♪ good evening, everyone. well, nothing tends to jolt people to really pay attention in the crucial final weeks of an election season quite like the first presidential debate. and that's exactly where we are tonight. in about two hours in cleveland, ohio, joe biden and donald trump will face off in the first of three debates, as polls both nationally and in battleground

states show biden holding the lead. trump is set to have a prime time moment with scandalous headlines hovering over him. the "new york times" reporting that trump paid no federal income taxes for a decade, and only 750 bucks the year he ran for office and his first year in the white house. what is perhaps the most damaging to trump's brand is that he isn't just bad at being president, he's bad at business, too. and basically broke. it's all bound to come out tonight given how debates are political bloodsport. and we're already getting a taste of what's to come in today's pre-game show with alleged trump campaign request that debate moderator chris wallace not mention the number of covid-19 deaths. to a phony new conspiracy theory of a biden earpiece, part of trump's ongoing ploy to paint his opponent as mentally diminished. it's a ploy that could backfire. a campaign normally wants to

lower the bar for its own candidate, not the opponent. trump said there was a danger in prepping too much for risking that he would sound too scripted or phony. we're seeing the opposite with biden with team trump pumping out the messaging that biden is weak and feeble, lowering the bar for biden to the point where all he literally has to do is show up and appear, show up in order to appear like the very stable genius. as for biden's approach, if we can glean from his debate guests which include three people affected by the coronavirus pandemic in different ways, he will remind voters of what trump really meant by america first, with the coronavirus pandemic now taking 1 million lives worldwide and the u.s. leading the world in covid-19 deaths at more than 206,000. joining me now is president and ceo of the center for american progress, professor of politics

and journalism at morgan state university, and former spokesman for hillary clinton. he also played donald trump during the hillary clinton debate prep back in 2016. and normally i would do ladies first, but i've got to go to phillipe first. i'm sorry, but that story about you handing over your trump suit with an oversized jacket and shoe lifts to give it over to the new guy who's playing trump is just too funny. and i have to go to you first. so i want to play a little montage. this is trump versus hillary in 2016. here it is. >> as you know, you've seen me. i've been all over the place. you decided to stay home, and that's okay. >> i think donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. and, yes, i did. and you know what else i prepared for? i prepared to be president. and i think that's a good thing. >> he'd rather have a puppet as president -- >> no puppet. >> it's pretty clear. >> you're the puppet. >> it's pretty clear you won't

admit. it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country. >> because you'd be in jail. >> it kind of breaks your heart to watch this and realize that he was kind of telling us everything we needed to know about what he'd be as president. purely to prepare for a debate, he interrupts, he has like sort of joke lines he's prepared which is actually how he did the apprentice. he would say the zinger lines. he's good at that, if nothing else. what should biden expect? you're like he's not even good at that. phillipe is like no he's not. >> i think there are certain things -- that mirror was smiling during the introduction because she knows that i had been practicing my whole life to be donald trump and just didn't know it. [ laughter ] >> you got to go in a lot more debt and lose a whole lotta cash

before you can be donald trump. [ laughter ] >> joe biden is going to face the donald trump that is the same person as four years ago but a different circumstance. donald trump had nothing to lose before in 2016. now he has everything to lose. and that's going to manifest itself a little differently. four years ago trump had, you know, the hair, the face, butchering the english language. he had his fundamental issues of trade, immigration, health care, swamp. he had a well-honed attack on hillary, which you just saw crystallized in one sentence. and he minimally defended himself. you go forward four years, no one knows what his plan is for the second term. more importantly, he doesn't know. he can't even ask if sean hannity asks him. he has no honed attack on joe biden. he's now calling for ear canal checks and somehow they're calling joe biden crazy when

they're the people asking for ears to be checked. but what he really doesn't have is an inability to do anything other than grieve. he just is a grievance machine. you can ask him what day of the week is it, and he's going to say the ramp was so slippery. but the last 10 feet. or he's going to say perfect transcript. he said himself that his preparation is sparring with the press. the problem is he decides what to talk about, decides how long to talk about it, decides who to call on, who to cut off and when to walk away. that is not what he's going to experience in just over two hours. and if he wants to eat his time, the real question is should joe biden be engaging him and fighting back and how much joe biden should be wasting time. the actual question is, is donald trump going to spend all his time whining and moaning? because if that's the guy we see every day, joe biden might as well say, look, chris, thank you

for having me, thank you, cleveland and i now yield my 45 minutes to donald trump to shoot himself in the foot. [ laughter ] >> i'm going to let you hold on for a second. don't let your shot go down. i have been astounded by the strategy of the rudy giulianis and others that are on tv trying to talk biden down as if he's just barely alive and he can barely dress himself and there's no way he's going to make it, he may not even show up. rush limbaugh is like he isn't even going to show up. look at how vibrant he was. they literally set biden up for success. biden isn't a bad debater. let's play what i think was biden's finest moment in a debate ever. here it is.

