Just imagine not being able to breathe. You cant even get out of bed without losing your breath. Your body is achy, youre fatigued, you have a headache, you might have some gi issues going on, some nausea, your temperature is through the roof. So you go to the hospital and we admit you and we put you on supplemental oxygen and every single nurse and doctor or staff that comes in looks like an alien because we are dressed head to toe in ppe. Youre probably scared, anxious and worst of all you are alone because we cant allow visitors on the covid floor. I think its tempting for people to trick themselves into thinking that it cant happen to them or their loved ones because its just so abstract if you arent witnessing it and the devastation that covid is causing with your own eyes like we are in the hospitals. We begin this show once again with sound from medical workers on the front lines of the pandemic. Welcome to tuesday, it is meet the press daily, im katy tur in for chuck todd. We begin the show once again with the bleak situation facing the United States right now. We are knee deep in the first wave of cases according to dr. Fauci and the president just proclaimed that the country is staying open no matter what. We are approaching 3 million confirmed cases in this country, more than 130,000 americans have died, a number which the president moments ago tried to frame as a major success. Hospitalizations are surging along with cases. Some cities are seeing hospitals at or near capacity. Just moments ago texas reported that it has broken 10,000 cases in a single day. Hospitalizations in the state also hit a new record and Testing Capacity is clearly an issue right now. In arizona as cases and hospitalizations surge, the state says its icus are more than 90 at capacity. The federal government announced today it was trying to surge testing resources into several states. Across the sun belt as cases rise hospitalizations are rising, too. In some cases rapidly. And now there are concerns again about shortages of personal protective equipment. The president meanwhile, continues to downplay and politicize the threat. At the white house this afternoon he said he will be pressuring governors to reopen schools in the fall. He baselessly claimed that democrats wanted to keep the schools closed to hurt his reelection chances and he tried to frame this countrys staggering death toll as a major success. Even as he asked what the death toll actually was. Now were open and we want to stay open and we will stay open. We are not closing. We will put out the fires as they come out. I call them embers and fires and whatever you want to call them. I was going over numbers before with the Vice President and if you looked at a million, two million, 2. 5 million, those are all reasonable numbers to what we could have had right now we are at a number, as you know, far lower than that. Where would you say we are today, mike . 130,000. About 130. So we are at 130 and we could be at we could be at way over a million right now and i think it could have been 2. 5 or 3 million people. But now we are open. We should also note that new projections from ihme, a group at the university of washington that has been frequently cited by the white house is now predicting that u. S. Deaths will surpass 208,000 by november 1st. Lets turn now to my nbc news colleagues, carol lee at the white house, Steve Patterson at phoenix and Priscilla Thompson in houston. Carol, i want to start with you, the president is saying that we are going to reopen no matter what, hes claiming baselessly that the democrats want to keep schools closed, to politically hurt him. It sounds like the reality of this pandemic is not making it through the oval office. Well, katie, its a similar argument that we heard the president make just on reopening in general. Early on when he was the focus was on the virus and then he wanted to shift to the economy and reopening, he talked about the reopenings in that same way, blaming democratic governors for not reopening fast enough, really putting pressure on state and local officials to do what he wanted them to do, which was reopen. And you saw in his remarks today he praised Governor Desantis in florida who is saying all schools are going to open this fall, saying that that was the right decision, even though florida is one of the hot spots and they dont know where that state will be at that time, but the president , you know, really emphasizing he wants to really emphasize on schools, theyre trying to broaden that as an issue that is also related to the economy in the sense that it would get people back to work, its a Mental Health issue and making the case that they are going to do this as safely as possible and provide schools with whatever they need to reopen, but, again, hes as you said, very clear saying he was going to put the pressure on these governors to reopen schools as weve seen him do with churches and just generally state openings since this pandemic really began. You know, im wondering how that works when he says put pressure on governors. I know there are republican governors who will be more willing to bend to that pressure, but when it comes to schools, i mean, everybody wants schools to reopen but they want them to reopen safely and you cant predict where were going to be in september. There are a lot of parents out there and teachers and people who work at schools who are not comfortable with the idea of sending their kids back if it is not safe. This seems like if you want to make it just politics, because thats what where the president is taking it, a political calculation that is really risky. It is, just