top of the hour, hello, everybody, i'm john king in washington. thank you for sharing your day with us. it is debate night in america, the final time president trump and joe biden will share a stage. and today is full of new developments certain to be debate flash points. republicans on the senate judiciary committee this morning ignored a democratic boycott and advanced amy coney barrett to the floor. it's almost certain she'll be voted in. plus new unemployment claims are bleak again, the coronavirus economy is a big debate topic. here's a look at the debate hall, nashville, tennessee

perhaps we use these words too much, but the stakes are giant. the president is losing as he was when he walked on the debate stage for the last time four years ago. goal one for joe biden is protect his lead. he knows the president is coming to attack his policies and family. as millions of you vote early, there are new concerns about election integrity. at a press conference last night, the fbi director and director of national intelligence warning iran trying to meddle in the election. the emails threatened democrats not to vote for biden. but the intelligence chief, a trump ally, insists without backing it up, the goal is to hurt the president. >> we are standing before you now to give you the confidence that we are on top of this and providing you with the most powerful weapon we have to combat these efforts, the truth. >> we are not going to tolerate

foreign interference in our elections. >> national security is a topic tonight. so too is the coronavirus. the country faces growing trouble again. so it's safe to say the president is on defense here. the numbers, cases, death, positivity signal a third crippling covid peak is before us. more covid cases this week, the red and orange, 31 states, this week than last week. only hawaii pushing the case curve down in the right direction. wednesday, nearly 64,000 new infections. the positivity rate sits above 10% in 14 states. most troubling, you see the chart there, the death toll climbing above 1,000 for the first time since last month. just yesterday the president said not much when asked what he would change in his pandemic response. that attitude is one of the big

reasons he is losing. and advisers hope he is more humble tonight. and an adviser this morning said he will answer the questions he wants to. and hoping that hunter biden will be a big debate topic. jessica dean is live at the debate hall. a big night tonight. >> reporter: it is. you laid it out succinctly. this is donald trump's last chance to change the trajectory of this race. his advisers have counselled him this is the last change chance to change the opinion of him from last week. the point, women. he's also been advised to tone it down tonight. cool it off, not come in as hot which he indicated he would do but he also indicated he would push back and push back hard if he feels like he's being treated

unfairly. for his part, former vice president joe biden has been preparing the last several days for this debate, he and his campaign well aware and preparing for personal attacks against him and as you mentioned, his family as well. they want to keep this about the policies. they want joe biden, as you remember from the last debate when he would look right into the camera, they want him talking directly to the american people, they want to be talking about the coronavirus pandemic and how he plans to get america out of the crisis it's in, surrounding that, and also how he plans to bring back the economy after it's been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic. they want to go back to that again and again as much as possible. they believe when he's talking about that, that's where they really do well. again, also, we know the mute button is going to be in play tonight 2 minutes of uninterrupted talking time at the beginning of the segment, after that it is open discussion. it remains to be seen how that

will all play out. just a reminder for everyone out there, there are a set number of topics that have been discussed, will be discussed tonight, i want to run through those with you. they including with fighting covid-19, american families, race in american, climate change, national security and leadership. each of those spanning 15 minutes for a total of 90 minutes uninterrupted on that debate stage behind me. those can be the topics we outline and we're supposed to be talking about tonight but it will be incumbent upon the two men on the stage to drive what they're talking about and what they want to bring up and we'll see how that plays out. >> as we learned in this campaign and others, the candidates can sometimes have their own debate outside of the lines and the suggested topics. jessica dean, appreciate the preview from the debate hall in nashvil nashville. joining us is jackie and

tolanipa. you see in the list of topics covid-19 is first, a man who helped the president prepare for the first debate, is in his face in the second debate. this this is chris christie who got coronavirus at the white house, this is what he wrote, those who deny the scientific realities of the pandemic undermine conditions that allow for rapid and compare -- they encourage behavior that ion vies personal tragedy and social regulation. >> we've seen the president isn't listening to anyone, or anyone he doesn't want to, when it comes to masks and how he's dealing with the coronavirus and covid-19 crisis. i was reading that op-ed be, i

