the best part of the night is here. time, now, for prime time with c cuomo. role reversal. >> look at you biting my lines.

>> how's it going? >> i tell you what. i liked the variety and the depth that you provided in your hours. it's good to see harris. good to get her take on things. very interesting to, kind of, glean what a campaign wants out there, through its messengers and she's a very good messenger. that was a good conversation. >> can i say something? >> and arnold was an even better conversation because you never hear from him. >> and he -- he didn't give me a chance to talk, which i loved because he said some really good stuff. but, first, let me talk about, if you will, if you'll allow me, because this is your hour. >> go ahead. >> to talk about senator kamala harris and the conversation we had about the so-called court-packing thing, right? which is really an expansion evof the court. >> no, court packing is what mcconnell has done by forcing through all these federal judges when he wouldn't let obama get his. i just don't agree with how they handled the question. >> okay. so, since he was asked about it

and said, the former vice president that he is going to have a position on it before election day, then i think it is fair game to ask him now. before, it was something that mostly republicans were talking about. yeah. don't disagree with me. okay. you can disagree with me. >> of course, i can. >> i'm going to come next door because you're in the studio next door. >> oh, please, don't. stop. >> one of my guests, she believes that he was buying time on that. so, we'll see on that one. >> all i'm saying is it's always been a fair question. there is a significant aspect of his party that wants it. there are a lot of people, as van jones, very eloquently, put tonight, on this show and others, that there is a real consideration for people in the democratic party that they have been getting a raw deal by the system. that the electoral college works against them. that you have disproportionate representation in congress because, you know, everybody gets two senators, even if you

have like a tenth of the population. >> but why should a minority in the country get to decide everything? why should that? >> that's the argument. the counter argument is change the system, don't just complain about it. one, there is just an absolute basis for its relevancy in terms of how jurisprudence will be carried out in this country. but second, you say you're better trump and you're not going to bob and weave and slip and duck and lie and all that. and frankly, saying i'll have a position before the election means that you're not ready to be straight with people, now. he knows what he wants to say. >> it has been done six times, in this country. >> yes. long ago. >> changing -- changing the court because there's no established rule or law on how many judges. they think it's up to 15. >> it is left to congress. they used to expand scotus to

echo the expansion of circuit courts. they, then, stopped that. so you could make the argument that you could have 12 or 15 or whatever you want. you could make an argument that you have to have two to make up for the two they stole from you. you could have a good argument that i'm not going to tell you, don lemon, because i'm going to hold it over mcconnell's head. and if he tries to do to me, if i win, what he did to obama, this is what he's got waiting for him. i am not going to handle it the same way it was before. i'm going to hold it over his head. so give you an answer. it's a maybe. all of those are more acceptable than what they are doing right now. that's why i bring it up. that's my job. >> and quickly, for arnold schwarzenegger who just -- he gets it. he is trying to do something when it comes to racial equity in this country. racial justice in this country. he sees the problem. he said this is not a democrat or republican issue. that lawmakers should be dealing with this. citizens should be deal being this. and he's actually putting his money where his mouth is.

we need people like him in washington. we need leaders like him. >> you know, i -- i agree with the concept. it is interesting, what critics of arnold schwarzenegger say of his time as governor. that the talk was not as good as the walk. now, arnold, sometimes, would agree with that, in a certain context, of saying i had no idea how hard it was to get simple things done in this system. i didn't know. so, it was easier to say it than to do it, not because i didn't want to do it. you get in there and you get all these people say you'll never get a damn thing and this is not something i want to give them. that's the reality of governance. that's why pop used to say you govern in prose. it's boring, it's hard, it's painstaking. it's not florid and beautiful. that said, i like his ideas but if achieving systemic equality were that easy, we wouldn't be having this conversation because we've been talking this talk in

this country for at least, at least 50 years. all right. now, they're doing to me what they do to you. >> say good night, don. >> even though, i will bet you anything you want this be the highest portion of this hour, even though we have great stuff to come. i'm going to move on. >> i love you, c cuomo. >> i love you, don lemon. i will talk to you soon. >> all right. i'm chris cuomo. welcome to this late-night, live edition of prime time. i know you love when don and i mix it up and mix ideas. don't tell us. we know that. here's what there is more of, for sure. more than 17 million of us have already voted in this wild election. they've already made their choices. you know, this is very important. why? it just highlights two things. one, the hypocrisy of what's going on with the supreme court. because if mcconnell and the republicans were going to respect precedent, which is you don't mess with the people's choice close to an election.

