>> so your plea allows you to take the position you've taken all these years, michael. >> exactly. >> and yet, on the ledgers of the criminal justice system, you're -- >> guilty of manslaughter. >> reporter: it's an ending that neither side had hoped for, a family saga with so much love ♪ this sunday the president and the pandemic. >> i didn't lie. >> bob woodward reveals president trump knew how deadly the coronavirus was. >> what i said is we have to be calm. we can't be panicked. >> at the same time he was saying this. >> now you treat this like the flu. >> one day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. >> mr. trump on the defensive. >> they wanted me to come out and scream, people are dying, we're dying. >> and under attack. >> he lied to the american people. >> even hearing from his own experts. >> when you downplay something

that is really a threat. that's not a good thing. >> my guest this morning, republican national chairwoman donna mcdaniel and michael osterholm. infectious disease expert. plus the man who led the fbi's russia investigation until he was taken off the case because of his anti-trump texts. >> president trump's vulnerabilities are exponentially greater than any president in modern history. >> peter strzok suspected then and still believes president trump is compromised by russia. and he joins me this morning. also, epic wildfires. >> there is no down time because mother nature doesn't give us that. >> a deadly wave of fires burning in california, oregon, and washington state. >> everything is a total loss. >> millions of acres burned, thousands evacuated, and no end in sight. we'll have the latest from the scene of this latest climate disaster. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. editor-in-chief of "the atlantic," jeffrey goldberg. republican strategist al cardenas.

welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. well, good sunday morning, and we're going to get to all of the political new this week, and, boy, is there a lot of it, and we're going to get to it in just a moment. but we're going to begin with the epic wildfires out west. fires burning in california, oregon and washington state have now consumed some 4.7 million acres this year alone. at least 33 people have been killed throughout the pacific region, and with many people missing, officials fear the toll will go much higher. whole towns have been wiped out by these fires, which have consumed areas the size of some of our smaller states. and the tragedy has renewed warnings that unless we take serious steps to control climate change, and now, scenes like these will become more and more common. perhaps maybe it is too late that this is the new normal. nbc news' aaron mclaughlan.

oroville, california. aaron, set the scene and is there any hope that the weather changes will help firefighters combat these flames? >> hey, chuck. well, the president is expected to visit california tomorrow. he will meet with fire officials and scenes of utter devastation await him, as you can see. acre after acre of scorched landscape, thousands of homes destroyed, lives lost or forever changed. we were speaking with a single mother of five from oregon. she lost her home and now staying with her boys in a motel. she said at least they have each other. at least they made it out alive because so many haven't. now, fire officials say conditions have improved over the past few days, creating a window of opportunity for firefighters, but winds are

expected tonight, and the situation could change very quickly, chuck. >> erin, what about the air quality? we've seen reports that even sporting events, the nfl's got a couple of games in the state of california. is the air -- we know the air quality is bad. is it so bad that people are going to be told to stay indoors? >> reporter: well, you know, chuck, nfl had been looking at possibly canceling the san francisco 49ers game scheduled for today here in california, but that game is going ahead. they are monitoring the situation very carefully, considering the california governor gavin newsom was here earlier this week. he said this air is the equivalent to smoking 20 packs of cigarettes. >> unbelievable. erin mclaughlin on the ground in northern california. stay safe yourself and be careful breathing the air as well. if you want to help the victims of the western fires, here are

some of the organizations that we believe are doing some good work, and if you don't have that handy go, to meetthepress.com and we'll also tweet that out. presidential politics. at the very moment president trump hoped to go on offense against joe biden, he found himself playing defense again. there was the continuing fallout from "the atlantic" magazine story in which he was reported to have called americans who died in war losers and suckers. bigger still was bob woodward's book "rage" and the audiotapes that went with it. we learned that mr. trump knew in january how deadly the coronavirus was, that it was airborne, knew it was far worse than the flu. but chose to mislead the public to avoid panic, so the president claims. not surprisingly, mr. biden attacked mr. trump for the life and death of the american people and conservatives and not many elected ones defend the president saying you don't yell fire in a crowded movie theater. it's true, but you do if the theater is actually on fire. will these latest revelations have any impact on mr. trump's loyal followers?

