When the u. S. Is a laughing stock or the subject of pity around the world. Look at this chart of daily new confirmed coronavirus cases. The European Union along with countries like indonesia, japan, australia, they have all gotten their cases down. Some are at or near zero. And then there is that dark line going right up. That is us, our case are skyrocketing. Our governments response is a failure. We are living in this tragedy, this National Humiliation for all to see. We keep setting records for new cases in a day, five times in the last eight days we have set a new record for cases. And yesterday another record. The u. S. Report being 50,000 new cases in a single day. Only one other country in the world of any size has ever reported more than 50 could you sayes in a day, and that is brazil. The u. S. And brazil, thats it. The first time around back in march when the virus first hit, it was bad, and both the Trump Administration primarily and some local leaders reacted poorly. But it was also the case that so many other countries were getting hit hard, too. Italy was one of the worsthit countries with the virus just overwhelming hospitals. It looked like the situation was completely out of control there. They imposed a National Lockdown for over two months. Italy has come out on the other side, at least for now, with less than 200 new cases a day. They did what they had to do and now life is getting back to some semblance of normal. Kind of life before the pandemic. Go its not just italy. We are seeing scenes of societies emerging from the pandemic all over the world. In denmark, High School Students just celebrated the end of school. And not virtual school. They had physically been in classes in person. They have the amusement parks open there as well, which this girl appears to be quite happy about. In ireland they have bars back open along with some movie theaters, museums and all sorts of other things. New zealand where they have almost zero cases, theyre back to playing rugby. In japan, the malls of tokyo are open and the streets are as crowded as the streets of new york city once were. The only difference being that everyone is wearing masks. In the czech republic, they just had a huge party in prague to celebrate the easing of coronaviruss restrictions. A Massive Public dinner on the charles bridge with no social distancing required. Things are going more easy now i think about covid19, and so just just to enjoy life. Just enjoy life. Weve gotten rid of covid. Sure looks nice. For some perspective, consider this. Florida Just Announced 10,000 cases in a single day. By contrast, as Writer Matt Obrien pointed out, with a combined population of 2. 6 billion people, china, japan, korea, vietnam, thailand, malaysia, indonesia, the philippines, australia and the entire European Union are averaging 6,670 new cases a day. Less than florida. All those countries, the population of 2. 6 billion people collectively, they have fewer cases than just florida, and that is just one state. In alabama the number of patients being treated for coronavirus surged past 800 for the First Time Ever today, marking the fourth straight day they have set record highs for hospitalizations. In texas, they hit another recordbreaking day for cases and hospitalizations. The governor just finally issued a statewide mask ordinance requiring most people to wear masks in public after long resisting that kind of policy. In california, the number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus has jumped 56 in the last two weeks. We are on an island here in the United States. No other country is struggling with the virus like we are in the way we are at this point in the arc of it. It is a global failure, as the Biden Campaign points out in this new ad. You are going to be so proud of your country. Were going to win so much. You may even get tired of winning. And youll say, please, please, its too much winning. We cant take it any more. Mr. President , its too much, and ill say, no it isnt. We have to keep winning. We have to win more. Were going to win more. The president has this metaphor he likes to use. Its something someone must have said to him in some meeting and it got buried in the brain. Its to talk about the virus like a dying fire. Quote, we may have some embers or ashes or may have some flames coming, but well put them out, well stomp them out. Its not a wrong metaphor. Its a good one. Its the idea you can suppress the virus enough and you can get red of the embers. Thats what other countries have done. They have suppressed it enough, they have firefighters extinguishing each ember as it appears and stopping the country from catching fire. Stopping the virus from spreading. But that is not us, no. We are way past the ember state. The country is on fire. It is in flames. We cannot stomp it out. And the rest of the world is looking on in horror. Joining me now, Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Followed the pandemic from the beginning across the world. Is it fair for someone who has been reporting on it from its first appearance in wuhan, Hubei Province in china, to say it is a global disaster than any other country . This is a National Humiliation in