hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in the east. donald trump's first debate performance of the 2020 election has been roundly condemned for his performance, his lack of civility, and all manner of political sins consistent with donald trump's political deterioration. however, his loud, direct, and stunning call to arms for white supremacists on a presidential debate stage, on live television still provided that shocking signature moment for the shock shock in chief. racist responded to the call from the debate stage with a clear sign that they heard what the president was saying. here's that moment. >> are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in kenosha and as we've seen in portland? >> sure, i'm prepared to do that. >> well, do it. >> go ahead, sir. >> i would say almost everything i see is from the left wing, not

from the right wing. >> so what are you saying -- >> i'm willing to do anything. i want to see peace. >> then do it, sir. >> say it. do it, say it. >> do you want to call them -- what do you want to call them? give me a name. >> white supremacist s -- >> who would you like me to condemn? >> the proud boys, stand back and stand by, but i'll tell you what. somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left. this is not a right-wing problem. this is a left wing -- >> his own fbi director said -- >> this is a left wing problem. >> -- antifa is an idea, not an organization. >> you've got to be kidding. okay. >> that's what his fbi director said. >> we're done, sir. >> joe biden had not just the moral high ground there, but the facts on his side. and just in the last hour, donald trump sought to put the tooth paste back in the tube by telling the proud boys to, quote, stand down and let law enforcement do its job. now, think about that. he said that as though law

enforcement's job wouldn't include policing white extremism. this comes after donald trump's own fbi director, like biden said there, testified that white supremacists represent the greatest domestic terror threat, not antifa, which donald trump, of course, tried to conflate last night. >> what i can tell you is that within -- within the domestic terrorism bucket category as a whole, racially motivated violent extremism is, i think, the biggest bucket within that larger group. and within the racially motivated violent extremism bucket, people ascribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that. we look at antifa as more of an ideology or a movement than an organization. to be clear, we do have quite a number of properly predicated domestic terrorism

investigations into violent anarchist extremists. any number of whom self-identify with the antifa movement. and that's part of this broader group of domestic violent extremists that i'm talking about. but it's just one part of it. we have the racially motivated violent extremists, the militia type and others. >> if you're not up on your white supremacists, the proud boys are a group that the "new york times" describes this way. quote, the group has openly endorsed violence and has recently been tied to several violent incidents at recent protests. several civil rights groups have condemned the proud boys, including the southern poverty law center, which classifies them as a hate group. and the anti-defamation league which refers to them as hard-core white supremacists. to be clear, to those hard-core white supremacists, donald trump said, quote, stand by. and they heard him and they heard those words as a call to action. in fact, they celebrated pit.

nbc news is reporting today, on the proud boys account, on the social media app telegram, the group appeared to take this statement as marching orders. quote, standing down and standing by, sir, the account wrote. megan squire, a computer science professor at elon university in north carolina who tracks online extremism said, trump's giving the proud boys orders was their long-sought fantasy. the racist in chief is where we start. joining our conversation, former democratic congresswoman and "washington post" columnist donna edwards is back. former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence, frank figliuzzi is here. and executive editor for the recount and co-host of showtime's the circus, our friend, john heilemann is back. john edwards, i have to start with you. i spoke to someone on the trump side who all but predicted that trump would do something to appease members of his own coalition, if you will, because he was so flag rantly racist in his call -- refusal, not just

refusal to condemn white supremacy, but what was heard by the white supremacist as a call to action. but the damage was done. and i guess my question for you and my pushback to this person is, it's not what he says or doesn't say after the fact. it's his reflex in the moment is always to stand with white pr s supremacists. >> well, nicole, i don't know when we're going to stop imaging that donald trump is going to respond differently. this is who he is. there is frankly a through line from his time in the '70s and housing discrimination, the central park five, charlottesville, and now, of course, the debate last night, there's a through line to the president's embrace of white supremacy. and that is not -- and so, i just don't think he has the capacity to respond any differently. and any putting the tooth paste back in the tube is not going to

work, because this is who the president is. and remember, after he said stand back and stand by, he then said, this is not going to end well. so we have to ask ourselves, is this the president that we want? that is really what's on the ballot on november 3rd. >> you know, frank, i'm always torn about whether or not to do this, but i just want to end the idea that there is any -- the only anomaly would be if he ever stood up to white supremacists, not if he stood with them, engaged them and revealed they were an important part of his political coalition. so for that purpose, i want to show you his past statements that are very much in line with what he said last night. >> i don't know who proud boys are, but whoever they are, they have to stand down. let law enforcement do their work. everybody. they have to stand -- whatever group you're talking about, let law enforcement do the work. now, antifa is a real problem. because the problem is on the

left. and biden refuses to talk about it, he refuses to issue the words law and order. you saw that last night when he choked up. he can't say the words, because he'll lose the rest of the left. so he's got to condemn antifa. antifa is a very bad group. >> would you repudiate david duke? >> sure, i would do that if it made you feel better. i don't know anything about him. >> i don't know anything about david duke, i don't know anything about what you're talking about with white supremacy. you wouldn't want me to condemn a group that i know there's nothing about. i think there's blame on both sides. you look at both sides, i think there's blame on both sides. i have no doubt about it and you don't have any doubt about it either. >> so we played the testimony from christopher wray. donald trump, aside from being offensive and a racist, is also wrong on the law enforcement threat. there is -- christopher wray testified -- the largest single domestic terror threat is from

violent white supremacists. christopher wray testified that antifa at this point is more an ideology. what does it take to get the president to just line up factually with his fbi director, frank? >> look, you said he's wrong on the law enforcement threat. i'll go a step further. he is the law enforcement threat. the commander in chief has become the radicalizer in chief. and i will continue to say that the disturbing things we're seeing online, both publicly, from violent extreme groups and in their private chat rooms and discussions is looking even more today like what we see in violent islamic jihad radicalization and recruitment. and the radicalizer in chief continues to denounce the extremist violence. even when he tries to do it, he qualifies it immediately by saying, well, the real problem

is on the left, or, well, there's good folks on both sides. that's not how you stop the radicalization process in its tracks. and for those who are spinning this today saying, well, he actually didn't mean that, he didn't understand stand by versus stand down and tried to clean it up later. i say this. cut through all of this nonsense and look at the response he got from the violent extremist groups. that's all that matters. you can say what you want. you can make mistakes and slip of the tongue, but the bottom line is, how is he coming across to those people who have violence and racism and hatred as their agenda? and pleading ignorance as a strategy, i don't know this group, i don't know the proud boys, i don't know david duke, ignorance as a strategy doesn't work. the bottom line is woob people will be called to action, feel called to action because of what this president is doing. and one more point on law and order. this president can no longer claim that he is the law and order president, when he is making the job of law

enforcement all the more harder. since last night, i have talked with law enforcement contacts at both the federal and state level, who are now extremely worried about what this means and have to kick up 24/7 shifts of intelligence analysts, simply to monitor who's calling for violence and weapons on the street because of what the president said and the security now for upcoming debates because of street-level concerns, violence-level concerns has to be put on steroids because of this president. >> frank, let me follow up with you, because every word you just said is so jaw-dropingly terrifying. but i want to press you on the words he used today. today, he said, i call on the proud boys to stand down and let law enforcement do its job. it sounded to me like he saw white supremacists as aligned with police. isn't it -- i mean, isn't christopher wray testifying that

law enforcement's central threat to domestic peace and security is white supremacist-ininspired terrorism. doesn't he have that exactly backwards? >> the one person in washington these days who seems not to be egiquivocating at all is chris wray, who sees all of the intelligence from a 30,000 foot level, from local, county, and state law enforcement agencies and we need to pay attention when he says the authority is hate-based domestic terrorism group and they are on the far right. and furthermore, this notion of antifa, as being some kind of organized group is laughable. let me assure you something. if the fbi, who is very good at dismantling structured organizations, and using various federal legislation to do so, if they had a shot at taking down a violence organization, they would do it. but there's no organization to it. there's no home office in springfield for antifa. there's no president for antifa.

