make sure -- i wouldn't show up unless you had a mask and kept your distance. what is the matter with this guy? and michael cohen joins me to talk about the final weeks of the 2020 election and whether the president really wants to win. plus what is it about the trumps that drive so many people away? but we begin this hour at the white house where in just two hours the president will hold his first in-person event since being diagnosed with coronavirus and this jut five days after leaving the hospital. the "new york times" reporting hundreds of supporters are expected to attend. what is essentially a campaign rally, this from the white house balcony. far as we and the public know, the president is stid ll infect with the virus, all amid new fallout from the rose garden ceremony just two weeks ago today nearly a u.s. issen who atte atte attended the event got covid.

and former governor chris christie was released this morning from the hospital re-of-treated with coronavirus. tweeting i'll have more to say about this next week. we're just 24 days away from the election the second presidential debate slotted for this thursday officially cancelled after the president refused to participate virtually. joe biden will instead hold a town hall on abc. let's go to the white house right now. nbc's josh letterman joins me from there. josh what do we know about this event, this scheduled, what? 2:00 p.m., a couple hours from now. what's the layout like? how many people attending? even know who's been invited? >> includes supporters of law enforcement and what the white house that's built a peaceful protest for law and order. in the last hour seen reporters start to arrive in the ellipse area behind the white house. many wearing t-shirts that say, "back the black" and show of support for police, and we do expect the president will speak

from the blue room balcony, which is the same location outside the white house where the president appeared just five days ago and triumphantly ripped off his mask as he returned from the hospital. you're seeing some of those images right there. the big question today, alex, what is the white house going to do differently to prevent a repeat of that rose garden ceremony you just showed pictures of that fauci calls a superspreader event? here's what the white house had to say about that this morning. >> making sure we're taking precautions so that those in attendance are screened before they come in. the president's at a great distance. up on the balcony and briefly address supporters there. they'll be screened. following cdc guidelines. he's eager to get back out and talk to the american people. >> reporter: what you didn't hear there, any different from what the white house had been doing in the past to prevent transmission of covid at white house events. as far as following cdc guidelines, certainly not the case here as far as the president's participation today.

>> what about cdc guidelines for those in attendance? folks starting to gather in the ellipse have t-shirts they're wearing. how about masks, josh? do we see masks? >> reporter: typically the procedure here has been to provide masks to people and then once they enter the event it's up to them whether or not they want to use them. we have to see how many people at today's event will actually wear them given how many cases there have been in the last week or so, but in the invite for the rally the president's doing monday, his campaign sent out an invite that said people would get masks, given hand sanitizer and no indication they'll be required to use either. >> updates on whether the president tested negative for covid? >> reporter: an update, but not an answer. last night, alex, the president said he had just been tested and awaiting results. this morning the white house says that they'll let us know once he gets the all-clear from doctors to return to public events and travel, but got to tell you, alex. i think if the president had

gotten a negative covid test result we would know about it by now. >> that makes sense. josh letterman. thank you for that. with me now, eugene cot from the "washington post" and charlotte altar, national correspondent for "time" magazine. welcome to you both. eugene, start with you here. is the president trying to make up for lost time in the hospital? what's the political calculation of this in-person event two hours from now? >> we know that the president enjoys connecting with his base more than any other group. he has long believed that if he is to win re-election it will be primarily because the people who loved him most and longest will show out and in record-breaking numbers. also he's trying to get one particular message across to these individuals. the idea that the coronavirus pandemic is not as big of a deal as the media and even public health experts say it is. by having an event in-person, just days after he returned home is hoping those individuals will hear that message and move with

it. allow it to move them to the polls in record numbers that they haven't seen before. >> not a big deal. i bet the 210,000 silenced voice wos disagree, not to mention all of their friends and loved ones. you write about trump, rather, eugene, trump's fairlessness of coronavirus is powered by the type of health care only he gets. he is the president. of course. it's not surprising, eugene, he receives nothing less than exceptional health care, but how much does he messaging after the fact impact how the public is processing the gravity of this virus? >> reporter: you know, it's resurfaced the issue of health care in the national conversation. according to the pew research center, health care is the number two issue for most voters. i think what this situation revealed, most americans, overwhelming majority of americans did not get treatment even comparable to what the president is able to receive, and, in fact, the trump

