isn't the prescription that you would provide. but, less than a month out from an election, people are not interested in economics 101 or economics even 301. >> no, they're just worried about making rent, putting food on the table, which we should not lose sight of. mike allen, thank you so much. it's great to have you this morning. we will all be reading axios am in just a little while. you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com and mike and i were talking about my big question for the day, president killed those coronavirus relief talks, i don't think they can be brought back from the dead so easily as simply another tweet overnight, but i guess we will find out as the day goes on. that was way too early for a wednesday morning, thanks for being here. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪

good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's wednesday, october 7th. scenes of the white house with the remarkable eddie van halen. i'm sure most of you listening that grew up in the '70s, '80s, '90s, know that. a revolution in music and sound. willie geist, this guy immigrated from amsterdam to the united states with his parents and created a band that really did just change the sound of music. and he was actually listed as the top guitarist in 2012, the top guitar riist in rock histor for completely revolutionizing the sound of an electric guitar

that had been root the in blues and rnb, he took it and changed everything. >> what a way to start the morning, eddie van halen sleddi shredding under the image of the white house. when that performance came out in the late '70s, i was too young. but for me, 1984, the van halen album, that was formative, that was jump, panama, hot for teacher, that was the van halen i knew. and you know what people forget, he played on beat it, on michael jackson's beat it, he played guitar on that song. and you're right, reading more about him, the transition from this sort of blues era guitarist, the eric clapton era, if you want to call it that, to eddie van halen was a revolution. it was a totally different way of playing rock-n-roll guitar.

it was a different sound than what people had heard before. and eric clapton was his inspiration. he was eddie van halen's favorite guitar plague playyer. and he played it so differently. >> i'm not too young to remember when van halen's first album came out. i was a beatles freak, although they were a little before my time, although my friends would listen to ac/dc, kiss, rush, i listened to the beatings nonstop and stayed away from heavier metal or what was then called hard rock. but i remember a friend brought van halen's first album to school and played eruption and he really got me. i was like what the hell is -- and the incredible thing about it was, it was a new sound, which if you love music, it

doesn't matter what you love, you love new sounds. so, yeah, no, absolutely incredible. so, eddie van halen passing away at the age of 65, he will be are soly sorely missed. you remember when we were out at the belmont a couple years ago and tracing out the back of the form, sort of our -- sort of our take on genome editing? >> yeah. >> guess what? this clown obviously picked it up off the, you know, off the floor of the belmont racetrack and he won pulitzer prize, he won the nobel prize for chemistry. they did it to us twice this year. i don't think that usually happens. but twice this year two nobel prizes stolen from us again.

>> you know, we just need to with craw from t withdraw from the process. we're never going to get the credit we deserve for the sketches that we make. we weren't at the belmont were we go on a tuesday afternoon to watch the trotters. you're t we're the only ones there, but you can make some money on tuesday. >> okay, you two. >> you can obviously sketch out some plans that can change the world and win a nobel prize, but we get no credit for it. it's wednesday, october 7th. welcome to "morning joe." we're going to get to the news now and there's a lot to cover. white house senior policy adviser stephen miller is now the latest white house official to test positive for covid-19. he released a statement saying he last tested negative on monday afternoon and that he tested positive yesterday. well, that's more information than we're getting from the president who will not tell us when he last tested negative. miller said he was working

remotely and self-isolating in the five days before yesterday's diagnosis and that he is now in quarantine. his wife katy miller, communications director for vice president mike pence tested positive for the virus back in may. she's the one who mocked senator kamala harris for wanting to use a plexiglass barrier at tonight's debate stating, quote, if senator harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it. we're told katy miller tested negative for the virus yesterday but will not attend tonight's debate out of an abundance of caution. >> oh, really? so i -- >> well -- >> it really, i mean, so here you have, again, somebody who is mocking kamala harris. >> yeah. >> for being careful because mike pence is not doing what anybody else would do if mike pence worked for any company, worked for any corporation, worked for any school, worked for any hospital, worked for -- you just name the institution in

america, mike pence would be at home quarantining for 14 days. >> right. >> instead, gets a doctor to lie for him again because that's all these doctors do for these white house figures and saying that he doesn't need to quarantine. and the recklessness and the recklessness of katy miller mocking kamala harris for wanting -- >> that's a joke. >> -- a partition after donald trump -- it's pretty likely had covid when he was debating joe biden and his family, extraordinarily rude and extraordinarily inconsiderate and brute issish to wear masks when the cleveland clinic was trying to get them to wear masks. >> well, joe. >> you look at all the people that have been affected, mika, and these people are proving themselves to be ill-equipped, not just to run a white house

and a country, but to run a hot dog stand. >> no, they can't. and, joe, to point out, if you look at the -- >> which isn't an easy thing to do running a hot dog stand. >> that question when the president walked out of the hospital and wanted to do his gestures of strength, strange, really strange gestures, a reporter yelled out at him, are you the super spreader? is the president the super spreader? you have to ask, was it his entire inner circle, the people closest to him, stephen miller now has it. is the president himself a super -- a walking super spreader. >> it's a good question. but i can tell you this. the city of washington actually has had a big bump in infections because of the white house. by nbc news's count, steven miller is now the 18th person connected to the white house or the trump campaign who tested positive in recent days. now ten of them, ten of them

attended the september 26th rose garden event for the president's supreme court nomination. >> but one of them, as far as we know right now, one of them that we are reporting on is stephen miller. and stephen miller unlike the president has responsibly released to the public when he tested negative and the first time he tested positive. the president will not release this information. his doctors will not release this information. nobody in the white house will release this information. even though this information could help understand who had it when and who might be at risk. but the president, for some reason, will not say when he had it. and the question is did he have it during the debate? >> i think he did. >> did he walk in there knowingly -- since he was late for the debate and didn't get tested that day on the debate property, i just wonder. you can't help but to ask when the hell he was first diagnosed as positive. the outbreak in the white house has also raised concerns for the

city that sur trounrounds it, a mentioned. while washington, d.c. had managed to bring infection rates down in recent weeks, the city reported 105 new coronavirus cases on tuesday. the highest number since june 3rd. city officials are now forced to monitor infection trends for the next several days to see if the white house cases affect the city's overall infection rate. and it would help, willie, if the white house released real information. >> absolutely. and the spread reaches beyond the white house as well. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mark milley and most of the pentagon senior officers are now under self-imposed quarantine after being exposed to the coronavirus. "the new york times" reports general millie aey and the join chiefs of staff -- advice commen don't ray was at the pentagon last weekend for meetings and

all potential kablingts from those meetings have been tested pay the pentagon spokesman said in a statement that reads in part, no pentagon contacts have exhibited symptoms and we have no additional positive tests to report at this time. a military official told "the new york times" general milley and the other senior officers have full operational cape frablt where th capability from where they are working and said there's no degradation to the nation's defense. let's bring in carol lee. she's in washington this morning. let's start back at the white house if we could. stephen miller is positive. we know his wife katy miller had coronavirus recently. katy is mocking kamala harris for wanting protections at tonight's presidential debate. what more do we know about the president's condition and when he first tested positive? as mika says, it's key to understanding this outbreak, and it is an outbreak at the white house. >> reporter: well, the short answer, willie, is not very

much. that's been part of the problem. not just for us, if you look at how much we don't know when the president was last tested, what his lung scans show, things his doctor has not shared, there are also people in the white house, many of them, who don't know what the current situation, what their own personal risk might be. and that's where you hear from a number of officials that there's a lot of anxiety, there are a lot of questions, they're not getting answers. so as much as we're not getting answers publicly, they're not getting answers and they're inside building the that gives you kind of sense of what the atmosphere is like there. there's a real information deficit. yesterday in terms of the president's health, we got a very brief statement from his doctor saying that he was showing no symptoms. there was an expectation that we might see the president yesterday, it's the first time we haven't seen him since he was diagnosed with coronavirus. and we didn't see him. we've heard from him on twitter, but he did not make any sort of public appearance, no video, no drive-by, no nothing, which is

what we've seen in previous days. and so there's just the questions continue to pile up. and, you know, the white house is -- position is they're not going to talk about whether the president -- when the last time the president tested negative was. the presumption and the way that that looks is that if there was a good answer, they would give the answer. and they're not and so that leaves everybody not only in the dark about what their own health situation and risk might be, but also just, again, feeds this perception that we're not getting information about one of the most important things about the president. and that is his health. >> so, carol, mika's brought this up for a couple of days now that it may be, in fact, the most shocking thing of all -- of all the ab bohorrent behavior, t this white house refuses to let the cdc come in and conduct

contact tracing, the joint chiefs are doing that really for all of thee events because now it has very quickly become a national crisis. white house operations cripple. the joint chiefs are scattered. the united states senate is infected. this is spreading quickly, and yet the white house who understands that they were the epicenter of this spread and understands that actually u.s. -- united states government right now is compromised because of them, they continue to refuse to engage in the most basic contact tracing that the cdc could do for them in an afternoon. have you gotten any answers as to why they would take such a risk with america's national security? >> reporter: well, look, the white house is being very cagey about its approach to any contact tracing. what they have said is that they're handling that through

the white house medical unit office. and that they notify people if there's a contact. i mean, there are members of the press, joe, who don't know whether or not they were at risk or expose. there's a lot of frustration there. >> that's right. >> we go and work in that building every day and we learn about people who have contracted coronavirus who are testing positive and the answer from the white house is, you know, if you -- if there's a concern, we'll contact you. well, the problem is, they have a real trust deficit, so no one's believing that they're going to be contacted or that they're going to be notified in a way that's protective of their own health. and then if you step back and look broadly, this is how this white house has handled crises. this is their approach. it's lack of transparency and opaqueness. you know, information in bits and pieces. some of which does not add up. the difference now is this is very high stakes and this involves people's health, not only inside the white house, but really across the

administration. and the way that we're seeing thune fold, y this unfold, this is beginning to wrap up. we see it touching the pentagon. stephen miller is testing positive. he's tested negative for any number of days. just because someone's testing negative -- there are people who are working in the building right now who are saying, i've tested negative, i'm fine who could turn out to be positive this morning, tomorrow morning, you know, the next day. we just don't know. and what the problem the white house has and that we all have in covering this story is there's just not a lot of transparency and there doesn't seem to be a real shift to try and come out and clarify things, will it's from the president's doctor or from medical officials who are supposed to be notifying people if they're at some sort of risk. >> all right. and then there was this, which is just staggering. almost impossible to comprehend and yue you tou try to figure o the strategy is here, and it's

seemingly not answerable. we have 212,000 deaths from the coronavirus and an economy this that is struggling and people that are out of work, people that are desperate just to get through the week. and they are waiting on washington to figure out what the next coronavirus relief package will be. and here from the president in a series of tweets yesterday afternoon the president said that he has instructed treasury secretary of state steve mnuchin to stop negotiations with house speaker nancy pelosi until after the election. then late last night after the stock market dropped dramatically, the president reversed course and urged congress to approve a series of new relief measures, including another round of stimulus checks. he tweeted fix sent a stand alone bill for stimulus checks for $1,200, they will go out to our great people immediately. i'm ready to sign now. are you listening, nancy?

