Ill say it again, they like this cognitive test narrative out there right now. It reminds me when they fought his walk through the park thought his walk through the park on june 1st was iconic. Im not sure they have the best political acumen at this point. Maybe not. But before we get into polls that suggest americans dont think the fact that the president can identify an elephant is the most convincing thing. Well a lot of polls in a minute, but youre actually youve written a story about the president s obsession with this cognitive test thats meant for alzheimers patients. The president , about a month back started talking to advisers about this cognitive test he took at walter reed. Of course, the Trump Campaign has been trying for a while now to paint joe biden as having lost a step. It was not proving effective, as evidenced by the deficit in the polls that you just mentioned. But the president thought he could amplify this argument. He was talking to aides on air force one and started talking to aides and remembered this test that he was asked to remember these five words and repeat them in order. Occasionally he would change the words if for the occasion. And then he started talking about it at interviews, which of course culminating in this interview with fox this week that has gotten a lot of attention. The Trump Campaign, the white house, wanted to make mental dexterity a Campaign Issue and they brought a lot of attention to that. But probably not to the candidate they would have assumed. The reporting we did in the story today suggests this is a test its menant to be easy, youre meant to do well. The only concern is if you dont do well. The president very proud of his five for five. Again, willie, future generations will have to look back and say what in the world was going on with voters and reporters that they could that they didnt immediately talk about this guys fitness for office because hes proud that he can identify an elephant. This test thats so hard asks him to subtract 7 from 100. The final five questions are, where are you . What city are you in . What state are you in . What is today . What month is it . Those are the final questions and he said the last questions are really, really tough. So again, its just absolutely bizarre. But lets move on to happier pursuits. Baseball, willie, baseball is back. Everybody was watching. I think everybody was watching. And willie, you know what i like to say hold on one second ill tell you. I like to say that the one constant through all the years, roy, has been baseball. Now, baseball is back. I have to say with or without people in the stands, man, it was awesome watching last night. It was kind of nice. I felt the same way. My dad called me in the middle of the yankee game last night and said is it me or is it great . We were all waiting to see is it weird, does it not feel right . Of course there were no fans, it was strange. But the team is no longer in their spring training uniforms, wearing the real thing. Two of the best pitchers in baseball, the yankees got the win. Garrett cole gave up one home run. Scherzer was a little shakier. I think once we sit sethettled through the first inning or two, okay, theres no crowd but Everything Else felt normal. The dodgers and giants played later. The giants won that. They piped in crowd noise, that was kind of strange they have to work on that. But for the most part you sat alone or with your daughter or son or wife, and you got to watch a real meaningful sporting event for the first time in months. I know youre saying meaningful sporting event other than liverpool lifting the trophy. Yes. Excuse me. American sporting event. For those of you who didnt watch last night, mookie had a good night in los angeles. Stanton was really he was on fire in washington. And if you didnt see it last night, tony fauci threw a fastball high and inside, right off the plate. It reminded me of maddox in 90, 91, complete control. Lets bring in columnist and analyst Eugene Robinson and former u. S. Attorney for the Northern District of alabama and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance. We have a lot going on today, mika. Well look at the coronavirus case numbers that are climbing. The u. S. Has reached another record, 4 million infections recorded. Health experts warn that the virus is spreading rapidly. It was just over two weeks ago the u. S. Hit 3 million cases. So Something Big is happening here. And certain areas of the country are the coronavirus hot spots of the world not just of the country. Plus, President Trump abruptly cancels the Republican National convention in jacksonville, florida. Remember he went there, taking it away from North Carolina saying they were being too tough and too hard, trying to mitigate the coronavirus. Just like North Carolina, get behind me, you are dust on my shoes, insulted North Carolinas governor said were out of here. Im going to florida and no. Hes leaving because of coronavirus concerns. Hey, whats up . Yeah. Hey, i didnt say that about you. Okay. And now hes back. But first we have new polling from key 2020 states. Interesting numbers here quinnipiac polling out of the state of florida shows President Trump trailing by 13 points. Former Vice President joe biden leads President Trump 51 to 38 among florida voters. Broken down by age, biden leads among voters 49 years old and younger. And the two are statistically tied among voters age 50 and older. Biden leads trump in three fox news polls in pennsylvania biden leads by 11 points, 50 to 39 . Michigan, 9 points, 49 to 40 . Minnesota leads 45 to 44 . And texas has biden leading trump 45 to 44. Thats statistically tied falling within the polls three point margin of error. Willie, we can go through all of these numbers. Im hesitant to