terms of the rest of the world. Chris, the one that blows my mind is canada. A new survey of Public Opinion in canada finds that only the highest percentage of canadians willing to allow americans to come to canada right now is 24 of quebec. In british columbia, only 6 of the citizens would allow americans to come across the border as long as this covid situation is out of control. Canada wants that border kept tight shut. No americans allowed. If you look around the world, the sense of disappointment is so painful to see. I was reading some newspapers in south africa where they were writing, you know, once you were our beacon. You were what we wanted to emulate. We wanted to be america. And now all we can see is total american failure. We cannot believe it. You see us like this in every single language around the world, in newspapers, in magazines, in broadcasting. Its just a sense of oh, my gosh, how did america fail this deeply . How could this be . The leader of science, the leader of democracy, the leader of the free world, and the number one economy, and its the number one complete failure when it comes to this pandemic. Its astonishing. And then we add salt to the wound when we say to the rest of the world, oh, by the way, were not going to play nice in the sand box, either, because were going to turn around and buy the entire supply of gilead remdesivir, the only drug out there thats been recently shown to be effective in reducing the length of time of illness other than dexamethasone, and were going to buy it all up so the rest of the world cant get any. And to the rest of the world, this is viewed as, once again, america saying, its us versus all of you. We do what we want. Were going to take the vaccine first. Were going to take the drugs first. To heck with the rest of you. In identifying the difference, i mean, it seems to me the sort of most clearcut problem when you look at us and other countries that had that outbreak, theres a whole category of countries that sort of avoided terrible outbreaks to begin with, which is great. Thats what you want to do. Right. But there are countries that had really bad outbreaks, thats italy and thats spain, and france. It seems to me the key difference is those countries kept things locked down long enough to get down to a possible suppression level to then do the kind of putting out the embers strategy that we never did. Like we never really actually got it under control in a way that would allow that, and so when we opened back up, it was inevitable we would have this. We didnt get it under control in the way that youre describing nationally, but new york, new jersey, connecticut, key states northeast did. And made the proper sacrifices and got their epidemics under control. I think really, chris, theres two key things. One, its obviously your National Leadership question. But its also that every single european country you named has a National Health system, and that means that they have always centralized data, centralized purchasing, centralized policy, so that it would be easy in paris for macron to turn to his Health Minister and say, what do you think we should do . And the Health Minister puts some tine cysscientists togethe says, boom, heres what we should do for the whole country. Here we have a completely fragmented response. Just today representative andy biggs in arizona called upon the white house to shutdown the Coronavirus Task force and get rid of tony fauci and deborah birx. Meanwhile you had andrew cuomo, weve done a good job, but were not going to let the following states send people our way because they have too much covid. Were acting more like 50 we should include guam and puerto rico and so on. 50plus individual nations than we are like a Single National response. The only, to me the only sort of moon shot here as far as i can tell is like a very fast 100 mask adoption, the data thats accrued the last several months has really suggested in terms of like effectiveness versus cost and hassle. Its the sort of easiest thing we have. You have abbott today issuing a mask order for any county in the state that has over 20 cases, which is the entire state. You have this tweet from the South Carolina governor henry mcmaster. Let me make it clear, wear a mask and social distancing now so we can enjoy high school and College Football which is sort of perverse at one level because there are other things more important than that, but also maybe good for the target audience. I guess my question to you is can we do it short of massive interventions . If everyone masks up and everyone gets on the same page, can we arrest the growth were seeing now . Well, look at it this way. The choice, mask or not to mask, is being described as if it were an economic choice, as if somehow by wearing a mask you are opposing the opening of the economy. And you were asomehow in favor f the lockdown. And if you didnt wear a mask, you were somehow gung ho for the economy. They said we could save 5 of our gdp loss. Enormous, trillions of dollars to the u. S. Economy, and that means a lot of jobs if every single person, when they left their home, was wearing a mask at all times. Thats a very simple intervention. Its