and so it's a movement and an ideology. it's not to downplay those who do violence within it. but it's rather to say, it's a falsehood to claim equivalency between an ideology and organized hate violence groups. >> frank, let me just press you a little further on this. if the fbi has eyes on the ground into proud boys and they saw on their chat rooms or had someone undercover who witnessed them talking about what donald trump signaled, where would they take that intelligence? how would they cough that up the food chain? bill barr, who's carrying the same lies about antifa on cnn and other places. would they go to the intelligence community which donald trump has basically decapitated and doesn't believe anything -- what would he do if hd that kind of information? >> well, first, let's understand something. the attorney general of the

united states, who overseas tes fbi because it's part of the doj, gets briefings daily or at least three times a week from the fbi on all of the pertinent intelligence. so ignorance cannot be used on the part of bill barr, either. he knows exactly what the fbi is finding, what the intel is saying, and he chooses to ignore it or even twist it in another direction, number one. number two, the fbi will take care of business when they can, but you've opened another issue, nicole, which is that there are constraints on law enforcement when it comes to these groups, because unlike international terrorism, where we can declare al qaida a terror group, we can declare isis a terror group, we have laws against being an international terrorist. we have no such law for being a domestic terrorism or declaring a domestic terrorism group. and what that means is the fbi can't get in those chat rooms proactively to get ahead of the violence. they have to wait for someone to advocate and move towards violence before they can do

anything about it. it's an incredible challenge that's just been made worse by our own president. >> so i want to show you biden's response to all of this, but first, i want to hear your reaction to last night's debate. i've been waiting since it ended to hear from you? >> oh, come on, really? hi, nicole. >> hi. >> i've been -- i've been holding -- obviously, everyone has been talking about it since it happened last night. but you and i, i feel like we have a similar kind of reaction to this. which is in the face of all of the vandalism that's occurred over the last four years, the vandalism of all of these institutions and rituals and processes, and obviously norms and laws, too. but these things that you and i have embraced and loved. you, for a long time, from the side of doing them on the political side of the aisle, to

see them all systemically trashed and destroyed and kind of cast aside by this president has always been really dismaying. and i don't know why i thought maybe that the presidential debate -- i mean, we knew he was going act like a jerk, right and attack biden and knew he wasn't going to pay attention to all of the rules. but the sort of systemic, annihilistic debasement of the form. in the 2016 debate, he was acting badly, but still taking part in the debate. i watched the first one against hillary clinton. it was a debate and he was trying in some way to behave like a presidential candidate. to see an incumbent president walk in and not just be aggressive or be negative or launch attacks or broadsides, but to fundamentally kind of try to subvert the point of this thing, which is, although it's a show and a media spectacle and

all that other stuff, it is a profoundly democratic forum. the lincoln -- douglas debates are lionized because of how we conduct our elections. and trump just defiled it in this way last night that i just found so -- again, it's weird that i can still be dispirited about things. but that's what i found so dispiriting about it. obviously, to evaluate it as a debate is ridiculous. joe biden acted like a human being, donald trump acted like a defiler. so joe biden obviously won the debate in that sense. but i think donald trump was doing something different. and i'm still puzzling over exactly what it was, but i think it goes to this larger question that you guys are talking about. he's getting ready. as he said, this is not going to end well. i think he's getting ready for what comes after election day and getting his people ready for that and i think he imagines

that it's going to be ugly and violent and he expects to need to do some ugly, violent things to retain power and starting to really be more chilling to me than last night than it ever has been. and it's been pretty chilling, as you know, for me, for weeks and months. >> i want to show you what biden had to say about it today. >> his dog whistle, the white supremacy, when asked would he condemn white supremacy, he said -- he didn't say a word. and then, when i said, how about the proud boys, which is a white supremacist group. he said, i just told them to stand down and stand ready. stand down and stand ready, based on the outcome of the election? and last night, i think, was a wake-up call for all americans. >> john heilemann, i agree with you, joe biden won because he was the only one debating.

donald trump was perfectly doing something else. i thought he was abusing the process, the forum, the tradition, the moderator, the democracy of the country and the viewer, but he did give joe biden something to really underscore that tape we ran at the beginning that every time he's put on the spot, his reflex and the words that come out of his mouth make it clear that in his mind, racists are a valued part of his coalition. >> yeah, and it's worse than that, nicole. i want to correct joe biden, of course. he did not actually say it, with respect, donald trump did not say stand down, what he said was, stand by. >> right. >> so much worse than the way biden was characterizing it. that was an honest mistake that biden made, but biden actually improved it in some way. it's not that he thinks that

racists and white supremacists are valued member of his coalition. it's not just that. but of course he thinks that because he's a racist and a white supremacist. there's no mystery to this anymore. and i agree, we always need to go back. we always need to make the point, you played the video of me. that was me in that montage, that was me in 2015 asking him whether he would denounce david duke, with the same tone as he said last night which was like, fine, if it will make you happy, i'll the announce him. who do you want me to denounce? >> right. >> totally insincere, and he thinks they are a valuable member of his coalition, because he's one of them. there's ample evidence of it now. we should always ram home the point. i think it's important for joe biden to say it's a wake kaup yup call. the way he's going to try to use that coalition to hold on to power and what that might mean for the country, and the people

around him now say, the real war starts on november 4th. it's between november 4th and january 20th, when the real wrar is going to happen. that's the kind of talk that steve bannon and other people around donald trump are now trafficking in. and he wants that coalition to be part of that fight. so, yes, need to call it out, we need to say it, but we can no longer be surprised of how he thinks about this part of his coalition. werv we should not be surprised, because of course he values them, he is them, they are him, they are one in the same. >> donna edward, i want to get back to the politics, but i want to -- i guess i just want to press you on where we are. it is staggering that we are at a place where the standard-bearer for one of the two political parties isn't just one of the racists, but he's asking the racists to do something, as john is saying,

something ugly, something he might need in his service to hang on to power. and it's existing at this same moment that 67% of the country has aligned itself with the noble goals of the racial reckoning and black lives matter. just talk about these two things existing in the same nanosecond. >> and nicole, what is difficult for us, we are not accustomed to have a president of the united states wallow in the mud of white supremacy. and it's hard to know what to do with that. but what we should do is take the president at his word. i think that john is right. that the president is preparing, and he said it last night, it's not like he's making it a big secret. he said last night he'll take the result on election day, and everything else that happens after that, which means all of those so-called fraudulent ballots that are coast by mail,

don't count at all. and he's going to send people to the polls and frighten people at the polls and frighten them from showing up in the first place. and then sew chaos afterwards in an effort to hold on to power. he has not made a secret of that. and he's going to use the lens of white supremacy to exact all of this. and this is why i don't think that we should be giving the president of the united states -- i can't even believe i'm saying this, giving him a forum to continue to spew this kind of chaos and disruption and racism and lies. we need to stop that, because this president is a clear and present danger. i have said that before and last night he proved it to the american people. >> do you know, hillary clinton used the exact same phrase, that he is a clear and present danger, in the 8:00 hour, before the debate started. you using it again today is just something that gives me an

empty, sick feeling. donna edwards, frank figliuzzi, thank you for being a part of this on the most surreal day, perhaps, of the trump presidency. john heilemann is staying around for those purposes. the surreal nature of this news cycle. when we come back, donald trump's response to the pandemic should have surprised nobody, especially not our next guest, who served on the white house coronavirus task force. we'll talk to olivia troy, the olivia troy, about last night and about how trump is still planning massive rallies, despite ongoing warnings from his task force. and after the debacle in cleveland, the group in charge acknowledging today that changes must be made, as steve schmidt and robert gibbs weigh in on what that could look like. plus, we're following joe biden's train trip back home, meeting with voters with 34 days left to go. all those stories when "deadline: white house" returns. odors in the air and on soft surfaces.

