hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. any pretense that the white house serves as anything other than donald trump's campaign backdrop is gone, once and for all, replaced by a new trumpian norm of politicization of the people's house. last night's convention making abun dadantly clear that the on firmsly held belief in separating campaigning from governing has been shredded by this president. last night's convention pageantry was full of examples of donald trump fusing together the unique resources of his office, his white house, and even his cabinet in his own re-election effort. we'll show you the lowlights in a moment. but important to point out that we're tracking triple threats to the country this hour. donald trump's exploitation of presidential power to boost his campaign is just one of them. the other, a deadly hurricane heading for the gulf coast as we speak. and unrest and grief on the streets of kenosha, wisconsin,

after the shooting of jacob blake. we'll cover it all, but we'll start with donald trump's convention, which featured uniquely presidential acts and trappings, such as an official presidential pardon, a rose garden address from the first lady, a speech from the current sitting secretary of state, delivered on foreign soil, a mini naturalization ceremony, wherein the president, who has separated families and caged children, was flanked by his acting homeland security secretary, chad wolf, and made a show of embracing immigrants to this country. an event described in today's prank coverage as both highly irregular and gallingly hypocritical. michael shere in today's "new york times" writes this, quote, it was not the first time mr. trump has presided over such a ceremony, but the willingness to use the trappings of presidential power during a campaign convention was a stunning departure from the past in which prior presidents have avoided seeming to blur the lines between official xactions

and political activity. and mr. trump's explicit claim that he loves and appreciates immigrants stands in stark contrast to his record over the past four years, during which he has repeatedly pursued antiimmigrant policies, often fueled by zxenophobic language. and even if we're willing to accept that the disregard for both tradition that is typical of donald trump's white house, legal experts point out in today's "washington post" that such an event could actually constitute a violation of federal law. from that reporting, kathleen clark, a legal and government ethics professor at washington university in st. louis school of law said that the event appeared to be designed as part of the convention, an action that would violate a criminal provision of the hatch act. now, under the act, federal employees are prohibited from using their authority to influence the election of a presidential candidate, she said, calling trump and wolf,

quote, breathtaking in their contempt for the law. donald trump's contempt for the rule of law is where we start today. kimberly atkins, senior opinion writer for the "boston globe" is here, plus political strategist, steve schmidt and john heilemann. john heilemann, i'm over wondering if the trump voter cares about the corruption of the presidency that's really been on display since day one. but i wonder if it takes away from the credibility with the kinds of voters they're targeting this week. you know, we've had -- they still need the trump base. they're in as much trouble as the polls suggest. but if they really think they're making a play to reassemble the coalition, i'm not sure the corruption of the presidency is a winning message. >> nicole, i think it's not. i will say that, you know, it was stunning. i mean, the first thing to acknowledge here is just how stunning it was and for people

who are as old as i am, you and steve schmidt a little younger than my geriatric self, but we've all been around the block a few times and seen republicans and democrats hold a few conventions in our time, covered them, worked on them, staged them, gotten in fights at them. >> with each other, sometimes! >> the sheer daaudacity -- yes, exactly, back in the old days. the sheer audacity of it. the audacity of the corruption, the big grift, as i heard you call it last night on television, it's just -- even if you are someone who is not -- who doesn't care that much about tradition, it was just -- it was a genuinely painful thing to e see -- defiled is about the only word i can think to use. watching that -- it was a reality show they put on with melania trump last night. that video that was produced,

the walk down through the colonnade, you know, the whole thing, just stunning. but i think your question is, on a political basis, does anyone care? and -- you know, his voters don't care. his voters like the idea that the party has become the party of trump and the idea that trump is the grand and powerful oz. democrats hate it. does this corruption argument matter to the people who are still movable? and i have my doubts only in the sense that in a time of covid, in a time of 40 million people unemployed and a time of racial unrest and police brutality again on display and the way we saw it this week, there are such large macro issues facing the country that it's hard for me to imagine that an available voter in pittsburgh or in wisconsin or in arizona, that this argument, which is going to feel to a lot of them like an academic argument, as much as we all feel

it passionately in our bones as we make it on television, is that going to turn someone off and send them scurrying into joe biden's arms given the stakes of these other large issues. i wish it we but i have my doubts. >> i have mine, too. but i think, though, about, before 2016 election, i went out and interviewed moms and looked at the mom vote. and i talked to some folks in education in new york today. and there are real questions about the behavior that's being modeled around corruption, around lies. let me show you some of what jim comey had to say last night at the parallel republican convention, steve. >> donald trump has a way of staining everyone around him. and that sure has been true of attorney general william barr, who was a respected lawyer before he decided to join the trump administration and ended up marching ining through lafa square on trump's bible mission. he was a respected lawyer before he decided to serve with a president who called people cooperating with the department of justice rats and praised

those who obstructed justice and lied to protect him. a president who took putin's side over his own intelligence community, who routinely lied about the people of the fbi. a president who smeared robert mueller, a true american patriot, who literally bled for this nation in vietnam, and then devoted his life to serving the country. in a way, it's sad, what has happened to bill barr. i wish he had the character not to be warped by donald trump. maybe a stronger, more principled attorney general would have been able to protect the rule of law. but then, maybe he would have gotten fired for trying. >> you know, steve, it is a nuanced argument that may only resonate inside of washington, but there are some things that anyone can grab on to. any parent whose child has been bullied is taught to -- or who goes through the experience of urging their child to go to the authorities. in this case, i think comey's bigger point is that all of the

authorities are stained and corrupted by donald trump. >> oh, they sure are. look, nicole, this convention is at the highest level a travesty. we've never seen such dishonesty broadcast to the american people as we have during this convention. and remarkably, we have 180,000 dead americans and the proposition that this convention is putting forward is that covid is largely behind us. donald trump has done a great job with it, when we know, of course, the reality is that we're the epicenter of coronavirus death and suffering and we have a wreck committed because of it. and it doesn't matter if this isn't an issue that moves public opinion or not with regard to the defilement of the white house. it matters, because what donald trump is doing is illegal. it is against the law. and he has sworn to uphold the laws and it matters.

let's look at the rose garden address. rose garden, a place that you and i have had the privilege to spend some time in. every rose that was planted by a first lady from 1913 forward was ripped up as part of the rose garden renovation and the cherry trees were cut down so they could get a better camera angle for melania trump, who despite the praise from some, from the speech last night, i think it's important to remember, is a birther and told the country last night that her husband would never do anything but tell the truth to the american people, which we know is absurd. we are a democratic republic. we ever a democrat of the people, by the people, for the people, which means that house is our house. it's not donald trump's house. the president of the united states lives there as a temporary custodian of the people's house. it's the highest honor that a

citizen can receive in the united states, is to have the opportunity to live in that magnificent residence as a place of personal residence. but all of these symbols, the symbols of state, the powerful symbols of the united states of america have been co-opted for a political purpose. we saw the use and the abuse of the united states marine corps on national television. where is the outrage from the commandant of the marine corps? where is it? we saw the secretary of state on the roof of the king david hotel from jerusalem, in a blatant appeal to evangelical voters, abusing his office. now, mike pompeo has fantasies of being president himself some day. what we saw yesterday was an amateur up on that roof, who lacks the skills to mount a successful presidential campaign. and i think he'll find that out the hard way, as he gets rolling

in the 2024 election. but everywhere you look around this convention, you see race baiting, you see lying, delusion, dishonesty, the repeating of russian disinformation and talking points, part of the joe biden conspiracy forwarded by pam bondi. we'll have the qanon nut in the crowd for the president's speech. the use and abuse of these potent american symbols is just disgraceful. it's a defilement and it matters not just because it's illegal, but because those symbols belong tul to all of us. and it just confirms what we've known all along is donald trump is a man who has no appreciation for or respect for the dignity of the office that it's his honor to hold. >> kim atkins, john and steve have both used the word "defiled," and it may be just

