9/11 with a renewed focus on public safety. this morning, both president trump in shanksville, pennsylvania, and democratic presidential nominee joe biden in lower manhattan are participating in communications where people wore masks and social distanced and go not gather for the usual live reading of the names of the victims by their relatives, a concession to the pandemic. more than 193,000 people in the u.s. have now died. dr. anthony fauci is of course the director of the national institutes of allergy and infectious diseases and he joins me now. dr. fauci, good day to you. >> good to be with you, andrea. >> i wanted to ask you about something you said thursday. you said it was time to hunker down because the fall and the winter is, quote, not going to be easy. the president says we've rounded the final turn. how do you square those two messages? >> well, you know, i'm sorry,

but i have to disagree with that, because if you look at the thing that you just mentioned, the statistics, andrea, they are disturbing. we're plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day. and the deaths are around a thousand. as we enter -- and, you know, we turn the corner after the labor day weekend. i'm hoping that we do not see a surge in cases as we've seen following the fourth of july and memorial day. but when you have a baseline of infections that are 40,000 per day and you have threats of increased test positivity in certain regions of the country such as the dakotas, montana, places like that, what we don't want to see is going into the fall season, when people will be spending more time indoors, and that's not good for a respiratory-borne virus, you don't want to start off already with a baseline that's so high.

so the thing that we've all been talking about, i've been stressing this over the last few weeks to a month or more, to try as best as possible to get that level down so that when you go into a more precarious situation like the fall and the winter, you won't have a situation where you really are at a disadvantage right from the very beginning. >> and there's a new cdc study saying that adults who test positive for covid were twice as likely to have reported dining in a restaurant in the weeks before becoming sick. it's not clear to us from that study whether they were indoor dining or outdoor dining. but we're also learn that former hotspots like new york city and miami are moving towards indoor dining, new york at the end of the month, maybe 25% i believe it is, but in miami, 50% capacity. do you have concerns about that? >> you know, i do, andrea. and that's the simple reason, what we were talking about, why i keep stressing getting the level of community infection

down, because if you go indoors in a restaurant, whatever capacity, 25, 50% or what have you, indoors absolutely increases the risk. because we always say, when we talk about the four or five things you need to do, masks, distance, avoiding crowds, outdoors always better than indoors. and if you're going to go into a restaurant indoors, it's much better if the community level of infection is at a low level. so if we want to get back to the normal existence of being able to enjoy being in a restaurant, the best way to do that is to get the community level of infection at the lowest level possible. and that's what you can do by the public health measures that we repetivetively talk about.

>> now, i know outdoors, as you just said, is safer. but you do see the president going around, having these outdoor rallies. thousands of people crammed into these rallies, no masks really to be seen. there is some risk to outdoor rallies when people are that close, correct, and don't have -- >> oh, absolutely. i mean, if you're outdoors, andrea, and you're crowded together and you don't have a mask, the chances of a respiratory transmission of a virus clearly are there. i mean, just because you're outdoors alone, i mean, not alone, as an individual, just because you're outdoors does not mean you're protected, particularly if you're in a crowd and you're not wearing masks. >> you've been talking about vaccines, the flu season is coming, of course, so there's that as well. let's talk about vaccines and where we stand on a covid vaccine. you've been cautiously optimistic, you've said, that something safe and effective, several vaccines could be

available in early 2021. you said wednesday on instagram live that it might not be safe to go to movie theaters or similar indoor events, concerts, let's say, until a year after we have an effective vaccine, to have it distributed widely enough. can you explain? how long will it be before we get back to what we consider normal? >> yeah, andrea, that response on my part was in response to a question that someone asked, when can we actually get back to normal as we know it, normal including with impunity going into a movie theater, which is indoors and enclosed. and i said what i've been saying all along, that i believe that we will have a vaccine that will be available by the end of this year, the beginning of next year. but by the time you mobilize the distribution of the vaccinations and you get the majority or more of the population vaccinated and protected, that's likely not going to happen until the mid-

