chris? all right. thank you very much, everybody. i am chris cuomo and welcome to "prime time." tonight we have anonymous. his name is miles taylor. you have seen him on this program before. but you are going to see him in a whole new light tonight. this is miles first tv interview since revealing he was the person behind the pen more than two years ago when he turned the white house upside down with that now infamous trump resistance op ed and book warning. the former chief of staff and homeland security under secretary nielsen was a very big and inside position. what did anonymous and others actually stop from happening? how worried was he and were others in-house? how many are still there? insight into why biden is hitting the notes that he is in this campaign, especially in the final week.

and also why did miles taylor conduct himself the way he has? let's start there. miles taylor, thank you for taking the opportunity. >> hey, chris. as always, thank you for having me. >> all right. first what matters most certainly to me. you lied to us, miles. you were asked in august if you were anonymous here with anderson cooper, and you said no. now, why should cnn keep you on the payroll after lying like that? >> chris, it is a great question, and i will just give you the blunt truth. when i published the warning, i said in the book that if asked i would strenuously deny i was the author. and here's the reason. because the things i said in that book where ideas that i wanted donald trump to challenge on their merits. we have seen over the course of four years that donald trump's preference is to find personal attracts and distractions to pull people away from criticisms of his record.

i work that work anonymously to deprive him of that opportunity and to force him to answer the questions on their merits. i'll tell you what happened, chris. the end result is the president couldn't. he failed to deny what was in that book. in fact, to this day, the white house has failed to challenge the narratives that were in that book or the narratives that i have explained in my own name over the past four months speaking out about the president. when asked by anderson, i said what i was going to do. i temporarily denied it. but i always said i would ultimately come out under my own name. that said, i o wiwe anderson cor a beer and the same thing for other reporters who asked me are you anonymous, and i said no because i wanted that work to stand on its own two legs and deprive the president an opportunity to do one more personal attract to distract from his record. i'm here tonight to say that was me, and i hope people challenge me on those accounts and i hope the white house looks back at

those accounts and looks at them and tries to actually say whether they're true or not because there is an army of people that will come out and validate them. >> we will go through what the white house said in response. we will go through your time there and what matters in terms of what you were trying to hold off for america's collective national security. you know what the problem is with having lied is that now you are a liar and people will be slow to believe you when you lied about something as important as whether or not you wanted to own this. >> chris, that's the truth. and this was a very torturous decision. it was not immediate for me to want to publish this work anonymously. but at the time, and i'll be frank with you, behind the scenes i was trying to get people who i'm not going to dime out but other household names in the administration to come out and tell the truth that, chris, we all knew inside this administration. this isn't about just miles taylor. it is about a majority of the

president's cabinet at that time that shared those views. i couldn't. the next best opportunity was to convey it in a way the president would avoid those attacks. but you're right, chris. i owe an apology to having to maintain that misdirection in order for that argument to work. but look, i'm here now to talk about it. >> why not come out when you wrote the book and avoid the idea of a mysterious money grab? >> yeah. no. i think it's a really good point. but i want to start on the point of money grab. to be clear, this was never about eminence. it was never about money. that's why i pled -- about a score settling tell-all mémoire which i have grown sick of in washington, d.c. it is a character study of one man, the president of the united states. the point was to focus on him and his record. and if you go back in time, chris, our founding fathers did

this. when they wrote the federalist papers to defend the passage of the continue constitution, did they do it in their own names? they did it under pseudo anymores because they didn't want it to be about them and their own personalities. they wanted people to debate the ideas. i wrote this, chris, because i wanted people to debate the ideas and donald trump's character and record. but again i want to point out to you i had no fear about putting my own name on the line here, and that's why i did it months ago, so people could come out and challenge me. they could pick apart my record. they could pick out my stories. >> but not as anonymous. that's all i'm saying. as miles taylor you did. >> now they can. and, chris, i welcome it. it's not like this hasn't come without a cost. but i'm happy to walk-through that. >> now the president's. here is his response to the news of who anonymous is.

