and when he knew it.sident kw >> i wanted to always play it down. robert: the president tells bob woodward that he knew thena corus was deadly and airborne in february. and sparks a firestorm. >> it's disgusting. >> he's waving a white flag. he didn't do a damn thing. think about it. >> it is the latest explosive book in this cpaign season and comes amid a new whistleblower report. will the president pay the next.ce anno this is "washington week." fundings provided by -- >> when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind.id withity wealth management a dedicated advor can tailor

advice and recommendations to your life. that's fidelity wealth investment. nouncer: additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen through the yn foundatmmn ted to bridging cultural differences in our communitiespo the ction for public broadcasting and by contributions to yr pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator, robert costa. robert: good evening. th title of bob woodward's new book" rage" comes from an interview woodward and i conduct ed with the then-president donald trump. i always had. ringage out. it showed how trump sees

himself. an president's critics raged this week when they learnedre whatdent trump told woodward about the coronavirus in february. will t president pay a political price with american voters? it's hard for any reporter to say. but this time there are tapes. >> you just breat air, passed. w is it's also more deadly than your, you know, even your strenuous you flus. this is deadly stuff. >> the president told woodward on february 7th, that hlye f understood the threat. but he said this just weeks late tore the american people. one day it's lik a miracle, it will disappear. and from ourw shores, you k it could you go worse before it gets better. it can maybe go away. we'll soo what- happen - we'll see what happens.

>> and he told woodward tha he played it down. >> i wanted to always play it wn. i still want to play it down because i don't want to create >> democre appalled and said the president lied to >> the fact that the president knew, he had been saying for a long time, the who thing was a hoax, his delay, denial and distortion of what was happening caused manyeaths. >> but the president has dismissed the criticism. >> they wanted me to come o and scream, people are dying. we're dying. o. no. we did it just the right way. we have to be calm. robert: joining us tonight are three of washington's top reporters. asma khalid, political correspondent for national public radio. ashley parker, white house reporter for "the washington post." and chael schmidt, washington correspondent for the "new york times" and author of "donald trump vs. the united states:

inside the struggle to stop a president." ashley, you've been reporting on recent days on the fallout of the woodward book. why doeshat february 7th remark matter by the president? what was he doing at that time? what was he not saying to the american publi >> the question is really what he wasn't doing and what he wasn't saying, and it's a fascinating about 10-day window from -- which woodward recounts in his book from when robert o'brien goes into the oval office and said the coronavirus is going to be the biggest national security crisis of your tells cy to when trump he understands the severity. he uerstands that it is deadly. it is tricky. and that it is airborne. in that period, he really does you not convey that grim reality to the american public in words for starter so they can begin preparing and figure out if they

need masks and if they have members of their family with co-morbidities and what steps ctey should be taking to pro how he spends that te, for instance, the night he gets that warning, he holds a rally in wild wood, newersey that they are just starting up the s coronavirus task force, air force one and he flies down you to mar-a hago whespends both days of the weekend golfing. that sunday is super bowl sunday. and he hosts super bowl bash at mar-a-lago in west palm beach. and so you really see a w presiden in both action and words was not taking the steps you would expect a responsible leader to take to warn their citizens of a coming deadly pandemic. robert: me, ashley referenced a conversation inate january of 2020. in your own book, you paint rtrait of this president

dealing with advisors during isis sometimes throng them, sometimes ignoring them. when you hear the woodward tapes and his reportind compare notices in a sense, what does this all reveal about president michael: i they what it shows is that the psident has been completely sort of unshackled here in the last two years of his presidency. folks like john kelly, don mcgan that were there that were ndntainers. but trump had f way to hollow those folks out. and that left him in a where he was even more free to do what he wanted. and he didn't have someone like kelly there who was running the ons in the pera that he was. and what this shows, you see this in his decision to sit dn with woodward and talk to woodward in his approach to the coronavirus, his approach to

