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last saw donald trump in the flesh or heard his voice, tonight we got the first proof of life. a short time ago he posted a video on twitter where he and not his doctors gave an update on his status. trump made a pitch for the experimental cocktail regeneron he received while at walter reed. >> i want everyone given the same treatment as your president. because i feel great. i feel, like, perfect. so i think this is a blessing from god i caught it. this was a blessing in disguise. >> i don't think he understands the meaning of blessing. he had been absent from view since this mussolini moment at the white house on monday. in his own video he made no mention of the steroid treatment he also received. this afternoon the infected and

contagious patient took his handling of the pandemic to new depths, breaking quarantine and heading to the oval office. a marine stationed outside the west wing signalled trump was inside. a senior administration inside said he did not walk through the building but he still somehow got there. meanwhile, there are more questions than answers about trump's condition. the daily beast reports on the same day last week that trump acknowledged contracting the coronavirus the white house quietly informed a veterans group that there was a covid-19 risk stemming from a september 27th event honoring the families of fallen u.s. service members. according to the head of the charity behind the event. outreach following the event shown here would have been the first acknowledgement to visitors of the virus, raising questions about whether there were any covid-positive people in attendance. even as the white house itself remains a hot spot.

18 people tied to the white house or to the campaign have tested positive so far. with top aide stephen miller the most recent addition to the list. and today the white house told staff that, quote, all contact tracing was completed for positive covid-19 cases identified at the white house. while trump was behind closed doors today, we did hear from his twitter account, which unleashed a deluge of erratic tweets, more than 50, in the early morning hours alone. but as we know, trump is not the only one who runs his twitter feed, so is he even sending them out? i don't know. meanwhile, trump has yet to show any empathy, none, for people who don't have the resources that he has. in a series of tweets last night, he abruptly called off talks with capitol hill on a coronavirus leaf package. then demanded congress approve the relief anyway and said he'd approve the funding for some industries hours later. now, you would think that trump

would recognize his last political lifeline as this rollicking disaster goes down the drain, especially after a new round of polls today show him losing badly to joe biden. and after he took another direct hit from a federal court, which declined to block a subpoena for his tax returns. today speaker nancy pelosi stated the obvious. >> well, it's hard to see any clear, sane path on anything that he's doing, but the fact is is that he saw the political downside of his statement of walking away from the negotiations. all he has ever wanted in the negotiation was to send out a check with his name printed on it. >> is it time to pick up the phone? do you want to go over to the white house? what's the best way to work this out now? >> i wouldn't go anywhere near the white house. it's one of the most dangerous places in the country. >> despite that, we're still seeing egregious behavior coming from this white house. just take a look at this group of young staffers congregated at

lunchtime. mostly without masks. at the executive office building. so much for lessons learned. joining me now, olivia troye, former top aide to vice president mike pence. dr. nahid bhadelia and jason johnson, professor of politics at morgan state university. where to respond? where to respond? where to respond? donald trump said it was a blessing that he caught covid. here's joe biden's response. >> i think it's a tragedy. the president deals with covid like it is something not to worry about. when already 210,000 people have died. i think it's -- i think it's a travesty. >> you know, olivia troye, you were an aide to vice president mike pence, who is the head of the coronavirus task force. he has to defend this, whatever we're calling this -- this parade of weird that's coming out of the white house in

tonight's debate. can you give us some sort of an inside view as to what goes on in this white house in terms of the relationship between donald trump and staff? is there anyone, you know, from what you saw -- and i know you worked for pence and not trump directly -- that could possibly talk him down, roid rage or not, into just continuing to openly spread this virus and to pretend that it is a blessing that he got it. >> well, i certainly saw the task force members at times -- i certainly saw people try and weigh in and explicitly try and get the president to cooperate in what we were trying to do in terms of the pandemic response. including, you know, wear a mask. telling people it's okay to wear a mask. recognize the severity of the virus. but donald trump will do what donald trump wants to do. and it's just a clear example of