cheap. Anybody can do it. It requires no skills whatsoever. Just put the mask on so that it covers your nose and your mouth and youre set to go. Lets do it america. All right, Laurie Garrett, its great to talk to you ton this topic. Thank you for making time for us tonight. Have a great 4th of july holiday. And to all our viewers, i hope you will be safe, happy with your family, no covid, happy independence day. Stay safe. For more on what things look like at heart in texas, im joined now by our friend dr. Peter hotez, dean of the school of tropical medicine at Baylor School of medicine. Weve been talking to you the very first moments of the pandemic, the first confirmed cases. Youve been talking to us from texas. It is now in your backyard right now. How are things in texas right now . Its been in our backyard for a while, chris. Were seeing this dramatic and steep acceleration. Its very worrisome, especially in the metro areas. San antonio, houston, austin, dallas. The numbers have a vertical rise, and its also accompanied by a serious increase in hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions. So we are in a dire Public Health situation, and now we have some new modelling estimates coming out of the university of pennsylvania that show as bad as this is, the numbers could double in houston and other texas cities within two weeks in the middle of july, and possibly double again by the end of july. So this is, as i say, a dire situation. Unfortunately, its not just happening in texas. This is happening in arizona and florida. Its starting in georgia. This is this massive resurgence across the south, and dr. Fauci now has projected we could reach 100,000 cases per day, double what were at now. If you extrapolate times the population of texas, arizona and florida, were already about there. So weve already reached his apocalyptic predictions. So clearly this is not working. We need a new strategy. And ultimately, we now realize there has not been any National Road map or strategy, and now ive been calling for it urgently to make it happen. We why just showing some footage inside houston methodist hospital. Weve been getting reports inside hospitals in Harris County around houston and bear county as well. Its almost a familiar genre of b roll. It is doctors in i. C. U. Units in p. P. E. Overwhelmed. Weve seen this footage in lombardi. Weve seen it in spain. Weve seen it in new york. We are seeing it in texas now. The big question always is does the Health Care System have capacity . Is there reason to think that because of surge capacity, because the rise here might be maybe slower than new york because of the testing capacity, that this can be accommodated in texas . Well, you know, here in our Texas Medical Center in houston which is the Worlds Largest with 60 institutions, 100,000 employees, we still have a little bit of room. We still have some room, and we are doing better at i. C. U. Care because of all the new interventions. We have a clotting therapy, the plasma convalescent treatments, the dexamethasone, the remdesivir. So we are getting patients out of the i. C. U. But eventually if those numbers continue to climb as they are, by july we will be in trouble. The issue is this. Weve got to stop community transmission. And the question is whether the measures that had been taken on so far are going to be adequate or do we have to go to the next level. And were going to have to be asking this question all over the United States because were in the same situation in arizona, florida, and its not going to stay in the south. The numbers will start to rise precipitously again until there is a coherent National Strategy for conducting these interventions with daily messaging. And hopefully with a greater involvement from the cdc that can take the lead rather than the White House Task force that has mainly their strategy has been let the states lead and well provide fema support, p. P. E. And supply Chain Management and other manufacturing and other measures. That strategy is clearly a failure. And Laurie Garrett kind of pointed that out as well. Without a unified strategy, just this fragments system, its failed us miserably. This is the largest Public Health collapse in the history of the nation. Final question. When you talk about other interventions asking that question, what do you mean by that . Do you mean places like metropolitan areas going back to shelterinplace, closing most businesses, Something Like that . Thats right. Thats right. We may have we may have to go there at least to get this back under control because when youve got that massive surge, that vertical slope, clearly the intervention today that the governor has demanded a full mask wearing by the entire population, whether its going to be enough or were going to have to go to the next measure, i cant really say. This is why you need a National Strategy because you have the models that you could look at for every metro area. Work with the epidemiologist at the cdc and say, is this enough or do we have to go further . Dr. Peter hotez. As always, thank you, sir, for your time tonight. Thanks so much, chris. All the best. Ahead, the president used the new jobs numbers today as proof