you're in an election and they are doing it. one. okay. two, this is why securing our electoral process matters so much. the litigation around the country, that is arguably ensuring voter suppression. what we see in georgia. what was supposed to be corrected but you have ten-hour lines. can we really expect people to do that? they're doing it. god bless them. they're doing it. but why should we make it so hard to vote? why are republicans litigating to do that? trying to make it so that, no, no, no, if it comes any time after election day, no matter when you postmarked it, can't be counted. why? it raises a big question, especially when you see how many people are doing it. why do they want to do something, at the same time that it's exploding in its value? think about that. now, the rest of you. you got a little bit more to chew on, tonight, if you haven't voted. now, a lot of you may vote because of what you heard tonight in these dueling town halls. i didn't like it. of course, doesn't make any sense. this country is already on different channels, right?

literally, people can't see or hear what their alleged, political opposite sees and thinks and hears. tonight, it was literal. not figurative and political. it was literal. we will see it in the ratings, sure enough. but the president looked like he had a boon here, right? that he was going to cancel out biden's thing. he was on nbc. they had more outlets to play it on. but he may have made a big miscalculation. why? because, in a debate with biden, i think it would have been a straighter comparison than trump versus trump's own bs because his town hall was, for certain, more revealing. it was pumped with question after question, that are hard for him to answer. but, remember, you know, even something like who do you owe $421 million to? couldn't answer. do you condemn white supremacy? he said, yes, and i condemn antifa. why must he insist on equating

those things? roe v. wade. didn't really give an answer. that was very interesting to me. to me, the most interesting part of the night for you is what do you make of somebody who is going to question whether or not our navy s.e.a.l.s. and our military lied to us about taking out osama bin laden? to me, it's unforgiveable. i don't know how anybody in the military or who respects the military can get past it. i don't get how you get your mind around the idea that he thought it was okay to leverage their dignity for his own. ron brownstein, karen finney, scott jennings. now, let's come together. thank you very much, each and all. let's listen to how president trump answered a question about when his last negative test was, before he got covid. and compare that to what biden said about testing before the next debate. here. >> did you test the day of the debate? >> i don't know. i don't remember.

i test all the time. >> you say you don't know if you got a test on the day of the debate? >> the doctors do. i test all the time. >> did you take a test, though, on the day of the debate? >> you ask the doctor, they will give you a perfect answer. but they take a test. i leave. and i go about my business. >> so, did you take a test on the day of the debate, i guess, is the bottom line? >> i probably did and i took a test the day before and the day before. and i was always in great shape. >> will you demand that president trump take a test that day, and that it be negative before you debate? >> yeah. by the way, before i came up here, i took another test. i've been taking every day. the deep test. you know? and because i wanted to be able to -- if i had not passed that test, i didn't want to come here and, you know, expose anybody. i'm less concerned about me than the people, the guys at the cameras. the people working in the, you know, the secret service guys you drive up with. all those people. >> hey, scott, let me start with you. good to have you here, tonight. the president knows when he took a test. and his medical staff will give

us a perfect answer, which is, i can't tell you because of his privacy. but they've already -- any privacy privilege by telling us selective information they want information in the public about. >> well, i'm not. i mean, it's dumb. i mean, he had 60 minutes and he ate up some amount of time being evasive on a question he could simply answer in five seconds and just move forward and get to the other issues that he actually wants to talk about or needs to talk about to try to win this election. so, it's not -- it's not a good answer. it's not a smart, political answer. and it could be cleared up, very easily, by just telling -- telling what the truth is. >> karen finney, if the president says, look, i'm getting tested. i'm fine. i'm not going to go with anything that biden is telling me to do. i'll rather not debate than follow what some biden rule is. i'm not following his rules. should biden debate next week, no matter what? >> absolutely. why not?

