hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. with just two months to go in the presidential contest, it's clear that only one candidate is running to be the president of the entire united states of america. and that man is joe biden who yesterday forcefully condemned all acts of violence on all sides of the ideological spectrum, something donald trump pointedly refused to do. when given the opportunity to condemn a supporter turned vigilante now charged with murder at a press conference yesterday. >> rittenhouse? >> we're looking at all of it. that was an interesting situation. you saw the same tape as i saw. and he was trying to get away from them, it looks like, and he

fell. and then they very violently attacked him. and it was something that we're looking at right now, and it's under investigation. but i guess he was in very big trouble. he would have been -- he probably would have been killed. but it's under investigation. >> donald trump's refusal there to condemn kyle rittenhouse who traveled across state lines to a black lives matter demonstration and ended up allegedly killing two protesters puts the president squarely on the side of lawlessness and chaos. but donald trump went even further. also placing himself in the office of the american presidency on the side of those trump backers who rode in the back of pickup trucks to shoot black lives matter protesters with paint guns. >> well, i understand they had large numbers of people that were supporters but that was a peaceful protest. and paint is not -- and paint is a defensive mechanism. paint is not bullets.

>> but note to our viewers, all paint is not equal to donald j. trump. donald trump threatened to prosecute and jail anyone found to have poured paint on monuments. donald trump took his divisive campaign message to kenosha, wisconsin, today, after that state's leaders asked him to stay away. trump's nod to violence is jockeying for headlines today with his full embrace of his own special conspiracy theories. one so bizarre, even fox's laura ingraham seemed taken aback. >> who do you think is pulling biden's strings. is it former obama people? >> people you've never heard of. people that are in the dark shadows. people that oar. >> what does that mean? that sounds like conspiracy theories. dark shadows. what is that? >> there are people that are on the streets, controlling the streets. >> a campaign of chaos and conspiracy versus joe biden's call for calm is where we start today with some of our favorite

reporters and friends. former state department official rick stengel is back. also white house correspondent for pbs newshour, yamiche alcindor and professor at morgan state university and contributor to the grio, jason johnson. all of them are msnbc contributors. yamiche, i want to make sure i've laid out the facts accurately. donald trump passed up an opportunity to condemn the vigilante alleged murder of two individuals in that press clip i played. donald trump refused to condemn the trump caravan where they were shooting paint guns at black lives matter protesters. and still sort of out there tweeting and talking about law and order. he doesn't see anything discordant about those things. >> you're wondering if you are living in this reality that we're living in. that is the reality that we're

living in. i was writing my package for pbs today, and i had to write, after justifying a trump supporter's killing two people and after comparing police shooting people to golfing, the president went to kenosha. that's the opening line of a package i never thought i would be writing. and i think what we're dealing with is the president really not wanting to lose any voters and also wanting to not look like he's giving even an inch on the idea of law enforcement sometimes -- not all the time but sometimes unjustifiably killing african-americans. and he doesn't want to deal with the reality that black people are killed at higher rates than white people in this country. what you see the president doing is doubling down and really going to this part of his base. i don't think all trump supporters are like this, but going to the part of his base that think that it's okay for a 17-year-old to shoot people in the street who are unarmed, who are at a protest, who are upset about the way the federal government is treating

african-americans, and it's not -- never before i think in the history of america has a president used the bully pulpit of the white house to defend somebody who is charged with homicide in a way like this. and it just, i think, it underscores where the president is. it also underscores that we're going to see for the next 60-odd days as the president tries to march to re-election on november 3rd. he's going to continue to go to the base of his the people who believe in him to justify anything and almost everything that they do in order to make his case. >> jason johnson, if this was dating and not running a country and it was your friend, your girlfriend or boyfriend and they only dated david duke or qanon or vigilantes, you'd tell them ould do better. but donald trump refuses to aim any higher than david duke to

condemn him, the qanon. he played ftoo footsy with them. let's talk about it on the other side. >> will you unequivocally condemn david duke and say you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election? >> well, just so you understand, i don't know anything about david duke, okay? i don't know anything about what you're talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. >> the theory is this belief that you are secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. does that sound like something you are behind or -- >> well, i haven't heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing? >> you know, so jason, the point is there is no effort to distance himself from anyone no matter how much it debases the

office as long as they vote for him. >> trump's biggest problem is america's ex-boyfriend is barack obama. and she misses him. and he's never gotten over it. and everything he does, he's just the angry new boyfriend. >> i think trump knows that. >> oh, yeah. yeah, he knows. >> want him back. >> right. so what he does is he goes to this deep, dark base of just asking vigilantes to come out and attack cities. i mean, that is what he's doing at this point. i've said to people, i think they stopped campaigning six weeks ago. i think the president is just trying to rig the election and send out armed insurrections. when -- rittenhouse is what you would have had in a school shooter. he's a 17-year-old kid. he shouldn't have had a gun. he crossed state lines to

supposedly protect property. no, he was going out to shoot people because this president encourages that level of violence. and that's what i think is the real challenge going forward that you have a president who is no longer campaigning on policy. no longer campaigning on symbolism. he just wants terror and fear and that's what the democrats and regular voters have to be prepared for for the next 60-something days. >> you know, rick stengel, i am thinking a lot about the book that you wrote about disinformation and it's donald trump using it on his own country. and i think people like yamiche do pulitzer prize-winning journalism every single day by going in there and having to puncture through the fiction to even ask a question based in the real world, not in trump's alternate reality. but it still doesn't feel like enough. you watch that laura ingraham interview and he was too batty for her. i mean, where are we failing to

sort of get the disinformation higher up the distribution chain? >> well, nicolle, it's a culture war, and he's using disinformation to fuel the conspiracy theories and white extremists. he's the conspiracy theorist in chief. that's why it's so hard to deal with. it comes from the top down. he spews more disinformation and misinformation in a day than other presidents might do during their four years. and it's this very, very cynical effort that yamiche and jason were talking about to divide americans. the language he uses. he calls the protesters them. he's making an us/them argument using disinformation. them being people of color, immigrants, people who are not white. and he's doing this over and over. i mean, that is his campaign, as

jason said at this point. and he's doing it to distract from the fact that by election time, there may be 250,000 americans who are dead from a virus. and the fact that all of us now are hyperventilating about what trump is doing on kenosha takes away from the fact that he's the most lawless president in history and people's law and order is jeopardized by the fact he hasn't treated a virus which has created a pandemic and killed hundreds of thousands of people. that is it in a nutshell. >> right. >> i take your point, rick stengel, but so where would you draw the line between covering him -- let me play for you, this is what he said about the shooting of jacob blake. he compared it to a golfer. watch. >> shooting the guy in the back many times. i mean, couldn't you have done

something different? couldn't you have wrestled him? i mean, in the meantime, he might have been going for a weapon and there's a whole big thing there. but they choke. just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot -- >> you're not comparing it to golf. >> i'm saying people choke. >> so, i mean, rick stengel, the -- i guess the justification for covering some of what he's saying and doing is it is so appalling, laura ingraham is literally prepping him and coaching him through an interview she's conducting with him. are you saying that any distraction from what the country has been through on covid is benefiting him? >> yes, absolutely. he's the chaos president. he creates conflict because he benefits from it. i mean, the subtext of what i'm saying and that's what you're going after with the question

