♪ if it's thursday, a series of damaging revelation s has th president on defense. he's running out of time to change the trajectory of this presidential campaign. it's not just the woodward revelations. a former homeland top security official accuses them of manipulating intelligence to back the president's political agenda. the republicans' slimmed down version of coronavirus relief is expected to fail in the senate any minute now. ♪ welcome to thursday. it's "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. 54 days until the election. hard to see how this kickoff week of a general election could be going any worse for the man

occupying the white house. president trump sothe defensive amid another series of stories that question his fitness for office and the character of his administration. in just the past 24 hours, the bob woodward back and its avalanche of critical stories, including the tapes of the president telling woodward he was aware how deadly the threat was posed by the coronavirus in early february. and that his goal was to downplay the threat of the virus to avoid a panic. on top of that, a whistleblower at the department of homeland security alleges he was told to stop providing intelligence reports on russian interference in the upcoming election in part because, quote, it made the president look bad. the same whistleblower claims they distorted intelligence to match president trump's statements on antifa and anarchist groups as well. including eliminating threats from white supremacists in reports. emails obtained by politico show they tried to dictate what dr. anthony fauci said on television in order -- especially on the

issue of the risks the virus poses to children. this person wanted fauci to downplay the risks. and don't forget, this week began with president trump having to respond to an article in "the atlantic" that accused him of denigrating americans who died in wars as losers and suckers. with less than two months until the polls close, every day spent on the defensive is one less day for president trump to take the fight to joe biden and one more day for biden to focus on what his campaign feels are his strengths. coronavirus and character. and what may be the most worrisome for the president, this trend of critical stories may very well continue. it's a drip, drip, drip. from the latest whistleblower at dhs to sources that talked to jeffrey goldberg in "the atlantic" piece, more and more people with critical information about the president have clearly decided they need to speak up before the election. while president trump is proving he can weather individual storms, the drip, drip, drip, boy, that could turn into a steady flow.

if this race is a referendum on prum and his handling of the pandemic, his re-election campaign may already be sunk. joining me is carol lee. also peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and msnbc political analyst. so carol, 24 hours later, it appears that inside the white house is a little finger pointing, a little, hey, this wasn't my idea. i don't know why woodward got so much access. where are we today, and what are they going to try to do to, in their minds, to stop this bleeding? >> yeah, chuck. the finger pointing even started weeks ago when the press release for bob woodward's book first came out in the middle of august where aides privately were saying they didn't know what was in it. they were extremely worried about it. but, you know, i wasn't -- you'd hear like, i didn't think it was a good idea. so that's begun to pick up as the president is frustrated with the way this is unfolding. but they -- you hit the nail on

the head. they are on defense right now. what we've seen in the last 24 hours is they were caught flat-footed by the initial excerpts of this coming out. they're now having to talk about something which the president and his campaign have not wanted to talk about nearly at all, coronavirus, and in a way that's damaging to him politically. so they're trying to figure out how to deal with this. what we've seen so far is the president going with his traditional playbook of trying to discredit bob woodward, discredit the source. pushing back on various pieces of this and trying to say there's nothing to see here. yes, i didn't want people to panic. the concern some of the allies have is that, that's all defensive. and they want him to go on offense and push back. and there is some growing frustration among those allies that the president is not shifting to that. so it will be interesting to see whether or not they move to that. by that, they mean, you know, pointing out what the president has done on coronavirus. listing all the things, pointing

out what joe biden said, cherry picking comments of his and his allies and contrasting them with what the president was doing. things like that. that's not what we've seen so far. the initial reaction is on the defensive, really pushing back and, frankly, the president saying that he is a victim, that he cooperated and that he -- that didn't turn out the way he thought it would. but whether that shifts in the coming days it will be very interesting to watch for. >> i want to put up this recent tweet from this morning about woodward from the president because, i think it encompasses everything you were trying to say about how the president doesn't know how to react. bob woodward had my quotes for many months. if he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn't he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? didn't he van obligation to do so? no, because he knew they were good and proper answers. calm, no panic. so it's an odd -- it's kind of defensive. it's kind of on woodward. it's sort of, to me, explains

