hello, everyone, i'm alicia melendez. we're 100 days from what could be the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes. the coronavirus continues its slow burn across the united states. with more than 42 states experiencing a percentage increase in cases over the past 14 days. florida today surpassed new york to become the state with the second most cases. things have gotten so bad that

some medical experts are now encouraging our leaders to start all over again. shut down the country. congress is working feverishly to craft a new bill before unemployment benefits run out for millions of people in the coming days. >> we are going to be prepared on monday to provide unemployment insurance extension that would be 70% of whatever the wages you were prior to being unemployed that it would reimburse you for up to 70% of those wages hopefully as a way to get people back on their feet. in selma john lewis' casket crossed the edmund pettus bridge one final time on its way to the alabama capitol as part of the memorial services for the late civil rights hero. we'll have more on that shortly. protests sparked by the homicide of george floyd continue in portland as they have for months with federal agents overnight deploying tear gas at protesters.

against this backdrop, it seems to be dawning on president trump that the virus is not going to just disappear like he had hoped. he's now resumed his daily task force briefings and is changing course on a number of other fronts like payroll taxes, children going back to school in person, and having an in-person convention in jacksonville, despite major covid problem there. maybe that's because recent poll numbers do not look good for the president. in arizona, a battleground state, which reported its second highest death total yesterday, a brand-new nbc news/famnews/mari shows joe biden with a lead and mark kelly leading by double digits in a race with major political implications. still, a lot can happen in 100 days. at this point in 2016, the "access hollywood" tape had not yet surfaced, wikileaks hadn't posted hillary clinton's emails and the obama administration had

not yet accused the kremlin of election interference. the president hellbent attack the merits of mail-in voting, americans are eligible for, in the next three months a lot can still happen. with more on where we stand on the stakes 100 days from election day, alex thompson, and kimberly atkins, senior opinion writer at the "boston globe" and msnbc contributor. . kim, alex, 100 days out. it is so easy when we look at this election to get lost in the minutia of the latest poll or the story that is dominating the day. so with both of you, i want to start very big picture, kim. when you step back and you look at this election, what is the one factor that you have your eye on that you think might determine the outcome of this election in november? >> well, you are right. it's a long ways away from the election in political terms and there are a lot of factors that can make a big difference, but the biggest overall factor is and will remain the trump

administration's response to covid-19. right now, what the polls are showing is that this election in the minds of voters at this point is a referendum on president trump and his response to this virus that has affected every single american in some way or another negatively. and the failure to get it under control, the failure -- the exasperation of parents, in particular, right now are feeling at the fact that there's no plan, no clear plan, on how to re-open schools. businesses still struggling. small businesses closing by the day. unless this administration and the president can get a clear message about how it can get ahead of this -- ahead f heahea virus, deal with it and have a plan moving forward, it's very difficult to see how he can have a campaign message that is successful. >> alex, 100 days out, what do you have your eye on? >> well, 100 days is a long time in any political time, but it's several lifetimes in the trump

era. and i think what you are going to see, just on the politics of it, you have three blockbuster books coming out in september, one from bob woodward, one from melan melania trump, one from michael cohen. you're going to have debates, biden's v.p. pick and the covid front, chaos, uneven response when is comes to school re-openings and going to have not just for the kids lots of problems but for a lot of working-class parents who no longer have day care options for those children all throughout the fall, plus how do you enact election? how do you have an election amidst social distancing and covid? we've never done it before, and it's probably going to be messy. >> i agree with you that the how of how we have our election is going to be absolutely critical to determining the outcome of this election. kim, alex referenced vice president -- former vice president biden's own v.p. search. we have reporting today from nbc news' mike memoli that an

announcement is expected some time in early august. what are you hearing is the latest on that announcement and on that search? >> well, we have seen -- we already know that former vice president joe biden has promised to pick a woman. we know from that reporting that at least four women of color are on the short list for this, but vice president joe biden is being careful to not see this pick, particularly if he chooses a woman of color as some sort of quarter move or some sort of pandering to this moment as the nation is reckoning with the issue of racial justice. he wants to see this as picking the best person moving forward in this. and it's going to be important because this election is not just a referendum on donald trump. joe biden has to show voters, o s to energize voters, get them vote. that's a big lesson from 2016. so whoever

