good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. where top health officials are sounding the alarm ahead of the labor day holiday weekend. here are the facts at this hour. white house task force members are trying to prevent a covid spike similar to what happened after the memorial day and july 4th holidays saying state and local leaders should stress personal responsibility to ensure the overall number of cases continues to decrease into the fall. the cdc announces a four-month moratorium on residential evictions while the white house

and congressional democrats remain at an impasse on new aid. and the u.s. continues to report 40,000 new covid cases a day with more than 6 million total cases nationwide. 186,000 deaths. dr. anthony fauci joins me now. i want to quickly ask you, dr. fauci, how are you feeling after your surgery on the vocal cords? >> very well, andrea. it was a benign polyp that was removed which was responsible for my gravelly voice that i had in previous interviews which as you can tell is no longer there. so i'm very pleased. i'm doing fine, thank you for asking. >> it's great. it's great to hear you full-throated. thanks very much. about a month ago, you said that we needed to get the national virus numbers down by september or, quote, we're going to really have a bad situation by the fall. as you know, fall and flu season are now just around the corner.

is this a make or break moment? what is a realistic baseline number for where we should be on daily cases by the fall, a few weeks out? >> yeah, andrea, that's a very good question. for a couple of reasons. as you mentioned correctly, we're right around 40,000 new cases. that's an unacceptably high baseline. we've got to get it down. i would like to see it 10,000 or less. hopefully less. the issue that we're facing right now is we're entering in a day or two right now into the labor day weekend. and we know from prior experience that when you get into holiday weekends, the fourth of july, memorial day, there is a tendency of people to be careless, somewhat, with regard to the public health measures that we keep recommending over and over again. so i really want to use this opportunity almost to have a plea to the people in this country to realize that we really still need to get our arms around this and to suppress

these types of surges that we've seen. we can do it, you can have an enjoyable weekend, but you can do a couple of fundamental things we talk about all the time. masks, distance, avoiding crowds, outdoors much more than indoors, washing your hands. those types of simple things can clearly prevent the types of surges that we have seen following holiday weekends like we're entering into now with labor day. >> how are you going to persuade all the people who think covid is a hoax, who gather in large groups without face coverings and social distancing, events like the sturgess motorcycle rally, and frankly the republican convention at the white house? >> andrea, you know, it's a tough kind of messaging to do, as you said, when you have situations that you just mentioned. what we try to do is impress upon people, particularly younger people who, quite frankly, the reality is that they have a much less likely

chance of getting into any serious trouble where they to get infected. not zero. we certainly are starting to see more and more young people now who get infected, who do have serious outcomes, and even procedur prolonged chronic outcomes for people who don't necessarily get very sick. we have to impress on people, and i would like to do that now, that it's not only an individual responsibility, it's a societal responsibility. because if you get infected, even though you don't get a single symptom, what you're doing, innocently and inadvertently, you're propagating the outbreak, because the chances are you're going to infect someone else who will infect someone else, who then may infect someone who actually does have a serious consequence. an elderly person or a person with an underlying disease. so you've got to realize that you can't think that you're living in a vacuum. if you get infected, you are part of the propagation of the outbreak. so if we can remember that, as

we get into the holiday season, and try to enjoy yourself as much as you can, and you can do that, you don't need to lock yourself down, but don't be careless about things, such as, you know, crowds, in a bar or what have you. make sure you wear your mask. make sure you wash your hands as often as you can. if you do that, i think we can get through this weekend without seeing a surge. >> what should colleges do, whether it be outbreaks, college towns, what we've seen happening in alabama and other outbreaks in iowa as well, hotspots? should colleges keep their covid positive students in quarantine and not send them home? >> yeah, that's a great point, and thank you for asking that question, andrea, because one of the things we don't want to do is we don't want to see college students who get infected get sent home to essentially seed the infection in the community where they live. many colleges are making

arrangements that if in fact a student would get infected, you want to sequester them from the rest of the students but also don't send them out in the community. you can do that by having designated spaces, either dorms, entire dorms, or floors on dorms, where you can put people who are infected and keep them there in safe, comfortable environments until they get over the infection. obviously if they need medical care, you'll provide medical care for them. but we don't want them to be sent home, because that's a surefire way of seeding communities throughout the country. >> i want to ask you about the trump administration's decision not to join 170 other countries in a global effort for a vaccine. does this put america at a disadvantage? let's say there's a major breakthrough in china or other countries. we wouldn't get the benefit of it.

