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if it's tuesday, we are in the campaign home stretch. the battleground map is tightening. new msnbc marist poll numbers showing a dead heat in america's most important swing state. florida, florida, florida. plus, the u.s. passes another grim milestone in its fight against covid. 190,000 deaths. as the race for a vaccine looms over the race for the presidency. and evacuations, helicopters rescues and what officials are calling an unmitigated disaster. california battles one of its worst wildfire seasons ever. we say this every year and yet it's happening again. worst season ever. millions of acres scorched. ♪ welcome to tuesday. it is "meet the press daily" post-labor day sprint. i'm chuck todd. 56 days until the election. we've got new poll numbers hot off the presses here from our

nbc/marist poll of battleground florida where president trump will be speaking in the next few hours. and it is a dead heat. not virtually. it is a dead heat. 48/48 among likely voters in the state. florida is often seen as the political microcosm for america and for good reason. the overall political headwinds continue to favor the biden campaign. it's still tied in america's most battleground state. the president spoke to reporters on his whey to florida. he drais addreaddressed an appa crunch facing his campaign and whether he'd have to use his personal funds. >> yeah, if i have to, i would. we needed to spend more money up front because of the pandemic and the statements being made by democrats, which were again disinformation. if we did, we don't, because we have much more money than last time going into the last two months. i think double and triple. but if we needed anymore, i'd put it up personally. >> you spent $60 million on that primary. how much are you talking putting

into your campaign? >> whatever it takes. we have to win. this is the most important election in our history of our country. we have a radical left group going around. these people, there's something wrong with them. there really is. there's something wrong with them. and joe doesn't have the strength, the mental capability to control these people. >> i hope you caught the president's confirmation of the campaign's money troubles when he used some bizarre spin to say we have twice as much money as we did this time four years ago. four years ago, they had no infrastructure. it was a campaign all over the map, all over the -- so to even compare the two is, shall we say, sunny spinny. despite the headwinds. democrats are worried that parts of the party are terrified florida will continue to haunt them like in 2016 and 2004 and in 2000. and perhaps adding to those concerns our poll numbers showed bien is losing ground with a key constituent clinton dominated,

latinos. biden is overperforming with a group that rejected clinton. seniors. it's a group donald trump dominated in 2016. in our new battleground map we've moved florida from lean democrat to toss-up and moved other notable battleground states in trump's direction as well. north carolina has moved to toss-up and texas has moved from toss-on to lean republican. even with those changes the general election map still tilts in biden's favor. just not as drastically as it did preconventions. biden would rack up at least 290 and trump with 163 and 85 in the toss-up category. sort of like a 2012 map. at least today. also now starting to tilt in biden's favor is the money race which the trump campaign once dominated. remember the death star? now as you can see, the biden campaign is outspending the trump campaign on the air waves all over the place. the trump campaign's huge financial edge is not just gone.

they're at a deficit. joining me on the ground is josh lederman, also robert costa, an nbc analyst. the president going down there to play environmentalist, if you will. it's an issue that does unite the state of florida generally. but it is an issue that republicans used to try to show their conservation credentials a little bit and that is extending moratoriums on offshore oil drilling. the moratorium doesn't expire this year so there's no sense of urgency to it. what is the president adding to this, josh? >> well, the moratorium expires next year, but there have been calls from both of the republican senators from florida to extend that another decade. we're still awaiting final details about what exactly the president will include in this, whether it will be just limited to the water offs of florida or potentially other states along the coast as well. but this is a pretty transparent political about-face by the

president. it was president trump's administration, chuck, that in 2018 moved to expand offshore drilling to basically everywhere including off the shore of florida, california. that later got rolled back amid some concerns from republicans here as well as some legal challenges. but the president clearly trying to tap into support for conservation in florida right as we get up to the last few months of the election. >> josh, look. he's down there. he's down in jupiter, which is really sort of -- it's not swing area. why there? is there any specific reason or is it just convenient for him travelwise? >> well, i think partially it's comfortable territory for him. it's his home turf. this is now president trump's home county and we saw over the weekend there was that flotilla of pro-trump boats parading in this area. but i've got to tell you, chuck. i just got off a briefing the trump campaign did for reporters

