he's a wonderful human being. he's been destroyed. no, i think that -- without knowing anything about what durham is going to release -- >> we'll continue to watch the president's news conference. the president continuing to spew a lot of lies, falsehoods and misstatements. we'll keep an eye on that for you and bring it to you if he says anything newsworthy. deadline white house with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, eaveryone. it's 4:00 in the east. donald trump's reaction to hearing his own voice on tape confessing about lying about the coronavirus pandemic appears the same as ours, horror. donald trump's admission that he knew the coronavirus would extract a deadly toll on the country and he knew it was

airborne and extremely contagious and his confession captured on tape that he lied about it on purpose is rocketing through the collective consciousness of the country. the president's ongoing news conference is a window into his own panic. "the new york times" reports the audio recordings show that as mr. trump was absorbing in real time the information he was given by health and national security experts he made a conscious choice, not only to mislead the public but actively pressure governors to re-open states before they were ready. as joe biden seizes on the recordings as fresh and direct evidence of trump's intentional disregard for the scientific information he possessed and understood and buried with the cost being paid for in american lives, biden responding

tweeting, quote, you deserve a president who tells you the truth. the new yo"the new york times" mr. woodward's book illustrated as much as mr. trump tries to change the subject to law and order and a call for a crackdown on nationwide protests against police brutality he's unable to escape str escape scrutiny for his response to a virus that has killed 190,000 people in the united states. the latest bombshell reports are ones that trump is struggling to lay at the feet of any sort of fake media or deep state as the decisive blow is coming from trump himself. "politico" writes, the people saying mean things about trump aren't lushirking in the shadow. they write books like michael

cohen. they talk to magazine journalists like the senior military officers who told damaging tales to jeffrey goldberg. above all, they sit with washington's legendary confessor priest, bob woodward. jeremy bash is back and msnbc anchor alicia menendez is here. jeremy, i have to start with you. joe biden used the term dereliction of duty. it has a literal meaning in terms of the commander in chief function. do you see it as that, as a dereliction of duty to possess

knowledge about the lethal nature of coronavirus and admit you have that knowledge, but you're lying about it to the american people? >> i do, nicolle. the commander in chief's first job is to protect the country. you assess the threats and warning of any incoming. if a missile were aimed at the united states or a terrorist plot was forming and a president down played it and americans lost their lives, that's a scandal of history proportion. it's the failure of the president to do the most basic effort under our constitution. the fact that the president would admit it shows he's out of his mind and incompetent. he's not fit for office. the underlying act, the down playing of a threat and the desire to -- because he wanted to feed his own ego -- have rallies in march in tulsa, a

convention in august and signal to the entire country it was okay to get together and not wear a mask, that's for his own ego and basically to ensure that wall street wouldn't panic. that shows you it was not only crass, it was immoral and it was at the severe risk of many american lives. >> jeremy, when i see it make its way into news accounts, the president's true feelings about the leadership of the pentagon, all the way down to the men and women who serve and are either killed in action or injured in action, we've been talking for the last week about the smears against john mccain, but far beyond john mccain. donald trump also believed that his generals were suckers and idio idiots. let me read you this. trump attacked generals as weak

and too focussed on allies. in a discussion with mr. woodward mr. trump called the united states military suckers for paying extensive costs to protect south korea. we're defending you. we're allowing you to exist trump said to south korea. mr. woodward quoted trump as saying many fing generals are a bunch of p-word. they care more about the alliances than about trade deals. can you just punctuate how dangerous it is to have a president that believes you're a p-word to believe in allies? >> he think it s the people stag

guard are wussies. >> rhymes with that. >> yeah, i got it. he believes that to defend the country is essentially naive and means you don't get it. actually he doesn't get it. those people who do that are doing so to defend our country, our values and everything we hold sacred. he holds nothing sacred except his own ego. why is it that trump wanted to down play this? why did he say to bob woodward he wanted to down play it? if he took seriously the mandate to have physical separation, it would have deprived him of his ability to go to tulsa, to have a convention on the lawn of the white house. it would have deprived him of the ability to hold the rallies he needs for his ego. it's not because he wanted to

help the economy or stop the panic. his whole campaign is about panic. this is all about his ego, nothing else. plain and simple. >> on that point, let me add to our conversation "washington post" bureau chief phil rucker who was watching the results of the panic that the people around the president clearly feel from the smoking gun evidence of donald trump's knowledge of just how lethal and deadly and dangerous coronavirus was. donald trump's specific intent to lie to the public about the danger it posed by saying in his own words in a tape in an interview he agreed to do and continued to do after the interview in which he confesses intentionally playing down the pandemic, what was the response to direct questioning from yourself and jon karl about why

donald trump lied? >> the answer was a lot of words. the president basically said he was trying to stay calm and not panic the american people by not revealing that information. he said a few things that were not true, that were incorrect. he said it was widely known knowledge in february that this virus was airborne. that's not true. most of us in february didn't know much about the coronavirus. he also suggested that bob woodward having had that conversation on february 7th had an obligation to somehow alert the public to what the president said. bob woodward is not the elected president of the united states. donald trump is. he didn't have a good answer for why he did not level with the american people in a calm way, the same way angela merkel did to provide the information and science to the public in real time so everybody can make their

decisions and adjustments in their lives to keep their families safe. >> phil rucker, what did you go to this press conference wanting to learn? did you learn anything new? >> i'm not sure we learned a lot new. i think all of my fellow reporters wanted to have the president answer these questions we've been thinking about and talking about the last 24 hours about why he intentionally mislead the public about the threat of the coronavirus and about the lethality of it. i don't know what i expected. i didn't expect the president to say i made a mistake, but i thought he would have thought it through more. there wasn't that. he was very defensive and visibly agitated.

in his opening remarks he talked about any number of issues except for the bob woodward book. >> i appreciate your frankness in that answer. let me add one more question to my pile. i mean, does he or anyone around him acknowledge with a wink or slug the dissident -- including to his supporters and the one who spoke at the convention that her father died because he trusted donald trump. is there any evidence that his own admission of lying about coronavirus and not wanting to create panic is totally contradicted by creating panic

about largely peaceful protests? >> yes, this is a president who has governed in large part on fear, scare tactics and creating panic. we heard about the migrant caravans. when the president launched his campaign, he warned people about the immigrants who were rapists and killers. now all the suburbs are vanishing because antifa is taking to the streets. this is his political strategy to scare voters and get them to rally to his cause. it really strains that he's not trying to bring panic. >> i want to bring alicia in.

