hi there, everyone. it is 4:00 in the east. democrats have been warning for weeks that voters should vote this year like their lives depend on it. and two new blockbuster pieces of reporting make clear that that is not hyperbole. but first an inside look at the corruption of the coronavirus task force by a doctor when deems its members i will inform and dr. atlas is described as corrosive and dangerous, quote, atlas shot town attempts to expand testing and he openly feuded with other doctors on the coronavirus task force. and succeeded in largely sidelining them. he advanced fringe theories such

as that social distancing and mask wearing were meaningless and would not have changed the course of the virus in several hard hit areas. and he advocated allowing infections to spread naturally among most of the population. while protecting the most vulnerable and those in nursing homes until the u.s. reaches herd immunity, which experts say would cause excess deaths according to three current and former senior administration officials. atlas also has the distinction of being at the helm of the white house itself becoming ground zero for a super spreader event that claimed among its nearly three dozen victims the president, the first lady and their son as well as many of the president's senior political and west wing advisers. the government's top pandemic expert wasn't surprised. >> were you surprised that president trump for the sigot s? >> absolutely not. i was worried that he was going to get sick when i saw him in a completely precarious situation

of crowded no separation good fw people and almost nobody wearing a mask. when i saw that on tv, i said oh, my goodness, nothing good can come out of that, that has to be a problem and sure enough, it turned out to be a super spreader event. >> that was anthony fauci on 60 minutes last night. he reveals that he and his family received death threats and require security. >> public health message to save lives triggers such venom and animosity to me that it results in real and credible threats to my life and my safety. >> have there been death threats against you and your family? >> yeah. >> the critiques from fauci have bae been answered all day from donald trump including in a gaggle with reporters in the last hour and also on twitter and on a phone call attended by

reporters with his campaign aides this morning in which trump called fauci a disaster and said when he appears on television, quote, there is always a bomb. and the "new york times" adds this reporting on that call. quote, people are tired of covid trump complained, he added people are tired of hearing fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong, trump said. this is where we start with some of our favorite reporters and friends. peter baker, also our medical contributor dr. vin xw nchln gu. and olivia troye, aide to mike pence and now works with the anti-trump group republican political alliance for integrity and reform. i want to start with you. i saw in the first ad or interviews that you did, that

one of the unfortunate and i'm sure tasks you took on reluctantly was to have to call dr. fauci when he was en route to the coronavirus task force meetings. i guess it is not a surprise that 14 days before an election trump is in a war of words with phony fauci who maintains i think about a 67% trustworthy rating and trump is in the 20s. but i wonder what you make of what it says about his inability to xwlach t grasp the pandemic. >> i think that you are watching the president sort of scramble, right, to sort of spin this in any bay that he can. you saw him first cut an ad trying to take dr. fauci -- well, he took dr. fauci's words out of context and tried to say that dr. fauci supports him personally, which is not the case. he was praising the task force. and he consistently undermines

these people repeatedly and now you see him going into the election, two weeks out, numbers aren't looking great for him and this pandemic continues to be a fail you're. where we have increasing cases every day and he was warned this winter would be bad.you're. where we have increasing cases every day and he was warned this winter would be bad. and now he is doubling down and trying to grasp at 12r5us hewp s trying to grasp at 12r5us hetra and the task force is getting thrown under the bus. >> and what do you make having been a part of the task force of this reporting that someone like dr. atlas hasn't just joined a group at its inception contains some esteemed doctors and scientists, but has railroaded over those esteemed doctors and scientists and is now bending the task force to the fwlee tde that it exists toward herd immunity. >> i think that it has to be very frustrating for the people that are still there to have

this kind of force to reckon with who has control. but he is willing to say whatever it is that fits the president's narrative. and we have watched him, i've watched him going on fox, i've watched him on that network, he has been in essence what i would say auditioning to try to get a role on the task force until he finally gets an in. and there is no doubt in my mind that he was specifically put there as the doctor, you know, expert voice that they can point to now and say that dr. atlas is saying this, so it must be true, when you've got people who are actually pandemic experts sitting in the room with them telling you everything that he is saying is inaccurate. >> peter baker, donald trump isn't just as war with tony fauci two weeks before his own re-election, he is at war with fauci as every respected

scientist and doctor predicts that the worst is what is right in front of us. let me show you what dr. olster hoech holmes said that we're into in the coming weeks and months. >> we do have vaccines and therapeutics coming down the pike. but when you look at the time period for that, the next 6 to 12 weeks will be the darkest of the entire pandemic. track scenes wiee vaccines will available until early or third quarter next year. and people don't know what to believe. we have to get the message to the public that reflects the science and reflects reality. >> i don't know what the best analogy is here, but you these are intersecting lines that put the country on a collision course. the guy that is for herd immunity and lies on egregiously

that twitter took him down this morning for his lie about mask is gaining power and control at the very moment that the virus is in the words of that doctor entering its darkest phase. >> doesn't seem like the end of the epidemic is in sight as the president promised us. not only cases are on the rise again, but so are deaths. in 21 states, deaths are on the rise. we've now passed or about to pass 220,000 deaths in this country. that is equivalent to the city of des moines, iowa. think about that. we spent a lot of time in iowa as presidents try to get votes. imagine the sgir city entire ci moines was wiped off the map. you wouldn't have him arguing with the facts. we would say that is a pretty major event in the life of a country.

this president ftries to bend reality into what he wants to believe. if the polls are bad, they are fake. if the fine cyst tells them this is what could happen or the dangers, they are fake. anything that gets in the way of the narrative that he wants to sell two weeks out from an election that polls show he is currently losing. >> peter, i want to show you what dr. fauci said about being used in a political ad. so between calling him an idiot and ignoring him, donald trump used dr. fauci to boost his own covid failed response. let's watch. >> i do not and nor will i ever publicly endorse any political candidate. and here i am, they are sticking me right in the middle of a campaign ad which i thought was outrageous. i was referring to something entirely different. i was referring to the grueling work before the task force that, god, we were not going to -- i don't think that we could have

possibly done any more than that. >> did the steam start to come out of your ears? >> quite frankly, i got really ticked off. >> probably safe to say that it takes a lot for steam to come out of tony fauci's ears. but in between having people like olivia call him and tell him not to come to the task force meetings and calling him and an idiot, donald trump actually sought to use his credibility and esteem as a doctor for his own campaign prospects. >> that's right. and it is nice to see what fauci reached was a breaking point for him. he is a mild mannered person. not giving in to attacks. but clearly feeling very frustrated that he was made into a political figure. and that is not his role, he had worked for this government since ronald reagan was president trying for both parties to help the country prepare for moments exactly like this.

and to be used as a political pawn undercuts not only his credibility, but the credit abiy of the government. fauci has far more trust among the public than donald trump does on the coronavirus, but among republicans, it is down 30 percentage points since april. the attacks are having an effect. and so it means that not only are masks being political size heed a politicized and a partisan be issue, but trusts in the doctors who we need to guide us through you this moment is being turned into a partisan question as well. >> you know, dr. gupta, what could go wrong? we're heading into what is called the darkest phase of the pandemic. if we're lucky, we'll have a vaccine that people will trust enough to take if we're lucky. where do we go as a country if we are in the position peter just described with 30 pr of republicans not trusting the

scientists? >> good fsh afternoon, nicolle. there is a lot here. and let's set the record straight, i'm hoping that this is where we can go as a country, following the science. what we're noticing is there was a call this morning from the society of critical care medicine amplified by docs at stanford that the indian health service in south dakota where masking rates are about 30% in public, they need recespiratory therapists, nurses and docs. they are struggling. the worst in new york has migrated out of south dakota and into wisconsin. and the rereality is the misinformation of dr. atlas is having direct affect across the plain states where we're seeing bad masking has resulted in people dying. so that is where we are headed.