you mean debate trump? >> yes. >> or use the time to speak to the american people? look. i think if we -- if -- if joe biden can't be certain that donald trump is covid free, and he refuses to take a test, then, i think, probably, he shouldn't. because, as joe biden pointed out tonight, it's not just about biden and trump. it is about all the people who would be exposed to covid, potentially. and that is what responsible leadership is about. and so, i think it would set a -- an important precedent, and i think it would set an important statement of leadership that i'm not going to do this and endanger the lives of other people. >> i think the rules would be the same as the last time. they both get there. they get there on time. they have to be tested. if not, they have to show medical proof they have a negative on that day and you move forward. ron, in terms of who made the most of the opportunity, tonight, plus/minus, what did you see? >> i thought the entire exercise was an enormous missed

opportunity for the president. i mean, he is the one who's trailing. he's the one who has to shake up the dynamic of the race and he chose, in a kind of fit of petulance, to toss out a debate that would have been -- gotten a lot more attention from the public and the press for two town halls that are really not going to have much consequence. and i think the main consequence was, in the first half hour, you know, the president kind of calmed down as it went on but he was extremely belligerent and confrontational. particularly, the moderator, you know, savannah guthrie, saying so cute under his breath at one point. two of our best pollsters, and each of them had joe biden polling 60% of women. and as soon as the debate was over, you saw the statement his campaign put out disparaging the female moderator who challenged him. so, you know, i thought he -- he issue he made his points in the second half. but i thought this is largely --

where the town hall at least offered him the possibility of shaping the narrative. >> i'm going to ask finney about the biggest problem for the republican and the opposite for you. what do you think is a bigger problem for the president, karen, the fact that he played around with roe v. wade? or that he actually didn't run away, as fast as his legs could carry him, from the proposition that he was questioning whether or not our bravest military heroes took out osama bin laden? >> taking out osama bin laden. we all know he's pro-life. we know -- we know what that asqu agenda is. we are dealing with this right now with this court nomination. he's made it very clear. but when you insult s.e.a.l. team 6 who risked their lives to take down osama bin laden, who perpetrated one of the, you know, most horrendous acts of

terrorism, if not the most horrendous act of terrorism on our country, that is unamerican. that is simply unamerican. and to traffic in those kinds of conspiracy theories just reminds the american people how absurd this president has become. and when you're asking yourself do you -- can you take four more years of this nonsense? i think that is -- that is part of, in addition to insulting members of the military, i can tell you, from the focus group work i have been doing with voters across the country. the thing i hear over and over, they a they're exhausted. they are just exhausted. just dealing with covid and trying to keep your life together is so much work. and then, to have a president trafficking in these crazy conspiracy theories and undermining the very ability to -- to know how to keep yourself healthy. i think it says to people we just can't do it. >> but then, scott, you got joe biden saying, look, i'm not him. i'll be better to you. i'll give it how it is. n

now, tonight, he is, hey, listen. i don't know. here's the deal. you know? but, don't the people deserve to know? yes, they do. and before this election, i will have a position. how bad is that for him? >> yeah. he -- he -- well, he should have an answer. it's a horribly unpopular thing. i think most americans don't want to do it. i think a lot of people in his base do want to do it. he is caught between on this one. he did promise he was going to come out with a position before election day. i will be stunned if it is a clear position because he's obviously trying to please or at least not anger two different kinds of folks. but i -- i think the republicans have correctly attacked him on this because he's always, here's the deal, man. and i'm going to tell you the truth. and on this one, it's been a lot of evasiveness, for no reason. if he was really confident in the kind of national lead ron brownstein just said he has, how hard would it be to say, look, guys, i know it's what you want.

i am running as a unity candidate and this would be a moment of disunity if i did this. >> he made it a distraction. harris made it a distraction. not me. they should have just answered the question. please, stay with me. thank you very much, especially at this hour. your perspective is appreciated and wanted, so more to come with our power team. but first, little bit of breaking news on reported warnings by the united states intelligence agencies, to the president, about his own personal lawyer, rudy giuliani's interactions with russians. we have one of the reporters who broke this story, and here's why it's going to be especially interesting. they were telling him to worry about, with rudy, exactly what the president is worried about with obama and the past administration. you cannot make it up and, yet, it is true. next. skip to cold relief fast with alka seltzer plus severe powerfast fizz. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working.

