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told it's actually closing in a couple of weeks. next year, the kaiser in hayward is slated to be closed as the hospital moves to its new state of the art facility in san leandro. the 20-bed pediatric unit will not be relocated. >> it's really upsetting. >> days after she was born, john green's daughter chloe was treated her for severe case of jaundice but now that hayward brafrnl is closing, he feels the hospital is leaving those who need them the most. >> if there was another problem, we'd have to be driving 45 minutes away. so on top of having a sick child, the stress of commuting, the stress of finding accommodations, of babysitting, of taking time off work is horrible. >> the closure means parents want to take their children to either roseville, oakland or santa clara for in-patient treatment, something nurses knew was a possibility but thought was not happening until next year. >> on october 16th, they came up and told us that they were closing our unit on november 17th of this year. >> we've never mentioned the transition in the combination of our in patient pediatric unit with the center of excellence other in kaiser oakland. >> kaiser officials say hayward pediatric unit sees on average fewer than four patients each day so it makes more stoens centralize treatment in oakland. >> weal have much better service available at our oakland facility because we'll have pediatric specialists and sub specialists and the latest technology available for our pediatric patients. >> kaiser says it will still provide children outpatient care in its medical offices in hayward even after its main hospital closes. live in hay regard, paul cham bers, ktvu channel 2 news. the san francisco park worker accused of running over a woman as she was sunbathing at holli park was booked on felony vehicular manslaughter and hit and run this afternoon. struck and killed christine as she sat in the park with her 11 month old daughter on september 5th. his attorney calls it a tragic accident. burnoski is being held on $350,000 bail. governor jerry brown is asking for a 60-day cooling off period that should head off a threat and strike by ac transit bus drivers. alameda county superior court judge is slated to hear the request tomorrow morning. today an advisory board found a strike would seriously disrupt public transportation and arm public safety. if the judge agrees with the board's findings, it would prevent the union from going on strike for the next 60 days. happening now, bart trains are up and run wg no delays being reported at this hour. bart employees returned to work this morning ending a bitter four-day strike. while bart said service would start as early as 4:00 a.m., many stations didn't open until 6:00 a.m.. bart said it just didn't have enough workers in place to start service. we saw frustrated riders leaving the station after realizing that there were no trains coming. delays stretched about 30 to 45 minutes this morning. commuters could also opt for bart's free charter bus service. many people decided to bypass bart and drive to work. this morning we saw extremely heavy traffic heading into the bay. at about 5:00 tonight, highway 101 in san francisco heading toward the bridge in the middle of the screen there was at a crawl, almost back to the 280 split. the two bart unions providing workers with details of the tentative agreement and the vote is planned for monday or tuesday of next week. at this point, we've learned the deal with the transit union includes a 13% salary increase over the next four years. that's 1% above the last offer. workers would contribute 4% to their pension, and $4 years. that's 1% above the last offer. workers would contribute 4% to their pension, and they'd pay a month more medical benefits. another issue that kept the two sides apart was safety. >> they have been met in a way that i can live with and that i think our members can live with. >> one safety provision in the new contract provides bullet-proof glass for station ajents at 15 bart stations. in addition, life insurance would double to twice an employee's pay. one lingering question tonight is what can be done to keep a strike from happening again. our coverage continues now with john fowler and a warning from lawmakers. >> the strike may be over, but the acrimony certainly will linger, and now there's a warning for bart. >> the people of this region are not going to put up with this again. they will move forward legislatively or otherwise, to disband an agency that cannot effectively govern itself. >> lieutenant governor told me late today that new agreement calls for a labor management committee to try to diffuse issues before they blow up. >> we like to see the legislature solve this problem. that's what we expect. that's what they're there to do. >> these contra costa county elected officials today urged sacramento to outlaw bart strikes. >> we don't have to throw out the baby with the bath water. >> san francisco labor counsel head tim paulson satd such a ban won't fly. >> this strike was avoidable, and the workers got pushed into a strike. i want to be clear about that. >> that sentiment echoed by two other neutral sources i spoke with today who told me bart appeared willing to tolerate a strike, that the public would blame union and may call for a future strike band. san francisco state labor expert who also sat in on the talks told me these were the quote, most dysfunctional sector labor negotiations possibly in state history. he's calling for a board of inquiry into what went wrong. new some says these mistakes simply cannot be repeated. that grass roots movement to ban transit strikes today acknowledged that legislatures likely will not act immediately but say if the lawmakers dawdle, they will go directly to voters. john fowler, ktvu channel 2 news. more details now, bart officials say the numbers are still being tallied, but the earliest mat for loss of service is $8.4 million per week. the two strikes added up to a total of eight days. the free buses bart used cost another $200,000 a day. even though the agency saved $4 million per week in unpaid wages, it still lost millions in dollars. >> go to ktvu.com for more coverage. you'll find the link under hot topics. this afternoon, federal investigators said they plan to reenact the accident that kill add bart employee and a contractor on the tracks near walnut creek this past week ebd. the ntsb learned the lights, horn and brakes were all functioning on the train when it struck the two men saturday. agency also said the two men on the right of way were required to remain together, and one was to be designated as a lookout. >> the designation of the lookout is determined during the job briefing, and a plan is also discussed on how and where to move into the clear of any oncoming trains or other equipment operating on either tracks. >> the ntsb says the accident reenactment will happen between noon and 3:30 tomorrow afternoon. bart says it will run shuttle buses every 15 minutes between lafayette and pleasant hill stations during that time. new at 7:00, the sonoma county sheriff's office is investigating a shooting south of santa rosa involving one of its deputies. we just got this video into our news room. officials tell the press democrat that deputies spotted a man carrying what looked like a handgun and rifle near morland and west robles avenue. deputies tried to contact the man, then one deputy shot him. the man was pronounced dead at the scene. today authorities reveal add 12-year-old opened fire at a middle school in sparks, nevada brought the weapon from home. police say the 7th grader used a 9 millimeter semiautomatic handgun to kill a teacher and wound two other students before killing himself. police say the boy's parents are cooperating but could face charges in this case. so far, the boy's name has not been released. some tense moments at a vallejo elementary school this morning when shots were fired in a field next to the campus. elementary on oak wood avenue went on lockdown about 11:00 this morning. a cal fire crew was work in the field when they spotted people shooting at a target. no one was injured, and no arrests were made. the lockdown was lifted just afternoon nooven. prompted a new battle with police union. the city's dealing with a dwindling number of officer s and decided to move 17 fraufrs background check duty to street patrol. the department wants to hire retired police officers to do those background checks, but the police union feels the jobs should go to active duty officers and sent letters to retired officers asking them to refuse the work. the situation has angered city leaders. >> it'll make it more difficult for us to do backgrounds on the new recruits. it may slow down the recruiting, and that's going to undermine the department. >> the police department has now put five full-time officers on background check duty and hopes to find about a dozen retired officer who will accept the work despite opposition from the union. the site of a san francisco mcdonald's could be the site of a new jail. the board of supervisors voted today to support sheriff ross mirkarimi's plan to apply for $80 million state grant. he wants to use it to build a 640-bed jail next to the hal of justice. sheriff mirkarimi says the current jail at the hal of justice is old and seismicly unsafe. opponents say the grant should instead be used to fund programs to help reduce the jail population. fog has hampered efforts to search for a missing diver off the sonoma county coast. authorities say the man's wife reported him missing at about 4:00 p.m. yesterday in south point state park. today state park divers and the sonoma county sheriff's office resumed the search at oobt 8:00 a.m. but a helicopter was ground dude to fog. at this time next year, the blue angels should be returning to san francisco. the navy announced the precision jets will perform over the bay next year as part of fleet week, though other activities will be scaled back. the blue angels scrubbed shows nationwide this year as part of the sequestration cuts back in april. water front merchants said they took a big financial hit from that cancellation. apple's newest tablet has dash of nike in its name, but will it bring new customers to cupertino? i do believe there's american football team taking place there. >> the san francisco 49ers invade london. the buzz from fans on both sides of the pond. outside our doors, temperatures are falling, and the fog is returning. coming up, where it will be at its worst and what you can expect to start your morning as well as tomorrow afternoon. the couple lifg in a san rafael home severely damaged by fire this morning was reportedly set to be evicted today. crews were called to the home at 7 sea view avenue near mission at about 2:30 this morning. the two-alarm fire was under control about 4:00 a.m. but caused heavy damage to that 3900 square foot home. authorities say they have now located the couple reported missing earlier today. the u.s. labor department issued september jobs report today and fell short of expectations. employers added 148,000 jobs last month. analysts had expected the number to be closer to 180,000. still the unemployment rate dropped one tenth to 7.2%. this report was delayed by more than two weeks because of the government shutdown. on wall street, the market posted gains. the dow was up 79 points. s & p 500 set its fourth-consecutive record close by adding ten points. analysts say the slower than expected job growth should keep the federal reserve stimulus program going. apple unveiled its next generation tablet computers at an event in san francisco today. as karen reports, while the ipad air and updated ipad mini probably aren't game changers, there's still a huge untapped market. >> apple has hit refresh on its tablets for the first time in a year. the result is the lighter, thinner ipad air. >> ipad is delivering a new vision for mobile computing unlike anything that has come before. >> the ipad air weighs just one pound, down from 1.4. the screen remains the same at 9.7 inches. the processing chip faster, the same as in the iphone 5s. an updated ipad mini will have that same chip plus the retina display of the bigger model. they still lead in the tablet market, but apple's share has been slipping as others enter the mix. still, tech watch believes there's room to maneuver. >> the tablet mark set still a lot less saturated than the smart phone mark society there's a lot of opportunity there. >> recent stats found only 35% of americans 16 and older own a tablet leaving plenty of first-time buyers ripe for picking. >> we know the apple's platform generally tends to be stickier and people usually stay in it more than they do other platforms. >> some apple users say it would take more than tuesday's incremental improvements to get them to upgrade. >> i don't even know what i would want in addition to what i've already got. >> if there were some kind of capabilities that were far and above what i currently have with my current ipad. >> unlike the iphone 5 reveal, there is no low-cost option with the new ipad. the ipad air starting at $499 hits stores november 1st. the new ipad mini starting at 399 later in november in time for the holidays. karen, ktvu channel 2 news. investors mostly shrugged off today's apple unveiling. shares finished just a hair lower. mexico's top diplomat says the u.s. promised investigation into alleged surveillance of e-mails by the current and former mexican president. german magazine first reported on claims the u.s. national security agency hacked into the e-mail account of the former president of mexico and current president before he was elected. the mexican secretary of foreign affairs called the allegations, if true, an abuse of trust. for the first time, a clear majority of americans say they favor legalization of marijuana according to a new gallup poll. the nationwide survey found 58% of americans support legalization. that number reached 50% two years ago. gallup says factors leading to increase support may include the fact that colorado and washington decriminalized use of the drug. 38% of americans now say they have tried marijuana themselves. the white house is asking the long-time advisor to help work out the bugs in the national healthcare web site. jeffrey joined the white house in 2009 and is named to take over a chief economic advisor next year. the healthcare.gov site has been plagued with glitches since it launched october 1st but consumers can also call in, register by mail or do so in person. walnut creek is hoping to raise money to build a new playground that would serve all children, including those who are physically handicapped. the playground is expected to cost $950,000. most of that money is covered through bond money and developer fees. walnut creek says another $100,000 is still needed. the city is now asking for donations so it could turn the proposal into reality. the san francisco 49ers are in london this week to face the jacksonville jaguars on sunday. the players are ambassadors for the nfl hoping to introduce the u.s. game to brits. our own joe fonzi is along with that trip and spent this day meeting londoners, some of whom are ready for some football. >> nearly every corner in london can look like something that should be the subject of a postcard. the city is ready for the nfl, but the residents really know what's coming on sunday? >> i don't have any idea. >> the nfl. >> who's playing? >> vikings, the 49ers, is it? >> i do believe there's an american football game taking place there. >> it takes a little digging, but it is possible to find a 49er fan or two on the streets. >> we're pretty xietd to be here and represent the bay area. >> there was a line around the block to get into the nfl's featured event of the night. no shortage of 49er gear in london's nike town, but an event mostly centered around the jacksonville jaguars. the 49ers were represented by bryant young, a member of san francisco's last super bowl championship team and three-time super bowl winner guy mcintire. and they were outnumbered, but there were 49er fans. >> the last couple of years, i started to watch football again. i just enjoyed watching the niners. i really enjoyed kaepernick, and it's kind of gone from there. >> this was an off day from the 49ers who begin practice from their facility tomorrow. right now all the unique aspects of this game are the last thing from their mind. they just want to continue their win streak to five games before the bye week. on a rainy evening in london, joe fonzi, ktvu channel 2 news. >> you can join us in following joe fonzi throughout his trip to london. he's posting updates on his twriter page. you can also search hashtag ktvuinlondon. oakland's andre ward talked to the media today. the world's super middle weight champion has been sidelined by a shoulder injury the past year. he's making a big comeback next month in southern california. and giants fans, the freak will be back. the san francisco giants today agreed to a two-year deal with tim lincecum locking him in through 22015 season. the deal is valued at $35 million. a second ago we saw joe fonzi holding umbrella with rain and fog all around. >> we could use the rain. october has been bone dry. we were talking about it yesterday. if we end the month with no rain, it'll be the first time since 1980 san francisco has not seen a drop of rain in october. doesn't look like we're actually going to get that rain. a look at what's happening outside here. now, still a pretty broad span. temperatures 50 degrees. take a look at livermore. 72 outside your door. still a mild evening. most of us now sinking back into the 50s. 52 novato. 51 san francisco. 54 degrees oakland. we do have the low clouds and fog returning from the coast inside the bay, and by morning time, i expect our bay side communities will be with low clouds once again. over parts of the north bay in addition to that fog moving in from the coast, we also have a ground fog forming, and we have a dense fog advisory for the north bay valley locations. it starts tonight. it's going to last until tomorrow morning, 11:00 in the morning so it's going to be thick, and it's going to be tough to see. santa rosa, down into petaluma as well as novato you'll have it tomorrow morning. sonoma, st. helena into napa, and i'll do one last shift because notice it's all the way through san rafael all the way into tiburon. expect very thick fog, visibility down to about a quarter mile in some cases and, again, will make it tough to drive. outside of that, we will have low clouds and fog inside the bay as well as along the coastline. temperatures just as cool as how we started this morning. 45 for san rafael tomorrow. 48 in vallejo. 46 in hayward. 52 mountain view into the north bay temperatures in the low-to-mid 40s. once again upper 40s along the coastline. afternoon highs for tomorrow a near repeat of today. widespread 70s to low 80s for inland communities. upper 065s around the bay. 67 for oakland as well as hayward. 74. san jose. 75 cupertino. along the peninsula, 70 redwood city. 63 san francisco. the extended forecast here not a lot of change going on. temperatures will slip just slightly as we get into thursday/friday and then bounce back in time for your weekend. gasia. >> rosemary, thank you. a high surf advisory was lifted just about two hours ago. here's a look at some of the big waefs we saw today off santa cruz. the large swell was motivation for surfers to suit up. strong rip currents prompt it had snashl weather service to issue high surf advisory from santa cruz up to marin it is more than a step backwards. now, trying to get ktvu.com the tribute that included a walk on the moon. and there's gold in them trees. how one kind of trees, some call a bay area nuisance, may actually be the key to hidden treasure. i love watching tv outside. and why can you move the tv out here? the wireless receiver. i got that when i switched to u-verse. but why? because it's so much better than cable. it's got more hd channels, more dvr space. yeah, but i mean, how did you know? i researched. no, i-i told you. no. yeah! no. the important part is that you're happy now. and i got you this visor. you made a visor! yes! that i'll never wear. ohh. [ male announcer ] get u-verse tv for just $19 a month for two years with qualifying bundles. rethink possible. now, trending at ktvu.com, watch your screen as one of the nation's best marching bands takes on michael jackson to the sounds of billy jean. the ohio state marching band forms a moon walking michael complete with white gloves. this video was taken saturday. already it has nearly 3 million views so far. it is amazing to watch, and if you'd like to see it again, you'll see the entire routine on our web site ktvu.com. when you're there, just look under hot topics. we're getting a look at last night's over-the-toch celebrity proposal at at&t park. you see the big screen here flashes the proposal, "please marry me." friends and family were watching. and then kim kardashian tweeted this picture of her 15-karat ring. the cum -- couple were here in the bay area because west has a show tomorrow night. scientists in australia say a study of yuk lip tus trees found trees containing small particles of gold in their cells. the scientists say the findings could help miners locate untapped veins of that precious metal thank you for making ktvu your choisz for news. our coverage continues with 10:00 news. tmz is up next right here on tv 36. >> today on "tmz." kanye committed and got engaged to kim. he went over the top to do this. he flew kim kardashian in on a private jet to san francisco, blindfold told her. it's her birthday. it's the perfect cover. >> now she gets to keep the ring if she breaks up. i saw it on judge judy. true. it's >> farrah abraham. >> she may have found true love. >> she is out walking around in orlando park with her new boyfriend. he's a dj >> he loves her big brown eyes. >> that's funny. >> pauly d has a k
