now and down the road. harvard law school professor writes that the effect of pushing these students away will, quote, likely be an exodus of academic talent to europe and elsewhere, an intellectual ka tat trophy with long-term ramifications. there is so much at stake in this move for the president by the students, the universities and for all of us that today the attorneys general of 16 states and d.c. joined the ad of massachusetts in suing the administration to try and stop the policy. they're asking a federal court in boston to block the policy as the case moves forward. no word yet. but as rachel says, watch this space. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. now it is time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening. i was settling into the chair here. i got the ear piece in just in time to hear you say donald

trump slammed his big, fat -- and i thought, where is this going? and then it was beautiful door and then i -- and then i understood what you were talking about. and very, very, very important point, and i'm so glad that you covered that tonight. very, very important story. >> thank you, sir. have a good evening. >> thank you. well, they did it again. once again, the white house press corps asked donald trump the questions that he wanted to be asked today. instead of asking him about the most grotesque dereliction of duty, he has done nothing about the reports of the killing of american soldiers in afghanistan. nine questions. reporters got in nine questions this time, and not one of them was about vladimir putin paying to kill american soldiers, not one. and so it had been 18 days since

"the new york times" broke that story about russia paying to kill soldiers, and donald trump has managed to avoid a single uncomfortable question about it from white house reporters. we will be joined tonight by a former cia official who served in the clandestine service for 34 years, including during the trump presidency. he was a counter terrorism chief for the region that includes afghanistan, and he now says that he is sure that donald trump knew what russia was doing. and when donald trump did take questions today at the end of a photo op about law enforcement, the very first question was, as if on cue, about dr. anthony fa fauci. the trump white house had spent the weekend trying to undermine dr. fauci by pointing out he has changed his mind about some aspects of the coronavirus as

the scientific evidence has developed and expanded our knowledge of the virus. that is, of course, what scientists do, change their minds based on changing evidence. but no one in the trump white house seems to know that. the only reason donald trump opened himself to questions for 13 minutes and 30 seconds today was so that he could say i don't agree with dr. fauci, who is now the only credible voice on the trump coronavirus task force. the very first question to donald trump today was, are you, quote, at a good place with dr. fauci? do you still appreciate his advice? to which donald trump replied, well, i have a very good relationship with dr. fauci. i have had for a long time, right from the beginning. i find him to be a very nice person. i don't always agree with him. donald trump cannot fire dr. anthony fauci, who is a protected civil servant. so donald trump has done

everything he can do publically to silence dr. fauci who technically cannot do national television interviews without permission, just like other government employees. and, so, here is what donald trump does not want you to hear today. here is dr. fauci speaking today in an interview with stanford medical school saying the reason the coronavirus is raging in the united states is because we did not shut down the country the right way and the states that followed donald trump's advice and threw caution to the wind, that's the phrase he used, threw caution to the wind, are now suffering the worst. now here from dr. fauci is exactly what donald trump does not want you to hear tonight. >> start with a level set on where we are right now. we're all concerned about the

increasing numbers of covid-19 cases. what are your thoughts about how we navigate this surge? and what are your predictions about the covid-19 pandemic and how it's going to evolve in our country and the world in the months ahead? >> okay. good question. if you put aside for a moment, and we'll get back to that, the issue of how things could be completely turned around when we get a safe and effective vaccine and talk about now today in the absence of a vaccine, what is going on, what could we foresee in the immediate future, it is very clear, and we know this from countries throughout the world, that if you physically separate people to the point of not allowing the virus to transmit and the only way to do that is by draconian means of essentially shutting down a country, we know that we can do that if we shut down. the europeans have done it. people in asia have done it.