probably not. it's possible the virus is already baked into the polls. but every day spent explaining his silence on the coronavirus is another lost opportunity, another day off the calendar when mr. trump could be going after biden instead of defending himself. >> this whack job that wrote the book, he said, well, trump knew a little bit. they wanted me to come out and scream, people are dying, we're dying! we have to be calm. >> president trump doing damage control, defending his choice to mislead the public and knowingly play down the coronavirus for months, at the same time acknowledging its seriousness to bob woodward in private. >> you just breathe the air, that's how it's passed. it's also more deadly than -- you know, even than your strenuous flus. this is deadly stuff. >> publicly -- >> we're finding very little problem. very little problem. now, you treat this like a flu. >> to woodward. >> it's turning out not just all people bob, just today and

yesterday some startling facts came out, it's not just older people. >> yeah. exactly. >> plenty of young people. >> exactly. >> but publicly -- >> young people are almost immune to this disease. the younger the better. >> the president admitted to woodward he intentionally minimized the danger. >> the vast majority of americans, the risk is very, very low. >>ays play it down. i still like playing it down. >> yes, sir. >> because i don't want to create a panic. >> why did you lie to the american people and why should we trust what you have to say now? >> such a terrible question. and the phraseology. i didn't lie. what i said is we have to be calm. we can't be panicked. >> but as he cautions against panic, this week the president took to twitter with scare tactics that have animated his campaign. if i don't win, america's suburbs will be overrun with low-income projects, anarchists, agitators, looters, no city or town or suburb will be safe. if biden gets in, this violence is coming to the suburbs and

fast. and as the president strikes on the optimistic tone of the virus -- >> we're rounding the turn, and it's happening. it's happening. you see. >> the nation's top infectious disease experts is pushing back. >> i'm sorry, but i have to disagree with that because if you look at the thing that you just mentioned and the statistics, andrea, they are disturbing. we are plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day, and the deaths are around 1,000. >> dr. anthony fauci says the united states may not get back to normal until the end of 2021. >> there were times when i was out there telling the american public how difficult this is, how we're having a really serious problem, you know, and the president was saying it's something that's going to disappear. which obviously is not the case. when you downplay something that is really a threat, that's not a good thing. >> joining me now is the chair of the republican party, rona mcdaniel. madam chairwoman, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me.

great to be with you, chuck. >> i want to start with the bob woodward tapes and let me play one excerpt of what the president said and ask you about it on the other side. here it is. >> i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down. >> yes, sir. >> because i don't want to create a panic. >> if the president had a history of playing down things, that might be believable, but considering what he did with immigration and the caravans and what he does now about violence in the cities, this isn't a president who shies away from trying to incite panic or trying to fire folks up. this doesn't seem to match that. it looks to a lot of people as if the president didn't want to panic people because he's worried the virus hurts him politically. why shouldn't folks view this comment through that lens? >> i disagree that the president took political calculations into a global pandemic like we've never seen before that has decimated, not just our country, but countries across the world. the president was calm and steady and methodical.

he canceled travel from china on january 31st. he created the coronavirus task force on february 9th. he created a plan to get the private sector engaged to ramp up ppe, to get ventilators in place, to ramp up testing. these are things you want from the president. think about if he would have said, this is awful, there would have been a run on the banks and hospitals and grocery stores. as it was, it was already hard to get some of the things we needed in the grocery stores. so the president was calm and steady in a time of unrest and uncertainty. and i think history will look back on him well as to how he handled this pandemic. >> the president also fought a mask mandate, sort of was discouraging people to wear masks. he rushed and encouraged governors to open up states too quickly, causing the second rise of this. so everything you just said there, that was a few actions,

but they've not been consistent. i mean, if we'd had the president endorsing wearing masks earlier, there's plenty of scientific studies that would have saved lives. so the president -- it's hard to accept what you just said considering how hard he fought mask wearing. >> well, i think 20/20 vision in h1n1 site, you know, is always perfect, right? but as a new pandemic hit our stores, as a new virus came, we were all being told by dr. fauci, by the scientists, you shouldn't wear masks. i know i went and donated masks to local hospitals, some n95 masks at my hospital that i had at my home. we were all being told that. then the science came out and said, yes, we should be wearing masks. i remember being on airplanes and people weren't sure if we should or shouldn't, because it's a new virus like we've never seen before. to say that he should have known then what we know now isn't really fair. so as the science has come forward, the president has said we should wear masks, we should

