if your constipation and belly pain keeps coming back, tell your doctor and say yesss! to linzess. that's all for me tonight. i got to go work my second shift. i'm alicia menendez, but i'll be back here tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. eastern. for now my colleague joshua johnson picks up our coverage. hello, joshua. >> hey, alicia. hello to you. i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you tonight. the president's wellness is a matter of national security. it also affects what's been called the biggest election of our lifetimes. how healthy is our democracy, especially at the top? from nbc news world headquarters in new york, welcome to "the week." ♪ we are glad you're with us for another two hours of context, clarity, and conversation.

tonight the big story is the covid crisis, now affecting the president directly like never before. early yesterday morning we learned that he and first lady melania trump both tested positive for coronavirus. yesterday evening he was flown to walter reed national military medical center in bethesda just outside washington. the white house called it a precautionary measure. this morning at walter reed, white house physician dr. sean conley indicated that the president's condition is improving and that his fever had broken. mr. trump is getting two experimental treatments, an antibody cocktail produced by regeneron, which is designed to boost his immune system, and the antiviral drug remdesivir. that is meant to shorten his recovery time. after dr. conley's update, a source familiar with the president's health spoke on background to the white house press pool. on background means the source spoke authoritatively but not to be quoted directly to the

reporters covering the white house today. this source revealed that, quote, the president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. we are still not on a clear path to a full recovery, unquote. moments ago the president tweeted a video of himself at walter reed. >> i came here, wasn't feeling so well. i feel much better now. we're working hard to get me all the way back. i have to be back because we still have to make america great again. we've done an awfully good job of that, but we still have steps to go, and we have to finish that job. >> the president's diagnosis came two days after the first debate. former vice president joe biden stood just 12 feet away, but now it feels like we're miles away from where we were just a few days ago. >> the first of the 2020 presidential debates. >> i'm not going to answer the question --

>> why wouldn't you answer that question? >> because the question is -- >> radical left -- >> will you shut up, man. >> that was crazy. what was that? >> it was a train wreck. >> this was such a hot mess. >> this was cringeworthy. >> a national embarrassment, a disgrace. >> this sort of debate shouldn't happen in a democracy. >> we just got news that hope hicks, one of the president's closest advisers, tested positive for the coronavirus. >> hope hicks traveled with the president on air force one two days ago. >> i just heard about this. she tested positive. so whether we quarantine or whether we have it, i don't know. >> the president of the united states has tested positive for covid-19. >> this is an incredibly serious moment. >> the president, out of an abundance of caution, is going to be heading to walter reed medical center. >> aside from the president and first lady, republican senators mike lee -- >> thom tillis -- >> as well as the president of notre dame university, father

john jenkins, have all tested positive. >> who else is at risk now from the president, from whoever infected the president, from the rest of the white house staff and from everyone on capitol hill? >> last saturday the president hosted an event in the white house rose garden. he announced the nomination of judge amy coney barrett to succeed the late justice ruth bader ginsburg. there were few masks to be seen in that tightly seated crowd of supporters and staff. that ceremony now amounts to a potential super-spreader event. at least six attendees have since tested positive. they include kellyanne conway, senators mike lee of utah and thom tillis of north carolina, and former new jersey governor chris christie. this evening governor christie checked into new jersey's morristown medical center as a precaution. other close aides who were not at the rose garden event also tested positive, including hope hicks and campaign manager bill stepien. republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin also tested

positive. let us begin tonight with nbc senior white house digital reporter shannon pettypiece. shannon, we've heard some conflicting reports over the president's condition. his doctors are saying one thing. we mentioned those reports from sources close to him that contradict that. what do we actually know consistently tonight about how president trump is doing? >> well, i think the consistent theme we continue to hear is that time will tell, that we need to wait and see, and the next 48 hours, the next several days, whatever period that is, is going to be crucial for determining the course of this illness, of this virus in the president. and obviously i'm not the doctor, and you'll have many doctors on later tonight who can explain this a bit more. but what people close to the president have been advising is that we are in the early days, and we don't have an answer yet about where things are going to go. and you even see the president in his video acknowledging that. you know, you hear -- or in his

