Is also posted on the web page for the villages. Hourslier, after making headlines, it appears the tweet was removed. Lets bring in National Political reporter Josh Letterman at the white house. Josh, what is the white house saying about this video . Well, alicia, lets start with what the white house is not saying. Gnaw condemning this trump supporter who in the video was chanting white power, nor condemning his comments to that effect. But the white house is saying, according to a spokesman, judd deer, is President Trump is a big fan of the villages, the retirement communities where you see the protesters and supporters squaring off in the video. The statement from the white house spokesman going on to say President Trump did not hear the one statement made on the video. What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from many of his supporters. That one statement being that chant of white power that comes only eight seconds into that video, alicia. Thats raising a lot of questions about how exactly it is that the president saw something, decided that it was worthy of sharing to his own millions of followers on twitter, yet was unaware somehow that only a few seconds into that video, you have that offensive comment from that supporter. Were hearing a lot of criticism from this, not only from the joe biden, but even from some of President Trumps fellow republicans. All of this coming as the president deletes this tweet, the deletion actually took place, alicia, while the president was on his golf course with senator Lindsey Graham just a few hours ago. All right, josh. Thank you. Meanwhile, nbc news has confirmed a story reported by the new york times. Russians offered to pay afghans bounties for killing americans. Nbc news intelligence reporter ken dilanian has been on the story all weekend and joins me now. How persuasive is this intelligence and do we know if a bounty was ever actually paid . A Senior Defense official told my colleague courty cu ney there was no bounty, and its not clear how persuasive this intelligence was. It was described as reporting, not an assessment. New york times is leaning further forward and suggesting its a concluz, almost beyond any doubt by the Intelligence Community this happened. I think we need to be cautious about that. Its curious the white house is saying trump wasnt briefed on this. Its possible it was included in his written president s daily brief, which is like the briefing book prepared by the cia and others. Its widely known he does not read that, but nonetheless, something this important would be briefed orally, verbally to him by his senior officials. He has an intelligence brief as off as three times a week. That raises further questions either about the intelligence or about the white house response to this very serious allegation, alicia. Ken, russia also responding to this report. What more can you tell us about their response . Russia is adamantly denying this, as you would expect them to. But look, intelligence sources have told me if its true, its not terribly surprising. I mean, theres a long history of this kind of behavior by both sides. In the 1980s, the cia funded a covert effort to try to kill russians in afghanistan, and there was a military battle that killed some russian mercenaries, u. S. Forces did, a couple years ago. The russians doing everything they can to undermine the united states. This would mark a kind of an escalation in the kind of dirty intelligence wars between the two sides, offering money to kill americans. Thats a big deal, and a lot of policymakers are saying if its true, it merits a harsh response. All right, ken, thank you. Turning now to the coronavirus pandemic. Florida, georgia, south carolina, nevada breaking records this weekend, reporting more cases in a single day than at any point during this pandemic. Texas and arizona set records for hospitalizations. And the surge in california is prompting leaders to consider rolling back some reopening measures. Nbcs Gadi Schwartz in los angeles. What action is the governor now proposing . Well, alicia, so far, the governor is keeping a close eye on what were seeing here in los angeles where infection rates have jumped up to 9 , which is above one of the thresholds for reopening. While Hospital Capacity here seems to be holding steady. However, down in impierial county on the southern border, the infection rate is 23 . Thats the highest in california. The outbreaks happening among those who work in the agriculture sector, and their hospitals are way overcapacity with hundreds of patients being transferred to other counties. Now, the governor is saying that Imperial County needs to reimpose some of the lockdown measures there immediately, which would make it the first county that would go back into heavy restrictions during this second wave. Now, the county board of supervisors, they did have an emergency meeting on friday. But in the end, decided not to take any immediate action, saying they would be making some announcements soon. Meanwhile, places like San Francisco that were looking at relaxing some of their restrictions are now backing away from that, saying that these increases that theyre seeing continue to move in the wrong direction. Alicia. Gadi, thank you. Leaders in seattle are facing another lawsuit over their handling of the capitol hill organized protest