we did not shut down entirely, and that's the reason why when we went up, we started to come down and then we plateaued at a level that was really quite high, about 20,000 infections a day. then as we started to reopen, we're seeing the surges that we're seeing today as we speak. in california, your own state, in arizona, in texas, in florida and in several other states so that when we try to reopen, if you are not handling the surge, what you are seeing is what you are seeing right now. so we need to drop back a few yards and say, okay, we can't stay shut down forever. economically and the secondary unintended consequences on health, on a variety of other things make it completely nontenable for us to stay completely shut down for a very prolonged period of time. so you have got to shut down, but then you have to gradually

open. and we made a set of guidelines a few months ago which had good what you call check points. we had situations where you do entry and you would have phase one, phase two, phase three. unfortunately it did not work very well for us in an attempt to do that. thus, the increase we have seen. we can get a handle on that. i'm really confident we can if we step back. you don't necessarily need to shut down again. but pull back a bit, and then proceed in a very prudent way, observing the guidelines of going from step to step. all you needed to do was look at the films on tv of people in some states who went from shut down to complete throwing caution to the wind. bars that were crowded, people without masks. there are things you can do now,

physical distance, wearing a mask, avoiding crowds, washing hands. those things, as simple as they are, can turn it around. and i think we can do that. and that's what we've got to do looking forward. >> dr. fauci said today that we learned new things every week about coronavirus, and that's why he sounds much more worried about it now than he did in january when we knew much less about it because the scientific research in coronavirus had not yet really begun in january. when donald trump was asked today what he would tell parents who were worried about sending their kids back to school after a schoolteacher in arizona died from coronavirus, donald trump refused to answer that question and then he said, quote, schools should be opened. schools should be reopened. today dr. fauci added brain damage to the list of parental

worries about kids who go back to school. >> the other thing we want to know is what is the full extent of the clinical manifestations? we learn things every week like this bizarre inflammatory syndrome in children. that's really important. >> that syndrome causes neurological damage in some children. donald trump doesn't want to hear that, and he doesn't want any parent of school aged children in america to hear that, and he doesn't want you to hear that. donald trump cannot give you the name of a single public school student in america, not one. he doesn't know one. he wants them all to go back to school and sit in their classrooms shoulder to shoulder because he doesn't care how many children in america get

neurological damage or die from the coronavirus. donald trump's secretary of education does not know the name of a single public school student, and she also knows nothing about education. and she also doesn't care what happens to public school children during this pandemic. but arnie duncan does care. arnie duncan was president barack obama's secretary of education. he knows that the president of the united states has absolutely no authority to force any school in america to reopen, not one. and not one school in america will reopen because donald trump wants them to. that's the most important thing to keep in mind whenever you hear donald trump talk about schools reopening. he has the same amount of power over that as you do, none. the other thing to keep in mind is that donald trump has been publically diagnosed as a

sociopath by esteemed health professionals and by his niece who wrote a book telling us that donald trump is incapable of caring about the life or death of anyone who attends or works in a public school. here is former secretary of education arnie duncan today on msnbc. >> there is nobody count high enough for the president to actually pay attention to science. we could lose another 10,000, another 50,000, another 100,000. nothing would compel him to listen to dr. fauci and others who are fighting to save lives. and schools are not going to put teachers, principals, their children or their children's families in a position of risk that's far too high. do not pay attention to trump. don't be scared of his bluffs. he does not care whether you live or die. pay attention to those local people who live in your community. please listen to them. >> today the united states

reported 60,537 new cases of coronavirus. and as of tonight, there are 3,365,159 confirmed cases of coronavirus in this country. and as of tonight, we have suffered 136,319 deaths from coronavirus in the united states. leading off our discussion tonight are the chief of critical care at texas children's hospital in houston and a pulitzer prize winning reporter and an msnbc sign contributor. let me just start with you with what we heard from dr. fauci today about the failure to shut down in the first place and then if completely and in the right way and then throwing caution to the wind. what do you make of his interpretation of where we stand tonight? >> good evening, lawrence. yes, dr. fauci's statements were

really important. i think the key thing that comes through is increasing awareness of a few things that we didn't fully appreciate two, three months ago when we were struggling here in new york city. first of all that about half of all transmission is from people who have no symptoms at all, have no idea they're infected. they may be anywhere from 10 years old to 60 years old and on up, and they just -- you don't know to protect yourself from them because they don't have any symptoms. the second is an increasing awareness that this virus is airborne. 239 scientists co-signed a letter to w.h.o. begging them to please state emphatically that this is a virus spread through the air. and in particular that you inhale it through your nose and you exhale it through your mouth. and, so, if you don't cover both nose and mouth fully, you are

not protecting yourself and, more importantly, you're not protecting others. as these things have come forward, combined with what it means when a notice goes partially under lockdown and then lets go, lets the cap off the bottle shows that we can't sustain the lockdown position, social distancing, appropriate mitigation if we didn't do it properly to begin with. and where we are now is talking about opening schools in communities with, you know, it's record numbers. 15,000 new cases in one day in florida. and similarly high record breaking numbers in arizona, in texas, in oklahoma, all over the country. this is not a time to be reopening schools and it's certainly not a time to relax any of our mitigation efforts.