administration is in court right now trying to battle or at least question the legality of one law associated with obamacare which is whether it's okay to provide insurance for those who have pre-existing conditions, one of which, covid is. so i think many voters are finding themselves wondering, why is it their experience or the experience of so many of their loved ones who had covid seems to be so different than that of the president? >> charlotte, i bring this up on a personal note because you wrote about your own diagnosis with covid-19 just a short while before you undertook the cross country journey we've had you on to talk about the last couple of weeks. tell me a little about that. what was it like and did you receive anything similar to the president's really intense treatment? >> so yes. i had covid-19 end of july. since obviously i recovered, before i went on my road trip, but i was very lucky. i had a very mild case.

i did not have really very -- i had -- i wasn't totally asymptomatic but had mild symptoms, but, yeah. i mean it was difficult to get a test. it was difficult to get clarity on what i should be doing and what i should be worried about, and, yes. my health care was nothing like what the, what the president got, and i think most americans who were diagnosed with covid-19, you know, didn't have anything close to the level of medical care that the president received. >> yeah. on personal note, glad you look like the picture of health for sure and appear to be feeling as such. charlotte, let me ask about the weeks spent talking to voters in the critical swing states of wisconsin and pennsylvania. how much is the president's health and overall handling of the pandemic, how much is it at the forefront of their concerns and do you think they're looking at today's event at the white house in an alarming way? >> so i think eugene is

absolutely right in terms of what he said about the president trying to control the message around this disease, even if he can't necessarily control the disease itself. because what i heard from people on the road was that they -- many people already supporters of the president were kind of skeptical of the hype around covid-19. they either thought it was totally a hoax or they believed that it just kind of wasn't as bad as anybody was saying. so the president coming out there, you know, after, you know, while still diagnosed with covid, presumably, and sort of, you know, beak out and about and resuming his -- you know, starting to resume his campaign really reinforces that idea for a lot of people that this isn't as bad as people say it is, and i actually then called back some people who had said earlier that they were a little skeptical of covid, once the trump, once trump was diagnosed called back.

what do you think? the consensus for most of these people was, as if the president had the flu. like, oh, we hope he gets better. you know? it sucks he's not feeling well, but they weren't particularly alarmed. >> hmm. so eugene, nbc news reports that there's growing gop fears of a blue wave as a result of a series of setbacks including the president's debate performance, again, hi covid diagnosis, also his erratic behavior on economic stimulus talks. 24 days now until the election. is there a sense that the presidency is slipping out of reach? >> that is a concern of many individuals on the right associated with the campaign, and even the white house. that's primarily because the polls have shown repeatedly that the president is struggling even doing poorly with some voting blocks he depended on to written in to 16 including older voters, suburban voters, independents

and women. it's really hard for many of them to believe that he could do as well as he will need to do in these swing states to capture them as long as he continues to lose support with these demographics. one of the main reasons he's losing support with these demographics, kind of hinted at, the economic downturn, a result of the coronavirus pandemic. we are heading into this election with one of the worst economies heading into an election's in recent history and many of those democrat graphics that support trump most are feeling the effects directly. >> shootcharlotte you mentioned more people you met the more you noticed something deep and unpredictable lurking beneath the surface. what caught your attention? >> one of the big takeaways from this trip is that i think that this campaign looks very different to voters. different than it looks to those of us who professionally follow politics and aren't paying attention to every twist and