>> everybody was looking for anonymous. turned out to be a low level staffer, a sleaze bag. anonymous was a nobody, a disgruntled employee. he was quickly removed from his job a long time ago for they tell me incompetence. i don't know what for. i'll tell you what. this guy in my opinion he should be prosecuted. he should be prosecuted. >> facts first. were you terminated for incompetence? >> no, absolutely not, chris. and everything the president just said is so extraordinary because i think every single line he just used in there was a lie, and we have gotten so numb to it. no, i wasn't fired from the administration. i could show you guys my resignation letter. when i left on my own accord and in fact at the time the white house and other agencies were basically begging me to stay in and take other jobs in the administration. so, false, i was not fired.

>> the idea that he didn't know who you were. >> also ridiculous. >> weren't you around him on a semiregular basis in your capacity with senator nielsen. he takes pictures with a lot of people. what is your answer? >> he sure does. takes pictures with a lot of people. chris, i was with this man on a regular basis in the white house situation room, on air force one and other public events and settings. it is ridiculous for the president to deny this. earlier this year he told the press, don't worry, i know who anonymous is. when i spoke out this summer in my own name the president responded and said this guy is a low life and a real stiff and demonstrated awareness of where i was. today the president reverted and showed amnesia. so i think the bigger concern here is the president maybe needs to have a memory check done by one of the doctors. but first i want to be fair. i wasn't the president's best

friend. but i was a senior official in this administration who watched him up close and personal in the most important department in his eyes in his administration. >> side point about journalism and then i want to get to his assertion. "the new york times" described you as a senior official. you were deputy chief of staff when you wrote it. do you believe they properly categorized you as a senior official when you were still deputy chief of staff and not yet chief of staff? >> yeah. i'm going to leave it to the media to make those determinations. but when i was in the role of chief of staff, almost every major outlet characterized me as a senior official including the network we're on now, cnn. abc, you know, cbs, nbc, you name it because we talked a lot to the press as an administration to talk about the

president's policies in various capacities. but that was a widespread practice for a position of that level. >> main point. the president says you should be prosecuted. did you anticipate this? are you concerned about this? >> chris, i have no fear of that. but what i'll say that's more alarming is this president has created a culture of intimidation where people that speak out against him, he threatens to use the power of his office to intimidate them. he tweeted out treason. to the president of the united states, criticism of him is treacherous and subversive. that's not what our founding fathers said about chris sizing the president of the united states. what's worse when the whistleblower came out against him, the president made comments like, well, you know, back in the day we used to hang people for things like this. it is chilling to me and one of the reasons i'm speaking out that we have a commander in chief that silences dissent not just with bullying but with

physical threats, with legal threats to abuse his power. we saw it with governor whitmer. the president downplaying the threats to her life. >> he's still doing it. >> he's still doing it. you know, i did a little cross referencing of how you characterize other people who shared your concerns in house and people who have left in the last year or so and there aren't many of them except in some circumstances that don't seem to follow, which leads to the question, how many people that share your concerns do you believe are still on the job. >> this is how i portrayed it to other people. i think there was an 80/20 split in the administration. when the admin started, 80% of people were qualified for their lives and 20% campaign lackeys brought in for jobs they weren't qualified for. the vast majority of senior lieutenants in the administration for the first two

years shared the sentiments that i expressed in my book. i mean that sincerely. since then, chris, you have seen the president's former chief of staff, national security adviser, communications director, secretary of state, secretary of defense, director of national intelligence and the vice chairman of chiefs of staff all come out and say similar things to me. chris, you have to get me a second to put in a plug for the people who unlike those folks at the end of their careers, people who are mid-career and had everything to lose by doing this, people lick elizabeth newman, olivia troy, josh venable, alex vindman, fee you that hill, these people were similar to being at my level in the administration. they have literally put their lives, their families and their reputations on the line to speak candidly about this president. that's what's important here. who the hell cares who miles taylor is? i'm going to tell my piece of the story. the big story is an