the president only caring about himself, and, quite frankly, calling it a blessing is just so offensive to me and just so disrespectful to all of the lives that have been lost, not only domestically but globally. i'm sure that those families don't consider it a blessing that they had -- they saw someone suffer and eventually lost a loved one. i think that's just so embarrassing that our president would ever say that. >> you know, dr. bhadelia, there are a lot of questions about donald trump. he keeps putting out these videos to try and look robust. he doesn't. there's a lot of makeup there, which someone had to get close to put on, which is terrifying for whoever that was. it's not clear what donald trump's health was. here is the deputy press secretary, and he's asked a really simple question that would be really important for the american people to know, when's the last time donald trump actually tested negative for the coronavirus. here he is. >> why can't the white house say

when he last tested negative? >> look, we've addressed this. they -- we're not asking to go back through a bunch of records and look backwards. >> what we do know is they won't tell us when he last tested negative, and i want you just to explain to me the significance of that. we do know now from the reporting in "the new york times" he wasn't getting tested every day. so we know that's not happening. we know he's on some sort of a steroid treatment, which according to "the new york times," some white house staff members are wondering whether his behavior is tied to it. he certainly seems amped up, saying i feel better than i have in 20 years. this behavior is weird, even for donald trump, and i wonder if those staff members are concerned that maybe the steroids could be causing mood swings and a false sense of energy and even euphoria, that's what white house aides are worried about. is that a legitimate concern given what we think he's taking? >> good evening, joy. yes, steroids can cause confusion and they can cause in certain cases for patients who

are elderly and who are admitted, which he no longer is in the correspondent, but they can cause confusion in patients particularly who are older and maybe on other medications as well. how would you know? when you look at white house's handling of this event in the rose garden and the reason why the last negative test is important is because we need to have a sense of how far-reaching the impact of that rose garden event is because i don't see it as one event. it is then the hundreds of following events that happen after that when a positive person that resulted from that rose garden event went on to expose others. and the -- and the fact that the -- the white house hasn't handled the contact tracing as they should, the testing around that as they should, it is a microcosm of the way that we've handled this pandemic. today, "the new england journal of medicine," which is one of the most reputable journals in medicine, existed for about 200 years today said that the trump administration has basically

taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy. that's what it is. today when he talked about this being a miracle, it's certainly not. if the white house can't even protect this president against the pandemic, what hope do the rest of us have being protected against this virus by the administration? >> yeah, let me just read you -- speaking of that, people seeing the disaster that donald trump may not want to see, but everyone else can see it. the former cdc director, he wrote a private letter to the current cdc director robert redfield and this was last month. he wrote that this, this mess of the coronavirus handling will go down as a colossal failure of the public health system of this country. we let the country down. you have a short window to change things. you could send a letter to all cdc employees, acknowledge the tragedy of responding poorly, apologize for what has happened and your role in acquiescing. when they fire you this will be a multi-week story and you can hold your head high. that's not what's happening, jason.

the cdc is not even being allowed to participate in this contact tracing that we think went on. we have to take their word for it. it's not clear. the fact that a group of families of fallen military troops was allowed into the white house and they said, oh, by the way -- later on told them, by the way, you could have gotten infected with this deadly disease. sorry. maybe not even sorry. it is a disaster, jason, from a political point of view. >> it's a disaster from a political point of view, joy. it's a disaster from an economic point of view. the fund-raiser that they had in minneapolis, now a lot of those servers and people like that have to quarantine. but i want people to understand, like, track and trace can work, too. that's why trump doesn't want it to happen. a story i read earlier today about the recent outbreak in new zealand. they had track and trace so well that they traced the contact points to covid to, like, a button on an elevator and a garbage can lid. like, you can track this kind of information if you put effort into it, but donald trump is not going to allow anyone to do

their job. he doesn't want a virus expert. you can have the cdc, dust hoffman from "pandemic" and brad pitt from "zombies." it doesn't matter. you can have the best experts in the world and donald trump and this administration do not want the truth to come out. they don't want the public to know how irresponsible they've been and who they've hurt. i don't want this to happen. no one wants this to happen. but in all likelihood if we look at the numbers and look at the percentages, someone's going to die. everyone wants to forget about how herman cain died at a trump rally, but some staffer, some support person is going to die because of their negligence and they're not going to have an answer for that either. >> i don't think donald trump mentioned herman cain by name. even after death. his daughters are still tweeting, you know, covid's not so bad. your father's dead. i'm going to go back to you, olivia troye, because you've worked inside this white house. we know that donald trump has received about $100,000 worth of treatment. he only paid $750 in taxes.