turn and every new poll and every new development. i think that the voters i spoke to, many of them were not closely following the news. they weren't, you know, making their decisions based off of the latest headlines. and i think particularly over the last couple years, there's been this type of frenzy in the media where people like to sea, oh, this is the thing that's going to change the race. this is the thing that's going to totally, you know, up-end these dynamics, and i -- i really think that that's sort of not the way many voters make their decisions, and so i think that, you know, i think that a lot of pundits say with good reason and with a ton of data to back it up that the race is going in a certain direction and i believe that it is, and yet i have talked to enough people that i also think that this

could go a totally different way that noble expects. >> listen, i have richarded that. you've been keeping it real the last few weeks as we've had you on and what we find in the swing states across country. glad to have you both. thanks so much. joe biden is focusing on his economic plans today on the campaign trail. nbc's reporter joins us from washington, d.c. way good debut on this saturday. a preview of what biden will tell voters today, please? >> reporter: womere, alex, this the well tires joe biden is heading to erie, pennsylvania, and a town not used to seeing democratic candidates swing by. the last time one did was candidate barack obama back in 2008. hillary clinton actually overlooking that part of pennsylvania, many criticized, it could be a reason why she actually did end up losing pennsylvania to president donald trump, who visited there not only in 2016 but also in 2018

when he was president of the united states. and biden's main message has been to those people's in recent weeks, the working class. going from wisconsin to michigan to minnesota, to pennsylvania. i was actually with the former vice president on the train tour he took almost two weeks ago now from ohio to pennsylvania, where he made six different stops, and one thing that i took away from that is the fact in each stop he pointed out that trump went there in 2016 and promised them that they would see job growth, and then he would give an example how that has actually not happened. that is something you should expect to hear today, and in erie, and one big thing that the former vice president has been trying to do across the board is try to relate to those voters. take a listen to what he said yesterday in las vegas to nevadans about how he is listening to their concerns, to draw a contrast from the president.

>> you deserve a president who understands what you're going through, who sees you where you are, and where you want to be. the last thing you need is a president who ignores you, looks down upon you, who just doesn't understand who in god's name we are. that's president trump. >> reporter: now, that's scranton versus park avenue message he is expected to bring sfr straight to pennsylvanians lives in erie this afternoon. >> thank you for that. if you think you heard everything from michael cohen you probably haven't. now has a podcast and a guest, author of that recent melania trump tell-all. what happens when the two of them get together? talking about that next and why he ultimately decided to write this book. book.

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. 18 past the hour. a new update on hurricane delta downgraded moments tying a tropical depression. now moving over mississippi. tornadoes expected across alabama, western georgia. delta made landfall in louisiana last night. category 2 hurricane winds near 100 miles an hour. today people mace for rain and flooding trying to clean up from back-to-back storms. braving the elements, morgan chesky from louisiana. lake charles, talking about them so often. how are people coping there, morgan? >> reporter: a devastating deja vu, alex. you see the evidence left from hurricane laura just six weeks ago. lining every city block here in lake charms and making it more difficult. i met rachel six weeks whenever a tree nearly split her home

behind me. coming back home after evacuating, i can't put into words how it feels the second time around? >> you said it accurately in your opening. a bit of deja vu for all residents. six weeks, for many probably feels like a long time, was not very long for us to try and get things back to some semblance of normal and this is what normal looked like. a lot of he'll just started to catch their breath and we come back and it's a bit of a punch in the gut. you lose your breath again. as my 4-year-old would say, our house is still broken. but we're going to do what we can to continue to pick up the pieces. that's all you can do. >> reporter: rachel, i've spoken to a couple different people who live here in lake charles. damage from laura. damage from delta, not rebuilding. might just move? >> i work for a company out of the northeast, and i've had

several people ask, are you going to leave? and to be honest, there will be, i think the prediction is about 15% of the residents may not return. we have someone down the road that's already put a for sale sign in their yard. we joke that i'm going to move to montana where i, we won't see this type of devastation, but that's all in jokes. i was born here. raised here. there's no place like louisiana, and we'll rebuild. it may take a while, but we will rebuild. >> reporter: and louisiana, glad you and the family are doing okay. thanks for joining us. >> nice to see you. >> reporter: hopefully we won't have to meet again. some of the sentiment we're experiencing here. first time, cat 4, tough enough. second here in this vulnerable state, long road of recovery ahead for everyone in southwest louisiana. back to you. >> echo that. kind of nice to see you again, but lake charles, louisiana, right? brutal. thank you so much, morgan. less than two hours, the