unprecedented number of officials in the administration shared what i laid out in the op ed that continued to share them and many more inside the administration. even though that equation is flipped and it's now to about 20% competent people, those people view this as important. they still view the president as unfit and some of them i don't blame them for not resigning because some of them need to be in those jobs. >> you could flip it, miles. you could say all of you should have stayed in, especially you because if you weren't going to come out by name and say it, you might as well stayed in and helped the country. >> people ask me all the time, if it was so bad, miles, why did you stay? and my answer is because it was so bad on a daily basis, the things the president wanted us to do were unethical, immoral, un-american and in some cases blatantly illegal.

now for a time period, i think we did a pretty damn good job in year one putting the bad ideas back in the box. my god there were failures. >> put some meet on the bones for us. >> that's a great question. so the president of the united states -- the one i always go back to is the border. i was never an immigration guy. i came in as a national security guy. as i became the deputy chief of staff, i had to take over immigration and of course chief of staff. the president at one point wanted us to gas, lek try fi and shoot migrants at the border. we're talking about women and children seeking a better life in the united states fleeing violence and persecution. and the commander in chief is saying he wants to lek tryfy them? >> was it passed on by somebody else? >> swear on my life verbatim, oval office of the president of the united states that he mused about shooting them.

and then when there were clear shock on the faces of the people in the room, the president said, well, maybe you could just shoot them in the legs to shoot them down. >> you told them that it was mostly women and children and he said that they should be shot or gassed, seriously? >> correct. correct, chris. and if that's not gut wrenching to you, then you are not human. and we would talk about these things behind the scenes. those are moments where you have to ask the tough question, wow, do we resign now or do we stay and say, mr. president, that's illegal and we refuse to do it. we chose the latter. we got to a point where saying no to those things stopped working, chris because we would go around them and do them anyway. >> what else? >> time's up. the president offered to exchange presidential pardons at the border for illegal behavior and telling us to seal the border and close off. the president said do it anyway and if you go to jail, i'll

pardon you. where on other occasions we told the president we can't get too far into details but we needed congress to address a very sensitive threat. and the president said to us over the phone, i don't care what you need. just break the law and do it. we said, mr. president, we can't break the law to do it. we need congress to pass these important authorities and we he would tell us to go down that route. he wanted to bust illegal immigrants into sanctuary cities so those cities would become more violent. we told the white house this would be illegal. the president consistently brought it back up and told us he wanted to resume family separation, another sickening policy. the president would regularly suggest ideas that were so beyond the pale that we wouldn't consider them and we would push back. but it came to a point, chris, where he did stop listening to us and he started doing things anyway. >> just to remind people, you wrote people trump appointees

vowed to do what we can while forwarding mr. trump's more misguided influences until he's out of the office. the root of the problem is the president's amorality. what i don't get is how did you guys allow for the separation policy that we have seen paperwork? i mean, i think we were some of the first to report it on "new day" here at cnn that officials came to the conclusion that separating kids from their parents would be the harshest instruction and the biggest deterrent and that that was what was smiled upon by the administration. how did you let that happen? how is that moral ground for you? >> that's -- it's not. it's not, nor is it a policy that i embrace, support or standby. in fact, in year one of this -- before i even get to this story, chris, this is what i want to say. family separation was one of the most disgusting, abhorrent policies of this administration and it was emblematic of how

terrible ideas got rushed through the policy process before the consequences could be considered. now let's look at the consequences. the consequences are small children that were unnecessarily separated from their parents for extended periods of time. many will never see their parents again. i don't know how it gets more inhuman than that. >> why was a defendant the secretary at that time? i noticed with these 545 kids you deleted the tweet, to your credit. but you had put up there saying, hey, look, it is horrible but a lot of them very sadly it's because the parents didn't want to claim them because they wanted to leave them for a better life in the u.s. >> yeah. >> i know the situation down there well. i checked with them. this was not the situation of parents basically sacrificing themselves at the border to go through the process to get the kids in here. it is really just an extension of not giving a damn about where the parents are in respect to the kids and it's because of an

