Sporadic for you, but not for a lot of other people. I agree, mr. President. Absolutely. Ive heard the opposite. A look at what the president does and does not want to hear. Good morning. Welcome to morning joe. Thursday, may 7th. Along with joe who is he . What planet is he from . We has a nurse in the white house, corrects a nurse. It has been sporadic. He saw the New York Post headlines, nurses having to wear garbage bags. Yes, mr. President , it was sporadic. Its been sporadic from the beginning. I havent said this yet on the show yet, but on february 22nd, you said it was just one person coming in from china. I havent heard that. Yeah, he said that. I dont like to repeat myself, so im sure i havent said it. Talk about sporadic. Saying that, talking about this big ban. I dont know if you knew this. 430,000 people came in from china to the United States from the beginning of this pandemic. 40,000 what . Even after his toothless ban. Leadership. To attack a nurse for telling the truth, that everybody on the planet knows is the truth. Willie, that just seems to be par for the course. It does. It has gotten better with ppe in places like new york city. Think of the context of that, where you had a nurse who works at a public clinic in new orleans, head of a Nurse Organization on National Nurses day, making an obvious point about ppe and the shortages across the country, and the president barks at her after shes told the story of watching a fourdayold patient die, and talk about the horrors of being in these icus and ers and treating these patients. Again, its the totally missing empathy gene, number one. Number two, the welcome of facts and the desire to spin this story, to spin his way out of what has been a disastrous response. Yes. It looks terrible. It is like in the david muir interview, when david muir basically talks about how were going to be facing Great Depression style Economic Hardship, and americans are going to be in pain. He asks the president , how bad is it going to be . Donald trump says, well, it is what it is. He doesnt even think about other people being hurt. He thinks about how a great deprecipitatid depression is going to impact him personally. No empathy whatsoever. Its just, like, i mean, i think one of the most incredible moments, showing how little empathy this president has. Again, a guy who said it was one person coming in from china on february 22nd, then itd be gone. The end of february, saying there was only 11 people coming in. Itd be gone. Then it was 15 people, and it was going to be gone. What a great job he was doing. Then he starts talking about disinfectants. I mean, this is a guy thats done such a terrible job. Youd think hed learn from it and become empathetic. Remember when Peter Alexander asked, what do you say to americans . That was a softball. It was, heres your chance to share your feelings with the American People and bond with them over what were getting through together. What did he say . He started screaming at him. Started yelling at him, saying, youre fake news. Youre terrible. Youre this, youre that. All because he was asked to empathize with americans who were hurting, who are suffering, and who are dying. You cant brand death differently. We saw it again in that clip. Along with joe, willie, and me, we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press, jonathan lemire. Nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie, d. C. Sunday nights on msnbc, kasie hunt. Good to have you on board. One day after suggesting the White House Coronavirus task force should start winding down, President Trump is reversing course. In a series of tweets yesterday, the president said, the task force will continue on indefinitely. Its focus on safety and opening up our country again. It may add or subtract people to it, as appropriate. The task force will be focused on vaccines and therapeutics. Heres what the president told reporters about his change of plans. Can you explain the change between what you said yesterday, about winding down the task force, and now saying youre keeping it . Yeah. It is different from what you said yesterday. I guess if you think, were always winding it down. It is a question of what the end point is. But i think it is a change, a little bit. I thought we could wind it down sooner. But i had no idea how popular the task force is, until actually yesterday, when i started talking about winding it down. I get calls from respected people, saying, i think itd be better to keep it going. Its done such a good job. Jonathan lemire, i mean, does he know that when you talk about shutting down a Task Force One day, and 24 hours later, you say people called him, that he is thinking and flying off the seat of his pants . Does he know he is exposing himself by the day, as to not being fully connected with the gravity of this problem . Is anyone helping him . This will come as a great surprise, guys, but the president reacts to Media Coverage and to outside forces when it comes to decisions. Thats what we saw here. He had there was no coordinated effort, per se, but the white house had had discussions in the last few weeks about gbeginning to wind down the task force, as it was going to pivot more toward the economy, moving reopening parts of the nation, and wanting to deempathize, publicly, some of the Health Crisis response. Weve seen the briefings go away. Although a lot of that, of course, was because the president s advisors realized it was damaging him politically. It was an effort not to make dr. Birx and dr. Fauci the public faces anymore. Instead, it was an attempt to change the conversation, to be more about the nation reopening and its economy. When the Vice President said the other day in a meeting that the task force was going to be starting to wind down by the end of may or early june, and the president himself reiterated that on his trip to arizona, there was some real blowback from Business Leaders, Congressional Republicans. The president does listen to them from