one of them. >> life in prison for those two is just fine. i hope they live a long, long life. this sunday, the president's health. the white house calls the president's condition very concerning, contradicting his doctor's upbeat public assessment. >> this morning the president is doing very well. >> the white house last night scrambling to get on the same page. >> he's made unbelievable improvements from yesterday morning when i know a number of us, the doctor and i, were very concerned. >> mr. trump releasing a video from walter reed hospital last night. >> i came here, wasn't feeling so well. i feel much better now. we're working hard to get me all the way back. i have to be back. >> the virus now spreading among those who attended white house events. how serious is the president's condition?

can we trust anything from the white house? my guest this morning, senior adviser to the trump campaign, jason miller, and dr. nahid bhadelia of boston university. plus, debate fallout. >> vote now. make sure you, in fact, let people know -- >> he doesn't want to answer the question. >> i'm not going to answer the question because -- >> why won't you answer the question? >> the question is -- >> supreme court justice, radical left -- >> will you shut up, man? >> president trump's relentless heckling of joe biden. >> he graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class. don't ever use the word smart with me. >> results in a lost certainty to make up ground. >> self-centered. >> imbalanced. >> corrupt. >> and a big shift towards biden in our new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. joining me for insight and analysis are former homeland security secretary jeh johnson, "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan, rich law erie with "national review" and former obama white house communications director, jennifer palmieri. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press."

>> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press with chuck todd." good sunday morning. if there's any good to come from the terribly unsettling news that the president of the united states has been infected and hospitalized by the coronavirus, it is this -- perhaps americans who have flouted medical advice to social distance and wear masks will now take this disease a lot more seriously. this is all happening just as the country is experiencing a rise in cases amid fears that colder weather will lead to yet another deadly wave of the pandemic. yesterday, the white house initially offered a far less upbeat report on trump's condition than his doctors did, creating public confusion and further doubts about whether we can trust what this administration ever tells us. there are many questions still to be answered -- can and should vice president pence campaign while mr. trump is hospitalized? will there be more presidential debates? and if so, will they be in person? and could senate republican plans for amy coney barrett's fast-track confirmation get

derailed? the news came after a debate performance that was roundly criticized for the president's behavior. our new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll shows a dramatic change in an election that had been free of dramatic changes until now. joe biden leads mr. trump among registered voters by a shocking 14 points -- 53%-39%, under 40%, by far joe biden's biggest lead in our poll so far. just two weeks ago, biden's lead was just eight points, 51%-43%. word of caution, our pollsters point out that this poll was taken right after a consequential and extraordinarily unsettling event, that debate. translation? these numbers could be quite volatile. so we're going to wait to see if this biden surge is a short-term thing or part of a trend. we have the news covered from all angles and we begin with our own kelly o'donnell at walter reed medical center. so, kelly, what is the latest on the president's condition? and i guess i have to qualify it. and who's telling us the latest on the president's condition? >> reporter: good morning, chuck. the president's condition has given us the most-recent

snapshot, saying that the president is making progress, but making clear he still faces serious risk. now, the issue of transparency with the president's health is critical. and what we've had so far has been conflicting, contradictory information, even corrections coming from the white house. one example. on friday, when we first learned of the diagnosis, the official line from the white house was mild symptoms. now we know from the chief of staff that at that same time, the president's doctors were worried, and they were particularly concerned about a rapid drop of his oxygen level. still, the president's physician is not saying publicly if he ever received supplemental oxygen, and yet, put out a memo that said the president no longer has a fever and is off supplemental oxygen. so, there's been this kind of confusion about who is providing information and how clear that information is. we also know the president doesn't want to leave the messaging to others -- not his doctors, not his chief of staff, not the white house staff -- so

he put out a four-minute video that we know was recorded inside the hospital, in part of the presidential suite, which includes office space for the president in addition to the medical treatment, like remdesivir, which he is getting over a course of several days. and in that, he talked about his own condition, acknowledged that there are still difficult days ahead, when his condition will need to be monitored carefully, but also talked about wanting to get back on the campaign trail. it's so clear that the most-watched patient in the world wants to have some control over the message and how the public perceives his condition. chuck? >> kelly o'donnell getting us started right outside walter reed medical center in bethesda, maryland. kelly, thanks very much. those mixed messages that we heard yesterday, unfortunately, were not surprising, given this white house's history of being less than candid with the public. >> i came here, wasn't feeling so well. i feel much better now. >> president trump now hospitalized at walter reed. >> about 48 hours ago, the

