treated worse than lincoln. i believe i am treated worse. >> penny for your thoughts, abe. oh, yes, that. and let's not forget who this hurts most. >> nobody has taken it harder than me. we're opening up our country again. this is what we're doing. it's the reopening of our country. who ever thought that we would be saying that. reopening. reopening. >> america is back in business! but not everybody loves the plan. mainly, a nefariously gang of near-do-wells called -- the experts. >> the experts have been telling us hundreds of thousands of people are going to do. >> yeah, those stupid experts. and now it's time for laura ingraham's analogy corner.

>> this one infectious disease doc told me last week, right to stop this virus with social distancing is like trying to drive a nail through jell-o. >> great one, laura. what else? >> there's more than ample evidence that hydroxychloroquine savvis lives. now they're saying that 120,000 to 130,000 could die from covid by august. what?! >> yeah, what?! we're not going to hit those numbers until june. but in the meantime, it's trying to get back to what really matters. >> i would hope that within maybe the last couple of months, we'll be able to do rallies. >> yes, rallies! let's get out there and spread until we're dead! this has been this week in covid history. >> all right. we're going to let that one speak for itself. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's friday, may 7th. it's friday! with us, we have professor at the lyndon b. johnson school of public affairs at the university of texas, msnbc contributor

victoria defrancesco soto. white house correspondent for politico and author of "the playbook," eugene daniels. he's also an msnbc contributor. and former aid to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan is with us. along with willie and me and joe has the morning off this morning, but we've got this. let's start this friday morning with some positive news, okay, in the fight against the coronavirus. here in the u.s., covid-19 infections are now at their lowest levels in seven months. the u.s. averaged about 48,000 new cases per day over the past week. that's a 13% improvement over the week before and the first time since october that average daily cases have dipped below 50,000. according to axios, over half of all american adults have now received at least one shot of a

vaccine and 41% of adults are fully vaccinated. deaths and serious illnesses related to the coronavirus have dropped significantly. this is hopeful, hopeful especially for our young people, willie, when need to get back into society. >> no question about it. and speaking of those young people, mika, moderna released new data yesterday showing its coronavirus vaccine is 96% effective in children ages 12 to 17. the vaccine trial for teenagers involved more than 3,200 participants. just 12 cases of coronavirus were recorded during the two weeks after teens got their first dose. moderna says it so far has not identified any serious safety concerns. we'll keep an eye on that. meanwhile, two new study show the pfizer/biontech vaccine is highly effective against virus variants. researchers used real-world data from over 4,000 people vaccinated in qatar and israel, at a time when the uk and south

african variants were circulating in those areas. both studies suggest that the vaccine is effective against both strains and highly effective at preventing serious illness from the virus. mika? >> this is good news. we'll follow it. we still have to watch what's happening around the world with the coronavirus, but at least some good news on the forefront right here. in politics this morning, there are several developments when it comes to republican-led states altering election laws. in other words, solutions in search of a problem, as they chase donald trump's big lie that the 2020 vote was stolen from him. in a moment, we're going to tell you about what's going on in texas, but first, to florida, where governor ron desantis signed into law new voting restrictions yesterday. the associated press called it a, quote, misleading, made-for-tv ceremony, intended for the republican party's far

right. desantis held the signing ceremony live on fox news and fox news only. and as you can see, positioned himself for the camera so he could make a presentation to the fox audience. all other news organizations, including local press, were not allowed in. a columnist at the "sun-sentinel" tweeted, news media barred from entry at signing of controversial elections bill. a spokeswoman said the signing is a fox exclusive. a reporter said the signing of a law that will affect all floridians and there won't be a camera from a florida tv station allowed inside. this is not normal. a spokesperson for desantis later said, the governor did not sign the actual bill on camera. oh, this is fantastic, and the event was purely ceremonial. so it was a fake bill? here's how the governor

explained it. >> we were happy to give them the exclusive on that and i think it went really, really well. but that's broadcast to millions of people, not just obviously throughout the whole country, but a huge number of people in florida are watching that. we had a crowd -- we probably had a thousand people in the crowd that were really cheering on. >> who does he sound like? and it's just crazy. so he signs a fake version of a bill. the crowd desantis just referred to was actually a group from donald trump's fan club. they were already in place at a west palm beach hotel and desantis addressed the group before the live event on fox. fox news released a statement saying the show did not request or mandate that the signing be exclusive. but willie, this is -- the bigger issue here is not the game being played with fox here and fox being used in whatever way it's being used.

but the laws that he's signing, when you look at what's going on in florida, not necessary in florida, but really, to really continue to reinforce and validate donald trump and his big lie and the bigger conversation is that trump has not gone away and he's planting roots. >> well, this law and others like it in georgia and texas and across the country are built on the foundation of that lie. that the 2020 election was not safe and secure, despite everything we know about it. and despite, by the way, what governor desantis said back in february, he was touting the election process in florida as having been safe and secure. let's talk about the details of the new law. it adds some new hurdles to voting by mail. it limits who can collect and drop off ballots and makes it more difficult to provide water for voters waiting in line. the big question, why was it needed? in 2014, 2016, and 2018, republicans outnumbered democrats in the mail-in vote,

but in 2020, democrats dominated there, as more voters requested mail-in ballots during the pandemic. governor desantis claims the law will restore confidence in the state's elections, yet donald trump won florida and there have been no legitimate allegations or evidence of widespread voter fraud. the ap has called florida a model for what voting should look like in america. governor desantis himself, as i said, has praised how well the state manages its elections. >> the way florida did it, i think, inspires confidence. i think that's how elections should be run. rather than us be at the center of a bush versus gore in 2020, we're now being looked at as the state that did it right and the state that these other states should emulate. the result of 2020 from an administrative perspective was that florida had the most transparent and efficient

election anywhere in the country. >> that was governor desantis himself in february, a couple of months ago. as "the new york times" notes, the state has now weakened key parts of the voting infrastructure built after that 2000 election fiasco. let's bring in national political reporter for politico, someone who knows florida politics as well as anybody, mark caputo. mark, good morning. it's good to see you. so first of all, the spectacle yesterday of the fox news exclusive. governor desantis broadcasting to a national audience about a state law and also the particulars of what this bill does. what did you make of what you saw yesterday? >> desantis exploded out of nowhere on the statewide political scene in 2018. and the reason he was able to win the republican primary outside of getting trump's endorsement was his constant appearances on fox. in fact, that's what helped him get the endorsement from trump in the first place. trump was always able to see him

on his favorite network. we had calculated at one point that the amount of money in free tv time that he got on fox is what kept him competitive with his better known republican rival, adam putnam. so desantis and fox go hand in glove, chocolate and peanut butter. in this regard, it's probably no surprise. also, desantis reverted back to being a right-wing conservative politician. there was a lot of negative and i think in many respects bad national media coverage of florida regarding his response to covid. he didn't get that in conservative media. so his instincts not to trust mainstream news media were just reinforced. in that regard as well, he's sort of kind of coming home. here, it just looks like this was just a spur of the moment decision by desantis.

he was going to do this fox show anyway. he wanted to be able to bring something to the table. and he's got his eyes on 2024. but right now in the superduper shadow primary that's going on in the republican party, desantis is a front-runner if not the front-runner for taking donald trump's mantle in 2024, assuming that donald trump doesn't run. you combine all of these factors together and th doesn't come as much of a surprise. one of the animating principles in the republican party right now is the hatred of the mainstream news media, so the more criticism ron desantis can get for things like signing an elections restrictions bill, the better it is for him as he eyes both his re-election in 2022 and a possible bid for president in 2024. >> so, mark, let's put the spectacle to the side and talk about the substance of the law that was passed in the state of florida. we just heard directly from the mouth of governor desantis, his own praise for the election

process in november and again in february, how well it was run in florida. how few problems there actually were. what does this new law do and why was he compelled to pass it? >> the law actually -- i guess i'm going to say something that is going to get me in trouble in that, it's not as bad as the critics say it is. yet, it was premised on a lie. that is, there was not widespread systemic voter fraud. either in florida or nationwide. or in swing states that cost donald trump the election. and this was a reaction to that. and as you pointed out, ron desantis had talked about, hey, we did it right in florida. we're a model. the problem is, the former president had got the base so stirred up that these politicians had to react. so they made some changes around the edges. they made the request for absentee ballots, he could get them for two general elections in a row, now you can just get

them from one general election in the midterm. there are more restrictions on what some people call ballot harvesting, which is when other people can drop off your ballot. i'm in miami-dade, the biggest county in the state. we already have some of those restrictions in place anyway. and in the end, what you have here was a solution in search of a problem. and, you know, i can't say that i'm glad i do live in florida as far as voting, because we have 30 days of voting by mail still. most states don't have that. we have eight days of in-person early voting before election day, as a minimum. here h miami-dade county, we've got 14 days of that. and then you've got election day voting. so those abilities to cast ballots were not restricted. but these kind of smaller, minor changes that were made, things that do make it a little tougher for some folks to register to vote or some folks to cast their

absentee ballots were made. there were also changes made in drop boxes, as well. those were done largely to kind of placate the base and say, you wanted us to do something, now we've done something. >> politico's mark caputo, i think you put it all into context perfectly and we want to take that and move across the country and pull out and look at it all. hours after governor ron desan tice signed those new voting restriction laws, texas emerged as the next state to push forward with one of its own. the republican majority in the texas state legislature mutual fund to debate a controversial voting bill that they say will protect from election fraud. democrats have vowed to file more than 100 amendments aimed at either derailing the legislation or at least limiting its impact if it is passed. during yesterday's house debate, the house sponsor of the bill was unable to cite a single case of voter fraud in texas. that's the key there.

the texas bill would, among a slew of other reforms, ban election officials from proactively mailing out absentee pl ballots or applications, empower partisan poll watchers and make it harder to remove them for bad behavior. and set strict new rules for assisting voters. victoria defrancesco soto, talk about how this move in texas could impact voters or overall what you see happening here. >> well, mika, we see a lot of similarities with florida. governor greg abbott himself conceded there were no voting irregularities in the 2020 election. we also heard from another election official who said that the 2020 election was smooth and secure. so the head scratcher is, why do we see these voting enhancements or these voting security bills as a top priority for the state. and as you pointed out, yesterday, the author of the

bill was asked point-blank, why do we need these bills if nothing is broken. and the answer he was fumbling and mumbling on was, well, we don't have to wait for something bad to happen in order to do this. but the issue is that what you're doing in passing these bills is curtailing people's democratic right to vote. here in texas, like anywhere else, it's a numbers game. the democrats are in the minority and we think they don't have the votes to block this bill. but what we saw yesterday afternoon through the wee hours of the morning was the texas delegation fighting hard to lessen the harm of the bill. we're still waiting for the final vote, for it to go to conference committee. but it looks like the democratic delegation was able to tamp down on some of the most stringent criminalization provisions, for simple errors in registering and

election officials doing that. also making it less easy for partisan poll watchers. it seems like they were able to slim that down, as well. but the thing that does remain and that really hurts texans, especially texans of color, is the ability to send out mail ballot requests. we saw that in harris county where houston is located, did that 2.5 million voters were able to very easily request mail-in ballots. that is definitely not on the table. that is going to be taken away. we see all of these cuts, right? death by a thousand cuts to voting rights here in texas. very troublesome and worrisome, mika? >> i want to bring up elise jordan on why this matters. these las based on the notion that there was widespread voter fraud. these laws based on lies. these laws validating the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. it's growing the belief, by the way, that january 6th didn't matter either.

