you too can read the news lea r letter. that does it for me this friday morning, i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. my fellow americans with a heart full of the gratitude and boundless optimism. i profoundly accept this nomination for president of the united states. >> very big crowd there. that was president trump proudly or profoundly accepting the nomination for a second term. okay. it was about 1,500 people that gathered at the white house. it was -- they were all packed together. not a lot of masks. no social distancing at all. but at least the president's supporters practiced good hygiene, right rudy. >> in the summer, who stood by me through thick and thin and

taught me strong values every day. they never seemed to show people like me. at first -- in the summer who stood by me. >> oh, man. good morning and welcome -- >> the germs are just. >> please take it off. >> it's the woodstock of germs, willie. the woodstock of germs. it's all cool if you like coronavirus. >> okay. good morning, it's friday -- >> no, i am making a point. they really do. you know, somehow it's cool not to wear masks. you know, donald trump mocking reporters who didn't wear masks before. i know this is supposed to shock us and shock the media. >> i'm just grossed out. >> as we said in omaha, we're

very concerned for the people who were there, who were trying to prove a point and prove their loyalty to donald trump. and really his stupid and deadly approach to the coronavirus by not wearing masks, by not socially distancing. by pretending that they weren't in the middle of a pandemic that's already killed 180,000 people. >> we've talked all week about this convention as existing in a parallel universe. that was it last night. that was a convention six months ago or maybe a year from now after coronavirus, but the idea of a crowd, 1,000 people, 1,500 people sitting seat-to-seat with no distance between them and have a president talk about how he defeated coronavirus and led it and led to mike pence getting a standing ovation for his leadership on the task force.

it was truly a parallel universe as if the coronavirus doesn't exist and it very much does. the pictures are breathtaking. we'll look at the substance of the speech but both the coronavirus concerns of the picture we're looking at now and the existence of this event in terms of federal law at the white house are two other entirely more pressing questions. >> again, the whole -- >> huge campaign event. >> the whole idea at the white house. the whole idea of 1,000 people getting together, not wearing masks, not socially distancing, it was to troll the media. and all donald trump did was, he reminded americans, don't listen to what i say. watch what i do. and what a remarkable way to end a week and illustrate that this president has acted in a tragic,

flawed manner since the beginning of the coronavirus and because of it the united states of america has over 180,000 people dead and are responsible for about one out of every four deaths from coronavirus across the planet despite the fact we have 4, 4.5% of the world's population and we have the world's best scientists, doctors, research hospitals, universities on the planet and we're still struggling, mika, because there's a guy in the white house who wants to prove a point. >> not shocked at all by the sort of grotesque display that was against the law. more super grossed out and really worried about the people who gathered there, who put their lives at risk to kind of squish together and support the president and horrified at -- >> this is what you said at omaha. >> you mean tulsa? >> yeah. before and during tulsa --

>> absolutely. >> -- you were expressing the concerns -- >> happened in phoenix and texas, a couple of events. >> anyway, it's friday, august 28th, along with mika and me we have john heileman and white house reported for the associated press, jonathan lemire. also host of msnbc policy nation, reverend al sharpton, who's at the lincoln memorial ahead of today's 2020 march on washington. the republican national convention ended last night with president trump accepting the nomination for a second term in office and delivering a scathing attack against his democratic challenger joe biden. the president once again blurred the lines between government and campaigns, using the white house lawn. he spoke for an hour and ten

minutes, the second longest convention speech in modern history, following his own remarks back in 2016. even in the midst of a pandemic, roughly 1,500 supporters crowded onto the white house lawn to watch the president speak. chairs were not spaced out for social distancing and few people were wearing masks. white house chief of staff, mark meadows told reporters, quote, a number of people would be tested for coronavirus. great. in his message to supporters, president trump defended his own record and warned of the potential threat of a joe biden presidency. >> in recent months our nation, and the world, has been hit by the once-in-a-century pandemic that china allowed to spread around the globe. if we listened to joe hundreds of thousands more americans would have died.

instead of following the science, joe biden wants to inflict a painful shutdown on the entire country. the cost of the bide den shutdown would be measured in increased drug overdoses, depression, suicide, heart attacks, devastation, job loss and much more. joe biden's plan is not a solution to the virus, but rather it's a you -- surrender to the virus. at no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties. this election will decide whether we save the american dream or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny, joe biden is not a savior of america's soul. he is a destroyer of american

jobs and if given the chance he will be the destroyer of american greatness. >> the same joe biden whose been in washington since '74, trying to paint him as a socialist, that doesn't work. but john heileman, confession or progression president trump saying things would have been worse if joe biden were president. if we had done what joe told us to do in a late january op-ed in the "usa today," joe biden told the president, you're not prepared for the pandemic listen to your scientists and doctors and let them lead. this was when the president was saying it was one person coming in from china. a month later donald trump says it's 15 people, it'll be gone. the next month he said it'll be gone in april. then he started talking about

disinfectants and uv lights. i'm struck by that image. if you're a senior citizen in, florida, arizona, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, and you look at 1,000 people packed in to one space without social distancing and without masks and thinking about 200,000 people have died, mainly senior citizens, i'm not really hearing what he's saying. i'm looking at what he's doing and that is a super spreader event. here we have the president of the united states in the middle of a pandemic, the worse pandemic in a century as he said, he's correct there, condu conducting. >> it's so gross. >> conducting as the final night of his convention a super spreader event in the middle of a pandemic as we move toward flu season, shocking. >> the optics are kind of

incredible joe and it speaks to the alternate reality. as you know and we've commented on, he's a television producer and you saw how enraptured he and his people became with what they thought was the ability to spin an image last night that would be gaudy, that would be beautiful in their minds beautiful television and those human beings we are going to have -- he told us last week, we are going to have live crowds, we're going to have -- a lot more of this convention is not going to be taped although they had taped material. this was what he was talking about when he said his convention was going to be different than joe biden's. they had fireworks last night, which were just incredible. that's the problem. super spreader. it's the first word that came to everyone's mind when you saw the group gathering on the mall. and and it's the case that 1,000

people a day are still dying in this country. it's not just that the total is 185, whatever the number is now, but 1,000 people a day are dying. americans know that. i have, in the last couple weeks because of the circus, been traveling for the first time in months whether it's charlotte, north carolina, here in washington d.c., people are still afraid of the virus and rightfully so. people are hand sanitizing, in masks, taking care of themselves because they're terrified by the fact that 1,000 people a day are dying. then they look up on their television screen, they're not stupid. they look at the screen and say that's wreckless, it's irresponsible, reckless and plays into the fact that the way joe biden has been conducting himself has not just been safe but it's good politics because people value safety, this man

does not. >> yeah. >> go ahead, willie. >> jonathan, let's talk about the actual event and how it came together last night. walter shaub, who was in charge of ethics until he resigned under president trump's first roll here and was in that position under obama said this was the worst abuse for private gain in american history. were there any concerns from the campaign, from the white house? did anyone at all raise his or her hand and say, guys, maybe we shouldn't do this on the south lawn of the people's house. >> there was little push back. we heard some republicans and lots of democrats in the run up to the decision express a lot of concern about having a political event on government property. we saw the pictures last night. we saw the giant stage and then the trump/pence campaign screens

were up all over the lawn. this was in many ways a violation of the hatch act. the president himself is exempt from that, but that's the backdrop here. the other backdrop is what you guys have been talking about this morning. the crowd. this is the bet that the trump campaign people have made. what happened last night was dangerous. it was in violation of the president's administration's own health guidelines. there is no social distancing, there were no masks. the chairs were about 6 to 8 inches apart. most people who came in last night -- we talked to white house aides, most people were not tested. just a few select people near the front. this was something that indeed could become a super spreader event. the gamble they wanted to make, the trump team, making beautiful television but also this projection of winning, beating this virus. we know the numbers fly in the

face of that. a thousand americans are still dying a day. but this is the idea they want to project. we heard the president last night, harder than before, tease the idea of a vaccine on the horizon. we've seen other alleged break throughs about treatments of the virus be considered prematurely, there will be real concerns about a vaccine. and the american people can see with their own eyes how the virus is trending, the number of people dying. but that's the gamble the campaign was trying to make last night. >> again about a thousand people dying a day, that's about how many people were in the crowd last night. so if senior citizens in arizona or florida would like to know, just look at the crowd staring at donald trump last night. and how fascinating they were testing people in the front rows which means they care about the president's health but didn't

give a damn about anyone in the back or middle. i saw a picture of melania, if there's a line that summarizes just how the alternative reality of this week for republicans it's melania saying my husband always tells the truth. that's about all you need to know. you know, for the week, rev, i'd sum it up by that picture, and also something that ed luce wrote in the financial times earlier this week he said this republican party dances to whatever tunes come into mr. trump's head, what is missing is a link to any coherent plan for a second term. for the first time in history the party did not publish an agenda this year. the truth as mr. orwell would have put it is whatever donald trump decides what it will be. donald trump decides what the truth is about the virus, about

the law, about the constitution, donald trump decides what the truth is about article ii of the constitution of the united states and his supposed unlimited power. and republicans blindly follow along. it has really been a shocking week. even melania can get up and say my husband tells the truth. something that she knows every day is a lie. >> i think this week showed that the republican party as we've known it, whether we've been part of it or those opposed to it has gone from a political party to a cult of personality. we no longer have a republican platform or party, policies, we no longer have a set of ideas and a set of policies that they want to enact. we are guided by a personality who has made a bunch of cult

worshippers, the party leaders and the members of the cabinet, the danger is they are in charge of the government. to see one of the two major parties in this country reduce to a cult around a person who changes their mind and their stories any moment is at really, really levels of high danger. >> let me ask you, rev, you have a march today. you've been saying that you all are going to be practicing social media, that you're going to not be careless with american's health. tell us how you are doing it. we have right here, i'm already at lincoln memorial. no one will be able to enter these grounds without having temperature checked, without wearing a face mask. if they don't have one we have thousands we'll give them free or they will not be able to enter.

they have to wear gloves and we have sanitizer. and we are telling them they have to keep distance. we have people keeping their arm stretched. the seats for our families of those that have been impacted by police abuse and racial violence, the chairs are already distanced. and when we march, the marshals will keep people 6 feet apart. we'll show the country today, a disciplined but responsible gathering, otherwise we will close it down. we have had a disproportionate impact in the black community. we are not going to accelerate that today. we are going to keep the dream of dr. king alive but we are not going to turn it into a health care nightmare. >> i wish the white house would have been as responsible last night but again they showed

americans exactly what donald trump thought about the health of senior citizens and people with underlying conditions. willie, remember how we used to do the news grind and we had that donald trump beat. >> yes. >> i think we're going to do it again. but you remember that donald trump beat. you used to dance to it. >> sure. yeah. you got the sweater on, it is throwback "morning joe." let's grind it up. >> i think i'm going to wear the sweater, the next six months or so. >> both of you be quiet. i'm getting a bell. >> tell us what else is going on in the news. >> we'll get to the latest developments out of kenosha in a moment but first hurricane laura ravaged parts of louisiana yesterday tearing roofs off buildings and leaving huge stretches of land under water. this is drone footage of lake charles, louisiana. the storm packed sustained winds of 150 miles an hour, making it

the most intense storm to hit the state in 164 years. by yesterday afternoon laura was downgraded to a tropical storm but the arkansas national guard was still activated to help with evacuations and rescues. president trump said he will visit the region this weekend. in california crews are slowly beginning to control wildfires across the state. evacuation orders have been lifted for at least 50,000 people in the san francisco bay area and wine country over the past two days. in colorado, the so called pine gulch fire has become the largest wildfire in that state's history, burning through more than 139,000 acres. new overnight, japan's prime minister shinzu abe announced he's resigning due to health reasons. he reportedly said he did not

want to resign suddenly but his chronic condition of ularive colitis is at risk of getting worse. he's been prime minister for eight consecutive years. the country's longest serving leader. his term was set to expire next september. america's oldest department store, lord & taylor is closing nearly all of its location after 200 years of business. according to forbes, the company started closing sales. lord & taylor filed for bankruptcy earlier this month. it's like -- for a lot of us women in this business, it's the store we went to as we were starting out our careers. they had great selection, great prices and it's really sad that

it's come to this. >> very sad, also, though, it was coming before the pandemic for a lot of retail stores. >> yeah because of online sales. >> going back to richard haass' quote earlier this year saying the pandemic wasn't going to alter history, it was going to accelerate it. sadly this is one example of that. john heileman, let's pull back and see. i'd love to get your take on two weeks of conventions and where we find ourselves going into september with what used to be seen traditionally as the start of campaign season. i think you've proven that these elections in years past with your reporting are won or lost in april or may, i don't know that's the case now. a lot of tight polls out there. but where are we after two weeks of conventions? how did the democrats do?