he didn't even pay for the treatment he's gotten. about $100,000 for the treatment he's gotten so far. inside the coronavirus task force, is there a single person left other than dr. fauci, who is sort of missing in action other than he occasionally turns up on cnn. we'd love to have him on the show, by the way. who actually is knowledgeable enough to get us through just december? because we're still -- even if donald trump were to lose the election, we're still stuck with him in charge until january 20th. is there anyone left that you can recall on that task force that has the -- the basic competence to just get us through december? >> well, i will answer this very bluntly and honestly. i think other than dr. fauci, i think there's dr. birx, who is competent if she's willing to do it and continue to fight. and not let the dynamics sway her in any way. and the other person that i

would say without hesitation is dr. hahn, who is the head of the fda. and i mean that wholeheartedly. >> are you surprised more people haven't resigned? are you surprised more people haven't quit? >> i am and i'm not, to be honest. i think -- i think for some of these people who i know personally and who i know i've seen -- have shown complete integrity, i would say that they continue to hang on because they are more scared of what would happen if they left. and i agree with that. >> if before we go, can we just show the picture of the young -- if we can get it quickly. the young people who ate lunch at the white house today. no masks on. the culture that they're teaching these young staffers is to just dgaf this virus. and it is deadly. and it can get those young people sick and their parents sick and their grandparents sick. and this administration literally doesn't care.

there they are. that is what those young people are learning about government. that it doesn't matter how -- if you get other people sick. and they're learning it from the president of the united states. olivia troye, thank you very much. jason johnson, dr. nahid bhadelia, thank you all. all right. let's take a live look at the university of utah in salt lake city, and that's the site of tonight's vice presidential debate between vice president mike pence and senator kamala harris. our live msnbc coverage begins at the top of the hour. pence has the difficult task of defending the indefensible as new polls show the bottom dropping out of the trump campaign. taking republican senate candidates down with them. t "the reidout" continues after this. ...and they found themselves in a magical land. and then what happened? where's our family from? was he my age?

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to wipe away trump's stain on america for good. for the trump campaign with a highly contagious and possibly roid raging president exposing the white house and oval office staff to a dead communicable virus as he feverishly tweets about ridiculous fantasies like

democrats wanting to shut down your churches or supposedly will save california from the wildfires that raged under his watch. looking like a total trumpian collapse in the polls. in a new fox news poll released just an hour ago, joe biden leads trump by a 53% to 40% margin among likely voters. according to polling by "the new york times," biden is also leading in nevada by six points and is ahead by one point in ohio. a state that trump won by eight points in 2016. older voters are also seeing -- also fleeing trump, per an nbc news poll showing biden up by 27 points among seniors. the group that helped elect trump in the first place the first time around. now, much has changed for older americans in particular. it is the group that should be very worried about coronavirus, despite trump saying otherwise. which is why vice president mike

pence, again, who heads trump's coronavirus task force, faces a nearly impossible task for the administration failing to contain the pandemic during his vice presidential debate against senator kamala harris. joining me now is former u.s. senator claire mccaskill and steve schmidt, co-founder of the lincoln project and today was personally responsible for twitter grabbing the popcorn during an epic takedown of trump. steve, i almost asked my producers to not book you and i would just maybe read your entire tweet thread with the track of "ether" under it. somebody's probably going to do it. i'm waiting for twitter to do that. wow, that was an epic, epic tweet thread. my friend erin haines wrote a piece that said where skill meets opportunity. donald trump seems to be running the most effective campaign against donald trump. he is his worst enemy at this

