>> so un-american. it is so unpatriotic. and the voting begins, with a pandemic surge in mail-in ballots. >> i do like to do it in person, but i don't want to take the chance this year. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. to our viewers in the united states and around the world, thank you so much for sharing your sunday. character again is a late campaign question for donald trump. four years ago it was a recording in which he bragged about assaulting women, now a damning new report that he called fallen american military heroes losers and suckers. >> it is a disgrace that somebody has allowed to write things like that, it could have been, you know, a lot of times the sources aren't sources, they don't exist, sometimes the sources are just people that are disgruntled, former so-called employees. >> confirms what most of us believed to be true, that donald

trump is not fit to be the job of the president, to be commander in chief. >> another damning account from a one-time trump insider, long time trump attorney michael cohen writes in a new book the president is racist and was obsessed with criticizing the former president barack obama. look here at faux bahafaux-bama. more on those character questions in a moment. first, this sunday, another coronavirus crossroads, a holiday weekend at the turn of the seasons. labor day crowds at the beach are look here at myrtle beach, south carolina, santa monica, california, recent history and the stubbornly high count of new infections tell us to be nervous. >> we need everybody to be careful, to apply common sense, and do all of the things that we have told you to do, as quickly as much as you can. social distancing, wearing a mask, whenever the distancing is

not possible. >> that to the president's credit was a rare moment of responsible advice. more common, though, are his remarks mocking masks or making the case the worst is over. the numbers and let's take a look, they tell us otherwise. let's look at the 50-state trend map. 17 states as we enter the labor day weekend, 17 states reporting more cases now than a week ago, meaning case count going up. 19 states, the base, holding steady. 14 states reporting lower case count, california and texas going down, florida and arizona, the drivers of the summer surge going up after a period of going down. the case curve, this is instructive. remember back memorial day? below 20,000 cases. below 20,000 new infections a day on average there. then you see by july 4th, spiked to 45,000. two weeks later, not even, 12 days later, 77,000 new infections a day. there has been a drop, but on friday and saturday, friday was

above 50,000 cases. yesterday, above 40,000 again. you want to get the baseline down, this is not down. it dropped some, but it is not down in any significant way. a reminder of why everyone is so worried about the holiday. this is the trend map in the united states, here, this is memorial day. this is where we were on memorial day. 19 states trending up, 24 states trending down. that was memorial day. that's one month later. look at this map. you want green. beige is at least steady th. this is where we were on memorial day. 37 states trending up one month after. if you look at the positivity right now, heading into the labor day weekend, people taking coronavirus tests, coming back positive, again you want to be below 5%, look at this, in the dakotas, 19%, 21%. iowa, 16%. missouri, 14%. kansas, 17%. florida, back up to 13%. south carolina, 12%. this is the problem right now. and this is the reason dr. fauci

talked about this coming into the weekend, about getting this down. you hope to get the baseline back down somewhere here. instead, it is still up here. so this from dr. fauci, wishful thinki thinking. with us this sunday, dr. ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health and dr. megan ranney. we hoped to hear from dr. fauci there, a glitch in the system. i have the graph still up here. this was the idea, to try to get the baseline down, try to get it back down around 20,000. instead, we're at 50,000 or 40,000. where are we on labor day weekend? >> good morning, john. thank you for having me on. yes, so this is a problem as we head into labor day. because part of the goal of lowering that baseline, that dr. fauci talked about, is we know when kids go back to school this fall, when colleges open up, we're going to see more cases and those are going to go up.

you don't want to be starting off with a baseline of 40,000 to 50,000 cases because it is going to be much, much harder to control those outbreaks. so those the goal is -- was to get this much, much lower. unfortunately that's not the position we find ourselves in as we head into labor day weekend. >> and one of the issues we face is college campuses, the back to school question, whether talking from k through 12 and colleges, 12 days ago, we started tracking this, students starting to go back to campus, 12 days ago, that's what we saw, 26 states reporting cases of covid, back on campus. here is where we are today, just 12 days later. all 50 states reporting cases. all 50 states now reporting outbreaks. it reminds you, number one, of how stubborn and resilient the virus is. that question as we head to fall, that adds to that baseline, going up, not down. >> that's absolutely right. we just had a mass migration of young adults across the country as colleges start to reopen. it is entirely predictable that