what you were trying to say there. >> yeah. it comes as all those things. and also trying to muddy the waters. hey, if i was wrong here, you were wrong, too. shouldn't you have told people? but you see the last line in there where he says didn't want no panic. that's something that they are really latching on to and how that sort of plays out and what they do with that idea will be something to keep an eye on because you have seen already they had dr. fauci out. who else do they bring out? what other things do they point out? they haven't put together a narrative of what the president was trying to do. so you'll see more of the panic. i think there are allies of the president's who would like him to do less about trying to discredit bob woodward. there's a feeling that he is an impeachable sort of source and this is something president goes through and focus on trying to push back but in a way that's

much less defensive. >> right. i want to play this, peter baker, i want to play this mash. one thing the president has on spending is how on record he is in downplaying the virus. here's justice a sample we put together from a couple of months. younkts may ask about the coronavirus which is very well under control in our country. the risk to the american people remains very low. 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 will go away. just stay calm. it will go away. it's a very contagious virus. it's incredible. but it's something that we have tremendous control over. we think the death will be at a very low number. it will be brought down to a very low number. it's going to be gone. it's going to be eradicated. this is going to go away without a vaccine. if we stop testing right now

we'd have very few cases if any. the numbers are minuscule to what it was. it's dying out. many call it a virus, which it is. many call it a flu. i will be right eventually. i said it's going to disappear. it's going to disappear. the china plague will fade. once you get to a certain number, we use the word herd, right? once you get to a certain number, it's going to go away. peter baker, and again, those were just the ones we selected. i mean, it's all of those were things he said on the record to the american people after he told bob woodward how dangerous this virus is. >> right. exactly. and there's a difference between trying to not panic the public and keeping them informed, right? there's a difference between proper optimism and confidence and reassurance and deceiving the public about the extent of the threat to them. in fact, you can see the consequences of this because there are a lot of people out there who didn't and still to

this day don't see this as seriously as the numbers would suggest. we're nearing 2700,000 people dying here, chuck. as you know, better than anybody, it's more than we've seen in any war other than world war ii, and the civil war. it's extraordinary death toll in just a very short amount of time. so to sit there and say, well, i didn't want to panic anybody, it's sort of missing the point. the public needed to and still needs to hear straight talk about what they should do, how should they look at this. what are the answers? and what are the consequences of not responding to the advice of the public health experts? >> i'm going to pick up on the panic point because this is where i think the president's really off key here. he says he didn't want to panic the public. the problem is, he has a history of actually panic is his go-to move. panic is his political sort of -- it's his sort of how he drives to the hoop if he were a basketball player. the only way he knows how to go.

fear of the caravans, fear of the police, fear of the suburbs. his entire campaign is fear and panic. so it is hard -- i think that excuse ends up looking even more ridiculous considering his tactics on every other issue he touches. >> you're right. the tweets just this morning about how the -- you know, people are going to -- if biden wins they'll come invading your suburbs and everything will be chaos on the planet. and the dichotomy between nothing to see here, approach to the coronavirus and the almost -- and the exaggerate d violence in the streets, it's a powerful contrast. you're right. it is about, of course, the president's perceived political needs at this point. the coronavirus is a bad story for him. he perceives the discussion of law and order to be a potentially good thing for him politically as he goes forward. the other thing you said, maybe