is, what is the ratio of what we should cover? how much should we cover kenosha and the breathtakingly shameful statement that it's like the police officer was like he choked on a three-foot putt versus concentrating on existential threat to the country between him and the coronavirus. i mean, it's a tough decision. i've been in the news business most of my life. i don't know how i would do that ratio, but i do think when we spend all of this time talking about him creating this cultural divide which benefits him, that isn't necessarily the best use of journalistic time rather than covering the virus or covering other things that matter a great deal. that's my point. >> you know, i think i agree with you and i want to put this back on one of the best working journalists i know and the only one represented on this panel. yamiche, has he succeeded in

bumping some of your questions about covid off the rundown with all these outrageous openly racist, openly lawless statements? >> well, i think that he's succeeded in, at times, making the news have to split. we have to cover the virus but we also have to cover the fact that he thinks shooting a man in the back seven times is like missing a golf move. i think it's an interesting thing to cover president trump because every time that i go to the white house, i always, i mean, apart from the racial reckoning, apart from a pandemic, i have the news questions and race and social justice questions because i consider myself a civil rights reporter in essence. so i think that is never going to ever be bumped off my well, but i think there is something to be said that when you look at the polling in a place like wisconsin. i was studying a poll the other day, the markquette law school

poll. the support for the black lives matter went down among independents, democrats and in that state, there are people who are going to president trump's side, including democrats, which to me is very interesting because they are the people most likely to sympathize with him on the goals of the black lives matter movement but they're worried because president trump continues to talk about blood-stained streets and violence and burning cars and as a result, we are talking -- he is not talking specifically about the hundreds of thousands -- or more than 180,000 americans who have died of the coronavirus. and as a result, there are people in this country who are worried about the protests and not as worried but still worried about the virus. >> you know, it's such a good point. i covered the mar quiquette pol yesterday. among wisconsin voters, trump is down nine points. even though -- and i covered the swing in support for black lives matter yesterday, that same

marquette school of law poll. but trump's at 43%, biden at 52%. that's a sizable lead in a pretty purple state. i take rick's point and yamiche's point but my question is, how does biden strike this balance in the final two months of constantly putting himself on the side of good cops against lawlessness but also keeping front of mind just the scale of human suffering? i mean, i said this the night of his speech. more people died in 36 hours than were in all those -- that packed crowd there. the truth is more than a thousand people are still dying every single day. new york city announced today it was the only -- one of the top five school districts in the country that was going to go back in person at all was new york city. they today cancel that plan and pushed it back at least ten days. i mean, the truth is the economy

is suffering for everybody. people are either out of work, they're experiencing food insecurity. they're not making rent or are struggling to do their jobs because their kids are sitting next to them trying to learn. >> yeah, nicolle. a couple of things. i saw that same poll. i didn't find it particularly worrisome because, you know, it seemed like there was a moment for george floyd. but that's returning to the main. over 50% of white america is not going to say they're comfortable with black lives matter. but regardless of what's happening in kenosha or in portland, it's just like what you've mentioned and other people have mentioned. the day-to-day lives of americans, and the day-to-day lives of black americans and especially white americans, is covid. it's my husband is out of a job. my hours have been reduced. i can't work because my kids are right next to me. my son or daughter has to sit outside chipotle to use the free wifi because we had to cut our service back home. that's what people are dealing

with every day. while trump can scream and yell about protests that happen in different parts of the city, that is not people's day-to-day existence and that's why support for black lives matter can go down but support for joe biden can remain stable because his ultimate message and we're going to hear this crystal clear in about a month when we start getting into the debates is you want four more years of this guy? seriously? do you? because this is chaos. and i am a calming force in the wake of chaos. that's all joe biden has to do. make sure that he protects people, protects voters, gets people to turn out and reminds america that we can't handle four more years of this craziness. >> everybody is serving cold-hard truth today. as a reward, they have to stay. when we come back, donald trump's instinct to divide instead of heal is now well known. our next guest was a witness to how willing trump is to land on the very same page messagewise as white nationalists and the threat that that poses. and it looks like the president's alternate reality of huge tv ratings for his

convention collided with reality reality today. truth? ratings were much lower than the democratic convention the week before and also true? the president's poll numbers in key states are as well. also ahead -- we speak with chasten buttigieg about the history he and pete made on the campaign trail today and the deeply personal book he has out this week. all those stories still coming up. up i'm a verizon engineer, and i'm part of the team building the most powerful 5g experience for america. it's 5g ultra wideband, and it's already available in parts of select cities. like los angeles and in new york city. and it's rolling out in cities around the country. with massive capacity, it's like an eight lane highway compared to a two lane dirt road. 25x faster than today's 4g networks. in fact, it's the fastest 5g in the world.

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a very common refrain that i was asked was, does the president's rhetoric make your job harder? and the answer is, yes. the president's actions and his language are in fact, racist.

things like -- there are good people on both sides or send them back from where they came from. those words gave permission to white supremacists to think that what they were doing was permissible. and i do think that the president's divisive language is indirectly tied to some of the attacks we've seen in the last two years. >> that was elizabeth newman. she was a counterterrorism official who left the trump administration back in april. last week, she endorsed joe biden for president. she told "the new york times," quote, charlottesville wasn't just a blip. in other words, donald trump's continued refusal to condemn right wing violence isn't the exception to a rule. it is the rule. that theme divide and conquer is something former defense secretary jim mattis explicitly referred to in the aftermath of trump's decision to forcibly clear lafayette square protesters. mattis pointed out that phrase divide and conquer was a nazi slogan and ideology.

as far as modern far right movements are concerned, it was a year ago this month that the department of homeland security set out to create a plan to address white nationalist threats and home-grown violence. but here we are in need of that plan more than ever, it would appear. and it's still stuck up in review somewhere inside the trump administration. joining our conversation is elizabeth newman. she's featured in the ad we played. it was released by republican voters against trump. she's a former assistant secretary for threat prevention and security. so i had a chance to talk to you during the republican convention and came barreling out of the gates with how did you stay when some of the most heinous and heart wrenching policies were coming out of your department. you answered it very calmly, but i want to ask what made you leave? that was the staying side. what pushed you out the door once and for all?

>> thanks for having me back on. i thought it was a fair question you asked, and one that needs to be answered in order for viewers and people to understand the perspective and why i'm speaking out now. but it was probably some time around september, october of last year when we had finished putting the strategy together to counterterrorism and targeted violence which is the first strategy that the federal government had issued by any department or agency that called out white supremacy and anti-government extremism as a rising threat on par with isis. the fbi later agreed with us about six months later, and now thankfully the counterterrorism community is going after this threat. at least at their level. but around that fall, i finally had time to look up.