>> doctor, let me ask you the question that parents would ask about kids going back to school, especially in texas where you are. and that is a simple question that doctors get asked all the time. what's the worst that could happen? >> it's a very good question, and we are asked it all the time. right now in texas we have seen a big uptick in coronavirus cases that impacts the children locally in our hospital and our community. the worst that can happen, obviously, is that this continues to increase and to a scale beyond where we are today. it is a very difficult balance. every parent wants their child to return to some new or whatever that is going to be in the coming months. but at the same time, nobody wants to take a gamble and take risks unnecessarily.

that's the situation right now. >> dr. fauci is raising the possibility that among the worst case scenarios is neurological damage to children in a syndrome that is unique to children who are suffering this. >> yes. well, it is one of the more recently discovered horrible clinical effects that it was popularly referred to as kawasaki syndrome, but it's unique to this virus in its current permutation. the other thing that just came to light this last week is a study of multiple autopsies of people here in new york who died of covid. and regardless of age, including children, their bodies are completely riddled with blood clots. blood clots. lawrence, in the livers, in the lungs, all over their entire bodies blood clots. this is increasingly looking

like a virus that is as much a cardiovascular disease as it is a respiratory disease and as much a neurological disease as it is an immune logical disease. it is so much more complex in the damage it does to the human body than say influenza or a lot of viruses we're more familiar with that it's very easy for any clinician to feel completely overwhelmed by trying to understand what is going on in any single patient, much less doctors now in overwhelmed states like florida where they may have 15, 20 patients under their care at a given moment. it's terrible. it's terrible. >> doctor, what is the situation in texas tonight and in houston where you are? >> well, i work in texas children's hospital, and obviously it's a children's hospital. fortunately now we're not seeing the same impact of the

coronavirus in children as we have seen in adults. nonetheless, in the last few weeks, our volumes and our numbers of patients of children have gone up a lot. we have expanded our covid capacity so we are trying our best to keep ahead of the covid beds for children. as many people have seen in the media recently, we have started to take adults with or without covid disease to help our adult counter parts in the medical center in particular. right now we have the ability to surge beyond where we are now, but we have seen a significant uptick in the last few weeks. >> thank you both for starting off our discussion tonight. we really appreciate it. thank you sglrchl. and when we come back, it is official, donald trump is more corrupt than richard nixon because on friday donald trump

did something that richard nixon refused to do. that's next. fe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. to visit all the places we didn't know meant so much.s to get out and go again. safe drivers do save 40%. but we're all going at our own speed. at enterprise, peace-of-mind starts with our complete clean pledge, curbside rentals and low-touch transactions. with so many vehicles of so many kinds, you can count on us to help you get everywhere you want to go... again. whenever you're ready, we're ready for you. enterprise. (vo)you start with america's verizmost awarded network, to build unlimited right. the one with unbeatable reliability 13 times in a row. this network is one less thing i have to worry about. (vo) then you give people more plans to mix and match

so you only pay for what you need verizon unlimited plan is so reasonable, they can stay on for the rest of their lives. awww... (vo) you include the best in entertainment and you offer it all starting at $35. because everyone deserves the best. this is unlimited built right. only on verizon. wow. jim could you ipop the hood for us?? there she is. -turbocharged, right? yes it is. jim, could you uh kick the tires? oh yes. can you change the color inside the car? oh sure. how about blue? that's more cyan but. jump in the back seat, jim. act like my kids. how much longer? -exactly how they sound. it's got massaging seats too, right? oh yeahhhhh. -oh yeahhhhh. visit the mercedes-benz summer event or shop online at participating dealers. get 0% apr financing up to 36 months on select new and certified pre-owned models. our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. with us... turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. daughter: slurping don't pay for water.