suggest this is where the real numbers are right now. Obviously were at the end of july when i saw the quinnipiac plus 13 out of florida, i thought thats probably an outlier, maybe were close to eight, nine, based on the polls. But you look at the fox news polls, pennsylvania trump up by 11. That makes more sense to me given the makeup of that state than the plus 13 from florida. But there are other polls out of florida that show michigan plus nine, minnesota a state that Trumps Campaign believed for three years they were going to bring along into their column, along with new mexico, those are long gone. Theyre not going to be able to campaign in minnesota or new mexico because they now have to worry about texas. Weve probably done five, six polls over the past month basically show texas deadlocked within the margin of error except the dallas news poll this week that showed biden up by five. Bad across the board right now. Yes, its early, blah, blah, blah, its early. Its important to remember as Donald Trumps people are starting to tell him, early voting starts soon. Were about six weeks away from people starting to vote early. And some of these attitudes about the president seem increasingly locked in. Yeah, and its no mystery when you look inside the polling, specifically in florida, in the q poll it shows that donald trump and Governor Ron Desantis are completely upside down on the handling of the coronavirus crisis. A couple months ago, remember, people were asking where does Governor Desantis go to get his apology. From that moment forward florida has fallen apart and become engulfed in coronavirus, now hes suffering for that, the president is suffering for that. The residents are looking around going this isnt going well, o leaders havent handled it well. A spread in florida shouldnt be surprising. It may not be that big as joe pointed out. But state by state, on an issue touching the life of every american, donald trump is upside down in his handling of the coronavirus crisis. He is. First of all, willie, person, woman, man, camera, tv. Just to establish that i can take that test, too. Look at you. Wow. Well ask again in 15 minutes for extra points. Im going to have to really try to keep that in mind. These questions are tough. I think hes totally upside down on the coronavirus issue. And, look, if these numbers in florida are anything like what the what the result ends up to be, this is beyond a blowout. This is you cant possibly lose florida by those kinds of margins and expect anything you know, expect to come close in the general election. And for that poll to come out and then all those fox news polls, the president s favorite poll that show him well behind in those midwestern battleground states and pennsylvania, these are devastating blows to a president again, this close to an election. And yes, caveat, caveat, early, early. But not so early. Not that early at this point. Were getting toward the end of the summer. Were getting to the point where traditionally, you know, pundits say people are starting to Pay Attention. First of all, people have been paying attention to this election all along. Theres nobody in this country that doesnt have an opinion about donald trump and who doesnt have an opinion about this election. The question is whether those opinions are hardening and whether those opinions are hardening in a way thats just can lamtus for the president. Thats a possibility. Well see, not a good day in polling for him at all. You bring up a great point that people do say its early. And i think some of us who are a bit older look back to past elections and look back to 1988 where Michael Dukakis was up by double digits after his convention. George h. W. Bush hadnt defined himself. People didnt know who Michael Dukakis was. I remember my dad seeing him mow his lawn and saying i might vote for him, then a minute later, no. But people know who donald trump is, who joe biden is. I know people are thinking, if you look at the polls and see a lot of biden support es are coming out and motivated to vote specifically because theyre going to vote against donald trump. They look at that as good news. Its really not. Its just like all the women we saw standing in the rain in Northern Virginia who told reporters they were going to stand in the rain as long as it took to vote in a Gubernatorial Race to send a message to donald trump. You look at 2018, a historic sweep for the democratic party, getting more votes, winning more votes over Congressional Republicans more than any time in the history of america. It wasnt that the democrats put up these wonderful candidates in 2018. There were good ones, it was that people were motivated to go out and vote against donald trump. And Jonathan Lemire, you look at these numbers again. Florida plus 13, i think there was another florida poll out that had 7, 8, 9. I think the average is 7 or 8. Pennsylvania plus 11, again double digits make sense to me in pennsylvania more so than florida because you look at the philly suburbs, at the huge numbers that biden is going to roll up out of pennsylvania. Western pennsylvania and the pittsburgh suburbs are doing well there, the trump team is, but nothing like 2016. Pennsylvania is going to be a rocky road. We know how bad michigan is going to be. You have texas in the mix, you have georgia in the mix, arizona in the mix. Three states months ago the trump team thought they were going to win. I say this, i say what does the campaign think . You cant just pull up the stakes and go home. So what is the Trump Campaign thinking right now . What is the white house thinking . How do they the water is flooding onto the decks. What do they do, especially since, as you talked to me last week about the trump teams problem, that people start voting