you're very muffled. if you take it off -- >> i'll speak louder. is that better? >> it's better, yeah. >> hi. just based on some of your recent tweets -- >> you sound so clear. as opposed to everybody elsewhere they refuse. >> so here we are in september. and we thought that we had to go back like a couple of months to find him mocking somebody wearing a mask -- >> nope. that was yesterday. >> -- and he's still -- he's still in the middle ages here. why don't he just recommend leeches to bleed people out to help them with the coronavirus. >> that was white house reporter for "reuters" jeff mason. good morning, it is tuesday, september 8th, along with joe, willie and me -- >> wait you don't just blow past

willie. he's looking like the edward r. pu murrough of our time. how was your weekend? >> it was good. the kids are rolling back to school. we're looking at some semblance of normalcy, but that's not possible with reporters wearing masks and the president still asking them to take them off despite everything we know. >> i haven't been back to new york since the end of february. how is new york city doing? i get some reports it's fine, but a lot of other people say, man, when you come back you're not going to recognize it at all, between the boarded up buildings and -- >> people have moved out. >> -- so many people have moved out. look at times square this morning. 6:00 a.m., nobody is there. what's new york city like? >> it's strange. i mean, this is the tuesday

after labor day, where there should be this massive rush of kids going to school and people going back to work and saying good-bye to summer. to me when i was back this summer it felt like summer, which is to say there weren't a lot of people here. the restaurants were outside. that in an odd way felt normal. but now i think is when people feel it when times square looks like that and it shouldn't look like that, and kids aren't back in school. it's strange, do i feel unsafe? no. it's new york city we'll be okay. it's different and i think people are settling in for the reality that it's going to be a while. if they go back to school, it's staggered, may have to start and stop school again. same for work. i think people are realizing we're in for the long haul not just in new york but across the country. >> you're our intrepid reporter

here and you've gone a place few people have gone before, new york city. let me ask you about the island, you said you feel safe there. what we read in the newspaper far away from you big city folk is that crime has gone up. we have friends saying i don't feel safe, even in the '70s after dark. remarkable thing about new york city post -- well, i'll say it, let me say it here, post rudy giuliani, is after dark you can walk around most of new york city and actually feel safer than in most other major american cities, but all we're reading and hearing and friends are telling us, it's dangerous, joe, nothing like the past 20 years. you don't feel that? >> i don't feel it. but there are people that feel it and are hesitant to go out alone at night.

you read the headlines and yes, there is truth in the headlines but if you look at the statistics of violent crime it's not up. but there are people that are going to leave the city, that's true. those are people of means, can buy another house, go somewhere else. i was a kid in the 1980s, so i can't speak to that. it's different for people, i'm speaking for myself, walking around new york city does not feel different or unsafe to me. if you look at the crime statistics that's probably true. but there are more shootings, more murders, but i think across the board new york is going to be new york and people will leave. it will change temporarily a little bit but people will be ba back. >> rev, you spent a lot of time in new york, you hardly left but had to leave at times for work.

we heard some calls to defund the police. we've actually heard black leaders in the city say, no, no, don't defund the police. things are getting worse right now. why don't you -- give us your view of new york city right now really quickly before we go into the day's news. do you think it's as safe as it's been or are you seeing new york city security fray at the edges? >> we've always heard about the tale of two cities on the side of the city that i come from, which is blacker and poorer. we've seen more, in terms of gun usage. you know, i got a lot of attention when i did the eulogy for george floyd's funeral but later i preached a 1-year-old kid's funeral in brooklyn who was killed by a stray bullet. we're seeing both.

six people were shot over this labor day weekend at a festivity in brooklyn. so i would say statistically we're not much higher than we were. but on the ground it is certainly feeling more violent, feeling more unsafe, in unsafe communities, if you know what i mean. i'm talking about communities where we were somewhat having to deal with more crime, it feels more, in many ways, dangerous. and the fact that you have people that are disproportionately essential workers that had to go to work. they did not have the summer or the pandemic off. so it has been in stressful areas slightly more stressful. i don't think the headlines are exactly right. i think they embellish it. but clearly those that feel the worst has gotten even a worse feeling during this pandemic feeling in new york. >> i hear the fears of, again,

defunding the police or cutting the police budget by a billion dollars in new york city will impact who, the poorest people in new york city. and also disproportionately impact people of color, rev, with school safety monitoring being yanked out of there, and other police officers that certainly many people of color and their representatives in new york city feel are essential workers themselves. >> i've said, and you and i have discussed this, we need to reimagine how we do policing. but when you are talking about the fact that, a, we are in the areas where -- that is inundated with guns, that has this serious problems of our -- of people being given guns that can't take a summer program to take all policing off is something i think a lot of liberals go for

as they sit around the hamptons discussing this as an academic problem. but people living on the ground need proper policing, yes, we need resourcing in different areas like mental health. but we do not need the users of products of the big manufacturers in this country. >> also with us this morning we have msnbc national affairs analyst co-host of "the circus" and executive editor of the recount john heileman. columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius. and host of kasie dc on msnbc kasie hunt. and we have, believe it or not, everybody, 56 days until the general election. 21 days until the first debate. and early voting under way in a number of states. a new national poll from cbs

news yougov showing joe biden with a double digit lead over president trump, 52 to 42%. a look at wisconsin now, the morning consult poll of likely voters there shows joe biden up a eight points over president trump, 51 to 43%. the latest rasmussen polls shows the same numbers in that state. and cbs has joe biden up in wisconsin 50 to 44%. that six point lead was the same as prior to the unrest in kenosha. and more voters are siding with joe biden when it comes to protests. 45% of wisconsin voters approve of the president's handling of the unrest. 55% disapprove. 51% approve of joe biden's

handling of the protests, 45 disapprove. when asked which candidate makes them feel more safe, 45% said joe biden, 43% said president trump. a statistical tie. and now, 44% approve of trump's handling of the nationwide protests, 56% do not. whereas 51% approve of joe biden's handling of the protests. 48% disapprove. and in the latest abc news ipsos poll, 59% think biden would do a better job handling the nationwide protests. 39% think president trump would. 59% also say biden would do a better job reducing violence in the country. so a lot of different polls to look at nationally and also those wisconsin numbers, joe. >> the wisconsin numbers obviously so many people looking at wisconsin because the -- to

paraphrase the late great tim russert, if 2000 was about florida, florida, then many believe 2020 is about wisconsin, wisconsin, wisconsin. but it looks like all of donald trump's efforts to stir up racial animus in wisconsin, to run an us versus them campaign in wisconsin to somehow get closer to joe biden in wisconsin have failed. he's down, as we see, ten nationally. it hasn't moved the meter nationally but in wisconsin the last two polls that came out yesterday have him down 8 points. i wonder if we file this under another failed experiment by this white house to preach a racist brand of law and order that has fallen on deaf ears. >> yeah, joe, you know, i was in wisconsin all last week. so i feel like in addition to seeing the data that's been

coming in that state ever since the situation unfolded in kenosha on the initial shooting of jacob blake and then kyle rittenhouse afterwards, i feel like i'm tuned in on this story and i was there last week when trump was there and biden was there and talking to a lot of people. i haven't met anybody who knows anything about politics in wyoming who thinks joe biden is going to win that state by 8 points on election day, not a single person. but i think what the numbers reflect to your point after all of that convulsion around the -- as i said, the shooting of jacob blake, the protests, the riots, the burning, the two candidates coming there and making it ground zero last week, not much has fundamentally changed not just since then but since the conventions. if you look at the polling in wisconsin all year you had basically joe biden at that --

like a high single digit lead. everyone there, republican experts, democratic experts, assumes -- donald trump won the state in 2016, that the thing is going to tight een and it's goi to be a couple points of a race. i think what we learned from last week and i found from the ground, what i kept hearing over and over again, was joe biden and donald trump both came to kenosha. donald trump came and looked at the destruction, looked at the burned buildings, talked about riots, joe biden came and met with the community, talked to jacob blake's family and a lot of people were very tuned into the fact that before donald trump came to kenosha, he would not do what joe biden had done, which is condemn violence on both sides. and people saw that speech the night before the -- the press conference the night before trump came to kenosha when he refused -- not only did he refuse to denounce kyle

rittenhouse, but he defended him. that coupled with the way that trump conducted himself on the ground, compare and contrast between trump and biden, trump is seen as a force of division among voters in the middle of the electorate in wisconsin and that's why i think there's a ceiling on his ability to come close to tighten this race up in a lot of states and a lot of other battleground states the same dynamic is in play when it comes to racial justice and police violence. >> willie, i think one of the biggest tells during that time was donald trump refusing to criticize -- in fact, i believe he retweeted praise for a 17-year-old boy who drove across state lines with an ar-15 and started shooting people up, including a guy with a

skateboard. and, of course, trump and other trump media outlets can sit and try to defend kyle rittenhouse all they want, he was under attack. the courts can decide that. but if you're in wisconsin, you don't want a president who won't even condemn a 17-year-old running around your streets with an ar-15. anybody in any community across america would want a president to condemn that sort of lawless behavior. and he couldn't even bring himself to do that. >> can't do the easy things. but we've seen that before in these explosive situations when the focus of the country is on charlottesville or kenosha, wisconsin for him to come in and take the side of someone else other than the victim in this. in this case that 17-year-old you're talking about. and this relentless focus on what the president calls law and order and making the streets safe in places like new york that we were talking about.

it ignores the reason the streets are empty, which is this pandemic, we're at six months now since people left their jobs. since people left schools. the reason schools are empty this tuesday after labor day, the reason this office building and others across the country are empty is because of the pandemic and the response to the pandemic. isn't this, at the end of the day, what's going to decide the election? this is at the center of i ne r everyone's life right now. this is why we're living the way we're living and the president is at press conferences asking people to take their masks, which every public health expert says we should be wearing. at the end of the day, people losing jobs, loved ones, not in school because of the pandemic and the response to it. >> willie, you would think. and certainly that's the thesis of the biden campaign is that there are all these diversions

and distractions and attempts to frame joe biden in a negative way that trump and his campaign keep throwing up and the biden campaign is thrusting, but in the end they keep coming back to that argument. which is, everything that's problematic about america in september of 2020 is the result of a failure to manage this pandemic, why is the economy bad? why are the social stresses, why is there rising crime in areas? the schools, everything that's wrong come backs to the pandemic and it's not donald trump's fault for the pandemic existing but his failure to manage it. that's the biden campaign argument. the thing you saw yesterday, on labor day was what i thought we were going to see. yesterday you saw trump and the biden campaign trying to bring the argument back to the pandemic and the connection of the pandemic to the economy.