carol said, too, it's the drip, drip, drip effect. bob's book will not be the end of this. there will be more. there's going to be a whole series of books this fall. who knows what, as you say, people are waiting in the wings. if you are somebody who found donald trump to be dangerous and you were working for him and you haven't said anything up until this point, and you plan to, you presumably are waiting until october when it will have the most maximum damage. that's what the white house is worried about. and they should be. if there's a real danger that they never get back on their own message, they're constantly reacting to other people's. >> in some ways, he's a victim of the same campaign he was successful with four years ago. hillary clinton was a magnet for this stuff and couldn't get away from it. and now trump is the magnet. and i think he's now seeing the shoe is on the other foot. carol lee, peter baker, thank you. joining me now is retired general anthony zinni. he served as special envoy to qatar under president trump. he's also a close friend of

general john kelly and one of the folks quoted in the damning "atlantic" piece. the president tweeted about this piece today, general zinni. for years, fake stories and investigations, then the phony russia, russia, russia hoax, ukraine and the impeachment and crummy magazine's made-up story. it never ends. general zinni, i want to start with this. in what you've read in "the atlantic" and have seen of bob woodward's quotes on stuff you're aware of, is an accurate picture being painted of the president? >> unfortunately, it is. we know he's used the term loser to refer to john mccain. one of our heroes. we've seen the language he's used to degrade general mattis, general kelly, general mcmaster. these are men who have served honorably and are well respected by their troops. what angered me more than anything else about the loser

and sucker comment, my father was an immigrant to this country. shortly after he got here, he was drafted in the united states army and went to war in world war i. he came back as a corporal and got his citizenship. it was the greatest honor in his life. those two things. my brother fought in the korean war. i have a cousin wounded at the battle of the bulge. a cousin that was a communicator on a b-25 shot up with a dead co-pilot in his lap when they landed. my son served five combat tours in afghanistan and iraq. i put 40 years in the marine corps. i served multiple tours in iraq and in vietnam and in somalia. and for my family to be called losers and suckers, for the troops that i serve with, for the 20 marine lieutenants in my class who did not come back, that is a total disgrace coming from the commander in chief.

and it just boiled me to the point. i don't normally like to get involved in politics in any way, but this goes to the heart of being commander in chief. and i just don't know how you can be a commander in chief. look gold star mothers in the eye and say that about those who have served, those that have lost their life and to degrade the leadership that you are supposed to depend on that fought 20 years worth of war up until now. >> you have been somebody that isn't afraid to speak up when you think there's something to be said and it's necessary. but you also addressed an issue that i know is very common with a lot of folks like yourself who have served career in the military, made it to general, which is you don't want to get involved in campaign politics, right? there's this line you try not to cross. but a lot of people are wondering why generals kelly and mattis aren't speaking out more. explain it to the public how

hard this is for even retired generals to step into the political fray. i know your training -- it's beaten into your head never to step into the political fray and yet there are a lot of people who think, boy, this is the time. >> it is extremely difficult. we learned from people like general marshall and others in our military history that we should remove ourselves from politics in any way. we swore an oath to the constitution. we serve the constitution and what it stands for. we do not, in any way, challenge civilian leadership when the directions were given are lawful. it takes a tremendous amount of courage to step out, to know the pain you'll receive, to know that you don't want to set the wrong example for those that are following you. but when it gets to the point

where you can no longer -- and it affects those young soldiers, sailors, and airmen that have led. i will say one other thing. where are our veterans in congress, especially the republicans. you know, the crickets are -- the silence is deadening -- deafening. and we need to hear from them. we cannot allow our troops to be called these names. you know, this all started over the battle of bellow wood where a marine battalion charged against an open wheat field into machine gunfire, were mowed down and took a position that cut off and attack. as a marine who has been there and saw those white grave stones, it is engrained into my heart like battles like iwo jima and seoul and inchon and all the

others we have in our illustrious history. to degrade those men buried there, do not go there because it's a little bit rainy, let me tell you it was raining bullets across that wheat field when they charged those machine gun nets. and they did it. and so it gets to the point where, despite your best instincts, you feel compelled to speak out. >> what's your advice to active duty folks at the pentagon in particular who may not like the rhetoric they're hearing? the president, the rhetoric he used in bob woodward's book, language i can't use on the air here, and implying, in fact earlier this week, that they just care more about the military industrial complex. those are some loaded charges by the commander in chief at the pentagon. >> it is. and think this. he's the senior general.

