Doesnt understand memorial day. He has no connection to memorial day. He doesnt know that it began as Decoration Day in 1868, when we honored our war dead by decorating their graves at Arlington National cemetery. Memorial day didnt become an official federal holiday until 1971, but the tradition of decorating war graves never stopped. I did it when i was a little kid in boston. My daughter did it. When she was a girl scout. And her group planted small american flags at a los angeles Veterans Cemetery in westwood. I called my mother from that cemetery, knowing that she would want to know what her granddaughter was doing there, was planting those flags. And when my mother thought about the people that she lost in world war ii on that phone call, she cried as if it were yesterday. Many of us have someone we think about on memorial day. Some veterans have many people they think about on memorial day. I think about my cousin johnny. He was the biggest of all of us in every way. I idolized him when we went to west point to watch him play football. Ill never forget his last visit to us in boston, after he graduated from west point, and before he shipped out to vietnam. Where he had very big shoes to fill, because he was john t. Coraly, jr. , and everyone knew his father was general john t. Coraly, who was by then something of a legend in the army having won eight silver stars in comebat but hedon think of himself, he was the son of eye require immigrants and stayed lucky finding his way to west point and stayed lucky through two wars, world war ii and korea. My cousin johnny earned a silver star, in four months in vietnam on september 8, 1968 the day he was killed in action an his funeral in fort jackson in columbia, south carolina, was the First Military funeral i attended. Tragedy has many faces but none quite like the general crying saluting his sons coffin. And thats what i think about. On memorial day. And so i never say happy memorial day. Donald trump can say it because no one in the trump family has ever searched rved in the milit that. Is also why donald trump could Say Something like that this about john mccain. Hes not a war hero. Hes a war hero. Five and a half years. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people that werent captured. Donald trump has no personal connection to what memorial day means. And he is trying to have no personal connection to what memorial day means in 2020, when we now have more dead from the coronavirus than we lost in the korean war and the vietnam war combined. Joe biden understands memorial day. Joe biden left his delaware home for the First Time Since the lockdown began. To lay a wreath at the delaware Memorial BridgeVeterans Memorial park. And joe bidens first appearance outside of his home, he and his wife jill biden followed the delaware rule of wearing a mask. And donald trump attended the traditional wreath laying ceremony today at Arlington National cemetery, he did not wear a mask. Ohios republican Governor Mike Dewine this weekend said this about wearing masks. This is not about politics. This is not about whether youre a liberal or a conservative, left or right, republican, democrat. We wear the mask and it has been very clear, studies have shown, you wear the mask not to protect yourself so much as to protect others. And this is one time when we truly are all in this together. North dakotas republican governor became emotional on friday, when he pleaded with people not to divide themselves over wearing a mask. If someone is wearing a mask, theyre not doing it to represent what Political Party they are in or what candidates they support, they might be doing it because theyve got a 5yearold child whos been going through cancer treatments, they might have vulnerable adults in their life, who are currently off covid and fighting. If someone wants to wear a mask. There should be no mask shaming. The doctor at Louisiana StateUniversity Hospital has been keeping a video diary of life and death in new orleans. Were about ten weeks into it here in louisiana. Our first covid19 case was march 9th. Two weeks after that, we had about 1500 case, and 34 deaths. Thats the point at which governor edwards implemented the initial stayathome order. Our latest numbers show over 37,000 coronavirus cases in the state. Over 2500 deaths. But a closer look at the numbers show that were trending in the right direction. Hospitalizations are down 50 . Use of ventilators in our state is down 75 . Compared to ppe. But we need to know the success in our state. Principle avoidance of large gatherings. Maintenance of social distancing. And the continued use of face masks while in public. Each day, we learn more and more about this virus. Every day, science gets us closer to an answer. Answers such as a good antiviral. The latest data on remdesivir is extremely positive. A 30 quicker recovery. A 40 relative decrease in mortality. More and more doctors are using the convalesce ent plasma from recovered patients. Many companies are in advanced trials, looking at vaccines, vaccines that can hopefully one day give us an effective true immunity. This is what time can give us. This is why its so important to keep that curve flat. Science is going to get us to the other side. We just each need to do our part million we get there. Leading off our discussion tonight is, dr. Vin gupta, a pull none ologist and Global Health policy expert, he is an nbc news and msnbc medical contributor and also jonathan, columnist for the daily beast and msnbc political analyst. Dr. Gupta i want to begin where dr. Masri just left off. He was giving us a kind of a survey from his seat in the emergency room about what is happening there in america with the development of possible treatment, possible vaccine, down the road, and why we have to try to hold the curves down, between now and that end of the road where there