that is where i think the election will be decided. it's the one place where donald trump continues to have some hope, which is that it continues to be amid all of these bad numbers for donald trump, it still is the case and the biden campaign knows this. it frustrates them that donald trump is ahead of joe biden when it comes to people's perceptions of who's best to rebuild the economy. the biden campaign is chipping away at it for months and still finds themselves behind on that question and still feel like they have a lot of work to do. they know the people blame trump for this economy, but they don't necessarily think that that applies to which of the two candidates would be best to rebuild it once we're on the other side of the pandemic. and that i think is going to be a huge focus of this fall. >> what we learned, mika, also, over the course of the last six months is how terrible donald trump is at managing things. he's managed the pandemic in just an absolutely disastrous

way. 190,000 americans dead, almost 200,000. we're coming up on the 200,000 number we heard in the spring which donald trump, of course, dismissed and brushed away. again, saying it was one person coming in from china, it would be gone. it was 15 people coming in, but soon it was going to be gone. he hasn't been able to manage that. done it miserably. the lead story in a lot of newspaper today. the "new york times" especially, donald trump hasn't been able to manage his own money, his campaign, his billion dollar enterprise. they've completely blown their advantage. we'll talk about this in a little bit. but they've had to go off the air because he's wasted so much money, blown so much of his contributors' money. so we'll talk about that later. but this is a man who just doesn't know how to manage

things. it's why he went bankrupt. why his companies went bankrupt after his daddy gave him $400 million. >> all this as major elements of "the atlantic's" reporting that the president made disparaging remarks about u.s. soldiers and war casualties have been confirmed by other news organizations. his disinterest in finding captured soldiers has been reported by "the washington post" and the "new york times." his discomfort with wounded veterans confirmed by "the new york times". his asking what's in it for them while standing with john kelly at his son's grave has been reported by the associated press and "the washington post." the claim that the president didn't want to visit a military cemetery in france in 2017 because it was filled with

losers was also reported by the ap. and a source told the times the president questioned the intelligence of those who served in vietnam because unlike him they didn't find a way to dodge service. this is what national security reporter for fox news, jennifer griffin confirmed. >> i've spoken with two senior u.s. officials on the trip to france who confirmed me to me key details in the atlantic article. my source told me when the president spoke about the vietnam war he said it was a stupid war. anyone who went was a sucker. the president would say about american veterans, what's in it for them, they don't make any money. the source said it was a character flaw of the president he could not understand why someone would die for their country, not worth it. regarding the french trip to mark the end of world war i, the president was not in a good

mood. he questioned why he had to go to two cemeteries. regarding the july 4th military parade planning during a planning session at the white house, after seeing the parade in 2017, president trump said regarding the inclusion of wounded guys, quote, that's not a good look. americans don't like that. >> meanwhile, the president yesterday continued to deny the report that he has disparaged the military while at the same time criticized military leadership. >> the story is a hoax. they made up the story. it's a totally made up story. who would say a thing like that? only an animal would say a thing like that. there's nobody that has more respect for not only our military but people that gave their lives in the military. i'm not saying the military is in love with me. the soldiers are. the top people in the pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make

the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. i said, that's good. let's bring our soldiers back home. some people don't like to come home. some people like to continue to spend money. one cold hearted betrayal after another. >> i really don't know -- >> painful. >> -- what to say about that. just complete ignorance of the men and women who run our military. you know, david ignatius, you know this better than anybody. i found, in my years on the armed services committee, when we were getting briefings from generals and admirals, military leaders, they were the last ones who wanted to go into war. famously dwight eisenhower loathed war because he had seen it so much, he was always the voice of caution. he was always the one trying to

tell politicians before he was in the white house to send people to war, it is said that after the korean war that he inherited, not another american soldier died in combat in the remaining years of his presidency. he gave the warning the military industrial complex, he knew that civilians like donald trump and the presidency getting too close to war profiteers and getting too close, as donald trump has done, with a lot of military companies, could cause potential problems. but david, even colin powell, who is only remembered for what happened at the u.n., george w. bush was asked why he didn't seek colin powell's council more on the second iraq war, he said i knew he was against it.

i knew he didn't want us to go in there. and it was colin powell that had the show down with our friend madeleine albright talking about toy soldiers. again, the general who had been through vietnam, as so many of these generals had been through vietnam, no. no. war is a last resort. and david, haven't you found that time and time again? as donald trump insults our men and women in uniform, it is the generals, the admirals who have seen war who are the last ones that want to go back there? >> joe, you put it exactly right. there's a deep -- a conservativism and caution among people who have ordered their troops into battle and had to pick them up off that battlefield. just think about the little sound bite we heard from yesterday.

put aside jeffrey goldberg's excellent reporting, and put aside the fox news reporter who found these same terms, suckers for going to vietnam, put all that aside and just listen to what he said yesterday on camera. he essentially accused our military leadership of putting young men and women in harm's way. exposing them to violence and death to serve the interest of war profiteers. it's an incredible comment. if you want to take an instance of donald trump's contempt for the men and women who run our military, you don't have to go further than what he said on camera yesterday. it's a pattern, in my reporting over the last four years, i travel with the military, it would have been with central command commander today, if

things had worked out the way he hoped. i have heard more and more, people who wanted to give trump every benefit of the doubt, who were happy to have trump exercise less authority, less insi insisten insistence. they liked that. but the military saw something in donald trump, i think of it as a culture clash. they saw somebody who came from this instrumental world of new york real estate where everything is a deal, everything is a transaction. and the military with its culture of professionalism, sacrifice, just didn't get it. i think the division began to widen starting in 2017. it's gotten worse and worse. let's not quarrel over jeffrey goldberg's quotes. just listen to what the president said yesterday and you'll know the essence of the

contempt he feels for the military. >> and willie, as always, david puts it so well. because even though jeffrey's quotes in "the atlantic" have been confirmed and as you read them, you knew for the most part who the sources were just by reading the quotes. put that aside. if you're not going to believe your own lying eyes, as the saying goes, just watch donald trump accuse men and women who have dedicated their entire lives in uniform to serving this country, accusing them of killing young soldiers for war profits. this, of course, is especially rich coming from a man who continues to refuse to condemn vladimir putin for putting bounties on the heads of american soldiers, which his own

intel agencies have been begging him to say something since march. but here we have -- again, we saw it several years ago, when he was in helsinki, where he took the word of vladimir putin over his own intel agencies. and here he's willing to condemn his generals and admirals as killers of kids for war profits, when actually they are the most conservative with a small c when it comes to sending young men and women into battle. and yet, he won't criticize vladimir putin, who he knows has put a bounty on the heads of young americans. >> yeah, all the steps that you just laid out led us to this atlantic piece where people read the quotes and said, yeah, this sounds like something this man would say, which is astonishing place for the commander in chief

to be where the american public would say, yes, that sounds like something he would say. fox news has corroborated the story, the "new york times" and others have corroborated the story. what's deafening is the silence from republicans who leap to defend the president whenever they can. they don't leap to criticize him very often but if ever there were something to criticize someone on, this would be it. have we heard from any republicans at all criticizing the president or even talking about the story? >> willie, i think you said it best when you said the silence has been deafening on this. and, you know, i can tell you, having covered republicans, democrats, you know, congress for -- on and off for the last decade. i have never heard members of congress with regularity talk about our troops the way this report characterizes what the president said or even as david

pointed out what the president said from the podium yesterday. this is not something that has ever entered the consciousness of most people who run for elected office to serve the country, by the way, when you run typically for congress, you know, you get paid less than you do in the private sector as well. and while, yes, obviously a lot of politicians are driven by their own self-interest and ambition, they are also interested in public service and recognize that the people who serve us in our military are serving on a higher plane than any of the rest of us, essentially. but you're right. there hasn't been any talk about this because what do you say about it? i think this is another opportunity for them to potentially criticize the president. we know how they've handled those opportunities in the past. they continue to do that here just a few months ahead of an election there's less incentive

for them to go out and cross the president. i think the reality is the way the president has denied this shows you he knows just how damaging this report is. and while we don't have a ton of polling of the military community. the military times does do some good work on this. while the president is right that officers tend to be more inclined to disapprove of the president's job than the enli enlistenlis enlisted corps, the numbers have changed. even among the enlisted group, when the president said the soldiers are with me, they're actually trending against him. this is the most extreme example of what we've seen from the president on this topic but it's not the first by any stretch of the imagination. and it's taking a toll. >> every time the president opens his mouth he undercuts his apologists who were denying what fox news confirmed, repeatedly,

about the jeffrey goldberg article. but then he goes out and says that generals and admirals are war profiteers who will kill kids to make profits for the military industrial complex. it's breathtaking. and following up on what kasie said, rev, i was on the armed services committee in congress. and i've got to say over my time there, i probably served with about 700, 800, 1,000 members of congress. i never heard one members of congress, a liberal, a conservative, a libertarian, regardless of how anti-war they were, i never heard one elected members of congress question the integrity of our military leaders.

in the house, in the senate, on the hill, anywhere, i never heard anyone deride the honor, the virtue, of our generals and admirals the way the president of the united states -- the current commander in chief, the way he did yesterday saying that they will take kids into battle to get killed so they can make profits. so they can be war profiteers. it's breathtaking and it is so far out of bounds that i find it hard to believe that current members of the armed services committee, republicans, people like lindsey graham who have had a close relationship with the military community through the years, aren't going to come out and speak out in defense of these generals, of these admirals, of these americans who have dedicated their entire life to service to this country.

>> it is an astounding statement. you know, i grew up in a time that we were protesting the vietnam war when i was in high school, we protested the war. i've never heard anti-war activists call military men suckers. and i -- the feel that the president of the united states would say that is amorable. and i grew up protesting war and admiring mohammed ali a posing war. and following dr. king. but for him to say, that's absurd, who could say that, only an animal could say that, but by the way, the officers of the military are using you as suckers for getting you killed for profits of their friend. he is confirming in another way of speaking what they quoted him as saying. why in this time you're trying to deny that you have belittled

the actual worth of life of those military men that put their lives on the line for all of us, why would you come back and accuse those that are in leadership there of bargaining their lives for the profit of some people that are in the military business. i mean, it shows that he can't even get out of his own way to tell a lie. >> why would he say it in the first place? because he believes it, which once again, leads us to the saying that when somebody tells you who they are, believe them the first time. >> absolutely. and still ahead on "morning joe," a lot of news to cover including the number you see at the bottom of the screen, 190,000 plus people dead from coronavirus. colleges are cracking down on stu students who do not adhere to coronavirus rules. where the cases are exploding.

plus postmaster general louis dejoy is facing new scrutiny after reports that he pressured employees to make contributions. >> and said he was going to pay them back through bonuses. that is a crime. people who do that go to jail. >> the house oversight committee wants answers on that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ng joe." we'll be right back. - hey, can i... - safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. safe drivers do save 40%. that life of the party look walk it off look one more mile look reply all look own your look... ...with fewer lines. there's only one botox® cosmetic.