overflow of a policy of harshness. it seems like you guys had something about this policy that you liked. >> no, false. i'll tell you why. we fought our asses off behind the scenes to make sure that didn't go into effect. agree with her or not, and i'm not out here to defend her record, but behind the scenes as soon as jeff sessions and the white house said they would ram this policy down america's throat without consulting us, we delayed for months and said there aren't the resources to do this and if you put this into effect there will be a massive backlog of children at the border. you need to wait months. there needs to be more people to do this and we need to message it so people know there is a safe way to come in and a way that might put you at risk of losing your children. you can't do it. the white house said we're doing it anyway. they outvoted the secretary and then they stuck her at the fall girl. this is how screwed up this is. when it comes to that tweet, i

didn't delete it because i was ashammed of it. i deleted it because it lacked confidence. the story said exactly what my tweet said. i was merely quoting the news story. what it said is many of those children will never see their parents again. >> true. >> because those parents made a difficult and horrible choice they should have never had to be put into a situation that demanded it get back to a country that you feel it is too dangerous to lead that. that's not a decision we should have to give parents and it is an indictment to resolve the crisis at the source and resolve it with policies. the last thing i want to add on that is every single month after we got him to end the family separation poll sill, every sickle month before i left that administration, donald trump said i want to resume it and i want to make it harsher and i want to rip every kid apart from their parents.

that's why i resigned from that administration. we said no every time, but i believe in a second term donald trump is going to bring this back. donald trump will bring this policy back and that's why we have to vote him out of office. >> you have tied what you saw in his demeanor, disposition and policy preferences, what you saw as a direct link to how he has treated the pandemic. how so? >> yeah. i mean, look, the president is wildly unfocussed. you have heard that not just from me but half the cabinet secretaries. more importantly, when he approaches any policy decision, he approaches it through the lens of self-interest and ego. we had plans on the shelf. >> this is a national security issue. a pandemic falls under into that. >> when we have a war, the

secretary of defense is accountable to the president and there is a chain of accountability to run that war. we designed that same system for homeland security threats. guess who didn't use it? donald trump. he said i don't want to pull those plans off the shelf where he addresses the crisis. instead the president of the united states said i want it to be about me, my press conferences every night and i want it to be run by a task force in the white house. when has any national security crisis or war been won by committee? none. >> that's not my concern. >> you're right. >> but to me it is a smaller point. here's why, miles. if he had -- no matter how he wanted to do it, if he had just decided to do it, given it a name, operation no pandemic or whatever and put his arms around it, not only would the country be in a better position, he would. what was your understanding in house or now from people who are still in house for why he has never realized that ignoring the

virus was never going to work and the obvious choice that was better for him and us was to put his arms around it and go all in, why not? >> the answer is very simple and i could not be prouder of my former college who was in the vice president's office as his homeland security who left and who has signed a light on this decision. and if olivia's answer has been simple because for donald trump he was afraid that by talking about this pandemic and telling americans how bad it really was, it would cost him his re-election. by ignoring it and downplaying it, the president has made it so bad and so many thousands of americans have died unnecessarily that he's ultimately, i believe, can cost himself the presidency by not taking ownership. >> couple more things. one, in terms of what has happened since, what you see with chad wolf and the extension

of his policies and the har harshness, is he to be blamed or is he being overrun by the president. >> i promised since the beginning here to try to stick to my rule of focussing on the president. what i will say this is. chris, the president has horribly and almost ir rev kably criticized the department of homeland security. we didn't have to watch stories again in the future of americans jumping out of burning buildings and phone calls to loved ones just before they died. that's why dhs was built. the president was so heavily criticized in that department that now when you look at the covid-19 response we are hearing stories at a 9/11 scale of family members calling each other for last good-byes from hospital rooms they will never get to see again. the president by criticizing this department failed to let it do its mission. if i had to describe homeland

