President of the United States thought the Confederate Flag was okay. That cant be overstated. She didnt touch that issue, didnt come out and denounce it. And another tweet saw the president weigh in about the nicknames of washingtons football team, the cleveland inians in baseball and took a shot at senator Elizabeth Warren while doing so. This is a fight the president wants, even though a lot of people around him and most people in his own party dont. As you say his chief of staff mark meadows was on Morning Television moments before the tweet of Bubba Wallace saying were looking at the economy, china and joe biden. Then comes the tweet. Well dig deeper into everything the president was saying yesterday but more importantly cases of the coronavirus continue to surge nationwide. So far the United States has confirmed nearly 3 million cases, at least 131,000 deaths. The seven day averages in a dozen states have hit new highs with the u. S. Adding nearly 300,000 cases in the first week of july. Fears are growing over the rising number of hospitalizations across states, like florida, texas and arizona, hospitals are reporting theyre at capacity or almost there. Yesterday morning arizona announced 89 of the states icu beds are full. Dr. Fauci warned that the United States is still experiencing the first wave of this pandemic, he spoke yesterday during a live stream interview with the director of the National Institutes of health. The current state is really not good in the sense that, as you know, we have been in a situation where were averaging about 20,000 new cases a day, two days ago it was at 57,500 so within a period of a week and a half weve almost doubled the number of cases. So in answer to your first question, we are still knee deep in the first wave of this. And i would say this would not be considered a wave. It was a surge or resurgence of infections superimposed upon a baseline that never got down to where we wanted to go. Lets bring in dr. Vin gupta, a pulmonologist who has treated critically ill coronavirus patients in Washington State and also a nbc news contributor. This is something that dr. Fauci has been saying for a long time, this is not a second wave, it didnt go away and now comes back. This is the way he laid it out, the way dr. Birx laid it out, the way youve been telling us its going to take place for about three or four months now. Where are we now in the phases of this pandemic . Morning, willie. Always good to see you. Hospitalizations are rising at a concerning rate nationwide. So were seeing models from the cdc website were from 1,000 to 15,000 new hospitalizations every single day by the end of this month. Thats deeply concerning. What im really concerned about are my friends and colleagues in arizona who are fighting in icus to keep patients alive without the support of military or National Guard forces to bolster icu capacity. At least the governor has activated the National Guard in some degree. In texas and florida florida and georgia specifically youve seen the National Guard activated to quell protest but not bolster icu capabilities. Were dealing with a surge here in Washington State because of eastern washington, some of the native american tribes, its not easy to say we need more dialysis nurses, more icu docs and nurses. You cant do that. You need to plan ahead. Were not seeing that especially in states like florida and texas and people are going to die. Dr. Gupta, the president as you know and others have touted the low death rate in this country. If you look at it, the deaths are down in terms of the pace they have been accelerated over the past few months. We had the doctor on yesterday at this time saying deaths were a lagging indicator but were learning that doctors like you have learned how to treat coronavirus patients better. What do you read into the death rate in this country . I appreciate that, willie. As was mentioned, in march i didnt know how to save a patients life on a ventilator with covid19 as well as i do now, as well as my colleagues do now. I know if youre young if youre old, you come in and need a vent, you probably need to be on a blood thinner, i probably need to give you steroids at high dozes. I didnt know that a few months ago and then you need to be put on your belly, we call it prone position. These are interventions that have allowed us to save more lives amongst those critically ill. So yes, treatments are better. We know with testing were testing and finding more individuals are younger. Were seeing the median age of individuals drop from 65 to 35 in florida. That means you still see people end up in the icu, whether youre young or old but theyre more likely to survive covid19. Doesnt mean theyre going to have harmful effects of it. Ive seen people as young as 20 have strokes. So the president s messaging on harmful, versus harmless, deeply damaging to the cause here. Were seeing deaths happening likely from infections that occurred a month ago. Its the case that some individuals come down with covid19 and then immediately die. But majority of cases youre seeing it takes a while. I have patients that are on ventilators for 45 days before they present one way or the other, either theyre going to make it or not. So that lagging indicator piece is also critical. Psychologically i think as you and i have discussed a lot of people in the country