let's bring in nbc news correspondent and host of way too early kasie hunt and shake sherman, an msnbc political contributor. yes, jake is wearing khakis. and our official future treasury secretary, "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. i want to begin with you, kasie hunt. perhaps it was the steroids talking and i'm not joking actually, perhaps it was the steroids talking, but there's absolutely no political justification for the president of the united states in the midst of a severe economic downturn with the fed chairman warning that we could face disastrous consequences last year if another stimulus bill is not passed to brag about being the person solely responsible for stopping stimulus relief. >> is that the art of the deal? >> no, it's not the art of the

deal. i would guess after did he that, republicans, many republicans who actually want to get re-elected like susan collins, were aghast. what can you tell us? >> susan collins was aghast. she put a statement out to that very effect. joe, it is incredibly difficult to understand why this president has shown us repeatedly that he acts first in his own strefl self-interest. if you are facing voters in 27 days, 28 days, your self-interest would include a 2.2 trillion or 1.6 trillion, depending on which side you're talking about, injection of money into an economy that is on a slow road to nowhere good. and he, for whatever reason, decided he was going to tweet yesterday afternoon not only that he wanted to kill the talks, but that it was his decision to kill the talks. part of why we had some hopes that there might be something

that could come of this was because house speaker nancy pelosi was under pressure from moderate democrats to show that she was doing something here. it had seemed that she wanted to hold out potentially for a more favorable democratic congress and a democratic president and do something, perhaps, next year. she's really drawn that firm line in the sand. but many of her members said we need to show our constituents we're doing something right now before the election. and that's part of why she was at the table. so for the president to step in and say, this is all on me, i'm shutting this down, is just from a political perspective incredibly difficult to understand. and when the stock market dropped, i think that helps explain why he suddenly reversed course. but the reality is the damage is done. democrats are going to be able to point to that tweet and say, the president killed this. it wasn't us, it was him. >> wow. >> jake sherman, the president made this announcement just a couple hours after the fed chairman, jerome powell, came out and said the american

economy nooets neeeeds stimulus fasted for a couple hours and the president said i've told republicans to pull out of the negotiations. >> i echo everything kasie said, it's crazy. i thought the president would be incentivized to throw republicans under the bus, because the truth have no matter what people might say, the truth is that the president and the president's party, republicans, did not want a $2 trillion bill. if he was laid up in the hospital with coronavirus, i would imagine that he would be able to get mcconnell to pass a $2 trillion bill. but there were actual substantive differences here, but the strange thing to me, we compared this, willie, to the big lieubowski, when he says

you're like a child who wednesdayers in twanders into the middle of the movie and has no reference. this is nothing new that the president's doing. if he were aware and cognizant and alert for the last three months, he might have gotten a deal. but instead, whatever he's been doing, he's not been paying attention to covid relief negotiations, he has detailed steven mnuchin do this. it's such a bizarre strategy, because if any american president in the last 30 years had an opposition party that was willing to say, we will -- you can spend $2 trillion now in the weeks before the election, they would say, yes. but donald trump, since he's not really engaged or aware of the legislative process or listening to anybody's strategy here, he's not -- he turned it down. but i mean, listen there is all to paper over the actual substantive difference between republicans and democrats on

this issue. >> jake, the president, once the markets went into a tailspin, once he presumably started hearing from republicans, he offered a stand alone $1,200 stimulus check to americans. is there any chance something like that passes through congress? >> no, there's zero chance. not zero chance, but i can't imagine there's a chance of that. nancy pelosi seems willing to provide money to the airline industry, which has said it's going to lay off, you know, between 10,000 and 50,000 people in the coming weeks and has already started by some reports. that is possible. republicans actually blocked that bill last week. so he needs get in sync with his party here. but a small bill 20 something days before the election, i hope kasie doesn't disagree with me here, i think it's extraordinarily unlikely. >> kasie, what do you think? >> yeah, no, i don't disagree with that at all because the reality is, president trump wants to send those checks because he wants to be able to sign them and he wants people to get them in the mail right before they go to the ballot box. and the reality is, that money

is nowhere near enough to actually make a big difference. so, for democrats to say yes to something like that while leaving so many others behind, i mean, they're going to look at that and say this is absolutely a nonstarter. >> steve rattner, you've got chats on this? how did the markets react? what did they build into donald trump's comments and when you set them against, as i mentioned, what the chairman of the fed said yesterday about the desperate need for the stimulus in the american economy? >> that's right, willie. earlier in the day fed chairman did say there was additional need for stimulus. the market took that as a positive and continued on its upward path. and then out came the tweets. as you can see on this chart of the stock market minute to minute yesterday, the market reaction was instantaneous and immediate. it's not every day you see a market roll over like this based on all things, one tweet. but it sent shockwaves through certain industries.

obviously the airlines which have been dependent on a lot of federal aid as well as hotel travel. you saw stocks and airlines down 3%, 4%. macy's down a lot. hotel companies like marriott, aircraft, company like boeing which had already warned it was likely making fewer planes in the years ahead, also all went down because these businesses were depending on it. the airline aid ran out and the airlines on october 1st are going to begin to lay off people and so it really scared the stock market which was very much counting on this stimulus as part of getting the economy going. now the reason why the stock market was counting on it -- >> hey, steve -- >> yeah, sorry. >> i can stop you for one second? i want to talk about dog racing, while your put your microphone back on. i think it fell off, willie. actually, instead of talking about dog racing while steve's putting on his mic, i will tell you, and we've talked about it some on this show over the past few weeks, mika and i have heard

and i'm sure you have as well, but we've heard from a collection of business lawyers, corporate ceos, hedge fund people, restaurant owners who own a lot of restaurants, just business people up and down the economic food chain, all telling us separately, all telling us without talking to each other to prepare for, they say, a depression in 2021. and every time i push back and i say, well that certainly sounds extreme, why are you saying that? and they're saying, everything we're looking at, doesn't matter who gets elected, you look at the dominos that are falling, the people who can't pay the rent, that meaning of course we're excited about that, but we don't think about what happens next in that chain for the landlords and property owners who are going to go bankrupt. and then the people who would finance them and then it tumbles to the banks. and they -- they, again, the

warnings have been so dire. and you see the fed chairman actually a couple weeks ago saying that they're not going to raise interest rates for three years because of that. that certainly signals real concern. and then as -- as mr. powell said yesterday again, we desperately need these stimulus checks, the stimulus plan because america is facing dire circumstances next year. >> yeah. steve rattner, we've got you back, i know, that was a real signal flare sent up by the fed chairman yesterday. but without this stimulus, if we don't get it past, and it sounds talking to jake and kasie and others on capitol hill that we're not going to see that by election day, where does this economy go? >> yeah, i think the fed chairman has been very outspoken in his views and people -- and the market has taken it seriously, which is why the president's stwoo

president's tweet in part sent the stock market down. because it was expecting the stimulus to happen, there had been encouraging signs earlier in the week. where the economy goes, one way to look at that is look at the chart at what's been happening to the number of jobs added. we didn't get to talk much about friday's unemployment park. there were a few things going on at the end of last week that you can remember. in the month of september, only 661,000 jobs, fewer than 700,000 jobs were added, that was a dramatic deceleration from 1 point to 5 million jobs in august, 1.8 in july, and a large 4.8 million back in june. so this business deceleration in the number of jobs being added. in fact, there were more people last week who applied for new claims for unemployment insurance who essentially went off the pay rolls, a couple hundred thousand more, than the number of jobs we created in all of september. and so you can see this all tailing off right here. and without some form of additional stimulus, the $1,200

checks, the ppp, something else being done, the market, economy ift economists, people are watching this see signs of an economic slowdown which would be extremely bad for the economy. >> and, of course, it seems like political malpractice at the very least for fellow republicans. and many would say including the fed chairman and obviously those that are investing in stocks that it would be malpractice to just kill the stimulus plan with america's economy where it is. now, "the new york times," carol lee, was reporting yesterday that some white house staffers were actually concerned about the steroids and the other medicine that the president was on that it could be impacting them. and, of course, this isn't some -- some political fantasy or conspiracy theory. the fact is that studies have

shown that 1 out of 3 patients, covid patients, have impaired mental capabilities for quite some time. we've seen it personally with friends in our lives and with children of friends. but then you add on top of that just this -- this mix of steroids and other treatments. and there's one warning after another on all of those drugs that it could cause mental impairment. and here you have the president yesterday doing something that even his closest republican allies would -- and white house staffers would consider to be extraordinarily irrational. >> reporter: i mean, you've been talking about this for a couple days now, that the fact that the whole cocktail of drugs that the president has been taking, you know, raising the question of whether or not that has some sort of impact on his decision-making. i think had this episode you might see some talk about

whether the continuity of government questions the white house has maintained that the president's in charge, he's going to stay in charge. but yesterday was whiplash. it was the white house having to scramble to try to clean up what the president tweeted and, you know, their statement afterwards or their posture, he didn't want it to be over, he just meant would he do small piecemeal pieces of a stimulus package as jake and kasie have said, which is a nonstarter. the challenge for the people who work for the president right now is that cleaning up president trump is -- and things that he says or tweets is not new, but they're having to do this when they're severely understaffed and at a time when there's just this whole question of what's actually happening in terms of the president's health when he's not coming out and taking charge and being his own messenger in person. it's just an entirely different atmosphere. and also, you know, happening just weeks before an election where they're seeing the president do something when he's

already, you know, on his heels a little bit in terms of the political trajectory of this election and he's doing things that are further undermining him. again, all of that happening at a time when the number of people who are in the white house working for him is diminished and there's real questions about what the status of the president's health is, joe. >> all right, carol lee, nbc's carol lee, thank you so much. it's always great to have you here. we really appreciate your reporting. kasie hunt, i just -- i just wonder, because i think any doctor that understands the impact of covid on mental health of patients, especially while he's still half covid, which we could suspect likely that the president does still have covid, he's probably still shedding, it's probably still having an impact on him, you combine that

with the drugs that he's taking, with the steroids that he's on, anybody that has been on steroids, strong steroids for health reasons understands that it does impact the way you think, it impacts the way you respond. i don't expect any republican on the hill to be truthful to you on the record about their concerns about the president's stability. and at least a temporary transfer of power to mike pence until the president's off these steroids, until the president recovers fully from covid. but have you heard any discussion from republican staffe staffers, off the record from republican legislators, from any republicans in washington, d.c. that they are at least concerned about a president acting irrationally with the nuclear codes? not that -- let me restate that.

that the president who has the nuclear codes, that -- that they are concerned about a president in this mental state being able to run the country when he likely would not be allowed to run any company in america in his current state? >> well, i don't think i have to speculate, joe. "the new york times" has reported that there are white house officials who are concerned about the president's current -- current mental status because of the drugs that he is taking. and i, you know, we have been documenting very carefully even without the steroids how this president has governed over the course of the last several years. and that has obviously raised many concerns. but, to your point, i think the level of alarm is -- is pretty high right now among the people that i'm talking to privately. and you're right, we're not going to see a flood of on the

record comments expressing concern about the president's health. but, there is a sense that everyone is on board a sinking ship right now and there's no good way to deal with it. and it's impossible for them to say in public any of the things that you just outlined to express concerns about the president's state of being, to talk about the drugs that he is on, whether that's having an impact on how he's governing, partly because they're own political fult tures atures are him and raising those questions would raise questions about themselves and their own ability to govern well. but it's fair to say that there is a deep recognition that we have not been in a situation like this before. and that there are potentially very serious questions, especially i would say with the joint chiefs quarantining, that adds a layer of concern to this

that is particularly problematic, joe. >> absolutely. and, you know, some might argue that the ship is sort of taking on water debate night. and the question remains whether or not the president knew he had coronavirus debate night. >> jake sherman, i'll ask you the same question he was go to break that i asked kasie. what concerns are you picking up? again, because it's obviously republicans are just as concerned about the safety and well-being of their children and their country and the economy as everyone else. and if the president is -- it president is impacted by covid, as studies would show, it's more than likely he is. if the president is impacted negatively by these steroids and this treatment that he's on, which science and medicine and studies would show it is more likely than not that he is, then are you hearing any republicans sounding the sort of alarms that

others are sounding? >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, twofold. number one, it's difficult for them to do it publicly because their political fortune they believe in some of these very red districts plier, i mean, yo district will probably go for donald trump 60/40, if not bigger than that. a lot of republicans represent these districts in which the president is still inordinately popular and so they don't have any incentive to speak out against him. think about it this way, no one is looking to -- to lie across train tracks for the president right now. you're seeing that in senate races. you saw mcsally last night in the arizona debate refuse to address her support for the president, say whether she's proud of her support for the president. there's devfinitely a concern about the decisions he's making and there has been for some time. and there is nobody in the white house, not that it's that much

different than previous weeks or months, but there's no one even to try to push back. and that's the particularly dangerous part for the president, why some -- why he's kind of operating as a lone ranger here, i would say. and i think we're going to see that in the days and weeks ahead as the president kind of -- if he stays healthy -- >> -- politically irrational when he made it yesterday in that tweet to go out and take ownership of the fact that $2 trillion of government money would not be going out to people, to voters four weeks ahead of election day. they started asking around capitol hill, it turns out as ever, there is no four dimensional chess here at work, was just a move he made, something he threw into the atmosphere without thinking about it. it was summarized by one congressman who told me about the president, he feels insecure so he needs to expeert his powe

