good day. let's wind up this week. brian williams here with you on this friday afternoon. 3:00 on the east coast. 12 noon out west. nicolle wallace will be here with us in just a moment. but we begin with the headlines at this hour, the coronavirus has now killed over 160,000 americans and the university of washington analysis model projecting that nearly 300,000 souls could be lost by december 1st, however, they predict universal mask wearing could save over 66,000 lives. all of this comes as the u.s. is on track to reach 5 million

confirmed cases this weekend. turns out ohio governor mike dewine might not be part of that group after all but we don't really know. dewine's office said that a rapid test he took yesterday came back positive. he took it prior to greeting the president. but a lab test conducted last night came back negative. while doctors point out these instant tests offer more false negatives than positives, the governor had this to say during a news conference a short time ago. >> the results last night, the test from ohio state had come back negligenative for all of u. they wanted to re-run it just to double-check, a few hours later we got a call that those tests had come back negative as well. so we're very happy, obviously happy about that. zblm zmr kind of illustrates the problem with testing microcosm.

governor andrew cuomo said schools can open their doors for in-person learning. schools are locally governed so he's leaving it up to local political and school leaders to whether and how to reopen and cuomo warns things could change if the positive test rate in the state rises above 5%. on the economic front, the labor department said employers added more than 1.8 million jobs last month. the unemployment rate fell from 11.1% to 10.2%. economists fear slowing job growth may be a sign that the recovery is starting to lag as the pandemic sweeps through large parts of the country. to that end, congressional democratic leaders and trump administration negotiators are meeting again at this hour trying to salvage kind of talks on a new pandemic relief bill but in plain english right now

they've got nothing, they are billions of dollars apart, and so it goes. what a good time to bring in my friend and colleague, nicolle wallace, host of "deadline: white house." i leave it to you. >> well, all i can think of listening to those headlines we made the easy things hard, which make the hard things impossible. the easy thing was putting on a mask as soon as the scientist said that one, it would help slow transmission. it was one of those things they learned at 33,000 feet. and now we know. we have numbers that suggest that 66,000 lives -- 66,000 liv worlds would prevented from blowing up. we can't do the easy things. we can't get our national testing system right. and the hard things, getting

legislation done, it shouldn't be hard in a moment of crisis or emergency, it wasn't in the weeks and months after 9/11 but for some reason it is now with 160,000 americans are rendered so far impossible. it's no wonder that michelle obama disclosed that she's feeling this low grade depression, i think there's a lot of anxiety and not a lot of problem solving on display. how's that? not very helpful. >> yeah, that's good. that matches the mood and information we've been handed thus far, because we never forget on this or any broadcast all the people who are hurting out there and because they like it or not depend on washington, let's get the very latest on capitol hill. why not check in and see what's happening or not. for starters, is either house in session? >> reporter: no. neither house -- they haven't officially adjourned yet.

most senators went home. the only people who are here are schumer and pelosi, even mitch mcconnell is in kentucky. and look, the fact the status of these negotiations are just not good. they started the morning not even planning to meet yet the reason because is things were going so poorly, they were so far apart, they decided to actually meet, mnuchin, meadows, schumer and pelosi, they met this afternoon, the meeting i'm told just broke up, i keep checking my phone right now to see if we're getting any update from our wonderful producers from the capitol, but heading into the meeting they were so far apart. pelosi and schumer said they asked for an administration to come up with trillion in their and then we'll come down from $3.4 trillion. to $2.4. it seems like mnuchin and

meadows weren't on the same page. we have some tape of them. >> said you guys come up with a trillion dollars. >> that's a nonstarter. >> pelosi said you needs to come up a trillion dollars. is that in the cards? >> i don't think so. i don't know that's a reduction as much as she just changed the time frame. just made the shorter. >> is that feasible? >> it depends. >> reporter: so mnuchin said that's a nonstarter, not a good way to go into these negotiations and those are just the top lines, that's not even talking about the details they come to come to an agreement on, so we're going to be seeing what they say coming out of this meeting if they decide to talk to the press and if they don't that's a really bad sign, nicolle. >> a bad sign. we'll brace for it. thank you so much for your

