Cal. Since you watch the news, you know the top stories range from the pandemic to the pandemic recession to those National Protests which took fire during the pandemic. I mean, basically the top story is pretty much almost never what it would be in any other year 100 days out from the election. Which is usually a top story about the president ial election. Tonight, that race is pushing its way well into the front of the news as joe biden gets closer to this potentially historic running mate announcement. More on that this hour. And the Trump Campaign is caught going into a very exposed defensive crouch. The campaign hitting the brakes. This new reporting showing they pause on television and radio ads for a fine tuning of the campaigns strategy. That alone is a Major Political sign. This is the period when campaigns do keep persuasion. You drop message in the summer and early fall. By the time that early vote go and mail voting starts, you move from the persuasion messages to turnout. And of course, you need to have persuaded people to your side before you start turning them out. You dont want to give a ride to the polls to someone who supports your opponent. That is basic political context for this campaign problem. They have stopped running persuasion ads. This is news tonight. Theyre not on the air and it is out of fear by some trump aides that what they are doing isnt working. Nbc news reporting the campaign has virtually no ads booked on tv through august. Trump trailing in key battle grounds states. His now infamous gamble to use power to fick clashes in the democratic cities like portland and s. E. A. L. May be back firing and as a political fight, the test would be whether all that wins people over. But experts are saying there are other abuses of power that may not be tested if the Trump Administration is suppressing the vote itself. New reporting on the story weve been tracking for you. Attacks on what could be a lynchpin of a covid election because more people plan to vote remotely, by mail. Yet theres a huge backlog at the post office under the Trump Administration which could impinge your right to vote by mail, according to New Washington post reporting. And it is all linked to the new chief there. A loyal trump donor who argues the explanation for that is simply cutting costs. But in the context of the president openly repeatedly attacking Election Integrity, a mailin voting, could be darker and legal question is whether this is an effort to try to disqualify the very ballot thats could remove donald trump from office. Lets get right into it. We have former democratic senator from missouri here and Rutgers University professor cooper. What do you make of all of it . Well, hes been politically incompetent from day one. Hes never understood persuasion. Persuasion is trying to get voters you didnt have before. All hes ever done is turnout. And that is appealing to his base. So hes tried messaging because he thought it would appeal to his base, like law and order, while hes pardoning all his political buddies. Like somehow theres lawless mobs in the street when he is gassing Peaceful Protesters for a photo op. He has never really tried to unite the country to appeal to those voters that frankly, need some reason to vote for this guy other than the clown show that has emanated out of the oval office for the last three and a half years. I dont think hes ever figured out persuadables. And they now know theyre in a world of hurt. Professor . Look, i think that it is absolutely appalling on the week where the nation is mourning the death of john lewis, that the president has decide that had the response to that is to attack the integrity of the vote and to attack integrity of u. S. Elections. But i also think that he shows the ways in which hes fumbling. So 150,000 plus americans are dead on the president s watch in a little over four months. And he doesnt want us to be focused on that. So now hes making an overtly fascist move. It began in this moment with bringing out the unnamed federal agents in portland and attacking protesters, and now hes attacking the vote. Hes attempting to regain a strong man narrative as a way to look like he is powerful and he is in control, when it is so clear that he has, the leadership of this country, his competence as senator mccasskell has. This is a man grasping at whatever straws of power he can get. He thinks the narrative of bullying people around and trying to scare americans by telling they will that theyre going to have to go out and risk their lives in the middle of elections to have speaking rid. This speaks something about how he almosts people on the right. He thinks these tactics are what they want to see even as the poll numbers continue to slim among his own supporters. You raise this for john lewis, unlike the president , although we work in television, we try not to only look at television ratings. We look at real world facts and evidence. It is note worthy as the ratings come in that more americans were wrapping the john lewis memorial throughout the day than anything else. Fox news was not first. They were watching the continuous coverage. So america noticed this. John lewis is a celebrated American Icon and other than trumpism, it had an old school bipartisanship of president s bush and obama, standing up and going out of their way to say, yes, for america, lets celebrate what this man lived for, as the best principles of america. Im glad you brought it back up, professor, and then senator, lets look at president obama who spoke and also used this time to talk about Election Integrity in these very mail voting issues. There are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive i. D. Laws and attacking our Voting Rights with surgical precision. Even undermining the Postal Service in the runup to an election. It will be dependent on