had a moment and said what if the president put something like this out after his infection with the virus, instead of plowing through and pretending it's lifting off the country. but while -- i hope people read that chris christie op-ed, he's right that masks shouldn't be a political tool or virtue signaling. but i think we're kind of past the point where the president is going to take advice on covid-19 and mask wearing. that's one of the reasons they want to talk about anything other than the pandemic. which is why they're bringing in some of these other topics like hunter biden, like how the economy was, to really try to, you know, make people forget about the thing that is affecting most people in this country every single day. >> we get that, and jackie raises a key point, which trump do we get? joe biden is pretty steady, but president trump can be different

we saw it in 2016. jackie mentions hunter biden. we know the strategy, everybody is corrupt, hate us both but vote for me. listen to frank lunts, the republican pollster who says given the challenges, the covid pandemic is accelerating, he said he's not sure the hunter biden strategy is the right one. >> if you've lost your job or afraid of losing it, what do you care about more, economic policy or hunter biden's laptop. if you know someone who is sick or you got sick, what matters to you more? i don't understand why the campaign is so focused on hunter biden when there are so many better issues that the public cares about. >> there are a lot of republicans who believe that. but we know this president trusts his own instincts. who will we see? >> the president is trying to recreate the magic of 2016. we knew in 2016 hillary clinton

did have sort of an air of scandal around her in part because the fbi was investigating her use of emails and they announced at the end of the campaign they were going to reopen that investigation. so the president is trying to recreate that where his opponent is under a cloud of scandal or under an investigation but it doesn't seem to be what's happening. in part because the unfavorability is so much different for joe biden compared to hillary clinton. people in general seem to like and trust joe biden. they don't think of him as this corrupt washington politician who's been involved in all kinds of various scandals. instead for the most part he's well trusted. the president is likely going to try to attack joe biden on those lines, try to bring his family into this, make this an image of a long-standing corrupt

politician. an image different from what the american people have seen from joe biden. but president trump has been pushing that on the campaign trail and this is his biggest audience yet so far and the last chance to have tens of millions of people watching him. even with his mic muted i would expect him to use the time, especially the ten minute period to challenge joe biden and get him off his game by attacking his family and paint him as a corrupt washington politician. >> we know in recent days we've seen the president bristle at coronavirus questions. but we also know that joe biden gets his irish up when people challenge his family and that's part of the strategy, get him to lose his temper and focus in a debate that joe biden if he breaks even with the president he stays ahead in the race but the president is trying to rattle him. >> the biden campaign is

emphasizing they're going to take the approach he has for every debate, he's prepared to talk about the issues he's been pushing the entire campaign, things like following the science, getting the economy back, some of the things that you just mentioned and just going to try to brush off the president's attacks. whether or not he's able to do it, when the president was attacking him during the last debate. there was a moment where biden -- about his son hunter, he looked at the camera and talked about the struggles with addiction. it was one of the better moments for biden, one of the more relatable moments for biden in the debate. so in that case it backfired on what the president was trying to do. we'll see how they approach that tonight. >> one thing the president's advisers are begging him to stick to is an comic-con tras. if you want to win back some of the suburban women, win back republican leaning independents, focus more and more on the

economy. joe biden will raise your taxes, you should prefer my approach. the president, a test run in the 60 minute interview that airs sunday, listen to the clip they released. >> let me ask you what you think the biggest domestic priority is for you right now or nationally. >> ultimately, i'll tell you, it was happening. we created the greatest economy in the history of our country. >> you know that's not true. >> it is totally true. >> no. >> this is the fight. the president brisles at the idea he inherited a strong economy from barack obama, which happens to be true. in the early days the tax cuts did give the economy more juice. but where do we expect this to go tonight? >> he has a number of talking point s on the economy, well rehears rehearsed. foc

focussing on the first three years. his advisers are telling him, focus on the economy, draw a contrast between yourself and joe biden on issues like taxes which they polled and show the president does poll well when it comes to taxes in comparison to joe biden. so you would expect president trump to focus on that. but if you look at the 60 minutes interview as a case study, yes, he talked about the economy but he blew up the interview by talking out of it, tweeting about it. but no one is going to be talking about the economy if he is creating other headlines by giving his normal trump-style antics that overshadow the meat of the message. i wouldn't be surprised if we see that as well. >> that's why we watch the entire 90 minutes. grateful for your reportings, thank you both. our coverage of the debate starts at 7:00 p.m. eastern. up next, coronavirus cases are on the rise, case counts

back above 60,000 today.