>> the reality, andrea, we have at least five or six candidates that we, the federal government, are involved with one way or the other, directly or indirectly, in a major way or peripherally. i cannot imagine we're not going to have one or more, like more, successful candidates among that group that we're involved with. so i don't see ourselves being left behind the 8-ball because other countries are going to get a vaccine. i'm certain that other countries will be successful in developing vaccines. but i'm also fairly optimistic that we also will have at least one or more candidates that will be available for the american people. >> the president said that a vaccine is possible before the election. vice president pence has said we are a nation of miracles. is there a risk of promising too much or even of pushing an emergency use authorization for a vaccine before it has been fully proved safe and effective? i know authorizations have been used in the past for vaccines, but that's the normal time frame

of years of study for a vaccine and testing and randomized testing. and we've seen the push for emergency use before things are properly vetted. >> yeah, i mean, obviously that's a concern of many people. right now, if you look at the timetable of the vaccine candidates that we're involved with, we have three now that are in phase iii trials. at least a couple of them are more than half completely enrolled. so things are really right on target. as i mentioned many times, and there's no reason for me to change this projection, i think we'll know by the end of this year, november or december, that we do have a safe and effective vaccine. and i'm cautiously optimistic, although, you know, you can never guarantee when you're dealing with vaccines. but i feel cautiously optimistic that we will have that. is it conceivable -- >> but that's the end of the year. that's not november 3. >> that's the projection, andrea. is it conceivable that you may

get an answer before then? yes, it is conceivable that if you get enough infections in the trial, that you will get an answer. but i've always said, and i'll appropriate it now, that i will not be satisfied regarding the release of a vaccine unless we know that it is safe and effective, both safe and effective. if we get a vaccine that's safe and effective, i would feel fully comfortable that that's a vaccine that could be released for the american people to use. >> but it could be overruled if it's not proven safe and effective, there could be a decision. we've seen the fda reverse itself, we've seen the cdc on testing of asymptomatic people, we've seen convalescent plasma be reversed by the fda. >> i can't address those issues, andrea, except to say that my position as a scientist and someone who's been involved in developing vaccines now for close to 40 years, that when we

do a development of a vaccine, we definitely want to see that it is safe and effective. >> was it a mistake on convalescent plasma to rush it out before randomized testing? >> well, you know, i think there was some confusion about any conflict between the eua that was put out for convalescent plasma and what the nih's position was. in fact there really is no difference at all, because the eua itself is aligned very much with the guidelines that came out from the nih, that there's not -- >> the emergency use authorization. >> yeah, right. there was a lot of concern in the press that there was conflict between the guidelines that came out from the nih and the eua. and as a matter of fact, if you read the eua word for word carefully, and read the guidelines, they say the same thing, that there really isn't

enough evidence for or against to recommend it, that it is not considered the standard of care, and that you should be using clinical trials to ultimately get the definitive answer. and that is aligned in both the guidelines and the eua. so yesterday, there was a lot of commotion, i think, about there possibly being conflict between the nih guidelines and the eua. and in fact if you sit down and read them both carefully, there really isn't that conflict. >> the president was discussing vaccines on a fox interview on monday and he then said, once you get to a certain number, you know we use the word "herd," once you get to a certain number it goes away so you know it doesn't have to be. are they still, at the white house, i know that some of the advisers have said they're not doing this, but are they talking about herd immunity and the risks, though, that are

