the day after the debate debacle, president trump is on twitter, joe biden is on the move, crisscrossing ohio and pennsylvania by train after a debate that quickly went off the rails, fueled by president trump's non-stop badgering and refusal to respect the rules agreed to by his own campaign team. biden was also at times reduced to name calling, today trying to score the points against the president that he couldn't last night during the verbal melee. >> his response during the deadly pandemic is to try to take your health care away, by asking the supreme court to strike the affordable care act in its entirety, wipe it out. >> we're not going to be reliving the low lights here today.

instead, let's focus on the most telling moments of the night and where we go from here. joining me by phone, nbc's mike memoli out there covering the biden campaign with biden in alliance, ohio, geoff bennett at the white house, robert gibbs former press secretary to president obama, jen palmieri from hillary clinton's campaign, jonathan capehart and abc reporter ben collins. mike, first to you, what are you hearing from the candidate? what is their frustration and their response to what happened last night. >> reporter: the biden campaign said they did in their practice sessions did prepare for a debate as free willing as we saw last night. to some extent the former vice president was able to more often than not, pivot to the camera and have a conversation directly with the american people. this is a candidate who said he didn't want to get brought into the mud with the president.

it was very hard for him to avoid that last night. part of the idea of this train story, the vice president should be getting off at any moment, he'll dive more deeply into what we heard and didn't hear in the debate last night and also perhaps take questions. this serves as an opportunity, seen as a victory lap or an opportunity to set the record straight. that's what we're going to hear from joe biden as hoe speaks here. the kind of voters they've targeting speaks to what the biden strategy is in this campaign. you heard him last night when the president tried to tie him to the radical left, as the president put it, one o of the argument from the trump campaign was that biden would be a trojan horse for the left. biden saying, i am the democratic party right now. he's speaking to those voters in the center, those obama-trump voters he thinks can help tip the balance in ohio, in pennsylvania and in similar

communities across battleground states. obviously we're waiting to see what the public's verdict on that debate, whether it really did affect the outcome in terms of polling in any significant fluctuations and whether it serves the former vice president to continue into these debates. his campaign for now at least saying he is going to continue to use those opportunities to speak for the american people, andrea. >> ben collins, you've done such extensive reporting on the white extremist groups. i want to play what we heard from the president last night that was so startling. >> are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups. >> zblur and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in kenosha and portland. >> sure, i'm willing to do that. i would say almost everything i see is from the left wing, not from the right wing. >> what are you saying --

>> i'm willing to do anything. i want to see peace. >> you want to call them? what do you want to call them? >> white supremacists. >> proud boys. >> proud boys, stand back and stand by. >> jonathan, how dangerous is that rhetoric -- sorry. ben, i was talking to ben. let's talk about that rhetoric, stand by message to the proud boys. they were celebrating. talk to me about that. >> immediately they took this as a call to action. in fact, they basically made it their catch phrase over the last 12 hours or so. they've printed t-shirts they put on amazon that say exactly that, "stand back and stand by". this is a group along with a lot of other militia groups who have been in portland and kenosha, they've been dying for the president to give them tacit

approval of what they're doing. a lot of these groups, the proud boys, they made these pacts with these groups, patriot prayer, these other militia movements to go to these protests, to try to stir stuff up, to try to make it look like the left is as violent as they want it to be. they go and take videos and post those videos online to create this talking point that antifa is taking over america or whatever. so every part of that response from the president was a perfect response for the proud boys. they were so excited. there were videos of them responding to this. the official proud boys account literally howled like dogs back at the president. this is what they've been asking for for four or five years. they got it from the president. >> let's fact check, saying that joe biden's response was inaccurate. dhs, the department of homeland

security and the fbi director as recently as september 17th was testifying under oath that antifa is not an organization. it's an ideology. both say in terms of domestic terror, it's the right wing responsible for most of the violence. >> if you looked last year, all the masked shootings, the manifestos posted on these extremist boards, that's what's happening here. this is not to discount the idea that violence is a partisan idea, right now the organized violence is coming from white supremacist groups. they are gathering together. they used to gather together on places like facebook. now they have to go to deeper, darker corners of the web. they make events and tell people we're going to go beat up the left here. the initiation process for the proud boys, the very last step is to commit violence on behalf of the proud boys. that's what this is about.