pay for clean. it's got to be tide. simon page the lead at the indy 500! coming to the green flag, racing at daytona. they're off... in the kentucky derby. rory mcllroy is a two time champion at east lake. touchdown! only mahomes. the big events are back and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports.

on friday night donald trump crossed a line that even richard nixon refused to cross. richard nixon's white house tapes show that he thought about pardoning his associates and mens of his administration charged with crimes that eventually forced president nixon to resign. but richard nixon pardoned no one who was involved in that criminal conspiracy because he thought pardoning someone close to him who had possible criminal information about him would be just too much, too much for richard nixon. richard nixon was right to fear that he would have been impeached for issuing such a pardon, but donald trump is no richard nixon. donald trump is much more corrupt than richard nixon. on friday night, donald trump

pardoned his long-time associate roger stone after roger stone said publically that he had criminal information about donald trump that he was with holding. here is the way he said that in an interview on friday which was delivered you are geurgently in. roger stone says he doesn't want a pardon which implies guilt but a commutation and says he thinks trump will give it to him. he knows i was under enormous pressure to turn on him. it would have eased my situation considerably, but i didn't. turn on him means testify against donald trump with federal criminal prosecutors. roger stone says doing that would have eased the situation considerably. the only way that could ease the situation is if he was able to deliver to prosecutors accurate, provable, criminal information about donald trump, and roger stone refused to do that. joining us now is a member of

the house judiciary committee. she was in the room last week when former top prosecutor from the southern district of new york gave his closed door testimony about being forced out of that job. first your reaction to where we are on the roger stone pardon and with roger stone tonight doing his first interview with shawn hannity accusing everyone else in the courtroom with him when he was found guilty of v violating their oaths. he accused the judge of being biassed. he said the jury was stacked. he slandered the forewoman very specifically. >> i lost -- go ahead. >> congresswoman, if you can hear me. >> i was getting the question and i have nothing now. >> okay. so she can't hear me at this point at all. we're going to take a break here and see if we can reestablish

that connection and we'll be right back. d we'll be right back en though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib... ...not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin, i'm reaching for that. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. what's next? i'm on board. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily- -and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. ask your doctor about eliquis. and if your ability to afford... ...your medication has changed, we want to help.

not actors, who've got their eczema under control. with less eczema you can show more skin. so roll up those sleeves. and help heal your skin from within with dupixent. dupixent is the first treatment of its kind that continuously treats moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis, even between flare ups. dupixent is a biologic and not a cream or steroid. many people taking dupixent saw clear or almost clear skin. and had significantly less itch. don't use if you're allergic to dupixent. serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, which is severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems, such as eye pain or vision changes, or a parasitic infection. if you take asthma medicines, don't change or stop them without talking to your doctor. so help heal your skin from within and talk to your eczema specialist about dupixent. if your financial situation has changed, we may be able to help.

and we're back with congresswoman madeleine dean of pennsylvania. we believe the audio is working. so let's just begin with your reaction to the roger stone commutation of his sentence. >> well, it is one more massive layering of corruption by this administration. it's an identification of, sadly, what we in america have come to know with this administration and this department of justice, that there are separate systems of justice, those for the friends and cronies that protect a corrupt president and those for the rest of us. it's a very disappointing, dark day in our country's history, and i'm looking forward to the day when we hold all of these people accountable. >> roger stone tonight appearing with shawn hannity basically

slandered everyone who was in the courtroom with him. he said that the jury was basically rigged, they violated their oath. he slandered the judge saying the judge violated her oath as did the prosecutor because the only person who is apparently telling the truth is roger stone. >> and he was convicted. of course mr. hannity's credibility is at an all-time low. i heard some of his program this evening. roger stone was convicted. convicted of lying to prosecutors, of threatening witnesses, of withholding documents, of covering for a president who is corrupt. and you notice with all of the cases that you and i might talk about tonight, there is something in common, and that is that all roads seem to lead to putin and corruption and cover-up. what is this president afraid of? why does he reward corrupt crooked friends of his?punish t