for 45 days.

why are you holding the big rallies, why are you not? you go first, sir. >> because people want to hear what i have to say. >> are you not worried -- >> i'm the president and i'll have 25,000, 30,000 people show up at airports. we have airports, hangers. >> are you not worried about the disease? >> so far, we have had no problem whatsoever. it's outside, it's a big difference, according to the experts. >> he's not worried about you. >> last night, joe biden trying to warn and donald trump clearly illustrating just how much the sitting president really cares about the thousands of loyal believers who attend his campaign rallies.

largely maskless and always squished in, and sometimes, often, indoors, which you just heard donald trump lie about last night at the debate, as this country continues to average about 43,000 new coronavirus infections every day. the terrifying notion that trump only cares about himself is something that continues to be stressed by our next guest, who served on the inside, on that white house coronavirus task force team, tasked with protecting the country from the pandemic. here's the latest warning from former member, olivia troy. >> i want say to my colleagues, if you're going to speak out, right now is when it matters most. we've all lived it. we know that president trump cares only about himself. >> joining us now, olivia troy. he, of course, worked in the trump administration until august, serving as a policy staffer on the coronavirus task force. officially as an adviser to vice president mike pence. she's also an adviser on

homeland security and counterterrorism. she now works with the anti-trump group, republican political alliance for integrity and reform. john heilemann is also still here. olivia, thank you so much for making some time for us. this has to be surreal. how are you doing? >> i'm hanging in there. thank you for having me on the show. it's certainly been a very hard few days. and as you know, the media has completely needed me having been a career intelligence officer. but i'm hanging in there and quite frankly grateful that president trump showed his true colors to the entire nation and put on display exactly what i have been talking about, about what it's like to brief him. what you saw is literally what it was like inside the white house every day. >> you know, olivia, i'm so glad you make that point. as a former staffer, it's always been my observation that donald trump can't be briefed. he can't read and he can't be taught anything new. so i guess what i want to ask

you, though, is how did he pull off taking in information that he was able to then communicate to bob woodward as early as february and march, about, one, how deadly the pandemic was, two, that it didn't just kill older people, it also was deadly for young people and children, and then lie to the public for six more months. i mean, it seems almost like a maniacal and unique compartmentalization for him on coronavirus specifically. is it just that the political and imperative is so great for him to lie and spin about the pandemic, that he's able to compartmentalize a couple of key facts? >> look, i don't think the president is -- i mean, he's no idiot. he takes in the information and he listens to it. he understands it. he's certainly briefed on it on a daily basis, on the facts, the science, everything that's

happening. he gets intelligence briefings where he hears the same thing from the national security community. he gets the facts. but the president chooses to repeat and sometimes hear solely what he wants to hear. and you're right, it is appalling that he is telling bob woodward early on, and i have to tell you, i was in shock when i heard the woodward tape for the first time, because it was clear to me that everything we had told him had sunk in, yet he chose to publicly deny it, which cost us lives. >> yeah and i guess if you pull the thread through to this week, and you're quoted in that stunning piece of reporting in "the new york times" about the elaborate effort on the part of the task force and the vice president's staff, mr. short appearing to take a roll in trying to distort information coming out of the cdc and the u.s. government about kids,

about how dangerous it is to put kids all back in a classroom together, jest talk about what happens to the human beings, who help push out lies to our kids. >> you know, i don't know how any of these people can go home and really face their families and loved ones. i also don't know how a lot of the senior political staff claim to be evangelical and christians when i think that their actions are anything but. how do you purposefully politicize things and weigh politics over the life of americans, especially over our future generation. and it's not even just specifically the children who would be exposed to the virus and put at risk, but it's what they're doing when they come home and their risk to the family and the community around them and also teachers. >> hi, olivia.

john heilemann here. >> i want to ask you a question on looking forward. there's obviously now as we head towards -- we're almost in october. we're almost to that point that donald trump has told us that he thinks that he's going to want to -- he says we're going to have a vaccine ready. we have this meeting, this fda meeting on october 22nd, when a lot of the third stage of the trial date is all going to come. if the fda will make some rulings and president trump will maybe be able to make a move politically for optics. on the basis of everything you saw internally. for the average voter, average american who's going to view this process play out on the vaccine, with the politics in place, the political appointees, the scientists, and donald trump and all of the equities involved. if you're just an average american watching this and donald trump stands up in the last week of october and says,

we have a vaccine, it's ready to go, what would you make of it? what would you counsel a friend or a family member, how would you ask them to -- how would you advise them to view that statement by donald trump? >> i think the vaccine issue is a very critical one to really track closely. i'm aware of this upcoming meeting on october 22nd and i will be watching like every other american to see what happens right after that meeting. and i guess what i'm going to advise my loved ones and what i have been advising my loved ones and those around me is watch closely and do not trust president trump and what he says, regardless of what he is saying publicly and i would say, watch what the doctors say. watch people like dr. hahn. watch the experts at the fda and listen to dr. fauci. if they come out and seem

alarmed or if they get overruled, and i use that word specifically, because in the white house, i have seen first hand a number of things get overrided by political entities inside the white house. and the president himself has stated publicly after dr. hahn testified recently that he was putting additional regulations in place to, you know, instill confidence in the american people. because the vaccine, this is people's lives and security. we need this vaccine. we need this vaccine as a tool, as part of the tool kit against the virus. but it's important to really listen to what these scientific people are saying. and if you see them look distressed or if they say, i tried to put this regulation forward, or a group of experts come forward and say, but the president or the white house has overrided it, i would take that warning strongly, and really make that cause for concern.

>> olivia, i have a really quick last question for you. donald trump mocked joe biden yesterday for wearing a mask. what was it like to have a president who refused to lead by example, one, but was so scornful and disdainful of the few things we could do, wear a mask, social distance, and stay at home? >> it is demoral idizing on a dy basis to have him do this when it was clear internally and in the white house, we were having numerous discussions on the importance of the basic fundamental issue of wearing a mask. had he not politicized it, we would be in a very different place right now. i'm confident that i know that other -- the doctors and other experts and other people, very senior in the white house, strongly believe that, as well. i'm not alone on this one. and it was just very hard to know that this is one fundamental basic thing that the president will just not get onboard on.

and it's frustrating to watch these rallies when he puts his own people who are die-hard supporters at risk. it's heartbreaking. >> it really is. it really is. olivia troy, thank you so much for speaking out. thank you for doing so as a citizen. thank you for coming on this show. it's really great to hear from you. and john heilemann, thank you, my friend, mofor sticking aroun and spending more time with me. >> with the first presidential debate in the books and nearly a month to go in the election day, we'll talk. we'll be right back. tch large there's surprising power in this patch salonpas dependable, powerful relief. hisamitsu. vicks vapopatch. easy to wear with soothing vicks vapors for her, for you, for the whole family.

trusted soothing vapors, from vicks and then found the home of my dreams. but my home of my dreams needed some work sofi was the first lender that even offered a personal loan. i didn't even know that was an option. the personal loan let us renovate our single family house into a multi-unit home. and i get to live in this beautiful house with this beautiful kitchen and it's all thanks to sofi. and i get to live in this keeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. (♪ ) you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. claim your seventy-five-dollar credit

when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo tonight, i'll be eating a veggie cheeseburger on ciabatta, no tomatoes.. [hard a] tonight... i'll be eating four cheese tortellini with extra tomatoes. [full emphasis on the soft a] so its come to this? [doorbell chimes] thank you. [doorbell chimes] bravo. careful, hamill. daddy's not here to save you. oh i am my daddy. wait, what? what are you talking about?

