in a lot of these polls, zeroing in on the spread of violence, protesters that have turned deadly. they're trying to hang that around joe biden's neck. that's why you saw earlier in the week joe biden is making a point to come out and condemn the violence on both sides and calling for folks perpetuating those acts to be prosecuted. >> thank you for your time. i'll be reading axios a.m. in a little while. you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me. "morning joe" starts now. >> we stand for law and order in every city for every american. >> let them send it in, go vote, if their system is as good as they say it is, they won't be able to vote. >> on tuesday, the vice president promised law and

order. and the president urged supporters to commit a felony, vote twice. >> this is checks and balances, am i right? >> yeah. >> we have checks and balances. that's why we have an attorney general. because an attorney general when the president of the united states says something like that, an attorney general will come out and correct him, right? >> well, maybe not so much in this administration. >> actually, with this administration, it's more like "fles "fletch". where you're, oh, good the cops are here. >> it is thursday, september 3rd. we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. professor at princeton university and author of begin again, eddie glaude jr. senior adviser to the lincoln project.

susan dell pierce owe joins us. and politics editor for the daily beast sam stein joins us as well. >> jonathan lemire, did you ever see "fletch," chevy chase, classic '80s movie? >> no, i saw it. i enjoyed. it was a classic in the '80s. there's a period where chevy chase was a comedy god, fletch was hysterical and timely. >> there was a time. chevy chase is a god, come on. that was kind of like me asking if he listened to the talkies, back when they make -- i don't think he was really feeling it. he's too young. >> it's okay. several new national polls given

former vice president joe biden at least a seven-point edge over president trump. the latest quinnipiac poll has biden up 10, 52 to 42%. the new cnn ssrs has biden up 8. usa "today" has biden ahead by seven points, 50 to 43. and the latest, grinnell college, 49 to 41. but look at this new polling from some key battleground states. this is important overall the latest cnn ssrs poll has biden up by 50 over president trump in 15 battleground states, 50 to 45%. a statistical tie. the latest fox news poll out of arizona has biden up points overtrump, 49 to 40%.

in pennsylvania the latest monmouth university poll gives biden a four point edge over trump, 49 to 45%, a statistical tie. in north carolina, fox news, biden with a four point lead, 50 to 46%. in wisconsin fox news polling gives biden an eight-point edge over trump in wisconsin, 50 to 42%. morning consult shows biden with a ten point lead in wisconsin, 52 to 42%. why does wisconsin in this polling matter? >> wisconsin, obviously, matters because kenosha has been at the forefront of the nation's attention over the past week or so. the president has tried to use race to try to divide. he's done just about everything you would hope and republicans

before donald trump came into office would hope he would not do, try to stir unrest. and it's not working. this strategy is not working. we said it wasn't working before. and jonathan lemire you look at the numbers in wisconsin and i think this is a repeat of june 1st where the president tries to use the law and order card, it blows up in his face even as the staff members are high fiving each other in the white house thinking they did something really cool, smart. you look into the fox news poll and joe biden is ahead by 5 points on the issue of policing and on the issue of basically law enforcement -- law and order. so biden is up by 9 points, putting distance between himself and donald trump. and also he's winning on the so-called law and order issues. >> it does feel like deja vu all

over again, which is a yogi bear reference, which is older than fletch. i can do these. the president has tried this play before. the important thing to note on the wisconsin dates apolls are dates, solely post kenosha. this reflects what we've seen on the ground there. so far the argument the president has tried to make has not resonated. we saw him in kenosha earlier this week with not a word for violence from the protests. we know that joe biden is going to kenosha today. which is a test for his argument of candidacy for president, that he is the compassionate. he can listen, he understands grief, he's trying to bring the nation together which has been

the ethos from day one. looking across the map we are seeing consistent leads for the former vice president in all the battleground state polls. the national polls matter less but they trend to track momentum, and they've largely held steady. maybe the president picked up a point or two since his convention. >> i don't think so. >> at most. it's making the margin go from 10 or 9 or 8. but the margins have stayed the same and stayed the same in the battlegrounds except for maybe pennsylvania we saw tightening in that one particular poll, maybe it's an outlier. despite the conventions and the chaos in the streets joe biden still ahead. >> arizona has been breaking slowly but surely joe biden's way. they are feeling far more confident about arizona and the

trump campaign is starting to worry more about arizona because there's been a break. post convention, joe biden is up nine points now in a state that donald trump thought six months ago was in the bag for him. you can say in the opposite direction, pennsylvania has striegt tightened up and gotten tighter in many polls. i have to say, i've always expected florida to tighten up, which it is doing. expected north carolina to stay tied. expected arizona in the end to tighten up as well, even though i think biden is looking better there. but i am surprised -- i will say i am surprised by those numbers in pennsylvania. if you look at philly suburbs where biden is likely going to roll up huge numbers. you go to scranton, which was a former -- which obviously is where joe biden is from. he's going to outperform how democrats have done in the past.

pennsylvania should be a biden state so that tightening up is interesting. you look at wisconsin, michigan, these are states starting to soldly go into joe biden's column, which is as jonathan lemire and i were discussing last night, is why you're starting to hear donald trump talk about minnesota because he has to find a place to expand the map. if he's going to lose arizona he has to pick up the points elsewhere. eddie glaude jr., best selling "new york times" author. this is interesting. it's now the second time the trump people say i know what we're going to do. we're going to make this like 1967. 1968. we're going to try law and order. they tried it on june 1st, it blew up in their faces spectacularly. donald trump condemned by the

chairman of the joint chiefs a few days later. a military times poll out today that show it s the military, on 16% democratic, that shows the military prefers joe biden to donald trump. i don't think that's ever happened in my lifetime that a democratic nominee did better than a republican nominee. maybe it has, i don't know. but for active duty troops the military times, 41% for joe biden. donald trump 37%. much of that is the fallout from june the 1st. so then he decides he's going to exploit the shooting of a black man who got shot in the back seven times and say it's okay for a white kid who's 17 to run around with an ar-15 shooting people. and you look at these poll numbers in wisconsin eddie, it's blowing up in his face again. these polls, can we put them up,

these polls were taken through last night. they were -- or the night before. these were taken through september the 1st. and that is the evening after donald trump went to kenosha and he's down 10 points in wisconsin. it's not working. race is not working for him. this b.s. version of law and order, again, august 29th through september the 1st, the night after he was there, eight-point lead for joe biden. i understand that donald trump is a one trick pony but man he's going straight off the cliff with this twisted, distorted version of law and order. >> you know, joe, no matter his racism, no matter his appeal to

resentment and fear, the reality is over 185,000 americans are dead. you know, over 6 million have tested positive. covid-19 has gripped this counted, and it is the issue, i think, driving voters. his incompetence is on full display in the way he has managed or failed to manage this pandemic. and how it has affected american households in over 185,000 americans are dead. so he can appeal to law and order, he can try to play the 1968 playbook. he can invoke, you know, resentment and fear, do what he did in the midterms, we heard about the caravan and the so called contagion coming. people are clear about his competence and folk are dealing with his grief because members of their family have died or know people who died. he can't change the subject when it comes to the impact of

covid-19 on the public and how that's going to impact the election in november. >> there's a study in contrast that joe biden is slowly and methodically laying out here. remember, of course, how can we forget trump going to kenosha and only talking about law and order, meeting with business owners that would meet with him. there was a bad back story because some didn't want to meet with him. there were reports that jacob blake's family had no interest in meeting with the president. joe biden is expected to visit kenosha, wisconsin today, there will be a different tone. he and his wife will meet with jacob blake senior and other members of the blake family. at a campaign event in wilmington, delaware yesterday he called for charges to be brought against the officer in the shooting of jacob blake and breonna taylor. and also the individual who shot and killed a trump supporter in

portland last weekend. >> last week your running mate senator harris said the officer who shot jacob blake, based on what she has seen should be charged, do you believe with her and do you believe the same for the officers involved in the death of breonna taylor? >> i think we should let the judicial system work its way. i do think there's a minimum need to be charged, the officers, as well as breonna taylor. and i might add, by the way, i think what happened in -- in portland, where -- one of the trump guys riding along in vans inciting responses shooting rubber bullets i guess or paint balls, apparently there was someone shot by someone in the crowd with a bullet, killed, i think that person should meet the legal requirements of whatever that calls for, it should be investigated and follow through on what needs to be done. let the judicial system work. let's make sure justice is done.

>> his trip is going to be so different than trump's, joe. >> it's the same, this is not hard for people of wisconsin to see who are obviously concerned. you have one presidential candidate calling out violence on both sides and demanding justice for people who cause violence on the left and the right. and then you have another candidate who happens to be the president of the united states that's saying it's cool that a guy from out of state, who's 17 years old, came up to your town, running around with an ar-15 and shooting people and killing them because they were holding skateboards. in kenosha, you're like, no, it doesn't matter if i'm a republican or democrat, we don't want people from illinois driving up here and shooting up our streets. the fact that donald trump can't call that out, that is right now the big difference between biden and trump. biden looks like a grown up who actually does want safety and

security. donald trump is still the donald trump from 2016 who was saying if you beat up protesters, that's cool. i could shoot somebody in the middle of fifth avenue and my people would still support me. when your town is on fire, that doesn't give people a sense of comfort. >> exactly. joe, you might disagree with this, in the end the defining quote of the campaign will be joe biden looking into the camera saying something like do i look like a socialist radical that promotes race riots in the streets. usually you don't try to acknowledge the fourth wall, you don't say look at the elephant but biden went there and did it, and i think that's the underlying theme of this race, which is joe biden, despite countless attempts to paint him as senile, slow, a trojan horse for left wing radicals, the

public doesn't see him that way. i will add one other thing, in addition to the public in these polls saying they trust body cameras -- biden more to handle issues of security and race, it's not apparent in these polls that people are voting on those issues at all. there was an american first policy poll, a pro-trump group, they asked republicans, democrats, and independents what they valued as an issue the most, and republican voters 7% said getting the streets in order in the cities. that's a low number if that's the focal point of the trump campaign. you want that number higher. finally one other thing, can't overlook how trump complicates his own message on this. he spent a week trying to get kenosha to be the front story and for some reason had a diversion about a twitter war about whether or not he had mini-strokes. so that complicates the plans

that the party is trying to lay to try to change the tenor of the race. >> he's the one that brought up bizarrely mini-strokes. the lack of discipline in that twitter feed that everyone is tabd for four years is causing such concern obviously with people inside his camp because he needs to stick to a message that will get people's minds off the fact that the pandemic that donald trump said was one person coming in from china in january, that said it was 15 people and going away at the end of the february. the man who said it was going away in april when it warmed up. that's the same pandemic where 18 0,000 americans have died from it. so donald trump doesn't want to think about that, his campaign doesn't want to talk about the coronavirus. white house reporters like jonathan lemire will tell you that, but susan, they have spent so much time trying to find an

issue to hit joe biden on. and they started by attacking his son, nobody cares. it didn't stick. then -- >> they like joe biden. >> they're trying to say, he's too close with china. can't do that because donald trump has been president xi's fan boy for a long time and there are tapes, tweets. then he moved to joe biden was radical. that doesn't work. had he's a guy from pennsylvania, a guy from delaware, who went on amtrak home to his kids every night from washington d.c. and if he was crediticizecritic. he was criticized not for being a socialist but being too close to banks, credit card companies that's what you heard when people were attacking joe biden. now you hear he's crazy and not a law and order guy. you can't say that about a candidate who his entire life has been endorsed by

firefighters, who's had great relationships with cops. and who just said a couple days ago, every time a police officer puts on his or her badge when they walk out at night, they're putting their lives at risk. they can't lay a glove on this guy despite the fact they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying and his approval rating went up five points through their convention. >> yeah, and that's in part, joe, because donald trump only knows how to blame somebody else for a problem and only knows how to fight from the outside in. he's president of the united states and does have to take responsibility for the 186,950 deaths right now in this country. it's not to blame him but he has not taken responsibility for actions. what happened when this virus hit our country he said governors go ahead and do it. he abdicates his responsibility. i want to go back to that

military times poll, joe, because it plays into this. 74% of people polled in there, active military, believe that they are against donald trump's thought about putting active military personnel into u.s. cities. his policies are not the policy of the military. he's -- his approval rating has fallen from 46% to 38%. that's a huge nose dive for a president, especially a republican one. but most importantly when he tries to go out after joe biden, he can only try and find something to make it stick because he can't talk about what he has done. he has no real accomplishments and has not taken responsibility. if he tries to do that, he has to take responsibility for his entire three and a half years as president. >> yeah, and my god you look at the numbers -- >> you don't want to do that.