as those kids move, they're going to bring covid with them from their home state to wherever they're going to college and as as we have seen ample reports across the country, human nature for young adults to go out, go to bars and fraternities and sororities, to hang out at parties and to spread covid. it is why the asymptomatic testing and the masking and the university standards are so critical, but it is also why it may be irresponsible for some colleges to reopen in person right now because this is not just going to affect those youth who are, of course, at risk, but it is also going to affect a larger community around them. >> and i played a little sound bite from the president at the top, he did say heading into the weekend, people should wear a mask. he said people should social distance. we wish he said that every day. he doesn't, though, why we had this remarkable period, dr. jha, where dr. fauci is on television, very frequently and doing other interviews warning people, please, please, please. dr. birx is traveling the country now, essentially

delivering reports to governors saying your state is on fire. in the last few days, this is iowa, the house coronavirus committee released this one, this was a task force recommendation late july to iowa, continue to promote social distancing, wearing a cloth face mask when outside the home. in august, mandate cloth face coverings outside the home, in indoor settings. we know similar warnings have been delivered to georgia, to missouri. the president won't say this anymore, he won't lecture or pressure these republican governors to do things. dr. birx is running around delivering hot zone reports, but not listening. >> it is a very odd situation, where basically you have two top white house officials drr s dr. and dr. birx, going out and telling the truth, telling people what the science is. if you look at the reports that they're producing, they're talking about surveillance testing for k through 12, they're talking about surveillance testing for colleges. and yet what comes out of the white house is an undermining of their own top scientists. i don't know that in my lifetime

i've seen anything like this, where there is two opposite messages coming out of the white house at the same time. >> and one of the factors we see, dr. ranney, the ihme model, it has been conservative, if you go back and look at what they said, projecting deaths in the united states, almost every time they projected, the actual number, sadly has come in higher. one thing from the latest report, why they increased the death toll this is about mask wearing here. look at the middle of the country. these are places in the country where fewer people are wearing masks. you see now you have the death projection up there now, 410,000 deaths by january 1st. they believe 122,000 of those could be saved if more people would wear masks. simple correlation, dr. ranney, if you look where people aren't wearing masks and go through the past few weeks of where you have higher cases, it is pretty simple. and yet. >> that's exactly right. that ihme projection as you said

has been amply criticized, it is a projection, it depends on what all of us do. their projection, they're saying on average probably around 400,000 deaths. so we're probably going to double the number of deaths between now and christmas. but it could be as low as 200,000 -- or as low as 100,000 more or we could triple the number of deaths between now and the end of the year. it depends how we behave. there are lots of studies showing when there is universal masking, the number of infections in deaths drops dramatically and staying outdoors, physical distancing, that helps as well, but it is going to get tougher for those of us in the north as the season gets colder. universal masks are critical, for a governor to not put a universal masking mandate in place at this point in the pandemic with the science that we have is to, me, mind boggling. i don't know why you wouldn't try and protect your citizens of your state. >> dr. jha, to that point, where are we as we head into fall.

people are being more careful, washing their hands. flu season won't be as bad. we have that high coronavirus baseline which means if it starts to go back up again, it starts from 40 or 50,000 and instead of starting at 18 or 15,000. where are we? >> what i'm worried about, john, we're going to see a tale of two countries. parts of the country where local leadership is terrific and is going to follow the science and other places where we're going to see ignoring of that science and really large outbreaks as we head into the fall and winter. i want us to act as one country. people travel between places. i think we can do this much better. but anybody looking at the data has got to be worried about what the next few weeks and few months brings. >> i hope that turns out not to be true. grateful for your expertise and insights. we'll continue the conversation in the weeks ahead. up next for us, a shift to politics and the character question, the president denying, calling fallen american military heroes loser and suckers.