associated with that kind of rhetoric about herd immunity somehow making us all safe, getting enough people sick? >> i think you have to explain to the viewers what herd immunity is. herd immunity is when you have enough people who have either been infected and/or vaccinated and protected, that there's enough protection in the community that the virus doesn't have the capability of freely being transmitted from individual to individual. you kind of have the herd protection as an umbrella. we're not there yet. that's not a fundamental strategy that we're using. the fundamental strategy that we clearly articulate and go by through the task force is to try to prevent as many infections as you possibly can prevent, that when you get someone who's infected, you do the identification, isolation, and contact tracing. and you do the kind of things to prevent infections, the things that i've just been speaking about with you when we were talking about trying to make sure we don't get any surging of

cases over the labor day weekend. so i'm not so sure what that's all about. but we certainly are not wanting to wait back and let people get infected so you can develop herd immunity. that's certainly not my approach. it's certainly not dr. birx's approach or any of the other people that i know of on that task force. >> we know that at least 35% of the public are suspicious of vaccines, especially in minority communities where they have reason to be suspicious because of past unethical experimentation on them. what can we do, especially since there have been so many mixed messages from the fda, the cdc, the mixed messaging about what is proper public health? >> i think what we have to do and what we're doing, in fact, i was involved with this as recently as yesterday evening and yesterday afternoon, and we have to continue to do it.

you have to have community engagement. you've got to get out into the community in a very transparent way, explain what you're doing, make sure people understand exactly what's going on, and encourage to the best that you possibly can, using people that the community trusts. i mean, obviously i will be speaking, but i'm viewed, as many of my colleagues are, as representatives of the federal government. you've got to articulate that as a person who is representing the federal government. but you also want to get community people out there who the people in the community trust, who they identify with, who they don't perceive as someone that might not be giving them the full transparent truth. we have a lot of work to do, because you said, correctly, andrea, that there is an ingrained understandable suspicion, particularly on the part of minority communities, regarding things that the government says. we've got to overcome that. and we overcome that with

sincere outreach and engagement at the community level. which many of us are trying to do, myself included. >> and finally, heading into fall, should football teams, college and pro, have fans in the stands, even at limited capacity, given how crowded stadiums are in the common areas, even if seats are spaced? >> andrea, i'm not going to make a pronouncement about football, you know, in sort of a generic way, except to say, as with any activity, you kind of have to look at what the level of infection is in the community. you know, we divide things into green zones, yellow, and red zones because of the level of underlying infection in the community. if you're in a green zone area and there's very little infection, there really is no reason not to, in a cautious way, have a sport be implemented and have people, spectators. once you get into a yellow zone or a red zone, whether you are

dealing with a sport or not, you're going to want physical separation, you're going to want masks, you want to avoid crowds, you want to wash your hands. so if you're talking about in a zone where there's a lot of infection, you're going to want to make sure you're not in a crowd. so i think that answers your question right there. that you don't want crowds, particularly in an area where you have active ongoing infection. so you've really got to be very careful and prudent about that. >> thank you very much, it's great to hear you, and to really hear you with full voice, dr. anthony fauci, thanks for being with us. >> thank you for having me, andrea, always a pleasure to be with you. >> you bet, thanks to you. moments from now, president trump heading to north carolina. joe biden hitting the president on what he calls his failure to safely reopen schools. this as new polls show the race is tightening. just 62 days from the election. we'll have the breakdown next,

stay with us. you're watching andrea mitchell on msnbc. on msnbc

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welcome back. both presidential candidates will be in cities named wilmington today. president trump headed to