president received a special antibody therapy. yesterday evening, he received his first dose of iv remdesivir. >> yesterday, the white house and his doctors offered contradictory updates, his doctors evading key questions about the president's condition. >> he has not received any supplemental oxygen? >> he is not on oxygen right now, that's right. >> you keep saying "right now," but should we read into the fact he had previously -- >> yesterday and today he was not on oxygen. >> not true according to "the new york times," who says he received it on friday at the white house. his chief of staff contradicted doctors on fox news. >> yesterday morning, we were real concerned with that, you know. he had a fever and his blood oxygen level had dropped rapidly. >> the white house also created confusion on the timeline. >> just 72 hours into the diagnosis now. >> the president's doctor was forced to release a document clarifying mr. trump was first diagnosed on thursday, not on wednesday, as he had said. president trump is part of a growing cluster of cases, including republican national committee chair ronna mcdonnell,

senior aid hope hicks and bill stepien, all of whom traveled with him to events in recent days. >> there any clarify into how he got infected? >> i'm not going to go into that. as far as his care, it's irrelevant. >> or when he became infected? >> yeah, not going to go into that. >> in addition to trump and the first lady, at least five guests at the rose garden rollout of supreme court nominee amy coney barrett, former counselor kellyanne conway, notre dame president john jenkins, senators mike lee and thom tillis and senator chris christie, hospitalized yesterday. on tuesday, he flew to the debate with his entourage. his family quickly took off masks as the president himself minimized mask wearing. >> when needed, i wear a mask. i don't wear a mask like him. every time you see him, he's wearing a mask. he could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask i've ever seen. >> on thursday, the president attended a multimillion dollar fund-raiser at his golf club,

even after the white house learned of hope hicks' positive diagnosis before he took off. >> it was safe for the president to go. he socially distanced. it was an outdoor event and deemed safe. >> already on the campaign trail, biden, who says he had two negative tests on friday is suspending negative tv advertising for now but sending a pointed message. >> it's not going away automatically. we have to do our part to be responsible. it means following the science. it means having masking mandates nationwide. >> and joining me now is trump campaign senior adviser jason miller. jason miller, welcome back to "meet the press." we should note, the white house would not provide a doctor or senior official to offer an update on the president's condition, so jason, i hope you are prepared to do that. so, let me start with this -- have you spoken to the president in the last 24 hours, and if so, what is his condition? >> i have, chuck. and good morning. thank you for having me on. i spoke with the president yesterday afternoon, and he's in very good spirits. both bill stepien, the campaign manager, and i, spent about a half hour on the phone with the president, going through all the updates on what's going on with

the campaign. and really, the president said a couple of things. number one, that he's going to defeat this virus, that as a nation, we're going to defeat this virus, and our campaign is going to defeat this virus. and once he gets out of the hospital, he's ready to get back to the campaign trail. he sounded pretty energetic. he said something else i thought was important, too, chuck, and that was to be careful and that was to remind folks to wash their hands, use hand sanitizer, make sure that if you can't socially distance, to wear a mask, and i thought that was a pretty important message to send and a reminder to the rest of the country. >> i wonder if you could help us sort out a bit of the timeline? and i know that some of this is fast. but can you say for certain when the president started feeling ill? was it tuesday? was it wednesday? was it thursday? >> so, i can't speak to that, chuck. what i can speak to is what we've seen from the reports, that the president did receive his positive test on thursday evening. that's what i know for sure. and obviously, i saw the report from dr. conley in front of walter reed hospital. and again, having spoken directly with the president and saying that he felt very well

and he was very animated in our half-hour-long conversation, ready to get back out to the campaign trail. so, i think they're doing the smart thing here. they're taking this very serious. he's the president of the united states. when you think about the west wing, really, the west wing operates to support the president of the united states. and so, by having him at walter reed, i think that's smart. i think that's a good cautionary move, since he is the president. and again, we've got it get him healthy and we're going to get the rest of the country healthy and defeat this virus. >> if he was diagnosed with this virus on thursday and is hospitalized less than 24 hours later, that doesn't happen with most covid patients. how much of this is precaution and how much of this is he's having a tougher bout than most people? >> well, i think they're taking a very precautionary move on this. again, i can't speak to the exact symptoms or exactly what transpired on friday, just as i'm not part of white house operations and i'm not part of the white house medical unit, but i do think that it was smart that they moved him to walter reed hospital, because again, he's the president of the united states. and even though we have a very