where we heard them do something they've really never do before, which is they laid out a path to victory for president trump. actually several scenarios in which he loses florida and its 29 electoral votes and still wins the general election and gets past 270. now that, obviously, entails president trump basically sweeping all of the other states. an official on this call quickly interjected to say, let's be clear. they expect that trump will win florida. but just the fact that they're even acknowledging the possibility he could lose florida and trying to make the case for how he could win the election without florida seems to be a good indication of how nervous the campaign is about the prospects here in florida, chuck. >> boy, that does say a lot, josh, because it was just two weeks ago that jason miller went on "meet the press" and said our path to nomination is easy. we just need florida plus one. that was the whole path. if they dropped florida plus one, i think that tells you a

lot about the landscape they see. robert costa, the trump campaign is finally admitting something that many of us have seen for weeks now, which is they have a cash problem. they were acting like a campaign with money troubles. they're trying to -- you can see they're trying to nickel and time their way in the battleground states begging superpacs to fill in the gap. arizona, pennsylvania, michigan, all with zero dollars from the trump campaign using superpacs to back them up. how bad is this money trouble for this campaign, robert? >> talking to my republican sources, chuck, it's clear that this is a problem not just for the trump campaign but it's a problem for the entire gop because inside the white house, there's a belief the president can create his own news like he did in 2016. he often averted advertising because he wanted to make his own headlines and that was that a way to get attention instead of using paid advertising. most republicans don't play

politics in the same way the president does and they're nervous about the ground game, about operations, about whether they'll be able to get on tv and they see an enormous democratic momentum in terms of spending in key senate races like arizona. >> you know, it's interesting to hear the president talk about possibly spending his own money. it's my understanding, robert, from donors, from veteran fundraisers over the years to get rich people to write big, fat checks to rich people running for office, that said rich person also needs to write check if you want to get billionaires to pony up. so the president almost has to write some check to his campaign at this point just for show, doesn't he? >> i'll believe it when i see it, chuck. as a reporter, president trump often makes statements about something he's going to do. when he does it we'll report on it, but he says a lot of things that sometimes don't often end up unfolding in the way he says,

to say the least. and what you are really seeing right now is a lot of unease on the republican side about the lack of grassroots momentum. the president, of course, can stoke it with his tweets but he's usually out there at this season during this time on the campaign trail having rally after rally in a minor league hockey league arena or major basketball arena and he just doesn't have that capability right now due to the pandemic. and so they're struggling to have that same playbook they had in 2016. >> the decision, you heard what josh lederman said. the decision about the campaign to start touting paths to re-election without florida, robert. that feels like quite the tell at the poker table. >> it's also a way of lowering expectations. the trump campaign believes florida remains one of the states that could be central to its path. josh is reporting it's spot on that you're starting to hear more from other trump campaign advisers about a path that could

include states like minnesota that they lost in 2016 but did better than they expected to. and you're seeing this battle that's really thought to be going to be about the industrial midwest. it's expanding to places, not just in florida but when you think about florida y is it in play? it's because the south is increasingly in play. biden's campaign is putting a new emphasis on georgia. they look at the senate race and they see some sprouts of opportunity. >> there's no doubt we're starting to see a shift between the northern swing states and southern swing states. of course, we've been saying that every four years. josh lederman, robert costa, thanks for getting us started on this one. let's turn to a couple of florida experts. joining me, mark caputo and carlos. mark, 48/48. i mean, you can't get any more florida than that result.