people don't have the information that they need. and if the president is saying that people have pandemic fatigue, i'll do him one better, people are tired of pandemic incompetence, of handling -- of the handling of this virus, of the lack of usable action only information. i get question about how often should people get tested if they have been exposed to somebody. there was a study that came out this past week suggesting that close contacts of individuals who are known to be positive off even turned up negative on that initial test, but if you don't have the access to the white house resources, you can't get a repeat test and turn down the most close contacts needed a second or even in some circumstances a third followup before they knew that they were positive. that is one. people are wondering if you are a pregnant female, you have a higher chance of pre-term birth, maybe having to go for a

c-section. and holiday travel, people are craving for that information. and unless we get that information out, we'll see more south dakotas. >> and to your point, dr. fauci gave important medical information out last night. that it gets clouded by the political firefight that ebb ns when the truth is told about the pandemic. one one of the most alarming things i heard him say, we don't though eight months in what the long term health effects are, what the long term effects are to cardiovascular systems or otherwise, we don't know what the long term respiratory damage could be. and he talked a lot about these long haulers, people that have symptoms for days and weeks and months. are you concerned that people are -- the fatigue is in part a

byproduct of the dysfunction around our politics, that people feeling especially if you are a follower of donald trump and you listen to the doctors that he feels good about, people like scott atlas, you third both in the nbc forum last week that masks don't matter, donald trump said 85% of people that wear masks get covid, that is a lie. and atlas lied so egregiously that his tweet was taken down. so it seems like the fatigue comes from the mixed messaging at a time when the questions are really important for even to understand before you send your kid back, before you get on a plane, before you take off your mask, before you get on a bus or train, we don't know what the long term health kons yenlconse are of the new pandemic. >> that is spot on. long covid as they call it. and i can speak to this, there is concerning data that amongst individuals that actually come up positive for covid-19,

amongst those individual, 75% that were hospitalized in the study out of europe had some type of long haul symptoms, shortness of blet, ifbreath, fa three months. so we don't have a good understanding of that. and also, this speaks to the questions people are asking. they see what is happening in china. china had one of itof its robus quarters. you can renormalize life more quickly. so the questions i get is not should i wear a mask because they are ignoring scott atlas because they recognize he has no credit ability in the space and he is a laughingstock amongst the medical community at this point, they don't ask are masks necessarily, they are asking what type of mask.

a three appply surgical, should get a nchl95. what about frequency of testing. we should be having any school district in the country should have access to testing. right now no school district at scale has it reliably. that is not -- high school sports for example, i get asked all the time, what about testing for high school sports. no school district can actually fund it with any reliability. that is not right. they want normal city and we can give it to them with the right policies.city and we can give it to them with the right policies. >> he never understood why didn't everyone -- or if they did it and it failed, why didn't anyone hold out what trump seems to care about most, opening up wall street and main street and trying to appeal to his obsession with his big beautiful economy and say the only way to that is this? sending kids to every, you know, company with more than, whatever, 500 employees so they

can reopen their offices, to sending testing kits to schools so their kids couldn't go back to school, to reviving main streets. why wasn't he ever enticed to test, to trace, to protect americans from the virus with the motive of reenergizing our economy? >> i think that you nail it with that question to be honest. because these discussions were had and he was told that in order to keep the economy open and to keep the country from shutting down again, that all of these measures would be put in place. but unfortunately it was decided that they didn't want to own the response, that they were going to put the blame on the states. and that quite frankly is the bottom line on how you end up in a situation like this. because you see the testing it goes to certain states.

certain other state, it doesn't go there. a lot went on. and this is fundamentally what leads to the detrimental situation that we're in. and all politics and never the virus. which is counter row duck difference to keeping the economy going. >> and did anyone ever look at him and say mr. president, your difference to keeping the economy going. >> and did anyone ever look at him and say mr. president, you would viewed as a savior if you protected the people you represent? did anyone appeal to that instinct? >> i certainly saw people appeal to him on the importance of wearing a mask. that has been reiterated to him repeatedly. i think that discrediting of national treasuries like dr. fauci, it was pointed out that it was not productive to underare mine the science. and that battle was lost as well. but what you see is people give

in. and you see this narrative play out. you see it in the guidelines and the changes that are done. everything gets shifted to stret what vet what he wants. and that is why it is dangerous and why the medical community should be very concerned about n95s and the stockpile and what is going on there and where is the ppe and do we have enough for the winter. because i'm not convinced we do anymore. and it will be a big problem. >> an unbleaelievable state of affairs. it was a privilege to talk to you three about it. thank you. when we come back, even members of the trump campaign are reportedly polishing up their resumes for new jobs prepared for an election day loss. as their boss chooses to forego debate prep for rallies.

and nearly 26 million people have already voted either early and in person or by mail. senator kamala harris is on the trail in florida encouraging early voting there. we'll look at the start of this final two week sprints. plus the mormon vote has been a republicaned sured thing up until trump, but these voters are not buying trump's pitch and their impact is now expanding. live to arizona with that story. another bundle in the books. got to hand it to you, jamie. your knowledge of victorian architecture really paid off this time. nah, just got lucky. so did the thompsons. that faulty wiring could've cost them a lot more than the mudroom. thankfully they bundled their motorcycle with their home and auto. they're protected 24/7. mm. what do you say? one more game of backgammon? [ chuckles ] not on your life. [ laughs ] ♪ when the lights go down

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if i lose to him, i don't know what i'm going to do. i will never speak to you again. i ask you to do me a favor. suburban women, will you please like me? please. could you imagine if i lose, my whole life, what am i going to to? i'm going to say i lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics. i'm not going to feel so good. maybe i'll have to leave the country. i don't know. >> we'll be watching. but trump is not the only one with losing on his mind. "new york times" reports that away from their candidate and the television camera, some of mr. trump's aides are quietly conceding just how dire his political predicament appears to be and his inner circle has returned to a state of recriminations and back fighting. mr. trump's campaign manager bill stepien has maintained that the president has a path forward in the race but as conceded that it is narrow. and some have began inquiring

about employment on capitol hill after the election. trump disturbed by the piece reportedly spent about half his time on that call we told you about earlier with campaign staffers complaining about it, calling it sick and fake. joining us know, washington post columnist eugene robinson, and mara gaye and rick stengel from "time" magazine. all are msnbc political analysts. mark salter, a long time aide to john mccain was on the show friday and he said something that i don't know if any of us said out loud, he writes in his book about how we all knew we would lose for weeks before the '08 election. and that is a ground truth. when you are on a losing campaign, you know when you are going to lose, you know when the spin is just the spin but the polls are the polls. i'med told that the internals in