>> rudy giuliani. i mean, think about it. rudy giuliani, there's only three things he mentioned in the sentence and, a noun, and a verb and 9-1-1. there's nothing else. [ laughter ] >> to this day, when i see rudy giuliani, until he started doing crimy stuff in ukraine, all i thought of was a noun, a verb, and 9-1-1. what do you think we're going to see from biden tonight? >> i think the really central question here. and phillipe alluded to it is that donald trump is a little bit of a carnival barker. he really uses misdirection and sligts of hand to get you to focus on other things than what's important to you. that's been his whole presidency. it's one distraction, deception, distraction, deception. the real issue is he's president of the united states, he has overseen the coronavirus response, 200,000 people have died. it is like the worst response

amongst the worst responses in the world. and joe biden has an opportunity to just really tell the american people how he would do better, how trump has failed them and how he will do better. and i think he really should address the american people. he can dismiss trump's lies, but he has a real opportunity here, which is just to explain how he would be a better president, which is to say is not that hard to do. [ laughter ] like, i think he'll be refreshing the people. and all the lies they tell about biden, people are going to be able to see in the hours of the debate, the real joe biden, not the scary monster, the real joe biden. that is a big help to him. just to go through a few of the polls here. pennsylvania, there's a new abc "washington post" poll that shows biden up 54/45. that's up plus nine. that's a big deal in a race where pennsylvania's very important. white noncollege voters in that poll are splitting trump 58,

biden 41. trump still has an advantage there. but, you know, phillipe, this reminds me of obama. joe biden does not have to win a majority of white working-class voters even though it's weird because he is one. so you think he'd be more relatable to them. but he just has to get a respectable number. and because of nonwhite voters, that will plus him up over the top. what do you think biden can get out of the fact, do you think he is getting the maximum out of being a pennsylvania native, out of the scranton narrative? i'm sure it helps him that trump doesn't pay taxes. i mean, he and kamala harris released their tax returns today. they actually pay taxes. that's kind of helpful. so how does he use that tonight? >> yeah. well, i mean, he was losing -- he trump was losing ground with white noncollege educated men even before the tax problem. now, i think, particularly the $750 number that is so easy to relate to, and he would have been better off paying zero or

getting a $72 million refund which he also got that no one really even mentioned. the problem with pennsylvania is pennsylvania scares me. pennsylvania in 2016, there were really two baskets. there was wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania. wisconsin and michigan we lost largely because of low turnout among black men. donald trump got fewer votes in michigan than mitt romney. he didn't get that many more votes than mitt romney in wisconsin. pennsylvania was the place where the trump effect was in full force. you had 300,000 new voters. the public polling was wrong. the private polling was wrong. the campaign, the priorities usa other third-party entities spent tens upon tens of millions of dollars. i want to see a plus 19 from pennsylvania to even begin to start feeling comfortable. and i don't think we've ever really saw it. i hope it's as simple as him

being from scranton. i don't think it is, but i do think there's a difference between now and four years ago is that people can now see what they bought. some people, you know, they might've just wanted him to blow up the world, but some people might've wanted him to blow up the world and see something better. and now inadvertently the build back better slogan. >> we have jason now on the phone. it was like that shot is not cute enough. [ laughter ] you gotta go. i feel like room raider was involved so i'm going to say that they were involved in it. jason now from a place where you cannot be got by room raider. trump, it took to the point that phillipe made. trump leads biden by 17 among college white voters. but in 2016 he won them by 32. he's eroded with some voters who maybe don't like what they bought. you also have philadelphia, the