tweet saying, you know, it's going well, i think. we'll see. i hope to get back soon. but no one is making any definitive plans. an acknowledgement that we don't know what the future is going to hold at this point. >> they seem somewhat comfortable with this acknowledgement? i was going to ask you about the timeline. we're kind of fuzzy on the timeline of events prior to now and also on the potential timeline of what the treatment might look like although, shannon, i think that second timeline is a little bit more reasonably fuzzy because the timeline for treatment kind of depends on how the president responds. >> right, exactly. and how the illness progresses. i mean we do know, and i think when you hear these statements from the white house or the president, you can see the contrast between how they talk about the president's illness and how they are handling --

versus how they handle the first lady's. they talk about the first lady having mild symptoms. they talk about the first lady doing well. no one is talking about the president having mild symptoms. we are not hearing that. you know, we are hearing the president say he feels better today than he did yesterday. of course, again, i'm not the doctor here, but that is something frequently that coronavirus patients have said once they get in the hospital and start getting certain, you know, antibiotics -- i guess not antibiotics in this situation, but various drugs, they start feeling better. so that's the type of language we're hearing, and as the president said, you know, he put out a video yesterday. he put out a video today essentially to give some reassurance because not only to the american public, but really to the world and foreign leaders around the world and adversaries around the world about what state the president is in, at least from these videos, it appears, you know, he is functioning. he is able to converse.

yesterday we were able to see he was able to walk. he is not on a ventilator from indications, and so i think when these videos come out, that provides that type of reassurance. but we can't take anything away from these videos as far as what his health is going to look like in the morning, what's going to happen overnight, or certainly what's going to happen a week from now. >> thanks, shannon. that's nbc's shannon pettypiece starting us off tonight. let's continue now with dr. david shulkin, the former secretary of veterans affairs and a practicing physician. secretary shulkin, good to see you tonight. welcome. >> glad to see you. >> what did you make of the video that the president posted this evening? >> well, it was certainly good to see the president speaking comfortably, generally looking well. but i sure would have liked to have seen some empathy in the way he spoke. you know, 205,000 people who have had his same illness aren't with us today, and certainly a lot of families and a lot of

people suffered. and we didn't see any real empathy coming from the president about this. you know, when people who are famous get an illness, particularly the president of the united states, this is a teaching moment, joshua. this is an ability to explain to others something about this illness. you know, here's what we know. this is an illness that spreads through the air. this is an illness that despite the testing that goes on in the white house like nowhere else in the country, even with all those negative tests, we still saw a spreading event last saturday. this is a virus that clearly can still spread outside. this was an outside event. and so you shouldn't be having events where there are lots of people together not wearing masks, and this was the opportunity for the president to share with the nation what we know about this virus, how to save lives, how to create something out of this illness that becomes a national strategy. we just didn't hear any of that.

>> talk to us a little bit about where president trump is being treated. the walter reed national military medical center, what makes that different than, say, treating him at the white house? we're told that the president can get quite a high degree of care at the white house. >> yeah, the white house has a full medical unit, has every capability. but there's nothing like the president's unit at walter reed. when you go there, it's an entire floor devoted specifically to the president. it has about six rooms. it has the full capability of all hospital care but also full intensive care right in that unit, that you wouldn't have to move if you had to. it has the kitchens. it has dining rooms, office space, and it really is an extraordinary unit. you saw the ten physicians and nurses that came out who cared for the president. these are incredible people where you get care.

and, in fact, most americans who get coronavirus, now 7 million of them, don't get access to that type of care, that type of team, types of medications that the president hasab access to. many americans getting this virus are wondering how do i get that kind of care? >> it's one of the remarkable things for people who have never been there. walter reed sits right outside of washington. it's basically across the street from the headquarters of the national institutes of health. it sits right next to the uniform services university, which is basically a military medical school. there's a medical, dental, public health, allied professions school. so you're in the middle of this huge federal slash military medical complex like nothing else on the planet. also the president is getting access to these treatments from regeneron and getting treatment for remdesivir. what do you make of those two options, particularly since they're not fully approved, fully vetted for general use for

