himself from others. after taping this video, he got into a vehicle with other people while infected with covid-19 to wave to the crowd outside the hospital gates. today his doctors said the president's condition has improved, his oxygen levels had dropped both friday and yesterday. they declined to answer questions about whether the president has lung damage or pneumonia. apparently he might be discharged from the hospital as early as tomorrow. all of this comes just one month before the election. tonight we'll break down the latest polls, and yes, there are a lot of them. and we'll try to explain how we make sense of what the polls mean. meanwhile, vice president mike pence and his wife karen tested negative again today. they've been tested every day since the president was diagnosed. he and senator kamala harris are still planning to debate this wednesday night. we'll discuss that with a debate coach who has won a number of national championships.

also we'll check in on the biden campaign's plans in this final month before election day. and congressman m muman mo kann share his thoughts on when a coronavirus relief package will come, if ever. if you're a bit confused by it all, you're not alone. we've heard a lot in the last 48 hours. and frankly, it's been hard to know just what to believe. >> as president donald trump and first lady melania trump have both tested positive for coronavirus. >> the president does have mild symptoms. he continues to be not only in good spirits but very energetic. >> the president out of an abundance of caution is going to be heading to walter reed medical center. >> we have not heard anything from a president who usually is extraordinarily communicative. >> this historic moment is defined by what we don't know. >> nbc news has learned trump has a low grade fever.

>> he does not require supplemental oxygen and has completed his first dose of remdesivir. >> he's also received a single eight-gram dose of regeneron's experimental poly clonal antibody cocktail. >> the questions are only growing. a briefing from his medical team added to the confusion. >> reporter: has he ever been on supplemental oxygen? >> right now he is not on oxygen. >> the timeline is getting to be more and more of a mess here. >> just 72 hours into the diagnosis now. >> if one does the math, that would put it back to wednesday morning. >> the white house is actually quick to correct, clarifying the president is on, quote, day three of his illness, not a full 72 hours. >> the white house travel pool saying the president's vitals over the last 24 hours are very concerning and that the next 48 hours will be critical. >> yesterday morning we were real concerned with that, he had a fever and his blood oxygen level had dropped rapidly.

>> over the course of his illness, the president has experienced two especially codes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation. >> last night the president's doctor said he did not receive any supplemental oxygen on saturday. but we now know he did receive supplemental oxygen on friday. >> what is the latest on the president's condition and who is telling us the latest on the president's condition? >> we're still missing a lot of basic information. >> let's kick off this hour with nbc political reporter josh lederedmled er lederman live in bethesda. josh, that motorcade that came through, i'm sure it created quite a stir, even though the president tweeted that he was going to do it about a minute before he apparently left the hospital. >> reporter: that's right, joshua. a lot of his supporters hadn't had a chance to see that video in the time between when it was released and the president's motorcade came out of the

hospital and drove down rockville pike behind me past throngs of president trump's supporters in an unexpected joyride by the president who is currently suffering from coronavirus and is symptomatic which we know from all of our doctors and medical experts is the time when someone is extremely contagious. the president traveled in his presidential vehicle with the windows sealed up, meaning he was in the vehicle with drivers from the secret service. they were wearing masks during the period of time when we could see the president briefly through the window. but this is raising profound questions tonight about whether the white house has any real commitment to taking the steps that they have said they are going to take to make sure that the coronavirus does not continue to spread, that they do not put more people at risk. it's not like this isn't something that we've already seen play out. multiple people in and around the white house now have contracted coronavirus, so much so that the d.c. government has

said that rose garden event a week ago where many of the attendees have now come down with coronavirus constitutes the biggest community spread that washington, d.c. has. coronavirus in months. >> thank you, josh. that's nbc's josh lederman joining us from bethesda, maryland, outside walter reed. we'll check back with you. let's continue with dr. kovita patel, a former obama white house health adviser. i can only imagine, doctor, what your thoughts were when that motorcade rode past the crowd. >> yeah, josh, it's pretty cringeworthy for the reasons that have been pointed out already, probably one of the most dangerous environments you could be in, inside the hospital. because it's not an average suv the president is driving as part of the motorcade. that's a pretty fortified

driving unit that in an ironic way kind of mimics those negative ventilation pressure rooms inside a hospital. it kind of blows my mind, to be honest, because those people, those secret service agents, i couldn't see exactly who else was there, but you could tell those secret service agents who were wearing masks, that's not enough protection. and that concerns me for their health. it concerns me that this is still a president and a white house that is using an extension of a very serious illness, and a motorcade ride as part of pr and marketing. it seems we're seeing this recurring theme of trying to make things sound better, you heard that from dr. conley, not just today but yesterday as well, in the updates on the president's condition. >> let me get your reaction, dr. patel, to something said earlier on "american voices" regarding one of the medications that the president is being treated with.

watch. >> when we put patients on high dose steroids like that, we monitor them very closely because there is a host of side effects including impact on their mental health and decisionmaking. you could see delirium or psychosis. you are generally not yourself. there comes a time when patients on this very specific treatment regimen maybe shouldn't be making decisions about what they have capacity to do. >> now, she's referring to a medication called dexamethasone, a corticosteroid part of president trump's covid-19 regimen. what is dexamethasone intended to do and what do you make of her comment? with the clear understanding that none of us has reliable information about the president's mental health state so we're not going to try to does go t diagnose the president tonight. but tell me about dexamethasone. >> dexamethasone is a steroid. the doses which have been

studied, this is a drug which has been studied and shown to be effective, joshua, in the treatment of covid-19 patients, but very clearly, through the evidence we have, for patients who either have been on mechanical intubation or dependent on oxygen or been in the hospital for longer than seven days. we've already heard, and we don't have the pieces we need to understand, but we've heard the president was on oxygen and we have to understand that there must have been a progression in his illness which caused the doctors to put him on dexamethasone. again, a very commonly used steroid. i prescribed it the other day for a patient that had an allergic reaction, but in a much lower dose. the doses the president are receiving are higher. i think what the doctor is directly referencing is that on those doses, and actually any dose, but on high doses especially, there is a much higher likelihood of side effects and side effects that can occur with dexamethasone

include depression, psychosis, suppression of the immune system, weight gain, and also a predisposition for high bloopd issui blood sugars or going like diabetes. >> we have gotten a few more answers from the president's medical team. what is the biggest lingering question for you in terms of how the president is doing? >> number one, what exactly were the president's viral loads? how much virus is in his body? they're drawing blood, they're looking at what level of infectious virus he has right now. are those levels rising or declining? that's important, it tells us where we are in the course of illness. number two, joshua, what are the results of those pulmonary scans we know they've done? has there been evidence of damage to his lungs, which is incredibly common in covid-19, even in healthy patients that are not hospitalized? and then three, the next, critical phase of the hospitalization or even if he's

discharged back to the white house residence, the next phase is really this inflammatory phase that can get really aggressive and result in your body going into a kind of multisystem inflammatory state. but you can tell that by looking at certain lab markers. we need to know what those are. those will be critical pieces of information for taking care of the president going forward and for the american public to understand, is he on the recovery trajectory or is this still a critical watch and wait period, which is where i believe he's at. >> dr. kovita patel, always good to see you, thanks for starting us off tonight. transparency has been an issue with the updates on the president's health. today his physician acknowledged the criticism. >> i was trying to reflect the, uh, the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, his course of illness, has had. umm, i didn't want to give, uh, any information that might, uh, steer the course of illness in

