thank you very much. >> so that was president trump wrapping up impromptu questions there taken by the press corps after announcing some potential supreme court nominees thanks to richard haas for sticking around. apologize for interrupting you earlier. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. how many people died because they believed donald trump's lies on coronavirus? that's the question looming over donald trump, who you saw right there dealing with it at the white house today in the wake of bombshell new revelations, including lordy, he's got tapes, of the president admitting as early as the beginning of february that he knew coronavirus would become devastating. here is just one of the recordings obtained by "the washington post" from bob woodward for his new book "rage. we should note these are short

pieces of that interview between woodward and trump put out by "the post. we don't know what became before or after these short exchanges. >> it's a very tricky situation. it's -- >> indeed, it is. >> it goes through air, bob. that's always toughest than the touch. you know the touch you don't have to touch things, right? but the air, you just breathe the air. that's how it's passed so that's a very tricky one. that's a very delicate one it's more deadly than your -- even your strenuous flus you know, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here who would ever think, right? >> i know. it's much forgotten. >> i mean, it's pretty amazing and then i say well is that the same thing this is more deadly. this is five per -- you know, this is 5% versus 1% and less

than 1%. you know, this is deadly stuff. >> his admission to bob woodward, more than two weeks after the first coronavirus case was discovered in the u.s. and according to his new book, donald trump was warned that the outbreak would become an historic crisis. from "the washington post" quote this will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency, national security adviser robert o'brien told trump quote, this is going to be the roughest thing you face. and yet in the weeks that followed that warning and donald trump's private acknowledgement to bob woodward of the human tragedy that was soon to come, here was donald trump's public message to the american people. >> a lot of people think that goes away in april with the heat, as the heat comes in typically, that will go away in april. we're in great shape we're going to be pretty soon at only five people, and we could

be at just one or two people over the next short period of time but that's a little bit like the flu. it's a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for and we'll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. >> it's going to disappear one day it's like a miracle, it will disappear it could get worse before it gets better. it could maybe go away we'll see what happens nobody really knows. >> distortions at best, outright lies at worst and they would all prove deadly what's more? trump got caught on the phone with woodward again in early march and admitted that he was deliberately downplaying the danger that coronavirus posed to the american people. "washington post" obtained that tape, too. >> now it's turning out it's not just old people, bob but just today and yesterday some starting facts came out it's not just old, older. >> yeah, exactly. >> it's including young people to be honest with you --

>> sure, i want you to be. >> i wanted to -- i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down. >> yes. >> because i don't want to create a panic. >> of course, that was just the beginning. as downplaying the virus gave way to outright dismissals of social distancing, mask guidelines and stay-at-home orders that his top scientists insisted would save lives, it's messaging that trump still sticks to today even as the u.s. death toll nears 200,000 the tapes are where we start today, with us from the aforementioned washington post ashley parker, robert gibbs is here and former democratic congresswoman donna edwards. bob woodward, your colleague, said when his last book "fear" came out that the truth emerges. i think that's a safe bet with trump and covid but it is jarring to hear trump admit in calls in february and march that he knew covid would be deadly

here in this country it suggests that maybe he did see the pdb prepared by his intelligence community around the same date that that first tape with woodward was recorded and then acknowledging to bob woodward who we must know wasn't talking to him for kicks, that it was going to be part of the public record, admitting that he intentionally lied about the dangers, intentionally likes to downplay it. >> that's right. there was already a damning narrative about the president's handling of this pandemic, which went something like, this is a president who doesn't trust science, who doesn't trust expertise, maybe he doesn't understand the science or the full scope or magnitude of the pandemic and that is why he has bungled this so badly. what bob woodward's book does is blows up that damning narrative for something even more devastating for the president, which this is a president who privately did understand the

magnitude of the virus and the potential destruction it had did understand how deadly and damaging it would be, that it was airborne and worse than the common flu, that it wasn't just older people, but younger people despite knowing this in private, he went forth to the public and misled the public. he told them it would go away, it would disappear, it wasn't worse than the common flu. now you have someone who is knowingly ignoring the science and evidence, in fact, when he knows better, when he has demonstrated in those conversations with bob woodward he knows better, his national security team has told him better and is still giving information to the public that very well led to the now colossal death toll we're facing, that's still growing. >> parker, something that struck me in listening to the tapes of trump talking to woodward that are embedded in "the post" story about the woodward book is that

donald trump tries to act smarter when he's on the phone with reporters and so he didn't deny knowing the intel, which told him in his pdb that covid was coming. it blows up the cover story. the cover story goes like this i was never brief bid the intelligence community my briefer didn't mention it, which was never plausible. when you hear the private conversation with bob woodward, and we know he tries to curry the favor and approval of reporters when in private with them that's why he later showed them the love letters between kim jong-un and himself. and he tries to act smarter than he does when he sort of plays, you know, a character in a mob movie at the press briefings but you see some of the other lies that have been told start to crack open when you listen to these conversations with woodward. >> that's exactly right. and it sort of -- right now, the white house is engaged, of course, in a ton of finger pointing as to whose fault this

woodward interview was frankly, interviews. the president, i believe, sat down or spoke on the phone with bob woodward 18 times. this is a president who, again, if you had done any basic research, you understand who bob woodward is. you understand the sort of rigorous reporter he is. you understand the books he has written. not just about previous presidents, but your own presidency and trump still believed that he could win over bob woodward, get him to write a positive book. as you said, curry favor with him and was overly confident in these 18 sessions he could bring bob woodward over to his maga team of course, that's not what happened we see the behind the scenes and the cracks between the public and private trump persona, especially with his handling of the coronavirus. >> robert gibbs, bob woodward, i believe, wrote four books about the bush white house in the

years after 9/11 they were all pretty unsparing, at least 3 3/4 were. in my experience, i know people talk to him. one thing very clear is that no one around trump likes him or thinks he's fit for the office he holds the trump story is known now, they won't leave him if and when he shoots someone on fifth avenue, if that should come to pass my question to you is the impact of trump in his own voice sounding so callous. what do you think the impact of hearing trump's voice on a tape saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, i knew i downplayed it but i knew i knew the intel >> yeah, i'm struck, because

this is a time just in that quick back and forth with the press, this isn't trump battling against some anonymous source. this isn't trump battling against something somebody said a long time ago. this is trump now battling his own voice just a few months ago. it is a story that has been with our lives fully, 100%, for the last seven months. and to listen to him say at a very early stage that this was five times or more than five times deadly than the normal flu and that he always and still does want to downplay it, voters in the suburbs know friends who have died from this, have family that have died from this and they don't blame trump for having brought the virus to america but they blame trump, and now they can in his own words, for not acting strongly enough to do something about it, for downplaying it for all of those people that