NevadaUnited-statesAustraliaAlameda-countyCaliforniaGermanySan-leandroRedwood-cityMountain-viewSonomaSan-francisco-parkWashington but a lower death rate than d.c. or anyone up there, than the midwest, illinois, michigan, indiana, ohio, even mississippi, alabama, georgia, florida has the lower death rate. and i was the number one landing spot from people leaving the number one hot zone in the world to come to my state. we succeed and i think people don't want to recognize it because it challenges their knavety. >> it's worse than new york. florida governor ron desantis doing his best impression of donald trump in april and may, scolding the media. over the weekend, florida hit the highest single day total of known cases in any state since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. there's also new reporting this morning that testing delays across the country are obligation efforts to contain the did disease. amid the surging number of infections, the white house is reportedly seeking to discredit dr. anthony fauci. the weekend also saw president trump commuting the sentence of his long-time ally roger stone, despite warnings of his top officials in his administration, including attorney general william barr. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," it is monday july 13th. we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host on msnbc, kasie hunt. and historian john meacham. let's start with politics, jonathan lemire president trump's re-election rally in new hampshire was set to take place on saturday but it was called off over a tropical storm heading toward the northeast over the weekend. officials say that low turn out also motivated the last minute decision to cancel the rally. new hampshire's republican governor chris sununu said he would skip the event citing the virus. he didn't want to get the virus. one outsider told nbc news that the weather was a, quote, convenient excuse to scrap the event. as the "new york times" put it, the cancelled rallied was the third time in less than a month that the president's re-election campaign failed to relaunch as planned. so jonathan lemire, this is really the perfect storm by the way that never happened in po s portsmouth but the perfect storm for the campaign because rallies are where they get information on people and trump gets excitement. and they had to cancel it due to the weather. it was beautiful in portsmut ov -- portsmouth what happened? >> remember the first reboot was in tulsa, oklahoma about three weeks ago, the campaign manager boasted of a million ticket requests. only 6,000 people showed up mostly out of fears of a coronavirus pandemic in an indoor arena, leiaving the president looking at sea of empty seats. they have tried to see what outside rallies will look like. so the next attempt was going to be in new hampshire. new hampshire a battleground state but one right now the president is trailing fairly significantly to joe biden. it was a state he was close in 2016, but one that is considered a bit of a reach right now. the reboot was going to be in airline hangar. they didn't talk up crowd size, they wanted it to be smaller and more manageable. the president needed to be out there to draw strength from the crowds, try out new attack lines on joe biden, and they're valuable voter data collection tools. i was traveling with the president to florida on friday, and become they touched down, press secretary kayleigh mcenany said the rally had been postponed because of the forecast of a tropical storm in that area on saturday. it didn't rain on saturday as it turned out. >> no. >> there was -- go ahead. >> it's completely ridiculous. >> yes. >> there was no problems with the weather. go ahead. >> there was not. it rained -- it certainly did rain friday night. you know, there was some rain in the forecast going into saturday, but all along the forecast had the rain stopping by early morning. as it turned out, it stopped even before then. i had reported earlier in the week that there was indeed concerns among campaign staffers as to what kind of crowd they would draw, those worries mounted as the week went on. we spoke to republican leaders in the state of new hampshire who said they were trying to get people to show up, trying to generate excitement for the rally. and sometimes at the events, supporters show up hours early and if they showed up overnight perhaps they might have been rained on. but there was no evidence of people camping out saturday night and it ended up not raining at all. but here's the bind that the president and his team are now in. it is hard to imagine them being able to hold a rally any time, anywhere soon. to have a venue it needed to meet two criteria, a state where the covid pandemic, which is surging throughout the country right now, is not rising. there aren't that many states right now you can say that, new hampshire is one of them. the rate is stable. you're right. the governor though he agreed he was going to meet the president on the tarmac in a mask but he wasn't going to the rally. in new hampshire the coronavirus is not as severe as it is in other states. but in order to have a rally you need the state's governor to wave health rules. they were willing to do that in new hampshire with a republican governor. a lot of states with democratic governors like michigan and pennsylvania, they're not willing to do that. the president is having a hard time holding a rally in the places he needs to go most he can't. >> in new hampshire the republican governor said he wasn't going to go because he was scared of getting the coronavirus. he said he wouldn't go out in a pandemic. you have democratic governors in other states that won't rhett him have it. i remember four years ago, i'm trying to remember if it was the primary, new hampshire, the excitement for trump was way bigger than it is now. people did stand in the rain, they stood in the freezing cold, in lines for days, the lines wrapped around buildings and blocks and cities, went on forever. it doesn't exist. that seems to be, kayleigh mcenany, the reason the event was not held and not the weather because it didn't rain. having said that, these events are super spread erevents. the president held events in phoenix, in tulsa, and even though they're afraid of a little rainstorm, i guess, they had people all over the tulsa arena taking stickers off chairs so they could squish people together and make it look like there were a lot of people there. because the stickers asked people, demonstrated how they could social distance inside the arena and the campaign reportedly was seen, there is video of this, removed the stickers so they could squish people together and make this super spreader event as dangerous and volatile in terms of spreading this pandemic as possible. look at those people not wearing masks. incredible. at least the governor of new hampshire had it right saying he wasn't going to go. there were other governors who will not let this president have super spreader events in their state. and then we have this, the state of florida i believe they want to have the republican national convention in jacksonville in a number of weeks, has shattered the record for new cases of coronavirus in a single day, recording more than 15,000 cases on sunday, 3,000 more than the previous record set by new york back in april. hospitalizations also increased in florida with more than 18,000 seeking treatment despite the increase in cases, disney opened parts of its orlando park over the weekend. what's going on in florida? and governor ron desantis, who was slow to enact restrictions and quick to lift them says he still plans to reopen schools next month. kasie hunt are they really going to have the republican national convention in jacksonville in the middle of a pandemic? >> the list of republicans who are saying no thank you, not interested in attending such an event is growing. people are holding back a little bit because there's a period of time between now and then when i know all of us truly, deeply hope, to the contrary of those who said -- you played ron desantis playing this at the top of the show the media was hoping to see him fail, not the case. we're pulling for these states to make a dent in these cases there are so many americans suffering right now we cannot lose sight of that. but the reality is that americans are scare td and that includes the top level of leadership in washington that is not this president and the loyalists who surround him. that's a real problem. you have hundreds of doctors signing a letter saying this is a bad idea. the idea you're going to pack people into an arena when this is spreading unchecked is simply not a good idea. it seems kind of frighteningly obvious this would be a bad idea. when you contrast how the president's campaign is trying to run in the coronavirus era, with how the biden campaign is doing this, not only is it a clear values difference and a clear daily demonstration of how these two men would handle this differently, but it also speaks to some of the points jonathan lemire was making, which is the biden campaign is not in a situation where they have pictures of people not packed together. they are doing events that are clearly taking place in the coronavirus era, there are folding chairs with circles on the ground. he is sending a message to americans, he is taking this seriously. and stripping the stickers off the chairs and packing people together is providing pictures that a campaign under any normal circumstances would want but in these circumstances showing all of us exactly what they're doing. >> obvious for sure. and the issue over whether or not to open schools is the new mask issue, the president is showing himself wearing a mask finally once. but now there's a debate over whether or not to open schools. and also an effort to discredit dr. anthony fauci. we'll get to all of that in just a moment. we have to get to the roger stone story. last friday, late on friday, president trump commuted the sentence of long-time ally, roger stone, who was due to report to prison on july 14th. the commutation came hours after an appeals court denied stone's emergency motion to delay his surrender date to the coronavirus, the president called stone on friday to personally deliver the news as the white house issued a lengthy statement attacking the investigation that produced the charges. it reads in part, quote, mr. stone was charged by the same prosecutors from the mueller investigation tasked with finding evidence of collusion with russia. the simple fact is that if the special counsel had not been pursuing an absolutely baseless investigation, mr. stone would not be facing time in prison. stone was convicted of lying to congress, witness tampering, and obstruction of the mueller investigation. in a trial that attorney general william barr described as righteous. nbc news learned that william barr was one of the advisers against the communation. former special counsel robert mueller responded to the statement with a defense of his investigation. he wrote an op-ed in "the washington post." and explained why stone was a central figure in the investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. he writes in part, quote, he communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be russian intelligence officers. and he claimed advance knowledge of wikileaks' release of emails, stolen by those russian intelligence officers. a jury later determined he lied repeatedly to members of congress. he lied by denying he communicated with the trump campaign about the timing of wikileaks' releases and he tampered with a witness imploring him to stonewall congress. we made every decision in stone's case, as in all of our cases, based solely on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law. claims to the contrary are false. chairman of the senate judiciary committee lindsey graham said he will call mueller to testify on his investigation of election interference by the russians. let's bring in nbc news and nbc law analyst benjamin wittes. tell us what went wrong here in plain and simple, frighteningly obvious terms but is there any precedent, parallel for this? >> what went wrong was, of course, everything. this was a case in which the president was personally interested. that is, roger stone was accused of and convicted by a jury of obstructing an investigation into, among other things, the conduct of donald trump and his campaign. and some of the information that mueller reported about roger stone was specifically about his interactions with the president over coming releases of wikileaks information. and so the president was personally interested in this. the attorney general who now is waxing indignant about his advice not to commute being jetty sen by the president only a few months ago was reaching down to attorneys to soften the sentencing recommendation vis-a-vis of roger stone now the president has gotten involved permanently by commuting as he teased he might do encouraging roger stone to keep quiet. i think the only thing here that didn't go wrong was, ironically, the investigation, the purported flaws of which the president used as a pretext for this action. everything about the justice department's conduct, at least at the senior levels and the president's conduct here is highly, highly irregular and objectionable. is it unprecedented? yeah, i think it is. there are other cases in which presidents have, you know, stepped in matters in which they are directly or indirectly involved, probably the most famous recent example of that is george h.w. bush pardoning a group of iran/contra defendants at the tail end of his presidency. but there's no similar example that i know of of a president urging a witness to keep quiet and not cooperate and sort of dangling the possibility of clemency as a reward for noncooperation and then delivering on it. that i think is completely unprecedented, at least in my knowledge of the history of the pardon and commutation power. >> ben i want to ask you in a second about any potential recourse or oversight or what happens now, but first john meacham, trump went where nixon never did. i request what does a historian do to put this into context, to think of a president and to sort of -- how does a historian address this moment in history? this incident in a way that kind of gives it some greater understanding? >> well, you try to take dramamine, that's important, so that's the first step. medication is always essential. history is, in many cases, like an iceberg. there are parts of it you can see, but there's an enormous amount you cannot, and over time you hope you see what was below. and that's certainly true with trump. but what we do see is pretty clear, right. we have a president who would prefer to be a monarch. he is using the powers of the presidency that were installed as a check and a balance to put things out of balance, in fact. and character matters here. sometimes people like me are accused of being too focused on the biographic cal aspects than the broader ones, the institution of the presidency has a force, it's not as important as people who follow the great man of history. i submit the last three and a half years to counter that, character matters. this man is president, he has these powers, that even bill barr who has been the wartime attorney for trump -- even bill bar said don't do this. so you have the reaction to the pandemic and in many sense it is lack of reaction in recent months and stone is who is the central figure here? the central figure is donald trump. and donald trump using the powers of the presidency -- and i'm not being naive here as ben says, people do that, but not quite to this degree, and basically deciding because he doesn't like the reality of the public health news, he's simply going to ignore it. and if he doesn't address it somehow, then it doesn't exist. and it's the kind of willful narcissistic reaction to a fundamental reality that we're all living with. he may think it's a reality show and he's going to change the channel or recast the episodes as the months go on towards our election day. but his reality show is our reality. in many ways that's what's on the ballot in november. >> ben, to my question, what's the check? where's the balance? >> the most important one against which all other variables round to zero is the election on november 4th or 3rd. if the voters decide they want to tolerate this sort of behave yor, no other checks will be available. there are two other checks worth mentioning, the first is the possibility of congressional oversight. you can't void a communation action or pardon by congressional action but you can shine a light on it and how it was made and the relationship between it and, for example, roger stone's silence are. you could hold hearings that could be politically embarrassing and you know bring out the facts of how this event came to be. the second possibility, which is a little bit more remote, is that in a future administration should the president lose, the facts that mueller reported, which are that the president engaged in an obstructive pattern with respect to, among other things, encouraging roger stone to be silent and dangling the possibility of a pardon or a commutation if he did so is now -- that, you know, promise has now been consummated. and i do think there is a possibility that a future prosecutor might look at that as a -- as a potential obstruction. and so i think there's a possible criminal investigative remedy as well. but that relies on the presidency changing hands. >> so kasie hunt, when it comes to a corrupt, criminal, potentially even treasonous president, a situation like that, ben pointed out one thing that can be done is that other leaders can shine a light on it. i'm sure there is a long list of republicans who are finally speaking out. this must have been a bridge too far. i know romney and toomey. why don't you share the list of republicans stepping up with our country. >> i think you covered it, mika. mitt romney, as you point out was strong in a tweet calling it corrupt. pat toomey's statement was more involved, measured. but carried the same message. >> no one else? >> the silence is deafening. lindsey graham was kind of out there, sort of almost defending it but not quite. i think that speaks volumes, first in terms of how many times and to the point you are making that we have been here before where the president has done something and the silence has been deafening from republicans. on the other hand, we've seen situations where republicans are quicker to defend the president than what we are seeing in this instance. and we also know the reporting that those closest aids thes, t closest to the president said don't do this this is a bad idea. and william barr weighed in earlier in the case. there were prosecutors who mute anied who said the top prosecutors are interfering, and we know that barr got the lesser sentence. and now we're finding ourself in a position the president is throwing this out. this entire saga everyone has thrown their hands up in terms of what to do about it and the remedy for democrats at this point is the election. >> all right. ben wittes thank you for being on the show. and still ahead we'll get to the reporting on the white house plans to discredit dr. anthony fauci amid a surge in coronavirus cases. plus, education secretary betsy devos is insisting that children return to school this fall but seems to have trouble explaining how that might happen. zblooi. first let's go to the great bill karins with a check on the forecast. i know we were look at new hampshire over the weekend where the president was going to hold a rally. >> yes. >> i guess there was a terrible storm that prevented it. i didn't see it, did you? >> that was friday. actually, i heard you talking about it and i looked up all the info. it was mist and drizzle until 9:00 a.m. saturday morning and no more rain the entire day on saturday. turned out to be a nice afternoon. you guys were right with everything you were saying about the forecast. let's get into the story this week. it's the heat. washington d.c. going for a little sneaky record here. you've had 17 days in a row in our nation's capitol of 90 plus your historic record is 21. we're four days from that. here's the forecast for this week, 90s across the board. we could tie it on thursday, break it on friday. all time record streak for heat in washington d.c. the heat is the story across the country. typically this is what you expect in july but this was hot by these standards. yesterday 128 degrees in death valley california, the record is 134 in 1914. you get the idea. heat advisories and warnings from dallas to san antonio, phoenix. look at san antonio, 105 on tuesday. that's not the desert. watch out a few storms from boston up to maine, extreme heat in areas of the south. by wednesday, the thunderstorms move to areas of chicago. by the end of the week the storms return to washington d.c. back up through areas of the northeast. all eyes on you, washington d.c. will you hit 90 degrees all week long? already a hot start and a steamy morning. looking at reagan national airport. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. orning joe." we'll be right back. introducing new voltaren arthritis pain gel, the first and only full prescription strength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel available over-the-counter. new voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel. voltaren. the joy of movement. new voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel. you're stronger than you know. so strong. you power through chronic migraine, 15 or more headache or migraine days a month. one tough mother. 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to provide further insight into. i can't, as a nonphysician or a nonmedical expert, tell you precisely what to do in the case of one child in a classroom or five child -- children in a classroom. but the key is, every school should have plans for that situation to be able to pivot and ensure that kids can continue learning at a distance if they have to for a short period of time. >> you're the secretary of education, you're asking students to go back, why do you not have guidance on what a school should do weeks before you want the schools to reopen and what happens if it faces an outbreak? >> there's really good examples that have been utilized in the private sector and elsewhere, also with front line workers and hospitals. and all of that data and all of that information and all of those examples can be referenced by school leaders. >> but i'm not hearing a plan from the department of education, do you have a plan for what students in schools should do? >> so the plan -- so school should do what's right on the ground at that time for their students and for their situation. >> can you assure students, teachers, parents, that they will not get coronavirus because they're going back to school? >> well, the key is that kids have to get back to school. there is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them. it sounds like what you're saying is you as the secretary of education is compelling -- you are compelling schools to reopen regardless of what's happening? >> no, what we're saying is kids need to be back in school. >> joining us now dr. vin gupta, a pulmonologist who has treated critically ill coronavirus patients in washington state and also an nbc news medical contributor. i have a few rapid fire questions for you. first of all, today if school is reopening in florida, do you think it would be a good idea for kids to go back to school? >> absolutely not. totally super spreader event, not safe, mika. >> that would be a super spre spreader event to send kids to school. florida has made records over the weekend. where is this headed? what does this tell us? >> floridans are going to die. we have six hospitals in miami-dade filled up. walt disney world has decided to open up. it's not hard to predict where this is headed, it's to badness because they have no state level leadership. >> so what would you suggest that florida do in a situation like this to bring these numbers now and if all of your suggestions were carried out, how long would that take? >> it's going to take about three weeks, mika. i would beg the president of the united states to federalize a military response. i'm a doc in the u.s. reserves. we're just sitting here. the u.s. taxpayers pay million bes of dollars for military assets. national guard, desantis has control over that, let's build other portable icus and areas of the need. he doesn't want to do that because that would be an admission of guilt. give your county officials an assist, enforce something here, the masks, that would work. and indoor dining and bars done for the time being. louisiana there's common sense in the region but not florida. those are places i would focus on and start, mika. >> so to me what you're saying is frighteningly obvious to take kasie hunt's term throughout the show, it's frighteningly obvious there are mitigation techniques that have not happened because the leadership in florida and the president's leadership. there's been a call for federalized response since this began, the president refuses. can you give us an update in terms of what is happening -- what are you hearing about what is happening with testing in this places like florida where they are having hot spots, where there are surges in numbers because now i'm hearing there's confusion with testing and also delays. >> it's that last part i want to double click on, nationwide, especially florida, remember april we couldn't get enough agents and swabs, that's the same. i've heard 21 days, makes contact tracing useless. that's where we're at in this day and age. secretary devos sitting here on the sunday news talk show saying we have to restart schools, couldn't state a lick of evidence to save her life. the secretary is sitting here making noanalogies to what theyo in the private sector, what professional organizations do, mlb, nba, you know what they do? they have testing. they have point of care testing capabilities. you get a test in 30 minutes you get a response. is she going to lead, are republicans in congress going to fund it, they said let's fund all 13,000 school districts, give them what they need. they need money to test, build in infrastructures to safely socially distance, that's what's needed is money and testing. just quickly, it is mid august a lot of kids in florida go to school. if the situation hasn't gotten better let's hope it doesn't get worse, i don't know what's worse, it's breaking records, worse than new york, what would happen if kids went back to school? maybe you could explain it. >> you bet. here's the thing. this is a key part of the interview with the secretary. with rising infection rates we're seeing an infection rate in florida approaching 20%. to say this quickly what's going to happen is, we have -- actually we have no idea what's going to happen but we think kids have the ability to transmit the disease to teachers, parents, amongst themselves. the infection in the community will be so high. the only places schools could potentially reopen where testing is not available are in places we have the outbreak under control, a positive infection rate of 3% or less, not when it's 1 in 5, 1 in 3 in places like miami, it makes no sense. it's criminal malpractice there. >> if somebody can explain it to the president in terms of he can understand, if you have a as you were spreading event starting in three to six weeks, when early voting starts, and you lose florida. so maybe you want the governor to pull back and mitigate this virus. the white house is attempting to discred infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci amid his warnings about the trump administration's coronavirus response. a white house official told nbc news yesterday, quote, several white house officials are concerned about the number of times dr. fauci has been wrong on things. the administration then shared a list with several news outlets that included nearly a dozen past comments by fauci, which a trump official said had proven erroneo erroneous. the list included january's comment that the virus was not a major threat and in march people should not be walking around with masks. a senior administration official said fauci no longer briefs trump and is never in the oval office anymore. fauci last spoke to him during the first week in june, fauci has not commented on these reports. i'm going to bring in the reporter on this, let's bring in josh letterman. what's the deal with this strategy? is it because the president is embarrassed by fauci because many could say that the president is getting embarrassed by the science, which is proving him wrong every day, having super spreader events in tulsa, oklahoma will kill people if the pandemic, the virus is passed away. this isn't fauci, this is science, why are they taking it out on him? >> you expect a white house to lob political attacks at its opponents, maybe hemembers of congress, the media, you don't expect it on their own top infectious disease doctor, particularly as a pandemic is raging across the country but that's what seems to be happening with the one, two punch of this statement provided to us over the weekend, saying several white house officials concerned about his past statements as well as the list with citations of past comments much earlier in the pandemic when doctors did not know what they know now about how this virus is transmitted. as all of this is playing out, dr. brett czar was on meet the press talking about dr. fauci as well. >> i respect dr. fauci a lot, but dr. fauci is not 100% right and he doesn't also -- he admits that -- have the whole national interest in mind, he looks at it from a narrow health public point of view. >> why is the white house doing this? we know that the narrative from president trump versus dr. fauci about coronavirus and how we're doing is getting farther apart. president trump says we're doing a great job, dr. fauci says there's no ways to say objectively looking at the united states compared to other countries that we're doing a good job. and dr. fauci seems to winner the trust outlet, a new poll showing 3 in 2 americans trust dr. fauci where it's 1 in 4 trusting donald trump at the moment. looking to change those numbers as we get closer to the election. >> the first comment of dr. fauci's that they say is wrong and i believe it's this virus doesn't have to be this serious -- i forget what the statement was. yes, if you mitigate, if you do what the cdc guidelines tell you to do, you can bring the numbers down, it doesn't have to be so serious. but it is because the president has not federalized the response, because the president has not had clear leadership on this. because the president has been wrong so many times you can't even count. anyone who wants a test, can get a test, remember when he said that, remember when he said it would magically go away? remember he said it would just disappear? remember he said it was one person coming from china? does he want to compare fauci being wrong to the president being wrong? because every time they go after fauci and take out of context something that he has said to try to make it look like he's got the science wrong, everybody will notice since january the president has got this wrong every step of the way. he has tried to wish this away. he has not cared about people. on a day that 100,000 people died, he was worried about himself and nothing else. this is pathetic. i don't think it'll work. and ultimately, jonathan lemire, politically take me to florida, we're breaking records right now in florida. if we continue to break coronavirus records, worse than new york, governor desantis, weeks ago you said, my gosh, people are saying we could be as bad as new york, we never would be, we're worse than new york in florida governor desantis with your open bars and opening schools and who care about people's lives. early voting starts when? and how is that going to impact the president if people are dropping dead from the coronavirus? >> first, mika, the length of mistakes that donald trump has made about the coronavirus certainly with dwarves those that dr. anthony fauci has made, no question of that. there's another key difference, dr. fauci has admitted where he's gotten things wrong before the severity of it was known. we know it is a rare moment when president trump ever admits a mistake. to follow josh's point about an opposition file it's extraordinary that the white house would circulate these talking points to report es, allies, to point out the moments the dr. anthony fauci was incorrect. dr. fauci who enjoys far more public trust and support than donald trump does. we know the west wing has restricted for a number of months now, dr. fauci's media appearances. he hasn't been at the coronavirus task forces -- those have been rare but those that there were, dr. fauci hasn't been there. he's found podcasts and things like that but kept off the cable news shows, the sunday shows where he'd have a larger audience in part because the president and his advisers were annoyed when dr. fauci contradicted him, and he contradicted him because he was speaking to the truth, the science, the facts not trying to wish it away. there was, some advisers have told me, jealousy on the part of the president here. early voting starts in september, that's six weeks away. right now the coronavirus is surging throughout this country, particularly in florida, as you say, just set a record for single day cases. president trump cannot win re-election if he loses florida, there's no path, no map that allows him to do so. i think that's what we're seeing here, everything the white house is doing about the pandemic is through a political lens. certainly critics are charging they're putting their re-election interests, which means opening up the economy ahead of public health. and this is just the latest front on that. it connects, mika, as a final point to how we opened at this hour to the rally in new hampshire. in february before the pandemic came to shores the president drew 10,000 people to a rally in new hampshire now he has to cancel one in weekend when aides were concerned no one would show up, the reason behind that, this pandemic they can't get their hands around it. so they're trying to point fingers elsewhere. >> john meacham, historically speaking, the super spreader presidency, what are you watching as history unfolds here? >> one of the things to be careful of on the democratic side of things as ronald reagan used to say, he asked president dewy how overconfidence worked. we're living in an era that donald trump is the president of the united states in the unfolding book of exodus here. so i think overconfidence is a problem and should be avoided. what's on the ballot here is less the traditional partisan policy concerns that we're so familiar with really from the new deal forward and enlightenment is on the ballot, science is the on the ballot, decency is on the ballot. it's absolutely a character that the president would be unhappy with the way the pandemic has affected his life and, of course, he would see it as his life, remember, not ours, his. instead of confronting that and dealing with it however messy the reality might be, he targets a guy who might be more poplar than he is. so it's a junior high school -- that's an insult to junior high school, sorry. it's a childish reaction to an enduring reality. and we are going to be writing about this and thinking about this for as long as the republic survives. this is why you have a federal government this is not ideological, this is not partis partisan. if there is an existential threat to the country and public health is an existential threat, the president addresses it, it's inconvenient to him, he doesn't like it so he closed his eyes and stuck his fing ers in his ears when he's not tweeting. i don't want to be nutty about this, i don't think it helps to tell the other side they're 100% wrong. but on this i would just ask the people assess the evidence. do what the founding fathers of the country did. there was reason involved, wanted to put reason above passion. if your disposition is trump is going to give them hell and he's my guy. look around and think, do i think that someone else would do this job better? >> that's a good question. dr. gupta, i wanted to hear your comments on these reports about the effort to discredit dr. fauci. >> it's two reactions, mika. the first is m.d. should know better. the admiral, trying to undermine dr. fauci. they should be coming to his aid and defending him and not putting their title and desire to keep their job ahead of what's right. they were saying the same things that dr. fauci was saying. dr. fauci has admitted he's learned as new evidence has arisen. they have too and now here they are trying to attack dr. fauci to score political points. number two you're seeing the effects of this, the lack of hum humani humanity, empathy. a 32-year-old if died in san antonio died participating in a covid party. where young people go to see if they can catch the virus when a young person is there. this is an epidemic here and it's because of a lack of trust in our public health leaders and our leadership more broadly. >> dr. vin gupta, thank you for being on the show this morning. and josh letterman, thank you for your reporting. still ahead our next guest says abandonment of common sense during the coronavirus epidemic has damaged the u.s. and uk. plus robert costa joins us with his reporting on how the never-trumpers went from being mocked to being a campaign force. and should joe biden be more aggressive in states like texas and georgia? new reporting that some democrats are urging the biden campaign to seize the opportunity afforded by the president's dismal polling and go big. "morning joe" is coming right back. 