point. what do you make of the, i don't know what to call it, the spectacle that donald trump is putting on from walter reed to the white house and how does that impact the campaign? as a campaign veteran. >> well, i think you have to look at it in totality, joy, from the revelation that he paid $750 in taxes. to his intimations of violence at the debate. his giving a lock and load order toed pro to the proud boys. that's how they took it. to his completely out of control behavior. to his total recklessness with covid. the insanity we're seeing now. that's the word for it, it's unsanity. he's completely unhinged. you look at the joyride he took around walter reed to wave to the qanon supporters. you look at his unhinged return to the white house. his climbing the balcony out of breath in an authoritarian theater standing on the truman balcony, saluting to god knows who. you look at his conduct and

comportment today. nobody believes this guy has a vaccine ready for the country. it's all lies. it's all falling apart. so organizationally, what we're seeing is chaos and collapse. it's all coming down. you have a rasmussen poll that has the president down 12 points. you have fox news poll has him down 10 points. he's losing. he's getting crushed by joe biden and by senator harris. and, look, you know, senator harris tonight -- remember one thing, she's -- she's debating a guy who is a spokesperson for the cigarette industry. mike pence cashed checks to tell americans that cigarettes were good for you. that's who this guy is. he's the biggest fraud short of lindsey graham and donald trump in american politics. maybe he's tied with lindsey graham. they're about even, i suppose, but, look, this is a guy who lied in his speech at the republican convention more than any other speaker, including trump. this is someone who will say anything. this is somebody who has failed

at a level that is almost as spectacular as trump's with his leadership of the covid task force in this country. you know, so tonight we're going to see a competent, able, caring person in kamala harris take on the former cigarette spokesperson mike pence. and it should be a good debate because i think kamala harris is going to hold this guy accountable for the profound damage that he and his administration have done to the country. and mike pence walks out there tonight, he's only got one thing on his mind, it's 2024. >> yep. >> he's trying to figure out how he gets on a lifeboat off the "titanic." >> that didn't work out too well for folks on the "titanic." mike pence, yes, he is the head of the coronavirus task force. that puts a big target tonight. in addition to everything steve said, he is a talk radio host. he made a living on talk radio when he was a spokesman for the cigarette industry.

having been a talk radio host, that is a certain skill set in communication that is, by the way, very anti-cross talk. it's inherently anti-cross talk. it's hard to imagine him doing what donald trump did, constantly interrupt her. he's going to have to try some different tact. what do you expect from talk show host and donald trump sycophant and what should she do? >> well, we've done a terrible disservice to kamala. there is this expectation because she is a good cross-examiner. she does very well in hearings when she's trying to get facts out that are important to the point she's making, but pence is no slouch at this. pence is going to hold his own. and the expectations game, i think, has really been unfair to kamala. what does kamala need to do tonight? she needs to make points that shows that she has a firm grip on the policy that she and joe

biden want to bring forth to the people of this country. but maybe most importantly, joy, she's got to make people be comfortable with her. you know, we are -- have two guys running for president that let's face it are pretty old. both of them. so there is in the back of everyone's mind, are these people ready to be president? so what kamala has to do is make sure, more important than any point she makes or any jab she has against pence, she's got to make sure at the end of this debate people in america go, you know what? i'm comfortable with her. she would be okay making big decisions in this country. that's her challenge. and she's got the skill to do it and i'm hopeful that she will. >> you know, steve, she's going to be debating a guy that is representing an administration that is tat the last minute scurrying to get the airline industry bailed out, but donald trump still hasn't given a real note of sympathy to the other members of the 7 million, and he's one of them, that have the coronavirus. they hosted a -- an event in the