security as an apple pie and one slice was border security, to the president that whole pie is border and immigration. when the crumbs fall off his lips what's left is cybersecurity and pandemics. as a result, american lives are at stake. >> this is the part that i think rubs people the wrong way, okay? you're in there. you are there for the constitution. you are there for the people. albany is making it hard. but you have been given power. nielsen never spoke out about the policies at the border. wolf says nothing about what is being ignored in states that are desperate for more help than they get right now, and that's his job. why should people be okay with dereliction of duty on the basis of, well, trump makes it really hard? >> chris, peel shouldn't be okay with it. i'll try to avoid naming names,

but i got to say, i have former colleagues in that administration who standby every word i wrote in that book of warning. now i see some of those same colleagues refusing to speak truth to power, refusing to stand up to the president and pretending like they also didn't say every day in private that they felt like the man was unfit for office. there is going to be a moral reckoning after this administration and those people are going to have to do some soul searching, but i really hope i'm wrong and i hope behind the scenes they're standing up to the guy, but i'm not seeing that. >> what is your biggest fear about what happens if the president has a second term? >> i think the president will feel completely imboldened to pursue not just nazi like immigration policies, that's really where they want to go is turn this country into fortress america rather than the shining city on a hill. but worse still for me as a

lifelong national security professional is i believe the president is going to sell out our allies and defriend our enemies and put this country in danger. he's already shown a proclivity for december pits and dictators around the world. that kind of thing will put this country in danger for the long run. the president will pull out of nato, pull our troops back from places where they're fighting forward so americans don't have to fight bad guys here at home on our city streets. i think if the guard rails come off, which they have, the president will feel unimpeded. the damage she's done to our democratic institutions, he will double down on that. damaging the courts, the oversight of congress and expanding congress so far that it's unreasonable. this is not a conservative president because they believe in small government. donald trump's government is so big and expansive that it

invades our lives and our minds every day. >> couple more things. one, why now? >> that's a good question. why now speaking out? >> uh-huh? >> well, look, i consider myself having been speaking out for two years against the president. of course at first anonymously. but the reason i attach my name throughout the general election is this, the american people are paying attention right now. i'll guarantee you, chris, last summer as soon as i left my job i came out with a bullhorn and said this is who donald trump is. within 48 hours the news story would be over. nobody would pay attention and they wouldn't care. right now americans are reviewing the president's resume and his character. and it is mission critical that people like me but others come out now when the voters are listening and tell them who this man really is. i have to say again i could not be more proud of the courage of other people who have joined me in doing this and taking great sacrifice. around the same time, people who

could have spoken out sooner but recognize america is paying attention and this is the time we have to talk. >> do you think more will come out of it? >> i hope so. look, i'm doing this because i hope, one, that more former officials find their con shouss when they wake up tomorrow morning. but i have almost given up on that, chris, because the people who the courage to speak out, they have done it. if i'm taking off the masks, i want americans to take off their masks in their community. the people too scared to talk about donald trump and the damage the four years have done and what another four years could do, they need to take off their masks. they need to speak and the loudest vote they could have is their vote. the next best thing they could do is persuade people with their voice. all americans need to step out of the shadows. forget anonymous. anonymous is over. let's all stop being anonymous in our criticisms of american politics and the discord in our

discourse. it is time for americans to speak up, to vote, to repudiate this man. >> do you wish you had taken your own advice and come out initially? >> what i wish i did, chris, my regret is i wish i left this administration sooner. i do. i think i should have resigned about a year earlier. i'll let you know this. behind the scenes at the time there were a lot of discussions. at one point -- masks, and we talked about it. >> say it again, miles. i lost your transmission for the second. >> donald trump will get over this. sorry. you got me now, chris? >> yes, sir. >> what i was saying is i wish i had resigned a year earlier. we talked about it. there was a group of us that were going to resign in mass. the fear was that donald trump would replace us with sycophants almost immediately and it would have had no impact. but i think it would have been worthwhile to consider it. >> last thing, the tape that just came out from -- from the