this sentiment that a former staffer holds. when steve and i worked for george w. bush's re-election, we were not permitted in the west wing. we met with him after, you know, outside the hours of 8 and 6:00, in the residence, because there was such a commitment to keeping separate the campaign, the re-election effort, and the people's business. president obama, i understand, from his former staffers, was just as strict about those things, when he ran for re-election as the sitting president. to pick up on steve's point, you know, i take his argument. it doesn't matter if this moves voters. this to me last night jumped the shark from, you know, tracking the lies, which is what frankly every news organization is prepared to do, to just overt propaganda, produced by the state, on state property, and broadcast across all of our airwaves. >> yes, and look, i think it's

important to underscore why we have laws like the hatch act, which prohibit -- which really seek to separate campaigning from governing. it's so that the taxpayer-funded office of the president or of other high-ranking federal officials is not used for political purposes. is not used for one party over another, because they're supposed to be doing the work of all americans. and it's also to prevent someone from using the trappings of an office in order to hold an office. that is something that authoritarians do. and that's something that we do not want in a democratic society. there are reasons for these laws. they're just not laws for the sake of them. so that's what is really shocking about this. and yes, we've seen this president do it before, but i don't think that normalization, just because we see it repeating, repetitively, is a

good idea. and what we saw last night was an extreme version of that. and also, another point worth noting, specifically about secretary pompeo that diplomats, members of the state department are especially supposed to be apolitical. when they go overseas and speak on behalf of america, they should be speaking on behalf of america, not as a political body, not as one party within america, but as the country. and so for mike pompeo not only to cut a video while on official work, but also to do it in one of the most sensitive, religious, and geopolitical sites in the world, the old city of jerusalem, was particularly galling. and of course, the idea of that is that we've seen this president take credit for actually moving the capital of israel, which the american president can dmnot do. he moved the embassy. but it shows just how far this

administration is going over the lines that are set up in order to protect democracy, in order to ensure that elected officials do the work of all people and are not using to it benefit themselves, completely throwing all of those rules out the window. >> and just for kicks and giggles, and because we know if the shoe were on the other foot, republicans would be all over the airwaves talking about the laws that were broken. let's go through them, john heilemann. rebecca ballhaus reporting on a white house statement. the white house actually engaging on questions of the illegality of the naturalization ceremony. rebecca tweeted this. a white house official says the naturalization ceremony in the convention program tonight didn't violate the hatch act because the white house, quote, publicized the content of the event on a public website this afternoon and the campaign decided to use the publicly available content for campaign purposes. i'd bet a daily delivery of doughnuts that the campaign googled the hatch act skpand sa

you've got to put it on a website before we put it into tonight's program and not the other way around, john heilemann. >> oh, i'm certain, i'm certain that's true, nicole. and the thing about this convention, and despite my unfortunate view that it -- none of this may matter. and i want to be clear, i agree with steve. obviously, in principle, it all matters. and we should all be, at the level of the disgrace that this thing is, it should be called out, it should be condemned, and democrats should do everything in their power to try to hold to account the president and his political team and his white house -- >> but why democrats, heilemann? if laws were broken, shouldn't law enforcement look into it? >> because -- house of representatives, nicole -- well, i think they should, although i do think in general that it's the legislators. look, i think it's unlikely in

this corrupt administration that we'll suddenly see the fbi come storming in and arrests people under the hatch act, although it would be delightful if it happened. i think democrats are the ones with oversight on this, because they control the house of representatives and they're more likely to make an issue of it. i'm all for it, right? but i think what this convention is more than anything is it's a dist distillation of everything that we've seen that's troubling in this area and the notion of the fundamental corruption that's been on display for four years has now been distilled and made into kind of a very, very thick sauce here. it's like a port wine reduction. and it's being jammed down our throats every night. and part of the reason all of us find it so nauseating is that we've seen all of this stuff before, but somehow to see it in this reduced and purified and distilled a form is illuminating, in a way that -- and it's bracing in a way even

those of us who have been complaining about these matters and calling them out for the last four years, to see it this won tonally flau ly wontonally flaunted by this team, they're saying, that kind of an answer you just read, the obvious thin legal pretext of it, the cheapness of the answer is a way of basically giving a middle finger to anybody who asks the question. and their attitude is, you know, we will -- we will digni >> we lost john heilemann, we'll try to get him back. i'll let you have the last word and finish that thought. and as someone who's anchoring these nights, it is exactly what he described. it is this distillation, but i've got one more question to layer on as you button this up. it suggests to me that the opposite of the trump indictment is true. there's no trump derangement syndrome. there's trump apathy syndrome. we didn't do enough as he

flouted the laws. as mitt romney tried to make the argument when trump refused to release his taxes. it seems to me that grading him on a curve has come back to bite all of us in the rear end. >> it was a very, very big deal and we all laughed about it when sean spicer walked out on day one of this administration with two pictures and told us that the picture with the smaller crowd in fact had the bigger crowd and to this day, you can go to the sites and look up the quotes from the people that agree with spicer. and we were introduced by kellyanne conway not long after to the concept of alternative facts. we've seen a three and a half-year assault on the idea of truth, the concept of objective truth, and it's dangerous, because a democratic society cannot be sustained on a garbage heap of lies. it requires the bedrock granite of truth. and that's what this is about.

every small corruption has led to a greater one. and that's what this election fundamentally comes down to, is the disaster that the next four years would be with an unchecked president trump. >> kim atkins, steve schmidt, john heilemann, three of my favorite human beings, thank you for telling the truth and spending some time with us. when we come back, one of the worst weather events to hit the texas and louisiana coast in years is expected to hit them tonight. we'll talk to our friend, al roker about the national hurricane center warning today of an unsurvivable storm surge. plus, we'll head back to wisconsin, the police killing of jacob blake has sparked another night of protests. last night's turning deadly. an arrest has been made as the president says he'll call in federal law enforcement. the very latest on all the developments there. and despite what you heard last night, covid-19 is very much a real and present tense danger and problem. another grim milestone reached

today with the biden/harris ticket are saying about it. all of those stories, coming up. t all of those stories, coming up.

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hurricane laura, which just a few hours ago was upgraded to an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane is barreling toward louisiana and texas. it is expected to make landfall late tonight into early tomorrow morning. the national hurricane center warned this storm will bring with it an unsurvivable storm surge in some areas, where surges of up to 10 to 20 feet could reach 30 miles inland. let's bring in nbc's very own al roker with the latest.

al, are those warnings designed to scare people into heedi inin evacuation orders? >> well, i don't think they're designed to scare people into heeding them. i think it's just fact that this -- if this comes to fruition, when you get to a storm surge of 20 feet, you can't survive that. that's just not possible. so i think they want people to heed these warnings. because as you look at this, nicole, this system, you can see the feeder bands already just to the west of new orleans, across lake charles, the national hurricane center already reporting water starting to pile up along the texas/louisiana border. this thing runs with a 400 miles -- it's 175 miles south-southeast of port arthur. 140-mile-per-hour winds. if it makes landfall at this category 4, which we expect it to, some time late tonight, it will be the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall along the texas/louisiana border. dangerous rain, wind gusts, storm surge. it will make that landfall after

midnight. and then weaken as it moves inland, but still bringing flooding, tornados, strong winds, as well. here's the big danger, nicole, that we're looking at. as you mentioned, the storm surge, anywhere from 10 to 20 feet. and at that level, we could see this storm surge moving 30 miles inland. that's almost to i-10. the storm surge is basically a wall of water pushed by those oncoming winds from the hurricane. and that's the deadliest-related threat. 3 feet will cause that surge to be considered life-threatening. you get to 6 feet, walls get blown out, windows, buildings start to get moved off their foundations. by 9 feet or more, that's when the inland surge happens, that's when entire neighborhoods can be wiped out. and that's why they're saying some places, it's an unsurvivable surge. plus, you've got the winds, which will take down power lines and trees that still have plenty of leaves on them. you look at the outage potential