wilmington, north carolina, a battleground state where he will use the power of the incumbent by speaking on a battleship. joe biden will be in wilmington, delawa delaware, focusing on the challenge of safely sending children back to school. msnbc's peter alexander is at the white house. peter, let's look at the poll numbers, polls narrowing now after both conventions. >> reporter: yeah, andrea, you're exactly right, we're getting our first snapshot of where things stand after the democrats and republicans held their conventions. we'll start with the national poll, we're seeing these new numbers both from "usa today" and from grenell college, "usa today" showing joe biden's lead is now at 7 points, down from 12 points just a couple of months ago, a few months ago in june. the grinnell poll shows joe biden's lead at 8 points. the situation right now in the state of pennsylvania, this is new polling in pennsylvania from monmouth university that shows what is certainly a tightening race in one of the crucial battlegrounds. biden leading donald trump there

by 4 points. notably, monmouth found that that was a 13-point advantage for biden in the month of july. inside those numbers you see something striking here, andrea. specifically, if there is a higher turnout election even more so than 2016, they say it would be a 3-point advantage for joe biden. but in a lower turnout election, if that were to happen this fall, just 1 point separates the two. no matter what it is, it's all within the margin of error, andrea. these are clearly very close races at this point. >> very close races, and obviously speaking of a critical state, pennsylvania, which was one of the real shockers last time around. i want to also mention another part of the "usa today"/suffolk poll showing partisan concerns about the security of the election. a large selection of voters on both sides not prepared to accept the results. 28% of biden supporters are not prepared to accept a trump victory as being fairly won.

19% of trump supporters say they won't accept a trump loss. 83% of republicans are at least somewhat concerned about mail-in voting leading to fraud, buying into that false trump narrative. this raises all sorts of concerns about what's going to happen, especially as we all expect that mail-ins, a large number of mail-in voting, because of the pandemic and other concerns, will mean it's not going to be a quick announcement of a winner, necessarily, on election night. >> reporter: yeah, andrea, no, you're exactly right. this obviously is a message that's been amplified by the president. again, this morning, tweeting, "rigged election," question mark, highlighting, amplifying. reporting now that there have been a lot of election observers who have said this but now specifically a democratic firm is describing what they call a red mirage where there is the likelihood, certainly the possibility that on election night, that donald trump would have the advantage, but over the days and weeks that pass, that advantage could be eroded, even erased as mail-in ballots,

largely coming from democrats, who are more likely expected to vote by mail more often than republicans as those votes are finally counted, andrea. >> and before i let you go, we have fabulous news from the presidential debate commission. our own kristen welker, your colleague, co-host of the "today" show" on saturdays is going to moderate the third debate, october 22nd, belmont university in tennessee right outside nashville. could not be more thrilled. this is so great for our colleague and friend. >> reporter: and now i've got goosebumps just hearing you say that. i've spoken to her, she is thrilled. >> just announced. >> reporter: nobody is better deserving. she's going to be terrific. >> no one works harder. we all work hard, you work hard, everybody else at the network. but she does more homework than anyone i've ever known. this is the best news of all. thank you so much, peter alexander. and on that happy note, we of course will continue with

politics. democratic presidential candidate joe biden and his wife dr. jill biden traveling to kenosha, wisconsin on thursday, they've said, where it's been peaceful for the last few nights. on tuesday, jacob blake's uncle joined community organizers at a block party and barbecue, calling for justice a week after police shot blake seven times in the back, he was grievously injured. president trump's tour of some of the destroyed areas from last week's violence on tuesday, accompanied by attorney general bill barr, did divide the community. his supporters cheered loudly, strongly approving the visit, despite opposition from many including jacob blake's family, including his uncle, especially to nbc's gabe gutierrez. >> reporter: what would you tell president trump? >> it's too late, bro. he's done nothing but spread hate out of his mouth about