woodward tapes about jared kushner, does it square with your understanding of the moves in house at the time? jared kushner's suggestion that the president played the pandemic to political advantage. he didn't want to own the fight, leave that the governors but he wanted to own reopenings. so he would get the upside but none of the downside. >> completely. that was validated by people i was speaking to at the white house at the time. that was their strategy. i talk to these people still. they told me their strategy was get the president as far away from it as possible. stick it on the governors. when things start getting better again, claim it for the re-election. that's not hyperbole or my cliff notes. >> that's what jared kushner said on tape and miles taylor. thank you for coming on and answering the questions. i appreciate you taking the

opportunity. >> chris, thanks for having me. >> all right. anonymous no more, miles taylor. forget about it. a lot of this plays into the intrigue about kushner that i mentioned last. miles taylor learned about what the president's motivations are are no more telling than what his own son-in-law said about why they ignored the pandemic and what they wanted to own. his father-in-law, the president, played us on the pandemic. think what you want about miles taylor. we will have a reflection on what taylor means, what kushner's representation of the reality means and where this leaves us less than a week from the biggest election of our lifetime. next. tween wisdom and curiosity, there's a bridge. between ideas and inspiration, trauma and treatment. gained a couple of more pounds. that's good for the babies. between the moments that make us who we are,

and keeping them safe, private and secure, there's webex. ♪ ♪ beautiful.

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all right. we just had our exclusive interview with miles taylor once known as anonymous about why he stayed quiet, what he wants you

to believe about him now and going forward. let's get some thoughts about how what he says squares with what he says and what the impact could mean on this election. and also we have to talk about kushner and the politics of this pandemic. they are all coming together in the last week of this election. great panel. david gregory, michael steele, former lieutenant governor down in maryland, and also of course the head of the republican national committee, the gop, and elizabeth newman, one of the women who worked in house that you just heard miles taylor say is to be rewarded as a champion of our national security efforts, that she had the bravery to put her name to what she saw and thought and he is right to celebrate what you did and the way you did it. it is not easy and thank you for doing that. it is the highest duty of a citizen. you told truth when power wouldn't like it. so thank you. thank you all three.

let's start with you first elizabeth. is what miles has to offer about what was fought against, what battles were won and lost and why including on the pandemic, does it square with your notion of what happened? >> it does. and, look, i think historians will have the luxury of looking back and picking apart the decisions that all of us made when we were serving. we -- many of us that came in in 2017 were discovering that we should have known better when we came in in 2017 what the detriments of character and incompetence trump had that i'm not from new york. i hadn't paid attention to donald trump that decade that many had been exposed to him. so in 2017 many of us thought he would rise to the occasion, that he would listen to his advisers

and over the course of that first year, it started to -- it was really clear that he was not learning. he was not interested in learning. he was not listening to his advisers. while there were adults in the room at that time that kind of con trained him. over time he rejected his constraints and pushed them out and over the course of four years, you have seen the consequences of that. fewer and fewer people willing to stand up to the president and tell him no and more and more people that will tell him whatever he wants to hear to the point where we're now in a devastating once in a century pandemic. and it's not entirely clear to me that his advisers are actually telling him the truth. it is possible he may think we're rounding the corner because that might be what his advisers are telling him because he is a -- reacts so poorly to hearing bad news.

quite frank hly, he doesn't wan to do the job. >> i would believe you if we didn't have the reporting that we have about how he was when he got suck. he knows damn well what this country is dealing with because when his ass got sick he wanted a who he will different understanding. he didn't go to walter rooefs for any other reason that he was scared. but i respect your proposition about how you guys came into it. everybody had every reason to believe it was an act and that he would pivot and he said that to many of you and i know that. michael steele, the only reason to look at the past as a lesson, when people in your party, real republicans, real conservatives, take a look at what miles, what newman and others say about what motivates his prescriptions, why