or end of 2021. if you're talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to covid, it's going to be toward the middle of 2021, maybe event end of 2021. >> i want to ask you about the halt to the astrazeneca vaccine child. they acknowledged a serious mye myelitis condition. critics say the company was much more detailed to investors. do you have details, and shouldn't they be transparent with the public about this? >> well, you know, i don't have any more details than that it was a person in the trials themselves. that's what the data and safety monitoring board will be investigating. i will point out, andrea, although it's unfortunate that there was this serious adverse

event, to me it proves to the american public that the system works, because we always get questions, appropriate and understandable questions, are we really paying attention to safety in addition to efficacy. and the answer is yes, because here you have a serious adverse event in a vaccine trial in which it was noticed, the trial was immediately put on hold, and a considerable degree of investigation is going on right now to try and find out the details as well as alerting, if they resume the trial, which i believe they will resume the trial, alerting people in the future to pay really close attention to see if this happens again. so i look upon this as a manifestation of the fact that the system is working, and it kind of comforts people to know that we are paying a considerable degree of attention to safety.

>> and you do believe they will resume this trial? you think they can satisfy the safety concerns? >> yeah, but what usually happens, i don't want to make any predictions here in an interview with you, andrea, but i can tell you what almost certainly happens all the time, is that you look at it, you investigate it, and then you just with caution proceed, because a single adverse event like this could be a one-off that has nothing to do with the trial. so you would want to continue, but you continue with an additional degree of caution. >> there are reasons why people are perhaps more suspicious than they were with this all started. a new kaiser family foundation poll found that 62% of those questioned are worried that the president's political pressure would lead the fda to rush a vaccine. they also find that public trust, frankly, in both you and the cdc is dropping since april. doesn't that hurt the ability to

persuade people to get vaccinated once you decide it is safe? >> you know, it does, andrea, but let me just throw a couple of factors into the discussion here that are important. i mean, obviously we're hearing about the skepticism of people, about believing the fda, is there going to be political pressure. the process whereby a vaccine is proofed, either through an eua to be distributed or through a formal approval, is really based on data that comes into an independent body called the data and safety monitoring board. they have nothing to do with the company. they have nothing to do with the fda. they're an independent group. and they look at the data intermittently to determine, a, is there any safety problem, and b, does it actually work. so if there's any outside bodies, regulatory or otherwise, with or without any political pressure, that wants to do something different than that, that's going to be scrutinized

very, very carefully, because all of that information would ultimately become public. and in addition to the data and safety monitoring board, you have advisory committees that advise the fda. they again are an independent group. then you have the entire scientific community, including myself, that's looking very carefully at that to make sure, and we have great confidence in the fda that they're going to do the right thing, but there are a lot of eyes on that, andrea. it's not something that can be snuck in in a political way. and that's the reason why i feel really quite confident that this is going to be done correctly. >> now, i've got to ask you about a report in politico that a senior official said that they were trying to muzzle you, a senior adviser in hhs is leading an effort to guide what you say

in interviews. the report read in part, "can you ensure that dr. fauci emphasizes masks for teachers." >> anybody that tries to tell me what to say publicly, if they know anything about me, realizes the that's a fool's errand. nobody will pressure me or muzzle me to say anything publicly. whoever wrote that memo, it was the waste of an email. >> there's of course the bob woodward book, and this is the context that a lot of these questions are now being raised. experts have known since the beginning of the pandemic that droplets through the air were one mode of transmission, but the american people were not told about them in detail. the president did relate to bob woodward in early february that, quote, you breathe the air and that's how it's passed. then he took public stances for months against make wearing and social distancing. doesn't that help cause widespread resistance to wearing face coverings? >> well, andrea, that's quite