including the vice presidential pick, has to be someone who can do that. so these are all factors that are weighing on the campaign as they make this choice. i usually say that the vice presidential pick is one of the least important things to voters, but i think this year it might be different. it certainly is going to have the much more emphasis and much more attention paid to this. >> alex, it strikes me that both you and kimberly note that covid is going to be sort of the main driver of this election and that has multiple components, as you both said, right? it has both the health component and has the economic component. a lot of that's playing out in real time this week on capitol hill. where there is a debate over whether or not to extend that $600 unemployment benefit. take a listen to what steve mnuchin said. >> well, chris, just remember, when we did the last plan, and let me say, you know, when you talk asbout piecemeal, this wil be the fifth set of legislation. so there's no reason why we can't have number five, six, and seven, as we need to deal with

issues. >> alex, how much is november weighing on republicans' minds as they debate within their own caucus the merits of extending these benefits? >> well, the problem that you're seeing in the republican caucus is that some in the senate are up for re-election this november and some aren't. senator ted cruz has been one of the most outspoken against doing a really robust stimulus package and you have to remember ted cruz isn't up for re-election in 2020 and he might have his eyes on 2024. several of the republican senators might. so you're actually having some tension not just based on what's good for this november, but actually what's good for, you know, november four year s from now. >> kim, president trump tweeted today that his, quote, silent majority will get him elected in november. i wonder what you make of that analysis. >> yes, this is the idea that the president has that there is this majority, silent majority, of voters, mostly white voters, people in suburbs and beyond,

working-class folks, who are going to be swayed by this really fear-based campaign that the president has been waging and rallying against protesters, calling them anarchists and danger to the country, focusing on building the wall and immigration policies that he continues to crack down on. that undoubtedly helped him in 2016 win, but 2020 is a very different year and it's a very different country right now when you're seeing an increasing number of people back the black lives matter movement, when you see in places like the suburbs that he's talking about a lot, when you look at black voters. the major cities in the united states, black voters live in the suburbs, not in city centers. a you're seeing in a lot of city centers is actually gentrification with more white people moving into the city centers and people of color moving out into the suburbs. so there are fewer and fewer people for him to make this appeal to so it's sort of an

attempt to replay a playbook where the game has completely changed. >> alex, to your point about the number of republicans who are up for re-election, politico reports today that national republican senatorial committee executive chair kevin mclaughlin sent out a memo that says there are currently eight senate races that are within the margin of error and call ts it, quote, nothing short of a miracle for republicans. how do you see those races playing out? >> i mean, if the election was held today, democrats would almost certainly take back the senate and chuck schumer would be majority leader. the republic that senate republicans have is their fate is tied to the president and the president's response to covid so what you're going to see is like a lot of senate republicans are just going to hope that the president sort of gets his approval ratings up when itle tos to comes to dealing with the coronavirus. they realize they're stuck between a rock and hard place. if they distance themselves from trump, they're going to lose the republican base, and if they

stick too closely to him and the ratings don't go up, they'll also sink. >> all right. 100 days out, alex and kimberly, i know we'll be seeing a lot of both of you in the next 100 days. thank you both. up next, why black and brown voters may be the ones who ultimately decide who wins this notch. and how americans vote could play a big part in who gets to vote. i'll talk about the nationwide push for mail-in voting with the secretary of state of colorado about how it's working in her state. but when you have the chase mobile app, your bank can be virtually any place. so, when you get a check... you can deposit it from here. and you can see your transactions and check your balance from here. you can detect suspicious activity on your account from here. and you can pay your friends back from here. so when someone asks you, "where's your bank?" you can tell them: here's my bank. or here's my bank. or, here's my bank. because if you download and use the chase mobile app, your bank is virtually any place. so visit chase.com/mobile. ibut nothing makes me feel like pnew always discreet boutique.