aren't there more of you? why are you more unicorn than wildy beasts? >> a lot of that is tied to factors that everybody gets to make a personal choice over. it is a difficult decision. look, these men and women come into this with this intent of service to the country, and they try as hard as they can to make every president successful, whether they agreed with the policy or don't agree with the policy, whether it's up or down, their job is to make it successful on behalf of the american people. and there is always that thing, chris. i know you have been there. i have been there. we have all been there where you're like, okay, i'll just give it another five minutes. all right. if i give it another week. all right. if i give it another month, you are always hopeful about the

opportunity around the corner. and that's what keeps them in. that's what keeps them in for as long as they're there, because that sense of service. you know, they're not coming into these jobs to become millionaires and have, you know, lobster and steak every night. this is hard work. this is the people's work. and, so, the expectation, particularly in the national security area in the, you know, the human services, the health care area, those public servants do a great, great work. so it is frustrating for a lot of folks on the outside to say, why don't you just get the hell out of there. and you think about it. and you have heard. you have heard through everybody, look, yeah, i thought about it, but i wanted to continue serving because i had the hope that i could get it to a space where it's better. and then you realize you can't and that's when you have to make your move when that moment comes when it's enough. and everybody has to go to the

ballot box. how many people were with trump until two weeks ago, until whatever that trigger was for them. >> well, we'll see. we'll see. we'll see what happens on election day. for michael steele, his moment, you are going to be a little new to the audience, but michael steele, the reason i went through his pedigree the way i did is because he is a true minted republican and conservative. and, yes, that is why his moment became what is now known as the lincoln project, and he is one of the founders of the lincoln project. i know the president wants you to see them at rhinos or whatever. but in that game it is not easy to do what these men and women are doing and putting themselves against party. in the sake of party, it is not easy. it is a game that doesn't look at anything as bravery when it could be seen as disloyal tichd. i herd that little covid cough. it worked, my brother. i'm still jealous how fast you

beat the virus compared to me. politically, how does this play coming out on the wednesday or the tuesday before the election sharing the spotlight with jared kushner admitting on tape exactly the ugliest portrayal of the politics of the pandemic. leave it on the governors. let them be the losers. when we open up, we step in so we're the winners. >> look, miles is compelling to listen to. i don't think there is a lot new there. he comes off as a guy that doesn't like trump, who has endorsed biden and who is a little attention seeking frankly at this point. i thought he sounded cute about -- just the whole thing, being anonymous, writing the book and then hanging in. people are going to make their judgment. but we know where he's coming from. we also know what these judgments are about the president, about the policy. what's compelling is it reveals an administration policy and a president when it came to

immigration, and we know this about other things, no limits, no boundaries, no real policy. that's what's important because you related it to kushner and the approach about coronavirus. and this is what i think is similar. no limits, no boundary, no real policy. that the calculation is simply about the kind of reality tv aspect of it. how do we win it? what do we own? what do we win? and who gets the credit? and how do we avoid getting the blame? that's not what you do in a crisis. you have to steel the american people for what's hard. you have to guide people emotionally. you have to be there for people. there was much more manipulation involved. all this stuff that miles is talking about is what was at most charitably such a heavy handed and inhuman approach to -- to border security that was all about toughness, all

about building a wall, keeping immigrants out, creating skaf goats, creating enemies that trump could say i'm here to protect you from. we have known this. i think people have made their judgments about it. whether you are pro trump based on his hard line immigration policies or you are against him. i think all of that has been kind of baked in at this point and honestly i think miles, you know, now telling us that he's anonymous i don't think is a huge deal at this point in the game. >> respect the candor. michael steele, thank you for coming here to cnn and on our show. appreciate you. and elizabeth knewman, again, you are better than these other guys. you came out and put your name and reputation on the line. and you did it for reasons that were never going to make you rich other than the confidence you said the right thing at the right time. each and all of you, thank you. god bless your families. stay healthy. we'll be right back.