unfortunate, obviously, because as you know, we, the physicians and the scientists on the coronavirus task force, have been stressing continually about the importance of wearing masks for that very reason, because -- there are a couple of really good reasons. one, that we know now that this is spread not only through done let droplets in the standard way but also aerosol, droplets that hang around. we know that many infections are without symptoms. we know from modelling studies that about 50% of the transmission occurs from a person who is without symptoms to someone who is uninfected. so for that reason alone, that's the reason why we recommend universal wearing of masks, because you don't know if you're infected and you don't know if someone else is infected, so it does a lot of good if everybody wears a mask. you're absolutely correct, we've

got to get that message across. and when it gets muddled, that's unfortunate. >> and again now in the book, on march 19, the president said to bob woodward, i quote, i want to always play it down, i still like playing it down. those are his words, in his own voice. after hearing that, hearing those tapes, with him acknowledging that, do you still believe he was not trying to distort the reality? >> well, you know, obviously i have gotten asked that question before. certainly there were agreements, as you know, there were times when i was out there telling the american public how difficult this is, how we're having a really serious problem. and the president was saying it's something that's going to disappear, which obviously is the no tt the case. so there was and is some disagreements in what we say and what comes out from the white house. again, we're trying to get the right thing done by getting the right word out. i can't have any explanation for

the conversations between the author of the book, bob woodward, and the president, so, i mean, i can't comment any more on that, except to say, yes, when you downplay something that's really a threat, that is not a good thing. >> one of the more serious consequences with kids going back to school and college people, young people going back to school, on march 19, the president said to bob woodward, it's not just old people, bob, young people too, plenty of young people, he said, get the covid, get the virus. but as recently as august, he was saying that children are virtually immune to the virus. when pressed he said that that might be -- there may be a case but it's a tiny, tiny fraction of cases. we've had more than a hundred children die in america that we know of from the covid. and we've had these outbreaks on college campuses. how do you combat that and tell people that young people, children, can get it?

>> well, the way we do that, andrea, is what i'm doing with you right now. yes, children can be infected. yes, children can transmit the virus. yes, college students, even though, as young, healthy individuals, the likelihood of their getting seriously ill is considerably less than an individual who is elderly or who has an underlying condition. however, it is not a trivial thing to get college students infected, because even though they may innocently and inadvertently think they're in a vacuum and it's not impacting anyone, the fact is they will then infect someone else who infects someone else who might be a vulnerable person who can get seriously ill. so i say that, and i'll shout it from the highest building, that we need to be careful, even with young individuals, because they can propagate the outbreak. and when you propagate the outbreak, you continue to get us

into the difficulties that we have right now, which is the reason why we talk about what to do with college students. and some colleges are doing it really correctly, they're having capabilities of when a student gets infected, to isolate them either in a separate floor in a dorm or even in a separate dorm completely. the other thing we've been recommending is don't send the college student who is infected home, because if you send that person home, you're essentially re-seeding other communities throughout the country. so there's a lot of things that are going on there that we need to pay attention to with young people, including people in college. >> and now that you've had a few more days to look back, do you think that there was too much of a focus on politics and the reelection? the book quotes you, attributed to you, as saying that the president and others were always talking about the reelection,

that that was the real purpose, to get reelected. >> yeah, you know, andrea, one of the things that have been difficult in this country is that, i mean, you have to be not asleep to realize that this is a very divisive situation we're in right now. i mean, we know that because there are people who attack things that i say and people that praise things that i say. so there really is divisiveness. when you're dealing with a political atmosphere, it makes it that much more difficult. having said that, we really need to forge ahead and do everything we can to contain this outbreak. what you said at the beginning of this discussion, as we enter the fall and the winter, we've got to do everything we can to try to prevent further surges and leave politics out of it, because they do nothing but get in the way. >> now, i want to ask you about the flu. it's that time of year, of course. first of all, was there positive information from australia, is that comparable, that perhaps

the flu this season will not be as serious, or do they do a better job of face coverings and social distancing and we can't really compare it to what's happening in america? >> well, the one thing i've learned throughout the years is don't put anything past the flu, don't take anything for granted when it's with the flu. however, there are a couple of things we can say, andrea. one, we should get vaccinated. we recommend that everyone six months of age or older get vaccinated for influenza this coming season. the other thing that's a hint of potential good news, no guarantee, but potential good news, is that australia, which has their winter from april to september, have just essentially gotten over their flu season, and when you look back at them, they have had the lightest flu season in memory, which most people think is because they're doing things to prevent sars coronavirus 2 infection, with