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the coronavirus numbers, well they are bad today and every indication is they are about to get worse. let's look right now. let's start with our map here, 31 states. 31 of the 50 states you see the numbers there. the orange and red on the map. that means trending in the wrong direction. ohio among the states yesterday that set a case record, kansas as well, wyoming as well. new state records in those states. you see 31 states trending up, 13 steady, only one hawaii, fewer infections than compared to a week ago. this is our trend line. if we go back to the beginning

of the pandemic, it was in here the president of the united states told us by april this would disappear. it was around here the vice president told us by memorial day this would be behind us. and then this is what we're dealing with, everything to the right of those lines. the question now is if you started at 18,000 roughly 18,000 cases a day here and got to a peak of the summer surge above 70,000 cases. the question is since we started with a baseline of 40,000 cases back up the hill this time, this is yesterday's number, 66,000 how high do you go? that's the question. as we head into the next challenge. you see the hospitalizations, the trend lines in the hospitalization trend line, starting to head back up as well as we go into the third peak. this is the saddest of the charts we can show you. for some time, i can't use the word hopeful but for some time the hope was you could keep this number down, keep the blue line down.

you see the end here starting to trickle up, 1,100 deaths from the coronavirus reported yesterday, first time the number has been above 1,000 since back on september 23rd. this projection from the cdc, projecting 247,000 americans will die of coronavirus by november 14th, a few weeks away. you see the number on the right side of your screen, 222. so 25,000 more americans will die in the next three weeks or so. dr. a len ski, you can see the peak before us, i'll put the chart back on the screen as you speak. when you start from a baseline oaf 40,000 you start here and you're at 62,000 as of yesterday. we know from experience we started 18,000 here, got up to 77. what do you see in the several weeks ahead of us right now? >> good morning, john. i think -- i don't want to say

that it's going to be impossible to keep these down. i think it's going to be hard to keep these down. as we send the message that in colder weather the cases are going to rise, i want everybody to understand that they are empowered to change that. we know what we need to do to stop the transmission of this virus. it is distancing and masking. so while those numbers are grim and i am very worried about what happens in the later fall and the winter, and i recognize at 60,000 that reflects two weeks ago when the weather wasn't that bad in that much of the country. but i don't want to send the message this is impossible to stop. we know what we need to do to stop it, we're just not doing it. >> we do know. it is more complicated to stop when people get mixed messages from the top. i want you to listen to dr. anthony fauci here who shares your exasperation who think if

people would be more careful we could push those numbers down some but he adds an important but. >> there is a building mistrust now in the transparency of what we do. it's the elephant in the room. the issue that people say you don't want to alarm people is totally nonsense. you have to make sure that everybody understands where we're going, what is the goal, and how we're going to get there. then you lead by example. and the consistency is also very important. you can't, you know, flip flop on things. >> lead by example, consistency is important. those should be the guides for any organization. whether you're in public health or making widgets. but in the public health specter, lead by example, be consistent, the president of the united states mocks mask use, is in these giant rallies. scott atlas, the doctor he listens to most tweets mask, no. how do you get where you want to

go and where dr. fauci wants to go if that's what's happening at the top? >> it's an important question. i want to emphasize how hard this is even in the absence of that miscommunication. and that is because we're learning from science every day. and sometimes we're learning things that we didn't expect. we didn't expect, in march, that this was going to transmit so powerfully through asymptomatic transmission. and those messages are hard to send, even in the best of circumstances. so i want to emphasize how important it is to lead with the science, to trust the science, to communicate the science, lead by example, and then bring the information to the people at the way and communication that they're ready to receive it. >> you talk about this being a couple weeks behind. the 60,000 new infections yesterday means those people infe infected, that happened a week or two before. your state has done well, massachusetts, help me. if we're talking about what do we see today that warns us about what's coming two weeks from