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all right. we are going to get back to assessing the town halls and their impact in a moment. but there is a big story unfolding. "the washington post" is reporting that u.s. intelligence agencies warned the white house, last year, that rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer, was the target of an influence operation by russian intelligence. greg miller is among the reporters at "the washington post" who broke this story. thank you for being with us, especially at this hour. take us through the high points. >> so, we know that, and we've reported this evening, that u.s. intelligence agencies warned the

white house, in the december timeframe last year, that rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer, was in frequent contact with individuals with direct ties to russian intelligence. and that, white house officials were worried enough about this, that the national security adviser privately spoke with the president in the oval office, to try to caution him against believing that anything that rudy told him after returning from ukraine. and the president basically dismissed these warnings, and said he's my lawyer. that's rudy. >> now, this is where it gets bizarre. not only did, i guess, the president dismiss that, but he embraced it because rudy giuliani was on this show, again, not long ago. and i told him what u.s. intelligence agencies said about what's the guy's name? alexei, the guy who is in the picture? >> yeah. >> they say this guy's a russian intel guy and that he was

working you. and rudy says, yeah, they can say that, he isn't. and he admits and, then, is pray parroting things and that's exactly what rudy is pushing after meeting with this guy, who he says is a good guy. who better confirmation do you need than that? >> and to go, take it one stepfatherer, chr step farther, i think it's remarkable that we are talking about a president for the first three years was facing allegations and investigations of collusion with russia in the 2016 election. he is warned, in december, that his own lawyer appears to be a conduit of russian disinformation. and instead of running as far away from that as he can, he runs toward it, right? he is -- he is inviting it, encouraging it, and continues -- continues to point to

information that giuliani surfaces of dubious origin. >> greg miller, thank you, very much, for this story that, in any other decade, would literally be all we were talking about, 24/7. and, here, it may be a shrug for about half the country and a i thought so for the other half. but the reporting matters, all the same. maybe, more than ever. so thank you for doing it and thank you for doing it here. all right. let's get back to the town halls. fact checking. you got to do it. not easy. especially, when you have to flip channels. but that's the job, tonight. and daniel dale and his team. they are the ones to help us sort it out. hey, my brother. thank you for being back with me, again. i already know from your reporting, tonight, that, once again, trump won the untruthfulness game. what stands out, to you, in his winning effort of telling the truth less? >> yeah. so, this was just hugely

lopsided, chris, as usual. trump made more false claims in an hour-long town hall than biden made in an hour and a half town hall. i will get to some of those but what stood out to me most was the president didn't only make his own false claims, as always. he also gave airtime, chris, to two truly bonkers conspiracy theories. he said qanon is, oh, it's about fighting pedophilia. in fact, it's about making absolutely ridiculous, absurd, outlandish accusations of pedophilia. and basically, left it to people to decide whether this conspiracy he retweeted about obama killing s.e.a.l. team six, he said it's opinion. it's not opinion it's a lie. and as i said, he said a lot of flat wrong stuff. he argued there is widespread voter fraud with vote by mail. there isn't. he portrayed himself as a steadfast defender of people with pre-existing conditions. chris, he is in court, as you

know, right now trying to kill those protections with no replacement plan. another up and down kind of thing. that he is a defender of daca. he said i am working hard on daca. this is the program he has tried to terminate. they backed a bipartisan bill that was killed by republican mcconnell in 2016. he said, again, we are rounding the turn on the pandemic. that's a vague phrase, hard to fact check. but cases and hospitalizations are surging. he boasted, as usual, about adding a recordi number of jobs in the past five months. we're not even close to back, and he said they, referring to the cdc, found that 85% of people, who wear masks, get the virus. that's just not at all what the cdc has said. they weren't even looking for that in the -- in the -- >> 85% number was about something else, right? >> it was -- it was about something else. it was not about the percentage of mask wearers who get the virus. i have to add we did also have false or misleading claims from joe biden. he said when the first round of

