focusing on this when you talk to any democratic strategist, the game they always play with the young voters, really going back to '72, maybe even '68, is turnout because the numbers, at least in this cycle, clearly -- and previous ones -- clearly support the democrats, right the question is always, how do you turn them out? how do you get them to the polls? how do you translate their enthusiasm into actual votes and that's really a challenge that the biden campaign's trying to puzzle through. >> hans nichols, thank you, as always, my friend. so good to see you this morning. i will be reading "axios a.m." in just a little bit you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com that's it for me this morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian "morning joe" starts right now good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, september 16th, and there's a lot to cover this morning. hurricane sally is moving very slowly toward the northern gulf coast, bringing with it flooding rain and potentially life-threatening storm surge, particularly in parts of alabama

and florida's panhandle. we'll go live to pensacola for the latest. >> talking to friends up there right now, and man, they say it is rough. plus, some stunning admissions from president trump in a town hall interview on abc news that aired last night, including a slip of the tongue that might have revealed his true strategy for combating the coronavirus that would mean for the potential of millions more dead so, when he said, "it's going to go away," he may have meant it we'll explain that and our big interview this morning. bob woodward joins us at the very top of the 7:00 hour of "morning joe." along with joe, willie and me, we have white house reporter for the "associated press," jonathan lamire, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. but let's start with the state of the presidential race with 48 days to go until the election, the latest cnn/ssrs poll out of wisconsin likely voters has biden with a

ten-point lead over president trump in that state, 52%-42% while the latest "morning consu consult" poll in the state has biden up by nine points, 51%-42%. >> willie, let's just start there and look at wisconsin. this is a state that was considered by the trump campaign and the industrial midwest to be the most favorable for them. i think it's very illuminating that all of the polls after june 1st, when donald trump cleared out the park of peaceful protesters on june 1st to hold his bible upside down -- i think it's very instructive that his poll numbers dropped then. afterward, jonathan lamire reported, and we'll talk to him about this in a second, that the white house staff went back and high-fived each other because they actually thought violently

removing peaceful protesters so the president could hold a bible upside down was -- >> they called it iconic. >> yes, like michael dukakis in the tank was iconic, and like gary bauer flipping pancakes and falling backwards off the stage. yes, those were iconic moments, too. >> poor gary. >> poor gary you know what? there, by the grace of god, go on >> that's right. >> but you look at wisconsin, and this is really -- you can look at the numbers since donald trump praised a 17-year-old out-of-stater coming in to kill people on the streets of kenosha, saying that he was sort of going to protect property and doing it illegally, as far as, you know, running around with an ar-15. these wisconsin numbers have so solidified since donald trump began, tried to try out what he considered to be law and order

that looked like a lot of chaos, and a lot of those wisconsin voters appear to be saying, no, thanks we've got a ten-point spread in wisconsin, and it has ironically enough now, since kenosha, become actually biden's strongest swing state. >> yeah, that number really jumped off the screen yesterday, because as you say, they had sort of written off michigan, the trump campaign, and thought wisconsin was the place where they could hold on to the midwest. they, of course, won by a tiny sliver in 2016 there, but it was key to his victory over hillary clinton. and now you're seeing, at least in this cnn poll, and also in the monmouth poll, a double-digit and a nine-point spread so, yeah, there's a combination of things at work, which is number one, kenosha. clearly, some of the voters in wisconsin didn't like the way the president's talking about their state. and the other piece of it is, if you look inside the cross tabs, far and away the number one concern of voters in the state of wisconsin right now is

coronavirus, is the pandemic, and they are watching bob woodward's book roll out they are listening to the president on tape. they know in their own communities how this is going and how the president has handled it by the way, there's a ton more inside this book that we're going to talk to bob woodward about, about the president ignoring warning signs from his own advisers we're going to get into all of that with bob woodward, but this is top of mind, whether you're in wisconsin or pennsylvania or north carolina or florida. this is what's at the middle of people's lives and if you listen to him -- and we will in a minute -- the president in that town hall with george stephanopoulos last night, this is a man adrift. he has no handle whatsoever on what's going on. he still wants it to magically go away. he's proposing herd immunity, which would kill millions of people, and saying a lot of people don't like to wear masks. so, top of mind, coronavirus, and he's not on it >> well, and last night -- >> just not. >> -- he -- again, it's remarkable that there are actually people in the trump

white house who are looking forward to the debates, because this man last night made admiral stockdale look like lincoln at gettysburg it's very clear, even four years into the job, he doesn't understand the issues, he doesn't know the issues, and 200,000 dead americans into the coronavirus, he's still stumbling around with no strategy, and he actually, talk about a freudian slip, he comes out and talks about herd mentality, then gets to herd-approved, or whatever he said, and -- >> i think we should play this >> let's play it one second, because -- >> this is incredible, because it's not that he's stupid -- he is -- but it's that he doesn't care that 2 to 3 million people may die, when he talks about herd immunity but doesn't even get the phrase right this is someone who doesn't care. >> here it is. >> it is going to disappear. it's going to disappear. i still say that it would go away without the vaccine, george, but it's going

to go away a lot faster with it -- >> it would go away without the vaccine? >> sure, over a period of time, sure with time, it goes away. >> with many deaths. >> and you'll develop like a herd mentality it's going to be herd-developed, and that's going to happen that will all happen >> herd -- >> good god. >> herd mentality and herd-developed they've just explained, lamere and me, talking about the red sox. but jonathan lamire, donald trump last night did something quite extraordinary. he admitted, out loud, that after 200,000 dead americans, he has now reverted back to where the british started, where boris johnson's people started, talking about herd immunity, and then immediately were rushed off of that when they figured out how many dead brits there would be donald trump has stumbled back onto it. and i just want to go back to what willie geist said, because

you look at wisconsin and you go into those numbers, and yes, law and order is very important there, but coronavirus is the key issue, and you have some older people in wisconsin who are very concerned that donald trump still doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to this once-in-a-century pandemic so, talk about that and talk about the ten points -- the ten-point lead right now what's the white house's response to wisconsin seeming to slip beyond their fingertips, at least for now? >> joe, i think the most important takeaway last night, the overarching theme, is that this president still has no message when it comes to americans who think he's done a poor job handling the pandemic and we know in public polling, that's the majority of americans. the president has no ability to listen to their concerns or suggest that things could have

gone differently or sort of recognize and identify with their suffering, because they've lost a loved one or they, themselves, got sick, or they lost a job there's been none of that, no ability to show empathy or signify any sort of course correction the white house has said herd mentali mentality. they've said over and over that herd immunity -- i did the freudian slip there, too -- the herd immunity is not a plan. that's not what they're looking to do, but it was really telling last night that the president seemed to zero in on that. and one of his newest advisers, scott atlas, one of the doctors, has talked up that subject as a possibility, though again, he has later, when pressed, said that's not an actual recommendation but that is what this, from the beginning, we know, joe, in the last few months that the trump campaign feels that, any day that they're not talking about the virus is a daythat they ca win. that's a fight they want to have the problem is, that's what the american people want to talk about. they're consumed with the pandemic and how it impacts their day-to-day life, and this strategy is not working, and those wisconsin numbers are so

telling. i'm glad we're starting here today, because you're right. of the three great lakes states there that we know -- michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin -- the trump campaign, unless their map looks very different than 2016, the strategy all along is of those three, they needed one and wisconsin was always seen as the most likely, from the beginning, and particularly in recent months, recent weeks after the violence in kenosha. they leaned hard into law and order. they thought that was a winning message. and so far, that has not played out that way wisconsinites are certainly, of course, concerned with law and order, but they don't like the president's messaging on it, according to these polls, and they're far more concerned about the pandemic and they feel that he has let them down. and if wisconsin slips away -- and we already know that michigan is quite the long-shot for this president -- then suddenly, you're asking for pennsylvania and the polls have pennsylvania closer, but we know that's joe biden's state, as we've talked about on the show. that is a hard -- that's a tough haul for the president to win pennsylvania

and if he goes 0 for it 3 in the great lakes, his map becomes extraordinarily difficult. >> it's a good point and again, we're not just talking about one poll in, you know, the middle of march. willie, we're talking about poll after poll after poll since kenosha that has shown joe biden expanding his lead in wisconsin, which was supposed to be the friendliest state to him, especially in the upper midwest. michigan already, many people in the trump campaign consider that gone, quite some time ago. i suspect that will tighten up, too. but still, they're not counting on it. and pennsylvania, i don't see how they get there from here i know the polls are tightening, but boy, that would be the last state i'd want to depend on, if i were donald trump. but willie, talking about the coronavirus -- and we're going to get to this mask -- >> comment. >> -- this mask statement in a minute but just think about, again, the

message that he is sending he's pushing to get college football back on the field yesterday we heard from the national champion coach, the coach from the national championship lsu tigers, saying, basically, hey, everybody on my team has coronavirus now, sure, it's not everybody on his team, but this is spreading like wildfire through a lot of college campuses and through this football team it's going to be interesting to see what the truth ends up being about lsu. but people see that, and they see the president getting angry in his answer on the coronavirus is, let's force young kids to go out and play college football. and again, it's just stupid! it's just -- >> it's deadly. >> if you're in a oshkosh and you're seeing the president saying this and you're like, i

like the badgers, i like football, but do we really want to have one superspreader event after another? >> yeah, it's dangerously irresponsible, obviously, the way he talks about it, and particularly last night the herd immunity, which he hung his hat on now, all of a sudden, as the new strategy, i guess, out of the white house. we're talking in shorthand, we should be clear about what that means. it means enough people either have the vaccine or contract coronavirus and then develop the antibodies that the herd, the country, 328 million of us, is immune to the disease. now, to get there, mika pointed to this, most public health experts believe that 2 million or 3 million people would die because people contract it and they don't survive it. so, the idea is to let the disease run its course that's what herd immunity means, and that's where the president is as of last night on a national strategy. he also talked about masks in that town hall, said a lot of people say masks are not good. george stephanopoulos asked the president, "who says masks are not good?"

