nbcnews.com/planyourvote to learn more. and remember, there will be vote watch segments all this week. so thank you for watching. enjoy the rest of your labor day weekend. stay safe, and we'll see you next week. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." welcome to a special prerecorded edition of "morning joe," it is monday, september 7th, labor day. we have a great show on tap for you this morning, including some of the biggest political moments over the past few months and how they shape the state of the race. now with just weeks left until the november election, of course, nothing will define the end of 2020 more than the coronavirus. and the trump administration's mishandling of the deadly pandemic right from the start. back in april, "the washington post" examined how the u.s. government was beset by denial and dysfunction. quote, by the time donald trump

pro claimed himself a wartime president and the coronavirus the enemy, the united states was already on course to see more of its people die than in the wars of korea, vietnam, afghanistan, and iraq combined. that is from the lead story in yesterday's "washington post" on sunday the paper published the results of a month-long investigation, an account of the government's failure to properly anticipate and respond to the coronavirus crisis. the report retraces the failures of the first 70 days of the outbreak. quote, from that initial notification for president trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but a lethal force that had outflanked america's defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. that more than two-month stretch now stands as critical time that

was squandered. here's the time line. we start on december 31 white supremacist -- we start on december 31st, the cdc learns of a case cluster in china. january 3rd, china tells the cdc of the outbreak. hhs secretary azar is informed, who informs the white house and the national security council. a few days later, u.s. spy agencies warn trump of the outbreak in the president's daily briefing. january 8th, the cdc issues a public warning about covid-19. january 18th, azar finally gets to talk to trump about covid-19 but trump wants to berate him instead over his agency's attempt to limit vaping. the president dismissing azar as alarmist. the hhs secretary is so worried that he asks advice on how to get trump to listen to the warnings.

january 21st, a seattle man becomes the first american to contract the virus. january 22nd, trump is asked by a a reporter in davos if he's worried. >> it's one person coming from china. we have it under control. it's going to be just fine. >> january 24th, china blocks a u.s. lab to get a sample to study, one day after shutting down the city of wuhan. trump lavishes praise. january 31st, azar bans most non-u.s. citizens traveling from china to the u.s. nsc and health officials push for a europe travel ban, but president trump and treasury secretary, steve mnuchin, refuse saying it will hurt the economy. february 6th, the w.h.o. announces the shipping of

250,000 testing kits for covid-19 around the world. the cdc only has 90 to send to a few state health departments. those tests prove faulty, setting the program back. february 10th, trump addresses the virus at a rally in new hampshire. >> by the way, the virus. they're working hard. looks like by april, you know, in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away, i hope that's true. we're doing great in our country. >> february 26th trump again takes on the future of the virus. >> when you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple days is going down to close to zero. >> february 29th, the washington state man became the first american to die of a coronavirus infection. that same day after a month of cdc failures, the fda approves private testing for covid-19. march 6th, trump, donning a

campaign hat, visits the cdc in atlanta. >> anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. they're there. they have the tests. and the tests are beautiful. anybody that needs a test gets a test. and i like this stuff. you know, my uncle is a great person, he was at m.i.t. taught at m.i.t. i think for like a record number of years, he was a great super genius, dr. john trump. i like this stuff. i get it. people are surprised. every one of these doctors said how do you know so much? may have been i have a natural ability. maybe i should have done that instead of running for president. >> he says that the tests, they're there now, anyone who wants a test can get it now. that was on march the 6th. chances are very good, if you want the test now, as an american, you can't get it.

>> yeah, that was not true. >> that was a lie. >> march 9th, president mocks state lockdown orders tweeting, the common flu kills thousands each year and nothing is shutdown in life, in the economy, it will go away. stay calm. march 11th, trump finally shuts down travel from europe several weeks after the nsa and health officials required he do so. march 31st at a news conference, the president finally succumbs to the coronavirus reality, announcing it is absolutely critical for the american people to follow the guidelines for the next 30 days. . >> it's a matter of life and death, frankly, it's a matter of life and death. i know our citizens will rise to the occasion and they already have sacrificed a lot. >> he had actually called it a hoax before then. >> called the press coverage a hoax, saying they were

exaggerating. >> the post concludes, the united states will likely go down as the country supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched. it did not have to happen this way. though not perfectly prepared the united states had more expertise, plans, and experience than dozens of countries that ultimately fared far better in if fending off the virus. it may never be known how many thousands of deaths or millions of infections might have been prevented with a response that was more coherent, urgent and effective. >> coming up we spoke with one of the reporters behind that sweeping story, greg miller. he details the long list of missed opportunities in the fight against covid-19. plus how america's response compares to the rest of the world. that conversation is straight ahead. we'll be right back. rsation is ahead. we'll be right back. [♪]

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welcome back. we are revisiting some of our coverage from back in the spring as it became increasingly clear just how severely the administration was mishandling the outbreak of covid-19.

"the washington post" framed it like this, quote, the u.s. was beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged. >> let's bring in greg miller, a co-author. the thing that will strike most americans who are still hearing the president in denial into march is, what happened, how early all the warnings came the president's way and everybody's way in the white house. even last year, december 31st of last year, the cdc begins developing the reports for hhs after getting the information about the virus, january 3rd, formal notification from china. a few days later, early january, u.s. spy agencies began warning the president of the outbreak and the president's daily brief. on january 3rd the cdc chief relayed the news to the hhs secretary azar. he shared that information with

the white house on the 6th. the cdc offered assistance to china that same week the hhs convened an interagency task force with hhs's azar, the cdc head and dr. fauci. on the 8th, the cdc issued a warning about covid-19. all of that, that's all within basically the first week of january. >> right. and it's important to -- i mean, the purpose of the story was to look at that timeline, because so much of it was squandered. preparing for the outbreak of a novel virus like the coronavirus, experts and professionals will tell you requires sort of worst-case scenario thinking from the very beginning. it requires taking preparations that ultimately might not be necessary and that you hope will not be necessary, but you won't have time to take care of later

and that's sort of what we are facing in the united states now. these delays set back the development of testing, which contributed heavily to the out -- to the inability to track the outbreaks in places like seattle, los angeles, and, of course, new york. it contributed to the inability of the government to procure badly needed supplies that are now in acute shortages at hospitals dealing with this outbreak. and you have to look back at that first month and even that second month as extremely costly for u.s. citizens. >> jonathan lemire? >> greg, it's jonathan lemire. terrific piece. thank you for walking us through it. i wanted to zero in on that idea. you just started touching about it on testing. it seems that's the biggest

difference between countries that have been able to respond correctly and those that have not, and the u.s. is sadly in the latter category. take us into more detail about the steps that were missed instead of producing widespread tests, the lack of urgency at the white house to mobilize the private sector to help create the one thing that as you said would allow the nation to track what's going on and potentially stop this spread? >> yeah. because interrupting, slowing the spread of a virus like this really comes down to your ability to figure out who has it and who doesn't and separate those people as quickly as you can. so if you don't have a test, you don't have that visibility into the spread of the virus, and that was a critical issue in this case. and the breakdown came for many reasons. i mean, one of the first was that china itself refused for a while to provide samples of the virus. so that was a set back for u.s. researchers and scientists.