places like arizona and pennsylvania are as daunting as the public polls for the trump campaign. and i feel like even trump lets it shoe that he knows that he is likely to lose. what did you make of this picture? >> you know, it is amazing because having covered campaigns now for over a decade at this point, i've seen the same thing on the ground. and you started to see some of it last week with ben sasse as well, a softening of rhetoric among republicans who are concerned about the post-trump era and what that might mean for them. so there are some signs for those who like you and i are very familiar with, kind of the way these campaigns implode that people are thinking about what they will do with their resumes after this campaign has ended. what is really interesting to me is thinking about the country i think socially and culturally,

but also politically in a post-trump world. i think that you will still have some percentage of voters who are really plimed for disinformation and for extreme rhetoric and even political violence unfortunately. and i don't know what you do with that. i think that it is a major concern of mine. you can get rid of trump as a candidate, you can't necessarily put trumpism back in the bottle. so i think part of what should be demanded of republicans too is really leading the way away from trumpism toward something that is more moderate and i think practicigmatic at a time americans just want solutions and decency. >> and a while ago, rick, i would have asked to moderation as well. now i'll just ask for adherence to the truth and a promise to condemn white supremacy and lunatics like qanon. mine the bar is so low for the republican party should trump

such the defeat that his aides talked about. and that trump has sort of riffed about on the stump in those three incidents we showed you. but i mean, the party has fallen so low that they are not even on the ground, they are subterranean at this point. and i'll say it for the show, disclaimer, anything can still happen, but in some weaome ways overcorre overcorrected. the polls are worse for trump than they were for michael cohen cohen -- mccain in '08. >> yes, people who get out and vote and there needs to be a reckoning afterwards. people have talked about a trut and reconciliation afterwards. that won't happen right away, but how did it happen. mara mentioned the ben sasse

comments. and as to who thought it was a good idea to support a na narcicisstic tv host to run for president? obviously some of the voters did. but i do think that -- and one of the things that is lovely about the biden campaign is that he talks about bringing the country together. and in a way that is not about recrimination. not about punishing people who may have made a mistake, but kind of learning from our mistakes and moving ahead. and i think that that is the way to go. my fingers are crossed. again, everybody should vote, but trying to bring the country together, reckon with trumpism and moving forward is the way to go. >> so i know i've made rick stengel nervous about the talk about the reporting of trump campaign aides sending their

resumes around. and who shares that angst is joe biden's campaign manager. telling donors to assume that the current polling leads will not last even as the campaign also argues that trump's approach to campaigning with large crowds is exactly the opposite of what swing voters want to see. she said that biden does not have a double digit lead. some historical context here between early october and the final week of 2016, trump shaved off three points from hillary clinton's national polling lead, four in pennsylvania, five in florida according to a post-analysis of the polls. exit polls found late deciding voters by double digits to trump in those key states. so go whichever way you want. >> i'm going with jen.

jen o'malley. and saying that let's worry about dealing with trumpism after we deal with trump, right? let's get through the election. and you know, i don't think that anyone should still be, you know, waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats having ptsd over 2016. but it is a mistake not to learn something from that. and at least one thing you can learn is that nothing is in the bag until it happens. so, you know, get all the votes, get them counted achbtd certified and then i think we can look at the bigger picture of what the hell just are happened. how did this happen to the united states. that we elected somebody like donald trump as president. you know, it is also a mistake to always fight the last election as opposed to the election we're having now. and so i can pretty much

guarantee that the exact things that happened in the closing days of the 2016 campaign won't happen this time. but other stuff will happen. and we don't know, it could break all joe biden's way or in some respect it could break president trump's way. we don't know. so kind of expect the unexpected and do the basics or blocking and tackling and getting out the vote. which democrats have been doing very successfully so far in the early votes. they are primarily democratic and those are votes in the bank. so keep doing that and run through the tape, run through the finish line and then hopefully we'll hahave tirm for significatime for a cigars and brandy. >> and to eugene's point, let's me just show the egg that was on my face after 2016.

i had pitched a series on what happened to the republican party that i could go out and talk to people about how we ended up with trump and lost this calamitous election. and of course he won and that wasn't the stoerdry i covered a all. so i think i come down on your analysis too. as punishment as profound as you all were, we'll ask you to stick around. senator kamala harris thanking voters today forge getting out early in florida. and we'll talk turnout and enthusiasm and registration when we come back.

so voter turnout is surging all over this country. with still more than two weeks to go. senator kamala harris is back on the campaign trail after quarantining after a top aide tested harris expected the importance of early voting in florida. nearly 26 million mail-in and early in-person votes have already been returned, up 312% from the number of votes cast on this date four years ago and only includes broabout one-thirf

what was requested. that number is up 228% from this time in 2016. of course we're living in the time of the pandemic. democrats have requested 10 million more mail-in ballots than have republicans. so eugene, i want to pick up this thread of cautious optimism with you. because the numbers offer glimmers for both sides. i think the voter registration is up in the three not so monumental states of florida, north carolina and pennsylvania which could hold the whole key to this election for either side. so what would you advise folks to sort of do when the early indicators? >> well, look, i -- both sides could kind of take heart from some things as you said, republican voter registration is up in -- bigger in recent months

than democratic new voter registration in pennsylvania, north carolina and florida. on the other hand, there are a lot of new independents who registered, independents have been breaking heavily toward biden. and here is one really important thing. look, 25 million, that is more than 20% -- nearly 25% of the total vote four years ago. more than 20%. that is a lot of votes already banked. and there are a lot of indications that more democrats have voted than republicans. and so therefore if you are putting votes in the bank, you got to feel good about that. and you got to feel good about the other side having to worry about getting everybody out and having this overwhelming advantage on election day which as you know may or may not pan out. >> yeah, and look, mara, here is

the other thing that didn't attempt to redifficult an out co predict an outcome, but trump is saying that the election is rigged. the mail vote is fraud's lent. and here is what senator harris had to say about early voting today.lent. and here is what senator harris had to say about early voting today. >> what you will do here in florida, in orlando, what you will do by early voting is you will be the first to put our country back on the right track. there is so much on the ballot in 2020. justice is on the ballot in 2020. economic justice is on the ballot in 2020. cry ma climate justice is on the ballot. health care justice is on the ballot. climate reform is on the ballot

in 2020. everything is on the ballot in 2020. joe biden is on the ballot in 2020. >> and again, whatever you end up doing is not part of the gop closing message to do that. she is trying to stir supporters of joe biden and herself of that ticket to do something. to go out and vote. donald trump today i think is trying to get his viewers or voters he seems to conflate the two to be mad at tony faufauci, not wear a mask and to come in large numbers and largely maskless to his rallies. they are not delivering that message to their vote. >> no, i think for the democrats they really have a stronger closing argument in this campaign. and it is really smart. look, democratic voters for the past four years, a lot of them have been extremely demoralized by donald trump and a inside is

of inevitability that surrounds him. things that would have stopped any other politician, it is almost like he just smiles and keeps going. and democrats, into tnot everyot some are less reliable voters. so this is a really smart method because he you need to empower voters and let them know that they still have some power to actually participate in democracy. so i think kamala harris's message is a smart one. >> and this is really the over to you america part of this where the outcome is undetermined and will only be determined by what each side inspires and motivates their

