good day everyone. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. running for president while fighting for his freedom. we know donald trump's reality will be very real next month when his conspiracy trial is set to begin right in the heart of the campaign season. his next major reality check will come out of georgia and soon. that's where mark meadows is hoping to get his trial moved to federal court and potentially lay out a blueprint for all the other defendants to follow including the former president. yet another city, this time jacksonville, florida, trying to come to grips with a mass shooting. this one involving a 21-year-old targeting saturday shoppers solely because of the color of their skin. the latest on the hate crimes investigation into the gunman even after he took his own life.

we've also got more on the three victims including the mother who was killed, quote, for nothing, and the 19-year-old whose father said he hadn't even lived his life yet. a storm taking aim at millions of americans along the atlantic and the gulf coast. tropical storm idalia is expected to swell to a category 3 hurricane before it slams into florida roughly 36 hours from now. we have the very latest coming up. we start with the big breaking news out of washington, d.c. the judge in donald trump's election conspiracy case scheduling the start of his trial for march 4th of next year. that's the day before super tuesday, a move that appears to put this trial at the front of the pack, meaning it theoretically could be divided before republican voters settle on their nominee. the government previously estimated the whole trial would take 4-6 weeks, meaning on the

outside it would be done by mid april. for perspective, trump didn't clinch the republican nomination in 2016 until late may. far from spliding the difference on the dates offered by the two sides, judge chutkan sets jury selection to begin just two months after jack smith wanted it to. she rejected the trump team's suggestion of april 2026 as, quote, far beyond what was necessary for them to add kuwaitly prepare. the question now, will the march 4th date stick given all the other trials in the works? trump attorney alina habba said over the weekend, not a chance. >> these trial dates are going to move. it's unrealistic, it's theatrics. no judge is going to say you can be on two trials at once in two different states. a lot of these overlap. they look at the start date. these are four to six-week trials at the least. there's no way they're not going

to overlap. >> that's just one of two significant hearings taking place today. the other involves trump's former chief of staff mark meadows who testified at a hearing before a federal judge trying to get his trial moved from state court in georgia to federal court. now, if that's successful, all the other 18 defendants including donald trump could try to follow suit. but for all the legal consequences the cases carry, and there are many, they've still been a huge financial boom to the former president. we learned over the weekend the mugshot he had taken in fulton county has been a fund-raising bonanza. more than $4 million in a single day, the largest influx in one day to his campaign. more than $7 million in the campaign. nbc's blayne alexander is joining us me and joining me

legal analyst carol lamb. great to have all of you here. ryan, give us a breakdown of what judge chutkan had to say. what did she decide and why? >> reporter: one of the most interesting comparisons she made was comparing donald trump to a football player or professional athlete saying she wouldn't take into consideration a professional athlete's schedule when setting a trial. the trial is a little further down the line than the prosecutor requested, but a lot closer to them than what donald trump's team suggested. typically when someone is convicted, it's about three months before their sentencing is set. if you take that four to six-week timeline after march 4th, that brings you to mid april. three months down the road from that is mid july, right smack in the middle of the republican national committee. that's the timeline we're on now.

i think she indicated she's serious about this trial date and all these things that the trump team has been saying about their need to prepare for trial, she's given them seven months to go through this. she compared the case to a lot of cases she handled as a public defender herself and noted how many resources donald trump has in this case financially that are able to them, the counsel available to him. she seemed to take particular frustration at a comparison that trump's team brought up earlier comparing this to a case that involved several black defendants several years ago that involved them being put on trial within six days without counsel and saying donald trump is in a much different position here, being a former president, fund-raising, as you said, millions off of this and being able to have his legal team set up as well as enough time to prepare for trial? she's made clear no matter what's on his calendar, this case should take his priority and he's going to have to be in that seat no matter what else he

has going on here. >> carol, what's your reaction to this trial date? what does setting march 4th as a date mean for all the rest of trump's trials? >> this is such an important piece of the puzzle to have in place. now that we have the march 4th trial date for this election interference indictment brought by jack smith against only donald trump at this point in time, it's very important because i think the other cases are going to end up essentially deferring to this trial. i think that's sort of an unspoken understanding. fani willis indicted this very broad case involving 19 defendants including the former president. it's very broad and it overlaps a lot with jack smith's case, but there are 19 defendants. fani willis, there are good reasons for doing what she did. she believed there was widespread fraud in fulton county and charged the broad case.