yes, antifa is a violent ideology that pushes back on what they deem to be fascism. the organized groups committing domestic terror in the united states according to donald trump's own intelligence agencies, that's white supremacy. that's the problem that we -- not just extremism researchers, but actual officials trying to tamp down this stuff. that's the problem. >> jonathan, how dangerous is the rhetoric and how is it going to haunt other republicans this close to the election? >> it's very dangerous. the fact that the president of the united states 3 1/2 years into his presidency -- three years after charlottesville still cannot fix his mouth to denounce white supremacists and to say it is against the american ideal is terrify iing.

republicans, those already elected, not up for re-election, those up for re-election are those running to be to congress governor, state legislature, mayor, city council, dog catcher, parking meter, judge, should be asked if they agree with the president of the united states when he says that the proud boys should stand back and stand by. and that any victory by joe biden is deemed automatically illegitimate. andrea, i've said this on your show and on our air many, many times, and last night proved it true. this election isn't as much a choice between president donald trump and former vice president joe biden. it is now clearly a choice between american democracy and white supremacy.

and last night, we saw candidates for each one of those choices. >> geoff bennett, the other really signature moment that stood out is when each candidate discussed voting last night. this is something you've been covering. let me play some of that for you. >> show up and vote. you will determine the outcome of this election. vote, vote, vote. if i win, that will be accepted. if i lose, that will be accepted. but by the way, if in fact he says he's not sure what he's going to accept, let me tell you something, it doesn't matter, because if we get the votes, it's going to be all over. he's going to go. he can't stay in power. >> i am urging my people, i hope it's going to be a fair election -- >> you're urging them what? >> i am 100% on board. but if i see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, i can't go along with that. from a -- >> does that mean you're going to tell your people to take to the streets? >> it means you have a fraudulent election. >> is there any other way to

interpret that than that he won't accept the results and urging people to go out and perhaps create mayhem at the polls? >> i don't think so, andrea. and look, i went back and looked at the transcript that have section of the debate. read through it line by line. everything the president said about mail-in voting, andrea, was false, saying that people are throwing ballots into creeks and rivers, not true. saying that postal service workers are selling ballots, not true. saying that mail-in voting -- with mail-in voting, people can vote after election day, also not true. it appears the president is trying to give himself an insurance policy such that if he loses, he will have something other than himself and his own performance to blame. real quick about the president's comments, refusing to disavow white supremacists and telling the proud boys to stand by, one of the ways we know this white house and the campaign views that as problematic is because they've spent the entire morning suggesting to us that the president didn't say the thing that we've all heard him say,

that he might have misspoken, that he actually told the group to stand down. in fact we know he did not say that, as we see joe biden disembark that amtrak train there. i'll throw it back to you, andrea. >> and you can see that he's gotten off the train. we're waiting to hear from him. he may take questions. mike memoli is there. but we can keep talking for a bit, geoff. i also want to bring in jim palmieri, you've been all over the country this season with "the circus" as well on showtime. and you've had a lot of experience deal with donald trump in the last cycle, in 2016. after a debate like this, what does joe biden have to communicate? >> he was able, given how hard the circumstances were for him last night, i think he did pretty well in communicating two things. he beat back the idea he's for the green new deal, he established that he's the democratic party. he had a very moving moment for all the families in america that struggle with addiction, talking about that in his own family.