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in the aftermath of the 2016 election, there was a hyperfocus on white voters. black and brown voters remain the bedrock of the democratic coalition. polling shows biden pesting trump when it comes to black and latino voters, as well as women, young voters and college educated white voters. those margins will be key to democrats' chances in november. with me now is kimon ex fe feli. also with me, maria, national

political director at indivisible. all right, you look at these numbers, joe biden is doing well with those groups or at least he's doing better than president trump. that's not really a surprise and that's not really the conversation because all of this comes down to the margin, right? how much he is winning those electorates by and there are a lot of people who are worried that he is underperforming with latinos. that he is underperforming with black voters. i wonder when you look at those numbers what jumps out to you, and also why you think you are seeing that underperformance. >> look, one of the things that jumps out to me is that voters, right, black and brown voters, have in many ways made up their minds about joe biden, but what we're not thinking about are nonvoters who are largely young poc who are going to be the difference in this election because winning comes down to getting them to the polls. and they're looking for proof that joe biden can be the candidate with the platform that meets the demands of the moment. i'm talking about demands like

ending mass incarceration and state-sanctioned violence, unless they see more of that from him, he's going to continue to face this trouble with the margin and until we start to think about those nonvoters who go largely unaccessed during most election cycles, he's going to struggle a little bit. >> maria, i know there are people, you hear kimon e talk about nonvoters. in the middle of a pandemic where it's going to be additionally challenging to vote. what type of headache does that present for democrats? >> look, trump's base is going to be incredibly motivated. they're going to show up even if they're not showing up in the polls right now so i agree, it is important that we're not leaving any single vote on the table. joe biden is increasingly growing support with the democratic base across the coalition. he's at about 68% support from latino voters currently. much better place is 70%. so he's getting there and i thing the more he continues to talk about his forward-looking

vision, the more that you continue to see sort of what's happening in the streets translate into what people are hearing in their everyday news, the more they're chasing these voters, very specifically, by the time we get to november we'll start to see some very serious outcomes and changes there but i do think that no voter should go taken for granted. >> so, maria, stay with me, though, i mean, when you say, "he is getting there," where is it that joe biden needs to be in time for november in order to win in some of these swing states? >> so when you look at some of the policy announcements that have come out over the last month, it's clear to me that joe biden is serious about getting more youth support and serious about getting more support from people of color. when you look at him prioritizing bernie sanders as a key validater,itizing youth climate justice movement as a stakeholder of what's happening right now, it signals to me he's very serious about engaging these communities and working his way through over the

next 100 days. for sure, i mean, the name of the game is always how early did you invest, how long have you been talking to these voters? the pivot to bring in more validaters and voices that are going to generate that real loyalty from this group of voters, from folks like bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, who have higher name i.d. with youth voters, that signals to me that they're serious about making some inroads. >> maria es's talking about validaters. many people believe his vice presidential pick will be the single-most important validater. how much is that going to factor in when black voters, when latino voters, go to the polls or mail in their ballots in november? >> yeah, something i'm thinking about all the time is if today was election day and there was a rainstorm, would people be willing to stand in the rain, mess up their hair, miss their appointments, to get to the poll? i think that a good v.p. pick is someone who makes a lot clearer what the decision is for voters who are not yet sure that they even want to invest as much in

this election cycle. but, look, black and brown voters are complex, savvy, voters, who care about voting their values but primarily they're voting for survival. they know policy has long-term effects on their livelihoods and thar they're not just voting for the moment but voting to protect the next decade of their interest. voting is as much about affirming values as it is a harm reduction policy. if joe biden can tap into that and the urgency of the moment which i think he's done an incredible job of, he'll be in a much better position no matter who his vice president pick is. >> maria, let's be crystal clear, as you well know, the trump campaign is going after latino voters and they know they do not have to win the latino vote, they just need to peel enough latino voters off of biden's support to open up that margin. just this week they were running ads in spanish referencing the i goya debacle. i wonder how you think that is landing with latinos, how

worried the biden campaign needs to be about the fact the trump campaign is putting dollars behind this. >> it's a great question, alicia. look, let's be really clear that two really important pieces about analyzing latino voters is age and geography and the next would be their proximity to when they got to where they are in the u.s. and so it is absolutely clear that they're making a run in florida around some of that support there that, you know, each cycle brings a lot of challenges for democrats in florida and so it is clear to me h that they continue to work really harkd. the progressive base there. folks who organize latinos work really hard there to keep this engagement going year after year. it's clear they're trying to bleed support from our side and where biden really needs to generate more support is with young latinos and that is where he's going to need to continue to make progress. not just in florida but also in north carolina where there's 400,000 potential latino voters they could chase. there's latino voters in

pennsylvania. it's also important as they're looking at the map, as they're looking at their path to 270, they can't afford to bleed anywhere but need to make sure they don't get distracted by, frankly, these distractions trump has made before and need to stick to kila teey latino vo building support, not in just one key area but really spreading the map and the opportunity. >> we can sit here and talk all day about the message, about the messenger, about the validaters. how much of this is actually going to come down to how people vote? specifically, when you talk about demographics that have traditionally already been disenfranchise z disenfranchise. >> yeah, that's exactly what it's going to come down to. the votes. biden benefits from familiarity. black voters tend to familiarize -- a president with connections to the people is a president who can be pushed. you can't push an elected who isn't in conversation with you.