it is going on fox, governor ron desantis with a stunt, signing a fake bill that, you know, isn't the real bill, but he signed it somewhere else, but doing a stunt on live tv to fox viewers, lapping it all up, millions of people. again, all based on a lie and a stunt to grow that belief that the election was stolen. it points to two things. first of all, to the really pathetic nature of these leaders to lead. that's number one. but number two, let's just admit it. trump is clawing his way back. he is so angry that he won fairly that he is going to do whatever he can to try to feed that lie. using whatever power or authority he has over these pathetic republicans who have no spines, who are so scared of him, even though they could be

done with him, they could be free of him, and they could put him behind them if they would just say and do the right thing. instead, they're propping up elise stefanick and, you know, forcing her to move away from her own core values that she expressed publicly years ago when trump was first running. she expressed very strong statements about his statements towards women, the way he treated other countries, that he didn't think were up to par. elise stefanick talked about how the president did not represent america's core values and now she's being used as a mouthpiece to this terrible message that kevin mccarthy once carried by someone who's capable of carrying it. trust me, it's not liz cheney, because she will not lie to the american people and she will not prop up a cult leader and his unbelievable lie that could destabilize this country for administrations to come. if you heard bob gates on our show yesterday, you would be

very worried about the years to come and trump's impact on our democracy. so, elise, i mean, first of all, how many ways can we count how many times trump has thrown people away and yet these idiots follow him. i guess my question to you, is there a direct connection between what's happening in florida and texas and what went down in georgia with these voting laws that could further destabilize our country on the foreign stage? >> mika, it's petrifying. and you look at how these politicians are so shameless and they just really have no sense of decency and they're willing to use their offices to promote a lie. and i like that mark caputo pointed out that the election law in florida is a lot of theater, because that's what this is. 9/11 happened, traumatic, so many people died on american soil. we're stuck with security

theater at our airports for the rest of our lives. now with this, how are our election going to fundamentally change because donald trump is a self-inflicted trauma with this imaginary crisis and so we have state politicians clamoring to placate dear leader who is out of office at his political grave in mar-a-lago with this election theater nonsense playing on fox news in the fox news early 2021 primary. that's all it is. so i think of america's grand tradition of standing for democracy in the world and how that was so important to our core values, to the post world war ii order. and now you look at this election nonsense where politicians are clamoring to have fewer americans vote easily

just because of donald trump skbrus because donald trump still will not concede that he lost an election. and it's incredible. >> it is. eugene daniels, you listen to mark caputo give a clear-eyed assessment of that law and says it changes some things around the margin, but the point of all of this is to nod to donald trump's lie, because that's what the party has to do. if you listen to congresswoman elise stefanick talking on the radio yesterday, doing interviews to shore up her support among donald trump supporters by reinforcing the idea that there was something wrong with the 2020 election, that we have to secure our elections. this is all again built on that foundation of the lie perpetuated by donald trump. but state by state by state and in congress up on capitol hill, nearly every member, every republican member, every elected official feels that they have to for their own political future not to donald trump. >> oh, absolutely. we don't even really hear from donald trump as much as we used to when he was president.

facebook is keeping him off, he's not on twitter. he's not doing as many interviews. we're getting those statements that seem written as if they were on twitter. so what's happening is all of these republicans, even if they're not hearing directly from him, they are guesstimating what donald trump would do or say in that situation to them. depending on what they would do. and that's a really interesting way to run a party. off republican party who the question isn't, is our leader donald trump. that isn't the question. the question is, do they have a party that operates at the whim of someone named donald trump. and that's where the republican party is. and that's where they've been for a really long time. and there was this period after january 6th, we all remember it, where even republicans were like, you know what, maybe trumpism and donald trump aren't what we want in our party. and they were explicit about that. mccarthy was explicit about that. mcconnell was explicit about that. and we've seen, and it's been

kind of shocking, just quickly, over the last 100 or so days, how quickly the republican party has just kind of returned back to trumpism, as the main force of that party and that's something we're seeing with liz cheney possibly being ousted and elise stefanick and her star rising, because simply what she's doing is parroting donald trump and thinking about the things he would want her to say. this isn't a party that talks about policy, we've been talking about that, talking about transkids. it's not a party are you conservative enough or did you support him enough. if that was the case, liz cheney would not have been being attacked. because according to 538, who focused on and kept track of congressional voting, in members

of congress, 92.9% of the time liz cheney voted with donald trump. and caputo is right, and i say that because he's my colleague, but also because it's true, in all of this, if they use the word election integrity, election restrictions, all of that is tied up into the same thing. they rye to say this is a more nuanced conversation, but it doesn't matter. like mika said, this is a solution looking for a problem. and that's something that's really concerning voting rights and they're pushing for democrats to fix thing that republicans are kind of breaking here with hr-1 and hr-4, which is a voting rights act that would put key provisions back into the voting rights act that were taken out by the supreme court. and that's something that at this point, it's hard to see it get through the senate and get passed and get to joe biden's desk. but that is where people are

putting a lot of their time and efforts in, is hoping that democrats at some point are able to shore up the federal aspect of this, because states are moving forward with these voting restrictive laws. >> so coming up, we're going to run through the evolution of congresswoman elise efanick. she praised president trump as the voice of the republican party in an interview yesterday, but she wasn't always such a vocal supporter. i wonder what changed? plus, as lawmakers negotiate a long-awaited police reform bill, our next guest argues that reforming qualified immunity will never resolve police violence. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. this is a gamechanger, who dares to be fearless even when her bladder leaks.

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voters are speaking loudly and clearly. president trump is the leader and the voice of the republican party. the job of the conference chair is to represent the majority of the house republicans. the vast majority of the house republicans support president trump and they also support his focus on election integrity and election security. the job of the conference chair is not to attack fellow members of his conference and attack president trump, it's to unify, so that our voters know that they can count on us to deliver results and win back the majority and take the gavel away from nancy pelosi once and for all. >> congresswoman elise stefanick of new york speaking there yesterday on sebastian gorka's radio show. i question whether she was reading. she also spoke with steve bannon for his podcast. she is poised to become the next house republican conference chairwoman as the majority of

her party units against liz cheney and with former president donald trump. but stefanick was not always a lockstep trump supporter. in 2016, she skipped the gop convention and refused to mention trump's name when asked if she would vote for him. later that year, she criticized trump after the release of the "access hollywood" tape. in 2017, she opposed his signature tax cut. in 2018, she disagreed with trump's proposed withdrawal from syria. it wasn't until 2019 during trump's first impeachment that she became one of his most outspoken defenders. as the "l.a. times" frames it, it was a head-scratching personality shift for those who knew her as a low-key moderate. in fact, according to 538.com, while cheney has voted 92.9% of

the time with trump and his position on actual issues, liz cheney, 98.9% voting with trump, stefanick only did so 77.7% of the time. what more do you need? willie? >> the editors of the "national review" say in a new editorial, liz cheney is not the problem. they write this, quote, at the end of the day, the problem isn't that cheney is making controversial statements, the problem is that republicans consider her obviously true statements to be controversial. it isn't cheney who is preventing republicans from moving on and repairing the wounds from the 2020 election, it is trump himself. six months after being defeated, he still won't drop it. in statements and tv appearances and in impromptu speeches to small crowds at mar-a-lago, these statements are divisive and false, yet the same people now coming after cheney, don't raise a peep about them. cheney has been accused of

distracting from the fight against biden, when some trump supporters have displayed more passion about taking her out than opposing biden's $6 trillion agenda. if cheney's enemies think we should be talking about biden and not trump, they've certainly picked a funny way to show it. that is from the "national review," of course, a conservative publication. elise jordan, when you look at elise stefanick, her story is kind of a parable of the trump era for republicans. i would call her an elise jordan republican. she worked in the bush white house, she worked on presidential campaign for mitt romney and paul ryan, she worked for tim pawlenty for a while, a moderate republican. and a switch was flipped and she realized, like so many republicans, that the way to keep power and to evaluate your own position is to hug donald trump as closely as possible. >> willie, it's been sad for me to watch the evolution of elise stefanick. she was in the bush white house at the same time. she had a really great reputation as being super sharp,

hard work welcome in the chief of staff's office. i've watched her career with interest and her rise and it has been striking how quickly she turned the switch and was willing to just go for craven political power and ignore what she had previously espousd as her principles. and it's sad to see someone like elise stefanick going and bowing at the altar of gorka and steve bannon with this election nonsense. she's better than that, i want to believe, but she's not showing us that at all right now and it's really disappointing. >> we're going to come back to this. but we want to turn now to the latest on the debate over police reform. republican senator tim scott says a bipartisan deal is closer than ever. one major point of focus is a

compromise on qualified immunity. that is the legal protection given to officers that make it difficult for people to sue them. democrats have long targeted as a key change required in police reform. but our next guest says that isn't the answer to fixing policing in america. joining us now, former member of president obama's task force on 21st century policing, cedric alexander. he's the former public safety director of dekalb county in georgia. now an msnbc law enforcement analyst. his latest opinion piece for "the washington post" is entitled, why reforming qualified immunity will never resolve police violence. thank you for coming back on the show. i'll add to that question that is your headline and say, why can't it be a part of reforming it? >> it can't be the reform in and of itself, mika, and here's why. even though there's compelling

arguments on both sides of the aisle around qualified immunity, certainly the left make a tremendous and compelling argument. but so does the right and someone like myself, who's been a former chief of police who's. a police officer understand it from both sides of the aisle. but here's what's going to make a difference. not qualified immunity in and of itself. all that allows for is for communities and cities to get into these civil litigations around police misconduct that is costing them millions and billions of dollars across this country every year. what's going to make the difference, quite frankly, we've got to go back and we have to look at how we're going to reform police and acknowledge the fact that police in and of itself cannot be the only source of public safety. we need to narrow that scope, as

i indicated in the article, and we need to train them to that measure. and then we need to train others who are more capable and more better trained and equipped to enter into communities that are suffering with a great deal of homelessness, mental illness, et cetera. those social rs issues that creates this dynamic and puts them in a position of taking action as something they're not training to do and then we get into this whole area of civil discourse. i think it's important for us to recognize as well, mika, that we need to look at who we're requiring to be police officers today. we have to be the best and the brightest, but that means they have to be well trained, to be well educated, and have the ability to have great critical thinking as part of the process

and the work day do every day in a very complex and diverse community across this country. so we have to train them, make sure that we have supervision in place that holds them responsible and a healthy police department that make sure that the values of that officer and that department lines up with that of that community. that's how you reduce the likelihood of civil cases that we see so much of. not just saying qualified immunity in and of itself is going to fix this. it's not. there's great arguments on both sides, but in order to fix this, what i am presenting in this article is some solutions to think about from a national level, if they want to do some reform, think about reforms of how you can be impactful, congress, on both side of the aisle, that's going to be long-term and it's going to be significant to the benefit of communities across this country. that is just not going to

resolve in let's get rid of qualified immunity. no, let's look at how rereform policing for the betterment of the community. >> cedric, it's willie geist. great to have you on this morning. you've been in law enforcement for years. we respect your opinion on this. the debate inside qualified immunity right now in congress seems to be that republicans don't want a specific officer to be able to be sued, to be held accountable. the compromise seems to be, we could sue the police department itself, and this is frankly a budgetary question for municipalities. they can't afford to be sued again and again. do you see any compromise in there where it could be on the police department, it could be on the city, and not the individual officer? >> i think that's going to require a whole lot of conversation, willie, but i

think the conversation is they're stuck on this whole qualified immunity, let's get rid of it all together. here again there are great arguments on both sides. i as a police officer wanting to be able to go out and do my job if i'm responding to come to your home or wherever. i and i may have to make a decision in a split second and i can't be concerned about whether i will be personally sued or not. the cases in which i'm referring to are the cases that are truly egregious. cases that we see occur very often across this country, where we see horrible police behavior. those are the cases in which we need to consider whether those officers need to be personally be held responsible. but when it comes back to let's not sue the city, let's sue the police department, i don't understand that one, because police departments get their budgets from the city. so you're still suing the city.

