Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Right now, right this moment, there are americans who are alive and who are healthy who will be dead by the fall. And there are americans who already died who did not have, all because of the failures of our government and more specifically the president of the United States. There is no other conclusion you can reach at this point. We have lost every last charitable explanation for failures, that the disease itself is challenging, which it is, that its hard to fight, which it is, that its torn through all different kinds of cultures with all different kinds of cultures and governments and institutions. There is nothing left to say but that donald trump has gotten americans killed and will get even more americans killed in unfathomable numbers. When the pandemic started, i warned on this show, as did everyone we talked to, that the president could not just wish the virus away as much as he wanted to or tried to. Now, the virus that were talking about having to do, you know, a lot of people think that goes away in april with the heat. Because of all weve done, the risk to the American People remains very low. When you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. Its going to disappear. One day it is like a miracle. It will disappear. We have to be calm. It will go away. That was inexcusable, egregious, impossibly stupid and it led to the horrible response we had to this virus. But to do it again almost word for word, action for action, 130,000 deaths later, well, thats horrific. I think at some point thats going to sort of just disappear, i hope. You still believe so . I do. I do. Sure, at some point. And i think we will have a vaccine at some point, too. That was today. That was july 1st, 2020. When i saw it reported, i was absolutely positive it was an old clip. As i said before, the president does not learn, and his incompetence and his negligence is getting americans killed, which is why every day that goes by without his resignation americans health, safety and lives are increasingly threatened. But it is not just him, Vice President mike pence, the head of the Coronavirus Task force, has been basically doing the same thing. Two weeks ago, as the virus was spreading across the country, raging through the sun belt, he was bragging about how there was no second wave, which to be fair, technically there still isnt because we never got out of the first wave, and bragging about how daily new cases had stabilized at 20,000. This was the number. Hey, look, 20,000, everybody. And that the media was to blame for fear mongering and trying to scare the American People. And so we are now at the worst Case Scenario. The president got tired of lockdowns and he pressured and bullied governors to reopen prematurely against his own cdc guidelines because he wanted people to get out there like warriors to get the economy restarted so that he could be reelected. But just like we warned night after night, if you do not take the virus seriously, then you run the risk of neither defeating the pandemic, nor getting the economy back. And that is precisely what is happening right now. The virus is spreading all over the country, particularly moving into the heart of politically conservative regions with states the president won in 2016 accounting for 75 of the new cases. Arizona right now looks like it has a chance of rivaling new york. The numbers there are shocking. They reported a record nearly 5,000 new cases in the last 24 hours with over 24 of the tests coming back positive. They also saw a record 88 new deaths, and that is deeply disturbing and frightening, especially since we have learned some very costly lessons about protecting vulnerable populations at this point in the pandemic, and longterm care facilities should have better policie policies. And the median age is, in fact, younger, and there has been a question about whether we could see this spike in cases and not see fatalities go up. And, yet, everyone i have talked to on this program, every Public Health expert and epidemiologist and doctor said thats not going to happen and now we are seeing it not happen. But its not just arizona. Texas hit over 8,000 today setting another record, more than double the numbers they were seeing two weeks ago. Hospitalizations jumped to nearly 7,000. Florida added 6,500 cases while ron desantis said the state would not be going back on reopening. Cases are increasing in 38 states, plus puerto rico. There are literally only three states where cases are decreasing. And guess what is happening . People are pulling back. California is closing bars and stopping Indoor Dining in 19 counties. Texas and florida already reclosed bars. New york postponed the return of Indoor Dining indefinitely today, and who could blame them . Although, thats terrible for all the people that have jobs in those places. And then Economic Activity pulls back. The economy started, quote, moving backwards as rising infection fears spooked customers. Yeah, no kidding. New job posting fell in june. Credit and debit card spending declined. We saw foot traffic to retailers and other businesses decline in large cities in Southern States where the infections have spiked. We are in the midst of an ongoing, deepening impending disaster. We elected donald trump to pilot the american plane and he has flown us straight into a mountain. In an incredibly damning new piece, an after crash review of the coronavirus response, making the case there are so many different places where we failed. And james falos joins me now. I want to start, james, with the conceit of the piece, which is comparing what has happened in this country and what is happening every day to a plane crash and to a disaster on that magnitude with so many points of failure, which is the structure for the piece. Why use that metaphor, that comparison . The reason i make that comparison is that there were obvious differences between dealing