the cost of that is what's happening now in fulton county which is, it's essentially splintering into as many as three and perhaps four trials. that's going to take a long time. jack smith's indictment is broad in substance, but narrow in the sense that only donald trump is the defendant. what typically happens is when a trial gets under way, how ever long it takes, if there are other trials scheduled that it interferes with, those trials simply have to what we call trail. the judge says he's in trial in another case and we'll keep putting off the trial date until that trial is finished. so at this point in terms of criminal trials, donald trump's march 4th date in this trial i believe will take precedence, and that's going to go first. >> so let's go back, carol, if we can to the idea that this might take, the government's estimate, 4-6 weeks. john lauro argued this is one of

the most unique legal cases ever and suggested he's going to bring up issues that, quote, never touched a court before, potentially involving things like executive immunity. do you agree with him on that? do you think the fact that this is unique, that some of these things have never been talked about before in a courtroom necessarily means that the 4-6 weeks might actually be longer? >> well, what we're talking about and what john lauro is talking about is pretrial motions when you say immunity issues and such. that's all going to take place before the march 4th trial date. what happens on march 4th, the jury pool comes in and jury selection begins. what he's basically saying is there are all these novel issues that have to be briefed and argued and litigated before the judge. that's all before march 4th. these issues have been litigated before, maybe not in this

specific context, but that's what law is about. you make arguments based on analogies to other situations. the judge has set a trial date that is later than the prosecution asked for, far earlier than the defense asked for. i think the defense perhaps shot themselves in the foot a bit by asking for really an unrealistic trial date that was so far out that no one would have granted something that far. so she said, okay, i'm going to do what i think is right here. she's laid the record. she's established all the facts to justify why she is setting this trial date, his resources, the amount of information that he has already and what she needs to do is set a record that will survive on appeal. >> blayne, big day where you are in georgia, too. what's the latest there? >> reporter: the latest is we're on a break for lunch, the first

major break we've had all day. the vast majority of this has been former white house chief of staff mark meadows on the stand actually testifying. that's notable, chris. when we started this day, we didn't know whether or not he would be testifying. to see him on the stand now for the better part of three hours talking about his duties as white house chief of staff, talking about the trip he made to cobb county to kind of go and see what was happening with signature bond audit. and now talking about that infamous phone call between president trump and brad raffensperger, the secretary of state, is very notable. to catch viewers up, this hearing has to do with mark meadows' request to move the case from state court to federal court, arguing he was acting as a federal officer as the white house chief of staff. it goes far beyond mark meadows himself. we know there's at least one member of the former president's

legal team in the overflow room watching these proceedings very closely. others have parroted that request for the case to be removed to federal court. it certainly has broader implications beyond just mark meadows. >> carol, can you explain what mark meadows needs to prove to be successful, and how high is that bar? >> what mark meadows is trying to prove is he was basically acting within the scope of his duties as a federal employee, and that's why this case belongs in federal court based on a federal law that was put into place a couple hundred years ago in order to protect federal employees who are acting within the scope of their employment from being harassed by state officials. so he's trying to make that argument, but if you look at the witnesses that fani willis is calling, including secretary of state raffensperger, she's trying to show, no, these were

georgia state election laws he was interfering with, this is a georgia case. these are georgia election procedures and he was well outside his role as a federal official. the reason why this is not necessarily a slam dunk for fani willis -- i'm sorry -- for mark meadows is because the federal nexus here is a little bit fuzzy. so fani willis is relying on the hatch act which says that people in mark meadows' position cannot campaign. mark meadows is saying, well, i was just arranging phone calls for the president and that was well within my duty. now, it is somewhat of a low bar more mark meadows. that's why we just don't know what the judge is going to decide in this case. there just has to be a colorable argument, a colorable defense

