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tv   Face the Nation  CBS  September 6, 2020 8:30am-9:31am PDT

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captioning sponsored by cbs >> i'm john dickerson. this week on "face the nation," as the fall presidential campaign season kicks off, the country faces unprecedented challenges. and the candidates work to convince, distract, and excite voters. >> so i'm putting myself on the line, but i know what is going to happen. the numbers are going to be great. >> president trump ended the week promising better days, claiming the economy is on the mend, and once again the coronavirus is losing theme. >> president trump: we're rounding the corner. we're rounding the corner on the virus. >> joe biden countered with a dose of reality. >> you can't have an economic comeback when almost a thousand americans die each day from covid. >> both men traveled to
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kenosha, wisconsin, where a police officer shot jacob blake seven times in the back, spiring racial violence that have left two dead. issues that define the race for the president and the next presidency. we'll get the latest on them all from our guests this week, former f.d.a. commissioner scott gottlieb go and economist mohamed el-erian. and we'll be joined by wesley lared who just returned from kenosha. president trump battled a fourth crisis after a magazine said he denigrated american troops who died in war, calling them suckers and losers. we'll take a look at how all of this affects the political landscape and where the presidential race stands with our cbs news battleground tracker.
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>> anybody that is really a successful leader i think has failed in life. >> plus, as america holds a job interview with the next president, our conversation with visitor and philanthropist, david m. rubenstein, on what it takes to be a great leader. it's all ahead on "face the nation." ♪ >> dickerson: good morning, and welcome to "face the nation." marrying gret i margaret is off. public health officials are warning minor americans to practice social distancing guidelines, especially for the holiday. this comes as coronavirus cases continue to rise in the midwest and there is concern of a new surge as the whether gets colder. we begin with mark strassmann in atlanta. >> reporter: america wants a holiday from covid. but a lot is riding on
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this labor day weekend. south dakota's state fair opened, despite a starting positivity rate, 22%. new cases keep rising in 27 states, more than triple the number two weeks ago. the midwest has become america's new regional hot spot. like this florida crowd on friday night. labor day weekend could unmask complacency towards the virus. some governors are worried sick. >> picnics, backyard barbecues, gatherings -- we know that much of the spread that is occurring in illinois is actually happening in these settings. >> reporter: america's covid caseload, nearly 40,000 more every day has nearly doubled since memorial day. >> please be very mindful of the fact that our last surge started on memorial day weekend when people let their guard down. >> reporter: without a vaccine in sight, america's economic recovery sputters.
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the national unemployment rate finally dipped below 10%, but 29 million people now collect some form of unemployment. 3.4 million jobs have vanished. eric belltran last worked in mid-march. ever since, the unemployed brewer has been hammered by rejection. 150 job applications: no luck. >> it almost feels like a suffocating amount of gravity slowly pushing harder and harder on you. >> reporter: finally, school starts on tuesday in 30 states. almost all learning will be virtual in cities like chicago, houston, baltimore, and detroit. new york city schools delayed their start until september 21st. america's larger school system will offer partial in-person learning to 1.1 million students. >> this is unchartered territory for everyone. >> reporter: richard carenza, chancellor of new york city schools, says
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nimbleness is key. one super spreader could undo months of planning. >> it is the red line. if we hit that, we go all remote. >> reporter: he has been studying lessons learned by other school systems, like georgia's, which opened more than a month ago. covid outbreaks caused some schools to shut down and return to all virtual teaching. but first, he is hoping labor day weekend won't compound the challenge of keeping people healthy. john? >> dickerson: mark strassmann, thank you. the total number of covid-19 cases worldwide stands at 26.9 million. and the world health organization now says it does not expect there to be widespread vaccinations until the middle of 2021. cbs news' ee elizabeth palmer reports from london. >> reporter: at the moment, about 300,000 new
