more dangerous and corrupt president than trump. he's harming our basic values, giving rise to hate, and he's selling out america to big corporations. i'm working to protect immigrants, women, communities of color, and lgbtq people. and i'm making corporations like pg&e and insurance companies play by our rules. we need experienced leadership to wipe away trump's stain on america for good. if it's tuesday, the candidates get ready to face off in the first presidential debate of 2020. as the front-runner biden has the most to lose. and president trump is signaling a scorched earth strategy. plus, as the candidates take the stage, coronavirus continues to rage. a million people have died around the world. north america leads the world. cases are on the rise again here

in the united states. a new report shows the white house pressured the cdc in an attempt to get kids back to school. and "the new york times" drops another big story on the president's taxes revealing how he used reality tv stardom to subsidize and rescue the reality of his business failures. welcome to tuesday. it's "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. just 35 days until election night with millions of voters already casting their ballots. all eyes are on cleveland, ohio, where president trump and joe biden will square off tonight in the first of three presidential debates. it comes as a number of big stories in the headlines, including the president's taxes, news surrounding the breonna taylor case, the supreme court vacancy and others. the president's scotus nominee spent the morning meeting with

top senate republicans, including mitch mcconnell, as the president pushes for a confirmation vote before election night. but the biggest headlines ahead of the debate are on one subject. the virus. cases nationally appear to be on the rise again as some schools reopen and states ease restrictions. florida has lifted all of its restrictions, bizarrely so. one of the most bizarre public health decisions yet. public officials are warning that 40,000 new cases a day is unacceptably high as we approach the flu season. there's also a spike under way in the midwest. cases in wisconsin are surging at alarming levels. so are hospitalizations. "the new york times" is reporting on how the white house pressured scientists at the cdc to downplay the risk of sending kids back to school. the president pushed for schools to reopen and pushed for a lot of southern states to reopen sooner than they should have. the nfl is battling its first outbreak. president trump is showcasing

all the ways he may try to distract from focusing on the virus. for biden, the challenge -- it's simply being the front-runner and having the most to lose tonight. the president is likely going to deploy a thousand different strategies tonight to try to pull biden down a thousand different rabbit holes. ultimately, biden's success or failure may revolve around doing something trump hasn't. staying focused on the virus. let's go to cleveland and hear from our nbc news reporters following tonight's debate participants. mike memoli is following the biden campaign. hallie jackson is in the room where it happens following president trump. mike, let me start with you. you've got some new reporting from team biden. they were doing a sort of predebate call with press. what can you report? >> yeah, chuck. one biden ally just said to me, joe biden has been waiting for

this fight for five years. they're confident he's going to be a gametime player as the biden team often puts it. and the two things are clear based on my conversations with the biden campaign over the last few days and from the call they just did with reporters. one is the overarching issue he expects to focus on is the coronavirus. the president's handling of the pandemic. there's been a lot of focus about what potential guests might be in the audience tonight. the biden team saying one much their guests is kristen ur kwqu. she lost her father to the coronavirus and she said the only pre-existing condition he had was trusting donald trump. in terms of strategy, it's clear for a number of weeks the biden team is focused on winning back the obama trump voters. biden played such a big role in those campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and speaking to those. that's part of what we're seeing tomorrow. and the scranton versus wall street framing is going to be a

big part of what we hear from him tonight. conveniently timed to the biden campaign just announced the former vice president is releasing today his 2019 tax return. he has already released 21 years as of last year. they are choosing today to make that most recent revelation along with kamala harris, her tax filings as well. they really want to destroy the myth that has been in voters for a number of years that donald trump is a successful businessman who can help the working class and that's really a large part of the way their strategy has been shaping up and will be tonight, chuck. >> hallie jackson, just looking at the things that the white house and the trump campaign is trying to make an issue of this morning, it all screams of a campaign that is in disarray and doesn't know what to do. when you are screaming about ear pieces and drug tests you're not necessarily focused on the