>> a lot of people don't want to wear masks there are a lot of people think the masks are not good and there are a lot of people that, as an example -- >> who are those people? >> i'll tell you who those people are waiters. they come over and they serve you and they have a mask and i saw it the other day where they were serving me and they're playing with the mask i'm not blaming them i'm just saying what happens they're playing with the mask. so, the mask is over, and they're touching it and, and then they're touching the plate. that can't be good >> so, at least the guy who brought president trump his lunch the other day was playing with his mask, so we shouldn't have masks i mean, people, honestly, as a public good, people should sit if they didn't and watch that town hall start to finish and ask themselves if this president and this white house has a handle on the most serious crisis to face this country in a generation >> you know, i'm just spitballing here, but what do you think are the odds that that was a waiter or a waitress at a trump hotel or a trump-owned business because where else would donald

trump be eating out and using government resources to protect him but at a trump organization establishment? you can't make up how horrible last night was it's amazing to me that donald trump did the event. i mean, i think it's great we need to have more opportunities, the president speaking with a moderator who is actually going to challenge and follow up. we saw yesterday where donald trump begged at the end of "fox & friends" for a weekly spot again, and "fox & friends" was luke warm on it and said they hadn't decided yet so, maybe doing more of these events, someone in the white house thought this was a good idea i don't think it necessarily helps the president because you get to see just how detached from reality he is and all of the new quack theories that he's going to spout, returning to herd mentality after so many months of failure with the coronavirus pandemic it really just takes your breath

away and there was another horrible moment, too, when he just couldn't empathize with a woman who had recently lost her mother from breast cancer and kept talking about covid. i don't know if we have that clip, but it's just really bad. >> yeah. alex, do we have that clip, because we might as well show that clip, and then i want to go to pensacola and see what's going on there but elise, that's a great point. but i'm not so sure, mika, that even going on "fox & friends" is safe for him anymore, because they had to sit there in pain listening to donald trump talk about austria and how things are better in austria's forest cities -- >> okay, well -- >> -- where they sweep -- like, it -- i don't know i've never actually visited all of austria's forest cities where they sweep the ground of pine needles, but that's what donald trump was saying -- >> the fairies do it >> oh, on "fox & friends."

exactly. i was like, i was wondering which "lord of the rings" that was, and if liv tyler was going to walk out of one of those austrian cities, forest cities but no, he embarrasses himself wherever he goes and so, again, that's why it's so preposterous, if joe biden has a dangling participle in one sentence, everybody goes crazy, and this guy is stumbling around talking about herd mentality >> well, you've got the polls out of florida, which we'll get to and also, speaking of other countries, the new report, front page of "the washington post" -- countries around the world agreeing with wisconsin voters that trump is failing on this pandemic but here's the exchange elise mentioned last night in that abc town hall. president trump fielded a question from a woman who says she immigrated from the dominican republic and recently lost her mother last month

>> she had breast cancer, but it made metastasize on her brain and lung she passed on 19 one of her dreams was to become a citizen, and she did she did ten days before she died and i did it, too. she pushed me so hard to do it, and i did it this past i'm here because of her. she was supposed to be here and ask you and thank you for the stage you take during this epidemic you made people closer we lost our job, but we learned how to love our family so, i'm saying that from her >> very nice >> her question for you was -- because she write this question -- what will you do for our immigration system what will you change to make

more people like me and like her to become citizen and vote >> so, we are doing something with immigration that i think is going to be very strong, because we want people to come into our country, people like you and like your mother and that just shows how vicious when you have another problem you have a heart problem or another type of a problem. did you have covid you didn't have it, right? >> no. >> you didn't have it. your mother. we'll have it taken care of. it's going to get taken care of. >> and so, jonathan lamire -- >> oh, god. >> again, this is -- you know, there's always that question on polls that is so telling, and usually predictive -- who cares about people like me will be the question on the poll and that's just one more small example of the difference between joe biden and donald

tru trump. biden's doing so much better than the president when it comes to that question, in large part because joe biden is empathetic, and even those close to donald trump will admit that it's always been a blind spot for him. >> if this is the question that's going to decide the election, joe, then it's a landslide. i mean, there's no question. this is something that the president has never shown any real ability to connect with real voters, to display sort of empathy, and it's dated from his early days in office where he's responded to other terrible tragedies. and that could be a mass shooting, or of course, a natural disaster we all remember him in puerto rico tossing out paper towels like they were basketballs after a terrible hurricane there, and that he has never been one to really show -- and polls reflect this -- that he understands what people are going through, that he understands their suffering or pain because they've lost a loved one or a job meanwhile, that might be joe biden's greatest strength. we have talked about on this show many times that he is perhaps in all of american politics the leader who is best

able to discuss grief, because in many ways of what he, himself, has suffered, the immense personal tragedy that he has gone through but he also really relishes those personal connections he's able to be there for someone else and the pandemic has largely robbed him of the ability to do that because he hasn't been able to interact with voters like the way that he normally would or would like one small moment last week during one of the september 11th memorials, during one of the remembrances, he found an elderly woman there who had lost a loved one in the attacks cameras caught him talking to her for a few minutes and it was a powerful connection, and voters see that and voters respond to that. >> okay. we've got a lot to cover, but we want to get to hurricane sally right now, which just made landfall near gulf shores, alabama, bringing with it flooding rain and potentially life-threatening storm surge nbc news correspondent sam brock is live for us in pensacola, florida. sam, what have you got >> reporter: mika, good morning. right now i'm standing in a parking lot in pensacola

30 or 45 minutes ago, there was no standing water here now it's already risen to a foot, maybe even higher than that and check this out over my shoulder, let me give you a picture of what i'm looking at right now there was a dumpster that must weigh a ton that's been pushed by the floodwaters through this parking lot. you can also see all the way in the distance there, perhaps, some lights on cars. they're not on because someone's inside that car. they're on because the floodwaters have triggered car alarms and lights. looks like it's blinking right now. there is the potential, mika and joe, for somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 inches of rainfall down here as the wind speeds have also picked up. we're looking at a situation right now where you might have gone to bed, it was sustained winds of 85 miles an hour. now it's more like 105 hurricane sally, a category 2, flirting with category 3 status. a combination of what is already this level of surge, plus that rainfall we could have 12 hours of an

open window of torrential rain driving these two forces the national hurricane center has now called this catastrophic and historic levels of flooding unfolding, not could be, unfolding. that's what we're looking at right now. you can see the power's out. i'm watching trash bins and debris float on by me as i'm standing here right now. of course, the concern is going to be people getting stranded. right around the corner from where i stand -- and i know two young men were trying to get video last night in a car garage -- they're stuck there now. there are going to be people that need to be rescued throughout this region you just hope there is no loss of life, but we are looking at very inhospitable conditions, which are only going to get worse. joe and mika >> sam brock, thank you so much. please, be careful out there we greatly appreciate it let's go to meteorologist bill karins right now you know, bill, this reminds me of a storm that you and i actually were on the air covering, it would have been back in 2009, i think?

or was it -- maybe 2004. we've been doing this for such a long time. >> '04, yeah. >> it probably -- it was ivan, which was moving towards -- >> yes. >> -- mobile, and then took a sharp right turn at the end, and we both knew what that meant for my beloved hometown. it looks like this is happening again. it's not hurricane-force winds, for like a cat 3 or 4, but this event, this flooding event will be every bit as devastating. and ivan -- i had friends who were on escambia bay who were in their homes and actually, the floodwaters came up from the bay and flooded their entire houses, and they had to go up to the second floors and still thought that the water, you know, they could possibly drown this sounds like such a horrific event. i'm so concerned, i know you are, too, for so many people who

may be overcome by those floodwaters. >> this storm is worse than they expected when they went to sleep last night, joe. i mean, they were expecting a category 1 hurricane it shifted a little bit more to the east and intensified to a category 2 we have a five-foot storm surge right now in pensacola bay i just had a tweet from the city of orange beach. they said that they are getting inundated with calls to the fire and police dispatch. they are in the eye. they can't go out, you know. they're trying to do what they can, but there's only a limited amount of time they're going to be in the eye. then they have to go through the back side of the storm so there's a lot of people who are calling out, desperate for help, and they just can't safely do it in a lot of cases right now. so, that's the case, that's the scene, as the storm has made landfall over the top of gulf shores pensacola's in the dirty right side they're about to get hit with the highest winds they have yet. they could see 80 to 100-mile-per-hour wind gusts that's going to do damage. they've already had 10 to 20 inches of rain and could get another 10 inches on top of that, and that storm surge is

coming right into pensacola bay right now. the prediction is 4 to 7 feet. we know we're watching it right now at 5 feet. they still have southerly winds, so the gulf of mexico's still flowing in so there still could be additional damage. and even our friends in wright and destin are going to get more water than they were expecting as their water levels continue to rise. here's the latest from the hurricane center 105-mile-per-hour winds. it has made landfall over gulf shores it's moving at 3 miles per hour. that's how fast you and i walk and then as it moves inland later today, even by 1:00 this afternoon, just barely north of pensacola -- that'show slowly this thing is moving then we'll take the storm through southeast georgia. the big story right now is the flooding we have a flash flood emergency all the way from apalachicola, florida, all over the western panhandle to mobile. that means life-threatening flooding is ongoing now. we're going to see river flooding and major to record flooding all the way through thursday and friday, and then we'll extend this threat up through atlanta, charlotte, raleigh, all included in the

path of this heavy rain. so, right now, joe, the worst of it is over the top of pensacola and right through western florida. later today we'll track this through alabama, and then tonight into areas of georgia. this storm is not done the worst of it is just beginning with the water >> good lord and there are -- bill, thank you very much. there are still wildfires now on the west coast oregon state police have opened the first ever mobile morgue in response to the historic wildfires that officials say are expected to result in dozens of deaths oregon's known wildfire death toll stands at at least eight with another 50 people still unaccounted for, a number that state officials stress is fluid and may rise as recovery efforts continue thick, hazardous smoke could continue to smother the west coast for days got a lot to cover there in terms of the weather and climate change still ahead on "morning joe," bob woodward will join us for his new book, "rage," and

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a new pew poll shows america's image abroad continues to decline in several countries, the share of the public with a favorable view of the u.s. is as low as it has been at any point since the pew center began polling on this topic, nearly two decades ago. just 41% in the uk express a favorable opinion of the united states just 31% in france and 26% in germany. the poll shows the new lows were driven by america's handling of the pandemic jonathan lamire, what are you looking at today, given that the

white house is dealing with polls in wisconsin and florida and this global look at the president's handling of the pandemic and his comments about herd immunity, mentality, herd immunity last night? he said mentality. he meant immunity. >> yeah, we've all been getting that the poll is illuminating and the trend lines began before the pandemic, certainly in a lot of nations around the world their view of the united states started to diminish when president trump took office and some of his actions thereafter, a lot of which has strained alliances with some of our closest global friends, including in canada and in europe and certainly, it has accelerated this year with the pandemic, and i think we look around the globe the united states leads, of course, the world in deaths due to this deadly disease it has struggled to come up with any sort of national testing plan that we've seen other countries do you know, it is unable to in much of this country send students safely back to school, and that stands in contrast with a lot of the rest of the world,

who have had problems, too, had flare-ups, of course, in recent weeks, but has not had the consistent trouble that the united states has had. in terms of the president, today he said one day this week not on the road, although we should expect, perhaps, one of his briefings later today, which will probably be seen as a welcome gift from the biden campaign, since the president certainly has not been able to reverse his slide in the polls with those -- these relentless barrage of media appearances he's had recently. and then he heads back out and again, it is to the battlegrounds. it is to wisconsin and minnesota and north carolina later this week, as they continue to try to draw the contrast with the biden campaign they believe that going out there, being on the ground is the most valuable thing a candidate can do they can stir up local media coverage even if the cable networks aren't really showing his rallies anymore, they feel like that is useful and i can attest, being with him in arizona and nevada over the weekend, he certainly received a lot of coverage there, but it is harder to claim that joe biden is stuck in his basement when we are seeing the democratic nominee and his running mate

begin to travel more, including for joe biden, to florida yesterday. >> jonathan lamire, thank you so much and willie, there's so much chaos going on you look at, again, covid and the hellish landscape, health care landscape that that has caused, the hellish economic landscape that has caused, the flooding in the gulf coast and the hurricanes, tropical storms one after another. then, of course, the wildfires on the west coast. the president saying science doesn't know anything about climate change and all of this chaos. and we just read a poll about america's standing in the world. and the trump administration would obviously say, well, what about tho arab nations yesterday moving towards a peace deal? i just scroll down the 17 news stories on the "wall street

journal" site -- it's not even mentioned, and it's not even mentioned in part because of the absolute chaos, the economic devastation, the lives lost, the climate disasters that are swirling all around us donald trump would desperately want to get that news out there. but instead, he, as jeb bush said, is the chaos candidate, and now he's the chaos president. >> it's so funny you say that. i was looking, because that was a historic moment yesterday with the uae and bahrain normalizing relations with israel. but i had the same experience. i was even looking at very specific foreign policy outlets, and it's consumed by coronavirus. sure, there was reporting on it, but there wasn't the deep analysis of what that agreement, the abraham accords meant, and the signing ceremony yesterday at the white house because coronavirus has so consumed our lives. and so, that should be and will remain the top story but you're right, that the world

has always looked at the united states for leadership, and how are they going to handle thirks and will they show us a way out of a crisis, whether it's a world war or a health crisis and here we are, sitting now, knocking on the door of 200,000 deaths and more than 6 million cases, andstill not with our arms around it as we head into the fall and into the winter, where most of these public health officials say it could even get worse from here so, you can see why our image around the world, certainly even in the last six months, has gone down from where it's been. let's take a look inside florida, joe, the latest monmouth university poll shows joe biden with a five-point lead among florida likely voters, 50 porti 50%-45%. the poll also shows the president's 17-point margin among seniors in 2016 has all but evaporated president trump ahead 49%-47%, effectively in a statistical tie with joe biden among voters 65 and older. the poll shows joe biden with a 26-point lead among latino voters in the state.