strong structure that's built around the president, vice president pence is ready to help out whenever need be, the good thing is that president trump has been able to be in control and be in charge the entire time. and again, going back to my conversation with him yesterday, number one, he expressed thanks and gratitude to everyone there at walter reed. he was very appreciative for the folks who showed up outside to cheer him on. but again, it's that spirit that we have to go and take this head on. and that's one of the things, chuck, is that as president of the united states, look, he could have stayed upstairs at the white house the entire time, but that wouldn't have been the responsible thing to do, if the doctor recommendation was to go to walter reed. so, whether it's upstairs or down in the basement, you've got to take this seriously, and i think they're doing the smart thing. >> we're trying to figure out, though, who should we take seriously here, the president's doctor or the president's chief staff? mark meadows indicated that his vital signs weren't very good on friday, that he ended up having to be on oxygen. the doctor said something else. and you're saying something else. you're sort of painting a picture that things weren't that

serious on friday. mark meadows did. you understand why there's so much confusion about the president's condition right now? >> well, and chuck, i don't think i'm painting any sort of picture with regard to friday, because again, i'm not part of the white house medical unit. i can't speak to friday. what i can speak to is having spoken with the president directly at length yesterday, on saturday, getting an update on his condition, how he's feeling, how he's looking forward to getting back out. he's excited that we came up with our "operation maga," to get the vice president and the family and everybody out there. so he's looking forward to getting back out. that's what i can speak to. and like many americans, i saw the press conference yesterday with the doctors updating the president's condition. that's what i can speak to. friday i can't. but the good news is, the president's feeling better and is anxious to get back out there. >> can you explain why the president did not quarantine the second he heard about the hope hicks diagnosis and why you guys went on for a fund-raiser in new

jersey thursday night? clearly, that was against cdc guidelines. >> well, it's important to keep in mind that anybody around the president is tested. and not only tested for covid with a rapid test, but also they have their temperature checked. at any of these events, folks are kept back from him by six feet. that's the update from the fund-raiser they had. so people aren't getting that close to the president. but again, the president did not have a positive test yet. and so, as soon as he did have a positive test, and of course, went to a different level of protocol, and they took the precautionary measure to take him to walter reed, and now he's doing much better. and that's the important thing. >> so, what you're saying is the white house does not follow cdc guidelines? because the cdc guidelines would have meant, no, he would have quarantined. somebody who's as close of an aide as hope hicks testing positive, he should be quarantining. that's the cdc guideline. but it sounds like what you're saying is the white house does not abide by cdc guidelines? >> what i'm saying is i'll let the white house operations and white house medical unit speak to the exact particulars.

but what i know is that anyone who's around the president is tested, they have their temperature taken, they keep back, at least -- i mean, i'm never within six feet of the president, each when i'm around him, so they take a lot of serious -- >> are you upset, by the way? are you upset that you were exposed in a way that maybe was lax protocols? i've talked to other people, by the way, close to this white house, who are not happy about the lack of information and are not happy that, basically, what was told to them was a safe place turned out not to be. >> no, not at all, because i know that every time that i'm around the president, that i have a test taken, that everybody around me has a test taken, that they do a temperature check. we take this very seriously. i always keep at least six feet away from the president. we keep a certain level of distance. and so, i feel like the white house does a very good job of protecting folks and going above and beyond. but here's the important thing, chuck, there's a lot about this virus that we don't know. president trump is arguably the single most protected person on

the entire planet, and yet, he got covid. so there's a lot about this we don't know. but what we can't do is just stay, whether it's upstairs in a place or downstairs in our virus. we have to take this virus head on, chuck. we have to go, as we've seen from president trump in developing these therapeutics and getting to the vaccine, getting the ventilators -- we have to take this head on. we can't stay in our basement or shut down the economy indefinitely. that's what we just -- we have to take it head on. and i think that's the moment of what president trump is doing right now. >> now, i'm curious, as the campaign, are you guys going to change protocols? you hold a lot of -- you encourage people not to socially distance. you have events with no mask. i mean, we saw the supreme court rollout on saturday, turned out, might end up being a superspreader event. is the campaign going to change its protocols? are you going to insist on mask-wearing? does the campaign regret that its own staffers and family didn't wear masks during the debate? >> well, i'll go back to what i said earlier, is that anyone around the president is always tested, not just with the abbott

rapid test, but also with the temperature check. but all of our events, we do temperature checks. we pass out masks. we pass out hand sanitizer. we encourage people to wear them. i think everybody, if they can't social distance, just like president trump told me yesterday, chuck, said, jason, i want you to make sure that you tell people two things -- we're going to defeat this virus, and then also, be careful. if you can't socially distance, wear a mask, wash your hands, use hand sanitizer. these are the message coming from president trump. he wants to make sure that everybody knows that. >> i saw that vice president pence is going to have a full campaign schedule this week. why do you believe that that's prudent with the president currently hospitalized with the virus, that for continuity of government reasons, should the vice president be traveling? shouldn't he be mitigating risk of getting this virus? shouldn't you guys be asking for a remote debate, for instance? i mean, wouldn't that be what's best interests of continuity of government for the united states of america? >> no. we're in a campaign. we have a month to go. we see joe biden and kamala