vote to do. and again, without 3r50e judple the effectiveness, the choices speak volumes. they are almost walking talking metaphors for each side. this is a message about k45i7k and t change and the other is tripling down on misinformation. if there is a through-line whether he mean it is or not, it is disinformation about the virus, disinformation about his poeb and h opponent and his opponent's family, information so dissavory that fox news passed on it and an onslaught about knowledge about the election. >> yes. and the candidate who runs hit own campaign has a fool for a client and that is donald trump. he doesn't know how to expand his base. he is running a base strategy and his base can't get him to 270. you know, he was the first

declinist candidate who won the presidential election. the first candidate to say amazingly enough the american dream is dead. i don't think that that resonates with people. i think that it was a tremendous fluke. and to talk about the election having just talking about it and seeing the picture of voters, this is the most beautiful civic process we have in america where people come out every in our years and every town and hamlet, you know, all day long. and what is new this year, that people are voting early. as eugene was saying, it is a revolutionary vote. and again, i still trust in the disposition, in the views and sentiments and values of the american public. and i worry less about election day than what donald trump will do in the days after november 3. but i guess we'll reckon with that in future shows. >> yeah, just to put a button on that point, john bolton, a right

winger to the right of the far right of the republican party voiced that concern in an interview with jake tapper last night. and he actually put it on one very specific and small group of people. the republicans in the u.s. senate. he said that it is their job to deal with whatever donald trump does if he loses and refuses to leave. so we'll deal with that today, we'll deal with it every day i'm sure. eugene, mara, thank you for spending time with us. rick is sticking around. up next, we're going live to arizona where voters there are having big time second thoughts about the long time dominance of purchases in their start thanks to donald j. trump. you've still got game.

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i also think if an election day people are angry and they've given up hope an they're depressed, i think we could lose the white house and both houses of congress. that could it be a blood bath of watergate proportions. >> i am worried that if president trump loses he'll take the senate down with him. i'm looking at possibility of a republican blood bath in the senate. >> are you proud of your support for president trump? >> i'm proud to be fighting for arizona every single die. >> is it a a yes or no. >> putting legislation on president trump's desk. >> that is a little sampling of

the senate republicans who are socially distancing from donald trump. as a possibility of losing not just the white house but the senate. but warning that a trump loss could result in a blood bath which could cost the party the senate this november is something that is causing us to look more closely at how that cop happ could happen and now many are planning to back biden. among them many mormans that would help turn arizona blue on election day. let's bring into the conversation von hilliard live in prescott, arizona, where trump just wrapped one of his hallies. arizona is the state they are most worried about slipping away by the end of the summer. they thought the years after tacks against john mccain had taken a toll on trump's ability

to win there. what does it feel like. i know you're at a rally which feels one way. what does the state feel like. >> reporter: this is a state where it is hard to make the political map work in donald trump's favor. if he loses the 11 electoral votes, it could be the situation in michigan and wisconsin and nebraska, arizona clinches it or north carolina or florida or arizona clinches it and that is why the president was up here in the more rural part of the state, prescott, arizona, population about 100,000 folks. and you mention martha mcsally, it is hard to separate one self from the president when it comes to your state and five years after he narrowly won here and two years after losing, she was back up ten minutes ago urging the crowd to stand by the president. she'll be on marine one heading down to tucson. simply here in the rural parts he has to turn out to make up for what we are seeing happening in the suburbs of the phoenix

and tucson areas. >> you know, i would hand out nicolle wallace sucks masks if some of the people behind you would wear them. it is so disturbing to see all of these people maskless in a state that's been so badly battered. i want to ask you about the mormon vote, vaughn. there is a -- i don't think it is a group that republicans like bush tock for granted but a group of voters like george bush and john mccain considered in their corner and not so this year and i think mitt romney is a walking, talking example of that. a large mormon part of the coalition of voters, in utah they do not like donald trump. they give mitt romney some political cover when he attacked this president. there is a large mormon vote in arizona as well that is a big faker in this election. talk about it. >> reporter: there is about 430,000 mormons here. about 6% of the state's

population. and you talk about mitt romney, how about jeff flake. the u.s. senator who was willing to speak out against donald trump. look at where he is. when he was running in that republican primary. he was down in polling and left that race there. this is not the republican party that the greater phoenix area and mormons have known. press cut was the home town of barry gold water. and john mccain was here on the eve of his presidential run but no longer is this the republican party of barry goldwater or john mccain. it is that of martha mcsally and donald trump. i was talking with bob worsely, a republican legislature and he chose to leave politics. i just got off the phone and he told me for the first time here in arizona among his fellow kitchen members there is quiet when it comes to conversation because of a willingness among the arizona mormons looking to

vote democratic. he told me we've never seen families split like this before. i've never seen so many friends of mine vote democratic. hillary didn't must they are type of persuasion. this is a population here that is frustrated. i talked with a morman family friend that said he's an ego maniac. and look at the 2018 results over where the morman temple is in mesa, around the mormon temple from 2016 to 2018, martha mcsally last support there. where donald trump even had it in 2016. and in my conversations with mormans around the greater phoenix area, there is true belief this could shift in the election here and in that 6% mormon population here could actually make an impact when we're talking about such a narrow race as the one that is here and expected to be in arizona, nicolle. >> and rick stengel, that is why

this matters. donald trump won by the narrow of electoral margins and couldn't afford to lose a sliver of his coalition. and that as why i've said we've spent too much time on the trump voterser but not enough on the assembled trump coalition. ba losing this part of the elect at, this part of the vote in arizona could break him. >> you know, the amazing statistic is that in 2016, he only got 56% of mormon voters. that is a much smaller percentage for example than he got among evangelicals. so he wasn't already a big hit with mormons. and the mormons in arizona, they're suburbanites. well the mormon suburban women are not liking him very much and they have a opposite because many will not vote for trrp so it may be a real avalanche

against him. >> they are not that into him. thank you both for joining us. we'll keep an eye on this part of the electorate. super interesting to me. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ♪ whoa! ♪ i feel good ♪ i knew that i would, now ♪ i feel good ♪ get a dozen double crunch shrimp for one dollar with any steak entrée. only at applebee's.