here is just one ad that biden has created using trump's voice and his words against him. >> i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down. >> while donald trump was telling america the virus was nothing to worry about, he knew it was deadly. >> it's also more deadly than your -- even your strenuous flus. this is deadly stuff. >> now 190,000 americans are dead. our economy crushed. our kids not safe in school and trump knew it all along. >> i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down. >> you know, alicia, since i was too young to admit without feeling like a total political dork, i have studied politics. every crisis that's ever taken down a politician was this

question what did he know and when did he know it. here you have the answer. what did donald trump know about covid-19 and when did he know it? in february he knew it was more lethal that he was willing to tell us. >> phil just got it so right. this is a president who has relied on fear. he wanted americans to believe the greatest that's true to american safety and security was migrants at our borders, sanctuary cities. now it's protesters around the country. now this is a president who down played a virus that has killed more than 192,000 americans. we're looking through a lot of reporting right now, much of it about foreign actors interfering in our elections. while it's a threat to our democracy, the lived experience

of the coronavirus pandemic is undeniable. it's undeniable to all those americans who lost someone they loved. it's undeniable to americans who lost their job or business is on therocks. it's undeniable to americans facing eviction. it's real for all the care takers who are going to figure out how they're going to have remote learning for their children while they do their jobs. what you see the biden campaign underlining there is that this is happening. it's happening in people's lives. it's undeniable. the point we're going to hear a lot over the next few weeks, this could have been avoided. >> you know, nick, a place where this imperils donald trump it's two fold. this is not -- this is trump in

his own voice, not forced to do an interview, but clearly enjoying the interview. the real danger to trump is trump's lead over biden on the economic is vulnerable. if it's known to everyone in the country that he not only let people get exposed to the deadly virus, but he let the economy be racked and decimated by how long this has gone on. if we had with clear eyes and mas masks have started this, some of those businesses might be open. >> look, trump has launched an

election surprise on himself. it's really astounding. it's self-inflicted. first of all it's great reporting, but in a strange way it's unsurprising. it doesn't tell us anything voters didn't already know. he doesn't value service or sacrifice. he thinks alliances are for suckers. we know he was misleading the public about covid for a long time. what's happening now is the president is paying a price for his own refusal to fan the flames of panic back then. we're in a prolonged crisis because we used up as a country or runway for months diddling over a response and the pandemic spread. if he had gone out early on and said this is really bad here's the strategy let's take it seriously, it would have been so

harmful to the country economically, but could have been shorter and fewer lives could have been lost. he's now paying the price for how long this is going on, for the businesses being wrecked and ruined, for the people who don't have jobs, for the parents who aren't sure if their kids are safe in school. it's story number one as we head into the final weeks of this election. >> jeremy, let me give you the last word. can you articulate what bob woodward means inside the institutions in which you ser d served, the cia, the pentagon, what his decades of relationships can yield? listen, i have my own experience and knowledge of how right he gets it. wasn't always to the benefit of anyone i ever worked for. can you speak to that? what does bob woodward have the ability to get? i think nick put it perfectly.

it's an november surprise to donald trump from donald trump. the picture he creates, is there anything about that that surprises you? >> i think he writes the first draft of history. i think by and large he's thought of as someone who faithfully records what happens in his reconstructions of conversations. here there's no mystery because the president is on tape. the thing i'm thinking over, nicolle, is it possible the president actually wanted -- on purpose he wanted this virus to spread? before everyone jumps out of their care and says how could that be, here's a guy that was looking around, to be in charge of something, to manage a crisis. he loved striding into that briefing room every day. the covid crisis is going to compromise the ability to have an orderly election day.

if he's trailing in the polls, he may want that. i think he wants the chaos and wants the uncertainty and wants the lockdown because it may help him in early november. >> well, we know that he relished describing himself from that podium until he told us to inject bleach for cleaning of our lungs being his own version of a war time president. there's some evidence to support that therapy. jeremy, phil, thank you so much for starting us off. nick and alicia are staying put. when the president should have been warning the country about an airborne virus he knew was some deadly stuff, he was ready to fire those who wanted to tell us the truth. more from the woodward book. during trump's very busy schedule, he had his staff make videos mocking robert mueller for his amusement.

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it goes through air, bob. that's tougher than the touch. this is deadly stuff. >> now that we know from bob woodward's tape that donald trump knew of the severity of the coronavirus in early february, including the touch stuff, the president's downplaying conflicted with what

was being said by public health officials looks more alarming. dr. nance masanya warned of the virus' spread on february 25th after trump told woodward it posed a serious threat. >> ultimately we expect we will see community spread in this country. it's not so much a country of if this will happen anymore, but rather a more of when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness. i understand the whole situation may seem overwhelming and disruption to every day life may be severe, but these are things people need to start thinking about now. >> reporting that followed her statement found that trump was so angry he almost fired her because the stock market plunged after she gave those comments. she gave that warning after

trump gave that interview to woodward. two days after this briefing this is how trump presented the virus to the american people. >> it's going to disappear. like a miracle it will disappear. it could get worse before it gets better. could maybe go away. we'll see what happens. nobody knows. >> joining our conversation msnbc medical contributor dr. patel. nick and alicia are still here. dr. patel, i'm still processing nick's analysis that donald trump has delivered his own october surprise to himself. to the point where we know have in his own voice basically a confession, he's confessed to lying to the american people, to knowingly downplaying the risk, and all its political ramifications.

we'll watch closely to see if it erodes support around the voters he's trying to target. can any of the people he attacked or threatened or undermined or contradicted or tried to sbintimidate by the things he was saying, can they get that back? he has spent since months maligning scientists. >> nicolle, it's a great question. i think they can get it back. nance masanya, peter marks, incredible career scientists, we talk about dr. fauci, there's thousands of career scientists like him that have credibility within the agencies, with people who know who they are, unfortunately they go behind the scenes. it's very unusual for them to be out front on podiums.

they can get that credibility back. we need a change of administrations to facilitate that. now that the american public is hearing the truth, that yes, in fact, even the president himself who called this a hoax has done something that now hopefully more voters will understand. created a hoax himself on the american people. scientists -- it must be hard to be one of those career scientists. nicolle, i know for a fact they wanted to quit time and time again. the fact that they didn't means they know they have a job to do. we know he can bluster all he wants at a podium. to actually make sure we have a safe and effective vaccine, to get ppe to people, you need people with names that no american will ever recognize, they'll continue to have the credibility and will usher in

safety for us. march 19th, after many of these tapes occurred, nicolle we only had 9,000 cases of the coronavirus total. the way a virus spreads is not line linear. it's not like we get 1,000 cases a day. this snow balled. one case started january 21st. imagine if we let the scientists lead and ignored the president completely. we wouldn't be talking about the numbers on the screens today. >> to your point here's what the president was saying one day after that on march 20th to peter alexander. >> we're going to know. >> reporter: is it possible your impulse to put a positive spin on things may be giving americans a false sense of hope? >> i don't think so. >> reporter: what do you say to american that is are scared? nearly 200 dead. 14,000 are sick.