but i think there's room for conversation, but i think what they really need to look at, willie, is the fact that in this country, if we're going to reform policing the ways in which i am suggesting and others are suggesting, we're going to see a reduction in these civil cases and you'll see these cases be more resolved. but in these cases where we're seeing officers being totally egregious, police misconduct in this country, we somehow have got to make sure that cities and police departments are not held responsible for those types of egregious actions that is costing the communities millions of dollars in which they cannot afford. >> cedric alexander, thank you very much for coming back on the show. we will see you soon for sure. and coming up, our next guest slams new york city's decision to, quote, scrap one of childhood's greatest pleasures in favor of a rehash of the

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the following schools are closed today. shelbyville, ogdenville, ogdenville tech, and springfield elementary, and lastly, springfield elementary school is open. >> no! >> and it's open season on savings at springfield menswear, which is closed. >> everyone's off but us. >> ahh. the snow day. one of the classic joys of childhood. but in new york city, the department of education just announced this week that all

snow days next year will be replaced by remote learning! thanks, pandemic. joining us now, columnist for "the new york times" and msnbc contributor, michelle goldberg. your latest piece, michelle, is called, save our snow days. and you write in part, there were weeks in 2020 where one of my children just a few years into elementary school would fall asleep crying almost every night, listing all the things they'd lost and the months which then turned into a year they'd never get back. so i was apoplectic, perhaps, unreasonably so, when the new york city department of education announced on tuesday that it was replacing snow days with remote learning days for the coming school year. it seems like callousness, bordering on cruelty to scrap one of childhood's greatest pleasures in favor of a rehash of pandemic life. the department of education insists that the calendar has given it little option but to eliminate snow days if meeting a

rigid 180-day benchmark means forcing children to relive an experience from the pandemic rather than play in the snow, then the benchmark is a problem. michelle, how about like, meeting in the middle and having snow days be reduced days, so they can play in the snow and do like three hours of school? >> i personally, i never want to see remote learning again. i think that it should be a tool that you can use in life-and-death circumstances. but i really see this as a failure to recognize just how awful this was for parents and children. i mean, for obvious reasons, you didn't get to read the whole top of my story, but the thing that my child -- and i'm using gender-neutral language, because i'm not going to say which one of my children it was, but the thing that my child sobbed about the most, the thing that made them say sometimes i wish i

wasn't alive was zoom school, the utter misery of being stuck on zoom school. when they return to full-time school, i never want to see this again unless it is a matter of life and death. and part of what worries about this, there are a lot of schools that say, now we have this technology, so we don't need to have snow days anymore. and i think that there's going to be a creeping normalization of remote school, because there's this bureaucratic incentive that you have the technology, you've invested all of this money into it, you might as well use it. and so you can imagine, you know, all sorts of reasons for schools to decide, okay, kids are going to go home, but their parents are now going to be responsible for, you know, kind of proctering remote learning. and i just -- i think that there should be -- again, i think this is a tool that they should use only in emergencies. but i also think that when they approach what school is going to look like next year, there's two

competing things they have to take into account. there is certainly learning loss and everyone is worried about that, but there's also been a loss of joy, a loss of happiness, a loss of memories. and that is as important for schools to keep in mind. a lot of kids, my kids are very privileged and it's been hard for them. it's been much, much, much harder for many other kids, who are dealing with greater amounts of trauma. and you know, when i was speaking to congressman jamal bohman, who used to be a principal in the bronx in addition to many other positions in the education system, he was saying that, you know, kids deal with trauma through play. they deal with trauma through friendship. and so we really need to be emphasizing those things next year. >> hey, michelle, it's willie. as a new york city parent, i'm with you, snow days a great. there's nothing better than being out in riverside park with half the city, but the truth is, it's not great for all new york

city parents. there are a lot of people who, when a snow day comes up and their kid is home, they've got nowhere to go with them. so while our experience is a good one on snow days, there are an awful lot of parents in the city who can't do anything but a snow day other than miss a day of work. >> that's absolutely true and that's why snow days are very limited. we're talking about one day a year, one or two days a year at most, which is why taking it away in favor of thinking this is going to have anything to do with increasing their session a reasonable argument. br for those parents, and i understand, there are a lot of them, how does forcing them to oversee remote learning make things any easier, right? that's more work for a parent who has to stay home. >> so, victoria, i know texas probably doesn't deal with snow days, although this past year was kind of interesting, you know, with ted cruz going to some sort of sunny vacation while snow was descending upon your state. but that's a different story.

but i take it you have a question for michelle as well. in terms of the impact on education. >> i do. and look, i agree with you that zoom school, especially for our younger kids, is not ideal. however, we do know that there's a spectrum. and that there are some kids for whom zoom schooling actually did work. so i think where do you see the role of zoom within elementary education, because, michelle, what i'm hearing is scrap all of it rather than going in and using it in more measured doses. >> my own feeling is that if it worked for some kids, that's fine and they should have access to it. in my own experience of it was that it was actively harmful. i would like to see no use of zoom school, except in cases of really life or death. and again, there's something ironic here. the whole reason that they're talking about well, we can n't -- we need to make up all of this last learning so we need to have zoom school on days where

in the past would have been days for playing and celebration, the reason they need to do that is because zoom school was so ineffective. so more zoom school is not going to help that. >> michelle goldberg, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> i do agree. have a great weekend. still ahead, several encouraging developments in the fight against covid, plus florida governor ron desantis puts on a literal show, as he signs into law new voting restrictions claiming to fix a system that no one said was broken. "morning joe" is back in a moment. broken "morning joe" is back in a moment

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we actually have some great news to pass on. coronavirus case in the united states have just hit a seven-month low. i can tell it's even starting to affect my outlook. can you feel it when you're out? now if i'm in the supermarket or a grocery store and i see someone having a meltdown about

wearing masks, i'm like, well, let's hear 'em out. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, may 7th! joe has the morning off. along with willie and me, we have white house reporter for politico, eugene daniels. msnbc contributor, mike barnicle. editor at large for the nonprofit newsroom, the 19th and an msnbc contributor, erin haynes joins us. contributor to the conservative website the bulwark, tim miller is back. he previously served as communications director for jeb bush and spokesman for the republican national committee. and donny deutsch is with us, as well. he's host of the new podcast launching next week. it's entitled unbrand with donny deutsch. yeah, donny, we can't see you in that podcast. how can you handle that? >> actually, you can on youtube. and it's just a quick 30 seconds

on it. oh, look at that! the whole premise is everything today is a brand. every person, every institution, every religion, every facebook page is a brand. i interview with a big celebrity. my first interview is michael j. fox. we break down his brand. you'll probably see some of your favorite morning hosts on the show talking about their brands. i'm pretty excited. >> i like it. >> yeah, that's it. good stuff. >> you'll see willie on there one day, joe. >> oh, that's nice. how about mika? >> mika, well, oh, yeah, mika, also. that's right. and mike. everybody. everybody you're seeing on screen here will be on there. >> do we have to? >> he's going to have his black t-shirt on, willie, and he's going to be going like this. you can just see it, leaning in. >> look at that. >> i got old. i got old. >> it's over! no more black t-shirt!

it's over. >> donny has a good stylist, but in this case, he pulled one of the t-shirts out of his young daughter's drawer and put it on. just a mix-up in the wash there. small. >> yep, super small and stretchy. >> i wear suits on the air. that's the most important thing. mike barnicle is my personal stylist. >> okay. >> congrats, donny. >> the podcast is called on brand, keep your clothes on, donny deutsch. thank you. this morning, there are several developments when it comes to republican-led states altering election laws, in other words, solutions in search of a problem as they chase donald trump's big lie that the 2020 vote was stolen from him. we'll start in florida, where governor ron desantis signed into law new voting restrictions yesterday, but then he did something different on tv. he signed a fake piece of paper. the associated press called it a misleading made for tv ceremony

intended for the republican party's far right. desantis held the signing ceremony live on fox news yesterday morning, shutting out all other news organizations, including local press in florida. a columnist at the "sun-sentinel" tweeted news media barred from entry at signing of controversial elections bill. desantis spokeswoman said bill signing is a fox exclusive. a reporter for the local cbs affiliate tweeted, the signing of a law that will affect all floridians and there won't be a camera from a florida tv station allowed inside. fox news released a statement saying the show did not request or mandate that the signing be exclusive and willie, you know, it's just one of many little small chipping away at the way things are done here in the united states of america. freedom of the press, but also, this sort of fake dog and pony show, this fake signing, where

it's done just for the camera. just for one camera that feeds to one audience. millions of people that follow donald trump. >> yeah, and this is a state law that applies to all floridians who vote, so ostensibly you would want to get that news out through local media outlets and not just those who watch nationally on fox news. that was the spectacle of what happened yesterday. let's talk about what's inside this law. it limits who can collect and drop off ballots. it makes it more difficult to provide water for voters waiting in line. in our last hour, mark caputo who follows politics as closely as anybody explains how the law makes marginal changes, some of which are already in place in certain counties. the big question, then, why was this needed? in 2014, '16, and '18, republicans outnumbered democrats in the mail-in vote, but in 2020, democrats dominated there as more voters requested mail-in ballots during the

pandemic. governor desantis claims the law will restore confidence in the state's elections, yesterday donald trump won florida and there have been no legitimate allegations or evidence of widespread voter fraud there the ap has called florida a model for what voting should look like in america. ron desantis himself praised how well the state manages its elections. >> the way florida did it, i think, inspires confidence. i think that's how elections should be run. rather than us be at the center of a bush versus gore in 2020, we're now being looked at as a state that did it right and the state that these other states should emulate. >> the result from 2020 from an administrative perspective was that florida had the most transparent and efficient election anywhere in the country. >> so tim miller, this is not revolutionary change to the way people vote in the state of