unemployment benefits finished, he said trump didn't do anything. you can say trump didn't do enough but he did do something. he took executive action. used $44 billion in federal disaster aid to give 300 bucks a week to the jobless. biden also suggested or said that the number of troops in afghanistan is now up from when he left office. it's now down, well below the final, obama-era level. he said trump has quote eliminated funding for community policing. no, that's not what happened. trump did make proposals to cut that funding, never to eliminate it. and he didn't quite explicitly say george stephanopoulos, the host, was wrong for saying the biden website says the green new deal is a crucial framework for environmental action. his website does say that so that was misleading, at best, chris. >> good. got to keep it straight, daniel. thank you very much. now, those are some of the facts. now, let's talk about the politics and the political reality. especially, when we're seeing early voting numbers that are off the charts.

17 million of you have voted, already. let's bring back ron brownstein, karen finney, and scott jennings. told you i'd have you back. so, professor brownstein, with the voting going on the way it is, how does that change the calculus of how to spend the next two-plus weeks on these campaigns? >> that's really a great question, chris. >> thank you. >> we don't have election day anymore, you know, we have election month. and we are seeing extraordinary turnout. now, you can't jump to the assumption that high turnout automatically benefits democrats because the president has shown the capacity to expand the electorate, himself, and to bring in a lot of blue-collar, and non-urban whites who don't usually vote. but so far, the pattern is clear we are seeing the turnout concentrated in the big, metro, urban centers that have been moving away from the president and the republican party since he emerged as kind of the face of the party. to me, the one i am watching most closely is harris county, texas, swhich is houston.

2012, obama won harris county by a thousand votes and that was a big deal because it was a big, urban center in texas. in 2018, beto o'rourke won the same county. it's kind of a microcosm of the way the president is exiling the gop from the metros that are driving the economy. they have had four, roughly 400,000 votes, this week. it was 1.3 million, in 2016. could be, they're saying, 1.7 or so. it is possible that biden will win that county by twice as much as hillary clinton did and it is emblematic to me the challenge the president is creating for himself. 8,700 of the largest counties, i think his deficit is going to be bigger. and as a final point, he is back -- interested in what scott thinks about this. he has back loaded his vote to where he depended on huge

numbers coming out on election day. and then, how many cases are he we going to be looking at? back in the 70, 75,000 range? at a time when the virus is surging again. >> so, scott, this just occur today me as a question. given that the president has been telling people not to mail in and he is basically scaring them away from doing that, even his own base, except in places like florida and north carolina but he just started giving that message. the stay away message, he's been giving for weeks. he is really betting that they are all going to come out on election day. and the pandemic could have a much bigger caseload there, because you are going to have the flu and other things and complicating factors and more kids in school and there is lag time with cases. isn't he kind of betting on that one day, where everybody's going to come out? it may be the worst time and, yes, that is what brownstein just told me to ask you. >> yeah. i mean, it -- the -- it's absolutely true. republicans -- and this bears out in all the polling, public and private, that i have seen from all the states. you got 70 to 80% of biden

voters want to vote early or by mail. and 70% of republican voters want to vote on election day. so by putting all of your people out there on one day, you do, you know, increase the possibility that they don't make it. what if it snows? what if there is bad weather? what if something happens? so, that's absolutely true. i will just say this is not a phenomenon that's unique to trump. for as long as i have been in republican politics, republicans strongly feel they want to vote on election day. i have been thrown off porches, knocking on doors in the early period trying to get folks to vote early because they think election day is sacred. so it's not unique to trump but he has, certainly, i think, exacerbated it by talking down the voting by mail options that do exist. >> well, we've had them since the civil war so they should start coming around, at some point. karen, i want to play some sound from the town hall, tonight, with the president. where he made a gaffe that, in olden times, might have been fatal. i'm thinking it's a shrug, though, but you may disagree.