any direction and in doing so, came off that we're trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true, and, uh, so here i have it. >> does the white house have a point when it comes to remaining optimistic about the president's health? is it an issue of national security? nbc national security and justice correspondent ken dilanian joins us now, ken, good evening. >> good evening, joshua. >> i would like to get your sense on the national security implications of this in light of what we just learned from white house spokesman judd deere regarding that motorcade that we just saw some video of. he spoke to one of the pool reporters and said of that motorcade, quote, appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the president and all those supporting it including ppe, personal protective equipment. the movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do, unquote. now, mr. deere apparently did not answer questions about whether the drive-by happened at

the president's request, whether the president met with anyone in person or why the pool reporters were not notified and called back to cover this drive-by. these all raise so many more national security questions than we had already raised. this feels like the kind of thing that needs to be buttoned up oh, so tightly, because there are so many things that could go sideways. >> yeah, you're not kidding, joshua. in tackling this whole national security question, it bears remembering there are a lot of people that believe that just having donald trump as president as a threat to the national security of the united states. and it's not just democrats i'm talking about. i'm talking about his former defense secretary jim mattis, his former national security adviser john bolton. this is a man who doesn't read his intelligence briefings, who doesn't understand america's role in the world, who doesn't understand the role of nato. that's the backdrop. here we have a president now who is suffering from a life-threatening illness, who may, as you say, be under -- on

drugs that render him not of sound mind and body. we have this thing called the 25th amendment that has been used by two other presidents in our history, ronald reagan when he was shot and george w. bush when he had a colonoscopy, a basic procedure where he was under anesthesia for a few hours, he transferred power to vice president dick cheney. why that's not been discussed in the context of donald trump's treatment right now, temporarily transferring power to vice president mike pence, is a mystery to me and to a lot of my national security sources. and general the bigger picture here, joshua, trump appears to be fine in the videos we're watching, he seems to be mentally sound in those videos. but any time the president of the united states, the commander in chief, the man who has the nuclear football, the ability to rain down destruction on nations, is suffering from a life-threatening illness, that is a moment when my sources worry that adversaries will try to take advantage. >> right.

>> and there are any number of dangerous adversaries that we're facing out there from russia, china, iran, north korea, who may well seize this moment to try to do something. and we have a president who is under treatment in the hospital now, and a vice president who is not in charge. it's a pretty worrisome situation. >> before we have to move on, ken, is it safe to assume there are provisions being taken to ensure the continuity of control in the administrative branch, despite what may happen to president trump? there are measures being taken, right? >> there are continuity of government plans that are always being examined. and 9/11 sort of injected a new life into them. and of course the fact that mike pence is now repeatedly tested negative, that takes a lot of the strain off the continuity of government plans, because the real concern is what happens if the have the and the vice president are incapacitated and we have to start talking the secession act of 1947 and

president nancy pelosi. but in terms of what the intelligence community and military is doing, that's on an auto pilot. but the president has to be able to make a decision on how to respond to a foreign adversary, or if not him, the vice president needs to be in that position. we don't know if donald trump in the weeks ahead will be able to do that, and that's concerning. >> when you say president nancy pelosi, you're referring to the chain of succession behind the vice president would be the speaker of the house nancy pelosi, then chuck grassley, the president pro tem of the senate, then the secretary of state, treasury, defense, the attorney general and on and on from there. that's nbc's ken dilanian, ken, thanks very much. still to come, we have heard a lot, as ken mentioned, about the 25th amendment just in case

covid-19 inexamin xacapacitates president or worse. what else does that law say about the transfer of power? and president trump's covid-19 diagnosis is making the biden campaign change its plans. that's next. aign change its pla. that's next. rded network, include the best in entertainment, and offer plans to mix and match starting at $35. plus, get two samsung galaxy s20 fe 5g phones for $200 when you switch. only at verizon.

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the president remains hospitalized at walter reed, but not locked inside. he took a brief trip in his motorcade alongside other people so he could wave to his supporters gathered outside the hospital. meanwhile, vice president mike pence is ramping up campaign appearances next week in arizona. he's also gearing up for wednesday's debate against senator kamala harris held in salt lake city. organizers have made some changes to the format for safety reasons. senator harris and vice president pence will sit 12 feet apart instead of seven feet. the latest poll puts joe biden 14 percentage points ahead of the president. joining us now is nbc campaign

embed, deepa shivaron. there's been a lot of reaction from the politicos to the motorcade, have we heard anything from the campaign yet? >> we just received news from nbc's peter alexander, a note that the first lady herself, a statement from the white house says the reason she hasn't visited her husband at walter reed is because she didn't want to put those secret service agents and drivers in harm's way and exposed to covid and the coronavirus if she were to travel to walter reed. so it's kind of an interesting contrast here of the first lady apparently showing some caution in this process while the president himself, you know, leaving the hospital after being diagnosed with covid in a car with his secret service agents and a driver, definitely not social distancing and putting those folks at risk. he's been positive for the past couple of days now and very well could be contagious and very

well could get others sick who he's close with. we haven't heard anything from the biden/harris ticket in response on that front but it's possible they may comment on it in the next couple of days especially with the vice presidential debate coming up as you mentioned. >> what more have we heard in terms of their safety precautions? symone sanders from the biden campaign was pressed on another network about the rate of testing going on. she said they were being tested, the candidates are being tested often. but how often is often? is it every day, every other day, et cetera. also joe biden and kamala harris technically should not be traveling, because if you have been exposed to someone who has covid-19, you're supposed to quarantine for 14 days. so what do we know about the campaign's safety measures now and how much they've adapted to the president's infection? >> sure, that's a great question. look, this is a lot of moving parts. there's a lot of updates going on kind of at the same time. we do know that before joe biden traveled to michigan, he took

two covid testifis. both of those came back negative. in the same timespan kamala harris and her husband took covid tests and those came back negative too. we've been seeing some clear communication from the biden/harris ticket on making sure those tests are done and are coming back. as you said, we've known before that the ticket, both biden and harris, have been taking tests regularly. what exactly does that mean, every day, every other day, we don't know. but we do know as of the past 48 hours, the biden campaign came out and said every covid test that the former vice president takes will be released to the public, they will tell us those results. and just this evening, joshua, before i joined you, the biden campaign said the former vice president took another covid test today which came back negative. in these coming days as we're seeing things happen, and of course the traveling, it doesn't really seem like they're ramping that down. it seems like both joe biden and

kamala harris will continue this travel. we've seen them take these precautions while they've been on the road, even just from a press perspective, you know, we have our socially distant bubbles. all the events have primarily been outside. we're not really getting close proximity to the candidate. it's not like they're going out and shake hands. we don't have these giant rallies on the democratic side of the ticket. so overall they have been very cautious about this process and what you're seeing in response to the president's diagnosis is a move to essentially just be more transparent and make sure the public can see those results and get that information so they know where the ticket stands in terms of their own health, joshua. >> thank you, deepa, for the latest from the biden campaign. set your dvr for tomorrow night, 8:00 eastern. nbc's lester holt will lead a town hall with joe biden in my beloved miami, with mr. biden taking questions from a socially

distanced office of undecided voters. join us tomorrow night, 8:00 eastern, here on msnbc. also set the dvr for wednesday, that's the vice presidential debate. mike pence, kamala harris. as of now they're still set to face off, provided that they do, you should join us as we join brian williams, rachel maddow, joy reid, and nicolle wallace for coverage of the one and only vice presidential debate, wednesday night 8:00 p.m. eastern, right here. coming up, we will speak to congressman ro khanna of california. what does he make of president trump's diagnosis and of what happens next?