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this president has done everything he can to get out of way of any kind of leadership. that's biden's bet. from arizona to maine. trump held yet another potential

super spreader event in the state of arizona that matters so much. look at the people. this is man who is supposed to give the message of what we need to do to be safe. his friends and allies are more comfortable going after me for what i do than what the president is doing for all these people. what does that tell you? if we're rounding the corner, the next stop is a cliff. the question is, will it work in the states he needs? i think the pandemic and the election are coming together into a big problem for this president. let's bring in the man with the numbers of wizards of odds. harry? >> i'm a guy of numbers, right? what we can do is we can look at the ten closest states that donald trump won four years ago and look at the coronavirus cases in those states. they are climbing in all ten of them. from arizona to wisconsin. it is climbing in all of them.

the idea that you can just ignore this, voters will ignore it, it doesn't make sense to me from a political angle. >> now, what you're banking on is a disconnect. that trump voters aren't afraid of coronavirus. they don't care. we're seeing different things in the states where they live. we're seeing it in schools and people being afraid to send their kids to schools. no matter what their political allegiance. so let's look at a state that absolutely matters as swing, probably for both guys. wisconsin. >> yeah. i think wisconsin really tells the story. this is a state trump barely four years ago. and look at this. look at the polling average. biden up by 9 percentage points. and then look covid-19 cases. up 21% from last being. averaging 4,000 new cases per day. this is a huge connection. to be honest with you, i am surprised biden is doing as well

in wisconsin as he's doing. i'm not surprised that he's leading. he's leading nationally. but this indicates as do other studies that voters are clearly making this connection between coronavirus cases in their backyard and their voting patterns as well. >> the fourth highest new case average in the united states. the positivity rate is at 28%. record cases and deaths reported on tuesday. how can that not resonate with people is this it is real. politics is about feel. these are all facts that will make you feel. covid. top issue for voters. is that becoming more or less true? >> i think it is as true as it's been and that you know joe biden is the one that voters fare on that issue, right? they trust him more to handle the coronavirus than president trump. and they've thought that throughout the process. more voters trust biden than trump and it has been the case

over the last six, seven months. basically since april, march, when the coronavirus cases started to explode nationwide. that it has been listed as the most important problem according to gallup. what is so important about that, what i don't want to get lost. when you look at the history, the most important problem, which party do you trust more to handle that issue? look at this. this tells you everything you need to know. since 1948, the problem trusted on the most important problem has won the presidency on every election except 1948 when they lost and it 1980 when it was tied. and they've won every year. so voters are making the connection and historically when voters make a connection, it is a big problem for the party. >> a lot of types campaigns are about what politicians want you to think is a problem. this is about what we know is a problem. harry enten, thank you. we'll be right back.

back in january, we knew that this was really, really bad. we had ample forewarning. but we did almost no testing,

almost no contact tracing. completely ignored the science, completely ignored the warning signs. there were things that could have been done. a lot of people have died needlessly, and there's nothing more frustrating than feeling like you're fighting against someone who should have your back. we are not going to stamp this out unless we have a change of leadership. ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad. ♪ i see you looking (uh) ♪ i see you looking (na, na, na) ♪ ♪ i see you looking (uh) ♪ i see you looking ♪ watch what i do (camera clicks) ♪ watch what i do ♪ i see you looking ♪ watch what i do! (camera clicks)

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prepare for collision. >> i know there is a lot going on in election week but we have to stay in touch with people in need. scarry moments off the gulf coast. that barge broke loose in mississippi right now.

this is seventh big storm to come through the area. you see how close it came to hitting. imagine being stuck on there. the cat 2 storm made landfall less than two hours ago. more than 700,000 already without power. d lemon has family there in louisiana. i hope everybody is safe, my brother. come on in. cnn tonight starts now. >> you can hear me, right? imagine it being my friends and family there. it seals like every week i'm saying, are you okay? are you ready? prepared? do you need to evacuate? do i need to get you up there? what's going on? every other week, it's crazy what is happening. and it's nerve-racking for them. but for people like me who are sitting here watching, and in the middle of this pandemic. we can't travel. you know? >> i know. >> we can't travel. if we travel, we have to quarantine in certain places.