that's a major swing, you'll remember, from just last week. the nbc news/marist poll shows president trump up four points among latino voters, a difference likely due to the small sample size of latino voters in both of these polls. joe biden also holds a significant advantage in seven counties where the vote margins were closest in 2016 he leads president trump, 60%-33% in florida's swing counties meanwhile, in north carolina, a cnn/ssrs poll of likely voters has president trump and joe biden in a statistical tie, biden ahead by three points, 49%-46%. and latest poll out of minnesota shows joe biden and donald trump in a statistical tie there, biden up four points in the latest "morning consult" poll, 48%-44%, which falls within that poll's four-point margin of error. so, joe, we can go back a couple of polls to your home state of florida. there were a lot of alarm bells last week when that poll came out in florida showing donald

trump effectively tied with joe biden among latino voters. small sample size there, small sample size here, so hard to make much sense out of that. >> yeah. small sample size. what's interesting, though, is last week served in early september as a wake-up call for joe biden's campaign i had a political consultant that i know who went to a dentist's office late last week and said he was sitting there for 30 minutes waiting to get in they had a spanish-speaking television and he said in the 30 minutes while he was waiting, he saw seven joe biden ads in spanish obviously, michael bloomberg is now coming in, and we'll see the effects of this over the next week or two, where they're going to really focus on that. and i suspect that sample size in the nbc poll was extraordinarily small. i suspect you're going to

probably end up seeing joe biden doing much better among hispanics than the last poll showed but elise, if that is, in fact, the case, if that's where things end up -- and i have no reason to believe that it won't end up that way, especially when you look at the fact of what donald trump has said, the horrific things donald trump has said about hispanics, calling them breeders, the horrible things that donald trump said about puerto rico, which, of course, will make a huge difference in orange county, in the center of the state, if you look at even the attacks on a hispanic judge four years ago this is not a guy that's going to win the hispanic vote in florida or any state you look at that, and then you look at senior citizens, who joe biden's outperforming hillary clinton extraordinarily well, who just heard last night that the president's new plan is just to let 3 million people die with herd immunity. suddenly, whether you're talking about seniors in florida or

seniors in arizona, there's not a lot of good places for the president to look to even win that state >> joe, and i just wonder if it gives the senior citizen vote skewing towards joe biden because of donald trump's handling of the pandemic, i wonder if that gives him a little breathing room, if he isn't as strong of a performer among latino voters in florida, if he can't match, necessarily, hillary clinton's levels in 2016, but he does as well as, say, obama in 2012 so, if he has a little bit of breathing room there, and certainly, michael bloomberg is buying him $100 million worth of breathing room in one of the nation's most expensive ad markets -- you would think that joe biden could close the gap there and we probably just shouldn't be making as much over these small sample size polls.

and i, frankly, was more taken aback by wisconsin just consistently being so out of -- just getting to the point of being out of reach for donald trump, when six months ago, a year ago, the talk was all wisconsin's going to decide this election, how wisconsin goes, the nation goes. and then you look at donald trump's performance there, and it really seems to be more of a flashpoint for the trump campaign at this point >> well, joining us now is senior writer at politico and co-author of "the playbook," jake sherman, an msnbc political contributor. and you're looking at reaction, polling, to the president not just downplaying the virus, but that "atlantic" piece, whether or not there was any fallout from that in terms of how the members of the military feel about the president calling them losers and suckers jake >> good morning, mika, joe, and

willie this is very interesting in our new politico/"morning consult" poll we often wonder about the penetration of certain stories as you guys mentioned, there's just so much going on, as willie said, a massive middle east normalization deal doesn't even break through. but we have some stunning polling this morning 73% of military households polled in our most recent poll out this week heard about, understand, have consumed this "atlantic" story by jeffrey goldberg, which you've talked about on this show, about calling military members suckers and losers. >> wow. >> and that has a lot of penetration. and i know you're about to have bob woodward on. bob woodward's revelation that the president once sought to downplay the coronavirus, also massive penetration. 74% of people have responded that they have heard something about that and those are two kind of massive stories here 48 days

before election day that, according to our poll which, as you see, has nearly 2,000 respondents -- it's just amazing to see the penetration there in such close proximity to election day. >> well, and jake, the challenge, of course, for the trump campaign is trying to figure out how to get past that, because they sent the president of the united states out, the commander in chief, after that "atlantic" article, to try to walk it back, and then he accused america's generals and admirals, america's military leaders, men and women who have dedicated their entire lives, actually, and away from their families for a great deal of their lives, serving this country here and overseas. he heard the president calling them war profiteers, saying that they sent young kids off to die. so, lockheed and raytheon and other companies could get even richer

and add on top of that, that "military times" poll that already showed donald trump -- this is just unheard of as a republican -- donald trump losing among active-duty military men and women >> and his campaign and his staff bets that there's just so much noise, there's so many things going on at once that nobody focuses on any individual instance but i don't see that right now, and you're showing our stat right now. 42% favorability rating with the military for a republican president who has basically hung a huge part of his presidency on what he says, rebuilding the military it's just difficult to fathom. and i think part of this is just, again, the president is betting that there's just so much noise and so many shiny objects in the air that he could get past this and he could obfuscate enough, that there's enough stories and i think the penetration of these stories is relatively notable. >> well, and you know, willie,

representing a district, as i did, on the armed services committee that had five, six military bases in it, i can tell you that active-duty military men and women, their families, their loved ones, their husbands, their wives, their mothers, their fathers, their friends, they don't get distracted by shiny objects on facebook they don't get distracted by lies and conspiracy theories on facebook they follow the news as it pertains to the military closely. and when you have one report after another, the president disrespecting the war dead and disrespecting our military leaders, and then a couple of days later you hear it on tape, the president calling our

leaders suckers and another word that we will not say this morning, that is confirmation. and yeah, they're not going to -- there's a lot of noise out there, but their lives are on the line the lives of their loved ones are on the line, and so much of it depends on the whims of the commander in chief so, yeah, they're going to focus on these stories, and it's not good for donald trump. >> yeah, and i would remind everyone a couple weeks on now, general john kelly still has not denied anything in that story, which he could have done immediately if he believed something was untrue in there. but i think you're right, that there is a lot of noise. of course there is it's been a fire hose of news for five years now but there are things that stick, and there are things that stay in people's minds when they go into voting booths and among veterans that i've talked to, some inclined to like donald trump, who probably voted for him the first time around, they couldn't believe -- they didn't want to believe, but they do believe what they heard in that "atlantic" article and what

you said we heard him on tape as well, especially the part where he was standing in arlington national cemetery and looked down at the grave of a fallen soldier and said, "what was in it for him what was in it for all these people?" which represents a fundamental misunderstanding of why people go into service. they're not in it for them they're not in it for money, which is something he understands. they're in it for patriotism, not performative patriotism, so that does stick. jake sherman, before you go, i wanted to ask you about any progress on capitol hill, the place you cover so closely, getting towards some kind of coronavirus relief bill. i've had some people describe it to me on capitol hill as a dead end, that mitch mcconnell just can't get with chuck schumer on this we're going to talk to nancy pelosi a little bit later. is there any hope on the horizon that democrats and republicans can get together and put some money in the pockets of unemployed people who lost their last $600 check a couple of months ago now >> no. well, it's not a no, but it seems very far off at this

point. and we lay out in "playbook" this morning -- and you're going to have the speaker on -- kind of a roadmap based on conversations with people earlier toward getting toward a deal democrats are the only ones that have passed a bill they passed it 124 days ago. if they were to -- you know, it's notable to me, house democrats really haven't gotten in trump's head yet. if they could create a spectacle here and pass bill after bill on the house floor over the next couple weeks, and almost shame the president into doing something and get, you know, force people back to the table -- they have not done that yet. they're under immense pressure nancy pelosi's under immense pressure from moderates and middle-of-the-road democrats to get something done we'll see over the next couple days, but time is really short, willie we are just 14 days, 13 days from the government running out of money and then congress plans to go home for the fall. so, things are looking quite bleak, but there is a pathway, which we kind of lay out this morning at the top of "playbook. >> politico's jake sherman, thank you so much. and still ahead, president

trump now says he up-played the threat of the coronavirus. >> wait, i thought he downplayed it >> which, if -- >> wait, no, he said he downplayed it for months. >> yeah, it doesn't match what he told bob woodward back in march. >> well, no, but what he keeps saying, what he said last week, remember kayleigh mcenany or whatever her name is -- >> yep. >> she said he downplayed this, then donald trump said i downplayed this. so now he's saying he up-played this >> yeah. >> that's really confusing that's the point. >> and like the president said last night, she also said, it will go away. >> yeah, after 3 million people die, it will go away when the president talks about herd immunity again -- we're not just throwing these numbers around -- when the president talks about herd immunity, what he's saying is 3 million people will die, and the herd, so to speak -- we call them human beings, people, souls -- >> americans. >> -- will thin out. again, this is what the british

talked about with boris johnson in the beginning, and then quickly figured out so many people would die -- >> yeah. >> -- that it would be just inhumane. >> every country's done better. >> well, scientists say 2 to 4 million americans would die if we proceeded with herdimmunity and after everything that's happened, after the one person coming in from china, after the disinfectants, after the "this is going to go away" in april, after all of that, the president now goes to herd immunity, 3 million americandes ad good luck with that, mr. president. we'll be right back. now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. all with no commissions. stocks by the slice from fidelity. get your slice today. (peter walsh)y the slice people came and they met and they felt comfortable.

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so why not do what you've been dreaming of? you've got the power, we've got the tools. make a website with godaddy and put what you want out there. it is going to disappear it's going to disappear. i still say. it would go away without the vaccine, george, but it's going to go away a lot faster with it. >> it would go away without the vaccine? >> sure, over a period of time, sure, with time, it goes away.