country or the debate itself. >> so can i add a third one? it's ear pieces, drug test and it's the guest list, right, which makes me think and i'm sure makes you think back to 2016 when the drug test was an issue with hillary clinton and the guest list thing was an issue with hillary clinton when they brought several of bill clinton's accusers out to the debate. this is the same playbook being written all over again. listen. i can tell you this based on reporting and conversations i've had with people sort of close to trump world here as this debate prep happens. they're outwardly saying they feel good about tonight but there's an acknowledgment that the president will have to perform, right? he has been doing quote/unquote prep. not the kind of prep mike is talking about with joe biden here. it's spitballing. i've talked to a lot of people who say this is how he does it. he bounces questions off people. rudy giuliani, chris christie, others. a lot of people in the president's orbit have been on the receiving end. what do you think of x or y. and all of us who cover the

president have been sort of roped into his debate prep unbeknownst to us because the president believes that sparring with the reporters, whether that's in the briefing room or south lawn is the way he'll get ready for this debate as he does interact with members of the press fairly frequently when he has events where he sees them. that's where the president's head is at here. you look at this expectation and on the one hand, you have trump campaign folks talking about what a great debater joe biden is and how he's a stilled performer. they are doing the classic raise the expectations. on the other hand, the president questioning his mental acuity, talking about these potential drug tests, obviously with no evidence to back that up. how do you square that? how can both be true? how can joe biden be unable to string together a sentence but then be a worthy opponent of trump. they are putting it all out there to see what will stick before the debate. the rubber meets the road on

this stage later tonight. that's when we'll find out. i don't know if you can see. they're doing the setup. people mentioned this online and in twitter. yes, the seats are close together but people will be spaced out in the hall. there's only going to be 80 to 100 people here and there will be space between different pods per the commission on presidential debates. every person who has entered this hall had to get a covid test. we all had to get covid tests to set foot on the grounds, much less inside the building. >> mike memoli and hallie jackson getting us started on the ground in cleveland. thank you both. let me turn to a couple of experienced political hands. michael plouffe and david frum, a former speech writer for george w. bush and currently now a writer for "the atlantic." let me remind people what the topics are supposed to be tonight. i say supposed to be because you just don't know what donald trump does. but the six topics generally are the trump and biden records, the

supreme court, covid-19, the economy, race and violence in our cities, the integrity of the election. david plouffe, we contended that joe biden should only mention one issue and talk about one issue. can he pull that off and make it all about the virus? >> well, the big thing is the big thing. now the virus is many different things. it's rebuilding the economy. it's the distribution of a vaccine eventually when we get it. making smart public health decisions. i'd imagine through the entire thing, all six of the sections he'll bring it back to that. let's talk about where the race is today. joe biden has the most to lose because he's got a lead. i think their task tonight is to cement the significant support he has with senior citizens, with suburban college educated women and trump/obama voters who have already gone to the biden campaign. some of those may be voting tomorrow if there's a state that allows that and increase enthusiasm among the democratic base. from an election standpoint,

trump is the one now who has to disrupt this race. if we're talking tonight or tomorrow and we don't think trump has fundamentally changed the race he's losing, he's missed his most prime opportunity to do so. >> yeah, david frum, do you buy this conventional wisdom that trump can't win the debate, but biden could lose it? >> through history, presidents, incumbent presidents have tended to do badly in the first of the series of debates. president obama in 2012. george w. bush in 2004. ronald reagan back to 1984. if you want to think that way. the one exception is bill clinton in 1996. donald trump may change that. why do incumbent presidents tend to do badly? they're busy. they begrudge the time to prepare. the challenger has lots of time. incumbent president doesn't. donald trump seems to have all the time in the world. so he may change that. but i agree with you and with david. the story of this campaign has been donald trump has been

losing the 2020 election every day since the inauguration in 2017. he is the most unpopular first term president in american history and i think we see again and again the master poll of the trump years is the question, ya ada, yada, donald trump, 42% yes, 50% no. >> it's funny you put it in those terms. i was going to save this for later, david frum, but i really want to get your reaction to something i read earlier today. he writes this. pretend it's 2014 and i come to you and say, hey, six years from now donald trump is going to be president. he'll have been impeached for trying to blackmail a u.s. ally, white nationalists will be stalking city streets wearing masks and carrying rifles, the economy will be in shambles, more than 200,000 americans will be dead from a pandemic that hit us harder than any other country in the word and trump will be refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power post election. you'd say wtf and i'd say to

