. if approved, the senate will take up confirmation friday. majority leader mitch mcconnell says they will stand the nomination until she is confirmed. watch live coverage on c-span and gavel-to-gavel coverage on c-span2. >> c-span is live, where democratic presidential candidate joe biden is making a campaign stop, encouraging voters to vote early. early vo-tech early voting is already underway. >> thank you.

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>> we waiting for democratic presidential antedate joe biden to begins in the -- in north carolina where early voting is already underway. , --e we wait

it is very exciting to see everyone here. the first person i saw was will who does so much to help our party. thank you for the incredible volunteers today.

you to the candidates who are running. we have a great ticket here in iowa. i am excited to be here today. we are little over a couple of weeks out from the election. when i was running, i set i thought it was the most important election of our lifetimes and it was. in many ways, i still feel this -- i still feel the same way. had you not help me flip the iowa, ire right out of do not know what we would have done had we not had the democratic house majority to stand up against this administration. did weou for all you have been out in washington visiting our districts to be sure we're are bringing the voices of violence to washington, hard-working middle-class families to do what

they can do to survive during this difficult time with a pandemic in the country. up to the continual attack on affordable quality health care in this great state and country. need to up and said we raise the wages of every american so they can put money in their pockets, live a life of dignity, and maybe even save a little something and send your kit -- send your kids to secondary education. we have fought to make sure the voices of those who have not been heard are being heard. folks in the lgbtq community, the latin community, the black community, so many people in the country who do not have a voice when it comes to the elected the other site. it is time to elect officials thiss the board and turn

state completely blew and make sure the voices of all of those communities are heard. i could not have been elected not for there it work of every person out here. over the lot of work next couple of weeks. votes.ng it is the ballot. not the polls. fall into the situation last time in the presidential election, thinking it all looks great. it looks great and i know we will take joe and kamala to the white house. i know we will send theresa greenfield to the senate. but none of that happens unless we turn out the vote and get all of the absentee ballots income unless we make sure every person he wants to vote they fully get the opportunity.

unless we make sure we are protecting the mail-in ballots. i have great faith in them and in washington, we continue to make sure they have the resources they need. here and your friends and relatives and colleagues and neighbors have to get out and vote. make sure you are calling as .any people as you can we cannot let a day go by in the next couple of weeks where we are not doing something to make sure we flip the entire state blue. you, i asking all of know you're out here in a cold and blustery october day, taking time out of your schedules to listen to the next speaker.

we have still got some work to do and i am grateful for all of the folks who have done so much. i want to thank the folks who are making sure we get the vote out here. i want to thank all of my colleagues. rhonda is here all tucked away. stay safe. we need you. i am excited to be on the ticket with them. helping them, we are helping teresa, and we are and, to thelect joe white house. working-class families and why haven't been represented. inroadsto make some

with these two ladies. the change and i can tell you, when we elected teresa, joe, and kamala, those 600 bills filled with great stuff for the american public, the democratic majority will andlly once and for all give an opportunity to every person in the nation. we have been fighting for affordable quality health care and lowering the cost of prescription drugs and working to raise wages through minimum wage raises we are voting for and to lower the cost of prescription drugs and premiums who put money in the pockets. we have been fighting to address mental health and the issues children and teachers and community members are facing.

we have worked overtime to put in great bills like the george floyd justice and policing act to make sure we protect members .f our black communities we know the job is not over. we need to make sure that we are doing every single thing we can, as i mentioned, to make sure that we turn this state blue. iowa is a pivotal state when it comes to ensuring that this country lives up to its responsibility that it has with people in this great country of ours. that only comes by electing democrats up and down the ticket because democratic values are the values of hard-working middle-class americans all across this country. so i am grateful that you are

here, but we need to keep pushing this agenda forward. we need to put a covid package in place that addresses the issues we are facing so that iowa does not continue to stay at the top and hurt people in