let's listen. >> okay. >> i'm very under levered, fortunately. but i'm very under levered. i have a very, very small percentage of debt compared -- in fact, some i did as favors to institutions that wanted to lend me money. $400 million compared to the assets i have, all of these great properties all over the world. and frankly, the bank of america building in san francisco. i don't love what's happening in san fr san francisco. >> but are you -- are you confirming that, yes, you do owe some $400 million? >> what i am saying is that it's a tiny percentage of my net worth. >> now, he admitted something that he said wasn't true. >> yeah. >> his basis for why it doesn't matter is never going to resonate with anybody. you get way too in the weeds. i guarantee you, his net worth is not what he will suggest it is. it's not close. i spent a whole year on it with

tim o'brien and a whole team 15 years ago. but he admitted something he said wasn't true. will it matter? >> no. and here's why. right? it is such a complicated story. what we learned in that exchange and what matters is that he was lying. and that is the tap dance we have seen him do, over and over and over again. and really, the thing that this comes down to, if you -- if you, at all, spend any time switching between channels, it's it comes down to character. it comes down to what kind of a person do you want running this country? and, you know, that, what you just saw with donald trump, is what we have seen for, you know, snake oil salesman that we have seen for the last four years. it was more of the same. it was more of the -- the lies and the offiscation and just trying to use words without really saying anything. and i think, again, i go back to people are exhausted of that. and i think they look at that, and they say, i mean, we know he is a liar. we know he lies about his finances. you know, we know he's a crook.

we know he doesn't like to play by the same rules the rest of us. so that's not, frankly, new information. >> a second to you, ron, before i run out of time so i will do it in one step, instead of two. yeah, they are tired of it. you know what they're tired of? seeing him run down. you'll never see biden flags the way you'll see trump flags. you'll never see intensity and interest, in his voters, the way you see with trump's. what they are tired of is seeing a president who is against what they're against, getting beat down by the left and by a media that favors it, on a regular basis. and that's why their resolve, when it comes to trump, is rock solid. how big a factor is that in measuring the intensity factor, going into election day? >> he has never tried to govern as the president of all of america. he's been the president of red america and, in many ways, he's viewed himself as a wartime president against blue america. he demonizes cities, rather than trying to court them. you know, he does much the same with other democratic constituencies. so, yes, what you get out of

that is enormous intensity. but it's enormous intensity, among something between 42 and 44% of the electorate. now, can he generate enough turnout from them to overcome the deficit that he is facing? roughly, 60%, for example, of college-educated whites voted against him. it's awful tough when everybody is voting, right, chris? i mean, it's tough to have your turnout surge be decisive, when turnout is going up for every group. african-american turnout is going to be higher. college, white turnout is going to be the highest it's ever been. again, if you look what's happening in these big metros that he is driving away from the party, he is leaving himself -- it is possible, that in texas, for example, he may come out of metro texas, not california, not new jersey, metro texas, down a million votes. might still be able to overcome it by turning out enough rural votes but he is creating a long-term trajectory where the party is being exiled from the places that are driving population and economic growth and it's hard to see how that is a sustainable, long-term

strategy. >> two things. one, this could be historic, in that you could have the most votes we've seen since, let's say, 1908 in terms of the percentage of eligible voters. somewhere in the mid to high 60%. and have trump win by the slimmest margin through the electoral process of the electoral college that we have ever seen. it's all going to be in terms of how galvanized one base is, versus the rest of america. and, admit it, scott, i did a good job laying that argument out about intensity, didn't i? come on. >> i endorse everything you said. >> i'll take it. i'm going to end the segment. scott, karen, ron. i got to go, karen. i will give you back time, next time. thanks, all of you. especially, for this time tonight. appreciate you. thank you. trump now says, yes, i do want a peaceful transfer of power. there's a comma that comes after it, really quick. and that's why we've got to think, can you take him at his word about this? because this matters. let's pick it up, on the other side, with somebody who knows

him very well. understands the people around him, even better. what did we see, tonight, in terms of what they think wins for this president? anthony scaramucci. next. my great aunt ruth signed up as a nursing cadet for world war ii. she was only 17. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com to life like never before. i will send out an army to find you

in the middle of the darkest night it's true, i will rescue you oh, i will rescue you trump took a good economy and drove it back into the ditch through his failure to get covid under control, his failure to deliver real relief to working people. does he not understand and see the tens of millions of people who've had to file for unemployment this year, so far? the people who lost wages while the cost of groceries has gone up dramatically. donald trump has been almost singularly focused on the stock market, the dow, the nasdaq -- not you, not your families.