through thursday, we're talking outages that will probably last, nicole, right on into next week and maybe even the next couple of weeks. and of course, we've got that heavy rain that will cause flash flooding right up the mississippi river valley. moderate-to-major river flooding. and even if you don't live along the gulf, don't think you're immune from this. this heavy rain threat will continue friday as it makes its way up into the ohio river valley, isolated tornadoes possible, and more heavy rain into the northeast and mid-atlantic on saturday, with locally heavy rain and gusty winds. so, nicole, the biggest threat, the biggest danger, of course, is down along the gulf, that louisiana/texas border. but a lot of folks are going to be affected by this thing as we move into the end of this week. >> al roker, you've covered a lot of weather tragedies, but what do you have to say to folks who are making their plans for their families and their kids at the time of covid? are people more nervous about heading to shelters and is there any advice coming from the

government for them? >> they've been telling people, a lot of communities have been very proactive. they want to get people out on buses, but keeping in mind, social distancing, they can only put half as many people on those buses. they've been really active about it. we've been watching sam brock down there. he said a lot of folks had masks on. if you don't have a mask, you didn't get on the bus. so a lot of people, they're trying to keep socially distant sheltering, using oehotels, motels, things like that. and as a last resort, it will be those big box kind of gymnasiums and things like that. but in the meantime, i think a lot of folks are heeding the warnings but also being socially distant and cognizant of covid-19, nicole. >> for all our viewers affected by this storm, we'll be covering and it calling on al the rest of our team all night keeping an eye on you. thank you, al, spending some

time with us. after the break, the latest from kenosha, wisconsin, ahead of what could be another night of unrest following the police shooting of jacob blake. that story next. of jacob blake. that story next. want restaurants to open?

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♪ ♪ there's a developing situation happening right now in the nba. game five of the playoff series between the milwaukee bucks and the orlando magic was supposed to tip off half an hour ago, but right now there are no players on the court. it appears both team are boycotting the game as a stand

against racial injustice. we should note, milwaukee is 40 minutes north of kenosha. that comes as donald trump today announced that he would be sending additional federal law enforcement to kenosha, wisconsin, ahead of what is expected to potentially be another night of unrest there. after last night's demonstrations, when protesters threw rocks and bottles at police, who answered them and that with tear gas and armored vehicles, authorities today moved up the capri there by an hour to 7:00 p.m. oak lime and called in additional state resources. all of this stands to agitate an already chaotic and tragic situation, particularly after what happened last night. a quick warning. we're about to show you a very graphic video. it happened shortly before midnight. a man with a gun running away from the crowd, you can see people follow, the armed man falls down and someone tries to get his gun. you see the gunfire. then someone drops to the ground. more shots, more people fall.

in the end, two people were dead, a third injured. we don't know what happened before that video. we don't know if that armed man was taken into custody. we do know as of this afternoon that officers in illinois arrested a 17-year-old in connection with the shooting. joining us now from kenosha, wisconsin, nbc news correspondent, shaq brewster. also joining us, the rev, al sharpton, host of "politics nation" here on msnbc and the president of the national action network. i want to get into the family, i want to get into the nba, i want to start with what's happening on the ground in kenosha with you, shaq brewster. >> nicole, you mentioned the arrest of that 17-year-old. he came from illinois, about 30 minutes away from where we are here in kenosha, and she is now in police custody. what we do know is from the police statement, there was a press conference earlier today, the mayor was involved, the county executive, but also the police department and they say that he was the person that shot

and killed two people during a protest last night. we know that one other person is injured at this point. it is an incredibly tense scene. there have been three consecutive nights of violence. and this is the first time that things have turned deadly. i can tell you that right now the city feels like they're still preparing for a potential fourth night of violence. new barricades and barriers are being put up. there will be an increase in the national guardmen and women that are coming here to kenosha. yesterday it was about 250. now it's up to 500 people. that capurfew that you mentione was 8:00 p.m., now pulled up to 7:00 p.m. police explained that they're doing that because they want to be able to clear out areas like this, this is a place that has been a flashpoint for protests. we're right in front of the courthouse, we want to be able to clear out areas like this from remaining protesters when they have daylight, so they can avoid situations like we

continued to have yesterday. let's not forget the original situation that sparked all of this. the shooting of mr. jacob blake. the police during their press conference earlier today, they explained that they haven't been able give any new details to exactly what happened, to the circumstances surrounding the shooting, because in wisconsin, when there is a police shooting, the investigation then shorthanded off to an outside agency or at least another department. so the police chief said he wasn't able to give specifics on exactly what happened. we know the state is now involved in investigating the original shooting and we know the federal government is assisting that investigation. so there are still many questions. there's still a lot of anger, and there's still high tensions here in kenosha as we're heading into a fourth night of protests. nicole? >> rev -- shaq, stay with us. rev, i want to bring you in. let me play again. you and i watched it in realtime, but jacob's mom, his whole family has been calling for calm in jacob's name and i

believe senator harris and former vice president biden both spoke with the family. let me someplace some of that sound and we'll talk about it on the other side. >> jacob knew what was going on, as far as that goes, the violence and the destruction, he would be very unpleased. so i really asking and encouraging everyone in wisconsin and abroad to take a moment and examine your heart. >> and here's former vice president joe biden. >> in the midst of this pain, the swwisest words i've heard spoken so far come from julia

jackson, jacob's mother. she looked at the damage done in her community and said this, quote, this doesn't reflect my son or my family. so let's unite and heal. do justice, end the violence and end systemic racism in this country now. >> rev, that is a conversation taking place here on planet earth, where we all learned about the damage to jacob's body that those seven bullets did. where we lift up the words of a grieving mother and father, but that's not what we're hearing from the republican convention this week. >> we are not hearing that from the republican convention. and i'm here in washington now, as we prepare for the march on washington on friday, that the mother and father will be joining other families here. that have been victims of police brutality and others things, in terms of race based violence. and i think it is unfortunate

that all of these things happen to force the conversation, but we're not hearing a real conversation from the white house or the senate, which is one of the reasons that we're challenge i challenging friday here. the senate must pass legislation. we must have these trials. yes, we all denounce the violence. and the violence not only is in my opinion immoral. i come out of the non-violent movement, i think it tactically hurts the family. if you can depict those who have been victims like mr. blake or those deceased like george floyd and others that saying that they were wild, therefore the police had to do this because of the actions of people that didn't even know them, they're actually hurting the family's calls. and i think that no one said it better than miss jackson, young blake's mother, and i think that all of us have said that we cannot behave in a way that

potential jurors would feel that there was this recklessness on the side of the victims here. we can't get in the way of our own messages. the message must be, we need to deal with the racial inequality, the lack of fairness in the criminal justice system, and police reform. and that needs to be legislated. we cannot have the message be that we are responding in violence. anger is understood. i'm more angry than anybody. i've been fighting this for decades. but let's do something about what we're angry about. let's not feed the anger. >> rev, we have also had a lot of conversations around the -- i guess it's a figurative table, not a literal table anymore, about donald trump's exploitation of athletes, professional athletes with a platform, standing up for -- and raising awareness of these issues. doc rivers had some comments that i think have made their way around the world.

let's watch some of that. >> all you hear is donald trump and all of them talking about fear. we're the ones getting killed. we're the ones getting shot. we're the ones that were denied to live in certain communities. it's amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back. >> it's hard to watch, i think that's the point. but those comments came about, i think, 18 hours before this breaking news that game five of the playoffs series between the milwaukee bucks and the orlando magic that was supposed to start 20 minutes ago was boycotted by both teams. i wonder your thoughts about, in this vacuum of leadership from the white house, from our current leaders in one party, whose platform is literally just, we like donald trump, has made movements, boycotts, and

statements like that more resonant than even they would be normally. >> i think it does resonate, because they are shifting the culture. these are heroes to all kinds of americans. black, white, latino, asian, and they're a statement, by not playing tonight. and by other statements, resonates because if i say it, i'm a civil rights activist, or others in the civil rights community. but if doc rivers is saying this and others like lebron james, it helps move the culture to where people say, well, wait a minute, these are people that we admire. and the irony of it, at one level, but the hypocrisy of it, if you want to be real, is the president will attack athletes taking a stand for social justice, but then he will have william refrigerator perry come out and make a statement on his behalf at the republican convention. so he really has nothing against

