hello, everybody. thank you for sharing this busy news day with us. coronavirus disruption simply everywhere today. the count of new infections is headed up, and dangerously so. the number of americans filing for unemployment is up again, proof the coronavirus recovery is on very shaky ground. and campaign 2020, also being disrupted. this was supposed to be debate night in america. instead, 19 days to election day, americans are forced to choose between primetime town halls, joe biden takes questions on abc, the president is on nbc.

the debate was called off because of the president's coronavirus case. he refused to switch to a virtual event. how democrats are handling coronavirus things differently than the president. the vice presidential nominee is canceling an event after a staffer tested positive. the campaign said no reason to believe that senator harris was exposed but it calls for precaution so she will do events online instead of in person. the president is on the road insisting all is well and he is immune. a north carolina trump rally first and then to miami for his town hall. the president said the virus is on its heel, you need not to worry. the numbers don't lie. nearly 60,000 new infections added to the u.s. case count yesterday. 14 states registering record highs in their new cases.

all the data tell us we are climbing toward a new peak, not coming down. dr. anthony fauci says the math is self-evident and says the united states enters the next month in quote a compromised position. leader after leader in europe urging more personal responsibility, some urging new restrictions. and here, defiance, president trump ignores the challenge and defies science and common sense packing rallies shoulder-to-shoulder. dr. fauci calls that dangerous plain and simple. >> i don't like to be pitted against what the president says, but it's so clear when you have congregate settings and so many people when you're in a situation, when the community infection rate is there, you can't run away from or argue with the numbers. it's a high risk endeavor. >> you hear dr. fauci talking

about high risk, the baseline of cases. let's look at the numbers. they're headed in the wrong direction. dr. fauci for months has talked about shoving the baseline down. we have 50 states, 35 of them, 35 out of the 50 states right now reporting more new coronavirus infections today than a week ago. 35 states trending in the wrong direction. it's everywhere but no coincidence. look at the northern half of the country headed into the autumn, 12 states holding steady, only two reporting fewer cases now. three states setting single day records yesterday, north dakota, new mexico and ohio. again, the president says the virus is on its heels. it is not. and sadly, the death trend. when you have a high case count, wait a couple weeks and this map changes, too. you see 10 states reporting 50%

or more deaths this week. that's the deep red. orange is still going up. 23 states in all reporting more coronavirus deaths now compared to one week ago. that is not going in the right direction. you can follow the red line here. you don't need to study deep into the data. follow the friends. beginning of the summer surge, up we went, down we started to come, headed back up again. here's what they worry about. if we started at 18, 20,000 we got up above 60,000. what happens if we start at 40,000 and head back up? how high do you go? that's the question facing the country right now. just shy of 60,000 new coronavirus cases reported yesterday. watch the red trend line. the reason it's going up is because of positivity rates. more people testing and coming back positive. 40% in wyoming, 42% in south dakota, 22% idaho and wisconsin. double digits, kansas, nebraska,

utah, nevada. more cases today, more spread, more cases tomorrow. it plays out pretty simple. and then the hospitalizations. you get more cases and seeing the peak of the summer surge came down with hospitalizations now trending back up this way. we are months from a vaccine. people say herd immunity. dr. fauci says the let it rip strategy is reckless. >> there's about 30% of the population has underlying conditions that make them more susceptible to getting the adverse events and outcomes of serious disease with covid-19. if you just let things rip and let the infection go, no masks, crowd, it doesn't make any difference, that quite frankly george is ridiculous, because what that will do is that there will be so many people in the community that you can't shelter, that you can't protect who are going to get sick and

get serious consequences. >> joining me now josh, white house reporter for "the washington post." you hear dr. fauci, look at the numbers you don't have to be a medical expert to understand the case count is climbing. i was making the point if you look at europe, the case count is climbing as well. macron has speaken to the french people, boris johnson has spoken to the people of the united kingdom. angela merkel has also spoken to the german people -- we'll come back to josh in a few moments. the vice presidential nominee senator kamala harris off the campaign trail after a key member of her staff tested positive for covid-19. so mj, the democrats are saying this is a precaution.