now, we talked about the high case counts in the midwest, hospitalizations in places like north dakota and wisconsin in a place that at the beginning managed it well. what are you seeing in massachusetts and does that alarm you in about two weeks or a month from now? >> we are seeing increased case counts. i think everybody expected to see increased case counts with cooler weather, people indoors, mitigation fatigue, all of those things. but we are seeing them as well, and we started at such a good level we had relatively little disease. so when we see the increased case counts, we communicate, wear masks. we have been wearing masks well in massachusetts for a long time. so we are watching them, we are following them. but we are doubling down on our efforts for distancing and for mask wearing. >> doctor, thank you. grateful for your time as always. >> thanks so much. up next, national security officials go public with new information of election

interference, they say russia, iran involved now and a debate about the details and the motive for the announcement. the current fbi director was at that announcement last night. four years ago you may remember the former fbi director made a splash. >> 11 days, the fbi director informing lawmakers he's looking at new details. >> today in a letter to congress, comey said the fbi has not found anything in those new emails discovered that would change their conclusions reached in july. ♪ you can go your own way

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unlimited or a mix of each. and switch anytime so you only pay for the data you need. switch and save up to $400 a year on your wireless bill. with the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. call, click, or visit your local xfinity store today. foreign election interference is front and center in the closing days of the campaign again. with a big new twist. top officials called a news conference last night to announce iran was behind a new effort to intimidate voters. now there are still questions about the new information, including whether iran hacked voter registration files or just used public information. and there are questions about how this alleged iranian meddling was characterized by the director of national intelligence. the emails allegedly sent by

iran were to democratic voters and threatened harm if they did not vote for president trump. but listen to how the director of national intelligence explained it. >> we have identified that two foreign actors, iran and russia, have taken specific actions to influence public opinion relating to our elections. we have already seen iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage president trump. >> joining me now is our cnn national security correspondent, and cnn national security analyst. alex, i want to start with you. this is a remarkable hastily arranged evening press conference. take us inside the reasons they decided that was necessary and connect the dots for me, dni

radcliffe said this was to threaten trump but the emails said don't vote for biden. >> this was arranged at 7:30 last night, it was a who's who of the top national security officials. on its face it is significant and new information that iran and russia have gotten ahold of voter registration data and are using it. as you noted, it's less important that they got that data becaus much of it is publicly available. but more important perhaps is how they're using it. iran we know has sent out thousands of these emails to voters in alaska and florida saying vote for trump or else, one said vote for trump or we will come after you. look at what radcliffe said in that sound byte you just played. they are designed to intimidate voters, that is true, designed to incite social unrest, that's clear. where he gets himself into a bit

of trouble is when he says they're designed to harm president trump. what dreamemocrats are saying t that doesn't follow. how does that work that they are designed to harm president trump, if they're threatening democratic voters. this comes after several instances of radcliffe acting in a very political manner in order to help president trump. but it must be said that the intelligence community, and professionals within that community have said for the past several months that iran is seeking to undermine president trump. and what was also remarkable about this press conference was that -- was not just that they mentioned russia but that it wasn't -- the emphasis was not really made there. there are countless experts and officials who say that it is really russia who's doing the vast majority of the malicious work to meddle in this election here, to under mine and

denigrate joe biden in favor of president trump. that is not something that we heard last night. it was primarily about iran. and we have seen the president go after director wray in the past when he has said that russia is very actively meddling in the election. john? >> it is a tad confusing. which is why we have shawn turner here. you know the inside workings of the intelligence community very, very well. as you watched this last night. one of the knocks on the obama administration was they did not call out the russian interference in the last election more plainly. on the one hand good they're coming out and talking about this, but you have questions about the motives? >> right, john. look, i think we have to acknowledge upfront for the intelligence community to provide information to the american people about interference in our election is a good thing. whether that interference is foreign or domestic and we're seeing both in this case. but i do think it's a legitimate question to ask about the timing. look, as alex said, this event