he's benefiting from having been around so long, having excellent relationships with organizers, with movement spaces, and i think that in november what it's going to come down to is people, again, not just voting their values but voting for survival. and as we know, the current occupant of the white house is causing more harm than anything we've seen in the last decade and it's really important that people remember that a vote for joe biden is not just a vote for your values but a vote for protecting the people, especially the people most margin marginalized, who often go without any kind of advocates and any kind of support. >> thank you, both. up next, i'll talk to the pollster who says you can toss conventional thinking out the window. what she's forecasting for november. it played a big part in the 2016 race. we're talking about digital ads. if you think online platforms have cleaned things up, think again. it's coming up later in the

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a powerful tribute for the late congressman john lewis held today in selma, alabama. for the last time, the casket of the civil rights icon was carried across the edmond pet p s carried across the edmond pet put edmund pettus bridge. t same he and other advocates marched across on bloody sunday. the late congressman was honored by a memorial service attended by his family at the brown ame church. this afternoon lewis' casket was received on the ground of the alabama state capitol where he'll lie in state. tributes will move to washington, d.c., tomorrow, the late congressman will lie in state at the u.s. capitol rotun rotunda. this will be open for the public to view so people can pay their respects. lewis spent his life fighting for voting rights and has become a key point in this upcoming election. lewis' former colleague in the house, congressman james

clyburn, has a specific tribute in mind. >> on tomorrow morning i will take the floor of the house and i will introduce a bill, it's going to be called the john r. lewis voting rights act of 2020. i hope the house will pass it unanimously. i hope the house will pass it and send it on to the president because i think this election this year ought to be in honor of john r. lewis. >> and to that point, the outcome of november hinges largely on if and how millions of americans will be able to vote. as the coronavirus pandemic continues, voting in person may not be an option for many. while other states look for solutions, colorado may hold the answer. with me now, colorado secretary of state, jena griswold. secretary of state, there are a lot of people who are wondering how their state is going to do this, how they are going to get it right. what lessons canby lea bwe lear colorado? >> well, thank you so much for having me on. i'm really excited for this

conversation because colorado does hold the key for voting in november. you know, i think it's worth mentioning that my mom is a nurse and she's been working on a covid unit to save lives and as secretary of state, i really want us to adopt nationally the model that enables us to social distance and have our voices heard. and that's vote by mail for all. colorado's vote-by-mail system works. we just had a record turnout in our state primary and we're ready to share our model with the nation. >> and what does that model look like? tell us. >> so, it is very simple. you register to vote then you are sent a ballot and you can return the ballot either through the mail at a dropbox or even vote in person. i just think it's so important that we expand this national model to make sure that the pandemic is not used to suppress turnout in november. >> one of the things i keep hearing from folks is that there

has to be a way to normalize the expectation that if there is a shift toward mail-in voting that it is very likely that there will not be election results on election eve. so i wonder from your perspective, one, how do you operationalize this so these votes are counted as efficiently as possible, and then how do you also create that expectation that this may not be like other elections where you stay up until 10:00 or 11:00 and wait for the results to roll in. it may take us a little bit longer to know who actually wins. >> well, that's exactly right. with vote-by-mail, you may not have the results right on election night but you do have accessible elections that do not require americans to risk their lives to cast a ballot. you know, congressman lewis on the day that we remember all that he fought for, shed blood for our voting rights. what better way in the next 100 days until the elections than to make sure that all communities

can have their voices heard. and a key part of that is expanding vote-by-mail for all. >> i have spoken with a lot of election officials in the run-up to november and everyone is ringing the alarm bell saying how we vote is going to be absolutely critical and there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be put in place to make sure that things are ready for november. so, as other states come to you, what are you telling them about the timeliness of the decisions that they're going to need to make and also the things that are going to be need to be put in place in order to make sure that this can be done and can be done correctly? >> well, the great news is with 100 days left we still have time to expand vote-by-mail for all. and i have been working day in and day out with secretaries of state across the nation to help them expand mail ballots and my office has been sharing tools and best practices.