philadelphia suburbs, yes, black people live in the suburbs, there's a lot of black folks in pennsylvania too. and hillary had a bit of a soft number. we now know that there was some shenanigans. we know from the reporting out of channel 4 news in britain that there was some deliberate attempts to drag down black votes for hillary clinton. and we know that that was part of it. what do you think of biden's chances in a state like pennsylvania that is a difficult state? >> well, look. i've always thought that the scranton thing was a bit overplayed. he could say he's from scranton. he could say he worked at dunder mifflin. it doesn't really change the fact that you have some conservative people in that state who initially liked donald trump. what does work for joe biden and what i have said all along what, i said two and a half years ago, the democrats are probably going to have to pick a white guy and they got themselves a fairly comfortable white guy. and so we're not just seeing this in pennsylvania. i think it was a poll i just saw this morning of, like, north dakota where donald trump had

beaten hillary clinton by like 36. and now he's only beating joe biden by 19. joe biden has been able to connect with white people, college-educated white people, noncollege-educated white people because they don't see him as an immediate threat to their way of life. what has been a threat to their way of life is a president who wanted to get us into war with iran and north korea and a president who has us all sitting at home every day because he doesn't have a plan for how to go to war with covid. all of those things combined have been helping joe biden a lot. >> covid changes everything, sort of the way katrina changed everything for bush. whether you like donald trump for whatever reason, you probably still are not being able to go to work if you have a bar that ain't open, unless you're in florida, you're losing money. like this is real. >> yeah. i think this is actually a critical point. sure skrb has attributes that he's always done well with white seniors really for years he's

done well with white seniors. but he's doing much better with even white noncollege women. and i think it really comes back to health care on two levels. first, the virus itself, coronavirus, the fact that 200,000 people have died on trump's watch, but also the supreme court case comes back to this. the supreme court anonymonomina comes back to this. trump's appointee will definitely overturn the affordable care act in a pandemic. there is no trump appointee who is not going to do that, and he admitted it over the weekend. and we know from 2018 that health care is a predominant issue, one of the reasons why democrats were able to put together a coalition that we're seeing now. moderate, more working class whites, white noncollege voters and college-educated voters. and people of color. the whole coalition has been really central. >> and there are about to be 7 million more people with a pre-existing condition and

republicans, one of their core beliefs is that insurance companies should be able to charge you more if you have a pre-existing condition. just understand that. they ain't trying to pass anything that lets you off the hook. they want insurance companies to be free and have the liberty to charge you more. that's what you'd be in for. jason johnson is going to get his shot together and call up the folks at room raiders and negotiate peace. thank you very much. i'm sure i'll text you later for advice. thank you guys very much. the countdown continues to tonight's first trump/biden debate. we invited both campaigns to join us to discuss the debate, and only the biden campaign said yes. plus, how the apprentice koerks gave trump a desperately needed financial life line and he still wound up $400 million in debt. and stacey abrams joins me. "the reidout" continues after

this. r isth s decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. - oh.- oh, darn! - wha- let me help. lift and push and push! there... it's up there. hey joshie... wrinkles send the wrong message. help prevent them before they start with downy wrinkleguard. go go go on a real vacation. visit go rving.com or your nearest rv dealer.

iwith vicks sinex saline nasal cmist.tiona real vacation. for drug free relief that works fast. vicks sinex. instantly clear everday congestion.

more dangerous and corrupt president than trump. he's harming our basic values, giving rise to hate, and he's selling out america to big corporations. i'm working to protect immigrants, women, communities of color, and lgbtq people. and i'm making corporations like pg&e and insurance companies play by our rules. we need experienced leadership to wipe away trump's stain on america for good.

my father has invested billions of dollars. i mean, tens of billions of dollars in this country. he's built the biggest buildings. we employ tens of thousands of people. compare that to joe biden. joe biden has been leeching off of the federal government his entire adult life. the guy has never had a real job that hasn't been taxpayer funded ever. >> well, that was eric trump whose family has almost no known record of serving any cause greater than their own greed, defending his father's tax cheating scam today and mocking public service as nothing more than leeching off the government. with a little over an hour left before the first presidential debate of 2020, we invited both campaigns on "the reidout" to give us a sense of what to expect from their candidates. surprisingly, only one campaign accepted our invitation. joining me now is the senior