masks, distancing, avoiding crowds, outdoor more than indoor, that what they've done as a secondary offshoot of that is they've brought down the level of influenza cases very, very low. i do hope, as we get into our fall and winter, and we do abide by the public health mandates of mask wearing and the other things that i mentioned, that we actually have a very light flu season. we don't want to count on it, but i hope that's what's going to happen. >> one quick question, since you're our doctor on call, and i've got you here today, when do you get the flu vaccine? is it wise to get it in september? some doctors say wait until october because it will cover you further into the winter. what's your advice? >> the general cdc recommendations in the past that i've abided by is, get it before october 31. you don't want to get it so early, because there is some waning of immunity that we

actually know happens from past experience. but you don't want to wait too long, because you don't want to find yourself in the influence season and you haven't had your vaccination. so the general rule is just get it sometime before october 31. that's what i'm going to do. >> thank you, thank you for that very good medical advice. thanks for all the rest. good to see you again, dr. fauci. >> good to be with you, andrea, thank you for having me. >> you bet. and 19 years after the worst terrorist attack in america, the nation today is remembering those who are lost, in new york, at the pentagon, and in pennsylvania. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." more on all of that coming up. still your best friend.

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today the presidential candidates are taking a pause from the campaign trail as they honor those who lost their lives on 9/11, 19 years ago. and the survivors of course who are still suffering the aftereffects of that terror attack. president trump and the first lady sat silently in the damp fog of an overcast day in shanksville, pennsylvania, as bells tolled for the passengers

on flight 93. former vice president joe biden and his wife will have began the day at ground zero along with past and current new york officials, where biden actually crossed paths and elbows with his successor, mike pence, before the morning ceremony. the bidens are now arriving or about to arriving in shanksville, p.a., the site of the united flight 93 crash where president trump spoke earlier in the morning. joining me now, nbc white house correspondent peter alexander in pennsylvania, nbc's mike memoli in manhattan, and nbc's ali vitali in virginia where vice presidential nominee kamala harris spoke today. peter, tell us what we heard from the president on this very solemn occasion. >> andrea, you're right, it is a solemn occasion and there were solemn remarks from president trump on a day that represents defiance and courage in the face

of terrible adversity on that day 19 years ago today. the president in his remarks honoring the lives of the 40 passengers and crew members on that flight who heroically fought the hijackers and forced the plane down here in this remote field in western pennsylvania. it's believed its intended target was 18 minutes by haair away, the united states capitol building, the president thanking them for their sacrifice, remembering their heroism, the lives lost, encouraging americans to never forget but also describing the al qaeda terrorists who orchestrated and executed this attack as radical islamic terrorists and touting his own achievements in the war on isis here. the president also tried to bring it all together with a theme of unity, much different than what we've heard throughout much of the campaign. the president using their sacrifice to demonstrate the need for all americans to come together here. it's expected we will see the former vice president joe biden arriving here in about the next half hour or so, it's expected

he will be here at the wall of names to pay his respects, andrea. >> thanks to peter. mike memoli, you of course are covering joe biden. the ceremonies today in manhattan certainly had a different look, without the relatives of those who were lost reading the names, no crowds, but still all the emotion was there. >> yeah, absolutely, andrea. and for joe biden, he began his day by saying he would not be making formal remarks. he did not want to make news today on what is a very somber anniversary, especially for those families of the victims. and of course joe biden is somebody who knows very well what these kind of anniversaries are like. i've covered him, of course, over the years, andrea, on the anniversary of first that accident when he lost his wife and infant daughter in december and more recently the anniversary of when he lost his son beau. biden staying out of the public