reporting. joining our conversation now two of our good friends. dr. kavita patel and phil rucker, pulitzer prize winning writer. does donald trump want relief for unemployed americans? >> you know, nicolle, he says he does and he's threatened by the way to take executive action to try to create some of that relief if congress doesn't come to an agreement here but we have to underscore how striking it's been these last few weeks to see the president largely absence from these negotiations on capitol hill, certainly his chief of staff mark med douse and his treasury secretary steve mnuchin are negotiating on his behalf but that is not an active president involved in these talks, they're trying to use whatever political muscle or capital he may have at the white

hou house. in past crises for the government, the shutdown i'm thinking of at the end of 2018 and other instances was very involved in day-to-day conversations with legislators. he's been an absent leader. >> i'd love your thoughts on the breaking news that new york governor cuomo has given a green light for district to district decisions on school reopenings for in-person learning in state of new york. >> yeah, nicolle, it's top of mind for everyone and if you look at the numbers, new york, you know, has had only a handful, hundreds of new cases per day, and a very low positivity rate. so those are ensuring signs but this kind of coupled with, you know, we've been seeing emerging scenes around the country of private schools, children who aren't wearing masks and more importantly the kind of passionate voices of teachers who have expressed sheer terror,

frustration and candidly they're scared. i think when governor cuomo made what i know is hard decision he did it with the metrics in mind but every local school district including down to ps level will have to be very honest about what the reality is, especially the younger children, asking how can we make sure they're wearing masks all day? i will say this, nicolle, at least you're seeing these states having universal mask requirements. states are saying, that's optional and we don't feel like we should enforce that. >> phil rucker, from school safety back to kind of a nakedly political question, the president has come to love his executive orders and has floated out the notion that if congress is -- fails to act he would

enact some sort of relief, i'm just wondering, since it would be revenue based, does he have the ability to do that, is anyone talking about that? >> you know, it's a good question, it's a little bit hard to evaluate whether he has the ability to do it because we don't know exactly what it is in detail contemplating doing. we doe know from these last 3 1/2 years that this is a president who has used his lawyers to try to find ways to exercise his maximum amount of power and to look for loopholes in the law and points of leverage to enable him to act in ways that we haven't seen previous presidents act to really expand his presidential power. i wouldn't be surprise if he tries to come up with some sort of angle here on this executive action that his lawyers will defend as legally allowable. even though it might invite a

number of challenges from outsiders. >> doctor, a question, at the intersection of medicine and politics, when a governor let's say of new york says he's going to allow in-person instruction in the fall, isn't that gently a way of having it both ways knowing that instruction and schools are locally governed? >> yeah, that's -- you hit the nail on the head, brian, that's absolutely trying to thread a needle, no doubt that people -- and here's what's unfortunate -- having flexible on principle sounds like the right thing to do, even though covid is playing out locally, unfortunately we're dealing with all these problems without any national strategy and that kind of rolls down to the state level where states are now saying localities need to make decisions and i think, brian, what's troubling as well is that, you know, new york has

had a lot of experience at this but even at the local level their public health officials, some very publicly have disagreed with local leaders on decisions. so we really should just say, here are the lose the holds and the limits. there needs to be switched to virtual learning, hybrid learning has its limitations and here's the parameters by which in-person learning is safe. added to that, brian, here's what we're doing to help you feel safety. that's what all americans want to hear and we haven't heard that voice nationally. >> you know, dr. patel, i mean, we've talked about the health ramifications for kids, they seem like a black box in terms of the long-term health consequences of getting sick with covid and "the new york