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cases of covid are being confirmed every day in this world transformed by masks, social distancing, and, of course, some protests. [yelling] >> human rights matter! >> reporter: in australia, several hundred young, mostly male protestors, tasselled with police over the local lockdown and curfew, but the government didn't budge. >> it is not safe, it is not smart, it is not lawful. in fact, it is absolutely selfish. >> reporter: melbourne was hit by a second wave of covid and will remain in lockdown until the end of the month. after a busy vacation season, parts of europe, too, are facing a second wave, with schools back in session and universities about to follow. but fewer people are dying. and the medical system is coping well. even in france, where infections have climbed sharply, the famous tour de france bike race is going ahead, although
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every cyclist is tested every day. it is the developing world that is still struggling with run-away infection rates. india tested a million people in 24hours and found 90,000 new cases, more than twice the u.s. rate, clearly a vaccine can't come soon enough. though russia claims its version is already here. the defense minister showed up for a jab photo op, but skeptics pointed out that while most vaccines there be safety tested on tens of thousands of people, russia has tested this one on a grand total of 76. here in the u.k., there is growing confidence that covid can be controlled until there is a vaccine, and the proof: fully half of employees are no longer working from home but have returned to the job physically, and the government, john, is urging many more to join them. >> dickerson: elizabeth
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palmer in london, take. we now turn to former f.d.a. commissioner dr. scott gottlieb in westport, connecticut. i want to jump right in. give us an update on where things stand here on labor day. >> doctor: well, if you look at where we are heading into labor day, relative to where we are heading into memorial day, we have an equivalent amount heading into labor day. and we're heading into the fall and winter, when we would expect the respiratory passages to start spreading more aggressively than it would in the summertime. looking at memorial day, we had about 40,000 people hospitalized, and diagnosing around 21,000 new cases a day and had about 1100 deaths. notwithstanding the fact we made significant gains in reducing in-hospital mortality and length of stay in the hospitals for patients hospitalized for covid, as of yesterday, we had about 35,000 people
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hospitalized, and diagnosing about 40,000 infections a day. on a seven-day moving average, we have about 850 tragic deaths a day. that is a lot of infection to be taking into a season where a respiratory pathogen is going to want to spread. the other backdrop here is people are exhausted. people have been social distancing and wearing masks and staying home for a long period of time right now. small businesses are hurting. so i think that people's willingness to comply with the simple things we know can reduce spread is going to start to fray as we head into the fall and the winter. and that's another challenge, trying to keep up our vigilance. >> dickerson: so, dr. gottlieb, to remind us why the fall and winter are considered worse than the summer, why is it we wanted to be in a better position going into the fall than say some other season? >> doctor: epidemiology of spread for respiratory pathogens changes in the wintertime. typically in the summer,
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you see virus that are spread through food, things that are ingested. in the wintertime, you see respiratory pathogens spread more aggressively in part because people are indoors more, they're in congregate settings where respiratory pathogens can spread more officially. and there is some impact of the cold weather to protect your upper airway from respiratory pathogens. and that's when you see coronavirus or respiratory viruses, or flu -- that's when you see these pathogens start to spread. typically a coronavirus isn't a summer pathogen. it is a seasonal pathogen that really manifests itself in the fall and the winter. there are a lot of circulating strains of coronavirus that cause nothing more than the common cold. and typically they only circulate in the fall and wintertime. >> dickerson: i want to pick up on the point you made about people just being fatigued and tired. health officials are
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sounding the alarm against about labor day and you really felt for them. i want to ask you about vaccines in this context. we're hearing more about vaccines. certainly the administration is talking about it. is there a way in which talk about vaccines, which is a little bit a ways away, obscures what needs to be done today to stay on top of this? >> doctor: i think in terms of thinking about the vaccine, at least as far as this year is concerned, 2020, the fall and winter, i think if there is a vaccine made available, it will be a staged introduction of a vaccine under an emergency use authorization. and there will be a lot of data:00 around thdata selectiont vaccine. it will be for very high risk people, for example, health care workers, or very high risk of a bad upcome. outcome. think of people in a nursing home. so it could be used in a therapeutic sense, and not the way we traditionally