2014 you, oh, the election will be close with more than 40% of the country supporting president trump. at which point you'd say, uh, i don't believe it. david frum, the point of this larger piece was, we're not heading to collapse. maybe we're already here and we don't realize it. look how numb we are from just the last six years. >> back when the united states was unsuccessfully trying to build democracy in iraq, we used to say we had -- we that were elections, the iraqis thought they were censuses. and that's a little what's going on here. that as the united states has become a more diverse country, politics in some ways has mattered less. tribalism has mattered more. the fortunate thing for american democracy is the tribes committed to democracy do outnumber the tribes that are less comfortable with democracy. and so we may pull this one out. there's a lot to worry about. the fact that donald trump could be president at all say massive sign of distress in any society. >> david plouffe, how does joe

biden address this topic? it's the topic he wins in some ways he's got the most trust on. there's a large majority of this country believes he's more likely to bring this country together than donald trump but that doesn't mean he's likely to bring this country together. he's more likely to do it than donald trump. >> well, more likely to do it than donald trump and more likely to try and look like he cares about the entire country. not just the core of his base. so, yeah, listen. some of biden's strengths, it's a mistake to assume that those are fully immersed and so you shouldn't talk about them. so his empathy. his experience. he's really been talking about the scranton versus park avenue dynamic in the debate which is a strong contrast. so you have remember your home base. i think where he can add to his strengths right now is some toughness. both in terms of being an advocate for the american people and showing some outrage at what donald trump has done whether it's the pandemic or demoberacy. when i say tough, i don't mean

screaming, but if you can face down the bully when the bully is saying you're weak, senile, you probably have an ear piece in your ear, you've taken drugs and performs in -- he'll be competent tonight, but if he's also strong, in the ways that matter, i think he can really, again, firm up some of that support from swing voters that's really the reason he's leading this race. but also help the turnout. >> i am glad you brought up the how he should emotionally respond. it's funny you brought up something about, he shouldn't get angry. there's some nervousness that he can get angry if a hunter biden question. let me take the opposite approach. isn't there an upside to getting angry? >> i think getting angry, not because you're being attacked but if he's showing anger on behalf of the american people, the people who died, the people who have lost jobs, our democracy that's hanging by a thread, i think that will be helpful. i think if it's anger over attacks on his son or attacks on

his voting record or something he said, he's largely got to brush those off. but i think channeling the anger so many americans have and to david frum's point, it's sad that, you know, 40% of the people are where they are. but 60% of the people, maybe not 60%, but 54%, 55% of the people are open to voting for joe biden which is a high ceiling in today's politics. >> david frum, are we making a mistake just assuming trump is going to be trump? look, we're all going about this assuming he didn't prepare. he isn't going to be prepared. he's just going to spitball the way he does it. is it possible that we're underrating him? >> look, they make the point that trump is a powerful and effective person. there's a convincing piece by ryan lizza in politico this morning about how trump comes at people in a way that breaks the rules of the game. at olympic fencing, they always