adviser for the biden campaign. i'm disappointed that we were not able to get someone from the other campaign to come on. so i'm just going to give you the floor to give us a sense of what we're going to hear tonight. let me put up the debate topics. let's start there. covid-19, the economy, race and violence in our cities, the integrity of the election that. fifth one stuck in my crawl a little bit because i don't know what it means. what has the campaign been preparing for in terms of what the campaign thinks that means? >> well, joy, what vice president biden has really been preparing for and our campaign has prepared for tonight, frankly, is for the vice president to go out and communicate and articulate his vision to the american people. he will be speaking directly to the folks at home tonight, the voters, folks who are concerned about kitchen-table issues. so while a number of -- those are the topics that the

commission set forth. who knows where the conversation will go, given president trump. but joe biden will be ready to really speak about the gravity of this moment. more than 200,000 americans dead from covid-19. those are deaths that didn't have to happen, joy. more than 30 million people who have filed for unemployment insurance. so, this is some heavy stuff right now. we're in the midst of multiple crises. the west is literally on fire in this country, a climate crisis. a crisis of racial injustice in this country. and then obviously the public health crisis that we're experiencing given covid-19 and the economic crisis. those are all things that vice president biden will be ready to talk about. >> chris wallace says that he doesn't see fact-checking as his role. does vice president biden believe that he then is the one that needs to fact-check donald trump if and when he says something that is a lie? >> no, joy. tonight, again, joe biden is going to speak directly to the american people. it is not his job to fact-check.

it's his job to articulate his vision. we believe that it is the moderator's job. i know what chris wallace has said but i've also seen him hold donald trump accountable. i've also seen him hold us accountable on a number of occasions. so it's the moderator's job, and, frankly, it's the independent press's job. i do not doubt that there will be any shortage of fact-checkers on the job tonight. >> the expectation is that donald trump will spend a lot of time going after hunter biden and try to induce or sort of lure the press into covering sort of fake scandals regarding the president's son. how has the vice president prepared for those attacks? and what is he prepared to do in response, or to say in response? >> well, joy, we know that these are things that donald trump and his campaign, his henchman rudy

giuliani. asking them to interfere in his election on his political behalf. we believe that the american people, folks tuning into the debate are not tuning in because they want to see president trump attack vice president biden's family. if he is attacked, if these debunked lies find their way onto the debate stage from donald trump, joe biden will be prepared to defend himself. he will be prepared to speak truth. i also encourage folks to pull out their phones right now and follow @truth on twitter. we have commandiered that. these tactics are nothing new from the president. but people are hurting, joy. they have real issues and they have questions. and tonight we're hoping that vice president biden has the opportunity to articulate his

vision, to answer some of the questions folks have really about what he views as america's pathway to not just building back as we like to say but building back better than we were before. >> we know that just from observing joe biden for a long time in public life, he is a person that is a personal guy. when he meets somebody who has had a death in the family, he takes it personally. his response is personal. when attacked sort of he'll come back. my question is we know what trump is going to do. it's pretty easy to figure out what he's going to do and where he's going to go. has vice president biden prepared a line? the trump boys have never had a job other than working for their daddy and wouldn't have anything if it weren't for him employing them. has the vice president prepared a line to say have you met your kids? like, is there any line that he's prepared to talk about donald trump's kids? one of whom was involved in one of his tax schemes? >> i mean, to be clear, look,

joy, i think as you talked about, folks know joe biden. the voters know joe biden. you know that he is a man of impeccable character, of empathy. he's also someone that's not going to attack other people's children. so on the debate stage tonight, joe biden's going to be himself. he is not going to stand up there and attack president trump's family. but what he will do is again be very clear with the american people about where he stands. he will not take lies and accusations lying down. he's going to fight back. but, again, this is about the voters. this isn't about donald trump. it's about the voters. he's going to make a very forceful case about why he should be the next president of the united states of america. >> very quickly, there's an "atlantic" story about donald trump mocking his christian supporters. dismissed various faith groups with cartoonish characters. cars trump is viewed right wing evangelical leaders as a kind of interest group to be schmoozed,

or conned off. i was hoping to ask a trump campaign about this. does the biden/harris campaign view parts of donald trump's base, evangelicals, white working class voters, et cetera, as targets to try to attract tonight? or is this really mostly about getting out the base to include never-trumpers in this election that's already happening? >> joy, this is about the voters for us. we have identified what we believe are key coalitions. these are working families. they're also black people, native-american, asian-american, pacific islander. they are latino and hispanic. they're women, they're young people. we are really speaking to a broad coalition of folks. we are talking, and joe biden tonight will be speaking to anyone who is exacerbated by the devastation that they're feeling in this country, someone who is looking for a plan and