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there, beautiful. no problem at all. this rally for trump was set to take place on saturday but it was called off by the campaign citing the tropical storm headed toward the northeast over the weekend. officials close to the trump campaign say that low turnout also motivated the last-minute decision to cancel the rally. i guess they would have had empty seats. an outside adviser to the trump campaign told nbc news that the weather was a, quote, convenient excuse to scrap the event. except there wasn't because there wasn't any bad weather. welcome back to "morning joe" we have jonathan lemire, kasie h t hunt, mike barnicle, robert costa, and ed luce, his new column, the humbling of the angllo-american world. but jonathan lemire new hampshire, the president wanted to have a super spreader event, thank god he didn't have a super spreader event that would have shoved people together in florida and even the governor of new hampshire said he wouldn't come because of the coronavirus. but what would they say the weather was a problem? it was drizzling on friday. >> well, mika, sometimes you need another story. no question, there was rain in the forecast, parts of the east coast got a lot of rain from the tropical storm, it did rain a little in portsmouth but it was over hours before the rally was set to start. this was something that there were concerns we reported days earlier on this show the trump campaign and white house aides were nervous about the turnout they were going to get in portsmouth. fearful of another embarrassing spectacle after what happened in tulsa when they overpromised the number of people showing up there and ended up with a sea of empty seats and now the future of the trump rally, his trademark event is very much in doubt. we are seeing there are only so many governors willing to wave health regulations in order for this president to hold one of these events, to have gatherings in a time of pandemic. seeing also how challenging it would be to have an event like this in a state the coronavirus is rising, it is like in arizona and florida, what kind of bind is he in? we know the energy he draws from the rallies. what is right now, with early voting six weeks away, what is donald trump going to do? >> well, jonathan, i'll tell you, it's a campaign in disarray, clearly, obviously based on the portsmouth example, an odd place to have a rally for donald trump. it's on the seacoast, it's liberal compared to the rest of new hampshire. still has a good foothold surrounding the manchester area, why they didn't do that, who knows. but the larger thing is i would think that the president of the united states is in the middle -- we are all in the middle of a true medical emergency, an epidemic coast-to-coast epidemic. states putting up staggering numbers, florida, houston, texas, indiana over the weekend, parts of minnesota, california, arizona, and the president views this medical emergency, this true epidemic as a political issue. it is not. it is a medical issue and he has not stepped up as a leader in terms of helping to define what people have to do what various governors in various states ought to do. we have not heard a word from him about leadership in this epidemic and that's his bigger problem. >> and jonathan lemire was talking about avoiding an embarrassing spectacle in new hampshire in some ways this medical situation is a political situation and it is an embarrassing spectacle. talk about 130,000 americans dead from the coronavirus and most scientists will tell you, that number could be much lower had proper mitigation and perhaps a federalized response been enacted from the top down. talk about almost 200,000 dead by the fall, maybe in a matter of weeks. that's an embarrassing spectacle, politically. that will hurt the president yet he doesn't get it. new york city once the epicenter of the nation's coronavirus outbreak, has reported its first day with zero deaths related to covid-19. it marks the end of a four-month stretch since the city first reported its coronavirus death. there has not been a day without a covid-19 related death since march 13th, two days after the first reported death. while new york sees progress and actually enacts mitigation techniques, it comes in the shadow of an ever growing spike in other parts of the country. parts of the country where the president has held super spreader events and has not shown leadership on masking and getting great testing in place, like florida for example, which shattered new cases in a single day, recording more than 15,000 cases on sunday, 3,000 more than the previous record set by new york in april. hospitalizations also increased in florida, that's the number you want to look at, with more than 18,000 people seeking treatment at the hospital. despite the increase in cases, disney opened parts of its orlando park over the weekend. what's going on? and governor ron desantis, who was slow to enact restrictions and quick to lift them, says he still plans to reopen schools next month and the republican national convention is slated to be held there next month as well. really? jacksonville, florida, you're going to hold a massive super spreader event for trump? you're going to do that for him. because you get all the people together in jacksonville, squished together, chanting for the president and people will die. people will get the coronavirus, they will bring it home, pass it to family members and this pandemic will continue and florida will continue to break records in hospitalizations for coronavirus. really, jacksonville you're going to do that? really governor desantis you're going to do that? for trump? ed luce tell us about your piece in the financial times and what's happening to the united states in terms of its brand. >> so, if you look at the united states and britain, britain's second highest mortality rate in the world, america is seventh but rapidly ascending that chart, it's going to be third or fourth within a few weeks based on the latest data. these are countries that have far less excuse than the italys and the spains which had the coronavirus hit earlier but responded late to the events. i think one of the reasons for this is world arrogance, a self-belief we have nothing to learn from other countries. if you look at the school debate, now plenty of countries have reopened their schools, like germany, like denmark, the nordic countries, taiwan never even closed its schools because they didn't see schools in isolation, in a vacuum like we're doing. they saw the larger flattening of the curve in society at large as an essential precondition to reopen schools. i think the -- extravagant exceptionalism, which you're seeing, you can assert we want to do something and by magic it will happen, a virus will conform to our instructions. as i say, in one or two other examples like brazil, basically speaking, the united states and the united kingdom are attempting to defy political gravity because of this deep well of self-belief. this almost magical self-belief we have against the evidence that we can defy a virus. >> yeah. and i would say, bob costa, defying political gravity by trying to hold a super spreader event in a state you can't lose if you want to win the election. if they have the rnc in jack jo jacksonville and squish people together, that's a super spreader event and then people go home and spread the coronavirus and come down with it. isn't that painful for the president politically? can't he see it in terms of his own political needs to try to contain the coronavirus? and now i ask you, bob costa, about your piece, never-trumpers and how they've become a critical force. tell us about that in light of the coronavirus and the election upon us. >> mika, to answer your question, it is the question for president trump and democrats right now as they look at the election. this is now going across red states this entire pandemic and you look at polls, as a political reporter and you see president trump now down in texas. you see democrats making gains in georgia in different polls. you see jaime harrison in south carolina raising nearly $14 million in the second quarter and you wonder, could this move into being as the political report, a nonpartisan institution outlined, not a blue wave but a blue tsunami because of the consequences of president trump's conduct when it comes to the pandemic and the way these states have handled it. there was this talk months ago to being adverse to blue state bailouts, now you see red states and lawmakers in those states clamoring for more federal cash that could scramble congressional noti congressional negotiations on another stimulus this summer. >> as it pertains to never trumpers and the coronavirus. here's the latest ad on president trump and his response to the pandemic by the lincoln project. >> there was a day earlier this year when our nation's intelligence and public health experts pleaded with donald trump to take the coronavirus seriously. did he listen? no. what did he do? he probably scrolled through his twitter feed or daydreamed about his next rally. or asked lindsey graham to play golf. or ordered fewer tests. >> we'll slow the testing down, please. >> and now, more than 130,000 americans are dead. 3 million americans are sick. thousands more infected every day. tens of millions out of work. isolated from the world. and what does trump do? he tells us to live with it. >> except for the fact that people are dying from it, we have 130,000 americans dead and the numbers are going up, especially in florida. and i say to governor desantis, florida say no to having the convention in jacksonville. jacksonville, say no to holding a super spreader event in your city. the people of florida, say no, you do not want a convention being held in the middle of a surging pandemic in a state where the numbers are higher than ever before, beating new york at its worse. come on! this is crazy and you know it and your lives are on the line. kasie hunt, are there any republicans on capitol hill who actually plan to go to the rnc in jacksonville? what are they saying? >> i actually asked kevin mccarthy, the minority leader in the house this question about a week ago. i asked, are you planning on going, would you feel safe and would you encourage your members to go? his answer was basically one word, he said yes. i was surprised by it and the week that followed there have been five or six republicans, particularly in the senate, who have said either i'm not going or i have to see how things look when we get to the time the convention is going to be held. and bob costa, i do wonder, obviously we're putting questions to these republicans in the hallways about things that trump has said or done on any given day, it's been a long running reality for the three years of the trump administration. but this is an instance where the president is forcing them to vote with their feet and to say yes or no by going or not going. under normal circumstances, every elected republican would jump at the chance to go to their party's convention, it's a party that nobody likes to miss. but what kind of position does this put republicans in to have this looming on the high rorizon they're worried about themselves, the immune compromised people in their family and others around them. >> you're the best at asking those questions, but based on my conversations over the weekend, you'll see a lot of republicans above the age of 60 bow out due to health concerns. but mixed in with the public talk about the health concerns which are, of course, front and center and legitimate, there are considerations because many republicans i've been speaking to are seeing private polling that shows the entire country, their states, congressional districts alarmed about this pandemic and they want to see, if not action from washington at least steady leadership. so going to celebrate in the middle of a hot zone in jacksonville, florida is not on the number one to do list for someone in the middle of a tight senate or house race. but there's not going to be a significant crack because so many of these republicans, i know it's a constant refrain, they believe they need president trump's political capital. if they break in any way, it'll likely be october, they use the hunter thompson line, they bought the ticket and are taging the ride for better or worse at this point in a campaign season. and then there's this small thing that happened late friday, actually not. president trump commuted the 40 month prison sentence of long-time ally roger stone, who was due to report to prison on july 14th. it came just hours after an emergency appeal was denied by the court to delay the seniurrer date to september due to the coronavirus. the white house called roger stone on the news after they had a statement attacking the investigation reading in the part, mr. stone was charged by the same prosecutors from the mueller investigation, tasked with finding evidence of collusion with russia. the simple fact if the special counsel had not been pursuing an absolutely baseless investigation, mr. stone would not be facing time in prison. stone was convicted of lying to congress, witness tampering in a trial that attorney general william barr described as righteous. nbc news has learned that barr was among the presidential advisers who advised against the commutation. let's bring in legal analyst for nbc news and msnbc maya wiley. first i would love your reaction to the overall part of the story here, the commutation of stone's sentence. can you explain to me when the president was warned of the backlash, where stone would get it? >> i think the headline on this story is that donald trump is absolutely going to ensure that he protects himself by protecting those who protect him. in other words, this isn't about justice. this is about the power of the presidency to protect him. it's not a very effective strategy to your point but not because of the political backlash he's already getting that and he's getting that as you just reported on coronavirus. his base doesn't really care. i mean, this is a president who has pardoned criminals in the past who are people who he either likes, like a sheriff joe arpaio, who literally had thwarted judicial opinions, joked about concentration camp conditions for undocumented immigrants, violated people's constitutional rights, gave him a full pardon, that was not something he did because of votes outside of his base and his base thought it was fine. roger stone is that kind of character that appeals to his base and appeals, i think, to trump's narrative. he is very committed to trying to show and prove that the russia interference investigation was a hoax. that's part of his political narrative, it's not really going to work because most voters are worried about their joblessness, the fact that americans are dying, but it also doesn't work because all he's done it kept it in the news. the most troubling thing here is that bill barr and others were not concerned about justice, they weren't concerned about fairness. they weren't concerned about the credibility of our criminal justice system. they were only concerned about appearance and that's probably the most devastating part of the story, in my view. >> well, the editors of the national review are out with a new piece entitled," an indefensible commutation". they write, attorney general bill barr reportedly opposed the commutation of roger stone and was right to do so. the act of clemency is made worse by the fact that stone repeatedly argued he was owed it due to his loyalty to the president. there's no reason to believe that stone knows more damaging information about trump's dealing with russia. mueller's investigators, interviewed, subpoenaed, searched and prosecuting a couple dozen russian operatives and entities, and concluded the russians neither got help nor were looking for help from the trump campaign. even if stone's talk is opposed and it is grotesque and alone makes him unworthy of clemency. trump's handling of the matter is indefensible. it's another indication of his perverse, highly personalized view of the criminal justice system and another reminder of the loathsome characters he's surrounded himself with his entire adult life. mike barnicle that pretty much sums it up. >> this is a personal presidency, mika, as we have all found out to our great sadness and chagrin. he thinks everything belongs to him, including the judiciary. so the commutation is easy to understand, roger stone is commuted by the president of the united states for not flipping and cooperating with prosecutors, which could expose the president to a charge of perjury had he done so, so it was a personal favor in a personal presidency. the larger issue is the decision donald trump made, for him it was an easy decision but he cannot make the hard decisions. he refuses to make the hard decisions, leadership on the virus, leadership on an epidemic that has plagued the united states from coast-to-coast. ed you were talking earlier about the vision of america, the vision of great west everyone countries and how it's been diminished. one thing that's happening now in this country, and you'll tell me whether you agree with me or not, is that people i think now think differently of the majesty, the power, the reputation of our country, the united states of america, the greatest country in the world, i think it's been altered a bit by the lack of leadership, the lack of direction, the cowardice, actually, of the president of the united states today. >> i'd agree with that. i think it's pretty hard to overstate just how much brand damage has been done to the united states. it was quite rightly seen as a country of science, of pragmati pragmatism, of common sense. and a country that came to the aid of other countries during natural dy secret service eisas crises and pandemics and the united states has not come to nobody's aid, it's withdrawn from the world health organization and it's proven to be unable to follow the science at home. it's an extremely damaging reputational hit to the united states at a time when china really stands in the -- becoming more aggressive in the region and globally, the united states has robbed itself of the ability to argue back, to blow the whistle on china because it's proven so incompetent at home. so i think this brand damage to america it may be partly undone by landslide defeat for president trump in november, if that happened, but meanwhile, between now and then we ''re gog to see america continue to lead the global charts with a quarter of the world ininfections and only 5% of its population. it's the other side of the world from where this pathogen originated. that is so hard to undo that damage. >> it is ed luce thank you so much. looking for your piece in the financial times. and jonathan lemire to this commutation of roger stone, what are the checks and balances? barr was worried about it? why? where are the republicans perhaps standing up to this and saying it's wrong? >> there are very few republicans who said so, senators toomey and romney have spoken out, very few others have. and democrats have acknowledged there's a legal ability for the president to do this but, of course, sharply condemned it, speaker pelosi called for legislation to prevent this. congressman schiff has called for an investigation into this. there are attempts here for the democrats to do this but this is a congress that's going to be consumed with coronavirus relief package coming up in the weeks ahead. the president has been on this for a long time, his advisers have tried to talk him out of it, in the months prior, thinking it would be too politically explosive. attorney general barr said he believes the prosecution was just. i wanted to ask you, maya wiley, what we think might come next? roger stone far from alone of associates of the president convicted of crimes. we saw michael cohen go back to prison in recent days because he violated terms of his home confineme confinement. r here's the thing michael cohen flipped on the president, roger stone didn't. neither did paul manafort and michael flynn. michael flynn's case, the attorney general has already intervened. paul manafort's case the president hasn't yet do you think -- he'll intervene in the manafort case? >> i think we're looking at a desperate president. one of the interesting things the president does when he's in trouble is he does distract us. distracting us from coronavirus pandemic may not be a bad thing in his mind by how he uses the power of the presidency to do controversial things. and, you know, this is a controversial thing. i think your point about manafort in particular is very interesting. because remember that in the mueller report, robert mueller explicitly points to donald trump publically dangling a pardon before manafort, suggesting that he would pardon him if necessary, and considered it one of the possible obstructions of justice that donald trump should be answerable to congress to. now, here's the thing. donald trump didn't do it. and we know that paul manafort got a healthy sentence, and we know that paul manafort was certainly having conversations with the white house as his trial was pending and that he was quote -- i would call loyal to the president and clearly had a lot of information because as came up in roger stone's criminal trial, it was paul manafort who said to rick gates, i will tell the candidate, meaning donald trump, about our efforts to get emails and whether or not more emails are coming. so this is completely connected and it is not clear to me that donald trump won't offer more commutations or pardons as he seeks to both shore up his loyalty and also as he seeks to distract us from some of the large issues doing massive damage to the likelihood of his being elected president a second time. >> also, maya, thank you. bob costa, massive damage to the potential of getting re-elected. having said that, i feel like the surges we're seeing in the coronavirus will have more impact on whether or not people vote for trump than the commutation of roger stone. even opinion given how terrible that is to so many people, especially those in the legal community. >> and polling indicates that, mika. with the roger stone case i asked my republican sources why aren't you speaking out about it if privately you're so unhappy about it. because privately say they it was a favor to a friend, corrupt in their eyes. but almost none of them are saying anything. mitt romney called it corrupt. senator toomey of pennsylvania called it a mistake. they can't defend the roger stone commutation, they're going to attack the mueller probe as a way of changing the conversation. and we saw over the weekend, lindsey graham, the chairman of the judiciary committee said he would welcome the chance in his committee ahead of the election to have testimony from robert mueller. we'll see more on hunter biden i'm told. more on the mueller investigation in the weeks and months to come. >> robert costa, thank you very much for your reporting. we'll be watching out for that. still ahead on "morning joe." we talked about florida but the coronavirus pandemic is raging in texas. right now officials in houston are calling for a stay-at-home order to go in place as intensive care units in several hospitals hit capacity. the latest on that straight ahead on "morning joe." traight ahead on "morning joe. i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to. once-weekly trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it's not insulin. it starts acting from the first dose. and it lowers risk of heart attack, stroke, or death 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rooms. sometimes for several hours or days. as they scramble to open additional intensive care beds. city officials have called for a two week stay-at-home order as coronavirus cases continue to overwhelm hospital there is. joining us now, president and ceo of the harris health system. doctor, i guess first of all if you can describe the conditions, the situation, the numbers in your hospitals at this point right now? >> good morning. let me start