what's fascinating is what's inside the directional trend lines of our poll. one is biden is overperforming among seniors and trump is overperforming along latinos. discuss. first, mark, you. >> well, i think that -- joe biden has really not spent a boat load of time reaching out to hispanic or latino voters, and donald trump has. on the other hand, part of biden's messaging from the primary on has been geared toward older, white moderate and suburban voters. you're seeing that come to fruition. white voters, non-hispanic white voters in florida are about 62% of the registered voters. latino/hispanic voters are about 17%. for every percent of hispanic voters biden loses but picks up in white voters, he's really eating into the president's base. like anything in florida, you mix everything together, you see

one side makes one chess move. the other makes another and you're suddenly back at a stalemate or a tie. >> you know, it's exactly what i was thinking, marc. carlos, it seems like you have -- everybody thinks, all you have to do is improve the older white vote and all these other numbers, but nothing is static. i'm curious your take on why you think biden is basically lagging behind hillary clinton with florida latinos. >> well, it's really interesting what's happening here, chuck, because biden is gaining ground in areas that have been trending red. so think about suburban areas here in south florida. of course, the i-4 corridor. and then the president is gaining ground with latinos and people of color generally. so in 2016, hillary clinton won miami-dade county by 30 points. i highly doubt that joe biden is going to be able to repeat that kind of victory here in south florida. he may win by 20, by 25, but

from the polling i've seen and a lot of the anecdotal evidence i've found on the street he's not going to win by 30 but wh b suburban voters that abandoned trump in 2018 and gave trump the house and, sure, florida is raising a lot of questions again with minority voters flocking towards trump or at least moving gradually toward him and white suburban voters moving toward biden. >> this is why i don't get the, oh, if they lose florida, they can win in another way. the older white florida vote is similar to the older white pennsylvania vote. it isn't going to be as different as they think. marc caputo when kamala harris got pick as the running mate, you wrote a piece i was waiting for somebody to write which is, hey, her jamaican roots could be very intriguing in organizing in

south florida. have you seen any evidence yet? >> well, i've seen evidence of that, the campaign knows this. they sprung into action over the weekend. they gave an interview to caribbean rhythms which is an a.m. radio show. it's been around 30 years reaching out to the broward or jamaican community, a caribbean community in broward county. what's interesting and one of the things i learned as a longtime florida resident and florida reporter is just how politically active the jamaican american community has become in broward county. every single member of the miramar city council and the mayor himself, have jamaican roots which blew me away. and the biden campaign and democrats not only want to use this jamaican outreach but make it a broader pan-caribbean outreach among those who have black heritage and they're reaching out to haitian american voters who were pulled toward clinton as well. that's another example of -- go

ahead. >> no, i believe the haitian story, wasn't that a specific example of anger at bill clinton's foundation that certainly some key political leaders in the haitian community withheld their support over hillary clinton over it, isn't that right, marc? >> -- >> oh, no. >> -- things hillary clinton's campaign did that took -- >> oh, i'm sorry. one of the problems that hillary clinton's campaign had in south florida is that she kind of ignored -- they ignored the severity of the campaigning leveled against them, the haitian american community and took it for granted and they paid the price for that. i don't think biden's campaign is doing that. quite the opposite. you can see from kamala harris who is coming down here to miami on thursday. they'll not be committing that error. might be committing other errors but not committing that one. >> right. carlos, i'm curious your take on this biden ad. it seems biden is targeting

older white voters almost -- not exclusively, but that that seems to be this focal point. take a listen to this ad. >> i'm in that group that's vulnerable and to watch the ineptness of the administration which has really done nothing to this date. they do not have a plan. we need to put this country back together. so i ask myself three things. who can do something about covid? who can do something about prescription drug costs? and who can bring us back together again? joe biden is the answer to all three of those questions. >> so carlos, if you were the biden campaign, would you tell him that -- look, you've got to target all these communities in florida because it is, as marc points out, it is sort of a complicated math equation at times. but would you be spending a big chunk of your money in florida on ads like that? >> chuck, the biden campaign understands covid is the big weak spot for the president. they want to keep it front and center.