the economy is roaring back, but that just is not the case. Theres a lot more to the story. Its not good. Well explore that next. Its pretty inspiring the way families redefined the word school this year. Its why, at xfinity, were committed to helping kids keep learning through the summer. And help College Students studying at home stay connected through our university program. Were providing affordable Internet Access to low income families through our internet essentials program. And this summer, xfinity is creating a Virtual Summer camp for kids at home all on xfinity x1. Were committed to helping all families stay connected. Learn more at xfinity. Com education. The president came out today to do a victory lap on the latest jobs report which at first glance looked pretty good, 4. 8 million new jobs and a low Unemployment Rate. I have to say to my ears as i watched its 15 cases and pretty soon its going to go down for zero, but for the economy. Because, yes, some jobs are snapping back, but that is the easy part. Basically the job gains we saw were people who were furloughed and went back to work. When it comes to permanent job losses, that number went up by almost 600,000. And were still down 15 million jobs from where we were in february, and crucially, this might be the worst part. Todays data was collected before the coronavirus surge in mid june. Theres a lot of reason to be very, very worried about where the economy is headed right now. Here for more on that, adam is the chief economist that connects businesses with freelancers and vocal member on twitter with thoughts of macro conditions. Adam, heres my thing about this. I am but a humble cable knost host and i feel like im losing my mind. This doesnt look good. The economy doesnt look good. I look at wall street and some Investment Bank analyst who thinks things are good. Am i wrong, am i crazy or is there a lot to worry about . I think its a particularly misleading labor market right now. Like you said at the open, 4. 8 million jobs, thats a lot of jobs, so i think that is confusing people because at the end of the day theres still 15 Million People who lost their jobs. The Unemployment Rate is bigger than it ever was during the great recession. And, you know, its just way, way too soon for all the Mission Accomplished banner. Weve got a long way to go. Theres a little lowhanging fruit issue, it seems to me on the jobs which is like the jobs to come back first are the easiest ones, and then as you start climbing back up, youve got harder and harder ones, right . So someone who is like running a night club or works on broadway, theyre not back yet, and i dont know when theyre going to be back. And theres a lot of people in industries that might be affected for a very long time. If you ask Small Businesses, the census pulse survey looked at how many think theyre going to be back to normal within six months. And if food service is an accommodation, its 75 think its going to be six months or longer until theyre back to normal. So a lot of businesses, a lot of industries, they have a very long slow recovery ahead of them. Theres a very perverse political dynamic, which is that there are voices in the republican party. Its very strange. Basically Mitch Mcconnell and a lot of people in the Republican Senate and advisors of the president want no further rescue money put into the economy because i think their theory of the case is you need to smoke people out of their coronavirus holes and starve them out of there so that they have to go back to work because if you make it too possible for them not to work, no one will come back to work, the economy wont get back together and the president wont get reelected and republicans will get crushed. This seems insane to me, but there is some thinking like that. What do you think . It seems we need rescue money here. Yeah, i think with the Unemployment Rate still at 12 and this many people still out of work and were this far from recovered, we definitely need more fiscal spending, especially in targeted areas. I think Small Businesses that are struggling the most are going to continue to fail. I think the Unemployment Benefits expiring is going to be bad news for households. And i think state and local government needs more money, too. I understand thats a lot of money. I understand we spent a lot of money. Were dealing with an historical economic crisis here. I dont think sitting back is going to accomplish what we want and i dont think trying to force people back into the labor market by making Unemployment Benefits cheaper is going to do the job either. Yeah, i mean, theres the 600 sort of bonus which has been hugely important. If you look at some of the cash flow data, its fascinating. I just saw a paper that said peoples liquid Bank Balances may year over year go up 36 , like more this year because of the success of the unemployment bonus and the 1200 check. It had actually gotten into peoples bank accounts. You take that away in july, and that seems to me thats bad, right . Thats bad for the Macro Economy if that just goes away . Yeah, with this many people out of work, we still need support. We still need support in the Macro Economy. Look, i get what theyre