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suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. it's incredibly disturbing that the president of the united states ten days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial and execute me, ten days after that was uncovered, the president is at it again and inspiring and incentivizing and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism.

it is wrong. it's got to end. it is dangerous. not just for me and my family, but for public servants everywhere who are doing their jobs an trying to protect fellow americans. >> hi, again. everyo everyone, it is 5:00 in the east. donald trump's desperation showing himself into the worst position in decades so. he's returning to a tried and true tactic from the 2016 campaign. to try to reverse his sinking fortunes. >> have to get your governor to open up your state, okay. because schools have to be open, right? [ crowd chanting ] >> lock them all up. >> as the washington post reported on that, the chance of familiar refrain deplayed against political foes at trump campaign events came more than a week after authorities revealed

a foiled plot to kidnap gretchen whitmer. allegedly motivated in part by the belief that michigan's government was violated the constitution with its coronavirus restrictions. trump has repeatedly condemned whit per's pandemic response with calls to liberate michigan on his twitter feed. "the new york times" add this, quote, it was a stunningly reckless from a comment whose own fbi this month arrested 14 men plotting to kpap whitmer, a democrat and were captured on video with an array of weapons planning the crime. democrats have called out the president over the remarks but republicans are also worried about the impact on the political fortunes as donald trump's lagging poll numbers could have a huge effect on gop efforts to keep control of the senate. times add this, with republicans desperate to reframe the election as a choice on policy

differences, mr. trump is affectef ty ensuring that the campaign remains a referendum on his conduct. that is what alarmed strategistic that believe even the nomination of amy coney barrett is not restraint to self sabotage. sinking to a new low is where we start with some of the most favorite reporters and friends. former senator claire mccaskill is back with us john heilemann from the recount and co-host of showtimes the circus and jeremy bash from the department of defense, lucky for us, all three part of the family. jeremy, let me start with you. this seems, and i know it is a fools errand to say how could trump instigate further threats and violence against a sitting governor. simply for pryitrying to protecr

state's residents from a trragi pandemic but how you could insight violence against a sitting governor trying to protect her residents from a pandemic. >> nicolle, it is almost unfathomable that the president would align himself with domestic terrorists. and i know we're also going to talk about president trump aligning himself with the foreign adversary intelligence operation from russia. but with respect to michigan, not only is the president egging people on to jail opponents, resist a peaceful transfer of power in the inevitable event of his election loss, but he's giving a green light to those who would conduct violent attacks against public officials, against those who security officials who are sworn and who pledge their life and stand courageously to defend those those elected and public

officials, the president is absolutely sinking to the lowest common denominator by aligning himself with domestic terrorists. >> john heilemann, i think that all of our outrage feels spent and taps out sometimes. but when you look at today's headlines. you have dr. fauci on 60 minutes last night talking about how he and his wife had to speed walk with security. and then you see their life. out on an exercise walk with two security guards protecting them because they get death threats every day. and then you see a sitting governor whose crime in trump's view was being too aggressive in trying to protect citizens from the pandemic. also begging the president not to further endanger her life by instigating the white

supremacist and it almost called for any missing tool in the government or the congressional toolkit. what -- i know we have an election in two weeks but no matter what happens, he could still do a lot of harm win or lose between november and january. >> yeah. i mean, hi, nicolle. it is monday. i'm not usually with you on monday. it is nice to start the week with you and with my friends claire and jeremy. genuinely as we hurdle into the final two weeks where we think that all of the october surprises have to be played out. we've had them all. but given the way 2020 has gone, i'm assuming we'll have at least maybe a martian invasion between now and election day. i think it is never hurts to remind people of the context here. the president said liberate michigan. the president started this fire. right. he lit the fire.

he sparked the match and threw it on the kindling and then these wolverine militia domestic terrorist morons came up with a plot not just to kidnap the governor, and i hear it is a plot to kidnap, they were going to take her off in the woods in wisconsin and execute her like al qaeda style. that is the plan. so they may not make that stick as a matter of law. they were going to put her on trial in the woods. and you know the result of that trial. and donald trump lit the fire and law enforcement was able to douse the fire and here comes the president two weeks from election day trying to restart it. and then poor gasoline on top of it, on top of that. agree with you. i don't want -- i mean, it is so easy to be hyperbolic about donald trump and just get used to. we want to try to find the right way to talk about this. but that is -- he engaged inn

incitement to domestic terrorism. if the man had any moral sense or political sense, if the man, there is a reason why he's behind in michigan. the governor is more popular than he is. she's gotten a lot of people angry at her in michigan, no doubt. but the governor's approval ratings well north of donald trumps. and he's losing that state. and that is why. and so if there is no moral sense to it, there is no political sense to it, i don't know whether there is legal sense or some law that applying to this kind of behavior. if there is not, there should be. but, my god, it sends a chill down the spine to think if donald trump is willing to talk this way about gretchen wlhitme, after his role of what happened to her, what will he do now between election and day and not do after election days if things doan go his way. i find the only way to discuss it is disgusting but also

terrifying. >> claire, it is such sick, looking for a word that doesn't end with it, such sick stuff. an i think about our country's response to islamic terrorism and i was in the middle of it. and the bush policies, buckets of policies were incredibly polarizing. i'm not advocating them. the threat was same. it started with a "t" and it is called terrorism. and it blows my mind that we don't have a response to the threat of domestic terrorist. and we have a president who sits atop the executive branch who's former adviser elizabeth neumann described him as a obstacle. you used to serve on the senate homeland security committee. what should we be doing? >> well, what we should be doing is we should have a leader of this great nation that understands that urging people

to use extra judicial processes, whether it is kidnapping a governor and taking her out in the woods for a trial, and some form of physical harm, or whether him bragging about marshals shooting down someone in the street without a trial, you could get examples after example of how this supposed leader is dragging our country down. i mean, lower than a snake's belly with what he's doing. and you know what is really weird about this, nicolle, is you and i know what happens typically in the last two weeks of presidential campaigns. there is a meeting. and the brains in the campaign with the candidate, a small group, sit down and say, okay, here is what we have to do. we have to be uplifting. we have to be inspire people. we have to make people feel good about america. and most of all, we have to start pulling some of the voters

we lost back into our column. and the number one group of voters this man has lost are women. and you don't get women back by going out and behaving like a jerk. by dancing and playing the only song you could legally play over and over again because all of the other music in the world has been barred to you by the artist who thinks you're a jerk. so it is just unbelievable to me that he has no one around him, no one who could stop his most damaging tendencies and in the long run that will be good for our country, in the short run it is terribly painful to watch. >> his closing message is not remotely close, jeremy, to what claire is suggesting. it is around leading lock her up chants about gretchen whitmer who was the victim of what john heilemann described.

and sugging somehow that joe biden is a corrupt politician. one of the most vetted politicians in this country. you alluded to the arsenal being pointed at joe biden. talk about it a little bit. >> yeah, we need to talk about it nicolle. this looks like russian intelligence. this walks like russian intelligence and this talks like russian intelligence and this effort by rudy giuliani and steve bannon to cook up supposed dirts on joe biden looks like a classic russian playbook disinformation campaign. and let's talk recount exactly what happened. in july of 2019 whether president trump talked to zelensky, he said talk to rudy giuliani. and then giuliani goes to kiev in december of 2019 and meeted with and ray dierk hash.

that assessment is not my assessment, that the the assess. of the trump intelligence community leadership in august of this year saying that andre and russia intelligence were trying to denigrate joe biden and then in september steve mnuchin put out a statement that he is a known russian intelligence operative and has been for the last decade. so when the intelligence community goes in and warned donald trump that rudy giuliani is being worked over by intelligence and rudy giuliani comes up with emails probably hacked through a russian intelligence operation, we have to acknowledge that the fact that the president of the united states is supporting, is condoning is welcoming a russian intelligence operation in 2020. nicolle, this is collusion in plain sight. we don't need a special council, we don't need congressional investigations, the president is welcoming it with open arms. >> let me drill down on a couple

of things here. one only joe biden looks good in hacked text messages. if anyone read some of what came out, there were messages to his son in rehab and i think not a lot of people who look good in stolen communications that they have with the family member that have been peddled as you said by rudy giuliani. i want to just read some of the reportering. i don't want to amplify the disinformation but i want to read the reporting on how it came to be and who passed on it. and i think the chain of command that you laid out is important. rudy first sought to get another country to smear hunter biden and bur he's ma. they needed to protect the lives of their then we went to ron johnson who are really pressured chris wray in an excruciating way with the president on johnson's side not wrays. so they struck out.