we had made some progress. someone asked, are you going to vote for him again and it caused me to realize very quickly, no, i can't vote for him again. so it made it clear to me i needed to find a way to depart gracefully have a transition plan. we ran a number of important programs and we needed to make sure we're continuing and properly stewarded. so that's when i decided i needed to leave. >> and the fbi is also determined that white nationalists driven domestic terrorism is the greatest terrorism threat, now almost exactly 20 years after 9/11. i worked in an administration where it was foreign plots that were the greatest threat. and i can't imagine being a part of an administration that was rowing in the direction of the people who threaten us. it sound like you're saying president trump is messagewise and ideologically aligned with

some of our greatest threats. is that right? >> yes. i mean, this is complex. it's hard to do in a two-minute segment, but i worked with you, nicolle -- >> take your time. it's important. >> so i remember what it felt like to be so unified in our focus on al qaeda, describing what the threat was, explaining it to the american people and being honest about where our failures were in government and designing, updating our policies or laws or tools to be able to go after that threat. when we came in in 2017, we were still focused on isis. and it took us awhile to realize that as steve quoted that charlottesville was more than a blip. certainly that charlottesville moment when you had people not hiding in the shadows espousing this ideology but out with their faces uncovered and happy, proud

to espouse this hateful ideology, it certainly caused all of us to pause and say something shifted. something is different here. and over the course of the next few years we at the department, many secretaries, we've had five in the last three years, but starting with secretary kelly, then nielsen, secretary mcaleenan. all of them went to the white house and said this is important. we need to address this. for a variety of reasons we were rebuffed. it wasn't exactly clear why we were rebuffed. some of it may just be, as you can appreciate, there are many policy priorities on the national security council's agenda. countering iran was important. defeating isis was important. so there might have been some legitimate reason yes we were initially rebuffed. by the time you get to the attack in pittsburgh in october of 2018 and then even more stunningly the christchurch

attack in march of 2019 and what he had feared what we knew was increasingly globalized was on the world stage. it's a globalized white supremacist movement. the u.s. is an exporter of this movement, and the world was coming to us and asking us and the u.s. to do something about it because we were making their countries less safe. at least at that moment, i would have expected the administration to hone in on this and focus on it with the same amount of intensity that the federal government had focused on isis and al qaeda before it. but i didn't see that happen. and i'm grateful that we had strong leaders at the department, at fbi, at the national counterterrorism center, and we work this issue at my level and at levels higher. we drove progress. we are safer today because of the work that's been done over the last few years. but there is no mistaking when you face a grave threat like this, it is important for there

to be clarity from the top. and the fact the president will not call it out, i find it hugely ironic that he's happy to use the term domestic terrorism which he refused to use last year after el paso. now he'll use it with regards to antifa which i worked for three years, received intelligence briefings every day. never once was i told that antifa was a grave national security threat. that doesn't mean they're not a problem. that doesn't mean that they don't have a propose a risk in certain communities that local law enforcement need to focus on, but they weren't at that national level where we were concerned that they were going to cause widespread, lethal violence against people, which is a threat when you look at historic data of the right wing extremist movement. that is where we see the most people being killed. people with an anti-government or white nationalist viewpoint

tend to be historically those that cause the most lethal attacks in our country. >> elizabeth, i find it nothing short of staggering that you were rebuffed. by whom were you rebuffed? was it through the national security council process? there was obviously a rotating cast of national security advisers as well. but i worked in the white house for six years, granted it was after 9/11 when every threat was -- got the attention of everybody in the white house. and as you said, the entire government after learning those mistakes sought to never again fail to connect the dots. but what are you saying that you were rebuffed? you came in with threats with rising threats from white nationalists. you were able in a national security -- homeland security perspective to connect dots between those incidents you just named and were rebuffed by whom? >> so secretary nielsen approached the national security

council in her first month on the job. this was like december 2017, january 2018. and asked for that to be named as a key issue in the national counterterrorism strategy at the time it was being interacted -- the national security adviser said no. and then we turned over national security advisers. there was a redrafting of the counterterrorism strategy a second time around that summer there was an ask again. can we include more about domestic terrorism? the draft that eventually made it to ambassador bolton had some. i wouldn't say as much as we thought needed to be, but had some language in there about domestic terrorism. most of that was removed, and we were left with about two sentences, which from a practical standpoint was enough for us to be able to hook on what we wanted to hook on in implementation planning, but certainly missed the opportunity to communicate to the american public the nature of the threat

that was growing at that time. >> elizabeth, i want to ask you something. i want to get into what -- because you also have expertise here. i want to ask you what white nationalists and bugaloo boys hear when they're not called out by the president and vice president. are you able to stick around through a break and come back on the other side? >> i'd be happy to. >> okay. we are going to sneak in a break. we'll be right back on the other side.

we're back with elizabeth neumann for threat prevention at dhs. rick and yamiche are still with us. elizabeth, just because you are an expert, i want to ask you what it does to the perpetrators of violence in the name of white nationalism when the vice president mentions the undeniably tragic killing of a homeland security official -- that it was carried out by a bugaloo boy, by a white supremacist when donald trump -- i guess what i'm trying to ask you is, what is the impact of the silence on these movements and on these bad actors? >> the silence is, in fact, permission. and we often talked in 2016 during the campaign that his language had a dog whistle effect to bringing these people out from the rocks they were hiding underneath and they were

allowed to express their views that apparently we as a society for a long time had told them were unacceptable and so they've been hiding them. all of a sudden, it came spilling out on a national stage, and that's, for me, why charlottesville was such a unique moment because you realize that it didn't just go away after the campaign and it really was emboldened by his rhetoric and his repeated refusal, multiple times he has asked to condemn -- condemn the ideology. condemn the violence associated with the ideology, and he refuses or dances around it. he is not clear in that thought leadership and that further emboldens them. you had david duke come out at charlottesville and say they were there for the purpose of

bringing about the -- trump's vision for what america should be. and you're kind of left speechless. like what vision did you think that he was calling for? but clearly there is a part of the extreme fringe of our country on the right that think that make america great again is actually about going back to a place where we are predominantly white and white men are in charge. and i can't really explain the logic because it just makes no sense to me. so i find it baffling, but clearly his repeated divisive language, the fear that he stirs up, it allows -- to feel like they are allowed to be bold about their presence, and it actually increases recruitment to their cause. that fear and that division is

often a root place where people start in the radicalization process. they have some sort of trigger or some sort of grievance that they feel is not being addressed by whatever the authority figures are in their life, and this process of finding belonging in other people who have bitterness and hatred, it allows them to radicalize. now, look, you can have radical and extreme in the united states and it's legal. the concern i had as a counter terrorism professional is historically, this right wing extremist group tends to be the ones that carry out acts of violence. and it doesn't take very many people when you start expanding that pool, when you allow that recruitment to occur because he's stirring up the rhetoric, adding fuel to the fire and you've got more people in your pool of recruits. you're going to start to see more attacks, which is, in fact, what we've seen in the last three years. >> i want to let my friend and

colleague yamiche alcindor get in a question if that's okay with you. >> thanks so much for being here, elizabeth. i have a two-pronged question. the first one piggybacks off nicolle's first question. there are a lot of people who saw president trump's 2016 campaign, him calling rapists criminals and calling immigrants rapists and criminals. that's white supremacy language and i can't vote for him. did you see the inklings of it in his 2016 campaign and what impact did that have on the white supremacy movement overall? >> so starting with your first question, this is an area where i will acknowledge that i was blinded. a couple of factors going on at the time, i wasn't living in washington, d.c. i wasn't paying a significant amount of attention to the election. i didn't like him as a

candidate. i wasn't excited about the election. so it was easy to not see some of it. and then the second factor for me was the faith issues that i had been raised with, the way the republican party talking points were written, that the implication was if you are a christian, you have to be -- you have to vote for the party that supports pro life. and so it was a lesser of two evil arguments, and i have said this publicly before, it was one of those things that i changed my mind on. my husband decided not to vote for him and wrote in people in 2016. so it is -- it was a reluctant decision but one that was definitely based in arguments that the christian community had kind of conveyed to me, which is part of the reason i feel so passionate about speaking out

