yesterday, these taped remarks he said we'll have some kind of therapeutic or cure, but the companies are saying don't expect a widespread rollout or approval of a vaccine until late in the year. >> thank you very much. we'll be reading axios a.m. in a little bit. my question is that last one in the debate that mike wednesday didn't answer what is he personally going to do if there is no peaceful transfer of power? something i'm looking out for today. that was "way too early" for this thursday morning. thanks for being with us. "morning joe" starts right now. every major -- it's a nasty fly. i don't like those suckers. i don't know about you in but i'm not into flies or mosquitos. >> i'm the only one on this stage who's prosecuted the big banks for taking advantage of

america's homeowners. >> he gets to run his campaign any way he chooses. >> -- taking advantage of the veterans. >> hey, get out of here. >> three's the most persistent fly i have ever seen. nice. >> and refused to condemn white supremacists. >> not true. not true. >> no other insurer would take nathan as long as thomas was on the policy. get out of here. you have seen me grab one of those before. ♪ fly with me, let's fly, let's fly ♪ >> all right. there you go. a brief history of presidential politics and flies. live look at the white house, top of the hour. good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, october 8th. along with joe, willie and me, we will fly away with white house reporter jonathan lemire,

msnbc contributor shawna thomas and chief white house correspondent peter baker, co-author of the new book "the man who ran washington, the life and times of james a. baker iii." a great book. >> let me say, we are one with those who were deeply stunned and saddened as people talked about the fly after such an important debate last night. it minimized actually the remarkable performance of both candidates, but willie, a couple of quick updates. i picked up on the twitter last night. the fly soon after that event, got a deal from netflix and an update in morning, yeah, the fly checked into walter reed hospital this morning. our thoughts and prayers are with the fly. now, let's go ahead and move on

to the debate. really, just -- >> well -- >> by the way -- >> pale. >> how much do you think he got from donald trump for having a fly on his head during the debate. >> the fly was there for a good two or three minutes. >> didn't know about. >> i he was dialed in. >> the fly was dialed in. so mika, first of all, what was your take on the debate? >> i thought kamala harris was fabulous and she was disciplined. she was strong. she kept a fine balance in terms of tone which, you know, would be a challenge for any woman debuting on the national stage like that as a vice presidential candidate. she was reality versus whatever was happening on the other side of the stage and she used every skill in her tool box to deliver a clear, almost, you know, near

perfect performance. she was right on, spot on. that moment when she talked about the auto industry -- wow. it was incredible. she didn't overdo it or underdo it. it was hard to watch mike pence. just really painful, tough. i think kamala harris could have been tougher on the outbreak within the white house itself and the president's condition and their lack of a transparency. she did go there a little bit. we'll have a lot more information coming up ago that including more cases that hadn't been disclosed. the white house still not disclosing when the president first tested positive and just more incidents within the sphere of the white house of people not being honest about a deadly virus that has now pervaded the inner circle of the white house. >> willie, it's interesting and

maybe because we define deviancy down so much with donald trump. there was i will say something maddening about mike pence going up and running cover for indefensible actions whether you talk about the caging of children on the border, whether you're talking about the killing of 210,000 americans from covid. how many of those were mike pence and donald trump and jared kushner responsible for? historians will ultimately sort through all of that. he i think scored some points on the economy. but of course, the economy is trashed now. but he tried to defend the indefensible. had a lot of cheap, really corny sixth grade -- >> horrible. >> -- tricks when kamala harris was trying to talk about how donald trump lied to the american people. when he did such a terrible job

throughout this entire covid crisis. which a majority of the americans agree with. mike pence -- i will not stand here -- and will not let you talk badly about the american people. she wasn't talking badly about the american people, mr. vice president, but talking about how your negligence killed a lot of americans. donald trump's negligence and jared kushner's negligence killed a lot of americans. senators who sat by and watched killed a lot of americans. we'll let historians make that determination. i do, willie, want to follow up on something that mika said. i was surprised that kamala harris did not -- did not talk more about what's right in front of us. >> yeah. >> what's happened over the past week. the outbreak at the white house. these people say they can control an outbreak in america

when they can't control a white house outbreak? we have 34 people, news broke before the debate that now 34 people are infected and connected to the white house that means more infections connected to the white house and connected than in the entire country of new zealand and vietnam, other countries. also, the president's recklessness and irresponsibility. it was almost like this debate was held a week ago. >> yeah. >> and i think that was the one missed opportunity. but if you look at the entire debate, she did a really good job. and i think -- let me put it this way, she did exactly what she needed to do with her ticket comfortably ahead in many swing

states, kamala harris did exactly what she needed to do last night and mike pence was of course in a difficult position because when you have to defend a white house with 20,000 lies -- >> and with a fly on your head. >> with a fly on your head it's tougher for you. >> kamala harris held serve. that's good news for the biden campaign, not good news for the trump campaign which is trailing in this race. but mike pence did as you said, joe, exactly what he signed up to do five years ago and to go out and with that sort of poor man's reagan's facade to defend the indefensible. the explanation for the rose garden event, well, we trust people to make their own decisions. everyone was tested unlike the biden/harris campaign that believes the government should step in. he conceded they're hands off throughout this and his defense from there was what about you

guys, joe biden? in 2009 with the h1n1. it's an argument that trump has been making when over 12,000 people died. obviously not on the same scale of what we're seeing now, but it's all they've got and here is vice president pence talking about the rose garden ceremony that started so much of this. >> if i may say, that rose garden event, a great deal of speculation about it. my wife karen and i were there and many of the people who were at the event, susan, were actually tested for coronavirus and it was an outdoor event which all of our scientists regularly and routinely advise. the difference here is president trump and i trust the american people to make choices in the best interest of their health. joe biden and kamala harris consistently talk about mandates and not just mandates for the coronavirus, but a government takeover of health care, the green new deal. >> thank you. >> all government control.

we're about freedom and respecting the freedom of the american people. >> you respect the american people when you tell them the truth and when you have the courage to be a leader speaking of those things that you may not want people to hear but they need to hear so they can protect themselves. but this administration stood on information that if you had as a parent, if you had as a worker knowing you didn't have enough money saved up and now you're standing in a food line because of the ineptitude of an administration that was unwilling to speak the truth to the american people. >> so jonathan lemire, vice president pence framing this as a question of freedom when you crowded in all of those people in the rose garden, many of them without wearing masks and now we know so many of them contracted coronavirus. even knowing what happened at that event he's framing it as a question of freedom which is something that the president has been saying about masks. what the president has been saying about going back to

school, about going back to work. we have to reopen. it contradicts exactly the coronavirus task force, by the way, which is chaired by mike pence. >> that's right. it's an ineffective argument, willie, because how can you defend something that's happened in your own home? it goes to show there's been no lessons learned here from this white house after this outbreak that included infecting the president himself. there's no sign of compassion for americans but also acknowledgment that perhaps they took the wrong approach. as far as the debate last night goes more broadly speaking, on the other hand, it was a somewhat conventional debate. what happens when you remove president trump from the stage. this looked like a debate that could have happened eight, ten, 16 years ago. they were reasonably polite

though not always polite. they interrupted each other but not what we saw from president trump last week. i know a lot of female colleagues and friends of mine have noted this, that when vice president pence did try to step on senator harris a couple of times, her lines, she stop him more than once and said, i'm speaking, mr. vice president, which seemed to put him in his place and it was obviously a sort of strong move for her and i think reminded a lot of women across this country of their own experiences in various meetings or in other settings in their life. i think senator harris as you said, as joe said, do not harm. and she did. she came into this, her ticket comes into the debate with a sizable lead. significant lead in the national polls and smaller in the battle ground states. vice president pence for the most part did okay as well, but didn't have the blockbuster

performance one would need in order to close the margin that his ticket currently faces. it was striking that they perfected the art of not answering the question that was asked and that was frustrating at times and there were answers to policy we simply didn't get yesterday but it moves on already. this is a vice presidential debate, normally they don't matter much and the question looms will we see another presidential debate and if so, in what form? the next one is slated for next thursday night between donald trump and joe biden. the president says he'll be there, but the vice president has made clear, they won't participate unless donald trump can prove he's no longer positive for the virus. >> well, i don't see how that happens, really. if we as a country interested in stability in our government i don't see how that happens as a

country unless donald trump allows an independent third party to come in and provide him with a covid test and unless donald trump and the white house allows an independent doctor to come in and actually test him on several days, like anybody would, before allowing them to go back out into the community. before allowing them to go back out to work. before allowing them to leave isolation. it would be the height of recklessness if we moved forward with the debate with donald trump the way he's lying about his sickness, the doctors lying about the sickness, admitting they were lying about the sickness and the white house continuing their -- they refuse to give any honest answers to let us know when the president's last negative test was so we can figure out where he is in the arc of this disease. but they just haven't done it. we're going to get to peter

baker in a second, but shauna, your thoughts about the debate and also get your comment on -- well, first of all, the fact that mike pence was not held to the same time standards as kamala harris and the two questions that stand out that were not answered by either. the question to mike pence on what he would do if donald trump attempted a coup. if he refused to leave office and kamala harris once again like joe biden refusing to answer the question of whether the democrats would pack the court if they took control of the senate. >> i mean, i think on the court packing question, at some point, harris and former vice president biden are going to have to get together and decide what is their answer to that. but i think you will probably see them waffle on it for as

long as they possibly can. i expect a version of that question to be asked in the miami debate if the miami debate actually happens and then in the fourth debate if it doesn't get asked in the miami debate. on the other issues, i think one question that didn't get answered by either candidate was the question of the age of former vice president joe biden and the question of donald trump's age. put even more into focus because the president of the united states currently has covid as far as we know, at least as you pointed out we don't know when is the last time he had a negative test. has he had a negative test today, i don't know. but it is -- the fact that they were on stage, mike pence has been in the presence of all of those people at the rose garden. that question of what do you do if the vice president were to get very sick or the current president of the united states gets very sick deserved an

answer, i think. i also was -- i kind of wanted susan page to ask the question almost at the very beginning since we knew covid would be the topic of the debate that everybody was listening for, why are we here? like should we be on this stage? i wanted her to ask that question and i'm not second-guessing susan page. she is a friend, she has debates are hard. everyone expects you to do everything for them. but i do think that was missing because we had plexiglas there because we're worried about covid-19. there were people in the audience in who are instructed to keep their masks on because of covid-19. i would have been really interested to hear both of those candidates' answers to is it smart for us to be in the room right now, because that would be the acknowledgment of how bad things are right now. >> absolutely. or is it -- you know, can we look at our surroundings we have two plexiglas walls here between

the candidates, we're 12 feet apart. why are we here like this maybe? we'll be having susan page on the show this morning. i thought she was fabulous. i was frustrated when mike pence kept going and she was not stopped when we had this problem with the last debate. when trump just rolled over everybody and took over the debate and made it into a circus. i was surprised she wasn't able to cut his audio or stop him in a more fervent way. i'm going to ask her about what the technicalities of that was coming up. but yes, joe, the situation that we're in right now, and i think one of the strategies might have been for biden, harris and the campaign is to be careful. you go too close about the president's condition. this virus is so contagious. someone on the campaign could come up with it. >> they do every day -- >> you have to be careful. well, the president has it. good lord. >> the abc news report with --

>> it was an outbreak. >> -- they received it from fema now saying 34 people there. really, i thought it was the height of recklessness to have the debate last night. mike pence's doctor said there was no need for quarantine. >> he looked a little -- >> i think, again, another embarrassing document from the doctor when again any of us who had been in the super spreader event where dozens of people got infected and we were right there around all of the people would still be quarantined today. >> talk about the "new england journal of medicine." this has never happened before. >> yeah, the "new england journal of medicine" saying that it is imperative to vote out donald trump and all those who have so botched the covid crisis. all right, peter baker, let's get to you. we have so much to ask you, but i want to begin by just getting your impressions of the debate, based on what you heard from white house staffers and others.

