -- they are going down a very bad path. they politicize science and the process that we're all depending on and praying will work. they politicize the state

department by having the secretary of state speak in the manner which thank you for pointing out, they criticize the post office by standing in the way of medicine getting there on time and people being able to vote and not having to substitute between being well and having a vote in this time of a pandemic. they politicize everything. they reject science when it comes to climate change, et cetera. really, they do such a disservice. people say, it isn't strictly illegal. it's totally unethical. it's totally unethical. they're antiscience, antiethics. i say to people, they're trying to scare you into not voting. don't let them take your vote or voice away by anything this president says about vote by mail which he does on a regular basis. and by the way, i want to just

say this about our men and women in uniform. it's very, very important that the mail run on time and that we are not undoing the processing that makes that happen. we owe -- at least, you would think, they would owe it to our men and women in uniform around the world for whom the mail takes a longer time to get to them and back when it comes to them exercising their right to vote which they are there to defend. >> the president keeps talking about how quickly a vaccine might be possible this fall. and are you concerned now that they are going to rush a vaccine out without the proper trials? >> well, i'm always concerned about that. but let's hope that this incident with hahn having to backtrack on his foolish statements will be a warning to them that people are watching, people have judgment about this. and god knows, as i say, we're

all praying that we have a vaccine as soon as we can have it. but not any sooner than it is safe and efficacious in terms of immunizing the american people and people throughout the world. we have a whole other arena of who gets this vaccine when it's there and that has to be in the most ethical, in the most ethical way. your previous guest even went and visited some of the clinical trial people and criticized them for taking all that time to do the clinical trials that would be necessary. so again, it's really sad, because this is something that should be so unifying for us, so prayerful. science is an answer to our prayers, i always say, when people say you have to choose between science and faith. no. science is an answer to our prayers. it's created by god.

and hopefully, with all the brilliance that we have, the best minds in the country working 24/7, that this will happen as soon as it can happen, not one day later. but not one day sooner than it is safe and efficacious. and that is where we have to watch closely, because clearly they've already indicated that they will overstate the safety and the efficacy of a drug. but it is -- it's really sad, because science, science, science. for so many reasons, that's the answer to so much. whether it's our health, whether it's protecting our planet, whether it's making us preeminent in the world in terms of our economy and jobs, whether it's in the security of our country, inventiveness and creativity to keep us qualitatively number one in the security of our country. science is our answer.

it seems not to be valued by this administration. >> i want to ask you about the use of the rose garden, the south lawn, and the secretary of state on a foreign trip. they are crossing all lines on what is the proper use for political reasons of their official locations. >> it's appalling. of course, we have not seen this by anyone, as you've said, as records show, democratic or republican, who would have the secretary of state engaged, and as the secretary himself cautioned employees at the state department that they should not be engaged in any partisan activities because they work for the state department, and now he's doing just that thing. and then of course, really sadly, discoloring our bipartisanship in terms of our support for israel which has always been bipartisan and we

always want it to be. so he's making that -- i don't know what he's going to say, but whatever it is, the image is something that's going to say, look at us, we're here in israel making a speech to the republican national convention, violating our values in terms of the bipartisanship in our support for israel, violating in many ways what he told his own employees that they are not allowed, it would be a violation of the law if they were to engage in partisan activities. this is -- well, as colin powell i think said earlier, this is the wrong way to go. and we don't want this as an example for anything. i mean, the rose garden, it's ridiculous, that shouldn't be happening, but who cares? you know, what we care about is the fact that they won't support funding for children in our country who are food insecure, millions of them.