tell you the best fencer in the world doesn't have to worry about the second best fencer mean has to worry about the worst fencer who doesn't know any of the rules and just throws the sword at the person's head and you're not ready for it. so donald trump is like that. he's the worst fencer in the world. he does all these things that politicians aren't supposed to do. and that will catch people at ease. but we have seen the show. you know, president eisenhower was one of the worst speakers ever to be president of the united states. but he did have peace and prosperity. and, you know if you have peace and prosperity, you don't need to be a very good talker. if you have disaster at every hand, that's a hard thing to talk your way out of. so we recall the challenger donald trump in 2016. now he's the president and people are out of work. people are sick and dying and the kids are not in school. this is something we need to remember because intellectual women are going to be so important. the fact this administration has tried to drive kids back to school without regard to safety, wow. >> yeah. david frum, i get dinged for

sports references but i've never done a fencing reference so i'm glad we've expended our olympic sports repertoire. david frump, david plouffe, thank you for sharing your perspective. be sure to join lester, sa v vannah, andrea and myself on nbc. and i'll be streaming live on nbc news with special predebate coverage at 8:00 on nbc news now. of course, there's msnbc's coverage. check rachel, nicolle and joy out on msnbc. up ahead, the white house responds to the new report that the administration tried to pressure the cdc to downplay the risk of kids going back to school. later, donald trump, the man, the myth. lots of myths here. the latest on those tax returns, does it seem to show the president didn't do anything

other than being born to a trump and getting a tv show. as we get ready for the debate, let's go back to 1960. the very first year of televised presidential debates when a more tan john fitzgerald kennedy took on richard nixon. and together they made television history. >> good evening. the television and radio stations of the united states and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for a discussion of issues in the current political campaign by the two major candidates for the presidency. the candidates need no introduction. the republican candidate, vice president richard m. nixon and the democratic candidate, senator john f. kennedy. i'm on . then, for the first time ever, include disney+, hulu, and espn+. we're a big soccer family. "handmaid's tale ." i love "frozen." then give families plans to mix and match, so you only pay for what you need. and offer it at a price built for everyone.

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welcome back. the worldwide coronavirus has reached another grim milestone. the death toll more than 1 million across the globe. the u.s. account officials more than 20% of all deaths globally. the w.h.o. is warning that 2

million people could die before a vaccine is widely available. the nfl is now facing its first coronavirus outbreak. the tennessee titans closed their facilities until saturday after several players and team officials tested positive for the virus. the minnesota vikings who played the titans on sunday have now done the same. in new york city, the epicenter of the pandemic in the spring, cases are once again on the rise. the city's positivity rate topped 3% for the first time in months. that news comes on the same day new york city public schools reopen for in-person classes for the first time in more than six months. as we mentioned earlier, "the new york times" are reporting the white house pressures the cdc to play down the risk of sending kids back to school according to the times. white house officials even tried to find alternative data that shows the virus posed little data to kids. for more on this, i'm joined by nbc news' shannon pettypiece. i know the white house is in this, hey, we're rounding the corner on the virus here. all of a sudden, we're not at

all. it looks like we're now back to where we were right before the second spike. we're on the verge of this new spike. does the white house realize what's about to come at us again? >> well, it was fascinating watching this press briefing yesterday. again, the president putting out a very optimistic spin for what's going on in this country and the vice president warning us that more cases are to come. there's such a striking correlation between the president's poll numbers going up and cases of the coronavirus going down. and i know at least one person close to this trump campaign vae advising the campaign regularly is very aware they're now seeing spikes in places like wisconsin and iowa that are in very tight races with the president. and warning that those spikes are as if the pattern continues between the president's poll numbers and coronavirus cases going to drag the president's

poll numbers down even more. all the president can do at this point, though, is try to shift the message to testing and the vaccine and i was told in the debate today to look for him to try and spin things forward rather than looking back at what has happened so far with this pandemic. >> shannon, what is the status of the newest doctor on the task force, scott atlas, the person who is not an epidemiologist, who seems to now -- has drawn the ire of dr. redfield, dr. fauci now is comfortably sort of in public implying that no one seems to agree with atlas on that task force. and there's even reports dr. birx has thought about quitting. this is the rule of threes here. three of the leading doctors on the task force have a problem with scott atlas. does that mean scott atlas has a problem or not? >> well, so far the white house has been sticking behind dr. atlas. we've been seeing him at these