what they needed out of the debate last night. do you think the white house believes they got it from mike pence? >> he's frozen. >> he is. there are a lot of people who -- can we get that split screen again? you know, i have always said that sometimes silence is a wonderful thing to do because it really -- it makes people uncomfortable. >> he's a very serious guy. we'll get him back. >> makes you nervous. let me ask peter the question -- no, he's frozen actually. when we unfreeze him, when we get caveman journalists unfrozen if we can get him to answer some questions, we will. jonathan lemire, i'll ask you the same question. obviously, the white house has been a bit panicked over the

situation over the past several days. did last night do anything to assuage their fears? >> the sense that i got from people i was texting with last night is that they hoped at least to stabilize the situation. i'm not sure they believe it's enough to sort of turn things around. they feel like only something powerful from the president himself can do that and that may be impossible because the subtext here of course is that mike pence took the stage last night in an extremely unenviable position. since -- starting with the presidential debate last week and then of course the diagnosis -- the president's diagnosis of having covid, the republicans connected to the campaign, the rnc and the white house have expressed a plunge in some of the support in key states. they have states like florida and arizona where they felt like they had a pretty good lead,

suddenly they're down again. they're a concern this will tamp down enthusiasm on the trump base. they knew they wouldn't win over democratic voters, and they needed a 100% turnout of their voters and they believe those who didn't turn out in 2016 and that's a tough scenario to begin with and now after the president contracted the virus and showed that he's unable to keep himself safe like many believe he's unable to keep the country safe, they know there's some real trouble growing, not just worry about the white house, but also any ability to keep the senate. >> yeah. >> so let's go back to peter baker now. he has been unfrozen. of course, peter, the author -- the co-author of the runaway best seller "the man who ran washington." little known fact that peter and

susan glasser, she wrote all of the book, and he picked out the pictures. so you picked out pretty great pictures, let's talk about the book first. the reaction has been absolutely great, peter. >> thank you, joe, sorry about the wi-fi. it's just the hazards of, you know, doing this from home, i guess. but yeah, the book has gotten some traction because the jim baker story tells us about today's washington. every story has sort of a jim baker antecedent. baker ran the white house when reagan was shot and this president nominates a supreme court justice sharply ideological, baker helped to steer ronald reagan to sandra day o'connor, the first woman on the court, ignoring the conservatives who wanted a sharper candidate. so many ways to look at how, you know, the covid relief, you know, six months out without a

covid relief bill. hard to imagine jim baker not finding a way to put relief in people's pockets in similar circumstances. the reason that the book had traction it's talking about washington more broadly and our politics more broadly. >> yeah. it also shows what happens when you get people in washington, d.c., that aren't connected to a pop star, but actually somebody who knows how to make things run and work and james baker as well as anybody in our lifetime knew how to make washington work and that's what we need if this country is going to rebound from actually problems that we have had over the past 20 years. so peter, did the white house get what they needed last night from mike pence? >> no, i agree with willie and jonathan and -- everyone is making the point this is a campaign double digits behind. obviously, anything that a vice

president could have done to shake that up would have been good. i don't think that happened. i don't think the race is a different race today. that's probably not fair to him in that no vice presidential debate has done. as memorable as you're no jack kennedy didn't help dukakis win that election. i was watching for kamala harris of the four people who have been on stage now in the last two weeks she hasn't held a nationwide office. so she had the burden to show she was a potential president because as susan page rightly pointed out the age of the presidents makes this vice presidential choice more memorable than normal. she presented herself comfortably and whether you like her policies you can see her on that stage as a -- you know, as a peer to mike pence. i think that she answered that

question that needed to be answered for her. i think that was the important thing for her and her ticket and in that sense. and mike pence obviously didn't shake up the race. he had two other goals i think that he probably did okay on. one, keep the debate from becoming all about coronavirus which it wasn't and two, you know, not allowing any wedge to be driven between him and trump. to avoid being put in the position having to contradict in some way the president. you know, the silence of his mind that he doesn't agree with the president, he wasn't able -- he wasn't pinned down on anything where he was forced the defend the president. he allowed light between the two of them. >> you are right. kamala harris only one who hasn't held national office yet up on the stage there. i believe she outperformed

expectations and did very well. so, peter, final question. we're now looking at the next debate, donald trump talking about going to that debate. donald trump actually talking about doing a live event when we don't know if the man is still shedding. we still aren't getting a lot of straight answers out of the white house. what can you tell us right now about the current situation, not just with the president but with white house operations which seem by reporting to be gutted. >> yeah. it's a white house having ptsd right now. it's just an extraordinary situation for this place. it is the leading coronavirus hot spot in the nation's capital. you're right it's an emptied out building. a lot of people staying at home. a lot of people who aren't stay at home are there and upset. there's a lot of bitter finger pointing at mark meadows, the chief of staff, at the doctors. there are those who are upset

about the president. they don't think he should be back or if he's back he should be staying in the residence and yet he insists on going to the oval office yesterday. there are a lot of questions we hadn't answered. we didn't see him on tuesday. he made a point of showing himself in some fashion or another every day since he got sick, either on a video or in that ride in the motorcade around walter reed and then suddenly he disappeared. obviously he has been pretty active on twitter. spitting out a lot of conspiracy theory type of tweets, seemingly angry and get himself back on to the stage. it's so hard to believe they could have that debate in a week's time. it seems so implausible given the situation, but everything with this president we have learned is possible, nothing should shock us anymore. >> mike pence hoped to change the subject last night with nearly every answer, but the fact remains there's covid crisis inside the white house

right now. the head of the white house security office creed bailey is the latest in the trump orbit to test positive. we have confirmed that a second military leader who attended a joint chiefs meeting at the pentagon last week has tested positive. general gary thompson his diagnosis follows admiral gray. 36 contacts have tested positive for the virus. these 13 were in attendance at the rose garden event and the coronavirus outbreak in the white house has yielded more positive cases than all of taiwan and new zealand combined since more than two dozen officials have tested positive. taiwan reported eight new cases in the past week, while new zealand has reported three new cases since yesterday. essentially eliminating the virus for the second time and according to a fema memo

obtained by abc news dated wednesday, 34 white house staffers and other contacts have been infected with coronavirus in recent days. the figure is ten more than the 24 staffers and people associated with them that was previously reported. though the memo did not specify the nature of those other contacts. all that according to abc news. the memo says an unnamed top adviser to the president is among whose who have tested positive for the virus and nbc news has not verified the contents of the memo. joining us from the special pathogens unit from the boston school of medicine, an nbc news and msnbc contributor. dr. bedahlia, when you hear that the head of the security is in bad shape right now from the white house, creed bailey, what do you read into all of that, how bad are things inside that

building? >> good morning, willie. well, we know that the contact tracing hasn't been as robust as it should have been and from the reporting we know that the cdc which is the nation's agency to control the diseases hasn't been pulled into this. so we don't actually know how big it is. when you look at those numbers, you know, there's the exposures that happened at the rose garden, but then you probably have people who converted or became positive because of that exposure who continued to expose others because they weren't aware that think had been exposed. so it's multiple links to events that are leading to the bigger disaster or outbreak than we're aware of and it really comes because the white house had a heavy reliance on the testing only strategy because they focused on using the rapid tests which is not as accurate in asymptomatic patients, and they didn't take the rest of the mitigation measures including the distancing, the masking.

almost sort of creating the magical thinking as long as the tests are negative but not taking into -- not taking into account you may have a false negative or you may have someone early in the disease who ends up being negative on the test. >> so with that in mind, it's been less than a week since president trump's diagnosis and while the white house physician says he is symptom free, he offered no further details about the president's treatment. the statement released by dr. conley reveals that trump had antibodies to the coronavirus, however, some immunologists says that it's meaningless because the president received a large dose of regeneron, an experimental cocktail that would show up in his blood stream. a source tells nbc news it's impossible to know if it was the antibody cocktail or a

combination of the drugs that made the president feel better. in a statement, drug maker regeneron responded saying, given the volume of igg antibodies delivered in our therapy and the timing of these tests, it is likely that the second test is detecting regeneron's antibodies. this as questions continue to mount over the timing of trump's infection and whether he was contagious during his debate with biden last week and the white house declines to say when the president last tested negative for the white house, nor has the medical team provided the results of x-rays or lung scans that would be given a better sense of how sick he is. dr. zeke emanuel tweeted the fact they tested for antibodies suggests that the white house doctors knew that donald trump was covid positive. good lord. first of all, if he knew he was covid positive when he went out

in the debate stage with joe biden and his family exposed everybody to the coronavirus, that's a whole new level that we'll have to be talking about. and dr. bedahlia, at this point i'm frightened they will not reveal basic answers to questions about the president's condition and not personal questions that could be embarrassing to him. not personal questions about his body or exactly how much he weighs, whatever. i'm talking about whether or not he was contagious to other people during the debate. i'm talking about whether or not he was contagious to other people during the rose garden event. i'm talking about whether or not he was contagious to people when he had an event inside the white house for amy coney barrett's family. i'm talking about whether or not he was contagious around his staff, which now appears to have the coronavirus, his press office has the coronavirus. the members of the secret service have the coronavirus. don't we deserve to know when the president first tested positive?

>> yeah, mika, i think if for nothing else it's not just about his health, but the understanding that his test positivity implies -- it gives us two signals. one, it gives us a sense of how many other people were exposed while the president was positive and the rest of us were not aware. those around him were not aware. second, i think it tells you about the potential malaise in the white house on how they handled this. it reflects on the rest of the national strategy. but one thing i want to stress on, i think that the short video that the president released yesterday around regeneron and the antibody conversation i feel like has done a bit more harm. you know, because the one golden part, the one good thing i think about this response to coronavirus and there aren't that many, operation warp speed, this project that's creating investment in the vaccines and

the drugs as well as potentially some manufacturing going on. so i'm glad we did that, but the president's sort of been a one-man wrecking ball even to that operation. politicizing the vaccines and their release and last night when he talked about the regeneron antibodies being a miracle cure, he received that drug under compassionate use. it sounds like it's immeant for the antibodies it's for efficacy, but not because we're sure. by the president coming out, this very powerful person coming out and saying this is it, this is the treatment, now he's invalidating sort of all of the randomized control trials ongoing for us to figure out if the things actually work which i think hold promise, but by doing that he's again hurting the public health response. >> i want to play for the audience the video you're talking about. this is the president in a taped video outside of the white house, declaring that he's found

the cure for coronavirus. >> i got back a day ago from walter reed medical center. i spent four days there and didn't have to. i could have stayed at the white house but the doctors said because you're the president, let's do it. i said fine. they gave me regeneron, it's called regeneron. and other things too. but i think this was the key. but they gave me regeneron and it was like unbelievable. i felt good immediately. i felt as good three days ago as i do now. they call them therapeutic, but to me, it wasn't therapeutic. it just made me better. i call it a cure. i want everybody to be given the same medicine as your president. i feel like great. i feel perfect. so i think this was a blessing from god that i caught it. this was a blessing in disguise. i want to get for you what i got. and i'm going to make it free. >> the president saying i think

this was a blessing from god that i caught covid-19 that's killed now in the bottom of our screen more than 213,000 people this this country. dr. bedahlia, what is the power of that message and the potential harm of that message from the president? >> yeah, willie, you know, the prior cdc director wrote a letter to dr. redfield who's the current cdc director and it was released by "usa today" asking him to speak up about the failures of this administration and one of the things he said in the letter the prime sort of directive of public health responses is know the truth. and one of the basic things that i think we felt here in the u.s. is whether this administration is playing down the truth about this pandemic, whether it be about the severity of the disease, whether the fact it might go away, but we're at the precipice of a second peak with 39 states presenting more cases this week than last weeks and hospitalizations up since

september 20th. i mean, it seems to fit the pattern by saying those things. you know, i think once again the thing that the president is doing what we call in public health medicalization of a very complex emergency. complex humanitarian emergencies like the pandemic, they require not just silver bullets like vaccines and medications. even if they have them, you need to take all the other measures. by simplifying it once again, i think he's hurting the response. he is telling them it's okay if you get hospitalized we'll get you access to the drug. what about the cost of the other hospitalizations or the physiological effects you'll have from spending all that time in the hospital. >> the focus on the treatment not on the mitigation of the disease. thanks so much for being here. jonathan lemire, this seems like and we have heard this many times, donald trump finding his new miracle cure. he used the word cure. i think it's probably clear to him at this point there will not