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the president's character is again front and center as a campaign issue. remember, four years ago we had this conversation several times. when candidate trump mocked john mccain's heroism, when in his own voice on that "access hollywood" tape we heard him bragging about sexually assaulting women. this weekend, in the closing weeks of this campaign, at issue is a startling account detailing how the president reportedly referred to american troops killed in combat as losers and suckers. >> there is nobody that feels

more strongly about our soldiers, our wounded warriors, our soldiers that died in war than i do. it is a hoax. >> loyal trump staffers rushed out tweets and statements taking issue with the atlantic report, but the reported comments do track harsh trump statements made in other episodes and this is important, other news organizations including cnn and notably fox news have confirmed key pieces of the atlantic account. and this is telling, two military men who would have firsthand knowledge, former white house chief of staff john kelly, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general joseph dunford are silent. the president on friday lashing out at kelly, kelly, a retired marine general, whose own son gave his life in combat in afghanistan. >> i know john kelly. he was with me. didn't do a good job. had no temperament. and ultimately petered out. he was exhausted. this man was totally exhausted. he wasn't even able to function.

>> with us to show the reporting and insights this sunday, lisa laird of "the new york times" and tolu olorunnipa. there was questions about the president's character in 2016. some democrats are hesitant, they think this doesn't work for us to get involved in these character debates with this president, but joe biden after seeing this report came forward and talked about his own personal history. >> my son volunteered and joined the united states military as the attorney general, went to iraq for a year, won the bronze star and other commendations, he wasn't a sucker. the servicemen and women he served with, particularly those did not come home, were not losers. >> is it different this time? the character questions about this president are constant. is this different? >> look, i think the questions

are not different. and i'm not sure that they change them -- the voters' minds. i think voters who don't like the president's character are largely against him. i think those who support the president see his character is -- they see it as an ability to stand up to the washington establishment as an unwillingness to do what -- perform what they call political correctness. i think some of the character issues are certainly baked in. i think what democrats now are trying to do is find the balance of how that plays in their larger campaign messaging. character will be a piece of the messaging, but a lot of democrats believe it can't be the whole message or as large a part of the message as it was in 2016. and instead the focus has to be far heavier on what the president has and has not done for the american people, particularly when comes to to the pandemic, when it comes to the state of the economy, so i think democrats are trying to find a balance here, between talking about character and talking about other issues that could be more persuasive to voters who may be on the fence.

>> and tolu, i think lisa makes a key point, candidate trump in 2016 was a disruptive outsider, he wasn't in charge. he said he would make washington different. is it different, does character matter more or can you make the connection as lisa says to presidential leadership, he fails at the big challenges because this is the type of person he is, into that, you have another book, michael cohen, he's gone to prison, lied to investigators, so the trump campaign will say he can't be believed, he was at the president's side for year and writes this new book and among the things he describes a man patently racist and among the things he says in the book -- they're all complete f'ing toilets acording to cohen. after mandela died, trump allegedly said of south africa that mandela f'd the whole country up. its mind numbing. >> and not surprising in part

because of what we heard the president say publicly. he stoked racial divisions, he's trafficked in stereotypes, he's talked negatively about his predecessor, the first black president. it is not completely surprising, but it is stark to read this on the page from one of the president's closest advisers. this is the latest in the series of accounts that we have seen in tell all books, in news stories about the president's character, about how he talks about fellow americans, about his role as president, governing americans who are very diverse and come from different backgrounds. we're seeing constantly sort of this contempt he has for anyone who would be seen as a sucker or a loser, anyone who is not sort of, you know, all hands on deck in terms of trying to take advantage of their fellow american, whether it be a service member or whether it be somebody in public service, like john kelly, saying that, you know, they couldn't do the job well, that they did not live up to the standard that he has set for them, for certain people. so it is pretty clear from all of these accounts that even the people close to the president

believe that he is someone who speaks negatively about fellow americans, who does not have the character we have seen from former presidents, who see themselves as governing the entire country, not just their supporters. so i do think this will be relevant for some voters on the margins who believe that character does count and that is important to have a commander in chief who shows that character, specifically when it comes to our troops. >> to that point, one of the challenges, how do voters process the leadership question and the character of the individual. one of the issues front and center this past week, the social unrest in the country and from the president and his opponent, two very different views. >> biden's plan is to appease the domestic terrorists, my plan is to arrest them and prosecute them. >> fear doesn't solve problems. only hope does. and you keep giving up hope, you might as well surrender. there is no real option. >> it gets to the question of