>> -- they collapse for the favorability rating down to 38%. again, i can't remember a time when a republican president maybe it's happened where a democratic president, a democratic nominee does better among troops than a republican president. but that, obviously, has to be a great concern for the white house as well, but that is just, you got to believe that's the fallout from what happened on june the 1st, a lot of military men and women, deeply offended that the president of the united states wanted to use them as political stunts. >> yeah. >> quickly, jonathan lemire before we go to the news grind, we -- you and i have talked an awful lot about pennsylvania and i believed that of all the swing states that, other than michigan, i thought pennsylvania was biden country and that biden

would end up winning this, a good friend of ours, vicky sent us the front page of "the philadelphia enquirer" that says that trump is strengthening in northeast pennsylvania in the philly suburbs. that's chris matthews territory, we need chris to give us insights from that. >> we should. >> i expect those places to be a battleground based on the front page of the enquirer this morning. >> pennsylvania has always been interesting. let's flash back to 2016, obviously hillary clinton did well in the big cities, pittsburgh and philadelphia. she also did well in the suburbs but donald trump was able to rack up huge margins in the exurban and rural counties throughout pennsylvania. they had an impressive ground

game in voter turnout. michigan from day one was the one the trump campaign thought they'd have the hardest time keeping, and that's been proven. but pennsylvania was next. they felt good about wisconsin, but pennsylvania because of joe biden who was a pennsylvania native, whose message was tailored to the white working class voters, and voters of color in the state, and obviously an effort to boost turnout among voters of color and in the cities. but so far biden is up, but it remains stubborn. i should note since 2018, there's been a real increase in republican voter registration in pennsylvania. and the trump campaign feels good about that. they feel like there are more voters there, potential already for him, in that state, which is

about a 50/50 registration. this may be a moment joe we see pennsylvania in cycles to come potentially start to tilt red but right now joe biden because of who he is, is going to hang onto it for democrats one last cycle but it's going to be close. one of the tightest battlegrounds going forward and the trump campaign is throwing resources into it because they're having trouble. and you mentioned it, arizona is a red warning light, they're scared about arizona. >> arizona is slipping out of their hands right now, it seems. same thing with michigan. of course, we're not talking about this with march and april. we're talking about this now. early voting is coming upon on so these numbers start to matter very soon. and arizona, they have got to turn things around, they have got to turn things around in in michigan. they have to lockdown texas, georgia also a big problem for them. north carolina early voting begins very soon as well.

down four points there. if you're the trump campaign -- >> volatile map. >> -- you have so many moving targets it's hard to figure it out. i will say, in pennsylvania, again that seems like joe biden's state. that seems like the state that's going to help him lock things up. i can't help but remember back to 2000 when -- if al gore had actually carried his home state of tennessee, he would have been president of the united states. so it is -- you never know how these things are going to turn out. there's a long way to go. but it looks like the suburbs of philly are going to be a battleground in the campaign. house oversight committee chair, carolyn maloney yesterday followed through on the threat to subpoena the postmaster

general. the new york democrat says that louis dejoy has not sufficiently responded to the committee's request for documents having failed to meet an august 26th deadline to submit materials on u.s. postal service changes and ensuing mail delays. the ap reports that the committee is also asking for information about how louis dejoy was picked for the job, any communications between dejoy and the trump campaign. and is requesting dejoy's unredacted calendar. the deadline for compliance is september 16th, at noon. actor and former wrestler dwayne "the rock" johnson announced yesterday he and his family tested positive for the coronavirus. in a video posted on instagram, johnson shared that his daughters had mild symptoms while he and his wife had a more difficult experience. >> this has been one of the most challenging and difficult things we have ever had to endure as a family.

it baffles me that some people out there, including some politicians, will take this idea of wearing masks and make it a political agenda, part of a political agenda, it has nothing to do with politics. wear your mask, it is a fact. ands if the right thing to do. >> appreciate that, johnson and his family have all since recovered and they are no longer contagio contagious. hall of fame pitcher tom receiver has died from complications from dementia and the coronavirus at the age of 75. receiver the 1967 national league rookie of the year played 12 of his 19 major league seasons with the new york mets leading the 1969 team, which would later be dubbed the miracle mets from the bottom of the national league to a world series title. the three-time cy young award winner and 12-time all-star is credited with 311 career wins, the 18th most of all time and

more than 3,600 strikeouts, the sixth most of all time, retiring with a career 2.86 e.r.a.. receiver w sever was elected to the hall of fame by a record margin. he was remembered as a power pitcher that changed the mets from lovable losers into formidable foes. seaver died peacefully in his sleep on monday. >> what a great pitcher. what a great guy. and jonathan lemire, the -- you know, nobody does headlines quite like the new york post, they had a great one yesterday, tom seaver, the greatest met of all time dies. and he was. he was all business on the

mound, nothing flashy about him. he was just great. and my gosh, if you remember back -- if you're old enough to remember back to the '69 series or what seaver did in '73, what hr mets, it is -- it's hard to say that any player was ever more important to their team than tom seaver was to those new york mets. >> exactly right. it's not just that he's the most popular and greatest met of all time. he was so linked to the franchise's identity. a franchise compared to certainly the jayankees haven't been around as long or had as much success. but tom seaver is someone who

stayed close to the organization. he was also one of the top starting pitchers of all time in baseball history. a top tier starter. someone who because of that world series but beyond his legacy is forever safe in cooperstown and beyond. he's been sick for a while, condolences to him and his family and the entire mets organization and their fans. >> sam stein, do you know the last team he played for? lemire let me know this last night. >> it was the red sox, he was on the '86 team. got injured before the playoffs. >> yep. >> yeah. sam we don't want to talk about the '86 red sox. >> i bet you thought i didn't know that? >> i did not. >> pretty good. >> a lifetime 2.86 e.r.a. we could use somebody that had an e.r.a. with the red sox that was

under 11 this year. >> don't pay attention to the season. still ahead on "morning joe" we'll play for you a number of moments from a revealing interview with attorney general william barr. this was actually stag erg. he gets pressed on the escalating vescalat escalating violence in some u.s. cities and denies there's two justice systems for white and black americans. plus the cdc tells states to be ready to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine by november 1st, racing concerns among some health experts. >> watch how many people will take that one. it's dr. nix's magical vaccine. >> we'll be right back. accine >> we'll be right back book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night. the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com. hold on one second... sure.

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we're right around 40,000 new cases. that's an unacceptably high baseline. we have to get it down. i'd like to see it 10,000 or

less, hopefully less. the issue we're facing right now is we're entering, in a day or two right now, into the labor day weekend. we know from prior experience when you get into holiday weekends, the fourth of july, memorial day, there's a tendency of people to be careless somewhat with regard to the public health measures we keep recommending over and over again, so i want to use this opportunity to have a plea to the people in this country to realize we need to get our arms around this and to suppress these types of surges that we've seen. >> our numbers are great, the stock market is essentially at an all-time record. if you would have told me i think we're rounding the turn on this china virus, vaccines are happening, therapeutics are happening, look at the statistics they're good. even without that, we're rounding the turn. we'll have a phenomenal quarter. this quarter is going to be

really good. >> this is a guy who kept saying it was going to go away. this was a guy who told african-american ministers, i think at the end of february, this is going to go away like magic. just believe me, it's going to go away like magic. he told senators -- republican senators in early march, don't worry about this, it's going to go away. we got it taken care of. we're doing a great job. he also, of course, said it was going to go away magically in april when things began to warm up. since that time, since that time, since he made those guarantees not to worry, he was asked, actually, if he was worried about it in early march, he said, no. i'm not worried at all. since that time when the president said he wasn't worried at all, look at the bottom right-hand side of your screen. that's how many of your fellow americans have died of the

coronavirus since donald trump made those guarantees. and continues to make those guarantees in the summer. still making the guarantees -- >> still having super spreader events -- >> -- makes the guarantees in the fall and still having super spreader event. he had a super spreader event in north carolina. >> and also got on a stage, some people wearing masks but i see a lot of people clustered together not wearing masks. that's alongside dr. anthony fauci saying the numbers in certain areas of the country are at unacceptable levels. that is the polar opposite, polar opposite description of the situation. joining us now, pulmonologist and nbc news medical contributor, dr. vin gupta. >> i know this is impossible for donald trump to do, but let's try to take this out of the realm of politics, just for a minute. i know he can't do that.