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think about a vaccine in trying to provide broad-based immunity and quell an epidemic. the likelihood we'll have a vaccine for widespread use in 2020 is extremely low. i think that is largely a 2021 event. if we do have a vaccine available in 2020, it will likely be used in a much more targeted fashion to protect very high-risk pollationsrisk populations. by the end of the year, upwards of 20% of the population in the u.s. could have been exposed to this coronavirus, and we're likely to see the virus itself start to slow down just because of the natural progression of the epidemic, and the factor fact we're heading out of the spring and summertime. this could run its course and as we get into 2021 start to slow down. but the tragic consequence
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is there will be a lot of death and disease. but at least by the end of this year, we'll be through part of the phase. >> dickerson: it sounds like what you're saying is that all the things everybody has heard a hundred times about masks and social distancing and not gathering in large groups, everybody has to stay vigilant because a vaccine isn't coming racing to the rescue. if a vaccine does get this emergency use authorization, people are word about politics. the c.d.c. told states to be ready by the 1st of november. help people understand how much politics could get in the way of speeding up the vaccine distribution. >> doctor: well, i don't think politics should get in the way at all. and i don't think it will. there is a very rigorous process around the development and approval of the vaccine. i'm on the board of pfizer, which is one of the companies developing a vaccine, which is pretty far alone, first there is a moderate board overseeing that trial.
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the data doesn't get unasked until the data safety monitoring board is comfortable with the conduct of the trial, in terms of letting it continue. then the company needs to file that data with the agency and ask for permission for an authorization or approval. and i led that institute and worked there during both the bush administration and the trump administration, and i have absolute confidence in the scientific staff that is going to review this application. it is a very rigorous process. there are multiple layers of review among people who are expert in these areas. i don't think those people are going to be pushed around to make a decision they're not absolutely confident in. in terms of the distribution of the vaccine, the government has said they're going to take over the distribution of the vaccine. i think at least initially the distribution is likely to be very limited because if there is a sort of authorization or approval of the vaccine sometime this fall or winter, again, it is likely to be a very teag targeted population
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of people, and it will be relatively easy to descriewbt. distribute. we know where the nursing homes are, and the federal and state governments see those institutions and regulate them. it should be a relatively straightforward exercise. the same with trying to vaccinate doctors and frontline health care workers. in 2009 we were able to do that very efficiently with the swi swine flu. >> dickerson: dr. gottlieb, thank you very much. and we'll be right basketball witwith achief econo, mohamed el-erian.
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start with the unemployment rate. it dropped to 8.4%. what is your understanding of what the economy sits right now? >> if you look just at the numbers we got on friday, you would be optimistic. we saw reduction in the unemployment rate. we created 1.4 million new jobs. more people came into the labor force. but if you pull back, john, it gets a little less good. why? one is the wave of improvement is declining. and, two, we're trying to come out of a very deep hole. as you pointed out in the beginning of this show, we have almost 30 million people who depend on unemployment benefits. so it is a half full/half empty picture, and that's a problem because of the stalemate on capitol hill. so unfortunately, these numbers simply tell you we are still having a long road ahead. >> dickerson: i want to get to the stalemate on capitol hill in a moment, but the federal reserve
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chairman, jerome powell, suggested that the future job gains were in industries and sectors in the economy that might be harder to revive because with covid still around, those industries, they require people to participate in them, and people just aren't ready yet. how do you read that of what is left out there to be gained on the economy? >> he is absolutely right. there is this notion of counter-party risk or what you and i will call trust. in order for us to engage in economic activity, i have to trust that you're healthy and you have to trust that i'm healthy. and until we have a clear way of doing that, people are going to pull back. so we're not going to see the quick recovery in all sectors. and that comes at a time of increasing inequality. not just of income and wealth, but of opportunity. so as i said earlier, it is a long road ahead. the good news is we have the policies to accelerate it. the bad news is that the political system doesn't