brutalizing black people. >> nbc reporter shaq brewster, on the story from day one, joining us from kenosha, wisconsin. what can you tell us about jacob blake's condition now? >> reporter: we're told he's still in the hospital, still in a lot of pain, still heavily sedated. minute uncle told me yesterday he's starting to get his vibrance back. he can only see his mother or father, one person in the hospital at a time, so the parents right now are alternating. he's starting to reach out, the communications between he and his parents are increasing a little bit more. that's good news in that regard. you hear the family still asking and calling for prayers of people not only here in kenosha but across the country. but we've just reached out to his uncle actually in response to the news that vice president biden will be making his way here to kenosha. we know that vice president biden will have a community meeting, the campaign saying it's focused on bringing together americans to heal and address the challenges we face. and something that struck me

about that, that word "heal" that he used in the statement, that's the word you heard from the family of mr. blake when they had that counter event to president trump's rally. that was the word you heard from officials here in kenosha and across the state when they were asking president trump not to show up, saying that the community needed more time to heal. mr. blake's family saying they're excited to -- with the prospect of vice president biden coming to town but they notably said they have not spoken with the vice president specifically about this trip. we know that the vice president has made communication with the blake family in the past. but andrea, the situation of course in kenosha still is tense. there's still that curfew that remains in effect through the holiday weekend. the national guard is still here. you see some of the businesses behind me still are boarded. so the situation is tense and officials are hoping that once these visits are passed, then things can get a little bit back to normal here in kenosha, andrea. >> thanks so much, shaq

brewster. joining us now, michael chertoff, former homeland security secretary under george w. bush. thank you very much, good to see you. >> good to see you too. >> we know you headed homeland, and we've seen the law and order message that has come so strongly from the president. but not focusing, as we've learned now, on domestic terrorism as dhs had promised, on white nationalist threats. "the new york times" reporting that the trump administration had promised to focus on that. it has not happened, saying that the department of homeland security started an effort a year ago this month to address domestic terrorism, white nationalist threats and other acts of home ground violence. today that plan remains stalled as clashes between protesters and counterprotesters have escalated to exactly the kind of violent acts that the plan was expos supposed to address. can you help us understand the impact of all of this? >> there's no doubt, as you look back over the last few years,

most of the deaths in the u.s. that have come from acts of terrorism, they're not from global jihadist terrorists, but in extreme right wing groups that have been in synagogues, mosques, and other locations, killing people and creating other kinds of violent mayhem. frankly the fbi has identified some of the groups, the boogaloo bois, and qanon, who have to be treated as a serious law enforcement priority. for dhs to not come out with this report seems to me a little bit naive. and i know people in the agency understand the significance of white nationalism as a domestic terrorist engine. but there is an unwillingness to say it because the president has tended over and over again to pat white nationalists on the back. that would be an unfair and inappropriate politicization of

the department. >> and the president has also been claiming that violence is linked to democratic-run cities where there are democratic-elected officials. that's not what the homicide rates show. they're up 13% in republican-led miami, up 34% in democratic-led new york, up 29% in republican-run tulsa through june, up 31% in democratic-led phoenix through july. so it's pretty much of a wash. >> that's right. these numbers tend to be national in scope. there are some variations depending on particular conditions in a city. but it's completely ridiculous to make this a political issue. i understand, going back to the late '60s, law and order was part of the richard nixon playbook when he ran for president then. so it doesn't shock me that the political advisers to the trump campaign have kind of pulled this out of retirement and are trying to wave that flag again.

but anybody who knows the way law enforcement works knows it has been not a republican strength but a bipartisan strength. and i know joe biden from back in the days when i was a prosecutor, was very strong on fair but firm law enforcement. >> the other thing that the president said that certainly sounded dissonant to a lot of people, let me play it for you, he was defending police and especially in the jacob blake case, and said that there are a few bad apples who choke like in golf. this was with laura ingraham on fox. >> they can do 10,000 great acts which is what they do and one bad apple or a choker. they choke. just like in a golf tournament. >> we don't have to say that choke -- >> poor choice of words. >> -- because of george floyd