briefings. it was notable that dr. redfield was not at the press briefing. the president held yesterday on testing, even though we know there was a task force meeting. my colleague monica alba had great reporting from yesterday about the cdc director dr. redfield publicly complaining about dr. atlas saying that what he is doing is giving the president also information. all of this internal drama, of course, is going on as we are seeing a spike in cases in so many places, as we may be getting close to find something data on a vaccine. and it just feeds into this sense of chaos within the administration while, of course, real people are trying to live their lives. you have this internal drama going on, like we have seen in pretty much every group of humans in this white house going back to the very internal data. jockeying themselves for whatever the issue is, whether it's trade or foreign policy or a pandemic. >> it's an excellent point, shannon.

whatever the focal point of the crisis is in that white house, there is sure to be backfighting along the way. shannon, thanks very much. joining me to give us more of a medical perspective is dr. kavita patel, former obama white house policy director and msnbc medical corrector. in the last 48 hours, i got my flu shot. and it was interesting. i saw, you know, my doctor was showing us all the cdc guidance about flu shots and why you should have it. and it hit me. i'm like, huh, cdc guidance. that cdc moniker certainly doesn't mean the same as much to me as it meant a year ago. the cdc -- the damage to the cdc, how bad is it? >> yeah, for months, chuck, i've been consistently concerned about the lackluster representation by the cdc, and now even in the last several

weeks where you've seen dr. redfield try to assert himself in hearings, overlistened on airplanes. i think it's suffered a great deal. and i do worry because i did the same thing with patients, chuck. i've said the cdc recommends, and i found myself stopping and saying, you know, who on earth can believe what the cdc is saying. having said that, i think there's a critical kind of piece to remember that there's still a large body of work at the centers for disease control that's done by a national network of researchers that are not kind of career or political employees. and so i do think that when we kind of heed the guidance and see some of the reports, especially the one s not, you know, related to covid, there's data to support that that comes from states but your point is well taken that now we can't even believe it since we've now got more reports about manipulation of the messaging from the cdc. it's hard to take anything they say on covid-19 seriously.

we've seen that play out several times in the last six months. >> as we see some of these bizarre decisions to reopen, the state of florida being, to me, at the top of that list, the numbers not matching the decisions that they've made. i'm curious of what you can tell us about -- i saw this survey that 9 out of 10 people who have recovered from the coronavirus still talk about side effects. the idea that many people can survive this virus doesn't mean it's a good idea to get this virus. i feel like that's a message that's gotten lost recently. >> it's a critical point, and we know now, chuck, that 10% of our coronavirus cases are in children. so that leads, you know, a lot of people have been saying and you've heard even public health professionals say tarit appears illness in children is less severe, which is in fact, true, but your point is well taken. this is still a virus where we

do not understand the long-term effects of it. and if you think about a lifetime to be lived and the potential for a flare or chronic disease from this, it's, i think, incredibly important to be humble. i also think it's why we keep trying to send the message around masks, distance, even when there is an effective vaccine, which i do believe we'll have. we're going to still have to remain vigilant. that doesn't mean that our country can't have some sort of, you know, new normal. but we're going to have to be able to get comfortable with some of the things that, unfortunately, people are still debating and politicizing. >> right. if you were back in your old position, what would you be recommending right now in the current state that we're in? would you be recommending states like florida open everything up? >> no, and i think that, really, when i see what florida is doing and, by the way, other states are also trying to make

recommendations, even at 75% capacity in bars and restaurants. so three things have to happen. number one, we have to get past this testing issue, even the announcement the president made yesterday. there's still some limitations. you have to have a medical professional oversee this test. there's barriers and there should be no barriers. we need to just put the pressure to get as much testing out there as possible. number two, we need to give businesses -- so far all these small businesses have been just dying on the vine. they've had no support to think about creative mechanisms to keep their workers safe and to enjoy kind of opening in a safe way. so we need to create infrastructure for small businesses that are way beyond what exists today, which is essentially a pdf document. and then the third would be, i think it's way too late to, you know, begin to think about a vaccine distribution strategy. the cdc put out some guidance. states are still trying to understand what their responsibilities are. but we need to have a dedicated team that can make sure when a