because i really had to wrestle with that issue to get to the place where i cannot only say i'm not voting for trump but i'm voting for joe biden. i think the argument that has been given to many in the christian community is a false one that doesn't mean that i don't respect that other people may wrest ile with this and com to the conclusion they can't vote for joe biden. i understand that. but if you want to make the case that trump is pro life, i have serious, serious problems with that. biblically speaking, this is not a man that adheres to treating our neighbor with love and putting others ahead of himself. he does not care for the refugee, the widow or the orphan which is admonished in so many scriptures throughout the old and new testament. so if you truly are pro life, then i would encourage you to really look at what scripture says that it is clear we're supposed to care not only at conception but also to the grave

and joe biden's pattern and his history shows that he cares more about people than donald trump does. >> elizabeth neumann, you just guaranteed yourself an invitation to come back and have that conversation. this is where i think there is some hidden and almost embarrassed sticking with donald trump. they like the judges. they care about cultural issues and you're right. he doesn't live them. he doesn't believe them, but he'll take the case that he does enough for them. thank you so much for taking our questions. please promise that you'll come back and have that conversation. >> definitely. thank you for having me. >> thank you. rick stengel, i want to get your thoughts just from where we started. i mean, it seems like she's telling a story, an abdication to protect this nation from terrorists at home.

>> yes. first, i want to just say about elizabeth to commend her for coming forward. i wish many, many more women and men in the national security establishment have done what she's done which is to resign and speak out and talk about how lawless president trump is. i worked in the counter-isis space. domestic terrorism from white extremist and white militia movements is gigantically larger threat than isis or any islamic extremism is. and she voiced that. one of the things i also want to mention, i mean, when i was editor of "time" we did a cover story on the rise of white militias and extremist groups in 2010 because there was a black president. and those groups grew during the eight years of the obama presidency, the fbi and other national security officials knew that. and then what happened? donald trump came along and not

even a dog whistle. he was doing a referee's whistle that he was speaking to those groups and saying, i'm on your side. that's the most reprehensible thing that i think an american president has ever done. >> my thanks to rick and yamiche, the best wingman and wingwoman a host could have. thanks for sticking around for so much of the hour. up next -- life on the campaign trail alongside the first openly gay major presidential candidate. chasten buttigieg talks about those challenges being the first and told they weren't gay enough when he joins us live, next.

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and touch up spray! both, with a money back guarantee. after falling in love with pete, pete got me to believe in myself again. and i told pete to run because i knew there were other kids sitting out there in this country who needed to believe in themselves, too. and we gave it everything we had because it is time for every single person in this country to look to the white house and know that that institution stands for them. that they belong in this country. >> i remember watching that live. that was chasten buttigieg on march 1st introducing his husband, former south bend, done drn indiana, mayor, for his concession speech where peter, as he calls him in his new book out today, an honest and revealing story on his coming out, his dating and marrying the mayor and the representation they brought to the 2020 presidential race.

chasten writes, whetheringi the queer people who had been kicked out of their homes or talking to factory workers afraid of what was going to happen to their jobs or hosting a roundtable with fellow teachers who felt they -- it's my pleasure to bring our conversation, chasten buttigieg the author of "i have something to tell you" and political director tim miller here, political voters against trump. bit of a theme. and tribute to the bu lwark written about a mariappayed gay couple embracing each only on the presidential stage. chasten, first of all, you write in such honest and searing ways. you're a beautiful, beautiful writer. >> thank you. >> i just want to read you something i cried when i read it. this is about when you came out

to your mom. i know there's a lot of political news and we'll get to it but i have to start with this. the next day i went into the living room with a letter from my mom. i don't remember exactly what it said. the dog circled in the living room as a tearfully shake illy handed her the letter. she read it slowly. when she was done looked up and began to cry. she asked if i was sick. think she thought i had aids, i told her no, nothing is wrong, she asked if i was sure. i was sure. i don't remember where my dad was. i think she told him later. i imagine that this personal pain that you write about might do exactly what you talked about in terms of making people feel seen. is that why you wrote it? >> yeah. i wrote a book that i wish i would have been able to read when i was 17. and i know my mom is probably at home watching right now and the thing i'm most grateful for is that mom call med home and i got

a silver lining at the end of my story but there were a lot of bumps along the way, part of that was a family that this to come to the table and ask really hard questions. it was a fact growing newspaper northern michigan that you couldn't be gay and i didn't know anyone who was gay and it felt unsafe to be gay. my parents didn't have the answers so i wrote this book in a way to help other people feel seen and know that they are worthy of love and acceptance in their space. i just hope that young queer kids find a little solace in that. >> and you feel them too, i can feel it on the page. i want to ask you about the campaign. because this idea that you should have been more prepared but it felt like you were screwing the wings on at 50,000 feet. by the way, every single campaign i've ever worked on

feels exactly like that. you're taking off, masks are falling out, you're like is someone in the cockpit. tell me about the campaign. how did it change you guys as a couple? >> it's funny that you know, pete asked if we should consider this idea of running for presidential i said sure why not. i didn't know what running for president was like. i supported him and -- obviously hindsight is 20/20. but the campaign, if you spend all day on tv or twitter it looks awful and can be exhausting but it was so inspiring too. i write about that in the book as well. you have to go out and look for the good. when i was talking with those kids and touring lgbtq centers and talking with young, black trans women who had been pushed out of the foster care system and struggling to find work and you're holding these people's hands and talking about hope,

talking about what an american administration ad could look like that is truly accepting of these people, that's where the good comes from, because you're out there doing the work and see all of the others rolling up their sleeves doing the work. shire it could be exhausting. you're in five states a day sometimes. you forget to eat and drink water but end the day this country is remarkable, full of amazing people doing the work. that was so inspiring. >> tim? >> yeah, hey. >> tim miller, you and can go ahead. >> liz want misdemeanor he to say hi by the way. look, i wrote this article about you guys right after your announcement something that prefun prefunktry for most politicians but not you guys that you kissed at the end. i heard from all these men who

were really struck by that because a lot of us had low-level anxiousness about gay men that maybe straight people don't quite get it. i was wondering to hear from the horse's mouth, have you guys thought about that at all? what kind of impact it had. what it was like to kiss your husband band in front of the whoeld world like that -- whole world. >> i remember being so overcome and just kissed him like many spouses do. people ask about that so often on the campaign trail. like, you kissed your husband. like, why aren't they asking other spouses that they kissed their spouse. what is it about us that's different, we all know why. i love my husband. it was interesting to get criticism from both sides. you had people like older gay couples whisper in our ear stop kissing, people aren't ready to see that, you have to hide some

of that stuff, i said no i'm not going to hide who i am, i'm going to kiss my spouse because i'm proud of him and i love him is and i just went about the campaign trail being myself. >> what's your take on why that criticism came from the left. i thought it was so stunning how much criticism there was from the left. guess we should expect it. want to let my people off the hook on the right it was somewhat expecting but it was shocking not gay enough type of criticism. did you see that coming? what did you think was behind it? >> yeah, well, i never done it before so i didn't know exactly what to expect but it was a historic first. everybody wants you to get that moment right. behind some of the criticismsize felt were honest, earnest homes that the first lgbtq couple to seek the presidency would get the moment right. for other people that meant different things. sometimes really felt behind

some of the criticisms it wasn't about our sexual identity if was about what the campaign represented. maybe there was a disagreement how to get to a certain policy play. i've been dealing with a lot of that push back my entire life, grew up in a homo phobic conservative place in northern michigan and was very much expected to come from the right and i wrote about it in my book, it did hurt when people from my own community said i didn't belong to it because of how i looked, how i drelsed or how i talked or a policy point my husband put out. i worry about what it sends to young people, that queerness and identity must be performed, to look a certain way, sound a certain way, to be a certain way, when we police the boundary of identity telling people there's a right or wrong way to exist. what happens to the 13-year-old kid in oklahoma wondering if they want to exist at all.