like his calculation that states should reopen very quickly was risky and there are some Administration Officials who are now saying rather openly that that was something that moved too quickly, the president , though, sees this as something that he politically advantageous, you know that he wants to, you know, basically say that the pandemic is on its way to going away and sometime soon, and this is all part of that narrative. He also was critical of Virtual Learning saying computers cant replace campuses and criticizing education institutions that are thinking about going fully virtual saying theyre taking the easy way out. I think what youre going to see from him is using the about you willy pulpit in the way weve seen in other instances for putting the pressure on for opening schools, but as you say, its a real risk. Steve patterson lets go over to you in phoenix, arizona, and lets start with the records that we are seeing in arizona as of just today. Record number of current hospitalizations, thats 11 days in a row, 3,356. Record number of current icu beds, six days in a row, 869, Record Number of ventilators currently in use, three days in a row, 544. Also a Record Number of deaths today, 117. Arizona is rising on that curve. What is the biggest concern for officials right now . Arizona is in crisis, katie, and the thinking is now among Health Officials is that we are days if not maybe weeks away from this state operating under crisis care, in other words, with the limited resources that are in the state now and the trajectory of this virus that pretty soon theres going to have to be decisions made about who gets treatment and who doesnt, solely based on those resources available. It is not political at all, it is not a grandstanding statement to say that a lot of the surge, the reason why we are in this current surge, is because of the lapse in the stayathome order back on may 15th. Since that time the numbers are undeniable that there has been a spike in the cases and you can track it week by week and you see that in the first three months it took the state to get to 50,000 cases, thats taken two weeks for that other 50,000 to kick in and for this state to be beyond 100,000 cases. Now we are in a situation where Health Officials are strapped, hospitals are extremely worried with limited staff, 90 icu beds to capacity and but the real issue is not the people that are sick, its the people who are not sick. The biggest thing that Health Officials in this state are worried about are asymptomatic patients and the biggest, i guess you would say, the biggest people that are spreading that in an asymptomatic way are people that are younger than 44. That segment of the population makes up more than 60 of the total number of positive cases in that state, so the Health Department is focused on targeting them and telling them that youve got to change your behavior or else things are going to get really bad really quickly, if they arent already katy. Lets underscore what youve said, weve doubled the cases in arizona by 100 , doubled them, obviously 100 , in just two weeks and thats directly linked to the reopenings and the president is saying that were never going to go into lockdowns again, the country is going to continue reopening. Lets go over now to houston, texas, where were going to find Priscilla Thompson. Priscilla, there are local leaders across texas that are asking the governor to give them more autonomy so that they can institute stricter orders within their communities to try and slow the spread in texas. Where does that stand . Well, katy, texas today just reported a Record Number, we learned moments ago, more than 10,000 cases in the past 24 hours and that is why youre seeing a lot of these big city leaders requests that the governor grant them that permission to implement these stayathome orders. Now, Governor Abbott has been very steadfast in saying that a statewide stayathome order would be a very last resort and he wants to see local officials using his current executive order and implementing that to its fullest capacity. He actually said this week he feels like another lockdown would, quote, force texans into poverty and so obviously still an economic concern there for him, but at places like this, you know, these testing sites, this is a growing a very, very big concern, you know, seven hours after this testing site opened they are finally getting down to the last couple of cars to come through this line, but this line was actually closed off at 9 00 a. M. This morning when the site opened because there are already hundreds of people in line to be tested, many of them slept in their cars overnight, some of them with their children, in order to get a test today, katy. So its a very concerning situation here as we look at the positive case counts and the hospitalizations. Sleeping in your car with your kids to get a test. Just consider that. Priscilla thompson, priscilla, thank you, and Steve Patterson, carol lee, thank you as well. Lets going to tom he think else by, he is the doctor for Health Security at the John Hopkins Bloomberg school for Public Health. I want to first get your take on what the president is saying, hes down playing the virus, urging further reopening. What do you think . Yeah, its really not the right course to be down playing this virus. This virus hasnt changed. Its showing that it can do as much damage or more than it did in the early days of this pandemic in the u. S. Back in march and april and were seeing at this point almost 80 of the states in the country have numbers that are rising every day and if you look around the world you can see that there are