might be a medical intervention that actually works here. What is your sense of what we see out there tonight in terms of the way the curve seems to be trending in the right direction in the northeast at least, as opposed to the rest of the country . Thanks. Always good to be with you. What i would say, just to amplify dr. Masris point, the perspective of an intensive care unit, actively caring for patients here in seattle is different from what you hear from our elected officials. There isnt that much wiggle room in our icus here to extend the resources if more patients end up coming into our Emergency Rooms because were easing social distancing. We dont have multiple beds. We might have one crash bed as we call. It so there isnt that. There is a huge gap of us between those of us on the front lines and see the day to day realities and what youre hearing from President Trump. That all is well. From Governor Kemp down in georgia. Lets open up. There is a huge gap. And i think the one thing, so all of the things, remdesivir, i would actually say, we feel guarded optimism about remdesivir, i have multiple patients on that medication, in the icu, and you know, and improved recovery by four days, you could potentially get out of the icu a little quicker but we dont know if it actually saves lives, we dont know if it actually beats out the virus, does it actually combat it, we dont know that. There is still a lot of unknown. And the vaccine, all of the optimism on the vaccine, it probably just cautious optimism at most at this point. Still very early. Only eight Patients Enrolled in the phase one study a lot of unknown. Which means we have to hold the line on masks. The fact of the matter here is that masks, universal masking protects those who cant escape to the hamptons or cant go and do telework. It is really going to impact our front line workers. Our Grocery Store clerks. Our nurses. Our respiratory therapists. Those who are, by the way, predominantly women, who are predominantly people of color, thats who it is going to protect, so i dont understand why masks has now become this cultural war, this trigger word for so many people, these are basic things that we all need to hold the line on and build consensus on and if a president is not going to message on it, we need to. Jonathan, there is a news media challenge in this now, now that we have varying degrees of compliance with the guidelines that have been issued, because the tv news cameras love to go to the spot where people are crowding and people are violating social distancing, but the truth of the matter is, the overwhelming majority of americans are staying away from that, and the tv cameras seem to find every spot where its happening. I think thats right. Because its turned into a kind of a culture war question, lawrence, which is not healthy, for dealing with the real war, with covid. So trump has politicized the whole thing. Hes politicized masks. Which is really kind of insane when you think about it, because it is his government that has issued guidelines saying that when people go out, they should use masks. Not all the time. But they should think about using masks, and social distancing. And for him to send a very different message, crowd the churches, no mask, im not going to wear a mask, so im not going to model any behavior that you need, and to say that the media wants me to wear a mask, as if this is about owning the libs, owning the media, not about Public Health, and so we have a situation where the president of the United States is now really acting in a way thats contrary to Public Health. Not only is he not doing what he should do in a positive way, developing a plan of action, making sure that we really do have the testing, and the supplies, and the protective gear that we need, which he fell down on the job, you know, months ago, we lost as many as 40,000 americans as a result, but now, not only is he not doing what is necessary, he is actually doing things that are harming efforts to try to contain this disease. Dr. Gupta, i want to read a passage from the Washington Post about the kind of, the geography of the virus now. It says as the death toll nears 100,000, the disease caused by the virus has made a fundamental shift in who it touches, and where it reaches in america. According to a Washington Post analysis, of case data and interviews with Public Health professionals in several states. The pandemic that first struck in major metropolises is now increasingly finding its front line in the countrys rural areas, counties with acres of farmland, cramped meat packing plants, and out of the way prisons and few hospital beds. Dr. Gupta, how is that new geography of the disease affect the ability to respond to it . It challenges us, ssues that have been combatting the last 20 years. Much longer. Since the truman administration. Which is durable equitable access to health care. The truth is, if youre an exurban or rural county, you cant get a test for covid19 unless you have somebody prescribe it or unless your employer says were going to do a drivethrough. How Many Employers are doing that in the Rural Counties you mentioned, in eastern tennessee, or in south dakota. None. Because we just dont have the infrastructure. So this is where longstanding policies, inequities in health care access, that largely affect the indigent, that largely affect those people of color, women, on the front lines, are rearing their heads. And here is a quick fix if folks in the senate are listening. To even access telehealth care, to get a test through telehealth, you need a san antonio you need a simomart phone and we should make it available through talking, and we should have that available now. An extraordinary story from china about their capacity to respond to outbreak, the central chinese city of wuhan according to the the wall street journal has said