to feel good. that's not how we operate. so the president puts out that tweet that can't be taken back and sends a signal to voters ahead of election day, i'm the guy who cut off negotiations. i'm the guy that ensured that perhaps your small business will fail or that you won't get that check you were hoping for. >> we've talked about for some time now this president has, for whatever reason, consistently put himself on the 30% side of issues that are 70/30 issues. and you could go down the list in 2020, but he's done it time and again. i would guess this is likely a 90/10 issue that if the fed chairman and the markets are saying that we desperately need some stimulus going into the new year because 2021 is going to be devastating, for a president to unilaterally kill the bill and then take credit for it is -- is like something i've never seen in politics. usually what would happen is

cynically presidents would kill a bill, but then figure out a way to suddenly blame the other side. and they would do that to try to protect people in their own party. to try to protect the martha mcsally's, cory gardners, the susan collins, the steve deigns. did not even do that. so people in montana now know that steve daines supports a president that has killed any stimulus checks to help the people of montana through their crises. >> the hardest time they've seen. >> yeah, in years. and spread that to maine, same thing happening. susan collins president that she has supported time and time again has cut off checks that could help the hard-working people of maine. and do that around the country. it's just absolutely illogical and suggests that the president is, right now, not only a detriment to his party, but also

a danger, in fact, if, in fact, he is impacted by the drugs he's on and the fact that he probably still has covid, that he's even more unstable and unmoored than he is in the best of circumstances. >> "politico's" jake sherman, thank you so much. steve rattner, thank you as well. and still ahead on "morning joe," president trump told americans this week not to let covid-19 dominate their lives. and that message is getting a powerful response from people who have lost loved ones to the virus. loved ones like colonel steven depyssler who was 101 years old and an air force veteran. he was believed to be one of only a few veterans that had served in four wars from compiling toilet paper and airplane parts in his early air force career to advising widows

and widowers on their benefits, he left behind a huge legacy. he died from complications of the coronavirus on july 25th, four days after his 101st birthday. we'll be right back. s 101st birthday. we'll be right back. who is usaa made for? it's made for him a veteran who honorably served and it's made for her she's serving now we also made usaa for military spouses and their kids become a member. get an insurance quote today. we also made usaa for military spouses and their kids >> tech: every customer has their own safelite story. this couple was on a camping trip... ...when their windshield got a chip. they drove to safelite for a same-day repair. and with their insurance, it was no cost to them. >> woman: really? >> tech: that's service you can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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i just left walter reed medical center, and it's really something very special. the doctors, the nurses, the first responders. and i learned so much about coronavirus. and one thing that's for certain, don't let it dominate you. >> not everyone's lucky enough to walk out of the hospital. after two days, you know. so we -- we saw what this disease can do, so guess what? we are afraid. we are. i still am. >> i went, i didn't feel so

good. and two days ago i could have left two days ago. two days ago i felt great, like better than i have in a long time. i said just recently, better than 20 years ago. >> why are you bragging? have empathy to the americans that you are our leader, have some empathy to the people who are suffering and grieving. >> don't threlet it dominate. don't let it take over your lives. we're the greatest country in the world. we're going back. we're going back to work. >> let it dominate your life? no one's letting it. nick didn't let it. it wasn't a choice. tand and it dominated his life, my life, our family's life and because he didn't make it, it will forever i infect my life. >> i stood out front, i led. nobody that's a leader would not do what i did. and i know there's a risk, there's a danger, but that's okay. and now i'm better and maybe i'm

immune, i don't know. >> you know, that's the tweet you send. you send a tweet saying i got out of the hospital today at 6:30 p.m. i now have a small idea, a small idea, because i got out in two days, i have a small idea of what this disease is like. and i am so sorry to the people that lost their lives to it and i will now do everything i possibly can to help them and to help their families. and i stand with those grieving families because this disease is terrible. >> the woman you saw there juxtaposed with the president is amanda kloots, the window of broadway actor nick cordero who died of severe complications of covid-19 after a month's long battle with the disease. the 41-year-old cordero who had no known preexisting conditions spent more than 90 days in the

hospital. he entered the emergency room on march 30th and had a succession of health setbacks, including mini strokes, blood clots, sepsis infections, a trach of the toemy, a temporary pacemaker implanted. during his hospitalization, his wife sent him daily videos of his 1-year-old son elvis so he could see him if he woke up. her passionate instagram video yesterday responding to president trump quickly went viral. willie. >> and how passionate she was, how eloquent she was, how gracious she was to the president wishing him well, hoping he recovers. she went through hake, niell, nt through hell three months before he died. and now they have a 1-year-old that's left without a father. when they were asked yesterday what it's like to be the widow of a coronavirus patient, to

hear the president say don't let it dominate you, that's what it felt like. let's turn to an msnbc and nbc news medical contributor. dr. roy, good morning. what did you think as a physician, as a public health expert to hear the president imploring people with coronavirus not to let it dominate you, not to let it ruin your life? >> good morning, willie. you know, he started off by saying i learned a lot. and, of course, being an eternal optimist i was hoping he was going to follow that up with i learned a lot that this is a highly infectious and contagious disease that i'm carrying and that wearing a mask would protect me. i was hoping he would say i learned a lot about how horrible this has made thousands of, in fact, millions of people feel. i feel badly, i have a sense of remorse, none of that happened. and when you hear that heartbreaking story from the widow ms. kloots, it's reflective of what thousands, in

fact millions of people who are currently infected, 7.5 million, and not to mention the family members of the over 210,000 people who have died, covid-19 is not just your typical flu which the president has made that comparison. it is a highly infectious disease that now infects all organs of your body including neurologic and cardiac manifestations. this is a disease we need to take seriously. >> it's not a choice whether or not you let it dominate you, it does what it's going to do. we were talking on the commercial break about contact tracing at the white house, and there is an outbreak at the white house. we put all the face ups on the screen, stephen miller a close adviser to president trump is the latest case. they have said out loud that they will not contact trace that rose garden supreme court event two saturdays ago where we know so many cases have come from. what is your reaction to that and what should the white house be doing responsibly this morning right now? >> yeah, i'm so glad you asked that, willie. so not only is the united states

the global center for infectious -- infections and deaths, the white house itself is the epicenter of the epicenter. that must tell you a lot. it tells me that the people that were there working there, working closely were not wearing masks and not practicing physical distancing. these two measures are the only two that we know that can effectively reduce transmission. we also know from decades of public health studies that contact tracing is a key element in terms ever containing an epidemic, a pandemic in this case. so, and the centers for disease control and prevention, willie, are global leaders when it comes to this type of work. this is what they do. this is what they do. and to block out the world's leaders in doing contact tracing is concerning. and what i'm worried about, willie, is that they're not

going to be transparent. whoever's doing the contact tracing, they're not going to be transparent with the public in terms of how many people are infect and when they got infected and are they appropriately quarantine something i also want to make sure that people -- the viewers know that testing is not -- is a diagnostic tool, not a preventative one. even if somebody tests negative, they still need to complete 14 days of quarantine because the incubation period of the virus is two to 14 days, willie. >> all right. so, doctor, the president -- i guess he plans to go to the debate next week. the white house and the president will not say when he received his first positive test. what -- what risks could be in play here? it's thursday, october 15th. >> yeah, mika, i feel your frustration there. as a physician, as a public health advocate, there are certain questions that we wanted that medical team during that

medical conference to answer. one was when was he first diagnosed with a positive test? and when was his last negative test? as you know, mika, they didn't answer either of those. the president is in a highly infectious period. he needs to isolate, isolate. and wear a mask, keep that distancing. he should not be going out in public. he shouldn't even be doing those photo ops he was doing at the white house. he needs to stay home, stay put and stay isolated, mika. that's the recommendation. it has been for months now. >> all right, dr. roy, thank you very much. we'll be trying to get that information. hopefully the white house will be more forthcoming, especially. it president goes to the debate. and, i mean, again, is he a super spreader as he walks around is the question everybody wants to know as the numbers go up in terms of his inner circle. people like stephen miller getting covid. this is not good. coming up, a new watchdog

report finds top justice department officials were a driving force behind the trump administration's family separation policy. "the new york times" michael schmidt and nbc's julia ainslie join us for that new reporting. plus senators chris coons and amy klobuchar will both be our guests. we'll talk about the vice-presidential debate tonight. we'll be right back. ntial debae tonight. we'll be right back. - [announcer] welcome to intelligent indoor grilling with the ninja foodi smart xl grill. just pick your protein, select your doneness, and let the grill monitor your food. it also turns into an air fryer. bring outdoor grilling flavors indoors with the grill that grills for you. verizon knows how to build unlimited right. start with america's most awarded 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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and honest bidding site. an ipad worth $505, was sold for less than $24; a playstation 4 for less than $16; and a schultz 4k television for less than $2. i won these bluetooth headphones for $20. i got these three suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. a hand full of u.s. attorneys along the mexican border including three appointed by president trump told justice department officials that they were, quote, deeply concerned about the welfare of children if they were separated from a parent being prosecuted for crossing the border illegally. but then attorney general jeff sessions made clear that separation is what the president wanted. according to the "new york

times," top doj officials were the driving force behind the zero tolerance family separation policy. after they were given a go ahead by cabinet officials. nbc news first reported on the show of hands vote by cabinet members taken in the situation room in may of 2018 on proceeding with the controversial policy. the vote was yes with only then homeland security secretary kirsten nielsen voting against. joining us now, nbc news correspondent julia ainslie and "new york times" reporter and national security analyst michael schmidt. michael is the author of donald trump versus the united states, inside the struggle to stop a president. julia, we'll start with you and your reporting, interesting that kirsten nielsen who kind off on it was the one no vote.

who wanted to separate children from their families and i believe the term was the younger the better or something like that? >> well, as we've been reporting -- the situation room in early may there was a deep -- attorney general sessions with -- the council member of the time -- to push forward -- >> we're going to fix -- julia, julia, we're going to fix your mic. we'll jump to michael schmidt as well. and, michael, your report thong story reflects what we were just talking about. there was almost a unanimous vote to separate children from their families and even the very young. >> yeah. so our reporting, you know, last night about this basic inspector general's report that has not come out yet, a draft inspector general's report that lays out what was going on inside the

justice department during the time of separation when they were implementing the child separation policy. in some ways, some of it not particularly surprising, although it runs in the face of some things that members of the obama administration have said. the first thing being that despite what attorney general jeff sessions said, he knew what this policy was there to do, what it was designed to do, that it was going to separate children from their parents and that he was an advocate for it and that he pushed forward on this, despite saying publicly that, you know, they didn't really think that this was going to be a separation policy. the second thing that was significant about it, which was new in some ways, was the role of deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. someone who had been far less associated than sessions with what went on at the border, but someone who, according to this

report, was exchanging messages with, you know, basically instructing and speaking with the attorneys, the u.s. attorneys on the border and telling them that the age of the child should not be a factor in the -- in the decisions about how the justice department was proceeding with this policy. and that, obviously, you know, creating yet another damaging disclosure about this policy and what was going on inside of the trump administration as they were implementing it. >> well, it's the top of the hour now, we have so much to get to today, obviously. the president and his top advisers still battling covid. there's been an outbreak in the white house, it continues to grow. we'll get to stephen miller testing positive for covid, obviously a debate tonight

between kamala harris and the vice president mike pence which is going to be held under a cloud of suspicion regarding mike pence's own health. if mike pence worked for any other company, any other business in america, any other institution in america, he would be quarantined right now. buff course the white house pla plays by their own rules. which is why we're seeing what we're seeing around the white house also. the president unilaterally decided to kill economic relief for millions and millions of americans. we're going to be talking about that decision as well. but right now we are talking to julia ainsley with nbc news and michael schmidt with "new york times" about the shocking details behind the president's plan to separate children from their parents at the border. and you know, julia, there's been a lie out that, well there is something that the obama administration did too, they had the same policy. this brings into sharp relief the fact that often the obama

administration, whenever they did have to hold children, they did so to protect them until they could actually find their parents. here, this was a deliberate plan by the trump administration, the attorney general aggressively supporting this policy, rod rosenstein actually condemning prosecutors who expressed concern telling them they needed to move full steam ahead on this program. which of course ended up caging children. and, of course, you have jeff sessions going on the christian broadcasting network after this controversy erupted and actually lying on the christian broadcasting network saying that he did not support this policy when, in fact, we find out the only person who opposed it at the time was kirsten neilson.