how did the republicans respond? how is this campaign set up for the fall? >> joe, i think, you know, i think our verdict at the end of last week on the democratic convention still stands and i think the democrats feel good about what they got done. i would say in this week which is what we're thinking about, i'm curious what you thought about trump's speech last night. talking to democrats all week long this week, everybody was critical of a variety of things that the republicans did this week but purely from the standpoint of political operatives paying attention to this race, to this convention, there was a sense of nervousness on the part of democrats who had seen polls tightening in the battleground states and thought what the trump campaign was trying to do in the convention thought they had a successful first three days of the convention. focussing on softening trump's image, working on the problem

they have with women in the suburbs, throwing red meat for the base, portraying biden in the frame they settled on, it's a tough one in this bank shot of biden is not a leftist or anarchi anarchist, but he's the puppet of them. then last night i heard an exhalation of relief because i think the view of trump's speech last night, the speech itself was bad. was long, was boring. trump did not seem -- he's always bad on teleprompter, he likes to riff, they did not wants him to do that last night clearly. a 70-minute speech where he did not have that much energy through most of it. he has trouble reading. so the speech was delivered in a halting way. and two other things about it. one was the critique of joe biden, he mentioned joe biden 41

times last night. in 2016, he mentioned hillary clinton 15 or 16 times and that seemed like a lot. he mentioned joe biden 41 times last night and the critique of biden was so over the top it lost a lot of its force. it seemed like it was so exaggerated and you wondered whether it was going to move anybody who wasn't already in the maga camp. he went through the entire week, joe, four days, and never managed to utter the name, jacob blake, not a moment he expressed sympathy for jacob blake or the family. the only discussion of kenosha last night was the question of democrat run cities on fire. the dystopian view. if you think about the nba protests on wednesday, what americans are seeing on their television screens, you saw that video. people i think he seemed

incredibly out of touch and out of step with the reality of what's going on with this country related to race and that's a huge part of his problem in the suburbs and in the swing states is people look at him on the question of race, which is so central to american life right now and say this dude is so far out of touch. those are problems that made the last day of their convention the day that donald trump looked forward to more than any other. and took away maybe some of the gains it seemed like they might have racked up over the course of the first three days. i thought yesterday and that speech did them no good at all. >> the democrats coming in to this week were very concerned that they would throw everybody at joe biden and somehow something would land. it didn't land. i don't think they landed any punches. first of all, as you said, because unlike ronald reagan, donald trump is very bad on the

teleprompter. i understand why his staff would have him reading from a teleprompter from the white house but looking back he would have been better going on riffs and having one of his -- i mean, if he had themes to follow, if he had promises that he was going to make for the second term, that would be one thing but there are no new themes or promises. so that didn't make any sense. i want to touch on something else here that you said. and i can't repeat this enough. the trump campaign is making a terrible mistake with their hyper bo hyperbolic attacks on joe biden. they're overselling the case. people know biden. if you want to say he's a bumbler, sometimes he says stupid things, he stumbles around, that's fine. but these attacks that he's

stalin, this is a guy who's been attacked for being too cozy with banks and credit card companies and delaware corporations his entire career. so people know joe biden. that doesn't work and the parallel to that is i've already said before, it's what jimmy carter's team did to reagan. they kept calling him an extremist, saying he was going to start world war iii, they kept saying he was the crazed man on the end of the missile of "dr. strangelove" then people saw reagan and they're no, he's not. they're doing the same thing to biden. but i want to read a quote, willie geist, from donald trump's speech last night when he was talking about kenosha. this is the biggest challenge to the trump campaign.

they're trying to run as a challenger instead of the incumbent, they're trying to replay this like they're nixon in 1968. well, nixon was the challenger and thomas fiit was the democra hubert humphrey who were sitting in the white house. here's donald trump on kenosha, quote, we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. let me repeat that. the incumbent president of the united states in his speech last night said, we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. this is trump's america. donald trump will tell you, this is his america. this is his military. this is his government. it is his. he has told us for four years.

he owns it, he has unlimited power according to donald trump. and he is saying we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. as if a guy who's sitting in his basement in delaware is responsible for what's going on in kenosha. nobody believes it and donald trump keeps saying it. >> that's been the fundamental flaw -- yeah, the fundamental flaw of the trump campaign since the killing of george floyd in minneapolis several months ago, he said, look at what's happening in the streets of america right now we have to stop this as if he were powerless to do anything about it. you could have picked up that speech and moved it to 2016 and set it down. it would have been the same idea, i can ride in on a white

horse and saved the country. it was four years ago he said i alone can fix it. so has the president fixed it? and why is he pretending he has no power to fix it and why is he pretending the scenes we see in the streets, which do concern a lot of americans and that's why he's tapping into that, why is he pretending he has no impact over that and it's joe biden's fault and joe biden is a trojan horse for the radical left? people have watched joe biden for 50 years. the biggest criticism inside the democratic party is that he's not progressive enough, he's too moderate. it's a tough road to hoe if you're the trump campaign to make that case against joe biden. and a tougher case to make that you, the sitting president of the united states, alone can fix it and have not fixed it for three and a half years. >> also backing up a little bit,

the trump campaign had a mantra, make america great again. whether it was true or not, it really grabbed at his base and other americans who were tired of what was going on in washington, they wanted to try something different, he was rich, he branded himself as successful. and it all worked together. it seems like out of this convention the tag line didn't come from him. the best is yet to come seems to be what everybody is retweeting and remembering from this convention and the biden campaign is tagged back, that's a threat and not, you know, something to look forward to. there just wasn't something cohesive. there wasn't a message that people could really grab onto that actually attached to their reality. >> he has no plan and we'll see that later. peter baker interviewed him and we're going to be looking at that interview. also the latest out of kenosha, wisconsin coming up next. absolute chaos there over the

past several nights. i think it was a little more quiet last night but we'll get the latest. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. ching "morn we'll be right back. aded, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com. ♪ ♪ ♪

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what i saw in that video makes me sick. once again a black man, jacob blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight with the whole world watching. i spoke to jacob's mom and dad, sister and other members of the family just a little bit earlier. and i told them justice must and will be done. put yourselves in the shoes of every black father and black mother in this country and ask, is this what we want america to be? is this the country we should be? as i said after george floyd's murder, protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary. but burning down communities is not protest. it's needless violence. violence that endangers lives. violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses, serve the community. that's wrong. let's unite and heal, end the

violence and end systemic racism in this country now. >> that's a statement from joe biden. he also reiterated in an interview with our andrea mitchell yesterday his condemnation of the violence in the streets of kenosha, wisconsin. protests last night were peaceful in contrast to the violence in the wake of the shooting of jacob blake. 29-year-old black father left paralyzed by a kenosha police officer. according to reports police arrested some people last night but fewer than 50 were out protesting after midnight. residents of the area were seen cleaning up from some of the destruction this week. rev i know you've been in close contact with jacob blake's family and they'll be joining you at the lincoln memorial this weekend. what can you tell us about his condition, how the family is doing and what they want to see out of this?

>> well, the father of jacob is here, and the mother is in the air as we speak en route. they'll be speaking at lincoln memorial today for the rally and march commemorating dr. king's speech, first time they're speaking since two days ago. they said to us, he is struggling through various surgeries. he is paralyzed at this point. his legs can't move. and they're hoping and praying they does not become permanent. they also are very concerned with some of the misinformation that has been given about him and they will address that when they speak at the march here today. i think that the thing that really is bothering them is they do not want to be identified with any of the violence. they support the protests, obviously they wouldn't be joining one. but they don't want jacob to be projected as one that was so reckless that this policeman had

to shoot him in the back. and i think those who are looting not only do those of us in civil rights think it is wrong, it is tactically hurting the family's case because some people will try to transfer that image onto jacob or onto floyd or whoever we're defending. i might say, though, that one of the things that has outraged the father when i spoke with him and me and others, is this policeman who shot jacob in the back seven times, they're now saying he had a knife in the car. well, we don't know whether he did or not. i'm talking about national action network. but i do know the policeman didn't have x-ray vision, you couldn't see through the car door, a knife to justify shooting someone in the back seven times. you de-escalate something. he didn't have a knife in his hands we saw the tape.

and the president didn't even mention dealing with this kind of police misconduct or abuse whether it's floyd with a knee on the neck or shooting a young man seven times in his back i think was an atrocity to the people of this country. we don't want citizens out there looting and we don't want police just shooting. >> of course, rev, the violence is all donald trump and his administration are focussing on. they're not focussing on the underlying violence against black men, whether it's in minneapolis or whether it's in north charleston or whether, you know, it's in south georgia. and we see this time and again. instead, they act as if you and joe biden and others are fine with looting and violence across america and i just want to

underline this again because it's a lie. you and joe biden and jim clyburn and just about every other civil rights leader, including the head of the naacp, the head of the naacp in portland have condemned the violence in portland, in minneapolis, in kenosha, everywhere, right. >> absolutely have condemned it and has said it is, in fact, supporting the forces that don't want to see justice because they become the focal point, away from the real issue of whether or not we're going to deal with policing in this country. they play into the hands. i understand the anger, but your anger should not -- it should be directed in a way you're going to deal with what you're angry about. you may not let your anger change what you're fighting.

no one is more angry than me, i've been fighting this for decades, but am i going to let it channel, or am i going to start being reckless and violent. the president and his people are not raising the question, since a curfew was imposed in the city then why was this young man walking around with a rifle after the curfew and they were not enforcing it and he kills two people. a young white man who identified himself as part of a militia was doing this way after the curfew. and these kind of things they are talking about the blacks that are violent and wrong and not dealing with why was this guy out there at that hour walking around with a rifle. >> yeah, 17-year-old boy. a 17-year-old boy. let's bring in jon meacham right now, the author of the biography

john lewis. also with us editor at large for the 19th, errin haines. jon let me talk to you about the convention last night and as trump touched on what happened in kenosha. i want to read you this line as as well. he's trying to be richard nixon in 1968 overlooking the fact that richard nixon was not the incumbent at the time. he said last night, quote, we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. well, today this is donald trump's america. tell me your takeaway from the president's speech and last night. >> well, as ever, it's all about him. it's about his vision not of the world but of himself in it. and so, it was the fullest

manifestation of performance narcissism that i can imagine in american political history. and that's saying something because politics is largely about managing and marshalling narcissism. but this was at a different level. it was the appropriation of sacred and secular american symbols of unity for purposes of division. it was not about manafort and gatesing an argume-- it was not making an argument. reason doesn't come into this, that should be terrifying for all of us. it's all about passion, it's all about can he continue to sell himself to a certain number of americans in the right number of states who because of an 18th century document might return him to the center of attention. and that's the drama we're all trapped in, i think. you know, there was no

substantive case against vice president biden, as you say he was denouncing what was going on in his own country as if somehow or another he had just wandered into the situation. so i found it not surprisingly over long, but i wondered toward the end, is there anybody, even tuning in for a minute, who would, if not already previously persuaded, would be open to these arguments. because in point of fact they're not arguments. he's just moving his mouth. and he's moving his mouth in the service of his own role in the life of the country and that of his family, at least that of his eldest daughter. so i just think that what's on the ballot here is, do you want somebody who's going to think or somebody who just believes in themselves? >> and errin, it is -- i -- i