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it was a quick trip around the block. but a big trip. president trump left walter reed medical center where he's being treated for covid-19 to drive by and wave at his supporters. it's unclear how many other people were inside with him and potentially put at risk of

getting infected. let's continue now with congressman ro khanna, a democrat from california. his district in silicon valley includes the headquarters of intel and apple. and he is a member of the armed services, budget, and oversight committees. congressman khanna, good evening. >> good to be on with you, joshua. >> i want to get your reaction particularly in light of the statement from the white house about precautions taken before the president made this trip. the statesman from white house spokesman judd deere reads, quote, appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the president and all those supporting it, including personal protective equipment, ppe. the movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do, unquote. congressman khanna, as a member of a co-equal branch of government, do you feel you have enough information about the vitality of the executive to make informed choices about our national security insofar as it is in your purview?

>> no, i don't think there has been enough transparency. but the issue is broader. look, like many americans, out of patriotism and humanity, i hope for the full and complete recovery of the president. but you would hope that this incident would lead to some introspection. when president reagan was tragically shot, it led him to realize that we didn't need nuclear war. where is the introspection with this president, that as soon as he's recovering, he's exposing his own secret service agents and so many people to risk? and the question is really a basic one. we now know that covid is still a very serious threat. we know that many americans face this, that the president could get it, almost any american can get it. the question is who do you trust to keep us more safe? the irony is i think many americans would say that vice president biden is more likely not just to keep every american safe but to keep the president and his family safe. >> we got a little more information today at the medical

briefing from walter reed. dr. conley was a bit evasive about whether or not the president of the united states had received supplemental oxygen. today when he was asked why he was so reticent about that, here is what he said. >> i was trying to reflect the, uh, the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had. umm, i didn't want to give, uh, any information that might, uh, steer the course of illness in another direction. umm, and in doing so, uh, you know, came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true. umm, and, uh, so here i have it. >> congressman khanna, where do you find yourself getting reliable information about the president these days? are there specific questions that you are able to get answered through other channels that maybe we're not privy to? i guess i'm just curious to know how deep this gap in information runs, whether it's just us in the public or whether it's

federal officers like yourself as well. >> we have no information. i get the information from reading "the new york times" or watching cable news. there's no information for us. but here's what i don't understand. you have a situation where genuinely people are hoping, praying for the recovery of the president. if the president's doctor comes out and says the president needed oxygen, that's common. there are many people who have had covid, who have needed oxygen. so i don't understand why this lack of transparency, why downplay this? this is actually a moment where if there was honesty, you could empathize with all of those people who have had covid or know someone with covid. i think it's doing the country a tremendous disservice. >> the house passed a $2.2 trillion bill on thursday. the heroes act, which clearly has no chance of surviving in the senate. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has shown no interest in bringing it to the floor.

you and i have talked about your district in silicon valley, milpitas, santa clara, has such a variety of people in wildly different income brackets, who are living very different lives right now with covid-19. what do you tell your constituents in terms of what the future looks like? if you are working at a silicon valley tech company, you're probably going to do okay. if you are working for the contractor that cleans the toilets in a silicon valley tech company, you're screwed right now, because there's no help coming from capitol hill. what do you tell your constituents? >> joshua, i appreciate your saying this, more than any anchor on cable news, you actually understand the detail of my district. food service workers, sanitation workers, bus drivers, those folks are independent contractors and many times they don't have health benefits.

one of the things that's staggering, you saw all the treatment the president got. i wish that were the case for most americans, for every american, if they got sick that they could get the health care. there are a lot of people in my district who that's not the case for. and by the way, they're often the most exposed because they're out there doing work. i mean, the president says he couldn't just be holed up in the white house. you know, there are a lot of americans who can't just be holed up in their houses. they may not be president, but they're the ones that are stacking the grocery stores or driving and doing essential deliveries. and there has been no focus on them. so we finally have a bill, we have passed this, it's still not sufficient. and now you see actually the president of the united states desperate to pass a more liberal bill. it's the bill that speaker pelosi wrote, he's going to probably try to take credit for it, i don't care, just get something done, get relief to these people. >> it's worth noting, and a conversation for another night, that even as these companies tell their staffs we're going to be working from home until next june, we're closing the campus, that is very cold comfort for

the people whose job it is to clean that campus, to guard that campus, and to serve those free meals in the cafeterias of that campus. conversation for another night. hopefully once some relief starts moving. congressman ro khanna of california, sir, appreciate you making time for us, thank you very much. up next, the president's covid-19 diagnosis makes a lot of things uncertain. you heard ken dilanian earlier mention the 25th amendment. that actually answers a lot of these hypothetical questions when it comes to the president's health. less hypothetical than you might think. that's just ahead. stay close.

the president of the united states has been hospitalized with a potentially deadly virus. no wonder folks have been asking whether our country has a mechanism for surviving a situation like this. indeed we do: the 25th amendment. it lays out the transfer of power if the president is not able to fulfill his or her duties. but the trump administration doesn't appear to be taking this possibility seriously, at least as far as they've said. this week national security adviser robert o'brien was asked about the president transferring power. he said it is, in his words, not something that's on the table at this point. msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos takes a look back at how past presidents have used

the 25th amendment. >> the presidential line of succession is president, vice president, then speaker of the house. but it doesn't necessarily take incapacitation for the 25th amendment to be applied. the framers wrote a succession mechanism into the constitution. but it was a little vague. so congress rewrote it into the 25th amendment in the 1960s. the 25th amendment covers several situations. in section 3, the president voluntarily but temporarily transfers power to the vice president. it's been used before, for example presidents reagan and george w. bush transferred power to the vp while they underwent surgical procedures. more complicated is section 4, the involuntary transfer of power where the president isn't involved in the decision. it's initiated by the vice president and a majority of the cabinet, who transfer in writing to congress their opinion that the president is unable to continue his duties. once they do that, the vice president automatically takes

over. it's never been invoked and it's designed to be difficult to invoke. remember, the vice president and the cabinet are likely to be loyal to the president. so they will not invoke this provision lightly. now, the easy case under section 4 would be something like the president in a coma. no one could honestly oppose the idea of transferring power in that situation. the harder case is pretty much anything less than a presidential coma where the president is awake or he recovers and wants his power back. a conscious president can come back and say in writing or a tweet that his inability has passed. the vp keeps the presidential power for up to four days, and he and the cabinet can disagree in writing to congress. but otherwise, the president gets the power back. >> that's msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos reporting. later in the program, how are the events of the last week or so affecting the polls in the race for president?