do the things that -- >> no, he hasn't. wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute -- >> we can do that and balance -- >> madam chair, he didn't say that. >> -- and open our economy. he absolutely said that. >> no. look, he's never encouraged mask wearing. he waited months to encourage mask wearing and he defied mask wearing. and finally he did a tweet about wearing a mask. he refused to wear it in public, and now you have a political divide in this country. do you not see the direct correlation between the president not encouraging mask wearing and the fact that fewer republicans wear masks than independents or democrats? >> i don't think this is politically dividing at all. i wear a mask, my kids wear masks, my husband wears a mask. this isn't a republican or democrat thing. >> i'm talking about the president. >> individual freedom -- the president wears masks too. the president has worn this, he has said this. the reality is it's sad that it's become political. this is a president who is willing to work with every

governor. democrat or republican. this is an administration that has provided everything the states have needed. states are navigating this differently. the governors have autonomy over their states, but the president has provided the resources and the leadership necessary to lead us through a very difficult time and a virus that none of us could have predicted or been prepared for at the level that this virus has shown to be so strong and virulent in our country and across the world. >> right, but how do you account for the fact that it's the united states of america that accounts for 25% of the world's deaths? >> well, i think we do have more testing and i do think we have had hot spots in new york where nursing homes were getting patients put back in who were sick. there were missteps made by the governor there. the same thing happened in michigan. i'd like to see transparency on that. but we are seeing the mortality rates going down. we have passed 100 million tests. we just bought 150 million rapid tests from abbott labs that will change the way we can handle this pandemic and help us get back to work and get our economy

going. so the president with what he did with the private sector very quickly made sure that nobody went without a ventilator who needed one, got the ppe at the level that it needed to be, made sure that the icu beds weren't filled up, and that the hospitals were able to deal with the capacity. i feel like we are in the right space and moving forward with this vaccine. and, of course, we all need to remember, this is a virus like we've never seen before and the president has led us through uncertain times with the democrat party who is politicizing a time of crisis when usually people come together. >> i think there is a lot of people that take issue with most of what you said there, considering how the president continues to try to downplay the severity of the virus. we still have a caseload that is much higher than the western world. i mean, again, you can say all these things. the results speak for themselves. we have -- you compare us to the rest of the western world, and we have failed.

is there any way to look at this and compare to the western world and say that we've done better than other countries? >> i will just tell you right now if democrats were in charge, if joe biden has his way, go look at his statements in january when he said the president was being xenophobic. >> he's not the president. >> hysterical for closing the borders -- >> he's not the president. >> no, no. he was running for president and had the same data and the same information, and while democrats were trying to impeach this president, this president was taking decisive action. so i think it's disgusting to take a crisis in the country and lay it at the feet of the president. and where is the outrage of china? as we hear more and more stories and research that they knew about it earlier and they weren't transparent and the w.h.o. who had one job, chuck, one job to warn the world about a pandemic, and they failed. this is a president saying we're going to hold you accountable and we're not going to give you hundreds of millions of dollars. and this is a president who took decisive action early on that was derided by democrats. so he saved lives with the actions he has taken. and the fact that we've ramped up -- and the fact that we're close to a vaccine is because of this president.

>> you just said that the w.h.o. didn't warn, didn't do enough to warn the world of a pandemic. the president of the united states has admitted that he's purposely downplaying the severity of this virus to not panic the public. >> no, chuck, he's not. >> both statements can't be true. >> he's saying he's trying not to panic -- >> he said that. >> no. he's saying he wasn't going to create a panic. what would it mean if the president came out and said the sky is falling and everybody should be panicked? he presented calm and a steady hand and a plan and that is what a president should do. you know, we just commemorated 9/11 this week, and i watched andy card walk over to george bush and say, the second tower has been hit, america is under attack. george bush didn't stand up and say america's been attacked by terrorists, everyone panic. they created a plan and presented calm and certainty in a difficult time. what's different this time is

democrats are politicizing because we have an election instead saying let's work with you, mr. president, and make sure we're fighting a virus like we've never seen together. >> you keep accusing the democrats of politicizing, there was a report overnight in "politico" that political operatives at hhs are manipulating data and manipulating some of the cdc recommendations before they go public in order to, quote, fit with the president's positions. that is the definition of politicizing the pandemic, is it not? >> we haven't -- i haven't seen that. i don't know anything about that, but i do know nancy pelosi has called it the trump virus. how is that not politicization? i mean, how is that not a disgusting thing, to say that people are being killed by the trump virus? that's disgusting. this is affecting every american, republican and democrat. i have lost friends from this virus. the president has lost friends from this virus. this is personal. so to do that is not in the best interest of the country. we are already divided. usually in crisis we come together.