but i think they also have to dedicate some resources to defending against the president's weapons of choice. in a lot of parts of florida, the whiter parts, it's law and order and creating this cultural divide and exploiting it. here in south florida, it's socialism. and it's saying that joe biden wants to put in place latin american-style socialism which, of course, a lot of people here in this community where mark and i live, fled from those kinds of governments. covid-19 is important. the biden campaign has to bet on that. but i don't think they can afford to bet exclusively on that. they do have to play some defense because the trump campaign is trying to scare some of those swing voters, hispanic and white, back towards the president by saying joe biden is going to promote lawlessness, is going to promote socialism, is going to put bernie sanders and aoc policies at the forefront. so i do think they need to diversify a little more. >> marc, you're an outdoors guy, a south florida guy. are we going to politicize

voting? >> of course. we're going to politicize everything. that was partly just born of the fact that it was right at the height of the covid crisis and trump supporters couldn't go out. they couldn't go to rallies and voice their support. they started doing that. but, heck, there is almost a connection with, you know, communist cube athe way everything became political. now we're seeing that in our own politics like food, boating, i imagine pogo sticks if people still jump on those are going to become political statements as well. who knows. tlfrks y >> there you go. we've got some breaking news on the other side of the country in california where firefighters are struggling to contain blazes all across the state. with strong winds expected in the coming days, nearly the entire state remains under a red flag watch or warning.

this is the national weather service's most serious fire alert that they can have. and all of that is through tomorrow. 13 people were able to be rescued from one of the fires burning in the sierra national forest, but dozens of others remain trapped. heavy smoke made it difficult for rescue teams to reach people at what is known as creek fire. flames have already leveled more than two dozen homes in big creek. at least one person has died in the fire that's burned more than 135,000 acres since friday. a second massive fire continues to burn in eldorado ranch park 80 miles east of los angeles. it's burned more than 10,000 acres, more than 20,000 people have been forced to evacuate. firefighters are battling nearly 1,000 fires in california since the middle of lat month. a record 2 million acres have already burned this year. we do this every year. we talk about the record-breaking wildfires. extreme weather is having an impact. coming up -- could president trump be done in by distractions? once again, once-trusted members of the president's inner circle are getting under his skin.

former white house communications director anthony scaramucci will be here to talk about it. plus, big pharma makes a big pledge concerning covid-19 vaccine. stay with us. ♪ come on in, we're open. ♪ all we do is hand you the bag. simple. done. we adapt and we change. you know, you just figure it out. we've just been finding a way to keep on pushing. ♪ that helps you master your backhand... ...then you should be able to get a bank account that helps you master your budget. virtual wallet® for digital banking from pnc. it's time to get more from your bank.

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welcome back. president trump spent part of his weekend pushing back on twitter at a press conference and through his spokespeople on the damning report by "the atlantic" that he called soldiers who died in battle losers and suckers. key details of the story appear to have confirmed by multiple news outlets. the author of the piece expects there's more to come which means president trump will continue to be distracted by this story as well as perhaps this one. former trump fixer michael cohen's new book, which the white house denounced as fan fiction. here's a part of what cohen said in an exclusive interview with lester holt. >> i describe mr. trump as a cult leader. and i was in this cult. and i -- while i was in the

cult, i was really refusing to acknowledge that the actions that i was performing for my boss were morally wrong. >> joining me is someone with insight into how the president thinks. former white house communications director anthony scaramucci. it was a tweet of yours that got me thinking about this larger concept that i think this entire sort of -- this part of this campaign against trump is having an impact. you said, hey, there's more to come. i think it was something like that that you tweeted. my apologies -- >> my surprises this week. you know, michael is going to be delivering more. rachel maddow tonight. and then you -- >> the grievances -- >> -- coming from the american military. >> and i want to get at this. this is all coming from people who at one time were close to the president, like yourself, who have decided this is the best way to sound the alarm. what i find interesting is how the president chases every one of these cars.