and others, a very bad choice of words. but comparing it to failing to make a putt when you're shooting someone in the back seven times. >> yeah, that's ridiculous. that's part of the problem, which is the president has over and over again signaled that his view of violence is, it's only a problem if it comes from people that he views as antagonists but his supporters, wink wink, it's not going to be a big problem. that is not a helpful message. in fact what it does is gives some people the sense that they have a license now to go out and commit acts of mayhem. and his defense of this fellow rittenhouse who has now been charged with homicide for killing two people, is exactly what you don't want to have in a national leader, trying to heal the country, as opposed to create what one commentator called a cold civil war. >> the other thing is that the russians are clearly at it again. and the dhs is confirming that it withheld july intelligence

bulletin calling out russian attacks on joe biden's health, false information that may or may not have contributed to all of the false messaging from the president about joe biden's health. >> i don't know that this was false messaging. dhs was talking about false messaging. the chief counterintelligence official has publicly stated the russians are trying to take down joe biden and are attacking him. facebook just removed a troll farm that's been echoing these kind of things. it's no secret that the russians do not want biden to win, and using false information and disinformation and amplifying it is, you know, page one of their playbook. i expect we'll see more of it. and i think people need to be alerted to this and need to be on guard against the russians masquerading as americans when they're really sitting in st. petersburg, churning out nonsense.

>> michael chertoff, former judge, former dhs secretary, it's great to see you, thank you very much. thanks for being with us had service good to be on. and down goes the dynasty? the undefeated kennedy winning streak is over in massachusetts. plus the melania tapes. the first lady's former friend says she has the receipts to back up her tell-all book. the claims in that book, rather. this is "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us. stay with us climate change is the fight of our generation. the biggest obstacle right now is that we're running out of time. amazon now has a goal to be net zero carbon by 2040. we don't really know exactly how we are going to get there. it's going to be pretty hard. but one way or another we're going to reduce our carbon footprint to net zero. i want my son to know that i tried my hardest to make things better for his generation.

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toi'm releasing a plan to save lives in the months ahead.irus. we need to increase federal support for testing, doubling the number of drive-thru testing sites. we absolutely need a clear message from the very top of our federal government that everyone needs to wear a mask in public. every single frontline worker should have the personal protective equipment that they need to be safe. we need to support schools and childcare programs so parents, if and when they can return to work, are confident that their children will be safe and cared for. and finally, we need to protect the populations most at risk: our seniors, vulnerable populations with pre-existing conditions. we need real plans, real guidelines, with uniform nationwide standards. it's a simple proposition folks, we're all in this together. we gotta fight this together. we'll emerge from this stronger because we did it together. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. you should be mad they gave this guy a promotion.

you should be mad at forced camaraderie. and you should be mad at tech that makes things worse. but you're not mad, because you have e*trade, who's tech makes life easier by automatically adding technical patterns on charts and helping you understand what they mean. don't get mad. get e*trade's simplified technical analysis. the winning streak from massachusetts' most store yde political dynasty has come to an end, for now at at least, as incumbent senator ed markey defeated joe kennedy iii. mar markey's win demonstrating the growing strength of the young progressive wing of the democratic party primarily

around climate change. markey's sponsorship with aoc of the new deal was an important factor. >> to my family, the kennedy family, whose name was invoked far more often than i anticipated in this race, you are my role models. you are my example of what public service should be. >> this campaign has always been about the young people of this country. you are our future. and thank you for believing in me, because i believe in you. >> joining me now, "washington post" upon columnist jonathan capehart and "boston globe"'s kimberly atkins. welcome, both. kimberly, what were the biggest takeaways of the night? >> it was a strange race between two popular people. it was an example of the voters of massachusetts, when joe

kennedy got into this race, was willing to give him a look. his poll numbers in the beginning were very strong against ed markey. but he failed to make the case as to why he should unseat a very popular sitting member of the senate. in the beginning, ed markey's favorability numbers -- not favorability numbers but name recognition, even, was relatively low for somebody who had been in office for decades. but once he started campaigning, he energized that youth vote, really pushed the fact that he is an author of the green new deal, and really motivated a young, progressive crowd in the same way that bernie sanders did throughout the state. and kennedy's inability to really articulate what he would do differently. they didn't really differ that much on policy. it just wasn't enough to get him over the hump and make the case that he should unseat someone. >> and another incumbent won up there, the ways and means