leadership to help this country turn the corner, and, again, build back better than we were before. that's the vision that he's presenting. let me just say one thing about the alleged report. it is despicable, frankly, extremely despicable. if what is alleged in that report is true, frankly, president trump owes the voters people in this country an apology. he has repeatedly attacked vice president biden's faith. he's a practicing catholic. he tries to never miss a sunday. i've seen it myself. it's despicable that on a regular basis donald trump himself and the campaign attacks vice president biden and his faith. that's not who we are, that's not who joe biden is. and i think it's time for president trump to step up to the plate and just exhibit even an ounce of empathy. i hope he can find some. >> symone sanders, thank you very much. hopefully the donald trump campaign will take an opportunity to break outside the bubble and answer for their own candidate at some point. but we shall see.

thank you very much for being here tonight. meanwhile, a closer look at the national security and legal ramifications of trump's highly leveraged lifestyle. is trump compromised by his huge debt load? "the reidout" continues after this. ut" continues after this if i'm your president, on day one we'll implement the national strategy i've been laying out since march. we'll develop and deploy rapid tests with results available immediately. we'll make the medical supplies and protective equipment that our country needs. we'll make them here in america. we'll have a national mandate to wear a mask, not as a burden, but as a patriotic duty to protect one another. in short, we'll do what we should have done from the very beginning. our current president has failed in his most

basic duty to the nation. he's failed to protect america. and my fellow americans, that is unforgivable. as president, i'll make you a promise. i'll protect america. i will defend us from every attack seen and unseen, always without exception, every time. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. every time. to customizes yourcan gocar insurancetual.com so you only pay for what you need? really? i didn't-- aah! ok. i'm on vibrate. aaah! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

struggling to clean tough messes with wipes? try mr. clean magic eraser sheets. just wet, squeeze and erase icky messes in microwaves and on stovetops for an amazing clean, get the power of mr. clean magic eraser in disposable sheets. it only takes a second for an everyday item

to become dangerous. tide pods child-guard pack helps keep your laundry pacs in a safe place and your child safer. to close, twist until it clicks. tide pods child-guard packaging. he's paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying

to get a casino license and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. >> that makes me smart. >> remember that? no, no, the real story is donald trump is not smart, he's just terrible at running businesses and doesn't pay his taxes. and it turns out playing a billionaire on tv saved him from financial ruin. part two of the "new york times" exhaustive investigation of his taxes notes trump's genius, it turned out, wasn't running a company. it was making himself famous and monetizing that fame. according to t"the times," he earned some $197 million directly from "the apprentice" and another $230 million from the fame associated with it. there were seven-figure licensing deals with hotel builders, some with murky backgrounds in former soviet republics and other developing countries. oh, and by the way, it's the reason he had only taxable income for several years. he paid a total of $71.1 million

in income taxes later refunded with interest by an aggressive accounting maneuver now under audit. joining us is neal katyal. we now know that donald trump's wealth was basically kind of a ponzi scheme. he got more wealth by being famous and people giving him licensing deals. we understand that aspect of it. but the other aspect is the risk to the american people because of it. this is part of a "washington post" story about trump's debts and foreign deals and the security risks they pose. he faces the need for a substantial infusion of cash in the coming years to avert potential financial crisis. officials and experts say that trump has made himself vulnerable to manipulation by foreign governments aware of his pick evident. when we were preparing this, i was thinking about the jared kushner thing. jared kushner needed like a billion dollars for a balloon payment on the building that's not far from here at 30 rock, the 666 building.