the country with the gun against their head. ron johnson with chris wray pressure to help him. with inspector cluso, with an indicted steve bannon, they found this. so it is a highly implausible story. on the other side is the skepticism from even fox news. that before the story was in the new york post last week, this is from media. fox news was first approached by rudy giuliani to report on a tranche of files alechblged to have come from hunter biden's laptop. the news division chose not to run the story unless or until the sourcing and veracity of emails could be properly vetted. so when you look at how dubious this is, anyone that has seen 15 minutes of sean hannity knows what a big deal that reporting is. so my question for you john heilemann, isn't just what do we do with this? i think jeremy has made clear we shouldn't look at it as anything

other than a russian disinformation operation. butp even if you're open to it, the substance of it is still the story of joe biden loving his son as he struggled. >> yeah, well let's add one thing to your account there, nicolle, which is many the most extraordinary thing. that fox news passed on it is big. the new york post, which is the only place low enough to put this in print had a internal newsroom resolt. the person who wrote the story refwuzed to put his name on it and the person's name on the by line had no idea her name would be put on it. so you had an orphan bastard story that no one wants a part of it. its way corporate effort to be a conveyer belt for this trash that even at a tabloid newspaper owned by rupert murdoch, the journalists were like i don't want anything to do with it and the person who had their name on it said i don't have anything to

do with it. everybody is trying to get away from this radioactive turd as soon as possible and it is good to see the mainstream media treating it like a turd. and this is donald trump feddishizing 2016 again. >> totally. >> he plays it open in his mind the old quarterback remembering his glorys there 2016. trying to replay the 2016 playbook. instead of look her up, it is look him up and instead of crooked hillary it is crooked joe. this is not a winning strategy. is there anybody in america, truly, nicolle, anybody in america, i see it on my twitter feed all day long, there are a lot of maga trump fans who are spun up like crazy about it this story. but there is not a single person in america who is a persuadable voter in wisconsin or pennsylvania, you know what i

was going to vote for joe biden until i got a look at that ra o radioactive turd and now i'm with donald trump. this is the dumbest campaign strategy. it is a reductive and unoriginal and pathetic. this is what they think that the october surprise. to win him the election. it is just ridiculous. it is just absurd as a piece of political logic. toss not going to do anything for him other than getting the people who are voting for him to get more spun up in their tinfoil hats. >> i will have whatever john heilemann had before i came on the show. claire mccaskill, i want to -- we have actually some data to back that up. so donald trump, i'm not going to play it but i'm going to read it. donald trump in his first debate said this. hunter got thrown out of the military. he was thrown out dishonorable, discharged for cocaine use. biden said that is not true. my son like a lot of people at home you know had a drug

problem. he's overtaken it. he's fixed it an and worked on him and i'm proud of my son. do you know what happened after that debate. donald trump's numbers fell through the bottom. this attack doesn't work, as heilman is describing it, the political porn more that maga base. but it doesn't work with the people who he is suffering with. i want to read this too. because this is important. this is the human beings in the story. this is in the daily beast. he had a drug problem but the bet was that the rest of the america would think of addictions as corruptible and beyond hope and joe biden is at fault for loving his addict son. the trump world wants to make is to make joe biden morally deficient for loving an addict. this is made ironic by the fact that trump had an alcoholic brother and other members of the

trump family also struggle with substance abuse issues. the country sees this as a disease and the country understands this is a family that dealt with something that a majority of families have dealt with, addition there in some form. to follow on heilman's point, it doesn't work and it is actually damaging to donald trump. >> you know, first, let me associate myself with my friend john and his colorful language about what this story is. it is, who knows how many of these emails or texts are real. how many have been interspersed in that are totally fake. but let's rub it all down to the essence. donald trump believes he could win this election by attacking joe biden's son. now, let me go back to what i said a few minutes ago. women. women voters.

they are not going to go to donald trump's side when he is attacking joe biden's son. all of us have someone we love that has struggled with addiction. i don't know anyone in america, all of us have children that have done things that showed poor judgment from time to time. and all of us hope that everyone takes that in context and doesn't judge somebody running for office by that behavior. there has never been anything that has shown joe biden has done anything inappropriate, ever, around this. so i really believe that as long as donald trump keeps attacking joe biden's child, he'll continue to find limb self-in a deeper and deeper -- and by the way, have we checked on his children lately. he has this parade of children that are grifting off the white house that are making money off

his presidency in ways that are totally unethical and totally not normal. so it is not like he comes at this with clean hands. >> that is one way to put it. i'm going to stick a pen in that part of the conversation. you three have blown my mind so i'm going to ask you to stay over for another block. when we come back, former trump national security adviser john bolton doesn't think donald trump will go quietly. it is a move that is outrageous even for a president that spent four years being outrageous. plus trump is campaigning like it is 2016 and some democrats are worried that this election could turn out the same way. but as john heilemann was just saying, trump's old attack lines aren't packing the same punch against joe biden as they did four years ago. and later, with the fifth of the 40 million covid cases, donald trump will rather attack tony fauci than get a handle on

this virus. "deadline: white house" returns after this quick break. don't go anywhere. r this quick k don't go anywhere. i feel like we're forgetting something.

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let's be clear. trump will not leave graciously if he loses. le not leave graciously. whether he carries it to the extreme, i don't any we know. i think it is very troubling that he has said i can't lose unless there is fraud. of course he could lose in an honest election. an i think this is really on the leadership of the republican party. elected officials, private citizens, that if it is clear what the outcome is, it is up to republicans, not democrats, to say this is on us, he's got to go.

>> more important even than what was said who is saying it. that is john bolton with a dire warning that trump will not leave the white house graciously if he loses. and that it will be up to the republican party to make him leave. trump's unwillingness to commit to a peaceful transfer of power is one of the thousands and we mean thousands of ways he's undermined or altered the president and our very democracy. washington post published this astonishing list over the weekend compiled by activists and author amy sis of norms donald trump and his administration have broken week by week. she notes the selection on the page account for 1% of the more than 34,000 entries that she catalogued. we're back with claire mccaskill, john heilemann and jeremy bash. i have to say, claire, there were two things that i read this weekend that blue my mind other than the white house reporting and that is "the new york times"

sort of section against him for being a demagogue, and being anti-democr anti-democratic and this shows all of the ways that he has debased the presidency. and i remember saying this when president obama gave a speech at dnc. when i thought he was speaking through his deep well of pain, that any former president would feel watching donald trump. >> yeah, this is, this campaign, this election, is really probably pretty simple. it is -- does america want normal again? do we want to have a president that respects the norms of the institutions, that isn't constantly the victim and accusing everyone and everything in our government that we treasure of being the bad guys. we do have outrage fatigue. i think the media is warn slick