these are all -- he got a solid hit on trump on taxes. these are all worthwhile arguments for this small number of voters who haven't decided what they're going to do. there are some people saying maybe he shouldn't continue on in the debates and i wondered that myself last night. but i think that in the end, biden's got to be the one that runs the whole race, he can't look like he backed down to trump. and the next debate is going to be a town hall format. i'm sure trump will not abide by the rules but that's still a good opportunity for biden to be able to talk directly to the people in the audience. and they've got to keep fighting for that small number of folks that are undecided. eig it's great that he's out on this train tour today, that's such a biden thing to do. in october they have to be out every day, he and kamala harris, and i know that's what they plan to do.

trump gets disciplined in the last month, that's my experience in had 1'16. the other thing is republicans will come home, you can't trust that they won't turn out. they have to take every opportunity, even the uncomfortable debates, to make their argument. >> such good points, jen, because satisfied from the jim comey interruption in the momentum of the campaign, by our account, as you know, when we went to that harvard after-academy report, both campaigns, you were there, i was there, dan balz and i at the end were leading the conversation there, there were twice as many onsite visits or nearly twice as many by donald trump than hillary clinton did. she went down -- she had the pneumonia, she went down for debate prep, he didn't do that. nonetheless he was out there, multiple stops a day. you have to do it, i know because of the pandemic he hasn't been doing it at all, but from now on, robert gibbs, doesn't he out like he is today? you have to see him out there with real people. >> absolutely.

a smart strategy to make sure, particularly the day after a debate, that you have someplace to be and somewhere to go and a message to deliver quickly. look, i hope what we hear from joe biden is somebody who takes this race to a big level, right? walk people through exactly what they saw last night. they saw two different candidates, right? a sitting president that is incapable of doing the job and a former vice president that's ready to attack the problems of the pandemic, the rebuilding the economy, of taking on racial injustice in this country, of dealing with climate change. and, you know, say, i looked in the camera, i spoke to you and the rest of the american people. but i think take this big, and say, look, you know what donald trump is going to do, he laid it all out for us last night. he's calling white supremacists and medical-iilitia to be on gu

ready, and that the votes will be illegitimate. tell them to get out to vote asap, because if in ohio or a place like florida that counts their votes, their absentee or early votes before election day, if he wins one of those two states, if he wins both those states, which we should know on election night, this is over, this is done, there's no week-long drama with the proud boys and their assault weapons. the whole race is over and that's what he should be telling people, get out to vote early, make your voice heard, you know what's at stake, go do it. >> and jen palmieri, just as what robert was just saying, another lesson from 2016, i remember being on the road in florida and north carolina, and the campaign was taking a lot of comfort in all the early voting in those two states but it was really their votes coming out early and they weren't counting for the day of voting by republicans, the trump voters. >> yeah, democrats voting early

is great in states,they actually count the votes before election day, it's money in the bank. wealth that was casindicative o turnout that would continue to grow on election day and obviously that didn't happen. the other thing i would say about florida and north carolina and pennsylvania, andrea, none of those states ever felt good. even though the polls showed us winning, they didn't feel like states that we were winning. and of course in the end we didn't. to see, you know, the places were biden is in today, alliance, ohio, he's going to johnstown, pennsylvania, which i think you were on that trip, andrea, it was one of the worse days of the clinton -- >> i was. >> right? in july of '16. just the reception she got was so bad, the protests were really ugly. and it was one of the days when you got a glimpse, you thought,

wow, he could really win. that was in july. donald trump could really win this election. and for biden to get a good -- i think today is going to matter a lot when we see the kind of reception, the people who turn out in ohio and pennsylvania. i'm sure it's anecdotal, but my experience in politics [ inaudible ] ohio and pennsylvania now, that tells me voters will really [ inaudible ] and vote for biden. >> and robert gibbs, one thing comes to mind, watching that debate was so painful, we all had to watch it, but were there people who just tuned out and would say a pox on both their houses and there's too much argument and i'm not going to vote at all? did they lose some people and some of the audience? >> i have no doubt that over the course of time, they lost the audience. i kept thinking, i wonder who's

