After that friday night reporting from the times was matched by the wall street journal, and then the Washington Post and then cnn and then nbc and then the ap. After we started getting the further reporting about not just the russian government offering these bount iies for american soldiers scalps, but actually paying those bounties out, after we started getting reporting from the ap about specific attacks and specific deaths of american troops in afghanistan, now being investigated as potentially having been instigated by that russian reward money. After we got that further reporting following the New York Times friday night scoop, we contacted ambassador susan rice to see if she could come on and talk about this tonight. Because, i mean, its one level of bad to realize that russia is doing this, right . That the u. S. Intelligence has concluded that russia is paying cash money to people for killing u. S. Troops. That is very, very bad. But its a whole another level of bad to know that the u. S. President has known that russia was doing that for four months. And during that time, hes chosen to do nothing about it. That is a whole other level of crisis. In fact, during the time that the president has had this information, hes had at least a half dozen, apparently, super chummy phone calls with the russian president. After those falphone calls, he made a bunch of unilateral offers to russia, policy stuff that russia might want, for free, asking nothing in return. The president during this time has advocated that russia get back in the g7, when other members of the g7 said, no, over our dead bodies, he canceled the g7. He also moved to take thousands of u. S. Troops out of germany, which is a longtime russian priority to get that many u. S. And nato forces out of germany. That, apparently, he didnt even talk to the pentagon or the state department about in advance. The president Just Announced that he would be granting that russian wish in exchange for, again, nothing. And he has done these things, he has had this halfdozen conversations with putin and made those unilateral offers to russia to give them things they want after he reportedly was briefed, after the white house had started convening highlevel meetings to discuss the fact that the russian president is paying cash, literally, cash, dollars for the murder of americans in afghanistan. So ambassador susan rice will be here to talk about that in just a moment. I want to try to get an understanding from somebody who has operated at the highest levels of American National security as to just how radical this news is. And how bizarre it is, in terms of the president s behavior. Since this story started to come out into the open friday night and into this weekend, the president has basically been sort of swinging wildly in response, with defenses ranging everywhere from, you know, obamas bad, to i didnt get briefed to maybe its not true to, im just learning about this now. But you know, a half dozen major news organizations have now confirmed the underlying intelligence assessment that russia has been doing this in afghanistan. And the British Government has confirmed it, too. Because apparently their troops were targeted in the same way. So regardless of however the president is going to try to explain away the fact that he has done nothing about this before now, theres also the issue now of what hes going to do about it now. Now that he definitely knows and all the rest of us do, too. I mean, honestly, Vladimir Putin is paying for the murders of american soldiers. Does the president of the United States consent to that . Sure, vlad you know, pay bounties for the death of americans. Im the president. I dont mind. Thats cool. Is there anything else you might want or need from me . Ive covered National Security stuff for a long time, i wrote a book about Civil Military relations, im fascinated by International Politics of this kind. I have never, ever, ever come across a story that has the implications that this one has. Of all the things, the terrible things that american president s have done when it comes to National Security to serve their own interests instead, i mean, up to and including nixon, arguably, extending the war in vietnam because he thought it would be better for his election efforts, i i mean, up to and including that, the implications of the president s loyalties and what he has done here have never been more stark or serious than this story about the president knowing about and ignoring the russian government paying for american deaths. Its astonishing. Were going to have much more on this to come tonight, including obama National Security adviser, susan rice, as i said, who you should know is reportedly under consideration as a potential running mate for democratic president ial candidate joe biden. Now, as for Vice President s and their work, lets say youre the Vice President right now. Lets say you are at least nominally in charge of this white houses task force for responding to this catastrophe, say you are mike pence and youre at least nominally in charge of the federal governments catastrophic response to the coronavirus epidemic. If that were your job right now, you would know that maybe one thing you should not do right now is go to the state of texas, on the day that stay announced its 16th straight day of record hospitalizations for coronavirus. Maybe you would know the one thing you might not do if you were supposed to be helping things get better around coronavirus in this country is that you would not go to that state at that time in order to do an indoor event with 3,000 people crammed inside where the entertainment was a huge choir of mostly older people, more than a hundred of them, all singing their hearts out, all singing their