guess it's not shocking, so i shouldn't say that. but it is -- it is reality bending that in this convention, when republicans talk about kenosha, when the president talks about kenosha, when they talk about black lives matter and marches you have the president of the united states and others looking past white police officers shooting black men and white teenagers shooting protesters, and instead talking about this random chaos caused by the marches. and then two nights ago, you had mike pence actually talking about the black lives matter march in oakland and how a dhs officer was shot and killed during those marches. and mike pence, the vice president of the united states, never bothered to tell people that it was actually a member of

an alt-right group, quite possibly radicalized on facebook that used the black lives matter marches as an excuse to assassinate a dhs agent. >>, you know, joe today is the 56th anniversary of emmitt till's murder. and you know and rev knows that that was a moment that really galvanized so much of america to say this is enough. we are going to make this country live up to its ideals. and that anniversary comes as people like reverend sharpton are continuing to deliver awe loglogica eulogys for unarmed black men who continue to be killed by vigilantes and police officers. but in trump's america, racism

is a vestige of the past you heard him talking about the founder fathers and history, which in trump's america are white, peaceful protesters do not exist in trump's america. while he can praise a story like alice johnson's, the woman he pardoned, he's criminalizing so much of black america has lawless and in need of being checked, while he is emboldening law enforcement and saying they are in need of no interrogation, in need of no reform. i think that the past two weeks, these conventions have both talked about the existential threat to this country. but depending on which side you fall on, you know, that existential threat is very different. but the two americas were absolutely on display. and the dual pandemics of coronavirus and racism are happening in this country whether the president, his

administration or the convention chooses to acknowledge it or not. you literally have players walking off the court in frustration about this national reckoning on race and yet the president not even able to acknowledge the shooting of yet another blackman as his convention began this week. it just is really striking and i think really sets the stage for the next ten weeks. >> the president may not have mentioned the racial -- the fight for racial justice in this country, he may not have mentioned jacob blake's name but we know how he and the white house feel about what they're seeing. here's jared kushner yesterday on cnbc talking about the nba player boycotts of two nights ago. >> i think the nba players are fortunate they have the financial position they're able to take a night off work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially, so they have that luxury, which is great. there's a lot of activism and i

think they've put a lot of slogans out but what we need to do is turn that from slogans and signals to actual action that's going to solve the problem. >> your reaction, sir, to the nba protest yesterday against the shooting of another black man by police? >> i don't know about the protest. i know their ratings are bad because i think people are tired of the nba frankly. i don't know about the protest but i know their ratings are bad, and that's unfortunate. they've become a political organization and that's not a good thing. i don't think that's a good thing for sports or for the country. >> so president trump's focus on the ratings not addressing why they walked out of the games two nights ago. i have to go back, jared kushner has thoughts about entitlement when talking about nba players, many of whom have come from nothing and worked their way to be the stars they are.

>> yeah. where jared kushner inherited, like donald trump, all of his money. and, you know -- >> continues to make money. >> -- jared kushner talks about having the luxury to take days off. every time things went bad in the white house, he would fly to aspen or some other luxury resort so he wasn't in d.c. when things hit the fan. he was cowardly at the beginning of the administration, cowardly still. a guy whose dad paid money, that's why he got into harvard people believe, he continues to fail upward. he flies off to luxury resorts all over the world. he hangs out with saudi arabia's leader for long weekends, lives in the lap of luxury, and he's criticizing nba players for, quote, taking a night off,

having the luxury to take a night off. there are no mirrors in the white house. there are no mirrors in the kushner household. there are no mirrors in donald trump's household. they are so remarkably unaware of just how hypocritical they are. >> not only are there not mirrors and they are not able to look at themselves, i think that they show an intensivety to the american people. which is why you see so many people of all races. you see as many whites and sometimes more than blacks at a lot of these marches that are just stunned by the lack of concern and sensitivity to what's going on. as errin said we're talking about 65 years ago, emmitt till, today jacob shot in his back, george floyd with a knee on his neck, 8 minutes and 46 seconds and you're talking about whether a guy took a day off?

what about what they took the day off about? what about what they put their careers on the line about? does the shedding of blood, people being killed matter at all? you have the president talking about ratings and him talking about a day matter? that's why we're marching today, that's why people are protesting. we matter. >> and the forms of protest make a difference. john heileman we'll talk about the sports leagues doing this. but a lot of people watching of all races and backgrounds care deeply about george floyd and what happened to him. care deeply about what happened with jacob blake. care deeply that this keeps happening and these are the cases we've seen on video. god knows what else is out there. and it only can be much, much more if you deduce it correctly, looking at the data.

the luck that some of these were seen -- the luck i say -- on video. but people are moved, they watch the president's speech, watch the speakers and hear nothing about what they care about. i think that will have an impact but a bigger impact may be what the sports teams are doing, may be what the athletes are doing. i wonder what will happen with football? but when people in america sit down to watch the games they love to watch every year, every season, and they're not there, the people they respect out on those fields, i think that these protests will have a dramatic, dramatic impact. >> i think, mika, there's a leveling function here because you know, you've had really in this week particularly, you've had the republican convention speaking on television, prime time, donald trump president of the united states making his arguments. and the protests are kind of as a grass roots phenomenon with

the nba stepping forward, they have as big a mega phone and can command air time in the way the president can't. but i want to come back to the first thing you said, which is important at the end of this week. what we saw this week was great clarity given the president did not address police brutality, jacob blake. what we heard over and over again as joe characterized before, the nixon play book, the law and order play book. what we see is donald trump and the republican party basically saying blue lives matter. that's -- we care about law enforcement we're with the cops no matter what. their behavior doesn't matter, that we're going to fund the police more, we have their back, right. on the other side you have the black lives matter movement and the growing sympathy for that ever since george floyd this has become a more popular movement to a point we saw polls that says 77% of americans are in

favor of it. so now you have an election that looks like on one side the black lives matter movement on the other side, the republican side, the blue lives matter argument. and obviously it's possible to respect law enforcement and be in fiver of black lives matter. that's how the president is casting it. in the past anybody on the side of racial justice when you saw republicans run the play book, which was the blue lives matter, law and order argument, it has over the course of the post war era it has almost always worked for republicans. the big question, rev and i talked about this yesterday for the circus, has the world changed enough now that the country has changed enough that the argument on the black lives matter side of the ledger is more powerful politically than the argument on the blue lives matter? are enough people vested in the black lives matter causes that these blue lives matter arguments that the republicans are making, the law and order arguments are going to fall on

deaf ears. if you look at the protests and the fact there's so much white participation than ever been before, i think it indicates that we've reached a tipping point that it does not favor the arguments that the president and republicans are making. and that the politics have fundamentally changed in the way the country sees these issues. >> you know, jonathan lemire, the trump administration is presenting a false choice. saying, we're for the funding of cops and joe biden is not. he's for chaos. joe biden every day it seems is coming out condemning the chaos. joe biden every day is also talking about the need for racial justice. they are not running against jeremy corbyn.

they are running against, you know, a guy that americans have known for some time who lwhat criticized and i think donald trump even criticized him in the past for supporting the crime bill, because the crime bill was too tough on criminals. so again, the trump administration keeps trying to paint this false choice. i wonder if the media is going to keep picking it up and rejournal at a tir regurgitating it and not explaining to americans that joe biden is against defunding the police and joe biden speak out every day against this violence. >> you're right there's a coherent incoherence from day one. since it was clear that biden was going to be the democratic nominee the trump campaign didn't know how to hit him. they attack him for being

involved with the crime bill and then say he wants to defund the police. and joe biden has said he's not looking to defund the police. every day this week we've seen a tribute from the trump administration towards law and order. very little discussion at all about the cause of these protests. the reason behind them. you know, the idea of no -- condolences perhaps for some of the families involved but no suggestion at all about the underlying heart, black men suffering at the hand of police violence here. they're continuing to lean strong on law and order and suggesting that some of the uprising we've seep in the streets have been good for the president. kellyanne conway said yesterday the more chaos and anarchy, the better it is for a, quote, very clear choice in this race. and other trump advisers say privately they feel like while this is happening this allows the president to look strong,

send in the national guard to help but it is unnerving to a lot of american voters, particularly suburban voters who worry about scenes like this, the violence like this they've seen in big cities, now kenosha, and most of the protests have been peaceful this summer but they feel this could be good for them. the 17-year-old in custody for that shooting was seen as a trump supporter. we watch the polls after george floyd's death they didn't help president trump p he seemed out of step with that movement, particularly after he cleared lafayette square of protesters so he could have the photo of holding the bible up in front of the church. >> i talked to democrats who support joe biden who say they do worry this may work that the president is talking to whatever number of people it is in the country who watch what's happening in the streets, and

they go i don't want that coming to my city, no matter how irrational that may be, they may feel that. so what's your sense how biden is counter measuring on this? by most accounts from democrats they believe he needs to punch back hard on this, and he has come out every day saying i don't want to defund the police and i condemn the violence in the streets while supporting the movement that brought it about. what's your sense in how they're doing pushing back? >> voters i'm hearing from are definitely wanting to hear from vice president biden and senator harris on what their plan is to address, you know, the racial disparities in policing that have had these protesters in the streets for most of the summer and with no signs of stopping their protest to continue to raise awareness around this

issue. listen, the president is right about one thing. there is unchecked, rampant violence in the streets of america. but it is not what he is depict it as. it is the unrelenting shooting and killing of black people in this country even as we are in the midst of a global, public health and economic crisis. that is the point that should be focused on every day and that is what should be asked of either of the people seeking to become the next president of this united states. what is the plan to address that? if you want the rioting and l t looting to stop, the killing of unarmed black people in the streets would go a long way to address that issue. >> let's bring in some more voices to this conversation, msnbc contributor mike barnicle, columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" eugene washington. reporter covering racial

injustice for new york times magazine, nicole hannah jones. and founder of the conservative website, the bull work and author, charlie sykes. we'll start the discussion with what could be the takeaway line from the republican national convention. >> we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. >> what? >> jon meacham. >> he's president, isn't he? >> jon meacham. >> yes, sir. >> -- when in american history have you heard a president running against himself and condemning the chaos that his president has brought upon america? we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. i think a lot of people would agree with that. almost 200,000 americans dead

from a pandemic that this president has ignored. marching in the streets, and civil unrest unlike we've seen since 1968 and economic downturn, the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1930s. donald trump seems to be running against himself, how does that end? >> he is. poorly one hopes. you know, you made a great point a moment ago about the reagan, carter race in 1980. governor reagan on october 28, 1980, a week before the election said are you better off today than you were four days ago, if you are your choice is clear if you're not, i can suggest an alternative. that's the question. is america better off after four years of this president or not. and in every sphere of activity, particularly our public health, which is fundamentally related to our economic health, which is

deteriorating rapidly, you know, this is an immensely important, structural shifts are taking place in the country, a lot of jobs aren't coming back, a lot of families, lives are being transformed not by the virus immediately but by its impact. that's the great crisis of the time. that joined with the awareness of systemic racism is the climate change. it's just really important issues and we have somebody who hosts reality shows from the white house. it's pretty clear here. last point about how close this is going to be, and heileman knows more about this than i do, but, you know, we're celebrating today the anniversary of the march on washington. without the march on washington, arguably, we would not have had the civil rights act or the

voting rights act in 1965. 1968, think about this, 1968 we've been talk about in terms of nixon. was the first election in american history in which we did not live under functional apartheid in at least part of the country. think about that. and what happened in that election? 55% of the country voted for either richard nixon or george wallace of alabama. wallace carried 13.5% of the popular vote in the election we're talking about. so don't say this isn't who america is the way trump was addressing the country last night. it is who we are. the question is, is it the america we want to be? do we want to be the america of bull connor or john lewis? that's the choice. >> nicole, if we look at this