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how much you can save. did you pay back several of your top executives for contributing to trump's campaign by bonusing or rewarding them? >> that's an outrageous claim, sir, and i resent it. >> i'm just asking a question. >> the answer is no. >> that was postmaster general

louis dejoy in his testimony before the house oversight committee last month denying fund-raising practices that may have violated campaign finance laws. despite that denial "the washington post" reported on sunday, dejoy pressured employees of his former company to contribute to republicans and then reimburse them for the contributions through bonuses. five people who worked for his former business said they were pressured to write checks and to attend fund-raisers. the post writes two other employees would instruct that dejoy payments to staffers be boosted to help defray costs, an arrangement that would be unlawful. carolyn maloney said she's opening an investigation into the matter and called for dejoy's immediate suspension. a spokesman for dejoy told nbc news in part, mr. dejoy was never notified by the new breed

employees referenced by "the washington post" for any pressure they might have felt to make a contribution, and he greats it if any employee felt uncomfortable for any reason. this is illegal if this is the way it went down, described by employees to both "the washington post" and "the new york times". yes, indeed, willie, illegal if as reported true. and i think the relevance here beyond -- look, what do we know about mr. dejoy? what we know is that we knew before this report is that he was a political hack. a donor who was put in this position as an act of pure political patronage by president trump. that's the reason why there is so much concern with the things he's doing as postmaster general the way we've been concerned of things he might be doing to undermine the postal system when mail-in voting is more vital than ever under the spectrum of

a pandemic. we knew this was not a person appointed to the job because of his administrative skill or because he had a history of managing the post office or any commitment to public service or anything else that would normally entitle someone or commend someone to a job that is not just important always but important, particularly vital in this election season given the strains on the postal system. i think for those who are skeptal of him or critical of him, those who are prone to be worried about what they've already seen and what they might see between now and election day, this reporting beyond the sheer illegality of it, what you just pointed to, this reporting is going to put him more and more in the spotlight, is going to bring more congressional scrutiny on him and press scrutiny, i don't think this is a situation that subsides, the controversy around postmaster

general dejoy. he's going to be in the hot seat, a seat that's going to get hotter and hotter every day for the next eight weeks. >> this is something that is done. this is something that is illegal. and this is something that sends people to jail. and kasie, the numbers are all out there. if dejoy, in fact -- we have these former employees that have come forward, five of them that said he forced us to make political contributions and then said he'd get it back to us in bonuses. regardless of whether he perjures himself in front of a house committee or not, there are receipts. there are fec records. this is something he unlikely will be unable to escape from. >> i don't see how he does escape from it, joe. the reality is, if this went on, who knows what else a house investigation might turn up. this is the kind of thing where i think if you're louis dejoy,

you're probably worried about the answer to that question. and i think it's pretty telling that the president essentially said, sure, go ahead. you know, president trump, if you look at how he's defended or not, his appointees and people who have worked for him. there are some people he'll stand behind no matter what in public, and then you can kind of tell which ones are about to go because he'll say i'm going to wash my hands of this, sorry. so i think there are still more turns to this story. but he is not going to be somebody that democrats, as you point out, are going to forget about in the weeks leading up to the election when there are so many other election-related issues with the post office and so many concerns about its functioning. >> again, mika, this is a crime. >> yeah. >> and it's something that he and his lawyers have to be worried about right now because -- >> it appears he lied about it. >> he has five former employees, they're claiming that he

pressured them. did they pressure these people to make contributions? look at the fec report, see if they made the contributions and then follow their receipts, did they get bonuses that covered those contributions. it's easy connecting those dots and this is again why some contributors get sent to jail for running these sort of shell games. coming up, president trump appeared to take a victory lap after the august jobs report was released last week. but is the economy as amazing as he claims? steve ratner joins us next with charts. "morning joe" is coming right back. -always have been. -and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. and certainly not arthritis.

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doctors in germany say alek say nevalny is out on a coma and

conscious. this comes after it was confirmed he was poisoned during a flight from russia. here's what president trump had to say. >> i think it's tragic. it's terrible. it shouldn't happen. we haven't had any proof yet, but i will take a look. i would be very angry if that's the case and we'll take a look at the numbers and the documents because we're going to be sent a lot of documents over the next few days. >> so he says he doesn't know who did it, mika. he would be very upset if he found out who it was. >> they'll be looking at numbers and documents. >> luxomberg, damn them.

look at what they do to people who -- no. this is what we asked him about in the middle of december 2015 when he tried to excuse vladimir putin's murdering of political opponents and journalists and nothing has changed, of course. we didn't expect it to. over the past five years. he's still giving vladimir putin a free pass. >> and there's denial on the russian side. any involvement russians deny. and suggested that the allegations are part of a western disinformation campaign. >> save it for stupid people in your own country who would believe that. >> david ignatius what do you think the u.s. response, stronger, more forceful, for connected with reality u.s. response would be? >> well, mika, as the evidence gets firmer and now with the navalny out of a coma, we have a

likelihood that navalny himself will be able to speak to what happened. i think you have a real nightmare for vladimir putin beginning. navalny has been his sharpest, some ways most a riz mattic opponent. if navalny begins to speak as the intelligence evidence makes its way from germany to the u.s., i think trump, in this case, has no choice. he's got to respond to it. he seemed to be setting up the possibility of that response. but i think our focus should be on what this means for vladimir putin. putin's got growing problems in a russia that's frustrated, that's suffering from the pandemic like everywhere else in the world. and to have navalny survive in

germany, under germ man care an then come back, that's something. >> you asked what the american response should be, we've seen what a strong leader does, angela merkel versus a week leader, donald trump, a weak leader says nothing, he said nothing about placing bounties on u.s. soldiers' heads. but angela merkel said it was attempted murder plain and simple. the final verdict of those convicted of killing journalist jam jamal khashoggi has been handed out, they sentenced five men to 20 years and three others to less. the identity of the men are unknown as the trial has been conducted in secrecy. after the sentencing, a shis

fiancee said said they're closing the case without the world being known who's responsible for jamal's murder, who planned it, who ordered it, where is his body? these are the questions that remain unanswered. >> david ignatius he obviously was a colleague at "the washington post." "the washington post" has been at the forefront of demanding answers. what's your reaction to these verdicts handed down in saudi arabia? >> joe, jamal khashoggi was a colleague, a personal friend. these verdicts released in saudi arabia are the opposite of meaningful final resolution of this case. they took the people who were most responsible, the senior generals and court officials,

who are believed to have been the organizers of the plot to kill jamal, they took them out of the trial, they were exempt. the trial never even touched the crown prince who according to our cia and analysts around the world must have been responsible for ordering this brutal killing, high degree of confidence among our intelligence analysts that he was involved, and so the saudis try to claim they've now resolved this, it's over. it's just a sad spectacle. saudi arabia, for its own future, needs to be honest. it needs to have accountability. a prominent journalist, a washington post contributor was murdered and hacked to pieces. the people involved in that killing know exactly what happened, they were there in the

room. their testimony is still not available. their names have not been disclosed by the judge in the trial. what kind of a process do the saudis think this is? how can they imagine this will have credibility with the world that wants answers. >> i think they thought this would put it behind them, but they didn't get the answers the world wanted. let's turn to president trump and the top economic adviser touting the status of the economic recovery. here's president trump and larry kudlow friday. >> america's unprecedented economic recovery continues you see what's going on. it's amazing. >> these gains are very, very broad based. there's still too many people out, still too much hardship, too much unemployed. we're working on that and moving in the right direction. that's why today's numbers are encouraging and optimistic.

my view, we are in a v-shaped recovery, it's a self-sustaining recovery. >> joining us "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner. larry kudlow talking about the august jobs, still going to the v-shaped recovery. what does it look like to you? is it a v? >> well, they can call it a v-shaped recovery come hell or high water but i think the facts are different. you see on the first chart, it doesn't look like a v. you see an economy that was in free fall, particularly in the month of april, lost over 22 million jobs in a space of a little more than a month. and then you can see the beginnings of the climb back. in may 2.7 million jobs added, june 4.8 but then the pace of jobs have been slowed, july 1.7 million jobs and august the numbers that came out on friday

were reported as 1.4 million jobs. but inside that there are over 200,000 temporary census workers who will be off the payrolls in the another month or two. so, in fact, it was really 1.1 million jobs. so the pace of job recovery is slowing fairly dramatically. one other small point, the 8.4% unemployment rate is really 9.1% the department of labor said there was a misclassification error. so that number isn't as good either. let's turn to this question whether we're dealing with a broad based recovery of jobs or something more narrow. what you can see on the next chart are the disparities in how different americans have fared. this is because the pandemic or the economic crisis didn't hit every industry equally, travel, recreation, restaurants, so on where people of color, lower income, women work and it was

hit disproportionately hard. if you are a black person, 11.2% of blacks lost their jobs compared to 6.4% of whites. if you have less than a high school diploma, almost 19% of those folks lost their jobs. if you have a college degree you probably didn't lose your job at all because virtually none of them lost their jobs since this started. between women and men you see another disparity -- >> can i stop you for a second, steve ratner. forgive me for cutting in. >> of course. >> we're on a delay. and i want to underline this one number. keep this chart up. so the statistics, the bureau of labor statistics shows that if you have a college degree that only 0.1%, 0%, 0.1% of people with college degrees lost their jobs, but almost 20% of people

who have less than a college degree lost their jobs? >> sure, joe. if you go to a restaurant and there's a busboy and a waiter, so on, maybe waiters are out of work actors with college degrees or you're in the kitchen or you work at a theme park as a greeter, what kind of degree do you think most of those people have? i would contrast that with people on the set right now. i think all of us have college degrees and we're all still employed. the folks in my industry are still employed, very little job loss in the finance industry in part because the stock market is doing so well. so this is a recession and a recovery that is hitting people very, very differently depending on upon their education, whether they're of color and whether they're a woman. >> wow. that's amazing. let's go to the last chart. >> sure. and so then the question is, the

president and larry kudlow were trying to tell us this was going to be a fast and steep road back as we saw it isn't as fast or steep as they say it is, but we don't have a crystal ball. one thing to look at to get a sense of what could happen is announcements of layoffs. what you see on this chart is a number of companies have been announcing layoffs in the last two or three weeks, united airlines, 17,000. mgm resorts 18,000. you see the airlines there in part because they got a $25 billion plus bailout but that runs out at the end of september and they will start to lay off people again. you see retailers and people like that on the list. and the weekly numbers we look at of new job losses still running close to a million, which is 50% higher than any week we saw before the pandemic. so you see the labor market

starting to soften as businesses don't bring back everybody and as the pace of reopening slows. and on top of that, let's not forget my last point, which is that congress still has not acted on a relief package. so the $600 checks are over. the ppp is over. the airline aid is over. and so you start -- you're going to start to, i think, see more layoffs as that filters through this economy. so there's nothing, as we look ahead, there's nothing i see that says that that sort of slow recovery i showed you on the first chart is going to accelerate. >> steve ratner bringing the data and the charts. thanks as always. when you talk about college degrees on this set, john heileman no formal education, his early years are dark, no record of them. we'll go to him now and hope for the best. if you look at the economic data

here as steve eluded to in his last point there, most public health officials believe this coronavirus is going to flare up again there's going to be a second wave come fall into the winter. there was a washington post piece over night with scary projections. so that's to say while the economy is showing flashes right now and that's good for a lot of people, there's a longer term worry that carries into the fall and perhaps touches on election day. >> totally. look, despite my lack of formal education, i can see a couple things because steve explains his charts so well. one of the things imbedded in that explanation is one of the things that joe reacted to strongly, as bad as the economy has been through this pandemic, there has been clearly an unequal impact, a distribution of the impact -- not surprisingly but surprising just the extent to which the upper

end of the income strata, the upper end of the education strata has kind of been able to evade impact to suffer many consequences from the downturn so far. as steep as it's been, it's been unevenly distritt buted. when you try to say why president trump leads joe biden on the economy, who would best rebuild the economy, why is that the one remaining strut his campaign leans on and the biden campaign continues to deal with it, the question is how can that be with how bad the economy is and the fact that if the pandemic gets worse. i think the answer lies in the chart. for a large part of the middle to upper income strata in america, particularly the part connected to the stock market, things have not been as bad for

them. there has been a lot of disruption for them socially, in terms of schools, there's been a lot of families affected in terms of health by the pandemic but they have not lost their jobs. and they've not lost a lot of money in the market. so they continue, whatever faith they put in donald trump from the first three years they continue to put it in donald trump and i think it points to one of the great challenges the biden campaign has, which is to try to get through, not to republican die hard voters who are never leaving donald trump but to those people in the middle who have the middle class voter who thought the economy was doing well for him or her under donald trump, who continues to place their faith in the president, try to make that argument that he is -- that they are affected in various ways that aren't necessarily reflected by the stock market. and i hate to say this, if this pandemic does come back and we suffer another wave that might be worse than the previous one is to set the stage for making