with all of the responsibility of covering all of the abnormal behavior. but at the end of the day, what joe biden represents more than anything else is -- i said to somebody the other day, donald trump is the most uncomfortable pair of shoes that you've had to wear and you've had to wear them for years and joe biden is like a comfortable pair of bedroom slippers that we could go on and go, ah, thank goodness that is over and we could get back to respecting our institution. s. if he tries to stay, he has no real friends in power and government. he has sycophants, but the military doesn't respect this man. they think he's terrible. the leaders in congress don't respect this man. they think he's terrible. the republican leaders think he's terrible. so he has to friends if he tries to defy what our law is and that is a peaceful transfer of power. >> you know, jeremy bash, it is

a great point. it might be the moment when the years long assault on a deep state in his imagination come home to roost. before he was inaugurated, he called the intelligence agencies he likened them to nazis and attacked the fbi including the current leader his own appointee. he's constantly maligning the intelligence community calling into question russian intel all of the time. and he's mad at bill barr because he won't, i don't know, indict hillary or whoever he wants indicted this week. what do you make of the scenario that john bolton is warning about. that he will not go graciously. >> well it is further evidence as if any were needed that donald trump is not a law and order president. he is undermined law and order. it is interesting because the president tried a number of attacks against joe biden including law and order and sleeping joe and his pro-china and now falling back on the lame

russian disinformation campaign that we were discussing. but with respect to what does a democracy do whether a president is de feetsed at the polls and refused to leave office, you asked earlier what tools do we have, we have go back to the constitution and the federalist papers, we have separation of powers and so we're learning on the courts but ultimately on congress to render the ultimate verde if donald trump tries to contest it or undermine the results. at end of the day it is read in the well of the house of representatives when nancy pelosi is speaker and i could not fathom a scenario if donald trump tried to steal this from joe biden, the members of congress willlet this happen. i would not advocate anything unpeaceful about the transfer of power. we have to go back to the basics. >> you know, john heilemann on the basics of how this is become front and center in the last 14

days of the campaign, i go back to the conversation at the beginning of the summer. if joe biden could connect the failures of the trump white house to control and protect the country from covid, to the economic despair that people are seeing everywhere you go. everywhere you go, there are shuttered store fronts. everywhere you go there are signs on most towns posts about where a local food bank could be found. every community is being inundated with requests for doan for food and clothes and from people that probably wish they could trade expensive cars for food to put on the table. this economic downturn from covid took so many families by surprise and once joe biden connected that to the economic pain people feel, i feel like that is the moment that this slipped away from trump. >> i think that is right, nicolle. to an extent. look, there are still if i'm in the biden campaign, i'm looking

for things to be nervous about, that trump continues to perform better on the economy than he has any right to under the circumstances and so i know they feel like they made a lot of progress on that argument. er that not where they want to be with the kind of lead on the economy that they have on many other things. the fundamental reality is that covid is too big for donald trump to get away from. i think in the end that is the zwroir -- the story of the election. the way george w. bush changed the subject to leadership to john kae john kerry and barack obama changed the subject away from things that people didn't like and focus on mitt romney and disqualified mitt romney. donald trump needs to change the subject and not be about him and being about joe biden and knock joe biden out. he obviously failed to knock joe biden out and as jeremy said he tried to a bunch of strategies a

and bunch of tactics but none of them worked but part of the reason why he wasn't able to change the subject is because covid is too big of a subject. it is trump's failure on this thing, 220,000 dead americans and the first wave has never ended and we're about to have the third surge in the first wave with horrifying numbers on the horizon. we're looking at the next two weeks, there is all interesting data about the ways in which trump's standing gets hurt politically as covid cases rise and in individual congressional districts and counties and individual states. you look at the battleground states, where we're about to see a big surge, we're seeing a big surge in covid cases across the battleground states, that just turned out to be so large an issue it is impossible for trump to turn the page and turn peoples attention away and the failure is the thing that if he loses, that is why he will have

lost. >> i think that is right. we'll be talking about it for a long time. thank you for making me laugh and making me cry. i thank you all so much for spending some time with us today. when we return, has donald trump recycles his attacks from 2016, democrats feeling deja vu may have reason to breathe a little easier this time around. "deadline: white house" returns after a quick break. break. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, little things can become your big moment.

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this is hillary clinton's agenda too, to release the violent criminals from jail. she wants them all released. >> they're going to release 4 thun thousand criminals on to your streets and into your neighborhoods. if crazy joe becomes president. >> it is one more way that clintons have surrendered american prosperity to china and so many other countries. >> biden has repeatedly surrendered your jobs to china and other countries. >> it is all about hiding criminal enterprise and that is what it is about. >> and as far as i'm concerned, the biden family is a criminal enterprise. it really is. >> remember, we're competing in a rigged election. this is a rigged election, folks. okay. >> we have a rigged election. it is a rigged election. it is the only way we're going to lose. >> it is a broken record. some of donald trump's attacks on joe biden sound familiar to you? it is because you've heard them all before.

they're the same ones he lobbed against hillary clinton. our friend from the associated press jonathan lemire writes it this way, the president's attempted to recycle attacks he used on hillary clinton, that have so far failed to effectively damage democratic joe biden and trump has found himself dwelling in the echo cha chamber talking to a smaller portion of the electorate. jonathan lemire joins us now. your piece made us go and look for the tape and when you play them side-by-side, it is like he had four years and didn't have time between i think he's named about 11 fox shows that he watched regularly, he could have miss the one one day and come up with a new strategy for trying to defeat a new opponent. but he didn't. it is amazing. >> it is deja vu all over again. this is a candidate in a campaign that couldn't adjust.

that they thought this year coming off of impeachment that they would be running against a socialist, bernie sanders orks, or joe biden and use the same attack lines they used against hillary clinton but it wasn't worked for a couple of key reasons. first and foremost, none of the attacks have any sort of story line or legs to dominate the discourse like the pandemic. as of march, it is the only thing that has been the sort of carried this election. it is not a choice election. it is a referendum on how the president has handled the pandemic that killed well over 215,000 people. but secondly he's facing a very different candidate. joe biden has far better like ability numbers than hillary clinton ever did. and the same attacks alleging personal corruption or inappropriate conduct just simply having carried anywhere near the weight that they did against hillary clinton and part of that should be noted because

of sexism. >> you know, jonathan, i had this conversation with a trump adviser about this rep tilly an survival mode and the recessing of donald trump's and this person said that it is that part of his brain that tried to take him out, by getting hy getting him impeached to try to dirty him up, there was part of donald trump that knew that joe biden is threatening him in a general election. do you buy that. >> i do. his advisers have said as much. prior to this year. back in 2019 even. hence the president's efforts to ask ukraine to help investigate the bidens. but also because he saw in biden someone who was far more moderate than other democrats, so his efforts to be a creature of socialist didn't work but he saw in biden someone to appeal to the trump voter that matters so much to him. the white working class voters

that he pulled away from the democrats and away from obama in '08 and '12 and won in '16 and feels that biden is best situation atin states that coul decide this election, particularly pennsylvania. >> i want to read your great reporting. you write this, the trump campaign believes that as a viable of narrow path to victory, it has tried to repair his standing it w seniors and believes the president could find his way to 270. again by winning the sun belt, north carolina and aersz amaerz pennsylvania. but some alleys and aides believe the inability to defy biden and resuscitating old talking points is a failure exacerbated by a president who can't stay on message. trump never missed an opportunity to prove his own skeptical advisers correct. because today, what is it 15

days out, he has spent the whole news cycle attacking tony fauci, not joe biden. >> yeah, i was going to say that story published this morning, he's done a nice job today making it that much more appropriate. where he has. this is the moment where he's attacking dr. fauci and attacking the media. he hasn't been able to stay on message. the came jupaign a week ago was telling reporters that they want to close on any point on the economy. many felt they were better off today than four years ago rather than the pandemic. that is what they want to talk him about. but instead he's talking about anything but. and proving he's an uncontrollable candidate. and they do feel like there is a path to victory. and the states are pretty close. it is not impossible and that is why biden said don't get

complacent, this is still a race. an it does go back to your point. he still has to beat biden somewhere in the great lakes states and likely pennsylvania which is biden's home state and what trump feared all along i ate will have a hard time keeping this time around. >> and it is a great piece of reporting and trump only made it truer, truthier with his actions today. thank you for spending some time with us on it. when we come back, why the next six to 12 weeks could be the darkest part of the pandemic according to experts. "deadline: white house" back after a quick break. after a quick break.