and they reject our proposals in that regard, that they're ignoring the fact that millions of people will be on the streets if they are evicted and we have the resources in our bill to get that done. that children are going back to school now and school needs to be a safe place for them, but the president is saying that unless kids go actually, we're not going to really fully support the virtual and the rest, which is where the overwhelming amount of education will take place. that's what we care about, we care about, again, supporting our state and local governments which conduct the services for people including education. so for the children, at this time, when it's time to go back to school and families have angst about how safe it will be if they have to actually go or how much they will miss if they don't, let's put our resources there to make it, again, safe for them to do so, safe for

teachers to teach. and if they have to teach and leave their own children at home because they can't go to school, then let's have childcare sufficient to meet their needs. i care more about that, than about whether the refurbished rose garden is appropriately under the hatch act or not in terms of what the first lady may say tonight. but let us go into the homes of the american people. i have children in every aspect of school, and whether it's public, private, or catholic, and different elementary, all the way up to college, kids who teach. and everybody is concerned about the safety of it all for our children. and yet the president says unless it's actual, most of the money will not be spent for virtual or hybrid education. again, what -- science, science,

science, and science. i wish that they would open their minds to science. i wish they would open their hearts to the needs of america's children, including their education needs but also their hunger needs and their housing needs, as well as the economic well being of their families. >> thank you. we'll have to leave it there. thank you very much, madam speaker. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> appreciate you being with us today. and there is outrage in wisconsin. more protests overnight over the police shooting of jacob blake, a black man. why the governor called in the national guard. what blake's family is saying about his condition, that's all next. stay with us. ndition, that's al next stay with us

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escalating tensions in kenosha, wisconsin, prompting the wisconsin governor to call in the national guard. the demonstrations were sparked by the police shooting of 29-year-old jacob blake multiple times at point blank range sunday as he was opening a car door after a family lawyer and witness both said blake was trying to break up a family dispute. three of his six children were in the back seat, according to the family. after surgery, blake's father says his son is paralyzed from the waist down. doctors do not know if the paralysis will be permanent. nbc's shaq brewster is in kenosha, wisconsin. shaq, what is the family saying

today? >> reporter: well, we heard from the family attorney, andrea, this morning who said the family got to see mr. jacob blake in the hospital yesterday and that's where we learned from the father said that jacob is paralyzed from the waist down although we don't know whether that's a temporary or permanent situation he'll be dealing with. that's what the family is saying right now. we'll hear more from the family in a press conference later this afternoon from the family's attorney. they will give us a fuller update on the condition. right now, where the investigation stands is, it's in the hands of the state. we still don't have from any official police source any new information about the circumstances surrounding this shooting. that is being investigated by the state. we know that within 30 days they will send recommendations to the prosecutors and the prosecutor will be able to make a determination. but around the situation, the original shooting, we still don't know. what we do know is that there has been lots of protests and protests that have started peacefully but then you see the destruction that has happened at

night, as looting happens, as rioting happens, as people disperse from the downtown area, there were clashes with police last night, we saw fireworks being launched at police officers, officers responding in kind with rubber bullets and tear gas. you see this entire block destroyed here. this is just one of the many areas here in kenosha that have been destroyed. but the message you've been hearing from the family is that they want a call for peace but they want justice for mr. jacob blake, andrea. >> shaq brewster, a tragedy on every side right there. thank you very much. and the republican national convention promised optimism, but did it deliver? more on that, next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc. g "andreal reports. stay with us on msnbc.

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took swipes at his father's rival. >> joe biden is basically the loch ness monster of the swamp. for the past half century, he's been lurking around in there. he sticks his head up every now and then to run for president. then he disappears and doesn't do much in between. >> joining me now is stephanie cutter, who is of course the chief program executive for the democratic national convention and previously served as former deputy campaign manager for president obama. stephanie, i'm sure you're relieved and hopefully getting some rest. >> yes. >> but i wanted to ask you about the attacks last night. richard nixon once said, people react to fear, not love. they don't teach that in sunday school, but it's true. this is thanks to michael beschloss to that quote as told to william safire.

