it. the hidrosonic missile the president referred to is actually hypersonic. it turns out there is no ballistic missile that also promotes oral hygiene and healthy gums. that is our broadcast for this monday night as we all start this new week together with thanks to you for spending this time with us. on behalf of all my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. i'm happy to have you here. we are 15 days out from the presidential election. there may or may not be a final presidential debate this week. the president today openly mused about how he could illegally extort bribes in the form of campaign donations from big companies who want favors from his administration. the president today openly in front of a crowd of people suggesting that exxonmobil might want a couple of controversial permits and me might green light

those permits in exchange for exxon spending 25 million to boost his campaign. exxon later in the day had to tweet publicly to let everyone know they're not actually planning on doing this. this was just the president music out loud hypothetically about him committing that crime. he couldn't actually commit it, nor did exxon. they just wanted everybody to know. that said the president today did call his election opponent a criminal and said if he had a better attorney general his opponent would already be locked up in jail. and the president also said today reporters are criminals if they don't report his claims his election opponent is a criminal who ought to be in jail. all in all, this has been a pretty normal day now in what used to be until recently the world's leading example of a mature rule of based democracy. all we know all it takes is one presidency like this, and all these other sad sack maybe dem ocryes around the world

wondering if maybe they'll be a hunter this year and no longer feels weird to prepare for election day violence. it takes one presidency, one of two major parties happy to go along with a lock her up thing. less than 4 years of us not adjusting to what the rest of the world recognizes as authoritarian drift and all that means for nepotism and the rule of law. turns out it doesn't take much. it does not take much time to reduce us to the kind of country we used to lecture on democratic norms and regular order and the impartial administration of justice, even politicize violence by national office holders, right? we used to lecture little countries all over the world about that stuff. now it's us. and we are 15 days out from deciding if we want to change that course while the country marches straight back up toward another even higher peak in

covid cases. the president is now holding multiple in-person rallies per day, including these two beauties today in arizona where there were almost no masks to be seen and where people were absolutely packed in because that's the way the president likes it, pandemic or not. to that end, here's something new. this is exclusive to us. this is the latest ad that is about to be launched by the dnc in these last two weeks of the campaign while the president keeps doing these no-mask, crowded events. we obtained an early copy of this ad. nobody has seen this publicly before now. i think it's newsworthy. watch this. >> he swore an oath to protect us, but now he's on a reckless campaign tour infecting us. >> i want to kiss everyone. >> holding potential superspreader events in state after state, dancing as the country suffers, too politically weak to deliver new stimulus relief, too selfish to save

american lives. no plan to fight the virus and now a third wave is coming. had enough? >> i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> had enough? that is the new covid-themed ad from the dnc. we got an early copy of that. that's the first time anybody has seen that anywhere. as much as the trump campaign does not want this election to be about the coronavirus and the disastrously failed u.s. response to it under president trump, the president today publicly moaning and complaining about how much the news media wants to talk about the coronavirus and the huge new surge in cases in this country. he's complaining about that like it's some sort of plot against him and not just something happening in this country. but as much as the president and his campaign don't want the campaign to be about covid, when this is what's happening in the country 15 days out from the election and the president and

his campaign really are holding a string of high covid risk events like no other entity in the whole country after the president himself was just hospitalized for it, yes, covid is going to be the basis on which the election is held inevitably. there's no getting away from it. today in florida where early voting started, the tampa bay bay "times" laid out his plan for tackling covid and making this argument to florida's many, many older citizens that maybe president trump isn't totally committed to looking out for you. biden says in his op-ed, quote, one day before we cross the threshold of 200,000 deaths, president trump held a rally and insisted that covid-19 only impacts, quote, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. he said it, quote, affects virtually nobody. biden then continues, think about that. who was the president talking