winning the baseball games. so i doubt i was alone, though. i continued to watch. i think most of the people that decide ultimately not to vote are ones that continue to be undecided now. look, if you're donald trump, what you needed to do last night was convince people that your behavior and the impact of your presidency are different than how they've been viewed up to this point. and there's obviously nothing that happened last night that would make any -- would make most undecided voters reconsider either of those two things. he needed a trajectory change. while joe biden isn't going to be in the debate hall of fame anytime soon, what he did was demonstrate that he had a plan. i think looking directly at the camera, talking to the american people, was vitally important. and i think he took a step forward in what he needed to do. donald trump either didn't take any step forward or, more likely, moved backward, because the clip that we're playing over and over today is what he said

about the proud boys, to basically stand by, that you'll be called into duty shortly. when trump's own people are trying to downplay what he said, when senator tim scott is saying, i think he needs to come out and correct it, when republicans are doing what jonathan capehart talked about, you know things have gotten bad, because most of the time they pretend like they didn't hear it or they're late to a meeting or they can't hear the question. if they're walking it back, they understand the damage of this. and that's important. >> good point, chris christie as well, one of the debate coaches, saying the same. thanks to you. mike memoli is standing by. any questions or answers with joe biden, when he makes remarks. he's busy meeting the crowd right now. thanks to all. we'll be back in a moment after this quick break. after this quick break

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not only was the message that you heard from president trump and his unwillingness to condemn white supremacy, as significant as that is, but as one voter explained it to me, there was frustration with how he automatically turned questions

about race and systematic racism automatically to law and order. i spoke to one antiviolence activist here in minneapolis who has condemned talk about defunding the police and dismantling the police but that president trump last night really missed the mark. listen to what he told me. >> the streets have to be safe. but is this the guy who's going to make it safemitch, as

someone who served our country and cares about our standing on the world stage, what did you make of what you did see last night? >> things i learned in the military include leadership. for me, leadership really has two core fundamentals, integrity and care and concern for the men and women that you lead.

weave not seen that in president trump, i don't believe he has care and concern for the troops. the military is one of the few places were honest mistakes are welcome, they're learned from. and the lies kill people. people die because of lies. donald trump has lied to us. lies should be brutally and extravagantly punished and rightly so. when he knew the language of covid, i lied to us.y so when he knew the language of covid, i lied to us. when he knew the language of covid, i lied to us. how many thousands of people would be alive right now? so no, he is not the leader i

would like to see at the head of our military. >> reporter: you have voted republican in every election since you were eligible to vote. what do you say to other lifelong republicans who might be uncomfortable with donald trump but don't necessarily align with democratic policies? >> and i don't. you know, the beso nli i'm pro-life, i'm a ig unch second amendmenttarypueo supporter. i believe the dangers of the trump presidency for outweigh those. as the leader of one branch, one co-equal branch of our government, i believe there are other opportunities to explore those policies and to push for what i believe. i would encourage those other e ublicans, look at the otheref men and women that are -- have come out against presiy in whicd

>> reporter: thank you so much andrea, i've got to tell you, this isn't the first time i've met a republican at the headquarters for the kent county democrats. it will be interesting to see how these folks, what they do with their vote in november, andrea >> indeed. dasha burns, thank you so much thanks no your guest there joe biden is speaking now in alliance, ohio let's listen in. >> and commissioner kathleen clyde is here, thank you for joining us today your collective leadership, and by the way, to the people here, salute, thank you guys the reason i stopped a moment ago, i've ridden a few miles on amtr amtrak when i first got started, amtrak didn't have a police getting here and riding around ohio in my favorite means of transportation. you know, the fact is we have finally in this town, as a spot where two railroads intersected,

that's how it got started. can i takesay, honey,

it's going to be okay. well, you know, the fact is, i don't expect the government to solve my problem, he would say,

but i do expect them to at least understand the problem. that's what last night's debate was about, this whole election is about. does your president have any idea, understand what you're going through, and if he drors does he care about it. as my mom would say, is he able to walk all street did not build this

country. ceos did not build this country. hard working average americans built this country. the middle class built this country. and unions built the middle class. and you know, i tell you what, i never forget where i came from. the measure of our success as a nation is not our well the stock market is doing. it's what families are able to talk about and what they deal with at their kitchen table. many of the people who hear this today woke up this morning at a kitchen table where there was one less chair, an empty chair. they lost someone. 205,000 dead because of covid. over 7 million infected. it's just -- what happened last night, did you hear a word from the president about any of that? look, tables like the one that we saw last night are ones that were set by trump.