>> and many deaths. >> and you'll develop herd, like a herd mentality it's going to be herd developed, and that's going to happen that will all happen >> i guess that's what he meant by it's going to go away joining us now, "morning joe" chief medical correspondent dave campbell and internal medicine physician dr. lipi roy she's an nbc news medical contributor. a lot to talk about with both of you. dr. dave, when we look at coronavirus in young people, another thing that the president downplayed, he said they don't get it, that they're, you know, immune in their own way. young people spread the coronavirus. i'm looking at a story out of maine, where there was a wedding that was a superspreader event, and seven people have contracted the virus and none of them went to the wedding so, with young people going to school and out there, interacting because the president says they are strong against the coronavirus, what

are you finding in terms of people under the age of 21 contracting the virus? >> well, it's not even just me, mika the cdc reported yesterday, 121 kids under 21 have died, even just through july, let alone august and september, of either covid-19 or the multisystem disease that causes an inflammatory problem so, that's 121 kids that have died now, we know that the respiratory conditions and the problems that kids get from coronavirus are less severe than adults, but if we extrapolate the herd immunity argument that we just heard out over time, that's going to be almost 2,000 children that will die of the coronavirus, if we allow this to go to herd immunity before a vaccine is effectively developed. nobody could tolerate those numbers, mika. >> a few minutes ago, i tried to

give a sort of layman's explanation of herd immunity, but now we have an actual doctor here to explain it, and i think it's actually important now at this point, since the president put that out publicly as a strategy what does that mean exactly? what does it look like to have herd immunity? >> yeah, good morning, willie. so, many scientists, epidemiologists and other public health experts have actually argued against herd immunity for this novel coronavirus essentially, what it means is that 60% to 70% of the population would need to develop an immunity, a natural immunity, or via vaccine, which, of course, we do not have, against this virus other countries, such as sweden, have already tried this experiment with rather, quite negative consequences. andsweden as a general population has a higher level of health than the average american here in the united states, translating to what dr. campbell was saying, high levels of death in this country. he talked about children, but

really, amongst adults, we're talking millions of deaths in this country that is just not an option, a sense of herd immunity what troubles me is what the president knew back in february, this is an airborne virus, it's a killer he compared it to the plague, which, by the way, the bubonic plague killed over 200 million people over the course of human history. knowing those facts, to be still holding large indoor rallies without prevention like masks and distancing i mean, if i conducted myself this way, if dr. campbell did, if we withheld information, fatal, potentially fatal diagnosis from our patients and withheld necessary treatment and diagnostic testing and procedures, i would not only lose my job, lose my medical license, i'd be sued for medical malpractice. where is the equivalent in terms of a political malpractice against our administration that's making these reckless decisions? it's very troubling, willie. >> so much of the strategy from

the white house has been hung on a vaccine and not the interventions that you're talking about that could have stopped this so long ago dr. fauci was on late last week with andrea mitchell and said, if i'm being honest with you, it's late into 2021 until we can get people, enough people vaccinated that we can say we're going back to real life. we heard an international group say to get the entire world vaccinated, you're looking at four or five years so, what is that horizon look like to you in terms of the vaccine? >> so, on one hand,it's quite promising. there are several vaccine candidates out there that are in phase three trials, but you know, there's several concerns, though we need to have data transparency in terms of exactly what the adverse effects are and how many patients or participants and you know, we also need to be really honest with the public, the american public. it's going to be the most complex vaccination program in human history. we're talking two doses, and it has to be refrigerated -- frozen

at like minus 70 there's a lot of logistical issues and right now, willie, at best, 30% of the population is even agreeable to this vaccine. they need to complete phase three trials, large population, and monitor over time for any adverse events, willie >> all right, doctors lipi roy and dave campbell, thank you both msnbc contributor mike barnicle joins the conversation now and let's bring in associate editor of the "washington post," bob woodward he's the author of the new book, "rage. we're going to kick things off with president trump flat out lying about his approach to the pandemic first, what he told bob woodward in march, followed by what he said last night. >> so, give me a moment of talking to somebody going through this with fauci or somebody who kind of, it caused

a pivot in your mind because it's clear just from what's on the public record that you went through a pivot on this to, oh, my god, the gravity is almost inexplicable and unexplainable. >> well, i think, bob, really, to be honest with you -- >> sure, i want you to be. >> i wanted to always play it down i still like playing it down. >> yes. >> because i don't want to create a panic >> i don't want to scare people. i don't want to make people panic. and you're not going to go out and say, oh, this is going to be -- this is death, death, death. >> all through january and february, you were downplaying, by your own admission, the severity of the crisis, said you didn't want to panic people -- >> not downplaying -- >> let me ask the question first. >> not downplaying. >> well, those are your words. >> i don't want to drive our nation into a panic. i'm a cheerleader for this nation i'm the one that closed up our country. i closed it up long before any

of the experts thought i should. i didn't downplay it i actually, in many ways, i upplayed it in terms of action >> you did not admit to it -- >> i up-played it. that's fascinating, bob. and you know, congratulations on the book, first of all, and extraordinary reporting. >> thank you >> but you heard the president last night talk about herd immunity you heard him bouncing back and forth between strategies and i'm just curious how that lines up with all of your conversations with a man who, you know, if you read the opening pages "the art of the deal," he admitted back in the '80s, i never plan for anything. i don't plan ahead i just show up at the office, make phone calls, and see what's going to happen. is that the approach that donald trump still seemed to be taking through this once-in-a-century pandemic >> what is really shocking to

me, and i think shocking to people who have looked at this, is that he knew it was airborne, that it was going to be a serious situation back in january. the key to understanding this, for me, was let me take you to that scene of january 28th in the oval office, when his national security adviser, robert o'brien, says, the virus will be the biggest threat, the biggest national security threat you will face as president and then the deputy, matt pottinger, stepped in and provided specifics he'd been a "wall street journal" reporter in china for seven years, and he knew the chinese lied about things like this, and he had contacts who told him, this is going to be like the 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed, what,

675,000 people in this country the president knew this in january, and i did not learn about this meeting, which is the opening of my book i think it's one of the most historic moments in the oval office, where a crisis is laid out, and the president doesn't level with the american people and it's absolutely tragic it's tragic for donald trump, for the country, for the 190,000-plus people who have died if he'd been honest and shared the truth in some form, we would be in a completely different position now it is a monumental, catastrophic leadership failure >> let me ask you along those

lines, and i want to get to matt pottinger in a minute, because he actually, as you described in the book, he actually liked pottinger, trusted him he was a china hawk. and so, donald trump is getting this news not just from his fourth or fifth national security national security adviser, but from an aide that he trusted, whose instincts he trusted. so he knew him well. but i'm curious, you talked about it being one of the most historic moments in the white house in history i'm curious whether you agree with your former writing partner, carl bernstein, that these tapes, these trump tapes, will be remembered historically as more significant than even the nixon tapes? >> well, it's hard to compare them i trust carl's wisdom in this. he always is forward-leaning

back when we were doing the nixon reporting, he saw where this was going a year before, quite frankly, i did so you know, we're going to see about this but one of the first things, when i started talking to trump -- now, this is december 5th, last year i went into the oval office and plunged my tape recorder -- in fact, i have the tape recorder, an olympus special i plunked it down on the resolute desk and said, "this is all on the record. i'm going to record it i want to find out what your policies have been." this was before the virus. and we went through north korea. we went through all kinds -- for nine hours and it is a look into his mind

and one of the things -- you discover things, and it surprised me that the microphone is not just getting words, but it is a microscope, in fact, when you hear the inflections, the anxiety, when you hear the anger, when you hear the denial. so, there's something in those tapes, which i have in the book, probably almost 20% of the book is trump talking about the virus, talking about the economy, talking about race relations. and you can see, and it's extraordinary. now, you knew this when you knew trump years ago, that he will subject himself to a kind of interrogation. so, i was able to do that for

ten months and you cannot just see it, but you can hear what -- you can hear this -- when i say it's a microscope, it's a magnifying glass also so, you really observe the true trump, i believe >> let me ask you about -- and then pass it around the table. but i must say that, obviously, for reasons that we all understand, most of the focus has been on donald trump lying about how deadly this pandemic was to the american people and his supporters but i must say that equally jarring to me was the first half of the book, where you walked us through each member of the national security team, you walked us through mattis and tillerson and poor, poor dan coats.

i mean, my god, these people were struggling. they all had the attitude that mika and i heard from drdr. dr. brzezinski and robert gates and general haden and from a lot of people who had been never trumpers, who all said, we only have one president at a time, we've got to make this work. but my god, you reveal what they found out when they went in, and they soon learned, he did not share their values in fact, dan coats understood fairly quickly that everything that he had worked his entire life to promote as a conservative senator and then an ambassador, donald trump was undermining. >> yes now, dan coats was the dni, director of national intelligence, the number one intelligence official overseeing the cia and the national

security agency. and as you -- this was a man who -- you obviously have read it, joe. it's almost a book in itself, because this is a man who was a senator from indiana for 16 years. he was retiring. he was offered this job by trump and mike pence, the vice president-elect, and felt he could not say no he went in with these republican values and was stunned, shocked, and, you know, in a way, just ground down by trump's refusal to accept reality. and at one point in the book, i show how mattis, who is the secretary of defense, and coats were talking after a national security council meeting, and

mattis says that donald trump has no moral compass and coats says, donald trump, the president, their leader, does not know the difference between a lie and the truth. and the struggle that these people who -- they were in the latter phases of their life -- said, okay, donald trump is calling. he promised that he would really deal with them in a direct, honorable way, and then they got in the job, and he pulled all of his stunts in a way that, trump did, that bled them to the point where, in coats' case, his wife, marcia, said to him, look, dan, god put you in this job. you are failing not just the

country and yourself, you're failing god, and you need to get organized. and he reorganized things. but again, trump expelled him when it did not serve trump's purposes >> and then, of course, of course, mika, bob also writes that, as dan coats' wife continued to say that he needed to do jesus' work by staying in the trump administration, they saw donald trump at one of his golf clubs trump gave him a funny look. >> yeah. >> and then as they were walking down a fairway, playing golf later, dan coats' aides rushed up to him and told him that he had been fired unceremoniously by donald trump, by tweet. >> so, my next question actually sort of connects with that sort of mind-set that they discovered over time. did trump seem -- how would you describe how he felt about talking to you did he seem excited about

talking to you did he expect a positive book, rather than a book that actually quotes him and lays bare his lies to the american people? and then in your analysis, frames out, to use your words, a monumental, catastrophic leadership failure what did he think he was getting? >> well, i did a book called "fear" two years ago when it came out, he denounced it, and people who work for him went to him and said, you know, it's actually all true, and trump regretted not talking to me for fear, and so, he agreed to do this and it was one of the most -- one of the strangest experiences of my life, because he would call me at night, and i had to carry a tape recorder around in my pocket, have another one by

the side of the bed, had to have one downstairs and at one point, he called, and my wife, elsa, answered the phone. and trump said, "is bob there? and she said, "who is this?" and he said, "donald trump." and she said, "oh, mr. president. and i had these conversations, taped them always with his knowledge. a couple of times we really got in shouting matches, particularly about impeachment and about what my reporting showed on the virus and how he needed to mobilize the country and kind of, you know, treat it like a manhattan project when they built the first atomic bomb during world war ii. and he would say, "yes," and then he would go out and play it

down, zigzag all the time. and imagine being a person who doesn't like trump or likes and supports trump, and you hear it absolutely spinning your head -- it's a problem, well, no, it's not a problem, it's going to go away, it's going to disappear. it is the -- it is -- when the historians put all this together -- and in the last call i had with trump, when he called one month ago to see if i could get the israeli/uae deal in the book -- a fair question. that's an important thing that he did i asked about the virus. and i said, so, this is a month ago. and he says, nothing more could be done. nothing more could have been done

and that just is shockingly untrue, and he failed himself, he failed the country, he failed the republican party, he failed the concept of the office of the president, where you have this burden on your shoulders it's not just another person he has this megaphone, and it saddens and, frankly, i'm -- you know, you know me. i miss being on the show, by the way, during this period. i had to go underground. but you know, i'd take an ice cube before i talk i try to cool down and not be emotional. and in this case, you put it together, and it is a staggering, monumental tragedy

across the board >> it is and you lay it out in chapter and verse in great detail, bob it's willie. you've led me to my next question, which is, why? donald trump likes to think of himself as a wartime president even last night he's talking again about churchill during the blitz, completely misrepresenting what churchill said and did during the blitz, but we'll put that to the side why didn't he, to the best of your understanding and the best of your 18 conversations over nine hours, why didn't he take this as the challenge of a wartime president and be the man he thinks he is and be the president he thought he was and stand up there and say, look, this is going to be bad, but we're america, we're going to confront this. we've got the best resources, i'm the best president he can feed his own ego and do all of the things he needs to do why didn't he take on this challenge, nip it in the bud, take it as a victory rolling into an election year, by the way? why didn't he stand up to the challenge? >> such a great question

and a psychiatrist can try to answer that in terms of evidence when he told me in march he played it down intentionally, he said, look, i played it down to avoid a panic. and here's my answer and this is one of the saddest parts of this. he did not understand the country he leads and that if you tell the american people the truth, people will rally around and say -- look even on 9/11, the country rallied around george bush when he got up there and he said, look, this is a disaster, we will answer at a time of our choosing, and the support in the congress and the public was across the board. and as we later learned, bush

had been warned six weeks earlier that bin laden was determined to strike in the u.s. but trump -- a leader will be able, like franklin roosevelt -- my wife, elsa, said, as she edited the book six times, was totally engaged in this. and one time, trump called, and i'm on the speakerphone with him, recording it with his knowledge, and elsa's listening, and she said, you're yelling at him! you're not supposed to yell at him! but i was, because sometimes you have to get to it. so, he -- if he had this comprehension that roosevelt had after pearl harbor, play the fireside chats of roosevelt. and he says, look, it's all bad news, but i know if i tell you

the worst, you will not lose heart. and trump did the opposite >> so, bob, stand by there's so much more to talk about with these revelations from your book we'll be back in just a moment with much more with bob woodward cancer won't wait. it won't wait for appointments to open up or test results to come back. that's why at cancer treatment centers of america, our world-class experts give you the care you need, when you need it. with appointments in as little as 24 hours and rapid test results to get you a personalized treatment plan. because cancer isn't just what we do, it's all we do. call today. appointments available now.