saying being concerned about labor supply effects. A whole lot of people are making more on unemployment than they are at their job. But those effects are just swamped right now by the demand effects of this. And besides, its totally irrelevant because you can design a program that incentivizes people to come back from work. Simply let them take some of their 600 with them when theyre hired. Its done, youve solved the problem. Thats right. You can exactly. You can keep it if you go back to work. The bigger problem to me here, sometimes economists and the people on wall street and the analysts on this are missing it a little bit, which is youve got to suppress the virus. You can have all the economic incentives in the world, you can reopen the arizona economy, you can try to get night life and club hopping again, but thats not going to work. There was this idea early on that really the lockdowns were doing all the economic work, and that you could just end the lockdowns and people would go back to normal. But the evidence weve seen so far, some welldone studies and kind of common sense suggests if you end the lockdowns, people dont go back to normal. Its really the virus thats changing behavior. And quite frankly, people did go back to normal, thats going to be even more problematic. Thats right. Adam ozimek who i follow and read all the time on these issues, thanks for making the time. Thanks for having me. Next, a surprise twist in the case of Jeffrey Epstein. His companion and alleged accomplice is under arrest and facing federal charges. Those details after this. They line up by the thousands. Each one suffering with a story that breaks your heart. Like ravette, who needed help, because every step brought her pain. Their only hope is a ship unlike any other. Mercy ships. The largest floating civilian hospital in the world to bring free surgeries and care to people who have no other hope. Only 62 cents a day. 19 a month will help provide urgently needed surgery for the worlds forgotten poor. If you have ever wondered how can i, just one person, make a difference . This is your answer. So many are still suffering. So dont wait. Call the number on your screen call or donate now at mercyships. Org today we got a surprise twist in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and money manager who rubbed elbows with president s and celebrities. Back in july of last year, epstein, of course, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting dozens of young girls. A month later he was found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide. Now almost a year later, Jeffrey Epsteins longtime companion and alleged accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested and charged with a variety of crimes including conspiracy to entice minors to travel and engage in illegal sex acts and perjury. There are numerous women who have spoken on the record throughout the years, decades about maxwell recruiting and grooming them and participating in their abuse. Her indictment describes her meeting one victim when she was only 14, taking her to the movies, shopping trips, and roping her into sexualized messages with Jeffrey Epstein. It has been a mystery how Ghislaine Maxwell escaped the prosecution as long as she did. But tonight she is in federal custody and for more on what she is accused of doing im joined by megan twoey, Investigative Reporter for the New York Times. After Jeffrey Epsteins arrest last summer she coauthored a profile of maxwell, lady of the house long entangled with Jeffrey Epstein. Megan, what do the charging documents layout about the case with maxwell . Well, this is huge. This spells out criminal charges against maxwell that mirror some of the allegations we had already seen in civil records. Basically that in the 1990s, when she was at first epsteins girlfriend and then just a very close companion of his, lived in his homes, shared the bank accounts, helped run his affairs, but she also participated in helping to lure under aged girls into his orbit where they were sexually abused, sexual abuse that she allegedly participated in. And so there are in this criminal case against her, there are three minor girls who were allegedly victimized by her in the course of the 1990s. Whats so crazy about this is that if you followed this case at all for years, in fact, decades, there are numerous women who i dont think there is a single accuser of Jeffrey Epstein who doesnt mention maxwell. It is the case that the people on the record, in civil suits and in other cases have said from the beginning consistently story after story after story that maxwell was working, essentially, as his trafficker. That she would scout girls outside private schools who were 14 in new york city. I mean, the why now, how did she get away with this for so long, hangs overa all this. Youre absolutely right. When epstein was arrested last year, attention pretty quickly shifted to maxwell as she looked she appeared to be the potential biggest coconspirator in his predation, his pattern of predation playing on these young under age girls. There had been these allegations in civil lawsuits, and she had been able to, by and large, dodge any accountability. And