zone. Multiple groups now claking the mayor and governor did not do enough to protect residents near the police free zone. Nbcs Steve Patterson is in seattle. What are the police saying theyre going do next . Police arent saying what theyre going to do at all. Thats maybe part of the strategy here, obfuscate what is happening here, but the city said they wanted to start moving some of the barriers this sunday. That got moved. A city official came into the chop zone, where we are now, to talk to some of the protest leadership, and then the plan was to move some barriers on monday. Just want to orient you where we are real quick. This is chop. Thats the east precinct back there. Im going to loop around here and show you some of the reenforcement thats been done. After that announcement yesterday with city officials, protesters got upset, and they started making reenforcements on the outer perimeter of the barriers. This is all new. These concrete slabs are all new. This fencing is all new. And look down here. Youll see this rebar loop. This is on a lot of the concrete barriers that youll see. They cut these in order to make it harder for the city to pick up some of the barriers. So the plan now as far as we can tell is that the city is still planning on coming in on monday to try to remove, again, just some of the outer perimeter of chop, but protesters say theyre not for that. They will be here. You can see, again, the buildup of the protective barriers, the buildup of the tents under the precinct, and this is happening in almost every perimeter we see here in chop. Protesters saying if you want to make this zone smaller, if you want to shrink chop, youre dpeeg have a fight on your hands. We have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. Again, the plan is for the city to come with sdot, not necessarily police, but just to move some of the barriers. They have told protesters, though, just for a moment of orientation, that they want to keep the area around the precinct, effectively keeping protesters able to stay under the precinct, so not moving any of the interior barriers. Just the exterior barriers. However, just talking to the protesters we spoke to, theyre not happy about the city coming in and doing anything. Alicia. Steve, you look at these lawsuits, and their argument is that the mayor, the governor, have abdicated their responsibility. What is it the lawsuits are trying specifically to resolve . We spoke to some of the businesses on the initial wave of lawsuits. Theres now two suits facing the city, two classaction suits. The initial wave was from several businesses in the area. This is one of the businesses right here, this liquor and wine store. Theres another one right behind this, kind of a label printing business as well. We spoke to some of the ownership of some of these businesses here as well as an auto body shop up the road. They say theyre not necessarily against what the protesters message is, what chop is about, or what it represents. Theyre specifically angry at the city for allowing this essentially to happen. Row have to remember that this zone, while the movement itself in talking to the protesters is largely one of peace, larngly one of reform, largely one of causing a disruption enough to make a change in the city, it does create a zone in which the 911 response is incredibly difficult, where we have seen some violence on the fringes of this movement, specifically in this area. And so residents are on edge, businesses are on edge, and you have to remember these businesses are losing business. Its in the middle of a pandemic, and wlou have a situation in which trucks bringing supplies cant easily get in, and some of the drivers are scared. Thats what the lawsuits are about. Its about putting pressure on the city so they can come in and do something in a timely matter. Again, monday, tomorrow, seems to be the date in which we may see a conflict or some of the city trucks in the zone. Alicia. Steve, thank you. Now to virginia where a new law takes effect this coming week that will allow communities to decide the fate of monuments that had been referred to as War Memorials. More than a dozen confederate statues and monuments in virginia have been removed or requested to be removed in recent weeks. Thats only part of the commonwealths reexamination of its history. Robert e. Lee high school in springfield, virginia, just voted to change its name to no longer commemorate the confederate war general. Amanda golden joins me now live from outside the school. How did this name change come about . Well, alicia, this name change has been in the works for quite a bit of time. This School District in virginia has previously voted to change the name of another high school that recognizes a confederate leader, jeb stuart high school, that was called Justice High School a couple years ago. In light of the continued protests and demonstrations and conversations that have stemmed over the last several weeks, the community here decided it was the right time to change the name of this high school behind me. So the community is going to be grappling with how best to rename the school. There are numerous suggestions already floated, and theyll pho vote to make the final decision this summer. It does come as other symbols and confederate monuments and flags are coming under scrutiny all over the country. I