>> well, he has to because if he doesn't chase every one of these cars and discredit these people and use his bully pulpit to do that, then he's going to have this onslaught. remember, chuck, the president has to do two things. discredit every person that's saying this about him, and then he also has to strike fear in the people that are still in the administration that know how dangerous he is. and they are fearful of coming out the way people like miles taylor, myself or michael cohen is speaking out. so it's a combination of deterrence and intimidation. he's been doing it for 40 or 50 years. some of us don't care about it but some are very afraid of him. when you're getting tweeted at by the president of the united states the first time you go white as a ghost. the second time you sort of enjoy it. it's a weird process, chuck. you've had it happen to you. i've had it happen to me. >> well, no, it certainly made it, i think, much more difficult

to have more candid public conversations. i think people are afraid of saying anything about the president sometimes for fear of his -- him and his twitter army. i'm curious, are you at all concerned that there will be a pile-on aspect of this and that somehow he's able to successfully turn this into a victimization campaign against him? >> well, that's, obviously, what he's going to try to do. look at this. it's a manipulated hit job on me. i think very differently. i think when we get into october and some of us will be campaigning in places like michigan and pennsylvania and up in wisconsin, just to simply explain to people the surgeon generally warning label, what he's actually really like. his lack of managerial skills, his impetiosity. his hatred of the american military which is full-on display now. they're fighting very, very

sportsfully to rebut that because they know how damaging that is. and they have all heard him say. chuck, i was on a campaign plane with him and mentioned to him i went to afghanistan and iraq on troop support missions. and he looked at me like i was crazy. why would i do that? of course it took him a long time to get himself out to those places as well. so, listen, there's going to be an onslaught. we owe it to the american people to tell them the truth, and then the american people have to make a decision if they want four more years of this sort of nonsense or do they want to clean this up and then we can begin the process of rebuilding the republican party. >> one of the things -- you tweeted last week that when the president refused to answer the question about whether he asked john kelly himself to personally refute "the atlantic" story, you seemed to say you said could there be any more proof from trump himself about how true this story is based on his refusal to answer that question.

>> 100%. and jeff asked the right questions. general kelly was with you at robert kelly's gravesite, with you in france. why don't you have him release a statement and have him say what he saw and thought and what he heard. of course the president is not going to do that because the president knows the absolute truth of what's going on. he knows the truth of what he said. he's talked to all of us in that way. if you really think he had bone spurs during the vietnam war, then you're part of the cult basically. of course he didn't have those. so he'll never bring that up with john kelly. i know that, but i'll tell you right now, if he does and that gives general kelly the license to release his statement, i think it's a knockout punch, frankly. but there will be other knockout punches between here and the election, chuck. people need to know what he's really like, and listen, i mean, at the end of the day this isn't just about the battle of ideas.

this is a systemic threat to the institutions of our democracy and we've got to speak up about it. >> what would you say to folks who say, you know what? i don't know if i'm going to trust everything michael cohen says. he's been convicted of lying to congress, and he seemed to be a part of this until he wasn't and maybe he's -- maybe he's just angry he didn't get a job he wanted in the white house. what would you tell people of why they should take michael cohen's allegations seriously? >> well, because i think michael cohen has been through the ringer and michael cohen has made a fortified, frankly, courageous decision to speak out. i think at this point, just think about the potential damage to him, the threat to him and his family, what happened with him and the justice department in terms of putting them back in jail. i think it's a very courageous act on his part, and i would look at it that way as opposed to anything else. >> very quickly, since you used

to be a guy that -- you're still a guy that many political committees ask to write big, fat checks to. donald trump running low on campaign cash. he's supposedly thinking about putting his own money in. a lot of skepticism by many of us that he'd actually write his own check. you know this as a donor. how harder is it for you to write a check to somebody's campaign committee if you know they're as wealthy as you are? >> well, listen, i made that case for him in 2016. i think the real question, though, is, what happened to the $200 million-plus who went into the llc. i'm asking ronna romney mcdaniel where is the money? it's sort of a joke at this point. we know they're grifting off the campaign. the president will never write a personal check into that campaign, and we know that they spend gajillions of dollars in his hotels to fortify him. it's a sickening thing, chuck.

