So we have an election this year. I heard the music and that so we have an election this year, mika . Yes, we do. Do we really . Yes. 60 years in 60 seconds for you. The Democratic NationalConvention Kicks off today and because of the coronavirus, it will be unlike any of the Party Conventions weve seen to date. Wont look like any of those. Good morning and welcome to morning joe it is monday, august 17th. With us we have White House Reporter for the associated press, Jonathan Lemire wait. Jonathan, this is important. Jonathan, so the great thomas ricks who has a wonderful book coming out in a couple months said that what the Boston Red Sox are doing are nothing less than a remarkable experiment. He said they decided to elevate an entire triple a pitching staff to the major leagues at the same time, of course, tom is a little off. This is single a, double a pitching staff the red sox have sent up. But its just its beyond words how bad the pitching staff is. I dont know if you know this or not, but the red sox won the world series a couple years ago. 2018, joe, feels so very far away. It is, in a word, embarrassing how this red sox team fell so far so fast. Theres days the pitching staff looks like a jv group. They lost three straight to the yankees. Probably lose again in the bronx today. It is so disappointing that just a short time ago not only did they win a world series but seemed like they were set up to contend for years. And now they are not just bad, they are down right impossible to watch. Outside of a bright spot here or there, theyre a difficult team to watch. And frankly, its embarrassing that this is what the front office fielded this year two seasons after a title. Just two seasons. And its not on the pitchers, its on the front office. Its unbelievable. Thank god willie geist is not here today to talk about the yankees. We also have with us host of msnbc politics nation and president of the National Action network, reverent al sharpton. Rev, while were passing it around, idiots in portland over the weekend once again disrupted peaceful protests. Once again, undermined the legacy of people like john lewis, once again ignored people like you and the head of the naacp out in portland that keeps saying, hey, dont distract from george floyd. Dont distract from black lives matter. Dont distract from our work. And yet, they just keep doing it. I really am very concerned that there are not some elements there that are really being incited if not sponsored by those that dont want to see justice achieved and fairness accomplished and the work that many of us are doing. And as importantly or more so, the families who are seeking to get justice. Some have trials of those that have killed their loved ones and for them to get in the way of the public and potential jurors seeing that this is not about were trying to burn the country down, were about making sure those that are charged with enforcing the law dont, in any way, tear us down. And they have been become the ones that have muddied the message and got in the way. Its frightening, but its something that were not going to sit by and quietly allow the hijacking of a movement or the disregard of the lives that were lost and the justice deserved for their families. Also with us, editor at large for the nonprofit news room, the 19th and a newly minted msnbc contributor, errin haines, congratulations on many levels. The first interview with Kamala Harris since she was announced. You can contribute to the nonprofit news room the 19th, which is really gaining steam. How did that first interview go for you . You know, i think it went well, mika. Thank you both so much for the warm welcome. Happy to be part of the family. Kamala harris and i spoke for about half an hour. It was a wide ranging interview, she addressed her historic candidacy, called her pick by joe biden audacious, said he was taking a risk picking a black woman to become his running mate but did it anyway. They really presented a united front and talking about their commitment to confronting systemic racism, to confronting the dual pandemics of coronavirus and inequality in this country and really stayed on message, not really responding to, for example, you know, the president raising the specter of Kamala Harris s citizensh citizenship. They talked about what joe biden launched his campaign on last year, the battle for the soul of america. But i want to bring upping . Reverend sharpton touched on. We saw the reckoning for race. I i remember the 2016 convention where you saw the mothers of the movement on stage at the convention keeping that issue front and center. I wonder if well see something similar at the convention or headed into the election. Remembering what the folk are protesting for, much needed Police Reform in communities of color. Rev . I think she makes an incredible point. I communicated that to the dnc we had mothers of the movement on in the 16 convention. Weve seen in most convention, civil rights leaderships and those raising the issues on the program. I have not seen that on the program yet and i think thats something the dnc ought to be concerned about. We cannot miss the moment. And we cant miss what will drive many voters that would support them to the polls and that is what happened to george floyd and others. They cannot marginalized the moment of a movement. Lets also bring in political correspondent, steve kornacki. Steve, quickly before we launch into the news here. Here we are start of the Democratic Convention, a different type of convention, but what is the state of play right now in this president ial race . Well, the one thing that is typical like past conventions is we have a wave of polling coming out just as the convention gets under way. We have our brand new nbc, wall street Journal National poll has joe biden leading 59 to 41 points. A significant lead in the poll. Weve seen a number of other polls come out in the last 24 hours, the one getting the most attention is from our friends at cnn, theirs put trump behind just 4 points behind joe biden. A lot of conversation thats the best single poll ive seen for donald trump in quite some time. The context, we have a bunch of polls, 9 is the margin for biden in the nbc poll, 4 is the margin in the cnn poll. Also yesterday a yougov poll has it at 10 for joe biden. So if you take the polls all conducted in a similar window just coming out in the last day or couple days, the average lead for joe biden sits at 7. 