tuesday morning i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now america is continuing to make critical progress in our war against the virus. over the weekend, the number of daily new infections remained flat nationwide flat. hospitalizations are slowing in hot spots like new york, new jersey, michigan and louisiana this is evidence that it's working. >> that was president trump on april 13th, touting his administration's ability to fight the virus. that same day, april 13th, he was also saying this, only behind closed doors. >> this thing is a killer if it gets you if you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance. >> yes yes. exactly. it's a monster -- >> so this is rips you apart >> this is a scourge -- >> it is the plague. >> if you're the wrong person,

willie, donald trump says on the 13th of april, privately of course, you don't have a chance. this is the plague and yet, this is, of course, the same president who was desperate to reopen the economy. i must say the same president who last night got a lot of people together in arizona with this plague that he also told bob woodward was so dangerous and deadly because it was airborne this is a plague that donald trump, obviously, understood about a long time ago and yet he was trying to open schools, trying to open the economy at the same time he was saying that behind closed doors, and, of course, he's still having superspreader events where most of the people there are not wearing masks. >> so that was april 13th, the clip we played, that was a monday he was talking to bob woodward what was the day before that april 12th was easter. the date he had circled on the

calendar to reopen everything. we want to reopen by easter, get back play baseball, going back for easter the next day he's calling it the plague, rips you apart, this thing is a killer. it's stunning over the past week as these tapes have come out where to the day you can find president trump saying something different publicly than he was saying privately or the next day or the day before, on and on bob woodward this book is going to be out. he's on with us tomorrow we'll hear new audio tomorrow. these tapes come out and the president is constantly over the course of this entire pandemic saying something entirely different to the public than he reveals to be true and he has revealed it by talking to bob woodward. >> let's bring in jonathan lemire, he was at the president's event in arizona and nevada, a dangerous situation, nobody wearing masks, most

people not wearing masks inside, except in nevada those closest to the president behind him on the stage wearing masks. funny how that works but you have the president talking about this is a plague, it's airborne, if you're the wrong person it rips you apart notice donald trump doesn't have a lot of people packed in around him like this because it's not him. but he's convinced those people and millions of other people that this is no worse than the flu, even though he told bob woodward it's worse than the flu, more dangerous. and yet donald trump is willingly leading all of these people to put their lives and the lives of their loved ones at risk i suppose it just doesn't matter to people that are in the personality cult, but jonathan lemire it does matter to senior citizens who know that they may be the ones, as donald trump said, are, quote, finished by

this plague. i can't believe it's helping him in arizona i can't believe it's helping him in florida i can't believe it's helping him with seniors across america. >> this is the tone he set in the beginning from the early days of the pandemic he deliberately underplayed it to the american people he downplayed its effects, how lethal it is, particularly for seniors but others as well in another audio tape he acknowledges it's dangerous for young people but in another tape he's saying children are all but immune. what we saw this weekend was striking, it was a western trip for the president, heading from nevada to arizona. looking to spread his map because he's losing in arizona he had a rally outdoors in nevada, where people were not wearing masks and not social

distancing but at least it was outside. that's the formula they've been usi using, whether it's airport h g hangers or whatever, it's outside. after the tulsa event where it was inside and a superspreader event. suddenly the plan changed, sunday night in nevada, henderson, an indoor event an event the campaign did not advise to reporters traveling with the president would be indoors. and most of the networks pulled out the correspondents, pulled them from the warehouse that was packed with several thousand people, very few in masks, no social distancing because it wasn't safe. the press pool, of which i was a part, did indeed attend. you're right, you nailed on something a second ago there was a section of people behind the president, they had

masks on a staffer was spotted making sure they were wearing them before the president took the stage. >> how interesting is that >> they weren't wearing them when the earlier speakers were on, but before the cameras turned on, before the rally was taken live on a few channels, they were told to put on masks -- >> unbelievable. i have to say, let's get this straight so donald trump is mocking people wearing masks he has rallies where he has people coming in and everybody is showing their unity with the president by not wearing masks which, of course, very dangerous. the president has called this the plague he called it the plague back in april, back when he was trying to reopen the country. said on it's airborne which makes it dachk rous, you can get it airborne just being next to somebody and if you're the wrong person you're finished this is really bad it's deadly. the president, though, if people are in his proximity, they have

to wear masks. i think that's pretty revealing. but if you are in a personality cult, you may not be able to sort through all of that here, let me help you. the president is concerned about himself and not you. speaking about people being concerned about themselves, this is the time we're coming up on an election, how exciting, this is when a president flies into town and everybody on the ballot, especially in close races stand up on stage and all hold their arms up with the president -- >> unity. >> -- everybody is cheerful. unity. they think it might help them get over the finish lines. what was martha mcsally's key moment last night at this rally? what did she say in support of donald trump >> maybe she introduced him. >> this is what i love about american politics. this is the pageantry of it, what did martha mcsally say in arizona at this donald trump rally, when he came to her state

with her whole career in the senate on the line >> well, joe, it might surprise you to learn that martha mcsally was not there yesterday in phoenix when the president came to town. >> what? >> i'll say it again, martha mcsally was not there -- >> are you sure? >> joe, i'm glad you're sitting down right now but she was not there. the governor of arizona did -- was there. greeted the president at the airport when he landed in arizona at phoenix after we came from california and the wildfires. >> the governor of arizona i guess since he was there, he's on the ballot in november, is that right that's why he was there? >> the governor made a point of -- yes, the governor was there, joe, and it should be noted this as well the governor attended the event. it wasn't just at the airport. he went to the latinos event rally. it was called latinos for trump

round table. he had one the day before in las vegas that consistented of six people, small socially distanced -- >> the governor was there so he must have an election coming up this year, right is he on the ballot in a month and a half in arizona? >> that's right, joe >> is he yes or no? do you know? >> i don't think he is, joe. joe, i don't think he is. >> so i don't understand this. wait willie, this is the strangest thing in the world, can you help i know i am just such -- i'm not a dumb country lawyer. i'm feeling this morning like a caveman lawyer so what jonathan lemire -- with that new york city press outfit, the associated press is saying, that the arizona candidate who doesn't have an election coming up in the next month and a half was there with president donald

j. trump, but the senatorial candidate who's fighting for her very political life and who you would think would be the first person there to be with donald trump, arms up in the air, go, i'm so proud to have backed donald trump and attacked reporters and played the whole maga game -- you would think that she would have been there jumping up and down with the president. isn't this a strange development? >> it's very strange development as you're indicating i'm picking up on the subtly here joe of what you're saying i think what you're saying, governor doocy, he's term limited and there's not an election until 2022, so no concerns there martha mcsally, who's in a tight race was not available because she had senate business to attend to is what we heard >> okay. >> so she was tied up with that. so either she was concerned she

didn't want to be on a stage with donald trump in a tight election in the state of arizona or perhaps she was concerned for her own safety as many others were in a tightly packed room. >> yes >>, you know, maybe, willie, she has underlying conditions. so maybe it would be dangerous for her to go to the event. >> or maybe she wanted to follow proper social distancing guidelines because if you were following proper social distancing guidelines, whether you have underlying conditions or not, you don't want to get the coronavirus, one way to avoid it is not to go to a superspreader event where people are clustered together and breathing all over each other without masks on sunday, thepresident was asked about whether he had any safety concerns when it comes to holding indoor rallies here's that exchange >> aren't you concerned about getting covid, though, in a closed room? >> no, i'm not concerned

i'm more concerned about how close you are. >> sorry about that. >> because you know why, i'm on a stage, it's very far away. so i'm not at all concerned. >> so he's not concerned about himself because he's on stage. >> hold on, willie -- >> all the other people are -- >> -- he's saying the outloud parts that he should be keeping inside that head of his. >> he often does. >> yes, i'm starting to notice that so he's 5 or 6 feet away from this reporter and he is concerned that she's 5 or 6 feet away and yet he has events where he jams people in and even in tulsa staff were removing those signs that were supposed to keep people apart from one another. some might even say that is so selfish it could endanger the lives of his very supporters,

willie. >> it was on display last night as jonathan described very well. for the public they want to see the masks behind him so the tv cameras are shooting president trump, masks we're responsible we get it, this is bad but we're fine to fill this place up, packed shoulder to shoulder with our supporters and get them in there. despite we've heard president trump say on tape again and again be, it's deadly stuff, it's airborne, it's a killer and he told bob woodward it's the plague the reason he was uncomfortable with that reporter that close to him is because he knows all of these things and has said them outloud on tape to bob woodward. he knows how dangerous it is >> let's bring into the conversation professor at the lyndon b. johnson school of public affairs, victoria de-francisco soto. mr. david drucker, a

contributing writer at "vanity fair." >> you know in 1994 in the midterm elections i remember reading articles, the first year i ran, and i remember reading articles talking about how some members of congress, it said, they would put antiaircraft guns on the border of their districts and if bill clinton's air force one came their direction they would fire warning shots to keep them away. that's how lilittle they wanted bill clinton in their district in 1994. of course there was a landslide. i'm not sure that's how martha mcsally, thom tillis, certainly susan collins and a lot of other at-risk republicans are feeling right now. >> it's been interesting to watch different vulnerable republicans and how they're playing president trump. susan collins has tried to distance herself

she's trying to deal with the fact that the coalition that she's relied on for years, moderate republicans and moderate democrats and stalwart republicans to keep her in office even as the state turned more blue is in trouble because president trump is so polarizing a figure she's losing a lot of women she's relied on. martha mcsally made a different bet. notwithstanding the fact she wasn't with the president yesterday, she has really tied herself to trump and part of her challenge is on the one hand the phoenix and tucson suburbs have moved away from president trump who did win the suburban vote in the exit polling four years ago but they moved away from trump but arizona's republican base is very, very loyal to trump. so she's trying to thread a needle that may be impossible. she decided to keep herself

close to trump and go that route. and i think corey gardner is trying to separate himself from everybody. the challenge he faces is colorado is a blue state for all intents and purposes and any republicans capable of getting a crossover vote and surviving, it would be him because he's skilled and he's in a tough race and it's because the president is not popular in colorado so all of these down ballot republicans are trying to deal with, on the one hand, a republican base loyal to the president, but on the other hand, a suburban voting block and others that simply think any republican who is supportive of president trump has got to go. >> is it safe to say that martha mcsally in arizona and corey gardner in colorado, those two republicans and those two adjoining west everyoern states safe to say they're probably the

two most endangered republicans in the senate this year? >> i think they are. i go back and forth on susan collins. but i think gardner and mcsally probably have the steepest challenges it's interesting because guai tn gardner is a skilled politician, mcsally had fits and starts that she can't figure out what kind of republican she wants to be. she started out as a house member, more as a john mccain style republican so she knows how to appeal across the aisle but in responding to her republican base in arizona, she has become more trumpy, for lack of a better word. gardner i think has been more consistent it's whether he can survive a democratic onslaught in the suburbs

mcsally, gardner, both in deep trouble. susan collins. i know republicans are optimistic she'll pull a rabbit out of the hat because she survived so long there doing what she does. keep an eye on thom tillis because of a fund-raising edge that joe cunningham has. i also note we still have so much time for different aspects of the campaign to influence the vote there's three presidential debates. the news cycle brings us a new this is going to determine the election thing every couple days and there are a lot of republicans that survived. so a lot of things happening that we're not thinking is going to happen. >> so, victoria --