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when churchill was on top of a building and he said, everything's going to be good, everything's going to be -- be calm, and you have the nazis dropping bombs all over london, he was very brave because he was at the top of a building it was very well known that he was standing on buildings and they were bombing. and he says, everyone's going to be safe. i don't think that's being necessarily honest, and yet, i think it's being a great leader. but he said, you're going to be safe, be calm, don't panic and you had bombers dropping bombs all over london. so, i guess you could say that's not so honest, but it's still great leadership >> you know, willie, i'd say

that he's lying about winston churchill and his legacy in the battle of britain, although i suspect it comes from ignorance. someone probably told him a story, he got it mangled yes, churchill at times would go on top of buildings, as explained in "the splendid and the vial" by eric larson he would at times go on top of buildings and watch bombs drop he never gave speeches on top of buildings. but more than that, the suggestion that winston churchill sugar-coated things during the battle of britain is just, goes against history i mean, churchill, as i explained earlier on this show, but it bears repeating, after he said it again last night -- when he had to convince members of parliament to not appease adolf hitler, to not follow chamberlain's path into the 1940s, to not do what lord halifax wanted the british to do

and make peace with adolf hit r hitler, this is how winston churchill soft-peddled it to members of parliament that he was trying to persuade "if this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood on the ground. let it end only when each of us lie choking in our own blood on the ground." churchill would go out the mornings after those bombing raids and weep openly in front of people who had lost their homes, lost their uildings, an it was the people of great britain who would actually comfort churchill at times when he went out there, and they would shout out, it's winnie,

it's winnie! because he was there with them, he suffered with them, he wept with them, and he let them know that this could end in all of their deaths >> that's it he missed donald trump, the second part of the story, which is, yes, he had optimism, yes, he showed leadership, but he spoke hard truths, as you just said he told them he didn't say the nazis were going to miraculously disappear, as president trump has said about this he told hard truths while leading them through that crisis and bob writes about that in the book and just talked about it a minute ago let's bring back bob woodward now. bob, i want to go to a part of your book that i haven't seen get a ton of attention, and that's early days, the president's conversations with president xi of china and the impact that president xi may have had on decisions made by president trump and the white house. you cite a february 6th call, 9:00 washington time, a thursday night in the residence, where president calls president xi the objective with president trump's advisers was to confront

president xi about china not allowing american health officials into the country to investigate what had been going on with coronavirus there. and in that conversation, president xi, you quote, as saying to president trump, "i asked the united states and your officials not take excessive actions that would create further panic. so, you have, bob, president xi telling president trump, effectively, to downplay it, to not create panic what is your sense in your conversations, in your reporting, of the impact that president xi had on president trump and the tone china took with the united states had on the way this has all played out? >> president xi was lying, and we now know that, and trump has faced up to that and called it the china virus and made it clear that he doesn't believe what china did on this

but see, that was all known to trump the end of january >> right. >> and that's that moment that was missed here. and joe, i think it's really important the way you went back to what churchill did in his response and as a leader, churchill is not only pointing a direction and showing his own emotions, but he is facing a moral choice, and that's what leaders do they're not just out there as individuals. they are facing the moral choice of am i going to be honest am i going to step up and be responsible? maybe i'm going to take a little bit of a political hit but see, this is what trump wants to avoid, any political

hit. and being obsessed, i quote fauci, dr. fauci, the leading infectious disease person in the government, saying that trump is only interested in re-election, that he -- fauci's saying that trump has almost a negative attention span and time and time again in the book, you see where people are trying to get through to trump, and he dismisses them. he's driven by his own impulses, his own perception of what reality is and this is the awful part of this -- he does not know -- i mean, as you pointed out, he always was telling me, and eventually, telling the public, that he played this down and last night he's saying he played it up

and does he understand what a fact is and what is the reality we are dealing with? this is a moving train, the pandemic, and it's speeding up, as all the experts, dr. fauci, say, it's going to converge with the regular flu. you know, we are confronting a health hailstorm in the coming months, according to the experts, according to the models that we're facing. do we have a president, just in this time, who can kind of say, hey, let's have a plan again, time and time again, there's no plan. there's a trump tweet or an impulse. >> and it's always an impulse. and mike barnicle, two points, going back to march. i remember us saying on this

show, take the churchill model we said that in march, take the churchill model. he always told the british people how bleak things were in may of 1940 and beyond and into the fall and into the winter of '41. he always let them know that they were fighting for their very survival, never tried to sugar-coat it. it's just something that donald trump could not do also, i must say, here he is still flopping around, trying to figure out what his strategy was. in early march, he was getting phone calls from rahm emanuel -- not rahm, from zeke emanuel, every other day. and you know, i spoke to zeke on the phone, who was beyond himself and practically frantic, and saying throughout early march, the window is closing, the window is closing. he kept calling the president, saying, mr. president, yes, nobody has died yet.

and the infections are still not high, but the window is closing. and he kept saying that until, finally, at one point, like bob, he just gave up because the window had closed, and he knew that thousands and thousands of americans were going to die. donald trump was warned. you listen to what he said to bob woodward it seems he understood the warnings from his own staff and people like zeke emanuel, and he chose to ignore those frenzied warnings, regardless >> yeah, well, joe, i mean, the sadness of this -- and it's all portrayed in bob's book -- is that donald trump is a man of the moment he is not a man of history i mean, there's no link between donald trump thinking about winston churchill or franklin delano roosevelt, who leaders who both accepted bad news,

hearing bad news, and were unafraid to talk to the country about the bad news but bob, in your book, woven within your book is also a story of how donald trump seemingly goes out of his way to diminish people around him. and i'm talking specifically now about general mattis and dan coats. and after the meeting with the north korean leader, president trump decides to appease kim jong-un and asks that the training maneuvers around south korea, enjoined with the united states navy, to be low key, to be cut back. and he orders that done. and general mattis, in the book, bob, is talking about exactly that and the impact it has on nations like russia, china, and north korea. and general mattis says the following -- "what we're doing is we're actually showing how to destroy america. that's what we're showing them, how to isolate us from our allies, how to take us down, and it's working very well

we are declaring war on one another inside america it's actually working against us right now. a few weeks later, on may 25th, 2019 -- again, in the book -- general mattis and dan coats are having a discussion. general mattis says about coats' problems with the president -- and the president continually diminishing the dni -- he says, "this is not good. maybe at some point we're going to have to stand up and speak out. there may be a time when we have to take collective action. dan coats says, "well, yeah, there may be." and general mattis says, "he's dangerous. he's unfit." bob woodward, i've known you a long time. you've covered every aspect of washington life there is to cover. you've covered politics, you've covered the pentagon, you've covered the united states senate you know individuals that none of us can get to, and they talk to you do you have any sense of why in

this apocalyptic venture that we are all in the middle of in this nation, that men like general mattis and dan coats have not yet stood up publicly to talk about the dangers and the peril posed to this country. a truly unstable president of the united states? >> so, i'm glad that you went to the specifics of that conversation, because coats is out at his grandson's baseball game, i believe, and he just says, i've got to call and talk to somebody. and he still is dni. and he calls mattis, who he was very close to. mattis had resigned, i think, five months earlier. and he said, i need to talk to somebody and they go through that conversation as you relayed it but then on the issue of standing up, they say, well,

admiral mcgraven, he's the one who led the bin laden raid, one of america's true heroes, and now head of the texas university system -- they say mcgraven has stood up, and he did i mean, he's denounced trump and mattis and coats are saying, look what happened to him. everyone ignores him it makes no difference now, this, i think, addresses a key issue in all of this there is overtaken some people in our business, in the media business, and in the country, a fatalism, a sense of nothing matters. i go back to the great leader at the "washington post," ben bradlee, who during watergate, during his tenure, he always took the approach, look, we present the facts.

sometimes people, it has an impact, sometimes it doesn't but we're not in the business of trying to have, direct some sort of even political outcome. we just march on and do our stories. and bradlee had the wisdom to see that and fatalism, the fatalism of mattis and coats here, it's understandable, because they have this example. it didn't have an impact but we all have to do our part now, in this book, i'm able to tell mattis and coats' story in detail, and tillerson's story. and you see one of the

astounding discoveries is how they are just churning inside, and trump it out, what they call tillerson, dumb as a rock, when he left. well, i asked trump about these people what about mattis, what do you think? oh, he's a pr guy. well, if anything, mattis is not a pr guy he came in out of retirement and there's this interchange with his mother when he's taking the job as secretary of defense, and his mother, who's in her 90s, says, you know, how can you work for this man? how can you -- you're going to work for this man. and mattis says to her, it's in the constitution read the -- i have an obligation to do this and she accepts that but did not accept trump, but mattis did >> wow. >> they were all reluctant to go

in, but all felt like they had a responsibility to go in. tillerson was urged by his wife to go in, same with coats, urged by his wife to stay in because of their responsibility to this country, to use their talents. it is interesting about coats, having that sort of fatalistic sense that nothing really matters from what he had seen in there, but then turning to his former colleagues in the senate, the republicans, and wondering why they had let this country down so much it is truly a tragedy, a sad, sad story about dan coats in here hey, bob, there's a really telling part about you talking to jared kushner and jared trying to explain the trump administration and said, if you want to understand it, you can understand it through these four articles or books. and it's just bizarre.