>> that's right. i hope you can hear me now. one thing that makes abund didn't youly clear in it draft report that we've obtained there are was a different policy. this was not what happened under the obama administration, despite what the trump administration has said. and that it started in a pilot program in el paso. and at the time prosecutors in el paso went to their boss and said, look, there are judges in these courtrooms who are seeing defendants who have mothers who are still breastfeeding children and they have been separated. furthermore, they don't know how to find their children again. they expressed that to their boss, finally that pilot program was discontinued. months later, the justice department, senior justice department officials like sessions and rosenstein decided to take that policy and make it borderwide. and furthermore, they used this policy to pressure dhs and instead of taking the fall for

it, really kirsten nielsen ended up taking the fall for it. she had to be the face of this policy. another thing on rod rosenstein that's so interesting is when he had did make that decision and he said no child is too young, a reason why he did it is because he thought if he weighed in and said there's a minimum age, that it would make doj have an equity in this policy. legally for reasons in order to keep doj safe, he decided no child was too young and that they should prosecute every parent. >> so, mike, we shouldn't get numb to these quotes that we hear, the headline of your piece is we need to take away children. a quote from the attorney general at the time jeff sessions, we need take away children. which, if you think for a thousand years how will that ever make sense to anyone, what was the exact context in which he made that quote and how did he justify saying it? >> he's talking to prosecutors

at the border. they are explaining the policy that the -- that's coming out of the administration, that's coming from the president. the thing is is that the president knew about this and was talking to his attorney general about it and was putting pressure on them to do this. they were obviously going along with it. and that is the sort of context in which this policy was being pushed and implemented. and the attorney general there basically instructing his prosecutors on what do. and there's a later conversation in which the prosecutors express concern about this, because it was going to create issues that went beyond ones that had the justice department traditionally dealt with about who was going to care for these children and who was going to take them into custody. and they're talking about things like equities, rosenstein talking about who would have the equities, you know, saying that the justice department was just in charge of those people who were being charged. i see this in even a greater

context, which is that this is the spring of 2018. and donald trump is raging at his attorney general and his deputy attorney general. he thinks that sessions has been disloyal to him, sessions is clinging to his job doing anything he can to stay in his position. the president arizona trying 's different ways to pressure him. rosenstein is dealing with other investigative issues that are popping up about the president. there's a raid on michael cohen that spring, there's all these other things going on. and it's in that context that the president's justice department is implementing this policy. at least the policy that the prosecutors on the border who were on the front lines of this had concerns about. and now we get a chance to look into the justice department through the lens of two years of an investigation to see what was really going on and what these deputy attorney general and the

attorney general were saying. >> it's just unbelievable. michael schmidt and julia ainsley, thank you both very much for your reporting. staggering. let's bring into the conversation the ceo of the messina group, jim messina. he served as white house deputy chief of staff to president obama and ran his 2012 re-election campaign. donny deutsch is with us. and editor at large for the nonprofit newsroom the 19th and msnbc contributor, aaron haynes. and we have some new balt ground state polls to show you. the latest monmouth university poll out of pennsylvania has joe biden with an 11-point lead over president trump. 54-43%. in florida, the latest usa today suffolk university poll shows the two candidates tied at 45%. the latest university of north florida pole has biden up by six points, 51% to 45%.

and in the latest nbc change poll bind holds a four-point lead in the state, 50% to 46%. let's go to michigan now, the latest detroit news wdiv tv poll shows bind a nine-point edge 48% to 39 poe%. and reuters finds biden up by six points among wisconsin voters 50% to 44%. >> which is closer than most -- most wisconsin polls have been. but they've been from a range of six to ten to 11. so, jim messina, let's go to you first. obviously if you talk to polsters and people on the ground and people in the kmain campaig campaign, they'll tell you and i'm sure they've told you that the president's debate performance was almost a

singular event in this campaign that's had joe biden steadily ahead. but this was the one time where they saw pretty dramatic movement away from the president over one event on one day. add the chaos of the last week and obviously you're starting to see an electoral map that is closing in on the president of the united states. >> joe, you're exactly right. the interesting thing about it is that it's everywhere, right? it's not just the battleground states. in some of these u.s. state races in nonpresidential states like montana, like kansas, like iowa, you saw the gop candidate drop five points after the trump debate in these battleground states of michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, the old blue wall. you saw the race significantly move. this has been a really stable race since the conventions. and yet this one act, this one moment really tanked in with two groups of people.

the first is senior voters who trump carried by seven points two polls out yesterday now have him trailing with senior voters by 20 points, which is just an unprecedented amount of movement. and the second are these swing women voters that you and i track very closely. those voters have moved significantly away from the president and his party. and that has real ramifications up and down the ballot in these congressional and senate races that are going to determine who controls both chambers in november. >> and, willie, my republican friends that i've known for 25 years in the state of florida told me before the debate that they were finally starting to feel good about the state of florida, that donald trump, because of disproportionate support, unusual amount of support in miami dade, was actually starting to draw even and even move ahead of joe biden. i was talking to one who -- one

of the actually one of the more accurate predictors over the past 20 years of how campaigns are going to go in florida who told me the day before the debate that they were starting to feel good that it looked like a trump plus one plus two win. he called me two days after the debate and he said, scratch that, not other we seeing a bleed rearing terrib bleeding, a terrible bleeding of support for the president, but republicans up and down the ballot. state legislators losing support. he said i've never seen anything like a reaction to a debate like there was to the one on tuesday night. >> the cnn poll of yesterday showed a 16 point nationally. "the wall street journal" poll before that showed 14 point lead. so the trump fatigue in the debate is real. jim, i would ask you, we've seen in those polls as well

staggering numbers among women for joe biden, upwards of 20%, 21% in the cnn poll, 27% in "the wall street journal" poll. can donald trump win with those numbers and then you factor in seniors as well? >> no, way. you look at those two numbers and there's no path to victory. he can't move those numbers, right? so if you look very closely at the numbers, that's why he's starting to pull away in states like pennsylvania and michigan where these senior voters combined with the women voters are just moving these numbers away from the president. the other interesting thing is he's over 50 in these states, right? boyden biden is at 50 plus in pennsylvania and michigan. pennsylvania's a great example. there's a 94% chance the winner of pennsylvania wins the presidency and now you're seeing biden move over 50 and trump, you know, michigan where trump pulled his own tv ads because he

knows he can't win the state of michigan. that was down ballot ramifications that are just staggering. we came into the year thinking that republicans would pick up seats in the house because democrats had a wave election in the 2018. now democrats are going to win ten to 15 seats in the house and probably control the senate because trump is tanking so badly with women voters and they're walking away from his party in all the races across the ballot. meanwhile, the virus spreads. white house senior policy adviser stephen himmer is nmill latest white house official to test positive for covid-19. he released a statement saying he last tested negative on monday afternoon and that he tested positive yesterday. miller said he was working remotely and self-isolating in the five days before yesterday's diagnosis and that he is now in quarantine. his wife katy miller, communications director for vice

president mike pence tested positive for the virus back in may. she's the one who mocked senator kamala harris for wanting to use a plexiglass barrier at tonight's debates stating, quote, if senator harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it. we're told katy miller tested negative yesterday morning but will not attend tonight's debate out of an abundance of caution. >> it's really fair if she wants to put a fortress around her to protect her, so be it. >> we don't want her to get coronavirus like a lot of people around the president and people who went to his debate prep. by nbc news' count, stephen miller is now the 18th person connected to the white house or the trump campaign to test positive in recent days. ten of them attended the september 26th rose garden event for the president's supreme court nominee. a couple of things, willie. i mean, number one, washington,

d.c.'s numbers are up apparently because of these super spreader events around the president. and yet the president will not release when he first tested positive, which is important for contact tracing, and they're not doing contact tracing out of the rose garden event. this is beyond malpractice on every level and dangerous for many people's lives. >> and they're aggressively talking about safety in a way that is still mocking. the president mocked joe biden at the debate a week ago for wearing a mask too often. they're still after an outbreak at the white house and the diagnosis of the president of the united states, katy miller is mocking kamala harris, senator harris for wanting to have some basic responsible protections at the debate. you have other people on the right mocking joe biden still for wearing a mask. it's confounding, it's dangerous, it's hurting them politically, it's hard to understand why exactly they're doing it. but i guess when you're guiding

philosophy is too own the libs and the media it leads you to this place. >> well -- >> you're killing by barney. >> that's kind of like speaking of stephen miller owning the libs, i mean, my favorite owning the libs story was stephen miller going and buying like $100 worth of sushi. the owner after he paid for the sushi saying something negative to him and stephen miller throwing away his own sushi, his own dinner that he had already paid for to own the libs. >> oh, my. >> there is a wonderful parallel with the trump administration being so obsessed with owning the libs that they always choose the 30% side of every equation and cede the 70% to the other side. and, again, this isn't -- this isn't about who i want to win. >> no. >> in 2020. this is about what we have been

saying every day since donald trump's first day in office when he was talking about american carnage. you can't play to the 35% because if you do play to the 35%, you loose elections. they just keep losing elections. and here they are, i got to say, acting like jackasses, mocking people who are wanting to wear masks. >> and they're all sick. >> after, after the white house operations has been crippled, just been battered by the arrogance of people working in very tight spaces without wearing masks. >> yeah. and these are white house officials, aides to the vice president, sitting united states senators doing touchdown dances because the president came home from the hospital three days later saying he defeated covid, don't be afraid of it feeding into his story. and speaking, joe, of 25%, 30%

positions, yesterday president trump is now flip flopping on relief measures for millions of americans hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. in a series of tweets yesterday afternoon, the president said he had instructed treasury secretary steven manu chib to stop house negotiations with house speaker nancy pelosi until after the election. then late last night after the stock market dropped dramatic reversed course and urged congress to approve a series of new relief measures including another round of stimulus check. he tweeted this, quote, if i am sent a stand alone bill for stimulus checks, $1,200, they will go out to our great people immediately. i am ready to sign right now. are you listening, nancy? so, donny deutsch, the president came out yesterday and said out loud, i want to own the fact that these negotiations are over, that checks will not go out, that small businesses will fail, the $2 trillion will remain in the federal coffers and not go out to people.