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first, it was white supremacy. that was disgusting. now, the question is about the president circulating a conspiracy theory that denigrates our s.e.a.l. team members, who took out osama bin laden. making them out to be liars and cowards. and when asked about it, the

president said, look, it's an opinion. somebody has, i put it out there. people can decide for themselves. whether our s.e.a.l. team is telling the truth? whether or not they really took out osama bin laden? really? let's get some perspective from anthony scaramucci. anthony, you know, you know me well, and i am surprised by very little when it comes to the president. this surprises me. that he didn't say, whoa, whoa, whoa. i love the s.e.a.l. team. i love the military. i know what they did with osama bin laden. i never -- i didn't read the tweet. you know, i retweeted it but i just saw something about obama. and he, instead, says, no, i want it out there. i want people to decide, for themselves. it's a matter of opinion, whether or not the s.e.a.l. team is telling the truth about what they did with osama bin laden. two and a half weeks from an election? make sense of it. >> well, it makes total sense because he is extremely focused

on his base. they're digging down into the base, to try to get as many uneducated, white voters, frankly, registered to go out and vote for him. these people, by and large, feel disaffected by the system, chris. and so, the president understands that. so, they play well, these conspiracy theories. it's like, okay, you're outside the system. the system is maligned. let me retweet to you, and signal to you how maligned it is. come out and vote for me. i'm here to be the avatar of your anger. i'm here to be the outsider that you want in washington. and so, yes, no, he doubles and triples down on that stuff and he never apologizes for anything. you bring up white supremacy. he will double down. conspiracy related to s.e.a.l. team six and i saw your interview last night with rob o'neill, he will double down because his only strategy, right now, is to expand the profile of his base and the population of his base to go out and vote for

him on november the 3rd. >> but, how do you do that by disrespecting the people that his base loves? and the moment, in american history, that came the closest to justice, after 9/11, we'll probably ever get? >> okay. so, then, you don't really understand those voters. okay. so, not you, personally, i'm just saying generically because he does. i did 71 campaign stops with him in 2016. and those voters view him as an outsider. they view themselves as angry at the system and disaffected. >> sure. >> so, they're ignoring -- they're ignoring -- anything that the president says, that doesn't fit their narrative, they'll ignore. so, he's not really picking on, in their minds, the military. he is picking on the vice president and president obama, who many still think is a, you know, born in kenya. all of that sort of nonsense. that's what the president's going for. he -- he saw it work for him, last time. he knows he has to thread the needle on the electoral map,

this time. and the only way he can do it, chris, he's lost moderates. he's lost suburban women. he's lost seniors. but if he goes for this part of the electorate, and this is the way he preys on them, it's actually sick, chris. and -- and i'm surprised that his campaign, i'm surprised that people around him haven't thrown the towel in and said, okay, enough is enough. i can't take this. but that's the president's strategy, right now. >> you know, that's why, you know, the places where so many of his voters come from are going to have the hardest time getting care, getting through covid. and we're seeing that as it hits their communities. it seems like the play, for him, should be to say, listen. i'm coming at this covid thing. i'm going to do more on it now. you know, that seems like the obvious play and i am waiting for it and he just doesn't do it. i thought he was going to do it with the medicines after that. you know, i'm throwing all this money at regeneron and we are going to get these antibodies for you in the heartland.

and he just doesn't do it. how do they think he cares about them? when, on the biggest issue, the pandemic, he's not doing what he needs to do for them? >> okay. so, again, that's all part of his strategy. you know, the pandemic is a hoax. i got people that are trumpers, dyed in the wool trumpers, that tell me that the pandemic is over on november the 4th. and so, that's his narrative. you know, this is a hoax and don't let it bother you. and i got through it and barron didn't feel it. and, you know, everything is fine. and, by the way, i'm a tough guy. you're a tough guy or woman. let's get through this together, without any masks. all of this science denying and all -- all of that weirdness that makes us scratch our heads is, all, again, apart of his narrative. so, one thing that's happening now, chris, is he is coming off those steroids. you know, he is probably on oral steroid medication and he's probably just completed that, if you look at the timeline since he was in the hospital. so, look for him to crash now and get even more erratic.