i think it sends a very dangerous precedent especially to young, queer people who are just fighting to survive in this country. >> absolutely. >> chasten, you're an educator. what do you think about the conversation in this country with the pandemic raging about getting kids back in the classroom regardless of the covid levels in the state as donald trump would like them to? >> well i wish the conversation was honest. i wish it was truly teacher and child-centered. i don't think it's rooted in any realities about what's going to happen to teacher and students. i think again this president is just asking teachers to take one for the team. it's very interesting that we were hailing teachers as heroes in the spring and now asking them to go back into the classroom and take one for the team. sure you might get covid and die, but hey the economy is great. i don't think this president or secretary of education cares about teachers and frankly don't think they care about families.

that's what i wish the conversation was centered around. how sending our teachers and students back to the classroom will effect them and i haven't seen the answers nor claim to have the answers, this is a scary and confusing time for our country but if the answer is just send them back, see what happens, that's a dangerous path we're sending our students down. >> and our teachers. chasten bulttigieg, tim miller thank you both for spending time with us. chasten's book is incredible, raw, emotional and real, it's called "i have something to tell you" it's out today. next hour starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. break. don't go anywhere.

funny how a guy who never exercises is in as good of shape he is. >> it's called again -- genetics. told the president could live 200 years i don't know. he has incredibly good genes just the way god made him. >> he's a specimen. hi again everybody. walter reid hospital is trending on twitter and donald trump is tweeted he didn't have a series of mini strokes because of this tid bit of reporting from this book trump v the united states. says nothing about mini strokes. quote -- i strokes. quote --

in reporting for this book i learned in the hours leading up to trump's trip to the hospital word went out in the west wing for the vice president to be on stand by to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if trump had to under go a procedure to require him to be anesthesiolz anesthesized. in one of the quote from the new book, reported that john kelly was asked by donald trump to service a right after trump fired comey and asked him to take a loyalty oath as a condition of taking the job. kelly refused. also reported on thousands of pages of internal white house documents and momentumos --

momentumos that -- momentumos tha memos from insiders of trump anticipates -- conduct -- conduct -- >> there were anonymous leaks about there being issues. but the president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband's clearance. >> it turns out, no surprise to viewers of this show, at that that wasn't the whole story. there was a tip about kushner having a significant problem in his background check and was concerning enough white house chief of staff and ken wrote separate memos to file chronicling their concerns giving jared access to this country's top secrets but was overruled and they still post-season clearance. i smith had access to the memos.

"trump versus the united states" is where we start also joining us drk -- earth our rth ou first, mike schmidt, donald trump tweeted today that he did not have a series of mini strokes. something that isn't in the book. what did you make of that? >> i think it was sort of dissential of the trump era. here a spent all this time working on a book to understand how the president use power or the people around him did this and i looked at documents and talked to all these people and then in the end something that is not in the book, the president picks up on, turns it into an issue, and just draws more attention to something that's embarrassing about him. so it sort of spoke to me as the sort of ultimate trumpian moment at least for somebody writing a book, you spend all this time

doing this stuff and then trump sort of makes something up and makes a bigger problem out of it. >> for himself. let me ask you about the memos an the documents. your colleague maggie haguerman at different points of the trump presidency has tweeted about the regular practice that people like michael cohen had of recordings or conversations with donald trump. i think your book is the first look at that practice in the federal government where those professionals, john kelly, the chief of staff and done began wrote elaborate formal memos to file. what did they say about jared kushner's security clearance. >> the memos are clear that the clip you play of ivanka trump is not true. in kelly's memo he says trump ordered him to do this and that's why kelly was writing the memo. the thing about the memo that is remarkable and sistering -- --

remarkable and interesting is you look at a range of people, three different people that found themselves at the top of government for very different reasons and even though they had different backgrounds and different approaches, and such, they all were writing memos to protect themselves. that's just sort of a remarkable thing. when comey has talked about the memos he wrote about trump he said he never considered doing that during the obama administration. so the thing i try to explore in the book is the extraordinary moment that we have with trump. for most of american history we focus on how presidents use their power how the people around them help them go -- do that bandwagon it i them do that in the moment in tt the people around the president are thrust in the role where they're standing between the

presidentnd the a -- the president and the abyss. i try to capture the incredible unique thing of standing up to a president. what do you do when you can't trust the motivations of the most powerful person of the world who you are supposed to be there to work for. >> one of the things that comes through in your effort to describe the human toll is it is very isolating. don is a witness to robert mueller around one of the flash points of the obstruction investigation, the attempt to fire mueller, it sounds like he was hampered by the fact nobody knew what he went through. can you talk about that. >> to me i found don mcgann to be the most fascinating character. he was the umbilical between trump and his base and was also a container of trump to stop

trump from doing things that can hurt himself and hur the the country. mcgann was a chief witness against the president in an exist ential threat to the presidency and remarkable thing about him again was to serve as a committee of one to bring judges to him to nominate to the court that he walk this tight rope of these three immense forces on him. living through that because he thought he needed to stay farnd he was there justice kennedy would retire and he and trump could get another pick on the court and was concerned if he left kennedy wouldn't retire because he'd be afraid trump would put a wrecking ball, like a rudy guiliani on the supreme court. >> find out if you can wear a ankle bracelet on the supreme

court. letsz ask -- k -- let me ask you about you about p don mcgahn what did he think of trump's morality. >> thing about don mcgahn he believes in racial america. -- - because of what he did to the courts for the next three or four decades because of his desires to put a certain type of judge, young judge, on appeals court. this will be enormous impact. we'll live in don mcgahn's america for many years to come. he believed in trumpism maybe more than trump did. he began the federal government over stepped. don mcgahn believed americans were left behind by bad trade

deals and he was going to seize the moment and do everything he could. he was not necessarily offended by trump. he plays in a 80's rock band, someone into breaking things. when he ran the fec, bob bower, the top democratic elections lawyer said he was the most impactful head of the fec, federal election commission, in history because don mcgahn brought the entire thing to a halt. mcgahn liked the idea of trump breaking things an went along with this and walked away with a remade federal judiciary. that's something remarkable and democratics realize what mcgahn did and they're trying to do the same thing toscano-anderson remake n remake -- same thing, to remake the courts. >> let me turn to one of the big