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there have been long standing calls to get rid of the tax on tampons and other feminine hygiene products. back in 2018, scotland created a program providing free sanitary products to students at schools, colleges, and universities. in this country, we have the luxury of joking about commercials where women talk about having that not so fresh feeling. but in some parts of world, women don't have drugstores where they can buy sanitary products at all. some have to improvise, make tampons and pads by hand or even reuse them. menstruation is key to bringing life into the world. this campaign aims to make this life giving process more liveable all around the world. up next, we'll bring you the story of a 12-year-old boy dealing with remote learning during the pandemic. you'll meet him when we come back. warded network... i'm on my phone 24/7.

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do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. change your thinking to ibs-c. if your constipation and belly pain keeps coming back, tell your doctor and say yesss! to linzess. today new york mayor bill de blasio announced that 100 public schools could close their doors due to a high number of covid-19 cases. they just welcomed back students for in-person learning. reopening schools poses obvious health concerns. but what about all the challenges that come with remote learning? nbc's senior national correspondent chris jansing went to cleveland to revisit a school and a student that she met back in april.

>> reporter: like 37,000 other cleveland students, damian expected to be with his friends in school, not online on his grandmother's porch. it must be lonely. >> yes. it definitely is, and i try to be okay with it. some days it's -- some days it doesn't work. some days it does. >> reporter: cleveland's plan was for hybrid learning, but when coronavirus cases spiked, the poorest school district in the country had to pivot fast. >> the biggest world jigsaw puzzle in the world. >> reporter: solving one problem often exposed another, like giving out 30,000 laptops to students. >> 40% of our families had never had a device. so when you would say hit the at sign, people didn't know what the at sign was. >> reporter: expanded i.t. teams were activated. this mom has three kids and no computer. what would you do if you didn't have this? >> i'm not quite sure. they would be at work with me and having to share a computer. >> reporter: no school meant no meals for most kids. so food pickup sites opened, and

47 learning pods combine child care with remote classes. still, there's a waiting list for those pods. frequent computer problems, and too many kids like damian face daily personal challenges. ♪ while preparing to audition for top college music programs, damian's baby brother died suddenly. he had to move in with his grandmother who works in a hospital covid unit. through it all, school and teachers have been a critical lifeline. >> it was a really low point in life, but now i can have motivation to succeed. so no matter what happens this year with school or applications, stuff like that, i'm motivated to reach my goals. >> that was nbc's senior national correspondent chris jansing reporting. recently propublica profiled a 12-year-old boy in east baltimore named shamar, one of the many students left behind by remote learning. it's the story of a student trying his best to succeed in an

educational system that continually fails him. joining us now is the author of that story, alec magillis. he covers politics and government for propublica. alec, welcome. >> thank you. thanks for having me. >> tell us a bit more about shamar. you spent some time tutoring him, bringing him groceries, securing his laptop, and it seems like the teachers shamar has are trying hard to make remote learning succeed, but they're not quite making it succeed for him. what is it about him or his situation that's making it hard? >> it's really been tough. it was really a disaster for him in the spring, and it's gotten only a little bit better this fall, i think. the real issue isn't just the technology. it's not just getting the laptop or the hot spot or the wi-fi connection. it's the communication between the teacher and student, all the different links and codes that are necessary to get kids into class, to get the work done on

all the different remote programs. that's been really tough. that basic communication. and then just to have him supported at home. having someone at home who is able to follow along to make sure that a kid is logging on, make sure that he or she is doing the remote schoolwork. that's really been the issue for him. he has a large family crowded into a rowhouse, but each person in the family is not really in a situation to be playing that role. and so he's really been quite adrift and isolated during this whole period without any really contact with kids his own age. it's not good, and there are so many kids like him. and the piece was really an attempt to show what that actual reality is because it's actually -- i think it's worse than we're sort of admitting right now. >> talk a little bit more about systemically what the challenges are. i can relate to this somewhat. my mother works with at-risk kids, disadvantaged kids, and is now doing the remote learning thing, which is no small task. i understand the baltimore teachers union argued against

reopening campuses because it could put the most disadvantaged at physical risk. but remote learning comes with all kinds of other different challenges that can make education tough for a whole host of other reasons. so it kind of feels like a rock and a hard place. >> absolutely. i mean what we're seeing right now in baltimore and a lot of other cities is a pretty incredible disparity. we right now in this city and many others have kids in private school actually going to schools, and kids that are in public schools are not going to school. and if you step back and think about that disparity, it's just extraordinary. it's like something from a different part of the world or a different time in our history. but that's what's happening right now. we have thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of public school kids in the city who are -- many of them isolated in dark rooms, by themselves, with a screen all day. maybe they're on the screen. maybe they're not. meanwhile we have private school kids or kids in weatherilthier

districts around the country who are actually going to school and getting in-person instruction. it's amazing. half as many black and hispanic kids are getting the chance to go to in-person instruction right now as white children right now at this moment. >> what do you think is the big of the thing that can be done to improve the system, especially since president trump and education secretary betsy devos pushed very hard for in-person instruction to reopen? what's the one maybe lowest hanging piece of fruit in terms of what could be done to improve things right now? >> to be honest, i think that the debate has gotten so politically polarized and it is so much about politics now that i think in a lot of places, we might actually have to wait till the election. i think when the election comes and if donald trump loses, i think you might really see a complete change of mind-set in a lot of heavily democratic cities and states about going back to school. right now they see it as a trump

thing in a lot of places, and it's become polarized in that way. there's just a whole level of distrust around the issue of going back to school. so i think that's what could actually make the difference. >> alec magillis is a reporter with propublica. do check out the story at propubli propublica.org. thanks very much. >> thank you, joshua. >> i'm joshua johnson here at nbc news world headquarters in new york, and this is "the week." president trump spent much of the day indoors. he's been receiving care at walter reed medical center. then he decided to leave the hospital for a drive, passed his supporters standing out. hear what he tweeted out just before he did that. >> so it's been a very interesting journey. i learned a lot about covid.

i learned it by really going to school. this is the real school. this isn't the "let's read the book" school, and i get it, and i understand it. >> mr. trump says that he now understands covid-19, this disease that has killed more than 200,000 americans. that understanding apparently did not stop him from leaving the hospital and getting into a car while actively fighting this highly contagious, potentially deadly virus. the white house says that appropriate precautions were taken while this happened and that the movement was reportedly, according to the white house, cleared by the medical team as safe to do. the doctors caring for the president also said today that he's improving. they acknowledge that he had a high fever on friday and that his oxygen levels had dropped below normal twice, once on thursday and once on friday. meanwhile, vice president mike pence and the second lady, karen pence, both tested negative for covid-19 again today. that's good news, especially considering that the vice

presidential debate is this wednesday night. we'll talk about what's to come there with an award-winning debate coach. the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll shows joe biden's lead has nearly doubled since tuesday's debate. voters say by a 2-1 margin that mr. biden has the better temperament to be the president. we'll break down latest numbers in a few minutes. we're also keeping an eye on the growing list of the president's staff and confidants who have tested positive for covid-19. that list includes ron johnson of wisconsin, mike lee of utah, and thom tillis of north carolina. tonight we'll hear from a democratic senator, gary peters of michigan. he came in close contact with senator johnson this week. senator peters has tested negative, but he is quarantining as the cdc would recommend during the final stretch of his competitive senate race. and we will speak to the former chairman of the rnc about where the gop goes from here and what