is there any worry senator harris might have been exposed? >> reporter: this is big news coming out of the biden campaign, two people who travelled with senator harris tested positive for covid-19 late last night. the two people first of all was her communications director, the second person being a nonstaff member, a member of the flight crew. let's walk through what we know so far based on what the campaign has told us. we know the two people were on a flight with senator harris on october 8th. the campaign said on this flight senator harris and both of those people were wearing n95 masks and the campaign said harris did not have close contact with eitherov those people, which is according to the cdc's definition of exposure -- potential exposure to covid-19 and both of these people tested negative before and after the flight. we're also told that both of these people attended personal events some days after being on the flight with senator harris

and then they returned and tested positive. the campaign is emphasizing neither of the people had close contact with either vice president biden or senator harris 48 hours prior to testing positive. it's important to note, too, senator harris, according to the campaign last tested negative for covid-19, this was a pcr test yesterday, and she's also going to get tested again today. what does this mean in terms of senator harris and her campaign events? out of an abundance of caution the campaign says she's going to be suspending all in-person travel through this sunday. she'll be participating just through virtual events and she's headed back on the campaign trail next monday. she was supposed to be in north carolina today and those events have been cancelled. in terms of vice president biden and his schedule, one of the things we asked the campaign on a call this morning is whether there are now growing concerns, are there going to be changes that we see that the campaign

make more broadly? they said, no, they feel confident about the protocols and precautions that the campaign has put in place and they feel like they can continue in-person campaigning through november 3rd and that, of course, includes vice president biden participating in that abc news town hall tonight in philadelphia. >> appreciate the hustle on the live report there. we'll keep an eye on that and see if senator harris does get back on the trail, soon. let's bring back josh. part of the disruption of the covid-19 is the technology goes down. president macron of france, prime minister boris johnson have talked to their people. al some of them have imposed restrictions, all of them urged people to have personal responsibility we do not get that. this president has not talked about the alarming rise of infections instead he does his

campaign rallies, and he did a few moments ago call into fox business to say this about coronavirus. >> what happens if you get a spike in cases in the united states and cases are rising. what are you doing? >> we're not doing any more lockdowns. we're doing fine. we're not doing any shutdowns. we learned about the disease. young people, 99.9%, right, are in great shape, the younger the better, hard to believe. we learned about the disease, young people, 99.9% are in great shape. strong immune systems. the younger the better, it's hard to believe. >> josh, i get the president's position, you can say we're not going to did a lockdown, a shutdown, but there are other things you can do. you can talk to people more carefully about please wear a mask, talk to businesses about your work sites are safe. the president says we're fine. we're not doing fine. >> sorry we got disconnected.

but the president's hospitalization and hospitalizations of his advisers have taught him to be more defiant now that he survived the vie russ and is back to work we had's having these rallies. his surrogates are around the country, indoors having these maskless events. the campaign has not changed any of their rules or policies or tactics. th they're saying masks are encouraged at the white house but not everyone is wearing them. kamala harris is down off the trail because one of her staffers had it. you're seeing spikes in cases across the country. i talked to a lot of folks in the white house for the story we did today where they said we want the president to take an empathic tone. we know people have suffered, we're with you. not this callus, in the worlds f

his critic, tone you're seeing now. >> in some ways the president is doing the opposite of what his campaign advisers think he should be doing on a number of fronts. appreciate the reporting. up next, dr. anthony fauci gives an important update on the time line for a coronavirus vaccine. where's my bounce? my glamour? my fire? all hair is beautiful. these dove shampoo and conditioners are custom formulated for different hair types. find the right dove care for your hair.

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the first quarter of 2021, by let's say april of 2021. but that would be predicated on the fact that all of the vaccines that are in clinical trials have proven to be safe and effective. >> joining our conversation is the director of the vaccine education center with the children's hospital of philadelphia. you hear dr. fauci talk about april. we have seen in recent days a couple of the big studies put on pause. johnson & johnson put on pause because of an illness, as a seneca put on pause because of an illness. s a a seneca whose phase three clinical trial for more than a month did not get critical data