harris out there campaigning. certainly, they're not asking for a remote debate. vice president pence is following the debate for the vice presidential candidates on wednesday. he'll be hitting the trail. he'll be in arizona, probably will be in nevada. he'll be back here in d.c. and he'll have a full and aggressive schedule, as will the first family, don, eric, i think ka. we have black voices for trump, latinos for trump, women for trump, the whole operation maga will be deploying everyone. >> so you have no concerns? >> the vice president and his -- i have no concerns at all. the vice president takes very serious all of these measures. >> okay. >> anyone around the vice president are tested. people are kept very safe. and again, we can't hide from this virus forever, chuck. we have to take it head on. we have to reopen our economy and we've got to develop this vaccine and defeat the virus. >> very quickly, are those trump family members going to be campaigning before their 14-day quarantine? >> well, we'll initially start with virtual events. in fact, i believe we're going to have a couple of the family members tomorrow night on monday, going to have a big virtual event, kind of our first

virtual rally, so make sure folks are going to the website and checking out when that's going to be coming on board. then as soon as we're able to get back out there in person, we're going to do so. but i expect to have upwards of 50 folks all around the country flooding the zone in the battleground states later this week, chuck. >> trump campaign senior adviser jason miller with an update on the president's condition and the status of the campaign. jason miller, thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective. >> thank you. >> joining me now is infectious disease physician at the boston university school of medicine, dr. nahid bhadelia. dr. bhadelia, welcome back to "meet the press." i can't shake this fact, dr. bhadelia -- the president gets diagnosed with the virus, and within 24 hours, is hospitalized. that is not the experience of most covid patients. >> good morning, chuck. yeah, the president currently is 1 of 30,000 americans who are hospitalized, which really is raising the point that none of us are immune to this, and it's not in silver bullets, such as only testing or only medications, but really, the whole measure of mitigation

steps that are required. everybody's course in covid is different, and it's really hard for me to comment, not knowing his own case, because he is high risk for the reasons that others have talked about, with his age, with the fact that he's a male, you know, with his obesity. but it is a bit -- generally, the course that we see is that it is from five to seven days after symptom onsets is when you generally have a median whf people develop respiratory symptoms, might see a drop in oxygen. his course may have been faster, or they may have moved him. it seems like there was an event on friday. clearly, there was some event on friday that led to a decompensation with his fever, potentially that he needed supplemental oxygen, that drove them to take him to the hospital. so it may have been a combination of the fact that he's the president, the fact that moving him to the hospital gives them chances to give him more therapeutics, and potentially, that he's either having a longer course serve, or potentially he may have had symptoms longer and may not have realized the symptoms because

they may have been vague and may have just been fatigued. >> what should we look out for when we get briefings from the president's physicians, that while they may present something that seems very anodyne, but actually will be volleyball tellivery telling? what are some of the things you're looking for in the updates to tell you more about his condition? >> yeah, thanks, chuck. the big things we look for in covid patients is, you know, it's a one-two punch. first, the virus does damage that it's going to do, then it revs up the immune system. and what happens in this setting is that you have a maladaptive immune system that then starts attacking your own body. so, what we're currently looking at is he received two medication, one that's under compassionate use, the antiviral remdesivir that's meant to bring the viral load down. so they're looking to make sure that they've brought the virus down enough in his body that he doesn't have that harmful immune response. so, the kind of things they'll do is they're following him clinically. they're probably already doing imaging, if they have not done already, to make sure that the lung disease that he may have

from this hasn't progressed. they'll look to see if his body is responding with high inflammatory markers. and so, the things that i'd be looking for is that if he receives dexamethasone, the steroids we've been talking about, that's a sign that they're worried that his immune system is revving up. so they'll look at that, the inflammatory markers and how he's doing clinically. >> i hope you heard how many times jason miller said, "we're tested all the time." should this puncture the myth that just saying you've conducted tests doesn't replace the mask? >> yeah, chuck, testing is a pillar of the part of the way that we respond to this, as you and i have previously talked about, but it in itself -- no one thing is a silver bullet. and you know, what the testing in this scenario did is it did help them pick up people earlier. however, it didn't -- all it does is it's a diagnostic. you need to follow it up by having all those additional measures, that if someone does turn out to be positive, the others who may have been exposed to that person don't get sick. when you put that mask on, you know, when you keep that

distance, this reduces the chance that if you have a test that came back negative because someone was early in their disease or because it was a false negative, that you don't have this type of scenario, where you know, people get exposed and it becomes a bigger cluster. so, one thing i'll say is that the thing that, you know, may have hurt in this situation is that dose of virus that you get exposed to may decide your severity, and not wearing a mask exposes you to a larger dose of the virus. >> dr. nahid bhadelia from boston university, appreciate your expertise. when we come back, contradictory reports on the president's condition. can we trust what we hear from the white house? analysts next. rust what we hearm the white house? analysts next.

