Donald trump now formally blowinging 25 million for the postal service, making it harder to vote is not something politicians generally admit is their goal and certainly not part of a strategy to take a hostage as a hostage your covid relief for millions of others. So this is a big story. With echos of the confessions. Everyone remembers from ukraine, collusion which head to impeachment. Sometimes they just say it out loud. Donald trump admits it on camera. They want 25 billion. Billion, for the post office. They need that money to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. Now, if we dont make a deal, that mean they dont get the money, that he means they cant have universal mailin voting. They just cant have it. If we dont get the deal, the president says, then they dont get free and fair voting . Which is your actual constitutional right . This is the president conditioning your jobless benefits on your right to vote. It comes amidst slowdowns that have been reported you said this administration and warnings from again nonpartisan election officials, not the antitrump resistance that there is serious potential for further problems counting what will be more crucial in a pandemic, which is mailin ballots. Now, one way to look at this, okay, the president said something in an interview. He says a lot of stuff. How real is this. We try to make sense of. For you and i have some caveats for accurate context. The sign that this is real and intentional comes from other parts of the administration. Top white house economic advisers saying something very similar. Listen to larry kudlow admitting, at the white house, they see the constitutional and universal foundation of a democracy, quote, voting rights. Listen for it. They see that as some sort of liberal idea to be negotiated. So much of the democratic asks are really liberal left wish lists. Voting rights and aid to aliens and so forth. Thats not our game. Voting rights, thats not our game. Im showing you this so you can make up your own minds about what it means. This is what youre hearing from the president and his adviser. And then Speaker Pelosi responding with something that is factually important, whoever you prefer on the ideology of the politics or the debate between these individuals. Shes invoking an actual piece of numerical information which is bad news for trump in the standoff. She notes that voting budget figure comes from Donald Trumps own administration. We put 25 billion. That figure is the figure that was recommended by the board of governors of the u. S. Postal service. 100 appointed by donald trump. The president is afraid of the american people. Hes been afraid for a while. He knows that on the legit, it would be hard for him to win so he wants to put obstacles of participation. The speaker arguing that this comes out of trumps weakness. That he is shook, hes worried hes losing to biden if they just count all the votes. There are caveats. If you watch the beat, you know we bring them to you in context. So it is true that high stakes deal making in washington can be a tough game. That sometimes people in either party will threaten to block something that is a key provision or a sacred cow of the other side. That becomes part of a negotiating strategy and ultimately, maybe the deal still gets done. Maybe the postal money still comes through. I cant tell you whether or not that will happen but in fairness, thats a possible defense. This is hard ball. Beyond this deal, donald trump has been publicly attacking voting by mail anyway. If donald trump does as hes announced tonight he says he wants to, use his budgetary power to starve the instruments of voting during this pandemic, democrats are warning a free and Fair Election itself may be in peril. Lets turn to our experts. The former cheryl of the Republican Party and former alone governor. The Kennedy School good evening to boeft you. Where do you see this between hard ball negotiation which happens in washington. What do you say about our right to vote . While hard ball happens in washington, nothing is fair when it is on americans backs. I love that you frame this as holding hostage unemployment benefits, literally covid relief at this point. That is what hes doing. Where i see this going, donald trump has shown us time and time again who he is. We need to start believing him. I think where this is going is further political peril for him. All the polls are showing that hes trending way downward. I dont know yes thinks that it is wise to hold hostage peoples relief funds. These are his people, by the way. The states suffering deeply now are red states. Folks are out of work and people are literally getting sick. So i think this will all back fire on him in terms of the politics of it. What really frustrates me, and im glad pelosi is trying to figure this out. For whatever reason this teflon don does, there doesnt seem to be a lot of legal intervention that can be employed. So im hoping that we could on a political spectrum try to 1 2 quate this. The turn against the president. That seems to be the path forward. When you say teflon don, are you referring to donald trump or rick ross . I am referring to donald trump. And i heard the reference. Thats pelosi going mob deep. Jon meacham, your response. We mentioned in the setup, plenty of hard ball out there. The desperation out there and whether or not this is in your view, normal and president dented or something more single sister, to really use the desperation of what people need. The eviction protection. The job benefits with what were hearing from the president tonight. Weve become accustomed to it. Just because accustomed to it, doesnt mean its not cataclysmic. I think the public substantial has been gratifying