this election could mean for the future of the republican party. let us begin this hour with nbc national political reporter josh lederman on the president's condition and his trip outside. he is just outside walter reed in bethesda, maryland, near washington. josh, what more can you tell us in terms of the backstory behind this caravan past the president's supporters? >> reporter: good evening, joshua. i'd like to start if i may by looking at the question of why melania trump has not yet visited her husband here at walter reed. here's what a white house official told our colleague peter alexander yesterday about why the first lady has not been here. she has covid. that would expose the agents who would drive her there and the medical staff who would walk her up to him. being in a vehicle with secret service agents would potentially expose them to the virus because the first lady is positive for coronavirus. yet that's precisely what we saw

just a few hours ago here at walter reed as the president took this joyride to visit supporters who have been ga gathered just behind me for the last several days. we've asked the white house why they felt that it was okay to do this. the response from white house spokesman judd deere was that appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of the movement to protect the president and all those supporting it, including personal protective equipment. judd deere going on to say that the movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do. but that's raising some real questions, joshua, about the medical team and the advice the president is getting. we know that there have been multiple people, as you recounted, in and around the white house who have contracted covid-19 in the last week or so despite the white house saying for months that they have been following all the appropriate medical advice. and i think it's also raising some questions for a lot of americans who have spent the last several months unable to

visit with people who are loved ones who are in nursing homes, saying good-bye in some cases to people who were dying via zoom because it is so unsafe to be around people who are infectious with covid-19. the latest reminder, joshua, that despite the fact that president trump has now tested positive for coronavirus, he continues to play by a very different set of rules when it comes to the basic health recommendations. >> and we should just remind folks if you do test positive for covid-19, symptoms or not, you are supposed to isolate yourself. and the time at which you end that isolation depends on the severity of your symptoms. so just to be clear, what the president did tonight does not adhere in any way to the cdc guidelines for isolation. thank you, josh. that's nbc's josh lederman. joining us from bethesda, maryland, just outside d.c. at walter reed. we're less than a month from election day. that means you're going to see an avalanche of new polling nationally and in your state and here on this network. here are three polls that stuck

out to us today. joe biden is up 14 points nationally over president trump in a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll conducted after the debate. that is the largest lead this particular poll has seen during the entire 2020 campaign. it's nearly double the eight-point lead he held before the debate, and it's well outside the margin of error. in that same poll, 49% of voters said they thought joe biden did a better job during the debate. 58% of voters said mr. biden has a better temperament to be the president. this week two other polls asked about the president and covid-19. a new abc news/ipsos poll shows nearly three out of four americans said they doubt that president trump took the risk of contracting coronavirus seriously. and a new reuters/ipsos poll taken online after president trump was diagnosed puts joe biden ahead by ten points. 65% of respondents say president

trump would not have been infected if he took the virus more seriously. let's break all this down with nbc senior political editor mark murray. first of all, i just want to apologize to everybody who i gave a mini migraine by reading all of those numbers back-to-back. but i promise we are going to try to make these numbers make sense. mark, are there any specific takeaways from our latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll that stand out the most to you in terms of giving clear context to where the race is right now? is it one of the findings we just read, or is it something else? >> yeah. joshua, i actually think the biggest finding is just the jump and we end up seeing the lead joe biden has going from eight points before the debate to 14 points now. it's important to note this has been an incredibly stable presidential contest. our nbc "wall street journal" poll has showed joe biden's lead hovering between 7 and 11 points over the course of a year, and that's amid an impeachment, amid racial protests across the

country and of course the coronavirus that's now killed more than 200,000 americans. all of a sudden you end up getting to a debate that millions of americans saw, wherein suwhere insults were thrown around, where there were many falsehoods. this was a shock to the system. it did move numbers in a significant way. but our pollsters do caution this, joshua, that because it was kind of a shock to the system poll that was taken two days after the debate, that maybe the numbers end up going back to where they've always been, that 7 to 11-point joe biden lead, which would still be a dangerous territory for president trump. so we have to actually wait and see for other polling that's coming out, about you you just showed that other reuters online ipsos poll that did show joe biden with a double-digit lead not only after the debates but also after the president was hospitalized. >> let's keep that on the screen for just a second because there are some things about polls that we think bear explaining. for one thing if you're watching, you can see at the bottom, it says moe, plus or

minus five. that margin of error, that's one of the things we try to keep a very close eye on, particularly with national polls that may or may not go deep state by state. margins of error always matter with polls like this. so technically biden's result could be as low as 46. trump's result could be as high as 46, presuming that they were at the far ends of the margin of error, that emzseems unlikely b something to notice. also something to notice are polls that refer to registered voters versus likely voters. >> mm-hmm. >> what's the difference? >> oh, there's a difference on just what you were trying to measure. joshua, most polls at this juncture for presidential contests, one measure of likely voters. that is the reason you want to try to identify the people who you think are going to be showing up to the polls on election day. i'm really glad you raised this because our poll ends up measuring registered voters, and our bipartisan team of pollsters, you end up having

public opinion strategies, one of the top republican polling firms. and they came to the conclusion to actually keep on just using registered voters instead of likely voters because of all the uncertainty of who's going to turn out and what is expected to be a sky-high turnout election. and sometimes people actually are trying to say, hey, we actually think this person is a likely voter where now people are getting ballots at home. they're sending them in. they're voting early. with all of these mail-in ballots, with all of the early voting and just with the unprecedented enthusiasm right now, we thought it was a safer bet to measure all registered voters than going into likely voters. >> i want to repeat what you said, mark. the nbc polls work with a democratic pollster and a republican pollster working together, right? >> yeah. for more than 30 years now, joshua. that's the way we've actually done it.

they come together, help us write the questions and in a bipartisan way ftry to interpre the results. >> one last question. i still know people who are mad at pollsters from 2016 saying, you said hillary clinton was going to win and then donald trump pulled it out, and it doesn't make any sense. going into 2020, mark, what is the one most important thing that you want everyday people to keep in mind whenever they look at any poll regardless of the source? the one most important thing. >> the most important thing is when the poll was taken. joshua, election day is not here yet. yes, people are voting. yes, we're 30 days to go. but events could end up happening. it was just at this juncture in the 2016 election, you had the "access hollywood" situation. you had the president's poor debate performances against hillary clinton. many national polls, including the nbc/"wall street journal" had hillary clinton with a double-digit lead. but what ended up happening, of course, was james comey's intervention the last two weeks of the election, and our final