like you, my hands are everything to me. but i was diagnosed with dupuytren's contracture. and it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. thought surgery was my only option. turns out i was wrong. so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. welcome back. the panel is with us. former homeland security secretary jeh johnson, "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan, rich lowry, editor of the "national review" and jennifer palmieri, communications director of hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. welcome to all of you. peggy noonan, i didn't know if

we needed more for this campaign to deal with after that debate. every time you think, can you stack one more event on this election year, and yet, here we are, the president is in the hospital with the virus. where are we? >> we are in uncharted waters. we've been there more often, i think, in the past few years than we had been before that. look, the president is hospitalized. we cannot be certain what his exact condition is because we cannot be fully confident of the information given us by various white house sources. and also, there's an impression that not everybody in the white house themselves has any sense of what's going on. it seems to me, one of the most interesting things -- the doctor, who just appeared in interview with you said, chuck, is that it takes about five to

ten days for this illness to fully present itself, for the dimensions of the severity to become clear. so, it seems to me, this is a delicate time. the white house should be trying to make sure, just forget perceptions, in a realistic way, that it's not all ad hoc and shambolic in that hospital, that in fact, the appropriate strategic and military and national security and diplomatic lines are up. on top of that, let me just say quickly, i really think this is a very important time for the american government to assert its own presence, to be in washington, to show we have a fully functioning, fully ordered government. i do not think mike pence should be out there on the campaign trail. he's the vice president of the united states in a crisis. he should be in washington. i think the cabinet members and head of agencies should. so, i just think the grown-ups

here have to step forward and assert themselves in some new way. >> jeh johnson, how much of a national security risk situation are we in right now? >> well, chuck, i'm going to give you an answer a little bit different than what you probably asked. the number one national security threat right now, obviously, is covid. and the president, the most protected man in america, who reportedly is a germophobe -- if he can get it, no one is safe. we're seeing a resurgence in the country right now, in various parts of the country. and so, what happened to president trump should be a vivid example of the danger we face right now. we've been letting down our guard. we've been getting sloppy. and americans need to know that this little 10-cent device here actually does save lives, and this is now not a time to be sloppy. now, i am also concerned in this

environment, with the president having covid, of frankly, misinformation hysteria. i believe that, too, is a national security threat. we know that there are foreign actors out there trying to meddle in our democracy right now who may be, as we speak, peddling misinformation to try to exploit the anxiety that americans are feeling in this situation. so, those are the two national security concerns that i really have in the moment. we can talk about whether the vice president should be quarantining or not. i believe he should. but those are the current threats as i see them. >> rich lowry, you heard jason miller there. he is full speed ahead. they want to say this campaign is full speed ahead, and they want to present a, hey, nothing to see here. yeah, the president's in the hospital, but hey, everything's fine. are they handling this right? >> i just think it's a lot to ask to just give up weeks of a campaign when there are only four weeks or so left. and you know, it's really hard, chuck. there's so many unknowns, to

tell how this is going to balance politically. at the very least, they're losing days at a time when they don't have days to lose and it puts a greater emphasis on covid, which has been one of the biggest vulnerabilities for the president during this entire campaign. all that said, at this point in 2016, "access hollywood" hadn't even happened yet. so there's still time for other october surprises. >> jennifer palmieri, i was interested to see the biden campaign, they decided they're pulling negative ads right now. you can say, okay, that's appropriate. it's not like the other side's doing the same thing. it does seem as if the biden folks have a challenge here in how to navigate these next few days. >> well, yeah, i'd be thoughtful about it, and i think they've shown that chefs done that. the american people want to see, okay, he took his negative ads down. he understands that this is not a normal time in politics. he says he's praying for the president. he's expressing a lot of empathy for the president and his family, but at the same time, you're holding the administration accountable.