about when he said it affects virtually nobody? he was talking about seniors, seniors who worked hard their entire lives and deserve security, respect, and peace of mind in their golden years. joe biden making his case in the "tampa bay times" today, as floridians started voting in huge numbers early in person today. of course not everybody who votes in florida is an older person, but i think the combination of the vulnerability of older americans to covid, the rank incompetence of this administration to get this under control at all, the president calling older americans who get covid virtually nobody, and let it be noted the president trying to push through a new supreme court justice right before the election who won't even say if she thinks medicare and social security are constitutional. according to amy coney barrett, medicare and social security may not be constitutional. she doesn't want to say. the president in the midst of this pandemic trying to push through a supreme court nominee

at the very last second who is not only publicly and vociferously hostile to the affordable care act by which tens of millions of americans have their health insurance coverage, he's agnostic as to whether we should have medicare as a country at all. i think the polling right now is close in florida, but particularly with older voters in florida, the biden campaign thinks they have the better case to make to those voters in these closing two weeks. so we shall see. in terms of looking at the polling right now, i mean, choose your own adventure in terms of how you want to look at polling averages. i do recommend you look at polling averages instead of individual polls. "the new york times" polling average right now, they say the polling average for high-quality polls is currently biden plus 4 over trump in florida.

but they also -- if you have anxiety about what the polls mean this time given how wrong they were in 2016, the "times" does this handy thing where they say if the polls in florida this year are as wrong this year as they were in florida in 2016, they also give you a polling average that adjusts for that. if we adjust for how badly wrong the polls were in florida in 2014, they say if you factor that in, that would mean that biden is closer to plus 1 over trump in florida right now, not plus 4. that said, the pollsters say they learned from their mistakes in 2016 and they won't be nearly as bad this year. who knows? take it all with many, many grains of salt at this point, if you do care strongly about what's going to happen in this election. with 15 days left, my only advice to you is to prognosticate less. prognosticate less, speculate less, vote and volunteer and donate more. do the things you can do.

don't worry about the stuff. it's your last chance to change what's going to happen rather than worry about how well people are predicting well or not. toward that end, there's some encouraging news in terms of americans getting off the couch and pitching in to bolster democracy for this election. we're starting to see headlines like this from different pockets all over the country as people start to volunteer in record numbers to be poll workers. this is something that some of the federal agencies responsible for ensuring the integrity of the election have suggested that people do if they're able. this is something president obama has suggested people do if they're able. people volunteering to help out at voting locations on election day. we're seeing headlines like this all around the country. this is from wdtn, local tv station in ohio, about poll workers in montgomery county, ohio. jan kelly says they had so many people reach out to be a poll worker, that they haven't gotten to answer all the calls. they don't have enough poll

workers all over ohio, but in those two counties, they got lots. that's a good sign. this is from erie county in new york. local elections supervisor there saying, quote, looks like we're going to have plenty of people this election day. we've been overwhelmed with requests and had last of requests from first-time people. this is from the philadelphia inquirer, people volunteering to be poll workers in record numbers in philadelphia and in the philly suburbs. across the state, huge numbers of pennsylvanians, many of them younger and first time poll workers have enlisted to check in voters on voting day. so many thousands of applicants have signed up in philadelphia and its suburban counties that elections officials are in the unusual position of having a surplus. again, fantastic news out of pennsylvania. here's virginia. election officials in

lunnenberg, buckingham and cumberland and prince edward counties in virginia saying it looking more likely they'll have a surplus of poll workers come election day. here's madison, wisconsin. madison poll workers sign up in droves ahead of november election. city of mad, wisconsdison, wisc hired an unprecedented 6,000 poll workers this fall in anticipation for this fall in anticipation for the upcoming november 3rd election. that's a total that dwarfs recent election cycles. the city the clerk's office says applications will no longer be considered because all 6,000 positions in madison have been filled. this year's turnout almost doubling that of past presidential election cycles according to city officials. that's madison, wisconsin. that said, elsewhere in wisconsin, they still need more folks to volunteer.