but that also -- that was just the earliest of a series of cascading failures. which also i think when we spoke to u.s. officials in the administration, in the cdc, and elsewhere, acknowledged that there was some institutional hue brus here, that the cdc for many years has taken the lead on developing tests for new outbreaks like this and felt certain this was one of those cases they would take care of it, no need to enlist the dozens and dozens of private laboratories that the united states has that are also able to develop tests like this. so when the cdc test failed, and this was critical, they send samples out. they think they're ready to go, and these labs start using them around the country, they realize almost immediately that they're giving bad results. they're not reliable and then you're back to square one. so that's a critical squandered period of time. >> and there's a date here,

february 27th, fda official lashes out at the cdc saying if they were a private business, quote, i would shut you down. one failure after another. the bbc's katty kay is with us, she has the next question. >> it's striking reading your report yesterday and then listening to the white house briefing and how often we heard the president and the vice president say what a fantastic job the administration is doing. is there anyone in the administration, according to your reporting, who would recognize your timetable and admit that there were moments where, for example, with the tests that went wrong, things that went wrong or the tests they promised were going to get out, didn't get out, or the lockdowns they said were going to happen didn't happen on time? how many recognition and acceptance of responsibility is there anywhere in the administration that this has

been a catalog of missteps? >> of course, in this administration, it's perilous for anybody to contradict the president, you don't last long if you're not on the same page with the president or you undercut what he's saying. in this case, though, we were able to identify important individuals high up in the administration who were on the case from very early on. matt pottinger is the deputy national security adviser and by january he was urging mobilization. in february, he is urging the shutdown of flights coming from europe, where the outbreak had already spread from china. so we've -- the trump administration blocks flights from china early on, but allows flights to continue into the united states for weeks from europe after the outbreak is already there. and pottinger's guidance or

advise goes ignored for a month or so, in part because his voice is drowned out by those guarding the economy and the stock market, including the chief of staff at the mulvaney. so there were these frictions and battles inside the administration, what do we care about more? preventing this virus from spreading in the united states or preventing the stock market from plunging? >> all right. greg miller, thank you so much for being with us. thank you and your colleagues for great reporting. an important story in yesterday's "washington post". we'll talk to you soon. let's bring in council on foreign relations head and ask you richard haass to give us more of a global view. we hear italy the cases may be going down, same with spain, the uk continues to skyrocket. china, it's opaque, we don't

know what's going on in china because they haven't been transparent from the very beginning. and then, of course, japan may be facing a few rough months ahead. what can you tell us looking at the global stage how this pandemic is playing out and what lessons you've learned from it so far? >> joe, what you've just described is the mixed bag but in general okay or moving in the right direction what you call the developed world, places like south korea, taiwan, singapore, china impossible to get information out of. spain, italy have been through hell but hopefully the worst is behind them. what's missing is the rest of the world, latin america, southeast, asia, middle east and pakistan. what worries me, i think that's where the next catastrophe is

going to come from. you begin with terrible public health systems, crowding so social distancing isn't an issue, it's like entering a war and they are disarmed and they are going to get hammered. a year from now, when they're still then recovering from that, i think we could well have an economic or financial debt crisis on top of it because these countries entered this battle not only without any protective gear, without any of the tools you need to fight it, but also they begin in a perilous state of financial debt. and by the time this is done, they are going to be, essentially, improvished as a time countries like the united states are going to be looking inward and we're not going to have the means or the appetite to help them. >> looking at this white house right now, especially at a time when the country is going into this horrific week where we will be losing thousands of people, we're watching government at every level, state and local,

working 24 hours a day to try and deal with this, businesses, the medical community getting ravaged, everybody working as teams, trying to figure out how to get through this. i wonder about the president's team beyond the scientific team led by fauci and birx and others, although i don't know how many others are there, who is the inner circle? is it jared and ivanka and peter navarro and steve mnuchin? who else? because it feels like the presidency right now is unmatched for the crisis at hand. >> mika, to build on my colleague's excellent reporting about the timeline, you now see in the white house, pervasive wishfulness about the power and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and other drugs that have yet to be formally and fully approved for use with the coronavirus by the food and drug

administration. and you have a wishfulness that this situation will turn around. that's a trait throughout the white house in the recent weeks and continues to be. when you ask about the inner circle it's clear to me peter navaro more than anyone, whether it's urging the president to take a position different than dr. fauci on drugs or when it comes to the defense production act and nudging corporations to sometimes pushing the r corporations to do what the white house wants, navarro is at the center and jared is there to be liaison to different corporations. the confusion is whether companies should work through jared or vice president pence and the task force. and you have jared more than anyone. but we saw tension sunday on the news conference.

the president prevented dr. fauci from answering a question about hydroxychloroquine. he didn't want to get into a discussion about the efficacy of the drug. >> what's the president's obsession with unproven use of a drug for malaria where the president himself -- how many weeks has it been that he gets up there and rambles on incoherently about this drug, says what do we have to lose, and then admits he doesn't know whether it's going to work or not. what's behind that? it's bizarre. now you have rudy giuliani doing it. you have a bunch of trump hacks on the internet that are doing it. what is the story behind the use of this anti-malaria drug that the president tells us every day he doesn't know whether it's going to work or not? >> that's seen at the cdc from

weeks ago, where the president says he's familiar with medicine even though he's not a medical professional. is a statement you often hear inside the white house. top officials say the president has confidence that's not backed up by experience or data. this is an alarming situation. for not only people in the white house but many governors privately in recent weeks they say -- >> bob -- >> -- they say if the president keeps talking about hydroxychloroquine in a way that is encouraging people to go seek it out, you're going to have a medical chaotic situation in the country where people are trying to get a drug that's not truly proven as effective as treating coronavirus and covid-19. >> again, it's just -- it's like the believe me during his rallies. he starts talking about the drug when he has nothing else to talk about. then at the end admits he doesn't know whether it's going to work or not. still ahead, more on how

internal divisions, lack of planning and the president's faith in his own instincts led to a halting response in dealing with the pandemic. we'll look back at a key piece of reporting from "the new york times" when this special edition of "morning joe" comes right back. of "morning joe" comes right back ♪ ♪ ♪

