and jeff mason, let me start with you, where do we read the president's perspective now on the crisis and the path forward, how much has it changed in the last week or so, and how much is the same? >> that's a good question, joshua, i think the president is certainly focused on seeing this country reopen, and he has been focused on that for some time, to some controversy, he was saying let's get the country open by easter and of that course wasn't possible because the virus was still spreading, and the virus is still spreading now, so the question is, will the states follow the guidance that the president's coronavirus task force has put forward, in terms of staged openings, and how that affects the economy, and how it will affect him politically going forward. >> shauna, the post quoted a senior administration official saying the doctors and scientists who were advising the administration had in the official's words a bit of a god complex, and this person went on to say that these advisers are all, quote, science, science, science, which is good, but sometimes there is a little bit l

jeff mason, let me start with you. where do we read the president's perspective now on this crisis and the path forward? how much has it changed in the last week or so, and how much is the same? >> well, that's a good question, joshua. i think the president is certainly focused on seeing this country reopened and he's been focused on that for sometime. took some controversy because it's easy to forget now. weeks and weeks a go he was saying let's get the country open by easter. that, of course, wasn't possible because the virus was still spreading. and the virus is still spreading now, so the question is will the states follow the guidance that the president's coronavirus task force has put forward in terms of staged openings? and how will that affect the economy and how will that affect him politically going forward? >> shawna, the post quoted a senior administration official as saying the doctors and scientists advising the administration had, and the officials' words, a bit of a god complex. this person went on to s

we'll have jeff mason on the show a little bit later on. but what's interesting is we've seen quietly over the last couple days the surgeon general, president trump's surgeon general, he's would call him, putting out videos imploring people to wear masks. the surgeon general, the doctors, the cdc guidelines, we know all of these things. and also pretty extraordinarily last night sean hannity who rarely is at odds with president trump gave a little speech to the kids in the pool of the lake of the ozarks the other day about wearing masks. president of the united states as we've said a few times recently on this show is almost out on an island on this idea of not wearing a mask because it's, quote, politically correct. there's a small sliver of americans who say in polls that they never wear a mask, but even sean hannity now, we know the president listens to sean hannity and watches sean hannity, is speaking through his television program to the president saying, wear a mask. >> yeah. in the past 24 hours, the president has revealed himself i

joining us jeff mason. d archive documents be searched and does it benefit all parties involved, mr. biden, ms. reade, democratic party, the republican party, everyone who wants to have the issue brought to light and solved one way or another? jeff: well, i think clarity seems to be something that all sides want for sure and the fact that vice president biden or former vice president biden called for that in an interview on msnbc on friday and said that he wants senate and letter to senate requesting that any information about this be released is a suggestion that he wants -- he wants it all out there. now some will say that the fact that he's not saying the same thing in papers in the university of delaware. he and many others that would shed any light on this particular situation would not be in those papers. arthel: well, let's go back to mr. pÉrez's comments. listen, you know, president obama could not afford to have anyone in his cabinet let alone number 2 in line to have these sorts of -- that sort of

let's bring in jeff mason, jeff is the white house reporter for reuters.t in a moment, jeff, but i want to start here. david spunt reporting that the house foreign affairs committee as well as a senate committee have launched an investigation into president trump's late night firing of steve linick who was the inspector general for the state department. in fact, department officials have acknowledged that secretary pompeo urged the firing. where might this be heading? >> well, i can confirm that last piece as you said, arthel. i was in touch with white house officials earlier as well and one of them said secretary pompeo recommended the move and the president agreed. so that's all they're saying about the reasoning for the president's late friday night decision to fire the inspector general. as far as where it's leading, i think it's clear that democrats in congress want to investigate this and get to the bottom of what speaker pelosi has called a pattern of retaliation by president trump and his white house. arthel: okay. we're going to move on now to thi

with me now, msnbc political analyst and jeff mason, white house correspondent at reuters, big welcome here. how strict are these new guidelines about having white house officials, and that includes the president, wear masks, especially surrounding people who may have been, you know, potentially exposed to the virus? >> well, i think number one the new guidelines issue tphtd a memo to white house staff and people who work on the white house complex applied basically to everybody but the president. they are largely to protect him. who has been holed up for the white house except for a couple trips now. other people are obviously going home and probably going to grocery stores and elsewhere. and it wasn't until katie miller, who is the vice president's spokeswoman and a military valet came down with the coronavirus just a little bit over a week ago that the white house then insisted essentially that people who are working there wear masks when they're working around the president and working around other people. but your question was how str g stringent are they, the regulations? obvious

and good for jeff mason of reuters for pushing back on that. i know a lot of reporters, myself included, would like to go back if it's safe. so what exactly happened in there? >> reporter: that's right, dana. if there was any question about why the president was doing this, it became very clear in the white house press secretary's condescending comment about reporters and faith. the white house and the president are viewing this through the very political lens of the culture wars that so frequently animates the president's base. this is the president throwing away the state by state playbook that he has relied on. for every other business, every other organization other than places of worship, the president has deferred to the states and said we need to do this locally, you know, locality by locality, state by state. but in this case the president clearly throwing away that playbook. now, it's not clear what authority the president would have to actually override the governors or order them to open these churches and other places of worship up.