today it has collected coronavirus swab tests from more than nine million of its 11 Million People, just over the past 10 days. Most of those nine million samples have already been processed, according to their records. And so jonathan, thats that second wave that they fear, in wuhan, as soon as they had a handful of cases, they run out and do, right away, about ten million, nine million tests in ten days. Look, the contrast between donald trump and his failed leadership and that and the rest of the world could not be more stark. And i hope that, you know, on this memorial day, we, as the lawyers say, we memorialize certain facts about the way this whole thing unfolded, and the testing failure that started in january, and february, you know, which we thought was going to be a temporary problem, because every expert knows that testing is the only way you can get on top of this thing. That failure continues to this day. So while this president , you know, is playing golf and basically declaring mission accomplished, not only is covid19 not being controlled, but the mechanism for controlling it, testing, has not been put into place. And i think people kind of are, some people are sort of assuming that this is, you know, such a big country, we cant possibly do all these tests, china puts the lie to that. And i think our own history puts the lie to that. So in terms of getting people to do the Contact Tracing and the other testing thats necessary, the Antibody Testing and covid testing, we need a testing army, and frankly, roosevelt, when we were in crisis during the depression, he wanted 250,000 young americans, mobilized, in a civilian conservation court, he did it almost overnight in three months. We could have gotten a testing army that was something we could have accomplished if we had the right kind of president ial leadership. Dr. Vin gupta, and jonathan, thank you very much for starting us off tonight. When we come back, we are just 162 days away from the president ial election. David from will join us with his new book about the Trump Presidency which shows us what the Trump Presidency has taught bus the strength and weaknesses of our institutions. Thats next. Some Companies Still have hr stuck between employees and their data. Entering data. Changing data. More and more sensitive, personal data. And it doesnt just drag hr down. It drags the entire business down with inefficiency, errors and waste. Its ridiculous. So ridiculous. With paycom, employees enter and manage their own data in a single, easy to use software. Visit paycom. Com, and schedule your demo today. If you have a garden you know, weeds are low down little scoundrels. With roundup sure shot wand you dont need to stoop to their level. Draw the line. The sure shot wand extends with a protective shield to pinpoint those pesky bedfellows. It lets you kill whats bad right down to the root, while comfortably guarding the good. Draw the line with the roundup sure shot wand. Roundup brand. Trusted for over 40 years. In a series of tweets this morning, donald trump threatened to move augusts Republic National convention out of North Carolina if roy cooper could not guarantee quote full attendance in the arena in charlotte. The atlantic statement, trump since his bankruptcies in the 1980s, trump contrived scams to keep his creditors at bay for the next 24 hours. Thats how he has managed the Coronavirus Crisis each day. He devised some new fantasy in the hope of fulfilling his supporters of lulling his supporters and boosting financial indoe sis. Joining us is the Senior Editor from the atlantic and former speech writer for george w. Bush. Thank you for joining us and congratulations on the new book. The title i just stumbled across is what . Trumppocalypse. I can say it. This has been a test kitchen for many ideas that became this book. I thank you and im very glad to be here tonight. Great. So this is classic trump situation with the republican convention. Theres probably no safe place in america. We know there is no safe place in america to assemble a full arena full of people elbow to elbow the way a political conventi convention normally is. That will not be safe anywhere in the country this summer. Do you think donald trump will find a state, alabama, will find a place somewhere where he can make that happen and take all those Public Health risks in the same room . Well, im guessing he pushes in that direction only to have it blow up in his face at the last minute. The reckoning really is here and for three years, people have wanted some master scheme, brilliant plan. The apocalypse is here. When i wrote the book, i thought the apocalypse would take the form of recession because of the trade war, shooting war with ir iran. Instead we got a neglected pandemic and this administration is cokareeming toward electoral disaster and it will take them with it. The question were all going to face is what then . Because what donald trump has shown and what weve talked about so often here in the evenings is there is an important minority in this country who is not reconciled to the basic rules of the Democratic State and youre not going to change their minds. Weve asked that again and again. What does it take to change their minds . Youre not going to. How do you safely govern a country around them and change a country in a way the veto matters a lot less . And how do you do that, david . Well, what you have to understand and this is the thing many people watching the show understand very well that the american system of government is built to treat some people more as more important political actors than other people. If people in california had to live for three minutes the way sorry, if people in wyoming had to live for three minutes the people in california do, they would think they are very ill used. How do you even it out so californian haves a few more