our country and state and send too many of our older iowans into an early death because of what jim reynolds is doing. we need people to push back against that. we need to put national mandates in place for testing. and make sure that vaccines are available to every single person, not just to the wealthy. we need to adjust the tax rates that we have right now, to give all the benefits to the wealthiest among us and the largest publicly traded corporations at the expense of middle-class families across this country. once and for all, we need to stop the attack on our health care that is happening right now in washington as they select the next supreme court justice. once again, thank you for being here, to show your support for the biden-harris ticket. we are going to unite this country, bring dignity back to the office of the white house where it belongs. [applause] and i am so excited to introduce our next speaker, he is breaking the glass ceiling himself as a second spouse, second gentlemen i think he likes to call himself the second dude. we are going to have doug emhoff standing next to his beautiful, stunning, smart wife in the white house. i cannot wait to have him be our next second dude. a big welcome and applause for doug emhoff. [applause]

♪ mr. emhoff: i am going to take this off because no one is up here. it is so great to be back in iowa. so great to see so many friends. so great to see so many people that we got to meet last year. and that we have gotten to stay in touch with and stay close with. where is sean? you are doing so great to see such a great job. you.

let's hear it for congresswoman axne. i first met here in 2018 hi, how. are you doing? we came out here in 2018 and got to know her and she is such an amazing -- hi! good to see you too. i know everybody here. we got to help her out and she is such an amazing congresswoman, representative. let's send her back to d.c. too. we will send her back too. it is so great to be back here talking on behalf of joe and kamala. it is such an honor and a privilege to be able to talk about two people, one you know i love, and one i love as well, joe biden.

how great was he in that town hall? [applause] i mean, what a contrast. what a contrast between what you saw with him and what was on that other channel. it is not even close. i have been blessed with this opportunity to come back on the campaign trail and you know spent a lot of time here, and i love iowa, and it is so good to be back. i have been here virtually, and i am back here today to tell you that i am so excited to be

speaking on behalf of the next president of the united states joe biden and the next vice president of the united states, my wife, kamala harris. [applause] when i see her, she is going to say, how was your day? oh you were in iowa. she is going to say hi to everyone. she says hi to everyone. you know she loves it here too. it is great to be here. you cannot believe the energy and excitement in our campaign, so i do virtual events, live events, and we will do a phone bank and we think that 60 people will show up -- 600 will show up on the zoom. there is that much excitement for this campaign. i am doing smaller events with smaller businesses and they are telling me about how devastating this pandemic has been for their

businesses and a lot of them are not going to reopen because of the failures of this administration. i talked to working mothers. working mothers out there who are just trying to keep it altogether. urgent need for paid childcare, affordable childcare. paid leave. we need to help everybody.

americans are sick and tired too. when i am out there on the road, you can just see people are upset and they are done. they come to our events with a stiff upper lip. how is it going? what is going on? you can see the air deflate out of the chest. and then they just talk about how truly horrible it has been and why? the common refrain is the same across the country, lack of leadership. no direction. failure on covid. zero direction. you know that it's going to change when we elect joe and kamala. [applause] the other difference is this lack of compassion. it is this lack of empathy. he saw the difference last -- we saw the difference last night. joe sat there and answered every single question, look people in the eye. if you did not have an answer that someone might not have liked, he still explained himself. on the other channel like we have seen for four years, someone just talking about themselves. just caring about themselves. not about the people, not listening, not caring. you know that is going to change. covid. i know it is spiking all over the country again because of a lack of planning. i noticed terrible here in iowa. i saw the stats. and i talked to folks.

when i was in texas, colorado last week, i talked to folks who have been affected so deeply by covid. i talked to this young woman in colorado who is diabetic, who has a pre-existing condition. she is also a caretaker to her brother who needs a kidney transplant. she lost her job because of the devastation to the economy, lost her health care, and now she is so afraid of how she's going to keep it altogether. i also met a nurse who had covid because she is putting herself out there on the front lines like so many of these caregivers, she recovered, went back on the field to take care of people. she is working twice as many hours for the same or less pay, using the same mask every shift because they are not providing her with a mask or other ppe. it is an outrage. this is happening all over the country and why? there is no leadership. there is no relief. i met community organizers, one community organizer whose father had just died, one whose father had just gone to the icu in south texas. i met another one of our organizers whose father died of covid. was not able to say goodbye.