leadership and character right there. make a choice. >> this that's exactly right. you see the president's campaign really leaning into this one question out of the convention. joe biden has been forced to fight on the president's terrain and talk about this unrest that is happening in the country, not only from the perspective of racial justice, but also from the perspective of people who are worried that perhaps there is these protests have gotten a little too chaotic. i do think on the character issue, just from jumping back for that one second, the president's team does have a problem with that, which is, of course, the president. we heard them go through their entire convention, trying to rebrand the president as someone who is compassionate, someone who is empathetic, they had a series of staff members come out and give personal testimonials about how the president called them, when they were sick, or called, you know -- stories like that that tried to maybe the president look like someone who is very empathetic.

then a week later, you get news reports that the president is giving very differently behind closed doors. i think it is hard to rebrand the president as something that voters see in news reports after new reports he is not. that's a real challenge for this campaign. >> excellent point. lisa, tolu, thank you for coming in this sunday morning. eight weeks, eight weeks to election day. up next, a closer look at the state of the race. joe biden holds a stable national lead. but the state look, that matters more. ♪ it's velveeta shells & cheese versus the other guys. ♪ clearly, velveeta melts creamier. hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%.

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stable, advantage biden, but perhaps closer than meets the eye. that is the state of the presidential race eight weeks to the finish line. let's walk through the key metrics. national polling, what a remarkableabremar remarkably stable race we had. joe biden at 51, donald trump at 43, remarkably stable national race. if you look at the battleground states, it is closer. remember 2016, joe biden still has a fairly comfortable lead in pennsylvania. florida is tight.

north carolina incredibly tight. wisconsin a biden lead, but in play, arizona, a biden lead, but, again, a state in play. battleground states still advantage biden, but tighter than the national perspective. he wants to make this praise about crime. only 37% of americans say that's something they're worried about. 60% are worried about the coronavirus. 58% about the same, worried about the economy. these are the driving issues in the race, this one advantage biden, this one slight advantage trump, president trying to breakthrough on this. if you look at this, you're an incumbent president, don't like this number. 64% the american people in our new cnn poll say things in the country are going badly. if you're an incumbent president, that is horrible. only 34% say it is going well. history tells us the president needs this number to be above 40%. 40%, 42% of the american people think it is going well. this is what is fascinating. you see this race play out, most voters say they made up their mind. that doesn't mean this number will hold. the debates are coming, for

example, but in our national poll, 89% say they made up their mind. in florida, 93%. quinnipiac poll say they made their mind. only 5% in this state. just shy of 10% nationally say they're still open. and yet the campaign spending tens of millions of dollars trying to swing the persuadables. >> this is trump's america. he won't bring us together. he doesn't want to. and never will. >> the greatest economy the world has ever seen coming back to life. but joe biden wants to change that. >> i will shut it down. >> why would we ever let biden kill countless american businesses, jobs and our economic future. >> jonathan martin of "the new york times" joins us now. you're in wisconsin. we're getting into a more traditional campaign with both

campaigns being active. you and your colleagues write this on the labor day traditional gateway to the fall race, no president has entered labor day weekend, traditional kickoff to the fall campaign, as search a clear underdog as george bush in 1992. mr. trump has not won in polls in florida since mr. biden claimed the nomination in april there has been little fluctuation in the race. still the president surprise win in 2016 weighs heavily in the thinking of nervous democrats and hopeful republicans alike. democrats look at the numbers and think this is great, except they have this doubt in the back of their mind, don't they? >> that's exactly what it is. i think democrats see the numbers, which haven't really shifted very much, in fact only real change in the race over the last six months is that period in june, july, when biden took a bigger lead for a bit, but other than that, it has been a stable race. democrats are so haunted by 2016 that i think they're going to be nervous up until literally the