>> ya. >> go ahead, joe. >> you look at some of the races and corey gardner is in such trouble, willie. and susan collins is in a state where the race may be close but statewide joe biden seems to have a lead on donald trump, at least some of the polls that i've seen that people stop splitting their vote a long time ago between parties. so it's hard to see how she survives. >> susan collins to watch her do that tap dance every day in the state of maine where she condemns president trump lightly on some things, supports him on others, she's trying to walk that line and it may be too tight of a line. victoria, that event in arizona was billed as a latino round table to talk about issues facing latinos it's basically the same rally that we've seen regardless of who the audience is. trump said latinos are tough,

i've done business with them, i know they're tough like me that's the connection and the appeal he was trying to make and draw there how is his message playing in arizona, in south florida? >> in arizona i'm not seeing much difference than in 2016 the latest poll numbers from the cbs poll have trump at about 20%. so come election day we'll see trump anywhere between 25 and 30%. in arizona latinos have been a tad more conservative than in california, not as conservative as those in texas. it's a mix of pro-life, evangelicals, pro-business latinos, and they're latinos who are of hispanic decent but don't identify as latinos. that's the coalition that trump goes after everywhere when it comes to latinos

the achilles heel for president trump in arizona and what is going to hurt him in terms of seeing a substantial latino turnout is sb 1070, which we've talked about before on this show and the sheriff joe arpaio effect latinos have been ticked off and this is a key mobilizing factor come november. >> all right vict victoria thank you we'll get to new news. new video has emerged from the minutes after two los angeles sheriff's deputies were ambu ambushed the 31-year-old female deputy called in the incident and jumped out of the patrol car to tend to her male partner she's a 31-year-old mother of a 6-year-old boy she was shot in the jaw. the female deputy seen here applying a tourniquet to her

24-year-old partner's arm as she hides them both behind a column. the l.a. county sheriff said the deputy went beyond the call of duty as her motherly instincts kicked in. neither of the deputy's identities had been released but both were sworn into the force 14 months ago. a reward for information leading to the shooter has climbed to $175,000 the chief checkiexecutive of the world's largest vaccine manufacturer warns not enough covid-19 vaccine will be available for everyone in the world until the end of 2024 at the earliest he told the financial times he believes pharmaceutical companies are not increasing production capacity quickly enough to be able to vaccinate the global population in a shorter time frame he estimates 15 billion doses will be needed if the covid-19

shot is a two-dose vaccine still ahead on "morning joe," dozens of major wildfires are burning across the west coast and firefighters are racing to contain the flames we'll have the latest on that and how the issue is making its way onto the campaign trail. including the president's claim about exploding trees and also science not knowing anything you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. rollercoaster ♪ ♪ love like yours will surely come my way ♪ ♪ a-hey, a-hey-hey [music playing] ♪ love like yours will surely come my way ♪ -always have been. -and always will be. never letting anything get in my way.

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the death toll from the wildfires in california continues to rise as authorities are still searching for a number of people who are missing. and firefighters are working to keep multiple blazes from rea reaching populated communities as of last night there have been 25 fatalities in california, more than 3 million acres have burned across the state this year, the largest amount on

record and forced more than 60,000 people from their homes. in oregon devastating wildfires torched more than 1 million acres across the state since last week, killing 9 people and forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee from their homes. the unprecedented wildfires out west has -- we'll get to this next story in just a moment. jonathan lemire, you were with the president yesterday as he went out west to discuss these issues and it appeared there were some comments that he made on climate change that might have showed he knew a little bit less than one might imagine. >> that's right. the president had been largely silent on these wildfires in recent days, received some criticism for perhaps not paying as much attention to a disaster that was ravaging a trio blue states, california, oregon and now washington state as well but while out west for these trips we were discussing

earlier, yesterday morning he did fly to northern california outside sacramento, where he met with governor newsom to receive a briefing on the wildfires. as we'll play in a moment here, he illuminated his own belief as to what should be done to prevent these forest fires, his belief in forest managing and raking the floors of the forest. and was pressed by a california state official as to what the real reason is behind the increase in wildfires in recent years. >> what would you like to see specifically done on the issue of forest management is it possible that it's also forest management and climate change >> i think something is possible i think a lot of things are possible but with regard to the forest, when trees fall down after a short period of time, about 18 months they become very dry. they become really like a match stick and they get up, you know, there's no more water pouring

through and they become very, very -- they just explode. they could explode also leaves when you have years of dried leaves on the ground, it just sets it up -- >> we want to work with you to recognize thchgid what it means and work together with that science. that science is going to be key. because if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it's all about vegetation management we're not going to succeed in protecting californians. >> it'll start getting cooler. you just watch. >> i wish science agreed with you. >> i don't think science knows, actually. >> first, fact check trees don't tend to explode. secondly what we heard there sounds reminiscent to the president's approach about the coronavirus, it'll eventually just disappear yesterday you heard him saying it will get cooler that perhaps the science doesn't know

this isn't about cooler in terms of summer turning to fall and then winter, this is the globe warming up and scientists believe that's the reason why the increase in natural disas r disaste disasters. california has been in a mega drought for quite some time. but the president has been a climate change denier for his entire time in office. showed no interest yesterday in embracing that issue at all saying that was the cause behind the disasters out west. >> jonathan lemire i know you have to go but before you go, let me ask quickly who do you think the red sox are going to get their first rounds in the playoffs. >> joe, i'm hopeful -- we're playing so well i expect we'll have homefield throughout. maybe we'll get the yankees, the rays, but it doesn't matter. team of destiny. >> it doesn't matter, does it? no going down that backstretch, like the belmont, 1973, watch

our red sox go and go and go down the drain jonathan lemire, good to talk to you. so willie, i must say that donald trump provided an opening for protesters, environmental protesters to do what they did in one of ronald reagan's campaigns where he said trees were one of the largest emitters of carbon in the world so when he would go around speaking they would hang signs around trees saying kill me before i kill again. so with donald trump we have exploding trees, and yes, there's something to be said about management of vegetation and so many other things that a lot of people are talking about right now. but this quote, this quote that

i don't think science actually knows, is staggering, because it's so inline -- we really do get a real time comparison on donald trump and a lot of republicans -- not all, but a lot of republicans contempt for science as it pertains to climate change we have a real-time tragedy unfolding right now with this plague, as donald trump calls it, where you have republicans who again distrust science, distrust medicine, even the spokesman for the department of health and human services yesterday accusing doctors inside the white house of sedition and talking about armed left wing assassins after the election this is not your father's -- it's certainly not my father's

republican party but how incredible that donald trump is not smart enough -- i mean, really incredible -- to avoid the comment oh, it's going to cool down it's going to cool down. what does that sound like? >> it's going to go away. >> it's going to magically go away when things warm up. >> like a miracle. >> he was wrong then, almost 200,000 americans dead because of it. now he's flipping it, it's going to cool down, i don't think science knows as we had some of of the more disturbing news on the climate change yesterday >> we were talking about how he says the quiet part outloud often he often does it explicitly, here's what i think, science doesn't know you can apply it to so many things over the course of the

administration, including this plague as he described it of coronavirus. when he would go on a rift like that say 10 years ago about forestry and raking the floor. you can laugh it off as the guy from apprentice and a clown, but he's the president of the united states and he can pull us out of the paris accords and do things that affect the environment that he couldn't do when he was hosting the apprentice because he is here controlling what's in this country, in the world to the environment we saw his attitude toward science, which is that it doesn't actually know. so two years ago, remember he was in paradise -- it's one of those things where he gets a nugget of information somewhere. he heard from the president of finland that they keep their forest floors clean so he went on the rift about raking the floors of the forest in finland. he hears one thing and becomes an expert on forestry and

vegetation management and there are dire implications of that when he wants to change the subject from what's happening in the world, in the environment, just brush this aside like he's tried to do with coronavirus >> meanwhile, hurricane sally is slowly moving toward the gulf coast. let's bring in meteorologist bill karins with more on that. bill >> science has improved our lives probably more than anything else. and i'll leave it at all let's get into sally we are watching this storm system crawling, drifting towards the coast. the winds have come down the winds were never the story it's the rain event that is unfolding from pensacola to gulf shores to mobile, into all through central alabama in the days ahead, that will be the story. eventually we'll get a landfall. it's a slow moving system, it may even be a tropical storm for

landfall it's not the reporters blowing in the historic winds type landfall, just pouring rain in the next two days straight so we will get minor wind damage, have concerns with the storm surge, especially the mobile bay area i'm watching, and then it just slowly rains. it doesn't make it to atlanta until friday morning so the rain is the story, 10 to 20 inches expected there could be isolated rainfall totals of 30 inches. talking about a florence type of event, a harvey type of event for areas along the coast. our european model predicts 14, 15 inches of rain from pensac a pensacola, destin, central georgia could get 7 to 8 inches of rain. the storm surge, 6 to 9 feet is nothing to sneeze at that will cause problems we will get damage along the coast mika, every tropical storm,

every hurricane is different this is not a laura, which was an intense hurricane but this is moving at 2 miles per hour, that's not walking, that's walking backwards towards the coast and that's going to cause a lot of problems with rain. >> we'll be watching that. bill, thank you very much. coming up, whoever wins the election will likely be confronted with a dire economy we'll look at that damage and discuss what should be done to get things back on track for everybody. "morning joe" is coming right back nah. ♪ here? nope. ♪ here. ♪ when the middle of nowhere... is somewhere. the all-new chevy trailblazer. ♪

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i mean, there are parts of the book you're not going to like -- >> what won't i like, bob? >> just, you know, there is -- it's tough times the virus, as you repeatedly told me and as you've said publicly, it's derailed things, and it's a -- it's a big reality

in people's lives, as you know so i will get it to you and -- >> you know the market is coming back very strong you do know that. >> yes, of course. >> did you cover that in the book >> sure. >> nothing more could have been done nothing more could have been done i acted early. >> this will be the history that we start thefirst draft of and it -- it will continue and -- >> so you think the virus totally supersedes the economy >> sure. >> but the economy is -- look we're close to a new stock market record. >> that was newly released audio from the last conversation bob woodward had with president trump last month we're going to have bob woodward on, i think, tomorrow. >> staggering.

>> you know, i got to say, it's fascinating that, you know, all of this information about covid-19 and donald trump lying to the american people about this and 200,000 people dying and the president saying it's a plague, while saying something quite differently publicly in april, this is all, of course, very shocking and has impacted and killed a lot of people, it has, history will show that, there will be causation. don't worry. i'm sure, obviously, research s researchers, scientists, doctors will be able to figure out, put a number on probably what his lies were responsible for, the killing of how many americans, won't be 200,000 might be 100,000 who knows we'll leave that to history.

but what i find actually riveting in this book, and i can't wait to talk to bob about this, is actually the first half of the book where you hear james mattis and rex tillerson, poor dan coates, and others, that are trying to run america's foreign policy apparatus and keep us safe and keep the alliances in place that helped us beat the soviet union and helped the american century explode over the past six, seven decades. and listening to them and their despair, trying to figure out what the best way is to save america -- >> stay the course. >> -- from this man who admiral mcraven said, is most likely one of the greatest clear and present dangers to this country and how telling when you have general mattis saying we have to go public with this, we have to

go public with this, and dan coates being politically astute saying what goodwill that do look at what's happened with everybody that's gone public, that quit and attacked him publicly, it's had no impact and them sitting around the table being frustrated no one more than senator coates, ambassador coates, being just shocked, actually, at the dereliction of duty exhibited by not only the president of the united states but also from his former friends in the united states senate. that's tomorrow. we'll talk about that tomorrow let's talked to, though, about the last part of the clip you just heard about donald trump talking about the economy. let's bring in former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve analyst, and also the author of "the washington post" early morning news letter jackie palamini.