last year when he was arrested, i was among the reporters who set off trying to find her. She was not you know, her lawyers wouldnt answer phone calls. She couldnt be found. She had basically disappeared from new york for several years, so over the past year weve all wondered where has she been, and is anything going to happen to her. And it was interesting we now realize in the indictment and the prosecutor speaking about this today that she had, in fact, gone to elaborate means to try to remain in hiding. She had changed her phone number, she had changed her addresses, but they had been, without her knowing it sounds like, had been tracking her every move. When she finally moved into a mansion in New Hampshire recently, they were able to finally pounce and arrest her and bring her into custody. My understanding, this is from the out of Southern University of new york which is until recently headed up by Geoffrey Berman. He was fired by barr and the president. He sort of refused until his deputy who is the head of the Criminal Division was allow today take over as acting. According to the time line, this is a Geoffrey Berman s. D. N. Y. Case. This case has been in the works for a while. Is it fair to say ha . Thats right, this case has clearly been in the works for a while. And there were questions of whether or not its also worth mentioning that there were federal prosecutors in florida who basically let epstein slip from their grips in 2009, that there had been investigators, both investigators in florida and fbi officials who had been investigating him for a long time and starting to piece together the puzzle of his predation and other potential coconspirators in 2009. And the feds in florida had basically let him slip away, enter into a pretty sweetheart plea deal. And it was really remarkable to watch new york come back, you know, just last year with a really strong case against him. And its worth noting that that actually followed some pretty incredible reporting that julie brown and her colleagues at the miami herald did. This was another case where the government officials had failed to hold this person accountable, some really talented journalists stepped in and helped expose what had happened behind the scenes. Yeah, in fact, the u. S. Attorney who had overseen the office that cut that sweetheart deal was the secretary of labor alex accosta under donald trump, which is part of the news worthiness of that story when he ended up leaving that post, resigning in the midst of that because he had overseen that. The terms of that are almost i am possibly gentle given the sort of scope of predation he was accused of. Of course, then theres Jeffrey Epsteins apprehension, theres his death in department of justice custody last year, which has spawned a million conspiracy theori theories and speculation, and now maxwells safety. This is an active case again. There was an idea when epstein died that his secrets went with him. We know that he knows lots of powerful people. We know that he had hobnobbed with powerful people. He had given money to all sorts of institutions. The same is true of maxwell who you can find in the whos whos list of pictures. Shes now there and there is some question where this might lead, right . Its hard to imagine anybody who might know more of epsteins secrets than other people who were involved in his orbit, in his pattern of predation than maxwell. She was, by his account, the person closest to him. His not former girlfriend turned best friend turned house manager. She had access to the bank accounts. She had access to his personal records. She traveled and partied with his friends. She brought powerful people into his orbit. She, including prince andrew, who was another person who appears to be a subject of interest in this investigation. And so it is pretty remarkable to have her now in federal custody and having to answer questions from the federal prosecutors and investigators. I think theres no limit to what she knows. Yeah, it is a wild turn of events. Megan twoey, great reporting on this. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Happy to be here. Coming up, not only is the president falling behind in the polls, hes being outraised by joe biden. Whats behind the twomonth streak and what could be moving the needle ahead . Putin pays the taliban cash to slaughter our men and women in uniform. And trump is silent. Weak. Controlled. Instead of condemnation, he insists russia be treated as our equal. Instead of retaliation, he invites putin to america. Every day brings new reporting about intelligence that russia secretly offered taliban fighters bounties to kill american soldiers. Their part, the white house has squirmed itself into a corner having to basically say the president is too checked out to care, making this particular story very ripe target for ads. As politico notes, unlike four years ago, ad makers are no longer focusing on his character in isolation. They are pouring tens of millions of dollars into ads yoking his behavior to substantive policy issues. One antitrump pac picked up on this releasing this ad the day after the russian bounty story broke. Now we know Vladimir Putin pays a bounty for the