let's show the best of america. the president's willing to work with everyone. why aren't democrats passing a fourth stimulus bill? why aren't they helping small businesses? why aren't they working with this president? >> ronna mcdaniel, chair of the rnc, i appreciate you taking a few minutes and spending some time and sharing your perspective. >> thanks for having me. >> joining me now is dr. michael osterholm, the director of the center for infectious disease research and policy at the university of minnesota. dr. osterholm, welcome back to "meet the press." >> good morning, chuck. >> let me start with the explanation you heard there, you heard from the president and the woodward tapes. this feels like -- this looks like revisionist history to a lot of us. the president saying he intentionally played this down. was that a mistake? >> well, let me just say at the outset here. i'm going to give you the balls and strikes analysis of what

happened over the past eight months. number one is the fact that we know in public health, as well as just in general response to crisis, telling the truth never causes panic. if you just tell people the truth, they will respond, and they will trust you to continue to tell them the truth. the great leaders of the world have done that. number two is the fact that we do have to separate out the early days of what happened versus what happened after those early days. on january 20th, i issued a statement saying that, in fact, this would cause a pandemic, that was widely circulated. i got a lot of negative feedback from democrats and republicans from my own colleagues saying that we were scaring the hell out of people, don't do that, okay? so i think those early days, many people were confused. but by march, we then begin to know what was happening. if you look at the track record from that time on, when it was clear and compelling that we had a major pandemic, that's where i think we have to hold the record to match up with what we were trying to do to prevent this pandemic. you know,ly just say one last point, science has to rue the day here. science is what got us to the moon and allowed us to build

medieval cathedrals, eradicated smallpox, reduced polio. and so i hope that we stick with the science and not with all this rhetoric that we're hearing right now. >> speaking of science, walk us through what we're staring at for the next three to six months. dr. fauci used a phrase we're going to have to hunker down. i guess for you, i'd like for you to give us a definition of what "hunker down" means, and it certainly looks like a new spike is coming. but what you do see? >> yes. looking forward, where we're at right now, i -- tony and i are completely on the same page. number one is we're now leveled off at about 40,000 cases a day. think about that. that's 8,000 more when the house was on fire back in march. and we will, with the colleges and universities opening w the spillover that's occurring, and with people experiencing

even more pandemic fatigue and wanting to be an indoor airspace with other people as we get into the fall, we'll see these numbers grow substantially. the vaccine does become available, it won't be in any meaningful way until the beginning of next year, and it will take us months to vaccinate the population of just this country. and so i agree. we really have another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead of us, and that's what i'm concerned about today. i don't go back and, you know, replay february and march. i play right now, what is our national plan? we don't have one. we have 50 state plans that in many cases are so different, so dy divided, and based on not necessarily good science, so, yeah, we've got a long road ahead. >> dr. michael osterholm, it's always the straight talk from you, the bluntness and the reality, and it's why you're on this program as often as we invite you. sir, thank you for your expertise. >> thank you. thanks, chuck. when we come back, the man who led the fbi's russia investigation and remains convinced that the president of the united states has been compromised by the russians. peter strzok joins me next. welcome back. is

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welcome back. this pa welcome back.st this past week we heard in microsoft that hackers from iran, china and especially russia have escalated their attacks on our election system. and there was president trump's personal lawyer rudy giuliani who found himself playing down his contacts with the ukrainian lawmaker who was said to be a russian agent and the united states government ended up sanctioning. one person very familiar with russian election shenanigans is counterintelligence officer petter strzok. he was in charge there until he was removed over personal anti-trump texts he sent to a colleague with whom he was have an affair. strzok has just written a book "compromised: counterintelligence and the threat of donald j. trump." he's joining me now. mr. strzok, welcome to "meet the press" and let me just start with your theory of the case of why you believe president trump is compromised. >> good morning, chuck, it's great to be here. look, i think it is clear. i believed at the time in 2016 and i continue to believe that

donald trump is compromised by the russians. and when i say that, i mean that they hold leverage over him that makes him incapable of placing the national interest and national security ahead of his own. that takes a variety of forms. i worked counter intelligence for over 20 years. i recruited spies during that time. i defended against those people who were being recruited in our government. one of the largest ways that foreign governments gained leverage, certainly through the case of the president, is financial entanglements. if you take a look at the trump financial enterprise, particularly its relationship with russia, with russian monies, potentially those related to organized crime and other elements, that those interactions have placed him in a position where the russians have leverage over him and are able to influence his actions. >> is your job -- was your job then to figure out if the russians were using that leverage or simply to identify the leverage they could have? >> both. a couple of things i have to point out. when we opened the cases commonly known as crossfire hurricane in the summer and fall of 2016, those were not looking at the president.