we can do it as a nation. i do think that it is also worth mentioning that president trump is trying to weaponize vote-by-mail to help himself. you know, the president just let us know through tweet that he was no longer going to throw out that first pitch for the yankees game. can you imagine a pitcher calling the strikes in his own game? that's what the president is trying to do with vote-by-mail. we cannot allow him to spread lies about vote-by-mail. what he is doing is r reprehensible and undemocratic. >> stick with that point, though, when you have the president undermining the validity of vote-by-mail, how does that complicate what you, as secretary of state, are trying to do? >> well, we have to push back even further because, unfortunately, the president of the united states who, by the way, uses vote-by-mail, himself, is trying to suppress turnout in november. we know why he's trying to do it. he thinks that the expansion of

vote-by-mail for all will help democrats and that's just not true. there's major members of both parties who use vote-by-mail and the fact of it is it helps voters. we need to expand vote-by-mail so every american can have their voice heard and not be faced with that question of risking their health to cast a ballot. >> secretary griswold, thank you. up next, we'll talk with the woman politico calls one of the most intriguing political forecasters of our time. what she's looking for before november. but first, with 100 days to go until the presidential election, here's what nbc's andrea mitchell is looking for as the race for the white house hits the homestretch. >> with only 100 days to go as americans struggle with the pandemic, an economic collapse, and an historic reckoning over the legacy of racial inequality and injustice, how will donald trump and joe biden rise to the moment and persuade voters they can lead us out of these crises? the president won't have his

rallies or a traditional convention, but he has always advantages of an incumbent. can joe biden compete against the trump organization's skillful use of social media? will there be an international crisis that tests them in still unexpected ways? and will we be able to vote safely without domestic suppression or foreign interferen interference? the challenge for us is to find the facts and explain them to all of you, and it has never been more urgent. ♪ [ engines revving ] ♪ ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

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is at increased risk for shingles. the pain, the burning! my husband had to do everything for weeks. and the thing is, there's nothing you can do about it! [camera man] well, shingles can be prevented. shingles can be whaaat? [camera man] prevented. you can get vaccinated. frank! they have shingles vaccines! -whaaat? -that's what i said. we're taking you to the doctor. not going through that again. [camera man] you can also get it from your pharmacist! talk to your doctor or pharmacist about getting vaccinated. oz joe biden looks in national polls, how things are looking state by state. since it's the electoral college that gave trump a victory in 2016. a new analysis out today argues texas is now fully in play as a tossup state and florida now leaning democratic. this updated projection comes to us from election forecaster rachel bitikofer, a senior fellow at the niskanen center.

racheling y rachel, you had twitter absolutely exploding today with this. walk us through it. >> this is a reflection of two trends. people following my forecasting work for a long time know i've been arguing the democrats and ten it became joe biden is the presumptive nominee, had a huge advantage in terms of anti-trump sentiment, something called negative partisanship, fueling a lot of energy on that left side of the spectrum. democrats and also independents leaning toward democrats and had been complacent in 2016, kind of like a sleeping giant that didn't flex its muscle and in 2018 and coming into 2020 they were really fired up, and although the presidency does offer incumbency, we rarely see somebody run for president as unpopular as president trump. then we see this pandemic come in and i really do want to stress, though, the pandemic didn't have to be a liability for trump had he managed it well, as so many of these european presidents did, then

actually i think he could have offset some of this negative energy that he was facing and some of the things that my original forecast predicted would work against him. but as we all know, he didn't just not do it well, he did it very not well. and kind of broke what i call now the number-one rule of politics, which is don't kill your voters in an election year, so we're now seeing a combined effect of that negative partisanship and like a persuasion increase in polarized politics that persuasion bucket is fairly small but we're seeing an expansion of it and it's, you know, really pushing biden to this, you know, eight, nine, ten, even, point, national margin and we're seeing really robust outside the margin era advantages and so i've moved -- the midwest, which was always an advantage for biden, in my model, really outside of reach for trump and now we're looking

at the swing states being in that sunbelt. >> rachel, there is a huge responsibility that comes with this forecasting because it sets expectations. when you put this forecast out, do you have any reservations about being this bullish 100 days out? >> you know, i do. i manage my forecasting work i think as responsibly as i can, and for me, like the race rating elements of it is actually, like, the afterthought element. for me, it's the theoretical elements that drive my work that i try to highlight and focus on as much as possible. and that is what drives me to do the work and to talk about it as much as i possibly can. in fact, i have an article coming out in the next couple of days or perhaps tomorrow in "market watch" that's going to lay out for people very clearly why in 2016 polls, you know, people have this perception that polls were wrong and there were some polls that were wrong.