everyday people? >> yeah. first of all, i couldn't agree with you more about walter reed. this is a real national center of excellence. in fact, walter reed himself was the one who discovered about yellow fever, another virus. so it's pretty interesting that this is where the president's being treated for a virus. but in terms of the treatments that the president's receiving, both of these are relatively experimental treatments. remdesivir, of course, has an emergency use authorization, but it's a new antiviral that was developed for ebola, now being tested on covid-19. but the regeneron monoclonal antibody has really not been used widespread before, so this is really state of the art, and we're seeing how that works. but of course, you know, most americans just don't have access to this type of care. and we want everybody who suffers from this pandemic, this

virus, to be able to get the type of care that the president and others of privilege are being able to receive. >> former va secretary dr. david shulkin, good talking to you tonight. thank you. >> thank you, joshua. >> much more to come tonight. at this week's presidential debate, the president chose not to clearly condemn a right-wing group called the proud boys. who are they, and where do they fit in the spectrum of far-right groups? also covid-19 was always a matter of national security to an extent, now even more so. b that the president has tested positive. we'll talk national security next. ♪ limu emu and doug. positive. we'll talk national security next. e president has tested positive. we'll talk national security next. lk national security next isn't that what you just did? servic ♪ stand back, i'm gonna show ya ♪ ♪ how doug and limu roll, ya ♪ ♪ you know you got to live it ♪ ♪ if you wanna wi...

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national security experts have a lot to worry about now that the president is hospitalized for covid-19. administration officials are closely watching countries including russia, iran, and north korea. the concern is that they might try to take advantage of any

vulnerabilities or confusion brought on by the diagnosis. joining us now is natasha bertrand, a national security correspondent for politico and an msnbc contributor. natasha, good evening. >> hey, joshua. thanks for having me. >> let me begin with a clip of leon panetta, former defense secretary, former head of the cia, elaborating a little bit about this concern over potential foreign threats connected to the president's diagnosis. watch. >> they are going to be tempted to take advantage of that situation, and that's why it's critical that our national security team be on alert because this is a moment where our national security is at risk. i think the most important thing frankly is that the vice president or the chief of staff have to speak to the american people about the steps that they're taking to assure that this country is being governed

and that the duties of the presidency are being fulfilled. >> that's leon panetta speaking to judy woodruff of the pbs news hour. natasha, what do you make of that, particularly whether we're seeing any signs of that right now? >> yeah. transparency is so key at this moment, particularly because foreign adversaries are going to be looking for opportunities to inject any kind of disinformation and chaos that they can into the narrative surrounding president trump's coronavirus diagnosis. this is a moment where they can really just act totally unfettered, injecting conspiracy theories, for example, if we're not getting information in real time, accurate information that we can trust from the white house. this is according to national security experts and former intelligence experts that i've spoken to extensively over the last few days, who say that this is all going to be monitored very closely by the pentagon, by the intelligence community, to make sure that there is no disinformation here that really spirals out of control and causes a panic among the american people.

but of course the press conference that we saw earlier from the president's doctors and the cleanup that had to happen afterwards, it is really poised for adversaries to take advantage of just because with conflicting narratives and with the president's chief of staff coming out and saying actually the president's condition is worse than the doctors made it seem, that is something that makes the united states look extremely vulnerable, which is why we need consistent information coming out about the president's health, and we need to be assured by the white house, by the administration, that there is someone who is capable of discharging the duties of the president should he become incapacitated. >> wind of to that point, there's been a lot of discussion in the last few days about the 25th amendment, about the chain of succession from the president. i mean some of us know it by heart. but just to take a look and review, based on the way law sits now, of course it would be the vice president first. then the speaker of house, nancy pelosi. the president pro tem of the

senate, chuck grassley of iowa, who we learned this week does not plan to be taking a covid test. what is the process, natasha, for putting that into practice? mike pence is planning to do more campaign traveling this week, including to the western half of the country, to utah, to arizona. how does that work if something happens while president trump is at walter reed and mike pence is in salt lake city? >> yeah, it's a great question, and his continued travels are very ill-advised according to national security experts that i've spoken to. mike pence is carrying -- well, a military aide next to him is carrying a nuclear football at him with all times in case the president does become suddenly incapacitated and he needs to be able to discharge those duties. but there's a couple ways the 25th amendment could come into effect. the first and the easiest way would be for the president to write a letter essentially