>> thank you all for being with us this morning. >> it's great -- >> his focus on the stock market joe when bob woodward was talking to him about the coronavirus and how it's ravaged the country -- >> right. >> -- all he cared about >> he's talk about the stock market but steve, i want to talk to you about something i brought this up at the end of the show yesterday that it's really concerning me, all the -- i know you have a lot more conversations with finance people, but just this past week alone in random social conversations not related to, hey, how is the economy going, not where i'm picking up the phone asking people what they're thinking, i talked to a top banker at one of the big three banks in america, a small business lawyer that actually handles small to mid size companies, a finance ceo, and

also a few restaurant owners that own quite a few restaurants, and they all told me the same thing, and i want to know if you're hearing this and if you have the same concern that i'm hearing time and time again, not to be a cassandra here but they say get ready for 2021, it doesn't matter who gets elected, there's going to be a depression i keep hearing the word depression, what they're seeing from their clients are people that have held out for six, seven, eight, nine months on the verge of collapse. people that own property they're all saying the same thing, the rich are going to get richer, the poor are going to get poorer, cash is going to be king in 2021 and there is going to be economic chaos again, these people don't know each other they -- i didn't lead them they're all saying this. what's going on? why are there such grave

concerns up and down the economic food chain that we're not hearing about in the main stream press >> joe, i think we are facing a huge number of economic challenges i'm not sure i would go quite so far just to cut to the question you asked to declare a depression as a likelihood, but what's -- where we clearly are at the moment is an economy that's still slowly recovering, but by the fall of this year, maybe by the end of this year we'll only have recovered maybe half of the ground or thereabouts of what it lost during the pandemic and the early part of this year. and from there, i think the return path back is a very slow and potentially painful one. because until we reopen the full economy just like it was before, you're going to have whole swaths of the economy, you mentioned restaurants, that are simply not able to operate at any kind of capacity that looks normal therefore they're not going to be able to bring back all their

people, they have to let more people go, and i think you're going to be looking at an economy that is very, very slow, into next year and then to your other point, the impact of this pandemic and recession has been completely and wildly disproportionate among various groups if you're a woman, a person of color, if you have less education, you have done far worse than the average american, think about some woman of color who cleans hotel rooms in a marriott in cleveland, who is perhaps unemployed in this moment versus again all of us in our world who are doing pretty well and this gets into public health until we have gotten people to a place where they're totally comfortable resuming their normal lives, whether it's with a vaccine or some other way, economic activity is going to be muted and we are going to feel like we're in a very, very weak

economy. and donald trump, every time he's asked a question like this, he looks at the stock market the stock market is not the economy. they operate for very different reasons in very different directions and the stock market tells you nothing about -- almost nothing about the state of the economy, except how well or poorly wealthy people who own stocks are doing. >> and it seems the values are wildly inflated. fernando, let's talk about the front line workers whether you're talking about the worker that steve ratner was talking about, are you talking about other front line workers, people who have to go to restaurants, have to go to retail stores, have to go out and about, and they're staying at home, they can't pay their rents. i understand that for now there's a freeze of evictions, they can't pay their rents, small business owners can't pay their leases

you have huge retail stores in manhattan and across the country defaulting on their loans. that all -- everything goes up and then everything ollapses i don't want to sound too grim here, but yeah, we're recovering a little bit but based on what payments from the federal government to front line workers that are going away. >> joe, i think you're not overdramatizing the risk we're in let's remember that before this terrible crisis hit us, we already had a situation where a majority of american families couldn't put together $400 for an emergency we've had an economy that has been benefitting wealthy people for a long time, an economy that has kept a lot of workers working at minimum wage, which is not a living wage it's not nearly enough to raise a family this has created a whole cycle i think of poverty in this

country. so i think we're now moving towards some sort of inflection point. i don't want to be dramatic either but when people think about the french revolution, 17 people were shocked one of the most powerful, stable countries on earth blew up and caused 20 years or more of tumult throughout europe. we're in one of those situations, i think, hopefully not that explosive but akin to the great depression where fdr had to step in there was the real need to fix structurally the economy from within. >> we set the stakes here we know how dire the situation is for many people in america is, let's talk about what congress is doing $600 checks were gone long awgo the ppp money has been burned through by most businesses, that

was supposed to be a bridge to get us through the pandemic. is there hopes for congress to do something by at least election day, the end of the year or at all is congress acting on this will there be another bill >> congress is showing little appetite to reach an agreement before lawmaker head home for a final campaign push. that means millions of americans who relied on the enhanced unemployment benefits is grim. it's worth underscoring what joe pointed out. not enough in the media are saying, i wrote down a number of startling statistics that came out hours before the senate voted down the skinny stimulus package they voted on last thursday there was worrying outlook to numbers put out, 835,000 people filed unemployment claims last week 800,000 had claims processed for

assistance 10% of adults reported not having enough to eat, not having enough food on the table the poverty rates are rising, up 22% among african-american families 29 million americans, according to data from the labor department are oasis answer the in total that's 20 times the amount of people on assistance last year at this same time. and 5 million americans are facing evictions those google searches are spiking, and the inaction from congress is exacerbating the situation. right now you're considering house speaker nancy pelosi, majority leader mitch mcconnell and steve mnuchin are all putting out competing bets steve mnuchin is urging congress not to worry about the deficit when that's what mitch mcconnell is worrying about. and house speaker nancy pelosi is sticking to the $2.2 trillion

package the house previously passed putting the bet the pressure on trump will force him to put pressure on republicans in congress to put through some sort of bill and package >> you know, and steve ratner, unfortunately, as richard haass has said, i'll quote him again, this pandemic hasn't changed history, it's actually expedited the changes. it's not reshaped it, it's just accelerated all of these forces. you and i and others are this table have been talking for a decade about the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, income disparities, trying to figure out a way to bring the numbers closer together. here we have a pandemic showing ceos they don't need as many workers, full-time workers, they

don't need the buildings, they can hire contract workers. a lot of those jobs aren't going to come back again, everybody is so obsessed on november the 3rd. i think that's the election day. whether it's the vaccine or jobs, this seems again, steve, not to be a downer but this seems to be a massive challenge for next year and over the next decade >> i completely agree with that, joe. we are going to be looking at high unemployment by any historic measure as we get into the next administration. a lot of that is going to be structur structural people who lost jobs that are not coming back. so the new president is going to be faced with an enormous job. right now you have a situation where we can't get an agreement on what everybody i think agrees is needed, which is a package but we can't agree on the

details, even as we're in the middle of the crisis then you have a new president come in and he or she -- he, rather is going to face potentially a divided congress, we don't know which way the senate is going, good idea which way the house is going to. so getting legislation through, you can see how hard it is to get a rescue package through, when everyone should agree it's essential. imagine going to the hill with an infrastructure bill trying to rebuild america and get those through congress when you have a divided senate and a house that probably will be democratic. and remember also the new president is coming in with a weaker tool box. when obama became president in the middle of the financial crisis, the deficit was about 760 or $750 billion, this president is coming in with a $3 trillion deficit. when obama came in, the debt to

gdp was like 35% or so now it's 100% we have hospital trust funds for medicare close to running out of money. we have a huge set of fiscal challenges as well as the impact of the pandemic. and so, this is going to be a huge job and, therefore, i think your concern is well placed. i think it's going to take a herculean effort to get us back to where we were before, even with a vaccine. >> steve ratner, jackie and fernando thank you all for being on for this conversation. still ahead, president trump packs supporters into another rally even as we hear more audio of him admitting back in april how deadly the virus can be. plus the dangerous claims being pushed by the trump department

spokesman, michael caputo. roger stone's protege who's now accused of interfering with cdc reports. "morning joe" will be right back

what up, paul ruud here? actor and certified young person a few days ago i was talking to andrew cuomo and he was going off saying how us millennials need to wear a mask.

so he asked me, paul, you got to help, what are you 26? i didn't correct him my name is paul and i'm 6 feet tall almost. i wear my mask and it's all i ask that you wear your mask. please wear your mask. just wear a mask just wear a mask it's easy, it's simple it's not hard, people are dying. hundreds of thousands of people are dying and it's preventable just wear a mask, i shouldn't have to make it fun. it's science it's science >> that was actor paul rudd assuming the persona of a young person to get young people to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in a new psa for the state of new york it's good. >> have you seen the whole thing? >> i have. paul rudd national treasure. if he's selling, i'm buying, period >> we have to play the rest of it later on, where he's

playing -- >> it's good. >> -- and listening to a boom box, pretending like he's talking to billie eilish he's going full on dad dork there. >> it's fantastic. >> the running joke about paul rudd is he does not age. so he could pass for 26 years old. i don't know how old he is. >> that's why he didn't correct him. it it is tuesday, september 15th along with joe, willie and ma ma me we have eugene robinson, editor of "the washington examiner" magazine jay caruso joins us and alexi mchammond joi joins. welcome to all of you to the hour we have new polling that shows little difference in confidence among voters when asked about president trump's and joe biden's ability to handle law

and order in america in the latest monmouth university poll 48% of americans are confident that president trump can maintain law and order in this country. 51% not confidence compared to 52% of americans who are confident joe biden can maintain law and order, and 45% not. on the president's handling of the nas wide protests over racial injustice just 24% think president trump made the situation better while 61% think he's made the situation worse. 45% think biden would have handled the protests better as president. 28% think he would have handled the protests worse and 23% think he would have handled them the same. >> so gene robinson, the thing about political campaigns, as tom brokaw reminded us after everybodysaid hillary clinton' campaign was over going into new

hampshire and she shocked barack obama. he said sometimes you have to wait for voters to actually vote before -- you know, before calling a race and obviously that's something that we all need to be reminded of time and time again we don't know how the election is going to turn out but we have seen two things happen already in this election. two defining moments, june the 1st when the president had troops storm peaceful protesters so he could hold the bible upside down at st. john's church and then kenosha that ended in tragedy and a 17-year-old out of state kid shooting people with his ar 15. those events and the ongoing riots, i'll call them riots because at times they're riots in portland, that are happening in portland and unrest in the rest of the country were supposed to help donald trump. we've seen time and time again, poll after poll, showing not

only did it not help donald trump, if you look at polls after june 1st, or you look at wisconsin polls since the kenosha unrest, actually joe biden's numbers have gone up and donald trump's have gone down. >> yeah. it's -- you know -- so the -- your basic point is absolutely right. we don't know what's going to happen and you have to wait until the voters actually vote my question about those numbers, and similar numbers, are these attitudes about how trump has handled this issue or that issue, how biden would have handled this or that issue what they're going to do about the economy, this and that i wonder how much those feelings are moving the needle. i wonder how much of this -- to what extent this cake is baked

in the sort of split along cultural lines that we have in this country and you have the trump base and whatever they think about what trump is doing, they're with trump. and you have the anti-trump base and the biden base that no matter what they think about what biden said yesterday or will say tomorrow, they're -- there's no way they're going over to trump. so are there -- are there persuadable voters in the middle is there still a middle in american politics? or are we just -- you know, are we going to cruise in these lanes until we get to november 3rd. i think that's a question, obviously, we won't be able to answer until after november 3rd, and maybe not for a couple weeks after that >> yeah, important question, you

look at the polls that show biden near 50% or above 50%. >> yeah. >> a lot of those numbers aren't going to be moving jay caruso, how fascinating we've been talking about law and order, and the media's been talking about that, and how that's going to impact white voters in wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania but the talk the last week or two, hasn't been about that because biden seems to be holding his own there. it's been about actually the democratic nominee's problems with latinos in florida and arizona. so suddenly you have the upper midwest, a lot of those states still comfortably in biden's camp while you have arizona and florida going a bit south for him. >> yeah. it's a perfect metaphor for 2020, everything is kind of crazy, isn't it? you would think based upon