chairman, richard neal, defeating a younger challenger, far younger challenger as well. so that's an interesting reversal of other trends against incumbents from veteran washington congressional types. jonathan, let's talk about the 2020 race, because the race is tightening, even though joe biden is still ahead. and now mayor bowser here has released a report that she had commissioned from a d.c. committee, just a recommendation, renaming dozens of monuments, schools, parks, and buildings because of their namesa namesakes' participation in slavery or oppression. put in context with plaques at the washington monument, the jefferson memorial, this was instantly seized upon with backlash from the white house. is it a problem for biden? >> no, i don't think it's a problem for vice president biden simply because this report is part of an ongoing -- it's

landing in the middle of a national conversation on our history, on who we are, on who our founders were, who our leaders were. and to put the history into context, you know, one of the things that makes these conversations so hard is that we have spent 401 years avoiding the main topic of discussion. and so what this study does is just hands recommendations to the mayor. one thing we have to keep in mind is when it comes to the jefferson memorial or the washington monument, the mayor doesn't have any power over that because they're on federal lands. but i do think it is important that we have conversations, we have these conversations. one other thing i want to point out in the nbc news story, it points out that, you know, high schools named after historic figures who have troubling things in their past are also

under consideration for renaming or contextualzation, one of them being former president woodrow wilson. so there is precedent there. >> indeed, he resegregated the federal workforce, setting back thousands and thousands of black families for decades who had reached middle class status by that single act, especially here in the federal workforce. another problem on the other side for the president and his campaign, potentially, first lady melania trump's former senior adviser and friend, former friend, we should say, raising new questions about the trump inaugural money. there are multiple investigations. she has a new book, "melania and me." she told rachel maddow last night that she has tapes of melania, she's quoting melania

about her former friendship, kim. >> [ inaudible ] about the first lady. [ inaudible ] comments that -- >> let me play a little bit of rachel while we try to fix kim's -- let me play a little bit of rachel's interview. >> mainly and the white house had accused. me of criminal activity, publicly shamed and fired me and made me their scapegoat. at that moment in time, that's when i pressed record. she was no longer my friend. >> kim, i think we've straightened out that audio, i hope. your reaction as to whether this is a potential problem. she is a cooperating witness now with the attorney general here in d.c., with the sdny, and with

the feds on the inaugural committee spending. >> yes, and she submitted documents of these emails and other documents that are helping buttress that case in d.c. in particular. and it's another example of the trumps and how even those closest to them are quickly cut loose and allowed to fend for themselves once the heat is high. now, look, she is somebody who has also made a great deal of money from her involvement with that inaugural committee so i'm sure she has her own reasons. but it's yet another example of how melania trump and donald trump are very similar to one another. >> kim and jonathan, thanks so much. and back at it, new evidence about the russian troll farms hitting joe biden to help donald trump's reelection chances. we'll talk to senator chris murphy from the foreign relations committee when we come back. stay with us. how about no

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the russian internet trolls who pushed disinformation on social media in 2016 are at it

again after a tip from the fbi. facebook took down pages linked to the russian internet research agency. the posts did not get wide traction to sully the biden/harris campaign. this as russia is pushing for trump in the upcoming election. dhs showing russia's scheme to attack biden's men cal health. senator chris murphy's new book is called "the violence in inside us." just as we're hearing from the dni, the intelligence community that they're not going to brief in person the key committees about election interference which is the only way to ask questions, find out what the intel is, what the analysts are really saying and get past the prepared statements.