millions who are scared. what do you say to americans watching you right now who are scared? >> i say that you're a terrible reporter. that's what i say. it's a very nasty question. i think it's a very bad signal you're putting out to the american people. the american people are looking for answers and looking for hope. you're doing sensationalism. >> dr. patel, that's some sick bleep. at the same time he's acknowledged that it's airborne an very, very contagious. it's deadly, much more deadly than a strenuous flu and that's he's intentionally downplaying the risk to the american people. yet he calls a question about the public being scared a very bad question from a bad journalist. >> yeah. not only that, but i think that a very bad question which -- it's so clear this is donald trump the actor, the marketing

savant who is trying to make somehow by bullying a reporter who is asking sincere questions in response to facts, that's his m.o. none of us are surprised. i don't think anybody is surprised he's doing that. what's been interesting, jeremy made me think about an interesting point. what would that interaction had looked like on march 19th if it had been texas as the first state that was affected. if it had not been a blue state, coming from that state i think about this a lot. what if we flipped the map to what we have today? how differently would the actions have gone? could we have saved hundreds of thousands of lives? honestly that's something -- it doesn't matter in some respect. we've lost so many americans. i think that interchange would have been different if the facts that were infected initially had

a different color attached to their political party. >> it's such a tragic thought. alicia, the united states of america has 6,400,000 cases. we've lost 192,329 of our neighbors, teachers, doctors, grandparents, kids. we're less than 60 days out from election. where do you think we're heading? >> what is so disturbing about this reporting is that it underscores a lot of what we already know which is that the president was treating this as a pr crisis rather than treating it as a health crisis and we're now living with those realities. that's true in two different ways. one is that you have a virus of which we knew a lot of the spread was going to come down to personal responsibility, to

personal hygiene and the person who had the best podium to communicate that to the american people was giving them bad information. his argument about i didn't want to create a panic would hold a lot more water if behind the scenes there had been the commitment to a national response to testing and to tracing and the fact that there wasn't undermines this idea of not wanting to create panic wholesale. >> dr. patel and alicia, thank you so much for spending time with us. nick is sticking around after the break. bizarre is one word for it. juvenile is another. the video trump's aides show him for his own kicks. that story is next. o clean as you go. it cleans grease five times faster

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and accessoriesphones for your mobile phone. like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program call or visit the shocking details continue to unfold of how our national security officials view donald trump and his lack of leadership and moral compass. now this from maggie haberman. the one meeting mr. trump had the white house deputy chief of staff play a spliced video for the president's amusement of the

special counsel, robert s. mueller, stumbling as he testified through congress. they played a separate video of democrats watching mr. trump doing the state of the union. mr. trump shouted theywatching. joining me now is eugene robinson and nick is still here. nick, when michael cohen report reported about these fetishes, there was a video that trump creating which was this version of him firing an actor that looked like obama. now this fetish gets taken inside the white house paid for by the u.s. tax payer and these videos are made to mock donald trump's political rival robert s. mueller. this is some sick bleep hole

stuff. what explains what these people are doing on the u.s. government payroll? >> well, nicolle, i have a highly technical explanation for this. it's super weird. i can't think of any other president that has had someone playing them funny videos. seriously, it speaks to this trump desire for ritual humiliation and dominance. obama goes after him in the white house correspondent's dinner. he nurses this grudge and gets an actor to come in and play obama and humiliate the actor. then he has this guy show him a video of the special counsel stumbling. this is pretty juvenile for a

grown man, a grandfather, a president. this reaffirms this deep need for dominance this president has shown. >> eugene, weird is too nice. weird is like -- i thought the guy, the republican who picked out the starburst colors that's weird, but this is sick. this is sick behavior. this wasn't done by the campaign. this wasn't done by a political supporter. it was done by a white house staffer. this is someone who you and i pay his salary. >> right. i think the weird sick comes to mind. you're absolutely right on that. i would disagree with only one thing nick said in that donald trump is not a grown man, not a grown man in the way that you or i would understand that.

he has the ego of a 2 or 3-year-old. he is so needy and he needs this constant stroking and this constant affirmation and constantly to be told that you are good and you are great and you are terrific. by the way, your enemies, those trying to destroy you are bad and awful. he needs to be told this over and over again. that's why as we heard this afternoon in his bizarre appearance he spends hours and hours just watching fox news and fox business just so that he can be stroked by all his media friends and buddies and enabl s enablers. he has this deep-seated need for it. he's one of the weirdest people ever to be president of the united states. that's only the beginning of the

description, but certainly weird and sick are two words that one could use. >> but he's a looker. i'll leave that alone. nick confessore, let me ask you in the final days of the election, the side that makes it about the voter, about their problems -- i talked about this a lot. the two axis on which presidential choices are made are understands the problems for people like me and strong leader. donald trump was never going to be in the game of understands problems of people like me. he has no ability to understand the pain and anxiety of food insecurity. i never heard him say a word about it. look at the people waiting in their cars for food. they clearly had jobs. they had economic security six months ago. they're now economically insecure because of donald trump's failures on covid. no ability to engage on that.

my question is around this strong leader. underneath what is freakish and sick and almost perverse, this sick aneed to hire an actor to play obama -- it's creepy to even say it out loud. it also projects profound weakness, profound weakness. if you have to act it out in play, you don't actually possess strength in life. do you think there's a weakness that's coming out from these tales? >> i certainly can say that at this moment president trump is a politician who is projecting security, strength and confidence and if you hire an imposter so you can fire the person you didn't have the guts to run against, it shows that somethings stay deep and stay with you. in the closing weeks of the

campaign, what you want to be doing is saying two or three things very simply that voters want to hear. that's how you win an election. instead the president is trapped in an october surprise of his own making when his own ego led him to sit down, as so many others have before him, with bob woodward and make these remarks. in september he doesn't have a lot of time to turn this around if he's going to turn it around. >> you know, eugene, it's the best thing that has been said since this book came out that donald trump has delivered his own october surprise. here's what else is in it, this weakness in the shadow of the greatness of kim jong-un. whatever you thought of john mccain you didn't feel like john mccain was going to let kim jong-un or his father before him threaten us.