and it really speaks to the malignancy of this administration and also just how vapid they all are jared pointed out, peggy noonan. in peggy's column, "the crazy doesn't last," it all feels so dangerous. that's how peggy finished that column and then he said, look at the cheshire cat in "alice in wonderland." and as you write, of course, how bizarre that he would point to a manipulative, directionalist, again, vapid character in this bizarre book and then chris whipple's book on chiefs of staffs and presidents, where whipple concluded that trump, quote, clearly had no idea how to govern, and then i thought the most damning

dilbert's creator wrote a book called "win bigley." and in it, he explains how trump lies intentionally and can, quote, invent any reality. and then kushner said to you that when he lies, he creates a controversy and he creates a media reaction where they're trying to fact-check like, for instance, when he lied in the state of the union address and lied about having the best economy ever. jared kushner said that lying was a winning strategy, because lying creates controversy, and when donald trump lies and when he lies and when the administration lies, the press reacts to all of their lies, and that only amplifies the story, which i've got to say is extraordinarily damning on all fronts >> well, i mean, the phrase that

kushner uses is controversy elevates message and one example is, trump goes out and says, as he repeatedly says before the virus, we had the best economy in the history of the world, in the history of the country. and kushner says, now, literally, that's not true and the fact-checkers go and say, oh, wait a minute, in the 1950s, it was better, and so forth. and kushner does the analysis. and joe, you're exactly right, it's stunning. the controversy over it elevates the trump message about, oh, the economy is good. and the average person out there hears trump say it's the best economy in the entire world ever, and they say, well, gee, the economy's pretty good. and then they see the

fact-checkers come along, the nitpickers, and say, oh, yeah, well, eisenhower's period was better, and you know, even go back way, hundreds of years in history, and the average person says, now, wait a minute, why are they going after the president on this? and so, this is a calculation. this is not just accident. this is intentional. and so, kushner's analysis -- oh, so, controversy? fine it elevates the message, a basic one, that the economy is good. and average person isn't going to go through the economic history of the world and say, is that, in fact, true? it's, in fact, not true, but it's true enough see, that's the whole strategy here, true enough. >> well, and they keep repeating

it, mika, so members of the media -- one of the things that we've said repeatedly on this show, if you just look at gdp growth, jimmy carter had faster gdp growth than did donald trump through the first three years of his presidency you look even before the coronavirus, out of the last 11, 12 presidents, donald trump was 6th or 7th, not even -- in the last 11 or 12 presidents on gdp growth so, again, it's one lie after another. but as jared kushner says, the lying is good. as the dilbert creator said, the lying is good because he can create his own reality >> yeah. >> and that elevates the message. that is a really disturbed, really malignant growth on the presidency and on this country but again, they're admitting it all to bob we always knew it was true they're just admitting it to bob. >> bob, you draw a conclusion

about this president, that he's not the guy for the job, to say the least. >> well, yeah -- >> can you describe -- >> at the end -- >> yes can you describe, then, what a second term would look like under this same president, not just his tendencies and policy decisions and executive orders, but his news conferences and even the team that he has in place across all departments >> well, yeah, who knows what a second trump term would be like. but i think one of the things we really need to address, and i've thought about this, is the trump supporter. i know lots of trump supporters, financial advisers, businesspeople, workers, military people, law enforcement people, just the average person out there. and i think we need to

understand the appeal, the emotional appeal trump has to them and i recently read a column where one analyst was saying, you know, trump lacks decorum. and people, lots of people will say, oh, he's breaking all of the norms. and lots of people like that they want a president -- and the president was out, either yesterday or the other day, and he said in this kind of very ringing self-confidence way to his supporters at this rally, "i'm with you. i'm with you." and as far as they're concerned, that is the case and we need to understand and i think not get into the trap of saying, oh, well, there's only one way to think about trump. there are other ways to think about trump, and people do and

we should not kind of say -- and in doing this book, i thought, well, you know, the conclusions are obvious. they are to me as a reporter they are not to lots of people and i have to understand that there are decent people, people who look at this in a very, very different way. that's fine. we're going to have an election and people can sort this out as they want. and as i keep saying about ben bradlee, he said, "soldier on. he used to always say, nose down, ass up, moving slowly forward. and that's what we have to do i think in the, what, 50 days before the election, some of the most important reporting, factual reporting, about what's going on and what the attitudes are and what the policies are

and who's doing what, because we are in, as i say, and i'm sorry to repeat, but that we are in the midst of a hailstorm we are in a kind of public health crisis that we all know somebody who has died or somebody because, you know, it's really -- we are in a pinch, to say the least. >> who's lost somebody or lost a job or whose kid can't go back to school. you do write extensively in this book about the strange relationship between president trump and kim jong-un, the north korean dictator. you looked at 27 letters written between them between 2017 and 2018 president trump has referred to them as love letters, his term i want to play to you last night

what president trump said about kim jong-un and ask you more about their relationship >> look at that picture. he's having a good time, you know nobody's ever seen him smile look at him. he's smiling he's happy he feels happy but he's very smart. remember this, when you take over -- and i recall mean this, too. you take over a country and you're 25 years old and you survive, millions of people that are all smart as hell and energetic. you know, the energy - >> they show you about the reports of those camps in north korea. president bush once told me about kim jong-il and said, i loved kim jong-il because of what he's doing to his people. >> you know what, that attitude got him nothing. and they built a huge nuclear force during the last two administrations. they haven't done it with me. >> that's an exchange you had

with president trump on december 5th last year, released last night. what's going on here, to put it bluntly, president trump and the book talks almost gidley how tough kim jong-un is because he had his uncle killed and left the body on the steps of the senate it's bizarre what is going on with that relationship >> well, trump took a different turn and it's not out of the traditional policy playbook. normally when you have summits, there is preparation there's been lots of criticism of what trump has done and he told me -- we went through this in detail. he said, i won't quote him literally. he said, what did i do i just gave him an f'ing meeting. it took two days he established this veela relatp

we haven't had a war general mattis, when he was secretary of defense, thought we were going to have a war with north korea. and this was a path trump took, high-risk relations between kim jong-un and trump are not good now. and we're going to have to see in history where it goes, but we have not had a war and the letters are -- at one point kim writes a letter to trump saying, oh, i remember sitting there on the demarcation line between the north and south -- or one of their meetings, i'm sorry, holding your excellency's hand

and they exchange odes it's almost like knights of the roundtable one for all, all for one trump writes back, look, we'll be friends forever so, did a risky diplomatic strategy work or not we're not at a good place now, to say the least and mattis particularly was horrified by the dozens of nuclear weapons that north korea had hidden away, well concealed. i report in the book, mattis had to go to the national cathedral to pray and reflect, suppose we have a nuclear war, suppose he has to execute the order from the president to use nuclear

weapons. it's one of the nightmares that we got ourselves into or that existed. now, this is not one trump created. i mean, it was created earlier he's right, this nuclear force was built during two previous administrations. >> so, bob spoke at length with the president about. the protests for racial justice. for that part of the conversation, let's bring in professor at princeton university, eddie glaude jr. eddie? >> hi, bob congratulations on the book. i was fascinated about your line of questioning with racism with the president. you probed him on racism and its effects but you tried to get at the question of how he felt, matters of the heart based upon his answers, would you conclude that donald trump is, in fact, racist, or is he

just simply -- or is it in this instance he's the dynamite behind the door, as you used, as you say in the end of the book is he simply bringing out the rage with regards to racial division in this country and exploiting it for his own ends >> well, i don't use the terminology. what i tried to do -- and this is what, for me, as a reporter was so unusual to be able to integrate trump. and one of the conversations, after george floyd was killed, that was may 25th. a whole uprising, black lives matter and not just black lives matter, but people saying, wait a minute, what about racism, institutional racism in this country? so, i asked trump. and i said to him, so, do you

understand, we're -- i'm the son of a judge and lawyer from illinois and white privilege, classic white privilege, so is donald trump. i said, we're these -- we've had so many benefits do you understand the people who have not, their anger and pain we have a tape of me trump ridicules me he says, wow, you sure drank the kool-aid i don't feel that way at all. >> mike barnicle is with us with another question mike >> bob, off what you were just talking about, you're bob woodward everybody gets that. you're different in our business because of what you've done with

your career. but during the course of all of this, all of these conversations with donald j. trump, president of the united states, your wife answering the phone, who is this this is donald trump personally, on a personal level, did it ever strike you that this was kind of crazy that the president of the united states, with everything that he has on his desk or supposedly he has on his desk, that he would be spending this amount of time with you, bob woodward did it ever occur to you that this is beyond crazy >> well, you know, what i'm -- when you're in our business, as you know, and you can talk to somebody and talk to them, i had a number to call in the white house. and he would either get on the phone right away or he would call me back he never -- sometimes there was a day or two delay, so i want to

find out what's going on i'm doing a book, and the demarcation line for me is to get it out a month or two before the elections. i told him this. i said, this is when people need to see what's going on and he would say, oh, i'm -- oh, wow, that's right before the election that's a beauty. and by getting it out now in september, people can look at it and see what happened asa package. it's -- we talked about everything we talked about the economy, we talked about race relations. i was able to say -- ask the question, what's in your heart what's in it for somebody to vote for you and he gave his explanations and

we went through all the issues as people have said, these are like the nixon tapes you get to what is really thought and what the real motivation is. and these are the trump tapes. and if you look through the book, you get to see, you get to see not just a statement by him, but i pressed him. lots of follow-ups >> eddie glaude. >> bob, i want to come back to the request he i know you're hesitant to make judgment, to draw judgment, but -- >> no, i'm not, but overall -- >> but i want to go back to

racial reckoning the way in which he talks about black lives matter, the way in which he talks about, you know, law and order and the like and how you describe it, i'm wondering, do you think he's exploiting it just for his own political gain or do you think he's actually committed to a certain understanding of race that animates how he understands race and politics? do you see what i'm trying to get at here? >> yes, i do he answers lots of questions about it and it's -- can't get in his head, but i can report what he says and i'm able to press him, as you know, on all of these issues i think he's got very little understanding and idea what's going on in his country on the race issue and many issues

i think the -- i discussed with him this issue of, as a reporter you want to understand other people as president, he needs to understand other people. you need to get in other people's shoes and he said, well, i need to understand and deal with my own shoes. and i pressed him on it. he's not -- joe makes this point, that's not the way he thinks it is not a frame of reference general mattis makes this point. it's not kind of -- not kind of, it's just not rational it's i'm going to have -- oh, i've got an impulse, let's do this and mattis is sitting over there. people are now sitting in the white house. people in the pentagon, in the cia, in the state department who knows what tweet is going to

come who knows what decision is going to come out of this. and this is -- this is another sadness. there's no organization. there's no, oh, we've got a big problem. let's sit down, let's hash it out, let's hear ideas, let's get the experts in, let's get the political view that doesn't happen. it's all directed by donald trump. one man band and as you see just now, i mean, all of this stuff. he denied in my first book that he wanted to get syrian president assad assassinated i knew he tried that and he denied it so emphatically at the time he said the book's purification. now just the other day he said, oh, yeah, he did want to assassinate assad.

and mattis prevented him or wouldn't go along exactly as i described it in a book two years ago. so, what's reality a president -- a -- look, in our own lives, we need to -- i mean, my wife, elsa would say, you're not saying what you mean in this section, in this draft and i had to deal with her wisdom and a president needs to deal with other people's wisdom he doesn't really care about -- he does not comprehend it's not the way his mind works. so, we are -- we have a president tragically cut off from reality in the middle of a health crisis. hundreds, a thousand people will die a day. my god, we're approaching 200,000 people and it's going to

collide with the flu season. we need reality. sorry, but live lived this for ten months your producers would call and ask me to come on the show i said, i've got to go underground and look at this and the looking at it was one of the -- a moment professionally as a journalist, but also as a citizen, as a human being, one of the -- i can't tell you, i've lived this 24/7 for ten months >> well, thank you so much, bob, for that >> thank you. >> and thank you for being with us today we greatly appreciate it mika, you know, what bob said about no forward planning, it's not only helped contribute to a death toll that is now moving

towards 200,000, it also, of course, has made american foreign policy calamitous and even people that support donald trump, people running the campaign, trying to get him re-elected it's one reason why he's doing so poorly is because he cannot discipline himself even when discipline would be in his best interest. >> and it is just past the top of the 8:00 a.m. hour, 5:00 outout west on this september 15th. politico reports patience is running thin among house democrats hoping to come to terms with republicans and the white house on the next round of coronavirus relief house speaker nancy pelosi will be our guest if you just missed our lengthy conversation that we just had with bob woodward, we'll be playing the key portions of the interview just ahead. first, let's get to the

latest on hurricane sally, which made landfall near gulfshores, alabama, about two hours ago, bringing with it flooding rain and potentially life-threatening storm surge. let's bring in meteorologist bill karins with the latest on that bill >> well, good morning. the sun is up and now we're starting to see some damage. orange beach has extensive damage from the eye wall that came through overnight and now the strong winds are moving into areas in pensacola in pensacola we have a 5 1/2 foot storm surge it hasn't gone down yet. high tide is moving in we're going to continue to -- you can see all the pictures here this is down towards orange beach, this is where we're seeing considerable damage, this is where they had numerous calls into the fire, police dispatch, people looking for rescue, people looking for assistance. as this storm went to a category