was put together hastily last night and we saw some information in this event that really didn't seem to ring true with what we're seeing. when it comes to election interference in the united states, there is no bigger offender than russia. it's not iran, not north korea, not china. we know they all attempt to interfere but none bigger than russia. for this administration, that is an inkro convenieconvenient facw in 2016, saw attempted in 2018 and seeing again in 2020 is that russian interference is designed to directly or indirectly support the president. so when we saw director radcliffe focus on iran, which is a country that may be fourth or fifth down the ladder when it comes to interference. what we saw there is an attempt to do what we've seen him do repeatedly since he's been dni, that is to take intelligence that may be factual but interpret it on the spot so it is politically convenient for

the president. >> we'll watch as this one plays out again. a lot of questions i think it is good they're coming forward but we'll spend time reporting to get more on this. grateful for the reporting and insights there. a new study examining coronavirus death rates. will the findings help us as we head back up toward a third peak? to stir that fire, university of phoenix is awarding up to one million dollars in scholarships through this month. see what scholarship you qualify for at phoenix.edu.

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the trend lines of this third covid peek facing the united states right now are troubling but there is a new study that suggests lessons learned over the past eight months can make this next phase less deadly. it shows patients in hospitals are less likely to die now than they were at the start of the pandemic thanks to modern medicine. findings suggest while covid-19 remains a terrible disease our efforts to improve treatment are probably working even in the absence of a silver bullet treatment or vaccine we are protecting patients through a host of small changes. you see the graph there, hospitalizations ticking up once again as cases rise across the country. dr. horowitz joins us now.

doctor, grateful for your time today. you say a host of small things are helping. what are they? >> we've learned an awful lot since march now that we've been six months into this epidemic. we know now not to rush to put people on ventilators. we know now that steroids are effect i' effective for sick patients. we know now to put people on their stomachs and open the lungs. and the complications, blood clots, kidney failure. and we know to watch people's oxygen and get them to the hospital sooner. all of these are small, have small impacts but collectively we think they're helpful. >> collectively helps. i want to show the chart of deaths over the past several months. it's a painful chart to show but i know it, in the beginning

death rates higher. then the summer surge, july and august, they were more cases than the march and april period, so obviously knowledge has helped, how much of it is medicine and how much is it for example vulnerable populations may have learned the lessons and are being more careful to protect themselves. >> we know people who are being hospitalized over the summer are younger, healthier, have fewer diseases, and we wondered, does that explain all of the difference in mortality. this study we looked at nyu health, just our hospital system in new york city. we took care of 5,000 patients so far and accounted for how old they were, how many other diseases they had, weather they were smoking, obese, even how sick they were when they got to the hospital, how low was their oxygen, how bad was their blood counts we accounted for all of

those things. and still found a substantial decrease in mortality. it's not just about the patients being healthier now that are getting infected, it's also something about our treatment and how crowded the hospitals are, now we have more space to take care of them and there's fewer in the hospital at one time. and it might even have to do with how careful people are being at home. so there is a theory if you are wearing masks and distancing and staying away from crowds that even if you get inif he canned you might get infected with less virus and that might make your disease less severe. >> very important the way you put it. doctor, grateful for your time. we'll check back and see how this plays out over the months ahead. coming up for us, the supreme court weighs in on an important question. with this pandemic voting, should alabama allow you to vote curb side?

tonight's presidential debate is too late to change the

mind of 45 million americans. that's how many votes have already been cast, a record for early voting represents almost a third of the total votes cast in the 2016 election. over 12 million early votes have been cast in 2020 battleground states so far. some form of voting is under way in all 50 states. early in person voting open in 42 of the 50. there are as we talked about in recent days dozens of legal challenges to the new pandemic voting rules. the supreme court handing republicans in alabama a win. some voters asked for curbside voting as an option, arguing it would be safer because of covid-19. the high court ruled 5-3 siding with state republicans that opposed that change. kristin holmes joins me now. the alabama case one of many people are saying let's expand voting in a lot of states, and republican states are fighting back. >> reporter: the thing about the alabama law is is that it doesn't call for or prohibit curbside voting. counties in past elections have