saw the crisis in the beginning in march and april in new york city, the explosion of cases, deaths, the overrun of icus and Emergency Rooms and saw the numbers come down and perhaps were lulled into a false sense of security. Where are we now in terms of states that have rolled back . Who have said were going to open our businesses and now florida, arizona, texas, georgia, tennessee are saying we need to pull back a little bit . Where do you want us to be in terms of those kind of regulations . Should we have mandated masking in america, for example . What should the country be doing to stem the outbreak were seeing right now . Ideally the president should be messaging right now, but every governor should be enforcing masks. Im worried if we say lets do a National Mandate on masks, whos going to enforce it . The lone Security Guard . Its a dangerous situation because masks have become political. We need enforcement. Something like if you dont wear it youre going to be fined, like indoor smoking thats controlled peoples behavior, thats number one. I love what governor murphy and mayor de blasio have done, they stopped Indoor Dining. We know transmission rates increase 20 times relative to Indoor Dining. Just the lack of ventilation, the fact we think theres some degree of airborne transmission with covid19 in confined spaces. Every state, zip code in the country needs to rethink Indoor Dining for the time being. Again, im a reservist icu doc for the air force we get taught how to put up hospital capability quickly, Governor Desantis in florida, Governor Abbott in texas, you need to deploy any assets you have available up to and including your National Guard. President trump needs to stop politicizing deployment of the military and needs to think about utilizing military forces as well. Alicia menendez has a question for you, doctor. Dr. Gupta, when you and i started talking about this months ago, the thinking was we were going to see the numbers rise and then see them drop during the summer, rise again in the fall, which is why i keep coming back to something that dr. Fauci said in the live stream, a resurgence of infections superimposed on a baseline that never got down where we wanted it to go. What do the numbers were seeing now mean for the numbers we can expect to see in the fall. Good to see you. Unfortunately, i think there was a hope that because of warm weather and humidity that we would decrease transmission of covid19 that was the hope. What were seeing out of rio de janeiro, the southwest, warm weather isnt doing a thing unfortunately. You may have heard the infection rate epidemiologists like to talk about, get it below one we can do contact tracing, get back to test cases, we can get back to normal life, we never got there. Were seeing infection rates of three and higher in cities in texas and florida. Its not going to go away with the fall wave then we have to deal with flu. Im worried the fall resurgence is going to look like a catastrophe if we dont get testing on board. But i think well get great point of care testing, so it wont be cost prohibitive for School Districts employers. Theres new knowledge about immunity. Theres a different path way to immunity, called t cell immunity and theres great studies suggesting if you had a negative antibody but exposed to covid19 this other track of immunity in your body is kicking in this, so maybe theres greater underlying immunity to covid19 than we think. Im hoping thats the case to help safeguard us against a worse fall wave. Dr. Vin gupta, up early again with us this morning on the west coast to guide us through this. We appreciate it. Thanks so much. As the virus rages across the country, as you heard, President Trump is digging in on his campaign of racial resentment. After railing against the movements for social justice in two speeches over the fourth of july weekend yesterday he amplified that in two tweets asking when Bubba Wallace would apologize for the noose found in his garage, suggesting nascar made a bad decision banning the Confederate Flag. He referred to the coronavirus as the china virus. Suggested the increase in crime in new york and chicago are due to the citis immigrants. And accused sports teams of rethinking names of giving into political correctness. Robert costa posted this, many are eager to turn to biden and china, very little appetite for the continued focus on race but the president insists on driving his own message the adviser says. Now more specifically on the president s tweet asking if nascar driver Bubba Wallace has apologized to those who stood by his side after his team discovered a noose in his garage stall on june 21st, calling the incident a hoax. Nascar had notified wallace of the rope hanging in his stall and an fbi investigation then concluded no hate crime was committed. The noose found in the garage had been there since october of last year, long before the stall was assigned to Bubba Wallace. Wallace, who is the only fulltime black driver in nascars top racing series, led the push for the sport to ban the confederate symbols at its tracks and received a flood of support from his fellow drivers after the rope was found. In a statement yesterday nascar said it, quote, continues to stand tall with bubba. Wallace tweeted yesterday afternoon addressing, quote, to the next generation and little ones following