and then suddenly qatar was in trouble. our friends, our allies and qatar were being cut off and there was a big push that they needed to give him the money. is that what we're facing if donald trump is re-elected? >> that and more. so i think, joy, you're absolutely right. donald trump is not looking particularly smart right now. it's looking like all these tax shenanigans are catching up with him and that he's going to pay the price and he's going to pay the price politically, legally, and also from a national security perspective. when i was national security adviser at the justice department, we have all sorts of people applying for security clearances. and one of the things you look at first is who do they owe money to, if anyone, and how much money do they owe? because that's one of the greatest areas of compromise. it's what our foreign adversaries seek to exploit all the time. as you say, it's not just trump, it's kushner as well. indeed the white house officials

tried to deny jared kushner a clearance, in part, because it seems of these reasons. and the idea is that there can be indirect or direct leverage that these foreign actors can have over government official. and that's true even if it's like a secretary in the national security division, let alone the president of the united states or one of his close white house aides. and that's why our federal government monitors all sorts of money flows in and out of federal officials, or even state officials. you might remember elliot spitzer got caught in it became a prostitution scandal. he was just taking a couple thousand dollars out of his atm and they were wondering what in the world is going on. here you've got millions and millions of dollars dealings with russia and the like. and this is really serious stuff. >> the other thing that, you know, the sort of nightmare scenario you think about is what undo influence would donald

trump have on let's say on banks that legitimately have the opportunity to foreclose on him the way that ordinary americans are getting foreclosed on all the time now, particularly with this devastating economy. but trump as president could be like you can't for close on me, and here are these other opportunities you can't have. like, there's pressure he could put on a bank to say you can't foreclose on me. even in terms of -- let's start with that. could donald trump as president essentially forbid a bank or threaten retaliation against a bank that tried to foreclose on trump tower? >> normally the answer would be no for normal presidents because they respect the constitution and laws. for this president that's like monday. absolutely i would see him doing that. and as you think about these banks and foreign banks and the like, i think just remember what eric trump said. he said we don't rely on american banks. we have all the funding we need

out of russia. and eric trump is the same guy who right now prosecutors in manhattan as part of their tax investigation are trying to get to testify. he's tried to put it off till after the election, and the judge has said no. the intersection of these national security stories with the criminal investigation about tax abuse that's going on about the trumps in new york. i think it poses a very serious danger to donald trump. >> and speaking of national security and criminal investigations, the michael flynn case has reared back up again. michael flynn's lawyer today in an answer to the judge in answer to questions from the judge disclosed that she had discussed his case recently with donald trump and white house lawyers. the quote is, i provided the white house an update on the status of the litigation and i asked that the president not issue a pardon. then we go here that re-elected donald trump with bill barr at his side, the interventions could be endless in any case

involving somebody that he's a friend of. >> i mean, joy, the treatment of michael flynn from start to finish by trump's justice department has been abysmal. michael flynn was president trump's first national security adviser. he plead guilty to lying about his conversations with, you guessed it, the russians. and then the justice department went later and sought to basically drop the case. and now we learned today that donald trump is literally in conversations with michael flynn's defense attorney at the same time as the justice department has this case before it. i've never heard of something like this. the president getting involved with the defense attorney for someone who has a pending criminal prosecution. the whole thing is thoroughly bizarre and it really undermines the notion of the justice department as an independent entity. it just seems like it's the president's play thing at this point. >> yeah.

the mind reels. it's always great to have you here to break all this down. really appreciate your time tonight. coming up, stacey abrams will be here with a look at some of the most important issues at stake in this election and the republicans' effort to limit how, where, and when you vote. "the reidout" continues after this. ♪ ♪ ♪

it only takes a second for an everyday item to become dangerous. tide pods child-guard pack helps keep your laundry pacs in a safe place and your child safer. to close, twist until it clicks. tide pods child-guard packaging.

[phone rings] "sore throat pain? try new vicks vapocool drops in honey lemon chill for a fast-acting rush of relief like you've never tasted in... ♪ honey lemon ahh woo vicks vapocool drops now in honey lemon chill ♪ i got it all from you ♪ i'm always pushing through ♪ i know we'll make it to the finish line ♪ ♪ i know you're waiting on the other side ♪ ♪ i'm like you on-demand glucose monitoring. because they're always on. another life-changing technology from abbott. so you don't wait for life. you live it.