the connection of that to donald trump and his management as crystal clear as possible so when we get to election day, the connection can't be missed by voters who might be still persuadable in this electorate. >> john heileman, let me ask you before you go. we talked about this the top of last hour but if people are just tuning in central time zone, let's talk about wisconsin, you've been there the past week. we have a series of polls over the weekend, two of them show joe biden up 8% points, including the usually trump friendly rasmussen poll, the cbs yougov poll over the weekend showed him up by 6 points. looks like after the conventions, the chaos, looks like just a push. these numbers have stayed fairly consistent throughout the entire process. you add to that a 17-year-old

kid running around from outside the state of wisconsin with an ar-15 shooting three people, killing two. and americans believe that joe biden will keep america safer or can handle the protests better than donald trump. this is starting to look a lot like june 1st and beyond where trump officials were high fiving each other after that horrid display in lafayette park, only to find out it had not moved the numbers. in fact, it had hurt the president in the polling. >> right. and joe, i think, you know, that is -- from my experience last week, being in wisconsin through that period, the president was there, joe biden was there, the question of whether the president's racially frayed, sometimes explicitly racist, highly divisive, highly

exployive use of the crime issue, the law and order issue to try to stoke fear in part of the electorate they believe is movable. that they think will make the difference for them in a state like wisconsin, to see how it actually played out on the ground in wisconsin i think was really instructive, which was that was a state donald trump won narrowly 22,000 votes. and what i kept hearing over and over again there, there are obviously a bunch of -- the republican party has been trump fied there, so the trump base is solid for donald trump. he has a lot of solid voters to work with in that state, but in the middle of the electorate, the wow counties, the moderate suburban republican dominated suburbs, they were not fans of donald trump in 2016, he lost

the primary there in double digits they eventually came his way in the fall because of hillary clinton. what did you hear from them last week? last week you heard, they saw joe biden come to town and before he came to town give a speech in which he condemned rioting, looting, burning, and said that is not protesting. and then also said he was on the side of racial justice and was on the side of those who want to reform the police. came to kenosha and talked to the family of the victim, jacob blake. what they saw in donald trump was someone who actually behaved himself in a reasonable way on the ground in kenosha but the night before he came, not only would not follow joe biden's lead and condemn violence on both sides but made a defense of kyle rittenhouse. and for those voters in wisconsin, that stoking of division, racial incensetyive,

unwillingness to denounce violence in all its forms that is what those voters do not want. i think it's why donald trump is going to have trouble carrying the day in wisconsin because those are the voters he needs and who are reacting against that kind of rhetoric and those kind of voters also are present in wisconsin, pennsylvania, arizona, florida, north carolina, that's why we're seeing the race so stable because trump keeps doing things that alienates the voters he needs. >> john heileman, thank you so much. kasie hunt jumping off his comments on the disparities and the blatant pain there as it pertains to the economy. what are the chances a relief bill will come out of congress that will address what's going on out there? >> right now, mika, it seems pretty slim to none. and i'll tell you why, you know, i find this to be very hard to get my head around.

and that's because if there's one thing we know that defines president trump, it's his own self-interest. we've been talking about that as a theme all morning. and if you look at that polling, you look at steve ratner's charts, who's been hurt by this, it's non-college votes. non-college whites in if particular are absolutely president trump's base. those are the people that need the most help. what would get a bill through congress? if the president said he's willing to cut a deal with nancy pelosi then they can get something done. if you look at who's hurting, nancy pelosi is saying we'll send $2 trillion to help americans across the board, but in particular those americans who have lost their jobs in the months -- in the weeks, really, now before an election. for some reason they're saying they don't want to do it. they're dealing with republicans in the senate who are worried about spending a lot of money but the reality is they could do

this with democratic votes and some republicans in the senate and the democratic house. for whatever reason perhaps it's the president's relationship with nancy pelosi perhaps it's mark meadows and his conservative ideology in the room trying to negotiate this kind of package. right now it is very difficult to see how they do something major and send that help to americans before election day. >> kasie hunt, thank you very much as always. something else that's obviously going to be playing into this election, the president's views on the military. the atlantic's reporting that the president made disparaging remarks about u.s. soldiers and war occasioncasualties, which h confirmed by other news organizations. his disinterest in finding captured soldiers was reported by "the washington post" and "new york times." his asking what's in it for them while standing with general john kelly, his chief of staff, at the grave of kelly's son, has

been reported by the associated press and "the washington post." the claim that the president did not want to visit an american military cemetery in france in 2018 because it was, quote, filled with losers now also reported by the associated press. sources also told the post and times the president questioned the intelligence of those who served in vietnam because unlike him, they did not find a way to dodge service. and this is what national security reporter for fox news, jennifer griffin confirmed. >> i've spoken with two senior u.s. officials whofrp on the trip to france who confirmed to me key details in the atlantic article and quotes attributed to the president. my source told me when the president spoke about the vietnam war he said it was a stupid war. anyone who went was a sucker. the president would say about american veterans, what's in it for them, they don't make any money. the source said it was a

character flaw of the president. he could not understand why someone would die for their country, not worth it. regarding the french trip to mark the end of world war i, according to the former official, the president was not in a good mood. french president emmanuel macron said something that made him mad he requequestioned why had he t to two cemeteries. regarding the july 4th military parade planning, during a planning session at the white house, president trump said regarding the inclusion of wounded guys, quote, that's not a good look. americans don't like that. >> that's jennifer griffin of fox news. meanwhile, the president yesterday continued to deny the report he disparaged the military while at the same time criticizing military leadership. >> the story is a hoax. it's a totally made up story. who would say a thing like that? only an animal would say a thing like that. there's nobody that has more respect for not only our

military but for people that gave their lives in the military. i'm not saying the military is in love with me. the soldiers are. the top people in the pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. i said, that's good. let's bring our soldiers back home. some people don't like to come home. some people like to continue to spend money. one cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another. >> that's the president speaking yesterday. let's bring in columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson. national correspondent for pbs, amna lavage and robert costa.

and paul rieckhoff, founder of veterans of america. and reverend al sharpton is with us as well. paul i want to start with you, as someone who served in iraq, launched a group to service veterans of the military and gave his life to that for a decade. what is your first blush reaction to not just the piece in the atlantic, the confirmation by fox news, "the washington post," "the "new york time times", but his comments as well. >> this is who donald trump is. he said only an animal would speak this way. he is an animal. he's a disgusting human being. he has no integrity, honor, no respect. he has no respect for anyone or anything. he's a political runaway train who will smash into anything that's in his way. to include our military. he's attacking his own military leadership. a week ago they were trying to

cut the budget to the stars and stripes magazine, pardons war criminals, attacks john mccain. our enemies love this, our enemies are celebrating. russia loves this, putin loves this. nobody loves this more than our enemies and every day he perpetuates this madness it's bad for america and good for enemies. >> how are the veterans responding to this? what do they think? do they believe the words that have been corroborated by so many news outlets? if so, what do they make of it? what does it feel like to hear the words from the commander in chief? >> they believe it. they're paying attention. they've been angry for a long time because they see not only the words but the policies. they know that trump took money away from the pentagon to pay for the wall. they know he abandoned our kurdish allies. he's destroying nato. he continues to disparage and

disrespect leaders. he's come after general mattis. no matter who it is. the postoffice, which is made up of hundreds of thousands of veterans, delivers mail and prescriptions to veterans, helps us vote. he'll attack anything and anyone in our way. it's demoralizing to the folks that support him. veterans who maybe think they are suckers and losers because the president is saying it, don't believe it. he's wrong. i know bob carey said that recently on the air, it's important for people to know they're not losers, suckers no matter what this man says. we're proud, honorable, we'll be here long after he's dogone. >> he is who he is. this is a guy attacking generals and admirals, military leaders not only in his campaign but also 2017, 2018, paul, said he would have been a far better

general than anybody else. and constantly critical of his generals. and it's now moved to such a point that as he's denying that he ever disrespected military people, men and women in uniform, he then comes out yesterday and says of people who have committed their entire lives to serving this country in uniform that they are men and women who will kill young americans for war profiteers. if that's not one of the most revealing statements talking about what he really thinks about american heroes in uniform, i don't know what that says. this is who he is and what we've seen over the past three or four years. >> he's attacking the leadership he put in place, right. secretary of defense, mark esper who i think is one of the most underreported leaders in this administration, he continues to

side with trump and not our troops. he's been very, very loyal to trump and trump is blowing him up now too. in the pentagon they call him yes-per because he says everything that trump says. which trump was attacking him yesterday. and esper refused to recuse himself through hearings. this is his own making. he will attack the people closest to him, his own military and our enemies are celebrating it every single minute. >> in my lifetime, at least, i haven't seen a president who is cozier with the so-called military industrial complex as donald trump and has given them whatever they've wanted. it's been -- it's been

extraordinary. and he's accusing generals and admirals of being war profiteers. it's outrageous. it's a joke. gene robinson. i wanted you to follow-up on reporting that we got from john heileman out of his week in wisconsin. and follow up on the fact that donald trump has done it again. the sort of britney spears, oops i did it again moment. he did it on june the 1st, and after that jonathan lemire reported that white house aides were high fiving each other about how great donald trump looked, clearing a peaceful crowd, then holding a bible upside down as james langford said in a way i have never seen anybody hold a bible before in my life. and his poll numbers went down after that. now we see kenosha. we can put kenosha there as

well. where even rasmussen polling shows donald trump down eight points in wisconsin and an abc poll shows by a long shot americans now have more faith in this joe biden than donald trump in handling this unrest. you have a great column talking about we have to stop trump from these openly racist attacks. trump is shouting racism, he must be stopped. it looks like voters are doing that again with what they're telling pollsters. >> it looks like it. trump is trying to use race in the crudest and ugliest way that i have seen since george wallace in 1968 of any major politician in a national campaign. it is astonishing and he has, i believe, in his head the notion

that if he demagogues the race issue, stokes white grievance, if he refuses to say jacob blake's name, if he clearly tries to use the reconning with systemic racism as a wedge issue that there are white working class voters out there somewhere in wisconsin, somewhere in michigan, somewhere in pennsylvania, who might not have voted for him last time, might not have voted at all in 2016, but whom he can drive to the polls to carry the day. i think that's his strategy. i think it's -- it's pretty obviously, at this point, a flawed strategy because he is driving away the suburban, white republicans, not only in those states, but across the country that any winning republican

presidential candidate needs to be elected. and in the process, and this is the tragedy, he's damaging the nation at a moment of all these overlapping crises, the pandemic, the economic crisis, the racial justice reckoning crisis. he's making these things worse, rather than better. and that has not only the electoral impact in november, but it damages the country. it is just appalling, and pick your adjectiveadjective. there are no more adjectives for donald trump. all there has to be at this point is just votes. this is a person who is harming the country day after day after day after day. and we just -- we just got to get rid of this guy. >> rev as we speak president trump is tweeting about he calls

them blm protesters, calling them thugs citing a specific piece of video. he also said these are biden voters we have to stop these people, take back control of democrat run cities, connecting the video we've seen directly to joe biden but the polling shows that joe biden has a 20-point advantage on how he's handling this question of what president trump calls law and order but the protests more broadly. is this all he has? why does he keep digging in on this one topic, on this one subject? is it going to resonate eventually? is he planting the seeds of something that may help him in november? if you look at the numbers right now, it doesn't look like it. >> it doesn't look like it and i think it's the only song he has in his repertoire, he doesn't know what else to do. when you look at the facts, there was a study done just last week by a group in princeton.