florida. it sort of nibbles around the edges and is really just theatrical in many ways. a nod to former president trump and those who continue to push the lie that there was fraud around the 2020 election. >> yeah, thanks, willie. i'm still reeling a little bit over the donnie t-shirt discourse. >> we all are. >> i think what you're saying about the theater of this is what is important. this is about one thing and this is why this was an exclusive signing for fox news. this is a show being put on for donald trump supporters. and there were no problems in florida. florida was a model. florida did a great job with counting ballots, did a great job with ballot security. you know, in an election that went on for days and days, florida had a call, not the call i wanted, but they had a call pretty early on election night, frankly. and so all of this is a way to

maybe on the margins clamp down the democratic vote. a vote -- voters of color, younger voters, maybe voters who are off at college that use mail-in ballots, while mostly putting on a pr stunt that helps to continue the mythology around the big lie. and that is, i think, the real problem here. is that you see that for republican politicians to stay in good standing with their voters, they need to go along with this myth that the election was somehow fraudulent and something needs to be done to make their voters feel better, when, you know, all of that is nonsense. all of that is putting feelings over their facts. it's not what how conservative guidance should go. ron mentioned 2000, the state of florida made changes because they needed to make changes in 2000. so we've seen the positive results of that in 2020. now they're making changes to

make donald trump feel better, to maybe on the margins make it harder for democrats to vote in the state and this you're seeing in states all across the country. >> yep, just hours after governor ron desantis signed new voting restrictions, texas emerged as the next state to push forward with one of its own. the republican majority in the texas state legislature moved to debate a controversial voting bill that they say will protect from election fraud. democrats have vowed to file more than 100 amendments aimed at either derailing the legislation or at least limiting its impact if it is passed. during yesterday's debate, the house sponsor of the bill was unable to site a single case of voter fraud in texas. it would ban election officials from proactively mailing out

absentee ballots or applications, empower partisan poll watchers to make it harder to remove them for bad behavior and set strict riles for assisting voters. and then there is arizona, where we knew the republican-commissioned recount of the presidential election in maricopa county was ridiculous. now we know it may actually violate federal law. the head of the civil rights division questioned the security of the more than 2 million ballots that are being recounted by a private contractor. arizona officials are pushing back with plans to tell the justice department there is no need for federal involvement. supporters of the audit are supporting some of the most outlandish claims to back their case. as nbc news reported, the private companies hired by arizona senate republicans to recount millions of ballots from the 2020 election are concerned

about possible antifa attacks and plan to use uv lights to hunt for fraud. internal documents released as part of a legal battle with democrats offer a, quote, detailed look at the conspiratorial thinking behind the extraordinary partisan hunt for fraud, some six months after former president donald trump lost the election and began pushing the lie that it was stolen from him. according to one election law expert, quote, it would be comic comical if it weren't so scary. erin haynes, what are the potential consequences down the line of what we see happening here today? >> a couple of things, mika. the first one is, you're starting to see a pattern. places like arizona, places like florida, placing like georgia where governor brian kemp also signed the voter suppression

laws there without cameras there and with only republican lawmakers flanking him under that photo of a plantation. meanwhile, mark canon, the representative who tried to get into the room to be a witness to that signing was arrested, because he did not want her on hand to witness what was happening, the solution that continues to be in search of a problem. in arizona, you had the press fighting to get into that so-called audit, to witness that process and to be able to report on that process to the citizens of arizona and to the country. you know, that was a fight that they had to have, even as that state was claiming that they needed to verify the election results in arizona yet again. and now you have ron desantis, governor desantis down in florida signing his, that legislation outside of the view of most cameras, with the exception of fox news. and the reason this is problematic is because, you

know, all of these gop leaders are using this solution in search of a problem as a way to perpetuate the big lie that donald trump won the election and that joe biden lost. but i think as a press, what we need to be thinking about is the reframing of the big lie at this point. i mean, here we are, a hundred days plus now into the biden/harris administration. it is clear to a majority of americans that president biden did win the election, that president trump did lose the election, but the big lie now that i think that people need to be paying attention to and that we must continue to, you know, push back against, is the lie that election integrity something that's being threatened in this country and something that needs to be addressed. that is the big lie that republicans are pushing now and that is the big lie that is moving through statehouses in the wake of the big lie that president trump tried to push unsuccessfully, because as we know, even as we speak, joe biden and kamala harris are

governing. >> donny deutsch, as erin just indicated, florida, texas, they are just 2 of 43 states in this country at last count, 43 state legislatures dominated by republicans that are trying to really fix election laws, because apparently, that's the only way republicans can win a national election is to deny the results or try to fix it for themselves. and yet what we're talking about, these statements by state legislatures to alter and make tougher election laws, making it impossible for people to vote or very difficult for people to vote, i would consider that to be secondary to the larger issue and the larger issue would be, is the damage that donald trump has done to our country, to our institutions, is it permanent, is it lasting, or is it temporary? what's your view?

>> great question, mike. i want to go back to the three or four images of desantis you've been putting up there, one had 13 or 14 women, one had men, and another had men, all white. let's call that what this is. what image is up there is very, very calculated. to me, this is one more instance of the republican party saying, what you can't do versus the democratic party saying what we can do. we can help infrastructure, we can help education, we can help job. and in answer to your question, is donald trump permanent? it's permanent until a transformational figure comes forward. right now everything is trump, because it's a blank piece of paper. there's no one home. the front leaders in the republican party are people who have been defeated by donald trump or sucking his kneecaps. there will be one person, somebody will come forward and say guess what, this is not about what's right or wrong, i'm

about taking america back from the democrats, from the soberists. and i like donald trump -- i'm not talking about me -- but this is what he has to say, don't make it about right or wrong, make it about winning and losing and basically saying, this is a losing strategy that we are on. there will be a transformational figure, he or she has just not shown their face yet. it's a person, not an issue. until a person comes forward, people will still follow donald trump because there's nobody else home. >> and among the people speaking directly to donald trump, governor desantis was one of them, but congresswoman elise stefanick is another, appears poised to become the next conference chairwoman was a majority of their party have united against liz cheney and with former president trump. the new york congresswoman voiced her unwavering support

yesterday for the former president. >> the voters are speaking loudly and clearly. president trump is the voice and the leader of the republican party. the job of the conference chair is to represent the majority of house republicans. the vast majority of the house republicans support president trump and they also support his focus on election security. the job of the conference chair is not to attack fellow members of the conference and attack president trump, it's to unify, so that our voters know that they can count on us to deliver results and win back the majority and take the gavel away from nancy pelosi once and for all. >> congresswoman stefanick speaking there yesterday on the radio show of sebastian gorka, a fervent supporter of president trump, former adviser. here's republican senator lindsey graham weighing in on liz cheney and the future of the republican party. >> i would just say to my republican colleagues, can we move forward without president trump? the answer is no.

i've always liked liz cheney with but she's made a determination that the republican party can't grow with president trump. i've determined we can't grow without him. >> so tim miller, as a lifelong republican, someone who's worked for jeb bush and worked in republican politics for most of your adult life, what do you make of the way this is playing out? when i listen to lindsey graham there, i think back to that night of january 6th, where he pounded the podium there and said on the senate chamber, you know, i'm out, i'm done. we've had a long relationship, me and donald trump, but it's over. we heard kevin mccarthy condemning what he saw at the capitol. mitch mcconnell, yet, liz cheney is being singled out because she's simply saying that joe biden won the 2020 election and it's time to move on and focus on the things that we all say we believe in as conservatives.

>> the astonishing thing is the times they both mentioned the emcee of weddings down at mar-a-lago, donald trump. this is not a man who has a job or necessarily any influence. so i think that elise really gives away the game in that interview, where she goes to talk to one of donald trump's, you know, this is a competitive category, but one of his most insane, you know, former staffers who has now gone on to kind of a mago media career. she goes to his podcast to lavish praise upon donald trump and you see what this race with liz cheney for conference chair is about. it's about fealty to this former guy who lost, as donny points out. so i worked with both of the people in the last two clips. lindsay when he endorsed jeb in 2016. i spent a lot of time on the road with shim. he would go on and about how big gotted donald trump is, how much of a racist he is. how much he is going to divide

the party. elise worked with me at the rnc when we put out that famed autopsy that said that the party needs to expand our reach beyond white men, do better with women in the suburbs, do better with communities of color. both of these folks know better, they do. but they see that right now to be successful in the party, to be successful in conservative media, to get the likes and the retweets, you need to continue lavish praise on donald trump. and that is what they're doing. and that is what this conference chair race is about between cheney and stefanick, nothing else. and i wrote about this for the bulwark. just really quick. there was this great, horrific quote in "the washington post" in early november that said, what's the downside for humoring him? what's the downside for humoring him over the big lie? we al saw what the downside was on january 6th. yet today, four months after the

insurrection, elise stefanick is saying, what's the downside for humoring him a little bit longer? that's the difference between her and liz cheney and that's what the race is about. >> and also, i would love to ask elise stefanick if perhaps instead of going on podcasts and radio shows where she can have her prepared notes in front of her to answer some questions, because i'm really curious. and i think peggy noonan puts it best in the "wall street journal." i would like to know what she thinks about the january 6th riots. liz cheney confronts a house of cowards. to suggest that the rally was simply a rowdy and raucous events, just some goofballs dressed in antelope horns. but she reminds us, the intention of the rioters wasn't to roam the halls and yell, it was something grave and dark, to disrupt and prevent the constitutionally mandated counting of the electoral college votes in the 2020

presidential election. listen to that. that was scheduled to occur in congress that day. that act of tabulating is more than two centuries old, formalizes and validated the election outcome, physically represents the peaceful transfer of power and has never been stopped or disrupted. look at this. what happened on 1/6 was an assault on the constitutional order. cheney has called for a hard january 6th -- called hard for a january 6th commission to investigate formally what happened that day. which is a problem for some republicans, not because they don't want to relitigate the past, but because there are members who are uneasy about what such a probe might unearth about their own actions. here is the problem of house republicans.

no matter how pro-trump they show themselves to be, there will always be someone back home who is trumpier. they're jumpy and scared, fear a primary challenge and probably don't know deep down the inquisitions won't stop with miss cheney. they'll be asked about this, what they did this day, what they thought this day, what they said to president trump about this. and my question to elise stefanick, eugene daniels, is what does she think about this day? does she believe the election was rigged and stolen? does she truly believe these people were fight for what was right? what does she really, truly believe? >> it's hard to know. we talked about how elise stefanick went from this person who did not -- wasn't very trumpian. she was considered a moderate and that is something that we've

kind of watched that what donald trump has done to this party and to republicans is that he has shown them, he can forgive anything if you have and show complete public loyalty to him, right? we saw lindsey graham as a perfect example, donald trump gave his nobody out at a rally and they became besties over the four years of the trump presidency. and you know, how republicans -- liz cheney has talked about. democrats want this. there was spoede to be this bipartisan commission, kind of a 9/11-style commission looking at january 6th. the issue was, for 9/11, those were foreign actors that attacked us. right here, these are people that are in this country and the reasons that they did it, not from my reading of it, not from anyone on this panel's reading of it, from the own reading of it is that they did this because donald trump told them to. they said they did this because of this lie that was perpetuated not just by donald trump and not

just on january 6th, but by republicans for months. this idea, as tim put it, of humoring donald trump and something that we had this conversation of for years, frankly, was whether or not we should take him seriously, but not literally. and the thing is, we should have always taken him both. you know, the time when he lost the iowa caucuses in 2016, if we can remember that far back, he said that ted cruz won only because of voter fraud. when he won the 2016 election, donald trump said hillary clinton only won the popular vote because of illegal votes in california. the idea of humoring him, we're watching the actual effects of that. we're watching these trump supporters attack congress and run through the halls and have a noose for the vice president, the then vice president of the united states, all of these things are something that we should have as a country should

have brought us together to have serious conversation about the things we care about, the things that matter, and that is yet to happen and part of that is because republicans are so scared that donald trump is going to i guess, now, release a statement about him. he can't tweet, he can't be on facebook. he can call into fox. but those are the things that are operating within the republican party and it's not policy. >> mika, to answer your question briefly, congresswoman stefanick condemned the violence on january 6th after it happened, put out pro forma statements apt about the violence, but she was one of the chairpeople that was perpetuating the lie that brought those people to the capitol. and even after the building had been cleared, she continued with her objections to the certification of the vote that would make joe biden president of the united states and it continues even today, to say there were irregularities, there are things we need to look at in the process when she knows full well that's not true.