there are about 50 other communities in wisconsin that still need more volunteers. if you are listening to me from wisconsin right now, if you are watching this from wisconsin, you should figure out whether your locality and where you live might be one of the places that needs more poll workers. if you are able to volunteer, your country needs you. also, there's specific parts of ohio that need more poll workers to volunteer as well. some counties are fine. lots of people are volunteering to serve. most counties, in fact, in ohio have enough poll workers, but according to the state, out of the 88 counties in ohio, there are 16 counties that still need more people to come forward and volunteer. so more still to be done, but it did it. it is heartening to see so many of our fellow americans stepping up, not in a partisan way necessarily, but in a small "d" democratic way to do their part to make sure the election goes okay. if you are fit and healthy and not at high risk for covid, if you can be the election

volunteer so the sweet old lady who usually does it can stay home and be safe, then your country thanks for doing it. the total number of americans who already cast their ballots is close to 30 million nationwide now. the number is growing by the millions each day. in texas alone where the polling average is so close it may be somewhere around a two-point race between biden and trump. as of today, almost 25% of all registered voters in the state of texas have cast their ballots already. that's crazy. what that means in practical terms for the campaign is that there are fewer and fewer people every day now who are going to vote and who can still potentially be persuaded by something new. if you already cast your ballot, you're off the table in terms of being persuadable, either by one of the campaigns that you like or don't like, or something in the news that might nudge your vote either way. between 25 and 30 million americans, their vote is already off the table in terms of

persuasion and already banked in terms of your vote counting, which is great. but with that many people early voting, campaigns have to figure out what's the best way to marshal and spend all of the remaining resources between now and november 3rd. right now biden is ahead in the polls both nationally and in most swing states. take the polls with a grain of salt, you know, but it's true. if biden is this far ahead, as the polls say, biden doesn't need another debate right now to try to change the course of the campaign. he doesn't need to change his message dramatically to change the course of the campaign. from the biden campaign's perspective, things are going well for them that they're happier because they don't want anything to change over the next 15 days. in terms of whether or not there's going to be a third debate, well, president trump backed out of the second debate. there's only been one debate so far, and that's the first one. president trump's performance in the first debate was so disastrous and his polling cratered so immediately after, i'm sure they wouldn't mind a

second sip of tea. but there's a question whether or not there will be a third debate this week. i'm sure the biden campaign is confident given how president trump behaved in debate one. but they don't need things to change to go their way. the president had the terrible first debate, he bailed on the second debate last week. i think it shouldn't be overlooked that last week the president admitted he broke the rules that stipulated he needed a covid test on the day of the first debate. the president was in the hospital hospitalized for what appeared to be a pretty significant covid symptoms within days of the first debate. the president now won't say whether or not he actually followed the rules and got tested the day of that debate. he says maybe he did have that test, maybe he didn't, he doesn't know. him breaking the rules in that

first debate in that way should presumably have some sort of consequence, right? if biden wanted to opt out of debate three, that seems like reason enough. today president trump's campaign wrote an open letter complaining to the commission on presidential debates about the rules his campaign already agreed to. they also weirdly in this letter to the commission, they complained that this final debate -- they were promised, they said, promised that this final debate that's coming up this week would be about foreign policy and nothing else. now they want all the other announced topics dropped. that's not true. the third debate was never promised to them or to anyone to be all about foreign policy. that is something the trump campaign made up. the commission said from the outset that the moderator of the third and final debate would choose the topics herself and announce them in advance. that's what has happened. but the trump campaign is lying about that, saying they were promised it would be all foreign policy. they're complaining about that hoping nobody remembers the real story. it seems a little desperate. the president today, of course,

also started talking smack, started making personal attacks against kristen welker, the widely respected white house correspondent said to be the moderator for the debate. that kind of whining and complaining in advance and lying in advance about both the debate commission and the moderator, that's, like, you know, standard issue trump campaign tactics, working the refs ahead of the contest. but now with the late-breaking news tonight about what's supposed to happen with the third and final debate this week, i mean, let's see what happens. "the new york times" reports tonight the commission on presidential debates actually is going to change the debate format a little bit to try to keep it from turning into another 10,000-car pileup like the president careened us all into the first debate. this is how they reported it tonight. quote, as in the first debate, each candidate will be allotted two minutes of speaking time to