more than 1 million people in 18 states have already voted in the 2020 election. and tonight's debate will make it clear to those who haven't voted yet exactly what's at stake. namely, health care, jobs, and a future of the courts and american democracy. stacey abrams, the founder of fair fight and the 2018 democratic nominee for governor of georgia joins me now. hello, friend. it's so good to talk to you always. >> you as well. >> thank you very much. i don't think there are really a lot of undecided voters. i'm with jason johnson that what is undecided is to vote or not

to vote. right? and so what do you think are the issues? what are you hearing from voters are the issues that could move them off the sidelines and into the polls? >> i think the largest impediment to deciding to vote for many is believing that their vote will make a difference. and that's why i've been so insistent on saying we shouldn't panic, we shouldn't be distracted, we should be determined. our votes count if we cast them. and we've been doing work throughout the past two years to ensure mitigation of voter suppression, we can't end it until we fundamentally change the laws. but we've done a lot to make it easier to vote, easier to track those votes and make sure those votes count. if you vote, you will make a difference and it will change. >> i think there is a lot of ptsd from 2016 and a lot of people are afraid that they will go out and vote and it won't matter because of all of the shenanigans like the electoral college, et cetera. but i want to show you just what the debate is hinging on. these are the topics that

they've put forward. some of them make sense, the supreme court obviously, covid-19 is a huge issue, the economy, race and violence in our cities. the integrity of the election. are these the kinds of issues that would be litigated tonight that will ease the fears and inspire people's sense of hope that says i want to vote? do these sound like they're on target? >> i think these are legitimate topics of discussion. but i think they lie with the real concern. that is that we are watching the president of the united states and his cronies cheat, lie, and steal about the vote. and so our responsibility is to mitigate that harm and to remind people that our power of the presence of our vote overwhelms any of their intentions. yes, they can try to provide misinformation. that's why we make a plan to vote. yes, they can try to intimidate voters. that's why we ensure that we check out our registration and we know the rules by going to

vote.org. yes, they can try to close our polling places. that's why we volunteer to be poll workers at powerthepol powerthepolls.org. we can meet them on the battlefield and we can win. the topics are important topics. but the challenge for voting is making sure that people believe that their voices will be heard. and i believe they will be if we show up. the>> for a long time democrats, howard dean on down have always said georgia, georgia, georgia, georgia is going to be a swing state, it's moving in that direction. we're looking at polls now that show that georgia really is up for grabs. it's still a lead. john is also ahead of purdue. there's a close race, but we have warnock ahead in his race as well. that's a quinnipiac poll. and yet you have the "associated

press" noting that every polling place in georgia must have at least one list of paper ballot. there's a lot of reasons not to trust the leadership in your state obviously. the governor there and his secretary of state. what do you say to people who just say i feel like no matter what i do, even if biden wins by three, they're just going to steal it. the governor of georgia is just going to steal it. >> well, i would push back and say this. i don't trust the leadership of our state but i do trust the citizens of our state. and what we saw happen in 2018 in the midst of some of the worst voter suppression in the country is that millions of people showed up, millions of democrats, millions of young people, millions of people of color who would have normally been counted out of these elections. no, i didn't get over the finish

line, but i got so close that they had to admit some of the challenges that were there because i called them out. we have seen improvements on fixing your ballot if someone makes a mistake on that absentee ballot. we saw just a week a court overturned the decision to try to purge nearly 15,000 voters. under brian kemp's leadership and the secretary of state they would have all been gone. we were talking about 54,000 votes in 2018. we've had 750,000 more people register. since then 45% of whom are under the age of 30. 49% of whom are people of color. and we do know that absentee ballot requests in the state of georgia are astronomical and they are disproportionately including communities of color who are usually counted out of this process. so i'm excited about what's possible in georgia. yes, we still face challenges. yes, we still have litigation moving. but we know that if we know up and overwhelm the polls with our presence, we can win. >> i'm not even going to bother

to play for you the donald trump jr. overcaffeinated video that he put out. but they are calling on people to show up as poll watchers and watch them. he's like we have to watch them. that was what he was saying. and i'm going to do a dual question here. what is the plan, do you think, and what should be the plan if there are going to be people maybe armed people showing up calling themselves poll watchers? what should people do? >> this is no surprise. fair fight has actually been doing this research. we have true the vote. they are one of the actors. honest elections is another. the trump campaign took all of their voter-suppressing leaders and made them the deputy campaign managers of the trump campaign. they were relieved of a consent degree that two years when i referenced it, ronna mcdaniel, the chair of the rnc said that i was making things up.