93% of the marches and protests we've had have been completely peaceful. he does not talk about that because he would have to talk about the issue. we had a huge march just a half a mile from the white house friday before last. he didn't tweet anything because there was not one incident, not one arrest. so he doesn't want to deal with the issue. he wants to make hoodlums and looters and thugs out of a few, who are wrong by the way, and who have been denounced by all of us and try to act like that's the whole black lives matter movement. the reason it's not working, though, willie, is because if you look at the underlying problem of the unequalled use of law enforcement and how we deal with policing, most americans are beginning to get it. they saw the george floyd tape. they saw the tape of a guy getting shot in his back seven times and the attorney general -- trump's attorney general said, well, he was in the middle of doing a felony and

was armed and nobody saw the gun or the knife or whatever armed on the videotape. you can't tell people things that are not apparently there without people saying, wait a minute, i may be a conservative or i may be a republican, but i'm not going to be duped. i think that's what they're running in into. they're trying to depend on people are so racist they will act stupid and they just don't have enough racist to go around this time. >> bob costa, i just -- i haven't understood donald trump's logic politically from the beginning of this presidency. he starts with really grim american carnage, inaugural speech, and we saw charlottesville where david duke was praising him saying this is why we all voted for donald trump.

again, started the process of really turning off suburban voters, both white and black educated suburban voters. we have gene talking about how this -- what he's doing in kenosha is doing the same thing. and you look at the atlantic article and what donald trump said accusing generals and admirals of basically being murderers for war profit and you look at kenosha and his refusal to condemn vigilanteism by a 17-year-old kid from out of state running around with an ar-15 killing people. it seems, like john heileman said, donald trump cannot get momentum because he's constantly doing things reminding these voters that usually vote

republican that this guy is not one of them. that he is a frightening presence in the white house and they want stability. >> in today's washington post i have a story with my colleague robert clemko about these issues. you see fundamentally an argument from president trump about american carnage, as you said. versus an argument about american character from vice president biden. remember the interview i did with bob woodward a few years ago of then candidate trump told us this line, really power is he said i don't want to say the word, real power is fear. and bob woodward made that the title of his book because he believed it was such a powerful quote that that's how president trump sees politics, real power is fear. and over the weekend i spoke with top republicans and they believe the president's message of fear about these movements,

about this reckoning in the country and race, law and order, the appeals to white grievance, not their phrase but they believe the president's appeals are working in the suburbs. they believe and maybe they're wrong, they believe there's this quiet trump voter, won't tell their neighbor, might not tell their spouse but will go into the voting booth and vote again for president trump. but i spoke with many democrats who said character does matter. and she says the governor, who's a democrat, won in 2018, a liberal won a seat on the state supreme court earlier this year so there are flickers of hope for democrats amid the flickers of fear from the right. >> if you look at the wisconsin polls that have come out this weekend one from rasmussen that shows donald trump down by 8

points, another one, a morning consult poll showing donald trump down by 8 points. the cbs yougov poll showing him down by 6 points all in if wisconsin. then the abc news poll, "the washington post" poll, showing when it comes to who americans believe can best handle this unrest, joe biden actually beats donald trump by 20 points. i know that trump people -- trump supporters love to say that oh, the polls were wrong in 2016. that's actually a gross over simplification. aren't you hearing concerns inside the trump campaign about how things are going now? again, a 20-point spread on what candidate would do a better job handling the nationwide protests? aren't you hearing from inside the white house concerns from some of trump's closest aides?

>> there's a lot of concern. because they look at this map of wisconsin, look at where vice president pence went over the weekend, to lacrosse, wisconsin, because if he wants to win the state again it's going to be a difficult path for president trump he needs to ramp up his numbers in in the rural areas, northern wisconsin, needs to stoke the suburban voters to his side. but the big thing for the democrats this time around they feel much better than secretary clinton's campaign because they feel in the city of milwaukee they can do a better job, i spoke to a milwaukee county executive, he believes black voters in the city are more engaged and enthused. if they can keep the president's numbers a little bit soft in the y suburbs biden has a clear path.

>> let's talk about turn out in the midwest. obviously vital. what could impact it? what might it be? >> mika, as we know, the election is going to come down to enthusiasm, which will lead to turnout or not. especially as an election unfolding during the pandemic, all the confusion about how to request a mccaail-in ballot, wh to request it, all of that is going to feed into the issue of turnout. but when you look at the midwest, the state of wisconsin, no surprise you had both presidential nominees on the ground in the same state because that's one of the states when you look back at 2016 decided by less than a 2% margin. less than a 2% margin. so turnout is going to be everything. but it's also going to be who they get to turn out. you have vice president pence as bob mentioned talking to dairy farmers in western wisconsin and

touting the deal of the usmca and how great the deal has been. and then you have senator harris in milwaukee meeting with jacob blake's family and black business owners. t the pandemic has just deepened the divides that existed. when you have the trump campaign talking about the v shaped recovery and the fact that the vaccine is coming a soon, they're talking to a certain segment of america, the folks who did not lose their jobs, r who are invested in the stock market. i talk to black and brown americans all the time who know someone who has been sickened by the coronavirus or died as a result. i talked to one black family in new york who said every time the phone rings we're wondering who's next. we know there are latino americans affected, unemployment rate almost hit 20% in the spring. and their v-shaped recovery has

not shown up in their neighborhoods. and they were not able to access the ppp funds that kept businesses afloat during this pandemic. it's two very different americas experiencing the pandemic differently and turn out for how enthused they are for the candidate they feel is going to provide the answers. >> the pandemic has not magically disappeared as you can see by the number on the screen there. i want to bring it back to the president's comments about the military. i talked to an admiral on sunday, former supreme commander of nato. he said of general john kelly. he encouraged him to speak out publically and affirm or deny the report. when i asked him why he thought kelly hasn't come out, he says you have to understand for career military men it's chain of command it's a huge step to speak out against a sitting president of the united states. but the admiral said, in this case it's too important and that

should go by the wayside and general kelly should come out and speak out. do you think at some point in this process we'll hear from general kelly, who obviously is at the center of those allegations, the comments, including one about his own son at arlington national cemetery or perhaps from general mattis? is this a moment those men might step forward and speak about the issue? >> i hope so. every morning i wake up and hope to see the headline that they spilled the beans and told america what went on. this is the time, right now. this week, this month, a time for general kelly, general mattis, general dunford, anybody in uniform close to him to speak out and tell the american people what they need to know. trump has no honor, no integrity. but kelly does and mattis does and dunford does. you mentioned the number in the corner, whichever side, about

10% of those, maybe 20% of them are veterans, right. veterans continue to be hammered by the covid virus, it's infiltrated the military. and they tested hydroxychloroquine on dying veterans. that's how little respect trump has for our veterans. they tested hydroxychloroquine on dying veterans and only about 600,000 of them. since the pandemic began the v.a. has only tested 600,000. if they care, why so little? >> thank you all so much. coming up, health officials are again warning about a potentially catastrophic surge in coronavirus cases which could start before election day. plus, a pledge from a top pharmaceutical -- from top

pharmaceutical companies amid concern that the trump administration is trying to rush a vaccine to help his campaign. "morning joe" is coming right back. ght back the united states postal service is here 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. ♪ eve♪ going faster than arica, closerollercoaster ♪ ♪ love like yours will surely come my way ♪ ♪ a-hey, a-hey-hey [music playing] ♪ love like yours will surely come my way ♪ -always have been.

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i want full transparency on the vaccine. one of the problems is with the way he's playing with politics. he's said so many things that aren't true, i'm worried if we have a good vaccine people are going to be reluctant to take it. but pray god we have it. if i could get a vaccine tomorrow, i'd do it. if it costs me the election i'd do it. >> i think that we have learned since this pandemic started, but really before that, there's little we can trust that comes out of donald trump's mouth. i will say that i would not trust donald trump. and it would have to be a credible source of information.

i will not take his word for it. he wants us to inject bleach, no, i will not take his word. >> should immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now, talking about endangering lives and it undermines science and what's happening is all of a sudden you have this incredible vaccine and because of that fake rhetoric -- it's a political rhetoric, that's all it is, just for politics. we're going to have a vaccine very soon. maybe before a special date. you know what date i'm talk about. >> joining us now senior white house correspondent, sv date, title of the book "the useful idiot". s.v. good morning. let me ask you about the book as someone who's covered this white house on the inside for now three and a half years and watched up front sometimes in the briefing room, sometimes

with notable questions that you've asked the president himself. specifically about coronavirus as you have in the title of your book. when did you first suspect or first realize that this was not a white house or at least a president that was taking this crisis seriously? >> right. well, i think that would have been in the third week of january when he got on tv and said this is all under control. we stopped it from coming in from china, there's one case, i think it was davos where he said that. and, of course, he had been skipping his intelligence briefings that would have shown him how dangerous this virus is and just how deadly it had been already in china. in fact, our own health officials knew this on new year's day, new year's eve and the president was golfing in mar-a-lago and didn't start talking about it for three weeks and then downplayed it for a month and a half. it was obvious early on this was going to be a big problem when

our own ranking official at the cdc said it's going to change our lives for the next coming months and i had to explain to my family. he lost it and wanted his people in the white house to walk that back. and that, of course, was a big mistake. >> gene robinson has a question for you. gene? >> s.v. how do you explain the president's inability to stick with one message on this virus? it seems like his advisers get to him and for, you know, half a press conference he sounds kind of reasonable and then he goes off the rails again and says we're going to have a vaccine by election day and we're going to do this, do that, and it's all clearly a lie. how does that happen? how do you explain it? >> well, look, the president gets a lot of compliments when he reads a script exactly as it's written off the

teleprompter. he gets compliments when he doesn't tweet. and i've often thought for the first three and a half years -- over the first three years anyway, if he stayed in the situation room basement and they had taken his phone away, he'd be up at 60% in the polls. and everything he's done to bring himself down is his own doing. it's his natural self. that is who he is. so when he goes off and starts with conspiracy theories about the china virus and suggests that well, maybe they did it intentionally and -- you know, come on, that's the person we elected as president. this should not surprise anybody anymore. it's those instances where he sticks to a message, that's when -- that's his performance. the rest is not performance. the rest is him. >> wow. >> government by gesture. you know, s.v. joe scarborough here. we had paul rieckhoff talking

about hydroxychloroquine being used on veterans in an experimental case, the president pushed it in the spring until the fda basically in their own way told him to stop saying it was dangerous. then talking about injecting disinfectan disinfectants, asking dr. birx to look into that. now we're hearing about the vaccine. again he's so crude in the way he does it. he's so obvious. as ann applebalm says of would be autocrats they don't try to disguise anything. he's talking about a would be vaccine before a special day. i went to get a checkup last week with my doctor who looked at me with a rye smile and told me, you know, they told me to be ready for a vaccine by early november and he just rolled his eyes. he said, they're just dreaming. this is a joke. who are these people?