i know that the biden campaign thinks that the voters that are open to them view almost everything through the lens of covid. it is affecting their lives in dramatic and profound ways. it's affecting the economy in dramatic and profound ways. and you know, they're not going to stop arguing that the president's administration has mishandled this. and then, the other big argument they have against the trump administration is chaos, chaos and recklessness. and you saw chaos on display in the debate. i know that's what the biden campaign thought was to their benefit, although i'm sure it wasn't really fun for joe biden to go through. but for the voters to see that kind of chaos on the stage hurt them, hurt trump. your numbers reflect that. and then recklessness. and you know, the week ends with, after having the president given this diagnosis, a lot of senior white house officials getting this diagnosis, following the unsafe event in the rose garden last weekend. so, you know, it is still early. it is only october 4th, but this

is not a great start for october. >> rich lowry, do the republicans on the senate side -- there's talk that they still want to get through with the amy coney barrett situation. are they at a point where it will look like they're trying too hard to get her confirmed? you know, covid cases be darned? >> they're trying very hard to get her confirmed, chuck, yeah. i'd just be shocked if they put this off. i think it'd have to get much more dire than it is now. and fact is, all year long, the judiciary committee has held these hybrid-type hearings, where you have some people in person and others remote. so, i'd imagine you'd see some version of that. but there is an extreme commitment to get this done. >> all right. i'm going to pause the conversation there. all of you i know have a lot to say about the debate. i've got an interesting little debate package for you guys to take a look at, and then you'll have a lot to talk about. that event, we thought, was going to be what we'd all be talking about today, but we did bring some voters together to see what they thought of the debate, and that's next. y thouge debate, and that's next.

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welcome back. as we mentioned earlier, president trump missed an opportunity at tuesday's debate to change the trajectory of this race. our nbc news/"wall street journal" poll found that by a 2-1 margin, registered voters say joe biden did a better job than trump. peter hart and republican nicole mccluskey conducted two zoom focus groups -- eight women men one, ten women in the other -- to hear directly from voters how

they viewed the debate. >> i beat bernie sanders -- >> not by much. >> by a whole heck of a lot -- >> if pocahontas had left two days early -- >> what one word or short phrase describes your reaction to the debate? >> disparaging. >> debacle. >> insulting. >> juvenile. >> crazy. >> unfortunate. >> disappointing. >> lack of visions. >> why wouldn't you answer that question? you put a lot of -- >> the question is -- >> radical left. >> will you shut up, man? >> listen, who is on your list, joe? >> looking at this debate, what's the takeaway that comes out of this? >> embarrassing's an accurate description. >> it sent a message that in this country, we don't know how to have a conversation. >> i was really disappointed for both candidates and for both parties. >> it painted a picture that we are unwilling to reach across the aisle and find commonality. >> i want to hear what the candidates have to say, and i

didn't hear that. >> trump didn't want to focus on truths or answering questions. >> both candidates were just trying to take shots at each other. >> impulsive. >> corrupt. >> show-off. >> self-centered. >> egomaniac. >> unethical. >> incompetent. >> stable. >> inconsistent. >> experienced. >> good enough. >> integrity. >> what was the high point for you, if anything, that donald trump said? >> donald trump pointed out, well, why now? why didn't you do that when you were in office for 46 years? you had your chance. >> in 47 months, i've done more than you've done in 47 years, joe. >> what's his biggest failure as president? >> i don't feel like we're hearing the truth out of our president's mouth more times than not. >> creating this culture and this atmosphere of division. >> was there a positive moment or a high point for joe biden? >> i did like that he was

talking direct, trying to talk directly to us. >> the american people should speak. you should go out and vote. >> what most irritates you about joe biden? >> he loses his temper sometimes fairly easily. >> well, he's just had a long time in congress and hasn't seemed to have gotten over the hump. >> what one word would you use to describe this presidential election? >> unprecedented. >> insane. >> crucial. >> unsettling. >> contentious. >> what is this election about? >> i think inaction and divisive versus decisive. >> we need a good leader, and i don't think we have a good leader right now. >> this election is about racial injustices, coronavirus, and where's america going from here? >> you want to make your vote count, but both options, neither of them look especially great.