in many ways. I home it translates into more action. The story of manager is the story of suffrage. The reason we fought a revolution, the roane for seneca falls, the reason for the 15th amendment, 100 years. This is the centennial of womens suffrage. In that era, that moment, we have a president who admits, he doesnt want to count ballots that are against him. No politician wants to count ballots against them. It seems to me, if we know on the front end that there is a significant fraud, ill repeat that, a significant fraud being planned on the american elections, then really, i think republicans have to ask themselves, and its not a partisan point. We would be saying this if writ a democratic president. They have to ask themselves, is the clinging of power, the clinging to this moment in time worth wrecking perhaps for a long time to come, a system that has in fact built a nation that a lot of us think is worth defending . And that sounds grand. It is again a cataclysmic moment. And you lay it out. Its so important. I want to show you something in march which is what weve seen from literally asking foreign governments for collusion help. Donald trump many times has said the quiet part out loud. Russia, if youre listening, i home youre able to finds the 30,000 emails that are missing. What i did, this russia thing with trump and russia is a madeup story. China should start an investigation into the bidens. If we dont get a deal, they dont get money. That mean we cant have upper versal mailin voting. We just cant have it. Where does tonights news fit into that history of what would seem to be incriminating confessions in public . I think it leaves us with a lot of reality right in front of us. He always tells you what hell do. His attitude is what are you going to do about it . You cant stop me. You couldnt stop me with mueller, you couldnt stop me with impeachment, you couldnt stop me in the courts. I still havent given you my tax returns and you age going to get those either. So what are you going to do about it . I love that. Rarely do i feel theres a meme in the making. What you gonna do about it . The one rebuild for folks watching you lay that out, yep, that sounds true. He definitely has that attitude. He lost the Supreme Court tax case. His aides did get convicted. Paul manafort was in prison. Others did get their sentence commuted. Voting by mail as other panelists have raised, it is getting enough attention that others are saying, we dont want to cosign with a budgetary power to steal an election. [ inaudible ]. Can you hear me . I think i lost you guys. The reality is, all that may be true. But for trump, the facts remain that he set the narrative in place. So even though, yes, he may have gotten it on the back end with a Court Decision that went against him. What is the narrative that he continues to feed to his base supporters . And that is the part that needs to get interrupted. When youre faulk vote by mail, thats the part that needs to get interrupted. Now the blatant politics that youre playing is something that we the voters have to step into to make sure that it is fixed. We do that at the polls. Thats what this november election is about. Long. Weve all gotten pumps along the way in this administration over the last three years. The final punking is on the way. What is the third persons name . Yep. Heres your iced coffee america runs on dunkin water . Why . ahhhh incoming ahhhahh im saved water tastes like, water. So we fixed it. Mio im looking for my client. Imim so sorry. Nt. Hey hey man, youre here you dont trust me here in vegas, do you . Uh, well, i thought we had a breakthrough with the volkswagen. We did, yeah we broke through. Thats the volkswagen . Thats the cross sport. Wow. Seatbelts please just tell me where were going. And get way more. 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Serving good with us here but we had a brief technical difficulty where we lost audio which is why we went to break. We think were good now so well continue with the news. It is the first day of the rest of joe bidens campaign. Here with Kamala Harris on the ticket, already though, reports that republicans are nervous about how this is going. Anxieties that team trump has no clear strategy. One Campaign Adviser couldnt seeding the Republican Party has struggled to attack harris when she was running and struggles now. Today donald trump tried to criticize harris at one point while implying that people are in love with her and shes politically popular. Meanwhile, really interesting evidence about what this is doing for democrats. The Bidenharris Campaign has just raised 26 million in the day following the announcement. Absolutely smashing records. And thats a numerical record. Of course there is also the smashing of several glass ceilings with the democrats having the first black woman and the first south asianamerican on the ticket. Well get into all this when were back this 30 seconds. Llhin were back this 30 seconds you think of people in a place. 