walked around and said you can't get this it's just a head cold. it's nothing to worry about. all those stories of those people that have died are because for months and months, nothing was done in a way that should have been to take care of the most deadly thing we have faced in 100 years. >> robert gibbs, after he makes that comment to woodward about -- and he says it in his inane way. it's not a touch thing it's an air thing. he plans a rally in tulsa, where social distancing isn't required, masks are not recommended or encouraged or worn by any of the speakers, and it's indoors so, again, we spent a long time wondering what his intent is, what he knows at the time that he commits these heinous sort of publicly negligent acts about covid, but when he planned and participated in the tulsa rally,

he knew covid was airborne. >> right just a few days ago, he's arguing at the white house on labor day with a reporter wearing a mask i mean, this was a crisis that demanded the strongest response, and somebody who dealt with the public communication around this in the utmost serious way, that walked the american people through exactly how dangerous this was and exactly what they needed to do we needed franklin roosevelt's fireside chats we needed winston churchill and, unfortunately, we got donald trump. we got somebody who believes if they convince somebody that what they see and feel and hear isn't there that somehow he can make all that disappear and this was a deadly virus that passes, as he said, and he fully understands, through the air you can get it through breathing. it's deadly. it's more deadly than the flu. and that didn't change the actions that he took in dealing

with that deadly virus. >> donna, it's interesting that robert gibbs mentions sort of the need for a fireside chat, someone to talk us through that. and all of you have participated in that by being here sort of day in and day out, and taking us through the reporting a lot of what we all covered is tony fauci who under normal presidents is a trusted and usually beloved adviser, who has an encyclopediaic mind because of the way the president and the right have treated him here is what fauci says, according to woodward. fauci at one point tells others, quote, the president is on a separate channel, unquote, and unfocused in meetings with rudderless litership, according to woodward. his attention span is like a minus number, according to

woodward his sole purpose is to get re-elected donna edwards? >> wow i am just having a hard time processing the fact that the president of the united states intentionally deceived the american people about what he knew to be true in january, early february that has resulted in millions of people losing their lives and more than 190,000 people dead, millions more being infected. and here you have what dr. fauci has observed firsthand, which is the president of the united states -- not only did he deceive the american people, but he then refused, even privately, to pay the kind of attention to the crisis that he knew was building you know, i think about the many times between january and march that he went out and he

intentionally told people, don't wear masks don't worry about this it's like the seasonal flu, when he knew that it wasn't and some of us have had family members and friends who have died and who have gotten this infection, and the president of the united states deceived us. he lied to us. and he has to be held to account. and now we can, because we have what's been confirmed in his own words. i am so angry, nicole. >> yeah. you know what? let's stay here, donna i think you're right there are other revelations, there's other sound we're going to play. let's not rush past this what you just said is the bottom line, right? we've been covering a global pandemic that, if we're lucky, has sent us home to work and home with our children to be at home, to be safe, to protect ourselves.

but that's only the lucky people everybody who is an essential work worker, working in transportation, they don't have that luxury. for the covid circulating in their communities, it didn't have to be plenty of countries, six or seven, have it reigned in. they don't have hundreds of people dying every day, they don't have tens of thousands of new infections every day donna, i just want to -- not stay in the anger, but stay in this revelation. he knew exactly what covid was and sometimes it's hard to believe that he knows more than he acts like he knows. that goes against his type i would add all the people around him did, too. all the people who helped plan the tulsa rally, all the people who moveer moved he and the vice

president around and around, they knew they were endangering the lives of everyone that came into contact with them "the washington post" has an incredible body of reporting about all the sick people at secret service who had to do all this moving around with him. my question, donna, is what more basic failure to lead and protect the country could there be >> well, i mean, i always think that every week, nicole, we've gone to some new level on the meter of outrage, but there is no greater responsibility of the president of the united states than to protect its people and to do it in a way that is transparent so that people trust, above all else, that they trust what comes out of the mouth of the president of the united states. and i don't want to go to tulsa. i want to go to that time period between january and mid-march, before shutdown, when the president knew that we should be all wearing masks, that it was airborne

the president knew, in fact, that many more people would die than died of the seasonal flu and that this was equivalent to the 1918 pandemic. he knew all of those things, but he acted against our interest anyway you know, it's fine to focus on where we are now, but not to factor in the fact that we didn't have to be in this place at all, in fact. the time that was lost between not delivering ppe and encouraging people to do the things that would protect themselves in that early time period that could have made all the difference and the lives lost and the health that was jeopardized of millions of americans. and we haven't even finished the toll it continues to this day because of the president's initial deception of the american peopl

people. >> ashley, to donna's point, the deception that's been revealed by woodward will now stay with them, and they still want people to do things, the vast majority, 60% of americans are still nervous about any sort of in-person school most companies are very reluctant to bring anyone other than essential employees into the workplace. everyone else that can work at home the president wants to go in another direction, wants people to do things that are contradicted by the science and the scientist. does the white house feel any sort of sense of being caught, being caught knowing the dangers, hearing the president's own voice on these tapes >> well, they're certainly aware of how problematic bob

woodward's book is, especially because he has the tape. the president can't just say i never said that. it's not true. there are rare assistances, including the access hollywood video of last campaign where the president is caught on tape and there's something about hearing the president's voice. "access hollywood" hearing his voice and seeing him, it's so much harder to lie and/or spin, because it's not just a he said/he said there are tapes. may go against the best advice of the experts, i will say even before bob woodward's book, you saw the president a little bit yesterday, i believe it was, acknowledge the challenges when everything has become so politicized. if there is a vaccine, the president and the scientific community, if it's a safe vaccine, wants everyone who should be taking it to take the vaccine. the president had to acknowledge

that there are certain people who don't trust a vaccine that emerges from this administration, that is rushed throu through. and these people aren't the sort of anti-vaxxer crowd it's that i don't trust this administration and now another reason to say i don't trust a single thing that comes out of this president's mouth even when it comes to a pandemic, even when it comes to the lives of the citizens he's supposed to watch over. >> let's see how joe biden reacts to the same dynamics that ashley parker is talking about let's watch. >> his failure has not only cost lives, he sent our economy in a tailspin it cost millions more in american livelihoods this is a recession created by donald trump's negligence, and he is unfit for this job as a

consequence of it. how many schools aren't open right now? how many kids are starting a new school year the same way they ended the last one at home. how many parents feel abandoned and overwhelmed? how many front line workers are exhausted and pushed to their limits and how many families are missing loved ones at their dinner table tonight because of his failures it's beyond despicable it's a dereliction of duty it's a disgrace. >> robert gibbs, it's been a while, i think, since a book changed sort of the contours of a presidential election in the final 60 days, but i think what ashley parker is talking about is absolutely correct. the only sort of pattern to recognize here is trump's own voice saying something

reprehensible and trump himself saying it. i think the parallel here is trump and the "access hollywood" tape we've heard three of the recordings as "the washington post" reported there were 18 interviews what do you think we should buckle up and prepare for? >> i was going to say so, the pilot has illuminated the fasten seat belt sign because there's turbulence in the area look, i can only imagine what's left look, we're struck by the fact -- you've been through this process with bob woodward. i have, too. he is the greatest journalist of a generation he reconstructs everything up to that point puts the president's questions in front of the president. this isn't a gotcha. donald trump knew exactly what he was going to get asked about. and he thought he could talk his way out of it. he thought he could talk his way out of it, just like the way he