be a vaccine, though he's said there may be one coming before election day. so now enter into the picture regeneron. >> willie that's precisely the right frame and what i wanted to underscore here since march, the president has been looking for sort of a miracle drug, the silver bullet to end the virus, to get back to frankly normal, everyday american life and the administration and campaign that he wanted to run. he's pinned so many hopes on this vaccine and now there are growing signs that the vaccine will not be ready for election day. he acknowledged as much in the four-minute video from outside the white house yesterday and he suggested that politics would delay it. so now it seems like regeneron is the new miracle drug. he really built that yesterday as something that every american should have. and yes, there's emergency use authorization pending. it is only being given out on

compassionate grounds. and certainly in the days ahead i was talking to some white house advisers that expect to hear a lot about regeneron as a quick fix and trying to put a rosy thing on the thing, an optimistic outlook on the pandemic even though it's come into their own home and infected more than two dozen there, including the president of the united states. and still we as a public not getting detailed information about his health and now he's doing. >> i think it's safe to say, jonathan lemire, that it probably is the president himself who is saying don't release this information. but joe, how irresponsible on the part of these doctors, these medical professionals, these scientists who are working for the president, who are working for us, the country, who are working in the coronavirus task force to not be revealing when

the president first tested positive. it is a question of national security. it is a question of how many people may be exposed at the highest levels at the u.s. government and many have already been diagnosed as positive that we know of. but this appears to be a massive medical coverup that's making again playing into donald trump's narrative americans unsafe. >> well, we have grown used to people who are third tier players in washington, d.c., who whenever you get close to the white house, would never get close to the west wing. would never work there. having that opportunity to do that because -- well, just out of blind loyalty. they will lie for the president of the united states. it is far more striking when you have doctors who take an oath to do no harm and also to protect not only patients but also this

country at large, allowing the president of the united states to cause a clear and present health risk to members of people at the white house. of course, the president was desperate to go out in the motorcade because he had to appear strong. in fact, it made him look weaker and a sad, pathetic figure. kind of like a boy in the glass bubble if the glass bubble were a presidential limousine. >> yes. it's weird. >> but risking the life and health of not only the secret service agents inside that car, but of course their families and their friends and their loved ones that they went home to. likely they're not seeing them for the next couple of weeks because they actually played by the rules of the game. so the president does that, the president flies back to the white house before he's ready. he rips off the mask so he can go inside and infect more people inside the white house. he calls up the white house

photographer, orders her to come up and take a picture of him in his mussolini pose from the marbled balcony and then yesterday, peter baker, remarkably enough after the president of the united states was set up -- was set up in his residence where they did their best to try to keep people around him safe, the president then marches over to the west wing, marches into the oval office and for no other reason than to make a point. and goes in there to be able to tell the american people that he's working against the advice of his own staff. >> yeah. they had hoped to keep him out of the oval office. it doesn't make a lot of sense to have him wandering around the west wing where people are still working, at least some people are still working and he felt very determined to show he's in charge. he is back, that he's cured, to use his word, even though of course it's still early enough the disease.

we don't really know. even the doctors as optimistic and rosy as they are, we won't know until next monday whether or not we'll breathe a sigh of relief because we have seen any number of cases with covid where you might feel better for a day or two and then you kind of crash again. everybody knows somebody i think who has had, you know, turns out to weeks and weeks of trouble with this or, you know, some sort of consequence down the road they didn't expect, that they couldn't still breathe or they have trouble with their lungs and we didn't have the doctor explain what the results of the lung scans were. well, you can expect a lot of things, that doesn't tell us whether in fact there's lung damage, whether he held have some sort of pneumonia. you're right. flying from the face of a president who is less than four weeks away from the election and determined to demonstrate that he's still on the stage. this is a president who's repeatedly attacked other candidates for their health

officials. remember hillary clinton in 2016. he's obviously attacked joe biden all year for basically being too old and too doddering to be president and supposedly getting performance enhancing drugs even though there's no evidence of that whatsoever. now of course the president is getting performance enhancing drugs in order to help him get past this illness. so he doesn't like that. he doesn't like to show any kind of weakness and he'll do whatever is necessary to show he's in command and he's strong and he should, you know, continue to be the dominant player in washington. >> all right. peter baker, thank you very much. still ahead, we'll be joined by the moderator of last night's debate, susan page. plus the latest battle ground polling shows joe biden widening his lead in several battle ground states. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. s. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪

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some people say that's ridiculous. age is just an illusion. how you show up for the world, that's what's real. what's your idea? i put it out there with a godaddy website. we want to keep sharing the

stories of people who have lost their lives to the coronavirus. people like gladys cortez, a single mother and supermarket employee. she spent her life helping others and supported her 13-year-old daughter and took care of her mother while working behind the counter at a grocery store preparing packaged food. her dreams of being an artist sidelined. gladys was hospitalized with complications of the coronavirus and died alone on april 9th. and brenda ravenell, a family law lawyer. she was a kind and a conscientious lawyer which made her better at helping families and people through difficult times like divorce. she was caring to her family and to her clients. in 2017, brenda retired from her practice due to her worsening diabetes. in april she was hospitalized after testing positive for the coronavirus where she later

died. brenda was 64 years old. and a number of key battle ground states in the upcoming election are seeing a new surge in coronavirus cases. in michigan, state officials yesterday confirmed over 1,000 new cases and nine more deaths linked to the disease. in pennsylvania, the state added more than 1,300 new coronavirus cases yesterday. the second highest daily total since may. in wisconsin, hospitals there are treating nearly triple the number of coronavirus patients as a month ago. both the total patient count and the icu count were record highs for the state. governor tony evers yesterday did not mince words saying, quote, we have a pandemic out of control in the state of wisconsin. health officials said yesterday they will have a new field hospital ready to go next week at the state fair grounds near

milwaukee. this while the president tells us not to let it dominate us. joining us now, from "the financial times," ed luce. in it he writes, don't be afraid of covid was donald trump's message on leaving the house this week. to say he was tempting fate is an understatement. he ought to know he should be focusing on anything but the pandemic. so why is he pushing on a failing strategy? he wants americans to be afraid of something that does not seem particularly lethal, to not be afraid? the radical left, yet be unafraid of a disease that has so far claimed 212,000 american lives. it does not feel like a winning strategy and, ed, i would add

that for the people who have lost someone to covid-19, for the people right now who are sick, to hear that you shouldn't let it dominate you you'll beat this, from the president, who's juiced up on steroids and whatever else and has the best care in the world, it feels like it might fall flat. >> i think that would also be an understatement, mika. the one issue that is particularly lethal politically for this president is his management of the pandemic with the american public. biden's poll leads have been strong and wide all year long. way before trump caught this disease. and so he has a choice, really. either to change the subject on to something that he feels might be more beneficial to him such as the economy. or else to do something that will make americans trust his pandemic management skills.

the way he's handled this experience at walter reed, the way he's changed it into the triumph of the will and regeneron making it the new hydroxychloroquine is only going to worsen the trust -- the low trust ratings he's got from americans. so i have to say, you know, i think joe biden's best friend is donald trump. he keeps defeating himself and if he cannot change the subject or magically gain america's trust in how he's managing this pathogen, then, you know, i hate to tempt fate but he's heading for a very heavy defeat next month. >> joe, as we continue this conversation i want to mix in some new reporting just posted by carol lee and courtney kube of nbc news. you were asking about the doctors and why they can't come out and give straight answers and what happens to these people.

well, we may have part of the answer in the new report from carol and courtney, during the mysterious visit to walter reed in 2019, president trump mandated signed ndas from the doctor and the staff most of whom are active duty military members and at least two doctors at walter reed refused to sign the nda and they were subsequently not permitted to have any involvement in the president's care. so the president asking doctors to sign nondisclosure agreements. not for his visit a few days ago, but the mysterious one to walter reed in november of 2019. >> well, it wasn't for a routine checkup or else you wouldn't have the doctors sign ndas which again tells us that the president is just as misleading about his health records as he is about his taxes. so ed luce, it is fascinating,

you bring up a fascinating point here that donald trump has spent his political career setting up straw men. that he would then knock down. and basically running a government by gesture. but he's told americans that they need to worry about gangs, you know, whether it's ms 14 or whatever the gang was or antifa, but don't worry about white supremacists when the fbi said that's the greatest domestic terror threat in america right now. and then he tells us to worry about black lives matter but not worry about covid. we have to go on with our lives. obviously, something that wound make many seniors who have lost friends and loved ones and many families who have lost their parents, grandparents, children,

spouses, become bitter. you're exactly right. this appears to be donald trump doing all of joe biden's work politically for him. >> yeah. i mean, the law and order thing i think became, you know, during june and july and august and during the build-up to the conventions it became particularly in the media an expectation that trump would win on that and that biden was weak. and that just wasn't borne out at all. i think maybe that was the sort of inherent horse race bias of our profession that we expected trump had an advantage on that. in actual fact biden's lead, his lead on law and order over the president has remained steady throughout. i expect the president is going to try to revive that issue, you know, with the whole sort of link to biden's alleged

dementia, he's a puppet of the radical left who is burning our cities. but i don't think it will have any effect like it has throughout the summer particularly throughout the protests have at least for the time being died down. you're aptly right to say that president trump's own department of homeland security and other agencies have documented where the threats come domestically. where they come from in the united states and the overwhelming evidence is towards far right groups rather than much more sort of amorphous and loosely organized groups like antifa. i don't think antifa, you know, is a particularly peaceful or gambian organization i should add, but very little evidence that it poses any threat to suburbia and to the peace on our streets as the president would like to claim. the coronavirus poses a threat to everybody everywhere at all

times and what a moment this could have been if trump had used it to pivot and say, look, if it -- it can infect the president, it can infect any of you. i recognize i'm getting world-class care here at walter reed and most of you are not fortunate enough to have access to this. but this reinforces that all of us are vulnerable and we must flatten this curve together. imagine in that fantastical, hypothetical world if that's how trump had responded to falling sick with this disease, he might have done something to reset the narrative but of course that's entirely out of character. >> ed luce, thank you very much. we'll be reading your latest column in "the financial times." shawna thomas, i want to ask you about the women, specifically those who are still voting for

donald trump or on the fence or women who may get out to vote for biden now. i'm just thinking that the dishonesty coming from the highest office in the land about the coronavirus, about who in the administration may have been exposed, when the president tested positive, which they refuse to reveal, this constant flouting of science and the president receiving the best of care that anyone could ever imagine. for women, often the health of our families is always on our minds and something we care about every day. not that men don't but often it's on us when things go wrong, whether it's our children or our parents who we have to take care of. i can't imagine this is faring well for women voters who care about the health of their families when they see a president clearly being dishonest about not only the numbers of the coronavirus outbreak, in his own white house, but about his own health. >> yeah.

i think it's an important point that women do tend to take care of their families, whether it is children or whether it is your parents. and i think also kind of goes back to something ed luce was saying and that you were saying about the moment that president trump could have had in his fight with covid-19. and it was he could have had a moment of empathy that may have spoken to women as well who are trying to figure out how to deal with their families, how to make sure there's food on their table, how to make sure that their health care is sound, how to ask the questions about covid-19 that they need to ask their doctors to stay safe. he could have said, i in some ways understand what you're going through. but also expressed this idea that i also understand that i am in a very, very privileged

position as president of the united states to get these experimental treatments, to be flown to the world-class medical center at the drop of a hat. if he had been able to express any of those things in a -- in a way that spoke to people, he may have been able to say, okay, now i'm going to take that information and sort of shift how we are approaching covid-19 in this country. and like from a political standpoint he may not have needed to follow that up with what they're shifting it to. but it would have shown he kind of gets it and they missed that opportunity and it's almost -- it's almost shocking that they politically couldn't figure out a better way to do this. i want to say -- i know we're at the top of the hour, we shouldn't miss out on the fact that last night, despite it being a vice presidential

debate, despite it being, you know, neither person really screwed up all of that much, we are not going to remember much more than a fly, but senator kamala harris was a woman of color on that stage running for vice president of the united states. that is the moment that we should acknowledge. there was respect from susan page about that. there was respect from vice president pence about that, and i want to make sure that we take that one moment and say, hey, america did something historic last night. >> yeah. it was pretty incredible. shawna thomas, thank you very much and thanks for saying that. the covid cluster at the white house is expanding this morning. the head of the white house security office creed bailey is the latest in the trump orbit to test positive. we have confirmed that a second military leader who attended a joint chiefs meeting last week has tested positive. general gary thomas, his commandant, his diagnosis

follows that of the coast guard's second in command, admiral charles ray. nbc news has confirmed 26 trump administration officials, campaign officials and contacts have recently tested positive for the coronavirus. of these, 13 were in attendance at the september 26th rose garden event. and here is vice president pence in last night's debate defending that rose garden event that may have sparked the ongoing outbreak at the white house. >> if i may say that rose garden event, a great deal of speculation about it. my wife karen and i were there and a lot of those were actually tested for coronavirus and it was an outdoor event that all of our scientists regularly advise.