to the fda until last week. is that delay normal? i know that illnesses do pop up and you're being safe when you say let's study this, but what about the delay sharing information with the government? >> i haven't heard of that. they're off pause in europe, they met the standards for what it took to get off pause. obviously the standards are different here. but it sounds more technical than doing the cases itself. astrazeneca was on two poauses, now a technical issue but not having to do directly with the cases. >> you have been a voice of caution for months saying when you hear the president say we'll have a vaccine by election day, take that with a grain of salt. you heard dr. fauci say maybe by april. does that sound reasonable to you based on everything you know, april? >> assuming we can get back on track with these vaccine

programs which i think is highly likely, i think april is a perfectly reasonable time. we have five vaccines in many operation warp speed, we have one vaccine, pfizer, which is outside of operation warp speed. i think april is a reasonable time. i think what dr. fauci said is right. >> you mentioned the pfizer study that's under way. this is more new reportings, pfizer has plans to test t the vaccine in children as young as 12. parents have expressed interest in enrolling their kids. how important is that to diversify the pool of people being tested so you have better data on the efficacy. >> we're not going to be able to immunize children, unless we have data and studies in children. and up until now it's been in people over 18 years of age. so we have to generate those, and i think we will over time. >> you heard dr. fauci earlier

in the program talk about the concept of herd immunity, which many of the people in the white house now talk about, it's going to be several months for a vaccine, we don't want to shutdown the economy so let it rip. we're up to 50,000 plus new infections a somedaday, let it out. dr. fauci said no. listen to this. >> with this idea of herd immunity this is a phrase when you use vaccination, you vaccinate a certain amount of the population to be able to protect the rest of the population that isn't able to get that vaccine. herd immunity as an approach is dangerous, leads to unnecessary cases and unnecessary deaths. >> that's a polite way of saying it. by saying unnecessary cases, deaths, we're talking about potentially thousands of deaths if you let it rip, right? >> here's a trick question, name the virus that eliminated itself

by community immunity, it's never happened. every year there's four human coronaviruses that circulate in the population, every year the 15 to 20% of the respiratory ininfections that come to our hospital are caused by those four viruses and they've been unabated. if you had to pick the perfect virus to induce community immunity it would be measles, it's 10 times more infectious than coronavirus and you are immune for the rest of your life. despite that, every year in the country there would be one to two million kays of measles, 50,000 hospitals and 5 million deaths. this virus, even after natural infection you can be reinfected. we eliminated measles by vaccination by the year 2000,

it's come back because parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children. smallpox has been eliminated too and that induces life long immunity. the notion of community immunity is made up, it's never happened. >> made up, it's never happened. and that's not a plan, it's a crime. those are my words not your words. a look to the 2020 campaign trail. 19 days out. new polling shows a joe biden lead. if you look deep into the weeds of the polls is there any evidence of a trump comeback? discover lash paradise. a caring formula and feather soft brush. for voluptuous volume and intense length. lash paradise. by l'oréal paris. omnipod delivers insulin through a discreet waterproof pod... to help simplify life. no more daily injections. it's game-changing. take your insulin anywhere with a small tubeless pod. and the wireless controller

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19 days left, so obviously the battleground states in play as we get closer to election day. joe biden it was supposed to be a debate night instead he'll do a town hall in pennsylvania, president trump about to hit the road first a rally in naorth carolina and then he moves to florida for his town hall. remind ourselves why these states are so important, 2016 map, trump, trump, trump, part of trump's victory and they're part this year of joe biden's

strategy. new poll today shows another double digit biden national lead. you look at the battleground states, wait a minute, president trump came back in 2016 he was losing at this point and came back. are there any seeds of a trump comeback? look at the 10 battleground state polls, nowhere is president trump leading, a tie phenome in iowa. some of them are close, ohio is very close, north carolina is close, iowa is a tie. more than plausible president trump could win those states they have republican dna, they're very close now, time for a comeback but look at wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. even florida. still it's a biden lead even if you cut it in half. arizona another state changing. right now the battleground states look good for biden. on the campaign trail this week one big point the economy.