will not protect him as in the case of michael cohen. and you started this by saying think of the deaths. we are in a pandemic. and, yet, this president is focussed on trying to keep a crony out of 40 months prison time. 136,000 thousand americans are dead from coronavirus. what is this president focussed on? >> what can you tell us about jeffrey berman's testimony? he was the former u.s. attorney in manhattan who gave closed door testimony to judiciary committee where he described for you, i guess, in some detail how he was ousted from that job by attorney general william barr. >> well, i was very impressed. i went to be there in person for the interview, the transcribed interview which i believe has been released so you have had the chance to take a look at it. i was impressed by two things. number one, it was proof of

barr's firing of mr. berman on a friday night on june the 19th, one more friday night attempt to take somebody out who might be of damage to this president, who might actually be investigating the corruption of an administration like we have never seen before. on one side you saw and heard the very palpable evidence of bar trying to entice mr. berman to resign from his position. he was having nothing of it, and that's what he said to us in great earnestness. he limited his testimony. you will see from the transcription to just those couple of days. he made no attempt, mr. berman, that is, to identify the motivation of ag barr, but we do know that what he was worried about was if he got fired and then they replaced him or they asked him to resign, actually, then they replaced him with some outsider, there would be a disruption and delay in the important investigations, some of them including this

administration's corruption. so mr. berman got the better of that and would not have that happen and his first deputy now stands in his place. we saw a man of great honor, of no political -- he's a republican, i believe, in his past, appointed as a republican, but he showed no politics, no fear, no favor. he just wanted to do his job and protect the investigations. >> i have been in awe of how he played those 24 hours and somehow got to install the successor that he wanted in that position instead of the person that attorney general barr and donald trump wanted. did he explain to you how he managed to make that happen? >> well, it was interesting because he ran through the scenario. there was a lunch at a hotel on friday, the 19th, whereas mr. berman said there were

sandwiches and nobody ate lunch where ag barr tried to entice him, entice him is the word he used, to try to resign. maybe he considered being chief of the civil position. it would be great for your resume. and mr. berman said no, of course not. i love my work. i really like the work with my colleagues and we have important investigations to complete. they had agreed to speak later in the day. they spoke at 7:00 p.m., and at that point ag barr asked him, well, maybe you'd like to be chair of the sec. if you remember mr. clayton, the chairman of sec was also in front of my other committee, a bizarre set of circumstances in front of the financial services. and again mr. berman said, no, let's speak on monday. ag barr said, no, we'll speak tomorrow. but instead, of course at 9:15 at night the attorney general put out a press release misleading the american public for about the 15th time that i can even think of suggesting --

telling the american public that berman had resigned, and he didn't. mr. berman got the better of that corruption by this attorney general. >> congresswoman madeleine dean, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i'm sorry about that audio difficulty. we really appreciate you joining us. >> i'm pleased to be with you. >> thank you. our next guest was in the cia and was in charge of obtaining intelligence in afghanistan. he has written an op ed entitled i was a counter terrorism chief. trump knew what russia was doing. bounty is not a term intelligence professionals would likely use. it can, therefore, be semantically true that the president never received a briefing on russian bounties, but the president's daily brief on february 27th included information from our intelligence agencies in clinical terms that russians were offering financial

incentives to encourage taliban attacks against troops. joining us now is douglas london, a former cia senior operations officer in the south and southwest asia. thank you very much for joining us tonight. what is your reaction to this story as it stands tonight? we are now about 18 days into the public discussion of it without donald trump ever telling us what he knew or what he was told about this. >> i wouldn't necessarily expect the president to be forthcoming. it's not really been something he's demonstrated, particularly in terms of intelligence. i was pleased to see general mickelson who commanded troops post an op ed tonight in which he likewise acknowledged that prior to his departure in 2018 he did see intelligence concerning russian provision of small arms, ammunition and

finance to the taliban and to use in its operations. so i believe the president will probably continue to try to re-direct the mess sage and tryo realign it with his issues when speaking to such things as leakage and things like that and we'll probably wait until the next change in news cycle and hope it goes away. >> you served in the cia until 2018. that would be during the trump presidency. at your end of operations, did you feel any difference with that under the trump administration than the previous administrations you served in? >> there was a difference in the dynamics between the president and the intelligence community. i believe most presidents even while they may not have the best opinion of the cia are at least more open to hearing out what

the input is and the perspectives are and tend to surround themselves with have some expertise in national security affairs, folks as their national security adviser or secretary of state. this president just had a different dynamic when it came to intelligence. he was hard to brief. he was hard to get him to pay attention to any particular topic. and, really, those topics which didn't align with his preconceived views or his agenda, he would redirect the conversation with the community or deflect the matter entirely. >> do you believe as of tonight that president trump did know what the intelligence reports were about russian activity in afghanistan, including possibly paying to kill american soldiers? >> it's without doubt that the president was kept informed.