5 points. Id say its consistent with where we were a month ago to now, probably a little bit of tightening, the biden lead is not what it was a month ago. When you average everything out there today, i think theres still clearly a biden lead in this race. About a 7, 8 point lead right now if you look at the polls that have been out. Willy, as we said, is not here today. I think hes trying out for a spot in the red sox rotation. Hes back tomorrow. Looking forward to that. Lets get to the developments concerning the u. S. Postal service and the 2020 vote. This has been a big story brewing over the weekend. Democrats are ramping up efforts to combat what many suspect to be a deliberate and ongoing attempt to cripple the agencys ability to handle the influx of mailin ballots. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is cutting short summer recess, calling on house members to return to washington later this week to vote on legislation to block the Postal Service from making any changes ahead of the election. The House Oversight committee has also scheduled an emergency hearing moving up the date from mid september to one week from today. Postmaster general robert dejoy and Inspector General have been called to testify. Morning joe has obtained this letter of lawmakers asking if the postmaster general or board of governors committed any crimes through the changes they made to the Postal Service. On the state level the Washington Post reports that the attorneys general from at least six states are huddling to discuss possible lawsuits as they scramble for ways to give voters more options. The u. S. Postal service is walking back its plan to remove a number of blue collection boxes around the country telling msnbc itll wait until after election day to reevaluate the needs. The Postal Service reviews collection box density every year on a routine basis to ite dent fie redundant seldom used collection boxes as first class mail volume continues to ke cline. This process is one of many ways the Postal Service matches our resources to declining mail volumes. In an internal memo to usps staff last week, postmaster general luis dejoy acknowledged the, quote, uninit satended of restructuring. So how do we move that back . As we reported, dejoy has eliminated over time for hundreds of thousands of postal workers. Removed or reassigned two dozen leaders. Implemented a hiring freeze and requested Early Retirement Authority for nonunion employees. Yesterday white house chief of staff mark meadows insisted that postal employees would work overtime to make sure ballots are delivered on time and that funding would not be an issue. Well have the money allocated and as the postmaster general said the other day if its about processing ballots hes willing to spend the overtime to make sure it happens and make sure we gets ballots back as quickly as possible. Oh, boy, come on. I have a quote here, Jonathan Lemire im finishing up transcribi transcribing. We spent so much time preparing for the show youre doing it right now. Heres the deal, jonathan, this weekend at the beginning of the weekend donald trump basically said, im going to sabotage the post office. Im not going to give them the funding so they wont have mailin voting. Youve seen dejoy try to separate himself from those words. Weve seen mark meadows try to separate himself from those words saying well do whatever we can to make sure nobody is disenfranchised. Weve seen nancy pelosi moving forward and Getting Congress back. They need to be back. I dont know what the hell they would be doing in their districts that would be more important than making sure millions and millions of americans are not disenfranchised. So they need to get back sooner rather than later. Good thing they are. What else has happened . The attorney generals that mika just talked about are doing what they can do. If you are working actively to disinfranchise voters there has to be a crime involved in that, right . So theyre checking to see what that crime is. All of this centers around donald trump. You just got to love these antir, antitrutrumpers they a writing blogs on everything under the sun, other than russian bounties on the heads of americans and donald trump trying to disinfranchise american votes saying oh, the democrats and the media are being so extreme. Donald trump never said that, hes not trying to let me give you a quote that every american needs to hear and postmaster general dejoy needs to hear because hes part of a conspiracy to disinfranchise millions of voters. I dont know how that feels for him and the Board Members whose pictures we will be putting up the next several weeks, i dont know how that feels for him two or three months before an election. I can tell you, its going to sting in the years that follow the elections. I know hes got this 15,000 square foot house that he calls the castle, cant hide in it. You cant hide from history. When the guy youre working for, who wants you to disinfranchise millions of voters and donald trump doesnt give a damn what people think of him, but you probably do, your wife probably does, she served honorably under george w. Bush. But heres Donald Trumps quote, mr. Dejoy, and