>> they betrayed american workers, disparaged american values and crushed our middle class. for decades biden and his cronies laughed while they shipped millions of your jobs to their friends in foreign countries. >> every penny my dad made went to paying the bills. i see hardworking women and men are trying to earn an honest living and take care of their families just want an even short. >> joining us is a democratic pollster and republican pollster. neil i'm going to start with you because you're the republican in the conversation and your candidate is in a deep ditch. i know he's not your candidate because you don't work for the campaign. but look at the biden advantages when you go through the demographic groups, women he's up 26 points, twice what hillary clinton won the women's vote by in 2016. joe biden whites with a college

degree, biden plus 19. trump won that group four years ago. senior citizens biden plus ten, trump won that group. i want to start with the women, the gender gap there. 26 points in the current poll, it was 27 points in the last poll, it has been 20 points or more throughout the year in that polling. it was 19 points in 2018, and that's why democrats won the house in a blue wave and nancy pelosi is speaker. if that number does not move, can donald trump win? >> it's not just women, truthfully. it's women and men. it's white women, white men. the president is not doing as well among his base, among white men, as he did before. we have significant challenges between now and election day. t it is a very, very narrow path to thread this electoral college needle. as you point out, trump is behind by double digits

nationally, swing states are against him. the key thing is time is running out and our opportunity is running out as well. we're looking at a potential october surprise or something that comes down the road to change things around but it's -- we're running out of time in this campaign. >> running out of time. there's always a gender gap, at least in recent years but when you look at biden plus 26 at this poll, you see similar gaps in key battleground states, why is it that the women of america, if things don't change, just as they did in 2018 are going to send a message to this president? >> i don't know if the segment is long enough to catalog the things that the president has done that has upset women voters of a variety of backgrounds across the country. i think neil mentioned this, the gender gap is not just about biden's advantage among women, it's the difference between women and men and that gap is not wider than it has been in

past elections, it's just that men are supporting -- they're supporting trump depending on the poll but a smaller margin than we've seen in the last election. it's not just about how well biden is doing with women, it's that biden is doing, relatively speaking, better with men than democrats have in other years. you think all of that suggests not just the massive hurdle and obstackle trump has to regaining any ground with women, but it's also that he's, you know, not doing well really across the board. with numbers like these, that's clearly the pattern that emerges. >> so neil, to that point, we all lived through 2016, every day i get up and kick every rock i can find and look underneath it. every state or national poll that comes out you're looking, is there something that tells you here he comes, trump is going to come back like 2016. please correct me if i'm wrong,

i don't see it at the moment. let's look at where the president does have advantages. where the president has advantages over joe biden but there's a big but among men, trump is now have plus 5, in 2016 he won by 11. white voters trump is plus 4 he won by 20 in 2016. whites with no college degree he's plus 1 but he won in 2016 by 37 points. not only is he -- he's lost part of his own base there, why? >> numbers are a terrible thing when you have to defend them like this. but john, the bottom line here is this is a referendum on president trump. and with his job approval at no more than 44% of the vote that puts him at a significant disadvantage. when you look at the difference between 2016 and 2020, first of all, 2016 democrats were, you

know -- probably felt the same way about president trump's chances as they do today. but there are some significant differences. number one is turnout. there's going to be a huge turnout this year. every poll we do, everything on the ground indicates a huge turnout. second the early vote, the nbc wall street news journal poll shows 18% of voters have voted and they're voting for biden by 73 to 24. third is, biden's not hillary clinton. biden's image is a net positive or right around net positive. hillary was under water by four points. and you have one debate left and by that point in time, a quarter of americans will probably have voted. so we're running out of time and this is a referendum on president trump and given his numbers right now, that does not put him in a good position. >> it does not. especially if you're a republican running for senate or

house or dog catcher in if any of these battleground states. mar gee you get more time the next time. i wanted to start with the republican today. because the numbers aren't great. up next, hospitals under pressure in several states as the coronavirus case count surges. eliminate who you are no, and you're going to find yourself where you need to be. ♪ the race is never over. the journey has no port. the adventure never ends, because we are always on the way. ♪ ♪