he's the commander in chief. he's saying, i do not trust my subordinate commanders. i don't think of my men and women in uniform with any degree of respect or admiration. again, i don't care about the politics and the role of president. that will be decided. i care about the role of commander in chief. i care about my son. i care about all those soldiers, sailors, are amen and marines that will have to respond to this. i care about those gold star families who have buried sons and daughters who need know that we do care about them. they are winners. they're heroes. and it is important for our people in the pentagon, our senior leaders to not get engaged as much as they feel in their gut they need to. hang in there. do what you're told. obey your oath to the constitution and, you know, leave it to us retired to do

this right now. >> general anthony zinni, always a pleasure to get your perspective on things. it's been a while. sorry it's under these circumstances. i know this is not easy to feel like you have to speak out in a moment like this, but i appreciate you sharing it with us. >> thank you, chuck. much more on all the facets of these critical stories on the president that are piling up, including a former homeland security official who says the white house has failed to deal with right wing extremism threats and a republican senator on how his party is responding to these latest revelations. first to the deadly wildfires burning out of control on the west coast and the impact on millions of people. climate change is here, folks. in the bay area, dark yellow and deep orange skies loom ominously over neighborhoods. yes, orange skies. this is planet earth, not some strange other planet. it's an unprecedented fire season for the pacific northwest. unprecedented. that's a word and a statement we've made all too often in the past decade as extreme weather has become a norm.

a record-breaking 2.5 million acres has already burned in california this year alone. it is september, folks. so the burning may continue. that's nearly 20 times more than what was lost this time last year and last year was a record. the fires have claimed at least seven lives in washington, oregon and california. thousands more have fled their homes. towns have disappeared. they've been scorched or destroyed in parts of oregon. and then there's the health risks hitting residents far beyond the fire zone. breathing issues to heart failure. doctors and researchers warn that the human health risk from the increase in all kinds of extreme weather around the world could quickly undue 50 years of global health gains. the impact of climate change on daily life is something that gets lost too much in the headlines but it's an important part of this story we're committed to covering. we'll continue to bring you updates on all of them whether on the east coast, the west coast or anywhere in between. we'll be right back. de for? it's made for this guy a veteran who honorably served and it's made for her

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welcome back. a new whistleblower allegation is adding to the problems piling up on the president's plate right now. a top intelligence analyst at the department of homeland security is accusing dhs political officials of abusing their authority and distorting intelligence to match president trump's political agenda. in the 24-page complaint, mobiler brian murpmobile whistleblower brian murphy says he was asked to manipulate data. he alleges kirstjen nielsen mislead congress about the num befrs suspected terrorists crossing the southern border. the question is did that come after pressure from the white house? in a statement, through her lawyer, nielsen denied the allegations calling them demonstrably false. a dhs spokesman says we flatly deny there's any truths to the merits of mr. murphy's claim. elizabeth newman is one of the founders of an anti-trump group called the republican political alliance for integrity

and reform, p.a.i.r. i want to ask about this whistleblower complaint and just how familiar did brian murphy's allegations look to you? >> thanks for having me, chuck. it was a little alarming to read the comments of mr. murphy. you know, there were some pieces of his allegations that i can appreciate his perspective, but i'm not sure that the conclusions he drew were correct. the pieces from the last six months about russia, about white supremacists, needing to emphasize more about antifa. i could easily see that happening, especially in the last year or so. we've just seen such a change at the department. we've seen more political appointee comes into the department that lack the experience or knowledge -- basic knowledge to know how to do their job, how to operate in