>> yeah. veteran pollster, frank luntz told. the "new york times" cara swisher that former president trump's campaign to undermine faith and elections could backfire on the republican party. let's take a listen. >> i think the greater impact. this could cost the republicans the majority in the house in 2022. what donald trump is saying, he's telling people, it's not worth it to vote. donald trump single handedly may cause people not to vote and he may be the greatest tool in the democrats arsenal to keep control of the house and senate in 2022. if republicans lose the majority in the house, they will lay the blame at the feet of donald trump for telling people it's not worth it to vote. >> if they do, donny deutsch, i

think there's a lot of risk and again i point back to the interview that we had on "morning joe" yesterday with bob gates. it's going to take a few administrations for people around the world to believe that these forces that really took hold in the last administration are truly gone. >> it will take a cycle or two. but i want to say again to the republicans watching, donald trump is a losing proposition. those images that we were playing of people storming the capitol, that's all you have to say about donald trump so what is so insane about the republicans, and by the way, he will be indicted between now and the next election, he is unelectable. donald trump is unelectable. you are fools. forget right or wrong, you are losers with donald trump. get that in your thick, dumb,

skulls. >> mike barnicle? >> i've been thinking, tim, about something you said a couple of moments ago about lindsey graham and hanging with lindsay during the course of campaigns, when he was crushing trump with you. a similar thing occurred to me with lindsey graham at laguardia airport a while ago. but my question to you, and i know more republicans than i do, clearly. but it seems to me that one of the obstacles to progress in this country is that we are now dominated in legislatures can by a series of people who measure time by the moment. they have no sense of history, it seems to me. they have no sense that five, ten years down the road, they will have no idea how they arrived at. how do we have so many people who think that history is the

moment? >> i think part of it is because they're rewarded in the moment. i think politicians right now get immediate feedback, right? immediate feedback from voters, immediate feedback on social media. they know what works and what doesn't work. they get to test things out. that's part of it. but let me tell you, this is going to get worse and not better no matter what happens in the midterm. i had to shake my head at that frank luntz comment. they didn't blame him in november. hay didn't blame him after he cost republicans the senate in two senate seats in georgia. i don't know what makes somebody think that he'll be blamed in 2022. and whether republicans pick up seats or lose seats, there's this churn that senators who maybe didn't act courageously,

but have this sense of history, people like richard burr or richard shelby, they're retiring and they're going to be replaced with people who have bought into the maga mind-set of owning the libs as being the most important thing to do. of appealing to the base with the most outlandish attacks of people they hate. when you look at who will come in alabama, it might be mo brooks, who is one of the people who pushed the insurrection i think that you'll see this churn to make the problem that you've identified even worse, no matter what kind of a net output is on the seat. >> tim miller and donny deutsch, thank you both very much for being on the show this morning. donny deutsch has his new podcast launching next week,

entitled muscles in my tny black shirt. on brand with donny deutsch is really the name. here is that moment from our show yesterday that i just mentioned when joe asked former defense secretary bob gates about the lasting effects of the trump presidency on america's diplomatic relations. >> our alliances are a unique asset. i think that one of the most positive aspects of the biden administration so far is reestablishing these relationships with our allies and trying to restrengthen our alliances. but i'll tell you, i think that the damage that's been done during the trump administration in terms of those alliances is not going to be put behind us in four months or in a year or two.

i think that we've created an element of doubt in our allies, and now their worry is, is joe biden a one-off? and will america return to trump-like policies toward our allies after biden leaves office? so, in all honesty, i think it will take at least two presidencies, president biden and his successor, adhering to those alliances making clear we will keep our commitments and be there for our allies before they begin to regain confidence. >> joining us now, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor and the president and the ceo of the nonpartisan, nonprofit partnership for public service, max steyer. the group held a conversation about rebuilding institutions as part of public service recognition week. and i really appreciate you both being on. and want to talk a great deal about that. but first, ambassador, i would

just like you to comment on what we just played, which is bob gates talking about that element of doubt that still remains around the world for the united states of america. do you agree with that? and what is it going to take beyond, by the way, not having images like the january 6th riot, what is it going to take to restore trust around the world? >> mika, i think secretary gates is right in general. it won't last as long as he's concerned it might. that is, we've had conversations with ukrainians, many ukrainians. the ukrainians as an example are very eager for the united states to be back. . the ukrainians were worried that

that might jeopardize their relations with the united states. and so to have secretary blinken be there yesterday was a strong signal that they welcomed. they were so appreciative that the united states will send its secretary of state in one of the first foreign visits to kiev. so it was, i think we can recover. i think we are recovering as secretary gates said, and i think it will, i think it will happen. >> ambassador taylor, it's willie geist, great to have you on this morning. to remind our viewers, you're one of the people who in realtime sounded the alarm about what was happening with the trump administration and ukraine. you thought it was crazy to withhold security assistance in exchange for politics, looking into joe biden's family, for example. so let me ask you about how things are different now than people believe they are. how has president biden handled ukraine, how has he handled russia differently than did former president trump? >> that's an easy up with, willie. there's an enormous difference

between president trump and president biden. let's just think about phone calls. president biden first calls president zelensky and says, we're totally with you. and then he calls president putin. this was about a month ago, when president putin was amassing large troops and president biden told president putin, back off. the second thing he said which was very interesting is, mr. putin, this is a heads up, we're going to put sanctions, more sanctions on you very shortly. and sure enough, two days later, the united states nound more sanctions against the russians.

and president biden says, maybe we can get together knowing that if president putin were to invade ukraine, than that summit would never happen. or if president putin were to kill navalny, that would never happen. that kind of direct message from president biden to president putin with a pre-call to president zelensky was a presentation of the kind of work that is very important that the new administration is doing. >> this scandal you found yourself in the middle of, not involved in, but in the middle of with those text messages and sounding the alarm has come back into the headlines in the last couple of weeks, as the fbi raided the offices of rudy giuliani in connection to the ukraine investigation. do you have any doubt now as you look back on it, more ambassador, about what was happening there, that the trump administration was, in fact, withholding security assistance to get political dirt on joe biden?

>> there's no doubt. there's no doubt. that's been made clear over and over during the discussions. the system, however, pushed back hard. that decision to hold back on security systems was made only at the very top, but it had the effect of delaying and causing doubt, going back to your earlier comment, causing doubt about the united states in ukraine. were we going to provide that assistance to an ally, to a partner, who's fighting the russians on the front line. so there were doubts there, but the system, the united states has institutions, we were talking about institutions here this week, in government service and public service, the institutions prevailed. and that decision, bad decision was overturned and it continues again. >> max steyer, off of what ambassador taylor just mentioned, the institutions that govern us, the institutions that

work for us, not only here in the united states, but around the world. we were talking earlier, prior to your appearance about the damage that's been done to our institutions over the last four years. could you measure the damage that's been done and how long will it take to make any progress to restore those institutions, as well as the public's faith in the integrity of the institutions? >> wonderful question and unfortunately, i think this is going to be a long-term reinvestment that we'll need. i would argue that our government has suffered decades of rust, and we had an administration, the last one that came in with a sledge hammer. a little over 6% of the federal workforce is under the age of 30. that number is under 3% when you look at i.t. professionals in the federal government. if you look at the moral of the

workforce writ large, it's about 14 to 15 points lower than you would see in a comparison group in the private sector. at the same time, we have extraordinary civil servants. we have extraordinary public servants like ambassador taylor who have amazing expertise that they are using on behalf of the american public. our public servants are incredible assets and they're committed to the public good. and that combination of expertise and public good is what makes our government work in such a wonderful way. we have so many problems, if we want to continue to address those problems successfully, we need to make sure we're investing in those institutions and those institutions ultimately are people, public servants. that's why we're trying to celebrate them this week, but we need that longer-term investment to ensure we can meet the problems of tomorrow. >> again, both to you mr. steyer and to ambassador taylor. this question is directed. our institutions operate

overseas. there was a recent poll in the european union, taken in the urine union that showed a devastate lack of confidence and respect for the united states in just the short period of four years. there's soon to be a new chancellor in berlin, there will be an election in france. how has what has happened impacted our prestige, our standing, our word in europe? >> i think that's a really fundamental issue for us. our success as a nation depends on the capability of our government, the capability of our public servants, and often the vision that we offer the rest of the world that we represent. our government is really fundamental to our democracy. democracy is the core value that we offer the rest of the world. so we need to rebuild our internal institutions, the workforce that we have to support our society and in doing that, we need to understand that it's also how we're perceived by

the rest of the world that really matters. >> well, i guess final note to you ambassador, in terms of how we're doing in that respect, and including the news of the day, of these new laws being put in place in florida and texas, kind of validating this whole "the election was stolen" notion. >> i'm not the best person to talk about the election laws, but i can comment on the question you raised about our standing in the world and our ability to provide leadership. in particular in europe. so scare blinken is in london and ukraine, and his welcome is very pronounced. it's very clear that the europeans, we've got differences with the europeans, but they really are eager for the united states to be back. they're very eager for us to be there at the table. they want to lead, we want to

lead. there are certain areas that we can both work together on, and they know they're stronger if we're with them. we're welcomed back. they're eager to have us. secretary blinken right there in kiev yesterday is a good demonstration of how we're back. >> ambassador bill taylor, max steyer, both, thank you very much for being on this morning. and coming up, a possible breath of fresh air. what one top health official is saying about when we might be able to ease indoor mask mandates. "morning joe" is coming right back. joe" is coming right back as your business changes, the united states postal service is changing with it. with e-commerce that runs at the speed of now. next day and two-day shipping nationwide,