athletes taking political stands. he just has them that take them against him. because how do you bring out a retired nfl player and then talk about the people that supported colin kaepernick that were in the nfl sobs? you can't have it both ways. and to have this convention going on, nicole, where you feature on opening night, to a couple on their only claim to fame is that they held automatic weapons in front of their big house on non-violence protesters, who were indicted for and under indictment, they are part of the opening night of the republican convention. and you wonder why we're angry and why we're concerned and why we're marching? i mean, how do you become an opening night speaker, because you hold automatic weapons on nonviolent protesters, who are only saying, we want black lives to matter like everyone else in

this country? >> shaq, i want to end where i started with the facts on the ground. there's part of this videotape that i want to play again. it appears the alleged gunman is walking right by police and they appear, in the video, not to do anything. was this confusion or what's your understanding or the latest reporting? >> well, we don't know the particulars about what was happening in that exact moment. there was so much video, nicole, from last night. and i think one thing that's striking in one of the clips, you hear, as one of the victims is being attended to, you hear active gunfire going on around him and he says, people are shooting all around me. and i think one thing to note is as i was here not during that situation, but in this main plaza as there were protests going on and the clashes with police, there were so many people who had guns. people who were saying that they were protecting themselves from protesters, people who said they were helping to protect protesters. people who just had long guns or

handguns holstered to their belts. so there was a lot of guns out last night. and i know in that video you only see one person carrying a long gun, but that's something police had to contend with during this protest. people bringing those long gun times to make a point, and other times, to have some intimidation and prevent some of that looting from continuing last night. so that's one of the things, you know, the police chief mentioned in his press conference today that he said, somebody called me and said, why don't you just deputize some of the citizens who have guns? some of the citizens who are armed? and he said, the reason why we don't that is because of exactly what happened last night, where you have a situation with people who aren't trained, aren't well versed in what's going on and you have people shooting one another and leading to two people dead and one person injured. it could have been much worse than that. and that's kind of the scene that you've been seeing here in kenosha. and it's the reason why you have so many leaders, so many

political leaders here calling for more help, calling for a more aggressive stance here in kenosha, to not only preserve the property that has been damaged over the past couple of days, but to preserve and help protect the lives that have been lost just in the past few days. >> and let me just say to all of our viewers, just a programming note, if you take in any of the republican convention, which is a propaganda festival this week put on by donald trump's campaign against the backdrop of the majestic white house, when you hear them talk about and try sto sca to scare you, as doc rivers said there, about joe biden's america, these pictures are from donald trump's america. just a thought. shaq brewster, the rev al sha sharpton, thank you both for spending some time with us. new reporting raising a big question. did the trump administration sabotage cdc testing guidelines in order to cut down on their coronavirus test numbers? looks for that new reporting, next. s test numbers looks for that new reporting, next

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do not have symptoms of covid-19, even if they are recently exposed, according to two federal health officials. senior spokesperson and adviser, lily adams, and practicing physician and former obama health policy director who worked on the country's h1n1 response, dr. patel. let me start with you. donald trump said this out loud since the beginning, that the only reason we have cases is because we test. it seems like he's finally got his way. >> that's absolutely right, nicole. look, i try not to be, you know i try not to be salacious or emotional about this. put a fork in me, i'm done. this is ridiculous. this is now one in many sequences of events that we know of, nicole. so just briefly, as a reminder, the cdc just did a statement, if

you are asymptomatic, in contact, close contact with someone with covid, you don't need testing. it doesn't take a genius to figure out that will make numbers lower, decrease daily count of the coronavirus. so you're absolutely right. and in a press briefing today, we heard the cdc's recommendations were heavily edited, heavily edited by dr. scott atlas, dr. fauci and dr. berks among others. that's unacceptable. every american should be dramatically concerned about who has their best health and interests at heart. >> lily, it also comes at a time when donald trump is asking moms and dads to do something really flipping terrifying, send kids back into classrooms. the only way to make it more terrifying is say you can't get a test without symptoms, especially with kids. >> that's absolutely right.

you've seen from donald trump that he wants to just pretend this will magically disappear, that it will miraculously go away. so he is using political pressure against the cdc so that he can pretend this is not happening, that 180,000 people haven't died from the virus. i tell you, nicole, talk to any family member of any of the 180,000 people, this virus is very real, even if it is not on stage at the republican national convention. >> it is more than not on stage, i mean, they're crafting a show in which covid doesn't exist. melania out there yesterday dressed to the nines but not with a mask. a crowd not sitting in chairs six feet apart but very close together. a smattering of masks. donald trump, you know, holding the events inside the white house where no one is wearing a mask, no one is six feet apart. they're crafting an alternate reality where covid isn't

ravaging this country. >> it's true. he wants to pretend we're not hurdling towards 6 million cases. 180,000 have died, including 1200 just yesterday who passed away from covid-19. the only numbers he cares about are his poll numbers. that's been the case from day one. unfortunately, it is deadly. >> dr. patel, let me ask you what people should do. if you have been on an airplane or around someone you learn tests positive for covid, how do you get a test anyway? >> great question. first of all, i think good news is that you've got health care professionals, doctors, nurses, emts ready and using their brain. i don't think any of us have for any reason, think if someone comes and tells us i was in a situation and i'm not sure, what should i do, we are trying to

test people. what i am concerned about is the decision from the cdc, that effects what snainsurance compas can do, how people are held responsible to pay for tests. i'll order the tests, doctors will order it, people will get screened and tested, but i'm worried they're going to get hundreds of dollars if not thousands of dollars of surprise bills. so we need congress, i know they're in recess. we need action. i know that right now, we're trying to understand as health professionals what to do, but if you are coming off a plane, worried about your child, call. we will test you. i'm just concerned now that the effects are going to be far greater than we even anticipated. >> i want to come back to your opening comment, you said stick a fork in me, i'm done. there is a sense that at every clash with scientists, they run right through it. they ran dr. fauci off broadcast networks like this one.

they ran the numbers away from the cdc and toward hhs. they're now running testing guidelines. they corrupted back to school guidelines. is there fatigue among scientists and health advisers that they're winning the fight between politics and science? >> yes, there is fatigue. i mean, you know, i have been kind of a veteran of washington and not in the way people think. i worked with scientists and doctors across both four administrations which only means this is something i've never seen, and we're all kind of mystified by it. so it's definitely something we're all concerned about, i would say more than that, i do feel like the american public needs to ask questions, ask what the data shows, ask about what the data shows for a vaccine, and be inquisitive. this is the time to ask questions and demand transparency. >> it was a pleasure to spend

time with both of you. when we come back, more on breaking news. nba players taking a stand in the wake of the latest police shooting in wisconsin. another hour of deadline white house starts after a quick break. line white house starts after a quick break.

then came a once in 100 year pandemic. it was awful. health and economic impacts were tragic, hardship and heartbreak were everywhere, but presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the covid virus. >> the virus we're talking about

having to do, a lot of people think it goes away in april with the heat, as the heat comes in, and typically that will go away in april. we're in great shape though. >> donald will not rest until he has done all he can to take care of everyone impacted by this terrible pandemic. >> i think it's under control. >> how? a thousand americans are dying a day. >> they're dying, it is true. it is what it is. >> 1200 died yesterday. hi, everyone. 5:00 in new york. there's reality and then there's the donald trump reality distortion field chu swhich you there, one that's overtaken the republican party and its convention. the ultimate reality that was the second night of the rnc. coronavirus was made out to be a thing of the past, something we survived, endured, something donald trump made better, thanks to his swift and valiant heroics, miraculously saving the country from disease and economic despair. a narrative so ripe for a fact

check, it would be laughable if the truth wasn't grim for so many americans. it is a revisionist version of recent history belied by hours of videotape in which the president minimized the threat of the virus for months, falsely predicted it would disappear with warmer weather, promoted several unproven miracle cures, pushed states to reopen before meeting federal government benchmarks, equivocated on mask wearing, defied social distancing guidelines, and repeatedly told americans that everything was under control. hours of videotape, not an exaggeration, but the spin which could more accurately be described as blatant propaganda from trump and allies withers against the facts that americans are waking up to back here in real life on planet earth day after day. a death toll that surpassed 180,000 americans, with the most reliable models in medicine and science predicting 300,000 americans will die by december