was not able to say goodbye. the same thing that is happening all over the country. like i said, you must be reeling from the news that i saw that i could not believe. 1500 deaths in this state alone. which is just outrageous. so many communities all across the country, so many are going through the same thing right now because of the failure of this administration to do anything about it. [applause] when i saw that debate with joe a couple weeks ago, one of the most compelling things was when he talked about the empty chair at the kitchen table. it is such a striking image that we are seeing all across this country. thousands upon thousands of us are trying to cope with this virus. with no help insight from this administration. you know that is why you are

here. this is why you are seeing people showing up even though they are trying to suppress the vote all over the country, but that we are not going to stand for it because we want change and november 3, we are going to have change in joe and kamala. why? [applause] because unlike what is happening now where there is no plan and there is no leadership, joe and kamala have a plan. you know they do. let's talk about the virus. joe and kamala have been talking about this pretesting. testing where you get the results right away. a test does not really matter if

it takes two weeks to get the results back, right? contact tracing. you saw this super spreader they have in the white house and they refused to keep in contact -- it is irresponsible, outrageous. free treatment goes without saying. we must have free treatment. let's talk about a vaccine. we all want one. but we are not going to trust donald trump to say it is safe. we are going to trust the scientists and when the scientists say it is safe, when we hope it is, we are all going to go in get that vaccine. -- and get that vaccine. does anyone here actually trust donald trump and this administration to ethically distribute a vaccine when it is safe? no. we need joe and kamala in there to do that. absolutely. [applause] the congresswoman talked about the affordable care act. you saw kamala in this illegitimate process called a senate confirmation hearing on this judge. this judge who was on the record, on the record against things like the affordable care act and roe v. wade. this is outrageous to push this through while votes have already started, trying to pull away the affordable care act. you talk about people around the country being afraid. people want the affordable care act. it is working, i have heard their stories. this administration is in federal court right now as we speak, trying to rip apart the affordable care act, -- pretending that they have a plan to replace it. for four years they have been pretending. they have no plan. they just want to take it apart, who knows why? i think we do know why. and without a replacement during

a pandemic. we cannot stand for that. [applause] health care is a right. it is not a privilege. health care is a right. joe and kamala firmly believe that, like i know everyone here does. they will do every thing they can to save the affordable care act and build upon it after they are elected. let's talk about the economy. i'm traveling across the country. you see it. i saw it in nebraska this morning at an event. you see small businesses boarded up. you see businesses closed down. you talk to the small business owners. they are hurting, they are struggling. and they are afraid. and why? because this administration failed on covid, tanked the economy and only cared about keeping his wealthy friends happy, not the rest of the people. that is wrong. joe and kamala have a plan to bring this economy back.

joe did it before. remember in 2008? creating millions of jobs, making sure that work is rewarded, bringing manufacturing back to our country. futures made in america with american workers. they will also invest in our future. future employees. let's see. high-quality training programs. free community college. student debt relief. we need our young people to have the skills in this new economy, this new 21st -- yes. that's right. young people. [applause] let's talk about climate. i was here a couple weeks ago with dr. biden. we were in cedar rapids. we saw the effects of the derecho. i could not believe it. buildings were destroyed. trees were everywhere, crops were down. it was unbelievable. that is happening. my home state of california devastated by fires all

throughout the west. floods throughout the east coast. climate change is real. climate change is an existential threat. this administration after laughs about it, ignores it, thinks it is a hoax. that has got to change. you know joe and kamala will have a plan for getting ahead of this, but as joe says, it is going to mean jobs. it is going to mean building, full on clean energy infrastructure and that means jobs. [applause]

so you know i love kamala. but i love joe, too. he is awesome. what i have been saying, joe and kamala just get it. they understand what is going on out there. they have spent their entire lives in public service. they just get it. they are both about family. they are both about faith. they are both about their community. they are both about just helping the people. joe biden, look at the empathy, the conviction, look at the knowledge, the experience. kamala, daughter of immigrants who is living the dream through her brains, talent, compassion, caring. she is doing it all. i love seeing these for the