but the difference here, joe biden and kamala harris talk about mandates not only with the coronavirus but a government takeover of health care, the green new deal. all government control. we're about freedom and respecting the freedom of the american people. >> let's talk about respecting the american people. you respect the american people when you tell them the truth. you respect the american people when you have the courage to be a leader speaking of those things that you may not want people to hear but they need to hear so they can protect themselves but the administration stood on the information if you had as a parent, you didn't have enough money saved up and now you're standing in the food line because of the ineptitude of an administration that was unwilling to speak the truth to the american people. >> i mean, respect? >> wow. >> respect the american people, we trust the american people. that was a great response by

senator kamala harris. and i just said -- it's just sad and pathetic defense put forth by mike pence of the white house super spreader event. we respect the american people to make their own choices but mike, how can the american people make their own choices if you keep a lying to them? how can the american people make the right choices, mike, if donald trump knows in february this is a deadly infectious disease -- five times as deadly as the flu he said. so deadly that it even impacts younger people, but mike if you lie and you keep lying repeatedly to the american people, if you tell the american people it's only one person coming in from china and it's going to be gone in late february, mike, after you have been told and your president has

been told by aides that 500,000 americans could die from this disease. you have been told by national security advisers that this is the greatest threat that donald trump will face in his presidency. mike, if you go out and lie to the american people how are they going to have the information they need to make those right choices? you held a super spreader event on white house grounds. people hugging and kissing each other. and embracing each other. like seriously? like covid didn't even exist. do you not understand, mike, that you guys look like you were from another planet and not a planet that any of us would want to visit unless we wanted to end up wheezing like donald trump after walking up a couple of flights of stairs. not a planet that we would want

to visit unless we wanted to say good-bye to our parents who are dying in the hospital over an iphone. instead of having the opportunity to do what i did when both my mom and dad passed away, by being by their bedside and being able to hold their hands and gently talk to them in the final moments on this earth. trying to bring them whatever comfort i could bring them. i get to do that, but mike, a lot of people didn't. a lot of people didn't because you lied through your teeth. and donald trump lied through his teeth about the deadliest pandemic to face this country in over a hundred years. oh, come on, mike. this is about the american people, making their own choices. they can't make their own choices if you're acting even

worse and more irresponsible than cigarette companies and tobacco companies did back in the 1950s. saying that smoking cigarettes helped your circulation. trying to cover up for decades that smoking cigarettes killed you and killed those around you. mike, mike, mike, you trust the american people, you and donald, no, you don't. see, mike, that's the problem. that's the problem. you think that the american people are stupid. see, i don't know -- like that little -- that sort of dimestore poor man's ronald reagan routine you got i have never gotten that. what i don't get is why you think americans so dumb and donald trump was a guy that said

he trusted president xi, he trusted china and the american people should thank president xi on me half of the people of the united states. thank you, president xi, why in the world would you do that? because a couple of weeks ago, donald trump wanted to get that great trade deal. do you think we don't remember president trump saying it was one person in china getting it and even his trade adviser told him 500,000 americans souls could die from this disease if the president didn't start acting quickly. and by the way, that china ban you talk about, 400,000 people came in from china after the china ban. or after the pandemic started, 40,000 came back to america

after the ban. mike, the lies just kept going. so you're saying we can trust the american people, how can we trust the american people if in february, late february, a full month after donald trump was told by his own people that this was a killer disease and when after he was telling bob woodward it was a killer disease, five times as deadly as the flu and guess what it's airborne, this is a bad one, donald trump said. it kills young people too. it's really bad. it's deadly. it's a killer. he was saying that privately, mike, but, you know what he was saying publicly, he was going to michigan. he was going to michigan. you know, michigan, that's the state that you voted to kill. when you decided to vote against actually helping auto companies recover from the crash in 2008. yeah, that michigan. donald trump went to that michigan, mike pence. and what did he do? he said it's 15 people.

it's going to go away soon. and then in march not only was he lying to the public he got together with the republican senators and what did he tell the republicans, don't worry about it, you guys need to relax. don't worry about it, this thing is going away. it's going to go away and he started to tell the american people it would go away like magic, right? then he said, you know, we have this miracle drug, hydroxychloroquine, which i haven't heard about that miracle drug over the past week, have you heard, mike? i haven't heard about -- you know, mika was actually in a post office earlier in summer and got yelled at for not believing in the healing powers of hydroxychloroquine. well, how fascinating, the president didn't even use it. instead, he was talking about bleach and then what did he say, mike, you want to give the american people the right to make their own decisions. yes, sure you do, mike.

you just want to tell them the truth and make decisions that will kill them and their loved ones, really, mike? because the president told us this was going to be gone by easter, this was going to be gone in april when things warmed up, it would magically go away. you know what, mike, we're not in april anymore. oh, it got worse. hot spots all across arizona. hot spots across texas and across florida. that's probably why you're struggling in states where your ticket should be up five points by now. hot spots all summer, mike. you lied to the american people. donald lied to the american people. american people died because of it. but donald said there wasn't going to be a virus in the fall, remember that? guess what, we're in the fall and guess what? in the fall, after -- you brought -- how dare you bring up dr. fauci when you and donald trump and all of donald trump's

hacks and lackeys have been trying to undermine dr. fauci for six months. you're now trying to hide behind dr. fauci, i don't know, mike, maybe it was my lying eyes, but dr. fauci said it would come back in the fall and donald trump said, no, it won't come pack in the fall. now, mike, while we were saying what -- what scientists were saying, prepare for the fall. you've got to prepare for the fall. the fall is going to be deadly. you know -- not because we're smart, but we listen to scientists and dr. gottlieb said get ready for the fall. dr. fauci said get ready for the fall. the historians said look at the 1918 pandemic, it always gets worse in the fall. donald trump said it would go

away magically in the fall. trust the american people, mike? wait, with what, lies? you don't trust the american people. you have never trusted the american people. your boss doesn't trust the american people. he's never trusted the american -- he's lied to the american people because the only thing you care about is the dow jones industrial. as if somehow a stock market that's going up while main street is going down is going to win you votes in november. well, it's not, mike. and the fall is here, mike. and guess what, mike? the coronavirus is here. just like dr. fauci said it would be. just like the president lied about. and now your white house, your white house is in free-fall. people are pissed off that they have been lied to inside the

white house. they're angry at mark meadows for acting like a total idiot. they're angry at mark meadows for lying through his teeth at every single day about how bad this is. they're angry at mark meadows, they're angry at donald trump, they're angry at you for continuing to cover up for a man who has continued to lie to the american people. he doesn't trust the american people. you don't trust the american people. so please, don't say you do. just say you screwed up, you had a super spreader event, you acted like you're from medieval times. you acted like the age of enlightenment never happened. the age of reason never happened. the advancement of science never happened. the advancement of medicine never happened. you acted also, mike, like the american people couldn't be trusted with the truth.

that's what the cigarette companies thought in the 1950s i'm sure. i'm sure that's what a lot of corporations thought when they were polluting water supplies, when they were polluting the air that we breathed. when they were causing damage to the health and welfare of americans, of older americans, of children. but see, you're a public servant. i know that's hard to remember when you're standing next to donald trump. you're a public servant. and if you don't listen to the people, if you don't trust the people, the people will throw you out. one other thing, mike. we're all talking about a lot of things, we have been talking about the fly -- the fly was funny. you know what the fly distracted us from? tell you what it distracted us

from. the fact that you as vice president of the united states who took an oath to protect, to defend, to uphold the constitution of the united states, you were asked what you would do if donald trump refused to support a peaceful transfer of power. would you stand up to donald trump? would you defend the constitution of the united states of america? would you stand with the will of the people, regardless of how that vote turned out? you were asked what may have been the easiest question ever asked in the history of presidential or vice presidential debates.

and mike, you refused to answer that question. let's think about that for one second. everybody, just stop for one second and think about the fact, the vice president of the united states, of this great constitutional republic, was asked what he would do if the president of the united states, basically, conducted a coup against the will of the american people. if the american people voted him out and if he didn't -- if donald trump did not support the peaceful transfer of power, what would mike pence do? that's pretty easy. i would support the will of the people or i would support the will of the people, how ever you do it, nodding your head, you refused to do that. power corrupts, mike. and i have to say, it doesn't look good on you right now.

>> and we will be right back with bob woodward. "morning joe" is back in just a moment. >> dr. robert redfield was totally misquoted in the media on a statement about the fall season and the virus. totally misquoted. >> you were accurately quoted, correct? >> i'm accurately quoted in "the washington post". >> just like we ask for every american to follow the guidelines, he's saying please add to that guidelines getting your flu shot. >> any chance that covid comes back? >> we don't know. >> it's in a confined area. >> it may not come back at all. he's talking about a worst case scenario where you have a big flu and a corona but it's possible that it doesn't come back at all. >> we will have coronavirus in

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willie proving once again that we have the absolute greatest team. i didn't expect them to have the fauci clip. but man, it is really jarring, isn't it, that fauci says it's coming back in the fall, the president lies and says it's not coming back in the fall and fauci said it's come back in the fall and now here we are in the fall, and the president is infected, the white house is in shambles and hot spots all over the country. >> fauci continues to run this parallel campaign where he's going out and telling the american public and he warned that there could be 300,000 to

400,000 deaths and if it's at the high end of that we're doubling the deaths and letting our guard down and he didn't expect a vaccine to be widely distributed until late summer or fall of next year. so almost a year from now. so while the president puts out rosy projections and talks about what he calls cures, dr. fauci speaking some truth. i wanted to add one other thing here, as you talk about mark meadows, the white house chief of staff. the "atlanta journal constitution" is reporting that back in may, he held a wedding for his daughter where some 70 people were in attendance that was in strict violation of codes for the state of georgia and for the city of atlanta. so i'm happy that his daughter got married, i hope it was a nice ceremony, but how many people would have liked to have held their weddings or even a funeral for a family member but were oxing the rules across the

country. let's bring in elise jordan. white house correspondent for pbs news hour yamiche alcindor. claire mccaskill and associate editor of "the washington post" and author of the best seller, "rage," bob woodward. bob, your name was invoked another the debate last night and i want to play for what the president said in a recorded video yesterday about his own treatment because i think it fits in exactly with the picture you paint in "rage." >> i got back a day ago from walter reed medical center, i spent four days there. i didn't have to i could have stayed at the white house but the doctor said because you're president let's do it. i said fine. the doctor gave me regeneron and other things too but i think this was the key. it was like unbelievable. i felt good immediately.