he was regularly briefed on these issues. if you recall, the president had to make a consequential decision in february to allow secretary of state mike pompeo to sign the agreement with the taliban. according to the press, the president's daily brief that contained information which specifically spoke to russian incentives and financing to the taliban for the purpose of operations against u.s. forces was in that brief on the 27th of february. so it has been integrated into his information on afghanistan and our path forward regardless of whether it was dealing specifically with those compelling factors that required a president in counter terrorism. but the president being aware of intelligence doesn't necessarily mean he embraces it for the purposes of decision-making and really intelligence is about informed decision makes. he's the boss. what he does, intelligence

community, the military, we're going to comply with. but at the time of the agreement with the taliban, i recall, he had recently had another american kidnapped by the taliban just weeks before it was signed. he had intelligence that was, again, recapitulated by the pentagon in a report of july 1st and the united nations spoke to cooperation between the taliban and al-qaeda remaining quite an issue and an area of concern and his own central command, general mckenzie, spoke to us recently in june that the taliban still hadn't met the conditions for withdrawal as it relates to cooperation with all guy -qaeal. so whether he takes it on board is a problem for us in the community. >> thank you very much for joining our discussion tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, sir.

and when we come back, joe biden is now leading donald trump in a state that a democrat running for president has not won in over 40 years. the biden polling momentum has democrats and republicans focussing on the democrats' strategy for winning back the united states senate. that's next. than rheumatoid arthritis. when considering another treatment, ask about xeljanz a pill for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis when methotrexate has not helped enough. xeljanz can reduce pain, swelling, and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections like tb and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections. serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened.

taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra may increase risk of death. tears in the stomach or intestines and serious allergic reactions have happened. don't let another morning go by without asking your doctor about the pill first prescribed for ra more than seven years ago. xeljanz. so to breathe better, i started once-daily anoro. ♪ copd tries to say, "go this way." i say, "i'll go my own way, with anoro." ♪ once-daily anoro contains two medicines called bronchodilators that work together to significantly improve lung function all day and all night. do not use anoro if you have asthma. anoro won't replace rescue inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, glaucoma... prostate, bladder or urinary problems. these may worsen with anoro. call your doctor if you have worsened breathing, chest pain...

mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes or eye pain, while taking anoro. the most common side effects are sore throat, diarrhea, and pain in the arms and legs. ask your doctor about once-daily anoro to start treating your copd. we're here for you during this challenging time--and always. find support at anoro.com. and get way more.ith we'rwso you can bring yourshis challenging time--and always. vision to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams. spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair today. even if you're on a statin? are you still at risk for a heart attack or stroke? statins may lower some risks, but may not be enough. that's why science delivered vascepa.

for people who have persistent cardiovascular risk factors and take a statin only vascepa is clinically proven to provide 25% lower risk from heart attack and stroke. don't take vascepa if you're allergic to icosapent ethyl or any inactive ingredient in vascepa. tell your doctor about any medicines you take, and if you are allergic to fish or shellfish. stop taking vascepa and seek medical help if you have symptoms of an allergic reaction. serious side effects may occur like heart rhythm problems and bleeding. heart rhythm problems may occur in more people with persistent cardiovascular risk or who have had heart rhythm problems. tell your doctor if you have symptoms such as irregular beat, lightheadedness, dizziness, shortness of breath, chest discomfort or fainting. possible side effects include muscle and joint pain. proven by science, fda approved. vascepa can reduce your risk and add cardio protection. call your doctor about vascepa today. they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident. cut! is that good? no you were talking about allstate and...