initially answer the moterator's questions. but while each candidate is using that two minutes, quote, his opponent's microphone would be turned off in an attempt to ensure an uninterrupted response. after the disastrous first debate, the commission had said they would consider additional measures to keep the debate functioning, including the rule that each candidate gets two minutes to answer before being interrupted. that means they warned this is coming, but now they actually made the change. the biden campaign has no need for this debate. the trump campaign needs the debate, but they're so invested in the public narrative that the president is the victim and he needs everything to go his own way that, of course, this is a perfect excuse for them to quit the debate too. so, you know, the night is young. anything could happen. stay with us. we've got lots to come tonight, including who knows what is going to develop on this debate issue now that the commission on

presidential debates has announced that the microphone for the opposing candidate will be cut off while the other candidate gets his two minutes uninterrupted. who knows what will evolve from each of the campaigns in response to that? we've also got a report from the great state of wisconsin coming up. we've got jeremy bash live on that surprise news today of a bunch of russian military intelligence officers getting hit with frad charges in the u.s. for election interference. we've got lots to come. stay with us. n interference we've got lots to come stay with us

hi, my name is melissa rush. i'm a nurse in the covid medical unit. it has been quite an experience. we started off small scale, seeing patients who are being ruled out for covid, now seeing they were walking, talking,

independent. and now we're seeing people on high amounts of oxygen, needing to be repositioned, needing to be reintubated, needing to be on large amounts of oxygen. n-95 masks do not absorb tears when you're at a bed side removing somebody, letting their family face time them to say good-bye. and you sit with them as they take their last breath. it is not something i ever thought i'd be doing as a nurse during a pandemic. and we're seeing it more and more frequently. >> my name is david eggman. i've worked at icus for 20 years. i was volunteering in a covid icu. we had it pretty darn easy in may, june, and july in north central wisconsin.

since august it's gotten bad. it's getting much worse. we have many patients who have come in here and their last words before we put a breathing tube in are they didn't realize it was as bad as it was. they thought they were doing what they could to protect themselves. we had several people come in and be very sick that all they did was want to see their grandparents. i'm a grandparent, i would like to see my grandchildren. this is larger than that. by wearing a mask, you're protecting them as well as yourself. please, if you do nothing else, please start wearing masks. thank you. >> this has been a really crazy time to be a nurse, especially an icu nurse. you know, in the beginning in the spring we had tons of support from the communities, we had the blue army, hashtag #bluearmy. we had people putting blue hearts in their windows and blue porch lights on. i still have mine on. and then over the summer it kind of slowed. now we're at the part where

we've never been busier. we've literally never been busier. and i think for the most part the community has still been supportive. but i feel like we're kind of falling off a little bit with our support. and i think we really need the support. it's hard walking into these shifts every day and into the hospital every day, seeing some of these people just not progress, seeing multiple deaths, multiple days in a row. it's really hard to try to stay positive when the community itself isn't really -- got your back. there's some people who've been really resistant to the whole covid world. they don't believe it exists. they don't see what we see. there's nothing political about these people dying. >> there's nothing political about these people dying. those health care workers from wisconsin, wisconsin, of course, one of the states that's having

a really hard time right now, state seeing record numbers of cases and hospitalizations. some hospitals being stretched dangerously thin in wisconsin right now. but it's all over the place. nearly 30 states have seen more than a 25% increase in case numbers in the last 14 days. in utah this weekend, the largest hospital in the state overtopped its icu capacity. that hospital drafting in overnight, overtime doctors and nurses for their overrun icu as they scramble to convert other bed space into intensive care capability. north dakota continues to have an incredibly difficult time. north dakota ranks first in the country for the number of new cases for capita and it's just been an inexorable ride. today that state recorded its 12th straight day of active cases reaching a record high 12