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back in january, one top health adviser wrote, quote, any way you cut this, this is going to be bad. that was eight months ago. and despite those early warnings, the u.s. is still struggling to contain the pandemic. here's a portion of our coverage from april on just how many signals were being missed. >> let's get into the details of the sweeping new reporting from "the new york times" from intelligence agencies to cabinet experts to top white house advisers, the paper's examination found, quote, the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning, and his faith in his

own instincts led to a halting response. trump was, quote, warned by the very people in his government whose expertise and experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus and likely save lives. matthew pottinger was rattled by a call with a hong kong ep de epidemiologist who warned him a new outbreak had emerged in china. it spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to and wouldn't be long until it reached other parts of the world. it was one of the earliest warnings to the white house and echoed the intelligence reports making its way to the security council. the more specialized corner of the intelligence world were producing sophisticated and chilling warnings. at the time the paper reports in

a report to the director of national intelligence, the state department's epidemiologist wrote in early january that the virus was likely to spread across the world and warned the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. the national center for medical intelligence came to the same conclusi conclusion. within weeks of getting initial information about the virus, bio defense experts inside the national security council looking at what was happening in wuhan started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of chicago. but even as hhs secretary alex azar first briefed the president on the potential seriousness of the virus during a january 18th phone call, trump projected confidence. >> the words about a pandemic about this point --

>> not at all. we have it totally under control. it's one person coming in from china and we have it under control. it's going to be just fine. >> january 27th, a national security council meeting in the situation room was jolted when steven e. bigon, the newly installed secretary of state announced plans to issue a level 4 travel warning, discouraging americans to travel to china. in late january the president was told about a january 29th memo produced by his trade adviser peter navarro, laying out in striking detail, the risks of a coronavirus pandemic. as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses. trump denied ever seeing it. >> did you see these memos that

reportedly peter navarro wrote in january? when did you see them and how did these memos square with what you said that nobody could have pro dig predicted it? >> i didn't see them. >> he said i never read them. january 30th, acting chief of staff, mick mulvaney and secretary azar called trump aboard air force one as the president was making the final decision to go ahead with the restrictions on china travel. azar was blunt warning that a virus could develop into a pandemic and arguing that china should be criticized for failing to be transparent. stop panicking, mr. trump told him. january 31st, the limits on travel from china were publicly announced. but the times found that nearly 40,000 americans and authorized travelers had come into the u.s. from china since trump imposed the restrictions.

february 13th, secretary azar announced a plan to implement a flu surveillance system within five cities. but it collapsed as mr. azar struggled to win approval for $100 million in funding and the cdc failed to make reliable tests available. february 21st, the white house coronavirus task force gathered. among the questions on the agenda, when should it be recommended that trump take textbook mitigation measures such as school closings and cla cancellations of mass gatherings. the group decided it would soon need to move forward of social distancing even at risk to the disruption of the economy and the lives of millions of americans. february 23rd, dr. robert c cadlick the top official at the

hhs, came across an email from a researcher at georgia tech, regarding a chinese woman who infected five relatives with the virus even though she never displayed symptoms herself. is this true? if so we have a hole in our screening effort. the blunt reply, people are carrying the virus everywhere. the next day dr. cadlick, along with the rest of the task force, decided to present mr. trump with a plan titled four steps to mitigation, telling the president they needed to begin preparing americans for a step rarely taken in united states history, but the next several days, a presidential blowup and internal turf fights would side track such a move. by the third week in february, the administration's top public health experts concluded they should recommend to mr. trump a new approach that would include

warning the american people of the risks and urging steps like social distancing and staying home from work. but the white house focused, instead, on messaging. and crucial additional weeks went by before their views were reluctantly accepted by the president, the time the virus spread largely unimpeded. march 16th even as trump announced two weeks of new social distancing guidelines, the subsequent economic disruptions were so severe that the president repeatedly suggested that he wanted to lift even those temporary restrictions. he asked aides why his administration was still being blamed in news coverage for the widespread failures involving testing insisting the responsibility had shifted to the states. wow. let's bring in investigative reporter for the "new york times" who was one of the few reporters on this piece a lot of

different sources and folks working on this. thank you so much for joining us. we're really appreciating this reporting. it is so step by step by step by step. it lays out the many different warnings. >> so eric, thank you -- eric lipton, thank you for being with us, "the new york times". i guess the takeaway is you look and see the national security council, especially matthew pottinger, very concerned. the state department, pentagon, national security council as i said before, of course the cdc, the hhs, all of these agencies, and the trump administration new about what was going on in china and were fearful that a full-blown pandemic could explode. and that was in early january. what did your reporting find the biggest obstacle was from them

being able -- >> what was the bickering about? >> -- to turn the fears and concerns of the coming pandemic in early january into policy that could have saved so many americans' lives? >> i think there's a lot that happened here that sort of tells us about the trump administration. things that we've known for several years now but haven't had a crisis that was going to test the administration in a way this has. and the inability to make a decision, the disagreements among key members of the white house staff, the fact that you had a chief of staff that was on the way out and unable to have the respect of his colleagues and make decisive choices to advise the president. and secretary of health and human services who also did not have the full respect of the president. and disagreements among the economic team and the health team that really almost -- you know, that left a lack of a clear consensus as to what choice the president should

make. really all of this goes back to 2006 and the bush administration when leaders in the bush administration realized it was a matter of time before there was a pandemic that was going to threaten the united states. and they prepared this plan, which laid out in a prescriptive way the steps that need to be taken, and it's simple on its face, containment and mitigation. containment is when you can limit the threat coming into the united states and if it does come you do the contact tracing in which you identify the people infected by the individuals who have the virus and isolate them. but there's a certain point when you lose the ability to contain it and you go to what's called mitigation. mitigation is when do you social distancing, close businesses and schools and do it in targeted parts of the united states. you don't do it across the united states at once.