they were not looking at his campaign. they were looking at a very discrete set of individuals based on an allegation we had received that russia had offered to coordinate the release of information to help the trump campaign. when we later then, after director comey was fired, opened the case on the president himself, that was a very broad investigation. on the one hand, it incorporated a question of whether or not the president had committed obstruction, and it also had a counterintelligence element to that and that's very broad in nature. it's looking first and foremost what the russians are trying to achieve and the way they're doing it. but that is very broad and it certainly would include looking at the president's financial entanglements. >> one of the -- there's been multiple explanations about the president's behavior with russia. one is from him, he wants to get along with them better. a second simply is, hey, people are conflating, just because he has some views of the world that are similar to putin, people

conflate that. and the other argument is hey, this administration has been tougher on russia. they'll cite things like sending lethal defensive aid to ukraine, taking income syria, so on. did any of that give you pause during this opening of this investigation? >> sure, of course, it did. look, the president is in charge of united states foreign policy. he sets the foreign policy agenda of the united states. he had campaigned on wanting to bring the u.s. and russia closer together. that's not the issue. the issue is all the things he left unsaid or outright lied about that the russians knew. when he does those things, when he says things like he has no financial relationship or dealings with russia, at the same moment his attorney is dealing, trying to make a deal for a trump tower in moscow, that lie is known to vladimir putin. trump obviously knows he didn't tell the truth, so things like that, and it's not the overt actions toward warming a relationship with russia, it's the lies that time and time again he tells, that russia also

knows that they can use over leverage with him. so he's certainly considered, deeply, argument after argument and soul searching about whether or not we're doing the right thing, but conclusively the concerns we had about russia were merited and it was the appropriate thing to do to look into them. >> i'm curious, if you were still in your job today and you -- i'm going to issue two sets of facts. four years ago the president's personal lawyer was working with the russians, it turned out in secret on trump tower moscow. four years later, the president's personal lawyer -- a different individual, rudy giuliani -- he's been working with folks in ukraine, trying to drum up information that might harm joe biden. turns out he ends up working with a known russian operative that ends up being sanctioned by the u.s. government. what do those two facts tell me about the president? >> it tells me he is surrounded by people who have a pervasive pattern of contact with the russians. not only contact, but contact that they're hiding. broaden it. look at 2016. his campaign manager, who pled guilty and was dealing with people affiliated with russian intelligence services. one of his foreign policy visors who didn't tell the truth to me and pled guilty twice about not telling the truth about his

contact with the russians. now obviously with rudy giuliani, dealing with something the department of treasury recently said had been the agent of the government of russia and their intelligence services for over ten years. look at that pervasive pattern of contact. it is not without exaggeration that there is no president in modern history who has the same broad and deep connections to any foreign intel service and let alone a hostile government like russia. >> when you read the mueller report did you conclude no collusion? >> absolutely not. i concluded the opposite. >> and what yeah. >> my sense was when you look at it, mueller was focusing on violations of the law and the standard to be able to establish in a courtroom that something occurred is very, very different

from the standard that a counterintelligence expert and intelligence person would look at and judge whether or not that cause them concern. when i read the mueller report, certainly when i looked at the recent bipartisan senate intel committee report, almost 1,000 pages, looking at all these areas of intelligence connections between trump and his administration and his campaign in russia? that's extraordinarily concerning from a counterintelligence perspective. because a relationship is a completely different from proving something in a court of law. >> given what happened to you in this episode, do you look at what happened and say to yourself, i put myself in a compromising position and i shouldn't have done that and that's on me, or do you believe you were unfairly singled out? >> chuck, i understand that, you know, people would ask that question. i certainly regret sending the text messages that were absolutely weaponized and used to bludgeon the work of the fbi the work of the special counsel. i'll always regret that. but at the same time, the way that those were weaponized is