eye, telling an associated press reporter today that it takes real courage of these families to come back and be part of these services every year because it brings those feelings, that raw emotion back just as if it was the day when the tragedy struck. i want to play a brief interaction that we saw between the former vice president and maria fisher, a 90-year-old woman who lost her son on this 9/11 anniversary. let's take a listen. >> it never goes away. >> it never goes away. >> biden of course knowing and relating often to those who have experienced the same kind of loss as he has. andrea, i also should mention that vice president mike pence was also here in new york at ground zero. he joined biden with that elbow bump for the first moment of silence. pence then went to a second event where there was a live reading of the names of the victims by their families. pence also reading from scripture, some versus. and in an indication that you

can never truly escape a campaign in an election year, there were some audible chants of "four more years" after pence delivered his brief remarks. >> well, inappropriate, certainly, down there at ground zero and at the park nearby. ali vitali, you're in fairfax, virginia where kamala harris was visiting today. >> that's right, andrea. kamala harris was here in another somber ceremony commemorating this 9/11 anniversary. she was joined by her husband and the senior senator from virginia, mark warner. harris, just like the other politicians who are out today, not focusing on the politics of this moment, but instead using her short remarks here to speak to the way that americans can band together in the aftermath of tragedy and crisis. and of course while we're remembering one tragedy and crisis from 19 years ago, the hallmarks of the current crisis that we're in right now were

visible today. what you could see on camera was political officials and those speaking here today sitting far apart, trying to keep social distance, of course wearing masks even as they gave their remarks. what you couldn't see off-camera were people who were gathered here, maybe a few dozen of them, also trying to come together to commemorate this moment while also standing far apart to try to protect themselves amidst the current crisis that we're in. and the local fire chief here actually drew a parallel between 9/11, 2001, and the current coronavirus crisis that we're in, saying that just as first responders ran into those buildings, now we're seeing first responders and essential workers run again into the muddle of crisis, sometimes at their own peril, but still venerating those first responders as we look back and look ahead to the current crisis, andrea. >> thank you so much, ali vitali, and of course peter alexander and mike memoli. and on the west coast, california has never been seen a

fire as large as the one now burning north of sacramento. one of dozens of wildfires up and down the west coast. those fires are also now raging in oregon where 500,000 people had to be evacuated. that's 10% of the state's entire population. fueled by dry climate and fierce winds, the fires now burning a total area the size of the state of new jersey. the death toll in california rose to at least 20 people, with rescue crews searching for missing people in northern california, where overnight the massive north complex fire engulfed several mountain communities. fires have burned a record of more than 3 million acres in california this year alone. nbc's steve patterson joins me now from yucaipa, california. steve, give us the big picture around the state, because it's just devastation. >> reporter: you know, andrea, it feels like this is not the first time i've come on your program to tell you we're having the worst fire season in california history. 2017 was particularly bad. 2018 was devastating. this year, though, is different

because of the size, the speed, the ferocity, and really the earliness that these fires have sprouted up. a lot of these fires, we've been saying over and over again, peak season really doesn't start until maybe a few weeks from now. but these fires have started to spread at a rate in which we haven't seen, to the size we haven't seen, so early on. it gives people pause, officials especially, because they know that as the season progresses, the really heavy winds start moving in. that could blow up these fires, absolutely. you're talking about 30 major fires from northern california to central california to southern california. six of those are the largest that california has ever seen, including, as you mentioned, the number one spot, which is burning so big that fire crews have to figure out how to get to it from multiple fronts. meanwhile, you have a lot of these fires which are wind-driven, they're out of control. many of these fires have zero

percent containment. several of these fires now, at least one fire to that northern california one has proven deadly. ten dead in the bear fire. 16 still missing just in that fire alone as firefighters battle that back and try to push it away from the towns up there in butte county, where paradise is, the town of paradise, which essentially burned to the ground in 2018. 18,000 structures destroyed. people there saw smoke the other day. that's obviously very traumatic for people that live in that community. meanwhile, everybody, everybody, even if you can't see the fire, you can't see the smoke, you can still feel it, because the air quality is so bad, no matter where you're standing, almost in the entirety of the state of california, it's so bad that officials are telling people basically just stay inside, especially if you have respiratory issues. but i can taste it, i can smell it, i can see it, and it's everywhere, andrea. i'll send it back to you. >> please take care, steve, and