with trump you feel he's going to hand this murderous dictator the keys to our kingdom because he loves him so much. >> that's just bizarre, this relationship between trump and kim and how kim obviously not a stupid person with advisers who pay attention knew how to play donald trump like a violin with flattery, with pomp and circumstance and all that. it worked. it worked. it made trump into kind of a kim jong-un -- no ever american president could be, yet that's what he is. looking ahead to the election, the one thing -- i agree with your axis in terms of a normal election with normal candidates. donald trump's the axis, the only axis he is trying to work

with is the culture war axis. i'm on your side because you like me don't like the libs, the elites, the coastal bad people. that's what he's trying to play on with the racism, with the division, with the everything else. sure the hard core base i think probably sticks with him. who knows? those more loosely attached voters, he's given them every single reason to switch over to joe biden. really has. >> eugene robinson is sticking around i think. nick confessore, we're losing you, but not before you gave us the line of the day about donald trump giving us his own october surprise. thank you my friend. up next senator kamala

harris making her first campaign stop in florida as joe biden's running mate. we'll bring you her response to what we learned in the last 24 hours. stay with us. ...and new adventures. you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past... they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. let's help protect them together. because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination.

he knew it was airborne. that people would breathe it. you know, joe biden said it well. he said, well, i guess we now know he knows how to read. he knew the facts of it.

we continue to have examples of the fact that this is an individual who is not concerned about the health, safety and well-being of the american people. and is, frankly, engaged in a reckless disregard of the lives and the health and well-being of our country. i find it so outrageous. >> vice presidential candidate kamala harris at an event in miami just in the last hour slamming donald trump over the revelations in bob woodward's new book "rage." joining our conversation, nbc news correspondent hideeidi przybyla. eugene is still here. joe biden and kamala harris wasted no time taking this fresh confession from donald trump in his own words, in his own voice, that he knew how lethal coronavirus was and he knowingly misled the american people.

>> and they should continue to nail that into the ground. you'll see that in the coming weeks that there will probably even be additional revelations about this, nicolle, that it wasn't just ignorance. up until now, really, we've had a discussion about whether the president was just ignorant about the virus and really believed the things he was saying or whether he knew them to be false. and now we have an explanation that there actually was a plan around all of this. and i think this is something that's under appreciated how calculated this was. i take you back to when the american medical association, the hospitals, all of these groups were urging trump to come up with a plan but his plan was to put it onto the states. and was to blame the states. so it wasn't that he didn't know it wasn't deadly. it was that he planned to, you know, shift the blame. >> you know, eugene, heidi makes a really good point.

and as traumatic at the last six months have been between the pandemic, between a racial reckoning that the -- most of the country has grappled with, it is easy to forget that at the beginning, when he still had the country's attention, when he wasn't down to 26% who trusted him, there was a hunger for a national plan, for a national testing plan for him to invoke the defense production act, for him to create a national contact tracing program and push out best practices. but to add to heidi's point, not only did a national plan never come, he became the country's heckler in chief when michigan and virginia had stay-at-home orders in place to deal with their outbreaks. he was tweeting liberate michigan. i mean, he really has left himself exposed 50, whatever, 56 days before the election on his greatest vulnerability. never having a plan to protect

the country he leads. >> right. there still is a hunger for all of those things and it's -- and so there is -- nick confessore talked about trump creating his own october surprise a little bit early in september, but he really did, at a really inopportune moment. as time went -- parents around the country are struggling to get their kids back in school. some schools are virtual. some in person and they go back and forth in virginia, james madison university, 20,000 student state school opened up to in-person classes and then had to send everybody home because of coronavirus cases. one of a number of schools around the country. big schools that have had to do that. that's having a ripple effect in every community in virginia. there are james madison students who are now at home not knowing

when they'll be able to go back to campus. parents having to deal with that. it's just a terrible moment, this moment of going back in the fall for all this to come out, for us to know that a lot of the president's ignorance wasn't actually ignorance, it was calculation, which is just astounding. and it's such a betrayal of the american people, betrayal of his oath. just shocking. >> heidi, the president is running on fear. fear of phantoms. phantom looters, phantom threats to the suburbs, but that which is real, a real pandemic that's taken the lives of more than 192,000 americans and sickened more than 6 million was something he knowingly downplayed. where do you think that leaves us at this point? >> i'm looking over the polling data, nicolle, and it seems as

if the one area where he remains relatively -- and i say relatively because it's by a hair to have an advantage is on the economy. and i would be surprised if you didn't see kamala harris and joe biden lean in more to making that connection between coronavirus where the polls show they have a very strong advantage over trump. he is fooling no one about how he responded to this virus and the dereliction of duty. but he still maintains this advantage on the economy. so why is that when joe biden and kamala harris can make a really compelling case to look around the rest of the world where, in places like germany, for instance, you know, kids are going back to school. small businesses aren't suffering as much. the economy hasn't been as devastated. trump, talking about all these

job figures, those aren't new jobs. we're just making up for the hole that we've been in. >> unbelievable state of affairs. heidi przybyla and eugene robinson, thanks for spending some time with us. up next for us -- more on the whistleblower who says the government concealed threats to the united states, including from white supremacists and russia. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. or face to face, we're here to help- utilizing our resources as one of the nation's largest banks and a local approach with a focus on customized insights. so you're ready for today.

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for spending a perfectly reasonable amount of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub? grubhub's gonna reward you for that with a $5 off perk. (doorbell rings) - [crowd] grubhub! (fireworks exploding) to have a senior intelligence official at dhs confirm everything we feared, that is that they're censoring

intelligence, withholding intelligence because it would make the president look bad, because that intelligence shows that russia is pushing out the same false narratives as the president? once again helping the president and his campaign, but they're also minimizing the threat from white supremacy. they're exaggerating the threat at our southern border. it's just plain dishonest and dangerous because it doesn't let us protect the country the way that we should if we're getting good and honest intelligent work products. >> hi again, everybody. it's 5:00 in the east. stop me if you've heard this one before. a whistleblower says donald trump's white house is threatening u.s. national security by politicizing intelligence. a new whistleblower with a new complaint about donald trump's willingness to put americans in harm's way and to conceal threats to the homeland including from white supremacists and from russia. from "the new york times," quote, top officials with the department of homeland security

directed agency analysts to downplay threats from violent white supremacy and russian election interference. a homeland security official said in a whistleblower complaint released on wednesday. brian murphy, the former head of the homeland security department department's intelligence branch said in a complaint he was ordered this spring by chad wolf. he's the acting secretary of the department to stop producing assessments on russian interference and to focus instead on iran and china. the subversion of the intelligence product to donald trump's political whims comes as alarm bells are being sounded by the former director of national intelligence, dan coats, over the suspension of in-person briefings to congress on election interference. from "the washington post," quote, daniel coats, a former head of the intelligence community, warned wednesday that the trump administration's move to roll back in-person briefings to congress on foreign threats