vaccine is available that it can be safely distributed and we can fight this-vahanti--vaccine sentiment. >> something we've all been pining for, for months. dr. kavita patel, thanks. up next, live in pennsylvania where there's new confusion and legal issues surrounding mail-in voting. what it could all mean for these critical last weeks before november. vember

welcome back. in an emergency application filed yesterday, republican lawmakers in pennsylvania are asking the supreme court to overturn a decision that allows mail-in ballots to be received up to three days after the election. even if they don't have a postmark. they argue this gives them the ability to vote after election day. hundreds of thousands of ballots are being sent out this week. many of them to people who will be voting by mail for the first time. and a recent pennsylvania court ruling could disenfranchise voters who don't mail it back appropriately. many of the state's mail-in ballots will end up being cast for joe biden. a poll has joe biden with a nine-point lead over trump. of course, the first time a

network poll had biden up nine was nbc news/marist when we released that one about ten days ago. joining us, maura barrett who is at an in-person mail-in voting center. i am curious, are voters more confused the more they -- i mean, the more you read about what's going on with this litigation, if you were a pennsylvania voter, the more confused you would be. i'll be honest. i'm glad i don't live in pennsylvania right now and are voting this way. >> yeah, definitely the sentiment we're getting here from voters. i spoke with some in line outside earlier this morning. they all said they wanted to be sure their ballot was counted and they could physically turn it in. i want to walk you through what they're going through. these are essentially mail-in ballots. it expedites the process. a voter can fill out their registration as they would at home to apply for a mail-in ballot. they come around here to wait in line and get their ballot

printed and a label marked off and then fill in their mail-in ballot in these privacy booths before dropping it off on their way out. it's just everything all in one place rather than having to make sure the mail goes back and forth. i spoke with the chairwoman of the election commission because there's so much confusion. she said these centers are really necessary this year, even though they can't start counting them any earlier. take a listen. how exactly will this -- i guess does this help alleviate any pressure for people processing ballots or counting come election day? >> as you know, in pennsylvania, we're not allowed by law to even begin until election day. what it does allow for is people to have extra confidence because they have the ability to deal with election staff and don't have to worry about what happened to their ballot when they put it in the mail. so it gives people extra confidence that they are handing their voted ballot back to election personnel. >> so just some added certainty voters can physically hand in

that ballot. more like the old school way of going to vote in person but they know they can get it in early. it's the first day there were some technical hiccups. the state voter database went down. we reached out to the state for clarity on that. we'll be watching that in the next couple of weeks. but an interesting point, today is debate night. every voter i spoke to outside today was ready to decisively make their decision before they see the candidates on stage. chuck? >> yeah. i think 90% of folks we've polled as well. maura barrett on the ground in an early voting center in philadelphia. thanks very much. up next, we're learning more about the reality of president trump's financial situation. it's pretty dire. if it wasn't for a reality show, boy, he'd be in even further financial trouble. that's next. but before we go to break, another memorable presidential debate moment. this time back to 2008. barack obama and john mccain. may have been on the same stage, but that doesn't mean they were

talking to each other. >> john said that the fundamentals of the economy are -- >> say it directly to him. >> john, ten days ago, you said the -- >> you afraid i couldn't hear him? >> no, i'm just determined to get you all to talk to each other. i'm going to try. good morning, blair. [ chuckles ] whoo. i'm gonna grow big and strong. yes, you are. i'm gonna get this place all clean. i'll give you a hand. and i'm gonna put lisa on crutches! wait, what? said she's gonna need crutches. she fell pretty hard. you might want to clean that up, girl. excuse us. when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you built with customizable coverage. -and i'm gonna -- -eh, eh, eh. -donny, no. -oh. -and i'm gonna -- -eh, eh, eh. noand if you're troubledan a liby falls and bleeds,ners. worry follows you everywhere.