but we have to do that. for some time doctors have been warning, you've been warning, epidemiologists have been warning, dr. fauci has been warning about the fall and the dangers of what could happen in the fall when the flu season collides with the coronavirus. and you have donald trump still going around pushing -- you know, actually getting the government to push treatments that end up being in effective or certainly not tested. now we have this bizarre announcement that states are being told to get ready to distribute a vaccine by early november. this would be a vaccine, of course, that's not going through all the proper stages. that won't be adequately tested. and i seriously, i wonder what doctors are going to recommend to their patients that even if

they're big proponents of vaccines that they can promote this vaccine that donald trump is talking about rushing to market. >> you're talking a time line less than eight weeks away. we're in the beginning of september already. so a vaccine that has to get mass distributed and into people's arms by the beginning of november, late october. that needs to start happening in a matter of weeks. joe, there isn't a single company that exists right now that has a clinical trial, a phase 3 trial where tensov of thousands of people are getting this vaccine, scientists are examining it for health and safety impacts. nobody is close to the ideal target. this notion we're going to have, in eight weeks, this ready-made vaccine. to your point, joe, what people want, they want an expert review

panel that's apolitical, composed of vaccine experts to look at the data, give it a go, no go. that's what people are looking for, myself, my colleagues. without that there's no trust. this is only going to embolden the anti-vaxers out there. this is going to give them more fodder. last thing i will say is, it's not just one dose, joe we're thinking we need two doses. an additional dose, and two doses. that's 650 million doses of the vaccine, not 325. >> sam stein, how ironic you have people like dr. anthony fauci who are talking caution, saying hey, we've got to do this the right way. we have to do the testing the right way. and anthony fauci is the guy that anti-vaxers and also

conspiracy theorists who, of course, breed on facebook, they've been attacking fauci because he was going to try to make billions of dollars on -- he and gates and, you know, the -- whatever -- again, whatever conspiracy theorists in this plandemic, they were going to make all of this money getting rich off of vaccines. it ends up that it's people like anthony fauci urging caution while donald trump is the one trying to rush something to the american people that won't go through its proper trials, that can't be guaranteed as being safe. >> right. i mean, this whole process has been a corruption of our belief in sound, scientific method, it's not just the push -- the obvious pushing of a vaccine at an electoral time line, the

fda's announcement about convalescent plasma the other day, led to the resignation of a couple officials because it was so hamfisted and politicized. as bad as this covid experience has been, you have to look down the road as the reputational damage that's going to be done to our scientific institutions and dr. gupta, i'm curious, you look at that, and the damage to the reputation of the fda and now the cdc. i mean, what could the consequences of that potentially be, you know, not just months from now b but years from from now? >> such a great point you raise. i get asked all the time, what's the source of truth you look to? the cdc is saying if you're asymptomatic you don't have to get tested. or commissioner hahn is inventing numbers that don't exist, like 35% mortality improvement with the use of

convalescent plasma, really well respected public health leaders across aisle, both sides look at what's happening and are horrified. folks like myself who are counseling patients don't have a referen reference to look to saying you can trust this or that, because this is unprecedented. i think what you see in future administrations is a desire to deeply apoliticize appointees to these positions. so individuals hopefully if it's a democratic administration you'll ahave perhaps somebody wo is apolitical taking the role of the cdc not in the senate confirmation hearing doing the opposite of what commissioner hahn did when he got confirmed. during that time we were having a vaping crisis. he didn't answer a question on the vaping crisis because of white house political pressure.

i'm hoping future people are apolitical. >> dr. vin gupta, thank you for being on the show. later we'll talk about school safety amid the pandemic as colleges battle major outbreaks and school systems try to figure out safe ways to reopen. "morning joe" is coming right back. reopen "morning joe" is coming right back and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill... ...can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some... rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred... ...as have certain cancers, including lymphoma,

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the congressional budget office announced yesterday by the end of the year the government debt will equal the size of the entire american economy since the time of world war ii, the report is mainly due to the surge in new spending that the government authorized as it tried to control the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. by the end of 2020, the amount of debt owed by the u.s. will

equal 98% of the gross domestic product, up 79% from last year. the debt is expected to widen to 3.3 trillion by the end of the fiscal year, more than triple its level in 2019. the deficit was already on track to be elevated because of recent tax cuts and spending increases but the government's response to the pandemic expanded that gap dramatically. >> and voters shouldn't be distracted by the spending done during the pandemic when judging president trump and the republicans in congress, they have been disgraceful for the past three and a half years lying to the voters back in 2010 and 2012, talking about how they were going to be fiscally responsible and spending recklessly nonstop for a decade. this is -- again, these are people over the past three and a half years have sat by, approved

every huge bloated budget that donald trump passed. and that he signed. and, again, we were talking about trillion dollar deficits even before the pandemic. we were talking about a $23 trillion national debt even before the pandemic. these republicans were spending like drunken socialists even before this pandemic. >> that's right. they were spending in on mr. undmr. mrmr. mr. underhill's account. >> there you go. >> this administration, i'm surprised that trump is putting up a fight, frankly, on the covid response bill. because he doesn't care about spending. he's never been a fiscal conservative, he's never been a conservative. they just spend. and i'm surprised donald trump doesn't look at it, i can get a

lot of things to people in an election year. i don't know what's keeping him from it, but for that i am grateful. >> yeah. i mean, it is -- eddie glaude, it's so fascinating that these republicans, again, i'd love to blame it all on donald trump who i said throughout the 2016 campaign was a big government democrat and he wasn't a conservative and he would spend big and he certainly has not proven me wrong. but these republicans, even before trump were just disgraceful on spending. they were disgraceful during the bush years lying to voters saying they were small government conservatives, saying they were going to balance the budget. and i think even more than that, lying about wanting to balance budgets and be fiscally responsible. think about the fact we've gone a full decade since the tea party explosion and deficits have just exploded.

and also, during the that time they were going to get rid of oba obamacare and give us a better health care system and here we are a decade later and the republicans haven't done anything on health care, they haven't given us an alternative to obamacare. they've done nothing but say, let's just cut, cut, cut and replace it with nothing. for working class voters who, again, a lot of them have trump signs in their front yard. i wonder if they know that this guy is desperately trying to take away protections for preexisting conditions, along with the rest of the republican party? >> you know, joe we can have a disagreement about deficits and debt but what you can't agree on is within the context of ideology of conservativism republicans have been inconsistent and hypocritical.

and we need to understand, too, that this deficit that we're talking about, this debt, is a reflection of that tax cut. that tax cut that we all said was not needed. that they said would be paid for by wealth generated from those producers. we know, in fact, what happened. donald trump went into his resort and told his friends, i just gave you guys a lot of money. that this is what they've been doing. they've been in some ways not just hypocrites. they're grifters. >> this is all very predictable. the tax cuts we warned republican senators repeatedly those tax cuts would be used by massive corporations for stock buy backs. warned them repeatedly, go back to the tape. we said this is not going to help -- >> we should show it. >> -- working class americans, small business owners.

this is going to help multinational corporations with stock buy backs and it did. a year later a couple republican senators were like, i'm shocked. they used all of their profits for stock buy backs. come on. >> you knew. >> you knew what they were going to do. you just wanted their campaign contributions. it was a terrible tax cut, only helped the richest of americans, the largest corporations. that's why you have corporations like amazon that the president loathes so much paying nothing in taxes. donald trump, way to go. you just made jeff bezos a lot richer but you really screwed over working class americans and younger americans that have to pay that debt. >> in a big way. new battleground polling on the state of the presidential race with just two months to go. plus the president's new guidance to test the system by voting twice. >> that would be illegal. >> yeah, don't do that.

and attorney general william barr's response when asked about the president's comment. his answer, i don't know what the law is. >> what? >> that's from the attorney general. >> plus donald trump said the reason for the visit to kenosha this week was to support law enforcement. >> no, it wasn't. >> joe biden said his visit today is aimed at progress and unification. "morning joe" is coming right back. joe" is coming right ck from prom dresses... ...to soccer practices... ...and new adventures. you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past... they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. let's help protect them together. because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. ♪

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live look at capitol hill, it is the top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe," it's thursday, september 3rd. jonathan lemire and eddie glaude jr. are still with us. and we have co-host of show time's the circus, john heileman. former u.s. senator and now an msnbc political analyst, claire

mccaskill. contributor mike barnicle is with us, we hope. and professor at the school of public affairs at the school of texas, victoria de-francesco-soto. you understand right now, barn cal is 3 to 1 odds his microphone doesn't work answering the first question. let's see if you invested your money wisely. let's talk about tom seaver, talked about the new york post headline, tom seaver the greatest met ever dies. talk about the man, talk about his incredible career. >> well, tom seaver was an artist. to watch him perform on the mound was an incredible experience. he was a legitimate hall of famer before they voted him into

the hall of fame. one of my favorite stories occurred during the last year of his career when as you noted earlier, joe, he was with the boston red sox. he comes to the red sox and prior to his first appearance on the mound with the red sox, he's in the bull pen warming up with the catcher for the red sox, rich gedman, and gedman told me they warmed up and prior to the game, they're walking from the bullpen to the dugout for him to take the mound, rich says do you want to go over the signals and seav seaver looks at him and says no signals. you hold up your glove and whatever i throw will hit your glove. and gedman said that's exactly what happened. >> wow. >> yeah, absolutely incredible. >> claire mccaskill, of course,

for very young people -- not very young people, more middle aged people who don't remember what happened in 1969, the miracle mets were something to behold. extraordinary that they beat the orioles that year. but tom seaver didn't just take them to the world series that year they won again in 1973 and could have beaten the a's that year, but it was seaver's leadership and steady presence that made all the difference for the team. >> yeah, tom seaver was no flashbang. he was just pure, steady, consistent. really, frankly, you know, while it -- he got a lot of attention at the time, probably it hasn't been talked about enough in the years since 1969. and, you know, just one of the really -- one of the heroes of baseball in terms of how he lived his life and the way he

conducted himself, stayed close to the mets organization. i think that's a big deal in today's sports world. and i think all of us need to top our hat to the met family today and especially tom seaver's family. >> it's interesting. in '69, too, extraordinary things happened in sports, the jets won the super bowl, beat the colts, and the mets beat the orioles. for some reason we talk more much about the jets beating the colts maybe because of joe nay mut's prediction. let's move from new york baseball to wisconsin politics. john heileman you're on the ground doing work for "the circus". we couldn't help but notice a couple polls taken after donald trump left kenosha. and despite the fear and

loathi loathing, or the bed-wetting from democrats, the polls show joe biden doing quite nicely in wisconsin, up by 8 points in the fox news poll and 10 points in the morning consult poll. a poll taken in part after donald trump left town. it certainly does not look like the fear and loathing that donald trump was trying to spread throughout kenosha and wisconsin in general has done him any favors with the voters there. >> joe, i think if you think about the -- where we are with all the numbers we now have, the kind of question of how the conventions would net out, you know, what we've learned, i think this is -- wisconsin is an exam particul exemplar of this, especially with trump being here on tuesday, biden coming here today, obviously with the issues -- the aftermath of the fallout from the jacob blake

shooting, everything that happened, wisconsin is like the rest of the battleground states we are back to status quo. the conventions happened, whatever effect they had on the attributes of the candidate, some movement in the cross tabs of a lot of polls. but you look around, i know you cited polls from other states but we are basically back in wisconsin to where we were at the start of august. so all that effort of donald trump to try to push law and order to the center of the race, he seems intent on continueing down this path because because he doesn't have another path, but he's still pushing down this direction. but no sign that it's working anywhere in a vivid way. if there was any place you thought you would see that and i think democrats as you suggested were most nervous, thought about wisconsin a state emblematic of what happened in 2016, trump winning, hillary clinton criticized for not paying enough attention to the state.