white house for families of our fallen troops and then belatedly said, oh, you know what? that was actually a covid issue. you might want to maybe get checked up. like, the -- the treatment of the virus, which is donald trump's biggest problem, has been just bananas, just from a -- just as a raw political point of view. you said in one of the tweets in your tweet thread, many tweet thread when you weren't challenging donald trump's intelligence and whether his father loved him and a whole lot of other stuff that people should read. you talked to people inside the campaign that they are panicking internally. instead of being honest and coming out and talking to the public, they're talking to y'all at the lincoln project. what are you hearing in terms of the level of panic inside trump world? >> well, it is panic. and there's a difference between panic and fear and stress. but, no, it's panic. they know that everybody's lying to them. their higher ups. they know that trump has casual

disregard for them. the all know that this is going down. the trump campaign is barred for a lot of the country. they don't have money for tv ads. the moment we learned he was a tax cheater, maybe moments after, it's tough to remember all of it. the former campaign manager was hauled off to an asylum after being tackled by the police after threatening his wife and hitting her, threatening her with a firearm, tackled on the ground. he's suspected in terms of allegedly stealing $40 million of the campaign's money, right? so everyone in that campaign knows it's going down and a lot of them are worried, right, that they're never going to get a job again, right? that they'll never work in politics again, maybe outside the trump organization. but that no company will ever hire them. no nonprofit will ever hire them. no university will ever hire them. they look at some of the people that have come before them and the name "trump" is going to linger around them like a stench, a shame for the rest of their lives, and the days are getting short. and when we hear donald trump,

by the way, say there won't be a peaceful transition of power, and we hear donald trump say that there may be violence if he doesn't win or the election isn't legitimate, how many of these young men and women -- how many of these factotum in washington, d.c. are prepared to cross that final rubicon with donald trump? >> yeah. >> they've surrounded every principle. they've done everything that he asked them. they have destroyed their reputations. they've done harm to the country. but who will cross that last line with him to try to end the american experiment? to maintain in power a president who hwas rejected by the popula will of the american people. there will be some of them. >> yeah. >> he's going to do everything he can to try to cling to power. >> indeed. we're going to hold you guys right there. keep you until the next break. joe scarborough tweeted this morning that he's hearing from people inside there that god may be making the bill come due for some of the things they've done. we're going to have you guys

come back. meanwhile, growing fears on the republicans side as we just mentioned and growing optimism on the democratic side. are republicans about to pay a huge price for happily mutating into the party of trump? that's what we're discussing when we come back. ♪ since pioneering the suv in 1935, the chevy suburban has carried many things. nothing more important than family. introducing the most versatile and advanced chevy suburban and tahoe ever. i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months after just 2 doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats,

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helping me reach my blood sugar goal. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ you may pay as little as $25 for a 1-month or 3-month prescription. ask your health care provider today about once-weekly ozempic®. i'm worried about the election. i think it's really volatile. i think it could go either way. i think we could have a fantastic election, the president could win by a big margin and we could win both houses of congress, but i also think it could be devastating. >> that was senator ted cruz, who is currently in quarantine because the leader of his party is a superspreader. warning the remaining members of the party of just what might be in store for them come november. it's similar to a warning lindsey graham issued somewhat prophetically back in may of 2016 when his spine was still apparent. he tweeted "if we nominate trump, we will get destroyed, and we will deserve it". you think?

republicans, who currently hold a majority in the senate with 53 seats, are under siege across the country, plagued by their allegiance to trump. there are roughly eight republican seats that are now competitive, including the one held by mr. graham, whose own senate race is now a toss-up, according to the cook political report. another senate race ripe for the picking is arizona. last night senator martha mcsally who is trailing her democratic challenger mark kelly was asked if she was proud of her support for this president. >> the question was, are you proud of your support for president trump. >> i'm proud to be fighting for arizona every single day. >> is that a yes or a no for president trump? >> putting legislation on president trump's desk. >> so your proud of your support for president trump. >> legislation to cut arizona taxes. >> it sounds like she's proud of her support for president trump. >> it doesn't sound like she's proud. back with former missouri