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 save for an emergency from here. Or pay bills 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. Visit chase. Com mobile. Im joined now by Jonathan Capehart from the Washington Post. Good to see you, first. Well, i would say good to see you but i dont think we have jonathan yet. Its one of those days. Why dont we see if we have michael steel. Im dialing for guests here. There we go. You can take Jonathan Capehart if you want. He is. So better than we are. Ill going to level with everybody. The triumph of technology over skill, man. We are having a few technical difficulties. Theyre both booked later. Let me start with both of you on this topic. As an actual expert on national politics, what does it say to you that yes, there is always some buzz around the running mate but there was absolute donor and activist enthusiasm that broke records in response to harris. I think that is, in one sense, you want to say expected. You expect a bump the way the rollout came, the way it was do done, it was very well orchestrated. I think it speaks to a very core truth that ive been thinking about and certainly talking about for the last year. At the end of the day, the test and the question for democrats, do you want to win . Everything else notwithstanding, do you want to win . And that i think 26 million haul in 24 hours says, youre damn skimmy we do. And theyre willing to put their money behind the effort. So i think what you will see, i dont know if i want to say dont hold me to this, i think what you will see is among democrats, and left of center, right of center independents, that there will be a coalescence to get it done. Progressive this and moderate that. A lot of it will people off because folks want to get this done. And given what we were talking about in the first segment, what the president is doing with the postal service, trying to block people to have legitimate access to the ballot box. It is only going to impassion those efforts more. Really interesting. I want to turn to rob no, we dont have him. I guess ill sell for meacham. [ laughter ] okay, all right. Here i am. Sitting in for capeheart and this is what i get. Youre right. Youre right. I had to. I had to. I was hoping for joy reid but go ahead. Zing right back ought. And who among us at msnbc wouldnt prefer joy reid . All jokes aside, were having fun with our tech glitches. Kamala harris is widely known for her ability to land a punch. I mean, we have heard, we covered republicans who talked to us, not for attribution. Sometimes you go into these hearings, some of the democrats you can walk right through them and not hurt. Here she is out in that new role so take a look at how she is unstoppable. Like Everything Else he inhartd, he randal it straight into the ground. Because of trumps failures of leadership, our economy has taken one of the biggest hits out of all the major industrialized nations, this is what happens when we elect a guy who just isnt up for the job. Jon meacham, effective . Absolutely. Shes a great prosecutor. It is how she spent most of her professional life. To some extent, this is kind of an analog conversation. It would be like talking about wilson and what his campaign was like in 1932. Right . Were talking about a global pandemic, 54 Million People out of work. This is an inflection election. And one of the things, i dont want to in any way minimize the pick here but heres the good news about america. You can absolutely without an imaginative leap of any kind, see her doing that job or doing the first job. Doing the presidency. And my friend and colleague jonathan had a great, heres a small category. A great twitter comment. Like the best restaurant in the hospital. But anyway, he said the other day, biden 2020 motto, lets not overthink this. I think thats absolutely right. You can absolutely see her doing job. The hip krpocratic oath. They so often get it wrong. Its not a great batting average. You have a rough rollout or you cant quite see them being president. What Vice President biden did is he found a totally viable future president who absolutely reassures in her skill set. You can disagree with her ideology and all that. No fair minded republican could say she couldnt be president. Fair mined in seriously . Seriously, i mean, youve already seen fairminded. Okay. Well find one. Well, youre the one. Come on i would say this. I love the colloquy. Im going to keep both of you and ill Say Something i said earlier. This time its true. I want to bring in Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jonathan Capehart to bring in the conversation. Yes and social sigs researcher, who we had planned. And were bringing her in. Welcome both of you to this panel which has been discussing a couple of issues ranging from Donald Trumps attack from voting earlier in the hour to the unique road to the harrisbiden teammate ticket. And youre here in part because you were part of a group of women of color who have been advocating this. Tell us about that inside effort. Well, weve been thanks for having me. I will say that i dont think Michael Steele or jon meacham could have gotten away with subbing in for me so i will make that super clear. I will say that indian americans, so many of us are very, very excited about Kamala Harriss candidacy. I was born in india and raised in atlanta, georgia. And often was fairly invisible. People didnt quite know what to do with me. When youre not black and youre not white and youre hindu, it is like, whats going on there . So what were really excited about is that with senator harris candidacy, i think many communities, be they jamaican, black, indian, hindu, biracial, multiracial populations, so many people will see their Life Experience reflected in her which will mobilize and galvanize people to get out there and vote. And that will allow to us take our country back and get it back on track. That all makes essential. To give more context to this with the whole panel. It is pretty interesting. This wasnt automatic. After obamas two terms, both parties reverted back to all white tickets. The democrats started 2020 with the most primary field ever, only to owned joe biden which traits prospect of potentially another all white field in 2020. Everyone remembers biden pledged to keep a woman but didnt say anything about diversity and that drew the republican demands we just mentioned. 700 women of color in april encouraging biden to pick a blac