time to time, calling the white house late at night. Also the Media Coverage, it was a major story yesterday on this show and others. We know the president watches. He responds to that. He has decided to bring it back. A note of caution, the tenor here is still going to change. The briefings are not expected to return. We have the White House Press secretary yesterday. We havent seen dr. Fauci or dr. Birx from the podium at the white house for some time. They are still going to be part of this, but the president and his team want them to be less visible for the public. They want the focus, even as cases are going up across the country, even as cases outside new york continue to rise, they want the focus to be the nation trying to get back to work, reopening, thinking it is more politically advantageous for the president. As jonathan says, if you listen to the president s comments yesterday, he said, fine, ill keep the task force around, but he was clear it is focusing to reopening the economy, not mitigating the pandemic, which is still with us and growing, which is important to point out. He wants to look at opening the economy. That instinct will be fed at 8 30 this morning eastern time, when we get our latest unemployment numbers. Its become a dreaded time of the week every thursday. Well bet tget the month of apr unemployment. Retail Sales Numbers were bad. All this will add to the pressure the president feels to reopen the economy and insist dp governors help them do that. Willie, it seemed he declared himself a wartime president against this virus, and now he is trying to declare victory and go home. The facts that americans across the country are living out every day dont bear that out yet. I dont know how many times weve been over this, but the reality still remains that if you want to pivot to the, you know, trying to clean up the economic damage, you know, there are so many questions still about where we are on testing. I mean, is the president s promise from months ago that if you want a test, you can get a test true . Not from what im hearing when i talk to people across the country, and others on capitol hill. You talk to members of congress. Theyre still saying many of their constituents cannot get tests. If they cant get tests, we cant find the cases. People arent going to feel safe going out. That fundamental reality is still the case. Obviously, the economic pain of this is so dramatic and intense, no one is disputing that at all. Again, for the reopening to actually work, and im hearing this from members of congress, frankly, on both sides of the aisle, there is an acknowledgment that were not where we need to be to start solving that problem. People dont have faith yet that it is safe to do it. Yeah. The testing, again, its something that business operators, ceos, its something that members on both sides, mika, have been talking about for such a long time. The importance to ramp up testing. The president has ignored them. Hes refused to use the dpa. Instead of holding press conferences, talking about testing, he talks about bleaching and asks dr. Birx if they can inject disinfectants. Whether they can put in lights. Instead of talking about testing, this is a president who contradicts dr. Fauci and says, oh, this may not come back in the fall. Dr. Fauci is saying, yes, it is definitely coming back in the fall. We talked about this sporadic performance. How horrible and weak his socalled ban was from china. February 22nd, saying this was going to be one person coming in from china. Dont worry about it. For months, saying you have nothing to worry about. For months, saying it was going oiw away in april. 75,000 people dead. This is something John Heilemann and i talk about all the time, there are consequences to this horrid leadership. You go, well, donald trump is never held to account. Yes, he is. He is being held to account not for a pandemic coming, but how horrid his response has been in january, february, march, and april, and, yes, even in may. People arent blind. They see who is doing the good work and who is doing a terrible job. Financial times just broke over polls. 71 of americans, likely voters, 71 of likely voters say they trust their governor to make the right decision more than donald trump on when to reopen government. The president s comments have been dangerous, and people know this. Yeah. 71 . 34 , only 34 , mika, of likely voters say that they are better off today economically than they were when donald trump first took office. Thats going to change. That number is going to keep getting worse. Donald trumps problem is and, donald, ive been trying to tell you this from the beginning. Sorry to keep repeating myself, but maybe one day youll listen and get it right. This is a health care crisis. You take care of the health care crisis, you take care of the economic crisis. You take care of the economic crisis, then you will take care of your political crisis. Youre being a day trader, as youve been your entire life. Youre worried about the next ten minute, as Maggie Haberman said. Always trying to survive the next ten minutes. Never thinking ahead. Youre incapable. You need to think ahead here, okay . You need to understand that if you rush people to reopen their businesses, if you keep lying to americans, how things are going to get better, just like you lied to americans, saying it was only one person and it was going to go away in january, and then in february you said it was 11 people and it was going to go away. In march, you said itd go away magically in april. You were looking forward to april. Talked to africanamerican leaders and told them it was going to be like magic, and it was going to disappear. You Start Talking to dr. Birx. Im not a doctor, dr. Birx, but you ought to look into disinfectants and injecting them. So embarrassed. Putting lights into peoples bodies, to see if that beats the virus. Continuing to lie. The vaccine was going to be ready soon. Said that back in anyone can have a test. In