get inside as much as you can. i know you're out there working it. thanks so much, steve patterson in yucaipa, california. next, the fear factor. president trump comparing himself to fdr as he tried to explain why he told bob woodward he was downplaying the coronavirus while knowing how dangerous it was the whole time. nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss has a fact check coming up when we come back. coming up when we come back awarded network. i'm on my phone 24/7. then for the first time ever, include disney+, hulu and espn+. we're a big soccer family. "handmaid's tale ." i love "frozen ". then give families plans to mix and match, so you only pay for what you need. and offer it at a price built for everyone. plus, get the samsung galaxy s20 5g uw on us when you buy any note20 5g. and $300 when you switch. the network more people rely on gives you more.

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would be reserved for the smallest businesses to recover from the economic mess we're in and to rebuild the economic future our country deserves, building wealth for families of color, building a future worthy of their courage and their ambition. just imagine if we could truly unleash their full potential. i'm confident we can do this. i'm joe biden, and i approve this message. as president trump tries to recast his downplaying of the pandemic as an attempt to avoid panicking people, at a michigan rally last night he compared himself to the leadership of fdr and winston churchill during world war ii. >> as franklin delano roosevelt said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. that's it. we're doing very well. as the british government advised the british people in the face of world war ii, keep

calm and carry on. that's what i did. >> and joining me now, ben rhodes, former national security adviser in the obama administration, and nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss who is the author of the book "presidents of war: the epic story from 1807 to modern times." michael, you wrote the book on it. certainly fdr was a president at war. churchill was a prime minister at war. but then you've got donald trump. fighting the coronavirus by not panicking people. >> churchill and fdr maybe not the first names that occur to me as i heard what donald trump said yesterday. they said exactly the opposite. at the beginning of world war ii, both of them said, fdr as president said, the news is bad, we're going to have a hard time fighting the germans and the imperial japanese after pearl harbor, and roosevelt said, you owe it, you american people, i owe it to you to give you the bad news straight from the

shoulder so that you can protect yourselves. and here we are, andrea, on 9/11, what better day to remember the fact that the most basic job of a president of the united states is to protect our troops and even more fundamentally, to protect all of our families. i used to think it was bad at the time of the influenza pandemic in 1918 and 1919 that woodrow wilson never gave a single speech to the american people telling them how to protect themselves. donald trump has gone one step further, as we see in bob woodward's book and other sources, in telling americans the things that were not true and therefore making it even more difficult for us to protect our families. above and beyond that, presidents should always tell the truth. >> and just moments ago, dr. fauci told me this when i asked him about the disconnect between what the president was saying publicly and what he was telling

bob woodward privately. let's watch. >> certainly there were disagreements, as you know. there were times when i was out there telling the american public how difficult this is, how we're having a really serious problem, you know, and the president was saying it's something that's going to not the case. so there was and is some disagreements in what we say and what comes out from the white house. but again, we're trying to get the right thing done by getting the right word out. >> so ben rhodes, that is a very obvious disconnect, and we know what the death toll has been since this all started. >> convey, andrea, i think the important thing here was not only he downplaying it with his public comments but his own white house and his own government reflected that downplaying. so you didn't have the united states invoking things like the definition production act to scale up masks and ventilators and other badly-needed equipment. we didn't have shutdown orders

that could have gone into place nationwide and saved potentially tens of thousands of lives until it was a bit too late. we didn't have the president of the united states modelling the kind of behavior that presidents could have done to protect themselves like wearing masks. there were very real world consequences. it's not just the anecdote in the book. it's the fact that trump was consistently saying these things, and that was giving a signal to the people who worked for him about how to handle it. and dr. fauci, tragically, was an outlier in this administration in providing people the basic facts that they needed to protect themselves. but absent the president of the united states doing that, you can't mobilize a national response. that's why we're sitting here today with nearly 200,000 americans dead and our economy still in a deep, deep hole. >> and as to the explanation that the president gave, michael, that he was trying to not to panic people, let's watch part of his speech from michigan last night. >> the left wants to get rid of me so they can come after you.