that's one thing as a presidential standpoint, but how about from a campaign standpoint four weeks before election day announcing that you are the man preventing this from all these people who need the money? >> i think this is a sad precursor of what the next 27 days are going to be like. i think donald trump is going to be almost burn the house down mentality. we've never -- donald trump has never played two touchdowns behind before. even when he was trailing hillary clinton, he was playing with house money because he was never supposed to be there and he was a winner either way. and donald trump's biggest fear in life is to be a loser, his father said there are losers and there are killers and donald trump has all fashioned himself a killer. and starting with the unhinged performance at the debate, donald trump looks like a loser, smells like a loser, and i believe you're going to see more of this abhorrent behavior, this almost self-destructive, you know, i'm going to burn everything down with me in every way you can imagine now, whether it means i'm going to try to start a war. you know, you have to take your

imagination to places it hasn't gone before. and i think yesterday's example of literally you couldn't do anything more self-destructive both to the country and to yourself. so that's where i'm going, we're heading into this burn the house down mentality. if you want to contrast the two campaigns, if you look at the last 36 hours, you see trump as mussolini up on that balance con balcony and you see what he did with the stimulus, and then contrast joe biden's speech yesterday. he didn't even mention trump in the speech yesterday, it was about unity, coming together, it was befelt like a president already bringing the country together. so a dire warning to this country for the next sfwent dayday27 days, take your mind wherever it can go in any mode of self-destruction and country destruction and that's what we're looking at. >> donny, others have suggested that. i want to go back to imagery,

something that you know an awful lot about as far as conveying the type of message that you want to convey. let's just talk about the imagery. you had joe biden yesterday in g gettysburg, beautiful green fields behind him, very peaceful, placid setting. he seemed completely in control. yes, he was reading off of a teleprompter just like ronald reagan and barack obama and others read off of teleprompe . teleprompters. but it was calming. just the visual, i'm not talking about the content. but americans walking past a tv set, which is how most americans pick up their news, see this peaceful picture of a man who seems to be completely in control. the image that is seared in their minds of donald trump, i believe, between now and the

election, unless something elsmore jarring comes forward, is donald trump puffed up and puffed out most likely from steroids with -- with the orange hand cake makeup on him applied actually unevenly to say the least, and wheezing, desperately trying to gain breath, desperately trying to had as he takes off his mask trying to look tough but instead looking like a man spinning -- spinning out of control. and, again, you compare those two images, and for a nation that is exhausted by the past four years of turmoil, it's not really -- doesn't take a marketing genius like you to understand what's going to work in the closing month of the 2020

campaign. >> no, it doesn't. >> donny. >> wow. >> donny. >> yeah, well someday -- >> and that's show that split, guys, while donny talks. >> yeah, someday you'll find a marketing genius, until then you're stuck with me. yeah, you know, i remember my own personal feelings watching those two moments and i remember the stress i felt from trump. and the actual calm, my body relaxed from biden. think when you see biden going forward as just the protector and chief, the calmer and chief, the unifier and chief. and you just look at that other mussoliniesque image, and the only thing you can say about trump is he's out of it, he's gone. he's lost it. and you're going to see more of the same there, but you know, think your contrast of the imagery is better than any words that can say. as you're just watching them now without any words coming from either side of those contrasts and, you know, all biden has to do now is really start to be act

as if. and did he that yesterday beautifully. and, as i said, i'm going to repeat myself, i think the next sfwent days a 27 days are going to be harrowing because this guy has never ever played from two touchdowns down. >> and, by the way, donny, doesn't take a marketing genius to figure that out. but you, of course, are. >> yeah. >> a marketing genius. >> okay. so going to show you a picture in just a moment that really depicts the outbreak at the white house and how people who are just patriots trying to do their best working there at a low level are being exposed and also the press is being exposed. it's a pretty staggering picture. but first let's bring any nbc news senior business correspondent msnbc anchor stephanie ruhle to market reaction, especially on the president's flip flop. what are you seeing, steph? >> you know, mika, when we saw the market go up on monday, the white house wanted to argue, look, investors, wall street,

they're so happy with the news that the president has gotten better. but that argument holds absolutely no water and doesn't work if you look at the market reaction yesterday where the market absolutely tanked when the stimulus talks failed. what does that tell census thus? the market improved not because the president got better, but at the end of the day investors are risk managers. we don't know much about the president arizona health. they' president's health. on monday there was reports we were getting better on stimulus talks. jay powell the head of the fed said we need to do something. the biggest roundtable led by the biggest kroxs ceos of the c said we've got to get something done. then yesterday the president said we're out, we're over. did president trump think that the market was going to have a positive reaction? no. last night he tries to claw back

and say i'm going a stand alone bill here, a stand alone there. leaving out cities and states and local governments that are at the threat of having to you the can the pay ut the pay of t firefighters. but this negotiation is not about haggling at a flea market. the langonger we wait, we have millions of people out of work, small businesses getting closed every single day. people's lives and livelihoods are at risk. so the president is really putting himself on the line here saying i'm a negotiator and chief, i'm going to get something done, i'm going to swoop in and fix this when we are in a global pandemic where the economy -- economic crisis and the health crisis are completely linked. >> stephanie ruhle, thank you very much. we'll see you, of course, at 9:00 a.m. eastern time right after "morning joe." i want to turn to erin haynes now, just pulling back

20,000 feet and revisiting the polls that we talked about at the top of the hour which really show even some of them post diagnosis, covid diagnosis. the president having a hard time in states like pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan. i'm not sure how he turns this around. it appears he might be a bit cornered and some of his efforts falling flat. what is the trump voter thinking right now as he's looking or she's looking at a white house that is dealing with an outbreak of covid? >> mika, i think to your point that's exactly right. how is she looking at this president and his response to the pandemic? because what i'm hearing from women across this country as they have been making sacrifices for month after month between their careers, care giving and the coronavirus, to see this

president who was flouting the coronavirus guidelines from medical professionals and to become among the more than 7.4 million americans who have contracted this virus, they are infuriated. they are frustrated by this. they certainly wish the president well, want him to get better, but at the same time knowing that the sacrifices that they have made in their own lives, it just enranges thges tt this has been the response and this is the focus. and for him to say things like don't let coronavirus dominate your life, it has dominated these women's lives and i think that is what you're seeing reflected in the polling. women who are the majority of caregivers in our society who are the essential workers, who are the frontline workers, and who have been navigating this, whether they or their loved ones ever get sick or not, the reality for them as stephanie said, from a public health and

economic perspective has been devastating and the president's response, frankly, has not been adequate and now it's become personal. and that is absolutely what voters are taking with them into the ballot box, particularly women who we know make up the majority of the electorate in this country. >> jim messina, your experience in 20 in 2008 and 2012, you had to step back and look to reallocate resources whands w resources and what was in reach and what wasn't. obviously the biden campaign focusing on michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin, florida of course, but is a place like ohio there for the taking? is a place like georgia actually there for the taking and has texas, i think a lot of people would be surprised, most people would be surprised if joe biden won texas, but has that now moved into a winnable state for joe biden? >> you have it exactly right. the most important thing is lock down the midwest. make sure wisconsin, pennsylvania, and michigan are

absolutely locked down, don't take anything for granted because you and i have seen that movie before in 2016. but then when you're in the midwest, ohio and iowa are suddenly sitting there and biden's beginning to move resource there's. his big cash on hand advantage really matters here. and then we haven't talked about arizona. arizona's the other state that is now moving away from the president in very big numbers. you have a very big contested u.s. senate race there. and more importantly, biden starts adding states like arizona, like ohio to his electoral win column, you're talking about a landslide here. so these are the kind of problems the trump campaign has right now. where do you sort of make your own firewall? you can't lose florida. there's no way you can do that. but that's a $50 million bet. and then you look at the midwest and start to say, jesus, my map to 270 is gret gettietting incr

hard. >> i want to go to this article. as you see in this picture that was posted, it shows three press assistants. you see them on the left all sort of leaning over, all not wearing masks on october 1st at the white house briefing where kaleigh mcenany was not wearing a mask and has been diagnosed as covid positive. well, two of those assistants now have tested positive for covid-19. and you see sitting in the front row there john roberts from fox news and paula reid from cbs who is now in quarantine. i mean, this is just parallel universes here where, joe, you have some people who actually believe the science and are now quarantining and afraid for themselves and a white house putting people in danger, including the people who work on the low level of the white house staff. >> well, yeah. >> and that is just so unbelievably unacceptable. >> again, let's look at that picture and look at that picture more closely and you have the

white house press secretary who has been mocking throughout this entire process, who's been justifying -- >> just arrogant. >> -- the president's arrogant and antiscience, antimedicine approach to covid. and you look along the left side of that picture, erin, and you have two of those three white house staffers not wearing a mask. kalee maca nanmcenany not wearia mask. and those people, two of the three workers now have covid. that's the sort of recklessness. you were talking about she, that is the sort of recklessness that offends women, suburban voters, independents, the very swing voters that have been running away from donald trump's republican party for three years. >> yeah. and it's also galvanizing black

and latino voters, because we know that black and latino workers are the majority of the folks who are working in the white house. those low-level workers. those are the essential workers of that white house that keep the place running, right? and so for them to be exposed potentially because the white house is certainly not a fortress against the coronavirus right now. you wonder why senator kamala harris is calling for, you know, for that plexiglass protection. mike pence continues to test negatively, thankfully, but, you know, that could change. we're seeing that is changing every single day for people that are connected to this white house. now the count stands at 18 and so it -- it is staggering. i think about my press colleagues, many of whom i know are taking protections and are making their own plans in the b absence of a national plan from this administration. but certainly adhering to the

guidelines that medical professionals have given about what to do about the coronavirus. and yet they are still exposed because this is a white house that is exposed. >> and, mika, remember how many times the president mocked reporters for wearing masks? call told them to take off -- jeff mason with reuters told him to take off his mask because he couldn't hear him. >> mark meadows. >> mthen mark meadows up on the hill, you sure look funny in your mask. i don't really understand that, but what were they thinking was going to happen? >> did they think this was funny because covid is deadly. with 18 people, possibly more contracting it, i worry are they going to have a horrific experience with it? >> right. >> is somebody going to die? >> the president says one day, don't worry about this, go about your life. the next day, the next day the joint chiefs have to quarantine because of the president's recklessness. quite frankly because of the stupidity of his covid policy

that has been responsible for we don't know how many of the 210,000 deaths that americans have endured, men families have endured. but a lot of it. but even inside the white house you don't have to look at those 210,000 people who have died and figure out exactly how many have been responsible or killed because of white house negligence. all you have to do is look at the fact that donald trump can't even run his own white house. his operations are crippled right now inside the white house because of the number of people. and the joint chiefs now, of course, are quarantined. that's the only message americans need to receive. >> aaron hayneerin haynes, than much. and donny deutsch, thank you very much as well. and still on "morning joe," senator coons is standing by. we have a lot to talk about with him including tonight's vice-presidential debate, a

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senator, you have consistently supported president trump, you supported the administration's policy, you voted -- policies i should say, and you have voted not to convict on impeachment. are you proud of your support for president trump? >> well, i'm proud that i'm fighting for arizona on things like cutting your taxes. >> senator, the question was, are you proud of your support for president trump? >> i'm proud to be fighting for arizona every single day. >> is that a yes or a no for president trump? >> putting legislation or president trump's desk. >> was that republican senator martha mcsally in a fight for her political life during a debate against democrat mark kelly in arizona last night. the latest "new york times" siena college poll gives kelly an 11-point lead in that race, 50% to 39%.

that same poll gives joe biden an eight-point lead over donald trump in the state of arizona. 49% to 41%. we point out that early voting begins in arizona today. joining us now, democratic senator chris coons of delaware. he's a member of the senate foreign relations and judicial committees. he's got a magazine titled a bipartisan foreign policy is still possible. we'll talk about that in just a moment. senator coons, good morning. i want to begin by asking you about what's going on in the congress right now in terms of covid stimulus, covid relief. we had the fed chairman jerome powell saying it is critical to get something into the system for this economy. as you know, it is critical to small business owns and families in the state of delaware, the president coming out publicly and killing the negotiations effectively yesterday in a tweet. so where does congress stand right now, most importantly, in getting money to the hands of people who need it? >> well, we've been working for months in the congress to put together a package that we can

get passed. as you know, six months ago we unanimously passed in the senate the c.a.r.e.s. act which delivered about $2.3 trillion worth of relief and is what's keeping our economy from collapsing. four months ago, the house passed a bold substantial relief package which majority leader mcconnell never took up seriously in the senate. we have waited for week after week after week without republicans in the senate coming to the table to negotiate. speaker pelosi ultimately in the last few weeks has been negotiating directly with white house chief of staff mark meadows, with treasury secretary mnuchin, with senator schumer, the minority leader in the senate, and it's been very difficult to get to any agreement, even as speaker pelosi and senator schumer have agreed to come down by a trillion dollars from that initial house package. this is just another example of how difficult it is to negotiate with president trump. it's like trying to nail jell-o to the wall. he's canceling all negotiations and then within a few short

hours saying, no, no, we urgently need more money to be enacted tomorrow. we are not in session this week because of the covid outbreak that has infected three of my colleagues. instead of doing what we should be doing, which is negotiating a final covid relief package for the american people, the senate majority and the judiciary committee are racing ahead with a supreme court confirmation. >> as you know, talking to your constituents people in delaware, people out in the country, they're not much interested in the politics of how this is happening, they just know they need some help and they need it fast. so what do you say to that small business owner wilmington or somewhere else in your state who's saying i'm about to go under unless you guys do something and do it fast? >> well, that's literally a conversation i'm having every day as folks i know here are texting me, emailing me, calling my office saying when are you going to get this next relief package done? i'm on the small business committee. i helped write some of the ppp

provisions that helped millions of businesses and nonprofits stay open in the c.a.r.e.s. act. we have a next version of that, a bipartisan next version of that ready to go. but frankly when the house tried to pass it it was blocked and the white house until president trump's late night tweet last night had refused to move forward with piecemeal solutions. we still have the unresolved and critical issue of funding state and local governments which have already laid off more than a million and a half public employees. the middle of a pandemic is no time to have teachers and paramedics, nurses and police officers facing layoffs because of the ongoing recession caused by president trump's bungled mishandling of the pandemic. >> is that something real that could get into the pockets of your constituents? >> it kwo would distribute i think roughly 4-billion dollars to the american people.