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enable that. >> dickerson: i want to stay on that notion of counter-party risk for a moment. there has been this clumsy debate about opening the economy or doing what is necessary to mitigate the pandemic. what i hear you saying is, as long as people are making risk assessments about their own health, they're not going to engage in the kind of economic activity that gets america back to where it was economically before this hit. >> that is absolutely right. we have to understand that the difference between ability to work, reopen the economy, and willingness to work, willing to go in and engage in the economy, and until you improve both the ability and willingness, we're not going to get back to where we were. so these are not alternatives. we've got to do both. we've got to reopen in a healthy fashion. >> dickerson: lities let's talk about capitol hill. if you could make policy by magic, what would be
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the most useful policy that might help the economy in its current position? >> i would embark on a four-prong strategy: one is relief, just helping people who are suffering for no reason of their own. two, it's living better with covid, what we just talked about. three is capturing what long-term pressures are on growth. we're seeing much more deglobalization. and finally, reducing household economic insecurity. people have suffered. they've dug into their savings. they're not going to be as willing to spend in the future unless you give them more of a safety net. we can do this, john. it's a matter of political implementation. >> dickerson: so there is the political implementation, and then the new numbers we got this week, 3.3 trillion the congressional budget office said in 2020, which
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is more than three times the shortfall in 2019. how much should we keep the debt and deficit in our thinking in terms of these short-term measures and their costs? >> we should keep it in our thinking with an important qualification. the reason why we care about debt and deficits is because of what is called sustainability. it is like you at home. how much you spend depends on how much you earn. how much you debt you get into depends on your future earning potential. what is critical is to make sure that the deficits promote long-term economic growth. if they do that, and they can, and then we don't have to worry over the deficits. if they don't, we'll have a growth problem and a debt problem. >> dickerson: and sometimes people talk about the relationship between debt and the cost of money or interest rates. the federal reserve signaled that it doesn't look like rates are going up any time soon. help people understand where the federal reserve is coming from these days. >> so basically the
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federal reserve is pedal to the meddle. they will do whatever they can to sustain the economic recovery. what they're trying to do is buy time for other policy-makers to step in and actually improve economic growth. so look for them to maintain interest rates really low, almost at zero. look for them to buy more securities. and look for them to continuously assure us that they are there covering our back. >> dickerson: help us understand why the stock market is booming, even though the economy is in the difficult position it is in. >> because of the federal reserve. the basic thing to ask yourself if you're a professional visitor is investos who else is buying this market. if you believe that the federal reserve, with a printing press in the basement, and it is not a
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commercially-oriented organization, then you buy ahead of them. but, john, i keep on stressing there is a limit to how much you can disconnect financial markets on the underlying economy. and we have disconnected them a great deal this year. >> dickerson: a final question in our last 40 seconds: think in the long-term, 2021, 2022, what kinds of long-term economic situations should we be thinking about as we think of trying to climb out of this for the future? >> it is one: can we grow an inclusive and sustainable matter. if we don't, we'll have social and financial issues. it is about inclusive growth. >> dickerson: mohamed, thank you so much for being with us, helping us sort through all of this. and we'll be right back with a lot more "face the nation." stay with us.
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president trump, according to our latest nationwide battleground tracker. that translates into a lead in our electoral college model as well. it shows joe biden with 279 electoral votes leaning in his direction, and 163 leaning in president trump's direction. 96 are toss-ups. a candidate needs 260 electoral votes. our polling unit also talked specifically to voters in the key swing states of wisconsin, where protests exploded after the police shooting of jacob blake. there is joe biden is up 6 points from president trump. we'll have more from our battleground tracker in our next half hour. chargers hour. (newscaster) coogan's is closing in 4 months...
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that's how we get through this. ♪ >> dickerson: and we'll be right back with "60 in 6" correspondent wes lowery, who is just back from wisconsin. and more from our cbs news battleground tracker, with anthony salvanto, and analysis from the campaign trail from political correspondent ed o'keefe. and later, rubenstein's new book, "how to leave." stay with us.
