Precious and beautiful souls who were taken from us. He also took time to offer condolences to the family members of those killed and impacted by the attacks. And as we remember that terrible moment in American History 19 years ago, its important to remember that we are in the midst of another terrible moment in American History. The coronavirus pandemic has taken the lives of nearly 200,000 americans this year. In fact, our nation has not seen a week where the coronavirus death toll was fewer than 3,000, i. E. 9 11, since the end of march. To put it glumly, we are losing more americans every few days to this virus than we lost in 9 11 entirely. And it just isnt that the president is not appropriately acknowledging the gravity of the growing death toll and the virus. Hes also still downplaying the severity of the virus. According to excerpts of recordings published by the Washington Post the president told bob woodward in march that he knowingly downplayed the coronavirus risk to avoid creating a panic he said. Like i said the president who thrives on creating panic is still downplaying the risk. Last night he held a rally in michigan. Very little social distancing and masking. Flouting michigans coronavirus rules. And heres what he had to say about the pandemic. By the way, i think the vaccines going to come very soon. Going to come very soon. And with it or without it were rounding the turn. You see whats happening. You see the numbers are plunging. We had to take a pause to get rid of the china virus. And we got rid of it. Were getting rid were coming around. Were coming around that turn. Im telling you, you watch, next year, better than last year. Well, obviously were not coming around. But we want to pause here for a second. Joe biden is stepping up to make some remarks in shanksville. Lets go there. Good to see you again. Hey, chuck, do you hear me . Its peter alexander. Give us a little narration here of what were seeing. What youre seeing on the ground. Yeah. The former Vice President arriving there alongside jill biden, greeting some of the families of those who lost loved ones here at this, what they describe as sacred ground, arriving just moments ago, a couple hours after the president was here for a formal ceremony. The former Vice President , democratic nominee, not expected to make any formal remarks here, really just wanted to pay his respects after going to the 9 11 memorial in new york earlier today. It has now reopened to the public, and theres about 100 people who have gathered here at this site. Its a place that represents unity and courage and heroism in the face of just remarkable adversity on that day 19 years ago. I had the privilege of meeting some of the families that were here for this anniversary. One of those lost on that day, a 42yearold by the name of joey knacky. His cousin is here today, just 11 1 2 years old. His name is joe. In honor of his loved one who died on that day. The former Vice President came here because he said it was crucial that he have an opportunity to help honor the sacrifice made by so many others. You can see him elbow bumping with some of the families as he did with the Vice President mike pence earlier in the day at the 9 11 memorial, chuck. You know, peter, youve been there all day. Youve been there when the president was there, youve been there when joe biden was will. Im curious what kind of scene do you see as people come in and out . I know this is such an important day for so many people to take time to get to pennsylvania and to get to shanksville. Reporter yeah, well, what was striking earlier today is while they would normally have about 1,000 people here on this anniversary as they remember the lives lost today, maybe 100 or 200 people who gathered for the president s remarks earlier today. All of that a function of the crisis were still dealing with right now, the coronavirus pandemic. There was social distancing. Many people in the audience were Wearing Masks at the time the president spoke in terms you dont normally hear during a campaign season. The president speaking about this idea of unity, honoring the sacrifice by those who died 19 years ago. The former Vice President joe biden now in really what is more of a spontaneous moment as there are families who are here, members of the public and others who heard he would be coming who gathered here. They have surrounded him. Most of them are quiet, just sort of appreciating this moment and appreciating his visit to this site here. I had never been before, and ive got to tell you, it is expansive and it is solemn. But it is certainly powerful. I mean, it covers miles, what was a barren field in western pennsylvania, now this just stunning memorial to honor those lives lost. It was 33 passengers, 7 crew members. A gorgeous wall that honors their memory. Notes that were left by loved ones who came on this day. And theyve really sort of, chuck, formed this community of those who lost their lives. But they lost their lives preventing 9 11 from being an even greater tragedy. Its said that the plane, the united flight 93 they were on, it was just 18 minutes away by air from reaching what they believed was the terrorists intended target that day, the capitol. But not just the capitol. The Capitol Building itself in washington, d. C. Before it came down in this field. And on this day each year they open whats called a ceremonial gate, chuck, where only family is invited to go to what they describe as the sacred ground where a giant boulder marks the spot where the plane ultimately did go down. You know, peter, you were saying that this is a bit more informal than what we saw earlier with the president. Are these can you tell, are these just people that knew joe biden was going to be there, they came . Do you get a sense there were some people that have been there waiting to see him . What can you tell us about the folks he is meeting with . Reporter yeah, some of the folks hes meeting with, obviously they were aware the Vice President would be coming. They stuck around. This family in fact that hes visiting with