News Information and Media Site: The Art of the Deal ... and 10 steps to combat the pandemic

From NBC's Ben Kamisar

If it's Sunday, what does this White House want from the coronavirus relief deal?

One day after President Trump signed executive actions aimed at sidestepping the deadlock on a bill, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told "Meet the Press" that the negotiations "should be easier than it is."

"We've got two sides — one's at $1 trillion, another's at $3 trillion. The first thing you have to do is agree on some number in between."

—Peter Navarro, White House trade adviser

But as Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin told the show just minutes later, Democrats have already proposed a $2 trillion plan they see as a compromise (on Fox News Sunday, Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin argued Democrats wouldn't negotiate on state and local tax deductions or enhanced unemployment benefits).

"We have priorities that may be different than theirs. But in terms of a dollar amount, we're exactly where Mr. Navarro suggested."

—Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin

In trying to cast the White House as the party willing to bend, Navarro also raised the "theory" that "Democrats would prefer to see the economy go into the tank for another 90 days because that harms the president."

But just minutes earlier, while defending Trump's decision to issue those executive orders, Navarro noted that Trump's "constituency is mainstream Republicans, blue-collar Democrats and independents who are sick and tired of the swamp."

It's unclear whether or not Washington's leaders can come to an agreement or if Trump's decision to leapfrog negotiators and issue his own order has obscured any path forward.

But the economy is languishing, the pandemic is raging, and schools are struggling to figure out how and if to re-open, all with 85 days until Election Day. And it still appears that Republicans don't fully have their house in order as to how to address all of those concerns.

Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP

Working to turn things around after 5 million cases and 160,000 dead

Dr. Tom Inglesby, the Director of the Center for Health Security of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, also joined today's show to shine light on how the experts believe America can "reset" the coronavirus response.

Inglesby and his colleagues just put out a series of 10 recommendations — including:

A stricter commitment to avoiding large gatherings and universal masking
Closing "high risk activities" and re-instituting state-at-home orders in hot spots
Boost the development of protective equipment
Speed up turnaround time for tests and shore up the test supply chain

The doctor told "Meet the Press" that America is not "doomed to this fate" because other countries have used a combination of these strategies in order to dramatically lower their daily death tolls.

But he warned that while the solutions are "not complicated" they require everyone working in unison in order to turn around the mounting case-load and death count.

"It's not magic what they did. We know what they did. So, I think, if we act together in national unison, we can get there."

—Dr. Tom Inglesby of Johns Hopkins University

Click on the photo below to watch the full interview.

2020 VISION: The veep rough-and-tumble

The world continues to wait for former Vice President Joe Biden to announce his vice presidential pick.

And some have filled the vacuum with opposition-research dumps aimed at boosting preferred candidates or sinking ones they are cool to.

When asked about this year's Democratic veepstakes, Dick Durbin told "MTP" that he's "concerned" but "not surprised" that things have gotten tense because while politics has "always been a tough game," it has "gotten worse over the last several years."

Click here for more on the veepstakes from today's panel.

TWEET OF THE DAY: Divine provenance

DATA DOWNLOAD: Follow the money

Today's Data Download looks at weekly television and radio spending to paint a picture of how the presidential battleground has shifted over the summer.

The upshot: President Trump's effort is largely on the defensive while former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign is looking to expand the map.

Click on the graphic below to read more from today's Data Download.

ICYMI: The racial inequalities in voting by mail

While many states are expanding the use of voting by mail as the coronavirus pandemic barrels toward Election Day, the shift risks exacerbating the underlying issues with the practice, particularly concerns about which ballots are tossed out and which are counted.

Click on the photo below to read more from NBC's Jane C. Timm.