♪ ♪

does your president have any idea or understand what you're going through? and if he does, does he care about? is he able, as my mom says, to be able to walk a mile in your shoes to be able to know you. or does he just ignore you, look down on you, lie to you, like this president did when he told ohio workers that -- don't sell your house. don't sell your house, because no more factories are going to close. what i saw last night was all about him. he didn't speak to you or your concerns or to the american people even once. donald trump broke his promise. he said he was running to help the forgotten american. as soon as he got elected, he forgot them. i will never forget. >> that was joe biden today

during a stop on his train tour through ohio and pennsylvania, speaking directly to the american people there, assuring them that he'll put their interests front and center if elected. it was like the tactic he would use to look directly into the camera to address the public. a strategy that seems to be appreciated by undecided voters. when luntz would ask them for a word or phrase to describe each candidate. here's what they said about biden. ploe professional, a politician, showed restraint and compassion, predictable, presidential. donald trump, on the other hand, this is from frank luntz' group of undecided voters. horrid, arrogant, a crackhead, unhinged, and un-american. the chaos last night was acknowledged today by the commission on presidential debates, which in the last few hours said that it plans on making changes to the format for the upcoming debates which could

include cutting off a candidate's microphones if he violates the rules. joining us now, robert gibbs, steve schmidt. i joke that i need you guys to talk me down. i really am only halfway joking. i mean, where do we go from here, robert gibbs? >> well, i would say the race for the last two months has been remarkably stable and if you look at what each of these candidates had to do last night, i don't think anyone with an honest or straight face could tell you that what donald trump did last night was what he needed to do to add to his vote totals. you mentioned the type of chaos, the screaming, the behavior. that's the kind of stuff that's driven moderates. that's the kind of stuff that's driven suburban voters away from donald trump. and so he needed them to think differently about his presidency last night. and i don't think they woke up

this morning thinking anything different than they had for the past four years. i think joe biden on the other hand, you mentioned talking directly to the camera. i think he had some moments of genuine progress in walking the american people through a plan. i think he accomplished far more of what he needed to do to reassure the american people in this presidential race. >> steve schmidt, i was up way too late watching way too much of this network last night, but i heard you say something that doesn't get pointed out enough. we have overcorrected for the trauma of thinking that the polls were so off four years ago. explain where you think the race is today. >> well, first off, nicole, good afternoon. but the polls were not off four years ago! the mythologies of the 2016 election, what the polling showed is that hillary clinton would win by 2.5 points, which

is exactly what she won by. and in the end, donald trump was able to knit together 78,000 votes across three states, largely on the back of james comey's intervention in the last week. the reality for this race is that joe biden has the biggest, most durable and broadest lead of any presidential candidate in the modern era. and everybody is underreporting it, because nobody wants to be wrong two election cycles in a row. trump's campaign strength is materially overstated in the coverage in the media every day. his campaign is falling apart and going down. architect of his campaign was hauled off to an asylum after threatening to kill himself after beating his wife. we all watched the police videos on the front lawn as he had to be tackled for resisting arrest or not complying with the officers' orders. we see every day, you know, more debasements of vital institutions.

but that debate last night was a disgrace. it was a national humiliation. and only one thing happened in that debate that matters. it happened at the end. what donald trump said was, he threatened the country with violence because he's losing the election. he told paramilitary extremists, white supremacist organizations to be ready. and they're all heavily armed. and that's exactly how they took it. we should take what they say seriously about what they heard from the president of the united states. and so to everybody that's out there, every republican, every professional republican in washington, d.c., you're at the final line now. there's only one line more that donald trump's going to ask you to cross and it's this line. he's going to ask you some time in the next 45 days to cross the line to keep in power somebody who's lost through a popular vote and the sovereign will of the american people. he's going to ask you to try to

maintain someone who is illegitimate in the most powerful position in the land through power, not through the will of the american people. that's what you saw last night. every one of these republican senators today who were trying to excuse trump's support of of the proud boys and the white supremacists. every republican senator that's trying to look away from donald trump's intimations of violence. every republican staffer should start thinking about what it is that they're going to be asked to do. they're going to be asked to cross a line in the name of trump to end the american experiment. to end the idea that we have a peaceful transition of power in this country, to end the idea that the american people decide who the leader of the country is through a voting process. he's going to ask that. what he did last night was one line before that.

>> we are looking -- go ahead, steve, just let me tell people what they're looking at. we just put up a live picture of joe biden, who's this greensburg, pennsylvania, with some of his secret service in the shot as well. go ahead, steve. i didn't mean to interrupt. >> take him literally, take him seriously. we all heard what he said. governor correas went on "good morning america" today and he told the country exactly the opposite of what donald trump said. we all heard it. the whole country last night. it matters. it's important. where is the outrage? where is the condemnation? where are the republican members of congress and where the foreign former senior elected officials in this country who heard a president threaten violence against the country if he loses an election, threatening the country to unleash chaos, and threatening violence with the use of pa

paramilitary white supremacist militias that are loyal to him. are you kidding me? susan collins goes out there today and says that there's fault on both side? really? we're at a dangerous hour in this country. again our nation was humiliated by this last night. our adversaries in russia and china and iran are ecstatic. our allies are whorrified and te american people is embarrassed. it's embarrassing. >> no one is going anywhere. we have to sneak in a quick break. we take those startling descriptions of what went down last night on the other side of quick break. don't go anywhere.

robert gibbs and steve schmidt are with us. robert, pick up on what steve is talking about that today, the morning after, crickets from the republican party who saw the standard-bearer of one of the two major political parties do what steve schmidt just described, call the proud boys and all the white supremacists in that category to action to stand by and make abundantly clear that he doesn't plan to accept the results of the election. >> yeah, and look, i think the republicans have made it abundantly clear that over the course of the past several months, that they're simply not going to get out in front of donald trump on these things, regardless of what he does. last night, donald trump was

asked to condemn a white supremacist group, as steve said, that's heavily armed. and he didn't condemn them, he called them to arms. i think the next 41 days of this election, right, 34 until election day and then at least one more week, maybe, are going to be some really dangerous, tense times in our country. i think every person has got to be on edge. they've got to be aware. i think governors and mayors have to have really plans to keep voting sites safe. i'm worried about voter intimidation. i think the concern isn't just that they're going to get the -- that the proud boys are going to get called out after we cast votes. i'm deathly worried that they're going to get called out as we're casting votes. that we're going to have some kind of conflict within a balloting place. that people will be turned away that want to vote and are intima intimidated.