guts out, all singing at the top, middle, and bottom of their lungs, for the whole, Long Duration of the service, without masks on. Thats what pence did this week. I mean, thats like treating everybody in that church to a fire hose of viral shedding. Setting up an event like that, with 3,000 people inside and the hundred plusperson choir all singing with the no masks and when texas is where its at right now in terms of the virus right now, that is messing with texas. I mean, that is among the most irresponsible things any leader could do, let alone one whos supposed to be helming the response to the coronavirus epidemic. I just showed the daily case curve for texas a moment ago, for how bad things are in texas and how quickly theyre getting worse. These are the daily case curves right now for arizona on the left and florida on the right. Im putting those up after talking about texas, because arizona and florida are the next two places Vice President pence is scheduled to visit on his magic coronavirus for everyone tour. He went to texas this weekend, is supposed to go to arizona tomorrow and florida later this week. Now, both the arizona trip and the florida trip this week had initially planned to include another one of those events. Another rallytype campaign religious event like the one he just did in dallas, with all of those big open mouths singing their guts out, right . Tonight, the Vice President s office has canceled the rally parts of his upcoming visits to arizona and florida. So he will still visit both of these states this week. But he is not going to do this rally type thing again, like he did this weekend in texas. Small mercies. Arizonas governor tonight announced that that state will activate a crisis standard of care statewide, which means among other things, nonemergency, nonessential surgeries will be canceled statewide in arizona to try to preserve hospital capacity. Arizonas governor also tonight just ordered the shutdown of bars, nightclubs, gyms, movie theaters, water parks. Theyre all ordered shut down as of tonight. Governor doug doocy had reopened the state of arizona precipitously earlier even than he had said he would. The states epidemic took off like a rocket, and so now arizona is having to reclose. Reclosing is also happening now in texas and in parts of california and in florida, where case numbers quintupled over the past two weeks. These are all places now where previously open businesses and events are being shut down again, because of the disastrous consequences of early reopening. But i think we should start keeping in mind the idea of reclosing. I mean, weve all learned that predictions are folly at any point in this thing, but even so, i think its sort of a safe bet that we are going to see more reclosings in coming days. Again, were seeing them already. Parts of california, arizona, florida, texas, but were starting to look at similar situations in multiple other states. Tonight, for example, oregons governor warned that cases there are increasing so rapidly right now that the state of oregon is in danger of its hospitals being overwhelmed within the next month. In los angeles county, county Health Officials there just gave what the l. A. Times is headlining as a, quote, dire warning. This is from the l. A. Times tonight. Quote, l. A. Countys health chief says, quote, we are seeing an increase in transmission. We are seeing more people get sick and go into the hospital. This is very much a change in the trajectory of the epidemic over the past several days. It is a change for the worse and a cause concern. This is from the director of the covid demand modeling unit for l. A. County, who says if the rate of transmission in l. A. County stays where it is right now, quote, we are at risk of running out of hospital beds within the next two to three weeks. Again, thats the biostat biostatistician who runs the medical unit for l. A. County. He knows what hes talking about. L. A. County, two to three weeks away from running out of hospital beds . I mean, l. A. County is the most populous county in the entire country. As a county, they Just Announced nearly 3,000 new infections in 24 hours. Just for one county. Health officials in l. A. Are basically freaking out right now about how badly things are getting so much worse. So were going to take a closer look tonight at some of the places that are ratcheting back down, that are reclosing tonight after having reopened too early when the epidemic was too big and too uncontrolled. Were also taking a look tonight at the consequences on the abortion rights decision where a 54 decision would have closed down a louisiana law that would have closed down all but one last Abortion Clinic in the state of louisiana. Today weve been watching the state of missouri. If you are a longtime viewer of this show, you will know that the republican governor and the republicanled State Government in missouri has been trying for a very long time to close down what is already the last remaining Abortion Clinic in the whole state of missouri. Weve covered that effort by the republican governor and republican government in missouri to try to close down that clinic. Weve covered that pretty intensively over the past year or so. But today, breakthrough. This afternoon, after the supreme courts surprise abortion rights ruling this morning, today missouris governor signaled that he will abandon his longstanding, monthslong efforts to shut down missouris one last clinic. So at least thats how it looks on the surface right now, but we are watching that closely in missouri, because that has been a tricky, tricky situation where they have used all sorts of different elements of state power to try to shut down that last clinic and to make abortion illegal in that state. But i