did speak with some legal scholars and historians to better understand what is it about this moment, this social movement, thats impacting both the legal processes and the overall understanding of the monuments. Take a listen to what one of the professors told me. When you name something after someone who has a memory, who has a legacy, who has a history, then that name becomes associated with that history, with that legacy, and its both a benefit and a burden. But as to this just taking out every monument because it stands for this person or that person, well, thats problematic. So alicia, as we look ahead to this week, this coming wednesday, july 1st, is the implementation of a new law in virginia that will delegate to localities throughout the commonwealth to best consider for themselves what to do with these monuments. Previo previously, they were deemed War Memorials and couldnt be touched. It will be interesting to see who starts to take the motions to take them down, to recontextualize, to put them in storage, and just to reiterate, these are symbols that arent necessarily explicit, but everything from flags that contain confederate emblems to seeing statues who relate to president s who were considered slave holders to start to come down and grapple with communities not just here in the south and in virginia. Thank you. Now to mississippi where at this hour, history is expected to be made in a groundbreaking vote on a bill to remove and redesign the state flag. On saturday, state lawmakers voted to begin the legislative process for this change. This comes as protests sweep the country and spur discussions over the flags divisive history. Mississippi is the last state in the u. S. To have the confederate battle emblem incorporated into their design. The 126yearold flag was established at the flag of mississippi in 1894. In the top left corner, it showcases the confederate battle flag, a symbol that has caused tensions between mississippi residents for decades. In a statement on facebook, governor ted reeves said if the bill makes it to his desk today, he plans to sign it into law. Still ahead, Vice President mike pence is in texas today, where coronavirus cases are surging. Well talk about his visit as the Trump Campaign pulls the plug on two of his scheduled rallies in the wake of the pandemic. 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We flattened the curve. We saved lives. There may be a tendency among the American People to think that we are back to the place that we were two months ago. That were in a time of great losses and great hardship on the American People. The reality is, were in a much better place. For more, i would like to bring in anne gearan, a White House Correspondent for the Washington Post and an msnbc contributor, and katie rogers, White House Correspondent. You look at all of this in the aggregate, that sound of the Vice President saying were in a better place, even as you watch cases in the southwest rage at this moment. You see him going to texas, even though hes pulled events from other states where youre seeing a surge in cases. You see him wearing a mask. What does it all tell you about where this white house is when it comes to responding to this pandemic . Well, alicia, it tells me the Vice President is trying to walk a very, very fine and tricky line here between being a responsible voice of public health, which you saw him doing in part at that coronavirus hearing on friday, and as you see him doing somewhat today, modeling good mask wearing protocol. But also, you know, trying to do the other part of his job, which is to represent what the president wants, which is very much to move on past this virus. To leave it in the Rearview Mirror and Start Holding large political rallies again, and hes, you know, pence said on friday they were doing to continue rallies. And then a day later, he ended up canceling two of his own. Katie, so much of this is about the fact that there is all of this polling that shows that you have the president on the wrong side of the electorate on two major issues. The wrong side of the handling of the pandemic, the American Public wanting to see the president and his administration put health first and not the economy first. And then also on the wrong side of the protests that we have seen across the country, and so that is the other story that were following today. Right . This retweet of the president where you have someone supporting him, but also declaring white power. What are you hearing from inside the administration about how damning they believe that was . I mean, the administration is already spinning it to say the president was really ecstatic to see supporters. He didnt watch the whole video before he tweeted it. It was pulled down. I think there are people in this administration who have urged him to take a step back from the tweeting that is divisive, that retweets hate speech, that retweets internet trolls, that retweets white supremacists. He will not do it. For whatever reason. And the white house is left to try to spin this as he loves his supporters. But he might not condone the content of their message. Right, and anne, then you look, theres no apology, no sense of this shouldnt have been done. Of course, we would never do that. I condemn any statements of that kind. I mean, it gets back to, i think, part of what kati