and i think it's going to be incumbent upon law enforcement -- we'll need some law and order to protect the most precious right we have in this country, which is to pick our leaders. so i think it's going to be a very tense 41 days. >> i want to follow up on that, robert gibbs. what do we do? who do we call? what's become clear to me is there's no one to call, right? donald trump sits atop the federal government. he was the one sort of contradicting the fbi director, joe biden was agreeing with him. frank figliuzzi went so far as to call donald trump basically the instigator and the radicalizer of these groups. it is a serious threat, thanks in large part to what donald trump did last night. how do we, at a minimum, make sure people aren't too scared to vote? and at a maximum, protect those who go vote? >> i would say this. i would get local law enforcement involved in this. and i think, you know, look, everybody's got one of the greatest weapons of all time with them at all times. and that's a camera phone. put this stuff on social media.

in many places, there are restrictions for even how close somebody can be to hand out a piece of literature to remind you who to vote for, right? there are some real -- there are real rules on how close people can be. and we're going to have to put that video up on social media. it's going to have to get shared. we're going to have to get law enforcement at all different levels involved in this. it's not going to be easy, because as you said, there are going to be places where -- that are not going to come rushing to help some of these voters. and it's going to take a collective effort to make sure that we don't turn on the tv in the lead up to november 3rd or november 3rd and, unfortunately, realize we're watching belarus happen in our own country, and not just watching cable tv about what might be happening halfway around the world. >> robert gibbs, that is one of the most alarming things i have

ever heard you and anyone that knows you or is a fan of your work on television or in the government or on the campaign trail know, you are a sober person, not prone to alarm. you as well, steve schmidt, although your alarm has been growing. you two did nothing to talk me down, but it appreciate both of you for keeping it real. thank you for spending some time with us. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. what happens when we break prop. 13

and raise property taxes $11 billion a year? small businesses get saddled with big tax bills they can't pay. they're forced to cut jobs. or, pass on higher costs to consumers. that means we pay more for everything like gas, food, utilities and health care. and the cost of living in california gets even more expensive. now is the wrong time to raise taxes on californians. vote no on prop. 15. proposition 16 takes on discrimination. some women make as little as 42% of what a man makes. voting yes on prop 16

helps us fix that. it's supported by leaders like kamala harris and opposed by those who have always opposed equality. we either fall from grace or we rise. together. proposition 16 provides equal opportunities, levelling the playing field for all of us. vote yes on prop 16. will you urge your supporters to stay calm during this extended period, not to engage in any civil unrest? and will you pledge tonight that

you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified? president trump, you go first. >> i'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that's what has to happen. i am urging them to do it. i am urging my people. i hope it's going to be a fair election. >> you're urging them what? >> i am 100% onboard. but if i see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, i can't go along with that. >> hi, again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. the stakes for democracy herself, too high to let a statement like that one get lost in the bluster, the interruptions, the boorish behavior and the stunts we saw last night from donald trump. too high to ignore that the incumbent president of the united states of america said before tens of millions of people on live television that he will not commit to accepting the results of the election and may even tolerate violence from

his supporters as the ballots are counted. we saw it before to a lesser degree in 2016 when trump repeated eerepeat ed over and over and over on the campaign trail that the election was rigged against him. so we know this is what he does when he thinks that he's losing. so now four years later with his presidential legacy and his brand on the line, trump is working overtime to undermine confidence in democracy itself to discourage people from voting in the first place and to plant the seeds for a legal challenge after the polls close, no matter how baseless his case may be. we point it all out now. not just because he said it last night, but because the pattern suggests he'll only pick up the pace of these attacks on democracy as his re-election prospects continue to slip away. as we see more headlines like this one from "the washington post," showing a surge of mail-in voting for democrats including in key states like florida and north carolina, it's a surge described by republican strategist in that piece as,

quote, stun welcome "the post" reporting that it's, quote, causing alarm among gop party leaders and strategists that president trump's attacks on mail-in voting could be hurting the party's prospects to retain not just the white house but also the senate this year. snap polls show joe biden coming out of last night's debate a clear winner, with national and battleground polls already showing joe biden way out in front and holding on to the clear path to victory in november. and election day now only 34 days away, which means that we can expect more headlines like those to deepen the intensity of trump's campaign against democracy, one that according to thomas friedman in a column out in today's "new york times," poses an existential threat to the united states. he knows a bit about that, because he spent a career covering civil wars and the collapse of states. he writes this, quote, i can't say this anymore clearly, our democracy is in terrible danger, more danger than it has been in

since the civil war, more danger than after pearl harbor. more danger than during the cuben missile crisis and more danger than during watergate. when extremists go all the way and moderates just go away, the system can break, and it will break. i saw it happen. i would like to think that such a thing could not happen in america. i would like to think that, but aam very, very word. joe biden, who every single poll shows is ahead, the very stable and unchanging lead, offers an example of why people are turning to him for stability and hope. >> the american people will decide who the next president of the united states will be, period. so i'm urging americans to go out and voskand vote, show up. if you can vote early, vote

early. vote whichever way is most convenient to you, but vote. and if you show up in large enough numbers, nothing is going to change, i promise you. if in fact we win this election, this president will step down. a lot of bravado, he has no alternative. the american people will not stand for it. >> that is where we start this hour with former democratic senator, claire mccaskill. also with us, contributor to the agree owe and politics journalism professor at morgan state university, our friend jason johnson. and former chief spokesman for the justice department, matt miller is here. lucky for us, all three are msnbc contributors. you're also all brutally honest with me and with our viewers. and i really want to know, for you first, claire mccaskill, is he for real? or do you think if it's a very clear defeat for him that he places the martyr and packs up his twidly winks and goes home. >> i believe that in his heart, he is a coward.

this is not a man of great courage. i think he's a phony, i think he's looking for a fig leaf i believe he thinks he's going to lose and he wants to have an excuse, because he doesn't want to confront that he is going to be rejected by the american people so i do not believe -- now, having said that, all things are possible with this guy. nicole, let me just take one minute here, because i had accustomed down, okay? i had a couple of hours this morning. i drank some chamomile tea. i did a little meditation, i accustomed down. and then i heard what he said -- i don't know who the proud boys are. now, it was the -- the story coming out of the debate. it is all they were talking about in the white house this morning. it is all they were talking

about on his network, fox news. for him to stand there and not reject the ideology of the proud boys, the hate, the white supremacy, the misogyny, the anti-semitism. for him to not reject that and instead lie and say, i don't know who the proud boys are, how stupid does he think we are? and it is just infuriating at anybody who tries to say that what he did today somehow fixes last night. no, no, no. it makes it much worse, because he is not rejected white supremacy, he is not rejecting their violence. he is not rejecting their vigilanteism. he is not rejecting what he's willing to do for them if he crooks his little finger. that's why he's going to lose and i think he'll go off into the distance with his tail between his legs. >> i'm sorry for the time you

spent drinking tea and medicating, but i need you to keep going, claire. >> well, it really is just frankly unbelievable, isn't it? how can he look into the camera and say, i don't know who the proud boys are. he knows who the proud boys are. his staff has told him all morning. i mean, google it! for goodness sake, google it! they're a hate group! and he will not say it, because he wants them. he wants them on his side. that should be enough right there to reject this man wholly and fully. tom friedman is right, we should be worried that this guy has gotten into the oval office and dirtied it up with this kind of hate. it is outrageous for our country that we all love. okay, go on to somebody else. i got to take a breath. >> jason -- look, no -- i appreciate it! i felt the same way. and i said last night after i watched it that it was like

watching an abusive relationship. trump's the abuser and the country is the abused. and jason, i wrestle every single daily with how much trump to show the viewer. i am as restrained and limited as i can be without hiding the news from the viewer. but having to watch him for 90 minutes bully and -- you know, as we said, that warrish behavior. i guess the other side of it that maybe can restore some of our faith, let us ease up on -- and god bless claire and chamomile. if the polls are right, the counterpoint would be, it's not workin working. >> well, it's never been working. the guy lost by 3 million votes to hillary clinton. trumpism has never been about

the people. he rose to power because he had a condensed and passionate group of people who were willing to back him. it's because they're willing to do things that the rest of society isn't willing to do. and that's where i'm primarily concerned. here's the thing. i think donald trump is a coward. but i don't think donald trump is really to do things that will sacrifice himself, but he'll sacrifice other people. he'll send other people out to do violent things. what's the most basic thing a president is supposed to do? protect the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic. well, in 2016, he was saying, russia, can you hear me? now he's asking for the proud boys. he's literally inviting foreign and domestic enemies in the united states to destroy this country. and you have to remember, donald trump doesn't care if america gets the story. all he cares about is if he stays in power.