by thanking the nurses and doctors and countless others who are on the front lines and truly are the heroes of this tragic story unfolding before us. thank you for having me on your show. the situation, the best i can describe it is dire and it's getting worse, it seems like, every day. as we're hopeful we can turn for the better seems like every day we're setting a new record. yesterday we had the highest number of new cases in the region. to answer your question specifically about my hospitals, there are two public hospitals in houston, lbj hospital has been over 100% capacity for icu beds as of yesterday afternoon it was 113%. that happens as you describe it, as we add more intensive care beds to the hospital, we hit over 100% capacity. meaning every icu bed at the hospital is occupied. and 75% of those beds are now covid-19 positive, which is staggering. >> doctor, you're describing the situation as dire. didn't this happen a few months ago? i feel like we are reliving the same story that we endured as a country a few months ago. why is this happening again? >> i wish, actually, you were correct that this is what we're living in april, i can tell you in other region, what we believe to have been a peak, the number that i told you yesterday about 400 new patients, that's four times the number of patients we were admitting to the hospitals at the texas medical center during the peak in april. so, no, this is not reliving what happened in april, this is a new beast. these numbers are disproportionately higher than anything we experienced in the past. >> mike barnicle, jump in. >> so, doctor, i understand that you're only assumed the position you hold now since early in march. so today, right now, what you're experien experiencing, what do you attribute this sudden spike or is it a sudden spike, it seems to be a sudden spike to outsiders viewing it, and secondly what's the situation within your hospital with regard to ppe and the supply chain? do your people, the nurses and doctors you were just eluding to, thanking, do they have enough supplies, masks, needles for testing, items like that? >> sure. to your first question about the sudden surge, it really is not so much of a sudden surge, it's just a rapid surge. this was gradually growing since around in the beginning of may and sped up in june and at the time, it looked like -- i was described as saying the curve is not a curve it's like a straight line up and that's what it looked like. the reason is obvious, as the folks in our communities and other communities across the united states do not -- are not heeding the words of the scientists, the clinicians about social distancing, about face covering, about staying home, especially when you're not feeling well, the reason is obvious now why that is happening is it because there is inconsistent messaging if people just are tired, people don't believe what they're seeing or hearing, i don't know. i can tell you it's extremely frustrating to be watching this unfold every day and be telling people about the numbers in the hospital, the number of people who are sick, the number of people who have it or are dying. at the end of the day, this being a preventable disease, that is i think the fus rating part of the situation, is that we people have the power to stop this disease in the tracks by doing the things that work. we know that not just because of the science we know because it worked previously when there was a stay-at-home order here in texas we did very well and we thought we were going to bring an end to the disease. to your other question about the ppe, we were fortunate because of the early actions in this area as far as the stay-at-home orders and the social distancing and everything, that bought us the time we were talking about flattening the curve, i described it as we flattened the curve to buy us, the health care folks, time to get our ppes in order, have our hospitals in order, and that's what happened. i'm happy to say that ppes are not an issue at this time. i visit the hospitals routinely, i was there yesterday, and my question to everyone, do you have what you need? i'm happy to say yes. so ppe is not an issue. needles, things of that nature are not an issue. what is an issue is for a lis n longation of this pandemic and the toll my staff and the staff in this area have to deal with day in and day out dealing with an increased number of patients. it takes a mental toll. that's the important thing to discuss and it's not something discussed openly. >> thank you for sharing it with us this morning. president and ceo of the harris health group. doctor, thank you for being on this morning. joining us now -- actually we're going to go to break. the gender gap when it comes to education and child care and being laid off. plus joe biden is focused on the swing states but data suggests he may want to think bigger. why democrats are eyeing the map deep into red territory. we'll talk about that straight ahead when "morning joe" comes right back. a lot of healthy foods are very acidic and they're actually pulling out the minerals from the enamel. i like to recommend pronamel to my patients. pronamel will help push the minerals back into the enamel, to keep the enamel strong. i know it works. and i hear nothing but great things from my patients that have switched to it. i know it works. and i hear nothing but great things the course structure the it just suits my life perfectly because i am a mom, i'm a wife. and i was able to complete 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summer camp for kids at home- all on xfinity x1. we're committed to helping all families stay connected. learn more at xfinity.com/education. - 58 million latinos live in the united states. if we all participate in the 2020 census, we can ensure fair funding for our schools, libraries, hospitals, and other public services. the census is safe, it's confidential, and our community is counting on us to do our part. we know who we are and how vibrant our community is. let's make sure our nation knows it too. for more information, visit getcounted.com, and to participate, go to census.gov. welcome back in recent economic downturns, including the great recession of 2008, the sectors that tended to be the hardest hit were male dominated one which led to the term man-cesession being bro deuintr however coronavirus brought on the she-cession. joining us is ali vitali. >> over the last few weeks maybe you saw the headlines saying things like men say they do most of the home schooling only 3% of the women agree. in the covid-19 economy you can have a kid or a job but you can't have both. as we embarked on the series of reporting how women are being impacted by the pandemic and the economic recession, the reinforcement of traditional gender roles, especially in two-parent households seemed a good place to start. ally's days are a blur. >> it's full force this week. >> reporter: before the pandemic hit, the new mom of 8 month old henry was gearing up to go back to work as a mental health therapist. >> all of a sudden we were home and we had to figure out how we were going to do it. >> her husband is the breadwinner so they may a choice. >> it made sense for me to become full-time mom, how do we have a career and kids right now? it feels impossible. >> ally is not alone in grappling with the question. >> you feel fortunate, but it's still hard. >> mom, do you want help? >> i would love help. >> alyssa has her own public relations business, when coronavirus shut down her daughter's school she began juggling her client load with her girl's science questions and then house work. alyssa scaled back her business while her husband continued working full-time. >> i feel with the pandemic women like me who still have a legitimate career but are the more flexible person in the households and often a freelancer, they're the ones who are losing. >> the problem is that it is a rational choice to make in the context of a system that is irrational. that is not accidental. that's the way the society has chosen to compensate people or not compensate people. >> sometimes described as women's second shift women do almost double the hours of unpaid work per day compared to men. a study showed a total, american women doing 1.5 trillion in unpaid later last year alone. in jobs where women are compensa compensated, study after study shows a wage gap, white women earning 80 cents to a man and women of color making less. >> someone has to do the work, earn the money in the more traditional ultimately much more gender than any other type of relationship. >> reporter: male/female couples rely on gender to determine who does what around the house. >> it wasn't a conscious choice we even made. this is how the chips fall and we're each doing what we have to do to keep our family going strong during the pandemic. >> reporter: a pandemic shining a spotlight on a modern economic system still rooted in an outdated past. so, here's something interesting, mika, they have talked explicitly about the role of gender in their house and in response to their concerns, they set a date, september 1st, when they'll revisit the division of sxlab how things are working in their home for their son, of course. also for each of them as individuals. mika? >> i guess you got to negotiate everything. thank you very much for that important report. take care. now to new polling, which shows joe biden and president trump are in a competitive race across three sun belt states trump won in 2016. according to the latest cbs news/yougov poll, biden has a six-point advantage over trump in florida, 48-42. both biden and trump are tied at 46% respectively in arizona. and trump leads biden by one point in texas, 46% to 45%. meanwhile, another poll out of texas has biden up five points. according to the latest dallas morning news/university of texas at tyler poll, biden sits at 46%, up three points since both candidates were tied in early -- in april at 43% respectively. trump has 41% of the support. that's down two points. with polling like that, "the new york times" reports some democrats believe there is a very real possibility that joe biden could win in historically republican states like george and texas. they also argue the upcoming election can install a new group of democratic lawmakers that can help redraw legislative maps census. biden as of now has television ads in only six states, all of which trump won in 2016. those would be michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, arizona, north carolina and florida. public and private polling also shows that the president is trailing in swing states, michigan and wisconsin, and running neck and neck with the former vice president in conservative states like kansas and montana. joining us now, co-founder of a latino decision among latino americans. your firm is out with new numbers that has biden leading president trump by double digits among latino voters across six key battleground states. we have the latest voter participati participation. biden sitting at 60% among latino voters, 35 points ahead of trump who has 25%. the former vice president leads trump by 50 points in north carolina. 40 points in nevada. 38 points in texas. 26 points in florida. 30 points in pennsylvania. and 27 points in arizona. also 57% view biden as favorable compared to 32% who said the same about trump. matt, what is going on and what do we know about how these polls play out, actually, at the voting booth? >> thank you, mika, good morning. i think you're right. the latino voter is driving these leads in some of these battleground states we're seeing for biden. the polling we saw is latinos are very angry at the trump administration and giving serious consideration to biden. that's taking states like arizona, texas, florida really competitive for the vice president right now. you're seeing that with large latino populations in places like north carolina and pennsylvania. it's not the traditional southwest states like texas, that latino vote is growing in places like pennsylvania, those need to be on the map in places where the latino vote can shift and influence the presidential outcome this year. many of these states are states trump won in 2016. they're not just possibly competitive. as you noted, biden is leading many of these states. right now the public opinion is such that trump is faring very poorly, especially with the latino vote in these key battleground states. >> i'm just wondering what you're thinking of some of the reporting we're seeing out there of the biden campaign really focusing in on hitting some red states hard. >> no question. and the biden campaign is certainly taking some pressure from other democrats about trying to expand the map, try to rout the president, not just beat prt but trumpism. try to win the house and the senate and move on from this moment. democrats do need to be careful of overconfidence. let's remember in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, hillary clinton was sending surrogates to places like arizona. never set foot in wisconsin. biden seems more concentrated on the 270, the electoral votes to win. this is the debate they face in the months ahead if the polling continues to look this good. we've seen the president in recent days. he's sending a lot of messages out there. he's returning to immigration. i was with him a few weeks ago when he went to the border wall and touted that as a campaign promise. sending mixed signals about daca, if he wanted to relitigate that. he said there might be a path to citizenship that he walked back and republicans were angry that he even mentioned. what do you make of this right now? is the administration attempting to make some sort of inroads with latinos? the message is confusing. is there some sort of narrow path he could create here to try to win some of those votes? >> i don't think it's that confusing. i think it's bent anti-immigrant since he descended down that escalator in trump tower and called mexicans rapists. he's been on point. the daca mess with dreamers, was a self-inflicted wound by jeff sessions and the president when they rescinded the program. he sells one thing, let's make a deal and then doesn't come to the table to negotiate. the message we've seen has been chas characterized her as anti-latino. what has he already done, what has he already said about our community, and any promises he makes, i think, are not being taken seriously. his message continues to be very harsh and unwelcoming when he's talking about the border wall or undocumented immigrants. latino voters are paying attention. i think that's going to really hurt him in these battleground states you mentioned. >> co-founder of latino decisions, matt barreto, thank you so much. coming up, while new york city breaks a grim stretch, reporting not a single covid-19 death on saturday, the first time that's happened in four months, florida breaks a grim record for the biggest single day increase in cases. and amid the massive spikes in states like florida and texas, the administration tries a new tactic -- discredit fauci? "morning joe" is coming right back. everyone in the media was saying florida was going to be like new york or italy and that has not happened because we understood we have a big, diverse state. we understood the outbreak was not uniform throughout the state and we had a tailored and measured approach that not only helped our numbers below what everyone predicted and did less damage to our state going forward. >> we got a lot of people in your profession who wax poetically for weeks and weeks how florida was going to be just like new york. wait two weeks, florida is going to be next. just like italy, wait two weeks. hell, we're eight weeks away from that and it has not even happened. we have a way lower death rate than d.c., everyone up there. we have a lower death rate than the midwest, illinois, michigan, indiana, ohio. but even in our region, louisiana, mississippi, alabama, georgia, florida has the lower death rate, and i was the number one landing spot from tens of thousands of people leaving the number one hot zone in the world to come to my state. so, we've succeeded and i think that people just don't want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative. >> it's actually worse than new york. florida governor desantis doing his best impression of president trump in april and may scolding the media for not praising his state's success in tamping down the pandemic. well, over the weekend, florida hit the highests single day total of known cases in any state since the state are the coronavirus pandemic. there's also new reporting this morning that testing delays across the country are hobbling efforts to contain the disease. and amid the surgerying number of infection, the white house is looking to discredit dr. fauci. the weekend also saw president trump commuting the sentence of his long-time ally roger stone, despite the reported warnings of his top officials and his administration, including attorney general william barr. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, july 13th. with us we have white house reporter for the associated proes jonathan lemire, nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie d.c. on msnbc, kasie hunt, and jon meacham, the forthcoming author of "his truth is marching on" which publishes in october. let's start with politics and jonathan lemire, president trump's re-election rally in portsmouth, new hampshire, was set to take place on saturday but it was called off due to a tropical storm heading to the northeast over the weekend. official it is close to the trump campaign salo turnout also motivated the last-minute decision to cancel the rally. new hampshire's republican governor chris sununu said he was skip the event citing the coronavirus, didn't want to get the virus. one outside adviser to the trump campaign told nbc news that the weather was a, quote, convenient excuse to scrap the event. as "the new york times" puts it, the canceled rally in portsmouth was the third time in less than a month the president's re-election campaign failed to relaunch as planned. jonathan lemire, i mean, this is really the president storm, by the way, that never happened in portsmouth, but the perfect storm for this campaign because rally is where they get information and where trump gets his excitement. they had to cancel this one due to the weather. it was beautiful in portsmouth over the weekend. what happened? >> good morning. the first attempted reboot was going to be in tulsa, oklahoma, about three weeks ago and they billed that as this massive display of force. they boasted of a million ticket requests and turned out only 6,000 people showed, mostly out of fear of the coronavirus pandemic in an indoor arena, leaving the president staring at a sea of empty seats and him fuming. campaign aides had a shakeup, trying to reimagine what rallies could look like. there was discussion of having one in alabama to support the president's favorite candidate in that race. and the next one was going to be saturday night in portsmouth, new hampshire. new hampshire a battleground state but one the president is trailing fairly significantly to joe biden. it was a state where he was close in 2016 but one considered a bit of a reach right now. the reboot was going to be in an airline hangar, outdoors, thinking that would allay some concerns. they deliberately didn't talk up crowd sizes. they wanted it to be smaller, more manageable. the president wanted to get back on the road. he needed to be out there, as you say, to draw strength from crowds, energize the crowds, try out new attack lines on joe biden. to this point they haven't been working. and incredibly valuable voter data collection tools. i was traveling with the president on friday to florida, and as the plane touched down they said it was postpone. ed because of, indeed, the forecast of a tropical storm in that area on saturday. it didn't rain on saturday, as it turned out. it was ridiculous. >> now, it did -- >> it's ridiculous. there were no problems with the weather. >> there was not. it certainly did rain friday night. there was some rain going into saturday on the forecast but they had the rain stopping by early morning and turns out it stopped even before then. i reported earlier in the week there was, indeed, concerns among campaign staffers as to what kind of crowd they would draw but those worries mounted. we talked to local leaders in new hampshire saying they were trying to get people to show up, they were trying to generate excitement for this rally. sometimes trump supporters show up hours early and camped out overnight, perhaps they would have been rained on. a bad weather forecast might dissuade people from doing that but there was no evidence of people camping out in portsmouth and it ended up not raining. this is the latest bind the president and his team are now in. it's hard for them to hold a rally anywhere any time soon. to have a venue, it needed to meet two important criteria. it needs to tb, most