i just... when i... accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. 44 years. it has been 44 years since a democratic presidential candidate won the state of texas. jimmy carter was the last to do that in 1976. a new poll from the dallas morning news shows joe biden with a five point lead in texas, a state that donald trump won by nine points in 2016. joe biden's strong polling numbers are in the country are giving new momentum to democrats strategies in down trot races,

including house races and senate races. here is the lincoln project's latest ad aimed at flipping the senate to democrats. >> they will beg you to forget their votes to exonerate trump from his crimes, asking you to forgive their violence and betrayals as trump wrecked this nation. every time they had a choice between america and trump, they chose trump. every time they were called to the service of this nation and their sacred oath, they chose trump. every time. learn their names. remember their actions. and never ever, ever trust them again. >> joining us now, former senator claire mckas kel.

i have a feeling you like those poll numbers tonight. whenever i see these poll numbers, all i can think of is 1988, michael losing in november. what is your reading of where the campaign is tonight? >> well, first, lawrence, you're right. the biggest mistake we can make is think that this is somehow a done deal tharks the cake is baked. we have a long way to go. it may just be, you know, a few months, but it still is a long way in political campaigns to go. so nobody should take anything for granted. and they're going to try to suppress our vote. so we have to be very vigilant about it. but this president's lies, his incompeten incompetence, his defacement of the office is creating new swing states. if somebody would have told me in december of 2018 that in two years texas and iowa would be

swing states, i'd say, no, no, we're going to be really fighting just to hold on to michigan. we're going to be fighting just to hold on to pennsylvania. we look really good in arizona. this is not a state we could ever rely on for. so clearly the sands are shifting. we just can't take anything for granted. >> i want to take a look at an ad that shows us just how different this campaign is from really any presidential campaign we have ever seen. and this is a vote vets ad against donald trump. and it just contains a concept as an ad that was impossible prior to donald trump. let's watch this.

>> claire, we have never seen an ad like that and ending with traitor for the president of the united states. but that's where the evidence is. that's an evidence-based ad. >> it's an evidence-based ad. it has been almost, what, three weeks since we learned that putin was putting a bounty on our american military theater. and there has still not been a word, not a word from this president, you know, calling it out, saying that it is wrong, even mentioning it in a context that would appear to be supportive of the troops. so this ad is fair, particularly from the veterans' perspective, the men and women who lost lives over there, their families and those who have been wounded and had their lives changed because of explosions of the taliban and

knowing now that there are bounties on their heads. this is a powerful ad, but it is a fair ad. and i got to tell you what's really amazing to me is the silence of the republican senators, whether it's on the criminal known as the roger stone commutation or whether it's bounties on our soldiers' heads, the silence is deafening, lawrence. i am shocked that you're not hearing from republican senators, especially those that are in swing states where they have to win independent voters. and they're not going to win independent voters with this silent act and being complicit in the criminal enterprises of donald trump. >> claire, you know these senators, and from where i'm sitting, these republican senators live in fear of the trump voter, the committed trump voter, and so that makes them -- that locks them in place in this inability to reach out to an independent voter. >> it's really a mistake, i

think. first of all, the republican party is shrinking. people identifying as republicans is getting smaller during this presidency. so the part of the electorate that are independents is getting larger and larger. i know something about those votersme voters. we have those voters in missouri who will vote for a republican one cycle and a democrat the next, or a republican at the top of the ballot and a democrat at the bottom of the ballot. these senators need to speak out especially about the roger stone commutation and bounties on american soldiers. i look at the armed services committee and those i know so well. shame on lindsey graham. he's turned into a slug. shame on tom cotton, grandstanding but failing to hold this president accountable on these failures. people like lamar alexander, where is he on the commutation of roger stone? he's retiring for gosh sakes. why isn't he speaking out? it's a terrible indictment of the republican party right now. >> senator claire mccaskill,

thank you very much for joining our discussion tonight. really appreciate it. >> you bet. >> thank you. and when we come back, data scientist rebekah jones was fired by the state of florida after refusing to manipulate coronavirus data. now florida is the new epicenter of the coronavirus in the united states, and rebekah jones joins us next. don't just think about where you're headed this summer. think about how you'll get there. and now that you can lease or buy a new lincoln remotely or in person... discovering that feeling has never been more effortless. accept our summer invitation to get 0% apr on all 2020 lincoln vehicles. only at your lincoln dealer. if you experience bladder leaks, you shouldn't have to sacrifice discretion for protection. try always discreet. the unique design features protective leakguards,