nbc/"wall street journal" poll had hillary clinton with a four-point national lead, very close to the national popular vote she ended up having. of course the state polls were a little bit different. but where these polls are measured and what juncture they come at the race is incredibly important when the race is not over yet. >> on a timeline, a poll is a point, not necessarily a pattern. important to keep in mind. one last stat. bear in mind the nbc news national polling average, which is also a number that might be helpful, shows joe biden leading donald trump by about 9%, again at this .30 days out from the election. mark, thanks for helping clear some of this up. we really do appreciate it. >> thanks, joshua. the president is not the only senior official currently battling coronavirus. so far at least three gop senators have tested positive for covid-19. this comes with repercussions for members of congress who have not contracted the virus. democratic senator gary peters of michigan is quarantining out of an abundance of caution after

coming into close contact with senator ron johnson, who tested positive. senator peters joins us now. senator peters, good evening. >> good evening. good to be with you. >> first of all, how are you feeling? how's your health? >> oh, i feel fine. i feel healthy. i've had a quick test. i'm negative. but it certainly, as you mentioned, out of an abundance of caution, i think it's important for me to isolate. sometimes tests are not that accurate, and it's better to be safe than sorry. certainly i sat next to senator johnson. he is the chairman of the homeland security and government affairs committee. i'm the ranking member. we sat close to each other when he was clearly infected with covid, so it really behooves me to make sure that i protect others and stay isolated for a period of time. i just think it's the proper thing to do. >> how safe do you feel now as a member of the senate in terms of being protected from covid-19? just in your general work on capitol hill. >> well, certainly i take

protections. i make sure my staff is working virtually, that they're protected as much. but it's a concern when you have three members of the senate that come down with covid. clearly some of the protocols must not have been followed by those senators, and so it raises a host of questions. they have meetings within the republican caucus. i'm not part of those meetings obviously as a democrat. but i understand they don't necessarily wear a mask during their lunch meetings. it's a concern that if it spreads across the republican caucus, obviously we're all working together. we go to the floor together when we vote. there are hearings. it is a concern, and i'm particularly concerned about members of the staff and all of the other folks that work on capitol hill from the capitol police to the folks that keep it clean and do the everyday work. >> i love your sense of president trump's treatment, the way that it's being managed and this caravan that happened tonight, particularly because you are the ranking democrat on the homeland security committee, and this has been discussed in

many ways as a matter of national security, the health of the president. no doubt it's a matter of national security. what's your take on all this? >> well, it certainly is a matter of national security. we have to make sure that the president is healthy and is able at least to carry out the duties as the commander in chief. that means there needs to be complete transparency. the american people need to know the health of the president. we need to make sure the doctors, the physicians who are briefing the public at large are doing it in an accurate way, and we have to be sure that the president can carry out the duties. >> is there anything that you would like to see done to ensure that the president is able to take the best care of himself possible, or is that kind of out of congress' hands? >> it's difficult. i mean obviously he's done his videos. we'll see when he goes back to the white house. but it's important we have independent assessments. but as you know, it's very difficult to get any kind of information that you can trust coming out of the white house.

in my oversight role in committee in trying to just do the oversight that is required under the constitution for the congress, it is incredibly difficult to get any information out of this administration, which to me, of course, is very concerning. our system of government works when there's transparency, when there's checks and balances. this administration is not interested in doing that. >> briefly before i let you go, you are in your own senate race in michigan. you received an endorsement from the "detroit free press" that said, quo, michigan needs gary peters. so does washington, unquote. how confident are you feeling about the race at this point? >> well, in michigan, as you know, is a flag stabattleground. we have a real shot to take the majority in the senate. we have to hold my seat. i'm one of two democrats in a seat that donald trump won. the republicans are coming at me aggressively. in fact, mitch mcconnell's super pac just announced a $9 million

tv ad buy against me. another super pac, betsy devos' family has a major super pac dumping in money. they are dumping in record amounts of money trying to beat me in these last few weeks because they know if i don't hold this seat, it's maybe difficult for us to take the majority in the u.s. senate. so certainly this is a key battleground state, and michigan will go down to the wire. poll numbers tighten as we saw in 2016. it will likely happen again, which is why we have to be fighting every single day. >> democratic senator gary peters of michigan. senator, appreciate your time this evening. thank you very much. >> great to be with you. thank you. coming up, what does the gop's future look like with the rise of never-trumpers and republicans who say they no longer recognize their party? we'll discuss it with former rnc chairman michael steele. plus we'll take a look at the questions that you would ask the vice presidential candidates ahead of wednesday's debate, assuming that the debate

happens. but first, i know what's going to happen next, the headlines with richard lui. good evening. stories we're watching this hour. new york city mayor bill de blasio says he plans to shut down schools and nonessential businesses in nine zip codes in brooklyn and queens. this would hask a half a million people in recent coronavirus hot spots. pope francis released a document criticizing the global response to covid-19. the pope lamented the inability of world powers to work together. he shared his hope for renewed spirit of cooperation, though. the iconic fashion desewner kenzo takada has died at the age of 81. this because of complications from covid-19 according to a spokesperson. he was known for his floral and jungle-inspired designs. despite retiring from fashion in the 90s, he remains one of the industries most renowned figures. "the week" with joshua johnson continues right after the break. s s when used at the first sign.

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now, to be honest, things were pretty bad for us back then. the party was demoralized because over the past decade, we republicans lost our way. we know that story, and we've stood up honestly before the american people and spoke to it. disparity between our rhetoric and our action grew until our credibility snapped. it's time to stop defining ourselves by what we are not, and it's time for us to tell the voters who we are and what we believe, how we will lead, how we're going to help them make a difference. >> that was former rnc chairman michael steele in 2010 at the party's summer general session ahead of the midterm elections. this week he became a senior adviser for the lincoln project, a group of republicans working to prevent donald trump's re-election. he joins us now. michael steele, good evening. welcome. >> how are you doing, brother? good to see you, man.

>> good to see you too. i remember you some time ago talking about the importance of people like you, people who look like you, being in the room when political decisions happen, that it's easy for the republican party to ignore people of color because we're not in the room. and part of the reason you stayed so tenaciously is to make sure that people who look like you and me are represented in the room. >> that's right. >> do you still feel like it's worth it to try and stay in that room? >> it is for me. i know it is not for some others, but it is for me because of my own particular value sets. i still believe the ideas and the ideals of a party that speak to individual liberties and rights, that speak to how we help each other grow our economies, our communities and our country. that speaks for strong, moral position of leadership in the world. and so i just refuse to give in

to this trump crazy. i don't get it. i mean i do get it, but i don't get it. you know what i'm saying? i mean i see how people do it from a political standpoint and why, you know, you just want to be there to try to make it work. as we heard when trump got elected, you know, paul ryan and mitch mcconnell talked about, we'll help contain and control the president. we'll help him, you know, do the right thing. and very much and very quickly capitulated to his brand of politics. so where does that leave folks like myself and others who still believe in those values? well, you know, i say we're motel 6 republicans. someone's got to leave the lights on, and we're trying our best to do that every day. but it gets harder and harder, particularly when you see stunts like tonight where the head of my party is endangering secret service agents, hospital personnel, et cetera. >> i was just going to ask you about that very thing, particularly the span of time