historically, though, and correct me if i'm wrong here, but i've been saying for some time, the past year or so, that 2020 may be the last competitive race between these two parties for the presidency just because of the demographic changes that are happening in america. john cornyn himself tweeted a year or two ago that there are nine hispanic babies born for every white baby in the state of texas. a very interesting thing for a republican senator to tweet, but he tweeted that. states like texas, arizona, georgia are going to become increasingly blue in coming years and i just wonder if what we're seeing is the death rattle of a republican party that is

clinging to white grievance to try to win the white house? >> i don't know that we should go as far as to call it a death rattle considering if if you study history then you know this is not the first time that white people have been in the minority and yet still managed to hold onto power. so what we're seeing across the country in terms of voter suppression, in terms of laws being introduced, in terms of the efforts to defund the post office is an effort to maintain that control and power. and so, i don't think that we should be confident that changing demographics will necessarily change who gets elected. we saw the waves of suppression occur across the south when black men were enfranchised as jon meacham said we lived in a virtual apartheid state in the south where the majority of black people lived and black people made up the actual

majority until 1968. so trump is speaking to that, his election is speaking on the sense of a loss of power, the loss of power being the loss of demographic numbers and how does this party and how do white americans maintain power in a rapidly shifting demographic country. i think you maintain power by having unfair elections and becoming less of a democracy. >> great point. i also notice that while there was a split screen between you and jon meacham that we have three pulitzer prize winner here, so perhaps you can have a zoom call after the show. >> pretty amazing. >> charlie sykes, you're in wisconsin. i'm just curious, dave wasserman tweeted something fascinating last night. dave is pretty much down the middle. usually i go to him to figure out how house races are going to

go, especially. and he pointed out that media coverage in kenosha, media coverage in wisconsin was far different than media coverage on the national level and dave suggested the happenings in kenosha may have an impact on the election. obviously people said the same thing after george floyd's death and suggested the protests would help donald trump, they haven't yet. but what are you seeing in wyomi wisconsin? >> interestingly enough this was one of my notes of dave's tweet. he pointed out that 65% of the trump -- i'm sorry, 65% of the voters in wisconsin live in counties that donald trump won. so the media environment in wisconsin is different than the media environment nationally. so i think there needs to be real concern about the way this is playing out. the focus on the violence in the

media, particularly in the conservative media. so i do think that joe biden and -- joe biden needs to continually and loudly condemn the violence. but also i thought he did something yesterday that was very important which was to point out the way in which the president is, in fact, pouring gasoline on all of this. the focus needs to be on, has the president contributed to this? when you have a 17-year-old militia member come into kenosha and shoot three people. this situation is very, very fluid. i think there are a lot of people looking at this and thinking, are the democrats really going to be serious about protecting us from this? are they actually going to stand up against the violence? i have to say that some of the media coverage has been sugar coating this. it has been almost the sort of running gag. the mostly peacefully protests with the pictures of burning cars in in the background.

i think we need to acknowledge that a lot of voters in the swing state of wisconsin are focussing on the fires, the looting, the burning, perhaps unfairly but this is a political reality right now in wisconsin. >> as henry kissinger said, perception is reality. in politics perception is reality. and joe biden, again, has it seems every day he's been condemning that violence. but i think you have to underline the fact he needs to continue doing that but not letting that get in the way of the message that racial justice is required and the reforming of policing has to take a top priority. >> well, there's some cases in which perception is not reality and the president put out a perception yesterday at his completely inappropriate setting for his republican national convention speech, which would be the white house, which is

against the law, but they set up this perception that everything is fine and everyone is okay. and squished, i don't know, 1,500 people onto the white house grounds in the midst of a pandemic. roughly 1,500 supporters crowded that white house lawn to watch him speak. look at this. i mean, just look at this. there is no doctor in their right mind that would suggest that this is even remotely safe. chairs were not spaced out for social distancing, and few people were wearing masks. we also showed that gross video of rudy giuliani wiping his face and mouth and then wiping it on his girlfriend. i'm not trying to be funny here. this is a dangerous situation. and it happened in tulsa. people got sick. the city reports an uptick in coronavirus cases after the president stuffed 6,000 people into an arena and ripped off the

social distancing stickers off the chairs and squished them all down below so it would look like a big crowd so the cameras could pan over a group when it was people getting sick for the president. >> gene robinson, look at this crowd again. it brings to mind maya angelou who said when somebody tells you and shows you who they are, believe them the first time. the man who said this was just one person coming in from china and it was going to go away in january, the man who said in february, it was 15 people and soon it would be none. the man who told african-american leaders in the white house, this is going to magically go away. it's magically going to go away he told them at the end of february. the man in march who told republican senators you have nothing to worry about. the man who told a radio interviewer in early march i'm not concerned at all, worried at all, of course, almost 200,000 people have died since then,

mainly senior citizens. you look at this picture, gene, and that picture -- can we go back to that picture, i'm sorry. i think perhaps the rows of people watching donald trump might be, along with what happened on june 1st, the iconic shot of the 2020 campaign to show how much contempt donald trump has for medicine, for his own doctors, for his own trump white house guidelines, and for the safety of senior citizens from florida to arizona to wisconsin, to maine. >> right. joe, nowhere else in the country last night could anyone organize a crowd like that. and everybody knows that.

every governor knows that, every mayor knows that. everybody knows you cannot pack that many people together in the middle of a pandemic and there will be consequences. people will get sick. >> my goodness. >> and it's just -- it's just the reality. saw it in tulsa. we're going to see it again. it's notable to me the number of prominent republicans who wanted absolutely nothing to do with that scene, including mitch mcconnell wasn't going anywhere near that place. you know, it was -- it was a i thought, an anticli matt climatg because the president's speech was so long and droning and kind of rambling and, you know, it was teleprompter trump, rather

than, you know, improfrp sagsal trump, which is frankly a little bit boring to listen to. but the point definitely came through. it is -- you know, he is making this appeal that if you -- if you take the risk of electing joe biden, you know, what you get is donald trump's america, right. you get violence and chaos and disease and everything. and his -- his -- he has confidence in himself that all the way from now till the election he's going to be able to fool people into not realizing what's happening here. not realizing that he's president for four years and this is happening under his watch and it's his mishandling

of these overlapping crises that results in the chaos and the -- and everything that we're seeing now. that's a big gamble. even given the history, yes, the law and order argument has in the past been effective and i am concerned about what impact it will have in that crucial state of wisconsin. but this is an awfully long time to get people to believe the big lie that is just obviously a big lie. >> so for more on that crowded mostly maskless scene last night let's turn to physician and medical director at the boston university school of medicine, dr. nahid bhadelia. good morning, it's great to have you with us as always.

as a public health expert, as a physician, what do you see when you look at the pictures of president trump addressing the big crowd, sitting shoulder to shoulder, most not wearing masks and most there last night not tested for coronavirus, only those in close proximity to the president, the first couple rows were tested, but not the larger crowd. what do you see when you look at the pictures? >> we're at the stage of the pandemic where you no longer need a doctor like me to tell you that it's dangerous. it's good that it's outdoors but the elements that make it dangerous, how cruowded it is, o masks. the fact they're sitting in text to each other for a long period of time we know about the virusing, it sticks around in the air longer than expected, that's the conversation about airborne versus droplet. this is setting up a situation where people may get sick.

but the true danger is not what happened last night. the problem is we have come to a point where cases are improving we're seeing hospitalizations go down. even though the deaths are over 1,000 as mika said earlier. the reason why is americans have started to use masks more. there are more mask mandates people are distancing, they are taking it to heart. and when people see this the concern is they're going to let their guard down as we face down the barrel of the fall, and what the cdc calls one of the worst falls we may have in the country. to me this is the president once again doing the same thing he's done with the pandemic he's been dealing with it as a political problem, one you can spin away, narrate away, wrarather than fa it as a public health situation where you have to do the work. >> the crowded maskless scene

was making the point that they were making this week in the convention that coronavirus is something that the country has c t triumphed. in fact, the president asked vice president pence to stand and get a standing ovation for his work on the task force. what do you say? you pointed to numbers of good news, but what does it mean to have the messaging come out again and again every day from the white house? >> you've known me long enough to know i drag my feet trying not to be political because politics don't help in public health. but in this case it's clear to me over this time that the reason the pandemic is as bad as it is is the government hasn't taken the steps they need to.

every time the administration tried to muzzle their public health experts, put out the benefits of drugs that don't exist, dragged their feet on not wearing a mask because wearing a mask shows we're in the middle of a pandemic. they have added to worsening the pandemic in this country. the most i think damaging thing for public health experts, this is one of the worst weeks for public health experts not in the case of the death aspect, but because this week two federal public health agencies had to be pressured -- were pressured by the administration, the fda basically touted efficacy data that the mayor clinic who conducted the study on convalescent plasma said they don't know how they got the data and then had to walk it back. the cdc released guidance that the rest of us are looking at it

downplays the importance of testingasymptomatic parents. the eroding of trusting medical authorities is going to continue. >> mike barnicle, the doctor brings up a great point this week you had the head of the fda have to back off a false statement that he made about a study. you've got the cdc now backtracking after being pressured on just an asinine statement they made about asymptomatic carriers. that they're having to back off. you have the president of the united states who's been pushing quack -- you know, quack cures from, you know, the possibility of disinfectants and uv lights

to hydroxychloroquine. and then last night you have 1,000, 1,500 people jam packed together at a political rally. and, of course, if anybody else did that, if a comedian had an event, if a musician had had an event that was that pack the condemnation from the left, center and right would be loud. but donald trump did it and showed americans just how little he cared about the health of this had country and especially of senior citizens. mike's breaking up right now. nicole, we'll get back to mike. he's breaking up. let's talk about donald trump

and his speech, the contempt he showed again for his doctors' medical advice, social distancing all the things his experts, the white house, have been pushing on the rest of americans. and look at this year. this is the same white house that thought -- were telling me they were going to get 15%, 20% of the black vote in 2020. here we have them showing contempt for protests and show contempt for a disease that has disproportionately killed people of color. >> yes. 180,000 nearly americans who are dead, disproportionate number of them being black americans as we're talking about the anniversary of the march on washington, it was a march for jobs and justice. black unemployment rates have been soaring and they've been bearing the brunt of the

economic crisis we're in right now. and even as donald trump trotted out as many black republican surrogates as he could, he was not addressing the fundamental reason that people are risking their own safety in a pandemic to go out and protest, which are fears that the people charged with protelcting and serving yo can kill you and your family members with no consequence. that was not focused on at all. the violence is being caused by police violence. the reason people are in the streets is they are facing violence and then when they try to exercise their constitutional rights, they're met with more vie license. the images of armored police vehicles, shooting chemical substances at protesters, responding to protesters in a violent way we know escalates the way protesters respond in the streets. we haven't seen the president

address that. he didn't take that moment last night to try to calm the nation, bring the nation together to say we hear your pain black americans and we are going to work with the justice department to ensure that you will have equality before the law. instead you saw the same racialized law and order rhetoric that republicans often rely on in contested elections. >> nicole hannah jones thank you for coming on. coming up what we're learning about the movements and actions of the 17-year-old accused of killing two people during protests in kenosha, wisconsin. "morning joe" is back in a moment. wisconsin. "morning joe" is back in a moment