thought he could talk his way out of it like the american people now as you said, as ashley said, now it's his voice in february and march against his voice now. and i think this will be much, much harder to run away from this isn't some anonymous general. this isn't some anonymous pentagon official. this is donald trump against donald trump i don't think this is going to move 20% or 10% of the voters. he famously said he could walk down fifth avenue, shoot somebody and not lose support but if you look at poll after poll after poll, donald trump doesn't get the support he got just four years ago. right? there are people that are on the donald trump train that have gotten off and this will convince more and more of those people exactly what joe biden said he can't do this job it's too big for him it's a dereliction of duty the utmost duty to keep your

people safe. and i think that's in the end what donald trump is going to suffer most from the sheer inability to be able to do this. >> robert gibbs and donna edwards are being asked to stick around ashley parker will go and do some more reporting on this extraordinary day. donald trump's department of homeland security former member joins us a new whistle-blower from dhs alleging he was told to step down from providing intelligence on threats from russia because it would make the president look bad, and if there wasn't already enough news today the united states attorney general has done the full monty, becoming trump's personal consigliare, taking on

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including disturbing words from trump about race here is what the president said on june 19th when woodward asked him about white privilege. >> but let me ask you this i mean, we share one thing in

common we're white, privileged, who my father was a lawyer and a judge in illinois, and we know what your dad did and do you have any sense that that privilege has isolated and put you in a cave to a certain extent has it put me and i think lots of white, privileged people in a cave, and that we have to work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain, particularly black people feel in this country? do you -- >> no. you really drank the kool-aid, didn't you just listen to you wow! no, i don't feel that at all. >> "the post" reports, quote, in another conversation about race on july 8th trump complained about his lack of support among black voters saying, quote, i've done a tremendous amount for the

black community, he told woodward, and honestly i'm not feeling any love elizabeth newman, former assistant secretary for threat prevention and security policy at dhs, who we enjoy talking to very much on past programs, robert gibbs and donna edwards are still with us. elizabeth, let's get your reaction, first, to donald trump knowing the threat to the american people from coronavirus and doing nothing. if anything, doing something worse than nothing as donna edwards points out going out and having his public statements distort, misrepresent and lie about the truth, about the intelligence he was in possession of. does that ring true to you for bringing him other kinds of threats? >> it's absolutely consistent with what i experienced in january. i was actually relieved when it was reported that he had the audio recordings so we could finally hear it directly instead of the spin we usually hear from

the white house. multiple people were ringing the alarm bells in january, saying we needed to lean in, we needed to activate the plans we've had in place for 15 years and, to do so requires consistent communication to the public. i thought the white house's response this afternoon that he was just -- he didn't want to cause a panic, that this is what leadership is, you're looking out for your people and making sure they don't panic. that is contradictory to what all of our plans when it comes to response, when you're talking specifically about a pandemic or any type of other threat, a terrorist threat or a natural disaster all of our plans call for clear, consistent communication in a timely manner through designated points of contact who are educated aboutwhatever this threat is. while you see at points in our government an attempt to do

that, an attempt to have dr. fauci or dr. birx be that spokesperson, the president has trampled all over their message and created so much confusion. let's go back to the revelation today that he didn't want to panic people the way you don't panic people is you give them the facts you speak clear ly the medical community, scientific community was telling us what we needed to be doing at that time. by doing that, it would have sent a very strong signal to all the men and women in the government that are trying to do the right thing. that he had their back, to lean in and treat this with the urgency it deserved. instead we saw the opposite effect you saw fema and public health officials trying to figure out how do i actually do my job because i think i'm leaning in, being urgent and get the ppe and activating the defense emergency act. they were talking about that in january.

instead they were hearing from their president, no, no, no. no big deal. it's going to go away on their own. that creates a chilling effect that the senior most officials in the government are trying to figure out how do i tell my staff to lean in, but don't talk about it too much, don't tell the american public we're doing anything because it might get back to the president and he might get back to me that's what january and february were, utter incompetence, and absolutely i think he is responsible for the deaths of americans. he had that columbia university study that said even if we had done a shelter in place one week earlier, it would have saved 36,000 lives and if we had done it two weeks earlier, it would have prevented 84% of the deaths and 82% of the cases there's an argument to make. and when we get to the other side of covid and do the lessons learned and you find out what actually happened, we probably should have been implementing measures in mid-february think what that would have done in terms of saving lives but also helping our economy to

recover faster, because we wouldn't have had as sharp of a public health concern, because we would have contained it early on it's so devastating how incompetent he is, and he cannot continue to be our president too many lives have already been lost. >> elizabeth, let me just push you a little bit on the vertebrae tense. it would seem to me that he's still getting people killed. >> absolutely. >> after our last conversation, you were talking about al qaeda being a threat and now the threat is very clearly terrorist, domestic terrorists who believe in a white supremacist ideology we talked about how he doesn't want to see those kinds of warnings the white house rebuffed them. there's a new whistle-blower this one is on russia, but this constant sort of shutting down of the airing of threats to the homeland is staggering and it makes the crimes for

which he was impeached almost look like they're just on the shelf with a lot of other ways that donald trump functioned i mean, you couldn't bring him threats to the homeland if they were domestic terrorists from white supremacists you can't bring him threats to national security if it comes from russia. you can't bring him public health information if he doesn't like it or it goes against what he's saying in his two-hour long briefings that are full of lies, lice that kill people. my question to you is, he's still telling those lies he's still responsible for people getting sick, staying sick, not wearing masks, going to parties without masks on. the super spreader events are always people who don't believe the science. he's modeling the most sort of public science denial behavior in the country, as the president. why aren't there more people

like yourself leaving and speaking out about that? >> well, nicole, i completely agree with you it is a problem that is continuing that's part of the reason i decided to speak out it's covid it's the white supremacist threat it's election interference if we have four more years of this man, who knows what types of decisions are going to be brought to his desk and he will answer the question based on do they like me or not? do they stroke my ego? does this help me with my base those are the ways that he faces national security questions. it is an abuse of power, absolutely a dereliction of duty and i go back to -- and i said this multiple times. when i evaluate a candidate, it's policy, character, competence i knew going into 2016 he lacked character. i was kind of hoping he had more competence than he clearly has, and i was totally wrong about that and i kind of was hoping that we

could steer him in the right direction with policy but it turns out if you lack that character and you lack competence, there's no amount of adults in the room that can steer you in the right direction. like he is -- he is destroying our country to its core, to its fabric with his rhetoric and my concern is that that will eventually manifest itself in other physical threats, whether you have competing political activist groups that are increasingly violent and increasingly going at each other in that violence, and we've already had three deaths in the last couple of weeks we're going to see more of that because his rhetoric is designed to instill fear. it's designed to cause more violence and it's recruiting more people to that violent cause. and we're just going to continue to see more of that. yeah i just -- i don't know how much