number one, there weren't a lot of polls done in the midwest because the midwest had always broken for democrats and the ones that were done showed large leads for clinton. but i kind of go through exactly what the polls got wrong and how they got it wrong. some of it was college-educated voters being overrepresented but that certainly wasn't it. and, in fact, in the data in 2016, the polls were screaming at us about uncertainty that wasn't recognized and wasn't identified. and so i go through that and i talk about how the polls in 2020 are quite different and kind of try to -- >> to your point, let me ask you something, which is michigan -- let me ask you something, which michigan -- >> yeah, yeah. >> -- was a state that caught a lot of people by surprise four years ago and sort of this tendency now to think that michigan of 2016 will be michigan of 2020, when it is more unlikely another state that is in people's peripheral vision that could actually be the challenger, the surprise. >> right. >> is there a state that you think is being undercounted or

not being given the attention that it deserves or closer than, prance, oa perhaps, other people think it is. >> you know what, here's what i think. the data, the lessons i learned, at least, me personally from the 2016 election, which is, by the way, where the roots of my forecasting work is from, has prepared me to be very well positioned to tell if there's a trendline coming that means trump is going to be well, you know, coming from behind or, you know, gaining momentum or in a position where these forecasts change. so it's not, you know, we talk about it as coming out of the blue, but like i said, there were very clear signals in the data that just, you know, just got missed. now, where things can get iffy is in turnout. we're talking about an election in which -- >> i was just going to ask you if voter suppression is built into this model. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. you know what, when we're talking about that, we have a variety of states being run in a variety of ways. and some states are having --

even red states like ohio with mike dewine, he's a republican, he's trying to make it easier for people to vote regardless of his party affiliation, but really the danger lies in these red states where you see biden up by a lot but the voter system is not made conducive for people to vote in a pandemic. >> all right. rachel, thank you for your time. >> yes, thanks. up next, consider it the wild west of politics. we're talking about digital ads. who's policing them and what can be done to make sure those who make them are playing by the rules. allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident. cut! is that good? no you were talking about allstate and... i just... when i... accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. accident forgiveness from allstate. when you think of a bank, you think of people in a place. but when you have the chase mobile app, your bank can be virtually any place. so, when you get a check... you can deposit it from here. and you can see your transactions and check your balance from here.

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hello, you've reached 911. i'm sorry there's no one here to answer your emergency call, but leave a message and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. >> this job, this job is about protecting americans. not tear gassing them for a photo op. >> biden gets in, you're going to end up with a depression the likes of which you'll never

seen. you'll be lucky if you end up with a country at all. >> the unemployment rate is still at historic levels. donald trump who doesn't know what's going on or he just doesn't care. >> the harsh political ads you see on tv, you're going to be seeing a lot more of them, are only a fraction of the ones that campaigns are making. may and june, biden spent $2 million on tv ads and $17 million on digital ads. trump spent more on both platforms. $31 million on tv and $23 million online. clearly, political ads are a huge moneymaker for social media sites, but there are worries they're not being policed. let's bring in jacob ward, nbc technology correspondent, and josh sherwin, senior strategist and director of communications at priorities usa. guys, thank you, both, so much for your time. josh, really big picture, we hear a lot about television ads. we see them. what role are these digital ads going to play in the run-up to november? >> they're playing a huge role, and it's for several reasons. one, it's the number-one way campaigns are raising money right now. so a huge portion of the

spending is for raising money. talking to your base and asking them for checks then it's also for persuading new voters and turning out voters and letting them know information about the election as we get closer so that's going to be a spending of organizations like spending tens of millions of dollars online and there is a lot of concern because social media platforms have not demonstrated they are up to the challenge of policing themselves and right now that's the only one out there that can do it. >> jacob, jump in there. what is the state of play that's been a big conversation for the last four years about the fact that these ads simply are not, at least not held to the same standards. you've seen facebook weigh in on this and google and it seems like we're 100 days out of the election and not really clear answers and clear boundaries. >> that's right. i think it's getting even less clear as we go forward. you've seen these platforms