senators ben sasse, marco rubio, mitt romney, Corey Gardner, Susan Collins. I know this is really going to make you sad, Susan Collins. I wonder if donald trump learned susan, do you think he learned his lesson, right . You think donald trump learned his lesson . Let me read you this quote, susan and you tell me whether you think donald trump learned his lesson. If we dont make a deal, donald trump said, that means they dont get the money. That is what donald trump said. That means they cant have universal mailin voting. So sayeth donald trump. They just cant have it. Jonathan, let me read it again. If we dont make a deal, that means they dont get the money. That means they cant have universal mailin voting. They cant have it. And donald trump says this at the same time the post office sends a notice to 44 states that ballots in their states may not be counted. Now, i know theres some of you under a spell. I understand that. I understand you are in a political cult, a personality cult. So im going to read you the quote for a third time and for you anti, antitrump bloggers keep ignoring russian bounties on u. S. Soldiers heads and ignoring the fact that donald trump is trying to disinfranchise millions of voters in a fullon attack on american democracy. Heres Donald Trumps quote again. If we dont make a deal, that means they dont get the money. That means they cant have universal mailin voting. They just cant have it. Jonathan lemire, he said the quiet part out loud. He admitted he did indeed, joe. To the world that was a dramatic pause i had there. He admitted to the world that he was undermining democracy. Go, Jonathan Lemire. He did. First, lets say that senator collins lives in eternal hope of lesson learning that hasnt arrived just yet it would seem. But you are right, this is the president saying outloud what he has been saying privately for weeks, that he has felt that the mailin voting will lead to widespread voter fraud and it will be used to defeat him in november. Lets take a half step back here and recognize what the Postal Service does. There was talk along the right about how the Postal Service has been losing money. The word is in the title, its service, theres other branchs of the other that lose money, nobody is asking for them to be disband preponderance of the evidence there are people in america, particularly in a pandemic, who rely on the Postal Service, the one means of reaching a loved one, receiving a birthday card. We know there are seniors in the United States who rely on the Postal Service to receive their medication. And theres going to be a demand for mailin voting this november because so Many Americans are nervous to go to the physical ballot box this fall because of covid19 surges throughout the nation. And the president has you know, as you just said, the last 48 hours or so theres been a little bit of walking back from this, the white house distancing itself a little from the idea, you have seen House Speaker pelo pelosi, call the house back into session, it remains to be seen whether the senate does. The argument could be made that both houses should be in session. But even if if some of the cuts are restored and reports coasttocoast about delays in Postal Service well before the onslaught of mail in voting but what has happened here is that the president has sowed seeds of doubt about the result and the integrity this fall. Chief of staff mark meadows in another interview this weekend was asked, was told, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud and his response, im paraphrasing, there isnt any evidence there isnt voter fraud. You cant prove a negative that way. This is an attempt to muddy the water and cast down on the process, which we know it could take days if not weeks to tally the votes this fall because of the pandemic, the mailin voting, and this is the president s attempt to undermine americans faith in perhaps its most sacred institution. Heres mark meadows with basically his political version of a child saying huhuh. Watch. Now there are four states that are adding to the sending out ballots to every registered voter. I understand thats a concern youre claiming. When President Trump and wouldnt it be a concern to you . Do you realize how inaccurate the voter rolls are with people moving around, let alone dying off. But sending ballots out based on a voter role. You change your drivers license but theres no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Theres no theres no evidence that theres not either. Thats the definition of fraud, jake. Thats the dumbest theres also no evidence by the way, you cannot prove that mark meadows is not smuggling billy goats from peru. Yep. Into the United States and then worshipping them on an altar behind the white house. You cannot prove that. Cant. Cant be proven. Seriously, thats one of the dumbest things ive ever heard in my life on a sunday talk show. Ive heard a lot of dumb things on a sunday talk show. You can prove that by the fact that there just arent there are hardly any cases that have been brought suggesting what donald trump has been suggesting for some time, and going on a sunday show with a response thats like a child going huhuh, you cant prove its not. Sorry, thats not justification for disenfranchising millions of voters and i dont know if you heard this or not, but this is what donald trump said, if we dont make a deal, that means they dont get the money. That means they cant have universal mailin voting. They just cant have it. At the same time donald trump is saying that, the post office, of course, undergoing this restructuring. Sowing chaos throughout the entire system and telling 44 states they may not be able to get their mailin ballots in time. Rev, heres the thing about trump and dejoy. They talk about how lousy the United StatesPostal Service i