transferring power to the vice president. that would be very straightforward. it's something that has happened in the past, especially during temporary transfers of power. but the more complicated part were to be if the president were to suddenly become incapacitated. if he were to suddenly go on a ventilator and he hadn't been able to write that letter transferring authority beforehand, then the vice president would need to invoke section 4 of the 25th amendment, which would allow him to, with a majority of cabinet secretaries, declare that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. but that would also require two-thirds vote from congress to approve. so if so many members of congress are also getting coronavirus, are they going to be able to come back and vote and proceed with that transfer of power if that were to happen? there's a lot of moving pieces here, and it's made all the more unpredictable by the fact that the coronavirus is in itself extremely unpredictable, that

the vice president himself could fall ill, that members of congress are falling ill themselves, and we just don't know where this pandemic is going to lead and how it's going to play out in the coming days. for now the president seems perfectly capable of discharging his duties, however. >> if i could ask you one last question, another national security story came up, came from h.r. mcmaster, the former national security adviser, saying this week that the president is, in his words, aiding and abetting vladimir putin. briefly, natasha, before we go, was that just hyperbole, or is he accusing president trump of something specific? >> h.r. mcmaster is not known for being an alarmist or known to engage in hyperbole. this was a pretty remarkable thing for him to say. i think he was speaking more in terms of the president's rhetoric being divisive ahead of the 2020 election and refusing to outright condpem white supremacists and these fringe groups that vladimir putin has been known to stoke in terms of trying to create divisions in our society, trying to sow chaos. h.r. mcmaster, i believe, was saying that the president is not

being helpful in that respect and therefore he is indirectly furthering vladimir putin's goals. >> politico's national security correspondent natasha bertrand, natasha, thanks very much. >> thank you. election day is one month away, finally. but the polls can feel far out of reach to some voters. president trump's conspiracy theories about voter fraud are making it worse in real ways. we'll explain just ahead. stay close. what if one stalk of broccoli could protect you from cancer? what if one push-up could prevent heart disease? one wishful thinking, right? but there is one step adults 65 or older can take to help prevent another serious disease - pneumococcal pneumonia. one dose of the prevnar 13® vaccine can help protect you from this bacterial lung disease that may even put you in the hospital. it's not a yearly shot. prevnar 13® is used in adults to help prevent infections from 13 strains of the bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia. don't get prevnar 13® if you've had a severe allergic reaction

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concerns, but so far the vice presidential debate is still on for this wednesday. the remaining presidential debates are still in play. the first debate featured a theme from the president that was quite familiar if you follow him on twitter. constant, repeated claims of voter fraud. a five-month investigation by "the new york times" magazine looked into these claims. it found them to be largely baseless. it also found extensive efforts by the trump administration and by the gop to push the idea that voter fraud is a big problem. jim rootenberg was part of that investigation. he's a writer at large for "the new york times" and the sunday magazine, and he joins us now. jim, welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> one of the specific examples you cite in the piece has to do with the strategy to flood every state's news with manufactured evidence of voter fraud. talk about how this is supposed to work. >> well, you know, i think we're already seeing some of this. you know, there was that case we

heard about recently out of pennsylvania about some missing, thrown away ballots. these were seven to nine military ballots that president trump made a big deal of, the justice department made a big deal of, that this might be fraud, that votes for trump were getting thrown out. you know, the officials there are getting to the bottom of it. it's not a huge case. it seems to be an error. i guess they'll get to the bottom of whether it was intentional, but these are nine ballots. but that becomes the kind of story that takes over headlines and leaves the impression there's some giant fraud under way in pennsylvania. you know, what we learned, especially in our investigation, that when you go back and look at these cases, these big announcements that break close to election days, the evidence doesn't firm up, and these cases don't come the way -- it never is what it sounds like it's going to be when they announce these investigations or findings. >> how does the impact of this disinformation manifest itself? i mean is the president just kind of tweeting into the wind,

or can we note actual, tangible evidence of where his words have had an effect? >> well, i guess that's exactly what we're going to see. but, you know, these aren't just words in the wind. they can serve a couple of important purposes. first of all, they degrade confidence in the election system, so now the president has worked for months to forward this notion that voting by mail, very important in a pandemic for a lot of people who are afraid to go to polls or have health issues, that this system is illegitimate, that it's so fraudulent, it can't be relied upon. so then some people may decide, well, i'm not going to vote by mail. i'm going to go to the polls. and if there's a bad covid outbreak in their neighborhood, maybe they won't vote at all. so that's a direct effect. but also i would look for these allegations, these notions to feed into the legal arguments that the president's lawyers may make when we get into contested situations in the states assuming we do. maybe we won't. but if we do, there are going to