but that's a question, again, that so many medical professionals are asking because this president thinks like he can lie about robert mueller, lie even about the republican intel report. he thinks he can lie about a virus and get away with it. it' been proven time and again, you can't bully this virus. >> no, you can't. remember, as he gives advice on when this sack seen might be available, he said back on february 26th of this year that this was going to be going away on its own. we had 15 cases that would go down to zero. a little after that, he said, when it gets warm out, it will go away. after that, he said, it will disappear. he continues to say it will disappear. remember his previous medical advice, including injecting that disinfectant and ultraviolet lights and others. i think, you know, reasonable people will say, you know, i want to hear it from the cdc,

and my doctor, whether this vaccine is safe and effective. not from the guy who suggested running out and buying lysol. >> yeah. the new book is "the useful idiot: how donald trump killed the republican party with racism and the rest of us with coronavirus." thank you very much. and this morning, the chief executives of nine drug companies pledged not to seek regulatory approval before the safety and efficacy of their experimental coronavirus vaccines has been established in phase 3 clinical trials. according to "the washington post," in an extraordinary effort to bolster public faith in a vaccine amid president trump's public rush to introduce a vaccine before election day, the joint statement reads in part, we believe this pledge will help ensure public confidence in the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which covid-19 vaccines are evaluated and may

altima thely be approved. the statement also included a vow that the companies would only submit for approval or emergency use authorization after demonstrating safety and efficacy through a phase 3 clinical study that is designed and conducted to meet requirements of expert regulatory authorities, such as the fda. joining us now, "morning joe" chief medical correspondent dr. dave campbell and dean of the brown university school of public health, dr. ashish jha. dr. jha, i'll start with you and ask you where we are with the coronavirus vaccine. people are going back to school, the year restarts in a way. i've noticed people loosening their own personal restrictions on the virus. is this something we can look at as behind us or still more coming? >> yeah, good morning, mika, thanks for having me on.

unfortunately, it is not behind us, as much as we would all like to put it hyped us and move on with our lives. when i look at where we are today, we went into memorial day with about 20,000 cases a day. of course, we saw a huge spike over the summer. we entered labor day with about 40,000 cases a day. about twice as high as we were on memorial day. we're entering the fall with kids coming back, college kids coming back and more people spending time indoors. i am worried. i am worried about where we are. i'm certainly worried about any sense people have that this is all behind us. >> dr. dave, fascinating statement by the top pharmaceutical companies in america, who appear to be pushing back against the president and the head of the fda, who have been talking about shortcuts, not going through the third phase of these clinical trials and trying to rush the

vaccine for election day. we had jonathan lemire saying for months that the white house has been obsessed with a vaccine as their october surprise. it looks now like actually the pharmaceutical companies may be putting the brakes on and saying, wait a second. we're going to make these vaccines go through the regulatory process to make sure they're safe before we start giving them to millions of people. >> in large part, joe, that's correct, but my interpretation of these statements from the top companies that are making the vaccines is, perhaps, a little different and a little more thoughtful about what they are saying. they're telling us that they are going to wait until they have what they believe is scientific, clinical proof of the safety and efficacy. i don't see them telling us they're going to wait until the end of a phase 3 clinical trial. that's a long way off.

so, they're trying to comfort a skittish country where two-thirds of americans in the "usa today" poll just came out and told us that those two-thirds of americans would not take a vaccine when it first comes out. so, as we see these number of large companies telling us that they are going to stick to the science, they're going to stick to the idea of thinking of the community first rather than any political pressures, it's very comforting, but i think that the idea of seeing a vaccine even into next year, i'm confident they're telling us we may do that, but that we are going to stick to the science first. >> dr. jha, we heard from the beginning of this, back in february and march when it really grabbed everyone's attention, that there would be a second wave. it might come back in the fall and it might come back in the

winter and correspond with flu season and be, perhaps, even worse than the first wave. we're hearing that again now as we turn out of summer, after labor day. some schools opening up again. some people trying to get back to some semblance of normal life. the imhe just came out with a huge projection of potential deaths by the end of the year. what interventions do you see as a public health expert that might blunt that and not maybe stop a second wave but make it better than so many of these projections are showing? >> the good news is we know so much more than we did back in march. we know how the virus spreads. we have a lot more information about how to curtail it and we are better articled going into the fall. the key things we need to do, we know them. avoid large indoor gatherings. that's going to get harder as it gets colder. i think in many, many places things like bar and indoor dining has to be really limited. and schools and colleges are

certainly, you know, grade schools have to get prioritized. if we're really going to do this. it turns out, as we've been saying since march, if we have excellent surveillance testing, a lot of private schools have gone out and bought surveillance testing so they can bring their kids back in. i want public schools to be able to do the same thing. the third but certainly not the least is everybody wearing masks. are we going to avoid the second wave? maybe want. can we avoid 400,000 deaths as imhe is suggesting? absolutely. it's really up to us and the tools are in front of us. >> yeah. and yet you have the president of the united states mocking a reporter yesterday who wouldn't take off his mask. >> thank you both for being on the show this morning. also we have some important new content for women at

knowyourvalue.com. we're rolling out the kyv pandemic reset starting on you the with all new advice for navigating the office at home. we'll talk about everything from how to put your best zoom face forward, now that everything's online, why it's important to really roll up your sleeves and do anything you can to keep the ship afloat, how to connect with your boss, which is a real challenge in a pandemic. we'll also show you why it's so important to keep on a schedule and stay on track and how to do that. how to ask for what you need from your employer within reason, and how to execute that. and a lot more. you can find all these articles coming out daily at knowyourvalue.com and you can follow us on social media as well. we'll be right back with new polling from the key swing state of wisconsin. "morning joe" is coming right back. look at that scuffed up wall.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is 8:00 a.m. on the east coast. let's jump into the latest polling on the presidential race with 56 days until the general l election, 21 days until the first debate and early voting is under way in a number of states. a new poll shows joe biden with a double digit lead over president trump. 52% to 42%. a look at wisconsin now, the latest morning consult daily tracking shows joe biden up eight points over president tru trump, 5 i% to 43%. the latest rasmussen poll shows the exact same numbers, and cbs

news news/yougov shows 50% for joe biden and 44% for donald trump. and more voters in wisconsin are siding with joe biden when it comes to those protests. 45% of wisconsin registered voters approve of the president's handling of the nationwide protests. 55% disapprove. 51% approve of joe biden's handling of the protests. when asked which candidate would make them feel more safe, 45% said the former president. now let's look at the polls nationally and the latest cbs news/yougov poll, 44% approve of president trump's handling of the protests. whereas 51% approve of joe biden's handling of the protests, 48% disapprove. in the latest abc news/ipsos

poll, 59% think biden would do a better job handling the nationwide protests, 39% think president trump would. 59% also say biden would do a better job reducing violence in the country. a lot of different polls to look at nationally and also those wisconsin numbers. >> yeah, the wisconsin numbers, obviously, so many people looking at wisconsin because to paraphrase tim russert, if 2,000 was about nor, florida, florida, many believe 2020 would be about wi wisconsin, wisconsin, wisconsin. john heilemann, it looks like every of donald trump's efforts to run an us theirselves them campaign in wisconsin, to somehow get closer to joe biden in wisconsin have are failed, he's down as we see 10 national

lip, but in wisconsin the last two polls that came out yesterday have him down eight points. i wonder if we file this under another failed experiment in this white house to preach a racist brand of law and order that has fallen on deaf ears. >> yeah, joe, i was in wisconsin all last week, so i feel like in addition to seeing the data that's been coming in in that state ever since the situation unfolded in kenosha on the initial shooting of jacob blake and kyle rittenhouse afterwards, i feel like i'm tuned in on this story and was there last week when trump was there and biden was there and talking to a lot of people. i think the numbers -- i haven't met anybody who knows anything about politics in wisconsin who thinks joe biden's going to win that state by eight points on election day. not a single person. i do think what the numbers reflect, to your point, is that

after all of that convulsion around the outbursts, again, as i said, the shooting of jacob blake, the protests, the riots, the burning, the two candidates making it ground zero last week, not much has fundamentally changed. not just since then but since the two conventions. if you go back and look at the polling in wisconsin all year, you've had a basically joe biden at that -- like a high single digit lead. everyone who's there, republican experts, democratic experts assumes we're going to end up -- donald trump won the state by 22,000 votes in 2016. the thing is going to tighten and be a couple points of a race. but what i think we've learned from this last week and what i found really -- from the ground, what i kept hearing over and over again was that joe biden and donald trump both came to kenosha. donald trump came and looked at the destruction, looked at the

burned buildings, talked about riots. joe biden came and met with the community, talked to jacob blake's family and a lot of people were very tuned into the fact that before donald trump came to kenosha, he would not do what joe biden had done, which is to condemn violence on both sides. and people saw that peach the night before -- the press conference the night before president trump came to kenosha, not only did he refuse to denounce kyle rittenhouse, and coupled with the way president trump conducted himself seen throughout the state, the compare and contrast between trump and biden, trump is seen as a force of division among the electorate in wisconsin, which i is why i think there's a ceiling to tighten that race up and other battleground states the same dynamic is in play when it comes to these protests and

racial injustice and police violence. >> willie, i think one of the biggest tells during that time was donald trump refusing to criticize in fact, i think he tweeted praise for a 17-year-old boy who drove across state lines with an ar-15, and started shooting people up, including a guy with a skateboard, and of course trump and other trump media outlets can try to defend kyle rittenhouse all he wants and courts can decide that, but if you're in wisconsin, you don't want a president who won't even condemn a 17-year-old running around your streets with an ar-15. anybody in any community across america would want a president to condemn that sort of lawless behavior. he couldn't even bring himself

to do that. >> can't do the easy things. we've seen this before when the focus of the country is on charlottesville or kenosha, wisconsin, for him to come in and take the side of someone else, in this case that 17-year-old you're talking about. to your point, john heilemann, this focus, this relentless focus on what the president calls law and order about making the streets safe, it is ignores the reason that the streets are empty, which is this pandemic. we're at six months now since people left their jobs, since people left school. the reasons that schools are empty this morning, this tuesday after labor day, the reason this office building and others across the country are empty is because of the pandemic and because of the response to the pandemic. isn't this at the end of the day what's going to decide the election? this is at the center of everyone's life right now. i mean, this is why we are living the way we're living and the president is still at press conferences asking people to take off their masks because he doesn't think they look cool or

they look weak or whatever his objection is to mask which everyone said we ought to be wearing. at the end of the day, people losing jobs, people losing loved ones, people not in school and work because of the pandemic and because of the response to it. >> yeah, willie, you would think, and certainly that's the thesis of the biden campaign is that all these diversions and distractions and attempts to frame joe biden in a negative way that trump and his campaign keep throwing up and the biden campaign is thrusting but in the end they keep coming back to that argument which is everything that's problematic about america in september of 2020 is the result of a failure to manage this pandemic, why is the economy bad, why are these social stresses, why is there a rise in crime in some areas, why is all of this stuff, the schools, everything that's wrong comes back to the pandemic and it's not donald trump's fault

for the pandemic existing but his manifest failure to manage it. that's the biden campaign argument. the thing you saw yesterday on labor day is what we're going to see over the course of the next eight weeks. we'll see donald trump do a lot of things. yesterday you saw both trump and really in a very direct way the biden campaign trying to bring things back to the pandemic and back to the economy. that is where the election will be decided and it's the one place where donald trump continues to have some hope. it continues to be amid all these bad numbers for donald trump. the biden campaign knows this. it frustrate them that joe biden is still ahead of president trump on who best to rebuild the economy. the biden has been trying to chip away at that but they keep finding themselves 56 days after the election, they still find themselves behind on that

question and they feel they have a lot of work. they blame trump for this economy but they don't necessarily that applies to which of the two candidates would be best to rebuild it once we're on the other side of the pandemic. that, i think, is going to be a huge focus of this fall. still ahead, just days after reports that the president insulted american troops, he's now attacking the military's leadership, too. that is next on "morning joe." ns of america, treating cancer isn't just what we do, it's all we do. and now, we're able to treat more patients because we're in-network with even more major insurance plans. so, if you've been turned down before, call us now. 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. makes it beautiful. state-of-the-art technology makes it brilliant. the visionary lexus nx.