people thought this might be the most important of the six battleground states in 2020 yet joe biden has led here consistently all throughout the year and this fox news poll from yesterday shows him with an eight point lead, outside the margin of error. you wonder if this is the way donald trump is going to try to spend the home stretch, the next 60 days, focused on this issue if it's not getting him traction in wisconsin, given everything that's happened, why does anybody think it's going to give him traction in other battleground states or around the country more broadly. >> of course he had upper midwest strategy before, predominantly white states, iowa, minnesota, wisconsin, michigan. it's not -- it's certainly not working right now in michigan and wisconsin. and you're right, those numbers have been consistent. he's been consistently out of reach there, now you see arizona starting to go that way, i've noticed movement in arizona away

from donald trump over the past week or two. but a tightening in pennsylvania and florida, and you just wonder whether he has to change strategies, go all in pennsylvania and florida and maybe picks up minnesota because right now wisconsin remains stubbornly in biden's camp. and this is not early. we're not in the second inning anymore we're in the seventh and biden is leading comfortably in wisconsin and michigan. >> right. to make that point more vivid, voting starts in north carolina on friday. this week, the first early voting in the country is two days from now -- or tomorrow, sorry. this is thursday, right. so tomorrow, the election starts to tomorrow. pennsylvania early voting starts another ten days after that, michigan starts a few days after

that. so this notion that election day is something off in the future is -- has always been a bit of a fiction but in this environment is more of a fiction. as the votes get cast, the state of play in the battleground states right now matters in a profound way and with wisconsin and michigan off the table for donald trump. they did a state of the race call, the trump campaign, earlier in this week and they were focused on that call on the situation in florida. because if trump can get florida back to where he wanted it to be, florida is a state that joe biden has led in for the past few months because of the lockdown. if the trump campaign can focus on florida and get florida in its column, it makes the road to 270 a lot easier. but it does seem of the three upper midwest states that gave

trump the presidency, two of them right now are not just favoring joe biden, but as we move towards early voting, two of those states look like they may be out of donald trump's reach, and that makes the map very, very difficult for donald trump. very difficult. >> of course if he doesn't win florida, it's impossible. they have to double down in florida, they have to look at some of the trends they've seen in pennsylvania. have to understand they've got to win both of those states. and with michigan and wisconsin moving -- right now moving out of their grasp, much can change over the next month and a half and with arizona also moving from them, they have to win pennsylvania, florida, and they have to figure out a way to pick up minnesota. let's talk about wisconsin, though, and the politics of race and the politics of law and order, so to speak, claire mccaskill. donald trump has done it again

like he did on june the 1st, he tried to use race, riots, fear and loathing to move voters to his side. it failed miserably june 1st, i'm sure you saw the military times poll that shows, for the first time i can remember, i'm sure i'll be corrected a thousand times if this has happened another time, for the first time i can remember, only 16% of the military consider themselves democrats, identify as democrats, donald trump has a 50% unfavorable rating among active duty troops. and that number has skyrocketed in 2020. and it has to be a reaction to what happened on june the 1st. june the 1st failed and now this kenosha gambit, if you look at these polls that were taken after he left kenosha, this foe any law and order routine of his

once again appears to be failing. >> yeah, i really don't think -- first of all, i think the military approval going down has a lot to do with his failure to recognize the fact that russia put a bounty on the head of american soldiers and trump didn't think it was important enough to talk to putin abiliou. you don't think everyone in the military heard that at a loud volume? of course they did. they see what he's doing with nato, tearing apart alliances and buddy-buddy with the thugs of the world. the military is the ones who feel it the most. it really -- i think his foreign policy failures are impacting the military vote. but i got to tell you on this law and order thing i think what the president is missing, i spent last night readings cross tabs, i'm a weirdo, what struck me about the polls that came out yesterday were older voters.

he is losinged older voters. he thinks his base is the same as it was in 2016 and all he has to do is turn them out, witness him going to pennsylvania to a rural community this week. not to the suburbs of philly, not to pittsburgh, but to a town of 8,000 people. this is now a base turnout strategy, that's where the law and order things come in. he's skipping over health care, covid and that's what older voters are freaked out about. >> absolutely. >> he does not get that. until he starts doing better with older voters, joe biden is not going to take a nap but he might be able to p. because older voters is really where donald trump is getting hurt right now. >> and claire, if you look at the number on the screen, 186,000, almost 187,000 people dead and many of them -- the majority are older voters. they're dying of the coronavirus

at much higher numbers than anyone else in the country. and the president, again, does these events, acting like the coronavirus doesn't even exist. it's a dual reality that older voters can't afford to buy into. let's go into what happened yesterday as well, after repeating the false claim for months that mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud. the president himself encouraged voter fraud when asked by a north carolina reporter if he had confidence in the system, the president urged voters to test the system by trying to cast two ball lots. one by mail and another in person. >> they'll go out and vote and have to go and check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way, because if it tabulates, then they won't be able to do that. so let them send it in and let

them go vote and if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won't be able to vote. if it isn't tabulated with, the be able to go. that's the way it is. that's what they should do. >> i'm a simple country lawyer, but even i know that's a felony. you have the president of the united states and -- seriously, if this isn't what an autocrat would do, this is the president of the united states encouraging his supporters to commit a felony by voting twice. it's a felony. it certainly is a felony in many states but against the law in every state. and again, donald trump is the one whining about voter fraud, creating a conspiracy theory where there's not one, and here he is actually encouraging people to engage in voter fraud. >> that's just -- it's --

>> is that not a -- i don't know. i would think -- >> you can ask the attorney general. >> let's do that. >> you can ask the attorney general of the united states of america because -- >> he'll know. >> -- you would think he's the one -- yeah. bill barr attempted to explain the president's new guidance. >> he's trying to make the point that the ability to monitor this system is not good and if it was so good, if you tried to vote a second time you would be caught if you voted in person -- >> that would be illegal if they did that, if somebody mailed in a ballot and showed up to vote in if person, that would be illegal. >> i don't know what the law in the particular state says. >> you can't vote twice. >> i don't know what the law in the particular state says and when that vote becomes final -- >> is there any state that says you can vote twice? >> maybe you can change your vote up to a particular time. >> he was saying test the system. >> if you know what he's saying, why are you asking me what he's

saying. >> that's a bad guy. >> claire mccaskill, he is an extraordinarily -- >> this is not a good man. >> -- bad public servant. >> just the worst. just the worst. >> claire, i think -- i think donald trump and bill barr, in those two clips yesterday -- >> yeah. >> -- they have saved us from having to explain the depths to which they plunged during the trump era. all we have to do is play our grandchildren those two clips and they'll look at us and say, grand dad, that must have been really bad. >> yeah, all of the people out there that thought bill barr was going to be somebody who defended the institution of justice in this country -- >> what a joke. >> -- and that was the talk in washington when he was nominated, he would be a normal

attorney general. there is not, in the history of this country, a freaking attorney general that goes on national news and doesn't say it's a felony to try to vote twice and the president has no business advising people to do that. i mean, what is wrong with this man? how embarrassing for our country. we have stood for the rule of law as a bright, shining light across the world that we had a real rule of law where politics stopped at the doorstep and this administration has absolutely ruined the department of justice's reputation as somebody who's a centusentry for justice the law. somebody needs to call corey gardner, he got elected with mail-in ballots in colorado. how do you think corey gardner is feeling right about now when colorado knows they have a

secure and safe mail-in balloting system. look at massachusetts yesterday, record turnout. they had the results last night. short waves, and a huge mail-in vote that was counted the night of the election. come on, guys. get off of this and start talking about what people are worried about in this country. and that is voter suppression and all the votes being counted. >> i don't mean to be naive. but for the life of me, i don't know what is worth bill barr behaving the way he is. and being the way he is in public as a public servant, actually undermining the rule of law as activity as he undermines the rule of law. i find it remarkable that even some of my friends, who used to

be conservatives that are now engaging and rampant anti-trumpism but will not criticize trump for putting bounties on the heads of american troops -- of putin for putting bounties on the heads of american troops and not criticize trump for doing that or not speak out when he attacks the public servants in the intelligence agency. when they cross vladimir putin. i don't understand what bill barr has -- is getting out of this that is worth him being forever remembered this way. degrading himself the way he does every day. and i don't understand why people who used to be conservatives, who still call themselves conservatives but stopped being conservative a long time ago would go to such pains to defend such a man who was saying he doesn't know if

voting twice is illegal. he doesn't know the law. victoria, the irony here, of course, is that for all of the sound and fury signifying nothing about voter fraud it rarely happens but north carolina is one state we had a high profile case where it did happen and guess who perpetrated it, republicans. so do you have an answer? can you tell me why bill barr is acting stupid on tv and pretending that he doesn't know whether voting twice is a crime or not? >> i'm going to wear my political psychologist hat on this one, joe. i think in terms of, there is a group -- folks look at barr and say, but you know, back in the day he was an upstanding guy. he held the constitution firmly in his hands. he's going to change trump. but we have seen that time and

time again trump changes people. people don't change trump. so once you have psychologically accepted the fact that you are entering this tribe, it is the tribe of trump, you can't deal with the cognitive disnance of on a daily basis having to go between what were your ideals before the trump administration and what you're living. so you say i'm going to go all in and for what i've been seeing over the past four years is person after person saying i can't deal with this cognitive disnance. i accept it to go in. maybe they accept it to go in because they thought they could change trump, make a difference. but once they get in there they realize they can't. in terms of the voter fraud as you point out, north carolina it was perpetrated by republicans. i don't know what's going to happen. but i think this may end up

boomeranging and shooting the republicans in the foot. so with president trump, you know, basically putting out disinformation, we usually worry about disinformation coming from russia, coming from, you know, dark money groups. but in this case we're getting it from the president himself but if he is pushing republicans who may not know better. maybe low information voters, this is going to be a big problem for the republican party. >> all right. well, we have more from the attorney general. barr was pressed on president trump's claim this week that thugs boarded a plane -- >> oh, yeah, the ninjas, dressed in all black. >> -- last month's republican convention -- >> he'd know if a plane of thugs commandeered a plane and went to the rnc with teenage mutant

ninja turtles to threaten our democracy. here's the exchange. >> the president claimed that he heard about a plane, in his words, loaded with thugs in dark uniforms from a certain city headed to the republican national convention here in washington in his words to do big damage. he didn't offer specifics he later the next day changed the story, the plane wasn't coming to washington, it was leaving washington. have you asked the fbi to investigate it? >> i don't have to ask the fbi. we received numerous reports of people coming from portland, seattle and other cities for the specific purpose of coming to washington to cause a riot. >> were they wearing black uniforms and loaded? >> we received many on planes. we received reports on this topic. >> was the president talking about information you provided the president? >> i don't know what he was referring to. >> it was reported on facebook there was a conspiracy reported weeks ago about this thing --

>> i don't know what the president was referring to. i will say that we are trying to follow these things and we received numerous reports of people coming from other cities into washington as we received many reports of people going into kenosha from various states. >> you're saying you don't know specifically what the president was referring to? >> no, i don't know what the president was referring to to. >> when he spoke about this? >> he was speaking in general terms i don't know what he was referring to. >> we have -- >> what does he do for a living? >> we have an attorney general, and this shouldn't be a shock, eddie, we have an attorney general who lied on -- in an interview criticized the mueller investigation because it began with the steele dossier, he knows that's a lie. he knows the time line doesn't match up. senate republicans showed again this past week that was a lie. it began because donald trump's foreign policy advise erwas

shooting his mouth off and an australian diplomat heard it and reported it and that started the investigation. i know that, barr knows that, everyone close to the investigation knows that, but he's spreading the lie. here he's spreading conspiracy theories from facebook and when pushed has to go, well, i don't know where the president got that from, but we sure heard. he's talking about a facebook conspiracy. the attorney general of the united states of america, one more thing, eddie. he said that he doesn't believe in systemic racism. he doesn't believe that there are actually two americas when it comes to justice. >>, you kno you know, the smugn barr is unbearable in so many ways. he said a couple of things, there's a constellation of lies

evident in the interview. he made false claims around voter fraud. he also denied, as you mentioned, systemic racial bias in police. refused to acknowledge the data. he invoked some vague studies around voter fraud in terms of mail-in ballots but won't look at any data showing systemic bias in policing in the united states. so it seems to me it's very clear that who he's concerned about, who he's most concerned about when it comes to polici policing -- joe, he's tracking the so-called thugs with ninja turtle weapons, quote/unquote but nothing to say about the proud boys, white militia, he's not charting those folks because the trump administration in the early days sought to turn the federal government's attention way from white supremacists organizing.