i felt as good three days ago as now. they call them therapeutic but to me it wasn't therapeutic. it just made me better, okay? i call that a cure. i want everybody to be given the same treatment as your president. because i feel great. i feel like perfect. so i think this was a blessing from god that i caught it. this was a blessing in disguise. i want to get for you what i got. and i'm going to make it free. >> so, bob woodward, the president saying that he's found a cure for covid-19. of course he hasn't. and saying it was a blessing from god that he got this. regeneron is the drug company that made this antibody cocktail that he received at walter reed. as you have watched this play out over the last few days what's been your reaction to the president's first contraction of covid-19 and how he's handled it since? >> well, joe has the right theme here and that is the truth. you've got to tell the truth and

i thought senator harris last night did a good job of going back to this january 28th meeting when president trump and vice president trump -- pence was there when the national security adviser laid out and his deputy that this pandemic is coming. there is no way to stop it. we have to get our arms around it. it's going to be like 1918, the spanish flu pandemic. and one of the things that's not been reported and in fact i didn't put it in my book, i should have, that meeting was so electric that vice president pence's national security adviser who's retired lieutenant

keith kellogg, after that meeting for, many, many weeks would say to robert o'brien, you warned them, you laid it out. you were the first to tell. so at that moment the lying began and that -- you know, there is so much obfuscation, avoidance, fog here. what strikes me and one of the things i hope i have learned about covering trump is you have to have very specific information. that clip you played about a blessing from god. last night, pence should have been asked i'm sorry -- should have said explain to the 7

million people who've caught the virus in this country, the families of 210,000 people who've died and explain to the rest of us how getting this deadly virus is a blessing from god. and so there is -- it's not even orwellian at times. and digging through it requires getting very specific statements and kind of following them out. i'm sorry to go into this too much, but i think it's the essence of it. you have trump also saying as mika pointed out don't be afraid of it. don't let it dominate your life. just a couple of days ago, i mean, imagine the president saying that in public and with

great passion to the people who have -- you know, what's happened to this country. if you go back to january 28th, that was the moment the trump presidency could have changed. he could have said -- he and pence could have said, okay. now we're going to tell the truth and we're going to do something about it. they did the exact opposite. >> all right. willie, if i could jump in here, we have breaking news from the a.p.'s jonathan lemire. the second trump/biden debate will be a virtual debate amid concerns about trump's covid-19 diagnosis. the commission on presidential debates issuing a statement reading in part this. in order to protect the health and safety of all involved with the second presidential debate scheduled for october 15, 2020, the commission on presidential debates announced the following today. the second presidential debate will take the form of a town

meeting in which the candidates would participate from separate remote locations. the town meeting participants and the moderator, steve scully, senior executive producer and political editor of c-span networks, will be located in miami, florida, and the white house pool will provide coverage of the second presidential debate. so they are going virtual on this. taking no chances, especially given the questions surrounding exactly when the president tested positive for the virus. he could be still shedding the virus all over the white house right now. >> we don't know and, willie, of course this won't be the first time that you -- we have had a virtual presidential debate. of course in 1960, kennedy and nixon had a virtual debate where they were on split screens. >> yeah. i mean, something had to give

here. if they were going to have this debate, president trump said he was ready for the debate. i don't think if i were joe biden or his campaign i'd want to step on the stage and not being able to trust any information out of the white house. yamiche, the white house and donald trump had to agree to this. do you have any background on how this came up? >> well, we know that the biden campaign continued to really voice concern that the president may not be negative for the coronavirus and could still be shedding the virus by next week. the president wanted to of course underscore that he's in command and wanted to show up in person and wanted to make sure that he looked like he was in control and better based on that video. he said he's been cured. of course, there's still at this point no fda approved cure for the virus. this will in some ways benefit joe biden's argument that he

couldn't protect the americans from the virus and could not protect himself and joe biden had said if the president was still positive that he's not sure he'd even want to debate him in that state because of the safety concerns. so this is i think them splitting the baby which is the president could still be coronavirus positive next week which would be remarkable. but it would be very trumpian in the fact that the president was in the white house doing all sorts of things yesterday. the white house said there weren't people exposed, but we know that the secret service people have to be near him. this look at the situation and the debate commission said we don't want to be the cause of another super spreader event and the white house might have events where they weren't being safe, that's not what we want to do as a debate commission.

>> we are joined by former senator claire mccaskill. claire, we'll start with how kamala did. i thought she was great, pitch perfect. but the bigger question is just what is the craziest thing going on in washington right now as it pertains to the health of the president and the highest offices in the land, in the united states of america. the president won't reveal when he tested positive. we have 34 cases reported by abc news. we have a congressman's office, not divulging information about a covid outbreak in his office. and the super spreader event in the rose garden, i personally am very worried about a lot of people who were at that event and i have no word on their conditions and the white house refuses to contact trace. i feel like i have hit the craziest things going on here. would you like to add? >> well, there's so many crazy things that we have a real case

of outrage fatigue in this country. there are so many outrageous things that are going on. obviously the white house is a hot spot and goes to the top of the list at this point. let's give credit to the intrepid reporter jennifer jacobs who said that a person at the white house has been incredibly ill and she broke the hope hicks story. if not for that reporter would we know about the positive tests for covid around the white house? one thing last night, i thought kamala did a great job, i thought she was strong and confident and calm and had, you know, a hint of joy and very authentic to who she is last night. i think she allowed the american people to see that she belonged on that stage. but one thing that's not been talked about enough was to me

was the most outrageous answer last night and that was pence refusing to say whether he'd accept the results of the election. what? >> yes. >> where are we? are we in the united states of the america, that the vice president can refuse to say whether or not he will accept the votes of the american people? i mean, the notion that that's not the top of the fold headline on every newspaper tells you how bad our outrage fatigue has got than we have come to expect that kind of junk from the trump/pence white house. unbelievable. >> it really is unbelievable. we have a lot of great guests with us. we're thrilled to have bob woodward with us. we'll be going back to bob in a moment. elise jordan also with us, but right now i want to bring in former democratic presidential candidate, elizabeth warren, of massachusetts. senator, i think you know this.

we have known each other for a long time. i'm a really government conservative guy, i'm a small government guy, you and i disagree with a lot of things. people have been saying what if senator warren who's the democratic -- i said you can go as far right as you want to go, you can go as far left as you want to go. i know that the overwhelming majority of people running for president respect and will defend the constitution of the united states of america, ideology is second and claire mccaskill, your former colleague, just brought up a great question. how could it be that in 2020 we have a president and a vice president that refuse to say that they will support a peaceful transfer of power? it really makes every other issue secondary, doesn't it? >> it does, because this is a reminder of who donald trump is

and who mike pence has signed up to play second fiddle to. and donald trump is someone -- it's all about donald trump. and it has been from the very beginning. you know, we're kind of in a classic case he's told us who he is. he told us last time around in 2016 that he wouldn't accept the results unless he was the one who won. that has been how he's managed everything. everything. the pandemic has been part of it. dealing with white house nationalists has been part of it. it has all been about how does donald trump think he looks? remember how he evaluated those early press conferences about covid? it was about his ratings. not about the fact that americans were dying. not about the fact that this virus was spreading unchecked across our nation. it was all about donald trump and he says constitution, not his problem.

all he cares about is donald trump and retaining power for donald trump. that by itself is a reason to vote against him. >> so let's talk about a second issue that i think i would play second. you might as well. the fact that mike pence last night continued to lie about the fact that donald trump and republican lawyers and republican attorneys general and republican members of congress had been working for the past four years to blow in a thousand pieces the pre-existing mandate protections that were put in place by the affordable care act and also may i add that ten years after the republican party attacked the affordable care act and continued to attack over the past decade, they still don't have a health care plan that will protect americans during

this pandemic and after the pandemic. can you talk about what you saw last night and the stark difference between mike pence and kamala harris. >> so, boy, you hit it right when you said stark difference. i thought kamala was terrific. when she just started out on health care, on the failure of the president in this pandemic. but then when she said, if you have a pre-existing condition then the republicans are coming for you. and there's plenty of history to back that up. that's where she was, that's what she staked out. you want to talk about anything else about the democrats, we want to be -- we are the party that's trying to protect and expand your access to health care. the republicans, when pence was pushed just a little bit, what is your health care plan and it's that magic plan that has no details and he just doesn't want to talk about the fact that the

republicans have been to the supreme court before to try to get rid of the affordable care act. their number one job when they got into congress was to overturn the affordable care act, which they ultimately failed at. and then, they're back on the supreme court next november in order to get rid of the affordable care act. in order to take away protection from the tens of millions of people across this country who have pre-existing conditions. to take away health insurance from tens of millions of people. to tell people under 26 you can't stay on your parent's plan. there's the difference. if you care about your health, if you know someone whose health you care about, then you have to be with kamala and with joe biden on this. >> so senator, we think mike barnicle is running your camera because we have the sunlight

coming in -- >> you look beautiful. >> you look -- you look heavenly. so what i'm going to do -- yeah, if you can go to your left, go to your left with the camera, but we'll break away from you and your shot while you adjust. we'll go to elise jordan for a second. >> okay. >> i'm telling you, elise, that sun in washington or boston or wherever, moves very fast. but before you go back to the senator with a question, i want to get your impression on the debate last night and specifically about the fact that mike pence, a guy that we shared a party with for quite some time, last night would not say that he would support the peaceful transfer of power if the will of the people went against donald trump. >> i agree with claire mccaskill that this should be a bigger deal, that we have now a

president on the debate stage and a vice presidential candidate who are refusing to say that they will accept the results of a free and fair election peacefully. it is mind blowing. yesterday was the 19th anniversary of the u.s. being in afghanistan and i think back to all of those years that america was working over there and assisting with the election process and how we would have just lost our minds if hamid karzai has said, i'm not going to accept the results of the process and that's literally where we are with donald trump and mike pence. and that's what i would like to ask senator warren about now that her angelic halo is probably faded from the back drop. yeah, now that back drop looks great, joe is a great producer.

what do you foresee as the stakes when it comes to the election results and the aftermath of the election? >> so, that's a great question. and you can tell you're out on my porch in the morning here, but the way i see this, this is going to be one more test of the strength of our democracy. you know, i will say that before trump ever got here, i thought all of our democratic institutions were strong and robust and that sort of the overall bureaucracy, if you will, would mean that trump, yeah, he can do some bad stuff, but not a lot. and wow, he has come through and just broken one thing after another. and for example, we're just talking about health care.

when the republicans couldn't get the health care repeal through the congress when they had control of the senate, control of the house and kept right on fighting, took it back to the courts, tells you, man, they're just working on their own schedule. they want to impose things on the american people that the american people don't want. so i think what happens after the election is a really important moment for america. where everybody takes a deep breath and says, the winner is the one who becomes president. and that to me what this means is the next 25 days are so critically important. i not only want to see us beat donald trump. we can't afford to beat him by a little bit. we need to beat him as trump would say bigly. because there can't be any dispute. >> yeah.

>> because he is the man who will dispute it if he has the tiniest shred of anything that he can hold on to. and so i think i think that's the importance of the get out the vote, get out the vote, get out the vote and when we have gotten out your vote, you get out the votes of your friends and get out the vote of your friends. this has to be one of those elections where we all get and vote, not only for the candidate we care about, but get out and vote for our democracy. >> all right. senator elizabeth warren, thank you so much. senator warren, we greatly appreciate you being with us this morning. and adjusting the camera. >> oh, your dog is there. i want to see him. >> yes. here he is. look at bailey. >> so beautiful. >> such a cute doggie. >> okay, you just made my day.