used this system now during a pandemic at a time there are vulnerable people who might not be able to wait in long lines in a state they don't require you to wear a fake mask, the republican secretary of state banned counties from allowing any sort of curbside voting. a judge, lower court judge said they should allow it. now the supreme court ruling in favor again of the republican secretary of state. the really important thing to note here is that breakdown, 5-3. it is conservative leaning judges in the majority. you start talking about amy coney barrett, her advancement towards the nomination, and her confirmation, excuse me, this is likely what we're going to see more of is the conservative majority particularly when it comes to these election cases. >> kristin holmes, thank you so much. judge amy coney barrett as kristin mentioned is one step away from a lifetime slot on the supreme court. voting 12-0 to send the barrett

nomination to the full senate. the full senate plans to vote monday on president trump's choice to fill the seat of course of the late liberal justice ruth bader ginsburg. they have 22 members, democrats boycotted the session. they think it should be filled by the winner of the presidential election. manu raju tracking this on capitol hill. republicans promised a fast track and they're delivering. >> reporter: yes. this is a fast moving nomination. typically takes two to three months to advance the supreme court nomination. here they're doing it in just over a month's time. this comes despite their own position in 2016 when they refused to move on barack obama's nomination to the supreme court because they said eight months before an election was too close. nevertheless, the republicans have the numbers. they moved ahead today. lindsey graham, the chairman of the committee, said before they approved it with 12 republican senators and no democrats, he argued it was the democrats who started all this back in 2013 when the democrats at the time

changed rules to allow appellate court judges and other judges to move forward by simple majority rather than super majority of 60 senators. instead, democrats are coming to regret it. >> i remember telling senator schumer you'll regret this. today he will regret it. all i can say is that judge gore sick was filibustered two or three times, requiring us to change the rules. they started this, not me. if it were up to me, it would be a 60 vote requirement in the senate today. >> reporter: after the democrats made the move in 2013, then the republicans in 2017 when president trump was in office, they changed the filibuster rules again, removing it for supreme court nominees. that's why they can advance by just the majority party support in the senate rather than

getting bipartisan support. so that's why the president has neil gorsuch, brett kavanaugh, soon will have amy coney barrett confirmed on a party line vote on monday, despite the democrats' protest, john. >> manu, giant consequences, 6-3 conservative majority, and ripples out of the hearings. progressives are furious with dianne feinstein, believe she wasn't tough enough, strong enough, and offered praise on chairman graham, even a hug in coronavirus times. chairman graham is in a tight re-election battle. does that help him? >> reporter: that's one of the reasons democrats were so upset. not only do they think she lent legit me see, but lindsey graham is neck in neck against jamie harrison, using those proceedings essential to his re-election campaign at the

moment. i just asked lindsey graham whether he would use feinstein's remarks praising stewardship of the committee as part of the campaign ad going forward. he said they're on polar opposite issues, will not use her praise as part of his re-election campaign and that praise where she did say these are the best hearings i have sat through, has had such impact among democrats. some democrats want her gone as top democrat on the judiciary committee, and their party takes the senate in the fall, she would be chairman of the committee next congress. uncertain if she gets that position. chuck schumer, top democrat, has not said if he has confidence in her remaining in the top post. he had conversations with her. while democrats are concerned about it, republicans like lindsey graham are defending her, john. >> that political fallout will continue for some time as you rightly know. grateful for the live reporting there. just ahead, debate night in

america. president trump, joe biden on the stage in tennessee. perhaps the president's final big chance to turn around the campaign dynamic. tonight...i'll be eating a falafel wrap with sweet potato fries. (doorbell rings) thanks! splitsies? ♪ oooh...you meant the food, didn't you?

to our viewers in the united states and around the world, john king in washington. thank you for sharing a consequential news day with us. the final day the president and joe biden will share a stage. here's a live look at the debate hall in nashville, tennessee. what happens could well determine the election outcome. the president is losing as he was when he walked on stage for his final debate four years ago. his last big stage to change the 2020 campaign dynamic. 45 must million americans already voted. today, there are new concerns about election integrity. the fbi director, director of national intelligence