1st. the economy, fears that trump supposedly saved us from will become permanent and the covid job crisis could look like the great recession. that's real life in donald trump's america, the one nowhere to be found, seen, spoken about at the republican national convention. that is to say nothing of the racial unrest, reignited in kenosha, wisconsin and across the country after jacob blake was shot seven times in the back in front of his kids by the police. to say nothing about the hurricane barreling towards the border. two states are reeling from the pandemic. we're watching both those breaking news stories this hour. we'll bring you news on all their fronts when we learn it. we begin with republican disinformation campaign. msnbc's alicia ne -- menendez is

here and michael steele. announcing support for joe biden, here's a question for you. is it too late to save the country from the republican party? >> i don't think so. i think there's real value in having the conversation. i think a lot of americans get and understand what's happening inside the party. i just wish more folks would step into their leadership here. look, this is not about rejection of principles, i am still a conservative, a republican, will throw down with any democrat anytime, anywhere on those big policy issues or small ones, but this election is about things that matter. this matters. you listed coming into the segment a series of national events that are occurring that are effecting the lives of every person in some way, even if

you're not in wisconsin or in houston, you're still effected by that. we're looking for leadership that can talk to us. talk us through these moments and give us assurances that on the other side of today, tomorrow will be okay. don't just tell me you gave me a tax cut and i'll be okay, don't just tell me the unemployment rate is low and you'll be okay. tell me something more than those things in your leadership that matters for me, your empathy, compassion, understanding. just that you're going to listen. just don't give me that pat, paternalistic father would give me when he doesn't intend to do what you want him to do or he's kind of making you feel good in the moment and nothing follows up. touch my heart in a way that i have confidence that tomorrow will be better, and i think that's what a lot of republicans have a chance to do, not by the

stage craft that we saw at the white house last night but in other real tangible ways. that's just what's been missing the last three-and-a-half years. >> the audacity and the sort of distance you can travel when you have no shame, when you're totally owning your own griftyness is amazing. when you have no shame, when you don't revere the people's house, when you don't see that something is sacred that doesn't belong to you, you will prostitute it out for your re-election campaign, hold a naturalization ceremony for all things the man that caged children at the border, you'll sit people close together, not six feet apart, won't require masks to keep them safe, you will showcase things in the people's house that have no business being showcased there.

>> nicole, we've seen all week with the republican national convention an effort at a revisionist history, a stitching together of a different three-and-a-half years of the trump administration than the one we all witnessed and have chronicled in the news and out of desperation to some degree by the president to try to recover some of the losses he experienced with different groups of voters, in particular white women, white suburban women, college educated women who have abandoned the president. there's been an effort last night to cast him as somehow pro immigrant, open to people of all colors, races, beliefs. and we know that has not been true in the course of this presidency, but that's the image that was being projected last night, and with regards to the people's house, using the white house, using federal resources, i don't think the president feels any shame about that. he very much believes this is his house, he can use it as he

wants. he and his aides are openly flouting the federal law. we heard that this morning from white house chief of staff mark meadows who told our friend jake sherman at politico that people outside the beltway don't care about the hat check and effectively impair am paraphras it is okay if we break the law because folks in america don't give a damn about it. >> alicia, it is a big gamble. they decided people out in america don't give a damn about bounties on the heads of american soldiers serving in afghanistan. you know, they said basically it is what it is, you know? i don't care. they don't care about russia meddling in the 2016 election, you know. said he didn't do it, i believed him, donald trump told us. they're making a big gamble that people don't care about living in a democracy. >> there's the gamble that people don't care. there's also the gamble that you can distort reality, right, that

you can have melania trump get up, give this speech where she's trying to round off all of the president's edges, trying to erase some of his racist past when she, herself made racist, birther statements against the former president. she's going to get up and school america's parents about being responsible with their children on social media when her husband uses social media to bully and intimidate countless americans. she's talking about her own legal path to citizenship when her husband is actively working to cut that same path to citizenship for so many other americans. i mean, i, as you were, was completely struck by the naturalization ceremony inside the white house where on one hand, the president is hoping you will watch the optics of this, watch the five people that are going to get to become u.s. citizens and ignore the fact that you have about a half million people who are in a backlog, waiting themselves to become u.s. citizens who

probably won't be able to do that in time for november, won't be able to become voters. he is hoping that you ignore the fact he made radical changes to asylum, changing the moral fabric of america, ignoring the fact he ended the daca program, ignoring the fact that there are thousands of migrant children separated from their parents. part of the gamble to your question is whether or not people care. part of the gamble is in imagining you can put forward an entirely different inaccurate lie riddled view of your own record four years into your administration. >> alicia, you're on fire. let me show you this from melania. ask you to pick up on the other side. she said this. donald is the husband that supports me in all i do. he has built a demonstration with an unprecedented number, an administration with an

unprecedented number of women in leadership roles. donald trump based on reporting of "new york times" and "the washington post" wrote hush money checks to cover up an affair with a porn star, he has been accused of sexual misconduct by 19 women and counting. supporter roy moore who ran for the senate after being accused of having sexual relations with very young children. to hold donald trump out as someone who has built an administration with an unprecedented number of women in leadership, there's audacity and then there's just as you said the outright distortion field. alicia? >> i have to say, the speech doesn't have the same effect when you deliver it, nicole. i think there's just a bet here that the messenger is strong enough, right, that you will disregard all those facts. we had a lot of those facts going into 2016, nicolle, there were voters that were specifically, a lot of suburban

women that chose to ignore those facts. i think it is telling that this time when you look at the numbers of suburban women, the thing that they're most wrangled by is this president's handling of the coronavirus, which larry kudlow talked about in the past tense. they're wrangled by the way in which he hasn't met the moment when it comes to protests across this country, calling for racial equality, and they're living day to day the reality of the mishandling of the pandemic. they're living the fact they need to be mother, caretaker, teacher, and then vast majority of them also have to do their paid job. so that reality, that day to day reality is undeniable and will likely play a larger role in their decision going into november than a lot of what you rightfully laid out at the beginning of the question. >> michael steele, there's some breaking news. the nba has postponed all their games today.

the nba is always sitting more comfortably in the pocket of expressing the country's outrage around issues of racial injustice. started with the milwaukee bucks, orlando game that was supposed to start and then didn't. now all nba playoff games are cancelled in protest of the police shooting of jacob blake. >> powerful statement. as you know, and we all know who follow this particular sport, those players are closest to the ground. they come from a lot of those neighborhoods, grew up, lived, worked in those neighborhoods, so they know whether it is milwaukee or if it is baltimore or anywhere in the country what it is like to be exposed that way by a system that's still refusing to acknowledge the wrong of having police behave the way they do when they

encounter a black man. when you look at the video, you can see not one but about seven or eight different moments where that shooting could have been avoided. you go what is it that you see in this man that your only response is to pull out a gun and shoot him in the back. cudos to the nba. thank you for standing on the principle that somehow, some way, sometime you're going to stop and pay attention, and if it is going to eat into your entertainment and eat into your budget, so be it. maybe perhaps then we save another person from having that fate happen to them. i am hoping we see more of this, not just in sports and at the same time industry, where black and brown people, they take a moment, we have to draw the

line. we're going to draw the line here. how many weeks after george floyd, still no resolution to breonna taylor or? come on, this isn't rocket science. we get what you're saying to us. now there's something being said back, and that's a good thing. >> that's a really good thing. phil rucker, it strikes me that the undoing of donald trump's floor was by being awol on the pandemic that as alicia says effects every person in this country because their business is boarded up or juggling everything she ticked off, teaching their kids, doing their full-time job, taking care of their family. now it is going to be harder to get a covid test because of new cdc guidelines. but he has been most awal on the reckoning. more than 70% of americans associate themselves with goals

and aims of black lives matter. that number up, upwards. the public, at least 70 plus percent think it means justice for everyone. i wonder if there's any effort to rip up the script tonight and address the unrest. >> there may be, nicolle. we have to see. vice president pence is giving his formal acceptance speech at fort mchenry in baltimore tonight, we'll see if he addresses issues playing out in wisconsin, but i would argue that president trump actually hasn't been awol on this issue. part of what's dragging him down, he has been talking about it in an off tone way. we all remember what happened in lafayette park where he had peaceful protesters cleared by force by federal authorities to do a photo op in front of a

church holding up a bible. we hear it again and again, talking about law and order, talking about sending federal officers, military officers into america's cities. he is very much stoking some racial tension we see pububblin up across the country, trying to do it in a divisive way he thinks helps him politically, but is alienating him from the majority of the american people. >> i stand corrected, phil rucker. you're right. he is not awal on race, he is awall is is awal on racial context. he gave a speech at mount rushmore urging the country to preserve our monuments and heritage. and he is out trying to make the confederacy great again, people that were traitors to this country, he wants to preserve their legacy.