unprecedented, and it is certainly part of a pattern of activity where this administration has gone to lengths that no other administration has ever done. that anybody who care speak the truth or speak out, whether it is in the impeachment hearings with regard to ukraine, the whistle-blower, anybody in any number of federal government agencies. if somebody dares speak the truth about this administration, this administration has shown no boundaries in going after people in ways that, frankly, is shocking, are shocking and are inappropriate. >> and are you still confident the fbi is immune to this, that you're not used as this -- that basically, okay, we sent the message, back off? >> i think the women and men that i know in the fbi, they are brave and they're fearless, and they're dedicated to doing the job and getting to the bottom of whatever lies in front of them. i can't help, though, that under an attorney general that is sitting there day after day saying there was no basis to launch these investigations in 2016, which is clearly

demonstrably ludicrous, there's no way that doesn't have a chilling effect on not only the fbi, but all the branches and departments of the executive branch of the government. i think the fbi, the people they that i know and knew, are holding. i am deeply concerned what another four years of president trump will do to destroy the traditional independence and objectivity of our government. >> peter strzok, i have to admit i have a ton more questions. thankfully i have a podcast and i plan on inviting you on to get lengthier. the book is "compromised." by the way, it was an easy read as well. >> good. >> kudos to your writing abilities. congratulations on the book, and thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective. >> thanks so much for having me. >> you've got it. when we come back the fallout from president trump's admission that he kept the public in the dark about the coronavirus. the panel is next. we miss you.

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welcome back. the panel is joining welcome back. the panel is joining us. jeffrey goldberg, editor in chief of "the atlantic" magazine which is out with its own new book this week, "the american crisis." nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. republican strategist, al cardenas. jeffrey goldberg, i don't want to demoralize you about "the atlantic" that's being launched, but i want to put up

the trump book club of this last ten days that we've seen a deluge of what i would call new information about the president or perhaps information people feel the need that needed to get out before the election. i actually, jeffrey, think that your reporting from last week about what the president had said about those that served in the military fits into this. the woodward book and the woodward tapes fits into this. is that what we're watching going right now? >> yeah. i mean, i think you're seeing more and more information come out about trump and his views. what's so interesting about this moment is -- well, there's two things. one is that much of the material that's coming out is being provided by donald trump himself. that's pretty unusual 60 days or so out from an election. his various confessions to bob woodward. and the second thing that's notable about this moment is there's an awful lot of shadow boxing going on by donald trump. he keeps raising old issues, old meaning a week old, a year old, four years old with so few days between now and the election, you'd think he would stop arguing with past slights or past stories that he doesn't like.

but you know, last night he was -- he was arguing with hillary clinton again at a rally. and so it's fascinating to watch how he can't let go of particular issues and he keeps those issues alive in the news cycle. >> well, yeah. jeffrey, you were telling me he has tweeted about "the atlantic" story that you wrote over 60 times since it went public. what happens every time he goes to "the atlantic" website? >> you know, this is an interesting thing. we get more readers to the story every time he talks about it, and so it's -- if i were advising him, and i'm not, but if i were advising him i would say stop drawing more attention to these claims, especially when you're in a very tough race and american people at a particularly dire moment, pandemic, fires, so on, want solutions, want some ideas about where we're going. >> al cardenas, you know, you've

been in campaigns for years, and i've heard from every campaign operative, the only thing you can't buy is time, and this looks like another lost ten days for donald j. trump. >> it is. and every day counts in these races. although, i'll tell you, sadly or tragically, i think lying has become a character defect from the president that's been accepted by many of his supporters. i don't know if 20,000 lies or many more lies being exposed in these books are as serious as they are making a major meaningful impact in the outcome of a race. i think people on his side and the other side have bought into the fact that there's huge character defect on the president of the united states, and for some reason, people are accepting it as a norm. that's a challenge being faced in the election. >> kasie hunt, this is your beat, capitol hill. you deal with this, what al just described. there's a whole bunch of elected

republican republicans. we said some conservatives have been trying to back up the president on the no panic, but we noted not many of them were elected. the leaked republicans are as quiet as they've been, and they're pretty quiet in the trump era. >> they are, chuck, and just when you think that you've gotten to the bottom, the worst possible thing you could throw to a member of congress or republican who has to defend the president under something like this, something else happens. and, you know, i actually asked mitch mcconnell, the republican leader about this this week, and he didn't want to answer the question. he said, that's a question for the white house, i don't have anything to add. he had said at the time that he hadn't seen the woodward book and we had read to him out loud the key portion of it that we are now talking about here today. i do think that there's a sense that this particular episode in woodward's book and also jeffrey's reporting -- it was really an aggressive one-two punch -- but the sense is that this might actually make a difference. i know we've said that over and over again, and it never seems a