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♪ >> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation." overnight there were tens conconconfrontations between demonstrators and police in new york and portland, oregon. some have turned violent this summer since the killing of george floyd in minneapolis. joins us is wes lowery, correspondent for "60 in 6", and he just returned from keri-ann kenosha, wisconsi, where he was covering the shooting of jacob blake. >> thanks for having me. >> dickerson: you were there, what is happening there? what's the scene? >> certainly.
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so you know, i just got back earlier this week from kenosha, and i spent some time on the ground there. and, look, it is not unlike a lot of the other cities in the last few years, and certainly the last few months, where we have seen unrest on the ground, right? initial there will is kind of an organic anger that turns sometimes into violence. we saw that in kenosha, some buildings burned down. and then you have a rush of people who come in. and in this case, that was both folks who wanted to commit violence as well as these vigilante groups, and we had the shooting involving kyle rittenhouse. then, once the dust settles, what you're left with are the locals, the people who live there, and who are there after some of us get on the plane and go back home. we see ongoing energy, ongoing protests, frustrations. kenosha is one of a series of cities and towns in kind of southeast wisconsin between chicago and milwaukee, old factory
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towns, auto manufacturers, plateplaces that industry left behind. even though this is a primarily white stretch of the country, you see minority populations there that feel like like they're dealing with discrepancies, so there is racial tension under the surface. even as with the cameras, the attention turns from the next story, this energy from the protests and the fallout from jacob blake's shooting, i think will remain at the fore. >> dickerson: compare it to us to what you saw in minneapolis after george floyd. does that energy manifest itself in reform, in new laws, in pushing for that, or is it different? >> well, it is different in part because in minneapolis you were seeing george floyd was in many ways the latest in what has been a series of cases. that area had dealt with many high-profile cases of
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police use of force, from philando to jus justine. not that the folks on the ground don't have their own anecdotes and stories. i note that because, one, in kenosha you see a protest more in its infants seeinfancy, where in minneapolis it was developed. they had time to influence the local politics. there were members of the local council who themselves that been demonstrators and protestors. the politics of kenosha and the politics of wisconsin are a little bit different. what we see is this is kind of the beginning of a process in kenosha, wisconsin, whereas in minneapolis, george floyd was actually much later in the process as it comes to the influence and organization of these types of folks. >> dickerson: i want to ask you some of your great
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reporting in your "60 in 6" piece, and you talked to the person who took the footage of jacob blake. what did you hear in that conversation? >> sean white. he was the first person i wanted to talk to when i got on the ground. i'm always interested in the people who are thrust into the story. he is a 22-year-old who lives across the street. he hears a commotion outside, and he sticks his head out the window, and ends up capturing this video that changes the city he lives in, and one might argue changes the nation. you know, when we talked, this was maybe two weeks after the shooting. and he was still really grappling with the implications of what had happened. he is obsessively following the coverage from the protests to the looting and shooting now of kyle rittenhouse, and he was having trouble not succumbing to an anxiety it was all his fault. should he had taken this video? should he have shared it?
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if he hadn't, would any of this stuff happen? i appreciated te time he spent talking through doing the right thing. seeing something happening, turning his phone on, sharing it with the world and now we can decide what we think of it for ourselves. but this doesn't end for him. he is still sitting there with the stress and anxiety and wondering, did he do the right thing? >> dickerson: wes lowery, thank you so much for your reporting on the ground and for being with us. and we'll be back in a moment.
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>> dickerson: as we told you earlier, former vice president biden has kept his national lead over president trump, maintaining a 10-point advantage through both parties' conventions. biden holds a lead in a number of battleground states, including a 6-point lead in wisconsin. we turn to anthony salvanto, who is in west chester county new york. good morning. >> good morning, john.