president holding his first in-person event since his covid-19 diagnosis. the trump campaign layingous an aggressive return to the trail just five days after the president left the hospital. a rally in florida monday amp the appearance today. joining me, president trump's former personal attorney michael cohen author of "disloyal: a memoir." michael, i loved your book. one of those i knew i would -- i couldn't help staying up turning pages. extraordinary. look, you obviously know how the president thinks. what is going through his mind here? is this being fully thought out? i mean, would he have any second thoughts about jumping back into the campaign trail too soon? does he ever express vulnerability? >> no, no. vulnerability to him is, of course, weakness and he can never be seen at weak. everything about him is the attempt in order to demonstrate strength. it's all about showing strength

that he could buck the system. donald trump is stronger than the virus, than covid-19, and he basically, he dared covid-19 to infect him, and he lost. and unfortunately, for the american people, he doesn't have anybody with him in the white house that's willing to say, mr. president, knock it off. first of all, your health has to come first. second of all, the country has to come first, or make the country first and then your health? not really sure which one, but that's not relevant to him. all that's relevant to him he be seen as strong and that he be, of course, re-elected, and that he get right back on to the campaign trail where his, you know, people can, you know, cheer him on and, you know -- just -- just keep going. that's donald trump's motto. just keep going. >> so michael, what you just said, of course, the election. there's a new opinion piece in politico which asks, does trump

really want to win this election? the article points out the president's unwilling in to see change his behavior, any of his positions. do you think trump truly wants to be president another four years? or is it all about not losing? >> well, i think both hand in hand. right? if he loses, a very big defeat for him. not only does he want to be president, he knows he has to continue to be president, because of all the looming issues that are right now coming against him, don jr., eric, evou ivan ivanka, the trump organization. if he loses he's going to get hit with a ton of litigation and has been very clear and he's gotten, you know, sycophants like bill barr to jump in. the president cannot be brought to justice while he is acting president. so if, in fact, hes whos, it's going to about nightmare for him and for the trump organization as well as the family. >> michael, he only would be

kicking the can down the road. heard that phrase, another four years and then face these things. what's the most perilous thing that he does face? >> obviously, right now you have the attorney general of the state of new york, also you have the d.a. here in new york, but you have all forms of tax issues by the irs. if, in fact, that he has to pay the taxes that the rest of us ended up paying, he's going to be financially, you know, destroyed. you know? he's not liquid. not only will you have the tax and i'm speaking now from experience, not only do you have a tax that you owe, but on top of that you have penalties and interest. he doesn't have the -- the cash flow, nor does he have the liquid cash flow in which to pay it. he's now going to have to start selling assets. by selling assets, end of the company for him. second biggest fear for him, probably. i also want to say something i've seltds in the past and truly mean.

donald trump doesn't joke. when donald trump talks about, how about 12 more years? right? he's not going to stop, if, in fact, he wins the election right now. he's going to then try to go for 2024. he wants to not be the president. he wants to be an ougautocrat, dictator. he's felt the power and has no interest absolutely letting it go and is putting his life in jeopardy to achieve that. it's really stupid. i mean, it's really stupid. >> let me ask you about disloyal. because the book's been out about a month now. of course, one of many books you know about the trumps out now. some written by people who knew them really well. what drives that, michael? what is it about the trumps that inspires people wanting to write about them? it's like they -- like the trumps are driving people away from them. >> well, donald trump is the king of chaos.