make a difference starting with, you know, what happened with john mccain back in 2015, but there are more and more people saying to me privately, this is really, really difficult to grapple with. and one of the pieces of evidence they point to is the fact that the president is out there trying to explain himself. a lot of times with these controversies, he either keeps going and keeps making the same claims or he stops mentioning it eventually. this, he clearly is feeling pressure to try and say, no, i was trying to do the right thing, and i think that's really telling. >> well, it's interesting. we've had a ton of battleground state polls and al we noted all of the different battleground states. just the trump number that i put up here, because i think there's a pattern, al, and i think you'll get it. 41, 42, 42, 42, 43, 44. only in three states, al cardenas, is donald trump at or above his national number from 2016. arizona, north carolina, florida. by the way, he trails in all of these states, but his number

being under 45 in a majority of them, how much of a red flag is that? >> well, that's a huge red flag. frankly, with respect to florida, if the republicans don't win florida the president doesn't win florida, he doesn't win. there isn't a single model out there that shows the president getting to 270 electoral votes without winning the state of florida. and the fact that he's under in florida is quite shocking because historically, if you look at florida, every incumbent except one who won florida the first election wins it the second time. and, you know, the voter registration numbers have narrowed to the republicans' favor in florida and so forth. you take florida and you take the other two states where he's still under, but the other ones where he's at 42%, and the number of undecided voters is so low, that's a real red flag. >> hey, jeffrey goldberg, i wanted you -- your book is one of the things you say in the introduction to this book on the

best of "the atlantic," i think, over the last four years, how maybe you -- frankly, i think you speak for all the media -- we all underestimated how to cover this president, how to cover his mischaracterizations and lies. tell us a little bit more. >> i think we're not -- we weren't, at least, trained for such a novel kind of approach to truth and to populism, and even to these authoritarian impulses that you see. you know, we've spoken about this in the past. he -- you know, somebody who doesn't -- i mean, as al just mentioned, there's 20,000 or more lies documented by "the washington post." usually, until this presidency, when a president is called out for lying, they usually trim their sail as little bit or they apologize or they explain. and what you have here is a new phenomenon for all of us. we're not sure what to do. it's taken us a long time to call a lie a lie. >> as i've said, the only way to understand this is to realize he doesn't have shame about it and

when we lose our ability to shame a politician, we lose a lot of our power, that's for sure. i'm going to pause the conversation there, everybody. when we come back, what the latest polling is telling us about where the race really stands in two key battleground states. now is the time to do money. without the commission fees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood.

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welcome back. "data download" time. as 2016 reminded us, national polls do not tell us as much about who can win the electoral college as battleground state polls do. so let's break down the latest nbc news marist numbers in pennsylvania and florida. first, pennsylvania. mr. trump won the state narrowly in 2016 by less than a percentage point. and in our most recent poll biden is up by 9 percentage points. where that is edge coming from? biden is actually doing worse with non-white voters than clinton did in the 2016 exit polls. but biden has made big gains with white college graduates. clinton and mr. trump were tied with those voters and now it's biden by 25. many of those white college grads live in the philadelphia suburbs. hillary clinton won those four counties by 14 points in 2016. now biden has doubled that edge. he's up in those counties by 28 points in our poll. then there's the most conservative central pennsylvania region of the state. president trump carried that area by a whopping 28 points in 2016.

well, today, against biden, mr. trump's lead in central pennsylvania is down to just 2 in our poll. now let's look at the state of florida. the latest nbc news/marist poll shows the state is looking, as it usually does, a super-tight battleground where the race is currently tied. biden is struggling with florida's hispanic voters than hillary four years ago. biden is doing much better with white voters particularly white college grads. the regional, first, the miami gold coast region. hillary clinton won those counties with the large hispanic population by 27 points in 2016, but biden's lead there is now down to 15 which has allowed mr. trump to move slightly ahead among hispanics statewide in our poll. then there's the area near tampa where there are lots of college graduates. mr. trump won them by 3 points in 2016. today, biden has flipped that area and is holding an eight-point edge. remember, the election is less about the national results than the individual voter pools in

the states and even small moves in national polls can reflect pretty profound differences at the state level. when we come back, the voters joe biden needs to win but hasn't yet won over. a still your best friend. and now your co-pilot. still a father. but now a friend. still an electric car. just more electrifying. still a night out. but everything fits in. still hard work. just a little easier. still a legend. just more legendary. chevrolet. making life's journey, just better.