government, as well as individuals that have come in with an intent clearly to make the department do exactly what the president is looking for regardless of what the law requires us to do as government employees. so it is concerning. i don't have firsthand knowledge of what he is asserting, but it is very concerning if, in fact, there was -- if the allegations are true. it's not how the government is supposed to operate. >> well, this isn't the first allegation that this intelligence from dhs is getting manipulated. certainly congressional democrats thought it. let me ask this. you say that there was a significant change. is it when ken cuccinelli and chad wolf took over the leadership? is that when you saw the change? >> it actually started before. i certainly think by the time that acting secretary wolf and cuccinelli came in, they were

then surrounded by a number of people with direct ties to the white house. and i realize that to the average american, this just sounds kind of petty, but where you get your orders from if it's coming from the top or if it's coming from a series of phone calls and people that are technically outside of your chain, it matters. so i think by the time wolf got there, there were a number of people taking orders directly from the white house and again, that sounds a little odd. you think, well, the white house, they're on top of all of the agencies. and that's not actually how it is. constitutionally speaking, the president has that authority and that authority goes to senate confirmed positions across our government. it is not given to white house staff. white house staff's job is to support the president. it's not to be running the departments and agencies. in fact, what you started to see throughout 2019 was a pushing out of people that knew how to do their jobs. classic example is our general counsel john mitnik.

he was fired from his position and has been stated on the record he was fired was he would not break the law. when you have people pushed out of those positions, it increasingly becomes harder to run the organization well and you see more politization at the department as a consequence since last year. >> i want to ask specifically on the issue of the white supremacy downplaying the threat from white supremacists in these various issues that we've been dealing with over the last few years. we've -- there's been other reports of different ways that the white house wanted to downplay the threat of that. when you were at dhs, did you feel pressure not to elevate the threat levels of right wing extremism? >> no, i never felt pressured. i certainly felt a cold shoulder from time to time that we just weren't able to get the threat up the chain to the level of tension it deserved. but at least at the level i was

operating at, which was other assistant secretaries across the government, we were taking it seriously. we were able to drive forward progress and nobody ever told us to stop. in fact, it was the opposite. secretary kelly, secretary nielsen, secretary mcaleenan saying, i don't care what the president says publicly. this is a threat to go after it, do what you need to do. i'll give you the top cover. when you have that shift and constant change of secretaries, constant change of national security advisers, you're constantly in turnover and chaos, it's hard to get the momentum you need for an important issue like this unless it comes from the very top that it's a priority. it was never made a priority by this white house. and it was very clear after conversations with white house officials and that august, september time frame of last year, shortly after, that they understood the threat was upcoming from the white supremacist, white nationalist viewpoint. but they were not -- they did

not think pragmatically it made sense. they liked to talk about it in terms of preventing violence because that was less likely to get a reaction from the president. >> very quickly, your organization, the implication is there's going to be quite a few others like yourself who have left the administration and want to sound the alarm. should we expect to see more people in the days and weeks to come? >> yes, and i would encourage any former colleagues or folks that are still on the inside, now is the time. we all know how difficult it is day in and day out to try to hold the government together and move it in the right direction. the american people deserve to have the full truth. they deserve to understand that even the good things that you want to point to that come out of this administration, you know, whether it's conservative judges or moving the embassy to jerusalem, the israeli embassy

to jerusalem or taxes, all of those things are nice. i know that they are important to some people. but the bigger issue at hand is that there are increasingly not enough experts, not enough adults in the room to keep the president steady and focused on the right answers on the big important moments. if you -- if we have a crisis, we already are in a crisis with covid. but if we have another crisis, there's going to be nobody left to help him make the right decision. now is the time to speak up. >> elizabeth neumann, former dhs assistant secretary. appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us. >> thanks for having me. up next -- we're going to head to capitol hill where the senate vote on a skinny covid relief bill just failed. we'll get the details right after the break. have the power r my blood sugar and a1c. have the power r because i can still make my own insulin.