>> i don't think -- i don't think it's the drugs and it's just so sad because so many people have a right to feel disaffected and to want somebody to be a champion for them. and it's hard for them, has to be, to see how he is acting, and know this is the best they felt they could do. anthony scaramucci, thank you very much. appreciate you. let's take a break. we'll be right back. it's an important time to save. with priceline, you can get up to 60% off amazing hotels. and when you get a big deal... ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal.

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haven't seen anything like this in an election unlike anything we've ever seen, in a year that just can't seem to get any worse, and then it does. and chris cillizza is here to make sense of it all for us. chris, i'm not going to put that on you. all i want to know is where are we left after tonight? >> i mean, look, to me joe biden did what he should do, which is try to makes a little news as possible. i know there's some news about supreme court packing and he says he's going to say something after amy coney barrett is voted either confirmed or not. but to me the real focus here has to be on donald trump, not just because he's the president, chris, but because he's behind.

i think it's really important we focus on this. this is not a 50-50 election. according to cnn poll of polls, joe biden is ahead by 15 points. you say one poll is a snapshot in time. this is lot of polls together. this is where the race is. donald trump needs to make something different happen, and i think what we saw tonight -- i'm happy to talk more about it. but i think what we saw tonight is he is incapable of doing so. he's got one gear. the car doesn't go any faster. it doesn't go any sewllower. there's one gear. it's a base-only policy, base-only strategy that will win him undying affection from the people who are for him and not convince one person who's not for him to be for him. >> but isn't it a base that is compromised of the largest type of people in this country? >> no, i don't think it is, chris. i mean it's a little bit up for

debate but i will remind you -- and i don't ever dispute this. donald trump won the 2016 election because he won the way in which we elect them, right? electoral college. but he do lose by almost 3 million votes. he didn't get a majority. so i don't think it is a majority of the country, and i think what he's done over the last four years, chris, is he's actually narrowed his base. i think he's taken some republicans who were hoping that they could be for him, and even though you're probably going to get three conservative supreme court justices, you're going to get 200-plus, almost 300 lower court judges, you're going to get a tax cut, i still think he winds up losing a lot of suburbanites who are probably republicans, particularly on fiscal issues, in places like california, florida, michigan, philadelphia, pennsylvania. you know, atlanta, georgia. houston, texas. dallas, texas. and that's where this election

is won and lost. >> i'm talking about the fact that you have more white, working-class people than you have anything else in this country. it depends where they are, and the only -- my only problem with the poll of polls is exactly your point. it's not about the popular vote. it's about the states. >> no, it's not. >> and it is close in more than enough states to make a difference. >> i mean i guess that depends on how you define close. so, look at this great graphic. i don't think pennsylvania is -- i don't think it's 13, but i don't think that donald trump's going to win there. i dent see any reason to think he's going to win in wisconsin. i don't see any reason to think he's going to win in michigan. that's a big problem right there. >> you skipped florida. >> well, i'm getting to it. >> mm-hmm. >> florida. no president -- in republican 96 years as won the presidency without winning florida. he just can't lose that state. now, again, i think -- >> it says 11 there. aren't you confident in the 11? >> no, i don't think it's 11 points. >> uh-huh. and that's what i'm talking

about, cillizza. >> but there's a difference between i don't think biden's up in 11 and i don't think biden's up 6. if he's up that much, chris, given the early vote, given how much absentee vote is going to happen, i don't know that donald trump can catch up on election day. remember, there are a lot of ways that joe biden gets elected president without florida. there's almost no way that donald trump gets elected without florida. >> fair point, and i appreciate it. chris, i'll be talking to you more and more here, not at this imtoo, don't worry. it will be actually be later. it will be like 4:00, 5:00 in the morning but also on radio, sirius xm. i love you and thank you for making us smarter and better. and we love you all. thank you for watching. of course our coverage is going to continue here on cnn. keeping your oysters business growing

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right now it's cnn tonight with d. lemon. >> let me ask you something, and you can ask me the same question. when was the last time you had a covid test? >> me, ten days. >> yeah. so me, last tuesday. so why can't the president remember that if he had a covid test? >> because he's lying. because he's lying. >> how can he not remember someone either drawing blood for, you know, or sticking that thing up her