you know, for 36 years, as i said, i took a 250-mile round trip on amtrak every day to commute from wilmington to washington. i got to know the engineers, the conductors, folks in the food service car. and at night, as i would ride home, and going between washington and baltimore, i see those lights on in those homes along the tracks, middle class homes, three bedrooms, split level, that i grew up in. i often wonder, what are they talking about? what are they dealing with? what's going on in their heads? is it like what's going on in my house? no, honey, you got to ride on those tires for another 4, 5, 6,000 miles, we can't afford new ones right now. who's going to tell her, who's going to tell him, you can't go back to that school because we just don't have the money? or what are we going to do? i can remember my father, we lived in three-bedroom house with four kids and a

grandfather. and i can remember, you know, the walls were thin. i can remember my dad rolling around at night, i could hear him, my room was next to him. i remember asking my mom one day, what's the matter with dad? she said, we just lost insurance, we have no health insurance. and so, look, these are the things that people are worried about. my guess is that the same thing is happening everywhere in america. and the question people are asking is, is it going to be okay. folks, this election in my view is between scranton and park avenue, between alliance and park avenue. and it's about whether or not the parents are going to look their kids in the eye and are going to be able to say it's going to be okay. that's what we talked about on the way down here on the train. we talked about it all along this whistle stop tour because i'm coming into places where people are hurting, people have lost their jobs, where there event real opportunity. this is all about my view, how we're going to support working

families, to give people an equal shot just so they can be able to have a chance to be able to just make a decent living. and folks, you know, to protect your pensions, your health care, to make wealthy corporations pay fair their share, to me that's what this is all about. it's a tradeoff. do we allow, do we allow corporate america to continue to pay no tax at all while you're having your health care taken away in the name of, we can't afford it? do we allow, do we allow billionaires to get another $30 billion tax break so they pay at a lower rate than you pay if you have a job as a schoolteacher? do we allow that? do we invest in our schools? what should we be doing right now, and somewhat should we be doing for the last five months? the president, instead of being in his sand trap in the golf course, should be in the white house, inviting democrats and

republicans to be with him and settle, how we can bail out these small businesses that are going under, make sure people can keep their insurance, making sure we have the ability to open our stores and our schools safely. it costs money to do that. what's he doing? he's doing nothing. by the way, i find it fascinating that at the very end of this election, to hold a hearing on a supreme court justice, but the senate does not have time to deal with making sure schools and businesses have the ppe they need for protective gear, does not have sanitary conditions available to them and the money to pay for them to open up? it's kind of amazing, isn't it? they have time to rush through a nominee after an election is already started, but no time to deal with the everyday concerns about the american people. look, let me conclude by saying, notwithstanding where we are right now, i am extremely

optimistic. i'm optimistic that because the american people know, this is not what we are. they're ready to get up again. they're ready to come back. we just have to give them a shot. and so we're better positioned than any nation in the world to take back this 21st century. we're ready to do it but we can only do it if we do it together. if i get elected president, i'm not going to be the democrat president. i'm going to be an american president. i'm going to represent you whether you vote for me or you vote against me. this is about the united states of america, our place in the world, the security and wellbeing of people. just give them an equal chance, an equal chance to have a shot at the american dream that's being denied them right now. thank you very much for listening. i'm happy to take questions. how do i know where to start? i guess i'll start, work my way a little bit. yes. >> reporter: what did you learn last night about going