electors put biden in office. >> and we have seen, again, a more traditional -- this is a campaign like no other, a few minutes i'll talk to experts about mail-in voting. we see more activity and more travel and when you listen to the two candidates, no matter the issue, this is a stark choice for voters. listen. >> the fastest labor market recovery from any economic crisis in history. by far. >> this remains the worst economic situation since the great depression. >> we're round the corner. we're rounding the corner on the virus. >> you're not safe in donald trump's america where people are dying at a rate last seen when americans were fighting in world war ii. >> biden thinks especially when it comes to the pandemic he has the advantage because of trump's mismanagement. more debatable, where is the economic information going. >> the back and forth is

certainly apocalyptic there, john. i think who has the advantage on where the economy actually is come october could be decisive. so a month from now who is winning that debate, biden or trump, it could weigh heavily on the minds of that 5% of undecided voters that you mentioned a minute ago. but i am in wisconsin. this c this campaign has not opinion a campaign that you and i know. pence and kamala harris will be in this state tomorrow. one of the most important battleground states. and i think that's significant. because that tells me that joe biden and his campaign recognize that they cannot stick around delaware, they cannot do a virtual campaign only. they got to get boots on the ground in these states. and as we explained in our story today, that's in part because local democrats, lawmakers in places like wisconsin and minnesota, are telling biden you

got to get out here. you got to get out here. you can't skip this state, like hillary did four years ago, you have to be here physically. that's an important shift here. after the last four months, biden basically doing a virtual campaign, he and his running mate are finally getting out there, boots on the ground, in these states. >> one other quick point before we go, it is interesting to see, they have made the calculation, they need to turn out voters who didn't show up in 2016. you see the new headlines today, white house directs federal agencies to cancel race related training sessions. >> in pennsylvania and wisconsin and minnesota, they're trying to get every voter that they have last time and get some people mostly white noncollege voters, who didn't vote in 2016, to vote for him as opposed to trying to win over nonwhite voters or making inroads in the suburbs. that's the strategy.

but here's the vast downside to that, even if you do pull that off, pennsylvania, minnesota, wisconsin, the adverse impact of that, does it bite you in florida, in north carolina, in georgia, in arizona, to say is there a backlash in the sun belt if you pursue that kind of a strategy, more diverse states in the south and west if you run the entire campaign to hold the rust belt. >> that makes it so fascinating. have a beer and a brat for me. save the beer for later. it is a little early. >> not in wisconsin. thank you, john. the voting is under way and election officials not only need to count the votes, they need to tell you ignore the president. ♪ go go go ♪

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your business has an easy choice.t-mobile for business, if you can't afford your medicine, the largest 5g network... award-winning customer satisfaction... insanely great value. choose. any. three. ready when you are. election day is eight weeks from tuesday, but the voting is already under way. the coronavirus pandemic is creating unprecedented interest in mail-in voting. look here, nine states conduct the 2020 election, almost

exclusively by mail. 35 allow voters to get a mail-in ballot, just by asking. six require a reason, like working out of state or deployed in the military to get a mail or absentee ballot. state election officials say the challenge is enormous and questions about post office operations add to that test. the history of mail in voting, including this year's primaries, is the turnout goes up and the threat of fraud is quite small. and yet constant attacks by the president and his allies. >> we're a very closely divided country here. if people have to have confidence in the results of the election and the legitimacy of the government and people trying to change the rules to this -- to this methodology, which as a matter of logic is very open to fraud and coercion is reckless and dangerous and people are playing with fire. >> in addition to his anger there, notice how the attorney general plants the seed to question the legitimacy of the outcome. one scenario is the so-called

red barrage. follow along. the president is leading in the election day vote counts. and that night he declares victory. that before millions of mail-in ballots are counted. and the map then turns much more blue. the president raises election trust questions constantly. going so far this past week just as north carolina began mailing out ballots to urge supporters in that state to try to vote twice. >> you get the unsolicited ballots, send it in and go make sure it is counted and if it doesn't tabulate, you vote. you just vote. and then if they tabulate it very late, which they shouldn't be doing, they'll see you voted and so it won't count. >> jocelyn benson is the secretary of state of the state of michigan, and director bell, in this extraordinary year, something i never thought i would see happen has happened. you had to put on your website the fact that voting twice is illegal because the president of