that he could raise. really the issue here is going to be, whichever side loses, can probably appeal. again, that's a time game. it's just going to slow everything down. >> i also want to ask you about this poll i saw, carol, over the weekend. it views how people see our legal system. nearly 60% trust civilian juries to be fair and honest. the most trusted part, by the way, of our court system. on the flip side is that more than a third of the people that they polled did not trust juries. how do you read those numbers, and how do you even begin to quantify the pressure that will be on jurors in what is sure to be the most watched trial in modern history? >> chris, this is why it's important to understand the role of a judge. the role of a judge is really to protect the participants in a trial. judges understand that.

they become very protective of the jurors. if you've never served on a jury either civil or criminal, it's hard to understand. but once you're in the four walls of that courtroom, that is your world and everything else should fall away. you're listening to the evidence, listening to the judge's instructions. you're evaluating the credibility of the witnesses who are testifying on the witness stand ten feet away from you. it becomes easier, in a sense, to really judge a case on its merits. right now people are listening to a lot of noise outside, coming from all corners. once you're in the courtroom, my experience has been that jurors really do try hard and they set aside considerations other than what they're instructed and other than what's in the evidence put before them. >> carol lamb, ryan reilly, thank you so much. up next, new details about a florida gunman and the trip he

took to a historically black university right before a racist rampage that killed three people. we're back in 60 seconds. 60 secs (ella) fashion moves fast. setting trends is our business. we need to scale with customer demand... ...in real time. (jen) so we partner with verizon to take our operations to the next level. (marquis) with a custom private 5g network. (ella) with verizon business, we get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility.

(marquis) so our customers get what they want, when they want it. (jen) it's not just a network. it's enterprise intelligence. (vo) learn more. it's your vision, it's your verizon. we just got breaking news in from florida where south florida affiliate wtvj is reporting two people were killed, four more hospitalized when a helicopter from the broward county sheriff's office crashed into this apartment building. officials say three people were on board when it crashed into the pompano beach building. one of the deceased was an air rescue captain, the other a resident of the building. the faa now says it is investigating the crash. any minute now we're set to hear new details about the lead-up to the racist shooting in jacksonville, florida, over the weekend from the security guard who first confronted the shooter at edward waters

university. authorities say the 21-year-old white gunman left the campus of the historically black college after encountering a security guard and went instead to a dollar general where he shot and killed three black shoppers with a legally purchased assault-style weapon that had a swastika drawn on it. florida governor ron desantis condemned the attack, calling the gunman a major league scum bag and announced a $100,000 donation to support the families of the victims. after this, he was booed while speaking at a vigil last night. >> thank you for doing this. we want to just say -- nbc's george solis is in jacksonville for us. also with me civil rights attorney former brooklyn prosecutor and legal analyst charles cole.

george, what is the latest? >> reporter: we're expecting the press briefing at edward waters where hopefully we might hear from the security guard that chased away the shooter before carrying out this heinous attack. police presence is still there. they put up a fence around the dollar general. of course, the community here is grief-stricken. also, i will say interesting enough, a sense of pride. we know this was a racially motivated attack according to authorities and the fbi is investigating it as such. there was no unrest. you saw a group of people coming together to try to begin the healing process as we've seen time and time again when hate comes to the door steps of these communities. yesterday i had the honor of speaking with the family member of jarrald gallion. he had a picture of his lost loved one on his shirt. he was emotional speaking to me about in tragic loss. he said he was a good man, a

manager of a fast food restaurant. leaves he hind a child. it's heartbreaking to hear the words coming out of family members after having to process the unimaginable. here is a little more of my conversation with him. >> he didn't deserve this at all. the only thing he did was work and take care of his kid. he didn't deserve it. i'm really hurt. i really hurt for his mother. just trying to do the best i can to stay up for him and his family and look out for his girl. >> reporter: chris, at that vigil i was speaking to a number of people who have been many this community for a long time who said, it could have been me inside this dollar general. sheriff t.k. waters said it is going to be impossible to make sense of it despite having the racist right tinges, he called

the diary of a madman. the community trying to process all of it here. the long healing and grieving process is just unfolding. >> george, thank you for that reporting. charles, can i play for you, please, a little bit more of what we heard at the prayer vigil yesterday? take a listen. >> persons who, simply said, i'm going to the store and i'll be right back never left the store alive. families' hearts are broken, and our community is shattered into pieces. >> how many times have any of us said that, leaving the house, i'll be right back. those folks didn't come home. i wonder as you watched all of this unfold what went through your mind as someone who has been very close to so many of these kinds of shootings?