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get the security, unlimited daa and wifi coverage you need. plus, xfi customers can add xfi complete for $11 a month. click, call or visit a store today. my hands are everything to me. but i was diagnosed with dupuytren's contracture. and it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. thought surgery was my only option. turns out i was wrong. so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. welcome back. al cardenas, florida, florida, florida. that's where i'm going to focus us right now. michael bloomberg, the big headline is this morning out of the "washington post," michael bloomberg is pledging $100 million just to democratic pacs and campaigns that are assisting joe biden there.

we had the numbers from our poll that showed donald trump performing very well with hispanics and biden only holding his own because he's overperforming in the north and with white voters. al, what is the south florida latino problem for joe biden and can it be fixed? >> yeah. i think they're committing political malpractice in south florida. if you just listen to peter strzok, dan coats, and others. military leaders, retired military leaders, say democrats are suspicious and soft on socialism compared to donald trump's outright relationships with putin, north korea, et cetera. i mean, the cuban-american community should be on fire with respect to donald trump's record with communist leaders, but none of that is being played out as it should. you know, the woodward book,

that's going to resonate big in our military voters in florida, 22 bases, hundreds of thousands of retirees. that's biden's advantage, but he's got to fix the problem with the cuban-american community. if it's a low turnout in florida, republicans have the edge. if it's a high turnout, democrats historically have the edge. so it's -- right now, it's turnout, and it's also all about fixing the problems with hispanic voters in south florida. lastly, you know, in six days the ballots go out to the overseas voters from florida on the 24th, the absentee ballots go out to all of floridians. pretty soon after that they start early voting. so if bloomberg's going to spend that money, he better do it soon. >> he's going to do it pretty quick. >> yeah. >> hey, kasie hunt, you got michael bloomberg weighing in with money. we also have this from bernie sanders. here's the headline. "bernie sanders expresses concerns about biden campaign." let me read a quote of the campaign manager for bernie

sanders saying this, "he's been in direct contact with the biden team and has urged them to put more emphasis on how they will raise wages, create good paying jobs, lower prescription drugs, and expand health care coverage. hey, joe biden, speak more on economic issues. >> it does sound that way, chuck, and that, of course, was at the root of bernie sanders' campaigns for president and his focus on really being -- we've talked about this in the past, not management, being kind of on the side of the union worker. it's interesting to me that they're choosing now to put this criticism out there. they had developed a pretty good rapport in terms of figuring out how to come together as biden became the clear nominee. so i do have a question about what more might be going on there, but the reality is that bernie sanders is kind of the last person that you want in the context of this florida conversation. i mean, that is kind of why some

of that message -- the trump campaign message has got an lot of traction. >> there's no doubt. you know, jeffrey goldberg, we are in the stage of the campaign where you do have a lot of democrats starting to second guess some of these biden decisions. are they campaigning enough? they're not talking about the economy enough. look, the polls have held steady, but -- i understand the fear, but is it -- is it well-placed fear or not? >> it's probably not entirely well-placed fear in the sense that the polls have been -- remarkably, unusually steady and that trump keeps self-owning in a kind of way. it's not surprising that bernie sanders is arguing for what bernie sanders is arguing for. the same with other people. i think the biden campaign's advantage right now or one of their advantages is that relatively speaking they're focused on winning rather than litigating old arguments.

and the trump -- and one of the things they're obviously trying to focus on doing is throwing trump off his game constantly and trump is easily thrown off his game. so, you know, the anxiety is totally natural. the stakes are extremely high, but on the other hand this campaign is not going badly for him so far, but of course, we don't know what the next 50, 60 days hold. >> no, we don't. as stewart stephens says about donald trump, he is the dog that chases every car. great panel. that's all i have for today. thank you for watching. we are going to leave you, though, with images on how we marked september 11th in this country 19 years later, and we will be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

♪ president trump campaigns in nevada and defies state safety restrictions. he held an indoor rally where thousands of supporters crowded together, many of them without masks. also, more fallout from the president's interview with journalist bob woodward as trump's top allies try to defend his remarks about the coronavirus threat. also the wildfires range across california. the death toll's on the rise, and tens of thousands from california, oregon, and washington, have been forced to flee their homes.