murder of american soldiers. Donald trump knows, too, and does nothing. When trump tells you he stands by the troops, hes right, just not our troops. These ads are not limit today republicans who hate donald trump. Just a day after that ad, progressive veterans pac released itsunori onode released its own attack on the president. He shakes his hands and american dies. A road side attack. Intelligence reports on his desk, he says nothing to his russian master. Takes no action to protect us. If youre going to act like a tralt traitor, you dont get to thank us for our service. What is interesting to see is how joe bidens campaign is responding. There is new evidence suggesting that positive ads about joe biden made be more effective for his campaign this cycle than negative ads about donald trump. And in that context, this new ad makes a lot of sense. This job . This job is about protecting americans. It takes strength. Courage. Compassion. Resilience. Thats a president. Of course, theres another big question looming over all this and what will likely be one of the most expensive president ial races ever. How much did tv ads matter . Were going to talk about that with the democratic pollster from the Lincoln Project next. J. When we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. I remember setting up shipstation. One or two clicks and everything was up and running. I was printing out labels and saving money. Shipstation saves us so much time. It makes it really easy and seamless. Pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and its ready to go. Our costs for shipping were cut in half. Just like that. Shipstation. The 1 choice of online sellers. Go to shipstation. Com tv and get 2 months free. The Biden Campaign and the Democratic NationalCommittee Just outraised trump and the republican National Committee for the second month in a row, beating them in fundraising for the entire second quarter. The Biden Campaign did not disclose how much money they have on hand, the Trump Campaign which has been fundraising obviously since like day one is flush with cash reporting almost 300 million in the bank. Which theyre using for tens of millions of dollars worth of tv ads in key swing states he won in 2016 including ones he didnt think heed have d have to cont ohio and georgia. Both have essentially Unlimited Money for advertising. The deeper question is given the state of the country and its current pollerization, how much advertising can actually move voters behavior in 2020 . To talk about that im joined by Cornell Belcher and rick wilson political strategist, cofounder of the Lincoln Project and a Political Action committee. Ill go to each of you in turn with this question of, in the year 2020 in a president ial if youre running like a state rep race or a congressional where people dont really know the candidates that well, i think tv ads probably matter a ton, right . Theres name recognition and all that. When were talking about in the year 2020 with the country in the state its in, with the name recognition almost 100 for both candidates, how much ads matter at the margins . Rick, ill start with you. Look, in the words of the great political scientist dapesh mode, everything counts in large amounts. When you have advertising volumes out there in the tens of hundreds of millions of dollars, they still will move numbers. But the thing to understand, chris, is that its not just you cant look at it just as the tv platform any more. I am completely platform agnostic when it comes to advertising and have been for a while now. Youll see the work we do in the Lincoln Project spanning a whole variety of places where we know were going to get eyeballs. Were going to be digital, on cable, were going to be on broadcast. We have a whole spectrum of choices here. And, look, primarily people have gone increasingly to digital as the first wave of getting a message. Theyre going to see it on their social media platforms. Theyre going to see it on their preroll videos. Digital is now the primary battle field, and so when i use the word television, i dont care what screen you see the television on. Right. Cornell, what do you think . Well, im going to quote another great political philosopher. This one being l. L. Cool jay. Mama said knock you out. I still think that television has a power that the others do not. Now, as television is television what it was in 1990 . No. Is television what it was quite frankly in early 2000 when obama ran in 2008 . No, its not. We see diminishing returns on television because people have so many more platforms, especially younger voters. And thats why you see a lot of the penetration with digital going toward these younger voters. But still pound for pound, television is still the best way to convey and reach a broad audience. And, quite frankly, to deliver a punch the way my friend at the Lincoln Project has been delivering punches. Its still such a powerful medium for that. So, i want to ask you, rick, what your theory of the case is here. When there is one level which the Lincoln Project is trolling donald trump and inside his hedmhead manifestly. He watches the ads, he tweets them, theres that part of it. The the New York Times had