to the 2020 election undermines the agency's mission and efforts to safeguard the vote. it is another rebuke from a former member of team trump who, according to bob woodward, is the one who worried that putin had something on trump. the disturbance trump continues to create in the u.s. intelligence community is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us from "the new york times," homeland security correspondent zolan, plus former deputy national security adviser to president obama, ben rhodes is back, and former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi, frank figliuzzi is here. he's the author of "the fbi way: inside the bureau's code of excellence." let me start with the reporting on this. take me inside everything we know about this whistleblower and what he encountered and how he ended up filing another

whistleblower complaint. >> ryan murphy, the deputy -- one of the heads of the office of intelligence and analysis, a former fbi agent, you'll recall back in august, ryan murphy was actually demoted when it was emerged that his office has disseminated intelligence bulletins that included summaries, included information about the tweets of two journalists, including "the new york times" journalist. mr. murphy now says that that demotion, which homeland security leadership, including chad wolf and others, they say that he was demoted directly because of that. mr. murphy is -- he was working with the homeland security inspector general. and it is because he was raising alarms that chad wolf as well as the number two official in homeland security, ken cuccinelli, instructed mr.

murphy and other analysts in that intelligence office to downplay the threat of russian interference in the election. and instead focus on the threat of china as well as -- with iran which are more prone to criticize president trump. in addition, he also flagged the inspector general and it's in this whistleblower complaint that the leadership of homeland security, include playing wolf, directed him to downplay the threat of white supremacy. now that's alarming because last september, the department of homeland security issued a strategy framework acknowledging white nationalist extremists, as well as other domestic terrorists, as one of the top national security threats to the united states. however, for nearly a year, we have been waiting on the blueprint on how this department would prevent and combat that. and what mr. murphy is alleging is that that release has been

withheld as a result of this prioritization on the part of homeland security leadership that wanted his intelligence to align with the rhetoric of president trump. >> we're going to work on your audio, but let me take your reporting and come over to ben rhodes. what zolan has reported to have been going on at the department of homeland security is part of a pattern. elizabeth neumann who left the homeland security department and has now endorsed joe biden and she and miles taylor tell a similar story to the one being told by the whistleblower that her department at homeland created a document detailing the threats presented by white supremacists and the violent threat that they pose to the homeland. and those threat assessments were rebuffed when they made their way to the white house. i mean, this is -- pattern is

the wrong word but this is another example of the entire intelligence gathering and the production of the product up the chain of command being completely broken, at best, and corrupted at worst. >> absolutely, nicolle. it's a pattern. the pattern is that donald trump has his own reality, has his own political views and if those don't align with the safety of the american people, that just doesn't matter. i've been in those jobs. i've read reports about white supremacist threats. i've read reports about russians interfering. these are not political matters. these are factual. and the reality is not only is donald trump not taking steps to prevent those threats. he's not taking steps to prevent our election against russian interference. not taking steps to protect americans from the threat of white supremacist terrorists. let's be honest. he's fanning the flames. if you look at his own twitter feed, he is a source of

motivation for some of the white nationalists that we've seen. and we've seen acts of violence in this country. we've seen in kenosha, wisconsin. instead of having a strategy to protect americans from that threat, they're seeking to downplay it. same with russia. and it connects to this point about iran and china that's very important because the director of national intelligence recently came out in a statement. head scratching to some of us which essentially tried to both sides say, well, russia is interfering to help trump but china is interfering to help biden. those of white house worked in the field. china has a lot of anti-u.s. information. the fact they're engaged to help elect someone president, there's just no evidence that's the case. so clearly they are bending reality to serve his political interests at the expense of the american people and their security. not only is he not defending us, he in some ways is contributing to some of this threat, in particular when it comes to

white nationalists. >> frank figliuzzi, it's a point i think you might have been the first to make to me on this program in the months we were covering donald trump's efforts not just to deny and ignore the threat posed by russia. i think it was after the massacre in el paso that you brought my attention to the uptick in white supremacy as a domestic terror threat in this country. and zolan's reporting would suggest that intelligence about russia and about white supremacy are shockingly, oddly and horrifyingly treated the same way. ignored. >> nicolle, the droerkirector o fbi, chris wray, has told us this white nationalist, racist-based threat is the number one threat they're looking at right now inside the united states. and my sources -- my contacts in

law enforcement and intelligence community tell me as recently as a couple of days ago, they are planning for the worst in terms of not only ramp up to the election and violence, but post election through inauguration. that's what their intelligence is telling them. so similarly, just as the suppression of the russian meddling is occurring at dhs, let's look at what's happened in reality in the last 24 hours. since you've been on the air, it's breaking that a guy has been designated as a foreign agent and sanctioned by justice and treasury because he is a russian agent. this is a ukrainian. he's the guy feeding the nonsense to rudy giuliani and feeding congress this nonsense about biden and ukraine and maybe ukraine did the hacking into the dnc in 2016. now lo and behold, what do we learn? he's been a russian agent for ten years. yet we're suppressing dhs

reports that tell us the truth, that tell us that russia is attacking our election yet again. >> all right. you took us on a detour and let's stay here because this is zolan's beat. ben rhodes knows this. and i remember reading in the odni threat assessment, which is the document that i think ben is talking about being so distorted. it listed the countries seeking to influence our election. the distinction around iran and china is simply that they've expressed a preference, not that they're actively meddling. in the one paragraph released from odni was this individual's name. he is a known disseminator of russian disinformation, and i believe it was included, the specific efforts that were scuttled in a department of homeland security briefing to denigrate the health of joe biden. just talk for a little bit about how hobbled the whole system becomes if the intelligence

product gets stripped down from odni, if the briefings get cut off from the intelligence community at large and if the intel pocket which was a creation of post-9/11 sort of domestic security functions meant to bring to the people in charge of protecting americans at home the same quality and caliber of intelligence that our intelligence communities have, if all that is hobbled by politics. >> i think the other officials on this panel would also say that when you talk to those analysts, as well as former officials, current officials and the department of homeland security and others in the intelligence community, one of the more alarming and scary things to them is the possibility that intelligence could be politicized. we have to remember that the office of intelligence and analysis, it's not just in sharing information amongst federal agencies but what local police departments, local sheriff departments, state governments rely on to stay up

to date on the latest national security threats and attempts to interfere with the election. and what mr. murphy is alleging, as we were referencing there, is that when a bulletin was ready that raised alarms about russia's attempts to denigrate the mental health of -- or spread -- i should say spread disinformation about the mental health of vice president joe biden, that it was withheld. and it's not just that, but also you can look at the blueprint that would have provided a road map to how the agency could combat white nationalism. we're still waiting on that. and it's been nearly a year. mr. murphy is alleging that it's not just due to bureaucratic delays but rather the intention of the leadership of the department.