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major elements of treportin atlantic" reporting. the president's disinterest in finding captured soldiers has been reported by "the washington post" and "the new york times." his discomfort with wounded veterans now confirmed by "the

times." he asks, what's in it for him while standing with john kelly at his son's grave has been reported bit associated press and "the washington post." the claim that the president didn't want to visit an american military cemetery in france in 2018 because it was, quote, filled with losers was also reported by the ap. sources also told "the post" and "the times" that the president questioned the intelligence of those who served in vietnam because unlike him, they didn't find a way to dodge service. and this is what national security reporter for fox news, jennifer griffin, confirmed. >> i've spoken with two senior u. u.s. officials who were on the trip to france who confirmed key details in "the atlantic" article. my source, a former trump administration official, said when the president spoke about the vietnam war, he said it was a stupid war.

anyone who went was a sucker. the president would say about american veterans, what's in it for them? they don't make any money. the source said it was a character flaw of the president he could not understand why someone would die for their country not worth it. regarding the frernlg trip to mark the end of world war i, according to this former official, the president was not in a good mood. french president macron said something that made him mad. he questioned why he had to go to two cemeteries? why do i have to go to two? regarding the president's fourth of july military parade planning, after seeing the bastille day parade in 2017, president trump said regarding the inclusion of wounded guys, quote, that's not a good look. americans don't like that. >> meanwhile, the president yesterday continued to deny the report that he has disparaged the military. at the same time criticized military leadership. >> the story's a hoax. ist a totally madeup story.

who would say a thing like that? only an animal would say a thing like that. there's nobody that has more respect for not only our military but for people that gave their lives and the military. i'm not saying the military is in love with me. the soldiers are. the top people in the pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars because all the wonderful companies that make the bombs and the planes and everything else stay happy. i said, that's good, let's bring our soldiers back home. some people don't like to come home. some people like to continue to spend money. one cold-heart, loveless betrayal after another. >> i really don't know what to say about that. complete ignorance of the men and women who run our military david ignatius, you know this

better than anybody, i found in my years on the armed services committee when we were getting briefings from generals, add myrr admirals, they were the last ones who wanted to go into war. dwight eisenhower loathed war. he was always a voice of caution. he was always the one trying to tell politicians before he was in the white house to send people to war. it is said after the korean war that he inherited not another american soldier died in combat the remaining years of his presidency. he gave the warning the military industrial complex, he knew civilians like donald trump and the presidency getting too close to war profit yeieeers and gett

too close -- as donald trump has done with a lot of military companies, could cause potential problems. david, even colin powell, who is only remembered for what happened at the u.n., he was asked why he didn't seek his council, he said because he knew he didn't want him to go in there. colin powell had that showdown with our dear friend madeleine albright talking about toy soldiers. saying, again, the general who had been through vietnam, as so many of these generals had been through vietnam, no, no. war is a last resort. david, haven't you found that time and time again, as donald trump insults our men and women in uniform, it is the generals, the add myrrhs who have seen war, who are the last ones who

want to go back there. >> joe, you put it exactly right. there's a deep conservativism and caution among people who had to order their troops to battle and have had to pick them up off that battlefield. just think about the little soundbite we heard from yesterday. put aside jeffrey goldberg's superb reporting about what trump said in the past. but aside jen crandall's confirmation, the fox news reporter who found these same terms, you know, military suckers for having gone to vietnam to trump's reluctance to go to the military, put all that aside and just listen to what he said yesterday on camera. he essentially accused our military leadership of putting young men and women in harm's way, exposing this em to violence and death, to serve the

interest of war profitiers. if you want to take donald trump's content for the men and women who run our military, you have to go no further than what he said on camera yesterday. it's in a pattern, in my reporting over the last four years, i traveled often with the military, would have been with the central command commander today if things had worked out the way we hoped. i have heard more and more people who wanted to give trump every benefit of the doubt. who were happy to have trump exercise less authority, less insisten insistence. they like that. the military saw something in donald trump, i think of it as a culture clash. they saw somebody who came from this unstru mental world, new york real estate where everything's a deal,

everything's transaction. and the military with its cultural professionalism of sacrifice just didn't get it. and i think the division began to widen starting in 2017. it's gotten worse and worse. let's want quarrel over jeffrey goldberg's quotes. let's just listen to what the president said yesterday and you'll know the essence of the contempt he feels for the military. coming up on "morning joe," american health care in crisis. a new book dives deep into the vast challenges facing the medical system. l system ♪

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biden cheered china's rise as a great power because great powers adhere to international norms of nonproliferation, human rights and trade. well, they diplomat. they took advantage of stupid people. stupid people. and biden's a stupid person. you know that. you're not going to write it, but you know it. i know john kelly. he was with me. diplomat do a good job. had no temperament and ultimately he was petered out. he was exhausted. this man was totally exhausted.

he wasn't even able to function in the last number of months. he was not able to function. he was unable to handle the pressure of this job. this job was a tough job. mark meadows doing a great job. kelly was unable to do that. >> if only john heilemann were here, he would tell you almost everything donald trump said is confession or projection. willie, when he's talking about joe biden being stupid, he understands that donald trump himself, he knows how ignorant he is of government, of history, the constitution. when he talks about china, talking about how great china is, it's donald trump who actually congratulated president xi on amassing the most power in china and having the most poe tal taryn government in china since chairman ma. he gave support for

concentration camps. it was donald trump who, i think it was january 23rd, january 24th, i'll have to go back and check, but actually congratulated president xi for his wonderful handling of the coronavirus and his remarkable transparency and said, on behalf of the american people, we thank you, president xi. again, confession or projection once again from donald trump. >> you can hear that over to his comments about general kelly which, i mean, we've gotten used to so much of this from the president. think about what he's thinking about saying general john kelly. president trump claimed bone spurs so he wouldn't have to fight in vietnam. he is criticizing john kelly as not tough enough to do job as white house chief of staff. the stories in "the atlantic"

corroborated by other news outlets, a lot of those stories come from the orbit of john kelly if not from himself. the president is bashing four-star marine general john kelly as not tough enough for white house chief of staff. >> you look at the comparison between john kelly as a father and donald trump as a father as it pertains to military service. john kelly saw his son give the ultimate sacrifice. the trump family admits that when don jr. told his father that he was thinking about going into the military, donald trump told him that he would be disowned if he did. of course, there will be a series of denialals coming from that. that's what the family has said. again, donald trump, again, continuing to abuse a four-star general who has given his life and saw his son give his life

dying for the united states, defending the united states. >> if you look at the people who are being put out there or, quote, to defend the president and deny these allegations from "the atlantic,atlantic," they a people who lied for the president over the years. people who are being bullied into saying this. people at the president's side, the sources involved here, are not the people that the white house is pushing to -- sarah huckabee sanders, was she standing there and yet putting out these statements denying these accusations as a person who lied for the president for several years when she served. it's all kind of twisted and pathetic and really hard to watch. moving on, joining us now we have a professor of history at yale university, timothy snyder, author of "new york times" best

seller entitled "on tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th century" and out with a new book, "our malady: lessons in liberty from a hospital diary." let's start there. your own personal experience with the health care system. >> well, my own personal experience with the health care system is like that of a lot of americans in the health care system. too many decisions are made not with the best interest of the patient in mind. we're allowed too late into hospitals, expelled too early as a result of decisions like that, i nearly died. this is part of the basis for one of the reasons so many of us have died during this pandemic. we have a system which is fundamentally not about the right of americans to have health care but which is fundamentally about the ability of people at the top of the system to make money. the pandemic has revealed this

like so many other things. >> so, timothy, you say it was a near fatal illness you write about this in book. you're talking about a system here. you're obviously acknowledge the greatness of our doctors and our nurses, which has been on display particularly over the last six months. what did you witness from your bed in terms of a system that needed repair and how do we begin to do it? >> yeah, the book is divided up into lessons. one of the lessons is actually put the doctors in charge. one of the most discouraging things about our system is that the doctors are totally disempowered. in fact, if patients realized just how disempowered the doctors are, we would really hesitate before going into the hospital. we're moving closer and closer to a world in which the doctors are basically just poster boys and girls for a medical system for profit. what i experienced was hard-working doctors, hard-working assistants,

hard-working nurses and transporters who were rushed, didn't have time, who had too much going on, who had record keeping which is about profit rather than information or exchange of information. what i experienced was a system in which every time a doctor or nurse tried to do the right thing, they were pushing uphill. they always had to push uphill. when you're pushing uphill, sometimes you don't make it and sometimes a terrible thing happens. >> what are they pushing uphill against? i mean, that's -- to hear that a doctor can't make the decision in real time that he or she wants to make is disheartening, to put it mildly. what are they pushing against? what's the resistance? who's pushing back on the other side? >> yeah, young men and women go to medical school for good reasons. they go to medical school because they want to keep people healthy and keep people alive. however, when they're in hospitals, their time is managed in such a way that they have to

see too many patients. the reason for that is a profit. when they're in hospitals, they face an incentive structure where they're supposed to perform procedures that can make money and they have less time to do the things that will keep us healthy over the long run. over the months and over the years, doctors, unfortunately, become discouraged. they become molded by the system. that's one of the reasons, i think, a centerpiece of health care reform has to be one designed by doctors and which puts doctors back in charge. that only makes sense when we start to think of patients as having rights. when we think of health care as a human right, as it is in so many other countries where people live longer in the united states. >> so, professor, in 2016 after the election of donald trump, you put a post out about 20 things -- i believe it's 20 things that americans should do to stand up to possibility of

becoming an autocratic leader. that turned into a book for you that was a best seller. just a runaway best seller. i think 65 weeks, the notes say here on "the new york times" best seller's list. obviously, you struck a chord. i'm curious, it's an ongoing debate we have on this show about institutions. you say support institutions. i'm curious what your thoughts are three years later on how the institutions have held up, how the courts have held up, how the media has held up and how the institutions of state have held up. >> this question of institutions is one reason why i wrote "on tyranny" in the first place because americans have think they will protect us but the thought that institutions are only as good as each of us, that's why the lesson of "on

tyranny" is to choose an institution and protect it. our institutions have been as good as we have made them about. there has been terrific first-person reporting out of the national newspapers but, unfortunately, we've watched the national newspapers die. there has been terrific activism of the protests, make a huge difference morally and politically. there has been some recognition by americans that we don't live in a place where authoritari authoritarianism is possible. we need more recognition of that, especially between now and november. one of the messages i tried to make is authoritarianism can sneak up on you. it's precisely when you think you're immune that you have the biggest problem. we're facing a much bigger crisis than we have to face. >> we have anne applebaum talking about what's happened in poland and hungary. obviously, what's happened in russia under the rein of vladimir putin. i'm curious how you compare our

experiences with experiences in those countries and, let's focus, for instance, on the courts. if we get through these four years and it's only four years and we look back and say, american institutions on the whole held up, is it our judiciary may be what's different about the united states as opposed to, let's say, poland or hungary or russia? >> first of all, if we get through the next four years, our thought has to be, how to make things a whole lot better than they are now. donald trump didn't come out of a vacuum. when the trump era comes to an end, we'll need to be thinking how we can make things a lot better in freedom than in general in 2016. when it comes to the independent judiciary, what we're seeing is how important that is because, of course, it's under threat.

one of the most important things that happened at the end of the obama administration is mr. obama was not allowed to support a supreme court justice. what we're now seeing is if you pack the courts in a political way, you allow and affect minority rule. we're in a strange situation where the party that runs the country is basically a party trying to stay in power by suppressing the vote and controlling the courts. that brings us to the other examples you mentioned. that is how an authoritarian takeover happens. there doesn't have to be a dramatic moment or revolution. there just has to be quiet progress in which the rules are exploited, the rules are bent and finally the rules are broken. now to december is now when the rules are going to be broken. now to december is the time when the courts and police and everyone else is going to have to be loyal to the rules rather than loyal to the man. >> the new book is "our malady:

lessons in liberty from a hospital diary." tim snyder, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. up next, serena williams breaks a milestone on her quest to win a 24th grand slam. plus, the moment that got the top-ranked men's tennis player disqualified from the u.s. open. writer and columnist mike lupica joins the conversation when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back look at that scuffed up wall.