the biggest thing that happened here was that the president of the united states was convinced -- this is a guy who feels he can control borders, he has the extraordinary powers around the borders. he thought he could contain the virus and they waited weeks too long to move to mitigation. that's what fauci was talking about, when do you go from containment to mitigation. scientists know you have two weeks from the point of your first death or a certain number of cases of the virus confirmed in a community to switch to mitigation. if you don't do it, you will have many, many deaths in that community. it's a prescription. and they sat and waited, and now, of course, it's the governor's choice as to when to shutdown schools and businesses. but these federal -- the doctors who work in these federal agencies told me they need a leader in the federal government to take the flack and to say it's time to close the schools and businesses in this location. again, it didn't need be to be a

national call. it needed hot spots and they needed the call from a surgeon general, someone from the cdc because the governors are in a difficult place. >> right. so help me out as far as the communication inside the white house goes. so in early january, looking at your article, the national security council, the state department, the defense intelligence agency, the pentagon, the cdc, department of health and human services, the intel community, everybody knew about this, the president was getting it in his daily briefings, starting most likely, i guess, around january 6th or so, and yet, the first we hear of anybody communicating with the president verbally by phone was alex azar on the 13th of january, was that the first time

he took the call from anybody on the coronavirus or had he spoken to anybody before that? >> that's hard to know for sure. that's the first time we're aware of. but there's no question that the people in the national security staff were discussing this from early january and probably in late december. and as to when the first explicit conversation is, that's the date that we have. and i mean, in january, it was a matter of, this is a pandemic. it was spreading at a rapid rate. it was all but certain it was going to come to the united states and it was going to be spread in the united states. the real question, in my mind, for january is, at that point they knew they were going to have shortages of ppe, masks, they knew there was going to be hospital bed shortages likely to occur, and they knew that ventilators, they could have been thinking about ventilators, they could have started the acquisition process in january for personal protective

equipment, that was a critical thing they could have done. what's the status of our supply chain? how sufficient is the stock pile? those are things that they waited until march to get started on. they didn't make any significant orders until march, and that's a long time to have not -- at that point in january, they did not know how wide the spread would be in the united states, but it was essentially a fore gone conclusion that this was coming to the united states and people were going to be sick and some people were going to die. >> all right. eric lipton, thank you very much for your extensive reporting. >> what an important article, thank you so much. >> when you read about the bickering on january 27th, you wonder when it's so clear, when the choices are so few. you have to separate people. you have very few choices, if any. you have one choice. what are they fighting about in there? >> you look at these dates that are laid out. >> it's incredible. >> i know of close friends of

mine who were calling the president and repeatedly -- >> begging. >> -- saying -- and the white house, repeatedly saying the window is closing, the window is closing. you have to do this in the next week. it kept being this rolling thing and that was happening inside the white house. and again, no real moves were made. the president didn't even seem to take this seriously until march, two months after -- let me say that again. two months after he started getting warned in his presidential daily briefings. two months after the state department, the pentagon, the department of hhs, the cdc, you can go down the list, the intel community, they all knew, mika, and the president is trying to point fingers -- >> we have more reporting ahead. >> bill kristol said he wasn't

behind the curve on the coronavirus. trump likes to cite his end of january china ban. but this is damning not exculpatory. for if trump realized there was a real problem at the end of january, why didn't he do it? but if you're going to do a china ban, do a china ban, 430,000 people came to the united states from china at the outbreak of the virus. and 40,000 came from china to the united states after donald trump put in this halfway ban. >> yeah, it was very incomplete. i think the way that trump talks about the timeline here both through his flurry of tweets in response to that impressive "new york times" piece yesterday and more generally in his daily press conferences p pit's as

though he was ininaugurated on january 20, 2020. not january 20, 2017. so he inherited faulty tests, whatever that means. and, of course, the obama administration didn't have covid-19. he had a stockpile that was depleted, he had been in office three years he had plenty of time to build up a stockpile and he inherited all kinds of things that would make sense if he was ininaugurated a few weeks ago, 2020, and had just started the job, a rookie. but he's been in office three years. the other point here is we're talking as though he was late but did get up to speed. he hasn't got up to speed. that's the thing. we're not doing anything like the scale of testing that's required. >> it's still a mess. >> it's still very incomplete,

very partial, there is no national plan. the white house is talking again -- the economists in the white house, like larry kudlow, who as you recall said this thing was almost airtight, are talking about reopening the economy at the beginning of may, just two weeks from now, as they were ten days ago about opening over eastern weekend. so again we have this pressure to reopen the economy. and if we reopen prematurely, then it's going to be just as damaging in terms of lives lost and in terms of risking the general health of the population, as though six wasted weeks were that have been so well chronicled by the "new york times." we need to get testing up. it's nowhere near the level it should be at. coming up, from the watergate scandal to 9/11, tom

brokaw has covered a lot through his storied career. and that is what makes his reflections on today's current crisis all the more eye opening. we'll show you what he had to say about where things stand next on "morning joe." ings stand next on "morning joe." at cancer treatment centers of america, treating cancer isn't just what we do, it's all we do.

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nbc news senior correspondent tom brokaw has covered his share of crises in his storied career, and says the coronavirus pandemic is the greatest challenge he has ever seen. here's tom's thoughts on how we defeat it with an eye on the future. >> i used to work with a wise old journalist who used to say journalism is a two cycle engine, now/next. obviously we're dealing with a now. we're frantically trying to bring this under control, but we must begin to think about the next as well. i have a thought about that. why don't we give bill and melinda gates who are better equipped to deal this anyone than i know to create an agency to ask how did this happen? what have we learned about it? how do we bring it under control? that can be a six-month exerr p iment and then convert that into

an agency for the united states because this issue is not going to go away. it is our future. this is a world that we have inherited with so many more people, so much of our biology is totally out of control. there are so few ways to get it under control and allow the kind of life that we all want to have. so this is the biggest test of my lifetime, quite honestly. how do we deal with this? if we don't measure up to that, it's a terrible commentary on all that we have been given as a country, as a nation of laws, as a country really of immigrants from all over the world who come to america because it's their best hope and in the laboratories right now working to sustain this country and the life they want to have and they want all of us to have so this is the greatest challenge you can possibly imagine. but it's not beyond our capacity

to deal with it if we are willing to set aside petty differences and find ways to find common ground, which means everybody at some point is going to have to give some as well as take some. those have been the lessons of my lifetime in journalism all over the world. i'm now at a stage when i'm looking back with an enormous sense of pride on what this country is all about and how i have been privileged to be a part of it and to be a witness to it. finally, let me say to the young people, life is not just a day on the beach. you've got to remember that this is your country, your world that is being preserved. this is what you will inherit and my advice to you is get off the beach. get going. do something right now because this is the life that you will be given and then the question is, what will you do with it? still ahead, we've got

another great hour lined up on this labor day, including a look back at all important super tuesday. how joe biden came roaring back to win so many of those critical contests and reshape the democratic race for the white house. that's next on this special edition of "morning joe." joe. instead of buying by the share. all with no commissions. stocks by the slice from fidelity. get your slice today.