>> chris, i do think it's important to understand that in a lot of cases we're having discussions about gun violence in america. while i do think this is an important discussion, i think that people need to understand this conversation, this incident is not a conversation necessarily where we need to prioritize the notion of gun rights and gun policy as our chief talking point. this is a conversation about race in america, plain and simple. i've often said you cannot hustle controversy for profit because you are dealing with forces with which you cannot control. it's very important that our audience understand there is a direct line between ron desantis and everything he has spewed as the governor of florida with his war on wokeness, an attack rooted in anti-blackness, and what we saw unfold in jacksonville. you cannot profit from denigrating a people, from

minimizing their humanity. you cannot profit from trying to erase them in their history from american history in its textbooks and simultaneously offer thoughts and prayers when people who have bought into your hateful and racist rhetoric act on those feelings and those sentiments. i think it's important that we properly frame what this conversation is about and call it for what it is, plain and simple. the issue, the unresolved issue of racism in america. >> let me play for you, charles -- this is from iowa last week, republican presidential candidate vivek ramaswamy who talked about white supremacists. >> i'm sure the bogeyman white supremacist exists somewhere in america. i've never met him. never seen one, never met one in my life. maybe i'll meet a unicorn soon are. maybe those exists, too. >> are there more people than we

want to acknowledge as a country that we can process who agree with him do you think? >> i think so, chris. i do a talk in many respects called america being a country, racism with the racists. one of the things i tell people to do is ask themselves and raise their hands if they believe that racism in america exists, if it is a thing. oftentimes all the hands in the room go up. then i ask them to lower their hands, and i ask them, raise your hands again if you are a racist. in over a decade of giving this talk, i have never seen someone raise their hand to the second question. what i find so interesting about his remarks is they are indicative of an acknowledgment that there is an issue with race in america, but an inability to actually hold people accountable for that issue continuing to exist. until we are able to deal with that firmly and clearly around the presence of white supremacy,

around systemic racism and institutional racism, in so many different facets, these things will continue to happen. how we got here is we created space for false equivalencies for racists and hateful ideology to be on the same footing as someone like myself and others who look like me standing up and having pride and self-affirmation in who it is that we are. those two things are not the same and should not have the same space to breathe. our mistake was allowing that. you saw that at the republican primary debate, and you have continued to see that in our political rhetoric. until we are willing to be honest and straightforward in calling these things out, we're putting the entire community of marginalized people, people who are existing on the for instance of america at risk and in danger. >> charles coleman, thank you so much. i always really appreciate you coming on the program. still ahead, the state of california is bracing for a

major hurricane which tropical storm idalia expected to intensify into a cat 3 storm, dangerous storm. our own bill karins standing by with the forecast. plus, why some schools are closing just as students are getting back for the school year. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. "chris jg reports" only on msnbc when the murrays discovered gain scent beads, they fell in love with the irresistible scent. ♪ ♪ huh, huh, so did their dog roger. ♪ ♪ gain scent beads keep even the stinkiest stuff smelling fresh. white 80...! white 80...! hello patrick mahomes! hut...hut...? wait, who do you even play for? t-mobile! and i'm here to protect you from wireless companies that blitz you with phone deals that sack you with a 3-year device contract. even i could get sacked? not at t-mobile! they have plans that make upgrades work for you. they even have a plan which makes you upgrade ready every year. thanks ben! now can i do the thing? do the thing! excellent! take charge of your upgrades with our best go5g plans at t-mobile.