an interesting piece where they polled people who voted for trump and arent going to vote for him again. Its a small part of the electorate that exists. There are some people who are kind of on the fence. Is that the people that you werent to reach . Do you think there are people that are conservative republicans who dont like the guy and are on the fence and can be pushed . The Biden Campaign knows this, a lot of other outside people know this, donald trump is losing demographics across the board. Hes losing support even among White College voters. Hes lost white suburban College Educated voters, women particularly, independent men hes losing support with. Hes starting to lose support with seniors. If he treads off little key bits here and there, the campaigns that are running against him, whether the outside project or the inside work like bidens campaign, this is a mathematics problem that donald trump will have trouble overcoming in the Electoral College calculus. You know, cornell, theres a bunch of different ways to think about ads. Theres negative ads, theres positive ads, both i think are aimed at persuasion. I thought this ad was interesting because its an ad aimed specifically at people already persuaded but to get them to turnout. I want to get your thoughts on the degree to which that kind of messaging can work, too, in terms of turnout. Take a listen. I, donald john trump, do solemnly swear that i will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, so help me god. Theres a television mermaid, theres a riot in the street if you had been waiting in case of emergency, we are black voters matter. Thats in my spirit. You know what, im grateful that i came out because i matter. Clearly, cornell, thats for people that already feel a certain way about the president. I do wonder the degree to which what evidence there is or whether people have run big turnout focused ads in the past. Well, im going to get campaign nervy wonky for you. One, people when you look at negative ads, really what i look at for the negative ad is really the sort of make voters pause in consideration for that candidate. Especially if youre up against an incumbent, you want to hit that incumbent and make voters sort of pause and maybe pull back. Then you have to sort of pivot from that and give them someplace to rest on, which is the challenge, why a challenger struggles so much. Negative ads, we all hate negative ads, but they work and they bring pause. When you look at a lot of ads around i think in the president ial race right now, some of the the Lincoln Project is doing, the monmouth poll came out today, and they had the race 5341. Theres only a small number of people who are actually undecided. Chris, i am really big into this idea of feeding the flames, right. You want to feed the energy of the base and you want to feed the energy of your supporters and grow that because right now its not about the length the number of his voters, but its about the certainty and strength and enthusiasm of that support. I think thats where these ads can be helpful. Also, rick, it strikes me, everything im reading now obviously ive been covering the campaign for as long as its been going on, right. It just seems like everything changes in march. Theres a historical catastrophe. Were going through a governing failure probably anything as bad as Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression probably, i guess. I guess my feeling is that 90 of this is what is happening, like, and all the campaign discussion. Maybe im being overly reductive. It seems the thing thats driving it is the country is objectively on fire. Chris, this is a president who managed to sort of stumble his way through the first three years. And then when true externalities, he chose to deceive the country, he chose to delay taking action to protect american lives and the economy, and now hes paying the price for it. Donald trump every day continues to believe things, oh, its just going to disappear. What if roosevelt said, the japanese bombed pearl harbor, but theyll go away tomorrow. Dont worry about it. This is not the way a president leads. Its not the way a president behaves. But what were seeing here is this magical thinking, this reality bubble around him where he thinks the economy jared yesterday said things are going to come roaring back in july. Its july 1st, and we are again facing a precipice with this pandemic and the financial blip, a few jobs coming back in june is about to flip over again. And he owns all those things. Thats whats hurting him the most, chris. He owns all these things. He screwed it up and hes owning it. He owns it all. He thinks he can defending the honor of the confederacy in the wake of the largest social the 11th hour with Brian Williams starts now. Good evening once again. Im ali velshi in for Brian Williams, who will be back here on monday. It is day 1,260 of the Trump Administration. 124 days until the president ial election. And this nation is heading into the big Holiday Weekend with a coronavirus case record now climbing. Today more than 56,000 new infections have been reported. That is yet another record. The New York Times describes the pandemic situation over the