everything. the presint still doesn't seem to understand the consequences of different things in washington. he thought he could charm woodward and that talking to h would b beneficial to himself. at times it looks like he thought he could talk the coronavirus away from the american people and downplay it. and that things would be better. here we are coming to the end of the fourth year of his presidency and it doeeem like the president has evolved much. rort: asma, you've done a lot of reporting for national public radio about voting in key states. you've focused on indep voters who may be tracking the president' conduct on the pandemic. we've had so many controversies during the trump presidency. does this break through with those voters in those states?ou >>now, honestly, i think that is the key question that we're going to be following up on in the weeks ahead. what i will say is that, you know, you can lk at the tracking polls of how the

president has handled theru corona pandemic, and what i'm struck by is you can go back to a point and say ely april where the president's general approval rating -- he's now, you know, viewed as i bieve i checked i earlier today less than 40% of the public beliefs that he's handling the pandemic correctly. and when you look a numbers have dropped off, they've dropped off among mocrats and independents. i have been texting with a bunch of voters that i met o earliern this summer in some of these key battleground counties. one gentleman i tked to earlier today i thought what was interesting, he is a republica but he messaged me back and said i feel less confide in voting for trump today than when we spoke earlier this summer. he's really not sure what to do. he is very nervous that a vote for joe biden wld plummet the economy and is a small business

so that goes back to the president's inability, though, to actually talk about an issue inhich he does have an a apparent strengt that's the economy. the pandemic has not been a strength f him as we've seen for months and months. and that's what most voters are talkg owout right robert: what a snapshot of this campaign. all of us voters are doing our best to connect. ashley, you're also reporting on the trump presidency and the economy. and this week the senate g.o.p. so-called ss its reef bill. as we stay on this pandemic topic, it's not just about the odward book, it's what washington will do. does the senate failed republican bilean that president trump will step into the negotiations or are talksia essey dead between now and the election? ashley: that's a great question. and it's one even before senate republicans failed to pass this much more slimmed down version

of a bill thatedeople were a -- putting to th fairly directly was that one of his points is that he claimed to be a deal maker and a businessman and one who is not ideological and who would getown and dirty and cut deals with the democrats. and so far, we simply have not seen that in about the or so. some of that is the president sort of deep-seated anger and frustration towards speaker pesi for impeaching him frankly. and the president has basical said as much earlier this week really feel likee can go out and negotiate with chuck schumer and nancy pelosi. now, again, could that change? potentially the presidentan s his mind sometimes based on the hour or on the day. but right now, the outlook for something getting through both chambers of congress is not particular good right now.

robert: asma, one of the revealing moments for mas a reporter is watching vice president biden to follow up on ashley's point about the coronaviruselief. he responded briefly to the woodward book. bu then he gave his full economic speech in michigan. what is the ben pitch now o the economy and what's their closing message at this point? connection is a little poor. i think you were asking me about what the biden closing economic message is. is that right? robert: it is. correct. >> so in a nutshell what he's been emphasizing excite bit has been this knead america vision. it might sound in some republican trump based voters is the make america great again policys that trump was promoting. but look, it's dferent to some degree. it is a largely manufactured

base policy that he's been focus on. you know, he was there in michigan, a state the democrats lost in 2016 touting the nee splr manufacture jobs but specifically policies whether 's a 10% tax penalty f whether it's a 10% tax credit, he says, for companies thatin some of this manufacturing back to the united s ates. what i'm strucke degree that democrats, you know, this being the democratic nominee himself is tal about the need to off-shore manufacturing. and this is a different economic conversation than democrats had been having in some pvious cycles. robert: mike, congress may be stalled when it comes to coronaviruss, negotiatiut they're investigating at least in the house this whistleblower complaint inside the department of homeland security, an official is ciming that he and others have been told to ignore

russian interference in this election and focus on interference and activity by iran and china. and so i don't want to for that issue of interference. and what's the importance in your view as aeporter of this whistleblower report? michael: well, it's just another example of hoitr the intelligence community or the law enforcement world haseen tilted in the president's direction. institutions mimic the people that run them. and the president has made himself incredibly clear on what he thinks of russian interference what, h thinks of 2016 and how he doesn't think it's a problem here. you have to rember and as i laid out in the book, 2016 was the greatest intelligenc failure since september 11, 2001. and the federal government taken nearly enough measures to have a different footing coming into another election. so not only are we at a similar or maybe even worse footing than