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let's bring in best selling author and columnist mike lupica. his favorite robert e. parker's new book series.

let's start with lou brock. i'm one -- one of the things i do is, as an old man, is i often go back and look at the summaries of old world series on youtube once in a while. and if you look at the '64 series, if you look at the '67 series, even if you look at the '68 series, i grew up in the '70s with lou brock. i didn't remember how incredibly dominant he was and how the man's bat over 3,000 hits and his incredible ability of stealing bases, how it made him such a dominant player who changed the course of one big game after another. >> joe, people who aren't from the midwest just don't understand the importance of the st. louis cardinals. that is before, you know, baseball went to the west coast. and it's one of the capitals of

baseball. and that team of the '60s is one of the great baseball teams of all time. >> incredible. >> lou brock -- joe, he popularized the stolen base the way mauery wills. they could change the game with their skill and their legs. you know how close they were to winning three world series. they were up three games to one on the tigers in 1968. i asked jim mccarville bhofs on that team, how long did it take you to get over losing that series to the tigers? he looked at me over his glasses and said, you never get over it. and brock somehow over time -- i always thought he got lost a little bit about how truly great he was. he's been in the hall of fame since 1985. >> mike, speaking of icons, let's talk about what's going on at the u.s. open in an empty

arthur ashe stadium. serena williams becoming the first person to ever win 100 matches at arthur ashe stadium. she's won 23 grand slam singles titles. if she wins this u.s. open match she ties margaret court at 24 for all-time. you followed tennis for a long time. when you snuck into your 20s, people would say, you're getting on in tennis years. serena is 39 in a few weeks and she's still dominating people on the court. >> willie, what she and federer, in particular, they're basically the same age. roger just turned 39. i say this all the time. what she and venus have done, nothing like this will ever happen again in american sports. two siblings who have won the way they have. they come out of compton, california, and not only changed

the history of their sport, they changed the way their sport looked. everybody was worried if she played too many three-setters she might not have enough at this open. here she is in her second week. a lot of the top women are not here. you have to think that if she's not going to get number 24 this week, you wonder when she is. >> she's incredible. the number one player on the men's side, this bizarre moment two days ago. novak djokovic in frustration slams a ball back and hits the line judge in the throat. he says it was unintentional. i assume that's true. he wouldn't do that. i mean, he did -- he hit it a little harder than he normally would. he was frustrated. he was behind in that set. he was disqualified on the spot from the u.s. open. he's left. he's gone. can't play. what do you make of how that shook out. you can see on his face right there, he didn't mean to do it. she lay there for several minutes because it caught her right in the throat. >> willie, they all know the

rule about what they call abuse of ball. it kind of makes me thing of that hold "honeymooners" routine, hello ball. it was a one in a million shot. we were all watching it sunday afternoon. my son works for the tennis channel in l.a. and he called me at the moment and said, dad, he's impgone. i said, no. he said, read the rule. he hit that woman with the ball and he's out of the tournament. i thought, it just doesn't work in tennis the way it does in other sports. you can throw a fastball near some guy's head at 100 miles an hour in baseball, you get suspended for three games. but when this happens in tennis, this guy just lost his chance in his 18th major championship and people thought it was going to be like a walk over to the finals but he got exactly what he deserved for what he did. >> you know, it did not help his

case at all that he's obviously had a reputation of being a hot head in years past. you are right, the rules are the rules. hey, let's talk about the big ten really quickly. the big ten teams, schools voting. i think it was postpone the football season. president trump striking out angrily and almost demanding that the big ten play their college football season. what's your take on that, mike? >> well, let's see. what states were in play there for him. michigan and ohio and illinois. okay. >> and wisconsin, yeah. >> yeah, what's interesting to me about the big ten is, most guys who run college football, joe, you know this. they're good at two things. opening up the stadiums and cashing checks. now they're being asked to lead. and the big ten, first it came up with a schedule. then they announced the season was canceled. then they were going to start the season around thanksgiving. now it's going to be october and

people watch this and everybody wants these young men to get to play because they are getting this one chance at college football. but it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with all of college football going forward. once, you know, so many good schools have kids back on campus and what could go wrong with that, with football players joining the general campus population? so i hope they make it to the finish. i'm happy baseball is where it is. the nba and the nhl. but i've got to believe that it's going to be much more challenging on college campuses. >> yeah, mike, let's talk about your new book out. of course, triple threat is out. jack scarborough, a huge fan of all your books. let's talk about robert b. parker's grudge match. >> no, wait, i have to correct. i think i confused everybody. the new book out today is a new jesse stone novel called "robert b. parker's fool's paradise."

"grudge match" came out in may. i'm happy to talk about that, too. but jesse stone is one of my friend robert b. parker's iconic characters. and tom selleck played him in a series of television movies. and the response to the sonny randall novels, which were also his character, were so good, they gave me a shot at jesse stone. joe, i was going to come on and talk about my time as trump's personal lawyer and i realized that was another michael, so -- >> exactly. >> but when i was growing up as a writer, i wanted to write mysteries and i did at the start of my career. there was only one guy you read at that time and it was the great robert b. parker. for his sons to allow me to pick up some of his characters and to see how well they have been received is -- has been one of the great thrills of my whole career. >> very nice. >> and talk about how they've

been received and why you think they've been received so well and what people enjoy out of getting this book. >> well, joe, what everybody has been saying is, and again, he was my friend. i've read all of his books three times. so his voice has been in my head since i was in college, and everybody says that these books, i'm pleased to say, have captured his sound and his attitude and in this book, i even bring sonny randall in to have a continuing romance with jesse stone who is a tremendously interesting character. he's a recovering alcoholic, a police chief in a small massachusetts town, and one of the great book sites for books, mysteries and thrillers is real books and ryan who runs it says he was blown away by "fool's paradise" and that's good enough for me. >> all right, mike lipeca, thank you. robert b. parker's.

now also to a new study that finds that covid-19 has likely tripled the depression rate across the u.s. compared to before the pandemic. joining us now, child and adolescent psychologist, dr. jillian galen. she say program director at mcclane hospital in belmont, massachusetts. first of all, overall, what was the major message of the study, the big takeaway. >> the big takeaway was that we have really very significant increases in depression. so we're looking at three times the number of people reporting symptoms of depression than have in the past. >> and did you learn anything new from the report or did it confirm because we talked before on this broadcast with you about an uptick in mental health

issues due to this pandemic. did it confirm to you that we're headed in the wrong direction in terms of some key numbers and some key areas of mental health, specifically depression and potentially suicide? >> yes, so i wish i could say that it was new news. i think this confirmed everything that we were worried about. you know, depression is up, anxiety is up, and a second study came out in the last couple of weeks looking at 18 to 24-year-olds with really staggering data looking at them saying, you know, 1 in 4 are reporting very significant thoughts of suicide due to the pandemic. so now we're looking at 18 to 24-year-olds being in that high risk group right next to essential workers. >> dr. galen, willie geist. great to have you on. there's so much we haven't seen yet or haven't sorted through that we'll know about in the years to come about the impact

of these six months which will quickly turn into a year for a lot of people. and since you are a child psychologist, i'm interested and i'm sure a lot of our viewers are in your take on the impact of just being at home. schools are doing their best with remote learning, but it's a kid staring into a screen for five, six hours a day trying to stay focused, not seeing his or her friends. what is the long-term impact of that on a child? >> you know, i think we don't know yes what this is going to be. already this is the time where we're starting to learn much more about the impact of screens on younger children, on adolescents, even young adults. the concern is really the isolation. you know, not being able to be with your friends. so much of early education is not just about academics. it's about spending time with friends and navigating social demands, navigating impulse control. all of these sorts of things are really critical to younger kids. it's not just about the

academics, and that's not something you can replicate on a screen. >> let's talk about -- first of all, just stunning numbers. 1 out of 4 americans have seriously contemplated suicide during this pandemic. let's talk about some of the causes in this study. how does economic insecurity play in? the sort of economic insecurity we haven't seen in this country since the great depression. >> oh, she froze. here we go again. >> and now she's back. >> i'm back. >> doctor -- now you're back. and better than ever. so let's -- go ahead. >> so the economic impact is not surprising. you know, what we're seeing is that people that have significant financial stressors and one of the data points was

less than $5,000 in their savings account, is a 50% increase in people reporting depression. that economic stressors are significant. >> so what do we do? you've come on the show before the study came out and had suggestions about what we can do if 1 out of 4 among us are seriously considering suicide. what recommendations do you have for family members, for parents of those children and young adults. and also for friends. and also, what are some of the warning signs? >> so you know, the warning signs are people that are very isolated. when they're not doing the things they used to do. they're no longer reaching out or participating in activities. returning phone calls, text messages. you may be seeing them less on social media. you want to reach out. i said this last time. it's really critical to reach out to them and also, you know, to help them get help if they need help.

to take suicide and suicidal thinking extremely carefully. we know that suicidal thinking tends to ebb and flow for most people. often it gets worse at night when people are alone. so suicide is not the answer in those moments. what we need to do is help people get the help that they need because often again, those thoughts, they come and they go, and loneliness and isolation are probably the biggest warning signs. so reach out to those people. offer to talk to them. educate yourself about depression. figure out where the hot lines are. there's often crisis services in each person's town or county that you can call. they can come out to your house a lot of the time. if you need to go to the emergency room go to the emergency room. if you're having a hard time getting there, ask people in your life for help. >> dr. galen of the mcclane hospital in belmont,

massachusetts, thank you so much. >> and we want to show that number one more time. if you need help, if you need to talk to somebody, the national suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. that's 1-800-273-8255. >> and that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is tuesday, september 8th. let's get smarter this morning. there are 59 -- excuse me, 56 days until the election. and both campaigns are making a sprint across the swing states. it's election time. joe biden spending labor day talking to union workers in harrisburg, pennsylvania. while president trump heads to two battleground states today. he'll make an officia