they're doing exactly what we thought they would do. but we knew it was coming and we've been building our own army of good, an army that believes in the right to vote, an army that is going to stand up to voter intimidation and push back because we know we are right. e to vote, cast your ballot. we've got your back. >> i want to remind folks that wilbur ross said they're ending the census on october 5th. so turn in your census asap. stacey abramabrams, thank you f everything you do. up next, kentucky's attorney general, did he mislead the public in the breonna taylor case? and another live look at athletic hall in cleveland, where president trump and joe biden will debate just a little more than one hour from now. stay right here. n one hour from. stay right here. people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up to what's possible with rybelsus®. ♪ you are my sunshine, my only sunshine... ♪

rybelsus® works differently than any other diabetes pill to lower blood sugar in all 3 of these ways... increases insulin... decreases sugar... ...and slows food. the majority of people taking rybelsus® lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7. people taking rybelsus® lost up to 8 pounds. rybelsus® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take rybelsus® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. stop rybelsus® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or an allergic reaction. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. tell your provider about vision problems or changes. taking rybelsus® with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases low blood sugar risk. side effects like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea

may lead to dehydration which may worsen kidney problems. wake up to what's possible with rybelsus®. ♪ please don't take my sunshine away... ♪ you may pay as little as $10 per prescription. ask your healthcare provider about rybelsus® today. throughout our history any time something bad has happened to us ...we've recovered.

every time. we fall, we rise. we break, we rebuild. we stumble, we learn. we come together. we work together. we innovate and create. we meet up and get to work. we find our way forward. every time. this has been the key to our survival, the key to our growth that whenever we thought we were at our weakest, this is when we became the strongest, became the best version of ourselves, and found our way home. together. masimo. together in hospital. together at home.

there are stunning new developments tonight in the breonna taylor case that are raising questions about whether kentucky attorney general daniel cameron publicly presented last week after none of the police officers were charged directly with her death. new police body camera video obtained by vice news shows some disturbing scenes the night taylor was killed. it's unclear who leaked the footage to vice news, and the louisville police department hasn't confirmed the video yet. but it does appear to show

officers threatening to send in a police dog on kenneth walker and arresting him after breonna was shot. >> walk back to my voice! walk back or i is lend this dog. >> more disturbing are the number of police procedures disregarded. including former officer brett hankison, who was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing shots that wound up in neighboring apartments, accessing the active crime scene, something veteran police officers say is definitely not normal practice. instead of keeping the officers separated with a police escort, hankison left the scene on his own to go to the hospital, where another number of the rard wid taken after being shot. one of the officers who took part in the raid stayed on the scene to help interview the neighbors. in fact, it was one of those neighbors who the kentucky a.

xwmplt cig. cited as a corroborating witness. according to documents obtained, that same witness first told investigators a week after the shooting that he didn't hear anything. then two months later, changed his story. on top of all of this, a state police ballistic report has come out contradicting what the a.g. told the public about those shots that were fired. meanwhile, a grand juror has come forward to demand the full grand jury proceedings be released, saying the attorney general used the grand jurors as a shield, implying that cameron was not honest in the case that he made. cameron has agreed to release that information tomorrow. and we will have full coverage of that development. don't go anywhere. coming up after a quick break, i'll join rachel maddow and

nicolle wallace for special coverage as president trump and joe biden go head to head in the debate tonight. so stay right there. head in the debate tonight so stay right there. super emma just about sleeps in her cape. but when we realized she was battling sensitive skin, we switched to new tide plus downy free. it's gentle on her skin, and dermatologist recommended. new tide pods plus downy free.

safe for sensitive skin with eczema and psoriasis. honey honey? new nyquil severe honey is maximum strength cold and flu medicine with soothing honey-licious taste. nyquil honey. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever best sleep with a cold medicine.

an herbal stress reliever ashwagandha, that helps you turn the stressed life... into your best life. stress less and live more. with stressballs. more dangerous and corrupt president than trump. he's harming our basic values, giving rise to hate, and he's selling out america to big corporations.

i'm working to protect immigrants, women, communities of color, and lgbtq people. and i'm making corporations like pg&e and insurance companies play by our rules. we need experienced leadership to wipe away trump's stain on america for good. it is great to have you with us tonight. it is a big night. the election music, it's all happening. i'm rachel maddow here at msnbc head quarter information new york in the studio, so close but yet so far from my colleagues joy reid and nicolle wallace. brian williams will join us later on tonight. this is a big night, legitimately. the first 2020 presidential debate between