more than 100 countries that have even or decreasing numbers of cases of this virus. It is possible to control this virus and have a society that works, but at this point we seem to be moving the other direction. Were trying to minimize it. Too many leaders are trying to minimize whats ahead and i think we just need to be very direct and very serious about what we need to do. I just want to put that last graphic that we just had up on the screen showing and i think its important to dwell on this showing the curve of the eu, the curve of australia, the curve of canada going up and coming down. And then you look at whats going on in the United States, we went up, came down a little and now we are shooting back up. How much of that has to do with the federal government . Well, i think its an interaction between the federal government and state decisions and the decisions of individuals. I think were seeing in many places that governors did open too early or open parts of their economy too early. I think they were encouraged to do that in some cases by National Leaders and i think its time for people to step back and say we know more now, lets reconsider those decisions, lets get back to a place where were flattening the curve, decreasing case counts and this i agree with what we said before, this is completely apolitical. This is just what Public Health interventions will work to decrease cases in the country. There seems to be some complacency among the population that even as the case count rises, the death rate is not rising at the same time. Dr. Fauci was warning of that complacency. Whats he worried about . I think two things. The first is that many of the cases weve soon in the last couple of weeks are in younger people and we know that younger people do better than older people, but younger people dont live in a bubble. Younger people are interacting with older people and people are underlying medical conditions all the time. So hes worried and im worried, many people are wore creed that its a matter of time before the virus spreads in the younger community and then again spreads back into the Older Community or to people with underlying conditions and they will have a much tougher time and a higher a higher mortality rate and were also worried because its a lag. Its a lag between the time that people are diagnosed to the time they get hospitalized, they get they have to go to the icu and possibly die from this disease. So i think this a rise in deaths could follow in a couple of weeks and we shouldnt presume what were seeing now will predict what we see at the end of july. Were also seeing something right now that is frankly confusing. Were having some of the same problems we had back in march, a shortage of testing, a shortage of personal protective equipment, a shortage of icu beds. There is a concern in some places that there is a shortage of medical staff. How are we in this situation again . Well, i think the problem is that the increasing numbers are driving both testing and ppe requirements. If our numbers had continued to go down, if the curve had continued to fall, we were getting into a better place, less people needed to be tested, less doctors and nurses needed to be in crisis mode, but now with rising numbers we are seeing a pinch again in many places in the country in both testing and ppe. And the other problem is that there really isnt any kind of National Dashboard that the public can see where we can see what the ppe levels are around the country, where we can see what diagnostic testing needs. We need more visibility into the supply chain and how fast masks are being made, how fast n95s are being produced and thats something i think the federal government could do. Doctor, thank you so much for being with us today and lending some of your insight. We appreciate it, sir. Thanks so much. And ahead were taking a closer look at the tough decisions School Districts, universities and parents are facing. We touched on this a moment ago, but lets go into it further and what might school going back to School Look Like in the fall . Plus trumps message of division, it helped win him the white house in 2016. Some of the people closest to him are saying racist rhetoric wont help keep him, though, in the white house in 2020. All sh we aint stoppin believe me go straight till the morning look like we wont wait were taking everything we wanted we can do it all strength, no sweat to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you dont. [grunting noise] ill take that. 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Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. Visit xfinity. Com moving today. Welcome back. Racist and divisive rhetoric are part of what fueled Donald Trumps rise. Now as polls show him trailing joe biden, hes going back to that 2016 playbook. Two sources close to the president tell nbc news hes, quote, going with his gut, trying to rescue his campaign by tapping into the perceived anger and resentment of his white supporters. Some of the people closest to him are expressing frustration, two senior white house officials tell nbc news that they think stoking racial divisions is a mistake. Joining me now is ayesha roscoe, white house romper for npr and Kimberly Atkins senior news correspondent for wbur and an msnbc contributor. Kim, i want to start with you. I get so many mixed messages when i talk to them those on the Trump Campaign about what donald trump should be doing. Would they like him to be retweeting someone screaming white power, no, they dont think thats a good idea but they concede letting trump be trump worked in 2016 and they think that trying to per