early over the next month, month and a half . There is widespread alarm, joe. Its not that early anymore. Because of early voting beginning in a few weeks. We are now in the middle of the summer. The efforts to expand the map are all but gone. The new mexicos, minnesotas, its not going to happen to expand the states. So theyre facing deficits they have to win. Michigan has been on the verge of being gone for a while. Pennsylvania, we were surprised the polls didnt have joe biden up more. Particularly considering the strength around scranton and that area, hes from scranton, its been discussed. Now we are seeing the margins grow there as well. Lets circle back to florida, maybe the margin is 7 or 8. Florida is a state, theres no path without florida. Hes not reelected if he doesnt win florida. Thats why canceling the convention was so deadly to the president. Theres surges of cases in the state he had to, and a number of republican senators had said they wouldnt attend, they were having trouble raising money, getting guests committing to stay for a few days. The last thing the president wanted was to appear in a Minor League Ballpark and only have a handful of people there. Theyre not going to bean in cardboard cutouts like we saw last night in the baseball games, it was tough to see mookie in a dodger uniform but the campaign is running out of events to change the momentum. Theres no longer a convention. Itll be a speech some virtual events. He cant have a campaign rally. No discussions of having rallies. They are under water. We have seen an effort in the Briefing Room this week to try to stick to his talking points. Its not a new tone, weve seep the tweets. But right now they are in trouble and they know theyre running out of time. He kept talking about telerallies. I dont see that working for him because he doesnt get the feedback that some would say he so desperately needs. I want to get to joyce vance on the next story. The Trump Administration said yesterday its revoking an obama era housing regulation designed to eliminate discrimination in the housing suburbs. President trump tweeted a New York Post article tweeting joe bidens disastrous plans for american suburbs and he wrote, the suburban house wowives of america must read this article. Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your american dream. I will preserve it and maybe it even better. I dont know where to begin, joyce. Maybe with the word housewives . It feels 1950s. Maybe its appropriate for this president and his views and comments about women yesterday and his comments about dr. Birx and her ability to tie a scarf. Oh my god. Its a serious topic and these protections were put in place during the Obama Administration. Of course trump and his family have had issues in the past with Fair Housing Act regulations. This was an effort during the Obama Administration to advance the protections and the inclusivity of our society. It was undone with an inappropriate slash dash process. But it is so on brand for trump to try to take us back to what he must view as the good old days where women prepared dinner for their husbands and met them at the door with a martini in hand. I dont think a lot of people responded quite well to that. The president s former fixer, by the way, Michael Cohen, remember he was put back in jail. Hes going to be released back into home confinement after a federal judge agreed his return to prison was retaliation for writing a book about the president. The judge ordered cohen released by 2 00 p. M. Today. In a ruling sharply critical of the Justice Departments defense against the charge of retaliation. Doj lawyers argued cohen and his attorney were combative in the discussion about his house arrest agreement. They also claimed not to know he was writing a book when they included that restriction in the document he refused to sign. The judge wrote the return to prison was retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book. In 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at the terms and conditions of supervised release, ive never seen such a clause. In a statement after the ruling, a bureau official called the decision patently false. Whats going on, joyce . By the way, joyce, we heard from people close to cohen and the cohen family, that he had gone in there simply to discuss the terms of his release and they were talking about the book, and he said he should be able to write the book. They said lets go check, they left, come back in, and according to reports, they immediately locked him up, sent him to solitary. If all of that is true, and thats what the reporting shakes out as true, another black eye for donald trump and for bill barrs Justice Department. They put a guy in solitary confinement because they didnt want him to write a book about the president. My Immediate Reaction to this situation was that if this was a provision applied only to cohen, this notion he couldnt write a book, couldnt talk to the press, couldnt use social media, if that was only a condition in his terms of Early Release and furlough during covid. That the bureau of prisons had a problem. And that turns out to be what the reporting confirmed. No other releasee was required to execute this policy. In my 25 years as a federal prosecutor i never saw this restraint on the First Amendment used. I think youre right, joe, this is a bad problem. The bureau of prisons is part of the Justice Department, the director of the bureau of prisons reports directly to the Deputy Attorney general and is spi supervised by the attorney general, there will be an effort to write this off as a low level mistake inside the bureau of pris prison. I think it deserves careful scrutiny. This is a black eye on doj, as you pointed out. Lets talk about how bad this is