face-to-face with president trump, would you do anything different next time? also there's a lot of talk about given the way things went last night, two more debates aren't worth having. what do you think about that? >> it's not an inconsequential assertion. look, he did what i expected him to do last night. he announced what he was going to do. he announced he was going to -- i think the phrase was, now we can become really vicious, i think that was his phrase at some point. look, last night reinforced for me why i got in this race in the first place. last night -- and i said when i got in the race, we were in a battle for the soul of this country. can you all see me, should i turn a little this way? trump's constant disregard and unwillingness to speak to covid and the fact that 205,000 people have already died, and over 7

million are infected, and it's likely to get worse, he didn't want to talk about it at all. in terms of election legitimacy, he made it clear that he didn't think, if he lost, it wouldn't be a legitimate election, already began to plant seeds of doubt in the legitimacy of this election. i don't know of any president that's done that before. and his dog whistle to white supremacy, when asked would he condemn white supremacy, he didn't say a word. then when i said, how about the proud boys, which is a white supremacist group, he says, i just told them to stand down and stand ready. stand down and stand ready? based on the outcome of the election? and last night was i think a wake-up call for all americans. what i tried to do last night, i tried to speak directly into the camera to the american people to talk about their concerns, to talk about what's on their minds, and talk about what i would do were i president.

trump has no plans, no ideas, didn't express a single plan that he had about how he's going to move forward. and it made me realize just how much is at stake. you know, for 90 minutes, he tried everything to distract, everything possible, and it just didn't work. but i hope that this next debate is going to be in front of real live people, it's going to be a town hall. i just hope we're able, i'm looking forward to it, i hope we're able to get a chance to actually answer the questions that are asked by the persons in the room. but god only knows what he'll do. yes. >> reporter: is there any scenario where you would not debate the president in these next two debates? and are there any changes you want to see made by the commission before you debate?

>> well, you know, he not only attacked me constantly and my family, but he attacked the moderator. again on his tweets this morning or last night. i just hope there's a way in which the debate commission can control the ability of us to answer the question without interruption. i'm not going to speculate on what happens in the second or third debate. my hope is they're able to literally say -- the question gets asked of trump, he has two minutes to answer the question, no one else has a microphone, and i don't know what the actual rules are going to be, literally, but that would seem to me to make some sense be. but i'm looking forward to it. >> reporter: what do you say to undecided, persuadable voters who were watching last night and were just completely turned off by politics? >> i can understand it.

it was -- i kind of thought at one point, maybe i shouldn't say this, but the president of the united states conducted himself the way he did, i think it was just a national embarrassment. but look, i just hope that the american people, those undecided voters, try to determine what each of us has as an answer for their concerns and allows us to actually speak. yes, sir. >> reporter: thank you, mr. vice president. you mentioned the president's comment about the proud boys, "stand back and stand by." today they've made that a rallying cry, they're rallying around that slogan they've created for it. what are your fears for the

implications of the president's rhetoric and do you have a message for the proud boys today? >> cease and desist. cease and desist. the american people will decide who the next president of the united states will be, period. so i'm urging the american people, go out and vote. show up. you can vote early, vote early. vote whatever way is most convenient for you. but vote. if you show up in large enough numbers, nothing, nothing is going to change. i promise you, if in fact we win this election, this president will step down. a lot of bravado. he has no alternative. the american people will not stand for it. no agency would stand for that happening. my message to the proud boys and every other white supremacist group is, cease and desist. that's not who we are. this is not who we are as americans. all right. i'm going to let you pick somebody because you got everybody out here.