>> and peter and nicole both join me now. welcome to both of you. so, let me start with this to the both of you. peter, i'll start with you, which is, what should we, as viewers and as the audience right now, take away from this? >> well, obviously, people were unhappy. and what they take away is that joe biden was good enough and donald trump made people feel uneasy. and that's really what it was about, as much as anything else. this is about getting things right in america, getting things back on track. >> you know, nicole, it didn't seem like anybody was reassured by either candidate at the debate, even if they were certainly thrown off, perhaps, by what the president did. >> what was surprising to me in this debate was the extent to which people were disappointed in both candidates. if they were looking for leadership, for any kind of assurance for any direction for the country, they didn't get it

from either one. that was one of the things coming out of the focus group that was pretty surprising to me, that while the focus has been largely on the president's performance, i think people were disappointed a little bit in joe biden as well. >> i want to put up -- you know, we did so much qualitative and quantitative work this week with both of your firms, both doing regular polling and these focus groups. so, we did these word clouds. we asked our polling respondents to give is a word or phrase about the debate. and here was, peter, the biden word cloud of people that thought biden did better. and what was interesting is how much it's about trump. trump avoided questions, trump unprofessional. actually doesn't have a lot on biden himself. >> well, exactly. this election is about donald trump. it's an up or down. and when the president gets covid, what it says to everybody, nobody's safe. this election is really coming back around to the basics, and the basics are how do we get the country back on track? >> nicole, let me put up the

trump word cloud. these are the folks that thought trump did better. and what you see here, the thing that jumps out the most is, even though they thought trump did better, i don't think they thought that it was a good debate. they said the moderator was unfair, biden avoided questions, biden lies. again, what was interesting is the trump word cloud is more about biden. >> well, it is interesting. and i think what people are saying is, they didn't hear much about what joe biden has to offer. there are a lot of unanswered questions going into this debate about joe biden -- who is he, what does he represent, what direction will he take the country? and those questions weren't answered in the debate. >> nicole, should we have more debates? do you think people want to see more of this? >> i don't think they want to see more of this, but i absolutely think they want to see more debates because i think there are were unmet expectationst and a lot of unanswered questions from this debate. >> so, peter, what should the campaigns take away from these focus groups? if you had both candidates watch these, what would the lesson that you would want to hear both candidates take away from it?

>> talk to our problems, talk to us. people want to get calm and reassurance, but at the same time, they don't want to be complacent. they want to look ahead to where we are going. talk to the american voter. >> and nicole, how should we assume the electorate's going to respond to what we're currently dealing with right now, with the president hospitalized? does that take away from the impression that the debate left on these voters? >> i think the debate left an impression, but i think what has happened over the last week has been deeply unsettling. so, i think voters will be, you know, looking for some reassurance in the next debate. they will -- i can't imagine how they will react to these unprecedented circumstances. i think they will want some reassurance. they need some reassurance. and that's what they'll be looking at going forward and how it's handled i think is largely dependent on how the president

responds. >> peter hart, nicole mccelestleskey, it was really great to watch you guys work and see how, even in the word of zoom, how we can get a lot of animation out of folks so people can see what real people are reacting to this election, just not what people like us think. anyway, thank you both for your work. >> thank you. when we come back, the expanding senate map that has democrats feeling increasingly optimistic. stay with us. feeling increasingy optimistic stay with us

welcome back. "data download" time and a quick check in on the senate battleground map with a month before election day. back in january, our friends at the cook political report designated four states as toss-ups, three held by republicans and one by a democrat, doug jones of alabama. but like a lot in our lives, a lot has changed since the start of the year. today the landscape is worse for republicans. now there are seven toss-up races and seats currently held by republican incumbents and only doug jones remains that vulnerable on the democratic side of the aisle. we're also keeping an eye on republican-held seats in alaska, south carolina and others that could be vulnerable in a democratic sweep. then there's michigan, one of the other few places where a democrat is up for re-election and could be in a competitive race. remember, democrats need a net gain of three seats to take control of the senate, if joe biden wins the presidency. so, we shall see. when we come back, how the voters we least expected to help joe biden are now the ones helping him the most. that's next. e ones helping him the most

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and it should not be given to children six to less than 18, it may harm them. 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. welcome back. let me let you guys take a shot at what happened with this debate. jennifer palmieri, why did this debate end up looking like it had the impact it had on joe biden? i mean, he -- he's clearly got a bump. >> well, i think that -- i mean, trump was just so unappealing. and i don't think that donald trump went into that debate thinking, i'm going to be disruptive and chaotic and interrupt biden constantly

because that's going to help me. i think he just wanted to try to get in the way of biden being able to deliver a clear message. i mean, biden took opportunities when he had them to speak directly to the camera. you know, one woman in the focus group said that that was important to her. and i know he was able to get some good points off, but i think that trump understood, that debate was to give biden an opportunity to make points that he's, you know, why the debates favor the democrats, i think, when you're up against trump is because it's so hard to control the narrative outside the debate, right? so it gives you a shot to do that. so biden -- i mean, i think people hated to see the chaos and the disruption that trump did, so biden got a bump out of it, but he didn't get the chance to -- what i think what trump was really trying to do was just stop biden from having a clear shot at a lot of the message getting through. >> you know, peggy, that version of donald trump is somebody that many of us see every day, many of us have to deal with every day. and so, i think a lot of us