alicia, let me come to you on the president missing the moment, missing the country, not fundamentally understanding what is not just boiling but boiling over in the country he leads. >> right. i'm not sure that after everything he has said and done there is the capacity to pivot on this. part of what i thought was so interesting last night, woven into that grab bag of grievances, fear points, things that were supposed to be optimistic, glimmer points. there were small calls to black voters, specifically black male voters. there were calls to young latino voters, specifically latino men, and there were some youth calls. i read a lot of tiffany's speech, trying to be a speech to meet young voters. she had this line, i urge each and every one of you to

transcend politically boundaries. she blamed her father's unpopularity on a biased media, told people to make their own decisions, and part of what i notice there is that yeah, there might be a little bit of an effort to persuade, right? he doesn't need to win the black vote, he doesn't need to win the latino vote, he does not need to win the youth vote, and he will not win any of them, but if he can scoop a little margin here and there off each of them, if he can either convince some of the voters to come vote for him or convince some of the voters who he believes are more likely to swing to democrats to stay home, then that in some is a good thing for him and i think we'll continue to see a little of that tonight. >> alicia, phil rucker, thank you so much for starting us off and rolling with breaking news. the nba cancelling all playoff games tonight, standing in solidarity with the family of jacob blake.

they've postponed all playoff games to protest the police shooting in kenosha, wisconsin. let's listen and reset with doc rivers, coach of the clippers. emotional remarks he made last night. >> what stands out to me is just watching the republican convention and they're spewing this fear, right? like all you hear donald trump and all of them talking about fear, we're the ones getting killed, we're the ones getting shot. that video, if you watch that video, you don't need to be black to be outraged. you need to be american and outraged. and how dare the republicans talk about fear. we're the ones that need to be scared. we're the ones having the talk

to every white child. what white father has to give his son a talk being careful if you get pulled over. it is just ridiculous. >> michael steele still here, joinings conversation, renee montgomery, wnba player for the atlanta dream. she's skipping the season to focus on social justice causes, she's working with lebron james' organization, more than a vote. let me get your thoughts on what doc rivers said there, and then we'll go to the games being postponed. >> like he said, i'm sure every black parent has had the talk. i had that same talk. we see the same thing happening. this is a volatile situation. no, it's not, not what we just saw. we saw a man walk calmly one side of his car to the other side and get shot in front of his kids. that's not the scenario being

depicted. any black parent feels the same way doc rivers does. >> renee, i think the association of more than 70% of americans with the mission of black lives matter suggests that even though a white mother doesn't have to deal with that horror, they see it as wrong. i wonder if you see sort of this critical mass and with the games being cancelled tonight, will surely draw the country's attention to it again as an opportunity. >> oh, yeah, definitely. and with the games getting cancelled, it's not just the games everyone was excited about being cancelled, think about the pressure that applies on the local government. still hasn't been arrest for breonna taylor or breonna taylor's killers. players have spoken up, george hill, saying they're tired of the injustice. lebron james saying i'm sick of

it. the players are fathers. we watched a mom taken from her kids, daughters from their family, kids from families. everyone feels this. it is not just a black problem, it is an american problem. that what makes this situation special and gives me optimism. >> lebron james is everywhere in this moment in politics and culture. here he is laying it all out for us. f this man, we demand change. sick of it. i think he speaks again for a whole lot of people with that, but it takes some courage to put it all out there. this moment in politics, i have been in politics more than 20 years, it is as nasty, as vile as it has ever been. are you ready for this is what i'm trying to ask you? >> listen, i got ready in a hurry. when i opted out, whatever came my way, i knew there was going

to be backlash. saying i'm opting out for social justice. lebron is bulletproof. he stood proud on what he said, hasn't backed down. he vowed when he went in the bubble, he would still create change, make sure it was a topic of discussion. well, we're in the thick of things, of playoffs, all we're talking about is jacob blake. >> a perfect point. michael, let me bring you back in. donald trump cares very much what famous people and people more famous than him, more respected than him say and do in public. this is a rebuke of donald trump and mediaal lies, laura ingraham telling lebron james to shut up and dribble. it would appear athletes using their voice for change, to be exactly what they say it is. at least for now, get in the

last word. >> i think it is true, that's how trump looks at matters like this, but it is contingent upon whether or not those celebrities he, quote, listens to, like him. that's the first order of business. if you don't like him, he is not listening to you. let's be clear where the line is. this is how i look and take what lebron said in that tweet. it is a powerful exclamation point on all this. i and a lot of others, i have two older sonls, i have had that talk, had the conversation. hell, i'm still having that conversation with my kids in their 30s and 20s. that is you tell me, america, tell me, wisconsin, tell me, missouri, tell me california,

new york, baltimore, you tell me what we need to do so our kids don't get shot and killed. we tried everything you told us so far. we put our hands at 10 and 2, rolled downwind ow windows, sai sir, no, sir, take out driver's licenses, got shot when we did that. got out of the car, put the hands on the hood. you put the handcuffs on, put them on tight, i'm going to resist because it hurts. got shot when i did that. you tell me what i need to do as a black man so i don't get killed with this encounter. you tell me what i tell my sons. everything that up to now that i tried doesn't seem to work. and as doc rivers said, when you look at that video, you don't need a high feducation, you dont need years in the field, you see with your own eyes what every

black man in this country goes through every day. i'm not discounting it happening to white folks. i'm saying this seems to be something endemic to our encounters. so let's be clear about one thing, tell us what we need to do because right now, whatever it is ain't working. >> the breaking news we're covering now with michael and renee, the nba postponing all playoff games tonight in protest of the police shooting of jacob blake. let's bring in the conversation my colleague, nbc news senior business correspondent, anchor steph ruhle has been on the phone with nba team owners. what's the latest, steph? >> thanks for having me, nicolle. what's interesting, this truly is being led by the players. while the nba, the league, announced games will be cancelled tonight, it is not the nba leading this, it is team owners getting calls from players. earlier today, russell west

brook of the houston rockets, chris paul from oklahoma city thunder were seen leaving a meeting together. i assure you, those two weren't talking fashion. when you see the players make a decision like that, suddenly they're saying, and michael made the point, they're not just taking a knee or making a statement, they're not going to play. tonight at 8:00 p.m. there will be a players meeting, no owners, coaches, the players. expect that we're going to get some sort of announcement. there's a chance we don't see them play the rest of the season. we're in the second game of the playoffs. we have been in a postponed season because of covid. what you're seeing is a unified effort from players across the league. you have the owners sitting in the back seat which is different than what we saw from the nfl a couple years ago, what are the teams going to do. now the players are saying we ain't playing, at least not tonight. >> steph ruhle, thank you so much for jumping in front of a camera for us. bring in mike terico of nbc sports.

he has been adept with dealing with players that want their voices heard, hasn't been to the public eye as much effort as there have been in the nfl, for example, to bend and bob and weave, to bullying efforts from donald trump and other political and commercial concerns, but what does this moment, is this an inflection point for the sport? >> not for the sport, nicolle, for all sports. this is of massive significance when you talk about protests, taking a knee, and things that are done before the national anthem or jersey statements that are made with players wearing certain terms or phrases or names on the back of jerseys. that's one thing. but to stop the league in the middle of the playoffs that the league worked very hard to get started, i think aggravation has turned the players to some sort of action and this is as big action, as big a piece of action as we've ever seen in sports.