>> reporter: mr. vice president, thank you for giving me a question. >> yes. >> reporter: great, okay. it's about last night. you said a few things that put some distance between yourself and the liberal wing of the party on the green new deal and medicare for all. can you talk a little bit about whether or not you could be going a little bit too far to the center and alienating some people on the left, and related to that, have you spoken with alexandra -- or aoc today or recently? >> no, i haven't. i appreciated her endorsement. look, we had a debate with, i don't know, 22, 25 people in the democratic party. i said at the time that i would tell you exactly what i believed and i would say why i believed

it and why i was running. and that's exactly what i did. i did not support medicare for all. i do not support it now. i support the biden plan that i've laid out. i've laid out the most extensive plan with a detail on how i will get us to zero, net zero emissions in the energy sector by 2035, putting thousands of people to work. i've laid out how in fact i'm going to get us to net zero emissions in the united states of america by 2050 across the board, how i would rejoin the paris accord which i helped put together, et cetera. so the green new deal that the president keeps trying to talk about, it's not a bad deal, but it's not the plan i have. the biden green deal, that's what it's about. what the president keeps trying to do, he's trying to run against somebody other than me. i've said to the left, the right, and the center, exactly where i am on each of these

issues. i did have time and i've worked very hard with all segments of the party. we put together a platform that is a platform that i fully support. the president keeps talking about, what do you call it, he has some name for our platform, i can't remember what it is. manifesto, thank you, the manifesto. the democratic platform is the one i've signed onto, the one that the vast majority, overwhelming majority of democrats have signed onto. but the democratic party is a big tent, we have folks with different views and they're all welcome. we negotiated it, we debated it, we had a primary election and i won and i've laid out what we're going to do. so i'm not worried about losing the left, right, or the center of the party. this is a big party. but i have one of the most progressive records that any democrat has run on. i'm proud of it. but it's my record and it's what

i want to do. so thank you. >> reporter: if i could follow up with an unrelated question. [ inaudible question ] >> i'm going to get in trouble with the conductor. because i would like to stay and answer a lot of your questions. do i think he's created a crisis in confidence? look, all you have to do is look at the polls all your networks run. a significant number of the american people are worried about what he recommends having anything to do with -- is that what you're trying to tell me? -- to deal with the covid crisis. and he has -- they've lost confidence in him. that's why i think it's really important that the scientists continue to speak out, say exactly what constitutes an appropriate approach to dealing with covid-19, whether it is a vaccine or any other -- and any other proposal, and god willingly, we're going to have a vaccine sooner than later.

god willing, we'll be able to distribute it as rapidly as possible. but it gets down to ultimately the american people have to have trust in what the president says. and it's quite clear, many, many, many people don't trust him. relates as well to businesses. they say open up. even businesses opening up are having trouble getting people to come in. because the president says things that are just not accurate. but i'm confident that we're going to get in this train or you're going to have to run behind it, and we've got to get going. but thank you all very much. i'll talk to you next time. thank you. >> and we've been watching joe biden. you heard that question from our own reporter asking him about his response to what the president said last night to the proud boys, which was stand back and stand by, and he said his

answer would be, cease and desist. and that the american people, if the american decides who the next president will be, period. so i urge the american people to show out and show up. he's already called out, he's getting back on the train and going on this trip to ohio and then on to pennsylvania, two key battleground states. joining me now is democratic senator chris coons, who was in the hall with joe biden. you've been his wing man. you saw what happened last night and how he responded today to basically the debacle, the way i've been describing the debate. do you think there's any risk that people were just turned off by the whole thing, and with the biggest debate audience history tuned in at the beginning, they tuned out, and now they're not going to vote?

>> well, andrea, i think that's part of president trump's strategy, frankly, is to sow division and chaos and to throw sand in the air such that a lot of americans watching say the heck with the whole thing. joe biden made a passionate, personal appeal to the american people in the debate last night to go out and vote, to let their values and their voices be heard. to not be deterred from vote thing year. last night on this stage in cleveland, president trump did what he's done in the last four years. sowed division, chaos, disorder and made it difficult for anyone to hear. he bullied the moderator. he insulted both former vice president biden and his family. and frankly, insulted the audience. his conduct was stunning. there was only one president on that stage last night, and it wasn't the one that flew in on air force one, it was the one you just saw get on a train for a whistle stop tour of ohio and pennsylvania.