days in a row. north dakota's governor, of course, has resisted instituting any sort of statewide mask order because he keeps saying it wouldn't matter that people wouldn't follow it even if he did it. tonight fargo became the first city in north dakota to implement a mask mandate. in south dakota where the republican governor there has refused to order any statewide covid restrictions after record numbers of cases and hospitalizations, the mayor of sioux falls is telling people to quote, wear a dang mask saying he needs them to do more. he's got to do something at the city level if they're not going to do something at the state level. states across the country are breaking record after record at this point as the president continues to downplay the virus. today he called dr. anthony fauci another career scientist involved in the u.s. public health response, he called them idiots. as much controversy and scandal as there is on this at the federal level, on the front lines in the states and in our counties and cities, health care workers are fully engaged right

now, as much nonsense and fighting over the disastrous federal response, on the front lines, the health care workers, the doctors, the nurses, the pulmonary specialists, the housekeeping staff, people who are dealing with the covid surge into our hospitals, those folks are more engaged on this than ever before, and they're doing it now still without any federal leadership, but also now in a lot of cases without the kind of community support they used to get earlier this year. joining us now is dr. paul casey, the emergency department director in green bay, wisconsin. appreciate you stepping away to talk with us. >> thank you, rachel. it's an honor. >> we've seen some testimonials, video diaries from health care workers, a lot of reporting how resources at the hospital have been stretched to accommodate this influx of patients. what do you think the country should know right now about how things are going in wisconsin and how you all are coping with what has been a really steep rise in cases?

>> so we are currently experiencing an amazing rise in coronavirus cases over the past month. we didn't have a second wave, we're in a second wave right now. on friday we had 3,800 new covid cases in the state of wisconsin. we know that 6% of covid patients will ultimately need to be admitted, so that means 7, 10, 14 days we'll have 228 patients from a single day who are going to need hospitalization where our bed capacity is already close to being maxed out. i've been a doctor for 34 years and i have never seen the amount of suffering i've seen in a short period of time. i've never seen in my career a time where an entire ward, 20, 30, 40 beds is filled up with patients with the same disease. people try to compare covid-19 with influenza. we admit more patients per day

for covid-19 pneumonia than typically we admit in a whole influenza season. this is not at all like influenza. >> you talk about 20, 30, 40 patients all in the same ward all suffering with the same serious illness. when we saw the kinds of peaks we saw early in the pandemic in new york, in new jersey and the northeast when things got so bad for those hospitals, the whole country got concerned not only about the pandemic taking off, but about the toll it was taking on health care workers, them putting themselves at risk and then working themselves to the point of exhaustion. doing that in february and march when this was brand-new almost feels like a different ask than asking health care workers to do that now in october when it has been a year of stress and a year of building and a year of dealing with at least some amount of this. i can't imagine.

you and your colleagues just must be exhausted. it must be hard to keep up the pace. >> we are starting to get tired, however, health care workers are troopers. we're in this to help people. we do whatever we can to help anybody. so the difference between the first wave and the second wave, at least in our community is during the first wave we shut down our entire hospital. we canceled clinics and stopped doing elective surgeries, so we got tremendous capacity and more health care workers to care for these covid patients. what we learned from that, however, was people suffered from that and didn't get their colonoscopies, breast cancer screening and hip replacements, so in may we opened back up to full service. we no longer have extra staff to pull in to care for covid patients when we're short because all the staff are doing their usual jobs. we're taking care of those 20, 30, 40 covid patients in addition to a full hospital capacity. that's the big difference and

that's why this time it's so different. >> do you think that you're in a situation in wisconsin where you're going to have to put out the kind of call for assistance that new york did, for example, early on? that you're going to need the call in additional staffers to bring in people from outside your usual area in terms of bringing on new staff? >> we hopefully won't get there. we have planned out three different scenarios for expected covid patients based on the r0 that predicts how many patients will get infected. we had to start using some traveling nurses and respiratory therapists, and the other problem is that we have patients out on -- not patients, but health care workers out on quarantine because they themselves have been exposed to covid. so we hope we don't have to go there and we're preparing to not do that. but we may have to go there. >> dr. paul casey, emergency

department medical director at bellin hospital in green bay, wisconsin. sir, you and your colleagues i know are working harder than is possible. thank you so much for your time tonight. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> all right. we got much more to come tonight. stay with us. stay with us time to start brushing with parodontax toothpaste?