times" has some remarkable reporting today about high school students in indiana, a girl who tested positive on the first day, the reporting now is showing that kids have a lot of anxiety about going back to school, this is also from "the new york times." at a school just south of knoxville, ian said students seem evenly split on the dangers of covid. about half try to behave like everything is normal and others are paranoid. i'm one of them. we're encouraged to hurry between classes there's not any time to talk about covid or anything else. he said some students don't pay attention to social distancing requirements especially at lunch. i mean, school is a minefield of anxieties for children as it is, now they're going to be worried about bringing disease home to

their families, kids are very attached to their teachers, once teachers start getting sick, which seems inevitable when you hook at the rate of infection spread among kids, what are we putting on our kids by sending them back into the classroom? >> i mean, look, i'm a working mom and i think about that every day because i personally think this is the question that we do feel like we could use some national voices, just to calm us down, the former first lady's voice about having low grade depression actually comforted the nation to reassure us that these feelings are normal. thinking about children of any age, younger adults going back to college, highest anxiety concerns that i have heard universally. and what we're doing is putting children into unknown risks but i think on top of that we also created for some reason disturbing a false narrative

that children don't get it as bad. with children potentially having long-term effects we just need to be humble about what this virus means to children. and furthermore, i'll kind of finish by saying for education, think all of us want to see our children back in schools safely. that's a fact. but i think how we get there is going to depend on how we address this fear and anxiety about the virus and keeping people safe and the most important thing schools can do right now is go through -- if you haven't started already kind of doing a test with adults of what this is like to your point in "the new york times" reporting what is it like to be in plexiglass. my 5-year-old has said mommy, i want to go to school but i'm scared of the virus. they understand with's happening.

we have to listen and respect those voice. >> reporter: this is why even though this is newscast every day in the midst of a pandemic, we would never dream of not having a journalist and a doctor given the conversations we end up having, all of it scary stuff. our thanks to dr. patel and phil rucker for starting off our live discussion on a friday afternoon quick break in our coverage. when we come back -- while they've been diligent about preserving their three-day weekend, the dysfunction in congress is so severe, they can't even disgreagree on the thermometers to use. congressmen everyic swalwell, democrat of california standing by to join us next and nbc news is out with its first electoral map forecast.

it's a big lead for joe biden. it's a snapshot in time. as his campaign readies to roll out his new vp pick. what do they need to do not to lose the edge they have now?

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we're back. we're used to the crisp efficiency of congress but with millions of americans out of work and looking for more relief an estimated 30 million people without enough food every week, division between lawmakers on capitol hill is becoming more and more evident, new reporting by the washington post revealing that even as these talks continue, lawmakers can't even agree on coronavirus safety measures inside the capitol, that would include which thermometer to use, in just the last week, three members of congress, arizona, new york and illinois have now tested positive for the virus.

nancy pelosi and senate majority mcconnell are at odds, right now masks are mandatory on the house floor and only recommended for members of the senate. >> we welcome back to our broadcast eic swalwell. i want to get to what looks like a standoff at a terrible time for the country but in the commercial breaks some breaking news came through, u.s. intelligence officials confirming that russia is actively working to denigrate joe biden and your first comments, let me read from what has been released about what russia is up to as it relates to joe biden. this is from i believe the office odni, we assess that russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former vice president biden in what it sees an anti-russia

sentiment. pro russian parliamentarian spreading claims about corruption through publicizing leaked phone calls to undermine former vice president biden's candidacy and the democratic party. some kremlin linked actors are also seeking to boost president trump's candidacy on social media and russian television. two-part question for you, one, with the assessment did any action plan get briefed to you whether classified, can you acknowledge whether you do or not? does that call into greater question the goings on of senator johnson. >> here we go again, nicolle. this sounds awfully familiar,

but it's the awareness that the american people need and we need an intelligence community that has directives from the president to counter this, that's the real question, will the president counter this information but what i do not accept is that there's an equivalence between or among what russia is doing and china and iran are also doing who are in that assessment as well. russia has a capability, a scope, an intent and a prior in criminal law, they did this before, this is not articulated by those other countries. they have a preference for donald trump to be re-elected and use their resources to denigrate joe biden and they're doing it through the u.s. senate, laundering this information by this individual who's described who has publicly said that he's sending materials to ron johnson and lindsey graham to try to tear down joe biden.