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florida ahead of what could be a major hurricane. in the next 24 hours experts say tropical storm idalia is expected to intensify into a cat 3 storm with a potential for winds of up to 110 miles per hour along with torrential rain and a life-threatening storm surge. it's not just id dale yeah. off the coast of bermuda, franklin has become the first major hurricane of the atlantic season, now a category 4. it could bring dangerous rip currents to parts of the east coast. nbc news meteorologist bill karins is here with me. i think i almost gave you angina calling it california instead of florida. >> we're finished with california. california is finished with that, too. wouldn't it be nice to go through hurricane season and leave florida alone? how many anywhere in the u.s. this appears to be another major hurricane heading for landfall.

life-threatening storm surge, water issues with inland flooding. it's a matter of who is going to get it. the evacuations have already begun in areas north of tampa. the storm is trying to exit the caribbean and head into the gulf of mexico. the water temperatures are like a hot tub. that's the energy for these storms. that's why the hurricane center thinks this thing could rapidly intensify all the way to landfall. that's not what we want to happen. that's at ian did, what matthew did. it's heading for us no matter what. earlier the better, the longer it's over the warm water, the stronger it will get. it's safely off the coast for the keys, ft. myers. i know you're not going to stop watching it. this is tampa norg wards to the big bend of florida, tallahassee. hurricane center has it coming onshore somewhere in the category 3 range.

my rule of thumb is always prepare for at least one higher. the black line is the national hurricane center. it's somewhere between tallahassee and north of the tampa area. so we'll pinpoint this in the next 48 hours. we do think landfall is going to be some time as we go through wednesday morning, maybe at the latest, 11:00 a.m. could be as early as 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. there is the number one story. there's a shallow shelf off the florida coast. that allows the storm surge to be worse in this area that many other areas. this piles the water up. then you get these back bays here like tampa bay. you can see the wind, when the wind is right here, you can picture the water being pushed inland. even though the storm is well north of florida right now, 4-7 foot storm surge is serious business for the tampa bay area.

there's not a lot of population centers north of hernando and pasco county. for these little fishing villages, they could have some really high serious water problems, 7-11 feet. on top of this, the thing we normally worry about, once the storm makes landfall is the rain. everywhere here in the southeast coast is under a moderate flood risk. i'll add the full moon is wednesday night. the worst high tide of the entire hurricane season is wednesday night. even though the storm will be much weaker, he still think we could have severe coastal flooding, maybe top three of all time in places like savannah and charleston if we get the storm surge at the same time as high tide. the rainfall totals, we could see flash flooding and river flooding through this eej on. you worry about areas of south carolina all the way down towards the cape fear area and wilmington. that's where we could see

upwards of 6-8 inches of rain. all the major issues. we'd like to avoid mass destruction like we had with hurricane ian. we don't want any surprises with this. everyone in tampa is saying please don't take the right turn towards us. we can't rule it out yet. >> we'll be seeing you every day between now and then. bill karins, thank you. in a few minutes we expect an update about governor ron desantis about how florida is preparing for the storm. we'll be watching that very closely. coming up, several defendants in the fulton county case want a speedy trial. how quickly can it happen and how could it impact the case against former president drum? you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc another a. yup. most health insurance companies see us all the same: smiley seniors golfing, hiking... don't forget antiquing. that's why i chose humana.

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donald trump's former chief of staff mark meadows challenges the ground rules in his fulton county case, today at least two of his co-defendants and likely a third are telling the court they're ready to go. john eastman's legal team has signaled he could soon join sidney powell and kenneth chesebro in asking for a speed difficult trial, that means starting as early as october 23rd which is 56 days from now. as "the washington post" puts it, quote, trump's georgia case could get real, quickly.