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welcome back to "morning joe" on this labor day, monday, september 7th. we want to kick off this taped hour with our coverage from the morning after super tuesday. the march 3rd elections in over a dozen states will go down as the single most consequential moment of the 2020 primaries. it's when joe biden shocked the world and brought his presidential candidacy back to life. >> i can think of no one with the integrity, no one more

committed in fundamental principles to make this country what it is than my good friend, my late wife's great friend, joe biden. i know joe. we know joe, but most importantly, joe knows us. >> you know, mika, you can take the hundreds of millions of dollars, you can take the organizations that all the political pros talk about, you can take the millions of tweets, you can take all the facebook ads, you can take everything that is talked about every day on how to build a winning campaign and all those combined are not as powerful as one man's

words. jim clyburn, king maker extraordinaire. >> that was likely the most pivotal moment of the 2020 race so far. the endorsement from south carolina congressman jim clyburn last week helped cat a pull the joe biden to a huge win in south carolina which then led to a stunning super tuesday for the former vice president. biden swept the south. the projected winner in nine states. with landslide victories in alabama, virginia, north carolina, arkansas, tennessee, and oklahoma. he also won minnesota. he won the delegate rich state of texas and he won elizabeth warren's home state of massachusetts where she came in third behind bernie sanders. sanders won his home state of vermont as well as colorado and utah. sanders is also leading right now in the state with the most delegates, california, but the

race is still way too early to call with 50% of the vote in. sanders has 33% to biden's 246789. >> and if california is anything like texas, early votes favored sanders but just like in texas, we'll see if that happens in california. >> the state of maine is too close to call with 91% of the vote in. biden leads by 17% of the votes as well. >> that's a shock as well. >> those numbers we'll be updating throughout the morning. >> those numbers are stunning as you look at them. it was just a day or two ago that people were expecting joe biden to lose by 200, 300 delegates. nobody, and i mean nobody expected until early in the evening last night that joe biden had a chance to even draw even with bernie sanders by the end of the night on super tuesday let alone go ahead this

way. >> after he won south carolina joe biden said if you've ever been down and out -- >> yeah. >> -- if you've ever been down and out, this is the campaign for you. >> for good reason. just one week ago joe biden was out of money. his organization was nonexistent. his support among his base, black voters, had dropped to single digits in most polls. his pathway was cluttered by one moderate after another. these candidates standing between him and the nomination and joe biden, who was being mocked as a man who had never won a single primary contest despite the fact he had been running for president in 1987, all of that changed in one night. with biden showing extraordinary strength from texas to massachusetts, from alabama to minnesota, and voter turnout in virginia was so massive by the end of that contest you could

see a contest of suburban voters fed up with donald trump and black voters wanting to believe ago that created a wall of support, anybody who knows anything about it poses an existential threat. willie geist, as steve kornacki described it last night, it was in a word shocking. >> it was absolutely shocking. if you go back, joe, three weeks ago we were waking up from new hampshire and all of the talk was after a fifth place finish. fifth place finish in new hampshire, how does joe biden get out of this race with dignity. beloved figure in the party and how does he get out of it with dignity. dominos fell beginning in virginia, south carolina, sec,

texas, shocker in the state of massachusetts where joe biden wasn't even playing where he beat both bernie sanders and that state's senator, elizabeth warren, and then the state of minnesota, amy klobuchar tropg out on monday quickly backing joe biden. he cleaned up with nine states as you said. california still out there. interesting to see day off voting as that comes in and postmark voting that just was sent out yesterday. mike barnacle, you've known joe biden for a long time. i know even people inside joe biden's campaign thought after new hampshire, yes, let's see what happens in south carolina. we believe that's the place we'll do the best but nobody, nobody even inside the campaign saw last night coming. >> absolutely correct. it's incredible. i've never heard anything like it. i don't think any of us heard anything like it. a week ago yesterday joe biden was at 11 points in massachusetts and he won the state last night.

clearly as joe eluded to and as we showed the clip, south carolina was resurrection city. i think after south carolina, the remarks he made, after his stunning victory in south carolina they were repeated again and again on sunday on tv and monday on tv. what people saw, i think, willie, is his humility and a candidate with purpose and they came back to him. i think they were always there, but they came back to him after seeing him. >> joe, if you look at the african-american vote, i know we'll dive into these numbers. obviously african-american voters saved joe biden in south carolina. the numbers were even bigger last night. he won 60% of african-american voters. the numbers like 63%, alabama, 72%. tennessee, 62%. african-american voters, older voters rode to the rescue last

night for joe biden. >> some people trying to suggest, bernie sanders voters, trying to suggest those numbers, black voters for joe biden were not shocking. they were shocking. again, i go back to that poll a week ago that had bernie sanders within single digits of joe biden. even after south carolina, people said 60%, 50% that's a pretty good number for joe biden. that's because of jim clyburn. those numbers, 62% in virginia, in the 70s in the state of alabama, absolutely stunning. this turn around, this shocking turn around, i've been thinking all night trying to think of a time when one candidate's fortunes changed over the course of three days as much as joe biden's did and i just can't think of anybody. you'd have to go back to harry truman in 1948 and the shocking

dewey beats truman. donald trump shocked the world. that was coming. you could see that am could go ten days out. as you got closer and closer after the comey letter, this shocking result over the course of three days is nothing like we've seen in the modern american politics. reverend al, it's because of jim clyburn and black voters across the deep south that kept this campaign alive when everybody else, everybody else considered it dead. >> no doubt about it. when you look at what happened last night, even those of us who felt he was being underestimated with black voters were stunned at how overwhelmingly he was supported. you have to give so much thanks to jim clyburn and the late

great elijah cummings is the one who transcends age lines in terms of the political culture in the black community. the other thing you have to keep in mind is that people felt, i heard it over and over again, i heard it in selma where joe biden and i spoke on sunday at brown chapel, people said joe biden stood by barack obama. he stood by our guy, we're going to stand by him. there's an identity there in our community where we feel we've been counted out. just because you count a guy out doesn't mean the fight is over. the skult turl identity, a lot of the liberals are disconnected from the base of the party which is the african-american voters. that is, they care about how their kids are going to go to school, they care about bread and butter issues, they care about criminal justice and a lot of the latte liberals are so

intellectuals. as we say in church, they're so heavily bound they are knee earthly good. >> rev, you and i have been talking about this through the entire election process. i'll say it again. there are two wings of the democratic party. there always has been. there's been the bill clinton wing that did well with working class white voters, working class black voters and black did well in black churches. then there was the bill bradley and we'll just say the mayor pete side of the party that did very well with intellectuals, did very well with white voters of the upper east side, did very well in college towns. this year for some reason joe biden was the only candidate on the bill clinton side. the other 20 candidates were on the bill bradley/mayor pete side of the party. >> absolutely. >> we've been saying for weeks you can't win the nomination from that wing of the democratic party. actually, we've been saying it for about the last six months.