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race up steps when others take it slow. when joe biden is president, america is just going to have to keep up. we won't have to wait to deal with covid-19, he's already got a plan. >> that was a portion of a new biden campaign at that aired on broadcast and cable networks during the last night's republican national convention. joining us political correspondent for nbc news and author of "the red and the blue" steve kornacki. national political correspondent for "the washington post," david weigel and "new york times" reporter jeremy peters his latest piece "how trump's convention has become a crucial play for the suburbs". seeing that ad during the convention must have been like reminding people, right, there's a pandemic, 180,000 people have died because during the convention you would have thought it was laa-laa land and

everything was okay. >> larry kudlow talked about how bad it was when the pandemic was here. there are parents trying to figure out still what they're going to do with their kids going back to school in areas. and business owners wondering when they can reopen -- >> or been destroyed. >> yes. dave, we have to start with you, i saw your tweet yesterday, retweeted it and said that would be a great conversation to have. obviously in june a lot of people were saying, if you look at the past, this law and order issue is going to play into donald trump's hands, but as you pointed out yesterday, it hasn't. at least to this point. explain. >> it hasn't, and there were a lot of assumptions in i guess the greater sphere that if you see people protesting, if you see unrest, crime, that's good for a republican president and ignored the fact that donald trump is president already. i pointed out last week and i

saw other people start to point out that the 2016 trump acceptance speech happened not long after the castile killing in minnesota. trump referred to that at the start of his acceptance speech talked about ending this sort of thing when he was president, obviously hasn't. so there's confidence that the president can have it both ways and a lot of confidence in his ability to capitalize on any sort of unrest, disquiet in the country. that hasn't been the case this year. i wasn't trying to be political saying we know how ever incident is going to go. i was saying there needs to be humility because we done know how voters see unrest happening under a president's watch, do they blame it on the mayor and the president has no control over it? you have a democrat as we saw in the convention again and again, wrote the crime bill, has not

been seen as someone aligning himself with justice movements and his poll numbers have not been tied to what we've seen in terms of activism. >> and again, the president of the united states said last night we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. steve kornacki, he's playing the role of richard nixon in 1968 he doesn't realize that richard nixon wasn't in the white house in 1968. what are you seeing on the polls regarding this law and order issue? any movement at all? >> i'm seeing it and what i'm interested -- i say interested because i don't know quite what it means and where it's going. i think it's relevant to point out wisconsin, perhaps the most important swing state one of the most important swing states if you go back to june, the period you're talking about here when the george floyd killing happened, look at wisconsin, it was 61% in wisconsin who said they approved of the protests,

just 36% said they disapprove, of the black lives matter movement and the broader protest. two months later, same poll, dead even, 48, 48. 48 approve, 48 disapprove. the same poll, 41% in wisconsin say they say the black lives matter movement protests encourage violence. these numbers in wisconsin are before what we see in kenosha this week. it suggests to me the possibility, at least, that there's a significant chunk of voters out there, at least in wisconsin and possibly elsewhere, that thought of the protest movement as one thing in june and that because of the intervening events, you talk about portland, seattle, now talking about kenosha, talking about other things happening in between, have now reassessed and take it to mean something else, and their opinion of it has changed. if you look at wisconsin what you see in terms of opinion of the protests, the protest

movement it now syncs with the presidential race in wisconsin. back in june, when you had support for blm, the number was eight. now it's moved. look at it this way, 48/48, approve on blm protest and it's 46, 50 biden on the presidential race. yeah, throw what's happening in kenosha right now, a lot of uncertainty about where that's going, how that's going to be proce processed. throw that into the mix. i note there was a "new york times" story yet, it was striking to me the quotes in in the article. yes, trump is president, biden has been out making the statement i think a lot of folks want to hear but the voters interviewed in the piece were saying the democrats, they're not saying anything. they're not doing anything. and i suspect there might be, might be for democrats a danger there.

>> jeremy peters, the president and the trump campaign clearly thinks they're onto something like this. last night he talked about burning cities and looters and abolishing the suburbs, whatever that means. what is the strategy there? as you write the trump campaign conceded they're not going to change people's minds about who donald trump is. who are they talking to specifically with that message? >> i think there are a handful of voters out there in a handful of swing states who aren't happy with president trump, they don't like his conduct and they don't like having to abide and excuse away the racist and divisive rhetoric that comes out of him and his movement but they're not quite there yet for voting for a democrat, so they need something to hang onto. so when you see the people of color, the immigrants, the black

families talking about testifying to president trump's greatness and his compassion, that's not so much about getting black support, minority support, as it is making white voters in the suburbs comfortable with their choice. the trump campaign knows it needs to get those people across the finish line. it needs to get them to yes. and after this week's convention, i would suggest that that goal is pretty muddled. at best i think they probably succeeded only partway in doing that because of the disconsider de -- discordent messages. he's been president for almost four years and he talks about the cities that are burning and

the very american carnage that he promised would end when he was sworn in as president. that's still happening and he's the leader of this country so he has to convince these voters and that's what they've been trying to do throughout the convention that he's worth another shot despite the fact that the country is in the midst of this spasm. >> wisconsin's charley sykes. mike barnicle is with us and has a question for you right now. mike? >> dave and steve and jeremy gave a pretty good picture in terms of where we are as a country in terms of voters we don't know how people are. ing to react to what's going on what they're seeing on their tv screens each and every night. last night we saw a social arsonist, the president of the united states who sets the bonfires, stands back and watches them grow. and we also heard during the week there is no republican

platform this week announced at their convention. but my sense of it is, i'll ask if you agree with it, there was a public platform and it was articulated by the mccloskeys, the two that looked into the camera and said black people are coming to the suburbs to take your house and ruin your incomes and they're doing it because the democrats are going to let them do it. what's your sense of what's happening on the ground now in wisconsin as a result of the republican platform and the events people see and witness each and every day for the past few days? >> let me answer that second part first. i do think that steve kornacki is making important points about the shifting in the polls. i do think that you're going to see more erosion for support for black lives matter after kenosha. this is a real issue. especially given the democrats of wisconsin. and voters here right now i

think are blaming democrats more than donald trump. we keep talking about richard nixon in 1968. remember richard nixon in 1972 using disorder and radicalism of the democrats to run for re-election. i'm glad you raised the question of mccloskeys, i've been thinking of this all week. the split screen of them, a white gun toting family, aiming weapons at black protesters, and then the other split screen is this young 17-year-old with the rifle in kenosha, kyle rittenhouse. and the way in which -- i won't say that we've entered a dark period right now and this is why the situation is so fluid because the folks in the right wing media are turning kyle rittenhouse, who murdered two

people the other night, into a folk hero. they're making him a bernie gets times ten figure. you have people tweeting, i want him to be my body guard, president. so there is an encouragement of this kind of vigilanteism. it's overt. we've been in a dark place for a long time but i sense we're getting to a darker place. i wonder right now this is cutting against the democrats. this is a problem for democrats, but i think it might cut against republicans if they go too far in embracing somebody like a kyle rittenhouse and that kind of vigilante mentality because that's not going to play in the milwaukee suburbs.

>> you're right. when i saw the praise of kyle rittenhouse, the 17-year-old boy who shot and killed two protesters, i was thinking, you know, the praise of him is going to have a negative impact on the very things that donald trump is trying to promote. and gene robinson, we're going to be talking more about kyle rittenhouse and try with reporters who have traced his steps up until those two killings, but what a dark dystopian scene where a 17-year-old boy is carrying around a rifle, running around and gunning down protesters. >> it was awful. and, you know, a number of us noticed that -- wondered,

actually -- we didn't wonder what would have happened if it had been a black man toting an automatic rifle wandering down the street in the middle of the protest shooting people, how would we have been greeted by police in kenosha? i think we know the answer. it wouldn't have been the way kyle rittenhouse was treated, which was kind of interesting. i think every day joe biden should just point out, you know, actually donald trump is president now. this is happening on his watch. i'm not the president. but i did have a question actually for dave weigel, my colleague, which is dave, you, unlike most of us, have been traveling around the country and going places and talking to people. and i'm just -- so it's kind of an open ended question, but what are you sensing in being able to move around and talk to people

that perhaps we are not as we sit in this our living rooms and talk into web cams? >> well, it's so fluid that i don't want to predict how people feel about this week i got off the road monday and about 10,000 things have happened. you don't see people hanging on every single piece of news. this is not a feature just to this era, but you see this schizophrenic consuming of media. where i have conversations with democrats, people who intend to vote for democrats and they're unaware of the conversations on fox news. so you hear a protest, you'll see a protest, the coverage on fox news is going to be, i think, today of young people with masks yelling at people leaving this trump rally. the coverage that democrats are going to absorb is not that. i think the wisconsin situation

is fluid enough, as people were saying, that we can't say how it's going to affect things politically. but a lot of the trump agenda here, it's intertwined with everything the conservative media is talking about, these memos memes, is to emphasize the scariest scene from any city. there's not one national agreement about who is responsible for the unrest. referring to wisconsin polls that scene was, i was in wisconsin, the city was quite during the democratic convention. there was some people with yellow vests, some bikers showing up with nobody to protest, the polling found that most people thought the president was doing a poor job of handling unrests and black lives matter was still popular by 12 points. there are camps, and we should say this, separated from politics but politicians can

endorse it or unendorse it, there are camps op people who show up, see there are protests happening, they want to show up, break windows, smash things. there are saboteurs, we know this, who have written online, who killed people, who have done property damage because they want the protests to look worse. and we know there are people who know how the protests look and rush in with guns to protect people. you find a mix of people saying i'm worried bauds the president won't stop fanning the flames, and the president is trying to save us from the liberals i saw on tv, the anarchists i saw on tv. i can't remember the last time -- maybe it was george floyd and the week after that people agreed on something hitting social justice at the same time. but i have not seen much agreement and the thing that made me optimistic is when you

talk about -- when cities are talked about as places under fire, it does seem to be isolated incidents that can be solved unless people that want to fan the flames keep showing up, key rioting and pointing guns atkornacki, as dave pointed out, there's so many cross-currents every day. that said, let's take a step back and as we move towards labor day and the day after, which is in the past, in the quaint past, has been the traditional opening of the presidential campaign, tell us, what do the swing states look like? >> we just talked about wisconsin. if you think of those three that trump narrowly flipped in 2016, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, he's got to find a way to win one of those. if he loses all three, he loses the electoral college. wisconsin looks like it's his

best shot. the marquette law poll is 4 at the start of august and so the big question mark is the events of this week, how are they processed in wisconsin, does that affect the number somehow. does the republican convention we just saw, does that affect the number somehow. i think the other way to look at it is just look at the national polling average right now. i know it's an election about swing states and not about the national popular vote, but i do think the national margin is relevant for this reason. if the popular vote margin is within five points or four, three, somewhere around there, but i would say five to be safe, if the national popular vote margin ends up five points within biden's favor, i think you can find scenarios in there where trump pulls the rabbit out of the hat are the electoral college like he did in 2016. right now the national polling average sits at about eight

points. if it gets inside five, i think we can start talking about what if he hangs on to wisconsin, finds a way in arizona. we start talking about that if it gets inside five. now, eight to five seems like a very small journey. my question is, can he make that journey in the polls from a bounce from the republican convention, is he capable of getting it inside five now. it's an open question, because eight to five seems like it's a very small thing to achieve. for trump, it would be a very big thing. since joe biden won the south carolina primary at the end of february, i think there have been about six or seven days, six or seven days the entire year since then when the margin of this race has been within five. so it sounds easy for trump to get there. it's been a task for him when you look at the polling. i think he's got to show he's capable. this week the republican convention gave him a chance to show, and i'm curious to see if he does. >> steve kornacki, mark wigal,

eugene wagner and charlie sykes, thank you. let's talk about the teenager, 17-year-old kyle rittenhouse was charged with first degree intentional hok side and first degree reckless homicide which were filed yesterday by prosecutors. his attorney claims rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. he also faces one count of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, as well as three other offenses. this next video of the moment right before the shooting is very disturbing. we warn you. the criminal complaint alleges that rittenhouse went on a shooting spree with an ar-15 style rifle late on tuesday. earlier, self-proclaimed malitia members clashed with protesters over the shooting of jacob blake. the 29-year-old black man left paralyzed by a kenosha police

officer. rittenhouse is being charged as an adult under the state's laws and could face life in prison if convicted of the most serious offense. >> with us now, visual investigators for "the new york times" video team, haley willis, part of the team of times reporters who pieced together rittenhouse's movements that night and tony adkins who has been on the ground covering the unrest in kenosha. i want to thank both of you for being with us. haley, my gosh, yesterday after this news broke, we were all flooded by videos and i was trying to figure out what happened to this kid. i call him a kid. he's 17 years old. his actions seemed so schizophrenic. he was sitting there talking to reporters, talking to a report i think from "the daily caller". he was shooting people.