do you have concerns that this could work, could work for them? joe biden is ahead in the polls, single digits in most polls, but the fact is, michael dukakis was ahead coming out of his convention and then we saw willie horton and the lee atwater campaign and no holds barred. how will your campaign react to the onslaught? >> to be clear, i'm not on the biden campaign. i did the convention for them. i guess what i would say, andrea, fear is a powerful tool in politics for sure. we've all used it. however, it has to be based in reality. and unless there is some realistic basis for you to be stoking that fear, it doesn't work. and i don't think voters think that joe biden is going to take away the suburbs. i don't think voters believe that joe biden is a tool of the far left or is a socialist. these things just aren't

believable, particularly, you know, after watching the convention last week. we made it clear that joe biden is joe biden. he's independent, he's a strong leader, he's gotten this country out of crises before, and he'll do it again. so, you know, what i was struck by, watching last night, they clearly have a strategy of stoking fear in their base, but also with some of the republicans that they've lost since the 2016 election. but we have three plus years of this administration where they're just glossing over the facts. people unfortunately are living with it right now, they're living with covid, they're living with how are our kids going to get educated with the schools closed, they're living with record numbers of unemployment, the worst pandemic in a century, and a president who really hasn't done anything about it. these are his words. that's not our spin, we didn't spin that coming out of the democratic convention, those were his words.

calling it a hoax, taking no responsibility. people aren't going to forget that. that's the life they're living today. are they worried that joe biden is going to take away their suburbs, or are they more worried about how their kids are going to go to school with a president who isn't taking this virus seriously? it's an interesting question, i think we both know where people will come out. >> he's got the white house, the south lawn, the secretary of state appearing from jerusalem. he's got the bully pulpit. he can approve on an emergency basis convalescent plasma before it's adequately tested. how do you run against an incumbent? >> again, this isn't coming out of the blue. we have been living with donald trump for several years now, almost four years, and i think if you asked just a very straight poll question, who do you trust more to put a vaccine on the market, dr. fauci or donald trump, who is worried about his reelection, i think

most people would say -- all people would probably say dr. fauci. and that's exactly who the president isn't listening to. we all want a vaccine, absolutely. but that vaccine has to be guided by science. it has to be guided by something other than the president's reelection. otherwise, we could be doing much more harm than good. and we all want a vaccine, everybody is working towards it. but i think that there's probably a little bit of a lack of trust that the president is doing it for the right reasons. he's doing it for his reelection, he's not doing it to protect american lives. if that were the case, he would have taken action a long time ago to protect american lives. >> stephanie cutter, thank you very much. thanks for being with us today. >> thank you. as president trump continues to target his base, i'm joined by peter hart, veteran democratic pollster who is half of the team on our nbc

news/"wall street journal" poll, and lonnie chen, policy director of the romney/ryan campaign of 2012, and kimberly atkins, "boston globe" senior opinion writer and msnbc contributor. welcome, all. peter, the president is clearly targeting his base. but you've got some analysis based on our most recent polling on what incumbents to either convert voters, inspire the base, try to expand the pool. what are you seeing in the way voters are divided right now? >> well, andrea, thank you for having me. what it comes down to is a very small group of people. 21% of the voters. those are people who tend to be more male, they tend to be more independent, and they tend to be more moderate and working class. those are the people who are going to decide this election. the other 79% of the people have already made up their minds.

and if you're going to look at this election and analyze this convention, you've got to look at those people and how they react. >> we've seen in the past certainly how preconvention polls can really dramatically. we don't expect a big bounce from each of these conventions. they're back-to-back, there isn't a lag. but the president can do some dramatic things with vaccines. we've seen what he's done with convolessent plasma. the power of the incumbency. how does that factor? >> it factors a huge way because in 80 years we've only had to incumbents that have ever been defeated. so it's a huge herculean task. and the other thing is the president is appealing to groups he needs to appeal to. so he's done, i think, in the first night, not a terrible job, but has probably moved his case

