Democrats hold the gavel this time. Monica alba is in charlotte, north carolina, and Geoff Bennett at the white house. Hes been covering the u. S. Postal service for us. Monica, any way you slice it, the rnc has a tough act to follow, following last weeks democratic performance. How are they going to do it . Exactly, steph. You could argue they also have an advantage because they were able to see what the democratic counterparts did and modify based off that. Were here in charlotte where you may see what resembles the most normal convention in an unconventional year. There will be delegates gathering in person later this morning to do an official roll call to renominate the president and Vice President. No word on whether well have calamari but youll have speakers from each individual state taking a couple of minutes to talk about why they feel that way. The president and Vice President are expected to be in charlotte. Its unclear whether theyll exactly come to the Convention Center but we believe theyll make an appearance. Consider the irony. The president wanted to move the entire convention away from charlotte because the democratic governor here couldnt guarantee an event without social distancing or masks. Thats exactly what youll see inside that ball room. All of the delegates have to adhere to those coronavirus guidelines. And then later tonight the show really moves to washington, d. C. , where all the other events are going to come from. In a highly unusual move, the marquee events will be coming from the white house as a political backdrop. First Lady Melania Trump tomorrow and the president capping off the week with his renomination speech thursday in front of an audience. Thats the other major break and departure from what the democrats did. The republicans want to do a lot of their programming live and in front of people. The president was watching so closely he was making adjustments about what he wanted to see. And overall, the campaign signals this will be a more optimistic forwardlooking message which is a little harder to square with rhetoric weve seen from the president himself on the campaign trail at times appearing quite dark and divisive as you know, steph. This kicks off officially here in charlotte in just a little bit. All right. Monica. Geoff, lets turn to you. Postmaster general dejoy is testifying today. This is obviously going to be a lot different than we saw friday. Yeah. The senate ran the show on friday. Republicans were basically defending him. But even democrats didnt demand that many answers. They took their time talk, talk, talking. Is today going to be different . Theres a lot of questions we actually need answers to. House democrats said after fridays hearing they were wholly unsatisfied with mr. Dejoys answers. So we can expect that when both dejoy and the usps chairman of the board of governors, robert duncan, go before this committee today, theyll face a far less favorable reception. Look, there are some 90 House Democrats who have already called for dejoys removal. So we can expect House Democrats today will press for details. Both dejoy, the usps board of governors, theyve all said the Postal Service is committed to fully handling election mail on time. Well, the obvious question there is, how can that be . How can that be when mr. Dejoy has not committed to restoring the cuts hes already made and denies cutting overtime even though documents we obtained on friday show that his policy changes have had the same effect. Now Committee Investigators have been doing their homework and one of the things the committee released on saturday was a document, a Powerpoint Presentation that mr. Dejoy was briefed on last week. This is an internal usps document which we have. And what you can see is that service slowed in july. There is a dip. We can put that image up on the screen if we have it. In july. The average, blue, gray, yellow lines, that is Postal Service from priority mail, regular mail, express mail. And that dip happened in july after dejoy took office and after he implemented those changes. Whats also interesting is that that document squares with what ive been hearing anecdotally from postal workers and americans who have been dependent on ontime delivery. I talk to a mail truck delivery guy who said early to midjuly is when this happened. A Vietnam Combat veteran told me he started waiting two to three weeks for medication around that same time. House democrats are also going to ask how it came to be that dejoy found himself as the postmaster general without unlike his predecessors having any direct experience working for usps. And both my colleague Heidi Przybyla and i have done a ton of reporting on the role that Steven Mnuchin played involving himself in this selection process. Dejoy, as we all know, is a republican megadonor. At the time of his appointment, responsible for fundraising for the Republican National convention where monica is right now. And its not just that. His effective boss, chairman duncan, who is going to testify today, is listed on the board of a superpac for Donald Trumps 2020 reelection campaign, steph. So there are a ton of conflicts here. Apparent conflicts democrats want to get to the bottom to notion the unfortunate service delays. Geoff, thank you. I want to talk to one of those democrats right now. No doubt shell be doing some serious grilling today. California democratic congresswoman katie porter. Shes on the House Oversight committee where dejoy will be testifying in a short amount of time. When you watched fridays hearing, even questions from your democratic colleagues, did you leave satisfied did you watch satisfied, satisfied that, oh, things are going to change, something is