i don't like it at all. i haven't written a lot of checks since 2016 as a result of this. they have really exposed the dark side of this sort of fundraising. >> yeah, you bring up a good point on all the trump properties that seem to be profiting off of the campaign and the republican party as a whole. anthony scaramucci, it's always good to get your perspective. >> good to be here. a few quick programming notes. lester holt's interview airs tonight on "nbc nightly news" at 6:30 on nbc. then rachel maddow speaks live with cohen here on msnbc at 9:00 p.m. so there is your michael cohen tv lgss for the evening. we'll be right back with new developments on a coronavirus relief bill on capitol hill. we're all finding ways to keep moving.

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- we've both been taking prevagen for a little more than 11 years now. after about 30 days of taking it, we noticed clarity that we didn't notice before. - it's still helping me. i still notice a difference. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. welcome back. the senate is back on capitol hill today for the first time in weeks. while there are some new signs of motion on a coronavirus relief bill today, there are no new signs of actual movement. mitch mcconnell plans to introduce a new proposal today but it's unluikely they can get 60 votes let alone any republicans. they have insisted on a larger package. meanwhile, the white house has indicated it will go up to $1.5 trillion. so they are getting closer to $2.2 trillion. let's check in with leigh ann caldwell on capitol hill this afternoon. leigh ann, i thought that was

perhaps the most interesting development of the day, which was this casual moving up of the floor by the white house to $1.5 trillion which i assume totally squeezes mitch mcconnell. >> yeah, exactly, chuck. so mitch mcconnell is releasing a bill. he just actually did it about two minutes ago. and it's smaller than the trillion-dollar bill he released in july because he's trying to get his republican members on board. the ones that are very concerned about spending any more money on this covid relief. it's smaller than a trillion dollars. we're still going through the fine print. it, of course, includes mcconnell's biggest priority which is liability protection. it also includes unemployment insurance and a $300 federal benefit, which is the same as the president's executive order. it also includes money for schools and money for covid testing as well. but speaker pelosi and democratic leader schumer have

immediately dismissed this proposal. we caught up with pelosi in the last hour and here's what she said about it. take a listen. >> republicans' skinny bill is less than a skinny bill. it's an emaciated bill. it falls short of meeting the needs of the american people when we talk about putting money in their pockets, when we talk about feeding the food insecure people in our country, preventing evictions for those who become homeless. completely ignores what we need to do in a very substantial way. >> so what pelosi and schumer and the white house are doing is what -- which is nothing at this point because they can't even agree to come back to the table, that's what really matters. what mcconnell is doing on this hand, on the other hand, is he is putting up a vote this week for two reasons. remember, you know full well, chuck, it's political season. he wants to give cover to his

vulnerable republican senators who are up for re-election who are campaigning on the first c.a.r.e.s. act which is an extremely popular piece of legislation. and who are also campaigning that they want more to be done. he's also trying to make it difficult to dare democrats to vote against this because there are a couple democrats who are in tough races. we expect perhaps alabama senator doug jones to vote with the republicans on this, but the reality is the map is in the democrats' favor, and mcconnell is looking at the politics of this. and he wants his members to show that they're doing something, chuck. >> it is amazing. there is all this motion but no movement at all, and it's been now what feels like a month. leigh ann caldwell, thank you. we'll have much more on the pandemic next including a new study on just how many cases nationwide can be traced to a single biker rally in south dakota. it could be now the biggest