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welcome back. any hopes of additional coronavirus relief from congress is fading by the minute. moments ago, a procedure vote passed with not a single democrat voting to support it. with no signs of additional negotiations it's looking like congress will adjourn without pass anything serious relief package this fall. joining me now from capitol hill is our own capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt, soon anchoring "way too early" right here on msnbc every weekday morning. kasie, let me start with the

lack of urgency now apparently to do a relief bill. i look back at the president's own words from a few days ago. it would be nice if we had something but we're okay if we don't. >> i was a little surprised by that, chuck. it clearly underscores the fact that there doesn't seem to be a ton of urgency coming out of the white house. that's a big piece of why things are stalled up here on capitol hill. this was an attempt and this vote just failed. 52 republicans voted in favor of it. what was the goal there? mitch mcconnell giving his vulnerable senate incumbents the chance to at least go home and say, hey, i tried to do something and they are going to lay blame at the feet of democrats for not coming back to the table. of course, in the house, speaker pelosi has said in the past to republicans, if you are willing to compromise on your number and come up to $2 trillion proposal, i'll come down from my $3 trillion proposal. so far, that's going nowhere.

so at this point, everyone is just trading accusations. and it does really feel increasingly as though there is very little chance there will be any more aid coming before the election. and so that's a pretty tough situation for so many americans who are waiting on unemployment insurance or additional help for businesses that are still struggling. there are some republicans who are arguing, hey, this isn't as bad as we thought maybe it would be. and this is why we don't need more. but there's also a lot of posturing going on, chuck, behind the scenes which i think you know well about republicans who are positioning themselves perhaps for a post-trump gop. perhaps they want to run for president in 2024 or 2028. and that made it tough for mitch mcconnell to unify his conference. from a big picture perspective, it gets him nowhere, chuck. >> government funding. so i think, look, i will be honest. i thought that was going to be the off ramp. but it looks like there's no

appetite for that, is there? >> there doesn't seem to be, chuck. and, you know, i think privately there are some people saying if democrats really wanted a deal, then we'd see something around that government funding deadline on september 30th. but, of course, nancy pelosi and steve mnuchin signaled pretty aggressively, frankly, in the way things go around here, the way that message was sent out, that they don't want any kind of government shutdown. they're going to agree to a temporary extension of funding. and there's very much a feeling that everybody just wants to get that out of the way and get back on to the campaign trail because they all got seats to worry about at this point, chuck. >> kasie hunt, another september election year on capitol hill. kasie hunt, thank you. remember to catch kasie five mornings a week on "way too early" at 5:00 a.m. starting september 21st. up next -- we're going to get some reaction from a key republican on the hill about the fallout the president is facing following the woodward tapes.

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welcome back. so far, republican lawmakers have largely declined to respond to the woodward book's revelations. he's downplayed the coronavirus as well as what he said about the military. so let me bring in republican senator mike braun from indiana. he joins me after just finishing up that vote. i want to talk about coronavirus relief in a minute. i want to talk to you about what the president said in these woodward tapes. i assume at this point you've at least heard the tapes there. the president intentionally saying he downplayed the virus for the public. in hindsight that looks like a terrible decision, and it doesn't look pretty well thought out even when you look at it through the march eyes. >> so when you look at the most recent revelations through the

woodward book, let's focus on the question itself, and you know, i think the whole covid navigation has been so hyped up. i try to cut to the chase in terms of what i think has been good about what the president has done. i also think that when you are constantly out, you know, saying things on media, you're going to have to be accountable for it. when it comes to downplaying it, not wanting to create a panic, i personally don't think that's going to probably create as much of a dust-up as maybe some might think. i do think in general that there is an accumulation from when you're having to maybe explain what you have said that takes away from the essence of what you're trying to do. i'll cite this particularly. when it comes to the two most important things, arriving at a vaccine, coming up with therapeutics, have we done that in a way that is quicker and will be better?