>> you know, ben rhodes, can you just address what happens now? we have another whistleblower. he's taken his complaints to adam schiff but donald trump already has all this in motion. donald trump is already installed his cronies atop these agencies. he's got a sycophant there at homeland security. he's got his guy as odni. how do you right this ship in the next 56 days? >> i think the cold reality is you're not going to be able to right this ship in the next 50 days. they have been at work at this in plain sight for some time. you have a guy running the department of homeland security who was never confirmed. who doesn't have the qualifications for the job. he's a former lobbyist, a trump loyalist. you van office of the director of national intelligence, acting person for some time. a very political figure who addressed the national and public convention, shutting down

congressional briefings. another trump loyalist running that office while russia is engaged in this. clearly they've been taking steps to suppress information to alter intelligence reports and to keep information from congress to get through this election to enable this russian interference. we've seen this movie before. in 2016, one of the ways in which russian disinformation helped donald trump was about hillary clinton's health. guess what? it was amplified by donald trump who went on endlessly about hillary clinton's health as we can guess he's going to do about joe biden. they are running the exact same play. they feel a sense of impunity about it because congressional republicans have been unwilling to stand up to this. and we have some congressional republicans cooperating with disinformation. ron johnson, the senator taking that information from somebody we know now is a russian agent to ukraine. all we can do is be aware of the information.

work with social media and tech companies so they can do some of this work themselves to pull down russian information to try to spotlight what's happening because our government is not going to protect us from it so we're going to have to do it ourselves. >> frank figliuzzi, this is a question, not a theory, but is it a coincidence that the two forces are white supremacists and russia? or is there some dark intersection between the two? >> well, so first, i think we need to understand, and we do generally, that this president suppresses the truth. and 2020 is going to go down as the year where the truth died. but if you want to microfocus on what is specifically being suppressed, these are two areas where suppressing the truth helps trump. that's why people want to lie. that's why people want the truth to be covered up because it's somehow benefits them. so let's look at white supremacy and that violent nationalist

movement. well, we know that they are largely his base. i am not implying that every trump follower is part of that. i'm saying that -- almost every one of them -- those people are, in fact, followers of trump. and many of them look to him as a leader. he refuses to denounce them. so the fact that he doesn't denounce them. the fact he wants to suppress the truth that they are growing and pose a growing threat is beneficial to them. if you look at russia, it's now beyond any contention that they -- by our own government's admission and again as recently as the last 24 hours with charges and sanctions against ukrainian and russian agents. it's clear he's getting help from russia. i'm not going to get into whether he's asked for it, knows all about it. that's not the point. cheating is occurring because a foreign power is meddling in our election once again. why? it benefits him. why is he suppressing the truth? it benefits him. it's not just a coincidence that these are the two areas where he wants the truth suppressed.

>> frank, can i just follow up. 2020 being the year that the truth dies is a haunting thought. i fear that you're right. what's happening at the fbi? this is a whistleblower who is pulling back the curtain on what's happening at homeland security, but what's happening in terms of fighting the threat of russian disinformation in a more effective way than we did in 2016? and what is happening? as has been said already this hour, it was christopher wray who testified to the threat, as you said before, the threat of white supremacists to our homeland. >> so there's good news here if there's any, which is that every single day, as far as i -- information i'm getting is that there's a battle being fought, men and women are getting up out of bed going to work to literally fight a war with foreign powers and in fact, some domestic enemies that are trying to mess with our democracy and mess with our election. it's happening every single day.

it's essentially akin, especially if you are in the cyber counterintelligence cyber role. almost akin to a post-9/11 posture right now. that's the kind of battle going on. that's going on while the higher ups at the bureau of trying to survive so that they can fight every single day and not incur wrath and get fired because then worse things are going to happen. so the battle is going on with career professionals. they are preparing on the violence side for an election and right up to inauguration. and then on the foreign power side, and believe me, it's not just russia. it's iran. there's china. there's others. and there is a literal battle kind of a whack-a-mole cyberwarfare going on every single day right now. >> we will stay on it. zolan, ben rhodes, frank figliuzzi. three of the best of the best in this space. thanks for starting us off today. when we come back, much more on donald trump's willingness to put america in harm's way in

service of his own political agenda. a top democrat on the house intelligence committee will join us. plus, one day after donald trump's admission came to light that he knowingly downplayed the coronavirus, joe biden is unloading. his latest attacks are ahead. and the nfl season kicks off tonight after months of protests in this country against racial inequality and police brutality. we have new polling showing how far the country has moved and how out of step donald trump remains on the issues of race and social justice. "deadline: white house" back after a very quick break. but how do we make sure the direction we're headed is forward? at fidelity, you'll get the planning and advice to prepare you for the future, without sacrificing the things that are important to you today. we'll help you plan for healthcare costs, taxes and any other uncertainties along the way. because with fidelity, you can feel confident

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when this intelligence is withheld from state and local law enforcement, those responsible for election security, those who are responsible for making sure the technologies work and aren't hacked into. when that is withheld because it would, what, be embarrassing to the president, that puts our democracy at risk. that puts everyone's votes at risk. so this is just how destructive it is. >> that's house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff with msnbc's andrea mitchell just this afternoon. one day after the release of a bombshell whistleblower complaint from former top dhs official brian murphy who says that his dhs colleagues lied to congress, blocked analysis of russian election interference and changed security assessments, all to match and benefit donald trump's political agenda. congressman schiff has asked murphy to testify privately before the house intel committee

on september 21st and says he will issue a subpoena if necessary. let's bring into our conversation, new york democratic congressman sean patrick maloney, a member of the house intel committee. my first thought when i saw this was, here we go again. but what do you do with the whistleblower pulling the alarm for a fire that's burning inside her democracy 56 days before an election? >> well, let's point out that this is not an anonymous complaint. this is the senior intelligence official at the department of homeland security. this is the assistant under secretary for intelligence and analysis. also a former marine who served in iraq. this is someone who has stepped forward with very serious allegations. so it's different. but it fits a pattern. what we have seen, this week especially, is that when it comes to our public health and the pandemic, when it comes to russian interference and the security of our elections, when it comes to the rule of law,

donald trump himself and those he has corrupted, his own administration and on the hill are willing to deceive the american public to benefit the president politically. and when it comes to national security, that's just unacceptable. but it fits a pattern we have now clearly seen in multiple areas, including national security. >> and the allegations are serious and specific. as you said, he is accusing his department officials of, quote, lying to congress, manipulating intelligence reports to conform trump's agenda which include holding back reporting on russian election interference. we are four years in to this question. we've learned that a robust look at donald trump's ties to russia never took place. do you think we are more or less vulnerable to russians -- russia's moves into our democracy this election than four years ago? >> i think your other guest made