you just can't do it. yes, you look good in iowa, you look good in new hampshire, but what are you going to do in south carolina? what are you going to do in alabama? what are you going to do in north carolina. we saw it again which begs the question again, we have to get to kornacki and the big board. reverend al, this is an important time for us to underline again what you and i have been saying for a year now. it is a disgrace that the democratic party starts their contests in two overwhelmingly white states n iowa and new hampshire. they wasted two years of everybody's time. they should have started in south carolina. they should have started in a state that represented the demographic breakdown and the importance of the black voters to the democratic party. >> and if they had, they wouldn't have been as stunned as we all were last night, and i think last night was a case in

point as to why they have to change is no one noticed even in nevada bernie lost the black vote. that should have been a tap on people's shoulder that, wait a minute, there is a problem here in the sanders campaign. had he listened to some of his people that i think were trying to guide him right, nina turner and others, they need to invest more. it's not too late. you still have michigan and other things. we shouldn't pop the corks for those that are with biden yet, but this was a real gush of cold water in their face, and i think that people need to wake up and you need to watch the fact that donald trump is going to try to chip away at the black vote because he understands that and you've got to have someone that knows how to counter that and knows how to relate to those voters to bring them out as biden showed he could last night. >> donald trump believes he can

get over 20% of the black vote focusing on it ma nyackically. if it's up against a bernie sanders or somebody who does not actually know how to connect with black voters nationwide, donald trump may get that percentage point. coming up, you can't have election coverage without steve kornacki at the big board. we'll show you his analysis from the morning after super tuesday and the first reaction from the white house after realizing the primary race now belonged to joe biden. oe biden. look at that scuffed up wall.

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welcome back to "morning joe" as we reflect on some of the most critical moments in the presidential race so far. chief among them joe biden's super tuesday surge where he swept the south and won states where he hadn't even campaigned. >> robert gibbs, let's talk about what else we learned last night. something that you've known all along. twitter does not represent the mainstream of the democratic party and there have been candidates over the past year and a half that have posted something negative about them on twitter. they should have closed their phone, deleted it and listened

to others. i really do think at the end of the day that finished off more people's campaign than anybody else. somehow barack obama was a conservative sellout on health care reform. somehow barack obama was a conservative sellout on immigration. i heard somebody say barack obama is the past. we don't need to look to the past, we need to look for the future. after the last four years of donald trump, maybe we need to go back to square one with the obama administration and then move forward from there instead of trashing barack obama, undoubtedly. he's a hugely popular figure still in the party, will be for a long time. i think you saw remnants of the coalition that he put together, not just the strong african-american vote that you and reverend sharpton just talked about but especially in places like virginia, north

carolina, adding those suburban voters in beings wake county outside of charlotte is a powerful combination in a way that we haven't seen put together in this race. i think in the end -- >> robert, can you believe the numbers in suburban d.c.? >> yeah. >> they were extraordinary. they went -- they surpassed four years ago. >> yeah. >> they even easily surpassed eight years ago with barack obama. it was the suburban voters, a lot of democrats, a lot of independents that said the hell with the party. i'm voting dem crass particular. >> two important constituencies and swing states could support a general shift. if that's a coalition that can be replicated and it likely can be in these upcoming races, the challenge that sanders has i think are several. i don't think the party is ready for a revolution.

they want a winner, they don't want a revolution. eight of the next 11 contests that take us through march are states bernie sanders didn't win in 2016. the sanders campaign is, yes, younger voters are voting for him but they're not voting for him in historic numbers. there's' narrative problem. there's a coalition problem that quite frankly for bernie sanders isn't broad enough to win the nomination. that campaign has to retool how it goes after voters starting today. >> let's come on over to the big board. i'm joined by steve kornacki. i don't see you again u winly shocked very often. at one point when the states started rolling through the south by such margins, you did say this was shocking. >> yes. >> this is a delicate game. the number of states was impressive. a lot of the speculation was can joe biden keep the delegate margin under 100 trailing besrne

sanders by 100. a different story as we wake up this morning. >> we should say this is the current count allocated by nbc news. there are still hundreds of delegates even in states that have been called. you still have delegates biden is going to squeeze out. you still have dozens. you still have california out there. the picture is coming into focus. biden is going to make the 15% threshold. that was the only outstanding question. with that in mind and everything we're seeing here, if biden absorbs a 20 point loss, it's not looking like it's going to be 20, even if he does, i think you're looking at a scenario where joe biden ends ahead of bernie sanders by 30 delegates. biden is going to be ahead. this was supposed to be sanders big night. this was supposed to be the night that sanders ran up a margin of 250 3rks 00 delegates out of california. it was supposed to be the night that sanders won it, got a big

delegate haul. he did win that. give him credit for that. it was supposed to be the night where he basically drew even across the southeast, maybe won in virginia, lost in virginia. he was hoping to beat elizabeth warren in massachusetts, knock her out. instead joe biden wins massachusetts. he was hoping to win minnesota. joe biden won minnesota. coast to coast here this is a night for joe biden. this was supposed to be the sanders delegate night, and when you look at all of those patterns you were looking at, demographically, if you look at what happened with the black vote all around the south, mississippi is not a big state but it can be a big delegate state for joe biden. if he is getting the margin, he could net 30 delegates out of mississippi. michigan is the big state up

next week. we'll all be talking about michigan. 125 delegates. let's say sanders wins but it's a close race, sanders will net 5, 10 delegates. sanders is due to take huge hits in the south, in georgia, mississippi, louisiana, florida. his polling has been terrible in florida. if he's in an even race, look at the hits that he's about to absorb. where can he make up for them on this map? that coalition everybody is just describing, very hard to see that at this point. >> biden has huge margins of older voters that. will come into play in florida. when i talked to you about turnout, joe referenced it, double 2016 and even greater where you had barack obama and hillary clinton on the ballot. did we see that play out? >> we saw a few places. this is the most dramatic. here at 1.3 million and change. in 2016 it was 782,000.

from there to 1.3 million. fairfax county, this is the d.c. suburbs everyone was talking about here. this is the biggest county in the state. this was a big win for biden. turnout was up here 100,000. >> wow. >> 100,000 people. it helps not having a real republican primary in virginia. that speaks to everything we've been talking about in politics since 2016. the blue wave becoming part of the democratic party. >> steve, hang in. i want to throw it back to mika. >> president trump tweeted attacks at mike bloomberg and senator elizabeth warren mocking them for their poor super tuesday results but his campaign is focused on biden releasing a statement that tried to downplay biden's momentum saying, quote, everyone should remember he's a terrible candidate now as he was a few days ago and that establishment democrats quote ganged up to deny bernie sanders

the nomination. the statement ends with attempting to tether the democrats to sanders policies, quote, even if bernie is not on november's ballot, his big government socialist ideas are o you the there, let's bring in jonathan la mere. >> good morning, mika and joe. the president is downright gleeful about mike bloomberg falling so short, pardon the pun, not to reference his mini mike's jokes. the president has been fixated on him for weeks, his billionaire rival from new york. he has told people around him how poorly bloomberg did in the first debate. there's a sense around here bloomberg will not be long for the race. the primary focus for this president has been joe biden all

along. donald trump got impeached and the white working class voters who backed them 2008, 2012 but then switched to donald trump in 2016. this president feels biden is the biggest threat to sort of steal them back. that is something they are watching with some concern. the biden come back here, although the president, according to our reporting, is still suggesting he feels good about his chances against biden in a debate. as far as bernie sanders, he continues to sew discontent and lean into the idea where the process is rigged, trying to alienate those liberal voters, young voters who would come out for bernie but stay home in 2016. coming up as we've said time and again, with this president it's always deflection or projection. we'll break down why donald trump's attacks for joe biden