this is where i thought you and shawna were having this back and forth yesterday, whenever i hear the phrase law and order, i'm concerned what's happening, particularly out of the mouth of ag barr and donald trump, shifting the blame from a focus on police violence to the response of black people's -- to black people's response to that violence. you used a phrase in the other segment that i think is spot on, instead of law and order, which can mobilize this stuff, we should use safety and security. it untetters the discourse from the undertow of racism and then pin ag barr down for what he's doing, that is lying and race baiting over and over again. >> you know what i've always said, eddie, i've always said i'm a safety and security conservative. i'll use that. i like it. whatever you call it, being for

the 25 million people who march peacefully but the people on the side that destroy property and committed crimes, i'm against that. i'm for the marching. i'm a safety and security conservative. let me mark it down. you know, mike barnicle, eddie brings up a great point when he talks about this myopic view donald trump and bill barr have of america. one of the most disgusting moments from me of the rnc was when mike pence had the audacity to bring up the assassination of a dhs official in oakland and suggests that it somehow came out of the black lives matter march. leaving that impression on the minds of everybody watching and everybody at the rnc. what mike pence didn't say was it was a boogalo boy, who

connected with other radicals on facebook, then went out used the marches as an excuse to go out and assassinate a dhs officer in oakland. pence never said that. just like barr never talks about the alt-right chaos that's being spread along with -- they talk about antifa, they won't talk about this alt-right chaos as well. so you got an attorney general that does that, we can talk about all the lies, we can talk about the perjury that he committed when he testified in congress several months ago. i keep going back to the fact that the attorney general of the united states of america says he's not true if voting twice is a crime or not. >> good lord. >> for a man who's had so many low points that may be his most embarrassing, shameful moment yet. >> joe a few minutes ago you described his inability to recognize a felony when he heard

one, which it was when the president said you can vote twice. he described his rhetoric as being stupid. there are huge number of people in this country, especially washington d.c., who would accept stupid in this case. what you haven't said of just plain stupidity is a level of corruption so deep that it's historic. this is an attorney general who has corrupted the professional staff of the justice department. he is in the process of doing something that donald trump's administration has been doing in department after department after department, destroying it. slowly destroying the apparatus of government. and what happens when you do that? well, it infects everything. it infects the united states senate, it infects everything that is supposed to keep this country moving. and as we sit here today, think about this for a minute, out in this country of ours, there are two candidates running for president, obviously. donald trump and joe biden.

and what you're increasingly hearing and seeing, to john i e heileman's point about wisconsin, you're seeing a level of calmness and focus on the part of one of one candidate's, who name is not donald trump, and on the other candidate who lights his orange hair on fire on every issue when he's on tv. which would be okay except for the fact he has a partner, a legitimate strong partner, in bill barr. in corrupting and destroying the government that is supposed to help people in need of great help right now with the virus and with the lack of $600 a week in unemployment checks that they were getting five weeks ago and are slowly being destroyed economically each hour of every day. >> jonathan lemire, you wanted to jump in. >> no. i think that's absolute lit right. it is stunning that we have the

attorney general not to be able to condemn what is obviously an illegal act, which would be voter fraud. and to per pepetuate a conspira theory by the president that they saw on facebook. facebook just now, mark zuckerberg, put out some news ahead of the election, i know this is a subject of great import to this show. and he has said that facebook will not be taking any new political ads in the week before the election. that's number one. number two they'll remove posts that claim people will get covid-19 if they are voting. and he said they will attach informational labels to content that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of the election or a can candidate who tries to claim victory prematurely. is this a good reform or too

small of a step from facebook who we know in 2016 and now wields extraordinary influence in our political discourse. >> i'll take any reform we can get. i wonder a couple things, how closely are they watching advertising from third parties? are they going to take the view that cheryl sandberg took, see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil, whatever you say there -- in that cheryl sandberg screamed at a facebook employee when he tried to tell her that the russians had a disproportionate impact in the 2016 campaign because of all of their advertising. what are they doing to make sure that china, russia, iran, north korea, others, aren't influencing our election. i'd love to hear that. i'd also love to hear the answer to the question that our next guest asked on twitter just

about a minute ago and that was, what are they going to do about grossly misleading ads? are they going to let them stay up for a week, go viral and then go we need to maybe take them down like they did with plandemic. they let plandemic spread around the world. they let plandemic get more views than taylor swift's concert announcements than the office's reunion. it's too little too late unless you move swiftly and take them down quickly. so let's hope they do that. let's bring in the person i was talking about, dave wasserman, political and journalism professor at morgan university, jason johnson. david wassermann, you might think i have special glasses,

lenses on, to allow me to see every tweet, i just happened to be looking down when i saw you tweet that concern. it is a real concern. what good is it if you take down a misleading ad a week after it's gone viral? >> facebook has created a monster they can't tame and it's hard to put this jeanie back in the bottle. that video made the rounds millions of times before it was marked asthma lip na manipulate. the danger for joe biden is his ads may not penetrate to the low news and political engagement voters who primarily live in a trump friendly information system in small towns and rural areas where friends and neighbors are sharing things that are unverified and potentially untrue.

>> that's the thing, there's a great "new york times" article last week that said those of us that live in the bubble, those that think you read newspaper and watch the news, are isolated from those who get most of their news from conspiracy theories on facebook and what friends email and text them, misleading stories, false stories, conspiracy theories, which has an impact. dave i want to go to the states we've been discussing this morning. i loved what you said last week you can see trends coming because you follow and get a lot of local polls, congressional polls and you can see how things are breaking in the national race in a way some of us can't see by looking at polls that come out from the media. i want to ask you how you're feeling about -- what we're seeing in the polls -- the public polls, the media polls are that arizona, michigan, and

wisconsin seem to be breaking a bit for biden, seem to be more comfortably in his camp whereas florida and pennsylvania show a real tightening. what are you seeing on the ground? what are you seeing with all the information you're sifting through every day? >> well, at this point it's still wise to keep an eye on larger friends, demographic trends. when i went and averaged eight polls that went in the field mid to late august versus the same polls in june or july. we can see joe biden's numbers among college educated whites have held up, up 57-38 in that group. which is an improvement over hillary clinton in the 2016 polls. that explains why his best shot at flipping any piece of trump real estate on the map from '16 is actually in omaha, nebraska.

joe biden is ahead in omaha, nebraska. when we look at the other side of the coin, joe biden has lost a couple grounds of points among noncollege whites, we expect that trump base to come home closer to the election, down 36-57. he has to hold the 36. i think keep it at 34 or above to be able to win the election. but the silver lining for donald trump here is that he's doing better with nonwhites than he was doing in 2016. winning on average 9% of the black vote in these polls compared to 5% in his preelection polls in 2016. and his panic vote, joe biden is ahead 56 to 31. the final polls in 2016, hillary clinton was up 61 to 23. so that's a pretty decent number

for trump among hispanics. to traditional voters coming back to the republican fold. at least in florida what seems to be offsetting that for now is joe biden's strong performance among white seniors which also helps him in arizona. >> and no doubt that joe biden is doing much better among white seniors. i wonder as we look at arizona breaking more for biden and florida tightening up, i wonder how much those cuban-american voters are having an impact on the difference in those two states, states with a heavy latino, hispanic population. if you look at what happened in 2018, one of the reasons why desantis won and one of the reasons why rick scott went to the united states senate was because cuban-americans stayed with the republican party. we'll see what happens in 2020. big news out of michigan, john

heileman, going to be surprising for a lot of people. but former republican governor rick snyder had an op-ed in the "detroit free press" that he is going to be voting for joe biden. i am a republican who is going to be voting for joe biden. >> yes, joe, i think a lot of people will be surprised to hear that. although i think that you and i and others who have followed the career of the guy who fashioned himself one tough nerd when he was the governor of michigan won't be totally shocked. rick snyder, obviously democratic partisans in michigan found a lot to dislike about governor snyder but he was -- he's kind of a kasich republican, a great similarity between the two governors.

obviously kasich has been more openly negative about president trump, but the two of them culturally on a lot of issues, in terms of how they position themselves and their ability to succeed in two states with similar partisan breakdowns, you look at kasich, snyder, they're similar kinds of appeal and they had a lot of appeal in those states to conservative democrats and the moderates. the notion that snyder ends up in this place. they also notably have been advised by some of the same never trump strategist. i would not be surprised to learn that john weaver has been in the ear of governor snyder. it's a boone to the campaign of joe biden. you know they spent time in the democratic convention to get ahead of trump's claim that

biden is a puppet of the left. this continues that trends. it's one of the most striking of things in the month of august, the outpouring of support for joe biden among republicans. snyder is the latest of them. but i don't think the last republican who will surprise us and end up in joe biden's column. >> jason johnson you have a first look at the latest ad from the joe biden campaign. he showed it with us and now we're sharing it with you. take a look. >> why in this nation, can black americans wake up knowing they can lose their life in the course of just living their life. >> part of the point of freedom is to be free from brutality, injustice, racism and all of its manifestations. >> we have to let people know that we not only understand the struggle but we understand the fact they deserve to be treated with dignity.

they have to know we're listening. >> reforming policing in this country means creating a national standard on use of force and conditioning federal funds for police departments on adoption of that standard. it's about reining in qualified immunity. we hold police officers accountable. >> we can't turn away. now is the time for racial justice. i believe with every fiber in my being we have such an opportunity now to change people's lives for the better. it's about who we are, what we believe, and maybe most importantly who we want to be. >> so jason johnson, i also think, wow, just such a contrast from trump's message. but biden meeting with jacob blake's family, along with his wife and his ability to reach out, show empathy, i just think the contrast is so jarring at this point when you have a president right now running for

re-election whose campaign message to african-americans was what do you have to lose? he showed them. >> yeah. yeah. mika, here's the thing. i'm not usually impressed with a lot of campaign ads but i like this. i thought this was very, very good. this was a very effective ad for the bliden campaign, he's targeting african-american voters as we debate how white voters feel, the reason joe biden is the nominee is bauds of black voters. so running an ad that shows empathy and concerns and needs of black people is important. the ad always said we want to know what you're doing. we're not going to throw money at dirty police departments we're going to do something about qualified immunity. that's the kind of policy that african-americans and african-american voters need to hear, that progressive voters need to hear. and the visuals themselves are

amazing. that 25 million people that marched during black lives matter, the churches that have black lives matter in the window, they also care about their black neighbors and relatives. so i think from an imagery standpoint and policy standpoint this is one of the best ads i've seen biden and harris put out there. this is where they are today in 2020 and this commercial shows that. >> claire mccaskill we have been known other the past 12, 13 years to be very tough on ads and communication from political candidates. i must say, over the past six months or so, joe biden has outperformed at least my expectation and i think most people's expectations time and again. he did it in his speech on monday. he did it yesterday.