with the pandemic and managing an air travel system. There is some surprising similarities, starting with the fact that air travel is inherently extremely dangerous. We dont recognize that now. We dont Pay Attention to it because its become so safe over the last year when travel was normal about two million americans got on airplanes every day and they all got off safely. Its become a safe system because it has taken a systemic approach from learning from its failures, trying to think carefully about the accident train and trying to break it at each point along the way. So this careful learning process is epitomized by the ntsb report, whenever there is a disaster. So i was trying to apply that ntsb mentality to what the u. S. History of the last few months. And one of the things you isolate here is that there were plans in place that people you know, we know this. But you quote, i mean quote after quote of these plans about precisely what would happen, about the checklist that you should have. I mean, it was like there is a flight plan and a flight checklist and it was handed over and it was just completely and utterly discarded and continues to be to this day. I think the fact that surprised me that maybe most important in this polarized political era is much en sync is george w. Bush administration and the Barack Administration were in thinking about exactly how to detect, prepare for and contain a pandemic if it occurred and there was a very eloquent and detailed play list or play book set out by the bush team in 2005. I have a link to it online in my piece, very similar to the one from the Obama Administration. First they said new pandemics are inevitable because we know that with disruption of animal habitats, there is going to be some new virus that will occur. They need to be contained where they start because if they dont, the ripple effects on the economy, on civil society, on everything could be just profound. And, so, they had they said, how do you judge air travel coming into the country. How would you get in touch with state departments of health . And it just makes you cry to read these similar documents from 2005 with the Bush Administration and from late in the Obama Administration which are so similar to each other, so similar to our current reality and so totally ignored by the current administration. There are even warnings about lifting restrictions too early and basically having a kind of worst Case Scenario in which neither the economy comes back and the virus comes back. I mean, this is people writing 15 years ago peering into the future and saying, dont do this thing that we have now made policy in states across the country. Yes, because what is holding back the economy now is not the restrictions that governors and mayors have put on and the federal government. It is the fear of the virus and people dont want to get sick. That, again, was entirely foretold. In the aviation parallel, i talked about how in the movie su sully, they were going through the checklist as their plane lost its engines and was being glided into the hudson river. And the idea was it this kind of foreseeing emergencies could make you safe and there was just complete foreknowledge of everything were experiencing now by the george w. Bush team and the barack obama team. It was not a partisan issue. It was not their personalities. It was science which was then just tossed out. There is, of course, the single point of failure, which is the pilot in this case. There is nothing you can do systematically. If you put me behind to pilot an airplane right now, things would do poorly and there is no system you could design to make it work. But on the political aftere aftereffects, i thought this reporting of trump reporters that abandoned him was interesting. There is a segment in the population that notices coronavirus also changed the mind of ariel oakley, 29. With coronavirus even just watching the press conferences, having him come out and say its all fake. I have family that passed away from it. They cannot pretend its not there. Yes. And, you know, when unemployment was when there were layoffs because of trade sanctions or farmers were losing markets because of the trade embargoes that the Trump Administration was applying, people could explain some of those things even though the real world effects were obvious to them. Something about having family members and neighbors actually die and the way that your life changes because the pandemic goes from being something thats a political talking point to a reality of life across the country, that may be the circumstance which changes politics from being who are you most resentful about, which has been the dynamic for the past decade, to who is going to save your life and improve the economy, save your life and do what the nation needs done. James, the piece is fantastic. I have been thinking about and reading about this for months, and it still somehow felt new and fresh to me. Thank you so much. Thank you, chris. Joining me now for more on the response to the growing covid outbreaks, former acting director of the cdc under president obama. I want to start with something that the Principal Deputy at the cdc said, and i think its interesting that with the president losing basically getting bored of the virus that we have more communication with those folks. She said the u. S. Has way too much virus to control pandemic as cases surge across the country. When you look at the numbers and the trajectory in these states, what should we be doing . What should they be doing . What should the cdc be doing . Can the fire be put out at this point . Yeah. James has really nailed it. There has been planning going on for decades by Public Health about how to respond to a pandemic. And Public Health knows how to do this. Hes one of the most Brilliant Health leaders i have ever met. And if we put Public Health back in the drivers seat and let Public Health lead, we can get