more clear you get than the man's own words on that tape and i hope that those americans that are on the fence, including those people that are in the administration still serving, i understand how hard it is to walk away and be concerned that you're going to receive a backlash or that your friends won't talk to you anymore, or that you might get criticized on both sides for ever being part of the administration. i'm telling you, your country is more important your honor, your credibility, your conscience is more important than any job you currently have right now and any justification you're building up in your head as to why it's okay to continue to support this man. >> donna edwards, i want to ask you about the comments about race and add this one. woodward reports that trump was dismissive about former president barack obama and told woodward he was inclined to refer to him by his first and

middle names, barack hussein but didn't in his company to, quote, be very nice i don't think he's very smart, trump told woodward. i think he's highly overrated and i don't think he's a great speaker. >> my initial reaction to that is donald trump does so much protection that every single thing that he said about president obama are things that you could attribute directly to donald trump he is not smart. he's not a great speaker and he's not competent so, you know, i think that the american people can see that for themselves president obama, to this day, is held in such high esteem not just in this country but around the world donald trump only wishes he had a sliver of the esteem that president obama has. so, we should just dismiss that. and i have to say on his own

comments about race and about black people, it's been evident for a long time, i think and it's been hard for me to say it, because i don't use those words lightly, but the president of the united states is a racist, and we have to decide whether we want a racist to continue to be worthy of our vote andof our constitution. >> robert gibbs, i want to ask you a different version of this question the great ashley parker has written this story, you know, that you say you lie i don't lie, you lie i'm not a bad speaker. you're a bad speaker this is almost like a reflex and the obama obsession is some sick bleep i mean some really sick stuff. we covered where he has this fetishized bizarre act

i call it 50 shades of a racist pig. i agree with donna, that we should get comfortable saying that donald trump is governing as a racist. i don't know what's in his heart but he certainly governs and speaks like a racist what do you think the obamas think, just of his sheer obsession with them? >> barack obama has been living rent free in donald trump's head for more than a decade he owes back rent to donald trump. look, my guess is he is wildly amused it is on full display that donald trump defense mechanism, right? if somebody in a room is perceived by others to be smarter, to be a better speaker, then he's going to go say, no, they're not. look that, person isn't that smart. that person isn't a good speaker. i mean, there's a pattern and an obsession to this. i mean, look, i think if you

read mckay hopkins from years ago on this, there's always been a complex that donald trump has had about looking in on other people and not being seen as part of that crowd of having to look into that. and i think it has -- it governs his actions. it governs his words it governs his thoughts. and in this way it's manifested itself time and time again, whether it's an african-american leader, whether it's a black reporter, the reaction to them is just sharper than it is to others and i think that's not lost on people. >> donna edwards, robert gibbs, thank you both so much for starting us off. elizabeth neumann we would love for you to stick around for a little longer. thank you all. after the break, dangerous and unfit, what donald trump's senior military and intelligence officials say about him behind the scenes that's next.

bob woodward's revealing new book goes way beyond his conversations with donald trump that are taped about things like coronavirus and race according to "the washington post," woodward also includes and reports on the exaspiration

of former chief of staff general john mattis. mattis quietly went to washington national cathedral to pray about his concern for the nation's fate under trump's command and, according to woodward, told coats there may come a time when we have to take collective action since trump is dangerous. he's unfit carol lee has had a chance to read bob woodward's new book for all of us and elizabeth neumann, former senior staffer in donald trump's homeland security standing by. carol, you know these players, have covered all of these national security officials. in some ways a lot of them are veterans of the administration in which i worked. their feelings were known but

we've never really been able to see them aired publicly. mattis was so despondent he went to the national cathedral to pray and coats wondered if he was really compromised by russia this is his senior most official talk about the portrait that woodward paints about the officials working for trump. >> it's more detail on things that we already kind of new, going back to even our own reporting in 2017, where the president started to really sour on his national security team, ask questions and challenge them in ways that they found really starting, tried to push policies that they felt were not in the united states' best interest and what we see here is someone like mattis, for instance. he has spoken out. he wrote an op-ed in "the atlantic" a few months ago we haven't really had his own

words put to what we all knew in our own reporting, what he felt and how he viewed the president and a bunch of decisions i mean, he quit over the president's decision to abruptly withdraw u.s. troops from northeast syria after a conversation wit we knew that dan coates, you know, had struggled with his relationship with the presidhout resigning, but what this gives us is more texture and more really just hearing from some of these senior most officials in their own voices others like john bolton as you know, former national security adviser, who haven't come out and decided to say a number of these things themselves. this explicitly. so it's really startling to hear, to kind of put more detail on things that we've been reporting on and been hearing from officials for you know, almost four years now. >> one of the things that struck

me is the contradiction between the way he talks about kim jong-un. he describe describes their interactions as magical then more reporting, more woodward matches the same reporting that we've been talking about since late thursday in the atlantic. he describes his top generals in a word, it's a quote, from trump. it starts with p and can't say it on tv >> right >> more proof that he loathes his military generals. >> yeah, what's so interesting about that is if you remember during the transition after president trump was elected, president-elect trump, he really embraced the idea of generals. he felt like it was macho. look at my generals. mad dog mattis that soured quickly. within months, the president was

in private e meetings that we and others reported on disparaging the generals, saying they didn't know anything because they weren't on the ground mostly, it speaks to this larger thing we've seen with the president, he likes people until they tell him something he can't do or something he shouldn't do something he wants to do that's where we saw this relationship with the president and his generals really fray the kim jong-un stuff is really interesting. the president talks about his letters to him, but says his letters to kim jong-un are private. that's classified. can't see those. we get this portrait f what kim jong-un says about president trump, calling him your exlensy, really flattering language, and we don't know what president trump wrote back because those aren't disclosed >> to let this sink in, folks, generals are dummies in trump's view kim jong-un is magical i want to get you both on the record on the breaking news this

afternoon from "the washington post" that senior department of homeland security official brian murphy says in a new whistleblower complaint, on two occasions, he was told to stand down on the russian threat in the election because in part quote because it made the president look bad elizabeth, here we go about the president and russia >> it's so disheartening it seems the department is being politicized and i know the men and women at our intelligence and analysis shop ina. they're patriots they work hard to try to understand the threat and their unique role is to help explain it to our big local partners, private sector partners, so that they can be prepared to mitigate whatever the threat is so in the election security space, particularly it's really

important to be able to clearly articulate who's doing what and for what purposes and the fact that russia has been doing activities in support has been probably acknowledged by other intelligence professionals and also been publicly acknowledged that iran and china are also doing some things and the administration seems to like to emphasize that latter piece that i have to say that when you go back to what the intelligence community has said, what has been publicly reported, they are emphasizing that russia is more heavy handed in that interference than the other guys it would seem appropriate for them to send out those intelligence bulletins i thought the excuse the department used when this story broke last week that the document wasn't up to sufficient quality. i found that to not hold a lot of water