nicolle, it comes four years to the day after colin kaepernick first took a knee and started this conversation. let's just frame it this way. african-american black athletes are probably in as high a profile and recognition across all spectrums as any african-americans are in the country, save from president obama. you have some musicians that you talked about, but the reality is they don't cross-over to the many different age groups or demographics. athletes do and they do in different cities across the country. so they have had this pulpit if you will for awhile, and something like today is taking the power of that to a level with which we haven't seen domestically in the u.s. you have to go back to 1968 and the u.s. olympic protests to think of a time you saw athletes protest when this many folks were watching and paying attention. >> i want to talk about some of the individual athletes.

lebron james has been a target for table news hosts like laura ingraham for years, got in a twitter war with donald trump, actually he stood up for the warriors and for steph curry and coach kerr when they decided not to go to the white house. can you just for anyone that doesn't follow the players or teams, can you just give voice to the larger tensions, and i take your point. these athletes are carrying the burdens quite gracefully i would say that they feel in their communities, but they are leaders and everything they do and say is to scrutinize, but around this issue and timing it requires coordination. i worked on campaigns. you don't just roll this out, have the impact it is having without a lot of leg work underneath. who are the driving forces in the league around these issues? >> some of the biggest names, lebron james, chris paul, some of the biggest names in the league are ones that are willing

to use their voice. i think it provides i don't want to say cover but a lead blocker to use another sports euphemism if you will for the rest of the players to follow behind and say if they're doing it, it's okay to do here. the milwaukee bucks had a terrific season, could be best team in the eastern conference. for many folks favorites to make the nba finals. their star player, giannis antetokounmpo is the mvp this year. this wouldn't happen if he was not part of the conversation. he had not been a significant voice in this conversation up to this point. you're getting the biggest names in this sport using their platform, let's be honest, it is 2020, anybody who has a phone is a little more active than they used to be or could be. you have a lot of people who are talking, using that platform. i think you're seeing players take that to another level, and one other point on that, nicolle, and coordination you talked about when you were working on the republican side

and conventions and all of the things you were trying to pull together, these players are in the same place, in orlando in the bubble. i think that allows them to do what steph said, have an 8:00 meeting and helps activate more of them. >> let me ask about the upcoming campaign. steph curry appeared with his wife and two daughters in a campaign video for biden. i know lebron james and renee are working on the ground, really the most important way you can be involved in a presidential election to recruit poll workers for november, to create precincts, large precincts, turn arenas into precincts for people to vote. do you think this pushes more players into the upcoming election? >> i think they were more in it than they were ever before and i think that will continue. just look at the get out the vote movement that we've seen. we've seen many not just players but teams as well say we will open our stadiums to be polling places for canvassing, for people who are trying to find a

place to safely vote if their polling place was shut for a variety of reasons, so that hasn't happened before. players are using their platform in very different ways, whether it is very active in support of candidates, encouraging their audience that might not otherwise be pushed to vote, to do research and get on the phones, find the stories that matter to them. i think teams and organizations which is not just african-american story, that's a white story too, owners, team presidents, head coaches. yesterday, the detroit lions cancelled practice as they had a lengthy conversation before their team practice in a meeting about what happened in kenosha, and matt patricia said we're not going to practice. it means more to us to do this now as you see images outside the lions practice facility. this is spreading to all sports.

milwaukee brewers were having a conversation in the last few minutes if they were playing tonight in their game. sports is not politics. sports will not change how the world exists. but sports is a loud megaphone. i think we're seeing it activated in a way we've never seen it activated within the u.s. on this very day. >> mike, thank you so much for spending time with us. around for 25 minutes, i'm here all night, covering something else different and less inspiring. if anything develops, jump back on air with us. pleasure to talk to you. >> for sure. thanks, nicolle. >> renee, mike is talking about some of the very things you're involved in. if i could get your thoughts on this is a big deal. i actually think this is not a sports story, this is an american story, not a political story, this is one of the most powerful forces in sort of american cultural life saying, you know, enough. >> i think this will be a situation where everyone was where were you when this

happened. we all think of that moment whenever the nba shutdown. wait, nba games are cancelled? that's when we all took coronavirus very serious when you saw how the league responded. hopefully we all take it serious again. >> let me ask you about that. as mike was saying, it is really, really difficult, it required all the players and teams to buy in to even have a season. it seems that putting that season on hold is an even bigger deal. >> yeah. and to say it is led by the players, that's something that's probably never happened in sports before. you know, usually the players, they run everything through the gm, there's sponsors, money implications. players this time is no, this is what we're doing, you guys have to figure it out. to put it in more context, there was a player on the milwaukee bucks a couple years ago that was a victim of police

brutality, starling brown talked about it openly. this issue hits close to home for athletes, not just because they're african-american but because they experienced the same type of treatment. >> michael steele, a lot of nba coaches are vocal in opposition, you have a totally different dynamic. >> the coaches and to a large degree owners as well, and to renee's point about how the team, meaning all of the men that makeup a up any given team unified. we saw in the nfl fractures that were exploited in my humble view

by some of the owners. did not allow that con jeeling around colin kaepernick to take hold. a lot of owners have ties to donald trump, didn't want to get that phone call or that tweet, and so sort of tried their best to nip it in the bud. here, the owners and coaches understand the dynamic of the relationship of players to the community, to the country, and see that they reflected a lot of what's going on. the nba has allowed that runway on these issues. on that end, to that point, what i would say to the players, as they're meeting and have their meeting tonight inside the bubble, put on the agenda whether if you decide that you're done playing for the rest of the playoffs, talk about if you stay in the bubble longer.

you've got the platform, you've got the nation's attention. put that on the table to see, if we're shutting down here, why don't we stick around a little while longer just to drive home how serious this is for us. if you decide to go forward with playoffs, make t for the sure you incorporate that platform as part of it because i think right now, unlike any other sport, certainly individual or otherwise, they've got the attention and what renee and lebron are doing is so important and we don't want to lose that because somehow it is broken up because the platform is gone because people decided we're not playing any more. you know how that goes. i think this is a good opportunity here. i do. i hope they take advantage of it. >> renee, you're working with lebron, have you talked to him to see if they plan to do just that? everyone is paying attention, this is not a sports network, i don't cover sports, i'm just a fan, but this is a moment. this is a huge moment in this

country where nothing else seemed to work. so the nba seems to have grabbed this country, you know, by our shirt collars and to quote lebron, f this, enough. >> you kind of felt this coming. if you have been paying attention, conversations have gotten more and more passionate. the conversations, he just won a big game on kobe bryant day and talking social justice after the game. you could feel that it was building from doc rivers. you could feel that intensity building. i am not on lebron's list to call. >> i don't believe that. >> i don't believe that either. >> let me show you. i think i have some sound. show you what he said monday. we'll talk about it. >> we are scared as black people in america, black men, black women, black kids, we are terrified because you don't

know. you have no idea. you have no idea how that cop that day left the house, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, don't know if he had an argument at home with a significant other, if one of the kids said something crazy to him and he left the house steaming or maybe -- that's what it feels like. >> renee. >> that's exactly. i'm a mom. when he says that, if you're thinking why would lebron james be scared, he has sons. he has a daughter as well. if they're driving in the middle of the night and a cop doesn't recognize they're his kids, that's terrifying. if people don't understand that, that's what a lot of celebrities, you don't feel they have a connection, they have kids. they see the situations where it

goes left in a hurry. that's what's so terrifying because you try to think what could you have done different to save the situation, nothing. in a lot of these situations, no one did anything wrong. that's scary. >> michael steele, that part of the conversation is one you and i have over and over and over and over and over again. george floyd died with his face in the concrete with a neknee o his back. jacob blake shot seven times while a cop held his t-shirt. >> that's the part that just hits home like a ton of bricks in your head, your heart, and you don't know how to respond. i get it. i get the law and order crowd get all upset when people start protesting and i get it that folks get mad when something is damaged, a building is damaged or neighborhood gets hit hard, but behind all that, take out

the hot heads or being stupid and wanting to cause trouble and break things because they think they can. i am not sanctioning that, giving that credence. we all know who stupid is, we going to deal with stupid, all right? but don't let that get in the way of understanding the pain that lebron talked about because that's what people are doing. they want to turn the script around, flip the script, go i can't believe all of the violence. i can't believe it. so that's what you get out of everything that's happened. that's your go to. so everything else that led up to that window getting broken, that didn't register, but the glass being broken did. and that's the pain. that's more painful than anything else because it says to me i discount all the things that are happening to you, it doesn't matter, because more important to me is the fact that business got burned down, that pane of glass got broken.