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or call during business hours. welcome back. as experts warn of a possible surge in cases after the labor day holiday, total number of coronavirus cases in the united states has now surpassed 6.3 million. we have a death toll of more than 190,000 people. here are a few more facts you need to know today. a paper by researchers at san diego state university says that more than 250,000 cases could be linked to the sturgis motorcycle rally last month. that's nearly 20% of the country's total cases from august 2nd to september 2nd. if proven true, it would be the biggest superspreader event yet, topping mardi gras. tens of thousands of new york city public school teachers are headed back to school in person today. hours before reporting back to classrooms the city took ten buildings out of commission over ventilation concerns. those teachers have been told to

keep working remotely for now. and a major announcement, the ceos of nine companies developing vaccines signed a pledge that any vaccine will be test forward safety before approved. they worry the vaccine will be addressed too early for political reasons. dr. gupta, when i hear the president say these blanket statements sometimes, i can always sit there and say, well, all right, you know, there's different definitions of a vaccine ready by the end of october. you can finish or be in the midst of finishing a trial. you can be in the midst of doing a secondary level of research. what is your definition of when a vaccine is ready to go, and what does that look like? >> chuck, good to see you and good afternoon. my definition of a vaccine

that's ready for primetime is a vaccine that's safe and effe effective and that the american people can trust. we've been battling for decades this anti-vax movement. people distrusting a flu vaccine that largely season over season is effective. and so what i do is effective and safe and something we can trust as the american people more broadly, that's the type of vaccine we need. we won't have that data before election day. there's no way that that is possible. >> let's talk about the here and now. we're two weeks into what appears to be our own sort of different type of superspreader event. that's the opening of schools. and now you have labor day weekend on top of that. are we -- it feels as if, despite all the warnings, that we have heavy circulation in college campuses to various degrees and labor day weekend, it does seem as if fatigue set in, understandable, perhaps.

but the reality is you expect a bad september and october now? >> unfortunately, i do, chuck, and most of us in public health expect the same thing because we've been having this conversation since march. schools and there was just a report out that children actually still, up to 6 years old, it's hard to get a test. parents are struggling to get a test for their children about to go to school. school districts still can't afford any type of testing much less rapid testing. all this rhetoric and discussion, the reality is that school districts across the country can't afford even biweekly testing, even the type of spit saliva testing you think would be cheap per test. the cost of that is maybe $3. we still can't afford that. we still can't scale that. i'm really glad you mentioned the ventalation piece in what's happening in new york city. i'm sitting here in ohio at the moment. columbus school district, teachers in this columbus school district have recently voiced this at the board of ed meeting

on opening up. we have no plan. we have no ppe to keep -- to deal with the fact that most classrooms are poorly ventilated. no hvac systems. there's not windows anywhere. a lot of cases, they're basement classrooms. how do we talk about ppe in a way that's evidence-based that are going to protect teachers and students? we don't have a solution right now. and that's the big issue, ventilation. >> did we make a mistake with college campuses, and is this something -- is it just because every college campus went on their own and different ones thought they could do different things but it does seem as if, in hindsight, not having some sort of national direction on this and, look, we can -- i don't want to belabor the lack of a national response but is that fundamentally why we ended up with a thousand different procedures? >> well, what i'll say to that, chuck, is look at the example of duke. they have less than 1% test positivity rate. every student needs to comply

with the test or their dorm card gets inactivated. your point about multiple different approaches. university of iowa still makes it voluntary and you have to demonstrate symptoms to be compelled to get a test. it doesn't make any sense. that's why they are a hot zone in iowa for covid-19. and that's why the town is being infected as well and that's causing all types of problems. we need a unified approach but we need to mandate students get tested if they'll come back to campus and that lack of unified messaging is a problem. >> we've been polling every week. we basically get a sense of where do people want to see the priorities on sort of the economic impact of the pandemic or the health impact of the pandemic. we've been seeing sort of a slow erosion from people prioritizing health over the economy. you're starting to see growing number of people wanting to see reopening the economy prioritized by government