so i slauaw last night as the beginning of a very dangerous salvo. we saw it in virginia, where we saw right-wing groups trying to intimidate people voting. that's what we see continuing. that's the danger of what we see right now. >> matt miller, i see it the same way, as our friends claire and jason johnson do. i want to sort of empty my notebook and tell you my understanding of how the trump side sees this. i'm told that the campaign, senior, senior management viewed last night as a disaster. that bill stepien is incredibly frustrated with his candidate's inability to do anything to change his standing, which is that he is losing. they understand that he is losing and he is likely to lose. and this is how i understand their strategy in attacking the vote itself. that their plans, sort of legally and politically, are to challenge the states with universal mail-in vote. i know that includes at least

new jersey, nevada, and a few others. i'm not trying to narrow their offenses, because they're vast, and everyone, it's like watching them batter the whole country with his abusive rule breaking of a sort of sacred tradition of the american political system, but i wonder if they're not showing some leg on their political weakness and showing us that they, too, know that his defeat is most likely eminent. >> i think all of these things are related. i think the reason you see them pulling out the stops and see reports that they're considering to have state legislatures come in after the vote and declare that those electors are given to donald trump no matter what the votes or no matter how the votes are cast. those things are all related to the fact that he's been down quite dramatically in the polls, basically for six months now. since joe biden captured the democratic nomination, this race hasn't gotten that close, never

got as close as a seven-point lead or so for joe biden. and that's why you see the president behaving that way. but when you take the totality of the president's remarks together, they are so dangerous. it's bad enough that he's been unwilling to condemn white supremacy. but when you combine that call for the proud boys to stand by with him saying, as you said in the clip that started out this segment that he wants his supporters to come to the polls. when you have him refusing to accept or refusing to pledge that he'll accept the election results, you get this toxic stew where you can sooelz see that in the days after the election, if it's close and he's not willing to accept it, the proud boys who heard him say, you know, stand by, actually do come out to the polls. either on election day to try to intimidate people or in the days after to try to intimidate those who are counting the votes. it is the most irresponsible and most dangerous thing we've ever heard from him and that we've heard from any president in modern history. >> i want to stick with the

facts on this. christopher wray -- my dog is in here. i think she thought i needed some canine therapy in here. christopher wray has knocked down this idea that there's any sort of massive voter fraud going on in this country, but donald trump has an ally in his sitting attorney general. i want to show you barr spreading the disinformation earlier this month with wolf blitzer. let's watch that. >> this is playing with fire. we're very closely divided country here. and if people have to have confidence in the results of the election and the legitimacy of the government and people trying to change the rules to this methodology, which as a matter of logic, is very open to fraud and coercion, is reckless and dangerous. and people are playing with fire. >> we have not seen, historically any kind of

coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise. >> so, jason johnson, i mean, if the word of the sitting fbi director isn't enough for you, ben ginsburg, who's a long time republican election lawyer, wrote an op-ed that while republicans have been searching for the mysterious voter fraud scandal for decades and decade and decades, the only one committing it in plain sight is donald j. trump. >> remember, this goes back to 2016. oh, you know, people came here -- it never made any sense, right? if i sneak in the united states, i'm trying to stay under the radar. so it's always been a lie. it's always been sort of a nonsense sort of excuse. but what's been most damaging and most concerning, i keep pointing this out is regardless of what the polls say now, you still have dejoy trying to destroy the post office

processing centers. you still have the possibility of hacking and foreign interference. you now have the president asking people to go and intimidate and harass people at polling places. and here's what's key, right? what did we see at the beginning of the pandemic? you saw white nationalist groups and neo-nazi marching in and intimidating entire statehouses in michigan. what happens if you're a 55-year-old, you know, married mother of two and you're a poll worker? what happens when 15 proud boys show up outside your house? you're not going back to work the next day. like, that's what's makes this so dangerous. the fraud is being committed on the part of republicans, and they hope that keeps people from voting. >> matt miller, i want to talk about the real political impact, though, potentially on the other side. i said this a few months ago, because i heard it from some senate campaign strategists that still work on republican campaigns, thaz assault on the mail-in vote was very likely going to cost the senate

republicans the majority. it's now bearing out. i think time has proven that fear rationale. i think there's a lot of other things playing into it, like the extraordinary abuse of power and hypocrisy they're displaying around the supreme court process. but i wonder if you think there's some silver lining in that trump is going to so dissuade the republican mail-in vote in places that he needs that he may harm himself and senate republicans? >> i do, but i want to say something about your last question to jason first and the clip you showed from the attorney general first, because when you see voter intimidation, if you see the proud boys and other right-wing groups and trump supporter shows up at the polls to intimidate voter. you know who it's supposed to be that stops that from happening? it's supposed to be the justice department. they have hotlines for voters to call and hotlines for election officials to call. where local u.s. attorneys and local u.s. fbi agents will stop

voter intimidation and arrest people and charge them with crimes. and if you watch bill barr on that clip or the rest of the media tour he's been conducting and watch what the justice department did in pennsylvania where they blew up this false claim of voter fraud, it is impossible to have any confidence that they'll behave that way on election day. and that is the thing, the backstop doesn't exist this. the anecdote may be to your point that what the president has done discouraging people from votinging by mail is going to so drive turnout, especially for senior folks who support him, who don't think their vote will count if they cast ballots by mail, and then don't come out on election day. it may have the effect of the president depressing turnout among his supporters. and i think that's why what joe biden said last night is the anecdote to all of this. the anecdote for all of this is for people to vote and make this election result so clear and resounding that it's not close

enough for the president to steal or contest, that the results are overwhelming and he has to leave office. >> it's so amazing. that was the private ambition of the biden candidacy months ago, and it has now spilled into public because of the antics of l donald trump. because claire, jason, and matt are exactly what we all need to do, they are staying put. donald trump made it clear last night that spreading conspiracy theories about a coup is for some reason a big part of his re-election strategy. today, former fbi director jim comey poked a giant hole in that strategy. we'll have that reporting, next. plus, with the issues of race and law and order making hn headlines at the debate, there are new developments in the case of breonna taylor and new questions facing kentucky's attorney general. and from the debate stage to tens of millions of americans, donald trump mocked joe biden for wearing a mask. it's something his own scientists say could help the coronavirus gt under control gel

and save lives. 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. see yourself. welcome back to the mirror. and know you're not alone. because this is not just a mirror, it's an unstoppable community. come on jesse, one more! it's every workout. come on you two, let's go! for everyone. so join in now. and see your best self. in the mirror. keeping your oysters business growing

has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo and then found the home of my dreams. but my home of my dreams needed some work sofi was the first lender that even offered a personal loan. i didn't even know that was an option. the personal loan let us renovate our single family house into a multi-unit home. and i get to live in this beautiful house with this beautiful kitchen and it's all thanks to sofi.

last night, when both candidates were asked about election integrity, donald trump did his best to play the victim in a race that he's currently in a position to lose. and surprise, surprise, he turned back to his worn-out conspiracy theory that the obama administration spied on him. >> if you look at all of the different people, there was no transition, because they came after me, trying to do a coup. they came after he spying on my campaign. they started from the day i won and even before i won. from the day i came down the

escalator with our first lady, they were a disaster. >> it's also no surprise that today, less than five weeks before the election, former fbi director jim comey is again facing questions as trump's republican allies in the senate tried to rewrite the russia story to their political advantage. here's comey on the 2016 investigation into russian election interference and attorney general bill barr's criticism of it. >> this was an investigation. it was appropriately predicated and opened that had to be opened. and that was conducted in the right way, picked up by the special counsel, led to the indictment of dozens of people. and a finding by your colleagues in the senate that the head of trump's campaign was a grave counterintelligence threat to the united states of america, because he was funneling information to a known russian intelligence officer. the notion that the attorney general believes that was an illegitimate endeavor to investigate that mystifies me.