>> thank you, jeff mason for saying what so many were thinking in that moment.'s going to stay in this job and have any respect from the press corps she can't question faith of the people she works with. >> let's turn to some front pages and television news segments now about memorial day weekend and about this pandemic. some front pages are featuring beach-goers, while at the same time others are carrying warnings like this one. a hospital official saying the covid-19 crisis is far from over. these are the tensions and contradictions of this memorial day weekend. you have fda commissioner steven hahn tweeting a reminder that the virus is not yet contained. he says social distancing, hand washing and wearing masks protects us all. he says that on twitter but his president does -- what his boss does, president trump, doesn't match that covering. do the boardwalk scenes and beach scenes represent what's really happening or are these outliers? there's a lot to be praised about how people adapted to this crisis. we see 2k3wgatherings in cars, socially distanced grad

jeff mason, white house correspondent for reuters. ralist." tom bevan, real clear cofounder and president. jeff, what did you take from that hearing? >> i thought it was interesting, the clip that you played was one of these smaller fireworks if there were really fireworks that hearing today. it's slightly different message, not just what he was saying to senator paul but in general what dr. fauci has been saying about reopening. the president of course has been a really, really pushing for the country to reopen. dr. fauci came out with a warning saying that if we move too quickly, if states move too quickly, there could be smaller outbreaks that become bigger outbreaks later in the fall. that said, the president of course has endorsed the phased approach that he himself and other white house officials here announced several weeks ago, and dr. fauci helped design that. i think when he says the president takes my advice and listens to my advice, that's certainly true. >> bret: let's take a listen to one of the exchanges about going back

making fun of reuters' jeff mason for wearing a macsk. for actually taking it seriously. the president saying he just wants to be politically correct. okay. well, listen to the second part of jeff's question and the president's response. >> the second question was about your tweets about the woman who died who you're suggesting that joe scarborough was responsible. >> yeah, a lot of people suggest that. and hopefully someday people are going to find out. certainly a very suspicious situation, very sad. very sad and very suspicious. question, please? >> asked you not to tweet -- >> go ahead, please, go. >> mr. president, though, have you seen the letter that was written by her husband begging twitter to delete your tweets? talking about how hard it's been for his family, for him -- >> yeah, i have, but i'm sure that ultimately they want to get to the bottom of it and it's a very serious situation. >> that is disgusting. the president has been tweeting out insinuations, baseless years-old conspiracy theory that joe scarborough who he views as a political enemy had something

according to our friend and colleague jeff mason, who is part of the small pool of reporters who are there speaking with the president, president trump said again that dr. bright looks to him to be an angry, disgruntled person. and secretary azar, according to jeffer mason, said everything dr. bright is complaining about was achieved. dr. bright taped an interview previously with another network. he said he's not disgruntled. he said he's frustrated. frustrated by lack of leadership and lack of preparedness. previously president trump had said, in fact earlier this morning he tweeted he did not know dr. bright, never heard of him. and that's conceivable because up until now dr. bright led a government agency that was fairly obscure. but because dr. bright oversaw the government agency that is charged with investing in and developing vaccines, you can make the argument, and many have made this argument, president trump should have known who dr. bright is, given that public health experts say the only way out of this, the only way we can return to some sense of normalcy is through wide

be able to pray and that's why everyone is pushing this idea that you should remain closed, when jeff mason pushed back, a reporter pushed back and said, actually reporters go -- we go to pray, we go to churches. i've had friends unfortunately i've lost during this time. i think the thing "the new york times" does well, it encapsulates the fact the nation is reporting. tmg it's not about a democrat or republican, a reporter. you're grieving something if it's your grandmother or dear friend in my case. what people need to understand, it's something we're trying to explain to people, is that when we report these facts when we talk about people, what we're talking about is the fact that this is humanity and we're all having to deal with the fact everyone is a little tired of staying in. everyone misses everyone. there is also the facts. facts are not something you can see. what president trump is trying to do essentially what a lot of white house aides are trying to do on tv is reporters going after president trump and trying to attack him. when in fact we as the rest of americans are having t

joining us is peter baker, white house correspondent for "the new york times" and also jeff mason, whiteorrespondent at reuters g to see you both. let's get night, peter. the strategy here by the white house is what? by having the president showcase himself outside of the usual briefings? >> well, i think first of all, they decided the briefings had run their course. they got a lot of blowback even from the republicans that they were kind of doing more damage at this point than good. so they wanted to mix it up a little bit, find new ways of getting him out there and this is, of course, a new team, a new communications team that has come in. you know, it's also an attempt to show, you know, beginning of getting back to business as usual or business as the new usual will be. there won't be ever a complete usual for a while until the vaccine o ar a cure. the president is encouraging states to reopen like texas as you just showed. he's encouraging the idea that we can begin to come back out of our houses and isolation doesn't have to continue forever even if there are precautions that need

jeff mason, the correspondent for ro reuters joins us now. they are using this tragic horrendous death to attack law enforcement, our society, our institutions. when you drag a demonstrator through the street or the demonstrators drag a chicago police officer through the street, kick people in the teeth who are walking, it is horrendous. let's listen for a moment before we get back to you to new york governor andrew cuomo who is discuss all 06 thi all of this . let's listen. >> 256, which is in this absurd reality we live in actually very, very good news. there will be a point at which the number of deaths can't get any lower because people will die of something and covid virus is very good at affecting those people who have other illnesses but this reduction in the number of deaths is tremendous progress from where we were. and -- eric: that is governor cuomo not discussing this, he's talking about coronavirus and some good news that the numbers are declining in the northeast. some states ar around the count, mississippi, alabama, others, ha