leaders. we're not out of this pandemic, and yet that's where the public is. that's a tough place for public health officials like yourself when you're having to tell people to do things they don't want to do. >> well, this is the challenge, chuck, with forecasting where we're headed. and people constantly saying doom and gloom and potentially 400,000 deaths by the end of december, per ihme's forecast. there's some truth to every model. it's always hard to forecast as you know. we've been looking at these m d models since march. sometimes they're right. sometimes they're wrong. covid-19 likes drier climates. we're going to see increased transmission. we'll have to contend with flu because schools are reopening. and here's the fact. we've talked about masking. what about high quality masking? you may have seen that study out of china. there's more airborne transmission than we previously characterized. this could be a big problem. >> and people need to stop using

the neck mask because that's clearly one that has turned out to be not very effective in particular on that front. dr. vin gupta, thank you for coming on and sharing your expertise with us. >> thank you, chuck. up next -- new new revelati about georgia rents voting twice in that state's primary less than a week after president trump encouraged his voters to do just that. we'll be right back. voters to do just atth we'll be right back. introducing the future of fitness. it's every class you can imagine, live. welcome back

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welcome back. georgia's secretary of state announced this morning 1,000 voters voted twice in the state's primary. 1,000 first kasten an absentee ballot, then showing up in person to vote again. this was apparently out of the 135,000 people that attempted to do this, 1,000 may have done this. this after president trump urges supporters to do just that, vote by mail, then to seemingly test the election system by voting at the polls as well. he says those who were caught will be prosecuted. let's check in with blayne alexander. she's got the latest out of the georgia, based in georgia right now. blayne, i'm trying to figure out, are they showing their system is basically working that 1,000 out of 135,000 that attempted successfully voted twice? or they have a problem and they need to fix this?

>> reporter: well, chuck, he maintained in a news conference this morning there's no problem with the system. essential that they're not able to catch every person who may cast a ballot and come in and try to cast it in person. this was something he said in a news conference this morning, between the june primary and the august runoff, his office found there were cases of 1,000 people across georgia who essential double-voted. throughout the news conference he made the assertion that the voters did so benchally that think knew what they were doing, they'll be prosecuted, but when pressed in the news conference on what evidence he had this was done intentionally, he couldn't provide any evidence other than pointing to one person who said they were bragging they had voted twice. so there's a lot of questions,

and people will be looking to see what the breakdown of this is as well, in terms of where these actual 1,000 votes came from. but i did reach out to georgia's democratic party. of course, this is republican secretary of state here in georgia. you can imagine the democratic party had a strong response. the spokesperson told me voters fraud continues to be extremely rare here in georgia. any implication otherwise undermines our election. so very strong response there. i suspect a lot of people will be looking to get more details on the thousand votes in the days to come. >> you have preanswered just about every one of my questions. is there a pattern? and we know none of this yet. i guess we're also going to wait to see if they ask -- let me ask you this, blayne, which authority would prosecutor this voters fraud? the feds or the state?

>> reporter: he said he's going to be turning this over to the state's attorney general. he said he'll be working with local district attorneys to prosecutor. >> all right. so the state level and that was a question i had as well. blayne, thank you. thank you all for being with us this hour. we'll be back tomorrow. katy tur continuing right after this break. continuing right af this break an army family who is always at the ready. so when they got a little surprise... two!? ...they didn't panic. they got a bigger car for their soon-to-be-bigger family. after shopping around for insurance, they called usaa - who helped find the right coverage for them and even some much-needed savings. that was the easy part. usaa insurance is made the way liz and mike need it- easy.

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good afternoon. i'm katy tur. with just 56 days remaining until the election, president trump is again on the campaign trail. he's going to be in florida in the next hour, as fresh polling out this afternoon shows him deadlocked with joe biden i