>> do you wish that he had not -- that joe biden -- i understand -- i can't understand, but i can imagine the pressures on him. but to call the president a clown and to tell him to shut up, do you think he mixed it up too much? >> i think joe biden tried and tried and tried for what was a very long initial half an hour, to get any sort of respect or balance or observation by the president of the rules that he agreed to. and he ultimately said a few things like that just in complete exasperation. joe biden keptcusing us back on what matters. this shouldn't be president trump trying to insult joe biden's family or joe biden trying to bring up things about donald trump's family. joe just turned to the camera and said it's not about him or me it's about you. it's about your family and when your kids can go back to school

resafely. when we can get out of this pandemic. the recession has been made much worse than it ever should have been by president trump's bungled mishandling of this pandemic. and hasn't laid out a clear fan for federal leadership. joe had a clear plan back in march, and president trump has failed to take responsibility here.

-- we could save as many as 100,000 american lives between now and the end of the year. and in the middle of a pandemic that's infected 7 million, killed more than 200,000 americans, and where president trump is trying to reverse the affordable care act at the supreme court, the week after the election, and take away preexisting condition protections from americans, where there's 7 million more who have new preexisting conditions because of this pandemic, i

think that's significant that his core supporters and family weren't wearing masks at this important national presidential debate last night. >> senator, thank you for being with us today. and joining us now, michael steele, who served as a former senior adviser to jeb bush, and back with us is jonathan capart. michael steele, let's talk about what senator tim scott talked about today. let's watch. >> i think he misspoke in response to chris wallace's comment. he was asking chris what he wanted to say. i think he should correct it. >> and that was act the proud boys. what is your thought about that exchange? >> if he doesn't correct it, he didn't misspeak. and i seriously doubt he will correct it. it was a sad and disgusting

display. if he was going to walk it back, i think he would have by now. >> what does it mean for the republican party? >> i think it means that if the president is no longer the head of the party, when he is no longer head of the party, we're going to have a lot of work to do to repair the image of the party with just decent american people. and that's something that, you know, the lack of respect, the lack of decency that the president brought to the debate last night was a culmination of four years that's gotten worse and worse from that respect. and i think the american people deserve better than that debate and better than president trump. >> and jonathan, the message from joe biden right now to the questionable the proud boys was, his message to them would be cease and desist. can't get much clearer than that. >> no, you can't. and cease and desist, because the proud boys are out this on american streets packing heat,

packing guns on american streets. they are not law enforcement, they are vigilantes. the fact the president of the united states could not denounce them and tell them what former vice president joe biden told them today, cease and desist, is what is truly alarming. >> michael steele, as you go forward in this campaign, what is the likelihood that a lot of republicans are still going to vote for donald trump, citing their 401(k)s, these are people all over america. >> there is a certain segment of the american population that's decided the danger of a biden administration, as they perceive it, is great enough that no matter what president trump does, they will continue to support him, they'll point to things like the supreme court, tax reform, the economic benefits that it had before the pandemic started and will continue to support him.

i don't see much of anything that will change that between now and election day. >> judge barrett has indicated she will not recuse herself, michael, from -- if she is confirmed before the election from deciding some of these election issues. do you think she should? >> no. i think we need a functioning supreme court with a functioning majority. and i just hope that the election results are clear enough on election day or as soon as possible thereafter that the courts don't need to get involved. i can't imagine they want to do anything like that again. >> well, thanks to both of you for your patience. this has been a busy day, a long night, busy morning. that does it for us. chuck todd is up next with "mtp daily" right now. ♪

welcome to wednesday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. the next 34 days and beyond are going to be some of the most chaotic our democracy has seen in modern times. why shouldn't we make that prediction give what we saw last night? moments ago, we heard joe biden speak about the debate. he called the president's performance a national embarrassment. he called on far right groups to cease and desist, and committed to participating in the next debate. we'll have more reaction in a moment. the president turned last night into an utter disaster, making it clear his strategy is to up end the democracy right now. arguably the low point came when he refused to denounce white se peop supremacyal