>> this is a very, very disturbing development. obviously, we hope, the trump administration is not actively facilitating russia's interference in the upcoming election. we all wonder why the president has been on the phone so many times with vladimir putin over the course of the spring and early summer, especially when he made clear he wasn't talking about security issues like the russian bounties on u.s. soldiers. the refusal now to brief members of congress certainly makes it appear as p the administration is trying to cover up the extent of russia's interference. what we already know through the briefings weave received and what has been made public is that russia has the clear intent to weigh in on trump's behalf in the upcoming election, all the tools they used in 2016 they're using again in 2020. if we're not ready and if the administration isn't making americans aware of when they are

hearing from a russian agent instead of hearing from an american objective source, then we're at risk of the same thing happening all over again, this time perhaps with the participation of the administration willingly or implicitly. >> and even participation, perhaps unwit inningly of 1078 senate republicans. look at ron johnson and some of the alleged information that the russians had been peddling through ukraine. >> so it just can't be a coincidence that the story that my colleague, senator ron johnson, is attempting to tell in the homeland security committee is the exact same tale that russian intelligence units are trying to spread throughout the u.s. political ecosystem, this idea that, in fact, it was joe biden and the democrats who were the recipients of help from the ukrainians in the 2016

election, a conspiracy theory that has been widely debunked. what disturbs me most is the intelligence services have very specific information about russian agents that are spreading misinformation. i don't know why we spend billions collecting information on russian agents if we aren't willing to tell the american people who they are. these are people openly participating in the american election, showing up on your tv shows, we should know that information. i'm not sure we pay the money if we're not going to be given that information. my hope is they release that information, release those names very soon. >> and why top officials keep saying china is the biggest threat and also iran and not russia that's actively engaged, not just aspirational. let me ask you about your new book "the violence inside us," going to the core ot whaf

the country is dealing with, the violence of guns. kenosha, the shooter, rittenhouse, had a military-style ar-15 just walking around with it. nobody would stop him, even though he was under age, it's an open carry state. what about the failure to pass gun legislation even after sandy hook when you and president obama and joe biden and so many others passionately fought for it? >> well, my book is entitled "the violence inside us" because it really is a full examination of why america has become such a violent place. it starts with the biology violence, talks about america's long history of violence. we're a country founded by violence against native americans and then enslaved african-americans. it starts with the story of a young man in hartford, connecticut, who lost his life at age 20 two months before sandy hook and the limited possibilities he had growing up in a destitute neighborhood, why he probably didn't think he

would live to see his 30s. this is a book, yes, about our uniquely destructive gun laws, but it's also a book that explains how we've gotten to this place today, where black men are being shot in the back, where violence is being used to suppress protesters and why young men are walking around with military-style assault weapons that should never be in the hands of civilians. i hope this book is a broader exercise in trying to understand why we've become a violent outlier amongst high income nations. >> and do you think, given that history, that there is a way to change something that is so deeply embedded in our culture? >> i think there is. this book is a lot of history and sociology. in the end, i do talk about the growth of the anti-gun violence movement and the fact that the nra is weaker than ever before. the movements to change not only

our gun laws, our economic structure stronger than ever. i end on a hopeful note that in the next 12 months we can pass legislation that requires everybody to go through a background check, that we can make changes to lift up communities of color. hopefully people see that hope at the end of the book. >> well, the book is "the violence inside us." thank you senator murphy. that does it for us for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. follow the show online and on twitter. chuck todd is up with a new hour of ""mtp daily"" only here on msnbc. n and some paper. know what? i'm gonna switch now. just need my desk... my chair... and my phone.

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if it's wednesday, the new urgent warning from dr. fauci about the threat of another coronavirus surge tied to a holiday weekend. this one, of course, labor day. the next few day also be critical to controlling the spread of the virus in the fall. new data, new challenges and new hopes for a vaccine, but still no new relief coming from congress to help the struggling americans financially. as schools across america are trying to reopen, joe biden is expected to speak this hour on his plans to keep students safe. he'll take on president trump over the virus. we'll bring you those comments live. ♪