he was sitting there calling for help for people. he was then running away. he was shooting again. he was going up to police officers telling them that he had shot people. just absolute chaos. what were you able to piece together on sort of a tiktok of his events? >> so as you say, after this took place we were all kind of flooded with hours of footage of what happened that night, and it was all very kind of isolated and within a vacuum and we saw a variety of things happening. so we wanted to understand how did this kid end up killing two people that night. and so what the footage tells us is he claims to be there in kenosha to be defending private property. so we see him at a car dealership early on in the evening where he claims to be defending property, defending vehicles across the street from

where nights prior dozens of vehicles had been burned. he also claims at the same time that he's there to provide medical aid to protesters, and so while we never see him actually providing aid, what we do see several times throughout the night is him attempting to offer medical aid to people, saying i'm an emt, does anyone need medical, walking around, while toting his ar-15 style rifle this entire time. so what we later see is about 15 minutes prior to the shooting, we see mr. rittenhouse at the car dealership where he's been active the entire night and he's with a group of other armed civilians and they actually have a direct interaction with the police where police in their armored vehicles offer the group water and they also say we appreciate you guys, we really do, and offer their thanks for these armed civilians who claim

to be there protecting property. we see mr. rittenhouse directly interact with officers, speak to them, walk up to their vehicle while he's armed with this weapon. ten minutes prior to the shooting, we see him walking around, again, attempting to offer medical aid and it's really interesting, what we see happening then is people start to recognize him from prior altercations in the day and they say, you pointed a gun at us, people claiming that earlier in the day they had been inside cars, on top of cars, and that he had allegedly pointed his gun at them and told them to stop. there's clearly a lot of antagonism against him. people are upset, people are scared and uncomfortable about this person that's walking around with an ar-15. next moment we see him is two to three minutes prior to the shooting. he's running with a fire extinguisher and we know he's running toward an area where

there's a fire, a dumpster fire, and we know that in that area is also the first shooting victim. we don't see the altercation caught on camera, but what we believe happened is that he ran in attempting to stop these people, to put out the fire, which resulted in a fight. again, he was upsetting people coming in with this weapon. they started chasing him. we see him chased into the scene of the first shooting and that's when it takes place. so the interesting thing is that the first shot fired is not fired by him. it's fired by someone else with a handgun on the scene. what we believe happened is that shot triggered him to turn around, he saw somebody else, not the person who fired chasing him. this is the first victim. he fires off four shots, hitting that first victim who unfortunately is now dead. he attempts to flee the scene, and while he's fleeing, people chase him. he falls to the ground, trips

and falls to the ground. three people kind of jump over him, it appears some of them may be trying to disarm him. at that moment is when he shoots four more times and he hits two more people, one person in the chest, who also is now dead, and one person who was also armed who was hit in the arm. kind of the biggest question about all of this is after the shooting takes place, he gets up, he walks away, he walks toward police vehicles that have been a block away this entire time and have not moved. we see him walking toward them with his arms up as if he's surrendering. people, bystanders are shouting he's a shooter, he just shot someone and we see the police vehicles drive by him. we know now they drove to the scene. but they drove by him and we know that he was not arrested until the next morning when he was back in illinois. so it raises serious questions, while it's a complex story, several people are armed, there's altercations on both

sides, it raises a lot of questions about why a 17-year-old was armed with this weapon, why police did nothing to intervene when they knew that, and why later on after the shooting they also made no attempt to apprehend him. >> that's a great summary, haley, and reflective of the reporting you guys did that people should go look at. tony, you're on the ground covering the story for several days. we heard rittenhouse say in the interview with "the daily caller" it is my job to be here to protect private property. a 17-year-old with an ar-15 viewed it as his job. what do we know about who he is and why he would have viewed himself that way, that he needed to come in from out of state and be in kenosha? >> he was there with a larger group of malitiamen and it seems like he had this feeling that he had this duty to protect the businesses. we were on the ground on sheridan road where the shooting took place as police were trying

to push protesters further south. at points tear gas was deployed and the protesters were moving further and further south on sheridan to that car lot where the shooting took place. there was one moment, actually, where you can see rittenhouse walk past our cameras. we saw him on the scene, obviously we saw a number of armed people in the malitia group. some of them tried to approach the officers in the armored vehicles heading north. so as the officers are pushing protesters south, you can see rittenhouse walk past our cameras northbound, walk up to the officers and you can hear him say, hey, i work at that business, i work at that business. so in what capacity, as a protector of that business, it's unclear. but it seems like he really felt like he had an obligation to protect businesses. >> mike barnicle, obviously

absolute chaos out there, and even the strongest of gun rights advocates who call themselves gun rights advocates asking the question, why is hell was a 17-year-old boy walking around with an ar-15? >> yeah, joe. and tony, i believe wisconsin is an open carry state, is it not? >> yeah, you can carry your weapon, but, you know, obviously a 17-year-old, a minor, that's illegal. >> so the next question is, you've covered this city, this region. this to an outsider seems like an incredible indictment of the kenosha police department, the sheriff's department, that as you just said, a 17-year-old, strapped with an ar-15, walking

through a night of fire and gunfire, and nobody stops him. what is the sense in the city right now about what occurred two nights ago, two or three nights ago? >> i think as the criminal complaint comes out a lot of people have a lot of questions. we are out in kenosha for the two days after the shooting. things have been very peaceful, but in talking with protesters everybody has a lot of questions. one of the things going through the complaint, you know, usually it mentions where they were arrested and just the moments leading up to the arrest, the questioning and things like that. it mentions the shooting, but we don't really have a lot of details about his night back to antioch after the shooting. so we have to ask police, you know, how they tracked him down and how he actually -- how they found out he made it back to antioch. so a lot of people just have a lot of questions about how he

got away and how he was able to spend the night at home before he was taken into custody. >> tony adkins and haley willis, thank you very much, both of you, for your reporting. absolutely fascinating and very troubling. "new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker spoke with the president this week, and asked about his agenda for a potential second term. the president's answer was less than clear. baker writes this, quote, trump rattled off a list of what he has done and would continue to do, like increasing military spending, cutting taxes, eliminating regulations, reinforcing the border and appointing conservative judges. trump told him, i think, i think it would be very, very -- i think we would have a very, very solid -- we would continue what we're doing.

we would solidify what we've done and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done. >> yeah, willie, the president actually doesn't know what he's going to do in his second term if he's given one by the voters. the republican party doesn't know. of course they've put no platform forward as ed lou said earlier this week. the republican party dances to whatever tunes come into mr. trump's head, what is missing is a link to any coherent plan for his second term. for the first time in its history the party did not publish an agenda this year. the truth as mr. orwell would have put it is whatever donald trump decides that truth to be. and donald trump decided last night, willie, that truth would be that it is joe biden's fault, a man who he claims is locked up in the basement of his delaware home. it's joe biden's fault for the american carnage that has spread

across the united states of america, despite the fact that mr. biden has not been in the white house for four years and he has. donald trump is saying also, we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. a bizarre and jumbled message, willie. >> i suspect, joe, you might hear that in a biden ad, maybe as early as this morning. just play that quote over and over again from the president last night. but you're right, it was stunning, among many stunning things, to hear the president say at the dnc last week they didn't articulate policy, it was too touchy-feely. this week at the rnc they literally scrapped the platform. didn't have one. the platform is support the agenda of donald trump. and how many cracks does he need at that question of what his second term will look like. he's been asked nine, ten times by friendly media outlets. he cannot give an answer. he can't lay it out except more

of the same. and mike barnicle, you wrote about this this morning, watching the speech, that the second term of donald trump and what he put out there is more of what we've seen. there's no mystery to it. it will be this for four more years if he's re-elected. >> you know, willie, if you listen to that speech last night, obviously, and you remove the name joe biden, 75% of that speech he could have given two, three, four years ago, he could have given it when he first ran for president, he could have given it when he came down the escalator in 2015. the larger point is that the republican party, and this has been mentioned before, he has co-opted the entire republican party and they are going along with this silently. they are now the new silent majority, the republican party, and he stands there in the middle of a bonfire that's going on in this country and we just went through the incredibly

tragic events in kenosha, wisconsin, with the 17-year-old and an ar-15. so it gets down to the question of who is the president and what is he responsible for? well, donald trump is president of the united states right now. and this is all happening while he is president of the united states. he manages to get away with over 1,000 deaths a day. there are now over 180,000 people dead. they're not going to be showing up for the labor day picnic because this guy didn't do the job. there are millions of people, upwards of 30 million people, americans in this country who are unemployed, and for many of them tragically for too many of them, the jobs that they once held might never come back, might never come back. so the question the democrats have to ask the country is, do you think you're better off today, right now, do you think you're better off today than you were in january.

>> yeah, you know, you could actually superimpose the images of that 17-year-old running around with an ar-15 indiscriminately shooting, running around scared, shooting, offering -- claiming to offer help, claiming that he can help people. you could show cities that are boarded up and shut down because of the pandemic. all of these scenes. you could just play donald trump's trum trump's inaugural address about carnage and you can at the end of that understand that donald trump was actually right about one thing, that there would be american carnage at the end of his four years as president of

the united states. and when he gave that speech, crime was at a 50-year low, the economy was in the midst of its largest and longest economic rebound, had been growing for six years straight, and you actually had americans who believed that if they had pre-existing conditions they would be able to be treated by doctors. all of that is at risk now. 180,000, almost 180,000 people have died, and donald trump last night -- if you look at the images from last night, donald trump showed you again that when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. and when donald trump showed seniors that he didn't give a damn whether they lived or died

in february, that's something they can still believe moving into september. when donald trump said america and its seniors didn't have to worry about the pandemic because it was just one person coming in from china in february, well, seniors can bet that he's still telling them he doesn't care whether they live or die when he hold an event like last night. as much as he cares about the stock market, when he says it will magically go away in february, that april will bring its cure, that hydroxychloroquine and disinfectants and uv lights are end this scourge, he's again telling senior citizens from florida to arizona, from colorado to maine, that he doesn't care about their life as much as he does the s&p.

when he ignores his doctors, his doctors, his white house officials, who warned him that 200,000 americans, most of them seniors, would die, he told older americans by his acts, by his convention, by the scenes we saw last night that he was less concerned about them dying alone than he was with the dow industrial average. and when he tried to reopen schools last april, when he held super-spreader events in tulsa, and when he packed 1,000 maskless people under the white house lawn last night in an action that nobody else could do in america because it was so dangerous, that was an image that summarized better than

anything else that he or anyone else inside or outside of the white house, or even on the biden campaign, that could summarize his disregard for common sense, for his own doctors' medical advice, and for the lives of millions of seniors. almost 180,000 americans have died, many more are going to die in the coming months. and when donald trump shows you that he doesn't give a damn whether you or your parent or one of those who die over the coming months, believe him. we'll be right back. >> we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com.

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while i'll be a democratic candidate, i will be an american president. i'll work hard for those who didn't support me, as hard for them as i did for those who did

vote for me. >> joe biden is not a savior of america's soul. he is the destroyer of america's jobs and, if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of american greatness. >> let's pull back and see what -- i would love to get your take on two weeks of conventions and where we find ourselves going into september with what used to be seen traditionally as the start of campaign season. i think you've proven that these elections in years past with a lot of your reporting are won or lost in april and may. i don't know that that's the case now. a lot of tight polls out there. where are we after two weeks of conventions? how did the democrats do? how did the republicans respond? how is this campaign set up for the fall?