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45 past the hour. with cases of the coronavirus down and vaccinations up, former fda commissioner scott gottlieb says it's time to start easing back indoor mask requirements. here's what he told shep smith last night on cnbc. >> when do you think the cdc can have a meaningful conversation about lifting the mask mandates indoors? >> i think we can do it right around now. >> now? >> i think we should start lifting these restrictions as -- i think we should start lifting these restrictions as aggressively as we put them in. if we do start seeing outbreaks again, the only way to earn public credibility is to demonstrate that you're willing to relax these provisions when the situation improves. that's what gives you the credibility to implement than when things worsen. as we get into may and see

prevalence levels decline further, i don't think you have to continue these mask mandates. i think over the course of this month, we'll see the picture improve sharply enough that by the end of the month, we're going to be lifting these mask mandates. certainly outdoors, but i think you'll see municipalities lift the mask mandates for indoors, as well. >> the cdc's most recent guideline still recommends wearing masks during all indoor gatherings, even if you are vaccinated. that is a very interesting opinion. still ahead, we learned yesterday that unemployment claims fell again last week, as the labor market tries to make a come back. we'll see if the trend holds when the jobs report is released in the next hour. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. hour you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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okay, everyone, don't forget, mother's day is this sunday and we want to highlight how powerful women shape future generations. our next guest's latest book focuses on the important role mowers played in the rights of three civil rights icons. joining us now, author, advocate and educator, anna maleka tubs. her new book is entitled "the three mothers," history the mothers of martin luther king jr., mall conx and james baldwin shaped a nation. what a beautiful concept for a book. i love it. and i know you're right in the way we honor the mothers is to tell their stories. so why don't we start with mlk. >> well, thank you so much for having me, mika. good morning. mlk junior, his mother, alberto williams king was an incredible social activist. she believes faith could be be

faith without social justice, that if you were a religious leader, you had to believe you were fighting for the oppressed, making sure you were using your privileges to advanced the freedom cause forward. so she participated in marches and in boycotts. she was an incredible instrumentalist and a singer. >> and now let's move to malcolm x. all of these women really inspired what has happened. and what their sons were able to do. malcolm x's mother, louise little. >> absolutely. and louise little's case, perhaps the connection is even more obvious to her son. she was also an activist. she believed in pan africanism, black independence, black pride. so she is part of the marcus garby movement. she writes for the negro world newspaper, she believes that you stand up for yourself no matter the cost. and you stand up for your worth and you demand to be treated with dignity and the respect that you deserve. and finally, emma baldwin,

james baldwin's mother. >> yes. emma bertid baldwin, she was a writer. she believed that she could help other people through the darkness, through their own pain, through her writing. so everybody who knew her, she would give them these letters to help them see the world differently, find more healing, find more progress. and it's not a coincidence that her son becomes the famous writer, james baldwin, who calls himself a witness to the power of light. >> we want to bring in erin hanes who has a question for you. >> thank you for this book because i enjoyed reading and learning more about these women. i'm from atlanta and alberta king is someone i learned a lot

about growing up, also her tragic death. i know martin luther king's mother, malcolm x's mother, they had tragic endlings. i'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit and really why you felt like it was important to talk about these women whose gifts ended up being imparted in such a way. >> i appreciate that question. it's trou we need to provide more context on what happened in these women's lives. it reminds us where we are as a nation today and the connections to our history. and when we're thinking about black motherhood and black women hood. with alberta king, she was assassinated in her church after losing her second son in suspicious circumstances. as well as louise little who, again, is this radical activist and, therefore, her and her family and her husband are persecuted by groups like the kkk and the black legion,

another white supremacist group, and she was put away against her will for 25 years of life. and not because she had, quote/unquote, gone crazy, which is with what we've heard in history for so long, but that a white male doctor diagnosed her with dementia saying she was imagining being discriminated against. >>. >> anna, congratulations on the book. when we talk about martin luther king's mother, my goodness, she not only brought him into the ebenezer baptist church, but also introduced this idea of nonviolent resistance to her son. an idea he carried and changed the world. >> it was incredible. and when i started writing this

book, i knew they were going to be interesting, i knew they deserved to be told. i didn't set out to say because alberta did this, malcolm x did this. but what was surprising to me is how obvious the connections were between the mothers and their sons. and it made it more clear that we erased them intentionally. there are direct connections to the women's work before they became mothers, as activists, as creators in their own right, as changing systems around them for freedom, for equality and the sons were well aware of their mother's impact on their lives. >> the book is "the three mothers" how the mothers shaped a nation. anna malaka tubs, thank you very much. great book. just in time for mother's day. still ahead, vaccinations are up and cases are down. coronavirus infections across

the country have hit their lowest levels in months. plus, florida governor ron desantis signs new voting restrictions into law and members of the media weren't allowed to cover the event, except for fox news. we'll explain why, "morning joe" will be right back. l explain wh" will be right back this is how you become the best! [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. [sfx: kids laughing] [sfx: bikes passing] [sfx: fire truck siren] onstar, we see them. okay. mother and child in vehicle.

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covid history. as we begin may 2020, president trump sooths an ailing nation. >> it's all working out. it's all working out. it's horrible that we have to go through it, but it's all working out. >> yes, everything is going gangbusters. if only the mean old media was on board. >> i am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen. they always said nobody got treated worse than lincoln. i believe i am treated worse. >> penny for your thoughts, abe. oh, yes, that. and let's not forget who this

hurts the most. >> to the people that have lost someone, there is nobody that has taken it harder than me. >> nobody has taken it harder or gotten over it faster. >> we're opening up the country again. >> who would have ever thought we were going to be saying that. a reopening. >> america is back in business, but not everyone loves the plan. namely a nefarious gang of nair do wells named -- >> the experts. >> the experts. >> they know better than us. >> listening to the experts being wrong on everything database. >> don't these experts trust the american people? >> the experts have been telling us that hundreds of thousands of people are going to die. >> yeah, those stupid experts. and now it's time for laura ingram's infectious disease corner. trying to stop this virus with social distancing is like trying to drive a nail through jello.

>> what else? >> now they're sigh that 134,000 could die by covid of august. what? >> yeah. what? we're not going to hear those numbers until june. but in the meantime, it's time to get back to what really matters. >> and i would hope that within maybe the last couple of months, we'll be able to do rallies. >> yes. rallies. let's get out there and spread until we're dead. this has been this week in covid history. >> we're going to let that one speak for itself. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's friday, may 7th. it's friday. with us, we have professor at the linden b. johnson school of public affairs at the university school of texas, msnbc victoria desoto, white house correspondent he with politico eugene daniels, also an msnbc

contributor. and former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department's elise jordan is with us along with willie and me and joe has the morning off this morning, but we got this. let's start this friday morning with some positive news, okay, in the fight against the coronavirus. here in the u.s., covid-19 infections are now at their lowest levels in seven months. the u.s. averaged about 48,000 cases per day over the past week. that's a 13% improvement over the week before and it's the first time since october that average daily cases have dipped below 50,000. according to axios, over half of all american adults have now received at least one shot of the vaccine and 41% of adults are fully vaccinated. deaths and serious ill pss have dropped significantly, as well.

this is hopeful, hopeful especially for our young people, willie, who need to get back into society. >> no question about it. and moderna released new data yesterday showing its coronavirus vaccine is 96% effective in children ages 12 to 17. the vaccine trial for teenage ergs involved more than 3,200 participants. moderna says it so far has not identified any serious safety concerns. we'll keep an eye on that. meanwhile, two new studies show the pfizer biontech vaccine is highly effective against variants. both studies show the vaccines

are highly effective against both strains. >> this is good news. we'll follow it. we have to watch what's happening around the world with the coronavirus, but at least some good news on the forefront right here. in politics this morning, there are several developments when it comes to republican-led states altering election laws. in other words, solutions in search of a problem as they chase donald trump's big lie that the 2020 vote was stolen from him. in a moment, we're going to tell you about going on in texas, but first to florida where governor ron desantis signed into law new voting restrictions yesterday. the associated press called it a, quote, misleading made for tv ceremony intended for the republican party's far right. desandis held the signing ceremony live on fox news and on

fox news only and positioned himself for the cameras so he could make a presentation to the fox audience. all other news organizations, clul including local press, were not allowed in. a columnist at "the sun sentinel" tweeted news media barred from entry at signing of controversial elections bill. desantis spokes woman says the bill signing is a fox exclusive. it was tweeted the signing of a law that will affect all floridans and there won't be a camera from a florida tv station allowed inside. this is not normal. a spokes woman for desantis said the governor did not sign the actual bill on camera. oh, this is fantastic. and the event was purely ceremonial. so it was a fake bill? here is how the governor explained it. >> we were happy to give them the exclusive on that and i think it well really, really well, but that's broadcast to millions of people not just in -- and obviously throughout

the whole country, but a huge number of people in florida are watching that. we had a crowd -- we probably had a thousand people in the crowd that were really cheering on. >> who does he sound like? it's crazy. the crowd desantis just referred to was a group from donald trump's fan club. they were already in place at a west palm beach hotel. fox news released a statement saying the show did not request or mandate that the signing be exclusive. but, willie, the bigger issue here -- the big issue is not fox being used in whatever ways it's being used, but the laws that he's signing. all of this is -- when you look at what's going on in florida, not necessary in florida, but

the bigger conversation is that trump has not gone away and he's planting roots. >> this law and laws like it are built on that lie. and despite what governor desantis said back in february, he was touting the election process in florida having been safe and secure. the details of the new law, it adds new hurdles to voting by mail. it limits who can collect and drop off ballots and makes it more difficult to provide water waiting for voters in line. why was it needed? in 2016, 2014, 2018, republicans outnumbered democrats in the mail-in vote, but in 2020 democrats dominated there.

yet donald trump won florida. the ap has called florida a model for what voting should look like in america. governor desantis has praised how well florida has managed its elections. >> the way florida did it, i think that inspires confidence. i think that's how elections should be run. rather than us be at the center of a bush versus gore in 202 wrb we're now being looked at as the state that did it right. >> the result of 2020 from an administrative perspective was florida had the most transparent and efficient election anywhere in the country. that is governor desantis himself just in february, a couple of months ago. as the "new york times" notes, the state has weakened key parts of the voting infrastructure built after that 2000 election

fiasco. let's bring in national political reporter for politico, someone who knows florida politics as well as anybody, mark caputo. first of all, the spectacle yesterday of the fox news exclusive, governor desantis broadcasting to a national audience about a state law and the particulars of what this bill does. what did you make of what you saw yesterday? >> kind of like desantis goes home. desantis exploded out of nowhere on the statewide political scene in 2018. and the reason why he was able to get the primary was his contact appearances on fox. that's what helped hem get the endorsement from trump in the first place. we calculated at one point that the amount of money he got, free

airtime, on fox was double that of his rival. so desantis and fox go hand and glove, chocolate and peanut butter. in this regard, it's probably no surprise. desantis, increasingly, amid the pandemic reverted back to being a more reactionary right wing conservative politician. there was a lot of negative and i think in many respects bad national media coverage of florida regarding his response to covid. he didn't get that in conservative media. and so his instincts not to trust mainstream news media were reinforced. here, it just looks like this, from what we understand, was a spur of the moment decision by desantis. he was going to do this fox show, anyway. he wanted to bring something to the table and he's got his eyes on 2024. right now in kind of the really early super duper primary, the shadow primary that's going on

in the republican party, desantis is a front-runner if not the front-runner for taking donald trump's mantle in 2024, assuming that donald trump doesn't run. you combine all of these factors together and this doesn't come as much of a surprise. one of the animating principles in the republican party right now is the hatred of the mainstream news media. so the more criticism ron desantis can get for things like signing an elections restrictions bill, the better it is for him as he eyes both his re-election in 2022 and a possible bid for president in 2021. >> politico's mark caputo, thank you very much. coming up, alesse stefanik's unwavering support for donald trump. in today's republican party, that you that's enough for a big promotion. we'll show you her evolution, straight ahead on "morning joe." straight ahead on "morning joe."