be so many charges of fraud floating around, it's going to be hard to keep track of them. but it's going to paint one big picture of a hobbled election system. >> what is your sense of how democrats respond to this? the president has a gigantic twitter platform, millions and millions of followers online and other outlets through various other media. what's the pushback? what's the fightback to all of this? >> the biden campaign has spent months gaming out every potential scenario including ones we haven't spoken about where does the president find a way to make good on his threats to get somehow armed troops to polling stations? it's illegal. it's very hard to do, but the democrats are ready with legal arguments against that. they're kind of working not purposefully, but the civil rights community, those lawyers and the democrats have a common interest in wanting the most people to vote as possible. the civil rights groups are ready to bring suits to protect voters. and then there's some outside groups that are at the ready as well, and some of this will just

boil down to biden v. trump in court after court. and ultimately some of those arguments could end up at the supreme court where the president may just well have one extra vote on his side, though it already is believed that he would have a majority right now. >> as a native born floridian who lived through bush v. gore and grew up in palm beach county, your reference of this going to the courts just gave me agita. before i have to let you go, we've already had 2 million votes cast. the president is now being treated for covid-19. what impact do you think, if any, that has on this whole online effort, on the potential for more disinformation that could affect voters? >> i don't know. we'll see. i mean already now the question is what happens, god forbid, if he can't go forward with his campaign. that's going to throw far more chaos into the system because some votes have already been cast. there are some regimes in place that are ready to deal with this, and each state has a different set of rules.

but it would be a lot of chaos on a system that is already being strained to the brink by the pandemic. >> jim rutenberg, writer at large for "the new york times," thanks very much. >> thank you so much. the president's hospitalization could make things feel off-balance and uncertain. but this is not the first time we've experienced this kind of uncertainty. we'll take a look back coming up. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction with spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. the shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one disposable pad.

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. so much of what has happened during the trump administration is truly unprecedented. what's happening right now is not, and that's a good thing. america has dealt with presidents in the hospital before for routine procedures or to save their lives. how did other generations handle this kind of thing? nbc's erin mcloughlin has the story. >> reporter: with the president in the hospital, the nation's on edge, and americans anxious. >> i think it's scary for our country. i think this is like a very unprecedented moment where we really don't know what's going on. >> reporter: while shocking, this is far from the first presidential health crisis. [ sound of gunfire ] >> after ronald reagan was shot in 1981, the white house released this photo, cropping out a nurse with a machine and a chest tube. >> history tells you to treat medical reports from the white house has, at best, incomplete

and sometimes outright there are elements that can be manufactured to produce a certain political effect. >> reporter: in fact, many presidents suffered from prolonged illness in secret, including 101 years ago during the last pandemic. in the midst of the 1918 flu, woodrow wilson became ill. his condition later compounded by a stroke. his wife edith and advisers made presidential decisions for him until the end of his term. for years, fdr concealed his polio and his wheelchair among other health issues. during his re-election campaign, cropping his cardiologist out of a photo op. he later died of heart failure while serving his fourth term. john f. kennedy secretly battled addison's disease, a life-threatening condition of the adreenle glands. according to a biographer, during the cuban missile crisis, he was on several medications.

>> this is an amazingly resilient country. we've gone through just about everything in over two centuries. we always survive. we always rebound. we always prosper in the end. >> reporter: erin mcloughlin, nbc news. the coronavirus crisis is much bigger than president trump, particularly the relief bill that seems to be going nowhere. democratic congresswoman barbara lee of california joins us when we come back. ♪ greetings mortal! your journey requires liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. liberty power! wow. that will save me lots of money. you're insured! this game's boring. let's get tacos. only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.