which help prevent leaks where they happen most and an absorbent material that turns liquid into gel, for up to 100% leak free protection. the shapewear design provides a close and seamless fit, to ensure total discretion. choose the solution that keeps you drier. try always discreet underwear, with a money back guarantee. brand power. helping you buy better. people are surprising themselves the moment realize they can du more with less asthma. thanks to dupixent, the add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma. dupixent isn't for sudden breathing problems. it can improve lung function for better breathing in as little as 2 weeks and help prevent severe asthma attacks. it's not a steroid but can help reduce or eliminate oral steroids. dupixent can cause serious allergic reactions including anaphylaxis. get help right away if you have rash, shortness of breath, chest pain, tingling or numbness in your limbs.

tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection and don't change or stop your asthma treatments, including steroids, without talking to your doctor. du more with less asthma. talk to your doctor today about dupixent. if your financial situation has changed, we may be able to help. if y(vo)you start with america's verizmost awarded network, to build unlimited right. the one with unbeatable reliability 13 times in a row. this network is one less thing i have to worry about. (vo) then you give people more plans to mix and match so you only pay for what you need verizon unlimited plan is so reasonable, they can stay on for the rest of their lives. awww... (vo) you include the best in entertainment and you offer it all starting at $35. because everyone deserves the best. this is unlimited built right. only on verizon. ♪ ♪

[ engines revving ] ♪ ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

we really need your help. miami's now the epicenter of the pandemic. what we were seeing in wuhan six months ago, five months ago, now we are there. >> florida has now set the record for the largest number of coronavirus cases reported in a single day in any state, 15,300 cases reported yesterday. rebekah jones built florida's coronavirus data portal, but she says she was fired by the state of florida on may 18th after

refusing to manipulate data to make it seem as if certain florida counties had met the criteria to reopen. she has been tracking the coronavirus data in florida on her own since then, and in a recent article about florida's coronavirus data problem, she wrote "data is only as trusted as its keeper." and joining us now is the keeper of florida data, rebekah jones, the former manager of data and surveillance for covid-19 at the florida department of health. thank you very much for joining us again tonight, rebekah. what is the situation with the state of florida's publicly available data? is it still as flawed, to put it mildly, as it was when you were fired? >> it's much, much worse than it was when i was fired unfortunately. they've dumped antigen tests into the percent positivity but

not separated them. they restricted some data. they haven't added anything new, at least not from the department of health, so things unfortunately have only gotten worse. >> so is the actual coronavirus situation in florida worse than the statistical picture we are reporting about it? >> absolutely. the oca data, with i is the agency for health care administration, a different agency in florida, started releasing hospitalization data friday. by saturday i had up on my new dashboard at florida action.com, and it showed in many counties, there are currently more people hospitalized right now than dhs is reporting have been hospitalized ever. >> so it's not even close then. what about the actual infection rates? when we see a report that they had over 15,000 in one day, is that a reasonably accurate number? >> we always know that testing

is limited by mobility, geography, access to health insurance and doctors, all kinds of factors. so on any given day, we're not testing a fair share of the population, and it's not distributed equally among the population. and there's also a capacity, a limit to how many tests the state can run today. and i think they've run up against that limit. >> has florida done anything to prepare for the reopening of schools that the governor is urging? >> my understanding at this point is that the state is allowing counties to take whatever measures they feel are necessary individually, in individual school districts. that's not state leadership. that is just passing the buck. >> rebekah jones, thank you very much for joining us again tonight. we're going to want to hear more from you as the situation in florida has gotten much, much worse as i think you told us it would. again, thank you, rebekah jones, for joining us. really appreciate it. >> thank you.

>> that is tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" starts now. well, good evening once again. day 1,271 of the trump administration. 113 days to go until our presidential election. the pandemic's grip on our country has been merciless, yet the white house is now enmeshed in what looks like an effort to try to sink dr. anthony fauci, the scientist and doctor who has guided the country through pandemic threats under six presidents and is a recipient of the presidential medal of freedom. over 3.3 million people are infected that we know of. over 136,000 lives have been lost. new cases are rising steadily. above 61,000 new cases just today. dozens of states now reporting