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the voters are speaking loudly and clearly. president trump is the leader and the voice of the republican party. the job of the conference chair is to represent the majority of the house republicans. the vast majority of the house republicans support president trump. and they also support his focus on election integrity and election security. the job of the conference here is not to attack fellow members of the conference and attack president trump. it's to unify so that our voters know that they can count on us to deliver results and win back the majority and take the gavel away from nancy pelosi once and for all. >> congresswoman alesse stefanik of new york speaking yesterday on sebastian gorka's radio show.

i question whether she was reading. she also spoke with steve banyan for his podcast. she is poised to become the next house republican conference chair woman as the majority of her party reunites against liz cheney. and with former president donald trump. but stephanic was not always a lock step trump supporter. in 2016, she skipped the gop convention and refused to mention trump's name when asked if she would vote for him. later that year, she criticized trump after the release of the access hollywood tape. in 2017, she opposed his signature tax cut. in 2018, she disagreed with trump's proposed withdrawal from syria. it wasn't until 2019, during trump's first impeachment that she became one of his most outspoken defenders as the "l.a. times" framed it, it was a head

scratching specialty shift for those who knew her as a low key moderate. according to 538.com, while cheney has voted 92.9% of the time with trump and his position on actual issues, liz cheney, 98.9% voting with trump, stefanik only did so 77.7% of the time. what more do you need? coming up, police reform, where that combustible issue stands on capitol hill. next on "morning joe." next on "morning joe." when traders tell us how to make thinkorswim even better, we listen.

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we want to turn now to the latest on the debate over police reform. republican senate tim scott says a bipartisan deal is closer than ever. one major point of focus is a compromise on qualified immunity. that is the legal protection given to officers that make it difficult for people to sue them. democrats have long targeted as

a key change required in police reform. but our next guest says that isn't the answer to fixing policing in america. joining us now, former member of president trump task force on 21st century policing. now on msnbc law enforcement analyst, his latest opinion piece for "the washington post" is entitled why reforming qualified immunity will never resolve police violence. thank you for coming back on the show. i guess i'll add to that question that is your headline and say why couldn't it be a part of reforming it? >> well, it can't be the reform in and of itself, mika. and here is why. even though there is compelling arguments on both sides of the ale around qualified immunity, certainly the left make a tremendous and compelling

argument, but so does the right in someone like myself who has been a former chief of police, who has been a police officer do understand it from both sides of the aisle. but here is what ask going to make a dinners. not qualifying immunity in and of itself. all that allows is for communities and cities to get into litigations around police misconduct that is costing them millions and billions of dollars across this country every year. what is going to make the difference, quite frankly, we have to go back and look at how we're going to reform police, and we have to acknowledge the fact that police in and of itself cannot be the only source of public safety. we need to find exactly what it is that we want our police officers to do. we need to narrow that scope, as i indicated in the article, and we need to train them from that measure and then we need to train others for a more capable

and more better trained and equipped to communities that are suffering with a great deal of homelessness, mental illness, etcetera. that creates this dynamic and puts them in the position of taking action in something they're not trained to do. and then we get into this whole area of civil discourse. so i think it's important for us to recognize, as well, mika, that we need to look at who we're hire to go be police officers today. we have to have the best and the brightest, but that has to mean they must be well trained. they have to be well educated. and they have to have the ability to have great critical thinking as part of the process and the work that they do every day and a very complex, in a very diverse community across this country. so we have to train them, we have to make sure we have supervision in place that holds

them responsible and you have a healthy police department that is going to make sure that the values of that officer and of that department lines up with that of that community. that's how we reduce the likelihood of civil cases that we see so much of. not just saying qualified noon immunity in and of itself, it's not. there's great arguments on both sides. but in order to fix this, what i am presenting in this article is some solutions to think about from a national level. if they want to do some reform, think about reforms of how you can impact congress on both sides of the aisle that's going to be long-term and it's going on be significant to the benefit of communities across this country. that is jiflt just not going to resolve and let's get rid of qualified immunity. no, let's look at how we reform policing for the betterment of the community.

>> cedric alexander, thank you. the april jobs report will be released just moments from now. we're going to check in with cnbc business before the bell. you're watching "morning joe." b. you're watching "morning joe." incomparable design makes it beautiful. state of the art technology, makes it brilliant. the visionary lexus nx. lease the 2021 nx 300 for $349 a month for 36 months. experience amazing, at your lexus dealer.

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breaking news on the economy, the labor department just released the monthly jobs report. 266,000 jobs were added in april. economists expected 1 million new jobs last month. the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.1 from 6%. let's talk about this. what's going on? let's bring in nbc news senior business correspondent and msnbc anchor stephanie ruhl. what do you make of those numbers?

>> this is a big disappointment and it's a big surprise. we were expecting a million jobs to have come back and we thought we would see unemployment dip below 6% probably around 5.8%. and where it's especially surprising is read any newspaper, walk down any main street. small and big businesses are saying it every day. they're struggling to bring workers back. we have an enormous amount of open jobs out there. and one place you can actually see that is wage increases. you saw wages tick up and we also hear that. we talk to businesses every day. they're saying they cannot bring people back to work and that's pushing wages higher, which is a positive because, remember, democrats have been trying to get the federal minimum wage pushed up to $15 and they haven't been able to do it. but it's happening naturally. so it's very interesting that we're seeing this top line only 266,000 jobs added because i can tell you, last week i personally weren't to a job fair in atlantic city, nine casinos were

there with 1800 open jobs. only 20 people showed up. and one of the reasons people are talking about is because of these extended unemployment benefits are paying people very well. bank of america actually calculated it. so anyone who was making last year $32,000 or less, if they're not working now, they're making more money staying at home. and that's pushing quite a few people to stay at least three september when these benefits run out and maybe between now and then, we're going to see wages push even higher. but across the board, when you look at that number, 266, i guarantee economists, labor specialists are scratching their heads. nobody thought the number would be this low. >> so, stef, how do we square all the good news that we've been getting on the economy? just yet yesterday, we hit another record low for the pandemic of jobless claims. and also all this money that's been pumped into the economy and into the trillions from the federal government, what's going on here? >> it's really hard to compute because we do have very, very good data out there.

it's one of the reasons we're starting to see this inflation pressure. you know, go to the grocery store, go to the hardware store because of shortages out there and because there's all this money in the system, things are starting to cost more and more. so while it's surprising and disappointing to see that number only at 266,000, i guarantee you, you call almost any business out there, they'll say they're trying to hire people for any shift, every shift, any day. >> i want to get cnbc's dom chu in here for his take on it. what do you make of it? >> this is one of those things where it is a hugely disappointing number. it shows again there are perhaps many more job openings in america out there going unfilled right now. so people are not adding employment here. you went over the until numbers, that 266,000 number. the labor force participation rate pretty much unchanged, around 61.7%. just to give you some context, it was around 63.4%.

so the number of people actually going out there and, working prepandemic was 63.4%. 61.7% is where it is right now. average hourly earnings, we did see a tick higher there indicating some tightness in the labor markets, as well. economists were expecting a slight decline of about .1% year over year. instead, it comes in .3% higher year over year. so, again we are seeing some tightness in these numbers, as well. with regard to where some of the job moves were in terms of gains and losses, we're digesting a lot of these here, but manufacturing employment actually edged down about 18,000 jobs following gains in the last two months. we also saw job losses in motor vehicles and parts down 27,000, as well. professional and business services is something we want to take a look at here. we saw some of those in terms of temporary help decline by

111,000 over that span. so that's an interesting move there, as well. the other parts we want to take a look at, again, overall within retail, you can see some of those, retail trade employment, little change down 15,000. so overall, this seems to, again, spin this narrative that there are job openings out there right now, but that there are just not enough people to go and fill them. this is large, small alike, trying to find workers and not being able to do it. this is going to be something that will be interesting to be addressed by those folks over at the white house and the council economic advisers to talk a little bit about that dynamic and whether or not there are any policies that are going to happen down the line to maybe promote more people to get back into the workforce. >> stef, anecdotally, i've heard a lot of the same things you've been talking about this morning, especially among people who run restaurants. they cannot find people to go back to work. and a large part of it,

anecdotally, i'm told, has to do with the benefits that these people have been receiving. so the question is, you can't rescind the benefits. what happens to the labor market over the next two to three months if this continues, people simply saying hey, i'm making more at home than i would go in working for you? >> people are saying that and we are seeing that. and if you're talking about folks who run restaurants, you should at least expect for the next few months, the husband, the wife, the grandmother, the grandfather, and all the kids to be working at that restaurant at least for the next few months. but when those benefits run out, a lot of businesses will have figured out how to be more productive with less workers and there may be less jobs. the way we structure unemployment is one size fits all. we don't offer partial unemployment. so there's a lot of business that's are trying to reopen and they want to bring part time

workers back, but if you're only getting offered 20 hours a week and you get full time unemployment, it doesn't make financial sense. this might spark some industries to change the way they pay workers. many people left the service last year when all the jobs got wiped out and they went to warehouse jobs. they went to a walmart and amazon warehouse where they were making $16 an hour plus benefits to start. a restaurant that is saying we're going to pay you 2 bucks an hour and let's roll the dice and see if you get big tips today. people can't support themselves and support their family on that. so this might, while it's uncomfortable right now case this shift to raise the minimum wage or start to change the way we have unemployment benefits or change how we're paying people, for example, in the service industry. >> just to join the chorus on this, i've talked to restaurant owners and other small business owners and say i know everyone is excited the economy is about

to reopen again about, but i can't be open five or seven nights a week. i don't have enough people working here. so does this look to you, immediate reactions are flatly stunned by this number. does this look to you like a blip or the beginning of a slide here? >> so it depends on many of the things that you guys have been speaking about trend wise. what needs to happen is you need to see more people able to or wanting to come back to work. and a lot of that could be related to pay policies, minimum wage levels, living wage levels, that sort of thing. but to the conversation about what is happening with, like you said, the restaurants and leisure side of things, it's such a key focus because it was probably the hardest hit during the pandemic. just to put some of the numbers from the bureau of labor statistics around the conversation you guys are having. it is right now the leisure and hospitality sector driving the most of this. 331,000 jobs, again, increasing in the leisure and hospitality business. more than half of the increase was in food services and drinking places.