i'll remind you, president trump insisted on putting his name on it the last time something unprecedented in the disdr distribution of federal support and concessions. that may be something that's considered today. bluntly, speaker pelosi and senator schumer have tried their best to make progress in these negotiations, and the unpredictability of president trump's response and the unwillingness of the republican majority in the senate to focus on this pandemic relief package rather than the confirmation of judge barrett to the supreme court has made progress very difficult. >> let's talk about that confirmation process, senator. mitch mcconnell says he wants to go ahead starting the hearings in some form on zoom. as you mentioned three of your colleagues have come down with covid-19. some say they expect well enough to be back in person for a hearing of judge amy coney barrett. how do you see this playing out? republicans have the votes to confirm her. what does this process look like

to you over the next few weeks? >> well, we should not be racing ahead with this partisan process. there is no precedent in our nation's history for the senate holding a confirmation hearing for a supreme court nominee this close, just 27 days, before presidential election where people are already voting in more than half the states. nonetheless, the majority committee chairman lindsey graham of south carolina's insisting on holding a confirmation hearing and an initial vote next week. if the senate is too unsafe for us to be there in person this week to vote on judges, it's unsafe for us to be holding this confirmation hearing for judge barrett. i am still preparing for these upcoming hearings, i've been consulting with my legal team, i've been reading her opinions and law review articles and i'm increasingly convinced that she's even more conservative than justice scalia for whom she clerked on the supreme court and she has demonstrated a

willingness to reverse long-settled precedent. i look forward to questioning her more about that, and i think the american people need to realize president trump himself said the only reason he was choosing this judge to be a justice and pressing for her to be seated before the election was so that she could participate in decisions about the election if it is closely contested and so she could be seated to help overturn the affordable care act in the supreme court hearing scheduled for november 10th. it is a bitter irony that justice ginsburg dedicated her life to gender equality and the provision of the affordable krairs a care act that protects women, this is the part of the affordable care act that protects all women from discontract another insurance

companies that's on the ballot pay the vote for judge barrett is a vote fto get rid of the affordable care act. it needs to be delayed until after the election. >> do you think she's qualified as a judge? >> i think she is qualified as a judge, i think she's going to be an engaging candidate. but, frankly, what matters here is not whether she's taught at a well regard law school or whether she answers questions well. what matters is her judicial philosophy, how she will change the balance on the court and what the consequences will be for tens or hundreds of millions of americans. we're in the middle of a pandemic. it is stunning that the trump administration is in the supreme court trying to take away health care protections from millions and millions of americans. preexisting condition protection covers more than 100 million americans. and there's more than 7 million americans newly infected in this covid pandemic who have a new preexisting condition.

so, frankly, i think the focus here ought to be on the consequences of judge barrett joining the supreme court. >> before i let you go, senator, i want to ask you about a piece, a rare sign of optimism from you in a piece you right that bipartisan bipartisan foreign policy is still possible. i say rare optimism in these times, not frjust from you. why do you believe that and do you believe you have to write a piece like this? what brought us to this point to have some people question whether bipartisan foreign policy is still there? >> well, former vice president biden yesterday in a powerful and compelling speech at gettysburg, gettysburg the battlefield which one of the bloodiest turning point battles of the civil war was fought. spoke about his optimism that he can be elected and serve as the president of all the united states, and my optimism about the possibility of rebuilding, of building back better, our place in the world rooted in an

enduring bipartisan commitment to engaging with the world is partly rooted in joe biden's optimism for our country. as we've heard so many people say in recent days, when listening to president trump, have some empathy. what joe biden has in abundance is empathy, character and experience. i would be honored to help support future president biden as we deal with the pandemic better than network of alliances that have long sustained our prosperity and our security. it's important work and i think we need to get busy doing it. it's only sustainable with bipartisan support. >> all right. senator chris coons, democrat of delaware. senator, thanks for your time this morning. we always appreciate it. >> thank you. >> let's bring in now long-time media executive editor at large at news week tom rogers, he is out with a new opinion piece for "newsweek" written with timothy

worth "amid trump's post-election chaos, hold lawyers to account only the vote count." he is still watching the election and whether or not the president will try to undermine the legitimacy of the election pr process. also with us, former senior advisor for the house oversight committee, kurt bardella, senior advisor to the lincoln project. tom, i know you are very concerned about a trump campaign strategy to undermine the legitimacy of the campaign. you are looking ahead. you are going to say lawyers are going to be flocking and doing what? is it going to be a little bit of a blood bath? >> well, the trump campaign has made no secret of the fact they are looking to challenge the election and they are going to be out there trying to invalidate ballots and call into question everything about what has gone on. and leading that charge will be lawyers.

they say they are going to have an army of 50,000 people in the field, and a lot of those are going to be lawyers, and the issue is what is the responsibility of lawyers post-election. they are going to be claiming voter integrity when they go about these various challenges. but the fact of the matter is, there is a really nefarious purpose here. they are out there to deprive minority voters, urban voters of their suffrage rights. the republican national committee chief council has said this is going to be legal work on steroids out there, and lawyers are not allowed to present frivolous arguments to a court, to present arguments for an improper purpose. when you already have the campaign saying, look, if trump loses the election is rigged, they are clearly not constrained by any evidence.

they are going to proursue thisn the absence of evidence. that brings to mind that bar associations and state bar boards have a real responsibility here. they oversee the legal profession and they should be out there warning lawyers that you can't go about making frivolous arguments, which are about undermining the constitutional right, the most precious right of any citizen, to vote. and in the absence of that, you are giving lawyers free license to go out there, create post-election chaos, set this election on a course for trying to overturn what i think will be a legitimate electoral college victory by biden and lawyers should be constrained in doing that. they should be part of the solution, not the problem, and state bar boards and state bar associations have a huge responsibility to police this and indicate there is going to be disciplinary action if lawyers engage in this kind of behavior. >> kurt bore della, any way to

combat this, prevent it? >> i don't think there is anything we can do to prevent it, mika. i think at the end of the day if we get to the point where this election is being decided by lawyers, a fundamental flaw in our democratic process will have been exposed and exploited. the fate of this country and future direction of this country c cannot come down to unelected lawyers trying to manipulate the system, trying to do what donald trump and the republican party have told us they are going to do, use the legal system to subvert the will of the people. as the republican national convention is beerg up to try to get their lawyers in place, the democratic party needs to be ready to defend the results of the legitimate election, to defend people's rights to turn out and vote, to defend the right to show up at the polls and be heard. it says everything you need to know about this election and where both the republican party and democratic party is right now, that one party is doing

everything they can to stop people from voting, one party is trying to do everything they can to let people vote. you know, the fact that there is a party in this country, an organized political party who believes that the only way they can cling to power is to stop people from voting is incredibly anti-democratic. it is complete betrayal of what this country is supposed to be about. for decades we have heard republicans use the word constitutional conservatives. the constitution is pretty clear about our right to vote, this fd the republicans are trying to take that away in an effort to steal the election. that's how broken the republican party is right now. >> all right. tom rogers, thank you very much. his new piece is online for "newsweek" and kurt bardella, thank you as well. kurt's new piece for "usa today" on what to look for in tonight's

vice presidential debate. ahead, president trump abruptly announces on twitter that he was ending negotiations. meanwhile, the outbreak at the white house grows as vice president mike pence prepares to debate senator kamala harris in salt lake city tonight. a busy wednesday. "morning joe" is coming right back. back

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good morning, and welcome to "morning joe," wednesday, october 7th. the remarkable eddie van halen. i am sure most of you listening that grew up in the '70s, '80s, '90s know there was an eruption in music, a revolution in sound. willie geist, this guy immigrated from amsterdam to the united states with his parents and created a band that really did just change the sound of music and he was actually listed as the top guitarist in 2012. the top guitarist in rock

history for completely revolutionizing the sound of an electric guitar that had been rooted in blues and r&b. he took it in a completely different direction and changed everything. >> yeah, what a way to start the morning. the sounds of eruption from 1978, eddie van halen just shredding under an image of the white house. incredible. when that instrumental performance came out in the late '70s, i was too young. for me "1984," the van halen album was seminole, "jump," "panama," "hot for teacher." that was the van halen i knew. and you know what people forget, joe, he played on "beat it," michael jordan's song. he played guitar on that song. reading more about him, the transition from this sort of blues era guitarist, the eric clapton era if you want to call it that, to eddie van halen was

like a revolution. it was a totally different way of playing rock and roll guitar. it was a totally different sound than people had heard before. and what was interesting was eric clapton was his inspiration. eric clapton was eddie van halen's favorite guitar player, and yet he played the instrument so differently and really started a revolution with the way he played guitar. >> he did. unfortunately, i am not too young to remember when van halen's first album came out, and i was a beatles freak even though they were a little before my time, although my friends would listen to ac/dc and kiss and rush and, you know, i listened to the beatles non-stop and sort of stayed away from, you know, sort of heavier metal or what was called, then called hoa hard rock. i remember a friend brought van halen's first album to school

and played "eruption." i was like, what the hell? and the incredible thing about it was it was a new sound, which, if you love music, doesn't matter what, you love new sounds. absolutely incredible. so eddie van halen passing away at the age of 65. he will be sorely missed. but, man, a legend. and willie, one other thing before we get to news, they have done it to us again. you remember when we were at the belmont a couple years ago when we were tracing out on the back of the racing form, sort of our take on genome editing? >> yeah. >> question what? this clown obviously picked it up off, you know, off the floor of the belmont racetrack and he won the nobel prize.

won the nobel prize for chemistry. they did it to us twice this year. i don't think that usually happens. twice this year, two nobel prizes stolen from us again. >> when you see withdrawal interest the process, we are never beigoing to get the respe we deserve. by the way, we weren't at the belmont, the big prestigious race. we go on like a tuesday afternoon to watch the trotters. we are the only ones there usually. you make some money on a tuesday. >> you can make some money on a tuesday. obviously, you can also sketch out some plans that could change the world and win a nobel prize. but we get no credit for it. >> it's wednesday, october 7. welcome to "morning joe." we will get to the news now, and there is a lot to cover this morning. white house senior policy advisor stephen miller is now the latest white house official to test positive for covid-19. he released a statement saying he last tested negative on monday afternoon and that he tested positive yesterday.

that's more information than we are getting from the president who will not tell us when he last tested negative. miller said he was working remotely and self-isolating in the five days before yesterday's diagnosis and that he is now in quarantine. his wife, katy miller, communications director for vice president mike pence tested positive for the virus in mockes for wanting to use a plexiglass barrier at tonight's debate, stating, if senator harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it. kataley miller tested negative yesterday and will not attend out of an abundance of caution. >> really? so you have again somebody who is mocking kamala harris. >> yeah. >> for being careful because mike pence is not doing what anybody else would do, if mike

pence worked for any company, worked for any corporation, worked for any school, worked for any hospital, worked for -- you just name the institution in america, mike pence would be at home quarantining for 14 days. instead, he gets a doctor to lie for him again, because that's all these doctors do for these white house figures, and saying that he doesn't need to quarantine. the recklessness and the recklessness of katy miller mocking kamala harris for wanting a partition after donald trump -- it's pretty likely that he had covid when he was debating joe biden and his family, extraordinarily rude, extra ordinarily ininconsiderate by refusing to wear masks. again, you -- >> well, joe --