trying to update their systems in someway, you know, talking about we're going to force people to reveal when there is branded content, when they are paying ininfluencer, no we're not. there is an incredible amount of confusion and meanwhile, as josh points out, it is the de facto way that campaigns are reaching their base. there is no good long term study going on right now yet that has shown the degree to which people can even tell the difference between, you know, posted things, you know, things that your grandmother or friend might post versus paid advertising in effect that might have on an audience. those lines begin to blur. you have not just the for profit, you know, advertising industry built for this, you also have certainly in donald trump's case a whole army of people that make memes almost for a living hoping the president retweets them that flows in a way that's unregulated and unpredictable.

>> josh, how much of your work becomes about putting out a proactive message and how much is it batting back those memes? >> this is a challenge. the on steps that have been taken and i want to give facebook and google credit. they did put out transparency tools where you can see what ads are running on their platforms now. that's a good thing. that's 60% of the internet for paid ads. feel like 40% of paid ads we can't see anything and the uncountable amount of information not through paid, there is not really a lot we can do except try to run our own ads and this is where the challenge is. right now, if facebook or youtube knows that someone was served disinformation about the election, they will kick that person off the company or the organization that ran the ad, that put out the content but they won't tell an organization like mine or a non-profit here is who served information. you should give them correct information. they make that impossible to do so there are millions of people out there who are going to get

bad information between online auction and there is nothing we can do because platforms aren't allowing it and it's a simple fix. >> jacob, what does that mean? where does that leave us? does that mean people simply need to be more informed savvier consumers or is there actually something that can be done between now and november? >> certainly between now and november, elyce y there is a na window. we won't see the major regulatory reform to create guard rails around this stuff the way we have around political messaging on television or in other forms of traditional media but certainly, i think the ability to communicate to people just how different your world probably looks than your neighbors world looks when seen through the prism of social media and the ads that live there. it's astounding the degree to which you can look at in theed a libraries on facebook for instance josh mentioned, facebook makes available that is good, you can see the incredible

sort of counter narratives that are built by these campaigns looking at the same facts on the ground in theory and interpreting them differently. litera reracy is the best we cae for and the reminder this game is being played, the information is totally unregulated and as a result, there is no burden on these campaigns to say things to report things honestly. trusted sources will be as important as ever here. >> pull back the curtain for us. help us understand what works in a digital ad that simply does not work on linear television and vice versa. what is the message you choose to put out in a digital ad? >> so it's a lot harder. we like to think that if you're -- you have about three to six seconds to catch someone's attention or they will keep scrolling. you want -- >> not a lot of time. >> so -- not a lot of time. it's not like on a tv commercial you have 30 seconds to tell a narrative. if you don't get them in the

first couple seconds, you're not going to get them at all. one thing we found is most people including us are not very good at predicting what's going to work and what's not so we test everything. we'll put ten different ads out that have similar messages or different messages, put them in a panel online and let people tell us what works for them and we can choose which is the most effective ad to run. the fact is having pulled the message or gone with your gut, you can get it wrong and you can end up sending voters in the opposite direction pretty easily. we spent a lot of time and money testing ads before we run them to make sure we're choosing the best creative to have the effect on the voters that we're looking for. but yeah, it's going to be a different animal than tv. >> jacob, there is a huge spending discrepancy when it comes to digital ads between the trump campaign and everyone else. i wonder from your vantage point what you make of that discrepancy. >> well, certainly, you know, trump was elected on the basis of using these platforms well.

2016 came to him in large part experts have pointed out by his expert use of facebook, the now deposed campaign manager brad parascale was the great innovator in theory of that relying on huge amounts of the testing that josh mentioned here, you know, doing just a really effective job of micro targeting who they wanted to reach, all of that, really smart. so trump i think is doubling down on what has worked for him in the past. >> all right. jacob and josh, thank you both so much. that is all the time i have. steve kornacki picks up coverage next on "kasie d.c." and don't miss his hour-long special at 8:00 eastern, 100 days to decision 2020. eteasrn, 100 day decision 2020. as a caricature artist,

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hey, welcome to "kasie d.c." tonight, 100 days to elect a president and it's mirky at best right now. as the pandemic reaches new heights and federal agents face-off against violent protest in american cities, i'll be joined by majority jim clyburn as he plans to property up a