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how are you? >> dickerson: i'm well. let's start with my favorite question: what is the story of this race right now? >> it is very much about the president. voters tell us that they are evaluating this race based on what they have seen over the last four years, even more so than what they think might happen in the next four, and even more than what they think joe biden might do if elected. now, maybe that is not unusual for an incumbent president, but we also tested that directly, and that evaluation on the president for good or bad is the thing that really stands out. it is also, john, very much about intensity. we have seen, especially since the conventions, voters locked in, approaching nine in 10 who say their mind is mide up made . good luck finding the
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swing voters. but the intensity is why you'll hear both compaigns talking about motivation and turnout. >> dickerson: it is important that point about referendum because the president, in his convention, tried to turn this race into a choice. when you're a president with a low approval rating, a referendum is not good for you. >> indeed. in fact, even half of joe biden's voters say this is for him about the president. so, yes, despite the fact that the campaign has tried to shift this to make it about what joe biden will do and be more prospective in that approach. >> dickerson: is covid-19 still weighing the president down? >> it is. it is a couple of things. one is, we talk about how you evaluate the president. his argument, which we've tested, does he get credit for stemming what could have been a worse set of fatalities, a worse
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outbreak? and on balance, voters are telling us, no, they think the administration could have done more. they think that things could have been better had there been more planning. and the other political outcome of that, john, is that that sentiment has put in play a number of states across the country, particularly the states where the outbreak has hit hard, particularly many in the sunbelt, that has moved those states into toss-up or lean categories as well. it really has had the effect of expanding the map, too. >> dickerson: we have seen the president try to shift what this conversation is about in his election, he wants it to be not about covid-19, but violence in the cities. what do your numbers tell you about that strategy? >> so we asked about the protests and each candidate, how they're speaking to it and handling it. biden comes out better on that measure, and particularly we sca asked if
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each candidate was trying to calm the session or encourage more tension. the president is seen on balancing more tension, and on tension, joe biden is seen more on trying to calm the situation. that nets out towards joe biden or at least not moving the needle in any negative way with regard to biden. the other point on this, john, the argument the president seems to be making is that voters might be worried if political violence extends, extends out into the suburbs. well, we talked to people in the suburbs, and they tell us they are not concerned there might be violence in their neighborhoods. so that doesn't seem to be resonating. i think on a broader point, a lot of folks compare this era maybe to what we saw in the late '60s and early '70s, as far as protests are concerned. we should state for context, the country is different than it was then. the electorate is more diverse today. the suburbs have more
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diversity today. and racial attitudes have shifted. we've seen that certainly in a polling over the last few months. so that could be one reason why that attempt hasn't found a lot of residents. >> dickerson: anthony, thanks, as always, forgiving us the rundown. and we'll turn to the man who has been out and the campaign trail, cbs political correspondent ed o'keefe. we're going to get to some of the numbers anthony talked about, but we're going to start in this piece in the atlantic by jeffrey goldberg, in which the president had disparaging things to say about those who fou fought in the military and died. do you think this matters at all in the campaign? or is it just another flashpoint? >> it is certainly a flashpoint, where i think the biden campaign believes there could be potential political advantage for them. with rank-and-file, members of the military
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and their families and military veterans, and it is part of a broader appeal to pick up independents who might have voted for president trump before, and don't want to this year, but still need reason to vote for joe biden. so i think what we saw when this was released -- and again, these are remarks that the president and his team strongly dispute and we've seen more people on the president's side put their names to those disputes than, of course, people who confirmed it for jeffrey goldberg. this isn't now just about john mccain or about military leaders that the president would have met with to discuss military policy. it's about you, you and your military family and the sacrifice that you or your brother or your husband made while serving in the military. biden himself was quite struck by this, invoking the memory of this son, beau, saying, how could you consider him a sucker? how could you consider those who died in battle a