trump's rhetoric, things he said in the past, actions he's taken in the past, that he would be struggling with the latinos, especially in arizona and florida but surprisingly he's not, doing rather well and biden needs to make up that ground, now granted, biden if he wins the three states that trump won, if biden wins wisconsin, pennsylvania, and michigan, and trump wins every other state he won last time around, biden wins the election regardless. it's not as if he has to win florida or he has to win arizona, but, of course, if we don't want a bunch of mayhem after the election, of course it would be a lot better if either one of the candidates wins big i would rather not see this stretch like gene was talk about weeks ahead of november 3rd. i would -- i think everybody would want this settled on november 3rd. >> alexi, this is what the

president is going with, this law and order argument against joe biden. he's lying about him in many cases when he says he wants to defund police. joe biden has said we'll point out again, he wants to add money to community policing programs that will help build the communities and relieve pressure on the police. but the president has mishandled the coronavirus epidemic, lied about it, that's not my opinion it's on the bob woodward tapes and also the resulting economic challenges that stemmed from this we did a segment on how bad the economy is right now this is the heart of president trump's argument it's what he has left, joe biden will leave the cities to burn and these suburbs will be abolished. is that getting traction anywhere as you cover these tight races in battleground states >> thank you for having me and good morning to everyone the thing we see president trump relying on the most to cater to that base group of supporters is

the message you pointed out, willie but on top of the fear message he's pushing the idea that donald trump is the brand, the product, that he is once again selling to voters in hopes he's still an appealing enough product to them. you see that at some of the trump boat parades we've seen around labor day, at the rallies he's still holing when people print out their own trump flags and drape themselves with these flags. we see how this cult of perso l personalty is something that the president is leaning into. but it's working with a small group of voters. to your point, there are those around the country who have viewed his handling of the coronavirus negatively that's something that happened with voters 65 and up who made up 20% of the electorate in

2016, but it's not enough for the president to rely on the small group of voters. the question is now if he turns to a persuasion strategy or turnout strategy or a turnout strategy that tries to depress turnout among likely democratic voters. >> here is more audio of president trump telling bob woodward that he knew quite well how dangerous the coronavirus was. this is from mid april >> it's not playing. okay all right. we have it now >> are we ready to go with it? >> let's play with it. >> this thing is a killer. if you're the wrong person you don't have a chance. >> yes, yes, exactly. >> just rips you apart. >> this is the scourge -- >> it is the plague. >> i mean, my god, gene

robinson, publicly he's -- still today, yesterday, last night putting people inside next to each other and yet he knows that they're -- look at the number on the screen we're at 196,000 thousand people dead we'll be past 200. these people die alone and the president knows. the president knows they die alone, hopefully possibly in a hospital but alone with people who can't touch them, talk to them, help them. mostly on ventilators. that's it. if you're on a ventilator, chances are you're not getting out. you can't say good-bye your life is over. this is a painful, horrible, lonely death that tens of thousands of people in america, a thousand a day, are going through. and yesterday he created more coronavirus spreading by putting

people together inside scientists will prove that tulsa's numbers weeks later proved that. as we do numbers two to three weeks after these events, you will see the numbers go up in coronavirus. >> gene, you look at the people so close to each other, and then the reporter interviewing him afterwards, the reporter was 5 feet away wearing a mask and donald trump said he was afraid of her because she was too close to him >> yeah, i know. it's -- it's incredible. so this rips you apart this is -- it is the plague, he says he knows exactly how deadly this disease can be you look at that crowd, that crowd in phoenix, look at the demographics of that crowd, the number of people who are over 60, in the high risk group, who have, you know, one obvious

co-factor, which is obesity, probably other co-factors, it is entirely predictable that there are people who will get sick and some, sadly, who will die because of that event last night in phoenix and that is -- you know, what does president trump care about, he cares about himself he cares about his own re-election, his own health. and as he said to that reporter, oh it's really no problem because i'm up here on the stage, i'm away from the petrie dish out there i created of infection. it is stunning and you're right to play that and play it again because we should never rush past the fact that he knew he knew all along and he has lied consistently and in a way that is -- that has been deadly. that has been deadly for tens of thousands of americans

who didn't have to die had this been -- had he been truthful, effective in handling this pandemic. >> that tape we played was from april 13th, the day after easter easter was the day on the calendar the president circled as time to open the country again. a day later he's saying this thing is a plague, it rips you apart, it's easily transmissable. he knew this for a week. what's your sense of the impact of the woodward book he's tried to dismiss it you can't dismiss something where your voice is on tape, on record is this going to hurt him in the final days of the election is it going to stay around >> it probably will. here's the thing this is the thing that bugs me the most the insult to i think everyone's intelligence about, he did this because he didn't want to create a panic. and his supporters are going out

and saying this is true. this is a guy who tries to create panic on his twitter feed every day. if joe biden wins the low income housing is going to take over your suburbs and the agitators and rioters are going to take over and we saw in 2018 the caravan freakout before election day. so the idea he doesn't want people to panic is insulting to everyone's intelligence. i read half of the book. i haven't gotten to the coronavirus issues yet the first half speaks mainly about three members of his administration, james mattis, rex tillerson, and dan coates and foreign policy and even that's a disaster so -- but it's a question of whether or not joe biden can keep his eye on the ball here and really hone in on coronavirus as the one major factor that can keep those kind of wobbly republicans, you were

talking before about is there a middle i'm not sure there is. but i think there's probably some republican voters who are not on the fence between the two candidates but rather between voting and not voting. and that's where trump is going to -- that is where he's most at risk. >> we'll have bob woodward on the show tomorrow. he'll be with us on "morning joe. we have hours of questions for him. we look forward to that. jay caruso thanks so much. president trump was out west looking at the damage from the wildfires. authorities searching for missing people, firefighters battling to keep a number of blazes from reaching populated communities up and down the west coast. joining us from ashland, oregon miguel almaguer. good morning what's the latest there? >> reporter: these are the most destructive wildfires we have seen in oregon state history later this week we were hoping for rain to aleave the situation here we're hearing it could actually turn into lightning, now,

though, it's exactly what they do not need. these are the apocalyptic scenes firefighters in oregon face. this morning dozens remain unaccounted for. >> it's the worst thing i have ever seen in my life. >> reporter: six towns virtually wiped off the map, destroyed by the flames in minutes. along highway 99, it looks like a war zone >> it is remarkable how unrecognizable all of these buildings are. >> reporter: across the west, at least 35 are dead with more fatalities expected. travis cook just learned his brother justin and mother kathy lost their lives in oregon's beachy creek fire. >> i never thought of anything like this. it's unbelievable. i wake up in the mornings and it's like, is this really happening? >> reporter: in california, 28 wildfires are now burning across the state. president trump who attended a wildfire briefing in sacramento pressed on the role of climate

change. >> it'll start getting cooler. you just watch. >> i wish science agreed with you. >> i don't think science knows exactly. >> reporter: governor gavin newsom disagreed. >> the hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting dryer. >> reporter: with 85 wildfires burning in the west, breathing can be a chore air quality in portland, seattle, san francisco and los angeles now among the worst in the world. >> we started to wear the n-95s rather than just the cloth masks because of the ash. >> reporter: today alaska air is suspending all flights in and out of portland and washington due to poor visibility satellite images show how far the smoke is traveling to the east as far as new york but not high enough to be a danger and to the west 1,000 miles off the pacific coast the smoke has formed a cyclone storm

these views showing the widespread disaster below. the wildfires here in oregon for the most part are now burning in the mountains and not threatening homes, but the bad news is they'll likely burn well into the winter. willie. >> stunning images day after day from there thank you for bringing that to us mika let's get to some of the stories making headlines this morning. alexi navalny is recoverying from a poison attack this image was shared on social media showing the opposition activist in his hospital bed surrounded by his wife and two children >> incredible. >> it's incredible navalny had been in a medically induced coma at a berlin hospital since last month. despite that near death experience he's cracking jokes noting that he's breathing on his own and he highly recommends

it the german government announced that labs in france and sweden confirmed the substance used to poison navalny was the form of a nerve agent novichok results that match berlin's own findings and provide additional confidence that the russian state was involved despite the threat to his life, he says he plans to return to russia as soon as possible >> willie, here's just one more example of -- remember the last time i spoke with john mccain, he was talking about another political figure in russia that vladimir putin had killed. this time it appears that the attempted assassination was just that, attempted. and remarkably enough, this dissident for democracy appears willing to go back to russia >> incredible courage.

incredible courage and thank god he's able to sit up and joke with his family right now. it was just 10 days ago that president trump said there was no proof he was poisoned that's how he responds to any story around russia, whether it's allegations of russia directing taliban backed militants to kill american troops in afghanistan or vladimir putin having dissidents killed, president trump will not cross putin on these issues. in his first interview since being a key witness in the impeachment trial, retired army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman claims that president trump is being used by russia's vladimir putin when asked if he thought trump was an asset of russian intelligence or being blackmailed by them, vindman told the atlantic, quote, president trump should be considered to be a useful idiot and a fellow traveler, which makes him an unwitting agent of putin that may or may not have dirt on them but they don't have to use it.

they have more effective and less risky ways to employ him. adding, quote, in the army we call this free chicken, something you don't have to work for. it just comes to you this is what the russians have in trump, free chicken >> if you look at bob woodward's book, and i know -- jay was saying before that he was reading the part of the book, mika, that i had been reading, the first half of it going through the foreign policy appointees of donald trump and you had the director of national intelligence, the person responsible for overseeing all of our intel agencies continuing to wonder about donald trump and how he was compromised, why vladimir putin had such sway over him, and he could never

find the information he was looking for, but he knew, talking to bob woodward and talking to other people that something was just not right and that relationship was deeply disturbing. >> now to this a 19-year-old audit found that postmaster general louis dejoy's former company was awarded noncompetitive contracts that may have cost the postal service at least $53 million more than it should have a review of the 2001 report shows that new breed logistics was awarded more than $300 million in postal service mail equipment, transport contracts in the 1990s while dejoy was running the company. reports of the audit raises additional questions over the postmaster's business practices. a spokesman told nbc news the

audit was a review of the postal contracting and not of new breed. >> alexi, it may end up that one of the poorest life choices mr. dejoy ever made was taking on a position that he was not recommended for out of, i think, a group of like 50 possible candidates we have this story coming up of an ig report where he got tens of millions of dollars, probably more, in overcharges we also had a report a week or so ago that he had moved money around in a sort of a shell game with his employees to illegally give candidates more money than he was legally entitled to give them which, of course, people go to jail for doing that. dejoy continues to face problems what's the response from democrats on the hill? what's the plan moving forward >> right yeah, i mean, thank you for

ticking through all that to give everyone a reminder how crazy things have been lately. democrats on the hill are seeking and demanding answers. to your point, joe, all the things you ticked through requires more answers to get through a solution to remedy those problems that louis dejoy has created and that people fear he's creating now just months if before an election in which a lot of people are going to be relying on the postal service to even participate in our democratic process one thing i'm thinking about, of course, is this is the pattern we've seen with president trump and the folks that he likes to install personally in his high profile positions that don't come at the recommendations of others or experts or folks who have come before them but rather are selected by president trump because he thinks they'll show this loyalty and level of loyalty that he demands of the people around him. we see the ways in which that creates press briefings not just at the post office but across the board with president trump in the folks he's implementing

>> alexi mchammond thank you, and welcome as a contributor still ahead we've been talking about the climate this morning and now scientists say two of the most watched glaciers in the antarctic are deteriorating. this as the president claims it's going to get cooler you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. and now your co-pilot.. safe drivers do save 40%. still a father. but now a friend. still an electric car. just more electrifying. still a night out. but everything fits in. still hard work. just a little easier. still a legend. just more legendary. chevrolet. making life's journey, just better.