2 overnight, unexpectedly, and it was a little worse than they expected this is the gulf shores area, this is where landfall was we did see official wind gusts up to 100 miles an hour in the gulfshores area. a lot of power outages and damage here's a look at the current position notice pensacola on the right and pensacola bay, still in the eastern eye wall they've been in it the last four hours. that's why the water levels are still high and why damage is still being done we have a tornado watch for florida/southern alabama until 6:00 p.m. this evening as the storm moves inland look at the rainfall totals. ft. walton beach, 22 inches of rain orange beach has had 24 inches of rain. already 2 feet of rain in some areas. that's why we have this flash flood emergency, all the areas in maroon. there's water everywhere from the storm surge moving in and from the 1 to 2 feet of rain that's already falling as we move through the next two

days, with he track this northward through atlanta, charlotte, raleigh and flash flood warnings affecting 22 million people. winds are now at 100 miles per hour it's still moving at a snail's pace it will be in the areas of alabama later this evening notice how slow the movement is, joe and mika that's going to be the legacy of this storm for how long it sat over areas of the northern gulf they call this the emerald coast area, joe. it's a beautiful slice of this country. it's taken a hit, similar to what they did in ivan about 16 years ago. >> bill karins, thank you very much as you're watching that, in the thick of it, let's go to sam brock in pensacola, florida. sam, what's the latest >> reporter: mika, good morning. a different picture from what i talked to you about an hour, hour and a half ago. the water in this parking lot

almost up to my knees. i'm 6'5" it's all over the parking lots this is jefferson street to the right of me. completely full as if it's a river. the cars over my shoulder, that water is up almost to the windows. when we got out this morning, the water was barely touching the tires. that's how quickly this has all progressed if i were to walk along this parking lot, what you would see over my shoulder, well, there was a dumpster there it's now gone. this floodwater is so strong, it has been pulling dumpsters and other debris through the waters. the naval airport reported 22.7 inches of rain, which is double the record for pensacola to date in a single day of rainfall in september. that's how much we've already gotten we could be looking at hours more of rainfall, which gives you perspective and understanding as to why local officials were warning people to be vigilant and not leave their

homes under any circumstances. i talked to a nurse, actually, about an hour ago who came here in her car, had to stay here she was trying to get to a hospital obviously wasn't going to make it safely. set up shop here that car now is covered up to its wheels in water. she's inside her hotel, thankfully, safe and sound so many people's lives could be at risk if they're not careful we're going to keep a vigilant eye on what's happening here and hoping emergency responders can get to the folks who need assistance today mika >> sam, thank you so much. wow, what a difference from his report just 90 minutes ago. >> unbelievable. now to our big interview of the morning. if you just missed our discussion with bob woodward, we want to play for you the key parts. joe began by asking him to set the scene for his explosive new reporting. >> what is really shocking to me and i think shocking to people

who have looked at this is that he knew it was airborne, it was going to be a serious situation back in january. the key to understanding this, for me, was let me take you to that scene of january 28th in the oval office when his national security adviser, robert o'brien says the virus will be the biggest threat, the biggest national security threat you will face as president and then the deputy matt pottinger stepped in and provided specifics he had been a "wall street journal" reporter in china for seven years and he knew the chinese lied about things like this, and he had contacts who told him, this is going to be like the 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed, what, 675,000

people in this country the president knew this in january. and i did not learn about this meeting, which is the opening of my book. i think it's one of the most historic moments in the oval office where a crisis is laid out and the president doesn't level with the american people and it's absolutely tragic it's tragic for donald trump, for the country, for the 190,000 plus people who have died. if he'd been honest and shared the truth in some form, we would be in a completely different position now it is a monumental, catastrophic leadership failure >> let me ask you along those lines. i want to get to matt pottinger

in a minute because he actually, as you described in the book, he actually liked pottinger, trusted him. he was a china hawk. so, donald trump was getting this news not just from his fourth or fifth national security adviser but an aide whose instincts he trusted i'm just curious, you talk about it being one of the most historic moments in the white house in history i'm curious whether you agree with your former writing partner, carl bernstein, that these tapes, these trump tapes, will be remembered historically as more significant than even the nixon tapes? >> well, it's hard to compare them i trust carl's wisdom in this. he always is forward leaning, back when we were doing the

nixon reporting. he saw where this was going a year before, quite frankly, i did. so, you know, we're going to see about this but one of the first things when i've started talking to trump now, this is december 5th last ye year i went into the office and plunked my tape recorder -- in fact, i have the tape recorder, an olympus special i plunked it down on the resolute desk and said, this is all on the record. i'm going to record it i want to find out what your policies have been this was before the virus. and we went through north korea, we went through -- for nine hours and it is a look into his mind

and one of the things -- you discover things, and it surprised me that the microphone is not just getting words, but it is a microscope, in fact, when you hear the inflections, the anxiety, when you hear the anger, when you hear the denial. and so there's something in those tapes, which i have in the book probably almost 20% of the book is trump talking about the virus, talking about the economy, talking about race relations. and you can see, and it's extraordinary. you knew this when you knew trump years ago that he will subject himself to a kind of interrogation. i was able to do that for ten months

and you cannot just see it, but you can hear what -- you can hear this -- when i say it's a microsco microscope, it's a magnifying glass also, so you really observe the true trump, i believe. >> let me ask you about, and then i'll pass it around the table, but i must say that obviously, for reasons we all understand, most of the focus has been on donald trump lying about how deadly this pandemic was to the american people and his supporters, but i must say that equally jarring to me was the first half of the book where you walked us through each member of the national security team you walked us through mattis and tillerson and poor, poor dan coates i mean, my god, these people

were struggling. they all had the attitude that mika i and heard from dr. brzezinski and robert gates and from general hayden and from a lot of people who had been never-trumpers when all said, we only have one president at a time we've got to make this work. but, my god, you reveal what they found out when they went in and they soon learned, he did not share they're values in fact, dan coates understood fairly quickly that everything he had worked his entire life to promote, as a conservative senator and then an ambassador, donald trump was undermine iing. >> yes now, dan coates was the dni, director of national intelligence, the number one intelligence official overseeing

the cia. this was a man who -- it's -- you obviously have read it, joe. it's almost a book in itself because this is a man who was a senator from indiana for 16 years. he was retiring. he was offered this job by trump and mike pence, the vice president elect, and felt he could not say no he went in with these republican values and was stunned, shocked and, you know, in a way just ground down by trump's refusal to accept reality. and at one point in the book i show how mattis, who's the secretary of defense, and coates are talking after a national security counsel meeting and mattis says that donald

trump has no moral compass and coates says, donald trump, the president, their leader, does not know the difference between a lie and the truth. and the struggle that these people who, they were in the latter phases of their life said, okay, donald trump is calling. he promised that he would really deal with them in a direct, honorable way, and then they got in the job and he pulled all of his stunts in a way that trump did that led them to the point where, in coates' case, his wife marsha said to him, look, dan, god put you in this job. you were failing not just the country and yourself, you're

failing god, and you need to get organized. and he reorganized things. again, trump expelled him when it did not serve trump's purposes. still ahead, more of our interview with bob woodward. that is next on "morning joe."

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how would you describe how he felt talking to you did he seem excited talking to you? did he expect a positive book rather than a book that actually quotes him and lays bare his lies to the american people, and then in your analysis, frames out, to use your words, a monumental, catastrophic leadership failure what did he think he was getting? >> well, i did a book called fear two years ago when it came out, he denounced it, and people who worked for him went to him and said,

actually it's all true and trump regretted not talking to me for fear, and so he agreed to do this and it was one of the most -- one of the strangest experiences of my life because he would call me at night. i had to carry a tape recorder around in my pocket, have another one by the side of the bed, had to have one downstairs. and at one point he called and my wife, elsa, answered the phone and trump said, is bob there? she said, who is this? he said, donald trump. and she said, oh, mr. president. and i had these conversations, taped them always with his knowledge. a couple of times we really got

in shouting matches, particularly about impeachment and about what my reporting showed on the virus and how he needed to mobilize the country and kind of, you know, treat it like a manhattan project when they built the first atomic bomb during world war ii. he would say yes, and then he would go out and play it down, zigzag all the time. imagine be iing a person who doesn't like trump or likes and supports trump and you hear absolutely spinning your head, well, it's a problem. no, it's not a problem it's going to go away, it's going to disappear it is -- when the historians put all this together and in the last call i had with trump when

he called one month ago when i could get the israeli/uae deal in the book, a fair question, that's an important thing that he did, i asked about the virus. i said, so this is a month ago he says, nothing more could be done nothing more could have been done and that just is shockingly untrue and he failed himself, he failed the country, he failed the republican party, he failed the concept of the office of the president, where you have this burden on your shoulders it's not just another person he has this megaphone and it saddens and, frankly, i'm -- i'm -- you know, you know me

i miss being on the show, by the way, during this period. i had to go underground. but, you know, i take an ice cube before i talk i try to cool down and not be emotional. and in this case you put it together and it is staggering, monumental tragedy across the board. >> coming up, more from our wide-ranging interview with bob woodward plus, a live interview with house speaker nancy pelosi just moments away or"mning joe" is coming right back s of america, treating cancer isn't just what we do, it's all we do. and now, we're able to treat more patients because we're in-network with even more major insurance plans. so, if you've been turned down before, call us now. ...so you can find just the right plan for you. like the "visit a doctor anywhere our rv takes us" plan.