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loser? and that the president should apologize. it is probably more in that regard they believe affective than to the general understanding that, yes, this is a president who has said things in the past about his rivals, about the military, that isn't necessarily a surprise to people at this point. >> dickerson: the commander in chief saying anything disparaging about people who give their lives in their country's service is obviously a flashpoint. and it seems that at the end of this race -- or do you see it this way -- that it is about turf? is it on joe biden's turf that the debate is taking place or on turf that president trump would like. it seems like this is not turf that president trump wants to be talking about? >> not at all. that was part of why i think we saw the biden campaign seize on this report so quickly. it allowed them to steer the conversation away from law and order and away from the economy, where he remains vulnerable when compared to the president, and raise questions about
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his judgment and character as they try to keep this focused on a referendum on the incumbent, which, as you said, would benefit him for sure. >> dickerson: ed, you mentioned law order, and the president went to kenosha, wisconsin. and joe biden responded with a speech seeming to buy into the idea he might have some vulnerability or exposure on this question of violence and law and order. does the biden campaign see a vulnerability on that issue? >> if they didn't, why was he spending so much time this week making clear that he believes that looters and violent protestors are people who should be held accountable for their actions. i think they saw that last weekend, especially when the president was really hammering them on that, as a potential weak spot, but they addressed it quickly. the violence is happening now. how is it that the president can manage it if it is happening now. don't talk about how it might be handled in the future. biden went to wisconsin, held a listening session, and got to meet with the
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blake family, when the trump campaign and the white house struggled to make contact with them. >> dickerson: you reported that the biden campaign felt the pressure to get the vice president out there. and what does it look like to campaign in this age of social distancing and mask-wearing, and all of the rest of it? >> it is interesting. at the beginning of this pandemic, americans widely told us they didn't care if they didn't see these guys campaigning in person. they understood that it wasn't possible. that shifted. about four in 10 democrats in our poll say they have concerns about biden not being out there. and about half of independents say they would like to see him out more. so you'll see him going to pennsylvania and michigan. it is quite day trips, much like the president. biden admitted this week he has been tested for covid, and he will be on a regular basis, and his campaign has vowed to let
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us know if for some reason something shows up in those tests that would cause concern. they're taking precautions, but they suddenly feel much more willing and able to get out there, and we expect him to make trips, maybe two or three a week, for the duration of the campaign. >> dickerson: and he'll be carrying those briefing books with him for the debate. ed, thanks so much. for more on our cbs battleground tracker, log on to cbsnews.com/polls. we'll be right back.
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>> dickerson: we sat down with philanthropist and author david m. rubenstein last week to talk about his latest project, how to lead. it is a collection of conversations about the qualities it takes to be successful, which we might keep in mind when we're picking our next leader. david, you've been a leader, you've interviewed leaders. the country is in the middle of interviewing leaders right now for the presidency. if you were holding a job interview, knowing what you know about leadership, what would you look for in candidates? >> i'm looking for their
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ability to focus, their ability to communicate well, their ability to have some sense of priority of what is most important to them, their ability to inspire people, their ability to rise to the occasion. and i also think humility is important. anybody that is really a successful leader i think has failed in life. have you to persist after your failures. but failure gives you some humility. >> dickerson: how do you test for humility when you're interviewing somebody and all they're trying to tell you is how great they are? >> i often ask questions that are designed to illicit a little bit of laughter, and if they don't play along, i realize maybe they don't have a sense of humor or humility. >> dickerson: how important is that, if you're a leader, you have to have some human interaction with the people you're trying to lead. >> there are three ways you persuade people: orally, you can write well, or you lead by example. george washington in 1777,
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he could have stayed at the four seasons down the corner, but he didn't. he stayed with his troops. do you want to lead somebody because you want to be famous and rich, or do you want to lead somebody because you're trying to do something really important. i observed in my book, in my interviews, the people that really achieved the greatest things, they're not worried about the material things. they're worried about getting to some end, proving their points. bill gates wanted to prove that software was important. jeff bezos wanted to prove he could sell things over the internet. whatever it might be. >> dickerson: so the material things meaning an accumulation of wealth, having a yacht and a big building, is that what you mean? >> what you should want to do is help other people. the happiest people i've seen are people that have helped other people. they could be teachers or they could be people that have given away lots of money or have invented things that really helped other people, discovered medical devices that are wonderful or cures for diseases, those are the