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the fall coronavirus case surge is straining hospital capacity in several states. count wisconsin among them. the number of people hospitalized in wisconsin is above 1,000 patients for the first time in this pandemic. joining us to discuss the challenge is president and krooe of provea health. you're in the home of green bay, one of the hardest hit areas of the state. i see you told our team before the program you're taking things hour by hour. what does that mean in terms of patient care when you're so stressed you're taking things hour by hour? >> it means that we're not able to give the kind of care we want to give to the entire community, which is being available for them 24/7. it's not the fact that maybe we have 126 covid patients across all four hospitals in green bay,

that's 126 beds that we need for other things that were designed to do, such as the next stroke coming in, the next heart attack. we have to find a way to take care of that patient and where to put them. if there was a major car accident we wouldn't be able to take care of it given the lack of critical care beds and the staff and everything required for that. it's a crisis we have to manage every hour. >> as you try to manage it, the potential damaging domino effect you mentioned on other patients with other emergency conditions, heart attacks and the like. the national average positivity testing comes back just over 5%, in wisconsin it's just under 22%. what is it in wisconsin that has you in the middle of the crisis right now? >> if you rewind back to may when wisconsin was in the headlines when we had outbreaks at meat packing plants and other

areas we knew the source, able to control it and we had human behavior on our side. now the source is so widespread and we don't have human behavior on our side, whether it's the politics of it or the fatigue, we don't have a community that's physically distancing, complying with masking and that's how you get a 20% positivity rate. >> you mentioned is it fatigue, leadership, the president of the united states, the country's number one leader is coming to your state this weekend to have a rally of his supporters. should he? >> you know, i can't tell the president what to do like i can't tell anybody not to go to the bar or have a wedding. it's beyond political rallies. even family gatherings shouldn't be happening right now, let alone anybody gathering. even with masking, it's still difficult to see how you can put 10 or 15 or 20 people in a room, let alone thousands of people. so it's extremely concerning.

we wish that people would use their bet erjudgment from around the country and the state of wisconsin and not have large gatherings right now. >> thank you for time. keep in touch with our team we'll keep on top of this as we go through the challenging days and weeks ahead. >> thank you. joe biden about to get some help on the campaign trail from barack obama. tonight... i'll be eating chicken tikka masala with garlic naan. [doorbell chimes] cheers. i win again, patrick. that's siiir patrick. oooooow. sir. ..."you have cancer." how their world stopped and when they found a way to face it.

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former president barack obama is warming up for a return to the campaign trail. florida, wisconsin, north carolina, states under consideration for late campaign obama appearances and he's also

the star in democratic videos about how to navigate new pandemic voting rules. we know there is zero love loss between president obama and his successor who spent years promoting the idea that obama wasn't born in the united states, that was one topic when president obama sat down with former aides for a podcast. >> as i was writing the book i was looking through some of the old stuff about trump -- trump was complimentary of me for the first two years. so, yeah, obama doing a great job, you know. thinking, you know -- and essentially what happened, because the guy just decided he wanted attention, right, whether it was to promote celebrity apprentice or whatever, he looked and saw what was being fed and he said, oh, if that's -- if that's what folks want, i can do that with even less inhibition. right. so with even less of a -- i

don't need a dog whistle, i'm going to go ahead and say it. that's how the whole birtherism came about. our country has always had this battle, right, between these darker impulses to exclude, to dominate, to rig the game in favor of certain folks and not others. and then, the other side of it has been to expand and embrace the dignity and inherent worth of every individual, regardless of and that tug of war is always going to be there. >> cnn political correspondent abby phillip joins me. it is interesting to hear the former president. i heard him discuss that in not

so common tone and it is understandable. this is an interesting moment for him and for the biden campaign to get him back on the trail, trying to energize turnout in key places in the final days. >> yeah. i think this is a reprisal for barack obama of this role that he played even four years ago. he played the role of the closer for hillary clinton as well. obviously the stakes are, as you heard him say it, he believes the stakes are higher than they were then. what struck me about this interview is just this is not taking sort of some kind of aloof higher ground on this, he's really digging in on criticism of trump personally, from a policy perspective. and then i think what you will see from him, obviously, is trying to convey a sense of urgency, particularly to black voters in some of the states you just showed that this is not like, you know, 2016 when you