ryan brighthouse, former district attorney in fulton county, georgia. great to see you again. for those of us who don't practice law in georgia, how do these speedy trials work? what are you watching for? >> sure. to start, you're guaranteed the right to a speedy trial? both the state constitution. we'll use this as a strategy to trial factor for whatever advantage they think they can have. ultimately they want to see if they can catch the prosecution with their pants down, so to speak, and see if they're not as ready as they think they r. it's going to be treerg to see how it goes. >> how much of a win do do you think these trials, any of them might give us or any other defense lawyer, obviously, into d.a. fani willis' trial against

donald trump? >> let me start having worked with d.a. willis. the vernacular is stay ready when you ain't got to get ready. she's already said from the beginning, i anticipate trying this case in october. she's already told the defendants from day one, i'm ready. i have the evidence. i have my witnesses lined up. we are ready to go. i think this is something that could possibly backfire if this is done here. you'll see a few defendants that may roll the dice and press their luck. i do believe this may be a time when some of these defendants will be severed from this. in other words, have their prosecution or their track separated from the rest of the defendants who could go later. >> does it really depend on who they are, what their particular role was in all this? when you're weighing the pros and the cons, do we go early, do

we try to delay, how do you make that calculation? i realize you're not defending any of these folks, but what will they be looking at? >> well, certainly -- more times than not it's in your best interest as a defense attorney where you want to delay. you want to delay because you want the chance to put up your best defense strategy, call your witnesses, find your evidence. and while you don't have to put up evidence, it's not required by the constitution, certainly you want to do your due diligence to put up the best defense possible. it's something that could, as i said earlier, could backfire where the main benefit for someone who is not incarcerated -- often when we see this quite frequently when someone is in jail and they want to hurry up. this is something they'll try to do, as i said earlier, to see -- maybe you don't have all your ducks in a row. maybe you're bluffing. it doesn't really necessarily depend on each defendant as far

as how they're charged, but really how their defense attorney wants to do it. >> riah greathouse, thank you. >> thank you. up next, we're live in south carolina where 2024 presidential hopefuls are on the trail, and then there's one who isn't. donald trump may be the runaway favorite for the nomination. a brand new poll suggests there could be an opening for three other candidates. we'll go through it next on "chris jansing reports." "chris "

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today south carolina's two presidential hopefuls, nikki haley and tim scott, are barnstorming their home state as a new poll gives us early insight into how the race has changed since last week's debate. the main takeaway, not much. donald trump still holds a massive lead with ron desantis stuck in a distant second place, nearly 40 points we hind. no other candidate is in double digits. the poll did have a little good news for the florida governor. about half of republican voters said they were more likely to support him post debate with a bit of an opening for haley and vivek ramaswamy as well. nbc's ali vitali joins us from south carolina. matthew dowd is the former chief strategist for the bush/cheney bush 2000 campaign and a senior msnbc political analyst.

ali, ron desantis sending a surrogate because he's dealing with the impending storm. what's happening on the ground there? >> reporter: for senator tim scott, it's a question of moving past last week's debate with a lackluster performance, instead concentrating on the bill of rights in the palmetto state. whereas nikki haley here for her lone event of the day. haley typically geltz events that are at capacity. the line behind me has been steadily growing with the event ever closer. they're at capacity inside. folks walking in behind me now seem readily prepared to be standing room only if they have to. some of them i've spoken to in this line say they're here because they saw haley's debate performance and they're interested and want to learn more or it reinforced their idea that this is someone who could win the nomination, but aware

this the trump's party. one man plans to not vote republican at all in the general election, someone who would vote for biden. he said if it he had to vote for a republican and it weren't trump, polls, there is an opening for someone else. maybe it's nikki haley. maybe it's someone else. >> ali vitali, thank you very much. so, matthew, is there increasingly any opening that you see, even a tiny little bit, because at this point, frankly that's what the campaigns are looking for. they didn't get any big bump, nobody did. >> it's like i was thinking as you were going through this, it's like the movie did the dumb and dumber," so you're saying there's a chance. so i think at this point nikki haley is a prime example. she started off three and a half months ago, when she announced