people signs. they are both for the people. [applause] and they have never forgotten where they have come from. they remember who they are and where they have come from. so folks -- i like to say that now because joe says it -- folks, just 18 days. just 18 days left. and what i want to say no on this point, 18 days left, and we are going to win, folks. we are going to win in iowa, and we are going to win all over the country, because people are sick and tired of what is going on. they want leadership. and we want to win big because we need a mandate. we want to show the country and we want to show the world that

we are better than this. we also want a big win, because we want to be able to refute all the nonsense that you-know-who is going to come up with after we beat him in this election. so let's win big, have a mandate, shove this country who we are and show the world who we are. [applause] now, i know you know this, but if you don't, you can vote right now. you can vote right now in iowa. you see these pictures all over the country of people lining up, you can go out and leave this event and go vote right now. and if you have any questions on how to do it, iowavote.gov/elections. but don't just go vote, tell

your friends, family, tell people you see at work, tell strangers on the street. get online, text, tweet like me, go on instagram, do whatever you have to do, but just get everyone out there to vote, and we are talking about voting early. get it done, get it out of the way. go vote. if you vote, it is going to turn out the way we all want it turn out. we are going to have new leadership. we are going to have a brand-new, amazing senator here named theresa greenfield. i had a chance to talk to her today. let me tell you something. she is fired up. she is confident. and she sounds like a winner. so let's back her up and send her to the united states senate. we are going to send cindy axne back to the house, where she is doing a great job. and i have heard from several folks that we are going to take back the iowa house.

that means we are going to win iowa, you win iowa, we are going to win iowa. i am going to close by saying this. go vote, go vote early, and let's send joe biden and kamala harris to the white house. enough is enough. we are done with this guy. let's send him packing and let's take our country back. [applause] iowa, it is so good to be back, it is so good to see everybody. let's do this thing. thank you, very much. ♪

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>> we are waiting for democratic presidential candidate joe biden to begin speaking at this event in iowa where early voting is already underway. we will show you some of the discussion from today's washington journal. >> joining us this morning is the director at the university of michigan, doctor howard markel. welcome back. >> good to be back. >> let's start with perspective. this is new york times.com. million.es, a .1 increase in the number of deaths so far in the

u.s. or last joined us in april may, fairly early on. a couple of things. our things tracking -- tracking the way you thought they would and based on historical perspective, is this what you anticipated? guest: it is staggering, isn't it? it is and it is not the way i would have predicted. historians are terrible predictors. back when we last spoke in may, particularly in my own home state of michigan, many states were employing social distancing measures quite strictly. and quite well. and we were predicting the downturn in cases, which we saw in the few months that followed. but as we [indiscernible] cases began to pop up again and again and again.

now, it looks like -- i hate the term wave. that is a 1930's metaphor for influenza epidemiology. the covid virus has always been circulating.

what has changed is we are no longer hiding from it as well. and as we go out and interact with other people for long periods of time, we are susceptible to catching it. so, we are seeing another spike in cases. the new york times graphics are very powerful in how they show

between may and the present, the number of cases that expands across the continental united states. and we are almost back to where we were. it is a very harrowing observation. host: i want to ask you. we read this story about the sturgis motorcycle rally. i had a caller from sturgis and the washington post had a story about the spread of the and the seed for spread across the midwest states, particularly the upper midwest and mountain west states.

one of the issues they pointed out was the difficulty in what is called contact tracing. have we gotten better at doing that over the course of the pandemic? guest: no. because we are not testing everybody. you don't know the universe of positive people. when you get sick and hospitalized and when you die, you know that somebody was positive for covid or not. but because we have so many people who may have very mild symptoms who never go see the doctor or are asymptomatic and are carriers who don't know. as more people interact with one another, it makes contact tracing almost impossible because there is simply too many people. that was one of the notions or one of the ideals of social distancing is that the number of new cases would be low enough that our existing health agencies, which don't nearly have the budgets that they did 10 to 20 to 30 years ago could go out and contact tracer. we are not doing a better job. we are not testing enough people and we don't have the manpower, frankly, to do that. host: dr. howard markel is with us. he is the director for the center of medicine at the university of michigan. let's put out there are some of the pandemics that have affected the u.s. in particular that we will talk about during the course of the program. in 1918, what was called, some termed the spanish flu, the h1n1 virus. the h2 into virus. the h3n2 virus. and the h1n1 2009 virus. what do you see now in the