there have been many other products we've put out that have been criticized for not being a good quality and we learned from that process but even if you were holding something to make it better, you don't wait two months. turn around usually within a week it's clear there's some sort of meddling going on. it's really disheartening because the department has an extremely important mission and the more that we have this interference into the intelligence community, which is supposed to be very bright red line, the policy, the politics, do not interfere with intelligence and the more you see that tinkering, the less americans feel like they can trust their government >> and carol lee, it's four years later. the government struggled four years ago. mitch mcconnell didn't want this to get out the fbi kept it secret from the electorate now, it's inverted, right? the security agencies are going to congress as whistle blowers

because they can't even bring this information to the highest level of the executive branch, donald trump, as it pertains to election meddling this time around >> yeah, this is going to be one of the stories of the trump presidency this theme of people who work for the president. whether the intelligence community, the military, the department of homeland security, the justice department having to calibrate their information or sort of shape it in a way that is digestible and acceptable to the president and as we've heard in a number of n instances, including this new revelation, that won't angle the president. won't upset him. we've seen this in a number of o occasions and this is just another data point in that theme throughout this presidency >> don't make him mad. he might tweet at you. spoiler alert. you'll survive thank you both for spending some time with us

the next hour starts after a very short break don't go anywhere.

he knowingly and willingly lied about the threat on the country for months he had the information knew how dangerous it was and while this deadly disease ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose. the it was a life and death betrayal of the american people. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. joe biden came out swinging donald trump today over damning

new revelations over bob woodward's new book, rage, about the president's disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 190,000 americans and sickened more than 6 million others "the washington post" published its first report on woodward's new book today in which it reveals that trump was fully aware of the seriousness of the virus as early as late january the post also published audio of a february 7th conversation between bob woodward and donald trump in which trump reveals that the situation was more desire than what he was saying publicly >> it goes through air, bob. that's always tougher than t touch. the air, you just breathe the air. that's how it's passed so that's a very tricky one. that's very delicate one it's also more deadly than your you know, even your strenuous flus >> about six weeks later as the

pandemic was fully raging in the united states and the nation was starting to shut down, trump admitted to woodward a that he had tried to play down the virus. >> it's clear just from what's in, on the public record, that you went through a pivot on this to oh my god, the gravity is almost inexplicable and unexplainable. >> well, i think, bob, really, to be honest with you. >> sure, i want you to be. >> i wanted to, i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down >> yes >> because i don't want to create a panic >> and here's a look at some of the many, many, times in recent months that he has tried to do just that. >> looks like by april, you know in theory, when it gets a rit l warmer, it mir ak yously goes away hope that's true when you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is

going to be down close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done it's going to disappear one day. it's like a miracle. it will disappear. and from our shores, it could get before it gets better. maybe go away. we're prepared we're doing a good job with it >> back in late february, you predicted that the number of cases would go down to zero. how did we get from your prediction of zero to 1 million? >> well, it will go down to zero, ultimately it's going to go away and we're not going to see it again hopefully after a period of time you may have some flare ups. >> a short time ago, donald trump justified his actions by saying he down played the pandemic because he didn't want to create a panic. contradicting his own press secretary, who said earlier today, he never down played the virus and that is where we start this hour with nbc and msnbc national affairs analyst and former democratic senator.

i saw what some of you were filling up on before today's program, so in that spirit, i'm going to start with you,claire mccaskill. >> yeah. you know, i am so tired of that sacred podium with that seal on it being used to lie to the american people. and so many times this president and his minions have used that podium to lie to the american people and to kill them. to kill them he has killed people with his lies and for him to come out there with a straight face today and say he didn't want to panic anyone nicole, he's running a campaign based on fear and panic. all he campaigns on is that the suburbs have to be scared to death of black people move ng. or that they have to be scared to death of riots in the city that there's carnage on the streets. he is all about fear in his campaign

the only reason he lied to the american people is he wanted to protect the stock market and his re-election. he could have cared less that he was killing people in this country. because he doesn't mind panicking people he doesn't mind striking fear in their hearts he does it every day in his campaign so this is just enough is enough i don't know what these people out there that are holding on to this guy see all i see is a whacko who is killing people in america. >> i mean, let me just push you in this direction. do you think that trump in his own words is harder for trump to explain away as you know, fake news or whatever and anything he likes to say, when he's caught doing what you just said

lying to a point where he kills people i mean i'm still haunted by the convention speech of the young woman whose father was an avid and enthusiastic and really psyched up trump supporter who went back out in his community and died of covid weeks later. he was at a karaoke bar while the pandemic was still raging. she gave that speech saying my father's only preexisting condition was trusting trump it is not hyperbole to say that his lies have led to people dying of covid do you think that in the lies sort of confessed in his own words, will land dimfferently? >> i think they will i think particularly the tape where he explains to bob woodward that it comes through the air, that you get it from breathing. so, he's acknowledging in his own words, on a tape, that it

isn't about touching things. it is about breathing the air. then he thought he needed to have the adoring crowds in tulsa. he knew. then he thought it would be okay to make fun of people for wearing masks. then he thought it would be okay to not talk about mandating masks. he knew that this is how people caught this disease. he understood what masks were doing. they were saving lives he didn't care he just didn't care. and it is astounding to me that he is leading this country that we love. i don't know how this happened how did we get this far afield that we have this kind of man with no character integrity lead ing this great nation? i can't wait until it's time to vote i just can't wait. >> john heilemann, privately and on television, we've had a lot

of conversations about the contours of this race and the campaign that joe biden is running. i think in my opinion, he's had the strongest seven days as a candidate since he's been running in this time in this cycle. but trump continues to give him opportunities to fill the leadership void. the presidential individual. it's almost like every day he gives him the i am the president moment, which is so weird because trump is technically speaking, the president. i think these tapes from woodward arctticulate like a willing abdication of the role and i wonder what you think joe biden's opportunity is here. >> i think it's vast, the opportunity. because really, you know, i think you're right, that biden has been on a very strong seventh days and partly it's fascinating right, coming out of the republican convention, a lot

of democrats were concerned that trump changed the subject to law and order and that would favor fued trump in that kenosha had opened the door to shifting the conversation away from trump's leadership on coronavirus. so you had biden come out of, get out on the field, the playing field, a week earlier than he really planned to and was very aggressive last week. from pittsburgh to wilmington to kenosha to the speech on friday reacting to the jeffrey goldberg piece now to today he's been out on the field on offense. on defense where necessary, but aggressive, right, and what this has done and i think it can't, you and i have been around the block a few times in presidential politics, nicole, on both sides. you on the campaign side and we both know what the difference is with audio or video. the difference between something that's just on the, on paper or on the screen that's just words

versus hearing the candidate's voice or seeing the candidate's face and this is the most vivid, most dramatic possible way to give joe biden the opportunity to do what he wants to do, which is to fully take this campaign and put it on the playing field he wants to play on, which is on the question of leadership broadly of morality of ethics, of character, but specifically as it relates to this pandemic and i think knowing the way the media works, knowing the power of a woodward book, knowing what kind of after effects and aftershocks this will have, this is like we've got 55 days before election day, right, this is going to take up at least 10% of those days are going to be bad news cycles for donald trump and news cycles where joe biden can drive on exactly the message he wants to drive and if you looked at him today, looks like he's relishing

the opportunity. >> well, let me follow up. i've got 30, but i'll cut it down to two. two things woodward wrote four books about the bush white house in the years after 9/11 and like three and three quarter of them were brutal and unsparing, so i know what it is like to covered by woodward and you're right it is like a fog that settles down you know, in san francisco and it doesn't lift until every little nook and cranny is pursued and i think the e media is in a mode you saw it with the goldberg piece on friday. of matching. not that someone's reporting ever needs to be krocorroborated because it is before it's published and printed. some of that, and i think this is part of showing our work, a lot of things have been rumored for a long time. that mat tick thougtis thought e

threat to national security. that coats wondered what this thing was with russia. some people close to government also started saying that to people like you and me sort of putting this all out there and putting inting it ins own words, to me, seems to rob him of his favorite strong man, which is that we make stuff up he sat for 18 interviews with bob woodward we're almost irrelevant to the story. how do you think that hobbles trump and how do you think, how many days until he starts attacking woodward for recording him? >> not very many days. i would count that in hours, probably >> and we should say you have to ask permission to record an interview. >> yes right. you heard you could hear bob do it on some of the tape today >> right >> look, i think as much as it's an opportunity for biden, it's a problem for trump and i think it's a problem for all the

reasons you said number one, it's when reporters go out to match these stories, whether it's goldberg's piece of the stuff in a woodward book, they don't just match it in the process of matching it, they often extend it, they often dig up new elements to the story in the process of doing the matching that keeps the flame alive and keeps the story rolling and trump's ultimate crutch is the fake news crutch we make things up. we say, he says we're partisan it says we have an agenda. this is, this totally denies him. i mean, he may still try, you know, and say that the media is putting a partisan spin oin it, but what he can't do is say this is a phony story, it's fiction, fake quotes. people with a grudge people who are out to get him. weak people people who he fired. all of the thing he is does to try to dispel a story, they're all stripped away and all that's left is the sound of trump's own voice captured by woodward in an act of and i will say the irony is rich, in an act of trumpian

nars schism. someone who got pillaged in the earlier woodward book and thought that i can charm that guy. i can turn it around that first book was tough on me. this next book, i'm going to get on the phone with woodward i'm going to have 18 conversations with him and when i'm done, woodward's going to be on my side and that was folly. utter folly. and i think trump is going, has been laid bear in a way where where he's defenseless and i hate to say the word naked when i talk about donald trump, but i mean that metaphorically, in these tapes. and i just, i'm sorry, i got a little sick in my mouth there when i said that, but you know what i'm saying. a bad place to be and that's the one thing that's different we know how woodward books work and we've seen them devastate your boss and other presidencies we've covered, but there have been audio before and that is the extra element here that makes this, that makes this just

exponentially more difficult for trump to deal with and more damaging >> you know, i want to drill down on the substance of it, too, claire. go ahead >> i was going to say i wanted to follow up on what john just said i would you know think about this for a minute. let's dwell on this for a second he's obviously never read a woodward book. he doesn't understand what woodward books are and so, is, that's strike one. strike two, is he sits for 18 interviews okay, who in their right mind who's running for office in a year within the year, sits for 18 interviews with a journalist? this is not a smart thing to do. >> with anyone >> this is beyond folly. this is ultimate stupidity he is so stupid and he knows -- he did the last interview like month ago. he did the last interview a month ago, so when is the book coming out the book is coming out within

two months of his election with tapes. 18 hours of tapes! hours and hours of tapes so this president is the stup stupidest president that's ever held the office. forget about the integrity issue. character. this guy's too dumb to lead this country because this was really, really stupid. >> but you didn't like the way he talked about the touch thing, claire that didn't convince you otherwise? let me drill down with both of you. i think what woodward blows up is the timeline. do you remember those unbelievable "new york times" investigative pieces about the team responsible for tracking the pandemic and it revealed that the intelligence community along with the health community was well aware as this was making its way beyond wuhan, through china into europe and that the warnings were coming

through loud and clear now the trump cover story was that wasn't in my pdb. my briefer down played it. he named her denigrated her smeared her, suggested she didn't brief him but to sound smart, smarter than he is, he tells woodward, oh, yeah, we know, we got this we're all over this. going to be deadly but you know, my play is to down play i mean, he acknowledges, he admits to having knowledge of how lethal it is and knowing it's coming. which seems to if this were some sort of criminal e proceeding, it's sort of knowledge of what's about to come. and then he admits to the big lie. which is to down play it claire, this seems to me to be extremely problematic on the one thing he doesn't want us to talk about between now and election day. which is his failure to contain and protect the country from the pandemic >> yeah, i think you'll hear in

the battleground states, where joe biden is frankly going to be probably having more advertising than donald trump will because it appears trump is kind of broke based on his bias this week you're going to hear the tape over and over again, deadly stuff. this is deadly stuff in february then the tape in march, yeah, i'm going to play it down. deadly stuff, play it down what are you saying to american people, especially those over 65 you know, you're in a burning building and not only am i not going to turn on the hose and put out the burning building, i'm not even going to tell you it's burning i'm not going to tell you to get out of the building. i'm not going to do anything to help you survive and that, i think for the older voters particularly, the covid response is what's killing him, pardon the expression, with older voters now these tapes are really going to drive him home because when they hear his voice on the tapes, the

elderly, they're going to go well, he really didn't care at all whether i died or not. >> claire and john are not going anywhere for the next 40 minutes. they're staying with us. when we come back, the tens of thousands of lives lost because donald trump wanted to play down the coronavirus. our friend joins the conversation and then later, one of the top nation's experts on elections and campaign law says the only person committing fraud now on a massive scale is donald j. trump we return after a quick break. don't go anywhere. no sweat! try it and love it or get your money back. you should be mad they gave this guy a promotion. you should be mad at forced camarie. and you should be mad at tech that makes things worse.

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i'm one of the many who has lost a loved one to covid. my dad should be here today, but he isn't my dad was a healthy 65-year-old. his only preexisting condition was trusting donald trump and for that, he paid with his life. >> it was such a heartbreaking and powerful moment of the democratic national convention and what we learned today from bob woodward adds an excruciating new dimension to her story about her dad. as we hit here, the united states is closing in on 200,000 coronavirus deaths joining us, msnbc medical contributor, dr. vin gupta, john heilemann and claire mccaskill are still here dr. gupta, e we talk about the health side of this. but i know the political failures and the failures of our

leaders have in some ways take the greatest toll on doctors and nurses on the front lines. what do you feel when you hear the president admit iting that one, he knew how dangerous it was back in january, february and that by march, he confesses to down playing it intentionally? >> good afternoon, nicole. the first thought here is that the 75% of americans who lost their lives because the president didn't take this seriously would be alive today that if he'd shut down and taken this virus seriously back in the beginning of march as experts were telling him to do, stop talking about shenanigans like hydroxychloroquine, not modeling good behavior in mask, some 75% of the americans who lost their lives would be alive today, so that's what i think. about i think about 1,000 health care workers who lost their

lives on the front lines with me it's unacceptable to have a leader who's trying to make everybody feel good when there's a once in a century pandemic here so it's unacceptable i think about the people who lost their life, my patients and fellow health care workers >> what does it say about how we move forward he's still president he still lies about the coronavirus pandemic there are a lot of questions around his utterances about a vaccine and because of statements about injecting clorox bleach into our lungs for a good old cleaning and pushing oleander leaf was his latest medical quackery even if we have that incredible medical breakthrough, what he's done to decimate the public trust in his administration in some ways seems like the second wave of lives he may endanger. >> nicole, i don't think there's a pathway with this president at the helm, unfortunately.

i wish we could say something else otherwise and say politics has nothing to do with the response to this pandemic, but when it comes to a vaccine, how many times do we need the hear francis collins stha timeline before the election is unrealistic. how many times do we have to see the president mock his opponent when it comes to wearing a mask infront of other people. it's just, you know, the question i get more than anything is based on his history, how can we be prepared for the next crisis? there have been four epidemic of pandemic potential since 2016 in addition to this pandemic, covid-19, what if something like this happens again in 2022 how could we have the trust that he will do the right thing, that he will sound the alarms we just can't have that trust, unfortunately. >> there's a report out that one of the vaccinemakers and developers has someone in their trial who's very sick. not with a cold, but with something that looks and sounds

like the inflammatory syndrome that was reported in kids. can you tell us more about that? >> so this one adverse effect, it looks like there might be an overwhelming inflammatory respon response that means you get a vaccine and what you want a vaccine to do is have your immune system respond to it. sometimes, if there's too much of a response, your joints and organs get inflamed. that's what's happening in this one case we need more information the one critical piece we don't talk enough about is why did astrazeneca in the first place get a billion dollars from the united states government why is abbott getting a prepurchase order from the government of 150 million units of their direct antigen test when there isn't enough data we aren't doing appropriate scientific due diligence here's the key piece on astrazeneca before yesterday the performance of that vaccine wasn't that exciting to begin with it didn't perform that well

relative to competitor vaccines but u it's getting a billion dollar frs the united states government the abbott test, we barely know anything about its utility for general population screening it's never been studied. it could be a useless test we're in a data void, but yet 150 million of these tests are being on preorder. we're throwing tax pare money towards initiatives, towards devices and tests and therapeutics that there's no data on. that's deeply concerning >> dr. gupta, the president is still asking people to do things and he's still employing the tactic that he describes in his own words as down playing the virus. he's now asking people to go back to school and restaurants he's asking athletes to play their games. asking leagues to restart their season do you think there will be any imact of him confessing in his own words, in his own voice, one, that he knew how deadly it was back in january, february, and two, that he intentionally down played the virus?

>> you know, i think people have taken it on their own to do largely speaking, what's right for them and their families, but we aren't hearing enough of it 35% of america still listens to the president. i'm concerned school districts and colleges don't have the tools they need to succeed in part because we don't have enough masks for teachers. the president is distracting with the new headline every day, so we don't have dr. fauci and dr. birks talking about high quality masking and ventilation inspections for every school district in the country. why isn't the president talk in about that if he was leading on this, he would be saying every school district cannot open up before we have an examination of their ventilation systems. been distraction after distraction since march. we aren't talking about the real things because he's not talking about the real things. >> and just a final note, dr. gupta, bob woodward describes tony fauci as saying that donald

trump's attention span could be calculated as a negative number. so, just close iing the loop the dr. vin gupta, thank you for spending some time with us when we come back, donald trump's obsession with dictators. michael cohen saw it up close. now bob woodward fills in the blanks we'll be back after a quick break. y learning about medicare and supplemental insurance. medicare is great, but it doesn't cover everything - only about 80% of your part b medicare costs, which means you may have to pay for the rest. that's where medicare supplement insurance comes in: to help pay for some of what medicare doesn't. learn how an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by united healthcare insurance company might be the right choice for you. a free decision guide is a great place to start. call today to request yours. so what makes an aarp medicare supplement plan unique? well, these are the only medicare supplement plans

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just like kim jong-un. just like madu rorks he craves this he doesn't want to run for president. that's why he says wait about 12 more years he's not joking. understand donald trump doesn't have a sense of humor. >> let's find him a passport donald trump's fascination with dictators and autocrats is by now a matter of public record. michael cohen witnessed it firsthand and now we know bob woodward did, too. frquote, trump was taken with k jong-un's flattery, woodward

rights, that kim had addressed him as exlensy he was thinking to himself holy bleep and find iing kim to be f beyond smart trump also boasted to woodward that kim tells me including a graphic account of kim having his uncle killed trump did not share his letters to kim, quote, those are so top secret the president said, that woodward writes that trump sent kim a copy of "the new york times" featuring a picture of the two men on the front page. wrote this, quote, chairman, great picture of you, big time, trump wrote on the paper in a ma marker trump falsely boasted to woodward, i'm the only one me smiles with. joining us now, ben ginsburg ben, you were in the news for reasons all of your own and we will spend some time on that, but i wanted to get you on the

folly of donald trump engaging a jumpist and writer like bob woodward who records things, takes notes and who is better sourced than the u.s. government than just about anybody on that beat >> well, it confirms the president's belief in his own superior abilities to spin and shape a story. i mean, he knew what the publication date was it's right in the middle of the presidential campaign. it appears that he got an awful lot more than he bargained for in the woodward book >> you know, john heilemann, i think that you made this point earlier. i mean, this is trump's affliction, right? that he thinks i alone can fix it he said it out loud. but i think if you can get away from the process part of this story, what was he doing as ben said, talking to woodward for a

book that published in that sort of 60 days out window when you try to eliminate all the variables and all the things that you can't control like a woodward book. what's revealed is this pile up of reporting that the generals that lead american servicemen and women in the most dangerous places in the world are dumb mys, losers, they're suckers they're starts with a p. not even going to give you a rhyming word tooicy to say on tv. kim jong-un on the other hand, is so great. calls me his excellentsy it's not just the affection for the worst actors on the world stage, it's the disdain for the most pate roriotic americans >> yeah. i mean i got to say it's like the, there's something, there's something so sick about this, nicole and i, you know, i don't -- you know, you talked earlier in the