this under control. You know, europe has gotten this under control, and we can do the same. Its going to take rolling back some of the openings that were put in place. But like, okay, first of all, i mean, like, if you were parachuted in to arizona right now and you were given the reins and said whatever you too come up with, were going to do here in arizona, what would you do . What could you do . Like right now. Yeah. If you look at new york and new jersey that were out of control several months ago, the states went into the kind of lockdown that we have been talking about that other places have been in that were slowly emerging from in this region. So in an area where the cases are rising at such a dramatic rate, where your Health Care System is on the verge of getting overwhelming, where you cant take care of patients who have covid, let alone those that dont have covid. Then you have to put on those controls. But you really want to get data. You want data so you are able to fine tune this better than we were the first time, so that areas where the numbers are going down or where theyre steady dont have to increase the kinds of control measures that we all were under several months ago. But in cities that are seeing these kinds of rises in rates, yeah, you have to do that because you cant switch to a Public Health model of identifying cases and case tracking and then assuring people have isolation quarantine when you are seeing 4,000, 5,000 cases a day. It is absolutely impossible. If you drive the numbers down to a hundred, then thats manageable. I mean, thats the problem, right . Is that, you know, i can put out a fire in a waste paper basket with a fire extinguisher by myself. I cant walk into a burning high rise with a fire extinguisher and put it out. Right now it seems there is a mismatch in these states, particularly arizona which is the most concerning, between the available tools of Public Health short of mass lockdown and the scale of the problem unless were missing something or unless there is some natural ark to it that its going to follow. No. If you look at countries that have been successful, there was a major lockdown at the beginning to drive the number of cases that were occurring each day down to a number that could be managed by regular Public Health approaches. You know, if you look at hawaii for instance, where the numbers are really low, theyre able to keep this under control by case investigation, by contact tracing, by isolation and quarantine. Right. But, chris, i think there is an aspect of this thats even worse than we have been talking about. In these states where the numbers are really high, there are communities where its even worse, where the individuals dont have the choice about staying home, where people have to go to work to put food on the table to avoid eviction, you know, and it is those to senses workers who i think are suffering but we dont even have the data or information to show us exactly where thats happen so action can be taken. Final question maybe on a slightly more optimistic note. There is news today from pfizer and biotech about a Covid Vaccine that showed some positive results. I think there is nine different vaccines being pursued across the world. How hopeful are you at this collective underprize that is being taken right now . I dont want to bring you down. Okay. Im excited there is a lot of work going on here. This was 45 people in the study. Its early. I think the results are more about stock price than they are about science. We have to come together as a nation and recognize that, you know, when youre approaching a pandemic, it is not like an election where the approach that gets the most votes wins. This is something where we have to come together as a nation and all be on the same page, where politicians have to support Public Health in approaching this with Public Health science so we can truly get it under control, and i think we can do that. Dr. Richard besser, thank you for that unvarnished look at all this. Still to come, new reporting about russia paying taliban fighters to kill american soldiers. New york times correspondent has the latest. She joins me next. Rators, rators, microwaves, gas ranges and grills. And if youre looking for. Grilled Cheese sizzles timer chimes swithout even on yoleaving your house. Just keep your phone and switch to xfinity mobile. You can get it by ordering a free sim card online. Once you activate, youll only have to pay for the data you need starting at just 15 a month. There are no term contracts, no activation fees, and no credit check on the first two lines. Get a 50 prepaid card when you switch. 5g is now included with all new data options. Switch and save hundreds. Xfinity mobile. A pretty good rule of thumb in the trump era is if the president calls something a hoax, its true. He called the u. S. Intelligence about russian criminal sabotage a hoax. He called intel reports of russia attempting to sabotage the upcoming election a hoax. He even cast criticism of his response to the coronavirus a democratic hoax. Of course the president is calling this incredibly damning reporting about russia paying a bounty for the killing of u. S. Troops in afghanistan and the u. S. Knowing about it a hoax as well as his administration is Briefing Congress about the details. Today the National Security adviser discussed how he shared this intel with our allies because it was so serious. He also said that the pentagon took protective measures to look after our troops in afghanistan. Meanwhile, as this was happening, donald trump kept making nice with vladimir putin, speaking with him at least five times. The white house tries to play this down saying, it wasnt that serious. Nobody read it to the president so how could he have known . But every day there is a new report that makes the story more credible. Large financial transferring between russia and the taliban. To explain why thats so important, i want to tur