the united states encouraged people, mail in your ballot, but go to the polls and see if they'll let you vote again. what was that like? >> it was not something we expected to be doing. our focus at that point in time was responding to the over 600,000 absentee by mail requests that we received. which has been unprecedented for our state. but we took it as an opportunity to make sure we educated our voters and explained the processes in north carolina. so we just saw it as an opportunity, rather than anything else. >> the president is undermining the questions -- raising questions about mail-in voting. at the same time the russians are, we know a law enforcement bulletin went out this week saying we assess russia is likely to continue amplifying criticisms of vote by mail and shifting voting processes amidst the covid-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process. how much does that complicate what is already an unprecedented job you face and your cohorts

around the country face of dealing with the unprecedented request for mail-in balloting? >> it is a direct threat to the security of our elections that in many i was we have been preparing for, because we anticipated there would be efforts to spread disinformation among our voters and confuse the electorate and cause chaos as we approach an election day. so in many i wways we're prepar but we need voters to be prepared and vigilant as well. the snam name of the game is lo for trusted sources of information, where you can get real information about where the rules are, how to track your ballot and everything else and to block out the noise as you as a voter make your plan to ensure your vote is counted this year. >> in north carolina, your ballot must be post marked on or after election day. has to be post marked on or before election day. in michigan, you have to receive that ballot to under current law on election day. let me start this process in north carolina, you are allowed to start tabulating before

election day. if you get as many mail in ballots as you think and some of them come in late as is inevitable, when do you think you'll be done counting, do you think it is close, you'll know the winner tuesday night or talking wednesday, thursday, friday. >> for north carolina, we had a process in place where we can process the ballots in advance. you make sure that they meet our requirements of having voter signature and a witness signature and then we tabulate on election day. since we're expecting potentially 40 to 50 -- 40% or so of ur ballots to be cast by mail and another 50% to be cast during our 17-day early voting period, we may see as many of our -- as much as 80% of our ballots already in hand by the time we close the polls on election night. so we will upload those results at 7:30 p.m. and then wait for the precinct results to come in. >> as you know there has been talk in recent days of the

so-called red mirage. candidates leading in michigan, leading in north carolina, but, an important but, there is a giant basket of votes still to be counted. how long? >> well, we're anticipating that we're going have twice as many ballots sent through the mail or voted early than ever before in the history of our state. and we're dealing with the same infrastructure because the legislature has not given us more time to -- on the front end process and even begin opening envelopes until election day morning. if that doesn't change, it may be until friday evening before the full results of michigan's elections are in and if that's the case, i'm going to spend every minute between when our polls close and when we have the full results, proactively letting everyone know that until every vote is counted, we will not be able to say who won any race and that's the way it should be. >> do you have a president of the united states who raised the questions and what some are anticipating, especially if he's leading in these big important

battleground states on election night, is to say i won and the next day say stop the count, it is a rigged system, how do we know where those ballots are coming from, are they just being received now what are you going to do between now and election day so people trust the transparency and the security of those ballots if it takes a few days to count them all? >> we updated our website, we changed our early voting -- oregon oand it is very clear on our election night website that those results are unofficial. and we'll continue to communicate that and really the media has been a tremendous help in trying to help us get that word out and i think that will be the case again on election night for sure. >> and this myth -- this myth cal idea that ballots can materialize out of anywhere or that in any way ballots would be counted if they weren't verified as coming from an actual voter is not true. the facts and the truth are on our side here. transparency is going to be key to ensure voters know, the only ballots that we count, the only

ballots that are received and verified are those from valid voters where there are identification checks through signature verification, to confirm the voter's identity. our process is secure, we have proved that already with three elections this year and in our effort to continue to get that information out, and lead with truth and data and facts is what i believe is going to ensure that at the end of the day, the general public, the majority of our population will have faith that our elections are an accurate result of the will of the people. >> thank you. we'll continue this conversation up to and after the election day. thank you. the race for a coronavirus vaccine, drug companies taking a new step to answer fears corners might be cut because of election year pressure. from maybelline new york. our first for thicker-looking brows. brow fiber extensions... in a stick. brows look thicker. instantly.