weren't sure that this was going to have the impact it had. but boy, it clearly had an impact on people. maybe it was because it was 90 minutes unfiltered. >> that's it. it was 90 minutes straight of what normally you get for eight or ten minutes every other day. so, it was an undiluted shot of donald trump. i've got to tell you, chuck, i felt -- you know in your montage of the people who had been in the focus group, coming up with one word to describe the debate? as i watched, i thought, the american people are so much more eloquent than their own political leaders, and they really do deserve more than that big, messy thing. the president was belligerent to the point of nuttiness. i thought mr. biden did not distinguish himself, in a different way. he was not forthcoming about various big issues -- the filibuster, packing the court,

et cetera. something that's disturbing -- i'll leave it here -- that may be the last presidential debate we see in this cycle. the next -- simply not happen, so -- indelible memory. >> rich lowry, rick santorum said if he were a candidate this year on the ballot, he would have been very upset at the president's performance. you were pretty critical of his performance, too, on tuesday night when we were on the air together. but do you think this had an impact on the ballot? >> we'll see. we'll see how long-lasting this effect is. but there was a strategy here. he thought he'd go in and steamroll joe biden and make biden crack in a way that would really hurt him. and biden wasn't great. he was, as peggy says, he was evasive on key things, but he didn't buckle. so, all you're left with was this over-the-top belligerency of the president, which didn't go over well with people. and you'd ideally as a president, you'd want a second

bite of the apple, but as peggy also says, maybe that's not going to be forthcoming. >> yeah, jeh johnson, are we -- look, we've got a lot of unknowns here with the president's health. but do you think one more debate will be useful to either side? >> well, the president's health aside, i do think more debates would be useful. i believe that it's entirely possible to have a virtual -- a remote debate. you know, we've been doing this now on tv, on shows like this, for seven months. and one of the key advantages of a format like this is only one person gets to talk at a time because there is a mute button. >> yeah. >> and so, it can be done. >> see, you just thought i muted you just now, right? how easily we could have gone back and forth. but i guess to follow up, jen, if you're the biden campaign, do you want another debate like that? and if you end up with another one, should biden change his

tactics? >> i think, you know, i think democrats should have debates because it is the opportunity to talk directly to the american people that the democratic nominee does not get when you're going up against donald trump. so, they should want that. also, biden has to be one that's upholding norms. he's got to run the whole race. he can't look like he's scared to debate trump. so, i think that they should want to do it. i think that, you know, the next time, if biden -- i mean, biden -- look, it worked for them, right? i think the biden campaign thinks this worked. the president was -- there was chaos on one side and stability on the other, and i think biden could do even better delivering message the next time, if he has an opportunity to debate. but they still think this worked. >> look, i want to bring up one -- i'm just going to show one example from our poll that to me tells you the story of how biden has expanded his lead. look, he went to 14 points. rich lowry, you brought up the fact that we're not even at the anniversary yet of "access hollywood."

it's an important point. at that point in time, we had a ten-point flash poll. so, this may be just a moment in time. but peggy noonan, i've got to just show you this one example here. it's support among those 65 plus. in 2016, donald trump won voters over the age of 65 by eight points, 53%-45%. in our poll here, joe biden is leading among this group by a whopping 62%-35%, a 27-point margin. his favorable ratings among older voters -- we talk all this about latino voters and young voters and african-americans, and joe biden's path to the white house might be just older white folks. >> yes, absolutely. let me say very quickly, there's a word called decorum. i believe the elderly people of america in 2016, the country in trouble, perfect storm, they took a chance on this person who seemed to have an unsure sense of dignity, but they took a chance. maybe we need somebody different. i think they've seen him for four years and they're

remembering decorum matters. they've also seen the entire nation become sick, and they don't like it. >> yeah, i think it's the two "c" words, covid and civility, that have been the key to moving those voters. terrific panel. thank you. what a quartet. and that's all for today. thank all of you. i thank you all for watching. all of us here at "meet the press" wish president trump, the first lady, and all americans who have been impacted by the coronavirus a speedy and full recovery. and we'll be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

you look at me, donald. you do not treat my joe like that, all right? he's a nice boy. >> kamala, i got this. >> uh-uh, joe, let momala go to work. >> that was "snl's" take on the presidential debate. it's "way too early" for this. good morning! and welcome to "way too early," the show that could always use a little mothering from maya rudolph. i'm kasie hunt on this monday, october 5th. we will start, as we always do, with the news.