i think unequivocally. i come from main street, entrepreneurial world. i think if we had had a different dynamic in place. let's just say obama/biden. biden/harris, we would have relied more on bureaucracy. i've always said pay attention to the experts. but don't let them dictate how you navigate through it. and i think a lot of things have been done well. i think when you look at what birx and fauci said in late february, early march, the best case scenario would be 150,000 to 200,000 fatalities, as bad as that sounds. they are on record of saying it and that's basically where we are. i look at those issues, not what's being interpreted through tabloids, books, because, let's face it. there's been a cascade and a litany of that from the mueller report, the impeachment, to covid and a host of other issues.

and you start to lose the marginal benefit or value of whatever that next thing might be. >> senator, i guess the hard part for me is to understand how you -- how any part of this response can be seen as a positive when you compare our outcomes to south korea, to germany, to france, to spain, to italy. we can go down the line. when you compare us to the rest of the western world. i'm not even talking about developing countries or third world countries. it is -- frankly, we don't know if we're on the right track on a vaccine or not yet. i hope you're right on this, but i guess i'm pushing back on that because, what part of this response has been a positive? we're all still shut in our houses. we can't go to sporting events six months later. in other countries, you can. >> well, let's look at it this way. you also have to look at what would have happened otherwise. of course, we don't know that. the closest example that we can get to where there was that

heavy emphasis on early shutdown, comprehensively, and probably they had no other option, would have been in new york and new jersey. and they constitute nearly a quarter of the statistics. and then you've got someone like governor cuomo that tries to spin that in a way that's been positive. so i don't think you can just focus on what trump has done. what i can see that's been done is i think we're going to arrive at a solution to this quicker than we -- had we taken another approach and it also begs the question, you do not know what the consequences would have been of an alternative plan because that's theoretical. this is the one we're dealing with. >> uh-huh. i want to talk about the fact that we're farther away on coronavirus relief. i am trying to understand what you guys did in the senate today. the president earlier this week said -- or at least the president's negotiators said they had upped the number to

$1.5 trillion in their negotiations. what is it that you guys thought you were going to accomplish in the senate today that seemed to have no bearing on what the white house and democrats are negotiating? >> some things do get to where you've got to put a marker out there. i can tell you among a good portion of republicans, we were looking at what did we do right with the c.a.r.e.s. act? was there something we could repurpose? wanted to focus in on schools, health care, those businesses that were left out in the first round. and to be honest, i don't think it adds up to a trillion. especially 1.5 or 3.3. so i think here, we at least put something on the floor to vote for and why couldn't at least one democrat have voted for it? and then worked on something additional. and at least got something done. i think it's insulting to some

of us that know how measured and how targeted this was and what we just voted on today to say that it has no value. it's not going to be something that's going to work if you want the pelosi package, but that's not going to work either for all the reasons i don't need to go into. >> right. but you -- your leadership didn't participate in any negotiations. do you feel as if you were let down on that front? he has not been a -- he has not been involved with the white house or with congressional democrats. i'm referring to mitch mcconnell. >> and i think he puts it pretty easy to understand. we'll have to get something that our own conference can agree to. we then need seven democrats, theoretically, in the senate. then you have to get the house to vote on it. and then president trump sign it. so there was a lot of probably nothing going to happen when you've got to jump three hurdles so high.

>> especially when it's so close to november in a presidential election year. senator mike braun, republican from indiana, i appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective. not many of your colleagues do come on. you usually do, so thank you. i appreciate that. >> thank you, chuck. up next -- how are the woodward tapes of president trump playing in the battlegrounds? we'll tell you what some voters are saying, next. et. secret stops sweat 3x more than ordinary antiperspirants. with secret, you're unstoppable. no sweat! try it and love it or get your money back. about medicare and 65, ysupplemental 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.