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drug companies that are rivals in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine are planning an extraordinary joint statement promising science and only science will guide decisions about when a vaccine is cleared for use. the "wall street journal" was first to report this news. pfizer, johnson & johnson and moderna among the drugmakers to pledge that any vaccine must be proven to be safe and effective before they would allow it to be distributed for widespread public use. it is a clear worry as to why corners might be cut because of campaign calculations. >> it will be delivered in my permanent basis befo

opinion before the end of the year. but maybe even by the end of october. and it'd be nice because we want to save people. that's why it'd be nice. >> in an exclusive interview with cnn that airs in full next hour, the democratic vice presidential candidate senator kamala harris says there's every reason to believe the president will pressure scientists for an early green light. >> if past is prologue that they will not, they will be muzzled, they will be suppressed, they will be sidelined. >> let's just say there's a vaccine that is approved and even distributed before the election. would you get it? >> well, i think that's going to be an issue for all of us. i will say that i would not trust donald trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about. i will not take his word for it.

>> we have the executive associate dean at emory. dr. del rio, thank you for your time. should we be comforted that rivals are coming together to promise the american people and promise the world science first, science only? or should we be alarmed that they clearly feel pressure that they need to make this public statement? >> they can read what the statements are. they're concerned about it i'm sure. i'm really happy they're coming together and issuing the statement because i can tell you as an investigator that science is driving the course. and we need to continue doing the research the way we're doing it. and science eventually will get us the vaccine. but we need to let the process take its place. >> you say you're confident of that. you just heard the democratic vice presidential candidate say

if it's donald trump who says it's safe, how concerned are you? there are people who think the president is trying to put his thumb on the scale. now you have a campaign in which you have the democratic vice presidential candidate saying if the president's saying it's safe, i won't trust it. how damaging might that be? >> it's really important that people have trust in the vaccine. and i would tell you that we're doing clinical trials right now. we need people to volunteer for the vaccine right now. so my concern is actually not even what happens later. but people may not want to volunteer for studies right now. and we need people to volunteer for studies. there's going to be critically important to know we have a safe and effective vaccine. so i would tell people to find out about the vaccine, go to the website for the covid prevention trials, and volunteer for a vaccine starting.

the sooner we fill the studies up, the sooner we will have an effective vaccine. trust is at the corner of any medical intervention. >> one of the challenges for these studies is getting an increased minority participation. if you look at the u.s. population, it's 40% nonwhite. if you look at the moderna study so far, 26% not white. what can be done to increase minority participation in these studies? and the fact that you're not there yet at an acceptable level, what does that do in terms of a time line of feeling safe about this? >> well, there are a lot of things being done to increase minority participation. we are working with churches, working with community, working with many different groups that have the trust of community in order to increase participation of the trials. part of the reality is that participating in a trial is hard. you spend several hours there

and for many low-income people, it may be very hard to participate in a trial because you may need to give up a day of work in order to participate in the trial. that's one of the things i always think about when i ask minorities to participate in the trial. is the compensation sufficient? are we taking care of you in order to make it worth your while. but we have to have minority participation. because if we don't, then you're not going to have the trust of the community. they're going to say, well, this vaccine wasn't tested in my community. the biggest burden of this disease is in minority communities. and the reality is what's happening is we're slowing down the enrollment in nonminority populations right now in many of the studies in order to increase participation in minorities. and i'm confident we will get there. >> so to close the conversation in a sentence, your best hope

for a vaccine being widely available is when? >> you know, widely available, i'm thinking about the end of spring of 2021. i think it will be probably available in small amounts and for specific groups of people like high-risk individuals and first responders, probably december, january. i honestly think that nothing will be ready to be put into place before the end of december, early january. however, i may be wrong. >> dr. del rio, great for your expertise. keep up the good work. thank you, sir. and that's it for "inside politics." we hope you can catch us week days. up next a very important "state of the union" with dana bash. and senator kamala harris. thank you for sharing your sunday. have a great day. stay safe. uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no

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will take on president trump. what's their general election pitch? "state of the union," live next.

race to the finish with just over eight weeks till election day, both sides are stepping up their campaign stops. >> we are going to win four more years in the white house. >> we can do better. we have to do better. >> as vice presidential candidate senator kamala harris prepares to hit the trail, she joins me for an exclusive interview, next. and supporting the troops.

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