>> take care. >> great to see you, senator, thank you. so bob woodward let's -- i want to ask you a more general question about the people that you have covered through your years in washington, d.c. and let's just go from just go huge story, history changing story to the history changing story you broke earlier this year from the nixon administration to the trump administration. we saw mike pence last night, and we've talked about about it refusing to say that he would accept a peaceful transfer of power, but you've also obviously interviewed a lot of people for this book, some generals and other officials who would not bend to donald trump's will and who, anybody reading "fear" will see there are quite a few really

good men and women who went in to serve for the right reasons but then refused to go as far as mike pence has refused to go. i'm just curious, is this something unique to donald trump and the trump administration, or did you run into this a good bit during the nixon administration as well? and what separates somebody like, well, my gosh, why don't we just talk about two friends, what separates somebody like mike pence from senator coats who could not sacrifice this country at the altar of donald trump? >> it's significant, and to discuss this issue of peaceful transfer of power, the idea that we're even -- that it's an issue, that there is not automatic, okay, yes, we have a democracy, the winner takes the

office is absolutely stunning. senator, former senator mccaskill is right about this. there is outrage after outrage, and you kind of wonder when we're going to hit the wall here. i thought senator harris made vea very good point last night on the health care issue where she said they're coming for you. they are coming for you on this issue in the courts, in the way they run the government and everywhere, and i think we can look at the overall picture here and say not that they are coming for you but they have done it. they actually have put themselves on the edge of saying let's subvert the democracy and, you know, what's next?

i worry, frankly, from continuing reporting that trump is so determined to win and get the focus on other issues so we don't talk about the virus so much that things will happen. i'm not going to say he generates something, but i think there can be accidents in foreign affairs that presidents can seize on and say this is a moment for us to get tough, so i don't think it's going to be a -- not only a peaceful transition, but perhaps not a very peaceful whatever it is 27 days or whatever to the election. >> so claire, if you could extend upon that because i know the outrage factor is exhausting, and some people are tired of it, but something that we can't ignore is the danger

that this country is in at this point on so many levels from covid to the president's leadership in general. >> well, i think this is really why his numbers are collapsing. there is a collective weight of all of this. you know, if you just look at the last week, you know, it's train wreck after train wreck after train wreck highlighted, of course, by the brazen irresponsibility of this president once he's diagnosed with something that's highly contagious. so that's all there, and i thought i would certainly underline a point that joe has made over and over and over again about the trump campaign. they still steadfastly refuse to reach out to new voters, and pence didn't reach out to new voters last night. he was all about a clarion call to the base, the trump base, not thinking about how women were going to handle him constantly

interrupting and constantly talking over the time rules. that was -- the women of america are like already fed up with these folks, and for him to do that, women know what it's like to be interrupted constantly by a man who thinks he knows better. so i think that is -- there's nothing that happened last night that changed the trajectory of this race, and that is very bad news for donald trump. >> yamiche, what is the state of affairs inside the white house this morning? we know that the head of the security office creed bailey has tested positive for covid. his condition is unclear at this point, but some reports say that it's a pretty serious case of it. the president of the united states of course has it. there's an outbreak inside the white house, we know talking to people behind the scenes off the record that there's confusion about who should be coming in and who shouldn't, no leadership. what is it like to be inside the white house right now? >> well, the state of affairs inside the white house is mayhem. people are freaking out. they are scared. they're lining up to get tested.

they're waiting to see who gets tested next, and whether that person will be positive. every new prominent case also reminds aides that they were forced in some ways through a culture of anti-masks to acquiesce to this idea that masks with ar political statement and they weren't encouraged to wear masks. i've talked to lower level aide who is say my boss didn't wear a mask, so i didn't wear my mask. when you look at the way the white house handled things they don't want to say they're a super spreader, but the evidence bears that out. something like more than 34 people now have tested positive, so it seems as though people, while they're trying to push forward, while the president's trying to say he was cured and this is a blessing from god, there are a will the lot of peoe white house who are anxious. you see someone like chris christie, as far as i understand is still in the hospital with the coronavirus. he said he was not contacted by

the white house, even though he was in debate prep with the president and at that saturday supreme court nomination. so when i go to the white house, i'm very, very careful because there are a lot of people who have simply cleared out of the building because they don't feel safe working in what is supposed to be the most protected building in the world. and i want to say one quick thing, mike pence yesterday, there was obviously this kind of smooth delivery. he is not as brash as president trump, but last night's debate was a lot about truth and a lot about fact, and there are number of things he said -- including the fact that a white house pandemic office was not dissolved under president trump. we know that that was resolved, and as a result the white house is in some ways trying to rely on other people, some of them also political appointees who are about messaging that the white house is on and business as usual when everything at the white house shows that business is not as usual. >> yamiche alcindor, thank you so much for your reporting, claire mccaskill and elise

jordan, thank you both for your analysis, and bob woodward thank you as well. the book once again is "rage." we've got much more ahead including the latest on a still infected president trump making his way down to the oval office even as white house covid outbreaks continue to expand. and as we go to break, a look at the new issue of "time" magazine. the cover story is patient zero. donald trump faces his personal and political mortality. also making headlines, in a first for the new england journal of medicine, the publications editors are placing a finger on the political scale calling for americans to vote out leaders who have not done enough to address the pandemic. while the editorial does not call out president trump by name, the piece is filled with illusions to his actions and proclaims, quote, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are

dangerously incompetent. "morning joe" is back in a moment. "morning joe" is back in a moment 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.

every major -- that's a nasty fly. i don't like those suckers. i don't know about you in new mexico, but i'm not into flies or mosquitos. >> i'm the only one on this stage who has prosecuted the big banks for taking advantage of america's homeowners. >> he fetgets to run his campai

any way he chooses. >> prosecuted for profit colleges for taking advantage of our veterans. >> hey, get out of here. >> that's the most persistent fly i've ever seen. nice. >> and refused to condemn white supremacists. >> not true, not true. >> and no other insurer would take nathan as long as thomas was on the policy. get out of here. you've seen me grab one of those before ♪ fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away ♪ >> there you go, a brief history of presidential politics and flies. a live look at the white house, top of the hour. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, october 8th, along with joe, willie and me, we will fly away with white house reporter for the

"associate press" jonathan lemire, shanna thomas, and chief white house correspondent for the "new york times," a great book. >> and let me just say, we are completely one with those who were deeply offended, shocked and stunned and saddened that people talked about the fly after such an important debate last night. it minimized actually the remarkable performance of both candidates, but really, a couple of quick updates. i picked up on the twitter last night, the fly soon after that event got a deal from netflix, and an update this morning, yeah, the fly checked into walter reed hospital this morning so, yeah, our thoughts and prayers are with the fly. now, let's go ahead and move on to the debate.

i don't want to see that. really, just -- >> yeah. >> pale. >> how much whatever you want to call it do you think you get from donald trump for having a fly on his head during the debate? >> he hung in there with it. let's give him that. the fly was there for like two, three minutes, just dialed in. yeah. >> the fly was dialed in. so anyway, so mika, first of all, what was your take on the debate? let's go around the horn here. >> i thought kamala harris was fabulous, and she was disciplined. she was strong. she kept a fine balance in terms of tone, which you know, would be a challenge for any woman debuting on the national stage like that as a vice presidential candidate. she was reality versus whatever was happening on the other side of the stage, and she really used every skill in her toolbox to deliver a clear, almost, you know, near perfect performance. she was right on, spot on, and

that moment when she talked about the auto industry was, wow, was incredible. >> good by michigan. >> she didn't overdo it, didn't under do it. it was a perfect balance. it was hard to watch mike pence. it was just really painful. it was really tough. i think kamala harris could have been tougher on the outbreak within the white house itself and the president's condition and their lack of transparency. she did go there a little bit. we'll have a lot more information coming up about that including more cases that hadn't been disclosed. the white house still not disclosing when the president first tested positive and just more incidents within this fear of the white house of people not being honest about a deadly virus that has now pervaded the inner circle of the white house. >> and willie, it's interesting, and maybe it's interesting we define doo

define deviant so much with donald trump and are no longer shocked when donald trump goes up on the stage. there was something more maddening about mike pence going up and running cover for indefensible actions whether you talk about the caging of children on the border, whether you're talking about the killing of 210,000 americans from covid, how many of those were mike pence and donald trump and jared kushner responsible for, historians ultimately will sort through all of that. he, i think, scored some points on the economy, but of course the economy is trash now, but he tried to defend the indefensible, had a lot of cheap, really corny sixth grade tricks when kamala harris rightly was trying to talk about how donald trump lied to the american people and he did such a terrible job throughout this entire covid crisis, which the

overwhelming majority of americans agree with, mike pence was like i will not stand here and let you talk badly about the american people. no, she wasn't really talking badly about the american people, mr. vice president, she was talking about how your negligence killed a lot of americans, donald trump's negligence killed a lot of americans. jared kushner's negligence killed a lot of americans. republican senators who sat by and said nothing and let this virus kill a lot of americans. we'll let historians make that determination. i do though, willie, want to follow up on something mika said. i was surprised that kamala harris did not -- did not talk more about what's right in front of us, what's happened over the past week. the outbreak at the white house, these people say they can control an outbreak in america when they can't control a white house outbreak?

we have 34 people, news broke before the debate that now 34 people are infected in the white house or connected to the white house. that means more infections connected to the white house than connected -- than in the entire country of new zealand and vietnam, other countries. also, the president's recklessness and irresponsibility, it was almost like this debate was held a week ago. >> yeah. great way of saying it. >> i think that was the one missed opportunity, but if you look at the entire debate, she did a really good job, and i think -- let me put it this way, politically she did exactly what she needed to do with her ticket comfortably ahead in many swing states and national polls. kamala harris did exactly what she needed to do last night.

make pence, of course, was in a difficult position because when you have to defend a white house with 20,000 lies to defend according to "the washington post." >> with a fly on your head. >> yeah, with a fly on your head, things are a little tougher for you. >> i don't think this race is any different than it was nine hours ago when the debate started. kamala harris held serve, that's good news for the biden campaign, not good news for the trump campaign, which is trailing in this race. mike pence did exactly what he signed up to do five years ago, and to go out and with that sort of facade to go out and defend the indefensible. the rose garden event alone, the explanation for that was, well, we trust people to make their own decisions. everyone was tested, unlike the biden/harris campaign, which believes the government should step in and make these decisions. he basically conceded that they were irresponsible. he conceded that they're hands off throughout this, and his defense from there is what about you guys, joe biden, in 2009

with the h1n1. it's an argument president trump has been making when over 12,000 people died, obviously not on the same scale of what we're seeing now, but it's all they've got. here is vice president pence talking about that rose garden ceremony that started so much of this. >> if i may say that rose garden event, there's been a great deal of speculation about it. my wife karen and i were there and honored to be there. many of the people who were at that event susan, actually were tested for coronavirus, and it was an outdoor event, which all of our scientists regularly and routinely advise. the difference here is president trump and i trust the american people to make choices in the best interests of their health. joe biden and kamala harris consistently talk about mandates, and not just mandates with the coronavirus, but a government takeover of health care -- >> thank you, thank you very much. >> the green new deal, all government control. we're about freedom and respecting the freedom of the

american people. >> let's talk about respecting the american people. you respect the american people when you tell them the truth. you respect the american people which you have a courage to be a leader speaking of those things that you may not want people to hear but they need to hear so they can protect themselves, but this administration stood on information that if you had as a parent, if you had as a worker knowing you didn't have enough money saved up, and now you're standing in the food line because of the ineptitude of an administration that was unwilling to speak the truth to the american people. >> so jonathan lemire, vice president pence framing this as a question of freedom, when you crowded all those people in the rose garden many of them without wearing masks and now we know so many of them have contracted coronavirus, even knowing what happened at that event, he's framing it as a question of freedom, which is something the president has been saying about masks. it's what the president's been saying about going back to school, about going back to

work. we have to reopen. it contradicts exactly the coronavirus task force. by the way, which is chaired by mike pence. >> that's right. and it's an ineffective argument, willie, in part because how can you defend something that has happened in your own home. and it goes to show there have been no lessons learned here from this white house after this outbreak that including infected the president himself that required him to be hospitalized for several days. there's no sign of compassion for americans but also acknowledgment that perhaps they took the wrong approach. as far as the debate last night goes, more broadly speaking. on one hand it was sort of -- it was interesting to see what was a somewhat conventional debate, what happens when you remove president trump from the stage? this looked like a debate that could have happened eight years ago or 12 or 16, the candidates were reasonably polite, although they were certainly not always polite. they interrupted each other certainly, but not to the extent that we saw from president trump

last week, and certainly one of the moments that seemed to be resonating last night, and i know a lot of female colleagues and friends of mine have noted this, is that when vice president pence did try to step on senator harris a couple of times, try to interrupt, she stopped him more than once and said i'm speaking, mr. vice president, which seemed to really just put him in his place and was obviously a sort of strong move for her, and i think sort of reminded a lot of women across this country their own experiences in various meetings or in other settings in their life. i think senator harris, as you said, as joe said, if goal number one was do no harm, and she did. this was a -- she came into this, her ticket comes into this debate with a sizable lead significantly in the national polls, smaller but substantial in the battleground states and she seemed to hold serve. she did pretty well. vice president pence also outside of the 2 minutes and 5 seconds a fly was on his head, for the most part did okay as well it seemed, but didn't have the sort of blockbuster performance one would need in order to, you know, close the