winter months based on the 1918 flu? guest: this is my concern. i sincerely hope i am wrong. i hope you can have me back in six months and say you were as wrong as you can be. but i don't think i am. as we see more spikes in cases and more spread of coronavirus across the nation, we cannot prove for sure but the past experience of coronavirus is that it likes warm -- cold weather better than warm weather. although it was active in the warm weather of summer. as well as the seasonal flu that comes along every winter, i believe many more people will get sick. sadly, many americans will die under just covid alone or a combination of covid and influenza. we are not out of the woods yet. most epidemiologists would agree with me that the months to come are very concerning. host: you have come to this as the director of medicine from a wide number of fields. a professor of psychiatry, history, english and literature. did you help the creek -- did you help create the center there? guest: i did. all of those titles, i cannot hold down a steady job or something. i am a pediatrician by training. i got my phd in the history of medicine and science, especially for a long time writing and studying about epidemics in the past. host: go ahead, dr. markel, finish up.

guest: the titles you mentioned are courtesy titles for my colleagues. i founded a research unit to apply medical, historical research. first-rate historical research to public health policy. host: we first talked to dr. markel back in may.

what has it been like, virtually i assume, in terms of researchers, students accessing the data that you have on past pandemics and past medical history? guest: well, we produced, in collaboration with the cdc, a massive encyclopedia called the digital 1918, 1919 influenza of the american express. you can access the at www. influenza archives.org. it has the biographies, if you will, of 50 large american cities during the pandemic. of what happened, how they experienced the flu as well as all of the data we collected over the years to study what worked and what did not in 1918. two newspapers delivered per day during the entire second and third waves.

federal documents, local state documents, photos, you name it. from that, we get about 30,000 to 40,000 hits per month. that is really gratifying. some of our policymakers all the way down to high school students for national history day. but that has been created through the wonders of the internet. it would be harder to access those in libraries without

actually getting there. in terms of my own work, i am teaching remotely. it is working far better than i predicted. that is great. our students have always been wonderful. i am actually teaching a literature and medicine course right now. we have been studying epidemics in literature the past few months. that has been very helpful for me and my students. our meetings are all done that way. the campus is not closed. 20% of classes at the university are open. they are largely laboratory courses where you have to physically be present. most of us are hunkering down and social distancing as well as to be expected. host: ken, you are on first. caller: i called in as a senior

to basically give my opinion as a senior. now you are on to covid-19. my comment is this. i can't understand how anyone can support trump, being that he is risking people, he is ignoring all of the recommendations from his own task force to try to increase his probability of being reelected. but he is doing that at the cost of putting people in danger. from that standpoint, i don't see how anyone can support the president. host: dr. markel, any thoughts? guest: one of -- the most protectable thing about this covid pandemic is its unpredictability. one of the things that surprised me the most is the absolute partisanship of the pandemic. we have one half of the country thinking the federal government -- and the other thinks everything is hunky-dory. i am more of the former. i have study pandemics for more than half of my life. i have never seen a more partisan approach. and frankly a more wrongheaded one. particularly in the past century where we have been blessed with the wonders of modern science and epidemiology and modern virology and vaccine science. not to mention modern medicine. i can't help but think that we could have done a better job under different management. some of my conservative colleagues have a hypothetical issue and i say no it is not. there are several countries doing far brother -- debtor than the united states because of a more -- far better than the united states because of a rigorous, step-by-step program

where they put down the methods, depending on when they need to and what is going out in the committee. better and more widespread testing, contact tracing and a less business leadership style where the president is tweeting about the governor of my stay. that woman is this or that. or liberate michigan or things like that. so, it is incredibly problematic. not to mention, the undermining of superb scientific agencies from the federal government, such as the nih, the cdc, even the fda. these are examples of where government does work and works rather well. and they have all been stymied. we have career scientists who have been overridden and stymied in a way that is not only inappropriate, it is actually quite dangerous. -- cheering]nd helloden: