interruption. this is the " arizona republic" chaotic debate. this is the denver post. yelling and name calling."yelli calling. "did you lose it? go on. there's the post. do you have "the boston globe." go on. prove it. show me. yeah. chaos. front page of "the boston globe." here's the "l.a. times" today, "invective interruptions." this is the "washington post." talking about the debate. plunging. good verb there. and then the all capital letters subheading there, which is a rare thing at "the post." trump interrupts and jeers ceaselessly. this is the front of "the new

york times" today. in keeping with the other ones you're seeing. trump's heckles sends debate into utter chaos. talks of policies and ideas drowned out. notice a theme, right? from theme to shining theme. the whole country is apparently alarmed and weirded out and shocked by what that was the president did last night, which is extreme enough that it made it a non-hypothetical live question as of last night and as of today as to whether we're going to have any presidential debates anymore since that form of discourse doesn't make that much sense anymore if this is what the president is going to be like now this. led to the presidential debates commission today say they're going to change the rules to try to stop something like that from happening ever again. they're going to change the rules in time for the next

debate. i mean as much as the whole country today is rocked and weirded out by what we saw there by us apparently losing, right, a key part of how we conduct ourselves as a democracy, how we have had our candidates compete since the very beginning of our republic, and now maybe we're going to have to give it up because of this guy? with the national sort of shock and horror over that last night and the implications of it, even still, something that big and shocking at the ar d "arkansas-democrat gazette," even the news about the debate there has to share billing with what else is going on right now in arkansas. you see this is the front page of their paper. their mane headline is about the heated debate, but it has to split the billing with what iele made the headlines.

infections rising in children. right column. atkins school chief dies of covid. his name was jodie jenkins. he was the school superintendent. he had been in intensive care at little rock hospital, he had to be put on a ventilator, he died yesterday. he was 57 years old. little rock teachers stayed home from work on monday the day before superintendent jenkins died. little rock teachers saying they don't think this forced in-school teacher thing is safe, so they stayed home. they have the second highest rate in the country. so, yeah, in arkansas, at the "arkansas-democrat gazette," the president's debate disaster is right there on the front page just like it is everywhere.

it has to be. it necessarily is, but it does have to share the bill with what else is going on. same thing in wyoming. the wyoming tribune eagle. cheyenne, wyoming, has got their story on the debate alongside the masthead. but right alongside it, they've got their local headline. virus cases sticking around. locally in cheyenne they had to close down because of covid. across the country, here's kentucky. the lexington "herald-leader," they've got it there. and also the state reports more

than 1,000 new covid-19 cases. and the "times news" out of idaho, virus case double in the last four weeks. magic valley saw the numbers grow. here's a snapshot of wisconsin. on the west you see the milwaukee paper, "milwaukee journal sentinel." on the right, the paper from madison. their column one, front page lead, state reports crisis. 22% positivity. 22%. on the right, the madison paper, yeah, they've got their debate story as well and a picture. but above the fall, all columns, surge claiming more lives. cases have more than tripled.

wisconsin is in a crisis. wisconsin is in a crisis. that's a quote from the state's chief medical officer. but don't take his word for it if you don't want to. here's what it looks like. look at the curve of their case numbers right now. that's very bad. they thought they went through a peak toward june. look where they are now. wisconsin hit a record number of covid deaths today. they had a record number of people hospitalized in the state. here's the "a.p." lead today in wisconsin. they set a new record for covid-19 deaths on wednesday and they threatened to overwhelm some hospitals. some said they were close to being overwelcomed by covid-19 cases. they said only now seems like it could happen in wisconsin. case spikes in northern and northeastern wisconsin were causing many of the

hospitalizations. officials at theta care in fox valley said they had exceed capacity at their appleton medical center. they started sending patients to other cities. the chief medical officer for acute care at theta care telling the "a.p." today, quote, if it's growing the way it has for the past week or so, we're going to be in a dire situation. yes, we saw it coming, but we did not expect it to be quite so rapid. in wausau, wisconsin, the ceo of they're health care has started putting people on waiting lists ranging from several hours to a whole day. again, that's wausau, wisconsin. they had 61 patients yesterday who had or believed to have covid. that's a 30% increase from just

the day before. the ceo telling the "associated press" today, quote, the problem is how do we care for you if you have an accident when we have an overflow of covid patients. officials at the hospital in green bay said yesterday their hospital was at 94% capacity. they hope to convert part of their campus at green bay into some other space for beds that isn't being currently used as beds. green bay is one of the places in wisconsin where president trump is hoping to hold a gigantic in-person mega rally this weekend. he wants do that in green bay and also lacrosse. the white house, the white house just this week warned wisconsin that the state is in terrible shape in terms of uncontrolled spread of the virus. the white house warning wisconsin state officials this week that their per capita case

rate right now is more than double, actually triple the national rate. because of that, the white house just told wisconsin this week that the state's viral spread is so bad that the state needs to increase social distancing, quote, to the maximum degree possible. "washington post" reports within wisconsin, lacrosse and green bay were flagged by the white house as, quote, red zones where community spread is rampant. that's a white house warning to wisconsin about lacrosse and green bay. and lacrosse and green bay are where the prlt plaesident plans going this weekend, no distancing, let's have everybody pack in and have rallies, where they can all boo the idea of wearing masks. that's this weekend. and i know it sounds a little bit weird for me to say it, but because of what the president is doing now in swing states, in some cases where the virus is

really bad right now, they have to be sort of thankful if they aren't swing states, right? and the states that are having a really hard time right now, states like south dakota, north dakota, and idaho, and other red states, states where the trump campaign is confident enough where they don't have to win, where they don't have to campaign, that has to be a relief for public health officials, thinking that for all they're dealing with with covid and the numerous states being stressed right now in terms of numbers and hospital capacity, how much of a relief must it be if you don't have to worry about getting a visit sometime in the next month from the president's super campaign caravan where he likes to pack people together as close as possible and tell them they don't have to follow any advice they hear about masks or distancing. we've seen reports last week from missouri, also from idaho of rural hospitals being

overwhelmed now just like the hospitals in wisconsin are. now, because of the polling in missouri and idaho, i'm guessing they're not likely to have president trump come visit, to pack thousands and thousands of maskless people and congregate events for the president's benefit right where the virus is worse in those states. so not being a swing state, some of these states are a minor epidemiological blessing because the president himself is holding events that nobody else in the country is holding that are covid disasters. this is another one to wachlt north dakota. north dakota, the case rise is even worse than it is in wisconsin right now. the fastest outbreak in the country. they just lost their third state health director in four months. they've gone through three of them. this last one didn't last one month in office while the cases take off in that state with the

rocket's red glare. the covid virus is not going away on its oven. even though we have to share billing with the covid crisis right now, it has to share a buildin billing. i'm not going to dwell too much on this because we'll have more in the coming days, but i want to give you a new heads-up about quiet rumblings we're about to see about the cdc chief potentially resigning sometime soon in the middle of all this in what appears to be a new peak in cases of hospital deaths. this week they wanted to extend a no -sail order for american cruise ships. that no-sail and keeping them in port has been in place for

months. it's right up there with meat packing plants and nursing as god's inckcubator for extending this virus. "the new york times" is reporting tonight not only did the cdc deairector wanted to extend that ban and he was overruled by the president, he considered resigning if he were required to oversee a policy that compromised public health. he apparently thinks this policy on cruise ships compromises public health. if that's the threshold for whether or not he's going resign, well, that's why i'm raising these flags right now. this cruise ship reporting comes right on the heels of "the new york times" reporting this week about the cdc's advice of opening schools being overrule and circumvented by the white

house. the cdc has put its name to guidance about opening schools. this news also comes on the heels of our own reporting of director redfield ordering his own cdc scientists to water down their recommendations on meat p packing plants on a recommendation. robert redfield may have lied to congress when he was questioned about the meat packing thing a few days ago. he asked to speak with tammy baldwin by phone, which is an unusual thing for a cdc director to ask for a phone conversation with a senator. she spoke with him on the

watering down of the meat packing situation. it's something for the cdc director to have succumbed to the trump administration in the middle of a virus that has killed over 2 million people. it's bad enough they've been succumbing to pressure from the white house, but if this cdc director lied to congress when he was asked about doing that, that is another level of danger for the director, and we don't know if director redfield has had that call today or tonight with senator baldwin or if he will be reconsidering or changing his testimony to try to alleviate concerns that he might have lied about this to congress. but all that together with "the times" reporting on him considering resignation, this is something to flag for you. i mean, my personal take on

this? god help us. robert redfield has been, really does seem to be a disaster as a cdc director at a time we need them to be phenomenal. at the same time god help us all the more if donald trump gets to pick someone new to run the cdc right now, right now as he's barreling toward his re-election effort and right now as some fox news radiologist convinced us that it would be fantastic, that it would be fantastic if the american policy would encourage as many americans to get infected as possible. god help us. i invoked god three times. i need to say something constructive. i think it's worth considering, alongside all of this reporting

that i just described, one thing that last story shows us that's good is that congress is apparently alive and kicking. and congress is worrying about big stuff and about important things like science at the cdc being manipulated and being screwed around with by the administration for political reasons, and the cdc having such a weak director that he succumbed to pressure and changed his guidance for political purposes. it is a good sign that congress is pursuing that and that they're not taking what appears to be lies about that, and they're holding people to account. accountability is good, especially when it is on the big life-changing stuff. that's good. that's the reason not to be cheerful but reasons to be

hopeful and bolstered and hopeful in terms of the way things are supposed to work. there may be a new covid relief bill as soon as tomorrow from this congress. i will believe it when i see it as should you. that might happen. that's a sign that congress is alive and kicking and working on the big stuff, the right stuff. i'll give you another one, while we're on a roll. this is reporting from politico. they plan on spend 3g $00 million in taxpayer money between now and election. more than a quarter billion dollars they're planning to spend on ads to convince people that covid is all better now because trump's done such a good job. this is from dan diamond from politico. that plan is dying on the vine. here's the piece today.

they made a list more than 30 celebrities including taylor swift and justin timberlake and billy joel to appear in their campaign ad inspiring hope about coronavirus. but they end up with a singer shulem lemmer. and dennis quaid. the health department taxpayer vehicle to boost confidence in president trumps response to the coronavirus is sputtering. celebrities refused to participate. others point to an ill-prepared video team at a 22 political appointee who repeatedly asserted control despite having no public health expertise. this is according to six people with close knowledge of the campaign and documents related to its onn eoperations. these interviews paint a picture of a chaotic event. if there is any effort that you want to be chaotic when it come to the coronavirus response, let it be the effort to spend a quarter billion dollars of taxpayer's money on a celebrity campaign convincing you that trump is awesome about this. don't worry about covid-19, we are all going to be fine because trump is in charge. that quarter of a billion

dollars plus taxpayers' funded campaign is apparently not going to happen. i mean that thing falling apart, don't worry about covid because trump is in charge, that ad campaign, that's apparently not going to happen. that's falling apart because -- because lots of things are bad, but not everything is bad, and sometimes the very, very, very bad ideas get exposed and people grow a spine and they stand up against them, and then those terrible ideas get beaten down, and they do not get effectuated in reality. that happens sometimes. want another one? this from the "washington post." quote, postal service workers quietly resist dejoy's changes. tell me more. this summer as controversial new procedures snarled the nations mail delivery and stirred fears of how the agency would handle

the election. rank-and-file postal workers quietly began to resist. mechanics in new york drew out the dismantling and removal of mail-sorting machines until their supervisor gave up on the order. in michigan, they refused to leave election mail behind. in ohio postal clerks, cold prescriptions and benefit checks from bins to stalled mail to make sure they were delivered. some carriers ran late items out on their own time. in pennsylvania, some postal to buy themselves enough time to finish their daily rounds. one philadelphia postal worker tell "the post" in an intervurks i can't see any postal worker not bending those rules. be strengthened in your resolve today by friggin' postal service mechanics in new york.

just not doing it. having a hard time getting around to it when they got to taking the mail sorting machines apart. bestrengthed in your resolve. the debate disaster last night, that was an accident. that was not the president trying to have a debate and failing. if we all walk away from the basic fundamentals of our democracy, something like a presidential debate. if we all say, oh, that's terrible, that's an s-show, that's a mess, that's unlistenable, i don't want anything to do with that, turn it off, it's understandable. your feelings about that are shared more widely than you can possibly imagined.

and talking about it in that way is rightful, i think a stronger rea to this president in terms of making it a mess that it is a disaster and useless and worth turning off. our reaction coast to coast all around the country, right? that reaction is also advantage to him. if he succeeds, in making americans believe politics is a disgusting argumentative display that nobody is worth arguing in in, nobody decent par it pating in it. that's why it makes him boring and abusive and denigrating and repellent.

that's tactically efficient. who wants to be anywhere near politics? let those guys have it. let that guy have it. that's what's happening to politics? i don't want anything to do with it. he can have it. that's what he wants. it does not hurt to be widely recognized as corrupt. that's disheartening and disgusting. it turns us all off of this mess. right? install your family members, unqualified members in political positions. government's stupid. nobody needs specifics or experience to hold high-level government jobs. why not give them to the guy who carries my golf clubs or my son's wedding planner or daughter-in-law. who cares about security clearances? none of this matters. this is all trash work. does not matter if you put trash people in these jobs. it is all just a joke. he benefits when we devalue government, and it's disgusting. he benefits when we think the

rules of how this is supposed to happen, those are rules for suckers, right? regular order on how we're supposed to conduct ourselves as a democracy, he wants us to think that that's antiquated, quaint, that regular order never really existed, it was all a scam, it never mattered anyway, it's a bored, rigged, stupid, con, yeah, yeah, it's all boring and stupid