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we want to work with you to really recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests and actually work together with that science, that science is going to be key, because if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it's all about vegetation management we're not going to succeed together -- >> okay. it'll start getting cooler you just watch. >> i wish science agreed with you. >> i don't think science knows, actually >> painful. >> the stupidity >> ugliness. he knows. >> safe to say you can just

actually say without being concerned that it's opinion. it's an objective fact that that was a remarkably stupid thing to say that shows continued contempt -- >> contempt. >> -- for science, for education, learning -- >> our country, our world. >> -- for the enlightenment. you name it that's what the president showed contempt for. science doesn't know it will start getting cooler that sounds like, it'll go away. trust me, it'll go away when it gets warmer. didn't go away, actually the coronavirus accelerated. >> here's something that science does know. new satellite images show two glaciers are rapidly deteriorating. according to "the washington post," glaciers located in west antarctica, most watched by scientists over recent decades are among the fastest changing

glaciers in the region a new image shows the naturally occurring buffer system that prevents the glaciers from flowing outward is breaking down and could unleash far more ice into the sea in coming years the survival of one of those glaciers, about the size of florida, has been deemed so critical that the u.s. and britain have launched a targeted multi-million dollar research mission. the loss could trigger the collapse of the west antarctic ice sheet which contains enough ice to raise seas eventually by 10 feet. for the president, that's bad. joining us senior national affairs correspondent at "the washington post," juliette, and ambassador mark bra zip ask you, he was brought to the white house by president obama to stand up a new office called the arctic executive steering

committee. the goal of the office was to closely coordinate from the white house a unified u.s. government approach to the future of the arctic, which is at stake right now >> so this segment is sort of old home week because i knew juliette, she covered congress when i was there, which is actually was as much of a disaster as climate change and, of course, mika knows mark somehow. >> somehow >> juliette let's start with you. it's good to see you again you, of course, are having to follow right now, two extraordinarily disturbing climate related stories, one on the west coast and the other involving climate change and the possibility of a set of dominos beginning to fall that could raise sea levels 10 feet try to put this in perspective for us who don't do this every day. >> we're seeing these visible

impacts of climate change across the globe. that's what we're seeing when you look at what's happening, for example, in california and across the west, you have these huge fires, which are clearly linked to climate change, scientists have found that fires out west are 50% more intense and had the -- the season has been extended by weeks as a result of human contributions to climate change. and then what we're seeing in the west antarctic and not only there, but elsewhere in terms of greenland and places in the arctic is the melting of sea ice that is accelerating as a result of rising temperatures we've seen unusually warm temperatures in the arctic as well as elsewhere. fires in siberia this summer just huge indicators across the globe of the impacts we're seeing >> you know, mark, this is

something that obviously president obama brought you in to focus on. yesterday's developments were obviously dire and while donald trump says that it's going to get cooler, obviously the united states government and the british government don't agree with that, because they've been very troubled and, in fact, are doing as much research as they can right now on trying to figure out the long-term impacts, the economic devastation, the environmental devastation that could come if these trends we saw yesterday continue >> joe, president trump's statement yesterday is one of the biggest misuses of the bully pulpit of the presidency that i've seen. the bully pulpit of the presidency is a great teaching tool the fact is that the arctic and antarctic are changing and what happens there doesn't stay there. it impacts you in your own backyard the essence of the challenge that we face is that our

children and our children's children, because of the impacts of climate change in the arctic, they're going to see the basic outlines of human society that they inherit from us contracting, creating haves and have notes in terms of who lives well and who lives awfully the fact is, as these ice sheets melt, sea level rises and that water has to go somewhere. 6 feet sea level rise, wipes out miami beach and washington d.c think of countries that are just now at sea level, philippines, 100 million people, bangladesh, 150 million people where will those people go as sea level rises? that's the essence of the challenge we face. and to dismiss science and say it's going to get cooler because fall is coming is disgraceful. joe biden put it well. this is an existential threat.

>> so gene robinson, you're writing abourespects, it seems now that there's data backing it up. but is it at the point where people can visualize how it will impact them. what mark was just talking about completely impacts us. but do american voters really see that >> that's a good question. and i think, frankly, until perhaps fairly recently, i think american voters probably didn't. i -- you know, i write about climate change every once in a while just to be frank, those columns don't get the response that political columns do. and certainly not the intensity of response. but look around at what's happening now.

look at the west on fire look at the temperature records broken in phoenix and parts of california hottest summer ever. look at the five tropical cyclones whirling in the atlantic at the same time. look at the effect of sea levels that have already risen. it's not that they're going to rise at some point they have risen, theorizing. they will rise more. so what has to penetrate and maybe it's now penetrating is that climate change is not something that's going to happen in the future. it's something that is underway right now that we see around us. and that we must act in order to mitigate in the future because it will get much, much, much worse. >> and juliette, obviously most of the world agrees with gene's assessment most of the world agrees with

the assessment of the overwhelming number of scientists the united states of america under the leadership of donald trump is isolated right now. what is the biggest concern as you cover this day in and day out? what should americans be looking at what should americans who haven't been focused on this enough start focussing on more >> well, you know, i mean, one of the things that's interesting is because this happens over a long period of time, it often is difficult to recognize "the washington post," along with my colleagues, wrote a series called 2 sea where we mapped that 10% of the globe has warmed 2 degrees celsius or 3.6 degrees fahrenheit, that's the tipping point globally that the world is trying to ignore right

now. we found there are hot spots in areas throughout the united states, including in southern california, western colorado, in the northeast. so what's interesting is people can often look at the temperature record in their own communities and see how much things have changed over time. and by looking at that, in some cases do make the connection between what's happened with burning of fossil fuels and the temperature change but historically this has not been a high priority for voters. one of the things interesting to see is in this presidential election where there is a stark contrast and these events happening in real time, whether it will impact the conversation. >> mark, let's talk about what can be done. if joe biden is elected president and i certainly know that you're supporting vice

president biden's presidential bid. what are some of the action items that he needs to do immediately that his administration needs to do immediately to not only change the way we do things in the united states but also to focus on china, india, some of the other countries that are the greatest po luters on the planet. >> the first step is to make a realistic assessment of what it is we all face the fact is that america already has its first climate refugees there are more than 30 towns in alaska that are being washed into the sea and the entire town, the schools, the people, the roads, have to be moved and placed on higher ground. let's look at the cost of this to move a town of 60 people costs about $100 million

what do you think it will cost to move a town of 30,000 people on the coast of louisiana or florida? i mean, we are looking at a $1 trillion price tag being handed to our kids that we didn't expect. we all have families that sometimes we get price tags that we sometimes don't expect. this is something that is coming down the pike. so first a realistic assessment and second a collective response is the most effective response the fact is this isn't just america's problem. this is a global problem and reaching out to others to build up a collective understanding of what we face in terms of the science and the response in terms of the cost would be the most responsible approach i think a biden administration would be more effective in generating a collective response because it seeks to unite our friends against this and not divide our friends on this

>> ambassador mark brzezinski and yule yjuliette thank you for coming on this morning. our next guests say the coronavirus has served as a wakeup call for the western world, exposing the failures of leadership particularly here in the u.s. but they have a plan on how to fix that "morning joe" is back in a moment donald trump warns that integration is threatening our suburbs. that's ridiculous. you know what is threatening our suburbs? wildfires are burning the suburbs of the west. floods are wiping out suburban neighborhoods in the midwest hurricanes are imperilling suburban life along our coast. if we have four more years of trump's climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned, how many neighborhoods flooded out, how many suburbs will have blown

away in super storms if you give a climate arsonist four more years in the white house, why would anyone be surprised if we have more america ablaze if you have a climate denier four more years in the white ushoe, why would anyone be surprised when more of america is under water from prom dresses... ...to soccer practices... ...and new adventures. you hope the more you give the less they'll miss.

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here was the scene yesterday and earlier at the president's rally and event in arizona and never neada. you don't see much social distancing, you don't see many masks. what kind of message does that send >> look, president trump believes people can make their own decisions. we've put out guidance for how people should follow most of the president's events have been outdoors we wanted one of the events in nevada to be indoors the governor everywhere we went threatened to pull liquor licenses for anyone who would hold events. >> that's jared kushner talking

to savannah guthrie on the "today" show a few minutes ago president trump believes people can make their own decisions, while he said to bob woodward, for example, it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't believe it he called it the plague. he said it's a killer. he said it rips you apart. joe, i'll give you another quoted, and there's a lot in there with that interview with jared kushner, the president was very forthcoming with the american people about what he knew and when he knew it jared kushner said that despite all the tapes we played that were laid out by savannah in that interview, and he still after hearing that and knowing that the american public knows exactly the way the president felt and how his private statements to woodward contradicted what he was saying publicly, he still believes the president was, quote, very forthcoming with the american people >> yeah, i just wrote down, i had seen a quick bite from the interview where jared kushner said that donald trump was straightforward. a couple notes here. donald trump, he said privately,

i think february 7th, that it was a deadly disease, that it was a killer, that it killed people a month later he was calling it a democratic hoax. he said that it was a plague on april the 13th also talked about how this didn't just kill old people, that this was really bad it hurt younger people, too. this was the same time when he was calling it a plague and after he admitted it hurt younger people, that he was going crazy trying to get people to put their kids back in school, not in the fall, in the spring and to open up businesses by easter. >> there would be a -- >> at the same time he was privately calling it a plague. another thing that's very instructive about jared kushner, in the bob woodward book, jared kushner basically says to woodward, hey, listen, okay, so he lies. here's the deal, here's how it works here if the president says something or we say something and we're liars, that actually is good,

because what it does is it gets the media to talk about it even more so, if donald trump's a liar and i'm a liar, jared kushner says, and i go out and say it's the best economy that we've ever had, yeah, sure we're lying, but guess what, the media will talk about it and our opponents will talk about it, and that will be good for us. >> that's so sick. >> i'm sorry i'm sorry. i can think of some historical parallels of people who spoke this way but because it's early in the morning, and i would rather have a calm, comfortable day, i won't draw those historical comparisons. but it suggests that americans that are watching this show read some history and draw whatever parallels you want to draw yourself but, no, jared kushner said, okay, the more we lie, the more we tell deliberate untruths, the

more controversy we cause, and the more people are talking about donald trump and the more they're talking about the things we want them to talk about so that is who you just saw on television that is who's helping to run the white house. and that is the philosophy that he has gained from his father-in-law, who continues to lie about everything because he knows it numbs people, causes a controversy and he considers that good for him. >> and jared kushner's the same guy who said in april that this is a great success story, talking about the federal government and president trump's response to coronavirus. he said the economy will be rocking and rolling by june. he went back to that line this morning with savannah. he said, we rose to the challenge as a federal government president trump rose to the challenge, said jared kushner, despite everything we've now heard in the woodward tapes. we'll come back to that story in a minute, but -