>> joe, i think our verdict at the end of last week on the democratic convention still stands and i think democrats feel good about what they got done. i would say in this week, which obviously right now we're thinking about, i'm curious here what you thought about trump's speech last night. talking to democrats all week long this week, everybody was critical of a variety of things that republicans did this week. but purely from the standpoint of political operatives who are paying attention to this race, to this convention, there was a sense of nervousness on the part of democrats who had seen polls tightening in the battleground states and thought that by the standards of what this trump campaign was trying to do in this convention that they had had a pretty successful first three days of the convention. focused on, you know, trying to soften trump's image, working on the problem they have with women in the suburbs, obviously throwing a lot of red meat to the base, trying to portray biden in the frame they have settled on, it's a tough frame,

this kind of bank shot of biden is not a leftist and an anarchist, but he's the puppet. they were making that argument. and then last night came along and i heard a large collective ex halation of relief because i think trump's speech last night was, the speech itself was bad. it was long, was boring. trump did not seem -- he's always bad on teleprompter, he likes to riff, they did not want him to do that last night clearly. a 70-minute speech where he did not have that much emergency throu energy through most of it. the speech was delivered in kind of a halting way and two other things about it, one of them was that the critique of biden, he mentioned joe biden 41 times last night. in 2016 he mentioned hillary clinton 15 or 16 times and that seemed like a lot. he mentioned joe biden 41 times

last night and the critique of biden was so over the top, was so hyperbolic, that it lost a lot of its force. it seemed like he was just so -- it was so exaggerated and you wondered whether it was really going to move anybody who wasn't already in the maga camp. and then the next thing i would say, he went through this entire week, joe, four days, never managed to uter the name jacob blake. not a moment where he expressed sympathy for the family, not a moment where he raised any questions about the police behavior there. the only discussion of kenosha last night was around the question of democrat-run cities on fire, the dystopian view. and i think, you know, if you think about the nba protests on wednesday, you think about what americans are seeing on their television screens who saw that video, people -- i think he seemed incredibly out of touch and out of step with the reality of what's going on in this country related to race and that is a huge part of his problem in

the suburbs and in the swing states, is that people look at him on the question of race, which is so central in american life right now, and say this dude is so far out of touch, and i think those are all problems that made the last day of their convention, the day that trump looked forward to more than any other, maybe the worst of the four days and took away maybe some of the gains that they felt like that it seemed like they might have racked up over the course of these first three days. i thought yesterday in that speech did them no good at all. >> coming up on "morning joe," former nba great chris weber joins us to discuss the ongoing protests across the world of sports in response to the police shooting of jacob blake. "morning joe" is coming right back. it's time for the biggest sale of the year on the sleep number 360 smart bed.

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as amy first jober, sheis to care for derek.ed, her strength respected. everything i do is for him. when i moved to this apartment after six months, we need to connect with the world. i use the internet to keep him in the language, because that's the way to connect to my family's traditions. he has to know where he comes from. we need internet essentials. there's no excuse to not get connected. if not now, when? if not during a pandemic and countless lives being lost, if not now, when? that's all i just want to hear from the rest of the night where everyone is thinking and soapboxing and all of that. we know nothing is going to change. we get it. martin luther king got shot and risked his life and we've seen

this in all of our heroes constantly taken down. we understand it's not going to end. but that does not mean, young men, that you don't do anything. don't listen to these people telling you don't do anything because it's not going to end right away. you are starting something for the next generation and the next generation. i applaud, because it is the young people leading the way and i applaud them. >> that is, of course, chris webber, one of the all time greats of college and professional basketball talking two nights ago on tnt. professional athletes and sports teams continued their boycotts of games and matches yesterday in protest of the police shooting of jacob blake in wisconsin. the nba called off three playoff games scheduled for yesterday. some players reportedly considered boycotting the rest of the nba season, but league officials will hopeful games will resume today or tomorrow after players reportedly voted in favor of continuing play. another three wnba games were

postponed last night. a league statement says players continue discussions and reflections on recent events. the national hockey league and its players association agreed to postpone playoff games scheduled for yesterday and today. semifinal tennis matches at the western and southern open were suspended yesterday, but both men's and womens' matches are set to resume. nine nfl teams called off yesterday's practices, seven major league baseball games were postponed, including last night's game again the miami marlins and the new york mets at city field where the mets starters took the field at game time as the other players stepped out and both teams stood in foul territory for 42 seconds of silence in a nod to jackie robinson, who famously wore number 42 and broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. the players then exited the field for the night, did not play the game, leaving only a

black lives matter t-shirt at home plate. joining us now is the former nba all-star and nba on tnt commentator now, chris webber, and sports journalist, host of the podcast unbothered and contributing writer ma jal hill and carrie champion, new co-hosts of the stick to sports on vice tv. this is an awesome group. chris, i want to start with you. we played the clip a couple times on this show yesterday. we saw in your face the pain, the frustration, the exhaustion. we've come to know you, those of you who followed you and loved you as a player, as this larger than life figure and there was so much humanity and there was so much about a shared experience among so many americans. what were you feeling when they came to you that night on tnt? >> thank you for having me on, and can't wait to see jamal and carrie's shoe because they're

not going to stick to sports. that's a funny name. but i felt pain. it's the pain of growing up in detroit. when we see these speeches and conventions, everybody brings in their personal story. and i think what people need to understand is that we have the same stories, you know, not only do i want to make sure that we address the killing of unarmed black men and women, but at this time we should address education as well. people like myself get a better chance at education coming from where i come from than those in my neighborhood or that have the same zip code because i can play sports. my mother was a teacher for over 20 years in detroit and she used to talk about the inefficiencies and the fact that the marginalized didn't get the same resources. this is not just education. this is not just black women dying at the hands of white doctors in childbirth. this is everything.

i think everyone needs to understand we have families, cousins, sisters, brothers, and aunts. we're affected the same way every other american is and we just want to make sure you hear our stories. if you appreciate how we got here and we're inspiring you, then let us tell you what we've overcome and hopefully we can make change so it will be easier for others behind us. >> chris, what is the impact of all these guys you know, some of them who you've played with, getting together and walking out of these games? first of all, in your eyes, what do they want to see, and second of all, what does it mean to have them step away from those playoff games? they may come back today or tomorrow, but what is the statement that they've already made? >> the statement that they've made is that i'm on your show speaking to you in the morning. the statement they made that kids all over the world are talking about this. white fathers have to have this conversation with their sons and tell them why the players decided, black fathers have this conversation with their sons and

inspire their sons and say this is what they're doing and they're fighting for you. i just applaud the players. i really don't care how it came about, because i think that the impulse is to -- the impulse is what makes everything work. so i'm glad that they acted upon empathy, sympathy, i'm glad they acted upon their passion. so what i think it did was start a new conversation. you know, i watch the news constantly. i follow the news and i'm frustrated. i'm frustrated with the lack of follow-u follow-ups on questions, and i'm frustrated that everybody is implicit in this. that's what i feel in the media and that fatigue of news, that fatigue of media, i think that they put a boost back in, they shine a light back on the deaths, back on the injustices here. and i really do think that those conversations are needed before everyone turns a deaf ear to those we should trust in the media. >> you know, jamal, it's

interesting that that's exactly what i was thinking as i was watching what happened last night and the night before, that there's such an exhaustion of following news, cable news, and such an exhaustion of following politicians. such an exhaustion following fact-checkers, who is lying, who is not lying. when you have players that americans look up to, republicans, democrats, independents, they walk off the field, it starts a conversation that no politician, no radio or tv talk show host could ever start, right? i mean, is that not in the end the most significant part of these walkouts? >> first, let me just say that when chris spoke from the heart the other night, it moved me to tears. it was really powerful and compassionate and compelling and his mother taught at my high school. so i understand what he talks

about when he discusses being from detroit and our neighborhoods and what it means for people to see him and even me on tv talking to you now. so thank you for sharing that, chris. but, you know, the exhaustion that you talk about, joe, is an exhaustion that a lot of black people collectively feel. we're tired of having to, frankl frankly beg for our humanitarian. when something happens to george floyd or breonna taylor that it turns into a debate where people on both sides, what we consider to be terrorism against black people. and the great thing about sports and why it is uniquely positioned to have these kind of uncomfortable conversations is that it's the one thing we do in this country that brings everybody together. we may be on different sides politically, but we might both root for the pistons or lakers, and because we're in the same space, if lebron james is

saying, hey, you need to pay attention to this, if you have nba players and major league baseball and major league soccer players telling america that this is an issue that we need to confront, then those who may have closed minds or narrow minds might be willing to at least understand why their favorite athlete or why their favorite team finds this important. why are the mets putting down a shirt that says black lives matter. so it's stoking something so that we can finally confront not just our ugly racial past but our current ugly racial present. >> and what a powerful way to reach americans and to start those conversations in their homes as families between parents and children. gary, i wonder, just watching this story, how far this will go. how far can the present players who have been doing this continue this, and what other -- i mean, could we see this in football? >> oh, i definitely think we

already start to see -- first of all, thanks for having me on the show. we already start to enjoy and have moments where, for me i say enjoy, have moments where we're seeing nfl players move into this space as well. you have to realize, though, by way of background, nfl players don't necessarily have the same freedoms because a lot of it is tied to their contracts. their money isn't guaranteed. so their career could last perhaps three to five years, so they feel some of the times, and i can't speak for all of them, they feel like let me get in, get this money, do my job and perhaps later when i'm retired or move on in life, i can speak out more boldly in the way that i want. but watching these nba players who have guaranteed contracts, watching them speak so comfortably and live in her own humanity i think has really emboldened so many other leagues and i think you'll see the same with the nfl. i will say this, though. everyone is calling this a strike or a boycott. well, i think that we need to

take a moment and realize what it was. have you ever worked some place and you needed a mental health day? have you ever felt as if i am exhausted by everything that is happening, so i need to take a day? to me, what we're not realizing, these players are inside of this bubble, literally a bubble in orlando, florida, where they can only eat, sleep and play together, don't see their families, they can't interact with other people in person outside of the players, their coaches, and they're exhausted. not only from that experience, but also from what they're just sitting and watching consistently and constantly on television. and so when lebron james tweets using an exspletiv, that is the tip of the iceberg. they needed that moment and time. at the end of the day what chris said was so great. i don't necessarily need them to have key moves after this, but what they did do was something

that started a conversation, that made people who are sitting in their homes feel different about this movement and about this moment and understand that it is so important to look at these people as humans. they are humans. and sometimes we forget that. >> that is such a good point, cari. and chris, to your point about starting a conversation, i sat with my two children, age 13 and 11, and we watched your clip. we watched robert's claim that same night, we sat and watched it together. they asked a bunch of questions and we started that conversation. so i want to thank you for that. do you believe now that we're going to see some progress out of it? because as you guys are all saying, the nba players now have grabbed the country by the lapel for the moment and say stop, stop, we need to talk about this. so what comes next, i guess, is the question? it's the same thing that happened after the killing of george floyd where the country stopped. there needed to be real change

out of that. so from your vantage point, what is that change? what happens now? >> it starts with an awareness and then that change has a ripple effect. your son, i'm sure rgs looks at this world a little bit differently than we did when we grew up. i think that these guys getting in good trouble is great. i think what cari said about a mental health day is correct, but i also think the guys were willing to put their basketball financial livelihood on the line because some of these guys make more money outside of basketball. the fact now that you have a platform where you can reach kind of your own base, so to speak. but i think what's going to be next is if politicians who have been in this for so long can't come together and make change, you can't expect the athletes to have an answer right away. this is what i expect to happen. i expect the athletes to say, okay, we're going to get back to playing, but in the meantime we're going to meet with experts and politicians, we're going to

meet with people in our community, and i think they're going to start a ground swell of change in each neighborhood. each neighborhood where these guys come from. you look at it, it's already been done, whether it's like the ladies that you have on and you've seen what they've been through and what they've had to do and fight much bigger platforms to have their words. there's people that have schools in detroit, there's other guys that have companies and are employing people. so i expect a couple of things. one, to get with their local government, two, to go in their own pocket and make change. three, to make sure that people that look like them that they're speaking to, so for little black boys that are scared in their neighbor, that are scared to walk to the store, that may have the world, they get to see shows like this and you have us on and we're talking. this is reverberating when you hear these ladies talking and we're talking to our people. so i think what you're going to see is a ground swell of confidence, a ground swell of