senator claire mccaskill and trump slayer steve schmidt. trump slayer steve schmidt. okay, i want to go to you, claire. listen, as a former democratic senator you understand sometimes the way it washes out, right? you know, for democrats like yourself, republicans like josh holly who wants to take 20 million people's health care away, but they used this mania against obamacare on senators like you. they used that wave to try to get your seat. to try to get the seats of a lot of democratic house members. but who could go out on principle and say, listen, if i lost my seat because i got 20 million people health care, you know, i can get another job. i'm employable. what you're seeing on the republican side is not a principled thing they're willing to lose their seats over. and not a contrast with the person who could defeat them, like a mr. holly, who basically wants to eviscerate the health care of all missourians who need it. what you're seeing is, uh, i just followed trump around like

a puppy for four years, and how do you defend it? you've been in the senate. how do you read your former colleagues at this moment? >> well, if steve is getting calls from the campaign people saying that they are panicking, you should hear the calls i'm getting. you know, there are senators that are losing it. over how this man has behaved over the last four days. this is a disaster for them. if you look at the polling, i mean, pollsters are even talking about this dramatic drop in -- as they're in the field -- of between before his diagnosis and after. and then, you know, his joyride and his, you know, as the lincoln project would say, his covida act on the balcony, all of that. and then today, you know, trying to go into the oval office when, you know, somebody who's 5 or 6 years old knows you don't go back to work and jeopardize the

health of the people you work with when you've been diagnosed just a few days prior. so they know that this is a disaster and they know this is going to cost them the senate. and now they're just scrambling to try to see if they can figure out a way, even though they're not following protocol for the senate in terms of everyone being tested. they're going to go ahead with this hearing next week and they're going to try to distract everyone by pushing through this supreme court nominee, but i think this episode of how this president has not only mismanaged this crisis for millions of americans, he also has been a walking, heavily-breathing, living billboard for democratic senate candidates all over the country. >> yeah, i worry that the oval office and that the senate and all of these places are not going to be safe workspaces for vice president biden if he becomes president. he would have to come in the day after. i mean, how do you clean it enough that it would be a safe place to work? just to go through it, steve.

you got martha mcsally, who has actually never been elected to the united states senate. she's losing. david purdue is having trouble with jon ossoff. they're tied. beating kelly loffler and doug collins. you've got teresa greenfield who is whooping joni ernst right now. you've got susan collins who is also concerned and losing. steve bullock is leading in montana. it goes on and on. jaime harrison appears to be prepared to maybe beat lindsey graham who i've even heard from republican friends whining for money, begging for money. in texas, mj hager has caught up. i don't understand this -- >> and don't forget alaska. don't forget alaska. >> oh, alaska, exactly. you know, i don't understand the ride or die. i mean, at a certain point there is a certain sense of political self-preservation, steve, and understand the people calling

you and calling claire at some point just don't cut bait. if they think they're going to lose and complaining about it, why don't they just leave him? >> too late. they have tied themselves to the mast and they are going down with the ship. it is too late for them to cut the rope. to cut the tie to donald trump. they made their bed. they're going to lie in it. let me -- let me also add, mike espy in mississippi may be on the verge of making history. >> oh, absolutely. >> that's a very close race. you can also look at the risch race in idaho that could drop late. so this is going to be an epic disaster. trumpism is about to not disappear, it will be around for a while. >> yep. >> it's going to take a lot of years for it to get back underground, but it's going to suffer its first humiliating defeat. let this be a message to the class that's up in 2022 about cooperating with the next president of the united states, about getting this country back on track. but, listen, here's the deal, at the end of the day, they've done a lot of bad things, all of

them, as they've been silent, as they've been complicit in donald trump's debasements of -- donald trump's debasements of his office, his desecration of our national character, his meanness, his cruelty, his assaults on the rule of law and our institutions, but they did one thing in particular. every one of these people, they knew trump was lying about how lethal covid was. they all knew that he knew how lethal it was. >> yep. >> every one of them knew how lethal it was. did one of them go to the floor of the senate and bang on their lectern and say, mr. president, stop this! stop this insanity. they did not. did any of them go to the resolute desk in the oval office and bang their hand on it and say, mr. president, stop this madness? they did not. they did nothing. they did nothing to protect their citizens, and now all of them are looking the camera in the eye and they're looking their voters in the eye and they're saying give me six more years. i'll be an independent voice. that will have your back.