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president trump is just the latest of thousands of americans personally caught up in the coronavirus pandemic in the last few days. government leaders have been negotiating how to provide aid for millions of americans whose lives have been upended. so far, we're still waiting on another deal. how long will we wait for that deal to get done, and what might be in it? joining us now is democratic congresswoman barbara lee of california. her district includes oakland

and berkeley. congresswoman, good evening. >> good evening, joshua. really happy to be with you this evening. >> good to have you with us. i'm not sure who has the answer as to what we do to go forward. the house just passed the h.e.r.o.e.s. act. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has no intention of bringing this to the senate floor let alone trying to help pass it. it seems like the negotiations for a bill have been at loggerheads for quite some time. is there any way out of this mess? i mean other than trying to get rid of mitch mcconnell or move him out of the way or, you know, defeat him in november, is that all that democrats have to cross their fingers for, or is there another way forward? >> we've been working, josh, as you know. we passed one h.e.r.o.e.s. bill, over $3 trillion several months ago. the republicans would not even begin to negotiate. just this past thursday night, we passed another one, and hour speaker is doing a phenomenal job in terms of the

negotiations. we started at over $3 trillion. we've come down to a little over $2 trillion. but it's important that we have this bill, and i believe the negotiations are moving slowly, but i think they're moving in the right direction. having said that, people are living on the edge. they need what's in that bill. we have an expansion of the unemployment compensation of $600 a week. we have the $1,200 direct assistance payment. we have funding in for tracing and testing. we have $75 billion targeted, much of that, to medically underserved communities. we have resources in for state and local workers. here in california these wildfires are taking lives like you would not believe, and we have funding in there to help our firefighters and our health care workers. so this bill needs to be passed. our state and local governments deserve the resources. >> well, so what i'm wondering is, and you know, someone who understands the appropriations

process, let me ask a real dumb question, and i think i can say that with you because you represent oexd, and i know oakland, so i'm going to ask you a real dumb question. the democrats wanted $3 trillion. the republicans said $1 trillion. you're working your way to $2 trillion. that's not working. why don't y'all pass a $1 trillion bill with something just to get aid moving and then come back to the table when you can and say, okay, we got some money moving. let's try and get some more moving. i think for americans who don't know the nuts and bolts of this process, it doesn't necessarily make sense why nothing's moving. why not just pass a $1 trillion bill and come back for another one? >> but something is moving, and let me say oakland is a very enlightened community, joshua. >> true. >> they are very woke. they know what's going on. you cannot make a choice between funding schools and our children or feeding hungry people. how do you determine that? you can't make a choice of the extending unemployment benefits of $600 a week and allowing state and local governments to have to lay off people,

essential workers, health care workers, people who are really providing for a lifeline during this very tragedy pandemic. so those choices cannot be made. you have to make sure everybody has an opportunity to at least survive during this terrible period. we have to have more contact tracing, testing, medical resources, and so we narrowed the time frame down, and that's reasonable, to come down so many months and just say, look, we've got to take care of all of these needs of the american people. we're not going to choose between children and hungry families, and that's just not a choice that we can make. and so the speaker is working very hard with secretary mnuchin, and we have to continue to have the public say to the republicans to come halfway and to pass this deal so people can survive during this next few months. >> if i could ask you on another tip related to another oaklander, kamala harris, what your thought is about these debates moving forward.

we're supposed to have the vice presidential debate on wednesday, the rest of the presidential debates are to be determined. where do you think this goes from here in terms of the debate process? what would you like to see? >> well, first i think we have to understand -- and i have to say, you know, we wish president donald trump and the first lady and all of his staff and his supporters a speedy recovery and hope that no more people get infected. unfortunately this has taken off like what we know has taken off and so many people have died in our communities. over 200,000 people have passed away, and that's unacceptable. so everyone should have access to quality medical care, which in fact this h.e.r.o.e.s. act provides for. i think having said that, the debates have to be very careful. i don't want to see seven-feet distance. i think that's too dangerous. even what have they come up with now, 10 to 12 feet in space?

that's still without a mask on is very dangerous, and i believe and i'm listening to the health experts and our scientists, and i heard earlier a report that was very, i think, reasonable, to have them in two separate rooms. maybe that would be a bit safer for both be a bit safer for both candidates but it can't go on the way it's going on now. this has been a wakeup call. the virus is real. we have to take every precaution. i have to protect others and others have to protect me, and we have to really see it that way and take every method in terms of this campaign season to protect the public, because this is what it's about. it's about our health and our safety, and we can't allow senator harris nor vice president pence to be at risk, because this is a deadly virus. >> congresswoman barbara lee of california, of oakland. congresswoman, good to see you. >> wakanda.