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welcome back. after "the new york times" kicked off this week with the bombshell report that the president paid little to no federal income tax for most of the last two decades, of course, nbc news and no other news organization has been able to independently return, they are out with another report. this report released monday looks into how the reality show "the apprentice" gave mr. trump a financial lifeline in 2004, helping to rescue him from a financial free-fall. the times reporting that president trump earned nearly

$197 million directly from "the apprentice" over 16 years and an additional $230 million from endorsements and essentially fame associated with it. this is a second report after a first one was released sunday night which revealed years of tax avoidance by the president reporting he only paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. let me repeat that. he only paid $750 the year he was elected president of the united states. and that president trump is personally responsible for more than $400 million in loans, most of which are coming due within the next four years. oh, and he got some bizarre $100 million in tax refunds that now are under question. joining me is investigative journalist and tax expert david k. johnston. welcome back. good to talk with you. let me start with, well, let's see, where to begin. i feel like in some ways what the times has found has confirmed whether it was your suspicions, a lot of our s suspicions over the years.

but let's break it down big picture. has the president earned any money outside of "the apprentice" in a successful business venture? >> well, he certainly extracted a lot of money. that's his basic business practice. businessmen are people and businesswomen who create an enterprise to generate wealth. that's not donald's business. donald gets a hold of an enterprise without putting up any money. the only money he ever put up money for was trump university. he gets fees or loans up front to give him a negative position and then bleeds the place dry and drops the carcass and moves on. that's the whole point of the art of the deal. move on to the next mark. he's gotten to the ultimate mark and there's nowhere to go. >> it seems as if he's facing a couple of major financial problems in the next couple of years. perhaps in the next couple of months. the biggest one is, it turns out the president didn't lie to us

about this audit. he just didn't really explain how an audit lasts this long, and now it turns out because he's fighting a ruling that would probably mean he has to give back close to $100 million that he took in what appears to be a fraudulent tax refund? >> i think there's good reason to believe that. what happens is any individual tax refund of $2 million or more is sent to the congressional joint committee on taxation staff. and they have to review it. well, this one was paid. and probably the reason it was paid is that most of it is a refund of the alternative minimum tax. that was almost all the tax donald paid in 2005, the year for which i got his tax return and we reported it at d.c. report. so that's probably why they returned it. then got a second review and questions about, was it legitimate? there's very good reason to

think that donald has committed tax fraud. he had two tax fraud trials overas state and city tax returns. his own witness testified that he forged the tax return so he's a forger. and, of course, he's under criminal investigation by the manhattan district attorney as a suspected serial tax cheat. >> so what could -- let's go back to the federal crime here, if he did commit federal tax fraud. where does -- is it going to have to be this joint taxation committee that begins the investigation? or is this something that would have to get referred to the u.s. attorney in d.c.? where would this go? is this -- i mean, how long is the irs going to sit on this investigation? >> well, the irs doesn't prosecute wealthy people anymore. last year at d.c. report we did a five-part series on the third koch brother who lives one door from mar-a-lago who was under criminal investigation for giving $100 million a year tax

free in what is clearly a scam and as soon as his friend, who he endorsed for president got to the white house, the irs dropped the investigation. we only had 980-some investigations for tax fraud and almost all of them involved either drug traffickers or politicians who took bribes. we need to really work on changing the law and giving the tax police instructions to deal with tax cheating. but the state of new york has a situation in which your federal and new york state tax returns are virtually identical. they already have this federal tax information, and they are going to pursue this. there's no question about it. should the federal government do it? yeah. i think it should. but i don't see any hope of that unless congress comes along and tells the irs to start rigorously start enforcing the tax laws, which they're not. >> so based on everything you've