bomb shells if the book. it centers around an investigation then acting director of the fbi andrew mccabe opened. then was in andrew mccabe's understanding handed off to the antti raan vaunted robert mueller investigation there was belief is that counter intelligence investigation was taking place, albeit in an opaque way, alongside the criminal investigations that mueller undertook. you report that that's not the case. let me show you andrew mccabe's statement at the time. >> our folks felt like we had an articulate base to believe that the president might have engage in obstruction of justice in the firing of jim comey and if so mr. might be -- might be a national security risk

associated. that of course is the standard for opening an fbi full investigation. >> it was a full investigation not a preliminary. >> that's right. >> so, you broke most of the stories about the obstruction investigation. we know that happened. but he's talking there about a national security investigation to understand whether donald trump was comprised by vladimir putin and the russians and you report in your book that that didn't happen. >> yeah, so the fbi in may of 2017 opens up this extraordinary investigation in whether trump is compromised by russia. mccabe thinks this is the most remarkable accomplishment he's been able to open this investigation, rosenstein has appointed mueller and mccabe believes that mueller is going to be inheriting this and taking care of this, and he believes rod rosenstein has led him to believe that. now some of this is very obvious because two years later when the

mueller report comes out there's no part of the mueller report that examines trump's long-standing, personal and business ties to russia. it's not in the report. and then when mueller testifies before congress he explains that he conducted a criminal investigation into whether crimes were committed in connection with the 2016 campaign and that he did not look at trump's financial ties to russia. and i just thought that was an incredibly important point even though mueller had testified about it publicly to try and tell that story because i think there's some misunderstandings in the public about what mueller's investigation actually looked at. >> i want to bring matt miller in right at this very point because i think misunderstanding among the public might be an understatement. matt, the stunning piece is the justice department and mueller probe in all honesty allowed

andrew mccabe and country to believe something was happening that never was. it seems to me what mike has written in the book, if you go back, as he said, mueller said to congress i did not conduct a counter intelligence investigation. if you flip through the mueller report there's no evidence that that happened. it would suggest the republican-led senate intel committee delved deeper into the interactions that might have been leverage over trump than the mueller probe. which seems like a stunning place to land. >> yeah it's really hard to believe and there's a piece i still don't understand, maybe you will indulge me let me ask mike a question. >> sure. >> i can understand rosenstein when he appointed mueller told him not to conduct a counter intelligence investigation. i always had some issues with the fbi opening that probe. i think i understand why they did to force rosenstein to force

special counsel. i think it raises legal and constitutional questions to conduct that counter intelligence probe into a sitting president. what i don't understand is why the mueller team didn't look at the president's finances, his long history of business relationship with russia under the the criminal investigation, they easily could have done that and would have been completely justified. mike, i wonder if you found out, did they just make the decision not to do that or in order to shut down the counter intelligence investigation did the deputy attorney general flat out prohibit them from going into that area even under the criminal probe. >> it's a little more nuance, rosenstein sits with mueller and says go investigate the interference with the 2016 election whether laws were broken with what russia did and

whether the president obstructed justice. they task him with that and they build a team to do that. in the first months of the group of people looks like they've been stood up to investigate crimes. at the time pete struck was the lead agent there and he knew they needed to do this investigation and he tries to start having conversations about that and by the time he does that he's removed from the investigation. but what rosenstein does is he sets mueller off in this criminal discretion -- criminal direction and says your top priority is to investigate whether there's crimes in 2016 what andy mccabes would say is trump's long-standing business ties to russia date back far longer than that. >> i want to ask you about one more sort of vein of reporting. there's a lot of new information about how access to people like chief of staff john kelly think

to lessen, there's some kelly reporting that's fascinating. you report donald trump offered the fbi director to john kelly on the condition he pledge his loyalty. how did that conversation go down between donald trump and john kelly. how does we not know that before? and more importantly, if that is one of the loyalty tasks was one of the obstructing acts an the comey firing was one of the acts examined in the obstruction probe how did the mueller team not find out about that? >> well, the thing is that by the time that kelly sits down to meet with the mueller team, emmitt flood is the top white house lawyer in charge of monitoring the relationship between special counsel off and the white house and said the

investigators can have kelly for two hours to ask about a narrow set of questions and issues. what happens is that issue does not come up. there's no evidence, at least in the mueller report that that issue came up in that interview. but what it does is it speaks to the loyalty oath that trump was asking comey for his loyalty, comey wouldn't give it. and kelly told the president to get lost when he asked him for his. >> the book is called "donald trump v the united states" just to wrap this up where we started with mike. the white house doctor issued this quote today to something mike doesn't write about in the book. here's where we are. quote, i can confirm that donald trump as not experienced nor been evaluated for cerebral vascular accident, stroke, or mini stroke or any acutardio vascular emergencies that have been incorrected reported in the

media a-- [ reading ] [ reading ] maioccoing the broader maioccoing the broader making the broader point -- is reported he didn't have a stroke of any variety. there we are. thank you and congratulations on the book. when we come back, more on mike schmidt's reporting ahead. also donald trump's pattern of lawlessness on full display this week and he refuses to condemn the law breakers provided their on his side and nancy pelosi will tell us how congress is fighting back now that the director of intelligence won't provide in-person briefings on the election russian interference 2020 version. and if it looks like donald trump is winning on election night may just be a red mirage. we'll explain when we continue. d become a celebrity accountant? and, i tell them, "nobody should."

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in his newly released book "trump verse donald trump versus the united states donald trump s the united state "donald trump versus united states" explains how the lawlessness of the trump administration -- -- trump's behavior is a consistent and growing flagrant threat to the law and order he dishonestly

proclaims. back to our guests. jonathan, and a lexia, i wanted to hear from both of you on some of the reporting about the family, really running this west wing. i mean, it's undeniable that this sort of two axis that are reported in the book one is kelly and don mcgahn and some professionals pushing back against giving security clearances to jared and ivanka because of the serious questions about jared's background check. time and time again, you know from covering that building and the fact they're still there and the others aren't, the kids win. >> family always wins, nicolle, when it comes to this president for sure. yes, congrats to mike on the book fleshing out the details of the behind-the-scenes power struggle in the west wing and then-chief of staff kelly with

real reservations, he and kushner didn't see eye to eye and had questions whether kushner could be trusted with top-level security clearance and eventually was overruled by the president himself. we know this administration has set records, there's been studies in terms of turnover of the senior staff level of any presidency. this administration, donald trump wins, by a lot. but obviously jared kushner and ivanka trump remain as senior advisors and to this day still have remarkable influence. i think we'll see a lot more of ivanka trump on the campaign trail in the last two months of this race and we've seen jared kushner's portfolio only grow by the day. lately in the headlines for brokering. some for positive developments in terms of middle east peace very manimen -- with with israel and finally the coronavirus. back to the health scare of

president's strokes his campaign tweeting joe lockhard suggesting he was the source of this rumor, which of course the president only elevated today with that seemingly out of nowhere tweet. >> you know, i could talk about the president's thin-skin nature about his own health and -- but i want to stay on this idea of a lawless presidential with the audacity or shamelessness to be out campaigning on law and order. for let me read this from wash post. trump promises the law and order without the rule of law and stands for this in combination part of the same package but law and order without rule of law is the wielding of power and violence both state violence and private vigilante violence

unshackled from law progressions. ressions [ reading ] i think i read from some of this yesterday because it struck me. i want to ask you if you take what elizabeth was saying, she was on in the last hour, she was the most senior counter terror official at the homeland security department and she said that fighting the greatest domestic terror threat which is now today white nationalism and white supremacist domestic terrorism was harder because donald trump refused to call it out. seems like an incredibly volatile and toxic combination of political dynamics. >> thank you for having me, nicolle, and mike if you're still watching congrats on the book.