margin that his ticket currently faces. it was striking that both of these candidates perfected the art of not answering the question that was asked. that happened repeatedly. it was as if they simply nodded at the moderator and decided to talk about what they wanted to talk about, which was frustrating at times. there were certainly some answers to policy questions we didn't get yesterday, but it also moves on already. this is the vice presidential debates, they normally don't matter much and the question looms will we see another presidential debate, and if so in what form. the next one is slated for next thursday night in miami between donald trump and joe biden. the president said he wants it to happen, he'll be there, but the vice president has made clear they won't participate unless donald trump can prove he is no longer positive for the virus. still ahead, one question that wasn't asked last night, should the debate even be happening at all. shanna thomas weighs in on that straight ahead. let's go to bill karins with a

check on the severe weather moving towards the southern coast. bill. >> good morning to you, louisiana again, lake charles area again. this is the tenth time this hurricane season we've tracked a system moving onshore in the u.s. that's never happened before in our recorded history. so let's take you into hurricane delta. we have hurricane warnings for the same areas where laura hit, lake charles where they're doing evacuations, lafayette, morgan city, cameron parish, areas like new orleans and baton rouge are under tropical storm watches and tropical storm warnings, so they will be, you know, gusty and power outages but not horrific. 100 miles per hour winds, it's a cat gor category 2 hurricane, it's getting larger but we don't think much stronger. it looks like it will be friday afternoon into friday evening for the landfall. it's going to be in the swampy area of southern louisiana, so you're not going to see like reporters on the beach in hotels or anything like that. this is a wildlife refuge area. the storm surge will be an

issue, then the rain will be a big deal too as we head through the weekend. can you believe this, laura was a category 4. that's the purple laine. look where delta is going to make landfall, it's approximately 10 to 15 miles away from where laura made la d landfall. the storm surge 7 to 11 feet, the new orleans area 3 to 5 feet, and i feel horrible for lake charles, 86 miles per hour winds and eight inches of rain. about 20% of the city still has tarps on their roofs. you can imagine what that's going to be like when this storm is done. we'll have more coming up here on "morning joe" and of course more on hurricane delta in the next 24 hours. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. - [narrator] the shark vacmop combines powerful suction

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as amy first jober, is to care for derek. everything i do is for him. when i moved to this apartment after six months, we need to connect with the world. i use the internet to keep him in the language, because that's the way to connect to my family's traditions. he has to know where he comes from. we need internet essentials. there's no excuse to not get connected. first your thoughts about the

debate and also get your comment on first of all the fact that mike pence was obviously not held to the same time standards as kamala harris. and secondly, those two questions that stand out that were not answered by either, the question to mike pence on what he would do if donald trump attempted a coup, if after the election he ignored the will of the people and refused to leave office, and kamala harris, once again like joe biden, refusing to answer the question of whether the democrats would pack the court if they took control of the senate? >> i mean, i think on the court packing question, at some point harris and former vice president biden are going to have to get together and decide what is their answer to that, but i think you will probably see them waffle on it for as long as they possibly can. i expect a version of that question to be asked in the miami debate if the miami debate actually happens, and then in

the fourth debate if, you know, it doesn't get asked in the miami debate. i think on some of the other issues -- and i think one question that didn't get answered by either candidate was the question of the age of former vice president joe biden and the question of donald trump's age, put even more into focus because the president of the united states currently has covid, as far as we know, as you pointed out we don't know when is the last time he had a negative test. has he had a negative test today, i don't know. it is the fact that they were on stage, mike pence has been in the presence of all of those people at the rose garden. >> yes. >> that question of what -- that question of what do you do if the vice president were to get very sick or the current president of the united states were to get very sick deserved an answer, i think. i also was -- i kind of wanted susan page to ask the question

almost at the very beginning since we new covid would be the topic of the debate that everybody was listening for, why are we here? should we be on this stage? i wanted her to ask that question, and i am not second guessing susan page. she is a friend, these debates are hard. everyone expects you to do everything for them, but i do think that was missing because we had plexiglass there because we're worried about covid-19. there were people in the audience there who were instructed to keep their masks on because of covid-19. i would have been really interested to hear both of those candidates' answers to is it even smart for us to be in this room right now because that would be the acknowledgment of how bad things are right now. >> coming up, the moderator of the vice presidential debate susan page joins the conversation. we'll get her take straight ahead on "morning joe." t ahead on "morning joe.

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so peter did the white house get what they needed last night from mike pence? >> no, i agree with willie and jonathan and shawna, shawna made the point this is a campaign that's double-digits behind.

obviously anything that the vice president could have done to shake that up would have been good. i don't think that happened. i don't think suddenly the race is a different race today, that's probably not fair to him in the sense that no vice presidential debate has probably ever done, even lloyd benson you're no jack kennedy, as memorable as that debate was didn't help dukakis win that election. of the four people who have been on stage now the last two weeks, she's the only one who hasn't held nationwide office. she had the burden of basically presenting herself to the nation and making the case that she is a credible and plausible not just vice president but potentially president because, of course, as susan page rightly pointed out, the age of the two leading candidates makes this choice of vice president even more significant than normal. and i thought she did that. i thought she, you know, in fact, presented herself calmly, confidently. she held her own, whether you liked her policies or not, you could definitely sort of see her

on that stage as, you know, a peer to mike pence. i think that she answered that question that needed to be answered for her, right? i think that that was the important thing for her and her ticket. mike pence obviously, you know, didn't shake up the race. he had two other goals, though, i think, that he probably did okay on. one, keep the debate from becoming all about coronavirus, which it wasn't, and two, you know, not allowing any wedge to be driven between him and trump, right, to avoid being put in the position of having to contradict in some way the president, even though we all would imagine the silence of his mind that he doesn't agree with the president. he wasn't able -- he wasn't pinned down on anything where he was forced to defend the president in a way we didn't -- he allowed light between the two of them. >> and you are exactly right, kamala harris, the only one who hasn't held national office yet up on stage there, i believe she outperformed expectations and

did very well. so peter, final question, we're now looking at the next debate, donald trump talking about going to that debate, donald trump actually talking about doing a live event when we don't know if the man is still shedding. we still aren't getting a lot of straight answers out of the white house. what can you tell us right now about the current situation, not just with the president but with white house operations, which seem by reporting to be gutted. >> yeah, it's a white house having ptsd right now. i mean, it's just an extraordinary situation for this place. it is the leading coronavirus hot spot in the nation's capital. you're right that it's basically kind of an emptied outbuilding, a lot of people staying at home, a lot of people who aren't staying at home are there and yet upset. there's a lot of sort of, you know, bitter finger pointing at

mark meadows the chief of staff, at the doctors, there are those who are upset about the president. they don't think he should be back. if he is back he should be staying at the residence. he of course insists on going to the oval office yesterday. there are all these questions we haven't angswered. we didn't see him at all on tuesday. he's made a point of trying to show himself in some fashion every day since he got sick, either in a video or on a ride, suddenly he disappeared from view. they sold us there was going to be a video and didn't release one. what was that all about? what happened that day? we don't know. obviously he's been pretty active on twitter spitting out a lot of conspiracy theory type tweets, seemingly angry and trying to get himself back onto the stage. he's so hard to believe how they could have that debate in just a weeks' time. that seems so implausible given the situation, but everything with this president we've learned is possible, nothing should shock us anymore. >> coming up, the veep herself,

julia louis-dreyfus joins us live. >> i'm so excited. >> this is huge. >> i'm obsessed. >> straight ahead on "morning joe."

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that's where i want to be. i want to be on the front lines of implementation. feeling good, really good. perfect, and we're ready to go. i'm ready to go except the quarantine situation that you have for a little while after you get tested or whatever the procedure is, but i'm ready to do -- i'm looking forward to doing the rallies. i heard that the commission a little while ago changed the debate style, and that's not acceptable to us. i beat him easily in the first debate according to the polls that i've seen, but i beat him easily. i felt i beat him easily, i think he felt it too. he wouldn't answer any questions and he had the protection of chris wallace all night long. i thought chris wallace was a disaster, but i beat him in the first debate. the second debate we have a never trumper as a host, but that's okay because i'd beat him

in the second debate also, but i'm not going to do a virtual debate. >> that's president trump just a few moments ago on fox business network calling in. there have been some twists in this story since we left you, we told you in our last hour that the commission on presidential debates announced that next thursday's debate, the second presidential debate, the one in miami would be virtual, that the candidates would be in separate locations but still in a town hall format. since then, as you just heard from president trump, the trump campaign has come out and said the following. the safety of all involved can be easily achieved with without cancels a chance for voters to see both candidates go head to head. we will pass on this sad excuse to bail out joe biden and do a rally instead. so instead of a debate, they will do a rally. we'll see how long that holds. joining us now nbc news white house correspondent, co-host of "weekend today" peter alexander. good morning, was this really a surprise to the trump campaign? >> reporter: well, as we understand now from the commission on presidential

debates that they made this decision unilaterally without consulting the campaigns but they did alert the campaigns this morning before they made that statement public, so neither the biden or trump campaigns knew ahead of time the decision was being made. you talked about the president's comments saying he's not going to participate saying he's not going to waste his time among other things. one of his frustrations, he said, is that they can cut you off whenever they want. obviously as evidenced by the fact that he interrupted more than 70 times in the last debate, there's been real conversation about whether the president would need to be cut off. but the bottom line here is it remains to be seen what the president is going to do. the last two second presidential debates had 60 plus million people watching. is that an audience he's willing to refuse. moments ago i got a statement from the commission on presidential debates. the chairman frank farn cough sending me the following in response to the president's comments. he said no presidential candidate is required to debate. jimmy carter refused to debate during the first debate in 1980. it is up to the individual

candidate right now. that's what we're hearing in the back and forth on all of this. this was a remarkable interview from the president just moments ago on fox business. among the questions he was asked by the host, do you feel contagious, as if him feeling contagious or thinking he is or isn't contagious is something he could address or answer. none t nonetheless, he said no, i don't think i'm contagious at all. the campaign put out a post saying by the debate next week he would have posted several negative test results. that remains to be seen. we don't know if he tested negative test results before the last debate, the first debate. i've reached out, i've spoken to mark meadows and many white house officials trying to pin them down on whether or not president trump tested negative on tuesday. when frankly the last negative result was, that's information they have refused to give us at this point saying this they're trying to focus on looking forward. in terms of where the president got his infection, now the white house has said it's impossible

to pinpoint any one particular event. the president ignored those comments from his own aides saying that he believes that someone got into that event at the amy coney barrett a couple saturdays ago here at the white house and said they infected folks. he also appeared to suggest that he may have got it from gold star families saying when he visits with gold star families they get within an inch of your face. they want to hug and kiss you he said among other things, and he said i wasn't going to tell them to back off. a bunch of news being made right now. still unclear where this goes. for his part joe biden's campaign said before the president commented they were looking forward to participating. >> you captured that interview very nicely. somehow he was not asked about his most recent negative test in that long interview. let's listen to a portion of the answer that you just summed up a minute ago. >> i don't think i'm contagious at all. first of all, if i'm at a rally, i stand by myself very far away from everybody, so whether i was or not, but i wouldn't -- i still wouldn't go to a rally if i was contagious.

but no, it takes a certain period of time. i feel that i'm -- i feel that i'm great. you catch this thing, a lot of people caught it. look, you have the governor of virginia, he wore a mask all the time. you'd never see the guy without a mask, he catches it. you have senators that wore masks all the time, thom tillis, a very good guy who i think is now going to win his race because his opponent happened to have not one affair but two affairs, okay? that was not good timing, and i think thom tillis is going to win his race, and he should win it. he's a good man. mr. mask we'd call him, he caught it. you catch this thing, you know, it's particles of dust, it's tiny stuff. now, as far as the white house is concerned, somebody got in. it was a day of celebration with notre dame, et cetera, et cetera, and somebody got in, and people got affected whether it was there or something else. remember this, when you catch it, you get better, and then

you're immune. >> wow, i always wanted to down play it, the quote from bob woodward's book and the tape that we heard comes to mind as the president talks about that, so much there, peter, i'll let you take it, but i want to add in a statement as you and i are sort of reading our phones in tandem, in part from a biden campaign official who says the commission decided this on their own for safety reasons, talking about making the second debate virtual, while americans sacrifice and suffer because of his failed response, trump is only thinking about himself. trump's weak response shows yet again one candidate is leading while the other is whining. it strikes me that the biden campaign is happy to have donald trump not show up at a second debate. donald trump likely needs that debate given where he stands in the polls more than joe biden does. >> you know, willie, i'm struck by something frank lund said after the first debate that the only thing that would guarantee the president would lose this election is if he didn't participate in the debates going forward. of course he made those comments before the president had tested positive for coronavirus. just to throw this out there in

this back and forth between maria bartiromo on fox business and the president, he made a series of other comments that would make headlines if we lived in a more normal uniform. he described christopher wray as disappointing. said among other things that the cheating on ballots in the eyes -- in his eyes was far less of a big deal -- or was much bigger of a deal than china and russia. he said cheating on ballots in this country is a much bigger issues for americans than china and russia. >> also some more debunked stories about ballots being found in creeks and the like. n nbc's peter alexander outside the white house. thanks so much. mika. joining us now the moderator of last night's debate, washington bureau cheief for us today, susan page, and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton. good to have you both. susan, great job last night. tough circumstances. i want to get to the debate last

night, but first i want to ask for your response, the president saying that he will not take part in a debate that is virtual. it seems to me that he will do anything and everything to get out of debating because the polls show that he fared so badly last time. he was so bullish, and also a virtual debate has him under a lot more control technically, and it just seems to me that he's acting like a sore loser. what is your response to the president not wanting to take part in the debate? >> i think we ought to wait to see if this is his last word. you know, this is, what, october 8th. the next debate is october 15th. that's a whole week for the president to reconsider what he said this morning about not participating. maybe he won't participate, but as you say, he's the one who needs this story. he's the one who needs an opportunity to change the trajectory of the election, which is heading toward a biden victory.