>> yes, if anywhere, it counts as the heart of wakanda, oakland for sure. good to see you, congresswoman. thanks so much. >> bye-bye. good to see you. president trump told them to stand back and stand by. they stood up and cheered. a closer look at the proud boys next.

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before the president tested positive for the covid-19 many across the nation were stunned

by this moment from the presidential debate. >> i'm willing to do anything. i want to see peace. >> well, then do it sir. >> do it. say it. do it. >> you want to call them -- what do you want to call them? who would you like me to commend. >> white supremacists. >> proud boys. >> proud boys, stand back and stand by. >> members of the proud boys called his words historic and say they saw a spike in recruits. later he claimed he did not know who they were. then he said on thursday he quote, condemns all white supremacists, unquote. let's discuss further. brandy, i am having trouble keeping the last few years straight as it relates to white nationalism, white supremacy, far right groups. we had richard spencer, guys in khaki pants and tiki torches.

now we're talking about the proud boys and bugaboo boys. with the proud boy, how do they fit into a pan oply? where do they fit? >> that's a really good question. sit really confusing. the proud boys were founded by gavin mcginness, the cofounder of vice media. they are among those, they also came. but they are sort of -- if they're not alt-right they're thought of as alt light, right? they are very much a hate group. they are misogynist, anti-muslim, nationalistic and they are violent. they go out in the street and hurt people, and that is the goal is violence and harm.

he said this many times, they are a violent street gang. because they weren't as -- they didn't show their power level or wave their white nationalist flag as brightly, i guess, they remained while a lot of fringier groups are in prison, their leaders are in prison or they have fallen away. but the proud boys have remained. now we saw they got a nod from the president and are really invigorated. the founder stepped down after two of his members were on trial for assault, but he was in front of walter reed a couple hours ago with a big flag on drinking a beer, it seemed. so that nod really did invigorate these groups. >> what do the proud boys want? are they white nationalists, white supremacists, or something else? what are their goals? >> it's tricky to try to cut and

paste and put labels on things like that. like, are they white nationalists? yes, they go around and say stuff like, west is best. it's okay to be white. a lot of, like, just sort of wink wink nod nods, but yes, they think that white people are the best and trump is the best of them all. >> it's okay to be white? is that -- is that a serious comment? like, you know, if you're white, don't worry, it's okay. like, what do they mean by, it's okay to be white? >> it's okay to be white a long internet troll, basically of white nationalists and white power people who have tried to reframe racism as, like, reverse racism. like, they are now some sort of marginalized class as white men, and that's what they're fighting against. that's what you see them out on the streets fighting against, that they feel like they are somehow under threat. when you saw at charlottesville, when you heard those chants the

terrifying chants, jews will not replace us, the replacement theory, that's the idea behind this. >> president trump and some conservatives offered up antifa as an equal and opposite counter to the proud boys. there have been acts of violence that have been associated with people who kind of claim antifa as their banner, but how should we compare the two? >> well, it's important to note that the way that people that claim the antifa ideology, which is anti-fascism, right, the way that they have been sort of brawling in the streets with proud boys and patriot prayer and other right wing groups like those was because in portland, which is a pretty literal enclave, a liberal city, the proud boys and other groups like them would come into those communities in order to fight them. and so people -- again, antifa or left wing anarchists or radical political people, or just people in portland -- black

lives matter, just people in the neighborhood would come out to protest -- a lot of people protest in portland for a lot of reasons, and they were met with this violent street gang that carried big sticks and liked to beat people up. those are the skirmishes you saw on the streets for the last three years. now it's being all reframed because, again, donald trump, bill barr, are using antifa as the boogie man and it's making the proud boys look like they're fighting a noble fight. >> so many moving pieces, but we appreciate you walking us through it. thanks very much. it is the top of the hour. i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you tonight from nbc world headquarters in new york, this is the week. thanks for making time for us. we have plenty to big into this hour, including conflicting messages from the white house

physician and sources inside the administration about psi