if your gums bleed when you brush, the answer is yes. the clock may be ticking towards worse... parodontax is 3x more effective at removing plaque, the main cause of bleeding gums parodontax the rx crafted by lexus. lease the 2020 rx350 for $409 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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. i'm jerome gage. i'm a full-time lyft driver. when this pandemic first started, i bought my own ppe because uber and lyft didn't provide it. these companies have been exploiting drivers like me for years. now prop 22 denies us basic rights

like unemployment benefits and sick time. uber and lyft are billion-dollar companies, and they still won't let drivers get access to unemployment benefits. that's just wrong. tell uber and lyft to stop exploiting their drivers. vote no on prop 22. here's a story for you. may 2017 voters in france went to the polls to elect a new french president. just like in our election, the year before then russian intelligence agencies in the russian government played hard in the french election that year. russian-owned websites were pushing outlandish rumors about the centrist candidate, emmanuel macron. those rumors were then processed into hit pieces in russian state media outlaws. macron's rival was a far-right candidate named marie le pen.

so it was the neo fascist party running against macron. her party was blank rolled by a russian state-controlled bank. marine le pen went to moscow and met with vladimir putin at the kremlin during the campaign. i mean, this was not subtle. but it was, you know, too much for russia to pass up a divisive, racist, far-right fascist candidate injecting chaos into the elections in a major european democracy in 2017? that's like catnip to russia, right? they want to undermine democracy everywhere they want to undermine western countries in general however they can. but russia saved its boldest move for the eve of that election.

just two days before the vote, russian hackers dumped tens of thousands of files online, 9 gigabytes of stolen emails and other information all hacked from emmanuel macron's campaign. and that might have become the dominant news story of the final weekend of that campaign before french voters went to the polls. it might have actually ended up upending that election if it were not for a quirk of french law which imposes a media blackout on anything relating to the campaign for a full day before voting starts all the way through until polls close on election day. that blackout period in french law precedes this whole scandal with russia messing with the french election but it ended up saving the day. the material that was hacked got posted online in france just hours before that media blackout period began, just minutes before the blackout began at midnight that night, the macron campaign issued a statement that the hackers inserted forged, fake documents into the hacked, stolen material. they pleaded with the media to not report on that junk. and the media didn't.

they stuck to the blackout rules. and in the end, emmanuel macron beat the far-right neofascist, marine le pen, by more than 30 points. and there's a couple of reasons for us to be thinking about sort of relearning the story of that 2017 french election right now. one is that the intelligence community is raising the alarm that russian intelligence is executing an operation just like the one they did in france on us right now. the exposed biden scandal that rudy giuliani has been shopping, the scandal he managed to get printed in the "new york post" which president trump has been gleefully promoting ever since, including posing with a copy of that paper in the oval office, that junk that giuliani has been promoting is being investigated as potentially part of a hostile foreign influence operation illegally targeting our election. and the intelligence community is investigating this, johnny on the spot, in part because they

saw this coming in advance. this was in "the new york times" last week. quote, the "times" reported last january that the ukrainian company where hunter biden was once on the board, burisma, was hacked by the same intelligence unit that hacked the democratic national committee in 2016. last month intelligence analyses contacted several people with knowledge of that hack asking them for further information because they picked up chatter that stolen burisma emails would be leaked in an october surprise. among their chief concerns was the burisma material would be leaked alongside forged materials in an attempt to hurt biden's candidacy as russian hackers did when they dumped real emails alongside forgeries ahead of the french election in 2017. that's what they did to macron in 2015, they hacked his stuff from his campaign and then mixed it up with forged stuff and dumped it right before the election. that's what the u.s.