and what happens is, everybody, like myself, you get caught up in this trump cult. ultimately to be thrown under the bus. well, for myself, i found writing the book was very cathartic but a warning to america to all of the people who had voted for him. look at what's happened to me. i was thrown under the bus by donald trump, and i was somebody who was as close to him as you can get. so if he cares so little about someone like me, who spent more than a decade protecting him what do you think he thinks of you? let me just give you the answer. absolutely nothing. i talk about this disloyalty and mea culpa. donald trump cares for no one or anything other than himself and i want to do what donald does, a very stalinistic thing. repeats thinger and over and over, and the belief is that by doing that you get people to start saying it and to believe it. so please understand, because

i'm telling you the truth. donald trump cares for no one or anything other than himself. >> well, what was that moment, michael, you just said, i'm done. no more. >> that was around the time i spoke with george stephanopoulos on abc and i said, you know what? my wife, my daughter, my son and my country have to have my first loyalty, and they always will. and i realized at that point in time that the man who i had done so much for, who i didn't want the world to see him the way that i knew he really was. i wanted to paint a much more beautiful picture of him than what was there is impossible. he's out of control. he's -- we all have trump fatigue syndrome. i talk about it in the book and podcast, trump derangement syndrome. i had have enough. to be very clear and honest, i was not -- i didn't willingly

walk out of the cult of donald tru trump. i was thrown out of it and have to be thankful for everything that happened to me because i'm liberated, and i'm more concerned about my family making amends with the country than i am about donald trump, and it's a very -- it's a real -- a real eye-opener for me and before other people end up in the kind of situation that i have ended up in i want you to heed my warning. >> yeah. stephanie winston wolkoff also once in his inner circle, a tell-all book about her relationship with melania trump. mea culpa, a guest recently. from your experience, is he book similar to the quality is of her husband? >> reading stephanie's book i

really learned a lot. it's on the podcast, on the episode i said to stephanie i never really saw melania in that way. i had very high regards and i cared very much for her as i did for other members of the family. i spent an enormous amount of time with her as well doing things that really donald should have been taking care of, and i didn't see her in that light until reading stephanie's book and for me, it was a real eye-opener. the real kick in my back side, i asked stephanie end of the episode, when everything happened or started happening to me, meaning with the fbi raid, did my name ever come up with melania? she goes, it did. turnedened around and basically gave a respond, well, it's his problem. i was like, wow. that really hurt me to the core. because i expected more from her, but as stephanie puts in in her book, a trump is a trump is a trump.

>> hmm. it i want to talk about the president's taxes and other aspects. the news we report about, a report from the "new york times" saying that trump engineered a sudden windfall in 2016 and campaign funds dwindled. the point in the paper tax records expose $21 million in highly unusual payments from the las vegas hotel trump owns with phil ruffin routed through other trump companies and paid out in cash. so this comes shortly after what we've discussed here. the "times" detailing how long the trumps paid in federal taxes. nbc news has not seen the tax documents, i want to add, trump called it all fake news, but based on what you know, is the "new york times" reporting accurate or is it fake news? >> well from what my understanding, because i, too -- i've seen donald trump's tax returns but never able to look at them. seen them on the conference room table across from my office on

the 26th floor. it's got to be 25,000, 26,000 pages, covered the entire table. pretty sure the "new york times" has reviewed the document, so that the information is accurate. donald trump is -- basically donald trump lies. he lies about everything. and i was tanked on so many occasions, which i talk about in the book, about lying regarding his net worth, regarding about, lying regarding his wealth. whether it was to forbes in order to appease his overinflated ego, and to rise in the forbes 500 number, or it was in order to acquire loans where he would inflate the value. i mean, i've told the story where one time i'm sitting in the office, and he basically went from $7 billion of being worth to $8 billion in under ten seconds. first it was, i wanted to show i have $7 billion. then i'm worth $7 billion. before the conversation

finished, let's make it $8 billion. now what we had to do, alan and myself, go through all of the assets and see if we can't ma nip plate tmanipulatni nipulate the numbers. whatever we could do to increase it. the problem who were we fooling? we weren't fooling anybody,len b the smartest idea. we'll have a tax bill we can't deal with if you drop dead tomorrow and that will be on the kids. he said, well, that's okay. i'll be dead pep let them deal with it. that's the callousness of donald j. trump. >> wow. before i let you go, michael, of course, as you know, the white house has called your book disloyal memoir, a bunch of lies. >> what a shocker! >> what do you say? >> what a shocker. i'm wrong. stephanie is wrong. mary trump is wrong.