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let's bring back bob woodward i want to go to a your book that i haven't seen a ton of attention. the impact president xi may have had on president trump and decisions made by the white house. you cite a february 6th call,

9:00, washington time, a thursday night in the residence where president trump calls president xi the objective with president trump's advisers was to confront president xi about china not allowing american health officials spew the country to investigate what had been going on coronavirus there. and in that conversation, president xi, you quote, as saying to president trump, i asked the united states and your officials not take excessive actions that would create further panic. so, you have, bob, president xi telling president trump, effectively to downplay it, not to create panic. what is your sense in your considerati conversations and your reporting of the impact president xi had on president trump and the tone china had with the united states in the way this has all played on you the >> president xi was lying. and we now know that and trump has faced up to that

and called it the china virus and made it clear that he doesn't believe what china did on this, but, see, that was all known to trump the end of january. and that's that moment that was missed here. and, joe, i think it's really important the way you went back to what churchill did in his response and as a leader churchill is not only pointing a direction and showing his own emotions, but he is facing a moral choice and that's what leaders do they're not just out there as individua individuals. they are facing the moral choice of, am i going to be honest, am i going to step up and be

responsible. maybe i'm going to take a bit of a political hit. this is what trump wants to avoid, any political hit and being obsessed i quote fauci, dr. fauci, the leading infectious disease person in the government saying that trump is only interested in re-election. fauci is saying that trump has almost a negative attention span and time and time again in the book you see where people are trying to get through to trump and he dismisses them. he's driven by his own impulseis and this is the awful part of this he does not -- i mean, you

pointed out, he was always telling me and eventually telling the public that he played this down last night he's saying, he played it up does he understand what a fact is and what is the reality we're dealing with this is a moving train, the pandemic and it's speeding up, as all the experts, dr. fauci say, this, it's going to converge with the regular flu. we are confronting a health hailstorm in the coming months, according to the experts, according to the models that we're facing do we have a president just in this time who can kind of say, hey, let's have a plan time and time again, there's no

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mr. president, i was born with a disease called sacidosis, and from the day i was born, i was considered uninsurable i still have similar health care problems it cost me with co-pay, i'm still paying almost $7,000 a year in addition to the co-pay, and should pre-existing conditions, which obamacare brought into -- brought to fruition, be removed >> no. >> without - >> please, stop and let me finish my question, sir. should that be removed within a 36 to 72-hour period without my medication, i will be dead >> but what we're doing is we're going to be doing a health care plan, pre-existing, protecting people with pre-existing conditions as an example yourself, that sounds like that's exactly perfect, that's exactly what we're talking about. we're going to be doing a health care plan very strongly and

protect people with pre-existing conditions i will say this, they will not do that. >> mr. president - >> they have socialized -- >> i have to stop you there on a couple points. number one, joe biden has ran against medicare for all in the primaries, but much more importantly, obamacare guaranteed people with pre-existing conditions could could buy insurance, guaranteed they could buy it at the same price, guaranteed a package of essential benefits, guaranteed that insurance companies couldn't put a limit on those lifetime benefits. you repealed obamacare - >> i did - >> you're arguing to the supreme court right now to strike it down that would do away with pre-existing conditions. >> no, we could do new health care. >> i interviewed you in june of last year. you said the health care plan would come in two weeks. you told chris wallace this summer it would come in three weeks. you promised an executive order -- >> i have it all ready i have it all ready. >> you've been trying to strike down pre-existing conditions. >> i have it all ready

it's a much better plan for you. >> of course, as every american knows, he's lying and just making things up. >> wow >> he's been promising a new plan he doesn't have a new plan he just wants to take away pre-existing conditions. mika and willie, this is what's so remarkable about the republican party listen, i didn't love obamacare. i thought there could be a better program guess what, it's been a decade - >> they don't have it. >> -- it's been over a decade since obamacare was passed republicans have presented no viable alternative in 11 years and this president is now talking about taking away a pre-existing condition coverage that, if taken away, could actually kill that woman, as she said, in a short time. so, the lies continue. he keeps like about a health care plan. he doesn't have it

bigger, more importantly, the republican party has been lying for 11 years about an alternative to obamacare they don't have one. >> joining us now for some response to what we heard at this incredible presidential town hall last night, house speaker nancy pelosi of california i guess we'll start there with this apparently plan that the president says he has that would replace obamacare. have you heard anything about it >> no, as you know, the republicans have always said repeal and replace all they wanted to do was repeal because they really don't have a commitment to governance a public role in health care so many of their supporters say, government, keep your hands off my medicare. well, what do you think that is? but anyway, i think you for presenting that this morning because this is a very important health issue it's not just about the precondition benefit that is essential.

but a company that in the affordable care act is the removal of the caps on lifetime or annual limits so, if you take -- if you keep the cap on that, then people are protected from extravagant costs. on the other hand, if you it let that cap go, you're at the mercy of the insurance companies and i think that's what the president has in mind. well, has in mind is sort of a casual phrase. i don't know what he has in mind let me just say. we're supposed to be crushing the virus right now, crushing the virus so we can open up our economy, open up our schools safely instead the president is crushing the affordable care act. he's crushing it in his misrepresentation, in the court of public opinion, in the supreme court of the united states as george stephanopoulos so aptly pointed out this is very dangerous to not

only the health of the american people, but the financial security of america's families their kitchen table issues center around health care, health care, health care their cost have a direct relationship to their economic well-being. >> that was a stunning lie from the president right to the face of that voter. in fact, the trump administration filed at the u.s. supreme court three months ago to completely dismantle obamacare. quite oppositeof what he just said speaker pelosi, good to have you on i want to talk about legislation sitting in congress right now. i know there are front line members of your own caucus saying, speaker pelosi, we have to get something done here we understand you don't want to give into mitch mcconnell, you don't want to give into republicans and come down from your number of $2.2 trillion but for the sake of the voters in our district, for the sake of our citizens, we have to get some relief in their pockets what do you say to that balance between not giving into republicans but also having to get something done for the

people you represent >> i appreciate your question and welcome to my world. i have a beautifully diverse caucus there are some who want me to put the hero's act, $3.4 trillion, back on the floor, because it is very well developed. it is science-based, academically based, institutionally base abouted as to why we need that money. we did come down we came down $1 trillion, asked them to come up $1 trillion so we could come closer in a negotiation. they didn't do that. they said we'll come further leader schumer and i said, come closer, we'll meet you halfway so, we have come down. but the needs of the american people, we can only go so far. we cannot have a sophie's choice of feeding some children and not others housing some people and not others meeting -- addressing the

disparity and the assault that the virus is making on communities of color so, we have come down. we have a number of schools of thought. those who want us to put 3.4 back on the floor, come down in negotiation from there those who just say, put something on the floor what we want is to put something on the floor that will become law. so, that requires a negotiation. and until they come to the table, serious about -- 14 million people are food insecure in our country they don't have one penny for that in their bill their family, millions of their family on the verge of addiction. they don't have one penny of that in their bill these are all grown centric expenses we have but the most -- again, the hero's act is about our state and local and they are coming at that with a vengeance, with a vengeance. they're coming at it with a vengeance. we don't want to help these blue states really this is the united states of america.

they have a vengeance against the state and local. they have contempt for science by not doing the testing, tracing, treatment, mask wearing, isolation, sanitation, that science tells us. the scientist on your program, academics over and over again, tell us this is what we need to contain this virus so i'm used to building consensus in my own caucus i'm proud of what our members are doing. and especially proud of our chairs, where we could perhaps change the timing. it's less money now. we didn't cut things out we just brought it down. but it's important to note this. that was four months ago, may 15th this has accelerated since then. we have additional needs for restaurants, airlines and the rest, and those things have to be taken into consideration as well so, in order to stay with meeting them halfway, we'll have to make further cuts

but that's about negotiation we can put a bill on the floor, but we want to put a bill on the floor that will become law. >> as you know from your own district, speaker pelosi, people who are desperate right now and need the money, they're not interested in the machinations of capitol hill, they just need to see some money in their bank account to help them weather this storm. >> that's right. >> what do you say to those voters >> again, we represent we're the closest to the people, members of the house, in terms of the federal government. we know full well, we don't need anybody to tell us the concerns that our constituents have their concerns go beyond one check with the president's name on it. their concerns go to their financial security mr. woodward used a term, a moral choice this is a moral choice

republican republicans, as usual, are ignoring the needs of the american people. let's just do this one thing and get them off our back. that's not what this is about. this is about crushing a virus that they refuse to accept the science on that is what's going to make the biggest difference some people say, well, we'll do this bill and then we'll do another bill do you think the administration is going to do another bill? all they want is to have the president's name on a check, going out, $300, and that's all he really cares about. but again, this is a moment. this is big. they have a skinny bill, as chuck calls it, emaciated bill for a massive problem. i don't know why you all are not saying to the republicans, why don't you give -- you say it to us and we came down $1.2 trillion we think we can negotiate within that because we have prospects

for what will happen in january and we can go beyond that, but right now we're not just going to -- we think they should come to the table why would they not want to honor our first responders, our health care workers, our sanitation, transportation, teachers, teachers, teachers why would they not want us to do our best job by putting resources into the schools to make them safe for our children, whether they're going actually, virtually, or in some hybrid way? when you start flirting with endangering our children, them's fighting words them's fighting words. why? are the american people not worth it is it the price? are you saying it's too much or it's the money, you would rather spend it to give tax cuts to the top percent of what was in your tax cut? so it isn't about finger pointing and it isn't about

machinations it's about meeting the needs of the american people. and they know that that's not a priority for them and that's why we have this impasse at this time but, fortunately, we'll be able to correct some of it in january. but right now, we'll have to do more than just have the republicans check a box. >> speaker pelosi, we have heard concerns from a lot of americans, i'm sure you have as well, everywhere you go. we've heard a lot of concerns about the president trying to undermean the credibility of the elections, about the institutions not holding up, about the president not -- it's a debate that's going on for some time. i have always said america's institutions are strong enough to stand up to a reality tv host i am shocked, still shocked by how far that reality tv host will go, even undermining

american elections and defending russian deck taictators i still, though, have confidence in those american institutions to hold up i'm curious, though, what do you say to those who fear we can't have a fair election and even if donald trump loses, he may not leave office >> well, you know what i say all the time we don't agonize, we organize. people have to face the reality that he is attempting to undermine the election in every possible way, welcoming russian interference into our elections, dismantling the postal service to put in doubt whether people's ballots will get to them and be back in time to be counted you recognize it and you act upon it. that's what we're doing. we're asking everyone to go to iwillvote.com as soon as possible to make sure you are --

you know how to vote by mail or in person and if you are registered and the rest. the more we can do -- we have instituted something called sojourner truth tuesdays, suffragist, an american woman, i was happy to place a statue of her in the capitol truth tuesday, we had it last night, where we reach out to people to say iwillvote.com, among other things it's very important just to get the job done i'm an organizer, as you know, former california democratic party chair. you and i both know that republicans do well in the vote by mail. so for the president to be undermining that is very strange. on election day, we could win, on election day those absentee votes came in, oh, my gosh, how

are we going to go so democrats and republicans have enjoyed the benefits of that vote by mail. and now it's a health issue during the coronavirus crisis. people should not have to go, stand in line for hours, or go into polling place if they don't have to. we want to minimize that we want to make it vaebl in a safe way, but minimize it by having vote by mail. getting back to the president and his undermining of our elections, it's again his insecurity about knowing that left to the public's decision making he has a very good chance of not being the president of the united states again. and on january 20th, no matter where he physically locates himse himself, not wanting to get out of the white house, we will nominate the president of the united states who has been elected in november. and my view, if the election were today, that would be joe

biden, and that would be great for our country. but the election isn't today so, we have a great deal of work to do to organize, not agonize, about what he says i have confidence in the american people. >> madam speaker, so you agree with my concern that if he loses the election, even by a small margin, he might not leave the white house? >> no, that's what joe said. >> okay. then how much concern do you have about our elections functioning well and not being interfered with by mail or even at the polls by this president >> i don't have any confidence that he won't interfere. i think he will do anything, because i think he has proven again and again that he's not a patriot, that he has no respect for the constitution of the united states, which he has no hesitation to violate. so i think you suspect the worst there, but don't dwell on him.

let's reach out and look forward to the american people the more we talk about him, the less we're talking about a positive message to address the health needs of the american people, to make an economy that is fair for the american people and to face the realities of science in terms of the climate crisis which is causing these -- has an impact, has influenced what is happening in california and the whole west as well as the storms that are battering the gulf coast this is a reality. when it comes to the coronavirus, they have contempt for science. that's why almost 200,000 people will lose their lives by the end of this week 200,000 people and that's why their contempt for science as to what the climate crisis is. this past weekend, i had the

privilege of hosting the g7 heads of parliament. every year, as you know, the head of state holds a g7 heads of state meeting this year that meeting was to be in the u.s a month or two after that in each country of hosting is the heads of parliament. we have that this weekend virtually, dali llama. and addressing the climate crisis with economic that was declared a year ago because of covid, that justice leadership was needed too. >> all right. >> just to make this point, there is no conflict in the other countries about whether there is a climate crisis and whether human behavior has an impact on it the only place, really, of