>> willie, really quickly. almost 200,000 americans dead. to put it in perspective, the united states has 4.5% of the world's population and about 25% of the world's deaths from coronavirus. it is a staggering failure of historic proportions historians for decades to come will remember how donald trump, when faced with the greatest crisis of his presidency, which is national security adviser told him this would be on january the 28th of this year, donald trump decided to lie to the american people, decided not to use the defense production act, decided not to use the federal government to push forward testing, to push forward ppe, to push forward all the things that his advisers were begging him to do, and as a result, we have 200,000 people dead and historians will have to sort out how many of those lives could have been saved if donald

trump had decided from the start to tell the truth to the american people instead of continually lie. >> on the subject of governments handling of this pandemic, let's turn to editor-in-chief of bloomberg news, jonathan, and editor of the economist, co-authors of "the wake up call:why the pandemic has exposed the weakness of the west and how to fix it. good morning john, let me begin with you. there are lots of places we could point to failures. leadership, we were talking about that health care systems, federal government not being able to get the products it needs out to state governments. you can talk about inequality that's been exposed, how wealthy people, we were talking about the economy, have done fine during this and poor people have suffered the most, particularly communities of color where do you begin as you attack this question? >> well, almost, joe, it's like he just read the book because the whole book is saying when historians look back at this year, they're going to look at the numbers and say, why did

america end up with around 600 deaths per million you go to asia and you come up with numbers like 20 deaths per million, 10, 5, these are countries like south korea, singapore, japan china claims a number of three, which none of us really believe. even if they're lying by a factor of ten, even if they're hiding 90% of the deaths, that would still mean xi jinping has been better at protecting people than donald trump by a factor of 20 what we're saying is pretty much what joe is saying historians are going to look back at this year and ask fundamental questions, first, why american -- why was this the year when maybe asia began to pull ahead the reason we called it the wake-up call is because we think people need to go and set this in the complex of history, they need to understand the big political theories of the past,

we look at those and we ask the question now that people need to answer because everything that the bob woodward book says is fascinating, none of that will matter to historians when they look back at this year, they'll look and say, is this the year asia moved ahead of america if america doesn't respond. >> where does it begin for you when you look at the differences in the countries that have fared better than, say, the united states during this what's the disfiction for you? >> the fundamental distinction is good government what we've learned from this crisis is government really matters. it's not enough to dismiss government as something that's irrelevant and say is that all that matters is the strength of the productive private economy government is the difference between living and dying for many people. america has failed the good government test. britain has failed the good government test. some western countries have succeeded. new zealand, obviously, germany has done quite well. the governments that have passed the good government test are

overwhelmingly in the east china is one of them singapore another of them. korea, south korea, vietnam, to some extent, and also taiwan and what this tells us is that the west -- for the last 400 years the west has been ahead of the east when it comes to government that's been our success. that's been our competitive advantage, that we've had good government that can secure order, that can sponsor innovation and things like that. now that advantage is -- has gone, is going, is disappearing, it's moving to the east. we have to wake up to this fact that government matters and we're falling behind in the race for good government. >> and what's fascinating, you talk about those asian countries, some of those countries are totalitarian, autocratic, some are free, but across all forms they're doing better than us we've grown up -- i'll speak for myself, but i've always grown up with this sort of superior

attitude, sort of the american-anglo alliance when it came to us figuring out how to do things than, say, the french, or even other european countries. what a come-uppance we have had that it's been that anglo-american alliance that's failed most spectacularly if you look at just the per capita deaths in our -- in the countries. it is the united states and great britain that is doing far worse than the asian countries or, say, germany >> absolutely. what we've been brought up, complace complacency. we assume we do things right, we do things better than these far-off countries and it hasn't proven to be the case. what's more extraordinary about this, this virus started off in china, spread to east asia and and instead of looking what they were doing, learning from them, we have an advantage in terms of time, but we didn't use that time to learn from them. and that is because of

complacency. we just think we're the best and extraordinarily, we're no longer the best. in so many ways we're actually at the bottom of the global league that is the wake-up call we're trying to sound in this book >> our thanks to both john micklethwait and adrian woolridge. the new book is "the wake up call." just ahead, when asked if he was concerned about covid spreading at his indoor rally yesterday, the president said, not at all, because he's far away on a stage. he did not appear to express concern about anybody else that and much more on what the president knew and when he knew it >> america is continuing to make critical progress at our war against the virus. over the weekend the number of daily new infections remain flat nationwide, flat hospitalizations are slowing in

hot spots like new york, new jersey, michigan and louisiana this is clear evidence that our aggressive strategy to combat the virus is working >> that was president trump on april 13th, touting his administration's progress fighting the virus >> sounds good >> that same day, april 13th, he was also saying this only behind closed doors >> this thing is a killer if it gets you if you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance. >> yes, yes, exactly >> so, this -- >> this is a scourge and - >> it is the plague. >> if you're the wrong person, willie, donald trump says on the 13th of april, privately, of course, you don't have a chance. this is the plague and yet this is, of course, the same president who was desperate to reopen the economy. and i must say, the same president who last night got a lot of people together in

arizona with with this plague that he also told bob woodward was so dangerous and deadly because it was airborne. this is a plague that donald trump obviously understood about a long time ago and yet he was trying to open schools, trying to open the economy. at the same time he was saying that behind closed doors and, of course, he's still having super-spreader events where most of the people there are not wearing masks. >> it's amazing. so, that was april 13th, the clip we just played. that was on a monday he was talking to bob woodward. what was the day before that april 12th was easter. easter was the day he circled on the calendar to reopen everything, and everyone does remember, we'll be back in church, we'll be playing baseball by easter this is the next dade he's calling it the plague. he said it rips you apart. he says this thing is a killer it's really been stunning over the last week as these woodward

tapes have come out how to the day you can find president trump saying something different publicly than he was saying privately, or the next day or the day before on and on and on bob woodward, this book is going to be out, he'll be on with us tomorrow we'll hear new audio tomorrow. these tapes come out and the president is constantly, over the course of this entire pandemic, saying something entirely different to the public than he knows to be true and has revealed so by talking to bob woodward. >> you know, jonathan lemire, let's pull in jonathan lemire because he was at the president's event in arizona and nevada, where a really dangerous situation. nobody wearing masks most people not wearing masks inside except, of course, in nevada, those people closest to the president standing behind him on stage. funny how that works but you have the president talking about how this is a plague, it's airborne. if you're the wrong person, it ri rips you apart and, quote,

you're finished. you'll notice donald trump doesn't have a ton of people around him packed in like this because, well, it's not him. but he's convinced those people, and he's convinced millions of other people, that this is no worse than the flu, even though he told bob woodward it's a hell of a lot worse than the flu and more dangerous and donald trump islingly leading all of these people to put their lives and the lives of their loved ones at rick i suppose it just doesn't matter to people that are in the personality cult, but,on th ojon lemire, it does matter to senior citizens who they know, as donald trump said, quote, are finished by this plague. can't believe it's helping him in florida can't believe it's helping him with seniors across america. >> joe, this is the tone he set right from the beginning in the early days of this pandemic. he deliberately underplayed it to the american people

he downplayed its obvious insidious effects. how lethal it is for seniors and others in other audiotape he acknowledges it's dangerous for young people he's still disputing that saying children are all but immune and science does not back that up. what we saw this weekend was striking it was a western trip for the president, his first in quite some time, heading out to nevada first and then arizona, looking to expand his electoral map with nevada because, in large part, he's losing in arizona he had a rally outdoors saturday night in northern nevada near reno, where, you know, certainly people were not in masks certainly there was not much social distancing. again it was at least outside. it was a big crowd that's the formula they've been using lately whether in airport hangars or elsewhere keeping people outside after his last attempt at an indoor rally, june, in tulsa, went so poorly there was a coronavirus spike traced directly to that event. of course, we know herman cain,

who was there, died a few weeks later of covid-19. though, of course, we don't know for certain that is where he got it suddenly, though, the plan changed. sunday night in nevada, in henderson, just outside las vegas, an indoor event an event the campaign did not advise to the reporters traveling with the president would be indoors in the hours before that event started, most of the networks pulled out their correspondents, they pulled them from the warehouse that was packed with several thousand people, very few in masks no social distancing because it wasn't safe the press pool, of which i was a part did, indeed, attend you're right, joe, you nailed on something a second ago there was a section of people set up behind the president. they had masks on. a staffer was spotted making sure they were wearing them before the president took the stage. >> how interesting that, huh >> they weren't wearing them when the earlier speakers were on before the cameras turned on, before the rally was taken live on a few channels, they were told to put on masks

>> unbelievable. >> then we had a similar scene -- >> let's just get this straight. so, donald trump is mocking people wearing masks he has rallies where he has people coming in and everybody's showing their unity with the president by not wearing masks, which, of course, is very dangerous. the president has called this the plague he called it the plague back in april, back when he was trying to reopen the country. said it's airborne, which makes it so dangerous. you can get it airborne just being next to somebody, and once you get it, if you're the wrong person, you're finished. this is really, really bad it's really deadly but the president, though, if people are in his proximity, they have to wear masks. i think that's pretty revealing. but if you are in a personality cult, you may not be able to sort through all of that here, let me help you, the president's concerned about himself and not you. speaking about people being concerned about themselves, this

is the time, we're coming up on an election. how exciting this is when the president flies into town and everybody that's on the ballot, especially in close races, they all stand up on stage and they all, like, hold their arms up for the president and everybody's cheerful. >> unity. >> unity and, you know, they think it might help him get over the finish line. what was martha mcsally's key moment last night at this rally? what did she say in support of donald trump this is -- this is - >> maybe she introduced him. >> this is what i love about american politics. this is the pageantry of it. they always do this. what did martha mcsally say in arizona at this donald trump rally when he came to her state with her whole career in the senate on the line >> well, joe, it might surprise you to learn that martha mcsally wasn't there yesterday in phoenix when the president came to town. >> what? >> i'll say that again martha mcsally wasn't there.

i'm glad - >> are you sure? >> yeah, joe, i'm glad you're sitting down right now but she was not there. the governor of arizona did -- was there, greeted the president at the airport when he landed in arizona at phoenix after we had come from california wildfires. >> jonathan, the governor of arizona, i guess, since he was there, he's up on the ballot in november, is that right? that's why he was there? >> the governor made a point of -- yes, the governor was there, joe it should be noted as well, the governor attended the event afterwards it wasn't just at the airport, he went to this latinos rally. it was called a latinos for trump roundtable he had had one the day before in las vegas that consisted of six people, small, socially distanced. >> right but jonathan, what i'm saying is the governor was there, so he must have an election coming up this year, right is he on the ballot in a month and a half in november