going to get done . Absolutely not. I asked my staff i watched part of the hearing myself and then asked my staff to prepare the five most powerful moments from the hearing. And i literally texted them, this is it . So i think theres a lot of room left for us to ask important questions and hold him accountable. I will tell you that he is a difficult witness. He filibusters. He gives long, rambling answers. This is somebody who spent a lot of his career as a ceo evading responsibility. So i have spent a lot of time this weekend and last week, this morning, preparing for this hearing. And im excited to get answers for the American People. Given that he is a difficult witness, what do you plan to doing differently . Yes, he was asked last week, did you speak directly to President Trump or secretary mnuchin. We know full well President Trump has been doing this long enough, hes not going to have a direct conversation with the postmaster if he wants him to do something nefarious. No, hes definitely going to use others to get his message across, and the question is, is mr. Dejoy going to be forthcoming about those conversations . But i think we also have to be focusing on looking forward. Not just on looking back. The American People depend on the u. S. Postal service, and as you saw in the segment before, delivery is down 9 . Were hearing stories from veterans. One really important fact, when we attack our United StatesPostal Service, mr. Mr. Dejoy does that, hes also attacking our veterans. 80 of prescriptions fulfilled by the va are delivered by the United StatesPostal Service. The Postal Service employs over 100,000 veterans. Over half of whom are people with disabilities, in good highpaying jobs. So we have to press dejoy, not just to explain his past actions but to commit to changing his future actions. Well, he actually on friday made a whole lot of promises and said he is fully confident that they can make these changes and improve service. Do you believe that in any way . And if you dont, what can you do to hold him accountable . Look, presumably mr. Dejoy thought these changes were going to be improvements to our Postal Service. Otherwise, he would not have made them. Or hes intentionally trying to hurt the usps. One of those things has to be true. So theres a couple really important things missing from his announcement. One is that he has not promised to reverse the damaging changes hes already said. He said ill stop making things worse, but he needs to actually put things back to the status quo. Plug back in machines. Authorize changes and reversals in his procedures. The second thing is, he said hell stop making more destructive changes until after the election. But long after the election, people are still going to need to receive their medications, their bills, businesses are still going to need to deliver advertisements. So it doesnt do any good to say, i wont make it worse for the next two months. We need a postmaster general who can improve and fix and stabilize our Postal Service going forward. We cant forget that all of this is going on during the pandemic. He mentioned slowdowns that were caused by coronavirus specifically in cities with high minority populations. He mentioned detroit and philly. Do we know enough about how theyll keep serving those communities, even amidst this pandemic . No, we dont. Thats why this hearing is so important. I go, as you know, dead last on the committee and i am not worried there will be all the questions answered before its my turn. There is so much information that we need to get from mr. Dejoy, and we need to activate others, including our inspector generals and other people to hold him accountable. I expect this hearing to be the first of several actions that the house is taking to support the Postal Service. Dont get discouraged by dead last. That could be saving the best for last depending on how you look at it. I love going dead last i can bat cleanup. Yeah there you go. Cleanup batter. Any way in terms of stimulus to get a standalone bill that gets some money to people, even if it doesnt get all the other elements that you want . Stephanie, i certainly hope so because things are really difficult here in our communities. I am coming to you here from california, and people are really worried. They are worried about the lack of unemployment and those benefits ending. You and i talked last in july about a plan to reopen schools. And yet schooltime has come and gone and we still dont have one. So we absolutely need to be finding a way to get funding to the Postal Service which the house passed. We hope the senate will take that up. But we need to be providing economic help to American Families and that means ongoing Unemployment Benefits and Additional Support for working families. Congresswoman, aka, the cleanup batter, thank you for joining us this morning. Well certainly be watching the hearing later this morning. I appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Breaking news overnight. Protests escalated in kenosha, wisconsin. Why . After a police shot a black man in the back several times. Protesters confronted police while officers used what appeared to be tear gas and smoke bombs. The family identified the victim as jacob blake. This morning, blakes father tells nbc news hes out of surgery and stable and the officers involved in the shooting have been put on administrative leave. Kenosha police were responding to a domestic incident. The shooting was partially captured on video but its not clear what happened before or after the recording. Before we show it to you, we should warn you its very disturbing to watch this. [ gunshots ] nbcs Shaquille Brewster is in kenosha. Shaq, what in the world do we