these ads are some of the best political ads that i've seen. and it just points to i think a growing problem of expectations for the trump campaign. they're moving towards the debate, continuing to say that this guy is out of his mind, that he's old, that he's sleepy, that he's not there anymore. and my god, you'll remember this, like me, they're setting him up to win just like the carter campaign set up ronald reagan when they kept saying that reagan was old and out of his mind and a fascist and a guy that was going to start world war iii and the expectations were set so low for reagan that by the end of the night it wasn't a close call. reagan won the expectations game, there was a huge swing and he won the election. i think that's happening here. i think trump is actually doing

joe biden a great favor. >> there is no question that donald trump has set the table for very low expectations of joe biden. particularly around debates. and that's where you want to be going into an important debate. you want everyone to assume that it's not going to go well. and that's what -- i mean, frankly, donald trump has spent more time lowering expectations about joe biden than he spent on a consistent message. and compare and contrast that to the biden campaign. give them credit. one thing that joe biden learned from barack obama is the discipline of message. staying on message. that ad just oozed the message of his campaign, empathy, understanding, listening, healing, bringing us together, that we can be better we do not have to put up with this. and that is exactly what his message has been from day one,

and he's stuck with it no matter what and the discipline of message is probably the biggest determinative of what's going to happen in november because we know on the other side, this guy spit balls remember what he did in north carolina yesterday joe, it's a felony in north carolina what he did. he committed a felony at the airport in north carolina. you cannot advise people to vote twice. it is against the law in north carolina. so compare and contrast the two campaigns right now and i have a lot of respect for the discipline the biden campaign is showing. >> they are. victoria, i want to go back to the number that dave told us, gave us, about hispanic voters, sitting at about 31%. i think mitt romney got about 28% when the pundits looked back they said he said something in the iowa primary months ago that turned the hispanics off.

donald trump has been demonizing the hispanics for four years now, he called hispanics, quote, breeders, been caging hispanic children at the border. they voted to cage children as border. they voted to cage children as a policy with a show of hands. we remember what he said about judge kurl. there's so much out there that where donald trump has really declared political war on hispanics. i'm curious why do we still see him sitting with 31% of the hispanic vote? >> the devil is in the details. and while there is a cohesive latino vote, there's a lot of diversity within that vote. you though florida as well as anyone does. cuban-american vote is so

critical there. and donald trump has spent the last four years cultivating that vote. he cultivated in 2016 and he hasn't given up. the last couple months he's gone incredibly strong. i know he's poured a ton of money into that. there's no coin dense he chekee bringing up communism so that's florida over there. in terms of non-floridian hispanics. he's trying to connect with values. we know that latino voters tend to be a little bit more socially conservative, a little bit more pro life. he's also trying to connect with them there. it's a hodgepodge strategy he's grabbing a little bit here in terms of the evangelical latino vote. a little bit hear from the post communist vote and a little bit from those who that are

disenfranchised. and there's also the business community. they have a high rate of entrepreneurship and we also see the strategy there. we're not going to see donald trump grabbing the majority of the latino vote. i would not be surprise d if he gets 30% of the vote. if the biden campaign doesn't get more aggressive. because that's the one acquit leez heel of the campaign is the biden campaign hasn't put in the work it needs to bring home that latino vote. >> victoria, dave wattserman, jason johnson and john heilemann, thank you all for being on this morning. a turn now to a new book that takes an in depth look at the crown prince rise to power in saudi arabia and how president trump helped him get there. joining us now is wall street reporterer bradley hope and

justin shekt. they are the new authors of "blood and oil." >> thank you for being with us. claire mccaskill is with us as well. she has the first question. >> so i have not had a chance to look at this book, but i'm anxious to. i'm curious for you all to explain to us where jared kushner comes into this picture. it appeared to me he figured out early on to get the president to saudi arabia for the kind of welcome that only trump desires. the flowers and pouring from the sky and the billboards. talk about what jared kushner has done in terms of his relationship with mbs is. >> they were of the same sort of generational per part spective. both don't have a lot of time for history. one of the anecdotes in the book is jared kushner explaining to steve bannon he doesn't like to read history books.

had doesn't give him the tools he needs to solve problems. that's something similar with mbs. one of the big take aways is that the young crown prince of saudi arabia got a lot more out of this relationship than the trump administration did. they put a lot of their stock on this. in saudi arabia, they got all this attention. it allowed the crown prince to really rise up against all these forces that were conspireing against him. >> mike barnacle, next question. >> justin, mbs is sitting there and he has israel on one side. he has the uae on the other side. there's contact between both those nations, as we now know. do his north, he has iran. what is his goal, his ultimate goal and the potential danger of that goal with regard to saudi arabia versus iran? >> saudi arabia versus iran has

become the big source in the region. much more so than saudi arabia and the other arab states in israel. it's gotten to the point where he feels iran is such a problem he's inclined to align much more so than ever before. what the uae did is the for other countries in the the region. most notably saudi arabia. but even with that aside, we have seen they have welcomed in israeli technology into the kingdom. there's been this softening and back channelling of communications in a way there never was before. so i think it's reasonable to expect that that will continue and that saudi arabia could even recognize israel, which would be a huge gifl to the trump administration if if it were to happen before the election. >> so i asked both of you what are the long-term prospects of reform in saudi arabia? obviously, america and the world, if not donald trump, were

horrified by the killing of "washington post" columnist. and yet many people will say that saudi arabia regardless is moving toward reform over the next decade. what is the case there? and where is saudi arabia in terms of exporting radicalism, something that the united states has been complaining about for decades? bradley, you first. >> i think that is the most interesting thing about saudi arabia. it's really transformed tremendously in the last few years. all of the attention, though, is economic reform and social reform. political reform is off the table. saudi arabia is a changed place. young people are gathering in these kind of concerts, event spaces. they have new kinds of freedoms. the religious extremists that used to patrol the streets are

there. and you raise an interesting point. saudi arabia is a center for exporting a kind of interpretation of islam around the world through its funding of mosques and other kind of funding. that's something that is just at the beginning right now is the reforms of that kind of export and what's in the content of those discussions they are having with other countries around the world. those are the areas that are the most fascinating and exciting going forward. political reform, however, is completely not happening. >> justin? >> i mean, the way i like to frame it, and the way i see it, he's been consistent with everything he's done has been in the furtherance of continuing the monarchy, strengthening the monarchy and strengthening his role of the the kingdom. he sees this saudi arabia is at 60% under 30. he sees that his population is no longer going to be tolerant of these strict social ore strixs on their lives. so i think he's moved to what

looks like women drive iing and people mixing and movie theaters and concert ises, but it looks like reform at a surface level. but will people have say in their own governance, there's no indication he's going to shift away from the monarchy he has. that's why he's cracked out on descent and acted in ways that are not increasing political freedoms. >> the new book is "blood and oil." bradley hope and justin scheck. thank you so much. we're back in 90 seconds with more on the new hopolls that sh the strategy to stoke fear amid violence and racial unb rest. how it did nothing for his wisconsin numbers in the wake of kenosha. the latest from that key state and several others, "morning joe" is coming right back. severg joe" is coming right back. so you're a small business,

or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. there were tsunamis fourtin the world. and once they happened, we were in a major hurry to get to those regions

to provide aid and support. it was very humbling to be able to help out all those people. it's my dream now to go into clean energy and whatever the next new fuel source is, that's where i want to be. i want to be on the front lines of implementation. we stand for law and order in every city and every town for every american. >> so let them send it in and let them go vote. and if the stm is as good as it says it is, they won't be able to vote. >> on tuesday the vice president promised law and order and yesterday the president encouraged supporters to commit a felony by voting twice. >> this is a great thing.

i always talk about america's checks and balances. am i right? >> yeah. >> checks and balances. that's why we have an attorney general because an attorney general when the president of the the united states says something like that, an attorney general will come out and correct him. right? >> well. >> maybe not in this case. >> with this administration, it's more like flech. it's more like flech. where you're like, oh, good, the cops are here. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." as we back into the show, it's thursday, september 3rd. along with joe and me we have white house reporter jonathan lamar. professor at princeton university and author of "begin again", eddie jr. and republican strategist and senior adviser to the lincoln project, sue son del percio joins us. congratulations, she's amazing. and politics editor for daily

beast sam stein joins us. >> i'm just curious, jonathan. did you see flech? i think he's too young. >> i saw flech. i enjoy flech. it was a classic in the '80s. i try to there was a period of time he was a comedy god. and a very timely reference for you this morning, joe. >> yes. >> there was a time. he is a comedy god. come on. you need to see it. that was kind of like me asking if he listened to the talkies. do you like the old talkies. i don't think he was really feeling it. >> no, he wasn't. it's okay. but here's something you will feel. several new national polls give joe biden a 7-point edge over

president trump. the latest poll has biden up 10. 52% to 42%. the new cnn poll has biden up 8, 51% to 43%. and the latest poll that we showed you yesterday has biden with an 8-point lead over president trump. but look at this new polling from some key battleground states. this is important. overall, the latest cnn ssrs poll has biden up by 5 over president trump in 15 b battleground states. a statistical identitie. the latest fox news presidential out of arizona has biden up 9 points over trump. 49% to 40%. and in pennsylvania the latest

month mouth gives biden an edge. that's a statistical tie. the fox news poll finds biden with a 4-point lead. and in wisconsin, fox news polling gives biden an 8-point edge over trump in wisconsin, 50% to 42%. morning consult shows biden with a 10-point lead in wisconsin, 52% to 42%. why does wisconsin in this polling matter? >> wisconsin, obviously, matters because kenosha has been at the forefront of the nation's attention over the past week or so. the president has cynically tried to use race to try to divide. he's done just about everything that you'd hope and that republicans before donald trump came into office would hope a president would not do. that is to try to stir unrest. it is not working.