first hour of the show about trump's pathological hatred for obama, right and you were, i heard you, expressing your visceral disgust with the reporting in the book about how trump feel iings about treats, talks about, fantasizes in negative ways about barack obama, the kind of craziness of that you think about that, right, you know, again, we know partisan rivals sometimes don't like each other much, but his obsession with obama, right, then his view of these, of the military, which we heard last week in the jeffrey goldberg piece, something we knew from the moment he trashed john mccain that he doesn't have respect for soldiers doesn't have respect for people who put their lives on the line for the country, who are p.o.w.s. doesn't have respect for people who died protecting the country. he also inin explaining that, trashed the military brass at a grave moment of revelation where

he said they're captive of the military industrial state. trashed his own people who ran the pentagon for him now we get the extension of that in woodward, who is this well sourced, not just in american politics, but particularly woodward, famously well sourced in the military. and has written books just on american foreign policy and national security. has been deep with generals and the defense establishment and defense world for decades. that comes out in the reporting in this book and you see look at that scale on this side, soldiers, generals, even his generals, barack obama, john mccain, george w. bush and on this side, who does he like and respect he really likes and respects kim jong-un, who's a murderous, despotic thug and trump boasts to woodward about his apparent enjoyment in having heard the grizzly details of kim jong-un

killing his uncle. like, i mean, i mean there's a, there's just a grotesque kind of mental illness on display in that picture and who this guy respects and who he disrespects. who he revels in the relationship with and who he disdains i mean, we all know you can tell a lot by people by who they have as their friendses, which is why ooichl always proud to count you and ben and claire, too. but think about this about what it says about donald trump, whose company he keeps and who he enjoys to keep versus the people on the other side of the leoneler it tells you a lot and what it tells you is not good. >> you know, claire, just speaking up on heilemann's point, he's never said anything as nice about angela merkel, one of america's great allies, george w. bush, president obama, presidents of the parties. he's never really sort of heaped

on consistent praise for any of america's nato allies that he's heaped on putin and kim jong-un. what gives >> it's a good question. i mean, there's one thing that kim jong-un has always wanted and that was stature on the world stage. the world ignored him. they cut him off a other than you know, some of the countries on their border, but he wanted an american president to give him legitimacy so kim jong-un got everything he wanted donald trump got nothing let's look at putin. what has america gotten from his love affair with putin we've gotten bounties on american soldiers. we've gotten interference in our election we got nothing from his love affair with putin. and what about china and his affinity towards xi, a human rights abuser of a very high

order? we got nothing our deficit as joe biden aptly pointed out today, our trade deficit with china has never been higher than it is right now. so he is accomplished nothing than diminishing our values. the values that always stood for democracy and freedom and human rights and paying a price for it as long as he's in charge >> no one's going anywhere when we come back, we'll talk to ben about the news he made today. his new op-ed on voter fraud turns out the only person committing it on a massive scale is donald trump. we'll be right back. special guest flo challenges the hand models to show off the ease of comparing rates with progressive's home quote explorer. international hand model jon-jon gets personal. your wayward pinky is grotesque. then a high stakes patty-cake battle royale ends in triumph.

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ballot you have to go through a process, sign a form, you get it sending out millions of unsolicited ballots, send it in, go to your polling place and make sure it counts because the only way they can win is by doing very bad things. >> don't do that that was donald trump, again, urging his supporters to vote twice. by absentee ballot then by following up at a polling place. ben ginsburg has been the best one the republican party has over four decades. i have known and worked with him

since what would probably be his mid career battle. the 2004 florida recount he knows more about voting froud than just about anyone in the country. finds the only person committing it on a massive scale is the incumbent president, donald trump. in a blunt and brutal new op-ed, ginsburg warns republicans that they risk their credibility and works from his op-ed quote, the president's rhetoric has put -- republicans need to take a hard look before advocating laws that actually do limit the franchise of otherwise qualified voters calling elections fraudulent and results rigged with almost nonexistent evidence ant thet cal to being the rule of law party. it's a warning that will be heard all around the republican world in which ginsburg has worked and lower offices his entire kai here.

he singled out trump with this quote, legions of republican lawyers have searched in vain over four decades for fraudulent double voting. at long last, they have a blatant example of a major politician urging his supporters to illegally vote twice. the only hitch is that the candidate is president trump ben is back with us. john and claire wiare still here ben, what made you speak out and why now? >> well, the reason now is that i have looked for fraud and do believe that observing is important for both parties to do to be able to lend creditability to the results but it's important for republican party to come to grips with the evidence or really the lack of it, over the last four decades and the truth is, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the least and so for the president to now say that elections are rigged and elections are fraudulent ooeats

way at the credibility of those results and obviously public acceptance of election results, no matter how tight, as we know from florida, is essential to the core principle of the democracy. so we are violating that with really unprecedented presidential rhetoric, which was what caused me to write the column >> and what are we in danger of? what is your nightmare scenario for election day this year >> well, there are many nightmare scenarios. i suppose that my nightmare snacenario would be that by january 20th, the date that the president's term expires, there's a deadlock in the electoral college. and while there are some procedures laid out in the constitution for how to handle that, it is a system that has never been stress tested and you see in a lot of recounts, rules that are written but they become

really, really murky when you get into the back and forth battle over a specific instance. and that would be really dangerous for the country to go to the point where nancy pelosi gets sworn in as president in constitutional line succession e is no winner of the electoral college. people don't accept the results. >> would not you also suggest that republicans are culpable for staying quiet? isn't it a felony in north carolina to vote twice and to induce the illegal act of voting twice? where are the republicans? >> well, i don't know the answer to that. the president's words were so shocking and then he tried to walk them back, that it all got a little murky. what is really interesting to note, nicole, is that the attorney general of georgia, a trump ally, has said that there

are up to 1,000 people who voted twice just like president trump urged people to do, and he is going to prosecute them. so i suspect that the democratic attorney general of north carolina will have a field day if anyone acts on the president's suggestion >> he doubled down yesterday though, as you saw there the first time was when he walked it back he said it again last night. so it's really not murky from the president's bully pulpit, is it >> oh, nobody has acted on his advice yet they're really ill chosen words. it is one that you're a former staffer. you would sit down and look him in the eye and say, you can't say that it's not right it's not accurate. you're asking people to commit a felony why would you want to do that? apparently it hand been done and he did double down

>> we're glad you got this conversation started with the op ed we'll keep having this conversation, i fear, in the next 57 days from the bottom of my heart, thank you for spending the whole hour with us i'm grateful en we come back, remembering lives well lived a lot goes through your mind. with fidelity wealth management, your dedicated adviser can give you straightforward advice and tailored recommendations. that's the clarity you get with fidelity wealth management. and tailored recommendations. he used to have gum problems. now, he uses therabreath healthy gums oral rinse with clinically-proven ingredients and his gum problems have vanished. (crowd applauding) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores.

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thank you for letting us into your homes today. "the beat" with ari melber starts now >> how are you doing >> it's one of those days. you make your plan, you write it out, and then i threw it all in the garbage. >> would you have advised your

president, a different one,