a good point. we're not defenseless. we've got a lot of good people working in the agencies on offense, not just defense. we have extraordinary capabilities to protect the american public, but it would help if they get a clear signal from the commander in chief that this is a priority. if you can't brief the american public and the congress on russian interference in the election, you're probably benefiting from it. if you and your allies are -- who has now been considered a russian agent by the treasury department and ron johnson and devin nunes and the president himself and people like rudy giuliani are trying to use his laundered russian disinformation to benefit the president, that's a real problem. you may remember at the last meeting of the intelligence committee we had, i called out devin nunes for getting a care package from durkash who has been classified a russian agent which contained a bunch of

information he would not share with the rest of the committee. he wouldn't admit he received the package, even though we have the shipping receipt from durkash to devin nunes. senior leadership in the republican party, in the house and senate and the white house are attempting to benefit from russian interference. thank god for the people out there in the agencies and thank god that the american public is now far more aware of what's happening and in a better position to deal with it. >> well, let me just follow up. you are the second guest this hour to mention that du rkash operation of essentially seeking to launder his hit file on joe biden through the senate intelligence committee and through ron johnson's office specifically. what do you do to make sure the u.s. taxpayers aren't funding what's particularly a smear job

on joe biden. >> it's important we do congressional oversight. we are going to have the whistleblower, mr. murphy, come in and testify under oath under subpoena in just a couple of weeks. it's very important we get the light shining on these efforts of ron johnson and dicevin nune to be venues for russian disinformation. of course, this is a pattern. this is the same administration that took the mueller report and misrepresented what was in it. looked at the pandemic and lied about how serious it was. we have the president on tape now doing that. this is an administration that can't deal with vote by mail so they're trying to deep six the post office. these are the guys who had information, incredible reports about bounties on troops in afghanistan. did nothing. they know the russians poisoned

a senior opposition leader and this administration alone, among western nations, has been silent on that. i mean, the only thing we can do right now is shout from the rooftops that the russians are trying to help donald trump. donald trump is happy to have that help. he's got a bunch of people in congress who are betraying their country in large part to do it and we need to vote like never before because the remedy is going to be to throw these guys out of office. >> congressman sean patrick maloney, thank you so much for spending some time with us and for hitting all those topics on your way out. we're grateful. when we return, joe biden is erupting on a president he says is unfit after those stunning audiotapes from bob woodward show donald trump admitting that he knowingly downplayed the coronavirus threat. that's next. it's what we did with coogan's.

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he walked away. he didn't do a damn thing. think about it. think about what he did not do.

and it's almost criminal. >> joe biden isn't letting the moment slip him by. from the aftermath of the atlantic piece to the bob woodward tapes and revelations, joe biden channeling the anger many americans are feeling with just over 50 days to go until election day. joining our conversation, national political"the washing, costa, jason johnson is back and senior opinion writer for the "boston globe" kim atkins is here. robert costa, my question for you, if you take this period from last monday when joe biden coming off the republican convention went out there and gave a forceful speech saying that looters and vandals will be prosecuted. you go through the whole week. he gave a covid speech about the back-to-school openings being contaminated by politics. he jumped on the jeffrey

goldberg atlantic piece thursday night into friday morning and he's seized these woodward tapes with a really rage that i think a lot of people feel in hearing this admission, this confession almost from donald trump. what do you make of what joe biden is making of the gifts trump seems to be handing him? >> it's actually a pretty nuanced response from vice president biden. i was calling around my democratic sources and they said, yes, vice president biden is seizing on these character issues put afford by the woodward book. character and leadership. but some of my top democratic sources also said pay attention to how biden still gave his speech this week on the economy in michigan. he is still focusing on the economy because he wants to ket connect with americans who put their own financial interests, economic issues, perhaps ahead of character issues because he doesn't want to get pulled into this riptide of only going along

with the latest trump controversy or scandal. he wants to make sure he has that undercurrent of the economy. >> you know, it's such an important point and i think it could get lost on someone that doesn't watch the whole of the campaign. but even senator kamala harris who came out and i think she was making remarks specifically about trump's trip to kenosha last week, is making these economic arguments. every time joe biden and senator harris open their mouths, jason johnson, they are making a point that all this chaos, all this instability, the neglect and the refusal to do something about the pandemic has been the greatest blow to our economic strength. >> nicolle, it's a brilliant and smart message because, remember, the economy is the only polling area where joe biden is sometimes losing to donald trump. for some reason, people still think that the president is

managing the economy in a halfway decent way. one thing really clear to me and what makes this messaging really important. you know what i haven't seen when i've gone around to target or walmart and other places. there's no back-to-school sales. there's no lunches being bought. like because of this pandemic, and kids having to be home, people aren't spending money which is slowing down the economy and having an impact on everybody else. there nor back-to-school jobs. my students i taught virtually are like there's no job at chipotle. so for biden and harris focusing on the economy, they are reminding people there's an actual competence element to this beyond the tragedy of just covid. >> and, kim, if you pull the thread and we have, i think, four minutes from 18 separate interviews with woodward. but if you pull the thread on what trump has already sort of confessed to, it's that he knew the virus was airborne. he knew the virus was lethal.

and he knowingly downplayed it. there's the sort of character atrocity there that he left people at risk healthwise, but there's the economic negligence that there are a whole lot of people whose businesses maybe survived the first shutdowns but they're not going to survive the slowdowns that are ensuing from just our lingering, lagging inability to extinguish the virus the way every other western country has. >> that's absolutely right. i mean, it seems the president insists on this false narrative that hiding the virus was a choice between protecting the economy or being prudent when it came to distancing and shutdowns that were aimed to stop the spread of the virus. that you had to pick one or the other when what the competent way forward and what we've seen countless other countries do is stop the spread of the virus so that you do protect the economy. he never did that first part of

it and so we're seeing the economy continue to suffer for, you know, now more than six months into this pandemic. and there's no end to that in sight. there was not an effort to eradicate it, you know, flatten the curve. remember that phrase. so that hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed so that the virus would get under control and businesses could start to reopen. you see that happen in pockets of the united states but not in big, wide swaths. here in washington, d.c., we're sort of stuck in this plateau limbo where businesses can't fully reopen because we can't get that number of new diagnoses, new coronavirus cases down low enough to fully reopen. and that's happening in so many places in the country. so as our board stated and our editorial today, it's a matter of sheer incompetence on the president's part. >> robert, jason and kim are all staying put. when we come back, as the nfl season gets ready to kick off,

new polling shows most americans support players who kneel if they choose to do so during the national anthem underscoring how far out of step donald trump has become on the issues of race and social justice. we'll be right back. customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? i should get a quote. do it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill... ...can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some... rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections,