gleaned now and you've read through, what more information would you want to know to complete the financial picture of donald trump? or do you think now we do have the complete financial picture? >> oh, we're not even close. but back in 1990 when i revealed trump was not a billionaire, called me a liar until he had to confess it was true, he had personally guaranteed loans. he has over $300 million out of what's a total of over a billion dollars in loans because not all the loans show up on the tax return or his disclosure statements. $300 million of personally guaranteed loans that will come due during a second trump administration if he pins in november. real billionaires don't have personally guaranteed loans. they have assets. they use their assets as collateral. and to whom is this money owed? do you think any bank in the united states is going to foreclose on the president who appointed the banking

regulators? also we need to be concerned about who is behind those loans. were the deutsche bank loans backed up on the other side by deposits made by russian criminals who donald has been dealing with for more than 30 years? and his huge deductions, they may not be real. his tax fraud trials were about fabricating deductions. they are fabricated deductions it raises a national security question. who has got the money he deducted? where did it go? >> there's a reason the old adage, follow the money. on this one, still a lot of hidden trails to go down. david k. johnston, we've gotten some perspective, but we have a lot more to learn. up next, live to louisville with new developments today in the case of breonna taylor. to r car insurance so you only pay for what you need? really? i didn't-- aah! ok. i'm on vibrate. aaah! only pay for what you need.

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welcome back. a juror in the breonna taylor case, a grand juror, that is, has called for the proceedings to be made public and asked to be allowed to speak out. in a motion filed last night, the anonymous juror said the attorney general misrepresented the grand jury when announcing the decision. a judge said the recordings will be made public tomorrow. attorney general cameron has advised against the release, case it will compromise cases.

gabe, it would be highly unusual to ever see raw transcripts of a grand jury proceeding, but this is no usual case. >> reporter: yeah, that's exactly right, chuck. highly unusual. it is exceedingly rare to ever see that type of request that we saw last night from this so far unnamed grand juror. really the only time we have seen something like this in such a high-profile case, several years ago a grand juror following the high-profile police shooting in ferguson requested to be able to speak, but a judge eventually tossed out that lawsuit. again, this is exceedingly rare. this is where we're at. we're expecting tomorrow that the attorney general will make public the recordings of the grand jury transcripts, what we are still waiting on is for a judge to rule whether this anonymous grand juror will be

able to speak. this comes after the controversial decision last week that indicted one of the ives involved in this case on three charges of wanton endangerment. the taylor family has said since that grand jury decision was announced that they wanted harsher charges, but it's been unclear so far whether the more serious charges were ever presented to the grand jury. last night attorney general cameron did say that he recommended those wanton endangerment charges. he said the other two officers, what they did is justified, so we're interested in seeing the grand jury recordings and the taylor family want to see them, chuck. >> so basically, gabe, to sum up, it sounds like breonna taylor's family does not believe the grand jury was even allowed to consider harsher charges? >> yeah, that's exactly right. you know this, grand juries, you

know, the prosecutors make a recommendation often to the grand jury. in this case it was an open question, because attorney general cameron kind of sidestepped the question. last night in that statement, he said that his office recommended those wanton endangerment charges. now breonna taylor's family is asking for a new special prosecutor to present this case to another grand jury, and again, it's an open question on whether this grand juror will actually be able to speak publicly. >> that would be interesting, probably depends on whether this grand juror is still serving. a lot of those times you served for months and weeks at a time. gabe gutierrez, thank you. thank you all for being with us this hour. we will be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." we will have post-debate analysis, and tonight we'll have special nbc news pre-debate

coverage starting at 8:00 p.m. msnbc's coverage continues with katy tur, after this break. ur, k

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good afternoon. i'm katy tur. it is 11:00 out west, 2:00 p.m. in cleveland, where in just a few hours the 2020 campaign will feel almost normal, if just for a moment. joe biden and donald trump will meet for the first of three presidential debates. for