well, using the colloquialisms of my native new jersey, there is a saying for that. it begins with "go" and ends with "yourself" to senators who failed utterly in their oath. been so faithless to competency, goodness or decency or the principles they originally ran on. >> amazing. what a world. what a world. spines are in short order in the party of lincoln. the lincoln project is twitter. y'all should follow them on twitter. thank you very much, former senator claire mccaskill and steve schmidt. still ahead -- y'all have to go and read that thread. it's something else. on a much more serious note, a shocking, shocking new report on wasn't of the darkest chapters of the trump -- the trump presidency. the intentional separation of migrant families at the border. "the reidout" continues after this.

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it hasn't been good, and the american people don't like the idea that we're separating families. we never really intended to do that. >> never intended to. nearly 3,000 children were ripped away from their parents after crossing the southern border without documents as part of donald trump's zero tolerance policy in 2018. it's one of the darkest chapters of the trump administration, and, frankly, in modern american history. according to a government watchdog draft report that was exactly the intended result. with then attorney general jeff sessions quoted as saying, quote, we need to take away children. sessions along with other top officials in the justice department are described as a, quote, driving force behind the controversial policy. the report details how the deputy attorney general at the time, rod rosenstein, told a group of prosecutors, quote, it did not matter how young the children were, including in two

cases where the children were barely more than infants. joining me now is sergio gonzalez, deputy director of immigration hub and a former senior policy adviser to senator kamala harris. and nbc news correspondent jacob soboroff. he's the author of "separated: inside an american tragedy." jacob, my friend, i'm going to go to you first. this report describes government prosecutors reacting -- and this is prosecutors -- reacting over to this policy with alarm saying one government prosecutor wrote to his superiors, we have now heard of us taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants. i did not believe this until i looked at the duty log. we can believe it because we've been following your reporting on this. what's your reaction to this report? i will note, by the way, jeff sessions is the former mentor and former boss of stephen miller. >> there's no doubt, joy, that what i saw at the time with my own eyes what physicians for human rights now calls the

torture of 5,500 people according to the u.n. definition, was exactly what was playing out. and that what we were told at the time were lies. and they know exactly what they were doing. jeff sessions, rod rosenstein, in particular rod rosenstein, you know, i'm sorry to say, a hero to many in the resistance. >> yeah mp. >> the reality of the situation is, just like we saw and i reported in my book, within the department of homeland security, just like we saw within the department of health and human services, career officials stood up and tried to stop this from happening. at the very least, they raised jerks about this and trump appointed political officials, pushed it through and it's the same exact story in the department of justice, and that's what this draft inspector general report reveals. >> and is it -- was it just for punishment? did they just see this as punishment and deterrence, we'll punish these families by taking their kids and more people will know that that's what america does and they won't send -- they won't come here? >> that's what this report makes crystal clear, but i don't think

it was a surprise to any of us there at the time. manuel padilla said as much to me at the height of the policy. >> serge thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> the united states is no longer part of the u.n. human rights council. the trump administration pulled us out of it in 2018. we're not a part of that. the u.s. is also not a part of the international criminal court. however, this is considered torture, taking breastfeeding children away from their moms, separating families in this way. all i could think of preparing for this segment today talking to my producers is whether or not these are considered international crimes, meaning should members of this administration come up before the hague for what they've done? jeff sessions the former, you know, dhs head, all of them, should they be -- and donald trump maybe? >> yeah, there's no question that these are human rights abuses. and i think long after donald trump and mike pence leave the

white house, and that will be in november, this is going to be one of the darkest chapters in american history. the fact that small children, infants were ripped away from their mothers' arms and that these children were put in cages without their parents, with poor treatment is something that this country and that we all are going to have to deal with and reconcile for a long time. and so to answer your question, i absolutely believe that these are crimes against humanity. and my previous boss, who is going to be on the debate stage tonight, senator kamala harris, i worked with her on this issue. she routinely referred to this as a human rights abuse. >> is there an international body that could even have the capability -- i mean, i remember during the george w. bush administration when there was a lot of talk of whether it should be much more difficult for dick cheney to -- in particular or other members of the administration to travel overseas.