>> joining our conversation, former u.s. attorney, chuck rosenberg, who worked on the staffs of both robert mueller and jim comey. lucky for us, he's also an msnbc contributor. matt and claire are still here. chuck, not just on the substance of director comey's testimony today, i want to hear your thoughts on that, but just on the existence of this hearing today, why is the republican-led committee still prosecuting an investigation into an attack on an american election? >> they must have made a decision, nicole, as crazy as it sounds, that still resonates with some portion of their base and that it will activate them for the election. look, the reason that the fbi initiated the investigation, as jim comey explained today in his testimony, is because they had credible evidence that there was ongoing interference. they got it from a friendly government. they had to open the

investigation, as jim said today, not doing so would have been an absolute dereliction of duty. and it's really beyond me that they continue to politicize this. i don't get it. i worked in the intelligence community. i worked on two occasions, as you pointed out, for the fbi, a large part of the ic. l there is no zpoo in the intelligence community about what happened. and as jim pointed out, the senate intelligence committee in a bipartisan report made the exact same finding. so why are they doing this, nicole? you really ought to ask them, because i'm dumbfounded. >> i want to ask you about sort of a crush of new reporting, mainly in "the new york times" that got ahold of two decades of donald trump's tax returns and something peter strzok, former fbi agent and official said on this show. ebs that looking at those

returns, a counterintelligence investigation into donald trump would be justified. just to understand who has that much financial leverage over him. what say you? >> oh, yeah, look, i had to apply for a security clearance for a number of my jobs, nicole. i'm sure you had to do that as well when you went to work in the bush white house. we would not have jobs if we had debt. i can tell you, i would not get -- there's no way anybody would sign off on my security clearance if i had not just $400 million in debt, but if i was taking tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and, by the way, they don't know from whom i borrowed money or to whom i owe it. so i heard pete earlier today. he said it was much more of a counterintelligence concern than a financial concern. i think he's right. you know, if i had to pay back half a billion bucks, it would also be a financial concern. but at the very least, it's a counterintelligence concern. and that's why in addition to disclosing financial information

when you hold high office, the norm is to disclose your tax returns so we can see those concerns as well as the potential conflicts of interest. there's a whole bunch of reasons that presidents do this. and in fact, joe biden and kamala harris released their returns yesterday. that is not the exception. that is the rule. the exception is donald trump. >> you know, claire mccaskill, i want to bring you in on this. you're right, it went so under the radar that kamala harris and joe biden show taxes, because until donald trump, it was the norm. and they recovered, but the actual act of making that disclosure was what every presidential campaign did. i was involved in the process for both the candidates i worked for, john mccain, and george w. bush. but i want to ask you about something hillary clinton said. she last night described donald trump as a clear and present danger to our national security. and my question is two-part. one, do you agree.

and do you think this reporting in "the times" about just how leverage and indebted he is, the millions of dollars that have come in from foreign governments, i think it was turkey and the philippines and one other and this knowledge that his businesses are really bleeding out financially, does it add to your previous concerns about him as a national security threat? >> of course, it does! and when you add to that -- i mean, don't thereon what listen says, listen to what he does. and it's obvious to anyone who is even halfway paying attention that donald trump is somehow worried about what putin thinks of him. he will not confront putin. i mean, it is -- i mean, it is still astounding to me that he can get 40% in the polls when he refuses to confront putin on putting a bounty on american soldiers. that flies in the face of the values they always thought were

central to the republican party. that's kind of -- the republican party was all about the military and protecting the military and protecting veterans and protecting -- giving the military what it needs to succeed. so it is obvious that he's got something with erdogan and putin something with erdogan and putin and others

the unfair money bail system. he, accused of rape. while he, accused of stealing $5. the stanford rapist could afford bail; got out the same day. the senior citizen could not; forced to wait in jail nearly a year. voting yes on prop 25 ends this failed system, replacing it with one based on public safety. because the size of your wallet shouldn't determine whether or not you're in jail. vote yes on prop 25 to end money bail. what i'm going to do is call together an entire group of people at the white house, everything from the civil rights groups to the police officers to the police chiefs and we're going to work this out. we're going to work this out so we change the way in which we have more transparency. when these things happen. these cops aren't happy to see

what happened to george floyd. these cops aren't happy to see what happened to breonna taylor. most don't like it. we have to have a system where people are held accountable. >> that was joe biden last night calling for accountability and more transparency in policing. after the deaths of george floyd and breonna taylor. just a week after grand jury decided not to charge any officers in taylor's death. today, a judge granted kentucky's attorney general daniel cameron's request to delay the release of the grand jury findings, giving the ag until friday at noon to release the tapes. cameron's office requested the delay so they can remove the names and other personal information from the witnesses from the 20 hours of recordings there. the judge ordered the release after an anonymous member of that grand jury filed a motion asking that the transcripts and recordings be made public. joining us, blaine alexander who

has been following the story. i understand this to be about removing identifying information on the transcripts. >> that's what the attorney general is saying that he wants to remove the information. so for instance, phone number, social securities, dates of birth, and he says because there are more than 20 hours of recordings here, it would take him some time to do that. so the judge has given him until noon on friday to do that. the family of breonna taylor, so many people who have spent more than six months there protesting and, everybody who followed this case closely, anxiously awaiting what is inside those tapes. what was present to the grand jury. that has been one of the biggest questions all long. we have some insight on what the grand jurors did consider. we know it was wanton endangerment for one of the officers but he told the local

station that it was not appropriate to recommend charges against the other two officers because he says that from the moment that breonna taylor's boyfriend, kenneth walker, fired his legally owned gun, one shot, because he thought there was intruders coming in, he said the other was on were justified. if they wanted to go further on charges, they could have evaluated that. so we expect to see those tapes come out on friday. i just spoke with an attorney and he says they're going a step further. they've filed a motion to have not only an unredacted version of the grand jury recording but the full recording or the full file from the police integrity unit. that's notable because that is internal unit that investigates all officer involved shootings. so the mayor said that he wants to put that out. but he said that they won't settle for redacted version.

they want all that information to come out publicly. >> and jason johnson, you were on the air with me when this first decision was revealed that no charges would be filed against the officers responsible for the death of breonna taylor. what do you think that these transcripts and recordings could refeel? >> they prove that daniel cameron is who i said he was. that he was a coward. that he abdicated his responsibility given to him to be a special prosecutor. that he participated in what amounts to a cover-up. this is important for us to understand about this and why people are still protesting and still this angry. what we've heard this week. not just a juror coming forward saying, hey, look, daniel cameron lied to you. we've also seen leaks, right? we've seen body camera footage that ended up in the hands of democracy on vice tv showing several officers were allowed to

go unaccompanied into the investigative space of breonna taylor's apartment. we found ballistic reports by the louisville police that say they can't determine whether or not walker's bullet was the one that injured the officer. daniel cameron lied. he lied throughout his entire press conference. and then he abdicated his responsibility to present all the possible charges to the jury. what he did, and we've seen this with grand juries before. he took like 12 different puzzles, dumped they will on the flr and said, hey, figure out which one is an apple. when they can't decide anything, he comes back with a weak charge that we know doesn't come close to holding accountably officers engaged in this behavior. so i'm glad to see that some of this will be done. i'm concerned as to what kind of transcript we might see. it might only have names missing. it might look like morse code. we don't know who daniel cameron is getting his leads from.