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congratulations nfl fans. you made it. after an unprecedented off-season of uncertainty, week

one kicks off tonight in kansas city. albeit it front of only about 16,000 fans. it's an exciting moment but also one of reflection. we're living through generational moment, a racial reckoning. and that's something we've watched play out in the nfl over the past few years. donald trump, for his part, still adamantly opposed to kneeling. a player kneeling during the anthem. but the latest polling indicates that the nation may have moved on without him on that question. according to a new "washington post" poll, 56% of americans now say it's appropriate to kneel during the anthem to protest racial inequality. that's a 13-point increase from just two years ago. robert costa, jason johnson and kim atkins are back. bob costa, we know that trump will be -- he doesn't have new tricks and doesn't have any impulse control. so the famous get those sons of bitches out of here is going to come roaring back if trump sees this in the nfl. but is there any admission at just how much the public has

moved toward supporting the nba boycotts, tennis players now playing in the u.s. open with breonna taylor's names on their masks. this is now something that a majority of americans believe is the moment to bring about change and even vast majorities of americans report the right to do so. >> and that issue is now at the center of this presidential campaign. for example, i recently did a story earlier this week on wisconsin and the marquette poll is the gold standard in wisconsin. you saw in wisconsin, this industrial, midwest, upper midwestern state, a lot of support for the protests when they began months ago. but then president trump began his appeals on white grievance to voters in the suburbs. white voters in the suburbs. you saw those numbers in the poll begin to fall. but there's a lot of support out there in this country for protests that are about this racial reckoning and recognizing

the pain and the violence that black americans face often at the hands of police officers and other individuals. and that's now the tension, the issue in the suburban areas. >> you know, jason johnson, when you talk about how the country has moved, you have to also recognize that one of the sort of political hurdles anyone on the side of trump's re-election has to deal with is that he doesn't. he can't move. he doesn't learn new tricks. he doesn't move with the currents. how do you think this plays out. again, the season is starting. it's just another variable with just 56, 57 days left to go. what do you see coming. >> president trump's whole plan, and we have to remember, a lot of nfl owners are mini trumps anyway as far as how their politics go. i won't mention certain teams. they were like, yeah, we're going to get back the nfl and

say america is fine. that's not going to work because you have no audiences there. you're going to have messages about racial equality. but i think what it shows is that not only did trump miss the message but roger goodell's quote about colin kaepernick is like, you know, maybe we should have listened to colin kaepernick. what a lot of americans, especially white americans, 52% in this poll now say kneeling is okay. had you listened to kneeling three years ago, maybe we wouldn't be here. like everybody thought that kneeling was such an extreme way to respond and then you had to see somebody die at the hands of a police officer to say, kneeling is a lot nicer than buildings getting burned down. that's the lesson people are figuring out that peaceful protests. nobody seems to listen to peaceful protests. when you contrast peaceful protests to antifa and white nationalists battling it out in the parking lot of a target you realize a couple of nfl players and college players taking a knee isn't such a bad thing. >> you know, kim atkins, to borrow bob costa's analysis from the conversation of the economy,

here again, joe biden and kamala harris have been quite nuanced. their message is i'm going to have a place at the table for people who might feel they don't have one and that might be a -- listen, i don't think they are always speaking to the looters and people that would do violence but joe biden and kamala harris have sought to bring people to the table who donald trump obviously hasn't set a table and invited them in. to what degree do you think that the approach of the biden/harris ticket sort of elevates this? >> i mean, i think it's -- part of it is baked in, right, because of the president's rhetoric. i was struck today by a pew poll that showed while about 20% more of folks who voted for hillary clinton or who now support joe biden believe that black people have it harder. some 74% of people who say

they'll vote for biden think that black people have it harder in america whereas only 57% did in 2016. that shows you growth. that shows you how minds have been changed by the black lives matter movement by these protests and how more americans are realizing the the sentence to which racism, systemic racism exists in the country. for those who voted for trump, in 201611% thought black people have it harder. now 9% do. it is going in the opposite direction. we saw donald trump himself tell bob woodward, while he does believe that racism exists, that it is really not his problem. not his concern as a privileged white man. that message is clear in everything that he says. so on this issue, all joe biden and kamala harris have to say is say yes, systemic racism exists and it is our duty to address it and this is how. and they've already cleared that hurdle. this is one place that it is so far divide and it is what the

president wants. the president believes his base is uninterested in systemic racism. he believes his base is vested in white grievance and that's how he will campaign. so i am certain once the games start, we will hear the president giving the same rhetoric that did he when he condemned colin kaepernick four years ago. >> they can do it all. the economy, the presidential race, polls and football. thank you for spending some time with us. when we come back, remembering lives well lived. lives well lived of knowing that important things like your prescriptions, and ballots, are on their way. every day, all across america, we'll keep delivering for you. ♪ but come ye back when su-- mom, dad. why's jamie here? it's sunday. sunday sing along. and he helped us get a home and auto bundle. he's been our insurance guy for five years now.

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they had a nickname for 28-year-old demi banister. it was windsor song bird. it is because you can hear her sing to her third grade students from down the hall. and things just felt brighter when she was around. a vibrant spirit through and through. she cared for students and they loved her back. right now as we speak, she should be preparing for another school year. on friday she tested positive for the coronavirus. and by monday, she was gone. she had died. one of her fellow teachers told news 19 in south carolina that putting the school year back together will be like finishing a puzzle with one big missing piece. to her family, her colleagues at windsor elementary, and every last teacher in this country, we are thinking about you this

afternoon and praying for your well being, your safety and your health. we're also remembering kyle. his 24 years on this earth were one big miracle. he barely survived childbirth and persisted through years of subsequent surgeries and illnesses. he did so with courage. with a smile. his mom told abc715 news that he had an intellectual disability along with a compromised immune system but that did not stop him from being a super hero to so many. he was active in organizations with others like him. he died of the coronavirus after a brave fight that lasted a month. his mom hopes his memory goes on forever. she should know. the rest of us hold that and will help with that, too. we'll be right back. we'll be ri.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we're grateful every time you do. "the beat" starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole. thank you very much. nice to see you. welcome to "the beat." i am ari melber. i thank you for joining us. today, covid victims say donald trump himself cost lives by misleading the public. new revelations about russian hackers, targeting this election. 2020 groups including a firm link to joe biden. plus the breonna taylor case reportedly heading toward a grand jury. that's six months after police shot her dead in her apartment. we begin with the scandal of donald trump's own making. new fallout over bob woodward's book. documenting the president's erratic leadership and strife that