likely, a state where the coronavirus pandemic, which is surging throughout the country right now, is not rising. new hampshire was one of them. the rate is stable. the governor, though he agreed he was going to meet the. the on the tarmac while wearing a mask, he wasn't going to go to the rally. certainly in new hampshire, the coronavirus pandemic is not as severe in that state as others. in order to have a rally, you need a state's governor to wave health care regulations in order to have a large rally. they're willing to do that. new hampshire's governor, a republican, a lot of other states with democratic governors, like michigan and pennsylvania, they're not willing to do that. in short, the president is having a hard time having a rally in the places he needs to get most, he can't. >> in new hampshire ham the republican quov nor said he wasn't going to go because he was scared of getting the coronavirus. you have democratic governors in other states that won't even let him have it. i remember four years ago, and i'm trying to remember if it was the primary, if it was new hampshire, the excitement for trump was way bigger than it is now where people did stand in the rain. they stood in the freezing cold. they stood in lines for days. the lines wrapped around buildings and blocks and cities and they went on forever. it doesn't exist. that seems to be, kayleigh mcenany, the reason the event was not held and not the weather because it didn't rain. having said that, these events are super-spreader events. the president held the event in phoenix and tulsa. they're afraid of a little rain storm, they had people all over that tulsa arena taking stickers off chairs so that they could squish people together and make it look like there were a lot of people there because those stickers actually required, asked people -- showed them how -- demonstrated how they could social distance inside the arena. the campaign was reportedly seen remove those stickers to squish people together and make this super-spreader event as dangerous and as volatile in terms of spreading this pandemic as possible. look at those people not wearing masks. incredible. at least the governor of new hampshire had it right by saying he wasn't going to go. there are other governors who will not let this president have super-spreader events in their state. then we have this, the state of florida, which they want to have the republican national convention in jacksonville in a matter of weeks, has shattered the record for new cases of coronavirus in a single day. recording more than 15,000 cases on sunday. that's 3,000 more than the previous record set by new york back in april. hospitalizations also increased in florida with more than 18,000 seeking treatment. despite the increase in cases, disney opened parts of its orlando park over the weekend. what's going on in florida? and governor ron desantis said he still plans to reopen schools next month. kasie hunt, are they really going to have the republican national convention in jacksonville in the middle of a pandemic? >> mika, the list of republicans who are saying, no, thank you, not interested in attending such an event is growing. people are still holding back a little bit because there's a period of time between now and then, much of us deeply hope, to the contrary of those saying, and you played ron desantis, saying they want to see him fail. they are polling for these states to be able to make a dent in these cases. so many americans are suffering. we obviously cannot lose sight of that. the reality is that americans are scared and is that includes the top level of republican leadership in washington that is not this president and the loyalists who surround him. that's a real problem. and you've had hundreds of doctors signing letters saying, this is a really bad idea, the idea that you're going to pack people into an arena when this is spreading, essentially unchecked is simply not a good idea. it seems kind of frighteningly obvious that that's the case, this would be a bad idea. when you contrast how the president's campaign is trying to run in this coronavirus era with how the biden campaign is doing this, i mean, not only is it a clear values difference and a clear daily dmemonstration of how these two men would handle this differently, but it also speaks to some of the points jonathan lemire was making, the biden campaign is not in a situation where they have embarrassing pictures of people not packed together. they are doing events that are visually taking place in the coronavirus era. there are folding chairs with circles on the ground. he is sending a message to americans, we are taking this seriously, we are being careful about this. stripping the stickers off the chairs and packing people together is providing pictures that any campaign under normal circumstances would want but under these circumstancing are visually showing us all what they're doing. still ahead, one of the stories we mentioned at the top, president trump commutes the sentence of robger stone, who i a convicted felon. our legal analyst weighs in next on "morning joe." 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>> well, what went wrong is, of course, everything. you know, this was a case in which the president was personally interested, that is, roger stone was accused of and convicted by a jury of obstructing an investigation into, among other things, the conduct of donald trump and his campaign and some of the information that mueller reported about roger stone was specifically about his interactions with the president over coming releases of wikileaks information. so, the president was personally interested in this. the attorney general, who now is waxing indignant about his advice not to commute being jettisoned by the president only a few months ago was reaching down to the line level of attorneys to soften the sentencing recommendation, vis-a-vis have roger stone, and now, of course, the president has gotten involved personally by commuting, as he sort of teased he might do by way of encouraging roger stone to keep quiet. i think the only thing here that didn't go wrong was, ironically, the investigation, the purported flaws of which the president used as a pretext for this action. everything about the justice department's conduct, at least as the senior levels and the president's conduct here is highly, highly irregular and objectionable. is it unprecedented? yeah, i think it is. there are other cases in which presidents have, you know, stepped in in matters in which they are directly or indirectly involved and probably the most famous recent example of that is george h.w. bush pardoning a group of iran contra defendants right at the tail end of his presidency. but there's no similar example i know of of a president urging a witness to keep quiet and not cooperating, not cooperate and sort of dangling the possibility of clemency as a reward for noncooperation and then delivering on it. that, i think, is completely unprecedented, at least in my knowledge of the commutation power. what the secretary of education said or, rather, didn't say about the administration's plans to have schools reopen this fall. that's next on "morning joe." stock slices. for as little as $5, now anyone can own companies in the s&p 500, even if their shares cost more. at $5 a slice, you could own ten companies for $50 instead of paying thousands. all commission free online. schwab stock slices: an easy way to start investing or to give the gift of stock ownership. schwab. own your tomorrow. ♪ ♪ ♪ the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com. ♪ can you assure students, teachers, parents, that they will not get coronavirus because they are going back to school? >> well, the key is that kids have to get back to school. there is no -- nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them. it sounds like what you're saying, you as the secretary of education, is compelling -- you are compelling schools to reopen regardless of what's happening. >> no. what we're saying is kids need to be back in school. >> wow. joining us now, dr. vin gupta, a pull mo pulmonologist who has created critically ill patients in washington state and also an nbc news medical contributor. i have a few rapid-fire questions for you. today, if schools were reopening in florida, do you think it would be a good idea for people to go back to school? >> absolutely not. absolutely a super-spreader event. absolutely not, mika. >> that would be a super-spreader event to send kids to school. florida has obviously made some records over the past 24 hours. where is this heading? what do these numbers tell us? >> floridans are going to die, mika, that's where this is headed. we have six hospitals in miami-dade that are filled up, 60 icus. walt disney world has decided to open up. it's not hard to predict where this is going to head, it's to badness, because they have no state leadership. >> what would you suggest florida do in a situation like this to bring these numbers down, and if all your suggestions were carried out, how long would that take? >> it's going to take about three weeks, moo he can ika. i would beg the president of the united states to federal iize a response. we're sitting here, 30 of our teams just sitting here that the u.s. taxpayer pays billions of dollars to sustain military assets to ready for ebola. we're not using it now. the national guard, desantis has control over that. build hospitals. doing so would be an admission of guilt. enforcement of masking policy statewide. give your county officials an assist and force something here we know can work. finally, i would make sure that indoor dining, indoor bars, done for the time being. my gosh, louisiana, there's some common sense in the region but not in florida. doesn't make any sense. those are places i could focus on and start, mika. >> dr. vin gupta, thank you so much for being on this morning. coming up, our next guest says it's the duty of the white house press secretary to hold briefings, but not like this. we'll talk to jonathan karl who serves as president of the white house correspondents' association. 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>> i think you're referring to a tweet this morning, is that right? >> right. >> i think you're mischaracterizing the tweet. >> the president said nascar saw bad ratings because they took down the confederate flag. does he believe nascar should fly the confederate flag? why don't they fly it here? >> the whole note of the tweet was to note the alleged incident, the alleged hate crime that wasn't a hate crime. >> does he think nascar made a mistake? >> he said he was not making a judgment one way or the other. the intent of the tweet was to stand up for the men and women of nascar and the fans and those who have gone and this rush to judgment of the media to call something a hate crime when, in fact, the fbi reported this was not an intentional racist act. >> does he think it was a mistake for nas ka to ban it? >> the president said he wasn't making a judgment one way or the other. >> why is the president even suggesting mr. wallace should apologize? >> the fbi concluded this was not a hate crime and he believes it would go a long way if bubba came out and acknowledged that as well. >> that was an exchange last week between reporters and white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany in the press briefing. one of the reporters asking the questions was jonathan karl, who covers the white house for abc news. this week he wraps up his term as president of the white house correspondents' association. and is out with a new op-ed for "the washington post" entitled, it's the duty of the white house press secretary to hold briefings, but not like this. jonathan joins us now. what do you mean, not like this? what are they like? >> they're like campaign briefings. i think kayleigh mcenany might be the most effective campaign spokesperson donald trump has ever had, but she is no longer the campaign spokesperson. and she goes into those briefings now in the white house briefing room, her salary paid for by taxpayers, she is a public servant. and they are indistinguishable from a campaign briefing. there are often purely political, beating up on the press, rather than informing the press. and conveying very little actual information about the actions of the president and the executive branch. >> so, take us back a little bit. what is the function of the white house press briefing? and what are your options when you're in a situation like this where, whether it's campaign diatribes for the campaign or out and out lies? you're not getting information at these press briefings, so what was the function of the press briefing and what's the recourse since that's not what's happening now? >> well, first of all, it's very important to keep in mind who the press secretary is. the press secretary serves at the pleasure of the president, no question. is the spokesperson for the. the and the executive branch but is a public servant. salary paid by the taxpayers. mike mccurry, of course, bill clinton's former press secretary, has pointed out that the geography of the west wing helps define that job. the press secretary's office is at the halfway point between the oval office and the press briefing room. if you go out the press secretary's office, take a right, take 15 steps, you're in the oval office. go to the left, 15 steps, you're in the briefing room. you are an interimmediatary. you represent the president to the press but you also -- your job is to inform the american public through the press, you know, where most people get their information. and you are not there to tout political points, look, many press secretaries have, no question. they can be political. but it shouldn't be outrightly and solely political. and that's what i fear it's become in ter become. in terms of what you do, mika, people say, boycott the briefings, just don't go. i go, my colleagues go, peter alexander go, kristen welker. we go because it is our job. we are covering this administration, we are covering this president. some people think if we didn't go, it would all disappear. look, if we didn't go to those briefings, she would still be the press secretary, he would still be the president of the united states. trust me, somebody else would go and sit in those seats. i think it is -- i think it serves the public to be there and to be asking those questions, real reporters asking real questions, trying to get at the truth. >> i don't disagree with that. jonathan lemire? >> hey, jonathan. kudos to you as president, especially during these trying time during the coronavirus pandemic how we cover the west wing. i want to piggyback. people are probably thinking, why is this so different than what we see for previous presidents, presidents on both sides of the aisle from bill clinton and george bush and president obama. why does this disturb you so much with this particular president and this particular press secretary, you and i know, but why is this so worrisome? >> the tone was set on the very first day that briefing room was used. the day sean spicer came out and had a, quote, briefing. i put it in quote because he didn't actually take any questions. came out and berated people in that room about the size of the inaugural crowd. said several things that were just not true and then left. now kayleigh mcenany is the fourth press secretary. she is, perhaps, more effective than sean spicer. but the basic function there has been the same. it's as if she comes into the room, she has -- she has kind of a formula now. it's an opening statement that it often a critique of press coverage or, quote, the media. and it's usually the media reporting on the president's actual words and then she, you know, sometimes denies those words were said, as you kind of heard in those exchanges on the confederate flag. then takes rapid-fire series of questions, often throwing the questions back at the reporters, telling them what they should be asking, what we should be asking, and then a closing statement and then walks out. and the whole thrust of it is putting the president's political spin. as you point out, i tangled mightily with barack obama's press secretary and there's no doubt they played a political function but it was less explicit, and there was an understanding, and i was there under ari fleischer and dana parrino during the bush administration, there was an obligation to present the actions of the executive branch, of the white house, and to answer questions, you know, in a straightforward way. if they were purely political to refer those questions to the national party or to a campaign. >> mike barnicle? >> hey, jonathan. first of all, we want to thank you on behalf of lemire and mika to speak to someone who is about to become a former president. it's good practice for us, i think. >> good, good. >> jonathan, you know, in all the press secretaries you just mentioned, and sitting there in that room, whether it was jody powell or robert gibbs or ari fleischer or anyone, there was an element, to me at least, that it was like covering police headquarters. you'd go there -- >> all right. lost mike barnicle there. jonathan karl, i'll just end with this question. it seems to me that even though sometimes it can be incredibly frustrating to be in there, the function of being in there, you still think is quite precious and important to the process of covering this president. >> i do. i mean, i think that it is maddeningly frustrating when you get very little information. even in a nonanswer, you get something useful. let's just use the example you played at the start of the segment of the -- of these questions on the confederate flag. by the way, she berated the press for asking about the confederate flag. we didn't go in there wanting to ask about the confederate flag. the president tweeted a couple hours before the briefing started criticizing nascar for banning the flag. this wasn't something the press invented. this was the president. even in not getting direct answers, there's something revealing. so, she through a series of questions would not acknowledge what the president had actually said. and, to me, there is something revelatory about that. the white house does not want to defend or even acknowledge words that the president just uttered. and that tells you something. >> no, i totally agree with you. i think kayleigh mcenany shares more -- much more than she knows in those briefings. outgoing president of the white house correspondents' association, jonathan karl of abc news. thank you so much for being on this morning. >> thank you. >> he's the author of, of course of the book "front row at the trump show." it is a great read. very revelatory. you should pick it up. two more stories we're following this morning, the nfl's washington redskins is expected to announce the team will retire its nearly 87-year-old name today. first reported by sports business journal, the impending move comes after renewed public pressure led to a july 3rd statement by the organization saying it would undertake a thorough review of the name. one of the team's top sponsors, fedex, has also threatened to remove the company's name from the team stadium if the name wasn't change. other corporate sponsors have made similar demands. sources tell "the washington post" that the team will not reveal a new name until a later date because the referred replacement name is tied up in a trademark fight. interesting. also we learned overnight that actress kelly preston has passed away after a two-year battle with breast cancer. her husband, actor john travolta, confirmed the news on instagram saying, kelly's love and life will always be remembered. i'll be taking some time to be with my children who have lost their mother. forgive me in advance if you don't hear from us for a while. absolutely. the couple had three children. one of whom who died back in 2009 from a seizure. travolta and preston had one of the longest marriages in hollywood, celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary last year. kelly preston was only 57 years old. up next, cronyism and the coronavirus. new reporting from the new yorker's jane mayer on how the president is helping one of his top donors exploit the pandemic. keep it right here on "morning joe." unique. that's why i like liberty mutual. they get that no two people are alike and customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. almost done. what do you think? 