In an election year of astronomically high stakes, in the absolutely crucial Senate race in North Carolina, Democrats got their wish with popular former Governor Roy Cooper entering the race. Fresh from announcing his candidacy, Cooper talks with Rachel Maddow about his accomplishments leading North Carolina, and what he hopes to bring to Washington, D.C.

Rachel Maddow cites example after example of Donald Trump going out of his way to help criminals, including some really terrible ones, so the idea that Trump's concerns about crime are behind his deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. does not seem to hold water. Looking more closely at what Donald Trump has done instead of what he has said points to the more likely explanation that Trump really likes pointing the U.S. military at the American people.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for mRNA vaccine research, a move that has been widely panned by health experts across the political spectrum, including members of Trump's first administration.