confiscate your guns. shut down auto production. delay the vaccine. they want to destroy your suburbs and indoctrinate your children. you will have crime like you've never seen before. no city, town, or suburb will be safe. >> that's hardly reassuring to avoid panicking people. >> no. does that sound you to, andrea and ben, like someone who doesn't want to panic people? he's been doing that for 3 1/2 years. remember the inaugural address, american carnage, chaos and violence, all these things are bringing the country down, he said, at the very beginning. this is what he does. and i can't think of very much worse than underestimating the danger of this pandemic. if you want an fdr comparison, it would be as if fdr, after pearl harbor, said to americans, this really is not much of a threat from germany and japan, you know, let's take it easy and not get panicked, let's leave it to the governors and see what they can do.

>> and ben, there are a lot of national security implications to draw from what the president said to bob woodward. first of all, telling him about a secret nuclear weapons system, obviously highly classified, just blurting that out, bragging about it, if you will, talking about his relationship with kim jong-un, and woodward got access to the letters from kim jong-un to the president, which are extraordinary, as flattering as you might imagine, and praising the dictators and saying at one point, i don't know why but i like erdogan, i like kim jong-un, i like obviously vladimir putin, i don't know what to make of that, said the president, something like that. there's picture of them all, at the first meeting, if we could show that picture again, that's a white house photo of his press staff and other aides in the oval office, you see bob woodward is sitting at the

resolute desk across from the president, and the vice president there, they're all there. they apparently did not know about the 17 other conversations, but they certainly knew about that one. ben? >> andrea, i mean, as someone who dealt with bob woodward, it's important to understand why this matters. if you look at the kim jong-un revelations and the nuclear weapons revelation, what does that add up to? despite what he described as love letters, north korea is building new nuclear weapons and new missiles. the u.s. apparently has new nuclear systems but the u.s. has pulled out all manner of arms control agreements. you have iran increasing its nuclear weapons program, russia and china essentially entering into a new arms race with the united states, and the united

states cozying up to dictators. a world with more nuclear weapons and more dictators is a dangerous place for us to be going. frankly, four more years of donald trump where you have a new nuclear arms race and new dictators emboldened, that's not a world that is safe. the things that make donald trump feel good, buddying up to dictators, they're making the world a much more dangerous place. we're seeing with covid what happens when nations of the world cannot cooperate with each other, when the u.s. can't lead. that's where we're headed. it's a place i really don't want to spend four more years in. >> michael, we know that bob woodward has enormous impact with his books and the president is now trying to discount it, calling him a whack job last night in michigan. but this is a woodward book, and there are tapes.

and aside from nixon, i can't remember any time when there were tapes. >> not tapes that got a president into as much trouble as this president is going to get into. there were other presidents, but not in a situation like this, who used tapes this way. just think if bob had not done those tapes, what donald trump would be saying, he was misquoted and so forth. it's a good thing those tapes do exist. and what they show is a president who was perfectly content to let tens of thousands or more americans die, according to dr. fauci, dr. fauci says all he was interested in primarily was his reelection. that's something that we have a right to expect much better of from a president. >> michael beschloss, the book is "presidents of war." thank you so much for all of your wisdom. and of course ben rhodes who has been there, been in the oval office and has seen so much of this, the great context. thank you both very much.

as america remembers and honors those who died 19 years ago today, two young people who were just kids on september 11th are finding new ways to give back in our current moment of national crisis. stay with us for their story. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. the united states postal service is here to deliver your packages. and the peace of mind of knowing that important things like your prescriptions, and ballots, are on their way. every day, all across america, we'll keep delivering for you.