this strategy is not working. we said it wasn't working before. and jonathan, you look at thaez numbers in wisconsin and i think this is a repeat of june 1st, where the president cynically tries to use the law and order card. it blows up in his face politically even while staff members are high-fiving each other at the white house thinking they did something really smart. you look into these polls and look into this fox news poll and joe biden is ahead by 5 points on the issue of policing. and on the issue of basically law and order. so biden b is winning straight up in these polls by 9 or 10 points. in fact, he's putting pretty good distance between himself and donald trump. and also more specifically, he's winning all the so-called law and order issues. >> it does feel like deja vu

which is a yogi bear reference. we have seen the president try this play before. the important thing to note on the wisconsin polls are the dates. these are taken post ke knenosh so this reflect what is we have seen on the ground there. the argument that the president tried to make has not resinate ed. we saw him in kenosha earlier this week with not a word for the underlying cause of the protests. the violence that blood count men have suffered at the hands of police. we know joe biden is going to kenosha today, which will be a big moment for him. a test of basically his essential argument that he's indeed the compassionate, he can listen, he understands grief. he's trying to bring the nation together, when he said it was charlottesville, the president's

response to that that drove him into the race. but looking at the map, we're seeing consistent leads for the former vice president in all of these be the the ground state polls. national polls matter less, but they do tend to track the momentum. they largely held steady. maybe the president picked up a point or two since the convention, but even then it's making margin go from 10 to 9 or 8. it's largely stayed the same. more importantly, they have stayed the same in the battlegrounds and fwroun for the most part for the former vice president except for maybe pennsylvania. we saw some tightening in this. maybe it's an outlier. but the state of the race is where it was a few weeks ago. donald trump within striking distance, sure. but right now despite the conventions and the chaos in the streets, joe biden is still ahead. >> there have been some trends. erin has been breaking slowly but surely joe biden's way. they are feeling more confident about arizona and the trump campaign is starting to worry more about arizona because

there's been a definite break. and post convention, joe biden is up 9 points now in a state that donald trump thought six months ago was in the the bag for him. you can say in the opposite direction, pennsylvania has tightened up. and has gotten tighter in many polls. i have got to say, i have always expected florida to tighten up, which it is doing. i expected north carolina to stay tight. i've always expected arizona in the end to tighten up as well even though i think biden certainly is looking better there. but i am surprised. i will say i'm surprise d by those numbers in pennsylvania. if you look at philadelphia, if you look at the philly suburbs where biden is likely going to roll up huge numbers, you go to scranton, which was where joe biden is from. he's going to outperform.

pennsylvania should be a biden state. so that tightening up is interesting. you look at wisconsin and michigan. these are states that are starting to solidly go into joe biden's column, which is as we were discussing last night, why you're starting to hear donald trump talk about minnesota. he's got to find a place to expand the map. if he's going to lose arizona, he has to pick up points elsewhere. but eddie, best-selling "new york times" author. it's interesting. this is now the second time the trump people say, i know away we're going to do. we're going to make this like 1968. we're going to do law and order. they tried that on june 1st. it blew up in their faces spectacularly. donald trump condemned by the chairman of the joint chiefs a few days later. there's a military poll out

today that shows the military, which is only 16% democratic, that the military actually prefers in this poll joe biden to donald trump. i don't think that's ever happened in my lifetime that a democratic nominee did better than a republican nominee. maybe it has, i don't know. but for active duty troops, the military 41% for joe biden and donald trump, 37%. much of that is the fallout from june 1st. so then he decides he's going to exploit the shooting of a black man who got shot in the back seven times and say it's okay for a white kid who is 17 to returun around with an ar-15 shooting people. you look at these poll numbers in wisconsin. it's blowing up in his face. these polls, eddie, were taken

through last night. or the night before. these were taken through september 1st. and that is the evening after donald trump went to kenosha and he's down 10 points in wisconsin. it's not working. race is not working for him. this bs version of law and order, again, august 29th through september 1st, the night after he was there, 8-point lead for joe biden. i mean, i understand that donald trump is a one-trick pony, but man, he's just going straight off the cliff with this twisted, distorted version of law and order. >> you know, no matter his racism, no matter his appeal to resentment and fear, the reality

is over 185,000 americans are dead. over 6 million have tested positive. covid-19 has gripped this country. it is the issue, i think, driving voters. his incompetence is on full display in the way he's managed or failed to manage this pandemic and how it's affected american households. in over 185,000 americans are dead. so he can appeal to law and order. he can try to play the 1968 playbook. he can invoke resentment and foor. he can do what he did in the midterms. we heard about the caravan and the contagion come iing. people are clear about his incompetence and folks are dealing with grief because members of their family have either died or we know people who have died. we can't change the subject when it comes to the effect and impact of covid-19 on the american public and how that's going to impact this election in november. >> still ahead on "morning joe,"

a look at the other stories making headline this is morning including a new spotlight on the man b making all those changes inside the postal service. plus the great sheryl crow joins the conversation with her new project that hz a political message. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com.

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here's a look at some of the ore other stories we're following. caroline mahmoloney followed through. the new york democrat says that dejoy has not sufficiently responded to the committee's request for documents having failed to meet an august 26th deadline to submit materials on

u.s. postal service change ensuing mail delays. the ap rorpts that the committee is also asking for information about how dejoy was picked for the job. any communications between dejoy and the trump campaign and is requesting dejoy'sen unredacted calendar. the deadline for compliance is september 16th at noon. actor and former wrestler duane johnson announced that he and his family tested positive for the coronavirus. in a video on instagram, he share d his daughters had mild symptoms while he and his wife had a more difficult experience. >> this has been one of the most challenging and difficult things we have ever had to endure as a family. it baffles me that some people out there including some politicians will take this idea of wearing masks and make it a political agenda, politicizing it. it has nothing to do with politics. wear your mask. it's a fact.

and it is the right thing to do. >> appreciate that. johnson and his family have also since recovered and are no longer contagious. and hall of fame pitcher tom sooefr has died of complications from dementia and the coronavirus at the age of 75. the 196 national league rookie of the year his seasons with the new york mets leading the 1969 team, which would later be dubbed the miracle mets from the pot of the national league to a world series title. the three-time cy young award winner and all-star is credited with 311 career wins. the 18th most of all time and more than 3,600 strikeouts, the 6th most of all time, retiring with a career 2.86 e.r.a. he was elect ed to the hall of

fame in 1992 by a then record margin. his plaque remembers him as a power pitcher who helped change the new york mets from lovable losers into formidable foes. the national baseball hall of fame said yesterday that seaver died on monday. he survived by his wife, two daughters and four grandsons. >> what a great pitcher. what a great guy. and jonathan, nobody does headlines quite like "the new york post." they had a great one yesterday. the greatest met of all time dies. and he was all business on the mound. nothing flashy about him. he was just great. and my gosh, if you remember back, if you're old enough to

remember back to the '69 series or what he did in '73, what he did throughout that time period for the mets, it's hard to say that any player was ever more important to their team than tom was to those new york mets. >> exactly right. it's not just that he's the most popular and greatest met of all ti time. he was so linked to the franchise and his identity. a franchise that compared to certainly the yankees across town hadn't been around nearly as long. but when he left town, that was a hard day. he stayed close to the organization and was a great guy as well as a great pitcher. not just a great met, but one of the top start iing pitchers of l time in baseball history. a top tier starter. and a terrific -- someone who because of the world series, but beyond his legacy is forever

safe. he had been sick for awhile. condolences go out to him and his family and the entire organization and their fans. >> coming up on "morning joe," an important conversation on the reopening of schools amid covid. we're joined by dr. zeke emanuel. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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sglumpblts. president trump may not think this is a national emergency, but going back to school for millions of children and the kmkts on their families and the community is a thashl emergency. protecting our students, our educators, our communities getting our schools open safely effect andively, this is a national emergency. president trump, where are you? why reason you work iing on thi? we need emergency funding and we need it now.

that's your job. get off twitter. start talking to the congressional leaders of both parties. invite them to the oval office. >> joe biden yesterday calling out president trump for his lack of clarity on school reopenings. as colleges and universities across the u.s. attempt to return students to in-person classes, many have been forced to revrt to virtual learning due to a dramatic uptick in coronavirus cases on campus. the university of south carolina is report iing more than 1,000 students who have tested positive for the virus and are currently active cases. the figures made available on the university's coronavirvid-1 dashboard include a 28% positive test rate for students in just four days. meanwhile, the university of georgia reported more than 800

positive cases in a recent five-day span. the total is the highest repo reported by a georgia college or university in such a stretch since the pandemic began. james madison university announced it would send students home and shift to primarily online courses after reporting more than 500 active coronavirus cases less than a week after in-person classes began. and temple university announced it would pause in-person classes for two weeks a after identifying more than 100 active coronavirus cases on campus. this isn't working. joining us now, the president of the american federation of teachers, randi weingarten. and also dr. zeke emanuel, he's

a medical contributor. and author of the book "which country has the world's best health care." and it is good to have you both. zeke, i will start with you. should schools be reopening? you can almost predict this with the colleges. >> mika, we have to be very careful about where we reopen and how we reopen. and you're 100% right. you can only reopen in the community that has a low transmission rate and there are many communities in this country that don't pass that bar alone. then you have to reopen in a safe way where students can socially distance and wear masks and do hand hygiene. those are critical elements. so even talking about reopening in places that have high transmission rates, georgia recently had a very high transmission rate, it's probably way too premature. in addition, at least the k-12 schools need a lot assistance to ensure they have ppe for

students and that they have good ventilation and that they can spread students out, protect both students and the teachers and the the staff. and i think the president announcing that fema is not going to give emergency assistance to get the ppe to ut in ventilation systems, it's a big mistake. schools need tens of billions of dollars and we need to upgrade our schools now. >> it's got to be hard enough to open a school in a pandemic. but then when you're not getting the proper -- tell me about the challenges that schools are facing and teachers are facing. >> as you know, i have been on your network many, many, many times in the last couple months. there's a science to this. and there was a way of reopening safely. and zeke has said this. we learned from the doctors and

the ep domeologists. we have been at it since april trying to say, these are the things you need to do to reopen safely. and it includes what zeke just said about community transmission. a place like new york could start the process of thinking about reopening where a place like florida or georgia should not have. and i should say that florida is now refusing to disclose its numbers because of what's going on. but what you need to do is you need to actually make sure you have the safeguards in schools including the testing that the new york city just negotiated with mayor delaware bl blasio se constant monitoring so you can see a silent spread and an outbreak. then schools itself, you need the big six.