>> i'm sure he's not ha ha. >> what's so fascinating, you know, nicolle, your exactly right, this is donald trump as we know him, we've seen his unwillingness to even address that 17-year-old shooter who was a supporter of his who showed up in kenosha to wreak havoc and kill folks. it's almost as if donald trump feels he can't condemn something without assuming responsibility so he doesn't condemn it or assume responsibility for it in anyway. that of course means that all these things, violence and chaos and images of civil unrest and reality of the civil unrest that's overtaking the country under president trump's watch is going unaddressed by the leader of the nation and folks are looking for an alternative. they're seeing joe biden on the campaign trail in the covid era, something he doesn't do often but really shows he knows this is a moment he has to really kind of offer an alternative

narrative and vision for as the country is really scared, not just about the coronavirus but about systemic racism and protesters, and terrorists organizations. it comes down to the idea donald trump can't condemn something without feeling he has to assume responsibility but americans are looking for a way forward, that's what they're looking for from joe biden and what they're not getting from president trump. >> you know matt miller, i think alexia has her finger on a lot of the swing voter focus groups and i think that's right. i think it's going to hurt the president to not just come out and condemn violence carried out for any purpose. it is so, it's just beyond unpresidential. it's inhumane. it's unamerican to be in a leadership position and not condemn all acts of violence.

joe biden put himself on the side of good cops and against all acts of violence yesterday. at what rate do you think he needs to repeat that message between now and he november? >> i don't know how often he has to repeat it. whenever he's talking about this issue he clearly has to say it, when there's an uptick in violence and rioting and looting it's important to address it but certainly doesn't need to be the only thing he campaigns on. i thought the strange thing about what the president has done, the president's campaign spent a week thinking they were somehow laying a trap for joe biden, that they would call on him to condemn violence and somehow biden wouldn't be willing to do it so what happens, not only biden selz the norm -- says the normal presidential thing you expect them to say, of course they condemn violence and in the same news cycle, trump himself after a week of attacking biden and

falsely claiming he won't condemn violence , trump himself won't do it, when it's a supporter of him. so trump set up a test that not only biden instantly passes but he himself fails. you have a thing i suspect voters is see a president who is not willing to do the basic fundamentals of the job and condemn violence but also is a hypocrite talking about his opponent. >> he's all those things. thank you for putting it so succinctly and spending time with us. when we come back top democrats are fighting back after the director of national intelligence announced an end to in-person briefings on russian election interference. the speaker of the house nancy pelosi joins us next. stay with us. with us (upbeat music) - [narrator] this is kate.

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with nine weeks to go before election day top democrats clawing nancy pelosi are amping up the pressure of national intelligence to resume for interference. democratic leaders wrote -- for more on what tools they may have in mind we're joined now by speaker of the house nancy pelosi. madame speaker, i spoke to a former very senior intelligence

official who described this move as truly unprecedented. have there been any back channel conversations with other heads, with cia or other intelligence agencies? you have a lot of relationships in the intelligence community that give you any hope that in-person briefings might resume? >> well, let's get back to basics, nicolle, thank you for the opportunity to talk about this very serious subject, because it's about our national security. and it's about our democracy. the national security act of 1947 stated very clearly that the intelligence committee -- community should fully and currently keep the congress of the united states briefed. . that what they're doing now of course is in violation of that law. they're trying though to just hooking it up with some of the other things that they're doing to confuse the public when it comes to the elections and we cannot let them do that.

the american people i do believe think that they should determine who the next president of the united states is, not vladimir putin. so again, anyone who has been involved in the intelligence committee and i for over 25 years, it's my place where i was forged in the congress in the intelligence community and back then it was not partisan. understand that this is wrong and again, but what are we doing? we're talking about it instead of talking about the fact that the president has been a total failure when it comes to stopping the virus. that the president wants to confuse people when it comes to voting and so that they might not cast a vote, and that is another way to interfere with the elections in our country so that people might not have the proper information and so just decide not to vote. but we can't let them do that because again it's not just about voting as important as

that is, it's about our national security of our country, and when a foreign power tries to interfere and the intelligence community is an accomplice to withholding that information from the american people, by the way, this information belongs to the american people. it belongs to the congress. the administration, they are the custodian of the information. but as i've always fought for more and more members to have better and more current and fuller access to the information, of course, protecting sources and methods. >> i take your point and it's one i heard in the last hour from rick stengel about all these political fight where's donald trump has loyal foot soldiers distracting from the colossal failure from the center of his presidency. close to 185,000 americans have lost their lives, that's 185,000 families blown up, inner

circles, moms, dads, sometimes kids gone, forever, people who were alive six months ago. are you concerned just the conversation around what should be a shared loss, a shared tragedy is still so polarized by donald trump either his convention where he pretended it wasn't happening by, you described it as tragically stuck, the latest covid relief legislation. how are we failing the victims of a global pandemic? >> well, the president of the united states is central to that failure because he rejects science and he rejects governance. he doesn't want testing because he thinks the test causes the infection, no, it helps us measure, and it helps us measure the communities, communities of colors who are disproportionately effected by all of this. from the start he was in denial,

delay, distortion, called it a hoax. called it a hoax. again, just would not accept the science, the science, the science. the science that says you must test, trace, treat, you must wear your mask, you must have sanitation, you must have social distancing, what bigger sign of disdain and defiance of science could the president have had but to have all those people gathered on the white house lawn sitting next to each other, no social distancing, rarely anyone with a mask, then to say, as a very bad example to the country, it's okay to do this. what he's basically saying to america's families, i know better than you what's good for your family, please put me ahead of the well-being of your child or your parent, or your sibling, because it's better politics for me to ignore that this is really happening. so it's really a tragedy.

but we all still hope that we can come together around science, around governance to make sure that certain things happen as a result of the science, because science has the answers. we do know we can crush this virus if we isolate and do all of the things that science is or therapy soon, but no sooner than it is ready, not one day sooner than it's ready and not one day later than it is ready, but not to say we're going to inject politics into the food and drug administration and the time table as to how they approve a vaccine or therapy in terms of its safety and it's efficacy. is it safe, is it effective. not, we'd destroy the trust people have in a vaccine when one comes along that is ledge -- legitimate.