>> that's right, joe >> is he yes or no? do you know? >> i don't think he is, joe. i don't think he is. >> okay. i don't understand this. wait >> i know. >> willie, this is the strangest thing in the world can you -- because, you know, i'm just such -- i'm not a dumb country lawyer willie, i'm feeling this morning more like a caveman lawyer so, jonathan lemire with that new york city press outfit, the associated press, is saying that the arizona candidate, who doesn't have an election coming up in the next month and a half, was there with president donald j. trump, but the senatorial candidate, who's fighting for her political life, and you think would be the first person there would be there with donald trump, arms up in the air -- >> maybe she thought it was too

dangero dangerous. >> to support donald trump and attack reporters and play the whole maga game. you think she would have been there jumping up and down with the president. isn't this a strange development? >> it's a very strange development, as you're indicating i'm picking up on the subtlety of what you're saying. >> i don't understand. >> i think what you're saying, governor ducey, he's term-limited there's not a gubernatorial election until 2022 so he had no concerns there martha mcsally, in a tight race against mark kelly in the state of arizona was not available because she had senate business to attend to, we heard so she was tied up with that either she was concerned that she didn't want to be on a stage with donald trump in a tight election in the state of arizona, or, perhaps, she was concerned for her own safety as many others were in a tightly packed room. >> maybe, you know, maybe, willie, she has underlying

conditions so maybe twook dangerous for her -- >> or maybe she just wanted to follow proper social distancing guidelines, because if you were following proper social distancing guidelines, whether you have underlying conditions or not, you don't want to get the coronavirus. one way to avoid it is not to go to a super-spreader event where people are all clustered together and breathing all over each other with masks. speaking of the las vegas review journal on sunday, the president was asked about whether he had any safety concerns when it comes to holding indoor rallies. here's that exchange >>. >> are you concerned about getting covid, though, in an enclosed rally >> no. i'm more concerned about how close you are. >> sorry about that. >> you know why? i'm on a stage it's very far away so i'm not at all concerned. >> so, he's not concerned about himself because he's on stage. >> yeah, but hold on, willie - >> all the other people are -- >> -- he's saying the out loud

parts that he should be keeping inside that head of his because -- yes, yes, i'm starting to notice that. so, he's five or six feet away from this reporter and he's concerned she's five or six feet away, and yet he has events where he jams people in. and even in tulsa, staff were removing those signs that were supposed to keep people apart from one another why, some might even say, that is so selfish, it could endanger the lives of his very supporters, willie. >> it was on display last night, as jonathan described very well. for the public they want to see the masks behind him so the tv cameras are shooting president trump, masks, we get it, this is bad, but we're fine to fill this place up, packed shoulder to

shoulder with our supporters despite we've heard president trump say on tape again and danny again, it's deadly stuff, it's airborne t can be transmitted that way, it's a killer and what he told bob woodward, it's the plague. the reason he was uncomfortable with that reporter that close to him for his own personal safety is because he knows all of these things and has said it on tape to bob woodward. still ahead, more on the most embattled members in the u.s. senate. how those vulnerable incumbents are trying to thread the neelgsdz this november you're wchating "morning joe." customizes your car insurancekl 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. ♪ [camera man] actually anyone 50 or over is at increased risk for shingles. the pain, the burning! my husband had to do everything for weeks. and the thing is, there's nothing you can do about it!

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let's bring into the conversation senior political correspondent for the washington xmer, david drucker. >> it's interesting in 1994 in the midterm elections, i remember reading articles, the

first year i ran, and i remember reading articles talking about how some members of congress said they would put anti-aircraft guns, these are democrats, on the border of their districts saying if bill clinton's air force one came their direction, they would fire warning shots to keep him away that's how little they wanted bill clinton in their district back in 1994 there was, of course, a massive landslide. i'm not sure that's not exactly how mcsally, cory gardner, thom tillis, certainly susan collins and a lot of other at-risk republicans are feeling right now. >> yeah, look, it's been interesting to watch different vulnerable republicans and how they're playing president trump. susan collins has tried to distance herself she's trying to deal with the fact that the coalition she has relied on for years, moderate

republicans and moderate democrats and stalwart republicans could keep her in office even if the state turned blue are in trouble because president trump is such polarizing figure that she's losing a lot of the women she's relied on. that race is tight mcsally, notwithstanding the fact she wasn't with the president yesterday, she's really tied herself to trump part of her challenge is that on the one hand the phoenix and tucson suburbs have really moved away from president trump, who did win the suburban vote in the exit polling four years ago, but they really moved away from trump. but arizona's republican base is very, very, very loyal to trump. so, she's trying to thread a needle that may be impossible, but she's decided to keep herself very close to trump and go that route. and i think cory gardner is just trying to separate himself from everybody. part of the challenge he faces is colorado is a blue state for

all intents and purposes it can't totally be ignored. i think if any republican is capable of getting a crossover vote and surviving, it would be him because he's very skilled but he's in a tough race it's simply because the president is not popular in colorado all of these down-ballot republicans, i think, are trying to deal with on the one hand a republican base that is loyal to the president, but on the other hand, a suburban voting bloc and others that simply think any republican who is supportive of president trump has got to go. >> is it safe to say that mar it ha mcsally in arizona and corey gardner in colorado, those two republicans in two adjoining western states, is it safe to say they're probably the two most endangered republicans that are going to be running for re-election this year in the senate >> i think they're two of the most endangered. i go back and forth on susan

collins. but i think gardner and mcsally probably have the steepest challenges it's interesting because gardner is a very skilled politician i think mcsally has had sort of fits and starts where she can't seem to figure out always what kind of republican she wants to be she started out her career as a house member, more of a john mccain style republican, winning a leaning democratic house in tough races so she knows how to appeal across the aisle. but in responding to her republican base in arizona, she's become more trumpy, for lack of a better word. i think gardner has been more consistent it's just a matter if he can survive a democratic onslaught in the denver suburbs. we saw two years ago, congressman kaufman, who worked as hard as any i've seen, with non-white voters and suburban voters, simply was swept away because he had an "r" next to his name mcsally, gardner, both in deep

trouble. susan collins. i know republicans are optimistic she's going to pull a rabbit out of a hat because she survived for so long there, doing what she does. also won a tough race. i keep an eye on thom tillis simply because of a fund-raising edge that joe cunningham has i also note, we still have so much time for different aspects of the campaign to influence the vote there are going to be three presidential debates this news cycle seems to bring us a new, you know, this is the thing that's going to determine the campaign every couple of days and as we saw in 2016, there were a lot of endangered republican senators that survived senator toomey in pennsylvania, senator johnson in wisconsin a lot of times things happen that we're not thinking will happen. coming up we'll talk to republican congressman tom cole. first, the american crisis a new collection by "the atlantic" examines a country in chaos.

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tougher and meaner they are, the better i get along with them you'll explain that to me some day, okay? but maybe it's not a bad thing the easy ones are the ones maybe i don't like as much or don't get along with as much >> that's unwithone of the rece released clips with journalist bob woodward and donald trump back in january. meanwhile, michael capu it o, the top communications official at the department of health and human services, left wing hit squads were being trained for an armed insurrection after a contested election and accused government scientists of, quote, sedition according to "the new york times," caputo in a 26-minute video he hosted live on his personal facebook page, accused of cdc of harboring a, quote, resistance unit determined to undermine trump. he said cdc scientists, quote,

haven't gotten out of their sweatpants except for meetings at coffee shops to plot how they're going to attack donald trump next adding, quote, there are scientists who work for this government who do not want america to get well. not until after joe biden is president. "the times" also reports caputo predicted the president would win re-election in november but his democratic opponents would refuse to concede leading to violence he said, quote, when donald trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin the drills that you've seen are nothing. he told his followers, quote, if you carry guns, buy ammunition ladies and gentlemen, because it's going, to be hard to get. caputo faces criticism for leading efforts to interfere with the cdc health reports to fit the pandemic narrative, he suggested on sunday that he personally could be in danger

from his opponents of the administration and said that his mental health has definitely failed he said, quote, i don't like being alone in washington, describing shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone shadows are so long. he said the mounting number of coronavirus deaths were taking a toll on him. in a statement the department of health and human services said, mr. caputo is an integral part of president trump's response as americans need public health information to defeat the covid-19 pandemic. so, yes, the trump administration confirmed that a man who basically said civil war was going to break out after this year's election and that people listening needed to get ammunition to target left-wing, quote, hit squads that he's imagining in his mind, that that was an important part of this administration let's bring in right now staff writer at "the new yorker" and author of the book "surviving

autocracy," author of twilight of democracy, anne applebaum and editor-in-chief of "the atlantic," jeffrey goldberg, and "the american crisis" is out today published by "the atlantic" in recent years. masha, let's begin with you. i, of course, read your book and anne's book and have recommended it to anybody i get a chance to talk to. it seems everything you warned about in your book, mr. caputo yesterday confirmed. >> yes, in my book i talk about an autocratic attempt. this is a term i borrowed from

hungarian political moderist i think according to his model, which actually fits our situation very well, we're now in the autocratic attempt stage of the process, which may end on november 3rd or whenever our election season ends and may lead to an autocratic breakthrough but speaking of michael caputo, i don't think michael caputo said anything that his boss doesn't say on a regular basis we have become so accustomed to. it only stands out when somebody we don't expect to be spouting hateful, crazy lies every day, says the same things >> well, this goes to a line from your book that i've underlined the outrageous is rendered ordinary and you go on at some length, and i think it's extraordinarily valuable insight, that regular

political lexicon that we use to define not only elections but american democracy, somehow fails us when you have autocratic actions and autocratic attempts going on before our very eyes. >> absolutely. when we talk about -- part of the reason the model i use developed this model was because he realized that he used the language of liberal democracy. talking about free and fair elections. talking about freedom of the media are inadequate for describing these systems that's not what we should be looking at of course, we should be looking at elections but that's not where most of the rhetorical and cultural and political shifts are happening. >> anne, in reading your book, there's a line that always came back to me i think it's very haunting

you were talking about the law and justice party took over in 2015 you talked about them going after state media. you talked about them going after the judiciary and then you talked about them deconstructing the state, just like donald trump has attempted to do. there's a line that i always keep going back to, and it's this -- there was very little pretense about any of this the point of these changes was not to make government run better the point was to make government more partisan, the courts more pliable, more beholden to the party. again, i go back to it there was very little pretense about any of this. and, my god, who could not listen to the tapes of bob woodward interviewing donald trump and not be staggered by that very fact in america about a crisis that wasn't just about making courts more pliable but in a crisis that's already killed 200,000 americans

>> yes, i think one of the difficulties we've all had with trying to understand trump is we expect -- we expect him to keep secrets. we expect him not to tell us that he prefers the company of authoritarians over america's allies we expect him not to ask the russians for help in his election campaign, but because he did all of those things openly and publicly, because there's no investigative reporting needed to find out about any of it, we find it confusing. we're taken aback. really he's been telling us since 2015 that he despises and dislikes the american political system, that he wants to undermine it, wants to change it, that he doesn't respect the institutions of american democracy. and it's really been our own blindness, our own refusal to take that seriously, our own insistence that he's joking or

it's only an electoral strategy. i think eats been telling these things -- telling us these things all along we're in a really interesting moment now, though, you know, in this electoral cycle we have a couple of months left before the campaign. we're now in a moment where trump and the people that work for trump like michael caputo, his election staff and everybody else, now need to create a totally false picture of the world. they need to get people to believe it so, they need to create a world in which america is not suffering from a deadly disease, in which the greatest threat to american peace and stability and the economy is left-wing anarchists and not economic crisis or fire or pandemic he needs to create this false picture of reality and people around him are going to start doing that. they even tell us that's what they're doing because that's the nature of the beast.