intelligence community said they believed was going to happen with burisma and some october surprise from rudy giuliani. right on time rudy giuliani shows up with emails from an unverifiable source in one tabloid will put it in their paper. that's newly relevant to our lives. the russian may be trying that same trick, but we don't have media blackout rules. the other reason that 2017 russian operation in france is newly relevant is that the guys who did it just got indicted by the u.s. justice department today. here they are. the russian military intelligence hackers who carried out that operation to interfere in the french election in 2017, the justice department says in the indictment today that these guys also launched major malware and hacking operations that shut down the power grid in ukraine, that hit the parliament in the nation of georgia, that hit chemical weapons investigators in the u.k. and europe who were

looking into the russian poisoning of former russian spy, sergei skripal who was poisoned with a russian nerve agent on british territory. they say they also orchestrated hacks that hit hospitals and companies in the united states. they also organized hacks that hit the 2018 winter olympics, it's quite a list. one of the russian hackers that was indicted today was previously indicted by robert mueller in 2018 for his role in the hacking operation against the 2016 election here in the u.s. today's indictment of these hackers doesn't include any charges related to american election interference this year. that said, the american election is two weeks from tomorrow. it's hard to look at today's indictment without trying to understand how it relates to our own election and what the justice department is trying to signal here. is that the right way to look at this? joining us now is jeremy bash, he served as chief of staff at the cia and at the defense department under president obama. jeremy, it's nice to see you. thanks for making time. >> hey, rachel.

>> so this is a lot going on, the surprise announcement today from the justice department about the indictment of these russian hackers. when you look at this with your background in intelligence and your understanding of what russia has done to target our democracy and others, what do you think is most important here for people to understand? >> i think what's most important is that the gru, this russian military organization that was responsible for the 2016 hack and dump operation against the democrats, that was responsible for the 2015 election interference in france, as you noted, and is responsible for these malicious cyberattacks against u.s. hospitals and business, they are very active and very capable, and they are, in fact, probably behind this russian intelligence operation, at least it looks and appears to be a russian intelligence operation targeting the biden campaign. >> last week andrew weissman,

who is part of the mueller investigation, wrote in "law fair" about the decision that was made by bill barr earlier this year, this spring, to drop criminal charges against russian companies that had participated in the attack on our election in 2016. while that didn't actually get a lot of attention when it happened in march, i think in part because the country was overwhelmed by what was happening to us with covid, what makes the case that barr may have acted improperly in dismissing the charges, signaling to russia that u.s. criminal law wouldn't be used against them as a tool if he wanted to interfere in the election this year? i'm wondering if this might be a signal to brush back russian intelligence ahead of what appears to be their ongoing efforts to boost trump and his re-election effort.

>> hard to know, rachel. but what we do know is you got the president of the united states welcoming, condoning what looks apparently like the russian intelligence operation targeting the biden campaign. now, remember, rachel, that rudy giuliani met in kiev with a ukrainian lawmaker who has been assessed by u.s. intelligence and announced by our treasury department to be a russian asset for the last decade. you know, giuliani goes to kiev, meets with him and comes back and a few months later giuliani surfaces up with these very mysterious emails. so every intelligence professional that i've talked to says that this walks like a russian disinformation campaign, this talks like a russian intelligence disinformation campaign, this is most likely a russian intelligence disinformation campaign against the biden team. >> if there have been all these warnings from the fbi to congress, from the intelligence agencies to the white house, there have been public warnings

to the u.s. public about there being a russian intelligence operation of this kind targeting this election in this way and, by the way, here's the names of the cast of characters involved, and mr. giuliani is still willingly and wittingly serving as their conduit of information in order to carry out this interference effort, shouldn't that be illegal? shouldn't he potentially be in trouble for that regardless of whether or not the president is also promoting it and regardless of whatever effect it has on the election? >> at a minimum, rachel, it's conspiracy to engage in computer crimes and hacking in violation of criminal laws. it's also potentially conspiracy to engage in an election interference. but the most important point is that rudy giuliani wasn't just merely fed this intelligence. he wasn't just passively receiving it. he ordered it off the menu. he demanded it. he banged his hand on the table and said give me that dirt on joe biden. that's the reason, rachel, why

the president of the united states called the ukraine president last july, spoiler alert, he got impeached for this and demanded dirt against joe biden and said i'm sending rudy giuliani to kiev to collect it. lo and behold, here we've seen it. >> jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon during the obama administration. jeremy, thanks for your time tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> thanks, rachel. we got much more to come tonight. stay with us. stay with us your journey requires liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. liberty power! wow. that will save me lots of money. you're insured! this game's boring. let's get tacos. only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. here? nah.