let's work in this together and i think they'll start working with players around other leagues. trust me, i have friends that play soccer internationally. over there it's crazy. they're throwing bananas at guys on the soccer field. we need to address a whole bunch of issues. i think you're going to see it amongst the athletes doing it ourselves. if that happens, that would be special because the politicians are going to have to catch up later. >> great point. this isn't just an american problem. i follow european football and the racism from the stands there for players who are not white at times is absolutely outrageous. speaking of absolutely outrageous, here is jared kushner, the president's top adviser, a guy who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, and when he feels like getting out of a crisis inside the white house, takes his family and flies on his jet to vail or

aspen. here is jared kushner criticizing athletes who spoke out. >> i think that the nba players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they're able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially, so they have that luxury, which is great. there's a lot of activism and i think that they've put a lot of slogans out, i think what we need to do is turn that from slogans and signals to actual action that's going to solve the problem. >> you wrote about jared kushner's remarks in "the atlantic". tell us your take. >> my take is that it's really interesting that he wants to talk about luxury and comfort when he has the luxury and comfort of his father-in-law being the president and him constantly being put in charge of things that he's wholly unequal unqualified to do. the nba players are a lot better at their jobs than he is at his. i thought it was interesting he would be the one to throw some of these attacks. but you know what he was doing,

and frankly, black people, whether they're athletes or anybody that's in a prominent position, we're constantly told how great it is, the things that we've accomplished, despite the fact that we've worked very hard to earn those things. we were given nothing. so these players, when they're not performing and when they're not in their sport, they still have to be black in america. they pay taxes just like a lot of people watching right now, just like you do and everybody on this panel. so that gives them the right to criticize their own government, that gives them the right to talk about the conditions in this country, and i'm just tired, frankly, of us being told in both overt and sometimes subtle ways that we just need to shut up and be quiet and grateful. that's basically what jared kushner was saying. so i found his comments to be laughable, and frankly, embarrassing for somebody in that position. >> cari, i see you nodding and shaking your head. final word to you. >> i'm nodding and shaking my

head because my co-host is so eloquent in what i like to call professional ether. she says it the best and i'm enjoying every moment of what she and chris have to say. i think the final word is for those at home watching and saying they're tired of hearing black lives matter and they're exhausted about hearing about all of these protests and issues, please understand how exhausted we are as black people and we are exhausted asking for the simple equality. we don't want revenge. we just want equality. and it is so simple if we can all get on board. so if you're tired, i don't know what to tell you. but please join in. >> absolutely. >> now is not the time to sit down and rest. hey, chris, it's not fair, i don't think, to take people's quotes that are a couple of decades long, so i'm going to

bring up a couple of quotes that i know you're familiar with, and sports fans are familiar with, not to criticize these people, but to just talk about how much things have changed. obviously charles barkley famously once said that he wasn't a role model and michael jordan talked about how republicans buy sneakers, too. it is pretty remarkable, though, what these times have required of basketball stars and others that so many of us look up to, so many of our children look up to, and sort of that approach is just no longer permissible. not that it's not permissible. it's just -- i mean, everybody is free to do whatever everybody wants to do. let me just say, i think that you have a lot more players that will think twice before adopting that sort of attitude in 2020.

>> yeah, and i think the platform of having -- you know, being able to have instagram and others has changed it. but knowing michael jordan, he said that quote, but personally i've seen him give millions of dollars away and charles is going to be mad, but i've seen him do that. but there's so much to risk. and a shout out to dr. john carlos in 1968. he's a mentor of mine. i still don't think that the country understands, he still gets hate and vitriol. he still is not honored the way that he should. he signed with a shoe company at that time, the shoe company doesn't want to honor him. i believe that kareem abdul-jabbar, when he decided not to go to the olympics, number two, when he changed his name he wasn't respected, number three, i don't think he gets that respect from the nation today because of how he protested. mohammed ali showed us that you can protest against an unjust war for everyone and the

majority still be mad at you. so it if were not for, in my opinion, if it were not for sports and athletes doing this and the way that it was brought up earlier, sports gives you a common enemy. if you're white and black, it's us together today against them. that's the premise of sports. that helps these conversations. the first time i imagined that a white man said, hey, son, you need to be like that black guy there, look how he works. probably was jackie robinson. the first time a black man comes into the living room is probably on tv. we're always changing the narrative and that's why i want it in the media. i would hear these stories and go why are they honoring jackie robinson, he was mad as hell when he passed away because there was no black managers. so there's a deeper level that we athletes see, even though we all put on this one face because we don't want to be by the media personally, but there's a lot

more going on and i just have to give lebron james so much credit. i have to give these other guys credit, because today you take bullies home with you on your phone. you can't escape it, whether you're in the bubble or not in the bubble. these bullies, these comments can follow you home. and i just hope that people realize that there are a lot of other things that these guys could be doing, but their families are in these areas and they're really committed to making change. >> chris webber, thank you so much, and your new show is stick to sports, wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. on vice tv. let's take a look. >> cari and jamele on sports and the pandemic. >> if lebron wants to play, we're playing. >> sports and politics. >> washington had no choice but to change his name. >> sports and the president. >> if he doesn't pick a black woman, you're not voting for him. have you ever dated a white man? >> that's not the point. >> talk about whatever you want. >> i put ketchup on my tacos and i don't think anything is wrong

with it. >> stick to sports, wednesdays at 10:00. >> i don't think there's anything wrong with it either. >> maybe one of the great titles since "shut up and play" or frank zappa had an album called "shut up and play". what a great title. where did you come up with it? >> it's interesting because we both worked at espn -- i'm sorry, we both are talking. this is the show, guys. we both worked at espn and so when we left espn we thought that we would take the idea of what many people asked us to do while we were there, and that was just stay in that one lane. as you know, there's the "shut up and dribble". so whenever we would venture out of that lane, maybe with the colin kaepernick story, the bullies as chris talked about a moment ago, would say stick to sports, you don't even know what you're talking about.

but those who tell you to stick to sports are uncomfortable with our take on what we're seeing in the world and how it relates to sports. our show is honestly an intersection of all of those things, sports and politics, sports and the world, sports ans and culture. and we have a lot of fun, but what we like to call it is just we're giving you medicine but we're giving it to you with a little bit of candy. as black journalists, i feel it's so important for us to speak up about what we see because what's happening in our country right now requires someone who has lived that life. not to say that everyone can't do it but we see it because we've experienced and lived it firsthand. all we're asking right now with our show is just for you to see us. the human innocence us. the humanity in us. and also her professional ether as you are familiar with. it's a great watch! >> thank you very much, both of you, for being on this morning

to talk about these really vital issues impacting our country and we can't wait for the new show. it looks amazing. thank you both very much. >> thanks. joining us now, author of winners take all, msnbc political analyst and publisher of the newsletter, the dot inc. anand, thanks for being with us. i want to let you talk about whatever you want to talk about today, but i just have to start with, what do you think the quote was from the republican national convention this past week? quote from donald trump, the sitting president. we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today. i would guess that you actually would agree with donald trump on that point. >> yeah, and it's quite revealing when you say that as an incumbent. look, this is the friday morning after now. we've gotten to watch both of these conventions.

and the cases to america have been made. honestly, i feel an enormous sense of foreboding after watching this week. i actually was not of the mind that donald trump could easily win until watching this week. and they -- i am sitting here today thinking that they could very easily do it through the voter suppression, through the mail stuff and through their propaganda, gusying up their fascist bid. and i just had this very strong feeling last night. i watched a little bit on fox news to try to get inside the head of the death cult, and we are in a cold civil war in this country. and each of these two countries is impermeable to each other, has its own entirely different set of facts, entirely different set of realities. michael beschloss said on this

air last night, we are a year away from losing our democracy. this is not aoc saying it or joe biden. this is not me saying it. it's michael beschloss, presidential historian saying we may be a year away from losing our democracy. i came away with this sense that it's going to take heroic focus on persuasion in terms of reaching across and on the consolidation of the left and on really stoking passion because right now, if we're being honest, the progressive wing of the party doesn't feel the love. they may vote for joe biden, many of them, most of them, but there's not the love. and the energy you see around black lives merit, the whole beautiful discussion you just had, a lot of the folks drawn to that beautiful movement are also not feeling the love. and i think those folks have been lectured. the progressives have been lectured. the black lives matter have been lectured about how they need to

come to biden. i'd say it's time for biden to come to them. it's an existential need for joe biden to come to them. speak to those people who have reservations about him because of criminal justice. speak to people who have reservations about him because of his, you know, whether he'll fundamentally change things or not. but we are going to need to ignite loving fury and passion of a kind we have never seen in modern american politics if we have a chance to avoid michael beschloss' scenario of losing our democracy. >> anand, the president said last night, this is the most important election of our lifetimes. we hear that every four years. nothing surprising there. but it was cast as an existential election that if joe biden becomes president, these cities will be on fire, the very way of american life will be lost forever. one speaker this week call the president of the united states the guardian of western civilization or whatever you call him. something like that. and then the other side, as you

say, democrats and progressives see this as existential, as in the country cannot survive another four years of donald trump. so in your view, what happens when those two existential crises collide on election day? >> you're exactly right. it's these two 40% blocs or whatever they are that are -- and you can pick any issue. break down what you just said. so safety, right? 40% of the country has this feeling that the other side is the threat to safety because of riots and protests. 40% of the country feels coronavirus, much more accurately, is a threat. you know, on foreign policy, on freedom. like the problem is these things are baked. so what's going to be really important now, and this is where democrats need to do way better than they're doing right now. what the right is very good at is speaking to people in the deep language of guttural, universal, deeply shared values. what it happens to be marketing

right now is nihilistic and destructive and bad for almost everybody, but it speaks relentlessly of faith, of family of safety of liberty. those are good things that people want. and i think if i could give advice to the folks who are trying to win this election for the continuing -- you know, life of the american republic, it would be make sure that you are not speaking in a language that is too wonky, too woke, too collegy, too exclusionary, that makes people feel like they're not sure they can get an on ramp into your movement. this is the opportunity for democrats and folks on the left to speak in the most embracing, open, guttural language of faith, freedom, family, decency, fairness, equality, all the things we love. and speak to every variety of american. >> and also speak to those

working class americans wherever they are. those white working class americans who somehow are still, many of them, still voting for donald trump. and explain best you can how your approach will help them out of the economic crisis they find themselves in. an economic crisis they find themselves in and that a president responds to by giving his billionaire friends massive tax cuts, and then flies down to mar-a-lago and says to them around a table that night, i just made all of you a lot of money. so here's a clip from the recount that proves when it comes to donald trump and republican conventions, the more things change, the more they stay the same. >> hillary clinton plans a

massive and i mean massive tax increase. >> he has pledged a $4 trillion tax hike on almost all american families. >> my opponent wants sanctuary cities. >> he also supports deadly sanctuary cities. the terrorism of our cities, mayhem in democrat-run cities. open borders. they want to open our borders. my opponent wants to essentially abolish the second amendment. they would wipe away your second amendment. we are going to appoint justices of the united states supreme court who will uphold our laws. we will appoint prosecutors, judges, justices, who believe in enforcing the law. protect free speech for all americans. free speech on college campuses. i am your voice.

i am fighting for you. we will make america safe again. we will make america safer. we will make america proud again. >> we will make prouder. and we will make america great again. and we will make america greater than ever before. god bless you, and good night. i love you. i love you all. god bless you, and god bless america. thank you very much. >> he just phoned it in. >> yeah, not safe. not healthy. with 180,000 people dead. and not proud. most foreign policy experts would say we're kind of the laughing stock of the world right now. willie geist? >> yeah, that was a cut and paste job from a word document. steven miller's personal account, i guess. that was a parallel universe

what we saw the last four days where 180,000 people are not dead, some 30 million people are not out of work and this administration has done a great job handling this pandemic that lives at the center of all of our lives. >> that does it for us this morning. we want to thank you for watching today and watching this week. please have a great, safe weekend. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is friday, august 28th, and this morning, we're following multiple stories from across the nation. in the state of louisiana, rescue teams working overnight after a massive category 4 hurricane battered the coast. in wisconsin, a fifth straight night of protests over the killing -- over the shooting of jacob blake are staying peaceful. and a 17-year-old charged with killing two protesters is set to appear in court this morning. in the nation's capital, the president