but resisting this, understanding that's what's happening, is going to be very difficult for a lot of people. the narratives are going to be very strong. they're going to be repeated frequently people of dubious mental health, like mr. caputo, are going to begin seeing left-wing anarchists in the streets, some americans are going to prepare for combat and i think we need to be ready for this and we need to keep people -- keep as many of our friends as possible focused on reality and not what they're hearing on television. >> anne, this is, again, what's so instructive about your book and also masha's, but you actually explain how this has already happened in poland, how it's already happened in hungary. of course, in hungary, deciding to declare war on the muslims, the invading muslims, and you point out, withell, there aren'

really any invading muslims but they make a nice alternative reality. poland tried to do the same thing there. it didn't work there so then the war was launched against sexual minorities, as your husband said, and that war, of course, even included religious leaders from the catholic church joining in, suggesting that gay and lesbian poles were trying to destroy the country. >> yes so, the need to create a false enemy, you know, and, you know, is of course central to these kinds of ideologi ideologies you've underlined an important point. it's possible to create them and to create fear of them even when they don't exist or even when there's one or two of them. you know, there are real examples of -- you know, there have been one or two acts of

left wing violence, there have been things that scare people. those incidents are going to be blown up and created and made into a kind of army that's coming to get you and your family in the suburbs. and the lesson of poland and hungary, the lesson of russia, the lesson of turkey, is that these kind of narratives, when you begin repeating over and over again, when you begin showing people, you know, clips, over and over again, this he can genuinely become afraid. the virtual world is as frightening as the real world. it can be used to create a false or completely largely fictitious enemy that will make people afraid and will cause them to want to vote for trump. >> jeffrey, one of the phenomena of the trump era is the elevation from the shadows of people like michael caputo to positions of power where you could ignore him previously. he's now a senior official at hhs which oversees the cdc

the cdc is an agency under the hhs and that's how he's talking about the cdc. he's saying there's a resistance movement inside, get your bullets, get your guns ready for election day because they're coming so, he's not the only one, but there are a number of them who, because of loyalty to president trump, and this goes with the theme of what we've been talking about, loyalty is paramount. if you're loyal, you're going to get an important job if you get an important job, you're going to be in a position to say and do things like we heard michael caputo do and say yesterday. >> right we're in a moment right now when subtext is becoming text i mean, it was never that on the surface as masha and anne note, that things that are -- and as you all have noted on this show for a while, things formally said quietly are now being said out loud the closer we get to election, the more nervous they get and their true anxieties come out. what you're seeing in this

particular case is, i think, the manifestation of a really extremely outlandish conspiracy theory or web, the qanon kind of thinking, the deep state thinking, moving closer and closer into the center, so that actual government officials, caputo is a taxpayer paid official of the united states government, is now saying things that a year ago you would find on weird dark websites and so, you know, and the real problem here, and let's watch this today, does he keep his job in the federal government? i mean, does the white house look and say, you know what, this is -- this is crazy, or, to your point, do people in the white house say, well, he's a good, loyal foot soldier in the trump campaign, so why would we punish him that's what's going to be very interesting about the next couple of days with this guy, who's gone further than other government officials have in this particular narrative.

>> jeff, jay rosen at nyu talked about the need for networks and some newspapers to start what he called threat modeling teams talked about masha's book and what he learned from masha and anne and talked about the need to prepare, mitigate and respond to threats because the next month and a half, two months, may be unlike any months we've seen in american democracy you, to that end, have released a book be today from "the atlantic." tell us about it >> right it's called "the american crisis." it's a real threat to woodward sales, i believe >> e oh, of course. >> well, naturally same publisher, actually it's a great question. anne applebaum wrote the foreward the goal with the book, in all

seriousness, discount my partisanship here, in all seriousness is an amazing collection of pieces to go to your point, a lot of the pieces could be considered warnings a lot of the -- a lot of the stuff we've done over the last year, the last several years, has been to warn, going back to david fromme warning about autocracy four years ago, this is a book designed to tell americans the reality of where we're at, the fragility of democracy, the fragility of our norms and also provide some pathways out of it i think readers will really enjoy might not be the exact word, but i think it's illuminating and i think together you see the power of some of "the atlantic's" best thinkers and writers i'm very excited this is out today. >> so, masha, i want to underline something you bring up very early in your book, that

has certainly been a mistake that i've made and that a lot of other people have made if you look -- if you read woodward's book, it's a mistake that tillerson and mattis and dan coates and even people who loathes donald trump, dr. brzezinski, bob gates and others, they made the mistake, i made the mistake, we made the mistake, that barack obama -- you have that barack obama quote, the day after the election, the sun has risen. i talked to donald trump and you said that barack obama said that he and trump had, quote, shared goals, quote, we both want what's best for the country. it is that presumption of good faith on which the constitution of the united states is built, that george washington believed

so much in, but hamilton and madison actually were far more skeptical about it, but that presumption of good faith, that we gave to donald trump, that barack obama gave to donald trump, that we're used to giving to our presidents, that you say we can no longer give. >> you know, i don't know that we have the option of not giving it no constitution, no set of institutions is built to withstand bad actors a man who -- a president who just flaunts law, who refuses to obey both norms and, you know, ethical norms, cultural norms, political norms, but also legal norms, who ignores the law and pushes through, bulldozes his agenda through the courts, in the best case scenario and in the worst case scenario, for example, congressional

subpoenas, no political institution is built to withstand that what is in our power is to stop putting stock in institutions and realize they will function to the extent they can function, only if society is behind them, we embolden them, if we're involved in politics, and if we're -- you know, if we make our institutions do their jobs he's still going to do an extraordinary amount of damage he's already done an extraordinary amount of damage but if we think in terms of harm reduction, we have to be much more involved in it. >> and, anne, what i heard from all of these people, again, the never-trumpers in the foreign policy community, leaders for -- that had worked in democratic administrations, all said the same thing, and echoed what barack obama said. you know what, the sun has risen and we only have one president at a time. again, there was this presumption of good faith, but it certainly seems to me, 3 1/2 years later, our constitution,

as good as it is in so many ways, depends too much on the good faith of its chief executive. >> yes, i do think that in 2016-2017 you could very legitimately say this is the president of the united states i would like to work on behalf of my country. i'm going to work in his white house. i'm going to work in his administration i'm going to do my best as some -- as we know mattis and others said to themselves and to others, i'm going to do my best to protect the constitution from him, if necessary, and to protect america's foreign policy interests or domestic interests from the president, if that becomes -- if that becomes necessary. and there were a lot of people who i think went into that first administration thinking that was the case second time around, if trump wins again, we will not have those kinds of people in washington they won't be there.

instead we'll have a different category of people who will be working to aid donald trump in his attempts to undermine the constitution, in his attempts to, you know, use his position they will be using their positions in order to make money or for other, you know, other personal goals we will -- we will have a completely different cadre of people in washington and that's one really important way in which the second trump term will be quite different from the first >> all right staff writer for the at lae"the, anne applebaum, thank you as always staff writer at the new yorker and author of the book "surviving autocracy," masha guess gessen, and editor-in-chief, jeffrey goldberg

it's going to be huge. woodward is going to be eclipsed in a day, jeffrey. jeffrey goldberg, mr. sunshine, thank you so much for being with us >> thanks, joe >> again, "the atlantic" is out today with a new book. it's called "the american crisis: a collection o crisis: a collection of the magazine's recently published journalism and commentary. please read it let's bring in the ranking republican on the rules committee, congressman tom cole of oklahoma. tom, i want to take you back to a conversation we had about an hour ago i'm sure you've had a lot of these conversations with small business owners in your district but i keep talking to my friends all over the country, whether they're small business lawyers or whether they're bankers, whatever they are, and they keep telling me, whoever gets re-elected in -- whoever gets elected in 2020, whether it's donald trump getting re-elected or whether it's joe biden, we're in for a mess economically in

2021 real concern a lot of concern like i didn't hear before 2008 are you hearing some of those same concerns, and what in the world do we do, regardless of who gets elected president, to prepare for the coming onslaught of more economic problems? >> i do hear those concerns, joe, and very much on the minds of voters and businesspeople quite frankly, we have come about halfway back from where we were that's good. but the next half probably is a lot tougher than what we've done in terms of what we, do the first thing we do is act now look, we could have a coronavirus relief bill if about five or six people would just simply come off their high horses and might sit down and bargain. the choice is not between $2.2 trillion and $1 trillion it's really between about a

trillion and a half and zero and the only reason it's at zero is because we have people unwilling to put on the floor things that both sides agree to. we both agree for $105 billion to reopen schools. we both agree that every american making less than $75,000 a year ought to get 1200 bucks for child and household. we agree not whether it's $400 or $600 for relief on individuals unemployed through no fault on their own on a weekly basis republicans moved to $400. democrats haven't moved from $600 we need more help for small businesses so the best thing we can do for whoever the next president is, is act now that will make the economy enormously and it will keep us on what's been a positive trajectory for about the last 10, 12 weeks. >> tom, i -- i think we talked

about this before i came to congress in '94 because i was concerned about the deficit, the debt concerned about big government spending but we find ourselves in a position now where federal government's only lifeline for working class americans. there's a balance between passing on debt to future generations but also just keeping things running now my bigger concern is, what happens even if there is another stimulus package what happens when that money runs out let's say it's extended two or three months what happens when that money runs out what does the economy look like? how do we get back on our feet >> look, i think the underlying economy pre-coronavirus was very robust and it still is. you can see this is an economy or a pandemic that hits in enormously disparate ways than different parts of the economy this is pretty good year if you're working at amazon

they're hiring people, adding people same thing at microsoft and with all the big tech so parts of the economy are doing pretty well. and i think once you get a vaccine, i think you'll see things get a lot better. and we'll have a vaccine at extraordinary speed. it's actually undercovered, in my opinion, what the biomedical and pharmaceutical have done whether it's two weeks before the election or two weeks after the election really is immaterial it's going to arrive faster than any vaccine in human history and we're going to have the ability to distribute it faster. doesn't mean throw away your mask or quit social distancing you'll have to do that for a while. it's been seamless cooperation between private industry, government, and medical researchers doing the right thing with unprecedented resources placed at their

disposal by the federal government >> congressman cole, willie geist. i want to ask you on a different topic. president trump, as you know, has been warning that mail-in voting could lead to a rigged election he was talking about it again this morning in an interview your state election board says there's nothing to worry about they say we've done this in our state for many, many years the time or wait is not going to be any different than it has been in the past it's an important issue for voters across the country. in your state, do you have concerns about mail-in voting, or do you think it's solid >> i think it's solid. look, i used to be a secretary of state i'm not worried about the elections being corrupted. i do worry a lot about people saying they're going to be corrupted, delegitimizing them in advance and i see that on both sides we've spent a lot of time with -- the russians tried to influence the election there's like zero evidence that they actually were successful. and so we hear this from both sides. it's unfortunate i know a lot of the secretaries of state around the country. i used to sit on the secretary

of state's executive committee when i was one and i've got to tell you, democrat or republican, there's not a more honorable group of men and women. they want to get it right. they work hard they've got very capable staff so i think the election will be fine my biggest concern is sometimes in the haste to make sure that we extend the ability, which we should to everybody to vote, we don't often match up the postal -- reasonable postal delivery dates with the election calendar so that's going to be a problem. in our state we haven't changed anything you can still vote by mail i vote by mail but it's an absentee system. we don't mail out a ballot to everybody and you have to go to a notary public to identify who you are. it's a very safe system. but i think that's true in most states the states that vote tradition leil by mail have been doing it for a long time and doing a good job. so again, i wish we would just focus on the issues and the election itself. not worry too much about -- i

don't think there's going to be broad-scale voter fraud in the united states by either side >> all right congressman tom cole, always good to talk to you. thank you so much. stay safe out there. and that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right after this final break. .to soccer practices... ...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. ask your doctor if your teen >> techand your car., we're committed to taking care of you >> tech: we'll fix it right with no-contact service you can trust. >> tech: so if you have auto glass damage, stay safe with safelite.

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i'm stephanie ruhle. it's tuesday, september 15th let's get smarter. this morning, the u.s. is facing two simultaneous natural disasters with millions of americans at risk. down south, hurricane sally is closing in on the gulf coast threatening to bring several feet of rain when it makes landfall some time tomorrow. out in the west, the threat is for wildfires. dozens of them burning millions of acres and leaving at least 35 people dead. all of this has put the issue of climate change f