yeah. bolton is wrong. everybody's wrong except for donald trump. he's the only one who tells the truth. out of everybody. and if anything is said that's not ing agrandizing to him it's fake news and only fake news. the biggest problem with donald trump is when he opens his mouth you know whatever he says is lying and that's why he's going to lose it's election. people are sick and tired of it. we can't, we can no longer turn around and say, well, leez nhe' really a politician. he's a business naan. that went out the door the day he became president of the united states. he is a politician, and what he says is not just relevant to us as americans but it's relevant to the world. he is turned our allies against us. he has befriended our, you know, our enemies as a country. he does nothing when they put hits on our military. he degrades everybody from five-star generals to gold star

families to law enforcement, to former employees. he degrades everybody, because that's what donald trump does. and he'll continue to do it until we as americans turn around and say, we've had enough of this. it's any of. have a nice day. i want to be there like i was when obama got into the helicopter and said good-bye while leaving the white house. i want to be there when joe biden tells him, give me the keys and get off my property. >> author of "disloyal: a memoire" and host of a podcast. michael cohen, thank you for the chat. look forward to seeing you again. >> alex, thank you so much. just a moment, health hazards the president's balcony speech. hazard ouz ous to himself and o. we'll take a look at that. loo. ?

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a live look at the white house. in less than 90 minutes the president holds his first

official public event since testing positive for covid-19 just fives after leaving the hospital. he's expected to speak about law and order. and joining me, from sirius xm, and former spokesperson for the house oversight committee and senior adviser for the lincoln project and msnbc medical contributor, all my friends. to be clear about that. what does an event like this do for the president? the past few days, you know, he's gone on fox news. went a couple hours on the radio with rush limbaugh and then backing out of the next debate. how do you assess that strategy just, what? 24 days from the election now? >> well, i don't think there really is a strategy when it comes to donald trump. if there is one, everything he does from this point forward is designed to mitigate the fact

that he's going to lose big on election day. he's trying to come up with excuses why that is right now, and using this time the next 24 days we have left on the calendar to try to lay groundwork to justify why he lost and also shows and illustrates something michael cohen just talked about. donald trump doesn't care about anybody. doesn't care about nibble well-being or health, doesn't care what doctors and scientists say willing to go forward with an event putting people's health in harm's way including himself and people who work closest with him, work at the white house and serve him. anybody showing up to this event is basically begging to get the coronavirus, haven't learned the lesson that the superspreader trump has is the quickest way to put their own health and health of their loved ones in jeopardy. it's nuts, insane, stupid, irresponsible. just another day in donald trump's presidency. >> dr. azar, talk about the risk. how much does the president pose to the people who are attending this event?

i mean, you know, to the last point, not only the president. a number of white house staffer. overall the white house. is it even a safe place to hold a big event? >> so, alex, for the president, he should still be in isolation. that means that anybody who comes into his orbit needs to be wearing appropriate ppe and he needs to be wearing a mask. forget about the fact we haven't yet heard about his pcr tests, lower in stale, in his own words? he's not free yet. that means he hasn't had a negative pcr. aside that, discussed this isolation not knowing if he had mild or severe but think the latter. a superspreader requires the wrong person, wrong place, wrong time. a person asymptomatic,

pre-symptomatic shedding not wearing a mask and talking with other people, talking, nom coughs or sneezing with a foot or two of other folks as the pictures we saw in the rose garden, absolutely can be viral transmission. >> dr. azar, the president saying he's backs to normal. does anything confirm that from a medical diagnosis that we know? >> no. that is -- it's wonderful that he feels well. but we know that people can feel absolutely fine and be shedding virus. we also now know, we have interpreted from all of the interventions he got. remdesivir, desaturated on numerous occasions he qualified having had severe disease meaning themea meaning theoretically infectious up to 2 11st. what we in the medical community are looking and listening for as well as dr. fauci might have had

two pcr nays oh fringial swabs negative so we can assume last to for now he's not likely to still be infectious. we don't have that information yet. >> the word "assuming." we've seen a lack of transparency from the white house regarding the president's diagnosis including the big question, when was his last negative test before he tested positive? >> uh-huh. >> why is it that way? why are we not getting that information? >> well, i think that the president tells us they might have something to hide. if he tested negative as dr. azar said they would have told us. any good information about this situation, they would have shared that. up front. the fact that they can't give a straight answer to our hallie jackson is an illustration of just how not transparent they have been throughout and it's important not just because we care about the president's

health but because foreign adversaries care about the president's health and we need to know that information. >> why wouldn't the president say, i got it. i get it, everybody. i understand, and let's turn this around. and help the american people. i mean, you know, a smirk, i get why, but what's the rationale for the president not doing that? >> i don't know what the rationale is. i tend not to put rationality on top of donald trump's decisions and actions. >> but to be clear. >> yeah. >> what we're watching, it's a superspreader tour starring the president. i can't for the life of me think of anybody i would risk death to see speak, or sing a song. and i really like a lot of artists, alex, but in all seriousness, we're all watching this to really see how he looks and see if he, you know, is having labored breathing as he did the other day on the balcony. the most alarming thing about this is the fact he may still be

contagious and may still be putting other people's lives at risk and i don't know how far we'll go with this until somebody steps in. maybe it's nancy pelosi's commission, but somebody need to rein this in. it's a very dangerous situation. these folks coming, they don't deserve to die. i understand they're making a choice to go, but i don't wish that on anyone. >> of course. >> i think somebody needs to be the adult here. >> look at what sam nunberg told "new york" magazine what we're seeing from the president. here it is. i think some is sad to watch. getting to the point where he's almost turning into a laughing stalk. i'm worried whether he wants to completely self-destruct and take everything down with him, vis-a-vis the election and republican party. this is a guy who's not going to lose joyfully. put in perspective how worried republicans are, not just about losing the presidency but all the down ballot races? >> seeing republicans in a flat-out panic, really, ever

since the president's disastrous debate performance almost two weeks ago now. we're seeing signs that republicans are trying to do everything to mitigate what they expect huge losses. ted cruz talked about it. lindsey graham's plea for mon shows in south carolina he's in trouble. people in maine, races in alaska, iowa with joni ernst. races all over country going democratic, never expected to see at this point in the election calendar. trying to forecast, a wave? things go a certain way? all the races are being turned from leaning republican to toss-up. the entire pattern is for the democrats. that tells you it's going to about huge wave night for democrats in 24 days. >> can i ask you, though, i'm personally still scarred from 2016. the poll numbers. do you believe the polls right now? >> i do.

tell you something. we all kind of have that poststress disorder from 2016 polls. remember, since then a lot of elections. 2018, massive wave polls predicted would happen with mid-term elections. 40 republican seats gone. accurate. polls accurate with governors race us in krn can'entucky, lou went from red to blue. incredibly accurate forecasting. i think 2016 was exception to the rule not the new rule. >> we shall say. thank you all for joining me. good to see you. it's an ominous warning from michigan's attorney general. in a moment, why the nation needs to be prepared for more militia threats.