introducing the all new chevy trailblazer. here? nope. ♪ here. ♪ when the middle of nowhere, is somewhere. the all new chevy trailblazer. making life's journey, just better.

thif your gums bleed when you. brush, the answer is yes.

the clock may be ticking towards worse... parodontax is 3x more effective at removing plaque, the main cause of bleeding gums parodontax tomorrow will mark two weeks until election day, but tomorrow also promises to be a nutty new day and i can prove it to you. here's a couple of things to watch for. tomorrow at 2 p.m. eastern, a man named elliott broidy, a former trump inaugural voice committee chairman, a major trump donor, form er finance vice chairman of the republican party, tomorrow he is expected to plead guilty in federal court. he's been charged with allegedly

illegally lobbying on behalf of a malaysian business. but as bloomberg news was first to report, he is reportedly cooperating with federal prosecutors, though we don't know to what extent. tomorrow at his hearing we should get a better idea about whether elliott broidy might against others to help himself. but wait, there's more. even from the courts there's more tomorrow. noon tomorrow is the deadline for the justice department to report back to a federal judge who is demanding an affirmation from president donald trump himself or from someone in direct contact with president donald trump as to whether or not the president actually means what he says online. specifically, did the president mean it when he sent a tweet that said he was authorizing the declassification of everything,

no redactions, when it came to the russia investigation? justice department lawyers have tried to pump the brakes on this in court saying ignore what the president said there, he didn't really mean it, that's not actually a declassification order; but the judge says he's not sure he can trust the justice department on that, he'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth. he has told the justice department to file a declaration settling once and for all whether the president means what he says in his tweets. and specifically if two weeks before the election the president really has just green lit the entire declassification of all documents and records from the mueller investigation. really? is that what you meant? we should find out by noon tomorrow. watch this space. watch this space it's either testing an array of advanced safety systems. or it isn't. it's either the peace of mind of a standard unlimited mileage warranty. or it isn't. for those who never settle,

it's either mercedes-benz certified pre-owned. or it isn't. the mercedes-benz certified pre-owned sales event. now through november 2nd. shop online and build your deal today. to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. [grunting noise] i'll take that. woohoo! 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. with nutrients to support immune health. with priceline, you can get up to 60% off amazing hotels.

and when you get a big deal... ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal. after gutting protectionsf rejecfor our air and water, and putting us at risk, isn't it time to wipe things clean? joe biden has led the way, with a bold plan that protects our environment while creating new jobs. and tougher rules for clean air and water. so all of us can live healthier lives. it's time to get back on track. lcv victory fund is responsible for the content of this advertising.

it's 15 days between now and the election. that means tomorrow is 14 days, which means i don't know what your pacing system is like or what your stamina is like, but whatever you do to keep yourself going 15 days in advance to be at your strongest. 15 days from now, now is the time to start doing that stuff. as you can tell i actually don't have a very organized way to approach this, but i know this next 15 days is going to be full tilt. eat your wheaties. that does it for us tonight. now it's time for the "last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. and i wish eating my wheaties would do it. when we're in a marathon like

this, i'm very reluctant to see how far away the finish line is, and now there's something nerve-wracking about the finish line getting so close. this is when we're supposed to be able to look at it in a positive way, but it's all too tense. >> that part of a vote is cooked, and that's a really big slice of the vote. so it actually is something a little bit different in terms of when the election comes. for 30 million of us, it's already arrived. >> it's setting records everywhere on the early voting. we're going to be hearing about that later in the hour. we have jamie harrison joining us, john ossoff joining us for the fight in the united states senate, and early voting is the key to their races. >> absolutely. well done. thanks, lawrence. >> thank you, rachel.