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september 11th is the national day of service and remembrance. and today we want to focus on a group of great young people we first profiled back in may when we met them. they had come together to help those most vulnerable to covid-19 by getting their groceries, their medications, and other necessities. well, when the pandemic began they had launched this delivery service called invisible hands in new york city and then new jersey and they've now gone national with more than 12,000 volunteers serving 500 zip codes around the country. so joining me now are two of the co-founders of invisible hands. leah melkin and simone paligano. welcome. nice to see you again. liam, you take it first or maybe you, simone, tell us how this all evolved and how it got so big. >> sure. absolutely. thank you so much for having us again. we're so excited to be back

talking with you. this all started entirely by accident. march 12th i posted a facebook status on my own personal facebook when i was walking home from the subway and i passed my local grocery store and i saw a lot of elderly folk going in and out. and this was the middle of march so we weren't on full lockdown yet it wasn't full quarantine time but it was starting to not feel great and i remember thinking i wish that i could help them do their shopping so they could stay inside and stay safe. so i went home and posted on my facebook does anyone know of a way young healthy people can sort of volunteer to help deliver groceries to those who are most at risk right now? and my dear friend liam saw my facebook status and called me and he said i love this idea, what are you thinking? and i said i don't know, i don't know of anything like this. and he said you know what, why don't we put our heads oth and see if we can come up with something like this. so we made a website, invisibleshan invisibleshandsdeliver.com. it's now dot org. it's been a big six months. the site went up march 14th and we started taking deliveries and it's been an amazing ride since. >> and liam, tell me about how

it has expanded. what are the next steps? how big can this get? >> it's been an incredible six months. we've built a bunch of partnerships with food pantries and mutual aid organizations, religious institutions, places that have food and funding that we can then bring to people who are most in need right now. the racial and economic inequities that have been unveiled and exacerbated as a result of this disease i think will pervade our society for quite some time, even after covid itself abates. so we're looking for ways to serve this community as best we can. on this day september 11th, right? i was on 2 years old then but i remember my mom telling me stories. not of what happened that day but of what happened on september 12th. stories of people coming together and doing? good in a world that felt so bad. firefighters unable to buy their own meals because people would leap at the chance to purchase them for them. and that's the world that i grew up in, was a world that felt a little vulnerable and uneasy at all times but also a world in which people do right by one another and are looking for chances to help each other. and that's the same spirit of

service that we're seeing today, is people coming together because we know it's only by pulling together that we'll pull through this. >> and simone, when you say in the city, when you look at new york city it seems obvious that you can help people there. how does this work in other cities and rural areas as well? >> yeah, absolutely. so right now we serve all five boroughs of new york, long island, westchester, parts of jersey, philly, and we're about to expand to atlanta which we're very excited about. and it's been very interesting because every city is very different. for example, new york is not a car-based city. so when we started launching our mutual aid and food pantry program where we do boxes of deliveries, you know, from food pantries we needed to start recruiting people with cars because that was something not everybody in new york has cars. our chapter in philly, for example, most of their volunteers have cars because most people in philly have cars. so it's been interesting and cool to see kind of how it works differently in different cities. but i think that this is something that covid -- covid hit everywhere, and you know,

hopefully as we're moving through even beyond covid there's always going to be a need for people to help their neighbors and i think this is something that really can exist across the board. >> well, i love seeing you again. and learning of your success in helping others and especially moving on a day like today, which is of course 19 years after that horrible day in new york and pennsylvania and at the pentagon. thank you both so much. lots of luck with doing good and helping so many. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell" -- well, thank you. we're going to leave it there. and thank you for being with us again today. and chuck todd is up next with "mtp daily" right here only on msnbc. have a safe weekend.

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welcome to friday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. today of course is september 11th. 19 years after the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the world trade center, the pentagon, and in shanksville, pennsylvania. president trump, vice president pence, joe biden and kamala harris have all spent the morning paying their respects at various sites of the attacks. in fact, joe biden will be arriving at the shanksville, pennsylvania memorial at any moment. in the president's remarks in shanksville he said, "we mourn deeply for the nearly 3,