job gains occurred in amusements, gambling and recreation, plus 73,000 there and hotel accommodations plus 54,000. but here is the rub, though. it says although leisure and hospitality added 5.4 million jobs over the year, employment in the industry is still down by 2.8 million or nearly 17% since february of 2020 prior to pandemic. so if you talk about -- and by the way, these are at leefls for many parts of the country in major metro areas where there are still dining restrictions in place. many of those don't get lifted, at least not in the new york area, until the middle of this month here. in connecticut where i live, it's going up on may 19th. at that point when you start to have more of the 50 goes to a hundred percent capacity, then do you start seeing any more of a need for those workers to come back? that's going to be the real issue here because we're hearing those anecdotes.

to mike's point, the anecdotes about long lines, people wanting to get served because they want to go to restaurants. so when these things go full without restrictions, that's going to be the real tell. that's going to happen the next two months. so we'll probably see the lag effect in the next two to three jobs reports. >> cnbc's dom chu. thank you. and stephanie ruhl, thank you, as well. president biden will be making remarks about the april jobs report from the white house at 11:30 eastern time this morning. so we certainly will be carrying that here on msnbc. we turn now to the week long conversation we've been having with pulitzer prize winning author annette gordon reed for her new book "on juneteenth." also joining us, david blight

and mike barnacle is still with us. so how history shapes the historian. here is what you write in the book about being a black texan and a historian, quote, thinking of past events and people who lived long ago and observing the process of change over time satisfies my deep interest in the past on its own terms. i don't feel hostage to others' conceptions of what texas should mean to me. or accept that texas belongs to exclusively to any group of people who lived or live there. being a black person and a texan then are not in opposition. you also write about integrating a town school in texas. after everything that had happened. and in some ways, i am so fascinated by your story and the story of other young black children growing up in texas and going in to integrated schools.

but in some ways, it's such an invalidating experience because it's not talking about what has been happening right there. >> well, it was a stressful time. this was ten years after brown and they were still resisting. and to go into an all-white school from having been in kindergarten and the black school because quite a thing. i was prepared for it. it was something that i -- i knew it was important. people talk about it. i would just go to school. and i did it normally. but it was, i understand now, an amazing time. i sort of wonder about the little girls that did that. but this was the '60s and everybody felt black people were on the move and it was the thing

to do. >> david blight, the value of that is sort of a shared sense of not being alone. >> well, indeed. thank you, mika. hello, annette. i've only had your book 24 hours and i can't put it down. >> thank you. what a nice thing to say. >> here is what i really want to ask you. as you well know, historians don't often turn to auto biography. i'm not saying this is a complete auto biogrophy by any means. but it is an "i" pronoun. the best auto biographies come from those people who live a to-from lifetime. from there to here. how did you turn to autobiography here and why? and if there's something about

texas and new england and new york that just compelled you to do it. >> well, you know, i think i've had an interesting story. i write about other people's lives. i spent forever talking about the jeffersons and randolphs and i just decided that this is a kind of writing i wanted to do. i grew up thinking i wanted to be a writer. i didn't grow up thinking i was going the be specifically a historian or a professor. i wanted to be a writer. and this is the kind of -- james baldwin was my hero, remains my hero. this is the kind of writing i always imagined when i was a teenager that i would be doing. so as i -- you know, i started taking piano lessons again last year. i guess this is something in my old age that i'm trying to recapture my youth or something. but this is the kind of writing i thought i would be doing and this was an occasion. we were in the middle of a pandemic. i was thinking about my family, thinking about my parents, people who were no longer with me as we were going through this very stressful time here in

manhattan. and it did seem the moment to try it, to give it a shot. and it brought back memories of the kind of writing i did as a kid, as a teenager and as a young person. so i'm returning to my roots in a way. >> annette, you write in your book -- and this would be an interesting question for david, as well, about how we talk about historical figures and the perils of admiring them. people want the individuals from the past they admire to be right on the question of race, no matter how wrong they actually were. so that admiring such people poses no problem. not many of them were right on the question of race which at a minimum requires believing in the equal humanity of african-americans. what does this mean for black texans, thinking of the texas of the past? you could apply this to so many historical figures, flawed men,

flawed women, and it's come up and bubbled up in this conversation about statues, even, in the last couple of years. >> well, it's difficult to think about how you relate to that. young people at colleges all over the country now are beginning to ask these questions. once you integrate places, once you have different types of people coming into institutions, do they remain the same? do they admire the same things? do they present themselves in the same way? and the difficulty is, i think people didn't think about this is that once you have new people coming in, they're going to have new ideas about what is -- you know, what is acceptable. they want to see themselves in the stories that are presented on campus, either visually or in books and so forth. so it's going to be the idea of being more inclusive. and i know that's a term that some people see as a pejorative. i don't. but the idea of bringing different perspectives in will naturally come as you have more

people involved in the mix. so this is a difficult process of sorting all of this stuff out. we have hundreds of years of history that have brought us to this particular point and it is a moment of reflection. and there is nothing -- it's going to be a difficult conversations, but there's nothing wrong with that. i'm sure david agrees with that, right? >> yeah, david, what's your view on that? our friend jon meacham talks about not writing or thinking about historical figures as sort of these mayorbled busts, but as layered men and women of history. >> it's what makes great historical figures interesting. the more human they are, the more interesting they are. you know, i grew up in a -- with a sense of place, too. flint, michigan, which is a far cry from conroe, texas, i can tell you. but there's a good deal in this book about history, myth and that horrible world called

revisionism. but, yeah, we are drawn to figures that are alternatives to the old great man theory of history. i came of age as a high school teacher in the 1970s when we were inventing courses on black history whether we where i firs interested in frederick douglass. and a whole world opened up. over my lifetime of studying douglass, i came to realize, yes, he was a great man in 100 ways, but a fascinated, flawed human being. all humans are sometimes say. but it's part of this whole mixture of separating what we like to call history from what is mythology, and my god, you haven't went to william travis jr. high school, at least he went to junior american high school for poets so there wasn't

any politics. lowell and whittier, didn't know of any. but we are about -- the jeffersons and hemingways and so on and some of the other figures, be we are about revealing these figures in history through biography or through social history in all of their humanity. that's what history is supposed to do. those who just still insist on a progress narrative rooted in greatness are in for a new story. always have been. >> no, i mean, this is about us. it's how we respond to these things. the people were who they were. historians tried to bring those people to the floor and it's up to audiences and americans, particularly if you're talking about uighurs in history. to be mature enough to understand you take the good with the bad. sometimes the bad is good enough you can't stand it, but for the most part, we are talking about

human beings and for the most part they have something of value to offer us. >> the book is "on juneteenth" and that includes your morning residency. david, thank you and congratulations for the book and thank you for the terrific qualifications this week. coming up -- many americans have faced mental health issues like anxiety and depression as the coronavirus pandemic dragged on. up next we're taking a look at some of the women making a difference in that area, a big difference. before we go to break, willie, what have you have planned for sunday today? >> coming up on "sunday today" this weekend, my best is michael b. jordan, one of the biggest stars in all of hollywood. great conversation. he's playing a new tom clancy character in a great movie "without remorse" and talk with the "black panther" chadwick

boseman and, yes, his title of sexiest man alive. michael b. jordan on "sunday today." be right back on "morning joe." . ooo... you gonna eat that at lesliepalooza? what? who's coming to that? everyone's coming, everybody. you, her, me, all of us. brushing only reaches everyone's coming, everybody. 25% of your mouth. listerine® cleans virtually 100%. helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. never settle for 25%. always go for 100. bring out the bold™ my nunormal? fewer asthma attacks with nucala. a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. nucala reduces eosinophils, a key cause of severe asthma. nucala is not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your doctor about nucala.

find your nunormal with nucala. i've talked to teachers across this country and one thing the educators say to me, jill, we need more help with mental health. it's a big problem. and after this pandemic, it's going to be even greater.

>> she's right. dr. jill biden over one year ago correctly predicting the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on americans' mental health. a recent poll from the american psychiatric association shows more people reporting mental health effects from this pandemic this year than last year, but it's more than just the pandemic, it's the importance of our mental health all the time. it's always been a critical issue that is coming out into the forefront of a mainstream medical issue. in fact, more than 50% will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime, which is why it's important to honor the trailblazers in the mental health field. as part of our "50 over 50" series, we're looking at a few women all over the age of 50 who are leading the way. let's bring in chief content officers of "forbes" media and editor of "forbes" randall lane.

i love this list because each name on it should be at the top. all very different contributions to this field, but let's start with ceci morken, she's 63 years old and ceo of headspace, something i know well. >> right. headspace, she only started there -- she started there in early 2020, so that was an incredible time to start. she started at coo, exactly when the pandemic started. it's a meditation app. all of a sudden downloads doubled. she was faced with a lot of challenges so she responded. she made it free for first responders and free for the unemployed. companies are using it to help their stay-at-home workers and now they have 695 million users in 190 countries. she's been promoted to ceo and founders gave her the key to the car basically because of the job she's done over this last year. >> if anyone doesn't know what headspace is or doesn't know

what mindfulness is, download the app and start right there. second on the list, dr. beverly daniel tatum. she's 66. i love these women, they're well over 50. well over 50. and they're just making a huge impact, making waves, wielding power. she's the president emeritus of spelman college. she's also a psychologist. tell us about her. >> incredible career and now she's having a renaissance. she wrote a very, very influential, important book, "why are all of the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria"? very influential and talking about race relations. all of a sudden she's over 50 and has a big seller again. 23 later hits the best-seller list. she's very, very influential in the idea for us to move beyond talking about race and racism. we have to talk about it. and she's really leading that discussion.

>> then we've got dr. marsha linehan. she's 78 and she's the developer and found esh of dialectal behavioral therapy. something i write a lot about on the "know your value" website and i talk a lot about on the air. it is now being seed as widely useful for all types of behavioral issues and mental health issues. it's focused on mindfulness, effective implementation of interperson skills, think washington now, stress tolerance and emotion regulation. it sounds so basic, and it's because it is. what she created could actually change the world. >> that's right. and it is. the key word is empathy. and she brought empathy that was treated that was looked down upon. she said if we accept what

provides us distress rather than trying to change it, we can change the individual. that way she changed psychology and now it's used for disorders and substance abuse. she's really changed the entire field and in doing so changing the world. >> it fascinating to see what's happening. next week we will be hosting two of -- one of her greatest followers. they are the doctors on the forefront of dbt at the mcclain hospital, blazia geary and jillian galin. they have a book at now, dbt for dummies. what it is is taking that treatment that used to be so focused and now offering it to all so families can really get the help that they need. the unsung hero is dr. samantha metzger brody. she's 52. she's the distinguished professor and chair of the department of psychiatry at the

university of north carolina at chapel hill. forbes randall lane, thank you very much. we can't wait for the big list to be revealed. go to knowyourvalue.com or forbes.com and click on 50 over 50. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi, there, i'm stephanie ruhle live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it is friday, may 7th and we start with breaking news on the economic front. the april jobs number is in. 266,000 jobs added last month, a hugely disappointing number. we've been expecting a million or more. the unemployment rate actually ticked up slightly to 6.1%. i've got to go straight to the white house and bring peter alexander in, along with the chairman of the council of economic