in 2016, but at the same time there are now accusations that the federal government, the intelligence part o the government is skewing the information it has to downpla that threat. so we're coming at it with the same, if not worst tools andsi ormation with our own government about a potential disinformation campaign. robert: when you step back from all of this whatre talking about, woodward and the pandemic, interference, whistleblower report,t's clear we're covering a campaign that is tightased on the latest polls and there is a national racial reckoning still unfolding alongside of it. here's a quick taste of the pitches from both of the >> if biden wins, china wins. if biden wins the mobs win. sts anarchists and arson they want to delay the vaccine.

they want t desoy your suburbs. they want to erase your borders and indoctrinate yourre chi with poisonous anti-american lies in our schools. not going to happen. >> he used that dog whistle on race, now, it's a bull horn. ople don't want a hand out. they just want a fighting chance. just give me a chance. bert: how is the biden campaign handling the drum bt o from the preside the suburbs, his appeal to white voters? asma: they have certainly been campaigning and trying to reach out to suburban voters but you what i've been struck by by the biden company we were talking about the woodward book. there are passages that get to how the president feels about black voters, about whi privilege. those passages aren't what we've been hearing about from the biden campaign. they're focused on the pandemicn

bi feels like that's been a dereliction of duty. and so while i'll say that the president feels very comfortable in talking about racial issues and cultural issues however you want to define them, what i've been struck by is that the biden campaign does not want to engage on this issue. no d to kenosha. he's dealing with some of these issues large, i've been struck by how much they seem to want to cenonr thersation consistent lip around -- consistently around the pandemic and how the president hasn't been handling it correctly. bert: with policing and violencen the su you are bs, 're thinking about -- in the suburbs a we're thinking about an october surprise. the president has been time-outing a possible vaccine. whatave you learned in terms of an announcement or handling a vaccine in the comin weeks?

ashley: well, my reporting shows that the vaccine is the key thing that the president isse fo on and has been focused on for a number of weeks when it comes to the coronavirus. he is laser-lik focused on the else. e and not much anything it's worth noting in fairness to therumped a minutes, operation warp speed is one of the few things that is going fairly well. a couple of vaccines are in phase three trials. it's proceeding along. and there is a belief that there may be a vaccine ready. he has said november 1st, that's two days before t election. he said maybe as early as there are publich officials in his administration who say there could be a vaccine ready by t y end of thr or early 2021. but it seems certain that whether or not there's literally an injectable into arms vaccine ready, the president is going t

tease the promise of a vaccine no matter what. one challenge that doctors and public health experts just talking ed today are wor about is because of who the president is, because this is a president who misleads and obfuscates and frankly lies sometimes that there's a huge portion of the population who will t notst this vaccine, not the typical sliver of anti-vacksers you a much. broader swath of the american public whoust doesn't trust president trump in a vaccine that he by his own admission is rushing through. so that might be a little wrinkle in whatever surprise the president is trying to roll out. robert: and mike, another possible october surprise is john durham's probe, the russian investigation. an aidn official within that investigation resigned. is entire durham probe has a

cloud of a possibly from the attorney general over it. what are you learning on this fluid story about wt's going to be released, the report,nd whether it's going -- and whether it's going to be se widely as creditable? >> the presiants it to be released before election day. he wantsore than one indictment than the arrest of an he has said it privately and publicly. e on his the press attorney general to do that. because the president and the attorney general h much about this investigation, there is a strong perception that there is some sort of there-there and that they're going to be turning up some sort ofad information. the other problem with that though is that it under min the actual investigation because it shows that the people who are inharge of it are saying that there may be a predetermined outcome. the presidt took pains in recent days to say he's not being briefed on it, but the

white house chief of staff, meadows, he talked the other day as if he had sbi malt knowledge about it. and now here, the top lieutenant ofst this ination is apparently quitting because they were afraid ofhe political consequences. nd this is -- this investigation has been built up so much on the right that if theris not some sort of there-there and some real nugget for them to bite into from this, there are going to ber sy dispined. robert: aa, how ishe biden campaign preparing for the durham probe if at all? and also, low they preparing to campaign in the finaleeks? you see the president holding rallies, once again. yet, the biden campaign isn't that. >> my connection is not very good. i think you were asking me how the bidenngampaign is g to be campaigning in the final weeks. robert: yes.