>> all. people have been infected, mika, and just these people are proving themselves to be ill equipped not just to run a white house and a country, but to run a hot dog stand. >> no, they can't. joe, to point out, if you looking at the -- >> which isn't an easy thing to do, running a hot dog stand. >> the people infected a tht point, that when tquestion when president walked out. hospital and wanted to do his gestures of strength, really strange gestures, a reporter yelled out at him, are you the super-spreader? is the president the superspreader? you have to ask was his entire inircircle, stephen miller now has it. is the president himself a walking superspreader? >> that's a good question. but i can tell you this. the city of washington actually has had a big bump in infections because of the white house. by nbc news' count, stephen

miller is the 18th person connected to the white house or the trump campaign who tested positive in recent days. ten of them, ten of them attended the september 26th rose garden event for the president's supreme court nominee. >> one of them, as far as we know right now, one of them that we are reporting on is steev miller. and stephen miller, unlike the president, has responsibly released to the public when he tested negative and the first time he tested positive. the president will not release this information. his doctors will not release this information. no eb in the white house will release this information. even though this information could help understand who had it when and who might be at risk. but the president, for some reason, will not say when he had it. did he have it during the debate? did he walk in there knowingly, since he was late for the debate and didn't get tested that day on the debate property, i just wonder, you can't help but to

ask when the hell he was first diagnosed diagnosed positive. the outbreak in the white house has raised concerns for the city that surrounds it, as joe mentioned. while washington, d.c., had recently managed to bring infection rates down in recent weeks, the city reported 105 new coronavirus cases on tuesday. the highest number since june 3rd. city officials are now forced to monitor infection trends for the next several days to see if the white house cases affect the city's overall infection rate, and it would help, willie, if the white house released real information. >> absolutely. and the spread reaches beyond the white house as well. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley and most of the pentagon's senior officers are under self-imposed quarantine after being exposed to the coronavirus. "the new york times" reports general milley and all but one member of the joint chiefs of staff began isolating after learning admiral charles ray had

tested positive for covid. vice come endidn't ray was at the pentagon last week for meetings and all potential close contacts from those meetings have been tested. a pentagon spokesman said in a statement that reads in part, no pentagon contacts have exhibited symptoms and we have no additional positive tests to report at this time. a military official told "the new york times" general milley and the other senior officers have full operational capability from where they are working, most of them at home, and said there is no degradation to the country's natural defense. let's bring in nbc news correspondent carol lee in washington this morning. carol, let's start back at the white house, if we could. stephen miller is positive. his wife katy miller had coronavirus recently. katy miller is mocking kamala harris for wanting basic and responsible protections at tonight's vice presidential debate. what more do we know about the president's condition and when he first tested positive?

as mika says, it's key to understanding this outbreak and it is an outbreak at the white house. >> with the short answer is not very much. that's part of the problem not just for us. if you look how much we don't know the president was last tested, what his lung scans show, things his doctor has not shared, there are also people in the white house, many of them who don't know what the current situation, what their own personal risk might be, and that's where you hear from a number of officials that there is a lot of anxiety, there are a lot of questions, they are not getting answers. so as much as we are not getting answers publicly, they are not getting answers and they are inside the building. that gives you a sense of what the atmosphere is like there. there is a real information deficit. yesterday in terms of the president's health, we got a very brief statement from his doctor saying he was showing no symptoms. there was an expectation we might see the president yesterday. it's the first time we haven't seen him since he was diagnosed

with coronavirus, and we didn't see him. we have heard from him on twitter, but he did not make any sort of public appearance, no video, no drive-by, no nothing, which is what we have seen in previous days. and so there is just the questions continuing to pile up. the white house 's position is they are not going to talk about when the last time the president tested negative was. the presumption and the way that looks, if there was a good answer, they would give the answer, and they're not. and so that leaves everybody not only in the dark about what their own health situation and risk might be, but also just again feeds this perception that we are not getting information about one of the most important things about the president, and that is his health. >> nbc's carol lee, thank you. still ahead, the president had the opportunity to spend vast sums of money to boost the economy just weeks before the election, and yet, instead, he sank the stock market by

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i remember herwho was because she had a bracelet that had the names of her children. she asked me, 'doctor, am i going to be okay?' and i could not give her the answer that i wanted to give her. there is no excuse for why we don't have this under control at this point. joe biden listens to medical experts. he actually has a plan that does the things that we should have been doing many months ago. and joe biden is not going to let his ego get in the way of fighting the disease. ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad. verizon knows how to build unlimited right. start with america's most awarded 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. hi, i'm dorothy hamill. even as i look toward 65, one thing hasn't changed i still love getting on the ice. which means i need to stay healthy. now, as i'm thinking about selecting a medicare plan, i know i want one that has the kind

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in a series of tweets yesterday afternoon the president said that he has instructed treasury secretary steve mnuchin to stop negotiations with house speaker nancy pelosi until after the election. then late last night, after the stock market dropped dramatically, the president reversed course and urged congress to approve a series of new relief measures, including another round of stimulus checks. he tweeted, if i am sent a stand alone bill for city council checks, $1,200, they will go out to the great people immediately. i am now -- i am ready to sign now. are you listening, nancy?

>> let's bring in correspondent and host of way too early kasie hunt. perhaps it was the steroids talking? i'm not joking, actually. perhaps it was the steroids talking. but there is absolutely no political justification for the president of the united states in the midst of a severe economic downturn, with the fed chairman warning that we could face disastrous consequences next year if another stimulus bill is not passed, to brag about being the person solely responsible for stopping stimulus relief. >> is that the art of the deal? >> no, it's not the art of the deal. i would guess, after he did that, republicans, many republicans who actually want to get re-elected like susan collins were aghast. what can you tell us? >> susan collins was aghast. joe, it is incredibly difficult to understand why this president

has shown us repeatedly that he acts first in his own self-interest. and if you are facing voters in 27 days now, 28 days, your self-interest would include a o 2.2 yillian injection of money into an economy that is on a slow road to nowhere good. and he, for whatever reason, decided he was going to tweet yesterday afternoon not only that he wanted to kill the talks, but that it was his decision to kill the talks. part of why we had some hopes that there might be something that could come of this was because house speaker nancy pelosi was under pressure from misdemeanor moderate democrats to show she was doing something here. it seemed she wanted to hold out for a more favorable democratic congress and a democratic president and do something perhaps next year. she has drawn that firm line in

the sand. many of her members said we need to show our constituents we are doing something right now before the election, and that's part of why she was at the table. for the president to step in and say this is all me, i'm shutting this down, is just from a political perspective incredibly difficult to understand. and when the stock market dropped, i think that helps explain why he suddenly reversed course. the reality is the damage is done. democrats are going to be able to point to that tweet and say the president killed this. it wasn't us. it was him. >> coming up, there are several important updates in the country's ongoing fight against covid-19, which is still claiming thousands of lives every week. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪

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the super-spreader. trillion. super-spreader the super-spreader medical center and it's really something very special. the doctors, the nurses, the first responders, and i learned so much about coronavirus and one thing that is for certain. don't let it dominate you. >> not everyone's lucky enough to walk out of the hospital after two days.

you know? so we, we saw what this disease can do. so guess what? we are afraid. we are. i still be. >> i went, i didn't feel so good, and two days ago, i could have left two days ago, two days ago i felt great. better than i have in a long time. i said recently, better than 20 years ago. >> why are you bragging? have empathy to the americans that, you are our leader, have empathy to the people suffering and grieving. >> don't let to dominate, don't let it take over your lives. don't let that happen. we are the greatest country in the world. we are going back. we are going back to work. >> let it dominate your life? no one's letting it. nick didn't let it. it wasn't a choice. and it dominated his life. it dominated my life. it dominated our family's lives for 95 days, and because he didn't make it, it will forever affect my life. >> i stood out front.

i led. nobody that's a leader would not do what i did. and i know there is a risk. there is a danger. but that's okay. and now i'm better, and maybe i'm immune. i don't know. >> you know, that's the tweet you said. you send a tweet saying i got out of the hospital today at 6:30 p.m. i now have a small idea, a small idea because i got out in two days. i have a small idea of what this disease is like. and i am so sorry to the people that lost their lives to it, and i will now do everything i possibly can to help them and to help their families and i stand with those grieving families because this disease is terrible. >> the woman you saw there juxtaposed with the president

aman amanda kountz. nick cordero died from the coronavirus. he had no known pre-existing conditions, spent more than 90 days in the hospital. he entered the emergency room on march 30th and had a succession of health setbacks, including strokes, blood clots, sepsis infections, a tracheostomy, a temporarily pacemaker implanted. during his hospitalization, kloots sent him daily videos of their 1-year-old son elevation so he could see them if he woke up. kloots' passionate instagram video yesterday responding to president trump quickly went viral. willie. >> and how passionate she was, how he will quent she was, how gracious to the president wishing him well, hoping he recovers. she went through hell. nick cordero went through hel for three months before he died, and they have, i believe, a 1-year-old son left without a

father. when we asked yesterday what must it be like to be the family of a coronavirus patient or the widow of a coronavirus patient, to hear the president said don't let it dominate you, that's what it felt like. you just saw it in that video from amanned kloots. dr. roy, good morning. what did you think as a physician, a public health expert to hear the president imploring people with coronavirus not to let it dominate you, not to let it ruin your life? >> good morning, willie. you know, he started off by saying i learned a lot, and of course being an eternal optimist i was hoping he would follow it up with i learned a lot, this a highly infectious and contagious disease i am carrying and wearing a mask would protect me. i hoped he would say i learned a lot about how horrible this has made thousands, in fact millions of people feel. i feel badly. i have a sense of remorse. none of that happened.

and when you hear that heartbreaking story from the widow miss kloots, it's reflective of what thousands, in fact millions of people who are currently infected, 7.5 million. not to mention the family members of the over 210,000 people who have died. covid-19 is not just your typical flu, which the president has made that comparison. it is a highly infectious disease that now infects all organs of your body, including neurologic and cardiac manifestations. this is a disease we need to take serious. >> thank you so much. coming up next on "morning joe," senator amy klobuchar is standing by. we will get her take on tonight's vice presidential debate and the loomk fight on capitol hill over the president's pick for the united states supreme court. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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i am mike hayden. i was the former director of the cia and the nsa. if there is another term for president trump, i don't know what happens to america. truth is really important, but especially in intelligence. president trump doesn't care about facts. president trump doesn't care about the truth. he doesn't listen to his experts. the fbi says white nationalism is a real problem, and the fbi wants to do something about it, but the president doesn't want to talk about that. he doesn't keep the country safe. it's unbelievable. i was 40 years in the mitt, okay? alliances are wonderful. alliances are win-win, and now i don't know what's happening to our alliances.

i mean that. if trump gets another term, i think many alliances will be gone and america will be alone, and that's a real, real problem. i absolutely disagree with some of biden's policies, but that's not important. what's important is the united states, and i'm supporting joe biden. biden is a good man. donald trump is not. >> wow. former acting cia director and former head of the nsa general michael hayden with that endorsement for joe biden for president. joining us now democratic member of the judiciary committee, senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. great to see you. >> hi, mika. very powerful ad. that was incredible. >> it really was.

i was riveted. looking ahead at the debate tonight, it's just, i mean, the circumstances are unbelievable. the white house is in the middle of an outbreak. i am trying to think of how mike pence defends that. any concerns you have about the debate happening given that the white house is in the midst of an outbreak? >> well, i'm glad the debate is going forward. you know, kamala and i got to be close friends on that campaign trail. i know she is going do a really good job tonight. she is someone that shows grace under pressure. and that's what you want in a he had lear right now in the middle of a pandemic. and at the same time we know mike pence is a good debater. i happened to be sitting in the front row of his vice presidential debate with tim kaine. so we know he is a good debater. but what kamala has on her side are the facts. she's got on her side the facts that she and joe biden have a plan to not just build back

better when it comes to our economy, moody's just gave the numbers that their plan would create 7 million more jobs than the one put forth by the trump administration. but also the mismanagement of this pandemic by this administration. so mike pence may be a good debater, but the facts and the american people are on the side of truth and justice this time, and that means biden/harris. >> has there been a lot of debate prep amidst all this chaos? any sense or what do you think the strategy should be moving forward for kamala harris tonight? >> well, i think she has to make the case for joe biden. that is important. and she is good at doing that. and i have somehow have a feeling she won't be interrupting the moderator 145 times like someone did in the last debate. i think you are going to see her calmly putting forward the case

for why we need a president who has compassion, why we need a president who is going to be able to govern with competence, and actually put in place a plan when it comes to covid. and that means a national testing strategy. that means following the science and that means contact tracing. and then that gets us to a place where we can have our open more consistently. i just saw is a study by yale. 8 800 small businesses a day are closing. this president announced he was withdrawing negotiations on a covid package. that gives you a sense of the chaos we are seeing over in the white house. >> senator klobuchar, it's willie geist. good morning. i want to pick up on that point about the president announcing republicans should withdraw from negotiation bs a covid package. he saw the dow collapse. he came out and said, okay, let's do a stand alone bill that gets a $1,200 check to american

families. what is your assessment of where these negotiations, if we can call them that anymore, where they are and what are people in your state -- i asked senator coons this about delaware. what are people in minnesota telling you when they own a small business or their family is struggling and they have been waiting for months for these negotiations to be resolved? >> i think they are actually quite in shock because they saw speaker pelosi valiantly trying to reignite these negotiations with recalcitrant republican senate and she got a bill passed that was significantly less money than the original bill, but she was still willing to move forward. and the democrats in the senate want to move forward and the white house seemed interested. i thought, okay, here we go. the bill she passed actually has that relief for restaurants, for stages, for theaters and for small venues for music in addition to, of course, the testing and the help for small governments and everything else that we need across the country. it's all in there.