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welcome back to "morning joe." as we've seen over the past few

months, donald trump is willing to throw pretty much anything he can at joe biden. the problem for the trump campaign, nothing seems to stick. that includes an attempt to hammer biden over remarks he made and then clarified suggesting the latino community is more diverse than the black community. but as joe pointed out, it just doesn't work when the president's own record speaks volumes. >> you know, we mentioned that donald trump's attempt to paint biden as a racist, that he was doing that off the latest comments, but we've been talking about this for a while on this show, that donald trump unfortunately for his campaign can't take biden on on so many issues because it always opens donald trump himself up to a more severe counterattack, like let's just take the issue of racism. >> he's a mexican.

we're building a wall between here and mexico. the answer is he is giving us very unfair rulings. donald j. trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states. but trump comes along and said, birth certificate. he gave a birth certificate. whether or not that was a real certificate because a lot of people question it, i certainly question it. look at my african-american over here, look at him. are you the greatest? i don't know anything about david duke, okay? i don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. you wouldn't want me to condemn a group that i know nothing about. you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. >> the president using an expletive to describe africa and haiti. >> president trump accused of reaching a new low telling a group of progressive democratic congress women to, quote, go

back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. >> we have -- we're going to get to all of this. we have donald trump's attempt to say joe biden doesn't have the mental abilities to be president. >> i say he's not competent to be president. to be president you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things. he doesn't even come out of his basement. defeat the core rye na vi -- the vief. surgical gowns. we have no con continuing against see plan. >> administer. that's 1 million 870,000 million tests. hydroxy clor -- chloroquine and

hydro -- hydroxychloroquine. remdesivir. unwaiving and unwavering diversion and selflessness. the bravery of our truck drivers. transfusing it into six patients, very, very powerfully. sick patients. i am confident by count and continue. take an action to disbend and suspend. the data. to the highest level of -- if you take a look at bear no regard. since 1917, which was the pan fish flu. 1917 the pandemic. like nobody's seen since 1917. >> of course. of course donald trump, of course, saying joe biden was too close to china.

>> joe biden's policies put china first and america last. joe biden's entire career has been a gift to the chinese communist party and to the calamity of errors they've made. they've made so many errors. >> do you trust that we're going to know everything we need to know from china? >> i do. i do. i have a great relationship with president xi. we just signed the biggest deal we've ever made. i spoke to president xi last night. we're working on the problem, the virus. it's -- that's a very tough situation, but i think he's going to handle it. i think he's handled it really well. if you can count on the reports coming out of china, that spread has gone down quite a bit. the infection seems to have gone down over the last two days as opposed to getting larger, it's actually gotten smaller. china seems to be making

tremendous progress. their numbers are way down. >> yeah. january 24th he tweeted the american people were grateful to president xi for being so transparent and doing such a good job on the coronavirus. here's another one. on monday trump's new campaign manager urged voters to judge the presidential candidates by the company they keep. >> i think you need to judge joe biden by the people he's surrounding himself with. at every step of this campaign, at every mile marker of this campaign he has kowtowed to the radical left of his party. i think we're about to see when he chooses his vice presidential nominee. he is an empty vessel of the radical left. that's how he won the nomination in the first place and it's extremely concerning that he is a pawn of the radical fringe of this party, of the aoc wing of the party. >> someone who was a member of the trump administration's inner

circle takes a stunning fall pleading guilty in a washington courtroom. former national security advisor michael flynn today admitting he lied to the fbi about his phone conversations with a russian ambassador. >> george papadopoulos admitted to lying to the fbi in its investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. >> special counsel robert mueller has gotten another guilty plea, rick gates. what they described as trump hell hour. his 2016 campaign chief paul manafort convicted by a jury on eight counts at almost the exact same time that trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, entered a guilty plea to eight counts. >> what does it say about donald trump that we have to take a break from talking about his impeachment and rudy's criminal investigation to tell you about another one of his associates and friends to be talking about

felonies in court. donald trump's longest serving political counsel roor stone fo guilty on all seven counts brought against him. >> judge the people he's surrounding himself with, indeed. i agree, bill. americans should. and this from yesterday. donald trump attacking joe biden's faith in god. >> he's following the radical left agenda. take away your guns. destroy your second amendment. no religion. no anything. hurt the bible. hurt god. he's against god. he's against guns. he's against energy. our kind of energy. >> hurt the bible. hurt god. as stewart stevens said, his money's on god but, anyway, here's a reminder anyway of donald trump's own musings on faith. >> have you ever asked god for

forgiveness? >> i'm not sure i have. i just go and try and do a better job from there. i don't think so. i think if i do something wrong, i think i just try and make it right. i don't bring god into that picture. i don't. >> we don't want to talk about the bible. it's very personal. i don't want to -- >> you don't want to get into the verse. >> the bible means a lot to me but i don't want to get into specifics. >> i hear this is a major theme 2, corinthians, 3: 17, that's the whole ball game. when you hold up the bible, and nobody loves the bible more than i do, when you hold up a bible you don't then put it down and put it down lying and doing a lot of things that are wrong. >> yeah. of course, in the latest example in the president's show of faith, he ordered the clearing on june 1st, an order to take this photo op holding a bible in

front of st. john's episcopal chur p upside down. as senator langford said, i've grown up in the church and i've never seen anybody hold a bible that way. and up next, more on the very definition of a bad faith attack. jon meacham weighed in on the president's smears of joe biden's religious convictions and how it could play in the remaining weeks of the white house campaign. "morning joe" is coming right back. oming right back

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welcome back. much like the way he held a bible, the president's attacks on joe biden and his religion seem completely upside down. we were joined by historian jon meacham for a conversation last month about a role of faith in politics. >> there's so much to talk about here. jon meacham, i guess we'll begin with you on the faith aspect of it. here's a man who, again, by all outward appearances, i'm not judging his faith, i'm just judging the outward appearances and the things that he says and the things that he does.