>> we will continue to cover it and follow with it your help. thank you both for spending some time with us on today's news. when we come back, donald trump takes his mask mockery to the biggest stage of all. we'll have that story when deadline white house continues after a quick break. [♪]

if you experience bladder leaks, you shouldn't have to sacrifice discretion for protection. try always discreet. the unique design features protective leakguards, which help prevent leaks where they happen most and an absorbent material that turns liquid into gel, for up to 100% leak free protection.

the shapewear design provides a close and seamless fit, to ensure total discretion. choose the solution that keeps you drier. try always discreet underwear, with a money back guarantee. brand power. helping you buy better.

>> dr. fauci said -- >> he did not say -- >> he said very strongly -- >> masks are not good. then he changed his mind and said masks are good.

>> changed his mind is an interesting and inaccurate way to describe the scientific process. one that either shows a true lack of understanding or something worse. you decide. 500 years ago, we thought the world was flat. then we were able to collect what's called new information advances and the debate over masks, donald trump is the flat earther. refusing to accept the latest data because he was once told, or once understood something else. it's a frustration that might be part of the reason trump is receiving such low marks from the american people on his handling of the coronavirus. the latest polling shows 59% of americans disapprove of his performance, compared to 40% who approve. joining our conversation, health contributor dr. gupta, our friend claire mccaskill is still with us. dr. gupta, you wanted to share

with us thoughts from last night. >> good afternoon. so a few things i didn't get to do last night that i think are important to the american people. number one, it is really clear. especially after this debate if we needed that clarity that donald trump does not care for any patient or any american's well being. and here's the proof. on covid-19, he keeps talking about the china travel ban as though that was some miracle cure to prevent the pandemic and was an effective solution. it turns out, 400,000 people traveled between china and the united states after the ban went into effect. it didn't do a darn thing. it was representative of no actual strategy that was effective from the trump administration. its deflection for his inaction when it came to the defense production act and the information he had on february 7th with respect to this being an airborne disease. number two, make sure all your viewers are clear. i represent the institute for health met rigs and evaluation. we are the health metrics for

the w.h.o., us, other major modelers of covid-19, we have no idea where the president is inventing this 2.5 million lives saved number that he keeps reiterating and regurgitating. it's false and deflecting from the 120,000 american souls that could have been saved if he had done the right thing on the right time line. so please, for all your viewers out there, say to your family members and friends, inaction is what cost people's lives. he didn't save 2.5 million americans. that's false. number three, i want to make sure the record is clear. dr. anthony fauci never. masks were not good. the president was trying to make that claim yesterday when defending his mixed messaging on. this he should not take down dr. fauci with him. dr. fauci never said that. he said initially that the scientific evidence was under settled. he never questioned the messaging on masks. i think that's really important. i'll close on two points here.

on health care reform, the president sits there and says 100 million people don't have pre-existing conditions. actually, his own hhs and chs says it might be 130 million people with a pre-existing conditions. why does that matter? we know most people that are dying in icus from covid-19 have a pre-existing condition and in many cases, the family members, the ones i've cared for, they say i didn't even know they had a pre-existing condition because they didn't have durable access to herring. he does not caring. he empathy for this epidemic of pre-existing conditions. and that's why he doesn't have a trat for health care reform. and finally, on wildfire management. 60% of the land that's burning right now on the west coast is under federal control. if you look at the weather forecast in seattle that says 73 degrees and smoke. we are once again under a cover of smoke. this president has done nothing to manage federal forests. he is again deflecting. we don't have high quality

masks. every american deserves access to a well fitting high quality mask, especially on the west coast where there is smoke at least four months out of the year. what has he done? nothing. >> you know, claire, if you take the sum total of all of that. i mean, that's joe biden's case by and large to the american people on the failures that trump has in protecting us. i don't think most people blame trump for the existence of coronavirus. it is a global pandemic. it was declared. but i think everything that happened afterward, all the reluctance to model safe behavior. the insistence having a republican convention with no masks highlighted. no social distancing, modeled. the fact that trump doesn't see himself as someone who can save people's lives or protect the people who are his constituents is still stunning to me. >> he doesn't look past donald

trump. this is a man surrounded by a mirror and everything reflects back to him. i think donald trump's worst characteristics are his inability to tell the truth and his inability to relate to anybody else's pain. and those two characteristics are pretty important for a president of the united states. i thought joe biden had some of his strongest moments in health care. he is right and america knows it, that donald trump has not produced a health care plan. while he is trying to dismantle the health care system that we have right now, he has no replacement plan. the republicans never have. it is the bigge efgest hoax, toa word the president likes, the biggest hoax in america is the republicans are prepared to deliver health care. >> yeah, yeah. claire, i love having you on on

these days. i'm sorry dr. good night dlarks thank you for that very thorough fact check on all the president's lies last night. when we return as we always do, we'll remember lives well lived. ♪ [ engines revving ] ♪ ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

see yourself. welcome back to the mirror. and know you're not alone. because this is not just a mirror, it's an unstoppable community. come on jesse, one more! it's every workout. come on you two, let's go! for everyone. so join in now. and see your best self. in the mirror. ♪ i had this hundred thousand dollar student debt. two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in debt. ah, sofi literally changed my life. it was the easiest application process. sofi made it so there's no tradeoff between my dreams and paying student loans.

student loans don't have to take over for the rest of your life. thank you for allowing me to get my money right. ♪ so his professional resume speaks for itself. 20 years in the majors, eight different ball clubs, two world series, obviously a beyond

respectable career no, doubt. as "the new york times" notes, what really made jay johnstone an all tiler wasn't necessarily his time on the field. it was the way he played off it. he was an epic prankster. spring training, 1981. he tied his manager's door knob to a palm tree and tampered with his phone so he come call for help. later he and his team dressed up as grounds keepers during the game. they helped group the infield. then they changed back into their uniforms and then headed back into the inning. he became a broadcaster. he pulled a smelly microphone prank with players. his legendary humor was coupled with a good, good heart. in his later years, he became a spokesman for hope for heroes which helps veterans with emotional difficulties. he died of complications from the coronavirus amid a battle with dementia at the age of 74.

we'll remember him the way his daughter described him to the associated press. he wanted to find the humor in high of no matter how serious things got. that was his motto to everything. bring a smile to people's faces. and he sure did. thank you for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. "the beat" with ari melber will start after a very quick break.

welcome to "the beat." i'm jumping right into an unusual panel for tonight's show. welcome to our exclusive panel tonight. former trump insiders who filled senior roles for donald trump in business, communication, and government, only to conclude that he's unfit for office or re-election. you're looking at people you may know. the former trump personal attorney, michael cohen, who testified against his old boss. anthony scaramucci who opposes trump re-election after briefly serving in his white house.