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[laughing] my three-year-old, when we get a box delivered, screams "mommy's work!" mommy's work. with this pandemic, safety is even more important to make sure we go home safe every single day. according to cdc numbers, minority workers at meat and chicken processing plants have been the hardest hit by the coronavirus accounting for 56% of cases reported in plants across 21 states. the latest cdc data shows there were more than 17,000 cases and 91 deaths among the 23 states that reported covid-19 outbreaks through may 30th. about 87% were among minority groups. in april, president trump signed an executive order compelling meat and poultry plants to stay open as coronavirus-related deaths and infections escalated. staff writer at the new yorker, jane mayor, has new reporting on this. her latest piece is "back to the jungle." trump is helping a meat-processing titan leverage the pandemic to strip workers of protections. jane, take us through what you found out. >> thanks. yeah, i went into sussex county, delaware, which is a coronavirus hot spot because it has so much -- so many poultry plants. and i was interviewing people at one plant in particular, mt. air is the company, a very successful company, the sixth largest chicken company in america. and what i found out was that it's owned by one of trump's largest donors, a man named ron cameron, who gave trump something like $3 million for his campaign's various pacs and things in 2016. and he's given trump more than a million this year and more than 5 million to other republican organizations this year. he's been a huge donor to the republican party. and what i discovered was that almost all of the things that we think of as federal protections for workers have been swept aside with trump's executive order and the same man, ron cameron, was one of the people who was brought in to advise trump on this. and he's gotten waivers for his plant to speed up the line for chicken workers, which is something that increases injuries in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and that the workers are -- oh, my gosh, it was just -- well, basically, the best way to describe it is the way david michaels described it who was the head of osha under the obama administration. he said it's back to upton sinclair's jungle. the people i interviewed said it's slavery, baby. they have no choice. they're essential workers. they have to go to work. the factory is not telling them how many cases there are around them. osha is barely any presence at all there. the national labor relations board is making them have an election in the middle of this to decertify their union. it's really quite incredible what's going on at that level in this country. >> and did -- were you able to get a comment from the company or from the administration on this? >> i was. the company said it's a challenge for everybody. and they've said that they felt they had to change the rules for the workers because when originally the cdc had said essential workers could stay home for 14 days if they'd been exposed, like other people in this country, but then they've discovered that essential workers were home for 14 days so they just revised the standard. and what the workers were saying was they get five days paid partial pay if they actually have the coronavirus and then they have to get back to work. and, you know, it's a difficult situation, obviously, for everybody. but it's quite amazing to see how a donor to trump who is as wealthy as ron cameron. he's got $327 million in a private foundation and is giving away millions, and the people who work in this plant know it. one of them said, how can he give $2 million, $3 million to trump. the workers were given a $1 raise, which was taken away from them again, and one of the workers said to me, what are we, animals? >> yeah, mike barnicle, jump in. >> so jane, this latest great piece by you in "the new yorker," thank you very much, is really another portion of the four-decade long assault on government. it's the way it seems to me having read it last night. could you speak a bit about the slow stripping of the national labor relations board, occupational health and safety and the assault on labor unions in this country and what happens when all three of those battles are fought at the same time in unison by this administration? >> thanks, mike. you're absolutely right. i think what we're looking at is the culmination of a 40-year campaign to erode all kinds of federal programs. there's been a lot of libertarian money thrown at getting rid of what steve bannon likes to call the administrative state and what's left are workers kind of fending for themselves at the bottom level. and there have been some new studies. one that just came out of harvard by larry summers and another economist that shows that basically union membership for private sector unions has gone from about 35% in the 1950s down to 6% now. and as those unions have eroded, so has the power of the workers on the bottom. and the money, if you look at it, has almost completely -- the math works so you can see that it's been redistributed to the top. so it goes to people like ron cameron who then put it into politics and promote policies that promote their interests. he happens to be a very strong religious conservative, but he's also promoting very big pro business policies for businesses like his own that keep eroding these safeguards for workers. so it's kind of a continual motion machine. >> yeah, jane mayer, thank you so much. her new reporting is in the new issue of "the new yorker." and in an interview on fox news sunday, secretary devos was questioned about the administration's threat to pull funding from schools that don't fully reopen in the fall. >> under what authority are you and the president going to unilaterally cut off funding that's been approved from congress and most of the money goes to disadvantaged students or students with disabilities, and secondly, isn't cutting off funding exactly the wrong answer? don't you want to spend more money to make schools safer, whether it's with plastic shields or health checks, various other systems? doesn't it make more sense to increase funding for skuchools where it's unsafe rather than cut off funding? >> american investment in education is a promise to students and their families. if schools aren't going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn't get the funds. then give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise. >> well, you can't do that. i know you guys -- >> let's follow through on the promise. >> i know you support vouchers and that's a reasonable argument, but you can't do that unilaterally. you have to do that through congress. >> well, we're looking at all the options because it's a promise to the american people, to students and their families, and we want to make sure that promise is followed through on. >> jonathan lemire, so many questions, but since we're wrapping up the show, i'll focus on florida which is seeing record numbers of covid cases in the past 24 hours. beating even new york and just breaking records in every way. there's no way going back to school is going to be safe, and that's not me talking. that's dr. vin gupta who was on our show today. that people will die. so is she serious? is this what's going to happen? we're going to shove kids back in school in dangerous situations like this? >> that's the debate in the white house right now. and there are some who think the president should make a huge investment right here on schools. that that's the number one issue facing so many americans right now is what to do with students in the next few weeks or months. and that could be a chance, not only good for america but good politically for him but it's not clear that's going to happen. he has taken a more punitive approach right now. i want to end on this. the president here has retweeted, amplified this sentiment about the coronavirus. the most outrageous lies are the ones about covid-19. everyone is lying. the cdc, media, democrats, our doctors. not all, but most that we're told to trust. i think it's about the election and keeping the economy from coming back. that is a window into the president's mind-set right now. >> well, people can decide for themselves how they feel about that. early voting starts pretty soon. we're getting close to the election. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's monday, july 13th. and here are the important facts at this hour. we begin with a startling number. at least 1 out of every 100 americans has now become infected with coronavirus. on sunday, florida saw more than 15,000 cases, more than any state has seen in a single day. big picture -- the united states has recorded more than 3
MontanaUnited-statesLouisianaTaiwanAlabamaNevadaUnited-kingdomBrazilChinaDelawareMinnesotaCalifornia of summer. even though these roads are more empty, it doesn't mean that they are not dangerous. according to the national safety council, driving decreased by 18%, but that's per mile increased by 14%. as across the country are spotting cameras raising and running red lights. cameras caught drivers fly at least 25 miles per hour faster. speeding causes about one-third of deaths on the road. >> we have reports of speeds anywhere from 117 to 163 miles per hour on that stretch of roadway. very rapid, very dangerous. >> so far, during the pandemic, new york, california, louisiana, north carolina lead the country and deadliest driving. an increase of 20 deaths in march alone. >> it's really important that we see this as kind of a canary in the coal mine. we take the data and say we've got to do something different. >> the weather forecasts aren't as nice as some people have been hoping for, but beaches are open. still close for swimming, and in new jersey, summer kickoff parties are a go. now announcing that 25 people can meet up outside. meanwhile, please across the country will be out with extra patrol and checkpoints, also using social media campaigns to you and discourage discourages drunk driving. neil. >> neil: all right, alex hogan, thank you very much. not much in new jersey. they are continuing to reopen. we are going to speak to the alaska governor and just a little later in the show. it is stated now completely open, back to what it was before any restrictions were put in place. more on that later appeared to focusing on what is going on right now in dallas, texas, where bars are no event. some mitigation in that area as well. jonathan hunt has the latest right now. restrictions being lifted across the country. jonathan. >> hey, neil, millions of americans are going to enjoy a lot more entertainment options this memorial day weekend than they have been able to the last few months. from alabama to oregon, from michigan to texas, 22 states are adding new reopening measures today, covering alphabet soup of activities from arcades to zoos. in kentucky, you will be able to get some of the countries finest barbecue, although dinan restaurants will be limited to 30% capacity. and you can wash down the food with a drink at a bar restricted to 25% capacity and then go bowling, where the las will top out at 25%. in south carolina, various tourist attractions can reopen so if a ride on the myrtle beach ferris wheel will lift your spirit, you're in luck. in ohio, there will be horse racing. in kansas, arcades and trampoline parks. and you can get your animal fixed in. aquariums and zoos can open in iowa. and of exercise is your thing, indiana is allowing tennis courts, basketball courts, community pools, and gems to reopen. here in l.a., jim is remain firmly close, which at least spares me the effort of my daily excuse of not going to the gym. neil. >> neil: [laughs] jonathan, thank you very much. you will be happy that in new orleans, they are opening up, so a lot of good places to eat there, including that of course will establish favorite target and a local delayed. we have the president with us right now. you must be a happy camper today. >> can't tell you how happy we are. after eight weeks of hibernati hibernation, to build to come back to life is an exciting day. >> neil: what kind of restrictions -- i imagine there is still distancing measures. explain what you have to do. >> we are at 25% capacity, which means our tables are apart. there is a line to get into the restaurant. of course all employees are wearing gloves. we have guys walking around sanitizing everything that doesn't move. at least it's a start. >> neil: now, what's the plan? start with 25%, then -- what is it? 14 days. they will increase that feud with the plant grows mike >> exactly. june 1st is the next target date for us. in new orleans went from being one of the worst cities in the country to being one of the better ones, so what we're doing is working, and if it continues to work as it is doing now, then june 1st, we will go to 50% capacity. that will give the local restaurants a chance to increase the number of seats they have. >> neil: you know, how did you hang on this long going through all of this? you have probably one of the most popular restaurant and all of new orleans, so you have that reputation, but it doesn't do you much good if you can't open up. so how did you weather all of that? >> you know, we had some experiences if you years ago with hurricane katrina. we are a restaurant that is open 24 hours a day seven days a week, we close 36 hours for christmas. so when katrina came along and we were close from august to october, it kind of give us a playbook for this go around. i never thought i would see it again in my career, but here we are. fortunately, this time, nobody is sitting on their roof waiting for someone to come get them from floodwaters. everybody is in air-conditioning, but the city will come back to life a little bit at a time. >> neil: you know, obviously there aren't going to beat too many visiting, and i would imagine that your traffic would be largely local. what are some of the more popular items they have been ordering? >> again, our basic menu is our one and only food products, so everybody gets that. then we have a selection of coffees to go along with it. but i can tell you that we have had somebody here answering the phones 24 hours a day through the last eight weeks, and as of the last few weeks, we are getting more and more phone calls from people that are saying i'm coming to new orleans from out of town, and i'm just trying to do my homework to find out who's open. so that is an encouraging sign for us. >> neil: what you notice about traffic and other places around? is it a slow go going everything reopen? are you seeing traffic in the city? >> we have been down here for the entire eight weeks in the cafe, and for many, many weeks, you came down, and there was was nobody here. a few weeks ago, he is all the kids with their caps and gowns coming back to take pictures in front of all the french market, in front of the cathedral. so you started to see life slowly return, and then as of the last few days, even more traffic is starting to occur. you see people walking around. you see bicycles on the weekends. so life is starting to return a little bit down here. >> neil: are very happy to hear that. i know you have had to weather a lot. thank you very much, the president of cafe du monde. we have a lot more coming up. other states, including the alaska governor, who has completely reopened his stage. we finished i very, very strong week. a bumpy ride today, but a 3% roll. based on the belief that they are optimistic things will pick up. we also have the latest on the president waiting to open up places of worship. he has already told the governor to do it or else, but do they have to do it, or else? after this. >> i called upon governors to allow our churches and places of worship to open right now. 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's view on already. open for business. the president saying that houses of worship should go ahead and open up to their congregations. now the devil in the details is whether governors go along with that. the president says if anyone calls to complain, he will override them. this is raising a lot of issues, whether he can do what he saying he wants to do. let's go to john roberts at the white house. this takes effect this weekend. >> the president wanted to happen as soon as possible. we will hear from dr. birx. it may not be possible. the president has heard the call from people saying why are churches still close? and what the president said, the centers for disease control has just come out with new guidelines for pastors and rabbis to put in place if they reopen their doors. use of face coverings, promote social distancing, consider holding services outdoors, add additional services to weekly schedules to pare down the number of people that would be at any one particular service, decreased choir and congregants singing, and consider electronic collection boxes. but what the president did today -- we knew that these guidelines were coming out, but what the president really did today was throwdown i the gauntlet to the nations governors, the ones that have been unsure. he says i want this done, and i wanted done now, or else. listen here. >> some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essentials, but have left out churches and other houses of worship you'd so i'm correcting this injustice to allow these very important, essential places of faith to open right now. so this weekend, if they don't do it, i will override the governors. >> is not quite clear what the president's constitutional authority would be to override the governors, but certainly the president can threaten the purse strings, as he did michigan's governor, with withholding certain funds. i don't think he wants to get it to that point. he just wants to make the point that if you're going to open up a liquor store and something else, then that charges should be open as well. but dr. deborah birx saying that in some areas where coronavirus is still at a fairly high pace, you might want to delay just a little bit and not go this weekend. listen to what she said. >> people that have significant comorbidities, we want them protected. i know that houses of worship want to protect them, so really ensuring that maybe items -- maybe they can't go this week if there is a high number of covid cases. maybe they wait another week, but there is a way to social distance, like you are here, and places of worship. speak on a certainly a lot of people who go to church tend to be older. the church that i used to go to in atlanta was full of beautiful young people. young women. they all lot of youth groups. the cdc weekly report details a case that happened back in the beginning of march. it was one person that infected 35 people at a church. three of them died, and subsequently, there were community infections to follow that, and another person died, so you had a total of 61. that was before people started wearing masks, staying 6 feet apart, so as not likely that would happen again, but it's a lesson in what can happen if you don't do it right. neil. >> neil: you got it, my frien friend. i want to go out to father robert. very good to have you, father. how are you going to handle this this weekend? you've got the president of the united states saying you should reopen. but now that people can fill those pews, what are you going to do? >> well, catholic priest, let's just talk about that for us there are two levels of authority. the first and most serious for me as my bishop. our bishop has said we will open next week. the bishop in minnesota, the bishops of minnesota have decided there governor and are opening the church is as far as i understand, this weekend. let me say that far before these cdc recommendations came out, those are all of the things that we have been planning to do. increasing the number of mass, have special risk of mass, that will be attended. we have people come in one way, go at another, they are signing up before they come. we have alternate pews. we are now using our hymnals. all those kinds of things that are being recommended are already in place. i mean, it's not as out churches are not social organizations who have their own set of concerns and knowledge of what's going on, so -- and let me also say this. not that i've ever been in a tattoo parlor, but i have a suspicion that what goes on in my churches a lot intimat more e than what goes on in my church. >> neil: distancing provisions, crowd control. people going in one entrance, not another. this will obviously be strictly enforced. i wonder how it is going to be enforced. >> well, we have a limit of 25% capacity to our church. at least a lot of catholic churches are somewhat large. so in our church, we can have 150 people in the church very easily. keep in mind that people come as families. so those families have been living together. when they are in church, they are in their own pew, distant from other families. receive communion in an orderly fashion. this is not the first time the church has confronted a pandemic. we have dealt with this over the ages. and i agree that it is important that we observe social distancing and all the sanitary procedures that need to be in place, but to marginalize the church as though it's not an essential institution -- let's remember that religious organizations are the first of the first responders. when people needed food, they came to our church. we provided money for people and things like that. so the emotional support as we well. solidarity, the sense of hope. why