from the tape that we showed in 2010 to now. there's got to be a part of you that feels like, wait a minute. i was lieutenant governor of maryland. i was the head of the republican party, went through everything that entails for this ? for us to end up like this? there's got to be a part of you that's like bump this. i can't believe i burned all of that lean tissue. >> i'm not going to lie to you, brother. that's exactly where i find myself on a good day. on the bad days, you know, it's very hard and it's unbearable. but what i think about and what drives me is a 17-year-old kid. i remind myself when i was 17, about to turn 18, about to vote in my first election, i'm thinking about young people today in that position. what did the party offer me at the time? what does it offer now? and that's the part where the

credibility has snapped. and so we're either going to fight to reconnect it to the american people, or we walk away from it, and the party becomes like the whigs and it becomes the trump party and we're isolated nationally. maybe you win some pockets of races here and there. but i think our republic, our democracy requires a vibrant political system, a legitimate political system, and i think the republican party should be a part of that. but it's going to take some work. i know that. but, you know, call me crazy. i still think it's worth it for right about now. but we'll see what happens tomorrow. and that's always the thing. >> yeah. >> you know, the further you go down into that hole, the deeper it gets, the harder it is to get out. at some point you just say, i can't go any further, and a lot of my friends have done that. >> let me ask you about that before we have to pause. i can imagine some republicans saying, i know you feel like the republican party walked away from you.

maybe you walked away from the party and just need to accept that this is the way the republican party has decided to go. and if it doesn't fit you anymore, some relationships come to stay, others come to pass. maybe this just ain't the party for you. what would you say back to that? >> i would say that's a fair assessment, but then my rejoinder would be this. so if you brought me to your home, i came to your home, however i got there, a guest, you invited me in, i showed up at your house. and i started tearing up your floorboards and ripping up your family pictures and spitting all over, you know, the stuff your mama taught you, you know, breaking the family china, would you kick me out, or would you leave your own home? and so that's the nub for me. i get when people say that. i've not walked away. i didn't collaborate with donald trump. i'm resisting what he's putting out there. those inside the party who feel that their political fortunes rest with him are collaborating with him. and some of them right now are

in hospitals tonight or in their sickbed because of that collaboration. others unfortunately are no longer with us at all. and so the reality of it is where do you draw the line if these things still matter? and right now my country matters to me. my party matters to me. and i'm trying to reconcile that as best i can. and they may very well be right. the moment may come where i go, okay, next. >> we're going to get to some more political stories with our panel in just a minute. can you stick around? >> sure thing, buddy. >> michael steele will be with us in just a moment. between president trump's diagnosis, the debates, the campaigns, the election, there's a lot going on right now. michael and our panel are here to help statutory throuort thro that. stay close. of that stay close

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proposition 16 takes some women make as little as 42% of what a man makes. voting yes on prop 16 helps us fix that. it's supported by leaders like kamala harris and opposed by those who have always opposed equality.

we either fall from grace or we rise. together. proposition 16 provides equal opportunities, levelling the playing field for all of us. vote yes on prop 16. we are four weeks from election day. president trump is in the hospital but clearly not bedridden. he was apparently strong enough to do a drive-by wave at his

supporters today. meanwhile, the white house is trying to contain a growing viral outbreak in the west wing. vice president mike pence is filling in on the campaign trail. he's also preparing to debate senator kamala harris on wednesday. let's discuss all this with our panel. michael steele is back with us. also joining us is annie karni, a white house correspondent for "the new york times" and an msnbc contributor. and atima omara, a democratic strategist and president of omara strategy group. good to have all of you with us. annie, let me start with you. you wrote an article yesterday on the idea that the conflicting information we've been getting in and around the white house has been making it harder and harder to know the status of the president's health. how clear or opaque or translucent are things right now in terms of what we know? >> it's still -- i mean what happened yesterday when the doctor came out and gave a rosy picture of how the president was

doing and then was immediately undermined by the chief of staff giving a very grim prognosis that they didn't know how it was going to go and the next few days were critical, and he wasn't out of the woods, trying to do it anonymously and then it becoming clear what he was doing gave us little faith today. today dr. conley tried to admit that he wasn't totally misleading -- wasn't intending to mislead us yesterday. but then again he gave an update that appeared to be for that audience of one who was most certainly watching him from inside walter reed. so basically there's not a lot of trust when it comes to the medical information we're getting about the president. we know now that the audience that these officials who are doing these briefings is speaking to is the president. we know that he wants to project an image that everything is fine. they put out those photos yesterday, those photo ops of him working, which looked like he was signing a blank piece of paper, this drive-around in front of his supporters was shocking because of the secret service members he put at risk

by doing it. but they want to project that he's fine and ready to walk back into the white house, and we just don't know if that's true or not. >> atima, i wonder how you think this affects the campaigns. we had "the new york times" tax story that boek a week ago, and that gave the biden campaign plenty to pounce on. but then you've got this story, and it's a little more complicated. obviously the campaign has been offering well wishes and thoughts and prayers and so on for the president's recovery. all of us want the president to recover, of course. but i kind of feel like part of the biden campaign would rather sound like what jim carrey said last night on "snl," like there is an id that is awaiting to come out that no one is allowing to be voiced. so it sounds like this is a little more touchy for the biden campaign than it was a few days ago. >> yeah, certainly it's not a great situation when, you know, the opposing campaign that you're running against, the head

of the ticket is sick in the hospital and was, you know, at least as we were led to understand, under critical condition for a moment there. i think the interesting thing is that if you're the biden/harris campaign, you're looking at the fact that a lot of folks are interested in voting for you, one of the three issues they care about is covid and health care and racial justice. covid and health care are the top two issues. if you're looking at voting for democrats, that's one of your top issues. and this very much demonstrates, you know, that he has not been great on this issue, the fact that he's flaunted abiding by covid guidelines that were provided by the cdc and other medical experts as to how to stay safe, and this is an example of how they did not do that. and this is a way to show, i think very easily and in a dignified way that that is not the leadership of the biden

campaign. he was just making fun of his last week, trump was, about the fact he wasn't wearing a mask. and here is the result of not wearing a mask and socially distance and washing your hands. i little too late to talk about that now when, in fact, you weren't doing that at all. >> michael, there's a story out of texas i'd like to ask you about. it involves ken paxton, the attorney general of the state of texas. there are people who work within his office, aides to the attorney general who have accused him of bribery and of abusing his office. he obviously has denied this very vociferously. he is one of the standard bearers of the legal push to kill the affordable care act, so this -- i mean this is one of these stories that just broke within the last 24 hours or so. this feels like it intersects with another one of these big issues, which is the future of the supreme court. each of these stories seems to be growing and metastasizing,

and this is the latest turn in the supreme court storyline. >> that's true, joshua. the thing about these stories, they actually serve as a backstory to the broader narrative around covid-19, the economy, social justice issues. so the american people who are now voting are watching the behavior of the president and his denial of, you know, being a responsible citizen, let alone president in terms of how he is subjecting people to exposure. then you have these little sub narratives, these little vignettes that touch on the voting issue, that touch on supreme court issues like you have in texas where principal players are engaged in behavior that a lot of voters see, okay, that's kind of consistent with the trump folks. so all this reinforces. none of it is good for a

campaign that is trying to get out from under the whole -- you know, out of the whole that it's in, out from under the downward pressure that these subjects are bringing on the president's campaign politically that's reflected now in recent polling that's showing the gap widening between biden and the president. and we are four weeks out, and the question for this team is with these subnarratives like texas, story lines coming out regarding, you know, what's happening on the ground with absolute efforts to block people from voting in various states, how that relates back to the president and just how much more difficult it is going to be for them to explain to the american people why the president's riding around with covid-19, why he should be re-elected. >> michael steele, annie karni, and atima omara, thanks very much. with president trump still hospitalized, what will happen and what perhaps should happen with the rest of the presidential debates? that's next.