mailin ballots so people dont get sick. Professor and then senator . Look, what we saw yesterday, that show of american unity and that deserved celebration of john lewis life had all of us reeling and lamenting a version of america where we could put politics aside for certain values we found to be important. We could vehemently disagree and say we believe in civil rights, peoples rights to vote and we have always used the civil ritss movement as a moral beacon in this country to say, this is the moment, up with of the few moments where america has gotten it right on Racial Justice and moved to protect its citizens. And we are back in a moment where we have to recapture that. So what im hoping is people will look at the funeral, look at john lewis op ed in the New York Times yesterday and see that as a clarion call to get back on track. That means weve got to get rid of donald trump. He sees that it is coming. People are tired of him. And rather than him shifting, he is trying to bully his way and cheat his way into another material. We should do that in the name of john lewis and all that we hold dear. Yeah, ari, one thing that struck me, i never would have imagined that a man like john lewis would die and the sitting president would not attend his funeral. Let that sink in for a minute. That the sitting president did not even bother to go up the street and see him lying in state. The first africanamerican member of congress to lie in state. And the president couldnt be bothered for a quick visit. Thats all you need to know. The New York Daily News said this morning, three men and a baby. And we know who the baby is. And he is demonstrating great movie, by the way. A great movie but a sad commentary on the three president s that appeared and the president that was an send. Weve got to watch out for this Postal Service stuff. Its real. The money shortage is real there. Weve been working on it for years. Ron johnson is bucks again the problem. He wants to see the Postal Service fail. If he didnt, he would have gotten that bill through that would have reformed it and made it fiscally sound so he wouldnt have the issues that donald trump is preying upon to try to steal an election. You mentioned three men and a baby. Im also reminded of look whos talking where you have a baby that talks a lot. Exactly right. Exactly right. Good analogy. I want to echo about the post office though. Thats huge. It is one of our enduring Public Institutions. One of the reasons weve had a strong middle which is a in this country is because black people work for the post office. It matters to our community to have a Postal Service thats functioning. Part of what the right has done is to make privatization their god. They think that everything is about money and capital and they have attacked this public institution. Ill hoping as we think about what were looking for in this election, we are learning because of the pandemic and how badly things are being devastated, how important having robust Public Institutions are. So the attack on the post office backs bellwether of all kinds of destruction from the gop will wreak havoc on if we let them get away with it. This has to stop. We need to fund the post office. We need it for people to receive their checks, for people to receive their ballots. We will need it so folks who dont have a lot of money can still go about their business. And it is an american institution. It is central to our democracy. We should not sit around and allow them to take a baseball bat to things we hold dear. Right. Weve been covering some of those postal issues here from before this evening. Theres a reason why the president brought it up. Why the senator walked us through some of the congressional wrangling over it, as you both point out. Although corporations may be effective at certain things. When it comes to the right to vote, or your human and Health Rights to get things during a pandemic, when youre literally told not to leave the house as much to save yourself and your community, you dont necessary will you want a corporation deciding on profits where things get delivered and which communities are ignored. So all of it, super important. Always good to see you. I like having you back. And senator mccaskill comes back for a special fallback friday. Im glad youre sticking around. Thanks. Thanks to both of you. Coming up, reporting on Jared Kushners team and a scandal brewing inside how they viewed the deaths and infections of covid as a political matter. Were getting new articles, new buzz as joe biden gets very close the announcing his running mate. We have a special report that weve been working. On big tech raking in historic earnings while coming lets under Employment Benefits expire. And i mentioned, this fallback friday that im so excited about. Louis gossett jr. And claire mccaskill. Youre watching a special edition of the beat on msnbc. C when you think of a bank, you think of people in a place. C but when you have the chase mobile app, your bank can be virtually any place. So, when you get a check. You can deposit it from here. And you can see your transactions and check your balance from here. You can detect suspicious activity on your account from here. And you can pay your friends back from here. So when someone asks you, wheres your bank . You can tell them heres my bank. Or heres my bank. Or, heres my bank. Because if you download and use the chase mobile app, your bank is virtually any place. So visit chase. Com mobile. burke eighbor oh, just puttering, tinkering. Commemorating bizarre mishaps that farmers has seen and covered. Had a little extra time on my hands lately. neighbor and that . burke oh, this . Just an app ive been working on. Its called signal from farmers, and it could save you up to fifteen percent on your auto insurance. Simply sign up, drive and save. But im sure whatever youve been working on is equally impressive. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum bibill assumed his mayo was the best choice. Assume nothing. Just like the leading brand, kraft real mayo is made with high Quality Ingredients at a price you can feel good about. No wonder kraft is so good. All strength 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 dr. Fauci now optimistic about a vaccine for coronavirus saying it could come in 2021 and talking about who would get it first. As he was providing that new information, a new interview shows the president offering a medical dodge that could be a readymade meme. Read the books. You know, there are those that say, you can test too much. You do know that. Who says that . Just read the manuals. Read the books. The manuals . Read the books. How long did that go on for . Who knows . But medical experts say that blythe puffery should not be normal when it come to the science that can save or cost lives here. Just as the administrations blatant political approach to this deadly pandemic continues to be a scandal in plain sight. Jared kushner reportedly scaling back a testing plan. At the time the virus was infecting and killing more democrats in blue states than republicans. Thats one bombshell in a new vandal fair report, blowing the whistle on trumps political folks who thought the virus would mostly hit democratic states that they could blame those governors and that would be an effective political strategy. A horrific allegation. The white house denying it. We will get context on the facts here with the New York TimesMichelle Goldberg in just 30 seconds. Joining us now, New York Times come you willist and msnbc contributor, Michelle Goldberg. Walk us through the vanity fair report and what this means. Well, everybody should go and read the vandal fair report. It is long, in depth and shocking even if you dont think you can be shokds by this administration. There are a few revelations out of it that should be politically earth shattering if we werent all so numbed. The one you talked about that jared kushner, they had basically come up with a National Testing plan and then never really bothered to enaction it in part because they decided that as of the time the virus was mostly hitting blue states, it wasnt really politically advantageous to help those governors out. Which i think just underlies something we all know. That this president doesnt even try to be a president in the most minimal sense for all americans. That people who are, people who are inside his movement are on their own, too, but people who are outside this political movement, he feels no responsibility for. Another thing that was shocking about that reporting was there is a long section on someone from the Rockefeller Foundation who was trying to step into the breach. Again, scale up testing because we are so far behind where we need to be to do things like reopen schools and take steps that would allow some of us to resewell at least a kind of minimally decent kind of life. This expert was saying at the beginning, they saw this coming. They started getting ready and they kept waiting for the whole of government plan. They kept waiting for, we had, we were considered prior to this pandemic, to be the most prepared nation in the world for a Health Crisis of this magnitude. That was a john hopkins study that came out a year or two ago. They kept waiting for things to start moving and it just didnt happen. There was simply no one there doing the work that needs to be done to protect people, and that is why americans are being ravaged by this illness like no other developed country at this point. Right. As you say, it is really striking. Sometimes anyone in any country, especially ours, thinks along our own terms. Like everything happening here. This started somewhere else. Le countries have dealt with it. We have the biggest probable and the worst per capita time spreading. And then we have a government that tonight, ill put up on the screen, the 600 unEmployment Benefits congress is letting expire. People see it as maybe politically bad for donald trump. More importantly it is really a problem for all the people who were told literally no, fault of your own but you lost your job because of the situation. Also, please stay home. So you cant really get a new job of many kinds. And now were not going to continue to support you. And at the same time, the moratorium on evictions is running out. We keep seeing every week, you see, every new under employment report is kind of staggering and record breaking. And again, i think what underlines all of this, we have been left on our own. In a very real sense, we dont have a federal government, right . Were just kind of, it is left for 50 states to make their plans and left really for individuals to kinds of figure out the risk thats theyre willing to take when their government isnt telling them truth about the danger that theyre in. It is left for Public School parents and probably private School Parents to find out how on earth theyre going to educate their children and keep working as the fall barrels down on them. The government has simply abandoned us. You lay it out as you do and i dont know if you were deliberately gesturing toward the grateful dead, we are all on our own, with you there it is tonight. It is always good to see you. Thank you. Good to see you too. As mentioned, joe bidens search for a running mate is literally within days. Theres all kinds of buzz about the top contenders. And later, big tech raking in millions. And then as mentioned, Louis Gossett jr. On the beat for fallback friday. Thats all ahead. For fallback friday. Thats all ahead pay for what you need. What do you think . I dont see it. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. You cant claim that because its inanimate peo