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looting is not protesting. it's lawlessness, plain and simple. and those who do it should be prosecuted. fires are burning and we have a president who fans the flames. he can't stop the violence because for years he's fomented it. but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is. violence will not bring change, it will only bring destruction. it's wrong in every way. if i were president, my language would be less divisive. i'd be looking to lower the temperature in this country, not raise it. donald trump is determined to instill fear in america because donald trump adds fuel to every fire. this is not who we are. i believe we'll be guided by the words of pope john paul ii, words drawn from the scriptures. be not afraid. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

welcome back. whenever there's a story like the excerpts from bob woodward's new book, we want to know how this is playing in the country. dasha burns happens to be in beaver county, pennsylvania, one of the counties that's part of our county-to-county project for 2020. she's there for a preparation for surge in absentee ballots, but when the woodward story broke, we asked her to go talk to voters about it. dasha, we're going to talk to you in a minute about the absbtee ballot issues we're following but what did you find out in beaver county? >> i'm in the election room, but earlier, we went downtown and talked to some folks. it was a bit of a reality check on that gap between the beltway and the voters. most people i talked to frankly didn't really know what the heck i was talking about when i mentioned the woodward book. some had heard vaguely some of

the headlines around the coronavirus and even the folks that were a little more tuned in didn't find anything particularly shocking. chuck, i really get the sense right now that voters are pretty tired and some are starting to check out more now even as we get closer to the election. they just say it's getting to be too much for them. chuck. >> you know, it's interesting. there was a poll today that more people say they plan to vote early than ever before, and i wonder if part of that motivation is if you hurry up and get your vote in, it relieves you from having to pay attention to the campaign more. >> they want to get it over with. >> exactly. tell me what you have learned about the absentee ballot issue. this is obviously the first time pennsylvania is holding an election under these new sets of rules that some of them are new permanent ones. but what is beaver county experiencing here when it comes to the absentee ballot issue? >> yeah, exactly. let me tell you about this room i'm in right now. it may not look like much, but this is literally where

everything happens on election night. it's where ballots are brought in, processed, counted, and this time around, the folks working in here are going to be really up against the clock because they're expecting potentially ten times more absentee ballots than they have ever had before. i want you to hear from commissioner jack manning about what that could really mean. take a listen. >> if you can't start processing 40,000 mail-in ballots until after the polls close at 8:00, and you may not even have them all opened by then, so we're still likely to still be opening, let alone scanning them and processing them. so it's going to take a considerable amount of time before we may know the final outcome of the election from beaver county's standpoint. >> let me tell you what jack is talking about here, because the most time consuming part of the process isn't actually counting the ballots. it's preparing them to be counted. they cant start doing that here until the morning of election

day, unless those rules change. so i'm going to show you how this works here. i'm actually going to time myself real quick while i do this. so we put the envelope down here onto the electronic envelope opener. this is a new innovation. then there's a second envelope in here, the secret envelope. so you do it again. and put that through. once that is through, you have to take out the ballot and it's folded up and the scanner will not take it like this. think about a dollar bill in a vending machine. you have to back bend it a little bit. the elections director here, doreen, taught me this pro tip of rolling it to try to straighten it out a little bit, and then you can go ahead and take it and actually put it on the scanner here. and that took me 40 seconds, chuck, 40 seconds for one ballot. and they're expecting about 40,000 here. we did a little bit of the math. that equals to around 600 hours of manual labor. so a lot of work for these folks

here. and there are some proposals to try to allow them to do this process earlier, but the clock is ticking on that, chuck. >> both dasha burns, great reporting, both the states of florida and north carolina are allowed to do that process before election day. we learned this sunday, last sunday, michigan is also a state that isn't allowed to do start doing that until election day. michigan and pennsylvania, two of the most important three states four years ago will not be processing their absentee e ballots until election day. thank you all for being with us. thank you for being with us this hour. we'll be back tomorrow. msnbc's coverage continues with katy tur right after this break. .

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good afternoon. i'm katy tur. it is 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in washington where in just an hour, the president is going to hold a news conference where he'll no doubt face more

questions about those