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people who are happy. the people who aren't happy are people who don't know why they're on the face of the earth. you should realize in the end you're on the face of the earth for a relatively short period of time, and the greatest happiness comes from helping other people. >> dickerson: is that what drives you every day, you get up in the morning -- how do you work that into a daily plan if you're a leader? >> i think people that learn how to be leaders learn how do to this during the course of their life. they have reached the point where they know what they really want to do with themselves. while there are people like bill clinton who was a road scholar, as a general rule, the people running the world were not a superstar in the first third of their life. so the people that are running the world today in their the second and third period of their lives, were not people at the age
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of 15 or 20 were not superstars. there is hope that you can rise up and did something significant with your life later on. >> dickerson: i have a lot of personal experience with failure, but teach me to fail. >> with failure, have you to observe what you did wrong and why it didn't work out. if you say, you know what, this isn't good, i'm not really good or talented, and i'm going to go back and sit in my house and not doing anything, then you won't be a leader. if you say, i learned something and i know how to overcome this and i can do this better in the future. >> dickerson: so in that sense it is kind of a by-product, how does humility help if you're a leader? >> if you're trying to become a leader, you have to try to get other people to follow you. you can't say, i'm going to be a leader and nobody follows you. you have to have people follow you. how do you get people follow you? you have to give them a sense you're going to take them on a voyage that will
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be useful for them as well as for you. have to say, this is good for both of us and it is not just good for me because i'll be more famous. we're going to do this together. >> dickerson: relentlessness, how important is that? >> i think it is indispensable. and another word is resilience. you have to be resilient. and you have to take this punching you're going to get in life and come back. when we were growing up, we all had these punching bags, you punch it and it comes right back at you. that's what you have to do. people are going to punch you all of the time. have you to come back. it's like when you were a little kid, people who are bullies, they'll punch you and you have to come back to them. in the adult bullying, it is the same kind of thing. people say he is a terrible person, it is a terrible idea, well, if you take this person and go home and call your mother and say, people think i'm terrible, you're probably not going to be a great leader. you have to be resilient
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and come back. nobody can be liked 100% by everybody. there is always going to be people that can't like you. if you can't stand the heat, you've got to get out of the kitchen. >> dickerson: how is presidential leadership different than in other sectors. >> there are three ways you can persuade people: you learn how to write well. let's suppose you're a very good writer, and you wrote the declaration of independence, that could persuade people. or you're a very good or artor, like john kennedy. but many presidents who have been successful have led by example. abraham lincoln didn't brag about what he was doing. he recognized he had a lot of failings. he led by example. when people were in his presence, they would realize they were in the presence of a great man.
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>> dickerson: is it important for a president to take responsibility? >> as a general rule of thumb, i think it is a good idea for anybody to take responsibility. because if you say, it wasn't my fault or i didn't do anything to deserve that bad thing happening, in the end people hear you and they say, who was responsible? you were in charge. i don't mean in the president of the united states, but any position. if you say i'm sorry and i take responsibility, people will admire you more. >> dickerson: david m. rubenstein, the book is "how to lead." thank you. >> my pleasure. thank you so much. >> dickerson: and we'll be right back.
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>> dickerson: that's it for us today. thank you for watching. margaret brennan will be back next week for "face the nation." i'm john dickerson. ♪ captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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(upbeat music) - [charles] get ready to once again meet the next generation of top athletes on sports stars of tomorrow. we'll take you to washington dc to meet the next grade oklahoma quarterback, and then head to houston to meet a future alabama signal caller. we'll also make a stop in illinois for two talented brothers who spent the off season helping their family. plus don't miss our journey to greatness feature with former broncos great terrell davis. those stories and more are coming up next on sports stars of tomorrow. (bright upbeat music)