learning more about the f l foiled attempt to kidnap

governor gretchen whitmer. six arrested yesterday and seven more today from a group known as wolverine. a warning, could be more. >> may very well's tip of the iceberg. i don't feel as though our work or work of the federal authorities is complete, and i think there is still dangerous individuals that are out there. >> and joining me, former assistant director of the fbi. new book "fbi way: inside the bureau's code of excellence" due out in january. can't wait for it. talk about it more when out on book sheflves. tip of the iceberg. sounds ominous. how do you interpret that? >> all warning signs and indicators through social media and through monitoring extremist accounts through my law enforcement contacts we are

entering a volatile period of time. ramp-up to the election and in particular the period of time between the election and inauguration. it looks like it has potential for even more violence. that's what i'm hearing and i'm hear that law enforcement is preparing at the federal, state and local levels. there's interesting dialogue going on as we study the individuals who have been arrested in this large takedown. there are lots of folks saying, you see, they're not anti-trump or pro-trump. they've got their own thing going on, and there's a core of truth to that but it's important to understand where they're coming from, and the president needs to understand where they're coming from, his attitude, i think they're part of my base. i don't want to totally denounce them because maybe they vote for me. here's what he doesn't understand. they are anti-government. these folks, if there's one theme across their ideology, they're anti-government. and what happened was, when trump came out and started

attacking governor whitmer for imposing mask rules and closing businesses, that fed right into their paranoia that big brother government is taking over. he actually energized them. you could see that happening in terms of chronology on their social media. secondly, another overriding thing. go ahead, alex. >> no, no. give me the second part. >> well, the other couple of themes here that, again, causes them to align with trump is when he says, if democrats win, they'll take away your guns. that you can see that theme throughout their social media postings and then the last one is, more recently, as he refers to democrats as communists, as socialists, to kamala harris as a communist monster. again, that is resonating with them and they're kind of anti-government approach to things. so he may or may not realize it, pe may or may not care, but i'll be listening closely tonight to his rally at the white house, because rest assured, these

ex-treatmeex extremist groups will listen closely if he truly denounces them or continues to energize them. >> a lot to listen to. coming up close. can you explain this plot involving kidnapping the governor, putting her on some sort of a trial. what is that about? >> well, again, this is the notion that the governor somehow went beyond her authorities in the public health safety realm and needed to be tried literally for treason. where have we heard the use of the word treason? repeatedly from the white house, repeatedly from the president and eve an local county sheriff in michigan say, well, were they really trying to kidnap her or simply trying to exercise a citizen's arrest, permitted if nun's committing a felony. it's that kind of approach, it's that kind of are ideology even

among the sheriffs we've got to understand that michigan's an interesting place, and it's just, as the attorney general of michigan said, this may just be the tip of the iceberg. >> can i ask you, governor whitmer said this is not a militia. it's a domestic terror organization. more and more to your point. we're seeing these armed groups showing up at protests. some inside the michigan state house surrounding the office earlier this year. highway can anyone tell the difference between militias and criminal groups in parts of the country like michigan that allow gun owners to openly bear arms? >> you've raised a critical issue and something i'm passionate about. there's a gap in our law. yes. in our gut we know these guys are domestic terrorists. here's the problem. there is no law allowing us to designate a domestic terrorism organization. we legally can't call them domestic terrorists. more importantly, the fbi and law enforcement cannot get

inside pro active as they would in an al qaeda or isis chat room or group because we have nice laws telling us how to designate international terrorist organizations and techniques against them. when you switch it to the united states, now you kget concerned about privacy, ideology, understandedly and and wait until viens is espoused. a gap. the fbi is playing catch-up every single day. >> i hope people are uncomfortable in this reality you're presenting as well as i am. it's hard, but glasses you're here to break it down. thank you to. all of you watch "velshi across america" 8:00 eastern. stopping in nis mish speaking with governor whitmer as well at the state's attorney general about this alleged plot by that michigan militia. new reporting about something the president said at walter reed last saturday how scared he was of dieing from

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> good day everyone. bring you up to date. in about an hour we expect to see the president back on the campaign trail hosting first public event since contracting covid-19. the campaign reportedly invited hundreds to watch him deliver a law and order themed speech from the white house balcony. set for top of next hour. the trump campaign also planning a rally in florida monday. although no indication the president tested negative since his illness was made public. also new today, trump associate chris christie is out of the hospital, one of several who tested positive after the last big event at the white