this law and order, we have to fix that. okay. this is how you fix it. real quick. this is how you fix it. just stop killing young black men. that's how you fix it. >> go ahead, renee. >> i was going to say, take it a step further, when you start to talk about what happened and then people defend it in a sense saying this is why we can't de-fund the police, people need to be trained better, it doesn't take training. what we see, that's what's so alarming. that's not training, that's not a training problem. you can try to blame it on training, blame it on we need more money for the police so they can do better. we're all watching the same video and a lot of us with no training can see that that should have went way different. we see there should have been deescalation. i don't need training to see that and just to take it a step further, that's hurtful, too, because it is out of everything you just saw, you think maybe we should train the police a little bit better?

no. >> i think the other word is something that we heard from jacob blake's mother, look in your hearts. i think we need to rehumanize each other. when people ask me, renee, where i was on the day the nba boycotted the playoffs over the shooting by police of jacob blake, i will be proud to say i was with renee montgomery, michael steele, thank you so much for spending time with us, rolling with breaking news for so much of this hour. we're grateful. when we return, we're tracking hurricane laura, a dangerous, potentially historically powerful storm, hours from making landfall on the coast. forecasters worried about unsurvivable storm surge. we're back with that story next. e we're back with that story next. >> tech: at safelite, we're committed to taking care of you

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did you know that some aluminum- free deodorants only mask odor? secret aluminum free helps eliminate odor instead of just masking it. and is made with three times more odor fighters. with secret, odor is one less thing to worry about. secret. because the country hasn't been hit with enough, hurricane laura is hours from making landfall near the texas, louisiana border. more than a half million people ordered to evacuate as parts of the region could see that the national hurricane center is calling unsurvivable storm surge of 10 to 20 feet. let's go right away to nbc news meteorologist, my colleague and friend bill karins. unsurvivable is not something i've read in a forecast. >> we know the water will be 15

to 20 feet higher than it should be. you talk wave action and 20 miles per hour winds, doesn't matter what structure you're in, you won't survive. it is too late for those people. if they didn't get out already, because the water's already coming up, so let me go through it and put it in perspective of what we've witnessed in the last 24 hours. this is the second most intensifying storm we've ever seen in the gulf of mexico. this has intensified quicker than hurricane katrina did. it's not as powerful as katrina got but to give you an idea of how quickly this has ramped up and this will be the most powerful hurricane to ever hit the northwest gulf in recorded history. this will be stronger than rita at landfall and you can see satellite imagery, how symmetrical it is, filling up the whole northwest gulf and now the really strong winds are about to come on shore. mesmerizing view here. zoom way in. this is the eye of the storm and you can actually see the darkness here. that's because the sun is

setting and the eye, the thunderstorms are casting a shadow halfway across the eye. it has cleared itself out. it's just the power of mother nature is just incredible when you look at these storms and how much energy goes into them and that's the heat it's using from the water temperatures in the gulf. here's how it looks on satellite and radar. the last two hours, there's been a very important jog to the north. this black line is the past path. that jog to the north, everyone in houston breathes a sigh of relief. things look much better for the houston/galveston area. still very concerned about beaumont and port arthur but our friends in southern louisiana, that's who's going to get it the worst and the storm surge is going to be off the charts for this region. it should be historic. i'm very concerned with obviously the beach communities like cameron and holly beach. those probably won't even exist by the time this is done. they're small little communities but that 15 to 20-foot surge is in those cameron parish beaches and then we talk about lake charles. it is 30 miles inland, but the

water from -- there's a river that goes around lake charles that goes to a lake that goes to the gulf. all that water is going to head into the lake, up through the river, and they're expecting water heights there to be 15 feet in the city of lake charles. nicole, the elevation of lake charles is 15 feet. they're expecting at least half the city to flood. and that's on top of 120-mile-per-hour winds. it just -- there's so many elements to this. right now, we don't have really strong winds on shore. we haven't started losing power yet. that will start to happen in about four to five hours from now along the coast, and it looks like the landfall should be sometime right around 2:00 a.m. notice the peak wind gusts, cameron will be hit the hardest, lake charles also, and then right along the texas-louisiana border, we're hoping that beaumont and port arthur can avoid that western eye wall. the western eye wall will have winds between 80 to 100 miles per hour in it. if they can avoid that, that will spare them a ton of damage but we'll have to wait and see how that all plays out.

in the days ahead, a big old rainstorm heads northwards but that region of the country was hit exactly in the same spot by hurricane rita in 2005. just eliminated those communities. they rebuilt them and now those communities are going to be just -- they probably won't be there on the map anymore when we come this time tomorrow. >> it's also part of the country really hit hard by the covid pandemic. i asked al roker this. are evacuations complicated by people's fears about contracting coronavirus? >> and it's definitely on some people's mind. i've heard stories that the highway right now going to baton rouge is just jam packed because everyone from lake charles decided to head east and that's where everyone is staying. there's no hotel rooms available. people are going to be staying with friends and relatives. when it comes to people had to make important decisions about their health and their safety and the wellness of their families, and getting out of the storm's way has to be priority number one, and then priority

number two, right behind it is as you're evacuating and going and staying places, the social distancing and, you know, a very complex -- this is what we feared, nicole, in march and april, we were saying, what are we going to do if we have a mass evacuation with a hurricane? now here we're looking at it and what happens for the recovery for these people? the volunteers that are needed to help these people, are they still going to come in with water and food, amidst covid to give all these supplies out? there's a lot of moving parts and hopefully the federal government is mobilizing like never before because louisiana is going to need it. >> i don't want to read too much into the pace with which the storm appears to be moving up your map, but is it a particularly slow-moving storm because of its size, or is it -- is that the nature of these hurricanes? they just sort of stay over us and soak us with rain for a while? >> if there's one blessing with this storm, this is not a harvey situation. this storm will actually be moving quickly.

it's moving right now about 16 miles per hour. harvey stalled for two to three days. this is not that scenario. this is a hit-and-run storm. it will be about 6 to 12 hours of tremendous wind, if you're on the coast, storm surge and rain, and then it's gone. so, you know, the storm will make landfall on the coast right around 2:00 a.m. the sun should be out by about noon tomorrow in that same region of the country, so it's in and out, but at this intensity, it's just moving so much water and you know, lake charles is where my focus is going to attend -- focus my attention overnight. 78,000 people call lake charles home. hopefully there's not many people left there. they even evacuated tv stations in that region. that's the city of concern. >> our thoughts and our prayers are with everybody impacted. we will be back with bill tomorrow to check on all this. thank you, bill, for your reporting on that. finally, as we do every single day, remembering lives well lived. margaret and jimmy shaw had a special kind of love, according to "the new york times," they

were kids together in a georgia town without streetlights or indoor plumbing. they eloped at the age of 17 without even telling their parents. as the years went on, they worked multiple jobs to put food on the table. margaret and the kids would eat first. when they were done, jimmy would eat just whatever was left. they faced hard times, but with perseverance, they worked through it together. they were active members of their church community. they taught sunday school and raised a wonderful family. after six decades of marriage, they died one day apart from the coronavirus. but not before they saw their own grandchildren graduate college. margaret and jimmy shaw, two lives well exceptionally, exquisitely, well lived together. thank you for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are truly grateful. "the beat" with ari begins after the break. h ari begins after the break.

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welcome to "the beat," i'm ari melber and here's what we're seeing in america right now. summer 2020 is on its way to ending much as this summer began. more protests over systemic racism in the wake of more controversial police shootings of, yes, black men. the breaking news today is police arresting a 17-year-old for homicide who opened fire, killing two people, injuring a third near a gas station in kenosha, wisconsin. amidst what have been tense but largely peaceful protests, over the sunday, shooting where wisconsin police approached jacob blake, an african-american