do people need in our country and our world right now more than anything else? a sense of hope you have to do it in a rational way, way that respects the reality of this disease and its potential, but we have to do it. >> neil: you know, the rabbi had emailed me after my last broadcast, saying how am i going to tell people that you cannot come in? how are you going to tell people on sunday or on saturday, how are you going to say we are over 25%? what do you do? speak up we have a sign-up sheet. people are signing up. we know how many people are coming, and we have also factored in people who will just show up at mass. so we have done that. this is not brain surgery. >> neil: a lot of people show up late for a service, right? [laughs] >> in your parish, maybe. [laughs] no, i think -- i think we just have to explain to people. they understand what's going on. it's not like they are to the whole thing. father, thank you. best of luck this weekend. we have a lot more coming up. including how their reopening process is going in one state where everything is open. everything is back to the way that it was. alaska. it's governor, next. so i've been using this awesome new app called rakuten that gives me cash back on everything. that's ebates. i get cash back on electronics, travel, clothes. you're talking about ebates. i can't stop talking about rakuten. pretty good deal - peter sfx [blender] ebates is now rakuten, sign up today. don't bring that mess around here, evan! whoo! don't do it. don't you dare. i don't think so! [ sighs ] it's okay, big fella. we're gonna get through this together. [ baseball bat cracks ] nice rip, robbie. ♪ raaah! when you bundle home and auto insurance through progressive, you get more than just a big discount. i'm gonna need you to leave. you get relentless protection. [ baseball bat cracks ] you get relentless protection. leading armies to battle?, was that your great-aunt, keeping armies alive? drafting the plans. taking the pictures. was it your family members? who flew. who fixed. who fought. who rose to the occasion. when the world needed them most. (♪) find and honor your ancestors who servered in world war ii. their stories live on at ancestry. >> neil: florida beaches are reopened. the state continues its gradual reopening. one state, though, is completely reopened. slightly north. a little northwest of florida. bigger than most countries. alaska's governor joins us right now. mike dunlevy, good to have you. everything is opened up now? >> yes, i want to say we never closed our beaches. [laughs] but everything is open. >> neil: so what did you do that you are ahead of the cycle? >> well, we've been very fortunate. we have 400 cases, their hospitalizations, no new deaths. a total of ten deaths. so our numbers are very low. we have been watching this and managing this really well. and what we promise to the people -- this is very important. we promise to the people of alaska we need your help to build up our health care capacity. we built that capacity up we were keeping our promise to the people of alaska. our businesses, entities, churches are open. we never really had a hard shutdown. we actually encourage people to go out but it just stays 6 feet apart, wash your hands, et cetera. so we do anticipate our numbers will increase. it numbers are unusually low. but we believe that we are capable of dealing with this and managing this, and we all have to go to the management stage. >> neil: you know, when you and i last talked, governor, and people think of social distancing, they don't ever think of that would be a worry in states of your size. but obviously around anchorage and fairbanks, it could be. is there a level, governor, which you would say that's a little more than we thought? some positive cases that might give you pause. what would you do? >> it could. that is why we are looking at the metrics. if we see an uptick, if we spike or a surge that has the potential to overwhelm our health care system, then we will make the appropriate decision on an individual basis. we will probably look at locale or establishment, we will try and isolate to figure out what exactly happened on a small scale, but we are not going to close down the state. we can manage this. we will deal with this on an individual basis. >> neil: i'm wondering -- a lot of people do not live in alaska but certainly want to visit. this is the time of year they entertain cruises and everything. not a lot of cruises are operating now, and i'm wondering what the impact is going to be on your state. >> tremendous. you know, neil, there are going to be two parts to this pandemic. one will be the health issue. we are managing that. the other will be the economic issue, and that's really where we need to spend more of our attention. how are we going to get our economy back and moving forward? how will we look to the future? in alaska, tourism is huge. cruise ships are huge. as you know, oil is big. so it is hard in the state of alaska. we are trying to work as quickly and methodically as possible, using the best guidelines and data to get aspects of our tourism industry going, but there is no doubt that it will be difficult. >> neil: you mentioned oil. that's something that should be coming back from it flows. that is the lifeblood of your stay. but again, the delayed impact of that. you know, the underlying economy in your state, and a lot of people back to work. that has got to be a good thing. how long do you think this process takes? the great unwinding and bang for your buck for the economy in alaska that you would hope to get. >> i think it's going to take at least a month. to get back to where we were, it's probably going to take months. it could take a little longer. but i think as we watch this unfold, i think the impact to the economy is going to be deeper than most people think. the underlying fundamentals, we are going to build upon that. we are going to look to the future. we are going to come out of this stronger. alaska always does after earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. we always come out of these catastrophe stronger, but it's going to take a little while. >> neil: no, you always do. i was just thinking -- you have overcome it. you were ahead of this in dealing with the officials coming to the united states and elsewhere. that is still going to be a potential issue for you, right? obviously, relations are pretty sour between our two countries, but travel will resume, and i'm wondering, are you leery of th that? >> we went from an unknown pha phase. some were fearful. here in alaska, we understand to the best of our ability this virus and how it works, so we are anaphase and managing it and incorporating it into our daily lives. until we have enough antivirals on hand, there will be an increase in cases. we are going to manage that, but the devastation that we thought would come from the first surge of this virus has not materialized. that's a good thing. but the devastation to the economy, our social lives, we have to turn attention to that. because what people didn't understand, i believe, at first, is that the ramifications there could be just as devastating in terms of job loss, emotional and mental health issues. we have to address things overall, and that includes our economy. >> neil: very good. governor, i wish you well. you have a beautiful state. i visited many times, and it's just stunning. governor dunleavy, thank you. we have a lot more. another say that could follow alaska quickly. ohio might be. governor mike dewine will be with us tomorrow. his view about what would obviously make him fall it was going in alaska. in the meantime, looking at new york city right now. the small businesses that have had it, they see what going on around the country and alaska, and ohio. they say what about us? 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the new york city mayor, bill de blasio, dragging the shutdown out. particularly to you when he wants to do this. the first, second, maybe third week of june. they could be done entirely. congressman, what do you think of what the mayor is saying? this is still some weeks off. >> yet, my friend, thank you so much for having me. let's think about the small business owner right now. the guy who owns a shoe store, for instance. four months has seen the liquor store open, okay -- as if the liquor store has some ability to hypnotize covid before it comes into the store to stop it, but the shoe store doesn't. let's be sensible. the mayor's comments are coming off as if he is an elitist dilettante that doesn't understand the struggles of our small business owners. you know, we can do this responsibly, but we have to have that sense of urgency. around the moms and pops that have dedicated their lives to these businesses. i come from a long line of small business owners, and i understand, just as so many new yorkers do, that is not a 95. that is your entire life. they are watching their small businesses whether on the vine. we have got to do something. issue standards, distribute ppe and a massive way, and let's start to get this thing open. most small business owners are incredibly smart. especially in new york city. they understand that 25% occupancy rate, that's just the beginning. times are still going to be really difficult, but at least it's a start, and they are deserving, if nothing less. >> neil: you are a united states congressman, south you can weigh in and maybe try to influence the mayor, because it does seem to be circular to the guidelines we are hearing from near governor cuomo. what is he looking at that others are not? incidents? hospital risk, all dramatically down in the city and all the boroughs. so what is he basing this on? do you know? >> well, look. i am not going to say that we shouldn't be looking up science and we shouldn't be consulting metrics and trusted experts in this regard, but what i think he is now looking at, which is the critical thing -- we know he's looking at hospitalization and this and that, but what he is not looking at is the potential for a continued economic nuclear bomb to go off each and every weekend new york city as our small businesses, our mom and pops diet. at their customers right now get to go to target. their customers get to go to home depot. two large supermarkets, and they cannot go to the small businesses. it doesn't make sense. and all we are asking for, all they are asking for is some sense of guidance and some sense of urgency that gives them resources -- >> neil: they are not getting it from the mayor, congressman. >> now, they are not, and that's a problem. >> neil: some of them are already opening up, so i'm wondering, technically, they would be in violation of the mayor's orders and by extension, the governor's orders. for those who may feel tempted, i'm going to open up, allow sidewalk service, should they be penalized for doing that? >> look, my friend, i'm not going to come on your show and advocate for anyone to break the law or go against the mayor's guidance, but what i am coming on here to say is that this mayor's leadership at this point -- message is pitiful, and this city will be better off when he is no longer the mayor. this is an enormous disappointment, and our businesses are going to suffer. now, there are certain things, though, that the federal government can be doing as well. i came out saying that that president should be pushing ppe down to our small businesses. we have to extend that program i asked of the eight week deadline to 24 weeks, and we certainly have to get rid of this ridiculous 75/25 ratio. if you're a small business owner, your rent is sometimes 50% of your cost. we have to fix that so that they can stay open. >> neil: let me ask you this. the president and he was pushing that houses of worship open. i talked to a rabbi and a priest on this issue, saying that they will obviously honor reasonable capacity requirements, but then they come out with a statement saying we will continue to work closely with phase leaders to ensure that people can safely worship. but we will not take steps that will jeopardize new yorkers health. the fact of the matter is they have not been supporting large gatherings in churches. they have never been doing that, so obviously, they are going to continue to honor what they have always been doing, which is not what the president so they should be doing. should you and do you have problems with any people of faith, any house of worship, once again, returning to those places of faith, even honoring social distancing and other guidelines that we have seen in other states? >> absolutely. look. you look back three months or so, the president's i actually correctly noted that opening and closing should be decisions made according to decisions by governors. this is a decision that cannot be made on a national basis and has to be made in partnership with our faith-based leaders. looking at these organizations in new york city, i think there is an overarching consensus that we are not yet at the point where we can begin to open, but what we should start to do is tell people when it will happen. i remember back to when i was an army ranger school. the worst thing they can ever do to you was not tell you when it was going to end. that was what i feared more than anything else. and that is the place that most new yorkers are in right now. they've been doing the right thing. they have saved lives. now they have to be told when times can get back. >> neil: congressman, be safe, be well. be healthy. >> absolutely. >> neil: all right. be well. in the meantime here, we are waiting on mary bill de blasio to explain this. we will let you know what comes of that. beaches are starting to open up. northeast here in new york and new jersey, but there's plenty of restrictions. i say you go buy a swimming pool right now. because a lot of people are, and it's making a big splash. i recommend applying topical relievers first. salonpas lidocaine patch blocks pain receptors for effective, non-addictive relief. salonpas lidocaine. patch, roll-on or cream. hisamitsu. we're returning $2 billion dollars to our auto policyholders through may 31st. because now, more than ever, being a good neighbor means everything. like a good neighbor, state farm is there. you're on it. exercising often and eating healthy? 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have you ever considered buying a pool? apparently, people have because there has been a huge surge in these sales. he joins us out of orlando park, illinois. >> you are looking alive at -- well, i'm surrounded by pools, and i may not be for long, neil, because the aboveground pool, not now. you can get these right away. american sale is the company. you've been in business 60 yea years. you are socially distant with your customers. but it's booming. >> it's booming. people want to be home, and they are getting their patios ready. >> there's all sorts of different sizes. this is sort of a medium-size one here. if you look off to the left, maybe you see one of the larger aboveground pools, and these can go and in the space of a day, once you get it. they are fairly easy to set up. i tell you, right now, people are nesting at home. they are not going on vacation. we go nope. they are looking for things at home, and finding things that they really enjoy. >> inground pools too. joe is climbing the ladder up there to show you and inground pool. >> yep. those are a big project. this take a long time to get done. >> hey, can you come over here? he's killing me. i know we've got to leave, but neil, i want to leave you a something i think is very cool. it's called an endless pool. you can exercise in it. i will leave you with a picture of that. this is something you might be interested in. >> neil: unless it has a beer holder, no. all right, thank you. have fun. but obviously, -- that is getting all wet. all right. basic cable. we will have more. and the peace of mind of knowing that essentials like prescriptions are on their way. every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will. with one protein feels like. what getting fueled with three energy packed proteins feels like. meat! cheese! and nuts! p3. because 3 is better than 1 i came across sofi and it was the best decision of my life. we're getting a super competitive interest rate on our money. we're able to invest through the same exact platform. i got approved for a loan and it was a game-changer. truly sofi, thank you for helping me prepare for whatever the future has in store. (♪) >> neil: the beaches are open and new jersey, so in seaside heights, even with the rain, they that. unfortunately, businesses aren't so lucky. they are in the same pickle that they have been in. jessica, you still can't open, can you? >> no. it has been very difficult for us to even sleep at night because it's been 24 years i have been building this business, and my staff and i, we are really suffering. and it has been ten weeks, and it is too long. it's time for the american people to be able to choose what business and where they want to frequent. >> neil: you know, when you hear all the news about beaches, it seems like everyone but people like you have the same opportunity. that must get you furious. >> oh, it's a dagger. it's a dagger right inside to hear that the public bathrooms are open, yet i can't have one or two clients in at a time here they are safe and effective ways that we can open slowly and in stages. our margins are already small across the industry have hair salons and stylus, for that matter. and it's going to be a very, very difficult road to be able to climb back up that mountain that i have already had to conquer. i've been doing this for 24 years. and now it is like i have to start all over again. i've been feeling very ignored. our industry has been ignored, and there could definitely be ways to safely open. i think that we are going to be part of the healing process for our community. >> neil: well, no doubt. people want haircuts. they want any of that. but you know, you can't do that, and i'm sure that you look at this woman in texas who opened when she couldn't -- she was put in jail. do you ever feel tempted when you see issues like that, in the same situation, wanted to stay open, they kept shutting him down. he opened up the next day. but obviously, you have to deal with the hassles of paying fines and everything else. so what do you do in the meantime? >> i'm really hoping and praying that the governor will give us his executive blessing and that we will be able to open in the next couple of days. that's what i would like. >> neil: but i don't hear signs of that. you might be more attuned to this than i am. the counter seems to be sticking to this timetable that might put off something like yours for a while. in new york city, mary bill de blasio is putting things off weeks. you can't afford that, right? >> we can't afford that, no. and even when we go back, the capacity that we are going to be allowed to be added is almost going to be -- it is going to be so difficult to keep all ben an keep going as it is. i don't know what that's going to look like. i need to roll up my sleeves and of course get back in there. i haven't worked my whole life to lose everything. we all have families. we all have families, and a lot of us are bringing home, you know, money, and this is our best and our life, to be able to help eric stylus have their careers. it's a tragedy all around for this country, and we need to get small businesses back open, up and running. we have protocols in place that can, you know, have us open safely. >> neil: now, i know. i know it is going to be tough, but it's better than nothing. we will watch very, very closely. jessica, hang in there. i am sure it is going to work out. absolutely sure. now more than ever, you need technology you can rely on. and people you can rely on. i'm a dell technologies advisor. me too. me too. me too. and if you're a small business, we're with you. we are with you. we're with you. we want to help. so we'll be right here. at home. answering your calls. providing support. and standing by you every step of the way. bye bye. when bugs move in we stress out and spray. well, we used to. new ortho home defense max indoor insect barrier kills and prevents bugs for up to a year without odors, stains or fuss. new ortho home defense max. bugs gone. stress gone. >> neil: the country is coming back and we are coming back tomorrow live. 10:00 a.m. eastern. we have the ohio governor mike dewine. the $1.2 million u.s. commitment to find a voice on vaccine. all that tomorrow. here is "the five." ♪ >> dana: hello, everyone. i am dana perino with greg gutfeld, geraldo rivera, dan bongino, and katie pavlich. it's 5:00 in new york city and this is "the five." joe biden walking back controversial comments he made about undecided african-american voters they came during an interview with charlemagne the god. the former vice president was touting his record when he said this. >> that's our time. >> you
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