and of course his claim that he's never asked god for forgiveness. anybody who knows if you've been through sunday school for more than ten minutes, the central tenant is you are a christian when you ask jesus for forgiveness, but you also go through all of the things he said, including yesterday saying that he hated -- that joe biden hated the bible and hated religion. as a catholic jesuit editor of "american magazine" said that is very typical anti-catholicism. this is what matt malone said. for what it's worth, the charges of the catholic hate survival were as ignorant as anti-catholic bigotry, which is still very much in vogue. and there's no doubt that donald trump exhibited anticatholic

bigotry when he was a talking joe biden yesterday for, quote, hating the bible. >> the president -- the incumbent president of the united states has no idea what he's talking about, and not that that's a news flash, but look at the trip ditch of thoughts there. joe biden is against god, against the bible. four things really. against guns and against energy. just let's parse that sentence for a second. god, the bible, guns, energy. what's a place in the country where those four factors, religion, scripture, guns, energy might be important? might it be red states? r that are being ravaged by the coronavirus that the president. united states has singularly failed to address with a comprehensive national plan, which is one of the few reasons we have a federal government,

which is to coordinate responses in the face of emergency? so i don't even take it seriously as a critique of vice president biden. i hesitate even for us to spend much time talking about the substance of that charge because it's not a charge. his mouth is moving. that's the only thing you know. i don't know that it's connected to his brain, he's just trying to hold on to power. and that's the fundamental thing. he has amassed power through, you showed it a second ago, through racist appeals. he's held onto it by appealing to the worst impulses in the american character, nativism, racism, extremism, isolationism. all the things that have held us back in the past. not the things that have pushed us forward. and that's the fundamental

question of the election. we can talk about what joe biden says on zoom and whatever passing attack comes to the president's mind, but presidential elections don't always give us as stark a choice as this one does, and i don't think that's a partisan point. i think that any rational person looking at this race clinically sees that we have a pretty clear decision here. do we want to restore a conversation that defined the country for 70, 80 years, which was an argumentative one, often a core ross sieve one, always a ferocious one between the world view represented in many ways by franklin roosevelt and the other 35-yard line, i'd say, you have the world view represented by ronald regan, and every president from the new deal through president obama governed

on this field. and they would be -- sometimes they would be over here, sometimes they would be over there, sometimes they'd get it wrong, sometimes they would get it right. that was a coherent field. that was the american consensus. the american consensus is what fundamentally corrosive about president trump is he invents things for us to argue about. he electively goes out and finds them. on the religious question, look, america as we've been talking about for several months has gotten a whole lot wrong about oir sen our sense of identity and inclusion and equal access to justice and fairness and equality. one thing we have largely gotten right is religious liberty. and as george washington said and in 1790, the point of the american experiment is that we should give to bigotry no sanction to persecution no assistance and every man should

be able to sit under his vine and fig tree and should not make us afraid. he starts saying you're against god and you're careening off a basic path that we should stay on, which is to get back on, which is to try to be not only a great country, but a good one. >> and, you're right. it's not between those 35 yard lines represented by fdr on the left and ronald reagan on the right. he's doing -- i'll bring up ann applebaum's book again, and if they want to understand what's going on in america, they should read ann's book. but she discusses hungary where hungary is an example, orbin who has gained absolute -- almost absolute power there, has taken over the press, driven any voices of dissent out of the

country for the most part. he does so by creating conspiracy theories about george soros and invading muslim hoards. of course there are no invading muslim hoards in hungary. it is a complete fabrication. it's a set of alternative facts. and that's what that is the choice that we have this fall. donald trump, day in and day out, creates alternative facts. and those alternative facts are meant to divide us. and jim, we talked about race. we showed race. joe biden said some things that he had to apologize for on the issue of race. unfortunately for the trump campaign, they can't really use race as an attack if joe biden fumbles and then apologizes. there doesn't seem to be any opening. we showed the clips. here's a man who attacked an indiana judge and called him a

mexican. said he couldn't trust him because he was from mexico when actually he was from indiana, his parents emigrated from mexico. or that clip where he claimed to not know anything about david duke. a lie. claimed he didn't want to attack white supremacists because he didn't know enough about them. wouldn't even say anything negative about the klan. we've talked about charlottesville. we can continue. we can talk about juohn lewis. doesn't this seem to be the biggest problem for the trump campaign that whatever direction he goes in on an attack, joe biden has material that's going to, you know, outgun politically, outgun their efforts 10 to 1, 20 to 1. >> right. i mean, are you going to find a single african-american voter who is going to change their mind because of what biden said today? i doubt it. if you look at the trump campaign, the topics that he hits on, if you look at where they're spending money, where he

visits, he's all in on trying to crank up the white vote. he's hoping white america is still big enough that you can eek out a narrow victory like in 2016. they spent a lot of money trying to target rural communities hoping there's people who didn't vote for him last time that will vote for him this time that are never going to talk to a pollster. he does little to reach out to african-americans and the hispanic community. largely because he hasn't had much success in attracting their votes in the past. it worked last time in 2016. the truth is for republicans watching the show, this was always going to happen. like the country has been changing. if you look at demographics, it's becoming a less white nation. a much more diverse nation. if you go all in hoping there's enough white people to sustain a majority, at some point you'll have happen what happened in virginia, what's happening in georgia, what's happening in texas. what you've seen happen in florida. it's just a different nation. and there are some republicans

that want to grapple with that, that want to think differently about immigration and other topics but then in came donald trump into meacham's point. he really did take politics outside of the 30 to 30 or 40 to 40 yard lines and really move the republican party into a different place. and by the way, it's a place that the republican party probably stays in after donald trump. there's not a massive market in the republican party to go back to the ways of paul ryan or mitt romney or more conventional conservative republicans. so that's the reality. so you'll have more and more of this. nonsensical arguments about whether someone is anti-god or wants to defeat god which is just weird and is not productive. but it's going to be your life until november. >> it is weird. i mean, you look at the clips. it's just bizarre and strange that he's going to fight god and

fight the bible. all those bizarre things. and that does it for us this morning. we'll see you for a live edition of "morning joe" tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. eastern. for now, stick with msnbc for continuing coverage of all the day's news and politics. 't raise your rates just because of an accident. cut! is that good? no you were talking about allstate and... i just... when i... accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. the first and only full prescription strength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel available over-the-counter. new voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel. voltaren. the joy of movement. to deliver your packages. and the peace of mind of knowing that important things like your prescriptions, and ballots, are on their way. every day, all across america, we'll keep delivering for you.

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that's how we get through this. ♪ glad you're joining us on this labor day. it's monday, september 7th. this morning, we have now lost more than 190,000 americans to coronavirus. the rising death toll comes as officials are sounding the alarm this labor day. scenes of crowded beaches and other packed areas could trigger another explosion of new infections. it is raising the stakes on the campaign trail with 57 days until election day. both joe biden and running mate kamala harris are making a swing state sweep of sorts with a focus on workers. joe biden is targeting