her presidency at 4 or 5% in the polls. she spent millions of dollars and had a number of trips to iowa and new hampshire and other states, and she's the former governor of south carolina. she's still at 4 or 5%, and the last polls in south carolina show her in fourth. in fourth. a state that she was the governor of. so to me, this race is rather stagnant right now. if something breaks away, it's probably going to have to wait until the next debate, which is in the end of september. but if things repeat what they did in the last debate, that means donald trump remains a solid 35, 40 points ahead, and to me, the window of opportunity is slowly, slowly, slowly closing for other people, unless there's some political meteor strike that disrupts this race fundamentally, and disrupts donald trump in his campaign. right now, he has gone from 15 or 16 points ahead to almost 40 points ahead in the six or seven months that this race has been going on. >> and trump says he skipped

that first debate, as you know, matthew, because of his enormous polling lead, and what's here to say to him, gee, maybe i need to take the stage. i would argue nothing. but does that mean that they, the people who are on the stage need to reconsider what they're doing? >> i actually think if i were in the campaigns of some of these candidacies, i would actually begin reconsidering. the problem is not so much their polling numbers, but they're going to begin to see dollars evaporate, and they won't be able to run their campaigns. they won't be able to pay their staff. they won't be able to pay for travel. my guess is nikki haley did well enough for the big debate, but there are some on this list. my guess is this debate stage will be smaller in the end of september than it was this last time. >> really? >> because there is -- >> i think, by the time we get there, they're not going to have

qualified, a couple of people won't qualify for the next one or they begin to see, they can't just run a campaign with campaign dollars. >> so the poll also had what they would like to see as good news for a couple of these candidates. we talked about this. about four in ten republicans said they were more likely to back vivek ramaswamy or nikki haley, based on the debate. is it important in this atmosphere, not knowing what's going to happen between now and the time people go to the polls to be that person who is a second choice or even a third choice. >> well, that's what they seem to be competing for in my view is the second choice candidacy. the problem is you're going to have to demonstrate that when the iowa caucus and the new hampshire primary, and the south carolina primary are held because that will fundamentally define the nature of this race. i think the pressure is on, the most pressure is on right now, not donald trump, or not the people at 2 or 3%. it's at ron desantis.

he was the definitive second choice all the way until yesterday or today in the course of this race. the pressure is on him. once he falls below the second choice, i think that's a death spiral for ron desantis in this race, and so i think if you want to look at who the pressure is fundamentally on, it's ron desantis. >> matthew dowd, always good to have you my friend, thank you so much. >> still ahead, the surge in covid cases that has some schools shutting down just as those students were supposed to be heading back to class. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. g "chrisg reports" only on msnbc ntacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. businesses need 5g solutions today. that's why they choose t-mobile for business. mlb partners with t-mobile to not only enhance the fan experience,

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here's why you should switch fro relief, prilosec otc. to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. a late summer wave of new covid infections is making its way through workplaces, government offices and now classrooms too. some schools are closed right after they started back up for the year.

emilie ikeda has more on the increase in cases and the return of masks in some parts of the country. >> reporter: across the country, kids are filing into classrooms, and with students back at a handful of schools, so is covid. >> almost all of the precautions, including regular testing have been taken down in schools. we're also seeing kids with all sorts of other colds and could haves and viruses, which make it very easy to pass a number of things including covid. >> reporter: in lee county, kentucky, school attendance dipped by 20%. in atlanta, morris brown college announced a two-week mask mandate because of an uptick in positive cases, and some hospitals in new york, massachusetts, and california are also bringing back mask requirements. cdc director mandy cohen has this warning for the months ahead. >> covid is here and we need to make sure we stay vigilant. >> the cdc's data show hospitalizations have been on the rise since july, jumping more than 20% earlier this

month. still, when you zoom out to consider what it was like during the height of the pandemic, health officials aren't sounding the alarm yet. they're closely watching a highly mutated emerging variant and hoping the next booster will slow the spread. with the flu and rsv likely to ramp up this fall, doctors recommend having covid tests at home to help tell the difference. emilie ikeda, nbc news. we have a lot to cover in our second hour of "chris jansing reports." let's get right to it. at this hour, two trials, two cities, and the highest stakes day in court for donald trump. in georgia, the first glimpse into d.a. fani willis's case against the former president. prosecutors are pushing to keep a home court advantage against his codefendant mark meadows. he wants his case moved to federal court.