also want to show you something that ive been thinking about all day. Something that was big enough to make some national news, at least, when it happened. Specifically, it made page 14 in the flagship newspaper of new york city, which is a thousand miles away from where this news event happened back in 1988. This was february 2nd, 1988. On that day, 14 black lawmakers, 14 africanamerican state legislatures from the great state of alabama, were arrested at the great at the Alabama State capital. They were arrested for trespassing. Those black lawmakers were arrested when they demonstrated at the state capital to try to get the state of alabama to remove the confederate battle flag that was still flying up there on top of the Alabama State capitol more than a century after the end of the civil war. While those black alabama lawmakers were making the case to take down that flag and showing they were willing to get arrested in the effort, the times reported back in 1988 that across the street from where those black lawmakers were protesting, several hundred supporters of the Confederate Flag gathered to sing dixie, to counterprotest, while the black lawmakers got arrested. And again, this was a long way back. I am hold, i am 47 and showing every day of it, i know. But this thing im talking about here in alabama, it happened just before i turned 15. I mean, it was for me, almost literally a lifetime ago. But im thinking about it today, because over the course of my life, over all of the years of my life, and over all the intervening years since those black Alabama State legislatures all got arrested, got handcuffed and hauled off from the State Capitol, over all of the years of my life, americans all across the south have repeatedly and creatively and persistently worked to try to get confederate symbols off the tops of State Capitols and off the face of state flags. Look at this footage here. In the middle there, behind this burning Georgia State flag, is a woman named Stacey Abrams. Years later, she would go on to become the leader of the Democratic Party in the Georgia State legislature. She would then become a candidate for georgia legislature. Now a nationally recognized Voting Rights leader. But at the time this image was taken, the Georgia State flag had been more or less consumed by the battle flag of the confederacy. And it took a decade of work and organizing and demonstrations and arguments and even very dramatic moments like this, everything you can think of, but Stacey Abrams and the activists of georgia and the naacp managed to put enough pressure on georgia officials that they did change that flag. And it was a herkyjerky effort, for the first couple of years, georgia sort of tried out a flag that was unusual enough to warrant a caption. Look at this. You can see there, they basically pieced together a whole bunch of different flags that had all flown over georgia at one time or another, made it into like a viewmaster strip, including the flag that was dominate ed by the confederate symbol that had given rise to all of these efforts to take down and change that flag in the first place. Georgia tried this, right . They put that collection of old flags at the bottom of the new georgia flag, along with a caption, right . Georgias history. It works as a film strip. It was not really going to work as a flag. They tried that for a couple of years. But soon enough in 2003, the people of georgia decided they would like to be done with that fisher price flag and lawmakers voted in this new flag, without the confederate symbol at all. And voters in the state of georgia approved it threetoone. Georgia was ready. Georgia changed. Georgia changed their flag. After all of that activism, after all of that drama, after all of that organizing. And we, of course, now live in a time when lots of confederate monuments and symbols are coming down. The fight to do that has been an active part of our politics for decades. And it took on new life after the racially motivated murders of nine africanamerican churchgoers five years ago at Mother Emanuel Church in charleston, South Carolina. And in the immediate aftermath of that massacre in that church, South Carolina lawmakers voted to take down the Confederate Flag that had been flying on statehouse grounds. They had already removed the stars and bars from flying over it will capitol dome, but they then took it off of the capitol grounds, too. Now it would be gone for good. Likewise in alabama, where those black lawmakers had been arrested protesting on capitol grounds. After the charleston massacre, in alabama, by then the Confederate Flag was gone from the capitol dome, but it was still flying on confederate monuments, on capitol grounds, but after the charleston massacre in alabama, they took down the Confederate Flag on the capitol grounds, too. One by one, the flags and the monuments to the confederacy have come down, but there was one place where the Confederate Flag very stubbornly remained. And that was mississippi. The heart of the old confederacy, raising the confederate battle symbol to the hem heavens. Day after day, year after year, everywhere the state flag flew. The man you see here is named aaron henry. He was the president of the naacp in mississippi. Aaron henry was part of a National Civil rights movement. He worked with dr. Martin luther king jr. By 1982, he had won a seat in the Mississippi State legislature, in the legislature, he worked insistently on trying to change the state flag. Aaron henry introduced a bill to change the flag in 1988. That never got a vote. Neither did the bills he tried in 1990 or 1992 or 1993. They wouldnt even hear him. Not long before he died, representative aaron henry talked about that struggle. You see, we have the the residue of the