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speaking as a proud speech and debate nerd and not the only one who works at this network, i assure you, this week's debate gave some of us way too much to talk about. lincoln/douglass it was not by a long shot. meanwhile, this week's vice presidential debate in salt lake city is still scheduled to go on. vice president mike pence tested negative again for covid-19

today. the biden campaign raised concerns over the recent spike in cases surrounding president trump. that campaign asked for senator kamala harris to sit 12 feet away from mike pence onstage instead of 7 feet, and the commission on presidential debates, which produces these events, agreed to that. joining us now is todd graham, the director of debate at southern illinois university in carbondale. his many national awards include multiple titles as national debate coach of the year. todd, welcome to the program. >> thank you very much. >> what's the discussion been like among you and your students about these debates, either the one on tuesday or the one that's coming up wednesday? >> yeah. the one on tuesday was obviously a disaster. we were embarrassed by it, and joshua, you said you've been involved in debate too. so, you know, it's my life's chosen profession. so that was just humiliating for me to watch something like that, knowing that that's what people think that we call debate because it's not what we call debate.

there was nothing close to a proper debate in that. you certainly don't teach people to interrupt or to lie and tell falsehoods in debates. we have a lot of work to do to democracy up for what happened in that first debate. so we'll just start with that. we're hoping that everything gets a little bit better. i think the next debate will be good, the vice presidential debate, and i think that the town hall format that we'll have supposedly after that with trump again will help to calm him down a little bit. but the first one is the vice presidential debate. i think it will be a lot better debate. >> contrast what the american people hope to get from a debate like this with what you as an instructor hope that students get from a debate. they're both edifying at their best in different ways, but what's the difference? >> one thing is we tend to forget what the focus of debate. the focus of debate -- the reason it's been around for thousands of years is it's truth-seeking. debate is there to seek the truth, no matter what style, whether it's lincoln/douglass,

policy style debate or presidential debating, they all have benefits but they also have drawbacks. everybody thinks their form of debate is always the best. presidential debates are still there to seek the truth, but they're only as good as the moderator. so the moderator has got to make sure and have good questions, good follow-up questions and try to stick the candidates to keeping as truthful, as honest with those questions and those follow-ups. but, yeah, you can gain something from these. what we need to know as an audience is always the same thing, which is who's speaking the truth, and which truth is closer that we like, you know, that like, okay, that candidate has a good point and that candidate has a good point. i guess i like this one better. policy making is the secondary sort of a result of that. it starts with you both answer questions to help us search for truth. >> there's also that performance aspect to a debate. i know a lot of people who during the democratic primary were part of the yang gang,

loved his command of the issues, his ideas, but they just didn't get turned on by him the way that bernie sanders or amy klobuchar or ultimately joe biden turned them on. talk about that aspect of the upcoming debates. what are you looking out for? what do you wish you could coach the candidates on as it relates to just the performance of the next debates? >> yeah. when it comes to performance and attitude, it's weird because the yang gang actually liked me. so they kept trying to get me to join their club, i guess because i liked andrew yang in the debates, and i have a little personality on television. but i understand exactly what you're saying. the problem is debates have two components. one is content, and the other is delivery. there's a reason why the trump campaign did not allow the change that the biden and harris campaign asksed for which was t be standing in the next debate. they wanted kamala harris standing. the trump campaign said no. what happens when you sit down

is the person with the more commanding person is brought to the level of the more timid personality. mike pence has a more timid personality than kamala harris. if they were standing, she would be able to what i call control the room. seated, it kind of brings them to a more even level. as you well know, there are also stereotypes about women in debate. if a woman comes across as too assertive, she's seen as aggressive. so kamala harris has a really fine line in this debate because she needs to be assertive without coming across as aggressive. the other thing, by the way, women are judged on their appearance. i think seating actually helps her more than it hurts because she won't be -- the stereotypes won't come into as bad of play. she'll be seated. it won't be on the appearance, and it will tone down even an assertive approach by her. it won't be seen as aggressive. i actually think it's advantage kamala harris to be seated. >> last few seconds. we've heard from a number of people who said that they think the debate format needs to change. the commission on presidential debates is considering changes.

some of our viewers said that a mute button would be helpful. i have, you know, my issues with that. last few seconds, what do you think about changing the format of the next debates briefly? >> i think they could be changed. i think there's little things you can do but let's start by talking to the candidates before the debates, reminding them what's happening. remember, a mod rater has to role the debate from the beginning. you tell them what's going to happen. you set their expectations so that they don't go over. then you start to control the debate right away. you and i both have problems with the mute button. but remember town hall formats tend to soften everyone, so i think that will help. >> todd graham is the director of debate at southern illinois university in carbondale. todd, we appreciate you making time. thank you. >> thank you, joshua. speaking of the next debate, last night we asked what you would ask the vice presidential candidates. we'll read some of your responses before we go. start with america's most awarded network... i'm on my phone 24/7. then, for the first time ever,

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finally we got some great emails with what you would ask the vice presidential candidates at wednesday's debate about how their candidacies would affect your life. michelle from port orchard in washington state asks, my daughter is a very busy psychotherapist who is working virtually out of my home while i watch her 3 and 5-year-olds. that leaves me to facilitate their online classes. what will you do to help my grandchildren get back to school? amy works at a children's hospital in washington, d.c. amy asked, affordable health care for americans must be a

priority for the administration. how will you ensure that this is a priority, and do you envision taking a major role yourself in this? is there a way forward to bring both sides of the aisle together to promote options for americans when it comes to ensuring affordable health care? sharon is from san rafael, california, and asks, in the event circumstances would cause you to assume the presidential role, how do you envision running the nation and carrying out the job of united states president? very relevant question these days. and sawyer had a question specifically for vice president mike pence. sawyer writes, please ask him where was the line for being born as a white male american because after proving my loyalty to this country for 13 years by paying 30% tax, getting a ph.d. obeying the law, and working in cutting-edge technology, my half ass citizenship doesn't give me the right to have my old and sick father for a barbecue at my home. even after four years of waiting

for a visa and filling out a waiver application. obviously my family stood in the wrong line. sawyer says his family is from iran. thank you so much for sharing your questions, your stories. they are amazing. you never cease to impress us. we welcome your emails anytime. you can also follow us on twitter. we are @theweekmsnbc. remember, our dvr alert. wednesday night, msnbc is the place for continuing coverage of the vice presidential debate. that begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern. thank you so much for making time for us tonight. come on back saturday and sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern and do bring a friend. until we meet again, i'm joshua johnson. make it a wonderful week. "american voices" with alicia menendez is next on msnbc. good night. ♪ i feel good ♪ get a dozen double crunch shrimp for one dollar with any steak entrée. only at applebee's.

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