my footsteps, quote, always deal with hate being thrown at you with love. Love over hate every day. Love should come naturally as people are taught to hate, even when its hate from the president of the United States. White House Press SecretaryKayleigh Mcenany was asked by reporters in the Briefing Room about President Trumps nascar tweet yesterday and specifically about the Confederate Flag. Heres how she defended the president. Why is the president so supportive of flying the Confederate Flag . So i think youre referring to a tweet this morning is that right . Right. I think youre mischaracterizing the tweet . Nascar saw bad ratings because they banned the Confederate Flag. Does he believe nascar should fly the Confederate Flag . The point of the tweet was to note the incident, the alleged hate crime that was not, in fact, a hate crime. What is the president s position, does he think nascar made a mistake banning the Confederate Flag . I spoke to him this morning about this, 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 in this rush to judgment of the media to call something a hate crime when the fbi report concluded this was not an intentional racist act. Does he think it was a mistake for nascar to ban it. The president said he wasnt making a judgment one way or the other. Why is the president suggesting that 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. Shana thomas, thats an extraordinary moment at the white house. The press secretary stood there and could not answer the question about whether or not the president supports the Confederate Flag. And she sort of spun out of control trying to explain some context around it. Nascar has supported Bubba Wallace, i will say again we saw the images a couple weeks ago at the track, Bubba Wallace has been clear about what he found, we saw a photograph of it. The fbi said it was not a hate crime and it was not directed at him, thats great news. If you cant answer a question about the Confederate Flag from the white house, what are we doing . Its the reason why i was smiling when you came to me is because it is almost laughable. It looked like a saturday night live sketch if it was on the air. They dont need to be on the air because we are doing this at the white house. The question about the Confederate Flag to the white House Press Secretary is a gimme question. Its a gimme question to support nascar in trying to be more inclusive. Its a gimme question to say mississippi did what they needed to do and to have to torture yourself as you try to figure out how to answer Pretty Simple questions from the White House Press corps, it seems like were living in an alternate universe. I was reading a Washington Post story and they talked to Lindsey Graham about this. Lindsey graham said im from South Carolina and what i learned is if you fly the Confederate Flag this isnt an exact quote but if you fly the Confederate Flag thats not good for business. I dont think being able to i dont think that if you cant actually say you know what, the Confederate Flag is a symbol of hate for a lot of people in this country and probably its time for it to come down, if you cant even be that wishywashy about it, and Lindsey Graham knows that the Confederate Flag is bad for business, the Confederate Flag is bad for growing your base also. It still comes back to the election, it comes back to 2020. And in her tortured response the way i got that is i dont want to alienate anyone right now. But youre not bringing anyone into your corner if that is how you have to answer those questions from Peter Alexander and jonathan carl. The president got a great jobs number, the country got a great jobs number on thursday, 4. 8 million jobs added. Hes been touting that number. Mark meadows and others around would like him to focus in on that, on the economy Getting Better, not where it should be, of course, but Getting Better and yet the president comes out and steps all over any messaging the white house planned. This is a pattern weve seen many times before, by tweeting against Bubba Wallace and getting to the right of nascar and the Confederate Flag, to the right of the state of mississippi on the Confederate Flag. What is his play here exactly . This is his only play and this is something we discuss over and over again throughout the first term here of his presidency, where republicans and even people close to the president who have his best interests at heart want him to discuss his successes that can grow his base, that everybody can be a part of. A growing economy. We went through this in a 2018 Midterm Campaign where the economy was booming and republicans close to the president , on capitol hill, were begging the president to talk about the economy, a success for him and the country that people could feel good about that could make people feel good about his leadership and the president instead is much more comfortable discussing cultural politics and prosecuting a culture war because he believes that it bucks up his base, squeezes out every ounce of support he can get from people inclined to support him and his party if they show up at the polls. Its where hes a more comfortable politician. Its a message that he feels, i think, more interested in. He feels better about. So as we head into this next election were seeing the same thing and i dont expect it to change. Obviously wha