forward by being the star of his own reality show, if i can put it that way. >> lonnie chen, for you, seeing a republican convention without a republican platform. i know the plat dform is for us nerds but they could not adopt a platform. >> i think their goal was to keep this all as simple as possible. to revolve the party platform to the extent there was going to be one. all of the convention proceedings around the figure of president trump. and, you know, the party platform is valuable more than just as a document to guide what voters want to think or ought to think about what the presidential candidate stands for. it also matters to republicans up and down the ticket. they could have made a simple statement. a newt gingrich-like statement that would have fit on a page and dissuaded criticism of not

having a platform. instead you have all these stories about not having a platform that end up being more damaging potentially to the party, more damaging potentially to the campaign. i think that's a factor that they probably should have assessed and thought about going into this convention. >> and kimberly, i wanted to play just part of nikki haley's very well received speech, but this caught a lot of eyes. take a look. >> there is one more important area where our president is right. he knows that political correctness and cancel culture are dangerous. and just plain wrong. in much of the democratic party, it's now fashionable to say that america is racist. that is a lie. america is not a racist country. >> how did that strike you, kimberly? >> well, it seemed to be not in line with a lot of what we saw

in the rest of the first night of the convention itself. this at a time where the country is really facing, in the first real comprehensive way that i've seen in my lifetime, the racism that does very much exist in this country. nikki haley saying that, talking about how she -- her work to remove the confederate flag that so many people who support donald trump want to see protected. donald trump himself calling it a piece of heritage that needs to be protected. and seeing -- and nikki haley sharing a platform with people like mark and patricia mccloskey who treated not only black and brown people but those who marched peacefully in their neighborhood in broad daylight to protect the rights of brown and black people from brutality, painting them as enemies of the country. that should be faced with a business end of a firearm. it just seemed very much discordant with what the rest of

the platform put on itself. >> there were a lot of people of color last night. a lot of black people. do you think they will be able, kimberly, to peel off votes, enough black votes? it's now about 8% support among blacks, if they can get 20% in places like detroit and philadelphia, milwaukee, they would actually have that narrow path to victory electorally. >> i don't know what you call a lot of black folks. we did see senator scott and some other people. if you looked at the roll call that the republicans put forward compare that to the democratic roll call, it was not very diverse at all. their image of -- >> i guess i mean the speakers. it was notable in the speakers. >> right. i think it's very difficult when so much of the message is grounded in grievance against people of color, grievance against the calls to end police

brutality, to bring black people on board. also we're in the middle of a pandemic that's disproportionately affected people of color. i think all of those things make that pitch a little more difficult, sure. black people are not a monolyth. there are black republicans and black conservatives and they may make that case to them. by and large, i do not see this message as expanding that base beyond what they did in 2016. it seems to be doubling down on the white working class people that they focus so much on last night. >> peter, do you think that melania trump will be able to appeal to those suburban women that they need so much? >> i would be questioning that because i think she's bringing a message that probably doesn't work. it doesn't deal with health care, and it doesn't deal with the other issues that these women are going through. so i think that she may help his style, but i don't see making

much of a dent there. >> to peter and lonnie and kimberly, thank you all so much. we're out of time today for "andrea mitchell reports." msnbc, of course, will have complete coverage of the republican national convention all day and our primetime coverage beginning at 7:00 eastern on msnbc with rachel maddow, nicolle wallace, joy reid and brian williams. and i'll be on nbc news on your local nbc station with lester, savannah guthrie and chuck todd. first, chuck todd is up next for the new hour of "mtp daily" only here on msnbc. here on msnbc. among my patients, i often see them have teeth sensitivity as well as gum issues. does it worry me? absolutely. sensodyne sensitivity & gum gives us the dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity

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♪ if it's tuesday, hope and optimism or fire and brimstone? the republican convention was supposed to be aspirational, but last night veered into the apocalyptic. plus, outrage in wisconsin after police shot jacob blake in the back as his children watched and video cameras rolled. welcome to tuesday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm tachuck todd. republicans aren't trying to win over the middle of the electorate. they're simply trying to win back disaffected trump skeptic members of their own party. think suburban republican voters. last night convention speakers railed against cancel culture

and