let's hope that is very soon. we have great minds at work 24/7 to get it done, the sooner, the better, no sooner than safe and effective. >> i want to ask about one of the things on planet earth in reality where most people are living with president trump's denial of science or failure to prevent the spread of covid, people would like the option of voting by mail. i know there were hearings with the post master and i wonder if you feel like you got the information you needed? i know at the time you said it seemed like basically a bait and switch. but where do things stand right now with the mail-in vote? >> well, things right now are that the american people have made their voices known and heard that the post office is very popular with the american people. most people didn't know that 1.2

billion prescriptions went through the mail in 2019. that was before coronavirus. as you know. and that over 80% to 90% of medicines that veterans receive go through the mail. and that social security, some checks, much information go through the mail. so, many people in our community, especially our senior citizens have spoken out very clearly that they don't want people messing with the postal service, a. b -- and that's ongoing, very important. in addition to that, they are trying to dismantle the postal service to dismantle the vote by hail. -- vote by mail. but don't fall for that. they're saying that the same way they are doing with the intelligence, they just want people to have doubts about whether their vote is well-founded and well-counted as cast. so i say to people, don't pay

attention to what they're saying, we know that we have to address the challenges that the obstacles that they're putting up for voting. we will when it comes to vote by mail by education and orientation. we will when it comes to voting safely, in person, with distancing and proper hours and locations and the rest to make it safe. we don't think that the american people should have to risk their lives, their held th in order to cast their vote. again, there's a purpose to what the president said about vote by mail, because he doesn't want you to. ignore him. just pay attention to what the rules are. and we'll make sure that they are very, very clear. in terms of the postal service what the administration is doing is a grave disservice to something that connects america. postal system or not. pandemic or not. which are two big things that make it even more important for us to strengthen the postal

service but good time for us to subject it to the judgment that is there. this is important. it's all-american. benjamin franklin the first post matter general, something that connected our country, colonies, the postal system made us a country. >> speaker nancy pelosi in front of one of my favorite sites on the planet my hometown of san francisco. there's magical fog clouds going behind you. it's just gorgeous. thank you for spending some time with us. >> we're so proud of you. so proud of you. even though you have in time to time ventured down the other side, nonetheless, very proud of you. >> you and i are due to have is that conversation because when you talk about the intelligence commute being bipartisan i think the bush years were the most partisan and painful years this country has had but the intelligence committee still functioned. so you and i are due to have those conversations about just

how low we've fallen when this is the status quo. >> nothing to compare to this, the vandalism of our democracy, of our voting system, of our postal system, of our white house, vandalism is vast and it's not about part is anship at all it's about the patriotism we share in previous administration regardless of party. >> madame speaker, always a pleasure to talk to you. thank you so much. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> when we come back, democrats are warning it looks like donald trump has a big lead over joe biden on election night it might just be a mirage. we'll explain next. hey there people eligible for medicare.

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who accepts medicare patients... and these are the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. whew! call unitedhealthcare today and ask for this free decision guide. a mike bloomberg fund said it is possible donald trump could look like a land slide winner on election night even if joe biden ends up the winner when all is counted. a lot more democratic votes would come in by mail so the ballots would take more time to count while most trump voters in this scenario would cast their ballots at polling places on election day. you were kind enough to stick around. this is from axios, probably sending shock waves through the country when they see this reporting. >> yeah, nicole.

the group is a top democratic data and analytics firm that ran different scenarios for what could happen on election night, given the high volume of voting by mail that we're expected to see, because of the coronavirus pandemic. they're setting the alarm on election night, there could be a very real scenario. president trump is looking like he's winning in a land slide, then days later when all the ballots sent by mail and otherwise counted could show the exact opposite that joe biden is actually leading to win the presidential election. what matters more than sort of the fear that this probably is inspiring, according to our reporting in democrats, what really matters about this is that this suggests there's a huge gap or at least a huge gap in our polling and this warning from experts and what the president hopes will handle in terms of results. we had research that showed 60% of those we surveyed show we'll have our election results in a

couple days after election night in november. but of course, these experts are warning that it could take a lot longer than that, and the results could be totally different than people expect. >> jonathan, this seems to be right in line with what donald trump has been sort of mainlining to his base of supporters, that there is going to be chaos, that there will be uncertainty. i cannot imagine him saying on election night, if it looks like he is prevailing or ahead, let's wait a few days and make sure we got this, folks. >> that sounds unlikely. the president has been on this story for a while. it would seem, the associated press, of course, we call races. we're instrumental in the declaration of victory on that night. and we have been telling people for a while now, like don't expect the result that evening.

potentially, not one any time soon. because of the pandemic, because of the states relying more than ever before on mail-in voting, we're anticipating significant delays in terms of mailing votes being processed but also the counting themselves, state by state. that night and going forward. and i think you are right. the president has been already planting these seeds. and i think he has in fact within the last week or two suggested, really, it was framed as bemoaning the idea of not having a winner on election night. not having a declaration of who captures the white house, thinking it could perhaps plunge the country into chaos. he's planting the idea that there should be a winner that night and if this reporting from axios, the study from the bloomberg report is correct, yes, there is a real chance that it would be him leading as americans to go bed late on election night because he has emphasized to republican that's they should go to the polls and vote in person while democrats

seemingly will be more prone to vote by mail which will take longer to down. >> go ahead. >> i was going to say, while this might seem like crazy scenario, and it would be a nightmare for democrats, if we think back to the 2018 mid-term elections, that's not totally different from what we saw what happened with the u.s. house of representatives. i mean on election night, during mid-term elections, we didn't know how well democrats did in those races until about a week later. we really saw the full results in part because of late voting in california and other praise were too close to call. that's a pretty good scenario that could show what could happen in november with the presidential. >> jonathan, my last question to you, where do you think the white house sees the race right now. chris christie went on tv and said donald trump is losing. do you think he thinks he's losing? >> i think president trump does not think he's losing.

but those around him acknowledge that he is. they feel like, and i've talked to campaign advisers this morning, they feel like the race has tightened. they acknowledge that they're down in most states but the margins are very slim in the battle ground states. they do feel the president has gotten a lift out of his convention. we haven't seen much polling that backs it up. we haven't seen much polling at all about the convention bounce. i think there's an expectation that neither party moved the needle that much. this feel like they're down but they've found an issue to fight on. a lot of flaws with his law and order argument. we saw him to go kenosha today. they feel like this is a winner to them. that they can tie biden to these radical forces. they think they can reassure the senior voters that it is donald trump who can keep them safe. >> racist lies about his

opponent. that's where we are. thank you for spending some time with us. finally, as we do every day, we want to pay tribute to a life well lived. brenda left behind so many beautiful little pieces of herself. when you take the time, collect them all, two things become immediately clear about the 23-year-old. she was successful. according to the sioux city journal, she graduated from west high school in sioux city, and then we believe on to finish the life academy program at western iowa tech. she was a special olympian. over 11 years she collected medal after medal after medal, award after award, after award, but perhaps more important than all of that, there is that second thing about brenlda. she was an absolute undisputed ray of sunshine, a lover of life with a great big heart. brenda's sister called her a sweet angel sent from heaven. she liked to dance, she liked to

sing, smile, all things we need more of at this very moment in american history, not less. brenda died of the coronavirus after a valiant fight. to her family, her parents, her sister, her two brothers, we are grateful that you shared your memories. give us a chance to learn about your brenda. and we are thinking about all of you and about her today. thank you for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we're grateful. "the beat" with ari melber begins after a short break. don't go anywhere. n't go anywhe. sensodyne sensitivity & gum gives us the dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity as well as our gum issues. there's no question it's something that i would recommend. another bundle in the books. got to hand it to you, jamie. your knowledge of victorian architecture really paid off this time. nah, just got lucky. so did the thompsons. that faulty wiring could've cost them

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good evening. thank you for joining us on "the beat" as we track these stories now. new calls for healing and justice from jacob blake's family as president trump travels to where police shot blake in wisconsin. meanwhile, kentucky prosecutors on defense over reports they tried to set up breonna taylor after police killed her. and joe biden hitting back at um