33 states are seeing spikes right now. so what happens in the midst of this pandemonium? the president backs away, probably doing the bidding for mitch mcconnell, and now seeing the stock market tank, this is all just predictable, he starts just tweeting stuff out. let's do this stand alone, let's do this stand alone. we have a package ready to go and it's on the white house and mitch mcconnell to come to the table again. meanwhile, they have chosen to use the precious time for the american people right now to ram through a supreme court justice instead of getting help to americans during this pandemic. it's simply outrageous. >> are you and your colleagues resigned to the distinct possibility or the fact that there won't be a deal before the election unless a new president comes in, unless joe biden is elected, that the people of minnesota will sit here another three, four months without covid relief? >> i can't resign myself to this. i know neighbors and friends juggling their kids on their

laps while they are trying to do work, schools opening and closing, people that don't have broadband. i don't resign myself to anything. and if they are making us come back for this hearing after deeming the senate unsafe and that's why shut it down, that's what i'm going to ask them. so why aren't you working on covid relief right now instead of doing this? but that's where i'm headed next week, is back to washington, not to help the people of my state, but to do this. it's just wrong, and believe me, we are going to keep pushing them. so, no, i'm not resigned to anything. >> so let's talk about the hearings th hearings. the potential hearings to deal with judge amy coney barrett. the republicans want that to happen. there is a lot of barriers, self-created, self-inflicted barriers, including a lot of people getting coronavirus from super-spreader events held by the white house itself and the president himself. and yet they want to keep going. what is your position on that?

i mean, it is a -- a constitutional right. i mean, they are going back on their word as to whether or not they would do this so close to an election, but it is, you know, their lawful right, i guess. but how physically possible is it to try to get this done? >> they right now have three of the members of the republicans in the u.s. senate have covid. just coming down with it, by the way, last week at the end of the week. we didn't find out about this until friday. so now we know that they have covid. two of them are on the judiciary committee. it's unclear if they are going to be there. of course, they should not be there. and so we have called for a delay of the heerj. the hearing should happen after the election. that is the precedent that senator mcconnell said that the people choose a president and then that president, in an election year, should choose the nominee. we are still holding by their precedent that they set and calling for a delay in addition

because of safety reasons. but people don't -- these guys are doing lunches. they take their masks off and they have lunches. so we don't even know the full extent of how many people are still sick. and that's why we believe there should be a delay to the hearing. >> senator amy klobuchar, thank you so much. great to see you. >> thank you. >> we'll see you soon, senator. facebook is now banning accounts connected to the conspiracy theory qanon. it comes after the social media giant was widely criticized for not doing enough to curb the spread of disinformation related to that movement. facebook's previous policy was to row move accounts that discussed violence that resulted in termination of 1,500 groups and profiles. in a press release facebook says the removal will take time and that it is dangerous organizations operation team

will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on reports. qanon off facebook, mika. >> great. concerns over coronavirus will be front and center during tonight's vice presidential debate, even down to the staging. the latest on that. as we go to break, more of the stories of people who have lost their lives to the coronavirus. a third grade teacher in north carolina died less than two weeks after testing positive. julie davis decided to devote her life to helping children after the columbine shooting. she first began experiencing symptoms on september 25th, roughly two months after her school returned to in-person learning. she immediately quarantined and after her positive test on the 29th, her third grade class was put into quarantine. none of julie's students tested positive. julie told her husband she believed she got the virus from

school, a claim that the stanley county school district denies. julie died on october 4th. we'll be right back. ♪ but i like it, i love it, i want some more of it ♪

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okey. okey. i know. gentle..gentle new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database so you can start hiring right away. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. he calls on the nation's antop health experts.s, working together, for all americans, is what joe does. when writing his healthcare plan, joe biden worked with both doctors and patients to make healthcare affordable by lowering premiums, reducing drug costs, and protecting people with pre-existing conditions. joe listened to both small business owners and workers to create his economic plan that cuts taxes for middle class families, creates 18 million new jobs in his first term,

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>> that is the lincoln project with that "evita" spoof of president trump's balcony moment. joe biden yesterday giave a speech to promote unity in the country. the address, which hit on the theme of restoring the soul of america, was delivered near the battleground at gettysburg. >> i'll be a president who appeals to the best of us, not the worst. i'll be a president who pushes towards the future, not one who clings to the past. i'm ready to fight for you and for our nation every day, without exception, without reservation, and with a full and devoted heart.

we cannot and will not allow extremists and white supremacists to overturn the america of lincoln and harriet tubman and frederick douglass. to overturn the america that has welcomed immigrants from ms. tubman. to overturn america that's been a hav rch aen and a home for ev, no matter the brackground. we're at our best when the promise of america is available to all. we cannot and we will not allow violence in the street to threaten the people of this nation. we cannot and will not walk away from our obligation to at long last face the reckoning on race and racial justice in this country. we cannot and will not continue to be struck in the partisan politics that let's us, this virus thrive while the public health of this nation suffers.

we cannot and will not accept an economic equation that only favors those who have already got it made. everybody deserves a shot at prosperity. >> joining us now, the president of the human rights campaign. alphonso david. welcome back to the show. >> thank you. >> i wonder if you can just, first of all, talk about the contrasts that we're seeing between these two candidates, the contrast in terms of how they're running their campaigns, and, also, the contrast just in terms of the sense of confidence that they are emoting to the american people, and then what are you looking for in the debate tonight for the vice presidential candidates? >> well, mika, thank you, first, for having me. i think what we're seeing is a stark contrast between two presidential candidates. donald trump, that only cares about himself, and joe biden and

kamala harris that are actually focused on the people. we have example after example after example where we're seeing the trump administration attack marginalized communities, attack the lgbtq communities specifically, and just this week alone when we look at what we've seen, transgender violence. we have confirmed at least 31 transgender people killed in this country, violence that has been spurred by the trump administration. we also have seen a war against marriage equality by two justices from the u.s. supreme court, and lgbtq people are suffering from covid. so the trump administration has been creating a climate where marginalized communities and lgbtq communities specifically are being the target, and then you look at the other end of the spectrum, and -- joe biden and kamala harris are actually focused on people. they're focused on miking sure that all of us are actually represented, and the trump

administration has not been doing that. what we're looking forward to in this vice presidential debate is making sure that kamala harris is able to highlight the record, the record of the trump administration, the trump/pence administration and what the harris/biden administration is going to do. we have one out of five people, lgbtq people living in poverty. 17% of lgbtq people elastic health care coverage. lgbtq people are nor likely no have a pay cut in this covid-19 pandemic. people are suffering, and the trump administration is looking the other way. they're focused on their individual policies, they're not focused on people and that is what we are focused on. we need to make sure that everyone understands the stakes in this election. mika, i think earlier today folks were talking about, you know, the justices issuing this opinion. which effectively says, it's an

attack on the relationships of same-sex couples all over this country. there are hurns of thousands of people who are married, and now we have an opinion that says, well, we're questioning whether or not marriage equality should continue being the law of the land. this election is the election of our lives, and we need to make sure that lgbtq people and people are color are protected. >> so you tweeted, i have no doubt amy coney barrett would join coms, alita and others to chip away at lgbtq rights, voting rights. reproductive rights, and health care rights. she gave us -- a road map in her writings. can you tell us about that road map? >> sure. so amy coney barrett has said that she agrees with the dissenters, alied toe ato and t. a constitutional right to marry, and that constitutional right includes same-sex couples. coney barrett that has called

into question whether or not reproductive rights are protected under the constitution. coney barrett has taken the position that religious liberties or religious exemptions, i should say, should effectively supersede individual rights. that is a huge concern for us. religion has been used to justify colonization, used as a tool to support slavery. rig used as a tool to support separate but equal, to ban interracial makes. we have be carol individual rights are not going to suffer at the hands of a newly constituted u.s. supreme court, and amy coney barrett told us in her writings as a law school professor as well as, as a judge, that she has concerned about the affordable care act, as an example. we have significant concerns that the affordable care act could be struck down with amy coney barrett on the court. so marginalized communities,

lgbtq communities, our lives are at stake and we have to fight to oppose this nomination and also have to fight to make sure we have pro-equality candidates in office who will represent all of us, not just some of us, but all of us in this country and what is what we're fighting for. >> president of the human rights campaign alphonso david, thank you very much for joining us this morning. so looking ahead to tonight's debate, two plexiglas barriers have been installed on the stage for the debate in salt lake city. one next to the desk where vice president mike pence will sit at, and one next to senator kamala harris'. the two will also be separated by about 12 feet of space. pence's team spent all day yesterday questioning the medical reasoning for a divider on both sides of the stage. after it was initially reported that the vice president did not want a barrier.

ultimately, pence agreed to the changes last night, after viewing the setup during a walk-through of the debate hall. by cdc guidelines, pence is considered safe to debate tonight after several negative coronavirus tests, and contact tracing that puts him in a low-risk category from his recent exposure to the infected president. the debate will be moderated by "usa today's" susan paige and kicks off at 9:00 central time. they won't tell us when he first tested positive, the president. the insanity. >> and a lot of people working inside the white house, not just us who would like to know answers about how safe it is to be at work. meanwhile, big questions whether president trump will even be able to participate in the two final presidential debates ahead of election day. yesterday the president tweet e

he's feeling great and plans to move forward with the secretary debate in miami. one day after leaving walter reed national military medical center where he spent almost 72 hours receiving treatment for coronavirus. joe biden said if president trump remains contagious, the town hall debate should not happen, seems obvious. according to the cdc, president trump is considered contagious for 10 to 20 days from the onset of symptoms, depending on the severity of his disease. if we are to believe president trump was infected as the rose garden event back on september 26th, the miami debate on october 15th would put him just inside that cdc time frame for severe cases. a source familiar with the matter confirms with nbc news, there are talks to hold the upcoming debates outdoors, mika. >> okay. or -- maybe on zoom? all of this as the white house has yet to affirm that the president was tested for k

coronavirus before the first president's debate and two officials familiar with the frequency of the president's testing says he was not tested daily as the public had been led to believe. a report on the "new york times" on the growing number of covid cases at the white house, administration officials admitted to giving the impression the president was tested daily, with comments such as these -- this, back in july -- >> as i made clear from this podium the president is the most tested man in america. he's tested more than anyone, multiple times a day. we believe that he's acting appropriately. >> wow. and now there's speculation that's completely untrue. that the president's doctors won't reveal the last time he tested negative. a crucial piece of information for determining the stage of his illness, because he may not have been regularly tested eed at a. that same day in july the president himself contradicted

mcenany on the testing frequency. >> press secretary said today that you sometimes take more than one test a day. why is that? and how often -- >> i din know about more than one. i do take probably on average a test every -- two days, three days and i don't know of anytime i've taken two tests in one day, but i could see that happening. >> do they know anything? that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is wednesday october 7th, let's get smarter. this morning, president trump remains in relative isolation at the white house, completely out sight for more than 36 hours since he came back from the hospital, but that did not stop him from throwing a bomb into the middle of covid relief negotiations first calling them off. then saying he would support new stimulus checks and targeted