was here earlier when the president dlifrds remarks during todays ceremony. You know, what is striking to me in this part of western pennsylvania where the ride out here even before dawn was lined with trumppence signs and in this crowd thats watching and taking photographs of joe biden, there are a lot of trumppence tshirts. Even a make America Great again hat that one man is wearing in the distance. But everybody is sitting here silent, appreciating this moment, appreciating the sacrifice of those individuals so many years ago. Youre struck by the conversation politically right now is so divisive and so often so ugly. And this, if there is one event, this is the one event that really does have the potential to try to reunite us. Even if its for a brief moment. It is sort of its a brief reminder of what was. And in fact i want to bring in my next guest here. The former nato supreme allied commander, its admiral james stavrides. 9 11 changed everything. That was the saying. Weve said it a lot. 9 11 changed everything. And yet 19 years later, boy, the initial change has changed, to basically not use a thesaurus here. And weve changed again. We have. And not for the better. Lets be honest. As you look back at that moment, coming out of 9 11, you remember the intensity of it and you remember the spirit of the country coming together in recognition of heroes who had walked among us like todd beamer, who died in that field and led the effort on that airplane. You know, his immortal words, lets roll. I would go to afghanistan as the nato commander and i would see soldiers there with patches, lets roll. It was a real moment of unity, civilian, military, police, firefighters, our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen. Everybody behind us. Today, unfortunately, we are divided over things as simple as whether we should wear a mask or not. And obviously, we should. In the face of this pandemic. So chuck, weve drifted apart here. But i for one believe we can come back together over time. Theres something powerful about the american spirit. And as you said a moment ago, an event like this hopefully can remind us that we can transcend the differences of the moment and come together again. It also, though, frankly, is a stark reminder of how poorly weve handled collectively as a country and our leadership in particular has handled this pandemic. You know, weve had to think that we do so much to pay so much respect to this moment, to those that have lost loved ones, and to think what we havent done for the hundreds of thousands of family members who have victims of this pandemic. We have not had the same spirit to go after this pandemic as we did to go after those terrorists. That is entirely true. And heres another thought to kind of park or six months from now, twelve months from now. At some point we are going to have to have an accounting for this. After 9 11 we had a National Bipartisan commission that looked at our failures in the intelligence community. After pearl harbor we had a National Investigation which looked at how the military failed the nation in that moment. I think at some point, chuck, we are going to demand as a people an accounting. And that in itself will be divisive. But its important that we do that, that we learn from these mistakes and learn from the failures that have occurred in this extremely divisive moment. Lets think about lets take a few minutes here and talk about the state of the world. After 9 11 we were determined that we were going to do our best to root out terrorism wherever it was, particularly international terrorism. I guess the best way to look at it is okay, there havent been terrorist attacks in this country. What would you say is where are we today as far as Global Security is concerned and terrorism is concerned versus where we were on september 12th, 2001 . Id say in summary that we have made great progress but we still have work to do. Weve certainly made progress in circumscribing al qaeda, the terrorist group that led this effort. We have made progress in containing and taking territory away from the islamic state, which youll recall vividly three, four years ago was sending tank columns headed toward baghdad. Weve made progress against al shabab in africa. Weve made progress against boko haram in nigeria. There has been progress, chuck. And it is worth pointing out that that progress, much of it has occurred by a combination of hard power and soft power, by our military but also the work of our diplomats, our development teams, u. S. A. I. D. And others. It shows that we can Work Together as a government and have real effect internationally. And finally, we ought to remember on this 9 11 day, our allies, our partners, our friends. After 9 11 the nato treaty was invoked. For the only time in history, an attack on one is an attack on all clause was invoked. You saw british warships off our shores. You saw german aircraft flying overhead. And then our allies followed us into afghanistan. And in fact, when i was nato commander i signed hundreds and hundreds of letters of condolence not only to american soldiers but to european and pacific soldiers, people from australia, new zealand, and others. So as i look at Global Security, we still have that alliance structure. We still have the ability to work with allies, partners, and friends and weve made great progress but there is still work to do. Admiral stavridis, its always good to get your perspective on this, and this is an important day to get this larger perspective of where we are as a country. And of course where we are as far as the Global Security is concerned. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your expertise and perspective. Thank you, chuck. And before we went to joe biden in pennsylvania, you had just heard President Trump erroneously claim that we have turned the corner on the coronavirus. Well, at the same time the nations top Infectious Disease expert, dr. Anthony fauci, is saying just the opposite. Hes warning americans not to underestimate the potential of this pandemic, especially this fall and winter. Last hour my colleague Andrea Mitchell asked dr. Fauci to square that statement with the president s words last night in michigan. You said it was time to hunker down because the fall and the winter is not going to be easy. The president says weve rounded the final turn. How do you square those two messages . Well, you know, im sorry that i have to disagree with that because if you look at the thing that you just mentioned, the statistics, andrea, they are disturbing. Were plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day. And the deaths are around 1,000. What we dont want to see is going into the fall season when people will be spending more time indoors and thats not good fire respiratoryborne virus. You dont want to start off already with a baseline thats so high. Well, joining me now is Nbcs Carol Lee and jonathan lemire, the White House Reporter for the Associated Press and also an msnbc political analyst. You know, carol, on one hand we should not be surprised that the president did and said and acted the way he did in michigan last night, flouting the rules, awful those things. However, it did seem to be oddly timed. Here he is dealing with the fallout from these woodward tapes that seems to imply that he intentionally has been downplaying the threat of the virus. In essence it seems like hes decided hes going ocontinto c to be that person and he will continue into tensionally play down the impact of this virus as he did last night. Are they comfortable with this message or is it just who the president is . Well, i think its a lot of the latter and there are people who would like the president to take a little bit of a different strategy and theyve tried. Weve seen that throughout the pandemic. And it just hasnt stuck. This is who the president is. This is how hes been talking the pandemic since it began. And despite all of the other urgent all of the urging for him to shift, whether its from his medical experts or privately from advisers who think he should take a more moderated tone, this is what hes stuck with. And i think that what youre seeing here is this is what its going to be. If there were any questions about whether or not the president might moderate or calibrate or talk about this differently as we go into the final weeks of the campaign, the question seems to be answered this week. Hes under a lot of pressure, obviously because of the things he said to bob woodward that are on tape. And here you see him just going back to the same well with the same sort of posture that weve seen from him before. And theres a sense that hes dug in here and that this is where hes decided he wants to be and this is the message that hes going to drive all the way to november 3rd, chuck. You know, jonathan, Francis Collins did an interview on another network, on cnn. And he was asked about the same michigan rally. And he put it in these terms. He said, how did we get here . Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet earth and you saw our planet was afflicted by an Infectious Disease and mass wrkz an effective way to prevent the spread and yet when you went around and saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them and you tried to figure out why and it turned out it was their political party. He goes, you would scratch your head and think this is not a planet that has much promise for the future. It was just an interesting way for those of you that dont though dr. Collins, he can use metaphors like that. But i thought it was an interesting remark by the president s own director of nih. Yeah. Its a stark image, chuck, to be sure. But its one thats reinforced on a daily basis. Weve been seeing the footage just now of joe biden, again, walking, making sure he has a mask. When hes this is obviously a somber memorial. But theres campaign events, too hes always masked, he keeps distance from the people hes talking to. Usually its a very small crowd. Sometimes you can count on the fingers of one hand. Thats the image they want to portray. They want to say hes being responsible. They want to say joe biden is listening to the health guidelines. Donald trum trump, president juppe 2ru7 is the exact opposite. He wants to project a sense of normalcy, that were rounding the corner on covid19. And its obviously he is doing so contradicting what were seeing every day in terms of statistics. Have deaths and cases leveled off . Since the surge earlier in the summer . Sure. But its still a virus thats claiming hundreds of lives of americans each and every day. And this is a political image and a message theyre trying to impart. Last night in michigan, also this coming weekend, the president is heading to nevada. And it is one where the state officials there have tried to, theyve canceled his two rallies in reno and las vegas. But the trump campaign, they Just Announced theyre going to be forging forward. He will be holding an event in reno tomorrow night. Details still to be released. But they want this fight. They want to portray the president and his party as the party of progress, the party of were moving ahead on the virus, were going to get around this, and theyre trying to suggest that democrats are just getting in the way. Hey, carol, is part of this issue with the trump campaign, though, is they may have no choice . If they really have money problems, then the only way to replace a money problem on state television is to send the candidate. How much of this is being driven by their resource issues . Well, they certainly were having some resource issues. This is a lot of President Trump. He really wants to be out there and its part of this image that jonathan was talking about, that having the president out and traveling and visiting multiple states in a week and having these rallies is part of the message because of the images that it creates. While theres criticism about lack of social distancing and people not Wearing Masks, it underscores what the president is trying to do, which is create this sense of were moving forward. The economys going to move forward. The virus is he said