asma: i apologize that i couldn't hear in a nutshell, i've been looking in quite a bit. this week i was doing somert reg on the wide scale discrepancy between the ground gameperation that you have between republicans and democrats. and this isn't just between biden and trump, this is between state democratic parties and state republican parties. n whatable is that you now have a situation where both candidates are physicay traveling. they'll both be in minnesota next week. but the way that they are campaigning is so fundamentally different. i mentioned i was in wisconsin with biden. and he held a small back to school event in a supporter's backyard three people in attendance, a handful of pooled press. that was'st. o different in tenor andnd tone energy than many of donald trump's events. to me what's notables the

scale of the ents that joes biden holding is fundamentally different if you fly into to say a keyba leground you community and you a small scale event in someone's backyard and you do a couplef local interviews, is that sufficient to generate, thd of news buzz they feel they need? but in addition to not knocking on doors. and the republicans party claims they're knocking on a million doeas. i that on both the democratic and republican side that there are a difference how they're campaigning. decrats are largely campaigning and organizing a ground game that's via phone and zoom at this point. and there are big questions about whether or not that is is sufficient to mobilize voters and get o them ou the polls. it's a sort of untested theory. robehen you look at the trump campaign, ashley, in its own schedule. you rook at the president releasing an updated list of

supreme court nomees, do you sense urgency about the need to get back on the road and to hthe e rallys? ashley: yes, and no. the relissing the of the supreme court potential nominee was somhing that was absolutely crucial for him in 2016 in reassuring conservatives that he was one of them. he wouldt get into office an revert back to sort of his previous ways as a lot of them viewed him, a manhattan liberal. that felt like something they were going to do. it worked in 2016. i it's stillortant to conservatives, the court. it's a savvy move by the president, they believe to win over and, or reassure this base. in terms of him sort of gliding back into the rallies without ever really announcing them, one function that serves is this is a president who despite everything we talked about in

the beginning of the show, knowg this is deadly pandemic, really wants it to go away. he soft o wishes he could tweet it away, imagining it away,ch apprg 200,000 deth, we now know -- deaths,e now know that's not how this works. but for a couple hours the president is able to create his are not socially distanced. le where many people are not aswearing, where it feels like the coronavirus does not exist. ju other night his campaign aides tracked down a "new york time reporter who was taking photos and saying that people weren't wearing masks. purpose for the president to pretend the virus isn't there. but these rallies we'll find out now out two weeks from robert: we're going t have to leave it there, my friends.

there are so much to talk about. these weeks, explosive books from mike, from woodward. it's almost too much. we'll keep ont. and halid, ashley parker your tim make sure to check out our one-on-one discussio with michael about his terrifi new book. nd it tonight on our social media and our website. before we go, we remember those who died on 9/11, 19 years oit a solemn moment every year. and the campaign took a pse on friday as the president spoke in pennsylvania andic the president and former vice president touched elbows at the world trade center. great pi'to. robert costa. good night from washington. [captioninperformed by the

national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.visit ncicap.org] announcer: corporate funding for "washington week" is provi by -- >> when the world geltz complicated, a lot goes through your m with fidelity wealth management, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. that's fidelity wealth management. announcer: additional funding is provided by --hestate of arnold adams, and koo and paicia yuen, throughhe yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences i our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and bybu contons to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

narrator: a kqed television production. ♪ ♪ ♪ amador: all explorers are going through the same thing. looking around that next bend and seeing -- seeing what's beyond just that next horizon, or what's op look like from up onf this. and you discover a whole new thing. in those moments, when you just looked around t bend, and something new came into focus in the body or in the mind.