members of the u.s. senate are acting as russian launderers of this. it's reprehenceable, it should stop. nicolle, if you want to know why donald trump won't confront vladimir putin about these bounties on u.s. soldiers, there you go, russia continues to spot donald trump and he's not going to do a single thing even if it means to defend u.s. troops. >> i know there was -- wow, there is still debate around the original intel around russia's role in actively helping the trump campaign, robert mueller found that russia had indeed helped and that the trump campaign had welcomed that help and they hadn't actually held strategy sessions together, tell me how this intelligence is different. >> this is different because you

have in public reporting acknowledgments by this pro-russia individual, that he's sending information and materials to the senate, hacked and leaked documents to the senate, to denigrate, to tear down joe biden and ron johnson and lindsey graham are all too willing to use in their naked ambition to keep donald trump in power and so the concern here is that u.s. persons are being used to facilitate this russia influence operation and, again f the president is not going to have resources to counter this and, if the senators aren't going to, you know, responsibly conduct themselves like americans, not pro-russia, then it's on the american people to have the awareness of what they're trying to do. credit to chairman schiff, he had been pushing for the

congress to be briefed and for the american people to understand the true threat and this statement is a step further in that direction. >> i have one more question about, you know, the action plan, because we now know 88 days before our election that under donald trump's administration, the intelligence community has reached this conclusion that russia is actively working to denigrate joe biden, ron johnson's committee seems to have taken the lead in the u.s. senate, what are you going to do? >> again, we have to make sure that the american people have as much awareness as possible and we have the majority in the house and again, couple of weeks ago that the american people didn't know this and chairman schiff was pushing for the whole congress to know this and a public statement to make it clear what russia is doing, awareness is great disinfectant it's really incumbent on the american people to hold their senators accountable and there's

no u.s. senator should be working in concert with a russian influencer operation and that has been potentially exposed with this operation. >> congressman, just because of clear english is at a premium and you just touched on this, for those watching, perhaps for those who may live in the state of wisconsin, what is it you and your fellow democrats suspect a republican duly elected member of the u.s. senate is doing in concert with russia? >> russia does not want joe biden to be elected. russia is using this statement says that a pro-russian ukrainian is sending hacked materials to u.s. senators and in their hearings, in their investigation, they're seeking to tear down joe biden's candidacy to suggest that, you know, ukraine was the fact the

one that hacked us in 2016. it's a character attack on joe biden. this is why donald trump by the way was impeached, but it really just shows that, you know, there's no -- really they'll go to any length to try and keep donald trump in power including, you know, false character attacks on joe biden that are coming from the kremlin. >> wow. >> now, let's talk one last question because we're after all in the midst of a pandemic, let's say in your district, single parent working two jobs, has lost them both and finds themselves in a unique position of needing food from a food bank and looking to their government for help, can you tell them that your party is blameless, can you tell them they're caught up in kind of waiting game between the speaker and the white house, can you tell them that more help is on the way?

>> i can tell them more help is on the way and we want that help to extend to the end of the year. we don't want to go week by week having to negotiate with the white house on whether you should receive unemployment benefits. i served her at a meals on wheels drive-through food bank on tuesday in my district. one woman asked me for an extra loaf of bread and i grabbed for the loaf of bread and the executive director looked at me and said we don't have enough for somebody to get two, that was heartbreaking to see and these are the people who are affected as we wait for a senate and white house who has grievances and don't have a plan to truly come to the table and take action. >> california democratic congressman eric swalwell has been our guest for this segment. congressman, thank you. another break. when nicolle and i return, basketball meets balloting.