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

together. proposition 16 provides equal opportunities, levelling the playing field for all of us. vote yes on prop 16. this morning the whorld surpassed 40 million coronavirus infections. the most deaths and cases are still right here in the u.s. we're now more than 8.2 million americans have been infected and more than 221,000 souls have been lost. experts fear we're heading into our third peak already this year. over the last two weeks cases in 38 states and washington, d.c. have increased by more than 10%. the average of numbers of new cases in the u.s. is now more than 52,000 new cases a day. and the number of american lives lost more than 700 per day. joining our conversation, and

medical contributor dr. lippy roy. i want to ask you bluntly, what are we doing wrong. >> it is so good to see you. i think part of the frustration that we and the public health field and the medical field are that the advice, the preventive health measures, the evidence-based recommendations that we've been providing now for, like, seven, eight months are really falling on deaf ears. and our political leaders who should really be listening to -- to leaders like dr. anthony fauci, you know, all this advice is -- it's just falling on deaf ears. the behavior is tone deaf. if not almost petulant at times. oh, i don't want to wear a mask. it makes you look weak. you don't have to worry about this. this argument i've been hearing from a lot of people on -- who tend to be, say, trump supporters say, oh, this virus has got a 99% survival rate, right?

so that kind of language is misconstruing data. first of all, that in and of itself is incorrect. it's about 2% to 3% death rate. but the problem is it's the number of people who are going to get sick. and as you can see underneath why white coat, i bust out a sweater. i don't bring that up as a fashion statement, but to point out that winter is coming. what does that mean? cold weather will drive more people indoors. when you're indoors, the virus will spread even more amongst people. we have to really worry about our health care workers, front line doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists. they're going to be bombarded this winter season with covid-19, influenza, other respiratory viruses, not to mention, nicolle, heart disease, strokes, cancers and all the other illnesses. >> let me show you what dr. michael osterholm, who we turn to, along with you, for advice and guidance on the pandemic said yesterday about what we're in for this winter.

>> we do have vaccines and therapeutics coming down the pike, but when you actually look at the time period for that, the next 6 to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic. vaccines will not become available in any meaningful way until early to third quarter of next year. >> and dr. schaffner, another expert like yourself, who we get to turn to, told cnbc that he expects the u.s. to experience a substantial third wave of infections. my question for you is, joe biden has a totally different approach. he has -- obviously he models good behavior, but that's really the tip of the iceberg. he says -- he writes this today to floridians. i've had a plan to confront this pandemic since march. it starts with listening to the scientists and getting the virus under control. we'll make testing free, quick and available, we'll make treatment free, too, as soon as we can have a safe and effective vaccine, we'll ensure everyone

can get it without having to pay a dime. i guess my question for you is, can this be undone? i mean, is -- is there a point where if we have a change in leadership and joe biden has said the first call he would make would be to tony fauci. donald trump today called him an idiot. is there -- is there a turnaround and is it like turning around, you know, what do they say, an ocean liner. it doesn't happen on a dime. what could we see as -- as reason for hope if we have a change in leadership? >> yeah, that's such a wonderful way of framing that question, nicolle. the short answer is, yes, that's the good news, we can actually turn the ship around. yes, it's a big ship. we're talking over 300 million people in this country. but, you know, that image that you just showed along with that quote and that headline, it was vice president biden and he was wearing a mask. this is the key, nicolle. you need our leaders, particularly our president, to really endorse the evidence-based measures that we have. which includes masks.

the president's making a mockery of public health officials, including dr. fauci, and that's what needs to change, nicolle. >> what do you think that people should be prepared for, not just if they get sick with covid and end up in the hospital, but what are our hospitals facing? i mean, obviously if you fall and get hurt or you have a heart attack or your child falls off a jungle gym, that puts you in an emergency room that if it's overcrowded because of covid, that's suddenly life and death for you, too. >> 100%. and in new york where i am right now, april, we went through a hellish period and after that in the summertime, texas, other states in the south and then the midwest, we're seeing hospitals all over the country being bombarded, overwhelmed. nurses, doctors, being pushed to the limit. working really hard. beds being full. there are some places i think in south or north dakota where they just have one or two icu beds. this is what's going to happen, nicolle. all these people with all these types of illnesses are going to be coming into the hospitals and

it's going to get worse in the winter. i agree with professor osterholm. i mean, the next two to three months are going to be very dark, if we do not change our behaviors, if we do not physically distance and wear the masks. these measures work. and, frankly, i think they need to be mandated. we have seat belts, right? seat belts are mandated by law, right? i have to wear a seat belt. why can't we mandate this? it's about leadership and making the right decisions to save lives, nicolle. >> dr. lipi roy, thank you for spending some time with us. you not only erase some of the disinformation in the world but you always inform us. thank you so much for spending some time with us today. finally, as we do every day, remembering lives well lived. her name was diana, but people just called her "day." she was born in colombia. when she was 6, her father, a cab driver, was robbed at gunpoint and kidnapped.

but miracles do happen. he somehow managed to escape. it wasn't long after that that the family decided to move to the u.s. so there they were a family of six crammed into a one-bedroom apartment in queens. day's parents worked themselves to the bone in order to afford private school educations for all their children. it was a sacrifice day did not waste. she was the first in her family to graduate from college and she went on to law school and was so beloved by her peers that they chose her to deliver the valedictorian speech at graduation. day was bright. she was passionate. she loved to laugh. she was a lover and perhaps above all a fierce, fierce friend. day died of the coronavirus in august at the young age of 38. our hearts are broken for day's family, for her husband. the wonderful is certainly a lesser place without her in it. we will be right back. i'm kalvin, and there's more to me than hiv.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicolle. thank you so much. and welcome to "the beat." i am ari melber and we are 15 days out from election day as donald trump plays defense in arizona, a state that republicans typically need to win the white house and where trump is basically in a dead heat with joe biden in the latest polling. the president still struggling to find a closing argument that's focused on americans' daily lives. he's under fire today instead for stoking autocratic rhetoric against democrats. meanwhile, biden doing prep for the final debate on thursday. now, among the many things that make this year's election different, here is an interesting one. right now we have more information about early ballots than ever before in american history. that's because of the pandemic with so many more rolling in.