march. Anyone who wants a test can have a test. March 6th, anybody who wants a test can get a test. These are the sort of things that shatter their confidence in you. I will say it again, follow your own white house guidelines for reopening america. The ones that dr. Fauci and dr. Birx put out. The ones that you announced. The one that jared supported. Follow those guidelines, and everything will be okay. But you cant do that. Mika, because he hasnt had any discipline whatsoever, because he cant even follow the white houses own guidelines, the death toll will continue to rise. Thats what doctors say. And, beyond that, his poll numbers will continue to collapse. Well, he trails joe biden by nine points. Of course he does. In a new Monmouth University poll. If the election were held today, biden would win 50 of voters support, up two points since last month. Trump would receive 41 , down three. Bidens support includes 56 of women. 20point lead over donald trump, who hits at 36 among that demographic. Among men, trump is up two points, 46 to 44 . Willie, weve been seeing over the past several years, rolling numbers that have surprised political analysts. First, women, suburban women, breaking away from donald trump quickly in 2017. A year ago, we started seeing polling shows that workingclass women also breaking against donald trump. Making things you know, people that supported him in the past. Now, in this poll, donald trump is within the margin of error among men voters with joe biden. That gender gap, among men, is completely erased because of his poor leadership. Yeah. As shocking as that number among women is, a 20point spread, which would be fatal if it lasted through six months into election day, thats a stunning number. But the men number, thats where donald trump dominated, of course, hillary clinton. It is why he won. Kasie hunt, you look at those numbers and, again, it is a national poll, we should first say. This isnt how we conduct our elections. It is six months out. But donald trump has to know that his presentation every day up in those briefings, and his performance as president , his trustworthiness, his unfav unfavorability in this poll and others, are going with the economic numbers hes trying to undo by sending people back to work, would spell doom if they lasted until november. This gender gap, if it persists in this way, and if this is actually how voters are if people are still telling pollsters the truth sometimes they say people arent willing to say they support the president. It was a phenomenon in 2016. But this gender gap is going to make, if it holds and turns out to be real, is going to make 2018, you know, pale in comparison to what it could look like in 2020. Suburban women went to the polls and overwhelmingly sent a message to washington, that they wanted a different style, a different kind of leadership from their leaders. You know, we read a lot of anecdotal stories and reports about how the coronavirus pandemic is falling disproportionately on women. You see this a little bit in the polling, as well, when you look at how concerned and worried people are about how this impacts their lives. Theyre the ones, by and large, shouldering the burden of homeschooling their children. Theyre lysoling the food when it comes in the door. Theyre thinking day in and day out about what does this mean for my family . Thats not to say, obviously, that men arent playing that role. Of course they are. But when you ask broad swaths of the public, a lot of women will say, look, this is falling on me. I am really worried about what is going on here. I think that contributes and plays a role in setting up a dynamic that has existed and, if anything, its making it worse for President Trump. Jonathan lemire, the numbers, weve seen the numbers just collapse over the past month or so. They continue to collapse in just about every area nationally, with swing states. We saw the poll among likely voters. People just dont trust donald trump anymore when it comes to handling this pandemic, the greatest crisis since world war ii. What is the latest that youve heard from the campaign . I know that Donald Trumps very angry at Brad Parscale because hes made millions off of him and feels like parscale hasnt done anything. He cant anything but gotten rich off donald trump, after theyve spent millions and millions of dollars online, and trumps numbers keep collapsing. Blaming your Campaign Manager for getti inting rich off after might make donald trump feel good, but it is not going to help him at all. After all, whether he likes it or not, the buck stops with donald trump. Whats the campaign saying now . Whats the Campaign Thinking now . What are whats their next move . Theyre getting beaten by a guy in the basement. Thats what the president has said. During his angry outburst at Brad Parscale that we reported a couple weeks back, he declared he wouldnt lose to joe biden, made reference to the basement and mixed in colorful language i cant use here. There is real alarm from the campaign in all the polls on a couple fronts. You hit on one, kasie and willie and so on, with women. They know women broke away from him significantly in 2017 2018. There was going to be an effort to try to reengage in the first with women in the first months of this year. The whole campaign has been and their strategy has been scrambled by this pandemic. They wanted to spend the first few months trying to define joe biden, trying to use their significant financial advantage to do what the obama folks did in the spring of 2012, bludgeon him with ads and a negative definition from which he couldnt recover. That cant happen because of the pandemic. They were meant to have in roads with women, also put on pause because of the pandemic. Other groups, there is an effort from the Trump Campaign, they were devoting a lot of resources to try to win some minority support, particularly among africanamerican men. There was going to be a real push there. They thought they could g