>> sort of silly, yeah. last night wanted to know what your takeaway was, how you felt the candidates fared, and also i was frustrated when mike pence kept going when you tried to wrap him. i know there were discussions after the first debate to kind of keep the candidates under control, keep the overtalk under control. were you not given the technical ability to cut his mic? >> i did not have the technical ability to cut his mic, and i'm not sure how that would have worked if i'd had it. it was sometimes frustrating. two things were frustrating, one is to try to control the time so that each candidate got about equal amounts of time. that worked out pretty well, almost exactly the same amount of time to talk. the other thing that was frustrating to me was to pose a narrow question. i tried to ask narrow questions to make them harder to avoid, and both candidates, especially vice president pence ignored the question and answered the

question they wished i had asked. >> i saw that, it was fairly unbelievable, especially on vice president mike pence's part. some questions were as basic as they get and as easy aths they get. revere reverend al, how do you think the candidates did last night? specifically kamala harris. >> i thought the clear winner was kamala harris. i think that certainly vice president pence is a calmer, more civil candidate than his running mate, mr. trump, but to mislead and lie more calmly still doesn't mean you're telling the truth. clearly kamala harris answered the questions. i think she had done her homework, and i think for her being on that stage at that level for the first time, she herself well. someone at 18 years old worked

on shirley chis m's campaign as president, to see kamala harris as a vice presidential candidate, it showed how much progress this country made, and i think it also says to us we need to continue making progress of an inclusive and open society, striving for equal rights for everyone, which kamala harris stressed not going backwards, which donald trump and pence represents. i think also, mika, for donald trump to say he won't waste his time in a virtual debate, he wastes our time when he goes into a debate screaming and being rude and interrupting, so he shouldn't waste our time without having a very clear, and well laid out debate that has the rails that he can't run over. otherwise it becomes a waste of our time. we can't waste our time again having him uncontrolled and

uncocked. >> and not only saying he won't show up, but saying six days from now next thursday he will hold a rally fresh off having coronavirus and knowing that the white house is on fire with covid-19. i want to ask you now that we're under four weeks until election day, rev, where you think the biden campaign is right now. we've laid out all the polls. he's doing very well according to the polling in the states he needs to win. most people think kamala harris did a good enough job last night to move forward in the world of donald trump, the news cycle has already refreshed. now we're talking about something else already than the vice presidential debate. where do you think the campaign is, and where do you see pit falls for a biden campaign that's feeling pretty good right now? >> i think the campaign feels good, but they should not take anything for granted. i think that turnout is important. we're seeing in early voting states huge turnouts, record breaking turnouts. they have to keep that going because i think a lot of that turnout is for them. i think they have to watch for donald trump who has no boundaries trying to come with some last minute surprise, and i

think they have to worry about voter count and voter suppression. the republicans have certainly changed a lot of voting sites, purged a lot of voters around the country. they've got to drive past that. i do not think it's over until it's over. that's why i came out with the book "rise up." people need to rise up in great numbers and come out because this is not about an election. it's also about a direction that this country will take, and we need to really deal with what direction we're going with and all of us need to have all hands on deck. this pandemic woke us up to what we are not protecting ourselves from. >> and finally, susan page, did either candidate move the meter last night, and if so, which way? >> i don't think so. i think that it was in some ways a do no harm debate for both the candidates. they introduced themselves, that was especially important for senator harris.

pence defended the president, didn't show any light between, but this election as most presidential elections, maybe all of them, are about who's going to be president, not who's going to be vice president. >> susan page and reverend al sharpton, thank you both for being on this morning. and voters in wisconsin are being treated to some pretty unique efforts to turn out the vote. we recently sat down with the lead actors from the classic 1987 film, "the princess bride" who came together with nearly the entire cast to raise millions of dollars for wisconsin democrats. now the cast of "veep" has reunited virtually over the weekend to raise more than $500,000 for the democratic party in the crucial swing state of wisconsin. >> and our update is, by the way, i'm looking to see what the update is. oh, my god, we just crossed -- guys, we just crossed 400 and --

help me. i'm trying to find it. >> 90. >> $490,000. >> wow. >> for the wisconsin democratic party. how fantastic is that. that's a [ bleep ] load of money. >> okay. i have missed each and every one of those stars. joining us now, the star of "veep," julia louise dreyfus and chairman of the wisconsin democratic party. julia, i'm glad -- i appreciate all your efforts and follow you on instagram. love, loved "veep." i want to ask you, though, about how -- is it challenging to be funny at a time like this because it is actually so damn serious? >> so damn serious, and it's very hard to be funny. and frankly, it's one of the reasons "veep" ended when it did because we really couldn't compete with this white house. they were doing a better job at

incompetence and buffoonery than we were. except in their case, it wasn't funny. so i'm working overtime right now to get this fool out of the white house andminions and perhaps we entertained like we did raising money for the wisconsin democratic party just a few days ago which was incredibly fun, and i think people get a great -- get a great kick out of watching it. we did deleted scenes from our show and we listed a bunch of insults we never used on the show. you can still watch it i believe, isn't that right, ben? i think? >> you can watch it at -- you can watch it is you go to wisdems.org/veep. on that page you can click to sign up for virtual phone banks and chip in to help get out the

vote and end the trump presidency by turning wisconsin blue this fall. >> jewulia, it's willie. forgive me for asking the obvious question. what did you think about the vice presidential debate last night? >> you know what? i thought it was absolutely amaze i amazing to watch. i cannot get over how he -- with a smile on his face kept interrupting kamala harris. i think many people, women in particular, are astounded by that fact. and i think she hit it out of the park, per usual. she's incredibly fabulous in every way, and i was delighted to watch it. but i do wish the vice president had, shall we say, better manners? >> so ben, let me ask you about

the challenge a lot of democrats are facing across the country and really not even democrats. really voters are facing across the country from wisconsin down to texas to florida. it seems that republican governors, republican politicians, republican supreme courts are doing everything they can to limit access to voting. especially for brown and black voters in states, again, across america. what is the situation that's in wisconsin right now. do you feel comfortable that everybody that wants to vote is going to be able to get out and vote in this election? >> the republican efforts to mess with the vote come from fear and desperation because they realize how powerful these votes will be for voters across race. white, black and brown alike. in wisconsin, there are a lot of ways to vote that are convenient and simple. you can vote absentee, two weeks

early, on election day. votes will count in wisconsin. we have a huge team, and there are so many public servants dedicated to making that happen. the question now is having, you know, sum ong up the energy to go and cast those ballots. we're doing that. we have more than 750,000 abs t absentee votes already -- more than 550,000 absentee ballots already in, in the state of wisconsin, which is a spectacular number and people are voting, shattering records across the board. so whatever the republicans are going to try to do, they're doing it because they're afraid of voters and, frankly, wisconsin is a pro-voter state. we believe in democracy and will make sure those ballots determine the outcome of this election. >> julia, i am curious about your plans for the final days of the election, and i think about places like wisconsin where, unlike the complete denial in

the white house with the president there with coronavirus and the numbers of people with coronavirus are really not even being released. we have to kind of guess. abc has one number, 34. we have another, 26. we know of some at the superspreader event who are ill right now. and in the hospital. and wisconsin, for example, where you were doing this great work, they are setting up a field hospital. so it's hard to know where to go and what to do with your energy. but what in these final days will you be doing to try to get out the vote but also get out the facts? >> okay, well, i'm doing everything that i can safely. which includes talking to you right now from my kitchen. and i'm doing all sorts of stuff with fundraisers. i'm doing another fundraiser to -- for the boundary waters

wilderness in minnesota later today with senator al franken and this is in an effort to protect those -- that wilderness from a copper mining situation that the trump administration is trying to jam through this pristine watershed, which is unconscionable. and in supporting candidates who are in favor of protecting that wilderne wilderness. so i'm doing that today. and i'm out there trying to get on my social media pages the information about voting, how to vote early in your state, et cetera, et cetera, and how to register to vote and how to volunteer. and i'm raising money for candidates in the democratic party. i feel very strongly this is the election of my lifetime, and democracy is absolutely on the line. >> i was just going to ask you

for -- final question, julia, why you were getting so involved in what you believed, what was at stake in the next 25, 28 days. your answer is the answer i hear from a lot of americans. they believe the future of this democracy is at stake. can you believe we could have ever gotten to the point we're at right now? >> no, it's absolutely surreal. and you can -- i will admit, i have moments of real despair over it, but i can't stay there. i've got to -- i choose to be optimistic. i choose to believe in the power of the people and the vote. the republican party is very good or tries to be very good at voter suppression and, frankly, i think that's really all you need to know. why would anyone want to take somebody's vote away? you know, i don't want to take a republican's vote away. i don't want them to win, but i'm not about -- i would never

think of trying to suppress their vote. and so i think that's really all you need to know. 210,000 people dead from this virus. there's absolutely no plan. there has never been a plan and there is no plan to mitigate this pandemic from this current administration. appalling. trying to take health care away in the middle of a pandemic. what the hell? i mean, it's just all so crazy. i'm really hopeful that joe biden will win. i know that he will lead this country out of this moment with class, with a mature, rational and shall we say, calm approach to leadership and restore democracy to our nation. >> all right. julia louis-dreyfus and chairman of the wisconsin democratic party, ben winkler, we do

appreciate it. willie, final thoughts. we have the president of the united states saying he's not going to debate. this is just me. i personally think that's the steroids talking. he has to debate. he's falling behind in polls, and he does not want the last impression that americans have of him in a debate doing as badly as he did in cleveland. what do you think? >> he's a desperate man. he needs a debate. he's been on the phone the last hour. he just hung up on another network in a conversation where he said the polls are rigged. look at the boat parades to monitor my support. he's talking about hillary clinton's emails. nobody is talking about his nobel prize nomination. he's called kamala harris a communist. this is the man who is asking for your vote less than four years from now and these are the things he's focused on. >> he called kamala harris a

monster. everything that he's been doing, this is just political analysis that a third grader could give you has offended women, offended suburban voters, has offended more educated voters, has offended independents that usually vote republican. that's why he's losing so badly right now and he seems absolutely incapable of turning it around and incapable of turning it around on the drug cocktail that he is on this morning. stolen from twitter, first place, kamala harris, second place the fly, third place, mike pence. that does it for us. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's thursday, october 8th. we start with breaking news this morning. first, we found out the presidential debate set for next thursday will not be held in person. and now it might not be held at all. this morning, less than oneou