know about what happened . Whats going on this morning . Well, steph, this morning the outrage continues but so does the cleanup. This is a car dealership. The cars were on fire last night. This is damage that extends block by block. This this dealership alone im told there are more than 100 cars damaged. But what sparked all of this was that Police Shooting that you describe last night. It was the 29th the shooting of a 29yearold man, jacob blake. They arrived and were responding to a domestic incident. Thats when they say you see from that video, you see mr. Blake walk around the car and the officer fire at him, toward his back more than seven times. At least seven times that you hear in that video. Steph, the outrage after that video came out, it went viral on social media. And the outrage after that video was nearly instants. You saw people responding to it, people marching immediately. Clashes with police. As they marched down to the courthouse which is all the way on that side of the street there, and as the clashes were happening, you also heard the outrage. Marches and chants, people telling my this is an area where there has been tension between police and the community. The wisconsin governor, he released a statement this morning. He said it came out last night, but he said we stand against excessive use of force and immediate escalation when engaging with black wisconsin e wisconsinites. Although we must offer our sympathy, equally important is our action. Where do things stand right now . Well, theres a state bureau of investigation thats now handling the investigation there. They are the lead in this case. We know the officer who was involved in this shooting, he is placed on administrative leave. Ive been told by many people that there will continue to be protests tonight as they assess not only the damage but they assess the reaction and outrage and anger caused by that video. Stephanie . No doubt. Shaq, please, stay safe where you are. Sounds as though we can hear he helicopters overhead. Were tracking historic storms and fires with millions of americans in their paths. Plus, the fda Pay Attention to this authorizes an emergency treatment for the coronavirus on the eve of the rnc. But heres the big issue. Doctors and scientists, Health Experts say this treatment is far from a breakthrough. Was this a political show or is this an actual solution for a pandemic . And mines unlisted. Try boost® high protein. With 20 grams of protein for Muscle Health versus only 16 grams in ensure® high protein. And now enjoy boost® high protein in new cafe mocha flavor. The freestyle libre 14 managday system. Etes can be hard. A continuous glucose monitor. Makes it easy. Easy to check your glucose without fingersticks, and easy to share your data with your doctor. And for those who qualify, the freestyle libre 14 day system, is also covered by medicare. Ask your doctor for a prescription. You can do it without fingersticks. Learn more at freestylelibre. Us im a delivery Operations Manager in san diego, california. Weve had a ton of obstacles in finding ways to be more sustainable for a big company. We were one of the first stations to pilot a fleet of zero emissions electric vehicles. The amazon vans have a decal that says, shipment zero. Were striving to deliver a package with zero emissions in to the air. I feel really proud of the impact that has on the environment. But were always striving to be better. I love being outdoors, running in nature. We have two daughters. I want to do everything i can to protect the environment to make sure they see the same beauty ive seen in nature. My goal is to lead projects that affect the world. I know that to be great requires hard work. My gsimon pagenaud takescts the lead at the indy 500 . Coming to the green flag, racing at daytona. Theyre off. In the kentucky derby. Rory mcllroy is a two time champion at east lake. He scores stanley cup champions touchdown only mahomes. The big events are back and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. Now to the latest on the coronavirus pandemic. Here are the facts we know this hour. Nationwide this morning, the total number of cases has grown to more than 5. 7 million. And nearly 178,000 americans have lost their lives since the pandemic began. The Financial Times reports that the Trump Administration is considering bypassing normal fda standards so they can fast track a new experimental Coronavirus Vaccine that comes from the united kingdom. This would be for use in the United States ahead of the president ial election. And President Trump announcing the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for covid19 patients. The blood plasma is taken from patients who recovered from the coronavirus and is rich in antibodies. But the evidence im going to say it the evidence has been inconclusive as to how it actually works. Joining us for a serious reality check, dr. Naheed bedalia, an Infectious Disease specialist. We need serious factchecking because we know a lot of this is tangled in politics. Lets start with this Plasma Treatment the president is pushing. What can you tell us about it . Stephanie, convalescent plasma, which is from survivors of the disease, the yellow part of the blood thats taken out, and its been used as a treatment for almost 100 years. In some Infectious Diseases its been helpful. It others it hasnt pand out. Heres the science related to coronavirus. What we know so far is that, you know, we dont have randomized large randomized controlled trials. The smaller ones havent been powered enough. Havent been enough people to get in those trials to give us an answer. The emergency use authorization which is not the same as an approval announced yest