masks and physical distancing, cleaning and ventilation, reasonable accommodation and hand washing. if you don't have the money for ppe, you don't have the money like in philadelphia for soap, you can't open windows, it's going to be impossible to open schools. and what we should be doing is we should really be focusing on how to stand up separately and apart from that including making remote better and making sure kids have connectivity and they are fed and we have the well being supports and things like that. we can't pit learning vs. living. joe biden was right. this is a national emergency. and the denials and the inconsistencies and the lack of resources have actually increased the anxiety of parents and teachers and kids all throughout america. it's wrong to do this to parents and to teachers and to kids and to make this political as

opposed to a public health emergency. >> mike barnacle? >> randi, let's follow up on some of what you said. at some point hopefully in the very near future, hopefully, there will be a vaccine to mitigate the fear of this virus in this country. but when it comes to classrooms, people our age, older people, they kl it the golden years of retirement. you could call it the stolen years of education for kids from k-12. so that learning intermittently, they are losing out on socialization. they have maybe two days, all the gnat days going to class. they are on zoom classes. they are missing a huge component of a child's education. what's the plan? >> i completely agree with you. this is part of the reason why

we have been trying to reopen schools safely. because we know in-school learning is better than remote. remote learning is never a substitute for in school. what i would actually say to you is if you have better leadership nationally, you're going to have a lot more resources for things like title 1 and we're going to have to have what essentially is individual education programs. the places that have done the best national ly are places whee we really addressed or they had addressed well being beforehand. we had community schools. where we knew how to actually focus first on well being of kids and we met kids where they are. and the other places that did better remotely in the spring were places that focused on project-based learning opposed

to teach iing to the test. and so we have learned these things and we're going to have to make sure we really focus on kids at risk, but that's what we can do in terms of remote learning and why some of us even though hybrid is a terrible structure, but we want to make sure we have kids in our eyesight to the extent it's possible and in a same way. >> claire mccaskill to zeke. >> dr. emanuel, we all watched in horror the sturgis event and now we're seeing the results of that with people going back to where they live and all kinds of super spreader results. talk a little bit about how badly we need a national standard for group gatherings and i'm thinking football here. the president was proud to say he had talked to the big ten commissioner and how important it was they start football again. do we need a national standard

for group gatherings? both high school and college football. >> we need a national standard for just about everything related to covid and we haven't had it. the four way this is virus really gets transmitted are crowds, indoor, you have fans in the stands of a major football game. they can't socially distance. they are going to be there together for a long time. they are going to be yelling and screaming. it's ripe for transmission and a super spreading event. sturgis was another case. it was totally predictable. people getting together indoors, outdoors for prolonged periods of time. loud talking around motorcycles, you're going to have a super spreading event. it's totally predictable. let me emphasize something randi

implied and just to bring it out. education is critical for the economy. and if the president wants to get the economy going, he's got to focus on education. why? it's important for kids to get back to school so their parents can work. this is all interlocked. that can involve. our future economy depends upon an educated fork worse. if we don't educate these kids, we are going to be paying for this 20 years from now. it really is, as joe biden has said, a national emergency and an investment of call it $100 billion now is well worth having educated students, safe schools. you got to look at it as not spending money, but an investment in the economy and the future. and i don't think that logic has permeated washington and the republican party. we really need to think of education for what it is. it's an investment in the

long-term growth and good well being of this country. >> dr. zeke and randi, thank you both for being on this morning. and up next, another issue concerning schools. if reopening doesn't it work out, what happens with child care as parents try to get back to work. that part of the story, next on "morning joe."

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now to one of the most vital questions facing parent ace mid-this pandemic. child care. allie is looking into that part of the story. what are you finding? >> it's like what you were just talking about. this is an issue that's linked to every other issue that we have going on right now. it's been an undercurrent in

every single story that we have done as part of this series. that's because it's an issue that cuts a few different ways. impacting the parents that need child care and the mostly women whose job is child care. >> we don't give up. this is part of our community. >> the last few b months haven't been easy. the tight budget now stretched even thinner by new calls for covid safety and lower than usual enrollment. some parents desperate to welcome their children back. >> i had several calls that said, when are you going to reopen? my baby has gone from my sister's house to my grandmother's house and next week i'm not sure where i will put her. but i have to get to work. >> parents across the country vex ed by that same question. if ask where to send their kids while they work. from hair salon owners --

>> there isn't anywhere i feel comfortable sending my jchild. >> to teachers. >> as your school where you work is making another decision. >> to the child care workers themselves. >> how will i juggle working every day? do i need to do a part-time schedule? >> it's a multipiece puzzle. those in need of child care to do their jobs and those whose jobs are child care. women make up less than half of the u.s. labor force but nearly all of child care workers. the industry was hit hard by shutdowns and hasn't fully bounced back. as of las month the workforce is 20% smaller than it was before. >> women are impacted no matter where you look. >> katherine white works for the national women's law center. >> you have families who lost their jobs or lost their income. and they are thinking about going back to work without money to pay for child care. and then on the other side, you have child care providers who are facing rising costs so they have to charge more. parents can't pay and providers

can't charge less. >> reporter: it's not a new bind. child care was already et ging more expensive each year growing twice as fast as overall inflati inflation. the average cost for day care, more than $11,000. a 2018 study shows that mothers who found child care were more likely to be employed than those who didn't. fathers were not impacted in the same way. experts estimate it would take $10 million a motto keep the stm afloat during the pandemic including money for providers whose doors are still closed congress put up $3.5 billion in grants but they are calling for more. to the tune of $50 billion. >> it sounds big, but not when you think about the size of the workforce. child care employs millions of caregivers in the u.s. and supports tens of millions of families to go to work. >> reporter: it's a big figure, but far from unheard of.

congress gave $58 billion to the airlines alone at the start of the crisis. >> chald care has been largely viewed as an individual responsibility because it's women that are doing the work. they are taking on the burden of care giving. they are the providers. they are the child care workers. and so policymakers have for decades said it's your problem. you deal with it. >> does it feel like a very female moment? this is just what we expect from women. >> we are the ones who make the sacrifices most often. when it comes to caring for little ones, making plans for your family's well being. is so they know that everything rests on their shoulders. >> now in terms of solutions, congress passed about $60 billion in the house that would pump about that much money into the child care industry. currently, that bill is with the senate and you guys know as well as i do things don't tend to move very quickly on capitol hill. so we'll be keeping an eye out for if and when there's any

progress on this issue from d.c. >> nbc's ali vitt taly, thank you for covering this vital part of the story. up next, grammy award-winning sing isser and song writer sheryl crow joins the conversation. keep it right here on "morning joe." right here on "morning joe. ♪ ♪ ♪ you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated. make ice. making ice.

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released an outspoken new song called "in the end" where she addresses the disparity in political and corporate systems in america and examines a country facing its biggest moral dilemma. here's a part of that song. ♪ ♪ ♪ there's a fly on the wall in the house on the hill where the king of the world watches tv ♪ ♪ and the people all wait for his latest mandate to a nation of angry believers ♪

♪ the fly lands on his seat and whispers what's that ♪ ♪ is it too late to turn back now ♪ ♪ too late to see the light ♪ do you think about heaven and hell when you wake up at night ♪ ♪ do you ask yourself in the end if you feed them if you treat them is it so hard to love in the end ♪ ♪ like you mean it ♪ like you've seen it >> and the nine-time grammy award-winning singer, songwriter joins us now. also with us, kurt bardella, senior adviser to the lincoln project. for the purposes of this segment, he's a leading expert on the country music industry

and the publish of the newsletter "morning hangover." cheryl, the song is great. i'd love you to take us through the concept behind the song, the posting of the video the taking down of the video and where we are now with it. >> well, the song was inspired by raising two boys in this climate and having to answer the hard questions that -- when i was 10 or 13, certainly was not thinking about. and, you know, i was raised by a democrat and a republican, and our conversations at the dinner table when i listened to my parents were, they might have disagreed but everyone listened and everyone took into account what the other one felt. and there was a lot of compassion based in conversations in america. ways to try to figure out how to move forward. i feel this president has really fostered a climate of hate and a

campaign of separating us. and i do feel like in the end that we all have more in common than we don't. we want to see change. my feeling about it is there's so much money in politics, and when the dalai lama spoke about compassion, how the world would look different if everyone in business, everyone in politics made every decision based in compassion, would the world be a different place? yes, it definitely would. and i feel like where there's money in the political system, we can't count on the people that are making the decisions on our behalf. to make decisions based on compassion and making too much money. i put up a video that was very convicting of this administration. but the song is bigger than this. the song is about compassion, about people who make it to the top and forget who they represent. forget what the decisions they are making, how they're going to affect the people and instead are taking money from huge

corporations. and i had a moment really of my own conviction. am i going to play into the hate this president is disseminating? so i took the video down because i'm human. but i have reworked it, and we're going to put up a new video because nobody escapes this climate. >> that's right. that's right. kurt bardella. you can take the next question to cheryl. >> cheryl, another song that you recently put out, a rerelease of something you cut about eight years ago, right along when kamala harris accepted the vice president's nominee to run with joe biden. you put out this song "woman in the white house" with a fantastic video to go with it. talk to us about what that song means to you, why you decided to rerelease it now eight years later, and what kind of reception you've gotten from it. >> interestingly, we've had more of a scorching response to that song than we have to "in the end." why that is, i don't really know. i think the fact that we're

still carrying on a conversation about why we don't have a woman in the white house is shocking when i grew up with margaret thatcher and names like that were at the forefront of the political theater. you know, we are supposed to be the most forward thinking country and yet we still have this idea of what a strong woman looks like and when a strong woman comes to the forefront how she is labeled and how she's perceived. and, yes, the song was written eight years ago, and look where we are. we're still in this same conversation. and i hope in my lifetime that my boys -- i mean, my boys ask me all the time y has there never been a woman in the white house, and they're boys. so it's time. it really is. we have wonderful, strong women who are capable of leading this country. and i don't know any of wars that a woman led us into. so, bam. >> leave it right there.

>> claire mccaskill, former senator claire mccaskill. >> claire, hi. >> it's so good to see you. >> nice to see you. >> cheryl is mizzou made. not only do we share a state but also share a university, and we share a sorority, and she has been a tremendous help to me throughout my career. at times when i really needed a blazing star, she always said, i'll show up. i'll help. i want to talk about the woman in the white house, i think people -- we just had a segment, cheryl, talking about child care. and i think people forget that women who are struggling with child care, they are too busy. they don't have a lobbyist. they are way too busy trying to figure out how to make it work. and those are the issues where a woman in the white house can really make a difference and i just love the video. i want to put in a plug for a different song, though.

i want to put in a plug for "lonely alone." it is an amazing song. i want everyone to go out and listen to cheryl and willie nelson sing a very american ballad that is in some ways haunting but overall beautiful. especially for this time when so many people feel like they're alone with this pandemic. and i, you know, can you speak to making music in this pandemic and the challenges you face, cheryl, in terms of getting these songs out to the public? >> yeah, you know, well, first and foremost, i'm really lucky because i do play. so i'm able to do these virtual concerts. in fact, we're going to make an announcement friday about doing a live show. so we'll announce ways to buy tickets to that. but it's challenging. for me, i saw brad paisley on here last week with you kurt and mika, and our hearts are breaking because we have people -- i have people that

have worked with me for 28, 30 years who are struggling right now. and i listened to an npr thing the other day about how all these clubs that we cut our teeth on, we figured out who we are, are closing down. what does that mean to the future of music and we need artists to speak to what's happening to all of us. we need artists to give voice to the human condition, which is what we've always counted on. for me, it's a great time to be able to write about what's happening and not have to think, okay, i'm going to make an album. i have to think about a body of work before i put these songs out. i'm just putting them out virtually and playing and giving people a dialogue and giving people comfort through "lonely alone" that they're not alone or giving voice to people who are frustrated with the system and how much money is involved in it and how broken it is. and also what a treat to have willie nelson. i mean, he's in hawaii, but to be able -- or maybe in austin,

but to be able to reach out to him and say, will you participate with me on this and for all of us to get to see him in his world in his illustrious career, to be a part of this beautiful song. >> the new song is "in the end." sheryl crow, thank you so much. so great to see you. thanks for coming on this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. good to be back with you on this thursday, september 3rd. let's get smarter. we are exactly two months away from election day. and the race for the white house is heating up. both candidates traveling to battleground states today. former vp joe biden heading to kenosha, wisconsin, where he'll meet with the family of jacob blake who was shot seven times in the back by police, an incident that's sparked massive nationwide protests. it follows president trump's visit to kenosha on