did see downward swing in turnout compared to when he was on the ballot. i just don't know for sure that will be effective. you can see from what he is doing now and what they have plans to do, they're going to try their hardest to get that message out. if there's anybody that can do it, it is probably barack obama. >> and it's interesting. a lot of democrats scoffed at joe biden when he was running on unity and competence. i know how to run the government. even the guy that brought hope and change in 2007, 2008 says competence should be part of your choice. >> i would say to anybody who's skeptical about what government can do generally is to just take the example of when we were in office. you might not have been happy with everything i did, all my policy choices. i didn't eliminate poverty in america. but when we had a pandemic or threat of pandemic, we had

competent people in place who would deal with it. >> he's essentially saying adult leadership that understands and respects government and its institutions, not a bad thing. >> yeah. the hope and change candidate after eight years as president is now sort of like the bureaucratic competency president. that's actually the joe biden message, which is that this pandemic has shown what kind of president donald trump is and i think you'll see president obama reiterating that probably a lot because for all of the criticism of the obama administration, i think that there is a sense that there wasn't this sort of topsy turvy nature to his presidency, and he's basically making the case that joe biden would be another version of that, just more of that same kind of stability. that's the case he's going to be making and it's totally different from what he made to

voters when he was running. this is what the entire election is about. how the coronavirus pandemic was handled, how joe biden would handle it as president. >> grateful for the reporting and insights. interesting. 19 days to come. up next, the california republican party says it will not follow a judge's order to remove unofficial ballot boxes the state gop placed across california.

california's republican will not comply with the judge's order to stop unofficial drop boxes. they're in at least four counties, including los angeles and orange county. they call on republicans to remove them by the end of the day today. ben ginsberg, accomplished republican election lawyer joins us. so much for law and order.

the california republican party ignoring a judge's order, saying it will. put it in context. a big deal, medium deal, no deal? >> california's contested election for only a few congressional races, so it will not have direct impact on the presidential race. it's interesting that the california republican party is pro-drop box because by and large, republicans around the country have been trying to restrict use of drop boxes, especially in texas and ohio, for example. now, what's interesting about california's situation is that it has a ballot harvesting law. that's a process where individuals can do mass collections of absentees. if there isn't fraud found for it, gives the appearance of potential fraud. so the republicans in california, badly outnumbered group, have decided on this

somewhat puckish tactic of helping their own ballot harvesting process. i'm not sure it effects any elections, but it is the theater of the great election runoff. >> and you have the secretary of state in california, listen to him last night on cnn, saying you have to stop, it's wrong. >> we don't have the requirement for regulations for fake drop boxes as you do for official drop boxes. number one, security and integrity of the box itself. this is wrong no matter who is doing it, it is not just the security of the ballot that's in question here, it is the transparency, voter confidence itself. >> he says it is wrong, no matter who does it. you see it as sort of a payback. republicans saying if you have unions and other groups harvest ballots, we're going to do it too? is that how you see it? >> look, john, the individual was standing in there collecting

ballots, then there's perfectly compliant under the ballot harvesting law. again, it goes to the problems with ballot harvesting. supreme court is hearing a case on ballot harvesting in arizona, probably in january. but the practice about harvesting is i think the republicans have found a tactic to get around the advantage that california democrats do have with unions and others collecting these ballots. it is a bad law. >> you're not only an election lawyer, you're plugged in with republicans. 15 million already voted, record turnout of republicans, lines as far as the eye can see. is that true? do your republican friends tell you holy god, what's going on out there, we're in trouble? >> yeah, they are. i think that this is sort of the impact of the president saying don't vote by mail. it's still, this is a heavy, heavy initial turnout. what isn't true is whether it expands to total turnout

numbers, but it is certainly a leading indicator that democrats are getting votes out and they'll be in the bank come election day. >> appreciate your insights. thank you very much. hello to viewers in the united states and around the world. top of the hour. john king in washington. thank you for sharing a very busy news day with us. 35 of the 50 united states report increase in new coronavirus infections. and there's a new covid economic punch. new unemployment claims are also on the rise. the unwelcome coronavirus disruption includes the 2020 campaign. the democratic vice presidential nominee, kamala harris, cancelling a north carolina campaign stop. the reason all too familiar. a staffer tested positive for the coronavirus. the biden campaign says the senator was not exposed and that her shift to online events a few days is out of abundance of caution. the coronavirus is also the reason why there's no presidential debate tonight. the president's diagnosis