because of the torture of iraqis and that there was some sanction to make it real hard to travel. in your view, do you think this is something that should happen to the people who did this to these children and these parents? >> yes. i believe that these people should be held to account for the atrocities that have been chitted in our name against these children and their parents. thousands of kids separated from their parents. and not just separated, but, again, the types of conditions that these children were placed under. this is an administration who argued that children were not entitled to toothpaste and soap in detention settings. that's something that we haven't seen -- when you kind of think about that, what comes to mind, right? camps. >> yeah. >> and you think back to concentration camps. and so i've often said that when we look at immigration in particular, cruelty has been the point of this administration.

inflicting as much cruelty as possible on as many people as possible. >> yeah, indeed, and on very particular shades of people. let's just put it that way. sergio gonzalez, thank you very much. jacob soboroff, as always, thank you. and up next, a live update from the debate venue in salt lake city, but before lake. this quick update. former minneapolis police officer derek chauvin who is charged with murdering george floyd is out of prison after posting $1 million bond. d. woo! - go ♪ go go go ♪ go go go go on a real vacation. visit go rving.com or your nearest rv dealer. our retirement plan with voya gives us confidence. they help us with achievable steps along the way...

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in about an hour, vice president mike pence and senator kamala harris, who both tested negative for the coronavirus today, will face off in their first and only vice presidential debate. the candidates will sit just over 12 feet apart and plexiglas is installed in front of each candidate's desk, which harris got mocked by pence's team for requesting. pence, who again is leader of the coronavirus task force in the white house, will have to defend the administration's disastrous response. i'm joined by nbc news white house correspondent geoff bennett. give me the scene. how tall is the plexiglas that's supposed to protect kamala harris from the infected mike pence? >> reporter: i would say four or five feet off the ground. we've been hearing from people all day how they expect kamala harris, senator harris, to prosecute the case against mike pence. from candidate officials, that's not her goal.

her goal is not to do battle with mike pence, her goal is to attack donald trump, to prosecute the case against him. you could make the argument, and a lot of people have, that the white house, the way in which they've handled this coronavirus crisis, gives senator harris a mile-wide opening. here's why. mike pence, as you well know, leads the white house coronavirus task force. he's also a loyal and dutiful vice president. how will he respond? how will he explain away the 7 million covid infections in this country, the 211,000 deaths, the fact we're now seven months into this pandemic and there's no national mask mandate, no national testing strategy, no national school reopening strategy. that is something that the biden campaign is looking for tonight. on the other hand, the pence campaign says they expect -- what they intend to do is paint senator harris as a leftist. the theory of the trump case is that joe biden is an empty vessel who will be unwittingly influenced by people like kamala harris. so, that is what we expect the

vice president to try to do tonight. >> she's about as -- >> reporter: make no mistake, the pandemic -- >> i was about to say, she's as scary as cory booker. there are ticketed guests -- >> reporter: cory booker will come into your suburbs. he'll save your cat if your house is on fire. there will be a small number of ticketed guests. that surprises me. real quick. >> reporter: down front, not sure if you can see it, there are only 10 or 15 seats on the bottom level. that stands in contrast to what we saw at the ohio debate with president trump, the president's family, his adult children were seated up front and didn't wear masks. it's a limited group on the floor and some invited guests up in the balcony. >> i'm told they must wear masks and will be escorted out if they don't. geoff bennett, thanks. special coverage of vice presidential debate with rachel maddow, nicole williams starts next. next

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good evening. thank you for being with us tonight. i'm rachel maddow at msnbc headquarters in new york. physically distanced from but close at heart to my beloved colleagues. that's called a low air five. >> i don't know what that is. >> it feels like we're making a force field. the three